Moments in eternity.

This blog has moved. go to www.knightwise.com

2005-04-03T23:31:00.000-11:00

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Darkness is a lie. It is the absence of the light of truth.

2005-03-29T23:19:00.000-11:00

Darkness was my companion this morning as I raced towards work. Playlists for my podcasts decided to stay behind at home.. So I was just accompanied the wonderful Delirium’s ‘Poem’ album as a soundtrack for my silence. As light now reaches into the evening the suns rays are still cast away in the morning.. It gives me more rest to thing and wonder about the things of life.

And I have plenty to think about. As Babylon is turned upside down I feel brotherly bonds slipping away as if they where never tied. I feel myself still in the shadow of the little kid that stayed behind as his brothers went about their business. Only now the chessboard is set up differently. While one just leaves me out of the whole debacle.. The others is hiding from me. Where I once thought courage and honor was his greatest virtue, the only things I see now are coward ness and fear. Fear of what ? The truth that will eventually catch up with all of us ? The shadow of ones soul that one can never run or hide from ? Is that it ? Am I cast out of this whole scenario because the ‘little brother’ might just have that one insight, that one comment where macho-ism , self pity and intimidation have no defense against ? Its hard to be locked out by ones brother only because they don’t seem to care .. Or because they are afraid of what you have to say.

And on the other hand it makes me proud, angry… and even feel apathy for the whole situation. Babylon is becoming a ruined battleground to which I am untying myself before it drags me to the bottom.

Enough … Today I found something that might fit right in my alley . Only this week I was thinking about ditching our windows server and going for a Linux alternative. Today this article was posted http://www.flexbeta.net/main/printarticle.php?id=88 Since I have found a copy of Suse Enterprise server 7.3 at the local second hand shop for 5 euro.. its worth a try. Tc did another show at spacemusic.nl today http://libsyn.com/media/spacemusic/spacemusic-2005-03-29.mp3 and it was great to chill out on this music. Especially the whole matrix dub in the beginning is great ! One of the bloggs I read up on http://www.livejournal.com/users/bois_inside/ has a pretty entry about girl/girl love and passion. Its wonderful to see the wanting and the fulfillment love can give. (are you narrow minded ? don’t click) All of us just look for happiness. In advance I can only say I’m going to be sick this weekend. Sunday at sever o’clock I am going to HAVE to see the doctor http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/ Its amazing how aunty beeb has done it again. The whole Doctor Who concept has been re-invented once again in this very 90”s re-incarnation of every ones favorite timelord. So I’m having kittens over this J Star trek Enterprise is going into its final episode http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/news/article/9996.html Because NO-One gives a ratts ass about this spin-off they decided to cancel it after four seasons (and it was a disgrace to the Roddenbery legacy anyway. ) To get some viewers a lame cameo for Riker and Troy has been thought up , of course the Holodeck is involved (typical for Rick Bermans lack of imagination) “The series finale is called "These Are the Voyages ..." and it's probably no secret by now that this last episode of the Star Trek prequel features two very special guest stars: Jonathan Frakes and Marina Sirtis.” I will of course watch it.. Just to toast to Archers demise !. I’m however worried for the continuation of the Star Trek legacy. I hope this is not forever the end of my fan-cultus… (worried frown). Well , There is always an alternative : After podcasting you can try http://www.antisnottv.net/ Videoblogging. From what I’ve seen so far… I’m not overly impressed but hey… Where else on TV can you see a girl having her period ! (I was not taken in by that videoblogg). Until next time !

Come to me ....

2005-03-29T04:53:00.000-11:00

Come to me ....

Precious silence unveil your wings

surround me with your satin curtains

drown out the noise and blow away

my raving thoughts of madness

Sweet serenity come sit by me

and take me in your arms

feed me the nectar of your motionless movement

and immerse me in the silent symphony of balance.

Dark passions come and poison me

reek havoc in the corners of my mind

set alight the dry deserts of my heart

and unleash your tornado in my fountain of feathers.

Insightfulness come to me in the dark

and brighten my twilight with your flame of wisdom

let my eyes bear down on the ignorance of my enemies

and bestow upon me the knowledge of eternity
Come to me.....

2005-03-28T23:31:00.000-11:00

When Easter comes.

Yep , Easter weekend has come and gone and has left me with a craving for more time at home. After solving a rather complicated problem at a clients home Saturday morning we went out for a lovely walk in the town of Hasselt. Browsing through the high street made us realize just how much we feel at home in this province capital. Afterwards we lingered around in the city park and went for a sit in one of the swings there :). Just sitting in the sun.. feeling at home in a town where no one knows your name. Thats just about the greatest place I could call my home. I sometimes astound myself at how this country boy has swapped his small town where everybody knows everything about everyone for an urban lifestyle. But it went like a charm. Sunday we lounged out and watched some tv, went to my parents place, chatted with my mother who was home for the afternoon and made a bee-line for my aunts place. Once again I came to the wonderful conclusion that I am indeed a commodity in the family. The slightest techno-problem is reason enough to call me. But when major things happen in our family .. There is absolutely no reason to call me . I'm really getting fed up with that ! I not only FEEL like a commodity.. I AM a commodity. A 'service', a "help desk". And then people wonder why we crawl back in our protective social bubble in that far away place Hasselt ? Well my dears : It isn't even far enough away from all my roots ! As Babylon drifts apart I feel myself breaking free from the ropes that tie me down in that place.. And i am not too sorry.. But enough about that. Time is so sparse these day's I haven't had time to meet up with some old friends and I do hope we will be able to change this soon. In the back of my head the plans for our marriage are silently brooding.. Unable to seed due to the fact that the social soil is shifting and sanding. Our plans range from an intimate party .. to a mid sized reception-thing. My own family is gambling away their places on the guest list and the social minefield that is brooding because of that is something I do not want to wade through. I run for my Island of peace. Where world events come in over digital lines.. Where RSS feeds never fail to let me know when something changes. Where conversation is digital and where skype chimes in the friendly words from afar. Where cappuccino brings peace and her soothing hands run over the small of my back. Where a purring cat luls me to sleep and the gentle hum of an Ibook breaks the silence of my thoughts. Where a web cam spreads and brings smiles of joy and where Babylon is but a far away place in a troublesome dream.

2005-03-25T04:40:00.000-11:00

Happy Easter everyone.

Who is in motion ? the traveler or the destination.

2005-03-25T00:30:00.000-11:00

well , those of you who visit this blog through www.knightwise.com : Welcome :) As you can see the contents of the blog are now 'parsed' onto the main website. Unfortunately the pictures are not working yet :( Some bizarre reason is the source of this. Sometimes it works other times it does not.. ) I presume the reason is that the pictures are stored on hello.com and they do not allow hot linking. Back to the drawing board i guess. At least we've made some headway.

Yesterday was a nice day at school. Although I was preparing myself for utter despair because of the big 'task' we have to do, it all turned out pretty fine. Me and the Swifter crunched the numbers and got part of the job done in a jiffy. Especially using my Ibook to connect to the routers over TELNET (and thus using my 'unix-terminal' in OSX was way cool) Just sitting there with my little white precious made me feel like i was lightyears ahead of the rest in matters of techno gizzmo's. Despair wil probably strike next week as we fall back when the going gets tough.

But then there is always my other white buddy to keep me company. Its amazing how much I have dragged my Ipod around these last few months. Constantly listening to music, podcasts, even ocean sounds.. Anything to surround me with the protective bubble of sounds. Within that bubble I live in a small world of my own.. where Slashdot headlines or daily source codes make up the news and events instead of the radio news. Within that bubble I look at the world around me with my own soundtrack of life playing on the background. Strange how music makes you look differently ath the things around you .. and how it changes your mood. ... Yesterday... Headphones on.. Ambient Cafe del Mar tunes buzzing away on the background and just looking at the people around me. Thoughts, emotions, memories, impressions.. everything soothed by the gentle ambient tones.. As I crawl up in the protective ball of my own thoughts .. my Ipod generates a musical force field around me... And then I find my true peace.

And at that “mare tranquilatis” the waves of my emotions gently stroke the banks of my mind.. the urge to write comes as wel. Its fascinating how I have become accustomed to this blog. How I like writing down my thoughts and impressions .. How I feel the urge to be creative and express mysellf. Its like its bubbling inside of me and all I can do is let the words, thoughts and sounds flow out. As the dawn shoves the gentle mist over the rolling hills.. my steel chariot pierces the void around me. Hurling towards my next destination.. and but a speck on the radar of eternity.. I feel that these last few months have been good to me. Shure I don't like being away from home so much and I do wish I could settle down more. But then again.. this is who I am .. A hedon. Always on the run. Always the traveler. Perpetual mobility in a flowing universe. My thoughts and feelings only emerge like shy shadows when the people are gone and there is no one around. The come sit on my shoulder and whisper themselves in my ear. And as my momentum carries me over the sandy desert of time.. I sometimes wonder what the reality is ? Am i moving over the gentle slope of the planet.. Or is life rushing me by as I stand still on the sidelines. Wondrous is the silence that lets one ponder these questions...

2005-03-24T00:34:00.000-11:00

Yesterday afternoon proved to be a fun episode in the week. Driving from work to school i stopped at a local Car wash not far from Geel. I had seen these dudes before , 4 or 5 whacky guyz that wash your car for 15 euro's (inside and outside ! ! ) As you know I'm lazy , and the 307SW was not the modern example of a clean car (Soot and salt and dirt all over). So i pulled over and decided let these guyz do their worst. And Damn, they where GOOD ! 'Just like new !' the guy calls out to me. And after ripping into the car like 5 Borgs on speed go at a starfleet shuttlecraft I barely recognized the 307. It was spot clean ! Its like driving a whole new car ! I mentioned the blogg, pulled out my digital camera and made the picture you see above. They where Super friendly these guys and I recommend everybody to stop on by and have these guys attack your dirty ride !

After that it was of to Leuven. Took my lunch break on the stairs of the square next to the Tiensevest and with the soothing sounds of www.spacemusic.nl I checked out the fine looking female students and in general watched the world go by. After tinkering with another podcast-experiment it was of to school.

Got home pretty early that night to find Saskia still up :) We went to bed early and ended up chatting and teasing each other. ( According to Saskia , people might think that I am gay because i'm a 'real man' and no silly macho) I've been pondering that statement for a few hours now .. but am not getting any wiser (no comments on this Mr Swift , just shut up) But Saskia did mean it as a compliment.. so.. there you go.

The whole ASTRA debacle is over, I ordered my company car today.. and let you know what it is real soon .. its a surprise.

Last but not least : Got elected for the I-city project in Hasselt (more about that soon) and found a feed script that might just do the trick and parse this blog into the knightwise.com site.

2005-03-23T00:30:00.000-11:00

Haunted by the shadows of sleep I crouch down amidst the sleeping dwarfs and wish for slumber to whisk me away. There.. that about sums up how I felt this morning. After having my third migraine attack in a row yesterday evening I popped over to see the doc. who kindly told me to start taking it easy and park my tush in bed until next Monday. Can't do that of course .. although when I got home last night I crashed on the couch (didn't even boot up my pc) and went to bed at nine. I'm just exhausted :(. Don't know what it is but.. I guess I have a hard time keeping up the pace sometimes. from this morning up to next Saturday afternoon the book is full so Saturday afternoon will be the first moment where I have the chance to relax a little bit. School tonight, School tomorrow.. Damn.. Leuven is becoming a drag. Where I used to be so full of energy when I arrived in Leuven , now Im just a sleepy soul in the back of the room trying to stay focused on whats going on. Its not that Im not interested .. but I just can't keep the fire burning like it used to be. Guess the mileage is getting to me. But still. I hope I feel a bit better later on ( Jeej , here comes another migraine attack) I'm really off my normal state ...

Enough complaints , I need your help. As you know I get to choose a company car pretty soon , and I have a choice between two models to choose from. So check out the pictures below and tell me what model you like the best. There is the Astra Break (very mature) and the Astra Hatchback (very sporty) . I'm interested in finding out how your perception is of me by choosing what car would suit me best . So there's the question. what car would suit me best and why (you can also pick the color : black/bleu/Silver). I'm curious about your input.

In other news : I'm kind of thinking of adapting the whole knightwise.com website. This by moving my blogg over to live journal so I can parse it in the main page (and you can read all my entries straight from the main page) and by using my blogspot.com account (this one) to post pictures on and making it a 'picture of the day' item I can crosslink to. TO bad I haven't heard from the guys who made that script (they where going to fix the TAG error you get on knightwise.com .. but hey , I got to move on.)

Meanwhile Im pretty proud to be able to say I post almost daily on this blogg. I also have plans for a weekly pod cast , but don't know how Im going to get it all done. I can do it 'all mobile' I guess. Record it on Wednesday afternoon (in the 1 hour break I have between work an school) and upload it the same night or the next day when Im at the 'angelus' in Scherpenheuvel. ( FYI : the Angelus is this little tea room in Scherpenheuvel , crowded with old folks , but it has free wifi access and good cappuccino.. So what do you know !).

Although I have been dragging my camera around I haven't had the time of taking any pictures yet. I just don't get out of the car a lot I guess :) I do have an Idea called : My day in images, basically taking pictures of my life all day long. Would be a cool thing for the blogg.

Well To give you a little idea of tonight Ive posted a pic from school along with this post.

2005-03-22T22:22:00.000-11:00

The Astra 5 Doors Hatchback.

2005-03-22T22:21:00.000-11:00

The Astra Break

2005-03-22T00:36:00.000-11:00

Hmm Haven't gotten a time to post these last days. It has been busy too :( Went out on Friday and I had to get up real early on Saturday to help out in the shop so my brother could sleep in ( erm... yess). One does it out of the kindness of ones heart but still its a bit stupid of me. Oh well. Skipped the Saturday-afternoon-walk-and-sleep session in favor of cruising to Leuven to go have a look-see at the new company car i'm getting from the firm I work for. The dude in the garage was not exactly up to speed in what I could buy and I didn't know hells bells about it neither (its my first Comp. Car, don't know how all that stuff is arranged) Took one 'possible candidate' for a spin and decided it was 'good enough' but I had to have more info about what my options where. So back to the drawing board. Bounced into Leuven in the late afternoon and had time for a great cappuccino and some walking around in the town. But Leuven is a shitty place. Its crowded, there is not much space and people are not all to friendly. At the risk of sounding arrogant I will say i would prefer good old Hasselt above Leuven, anytime !. Worked on a pc-from-hell the rest of the afternoon before we trotted out. Sunday was filled with PC-nightmare. Had to sit by this computer as i carefuly copied and restored 9000 mb worth of pictures and word files. Didn't even get a chance to hop by my parents place to go say hello to my mom (great, Im gonna get flamed for that !) Saskia's grandma had her birthday dinner at six and I tagged along for some 'poestahooi' (look it up if you want to know what it means) and had a great time with her family. (why the hell can't my side of the fam. be more like that sometimes) More and more I get the feeling i'm alienating from the folks back home. Its like our paths are drifting apart and I don't seem nor notice nor to matter. I look at myself and see how estranged I have become from the boy I used to be back there. But the problem is that that is still how they see me. Thus I pull back further inside the protective bubble of my life and... well you know how it is. Was not feeling to well Sunday evening and that resulted in a tummy-trashing on monday. Out sick for the day (bless Saskia for taking care of me). Alternating between the bathroom and the sofa proved my exercise for the day. Laptop on the lap, episode of Battlestar Galactica to keep me company... I survived !

2005-03-18T00:26:00.000-11:00

Maggie our cat ... makes me feel at home...

2005-03-18T00:16:00.000-11:00

Just a quick one today, because time is short. Started work a hour later today but decided not to sleep in. Had a nice time just sitting behind my Ibook , cappuchino in hand and the on-line moment of peace when there is absolutely no one on line to bug you :) Nyana thought there where burglars in the house when she got up and found me still walking around the house (poor thing). zipped up to work in broad daylight accompanied by some podcasts to keep me up to speed. I'm probably going to drop my subscription on the madge weinstein show : www.yeastradio.com. Allthough its a nice anti-bush rant from time to time its getting to disorganised for my taste (and i like my podcasts tight and tidy). Looking forward to the weekend. Not that there is a lot of spare time to relax, there are still some fun things on the agenda. Going out browsing for my new (company) car on saturday and probably will end up couch-lounging on sunday. No matter , as long as i'm with the girl I love. Today i've posted a few pictures on the blog that make me feel 'at home'. Living the life of a cyber-gipsy it's sometimes important to have these pictures around. They make me feel at ease , happy , relaxed.. In other technotalk : I've been looking at a way to incorporate this blog into the main www.knightwise.com website. No luck as yett, allthough I have found out a great deal as to how SWIFT would be able to do it. Its a little complicated to get things just the way I want them. But we will keep on trying. Perhaps a peace of Marjoleins Cake (the one she bakes for her family) will give me some inspiration (hint !)

Sparse sunlight and a poem over an encripted connection.

2005-03-17T06:11:00.000-11:00

First of all : No pic today cause i'm mobile , Bloging at 'De geletterde mens' in Hasselt . Damn , My schedule at work changed today so I'm gonna have to start out later and finish an hour later allmost every day. The days I CAN start on time i'm gonna be driving straight up to school (MAN THIS SUX) I'm not pleased , but I don't realy have a choice in the matter. Since class was canceled today I found mysellf in the luxurious position of being able to set foot in town and catch some daylight when I got home. Enjoyed it. Went for a walk, Ipod on .. smelled the spring coming and tried to feel alive once more. I'm not one to complain about my busy lifestyle but... this is getting rediculous. Allmost every spare moment is bashed up with stuff to do. Work , school, the company ... I've had to let all the freebies slide or i just won't have any life left at all. I'm seriously doubting how long i'm going to be able to keep it up. Work is time consuming (allthough i spend my commute-time wisely by listening to podcasts , I'm out at the crack of dawn and am now going to be back a lot later in the evening) Clients for my own little company need to be done and on top of that there is school , grabbing me away 2 whole nights a week , in a row. But somehow, no matter how fast i live, life seems to pass me by. I miss out on things, sitting on a terrace in the evening sun, walking through the park , having a cappuchino in the middle of the day.. boy i do miss those things. Maybe its just the spring bothering me.. but i've noticed i have given up so much these last years only to 'serve and protect' Its not allways fun. I try to do everything, if possible at once, and end up not being able to enjoy anything because I don't have the freakin time anymore to sit down and relax. It gets me frustrated sometimes. No matter how much I embrace my mobile lifestyle and encorporate it into my very life.. I often long for being at home, sitting at my kitchen table.. The cat not fare away. Plugged into a wired port into the familiar subnet of my own home. The more you travel the more restless it makes you feel sometime. But still. I'm happy to have my little blogg and enjoy the people that pass by and leave nice comments (thank you Marjolein). Its a good thing Nyana is a patient gall and that I guard that 1.5 free days we have together like a lion. If i woudn't do that , there would be nothing left at all. I would end up drowning in my olwn enthousiasm and getting burried in stuff to do . Everytime spring comes I have this same restless feeling. The call of the Hedon. I wrote a poem about that once . The anthem of my soul. I'll post it when i get the chance. ( VPN's home , acces personal files , transfer file, open with neooffice , copy paste.. damn , this mobile setup is REALY kickin ass !) Here ya go...

The call of the hedon.

Silence surrounds me like a silver cloak.
Thoughts roam like feathers in the storm.
Time glides like lava trough snow.
Truth eludes me like boiling vapour.

All I feel inside is the quest.
For the unknown destination,
For an unknown reason,
With an unknown concequence.

All I know is that I seek.
Unknown for what or where or why
Perhaps I chase the untouchable
Reach for the point beond the line.

Restless am I who never sleeps.
Never sits down , never at ease.
With one foot pointing at the door.
Although I don’t know where I’m going next.

Always the visitor , never the host..
Always the traveler and never the guest.
Always the searcher , but yet never found.
Always the mistery , never the truth.

I do not know what calls in my heart
Only that it’s the scream of the hedon
Restlesly dancing on the song of time.
Always a spec beyond the horizon.

I reach for the answers.
To end an endless quest .
But am afraid to find them one day.
For where shall I be then … and where must i stay.

Peace out !

2005-03-16T03:12:00.000-11:00

Watch out ! Porn !

