When we were in Holland we had another highlight. Alex remained standing with just a little bit of help. An impressive feat for a little boy of just 10 months.
Why does this photo remind me so much of the little prince?
Standing
1
Audi
During our visit to the Netherlands we spend a couple of days at my brothers place. He had just bought a nice new car, an Audi A3. He had the car for only a couple of weeks, and it is usually parked right in front of his door in a quiet residential area in the Hague. Everything seemed okay, but something very unexpected happened. One morning we suddenly encountered a big gaping hole in the door, just below the lock.
Ofter filing an online report at the police department and the insurance agency we visited a mechanic and got some very clear information. He hole was clearly made to rob the built in navigation. The thieves were interrupted during their work, and left just after making the hole, and before entering the car. The car window was still intact, because breaking the windows triggers the alarm. A big hole in the door is ignored by the alarm system and allowed the thieves to open the door without triggering the alarm..
Taking the car home without repair would imply that the navigation system would for sure be stolen that night. The car was left at the mechanics to repair and reinforce the door, but the previsions are not very good.
We also received some unofficial information. The thieves will be back for sure. The door will be reinforces but probably it will not be enough, of the thieves will return with bigger equipment. The navigation system is said to be worth just 10 euros in the south of Europe. I doubt if this is really the price, because a new navigation system costs around 1500 euros. The current solution is a big metal bar connected to the steering wheel, which extends to hover before the navigation system. Hopefully this will deter any thieves.
Diablo 3
A long time ago I was a very frequent player of computer games. Diablo was one of the games I liked playing and recently a new version of this game was released. A game I just had to try for myself.
A free version is available which you can use to try the game. The free version allowed you to play a small part of the actual game, but you can only get access to the free version if you know someone who has bought the game, and who is willing to give you one of his special try-out keys. I was lucky because I knew just such a person.
Now for the game. The first thing I noticed is that it resembles the previous version a lot. Really a LOT. Did this really take 8 year to create? My PC did not match the minimum specs but still the game ran surprisingly well. Killing monsters went smooth and easy and I did not run into problems. The old feelings I remember having while playing this game resurfaced.
I managed to perfectly kill lots of monsters, but that the game was without problems is not really accurate. The new version of Diablo requires you to be online while playing and you need to be logged into your battle.net account. Not really a problem, except that it fails quite a lot of times. Sometimes you loose your connection in the middle of the game, and all you can do is exit the game and restart it. After the last update I am unable to play at all. To bad.
The last issue I have with this game is the price. In the local shops you can buy the boxed version for a little over 40 euros. The digital version is easier to get, without leaving home at the Blizzard site. This digital version is without box and without CD but for some strange reason it is priced at almost 60 euros. A ridiculous difference.
My conclusion: It is a nice game, but for now I´ll stick to the demo version even though I finished this small part of the game already a few times.
Videos Alex
We enjoyed some nice holidays. Three weeks that we spend in the Nertherlands and in Spain. We enjoyed ourselfs and Alex also had a good time. After three weeks he suddenly had three more teeth. He is now crawling, plays with his parents and suddenly had a very big mouth.
| Big mouth |
Playing |
Crawling |
Day of the Canarians
Today we celebrate the day of the Canarians once again. A festivity on the Canary Islands that translates to a day filled with typical Canarian activities. Yesterday it already started with all the children going to school in a typical Canarian outfit. The outfit is not so difficult. Woman/girls wear an enormous skirt and men/boys wear dark pants, a white shirt and a long sash around their waist, worn like some kind of belt.
For us it is really a perfect day because our holidays start today. Tomorrow we will leave to Madrid and afterwards we´ll visit Holland! Even Alex is looking forward to it!
A worthless painted coin?
What is exactly the deal with these colored coins that keep appearing. It was a question that kept playing in my head and after some research I finally got an idea. I started wondering with the appearance of the colored 5 euro coin where there were suddenly some non official versions, only to notice that these non official versions were not called ‘illegal’. It seemed that anyone is allowed to paint their coins.
According to the law once a coin is painted it is no longer a legal form of tender. They are coins with a defect and are removed from the payment systems. As a collectible item they are nice to have and some are really pieces of art, and as such represent a certain value, but for making legal payments these coins are worthless. On the facebook page by the Royal Dutch Mint a number of critical questions were asked and you can read the following (about the Orange Lucky Dime, translated from Dutch):
- RoyalDutchMint: … the Lucky Dime is made using an authentic 10 euro cent 2012, and the base of the coins is a legal form of tender but the dime is intended to be collected. The Royal Dutch Mint does not guarantee the coin can be used for making payments.
- RoyalDutchMint: …, the original version of the Orange Lucky Dime 2012 is a legal form of payment. However, due to the added coloring the coin does not formally submit to the euro coin specifications and as such can be refused to serve as payment. This implies that the legal status as applies to the other 8 euro coins does not apply to the colored coins.
The peculiar thing is that the Royal Dutch Mint sells these colored coins and they seem to be quite unclear regarding the legal state of these coins. On their website they advertise these colored coins with these texts:
- First official Dutch 10 cent euro 2012 in Orange.
- Nominal value: 0,10 euro
They do seem to be referring to normal 10 cent coins. Still, they are worthless coins that are being sold alongside normal coins seemingly like they are similar products. The colored coins are a lot more expensive, but that they are not really legal tender only becomes clear after quite some investigation. It would be prudent if somehow this confusion was removed and it was made clear these colored coins represent a pretty and innovative product intended for collectors and that it does not represent legal tender.
A colored coin will not buy you anything but I think that still a lot of people would be interested in these pretty coins.
Eating an orange and learning to share
Parrot calculation
A parrot has 120 pealed peanuts in his food bowl. From the 120 peanuts he eats 1/3.
How many peanuts remain in the bowl?
Answer: click here to see the answer
Walk and crawl classes
Raising a kid is sometimes a very tiring occupation. Alex is on the verge to start crawling, so every now and then we try and give his some crawl and walking classes. Hopefully he will master the act quickly because even after a short class I’m beat. I’m getting old!
Tina Cousins – Pray
Tina Cousins – Pray
What a miracle is life
the fields are high and the fruit is ripe
so hold out your hands
yeah, hold out your hands
and you’re the same as me
you breathe the air I breathe
and we don’t understand, yeah
we don’t understandWe all see the same sun
each day a golden praise is sung
to the wonder of man
yeah, to the wonder of man
and when we look why can’t we see
all the riches that are free
oh we don’t understand, yeah
we don’t understandAnd if you don’t ask questions you won’t know why
so say a prayer for the time while there’s still time
so pray for good and pray for love
pray for peace and pray it’s enough
pray for salvation
pray that we’re right
pray one day we’ll open our eyes, and
pray for them and pray for us
pray one day we can live as one
pray for the children whose time is to come
just pray they forgive us for the stupid things we’ve done