Er de brui aan geven

Ik ben de laatste tijd, met vlagen, steeds actiever in het verwijderen van accounts bij verschillende websites.

Hyves is de deur uit, zo ook Last.fm, Twitter, en wat andere ‘social networking’ dingen. Linked In wordt vandaag of morgen verwijderd, maar dat loopt via support van die site.

Dit omdat ik merk dat ik hoe langer hoe meer tijd aan onzin op internet zat te besteden. Op Hyves kijken hoe mensen er aan toe zijn die ik 15 jaar geleden voor het laatst gezien heb.

Niet dat het me enorm interesseert, maar ik was er wel tijd aan aan het besteden. Ditzelfde geldt voor een hoop van die andere sites. Wie schiet er wat mee op om te zien dat ik in 2009 naar 750 liedjes van Nick Cave geluisterd heb? Ik niet, en het interesseert me ook niet (meer).

Ik zit er nu ook sterk aan te denken om dit Blog op te heffen. Persoonlijke informatie zet ik er steeds minder op, omdat niemand daar wat mee te maken heeft, behalve mensen die ik in het ‘echte’ leven ook zie. Die kan ik dingen ook vertellen. Ook daar zit iets in wat me stoort. Ik kom vaak bij familie of vrienden, en bij de helft van de dingen die je wil vertellen krijg ik de reactie “Ja, dat heb ik gelezen”… Einde gesprek. Iedereen weet alles al. Heel vervelend.

Wat ook een vrij belangrijk deel van de overweging is, is dat het me stoort dat ik vaak bezig ben met ‘het checken van <vul hier een website in>’. Terwijl, als ik er goed over nadenk, ik daar helemaal niet mee bezig wil zijn. Ik wil niet dat het me boeit wat er op die website staat over vage kennissen en mensen die ik amper ken.

Oftewel, binnenkort verdwijnt dit blog hoogstwaarschijnlijk. Dan is Facebook zo ongeveer de enige website die ik nog wel aanhou, omdat ik daar veel informatie vandaan haal die ik wel interessant vindt, voornamelijk met betrekking tot muziek en whisky.

De kans is dus groot dat dit de laatste post hier zal zijn.

Het was me een genoegen, tabee!

Krimpscheuren

Toen we ons huis kochten wisten we niet precies wat we onder de grond zouden aantreffen, omdat de kruipruimte geblokkeerd was door allerlei puin van een verbouwing van 11 of 12 jaar geleden.

Uiteindelijk, toen we de hele vloer eruit gehaald hebben bleek dat we in ons huis een soort van moeras hadden, omdat de grapjassen die hier het fundamentherstel hebben uitgevoerd het nodig vonden om alle ventilatie van het fundament dicht te purren, om balken vast te leggen die er toch al niks te zoeken hadden. Toch jammer, gezien het officieel wel professionals waren enzo.

Uiteraard hebben we dat ook aangepakt en zijn er nieuwe ventilatieschachten en –roosters geplaatst. Daarna gaat je fundament drogen. Dat lukt nu vrij aardig, gezien het al tijden niet geregend heeft (sneeuw boeit niet zo, dat blijft buiten).

Wat je dan normaalgesproken ziet bij nieuwbouw huizen, is dat stucwerk nog wel eens wil scheuren en een deur wil gaan aanlopen. Wij hebben een 60 jaar oud huis, en hier gebeurt dat nu ook. Echt te irritant. Blijkbaar droogt het goed, want we zien veel extra scheurtjes elke week, vooral rond de voordeur waar het veruit het natst was onder de vloer.

Wat houdt het in: we moeten, als het 100% droog is, waarschijnlijk laat in de lente, alles nog goed nalopen met een kwast en een roller. Naden langs gipsplaten moeten opnieuw gekit of geschilderd worden. De deur van de vestibule moet geschaafd worden, want die begint enorm aan te lopen (gisteren nog niet, vandaag wel).

Gelukkig hadden we het houtwerk nog niet geschilderd, anders zou dat ook opnieuw moeten… Mega irritant.

Toch twijfelen over Twitter

Nee, ik vind het geen goed systeem ineens. Sterker nog, mijn afkeer ervan is zo mogelijk nog groter geworden.

Het enige nadeel van mijn standpunt is dat er enorm veel bedrijven en interessante personen niet (meer) bloggen, maar wel twitteren.

De halve whisky industrie zit tegenwoordig op Twitter en dat maakt het toch wel interessant om te volgen.

Vooralsnog zit er sterk aan te denken om een accountje aan te maken en puur en alleen dingen te volgen. Informatie verzamelen zeg maar…

Diepe zucht

In onze douche hier zit een redelijk moderne thermostaatkraan. Nu ben ik iemand van de oude stempel en heb liever een mengkraan, maar dat doet er verder niet toe. Het ding is sowieso of helemaal ontregeld, of simpelweg kapot.

Afgelopen weekend in een soort 3 minuten durende opwelling van klusdrang hebben Anneke en ik een nieuwe kraan gekocht. Het allergoedkoopste ding wat we konden vinden bij de locale doet-het-zelf detailist. Dit omdat we over een paar jaar toch de hele badkamer op zijn kop willen zetten.

Zojuist leek het me praktisch om, nog voor het donker, die kraan te monteren, zodat we weer lekker warm kunnen douchen, ipv lauw. De kraan eraf halen is allemaal geen probleem. Het water afsluiten had ik zelfs aan gedacht (net echt).

Uiteraard bleek dat de leidingen in de douche uit het jaar ‘Kruik’ zijn en past het verloopstukje wat bij je kraan zit niet. Gelukkig zat er een kraan op, dus zaten er ook reeds verloopstukjes gemonteerd. Dus de ouwe meuk er maar terug op gedraaid. Stap 2: de kraan. En dit is waar de schoen begon te wringen, of eigenlijk de kraan. Geen 15 centimeter, maar 14 en een beetje. Allemaal niet zo erg, wanneer je met de verloopstukjes, die in S-vorm zijn, dat op kan vangen. Nu wil het feit dat die al op de breedste mogelijkheid stonden. Oftewel, geen passende kraan.

Enorm vermoeiend. Ik had me al helemaal verheugd op een ECHTE warme douche, die zo heet is dat het nét geen pijn doet. Maar helaas, pindakaas (dommage, pinda-frommage / too bad, sandwich spread).

Porto

Afgelopen weekend zijn Anneke en ik naar Porto geweest, nog voor Anneke haar verjaardag.

Over de stad kan ik eigenlijk heel kort zijn. Het is een mooi stadje, maar in de winter is er HELEMAAL NIKS te beleven. Zelfs op zaterdagavond was de hele boel uitgestorven. Als het dan nog eens het hele weekend regent schiet het wat dat betreft niet echt op.

Niet dat het een vervelend weekend was hoor, want in de naam Porto zit het woord Port en gezien Anneke en ik daar allebei wel voor te porren zijn was dat onze toevlucht.

Donderdagavond toen we ingecheckt waren in het hotel zijn we meteen de stad in gegaan en naar het door Lonely Planet aangeraden proeflokaaltje geweest, genaamd Vinologia. Daar meteen ieder 3 portjes geproefd, om in de stemming te komen. Erg lekker, gelijk ook wat basic info ingewonnen over wat het allemaal betekent wat er op de flessen staat. Eten in een klein lokaal tentje. Als je een avondvullend relaas over sardientjes wil moet je bij Anneke zijn. Erg geslaagd.

De volgende dag naar de overkant van de Douro rivier geweest na wat omzwervingen door de stad om langs wat Port bedrijven/pakhuizen te gaan en te kijken wat ze ons daar konden vertellen. Sandeman was de eerste en gezien het overbekende merk en logo zijn we maar binnengestapt. Leuke toer, klein proeverijtje op het eind. Na de proeverij rustig aan omhoog gelopen naar Taylor’s (op aanraden van Vinologia). Uitgebreid en over-priced gelunched, maar de toer daarna maakte alles goed. Enorm goede ports, een erg uitgebreide toer en een leuk winkeltje.

‘s Avonds voor het eten nog maar even bij Vinologia binnenstappen voor een proeverij. Het diner was minder. Een goed restaurant, maar een slechte keus.

Zaterdag wilden we een stadswandeling doen, en wat winkelen. Na 2 uur winkelstraat was het eigenlijk nog steeds alleen maar H&M, Zara, en andere hier ook beschikbare ketens. Einde winkelen. De stadswandeling hebben we deels gedaan, maar gezien het weer kwam de zin in een verwarmend glas port weer snel tot ons. Wederom naar de overkant van de Douro. Dit keer een toertje bij Vasconcellos, met proeverij. Daarna nog een glaasje extra bij Kopke en als afsluiting de toer bij Calem. Ook dit was een leuke uitgebreide toer, maar geen kon tippen aan Taylor’s.