Not that I am on the verge of dressing in a white gown, putting flowers in my hair and dancing around barefooted through the grass.. BUT : I can feel the spring is coming !. Yesterday was one of these days when you can SMELL the winter going away. Temperatures are rising and so are my spirits. Hmmm would totally loooove taking a walk trough Rijkhovens swamps right now. (begin geeky part) After picking up a Power charger for my gps and rendering a home completely wire-less I found out my great liberator project has taken one more step forward. I can access my files , via my Ibook from ANYWHERE !!!! Messed around with the RSS enclosure in my website and found out I cant get it working F*** Oh well..(end geeky part) Got a question yesterday from the lovely Marjolein, why this blog is in English : Well : 3 reasons . I spell better in English then in Dutch, I can express myself better in English then in Dutch, I have non-Dutch speaking friends and visitors.. so.. there is that for you. Hmm . took an alternative route to work today, decided to trust my technology and dutifully obey my GPS in choosing the way to work. Turned out it IS a faster but also further. And not so much to see along the way. In the rush to leave for work I forgot my earplugs at home. Not only have I know misplaced my white Ipod earplugs, Ive also left my Senheissers on the desk. So no music today, just the hum of my pc (boring) Good thing I have the I-trip in the car so I can at least catch some podcasts on the road. I sometimes scare myself when I see the media I surround myself with . Sometimes its like I live in a different universe. Where different things matter, different things happen, where I listen to different radio shows, talk to different people and do different things. Damn Im so cyber-hyped sometimes it makes me wonder people dont consider me insane on a regular basis. Speaking of crazy : http://labs.google.com/googlex/ A nice alternative Google page with an Osx tribute (cute pop ups) http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000270036222 is also soooo cute buthttp://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000767034455 is a bit tacky for my taste. On browse today I also tripped over THIS article http://www.eo.nl/portals/themes/article.jsp?portal=5254965&article=5584742&theme=5562377 (Marjolein , you will love this, its in DUTCH) about how the Dutch Christian TV network handles porn ! I mean . they have got a SPECIAL WEBSITE for their users on HOW TO DEAL WITH PORN. Not just one article : no no , a whole freakin website. Apparently those holy housefathers are one horny heard. My all time favorite is the watch out for porn sign they posted on the site. I mean youve got to be kidding me. Im just going to hang this sign on the back of my car or something : Shaggadellic baby !!!!
Ah yess , no war-driven update from the heavenly Scherpenheuvel tomorrow Got no school, teacher is out sick .. and that means that our carefully thrown together powerpoint (ieuw) slideshow will have to be blown out into a full scale report (Damn !)

2005-03-15T00:19:00.000-11:00

Big ass Cappuccinos and XML feeds.

Monday comes and goes again. Spent some time in the car catching up on my podcasts and spacing out with the vibes casted by http://spacemusic.libsyn.com/ (loooove that). Got home and had about an hour of free time (yes ! Free time) to squander. Wasted half of that on messing around with my sound equipment to see if I could not get a functional studio setup together using just my pc , my hercules DJ console and my Ibook. Several test and curses later I decided the only way to get the setup working the way I want it to is by using a mixer ( for mixing sounds) Now I used to be a dj for eight years and only sold my remaining DJ equipment last summer because it was just lying around anyway. (I had not used it for some years) So yesterday I was pretty damn mad at myself cause I wished I hadn't sold it all. But back then podcasting didn't exist yett (DAMN!) Still.. So its out to the shop tonight to see if I can pick up a simple mixer to do my thing. The urge to game a little overpowered me not much later and I found out that together with my Half life 2 I got Counter Strike. This kick-ass game used to be one of my favorites. But after playing on line for 20 minutes I realized I sucked at THAT too (haven't played in a long time). Swift came over at six and we did some work for school (along with consuming Grande Cappuccinos) Tinkered around with a script to update our websites automatically and annoyed Nyana for the most part. It was fun to mess around with some html-stuff and feel the challenge to get it working once again. (and its fun when you have company to do it with). So before getting to geeky i'll just leave it at that. Couched-out with my Ibook and ended up talking to Nyana for a bit before going to bed. (barely looked at the tv that was playing) So... I guess it was a nice evening (one of the few evenings i'm home these days). Speaking of TV, apart from podcasting (broadcasting audio over the internet) there is also Videoblogging (making your own tv show and sending that over the net) How that works and what it has to offer is something i would like to check out too so i found this : http://www.antisnottv.org/ Select your shows , download them to your pc (mac) and there ya go. I'm gonna mess around with it a while , see how it goes and if there is something more interesting on the 'vloggosphere' then on regular TV. Should not be that hard to beat ! :).

2005-03-14T00:27:00.000-11:00

And the weekend has come and gone again. Like marching soldiers the hours have slipped trough my fingers and I find myself once again on the other side of that lovely break from work-and-no-play.

Saturday morning was nice : I had about an hour to sit down and have a big ass cappuccino while trying to hook up my Ibook to my windows network. And Guess what : It worked ! (thanx Manu) So step by step my master plan is coming alive ..( cross platform/open source etc etc) I was very pleased to get it working, and it only proved that I CAN get things done if I only have the time to sit down and concentrate on them. After that me and the Swiftmeister went out to test some practical network knowledge and rerouted a clients network together. It was way fun to work together and we also did some messing around with testing my vpn connection to the knights castle and stuff. So I hope Ill be able to combine both and get my shit together on the Ibook so I can get to the files on our server from anywhere.

We also took a peek at this guys SKYPE phone (and it got me thinking about lowering my own phone bill...) Its like Adam Curry said : Skype is going to be THE phone company. I'm going to check out the Skype phone rates to dial-out and dial-in, and who knows perhaps its cheaper ? But before that Ill start installing Skype on my Pc's (and do some testing) So soon you guys can call me up on skype. I'll post details later.

In the afternoon we went into town and I got me my copy of HALF LIFE 2. I had been in doubt whether to buy Republic commando or Half life .. But decided to go with the classics, If only so I could play COUNTER STRIKE once again. After some on line multiplayer gaming I realized Im not the sharp edged first-person-fragger I used to be (more of a slow moving canon-fodder newbie) So I have to get some practice. Restraining myself from gaming at night and having a big ass fragg-lagg in the morning (fragg-lagg = being tired during the day because you've been up gaming all night) I will have to get some practice in the weekends. But I deserved a good game ... If only so shoot off some steam. The single player game is great by the way (atmosphere !!!) and I spaced out all Saturday afternoon ducking mutants and anti-riot police while killing of my enemies with my famous one-shot/one-kill headshot technique.

Sunday ? lounged out , slept in late .. Fixed up Nyana's Laptop into a good modus-operandy while lending here my little I-Book for the time being. It was cute to see her starting to 'feel the love' for that little machine. Although she's a Windows girl by heart. And not only her pc crashes from time to time : So does she ! We where on the verge of going to bed when I heard a big bang and when I rushed to the scene , found out that Nyana had fallen down a couple of stairs. A big scare, a bruised hand, and a cracked spoke in the stairs 'armrest (?) ' was the conclusion. (big scare for me too). Luckily it wasn't so bad. What can you say : balance is fragile and gravity is a bitch !

While Im driving to work these day's Ive noticed spring is in the air. Not only can you smell it .. I can also see the darkness reside further and further into the night. Dawn creeps closer and closer towards my moments of departure and I find myself driving through a well-lit world on my way to work. As nights velvet cloak is pushed away , I see for the first time just what lies between my home and the place where I work. Away is the dark but intimate blackness that engulfed my these last few months. Gone is the bubble of light around me ... gently blown by headlights and the display of my soothing Ipod. Now prudent sunrays dance over the horizon. Somehow it makes me feel lonely. Realizing just how many miles and landscapes lie between home and work ... makes me feel Im in a galaxy far far away. So gone is the cover of night.. the realm of shadows and headlights. Times are changing as I flow into another moment in eternity.

Yo Karien ! Its Ya Birthday !

2005-03-11T00:00:00.000-11:00

Yep : Today we stop the presses and say HAPPY BIRTHDAY to our lovely friend Karien. Shes been Nyanas buddy for over nine years now ( They used to work together in Bokrijk) and I have had the privilege and honor to call her my friend as well. Sometimes its funny how you can get to know people and how after all these years you get pretty close (even though we dont see each other all that much, I can still call Karien part of the family). So I can only pause the planet to wish her all the best. Love , lust , luck and happiness. With hands of gold and a heart to match she's the finest of friends and one of the few who sees right trough me sometimes. Time for a poem in your honor !

When you where born..
A computer was something on TV
From a science fiction show of note
A window was something you hated to clean
And ram was the cousin of a goat.
Meg was the name of my girlfriend
And gig was a job for the nights
Now they all mean different things
And that really mega bites.
An application was for employment
A program was a TV show
A curser used profanity
A keyboard was a piano.
Memory was something that you lost with age
A CD was a bank account
And if you had a 3 inch floppy
You hoped nobody found out.
Compress was something you did to the garbage
Not something you did to a file.
And if you unzipped anything in public
You'd be in jail for awhile.
Log on was adding wood to the fire
Hard drive was a long trip on the road
A mouse pad was where a mouse lived
And a back up happened to your commode.
Cut you did with a pocket knife.
Paste you did with glue
A web was a spider's home
And a virus was the flu.
I guess I'll stick to my pad and paper
And the memory in my head

:) Happy Birthday !

Have you taken your Fuckitall today ?

2005-03-10T00:40:00.000-11:00

A few months ago I started out with my new years resolution for 2005 : Using as much open-source cross-platform software as I possibly could. And so far thats working out fine. With Openoffice, Mozilla, Fire, NVU, Deepburner, Freepdf, Firstclass and of course Mandrake Linux Ive managed to stay afloat and do the things I need to have done. A few weeks ago I tried to center my focus on remote connectivity. Making sure I always had access to my data at home using VPN, remote desktop and so on. After that I went out of my way to be able to schedule and automate as much as possible in order to have my computers work for me Podcastst downloaded automatically and sent to my Ipod, Mail Synchronized with my cell phone, Computer recording tv shows on demand, Emule downloading content that I wanted and so on. The general Idea behind this was that I did not have to set everything in motion manually. When you look at www.knightwise.com you might notice a lack of updates, when you look at the weblog you can see an abundance of updates. That is pretty typical for my next problem. Im not at home enough to sit down behind a computer and update my webpage. Sure I can run the site from my laptop but I need to boot it up, get it connected, change the content and upload the whole shit. The thing Im looking for is simplifying that too. I want to be able to update my on-line content with the ease I update this blogg (from any computer using just about any webbrowser) and to be able to distribute that content automatically (using RSS and XML feeds) This liberation from a designated web design-station towards a cross-platform / cross-workstation model is the key for my next project. What Im basically saying is : I want to use technology to help me get my life on the web without a lot of hassle. And a want this technology to support me in getting my stuff out there with a minimal hassle. Quick updates, fast fly by pictures and speedy podcasts with minimum hassle. THATS what I want. I call it : Project Liberator.

Oh yes , Ive finally restarted my IPODDER client so I get these cool podcasts on my Ipod everyday and I must say I missed it. When you tune in to shows like the Daily source code, Yeast Radio, and the recently discovered www.spacemusic.nl these guys and galls keep me company during my long drives and are kinda like distant friends you tune into every day. Is that a sad quote ? No its not.. I just guess Im a kid of my cyber-era and all my friends are only a few hops (and not blocks) away. Oh yes : for the curious ones ? Check this out

http://www.livejournal.com/stats/latest.bml

Listening to the podcasts in the car has cheered me up a bit, cause otherwise I just sit there and ponder over Babylon's ashes.. No more of that : Fuckitall :)

Looking back : an old repost from November 6th

2005-03-09T04:22:00.000-11:00

I found this article on tiestoworld.nl and thought I would 'bring it to mommy' I wrote it the day after the Tiesto Concert in Hasselt and is was on the old Knighsite website (and mirrored on Tiestoworld.) So for those of you who want to know what it was like back there ... here is the story ( Fuming with jealousy at Swift and Zirbo who are going to see 'the lord in action' @ Disneyworld Paris in a few weeks)

After the construction of the immense Ethias Arena Hasselt was ready for a big event. And so it came. Tiësto's new concert MAGIC hit ground zero @ 22 hours local time at friday the sixth of November. Publicity was HUGE and a large turnout was to be expected. Rumours of 16 000 people attending where overshadowed by the actual number of 22 000 fans turning up to watch their idol. One day after my 30th birtday an omen was in the air. This was gonna be big... and boy... Was it ever ....

At about 22 hours Saskia and me beamed down to the Ethias Arena expecting total chaos. Previous events involving a large crowd at the 'grenslandhallen' had a bad reputation. From long lines at the tickets up to riots at the 'vestiare'. But none of it apperad to be the case. Parking for the thousands of attending fans had been covered thanx to shuttle busses and the Ethias arena was big enough to swallow the immense crown fast enough making it possible to walk just in. My second surprise was the size of the hall. There is no point of reference as for scale but.. you KNOW its big.With cool 3d goggles on stand by a giant screen in the middle of the hall was to be the pinnacle for the warmup. 3d videoprojections that where impressivly real made me notice that 3D TV has come a long way.

As the spacy video's meshed into tantalising recordings of DJ Tiësto virtually 'touching' the crown from the giant screen the crowd was at critical mass for the show of their lifetime. I thought I was going to listen to a 8 hour set of Tiesto just playing records.I was dead wrong. Tiësto's show was going to be MAGIC.

The show kicked of with a mindnumbing opening where I got to see Mr Verwest in real life for real the show came true to its name. Magic was magic ! Not only extatic in sounds but also in vision. Magicians preformed an act making Tiësto disappear and reappear behind his decks. A simple trick but the Ethias Arena was jumping with joy.

Giant screens kept us in touch with Tiësto's every move and the visual animations where spectacular. Allthough concentrated at the front of the Arena it immersed every dancer in an incredible sea of sounds, images and light. Pyrotechnics and INDOOR FIREWORKS would make Lazarus jump with joy.

As the hours went by acts where woven trough the continuüm of music. Djembe players playing live alongside Tiësto's raving rage made us all think of how short ago it was we where all in the cage as the primal rithems swept through our souls.

But it was going to get only better. Immersed in what seemed to be a different world 22 000 people beat their hearts to the bass sounds of Thijs Verwest. We where on track on the highway of melody. It was only going to get better.

Tiesto's Irish Light Crew and mysellf fraternised. ( And this atmosphere was living everywhere.) " Ein Reich ! Ein DJ " we chanted. And that is what is was. No more race, colour, nationality, rich, poor. 22 000 people having being enchanted by the same magic.

Following standard regulations we where (as always) surrounded by nice looking girls. 4 hours into the party we were not thinking about going home AT ALL

The combination of a Bulgarian choir singing LIVE with Tiesto's music moved me beyond what I had expected. Lingering thoughts about what my religion truely is had been answered. When I looked around, saw the people, heard the music and felt the enormous atmosphere I knew : THIS IS RELIGION. A religion of sound ! To whoever was not there it is hard to explain but when you feel a lump in your throat you KNOW you are having the time of your life.

(and I was heaving the time of my life). 6 hours into the party and not stopped dancing yet.

But it was still to come. Imagine a classical violist playing an electrical violin. When the sounds subside to a techno version of 'Air' by Bach this dude plays a fantastic techno tune ON HIS VIOLIN ! Downright AWE was all i could muster. Mouth and eyes wide open with amazement we could only be sweaped away in a tsunami of emotion as Tiësto joined in with the actual track. The violin player did not stop but went on ending in an climax playing his instrument like an electrical guitar. When the song stopped 22 000 people held their breath for a heartbeat. And exploded in an enormous cheer for a spectacle unheared. As I turned to Steven ( fellow partyer) we looked at eachother totaly blown away. "I have NEVER heared this before". This was enormous.

And Tijs kept the classics for the last. Love DID come again and in its tunes. Playing his classic LOVE COMES AGAIN the Ethias Arena must have produced a small earthquacke. Literaly EVERYBODY went into extaxy. The religious experience I mentioned before took on something epical. I had never seen this !.

It was 6 30 AM. Not a fiber in our body thought about leaving. With hard romping beats ripping trough the crowd that despite the early hour was still plenty Tiesto made us explode once again.

And with Deliriums SILENCE as the last record we said goodbey to Tijs Verwest with an enormous applause. This man was and is our hero, the God of our religion, the fuse that set us alight and the true magician behind Tiësto's MAGIC. More on : http://users.edpnet.be/KEV172657/

Written by Knightwise , Pics Belgie by Swift en Zirbo

2005-03-09T02:09:00.000-11:00

The pope is apparently returning from Hospital this week. We have found a sneak preview on the new modes of transportation. (Thanx Jakke !)

Just wait one centon with all that fendergarb !

2005-03-08T22:55:00.000-11:00

When they do remakes.. it often sucks. When they try to re-enact a classic series , it often sucks. When they go 'bigger better faster' it always sucks. Well, not always. I watched part of the pilot episode of the new Battlestar Galactica series yesterday. And it did not suck. As a matter of fact I was pleasantly surprised to see the way new series was handled. There have been a lot of changes made and sometimes you would not recognize some of the 'original characters' but.. Its very interesting to see how they are telling the same story , only differently. I'm halfway trough the pilot ep. and can't wait to see it through. For those of you who are interested you can download the episode here http://www.scifi.com/battlestar/ and check out who is doing a hidden cameo : http://www.scifi.com/battlestar/characters/

So, to say in my best Capricaneese : 'Just wait a Centon with all that Fendergarb : I'm on Fracking Ferlon !'

In other news, had a great time talking to my friend Karien yesterday. Chatted away on MSN about all kinds a stuff and .. it made me feel good inside to know what good friends I have out there. Even if we don't see each other for a while and things look like they are cooling off, its never true and we are still close. Friends are a blessing (family more like a curse these days) . Don't worry. I'm not going to go on another rant. But sometimes I notice how good people know me. For example , whenever i'm down or am having a hard time.. Saskia knows just what to do and how to handle me. Its an incredibly subtle approach to the situation. Something you can only do if you know the other trough and trough. I was once again marveled by her yesterday.. The way she knows me .. Same for my closest friends ( my own-chosen family) they see beyond my bravoure and beyond the shields that cover my true feelings. The wals trough and gently lower my defenses. They know me all to well. I'm glad to have them. When you are good at deceiving everyone whenever its needed. Sometimes you need people who see right into the true core of your soul. Only a few hold that key and I must say : Its an honor to know them.

As Babylon burns on Im going to have to face some of my fears and deal with the phantoms that hunt my dreams. Sometimes my emotions play a 'Freddy Kruger' on me. As long as i stay busy, Im fine.. when I sit down and relax.. they catch up with me. My own little Nightmare on MaastrichterStreet.. I am after all a cult lover :).

Who is trapped in a bunker, the one on the outside or the inside ?

2005-03-07T20:58:00.001-11:00

Ternaaien.

As you can see, i've found out how to post pictures to my blogg. Today's trail run of this function features some pictures i took last year at the fortress of Eben Emael. http://www.fort-eben-emael.be/ A Belgian stronhold agains the German invasion in WW2. The pictures I selected where the ones who, for me , spanned the bridge between the horror of war and the beauty of nature. The warm sunny day and the bright sun shining over the outstretched bunkers and domes give the whole place a peacefull glow. But in real life, war has waged all too violently. It is somehow very similar to the way I am feeling these days. As babylon is burning on into the ashes of oblivion I keep the sun shining on my face. As the landscape of my soul looks peacefull and at ease it is hard to believe how war once raged there. I have seen my fair share of battles .. and somehow am to fatigued to wage old wars once agian. I bunker out the enemy and hide my troops deep beneath domes of steel and concrete.

2005-03-07T20:58:00.000-11:00

The white cliffs of .. Kanne

2005-03-07T20:57:00.004-11:00

A ufo ? .. not realy

2005-03-07T20:57:00.003-11:00

Anti Personell bunkers.

2005-03-07T20:57:00.002-11:00

A Bunker on the east side.

2005-03-07T20:57:00.001-11:00

A tank ditch to stop German Tanks from taking of the fort, now a peacefull pond.

2005-03-07T20:57:00.000-11:00

Another view of the Albert Canal

2005-03-07T20:56:00.000-11:00

The Albert Canal

2005-03-07T20:53:00.000-11:00

A view over the Albert Canal, The Maas, and the city of Maastricht

The letters of life.

