Rain is my laptop and she's getting older and wonky. I bought her in 2006 and in the first month had lots of issues with her and Azerty (where I bought her: don't ever do that!) and a faulty mother board. After that was finally fixed she worked great. However, now, nearly 6 years later, the optical drive no longer works (won't eject/open until you've tried at least 16 times via both hardware and software) and she's showing 'blue screens of death' more and more often. Something inside makes nasty screeching sounds every once in a while too.

Yesterday she had a very spectacular crash. We're not sure if it was really something in the computer itself or two Trojan horses that were detected this morning by my free AVG version. It was probably the virus that wiped clean my desktop, quick launch bar and start menu though. Fortunately Matthijs, although being a Linux user, knew how to fix that and I have most of my settings back now. The virus had set all desktop/menu related files to hidden and put some stuff in the registers. I seriously hate people that make viruses and think they should all horribly die.

Still, virus or no it is probably time for a new computer. Matthijs is being a darling looking through all kinds of sites and offers to find a good one. I do not have enough knowledge, and don't care enough, to know what to look for. All I know is that I'm not going to spend over 1500 EUR to get a new laptop and that I want to be able to play Warcraft/Starcraft (the old ones) besides work. That should be simple enough....

This year seems to be one of goodbye's....

My father called this morning to tell me that my grandfather has passed away yesterday night. This was not a surprise. My grandfather had fallen ill last week and doctors had said that it would only be a matter of a few days before he would die. His body was weakened and there was no spirit left to hold on to life: he had Alzheimer's for over a year now.

It is probably better this way and I had not seen my grandfather for over half a year. Visiting him would only have meant holding his hand or sitting there while he did not recognize you and dozed off every few minutes. So in a way I had already said goodbye for myself. Still, hearing the emotion in my father's voice when he told me the news made me cry.

My grandfather was 88 years old.

Again I'm happy with Marktplaats. Within 2 weeks I have nearly converted my whole Disney video collection to DVDs. I'm waiting for a sending of 6 dvd's and there's 3 titles that I still miss (101 dalmatians, Hercules, jungle book). And within one day of posting my call for help with my serger I received a reply from a man in Hengelo that has the thing I need: a new thread guider for my Brother 546D.

So, it's not just the 'for sale' advertisements that work, the 'looking for' also works.

Service is just a word these days, it seems. I had contacted Brother via the official ways to ask if they could help me with the broken thread guider of my second (maybe third) hand serger. The short reply I get is "parts for this type of machine are no longer produced". No "we're sorry" or "perhaps you could try <possible solution>". The sewing machine repair shop here in Amersfoort isn't much better. After waiting a whole minute the phone was finally picked up and the guy on the other side snappishly told me that he does not receive parts from Brother so therefore he cannot help me. His tone of voice suggested that it was all my fault or that in the least I was a nitwit for asking. No suggestions or "I'm sorry" there either. So much for service.

I hope that the Marktplaats deal will work out. I got a reply to my 'cry for help' with a short message and a phonenumber. The man that picked up the phone told me that he has an old fashioned repair shop and that he had some old parts lying around. He said he'd send me the thread guide for € 25. Might sound like much, it's only a bent piece of metal, but if that is what gets my machine working again and saves me from spending € 200+ on a new machine, for now I'll take the deal.

The outside has been finished for about a week now. Last week on Thursday the borders of the roof were attached and that was the finishing touch. Well, the actual finishing touch was our contractor stopping by to put some PU foam in the last cracks. Our darling kitty Melisse promptly sat in a blob of the foam and we had to catch her to cut the stuff out of her coat before she'd try to lick it all up...

So now we've got lots of light in the attic but we need to do all the finishing work ourselves (that was the deal). So we need to insulate the roof bits that are left, decide what kind of ceiling we want, finish roof/ dormer-walls with some plates and paint. Redo the old walls because nearly all wallpaper has been torn off, decide what kind of floor to put in and what furniture to place where. We had the floor of the attic tested for asbestos, negative, yay! So we're clear to start redecorating. This might take a few months...

Meanwhile Amersical (thank god they're working on a new website) and social stuff is taking up a lot of our weekend time. For Amersical the performance is coming closer. 12th, 13th and 19th of May we'll perform the piece 'Vlucht' 5 times. Three afternoons and two evenings. Check our website for the location and more info about the musical.

For Moving Stars (another horrible website...) I need to get practicing on the whole choreography which I have missed. I only started in January so I missed the months September to December, which is about 2 minutes of dance. 2 Minutes does not sound much but when you see how many difficult and swift movements you can cram into 2 minutes you'd be surprised. So three weeks ago I recorded the group dancing and now I have a crappy video to teach me the steps. Yesterday I actually got assigned a place in the line up and a 'partner' for some steps of the dance so I should really work on getting all steps into my head. Performance 3 times in the weekend of 29th of June - 1st of July.

We're still clearing away all sand from our back garden that was left after we finished redoing the terrace and borders. "Occupy Amersfoort" as we lovingly call the heap in the middle of the garden has been diminished to about a sixth of its original size. But it still a lot of sand. It's going to Ermelo a few (10 or so) sacks at a time to a friend of Matthijs' family. Hurray for our new car that can actually handle the stuff without sagging through the suspension.

For Amersical I need to get to work on my costume. Basically I need to make an apron, but I have to go get the 'fabric' first which is not so much fabric as it is a plastic table cloth from the Praxis. And I need to get working on the robe of the 'big guy' of the play. However, a piece of our serger broke so we need to get that fixed first. I'll have to call the repair shop today and see if they are willing to give it a try. The official Brother repair unit told me that parts for this machine are no longer available. Drat!

So, enough to do. What am I doing writing a blog post? Let's get some groceries and then get to work.