:: @ Choepie’s ::

This story will make some people jalous…

Lutz (our German DJ) was playing in the Oui bar on Saturday so the plan was to check that out. We left a bit early, but Jon had a bar in mind he never was before and it was more or less on the way to the Oui bar, so we could go for a couple of cold ones in there.

Top of the Pops was the name of the place and the music was cool, moslty UK, some 80pop, some indie,… Jon wanted to start off in style so a Absolute/whatever was his call, while Ana and me stayed with a beer from tap. The bill was 5,50 Euro… Jon didn’t really understand it, (or he couldn’t believe it) but the beer was free untill 2 o’clock at night. It was hardly 11 o’clock so we had a couple of hours to go. I can’t remember how much I had, but I want to the Oui bar pretty wasted and joined Jon even to one of his pick-up places though don’t ask me where it was or what time I came home. I haven’t smoked in more then a week now, and to be honest, I’m pretty OK with it.

Got a big bottle, got a small bottle, got a T-shirt and I feel a bit outer space. That’s the result of a night in Cafeeke, Belgian bar in Madrid. It could have been worse. I have no idea what time I got home, but it was by taxi and I must have had the most interesting conversation with the driver. I’m sure I had. It wouldn´t have been a good idea to jump on the bike today.

Actually, I like the new theme of choepie… it’s a lot less stuff, but I guess making it a bit wider makes it easier to read. The only thing I have to take care for are the pictures in the postings.. they seem to go over the borders of the post itself… looks like the are stuck on top of it… I’m still in a bad mood I guess.

Although I though  I was about to get things arranged, I looks more and more that things end up in a big pile of shit.

reference : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XV4-2ywH4Ew

Actually I’m restyling Choepie and I will do it the annoying way so I’m forced to continue on it. So you will see errors, you will miss links in meantime, but the point is, it will annoye me as more then it will you, so no complains.

Where do I start ? I’m still trying to recover from the jetlag from SF… it’s almost a week now but I haven’t given myself to much opportunity to rest… Thursday morning I got up at 5 o’clock in the Hilton in San Francisco to catch a flight to Chicago. Security requested to be at the airport 3 hours in advance for a domestic flight..sigh, of course they robbed for the second time my lighter at the security check, as if that is a deadly weapon ! They haven’t found my matches though I had almost an hour transfer in Chicago and I wanted to be able to smoke, but that couldn’t be done as I couldn’t leave the secure area.
The captain understood my situation and speed up a bit so we landed +/- 7 hours later in Madrid. If it wasn’t for the Iberia luggage handling I would have made it to the office on time, but at the end I came home at 10 o’clock Fridaymorning. Good for a 4 hour nap and an easy evening session at home. I slept until 3 o’clock Saturday afternoon ! Boy was I awake ! I joined Jon for a Sweden-Spain match -Sweden won and the rest of the bar wasn’t happy that we celebrated it - and later on we met with Andy, Jon, Ana, Nathan, Sarah, Lucia and some more birds in the Oui bar. Around closing time of the Oui bar, the group was split between Spanish and Girimusic, as to say between ‘Morroco’ and ‘Low’, 2 clubs with completely different music. As Jon had the impression that he was scoring again, he joined the birds to Morroco, while Nathan, Sarah, Andy, Ana and me went to Low. The music was a bit more rock then I expected but some very nice mixes surprised us more than once and we ended up by closing the place (don’t ask me when, I have no watch), Metro was on and a breakfast on the way and off I was again for a sleepsession until 3 o’clock sunday afternoon, Just in time for lunch, a short walk and a coffee, and to meet up with Jon, Nathan and Sarah for a couple of Poker games.
The bizarre shifting nightsleep, kicked in on Sundaynight, I was asleep very fast (around 11 at night) but woke up already at 1h30 in the morning and that was it for that night, no way I felt asleep again, twisting and turning didn’t help, so tired as can be I went to the office. Monday night I slept at normal hours and like a baby for the first time in 2 weeks ! Excellent because Tuesdaynight was a Party at work… a boring presentation, a good meal and a tired Dj, but all juiced up with industrial amounts of Havana Club 7 Year… I came home around 4 or 4h30 (I still have no watch !) and at 9 o’clock I decided to work from home which was quite usefull, I ’studied’ on running Solaris X86 within VMWare (on Win XP Pro), running Lx within a zone within Solaris… So that is : running Windows XP pro, starting VMWare and launching Solars on top of that, within Solaris launhing a zone to run some lx framework to be able to run Linux Applications on that… 3 Operating systems on top of each other, that’s pretty cool isn’t it ! The good part is : you can try this at home !! Checkout Brandz.
In meantime I installed Ubuntu in another VMWare machine. I’m using at this very moment Ubuntu while XP, Solaris and that lx are active as well, let’s say I’m getting the dust of my AMD Athlon Dual core CPU.
Another fine trick to try at home, if you have an iPod : checkout the podcast of Laundry Beatz … just excellent. (Itunes, Podcast, search in Belgium and you’ll find it as well) they’re all nice but ‘Freres Delux’ is recommended.
That’s all for now. BTW for those who know him… Gareth sends his regards, he’s doing all he can from a Belgian bar in Australia ! The better model work at Gareth’s Gallery !