2005-03-04T21:26:00.000-11:00

Wonderful day today. Sometimes you need to take a day of and just let stuff be stuff. Well I'm not THAT relaxed cause i have a lot to do today. But still , its a welcome break from daily affairs. With all the 'march-ial law' that is in effect these day's I am very aware how I spend my time. I'm trying to divide every thing in what i MUST do , what i SHOULD do and what I CAN do. And so far its enlightening to see how it helps to get my priorities straight. But enough about that. I've also decided there must be time in my life to work and to play. So when I have do work I work. And when I sit down for a cup of tea , I relax. So I'm sitting here right now in the cutest Irish bar in all of Hasselt enjoying an Irish bacon sandwich, an ear grey and some blissful Irish music. Soon it will be rush rush again but for now I'm just giving myself the luxury of pure relaxation. Life is so much prettier when one stops and looks at the world once in a while. More and more I find myself writing down my own thoughts in Emails, Blogs and so on. I'm writing quite a lot these days and thats probably because of the whole stuff that is taking place up at “Babylon”. Writing and reflecting on my life these days helps me to stay focused and prevents me from pondering things over and over in my thoughts. What else is true , is that i like to write. Been doing it since I was a kid , so its kinda 'my thing'. But i'm babbling. This morning I got an Email from one of my few few friends who writes me from time to time. She's someone i met only recently but we have a close bond. Somehow she's one of the only friends I can talk to about what is going on in my life. She's one of the few friends whose emails i look forward to and , to who i like sending a letter aswell. When i flip trough my inbox its mostly 'business stuff' superficial, practical emails from friends and colleagues. And then there is the occasional Emails that you want to print out on old parchment and file somewhere in a wooden box. As technocratic as I am , I still cherish the feel of real paper sometimes. Although it is becoming an antique in my collection , i still have some hand written letters sent to me by friends and girlfriends from a long time ago. It must have been ages since i wrote a 'real letter' and i petty the addressee who would have to decipher my horrible handwriting these days. So somehow its for the best that a keyboard is at my disposal from time to time. Reading this post back I see I'm on an uncharted target-less ramble about all kinds of everything. But that .. is sometimes nice to do as well. So my dear readers (i'm still wondering who all of you are) When was the last time you got a handwritten paper letter ? And when is the last time you sent one ? Times go fast dear friends. Sometimes we should hold the seconds in our hands and read the feeble moments with the concentration and the patience of reading a handwritten letter. If somehow we can find and feel the true passion of life and the preciousness of every moment , in the same way that a real letter is written.. then we might capture the beauty of being alive. Think about every second in your life. Its like writing a letter. You have to be careful not to make a mistake because there is no backspace key. You have to be clear and careful in the way you write things down because otherwise others might not be able to read what you mean. And real life follows that analogy. We have to be prudent in not only what we do.. but also how we do it. And sometimes others read different things then the words we wanted to write down in the book of life. Analogy's are everywhere.... One more i fold the page of the day and perfume it with the sent of life. I gently tuck it in the envelope of my memory's and move on to the next blank page ahead. So is life my friends... so is life.

Snowscapes freeze my toughts...

2005-03-03T02:23:00.000-11:00

Snow falls down, gentle white feathers of frozen dreams. My thoughts grow wings and dance trough them on warm and gentle wings. I look over the frozen world and my mind grabs hold of the deafening silence. I can sit here for hours and let my soul grasp the peace of the white curtain of the fallen tears of the sky. I wish i could wade trough lost and forgotten snows capes and let them grab hold of my worries and slumber them underneath the white blanket of peace. I do not feel like speaking of earthly things today. In a minds eye i see rows of silent sentinels watching the white plain. They salute their swords from afar as i walk trough their unwavering line of sight. I tilt my shield toward them in silent salute and am left alone with only my thoughts in the shadow of solitude. For hours i walk trough the snowcapped woods. Not a single soul to cross my path. No colorful voice to break the virgin white. A single but heartfelt smile settles beneath my icy nose and my eyes gleam with stars of hidden happiness. Only a single lonely hedon dares to break the clouded sky and i watch it intently as it crosses the heavens. As the floating feathers of ice cover my cloak... so do they cover my worries.

March-ial Law !

2005-02-25T00:48:00.000-11:00

I'm seriously considering declaring Martial Law in my agenda starting March first. I've been to school yesterday and all the stuff we have to learn and get in our heads before the end of June is starting to freak me out. If I keep this pace up (letting the freebies take over the agenda) I’m going to flunk my year or go nuts (or both) So i'm working on a scheme to get my time management in order starting march the first. And I am going to try to rule with an iron fist. Perhaps I’ll even make a little project out of it. I did however give myself half an hour off yesterday as I had an 'iced coffee' in a little diner along the way to Leuven. I've been planning on going there for some time and have noticed that IF I give myself a little 'time off' i'm in a much better mood afterwards. (So I am going to do that more often). Listened to some great Tiesto tunes driving towards GroepT and although Swift is giving me a hard time , teasing me that I can't go along to the concert ,it won't spoil my mood (I hope Mickey Mouse takes Swift from behind .. NAH!)

Also did some updates on the mail knightwise.com page but still have to upload them. And i've did some browsing around for some free web templates since the KNIGHTNET.BE website has to be up pretty soon. Svenno promised to have everything ready by March first but i'm very cautious as to him actually getting to that deadline (I have sent him a flame mail , but no response yett). Any good cheap website designers out there ? ( It never hurts to have a backup in place just in case).

Weekend is coming and although I still have some work to do I'm really looking forward to spending some time with Nyana. Peraps we'll go walking in the snow somewhere or just lounge out in each others arms all afternoon. Don't know , don't care as long as we get to spend some time together. Time time time.. Do this do that .. my blog is more like my agenda.. I must bore you all to bitts.

To those of you who want to 'read on' why not try some blogs i check out every day :

the lovely Marjolein : http://www.20six.nl/marjolein ,

The spicy Kitty http://www.livejournal.com/users/_aikaterine_/

The naughty bois_inside http://www.livejournal.com/users/bois_inside/

The over- churchly Kirylinn: http://www.livejournal.com/users/kirylynn63/

and http://www.livejournal.com/community/sensuality_art/ for very nice pictures for your background , also found at http://www.livejournal.com/users/strochka/

Well , thats it for today. The poap is croacking in a hospital, the sun is shining, the weekend is coming and the first freebie will be shot and gutted with a rusty hairdryer.

Lets shoot Admiral Freebie !

2005-02-23T08:28:00.000-11:00

Just a quicky on my Ibook, cause its been much to long since i had a chance to update. Life is a hectic non-stop string of events these days and I find myself frustrated and angry most of the time while rushing from one appointment to another. Its a mixture of anger at myself cause i'm so bad a saying NO, frustration over the fact that i don't get to do the things i want to do or should do (priority's all jumbled over) and disappointment at how some people treat you , even after you pull them from the mess they made themselves. Its like i am becoming this 'commodity' , this 'service' people think they can call upon whenever they please. Now let me just point out i'm NOT talking about friends and clients here. For friends i'm glad to be there, for clients i'm supposed to be there. But its mostly the 'freebies' that tick me off. I've been spending the last 2 weeks rushing between appointments for my family. I've been offering a helping hand in the shop, driving my dad to hospital, fixing up my brothers adsl connection, making a video for my cousine and so on. And it just never ends. What makes me mad is that these people just start taking me for granted. For example, I help out in the shop on Saturday morning so my brother can sleep in because he had to work late Friday night. We agree that it's till eleven o'clock (gives me a chance to go fetch some stuff at a clients place). At eleven I have to call him to check something (he's up and awake) but he doesn't come down until twelve o'clock. Totally jumbling up my plans. This is the kind of 'taken for granted' i mean. It pisses me off beyond belief. The arrogance that i might be some kind of personal slave who will work for you while you have the luxury of an long and good breakfast. I mean COME ON !!! I've been out that same Friday till four o'clock , and I got up early , (did NOT have breakfast) just to help him out. DAMN ! That is what pisses me off. I can drag up a few more examples but I'm not gonna do that. The thing is i'm frustrated that i have such a hard time saying NO to these people who, afterwards, treat me like shit anyway. Family is a burden my friends ! (at least i think so). But I should be more mad at me. For these last three years i have had a hard time getting some personal time. I have for example been planning to take myself out for a cup of coffee for about.... 3 weeks !!!!! Three whole weeks I have been planning to go out for a coffee with my Ibook, sitting down and having ONE freaking Cappuccino. Always something has come up. Or perhaps i LET it come up ( I can't sit down by myself and enjoy some down time without feeling guilty). I think I should be more assertive. Because all this shit is starting to influence our relationship. This week, me and Saskia had ONE HOUR to lie down on the couch in each others arms. And that is it for FIVE FUCKING DAYS ! Yesterday i squandered my ENTIRE evening making a video for my cousin and went straight to bed. From when i got home to when i went to bed i was the willing slave of my family. Waaw ,just great. But i'm on a rant here. Lets not get carried away. But its true. When you are rich , everybody wants a peace of you, when you are famous , everybody wants a peace of you , and when you have skills , everybody wants a peace of you. I'm down with that cause I make a living out of that skill. But what bothers me is that people start taking you for granted. (for example : freebies) The one thing that ticks me off is that they expect you to do stuff for them, go OUT of your way to get it done and meanwhile THEY are relaxing and being all relaxed and lazy about the whole thing. Damn I can just about TAKE OFF with pissed-ness . (BIIIIIGGG SIGH... RELAXXXXXXXX) .. There , thats better. Time for martial law in my agenda. No more mr Nice guy , Clients come first, freebies dissipate into oblivion.

In other news me and my ibook have become the best of friends. Along with the new mailserver at the Knightscastle (thank you Tuke) it has become the one major lifeline to home in these overly-mobile days. I love the white little one because you don't need to boot it up , just open the lid and tadaaaaa. You can start working right away. Sure there is about a ton of MAC-knowledge i have to learn, but for now the little baby does just what is has to do. It gives me a place to WORK. The new backpack I got (teeny-weeny Hedgren backpack , that lets me store my ibook along with the bare essentials) is becoming this 'standard bubble' on my back (and the steady companion where-ever I go) Been working on my 'mobile suitcase' an extra sportsbag to drag around in the car filled with more mobile equipment (books, hub, power cords, access point, mobile hard disk etc) I've had this setup before ( back when i was working for the ictopus project) and it was like a mobile-support-lab to carry around wherever i go. .. Isn't it strange that the more mobility i have in my life.. the more i crave to just be .. home ?

Continued on the road (where else).
I find myself amazed at the fact there is a Wifi Hotspot at my local hiardressers. Unfortunately its not free , you have to be a telenet client to use it or be a student at the PHL (i'm neither) So no free wifi :( .. Damn , cant wait for the wifi-project that they are rolling out in Hasselt) Even the local Cafe across the street has been connected , but i just don't have a login (damn:§) But this makes living in Hasselt a whole lot easier. Come to think of it , what good is a mobile lifestyle if you don't have a permanent connection to the internet. I mean , using your computer off-line is pretty lame , isn't it ? But still. In other news : I have a new crave. I'm absolutely wild about bloggs. Livejournal has this page where in chronologicly posts every latest entry of bloggs posted on their servers. So you get this big palet of snippets of people's lives (one blogg entry for each blogg) and you get to peer into people's lives. Isn't that just great ? I just love reading trough the page and finding interesting pictures people posted or looking at what people are saying. Its quite addictive stuff :).

Thinking of her...

2005-02-23T01:33:00.000-11:00

My love.

Time flows like a silent river. The babbling brooks of days gone by flow into its gently swinging curves. Like lightning strikes the dark but ever present horizon. I sail with you through the oceans of time and over the waves of life. You are the sea that keeps me afloat, you are the water that drowns me. You are the happyness I bathe in and you are the darkest abyss of my sorrow.

Everywhere I look I see you and even when my eyes are closed your love taints the darkness an amber gold. You are the core where my planets spin around. The center of the gravity of my existence. without you i would be lost, adrift in space. My heart cold and empty. My life bursting with the vacuum of emptyness.

It is so hard to find words that tell what you mean to me. For your soul cannot be caught in letters nor numbers. One cannot pin the wind to a peace of paper. Or paint a sunsett in black and white. There is so much of you I cannot grasp and cannot understand.

The only shell that clamps my feelings in a feeble motion is.. that i want to be yours forever.

Poetry just jumps me from time to time :).

Prelude to @-homeness.

2005-02-17T23:54:00.000-11:00

hmm. time for another update, trying to find the balance between techno babble and Babylon-doom-style posts. Not easy though. Start of with the practical stuff i guess. Yesterday i decided to skip class because i was just to damn tired. Almost ran a red light in the morning and felt all fuzzy all day long. One does need more sleep ! The whole Babylon scenario is more energy-draining then i expected. Add to that some fun filled weekends (cause one has to set ones mind of things) and by the middle of the week I’m just about ready to star in 'revenge of the sleep deprived zombies'. So i took the 307 southbound instead of school bound yesterday and crashed on the couch the minute I got home (and fell asleep). Maggie (our cat) came purring up and nestled himself on top of me instantly .. We fell asleep together ( i do envy our cat, he gets to sleep all day long !). Sas came home at about 7 and we went out for fries (i HATED getting up and going outside, I’m very moody when I’m tired) Watched some TV in the evening (I tried to sleep but I cant sleep with the TV on) Went to sleep at about 9 and cursed the damn tube. I am starting to hate TV (cause its linear / one-way entertainment) (and for that , i get irritated pretty fast by radio too). Am i so used to the internet, digital on demand radio and downloading the stuff i like ? Don't know. I just think its a petty people just sit there and stare at the tube (with absolutely NO quality shows) Yes, one could argue that sitting behind the computer is the same thing. But then you are interacting with SOMEONE. .. Perhaps I just feel the drag of not being home enough (always on the road). Its weird keeping in touch via Chat and Email with your own fiancé (even if we DO live in the same house) But we don't get to spend much time together. (ok , we sleep together , but that’s beside the point) I've calculated how much time we get to spend together over the week. Monday / Tuesday: 3 hours (7pm to about 10pm) Wednesday / Thursday (nothing , i get home at 11pm) Friday (about three hours , sometimes more if we go out) And the rest ? Saturday afternoon and evening and Sunday. That’s it. Imagine us having kids ? We could set them up for adoption from day one cause we would never be home to take care of them. Lol.

Well , thank heavens for the internet . If it weren’t for the internet I would be lost. Me and Sas keep in touch over Email and chat, I am working on more ways to stay 'connected' when i'm away and its all trough the net. Oh bless you Berkeley !!

Speaking of Berkeley. they invented BSD (a Linux distribution) and guess what . A variation of BSD is the core of apple's OSX .. and Apple OSX runs on... MY IBOOOK !!!! (and i told you about that , didn't I). Of to another busy weekend : Mobile-man AWaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyy

A -life-dot-mobile.

2005-02-15T00:20:00.000-11:00

Been a while since my last post. I have decided to let all the bad stuff flow away in this post. Don't feel like getting all wrapped up in it all over again. Yes , Babylon is still burning but I’m getting a bit used to the heat of the fire right now. The biggest challenge i have right now is the demand of my time. I'm swamped with stuff to do and things to arrange (its almost like the time when we where renovating our house) but I’m trying to cope with it. I face one of my biggest challenges everyday : Saying NO to people (messed up big time again yesterday by letting people take control of my time and just buckling instead of standing my ground). The only one who is fucked is Me (and Saskia) whenever my agenda is invaded with requests from others. It's hard saying no.. but as it turns out I’m going to have to learn it someday. I don't have anything planned yett for tonight (from 5 to 7 pm) so i have decided to take myself out for a cup of coffee (i have been planning this for three weeks in a row) and by god, I’m going to do it !. Just me .. and my Ibook (did i mention it arrived ?)

Yep , its here , from last Thursday i'm a proud mac owner and am enjoying my little 12" white buddy very much. Even bought myself a new tiny backpack to fit it all in and i am extremely pleased with my new outfit. Went to Aachen last week (did a beeline from Antwerp to Aachen to Hasselt just to be on time to pick it up).

I've started to realize I’m living a whole different life these days. I'm out the door so much that i hardly get the chance to sit down at my desk and do the work thats lying around there. I've been trying to come up with a ' techno survival pack' that helps mee 'keep in touch' with my 'home base'. Its quite difficult making your entire techno-surrounding adaptable to a life on the road. Its more then turning your office into a 'mobile office'. I'm trying to turn my 'life' into 'a-life-DOT-mobile'. (I’m techno ranting again.) But think of it as a cross-platform-opensourced-remotely-connected-portable-lifestyle. Now THERE is a title for an essay.

Because i am on the road this much I’m building this 'mobile lifestyle kit' in order to be able to survive while on the road and stay connected and in touch with my life at home. The way it looks right now it's pretty useless having all my stuff stored on my pc at home. So i'll just have to figure out a way to "get myself connected". The 'mobile office' i'm building is going to be just that. No matter where i go , I’ve got to have 'connectivity' or at least be able to work. So , First-class , web mail , vpn connections , war driving , Gmail , remote file access , remote desktop, blogging etc etc…. . it is going to have to come together to give me a virtual connection to my 'base-life'. Even in the weekends I’m out the door a lot so its imperative i get this stuff to work. (now here is a challenge :) )

Just ... Be !

2005-02-07T23:51:00.000-11:00

What are the lines below ? The lyrics of an anthem.. the words of a song that has unlocked the secrets of the third decennium to me...

Is it poetry in the modern world or a psalm of fundamental truth in a haze of chaos.

I don't know but what i do know is that it feels so right it has to be true.

'You can travel the world

But you can't run away

From the person you are in your heart

You can be who you want to be

Make us believe in you

Keep all your light in the dark

You're searching for truth

You must look in the mirror

And make sense of what you can see

Just be

Just be'

As I feel the world around me falling apart somehow I can see beyond the destruction that will come. As the past tears away and tradition is shattered and blown away in the storm of time, I see my own life emerge from the chaos. There is a sense of loss that what once was, will never be again. A pang of pain and guilt that some things are counting down to extinction. But on the other hand as the past falls away my future is set free from the chains of what once was. As 'where i came from' fades away 'who I really am ' starts to shine ever more bright. For with the good goes the bad and both are resolving into nothingness. I do not know if, when this is over i will be lost or if i will be free.. But no matter what happens... i will.. Just BE !

Babylon burns on....

2005-02-04T05:23:00.000-11:00

Its not realy my day. Allthough I had half a day off from work i've been running around like crazy trying to get everything sorted out that needs to be done. And there is shit flying everywhere. To top it all off my Ibook has arrived, but with the wrong keyboard. I'm sitting prepped up next to the phone for the shop to ring that everything is in order and that i can pick up the ibook tomorrow... but no such luck I guess. Meanwhile Babylon continues to burn and I try franticly to keep the fire from our Island of snow. I've been spending some time at my parents place these days, helping out and stuff.. And I am still amazed at how fast and how firmly this plave puts me down. I feel like a kid again.. and ... I didn't have a happy childhood. And now the responsability of the child towards the elder comes into play. And part of me just can't cut it.

Fire in babylon ! ! ! !

2005-01-31T02:56:00.000-11:00

I wanted to update last Friday but i was too shaken to make any sense of the words that blurted out. I don't know just how much information i am allowed to disclose about what is going on.. but its family related stuff and its pretty serious. When I drove to work I had my Ipod playing 'shuffle' when Sinead O'conners song 'Fire in Babylon' was on. And it just about covered the whole story. Maybe not the words but surely the way it is brought. To who want to know : Sit in a quiet dark room, alone and turn that song on.. LOUD , REAL LOUD. and then you get a little glimpse of all the stuff that went trough me during the weekend. Things in the world around me are shifting and tilting in impossible angles. When nature takes its course there is nothing you can do to stop it .. but still. If time is the fire in which we burn.. then there is fire in Babylon.

Age has draped its dark cloak over my shoulders and I feel the weight of worry draw phantom lines in the corner of my eyes. I feel old somehow.. no , not old , I feel i am aging. A part of my world is tainted with the ambers of mortality and its setting twilight overshadows the cloudless sky's of my soul. Not only I feel like I am getting older.. also the persons around me start to look at me differently. Being the Benjamin has given me the privilege of eternal childhood in the eyes of my elders and siblings. Only now do they start to realize I’m not a kid anymore. At the right time and in the right place I take up my place among the 'others' and make a crucial difference when en where it is needed.. I smile silently as I hear their surprised mumbles... 'He's not a kid anymore'. Tell me something that’s new. I've grown up a long time ago and my life was not always the playground you thought it was to me. I have seen my dire straights and have had my dark clouds.

