Archive for August, 2008
Happy birthday to … Darthy.net
Just a short post today. I have 2 ‘big’ announcements though.
Today is the 1 year anniversary of this blog, yay ! I’m quite proud that I managed to keep up with it as well as I did. There’s about an average of 1 post a week, which is about what I intended 
Also, vacation started today for Katrien and me. I have 3 weeks and she has 4. So, good times ahead !
Must be off, going to a restaurant with Katrien’s parents for their 30 year anniversary.
House warming parties: The beginning
Woohoo my screen has arrived ! And the good news is, it’s a 26 inch instead of a 24 inch See my new desktop setup at the bottom of the post ! Geekiness ahoy !
This weekend included the first 2 in a series of house warming events. First up were the Toms (1, 2 and 4) with their girlfriends. We gave them the grand tour (that lasted maybe 10 minutes tops, it’s not that big a castle I’m afraid 
) and afterwards we just sat down for drinks and snacks. Tom2 insisted on trying out my mini remote helicopter that had been collecting dust. Glad to see it was put to good use again. We also played briefly with the Wii Balance Board, fun times
Yesterday I gave a ‘House Warming LAN’ for the guys. Arwen, Jan and Bouw were present while Katrien fled the house to avoid too much geekiness I rearranged the furniture a bit so the guys were sitting closer to me. We played several new games such as Rainbow Six 2, an excellent game for some coop madness. I’m sure we’ll play it again next time also. The guys left at around 2:30am resulting in me getting up at around 1:30pm today. It sure feels good to sleep in ! Katrien told me earlier that she’d be perfectly ok with having more of these LAN parties at our place on a Saturday since she can easily find stuff to do then, so yay !
Next up on the house warming front is my family whom is coming over on Wednesday. If you haven’t gotten an invite yet, don’t worry, it’s coming. It’s just a bit difficult fitting everyone in, but we’ll get there, just might take a little while.
Last week at work now before vacation. I’m not counting down
As I mentioned earlier, here is a picture of my new desktop setup along with a picture of the LAN:
Spending money
Last week was a bit quieter than the one before. During the week we went to see The Dark Knight. It really was a good movie, although I’m not sure whether I like this one best or Batman Begins. I’m probably the only one in the world saying that though judging by what I keep hearing about the last movie
On Friday I (and the whole of Belgium) had a day off. I spent it mostly by putting some new stuff in my computer and testing it. New in Vanguard (my computer) are: a new hard disk (1 TB), a TV Tuner card and 2 extra GB of RAM. Oh yeah ! If only my 24 inch monitor had arrived by now, stupid slow repair people !
We also decided on a terrace. It took us a while to find a suitable (not overpriced) company to do it. Anyways they can start in a few weeks and it’s not uber expensive, just … expensive. Sponsorship is welcome as always
While we were spending money we decided to go all in Ahum, not really, but we did book a short last minute vacation to Turkey. Sun, beach and relaxation, just what the doctor ordered after 2 years of construction stress. It’ll be good to be away from everything (including the wonderful rainy Belgian weather).
We’ve got some other exciting things coming up also. This Friday the Toms (and girlfriends) are coming over for a small house warming party. Nothing fancy but should be fun And then on Saturday the guys are coming for a grand LAN party. All in the spirit of celebrating Castle Jorn !
Also, in 2 weeks Efrat will be arriving from Israel, visiting us for about a week. We’ll be touring Belgium a bit and meeting up with some Dutch friends Good prospects, only 2 more weeks of work to go !
Bachelor day Tom9
Phew, time ! I wish I had more of it. I’m having a hard time finding the some to keep up with this site, but I’m doing my best My life currently can best be described with the word ‘busy’. But then again, I’m sure I’m not alone in that department.
Last weekend was rather busy. It started out sad though. Tom1′s aunt has passed away recently after a long fight with cancer. On Saturday morning I went to the funeral together with Tom2 and Kaat. It was a nice ceremony (as far as the word ‘nice’ can be used to describe these things). Cancer is such an evil thing, my thoughts are with the family.
