Hi all. Just a simple note to let you guys know I'm still around. Just about all of the past week I've been leaning against a upcoming flu of some kind and last Saturday it came out. During the day I only felt slightly tired and sounded like having a firm cold, but when I was driving home from Bas later on I was trembling completely out of control, I just couldn't keep myself still. Even when I was at home in bed I still shook like crazy, feeling stone cold. However when I woke up the next morning I felt a lot better and went back to Bas to watch Formula One and do some 'networking'. Unfortunately as time went by I started to get cold again (even with the borrowed sweater) and we had to call it a day a lot earlier than planned. Today I'm still l having the nagging headache, feeling pretty cold and my head feels all clouded up from the neck up so to speak. Specially the right side of it. So I have not been working and when I keep feeling like this (or worse) I also won't be tomorrow, but we'll see what the afternoon brings. It's been more than long enough again for my taste so let's get on with it!

Hi all. We played another snooker match yesterday and had a relative easy six to three frames victory over the other team. My first frame was the most relaxed one, but a complete horror to watch. Boy did we give each other chances. If only a small percentage of them actually had gone in, the score would have been much higher for the both of us. While we were scraping the points of the table we couldn't stop grinning every once and a while as neither of us could help missing all kinds of shots. In the end I had the advantage but it could have went to either of us. The second was no fun. First of all the guy was very arrogant and did not look happy at all so it was no fun to play him. I partly won the frame because he was playing himself rather than playing me (which is not fair of course, because then it was two to one *grin*) but after every shot he was clearly getting more annoyed, more so because I was able to use my given chances and potted enough points to keep up. The end of the frame was kind of funny. Bas asked the guy what the difference was and he said that it was nothing, not caring really. Bas asked him again how much and the guy said that it could still go either way, because we both needed the black. Then Bas spoke the historic words 'yeah, but he's playing it first' while pointing at me. I tell you I had trouble keeping my laughter because even though it was not the easiest of shots, the type itself is one I like to play very much. So I potted the black and that was that :-) Frame two was mine. The one frame I lost was totally deserved as my opponent shot in a very nice thirty three break leaving me only one red and the remaining colors when I finally was back at the table. I potted that red (which was lock tight to the rail so that was simple ;-) and played nice position on the black, which I needed absolutely to be able to win the frame. However just as easy as I potted that red, I missed the black by a long shot so then I immediately needed one snooker. When my opponent then potted another two colors my game was over fair and square. Good frame though, but a thirty three break simply is hard to get back from on my level. All three of us had won two frames to one on personal basis to the score was nicely balanced among us. It took us quite a while to get home because the city was undergoing some major rebuilding of all kinds of stuff, keeping us waiting on various points on our way out of there. But in the end we made it of course ;-) One more match to go and the season is done. We'll probably see a lot of teams again next year and I'm looking forward to that already.

Hi all. Do you ever get to a door, expect it to open nicely and then kind of roughly fold yourself against it's surface because for whatever reason it didn't open nicely? This happens to me every now and then. I can think of two situations. First one is when I walk up to a door, aim for the grip, just miss it and simply keep on walking. Bang. Halt. The other is when I walk up to a door, aim for the grip, actually catch it and keep on walking only to find that the door is locked shut. Bang. Halt. Again. This second example was the type that I experienced this morning when I wanted to enter the room and get to work. Bang. Halt. What the ... ? And you know what? For some reason it doesn't feel right. First you wonder if it's a holiday or national feast or something like that. It wouldn't be the first time I stood before the building of a company being entirely closed up only to find out that no one at all was coming to work that day. I don't know, Easter or something like that. Then you begin to wonder if maybe someone forgot to tell you something yesterday and you being at work the day before actually was your last ... Lucky for me I'm a quick thinker (well sometimes anyway) so I went back to our plant security department. When I almost reached them our manager crossed my path and told me she had a key. Cool, so we head back to the rooms where we are situated and found out that her key wasn't valid ... It fitted, but that's where the dream stopped. No wonderland so to speak ;-) Right. So then we both went over to plant security and asked them for one of them universal keys so we could open the office. They were nice, we got it :-) So after doing more than my usual morning walk I finally can begin my working day now, which after all is what I came here for. Maybe we'll get a key for tomorrow or something, we'll see.

