D 0 and no more couting!

Final day has arrived at the office, everybody is nice :)
and I have a ton of work

something doesnt feel right
I am working my ass of on some projects
while I am leaving

...

ah well

thats probably because I'll take these projects with me.

D -1 and counting

Yesterday I told all about the Big Plan of the Three Pillars. What I didnt mention however is the Other Plan.

The Other Plan involves my beloved C. and helping her settle into a life in the cold and wet and damp and... you start to wonder why she wants to come up here to begin with.

Anyways the Other Plan will kick off at the same time as the Big Plan. Now don't think that because the Other Plan is called the Other Plan it is not a BIG Plan. It is. Significantly big. But stuff needs to have a name. The Other Plan starts next friday with me flying down into Milan Malpensa and driving to Turin. Next week I will be working (some) from my beloved C's appartment and be in charge of the Great Packing. Great Packing basically means putting lots of stuff in boxes. I can do that. I am a pretty good box-packer. There is going to be some kind of office party for beloved C. that week and I am supposed to be there as well. People know I love office parties... especially those where I have to face a lot of angry people blaming me for taking the beloved C. away to NL. I am specifically refering to some big Fiat bosses.
Well if the Great Packing is done and we survived the Office Party. We will visit an antique market in the piedmontese hills on sunday December 7th. Then, planning, weather and packing permitting we will drive up north in the Little Blue Bullet with the Cat and some small essentials.
On the 23rd of December Beloved C. leaves the Cat with me in NL (we are going to have so much fun) and flies back to Italy. I follow on December 26th. On December 27th a Truck of the Expedition arrives which will be filled with boxes and furniture from the Great Packing. It will drive directly to Leiden while we run off to Milan and fly back again. The Truck of the Expedition will arrive in Leiden on the 28th where we will unload it. Friends beware... we are going to need some help there :)

And then...
And then...

The Other Plan is done.
Beloved C. starts a crashcourse Dutch at Leiden Uni on January 5th.
Sometime end of January we will visit my parents in Switzerland and I'll do some skiing.

And beyond that.
We will just wait and see.

And as my Beloved C. pointed out at D -2 and counting. The Fabulous Journey is allready in full swing.

D -2 and counting

In two days time I will be free
After ten years I will be back (released early for good behaviour)

So what's the plan? (besides having fun enjoying being free)

As of the end of coming thursday my Big Plan to dominate the world will unfold. It will be based on three pillars. All three will start seperately, but the idea is to have them converge in great bouts of synergy ...

Pillar the First: will generate the bulk of my income. I have arranged with my current employer to keep developing software. I have worked with him for about ten years and we are pretty well adapted to eachother. Besides him, I will do the same work for one or two more people. This is the cash generating part of the Big Plan.

By having my cash position secured I will have created time. Simply because I won't have to be at the office daily from 10ish to 19ish anymore. If my calculations are correct I will spend about two weeks every month on Pillar the First. Pillars the Second and Third of the Big Plan are all about investing this time in New Stuff.

Pillar the Second: the first part of the New Stuff is writing, editing, photographing etc. I am pretty far in becoming the new final editor of MacFan (what do I know about Macs, well nothing...), I am going to design a book on the mysterious history of The Church (in NL), I am about to launch a stockphoto site and in january I will make a decision on what story idea to focus my writing. I have a gazillion ideas for novels ...

Pillar the Third: more New Stuff will start in September 09. I have finished the bachelor stage of Uni and am spending some time currently at the faculty for philosophy. I do courses in antique and medieval philosophy. In September I will apply for entrance in the Mphil course at History. One of the top courses in Uni which prepares directly for PhD research.

The last Two Pillars of the Big Plan will hopefully eventually be enough to start reducing the amount of time spend in Pillar the First :)

So yay for the Big Plan of Three Pillars !

:yay:

It's going to be a fabulous journey :)

Missed call in life

I missed my call in life. I just got the results for my first exam in classical philosophy. I scored 95 out of 100.

I think I may celebrate that.

:celebrates:

So that's them all down from Thales of Milete to Plato. Next stop Aristotle till the neoplatonists.

But philosophers are weird. They let the classical period stop around the time of Plotinus. The official reason being that after the first half of the third century Greek is replaced by Latin. But I smell fake arguments here :)

I think that the real reason behind it all is the fact that us medievalists really really really want to claim Augustine of Hippo and Boethius. So I guess we just have to invent the 3rd and 4th centuries as 'the very early middle ages'.

All in favour raise your hand.

:raises my hand:

Remembrance Day

As NL was neutral in WW I we don't do November 11th. Instead we have remembrance day on May 4th, the day before Liberation Day. On May 5th, 1945 German occupation forces surrendered to the Allies. Slowly we start to become aware of the impact November 11 has on countries surrounding us like Belgium, France and the UK. Many Dutch people travel south to Ypres to witness the ceremonies.

Now, as I am rather busy these days I completely overlooked the 11th this year. I was pointed to it by User Friendly. A webcomic I read on a daily basis for it's ultra dry (but oh so true) ICT humour. These days it gave me a pause though.

