Menu
What's New
By:
Filters

ViagraFalls' diary

Some updates:

1) The mistake the freelancer made with my bank account is fixed. My employer transfered me money today. (I didn't blog about this before, but some dickwad managed to mess up the bank account number of TWO starting employees, one of which being me. The other guy rang the bell earlier, considering he has three kids. I blamed it on my bank. I never realised how embarrassing it is to suddenly have to tell people you cannot pay your bills. Even if it's not your own fault. It fucking REEKS. More so if it takes about a week to fix things, and before that, you already had been waiting for the money).

2) My CEO will also ensure he lives up to his part of our agreement that he covers half the debt I have with my old employer.

3) I ordered my new car today. 10 weeks left :D

4) I will start a website dedicated to creating awareness about us humans thinking our pets are mere toys that we can alter to fit our 'needs'.

5) I read Kerham's diary post, and frankly, I am disgusted. I read the other day that some guy got fired over an SMS message. What the fuck happened to a company having the balls or the decency to tell you such things in person?
 
Best feeling in the world...

There you stand. You are ready. In fact, you're more ready than you ever have been. A sly smile spreads on your face.

You're gonna do it. And it will feel great. You COULD brag to your friends about it afterwards, but you won't. You're too much of a gentleman for that. You'll settle for knowing you did it.

You look. Your tool is firm, ready, and slightly wetted, for easier access.

You breathe in. This is it. You're going in.

Slowly, your tool starts moving towards it designated target. Your hand trembles slightly. Boy, oh boy. This will be good.

According to plan, it slides in smoothly. Hardly any resistance whatsoever. You wiggle and you jiggle a little, which gets it in even deeper. Very nice, stud.

You start moving more and more. Oh yes. This is what they wrote about in all those songs and books. Eternal bliss. The more you move, the better it feels. You feel something bubbling inside, and when it finally comes, ripples of bliss take a hold of your body.

Satisfied, you pull out the cotton swab and wet another for your next ear.








p.s. you're a perv.
 
Oh Noes!

Forget about Israel and Lebannon and rising oil prices. Famine, hunger, war, etc? All trivial crap. The world will be hit with an asteroid tomorrow? WHO CARES? Ozone layer gone? TOUGH FRICKING BEANS.

We currently are facing a massive catastrophy. I'm talking about the world coming to an actual end. APOCALYPSE!

This year, due to the weather in France, we are facing a massive shortage of...







Wait for it...
















Sauerkraut!

OH NOES! :eek:
 
Gradually building down

You might have noticed I don't nearly post here as much as I used to. Not do I check this place nearly as much as I used to.

I guess that as soon as my last few remaining items and skills leave, it's the end. I would love to stick around, but Mister Buster doesn't appear to like that too much. So I guess the last thread I started will be the last thread.

I do hope that thread serves it's purpose. Despite the negative way I portrayed myself in the last few months, I still believe in the idea behind PE, and I somehow hope that MA will see the light. It'll be too late for me, and too late for the people I brought into the game. But still.

I hope that sometime soon, the critical messages we dropped at MA's feet will be noticed. That somehow they will realise that losing 70% of the new players is just FUCKING STUPID.

No matter how much of a market you pull in, 70% leaving is far too much. And if prices are as high as they are now, the remaining 30% to be secured is dubious too. How many people in China can afford uber gear? Very few.

How many people in China are willing to work on sweat farms for 5 USD/day? A lot. See the problem?

I hope things will work out well. I doubt this post will remain here. Oh well. I tried. Those of you who recognise this game as more than just profit know where to find me.
 
I just had an awesome meeting with Tom. Let me explain a bit about Tom first.

I grew up in the most southern province of Holland called Limburg. Limburg is like Holland's appendix, and it is situated inbetween Germany and Belgium. Holland is flat, and Limburg is the only part of Holland sporting anything even remotely close to hills. Personally, I still think it's one of the most beautiful places of Holland. I might be biased because I grew up there, but lots of people agree. However, in the rest of Holland, Limburg is regarded as backwards.

Back in 2004, I suddenly found myself without a project. Despite being a region able to cross boundaries due to its location, IT is down in Limburg. My internship for college consisted of drawing up an economical forecast of a specific part of Limburg based on numerous economical factors, and things looked grim.

Limburg is where the Dutch coalmines used to be. This translates into the region being flooded with low-educated people, making money from working in Mining. During the 1970s, the coalmines were shut down. The people had nowhere to go. Forecasts back then predicted that the region would have massive trouble, focussed on caring for the elderly. That's the very short short version of the research I did back then. A region where higher educated people would leave due to lack of prospect.

