Lumenjunkie.com

Betreft: Opzegging polis

2012-01-18T12:25:00.001+01:00

19/12/2011

Bij deze mijn (2de) opzeggingsbrief voor een polis die ik nooit heb afgesloten....

L.S.

Bij deze wil ik PER DIRECT polis ******* opzeggen. Hiervan wil ik graag schriftelijke bevestiging. Daarnaast mag u het volgende aan uw klachtenafdeling doorgeven:

Geachte heer/mevrouw,

Wanneer u dit leest is het helaas al te laat, ik heb de polis waarvan jullie beweren dat deze van mij is opgezegd. Maar dat maakt voor jullie niet uit, jullie hebben mij nu toch al mijn geld afgetroggeld.

Ik ben diep, diep teleurgesteld in de wijze waarop Dela probeert om klanten binnen te halen. Graag wil ik mijn situatie (nogmaals) onder de aandacht brengen, in de hoop dat dit een enkel geval was en geen structurele oplichting door uw bedrijf.

Enige tijd geleden werd ik gebeld door mijn vader, die jaren geleden voor het hele gezin een polis heeft afgesloten bij Dela, met de vraag of hij Dela contact met mij mocht laten opnemen in verband met de afsplitsing van de polis. Dit omdat de kinderen al lang en breed de deur uit zijn en hij inmiddels zelf gescheiden is en zodoende niet meer voor 4 personen premie wilde betalen. Ik heb toen aangegeven dat Dela wel contact met mij mocht opnemen.

Enige tijd later is dit ook gebeurd, de Dela medewerker belde op een moment dat het mij slecht uitkwam en ik verzocht hem om mij een brochure toe te sturen, zodat ik alles op mijn gemak eens kon bekijken. Even terzijde, de telefonische verkoper vertelde mij dat alles wat mijn vader al voor mij had opgebouwd op mijn naam zou komen te staan, dit bleek echter niet waar en ik zou weer vanaf 0 moeten beginnen.

De brochure heb ik echter nooit ontvangen, de eerste post die ik van Dela ontving was een rekening. Uitgaande van een vergissing heb ik deze zeer milieubewust bij het oud papier gedeponeerd.

Echter kreeg ik al snel betalingsherinneringen, daarop heb ik telefonisch contact opgenomen met uw klantenservice. Ik werd zeer vriendelijk te woord gestaan door een dame die mij, na mij aangehoord te hebben, er van verzekerde dat alles rechtgezet zou worden. Haar collega zou contact met mij opnemen om alles in orde te maken.

Bij herinnering aan de dame die vervolgens contact met mij opnam krijg ik nog steeds koude rillingen. Deze vrouw zou het niet slecht doen als gevangenisbewaarder. Mevrouw begreep het probleem niet (of wilde het niet begrijpen) en wanneer ik het een en ander probeerde uit te leggen viel zij mij continu in de rede of luisterde simpelweg niet naar wat ik haar probeerde uit te leggen. Inhoudelijk had zij weinig meer te melden dan dat ik moest betalen. Iedere vraag van mijn kant werd ontweken of beantwoord dat dat niet kon. Ik vroeg of ik een kopie van mijn getekende contract kon krijgen, dat kon niet. Ik vroeg of ik een kopie van het telefoongesprek waarin ik een overeenkomst met Dela aan ben gegaan, dat kon niet. Vervolgens wist zij mij te vertellen dat het contract rechtsgeldig was omdat mijn vader zou hebben aangegeven dat dit in orde is. Nu kan ik u vertellen, ik ben 32 jaar oud, het is dus al een paar jaar geleden dat mijn vader bij machte was om een dergelijke beslissing voor mij te nemen. Maar rechtsgeldig contract of niet, ik moest maar gewoon betalen en dan een opzegging sturen.

Deze opzegging is dezelfde dag nog aan uw antwoordnummer verzonden. Hier heb ik niets meer van teruggehoord, ondanks mijn verzoek om schriftelijke bevestiging.

Onlangs ontving ik weer een envelop van Dela, ik verwachtte een bevestiging van de opzegging, en hoopte op een oprecht excuus voor de hele situatie. Helaas, het was wederom een betalingsherinnering voor de polis die ik nooit afgesloten heb.

Zoals gezegd, ik ben diep teleurgesteld in Dela, of het nu een oprechte vergissing betreft of achterbakse verkoopmethode, door de manier waarop deze situatie door uw medewerker(s) (met uitzondering van die eerste klantenservice dame) is afgehandeld heeft er voor gezorgd dat ik helemaal klaar ben met uw organisatie. Gefeliciteerd, u heeft mij een paar maanden premie afhandig gemaakt. Indien u mijn ongelijk in deze situatie kunt bewijzen, wens ik u het allerbeste toe voor de toekomst en bied ik mijn excuses aan voor de vergissing mijnerzijds. Indien blijkt dat ik in deze situatie in mijn recht sta, kunt u de betaalde premie terugstorten op ABN-AMRO rekening **.**.**.*** t.n.v. P Stulemeijer .

Mocht deze situatie u geheel koud laten dan hoop ik dat u mij een plezier wilt doen en dat is tegen uw baas zeggen dat zijn/haar kerstpakket/bonus ook het kerstcadeautje van mijn eenjarige zoontje had kunnen zijn.