Finally found some time to update this. Nico’s at the hotel for a nap, and I’m next to Michi checking some emails. It was a rather ‘eventfull’ journey up untill now. Leaving Madrid at friday noon 12 o’clock for a 9 hour flight to Chicago. We had a small delay but it was ok as we had about 3 hours to wait for the next flight to San Francisco. The plane kind of left on time, 5 more hours to go and Nico and me had 6 rows between us. The Iberia wankers didn’t even manage to put us together… it’s a horrible service they have : on a 9 hour flight they served us once with food and just 1 more time for a drink… I was looking so much forward for a proper beer in the Swig bar… ok 5 hours to go from Chicago, it’s manageble.

After 10 minutes taxi, the plane made a U-turn because of a problem with the navigation. Some technicians came on board and we all had to wait in the plane. Good half an hour later we could finally head of. No movie, no radio… nothing like that on the plane, so reading a bit and watching some series of ‘The long way around’ on my iPod. Before leaving I filt it up with a couple of Podcast videos as well… 3 hours later : “We have a medical emergency on the plane, if there is any medical doctor or nurse aboard, please identify yourself the the crew.” Fuck, I was on my way to the toilet when they announced this, and just about to chat with Nico. As Nico worked 10 year in emergency, he went to check out. There was a man suffering a hartattack on the plane, and Nico was the only one (he’s not a doctor) with some knowledge and experience. He sat on his knees for the upcoming half hour, getting the blood circulating while a stewardess was rebreathing and the capitan dived the plane down for an emergency landing in Denver… touchdown, they took the man from the plane and started preparing the plane again for the flight to SF, refuel, security check, refill the oxigentanks, etc… good an hour later we taxied again for takeoff. After the first 9 hour flight, I wasn’t really looking for a 5 hour continuation, but all this together made that we were on the road for 26 hours straight. Couldn’t be asked for anything more : we toke a shower and went to the SWIG bar, for a fill and a refill of proper CHIMAY ! Belgian Beer !!! It toke me 20 minutes and I had a good chat with Steve and his wife, nice people we met the day after it as well for lunch. We closed the Swig bar at 2o’clock to drop dead in bed. I awoke a 7 o’clock. And exactly the same happend this morning : we tried to go on the piss again yesterday (saturday) to swigbar, but we were both still way to tired, at midnight we went back to the hotel, I watched some TV, but I awoke again at 6 o’clock… I’m looking so much forward for a proper sleep… I’m afraid, by the time I’m used to it, I’ll be back on the plane to Madrid.