Now

Last updated on 16. August 2026 on a road in Lower Franconia.

A week ago my grandfather passed on. During my childhood and youth I continuously grew up with my grandparents very close by. Additionally, I admired his charisma and we shared some interests, like photography. So it is a heavy loss for me and I'm still finding my way to grieving.

To my great surprise I was laid off at the beginning of May. Luckily, I already found a new job and started a role in process management and digitalisation this month. It is quite a diversion from software development and I'm glad I found a position that better suits my wishes and (at least in my opinion) skills. Two weeks are already over and I enjoy the diverse tasks as well as the company.

I'm doing a bit more photography again and I've written a blog post about why I gave up and how I'm currently progressing. Continuing my recovery, I photographed more during family gatherings and also taking the odd snapshot from time to time. Next step is a photo walk through Ulm.

Learning

• Business Process Management: I'm currently working through "Fundamentals of Business Process Management" by Marlon Dumas, Marcello La Rosa, Jan Mendling, and Hajo A. Reijers.
• Currently stalled: Clojure: Although I already written some smaller web apps in Clojure, I never took the time to learn the language thoroughly. A few months ago, I bought the "Living Clojure" book by Carin Meier, and I'm investing some spare time into working through it.
• Currently stalled: Go: I studied the language a few years ago, but didn't do much with it, and now I need it for a large project. Therefore, I need to refresh my memories and learn some concepts more deeply. Most likely, I will go through "Learn Go with Tests" again.
• Currently stalled: C: Some years ago I bought "Learn C The Hard Way" by Zed A. Shaw but never managed to work entirely through it. I started again in January and with a few weeks break I'm slowly continuing it. I don't work through it for learning C but for learning more the methodology involved.
• Stoicism: A lifelong challenge. After reading "The Daily Stoic" almost every day last year I though about reading it again this year (perhaps a bit more relaxed). But I haven't found/took the time since January and so trying to read book this year doesn't make too much sense. However, I'm open for suggestions regarding other books on Stoicisim and if you have any suggestions, please let me hear them!

Projects

• My girlfriend and I moved into a new apartment earlier this year, and there are still some things to be done. Last month, out two cabinets finally arrived and also most of the remaining parts for the kitchen. Still missing are a few side panels for the kitchen as well as the lamps.
• Founding a company to write a SaaS web application with two friends. We started developing in January, and since my part is mostly in project management, I currently write lots of stories and plan many details of the project. As soon as we have more information to reveal, I sure will publish it here as well. But since we don't have much time, this will take a while.
• Digitalising a batch of (photographic) film. It is already scanned, but the photos still await digital processing (mostly inverting). I already started, and by now I know how to use Darktable for this task. Now, I just need to find time to actually do it.
• For the member magazine of the German TeX and LaTeX associaton I'm irregularily creating info graphics for CTAN packages.

Music

Of course, I have many favourite tracks and albums. But there is almost always one I listen to much more than the others.

• Current favourite track: During the past month, I didn't listen very actively to music.
• Current favourite album: During the past month, I didn't listen very actively to music.

Reading

I don't read as much as I want to, but as of now, I have no good idea how to improve that.

Current books

• "How to find friends and influence people" by Dale Carnegie
• "Die verlorene Generation" by Sabine Bode
• "Fundamentals of Business Process Management" by Marlon Dumas, Marcello La Rosa, Jan Mendling, Hajo A. Reijers
• "Living Clojure" by Carin Meier
• "Learn C The Hard Way" by Zed A. Shaw

Recently finished books

Books I finished during the last 12 months.

• "Nachruf auf mich selbst. Die Kultur des Aufhörens" by Harald Welzer
• "The Meaning in the Making" by Sean Tucker
• "Tod beim Fischerstechen" by Helmut Gotschy
• "Die falsche Fährte" by Henning Mankell

Goals

• Regularly writing something on this blog.
• Read more, at least a bit
• Interacting more with other people on a personal level (online and especially offline)

What the hell is this???

This page follows the idea introduced at https://nownownow.com/about: A (more or less) short overview of what is currently happening in my life. “A /now page shares what you’d tell a friend you hadn’t seen in a year.” — nownownow.com/about

If you have your own blog (and if you don't, you should start one), consider writing your own /now page, and if you do, please send it to me. I'd love to read it.