Woohoo vacation time ! No more getting up early for work for the next 2 weeks, gotta love it This vacation will be a chill out (pun intended) one, not planning on doing anything too exciting.
But before the vacation started I took a course on WF and WCF (both .NET technologies). WCF looks neat, WF looks good for certain situations but I don’t see myself using it often.

The most exciting news currently is that we ordered a new TV. It’s going to be a beauty. I doubted for a very long time between LCD and Plasma but in the end I went for the latter. I was pretty anti-Plasma to begin with though, but after some reading it seems that most of the counter arguments have been fixed and the image quality is just so much better. I’ll post pictures when it arrives.
Oh and to accompany it I also got a new PlayStation 3. Now we can also play Blu-Ray movies and play games in high definition. Most of the games are wrapped Christmas presents though, so I’ll be trying them out later.

Well this is vacation so not going to spend too long on this blog. Merry Christmas to everyone though ! And if I don’t post before New Year, best wishes for that as well

And again I’m slow at updating the site … my bad. The Friday before last we went to eat at Els & Kristof’s along with our back neighbors. They made some really yummy pizza. Next time is our turn But first there’ll be new year’s eve over here where Katrien will make some yummy stuff (that I’ll be tasting tonight !).

The people who put down our terrace also finished leveling our garden. The big pile of earth that Arwen and I tried to move a couple of months ago is now gone … defeated at last ! It’s still a mud pool though, grass will only be for in spring

Oh yeah, the Saturday before last Katrien and I went shopping at a shopping mall (which isn’t really all that customary here in Belgium, we usually have streets with shops, not malls). It was really great, better than I expected. So many stores with electronics ! And a nice game shop where we got some geeky t-shirts ! We got some for ourselves and bought one for Val for Christmas. You probably need to play World of Warcraft in order to get the joke though

Last Friday the guys and I went to see The day the Earth stood still. It was an ok movie … it started out strong but the ending was kinda disappointing. I had low expectations though so I still walked out of there not feeling too bad

The weekend I spent in Holland at Valery’s. We did the couch potato thing. We played a lot of Wii (Raymond Raving Rabbids TV Party which was quite good). I gave Val her geeky t-shirt. I’ll post it below I have no picture of my own t-shirt though but it isn’t as funny as the female one anyways. But now there are more geeks in the world, yay ! We also went to see Madagascar 2, which was pretty funny Definitely one of the better movies I’ve seen this year. All in all a fun yet lazy weekend, the way I like them !

Finally, our terrace is finished. They still need to level the garden though, but that is something I expect them to do soon, they already brought over their equipment for it But oh boy is it nice to finally get inside without taking a pile of earth with you. Woohoo ! Pictures of the terrace can be found here.

It’s been a busy 2 weeks (yes I’m behind on my blogging). Last week I had my 6 monthly evaluation at work. It went fine. Talked a bit about my ambitions and what direction I want to go in. We also talked about certificates. To be blunt, I’m not a big fan, however after hearing the advantages for the company I gave in and agreed to take it. First exam is somewhere in the summer, so still plenty of time

We also had a GetTogether event last week, this time about PMI. Not my favorite topic but it was nice seeing everyone again. I also found out that my colleague Davy went on almost the exact same trip to California as Katrien and I want to do next year. So I questioned him and his girlfriend a bit. When the time comes I’m going to ask him to give me a list of hotels he stayed at and such, it might come in handy. And I’ll end this paragraph with a message: beware Dana, evil is coming ! Muhahahaha !

On Friday Els came over for dinner. Kristof was going to his martial arts training and she would have been home alone otherwise. We decided to watch the movie Space Chimps. The trailer looked so awesome but the movie was a huge disappointment. We turned it off halfway. I guess since I picked the movie the girls can choose next time … god help me

Arwen and Kirsten came over on Saturday evening. Kirsten hadn’t been to my new place yet so I showed him around. We mainly spent the evening playing a game of Sins of a Solar Empire, it was pretty fun but a bit too easy. We did keep Katrien up a bit it seems though, we really need to find a solution for the noise that is amplified by the stairwell.

On Sunday we had a LAN party at Bouw’s. We gave Call of Duty 5 a try but didn’t like it that much so we switched back to Farcry 2. A new game we tried out was World in Conflict, we played coop against the computer and it was pretty fun. For kicks we also messed around with Guitar Hero World Tour on the PS3. I did the drums but oh boy did I suck, that game is harder than it looks !

We also had another poker evening. I lost big time. Went all in with nothing … I guess I need to work on my bluffing The guys also tried to get me drunk by increasing the alcohol percentage in my glass every time I went to the toilet … and although I was a bit happy in the end they failed miserably :p Almost everyone contacted me the next day to ask me if I was ok but I felt nothing, I rock !

Last thing worth mentioning (as far as I remember, getting old and all) was that Tom4 and I went to look at a location to organize the Queaso LAN party. It was in the Zebrastraat in Ghent for those of you who know it. I must say, it was pretty awesome, not to mention flexible. Now all we need to do is convince our boss. So if you read this by any chance Filip, you know what to do

Wow this was quite the wall of text. But I think I made up for my slacking