Naderhand nog even binnenstappen bij een koffiehuisje om daar tegen belachelijk lage prijzen allerlei lekkers te eten en een kop koffie te drinken. Voor de 3e avond op rij wederom naar Vinologia, en daarna op zoek naar een leuk restaurant. Dat lukte deze keer beter dan de voorgaande avond en toen was het weekend weer om.

Snel gegaan, maar wel iets om nog een keer heen te gaan, gezien we nog lang niet alle port-huizen geprobeerd hebben.

Toers gedaan + becijfering:

• Sandeman (7, niet slecht, maar ook niet bijzonder)
• Taylor’s (9, erg goede toer, veel info, en gratis)
• Vasconcellos (3, alleen maar verkooppraat)
• Calem (8, goeie toer, met veel info)

Uiteindelijk dus 7 proeverijen gedaan, bij vier huizen en 3x bij Vinologia. Dikke aanrader. Lekker binnen de EU, dus je mag meenemen wat je kan dragen (een doos in ons geval).

Verder in de week komen nog een paar foto’s

Housewarming

Afgelopen zaterdag was onze housewarming. Zoals ik verwacht had begonnen de afmeldingen vrijdag binnen te lopen. Weeralarm zus, sneeuwstorm zo. Uiteindelijk bleek er behalve in Groningen en Friesland niets aan de hand, dus ook in Krommenie niet.

Maar goed, we hadden ook veel te veel mensen uitgenodigd dus vanuit praktisch oogpunt was het zo gek nog niet…

Vanaf een uur of half twee begonnen de eerste mensen binnen te druppelen en konden we rustig aan een paar rondleidingen doen. Om een uur of drie liep het echter storm waardoor niet iedereen kon zitten, en Anneke en ik maar amper tijd hadden om deze en gene een kop koffie in te schenken.

Na een paar keer hard roepen dat het toch echt Self-Service was begonnen mensen dat te begrijpen en liepen deze en gene nog wat twijfelachtig naar de koelkast of achtertuin om drinken te pakken.

De complete chaos van de middag liep rond een uur of half zes af, en hadden we met een paar mensen de rust om even een hapje te eten, de vaatwasser aan te zetten en wat dingen klaar te maken voor ‘s avonds.

De ‘avondsessie’ voerde het Self-Service idee tot in het uiterste door, wat ervoor zorgde dat we dit keer ook tijd hadden om met mensen te praten zo af en toe. Kan ook leuk zijn als die personen het halve land door rijden om je toko te bezichtigen.

Al met al was het een erg geslaagde dag en hadden we de zondag behoorlijk nodig om lekker op de bank te hangen en op te ruimen. Wat is een timer op je vaatwasser dan handig. Alles lekker schoon als je uit je bed komt, maar geen herrie midden in de nacht.

Mooi feestje, veel onverwachte bezoeken, veel verwachte afzeggingen. Qua hoeveelheid eten en drinken was het dik keer wat beschaafder dan ik van Anneke haar inkoopbeleid gewend ben, dus het gros was gelukkig op. We hebben nog een paar kleine stukjes kaas, en een paar flessen wijn (maar die komen toch wel op).

Moet ik nu blij zijn?

Gisteren ben ik, zoals iedereen wel kan raden, netjes achteraan gesloten in de file naar huis.

Om ongeveer kwart voor vijf stapte ik in de auto, en de rit leek heel voorspoedig te gaan, en dat mocht ook wel, want ‘s morgens had ik ook al een half uur vertraging door een ondefinieerbare file die midden in de polder ophield.

Tot de afslag Hilversum/Vinkeveen ging alles erg goed en de eerste 75 kilometer van mijn reis naar huis had ik in 45 minuten afgelegd. Daar begon de ellende. Het sneeuwde, en zoals iedereen inmiddels weet staat heel Nederland op zijn kop als het geen ‘normaal’ weer is (als het hard regent is er een weeralarm, als het lang niet regent is er een weeralarm, als het sneeuwt is er een weeralarm en als het hard waait is er een weeralarm).

De radio aangezet (inmiddels had ik de meegenomen cd’s van Arcade Fire en Them Crooked Vultures wel gehoord) en daar hoor je op het nieuws dat Rijkswaterstaat het niet aan kan omdat er zoveel sneeuw valt met uitschieters tot 10 centimeter. TIEN! een-nul. Het getal na 9. Who cares?! Je hebt sneeuwschuivers! Die machines zijn ervoor gemaakt om sneeuw te schuiven. In de rest van de noordelijke wereld schuiven die apparaten door een halve meter heen. Misschien wordt het tijd om te kijken naar andere sneeuwschuivers, want aan deze heb je blijkbaar niks als er sneeuw ligt (huh?)…

Uiteraard stopte het na 15 minuten met sneeuwen, maar toen konden ze niet schuiven omdat er file stond. Dus.

Maar goed, file. Het lichtbord met info over de A9. Alles rood. Geen optie dus, gezien dat toch al langer duurt dan de A10. Door naar de A10 dus. Samen met ongeveer 250.000 anderen.

Het lichtbord van de A10, beide kanten op 16 kilometer file. Dat is dus de hele ring, want dat ding is 32 kilometer. Niet leuk als je er net 15+ kilometer file op hebt zitten, maar er is weinig keus.

Langzaam naar huis tuffen. Mijn zus belde dat ik ook bij haar kon langsgaan om de file uit te zitten. Op de A10 zat ik echter zo te suffen dat ik de hele afslag gemist heb, terwijl ik er toch zeker 20 minuten naast gestaan heb.

Afslag Zaandam, ik sta naast mijn schoonvader in de file. Beetje slap ouwehoeren (schreeuwen tussen 2 auto’s). Daarna ging het gelukkig wel weer. Al met al heb ik er 5 uur over gedaan terwijl ik er normaal in de spits 75 minuten over doe. Factor 4. Toch jammer.

De bemoedigende woorden van bezorgde familie: “jij wilde perse in het noorden gaan wonen”. Dankjewel ma. Zeg dan niks. Maar goed. Ik weet niet of ik nu blij moet zijn, want mensen hebben van Almere naar Amsterdam er soms 7 uur over gedaan. Ik moest zeker 2 keer zover, en dat in 2 uur minder.

De laatste 10 kilometer was een soort ijsbaan. Alle wegen waren aangevroren omdat er natuurlijk al enorme massa’s over de sneeuw gereden waren. Dat was wel weer grappig. Zonder winterbanden. Blijkbaar kan ik dat toch wel enigszins, want het gebeurt zelden dat ik uberhaupt ga schuiven.

Materialisme

Gisteren hebben Anneke en ik de zolder grotendeels opgeruimd. Elke keer als we daar een doos openmaakte schrokken we ervan hoeveel troep we (met name ik) hebben verzameld in de afgelopen jaren.

Meuk waarvan we allebei donders goed weten dat we het nooit meer gaan gebruiken. Ook weten we dat het gros geen economische waarde heeft, en we kennen het ook geen emotionele waarde toe.

Waarom gooien we het dan niet weg, zou ieder weldenkend mens dan zeggen. Wij ook. Wij weten ook dat we beter een grote opruimactie kunnen houden en alles weg kunnen mikken wat we niet willen houden. Maar om de een of andere reden kunnen we dat niet. Ik hecht aan meuk, blijkbaar, en ik weet zelf ook niet waarom. Vreemd.

Officieel is Materialisme ‘het uitsluitend streven naar bezit’.

Bij mij is het echter niet zo dat het bezitten van dingen me interesseert. Het is meer dat ik, als ik iets erg leuk vind, het leuk vind om me daarmee bezig te houden. Ik wil veel whisky kunnen proeven, veel comics en boeken lezen en veel muziek luisteren. Daarom vind ik het dan leuk om er veel van aan te schaffen. Qua whisky is er niet echt een alternatief. Qua comics ook niet, want die kan je niet lenen of huren ofzo. Als dan toch de bieb geopperd wordt: onwijs smerig. Ik ga geen boeken lezen waar koffievlekken, ondefinieerbare groene korreltjes en niessporen van 1000 anderen in zitten.

En toch vind ik het zelfs beschamend hoeveel troep ik verzameld heb. Ik moet daar eigenlijk echt iets aan doen. Een hoger verloop in de rotzooi die ik bewaar. Dungeons and Dragons boeken verkopen, Magic verkopen, boeken en comics die niet zo goed waren als ik verwachtte verkopen of wegdoen. Kan ik gelijk weer andere hobby’s financieren… Het lijkt zo simpel.

Nog een paar klussen voor de Housewarming

Voor de housewarming wilden we nog een aantal dingen afronden die het huis een stuk mooier en meer af zouden moeten maken. Elke avond van de week hebben we iets gepland, en dat was ook nodig, alleen al om de rommel opgeruimd te krijgen.

Gisteravond begon Anneke met het ontsluieren van de drempels (cementstof van het natuursteen afpoetsen, met allerlei chemische meuk).

