History is history

My exam didn't go that well on the history of general history.
I had to put a quote from Richard Evans' book In defense of History into context. I thought that scientific history just meant the history of science, but the professor saw it in an Isiah Berlin kind of way. Not as in the history of the scientific method. Also she wanted to know why Evans defended the post-modern view on primary sources. But he didn't, really. Quite the opposite. The post-modernists don't think there is such a thing as a primary source. I was wondering if we really were talking about the same book here. So I was very much confused.

Also she asked me what historical context was. So I started off on a ramble, which, I thought was a pretty solid explanation about what it is, how scolars need recreate it to handle and interpret their sources correctly etc.
Which was apparently not the answer she was looking for. I had to use meta-theoretical stuff.
Professor: 'Don't you remember the 8th lecture I gave. I did an entire lecture on Context.'
Me: 'Yes, but I'm sorry, I really can't help you with the answer.'
Professor: 'I talked about a football match. Ring any bells?'
Me: 'Yes, I remember there being a picture of Zinedine Zidane giving a headbutt in the power point. But I'm not quite sure how it fits in with the question.'

Right. I looked it up while I was waiting for my train home. It had to fit in with the agency (the action of the football player) in a structure (a football game).
I think I'll have to retake the exam after summer. It was quite tedious to study. I know what to read if I have a sleepless night. It puts my lights out under five minutes. Just like Mouser next to Ludmilla Jordanova's History in Practice.

In with the new

We had a little inaugural burn-in yesterday evening. It took us some time to slowly heat the thing for the first time. Best not to use it full blast, the cement inside needs to warm up slowly so it doesn't crack open. After a while we heard strange hissing sounds coming from within. Probably some moisture evaporating.
We weren't too sure if the fire was still going, it's awfully quit and the window is too small to see anything.
It'll take some getting used to how to light it properly and how to have it give off enough warmth without burning too much wood at the same time.

Out with the old

On Thursday the new stove was fitted. The Odd Job Man came and made a new outlet for the thing in the chimney. Very neatly done and all in just 2 and a half hours.
We're very pleased, but we can't light it until Sunday because the cement and brick work needs to dry out until then.

Here's the old thing, a British made Spencer. I think the model is called Frank.

Then Odd Job drilled some holes for the new outlet and removed the bricks that weren't complete. We didn't find a Santa or the panel of The Just Judges wedged half way up.



Next step was putting some new bricks in and cementing the thing shut.
And yes, no photo of the result as yet.
Drumroll...
I will take one when we're trying it for the first time.

A bit of Fry

Had the history of art history exam today. It went ok. Except my brains left me in the lurch when it came to Roger Fry. I knew he was involved in the Bloomsbury group, but couldn't put my finger on why he was important with regards to Formalism. Trust me to know tidbits like Fry having an affair with Clive Bell's wife Vanessa.
Ah well. I think I'll be let off with an acceptable grade, but not the top one.
I went on a celebratory shopping spree and bought Venitian Villa's by Michelangelo Muraro and Paolo Marton. A steal at 3,49€.

Happy Birthday Buzz

A very happy birthday to my favourite engineer/scientist/astronaut Buzz Aldrin!

Richard Evans - In Defence of History

Just finished Richard Evans' book In Defence of History in time for my Historiography exam (the one on Monday on general history, I have another Historiography exam this Friday on the History of Art).
Pretty smooth read all the way through. The post-modernist-bashing does feel a little outdated (I'm reading the edition from 2000).
Hope I can still read my summary and retain all of Evans' arguments and score extra bonus points.

Touring help

Dr Livingstone's car has left him in the lurch again. His hand brake seems to be sticking to his wheel. The car goes all wobbly after a bit and there's some extreme heat coming from behind the tire. I had to keep an eye on Mouser. It's very curious about everything new. Don't want to get a call and have to pick Velvet Claws up god-knows-where because it jumped into the technician's van.
On Wednesday Dr Livingstone'll be driving to his LR dealer some 175+ kilometers from here to get it fixed and serviced.
I've had to drive him to his workshop on Monday morning. He'd gone a shade of green before we got there. He really doesn't like being driven around in Mini Me.

