stoneshop just got me this.



Yes, it's a USB drive. A full 8 gb of cuteness. It looks like Tigger, and like Tigger, it has a hole in its left ear.
Beware of geeks bearing gifts, you'll end up giving them your heart in return before you know it.

Tomorrow is the day! I can hardly believe it.
Bye all, I'll do my best to be in touch.
See some of you soon!

'Beertje' is my motorized tricycle. It's quite old: from 1956. I bought it back in 1990 when I was starting up my business and didn't have a driver's licence; it provided me with a practical and stylish way to get to my customers and bring all my equipment.
Plus, Beertje always attracted lots of attention, which is good if you're running a business.
( Read more and see pics! )

I found another tea mug exactly like mine... after gummihuhn  took the trouble of going to a very good Chinese shop in Amsterdam and was told they were sold out, and not going to get any new ones in stock! That may well have been true, as I couldn't find any in the wholesale store of the same chain, either. Why yes, I do have a card for the wholesale instant noodle soup store...
The one I found was in a shop in Nijmegen, where I went yesterday because of a BookCrossing meeting... always a good reason.

This mug is slightly darker, the characters stand out a bit less.. on the other hand, the glazing is thicker (which may well cause the other two differences, yes) which results in a lovely craquelé pattern.
Anyway, I'm happy.  Bcuz tea r srs bsniz.
Here it is.

Look what stoneshop bought me!
It's not a gift; it's purely practical having the same phone, so we can share changers and other peripherals. Sez he.
Well, I reserve the right to regard this as a gift, and a really neat one at that. Also, to jump up and down.
(I can jump up, but how does one jump down? I don't need to; so far, that part has always happened by itself. Never mind.)
This phone can do a lot of interesting stuff; it's also a 3.2 megapixel camera, and a radio, and a GPS receiver. But most of all, it's a sturdy and almost waterproof phone.

Happy icon. Because I am.

...which is how I feel when I read aka_phoenix ' latest entry and then compare it to what I'm going to write about.
But still, here it is: stoneshop just got me some stuff we bought off Marktplaats, and I'm insanely happy about it. Because it's all really neat.

First, there is this delightfully tacky fake open fire, made in England and called Magicoal:


The picture doesn't do it justice. It has moving fake flames above the fake burning logs. They look very nice and actually fairly realistic.

And then, from the same seller I bought another item:


Pretty, aren't they? And not a chip or a crack to be found.
All of this cost just 25 euros (and it cost Stoneshop a couple of extra hours on the train to go and pick it up, but he said he didn't mind. I'm very glad he did it, though). What a lovely bargain.
It's strange that stuff can make me so happy. But it can. And it doesn't have to be expensive; in fact, knowing that it's not only makes me happier.
So I guess I am materialistic, but in a weird way!

stoneshop  bought it used, we went to get it today and he put it together so we could use it right away.
Lovely.
No need to say more, I assume.

Not long after writing the previous entry, I went into town to meet stoneshop  who was coming from work. He gave me something he'd found somewhere. It was a small embroidered iron-on patch. It consisted of the following text: "I'm Happy".
And he hadn't read the entry yet.

Oh, and I'm now the proud owner of four, count 'em, F O U R  fire-bellied newts. One of them is a climber, she likes to climb the plants that grow on the little island. Piccies soon; I've never seen a newt do that before and it looks silly.

Also, I bought tickets for NZ. Yay !!!

We had a wonderful time there but typing it all in feels like homework! So I'll just tell you a tiny bit about it and leave the rest to the imagination. ( Under a cut for your friends page's sake )

...or, in LOLcatspeak: Yes I can has discount!

I like luxury foodstuffs. Luxury prices, not so much. Luckily many of our supermarkets will put discount stickers on food that needs to be sold today or tomorrow. So I like hunting for those stickers when I go shopping for food.
Today was a good hunting day: everything I bought had one of those lovely stickers! Yay!
(Okay, so I did buy some of this stuff *because* it had the sticker.)