Hi all. How was your weekend? Mine was half good half bad. Saturday was okay, I went to work in my dads shop as usual and later went over to Bas to watch some movie's and play some snooker later on. I finally was able to beat him again which hadn't been the case for some time. For some reason just about everything I went for got in and his attempts ... well erhm ... didn't ;-) The Sunday however was a completely different story. I woke up at about seven fifteen which might sound early but is still a couple of hours later than the rest of the week. So that's nothing to worry about. However what was something to worry about was the pounding headache I woke up with. Last week I was telling my mother how good the past time has been in regard to having headaches and stuff. And just when I was supposed to have a nice family day (and you don't even want to know half the trouble this year has been before I was even supposed to show up ...) I wake up with a head that feels like exploding. So I took an amount of aspirins which should get it out of the way (very) quickly but Mother Nature had other plans in mind. This meant I had to call my own mother and tell her the bad news. She was a little disappointed but understanding of course and whished me all the luck. At that time I had hopes of getting the ache out of my head but the bugger stayed with me the entire day. And I was freezing all day long, man I was cold. The heating had twenty two degrees on it and I was wearing four layers of clothing but it didn't do me much good all together. Lucky for me this morning I'm more or less back in the old state I was in before which is not too bad ;-) Only a slight bit of the headache remained and the cold has gone completely. And even if it hadn't it would have been quite a achievement in keeping cool today because this is the first day of us moving into a new building with the entire Servicedesk. The room is quite nice (and so is the view or so the lady's tell me ;-) but I'm fearing the afternoon as this is a flat building and has no air conditioning at all so it probably get's kind of warm later on. Which me luck folks, I'll need it ...

Hi all. Even tough the three of us were looking forward to playing some nice snooker for the competition last night didn't help us much. Unfortunately we lost, quite badly, but while doing so still were having a good time. And since that is still our main goal when going out for snooker you could say that was an okay evening. Then we learned that the other team needed the points to keep them from degrading to the lower division and it immidiately felt a little better since we kind of helped them in strenghtening their position. let's hope they'll be with us next year, they're good chaps. I'll probably be playing snooker again tomorrow with bas and hopefully I'll be playing a better game than last night. And hopefully he'll do too because he said it wasn't stuff that needed to be shown on TV ;-)

Hi all. Didn't I tell you we should quit calling these LAN weekends 'race' weekends? Well after this one we probably will. We spend just about the entire weekend going through the process of learning to sail a virtual submarine, which may seem quite easy (after all what can go wrong when no-one can see you under water?) but when played on full realism sure is one harsh task. It's based around the WWII scenario so therefore we can only have those 'old' subs with no fancy LCD screens, no easy point and click targeting, none of that. All we have is good old fashion manual targeting and it's quite a sport to actually get the fishies to touch the bad guys and go 'boom' about one and a half mile away while remaining undetected. The good news is that it's pretty relaxing to play this as long as things do not get to hectic so we could sail on for hours on end. You'll be hearing from us :-)

