Live aus Köln

Hallo Welt!!

Heute ein Bericht aus Köln, aber nicht so, wie ich gehofft hatte. Das Wise Guys Konzert gestern hat leider ausfallen mussen weil der Clemens krank war. Zum Glück gabs Abends ins MTC noch PayTV, da haben wir dann mal ganz kräftig gefeiert. Aber schade wars. Das Nachhol Konzert ist am nächsten Sonntag aber schon wieder nach Köln zu reisen kann ich nicht machen. Leider.

Lets talk in English, I don´t know who might be reading this. The Wise Guys concert yesterday couln´t take place because Clemens was ill. Really a pity.

I arrived in Köln at 12.50, walked down the stairs and there I met Dän, Sari, Ferenc und Eddi (four Wise Guys, only Clemens wasn´t there). What a coincidence, don´t you think? I smiled and said "Bis gleich!" and then Dän said the concert couldn´t take place, because Clemens was ill. I thought he was making a joke, but he was serious. He said "Du bist von Holland angereist gekommen, oder?" So he had recognised me :) "Es tut mir wirklich leid..." Well, it´s true, when one of them is ill, he´s ill.... can´t help it. Pity, but ´we´ Wise Guys Fans will just say *cheng cheng* and move on. Things like this happen..

But, I still had a nice time in Cologne. I met a lot of people I know from the net, and it was very nice to see them again. In the evening there was a PayTV concert. PayTV is a band from Hamburg. (They are the Rockhousebrothers) We had a really great time with them.

Today I have got plenty of time to do things before my train leaves again. But it´s so damn cold outside!!! I´ve already visited the Dom Church again. Pretty, but not very warm inside as well. I´ve had a hot cup of tea and went shopping afterwards. I visited the Mediamarkt, and bought an old Wise Guys album (Alles im Grünen Bereich), because I don´t have the original. And it was only 10 euros. Then I bought some postcards and I searched for a shop to buy Blendi toothpaste. The kids at work were asking for it last week haha. I found a DM, and found the Blendi.

After the shopping I was cold and the internet cafe had finally openend, so now I´m sitting here, checking messages and writing things in Guestbooks, Forums and my blog :D I want to make a walk afterwards, in the Altstadt and by the Rhein. And then I think, it´s time to go home.

And then, I can talk Dutch again. Though, I must say *stolz bin*, my German was pretty ok this weekend. I think I´m learning :D *YEAH!!!*

New pictures, or: Martins creations

Sorry for those who don't know our home and don't know what it looked like, I didn't make pictures from "before". Here are some pictures the way it looks like now, I promised my mom to put them online today, so here they are.

First of all, the closets in the guest room look like this now. The dark brown doors of the old closet have been plastered with nice fake wood-plastic and together with the new closet it looks a lot prettier. (a picture with the dark brown doors can be found here)

Next, Martin has built himself a little bedside table, because he's always been using some old boxes as a bedside table (among them an antique Word Perfect box) ;)

By the way, you can enlarge all the pictures by clicking on them. I'm only putting the small versions here, because there are quite a few pictures.

In the computer room, Martin has built cd shelves, next to our bookcase. First, all these cd's were on the shelves in the bookcase, which left less space for books. Now, we can put all our books in the bookcase. You can reach the light button through the cd shelves now :)

There are two more things to do now. First, we are going to put a nice shelve above the bed in the guestroom, and second we have to reorganise and put everything in the right place...... It will still take some more days....see for yourself:

Well mom, what do you think?

PHP....

We're still tidying up. Martin has been very busy the past few days. It's going to be so pretty and tidy when this all is finished! Right now Martin is building cd-shelves upstairs (pictures are coming soon!!). In the mean time I'm trying to learn some PHP principles. I want to renew my website, get a new design, and I want to use PHP as well. I want to get rid of my terrible frameset, that's for sure. I've tried to write some simple scripts this afternoon, by using an online tutorial, and I was amazed of what I could make. That was chapter one of the tutorial.
Chapter two says: "Thus far, the scripts we've discussed have been pretty dumb." OK... thanks a lot. But, I'm not giving up yet. Right now I'm struggling through chapter two, but I still don't understand much of it... :/
I think I'm going to help Martin upstairs... maybe he can help me out with chapter two later on today... ;)

The result

The Ikea closet is ready to be packed! Details: The left closet is the old rickety one from Martins grandmother, the right one is the new Ikea closet. They are standing against the wall between the guestroom and our bedroom. Now we need to reorganise things, fill the closets and put things on the attic (the ladder has been shortened as well!! so we can easily reach our attic now). We are planning to make some more shelves in the old closet as well. And, we are planning to put a shelve above the bed in the guestroom, with a little bedside lamp. Our guestroom will be cosier and tidier as ever before!
The ladder belonged to Martins grandparents. Because they moved into a smaller place, we could have this ladder. In return we invited them over for dinner today. We had a really nice time together. Oma asked opa if they had more ladders to give to us, because they liked the dinner so much :P

edit: I made the drawers and put the shelves in the closet. The other things are Martins work. Sorry, had to mention it, for I don´t want it to look like he build the whole closet by himself *ggg*

Remember my "tidy up stories"?