They make everything taste 35% better.

I woke up this morning to find an unexpected message from discoverylover (unexpected because I thought the voting would not be over until tonight) saying that I'd won the vote for representing the Dutch Convention Team at the BookCrossing Convention in Christchurch next April !!! *deep breath*
And now I'm bouncing around the room because I can't believe that I'm actuallly going and I have no one else to tell. So that's why I'm posting here.
*boing boing boing boing boing*
*makes nice calming cup of tea*

Okay, the next thing to do is fundraising. Because I'd really, really like to see if we can raise enough money to send aka_phoenix over there as well. I know she wants to go as badly as I do.
So here goes: www.bcx.bounce.com.au
There's a Donation page in the The Second Adventure submenu. It has PayPal.
Any and all donations, no matter how small (they start at 2 kiwidollars, which is close to 1 yankeedollar or 1 cloggydollar) are very, very welcome. Thank you!

...but otherwise we had a splendid afternoon.
We needed a few important things (like a new battery for one of stoneshop 's bikes) so we headed out to Germany today. It was a wonderful summer day; we took the Hondas.
Useful shopping and a wonderful ride with my sweetie all at the same time; does life get any better? I'm not sure I care if it does.

We mainly took the small roads and the dike roads that we both love so well. There were some cyclists but not too many. The twists and turns in the road took us exactly where we wanted to go, as if they knew. The river shone bright blue and the cows and sheep all seemed to smile.

Except for one: the stainless steel cow. The slot machine that you can buy fresh, raw, cooled milk from. But not today, because there was none left when we got there. Oh well... we had such a nice day that I don't even care.

Some of you may remember that the left mouse button on my laptop had worn out... and that I replaced the 'clickie thingie' underneath the button with the one from the middle mouse button, and eventually (when that wore out, too) the right. So I had to use a mouse with my Thinkpad because you do tend to use the right mouse button every now and then.
Well, no more!
The clickie thingies I ordered never arrived. The guy said that he'd sent them. Hmm.
But another solution was found: stoneshop's friend Charles in the States bought a keyboard for me on Ebay, took it with him to Germany when he went there for work, and then mailed it to me!
So I just took the old keyboard out of my X22 and replaced it with a brand new one.
Oh my! I've never seen such newness before, let alone touched it. The keys aren't even shiny, they're matted! And the trackpoint is bright red and clean! It makes the whole laptop seem new.
Interface = so important. Don't you agree?

Now I *heart* my Thinkpad even more. And Charles, of course, who made this possible!

Monday evening, we got back from a long weekend of camping and motorcycle riding in Luxemburg. And a great weekend it was!
No scary adventures, this time. Just great weather, lovely scenery, and good company.
I've said it before: Luxemburg is bikers' paradise. Lovely roads and cheap petrol, what more could one want?
And we were so lucky with the weather, too.
As we left on Friday afternoon, it was OK; had a drop or three of rain on the way, but mostly it felt like we'd just missed a shower by fifteen minutes or so. Everything still wet, but no rain in sight.
We arrived after dark to find our friends around a blazing campfire, so we quickly put up our tent and then made our supper by the fire.
The next day, we all had breakfast in the sun, with tiny white clouds chasing each other in slow-motion across a bright blue sky. We were camping in a meadow on the banks of a brook or small river, the water as clear as glass. All around us the birds were singing their little heads off.
It was a great day for a ride. So stoneshop and I went off together. We had some shopping to do since the night had been colder than we'd expected, so we wanted to get some cheap fleece blankets, and a legging or some long johns for me to wear during the night. When I got up to pee early in the morning, all the bikes had ice on them.