I am stronger then you think and am gently getting fed up of having to prove it all the time. Respect and appreciation comes at the price of service i guess. I have given up shouting that I am no longer the child in me. I have given up trying to prove myself. I just let them slide and slip only to be the last and unexpected hand that stops them firmly from tumbling to their doom. My eyes lock gently upon them as i gracefully swallow my 'I told you so'. The one good thing about being underestimated is that you take people by surprise on a daily basis.

As the naive smile slides from my worried face I can only look towards the future in apprehension. I do not know what lies beyond the horizon but I already smell the burning rubble of what might lie ahead. As the shockwaves roll along the borders of my existence I try hard to keep my Mare Tranquilatis a true spot on the moon. Far away from everything and without the gravity of the whole situation to pull my hopes down...

I fight for my island of peace and try to find the subtle balance between getting involved and getting sucked in. Balancing on the event horizon of this inevitable black hole I fight the impossible demands that draw me in, and my conscience that would gladly tip me over the edge. I must stand my ground and find equilibrium between my own life and the one i came from. Between my own world and the world i sprang from. Looking for that one free zero-G orbit... As Babylon burns....

Moving is like Christmas in reverse

2005-01-27T02:45:00.000-11:00

Today's LiveJournal quote : "Moving is like Christmas in reverse, you put everything back in boxes and tidy up the house" .. The 'shuffle all songs' function on my ipod does take me on a journey of music and makes the strangest combinations in songs making my moods swing up and down like a kangaroos tampon.

Meanwhile the chaos continues at the Knightscastle. Managed to break the receiver from one of my Logitech Wireless keyboards yesterday (yippie) Hope i can fix it up by just tying together the wires. Went out on a spree to buy a (wired) new one (and that one types even BETTER). Must say we have always had a ball with the Logitech stuff. had the wireless keyboards for over 4 years now (daily use) and still nothing wrong with them. Love the stuff ! ! !

Did my 'good deed' of the day and installed my mandrake Linux distro on my Sempron 2400 (17" big ass tft screen , Radeon 8500 to pump the color) Its absolutely fab ! (and NO dual boot with Windows) Still some work to do before i get everything the way i want it .. But I’ll get there.

On the edge of open source despair yesterday, thinking about ditching the entire network and going back to 2 single computers, yet full of energy to carry on with the project today. That’s the way the pendulum swings sometimes. From sleepless pondering over questions like : Why can't Outlook and Imap play together like nice little children.. to total joy in finding out you can turn a cheap ass wifi router into a complete firewall solution by just flashing its BIOS with an (open source) hacked firmware. But it is very for filling to find out alternatives to 'the microsoft way'

A big thanks to the lovely nyana who has been more then patient these days in putting up with the little quirks that i still have to get out of the systems. (and being kind enough to embrace FRED , the first-class mail client that looks totally alien to outlook)

I hope to have the babies up and running by Sunday (and then i'll have my life back !)

meanwhile , in another part of my mind.

Outside snow dances down on the cold harsh ground. In my head Dj Tiesto plays another record as angelic voices sing an anthem. My thoughts fly trough space and my heart fills with an lingering joy. I float trough the cosmic nebula of my imagination and the only thing settling is a mysterious smile around my lips.

Single point of Trouble !

2005-01-26T01:39:00.000-11:00

I have just about had it. I won't go out on an all PC rant (again) but i must say i have just about had it. Every six months or so i go for a total redesign of my 'small' home network. I've just made up a little list what i still have to do since my last 'server-switch'. And i have come to realise i must be insane ! Sure , the complexity of my home network helps me keep my network-admin skills all sharp and fresh.. But the amount of 'workstation work' is enormous. Reinstall this , move that , download these drivers , update that etc etc. And this is presuming that the darn things will work properly (and the programs/system not going haywire). So I’ve decided it's been enough. I'm scaling down the whole shit and am going to switch to Linux or OSx where i can. I am setting up two pc's for sale and am going to round up all the hardware I don't need and yank it on Ebay or something. (so those of ya looking for a bargain : Point your ears my friends). The whole point is : You need computers to make your life easier. erm….. well , they are the one major source of trouble in my life. (they are the source of pretty much everything that is not nyana-related in my life) So its time to call in the cavalry and simplify the matters. ( So come over mr Jobs and give me one of those mini macs !). And where the Fuck is my Ibook !!!

You cannot masturbate with transplanted genitals.

2005-01-24T02:19:00.000-11:00

Ok , Its been a while and i must say its been a hectic week. But enough of that blah-blah : Blog is back. Hmm.. what have i been up to ? Enjoyed nice weekend with Nyana of course (non-computer related trips to the city combined with mega-server-stress cause I’m setting up a new server @ casa knight). Migration is stressful ! New mail server and old mail server are not the best of buddies, lots a data to be moved and i have drawn up another final solution in the 'what pc do it put where' department : Result : Reinstallation Galore ! (thank god for images). Promised myself to hook up my Linux system to a 17" TFT screen (no dual boot) So i'll just HAVE to learn. Friday : Went out (fun fun) Saturday : Morning : Got up and started configuring the new mail server (without a user manual of course) Its the quickest way to learn ( and to go from "I’m digging this" to "I’m losing it" in 15 secs flat). But two cups of cappuccino and one cd from faithless pulled me through : Result : mail server ready for use. Nyana dragged me away from the screen at 12:00 to go have a mega hot dog (jumzie !) and a trip into town. Mett up with a old friend of Nyana's (the girl gets more amazinly beautiful as the years go by) and had a little chit chat ( We'll call you !) and so on. Over to a friends place in the afternoon (fix up one f*** up pc, Evil Evil IE) and rushed towards Cherrymoons house in the evening. Ended up chatting about their and our wedding plans (i will not disclose ANYTHING .. top top secret) Very nice evening .. Nyana fell asleep in the car on our way home (she was not driving of course) and she is soooo cute when she sleeps in the car. Sunday ! Weekly dose of eggs and bacon in the morning combined with Cappuccino and two hours of Spongebob square pants in my pajama’s (sundays ROCK) Afternoon it was time to visit some friends (who are also getting married) and meet up with Karien. Chit chat about all kinds of everything (marriage/again and everything involved with that). Coolest quote of the afternoon : "If your genitals get transplanted to another person, that person can no longer masturbate because it is not his penis." Don't ask me how we got there it's just a nice quote. Had diner in a very yummie Pita Place we discovered in Hasselt (everybody should try it out) and maxed out in front of the TV (after i Told the new server to get bizzy formatting half a terrabyte worth of disk space). School starts next wednesday and that will leave me 'away from home' for two nights out of four. (not much left) So i do f*** hope my Ibook is going to get here ! Still no news from that front though. Even bought me an apple mouse this weekend (that is sitting on my desk , all alone.. it needs a buddy). Oh yea , snow has fallen outside. Wish i could go out for a walk but.. don't think so , still enough to do @ home :'( ..

Happyness is not the default value.

2005-01-21T03:11:00.000-11:00

We all think we'll live forever. we all think it will never change.

We all think everything is nice and good and that happiness is granted to us by default. We all think bad things happen to other people and never to us.

We are all wrong.

Today I stood by and watched somebody's world shatter.

I felt the core of her existence implode and watched the orbit of her universe shift forever.

I stood by and felt the icy cold shockwave pass trough my soul.

As all the hairs in my neck stood up I was amazed at how utterly useless and powerless i felt.

As debris rained down and the new reality set in I realized in horror how feeble the balance is.

We are all just one step away from the abyss.

Walking the tight rope of joy blindfolded by the arrogance that it will always be this way.

Hug the one close to you and tell them you love them. You never know what the next chime will bring.

The big switch : A different view in teaching Linux.

2005-01-15T20:33:00.000-11:00

The big switch : A different view at teaching Linux.

Introduction.

The first time I saw Linux was about five years ago, I believe it was a version 6.1 of Suse Linux. I remember being curious about the computer that was running it, and chatting up a colleague of mine (known as one of the company's uber-geeks) about what Linux was and how it worked and stuff. The story he told me dazzled me and for a while i really thought he was pulling my leg. He told me about a safe, secure and speedy operating system, that could run on machines varying from a “386” to a bigg-ass server. When I asked him what it could do , I knew he was kidding me, because he basically answered one word : EVERYTHING. My disbelief in an operating system that could be used for that enormous kind of diversity in purpose, gave him reason to explain to me just exactly how Linux was built, what the concept behind it was and how it was used. I sat down with him every lunch break for the next few days listening to his experiences with Linux and the things one could to with a “tux under the hood”. When the GNU license was explained to me, pointing out that the whole damn thing was free, I was ready to call the loony bin and have my friend planted in the funny farm. To those of you who come from a Win-world where Gates ( now Balmer ) is king and the only blue you see are the BSOD's on your computer, Linux DOES sound like an impossible utopia. And quite frankly , IT IS. There is one big big catch ! In order to protect its nest from predators, some birds make their nests high up in the trees. Natural predators do not have the ability to climb up so high without having to 1) Evolve some serious climbing skills 2) Overcome their fear of heights. And to those who are ready to make the switch to Linux , or are so fed up with the alternative there are some bounds to be broken. The big ass catch in switching from a “house of windows”' to “Torvalds Utopia” is having to drop the mouse. This trusty sidekick I have been using in my Windows based life for over ten years now (and that should be considered part of the human anatomy as an extension of the right hand) has been my palm-rest for almost half my life (i had an Amiga once, that one had a mouse too) To control an entire operating system via keyboard alone is too much to bare for some. They soon become 'ghosts in the shell'. And that shell is the other biggest scare of windows users. I started out with windows 95 where Dos was becoming a rapidly fading black-and-white-character-based memory. When i needed something i would just point and click. So when my Linux-geek-friend told me that i would have to unlearn everything i learned in a GUI enviroment, that i would have to drop my mouse and step into the dark void of bash.. I thought : I can do this ! Two weeks later, after hopelessly trying to understand the complex unix commands, getting trapped in VI once an hour and having to call for help to get me out, and basically getting NOWHERE.. I gave up. All the promises my friend had made, about what you could do with Linux , how fast it was , the great software you had etc etc seemed to reside on another planet. No way I could ever learn THAT. So I gave up and walked down the path of shame to my Windows workstation. Since then I have repeatedly tried to pick up Linux again. From downloading various versions to see which one i liked best, to actually BUYING three versions of Suse Linux, a lot of Linux books and taking classes about Linux in my local educational center.

And no matter where you go, or what you do : There are some things that are the same everywhere. Things you encounter when trying to work with Linux, and ways Linux is taught to students. I will some them up for they are the underlying fundamentals for this 'different approach' to Linux.

1)Linux is taught by Linux geeks.
1.Whenever you take a Linux course, you get an amazingly competent teacher who has been around Linux several years and knows the system through and through.

Granda mestake numero uno : Although its very good to have an experienced teacher for a class, the difference in competence between the teacher and the apprentice is phenomenal. The teach has mostly been around the bash for years, the student knows Linux as that “cute little penguin” Even when the class starts out pretty basic, explaining the GNU, looking at the filesystem etc etc .. the learning curve soon becomes astronomical and windows-based students get the feeling they are looking at the 'matrix code' while the teacher sees the real picture. (as explained in graphic below)

No one is to blame. Think about being a Windows system administrator who has been doing his job for years and years, and suddenly you have to teach “Basic Windows for the elderly” The biggest problem you are about to have is that you 'know' the system so well, you suppose that things like pointing, clicking, selecting, dragging, etc etc are second nature to all of us (like breathing) You subconsciously understand the Windows system for years and assume that your students do to. When teaching Windows classes I have seen this pitfall happen over and over. I guess you could compare it to letting a nuclear science engineer teach physics to four year olds.

2)The students have different expectations of Linux then the teacher.
1.Linux people are ALLWAYS saying : make the switch, dump windows, come join us. So windows users throw down their keyboards, erase their hard disks, curse Bill Gates and go to a Linux class. For what purpose ? To make the switch. To find an ALTERNATIVE operating system for their daily computer use. The teachers however come from a different perspective. They have been using Linux for several years now and are very accustomed to it. They mostly use it for professional use : Running Linux on servers, maintaining those server systems remotely, letting Linux do a lot of tasks automatically by scripting and so forth. Now I've been a Windows sys-admin for years and the one thing i like to do is : Letting my servers run as smoothly as possible, Try to manage servers remotely, Let server systems take care of themselves by automating and scripting several tasks so I can save time. Linux administrators are just the same. You script and automate things to make life easier. You don't create 4000 home folders by right clicking your desktop and choosing 'new folder' no, you make a script. Now the linx teachers are used to this scripting, its second nature, bash is their home and their Linux distro's run on servers. The STUDENTS come into the class not with the expectation 'I want to learn Linux to control a super cluster, to do that I need to know how scripting works, give me bash!' No , they are looking for an alternative to WINDOWS. An alternative operating system for their daily environment : A workstation alternative.

Ok some want to use Linux as a server too .. but thats not something you learn from the first day ( Your first computer doesn't feature a Windows 2003 datacenter server, now does it) So you have to learn to walk before you can run. But the first steps you learn to take are boring as hell : Making folders and shortcuts using the command line is incredibly dull : you end up thinking : I could have done this with a mouse 2000 times by now. And its true. Some things ARE done faster with a GUI. So the combination of 'boredom' (Where in hells bells am I ever gonna need THIS) combined with the steep learning curve (What the HELL is he talking about) and the lack of purpose (I am pressed for time as it is , I would like to learn something that I can USE ) makes students head for the door prematurely.
They teach you the basics before you learn productive ways to implement them. I would teach a Linux class differently. 1St : State the purpose : We are gonna build a big ass file sharing computer for you home, on a 486. 2nd : Teach you how its setup 3rd : Teach the commands along the make (samba etc). Tell them about CHMOD when they NEED it (and are interested enough to learn it because they can USE it).

3.There are different ways to do things in Linux.
1.You are a tourist lost in traffic Rome. You end up in busy traffic, everybody honking their horns and swearing at you and you are really stressed. You don't undestand the language, its all so complicated etc. So you stop and ask for directions. The friendly police officer tells you how to drive to your hotel. Its a complex set of directions, but you think you can remember it. Before you leave , het stops you and gives you ANOTHER possible route (equaly complex) and then ANOTHER one and ANOTHER one... And afer 10 minutes you heard 15 ways to reach your destination, but are lost just the same. Its the same thing in a Linux class. When you see VI for the first time , its hard enough to understand. THEN they give you about 15 ways to open it , close it , save it etc and you get lost. There are several ways to do things in Linux. The problem is they always try to teach them to you at once. Result : Frustration/ Dispair / Give up / back to windows.
4.You gotta use it to love it.
1.Linux is powerfull, interesting, and possibly the only operating system that may one day compile the ultimate girlfriend. Its complex, its challenging and its cool. But when you DONT KNOW ANYTING ABOUT IT, and you are staring at a blinking command line cursor, all those things are lightyears away. In order to keep new users interested in using Linux is giving them something to WORK with. When i bought my first PC I was happy I could put my picture on the desktop. It was interesting, it made me want to learn more. Soon after that I found out that i could actually do useful stuff on my pc that would save me TIME. Then I learned ways to do things faster and more efficient and now I'm a Network administrator and let servers preform complex tasks. Just imagine that i got this VBS compiler for making server scripts THE FIRST DAY I bought my computer. I would have been lost and would have sold my pc a few months later cause I could not do anything with it. Its the same with Linux. I KNOW the power of Linux lies in the command line. But the big mistake that is always made is that the command line has to the BEGINNING of the Linux experience. I disagree. Let users USE their Linux system and when they have need for the shell to broaden their possibilities , THEN introduce it.

Conclusion.
1.Linux is a very powerful efficient operating system. But we have to take a look at the audience out there. 95% of windows users are Workstation users. Do we tempt them to make the switch by promising them the ability to build a cluster server out of 16 PII300's and running Linux on them ? They will smile, be briefly interested and turn back to powerpoint. The 5% sys-admins out there might come and take a peek, but they already KNOW about Linux. So in order to bring Linux to the masses we are going to have to give them a workable alternative. To present Linux as an operating system they can use in there every day needs. Then we will get them interested , Then people will be tempted to make the switch and THEN they will in time learn bash and the truly powerful possibilities of Linux. It is my opinion that we, as Linux users have an obligation to everybody who has contributed to Linux : To make Linux mainstream. We keep on bitching about Windows and laugh at Windows-related misery. But when a Windows user wants to make the switch he has the hardest time finding out HOW. It is time we make Linux accessible to the Windows users out there. And to do that we have to come down from the ivory tower where “command line code” is the only true language. We have to let go of the arrogance that the command line is the only portal to the Linux world and that the GUI is for pussies. If we REALY want to make Linux accessible its time to present a workstation environment that will let people “make the switch”.

Jo Hendriks / Knightwise. Jan 15 2005

Freewared Friday :)

2005-01-14T02:29:00.000-11:00

Ok , Its been my new years resolution, and so far I’m totally diggin' it. I promised myself to use as much open source software and freeware as i could. And so far that promise has led me to using products like : FreePDF, Firefox, Thunderbird, AVG Antivirus, Freecommander, Deepburner, Openoffice and soon : Firstclass. Its amazing what you can find on the internet if you look for it. Take Firefox for example. I started using it about two months ago, and now i'm SOOOO hooked on the tabbed-enabled-ultrafast-googlesearch-barred superbrowser, i NEVER EVER wanna quit it. Played around with MS office 2003 yesterday and I’m soooo sick of it all that i decided to make the invoices for my company in Open Office this year. Enough MS based crap. Now I know i should not bitch MS around all the time , Its like Swift said : "ANY operating system that we work with as intensively as we do, will give us a hard time". True, but still its nice to know there IS an alternative. Ok , I still use MS a lot (maybe to much) and I still haven't made the big step to Linux as yet. ( using it for ALL my needs) The thing that keeps me on the MS box is that I'm just no good on the Linux Shell. But when i think of it : Who the hell says I can't use Linux from the Guy. Let's say I want to become a Linux DESKTOP user. not yapp around in the shell all night long, BUT actually USE Linux as a desktop alternative. And so far I’ve tried that often and surprisingly it works very well. So why the hell don't I start making' the switch. I'm already gearing op to hop onto OSX (when my Ibook eventually arrives) and i'm not going to go command line on OSx, So perhaps i'll explore Linux as a Desktop system a bit more. Meanwhile I’m getting ready to switch from my exchange mail server to FIRSTCLASS mail and 'Tuuke' was gonna come over and help me out. So I’m pretty exited about that too. The way it looks like right now is that for more and more proprietary MS products, I’m finding better and free alternatives. The list so far ?

Internet explorer Mozilla Firefox.

MS Media Player BSplayer

Outlook Express Thunderbird

MS office OpenOffice

MS Exchange Firstclass

MS Desktop search Google Desktop search

MSN Hotmail Gmail (duh!)

MSN Messenger Jabber/gaim (ok, no webcam-coolness, but it works)

Nero Deepburner

Photoshop The Gimp

Norton Antivirus AVG Antivirus

Adobe PDF writer Free PDF

Winzip Powerarchiver

And it goes ON this way , all these programs have been personally tried , tested and approved. So if you're looking for some MS-alternatives ? Time to make the SWITCH !

Ok , I’m on a computer rant again, but the last couple of weeks have been SOOOO stressful in dealing with this whole PC shit. I'm so fed up having to spend hours and hours in a row just updating, repairing, securing, debugging the whole PC park at home.. I've just about had it. I want to work WITH the damn things, not FOR them. To those of you who are wondering just how many computers i have at home (counting EVERY pc ? ) That would be around 10

1 firewall

1 server

3 laptops (one lame ass 486 laptop)

4 desktops

1 test system

Ow f*** I'm such a geek.

www.knightwise.com beats Slashdot to the story :)

2005-01-13T03:01:00.000-11:00

Oh yes ! A quick update : SLASHDOT http://www.slashdot.com has JUST posted their article about the Mini Mac (Posted by samzenpus on Thursday January 13, @08:00AM) : That means that you could HEAR about the Mini-Mac HERE, YESTERDAY. So we BEAT SLASHDOT IN A HEADLINE !!!! How Geeky is THAT :)

Giant colliding clouds and itsy titsy computers.

