Ha, sometimes I suprise myself. I already booked my next vacation and I also got my tickets this week! This time I decided not to mess with renting a car and driving over to my girlfriend; I just transfer in Atlanta and fly to Tallahassee in a hour! I fly on December the 22nd and return on January the 4th 2004. The suprise this time came with my tickets: a booklet with all kinds of info on what I can take with me and what not. Also they made sure that insurance doesn’t pay more than 10-20k in case you […]
Enter the darkness
CNN.com – As power slowly returns, the questions begin – Aug. 15, 2003 The above article is a nice example of how authorities always try to blame others for mistakes and problems. Since I’m not old enough to consiously remember the poweroutage in new York in ’77, this one is having more of an impact. It was really weird seeing all the footage from a blocked up Times Square, people running around with flashlights and candles. Good to see though that – once again – New Yorkers are not in a state of panic. The power outtage in New York […]
To Paris and Back
Wow, I just had a few perfect days of vacation with my sweetheart. Between July 9th and the 14th we visited Paris, the city of lights. I took the car and we arrived there in a few hours (we left at 8am and got there at 2pm) driving through Belgium, taking the A1 toll road. I really enjoyed myself and I think my girlfriend did too, although we didn’t have enough time to do everything we wanted. For instance, before we left I wanted to visit Mont St. Michel, a small peninsula on the west coast of France. But we […]
Enter the movies
I did it again. I bought myself a new toy. While my girlfriend is on the other side of the ocean buying a house, I decided I wanted a digital camcorder to record our trip to Paris were we will be as of June 9th. We had a camcorder with us when we went to New York in 2001 (just a few weeks before the September 11th attack) but that was a NTSC camcorder that Carrie got from a collegue. Well, this time I bought a camcorder myself. I bought the Sony DCR-TRV33E, a nice 1 megapixel MiniDV camera with […]
Survivor’s guilt
Ok, the 26th passed and I’m still employed. Al lot of my colleagues got fired though. Some I know pretty well. They offered me a new job as ‘client services manager’ – whatever that may be. They said they want to extend my contract with one year, so I guess that is positive. Most people I know that got fired were from the sales department. Another guy was from the IT department that I work with and he was a ‘programmer’ (although he wasn’t any good at his work he was still kind of a nice guy). I didn’t mention […]
Were are my @#&*&*******!!! archives!
Were are my @#&*&*******!!! archives! Ok I just noticed that for some odd reason my archives link on the left side doesn’t work. Seems some javascript error. It is always something with Blogger!. Anyways just as a service I will post some links here: January 2003 February 2003 March 2003 May 2003 June 2003 Hope they fix that Javascript error soon….
“Slaves can’t be fired: they get sold”
“Slaves can’t be fired: they get sold” As I mentioned in my latest blog my company is cutting jobs. This week, thursday the 26th to be exact, it’s “bijltjesdag” as they say in Dutch. Roughly translated this means it is the day when people will get ‘the axe’ – a nice euphemism for saying they wil get a pink slip. As I explained before I can’t be ‘fired’ in the legal sense of the word. They can just say they will not extend my current contract. In which case I will not get any unemployment benefits and will roughly have […]
It’s all in the game
It’s all in the game One last post on the verge of another month. Lately I have been very busy with another hobby of mine: online gaming. I play this game called Soldier of Fortune II “Double Helix” rather vigorously. That’s why I haven’t been writing or posting a lot in my Blog. Playing games is a way of escaping reality I guess. Things are not going so well at work at the moment and releasing the stress by killing some people (virtually of course) is one way of dealing with it. The reality is that the company I’m working […]
Freedom and justice for all
Freedom and justice for all Today is Liberation day in Holland. And although it’s not a national holiday anymore (God knows why?) a lot of people have the day off to celebrate the fact that the Allied countries (mostly the US) saved our butt in WWII. There are a few open-air concerts today and of course the TV is filled with the usual movies like “The Longest Day” and such. Looking out of the window of my work (its cold, clouded and looks like rain), listening to an oldie (A Forest, The Cure) on my iTunes, makes me a bit […]
Queen’s Day; the Dutch national garage sale day
Queen’s Day; the Dutch national garage sale day Ok, for those not familiar with the ‘Dutch way of life’; today is Queens Day. We celebrate the birthday of our Queen (well, actually the birthday of our Queen’s mum) and this is a national holiday so everyone has a day off. We celebrate this by means of the largest outdoor garage sale you can imagine. Everyone cleans there attic or garage and tries to sell all the rubbish they didn’t want to throw away with the garbage. But that’s what most of the stuff is: garbage. You’ll find the most stupid […]