Hi all. What are the odds on a VW Polo to outsmart a Porsche Cheyenne on the freeway? Earlier this evening I found out that these odds aren't as bad as they might seem at first glance ;-) First things first: I like 4x4's. The bigger the better and for me they don't need to be round on any corner at all, after all you're not racing these things so why bother with smooth curves or a low cw value so it can 'glide' through the air. No, not at all. They should look like they were drawn with a ruler only. No curved lines. These things should simply fill up every rearview mirror a 'normal' car has (at the same time) and make you feel the sun went behind a cloud for a moment when they pass you by. Meanwhile anything smaller than a Suzuki Wagon R (you know, them funny little lunch-boxes on wheels kind of cars ;-) get's sucked into the vacuum behind it and go with the flow along the way, powerless to do something about it. (Picture that in your head and try not to smile LOL) Come to think of it the biggest disadvantage of these huge monsters are more and more often those idiots of persons driving them. For some reason these people seem to think size does matter and the bigger the car the smaller the gap between two driving cars on the freeway they try to fit it in, or at least that's my impression. Mind you, this is not every one of them out there. But quite a few, too many. So tonight, while doing my (very) best to get home in time after finishing the late shift at work last night, I was making good time on that little peace of freeway I can use on my route. And there it was, the (by the way insanely blue metallic colored) Cheyenne, traveling quite a lot slower (maybe even just following the speed-limit) and also on the right lane. Then I was coming up behind it and switched lanes to pass it. And just when my front wheel had about reached it's rear one the (female) driver suddenly noticed that 'something very small and black' was going to overtake her Porsche! 'Well not in this lifetime' must be close to what she thought and floored the poor wannabe Humvee. By the way, you might get the impression that I don't like Porsche's which is to some extend is true but hasn't really got anything to do with this particular one. This could have (and in the past has) been any big(ger) car with any driver trying to pull the same stunt. They just don't learn. The situation was like this: on the right lane a big truck was calmly traveling at I guess eighty five kilometers an hour. At approximately a hundred and fifty to two hundred meters behind it was the Porsche going a guesstimated hundred and thirty and the UFS&BO (unidentified flying small and black object: me) which had just moved to the left lane did a solidly confirmed hundred and sixty five. I know I know, but I like a said I was in a hurry. Sorry mom, eurhm ... emergency? ;-) And Miss 'I didn't just spend a hundred and forty five grand on this peace of blue metal to let it get passed by some toy car' thought she'd outrun the poor UFS&BO simply by flooring her blue bugger. Honestly I have to admit I was surprised by the capabilities of that son-of-a-car. I mean for a car that size (oh, and that color ...) it has d*mn good breaks. (that must be due to some Porsche parts still in there somewhere ;-) She completely misjudged the difference in speed of the UFS&BO and her blue 'Posh-uh' (yes yes, intended spelling error ;-) and suddenly saw that big truck in glorious close up before slamming the brakes while doing what looked like a successful ABS test. Congratulations Miss, have one on me. While her adrenaline level was getting back to a somewhat more normal level, in the distance (far far away) the UFS&BO was already hurtling towards it's next victim in great style. And for those interested: I did make it home in time, but only just. Never underestimate the power of the 'dark' side *grin*

Hi all. Yes yes, I know it's early but I simply woke up again already and after lying around for a couple of minutes decided that I probably wasn't going to sleep more anyway so I got up. The past couple of days I have been sleeping really great but also am waking up kind of early. Or after five to six hours tops is better put. Don't know how or why but so far I'm feeling fine so I'm not complaining. Last Saturday I've been visiting my new niece together with Bas before we went snookering. Like Stefan says she's all dried up and more or less wrinkle free and looks even more beautiful than she did before. I even got t hold her for a while which was really special. After all it's not every day that such a sweet little person ends up in my arms. Great! Then Bas and I went snookering and before we went there he had promised to beat me for making smart remarks and stuff. Point is that he says that a lot and not always actually goes through with it so I wasn't worried. Well, to make a long story somewhat shorter: I should have. Next time I'm wearing my GT shirt again, no matter what they say ;-) Honestly he played well and deserved to win but I had hoped to be able to give him a little more opposition than I did. The rest of the 'race' weekend (by the way we really need to start calling it LAN weekend I think) we spend watching the Formula One race on Bahrain and playing the new Silent Hunter game which is all about submarines. It's very cool and quite relaxed in playing so we had great fun underseas. I'm off for breakfast so talk to you all later. Oh and I have no idea what I meant with that title ... best to simply forget it I guess :-)