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13:43
Around a quarter to two we are all shocked by a loud bang in our
room. Within seconds we realize it is the green balloon on the
door that has exploded. It was put there by the only persons who
was not sitting behind his desk. Why did the balloon suddenly
explode. (This question can be raised for building which suddenly
collapse as well. Immediately this video taken at the Jewish
wedding comes to my mind.) The explosion of the ballon (and
likewise, each collaps) must have started with one single atomic
bond being broken or weakend.
First Joke
This morning, I heard that Andy was already
awake. I walked into his half dark room and while pointing at him,
asked him "Who is there?".
"Annabel", he answered.
"No, you are not Annabel. Who are you?".
"Mommy".
"No, you are not Mommy. Tell me, who are you?"
"Daddy".
"No, you are not Daddy. I am Daddy. Who are you?"
"Andy" he said with a smile.
Apparently, the fact that he cannot speak very well, doesn't mean
he cannot make jokes. He has discovered now that he can play a game
by giving the wrong answer to a question. After I switched on, he
didn't want to repeat it. May be he also understood, that
I the dark somebody can be more easily mistaken abou someones
identity in the light.
One of the problems with mental handicaps is that they are not
uniform with respect to all aspects of development. Often the
mental handicaps are most strong in certain areas. This makes
it even more difficult for them. Andy often gets frustrated
because he is not able to express his thoughts, especially when
he wants something.
Today, it is ten years ago that Li-Xia
arrived in the Netherlands. She did not know anybody when she
arrived on Schiphol (our national airport). Someone from the
Unversity of Twente came to pick her up. She had remarked that
she would recognize her because she probably would be the only
Chinese on the plane from Los Angelos. But when Li-Xia landed
there was also a plane from Taiwan, and it happend that when
she walked out of the gate she was surrounded by Chinese. Luckily,
the lady had made a sign. It was a very windy day that day.
To celebrate this anniversity, she made Hun Tun for dinner.
Comments
When computer science students learn to program, they are
encouraged to comment their code, but some how most
professional software engineers do not add much comment.
In the book "Code Complete" their is a whole chapter about
how to write comments in source code. The material found
in this book is usually not taught at universities and
colleges. Yet, there are others, who
consider comments as sign of bad code. They argue that
code should be readable without comments, and if it is not
this means that there is something wrong. Because most
software engineers have never learned how to write comments,
the comments you find are usually the indication that there
is something strang happening. Today, I came across the
comment "ResValue can be used to allocate copy value
for parameters or something like that" behind a member
variable of a structure. And immediately, I got some creepy
feeling. Apparently, it was put in by some programmer, with
the idea that it might be usefull in the future. I did a
complete search over the code to check if it ever was used.
I found it was always initialized to NULL, except in two
places. There I read a comment like "Temp workaround
for problems in editable list". This made me laugh!!
The member that was put in their by the idea that it might
be handy in the future, was never used, except to implement
a work-around for a problem that should have been implemented
in a different way in the first place.
Van Gogh
Today, I bought the book Van Gogh Portfolio published by Taschen,
ISBN 3-8228-1419-9 from book shop De Slegte in Enschede. (Before me someone bought the last
copy of a book about a Dutch painter whoes work resembles that
of Monet. I often considered
to buy this book as well. It seems I am too late now.)
The book
contains fourteen mini-poster sized
reproductions of Van Gogh's paintings, including
Thatched Cottage in Cordeville,
which I did use as a wall paper image on my computer a
long time ago. This
painting is mentioned in the sixth book
of the original Dune series.
(follow-up on Dutch "Monet")
Bankrupt
Today, the company I work with is
(going) bankrupt.
The court of Almelo
made the following announcement:
F/69/02 Telic Holding BV, Kvknr.: 27184205,
F/70/02 Telic Logistic International BV, Kvknr.: 06079827,
F/71/02 Telic Accounting International BV, Kvknr.: 06079828, alle
statutair gevestigd te Enschede en kantoorhoudende te 7556 BN Hengelo (O),
Demmersweg 41. Curator: mr. W.H.J.M. Haafkes, postbus 171,
7550 AD Hengelo (O), tel.: 074-2421832.
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Note that one of the four Telic companies is missing
due to the technicality that it can only be declared
bankrupt by the court of Zupthen.
(follow-up)
Hope for continuation
Today, a short news paper article with the title
"Hoop voor failliet Telic in Hengelo"
(Hope for bankrupt Telic in Hengelo) appeared in the local news paper
called Twentsche Courant Tubantia.
In this a debt of at least €2.8 million is mentioned, and that we will not
immediately be fired because the trustee (official receiver) first
wants to go for a continuation. We as employees had not yet been
informed that we were not going to be fired immediately.
