The Club

This year I got a Community Star on the and for supporting your fellow community members with your positive Club of Ministry of Testing. “Thank you for creating a helpful community vibe contributions.”

A kind reminder

I also got a friendly reminder, that I was 20 years on LinkedIn.

Boat magic

For a special project, I made a steamboat from modelling balloons.

A guided tour

In Spring I took the first official Keukenhof guided tour for blind and visual impaired people. The most facts I remembered afterwards were about the trees in the park. Of course, there were flowers, but somehow the guide had some nice tree stories.

The tour was in Dutch and I bought the tickets using a special email address. Let me put it this way: it is not possible to get a private guided tour in English.

A thing to avoid

Kissing my wife while reading braille has its advantages, until she noticed it. My marriage advice to braille readers is not to move your fingers over braille, while kissing your partner.

Showing attention

During a conference, I was offered a program in braille. My first reaction was to leave it on the desk, but I took it any way.

During the last lecture, I got bored and looked at the rest of the program. I heard every word, which was spoken, and looked at the speaker.

Blogging along

This year I wrote some blog posts how to take over an account. The blog posts are based on my experiences. The first blog post starts with the basics. 

Thinking along

This year I tried to help my kid for a school assignment to hack a vulnerable website of a teacher. My contributions were not great despite some experience finding security issues.

The Club again

The Ministry og Testing also gave me a badge names Glossary Contributor. “Your insights are shaping the language of testing. Welcome to the Glossary Contributors”. I had written about accessing private documents using a browser.

The same dish

This summer I ate fish and chips in Volendam.  The previous year I ate it in London.

Another guided tour

The European Juggling Convention provided a special tour for blind and low vision people. The were several workshops, followed by the Gala Show. During this show, there was a commentator, who told what happened on stage.

How I stopped worrying about literature

In the summer, Time for stories started in my local library. The facilitators was the first couple. During the sessions small pieces of stories  and poems are discussed,

 Social media attention

The mayor of Gouda wanted to share a picture with me and other people on LinkedIn. We didn’t have to say cheese. So, I do not need to use a bad pun.

Changing the odds

For the first time in my life, my team won a pub quiz including a section about braille. This was my second pub quiz. Currently, I have a 50 %chance to win a pub quiz.

Teaching again

In November I became a language coach. It is challenging to teach people to speak Dutch.