Previous Up Next

Diary, June 2000


   Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
                     1   2   3
     4   5   6   7   8   9  10
    11  12  13  14  15  16  17
    18  19  20  21  22  23  24
    25  26  27  28  29  30


Friday, June 2, 2000

Family reunion

It looks like family reunions in the family of
my mother only take place at funerals. Today, again we had a funeral of an uncle from my mother side. Many people expressed their happiness about the fact that their just had been a small family reunion when we celebrated the 70th birthday of my mother. That is also the last time, I saw my uncle alive. At that time he did not have any serious health problems.


Saturday, June 3, 2000

For Hire

When walking through the city, I sometimes come along an empty shop, with a sign saying "For Hire". This makes me dream about having a shop myself. But what kind of shop? The answer seems obvious:
a bookshop. But what kind of bookshop? There are already enough of them. With only the books I like, I think. But then when I come to reality, I realize that that is not possible. The rates for shop space is incredibly high. I would have to sell many books in order to make a little earning. Which means, I also would have to sell books I do not like. It is just a dream.


Sunday, June 4, 2000

Free lottery ticket

I few days ago we received a free lottery ticket of the Dutch
Lotto lottery. About 6 milion house hold received such a ticket, which was already announced through some TV commercials. At first, I did not believe it was really free, when I saw you had to dial a certian number to confirm that you were joining the lottery with the ticket. Then I noticed that it was a toll-free number. Still, I thought that there must be something behind it. When I tried to phone the number, it was busy, and it stayed busy. Usually, we do not join into lotteries, because it is a form of gambling. But if it is free, why not join it.

Last night, Andy woke us up in the middle of the night. And after I changed his diapers, I went downstairs to try the number again. It was free, and I got one of those famouse computerized answering machines on the line telling me to enter all kinds of numbers, namely: the number on the ticket, our phone number, and my bank account number, at least that is what is said on the back of the ticket. But I noticed that the interaction did not go very well. At a certain point, it said I had registred, but before I could have entered my bank account, it responded with the welcome messages, and the whole interactions started over again. I continued, and it went the same as before, and again it came back to the welcome messages. At that point I broke off the line. Back in bed, I could not catch sleep anymore, worring that something had gone wrong. At that point I also realized that I did not have any thing to prove that I indeed had registred my ticket. Only after I got the idea to video-tape the registration, I fell asleep.

Early in the morning, I went to the registration procedure again, with a video camera pointing at the telephone recording all the buttons I dialed, and the messages that came back. I showed the ticket, whenever appropriate. This time, I was asked for a bank account number, thus indeed something had gone wrong in the middle of the night. But I still did not receive any proof that I my registration was successful. They should have given me some unique four digit code, which would prove that I had registered, even if the system would have crashed afterwards.


Thursday, June 8, 2000

Strange encounters

This morning, there was a BMW capriolet standing on the VIP's parking place right before the entrance of our office. It looked liked a two seater sports car. The roof was off, and it was a lady, a girl almost. I could not stop watching it, when going into the building. Some of my colleages noted this, and asked me why I was looking. I told them that I was looking at the car, and then said "I have some strange feeling, that the lady does not fit the car". She had a blue sweater on, and curly hear till her shoulder, and she was driving very slowly while getting out of the parking lot. Also her face did not look familiar. My colleages also did not recognize her. The whole incident left me with a strange feeling that something was wrong here, but I couldn't tell exactly why.


Friday, June 9, 2000

Forgetting

Sometimes you forget something, and then you really wish you had not forgotten it. This morning, I accidently saw the repeated broad cast of the memorial service which was held yesterday for the victems of the disaster. The service was held yesterday evening from 20:00 till 21:00. At that time, I was visiting a colleague, to install some extra memory in one of my computers. In a sense, I feel ashamed that I easily forgot about all these people that are still daily confronted with the consequences of this terrible disaster. I still haven't been near the disaster area. I have the idea, that I will get a better understanding the reality of the disaster if I would go there.

(follow-up)


Saturday, June 17, 2000

Night of prayer

Last night, I joined the "Night of prayer" for the prosecuted Christians all over the world, which was held in more than hundred places in the Netherlands. This night started at 10 o'clock at Friday evening and ended at 6 o'clock in the morning. We did have several break during the night. We made a intercession world trip visiting the following countries: Mexico, Columbia, North-Korea, P.R. China, Philipines, Egypt, Turkmenistan, and Indonesia. And finally, we prayed for our own city. Only the last hour, I started to feel tired.


Home | May 2000 | July 2000 | Random memories.