Happy 2012 everyone ! Let’s hope it’s not the end of the world this year

I had a great New Year’s celebration. Arwen, Bouw and Annelies came over and we had a nice evening. Bouw gave me a hand painted D&D Cleric figurine which is awesome. I’ll use it tomorrow for sure during our monthly session ! Other than that the food was awesome, there were fireworks (which surprisingly didn’t wake up Finn) and we had good fun

Talking about celebrations, last Monday was Finn’s first birthday. It goes so fast ! It was a nice party. Both Katrien’s and my folks came over for cake and the Dark Lord got to wear a crown, it suited him well He also got a lot of presents, including a Fisher Price car garage from Katrien and myself which he used to push around for support while walking, funny to see I’ve uploaded some pictures here.

Then for some bad news, one my eardrums has ruptured again. It happened the same way as last time, just a plain common cold but the canal to my ear got stuck so the eardrum ruptured because of the pressure and I was deaf on one side. It’s better now, I can hear things, but it’s gone downhill a bit again since last Thursday. Before then I thought it was almost completely healed even. I’m going to the doctor on Tuesday, so I’m hoping for good news for the USA trip which is rapidly approaching and hope it doesn’t cause any issues there. Keep them crossed for me !

I’ll start this post by wishing everyone a merry Christmas

Talking about Christmas, we had a party for it at work last week. Was a long time ago since we last had a party as Thomas Cook, so that was cool It was also partially for Music For Life. It was a good party, with some people drinking just a tad too much, which was funny Not me though, I was the designated driver. The music was a bit too loud though, glad I bought a set of earplugs a while back which I carry on me at all time. I guess I am becoming old

My vacation started a week ago so that’s pretty awesome. I did most of my chores already so the next 2 weeks should be focused around relaxing. Tomorrow we’ll start that by doing another D&D session, really looking forward to that ! New year’s eve will also be celebrated here at Castle Jorn. Arwen, Bouw & Annelies are coming over for dinner, which is super easy for Finn as he can just sleep in his own bed. Should be fun ! And Katrien is making a lot of yummy stuff !

That’s actually it, nothing much to report except that I’m taking it easy at the moment Happy holidays everyone !

I’ll continue where I left off the previous time, Blizzcon ! I’m a bit torn on that one. It was great to see the new Starcraft 2 units and get some news on Diablo 3 but on the other hand: no release dates and the new WoW expansion just looks … silly. Definitely not convinced about that one. In any case it was a nice evening with the mates

The same weekend we completed the geek fest with the annual Facts convention. I found it a bit disappointing. Sure it was bigger, but it was way too packed. Also there weren’t any really cool special guests and the Q&A room was the same as last year, in the middle of the big hall where you couldn’t understand a thing the speakers were saying. I think next year I’ll only go if there are some really cool special guests (Felicia Day !).

We recently started taking Finn to baby swimming classes, basically just letting him get at ease with water. He loves it, he’s really at home in the pool, just like his daddy when he was young Some pictures can be found here. Warning: cuteness alert

We also visited Ilse & Nick in their new home. They moved to a place closer to us and their house is really awesome (and big !). They really made a good deal on it I think. Still some work on it, but a lot of potential. In any case, it was great seeing them again

Yesterday I went to visit Bouw so he could give me an introduction session to Warhammer, which was great fun. Afterwards we met up with Arwen to go see a theater play where Aaron (Arwen’s brother) is playing in. It was extremely funny, great times It was ages ago since I went to a play (not a big fan, which I’m blaming on childhood overdose) but I had a lot fun

Welcome back !

Last month was a bit slow in the news department, but here we go

I had to go to London a couple of times for work. Normally I leave in the morning and I’m back in the evening, but last time I stayed the night at a very fancy hotel so that was nice. On the way home we passed by the Apple Store and saw a lot of people in line to get the iPhone 4S the next morning, crazy. Last trip was also very productive, the project is finally taking shape so that’s good. Will probably have to go over there every 2 weeks from now on though.

Talking about phones, I now have Mango on my Windows Phone 7. Great update, it runs even more fluently now. The voice integration is also pretty neat, although since most people text me in Dutch it’s not all the useful at the moment. I hope they bring different languages to the system soon. In any case at this point I would recommend a Windows Phone 7 to everyone.

