I have two new best friends.

Not just any friends ... friends that I've wanted since I was about 16.

For those who are still clueless... check out the following link:

Dr. Erwin Lemmens Website

Looking forward to summer now - if summer ever happens in this cold country (did I mention it snowed the day after Easter - kids liked it though)

More than a month later... (work-wise)

Time flies when I'm at work.

I've learned so many new things and am now putting them to the test.

I'm still struggling - plain Java coding is a lot simpler and straight forward - but I've created a few simple web pages (with lots of copy and pasting from others).

The 4 colleagues that work on the same project that I do turned out to be a lot less boring than I originally thought.

I really should NOT rely on my first impressions!!

As far as the project goes - it's very different to work on a product for a single customer, and if this customer is the Flemish Government, even more so. Oh, our end users will be prison workers, people who guide prisoners while they are behind bars.

Very different than an ACD server :-)

How to loose your teeth really fast

This morning when Elias just woke up, he asked Wim for a clean handkerchief cause he was going to pull out a new loose tooth.
It's the third loose tooth, he already pulled out two of them.
The first one was hard labor - weeks of wiggling and being afraid of it falling out.
The second one was a lot easier - go to the bathroom and pull out that wiggly thing.
This third one is .... well, different.
He apparently was trying for a while and came back to our bathroom complaining that he couldn't get it out, that it was bleeding a bit and that we should pull it out for him.
No problem ... Wim took the handkerchief and tried to pull.... only to realize .... it wasn't even very loose.
Ok, if you really tried you could get it to wiggle a bit! WAY too soon to be pulling this one out.
Elias was very disappointed and asked for a little rope to pull it out (which we didn't give of course - trying to explain that tooth wasn't yet ready to be pulled).

We are now watching him carefully - making sure he doesn't get a hold of a hammer or so ;-)

The Tooth Fairy Takes An Inflation Hit

Summary of first week back at work

I survived my first week at kZen (part of foresee.be, part of cronos.be).

It was boring in the sense that I spent entire days reading eBooks. I'm learning about the Spring framework. Will soon learn more about Hibernate framework and JSF.

Since I have not done any web development before, I am learning so many new things, more than in the last 7 years at Cisco (sad actually). It's quite exciting...

The "people" seem to open up a bit. Still quite 'nerdy' but at least one of the guys (that I hadn't met before) brings a bit of life to the group.

They probably think I'm a very quiet girl as well....

Looks can deceive ;-)

First experience with an Indian restaurant in Belgium

This Saturday we went to an Indian restaurant (Himalaya) - the first time since we are in Belgium.

I found it on the web, it looked cozy, I made a reservation.

When we got there, the entire restaurant was very full, so it must be good, no?

We ordered:
- sweet lassi
- rum coke (this, they didn't understand - rum AND coke???)
- glas of red wine (which never showed up, except on the bill)
- vegetable pokora (shouldn't it be pakora - and no - it was nothing like in the States, more like a vegetable rosti, very greasy and just not Indian tasting whatsoever)
- Vegetable Mixed Vindaloo (a spicy dish which was good, but again, I missed the Indian taste but maybe this is a Nepalese dish)
- Chicken korma (just chicken in a coconut sauce, no carrots or peas, and very very sweet)

Can you tell we were disappointed?

Not giving up though - we'll just have to try another restaurant next time.

The "mean" girls

When Mendel, Caitlin or Louise talk about the "mean" girls, we all know who they are referring to: two girls (sisters) in Caitlin's class that used to bully them the first few months of school.

Now, the past few weeks, these girls are no longer mean to them and they have become friends (most of the time), but we can't get rid of their original name.

Every time we see one of the girls at school Mendel will point and say (quite loudly): Look mommy, the "mean" girl. But she is nice now, she is my friend.

This weekend when at a school event, she ran to me and showed me a piece of candy she got from the "mean" girl.

I'm trying to work on her, calling the girl by her name, but she keeps forgetting that girl's name.

It's funny as hell, I think, but I'm mortified that one day the mom will hear this (if she even understands of course)...

Importing a car in Belgium is hard labor....

After 5 months in this country, our Volvo is still driving around with it's Californian license plate.

So far, every stage that the paperwork has to go through, we need to resend the same documents to this instance. As if none of these government instances talk to each other.

Right now, we need a "gelijkvormigheidsattest" and after several calls, it seems like we can get this from the Volvo dealership (they will send the original documents to the Belgian Volvo Co). I hope we don't need to make any modifications for Belgium...

It's been fun driving with a CA plate though, many people stare at our car (I like the attention ;-) and I've heard that this plate is not registered with the local police, so even if I get "flashed" for speeding, they can't send me a ticket.
That might explain why I haven't gotten a ticket so far :-)