Hi all. This is, without a doubt, the absolutely very worst day of my life. And I mean that in all thinkable ways possible. This morning I heard that Jan has suddenly died yesterday. His wife called me to tell me the sad news and it hit me so damn hard that all I could say was how sorry I was for her. I just couldn't say anything more. God I felt empty. This just couldn't be true. In the early afternoon I called her back to excuse my short response from this morning. She then told me that Jan was still at work when it happened and was just about ready to go home when he suffered from a sudden cardiac arrest. The docter said he himself probably didn't feel it happening, which I guess is best for him. However Jan was only fourty one years young and that's way too soon to pass away. I feel like I have lost an older brother ... not sure what to say more now ... I'm still empty.

Hi all. Eight o clock in the morning. Two reasonable sleepy guys in front of a big TV watching a Formula One race. That just about sums our morning up I suppose. It was a cool race and worth getting up early for. I guess we'll rest a bit tomorrow :-)

Hi all. Today I worked at the shop again. Nothing much happened there. I went to play snooker with Bas afterwards and this was good fun. Tomorrow is another Formula One race in Malaysia so we can't stay up too late. I'm the lucky one this time. Bas is coming over to my place to watch the race so I'll just wait for the doorbell to ring and then get up I think ;-) This time still is better than 2 weeks back when it was in Australia and we were watching it live at 6.00 a.m. :-

Hi all. Mrs. v. Bemmel is being cremated today. I'm going there too to support Mr. v. Bemmel as much as possible. I haven't been to many of these events thank god so we both just have to make the best of it I think. I hate these things happening, I really do.

Hi all. Tonight my mom was coming over for diner so there was lots of work to do. Clean the room a little, dust off the place and vacuum clean quickly around (and inside of course ;-) the house. And lets not forget there was some shopping to be done for diner itself. Naturally I couldn't get away with pizza again, right? But all things went well and we had a nice diner together. She even liked my cooking!

Hi all. This is another snooker date and this time it was almost a home game. That's right, we did not have to leave Nijmegen this time. We only lost four to five and this wasn't so bad but as always things could have been just a little better.

Hi all. Mr. v. Bemmel really appreciated me being there, although there was not much I could do for him. We just talked about all kinds of things all day but I could see he wasn't really with me. I hope he will be okay. This must be the worst kind of thing to happen to anyone. To loose someone is one thing, to loose someone you've been with for more than sixty years is devastating.

Hi all. Today started okay because Eve's daughter has her birthday so i called the little girl (don't tell anyone I called her that by the way) to wish her a nice day. She turned fourteen (going on fifteen) and is really starting to grow up fast now. I was at work of course, this being a Saturday and all. At about two thirty however everything went the other way when Mr. v. Bemmel called to tell me that his wife had suddenly died, about half an hour earlier. She was eighty five years old but this still came as a surprise because there was nothing wrong with her. She and Mr. v. Bemmel have been together for a little over sixty two years. Needless to say this was a enormous shock to Mr. v. Bemmel as well. This afternoon his children are coming over and tomorrow Biek will go over to be support him the best way possible.

Hi all. We were supposed to play snooker tonight but the other team called to tell us they didn't have enough people to get it done so the game now is due for another time. Oh well, these things happen every now and then. We ourselves also sometimes have trouble getting the team together so we know the feeling ;-)

Hi all. All right!! I managed to wake up today! Though I looks like he has been hit by that darn truck again, jeez!! :-) I think it would be best not to disturb myself too much right now and let me get myself together during the afternoon (or what's left of it ;-)

Hi all. Do you ever have that feeling as if a big ol' ugly truck just ran you over? I think this is a pretty close description of how I feel right now. Looks like I just never learn.

Staying up late to watch television is one thing but doing this knowing you have to get up to go to work and having no more than five hours of sleep is not a sane decision for somebody my age :-) The qualifying took until four thirty last night so when I got up this morning the man with the hammer got in his truck and started driving.

After the running over process I got to work. A good friend of mine invited him for diner after work so he went over there after the shop closed. It was quite nice and I left their house at about ten p.m. From the car I then called Bas who was going to come over to my place to both watch the race and keep me awake :-) to tell him that Biek was on his way home.

Bas arrived at about eleven I think. We first tried to pick a movie to watch (we had some time to pass before the race was going to start at four! a.m.) and got ourselves some coffee. After watching the movie and going over the highlights from last years race, this years race started and what an explosive start of the season it was! These are the kind of starts that keep you awake for quite some time I can assure you.

Using lots of coffee and cola light (caffeine was the main thing here) we managed to see the entire race without dosing of for a second. The whole spectacle ended at about six a.m. and when I finally hit the bed it was as if the instant sleeping device had taken over.

Even before my head touched my pillow I was well asleep.

Hi all. The Formula One season has began so the next couple of days we'll probably not get our usual portion of sleep. The first race is held in Australia, in Melbourne to be exact, and starts on Sunday at two p.m. local time.

Because the time difference is about ten hours we will have to get up or stay up until four a.m. Sunday morning. Before they can start racing they need to determine from which place on the grid everybody is going to start the race.

This is done Saturdays in the qualifying session. And this is with the ten hour difference as well. Now there are two ways of dealing with this time difference: one is you don't care, stay up late, watch the events and then go to sleep and two is the VCR.

Today, for the qualifying session, I'm going to stay up and watch it live on television. We will see you all tomorrow I guess.