Sisters

My mother and her sister Willie, the last of the family generation of my mothers side, on the other side there is only one member of this generation alive, the sister of my father Janny. The two sisters having breakfast squabble about anything like little sisters do. They giggle and chatter about their old boyfriends and how they kissed behind the church. Watching old familypictures one suddenly realizes that in a few years nobody remembers the names of the people on these pictures anymore. What do we know of these people, how did they meet, what did they do, where did they live?

How fragile we are...

The suit...

Working at home has its advantages, one of them I cherish is that there is no dress code. I can work naked if I want. As a matter of fact I sometimes do find myself working in the middle of the night or very early in the morning wearing my night outfit which is nothing more than my skin.
I like wearing casual clothes while working, shorts when its warm or whatever I found lying next to my bed.

I hate the usual white-collar outfit, the suit and tie so I avoid occasions where I have to wear it. When wearing a suit my own children suddenly call me sir and I walk the street unrecognized. On the picture you see me on such a rare occasion, visiting the Busworld Exhibition in Kortrijk, Belgium, for the presentation of the new book about Prevention of Back Aches for bus drivers and other people with a sitting profession. On the picture you also see my good friend John who wrote the book.

Computer garbage

I hate to throw things away, especially when they still work. What you see on this picture are computers, printers, monitors, modems and other computer stuff that I kept, but now will be thrown away. Most machines still work, there are actually 2 laserprinters, some apple computers, and a lot of broken monitors. There is an elektrical typewriter to, do you know what that is? A keyboard and a printer without a computer. Everything is obsolete, too slow, too small, or superfluous. Some monitors still have stickers with phone numbers on it or access codes. I still have a brand new toner cartridge for the apple laserprinter. I never use it anymore, I have one color printer in he network and that’s enough. The computers I work with run under Apple OSX and windows 2000. The computers you see here are far too slow or too small to even run the operating system. But hey, I don’t want to throw them away, I used to work with this stuff, I made things with these machines, books, magazines, newspapers, I earned my living with this pile of junk! So, come and get what you want, you can have it!

Lilys and freesias

These are my favorite flowers. The lily’s because they are absolutely beautiful, and the freesias because they smell so good. I often buy them together, they form a fine bouquet.
Flowers amaze me, they smell good, they have stunning colors and they grow for no other reason then to grow and be beautiful and propagate the race. In fact, I don’t know no other species that shows its reproduction organ in such a proud manner to everyone who wants to see it, although, some people I know...

Chestnuts and Brussels sprouts

Today we found lots of chestnuts in the forest. I love chestnuts with Brussels sprouts, or roasted chestnuts, so I made a beautifull dish with pork chops, Brussels sprouts and chestnuts. I cook the sprouts and the chestnuts together. The chops and the nuts with a wild sauce on a dish make a real good meal for a dark cold night in the fall, after a long hike in the woods. And, what you pick or find in the wild always tastes better!

Fixing bikes

Fixing bikes is a returning job when you are a father. When the days are getting shorter the kids need their lights, so daddy has to fix them. It gives me a strange feeling of satisfaction to do so. I like fixing things, I am good at it, and mostly, I feel very fatherlike when doing it.
More and more I get the feeling that things appreciate being fixed. Like they feel they are taken care off, just like kids feel that you love them and take care.
When sailing, this feeling is overwhelming, because a sailing-boat has a mind of its own and if not treated right it can actually kill you, but when you treat her with love and care, she will save your ass when things are bad.
I am very good with boats, I love them, I feel they want to be treated right and I have developed the skills to do so. Maybe I am more of a thing man then a person man. I usually understand things better then persons, not to mention women. They really puzzle me, including my own daughter.

Circles of light

As circles of light form before my very eyes they emerge as figures through the skyes and twirling in my mind they seem to say the things I see will go away but fear forms knots all down my guts because I know I am going nuts when circles of light form before my very eyes and emerge as figures through the skyes while twirling in my mind to say the things I see will go away as fear forms knots all down my guts because I feel I am going nuts while circles of light form before my very blue eyes and emerge as strange figures through the blackening skyes the rage through my mind making the things I see form knots all down my very guts while I am sinking in circles of frightening light

Submission for The Alchera Project

looking down my own dead body...

Alas! Its my dead body I see
No sounds of sorrow, no mourning
No tears they shed for me

Alas! Its my corpse they handle there
No prayers or speeches
No words of comfort I do hear

Alas! Its my own funeral I go through
No preacher or service
No ceremonie, what do they do?

Alas! Just students around my naked self
No coffin, no peacefull grave for me
No final restingplace, just a cold white shelf

The Alchera Project submission

Picking pears...

Our peartree carried a lot of pears this year. After pruning the tree, it recovered from the peartree disease, and it gives a lot of very good and tasty stew-pears. I cook them with sugar and some secret ingedients to a pulp and sift it to a very oldfashioned tasting pear-sauce. I personaly love it and so do the kids.
My brother Harm and his wife Marijke visited us today taking grandma with them. They helped picking the last pears.This is the result of our hard work, four buckets, that's fourty pots of lovely pear-sauce.

Click on the picture to see Nicky as Japanese Manga Girl

What the world would look like if Japanese Manga Cartoons where realistic.
Here you see the results of a photoshop contest with that theme. Too late to sign in, I decided that Nicky would be my victim. Click on the picture to see the result.

Have a crap on the 'puts'...

This summer we sailed on the ha 97, a traditional sailing ship that was used on the 'Suydersee' to fish on eel. Usualy these ships don't have a toilet on board, but 'Wopke' the owner has two daughters, and they refused to sail with daddy without a toilet, so he had to install one.

We never used the toilet, we are so used to have a crap on the 'puts'(that is a bucket on a rope, used to get water to wash the deck) that we didn't miss the toilet. I always find it remarkable how fast people get used to simplicity.

Not yet on the cover...

Bert realy did his best but Midi is a magazine for women in their fourtys and they like to show some wrinkles. Smooth skinny models don't belong in this magazine. Nevertheless its a great honour to be on this page together with Ivo Niehe and Frits Spits, both famous radio and tv personalities in Holland.
Next week we will know if Hellen made it to the cover.

Ain't that something? My bitch a covergirl? What would be the T-shirt text?

If you can read this, the bitch is modelling...