December 29, 2024 · 9:14 pm

My 2024 reading list

In this post I wanted to share the list of books I read along the year (1) with a small comment for each one. I have also included a small rating from one to three “+” depending on how much I do recommend its reading.

  1. “Notre-Dame de Paris” (The Hunchback of Notre-Dame) by Victor Hugo (++): this is the second book of the author I have read after Les Misérables. The key theme and word of the book is the fatality, Quasimodo’s fate in his attraction for the street artist Esmeralda. The book is set in the Paris of the XV century with very detailed descriptions and maps of its streets, buildings, atmosphere and especially of the cathedral (which I guess can be delicious for the history of art lover, though sometimes it is quite dense). The plot narrates the interconnected lives of Quasimodo, his caretaker the priest Frollo, Esmeralda, Gringoire and the captain Phœbus de Châteaupers, the love some have for others and its impossibility. The plot also denounces the injustice suffered by those in the lower classes with some undue legal processes (a recurrent theme for Hugo). What I liked the most was the unbending commitment of Quasimodo in the last part of the book, to the very end of his life.
  2. “A time for mercy” by John Grisham (++): this is another legal thriller around the courtroom in Clanton, with the lawyer Jake Brigance defending a minor convicted of capital murder (of his mother’s partner after months of abuses and threats). As in some of his books of 20+ years ago, he takes time to guide the reader through the jury selection process and later laying up the strategy for the ambushes that will happen during the trial.
  3. “Liftoff” by Eric Berger (+++): I received the book as a gift from my friend Asier and quickly started reading it. The book tells the story of SpaceX in its early years. It takes time to dwell in the details of some of its first engineers, the technical challenges they faced and what they went through (administrative burdens, financing troubles, changes of location, first failures…) up to the first successful launch of the Falcon 1 in its 4th flight and some insights into SpaceX’s transition towards the Falcon 9 program. The book is energising, and exudes passion for engineering and the extreme dedication of those individuals. [Twitter thread]
  4. “Camino ghosts” by John Grisham (+): this is a legal thriller linked to Grisham’s character Bruce Cable (a bookshop owner and old books collector in South Florida) with an old lady author descendant of African slaves as the centre of the plot (Lovely Jackson) and an enchanted little island off the coast where her ancestors lived. At the time of the novel a real estate development company wants to work on the island to build some housing and a resort. Lovely wants to preserve the island off the hands of the developers and claims the property of the island which triggers the legal action. This is one of the books I have liked the least by the author (after having read over 25 of his) mixing beliefs in black magic, enchantments on the island, misticsm and the praise of the oppressed political agenda of the past decade.
  5. “El banquete” (Symposium) by Plato (+): this book is a short dialogue after a banquet in which several attendees to the meal are asked to give a speech praising love and Eros, the Greek god. These praises include the controversial relationship at that time between minor pupils and their adult instructors. One of the last passages of the book includes the praise by the young and ambitious Alcibiades of his instructor Socrates, as the latter didn’t attend to the approaches of the former as Socrates was focused on his search for truth.
  6. “Leviatán” (Leviathan) by Thomas Hobbes (++): published in 1651 (during the English civil war), the book portrays the republic as a mortal God (Leviathan) needed for the defence of the individual. The book discusses different types of government (with monarchy as the preferred one for the author) and the relationship between the civil power and the Church (to which christians have an allegiance and commandments to follow), for which the author discusses in depth different passages of the Bible.
  7. “Números complejos” by Bartolo Luque (++): this is a short book from a collection of Mathematics books I started reading some years ago. This particular one was written by an Applied Math teacher I had at the engineering school. It explains the appearance of complex numbers from Heron of Alexandria up to the the first labeling of imaginary by Descartes. The book explains some of their applications such as the Zhukovsky transformation (very much used in aerodynamics), the art of Escher and goes into the Riemann hypothesis. The book doesn’t spare mathematical expressions thus it is not recommended to the untrained reader. [Twitter thread]
  8. “Du contrat social” by Jean-Jacques Rousseau (+++): written in 1762, the book describes how the people in a community (the Sovereign) come to be organized (Social pact) in order to be defended and have their natural rights as individuals upheld. The book discusses different forms of government (monarchy, aristocracy and democracy), which of those forms suit best to different countries based on their size and wealth, who is the legislator, different types of laws. [Twitter thread]
  9. “Maximes” by La Rochefoucauld (++): La Rochefoucauld was a duke in XVII century France (also known as Prince de Marcillac). In 1665 he published the first edition of the reflections known today as his “Maximes”, out if which some originated from his acquaintances at the time. Once drafted he shared the volume with friends and continued to edit them with additions and removals. The present edition includes all those and some of the exchanges and critiques of the volume made at the time. The topics of the reflections are virtues and vices of humans, with the particularity that the author takes a rather sceptical view on human nature pointing at the weaknesses, the pride being at the centre of many of our actions… and even portraying sloth as our main virtue (!) as it subdues our passions preventing us from taking action and falling prey of our vices more often. [Twitter thread]
  10. “El Arte de insultar” by Schopenhauer (+): the book wasn’t really written as such by Schopenhauer but it is a compilation of rants he wrote throughout his different publications. In the book the insults and rants are classified per topic in alphabetical order. Which are the most recurrent subjects? Other philosophers (in particular Hegel), the French language, women (several times, placing women as a secondary sex), university professors / deans, journalists, writers… [Twitter thread]

This year I read a bit more than in 2023 but not as much as I would have liked, as I found myself not finding time sometimes during the year and other times I was stuck with a couple of books.