The rest of the weekend was highly different than Saturday morning. After the funeral I met up with Arwen at the new Tones store that just opened here in Ghent. I needed some new stuff for Vanguard (for those not following my whole ‘naming things’-obsession, that’s my computer ). I walked out with a TV Tuner card, 2 extra GB of RAM, a 1 TB hard disk, an 8 GB USB stick, some cables and a PCI USB 2.0 card. The latter I need for some bug in the iPhone with certain USB chipsets. Tones was out of them though so I got it at Codima, I wonder how that store will screw me over this time I’ll be installing everything next weekend so I can do it all in 1 go. Hopefully my monitor will finally come back also, it’s been in repair for 3 weeks now.
After the shopping it was time for Tom9′s bachelor day. He’s getting married in September so he deserves a fun day out with the guys Of course, we had something special planned. We started the day with Sumo wrestling, we hired some suits and made a fool out of ourselves. It was great fun I’ll add some movies at the bottom of this post.
When Tom was exhausted from the wrestling it was time for more evilness. Oh yeah ! When we were done his body was covered with wax-strips. We then made him walk around to let innocent bystanders pull off the strips for 1 Euro. There were a lot of people wanting to make Tom suffer it seems, our faith in humanity was rewarded
Next on the plan were some evil assignments in Ghent. We went to the central square where we tied Tom up to a lantern pole with a lock that requires a number combination to open. This combination we wrote down on his butt. His mission was to ask girls that were passing by to set him free (inevitably having to show them his partially waxed behind). Oh it was glorious ! He managed to get free rather quickly though, that boy sure has some charm. Maybe it had something to do with the sexy latex police suit we made him wear
One thing that everyone noticed is that there were a lot of other people around having their bachelor parties. It added to the fun though
We then had 1 final assignment for Tom. But it was a challenge, or so we thought. He had to ask random girls in the street if he could cut off the labels of their bra’s and panties. We had expected this to prove rather difficult and were looking forward to some face slapping. To our surprise most girls were very cooperative, Tom collected over 30 labels in under an hour.
By then everyone was famished so it was food time. We had reserved a room in an Irish pub and had a really good deal on the meal. I have to admit, it was a very, very good steak. We also surprised Tom with a stripper. I’m only not too sure who liked her best though, Tom or Dimi
After dinner we went out in Ghent. Everyone was pretty tired though so we didn’t pull an all nighter. Looking back, the day was great fun ! As promised, I’ve included some movies below and pictures can be found here.
On Sunday it was time for another LAN party. We played a short game of Sins of a Solar Empire but it was too easy. I think we’ll wait until the patch comes out before playing the next round. Things should be a bit more balanced then. After dinner we played Call of Duty 4 and called it earlier than normal. The next LAN will be at my place in a week or 2, as a house warming party for the guys (well those guys at least, everyone will get his or her chance to come admire Castle Jorn ).
The movies:
Putting on our Sumo suits:
Me VS Tom9:
Getting Tom9 ready to wax:
Waxing Tom9:
Freeing Tom9:
Tom9 collecting labels:
Greetings from Castle Jorn
Yes ! Finally ! We moved 
The end of an adventure that lasted almost 2 years. The house we worked so hard for is finally being used. And I must say, it feels good
The days before the move were hectic. On one of them I painted for 12 hours straight, in a successful attempt to get our bedroom and the bathroom ready in time. Also the Telenet (internet, phone and tv) installer came by on Friday. And we moved a lot of boxes in advance.
Then on Saturday it was finally time for the big move. Tom1, Tom4, Kristof, Els and Katrien’s dad all came to help out. Also, Katrien’s mom came over the day before since she had to work on moving day. Thank you all again for that
It went really fluently, a bit after noon the last truck was unloaded and everything was already in the new house. I had expected this to last till early evening. The only thing remaining then was unpacking and putting everything back together. In fact, we are still unpacking (as you’ll be able to see on the pictures) It’ll probably still be a few days until everything has a new spot.
I’ve uploaded some pictures of our new home here. Do note that things are still a bit messy, but you know how it is after you’ve just moved