Ik begon met het maken van een voetje voor de vestibule-deur. Klinkt duur, is een klapdeur tussen het tochthalletje en de gang. Die deur wilden we terugplaatsen omdat ie dan niet meer in de weg staat, het aanzienlijk warmer wordt in de gang en het oogt enorm cool (vinden wij dan). Dat voetje was eigenlijk in een half uurtje af, en een kwartier later stond de deur erin.

Ook het ontsluieren ging sneller dan verwacht. We hebben ook maar gelijk het deurkozijn aangepast en de drempels erin gelegd.

Mooi, want we hebben nu dingen die op 3 avonden gepland stonden in 1 avond gedaan. Hebben we mooi tijd om de zolder op te ruimen, want het lijkt alsof er een bom onploft is bij Action, zoveel meuk als er ligt. Ik ben er van overtuigd dat een hoop van die spullen weg kunnen, maar Anneke en ik hechten aan zooi. Waarom weet niemand, want we zien ook wel dat het troep is die geen waarde heeft en we nooit meer gaan gebruiken…

Kikker wilde uiteraard weer ‘s avonds naar buiten zoals de laatste week steeds het geval is. Na een uur was ie nog niet terug, wat zeldzaam is, tot we hem hoorden krijsen tegen Public Enemy #1, de rooie kater. Dit keer ook veel verder van huis dan normaal, in de buurt achter ons huis (de achterbuurt?). Na 3 uur terwijl wij met de jas aan stonden om hem te gaan zoeken kwam ie toch aankakken. Nu kwamen we er vanmorgen achter dat ie wat mank loopt, dus hij heeft flink klappen gehad. Waarschijnlijk die andere ook. Als Kikker het verloor wilde ie vast niet meer zo graag naar buiten. Maar goed, dat maar even aankijken en anders naar de dierenarts.

Vanmiddag nog de achtertuin leegruimen. Daar ligt nog enorm veel afval van de verbouwing wat we in de container wilden stoppen bij ons vuilnis om het langzamerhand weg te werken. Helaas zitten we in een verhuizing waardoor we steeds heel veel zooi hebben en we daar dus niet aan toe komen.

We konden het ook wel bij familie in de bak gooien, maar gezien het nog steeds onwijs veel is, zou dat ook weken gaan duren. Dan maar een bakkie huren voor een paar tientjes, en in eens alles wegwerken. Kan ik de achtertuin ook weer anders zien als een vuilnisbelt. Ook wel prettig voor de buren denk ik zo.

Woonkamer geschilderd

Gisteren heb ik tussen de bedrijven door de woonkamer voor de tweede keer geschilderd. Alle muren zijn nu mooi beige en het plafond is wit. Het plafond was natuurlijk al wit, maar door de bouwdroger, en allerlei dingen die er tegenaan gekomen zijn was het niet al te mooi meer.

Het begint behoorlijk op te schieten. Gisteren is namelijk ook het water EINDELIJK aangesloten in de keuken. We wilden aanvankelijk wachten op de keukenboer, tot ze het blad ook geplaatst hadden. Dat zou drie weken duren, maar 12 november is aanzienlijk meer dan drie weken geleden en ze weten nog niks.

Zaterdag gaan we de elektriciteit in de keuken afmonteren en dan is daar alles up and running, kunnen we na bijna 3 maanden eindelijk een keer koken, en dus weer normaal eten.

Morgen en vrijdag wordt ook de houten vloer in de woonkamer geplaatst, dus vrijdag avond kan ook de bank naar binnen en kan ik eindelijk rustig een whiksytje drinken in de woonkamer. Daar kijk ik al wel even naar uit.

Uiteraard moet er nog meer dan genoeg gebeuren, maar het gros van wat nog moet gaat of in de ‘rustige’ periode tussen kerst en oud en nieuw, en de weekenden van januari, of over een hele tijd. Zo zie ik mezelf nog geen kozijnen schilderen binnenkort. Vooral niet omdat dan het raam open moet, en het is me daar net iets te koud voor momenteel.

Het is nog niet eens voorbij

2009 is nog niet eens voorbij, en de eerste muziek releases voor 2010 zijn al aangekondigd. De eerste paar maanden van het komende jaar worden weer genieten geblazen, met een nieuwe cd van Tindersticks, Grinderman, Angus & Julia Stone, Nick Cave & Warren Ellis. 2 Daarvan komen reeds in januari, dus dat blijft wel lekker gaan.

Voor 2009 heb ik nog een paar cd’s extra geluisterd voor mijn lijst, omdat ik deze op elke jaarlijst tot nu toe terug zie komen (lijsten die mij boeien dan, dus niet bij Q-music zeg maar).

Daar zitten voornamelijk albums tussen waarvan ik wel erken dat de kwaliteit goed is, maar ik vind ze gewoon niet boeiend. Je hebt dat wel eens, dat je iets goeds ziet maar het niet interessant vind.

Toyota maakt goede auto’s, maar het gros is niet mooi. Er zijn veel goede whisky’s, maar lang niet alles vind je ook lekker. Cd’s zijn goed geproduceerd, zitten sterk in elkaar, maar het is je smaak niet, enzovoorts.

Ben benieuwd wat er nog meer staat te gebeuren volgend jaar. Er schijnen wel een aantal leuke films, games en cd’s uit te komen, dus dat zit wel goed. Als er nu ook nog eens een paar leuke boeken en comics uitgebracht worden, gepaard met een paar lekkere whisky’s, en het wordt mooi…

Buitenkat

Kikker heeft de achtertuin (en die van de buren) ontdekt. Afgelopen zaterdag was ie voor het eerst ‘zelf’ buiten zonder dat we erbij stonden. Dit was min of meer per ongeluk, want we wilden hem eigenlijk nog tot na oud en nieuw binnenhouden.

Nu is het inmiddels zo dat ie het liefst buiten op avontuur gaat, dus vandaag zit ie eigenlijk al sinds ik aan het werk ben buiten. Eigenlijk best lekker, want dan loopt ie zich hier niet idioot te gedragen, maar om de een of andere reden maak ik me toch een beetje zorgen dat ie verdwaalt ofzo.

Het beest is voor afgelopen zaterdag maar 1 keer buiten geweest, en dat was 2 weken daarvoor aan een lijntje. Hij kent dus helemaal niks. Nu is het vrij rustig qua vogels, maar het zal me niet verbazen als ie binnenkort met een dood beest aan komt zetten, zo’n idioot is het ook wel weer.

Maar goed, hij redt zich wel, zolang ie niet overal gaat zitten kakken waar het niet hoort maakt het me niet zoveel uit wat ie uitvreet. Vooralsnog lijkt het er ook op dat ie af en toe nog bevestiging zoekt, want zodra je een keer naar de schuur loopt of de achterdeur open doet komt ie nog eventjes kijken wat er gebeurt, en daarna issie weer weg.

Kan ie mooi daar zijn energie kwijt en binnen kan ie dan mooi pitten. Spaart ons weer meubels uit ;-)

Sankt Nikolaus

Afgelopen weekend stond, uiteraard, in het teken van Sinterklaas. Vrijdagavond een cadeautje voor Anneke regelen, op en neer naar Udenhout voor een ‘Udenhoutse Broeder’, daarna nog even de stad in naar Sylvester voor een cadeautje voor m’n eigenste :-)

Zaterdag het huis opgeruimd zodat we het schilderklaar konden gaan maken en ‘s avonds naar Jacomijn in Amsterdam. Daar lekker gegourmet en cadeautjes gekregen. Nieuwe pantoffels en een lekkere fles wijn. Anneke had ook pantoffels gekregen. Blijkbaar vindt de Goedheiligman Anneke en mij ‘pantoffelmensen’, weet niet of ik daar trots op moet zijn.

Zondag wat klusjes in huis gedaan voordat pa en Anita kwamen om te klussen terwijl wij Sinterklaas vierden met de familie Kramer. Handig dat er geklust wordt als je er zelf niet bent. Het spel bij de fam. Kramer werd dit jaar uitgebreid naar cadeautjes en ‘winkeldochters’, zodat iedereen van z’n ouwe meuk af komt en je erg veel lol hebt met de meest bizarre dingen die uitgepakt worden. De regels is genoemd dat je niet volgend jaar de cadeau’s van dit jaar hergebruikt…

Vandaag weer aan het werk, zo’n weekend gaat veel te snel. Gisteren nog wel mijn nieuwe autoradio ingebouwd, dus eindelijk na 2 maanden weer muziek in de auto. Erg aangenaam als je elke dag 3 uur in de auto zit. Van de instellingen klopt nog niks, maar het is niet meer zo stil.

Inmiddels heb ik zo’n 10% van mijn muzieklijst geluisterd met een paar klappers (dat wist ik al) en een album dat meteen verwijderd is.

Kleine tegenvaller

Afgelopen zaterdag tijdens een bescheiden viering van mijn verjaardag kwam Anneke erachter dat de underlayment vloer meer doorveert dan we aanvankelijk dachten. Dit is normaliter niet zo’n probleem, ware het niet dat we tegels willen leggen in de keuken en in de hal.