A resolution for 2025 will be to keep the habit and read a bit more, for which I will be following these two tips that I share every year:

– a blog post from Farnam Street blog “Just Twenty-Five Pages a Day“, which was published well after I had adopted such an approach to reading but captures it very well,
– the Wikipedia article about the Pomodoro Technique, which enables you to efficiently use the last hours of the day.

I wish you all very interesting reads in 2025!

(1) You can find here: my 2012 reading list, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 ones.

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December 19, 2024 · 1:53 am

Malaga marathon 2024

Last Sunday, December 15th, together with my friend Manuel we traveled to Malaga to take part in its marathon, with around 6000 runners registered in the distance.

We picked Malaga following our series of marathons abroad (to combine tourism with long distance running) that has taken some of us to run together in Paris, Berlin, Roma, Athens, Rotterdam, New York, Sevilla (x3), Madrid, Millau, Dublin (x2), Lisboa, Vienna, Krakow, Porto, Bucharest and now Malaga (in bold those run with Manuel).

To prepare for this marathon I followed the same 16-week training plan I had used in the past. Just before those 16 weeks of the plan, thanks to a running challenge we followed in the company, I cumulated +200km in 4 weeks between mid May and June. Then at the end of August I started with the plan. In the end I arrived to Malaga with 554km in the legs in those 16 weeks, a bit less than I would have liked. I trained quite well in September, doing most of the series sessions and all long runs, but in early October I had a calf contracture that slowed me for a couple of weeks. At the end of October I resumed the plan but discarded the series sessions while maintaining the long runs… until two weeks before the race when I had another injury in the other calf. I stopped for a few days and resumed with some short runs before the race day. In those 16 weeks I averaged 37km per week, completed 8 long runs (including 4 above 20km; 22km, 30km, 30km and 26km – with positive feelings especially in this last one) and 11 sessions of series, though not enough of them to get a bit faster. Provided that I didn’t get injured again, I was confident in being able to complete the marathon in a time between 4h05′ and 4h15′ even if the final mark was uncertain.

The profile in Malaga is rather flat. The organization prepared a circuit mainly composed of long avenues, mostly by the seaside, which allowed to run at constant pace. The race started and finished in the Paseo del Parque, in front of the iconic Banco de España building, and I stayed for an extended weekend at an apartment at walking distance from the place.

The temperature was a bit cold in the morning (~6°C), the sky was clear and it would be a bit warmer towards the end of the race, though the temperature did not exceed 16°C. My strategy was to start at a pace just below 6min per km, and then, if I felt well, accelerate the pace at mid-race so that I could target a time below 4h15′. There were pacers for times aiming at every 15-minute mark and in the end, I didn’t quite followed that strategy but ran just after the 4-hour pacers at a short distance until the km 23.

The race started at 8:30am and Manu departed from a different box, hence we wished luck to each other and ran separately. We ran with the participants in the half marathon, that made the first half of the race a bit more crowded.

I ran at a comfortable pace until the first half, but I started to feel the same pain in the calf that made me stop a couple of weeks before since km ~16. At km 23 or so the pain became stronger and I softened the pace, fearing that I would have to do some walking later on. Luckily I saw a volunteer with Reflex spray at km 25 and got a good dose of it. A few minutes later the pain mostly disappeared and I could continue running even if at a slower pace. At km 32 I got the calf sprayed again with Reflex and even if I had some difficulties in the last ~6km I could manage the timing to be below the target of 4h15′.

The last 2 km of the race were superb. The race goes through the city centre including Plaza de la Constitucion and calle Marques de Larios with the crowd surrounding and cheering the runners. I kept my pace in the last few hundred metres as by then I had muscle pain in both lower legs so I could not give it a last sprint.

In the end, I clocked a net time of 4h11’39”, a time about what I expected given the weight with which I arrived to the race (93kg) and the injuries I went through during the training weeks, but slower than the last two marathons I ran in 2022 (Sevilla and Bucharest). This has been my 24th marathon completed, easy to say today but not so on April 30th 2000 when I started in the distance in Madrid.

Pace during Malaga 2024 marathon (minutes per km)

With those 4h11’39”, I was again above the 4-hour mark and finished in the 4279th place out of 5733 finishers (25% percentile). That time makes it my 5th worst marathon, though with a positive feeling of having completed another marathon 2 years later and following a 2023 marked by injuries as well. I am now looking for the next one.

The organization of the race was great. The circuit showed a beautiful city. They included plenty of water supply (with bottles) posts, isotonic drinks and food (bananas and oranges), I just missed gels (though I carried myself enough of those). The finish line was great, the wardrobe service was close to the start and finish line (by the bullfighting arena). It was a great experience.

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August 15, 2024 · 6:15 pm

How does UEFA weigh club honours? (football clubs’ coefficients, 2024 update)

This is an update of a post I wrote 6 years ago (here, in Spanish) explanining how UEFA weighs club honours and now sharing the current (end of 2023/24 season) ranking.