We had a lovely ride. There's nothing quite like the ever-shifting view from a bike, in a landscape full of hills such as this one; every second, something new comes into view. You'll be rolling down into the valleys, through the cool, dark woods, and then back up a mountainside again; as the road twists and turns and winds itself around the mountains, you'll see old farmhouses next to brooks, houses painted blue or yellow, and every now and then a castle overlooking the valley. The grass is a bright, translucent green and dotted with spring flowers in yellow and white. You can actually smell all the different crops on the fields, and the pine trees. Like the view, the smells are constantly changing. And the air feels cooler as you're passing under the trees, then warmer as you're climbing up a hillside again, feeling like you're getting so close to the deep blue sky you could reach out and touch it. The bike itself sounds like it's having a good time, purring along like a happy cat.
It's impossible to experience all of this and not be put in a good mood; in fact, it all made me want to smile and wave at everyone we met. All other bikers seemed to feel the same, since they greeted one another as if to say: Hi, isn't this great? Are you having as much fun as I am?

Stoneshop taped a small digital video camera to his helmet and tried to shoot some nice footage while riding; it turned out he'd mainly managed to get a nice view of the bike's instrument panel. The camera obviously hadn't been directed at quite the correct angle. Next up, he taped it to the bike and this yielded much better results. Coming very soon, to a web page near you!

The only thing I wasn't very happy about was the fact that my bike's gear shift pedal had come loose (again). This wasn't easy to fix, as it was the axle itself, that it was attached to, that had worn so much you couldn't screw the pedal on tight enough for it to stay put.
So the next day, we tried to get it fixed in a quick and dirty way: by having it welded on. Unfortunately, this was Sunday so we couldn't find anyone willing and able to do it. Eventually, I ended up going back to the camp site to read, sit around in the sun and drink some wine (oh, what hardship!) while Stoneshop rode around a bit more and shot some more video.

On Monday, it didn't take Stoneshop very long to find a garage 5 kilometres from the camp site, where we could get the bike fixed. We left around one o'clock and spent the whole afternoon and part of the evening in two-wheeled bliss, going back home.
What a perfect little holiday.
 

(if only because I'm going to the BookCrossing Convention in London on the 18th!)

My mother and I arrived in the afternoon, rather clueless as to where we could find our hotel. We couldn't look it up because the keys to my mother's suitcase were nowhere to be found. We figured it would be easiest to find the hotel first and then solve the suitcase problem.
A bus took us into town from the airport. And we got off at the right stop. Several utterly friendly Portuguese folks helped us to find the hotel, which turned out to be really nice!
The room was lovely. And someone from the staff  picked the lock on the suitcase for us. So that was one problem taken care of.
We headed into the center on foot, walking along wonderful boulevards, dressed in our summer clothes. It was warm and sunny! It felt almost subtropical.
We ended up finding a nice place to eat and it wasn't even expensive.

The next day, we went and bought a three-day ticket for public transport, which turned out to be a very good deal. Here's a short list of things we went to see and do during those three days:

- the National Tile Museum, which was much more interesting than you'd think
- the Monastery of St. Jeronimo, very impressive
- the city quarter named Belem, where we had tea and the traditional pastry
- the river. We took the ferry to the other side especially to see it, and the Bridge of April the 25th.
- the Cathedral
- the streetcars, especially line 28, the so called historical line
- the funicular to the higher part of the city
- the lift. See the pic and you'll understand
- the city quarter named Bairro Alto, which is where people go out, and where the artists live
- an antiques shop where they sold original tiles from people's houses
- the castle, but we didn't go in. We've seen castles before.
- the Museum of Modern Art and its spectacular gardens. We had tea with two local BookCrossers there, which was very nice!
- the tiles and the architecture. We spent a great deal of time looking up.

Furthermore, the food was great. We had lovely fresh fish, orange juice, lots of great coffee (and decent tea served in generous amounts), local pastry, roasted sardines, local wines... Lisbon is full of great flavours. The people are very friendly and helpful, and almost everything you see is adorned with decorative patterns. Even the subway stations look like works of art.
It was a great little holiday. It's a lovely city. In fact you should go there and see for yourself.


Oh, and my mother ended up finding a spare key for the suitcase padlock on the same keyring her house keys were on.