After 3 months without a project, I took the step of driving over to the main company, offering my services anywhere in Holland. I basically whored my CV around. My enthousiasm and eagerness to work sparked a few people, one of who offered me a project quite a bit away.

I took it. It was a shit project, but I accomplished the goal (which was satisfying a disgruntled client). Apparently the guy was so impressed with me that he asked me to become a permanent member of the development team, which I accepted as well. However, that meant my new base would be The Hague (2.5 hours away from where I grew up).

That's when I decided I would be better off leaving Limburg, and to start looking for a place to live in The Hague. I was recommended Tom through friends. I called him, told him who recommended me, and asked him if he'd be willing to help me out.

He explained that the majority of people he helped were French or Italian. Foreigners. ONLY foreigners. I mentioned that Limburg was pretty much a different country. He started laughing, and agreed to help me find a place of my own. He handled a lot of problems people deal with when aquiring their own place.

He eased my burden by solving my trouble. After I bought my apartment, he came and helped me out lots of time with anything. From painting to advising me on how to solve trouble. Tom was always there.

Now when I bought my place, I had a top-mortgage, meaning it was the maximum I was able to get from my bank at that time. Trouble was, that bought me my apartment, but it needed lots of work. My parents helped out massively to get all the basic upgrades done (nothing had been done here in ~30 years or so).

This resulted in me living in a half-finished place.

Tonight, Tom and me discussed fixing the rest of the basics. His son in law is a contractor (he did most of the work for me initially). Tom does his accounting, and he quoted me a fixed price tonight for which the majority of the leftover work would be dealt with.

They start tomorrow :D

After that, I will have left a kitchen that needs to be upgraded (for which Tom offered a lot of suggestions, and because of that it will save me a shitload of moolah), the roof needs to be fixed, and eventually, I want the outside walls to be redone.

All of that (except for the kitchen), will be done with my neighbours downstairs, who will have to pay half.

My plan is to rent out my place when I relocate to Denmark. Before that happens, the place needs to look tiptop, kitchen included, and preferably the roof too. The first major step for that was set today :)

I also mentioned my worries. Some of my colleagues mentioned aquintances of theirs went in business with a professional rent-out company, and three months later they received calls from the police that a hemp farm was built in their (now stripped-down) apartment. Tom will handle that for me too by the time.

This is a massive step forward in my transferring to Denmark.

Things are starting to work out for me, finally.

Past weekend, Lykke and me attended a part of one of my mason friends. We met up with a brother who I hadn't seen in ages, and he gave us such a warm welcome. He also commented that I seemed very well spirited, and I looked lots better than ever. Tom said the same thing tonight.

I'm off to seize the day for a bit :)

Consider this post a big THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU to Tom, for being an awesome friend. If only everybody could have someone like Tom in their lives, perhaps things would seem brighter for everybody :)
 
Of water

My apartment is currently in the middle of a renovation. I bought the place two years ago, and the mortgage I had covered the buying price in total. However, the apartment hadn't been fixed for about 30 years, so I borrowed extra money to get all the major renovations done.

The 'minor' work was left for me to do by myself. However, I'm no handyman, and I was just not able to do stuff myself. Woodwork for example is something I just lack the patience and skill for.

My neighbours downstairs complained before that the previous occupant (an alcoholic) flooded their place a few times, due to sheer negligence. I tried doing everything in my power to prevent that from happening again, and still they were forced to paint their kitchen ceiling again 3 times so far (none of which was my fault. Once my ex, twice massive rain and the previous owner's shit solution for a drainpipe).

So I had my contractor over today to check the drain, and to provide a solution. It poured massively here today, I might add. We snuck outside during a little less rain, and decided the whole pipe will be replaced. Just as he was leaving my place, I heard a dripping sound.

Now when I bought, I knew the roof hasn't been touched for 20 years or so, and it showed leakage damage. However, that had been patched quick and dirtily, and I have not experienced any trouble during the time I lived here.

My first instinct told me to rush into the bedroom, and indeed, my ceiling leaked, my walls were dripping, etc.

My contractor rushed up to check the roof and told me the place was flooded. Apparently I wasn't the only one, since at least two other neighbours were on the roof. They unclogged their drains, and that seemed to do the trick.

My neighbours downstairs luckily didn't have too much damage, but I still feel horrible.

It's waiting until tomorrow before I'm able to properly assess all the damage.