UEFA publishes various rankings of football clubs, football federations and national teams. For that purpose UEFA assigns a series of points according to results achieved in the competitions organized by UEFA itself. From those, one can see at the end of each season the club which reached the highest scoring.

With the scoring of different years, UEFA publishes two different club rankings: the 5-year club ranking and the 10-year club ranking.

The 5-year club ranking is the one that UEFA generally employs to rank the teams (when UEFA publishes the team leading the ranking at any given point, it refers to the team leading that 5-year ranking, not the one with the highest score on that particular year). UEFA also uses the 5-year club ranking at the time of seeding the draw of the different groups of the Champions League.

5-year club coefficients (2023/24)

On the other hand, UEFA uses a slightly different 10-year club ranking as one of the criteria in order to distribute the money prizes among the different clubs. To compute that 10-year club ranking UEFA collects the yearly scoring of clubs in the last 10 years, and to that sum it adds another coefficient that UEFA calls “Title“, which is the coefficient I wanted to write about, and that shows the weighing that UEFA does of clubs’ honours.

10-year club coefficients (2023/24*)

I leave below the the 10-year club ranking sorted by the column “Title“:

10-year club coefficients (2023/24*) sorted by the column Title

The table shows that Real Madrid leads the “Title” ranking with 98 points, followed by Bayern Munich with 43, AC Milan with 42 and Barcelona with 41…

How does UEFA compute that “Title” coefficient?

  • UEFA Champions League / European Cup:
    • 12 points for those won in the last 5 seasons, i.e., 2019/20 to 2023/24
    • 8 points for those won since the creation of the Champions League up to 6 seasons ago, i.e., 1992/93 to 2018/19
    • 4 points for the European Cups won from 1955/56 to 1991/92
  • European Cup Winners’ Cup / UEFA Cup / UEFA Europa League:
    • 3 points for those won in the last 5 seasons, i.e., 2019/20 to 2023/24
    • 2 points for those won since the creation of the Champions League up to 6 seasons ago, i.e., 1992/93 to 2018/19
    • 1 point for the Cup Winners’ Cup / UEFA Cup won from 1960/61 or 1971/72 to 1991/92
  • UEFA Super Cup does not compute for UEFA Title coefficient (if it did, Real Madrid leads that ranking as well with 6 titles)
  • Intercontinental Cup / FIFA Club World Cup do not compute for UEFA Title coefficient (if they did, Real Madrid leads that ranking as well in both of them with 3 and 5 titles, respectively)
  • National competitions do not compute for UEFA Title coefficient

After having gone through the explanation, some comments to it:

  • UEFA has not updated this Title since the end of 2021/22 season; you can see that Manchester City’s Title coefficient shows 1 point only, which is related to the European Cup Winners’ Cup they won in 1969/70 and does not include the 12 points for the Champions League won in 2022/23. Similarly, Real Madrid updated figure should be 106 points, as you can see in the table below
  • Among the competitions that UEFA organizes it weighs the Champions League as 4 times more important than either the UEFA League, or the extint UEFA Cup and European Cup Winners’ Cup
  • UEFA applies a time weighing as described above: titles in the last 5 seasons get a given amount of points, titles since 1992/93 to 6 years ago get 2/3 of those points and everything older than 1992 get 1/3 of those points
    • That time weighing makes teams having won titles more recently (Chelsea, 6 major titles) be better placed than others with older titles (Juventus, 6 major titles)
  • The extint Inter-Cities Fairs Cup (played between 1955 and 1971) does not compute for UEFA Title coefficient as it was not organized by UEFA and there were not qualifying criteria to take part in it. Interestingly enough, this competition is much talked about in Spain to make up for the lack of sufficient honours on the part of Barcelona when compared to Real Madrid

Which European club has the largest honours sheet?

The answer is clear, Real Madrid. So clear that the Title coefficient it has (either the outdated 98 or the updated 106, see below) is as high as the sum of the coefficients of all the other clubs that played the Champions League finals in the last 4 seasons (2020/21 to 2023/24) combined: Chelsea (27), Manchester City (13), Liverpool (36), Internazionale Milan (21) and Borussia Dortmund (9).

To conclude, I leave below a table where I show the computation to get the coefficients for the top 4 clubs (Real Madrid, Bayern, Milan and Barcelona) with the results up to the end of the 2023/24 season. I invite the reader to compute the updated figures for City, Chelsea or Liverpool that I referred to above.

Title coefficient computation, updated to the end of 2023/24 season for the top 4 clubs

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August 13, 2024 · 9:18 pm

All-time men’s best pole vault – Olympic Games Paris 2024 – Armand Duplantis

Following the closure of the Olympic Games Paris 2024 a few days ago, I wanted to take a look at the track record of Armand “Mondo” Duplantis, one of the dominant athletes of our times that set a new world record in the pole vault competition with 6.25m. For that purpose I used the website “Track and Field all-time Performances” (maintained since years ago by Peter Larsson).

With the data of all-time men’s best pole vault I plotted the chart below with the best 3,754 jumps (jumps from 5.80m and above) and their dates, highlighting the jumps by Sergey Bubka, Renaud Lavillenie and Duplantis (dark colour for outdoor vaulting, light colour for indoor).