Last weekend was Jan’s 30th birthday party. I finally got to see the Oemta (some pub in Ertvelde) up close. I’ve been hearing about it for years but had never set foot in it, so it was good to put an image to all the talk. The party was great fun, a shame I had to drive home else I could have stayed a lot longer. Some people went dressed up (theme Quentin Tarantino) so that was pretty funny to see. I’d show pics but some people asked me to censor them

Latest USA trip update: internet for the RV is coming along nicely. We have a 3G stick, I ordered a router that supports it and I called T-Mobile USA for an unlimited internet plan. I love it when a plan comes together

Next week it’s time for the annual get together for Blizzcon. I hope they have a big announcement to make but I’m a bit afraid it’ll be a let down again this year. But time will tell !

Let’s begin with the main reason for this post: Finn pictures ! Tom1 came by to do a professional photoshoot of The Little Monster. You can see them here. Normally Tom only does wedding shoots I think but he made an exception for us, so a big thanks for that I still have a ton of other new pictures of Finn I took myself but I’ll post those another time, not to make mine look too bad compared to these pro ones

Talking about babies, I can also bring the joyous news that Els & Kristof have become parents again. Their second son was born last Thursday and goes by the name of Bent. So a big congrats to them both

So what else has been going on ? Last week I went to London for a day to have a very long meeting. No time again for shopping though. The Disney store is very close to the Thomas Cook office and every time I walk by there I have to stop myself from getting a fluffy for Finn

We also had our first D&D session with Benny playing the Dungeon Master. It was great fun ! We needed to do a little tweaking to our characters we noticed but otherwise things went great. Looking forward to the next session later this month, which will also conclude our first (3 part) adventure.

Oh and also important news: the USA trip is completely booked. No way back now, awesomeness: here we come ! And it’s only 6 months away !

Enjoy the pictures !

I’ll start where I left off last time, my vacation. We went to the festival of Ghent and had a bit of luck with the weather. It didn’t rain (probably the only day it didn’t). We had a good time although the festival wasn’t as good as usual in my opinion, it missed that magical atmosphere. We did meet up with some colleagues already there and I also ran into Inge, it had been ages since I saw her so that was awesome

The rest of the vacation was as predicted: rainy. It’s still like that even, we really didn’t have a summer at all which kinda sucks. I even bought a great barbecue finally but doesn’t look like we’ll have a chance to use it

Talking about buying stuff we also bought our new furniture. 2 big closets, 1 low closet, a new dining table (big enough for gaming of course ) and a small table for in the sitting room. It’s probably not 100% what we both wanted but that was impossible to find. We didn’t get new chairs yet though, that will be an even more difficult choice

I’m back at work now for the past 2 weeks and it’s been hectic and that won’t change for the next week. I did go to London unexpectedly and before you ask, no I didn’t notice anything of the riots. I guess we were in the good part of the city. I did manage to finalize everything for the USA trip with some great help from my colleagues, final booking will be in the coming week. Yes !

So to conclude let’s talk about the geek stuff ! The guys and I have leveled our geekiness trait, we started playing good old fashioned Dungeons & Dragons. We had a session at some friends of Bouw to introduce us and we all loved it. Benny was kind enough to volunteer (well with a little bit of nudging ) to be the Dungeon Master so we’re off to a good start ! Next week we’ll have our first session, very curious how that will go !
I also ordered the Blizzcon livestream again for this year so that should be great to watch as well ! I really hope they’ll come up with a Diablo 3 release date though, it’s about time !

Tonight Katrien and I are going out to dinner, Finn is staying over at his aunt so it’s time for mommy & daddy to have some “our” time

Hello and welcome back to Jorn’s blogging extravaganza !

What have I been up to in the past month ? We’ll start with the work related things. At the end of June I went to Ukraine again for work. It was a very productive (but extremely busy) trip. For once we didn’t have our schedule filled with interviews but we could work a bit with the people there so that was nice. We also did a team building event where we did soccer and volleyball. I scored my very first soccer goal in my life, I managed to get past the last defender (Kristof) and scored. So long sucker ! Afterwards we had a great barbecue with the team, with excellent meat. Yum !
The only other thing that remains to be said about work is that currently I’m on vacation until the end of July. So yeah, that’s good news also

First thing I did in my vacation was visit Valery. It had been since before Finn’s birth that I was over there so it was great being back, we had a lot of fun. We went to see the last Harry Potter movie which was pretty awesome and went to the Japanese restaurant again. Good stuff We finally started playing Portal 2, I had that game laying around for 2 months. It’s pretty awesome in multiplayer, really something up our alley. In the end I stayed a night longer than forseen, was having “fun” with shrinking and extending partitions

The rest of the vacation looks to be rather calm. The weather here sucks and will continue to do so for the next 2 weeks, nothing but rain. Nice. Tomorrow I’m going to the festival of Ghent for the first time this year. I’m going together with some people from work. I hope the raingods will smile upon us and stop for an evening, but I guess we’ll see.

