no time

Hi, it's almost 8 pm still sunny and I have to cook myself a meal.
Because I was playing with my camera I forgot time a little.

So go for a look to fotothing were I got some of my stills. Today especially this one attracts me.

Some April 1 stills

Things to do and done

I got something to do this weekend: try to get better from that nasty cold I got last week.
No actually I want to look for some curtains in fresh colours for my living room and also I want to decide upon a new bike for vacation, a replacement of my 9 year old bike, which did over 30.000 kilometer right now.
Maybe in 10 weeks I'm on a holiday with that new bike.

Everybody, have a good weekend

Update:
I bought a new bike. It's a Snel (a brand), a customized bike. The scheduled delivery date is June 3 but I'll try to get a little pressure under that date. So hopefully the bike shop will get the bike together some weeks earlier

momentum

The cycling season has started actually. Last Wedneyday, 5 day's ago, I had my first tour with the bunch of fanatics. In cold weather conditions we cycled until the sun set. The wind made it a cold tour but fortunately we had no road accidents.
Yesterday I had the first tour with the regular Sunday cyclists. There where maybe 40 of them. So we said to eachother goodluck and hopefully the fierce wind wouldn't break us up on the riverdike. I didn't make it till the dike but turned after the first hills right back home. Next Sunday I'll be back...and cycle the whole tour of 80 kilometer.

Well, that where some day's in the past week. My total distance last week was about 180 k. I'll increase that. I have too because if one wants to cycle to England and France (Normandy in June), one has have to train. Just like I did last year.

Today was a normal working day. Payments and phonecalls with creditors.
And of course it was a Monday.
Normally I don't like these days because it's a lot chatting about the weekend about things that are often boring to talk about. (like football, you got to do it or watch it). Today however my colleague should be a day off and the others where either on vacation to Thailand, sick or to tired to work (yeah, it can happen too tired to work. Say the weekend was exhausting I need a week to recover). But my co-worker appeared on his work. Instead of a day off he decided to work and go home early.
And I thought that the Saints would please me with a day to work steadily on the things I ought to do. Not this time, maybe another day.

Last week was a momentum to get back on my bike and today I missed momentum to work.

damage, murphy's law

After she had to say farewell to her parrot after 30 years or so, some weeks ago, my neighbor has had an accident with her dog today. Doggie broke his front leg when he slipped out of my neighbors arms when she tried to get him over a fence. The vulnerable leg broke like a dry twig when it fell on it's side. Poor dog.
Tomorrow it will be brought back home, maybe I take a picture of it.

The things I do right now? work, plan my vacation (still go to buy a bike), cycle, watch sports on TV (Shani Davis is a fantastic sportsman, in ice-speedskating)
But most of the day I spend with sleeping.

It's hard to be a mid rank nerd ;)

obesity-free

The American cookie monster eats broccoli nowadays. Maybe George Bush decided in his battle for a decent and healthy obesity-free American society to let children eat vegetables.
But what the *****, I am the cookie monster and I like spinach as well, and occasionally books and of course a lot of exercise because man is responsible for his own problem.

Municipal elections

After four years the local elections have become a landslide again. This time the big looser of the 2002 elections was the great winner of the 2006 local elections.

I couldn't make up my mind what to choose but at 8.15 am I said to myself okay. I'm gonna vote for the leader of my party. I was in doubt actually because this is a local election. The green "nature" party could be more beneficiary for me. I chose the social democrats because of a strong party. And they became the largest party here in Utrecht, fading away an even larger local party called leefbaar Utrecht. Now it's time for some local action.
Hopefully they show that nature is one important item of them.

Mindset

Busy with work, busy with the elections for the city council and the hot items such as the municipal tax collection, I got to make my taxreturn in the coming forth night.

I read the blogs of other bloggers. Some are busy at work too, others have holidays in Europe or study under war conditions.

