Now that you have informed all the people who should know it and that all is officially arranged, I would like to congratulate you with your new job.

It must feel wonderful to be out that narrowed atmosphere of the school were you did work. You must feel great that you can now really be who and what you are… and that you don’t have to be silent about it anymore.

These are the years of big changes, aren’t they?

As promised I will make tonight Spareribs ala Rob :P.

I am on of these guys who likes to store letters and alike from long ago until present. Why? It was handy at times, but more often not. I mean, what is the use of a letter where I apply for a job 22 years ago for a company that doesn’t exist for 15 years anymore? Not much… unless you had nice memories at the job interview or something like that.

But the thing that started to annoy me more and more was this many files taken up so much physical space.

So I started a project that will take several months to fulfil… I am scanning in all the letters and I alike that I want to keep for some reason.
I will store all letters from this year and the last year directly on my laptop. On a small external 320Gb HD that I bought today all stored letters and things like that will be stored. On two other external HD I will have backup’s of everything, one in Amsterdam and one is for now in Haaksbergen.

Lots of stored letters will not scanned in and be destroyed. All the rest will be scanned in. Sure, of some documents you need the originals (as for contracts), but all of these will be just a very small pile.

And at times you find things that make you smile, as the call to be checked for Military duty…. that was 1981 :)

Today it was my turn to cook something again. And this it would be an extra challenge, because Miranda would join us for dinner… and Miranda is a cook by profession. And she promised to be honest about I made.

Earlier today I bought 3 rib-eyes. Good ones, not from a supermarket, but from a real butcher. A bit more expensive, but with this kind of things you really will notice the difference.

The rib-eyes with softly rubbed in with some spices and herbs (paprika, coriander, laurel, clove, pepper and a little salt). A pepper-sauce with cognac was served with the rib-eye.
What made the preparing of the rib-eye a bit harder was that Sanne and I wanted the rib-eye medium done and Miranda wanted it raw. And taking one earlier from the fire was not an option according Miranda :).

Oven-baked potatoes that were dipped in a dressing that was based on olive oil and parsley. A salad made of cabbage, radish, leek, cocktail onions and paprika (thank you for the help with chopping this all, Miranda… you do it on amazing speed and precision).

As extra some asperges and baked portabellas (a rather big mushroom kind) were added.

Miranda said she really enjoyed it and that is was well made. Only remark was that the portabellas were baked a bit too fast and too long. But for the rest she like it. And as she said it was fun to see someone cooking for her once.
Anytime soon she will invited us to her place and then she will make something for us.

When I to my work, I always take my private laptop along with me. It is for me the way to keep in contract with all my friends who live is so many places. I don´t want to use the company equipment and Internet connection for that.

This morning while getting out of the train, it felt of suddenly as my laptop-bag that was hanging on my shoulder slipped a bit down. Which was weird. A little check showed that the strap on which the bag was hanging over my shoulder was a torn a bit at the connection point to the bag.

My decision was fast. The risk of my laptop falling was not one that I wanted to take. So today after work, I went directly to the shop centre of Hoofddorp to buy a new laptop bag.
Funny enough I bought exactly the same that I already had. And why not, I was always very happy with it and it is of the very good brand Samsonite.
The fact that the laptop bag I had was of this well known brand, makes it rather likely that I well get the bag (partly) paid back. Specially when you know that I bought the bag where my parents already were customer and Marion (and her parents) are no strangers there as well.

Well and while I was in a shopping mood, I also bought a external hard disk of 1 TerraByte. A nice fast one from Seagate. Imagibne….1 TerraByte! My very first hard disk was 20 MegaByte….

To make it all complete I had a nice mixed grill at the JR Corner in Hoofddorp. Another nice evening spend :)

Yesterday we brought Marion to the airport of Dortmund for her travel back to US. It was way easier for me travel directly from Dortmund to Amsterdam, instead of first going back to Haaksbergen and then today back to Amsterdam. The later journey would have taken a lot more in total. So I already arrived yesterday in Amsterdam.

Now it was of course not the idea to stay all Sunday at my room in Amsterdam. So I thought of something fun to do. There was still this one place I wanted to go… The Hortus Botanicus of Amsterdam. My mother often mentioned how beautiful it was there. Maybe the winter is not the best time to go, but after checking their website I still decided to go there.

The gardens outside had at the moment not very much to offer, apart from some very nice frozen snow sights. BUt the greenhouses were awesome.
Today I just wandered around enjoyed everything and made nice pictures. But some day soon I will return and I make pictures and store the information about the plants, so I can use that and the pictures for my photo-site. Maybe it is even a good idea to go there more often during the different times of the year.

After spending there a wonderful afternoon, I had a very nice rib-eye at Chicano’s (near the “Leidscheplein”).

Here some pictures to give an impression of what I saw today…

Today our last dinner together again before Marion travels back to the US. So we decided to make something special for the three of us again.

Recently I have seen something in a supermarket that looked very nice. So now we made it of our own and added a bit of our imagination to it. We made marinaded pork tenderloin (in Dutch this called “Varkenshaas”) in ham.

We made a marinade based on red wine, port, juniper, salt, pepper and laurel. The marinaded pork tenderloin we wrapped up ham with between the pork tenderloin and the ham very fine cut paprika, garlic, leek and celery. While we baked this all in the oven we placed garlic butter on top of it, so it melted all over.

As salad we used paprika, union, leek, pineapple and courgette. On of the salad a honey/mustard sauce. The baked potato slices were covered with pesto (basil, pine tree pits, pecorino, garlic, salt & olive oil).

I have to say, it really tasted wonderful. This cooking together is really fun!

And then suddenly it is the year 2010…

I will not look back to 2009 and fade away in all kind of deep pondering. 2009 was a good year. Not much more is needed to say.

I am curious what this year will bring. Most likely it will be year that I move away from the town of Haaksbergen to somewhere in the neighbourhood of Hoofddorp. This will be a big change for me.
If things goes as planned it will be also the year that at the company will sharpen our skills in the programming language Java and start with rebuilding the backoffice.

2010 will also be the year that Marion is still for rather some months in the US. Tomorrow I will bring her to Dortmund and there she will take the plane that will bring her back to Knoxville.
If things go like planned it will be the year I will be travelling for the first time outside Europe when I am going to visit Marion.

In April I have tickets for the “A Acoustic Night at the Theathre” tour of Within Temptation. I am really looking forward to that.
Talking about concerts, I will try to go to a concert of Ellen ten Damme again. Way too long ago that I saw her live.

As soon the weather gets better again, I will go bicycle to my work again. That will help to loose some weight again.

Another thing I will try this year is finally to have that tattoo set. The design is ready. All that is needed is someone that is very good at setting tattoo’s and time.

It looks like it will be an exciting year again with many things going on. I like it…

Anyway, I hope for everyone that 2010 will become a very good year!