Bonnie and Mouser (not Clyde)

This is the other cat that caused some confusion in December. It looks very much like Mouser, bar the little white patch. It makes the same kitteh noises as our cat does. They seem to tolerate each other. Just the hair moves a bit. They just squat and stare at each other for at least a quarter of an hour at a time. According to the well informed child next door the cat is called Bonnie. There used to be another cat called Clyde, but that one is dead.

Franco-Belge

Dr Livingstone found a stove on teh interwebz. We didn't need much concurring on this one and went out to buy it this morning.
It's a Franco-Belge Continental 5. (Alas not a Bentley Continental, but that wouldn't fit in our living room anyway). The thing we have now is actually a coal stove and it involves an enormous amount of skill to burn wood in it and have it disseminate the warmth in the room instead of up the chimney.
Apparantly Franco-Belge is now being manufactured by Godin. That other well known cast iron stove manufacturer. It's made in the same factory.
We haven't installed it yet, we need to make another hole in the wall of the chimney.
More on this new adventure later. I'll just put up a picture I made of it when we had just unloaded it from the car.

Telly Catdicts

Last night Dr Livingstone and myself were watching a documentary on tigers in Bhutan, which were discovered back in September. Mouser was on my lap, where else, when it suddenly leapt off the couch and sat watching the telly when some cats were caught on camera. It was fascinated by the movement.
When a bit later a pack of dogs was shown Velvet Claws fled for safety.

Pencilcase

Mouser has been sure not to miss out laying on my lap every available minute of the day. Most of the time I can get some work done, and kitteh is fast asleep. Sometimes it gets annoyed with me writing with a pencil and little Velvet Claws has a go at the pencil and it is confiscated.
And then my feline pencilcase holds it for me. The tricky thing is getting it back without it putting up a fight and having it chew on the gum at the end.

Moronic Mail

I've posted about the hideous mailbox we had out front. It was so impractical and the rain could get at it we bought a new one straight away.
We dismounted the house from its fake plaster tree stump and put it on the ground, the front facing away from the street and into the bushes.
Clearly not in use anymore. No house number on it, no easy access, clearly cast away. Idle, inactive, unused, unemployed, disused, not in use, out of use, out of action, inoperative, nonfunctioning, out of service.
These slight hints didn't seem to be sufficient for some moron to still put the mail in there.

/rolls eyes.
/double facepalm

Down with historiography

Mouser wants to be with me most of the time. When I'm not sitting behind my desk it jumps on my lap and sticks to it like glue until my legs go numb. Yesterday I tried a new spot in the house. I put a lounge chair in front of the bedroom window. It faces South, so I got to sit in my own private solarium for a couple of hours. Mouser didn't want to stay outdoors, kitteh could see me sitting there and wanted to join me. For some time it stayed on the sill, but then, using my legs as a pontoon bridge, crossed over to stand on my historiography course and looked at me very intently:
'This is no competition. Put the historiography down. This is my spot now.'

Staying in the closet

Mouser didn't get a lot of attention the first week or so when we moved, I was busy unpacking, cleaning, trowing out stuff, arranging my books when the bookcase was finally finished.

Kitteh has now annexed all the kitteh-spots in the house. There's one in particular where it tended to sleep, I've put one of its fancy red pillows there to make it more comfy. I see it as a sort of silent protest. The reasoning behind Mouser's decision to sleep in one of my book cases is simple. 'I'll pretend I'm a book, maybe she'll notice me'.

Feed the birds

Super, this conservatory. Although it is too cold at the mo to sit in it, it serves as a good buffer to keep away the cold from the living room windows. And I can spy on the birds with my camera in hand and not have them fly away.
So far the ground has been covered with snow the past two weeks and the little ones are very hungry. I've put out loads of food. There's something for everyone. I've got a little house filled with seeds, some netted grease balls with nuts, some slices of bread on the ground for the bigger lads.
They were a bit slow at first to find it all, but after a day or two I've seen some regulars. The list so far is made up of the usual suspects:

- Crows (Corvus corone)
- Pigeons (don't know what kind, not into pigeons)
- Jays (Garrulus glandarius)
- Blackbirds (Turdus merula)
- House Sparrows (Passer domesticus)
- Chaffinch (Fringilla coelebs)
- Robins (Erithacus rubecula)
- Great Tits (Parus major)
- Blue Tits (Cyanistes caeruleus)

I haven't seen a Green Woodpecker (Picus viridis) yet. I did see a Marsh Harrier (Circus aeruginosus) swoop down about 3 meters from me while I was behind my desk in the kitchen. It had caught another bird and started plucking right away. Spectacular.

