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.

Yep, enjoyed a three day weekend. We haven't done anything too exciting, had a bit of a rest. We watched some good movies (Casino Royal and The Illusionist) of course Hannah got another K3 dvd to watch for the whole week. I'm not sure if the video rental store will last long, it doesn't look like there's as much demand for it as years ago. Maybe something to do with people downloading movies from internet (our area has fibre till in the house !). Downtown was a bit in a mess yesterday. Possibly from the celibrations of the fact that PSV became the national football (soccer) champion. And the Queen's birthday parties hadn't even started yet.

Today is actually my Mom's 65th birthday ! My dad who died 4 years ago would have been 2007-1925=82 years old today as well. Quite rare for your parents to have the same birthday date (month and day, not year, that would have been something else !).

Hannah has a day off from school and Destiny is coming to play today. So that's something she will look out for all morning. Bugging Franny every minute asking her 'Is Destiny coming now ?'.

April is a very warm and dry month this year. I haven't needed my rain gear yet. For me it is a nice start of my new commute: have to spend 2 x 15 mins on the bike in Eindhoven and 2 x 10 minutes on the bike in Delft. So, not having to put on my raincoat, trousers, shoe protectors (wearing my standard issue army boots all day is not a good idea) is a good thing. Except, it's a different deal if you are a plant our something like that. Our garden looks terrible. The front and back lawn consist more of weeds than of grass. One day I'll press 'reset' and start over a bit. I've taken up the daring plan to rip out the tree stump in front and take out all the roots of the soil that now allow all kind of shoots to burst out through the miserable lawn. Thinking about it, it is not likely that I'll replace the lawn. Too much maintenance.

Allthough the weather has been exceptionally good the last few weeks the mornings can be quite cold still. Usually the heating in the train compartments is turned up to 100% but today the heating was off. So no dozing off in the warmth today ;-)

It's now 06:30 and the views out of the window are spectacular. The red linings of the clouds, mist hanging over the fields. Beautiful.

It's not easy to go to bed on time. On time for me is well before PM10:00/22:00 ! Yesterday Fran went to her old badminton club for the first time since we are back in Eindhoven. She had a good time, everybody was quite surprised to see her back again (and nosy about it too).

Saw a nice episode of Mythbusters yesterday. Wild-west myths: shooting a hole through a silver coin (not possible with revolvers from around 1850: not powerfull enough).

Anyways, almost in Delft ... got to go.

Wow ! http://www.drupalbook.com/
"Pro Drupal Development" by John VanDyk & Matt Westgate
Both well known Drupal developers. I already ordered my copy ! Shipping date 24th April. The book will be very helpful for the http://www.visiondynamics.info and http://www.visiondynamics.nl site. The first time I ordered from the German http://www.amazon.de (handy to be able to read the language from our neighbours). BOL.com didn't have it listed yet.

Hopefully I get the book a bit on time. There's a lot to do. Of course a lot of info, how-to's and documentation is available online. But a book that contains (almost ?) everything is an easy to carry and always available format ... very nice ! See my comment at: http://drupal.org/node/137201#comment-222976

Yesterday I worked in Eindhoven. It was Hannah's first day at her new school. She really did well. I was so proud of her: when we walked in the classroom the teacher already started. All the children were sitting in a circle. She introduced Hannah and asked her to choose an empty chair. Hannah walked promptly to her seat of choice and sat down as if it was the most normal thing in the world. When asked about her age she replied without hesitation: "4 jaar". We (Fran and I) stood at the door a bit not knowing what to do (the introduction wasn't flawless, the head teacher was not present), but when we left Hannah remained calm and in her chair. A boy whose mother left a few minutes earlier was bawling furiously and had to be put in the hall to calm down.

Yep, last working day of the week. I'm completely knackered and it's only 6:01 in the morning...
Anyway no use to complain, I'll start putting together a presentation for the meeting at 9:00. Time enough if interesting articles like the link below don't distract me too much.

Nice article, found on Slashdot:
"Man Is Born Free, But Everywhere He’s Working for a Jerk"
http://nymag.com/guides/2007/officelife/30010/

I heard the word "knackered" yesterday on BBC2, in a beautiful documentary where children were filming their own lives within their families etc. Let's look for a link:
My Life as a Child