Organize differently

Wonder why I eat every once in a while a little later.
When I first lived on my own I ate at 6 or 7 pm now it is 8 or 9 pm. Is it because I live more to the south or because of the early warmth, the higher temperatures in common or changed habits? Well the last thing is certainly true. When I come home I hardly feel the need to cook for myself.
So I postpone cooking and do other things, like training. Yesterday I wasn't home until 8.15 pm and when I was ready to cook it was 8.45 pm. So it's certainly a custom, a habit which can be changed when I organize differently.

cycling

Yeah, today after working, I had just enough time to buy food, change clothes and cycle to the place of departure.
But the race was calm and the pack waited for eachother. On occassions the peleton was split up in three groups. I cycled in the fastest one. That made me feel okay, above all because I could handle with the speed of 50 k an hour on some parts of the track.

When I got home I had no time to cook, but I wasn't real hungry too. So bread, three eggs and 2 cups of coffee were enough for me.

Fortis Marathon

The marathon passes through the midievel village of Haarzuilens.

My colleague her marathontime was 3:56:36. The last 13 k I cycled alongside with her to the finish. She almost equals my first marathon time.
I think her muscles ache for the rest of the week.

Sports, a way of living

When you cycle you will know it, cycling changes your life.
Training for 100 k means just doing the thing you might not like but when you change clothes you become another person. Then you go for it. You just cycle 50 kilometer and 8 kilometer extra.
Those 8 kilometer extra makes you better.
It makes you feel you can handle the whole wide world.

But the same feeling count for running. For me running the marathon needs commitment to a certain life style. Eating and drinking has to be adjusted to the training schedule. In fact for people who run the marathon and work fulltime it's a hell of a job.

Tomorrow my colleague tries to run the 42 kilometer and 195 meter. I wonder what her time will be. She hopes to run it in 4 hours. My time on my first marathon was 3:54 hours. She can do that too.

Mars Attacks

I saw an accumilation of violence of Martians.
Nuclear power doesn't help to stop the Martians conquering the world. Give me a break, nukes are to terrify opposition.
It's like nailbombs for the Palestinians in the eighties, a shoe bomb for dummies and planes for Al Quaida.
This movie from 1996 is a timewaster, but on some points hillarious. Let time pass, maybe this movie is like a bottle of wine.

By the way, it is jodel music which he Martians can't bear. Their brains explode.
Jodelàhitie

good Friday

I wonder why there is one Friday that's called a good Friday.
At Friday the weekend starts, meaning all Fridays are good.

l'hospital

The former Military hospital I live next to.

This hospital doesn't exist anymore. It's out of use since 1995. Then we had the Yugoslavian Srbrenica disaster -the Mladic and Karadic setup to clinch the area of Srbrenica-. Both are not caught yet.
On short notice the Netherlands will send a platoon of well trained commando troups into Afganistan. What will they do there, what is their mission, I don't know.

But I also don't know what the European Constitution says. But luckily just until June we will have to make up our mind with the Constitution. Do we approve it or not.
Saying yes might be saying yes to building more military hospitals.

Why? Because Europe feels free to act military on a global scale and takes casulties into account.
The public opinion in the Netherlands is that we accept soldiers killed in action.
Don't ask that ten years ago. It would not be the same result.

spring has come 2 days ago but the tries show their first leaves

Cabinet

Today the Dutch House of Lords decided that there will be no directly chosen mayor in the next few years.
I like that. I means that the minister responsible for the law which makes it possible will resign. Probably his party will resign from the cabinet and if so the cabinet looses it's mayority in Parliament and will fall too.

If so I'm happy and relieved and I hope that our prime minister will never show his face in politics again. We will degrade him as a professor at the Beverly Hills State University. Far away on a post nobody knows.

Terrri Schiavo

The latest verdict of a judge says that Terri has a right to die.
Maybe her parents fight this verdict. I don't hope that would happen.
Of course the parents can't say goodbye. But to say goodbye means less pain for Terri and for her parents that they can live again. Physical suffering because it breaks ones body. Psychologically is doesn't even exist anymore.

