April, a month that blasted through time. Time travels so fast these days, that I can hardly keep up. As I mentioned in my previous monthly report a lot has happened these last months. One of the things is something that I do not control, nor something that I can change. I had some doubt about whether not or to open up about this, but @Lackofcolor is sick. It was a horrific life-threatening situation, whereas today she's recovering on a slowly paced basis. Around 50% of my weekly schedule is planned around her, which I spend with lots and lots of love. While it isn't my call to talk a lot about it, I'd like to address this in the slightest, since she is going to celebrate her birthday at the end of April and I know she won't be posting anything about her birthday (I know she reads these reports).
Taking care of someone, or being there for someone you love can take its toll if you see this person is in pain and struggling on a daily basis. Especially when you can't do anything about it, other than being there. While most of my time goes to her, you do end up talking to strangers, people, or friends when you have spare time. On occasions, I did encounter those who told me to choose for myself or told me they were in a similar situation and just bailed out.
Excuse me? Spineless people I'd say if I had to share my personal view on those opinions. While I was pondering upon "choose for yourself", I did manage to find value in those words, or well, the value was already there, but the words may be misused in my opinion as I can say for myself that I already am choosing for myself. You see, the investment of time you put into others is a direct investment in yourself. If, and that is mostly the case where things might differ, if only you have the right intention with spending your time. For me, I'd like to grow old with 
As requested last month, a piano improvisation recording!
The way how I blow some steam is mostly when playing games. Unfortunately, there is less room for other things in my mind at this very moment, but I can feel the grasp of something that encourages me to do something again. Like, writing these reports for example. Even though they might lack the "quality" that is sufficient enough for me, I probably will think they are fun to read whenever I read them in the nearby future.
Last season, I made it finally to Gold. How about that. I didn't make it to Platinum though. A new season started in April and worked my way up to Gold currently, Platinum will be much harder.
I probably will be hard-stuck in Gold for the rest of this Season. Being synced with bots a lot and my aim isn't getting any better to be honest. Get old man! While it is always the goal to get to Platinum (again, finally?), but gotta stay realistic. I've been playing a lot with "Ash" this Season but started playing with my old bestie "Bloodhound" and "Wraith" as well. They are great legends to play with, but still think that "Ash" has a great early offensive skill and an ultimate ability for movability (that can be used for escaping and for engaging).
So, I have this thing called "Fasciitis Plantaris", the only difference is, is that I'm walking with it for a few months (what else is new in the world of Ruben eh?), instead of a few days. Every step that I take is as if I'm walking on a glass splinter that's puncturing the flesh. It ain't a pleasant feeling. At first, I thought it would go away eventually, but after a few months, I decided to call the physiotherapist for an appointment. Fun fact; I took photographs for them a few years ago. He remembered who I was and knew I was "that kind of patient", so he addressed to not overdo the exercises he gave me.
I must say, after doing these exercises, there is so much relief, and my foot isn't hurting that much anymore. He explained to me what he was doing (and why I'm doing these exercises), which helped me a lot to understand (and not overdo it) what was going on with my foot. He also stated; that this will take a while to recover, especially since you have been walking with it for some time.
So he showed me some exercises, and they kinda looked like the first 2-to 3 in this youtube clip.
@Lackofcolor and I love playing games, whether it be online games or games that we can actually play using our hands. Online games are more my thing though. Anyway! We bought a new board game, Paris. It concludes with strategy, luck, and planning! At first, I thought the game would look a bit like Monopoly, but it isn't much like it. Your goal is to upgrade districts and collect the most building points to be the "master of a district". I'll leave a description down below which is probably a bit more convenient than a one-liner from me. I actually wanted to play and photograph the game, but since we didn't I'll dedicate a post to this game once we will be playing it again.
"Explore Paris in the 19th century. Discover its renowned architecture and obtain the most eminent buildings in the right districts to achieve victory. Paris is a typical medium-weight Kramer and Kiesling Eurostyle-game with straightforward gameplay, short player turns, and an ingenious point salad mechanism. You mainly score points by obtaining the right buildings and collecting the right bonus cards."
One of the last projects that I did during the COVID pandemic was for Handstand. Handstand used to be a 2-man squad, but now they are surrounded by a bunch of other cool creatives. They were in the middle of changing their brand identity, this is why they hired me so I could take new portraits that would match that. Together with Vanity, who was responsible for the styling, we managed to pull off the perfect look for Handstand.
Other than portraits, they required new headers for their website as well. This was quite tricky, but a lot of fun!
The idea was to get the gym to the office, and the office to the gym. Handstand is a company that focuses on getting the best results while having fun. To open up and become more dynamic and/or flexible than you are right now as a business.
Scouting the areas was an adventure as well. While the office wasn't that complicated to find, finding a gym with a "wooden" floor was quite the surprise. Other than the floor, it had the old school benches, walls, and some gimmicks. The rest is all upgraded to this era, ha! Who would've thought people would enjoy a retro/vintage gym huh!
Make sure to check them out, visit their website (down below)
Client: Handstand
So, now you know that
If you're into the Harry Potter series and enjoyed them, you most likely already have seen the Fantastic Beasts series. While I'm quite unsure whether I saw the 2nd movie or not, the 3rd (this one) was a great movie to watch in theaters.
As much as I would like to say that I hope you enjoyed reading this report, I do mean it in a way that is suitable enough to include the saddening news that I brought with me regarding Lackofcolor.
See you next month,
Ruben
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