Partial Solar Eclipse

Partial Solar Eclipse today! Of course it was cloudy. So I had to look for a live webcast. Even in Pakistan observations were messed up because of the cloud cover.
Thanks to the Spanish Agrupación Astronómica de Sabadell I was able to see it! Even a tiny group of sunspots was visible.
Moltes gracies!

iSleep

"Apple has confirmed an iOS bug where non-repeating alarms fail to ring on the first few days of the new year, recommending that users set recurring alarms until Jan. 3, when the alarms will resume working properly."

Or in this case: NOT.
Dr Livingstone slept like a baby and was an hour late waking up.

Matches

More on the tacky side of life: a hideous electric fireplace, with all the fake trimmings to make it look real, like a rotating transparant filter to simulate smoke, sparkles on the logs to make them shimmer, dimable lights for effect.
It just had to go. We put it up for sale on internet.

So on Saturday these people come over to collect the thing. Dr Livingstone explains how it works, how you can flip a switch to increase the heat and turn on the fan etc.
Suddenly the lady asks: 'So you don't need matches to light it then?'.

ROFLCOPTER

Really. I don't know how Dr Livingstone managed to maintain a straight face.

We should have thrown a packet of matches into the bargain for free. It would have been all kinds of awesome when they took it home and lit it on fire...

Happy New Year

A very Happy New Year to all my dear readers who follow the Gregorian calender! You know who you are.
We're already having a swell year in our new, warm home. We've become very attached to the nice, real, log fire.

Some things to look forward to this year: a partial solar eclipse on January 4th, tackling my new garden with still to buy power tools (every girl should have power tools), Dr Livingstone resumes touring again after his back trouble.

Mail in da house

Speaking of tacky and unrefined; our letterbox. It is hideous, unpractical, and fugly.
Really.
We even got one of those flyers from the postman stipulating all the things amiss with the thing.
Why would anyone in their right mind a) buy one b) put their name on the front broadcasting to the world who's property it is.
As soon as there are sales, we're buying a new one.

The rape of Louvain

The town hall of Louvain has been raped in the name of Christmas.

The Christmass lights should share the Hooters slogan: Delightfully tacky, yet unrefined.

I'm out of my head with the hunger

Mouser is out on the prowl looking for anything to eat. Even if it's bread I left out for the birds. On top of bushes.

Ze bookcase part deux

We managed to put the glass doors on the bookcase on Sunday. Mind you, it did take us about seven (!) hours to fix it to the wall, assemble the glass panes and then hang them in the brackets. We were exhausted.
I finally got to shift all mosts of the boxes in the living room. I miscalculated, so I need to buy some extra shelves. Plus, not all books seem to be able to fit into it. Which still puzzles me, because now books can go up all the way to the ceiling. And I can stack them more tightly.
Comics are going in another bookcase we're not selling.

Free Kitteh!

I feel a sort of motherly pride, or something that comes quite close to it. Mouser has been ill the last couple of days. Blood in urine. Nasty. Probably due to it being entirely dependent on me feeding her and not being able to supplement its diet with some fresh mice or poultry from the garden.
So we took her to the vet on Saturday morning. There's a guy in the village. Very friendly bloke. Gave her the once over, healthy kitteh, blood in urine, change diet. Here's some free samples of extremely balanced cat food. You can buy it here, just ring before you collect.
Mouser got a shot of antibiotics to get rid of the infection, and I've been trying to feed it the free yummy things. Which it will eat, just to get on my good side, but not all of it because it is hungry. The vet also told us there'd be no harm in letting her out as The Great Escape from last week proved she knows where she's safe.

