TDM
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Attending an RC Lens match at the Stade Bollaert
A little post to remember it by. A few weeks after attending a Champions League match in Lille, I’m looking into options for attending a match in Lens. Lens is renowned for having one of the best crowds in France, and there aren’t many matches left before the end of the season. I’m targeting the match between Lens and Saint Etienne, scheduled for a Sunday afternoon. Since I don’t drive, this means I can take public transport. My works council occasionally offers tickets for Lens, but unfortunately, this match isn’t included. The Stade Bollaert has a capacity of 38,000, with 29,000 Lens season ticket holders. That leaves only a few…
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6 Exclusive Features of the reMarkable Paper Pro
I’ve listed 26 features of the reMarkable 2 here, which also apply to the reMarkable Paper Pro. However, thanks to its more advanced hardware, the reMarkable Paper Pro offers some exclusive features. I’ll present them to you here. 1/ Sleep & Wake with a Magnetic Folio This feature was already present on quite a few e-ink readers, but it’s only now making its appearance on the reMarkable Paper Pro. Using the brand’s official magnetic folios, or even some compatible models (like this one on Amazon), you simply close the folio and the tablet automatically goes to sleep. And when you open it, it wakes up immediately.No more pressing the power…
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[Review & Verdict] reMarkable Paper Pro, colors at a premium
The reMarkable Paper Pro came out in September 2024 and I want to give you an honest review, just like I did for the reMarkable 2, but I wanted to wait for the bug fixes, software stability, and faster shipping before taking the plunge and getting one for myself. And here it is, the long-awaited article, with a little reMarkable 2 vs. reMarkable Paper Pro comparison in case you’re torn between the two. I want to clarify that I have no affiliation with reMarkable. I bought this tablet with my own money. The pros of reMarkable reMarkable sells tablets with an E ink screen, designed for note-taking, drawing, reading, and…
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[Book] “The Era of Laziness” by Olivier Babeau – my review
I shared a few excerpts from the book The Era of Laziness by Olivier Babeau (Amazon link, Fnac link) on Instagram, and you asked me for its title. So I decided to dedicate a blog post to it. The first book by Olivier Babeau I read was The Tyranny of Entertainment, which I talked about here. The Era of Laziness, released in January 2025, has the subtitle How we and our children have lost the sense of effort. I think this book could have been titled How ease will destroy us or The era when everyone relies on others’ work. It follows in the footsteps of his previous book on…
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My Current Favorites – [March 2025]: My Sewing Books
You’ve guessed it, my new obsession is sewing. More specifically, tailoring. While looking for winter coats when I settled in Lille, I realized how poor the quality of ready-to-wear clothing is (regardless of price) and told myself that sewing was the solution to access the best possible quality without breaking the bank. So, in sewing, there’s soft tailoring and structured tailoring. Even in haute couture, workshops are physically separated into two. In soft tailoring, you have rather fluid, normal garments; and in structured tailoring, more structured garments (jackets, coats). While a tailor must know soft tailoring techniques, a soft tailor doesn’t necessarily know tailoring techniques. So, to delve into tailoring,…
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[Reflection] #19: Procrastination
In general, people take me for a hard worker, but that’s not the case. I only work when I’m passionate. When I’m not, I drag my feet even more than others. However, I have a trick I’d like to share with you to move forward nonetheless. Recently, I read a book in Vietnamese called “72 Strategies of Chinese Management” (72 Phép Quản Lý Kiểu Trung Quốc), a modern version of The Art of War applied to business, and these lessons can also be applied to individuals. Here’s a summary of a passage I really liked: The Power of Small Steps “Without taking small steps, how can you travel thousands of…
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Attending a LOSC Champions League match in Lille
As much as I’ve attended football matches on three different continents, I had never yet had the opportunity to attend a Champions League match. Our arrival in Lille is going to be the occasion, because LOSC has qualified for the round of 16 of the competition and I can get tickets through my works council. There are advantages to becoming an employee again! I even managed to get two tickets, which allows me to offer our Lille friend A. to come along. Although Lille is not the favorite against the German club Borussia Dortmund, they got an excellent draw (1-1) in the first leg in Germany. So the suspense is…
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Paris [February 2025]: Lafayette Saltiel Drapiers & Restaurant Pavyllon by Yannick Alléno
A month and a half after settling in Lille, I think it’s time for a quick round trip to Paris. I’m sore all over and my favorite masseuse is in Paris (I call her “healer” because she has magic hands). Plus, I need to buy interfacing for my sewing projects, but the selection in Lille isn’t exhaustive. JB tells me he still has the Fine Dining offer with American Express (€100 credit at a selection of restaurants) that I can use in Paris. Appointments booked, I leave fairly early in the morning and take the TGV. A little over an hour later, I arrive at Gare du Nord. Lafayette Saltiel…
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[Back from World Tour] Our Move to Lille (2025)
We leave Jordan and the sun on a Thursday, only to find ourselves crammed into a Ryanair flight to Beauvais (it’s the cheapest direct flight we found to France from Amman). It’s with a hint of bitterness that we remember we started our world tour on a two-story Airbus A380 with Air France to Johannesburg. And we’re ending it on a Ryanair. It really feels like the end. We stay a night in Beauvais because after 6 hours on Ryanair, we don’t feel like doing the Beauvais – Paris – Lille train all in one go. Small consolation: before taking the train to Lille the next day, we visit the…
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[story time] How I Successfully Made a Career Change into Cybersecurity
In January 2025, I changed careers, and my lifestyle along with it. Let me tell you about it. A quick recap of the major steps in my career, to set the stage: On paper, I have what many would consider “a dream life”: I have a job I’m passionate about, that pays well, and that lets me travel anywhere, anytime. But gradually, my passion for this work began to fade. From around 2020, I was on autopilot, bored, and started questioning my professional future. There was no urgency, but I’d been doing SEO for 15 years—10 of them professionally—and I couldn’t see myself doing it for another 15. Besides, I…