Bubka dominated the sport in the 1980’s and 90’s (first competing for the Soviet Union and later for Ukraine) when he set up to 35 world records (17 outdoor and 18 indoor), won 6 gold medals at the World Championships and 1 at the Olympic Games. Lavillenie also won a gold medal at the Olympics in London and won several World Indoor Championships (among other medals) and set an indoor world record (which was the absolute record for 6 years). Duplantis, competing for Sweden, at the young age of 24 has already won 2 gold medals at the Olympics (Tokyo and Paris) and 2 World Championships (among other medals) and has already set 9 world records (6 outdoors and 3 indoors).

Some comments after looking at the chart:

  • Bubka holds 249 of the 3,754 jumps (6.6%) at 5.80m and above
  • Lavillenie holds 271 of the 3,754 jumps (7.2%) at 5.80m and above
  • Duplantis holds 259 of the 3,754 jumps (6.9%) at 5.80m and above
  • Of those jumps of 6.00m and above (222 jumps):
    • Bubka holds 46 of the 222 jumps (20.7%) at 6.00m and above
    • Lavillenie holds 21 of the 222 jumps (9.5%) at 6.00m and above
    • Duplantis holds 86 of the 222 jumps (38.7%) at 6.00m and above
  • If we focus at outdoor jumps of 6.00m and above (134 jumps):
    • Bubka holds 28 of the 134 jumps (20.9%) at 6.00m and above
    • Lavillenie holds 4 of the 134 jumps (3.0%) at 6.00m and above
    • Duplantis holds 57 of the 134 jumps (42.5%) at 6.00m and above
    • 24 men have vaulted outdoors at 6.00m or above, only Bubka and Duplantis jumped 6.08m or above (7 and 14 times, respectively)
Sergey Bubka

Bubka achieved his best jumps when he was between 27 and 30 years old. Duplantis at his 24 years has already twice as many high jumps as Bubka in his entire career. If Duplantis continues his progression up to 27-30 years of age the best is still to come, something that might have been deemed unbelievable for those of us who witnessed Bubka in his prime, but we are now going through the same dominance yet with higher heights and more pronounced (Sam Kendricks, silver at the Olympics in Paris, achieved 5.95m… 30cm less than Duplantis!).

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June 2, 2024 · 11:46 am

Repaso a la evolución histórica del palmarés de la Copa de Europa (2024)

Esta es una pequeña entrada futbolera para compartir la gráfica de debajo tras la consecución de la decimoquinta Copa de Europa de fútbol por el Real Madrid.

La gráfica presenta la evolución de las Copas de Europa conseguidas por el Real Madrid y todos aquellos clubes que en algún momento de la historia han sido el segundo equipo con más copas. Por orden: Benfica (Lisboa), Internazionale (Milán), Milan AC, Ajax (Ámsterdam), Bayern Munich, Liverpool y de nuevo Milan AC.

Algunas curiosidades que se observan en la gráfica:

  • Es ahora, en 2024, cuando con 8 la distancia, medida en Copas de Europa, entre el Real Madrid y el segundo club con más títulos es más grande.
  • Históricamente la distancia media ha estado en 3,1 copas.
  • La moda, es decir la distancia más veces repetida entre el Madrid y el segundo, ha sido de 3 copas. Esa fue la distancia en 24 años, el 35% de estos 69 años de Copa de Europa (ver histograma debajo).
  • La distancia mínima se dio entre 1994 y 1998, tras ganar el Milan AC su quinta Copa de Europa en Atenas y hasta la consecución de La Séptima por el Real Madrid en 1998 en Ámsterdam.

A partir de esas curiosidades, me surgieron después otras tres ideas muy visuales que incluyo más abajo:

  • Un histograma con el número de años que se ha dado cada distancia en Copas de Europa.
  • Una tabla donde se muestra en cada momento qué clubes eran los segundos en el palmarés.
  • Otra tabla donde se muestra cuántos años ha sido cada uno de esos el segundo en el palmarés.

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March 12, 2024 · 12:06 am

Airbus vs Boeing; market capitalization (March 2024)

I just realized mid February that Airbus market capitalization was higher than Boeing’s. At that point one was just above $125bn while the other was just below $123bn.

This is just a quick post to update those figures with today’s (March 11th, 2024) values at the closure of markets in NYSE and Paris, plus adding some historical perspective and evolution.

March 11th 2024

  • Airbus stock price: 156.8€, outstanding shares ~790.46 million (787.4 million at the end of 2023 as per the 2023 annual financial report), exchange rate 1.0926 $/€ … Airbus market capitalization ~ $135.4bn
  • Boeing stock price: 192.49$, outstanding shares ~610.1 million (610.1 million in January 2024 as per the 2023 annual financial report)… Boeing market capitalization ~ $117.4bn
  • Airbus market cap is 15% higher than Boeing’s

(This is not the first time that this happens. Looking back at the evolution of both stock prices and exchange rates, around mid May 2022 Airbus market cap was around 20% higher than Boeing’s.)