So on Sunday morning, it was 'Free Kitteh'. I left the door of the conservatory ajar and it went out, very cautiously. The snow is hampering a big walkabout, so it just sat down in the snow, listening to the sounds of children playing with a sled.
Then it ventured inside again. A few minutes later out again, but this time a lot further out and across to the stables. Then it rounded the corner and was gone.

Panic, but I was filling some bookshelves (see other post ze bookcase) to be pre-occupied and not ponder to hard what would happen if it didn't come back.
I don't know what time frame, but it already seemed an hour or so when I started to get really worried. I ventured out, only saw little paw prints in the snow and no cat to match them.

A little later on Dr Livingstone volunteered to go and look for kitteh. After five minutes I saw him next to the stables, beaming. 'I've found Mouser!', standing there with a black cat in his arms. And at that exact moment Mouser walked round the corner and entered through the conservatory door.
'What are you talking about? Mouser just walked in here! What cat are you holding?'.

Lulz. There's another black, thin cat about. Making the exact same kitteh noises.

Fashion statement of the year 2010

I opted for the moonboots this week because of the heavy snowfall. There's about 20 cms now, Dr Livingstone cleared twice on Monday and within 20 minutes all his work had been to no avail.

So I leave an hour earlier to get to uni on time, trains are running late as usual. I enter the little warming room at the station and see every single one of my fellow travelers (20 or so) look down at my feet.
Let me correct myself; they are not looking, they are staring. They are gawping.

Meh. I already crossed the shame barrier in the hallway this morning, when I chose those cursed white moonboots.

But to put things in perspective I must quote Louis Sullivan on this. Form follows function; they are comfy, warm and I'm not slipping and falling all over the place.

Ze bookcase

This is how the bookcase looked on Friday evening. All 5 meters of it. It took me an afternoon to assemble it with Miller B.
Afterwards we set out to explore the couleur locale and tried the chippy in the next village. Excellent fries. Well worth the wait (30 minutes before we got to order our food). Dr Livingstone is quite particular about the quality of his fries and I think he enjoyed them immensely.

Mousermind

I wonder what Mouser is dreaming about in her Mastermind Chair. Is it thinking of green pastures where we used to live? Is it dreaming about that other black cat it saw out of the window yesterday evening?

Moving (7)

We're still in the progress of moving. This seems to be taking for ever. We're both nackered. Dr Livingstone is working his fingers to the bone on jobs around the country (and further beyond) and I'm still struggling to get a paper finished by the Monday deadline.
We've shifted most of our stuff, yesterday one truckload of my books arrived here.
That was a fine back breaker.
Here's a 'before' picture when they were still in our old place.

This is only the tip of the proverbial iceberg.
The bookcase arrived yesterday as well, it is still in an embryonic phase at the moment.
First it needs to be fixed to the wall before we can start assembling the sliding doors and I can start re-organizing my books.
Luckily I labeled all the boxes, but some books got mixed in with others when one or two boxes gave way under the weight of the contents. I hope not too many of them got scratched or torn.

Mouser seems to be doing OK. It's quite a change since kitteh usually goes on long unescorted hunts for hours on end. Now I have to feed her a couple of times a day and go on exploring runs with Mouser on a leash.
The cat toilet I bought has been used frequently, so that is going swell.
Mouser even staged a little Houdini-scèance earlier in the week. It was dark and we were out next to the stables, when I felt the leash going upwards. It had climbed a tree (not unusual), but the four-legged feline had gotten the leash caught behind a branch and had fallen and was hanging in the cat harness. I had to let go of the leash and kitteh darted off into the darkness. Panic seized me.

Dr Livingstone arrived home and flipped on all the lights in the garden. I was searching frantically for Mouser, calling, I thought it'd sped off to god knows where. Then suddenly Dr Livingstone called out: She's here! She's waiting outside the door to get in!
Just fancy that! Good kitteh! I'm so proud. It is a good start if Mouser recognizes where we live and flees to the house for safety.

Corduroy jacket + red turtleneck

Weather man Frank Deboosere has been going down the Carl Sagan route.
He's been donning the turtleneck/smoking jacket combination.
Very cosmic.
It cannot be chance. He knows. Only the in-crowd recognize it.
I see it Frank!