2005-01-13T02:07:00.000-11:00

Just a Tidbit of techtalk today, Cause basically its been all techno-blabb all week long. As said in yesterdays podcast : The Minimac is out. I've found this hilarious review http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/hardware/mac-mini.ars/1

with some excellent quotes : " A 1.25 or 1.42 GHz G4 (pathetic 167 MHz FSB included), and, sure it would have been nice to have a G5 inside, but it would be nice to have a PowerBook G5 and a flying car too...." "... in the real world, the Mac mini, with the included software, does everything people need, while not doing things they don't need, like becoming infected with mall-ware..." The funniest thing is that TODAY a company released a special PC for older people called SYMPC http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/01/11/new_pcs_for_old_people/ I'm wondering if this is the beginning of a trend. The trend that computers should be made simple enough to USE. So you don't end up spending hours of your time MAINTAINING and DEBUGGING. Going back to the principle that the computer is a TOOL you use, just like a fork or a knife, without the hassle and the crap that comes from owning a computer system these days. In other news my own Ibook has been set back a WEEK ( frustrated moan ) so I’ll have to be patient some more.

Syl and Pretorian have been on a sleep-over adventure yesterday, and I must say it's pretty weird having those teenagers around the house. They are very well behaved and we have no trouble with them whatsoever and we have a lot of fun. Personally I just love the constant bitching and bickering Pretorian and Nyana do ALL THE TIME. I'm always waiting for an all out fight between them, its hilarious. Yesterday there mom called and asked what they where doing. Syl's reaction was very typical : " We're at Uncle Joe's, what do you THINK we're doing : We’re on the computer of course ". It made me smile :) Are we an obsessed cyber-household ? yes we are :).

Outside the weather is very pretty these days. Clouds are coming in from the east right now, and they are these big ass cumuli-clouds. They are kind of low in the sky so you can look 'over' them and see how they tower in the sky. Its like looking at a giant mountain flowing by. One can imagine just lying on one of these gigantic slopes.. Skiing down.. Or just sitting in the sun.. Coasting miles above a busy world. The view must be awesome up there. Seeing the slight curve of the horizon slide away into nothingness. Gazing at the other gigantic clouds colliding and flowing by. Just look up into the sky and daydream from time to time. I wish I had more time to do that. More time to dream from time to time.. Or just watch the clouds go by. I think we should all do that some more

Another day.

2005-01-10T23:21:00.000-11:00

Ok , got the first podcast up yesterday evening. Finally got around to
reinstalling the damn thing and scheduling it to boot up every morning
to download my Podcasts, Sync my Ipod and Download my appointments
from an to my PDA (something I just don't get around to manually
everyday). So this morning it worked out nicely and I have all the
stuff i need by the time the cappuccino machine does his thing. Upped
the first podcast last night (thanx Marco, for helping me test it) and
am kinda nervous how people are gonna react. Nyana laughed (of course)
but also gave me some pointers (she is SOOO sweet) and I’m gonna take
it into heart next time I do a cast (probably this afternoon on my way
home in the car). But enough about that. This website is not about
this website and our podcasts aren't about our podcasts.. Now are they
? Ps : my ambition in becoming the first podcasting site in Belgium ,
http://www.podcasting.be/ Don't think so :§. But hey : THEY didn't
invent the PRINCE OF THE POD title now did they :). Ps : To those who
gave nice feedback to the site : Thank you , but don't hesitate to
tell me what you think of the CONTENT.

***

Got an email from my former work buddies at HH-Hasselt ( from the
no-marriage/no-kids club i was a member of). Of course they where
surprised to find out me and Nyana where going to tie the knot. And
I’m kinda mulling this over in my mind as to why we are getting
married.. and its very hard to explain. Perhaps that is just enough
reason. "Because it feels right". I might be a big blab on the outside
but on the inside I’m one soft hearted romantic. We might appear very
skeptical on the outside but between me and Nyana there is a very
subtle and sensitive romantic connection that we hardly ever show to
others. On top of that we give our own interpretation to the whole
'marriage thing'. Those who are thinking 'classic stuff , white dress,
lots of similar cars and rice throwing : think again) We'll do this
our own way ( Invitations will probably be E-mailed, those who have
not been invited can probably follow the on line web-cam-cast over the
internet). Not only the 'procedure' but also the 'meaning' is
something that is unique to us. Its a duality. Its about telling
each other we are ready to tell the outside world we have chosen our
mate. Am I making any sense here ? Guess not. The bottom line is , Its
because we don't need to get married , we want to get married. And its
more about the "bond" between the both of us, then about what the
world around us makes of it. (I can tell you , those are two TOTALY
different things). People who start to push us into parties, dresses,
and confor-mality will meet a very defensive Knight and Nyana ! (So
don't even TRY !) Perhaps this union is about something we cannot put
into words or explain. And that is reason enough : We can't say why..
It just feels soooo right. ( And don't worry Katleen , of COURSE you are still my back-up ;) )
To rest worried minds assured our opinion about children STILL has not changed. Whenever somebody wishes us : 'lots of baby's in the future' , for us its the equivalent of ' we wish you both an itchy annoying skin disease' Not that we don't like children , but its just not our thing. So if you don't want to insult us when giving your new years wishes : Don't mention uterus-related-prophecy's.

Podcasting Pearshaped and a row over Madge.

2005-01-10T08:39:00.000-11:00

To start of today : A little bit of internet history. ..."Linus Benedict Torvalds Oct 5 1991, 8:53 am show options
I'm also interested in hearing from anybody who has written any of the utilities/library functions for minix. If your efforts are freely distributable (under copyright or even public domain), I'd like to hear from you, so I can add them to the system. I'm using Earl Chews estdio right now (thanks for a nice and working system Earl), and similar works will be very welcome. Your (C)'s will of course be left intact. Drop me a line if you are willing to let me use your code. Linus"... Cool huh :) Talk about modern history. Today Google featured a flashback into their news archives digging up some historic news posts. Like this one from Linus Torvalds announcing the beginning of Linux. Its funny to think that the internet has its own milestones in history (such as these ones) Perhaps someday kids in schools might get a historty assignment to find out who invented peer to peer file sharing and stuff like that. Its a cyber world :). ***

In other new my own podcasting adventures are apparently jinxed. Still no luck this weekend in getting the whole setup working. First I had big recording problems (not being able to record the audio comment and the background tunes and jingles together), then the Pc that had the whole setup installed suffered a main board blowup, NOW the new main board won't accept the Sempron Processor. So its off to the shop tonight to get me a new main board and reinstall the whole shit. Alternatives (like recording it on my new Ibook) have been canceled due to lack of Ibook (still no word from apple, its been 2 weeks). Needless to say I'm going hunka bunka with all this crap. But we will prevail. ***

Had a riot over Madge Weinstein when her comment on Adam Curry's daily source code was a bit over the line. She thought Cancer was something small compared to an itch in the groin. When replying on that comment on the Adams Forum all hell broke lose and I had to seriously defend myself against accusations that I was a 'narrow-minded right wing conservative bush-pusher 'To those who are interested : read the THREAD , listen to the SHOW or visit MADGE's site. ***

In other news the world around me seams to be going crazy as people with promising relationships suddenly split up, and people who have been together for ages suddenly call it quits and walk out the door.
You know these things happen all the time but when it hits so close to home its bone charring. We find ourselves caught between the two parties and have a difficult time choosing between diplomatic neutrality and our own feelings and convictions. When family's you think that will stay together forever suddenly fly apart (and it happens so close to you) its very disturbing. Trying to glue the peaces back together will result in getting cut by the flying shrapnel. However, taking cover is not an option either because everyone around you wants you to pick a side. Its ugly and I’m afraid this turmoil around us will only get worse. Our island of stability is surrounded by conflict and we do not want to pick somebody's side or make a stand. I know it all sounds pretty cryptically but I can't be clear about it all just now. Those who know what’s going on will recognize the situation.To top it all off I got blown of 2 times in a row by a friend of mine with the quasi same excuse for not coming over. I’m seriously disappointed. I don’t know what the hell is going on with the world around me these days but … It never rains…

But to cheer you all up , this cute movie about the cleaning lady we ALL want to have. She's cute she's innocent and she's a bit dangerous when you have a lot of silverware or electronics .. But you want her : BO ! CLICK HERE FOR THE MOVIE.

Happy new year, site is up !!

2005-01-06T06:21:00.000-11:00

Well, she's up ! The new site i mean. I am pretty pleased with the layout and the result. ( Good work D'Shek) However I do wish I had a bit more time to add some more content. But that will follow soon. Its an incredibly busy week ! Haven't had a free night at home all week long. So updates and podcasts I had in mind ? No show just yett. But still , I hope I get around to it. News today ? Well it seams LIVEJOURNAL has been sold to another owner. I used to host my blog there (Swifts blog is posted at livejournal) and it was kinda a recurring problem that the whole thang went down about 6 times a day , I do hope it gets better. I still hit the page from time to time : Especially THIS page where you can see everybody's latest post chronologically :) Its great reading.For those of you who want to check their email everywhere, but don't want to use webmail : THIS is cool , The Thunderbird portable mail client. Runs from anywhere , just install the beasty on your USB stick and you have your POP mail around everywhere. For those of you using FIREFOX , you can even speed up the beasty some more with THIS As always the guys from hackaday.com came up with the tweak. Although it would not try THIS with my ibook !Speaking of my Ibook :( Still no news from Apple :( I do hope they can ship the baby out by tomorrow , so i can race up to Aachen to go-and-get-it. My old Toshiba Laptop is sold and its time to pass on my Acer to Nyana. I'm realy curious as to how I’m gonna handle the adjustment. Since Nyana is hot on the (lap)'top'every evening I won't have the option of dragging along 2 laptops when I’m on the road (one Win one OSX) So I’m gonna have to make due with the choice I’ve made. Nyana is also going through a MAC Craze, after she saw the 17" E-mac in the store , she went like , 'mmmmmmm'. So
I just put my bid on a second hand Emac that’s for sale on Ebay. (perhaps the dude will swap it for one of my old pc's) And when you look at it , its indeed a way cool thang :) But i'll let you know how the whole thing turns out in the chronicles of : Newbie in Pantherland. New years resolutions. Well , in Africa people have made the resolution to eat more. In Iraq to fight less, In middle Asia to LIVE more and Drown less and here we have petty things like stop smoking and stuff like that. So I’m gonna refrain from new years resolutions that handle petty things (stop smoking, drink less, exercise more) cause i think we have all our harts desire down here. Its not right claiming to give up peaces of your elaborate wealth while in other countries people are starving. Is that cynical ? perhaps. But in these matters I don't handle stuff lightly. All this Tsunami news makes me even more sad when you hear the 'aftermath' stories. Stray dogs who are feeding on the corpses are running wild and attacking people. And even worse Pedophile tourists roam the ravaged towns in search of orphan children to abuse. It makes me sick ! And on the other hand, the disaster that happened has made me see a side of humanity that I have not seen often, the power to stand together. The whole world appears to unite these days and rush to the aid of the victims. Everybody's making a donation, every country is rushing to the aid. In Belgium you can even send a text message to 3108 , and you donate one euro by doing so (telecom operators are offering this service FREE) We'll also do our peace, visit the Belgian 1212 website http://www.1212.be/

FOR MORE VISIT WWW.KNIGHTWISE.COM

Wonderfull banana.

2005-01-02T13:21:00.000-11:00

Just to point out my thoughts on all the new years wishes : a dutch poem.

Chiquita

Duizend hongerbuiken in Rwanda
Miljoenen Hutu-Tutsi’s gaan eraan
In China loopt de allerlaatste panda
En Chiquita is een prachtige banaan

Vliegtuig stort in zee vlakbij Biskaje
Daarbij zijn er honderd doodgegaan
Een deel is opgevroten door de haaien
En Chiquita is een prachtige banaan

Palestijnen gooien steeds met stenen
Het milieu lijkt steeds meer op de maan
In België zijn kinderen verdwenen
En Chiquita is een prachtige banaan

Tornado eist zo’n zesenvijftig doden
Bij Fokker verliest duizend man zijn baan
Le Pen haat alle negers en ook joden
En Chiquita is een prachtige banaan

U ziet het nieuws dankzij de reclame
Ziet u hoe we naar de donder gaan
Van alle doden vergeet u alle namen
Behalve Chiquita
want Chiquita is een prachtige banaan

Youp Vant Hek.

Dit lied komt uit de theatershow Scherven.

Hey , your source is open !

2004-12-29T06:11:00.000-11:00

29-12-04/Blog/Hey , your source is open !

Out shopping today i hit the local bookshop/software store and went browsing around in the software section. Found a copy of Windows XP pro and was amazed at the price : allmost 400 euro's ! When i picked up the home edition I saw that that was 300 euro's. A quick calculation , adding office ( 350 euro's) Nero (50 euro's) and an antivirus program (50 euro's) , made me realise that using non open source software legaly is quite an expensive hobby. When you think of the misery we encounter when using Windows / Office and other programs sometimes cause us (misdesign, flaws, buggs) its amazing that people put up with it. A: they buy the soft and put up with the shit , B) They use the soft illegaly and put up with the shit. Now the second group has no right to complain. But the first group ? I would be shitfaced if something that cost me a 1000 euro's all together would be so buggy !. Lately i've been thinking about what a Linux-geek-friend of mine said. "The best thing that could happen to open source software , is that people would REALY HAVE TO PAY for all the non - open source software they are using right now." And thats true. People use windows cause its easy. But imagine you would REALY have to pay for it . It would be worth your time (not to mention over 200 euro's in software-money) to try to use Linux, Openoffice and Tha Gimp. Cause software is so easy to copy and distribute illegaly, people stick to using things like Windows, and for example an illegal copy of Photoshop. But if you where to make them pay for it , they would switch to open source in a flash. I'm not one FOR buying all your stuff legaly, If i look at the quality of programs like XP and so on I think its an outrage to spend that amount of money on it. But I do think that IF there is a way to use an open source program instead of using a pirate version , one should do that. In the past I used adobe Photoshop. Not because I needed the advanced functions of Photoshop, no just because I needed a program to do some image editing. Now I found out THA GIMP, the open source Photoshop alternative, and its available on Windows too. Cause pirating software is to easy , people use overkill software for their basic needs (using photoshop to resize a pic) Plus they stick to what they know as long as they don't have to pay for it anyway. Who needs open source when you don"t pay for your software anyway. Its not right is it. In a way Windows IS open source, because they let you ! Otherwise they would lose their high percentage of the market like that. I for one have made my new years resolution to go "as straight as possible" . Not because I want to kiss MS's butt, NO , because I want to find out as many open source alternatives that I can find and USE them. Letting the world know you can survive on open source ! Firefox, The Gimp, Open Office, Firstclass, Jabber, etc.. you name it , you can find it . FREE !

White power !

2004-12-28T06:07:00.000-11:00

-28-12-04/News/White power !

Have I gone fachistic ? not to worry my friends. But I must say I have wondered of the beaten path today. It was time for a change, time for something new and unexperienced as yet. A time to make a drastic choice. It was once again time for that one moment I have once every few years : What laptop am I gonna get for next year ?. As you know , every two years I switch laptops. I sell my old one and get me a fresh one. And since I have had this little Acer travelmate 660 for over a year and a half , it was time to shop around. Before disclosing the new candidate let me just point out how happy I have been with my good old Acer. Its been a great laptop, with a 15 " screen it was a bit on the large size but nice and flat. The screen resolution however was 1400 by 1024 and THAT my dear friends is a luxury you will not have on any laptop. Its great to fitt a lot on your screen. Its fantastic when you want do do website design and so forth. Surfing is a charm with a whopper resolution like that . So to anyone who wants to get a PC/laptop : GO ACER !. And yess ! I have spilled the beans : my next laptop is going to be 'different'. Looking for a smaller laptop with a more limited budget to spend , Its hard to find things that meet your needs. The new top had to be small, compaqt, multimedia capable, light and ... a challenge. Now what better challenge is there then to .. BUY AN IBOOK. Yess my friends you have heared it right. In the light of eclectism it is important to widen ones view of the computer industry. So inspired by how pleased I am with my Ipod, driven by the enthousiam of fellow Podcasters and blown away by the sheer beauty of the baby ( I am gonna get LOOKS with this one) I chose to go for a 12" Ipod. Small in size, light in weight and versitile in possibilities. Ok , it cannot be compared to my ACER when it comes to desktop publishing (screensize) but its something I can drag around anywhere (the Ibook is about the size of an A4) Powered by OSX (linux on the inside , mac style on the outside) it should present the most stable and versitile OS yett. When a pc is used to mess around with , you use a Mac to do your work. I know , that is hyped up mac-fanatic talk. But hey check out this example. I've spent months browsing the internet for the right MP3 player, read tons of reviews, browsed 100's of websites , compared , checked prices, filtered out unworthy candidates etc... It took me a long time to find the correct mP3 player. Had a creative, had a muvo, had a Rio , they where all lacking in some way. And then I bought an Ipod. And all discussions where closed. End of story. When I opened the box and stared using it , its like i heard : You have chosen the ultimate product , further discussion does not apply. And its true. Once you buy an Ipod you don"t NEED to discuss it anymore. You have the ideal product. Period. And being so pleased with my pod-buddy, I took the next step and put my money where my mouth is and bought an Ipod. Its not so expensive HERE is the price and configuration i payed for my Ibook. As you can see 512 megs of ram and everything. HERE is the pc price-equivalent. Now let us not compare processor speeds and all that. The one thing I AM pointing out is that for the same amount of money , the IBOOK is head and shoulders above its PC cousin in terms of quality. I will take 2 weeks for the Ibook to get here ( I bought it in Germany to catch the VAT on the rebound ) and i'm very curious how it will turn out.

One ring to rule them all.

2004-12-25T06:02:00.000-11:00

Well, to those of you who thought we would never do it : We did. To those of you who thought that it would not happen : It did. To those of you who hoped she would never say yes : She did ! After being together for over eight years me and Saskia thought it was time to take our relationship to the next level. So just like a knight of the old code would do, I got down on one knee and asked the perfect girl to marry me. And she said yess. We have been through so much together, this does not change anything between us. We don't feel more secure then we did before and frankly (as with all things) we have our own philosofy behind this. Our 'engagement' is more a signal to the outside world, that we have found our soulmate, then anything else. We knew then as we know know we are made for eachother and make eachother happy. This ring is more a signal to the outside world then a reassurance of our own relationship. Some reactions of the people around us gave me a very interesting insight into how our relationship was percieved by the outside world. " I don't see why you should get married " a friend of us said. And quite frankly he was right. Why should we ? And just because of that, we can. For if you have a reason to get married , you presumably need your marriage to re-assure you in your relationship. We don't need that, and just because we don't , we do it anyway. " I thought you where engaged a long time ago" another friend said. I thought that was the nicest comment :) It gave me a new insight into how people saw us together. And the classic is of course 'I thought you said you would never get married." And that comment is also justified. We did say we would never get married. And we"ll stick by that. We won't get married the "average way" (white dress , church etc) and we won't get married a 'special way' ( driving to the church in 25 identical mini's ) We'll probably marry someday 'our way'. And thats quite hard to explain. To us this engagement is not about tying the knot. It has been tied years ago. Its giving the outside world a clear signal that we belong together (and also telling some bachelors and bachelorettes to 'lay off') Its our way of telling the outside world we have chosen eachother and want to make it public. And for ourselves its just a question , a ring , a smile and a tear of joy. No big deal, no big change, no big next step. Its just another day where we let the outside world SEE that we have sealed our packed a long time ago.

May all of us find peace of mind.

2004-12-24T03:43:00.000-11:00

All over the world people are starving and getting killed in some war. Peace is a distant speck of light in a dark night of blood and humanity is racing towards its own oblivion within the next 200 years. Merry Christmas everyone ? If you can sit and pat your belly tonight, actually believing that Christmas is a time to think of your fellow man and all that then I hope you know who you are kidding. Once more the clock is ticking down on one of the saddest, most hypocritical and most disgusting nights of the year. Yes I don't like Christmas. Why ? because its become an orgy of presents and "getting". Under the all seeing eye of Santa clause (invented by Coca cola) we spend tons of money on useless crap, give it to each other and pretend that you are pleased with what you get. Christmas is no longer about sharing with your fellow man. We stuff our face with food as others starve, we give expensive gifts as others are poor. And we pretend to sit around the table with the people we love (or the ones we can 'stand') while others are lonely. Christmas is no longer the feast of peace. We are almost at war with each other fighting to get those presents bought. And peace is the farthest from my mind. Peace of mind that is. Why ? Not because I have the troubles of the world on my mind. Not because I’m thinking of 1000 starving children in refugee camps.. No .. They don't touch my soul the way 'she' does.