I once had a girl who was adopted. At the age of 4 she came from Seoul to the Netherlands. There she was raised in a catholic family. When I met her she was in doubt whether she should search her roots. Via an organization for Korean adopted children she found her family. Her mother has died, but her father still lives and she has a lot of family over there. Her brother in the army and sisters working for the Government or in factories, all catholic. Almost like we do here actually. The language though is a barrier. Only her brother speaks or writes in english. With the organization she's been in Korea and met her family.
It's the barrier of 25 years history (and the language barrier) which makes the gap real huge.
It's a couple of years ago but I think that she's still wondering around and has so many questions.
Hopefully she's set or will set her mind.

Ratio 2

The Netherlands is going to send fresh troops to Afghanistan.
Politics was divided about it, whether to send them or not. The Cabinet of ministers agreed on sending them. Without support of Parliament it was difficult, if not impossible.
After discussion in the Parliament the biggest party (PvdA, social democrats)turned to the sending-side. So the troops can go to the province Uruzgan in Afghanistan.

There was political damage for one party in the Dutch cabinet. The party leader of D'66 (liberal democrats) decided to leave his post after his explanation of his parties position in the discussion. The party was calculating that it's attitude would help the PvdA to change it's mind. It appeared to be a fake attitude and that's the reason the party leader had to leave. He's still in Parliament as a chosen member.

Well, within a few months The Netherlands will be there. It's war there and after how many months will return the first casualties of war?

There is also the bird flu in Europe it is widespread. From Greece to the mainland of Germany (first on the peninsula of Rügen), France has to deal with it and time is ticking before Dutch birds will be infected. This is something for a cartoon.

This weekend I cycled a few kilometers in the cold. I'm behind the schedule of last year. I hope to pick it up in the coming months because I feel I get infected by the cycling virus. The worst thing is that it makes you hallucinate. After the hallucination part you feel better and cycling becomes a part of life. Your body needs it. At least my body needs it.

Sunset when I started writing this entry.

ratio

I just visited my webstat-counter and analysed that my visitors don't visit my page mainly on the words Mohamed and cartoon. Maybe the ratio (another word) becomes more important.
It's strange though that Canada outperformed the UK. Most Visitors come from the United States. But they too search on Mohamed and cartoon.

I got one visitor of Iceland. Hallelujah, that makes 2 on the overall list. But more important, in Iceland they are interested in Europe too. They should be, they are Europe.

1. cartoon.....14
2. mohamed.....14
3. MOHAMED..... 4
4. CARTOON......4
5. 4............2
6. renault......1
7. jylland......1
8. spain........1
9. +telefonica..1
10. carbomb.....1

Weekend

Tomorrow I got a day off. I am free for three days, That feels good. Got a lot to do, especially cycling. Didn't cycle for weeks now and that makes me nervous. This summer I planned a vacation on bike for 3 weeks so a lot of training is necessary.

Tomorrow I will have to wake up early to do the things I want to do. My desk for my computer is a mess, it has always been a mess. And as my mother will be here Sunday I have to have everything cleaned. Well there is much to do which I have postponed for years, such as new curtains in the livingroom. The ones hanging there are irritating me for years actually. I haven't found the energy to change them.
Well lets see what I van do tomorrow.

Visited countries

I thought the map of the world was to big to put it on screen.

1 Gold, 2 silver Olympic medals

The skaters did good work this weekend. It was their weekend. Snow outside but before the TV-set some wonderful pictures from Italy. Yeah, the Italians have done wonderful work so far. I was too skeptic.
The downhill skiing was exciting, the biathlon was terrific and the athmosphere was great. The start is good.

the real thing

Shocking, the World Press Photo's, the carbomb in Beirut, Lebanon in February 2005.

This hurts ME more than all the cartoons (silly or not).
These pictures show me that the world isn't what I believes it is. Showing these pictures is an act of aggression towards my happiness.
It should be forbidden to show these pictures. And I'm sure that 2.5 billion people are with me!

But what the heck with the cartoons, for some rest go to Portugal.