Now, looking back in time, at the end of 2012

  • Airbus stock price: 29.4€ (Dec 28th, last day of business), outstanding shares ~822.14 million (as per the 2012 annual financial report), exchange rate 1.3072 $/€ … Airbus market capitalization ~ $31.6bn
  • Boeing stock price: 75.36$ (Dec 31st, last day of business), outstanding shares ~755.6 million (as per the 2012 annual financial report)… Boeing market capitalization ~ $56.9bn
  • Boeing market cap was then 80% higher than Airbus’

Evolution from end 2012 to March 2024:

  • Airbus market cap has increased by x4.29 in these 11.19 years… share price increased by x5.33, hence yielding a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 16.1%
  • Boeing market cap has increased by x2.06… share price increased by x2.55, yielding a 8.7% CAGR

As a final note, I leave here a link to an article from Leeham News and Analysis “Pontifications: A contrarian view of Stock Buybacks“, where they include a table with the cumulative investment by Boeing between 2013 and 2019 (both inclusive) in share buy backs, which amounts to $43.5bn.

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December 31, 2023 · 9:12 pm

Summary of (my) 2023

Time to look back and reflect on how the year which is about to end developed. Brief recap of my 2023. (*)

The main experience that has marked our lives in this 2023 has been hosting Lena and Karina in the second half of the year. They had to leave Ukraine following the Russian invasion in February 2022 and had been hosted at different homes in the region for the previous year and a half, the previous months at my friend Alex’s from which they moved to our place in the summer. Even if it is not possible to put ourselves in their shoes, sharing with them the news, the daily routines and trying to make their life a bit easier has been very rewarding.

Family. Andrea is now 10 years old and David, 7. Andrea loves drawing, doing manual work and researching for her school homework. She continues to learn piano and this year she volunteered to be junior librarian. She is in her second year of Spanish lessons, on top of the Dutch lessons they both take every second week. David loves building Lego sets, helping with whatever task we have at home and football. He is very fond of reading and maths and this year he also has started taking piano and Spanish lessons.

Flying. This year I went flying with kids again! Since a couple of years ago, and following some uneasiness they experienced in some flights, both Andrea and David had refused to fly small aircraft. But since the last spring, first David and then also Andrea, they have been wanting not only to fly but to be in the front seats. Those have been some of the most rewarding experiences of the year. This year I also flew for the first time with Manuel, Alex and Karina. I am sure that in 2024 I will have the chance to fly with more colleagues.

In all, this year I have flown just over 17 flight hours, 13 flights and 23 landings. This takes my total experience to 210 flight hours and 324 landings I started taking lessons back in 2011. At the end of November I renewed the SEP (single-engine piston) qualification and that allows me to fly for two more years.

Together with our Aviation Society we were planning some excursions for the summer time but for different reasons a couple of them were cancelled (to Morocco and Corsica). However, with the family we quickly organized a weekend excursion to l’île d’Oléron (see related post here), that was another memorable experience of 2023.

Travelling. Leaving behind the prolonged the travel restrictions during the pandemic, we continued to visit some new and old places: Arles, Aix-en-Provence, Vars, Boulogne-sur-Mer, Beauvais, Vic Fezensac, Helsinki, Paris, Copenhaguen, Odense, Roskilde, Frederica (we spent a great week in Denmark visiting my sister!), Dublin, Madrid, San Sebastián, New York (first time with the kids, they loved it! Especially travelling to a place where everybody speaks English), Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, Guangzhou (first time in China for me), Istanbul, l’isle d’Oleron, Versailles, Amiens, Wijchen, Ghent, Rouen, La Rochelle…

Running: After a good 2022 when I got to run two marathons, this 2023 has been a frustrating year on the running front. In June I got injured in the left Achilles tendon, from which I seemed to be recovering between July and August but I then got injured in the left calf… and I haven’t retaken running in the last 4 months. In all, I ran just over 520km in 2023, the least since 2011… 

Following a mantra I try keep to the letter (when in good health), “the running shoes, always in the suitcase”, the year 2023 caught me running in: Galapagar, Dublin, Helsinki, San Sebastián, Licques (France) and New York, plus the tens of times I trained in my village, Blagnac and Toulouse. I finished 2022 with the hope of increasing mileage from the 1,200km I had run in that year, now I finish 2023 just hoping to leave the injuries behind.

Skiing. In 2023 we went again with the family for a week to our favourite resort at Vars, in the Southern Alps. This year we could enjoy much more time skiing with the kids out of their skiing lessons. And to be honest, being much more daring than we are, it is sometimes difficult to keep pace with them especially when going off track. This year Andrea got her 1ère étoile medal and David his Flocon one (levels from the French ESF).

Real Madrid. We enjoyed watching a few football matches together supporting our favourite team and on top of that we visited the Santiago Bernabéu stadium in summer for the first with the kids. They loved it despite of the construction work going on at the time. Now we are looking forward to attending a first match together. 

Work. Since January 2023 I changed the scope of the job within the same department, now focusing on the A330neo product marketing (back to the A330neo after having spent 4 years (2015-2019) working in its development!). In this role I have been working hand in hand with Anna, Raphael and lately Yohann.

With the oppening up of aviation markets and the picking up of travel, the year 2023 marketing our Airbus widebody aircraft has meant lots of fun and a great learning experience. The everyday work is already quite interesting and exchanging with the team I learnt new things everyday. On top of that we had a very good year in terms of sales which should be confirmed in the coming weeks.