The article also states that the case is rather complicated
because their is a dispute about who owns the intellectual
rights of the software.
(follow-up)
This evening, I received an email
with the subject God is here!. I thought it a very
interesting message. Although most of it sounds very familiar,
I still felt encouraged by it. I only do not understand the
blue background.
(follow-up)
Today, it was announced that the commision Equal Treatment
has declared that civil servants are allowed to refuse
to marry couples of the same sex in case they have
conscientious objections. They also declared that the
city of Leeuwaarden did wrong by firing one of its
civil servants that had objections. Cities are even
not allowed to reject candidates for civil services on
the ground that they do not want to marry same sex couples.
(follow-up)
Problems with our CD recorder
Last week, we discovered that many of the audio CD's we
recorded in the past months, had errors. (We only made
copies of Bible studies, not of any popular music.)
Today, I decided to bring the Iomega CD recorder,
which we bought with our
ester computer, back to the shop. They told
me that they could not do anything for me, because it
was just over a year ago that I took the computer home.
When I went to another shop to see if they had a good
CD recorder to replace it, the owner told me that I
could try to download new firmware for the CD recorder.
That is what I did, and did not encounter any problems
anymore when burning audio CD with tracks from the
harddisk.
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(Later, I realized that some of the problems
might have been caused by the fact both the
CD recorder as the CD-ROM drive are on the
same IDE cable. That may lead to errors when
you use them both during burning a CD.)
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God is Here (cont'd)
This evening, I received a
reply to a little thank-you note to
the messages
that I received last Friday.
Apparently, Mrs. Angelcille (I do not know why,
but somehow, I think that the person behind this
is a lady) likes to stay in her role as messenger
of God. At least she is not perfect as God would
be, because my name is not Melisse. But nevertheless,
I do believe that God can speak to us by means of
others. That is the one reason why I felt encouraged
in the first place.
God is Here (cont'd)
This evening, I received another email from
Mrs. Angelcille after I send a short email to her
(him?). This time, I got a reply with all kind
of nonsense. According to the message, God is
one who:
- wants to call me Melissa
- knows I am a good, Jewish girl
(I am a man and not Jewish.)
- saved my family from the holocaust
(They were never directly affected by it.)
- knows that my father died in the concentration
camp Austwitz
(He died on December 1, 2000.)
- that I suffered tremendous pain and hardship
during the third reich.
(I was not even born!!!)
What should I think of this? How can I feel encouraged just
two days ago by a messages that was written by what now
appears to be some kind of fool that likes to make fun of
people.
Fired
This afternoon, the trustee came to inform us about the situation
of our employer after it was declared
bankrupt last week. He also explained
us about the procedure with respect to a possible
continuation. But the most important thing
for us was that he told us that he would fire us, and that
we could stop working. We are not immediately unemployed,
because the cancel periode of something between one month
and six weeks needs to be observed. Nevertheless, we will
have to start applying for a new job, otherwise we will not
get out unemployment payment.
Official letter
Today, I received the official letter stating that I have
been fired because of the bankruptcy of Telic. It also
included the statement that the last Telic company also
had been declared bankrupt. See the following excerpt
from the
announcement of the
court of Zuthpen:
F 02/62
TELIC SOFTWARE INTERNATIONAL B.V.
K.v.K.nr: 09090652
statutair gevestigd te Beek, gemeente Bergh
gevestigd te Hengelosestraat 531-533, 7521 AG Enschede
Rechter-commissaris mr. K.J. Haarhuis
Curator mr. W.H.J.M. Haafkes, Enschedesestraat 60, 7551 EN Hengelo, telnr. 074-2421832
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This afternoon, we were doing some cleaning in the
backgarden, when
Annabel found some of
chestnuts we put in the ground there last
September. One of them
had a root of at least 10 cm (4 inches) going
right into the earth. We decided to put four chestnuts
in a pot and bring it inside.
(follow-up)
Tonight, Annabel finished reading
the Dutch translation of the original Winnie the Pooh book.
I am rather proud of this achievement. I told her that she should
read it again next year. To her why question I answered that she would
understand much more of it. Then she replies that she already understood
every word of it.
Company taken over by Jansen Holding B.V.
Today, I had to read in the local newspaper, that Jansen Holding B.V.
has taken over the company and will continue the business with 15 of the 32
employees. I wonder whether I belong to the 15, as so far, I haven't heard
anything from this.
The article also mentioned that the sixteen of the customers
had approached the trustree for a continuation. The trustee
choose for Jansen Holding B.V. because it was still expecting
€2.9 million from Telic and was given the software
as security (as a pledge).
The third continuation candidate (which was not mentioned in
the article) was the company that took over our
company at the beginning of this year.
My prediction that Jansen Holding B.V. would do the continuation
appearently has become true.
(follow-up)
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