June 2010 Archives

Spent most of my day so far by looking up info on building a terrace. Called dad to see if he had suggestions or answers to the many questions I faced while thinking over the project. Contacted 5 companies to make me a price for the job and will then compare their prices to the option of attempting it all on our own.

We're talking close to 18sqm here with a thickness of 15 to 18cm. I used a quick online calculator, and lets be honest... I don't see us taking in 2500kg of sand, 1096kg of cement, 3.130kg of stone and 548l water to make concrete. If we opt for "chape" we're talking 4695kg of sand, just 783kg of cement and 392l of water. Which is still an awful lot of materials!

Hopefully the plumber will show up today as well to give us advice or a solution to the leak we had or still have, so we can file everything with the insurance company. The rainwater pump pressure vessel is also leaking, so I'll have to replace that as well, possibly tomorrow, depending on what else is pushed to the front of the to-do list.

Life = working on improving life

That's the score I got on the apartment's EPC, which is not that bad for a place built back in 1973 I'd say. The house we live in now scores 112 or so which is pretty good, but then again, that was built in 2001.

Off to finish the description and set my price, then drop it all in the mailbox of the neighbors and wait for a response. I want this place rented out already...

Just finished reinstalling the faucet in the bathroom for the last time - hopefully.

We noticed that the lighting downstairs was making a strange noise whenever we turned it on, and it turned out to be full of water. Logical conclusion : water was leaking into the floor or wall somewhere and it just made sense to suppose the recently installed faucet had something to do with it. When I took it back off, the wall was wet indeed, so I can only assume that it had been leaking for the past two weeks, which would explain why it took so long for us to notice.

Anyway, problem solved I think, now we just have to wait for the wall and ceiling to dry.

Off to go sit outside a bit, the weather is just too fine to stay inside. Managed to configure my mail client to check various accounts, and looked up some data on becoming a Type A energy consultant. Courses start in September consist of no less than 22 sessions. Really thinking of taking the course so I can add that to my capabilities and preform this kind of job for others as well.

Outside and into the sun I go!

I just mailed 14 people that are certified to check and deliver an EPC certificat for the apartment I still own, but plan on renting out. Due to new regulations, everyone is required to obtain such a document before advertising or renting out, so if I want to do so, I'll have to have that sorted out first.

Update : 7 replies so far, with prices ranging from 200,- euro VAT included to 120,- euro VAT excluded. That's a price difference of 15%. I'll see what the others have to say before I decide based on price as well as delivery time.

It's clear so far that rates are not too exuberant and the certificate can be delivered within days instead of months. I'm shooting for a first rental in September or October 2010. I still need to clear out the place, clean it up and then find a renter. There has been an inquiry before, so it could going rather fast, depending on when they are able to cancel their current rental apartment. To be continued.

Since my insurance company is being a bich I went out and rented a car myself. Costs me close to 200 euro, but at least I'll be able to go to work and earn money. As soon as this incident has been taken care of, I'll kick my current insurance company out and switch to a more customer oriented package.

I'm still looking at new cars as well, even though I don't have the money for it. We really need something larger so I can bring and get the kids from school as well, without traveling many extra kilometers to switch cars.

My neck still hurts, as well as my back, but I don't seem to have a headache for now, so I assume that I've escaped a whiplash.

Very much looking forward to two weeks off in July with Schattie and the kids, we all need it. Oh... I got tickets to the Lady Gaga concert :D yay!

Yesterday, en route to work, the driver of the car in front of me decided to slam his brakes because his friend told him he had already missed the turn to the left he had to make. I wasn't able to react in time and thus parked the front of my car into the back of his. No one was injured - though I am experiencing pain in the neck and back, sure hope it's not a whiplash - and the cars were not too damaged. I did ask for mine to be towed though since the front passenger wheel was rubbing against some of the framework and that wouldn't have been safe to drive 50km home.