But maybe the situation Terri is in, is cooperated into her parents lives. Every piece they will cling on to maintain Terries condition.

If Terries situation gets worse they won't let Terri go. Her husband is more human and would grant her passive euthanasia.
It's amazing that someone who stays with Terri for 15 years of coma can let her go.
Mr. Schiavo is a hero for the ex-coma patients.

The way politicians and others try to benefit from her situation is wrong. Politics should not decide about individual situations and should not intervene in verdicts of judges.

Inland Ships

Yes, it was a very healthy day. Sunshine, good temperatures behind glass and a lot of nearly sick colleagues.
But after work I could make some pictures of the boats passing by. For that go to my Photoblog about Inland shipping.
That was healthy, a bit sun and warmth.

Photo's and the Terri Schiavo case

The last day of the weekend. I have to go out for a while and I need to shoot some photo's.
Well I came home totally wet after 20 kilometer cycling. I'm not okay right now. I still got the virus. Alright!!!

But in the evening news I saw again how politicians and other people (mis)use the Terri Schiavo case for their own good.
Terri is in a deep coma, for 14 years now. Her husband asked to stop the feeding.
For a lot of people their relatives will decide. Better is to make a last will when something like this happens. But this 14 years of vegative coma is not normal. Normally patients in such conditions die.
The question is when to stop medical treatment. If a person in coma only exist because there is a feeding tube let that person live. But when complications occur let that person go and react on the symptoms of pain only. A person has a right to die!

For me personally it's not really difficult; stop feeding me after a year being vegative. I got through a 24 day's coma and I think I know how it is being on a GCS of 111; it's a nightmare believe me. I know how it feels to get stronger too. But I also know the people who are in a real bad condition after 4 weeks.
So Americans pray for her but don't resist justice and the will of her closest relative. So let her die peaceful.



spring


the training facility for cycling teams in Utrecht and the national selection mountainbike


the grass gets greener

Gran

In remembrance of my Grandmother. My made this picture on her birthday March 13 and yes she was born on a Friday.

Forgiven

Last week I saw a documentary about a British woman who married a man from Congo. In Congo they wanted to build a hotel.
But when she was out of Congo for a while the war between the Hutu's and Tutsi's broke out. Her husband was killed with a machete knife. Slaughtered just like tens of thousands of other inhabitants.

Later the woman traveled to places where the atrocities took place. There she met a man who killed among dozens other people her best friend in Congo. She stared in his eyes, the viewer could see the regret in the murderer's eyes and she forgave him. The murderer thanked her, but didn't sink to the floor or just kneel, no they shook hands.

After that she tried to find the murderer of her husband. Maybe she found him (murderers were mainly men) in a prison. He said that he didn't know her husband but he gave details about his last day alive only some individuals knew partly.

That the prisoner denied the killing mattered to her I think. But she knew he did it. Not being able to forgive is a burden that one carries a whole live. When forgiven, one can give it a place in one's heart.

100 men

Also I read a book about 100 men on steel horses.
From Abdoujaparov to Zülle.
Armstrong, Lemond are also one of them.

Mansholt

I tried to send a post by blogger. Maybe it doesn't work, I failed. But with Hello I could send my message too. Well, my message is that I'm sick, I got the flu. I can't help it.
Last Monday and today (Wednesday) I'm not at work. I tried Tuesday but that was a bridge too far. Anyway I tried to read some books. One book was about history of rich grain farmers in a part of the region I'm from. It's mainly about the agricultural difference between the have's and have not's. The have not's became the communists and were real close to the Russian communists. The blue coloured filthy rich grain farmers on the rich soil the Oldambt-part of the province of Groningen were doing very well compared to other Dutch farmers.

