stellegasie

proper car has arrived

2009-02-17T22:16:00.002+01:00

Mrs Stellegasie and Harpo have a driver since last week. And the proper set of wheels to go with it: my Skoda Superb finally arrived. It was worth waiting. Silent, luxurious, comfortable. Umbrella included. A very Thunderbirds like parking system. And roomy. Very roomy. When sitting behind me Mrs Stellegasie can actually stretch her legs - and though she might not be very tall, she is by no means a dwarf. No beard, for example.

Back to the car: it is scaringly large, for someone who is used to a normal EU sized hatchback. That's not a downside though: the bigger and more expensive your car seems on the highway, the more courtesy you meet.

It definitely also excels in the engine compartment. It's still using VW's good old pump injection 1.9 diesel - but after some Czech magic I got the rather incredible mileage of 5.5L/100 km over the first 800 km I did in the car. Most of that in the daily traffic jam to/from the office.

We caught the tooth fairy

2009-02-09T08:10:00.003+01:00

The tooth fairy visited us again, and this time we caught her! One of Harpo's front teeth was loose yesterday evening. So, after some careful towel tugging, we found this in the living room:

Excuses for the dirty hands and - for Mrs Stellegasie - the scratched wedding ring. It wasn't me, dear.

smelly

2009-02-02T21:52:00.002+01:00

Harpo is making progress.
Basic obedience is coming along nicely, everywhere except on puppy school. He is extremely well behaved - Mrs Stellegasie took him to the office all day today, and most collegues only noticed he was there at lunch break!

He also experienced the pleasures of raw meat this week: we gave him some minced porc, and some chicken. I hope to replace his dry dog kibble by a raw-meat only diet; according to labrador people it should make him look better, smell better, and reduce the amount coming out of the other end.

As practice he has been chewing away at a raw bone with some meat attached for the past two hours. He has never been this quiet. And our living room never smelled this bad. I do very much like meat in all kinds, shapes and sizes with exception of organs - but there are limits to what even I can endure.
Nevertheless, once this bone is done with we'll try the dried sheep stomach, and the bull's tendons. Lots of practice for those sharp little teeth :)

The tooth fairy came!

2009-01-25T22:18:00.004+01:00

And she did this...

As a side thought - anyone an idea why this damn template doesn't work properly with pictures?

Harpo back ok!

2009-01-18T22:00:00.002+01:00

Harpo is ok again; he is his usual active self, and produces nice little hard heaps.

Today we did the second puppyclass at dog school. Things marginally went better although he still managed to break away from an apport and run through the group of "advanced" dogs...

No hard feelings though - it made for an interesting run. Ever tried running on wet grass while shouting and whistling, and trying to catch a wet puppy?

You get the image. Luckily Mrs Stellegasie didn't take a camera...

Harpo is sick

2009-01-16T10:35:00.002+01:00

When we came home yesterday Harpo had left a little present in his bench. No problem, can happen, just some cleaning needed.

At 3 AM this morning though he started whining. When I came down it turned out to be a nocturnal diarrhea. No fun at all; Mrs and Mr Stellegasie wearing plastic gloves while trying to wash a slippery 15kg puppy.
Of course the colour of his fur does not help when checking if he is clean or not...

Mrs Stellegasie visited the veterinarian with him this morning; it turns out he does have some problems in his belly (at least it is painfull for him when you touch it). For now we are on a special kind of easily digestible food, and he has to take some strong anti-infection tablets.
If nothing changes over the weekend more investigation is needed, caca-analysis and x-rays most likely.

No good.

yet another new car

2009-01-12T09:14:00.003+01:00

As I have not yet received my new leasecar I am driving rentals for the moment. Had a Seat Leon for a few good months. Nice car, good looks, very good handling and performance - too good for legal road use. Unfortunately, I had to return the Seat at the end of it's rental period.

Then I received a Peugeot 308. No need to discuss it here - it was the very worst car I have ever driven, both when considering driving characteristics and when considering construction quality. I returned after doing 3000 km in it. Note: the very first 3000 km of that car! Electrical and mechanical problems had me freak out in pure rage for the first time since long.

Now they gave me an almost new Opel Astra GTC. Again, nice and sporty looks. But no comfort at all on the inside (it is the base model, after all); hardly any space (not possible for normal sized humans to use the back seat); and since it is a three-door model Harpo does not really get in without twisted paws. Engine off course a diesel (gasoline?), 90 BHP from a tiny 1.3l. If you have enough patience to last through the turbo lag and you shift fast enough it even is fun to drive.

Sometimes.

Am I too spoiled after driving a fine Volkswagen for a few good years? Why is it that other cars in the same price range are such crap? At least another week before I get my final car, the one I chose myself...

at home he does listen

2009-01-12T08:13:00.003+01:00

Yesterday Harpo and I attended our first puppy class, at the Gouden Jachthoorn retriever school. Conveniently located in Zichem next to the Ernest Claes house; the birth place and former home of one of Belgium's great (so they say) writers. This is in fact one of the only dog training schools in Belgium which only accepts retrievers (Labrador, Golden Retriever, Flatcoated Retriever, Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever, Curly Coated Retriever and Chesapeake Bay Retriever). No obedience training or silly agility here - this is the real stuff, hardcore hunting preparation :)

In any case, school was fun even though objectively things did not go as well as I thought they would. As the trainer mentioned the most heard phrase at puppyclass is "at home he does listen"...

But I can't blame Harpo. It was in fact me and Mrs Stellegasie who made some mistakes in training up till now. We did our home work, read about everything there is to read about labradors and dog training, joined a labradorforum, picked a good breeder who gives advice - but nothing beats hands-on, one to one training from a good instructor.
As an excuse we can say Harpo has never so many dogs at the same time, and after all he was by far the youngest puppy in puppy class. Nevertheless we now have practical homework - very good for me, I never was a hero in theoretics. Harpo of course doesn't mind. The only theory he is interested in is Discovery channel and repeat broadcasts of TopGear. Good boy!

- 17°C

2009-01-07T08:59:00.003+01:00

It is horribly cold here. - 17°C according to my car last night. That is, -17°C after a minute or so, when the LCD display in my dashboard finally lit up.

Coldest temperature recorded in Belgium was not far from sugartown, -21.9°C. Of course these are the official temperatures, taking from a shielded thermometer. When I took Harpo out in the fields yesterday evening wind chill forced us back in the car in a matter of minutes. Afterwards at home he almost refused to go outside to pp. Maybe he doesn't like yellow snow.

Driving in these conditions, with frozen snow on every B-road and on my favourite highway lane, is a bit challenging. Too challenging apparently for most other people out there - I haven't had this much road rage in ages.

happy new year!

2009-01-02T18:18:00.002+01:00

Best wishes for 2009, from Mrs & Mr stellegasie, and from Harpo.

