andthennothing.net

Tonight I went out on a bike ride down to the sea. The same trip I’ve done quite a few times now, but this time I discovered a cute little trail running a few hundered meters closer to the sea which is a lot more interesting. Unfortunately the rough(er) terrain made the handlebars come loose (I had nothing to do with it, honestly). It wasn’t the first time that happened, actually the same thing happened two weeks ago. That time I found a few guys after a few kilometers who were moving into a house who had a screwdriver that was good enough to fasten the handlebars to take me home (but evidently not enough to last). This time I had no such luck, so I ended up walking 15 kilometers to get home. Fortunately I had a bike torch (the woods were pitch black) and a mp3-player with good music and podcasts. Note to self: bring the tools the next time.

Just as it’s important to have the right tools when you’re out biking, it’s important to have the right tools when developing software… Sorry, just kidding. I won’t go there now, that would be cheesy :-)

I was sitting there on the rock, by the sea, reading a book. It was quite a nice day, but rather cloudy. All of a sudden I heard the sound of thunder, the last sound in the world I wanted to hear, far away. I read one more chapter (fortunately a short one) and then I headed home on my bike. Legs tired, back tyre three quarters full, seventeen long kilometers from home. After a few kilometers the first drops of rain hit my face, but I got almost halfway home until it started raining. But when it rained, it poured. It’s been a while since I’ve rain-cycling, and now I know why I’ve stayed away from it. It took just a few minutes until I was wet, through and through.

(Ok, so I exaggerated a bit, it wasn’t “the last sound in the word”, but it sure came close.)

I tried out shuffler today while talking in the phone. Bad idea! Good idea to backup though, since I was able to restore all (I think) MP3s I accidentally deleted due to wrong settings. Oups!

Something is completely wrong in my universe (is it just my universe or does any other universe malfunction in the same way?). First I nearly burnt down my kitchen two days ago (the smell is starting to dissappear), then my server died yesterday (doesn’t boot anymore, but I had no essential data on it), and today I almost deleted all my MP3s (horror). I can hardly wait for what tomorrow will bring. Exciting times!

I’ve been wanting a new toaster for a while now, but my current toaster is working quite fine so there’s no need. Or perhaps “working quite fine” is a little truth bending. I dropped it on the floor a few says back, but I didn’t think of it when I started it today. While my toasts were getting ready I went to the living room and spaced out. A few minutes later the fire detector was kindly enough to remind me that some time had passed and the toasts were unejected. The smoke that filled the kitchen and basically the whole apartment made it hard to breath so I aborted the toasting process. I normally don’t do that, but instead I wait for the process to come to an end. In today’s society we’re too stressed to let things take their time. But when I saw the glowing pieces of coal in the toaster through the smoke, I assessed that there might be something wrong with my toaster. Not wrong as in not getting warm enough (I have two slices of coal to prove it), but something is slightly defective with the timer or ejection mechanism, but IANAM. Perhaps I’ll refrain from using that particular toaster again.

Oh, btw, nice to know I have neighbors who checks up on you when smoke is coming out of every window.

I left work early today since I worked ridiculously late yesterday. Fortunately today was the first spring day for a long time, which was good since I switched tires from winter (it got illegal to use them this Sunday) to summer tires. And I did it manually, on my own, for the first time. And it really went well, besides taking a lot of time (but that wasn’t a problem in the pleasant weather), and besides me almost dropping the whole panzerwagen (I have an old Mercedez). I thought it made some funny noises when I jacked the rear right of the car, but it makes noises all the time. But when I had removed all the nuts and was about to remove the tire I noticed that the jack was very tilted. So the entire weight of the car rested on the loose tire. So I rewound the jack while pressing the tire with both of my feet, repositioned the jack, and jacked the rear end again, this time tilting to the other direction. On the third try, however, I managed to jack the car and switch the last tire as well. I’m such a klutz when it comes to practical things. But I think I learned the lesson for the day, thus next time will be a cake walk. :-)

When I was done I took the car (had to make sure I didn’t mess up) down to the sea, and took some photos. Spring is great!