Or, to be more accurate, I was, but it was Content Strike day so I didn't post.

I started my own business 18 years ago, on March 21th. That's right, the first day of spring. I chose that because it seemed like a nice symbol of starting something new.
On that day, I first went to the Chamber of Commerce to have my business registered. That wasn't all that easy because there wasn't such an entry as 'signwriter' or 'signwriter/decorator' in the database and they kept asking me if I painted houses or made paintings, and I kept saying: it's something in between those two. But they finally worked out a way of doing it, so I was in the records and out of there.
After that, I went to Social Security and told them they could remove me from their records, as I wouldn't be needing them anymore, and anyway, being registered with the Chamber of Commerce cancelled my right to get any money from them. They were friendly and very concerned, asking me: are you sure you want to do this? I told them yes, and that I'd already done it.

It felt great. Cheerful and heroic music was playing in my head and I felt as if the sun were shining down on me all day long. It was a very happy, exciting and hopeful day.
Now, 18 years later, I'm still happy I took that step. Sure, I'm still not rich and I guess I never will be, unless playing in the lottery finally pays off. But I'm doing something that I like, that I'm good at, and I've learned so much. The 18-years ago me would be very impressed with the level of skills I have now acquired. And I'm looking forward to learning much more.

So, here's to my humble business. It started out from nothing, and it's still not much, but hey, it's how I've been making a living. The business is something I have created; it wouldn't exist if not for me.  And it's a wonderful thing to have.

Stoneshop and I spent most of the day working on my bike. We managed to get some good stuff done:
he swapped the whole rear suspension for used but less tired parts that I had on stock, and I swapped both of the tyres for a fresh pair.
I'm curious about the handling now, I've been told that the rear shock wasn't working as it should, and it's never been any different for as long as I've had the bike (which is almost 10 years, and almost 100.000 kilometres). At the very least, we'll have gotten rid of the *squeak* that the bike's had for as long as I know, and which caused me to name it Rubber Duckie.

The old rear tyre had gone very inflexible with age (but don't we all?) and I had a hard time getting it off. Of course, I could have cheated and used the angle grinder. But I was actually enjoying myself, and when I finally had the new tyre on I felt rather good about myself. :-)
The new tyres are Michelin T63, also named Desert, and for a reason. I've tried them in the desert, so I know what I'm on about.

I love having plenty of space to tinker, lots of tools to do it with, and also having a companion who will encourage me to do so, and give me a hand when I need one. It's a great thing that we can do stuff like this together and enjoy it.

Today was a fine day and Friday is market day. So we grabbed some BookCrossing books to release on the way, and walked into town.
Here's what we got:
- fresh shrimps and fish for a fish soup
- some fried fish to eat on the spot, one of my favourite street foods
- a pineapple (which was very ripe, and delicious, we just had it for dessert)
- spring onions, red peppers and soy bean sprouts for Nasi Goreng
- two kinds of mushrooms, and fresh spinach, for filled pancakes
- chestnuts of the edible kind, for roasting in the oven
- some useful stuff in cheap spray cans: wax spray to prevent rust on vehicles, an oily spray to prevent bread from sticking to the baking tin, carburettor cleaner, and a kind of copper grease for greasing things that get hot
- two pairs of jeans for me, at just 10 euros each, and you know what? They both fit!

The man in the vegetables stall was looking for a knife to cut something with, so Stoneshop lent him his Leatherman, which made a great impression all around. One of his workers wanted to see it, so I handed him mine (which is almost identical) so he could take a look. It took a while before Stoneshop got his knife back, but when he did, it came with a free pear as payment for 'renting' the knife.
Friendly people,  nice weather, happy day.

At the Chinese store, we also bought
- a block of tempeh, which was also for the Nasi Goreng
- and a bag of deep frozen shrimps.

I took pictures of the pretty flowering plants that were being sold. They happened to catch my eye. You'd probably prefer me to show you a Real Dutch Cheese Seller's Market Stall, wouldn't you? Well, I'll do that some other time.