Spent today at Demcon again. Michel Dansberg and Jerry came too. Nice discussions with Sjoerd and Andre. I was on time at the station this morning, but when I called the taxi companies at 8:00 in the train for a taxi on 8:30 at the station ... they said they could pick me up at 9:15 earliest. Hmm, I started walking, but then the rain started to come down and walked backed to the station and called the taxi. So I was at Demcon at 9:30. Sigh.

Anyway it wasn't too bad, I should have made it more clear (ahum) I was coming and for who. So coming a bit later wasn't a big deal.

I've to write, no, I want to write down my short and long term goals. The book "Dromen, Durven Doen" is not bad.

After spending the night in the hotel Leeuwenbrug I'm glad to go back again. The hotel was quite good actually, but I want too see Hannah and Fran. I worked till 20:30 at Mapper. Finally I got my model to mesh and started solving it. Luckily the model was correctly solved when I got back this morning. I had dinner in the Waag (behind the City Hall on the main square of Delft). It was ok, if the lamb burger was cooked a little longer, the fries had been a bit crispier and the salad wouldn't have had a lettuce trunk in it it would have been perfect. The Grimbergen beer was excellent though. The entourage in the restaurant is ok. Nice big oak beams etc.

Speeding towards Delft ... Arrived yesterday on 19:15 at home. Two hours later than normal. Anyway I got to buy cough syrop and nose spray for Hannah. She has quite a cold. Heard her coughing a lot last night. Not only Hannah, Franny joined the coughing choir big time too.

Anyway, got to do some work. Just send a mail to Klaus from Vectorfields that I solved the problem I had since Friday last week (with the help from Mari !). I hope to see Klaus again this year at the user conference. And the rest of the VF gang ! Julie, Chris etc.

Looking forward to our small holiday coming week. My mom and Wim are going a few days to a spa kind of thing, and we can borrow her car. This Saturday she is giving a Mother's day dinner and we will go to Culemborg with the train. It's good for Hannah to see that there are other ways of transport than the car. Speaking of cars, the A16 looks completely blocked. And we haven't reached the bridge yet (Moerdijk brug). Hopefully Gerard is not caught in it.

Again problems between Tilburg and Breda ... We are now waiting before the trainstation of Breda ... I guess I've to get out of this train soon ... We'll see how it goes. No announcement in the train yet.

mobiel.ns.nl:
15:50 uur
Breda-Tilburg
Door een aanrijding met een persoon rijden er tussen Breda en Gilze-Rijen geen treinen.
Vertraging: meer dan 60 minuten.

Sigh ...

Now heading to Geldermalsen ! AArgghhh ... horrible memories of that station, but anyways. This stoptrain from Dordrecht to Geldermalsen looked not too busy, the alternative would have been Rotterdam - Utrecht. It's my first time I think, this connection is a not even operated by the NS anymore (Arriva now). It takes a good hour to reach Geldermalsen, now we are at Sliedrecht. All these Drecht's here in the area. Dordrecht, Barendrecht, Papendrecht. A drecht is in old Dutch a ford I think, just like Oxford... not such an academic name ...

Ok, I stole that from Garfield. But, the weekend is over, I've a terrible cold, given to me by Franny and now also Hannah has it (she was coughing seriously last night). And we are having the first rain since 5 weeks (!). And of course it just had to start when I stepped out of the door this morning. But, does an atheist believe in fate ? or that nature is out there to get me ?

So feeling very groggy, but didn't want to stay home. I don't think it would do much good to stay home anyway.

Hannah has a new thing now that she wants to 'fight' with me (she being Bambi and I grumpy, in the movie Bambi fights with another deer over a female deer, Feline ? (and I always thought Bambi was a female deer)). And now she has this battle cry: "Ajapi" or something like that. And she makes these karate moves with these fine hands ...

Left work early today, yesterday I stayed till quite late so I could do so without to much feeling guilty. Staying one night in a hotel is a big plus. The Johannes Vermeer hotel in Delft is quite reasonable. Clean, quite luxereous rooms. Free WiFi ! even a collection of videotapes in the hall to play with the TV/VCR combo in the room. I thought that was really nice. The breakfast buffet was above expectations. Freshly baked rolls, very good coffee and juice. Wow ! and all that for 114 euros.

Dinner was not so spectacular: walked around a bit. Went to the Albert Heijn to buy a toothbrush and toothpaste (forgot to bring to the hotel) and a small bottle of wine and some chips. couldn't find a Burgerking and didn't want to go into a restaurant like the Waag, didn't feel like eating alone there. Found a Subway, ate my sandwich in my hotel room while watching the Truman Show. Finally got to watch that one.

Today I'm going to stay in a hotel in Delft. So I can work a bit longer today and still get a bit more sleep. If I can find a decent hotel. The train is packed already, for some reason the NS (National Railways) put the smallest train they have on this service. So everybody will be looking what I'm doing with my credit card ... not so handy pansy.

Anyway, tried to make a reservation for the Vermeer hotel in Delft. Looks ok, 112 euros for the night. Not too bad. Got a confirmation email, so it looks ok. Better call later in the morning to confirm with the hotel itself.

The sun is rising in full red glare. Nice view when crossing Hollands Diep (I think). Almost in Dordrecht. 6:30 ... sigh.

For the second time using the train to go from Eindhoven to Oldenzaal to visit: http://www.demcon.nl
No ideal connection ! have to change trains 3 times and finally take a taxi in Oldenzaal. Hopefully I'll reach Demcon at approx 9:00 (I stepped on the train in Eindhoven at 5:35 ... sigh...).

Anyway I've got some time to peruse the documents we'll discuss and do some browsing on the net.

Yesterday evening I went to the parents meeting of Hannah's new school. It was quite interesting, some 60 parents showed up (not bad for a warm Tuesday evening). The results of a satisfaction inquiry were quite a bit lower than the national average. This of course made the parents a bit concerned. The evening went well, after a short introduction we were split into groups and discussed two items of the list of items the school scored worst. Items like 'information about your child', 'state of the playing area' etc. Luckily the head teacher and his staff didn't go into 'defense mode'. So we could focus a bit in how things could be improved. I'm not too worried though. If I look back to my old primary school (Juliana school in Tiel) then I realise it was much worse in those days (1975). I left the meeting at 22:15, the discussion was still ongoing.