Every once in a while, I purchase an item for a specific job and it really excels in that job. And then, more or less by chance, I use it in other areas which it was not specifically bought for and it also really excels in those areas. It's an item that keeps on giving and does not stop surprising you. The Bose QuietComfort 35ii<sup>*</sup> is such an item for me. I originally bought the QC35 for use in the office. I have thought about buying noise cancelling headphones for a long time, but could never really make the jump because of the rather high price point....

The house is located on a small island. So small even, you could walk across it by feet in 30, maybe 45 Minutes on the shorter edge. What the island is missing in depth, it has added in length though, being probably five times as wide.The house sits on a small hill thats roughly in the middle of the island, giving it a good view of its shores on either side. On a sunny day like today, you can see the silhouette of to the mainland from the living room window emerging from behind the nordic nature of the island and the sand beach that gets longer or shorter with the tide....

At the beginning of the year I sat down and thought about what I want to do with this new year that had just begun, as so many of us do. I though about where I was, where I wanted to go, defined goals and checked if I was still standing behind my long term plans. At some point, more or less out of the rose, I decided I would not drink alcohol for this entire year. This was 86 days ago. In the following, I want to talk about the reasons why I decided to stay sober for an entire year and reflect about how the first three months went. Let’s start at the beginning....

I read quite a few things on the internet. More than reading though, I'm saving things I may want to read later. For a long time, my tool of choice for this has been Instapaper (and it still is today). A little over a year ago, I notice I also want to save things that are not articles. Even though you can basically throw anything at Instapaper and it will at least save the URL, I didn't like to have a lot of random noise in my reading list. I then signed up for Pinboard and it was perfect to save and organize bookmarks of any kind....

For some weeks now, I keep a folder in my bookmarks bar named "Learned this week". Whenever I stumble upon something interesting I learn during the week, I save the according page there. Aditionally, I keep a note in Bear for everything I learn that is not savable as a bookmark (i.e. is not a Webpage). Usually on sundays, I comb through that folder and the notes and prepare everything so that I can possibly come back at it later.I used to do this for myself, in private, but I might as well do it here....

I suck at traveling. I’m okay in making plans, but then I’ll show up everywhere way too early, be anxious about missing my train/flight all the time and just hate the whole process of traveling.I especially suck at packing. I tend to take way too many things with me. One time, when I still owned a car, I even took an Xbox and a TV to my parents over Christmas. I take all these things with me because I think they may come in handy at some time. Possibly.Here’s, for example, what I used to take with me when I was visiting my parents for a few days:My iPhone, my iPad, my MacBook and my Kindle....