Vervolgens zijn we onszelf gaan inlichten over de mogelijkheden en op internet wordt vooral gesproken over belachelijk rigoreuze maatregelen zoals een betonvloer storten. Het is dat, of het andere uiterste waarbij mensen zeggen dat het allemaal geen bal uitmaakt als je maar flexibele lijm en voegsel gebruikt.

Uiteraard maakten we ons hier enigszins zorgen om, gezien ik liever niet heb dat onze dure tegels over een paar maanden in kleine stukjes los door de gang zwerven.

Mijn neef gebeld, die is tegelzetter, en die raadde ons aan om er nog een plaat multiplex overheen te lijmen of schroeven, zodat er een dikkere vloer ontstaat en de ene plaat de andere dwingt recht te blijven.

Dinsdagmiddag platen gekocht, en naar huis gebracht. Gisteravond begonnen met leggen. Tot onze grote verbazing was de hal in twee uurtjes gebeurd, dus dat is weer een meevaller.

Het scheelt ook een enorme berg stevigheid heb ik al gemerkt. Als een idioot staan springen gisteren om te kijken of het nu wel star genoeg is. En dat is het.

Vanmorgen zijn de tegels afgeleverd. In de stromende regen 500 kilo tegels naar binnen gesjouwd. Leuk is anders, maar het ligt allemaal netjes klaar voor de tegelzetter morgen.

Vanavond nog de extra laag in de keuken leggen, maar dat is maar een klein stukkie, dus dat zal meevallen (fingers crossed). Wanneer dat gebeurd is begint het echt op te schieten.

In december wordt de houten vloer in de woonkamer gelegd, dus voor de tijd willen we de woonkamer geschilderd en behangen hebben. Volgens mij moet dat ook makkelijk lukken, gezien het allemaal vrij recht toe, recht aan werk is. Misschien wat muren egaliseren wat een dag kost, maar daarna kunnen we vlammen!

Omschakeling

Ik ben dit blog ooit in het Engels begonnen vanwege allerlei redenen, waaronder de samenwerking met mensen in Belarus. Tegenwoordig is dat niet meer zo, en mijn Google Analytics wijst me erop dat er behalve een plaatje via Google Images nooit iets of iemand uit het buitenland op mijn site komt.

Vandaar dat ik nu de switch naar Nederlands maak. Gaat toch iets handiger en het leest voor de sporadische lezer ook weer iets makkelijker.

Nieuwtjes:

• Afgelopen donderdag is de keuken geplaatst. Heel erg tevreden en het ziet er supergaaf uit. Nu nog een tegelzetter die snel kan, zodat over 3 weken het blad erop kan en dan alles ook echt af is.
• We hebben Kikker voor het eerst naar buiten gedaan dit weekend. Aan een lijntje, gezien hij nog nooit eerder in zijn leven buiten geweest is. Volgens ons vindt ie het wel wat, maar we gaan het langzaam opbouwen.
• We hebben dit weekend vloeren uitgezocht voor de gang/keuken/wc en de woonkamer. Als het goed is ligt alles er voor de kerst nog in, dus dan hopen we dit jaar alles nog af te hebben.
• We hebben de gang de eerste laag verf gegeven gisteren. We moeten nog een paar hoekjes bijtippen, maar daar konden we zonder ladder niet bij. Die halen we vanavond zodat het voor het weekend netjes is.

An uneventful week

Well, based on what things we ticked off our to-do list. The weekdays passed quickly. Internet would have been hooked up on Wednesday, after an engineer of the company had come by to see what was wrong with our connection.

He came, put a new cable in the ground since the old one was almost gone, and left. No internet after that. I called. They apparently had simply forgotten to switch our internet connection back on, and it couldn’t be done without another engineer. No internet still, while it should have been up and running for three weeks now. KPN sucks, but there aren’t many other option when it comes to cables in the ground.

The evenings were short and we didn’t do much, except some minor chores and some cleaning. On Saturday, our kitchen was plastered, as well as the old doorway to the hall (which we bricked up) and a small part of the living room. After that we had to get a construction dryer, to get the walls dry before the kitchen comes on Thursday. We had to go to 4 different DYI centres before we could rent one, the others were all out. So much for Saturday.

Yesterday our niece Evi was baptised. After that we hung around at R&M’s (her parents) place before going to Anneke’s Grandma’s birthday. So much for Sunday.

This week we plan to finish upstairs in the evenings. We only have to do a few things, but I guess it will (of course) take longer than we expect. When the kitchen has been put in on Thursday, we have a fully functional home again and that means we can get a bit more hours out of a day. The weekend will be short, since I am going to Whisky Live Leiden on Friday evening, and on Saturday there is a reunion of my old school to which I am going.

But as promised and much expected (I hope), some pictures of the process of our living room (thusfar) and my study.

The living room on October 1st:

October 3rd

October 11th

October 15th:

My study after painting it white. Before the walls were blue, as were all walls in the house. On the wall opposite the window was a built in closet, which we removed and opened up in the bedroom.

Afterwards (painting the wall light-grey, putting in a laminated floor, hanging some window coverings, ‘building’ 8 Billy cabinets for books, cds and whisky.

The list is getting ‘shorter’

The list is not actually getting shorter, but the tasks on it are getting smaller and more and more is done.

My office is almost finished. I only have to put in a few curtains, but that will be done by tonight or tomorrow night. The bedroom only needs a bit of electric work done and curtains as well.

After those things are done I can focus on the hallway upstairs. I still need to paint the walls and ceiling there, and when that is done, upstairs is almost finished. Only the toilet will be left, but that does not have priority at the moment.

On Saturday our kitchen will be plastered, and after that we can get to work on the lower floor as well. Painting, wallpapering and so on. When all that is done, we can get the top floor and start finishing more and more.

It still is a lot of work, but the end is getting nearer. Of course, we are slowing down as well, since you just can’t keep on going at full speed forever. So yesterday I enjoyed a nice glass of Brora 30 years old in my office (our current ‘living’ room).

I am still surprised by the amount of stuff we (or actually, I) have gathered over the last years. CDs, DVDs, Comics, Books, Whisky. Everytime I open a box, there is more. And we haven’t opened all boxes yet… Sometimes I am a bit ashamed by my collecting nature. I should be focussing on other stuff, it seems…

I’ll try to add pictures next time.

Another ‘big move’ update

Last week’s checklist, with updates in bold:

Downstairs:

• Remove the floor (done)
• Replace some beams (done)
• Level the floor (done)
• Put in floor insulation (only the kitchen left)
• Put in an underlayment floor (only the kitchen left)
• Put in a top floor (will be done in november)
• Get the chimney cleaned
• Remove wallpaper (work in progress)
• Remove the kitchen (done)
• new: Sell the kitchen (work in progress, probably done by Wednesday)
• Redo electricity in the kitchen (work in progress)
• Replace water and gas connections in the kitchen (done)
• Breach the new kitchen door (done)
• Build a wall in place of the old kitchen door (done)
• Place floor tiles in the hall and kitchen
• Place wall tiles in the kitchen
• Paint the walls and ceiling
• Have the plumbing done (done)
• Redo the entire sewage system (done)
• new: create a small trapdoor to reach waterworks under the floor
• new: get someone to professionaly plaster the kitchen, living room and hallway

Upstairs:

• Remove wallpaper (done)
• Sanding (done)
• Painting the woodwork (work in progress)
• Breach a built-in closet (done)
• Brick up the old door of the built-in closet (done)
• Create the build-in closet (work in progress)
• Place sliding doors to finish the built-in closet.
• Put in wallpaper (done)
• Painting the walls and ceilings (work in progress)
• Put in a top floor (work in progress)
• Make a second toilet in the ‘other’ built-in closet (work in progress)
• Correct electricity in the bedroom (work in progress)
• Put in electricity in the toilet (work in progress)
• Get clothing cabinet (done)
• Get whisky and bookcases (done)

General:

• Remove all waste, debris and other crap from the back yard (only the kitchen left)
• Dig a huge hole for the concrete driller so our sewage pipes can be fixed (done)
• new: fill the hole in the yard again, so the movers don’t break their legs
• new: unpacking

As you notice, a couple of things have been done since last week. Some others have been added to the list and I know that many more issues will arise as we go along.

Luckily, we are almost ready for the movers to put in our stuff, since that is going to happen this week.

Anneke is cleaning the house today, since it is really muddy on the underlayment floor, because of all issues that had to be checked under the floor in the mud of the Zaanstreek.

My commuting through the country has also started this week. Last week there were some nights I stayed in Den Bosch to keep driving to a minimum and also because we couldn’t do much then. There were a couple of things that had to be done before we could continue cleaning, putting in floors, doorsteps and paint. Most of the issues that hold up others have been checked by now, so we can get up to speed again. The weekend, however, won’t be much about construction but about unpacking and getting our life back on track. Next week I have to work from home a couple of days, and we also will have a semi-normal work week again in which we need clothers that are in boxes and stuff like that.

