Diary 2014:

And we are lucky again. A snow front passes Wijchen and decorates our garden with a 5cm snow. Here just a few snapshots.

We invited my family for 2nd Xmass day. We asked everyone to bring at least 1, and maximum 5 pictures of his/her highlight this year (2014). This was a nice moment of sharing, and looking back. Before hitting the table, we made a family portret. That is the first picture. Finally we went to the table to 'gourmet'. This is always a joyfull time, as everyone can do his/her think, in his/her speed, with his/her creativity. Most noticable creative product was the stacked pancake, limited by shape with a cookie shaper.

Days are getting shorter, Nights are getting longer, And Christmass Holidays are soon there. Time to decorate the house and make the best out of the long nights.

On Friday the 31st of October the Fast50 of the fastest growing technology companies in the BeNeLux was published. GreenPeak Technologies (the company I work for) ended at the first place with a growth of 8757%. Next to being recognized as the fastest growing company, GreenPeak is invited to open the Stock Exchange in Amsterdam. The next pictures are a summary of this unique event.

The first movie is the Fast50 winner event on October 31st.

The second move the opening of the Amsterdam Stock Exchange on November 12th.

Flappie spends her Summer vacation in our garden: As her parents go to visit family far away over Summer, Flappie gets to spend her Summer vacation in our garden. Which is a big difference for her, as at home she gets to stroll around the family's living room every day. And here she had to live outside in a 6 m2 run.

June 16th, Reese dies: Within a couple of days Reese turned from a healthy, happy bunny into a handicapped, sad-looking bunny. First it looked like she was cripple, than she dragged her rear legs behind her, and the next day she stayed in the same spot the whole time. Looking at me seeming to wonder what was happening to her and pleading for an end to this situation.

June, July, August, Lotte can't eat: Early June I noticed a weird sound when Lotte was eating, and soon I noticed she has difficulty eating. This results in 3 surgeries within 2 months (first to remove 3 molars, than to remove 2 more and some leftover infection, and finally because her mucous membrane is torn); 3 antibiotics shots every week for 4 months; 5 train trips for her and me to Utrecht (for surgery and check up); and several weeks of day and night 2-hours-interval force feeding for her (and me).

November 25th, Pluisje dies: Since Pluisje was already over 10 years old, blind and deaf, and showing symptoms of dementia we had been thinking that she could die anytime soon for the past 4 years, so this did not come very sudden. But still, she was my most favorite hugging-subject (with her one eye she could not always see me coming). On Saturday Pluisje did not come to the food nap, so I checked on her. She was breathing and had a heartbeat, but did not really react to me.

November 21st, Bella arrives and November 31st, Bella dies: I got notice that somebody dumped a bunny in Wijchen-Noord. I agreed to see if she could live with my bunnies. Immediately she was friendly with the others, I fell in love with her and because she was so beautiful named her Bella. The poor thing came with a broken leg, a broken tail, a very severe case of ear mites, and was weighing only 5 kg (A Blue Jays Giant like her should have 6 to 7,5 kg on her body). But this sweet and joyful bunny had only a few days of happiness in our care; after 10 days, despite 'eating my ears off' she lost another kilogram of bodyweight, had difficulty breathing, was showing severe symptoms of pain and also could not use her rear legs anymore. On the way to the veterinarian I promised her to end her pain before the evening, not realizing the only way to do that was through putting her to sleep for ever...

Bink, Einstein and Lotte: After Lotte widowed twice within a week, I decided to put the 3 left over bunnies all together, no separated runs anymore.

My first company day in years! Everyone is expected in Antwerp in Hotel Radisson Blue in the afternoon. After a presentation by Cees, with some Q&A, we go into a bus and make a boat tour through the harbor of Antwerp. While enjoying a beer we can enjoy the weather and have many chats and laughters. By foot we walk to our dining place. Before arriving, we go to the roof of the MAS museum and made quite some nice pictures. Finally we arrived at the diner place. They had just opened after a renovation (which was not finished yet). It lasted till 12. We walked slowly back to the hotel and had every now and then a stop to enjoy many of the nice Belgian beers. Next morning we followed a class: Fencing. After a short training, we started duels. By 12 we had to check out and start the weekend.

We knew that the roof (slightly tilted part) was still the original one from 1988 and sometimes it was leaking in the garage in one corner, but not always. Finally we decided to repair/replace the roof. And that was a good choice. First of all, the leakage was caused by the gutter, which is part of the roof. The water would stay in the gutter instead of drained away. In one corner the wood under the "betumen" was completely gone. Another good reason was the isolation of the roof. The material used looks thick, but has a very low insolation value. Now we have close to 10cm PIR isolation with an R value of 4. A third reason is that the roof is now prepared for possible solar cells. The ventilation pipes have been moved to corners, allowing the usage of the 60+ square meters to its max.