I included them here ... visit the site to get more.

Time doing what it's supposed to do: going on.

Do not, just do not, expect some smart and clever remarks and insights on the US election from this blog.

Expect mostly sentences that start with zzzzz and end likewise.

Yes, yes I watched...
I watched it all the way.

All the way being till 0600 this morning or sometime roundabouts.
Which would be absolutely cool and perfect
*IF* I had already been freelancing...

... but as I am not - for at least two or three more weeks... - the alarmclock at 0900 was not very appreciated by yours truly.

Yours truly now pretends to be a zombie at work (but hey, what's the news in that?)
A very sleepy zombie though, you know one that would have prefered to remain lying in its grave.

Anyways, 3 hours of sleep, been witnessing a historic night which I really believe can have an enormous influence on the world as we know it. Thirty years of reactionary conservative extreme capitalism (to give a few adjectives) might be coming to an end. To mention that's a pretty sight is quite an understatement for any liberal progressive person.

There is now only one more thing to do for witnessing history junkies, and that's wait. But hell, that's what we usually do... that's the fun side of this hobby. You actually don't have to do anything to see time go on :)

Monday Monday (lalaaa lalalaaaa)

0407 - Turin: wake up alarm call. Lovely C. tells me to sleep a bit more
0410 - Turin: second wake up call. C. was serious when she said 'a bit' more (3 minutes! yay)
0420 - Turin: getting a cup of tea, packing my bags
0435 - Turin: get in the car to drive to Milan
0515 - Italian highway: breakfast stop at a roadside restaurant/gasstation
0520 - Italian highway: leaving for Milan
0610 - Milan Malpensa: parking car
0620 - Milan Malpensa: romantic goodbye of lovely C.
0640 - Milan Malpensa: passed security
0645 - Milan Malpensa: start EZ boarding
0700 - Milan Malpensa: boarded plane
0715 - Milan Malpensa: reading Arabian Nights
0717 - Milan Malpensa: pilot warns of half hour delay due to fog at Amsterdam Schiphol
0735 - Milan Malpensa: finished reading fairytale, starting to doze off.
0740 - Milan Malpensa: push off plane starts taxi
0745 - Milan Malpensa: take off for Amsterdam Schiphol
0746 - Airborne: fall dead asleep
0855 - Airborne: pilot announces 'cabin crew prepare for landing', waking up
0915 - Amsterdam Schiphol: touchdown
0925 - Amsterdam Schiphol: exit terminal, find dad waiting for me with car
0952 - IJmuiden: arrive at parents home
0953 - IJmuiden: meet mum, drink tea in a futile attempt to wake up
1015 - IJmuiden: get back in car drive to office
1035 - Haarlem: arrive at office, start work
1230 - Haarlem: doing some quick groceries to provide lunch
1300 - Haarlem: eat lunch
1320 - Haarlem: read email from freelance customer, have to work tonight
1800 - Haarlem: flee work, being seriously tired
1810 - Highway A4: traffic jam
1815 - Highway A4: call Thijs to have a look at work tonight
1820 - Highway A4: call dad for a quick update
1835 - Leiden: park car
1840 - Leiden: enter home
1845 - Leiden: unpack suitcases, switch on TV
1850 - Leiden: Thijs calls to change meeting tonight
1900 - Leiden: crash on couch watch some Mythbusters with one eye
1905 - Leiden: answering email with other eye
1930 - Leiden: run off into kitchen to prepare some dinner
1950 - Leiden: having dinner, Mythbusters is nearly done
2000 - Leiden: kick feet on couch, try not to fall asleep
2001 - Leiden: switch channels to BBC Prime to watch Spooks
2055 - Leiden: Spooks is done, switch off TV and quickly grab bag and keys
2100 - Leiden: Start car, drive to Thijs
2110 - Leiden: Arrive at Thijs, quick call to lovely C. who is going to bed (I want tooooo)
2115 - Leiden: Get to Thijs' appartment
2130 - Leiden: start working on articles
2355 - Leiden: finish working, agree to meet tomorrow at 2000 to continue
0002 - Leiden: in elevator, very good friend calls for some serious personal advice (which I gladly give)
0030 - Leiden: managed to console friend, starting car
0040 - Leiden: finally arriving home ...
0041 - Leiden: Hell, can't find a parking space ...
0045 - Leiden: need to be off by 0900 tomorrow anyways, park car at illegal spot
0050 - Leiden: yay, bed! nearly clocked 21 hours ! :woot:!!
0800 - Leiden: nooo, wake up... car honks, honks some more... fuck what's up
0801 - Leiden: small riot in the street, garbage truck can't pass... there is car in the way... police car arrives
0802 - Leiden: shit ... that's my car
0805 - Leiden: halfly (but decently) dressed run out just in time to save me from being ticketed (thanks officer)
0806 - Leiden: start car, park it somewhere else and legal
0810 - Leiden: yay, what a briliant start to a new day, go home again to have breakfast ...