This bugged me all night, and I went looking for distraction.

I found the video I posted above, but that didn't do the trick. The same site provided another movie, which I shall not link here, since it might offend some people. It had me in stiches though (the one right after the Bush beatbox).

Then something occurred to me. I was to empty two storages in order to speed up the work a bit. One of them I mostly did when the contractor was over (I moved that stuff into the kitchen). The other one was my collection of books. Now I _was_ going to place my books right next to my bed. The spot that got hit.

I am quite sure I would have definitely had a heart attack if my collection of books had been hit with water damage. I own a 16th century bible, which my grandfather traded for a painting he made. I have a Freemasonic dictionary from early 20th century, still in pristine condition. That kinds of stuff.

I'm now just happy my books weren't there :)
 
and drums

Still not entirely satisfied, I went looking for something else to distract me. This might require a little more background info, and another glimpse into my past.

A few years ago, back when I still lived in Limburg (the province I grew up in), me and a friend happened to be out partying for 'Carnaval'. Think Brasilian Carnival, except without the nice weather, without the girls in thongs, and without the cool music.

It basically is an old regional Christian tradition to have a few days of feast before the fasting starts. Back in the days, it grew into parades where the point was fun, poking fun at others, and what not. Nowadays there's loads of reasons to join a parade, even sometimes triggered by political motivations. There have been sightings of Saddams, Bush's, the Dutch royal family, etc.

It's a three day festival (though certain people start months in advance) where the people of Limburg (and some other provinces) do what they always do, but this time do not need to find an excuse for: They get drunk.

So we walked into a bar, and there was a drum band playing. They rocked. They were dressed in alien-like costumes, with battery powered lights. They gave away an amazing show.

Then a little bit later we witnessed another band playing in the square. I ended up being so fascinated that I asked them if they were looking for new people.

To cut the story short, they were, and I got accepted. During my application was when the song 'Played a-live' by the Safri Duo was popular, and it made me even more excited.

My instrument of choice became the Surdo. We had two guys in the band doing the basic 2 and 4 to provide guidance, but me and another guy were meant to do the less monotome stuff. At times I filled general spots within the band, but the majority of the time was dedicated to doing bass-work.

I think my previous DJing experience provided a major help in being able to get the spot, as both involve both mathemetics, counting, and a basic sense of rhythm. (Not bad eh, considering I was once voted most a-musical person of the class in high school. I was told to play the bongoes and I absolutely sucked *LOL*).

In fact, things went so well that a little running gag we'd do at performances was me and the other Surdo guy moving to the front of the stage, both playing our own instruments, and then suddenly me filling in both parts on both his and my instrument. It seriously was a blast.

One of the highlights I have from back then was from when we did a gig in Belgium. Another parade, but we were one out of 5 Samba bands there. After the parade ended (parades suck when you something the size of a big tree trunk dangling between your legs (No, I'm not talking about my penis)), we started just playing a bit in the square, and were quickly joined by a few of the other bands. Basically we had a 5-band jam festival, where we all switched into one anothers songs. The crowd loved it, and so did we :)

I ended up leaving the band because I disagreed with the way it was ran. The peeps who started it were a guy, his sister, her husband, their neighbour, and a close friend. They also were the people 'managing' the band. They basically tried imposing their will on everyone else, despite the majority of the band disagreeing. It was dictatorial, and as you might have guessed from previous posts by my hand, I deal very poorly with that kind of shit.

Then I some day was at my parents watching some Scottish taptoo. I was bored, and heard drums, and stuck around. One of the bands made a massive impression on me.

As a distraction tonight, I (even though I intended to check up on them again before) ended up googling.

Enjoy. These guys fucking own. Baby, if Italy becomes our final destination, mind if I start travelling to Basel very regularly to play with these guys? :D
 
Words of hope

This is for someone who knows who he is.

I was born September 3rd 1975. I was very small and didn't weigh what I was supposed to weigh. I was my paren'ts firstborn, and I spent my first few weeks in an incubator.

I had a clog of blood stuck in my aorta. The doctors feared it might come loose, and shoot straight into my heart, which would mean I'd die. My parents had to take a massive gamble, and they took it.

I went into surgery in 1977, an received a bypass operation. I was a wee little two year old boy, and the doctors fixed me up with a tube around the clog. Basically I have a tiny little piece of plastic circumventing the clog and providing my blood with a way to still get to my heart.

I have a massive scar to show for it. It basically goes from below my left nipple, all the way to the back.