I am looking forward to all that, though. It will be hard work to get most of it done before the end of November, but all those things will result in a house that will look better and better.

Billy

Billy, the famous Ikea cabinet system has been around for a couple of decades and therefore they have a sale on them. 20% off sounds like a good deal.

But, in typical Dutch way, they only have a limited supply. Yesterday I went to Ikea Eindhoven to fetch some of those things for my whiskyroom / office in the new home. And as expected, the second (!) day of the sale, they were almost all sold out. Of course, the one I wanted was completely sold out and will not be replaced in decent amounts soon. Bummer, and quite strange.

I think its rediculous that stocks are limited when they have a sale that they know will be popular. It is not like the things won’t sell otherwise, so they can easy have more in stock. They will get rid of any remaining stock later, since it is one of the most popular items they have.

I hope that on Saturday there will be some left / more delivered at Ikea Amsterdam, since that would actually be even more practical than getting them to our old place.

14 days in

Without the days I have been at work, we have been working at home for 14 days now.

From our to do list a lot of things have been done or are about to be finished with a couple more hours of work.

With a lot of help from friends and relatives and a few days from a contractor we have been able to do about 75% of the work that had to be done.

The things thad were on the to do list, or have been added since October 1st, and the status of it at this moment:

Downstairs:

• Remove the floor (done)
• Replace some beams (done)
• Level the floor (done)
• Put in floor insulation (work in progress)
• Put in an underlayment floor (done)
• Put in a top floor (will be done in november)
• Get the chimney cleaned
• Remove wallpaper (work in progress)
• Remove the kitchen (done)
• Redo electricity in the kitchen (work in progress)
• Replace water and gas connections in the kitchen (work in progress)
• Breach the new kitchen door (done)
• Build a wall in place of the old kitchen door (done)
• Place floor tiles in the hall and kitchen
• Place wall tiles in the kitchen
• Paint the walls and ceiling
• new: Have the plumbing done (work in progress)
• new: Redo the entire sewage system (work in progress)

Upstairs:

• Remove wallpaper (done)
• Sanding (done)
• Painting the woodwork
• Breach a built-in closet (done)
• Brick up the old door of the built-in closet (done)
• Create the build-in closet.
• Place sliding doors to finish the built-in closet.
• Put in wallpaper (work in progress)
• Painting the walls and ceilings (work in progress)
• Put in a top floor (work in progress)
• Make a second toilet in the ‘other’ big built-in closet (work in progress)
• new: Correct electricity in the bedroom (work in progress)
• Put in electricity in the toilet (work in progress)

General:

• Remove all waste, debris and other crap from the back yard (work in progress)
• new: Dig a huge hole for the concrete driller so our sewage pipes can be fixed (done)

This all is apart from the things you usually have to do when moving to a new place, so only chores in the new place have been listed.

It looks like not much is finished, and listing it makes me feel that way too. But, since next wednesday all our stuff will be moved from our old apartment to the new house, we have to focus on certain areas.

• Today, all wallpapering should be finished by Anneke and her mom.
• Plumbing, upstairs toilet and sewage stuff will be finished by the end of the week by the plumber.
• The top floor upstairs will be finished next weekend.
• All underlayment wood has been sawed and fitted. Insulation and wood will be put in Saturday.
• 2 Friends who have an education in electric works and wiring will finish all the open issues on Saturday.
• The kitchen will be placed in November.
• The top floor layer upstaris is only about two hours of work left. Only the upstairs hallway has to be done.

So, if no strange things will happen (and there is no reason to expect anything) by the end of the weekend, almost everything that we can do without relying on other companies will be done by the end of the weekend.

Of course, to finish everything it will take a couple more months, since when you have moved you will slow down considerably… It might even take years ;-)

Plumbing

Everything is going very well at our new house. The floor beams will all be replaced by the end of today. The wall from the living room to the kitchen will have been breached as well.

Upstairs, we are allready egalizing and painting walls. By the end of this weekend we hope to have some floors and more walls done upstairs and have a solid floor in the house again.

Unfortunately, as with all renovations, we have had some unexpected problems. The main issue in the house is plumbing. The pipes for water everywhere are mostly done by some hobby guy, which means that they turn up everywhere and it feels more like a maze than anything else.

That is not too big a problem, since they are all new enough to keep functioning. Not so with the sewer connection. We found out the wet soil under our house was not pure because of the swamp-like ground around Zaanstad. It turned out we had a leaky sewer pipe. Since they are 60 years old and made of stone instead of plastic, we decided to replace them. Couple of hundred Euros gone, but a good sewer connection is rather practical.

While replacing the sewer it turned out the pipe has broken INSIDE the foundation of the house and it already was fixed (more or less) before in a very wrong and congestion-prone way. Of course, this has to be fixed and a new sewer pipe in the front yard will also be necessary. Concrete drilling, digging a ditch and other kinds of activities will be necessary. I hope it doesn’t turn out too expensive, but I am quite worried by this… Sucks…

So far

Yesterday we got the keys to our new house. So far we have been busy getting stuff of the previous owners out. Wallpaper, floor coverings, curtains, the kitchen. All kinds of stuff.

Tomorrow I hope to finalize that. But I keep in mind that it usually takes longer than expected to do anything.

Now I am at our old place in Den Bosch, because I just have been to a wonderful whisky tasting of all five Millennium Bottles by Cadenhead (good, old whiskies). Tomorrow I am going back to Krommenie to remove the rest of the kitchen and maybe a piece of the old wooden floor. Then on Sunday there will be more demolition and maybe some slight rebuilding of stuff (let’s hope so).

I will try to get some pictures up here soon, so everybody can follow our progress visually.

Finally, I just have to say that we absolutely love the new place. The location, the house, the garden, everything is just fine…

Is it a bunker?

Since last Saturday we have been packing everything that isn’t strictly necessary in the coming couple of weeks. In our bedroom there is all kinds of crap lying around, and the living room looks like a cardboard fortress. There are over 60 boxes full of stuff in our main area and we have a little soldier patrolling the battlements.

Luckily, in 2 days and a bit we are getting the key to our new place, and that means we are going to be there for most of the time. Ripping out carpets, floors, a kitchen and all wall coverings (plaster, wallpaper, and whatever).

I am really looking forward to that. Making that place our own place in exactly the style we want. Really can’t wait!

Uncle Sjoerd

Since yesterday I am officially someone’s uncle!

Anneke’s sister gave birth to a beautiful baby girl yesterday around 8 PM. Of course we had to go and see her right away, and she is gorgeous. Of course, every baby that is closely related is pretty, but I still find her beautiful.

Evi can be seen here on her own website (which kid has a website before she is born?).

So, the last major event before we move to Krommenie has happened. Luckily we are moving to Krommenie soon, so we will see enough of her then, since they will only live about 400 meters from our new house.

Good stuff happening.

Birthday and ‘moving’

On Saturday my wife turned 28 (way older than I am…) and because she was out with her colleagues all day on a ‘field trip’ we celebrated it with friends and dinner on Friday night. Yesterday both our families came over for the afternoon. For most of them it was also a goodbye to our house since we start moving in less than three weeks.

For Anneke’s birthday I got her a really kitschy étagère which she really liked from a nearby shop. Also, since I had to make up for last year I booked us a weekend to Porto in Portugal in January. October will be fixing the house, November about getting settled there, December is holiday season with way too many family things going on, so in January it is the best month to book something like that to get away from it all for a bit and have some time to ourselves.

On Saturday, since I was home alone all day, I went to my mum’s place to sort through the stuff that is still in my bedroom there. Mostly toys and old school stuff, but also a lot of things like video tapes, old computer games, crappy books and stuff like that.

In the end I had three trashbags of stuff that I threw away and three boxes of stuff I want to keep for later. I also have some toys there that I will move to our new place in due time, but I don’t want it sitting in our place right now, since it will only be in the way.

All in all a busy weekend in which I didn’t feel too well and Anneke and I built walls of boxes and other stuff in our house. Things are moving fast towards October first. Can’t wait!

Too much info

Over the last couple of years I have been getting way too much information from around the interwebz.

A while ago I realized that I spend a lot of time simply sifting through newsletters, updates from social networks and forums. For some reason it never occured to me before that I might just be getting too much of that kind of crap in my life. Too many social networks, too many forums, too many websites, and so on.

To cut down on that kind of stuff I decided to unscubscribe from almost all newsletters I was receiving. I think by now I have unsubscribed from about 25 to 30 newsletters that I was not even reading. I still get about the same amount of letters, but the ones that I still receive are about things I really find interesting. New whisky releases, special offers, interesting games that I plan to buy/play. Most are about music though. Some of the better music newsletters only contain old RSS info though, so no reason to keep those around either.

As I said in last post, I deleted my Twitter account, since it started costing time while it did nothing for me. I am still thinking about getting rid of Last.FM as well. Facebook and Hyves are probably there to stay, since I like to get some updates on people from years ago, ex-colleagues, ex-classmates and old friends that I lost contact with.