For the 2 years that we (know that we will) own this house, we have been thinking and talking about changing the entrance to the house. It was not yet the plan but starting with something else: Screens. We got screens before the summer. To make that happen Henk removed the large multiplex plates from the 'overhang'. Electricity was added. Once the screens were installed, the multiplex could go back, or replaced by Trespa. The last one we decided to do. However including a missing part, being in front of the front-door. Tijs Guelen got the job which he, as expected, did with the highest quality and materials in time. The newly created overhang needed a post to keep the overhang at its place. This post needs to be at a certain place. We already had the plan to bring the entrance back to its original state: Stairs in front. The steps that we selected weight 175kg, which is just too much for me to lift. So we asked a company to install the steps. Knowing the steps of the stair, the location of the post could be determined. Finally the stair and overhang are ready. But now the 'rollator' path is not connected anymore. The intention was to make it work again for a year, and then remove the 'coniferen' and redo the biking path. As it turns out, the coniferen were removed in less than 2 hours work with a machine. Now the biking path is redone as we intended it. The only thing remaining is to put up a 'maze' fence that will be occupied with a green plant soon (Klimop).

The grand finale! We kept the best hike for the last day of our vacation. We drive to Champex, take the ski lift up the first 700m, than climb 700m, and finally descend 1400m back to the car. A tough but great hike.

Again a day for resting.

Today we leave the camp site to walk via Léchère to the end of the valley, and where the valley splits we plan not to go towards Grand Saint Bernard, but instead keep on the right side to Petit Col Ferret, Grand Col Ferret, and back via La Peule. Again we cross the border with Italy. At Grand Col Ferret a bus load of Australian hikers crowded the place. Quite odd for mountains. In La Peule we stopped for some drinks. Afterwards we learned that this is one of the best places for Croutte....!

Today we take a big rest after the 10 hours on our feet yesterday. The only walking we do today is locating the bridge from the top of the camp site crossing the river, to find the start of the trail to Bivac Dolent (La Maye).

Today we wanted to start early, because we knew it was going to be a long day walking. For the same reason we drove the car to the end of the valley, to safe us some time and energy. Still, we left the car at 9 am and returned at 7pm; while only taking a break at the hospice Saint Bernard for 45 minutes!

Today we take it easy, we only hike for 2 hours on the right side of the valley towards Ferret and 2 hours back on the left side.

For starters this vacation we decide to walk to Champex, from which we remember a bus schedule can drive us back to La Fouly at the end of the day. This hike means we walk out of the valley (Val Ferret) and into the valley and up to Champex Lac.

After 9 hours driving (with a lunch break at Matthias' en Pascale's in Münchenstein) we arrive at the campsite Les Glaciers in La Fouly, Val Ferret, Switzerland.

The yearly BBQ was last week cancelled due to lack of neighbours signing up for the event. Just 2 days ago, Bert and I had a short chat and we concluded that a lot of our direct neighbours had signed up. So we took the change and whomever we could reach, we asked if they could signed up and join for a last minute BBQ. The location: our place, the grill and meat from Bert. Excellent plan and evening.

On regular bases we walk around 'de Meer'. This evening we noticed a less common bird. I quickly made some pictures with my mobile. It turns out to be an Aalscholver. The bird is on the protection list. There are about 500 couples in the Netherlands. However fishermen don't like the birds as they fish as well.

Very good friends of us visited Wijchen and stayed at our place. The guestroom is for the kids. Matthias and Pascale sleep in the livingroom on inflatable matrasses. The weather is great and on Friday we visit Groene Heuvels. Pascale and the kids take the car with some stuff. Matthias, Marjorie and I bike. We stayed outside the sun, although that one picture of us shows we can use some color. On Sunday Matthias and I bike with the Julian and Anouk on the back of our bikes to de Beerendonck to catch some water snails. We did not swim and came back just in time before a thunderstorm with heavy rain started.

Today I found this big snail on a rabbit toy. I put it on a table and made a couple of close-up pictures. The funny thing is that the toy can roll. And it did when the snail tried to get down. How it reached the top is still a question to me. Another nice creature is a woodpecker (specht). Normally you don't see this bird a lot. However this one stayed for at least 15 minutes until his/her stomage was filled with seeds from the fat-ball.