Well, and this is what it looks like now:


*SCREAM!!!!!*

Sometimes you need to make a big mess first. And then tidy up properly.
Look, Martin is busy with building another IKEA thing. I'll let him do the big work, and he's doing fine ;) I offered him my help, but he didn't need me so far. And he's also cooking dinner tonight ;) ! Oh I love him ^.^



to be continued...

I'm not as dumb as I thought - part II

The results:
Left = before, right = after
WITHIN 1 HOUR! I'm brilliant ;)


Ever since we've got McDull as a pet, his cage is standing on top of two big speakers, which by the way are not connected to a stereo. We thought it was time for a new table for him, so we bought this thing at Ikea.
I wonder what Martin will say when he gets home :D Juhu, I've built this thing by myself :) *lach*

I'm not as dumb as I thought

Heyhey! I'm not as dumb as I thought! (see "Technical understanding of a ...")
I managed to print labels today *JUHU* *gggggg* :D 163 labels, to be precise. For the volleybalclubs annual meeting invitations *proud*
And now I'm going to try to build a little table/case/cupboard -what's it called?- We bought it at Ikea last night. Let's see if I can manage on my own..... ;)
*listen to pfeffercd*
[sing]
:D

Corine on stage :)

I was on stage last night in the theater! It was soooo much fun!! Ok, I wasn't alone, let me tell you the story from the beginning.
As some of you know, Martin sings in a choir (the Evergreenkoor '80). Some months ago the choir received an email from Pater Moeskroen. Pater Moeskroen is touring through the dutch theaters with a show called "ZEE" (sea). In this show they are sailors, sailing the seas. They use many, many (!) different instruments and sing a variety of songs. With six songs they need the accompaniment of a choir, and in every town they search a local choir to perform with them. They only needed women, because the choir in the show should represent a "fishwife-choir"

Little note in between: Only Martin is singing in this choir, not me. But I'm quite familiair with the people, and doing some work for their website as well, so I was allowed to join in this project :D which I'm very thankfull for.

In the past weeks we had two repetitions, and yesterday night we could also practise with the band shortly. The best thing of the night were our costumes *harhar* *g* Let me show you some pictures.

Us with the six band members

During the show

More pictures can be found at www.evergreenkoor80.nl

It was really cool to be backstage, see the band soundchecking from in the wings, etc. etc. A great experience! To be on the stage with them was also great. There were about 270 people (and 30 empty chairs) in the theater, among them Martin and his mother, sister and my parents. Martins mother didn't know we were in the show, so it was a big surprise for her to see the women of the choir including me appearing on stage.
Backstage we had a lot of fun as well, we could hear the sound through a big speaker and watch the show on a 10x10cm black and white tv ;)

Tip for my Dutch friends and relatives:
Deze show is echt ontzettend leuk. Ookal heb ik hem alleen van backstage meegemaakt, de mensen in de zaal waren allemaal erg enthousiast. De verscheidenheid aan instrumenten, waarmee ze elk mogelijk geluid kunnen nabootsen, mooie liedjes, grappige stukjes visserslatijn. Een echte aanrader om heen te gaan in de Nederlandse theaters! Leuk als kadootje, een geweldig avondje uit!! Weer eens heel wat anders, maar echt leeeeeuuuuuk!! Dusss, go and see it!
Ze komen nog in Veldhoven, Gouda, Den Haag, Amersfoort, IJsselstein, Nijverdal. Daar heb ik overal wel kennissen of familie in de buurt wonen dus als die dat allemaal lezen hier... Tourdata op de site van Pater Moeskroen. Misschien ga ik zelf ook nog wel een keer... eerst maar eens even de hele DVD kijken die we gekocht hebben :)

Technical understanding of a .....

Happy New Year to all of you!!!

I have to declare: I've got the technical understanding of a wooden kitchendoor.

But! I did manage to get my car washed in the carwash ;P well, hey, there's a first time for everything, right? *lol* It's really great, normally we wash our car 'manually' *hehe* but we are so busy this week, and our Ferrari ;) _really_ needed some cleaning. So I entered the carwash, bought a 'ticket' and the machine cleaned my car. It seems so simple. It was, but I just didn't know how it worked and had to ask *g*

I received a great email today, with the golden tipp to protect my guestbook at corine.located.nl against automatic spam. Together with Martin I managed to change the PHP code in such a way it will probably be impossible for automatic spammers to spam my GB.
Here it counts: I have the technical understanding of a wooden kitchendoor. I really know almost nothing about PHP. Nevertheless, I _do_ manage to make my website in HTML, with CSS ;D I do it all by myself.
But I can't figure out exactly how our videorecorder works... so Martin missed the final part of our favorite tv-series.. because I didn't record it, when I thought I did.
Martin wants to buy a harddisk recorder this year, maybe that's easier? ;)
He also had to explain to me how the new electric heater works in our computerroom. That thing only got 1 button, and I still can't figure it out. Poor me... Today I couldn't even start a DVD at work, that tv is really too old. And the kiddies were so wanting to see "Dribbel". But, my collegue pressed 1 button (why didn't _I_ find that button??) and then it worked.

My goals for 2006, concerning technical understanding:

Make my website from using frames to being frameless

Get a little understanding of PHP, and other...

Delegate other technical things to Martin ;)

This post is really silly ;) sorry for that.

Happy New Year