Hi all. The BX. Now I promised to give you guys a bit more inside information from the 'exiting' world of the BX. Were to start? It's a car from nineteen eighty seven, it's French and it's grey metallic. So much for the good news. (Not counting the French part :-) The bad news is that the car has a leak. Oh I'm sorry, did I say 'a' leak? It has plenty. Two by the windshield (in both upper corners) and one somewhere in the rear. The fan inside the heater is wasted. (Remember the Christmas day?) This means that I have to ride the darn thing with all windows a little opened to get a bit or air flowing through the inside to keep the windows clean from condensation. The two leaks in the windshield make sure that the front seats act like they are having a contest about which one can hold the most water or something. Sponge ... ring a bell? Speaking of the front seat, the one on the drivers side stands with an angle so everytime I step out of the car (or do my best trying) I have to firmly straighten my back again. The rear window heating works for about five percent so this doesn't help either. However there is still a bit of good news: it stopped freezing where I live, so I don't have to get rid of the ice on both inside and outside of the car. So much for the BX. Just don't wanthink about the darn thing most of the time.

Hi all. For some reason all my delayed snooker dates were due this week. And tonight was another one. This time, in theory, the odds were a bit in my favor. Because I playes snooker on regular bases and my friend Ernest mostly plays pool. The fact that this guy playes pool at a national level shouldn't be relevant (doh!). Well it was ;-) The frames were good fun to play but sadly I lost a bit more than expected. My luck was that we weren't playing for the bill or something silly like that :-) We should do this more often, it's nice.

Hi all. Jingle bells part two. Today I was with mom, her friend Hans, Stefan and my sister. This was the first time I actualy met my mom's friend Hans so this was a bit strange in the beginning. Luckaly everything went okay (everybody liked everybody ;-) and we had a lovely diner with the five of us. We should do this more often ;-)

Hi all. Jingle bells, jingle ... etc. Yes folks it's christmas. With my parents beeing devorced I now have both his christmasdays covered. Hurrah. The first I spend with dad, dad's girlfriend Margot and one of her sons Wouter. We had a gourmet diner wich was really nice. The sad part was the BX braking down on me. But we'll explain it in another part of this column. This is supposed to be a happy occasion, right?

Hi all. A long awaited snookerdate finlay came through. Erik and I were to meet at the snookertable again since some time for some time now and today it happened. Of course I beat him ;-) but had this been an AutoCad contest Erik sure would whoop my butt all over the screen, trust me. Anyway, the fun departement was okay and that's what counts right?

Hi all. The Lord of the Rings. My sister and Stefan have read the books from which this movie was made. I didn't (but I'm catching up as we speak) so this whole story was new to me. What a great movie! Beautiful locations (spared no expenses would the old guy from Jurassic Park probably say ;-) a bunch of well known actors and actresses and the story was rather easy to follow (though it appeared it had a train to catch looking at the speed of the movie).

Well then I hear you think, did I like it much then? Yes and no. The movie part was really okay but the ending was useless. Okay okay, from what I understand there are six books, which for the movie are divided into three stories. Each story is going to be a movie and movies have to end somewhere.

But I would like to suggest that the people from the Lord of the Rings party were to go talking to George Lucas who had about the same 'problem' and did manage to get (well there are two more movies to follow but I think he'll pull it of nicely) the six stories converted into movies that you are able to watch as an individual movie without completely missing the point.

Other than that the movie was okay ... no really ... ;-)

Hi all. Did I say party yesterday? Well I must have been mistaken for some reason. Let me explain why. I was supposed to have a nice and simple celebration at my dad's house with just my dad and his girlfriend Margot, my sister with Stefan and of course myself. My simple mind worked overtime during the day because I was a little worried about that evening. I mean how was I going to get it to run smoothly. Then I decided to bring the playstation along for the ride and with it a couple of movies on DvD. You know, just for some entertainment. Of course I didn't know that everything was allready arranged for that evening already. At first I wasn't aware of anything being different than I had planned, but soon the surprise came. It started with the doorbell and with Erik and Dagmar coming in. This was nothing to be worried about I thought 'cause my sister had seen Erik a couple of weeks earlier so I thought that she had invited him to talk some more or something. Well that thought went as soon as the doorbell rang again. This time it was Jan and his wife. And these folks live on the other end of the country so they were not just in the neighborhood. At this point I started to get a little worried to say the least. Who else would make his or hers appearance from now on. Matje was the next I think and he was followed by Jaap. Needless to say I was surprised in the beginning and didn't really know what to do with all these people coming in. But as it turned out everything was taken care of so it was a great party after all. Let's just hope they tell me next time :-)

Hi all. Party! As every year on the twentieth I have my birthday, so this year isn't an exception. During the day I got some e-mails, calls and sms messages from people who congratulated me with my thirty years on the planet. This was just fine 'cause I'm is not the party-animal as most of you will know. I spend the evening watching an theater play which starred Stefan amongst others. I went there with my mother, and we both liked the play.