For that time, I am sure it was a major operation, and my parents must have gone through hell to have that done to me.

It affected me for ages. It was the reason why I managed to pass the draft, and it was the reason why I did not reach puberty until I turned 18 or so.

There's more to the story, but that is irrellevant for the message I want to deliver here.

No matter how grim things look, science might be able to provide a way out. Keep that in mind. There are doctors out there who are literally willing to put their career on the line to help you get a way out. We should commend them for their efforts.

I'm living proof of that, and I feel I beat the odds. You can, too.
 
Lots of stuff happened recently.

My apartment is still being fixed. When this bit is done, my living quarters will be mostly finished. The woodwork will be done, and I finally will have a mostly finished apartment to live in.

I have been in touch with my bank, and my downstairs neighbours. As things look now, I can up my mortgage purely based on my new income and the added value of the aprtment. I will most likely get enough of extra mortgage to replace the roof, finally get my kitchen in, and have money left, which will directly be saved for fixing the outside wall.

Basically, if all of that goes through, all major work on my place will be done, and I'll be left with very small stuff. It will allow me at very marginal extra cost to start paying off my parents.

I basically see any investment in my apartment as an investment with maximum return. When I am finally able to structurally start working from Denmark (and I already managed to ensure extra days per weekend with the Nun :love:) I will rent the place out, and use the extra income to pay off even more of my mortgage.

If everything goes according to plan, I'll end up with a massive bag of cash when we decide to buy a place in CPH. (I do have plans to invest a bit of cash in certain equities, but all would be easily transferred back into cold-hard cash).

The fact my neighbours made no fuss whatsoever when I mentioned getting the roof fixed is a massive plus, and a massive weight off my shoulders. Even though this is my first place of my own, I already learned that having pleasant neighbours can mean the difference between your dream place, or hell.

Work for the moment is stressful. My team (me and another guy) got criticism this morning, though I do feel we handled it like pure champs. It was a typical manager tactic; meant to provoke a reaction purely to see how we'd take it.

We take no blame, so even though the usual response would be anger or very defensive statements (if that happens to you, the manager is trying to get a feel for how commited.involved you are to the situation) we responded stoically. We did what we could, and even if we had worked for 24 hours a day, we couldn't have done more. I think we found the counter-measure to that sort of management techniques ;)

That technique, while not very employee-minded, is employed by a lot of managers around. I've had some dingleberry who hired me scream at me that HE could have solved a certain something within half an hour. I handed him my keyboard, told him I'd be going for a coffee and a socialising talk, and that I expected his solution done within half an hour to prove my incompetence.

Of course, he failed to live up to his promise, which ensured he tried moving me off the project. Now, I work-wise am a generally easy guy, but if you get political on my ass, I won't shun to turn the same game against you.

End result was that after a careful consideration, hearing both sides of the story, in a rational way, the dude is now doing... Actually, I don't know what the fuck he's doing really, but he doesn't work there anymore.

I might seem to be an inarticulate loud-mouthed twat at (the majority of) times, but professionally, I am more than capable of handling myself, despite lacking the proper training.

Good thing that I manage to trick people into thinking I'm just a loudmouth. It gives me a massive opportunity to come in full force when their defence is down ;)
 
Since you've been gone
I shut my eyes
And I fantasize
That you're here with me
Will you ever return?
I want be satisfied
'Till you're by my side
Don't wait any longer...

Why don't you come back?
Please hurry, Why don't you come back?
Please hurry...
Come back and stay for good this time
Come back and stay for good this time

When you said goodbye
I was trying to hide
What I felt inside
Until you passed me by
You said you'd return
You said that you'd be mine
'Till the end of time
Don't wait any longer!

Why don't you come back?
Please hurry, why don't you come back?
Please hurry...

Come back and stay for good this time
Come back and stay for good this time

Since you've been gone...
I opened my eyes
And I realize
What we had together
Will you ever return?
I'll have you change your mind
If you won't stay mine
Just love me forever!

Why don't you come back?
Please hurry, why don't you come back?
Please hurry...

Come back and stay for good this time
Come back and stay for good this time
Come back and stay for good this time

Don't ever leave me...

P.s. Thanks everybody for your warm birthday wishes :)
 
I spent the afternoon writing scripts for data entry. Copy/paste, copy data that is different from old data into query, paste into proper spot in query, update ID field. 5 times. Per individual value. (There's 2 values per line. The amount of lines is 100+).

