friedkitten.com - insanity included.

My last day off from work was spent well I'd say : went to Vlissingen this morning and spent the day at the beach with the girl and kids. It was quite foggy when we arrived - we couldn't even spot the water from 5 meters out - but it cleared up nicely and around noon the sun broke through and started burning fiercely.

Applied plenty of sunblock and so far it seems I didn't burn too bad. Hope the slight red color will turn into a tan over the next couple of days.

That's it for now, gonna log and see if I can find all the gear I need to head back to work tomorrow.

Someone is drilling about a hundred holes in my house as I write this entry, hence the reference to cheese. They'll - at least I expect them to do so - also fill those back up afterwards, once they're done insulating the cavity walls. This relatively small investment should pay off quite well over the course of time, with ever increasing energy prices. I'll never be able to make the current house a Low Energy House, because to do so would require extensive changes, which are realistically only possible when taken into account while building.

The cherry on top of the cake is the fact that 42% of my investment is paid for through various local and federal government grants.

In case anyone is interested : Pluimers Isolatie.

Cheese, cake... could it be that I'm slightly hungry? Off for a bite!

Should have been in bed hours ago, but spent too much time listening to vkgoeswild at vkgoeswild.

Don't blame me if you spend a couple of hours listening to her work the piano like she does :)

I am probably the owner of the best insulated shutter enclosures (DIY that is) in the country, after finishing up today. It's been a long day of hard work, but sure enough it'll pay off I guess. I had to rip the current enclosure to shreds because someone deemed it necessary to use screws and nails randomly, to cover them up, before finishing off with a layer of paint. Sure enough that left me with no clues to find out how it all was built, let alone take a well thought through approach for disassembling it.

While closing off the cavity walls - which was the point entirely - I replaced the EPS insulation panels (Styrofoam) dating back from the 70's (I'm just guessing) with 40mm Jackodur XPS (extruded polystyrene foam) panels, which should give me better insulation value and a tighter fit (the old panels were sort of thrown in there, whereas I sealed everything up nicely).

So, what's left to do tomorrow? I have to get a large wooden panel, which I'll cut to the right size so I can build a new enclosure. Seems all to simple when compared to today's demolition derby, grin.

Note : using a circular saw inside is a bad idea. I'll be eating dust for weeks.

I just finished taking down the first shutter enclosure because I'm having my cavity walls insulated next week. In order to prevent the insulation material from just falling through, those need to be closed up. Had I known all that upfront, I'd have asked the guys that installed the new windows last year to close the cavities up as well, but I didn't. Which makes for quite a bit of work to do myself now.

One more to go...

Note : a combination of PU foam and regular silicon sealant on your hands makes quite a mess. Don't know yet how I'll ever get these clean again. It can always wait for it to wear off, lol.

About two weeks ago I ordered a new DC jack for the laptop of my partner, as it clearly was broken. How did I know that for certain? I took the complete machine apart and took a look :)

Well, yesterday the part finally arrived and today I headed over to dad to see if he could help out replacing it. I guess I could have done it myself too, but I lack the proper tools and the experience, and working on a couple of hundred dollars piece of sensitive computer equipment may not be the right way to practice. Anyway, two hours later the DC jack was replaced, the secondary fault in the power adapter wiring has also been isolated and fixed and that machine is back in working order and now charging up. Thanks dad!

On Sunday I picked up my own new machine and promptly installed a ton of updates for it. One of them being a new BIOS upgrade, which is something that I've' done quite a few times already in my life. Always a bit of a risk - if it fails, you may end up with an very expensive brick instead of a computer - but I decided to go ahead anyway. It's better to lose one when not that much data is on it, opposed to brick it when it's full of data.

Sure enough the BIOS update went without a hitch, the machine rebooted - which was expected - and then... it promptly entered the BIOS setup again and complained about a reading error, no matter what I tried (/me shits pants). Erm... yikes! OK, so that didn't work, although when exiting the BIOS setup, the machine boots as expected. Weird? Yes, weird.