Met vriendelijke groet en prettige feestdagen,

Pepijn Stulemeijer

UPDATE 18/01/2012

De wonderen zijn de wereld nog niet uit. Dela heeft vandaag telefonisch gereageerd op mijn schrijven. Men betreurd de gang van zaken ten zeerste en het is schijnbaar niet de eerste keer dat men dergelijke klachten over de betrokken afdelingen heeft ontvangen.
Hoe dan ook, men heeft mij toegezegd dat de polis met terugwerkende kracht opgezegd wordt en ik krijg mijn geld terug. Ik heb nog een beetje een 'eerst zien, dan geloven'-instelling, maar het feit dat er in ieder geval de moeite is genomen om even te bellen en excuses aan te bieden is natuurlijk al een klein lichtpuntje.
Echter, ik ga pas juichen wanneer ik de schriftelijke bevestiging in handen heb en de euros weer op mijn rekening staan...

Update 21/01/2012

Victorie!

De schriftelijke bevestiging en tevens excuusbrief van Dela is vandaag binnengekomen....
Om het maar effe op z'n braobants te houwe: Dela, houdoe en bedankt!

Test

2011-06-27T16:19:00.003+02:00

dit is een test...

2 goals 1 ride

2010-06-27T17:55:00.001+02:00

Went out for another ride today, and I must say that I do feel a little bit proud of myself, as I completed 2 of the personal goals I set for myself. First of all, as I ...ahem... carry a little bit of extra padding around, warm weather and me are NOT compatible, so keep in mind that these goals were achieved by an untrained 250LBS guy in 29° Celsius weather riding a new bike with a new not-broken-in-yet Brooks saddle...

Goal 1: To ride 20KM in less than an hour...

I did it with 7 seconds to spare :D I know, not even close to Tour de France performance, but still, not bad at all when you consider the circumstances mentioned above... After reaching this milestone, I decided to take a break, have a can of Ice-coffee I brought along and snap a pic of my bike...

Goal 2: To complete a 'Half-a-Century'
(or '50KM ride' in non bike-peoples' terms...)

Actually, this one was completed more or less by accident. I had planned a 36KM ride, but first I missed a route marker, so I needed to backtrack for a few KMs. And a little later on in my ride I pretty much got lost completely and navigated a few KMs by my (now irreversibly proven shitty sense of direction) until I came across a marker pointing to another waypoint I knew and picked up riding along the waypoints again from there. Unfortunately, due to a bit of emergency braking, my handlebars twisted in the stem and I had to ride the rest of my route with a very much less than optimal wrist position. Anyway, this little detour added about 13.5KM to my route, so when I was almost home, the GPS showed 49.6KM. As I was this close to the Half-a-Century, I decided to add a little detour through my own neighborhood to my route and when I got home, the GPS showed 50.3KM

Not bad for a fat kid...

The first REAL ride

2010-06-23T00:23:00.000+02:00

Today after work, dinner and grocery shopping, I was feeling very tired. So, I did what most people would do, I took my bike out for a ride.
It was a beautiful evening, not too warm, not too cold and very little wind, so as the sun started setting, I set out on my ride. The first REAL ride on my Surly Cross-check.

I decided to ride along the dutch 'fietsknooppunten' network for a bit. All over the Netherlands there are 'fietsknooppunten', these are basicly waypoints from where there are directions to adjacent waypoints. This system makes it really easy to plan your routes.

One of the first things I noticed after leaving home, was that the Brooks saddle didn't hurt my ass as much, so either this 500km break-in period is very much exaggerated, or my ass is still numb from last nights' ride.

A few km into my ride (between knooppunten 54 and 55 iirc) I came across some deer (not wild ones), which were kind of intrigued by my presence. As daylight was starting to fade and I did want to take some pics of my new bike on this first real ride, I decided to use the deer for background...

After a couple of minutes, I continued my ride. At first I was planning on doing just a 10km ride, but that was with the soreness of my ass in mind. It still wasn't as bad this time, so I decided to make my lap a little bigger. Once I hit 15km, I thought 'well, why not make it 20?' so I added a couple more knooppunten to my route.

After a while I came to a bridge over the channel that separates my neighborhood from the industrial zone a few km north of here. I didn't feel like going for the pitoresque scenery of the industrial zone, so I paused for a bit at the center of the bridge and took another pic of my bike...

I felt like I could have gone for another 20km, but it was getting kind of late and I still needed to take out the trash and walk the dog, so I decided to go home. I made a little detour to make sure I would have done 20km by the time I got home and ended up with the bike computer & GPS both showing 20.3km when I parked my bike in my bikeshed....

I feel like riding some more...

New bike is finished!

2010-06-22T23:50:00.004+02:00

Sunday 20th of june it was finally finished. Not that the assembly took so much time, it was just that some stores took about 1.5 months to deliver my parts. Oh well, I guess you have to sacrifice something if you want to get good prices for your bikestuff...

But here's what it's all about:

My brand-spanking-new-shiny-homebuilt Surly Cross-check...