And I'll leave you with news...

We've been extremely busy moving and what not. I'd like to give a big thanks to millers B. and W. for helping us out last Saturday (even though they have told me not to thank them any more).
But more on our extra mural activities later on.

For now I'll leave you with this to ponder on:
Julian Assange, the man very much in the news the last couple of weeks, is a dead wringer for Silas from The Da Vinci Code.
Are they related?
I think we must be told.

Moving (6)

We've gotten the keys to the castle! Strange, being in the house all alone for the first time. It sounds extremely empty. It is almost eerie. We're very glad we can finally start looking forward to living somewhere where it's warm, dry and cosy.

The first letter we got at the new adress was bad news. The IKEA bookcase is going to be delivered a week later than we planned together with the lovely girl at the store. (I mean we planned the delivery with the girl, the girl isn't going to be delivered together with the book case)
Which means we'll be stuck with a gazillion banana boxes stuffed with books for at least another week.

Yesterday when I first went up to the house I couldn't get in because the latch on the gate had frozen shut. It snowed two days ago and little Belgium is steeped in complete chaos. Also my bus turned up 53 minutes late, but I'd taken two busses earlier to make sure I'd get to college on time.

I started cleaning out some cupboards in the hall, we've already transferred our coats that had been clogging our old place.
Some of my courses from previous years are already in some kitchen cupboards. Yes, it is a strange place to keep school stuff, but I've annexed a part of the humungous kitchen and have designated it as study-area for now.
Alas so far only two boxes of the CDs made it onto the shelving. I ran out of shelves because I spaced them closer together, and some holes to fix the supports were missing. Dr Livingstone phoned me he'd already made new shelves and he'll be bringing along his drill. I'll be raiding the IKEA bookcase currently in our cellar for the little aluminum supports.

We wondered around in the dark yesterday (on a grey day like this, it is dark around five p.m.) because the previous owners removed most light fixtures, not even leaving a little socket for a simple bulb.
We also tried every key given to us. We haven't worked out what everything is.
We also tried every light switch, the ones we've figured out I've marked with a Dymo label. Yes, it does seem a bit control freakish, but until we've gotten used to everything they're staying.
At least I'm not labeling the contents of the kitchen cupboards.
Yet.

It feels as though you're staying with a friend and you don't know what everything is for or you fear you're intruding on someone's privacy.
The house doesn't even smell familiar. It may sound as something very strange, but the house won't really be ours until the faint whiff of some grandma potpourri has entirely gone.

The wardrobe in the bedroom has definitely got to go because:
a) it has worn old with usage.
b) it's fugly as hell.
We'll have to make due with it for the time being.

Dr Livingstone just phoned me he can borrow someone's van tonight to move some more stuff. \o/
Alas, I'm stuck at uni 'till four and we'll have to shift stuff in the dark yet again.

Moving (5)

We went to IKEA on Saturday to order the new bookcases. We've opted for a combination usually used in the bedroom, but they were way cheaper than 'normal' bookcase systems on offer, and they have sliding doors!
A friend of mine has a daughter who's an interiour designer and she uses the PAX system too.

Dr Livingstone preferred clear glass doors, maybe in time we could replace them, but we'll go with the frosted ones for now. You can still see the bookcovers through the glass.
I've made a quick mock up of what it'll look like. This is 5 meters of wall covered in books, right up to the ceiling. Yay!
They'll be delivered on Chanoeka (2nd December).
We opted out of having the IKEA people assemble them for us, we couldn't be sure when they'd get round to doing it, and we really need the thing up by the 4th as we've agreed we'd like to start living there by next weekend!

OMG so much to do: schoolwork piling up, I have a trial exam on Monday, in the afternoon we're getting a tour of the Rubenianum in Antwerp, on Wednesday we have to give our presentation, on Thursday I'll be getting a big dusty file on a non-descript building at the KADOC archives and on Friday we're going to the solicitor to sign the paperwork and get the keys to the castle.
The people we bought it from are moving the 29th, so we gracefully let them have a couple of days extra.

