Finally got the opportunity to make proper use of my navigation system, we had a work meeting at a place I couldn't even point out on a map, and I let my little PDA friend do all the thinking. ... it works. In the end I did take a bit of a detour, but that didn't occur until I got out of the car and
decided to try not to look like a prat walking around with stanav for the last 500 meters. Oh well, at least I got to see the church in Maarssen :-) Nice meeting, chatted with loads of people.

A whole day spent behind my Playstation, except for dinner at the parents' place. Still not feeling great.

Had big plans for the Saturday night, but noticed early in the day that for some reason my vision appeared to be lagging behind my head-movements. On top of that I felt dead tired as well. Slept for most of the afternoon before attempting to go clubbing in Rotterdam with all my friends.

Found out that all my friends consited of Nicktor, Shiwa and Cindy and decided at 1am that I was too tired/ill to make it.

Guys night in at my place, got joined by Ruben, Martijn, Nicktor and McR. Apparently Ruben will be leaving for Singapore at the beginning of next year. This probably means I've finally found my excuse to go and explore Laos! :-)

Ended the night with more beer than I started with, I only had half a case left so I decided to get me another case, then Martijn decided to bring a case of beer, just in case. I've now got just a bit under 48 bottles of beer (2 cases) left.

Have been starting around 9:30 ish all week, definitely a nice distraction from getting too early. Who would think there'd be a day where I'd claim 7:30 to be a humane time to get up :-)

Apparently girlfriend is back from Stockholm. Spent the night chatting with her.

Went to the dentist, no cavities!

Managed to spend 2.5 hours driving to Amsterdam, of which more than an hour was spent on a "short cut". Hey, it looks busy up ahead, let's try this road, followed by an hour of standing still in traffic. Argh!

Noticed on the way back home that my car does not entirely agree with gale force sidewinds. Oh well, at least it keeps me awake :-)

Surreal moment of the day: While on the phone with McR I manage to take the wrong turn on the way back home without even noticing, until I suddenly shout out:"What the fuck?" McR:"What's happening?" Me:"I'm driving back into Amsterdam and I haven't got a clue how I did it". Interesting detail, I actually spent 15 minutes in a traffic jam driving back into Amsterdam without ever realising it. That sucked! Did I already mention that I had my satnav-system switched on?

Games and food at night

Woke up with the consequences of loads of beer, but eventually managed to get up and running, visited my parents' place, where I somehow managed to install ADSL on a laptop for which I should have dug a whole in the ground to dump it in. The ADSL-installation cd kept crashing after showing the opening screen, I then managed to run all individual programs (by trial and error) and eventually had to struggle for ages to find how to set the modem-password. Not fun.

Saw Wallace and Gromit and the curse of the were rabbit at night. Brilliant. Found out that Nicktor sucks even more at navigating cities than I had ever expected.

Bought "Need for speed Underground 2" somewhat by accident, apparently I still needed a good racing-game for my PS2. Spent most of the afternoon playing games (except for a short IKEA-carrying stint over at Nicktor's place).

At night celebrated Marlies birthday with animated disscussion on the subject of strap-on dildo's and loads of beer.

Decided on a hermit-night in, then the internet failed so even the big plans for the night could not be fulfilled (buy ticket to girlfriend, update journal). Am noticing that while it's getting somewhat colder outside, I still can't bring myself to switching on the heater. Why use heating when wrapping a blanket around your shoulders works just as well, right? :-)

Brilliant news, apparently I'm going to spend most of februari, march and april doing a 36 day Java/Netweaver/Sap course in 's Hertogenbosch, with plenty of new opportunities afterwards. Not that I hate my current position but a change of scenery is always nice, right?

Managed to get myself stuck in a traffic jam on the way back home (more than usual, that is). Eva appeared confused for most of the way back home. Even so much that I started fearing I'd have to sleep alone at night.

Had Nicktor and McR pop in and managed to make Nicktor a dinner that didn't straight away kill him. (Always nice). Watched football on tv and then "the Dukes of Hazard". May have to ask girlfriend why it's in black and white. (She brought the dvd from St Petersburg)

Popped by Annemarie to finally deliver the present girlfriend made me drag away from Kopenhagen. Ended up chatting on MSN with girlfriend, using Annemarie's username. While girlfriend knew, Nicktor apparently didn't. With Annemarie standing besides me, shouting:"Hey, I would never say that!", nothing I said made Nicktor change his mind about Annemarie not being Annemarie. Cool!

Am noticing that while Eva may not be the brightest, she certainly is the most patient woman I've ever met. Whenever I take shortcuts around traffic jams, she keeps asking me to turn around at every intersection I arrive at for miles before she finally catches on. But she never sighs or complains. Then this does get on your nerves after a while.