The specs:

Frameset:
- Frame: Surly Cross Check 56cm
- Fork: Surly Cross check

Seating:
- Seatpost: Scorpo Oxygen
- Seatpost clamp: Surly Constrictor
- Saddle: Brooks B17

Steering:
- Headset: Cane Creek S2
- Headset spacers: Kalloy (5 & 10mm)
- Stem: BBB Highrise 90mm 35degree
- Handlebar: NC-17 Trekking Pro
- Grips: Ergon GP1
- Expander plug: Christopher Nies Cycles

Wheels:
- Rims: Mavic A319 28"
- Spokes: DT Swiss Champion 2mm silver
- Front hub: Shimano DH-3N72
- Rear hub: Shimano Nexus SG-8R36 Premium (Red Band)
- Rimtape: Schwalbe high pressure 22mm
- Tires: Schwalbe Marathon Racer 30-622
- Tubes: Schwalbe 17sv

Drivetrain:
- Bottom bracket: FSA Ultimax 68-103 JIS BSA
- Crankset: Sugino RD2-Messenger 42t
- Pedals: BBB Fullride
- Rear cog: Shimano Nexus 16t
- Chain: Shimano HG CN-7701
- Shifter: Shimano Alfine Rapidfire SL-S500

Brakes:
- Brakes F+R: Avid Single Digit 7
- Levers F+R: Avid Speed Dial 7
- Pads: Avid RW2
- Cables: SRAM MTB/Trekking

Lighting:
- Front Light: B+M Lumotec IQ Cyo senso plus
- Rear Light: Planet Bike Superflash

Miscellaneous:
- Rear rack: Tubus Vega
- Fenders: SKS Bluemels 35mm
- Kickstand: Modified Dahon 2-leg
- Computer: Sigma sport 1606L DTS
- GPS: Garmin eTrex Vista

The first ride that was more than a lap around the block to adjust stuff, was a late evening ride on the 21st of june (my 3rd wedding anniversary :D) to adjust my headlight. As I am a complete idiot, I chose the longest day of the year to wait until dark to set up my bikelight... Anyway, it was still a short ride, only 3.8km, but on a brand new Brooks saddle and riding mostly on brick roads, it felt like doing a century...

But it was a nice little ride and a good test to see if I did everything right. I'm really looking forward to my future rides on my Surly Cross-check :)

Lumenjunkie.com updates now tweeted :)

2010-01-07T22:27:00.000+01:00

Well, at least if I set up everything correctly :) Consider this a test...

I promise I will soon post some real content again soon...

Test!

2009-12-09T13:27:00.001+01:00

You'd never guess, but this is a test... :P

Finally, something that has to do with light...

2009-09-25T02:35:00.004+02:00

Ok, the previous post had some lanterns in it, but those were just gear we needed and this one is really for fun... What is it? It's a TiGlow! A what?! A TiGlow... You know, a glass tube filled with phosphorous material and radioactive gas inside a titanium container... What does it do? well, it glows in the dark and looks pretty, that's about it...

The lightsource in this little gadget, is a so called Tritium vial. These Tritium vials emit a glow pretty similar to the well know glow-in-the-dark materials, but there is one big difference. Tritium vials don't need to be 'charged' with another source of light, they always glow...

The concept of putting a Tritium tube in a container to use as a marker isn't exactly new. They've been used encased in plastic to put on your keys or other stuff you might need to find in the dark for years now. But that isn't really very sexy looking now is it? A big glob of transparent plastic around your pretty little trit tube...

Apparently, I'm not the only person who thinks that. A man known to many as 'the Pixelpimp', thought of something else. How about putting the trit inside some sexy Titanium? Great idea, but Titanium isn't exactly transparent... Well, lets make some holes in it then...

And that's what he did. And the result? A stunningly beautiful beadblasted & drilled Titanium tube holding a pretty glowing green Tritium vial. It's a strange thing... You just want to keep staring at the eerie green glow all the time...

Holiday preparations...

2009-08-23T12:45:00.003+02:00

Soon, we will be going on a camping trip to France. My wife and I both love to go camping, but unfortunately, it's been years since we really had a chance to go out and do so.

But this year, we're going to France for a nice camping holiday. Now there is a good side to not going on holiday for a few years. Our savings and a nice tax return allowed us to invest in some new gear. Now I really like all the high-tech ultralight stuff, but that wasn't really what we were looking for. Thinking about the future made us invest in durable 'family camping'-style gear. This year we'll be taking our dog along, so we need a little more space. We didn't want to have to go shopping for yet another new tent in a few years when we might have a kid too, so we bought a tent a tad bigger than we need now.

So, the winner is: The Outwell Wolf Lake 5

A 4-5 person tunnel tent, made of a poly/cotton blend. It has 1 large & 1 small sleeping compartment (that can be put up individually). A spacious living area for the rainy days or just relaxing around the camp with doors at 3 sides & large windows so you can still spy on your neighbours. and then there's a nice little awning, so you don't have to cook in the rain :)

And then there was light... Of course we needed some lights for our new portable home too, I'm nuts about portable lighting after all. So, for general lighting we bought the Coleman Unleaded Compact Lantern.

I've liked these lanterns ever since my dad bought one when I was a kid. Even though they smell a bit more than the propane/butane lanterns and are a little noisier. But that noise does bring back fond memories of those family camping trips as a kid.