Harpo saw snow for the first time today. Didn't fancy it much, the mud underneath was nicer he thought...

crisis

2008-12-16T16:05:00.001+01:00

My previous employer just sacked quite some people, including some I know personally. This brings the economic recession dangereously close.

I'm happy to be fully "billeable" as they say - meaning all my days are paid for by the client, since my first day at the current employer.

new temporary car

2008-12-11T18:40:00.005+01:00

Stellegasie has a new car since last week. As you probably know I had a Seat Léon before. Very nice, very sporty, high likelihood of nasty accidents since it was so inviting to push on.

Now I have a Peugeot 308. Same class of car, a few less bhp, far more luxuries. But honestly it is the worst car I have ever driven.

Cabin quality and finish is almost up to Volkswagen standards, but the ride definitively isn't. Steering is sloppy at best, high-speed stability is too scary to try for more than a few minutes at a time, the engine is rather lazy. I don't mind the fact that it is less powerfull than my previous cars - after all, even this one goes fast enough to cost me my drivers' licence when pushed long enough.

But I'm not happy with it. In fact I hate it. I feel comfortable in it, but not safe. Not even when obeying traffic law.

Hopefully my "own" leasecar arrives soon, so I can return the rental Peugeot. Fabrication is scheduled for next week, so I'm told, and transport to Belgium shouldn't take too long. Maybe I'll have a nice Christmas present, then :)

Kong rules!

2008-12-10T21:21:00.006+01:00

Harpo already outgrew his baby Kong. For those of you who don't know Kong: see here. Truly ingenious - and for once, it actually works as advertised.

We fill it up with his food, add a bit of liver paste, and top it off with some cheese to make sure the food bits are not flying around immediately. As I'm writing this Harpo is trying to get under the mattress in his bench, to retrieve some Kong filling that ended up there. Noisy, but good for learning basic problem solving and not being in the way while Mr and Mrs Stellegasie clean up the house.

Today I also had to give the little rascal a bath. We made a nice walk in the countryside (there is quite a lot of it here), and made quite a mess of ourselves. I did not fancy using the garden hose on him in the middle of winter, so I took him upstairs and rinsed him in the bath. No problem at all, and less messy than me taking a bath myself. I did not go in with him though: Harpo likes to bite anything loose, and I don't fancy going Jew. Besides, I don't like baths without foam.

For more pictures: I updated my flickr photostream!

chicken tonight

2008-12-07T19:51:00.003+01:00

Apparently our indoor kennel was too large this morning: Mr Harpo did a big pee, and then very proudly woke us up.

I think he got too excited dreaming about Louie, his rubber chicken. Louie was his Sinterklaas present from my parents - Mrs and Mr Stellegasie got lots of chocolate and such. Thanks!

According to canine literature, Harpo is now reaching the phase in which he challenges us - the fight for Stellegasie domination! Bad luck for him - even Mrs Stellegasie did not manage to win (all the time)...

Note: no pictures of the real Louie yet. I ran out of flash batteries.

8,1 kg!

2008-12-03T21:48:00.002+01:00

Harpo now weighs in at a hefty 8 kilograms!

He now eats about 250 or 300 grams puppy food per day, some treats and some delicious pieces of smoked pig's ear.

He also shits two times a day, about 3 little sausages each time.

So we wonder where it comes from? He eats his mattress as well, and we cought him today eating dry plaster walls, but they are not so heavy...

Harpo sleeping...

2008-12-01T22:57:00.002+01:00

... as usual with one ear in his drink bowl.
Note also the panel in his bench, to make it smaller. The bench or kennel should in the beginning be just big enough to stretch out; any bigger than that and the dog will pee or poo in a corner...

Life picture archive

2008-12-01T09:28:00.003+01:00

The Life magazine picture archive is available on Google these days. Worth checking out!

http://images.google.com/hosted/life

pictures Harpo

2008-11-30T22:56:00.002+01:00

Since the Blogger picture upload utility is such crap, I revitalised my flickr account.

So, here goes: Harpo pictures :)

Harpo: pictures and pee

2008-11-27T21:37:00.002+01:00

Harpo does not try to lick the camera anymore, perhaps the flash puts him off.

He did some more pee, most of it inside. A bit excitement, and a bit slow reacting from Mr and Mrs stellegasie. Nothing to do about it - every time he goes on his labradorloo outside he gets praise, and a treat now and then.

Now, the pictures:

Harpo is here!

2008-11-27T14:07:00.003+01:00

He's here! Eyes of the River Harpo - alive and kicking, and for the moment stuck between his bench and the wall. Even a 8 week, 6 kg labrador fits in some surprisingly small places...

All seems to be well, Harpo did a poo and some pee (one of which inside, because we were not paying enough attention).

Puppy poo stinks. Really stinks. Think baby poo territory.

No pictures worth posting yet. Every time I bring out the camera he wants to come and lick it :)

he's coming...

2008-11-27T09:16:00.001+01:00

These are our last dog-less moments.
All is ready. He is coming.

Beware!

news!

2008-11-03T15:06:00.003+01:00

A lot of news after some long busy months: a new job, new things in our house, and in the near future a family expansion!First things first: I changed jobs, basically went to another consultancy. Payment is better, in about a month or so the car will be better. Downside: my new client is crap. Even Dilbert can't describe it. If you think SOX is fun, think again!
As for the house: our "garden" has no more building on it. The walls around the garden, left standing when the building was removed, are not in danger of falling over anymore. My father and myself constructed a nice wooden roof next to one wall; we'll store firewood under it. The wooden terrace is done, fertile topsoil has been brought in so next spring we might even see some vegetation.
The house itself is coming together nicely, the only things left to do are either to expensive for the moment (new bedrooms above the garage) or to annoying/boring (painting, installing the second loo downstairs,...) to do.One nice novelty: our garage now not only has an automatic garage door (10m2!) but also a real, metal, closeable back door!

More important than house and job is new future family member: end this month we finally get our doggy, a chocolate labrador!! I don't know if the picture below, taken a week ago, is ours; if not then it is one of his brothers or sisters :)

Mr and Mrs stellegasie can't wait, in fact the entire dog setup is already installed, chewtoys are ready, books read and reread, holidays booked, the name choosen (and carefully kept secret!) ...

We are visiting the kennel at least every week now, and it is surprising to see how fast our puppy grows. Last weekend he was already over 3 kg - on his way to the 40+ kg in about a year!

work

2008-07-16T22:53:00.003+02:00

Stellegasie switched employers. And indeed, the grass is greener at the other side.

I'm still working as a consultant in IT, only now for another consultancy. Just like before I'm working directly for the client, the largest player on the energy market in Belgium/France.

I left behind all things IT support related: now I'm a ssisting on the implementation of an ITIL-based quality control process in order to comply with SOX audits.