Who is She ? She is a little old lady, a little old grandmother with sweet eyes and a lovely smile. She is the one i always walk by whenever i go shopping in Aachen. I see her sitting there, At the base of the Aachen cathedral. All her belongings in plastic bags, huddled against the cold .. but ALWAYS , ALWAYS smiling at the people that pass by. Gentle but proud eyes. A warm smile when you put your change in the turned over hat she has before her. She never begs, never asks. She just sits there and smiles. And somehow I can't bear the thought of her sitting there. I can't banish her eyes from the back of my mind. Can't get rid of the thought that with the money we spend on gifts and presents, this lady would be able to survive for months to come. And I cannot sit and eat and feast .. knowing there is ONE person that cannot share what i have. I can banish the thousand children from my consciousness. But I cannot escape her smiling eyes.

So i refrain from wishing you a merry Christmas. You who are well fed, warm and covered in comfortable clothes. I will not wish you peace and happiness, for you have it all... More then you know. If if have my wishes to give it will be to her. That she may find peace in her struggle for survival. That she might find joy in these dark days. That she might find company when loneliness cuts like a knife. And that the good luck might pass us by and walk straight into her arms. In these days when everything is so unfairly divided, I can only pray for one peace to come to us.. Peace of mind.

Misfortune, fun and FAME !!!!

2004-12-13T03:58:00.000-11:00

Almost a week since my last update . DAMN DAMN DAMN , Don't have nearly enough time to type everything out. Whatever happens, this baby needs to podcast or otherwise I won't get a chance to 'put it all out there'. Lets start of with Friday. Yeey ! Weekend , I thought (and rejoiced at the thought that my beloved Ipod had been delivered at my parents place). Raced down to find a BRAND NEW IPOD sent back from apple. Talk about service ! Whohoow. Too bad the podcasts that I had stored on the old one are now lost forever. Well. I'll make some new ones. Dug up a microphone stand for my podcasting studio from the basement. As I was holding it against me as I had my hands full, I unfortunately bumped into the door with the extended 'mike-arm' As the pressure bumped the heavy steel foot into my chest I suddenly heard a gut wrenching SNAP. I went like ... OH OW ... And yes. As I reached into my breast pocket I retrieved my unprotected Cell phone (p800) and found the touch screen shattered. * DAMN ! ! ! ! !* Goodbye P800 :§. Talk about an unlucky streak :( . After cursing in 14 tongues I went into problem solving mode and went for one of the toughest choices I regularly face : What new cell phone to buy. For a geek like me , that’s no easy assignment. After a lot of surfing around my eye fell on the same cell phone my buddy Kiwi kid has , a Motorola MPX200. I had sworn never to buy one again.. but faith decided differently. It took me a while to find one but finally after a LOTT of searching around, finding it priced 541 euros in one shop an 169 euros in the other shop (I’m not kidding people) I got my hands on one. So my next door neighbor Kiwi Kid is going to help me flash the phone up to windows pocket pc version 2003 and what do you know.. I'm going to be the owner of a windows-powered smart phone. (wonder when I’ll get it to blue screen). Damn , there is so much more to tell and I don't have freaking time to talk about it all :(. I REALLY need to get the podcasting site up to date so I can yapp my bloggs instead of ramming them into the board. *** What else. Shopping on Saturday afternoon . I DESPISE Xmass shopping ! ! ! ! Lounged out on the couch in the evening, I was so damn tired I fell asleep right there and then. Did some cleaning on Sunday morning , while watching "the never ending story" (corny corny movie ! , great music) and went over to see some friends in a little obscure cafe somewhere in 'scherpenheuvel' where a Flemish crooner took residence (according to Nyana it was BARRY white , but we'll settle for Johny White) In the evening we took Kariens new boyfriend out for a test drive. (gave him the full 40-questions) and marked 'approved' all over him ... (way to go dude , we kill most of you guys in the first 2 minutes, however you survived.) Although it was disturbing that the poor boy had to be 'warned' about us. (also the comment was .. 'keep away from children'... DUUUUH , we are not children-unfriendly !!) .. ok maybe we are a little children unfriendly.. But we don’t lock them up or stuff like that (yet). But hey , that was the day ! *** OH YEAH THIS IS IMPORTANT !!!! Remember I told you guys I Fixed Adam Curry up with a little intro for his pod casting show (it was like kind of a joke) .. BUT CHECK OUT Today’s PODCAST by Adam Curry http://adam.opml.org/DSC20041213.mp3 .. and with that , I close the daily blogg. ! Tadaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa (comment you F***s)

Another day another Blogg.

2004-12-08T02:37:00.000-11:00

Well , first of all : SWIFT : thank you for commenting. you've been
the first fuck to finally interact with me :). I appreciate that. **
The whole 'clouseau-debacle' is turning out to become quite a
complicated email thread between parties involved. apparently
miscommunication lies at the base of the problem, however I think
suspicious motives are lurking in the background. Time for straight
talk ** yesterday was the big 'what am I gonna do with the site'
day, in preparation of the podcast/personal site I’m building I was
thinking about ditching the knightsite.tk domain and move the site
to another location. Several options where possible ,each with pro's
and con's. Merging the company site with the knightsite for example.
Making the knightnet.be site into a portal was another possibility.
I had been mailing around a bit for some prices when suddenly my own
ISP decided the matter for me . He had assigned the domain name i
enquired about to the web space i have with my isp .. And that was
that. So in a few day's i'll start to give out the new URL and the
"knightsite" will become a thing of the past. Out with the old and in
with the new. *** Am driving Sas nuts with podcasting these day's.
Better ease of , because I get to enthusiastic sometimes. We don't
see each other often enough so I better make good use of the ample
time that i am at home and give her the attention she deserves
instead of mashing around behind the keyboard.*** Pizza tonight ! Yipie !!!!.

* Oh yess I won"t tell you the domain name yett , otherwise you'll be hoggin it !!!!

Chestnuts roasting on an ... Oh Crap !

2004-12-07T01:16:00.000-11:00

More buzz times @ the Knights castle this week. Had a fab weekend, partied on Friday and got up way to early on Saturday. Apparently not the only one. I had to ring Swift up to check where the hell he was , cause we had to go to school remember ? After noticing his voice sounded like Jabba the Hut after a bachelor night I noticed I was not the only one having a hard time getting up. Up to Leuven in was (the first 'long drive' together in a long time) we got a chance to chat up. When we arrived in Leuven we hit the java source ( the danny-man was on call) and waited for the teacher to show up... and waited .. and waited .. and waited.. and the f*** didn't come ! Apparently he was sick and decided to cancel the class 15 minutes before it started. NICE ! Got UP for nothing , drove all the way to Leuven for nothing. Damn ! But no time to waste so Mr K , Swift and I took a trip to town. Browsed some bookstores and had a cappuccino , so all was not lost. Saturday afternoon was squandered on shopping and in the evening we went out. *** Sunday morning came to early and We had to go look for a Christmas tree. Now as you know : I hate Christmas , well not the event , but the marketing around it. Already I get all mad when I see the modern market machines push people into buying things they don't need. Already I have nightmares about me and Saskia browsing shops for presents... All stressed out and worked up. I HATE THAT. I despise having to put an amount of money on how much you love someone. I hate it that people are frustrated and stressed out because of that shit. And i totally despise the whole ' Christmas-market' shit with gluwein and stuff. Its CRAP people ! Its total CRAP ! *** Now we are on the subject : The Clouseau concert me and my buddy's where going to has seen some drastic 'cast changes'. People canceling and so on. Its all turning into a social incident and for the first time I feel I’m not gonna be the matchmaker this time. I'm not gonna glue the pieces together all by myself. I'm ticked off ! For perhaps the very first time in a long time I’m so disappointed by people that I find myself to angry to see the flip side of the coin. Am I wrong ? perhaps. **** The little crown I Planted on Adam Curry's head ( I titled him 'the prince of the pod) is taking on a life of its own. Only yesterday did I get a mention in his show , TODAY he is singing a song titled 'prince of the pod'. Well lets just say no amount of reverb can make it sound in key .. But it made me grin very proudly when I heard it. *** My own podcasting website is in the works , artwork is being developed and I’m looking into getting a separate domain space to split up the knightnet site and the knightsite site. (however I’m not entirely out of the woods there) Kicked Sven in the but to get me an intro page .. We'll see. *** Called Apple today , My ipod is on his way back (yahoo) will be most glad to hold the little one in my hand again :) (and start recording podcasts and stuff). more on that soon. Must dash now. Cu soon :)

oh yes : and by the way , if you are reading this : COMMENT YOU FOOOOLLSS !!!

So many idea's so little time.

2004-12-03T01:33:00.000-11:00

That’s about the most frustrating feeling I’ve been having over the past few days. You have no idea what its like sitting at the office or in the car with all these idea's for the website and so on to work out, and just not having the time to max out behind the computer to finally put them into action. I've been following the podcasting scene closely, Doing' some Emails with Adam Curry and popping a line to Dawn and Drew. More and more I am convinced that Podcasting is gonna be big and more importantly, that podcasting is the final step in 'the great conspiracy' I mentioned a few posts ago. It appears to be the ultimate synergy of the things I like to do the most. Journalism, Music, Presenting, Creating and all on a digital platform accessible to the world. The question if the dj will return has been answered. I have already cursed myself 5 times over for selling my mixing board and effect table last year (DAMMO !) But I’ll see how it goes and might go back to building a little studio all over. *** Just heard about Adam Curry's broadband/smallband scenario. Apparently BT promised to get his ADSL connection up and running today, only to tell him on the last possible instance that there is 'no spare room' on the switchboards anymore to plug him in. He's on some invisible waiting list until someone gives up their broadband connection and he can have their spare socket. Damn! That must suck big time. Its funny but I know exactly how he feels. Its like the time when we just moved to Rijkhoven and I got stuck 26 meters beyond the maximum adsl range. I didn't even have smallband. I can feel the guyz pain ! Funny thing is he says exactly the same thing I always say. No broadband is like having no running water. And it really is like that. I think we could call it an illness. Bandwidth withdrawal symptom or something. So Adam my friend. My heart goes out to you , I hope the little title I thought up for you will cheer you up a bit. ( The 'Prince of Pod') ***Had my DJ Tiësto cd on in the car this morning en woow did I enjoy myself. Nothing better then being all alone in your car , stereo cranked up and feeling the atmosphere lift your spirits like that. It has been a long time since I've inspired like this. I mean its nice to tinker with computers the way I do. But pure networking / IT stuff is never as EXITING as the things I’m working on right now. I'm finding new ways to unleash my creativity and can't wait to get the site and sounds 'out there' . As you can see, so many ideas, so little time. The other part of my double life awaits as the weekend draws closer .. The Countdown is running !

Ow Yeey :) Breakdown day !

2004-11-30T21:51:00.000-11:00

ok , haven't updated in a few days , Things are going a bit pearshaped. First of all : Catastrophy day : Laptop/webcam/ipod busted all in one night Second : Lots to do ! school/buizz/teaching classes (aarg) Third : Did a lott of posts on my Ipod (the first audio bloggs where coming) then : Ipod broke , no means to transfer them onto the pc / website (mega-aarg). Ironicly the add ons I ordered for my ipod came in the same day i had to ship my ipod out :§. Leaves me frustrated. Cut off from the Podcast/blogg world and stuck with music/radio in the car (am not enjoying this). Enough bitching allready. did have a great weekend. Mett up with some cool people and am starting to realise just how much the social community around me is shifting. It will be a very different birthdayparty next year, i'm guessing. Meanwhile, new years eve is coming closer. Still no plans to celebrate with friends/family. And don't realy know if that is what I want. I'm just not looking forward to getting stuck in some dull restaurant, paying god knows what to sit around with your leggs under the table all night and be boared to bitts. I think the whole new year crap is exagarated to much anyway. Starting november i get all stressed up by the whole thing. Organising it, running around getting people to tag along , have people cancel etc etc. Hate that mucho big time !. Same with Xmass :(. Ok , i have gotten towards the point where i can stand a christmass TREE ,but the whole xmass shopping shit is giving me a major headache allreaddy. I'm not really a holiday season kinda guy. Much to stressy for my taste ! Enough Babble , Mac sent an EMPTY BOX to my house to put my Ipod in so i can return it to the factory. Instead of picking it up right away they'll swing by AGAIN tomorrow to pick it up. Duh-huh .

The truth is a lie with a poor sence of imagination.

2004-11-19T03:10:00.000-11:00

Hmm, just found the cutest thing on line. I used to have a blog at livejournal remember ? Well , they have this little News Feed you can check into (its also on a webpage) that has every blogg on it that was recently posted. Its a tapestry of entry’s from various bloggers and.. When you start to read trough it it’s like listening to the whispers of the cyber world. Amazing, addictive too :) So many voices, so many thoughts, so many feelings. A complete freedom of the mind in the realm of cyberspace. This is truly something to marvel at sometime. And perhaps half of it is useless banter, it’s still important enough for those people to write it down. And who says your words are so important. Every one of us puts his on values in his own thoughts and into those of the others. As I stand amidst the rolling cloud of cyberspace I cannot but stop and wonder in awe at the fantastic things that happen there every day. Always on the brink of yet another revolution. Check it out http://www.livejournal.com/stats/latest.bml A little taste: How's this for random quotes:”I felt the dagger sink into my back. I could feel the warm blood trickle down my cold back, dripping to the ground. I stood there in shock, almost wanting to know why he had done this to me. The cold seeped into my bones as he stared into my eyes. I saw no emotion on his cold face. How could he do this to me? It was I who helped him when he needed it the most, I who tended to his wounds, and I who gave him shelter when he had none. Now he had betrayed me. I looked into his blue eyes, as cold as ice, and saw nothing." by imouto_ko.

Outside the rain is pouring down. The world looks like its gonna double over on itself and crawl in a corner like a wet blanket. A lot of work awaits me when I get home although I wish a good book, a nice cd and a hot cup of cappuccino would be there instead. Just sit in my favorite Cafe for a bit, watch the people get wet outside. Wouldn't that be nice?

One of my co-workers came up to me yesterday, looked at me and said: "You're a Geek!" ... YEEEY! I'm a GEEK! To those oblivious to what a GEEK is, a GEEK is kind of a technocrat who lives his life surrounded by the coolest gadgets and who finds a way of incorporating them into his everyday life. It’s easier to mug a geek using an EMP-gun then a switchblade. So what! I’m a geek and I’m proud of it. Living at technologies cutting edge and handling the gizmo’s as if they where the most normal thing in the world IS my thing. It’s like walking into a tribe of bush people with a mirror sometimes. But still. It’s cool when you're blasé about it. Yesterday Nyana hiked up to her house with her own laptop. I mean YEAY !!! When your GF pads around with her own PC cause she likes it .. It’s damn sexy! Geekdom rocks :).

Where eternity ends.. infinity begins.

2004-11-18T23:01:00.000-11:00

The end of the week is slowly drawing closer and a little smile creeps up the corner of my mouth. Somehow I feel all giddy inside just thinking of the fun stuff that once again awaits me. Well, fun stuff might be a big word. I immensely enjoy the simple things, just being around Nyana, spending time together is pure Bliss but when I look at the unexpected ways events have turned out over the last weekend, I cannot help but wonder if its gonna be just as spectacular this time around. The weekend appears to be a completely different part of my life sometimes. During the week Nyana and me work hard and put a lot of effort and energy into our job and the company. But in the weekend its. *Poof*. When I look at the way we live these days I think we can call ourselves very lucky. I mean, most couples our age sit at home with the kids all weekend (and occasionally go to the movies, or to family or something'), don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with that. But it would not be 'our thing'. As I wrote a few posts ago: The fun is only just beginning in our life. With no one to look out for but each other and our cat. To each his own truth but I think, for now we can find true happiness in this lifestyle. It’s amazing but sometimes it feels like me and Nyana have only been together for a few weeks. Here is this great girl I get to go out with and have fun with. Little old me gets a night on the town with someone who is not only the love of my life but also my big fun-buddy. 5000 inside jokes, quick repartee’s and spicy comments fly trough the air and not only do I feel completely at ease with her, I also have a blast with her whenever we go out. I should count my lucky stars (and I do) for the good life I lead. Onto the weekend, filled with exiting stories and adventures it is!!!!

When you put your reflection in front of the mirror.. who is who ?

2004-11-18T02:03:00.000-11:00

The autumn outside is slowly giving way. Every fiber in my body senses the growing defeat of falling leaves against the rising up March of the steel swords of winter. As I drove home yesterday evening it pleased me to have another wonderful cd in the player. The ones among you who only know VANGELIS from all time hits like Pulstar and Chariots of Fire are surely missing out something when they have never heard his recent albums. As the dark clouds closed the canopy above me and taillights pierced the murky darkness I crawled deep into my bubble of steel and floated trough the world on the tones of ' EL GRECO ' This cd filled with dark and gloomy tracks wrapped its sounds around me like a warm blanket. As drivers beside me ate up their steering wheels in frustrations I let my mind and thoughts be engulfed by the powerful sounds of Monserat Caballe and the Instrumental virtuoso Himself (Vangelis Pappadoplous). To write about music is like painting an apple. No matter how good you can describe it, there is no way you can taste it. But it was wonderful. Somehow driving makes me very relaxed and with the right music I am engulfed in the world of my own thoughts and feelings for that secluded time when I am driving home. Ever since I started working on this side of the country I have had calmness settle over me in the mornings. In the darkness of the dawning globe, I can let my feelings, impressions, emotions and idea's flow freely. As if life is a chessboard I pick up the peaces of my everyday life and roll them over in my hands, try to see them from every angle and decide where to move them next. Perhaps it is the coming of age; perhaps it is the time of the year. But somehow I feel that, looking back to the turbulent months that lay behind me, I have changed. I have always been this ever-changing chameleon, never quite the same in two places but still. How great is the difference once again. Those who knew me then and there would be surprised to see me here. And I? I find peace with it all because I know I am true to myself no matter who I may appear to be. Life is a shifting duality of shadow and light. And although those close to me think they know me. I can only give them a mysterious smile and think 'you don't have a clue yet...’

Random poetry

2004-11-17T04:02:00.000-11:00

Why is it that when silence is closest to me, my thoughts drift off like snow in the wind
Towards fields of placid sorrow in melancholic smiles. Safe is how I feel with its velvet cloack draped around me. And yett... Silence and sorrow go hand in hand and if the pool of tranquility resides amids the dying willows then happyness is the illusion of sound. Or is sadness the echo of silence.

Millions of ants and network problems.

2004-11-17T02:36:00.000-11:00

Whoa, remember those days when everything goes wrong? Well, I had one of those yesterday night. Damn damn damn ! I not only had a ton of work to do for the company, I also had some paperwork lying around I need to check up on (I am very bad at paperwork) Well, halfway trough the work the entire network went pear shaped on me and before I knew what was happening the knights castle was off line for more then two hours straight. Cursing, fuming and on the edge of killing a hamster with my bear hands I had to reprogram my router, go look for the flaw in the scenario and get all worked up that I STILL had a ton of things to do while I was spending my scarce free time having to repair a basic but essential problem in my network. Damn! I hate it when those things go wrong. When I had only reconnected the Internet connection my server decided it was time to bail out and IT went off line. GRRR! A few words, the flick of a power button and threatening with a good kick fixed THAT too. It makes me smile when I notice that me and Nyana managed to survive without warm water for two weeks straight, but are at a complete loss when the broadband connection goes down. No warm water: relax, chill, we will manage. No Internet connection: Panic, Mayhem, and Stress etc. We must be weird people :p. Oh yes, while working I DID get a chance to see a movie I got from Emule. It’s about 30 years old and I saw it as a little kid once (barely remembering it). The only thing that stuck to mind was the title: Phase 4, about an army of super intelligent ants taking over the world. Classic B movie? Well not really, it does have a good story to it. I honestly enjoyed it, cause it was the 'German dubbed' version I found. It took my back to the days when we where used to watching German TV, with all their dubbed movies and TV shows. As the language somehow comes naturally to me I didn't even notice until I was ten minutes into the movie. Well, me and B movies... you know. We have chemistry!

Social life.net ?

