A short history

Finished it last week, now looking for something new, thanks to WS for pointing this book out to me.
Great book, makes you wonder about nearly everything. Nice writing style although sometimes the translation into dutch has some bugs. Recommended (can be lend on request).

Looking for something scientific/philosophical, if anyone has got suggestions, you know where to find me.

TED2010 Associate Member

I managed to get enough translations done for TED.com to get a TED2010 Associate Membership!

Which means: I'm gonna be able to get a live-stream from the actual TED event in Long beach, California!!

(this is probably the closest I'll be coming to witnessing this for a long time, actually taking part will cost you about 6k..)

-pleased, to say the least-

Cold

It's been quite cold in London (again) for a few days now.

I'm also having quite a bad cold. So, went to the pharmacy (housed in supermarkets or are a part of big brands around here), got my stuff, trying to get it out of my system. At the moment, I'm not succeeding.

Finished the day with a boost of vitamine C etc (oranges, fruits, thee, honey, you name it).
2 lemons down, 7 to go.. (they where on sale, it's like they knew)

(can be found everywhere in London, still think it's a bit hypocritical)
I looked for the 'over the top'-one, but couldn't find it

Long needed update

Due to a lot of things to do, paired with a needed rest from blogging, paired with some nasty night/day-shift switching (I've come close to sitting on the flesh of my teeth as they would say in Belgium), paired with music and recording I haven't come to blogging recently. I'm not making any excuses, I'm just saying.

When I got back in London, it was cold, lots of snow, ice and traffic jams. Obviously, I didn't mind.

Visited the british museum.

(Cleopatra, still find it a bit awkward, I reckon they'd better leave all those people were they where left)
(the rosetta stone)

(Easter Island dude)

(Personally know somebody who would like some statues from this room in his garden/home)

On cooking:

(Shepards pie, I didn't cook it, but is was great)

(Classy, eh?)

(one of the best results up until now)

(grilled pasta, discovered the oven)

(what you get when you lend some matches to a desperate neighbour on his girlfriend's birthday, very nice)

At college, we got introduced into the next studio, the SSL G-Series room.
Analog is the main focus, with a genuine 24 multi-track tape recorder. It's quite a procedure, but you can actually sync up the desk with a mac and the tape. It's like magic. And it sound like.. real tape. Allready put 3 songs on my reel and mixed one down. Really nice experience.

(my 15mins reel, great to actually hold and handle sound, instead of looking at a hard drive)
(ssl, the industry standard, with too much lights on, just for show)
(the whole thing, working it is like solving a constantly changing puzzle, good fun. Also, note the 80's SSL computer)
(you gotta love working this, I even did some tape-editing)

Wave

I got 5 invites for google wave left.
Anybody that's interested, just give me a call/letter/email/comment/..


Back in London!

It's all good.

New Year

Have a great new year you all.

Live from the London Eurostar terminal

Arrived at something past 6, I gotta say, I wasn't the only one.
These english people really know how to queue..

Got out of the tube, and was directed to the waiting-line, which started outside of the station, went down from the escalators, back into the tube-tubes, back up the escalators, filled up the whole arrival and departure-hall, went on to the eurostar departure-hall and filled it up. That was about it. I'm now facing another 3-hour wait. But it could have been much worse.

Although I had to start waiting outside, the line grew at a steady pace behind me. Don't think I'm of too bad.


As I managed to get a spot at the laptop-desk I can even do some useful things such as translating talks for TED (official TED-translator, it might even get me live-streaming from the real San Fransisco TED conference !!). Yes, I know, most of my former Dutch/English-teachers would start feeling sick if they knew I was doing those things, but that doesn't really matter, does it.

Christmas etc

Travelling back to Belgium for Christmas and new year,

by eurostar offcourse, they are now trying to clear there backlog, providing service on a first-come first-serve basis. Yesterday thousands of people waited inside and outside of St. Pancras station to get on.

Promises to be a challenging day..

I'm going in. Early
See you all back in Belgium.

It snowed (again), so now traffic is suffering again in London, but at least it's a pretty view.

Visitors

So I was expecting some people to come and enjoy the atmosphere of London in Christmas mode.

But ofcourse:

Eurostar staff was going to go on a strike, luckily they postponed this 'till after Christmas.

You are probably aware of further developments:
- snow/ice-water condensed from the eurostar train onto the electronics when it entered the eurotunnel (where the temperature is at a constant 25 degrees)
- 5 trains broke down inside the tunnel
- hundreds of people where stuck inside the tunnel, some for 16 hours
- water ran out, all electricity was shut down, the train crew didn't do it's job, temperatures raised inside the cabins
- random people in the trains who happened to be police officers set up the evacuation
- the executive manager had a lot of explaining to do http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8422978.stm, but didn't do a very good job.
- no eurostar service has been available since Friday http://www.eurostar.com


Nobody is going to be able to make it to London. Talk about things going wrong on precise timing.

Fingers crossed on getting home for Christmas.



Update on where things went wrong:
- eurostar had absolutely no contact with the trains in the tunnel
- no or little communication with passengers during breakdown
- manager of eurostar tells of passenger witnesses as telling 'anecdotal stories'
- manager of eurostar up untill now still hasn't debriefed with the crew on what really happened in the trains, thus as a result almost knowing less than the passengers
- stranded passengers, still no service

Sure, it is easy to criticize eurostar by just summing up all things that went wrong. But than again, I'm in a bad mood, and this is my blog.