Reading. On this front, 2023 has also been a frustrating year. I started 2023 reading at a good pace until I got stuck with Notre Dame de Paris (Victor Hugo) with which I have been dragging for months. In all I have just read 4 books, the least by far since I started to keep track of it in 2010. For the detailed list of books, see the post I wrote about my 2023 reading list with a brief description of each book.

Other cultural activities:

  • Bullfighting. This year again together with Luismi we went to Vic Fezensac to attend its corrida concurso, which even if it doesn’t provide for the best of the shows it’s a good atmosphere to be part of. I also renewed my membership to the foundation Toro de Lidia to keep supporting the art.
  • Museums. This year again we took benefit of every road trip to visit as many museums and castles as we could, among them: Ellis Island, Liberty Island, American Museum of Natural History (New York), MOMA, Metropolitan Museum of Art (NY), Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace, Château de Fougères-sur-Bièvre, Château de Versailles, Museo Real Madrid, Jules Verne house (Amiens), Roskilde Viking ship museum, Hans C Andersen museum (Odense), Tivoli park, Kronborg castle, Foundation Vincent Van Gogh (Arles), La Coupole d’Helfaut Wizernes…

Blogging. This is the 14th year since I started the blog, but I didn’t manage to write much, only 3 blog posts in 2023. The blog received just above 18,200 visits in 2023 (the least since 2012) and over 491,000 since I started it in 2010.

Not everything was positive in 2023: the mother of one of my best friends passed away, plus the already mentioned ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine which created havoc in many families, including the many refugees host in the region. Hopefully in 2024 that war comes to an end.

On the positive side, some colleagues and friends had new babies and got married in this 2023!

Now it’s time to rest, celebrate with the family and hope for the best in 2024. For the moment we have just a few days in Madrid to enjoy with family and friends and a planned skiing week in Vars; hopefully that will be just the beginning of another memorable year.

I wish you the best for 2024, enjoy it!

(*) You can see here my 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022 recaps.

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December 31, 2023 · 1:27 pm

My 2023 reading list

In this post I wanted to share the list of books I read along the year (1) with a small comment for each one. I have also included a small rating from one to three “+” depending on how much I do recommend its reading.

  1. “La familia de Pascual Duarte” by Camilo José Cela (++): this is the first book I have read by the last Spanish author awarded with the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1989. The novel is an exponent of “tremendismo” (from tremendous). It centers on the life of Pascual Duarte, who coming from a very poor background is haunted by bad luck, misfortunes, bad decisions and an inability of self-control. [Twitter thread]
  2. “Discurso del Método” (Discourse on the Method) and “Meditaciones Metafísicas” (Meditations on First Philosophy) by René Descartes (++): a key influenceing book on modern philosophy and the scientific method, mostly know by the famous quote “Je pense, donc je suis” (“Cogito, ergo sum“, “I think, therefore I am“). The four precepts of the method are: (1) not to admit anything as true without evidence, (2) to divide difficulties into smaller parts, (3) to think in an orderly manner, departing from the simplest and (4) to do a final integral review to be sure that nothing has been omitted. He then uses the method to proof the existence of Good, and the duality of soul and body. [Twitter thread]
  3. “L’autre fille” by Annie Ernaux (++): this is the first book I have read by the French author who was awarded with the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2022. The book is a letter the author writes to her older sister, who she never met as she passed away when she was six years old, before Annie was born. The existence of that sister was never discussed in the family, first out of avoidance of touching a family tragedy up to the end of her mother’s life, remaining always as a big elephant in the room. The author shares some feelings with her deceased sister, among them the realization that had the sister not passed away she would not have been born, therefore she cannot lamment her passing.
  4. “Chevreuse” by Patrick Modiano (+): this is the first book I have read by the French author who was awarded with the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2014. This novel follows the character of Jean Bosmans, a writer that goes back to a house he lived in decades before, rememering addresses, names, telephone numbers, a hidden treasure… the novel had a very good reception but I didn’t connect to it.

This is the year I have read the least by far since I started to keep track of it in 2010. I started 2023 reading at a good pace until I got stuck with the “Notre Dame de Paris” (Victor Hugo) with which I have been dragging for months (still reading it!). Due to that I lost momentum and only read a couple of other books at the end of the year while travelling.  

A resolution for 2024 will be to recover the good habits, for which there is no other secret than coming back to the rigorous approach I used before, following these two tips:

  • a blog post from Farnam Street blog “Just Twenty-Five Pages a Day“, which was published well after I had adopted such an approach to reading but captures it very well,
  • the Wikipedia article about the Pomodoro Technique, which enables you to efficiently use the last hours of the day.

I wish you all very interesting reads in 2024!

(1) You can find here: my 2012 reading list, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022 ones.

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October 2, 2023 · 11:21 pm

Flight excursion to l’île d’Oléron

Last weekend, with Luca and our children, we took one of the aeroclub’s DR-400 to make a flight excursion from Toulouse (France) to l’île d’Oléron, a small island close to La Rochelle.

North side of l’île d’Oléron

I had often heard about this destination from different members of our Aviation Society, so we wanted to give it a try as an easy plan for the weekend. We departed on Saturday morning from Toulouse Lasbordes (LFCL), flew to Saint Pierre d’Oléron (LFDP) in about 2h30′ and stayed overnight in the island, to come back the following morning.

