:: @ Choepie’s ::

Andy has a digital camera with a waterproof box around it… it’s actually a nice thing to have such a box, but for my cannon it is more expensive than the camera is worth I’m afraid. Actually, I just go diving with Andy and while I enjoy the sealive (and concentrate on my breathing, my flotability, etc…) he can enjoy taking pictures of me ! You want to see them ? Here they are. You can see Ana and Espe doing their swimming pool sessions and lateron Andy and me enjoying the Capo del Faro in Mazaron. Good dive, a bit chilly though. And a bastard of a jellyfish got me… at least some of his tentacles made a nice mark in my neck, itching for a couple of days !

I finally finished this level of Medal of Honor… it’s actually not difficult, you only have to know… In meantime I subscribed to a semenary about Mediterranean fishes, given by 2 Biologists of Oceano Alfa. That’s the organization where I followed the Acuc Open Water dive training. It includes some classroom sessions and some dives… Every dive is OK and at least after a while I might be able to recognise what I’m seeing under water.:-) for a change.. Next step is Advanced Diver, somewhere in March I guess…. and then one year later, maybe go for the rescue diver. It’s always said that’s the nicest training. I would like to show some pictures of previous weekend, but I’ still waiting for Andy to hand them over… maybe tomorrow.

Ana did her Paddy Open Water Dive course in 2 days, with hardly any preparation ! Actually we received the course package tuesday, but she was soo busy with her thesis that there was absolutely no time for her to study on it. Fridaynight we jumped into Andy’s car towards Mazarròn for the course. The pooltraining started at 8h30, so not much of a sleep was in for her this weekend. Anyway, she did great. Couldn’t accept the learning curve though, so she was very frustrated about not able to clear her mask the first try. Everybody told her that that was a very common problem at the start, but she couldn’t have it. Ofcourse the second day wasn’t a problem anymore, so she completed the course without too much of problems.
In meantime Andy and I couldn’t do more than 2 dives during the weekend, but it was still good fun. I need to consider spending some money on some diving stuff…. I’m looking on ebay for a nice dive computer, but there’s not too much available… A suunto Viper would be great… but those things are so incredibelly expensive…. Andy provided some pictures !

Is it the age, can’t be… I’m too young for this, but fact is that I overslept already 3 times in 1 week My boss is pretty happy about it… at least I don’t call in sick then….. Actually I’m working on some projects after hours and it’s killing my nightsleep, I have a cold in meantime and this is the point I stop complaining because all the rest is plain fine, or at least to a point where it’s getting OK. I had some issues back home in Belgium that are about to get solved and Ana is at the end of her thesis which is a huge acompishment and we must organise a big party then.
Nevertheless my exhaused state of mind, I went out drinking a few Guiness for a good cause : Noa organised a kind of benefit evening yesterday in order to collect some money to construct toilets in a Peruvian school she worked in this summer. The more I drunk the more I helped. I’m too good.
So it’s not getting better with me today. Tonight we head of for Mazaron, Ana is getting her dive course together with Espe while Andy and me are going for some dives. I’m looking forward to it, but I should have bought some gear.. I did the course mostly with Andy’s gear and now I realised I only have my little diveboots. I will save money as well because I need a divecomputer !

Had a good day at the office Once in a while it’s good like that. A guy from England flew over to give a limited amount of engineers a hands on training for some new machines that are about to be launched… it is about time this is done… Most to the stuff I give support on I’ve never even seen before…
The weekend was good as well, quite dry and I didn’t do much as in : give the PS2 a good go : I’m already 3 weeks stuck on a level of Medal of Honor > Arnhem Nights.. well I blame it on the Dutch… On the other hand, I promised myself I would go for God of war (or War of God…) once I’ve finished this one.
And… when going out with Jon we met some girls in “Easy speaking” and they guess me as being 26 years old ! Even after 4 beers, 3 wodka with strawberry stuff and 4 Wodka with Lemon ! Now imagine if I was sober what age they would give me ! So, excellent weekend. The only issue that is bothering me already a while is that I just can’t quit smoking… It’s a fucking shame that I’m too stupid for that… In 3 months time it won’t be allowed to smoke anymore in any bar in Madrid ! So I need to be prepared by then…