And for the first time in my life I have an office with my name on the door :)

Apart from that both Mr and Mrs Stellegasie have been working hard in the new garden (our terrace is ready!), and a major decision in family matters has been taken. More to follow, I'm waiting for the sun to appear so I can some decent pictures of our garden.

google does not like us anymore

2008-06-19T13:05:00.002+02:00

Seems we are blacklisted, here at work :)

garden start

2008-06-17T18:54:00.008+02:00

It still looks bomb-stricken, but I can assure you Mrs stellegasie and myself are rather excited at the thought of walking outside in our very own little garden-to-be!

Now, our garden still covered by a barn, June 16th 8AM:

There is light, June 16th 9AM:

There is nothing anymore!!! June 16th, 3 PM:

Of course there still is loads of work. Repairing and partly rebuilding the brick walls, placing a wood panel wall at the back - including door, deciding on where to build the terrace, place all the greenery...

UPDATE June 19th: thanks to my colleague John Kanon (nickname) we already have the panels - you might see the finished back wall tomorrow!

Stellegasie has a real home now!

2008-05-29T21:14:00.004+02:00

Notice any difference :-) ?
After so long a quiet time on stellegasie, I thought I'd come with some decent news: our brand new, long-expected roof!

Construction took about one week, no rain worth mentioning, just an awful amount of dust. We only spent one night under a plastic cover, and judging from the state of the old roof timber even that plastic was better than the previous roof!
We placed the order early August last year, and I must admit the wait seems worth it.
If all goes well we will also start working on our garden in about a month, and if there's any cash left after that we do the attic. Lots of plans, as usual no time nor money...

Pictures of the roof/attic/garden: after the weekend, if I get my website up and running again.

commercial TV

2008-03-07T23:46:00.003+01:00

As it happens on a Friday evening, we're watching King Kong. The new version, with the lovely very skinny blond girl and the big sensitive ape.

Unfortunately the thing is broadcasted on our main Flemish commercial channel. No problem. I can handle that, once a week. If it were not for the ridiculeous self-indulgencent and incesteous advertising for their own shows.

I wonder what all those self-indulging commercial showbizz idiots were they doing before commercial TV was upon us?

Apart from growing mullets* and tuning their Volkswagens?

For all you Belgians: "nektapijtjes"

new toy...

2008-02-14T22:40:00.006+01:00

One of the first decent pictures out of the D200, taken a few days ago in my favourite Brussels restaurant...

And myself, waiting for a picture to happen...

Check back in a few days: I've finished testing the gallery system, webspace is ready, and over the weekend I hope to have some first draft website ready!

news!

2008-02-04T21:38:00.001+01:00

I think this was the longest period without update here. Entirely my fault, but I have good excuses. There was quite some work in our house done, some planned, some entirely unplanned. To name but a few things: our construction "waste" has been removed (12m³, with approx. 3m³ left...), the kitchen and entry hall painted and finished off, and most important our new garagedoor was installed. Quite cheap, fully automatic, well isolated and definitively burglar-proof!

Paid work was very busy as well, January ticked off on double the normal call volume of "my" helpdesk. Now I'm not taking calls, but nevertheless the pressure is on. Especially with a lot of new colleagues and a *very* large migration coming up in two months.

And totally unrelated (although I had work long to pay for it..): I finally cracked, and bought myself a big boy's present: a decent semi-pro DSLR, the Nikon D200. And of course learning to handle such a beast takes time, loads of time. It was for once a good ebay deal: 2/3rds of new price, almost mint condition, with 5700 pictures taken with it.

5700 clicks might seem a lot, but then again I took about double that amount in 2007 alone... of which about 3000 during a 5 day event.

No pictures yet, since the learning curve is rather steep, but I promise something nice very soon.

no limits...

2007-12-25T23:24:00.000+01:00

... to bad taste.

Nevermind the noisy picture (anyone wants to sponsor a Nikon D300?), the shallow depth-of-field (50mm f1.8 rulez!) or the crappy whitebalance (bit iffy while looking at a see-through backlighted Santa).

Mind you, in reality it is worse. Really.
Related to this, some Santistics:
- road Tienen-Leuven: 44 facade-hanging Santas, on about 18 kilometers.
- road Tienen-highway: 38 facade-hanging Santas, on about 20 kilometers but with less houses.

Sizes range from about 30cm to lifesize. I wonder where people leave them when there is no Christmas around. In the cupboard next to the wedding dress? Hanging inside the house?

language

2007-12-18T20:16:00.000+01:00

Some time ago I reacted to a job posting, online. Without very much hope - no hope at all, in fact, since the job I applied for was quite well above my capabilities.

Needless to say, I did not get it. But reading the reply, I can't help but feel... happy? Touched? Whatever, I'll think I'll send a thank you mail for their nice reply...

"Dear Mr...

We thank you so much for your application and for your interest in our company.

We carefully assessed your application and regret to answer you that, despite of your excellent competencies, we are currently not able to offer you any job corresponding to your motivations and experience.

In the meantime, we wish you all the best for the development of your career.

Yours sincerely,

..."

more on glasses

2007-12-17T22:55:00.000+01:00

The new Oakley glasses case looks like a veterinarian appliance - some fertility thing for horses maybe. Or was it Captain Nemo's "Nautilus"?

Christmas presents...

2007-12-17T22:31:00.000+01:00

No camera this time, but we stayed in the optical field. Given the amount of glass in my new glasses and the price we paid for them I wonder why Nikon lenses are so cheap!

Talking about Christmas, there's a picture series on amazing Christmas light decoration coming up soon. While making the decoration pictures, something was brought to my attention: apparently Belgium (Flanders?) is the only place where the Childe Jesus is shown BEFORE his actual birth on the 25th.

He probably wants to see all the amazing light shows. And the inflatable Santa Clauses. Oh dear.

Sunrise in Stokkem...

2007-11-28T16:57:00.000+01:00

ITIL Practioner

2007-11-13T00:22:00.000+01:00

An official letter arrived today. Normally I do not enjoy official letters since they mostly speak of speeding offenses, but this was one was different.

It officially announced me passing the IPRC certification exam I took last month. I did not pass with a large margin, but in these things you pass or you fail. "Close, but no cigar" does not buy you anything at this level. In fact passing rate is minimum 65%, on a multiple choice exam.

We'll see if I'm now also "more expensive", for my employer's clients...

Those of you who know ITIL might enjoy the following:

Winter pleasures

2007-11-11T14:42:00.001+01:00

A rather bad picture of our fireplace, but you get the idea. I hope our gas bill will be quite a bit lower next year - we can heat the entire ground floor except the kitchen, using only the fireplace!

If I really go hard with wood we reach 27°C, which even for Dana is too hot. If only I could get some real wood, instead of the pinewood we are using now. Pine burns rather fast, which is good for starting the fire, but not so good for keeping it going. Some oak or beech would be welcome.

