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Maand: april 2009

Education

Although we do not realize it at the time, at least I didn’t… eduction is so important for our future career. I’m member of this focus group of the ROC, it’s the school our trainees come from. To be honest, the school struggles with kind of a bad reputation. The group I’m in is formed to improve the quality of education and give teachers more insight into the market. My personal experience are divers, on one hand we recognize the general complaints, but on the other hand, we did have some excellent trainees too. 

The stage we are in now, is that of advising about the new curriculum, we think the focus should be on the basics before going into subject-specific software. One thing that amazes me is the role of the student in all of this. Of course, most ‘kids’ are sixteen, but still, some of them surely can contribute to the way they would like to be taught. 

What i’ve come to appreciate is that I’ve had a good education, even though at the time I believed my teachers weren’t all that bright 😉 Off course, I already was a genius 😉 Looking back I think they did a fairly good job!

32 years and one day

And that was my 32nd birthday!

The pie Nicole send was very tasty, and came in handy, because I had been so busy at work that by the time I went shopping for the small party (Loes still recovering means she can’t have too much action and needs rest) the good stuff was already taken ;). So loaded the car up with cola, chips and other snacks AND two of the infamous Albert Heijn Apple-Pies and went home.

The decorations for Loes’s welcome home were still hanging so al I needed to do is some small preparation. I text-ed some friends that they were welcome to come and celebrate. Because we didn’t know in what state Loes would be we didn’t plan ahead for my birthday, but as she was feeling o.k. a few last minute invites were send. Rene and Sandra, our friends from dancing class :S text-ed back that they would be there. And after my sister in law and her bf arrived Sandra suddenly said: “I think we’re missing something here…. is it your birthday????”. I was rolling of the floor laughing, they thought it was a ‘Loes is doing fine’ party! I did find it a bit peculiar they didn’t congratulate me, but as Caroline forgot that earlier that day because of the stress we’ve been under (Caroline also worked on the MVO-Award presentation the day before) I didn’t think much of it 😉

Who's my daddyAnyway, I had to do a lot of hosting, as Loes isn’t mobile yet, so didn’t talk to everyone much, but Marian was great, she helped out right away, so thanks for that! We haven’t solved the case of the cow yet…

And now it’s back to business as usual. Or at least I try.. I’m a little exhausted but will manage!

Who's my daddy?

Today TNT delivered this present to Loes, but we can’t find a card revealing the sender! It’s a cow you can heat in the microwave! if anyone can enlighten us?? please do?

Birthday Cake

Today is my birthday, and after receiving a new wallet from Loes I went off to work, because a few things had to be done today before I could enjoy my Birthday! My very dear friend Nicole skyped me this morning and told me that a gift was on it’s way! And a very nice gift it is! The local bakery deliverd the pie below! Thanks a lot Nicole, it isn’t as good as having you over, but that’s forgiven!

A Birthday gift
A Birthday gift

Hospital

Loes (my girlfriend) had to undergo surgery today. All went alright, she’s recovering fine. But how frustrating is the waiting… first of all waiting for a few weeks until there is room. Then when we got there today at 10:30 as ordered, it took 2 and a half hours for them to start prepping her! Why in heavens name did we have to come in at 10.30 then? 

But, it’s easy complaining, the people in the hospital probably are very busy and have to work under pressure, but nevertheless it would be great if they have a bit more consideration for the patient. 

On the upside, it was great weather, so when Loes went into the o.r. I went home to eat and decided to go back with the buggy! With 20 degrees celcius it’s nice and guess what, I can driver around the parking-fence so I don’t have to pay… 😉 (Don’t tell anyone!)

She’ll have to stay there at least ’till tomorrow, so I’m home alone and very tired, so I’ll head for bed now!

You're kidding?

Do you recognise this? When you start using a service from a certain company they treat you like royalty. But when, after you’ve been a good client for months and then you encounter a problem you can go .$#$%(($ yourself. We have this account with Strato AG, we have a virtual server there which we use for a few sites.

Last week I received an invoice for excess data traffic. We allegedly used up 900GB of traffic in January. I checked some stuff and found that in december ’08 we used 30gb traffic and in februari not even 5gb. So you can imagine my suprise about this gigantic increase in traffic. Off course it could be true, but I at least find it curious and want to know where this traffic came from.

So I called the helpdesk and they reacted like: you used this traffic and have to pay for it… When I asked them to specify this traffic they said it was my responsibility and they won’t do this. It’s like your electric company billing you 10.000 euros for one month and when you protest they respond with: “Prove us you didn’t use this much…”.

They can’t even tell me where to look for the info. I haven’t decided what to do next, but this really goes against my idea of customer-friendly. If someone has any tip… please let me know.