Doubt does not know the future. It only knows fear.
What if the only way forward is simply to go on? That’s the question “What If” is built around — no easy answer, just the choice to keep moving even when doubt has the loudest voice.
You can stream “What If” on Spotify and Deezer, or find it on YouTube. It’s also featured on my Music page, alongside the rest of my catalogue.
Follow along for more original music and stories.
Aebe
If you’ve got a garage, a workshop, or just a junk drawer full of tools, you know the drill: tools you lent out and never got back, a warranty you swear you kept somewhere, and a hardware-store list you scribbled on the back of a receipt that’s now missing. Man’s Home Base is a free Android app built to fix exactly that — and it’s about to open up for testers.
No sign-up, no cloud account, no subscription. Everything lives on your own phone.
Keep separate lists for groceries, hardware runs, or a specific project. Organize items into categories like tools, fasteners, materials, and electrical, and check them off as you shop. The app remembers what you’ve typed before, so re-adding a common item takes one tap.
Add the tools and equipment you own, mark each one as at home or lent out, and note who borrowed it and when. No more wondering who still has your hammer.
Log an item with its purchase date, the store you bought it from, and a photo of the receipt. Tell the app the warranty length, and it automatically shows you whether it’s still active — no digging through drawers when something breaks.
Export everything — shopping lists, tool tracker, and warranty data — into a single file you control. Save it, email it to yourself, or move it to a new phone. All fully offline and manual, entirely in your hands.
Man’s Home Base was built with one rule: your data is yours.
Man’s Home Base is completely free to use — and it’s going to stay that way. This isn’t a “free trial” or a freemium app with a paywall waiting behind the good features. Every part of the app you see above is included, no strings attached.
The app is now live in closed testing on Google Play — you can sign up already. I’m looking for a small group of people to install it, use it for real, and tell me what works and what doesn’t before it opens up to everyone. If that sounds like you — especially if you’ve got a garage, workshop, or home-improvement habit — I’d love your help.
Join the testers group below. It’s open to anyone — no waiting for approval.
Click “Join the Beta Test” below, tap “Become a tester”, then install the app from Google Play like any other app.
Optional: want app news by email too?
This link only works once you’ve joined the testers group (step 1) — otherwise it just shows the normal store page.
Once you’re in, use the app however you’d naturally use it. Feedback of any kind — bugs, confusing screens, missing features, or just “this is great” — is welcome, just reply to the same email thread.
Sometimes everything unexpectedly comes together.
After we sold our camper and had to say goodbye to Elvis, we travelled for the first time with only our dog Chica. It was our first holiday without the camper, and we had to rediscover what travelling this way would be like for us.
We stayed at Villa Envie in Terherne. The peace, the water, the hospitality, and the story of Hans and Brigit made such a strong impression on me that I decided to create a song about it.
The song tells how they found their dream by the water in Friesland and how they share that special place with their guests. When Brigit heard the song, she was visibly moved. That meant a great deal to me.
I actually chose the release date of August 22 by accident. Only later did Brigit tell me that she and Hans will celebrate their 54th wedding anniversary on that exact day. Their family will also be there to hear the song together.
Sometimes that gives a song even more meaning than you could have imagined beforehand.
“Villa Envie” by Aebenl is available to listen to from today.
Congratulations on your 54th wedding anniversary, Hans and Brigit. I hope you have a wonderful day together with your family. Thank you for allowing me to turn your story into music.
Warm wishes,
Aebe and Mieke
Do you have a place, business, memory, or personal story that you believe deserves its own song? Get in touch and tell me your story. If I believe I can translate it properly into music, I’d be happy to create a song from it and release it through Aebenl.
I’ve wanted to write an ebook for a long time. At some point I realized I actually could — so I sat down and wrote it. “AI, How Can I Help?” became my first published book, live on Amazon.
I still remember the moment I first saw it — my own book, live on Amazon. That’s a strange and good feeling. But here’s the honest part: I never really promoted it. I didn’t talk about it much, didn’t push it. In total, I’ve sold two copies. One of them wasn’t even sold online — I sold it in person, on a camping trip, to someone I got talking to about AI. The other one, someone found on their own.
Since then I wrote a second book, “The AI-Invisible Side Hustle” — and this one, I want to do right by.
So I’m starting here, on my own site. Both books are ones I’m genuinely proud of — they’re not filler, they’re not rushed, they’re things I actually wanted to say. If either one sounds like something you’d enjoy, take a look and buy them today. This time, I’m not staying quiet about it.
I’ve been making things with a laser for years now — small gifts, signs, all kinds of little projects. These days I’m cutting and engraving with an xTool S1 20W, and I love it. This post is about one piece in particular: a slate coaster engraved with a photo of my parents on their wedding day. I make all kinds of things on this laser, and I’ll share more of them here over time — but this one felt like the right place to start.
My father would have turned 100 this year, on September 12th — he was born in 1926. He passed away in 1991, only two weeks after my daughter was born. Almost 35 years ago now, though it doesn’t always feel that long. He did get to meet her, though — just once. I still have the photo of that moment, and it’s stayed on my board ever since.
I couldn’t find the original wedding photo — it’s damaged, and I haven’t been able to track down a clean copy. So I worked from what I had, adjusting the contrast and cleaning it up until it was ready for the laser. This is the version I actually used for the engraving.
And here’s how it turned out — engraved onto slate, ready to keep somewhere I’ll see it every day.
I put my “Made by Aebe” logo on everything that comes off this laser — it’s become a small signature of sorts. Here it is.
It’s a small project, but it means a lot to me. My father would have loved seeing this laser in action, I think — it’s exactly the kind of thing he’d have been curious about. More projects to come.
Not everything I do happens on a screen. Some of it happens right outside the window: birds at the feeder, a hedgehog at the water station at night, wildlife that shows up when you give it a reason to. As an old photographer, I could not resist pointing cameras at it — and that grew into live streams, nestbox videos and a whole collection of clips.
To share all of that, I started the Birds & Visitors YouTube channel. Viewers share their own garden visitors too — photos, videos and nature clips from wherever they live. It is a friendly corner of the internet, and I keep it that way.
The live cams and latest videos are on the Birds & Visitors page right here on the site, and everything lives on the YouTube channel. If you like slow television with feathers, you will feel at home.
Aebe
My newest track, “Who Am I”, went live on Spotify, Deezer and YouTube on August 1st. It’s a quieter, more reflective song than some of what I’ve put out recently — built around a question I keep circling back to: who am I, really, once the roles and routines are stripped away?
I wrote “Who Am I” as a lyric-driven piece rather than a production showcase. I put together an official lyric video that walks through the words line by line, which felt like the right way to present a song about self-reflection — no distractions, just the questions I carry, the choices I’ve made, and the person I’m still becoming.
You can stream “Who Am I” on Spotify, Deezer, or watch my official lyric video on YouTube. It’s also featured at the top of my Music page, alongside the rest of my catalogue.
More new music, and more posts here on the blog, are on the way — thanks for listening.
Aebe