A colleague was able to drop me off at home last night, but today I'm pretty much screwed. Another colleague had called in ill yesterday, which means I'll have to cover for him today, but I'm not mobile. I already tried arranging for a replacement vehicle yesterday, but as is common with insurance companies, they're passing the hot potato around. In twenty minutes I'm gonna call my broker again to check what I'm entitled to, and see if there is a solution. The insurance company claims the garage where the car was towed to should be giving me a replacement, the garage claims they don't have one free till the 15th of June. Which would leave me with 8 days without transport of which I need to work 5. Plain impossible. I'm really wondering what I'm paying these insurance bills for!

I'm really getting tired of pretty much everything and feel as if things are slipping away and there is so little I can do about it. I'm running around in a circle, not able to stop or turn things around, and it is really affecting my private and personal life as well, which is something I don't want to give up or see break down. The problem is that I don't see or have a solution either :(

Even though it's just a couple of minutes past nine, the sun is out in full force - it'll be a hot hot day. Over the weekend we're supposed to get temperatures up to 28°Celsius even, which will be a good way to get used to it for when we head off to Croatia, where it'll be even warmer.

I've just started shedding skin from the weekend in the sun at the coast (two weeks ago) so I think I'll try to get some more sun before I head off to work a late shift. In between things that is, of course.

The laundry is in the machine, I'll vacuum the place a bit and unload the dishwasher. Oh, wait! I can get a tan while I install another screen in the garden! Good thinking :) It'll also provide some privacy for Schattie and the kids when they are out in the garden over the weekend, which is good.

The blog is back up, all the entries have been republished and all the archives are still in the same place as they were before - I hope. Quick basic minimalistic design that looks like another zillion blogs out there, but I'm lacking the energy to start editing and dissecting all the different templates right now. It has the most important things covered, which basically is the content, and the rest of it will have to wait till I feel like customizing it.

One good thing comes from all this (check previous entry) though : all the crap that had gathered over the past 9 years of maintaining this blog has been removed. Yes, that's right... this blog was started on August 4th 2001, and still going strong.

I just updated/upgraded the system powering this blog to the latest stable release. It was supposed to be nothing but a bug fix release, yet I'm currently looking at an entirely different user interface. The upgrade itself, was as is most often the case, a pain in the ass once again.

It doesn't make sense to have to delete everything you got, and then rebuild it. If you'd have to tear down the walls of your living room every time you want a new wallpaper, people would revolt as well. Anyway, it seems to be up and running - if this post appears that is - and I hope you'll let me know if some things have gone haywire.

Ok, that post didn't work as it should have. I think I've fixed the main index now, but it seems the CSS is not being loaded as it should be. I may be able to fix that as well, who knows?

Update : reverted to default templates, and even those seem to be messed up, throwing up errors left and right. Why can things never be plain easy? More troubleshooting, pardon the mess.

Update 2 : apparently, MT5 needs a website in order to be able to publish a blog. Well, there you go! If you want to drive a car, you need to have a garage to put it in, and that garage needs to be supplied by us, and you get to pick out 12 different colors, but that's it. Fuckers! If I had known that 6A had gone out of their way to make their product idiot proof but at the same time extremely annoying for users that are NOT technically challenged, I would never have upgraded. Time to take a look at the competition next week, and see if I can actually find a tool that'll do exactly what I want it to do and nothing more or less.

MT5 is the Windows Vista of blogging : it knows everything better, yet fails to actually work the way the user wants.

I installed the new bath faucet yesterday, which wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. Had to pick up some extra tools in the store though, but once I had those, things were going rather smoothly. I did manage to get my finger cut on a tile though, which resulted in me bleeding all over the bathtub because I hadn't noticed it right away, but one band aid later things were back under control.

However... the faucet seems to be leaking a tiny bit on the right hand connection, so I already tightened it up in the evening and this morning the leaking had practically stopped. Will keep an eye on it today and take it back off tomorrow if the leakage is not fixed permanently. Update : took it off already and used some extra telfon sealer to seal things off properly. Doesn't seem to leak anymore now.

Tomorrow : town hall, post office and attaching cables to the wall.