A picture I took quite a while back, but I never actually looked at it closely before. After some light/medium post-processing:

It never ceases to amaze me how some people can manage to become the head of a service with absolutely no capacity for proactive thinking or communication. It's like dropping a penny into a well and never hearing it hit the bottom... Today however was a whole other level... Seriously, I don't know how much longer I can keep this up, tonnes of work (including translations, which is not my job, because apparently no one else is capable of translating from French to Dutch) AND dealing with morons who should never have been promoted. And to top it off, I'm taking on things that weren't even assigned to me because otherwise these idiots cannot function properly. Is it me, or is there something wrong with me (less than two years work experience) having to "guide" (serious euphemism) heads of other services?

*sigh* Never mind, just rambling, but something definitely needs to change or I might have to take a long break from work.

It's been ages since I last used my camera, so I took it with me last weekend when visiting an exhibition. Part of the exhibition was in a church:

I only go back to work tomorrow

This weekend Houdini finally ventured outside the garden, and disappeared for more than 24 hours... We took a walk in our neighborhood, but couldn't find him. At 4AM we were suddenly woken up by him as he jumped on our bed. And today we have a very groggy and sleepy kitty on our hands, he's barely moved all day... He must have jumped a lot of fences and chased a lot of animals

Less good news is the fact that there are some burglars active in our neighborhood. They already tried to break in next door, while the neighbor was at home (he's very ill, so he couldn't do anything when he heard them ringing the doorbell and then going to the back of the house to try to get in with a crowbar. Fortunately they have extra security locks, just like ours, so the burglars couldn't get in.
But when we came home yesterday evening, the neighbor's son informed us that a few days ago, those same burglars had tried to open our garage door, when we were actually inside the house.
I don't like this at all. The burglars in question don't seem very professional, but that makes me more worried with regards to potential aggression, etc.

Thanks for the condolences The first coat of lacquer is finally finished! It took ages... And my arm is hurting, an old "injury" flared up again (RSI or something similar), so some nice pain killers for me tonight. Tomorrow the second coat, and then I don't want to see another paint brush for at least a few months

The past few days I've been painting the handrail in our stairwell (two floors):

1 sanding
2 removing dust
3 applying masking tape
4 applying primer
5 applying first coat of lacquer
6 applying second coat of lacquer

I've done half of step 5, and my arm is killing me... Working with the roller is fun, but there are so many little corners that have to be done with a small brush, some of them very hard to reach. I'd better continue with the first coat of lacquer, or it'll be a very late dinner today

I have the bench and the barbell rack. Now I have to wait for the barbells and dumbbells and the weights I ordered, 200 kilos of them... And then I can finally get my ass (and the rest of my body) into shape!

Not entirely ready, but close

After commenting on the translation by a colleague of a legal document into Dutch (remarking some phrasing that sounded odd to me), this (francophone) colleague sent an e-mail basically telling me how to do translations, while he himself barely speaks Dutch and knows squat about translating (without his Dutch-speaking colleague he'd be helpless). I do not take kindly to such arrogance and I appreciated even less his condescending tone, so I had prepared a whole e-mail refuting many of his comments, and saying "no offense, but I don't need lessons from you on how to translate, I have enough experience in the matter, and without being arrogant, I'm confident about the good quality of my translations".

Then I went to one of my bosses, figuring it was best to have his opinion. He read the e-mail and said "this guy is crazy". But he agreed that I should send an answer, only he had a whole different type of answer in mind. And after some thought, I went with his advice:

"Dear X,

Thank you so much for all this useful information. In the future I won't hesitate to consult you for advice concerning translations of legal texts, and I'll be sure to transfer to you all questions I should receive about how to translate such texts."

Good luck with that, chump, you acted like an expert on translations into Dutch, now you can prove yourself.

But my (main) boss is going to blow a fuse I think, when I show her this e-mail. She's more "warm blooded" than the other boss, more like me He who looks for trouble will certainly get it, I used to take all sorts of crap (bullying when I was young), but now I'm not ashamed to use the means at my disposal to defend myself.

Today a co-worker decided to personally attack me in an e-mail, with some higher management in CC, after some remarks I made to him orally that were nothing special but he took personally. Not only was he wrong in his (implicit) allegations, it's also no way to resolve a conflict. If you have a problem with me, how about just talking to me about it? But no, he took the offensive, and what was basically a misunderstanding has now turned nasty. Well, he forgot that I work for the top chief, and the top chief is on my side. Tomorrow my boss will tell me how to respond to his e-mail...

On a positive note, every evening I can't help but notice the lovely sunsets we can see out of our computer room window.