I suggested getting some new intern to do it. They rejected. I contemplated automating the task. Apparently not that simple either, seeing as there are numerous exceptions everywhere.

*grumble grumble*

I decided to leave work early in order to avoid traffic jams. Had three individual cars in front of me stuck on the leftmost lane driving seriously slow. I hate when people pay half their roadtax and can only use one lane.

The last one was the toughest. Some ugly fat woman with more chins than a Chinese phonebook. I contemplated rolling down my window at the traffic light and telling her husband that he should ensure she wouldn't bend over in the middle of the street because otherwise people would mistake her for a carwash, but managed to keep it inside. The guy's been punished enough, from the looks of her.

Went grocery shopping, and had old people stuck in front of me eyeing apples individually, knocking them, weighing them in their hand and then loudly complaining about their quality. I'd have said something, but I did not want to create a fuss, and I wasn't in the mood for raising my voice to the extent where she'd have heard me anyway.

To top things off, my company sent out an invitation for a company event some time ago. I accepted it, figuring we'd get some sort of training or something along those lines. We received a message we'd potentially get muddy, AFTER THE FRICKING RESERVATIONS WERE MADE. We're heading to the northern islands of Holland, where, during low tide, one can walk.

OH GOODY. I shall be spending two hours of my friday up to my knees in blubber while being ambushed by angry seals. AND WHO SAYS THERE ARE NO STINGRAYS HIDDEN THERE?

But, relax. I'll take a book with me, pretend a drastic case of diarrhea, and let the others suffer (though the majority of my colleagues don't want to go either).

And yesterday we received notice we are to bring swimming pants. WTF? In case nobody noticed, it's fucking September. August was just heaps of rain, and we're going SWIMMING? I notified the management assistent I'd not be at the job next week due to an unexpected case of pneumonia.

That crap has been bugging me. I don't want to go. "But afterwards, we're going to dive into the nightlife!". Who gives a flying rat's ass? I did that when I was 14. I gave up on going out years ago. I'd rather sit in my hotelroom with a good book, some nice cognac, a cigar, and a certain Nun.

I still am in quite a good mood. I'm guessing a lot of it has to do with my being able to push ahead my talk with Mr. Mortgage specialist from the bank. The talk was supposed to be friday, but instead I'll have it tomorrow. With a little luck, by the end of the week, I'll have the contract signed, and a few days later some moolah on my account.

Another perk was that today I said I'd leave early and finish working for the day from home. No problemo. That means I can start doing that more structurally.

Traffic in Holland is a massive problem. It's so bad that my travelling time easily gets doubled, and sometimes even worse if I travel in rush hour (anywhere between 6:00-9:30 AM and 16:00-18:30 PM). Commuting is just a problem here, more so with so many fucktards on the roads. This will mean I can still get up at 6:00 AM, start working at 7:00 AM, and finish my day at around 15:30-ish, no problem. Not all days are good for that, but I can start working early, wait for rush hour to pass, and then drive to work, when in need.

That, however, is only the first benefit. It also means that finally, on a more structural basis, I can start booking longer trips to Copenhagen. I already did so for the weekend after the upcoming weekend, but I will finally be able to spend more time with my baby. 2 days just is not enough.

Usually, either of us flies in Friday evening, and leaves Sunday. Now friday evening and sunday afternoons usually aren't cheap to fly in. We've regularly been forced to switch to later arrival times and earlier departure times in order to keep things affordable.

If I can now start arriving there thursday and leaving early mondays, it would mean we'd get to spend a full day and an extra night, AND be off cheaper.

Add to that that mobile phone providers are making calls into other EU countries much, much cheaper, and we have a case of "hello remote office".

I'm thrilled. Snuggling up to Lykke makes one sleep so much easier.

Oh, and to finally force away my bad mood? This came along:

http://dump.geenstijl.nl/mediabase/3548/4b8de44d/index.html

Original lyrics:

http://www.darklyrics.com/lyrics/nightwish/wishmaster.html#6
 
Ooh. Back into rant mode now.

As some of you know I work in the data warehousing business now. Quite literally, we build warehouses of data.

As a very simple explanation, my company takes heterogenous datesources and ties them together.

Very simple example:

You are an industrious company. You buy raw recycled steel from numerous sources, and your end product is 'new steel'.

There are numerous datasources at work here. You have the purchasing (and storage) department running their own system, the ERP system handling the majority of the internal stuff, and most likely sales databases as well.

A solid Data Warehouse will allow link up all these heterogenous databases, and provide upper management with reports which allow them to take critical business decisions (both tactical and strategical).