In both flights we flew by the Dune of Pilat and Cap Ferret in order to enjoy the views of the coastline from that point all the way to l’île de Ré.

Cap Ferret

For the preparation of the flights and the navigation we relied on SkyDemon (I took again just 1 month subscription for 15€) from an iPad Mini (using an external GPS connected to the iPad). SkyDemon provides the GPS logs that afterwards can be viewed in Google Earth.

We did not reserve anything in advance, therefore upon arrival at the aerodrome we booked a couple of bikes at the aeroclub (20€ per bike per day; now I would suggest to book them in advance, as there were only 2 bikes left when we arrived) and a night at the hotel l’Hermitage (very good breakfast, silent, nice warm swimming pool at the end of September and accepting payments with cheques vacances), close to the beach Sables Vignier Plage. We had packed light, just 3 light back packs, thus, we rode the bikes with the kids to the hotel and biked as well to and from the beach.

Biking to the hotel
Sables Vignier Plage

As an alternative airport I had selected La Rochelle, from which we could have taken a taxi to l’île de Ré. A third option would have been l’Île-d’Yeu which also has an aerodrome, but after a previous quick search in Booking.com I found that more hotel options with availability would be found at l’île d’Oléron. But I suggest to keep all options open, as if no hotels are found there, the other airports are at a short hop distance.

Saint Pierre d’Oléron (LFDP)
The kids preparing the airplane for the return flight
Return flight

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December 31, 2022 · 11:00 am

Summary of (my) 2022

Time to look back and reflect on how the year which is about to end developed. Brief recap of my 2022. (*)

The personal memory from this 2022 was having my father back at home after nearly two months in hospitals, including a couple of days at the emergency room. He suffered a heat stroke at the end of June and only came back from it mid August. Those were testing times for him but also for the family, especially for my mother and brother who lifted the lion’s share of the caring for him during those months.

Family. Andrea is now 9 years old and David, 6. Andrea has been learning piano for most of the year, she enjoyed very much climbing, reading, singing in the school choir, drawing anddoing handcraft. She also started taking Spanish lessons once a week since the fall, on top of the Dutch lessons they both take every second week.

David is now nearly fluent in English and they both talk to each other in that language. He is improving with his reading and writing and very eager with maths. He started to play video games, is very fond of football and wants to help with anything, especially if it involves the use of tools (that probably comes from his maternal grand father).

Sports

Back to marathoning! After not having taken part in any marathon in 2020 and 2021 (breaking a 9-year streak), in 2022 I completed 2 marathons: Sevilla and Bucharest. Those were great and emotional experiences. With them I have now completed 23 marathons.

This year, together with some work colleagues we participated in a month-long sports (running and biking) challenge fighting against hunger in the spring and in the fall we ran the 15km-long Airbus charity run.

I ran 1,200km in 2022, around 100km less than in 2021. You can see below that I alternated periods of heavy training with some weeks of not running, due to illness, injuries, travelling or resting after the races.

Following a mantra I try keep to letter, “the running shoes, always in the suitcase”, the year 2022 caught me running in: Galapagar, Singapore, Seville, La Châtre-Langlin, Fontainebleau, Wijchen,  Pontoise-lès-Noyon, Isla, Derby, Hamburg, London, Torrelodones, Almuñécar, Hyères and Bucharest, plus the tens of times I trained in my village, Blagnac and Toulouse.

With those 1,200 kilometres run in 2022, this is the sixth year in a row that I struggle to add more mileage, as I used to do between 2011-2016… One would say whether it is due to the arrival of the second child (spring 2016), the moving of houses (summer 2017) or just getting older (!), but something has made it more difficult. Hopefully in 2023 I can break that trend.

Other sports:

  • Skiing. After the cancellation of our plan in 2021, in 2022 we could go back with the family for  a week to our favourite resort at Vars, in the Southern Alps. If in 2020 it was the first time I descended some tracks with Andrea, in this 2022 it was the first time that the four of us descended some tracks altogether. That was a great experience. This year Andrea got her Flocon medal and David his Ourson one (levels from the French ESF).
  • Swimming. On top of enjoying the pool at home, this year we went to the beach at three different locations: Isla (North of Spain), Almuñécar (South of Spain) and the Presque-ile des Giens (France). The kids loved it. During the holidays, they also took some swimming lessons to improve their style.
  • Golf. The whole family started taking golf lessons last year and for half of the year 2022 we continued doing so, though after the summer the kids wanted to quit.
  • Climbing. Both Andrea and David are very fond of climbing, so now, at almost every school holidays break they follow some climbing stage.
  • Real Madrid. Even if David and I did not have to play for it, we did enjoy watching a few football matches together supporting our favourite team all the way to winning the 14th Champions’ League, another memorable hapenning of this 2022.

Flying. Unfortunately, this year I haven’t flown much, just 7 flights and 13 landings (the least in 12 years of flying). This takes the total to just above 192 flying hours and 300 landings since I started taking lessons back in 2011.

Together with our Aviation Society we were planning some excursions for the summer time but for different reasons a couple of them were cancelled and I could not join another. Therefore all the flying this year has been around our South West region.