One of their own sons, Sicco Mansholt studied at different universities and dreamt about an own farm.
Not a small one but a farm where size matters. So in the years before the Second Worldwar he was able to get a farm on the bottom of a former sea. At the end of the war the Germans indunated that former sea.
After the war mr. Mansholt was asked to be minister of argriculture. He accepted that for a term of 2 years. But it lasted almost 25 years. Via his ministry of Agriculture he wanted to make Holland independent on foodimports, not to say an agrigultural export country. After reaching his goals on national level mr. Mansholt was promoted to the European Community. And there his tariffwalls were not really accepted. He was the creator of the buttermountains, the milklakes, etcetera, which were created with taxpayers money.
The farmers were happy with stable prices, but the taxpayers felt uncomfortable with the high mountains (of butter) and deep lakes (of milk).

But when he became chairman of the EEC he met Petra Kelly and became a different person.
Petra Kelly was a 24 year old American/German girl, one of the founding members of the German green party (Die Grünen). Mansholt thought her ideas were fantastic and neccessary. At the end of his political career the switched his way of thinking and at the end of his life he said that the policies in his career (1948-1973) were in fact wrong policies.

If one dares to state that he was wrong, instead of keeping the dogma's alive, than this politician must have a good heart.

Not an off day

I had a day off and did the thing I had to do: my tax return.
3 Weeks earlier than last year, right.
Okay, I got out of bed very late. Let's say that I got a hangover from the Chelsea- Barcelona footballgame last night.
I surfed the internet and saw photo's about cycling in Africa, le tour l'Afrique

I realized that it's only 10 days before the cyclist of Ledig Erf are going to do a 180 kilometer tour. So early in the season, I never did that. So it'll be a great experience. I got to laugh if I tell you where we're heading for March 20; We're going to the Keukenhof. If you like bulbs and flowers you go there. It's a sea of flowers. It's something for tourists, and they come to that place from April till June.

Tonight there will be football again, Monaco-PSV. And the Dutch team PSV got a chance to reach the final eight of the Champions League.

But for now I got to go to the grocery.

Afternoon

It's almost 2 pm, but I still got a marvelous afternoon to go.
Cycling: 60 k.... The cycling season has begun according to my mailbox.
But firstly I have to bunker food and change cloths.

love and hate

It's March 5 today. I've been to the river on my bike (30 kilometer in total) and saw the dike being used for downhill sledging by children and on the foot of the dike grown men were riding around with sledge pulled by a quad.
It was time to turn my bike to a small village where the gentle odeur of cattle filled the main street. I cycled back to my house.
Another snowy day... I love it.

I told that my colleague who has cancer is parttime back at the office. Everything seems so normal however we all know it isn't. He has had news from her doctor that the lines where in between she will be radiated will be drawn within a forthnight. After that it'll take 7 weeks before radiation begins on a 5 day's a week scheme.
After that there will be some more radiation. Her skin will be burned, as raw as beef. She stays rather cool "It doesn't matter, they got to cut that out anyway" I can feel the pain now already. I hate this.

In fact love and hate are so close together, but they're both poles of the hemispheres. I believe that the love hemisphere is bigger than the hate one.

I still got to do some things very urgently, taxes, I don't like that. It isn't on the hate side. In fact, I don't hate.


I got to buy sports glasses someday

Wind and snow

snow

50 cm snow has fallen on the roofs at my mother's. Unlucky for me thats far away.
50 cm I never experienced that. Though the extremely cold winter of 1979 is carved in my memory. Snowhills of 5 meters.
Now the roofs at my home get white and the streets are white aswell. Tomorrow there might be traffic jams from here to Tokio and back.
I don't mind, I'll photograph.

my desolate balcony

March 1

The 1st of March is the official birthday of my dog. Today she would become 23 if her life would go on. The pity is a dogslife goes quicker than man's life. We have to accept that. It took me 7 years to accept the loss and in those years it gradually faded away.
It's said that in a timespan of 7 years the body renews itself completely. So maybe my thoughts are different than they were 7 years ago.

Maybe the thought itself is very interesting. Where does a thought go when one doesn't write things down and rereads it to keep the mind active with the same thought. Without writing or other storage the mind will change, even though the only bodypart that doesn't renew itself is the brain.