Not a lot going on for the rest, we are just finishing off all the annoying small works left unfinished the past months. Finishing the bathroom downstairs (I hope to hang the toilet pot later today!), cleaning and tidying the garage, reorganising the kitchen - and next week I hope to find the doorframe for our glass door in the living room.

Then some painting in the kitchen and the hallway - and all is done, untill the roofer comes in in Spring...

Power tools

2007-10-22T21:24:00.001+02:00

A very quick one, it is almost bed time. There is loads of interesting stuff going on at work these days, both positive and negative. Things become clear.

At home we are making steady progress. I spent the last two evenings opening up a chimney hole in between the first floor and attic. As it turns out, having seen the attic floor beams up close, they are not as bad as I thought. Meaning we will not have to replace them in the time we plan to stay in this house.

The roof though is another issue, let's hope we don't get any decent winter storms. We have a good insurance, that's no problem, but I'd rather not resort to that.

Back to the chimney hole: on Friday our fireplace will be installed, the real thing straight from Denmark or so. Since construction labor seems to be ever more expensive here in this banana republic I decided to cut the holes for our in-house chimney myself. Ground floor ceiling/first floor was no problem. We ran out of luck while going through the attic floor though: the hole was nicely blocked by a heavy wooden support beam. Real pine wood I'd say, it smelled nice when I cut it.

Anyway - the wooden beam was no match for some carefully planned non-standard use of power tools. I managed to even almost not damage the ceiling below.
If it were a DIY show on television they'd probably show "Don't try this at home".

Pictures will follow, once we have the fireplace.

bookcases

2007-10-07T21:08:00.000+02:00

I'm waiting in front of a black TV screen, the new Top Gear season will be on in a few minutes. Accidentally, I'm also waiting for Dana to come out of the shower. Hopefully on time for Top Gear. There must be priorities after all.

Our priority the last month, as you could have guessed from the lack of activity here, definitively was not blogging, not even Top Gear.
No. We finished (or nearly, some small corners are left to do) our living room floor. And placed a new basement entry hatch, all finished in ridiculously expensive plywood and stainless steel. And painted the entire room. Placed the lights (stainless steel, of course!).

And, ultimately, most gratifying of all things up till now: filled the first half of our new book cases! Yesterday afternoon, in fact, was spent bying books.

Unfortunately I will not have time to read anything the coming week; I'm scheduled to take my IPRC exam on Friday. Late October I'll also have an official career review. Need I say more?

I did get promoted by the way - very nice, and completely out of the blue. Or not: rumour has it that IT companies do all they can to keep their staff from leaving. More on that after my review - if the rumours are correct, my salary raise (if any..) should reflect them.

You might have noticed I did not place any pictures of our almost finished living room: I'd rather people come and see for themselves :)

Tons of work

2007-09-04T22:03:00.000+02:00

We have been working hard last month. So hard in fact there was no time for blogging. What's done, up till now:
- Built a glass brick wall at the end of the entry hall, to avoid people at the front door looking all the way through our house
- Opened an old hidden side doorway between the entry hall and the living room; there will be a glass door there.
- Removed all existing dry plaster walls and ceiling in the first, small part of the living room
- That gave me the chance to get to the built-in window blinds on the road side of the living room - these are now cleaned and functional again
- Covered three walls and ceiling of above "first" living room in interlocking white wooden panels (Parador Clickboard - quite expensive, but well worth every penny!)
- Rebuilt the fourth wall of above room in Ytong closed cell cement blocks, including final plaster finish
- Redid most of the electricity in above room, including installation of new lights and move of our cable modem and routers to the basement, rerouting the network, coax (for television) and phone cables to the second part of the living room
- Painted above second and biggest living room area, walls and ceiling; part of the walls still have to be replastered.
- And, most gratifying up till now, together with my father we finally placed our staircase :)

As for the staircase, it was a DIY packet by Arkè. Don't be disappointed by the DIY aspect; it offers exceptional quality for it's price. I did make a nasty discovery though - the main support of the staircase would rest on a wooden beam under the floor (above the basement). This beam basically crumpled on touch, so I had to remove it and install a proper re-inforced concrete beam. No problem, only a very dirty job in an inaccessible location. And again three days delay before finalizing the staircase finetuning...

Now: pictures, more or less in order of appearance. Enjoy :)

Glass brick wall, still unfinished

I already showed the first, small, part of living room, stripped down in the previous post. I'll add pPictures of how it looks now when all staircase parts are gone from there, and after it has been cleaned.

Crappy old staircase

Shiny new staircase :)

This is the beam I talked about above... 75 years ago this was massive oak. Yesterday only dust remained. Everywhere, by the way - I found wood dust in the shower, even before I washed.

There is more to tell and show, but it will have to wait. I want to finish a book tonight, and it's time for tea. Tomorrow the roof, and the fireplace.

busy...

2007-08-07T00:30:00.000+02:00

There are a lot of pictures coming up, once I get my gallery site sorted. In the meantime I've stripped our living room of any loose construction parts. Literally.

No worries, all will be sorted in due time. We've just accepted delivery of our wooden wallpanels, and I'm halfway through reinforcing the wall on the left with cellular concrete bricks (Ytong). Electricity, coax for television/satellite, network and phone cabling is almost done.

All nice work, if it were not for the ever present dust. Dust goes everywhere, from your toothbrush via your nostrils to the insides of the kitchen cupboards.

No nice.

renovation update

2007-07-11T08:25:00.000+02:00

Our renovation is still going strong - the guest room will be painted and carpetted by the end of the week, and we got the first offer for replacement of the roof. Painful.

Now, a word of good advice: never couple a 50 cent screwdriver bit to a >1000 Watt drill. It works fine, just not very long.

Gallery site updated

2007-07-10T21:32:00.000+02:00

I did update my gallery site again - with pictures from the Landbouwdag in Alden Biesen (an agricultural gathering of horses, tractors and people with wrinkels and funny clothes).

If any of you have an alternative to flickr, I'm happy to hear it. I'm even thinking of hosting my own site - although there is never enough time for such things...

Als ze me missen...

2007-07-10T21:06:00.000+02:00

Long time no see - but as you know, "als ze me missen ben ik vissen". I went fishing in Goebelsmühle (next to Bourscheid, Luxemburg) on the river Sure, together with my cousin and his (most likely) future brother-in-law.