Now there is one thing that these gas powered lanterns isn't exactly useful for: the sleeping compartment of the tent. There's the fumes issue and they're not the quickest to turn on when things go bump in the night. So to overcome this we also bought a Coleman Exponent 4AA pack away lantern.

A nice little lantern that uses a Cree LED and runs on 4 AA batteries. It has 2 brightness levels and a blink mode (useful when your car breaks down, which will hopefully never happen in the sleeping compartment of our tent). You can push the clear top part down into the base, protecting the window and making it a nice compact size for travel & storage. There is one little downside to it: it would have been better with a frosted window.

Now I did mention cooking under the awning before, and this is what we will be using to do this:

The Coleman 424 2-burner multifuel stove. (we sure did buy a lot of Coleman stuff huh?) Pretty much a classic proven design and no hassle of propane/butane tanks that need to be filled or replaced. Fuel is available from just about any supermarket and can also be used for our lantern. And another big + is that you don't need to lug around a separate tank and a pressure regulator and a.... well, you get the picture. Sure, you have to pump now and then and it's a little smellier, but hey, those are things I can live with.

Also we have the sleeping part covered. We bought a couple of Coleman airbeds and 2 Coleman Hudson 300 sleepingbags. Nothing too spectacular, so I won't be posting pics. Now all that we need is some portable storage space, a table and a roofbox for our car to lug all this stuff to the campsite :P

I'm really looking forward to our holiday and put all these new toys to good use :)

Portable Audiophile

2009-08-18T05:20:00.004+02:00

It's been a while since I posted something new. Mainly because I was busy doing other things. Looking for a new job, celebrating wifes b-day, reading up on portable audio gear & buying some :)

A few weeks ago, I ordered an iBasso D2+ headphone amp with internal USB DAC, so I could use my AKG K530 LTD headphones with my portable mediaplayer and listen to music on my pc at work without using the craptastic internal soundcard. I had heard about Sandisk upgrading firmware on their Sansa Fuze players (which were already known for their excellent sound quality) to support FLAC, so I hopped over to the Sansa site to see if they would do the same for my e280 v2, which basicly has the same internals. But no luck, no FLAC supporting firmware for the e200 series players. But, I had a little money left, and because I didn't want the difference between pc & portable use to be too big, I decided to splash out the cash for a shiny new Sansa Fuze 8GB (with additional 8GB MicroSDHC).

A couple of days later, my new toys hadn't even arrived yet, I was riding my bike to work, when all of a sudden my AKG K340 IEMs started to sound like they were in a tin can... On the bottom of the ocean. While nothing strange happened to them. Now I'm kinda picky about how my headphones sound and tin cans on the bottom of the ocean aren't really my preference.

So, there I was, new portable headphone amp on the way, new portable mediaplayer on the way, and no decent earphones to use them with. Sure, I have my AKG K430 & K530, but those just aren't very practical on the go. I tried using my older IEMs again, but even the best of the bunch (Koss 'the Plug') sounded like crap compared to my AKGs. Shopping for new IEMs was the way to go, but after my amp & player purchases funds were running low. So, I started to do my homework on best bang for the buck IEMs.

A multitude of review sites and a bunch of forums were read. And from all the descriptions and reviews only one conclusion was possible. What I wanted wasn't going to happen on the budget I had. So, what options did I have to generate some funds? Well, remember that Powershot G10 from my previous post? I put it's older brother, my beloved trusty old Powershot G5 up for sale on one of the forums I frequently visit. In the mean time, I had pretty much decided that I wanted a set of Westone UM2 IEMs and was hoping that the sale of the camera would get me enough to buy them. About 4 hours and a couple of PMs on the forum later, I had a bunch of $$ in my paypal account and edited my for sale threads' title to 'sold'.

That was a happy moment, as I realized that combined with the little money I had left, I was able to afford the UM2. But then I found that I had made a little miscalculation due to the euro - dollar exchange rate, and I was even able to afford the Westone UM3X. I didn't even look at it before, as it was too expensive for me anyway, but now that I was able to afford them, they looked mighty tempting. Back to head-fi it was, reading up on the UM3X and it's direct competitors. I had the chance to test a colleagues Shure SE530 and didn't really like what I heard. More reading... More reading... The more I read on the UM3X, the more the impression grew that the UM3X was the right IEM for me...
Almost $400 for a set of IEMs... A lot of money... They better be worth it was what went through my mind as I placed the order at earphonesolutions.com...

So after almost 2 weeks of waiting, my new IEMs arrived. I had to pick up the package from the post office, but couldn't try them straight away as grocery shopping had to be done first. When my wife and me came home, I did what any gentleman would do. Told my wife to have fun putting away the groceries, while I tried the the new IEMs.

I hooked them up to the iBasso D2+, and used the Sansa Fuze as source device (connected via mini to mini interconnect with the volume all the way up to mimic line out levels). I rolled the installed Comply foams, installed them in my ears, put the wires over my ears... Instant amazement... The over the ear cable configuration is usually not what I prefer. the cables can get pretty uncomfy as they battle for position with my glasses. These had none of that problem, the flexible braided wire on the Westones felt like it wasn't even there as soon as they warmed up to body temperature. Time for the next surprise, the Comply foams had expanded and had created an amazing seal. Even better than the Shure Olives I used on my AKG IEMs. My wife had finished putting away the groceries and was now preparing a smoothie in the blender, which was like 4 meters away from me. I hardly heard it, I only realized it was on when I looked at it. the moment was there, that first push of the play button. For this first listen, I had selected a track that's very special to me, Never ending Road by Loreena McKennitt, which was played at my wedding. In FLAC format, so hardly any noticable quality loss. Here we go, press play... Instant goosebumps, tears to my eyes... I couldn't believe what I was hearing. So clean, so rich, so balanced. It must have been the musical equivalent of drinking a pangalactic gargleblaster...