Unfortunately, in the Netherlands everybody uses Hyves instead of Facebook, so it is hard to choose one.

I almost completely stopped using MSN (or Windows Live Messenger, whatever). I will start tuning that down more and more. The same goes for Skype.

I realized that all those things were costing me at least two hours per day and I think I can do more with those two hours. I prefer to spend them reading, gaming, working or sleeping.

So, if any of you read this and usually contact me through MSN or Skype, simply send an email. In the daytime I am always close and it is almost as fast as Instant Messaging…

-Twitter

I have already deleted my Twitter account. I found that there is nothing on there that I can’t find anywhere else (for example, Facebook, Hyves, RSS) and it is just too messy.

People say it is like a bar and you can hook up to all conversations. While that sounds nice, I felt it was more like Taiwanese government meeting where everyone is yelling something at the same time, and no actual information is spread.

So, no more Twitter for me because:

• There is no added value in having Twitter when I already have everyone there on another social network.
• No intersting information is spread that I cannot find somewhere else.
• It is hard to track a subject, since there is only one screen available and that is where everything goes. No filters.
• It is not possible to NOT get the replies by followed people to messages by unknown people. You pick up bits of conversation that make absolutely no sense whatsoever.
• Messages are too short, since you can only get 140 characters in there. A lot of people post shortcuts to blogs, news items and other links, which means that you get half a line of pointless text in your screen.

Added value by twitter:

• None.

Since officially researched by some institute 91% of what is on twitter is non-sense and has no actual information, I am not going to waste my ‘precious’ time with sifting though that to find the 9% that has any worth.

Twitter

Although I have not been fond of Twitter thusfar, I thought to try it out for myself.

Just to see what happens there and what kind of updates people are posting. I still have the general idea that almost everything on there is not interesting for anyone to know, but who knows. Maybe I’ll be more up to date on an useful level of people around me or people I find interesting.

So, I might even place an update every now and then. Not the usual crap that people post “no more peas at the supermarket” bull, but stuff that is happening and that people might like to know.

So, if anyone cares here it goes!

Of course, I will keep blogging as I have been.

Kitchen

Last Saturday we went to Germany to look at kitchens. We had already been to a couple of kitchen stores in the Netherlands and a colleague of Anneke told us that kitchens in Germany are usually a lot cheaper than they are here.

A two hour drive at seven in the morning, after a night of heavy drinking at a friend’s stag night didn’t work all too well, but by the time we got to Kuchenland Ekelhoff in Nordhorn I had recovered enough to think rationally again.

We more or less knew what we wanted in a kitchen, which made it easy for the sales person to get us a quote and show us the options we had within our budget and where cuts could be made.

In the end we chose some other (less expensive) options than the sales guy in Zaandijk had drawn, but we upgraded some other parts of the kitchen and we ended up buying the kitchen drawn in the end.

It feels very good and we are going to get a very very good and beautiful kitchen, exactly as we want it. Quite minimalistic in design, but we are very happy with that since the room in which it is going to be placed is rather small.

Composit counter top, properly lacquered cupboards, and a massive cooker. Me is well happy, and the misses as well…

In the end, we didn’t end up cheaper in Germany, but we have a much better and higher quality kitchen than we would have gotten with the same budget in the Netherlands.

Old friends

This week, a friend of ours from Miami was in the Netherlands and we met up on Tuesday night and Wednesday.

On Tuesday we went to his favorite restaurant in Amsterdam, Van Kerkwijk, just off the Dam Square. After that we went to a whisky bar to enjoy a few drams. We tried to go to The Still which was advertised in a little booklet that came with a recent Whisky Magazine. Turned out that bar had been gone for 4.5 years already, so we had to head to a different one. L&B bar is the one we ended up in. 1250 Open bottles, of many distilleries and bottlers. Very nice atmosphere.

On Wednesday the guy game to Den Bosch to see where we are living for a few more months. We tried to do the ‘Binnendieze’ boatride, but it was already sold out before we had the chance to get in line.

After that, a walking tour of the city was the next best thing to get a quick overview of the most impressive sights in Den Bosch. Of course, we stopped for Coffee and a ‘Bossche Bol’, and lunch and a beer during the tour.

After walking we hung around our place and listened to a few records, since we met up two years ago at the Lowlands festival. We talked about music then, and have continued to do so on Skype. Couldn’t have a real life meeting without music, that would have been wrong.

For dinner we had pancakes in Heusden at the best pancake restaurant of the country (according to me). After that, some more whiskies at our place together with JP, another friend who was with us at Lowlands when we met Ziggy the Clown for the first time.

Good stuff. I really enjoyed meeting up again and Lowlands 2010 has been added to the program already. All of the people I have talked to since last week who usually went to Lowlands with us but haven’t been this year (as we have) missed it very much.

40 km

Yesterday I went for dinner at friends that we hadn’t seen for way too long. And while they live 40 kilometres from our place, we still hadn’t seen their house, in which they have been living for 2 years… Very bad.

But of course, the Netherlands themselves protested fiercely. According to Google Maps it would take 30 minutes to get from door to door.

Then Anneke called that not a single train was moving to or from Utrecht Central Station. Which meant, I had to pick her up. At first, we had the idea to use Houten station, which was most logical, but that was past Utrecht. No train there.

Then I had to go to Utrecht CS, which is really in down town Utrecht. By then, my crappy Nokia had given some troubles in the interface, which meant I had to re-enter the destination on its GPS system about three times (driving all the time).

After all was said and done, I was a bit grumpy, and that half an hour of driving had taken 1 hour and 50 minutes. A slight delay.

It reinforced my opinion of Dutch railway and the fact that I won’t be getting to work by train when I have moved north.

Technical failure my ass. You should have a back-up system running, idiots.

The ‘single’ life

Yesterday I took Anneke and her sister to the airport for their short holiday to southern Spain. Apart from the drive being too long and the return being utterly crap (my GPS’ battery died after 15 minutes, while cruising around in Germany), it means I have the place to myself this week.

I was kind of looking forward to it, since it gives me a bit of room to do whatever I like (gaming, reading, watching movies and so on). But, since we’ve barely been apart since 2003, it takes some time getting used to.

I don’t have slightest idea what I am going to do this week, which, apart from Anneke being gone, is a novelty too. I might take time to taste some whiskies that have been sitting on the shelve untouched for too long. And I finally have the peace of mind to finish reading my book. The peace of mind has nothing to do with Anneke not being here, but the fact that more and more stuff about the house is getting done and checked off the list.

An odd week. Tonight, I might have a Springbank line-up waiting for me, or maybe some Japanese stunners… Decisions…

No more Plaxo

I used to have a Plaxo account. Apart from making a mess of my contacts in Outlook (but also storing them online, so I wouldn’t lose them in a crash) I mainly used to synchronize my agenda at work and at home.

Putting something in your schedule and then getting the reminder the next morning is far from ideal. So the Plaxo toolbar is something I installed early on a clean computer.

Last Friday I reinstalled my system once again. There was a lot of crap on it that I wanted to remove and I don’t like it when stuff gets slower and slower. The reinstall fixed all that, and gave me a much fresher system with less crap floating around.

Then I tried to install the Plaxo plug-in, and found out it was only available to paying members of their system. Exit: Plaxo. I am not paying for something as dumb as agenda synchronization, while there are a million website that offer it, I thought.

Now I am using Windows Live Sync, which is less ideal, and I need the Outlook Connector, which tends to crash upon shutting down your computer. But, it works rather well. I get emails instead of reminders but I get them at both locations. Too bad. Less than satisfactory solution, but a solution nonetheless…

Our house!

Last week we closed the deal on a new place to live!

After some minor negotiations we agreed upon a price of a 60 year old house in the older part of Krommenie, where Anneke has her roots.

We are very happy with it, and yesterday we signed all contracts, which makes it official. Now ‘all’ we have to do is get a mortgage and start arranging stuff that we have never arranged before… Exciting and incredibly busy times.

Luckily we get the keys to the new place one month before we have to turn in the keys of our apartment in Den Bosch, which gives us some time to do some renovations and improvements.

I am really looking forward to living in a house instead of an apartment, with our own front door, and a garden, and most of all, room for all our crap instead of putting in attics of relatives, under beds and on top of closets.

Can’t wait!

Our house?

Today is the first day that we can officially say that we sold our house!!!

After signing the contracts last Monday there is a mandatory three day ‘cool down’ period in which the buyer can cancel the contract without giving any reasons and without cost.

The last day of those was yesterday. Which means we can officially start looking for another place. We already went to see a couple of houses last week, of which a few really appealed to us.

The only obstacle for us selling our house is the mortgage that the buyer has to get. If that doesn’t work out and there is black on white proof that at least 2 or 3 (don’t remember which) organisations declined the request for the mortgage the sale is off. I think that will go all right, the buyer of our place already investigated what was affordable and what not.