Anyway, it's quite the complex matter, as mathematical calculations have to be done to ensure end-figures make sense to the business user at the lowest level.

Now we got that clear, THE problem with this is that the process to whip up the DWH takes quite a long time. That's normal, as we have over 300 values that have to be calculated and combined and possibly calculated again many times during the process.

The client demands we make things perform faster, and our most basic recommendations (THE reason I was hired) are at the hardware level (In ANY performance issues, hardware is the first step to tackle).

However, we were told to focus on the programming. Now my first impression of the code is that is quite tight. All major performance pitfalls were avoided. So we opted for a third-party tool which hopefully would help us drill down.

Initial (rushed) testst provided us with questions, so we contacted the guy who bombarded us with calls lately. He said we'd get hooked up with the professional expert. THAT guy took half an hour to come back with some half-baked solution, and the promised in-depth information he supplied was noob-crap.

I just spent 2.5 hours reading crap that would have been useful 6 years ago, but today makes me feel as if my contact within the company will have a bad day tomorrow.

Thing is, he bugged me for weeks. I explained exactly what we were after. Starting tomorrow, I have 2 days to tackle performance trouble, and I expected that the stuff I was sent would be sufficient. It never even brushed what I need to know, and if I don't get the info I need within two hours, we'll do stuff manually.

I'm just annoyed I just spent 2 hours of my private time reading documentation that didn't help me one bit. Meh.
 
The corporate trip

We were informed on (I think) Wednesday the walking wouldn't happen. That somehow made a lot of difference, and the whole thing seemed a bit less annoying.

I decided to pack my swimming trunks and a towel as well, just to see what the plan was. Picked up a colleague on Thursday morning, and he carpooled with me to the hotel. The rest trickled in, and finally we went to a regular bar (the non shoulder-to-shoulder kind, and with music at a volume so you're able to have an actual conversation).

In the morning, we boarded the ferry, and were welcomed to the island by the guys running the events. They drove us to the other side of the island where we enjoyed a brief lunch in the dunes, and then took us to the beach. The group of 12 was split into 2 groups of six, and we were then introduced to seperate events. The first group went flying a kite, while the second group went doing some archery.

Now there was a buttload of wind, and the kites were quite big. So big that we decided we'd have two people flying a single kite. One person to fly the kite, the other just providing extra weight. The winds were so strong that at times we'd still just be pulled away, despite trying to dig in and hanging down. It was quite fun :) Archery was also nice.

After that, we needed our swimming trunks. Turns out we were going to do some rafting. The waves were (due to the strong wind) rather high. We all changed into wetsuits, and dove in.

Frankly, that was the best experience of the whole weekend. Six per boat, measuring our strength against nature. We lost. The other boat was lifted at some point, and 4 people, inluding the one steering, got thrown out. I thought that by then we had been rowing for a steady 10 minutes, and figured we were in rather deep water, so imagine my surprise when I saw everyone was just able to stand. Turns out that due to the tide and the power of the waves, we just were thrown back into the same spot all the time. It was still a blast though.

Afterwards we changed back, and then were picked up by a carriage pulled by 3 horses. Along with us was an accordeon player. We got some booze into us, and spooked quite a few tourists by singing numerous songs loudly (and totally off key).

Back at the hotel we had some time to relax and shower a little, before we were taken to a beach-restaurant where we enjoyed a bbq. After that we hit some local bar. It was packed, though, so we quickly decided to just go downtown and find ourselves some nice and quiet bars. Afterwards, back at the hotel, we plundered and pillaged all the minibars and sat down in the lobby.

All in all, despite my initial fears, we had quite a nice time :) It's a shame the nun wasn't there; she'd have loved it, too.

I will see her again soon (in 4 days), though not soon enough :love:
 
And then you wake up one day and suddenly realise that it's close to a year that you got together.

11 months today. Wow. 30 more days and it'll be a whole year.