The odds were against us with murky water and very high levels and flow rate - nevertheless we never caught that much fish, let alone such large fish. Some lessons learned on the way though:

catch rate is directly related to alcohol percentage. We found the native trout especially liked Chivas Regal, 12 years old
never ever smell the inside of your waders, especially not when you are only wearing those waders
never leave waders outside overnight - ticks like them. Trust me, I saw one up close in my waders
do not eat beans whilst camping three in one tent
Luxemburg pastry and bread roll quality excels
triple fish hooks hurt. Almost as much as manually removing ticks
sun-heated trout slime stinks - a lot

Now for the better part: some impressions...

car

2007-07-04T18:40:00.000+02:00

Not a lot of news lately - I've been to busy driving my new car.
One must have a bad car first to appreciate good German engineering...

action shots

2007-06-18T00:26:00.001+02:00

I have been doing real photographic work (as in pictures for (little) money) the last weekends.

And this is how it looks (pictures by PVDP):

Note that I'm using my trusted 70-300mm lens mounted on a Nikon D200 on loan.

MUST... HAVE... ONE... TOO... My birthday is coming up; if I may be so free as to give hints.

Bichterweerd

2007-06-18T00:11:00.000+02:00

Some more pictures from a walk in Bichterweerd, an active sand/gravel quarry on the Belgian-Dutch border near the river Maas. The Jack Russell pictured was presented here last December. The past 6 months he (it is very visibly a he) grew into the most intelligent and energetic dog I know...

This bolt is one of the bolts used to fasten an overflow valve built into a levee next to the Maas. Note the weld, to protect it from theft. Having done quite some plumbing the past months I can't help wondering who would want to steal a 1 meter diameter custom-built steel valve..

in memoriam...

2007-06-18T00:08:00.001+02:00

An uninvited tenant

2007-06-12T21:21:00.000+02:00

I found them in our garage a few days ago. In fact one of them found me, by almost flying into my head and giving me quite a shock.

They are a pair of nestling Black Redstarts (Phoenicurus ochruros). Very nice, but unfortunately they are nestling in a hole in the garage wall just above the entrance door.

I feel very sorry for them as I have to go in and out of the garage with frozen pizza and dryplaster walls. Just a quick picture below, of mother Black Redstart on the nest, protecting the little ones from a Nikon-wielding flashing giant.

A summerly Sunday afternoon walk...

2007-06-04T23:54:00.000+02:00

... on the Belgian/Dutch border, near the Oude Maas in Stokkem. Prime farming countryland, good for biking and walking. And for pictures:

All: Nikon D50, 70-300 VR. Resized and curves adapted in Photoshop.

work

2007-05-28T10:21:00.001+02:00

No time for posting lately, due to a lot of real work both at work and at home.
And last Saturday even while making pictures: I had my first paid assignment as a photographer!

All went relatively well, although I did not realise how tired one can get from walking around in the sun all day carrying a 70-300mm zoom, camera body, backup lens, flash, batteries, and radio. But it was worth it (albeit not really financially): I learned a lot, and made some valuable contacts. And got the chance to use some pro photo gear - if only I had some 5-figure amount of cash lying around....

I can't really post any pictures, since they will be made available by the organisation I was working for. But the one below is to nice to be kept from you...

Nikon D50, 70-300mm VR @ 270, f/10

Milan impressions

2007-05-10T00:22:00.000+02:00

this is a good day

2007-05-09T20:51:00.000+02:00

This is my 83rd post. Never thought I would get this far - although I feel I am becoming more inclined to post. Pictures that is, not so much text. I have to produce more text at work than before, so it evens out.

Posting 83 posts is of course nothing extraordinary; on the combined forums I regularly visit I wrote well over 1000 messages. Oh yes, lots of free time.

83 posts are though a very nice coincidence with my grandmother's* 83rd birthday today. She is a very sweet person, but I had to search very hard to find a picture of her smiling**.

Bomma, gelukkige verjaardag!

* on the right in the picture, reading Het Belang Van Limburg a few weeks ago
** she does not like cameras that much at all

Bengo

2007-05-07T19:35:00.000+02:00

I'm still working on my Milan images (aahh... if only I had a faster Mac to run Aperture properly...), so here's something small in the mean time.

This is Bengo. My niece's Jack Russell, and one of the most well-behaved and intelligent 'Russels I know. He (it is very obviously a he) is coming to live with us for some weekend in June if all works out nicely.

Now while walking Bengo next to the Maas we scared some geese:

Mind you, these pictures are not adjusted in any way - they would look better otherwise. Only some cropping, and resizing. All taken with my Nikon D50 and 70-300 VR lens. Nice!
By accident, the goose picture was taken 2 min. before the first rain in 36 days; hence the grey sky.

adsense

2007-05-03T19:03:00.000+02:00

Just a quick one: I have activated adsense on this site. Of course there is not really any chance of earning money here (I do think most of you are smart enough to know where not to click).
I just wanted to see the effect on the site lay-out, play around a bit with the template and such.

You never know, there might be something new coming :)

holiday

2007-04-27T22:46:00.000+02:00

We will be doing a small holiday the coming days. City trip to Milan. But no fear, we left a guardian...

Nikon D50, 70-300 VR @ 280mm, 1/60s, F9, flash.

For those of you who wonder: the picture is about life size on screen as it appears here. I'm very sorry not to have his head pictured, but I did not want to ask "Mr Spider, if you please, a bit more to the right,...".

action

2007-04-23T01:02:00.000+02:00

First time I actually went out and did sports photography. More pictures will follow when my new flickr account is up and running.

Guess...

2007-04-22T00:02:00.000+02:00

A beer for who can guess what and where this is.

Good

2007-04-20T23:49:00.000+02:00

This was a good week. Best of all, our renovation permit form now resides with the Sugartown administrators. Duly dated, approved and signed threefold by all neighbors.

Training for my new function finished. This very evening we wished good luck upon my predecessor. With lots of beer, as it should be done. A nice perk: the function comes with a laptop, about the best one can get for real work apart from this.

I did some decent biking as well. It is quite hard not to bike these days - earlier this week temperatures reached 30°C. Climate change might not be so bad after all.

And tomorrow we will go forth and choose our fireplace/woodstove. If things continue like this we will even have a finished living room before summer! Oh, and all our wooden floors (the actual construction, not the finish) are now replaced with the modern stable OSB panels. With help from my father and cousin we even managed to get the last one relatively horizontal!

family

2007-04-09T23:02:00.000+02:00

As you see, I'm not the only slightly off limit personality in my family. My cousin rules, especially since he has a spud gun.

I'm planning on a hybrid version (gas + compressed air) for next week; that way I can finally use all the plumbing parts left over here.

And it is a good excuse to buy a decent air pump. After all, I can use it for my bike as well...

Ostend

2007-04-09T01:40:00.000+02:00

We visited Ostend this weekend. A long drive, but train was not really a cost-effective alternative. And of course in a car at least you are sure to have seat.

Now Ostend of course means gulls and poodles. The occasional Jack Russell as well, but they did not really fit in. Poodles are the way to go.