So, our move from Den Bosch to Krommenie is getting really close now. I am looking forward to having a house instead of an appartment, and moving out of the city.

Grotere kaart weergeven

I grew up in a small town of 700 people, and after living there for 20 years and now 7 years in Den Bosch, I found out that I am not really a guy for in a big city. I prefer the quiet of smaller towns and the more easy going style.

Also, in a new and bigger place I can finally put all my bottles of whisky on display and put all my books and comics in a normal bookcase, instead of in boxes in my in laws’ attic.

Just thinking

I have been thinking to expand this blog a bit for a long long time now. Mostly since I want to be able to place some more information on whisky on my site, and take my website from being just a blog to a proper site.

Of course, I have to build it, or look into Wordpress or something like that. That takes time and that is what I have been chronically lacking (pun intended).

Apart from building the website and management tools behind it, I also have to design it, and that is what I am most afraid of. I am a complete photoshop noob, and apart from telling someone what I do and don’t like about a design for a site, I cannot make one myself. To use some cheap or free to be found website design from the internet is something I am not really fond of. Many reasons not to even start and try, which is kind of lame.

Content is something else, but I think that will work itself out. I want to place some info on music, comics, whisky and everything else that occupies my time and mind.

Now, with our big move to the north of the country upcoming, I don’t think I am going to find any time at all to work on my site. Maybe looking into a free CMS or Wordpress is not such a bad thing at all…

Our house

We are still busy with the sale of our house. Copying documents for the buyer, so mortgages can be applied for and stuff like that.

It is very complex. I expected it to be a lot of work and a lot of stress, but it is harder than I thought. All kinds of documents that I have never heard of, or don’t have.

I am looking forward to finishing it all, so we can relax a bit (probably next year). We still have to start looking for a new house, but tomorrow and on Saturday we are going to look at four different places. We have a favorite, but I am trying to keep my enthousiasm in check, since there is a big chance the pictures on the Internet look a lot better than reality will…

I am getting more and more worried about not having a place to live by November. That would mean we have to rent a place until we find something, or crash at friends and parents for a while. Not looking forward to that. Let’s hope it all works out…

My last Nokia

Since I bought my Nokia Navigator phone in October last year, I have had nothing but trouble with it.

First it started showing defects after about two months. Not being able to find the SIM card, losing connection when it was found. Because of that, not being able to be called or call someone with it. Not being able to use the navigation software on it and so on.

Now, I got my phone back yesterday after it being sent back to Nokia for the third time. The SIM-card issue seems to be fixed, since they just gave me a new phone. But of course, something else is wrong. The ‘call’ button barely works and I have to push it almost all the way through the phone before it to register me pushing it…

When I bought it, I went for the navigation option and didn’t want to spend too much money on it. If not, I would have gone for the HTC phone, which I regret not doing so.

Now, I am still in doubt whether to go back with the button issue, or to just use it as long as it (more or less) works. I don’t want to get another crappy temporary replacement, I want to use my own phone, with agenda function and all.

Also, I keep losing contacts in my phone, since Nokia decided it is not possible to store contacts on my SIM card and use them. It always uses its internal drive. Meaning that I lose my newest contacts everytime I send it back… Of course, there is no option to sync back to my SIM card. Maybe in the software that gives an update error upon updating ‘the stability of the program’…

No more Nokia for me.

Our friends’ wedding

On Saturday two very close friends of Anneke and me got married. They are the second couple in our ‘little club’ to get married, after us.

A lot of things were done different from what we did last year, but that is logical, since everybody does it in their own way. The party was great and the location spectacular!

The band at the party was very good, with precisely the right songs, lots of golden oldies by Elvis and other from that era.

Good stuff happening. I had a bit of a hangover, because of fluid loss due to sweating and alcohol, but nothing I can’t cope with.

No Updates

Nothing much to tell. Meeting many friends and family to show our holiday pictures. Barely time to sleep.

One nice thing is that we are finally making good progress on selling our house. We have a buyer, so now all that has to happen is to get the contracts drawn up, signed and then the buyer has to get a mortgage.

So, if everything goes well, we will be out of Den Bosch by November 2nd!

Now, ‘all’ we have to do is find a new place to live, fast :-)

Nintendo DS

Last week, I started to worry a bit about the flight to San Francisco. Since I am nearly two meters tall, I have trouble sitting comfortably in an airplane, and I am simply unable to sleep in there at all.

You can, of course, pay extra for a more spacious seat, but I refurse to pay anything for some 5 centimeters, that will otherwise go to little kids or Asian people (nothing against Asian people at all, but they just happen to be a bit shorter than the average Dutch guy). Especially when it comes down to 100 dollars, per seat, per flight. 400 bucks, while the tickets weren’t too cheap either… Not happening.

So to pass time apart from watching a movie or two, we decided to buy a Nintendo DS. A collegue of mine has one and is very enthoused about it. And he more or less an authority on console / handheld gaming (for me he is). Of course, I bought a couple of games with it:

• Professor Layton and the Curious Village
• Zelda: The Phantom Hourglass
• The New Super Mario Brothers.

Of course, we also have some of those brain training games that are more or less synonym to Nintendo DS.

The worst thing about the Nintendo DS is that games are rediculously expensive. The average playing time needed to finish console and handheld games is somewhere around ten hours, as far as I know, and to pay 45 euros for each game you want with it, is just too much. Especially since you cannot play demos of the game anywhere, apart from illegally downlaoding then and playing on an emulator, which just sucks compared to the real thing.

But all in all, we have some very cool games with it. I can get quite addicted to the most rediculous and monotonous puzzle games, as well as to Role Playing Games which are available in heaps for this device.

Now, since I have plenty to do in the airplane, I am more or less looking forward to the flight. I just might catch up on some magazines I had lying around, maybe a few books during flight and the vacation, and gaming as well… I don’t think I even want to sleep anymore ;-)

Family day

Yesterday we went to Leiden to have our annual family day with my dad’s side of the relatives. In ‘good’ tradition we went for a boat trip through the canals. Before that we went to Hortus Botanicus in Leiden, one of the oldest botanical gardens in the country.

I really liked the gardens, although not much was blossoming because we were a bit early in the season. The Japanese garden was pretty nice, but a bit messy for a ‘feng shue’ garden.

The greenhouses were pretty cool, since they had all kinds of tropical plants and flowers: a banana tree, lotus flowers, orchids and other cool stuff.

The trip through the canals was pretty cool with a real ‘Leidenaar’ with the proper accent and all. It was quite a long trip, but we did get to see much of the old town.

Dinner was good as well, a nice chance to catch up with family members that I see only on the family day.

I tried to go for a whisky in the local whisky bar, but their whisky menu consists of mainly the regular whisky of each brand, so that wasn’t too special. I did find one to my liking on one of the last pages of the menu, but the bartender couldn’t find the bottle. Bummer.

Another potential buyer

Yesterday we got a call from our real estate agent that someone wanted to see our place again. In the evening, which meant we had to be gone for a while. What better excuse to go out for dinner?

We went to a restaurant called Artisan, here in the city. We both had never been there, and wanted to see the place since reviews on the internet were good.

They appear to have a good a good wine menu and a lot of knowledge about that as well.

We both had a three course menu, with accompanying wines. Anneke’s menu focussed on fish, while mine consisted of meat and poultry.

The food was good, the wines were good and again, I really liked a Chardonnay wine, which Anneke had (I had to taste, of course).

We haven’t heard from the visit to our house though, but we don’t dare to have too much hope ;-)

The weekend

Last weekend after the Bourbon tasting, we had a lot to do. On Saturday we started by getting our car checked, which I thought to be expensive. I expected new shock absorbers and tires to be necessary. It turned out to be not so. The final costs were very low, compared to what I expected. Only some lights, and a bit of oil.

In the evening we went out for dinner at Coquille with my sister. She had always wanted to go and since she doesn’t live in Den Bosch anymore, we ‘sacrificed’ ourselves to go with her. We had a great dinner, with lots of new things to taste. Of course, it was a little expensive, but that’s the price of quality. I totally fell in love with a Chardonnay wine I tasted there…

On Sunday Anneke’s younger sister came to Den Bosch to go shopping, but since the weather was incredibly nice, the city was packed with way too many people. In the end we just bought some cold beer and snacks, and went out of city to get a bit of sun on our faces and have a quiet time. Good stuff.

Open house

Last Saturday we had an open house, since we are trying to sell it. The National Real Estate agent organization organizes that every 6 months or so.

We, of course, spent all evenings of last week cleaning and tidying the place, and even ten minutes before the day started we were still putting stuff away so it looked nicer. We hoped that at least one person would visit our place, since times are incredibly slow nowadays.

Instead of the one person, we had many people visiting our house, and all except one were very enthousiastic. Very much worth it, and it gave us the idea that many people waited for the open house to visit.

It was an exciting day for us, and we had a very satisfied day afterwards. Good stuff.