:love:



Lover lover talk to me
We've both been here before
Takes a lot of time to see
You need less to become more
But not this time

Lover lover come to me
And don’t say it ain’t so
That you don’t know how
You don’t know when
There’s nowhere left to go

And all this time, evening cries
With no words, no words

Oh no, seems the best is yet to come
Oh no, seems the best is yet to come
I'm screamin' it out boy, screamin' it out
Oh no, seems the best is yet to come

So lover please don’t loose yourself
Don't let your promise die
Cause you don’t know how
And you don’t know when
There’s nowhere left to hide

Lover lover talk to me
We've both been here before
Takes a lot of time to see
You need less to become more

And all this time, evening cries
With no words, no words

Oh no, seems the best is yet to come
Oh no, seems the best is yet to come
I'm screamin' it out boy, screamin' it out
Oh lord, seems the best is yet to come

And if you need a good reason, I'll give you one
Oh no, seems the best is yet to come
The best is yet to come
The best is yet to come

So lover lover, talk to me
The best is yet to come
The best is yet to come
Screamin' it out boy, screamin' it out
Oh lord, seems the best is yet to come
 
September 26th. A year ago, I realised I had feelings for Lykke. At that time, I was still in the middle of trying to decide whether I should tell her or not. She complained about guys falling for her, which made it all the harder for me to fess up.

Three or four days from now a year ago, I finally decided to come clean with her, and tell her that while I enjoyed her friendship, I frankly was interested in more.

Anyone who was ever falling in love and doubted the other person's feelings will know exactly what I went through. Do you tell her? Will you jeopardise the friendship you have, or will you come clean and let her know how she feels?

I decided to just risk it. Almost a year down the road, I feel so glad that I did.

When it comes to PE, I just feel sad. I see the threads started now complaining about bugs. I've fellt like that even a year ago. Back then I just hoped things would improve. Sadly, that did not appear to have happened.

In the past, I've been called a whiner by many. Recently, I have kept quiet. Others took my place. It wasn't just me who fellt the way things have been going was such a shame, but during the course of almost a year, not much seems to have improved.

That saddens me. Each and every one of us here hoped that some day, what drew us to this game would become true. Perhaps we were optimists. Perhaps we were fools. We'll never know.
 
1 year :love:

Today, exactly one year ago, somewhere at about 4 PM or so, Lykke and me told one another three magic words that hold so much power.

A lot happened in the past year for both of us, but all of it has been good. The year literally flew by, and we achieved much, on many different levels. We both grew immensly by learning new things about and from one another, and we have big plans for the future :)

I'm quite sure that more of these anniversaries will follow.

To my dearest Lykke, I love you so much, and in two days, you'll be in my arms again :love:
 
Egypt

Ever since my first year in High School, where we were taught about Egypt, I wanted to go there. The country seemed exciting, mysterious, and almost magical.

My graduation gift from my aunt was a trip to Egypt. That was back in '93. However, we never went, due to some tourists being shot back then.

Egypt had me in its grip though. I read countless books about the country, and despite the recommendation of my teacher, my History essay was also about Egypt. Somehow it always felt as "home" to me. I believe in reincarnation, and do not doubt one moment that in a past life, I was Egyptian.

Early this year, Lykke (who shares the same enthusiasm as I do) and me discussed a vacation to Egypt, and in April we booked a one week trip for the both of us, as well as her daughter (who got the trip from us as her birthday present).

The 17th was the day we left. The trip started off spending 4 hours on a plane with a family of trailer trash who were obnoxious and extremely loud. Not just their kids, but they themselves too. We landed, and just got the hell out of the plane, begging to Lootius that they were not in our hotel. They were. Luckily, we were in a completely different part of the hotel than they were, and other than losing our appetite after seeing the massive woman in a bikini at the pool (we suspect she stayed away from the beach, because otherwise Greenpeace would try to push her back into the sea), we didn’t get bothered by them whatsoever.

We were staying in a 5-star all-inclusive hotel, which was the bomb. Free food, free drinks, 26 degree weather, a sea so blue it seemed almost unreal, friendly staff all over, and not having to do one single thing ourselves. Cooking was done for us, all the food was buffet-style, yummy cocktails were made for us. In one word: Heaven.

The first real day was mostly spent looking for bathing suits for the girls. We immediately encountered the typical Egyptian way. We found ourselves in a town, and were approached almost instantly by a guy who introduced himself to us, and then went on to drag us from shop to shop. During the trip, we found this happening time and time again. The majority of the Egyptians are curious and friendly, but to us, tourists, can appear a little pushy.

My advice to anyone planning on traveling to Egypt is to just brush them off. Just tell them La’ (no). It might seem rude at first, but it’s the only sure way to prevent you from being dragged from shop to shop for hours by them.

The second full day there, we went on excursion to Cairo. First up was a visit to the pyramids and the Sphinx (where we once more had locals trying to drag us back and forth everywhere (Word of advice: If you get suckered into going with one of them for pictures of you in front of the pyramid, do not, under any circumstance get on a camel. They will charge you for it to sit down again. I was wise enough not to ;))).

