The One with the Thoughts of Frans

Today Sushubh wrote:

abhitux: I just write in because it makes me sane
Sushubh: ur stealing my dialogue now

It might be true, considering that my weblog is quite insane now and then. However, I think it’s more a reflection of myself than a part of me I try to surpress.

Regardless of all of this, there are other ways to prevail your sanity. Wether it was to prevail mine I don’t know, but I embraced myself in a few of those activities in this week of vacation, which I spent at my parents’ place.

1. The evening I arrived, I installed the router/phone “Experia Box”, which comes with the InternetPlusBellen (InternetPlusCalling) subscription through which you call via VoIP and get ADSL internet (same speed my parents already had). It’s cheaper and you get wireless internet on top of that. My main personal motivation was wireless internet, but fooling around with the wires (some of which was quite tricky) was quite fun in retrospect.
2. The next day I had to go out and photograph some nature in our garden.
3. 
   Some other crocuses than last time had emerged in the meantime.

4. 

   There were two old computer doing absolutely nothing in my old room. This was no surprise considering their old age, after all the oldest was a 286 IMB PS/2 (from 1991 I think, perhaps earlier) and the other one a p100 from 1996.

   They both served their purpose in the past, the 286 as the first computer in my dad’s office and the p100 as our first computer at home. Therefore it taught me a lot about computers in general, although I never accessed the internet from it. But now they were just rusting away, so I decided to clear some space by throwing them away. My mom has been awaiting this moment for years.

   The other things you see on the picture are a Philips VCR which is broken and an Epson Stylus C84 printer which is also broken. I kept the Philips VCR around in the past to see if I could repair it, but nowadays I consider VHS an old and dead technology. Recording to harddisk and then burning to CD or DVD if really interesting is my way of preserving things now.

5. 
   My parents bought a new piece of furniture for their television. Therefore a sucky, quite small television, which only works after you bang on it a couple of times, has now been upgraded to a real Jan des Bouvries piece of television furniture. If you think the tv looks quite nice, you only have to ask yourself why it’s still in my old room at my parents’ and not at my place.
6. 
   Of course I went out to shoot some more photographs. I bought my camera to use it for more than illustrational shots on my weblog after all. Homemade desktop backgrounds are my main goal. 😛
7. 
   This was lying hidden on the ground and I barely noticed it. Then I picked up the branch and managed to take a few nice pictures.
8. figcaption>Roses may be red, but not in this time of the year.
9. 
   Willows are probably not associated with The Netherlands as much as mills, but they form a much greater part of our countryside. Willow catkins such as these are quite neat to put in a vase.
10. 
    I mowed quite a lot of grass. Partly because my father, who would normally do it, is still recovering. Partly because it’s simply refreshingly mindless and a fairly good excercise for your arms (the sides of the field anyway, the middle is just boring). After long and exhausting usage for both man and machine, both are indeed quite hot.
11. 
    And last, but not least, a picture of some old alder catkins.