Dr Livingstone is going to try and negociate with our landlord if we can weasel out of paying an extra month of rent.
We got a letter from his attourney saying we need to pay the whole month of Januari. Which sucks big time. I'll just let the Dr work his magic and hope it saves us a few bob.

The Master of PowerPoints and Rogier van der Who

I haven't been blogging much lately, I've been busy reviewing an exhibition catalog on 15th century painting.
Basically it is just one big long apology for connoisseurship (=the Morellian approach).
But I can't really hand in a one sentence paper.

The most frustrating thing about this is that it is a group assignment and I am stuck having to put up with two 19 year olds who do not have the slightest inkling about how to proceed and get on with research in a scientific way.
And they abhor reading foreign languages (if indeed they know any).

Oh, and they complain if a text is longer than three pages.
And complain some more that they're not very good at writing in general or speaking in public either.
Seems someone picked the wrong kind of course...

Moving (4)

It was as expected. We got a quote from the cabinet maker that blew our socks off (in a negative way). Looks like we're bound for Ikea yet again.
But we will have those glass sliding doors after all. Finally the books will no longer collect dust! This rehoming of my library has taken up a lot more time than expected.
And we do not have to drive all the way there, shift the heavy packages (20 or so) and fight over the instructions.
They have an assembly service. We'll be using that thank you very much. Tee hee.

Moving (3)

I bought Mouser a little treat. A radiator bed. It hooks on to the radiator and is soft and plushy. Actually it's for the new house, but I've mounted it here already so kitteh can get used to it. I've put Mouser on it a couple of times, but it jumps off as fast as it can. I think it wants to look out the window, and the bed is too low. Maybe it'll be ideal for in the conservatory.
I've washed the cover to get rid of unfamiliar smells and placed it on the chair Mouser usually naps during the day, so it gets permeated with kitteh's own smell.

Moving (2)

We're selling off furniture via the web. The more we sell, the less we have to move.
We've had lots of interest over the weekend.
Today Dr Livingstone is delivering a bed in Antwerp on the way to a job, yesterday a guy came and took a huge cabinet for A1 paper off our hands, tonight there's someone coming to collect two bed slats and tomorrow there's another drop off of two bookcases.

We're also very keen on getting rid of a high sleeper bed. It's in our way, hardly ever been used and for a very reasonable price we hope to flog it.

So yesterday I packed up a lot of books in some Chiquita banana boxes. Not many left of them now I'm afraid. Used the lid as well, only managed to pack 2 bookcases in 8 boxes.

Tomorrow we're getting a quote from the cabinet maker.

/Drumroll.

Dr Livingstone told me to put the selling of the remaining bookcases on hold for a while until we're absolutely sure we can afford the made to measure one.

So I'll be playing the lottery again this weekend...

Heroine of the week: Kathryn Bennetts

The woman we all love to hate, the chemtrial believing Flemish Minister for Environment and Culture Joke Schauvliege, is really screwing the country around again. Last week she gave an interview stating that a minister shouldn't actually know anything about Culture to run the department. "Je moet als minister van Cultuur geen cultuurkenner zijn. Een minister moet vooral goed beleid voeren"

Quod erat demonstrandum. It is plainly obvious she does not understand anything about Culture: She has announced a series of budget cuts (among many, many others also hitting environmental groups) and will put the Flemish Opera and the Royal Ballet of Flanders under one intendant. Kathryn Bennetts, of the Royal Ballet has resigned forthwith
.
"I do not want to live in a country with that kind of policies. This is an act of arrogance and ignorance. These plans are from a Minister of Culture whom I have never met and has never attended one of our performances. This is utterly shamefull for Flanders" dixit Bennetts in the papers. She had been with the Royal Ballet as artistic director since 2005. This is a very powerful signal. And one not te be ignored, or passed over lightly.

But, knowing Schauwvliege it'll just bounce off her and she'll just go: 'There is a crisis on, everyone needs to get by with less'.
If you hear how she's running (or not running) the Department (less subsidies, more own resources), doesn't that say enough about her non-capacity? The magical words: 'The sector needs to implement their own objectives from the bottom up' are just NewSpeak for 'I don't really know how to do it myself'.