Seeing the sheer size of the pyramids was overwhelming. Other than that, to both Lykke and me, it felt as if we were home. I think out of all of the trip, seeing the pyramids was the most emotional moment. We talked about it later, and apparently we both were almost in tears right then and there.

The Sphinx was also quite impressive to see, as was the following trip to the Egyptian museum afterwards. The visit to the bazaar we did afterwards was not so good though. By that time, the three of us were tired, and just wanted to sit down and relax a little, without being pulled on by anyone wishing to sell us anything. So we just sat at a bar, and watched the staff trying to brush off anyone begging, selling, and what not (they were busy).

In hindsight, that day went by far too fast. We’d have preferred spending more time both at the pyramids and at the museum, and skipping the bazaar. We’ll go back though :)

We also decided to take a trip to “Moses-mountain”. In Dutch, it’s known as the “Tempelberg”, which is Mount Sinai, where Moses reportedly received the 10 commandments from Jahweh.

We were picked up at 22:30, spent 2.5 hours in a bumpy bus, and around 1:30 AM started walking. Walking is a vague description though, as the trip consisted of scrambling up a stony and rough path. 2.4 kilometers up onto a mountain or so, in complete and utter darkness, with camels passing left and right, at times almost pushing you into one of the many steep drops, guided by only a flashlight. With Lykke on high heeled boots (she didn’t have anything else).

After 3.5 or 4 hours of climbing (the 700 steps at the top were killing us), we sat down to watch the sunrise for about 20 minutes, and then started climbing down again. 2.5 hours or so later, we got a tour of the St. Catherina Cloister (which sucked. You see the “Moses well” (The well where Moses met his future wife), which was a bunch of wooden boards covering what once was a well), and the “Burning Bush” (unfortunately not George W, but an offspring of the original Burning Bush that Moses saw on the mountain), but by then we were too exhausted to care much, and we just wanted to get back to the hotel to sleep.

The last excursion we took was on Monday, and consisted of a 20 minute ride on a camel (my ass is still sore), getting tea and smoking a water pipe with the Bedouins, followed by diner with them, and then watching the stars. That trip was the best way to conclude our vacation. It definitely was fun, impressive, and we might consider doing that again, too :)

The time in-between, we mostly stayed in the hotel, swimming, getting sunburned, sipping cocktails, and talking to some of the local shop owners and bar personnel. Somehow, everyone on the staff we met there knew we were heading home on Tuesday again, and we spent the majority of the morning saying goodbye to everybody.

All in all, we had an amazing vacation, we have plans on setting up a business, and we most definitely will go back to the same hotel some time next year (most likely May, and for two weeks this time, with most likely excursions to Cairo again, and Luxor).

Cons: Loud Dutch trash, rude Russian trash (lots of mullets), some extremely pushy Egyptians.


Pros: We went home. Seeing the pyramids and Sphinx. We never knew that Egypt is a country where Muslim and Christian people live very peacefully together, and try learning as much from one another as possible. The majority of Egyptians are very kind and friendly. Living like gods for a week. My snorkeling experience and the test diving lesson in the swimming pool (I never did get my diving credentials, but I’m sure going to try getting them before next time).

But most of all, spending that one week in heaven with Lykke :love: I don’t think I could have spent it the same way with anyone else.
 
Music update!

Woot. Not only will we seen Level 42 very soon, but we just booked tickets to Toto in March :D

We're both SO stuck in the 80's.
 
Woot. Genesis is touring again. We are so going to try and obtain some tickets. They'll visit numerous European countries, so we ought to be able to get them :D Genesis live is absolutely awesome.

Found some more movies for your viewing pleasure.

The mother of all trailers:

http://dump.geenstijl.nl/mediabase/6153/18aa19ad/index.html

Why skydyving is bad for your teeth:

http://dump.geenstijl.nl/mediabase/6149/3e5ee396/index.html

Our Egyptian bartender after work:

http://dump.geenstijl.nl/mediabase/6107/9b9d2aab/index.html
 
*LOL*

One of the funniest things I've seen in life. It's Belgian, and the language spoken is Dutch. The reason I still post it is that the majority of the clips are self-explaining without knowing what is said.
 
Have a good one everybody. We'll meet again somewhere else where the beckon of Lootius calls :)
 
A little birdie told me Lootius has been spotted in various dimensions. YOU ARE YOU.

Still waiting for my money, by the way. It's been two months, and counting.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top