On the positive side:

  • I renewed the FCL055 qualification that allows me to speak in English to the ATC when flying abroad, this will permit me to attempt long excursions next year again.
  • This year I flew for the first time with a few colleagues: Iain, Scott, Emilio and Marcellin. I am sure that in 2023 I will have the chance to fly with more colleagues.

Travelling. After many restrictions during the pandemic, especially in 2020, in 2021 we started to travel more and in 2022 we had the chance to visit some new and old places: Singapore (first time for me), Spain (Seville, Santoña, Isla, Madrid (a few times), El Escorial, Bailén, Almuñécar, Las Navas de Tolosa, Tordesillas, San Sebastian), France (Gap, Vars, Avignon, Sully-sur-Loire, Fontainebleau, Péronne, Château de Blérancourt, Meung-sur-Loire, Nimes, Presque-ile des Giens (there we had great week at the beach in the French Riviera)), Germany (Xanten, Hamburg (first time for me, and where we were very warmly hosted by Burkhard!), Munich), the Netherlands (Wijchen), England (Derby, London (it was quite some time since the last time I was in London), Farnborough), Romania (Bucharest) and Pakistan.

In some of those trips we had the opportunity to meet some friends from the university and the high school that we had not seen in a few years. That opportunity to continue reconnecting felt good.

Work. The year 2022 marketing our Airbus widebody aircraft has meant lots of fun and a great learning experience. The everyday work is already quite interesting and exchanging with the team I learnt new things everyday.

This year, with the picking up of the aviation activity and the opening up of many countries, I had the opportunity to meet many of our colleagues working abroad, to give several presentations to customers about our products (remote or onsite), to welcome a few of them and show our A350 final assembly line, host in Toulouse and visit our colleagues from Rolls-Royce in Derby, fly with the press on one of our A350 flight test aircraft during the Airbus Summit, and especially take part in the air shows of Singapore and Farnborough, where I could showcase different A350s, from Singapore Airlines and ITA Airways, respectively. Those air shows have been real highlights of the year, at times showing the aircraft non-stop for hours to many different and varied groups of customers or institutional representatives.

These activities gave me the opportunity to fly for the first time on an A350 (!).

At the beginning of the year, one of our colleagues, Alex, switched departments and we reshuffled the activities within the team and that made it much more interesting, including the working hand in hand in particular with Raphael and Cedric.

At the end of the year, another of our colleagues, Florian, announced his departure and this offered another opportunity to grow. Following a recruitment process, in which a few colleagues participated, I was selected and from January 2023 I will change again the scope of the activity focusing now on the A330neo (back to it after having spent 4 years (2015-2019) working in its development!), working hand in hand with Anna and Raphael.

Reading. I started 2022 reading at a good pace until summer, then I got stuck with the second volume of Le Vicomte de Bragelonne and a series of trips interrupted my pace, and it took me months to recover it. In the end I completed just 13 books, the least since 2015 and read just above 4,800 pages, also the least in the last 6 years. For the detailed list of books, see the post I wrote about my 2022 reading list with a brief description of each book.

Other cultural activities:

  • Bullfighting. This year again together with Luismi, his family and my family we went to Nimes for a weekend to enjoy its Feria, and in particular to attend the corrida de toros with Roca Rey, currently the most successful bullfighter. The experience and his performance were simply splendid. Roca Rey performed together with José María Manzanares and Alejandro Marcos, and with bulls provided by García Jiménez. He was awarded three ears, hence, he was borne triumphantly aloft through the main gate, “Puerta de los Cónsules” at Nimes Roman amphitheater. The atmosphere in the city those days was ecstatic.
  • Museums. This year again we took benefit of every road trip to visit as many museums and castles as we could, among them: the Naval and Aviation museums in Madrid, the museum of the battle at Las Navas de Tolosa, the Great War musem at Péronne (finally! I had tried to visit it before but is always closed during Christmas), Château de Meung-sur-Loire, Château de Blérancourt (which includes the Franco-American museum), Château de Sully-sur-Loire, the visit of the roofs at Seville Cathedral and the Roman settlement at Colonia Ulpia Traiana (Germany).
  • Shows. In the past two years with the pandemic we had not gone to any show; in this 2022 I loved going to the cinema again, with some work colleagues to watch Top Gun Maverick (superb!) and the musical Malinche, about the conquest of Tenochtitlan, produced by the artist Nacho Cano, which was another great experience.

Blogging: This is the 13th year since I started the blog, but I didn’t manage to write much, only 5 blog posts in 2022. The blog received just above 21,200 visits in 2022 (the least since 2012) and over 473,000 since I started it in 2010.

Not everything was positive in 2022: a former work colleague passed away, so did the parents of other friends and colleagues, plus the Russian invasion of Ukraine which created havoc in many families, including the many refugees host in the region. Hopefully in 2023 that war comes to an end.

On the positive side, some colleagues and friends had new babies and got married in this 2022!

Now it’s time to rest, celebrate with the family and hope for the best in 2023. This year we will participate again in the San Silvestre Vallecana in Madrid running along tens of thousands of other runners in the evening of this December 31st as a farewell to the year. For the moment we have just a couple of planned trips for 2023, to the Netherlands and another skiing week in Vars, but hopefully many more activities will make it memorable as well.

I wish you the best for 2023, enjoy it!

(*) You can see here my 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021 recaps.

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