Therefore, this year brought me not one but two sets of Lego!
I can thank my GF for both the 8297 and the magnificent 8258.

Below are some stock-pictures of the two, I’ll add my own later on.

8297 – Off Roader

8297 – Buggy (B-Model)

8258 – Crane Truck

8258 – Duty Wrecker (B-Model)

Note: there also are two very large (and very nice) pics of the 8258:
Huge overview
Background

The little flame isn’t burning anymore, and it’s not coming back on. No matter how hard I try.

We kind of figured it would happen some day, as the system was built in back in 1992, and wih an average lifespan of about 15 years, ours has survived for about 2 more years. So no worries there, we saw it coming and now we have to to two things.
Firstly, the apparatus has to be mended on a very short term as I’m particularly fond of a hot shower instead of a *very* cold shower.
Secondly, we want to get ourselves a new one as our old one is old. (You must’ve seen that one coming!)

So I pick up the phone and called the telephone-number of the company with whom the previous owner has had a maintenance contract for the apparatus with. The nice lady on the other side looked up our address after I explained what was wrong and we made an appointment for the mechanic to pay us a visit and mend our heater. After a little while, she figured out the contract hasn’t been paid for (nor by the original owner, nor by me) and we had to cancel the appointment, as there wasn’t anyone to credit for the mending.

She gave me the following choice:
Either I signed a two year maintenance contract for the current heater, or I would buy a new one.

Well, that’s fine by me, but I want both! I want both my heater fixed, and after that I want a new one. The lady told me that was certainly *not* an option, as the contract could not be broken before the end of the two-year period. So, if I wanted a new heater, I should wait for two years and then come back. Funny thing is: buying a new one straight away was also not an option, as it would take at least until late november for the sales-guy to show up and give us advice on what to buy, after which it would take at least 2 weeks for the heater to be installed in our house. If you’ve been counting, that would indeed add up to mid december!

I asked the nice lady whether I heard it correctly, and spelled it out for her.
It boiled down to this: If I want my heater fixed right away, I would have to get a full two-year contract, but if I want a new heater I would not get any warm water until at least mid-december!
The lady said yes, and I thanked her for her time while wasting mine and hung up. Worst thing: the lady didn’t think of it as being unacceptable for me, and just was trying to sell me their products without thinking properly.

After this I called another company, who offered to mend the heater right away (today!) and an appointment to get a new one next wednesday!
Now that’s better.

EDIT:
The heater-repair-man has fixed out heater! After a quick peek, and an evenly fast fix he was in and out of our house within the hour.
Best thing of all: he knew the above problem from other clients, and has been trying to keep the fix as cheap as possible. (Meaning the heater is now error-prone and will have to be replaced soon; which we will!)
Maarten: now hot-water powered!

Because of a very sturdy navigator, I’ve seen all small villages between Rotterdam and Alphen a/d Rijn, but we managed to get there nevertheless.

PICS!

le="DSC_6004" rel="lightbox[pics741]" href="http://www.maartentijhof.nl/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/DSC_6004.jpg">

It’s my birthday today (I’m turning 25 this year), and I already got some presents.

As you might know by now, I’m a Lego-addict, and I’ve got a new present to add to my collection: the 8294!
It’s an excavator, and it fits nicely with the other pieces in the collection.

(And yes, I’m already scavenging for the 8293-set, which adds a motor to the excavator!)

More to come, as I’m expecting a special delivery to be dropped off at our house tomorrow.

End of long post.
And today, I went again!

They feature a great set of animals, all held in pretty enclosures. Their speciality are the vast amount of baboons, elephants and Humboldt’s penguins. We’ve had a blast cruising the zoo, yet found it to be about a 5 hour trip all around it. Too bad that’s about the time it took us to get there in the first place.

I also made a whole lot of pics with it attached to my camera, and as I promised: here’s an very small excerpt of those.

We had to wash our rabbits with special shampoo to cure a skin condition, which was troubling them and making one in particular very grumpy. Here’s them both undergoing ‘treatment’. I can safely assure you: bunnies don’t take lightly to water!

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to make comparison-pictures to show the difference my external flash makes. You’ll have to do with the above, and trust me on the previous point.

It’s called the Delft ABCD 2009 tournament, and enables players of all four levels to compete against each other in the levely scenery of the hall.
We have attended the tournament before, yet weren’t able to win anything. Last year I ended up losing the semi-final in the men’s singles, and didn’t get far with the other disciplines (mixed doubles or men’s doubles).

This year, all is different! I played in the C-level, which isn’t too bad. I’m wishing I could do better, but the B-level is just very tough. Maybe next year?
Together with a dear friend, we lost the men’s doubles game just before the semi-finals (3rd round) which was kind of disappointing. Luckily we lost to the winners of the tournament, so all’s not lost.
The men’s singles didn’t work out differently from last year; I lost the semi-final match. (Also to the winner of the tournament, although that’s a bad excuse.)

What cheered me up though was the fact that my girlfriend and I won the semi-final in the mixed doubles! So we were obliged to compete in the finals of a tournament! A first for us.
Sunday, around 4 PM (and about 2.5 hours late) we started playing the final match, and gloriously won! I’m still amazed at this.

Here’s the proof of my losing the semi-final and winning the tournament for mixed doubles on the C-level!
Winners & my tournament.

Next weekend is the next tournament. We’ll see what happens there!

Autumn is the most depressing time of year. Lots of wind, rain and cold stuff. But still too warm to get the snowy wintery fun that is due in a few months.
Suffering from colds throughout the entire Autumn seems to be my destiny this year, as my head has been clogged up non-stop for quite some time now. Ugh. Also, I’m refusing to be home sick at all, so it might just be me then.

At this very moment though, the guy from the supplier is installing our lavabo and the previously mentioned accessories and he’s due to be done in a few hours.
I’m really eager to see what it’s like and how it fits in the small space that is our bathroom.

Luckily, I’ve been able to get past all Oracle-install issues and finally got DBXE, SoaSuite 10.1.3.3, JDev 10.1.3.3 and BAM 10.1.3.3 running one the very same box.
All is working well, and with 10.1.3.4 being released just a few days ago, I’m due to do some more installing and upgrading soon. I’ll post some hints and tips to do some tedious jobs when installing the software, as it nearly always fails to install properly on the first try.

*runs to the coffee machine*