April wasn’t that much different from March, however few events worth mentioning.
Coffee machine
I bought an espresso machine. For a person who hated coffee his entire life this is a big thing. I never understood the obsession with which people drink it. Occasionally I forced myself to drink it during some social meetings or when I needed to work but was about to fall asleep. And every time it was cappuccino with lots of sugar to hide the taste of coffee. But everything changed last year.
I saw few videos of Japanese vloggers obsessing about this drink. Some were roasting coffee themselves, grinding it using the hand grinder, and then enjoying the drink. For someone who has been drinking regular tea, I was fascinated by the coffee culture and how much there is to learn: cold brew, hot brew, espresso, machiato, cappuccino. And I’m not even talking about all the varietes of coffee. And so when our cheap espresso machine that my wife bought broke down, I decided to get a somewhat decent one: Sage Bambino Plus.
The reason I chose this one instead of a regular one-button coffee machine is because I want to learn more about the drink, its varieties, and enjoy the whole process of making coffee for myself and others (which also backfired when we had a group of friends and I was stuck for half an hour making coffee for everyone).
So far I make pretty shit coffee but I wholeheartedly enjoy the process every time.
Cycling
Last year I gambled with my savings that were kept for another very critical project and spent some of it on a new bike. Luckily, that project concluded successfully and I didn’t need any of the savings. This month I stumbled upon some dirt jumping tracks in the forest and decided to give them a try. There were quite small and safe, so I went for it. The first jump and I fall from the bike. Aah, like in the good old times when almost every attempt resulted in a crash. However upon the second try I managed to land nicely, and things went uphill from there.
This brought all kinds of fond memories from the past and filled me with so much joy and excitement that I decided I will start spending more time on learning to dirt jump and bike trials. And yes, you can do bike trials on a full suspension bike. I do not plan on going crazy, but re-learning wheelie, fakie, high bunny hops, and other tricks is well in the reach.
Catch-22
Finally finished reading Catch-22. Boy, what a book! So many emotions: from laughter to tears, to feeling angry. I never went to the army for health reasons, but had many friends there. And even though Estonia (or rather my friends) doesn’t participate in wars, many of the stories my friends told me are very similar to what Joseph Heller writes about in this book.