In the past month I’ve seen 2 other movies as well, X-Men First Class (which was awesome as well) and Transformers 3. The last one, while spectacular, wasn’t really all that great in my opinion. I am a big fan of the franchise (cartoons) and well, they could have done better. Since this is the third movie I knew this going in, but there is always hope If you’re looking for pure action, this movie will not disappoint though.

Looking forward there is one other exciting tidbit I’d like to share, in 2 weeks we will book the camper and flights for our epic USA East Coast Road Trip Adventure. we are getting a great price through Thomas Cook so we’ll be able to come home with even more gadgets ! I wish it was March already !

Well I’m off to enjoy the rest of my vacation … cya on the other side !

Hi all,

Just a short post. I uploaded 2 new picture sets: my dad’s wedding and Finn’s fourth and fifth month.

Enjoy !

The month has flown by so very fast ! Lots of things have happened, let’s go over them in chronological order

First up is Techdays 2011. I actually wasn’t planning on going to this conference at first since I wanted to focus more on people management, but in the end the tech bug bit me anyways I saw some interesting sessions about Windows Phone 7, which I’m trying to do some development for at the moment to keep my programming skills up to par. So far I’m having fun with it but don’t have a lot of time to put into it unfortunately. But otherwise the conference was ok, I would say better than last year even. Scott Hanselman was epic as always

The following weekend we went to a baby party of Ella (daughter of Liesbeth & Enzo). It was a rather grand event ! So many people and so much yummy food ! They sure know how to spoil people

Next up, my dad’s wedding. It was a rather informal affair, which is definitely a good thing ! In the morning there was limo though to pick them up to go to the city hall where there was a short ceremony. In the afternoon they just put some tables in their little courtyard and people just came by. There were some people I hadn’t seen in a very long time so that was nice to see them again My siblings and I gave my dad and Christine a Thomas Cook Travelbox, a short city trip inside of Europe. Should be fun and I got to sponsor work a bit

It was a week related to weddings, in the weekend there was a party for my grandparents’ 60 year wedding anniversary. My cousin and uncle where there also and I don’t get to see my family at that side often so that was great to be able to catch up.

We’re almost at the end, the last thing I did that was cool was an awesome Supreme Commander 2 game last weekend with Arwen, Bouw, Kirsten and Benny. It’s been a very long time since a strategy game was such a close call but still a win ! It took us hours and it was great fun So much fun even that we’re doing it again next weekend ! Geeks for the Win ! Tomorrow I’m going over to Arwen’s again for a small barbeque … the weather won’t be awesome but at least dry Oh and while talking about the guys, we’ve also got our first appointment with a travel agency to have a look at our big USA trip in 2012, soooo looking forward to that !

Before closing I of course just have to talk a little bit about Finn as well, the little Lord Awesomeness ! He’s still growing very fast, he’s over 7kg already. he’s also moving from milk to vegetable and fruit paste and he loves it (even though he gets half of it all over him) ! He does have a bit of allergies but nothing that most likely won’t pass once he’s older. In a couple of weeks he will have to go to daycare once Katrien starts working again so that’ll be a big change, very curious how that will go !

I also have a lot of pictures to post (my dad’s wedding, party of my grandparents, Finn …) but I’m too lazy to do it now Maybe next time !

We’ll start off the post with some additional baby news. 2 new babies have arrived into the world ! Amaat Aldwin Audooren (son my of brother and Joke) and Bent Leuntjens (son of Tom1 & Wenti). The baby boom continues !

Talking about babies, Finn is growing very fast. I’ve uploaded some new pictures so you can see for yourself. You can see them here. Enjoy the cuteness !

I’ll quickly cover some other tidbits (don’t feel like doing a very lengthy post to be honest ).

I got a new cellphone, Samsung Omnia 7. A Windows Phone 7 device. I was originally going to go for Android (because as you no doubt know, Apple is the Axis of Evil) but the user interface and untidiness of the OS put me off a bit. So far I’m very happy with my Windows Phone 7 (it was also a lot cheaper than a decent Android device) but you have to take into account it’s still a version 1.0 so some features are missing or not completely finished yet. Still, the OS shows great potential and I’m happy with my choice so far

Next up, we planted a hedge. It’ll take a year or 3 for it to fully grow but still, it’ll be nice. It’s very warm weather at the moment and we planted it a bit too late, so let’s hope it survives

Well that’s it for now, laters !