Have you ever noticed dogs look like their owners?

bike

2007-04-04T21:45:00.000+02:00

It took a long time, but now all is done. I finally got a bike. Of course I still have my mountainbike, still in good shape for its age, but not very comfortable at all for road use. This one, the Specialized Crosstrail, was the best compromise for mixed use: roads and dirt tracks. Good price/quality as well.
A nice detail: this bike weighs about as much as I want to lose in weight... Good deal, no?

And of course, I had to try a picture myself...

hurrah!

2007-04-02T22:11:00.000+02:00

There has been quite some good news lately.

Most important, all our neighbours agreed and signed our plans for the house. We even drafted some preliminary common plans.
We also decided on what to do with our livingroom*. No more dry plaster walls or dirty tile floors, everything in wood, it should all look quite nice and modern in the end. The end by the way is planned for July or so.

Now, professionally: I will cease to be a "customer support representative" - commonly known as a helpdesk agent, impolitely said the punk on duty - and I will be a "helpdesk analyst", no less!
The job in itself is two desks away from where I am now, with the same collegues. I will mostly not do the actual phone stuff anymore; most of the time I will be documenting our support process as it is nicely said. A very interesting (to me) part of the job shall be drafting the incident management process documentation for all the client's IT, not only the helpdesk. Nice, nice.

*: take cover. pdf.

Sugartown Station

2007-04-02T22:05:00.000+02:00

Bank holiday here, no traffic jams. So I had time to walk the misses back from the train station, and shoot these:

Both Nikon D50, 70-300mm @ 70mm, f8

new blog

2007-03-30T11:04:00.000+02:00

My F1 minded collegue Bram came over from Finland, and behold: another blog! In Dutch, but don't let that spoil the fun.

Ninglinspo

2007-03-26T22:22:00.000+02:00

We walked up and down the Ninglinspo valley yesterday afternoon; one of the first real spring Sundays here. The Ninglinspo ends in the Amblève, in my opinion one of the finest flyfishing rivers in Belgium.

Obviously we were not the only ones there. I have the feeling half Flanders went out - all in assorted high-tech Goretex gear. For a 5km walk in a bit of mud and rocks, with not even 300m vertical height difference to cover...

Some people also brought their dog, not knowing how water and mud appeal to a well-behaved doggie:

panoramic

2007-03-24T22:51:00.000+01:00

Just found this website. Not the most easy to read, and the language does not help. But the pictures*...

If I find a decent tripod before end June I might attempt some panoramic photography myself.

* dial up users beware: large image!

bad things happening

2007-03-16T11:17:00.000+01:00

One of the best Mac forums in the Benelux has been taken offline, due to heavy flaming of the forum administrators.

I hope at least the forum will be placed online again - it was a very reliable and fast information source on everything Apple-related...

UPDATE: fully down, no recovery. Sad...

smog II

2007-03-15T18:43:00.000+01:00

Less smog today, but I did bring my camera...

smog

2007-03-14T23:58:00.000+01:00

Belgium is under a smog alert these days. Like Mexico city, just a wee bit smaller.
All very unhealthy and so - though it makes for very nice sunsets. But of course I did not have my camera with me in the office today.
It also makes for some creative political thinking, all in the line of Al Gore*: a 90km/h speed limit on highways around Brussels is imposed.

Now I'm not hindered by any factual knowledge, but this limit does seem a bit strange to me. Apart from the fact that most pollution is caused by heavy road transport that doesn't do more than 90 at all times, the current smog is caused by weather conditions. Or rather it is caused by fine dust particles in the air, that are trapped/not moving due to the absence of wind and rain.

Now, the same amount of small dust particles are produced on any given day; they are just blown all over the place or washed into the soil. Is that less dangerous then? Let's hope nobody gets ideas...

* Mr Gore is so popular here these days, people even take helicopters to go see his film. Other talking heads donate the film to highschools. Heavily sponsored by Apple, that film. Can't blame the guy; Dell is not nearly as hip as a Mac. For another point of view, do try Michael Crighton's "State of fear" ( ISBN 0-00-718159-0).

decisions

2007-03-08T20:58:00.000+01:00

Some good news in these grey days: I finally got to order my next car. I expect a four or five month wait, it has to come a long way after all.

It did not come cheap though, contrary to my previous company cars. But being somewhat accident-prone I thought it better to pay extra for more metal between me and the other punks on the road.

There are many good reasons to choose this particular car - the nicest one being the fact that I learned to drive in its older brother:

reality

2007-03-07T00:04:00.000+01:00

So... back to reality. The grey, rainy reality of queued calls, user-based testing and a combination of computer negligence and gross incompetence.

But I'm not complaining: holiday was good - necessary, and good. Even air travel did not spoil the mood, not even after landing 2 hours late (nothing compared to what some friends went through...), waiting awfully long for my luggage, and the usual airline food.

I managed to miss everything related to Disney, I did some good deals with camera and fishing gear, and I made some very nice pictures. There was a good deal of partying of course - and for a good reason!

Of course, 25°C in the shadow and nice company help with keeping up a good spirit.

You people know who I'm talking about... thanks for the great time you gave me!

Florida

2007-02-28T02:25:00.000+01:00

No updates lately, since I'm in Orlando, Florida. It's there that I met the little guy below. And fortunately I had my brand new toy with me...

Squirrel in Wekiwa Springs, Nikon D50 / 70-300mm VR at 270mm. 1/125 - f5,6, ambient light.

bubbles

2007-02-18T00:14:00.000+01:00

Our Romanian friend Crista is visiting us this weekend.

Of course, such visits end with champagne (Cuvée Eugène, Louis Casters, absolutely advisable!).

After a few glasses, while looking down into her champagne glass, she mentioned:

"bubbles come from the bottom"

I couldn't help thinking of our bath.

By the way, did you know underwater bubbles smell more?

winter

2007-02-08T09:53:00.000+01:00

We finally have some snow here in Belgium. All very nice for kids, of course. But unfortunately I have to drive in it later today...

Kafka

2007-01-17T21:57:00.000+01:00

One of these days the Lady of the House will do an exam on traffic law. "theorie-examen" as we call it. I'm sitting next to her now, while she is preparing some trial exam questions.

Note that I have considerable driving experience; about 45.000 km/year the last three years, most of it in and around Brussels. Also note I have my driver's licence since March 99.

So I think I'm quite entitled to have a say about traffic - I spend two hours a day in the car, on any given normal day.

Now... is it normal that I either pee in my pants laughing about stupid questions on even more stupid traffic regulations (half of the course book), or that I'm completely lost in hairsplitting discussions about the solid white line between driving experience and theoretic knowledge (the other half of the course book).