2004-11-16T01:11:00.000-11:00

Do i have a social life ? Well , you can say that i do. I even have a busy one. Got online yesterday evening at about 6 PM and ended up chatting the evening away untill nine o'clock. There was some 'social chattin' going on , but also the use of MSN as a communicational tool. I mean , i make appointments regarding school etc over MSN, Make buisiness appointments and chat up with friends that i have not seen for a while. Coming to think of it the Internet is becoming more and more the centerpeace of not only the communication tools in my life , its becoming the pinnacle of my social interaction aswell. Had the nicest conversation with Davy last sunday as he gave me the example that a friend of him didn't think it was appropriate for people to know he mett his girlfriend over the internet (because he had an inmportant job position). Hmm Amazing how the 'internet' still has this image problem. 'only freaks and sad cases can be found on line ' people say. And perhaps those are the prominent cyber citizens of today .. but these days EVERYONE is on line. I mean , does that makes us ALL sad cases ? Is the statement : "Everybode you meet on line is a freak/geak/pervert, exept me of course ? " Strange how people still feel the need to categorize. Where DO you meet decent people then. Tell me ? In a bar ? one could say NO , cause that's where all the slutts are. In a Library ? No , cause thats where all the geeks hang out. I can go on for a while stating examples and the prejudged phrases that can be stuck to it. People are people , no matter where you meet them. I have a ton of friends I've mett on line and there all nice social (ok , sometimes a bit wierd) people. Haven't met a secret bunny-rumping pervert yett. Strange strange. People want to put evertything in cubicles so they can classify the chaos they call their reality. Ps : if you don't agree ... Post a comment , share your thoughts , Do your thing.

The stangest parties.

2004-11-15T01:11:00.000-11:00

The Strangest Party's.

Yeey ! Thanx to the holiday of november 11th we had a four day weekend (big time) that i truely enjoyed. Allthough I have hardly recovered (lack of sleep etc) it was way fun. Wen't shopping in Maastricht on thursday cause we where all out of food and all the shops in .be where closed. Loved it ! brought home some cool exotic things like peanut butter etc that you can only buy in the dutch shops. So i'm stacked up for the week with nice cool food-ies :). Did a wee bit of wa walk in Maastricht a bit later on and went looking for some of my I-pod accesories (unfindable) but gave up not to much later. After we got home in the afternoon we started cleaning up (i seriously took some junk out that was still stored in our basement) and lounged out before the TV. Hiked up to Aachen on friday to go looking for our new digital camera (the old one is for sale , just so you know) and did a good bargain. So the next pix will be by our Nikon Coolpix 4200 , can't wait to try her out :) . After we got home i had some work to do for the company and Nyana bunked in the sofa in my office. With the TV on and both working on our laptops we had a real cozy time and i got some work done. When we thought we where gonna turn in early we got an invitation from some friends to go for a late night drink. So 2 hours later we where standing in a Cafe in Hasselt with karaoke night in full swing ( i thought about singing some sinatra tunes , but the crowd was so young in decided agianst it) The evening went from strange to weird when i found mysellf sitting in a bar together with our 'amigo's accompanied by a philipino woman (that had to much to drink) , a finalist from the IDOL 2003 contest , the folks we mett up with and of course the illustrious miss bamby ( a well known transvestite ) As conversations moved from topic to topic i smiled and imagined i was having the most unexpected evening in a long time. Needless to say we had a good time and crashed in our bedds at 4 30 Am. Had to get up at eight again to do some more work and see some clients while Nyana took care of the cleaning (bless her). In the evening we wen't of to dinner with friends and had a way good time. Had my birthday party on sunday (thanx everyone for attending) and was strangely surprised by the turnout. People who I thought would come and who I expected would not where not exactly as i had expected it. A strange but pleasant surprise. (allthought it made me realise the focus of my social life appears to be shifting). As allways mixing friends and family together in one room is allways fun and we had a big laugh. Thanx to Nyana for making the afternoon go perfectly as she made magic in the kitchen and did all the work.

The roundup ? Well: These are the strangest partys. There are still some 'steady values' in my social life. People i see, things we do.. and yett , these last weeks it is all shifting in what turns out to be a wonderfully unpredictible landscape of people and places. I sometimes stop , look around and think by mysellf : I did not think i was gonna do THIS last friday ! But i like the unexpected. Somehow there is more 'p-Zazz" in my life right now. Things that have allways been, the way social relationships are built up and stuff are shifting and changing and it brings along this strange sometimes surreal enviroment. When you try to tell someone where you've been and what you've done the last weekend you get these blank stares like ' How the HELL did you get THERE ' and THATS the stuff that makes me smile.

The one line that went trough my head a thousand times these last days is ' IDIC ' Idic is a vulcan term (star trek sci fi ) that stands for Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations. Meaning that everyone is different , has different lifestyles and that this diversity is something we must accept and even celebrate because it it the one richness in our universe.

We've seen things that would make people wonder , frown , or even shock them.. and then again one can think : Everybody is different and 'normal' is a proprietary term exclusive to only yoursellf. Everybody is different , but in the end we are all 'people' and it is in this diversity we can find the true wonder of life. Pretty deep huh. But still :) I would prefer diversity over blandness and predictability everyday. And i seem to get my wish.

At thirty i'm looking at the world with a sence of wonder, with an intense feeling of joy and happyness because I have truely found Love with Nyana. And when other people are beginning to settle down... We are only just beginning to explore. Kidds ? Staying home watching TV ? "settling down" ... I laugh when i hear it ( So does Nyana) The thing we both feel right now is .. The base is solid, the bounds are tight , the camp is good. We are only BEGINNING to explore the world. As people become more narrow minded as they age , clinging to their convictions.. I am only beginning to broaden them..

The great conspiracy.

2004-11-10T01:54:00.000-11:00

Whoow. What a week. Just noticed my last blogg update is a bit messy and quite
frankly so is my life right now. Problem is I’m trying to tell to much at once
and am trying to get it all said so I can slow down and rant my thoughts out.
Urrg ! No matter. Lots to be done this weekend. A extended weekend my ass, have a
ton of work for my own company to do and me and Nyana are gonna TRY to get to
Antwerp for a little city trip. I wonder if it will work. Got my birthday party
next Sunday so we are gonna have to get the house in ship shape. Who said it was
gonna be quiet. Meanwhile I’m getting my stuff organized to do some extra items
on the website (audio blogg and stuff) and STILL have NOT had time to really play
around with the cute mixing board Nyana bought me for my birthday (bless the
honey). Hmm : A quick topic for this blogg : Well : let met choose 'the great
conspiracy'. Its been in the air for a few months now but these last weeks i have felt that its 'omnipresent'. The great conspiracy to get me back in music. As you know I was a DJ with DYSC a few years ago , and back then ( from when I was 18 up to when I was about 24 ) music was a great part of my life. Playing music, and later on combining music and computers when i started making our own intro's and Jingles to party's where we played. I even teamed up with JAR JAR (Bart Graulus) to 'make' music and we played in the KAtsu and on a concert somewhere in Borgloon. It was really cool to do , but we didn't have much free time so things cooled down and unfortunately we lost touch (Bart, if you are reading this , Ping me sometime) . The absolute low came last year when i sold my mixing board and cd players cause they where literally just lying around (and i had not used them in months). So i've been out of the bizz for quite some time.

But somehow all this is changing. Well first of there is the house of course, now i finally have the space to set up some gear instead of my small office in Rijkhoven.
Secondly I am currently moving ALL our music cd's to MP3 , cause the shelves in the living room just can't take the pressure. Its been a lot of work , but it gave me the chance to go trough my music collection again and to finally make it digital so i can put it on my Ipod , or play it when i'm at the computer.
And there is of course my new line of work where i get to sit at a desk all day long so i have enough time to listen to music while i work. And i'm in the car for 2 hours a day, so there is a lot of time to listen to 'audio information', music , news etc...
But the big triggers are yet to come. Nyana bought me the coolest gift for my birthday (remind me to do an article on it someday). The Hercules DJ Console where i can MIX my MP3's and pitch them up and stuff. Whohoo ! Ok , its no numark MX 1800 (bless you my beloved black mix table) but its ex-actly what i need.
Add to that the concert of DJ Tiësto last weekend and its suffice to say : I'm lost !. I'm pretty mad at myself having let go of my 'musical passion" these last years , but school and my career took up a lot of time. Now i hope i have more time (and need) to be 'creative' with music again.

Now the scene is set, and we come to the possibilities this entire multimedia revolution in my life is gonna give me.

First up : I don't have much time to write anymore. I'm on the road for two hours everyday and have a lot of time to myself. But I can't spend it reading or writing on my blogg and stuff. Yet i have time to kill , so its filled up with listening to music , Audio books and audio bloggs i downloaded from the internet. (audiobloggs are spoken bloggs, transmitted via what we call PODDCASTS). Hence my idea. What if i used that time to 'speak' my blogg, like , make a little radio show out of it , all you need is a mike and a recorder (i can record on my ipod). So there was a food for thought and a possibility has been born , so hang on for more 'spoken bloggs' instead of written ones. Its a concept that is not very strange to me because i used to work as a radio DJ.. So its basically my own talkshow that i'm doing. And where there is speech there is music , so i can mix together some tunes , build some jingles and stuff. Just being creative on an whole other level. And with podcasting i get to download other people's audio-bloggs full of IT goodies and stuff and listen to them while i'm in the car.

As you can see , the limited time i have makes me shift gears as it comes to handling information in my life. I rarely watch tv but let the PC at home boot up and record all my favorite shows. Cause i'm not home to watch them i encode the streams and put them on my pda so i can watch them anywhere. I don’t have time to read up on my websites so i use an RSS news-stream reader to give me the headlines of the important sites and push them to my pc instead of surfing around. When i'm in the car or on the road i have audio bloggs and Ebooks to listen to instead of reading them on line. Basically i'm adapting to more off line time in my life , but still try to keep up with the 'buzz'. I'm even planning on using video to make articles on the site instead of writing them out. And also.. there is a lot of creative energy to be spent there.

The dawn of the third decennium has brought upon me the dawn of the digital media age i guess.

Well what do ya know , i've had time to update my blogg.

Greetz everyone, stay tuned !.

Meditations at warp nine.

2004-11-04T08:47:00.000-11:00

So little time and yet so much has happened. Like lightning the shades of my life have turned around once more and i find mysellf awakening in a different chapter in my book of life. Changes are always strange and it is yet it are those very changes that tell one that one still lives. But as i look at the path that my career will take me now, Changes will be part of everyday life, and adapting to these changing situation will become a skill that i must make my own.

<>Changing the lanes of my career.
As for the roundup. Well , after the interview with the consulting company in Leuven (see previous post) i had to wait a few days before the phone rang. As i was getting worried about finding a new job (needlessly) the phone rang and my new "boss to be" called me up if i was interested in starting.. THE NEXT DAY. So it became a bit of a race to get everyting organised and ready for yet another turnover. All the promises i made mysellf (when i'm out of a job i'm gonna study, relax a little bit, enjoy the silence etc) where out the window (once again) and i came to the shuddering conclusion that i just cant sit still. No matter. 3 days later i was of to a big company in Turnhout for a conculting assignment (field engeneer) and had a great time. Where only a few weeks earlyer i was getting chewed out by the old boss-man and thought where the hell this was going, now i found mysellf suited up in a company car racing towards unknown horizons. And at those very moments, amids the amber rays of the setting sun, with music on the background and the silent purr of the car as it takes me to yet another adventure... Victory does taste sweet. Those who know what happened after i left my old company know what i mean. Those who don't.. It does not matter. As it is with wine : the best information and events , the greatest gossip where to be found in the bottom of the glass and I only know appreciate its delicate taste. For I have not had a hand in these events but only saw the inevitable take place. Cosmic justice ? perhaps... I miss the ones that where dear to me back there. But I am the Hedon and as the autumn calls i must spread my wings and fly on.

Celebrate the love.
Meanwhile i have come to my favourite part of the year. The autumn is now in full bloom. Fog slides over the ground and the leaves set the dying trees alight with shades of red and gold. The graves lie littered with flowers and the crows rasp their song. Today me and Nyana are celebrating that we've been together for eight years. Incredible as it may seem we are still growing stronger and closer together each day. Somebody once asked me why Saskia was the woman of my life. Well ,probably because she's the only girl that is not impressed with the 'roles i play' but with the boy thats trapped behind the mask. She is probably the one single person in the world that truely knows me and she is the one girl in the world i truely love.

The age of sound.
With my new job i find mysellf in the car for allmost three hours a day. With all kinds of music on the background i realise i have a great amount of time just to think things through. These "meditations at warp nine" as i call them are a concept quite new to me. I have time to wonder about the things that go on in my life and must somehow find a way to keep mysellf 'occupied' during these long drives. This brings me to the age of sound. More and more music takes up an important role in my life once again. Not only did Saskia buy me the coolest DJ mixing panel for my birthday (thank you my love), but I also have a lot more time to listen. While i normaly spend my free time behind a computerscreen or in a good book (the age of light) i now find that i must focus my leasures on SOUNDS. Audiobooks, music , talkshows on the radio, you name it .. At work I 'fly a desk' so have about 8 hours a day to listen to music while i'm working. A whole new world of music, on and off line radiostations and so on are opening up to me. This weekend i'll be diggin up my Ipod to get more tunes on the little white baby

And hereby i close the second decennium of my life. I've been in my twenties till now but from tomorrow i am no more.

Enter sweet sandman.

2004-10-13T04:10:00.000-11:00

Ok , i just rounded up my little tri-annual checkup and have some time to kill. Class doesn't start in 3 hours and its not worth the while to drive all the way down to limburg and back. So after doin some walking about in Leuven i've landed at Groept and dove right back in my linux book. After the fairly interesting chapters i'm now down to the increadibly borind stuff. Man i do hope it gets better cause i'm fighting sleep like a dragon on fire. I strolled into the bookstore, checking out some books and cd's ( that i'll write down so i know what do download on Emule next time :p ) Plenty of IT related books but i know that @ home I have enough books around to defeat the next invasion of gian ants. Hmm. Must be the boring Linux chapter i'm reading right now that makes me so sleepy cause i allmost dozed off a few minutes ago. But i'm trying to lay of the coffee so Java will offer me no support in this one. One big latte this afternoon will just have to keep me going for the day. Outside we are enjoying the last rays of autumn sun and in between the long shadows the land is painted gold and green. As i sit here the world moves around me. People come, people go.. and for once I find mysellf silently waiting as time flows by. Well not doing nothing (studying, remember) but still. As the atmosphere of GroepT surrounds me for the third year in a row, i'm not surprised how much i feel at home down here. I walk the big spiral way to the top as commonly as my own stairwell. Plunge down in the cafetaria as i would in my own kitchen and drive trough the streets of Leuven as if i have been coming here for years. Well.. I have but.. thats not the point. The point is that the DISTANCE between Hasselt/Leuven is sometimes a bigger issue for those around me than for mysellf. Whenever I talk to people here and tell them where i'm from they go like : 'waaw , THAT far' while to me.. Leuven isn't at all that far. I mean , ok , its 45 minutes driving when its busy , 30 min's when i can push the envelope. But.. I don't see it as far.. I mean .. Thats what you get when you live in a backwater province like mine. When you wanna do something you just have to get around. It makes me feel a little 'metropolitan'. I shop in Maastricht, get my PC stuff in Aachen, study in Leuven. Try to grab a Cappuchino with a muffin in Antwerp once in a while. Even though we live in the city of Hasselt right now its funny that I'm still more on the road then home. So hey ! I get around ! Whats wrong with that. Leuven isn't far. Neither is Aachen or Maastricht , Antwerp is up the highway straight ahead. Whats the big deal anyway. I guess people see the journey from Limburg outward like some epic trek 'lord of the rings style' well I must disappoint you my friends. Its just a hop in the car and after a few years you get pretty used to it. (The innards of Leuven have become boring to me.. THATS how much I come here) With the week fully booked (have to go to Heverlee tomorrow and back to Leuven on friday and saturday) (not forgetting Antwerp on monday) i've seen quite a little peace of little belgium these days. Good thing for my GPS-lady (Mia) who helps me get around to where i gotta be. I would not now how to get to all those places just by mysellf. Hmm. coming to think of it I could come by train friday. It would be more convenient and i could just bunk out in the train for two hours. I mean whenever you have to travel an hour to get somewhere its WHAT YOU DO during that hour that makes it lost time or not. Suppose your by car, stuck in traffic and you stress up and eat your steering wheel for f*** 60 minutes striaght.. Then thats lost time. Spend that time listening to music, arranging your thoughts, or even listening to an Audio Book.. Its not really lost time is it ? Suppose your in a train 2 hours a day. You CAN spend that time reading, listening to music , working on your website or whatever. Its a little bit of a luxury to have 2 hours to fill in to your own discretion. The thought occured to me this morning when stuck in traffic. One does not control the situation one gets into , but we do control how we react in that situation. I could have been stressed up for losing time. Instead i listened to classical music on the radio and watched the sun rise over the hills around me while peeking at the people around me and wondering who they where and where they where going. Life is a big boardgame sometimes. You only have to make up your own game to play on it. Of to school it is my friends !

Stranded on the sandless shores.

2004-10-13T03:26:00.000-11:00

Its been a long time since i have last been here. Once every two years I drop by only to be amazed at the way things stay the same, and the way things change. From when i was four years old I have walked trough these doors, watched the people go by and looked at their faces. I never stopped wondering what their problems might be. What burden they carried. An illness ? A loved one in distress. Waiting for an answer, or praying that that answer will never come. Every time I stop and realise that ones health is not something to be taken for granted. That if it was not for this place my life would have turned out differntly. I do the things i do, live the way i live and am the one i am without ever having to stop an consider that it all might not have been this way. I take my health for granted, when i should be thankfull that i am alive. But then again : We should all stop and consider that once in a while. Imagine those less fortunate. Imagine those less healty. Imagine those to whom mortality is very mutch a thing on their mind. Over these last few years, as i grow older and wiser perhaps, the thing i have learned is never to take anything for granted. I have come to realise that EVERYTHING can balance on a sharp razors edge and can go just any way it wishes. Us mankind often thinks we are oh so in control of it all. We think we have things made and yett.. It can all change at the chime of a bell. Ritch, poor, succesfull, bumm, legal, illegal .. Healthy, sick, together or alone.. We sometimes must stop and think how it can all change. I see the people around me and think about their troubles. I find mysellf straightening my back, once again sliding into the roll of 'comforting example' that it can all turn out for the best. A warm smile to a troubled soul.. in who'se place I have luckily never stood before... but still. Life is a precious gift and so is our health. This year I look back at my life since I last was here and realise i should exercise more. My condition is hardly what it used to be and sports are way back on my priority list. I should do that more often, should relax more often. But so much to do .. So little time. Come to think of what i've been up to these last two years I realise that they have been the busyest of years in my life. The Ictopus project (many many stress !) Switching jobs and working at Harte Hanks (also quite an amount of stress) and in between buying a house, fixing it up, moving etc etc. When i look back at it all I believe I do deserve a break. Haven't had a decent holiday for two years... But we'll see how everything turns out. Perhaps a pledge that once in every day I put the books away, turn the screens of and have a cup of tea with a good book. That i give mysellf the chance to lean back, close my eyes and just listen to the silence around me. A promise to get up on a saturday and grab my bike and just cycle a bit more. Good intentions ? Perhaps ... **** In other news the whole linux thing is slowly picking up pace. Before this I dreadded the Evil VI, but now i find mysellf writing this text in VI. Later on i can just copy and paste it into my blogg.. And I kind of like this simple effective interface. No need for extensive mark-up, Fancy GUI's and all that. Just a black screen with white letters. Me somehow like this. I'm starting to see the immense possibilities of an OS like Linux, and I am starting to see why people can get this fanatic over it. Reading trough these few chapters in the book it strikes me just how powerfull it is. I mean you can combine commands, let the output of one command be the input of the other and so on. I have only limited DOS knowledge so maybe thats it, but in Linux i have so far done things that are quite impossible in DOS. Combine it with the ability to run on run down computers and so.. And i'm starting to feel the magic. Imagine your peers buying the most expensive pc's , overclock them, cool them with water of even liquid nitrogen.. While you are still using that 486 laptop you can dragg around with you anywhere. Use VI or Bash to do your thing. Mail stuff from the command line. I mean , this is stuff i picked up in only two chapters. Ok you still need a good gui to 'get' most of the 'net' but as I allways say : Take a look at what you want to do and then check out what you need. I mean, if you can configure a fileserver, a mailserver, a firewall and so on just using a stupid terminal interface.. Combined with the power this OS gives you ? I would say : watch out MS ! I understand why Linux guru's love the darn thing. You can just dive into the config files and litteraly WRITE what you want it to do. Not happy with the program ? take tehe source and change it. The possibilities are indeed endless. I'm happy in my own little way that i found this first use for the shell. Amateuristic as it may be.. I'm happy to make the first step. After an escape and a Shift ZZ this little bugger will be stored on the drive. To experts this might sound lame. But for little oll me .. its kinda the first real steps into using linux for what i NEED. And as i posted yesterday.. Whenever I can USE something, i'm interested to learn in what ELSE it can do. No more pointless excercises. Time to let the mother work for the money.

