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Archive for June, 2005

Ice cream

Tuesday, June 28th, 2005

Yesterday was another hot day in Holland, so when the kids got home from school, I offered them some money to go buy ice cream. I imagine most kids would have been pleasantly surprised, and say thanks. Not my 6yo. He asked if he could buy M&M’s instead. Visions of melted chocolate all over clean children’s shirts popped up, so I said “no, better not – chocolate melts in this weather – better buy that some other time”.

For the past few weeks, this argument had been accepted as fact, and many ice creams were bought, instead of the much wanted M&M’s. Yesterday however, he thought twice, and caught the flaw in my reasoning: “Ice creams also melt in this weather!”

As you may have guessed, I let them have their M&M’s yesterday. No ice cream 🙂

Thunderstruck

Monday, June 27th, 2005

I always thought that anything struck by lightning would be black and burnt.

Yesterday, I discovered that it doesn’t have to be. This tree was struck during last Friday night’s thunderstorm, and all that happened was a strip of bark coming off from where the tree was hit, all the way down to the ground.

from top to bottom

Here you can see the path the lightning took on its way to the ground.

where the tree got struck

This is where the lightning first hit the tree — maybe it’s my imagination, but I think I see a very slight blackening on the white wood.

damaged tree

A close-up of the damage, taken near the bottom of the tree.

So, what do you think?

Thursday, June 16th, 2005

Yesterday night I finally changed the last DNS record for LocusMeus.com. I had been developing this new version for at least two weeks now on another server, using the ‘www’ subdomain for testing, redirecting everybody else to the old version.

The initial reason for the change, was that some pages were highly out of date, and some rearranging of pages was necessary. While I was busy figuring out how and what, I thought I could add a blog as well, and well, while I was at it, why not change the look and make it all completely new.

So, that’s what I did 🙂

Some pages were replaced by others (web design and hobbies for instance), and I added a couple of pages to the travel section. You can now read how much fun (not!) it was to walk around the Old City of Jerusalem without a proper map. The HTML and CSS section will be renovated, as I’m planning to gather some of the examples that used to be in the ‘temp’ directory, and give them a proper place on my site.

Please, don’t hesitate to tell me what you think of the new LocusMeus.com. Not that I’ll change it, but you may feel better when you get it off your chest 😉

Fish on a stick

Monday, June 13th, 2005

For two years in a row I’ve been wanting to go camping with the kids, but somehow I never booked any place early enough, and by the time summer holiday started, obviously all camping sites were fully booked, or ridiculously expensive.

This year however, my sister pointed me to a chain of camping sites of a different flavour: ‘nature campings’. These sites aren’t meant for the regular audience — there are no discos, no bingo nights, no swimming pools… they’re meant for people who want to enjoy the peace and quiet of nature itself. If only I’d known they existed earlier!

Anyway, I do know of them now, and decided that this coming summer holiday I’d go check it out. Most of these camping sites don’t even need booking in advance, so that’s a bonus too.

blue tent

So, what’s the first and foremost necessity when camping in a country like Holland? Yep, that’s right, a tent. Tents can be rather expensive if you don’t want to settle for the average mini-iglo without any room for your stuff, so I’ve been looking around and comparing sizes and prices. Then, the other day I saw an ad on TV, for a tent exactly like I wanted, for only €49.-. Not wanting to miss that chance, I went to the shop yesterday and bought it straight away. That, plus isolation mats and a gas cooker with refills.

My 6yo had a slightly romantic view on camping: “Why do we need a gas cooker? It’s not like we’re gonna take any pots and pans with us..” On my question why not, he answered that we would just go fishing, and stick the fish on a stick and cook it in a real fire 🙂