Drunense Duinen

Anneke and I went for a long walk yesterday in the “Drunense Duinen”, a sand dune area near our home.

We decided we had to get some sun on our faces and just not be inside for a while. So, we made ourselves some sandwiches and drove there.

We had a good time just walking around and even saw a couple of deers running around the forest. As always, we decided we have to do that kind of stuff more often, but if that notion sticks for longer than a week, it would be something new.

The coming week will be busy, since on saturday we have open house. We have to clean up, do some minor chores and hope a lot of people show up on saturday to see our house. Of course, not a week goes by without some whisky event, so tomorrow we have organized a tasting with Malt Fascination, on thursday I organized one for a few friends. Lots to do, but it’s all good..

Internet Explorer 8?

Today, at 5PM Internet Explorer 8 is being released. It has been available for download in a beta form, but the final will be out this afternoon.

Being a good nerd, I decided to download and install the so called ‘release candidate’. After installing, which went well, I started using it and I was pleasantly surprised by some of the new functionalities for blogging, google maps and some other things. +1 for MicroSoft.

Then I went to www.bol.com to see if any cool new cds have been released and that site looked like shit. Which means there still are CSS issues as there have been since the first release of Internet Explorer years ago. Too bad, but there is a compatibility mode. Click, and the site looked all right again. +1 for MicroSoft.

Then I went to my favorite whisky forum to see if anybody had spilled any semi-usefull information about my favorite drink.

On that site, my cookie with username and password didn’t work anymore. No problem, I thought, I just enter those again and off we go. I clicked another page, and to my surprise I was logged out again (and no, I did not click the log-out page). Google came in handy and told me I had to remove my cookies before setting them again. Simple solution, but no kudos for MicroSoft: –1.

Then, for some reason the compatibility mode kicked in again, while I thought the page looked all right. And again, I was logged out. I logged in again. and tried to visit that same page. Poof, logged out. At that point I started to get annoyed. I turned off the compatibility mode and tried to log in again. Logging in is, as usual a page-change. Then because I ‘went to a new page’ IE8 checked for compatibility issues and kicked in that mode again. Poof: logged out. GRRRRR. –1 for Microsoft.

Compatibility mode options was quickly found in one of the menus. I turned www.levenswater.nl off, so it would not be corrected by IE8 again. Also, I turned off any automatic checking there, so no more compatibilty issues, I thought. Wrong, of course, since there is another setting, in a different menu and a different set of options that has to be turned off as well, or else the mode will kick back in any time. Annoying and –1 for MicroSoft.

Why, you ask, am I not using FireFox? Simple, because I develop for the web and most people still have Internet Explorer. Also, FireFox is damn slow in starting. Third, the updates really really suck.

Result: I have been using IE8 for a few hours and I am getting really annoyed by it. I hope these issues are gone in the final that is released this afternoon. If not, I will probably still use it since most issues I have found are solved with one action, or several options and will not occur several times. So in the end, I will not have these issues again, and I am a happy surfer again.

Another trip to the north

This weekend we had to go north, to Krommenie again. A good friend of ours celebrated his birthday and who are we to skip a party!

Of course, we took another 5 boxes of stuff from our house to Anneke's parents. For some reason we already have about 25 moving boxes of stuff at their place, and only now our house starts to look decluttered. Only unnecessary stuff has been moved, so we seem to have far more crap than we thought we had.

Yesterday morning we looked at a house in Krommenie, and although the house is very very nice, it takes some serious work to make it more modern. Also, the garden is incredibly odd, being split with the neighbours nextdoor. No privacy at all, so that might be an issue. So, no decisions yet, of course, since we also have to sell our house as well.

After that I planned to go straight to work and still work half a day, but in the end I called in and took a full day off. This way we could spend some more time with our family in Krommenie.

Also, last saturday I considered the time right to take another trip to our local whisky shop and buy myself (after some serious consideration) a Hakushu 18. A nice and soft Japanese whisky, which I really like. It is the first whisky at a normal alcohol percentage (between 40% and 50%) instead of cask strength (around 60%) I have bought in a really long time.

House for sale!

As of today, our crib is officially for sale. It has been put online on The Netherlands' main real estate site and on the Real Estate Broker's website.

I hope people find our place interesting and we can sell quickly. We are in a good categorie with a really interesting place for many 'starters', or anyone else who has nothing to sell. Mortgage percentages are low, which should all be benefits for a quick sale.

Now we only have to keep it clean and tidy, which, for us, is quick an endeavour... Let's hope our little black terrorist does not scare the living crap out of people...

Of course, I will put links to our house online every now and then, and will spam people about it. Simply because we have a kick ass house, and everybody should want it... :-)

Busy busy busy

Since my last post on Wednesday several things have been going on. The most important of those things being fixing the bathroom.

The seems and tiles I ripped out a while ago have been replaced and improved. For a first time at doing some tiling, I am quite satisfied with the result.

We also have chosen a real estate agent to sell our house. We are going to make an appointment to finalize some things this week and hope to have our house on the market next week. The chosen agency is found here.

We also went to Safaripark Beekse Bergen, to see some animals again. We, and especially Anneke, likes to go and watch some animals in a zoo, or somewhere similar to a zoo.

Of course, as in most weekends, some whiskies were tasted, and a few friends came over for dinner. We still had to watch our wedding pictures with them, and that is more than enough reason for invite them for dinner. Especially since I gave Anneke "The Silver Spoon" about two weeks ago. One of the best cookbooks available, as far as I know.

2500!

Today, another border is crossed. In my GMail box, I have 2500 unread email messages. Most of them concern newsletters that I subscribed to once, of which the unsubscribe function does not work, and all kinds of other commercial messages.

All private messages of forums, hyves, linkedin and other social networking platforms all go in to my gmail account, and are usually never read there. Almost always, when I see I have a message, I go to the site that sent it and check it there, for some reason.

But still, 2500 is a huge amount of crap mail...

More drinking

Apart from whisky, I kind of like all kinds of alcoholic beverages. The only type of drink that I really really dislike are drinks like Bacardi Breezer, Passoa, and those kinds of mix-drinks.

So, to have a nice evening with my friends who do not necessarily like whisky, we planned a wine tasting. We planned to do a wine course, with all kinds of wine and foods, but that is quite hard to plan with everyone's agenda.

Soon, an evening with 10 different red wines, nice bits of food to go with them. I am really interested in how that turns out. A benefit is that it is just around the corner from our house, so not more than 1 minute of walking after all that alcohol...

I'm really looking forward to it. Just hope that my taste in wines doesn't become as expensive as the whisky hobby. I would need to get a second job then. That would defeat the purpose, since there wouldn't be any time to drink...

Bathroom destruction

Yesterday Anneke and I started 'repairing' our bathroom. The seams between the floor tiles had to be redone, and to do that properly we wanted to remove some of the current ones. Not all of it, because that would cause a lot of work and no benefit.

Of course, as with many things in our house, the previous owner was a good "DIY" dude, in his mind, but lacked practical skills, so when we removed some seams, tiles loosened up and not we have more work than we intended to have.

Apart from that, it turned out that we did not have all the tools necessary to stick the tales in the floor again. We might have to read instruction when we buy stuff, instead of at home, when shops are closed.

All in all, I think it will be a few evenings of work before everything is back where it belongs, and the floor is a floor again. We still have to have the roof window replaced. It is supposed to be quite simple to do that yourself, but I know myself and my skills at such things, so we want a professional to do that. Especially when it comes to stuff like repairing a hole in the roof with a window that does not precisely fit right away...

After that we only have to repaint some walls to make our house a little more light, and spacious. More white, less colours, since that seems to be more attractive to potential buyers.

Looking at houses

Last Friday we went to Wormerveer to visit a first possible new house. We found it on Funda and we liked the style of the house right away. 1930's style, a bay window, en suite doors in the living room, 2 doors to the garden from the living room.

The lower floor of the house was a bit small, but the upper floors were pretty good. Nice sized bedrooms, and another proper room in the attic, instead of only storage space.

The only real drawback of the place was that we would have to rebuild the entire kitchen to get it functioning. And not only the kitchen, but that entire part of the house, including enlarging the kitchen area, moving to toilet to another place in the building, redoing the roof, and so on.

The price of the house was a bit on the high side, when you still have to invest some 50 grand into it.

We have more or less decided that we do not like to have a house that needs a lot of work, since we are not really D-I-Y people.

After the house-visit we went to have dinner with Anneke's sister and husband. They are inviting relatives and friends for home dinners since a few weeks, and Friday was our turn. We had a great meal and a lot of fun.

On Saturday we planned to go home quite early and visit a couple of liquor shops in the area around Krommenie, to see if they have 'old stock' in which I can find a good deal, or some other good special offers.

I didn't find any special offers or anything, but I did find one bottle of the increasingly expensive and hard to find Highland Park 5820, and last year's 'Friends of the Classic Malts' Talisker bottle. Good stuff, and very worthwile to walk into random liquor shops and not just the specialist retailers.