With my Netbook as a source and the iBasso connected over USB, (running Foobar2000 combined with Asio4all) it sounded even more amazing. It sure cost me a lot, but damn it's worth it. Pure audio porn in a portable setup...

Canon Powershot G10

2009-06-02T10:18:00.000+02:00

After being confronted with some major shortcomings of my trusty old Powershot G5 last week at the JMJ concert, I decided it was time for an upgrade. So I did some research on the web for possible candidates as a backup/edc camera.

After a while I narrowed it down to these 3: Panasonic Lumix LX3, Nikon Coolpix P6000 and the Canon Powershot G10. The LX3 was scratched off the list first. It has great optics, but the lack of a viewfinder and limited zoom killed the deal. Next, the P6000, it was pretty much the salesmans pitch on this camera that made me decide to buy the G10 (that and the fact that he tried to sell it to me at 120 euro over the price at my regular cam store).

So, the G10 it is. So far I like it. But the lack of a swivel screen as found on the G5 is something I miss a lot. Even though the viewangle of the G10s screen is good enough for most of the overhead or from the hip style shooting...

I'll post pics later, when I take some nice ones, with this new pocket sized megapixel monster...

Jean Michel Jarre in concert...

2009-05-27T01:08:00.007+02:00

I just got home from what is probably the best concert I ever went to. Jean Michel Jarre, live in the Heineken Music Hall in Amsterdam.

Remco (a great friend & also JMJ fan) and me couldn't let this opportunity pass, after seeing JMJ live in Carre (also in Amsterdam) last year. So we spent some of our hard earned cash to buy us some tickets. Seat 63 & 64 on the 11th row from the front were ours.

With parking being crazy expensive in Amsterdam, we decided that I would go to Remcos' office in Utrecht, we'd leave my car there and drive his to Amsterdam. So we did. After Remco finished up some work and showed me some of the really cool stuff in the office, we drove to Amsterdam, through heavy traffic and shitty weather. But we got there pretty early, so we had enough time to get something to eat before the concert.

After parking the car (in nearly the same spot as we were last year when we went to see JMJ) we looked for a place to eat. We decided on the local Burger King and got some meals to go. Ate them on a bench and feeding the leftovers to some birds. After that, we had some time to kill, so we visited the local electronics store to drool at the nice toys. After that we went to the Heineken Music Hall.

After the ticket & security checks, I bought a couple of t-shirts then we bought some drinks and looked for our seats. Row 11, seat 63 & 64, far enough from the stage to have a good overview, close enough to see the expressions on the faces of the musicians. The seats could only have been better if they had been a bit wider, a bit softer and a bit more to the middle of the venue. But hey, at least they were better than those of the couple of 1000s of people behind us :P
Just minutes after sitting down, the lights dimmed and the show started.

And what a show it was... All those awesome tunes, and then the laser & light shows... WOW!! As a JMJ fan and a light-nut I was in heaven. I cant really describe the concert, you just had to be there. It was a much more lively performance than the one we saw last year. This time, they looked like they were really having fun on stage, instead of trying to re-play the album. All the well known pieces were played, I was moved to tears when 'Souvenir of China' was played, it might not be his best work, but there's just something about it...
We got the guys back on stage for 2 encores, all in all we were treated to almost 2 hours of JMJ goodness...

The setlist for the evening:

Industrial Revolutions 2
Magnetic Fields 1
Equinoxe 7
Oxygene 2
Rendez-Vous 3
Oxygene 12
Souvenir of China
Magnetic Fields 2
Oxygene 5
Variation 3
Equinoxe 4
Equinoxe 5
Chronologie 6
Chronologie 2
Oxygene 4
Calypso 3 (Fin de Siecle)
Rendez-Vous 2
Industrial Revolutions 3 (edit)
Oxygene 4

After the show ended, we got us some more drinks and headed back to the car. Well, after waiting in line for 30 minutes to pay for the parking garage. But after that, the trip back to Utrecht could begin.
Once we arrived in Utrecht, we had another small problem. The gate of the terrain where my car was parked, was damaged and wouldn't open. Luckily the securityguard was nice enough to let us in through the building. At least now I can say I've been in a bank after opening hours. There was another gate we could use to exit by car, so that saved Remco a 200KM detour to drop me off at home. After a short drive, Our ways split, Remco headed east and I went south.

It was a night to remember...

Work blows...

2009-05-12T19:35:00.001+02:00

Don't get me wrong, I still like my job, but keeping myself motivated is getting harder and harder. Why? Well, here's a few reasons:

1. I switched jobs almost 1.5 years ago, from a cellphone operators' NOC to a cellular network hardware vendors' NOC. Why? Because it was convenient with my wifes' work moving and because I was told I could gain more expertise on the technical side of my work. But I got nothing of that. Instead I feel more and more like a ticket-monkey, doing just administrative tasks and anything technical is usually just routine.