Wouldn't it be much nicer if after ignoring advice for 5 times, it would throw a fit and show a screen:"Apparently you don't appreciate my advice, screw you! Want to make up? Yes/No".

Visited my old neighbour at night. Still intrigued by his comment:"In my days working at the same place for 40 years was nothing special". (he's 72). Nowadays that really sounds like an eternity!

Once you've got the PDA with sat-nav capabilities for all of Europe (Anybody wants to navigate to Rome??) You suddenly realise that your life is pretty dull and 99 out of 100 times you navigate to places you've already been 100 times before. Yesterday I already attempted to navigate to my parents' place, which ended in me arguing with sat-nav lady Eva because she was convinced that a certain road should be taken while they closed it down 5 years ago.

Today I decided to get diesel in Oud Beijerland just because it sounded like an interesting place to get your fuel. Found out that while I can't make it to my parents' place, reaching the petrol station in Oud Beijerland is not a problem at all. Maybe I can convince the parental unit to move to the Oud Beijerland petrol station :-)

Screw bicycles, gadgets are cool. One question:"What do I need it for again?? :-)

Spent most of the day biking around Rotterdam. Once again almost bought the Palm but once again did the sensible thing. Actually I'm a bit torn between buying a Palm or buying a hybrid bicycle on which I can bike around for a couple of hours without having to worry about it falling apart. Not that I could park it anywhere in town but just biking can be big fun too once in a while.

At night McR and I abducted Otto for his (somewhat late) stag-night. Because this being a post-wedding stag-night, we couldn't work with external strippers anymore. Gave his wife a cd with music to strip to and made her practise while we were out. Eventually got joined by Nicktor and basically just drank loads of beer before we went back home, blindfolded Otto and dropped him off at his own place for his own private strip show.

Even managed to play games on my PS2 with McR for a while after he dropped me off at home.

Seeing as my mum had the bags under her eyes removed on Monday and I still needed to visit them, I did just that. Mum looks a bit silly now with all the stitches and she refuses to leave the house. Apparently this wil wear off within the next couple of days. Did almost buy a PalmOne Tungsten E2 + nav-pack. They're on sale for "only" 396 euro's. Did the sensible thing and stayed clear.

Managed to get lost on the way back home (for a change). Amstelveen and surroundings looked interesting but it took me about an hour to get back to something I recognised.

Spent the night on the internet with girlfriend. Apparently she's still in Helsinki. Apparently I'm currently having some trouble making it to Helsinki. Apparently I'm not amused.

I need sleep! Had to work hard all day again and ended up going back home so tired that I managed to drive towards Almere instead of towards Alkmaar (the complete opposite way). Fortunately I drove straight into a traffic jam so it took me only 30 minutes to correct this.

Had Cindy pop by at night and managed to lose directions once again while dropping her off at her place. I definitely need sleep!

2 of my colleagues still suffering from food poisoning-migraine. Busy!!!

Crisis situation in the workplace, got back home dead-tired, and spent the night listening to music and reading a book.

Visted the snowboarding high-jump world chamionships event near the Erasmus-bridge in Rotterdam. Got ditched by all my friends so had to text kid sister:"Are you here?". Was more than surprised that she actually understood what I was texting about. Have to say that the snowboard-jumping was a bit repetitive. The motocross-jumping demo was pretty awesome though.

Had dinner at parents' place at night and kicked ass on McR's X-box at night. (At least he got through the GTA3-level he got stuck at)

Had Cindy over to make me dinner, fed her a whole bottle of wine and had Nicktor pop by. Last sight of the night was Cindy stumbling out the door :-)

Spent the past week being trained from 8:30 in the morning (except for tuesday) till 7:30 in the evening. Seeing as that's about the only thing that happened to me, I'll summarise it all in one pot. Training in the day time, brilliant food and lots of fun in the bar at night. As for the contents of the training? Anything from team-building to presentation skills to problem solving. Came back home on Friday dead tired.

Packed bags for the "Arinso Consultancy Skills"-training that will start tomorrow and last until Friday. I wonder what it'll be like.

Slept, read a book, saw:"Shrek 2" (bought the dvd in Kopenhagen with my last Danish kronen). Then got a phonecall by Nicktor that he wanted to make me dinner.

survived.

Out clubbing with Marlies and gang. Started off in Villa, and eventually ended up in Plan C. Music sucked somewhat. Thought it was pretty funny, when I asked Bianca (Sabrina's German friend who's currently au-pairing in Rotterdam), what will they play next, "Scooter?". Bianca replied with:"Huh?", after which the DJ started in "Always hardcore" (by Scooter) Fled the place when hearing Charly Lownoise and mental Theo. Still had loads of fun and ended up in bed late.