My things

Among the many people I have encountered while reconstructing my family history, few have led me into as many different archives, institutions and historical documents as my great-grandfather, Dr. med. Jürgen Christian Georg Berendsen (1855–1932) . He was born in Schleswig, became a physician, established a medical practice in Ratzeburg, married three times and raised a large family. His life extended from the years before German unification to the final months of the Weimar Republic. For many years, my knowledge of him consisted largely of entries in an old family book and fragments of family recollections. His name, occupation and dates were known, but the person behind those facts remained elusive. A surviving portrait provided a face. A medical dissertation provided a connection to the history of German surgery. Then archival correspondence began to reveal details of his education, professional career, marriages, children and homes. In 2026, this research developed into a ...

After spending time on Guests, Groups, Documents, file formats and the wider business model, I have arrived at one of the most visible parts of an event-planning application: Tables and Chairs . At first this sounds almost trivial. A Guest sits on a Chair. Chairs are normally arranged around a Table. Therefore, create a Table, create some Chairs around it, and assign Guests. But as soon as I started looking properly at real event layouts and competing planning products, that simple model began to expand. Not every Guest sits at a Table. Some events use rows of Chairs without Tables. Some Tables only have Chairs on one side. Some have Chairs on two opposite sides. Some are circular, oval, semicircular or serpentine. Some layouts combine several Tables into U-shapes, hollow squares, E-shapes or long King's Tables. Some Tables contain no Chairs at all because they are being used for gifts, catering, registration, equipment or decoration. ...

Based on a LinkedIn post originally published on 6 April 2026 My first professional role in New Zealand was as a Delphi programmer. The company developed an education platform sold across several Pacific islands. It was an interesting product and an important opportunity for me in a new country. It was also a technical challenge. By that point, my most active programming years were largely behind me. My development background was primarily in C, C++, Clipper and BASIC. Delphi was not my natural comfort zone. Nevertheless, after several interviews, technical discussions and tests, I received an offer. I was genuinely happy. A new country, a new position and a welcome sense of stability appeared to be coming together. On my first day, that optimism encountered a reality I had not expected. The empty office I arrived at the office and found it almost completely empty. There were no developers, no visible activity and none of the normal signs of a functioning engineering team. There was on...