I will not rant about the ridiculously high fines here in Belgium (Flanders). I will just say this:
if Franz were still alive, he would try to get asylum here. (Note the asylum link refers to a Dutch page - French would have been possible as well. Apparently the Belgian government's institution responsable for asylum demands does not have a webpage in English. See what I mean?)

news

2007-01-03T22:45:00.000+01:00

Just noticed we can receive Al Jazeera on our television - there are some advantages to digital TV :)

Other news: I have to order a new car. Our thoughts (my thoughts) go to this for the moment - full option, towhook included for easy parking, but no leather seats since that's cold under the misses' skirts. I'm thinking of this one as well, but I'm afraid my lease budget does not allow it...

... at least we were not the only ones

2006-12-29T01:05:00.000+01:00

I stumbled upon this just now, while waiting for a video rendering. As Youp likes to say: "visiting Ikea might be a bad idea - but at least we were not the only ones!".

We did manage to find what we wanted (what the Misses wanted!): a 4 meter wide "wardrobe system", sliding mirror doors, birch veneer finish and all the internal fluffy drawers and tie holders included. And oh yes - it matches our nearly finished master bedroom floor!

Just read the article above, especially the tips area. When visiting Ikea during a holiday you might want to take a break, but forget about the restaurant. Also forget about any quiet time around; I think Ikea is so successfull because it takes care of one's children, not because of price or convenience. Did I mention already I don't like children, especially not when they come in strollers, grandparents attached?

Also prepare for fights - you will have them, although maybe not with your partner. I surely had some today. Can I help it most Ikea customers are so horribly slow and don't know how to behave on a parking lot?

All's well that ends well.

X-mas

2006-12-18T22:33:00.000+01:00

I'm not really into Christmas - apart from my dislike of the religious part, it always seemed a bit commercial. Over the top. Obligatory presents and the like. Eating till you drop (that's not that bad though; but I'd rather do it whenever it suits me, not when I'm expected to).

This year's December holidays will be different though. We already did presents: for my wife, for me, and for our respective parents. In fact I can't stop playing with mine: I have been nagging about it for two years now...

But what makes this Christmas stand out is the general craziness of the Flemish. Bad taste in decorations, to say the least. Everywhere you look you see these hanged Santa Clauses, sometimes even in little groups.

After a quick count this weekend on the King's roads I can safely state Belgium from now on has a Santa density of 1 per 250 meters, in built-up areas. Would make a great idea for taxation - maybe this way the government could save this years budget?

family

2006-12-18T22:25:00.000+01:00

Christmas is said to be a family affair. So this is the perfect time to post on our newest family member - Bengo. The most cute and well-behaved Jack Russell one can imagine! Unfortunately he does not live in our house - he is with my cousin.

That leaves us, and my parents for that matter, as the only household in our Belgian family without a dog.

This will not do.

fun

2006-11-17T00:40:00.000+01:00

I am not really into funny websites, but this one is well worth it. Take your time, and use Firefox.

Seat R.I.P..

2006-11-14T23:34:00.000+01:00

Last Saturday at 12.10 PM my Seat Leon died, just 100 km after it's last repair. In fact, we're lucky not to have died with it. I won't go into details, but low sun, a wet highway and idiots in black SUV's don't mix. Do SUV punks mix at all in fact, with anyone? Or are they like that dirty brown layer of dirt floating on the water inside a loo that has been left unattended for to long?

Not all is bad though: the Seat was nearing the end of its leasing contract, and I never really liked it anyway. Sporty, yes. Very fast, absolutely. But that doesn't get you anywere in a traffic jam on Monday morning. Maybe I get to choose a decent company car now, not some road racing left-over from a collegue who left the company.

So.. I'm rather less mobile now - but that doesn't really matter, because I lost quite some of my love for driving anyway. There is enough to do in the house as well, so being at home is not bad for a change.

And we are making progress: the bathroom is nearly complete (just finished placing tiles), the master bedroom has a new underfloor and will be ready for painting and placing the maple laminate in about a week. We decided on a fireplace in the living room, and a new staircase. In fact, you can expect a "before/after" picture series soon.

Biggest issue now is administration: we need the neighbours to approve the biggest change in our house (creating a garden instead of an old barn). It should not be any problem - they already asked us in fact to remove the barn - but there's a difference between asking orally or signing for approval. We'll see.

In the meantime, once the approval arrives: if any of you feel like doing unrewarded hard and dirty physical labour please let us know. Free beer and pizza included!

accident

2006-10-26T09:12:00.000+02:00

I was hoping to post on Mr Clarkson, his (and mine!) phone and the murky world of product placement, but something else popped up.

Still in the automotive world, and popping is exactly the right word: Tuesday afternoon on the highway ring around Brussels the front left tyre of my car burst.

For once I was not even speeding up. Unfortunately though it happened in a long right turn so the car started spinning and ended up against the concrete wall next to the road - so now I'm a bit shaken, and the car needs a face job. It's a lease car so hopefully it will not cost me any money, but even so the experience was not good.

If you ever watched Top Gear and asked yourself how all those powerslides and spins feel when you're inside a car, I can now certainly tell you: they don't feel good at all. And contrary to popular drivers belief, once you start going round, there is no way to control the thing. You can just hope there are no others on the road, and no trees or houses on the side.

futility

2006-10-18T10:52:00.000+02:00

More on Jeremy Clarkson's phone later today. For now, just this:

The Cardigans

2006-10-15T00:36:00.000+02:00

The joys of egalisation cement and Jeremy Clarkson's phone will have to wait till tomorrow, when the foie gras and mushroomed pheasant are digested.

There is something more important going on here. According to Sitemeter I recently had visits from Pepingen, Verloreneind and Wezenbeek-Oppem - Belgium; Leatherhead, Bromley - UK; Saint-Nizier-d'Azergues - France; and Jonkopings - Sweden (birthplace of Nina Persson, the singer of the Cardigans!).

I don't know anybody in these places, but dear readers, don't let that bother you. Drop me a line if you want, I'm very interested to know how you found out about all this...

links...

2006-10-05T11:25:00.000+02:00

If you follow my wife's blog, you might already know these two other Romanian blogs: Brussels' fragrance and Owlspotting.

Both written by Romanians, and well worth reading!

happy birthday

2006-10-01T14:18:00.000+02:00

Although one cannot tell from his picture above, shot in March 2005, my cousin really is 21 years old. From today!

Happy birthday, Wazzeman!!!

overdue

2006-09-17T00:43:00.000+02:00

No updates for a long time, and with good reason. Loads of work at office with everybody coming back from holidays and needing a password reset, loads of work in the house, and some private troubles.

Office work should be ok, it seems I'm on the shortlist to go to another project. We'll see how short that list actually is.
Work in our house is ongoing. But we do have a kitchen now! The gas is not connected yet, and the false ceiling is only half done - but at least all the rest is there. And it looks great :)

As for the private troubles, worry not: nothing wrong with me or my wife. We only got some very bad news a few days ago, the kind of news that arrives with a phonecall in the middle of the night, when you know instinctively something is seriously wrong...
In fact, my grandmothers house burned down. She was not inside, fortunately, but most of the house and the furniture are gone. Caused by the neighbours' tumbledrier. Ironically, his house is far less damaged than my grandmother's. I'll go see the damage tomorrow, and hope to get some pictures.

