work

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.

garden start

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!

news!

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.