Newsflash : Snow in Madrid ! Well, at least in the mountains north of Madrid. This morning they already had to free the roads over there … Spanish people, it will take a lifetime to understand them. Starting from Madrid going south, people completely freak out when it even rains for an hour So I can imaging the ammount of snow they had to clear of the streets. It was enough already to create a massive traffic jam.
Now back to the reality : I live in Madrid and went this morning on my Honda VFR800i motorbike to the office, I saw some wet spots on the streets and that was it, 12 degrees and NO SNOW. I’ll have a lazy weekend in front of me and I will enjoy every second of it !!!

Things I really need :

A big gun on my motorbike
More memory
An iPod
A short skirt secretary

The first one is to shoot that bastard that tried to kill me yesterday morning…actually, without breaking he went through the red light and crashed into the VW that drove just behind me… (ok at 50km/h) I couldn’t believe it !!!! Just 2 seconds earlier and I was the one… BTW there were no injuries in the other cars, but if this was me on the bike it would have been another story. The second one is just because my ‘random’ memory I have… I remember a lot of things but mostly on the wrong times. The iPod is something that is on my mind for a long time… to put on all the stuff I have on MD,mp3,CD… and the secretary is to go to the bank for me to pick up some kind of codecard because my bank suddenly (without warning) decided to change the online payments… also to update my residence card, to cancel a bike insurance for a motorbike I sold a while ago, to change the contacts of my ADSL, etc…
pff I really need some time of to get back a structure in my life, I realised I have exactly 3 weekend not planned in between now and the end of the year… Go for diving, work 3 weekends, go to Belgium, friends from Belgium over, a wedding,…
Oh yes… The Rome pictures are online here…

My 2 friends of Belgium left last wednesday in the evening, about the same time that Ana and I jumpt on the plane to visit Eva Beltran in Rome. She lives over there for a short period to assist in organising a exhibition about the work of Paolo Soleri. The man himself was there and the exhibition was great.
The first 3 days it was raining cats and dogs over there and we became more and more pissed of on the weather conditions as we were out in the street the whole day. The appartement we stayed was actually a hole in the ground and there was definitely not enough ventilation for the amount of people that lived there, either daylight and way too humid to be safe anymore. So we limited our time inside to the absolute minimum. But out in the street all day in the rain wasn’t nice either.
Anyway, we saw about everything over there and had a good time, I’ll post my pictures tonight.
The last 2 days we could take advantage of a clear blue sky and a nice octobersun, we were pretty tired by then so spend the days just wandering around and heading from one terras to another. The Italian coffee is great, but softer then the Spanish one, so it couldn’t impress me too much.
I guess my father is right… Rome comes before Paris on the list of ‘most beautifull city… Left NY to visit later in my life.

Got 2 friends over from Belgium and as it should be we went out for a good night out on Saturday in Madrid, so after a nice steak at Gallego 2, we headed off for the centre. Palma III, Tupperware club and Taboo where on the planning and I guess at Taboo both began to be very drunk. A couple of hours later a real war started between them (they are a couple) and it escalated so much that in the morning the girl decided to move to a hotel instead of sleeping in the guestroom… we lost a whole sunday in an attempt to get them together again. Argueing when being drunk is one thing, but staying angry when sobering up is another thing. I bet nobody even new what the argue was about next day.
Whatever, I’m tired now, still have some kind of cold and I need to get rid of that because I’m going to dive in 3 weeks time, Unfortunately I smoked this weekend (and will stop again now) and my snoring kept Ana awake whole night and therefore she got up in a bit of a bad mood (can’t blame her….) So how can I stop snoring…