I need a guI to make me happy !

2004-10-12T06:43:00.000-11:00

Well : i'm finally getting round to some studying today and i've been digging trough the first two chapters of the book while trying out the info on my laptop and .. i can only conclude in this : Aaarg!!!!!!!!!!!!! I must say. this Linux thing is proving to be harder then i first expected. Ok , i know it was not going to be easy, but i never thought what a mouse-jockey i had become. Its all howdy dandy when you give me a nice gui and i can click my way into just about anything i want. But its harder when a silent prompt just stares at me from a dark screen. I read trough the manuals and think “when am i EVER gonna need this” and the next moment i find myself completely lost when trying to preform a simple task like copying or pasting a file using the console. Its starting over from scratch and its gonna take a lot of getting used to. But I don't have the luxury of falling behind. I have to learn this. Now that is just the thing. As you all know i hate toying around with things, just to toy around with them. I have to do something useful with them. I find myself BEFORE the point that i can use my acquired skills to actually 'do' anything, but I'm pretty frustrated to type commands down.. 'just to practice them' I hate moving meaningless files around just to get into the swing of it. Well no matter, it will be better in a few days. Meanwhile i have found a universal constant in Linux manuals. Whenever they give you ONE syntax, they give you 5 ! they all do the same .. but they give you the options just to confuse you. I mean , you don't give directions to someone saying. Drive this and that way / or that and that way / or this and this way / or this and so way. I mean : That person is gonna go bonkers on ya !. Well no matter. Back to chapter two. Oh yes ! just between the lines : I have found a way to work around my freezing keyboard problem ! until suse will give me an answer to my support query , I just retype the last two characters i typed, just before the keyboard freeze. And whaddajaknow ! It works . I read it somewhere on the Internet so i decided to try it out. am very curious as to what big-old-suse is gonna tell me. The error event that pops up into the event log is : "Linux kernel: input: AT Translated Set 2 keyboard on isa0060/serio0 so .. i'm curious if posting this on usenet will help me to find a real solution." *** In other news i'm dug into this small pocket book about hacking, viruses and espionage. I read something about the CARNIVORE program the FBI apparently runs on the email traffic all over the globe. Its actually quite scary. I mean not to dive into conspiracy theory's and all that , but still. Its pretty scary when you think about some gov-clecrk reading trough your e-mail.. and the concequences. http://www.rhizome.org/carnivore/ is a link i found on line to some kind of carnivore like program that constructs images from the data stream it intercepts (?) Its something realy freaky and i'm gonna check it out a little more. "Carnivore is a surveillance tool for data networks. At the heart of the project is CarnivorePE, a software application that listens to all Internet traffic (email, web surfing, etc.) on a specific local network. Next, CarnivorePE serves this data stream to interfaces called "clients." These clients are designed to animate, diagnose, or interpret the network traffic in various ways. Use CarnivorePE to run Carnivore clients from your own desktop, or use it to make your own clients." is the official qoute on the site. Cool enough to check it out. Imagine a picture of your face made up out of all the binary data gathered from the porn sites you surfed. Kinda cool to give to your parents. :)

Is there an non-E-Existence ?

2004-10-11T22:28:00.000-11:00

Thoughts are a turmoil. I am troubled by questions that I was not prepared for. Questions that made me stand and think. Questions that made me put things in perspective. 'Who are you'. 'Where are you going' 'Where do you come from'. Questions as simple that any soul can find an answer. And yett, questions as hard that there seems to be no answer for them. I was asked these questions by a friend, and again yesterday on an interview. The question who i was away from the keyboard caught me off guard. I was in no way expecting a question like that. I find mysellf troubled by the fact that i had to 'think' about who i was away from the keyboard. Over these last years my life has been focused on the virtual side of my existence. Learning , gathering skills and so forth. Not a day goes by withouth a connection to the internet. The world around me and the events that peek my interests are often found @ slashdot.org or on line. I communicate, live, breath on line. I was puzzeled by the inquiry to my 'off line' life. My non-E-Existence and i had to think about it a little bit. I do plenty of things that don't have anything to do with computers .. But i never thought people would value them so much as to ask for them. Well. When "AFK" dwindle down into a world that is very personal and private for me. I spend time with my girlfriend. Hang out with the select group of friends I have, go out, have a good time. I love to read. Allways dive my nose in a good book cause I despise TV. And quite frankly those books are OFTEN (but not allways) It related. These days one can find me totaly engulfed by the BENINI MISTERY (by Dan Brown), Introduction into phychoanalisis (by Freud) and on my PDA i'm reading "Shadows of the empire'. I love a good movie (preferebly some old one) and I try to relax the mind by talking a good stroll while listening to some relaxing music. Am i the outgoing type I used to be when i worked as a DJ ? Perhaps not. I love to crawl back in the dark corners of a tavern and watch the world go by. I love to watch people, love to meet people to. But I find a lot of happyness behind the quiet glow of the screen. The question also arose a fearsome image of mysellf as some kind of horrible lonely computer-nerd. I'm not that. Not that at all. Allthough i sometimes can understand that people want to hide from the off line world and curl up into cyberspace, allthough I understand that , when someone is facinated by the thousands of things the E-world has to offer, so much that you forget what lies outside.. I'm not that kind of person. I go to the library to study. Not because it's quiet there, but because there are people there ! I like to go out for a cup of cappuchino and write some entries for my blogg because there are other people there. When asked what i would like to do best : Dive into a good well founded IRC discussion about the issues of privacy on the internet , or play some football with some testosteron-infested-beer-drinking-burping-footballyapping dudes.. I would choose the first. I'm happy when plugged in.. but i roam wirelessly.

This is not a democracy.*

2004-09-30T22:37:00.000-11:00

Today my personal blogg takes on a very important role as i use it to officially make a "press statement" following the termination of my contract at Harte Hanks. Before rumours go around like wildfire and my name and reputation are put on the line , I would like to point out just what the reasons for my dismissal where. Whenever you collect enough dust its by no means hard to create a landslide. When you sum up enough errors someone makes you can easily stick them together to make a big ball of blame. When you read the words just right you can make a sentence sound any way you want to. Each of us has his own truth and we all look at the world from our own point of view. To each his own truth. No matter how strong you are you cannot stop a sandstorm and no matter how steady you stand, there is no way to fight quicksand. The inevitable cannot be put off. The bottom line is that my mentality, the way i do things, handle people, and see trough people, threatened the balance of power and knowledge in the department i worked. As the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one I can surely understand the reaction and the actions that followed it. Sometimes people work together like a charm, sometimes they collide. I have the utmost respect for my colleagues and understand that some of them found it difficult to 'get along' with my 'challenging' personality. But as a wise man once said : "This is not a democracy".(but then again : what is it ?) The other reason for my dismissal was the fact that I had already negotiated with another firm for a job opening, because, as you know , I have recently purchased a house and job stability is important for me. I still had temp-contracts with Harte Hanks and was looking forward to getting 'the contract' to be enlisted on the payroll of the company. However there where also promising options elsewhere. Because these options where contradictory I found myself betting on two horses. When i was asked by my superior if I had job-options with other companies I had to withhold the truth because I wanted to give the HH-option all the best chances. Disclosure of the information would have damaged these. I find myself deeply troubled by this, for the truth is a very important value for me, and was forced into a position where I could not be true to this value. This was very hard for me , I try to be a man of my word, but the ends justified the means. As my departure with the company has gone so fast I have not found the time to say just how nice it was to work there. Surely there have been ups and downs and in the long run, I might not have "fitted in" in the current picture. But still. It was fun to work with all these nice people. As the Vulcans once said : "The honour is to serve". Now I am overlooking a new horizon and as I gaze back I am grateful for the things I have learned and perhaps for the small but crucial insight I have brought into the whole. Goodbye my whacky Italian, Dutch, Russian, Swedish, American, Belgian and other friends. I wish you all the best.

When comes the morning dawn.

2004-09-22T18:01:00.000-11:00

As dawn slides its purple cloack over the spires of the city, i sit in silent contemplation and think about the fields of home. Wrapped in a warm blanket of the shards of my nightly dreams I feel at ease and not ready for the world ahead. The city barely sleeps and still the silence glides trough the streets as a fleeting fogg. I close my eyes and see te morning mist wade trough the trees and over the fields of my home town... I open them and see the morning crawl through empty corridords and past standing giants. Like a harbour in the fog these great ships await their passengers only to travel trough the seas of their life, but never move an inch. I let my thoughts whisper and think of how the world would be if no one would wake up today. If the world held its morning breath and let me alone wade trough the frozen time. I could crawl up in a little ball and let the night claim me once more. I could hide in the cracks of my deepest dreams and live them as if they where real. Dawn is such a beautifull time. To quiet to be awake as ones soul screams for dreams to come again, to beautifull to sleep trough as its serenity is so beautifull. Dawn is like a snowscape , untouched. The only way to discover it is to wade trough it.. and thereby disturbing it forever. Dawn is a duality, a paradox if you want. The doorstep to a new day, the last look at a fleeting night. Dawn is the balance between the silence of ones inner soul and the adventures of the dreams that came. As time seeps trough my finger I try to cling to this quiet time. When the empty echo of the streets is reflected by my inner peace. As my soul is quiet and untouched by the troubles of the world.. I sit on a bench in the morning fogg, along the pool of my mind.. And see only the ripples of my own toughts wade over its motionless surface.

Ice cream Sunday.

2004-09-18T21:51:00.000-11:00

Sunday mownin! Aah , the joys of getting up a tad late followed by a splash on the couch with a cappuchino and some great epps of Spongebob Squarepants on the tube. Shower afterwards and enjoy a few moments of quit peace behind the pc. Damn, I know it sounds geeky but this is my favourite day of the week. Meanwhile me and Swift are still riding the VPN wave updating our knowledge on encripted connections and the possibilities that come with it. The only issue is that I don't have enough time ! Oh well, one does what one can. Went to the fair in Hasselt last night with Nyana. Watched the fireworks and took a good look at the people all around us. Its shocking to see that couples with kids these days are mostly YOUNGER then we are. Just as they drag around a buggy full of screamin' kid we parade along without a worry in the world. Kids are cute , but not to have some of your own. Its amazing how i can look at the world and be amazed at how people look, how they live, what they do. And just realize how different everybody is. I mean , look at kids these days ( and i refer to the 14 to 18 year olds) Man ! They look like they came runnig out of a bloody mtv videclip. The homiez meet the chicka's. I must restrain mysellf from rolling with laughter whenever I see one of those 50-cent wannabee 13 year olds walk by, with an attitute that can blow down a house. I seriously doubt the human race if they really think 'its cool' to look like that. Apparently it is , cauze seconds later a girl dressed in a way that would make Paris Hilton blush approaches our teenage-pimp and chats him up. I presume this is the sign that I am growing old. But no matter. Today its time to start painting our master bedroom. Nice and easy will do the trick. An Ipod full of enya, cappuchino and mousies will do the rest. AND THEN ! yes AND THEN i'm finally gonna get around to RE installing my freshly bought distro of SUSE linux. Yep. I could not resist the temptation yesterday and spent a hundred euro's on 2 dvd's 5cd's and 2 whoppers of books from SUSE linux's proffesional distro. Its allways cool to buy a distro like that (this is actually the third one i bought in the last 3 years). I think it feels like a newyears resolution. 'this year i'm gonna learn linux, and i'm gonna buy the distro to prove it' And the box ends up sitting on the shellf and you turn back to windows. BUT NOT THIS TIME (i hope). So little old me is gonna try stickin to the promise this time. Come to think of it i prefer working with Suse for doin my day to day stuff. Only when i have to configure stuff in command line and leave my mouse behind, i'm lost. But the course we're getting @ school this year tackles Linux so i hope its gonna be a motivation for getting to know 'joe', 'kate' and the dreaded 'VI" (linux technobablle, freaks will understand). We'll im off to my parents place to place and install a 'remote server'. Lozzalove my friends.

Like the sands of time slip trough our hands.

2004-09-14T18:46:00.000-11:00

Life does goe fast. I have barely felt the beginnig of the week or we are allmost wednesday. Its a busy week, school, work, the company. There's a lot to be done. Yesterday i found this article about setting up a secure connection from my laptop from just about anywhere to my home network. I cant wait to try it out ! And thanks to the fact that Swift pointed some realy cool newsgroups out to me , i am once agian in an 'information rush'. So much data to see , so much to learn. I guess that it is just that that atracts me to this line of life. The prospect of learning something new every single day. Much to learn , much to find out. The only thing to do next is get the bug out of my linux system i installed on my laptop. When i type to much , the keyboard just freezes up :(. And i must say , i LIKE working with my linux distro. I can get just about anything done with it and somehow i like the look and feel better. To bad about the little glitch (have to iron that out). Enough techno babble. The thing that is bothering me is the small amount of time i spend at home these days. During the week i hardly see Saskia anymore. We are both beat when we get home and either i'm off on assignment or i'm off to school. Its too bad. We realy enjoy spending quality time together, and when the weekend comes thats what we try to do. (amids social obligations). Life in the 21"st century is pretty hectic. I do wonder if western civilisation is taking the right course. But outside temperatures are dropping and the autumn slides its gentle sword trough the trees. I snuggle up in my private thoughts and let the world rush by. Happyness is found in the simplest of things. A cup of coffee in the morning. A gentle touch from the person you love. The smile of a stranger and a twinkle in the eye of a new found friend. Its been a while but at last i find mysellf a knight amids the fields of the world again. Confident, alert and allthough the country wind does not blow trough the trees here in urbania, i still find mysellf enjoying the specs on the horizon. I miss my town sometimes but am curious for my new world. Of to apathy my friends, for the warlords of oblivion are beating there own hollow drums.

Shifting of the shadows.

2004-09-13T18:00:00.000-11:00

I find mysellf in the strangest of moods lately. Somehow whenever the world quiets down around me my thoughts dwindle away and i end up staring into oblivion thinking about the strangest things. When i stepped outside the airconditioned surroundings of the office into the real world, it hit me. Autumn is coming. Slowly but unstoppable. Now for those of you who do not know : I'm an autumn person. I love the falling leaves , the wett cold mornings, the amber twilights of the low setting sun, the sence of a world going to sleep. I enjoy it immensly. A cd of Loreena Mckennit (Celtic traditional music) along with a cup of cappuchino brought an air of calmness and peace over me. A big computerscreen , some candles and a quiet cellphone did the rest to give me a relaxed evening. *** For those of you who think i'm dead (because you barely see me on msn anymore) I can set the rumours at ease. I'm not dead , I just don't like MSN anymore. Now i KNOW its the pinnacle of communication, but let me illustrate. I booted up my E-life (my cyber life if you please) yesterday. Switched on my mail and got some mail. Nice and informative. Next I checked out some newsgroups. Also very usefull and informative. I got on IRC, followed the topics on some channels , nice nice, .. Switched on ICQ and aranged some stuff with Swift.. and then I switched on msn messenger . BAM ! THREE popup windows : 1 person asking me 'where i've been all this time' and why i haven't been on line for so long. BAM the second person asking me something about network cabling and BAM person number three demanding I would explain her how to build a website. Now i'm not unwilling to help but I get the feeling I dont get ANYTHING done anymore once i switch on MSN. I get the feeling i use 'Chat' for communication , as to some who use it purely recreational. Thats a change for me . Cause MSN used to be the pinnacle of my comm. system as i now find that if you wanna get hold of me, you can email me. I'll just have to clean up the list or give some straight answers to the 1st line helpdesk-msn buddies that i'm not a one-free-question stop on the internet. Well , i'm off. Real life is calling.

A new beginning.

2004-09-12T18:57:00.000-11:00

Ok , my previous blogg has been taken off line two weeks ago. As to how and why I will explain in due time. The most important thing about the whole afair leading to my blogg-move is that i had a wonderfull chance to reflect upon my own anthem. Veritas Passio et Diversitas. Truth, passion and diversity if you will. I came to realise how dangerous , but also how extremely liberating the truth can be. How important it is to stay true to ones self and to speak the truth when needed. ** But enough of that. While diving into the bookshop this week I found this cute little book 'never threaten to eat your co-workers' a book about adventures of blogg-writers and the implications of what they make public in their bloggs upon their proffesional and personal surroundings. I smiled at the truth of it all and will post more 'carefully'. There is a lot of stuff to tell anyhow besides what i do from nine to five. *** Oh whell. Lets see where to start. We went back to my home town yesterday for the annual scottish weekend. A celtic / scottisch folk festival thats always nice to visit. Somehow I wasn't realy my own perky sellf according to folks and i found it to be true. While walking through my home town , going to my parents and my aunts place and stuff I just couldn't shake this sad feeling that somehow everything in that small town is fading away. And by that I mean that the things I used to know , the way they have allways been , and they way I thought they would always be.. are gently being wiped out by the hands of time. As i move on in life and see things change around me in a pace that makes it hard for me to keep up, i feel the distance growing between me and the roots i have. That somehow gave me a feeling of being lost. Not belonging to the place i came from and not yet settled in in the life i have right now. "At Limbo". Don't get me wrong. I'm extatic with the life i have right now. Wonderfull girlfriend, house cat.. etc.. but somehow , "where you come from" makes up a peace of your identity. I'm a stranger now , in my home town, and somehow still a bit of a stranger in my new town. Its funny when you think of it .. but it gets to you none the less. **** During my day off on friday i had the chance to pop in one of the dvd's i bought from the STAR TREK the original series box. I must say I enjoyed it immensly. Seeing all those classic episodes, "the devil in the dark" , "space seed" and of course "the city on the edge of forever" made me smile. I"m a big fan of the orignal star trek series, and i'll always will be i guess. Not for the tacky special effects, or the hilarious aliens, or the scampy cladd women. No .. Because of the sense of friendship and camaraderie that exists between Kirk, Spock and Mccoy. No matter what spin off they make , they'll never ever beat the old crew. Its darn right great. I tried watching an entire episode of "enterprise" yesterday, but i just couldn't. Damn that show sucks so hard. Branon Braga and Rick Berman (the producers) should get pushed into an airlock for giving the star trek culture such a bad bad spin off. ** Enough of that. I must be off , to the bank and then to work. Another day in life as we know it.

Moments in eternity.

This blog has moved. go to www.knightwise.com

Darkness is a lie. It is the absence of the light of truth.

Come to me ....

Who is in motion ? the traveler or the destination.

Sparse sunlight and a poem over an encripted connection.

Yo Karien ! Its Ya Birthday !

Have you taken your Fuckitall today ?

Looking back : an old repost from November 6th

Just wait one centon with all that fendergarb !

Who is trapped in a bunker, the one on the outside or the inside ?

The letters of life.

Snowscapes freeze my toughts...

March-ial Law !

Lets shoot Admiral Freebie !

Thinking of her...

Prelude to @-homeness.

A -life-dot-mobile.

Just ... Be !

Babylon burns on....

Fire in babylon ! ! ! !

Moving is like Christmas in reverse

Single point of Trouble !

You cannot masturbate with transplanted genitals.

Happyness is not the default value.

The big switch : A different view in teaching Linux.

Freewared Friday :)

www.knightwise.com beats Slashdot to the story :)

Giant colliding clouds and itsy titsy computers.

Another day.

Podcasting Pearshaped and a row over Madge.

Happy new year, site is up !!

Wonderfull banana.

Hey , your source is open !

White power !

One ring to rule them all.

May all of us find peace of mind.

Misfortune, fun and FAME !!!!

Another day another Blogg.

Chestnuts roasting on an ... Oh Crap !

So many idea's so little time.

Ow Yeey :) Breakdown day !

The truth is a lie with a poor sence of imagination.

Where eternity ends.. infinity begins.

When you put your reflection in front of the mirror.. who is who ?

Random poetry

Millions of ants and network problems.

Social life.net ?

The stangest parties.

The great conspiracy.

Meditations at warp nine.

Enter sweet sandman.

Stranded on the sandless shores.

I need a guI to make me happy !

Is there an non-E-Existence ?

****This is not a democracy.*****

When comes the morning dawn.

Ice cream Sunday.

Like the sands of time slip trough our hands.

Shifting of the shadows.

A new beginning.

This is not a democracy.*