October 2011 Archives

Is has been a rather busy but very entertaining weekend so far... On Saturday morning I moved all of the remaining Ytong blocks - about 60 or so, give or take a few - to the building site in preparation of construction that was scheduled to go on on Sunday. Right after I finished that, I took a quick shower and headed of to Den Deugeniet where I met up with old friends and their kids. Even though I always end up being the single guy with no kids in an indoor children's fair, I enjoy hanging out with the kids of my friends :)

Around five we all split up because everyone had things to do, so I grabbed a quick bite and then went to see J&E so we could head off to see Rihanna live together. As we were discussing things at the table, J. mentioned that a former colleague was rather disappointed that she wasn't able to get any tickets. I said that we had a spare ticket, so after a bit of confusion and looking for mobile cell phone numbers, his former colleague raced from her home to Antwerp, where we all met up to see Rihanna.

The concert was ok, but I was by far not as impressed as I was with Lady Gaga or Pink, both performers that I've seen in the same venue. The sound at the Rihanna show was awful... the volume was way too loud, so things even got distorted and the bass was pushing everything else away. Even a song prominently featuring a piano, didn't get the piano clear and tuned. I sure hope the sound techies are not getting paid based on their performance, because if that's the case, some people would end up very hungry.

After the show we said our goodbyes to the former colleague, went home, changed and turned ourselves into a witch, a skeleton and erm... another witch more resembling a 5 dollar hooker? At the small but very enjoyable party, lots of partying was done, and within minutes after arriving I had taken off my skeleton mask - too hot to wear - and got myself painted into a proper and definitely cruel looking skull. The painting was done by a slightly drunk Laura Palmer - of Twin Peaks fame - who did an impressive job, despite being drunk and rather dead.

After a short night, I got up, thanked J&E for the wonderful evening and headed back home to do more construction work. Dad came out to help - thanks! - and while it may seem like not much has been done, we did lay the foundations on which I can continue building on my own this week.

Things are definitely moving along nicely now and while lots still needs to be done, I'm calling it a (working) day for now. A new week of work lies ahead and I'm still recovering from last, lol.

Next weekend : birthday party and more construction work. I'll give Laura PaImer a call later tonight to see if she's recovered enough to set a date to go see Paranormal Activity 3 in the next week or so.

The clip sucks major ass, but I'm totally in love with this song... whenever I hear it I sing along and feel relaxed, no matter what was going on before.

It almost seems like I'm running behind on pretty much everything. I can't seem to get caught up at work, work in house seems to be dragging along (although construction should be going on this weekend, yay) and when I just opened my mail at home, there were 17 mails waiting for my attention. In a probably fruitless effort to get in control, I read and deleted everything not needing a reply or action, sent a reply to N., sent a reply to J. and did some banking and paid some bills. Tomorrow I'll have to do a follow up phone call to J. to see what the issue with his computer actually is, and whether or not I can solve it.

While checking my accounts, apparently the 250,- euro cash-back deal I applied for was deposited on my account, which is nice. The other cash-back has not yet been deposited, but that's not surprising as it involves a semi-governmental institution. The bill - to which the cash-back deals relate - itself still has not been paid and my bank seems to be dragging things out. I think I'll shoot my contact a mail on Thursday if things haven't moved by then. Paperwork, why does it have to take so much time?

I'll be heading off to bed very early today because I seem to have sprained a muscle in my back and I was barely able to breathe earlier while heading home from work. It still aches now, but the sharp edge seems to have faded and breathing has become manageable again.

I'm still pondering whether or not I should or shouldn't react to a mail I've received a while ago. While I assume no intention to actually hurt me deeply was behind it, it caused me to feel like having a knife stabbed in my heart and twisted around violently and repeatedly. Whomever said that time heals all wounds may have a point, although they were smart enough not to specify how much time it takes.

Oh, a new discovery : vice-and-poison.tumblr.com (definitely NSFW, though that probably depends on what line of work you're in, lol)

When I woke up this morning, my back hurt and I have no clue why. I probably just laid in bed in an awkward position or so because even though I went out last night, no back breaking activities took place. We had a nice sushi meal at Umi's in Antwerp, then ended up in a karaoke bar for a few songs (I didn't sing any though, my voice was rather bad to start with) and then it was to an Irish pub for a last drink.

When walking back to the car we looked at real estate adverts that were in a window and wondered how anyone can afford to pay 230.000 euro for a loft or an apartment. I know that in real estate location is everything, but really, some of these prices are just insane. I don't think I can see me cough up over 1.4 million for a - admittedly nice - house somewhere in Schoten. (Note : I'm not buying anything new for the time being :-) No need to bring out the movers, lol.)

So, where was I going with this? Ah yes... even though my back hurt, I got up, did dishes, plastered some left over parts that still needed attention near my windows, then I vacuumed, moved my light tower (which sounds way cool, but actually is nothing special) back into the corner, then my sofa went back onto it's proper spot. Finally the shoe cabinet was moved into the hallway and then I decided to turn on the heating because it was getting rather chilly. I'm a bit of a person that ain't complaining about cold temperatures fast, but an inside temp of just 16 degrees Celsius was getting a bit on the low side, even for me.

Luckily, I got it running very fast, coz I remember struggling with it quite a bit when I wanted to turn it on for the first time back in March.

I have no words to accurately describe my mood right now. Is it sad, disappointed, angry, mad, ready to throw in the towel or rather "I-don't-give-a-shit-anymore-and-you-clean-up-the-mess-yourself"? I guess it's somewhere in between all of those, although at the same time I'm thinking "this won't get to me, let's just go on, clean up and look at the future".

Really... it is starting to get very clear that some - and me included probably, although I had no say in the decision when it was made - underestimated it all by a factor ten. Or a hundred, who knows. "Jack of all trades, master of none" best describes the issue(s) at hand.

Unrelated but not helping me increase my mood : if you run a restaurant and require people to reserve upfront, it helps if you pick up THE BLOODY PHONE!

Phew... at least I got that out of my system.

Maybe I picked the wrong weekend to take down the roof, but truth be said, I'd rather do it in this heat opposed to doing so while raining. Quite some sweat was dripped, but after just over six hours of work, we - thanks for helping dad! - took down the old roof, and cleaned up the area.

While I took down some leftover support profiles, dad took a look at the multitude of cables and electric wiring that really wasn't supposed to be as it should, and eliminated some issues there. Sure there is much left to do on that topic, but we do take steps in the right direction :)

The material that was salvageable was stored in the garage, while the rubbish was put in my gigantic building waste big bag. I also took the opportunity to grind a long slit into the back wall to provide space to put in new wiring after the roof is on.

I just quickly washed my face and arms - I'll hop in the shower soon - and the clean water that hit my head turned pitch black by the time it hit the sink, lol. I was a bit dirty to say the least.

Depending on how things progress over the week with the new roof, I may be able to put in more work next weekend.