2. I'm about to lose my job. Yes, my department will be outsourced to a low pay country. This in itself is a good motivation killer, but ofcourse that's not enough. My employer asks of my colleagues and me to train our own replacements. Sure, we get a financial compensation for this, but it's nowhere close to what we should be getting for something like this.

3. The stress caused by 2. With the current economic crisis, it's not easy to find a new job. It's pretty specialized work we do here.

4. The crappy tooling. Our impossible to please customer insists that we use their tooling. Their slow, unstable, inefficient, tooling. And to make things worse, we have to use it remotely over a Citrix platform.
How bad can it be? Separate databases for everything, inconsistent information from different sources, dozens of useless mouseclicks to get to functionalities you can't do without.

5. Then there's the shiftroster, at my previous employer I worked in shifts too, the roster was tough, but at least you knew what to expect. Now it seems like the roster was made especially to fuck up whatever was left of my social life.

6. And last but not least, the endless annoyances of working with people from over the border to my south (who are ok in general, but their work-mentality is usually shite, especially when they are from the capitol city or south of their country). When I'm done here, I never want to work with any of those people again. But on the other hand, I'd love to go grab a beer with most of them.

So far my little rant..

Goodbye Lucia

2009-05-01T15:09:00.010+02:00

You scare hare, you little black lady... You've been with us for 5 years. We saw you grow from the pathetic looking schizo semi-guineapig that we took home from the animal shelter into the beautiful curious but cautious little black bunny lady that you are. But now the time has come to say goodbye.

It's been over a month since your rear legs were paralyzed. At first there seemed to be a little improvement after we took you to the vet, but it was all downhill from there. You became incontinent and became more and more reluctant to come out of your hidingplace. Not strange, you have always been scared easily, but now, with you hardly being able to move around, let alone fleeing if the situation calls for it, it seems that every second away from your dark little corner of the bunnycage is sheer terror to you. This is not the life you deserve.

Last weekend, the final decision was made. We always said we would, we always knew it could come to this. But now that the time has come, I'm completely overwhelmed by the tidalwave of emotions. Never could I have imagined that it would be so hard, even though I know that this decision is best. In a couple of hours, you wont have to be so scared anymore. You will cross the rainbow bridge, no more pain, no more fear.

Lucia, I will miss you so much. Even though you are 'just a rabbit', you are part of this family and you always will be. It will be hard to fill the emptiness that you leave behind. You will be missed, not just by me, but also by your partner in crime (and bunnycage) vladimir. And I'm sure that even Fenix will miss you, although she's probably still wondering about what kind of strange puppy you are...

Goodbye Lucia, we'll see you in part 2!

A new TV!

2009-03-30T20:10:00.004+02:00

Finally... My ancient Panasonic 22" CRT television has been replaced. Last weekend I had a little party for my 30th birthday and I collected just enough money to add to my savings and buy a new tv...

So, what did I get? Well, how about a Samsung 32" Full HD LCD :D

Not the most impressive tv out there, but a huge step up from my old Panasonic. And so far, I love it!!

A new phone...

2009-03-02T12:56:00.003+01:00

After about 2 years of loyal service, the time came to replace my trusty old Motorola V3. Not that it was really needed, other than looking like shit and slightly reduced battery capacity, it's working just fine. But there is another reason for replacing it:

Since 2003 I have always carried a PDA, and that does have 2 problems: 1. the battery is getting so old that if you miss overnight charging once, it dies completely and a full restore of your system, including reinstallation of all apps is needed, and 2. the contact of the dataport is bad, making syncing a bitch. Points 1 & 2 combined make my PDA a very nice but very unreliable device.

So a few weeks ago, my wife and me were visiting my mom so I could fix her computer and set up her wireless internet. Mom was wondering why I was using a paper (Moleskine) agenda instead of my fancy PDA. So I explained her what was going on with my PDA and she told me she had an old MDA Vario that she wasn't using and offerd it to me so I could use it. It was simlocked to T-Mobile, but at least I could use it for it's PDA functionality. I gladly accepted, and the next day I ripped out the simlock by using some tool I found on the interwebs.

I was all happy with my new and now 100% working phone, but the next day... Some guy from my provider called. It was almost time to renew my plan, and, due to a takeover, I needed to switch to another type of plan BUT, was eligible for a new phone. So after 24 minutes of discussing the options, haggling, threatning & begging, they agreed to send me a brand spanking new HTC Touch Pro (well, the T-Mobile rebranded version known as the T-Mobile MDA Vario IV) with a 2GB MicroSDHC and a discount of 50% on the 1st 6 months of my new plan.

Sure, I could have gotten an iPhone or a T-Mobile G1, but I don't care for hardware thats locked down from all sides and the G1 has a major design flaw in the way it's QWERTY keyboard slides open. Plus, I could use all the apps I already had for my PDA on this phone.

So far I'm liking my new phone a lot, but I found a few issues too. I'll write a little review later, when I have the time...

Change to my site...