Ok, second reboot, same thing happens, it enters BIOS setup mode again, complaining about a reading error - even though it is showing the new BIOS version as being installed (old version : 1405, new version 3506). Well, let's do it again and see what happens, right? One new BIOS update later (same 3506 version) the machine is working perfectly, no more complaints about read errors etc. Good!

Only thing left now is to get rid of the AMD driver complaining about a .dll being missing on startup - AMD driver updates are always crappy - but that's the least of my concern. Everything works nicely and fast too, so I'm happy. I'll look into the driver issue some day :)

Note : for those of you that got slightly worried about last post, don't be. April Fools day 2012, you know? I'm not moving to Canada just yet.

If you recall my previous post - you should, it's only been like two or three days, who keeps count? - you know I was fed up with quite a lot of things and decided to make a couple of changes. Well, it may come as a surprise to some, maybe not so to others but I've taken the first step towards a new and brighter future.

I've thought long and hard about this, and some may recall that I already said years ago that I'd feel like building a log cabin in the Canadian woods some day. Maybe not for permanent residency, but to have the experience nevertheless. Well... allow me to present to you : the plot.

For those of you too lazy to actually click and read up, that link goes to a plot of land in Canada for which I've put in an offer. It's in the woods with waterfront access, in Mattawa, Ontario, just off Old Highway 17. In fact, it's everything I need and according to the broker I've been in contact with, my offer of $169,000 is almost certain to be accepted. I sure hope it is!

Starting May 17th I've taken two weeks off from work and I'll be making my first trip up there! I'm pretty sure it's gonna be quite the experience indeed. I've already been in touch with local suppliers to get some things organized so I can use the first week to build a temporary shelter that'll stand a winter - possibly two - while I use the second week to cut down trees, clear more land and get those logs prepared so they can be piled up and dry. Actual cabin construction wouldn't start before 2013 though as those logs need time to dry before cutting them and using them to build a log cabin. I could just order dried and pre-cut logs from a wood mill in the area, but that would thwart the whole log cabin building experience, wouldn't it?

Okay, so you think I'm insane, right? Well, you probably are not far off the mark, but at least now you know why construction on my current property has been slow to non existent the past couple of months. The house I just purchased last year, was sold in order to be able to buy the land in Canada and have some spare cash to get some work done. It's a bit of a gamble, but mind you... I'm not totally going off the deep end.

We're going through an integration process at work (merger of two companies) and my new employer actually is a multinational corporation that also has branches in Canada. In fact, if I hadn't been offered a position there, I probably wouldn't have taken the decision just yet, but as everything seems to fall into place... why pass up the opportunity? The only downside - well, there are more I assume, but those may only pop up later - is that I need to brush up my language skills as French is not really my native language and it's clear that I'll be working with other people that speak English or French (Canada is bi-lingual, you know?) and as such I better come prepared.

I'm looking forward to the big adventure that starts well... today - if my offer is accepted that is. If it's not, I guess I'll just accept the position in Canada anyway and delay the whole log cabin building for a bit longer till I find another good spot to build my retreat, my quiet space in nature.

I've read up about bear proofing shelters to prevent things from being ripped to shreds, I'm not all that certain I'm ready to actually face on of those hungry animals yet. Once I start getting to know the woods though, I guess they can be avoided and hopefully it will never come to a direct confrontation as that would either end with me being killed, or me having a very nice rug in front of the fireplace and a whole lot of bear meat in the freezer, lol.

See ya, gotta go sign some paperwork and request more forms, visa etc.

I don't know what it is, but apparently shit just keeps on hitting the fan, and frankly, I'm getting tired of it. It's like trying to dam the flood of water from a broken faucet with nothing but a paper tissue and a cracked cup - it doesn't work, no matter how hard you try, the hours you put in or the effort you do.

In fact, I've been thinking things over lately and have decided that things have to change. What or how much needs to change, I have not yet decided, but rest assured that things will change - for the better, at least for me - soon. Some things have been put into motion, other plans are mere ideas or rough sketches and outlines, nothing more. I'll post when I have news, okay?

Off to bed now, need to get up way too early tomorrow :(