So for all who did not get it yet: tumbledriers are bad for you!

general stupidity

2006-09-01T14:15:00.000+02:00

I spent the best part of yesterday afternoon cleaning virusses/spyware from a Windows 2000 laptop here in the office. I could not get it clean completely, so I called in expert, fully Microsoft certified, help - who, after another three hours, decided to wipe the system and prepare a new pc.

The cause? Apart from the known Windows problems: general, no-excuse, absolute stupidity from the user of that pc. She did about anything you can do to kill a good (protected!!) windows installation, except visiting porn websites.

So imagine: two well-paid technicians lose about 7 man-hours for this, and then the user complains on the fact we deleted his (illegaly downloaded) music from his (office!) laptop.

Two remarks:
- sometimes I regret you can't use violence in everyday office life
- I'm happy to use OS X at home!

As a side remark on this: in our IT problem logging system "spyware" is a subdirectory of "Windows 2000". A telltale sign, no?

testicles

2006-08-31T13:32:00.000+02:00

While checking strange rumours on a dog's testicles display in the new Ikea catalogue, I found this doggie website.

Very nice, makes for a good laugh if you like dogs! And of course, from Sweden - so it goes with Ikea...

As for the poor dog's testicles: I haven't seen anything strange in the 2007 catalogue - and anyway, pornography is in the eye of the beholder, no?

fire

2006-08-30T11:43:00.000+02:00

Rather a scary site: www.brandtest.nl.

But very well done, and rather usefull for us at the moment.

skinheads

2006-08-27T22:25:00.000+02:00

This weekend a group of 10 skinheads beat up two Slovak people. Nothing too special - only this did not happen in Brussels or Antwerp, but in our new hometown Tienen.

I thought I left shit like this in Brussels...

update

2006-08-24T18:04:00.000+02:00

A very short update, on request of Questingbeast.

The structure of the false walls in the bathroom are as good as done, in fact only the dry plaster panels have to be attached.
It took us till now because we had to replace the entire water system - which now, thankfully, is done. Just needs to be tested :)

In the meantime:
- we had a flood in the garage, caused by negligence (waste water of the washing machine does come under pressure!);
- a small sewage flood in the kitchen (our make-shift pipe end downstairs could not handle a double flusher upstairs - don't worry, there will be a full scale loo attached down there, not some plastic over a pipe like it is now)
- I encountered some 220 Volts on my left arm, again negligence
- I just had a nasty cut in the palm of my left hand, caused by the end of a copper pipe connection
- my right index finger is continuously asleep - no clue why...
- and I'm losing a nail on my left hand; made a mistake with a hammer.

But for the rest, we're going strong. I'll try to post some pictures on flickr later tonight. Now we first have to start painting in our former apartment in Brussels.

Cheers.

monkey-lover

2006-08-17T10:13:00.000+02:00

Totally unrelated, and something that could only have been thought up in the Netherlands: online monkey dating.

The original site, unfortunately in Flash, so links are a bit difficult.

Who knows, maybe there are even people interested in this - they might charge money for it. Monkey-porn.

No?

good news, bad news

2006-08-17T09:48:00.000+02:00

We visited our furniture supplier again yesterday - and finally ordered our kitchen. What's more: we will have it all done for us! The cost for placing is about 10% of the total cost, but they can place it in one day, where I probably would be busy for over a week... And of course, if something goes wrong, I'm not responsible :)

Not all good news though: after some strange discoveries in the water pipes we decided to replace the entire piping system. The previous owner made it easy for us: we can install all the water pipes without breaking any floortiles. They all arrive in a corner of the kitchen, in the hole you see in the picture. Even better: none of them is properly attached in any decent way, so they're easy to remove. Also note the small unprotected yellow pipes: they contain all electricity to the kitchen - loose in the sand under the tile floor. Better remove and replace all those as well.

Installation of the new water pipes should be quick and easy using the plastic red and blue "pipe-in-pipe" system.

Should.

CT scan

2006-08-11T09:26:00.000+02:00

I just stumbled upon this. Now I'm not into enzym analysis or cancer research, but these guys have a very nice site, and same very nifty applications. If, like you should be, you are a Mac user!

And of course a weird sense of humour: look at the CT scan of the previous Apple award they won...

penguin

2006-08-10T09:07:00.000+02:00

This is very, very sad.

A terrible blow to the Texan penguin community.

Our thoughts go to all penguin survivors - may they soon find a new fridge.

we made it to the BBC

2006-08-08T10:01:00.000+02:00

No comment...

photoshop

2006-08-07T09:29:00.000+02:00

Seems to be in the news now: this.

No offense, but even I am better at Photoshop. It does make one think though, how many "retouched" images go unnoticed?

done

2006-08-07T08:23:00.000+02:00

We have moved. With a lot of help from my father who drove the van, and who helped carrying all our appliances down the stairs. Imagine a washing machine, an oven and a fridge - who have to go down a 90cm wide spiral staircase. 3 floors!

Now our Brussels appartment is as good as empty; we only keep some chairs and a small cupboard with towels and the like. Meanwhile, in Tienen, we are living out of boxes. But hey, those are large boxes :)

Talking of boxes, I found this cartoon on our companies intranet:

progress

2006-08-04T14:38:00.000+02:00

So... we are officially moving this weekend. As in, we are transporting our goods to our new house this weekend. We rented a large van, tonight we'll take apart all the furniture. Everything is Ikea, so you only need one Allan key for everything. In theory. I hope we still have the manuals, to put everything together again...

Meanwhile works in the house are going strong: the sewage piping has been replaced - including two new toilet pots, the electricity system has been updated (thanks, Bram & Jonas!), new floorboards have been laid in the bathroom (thanks, pa!) and now we're placing dry plaster walls in the bathroom. Between all this we also installed our new freezer and a large sink in the garage. Including new water pipes and link to the sewage system, of course! And we have television/phone/internet as well; when the big works are done I'll do a post about digital TV. Very nice technology, too bad the content is mostly crap.

Remains to be done in the immediate future: buying and installing our bathroom furniture, bath and shower; laying the black cork floor in the bathroom; buying and installing the kitchen; etc...

For kitchen and bathroom we made a nice discovery yesterday: black glass mosaic tiles. Things are starting to come together: we decided on the kitchen and bathroom layout, wood types, tiles, ceiling, lights and furniture. We even already bought our bath tub tap. We wanted a nice design tap, untill we saw the price: close to 300 EUR!

All that's left to do now is installing everything :)