2009-03-02T12:24:00.002+01:00

It all started out with great plans and good intentions. But as with all my websites in the past 10 years, the ideas were there, but the actual writing of content wasn't. So I decided to (at least for a while) just keep the blog part of my site active and see where it goes from there.

Whisky tasting in Eindhoven

2009-01-31T16:53:00.005+01:00

I like Whisky, I like good Whisky... Unfortunately, good Whisky is usually pretty expensive. So I was very happy when my sister asked me to join her on a visit to a tasting evening organized by Stack, a group of computer-enthusiasts (yes, fellow nerds 'n' geeks). So I took a day off from work as I was scheduled to work the late shift, and after picking my wife up from work, drove to my sisters place in Eindhoven.

Once we arrived there, we just kicked back a little, messing with the Wii while sis & her boyfriend prepared a nice meal. As usual, the food didn't disappoint, she made Salmon marinated in Whisky & Lemon, served with stir fried vegetables with balsamic and pasta with home made pesto. Yes, sis knows how to cook :)

After dinner, we played with the Wii some more and then got our stuff ready to go to the whisky tasting. The good thing is, my wife doesn't like Whisky at all, so we had a designated driver for the evening, allowing my sister, her boyfriend and myself to taste the goodies that they had lined up for us.

When we got there, we were introduced to the rest of the group, and got started. There were about 2 dozen bottles to choose from. I limited myself to 4, I wouldn't want the alcohol to cloud my judgment :) I'm not very good at describing the flavors, I usually rate Whisky as excellent-good-ok-meh-no thanks-nasty-please kill the person who created this vile concoction. But I'm going to try to do it a bit differently, so here are the tasting notes:

Caol Ila unpeated 8yo 2006 release (59.8%vol)

This was the first one I tasted. With almost 60%vol alcohol maybe a bit harsh to kick off with, but I really like the Whisky from Caol Ila (hell, it's my favorite) so I wanted to have a taste as clean and uninfluenced as possible.

It felt light but a bit oily in the mouth, but very smooth. The taste seemed fairly sweet slightly flowery & fruity and a bit herbal with a touch of oak in the end. Excellent!

Littlemill 12yo (40%vol)

I chose this one, because I haven't tasted a lot of Lowland Whisky. Not to mention that the Littlemill distillery burnt down a while ago, so opportunities to sample this particular Whisky are getting more rare.

This was probably the most boring of the bunch. It was good, but nothing spectacular. The taste was gentle with a hint of sweet. The color was more remarkable than the taste, it's very, very pale. I think this would be an excellent Whisky to get people started on single malts with.

Yoichi 12yo (45%vol)

I was thrilled to see that there was a couple of Japanese bottles on the table too. I've been meaning to try some of the Japanese stuff, but I have a couple of bottles I need to finish first before buying something new and most of them aren't found very often at the local pub.

At first it was surprisingly sweet and mild but after that it became slightly metallic and a bit peaty, but not enough to completely block out the sweetness. This Whisky certainly makes me want to taste more of the Japanese stuff.

Amrut Cask Strength September 2007 bottling (61.9%vol)

I was surprised to find an Indian Whisky on the table. I didn't even know they made Whisky in India. But as I like Indian food and have a slight addiction to Indian Masala Chai, I decided to give it a go.

It's a cask strength, I knew it was going to pack a punch with it's almost 62%vol, but after the smoothness of the 59.8%vol of the unpeated Caol Ila, this completely caught me off guard. That first sip was like getting kicked in the mouth with a boot covered in spices. Now knowing what kind of impact to expect, I ate a little bread and drank some water to clear my taste buds and went for a second attempt. Now that I was prepared for what was to come, a storm of spiciness with fruits and a bit of malt. The finish seemed long even for a cask strength with a nice oakiness to it and a lingering spiciness. Next time I try this one I will add a drop of water, I like the taste, but the 'cask strength' is a bit too much for me.

The verdict: I liked the Caol Ila best. Caol Ila just makes 'my kind of Whisky'. And the others? I'm glad I was able to taste something new. Every single one was special in it's own way. A dying breed, my first ever Japanese Whisky and of course the Indian with a spicy punch. All in all it was an evening very well spent. Good food, good Whisky, good company. What more could a person wish for?

A new toy!

2008-08-17T22:17:00.003+02:00

For a while now I've been playing with my Konica Minolta Dynax 5D DSLR and it's a great camera. But due to the size of a DSLR, it's not really suitable for EDC duty. So I spent some time on the interwebs researching my options for another camera to add to my collection. The criteria:

- Needs to use CF as I have a bunch of those for the 5D
- Needs to be rugged as it's going on 'toss in the backpack and lug around always'-duty
- Needs to be cheap (for the same reason as it needs to be rugged)
- Needs to have at least one functionality the DSLR hasn't
- Needs to have manual controls

So after a while, I found this:

The Canon Powershot G5. It uses CF, has good buildquality, is a 5 y/o model so can be found 2nd hand at a decent price, has a LCD that can be put in different positions and it has the manual settings I wanted.
A 2nd hand one wasn't hard to find, but I ran into 1 of 2 problems everytime. The price was right but the seller wouldn't ship overseas, or the seller was here in NL, but was charging the usual wayyyyy too high price. But after a while, I found one. The seller was aiming for a quick sell, so had an asking price of 130 euro (instead of the 150-250 euro you usually see them for). I placed a bid on the website, for exactly the asking price, and after a short exchange of emails an appointment to pick it up was made. So a couple of days later I had my new toy.
The deal was even better than I expected, because the camera came with a few extras in the form of a 2nd battery, external charger for both home & car use, protective pouch, 256MB Sandisk Ultra 2 CF and a neckstrap.