Today we came together, the whole family in Bottrop. This is a little odd as the summer is clearly there, with nice temperatures. So getting inside in a freezer is special. Another good reason is everyone can have a change to learn skiing or snowboarding and enjoy this doing it together. So my father got his first ski lessons shortly before he turns 70. Chris joined him as a newbee. Jeroen, Desiree and Vivian can already ski a bit, but they joined the class as well. Daniëlle and I boarden, where Marjan, Bas and Robert skied. Alex and Jessica took their first snowboard lessons. Marjorie and my mother stayed in the restaurant. At lunch we came together and exitment was in the air. Quickly do another couple of rounds and then drive another hour back to Wokrestaurant Beekbergen for a good diner.

Our adventure working for NVIDIA lasted very short. Too short. A 5 months assignment is too short to create valuable IP. All our collective efforts to attract another firm to the Netherlands to recrute an excellent chip-design-group failed. One by one we accepted jobs at other companies. It is now exactly 1 year ago we started working for NVIDIA (21st of May, 2013) and time to meet again with ex-colleagues. We organized a BBQ at our place. From the 20, 17 came, and many brought their family and plenty of food and drinks. Here a collection of all pictures from a very nice day.

A little more than 1 year we live now at the lake (it's not a lake). The view from our house is great and while walking every evening at least around 1 of the 3 parts of the lake, we see a lot of young water birds. We have seen so fare young birds from: Grijze Gans (Grey Goose), Waterhoentje(Moorhen), Meerkoet(Coot), Fuut(Grebe), Zwaan(Swan) and Eend(Duck). The last waterbird with young chickens that is present is the Nijlgans (Egyption Goose). This is the smaller but more colorfull version of the Grey Goose. Smaller also comes with more aggressiveness. Be carefull with this bird with youngs. The Goose are clearly present, like the Swan. The smaller birds are faster. Waterhoentje has these tiny black fure-balls with red/orange beak. The Meerkoet young are not than tiny, and are not black but rather greyish. The Fuut with youngs can be recognized because it is swimming, and not diving. If a second Fuut is near, it is likely a couple with the non-diving-Fuut carrying the youngs at her/his back. The Eend was the first one with youngs. The mother duck is the only one feeding/raising the chicks. Not really a family. I rather prefer the Goose, as both parents are 100% in share equaly divided. We can see quite some activity from our house, and that is where I added a couple of pictures.

An old colleague with his wife and kids visit us today. Lukas and I shared the same office room the first 5 years of our working life. Yvonne invited us beginning of this year at their place. We had clearly some catching up to do. Our memory had to go back to Poland were we met them when they lived there. Today they visit us, and Lukas and I first ran a 12km in our neighbourhood. The girls started playing LEGO and soon everyone joined.

For the 10th year we drive to Wiriehorn to celebrate a week of snow with our friends Matthias and Pascale and kids. Surprisingly there was quite some snow at the beginning of the week. For March you can never be sure at a 1000 meter elevation. We had a straight 8 days of sunshine and enjoyed the snow a lot. Mostly in the morning we went snowboarding/skiing while the kids had their classes. In the afternoon we went either sleigh riding or skiing with the kids. The next pictures are an impression of the beautifull week we had.

For the fourth time Paul organised the ex-ST-Ericsson ski-trip. End 2010 about 155 colleagues were laid off, and as a result the 4th week of 2011 the ex-STE-skitrip was started. This year we went to Saalbach-Hinterglemm. And Officially now all colleagues are ex-ST-Ericsson, as in April 2013, Onno, Gerrit, Paul, Stefan and I were part of the last 55 colleagues being laid off. A very nice house (20 sleeping places, 3 bathrooms, 3 toillets, kitchen, large dining room, ski room etc) was arranged by Paul and Gino. We could leave the house on skis (or snowboard) in the morning and come back in the evening at just a 20 steps away from the house. Downtown was a 15 minute walk, with many, many choices of restaurants, apres ski, and places to party. This is a sharp contrast to last year when we were in France, Trois Vallees. Besides ski-ing, there is nothing to do. There is not even a choice in restaurants. So what we did was: 8 hours ski-ing/snowboarding + 8 hours apres-ski / dining / more apres-ski + 8 hours sleep. Okay: That sounds pretty ideal, however the 8 hours sleep can be reduced to several hours sleep for some of us. Next pictures are an impression of what we did. The first days there was not that much snow, but from Tuesday on, some snow came in, and on Thursday evening, it started snowing heavily, resulting in 25cm of new powder.

Here 3 movies by Richard

When driving back from Ruhpolding/Basel we decided to plan a visit to Kiel pretty soon. At home one email was written and Friday we left for Kiel. Compared to Ruhpolding (9 hours drive), Kiel is next door. We were happy to see Katharina, Uwe-Carsten and Amelie again. On Saterday we went shopping. The picture below is how that goes. The men look for jeans. The women chat. Amelie plays a game. Do you believe that?