Hi all. This was a nice day. Remember Erik? Well I talked him into upgrading to Windows XP and he agreed! So at about one a clock we started happily with his computer to make it 'XP ready' so we could begin installing. When we were finished with that stadium we found out that his cdrom player was not in a 'usable mood' so a quick trip back to my place to get another cd drive and back we went to get to part two of our mission. When we finally got XP up and running he was like a little child with a new toy. He couldn't believe the difference in speed and really liked the way it 'looks and feels' so one more happy pall I think. (Btw. he also has great taste 'cause he liked the Silver theme better than the blue one Trinity, hint hint ;-) Hehe.

Hi all. Did I mention I'm a member of a shooting club? Well I am. Our club evening is on Wednesday but that's also the club evening of my snooker centre. And that's mostly the reason for me not being there for some time. Tonight I went there and did some shooting. I'm still a lousy shooter so I didn't loose my 'touch' anymore than I already did ... LOL. I plan on going again next week as well because that is the last club night of 2001 so I guess I should be there. People expect us to turn up so ...

Hi all. Tonight we had a competition evening of snooker in Amersfoort. I don't think I've ever made more fouls and mistakes than this night. Geez! I managed to win one of my three frames but that was just a small comfort to my mood on the way home. Let's hope that this was just a one of a kind off-day and not something that comes back more often. Not that I'm that good in snooker but I don't like giving it away, specially when I know I cna play much better than that.

Hi all. Erik came to my place today to pick up some hardware that I didn't really need anymore and with which he could upgrade his computer. I almost forgot him because my sister also came to visit me. He came anyway and we had a nice afternoon. After doing the math's we found out that my sister and him hadn't seen each other for about a zillion years so there was quite some catching up to do. We raced each other on the playstation a couple of times as well which was great fun.

Hi all. Because my father has a shop and likes to have long weekends and because I really like cheap computer upgrades we were able to work out a nice deal. You can guess but you'll know what I mean :-) This means that I usualy work in my fathers shop on saturdays. Today was one of these as you can guess. Nothing special happened so I could work on this site for some time. The BX started faster than I could think about it not going to so that's a big plus. I did however lost about twenty minutes getting the windows (not XP :-) icefree this morning. Bummer I guess.

Hi all. My boss came to see me at home (because he had a awfull lot of explaining to do) and he brought a replacement car with him. I now am the (more or less ... screw that, it's less) happy driver of a BX14 ... oh well it easlily gets from nul to sixty in about fifteen minutes and it definately beats walking that's for sure. It also seems to be getting a reasonabe amount of kilometers per liter gas but I'll get back on that when I know for sure. They say you feel better in a Peugeot, so we'll see.

Hi all. Today we had a surprise evening with my dad and Margot his girlfriend, her two sons and my sister and (allmost ;-) brother in law Stefan. I still had to finish the last bit on the surprise I made for my 'victom' and needed some wrappingpaper and a glue stick to get it all done. Stefan would be at my place at around noon so I got up early (for me anyway) to get things done.

Because my car was gone I walked to the centre of town to get the stuff I needed. And because I forgot my wallet I did it again to be able to pay for it too.(Duh!) In the end all went well and my surprise looked better than expected if I say so myself.

It was nicely finished when Stefan arived and we spend the rest of the afternoon playing Gran Turismo 3 on the playstation.

Even though in the beginning I really didn't want to be there, the surprise evening was a succes I think. Everbody was overloaded with the needed poems and presents and we had a great time toghether. I got a snookerbook and a small pocketbook with things to do before your 30th birthday.(and I do need to hurry I guess) from my sister, who pulled me out of the hat to make her surprise for, I also got a Starwars Episode 1 Insiders Guide wich is really nice and a cool pizza slicer (wich I really needed because the old one got less sharp so ...)