It's definately not a small camera, it's looks remind me of the good old 35mm cams. But compared to the DSLR it's a lightweight. I'll put up some pics I took with it later when I have some time...

Doggie style!!

2008-07-21T22:41:00.000+02:00

We wanted a dog for a very long time... We finally got one... Meet Fenix:

She's a so called Pariah dog. She originates from Taiwan and she was abused there when she was a pup. She was found by a businessman who took her to a vet. They patched her up and she came to the Netherlands. First in a temp home, then she was placed with a loving family. Unfortunately, due to personal problems in her family, she had to go again. So she came to another temp home and after just a few days she was adopted by my wife and me...

Not really a review: Sansa e280v2 Digital Audio Player

2008-02-11T02:23:00.000+01:00

I've been planning on getting a new Digital Audio Player for a while now. After I move to my new house I'll be doing my daily commute by bike, so a little entertainment on the go is nice to have. I already had a MSI Megaplayer 533, but it's capacity has always been too limited for me. The style of music I want to listen to changes more often than a amsterdam redlight district hooker gets laid, so the Megaplayers 256kb + up to 1gb in the SD slot is just not cutting it for me, not to mention the horrible UI. Of course, taking the intended use and some other options I wanted in consideration, I came to a product that doesn't exist (at least not in the priceclass I'm looking at).

So, after compromising on my demands a bit, here's what I want:
- Anything but an iPod
- Flash memory
- At least 4gb
- Expansion slot for more memory
- Jog dial
- Good batterylife
- Accessible as an external drive
- Under 125 euro shipped

The Sansa e280v2 fits the bill perfectly. It's not an iPod, it has 8gb flash memory, a micro SD expansion slot (and it's the v2, so it supports bigass micro SDHC cards), it has a control dial, runs 20h on a full charge, supports both MSC & MTP connections and set me back 116 euro delivered to my doorstep (well, parkinglot actually, as I intercepted the mailguy at his car :P).

The earphones that came with it were tried for about 2 seconds before they were discarded and donated to my wife. And the player did need a firmware upgrade straight out of the box to enable the MSC/MTP mode switching, but the update tool from the Sandisk website made that a pain free operation.

After that, it did pretty much all I wanted from a DAP. So I loaded it with some music, hooked up my Koss UR-40 (not exactly high end, but hey, I'm listening to compressed audio anyway). The sound was pretty decent, but I had to crank up the volume on the Sansa to near max. to get a decent bit of noise. So the trusty old in ear bass-monsters a.k.a. Koss the Plug were hooked up (again, not the best there is, but it's comfy in the ear and has a pretty good sound for it's price, especially when you like bass). So the listening began... Some of my favorite JM Jarre albums where the first to be tried. After tweaking the custom setting in the players EQ a bit, sound was good enough for my liking. Played around a bit, tried different earphones (Philips SHE-9500, now I remember why I hate them so much, and my Cheap ass Kanon modified with Shure orange foamies, which are unbearable loud on this player). I've been listening with the Koss the Plug for a few days now, and different styles of music (Metal, Folk, Trance, Industrial, Vocal & more) and so far, I'm happy! The old MSI player was quickly confiscated by my wife, and she's happy with it, as the SD expansion is a great feature that her old Acer player doesn't have.

Well thats it for now! (

New toys!

2008-01-31T10:23:00.000+01:00

This week, after waiting almost 2 months I finally received my package from the US. Inside it had some pretty sweet new stuff from T.A.D. Gear.

What was inside? Well, first of all, my new T.A.D. Gear FAST pack EDC, the successor to my FAST pack V2 (which has been my EDC pack for quite a while now). Got a nice discount on it as I own a previous gen. And I got 2 free 'Booster pods' to go with it, always useful as they can hold a can of Red Bull with a little room to spare and they're Molle compatible. Then there was the T.A.D. Gear Stealth hoodie V3.0, I've been eying the Stealth hoodie since quite a while, and wanted to buy the V2.0 (or was it the V2.5?) last summer, but I couldn't afford it back then (I did get the Scout hoodie, which I have literally worn at least once every single week since I've had it... T.A.D. guys, if you read this, I need more scout hoodies, M.E. Green and D.F. Grey will do just fine but black would be good too).

Anyway, the package also contained my Christmas gifts ('bout time they got here eh?) being some nice accessories for the FAST pack. The T.A.D. Gear OP1 pouch, a Camelbak Omega hydration bladder and 2 T.A.D. Gear Terminator Skull 'morale patches'...

I'm going to write some reviews of this gear and maybe even do a comparison between the V2 & EDC FAST packs, so check back here in a bit to read more about my new stuff.

Lumenjunkie.com

2007-12-27T19:45:00.000+01:00

Welcome to Lumenjunkie.com, my new website. Primarily dedicated to my flashlight-hobby, but I'll dump my personal stuff here too :) I have a lot of work to do on this little website, so I'll get to it now.

Laters!