When will the Flemish Minister President Kris Peeters grow some balls and end this catastrophe? Flanders is becoming the laughing stock of the international art world.

Exemption

Good news in my mailbox today! I got word that I got an exemption for one of the subjects on my program next semester. \o/
I also got word that another one was turned down.
I have to take Music History. Not to pleased about that. I've studied Music History at two different institutions before (that amounts to five (!) different courses) but according to the university they didn't have the equivalence to what is going to be teached here. Meh, I disagree. I've seen the course manual. It is the spitting image of what I've done before. Waste of time i.m.o.
Ah, well. The story of my life I guess?

Moving (1)

It has started. Dr Livingstone has taken the first bookcase with him to his workshop.
I had packed the contents into some Chiquita banana boxes two weeks ago. I've already used up five of them. Bugger. I've only managed to score an extra three since the last Banana Box Update. I've not been to the shops every day, and when I did go, there weren't any boxes for me to take home.

Also, the carpenter is going to make a bookcase for the living room. It's going to be huge. 6 x 2,3 meters. Now we're talking. In a nice warm cherry wood. It's going to take him about four days to make the bookcase in his workshop and about a day to install it. We're getting a quote for that later today. My guess is we'll be waiting to have it fitted with glass doors.

I think this weekend will consist of a few runs to the container park. And I need to put all the stuff we don't want anymore up for sale on the internet.

I hope there's a big market out there for the obligatory IKEA stuff.

De Wever word cloud

Here's Bart De Wever's world cloud from the text he posted on the internet for all Belgium to see.

Dahon Eco Folding Bike

Yesterday I went and bought me one of these: a Dahon Eco folding bike, in a nice dark shade; Baltic Blue.
It took me a little while to get used to fold it.
The step by step drawing wasn't very consistent as to how the pedals should be. I'm easily confused.
And Dr Livingstone was watching me from afar and shouting: 'This'll never last. I don't see you doing that in the midst of winter when it's freezing. I'm waiting for the day I get a call from you telling me you're hair's caught in the gears.' etc.
I've got it sussed out now. On the site it says it takes about 15 seconds to fold the thing. I can do better. But the Dr refused to time my folding escapades.
So the plan is to
a) cycle to the station in the morning to catch the train in February when we've moved (busses tend to be slow and also stuck in traffic jams)
b) fold the bike
c) board the train
d) make a complete arse of myself unfolding the darn thing and cycle off to whatever seminar I need to attend.

I still need to buy and über cool helmet at the skate shop.

Not on the busses

Looks like no one is going to be boarding any busses today. Be they über fat or wafer thin.
Drivers are on strike in my area. Can't blame them. There've been schedule changes, they're about 20 drivers short and they don't even have time for a little tinkle. And they've been cutting back on more busses. That's why we're always crammed in the bus like a school of sardines in a tin can.

Looks like I'll have to use the car again.

Morbidly o' bus

People with a BMI of 30 and up should NOT board the bus when I'm on it.
Well, they can, but they are NOT allowed to try and squeeze themselves in the seat next to me, protrude to an unnatural or incongruous extent and then accordingly squash me between them and the window.
I was reading a book and couldn't even move my arms to turn over the page! Seriously. How can you be that fat and not have the slightest inkling of what kind of uncomfortableness you cause others by literally shifting your weight around.
To top it off the fat woman even gave me a 'Move a little will ya'-stare.

Really. One ass per seat please.

Past week round up

- start of telex -

A quick list of things done so far:
- every morning (or indeed afternoon) this past week busses were late, at least 7 minutes.
- attended an animated discussion organised by the Law Faculty on Justice and Media (journalists and investigating judge were seriously getting up each other's nose).
- had minor surgery on Thursday. They put me in Room 101 (again)!
- signed the agreement to buy the house at the real estate guy, met the owners of the house for the first time.
- told the landlord we'd be moving (he seemed very relieved) very soon.
- we're moving at the beginning of December. Hope to be all settled by the 15th.
- won twice with lottery (2,50 €). Not even enough to cover the amount it costs to hand in the ticket...

Now need to sleep.
Worked at the mill today, lagging behind in school work.
Not enough hours in a day.

- end of telex -