Steve & Miki [ News ]

news! news! news!

noreply@blogger.com (Steve & Miki) — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 17:14:00 +0000

Yes a new post, and this time only 6 months have passed!
I can't for the life of me remember what has happened in these 6 months, probably because there is one overwhelming piece of news that dominates all other

We are finally having a baby!!!

Such a small sentence but it changes everything.
It's like we have finally unlocked a new level in the game of life ;-)
I am 17 weeks pregnant today.

In other news: we have been to Crete and to the UK and Steve has a monstrous new computer and we both have new shoes :D

Last 9 months

noreply@blogger.com (Steve & Miki) — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 16:45:00 +0000

Ok, so we haven't blogged for a while, oh well, these things happen! So, what has happened in the world of Steve & Miki in all that time (I say in all that time, but I won't put everything in of course, but the awesome wedding of Chay and Emma deserves a mention!):

Batchelor and batchelorette party, Saturday 7th March:

Our friends Bart and Lycette are getting married on April 17th, we are really looking forward to it and we celebrated with them by joining in "suprise" batchelor and batchelorette parties. Well, it wasn't quite a suprise, but we all had a great day with some drama (read on!).

The girls went to a special place to make their own jewellery and had a high tea afterwards. Miki ended up with a nice necklace and stayed strong resisting the High Tea as she is losing weight.

The boys went skiing in a large indoor ski slope called Snow World in Zoetermeer. We had a one hour lesson, followed by an hour of free skiing and it is far harder than it looks! I had real trouble getting up to the elevator and my legs were dead after the first hour! One of the highlights was seeing the groom come down the slope, ski past the group in a semi-circle and end up landing back on the elevator!

Unfortunately one of the group had an accident in which he broke his collarbone, so it was off to the hospital in Zoetermeer for the afternoon. We had planned to meet up with the girls in the evening for a meal with everyone together at Ctaste, a restaurant in which all the staff members have a visual disability and the dining room is in complete darkness (the bride is herself blind and would no doubt have had great amusement hearing our shouts as we stumbled into our food)!

After the hospital we met up with the girls at a restaurant bar not far from Alphen and it all ended well, with everyone laughing (although I hope Michiel will be able to laugh about it at some point!).

Go-Karting, Sunday 22nd March:

I went go-karting with a group of my colleagues at a place called De Uithof in The Hague. I came second to last, but had a great afternoon with good friends. I would definately go karting again!

Model Building Fair, Saturday 28th March:

Last weekend a group of my colleagues and I went to a small model building event in Rijnsaterwoude. We usually dance at a club in Rijnsaterwoude on a Tuesday evening, so I knew where it would be and believed the newspapers that it would be a huge event. It turned out to be quite a bit smaller than we were all expecting, but it was a fun trip none the less.

Certifications

I earned two new certifications, I am now a Sun Certified Specialist, NetBeans IDE and yesterday I attained the ego busting level of Certified ScrumMaster, so do forgive me if I make a noise scraping my swollen head through the door! I feel the course name is very close to the DnD level of Dungeon Master, a rank we can all be proud of! I am quite proactive in my training, there is always something new to learn in the world of software development. I am hoping to convince Collis that UML training would be a good idea next!

So whats ahead for the next 9 months? Well to start with we will be going to UK for Easter and will be meeting up with family and friends and then we will be seeing Chay & Emma at the end of the month when they come to visit us :-D

- Steve.

Happy Birthday Miki!

noreply@blogger.com (Steve & Miki) — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 17:34:00 +0000

Ok, so I'm a day early, but tomorrow is Miki's birthday!

Lang zal ze leven,
Lang zal ze leven,
Lang zal ze leven in de gloria,
in de gloria,
in de gloriaaaaaaa!!!

In other news, we are shortly going to England for the wedding of Chay and Emma, we are both looking forward to that as we will be seeing some other university friends there and we will be going to Alnwick to see other friends.

- Steve

Easter, old friends and new people

noreply@blogger.com (Steve & Miki) — Sat, 10 May 2008 19:39:00 +0000

I know I know, we havent written anything in ages.

In the post below we anticipated going to England for Easter, and we have. It was great and there was family and friends and shopping and snow!

We thought we were going to be able to meet Gaynors new babies, but no, she was still very pregnant.
She has since had them and they are lovely and called Summer and Harper.

We have also had Simon and Kerry visit, which was the best. We did all sorts of touristy things and caught up and it was fantastic. I hope they come visit again soon.

We also saw Kingsley again, who had adventures in Amsterdam and came to stay as well!

We've had some nice days off, this monday is the last of the free days off.
But we are counting down to our holiday in Devon at the end of the month and we have also booked the ferry and one hotel for our trip to england for Emma and Chays wedding!

New Year(ish) Roundup

noreply@blogger.com (Steve & Miki) — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 07:44:00 +0000

It seems I have neglected to blog anything for a while.
The December highlights then! :

1) Sinterklaas with Mats - Presents ?! are there presents coming ?!

2) Capgemini christmas dinner and excursion (yeah weird I know)

3) Dec 16th new family member 1 was born - Ruben - to Miki's brother and sister-in-law! Harrah! a little brother for Mats!

Yes well a brother is one thing, but check out all these presents!!

4) Lovely Christmas at home, saw the family and the Big King.

5) New Years spent in Vlissingen with the family.
mmm appelflappen

As for January:

First, we had our garden relaid:

Secondly, Miki started a new project for the UWV.

Then new family member 2 & 3 (Dovid and Noa) where born in the last few weeks of January to Miki's cousin Vincent and his wife Thirza. Congratulations!

Caught up with Kingsley in Amsterdam, got him away from weed long enough to catch up... ;-)

We are both currently off work sick. Bummer.

Looking forward to (I am not putting a time scale to these expectations as I don't know when I will be arsed to post again ;-):

1) Arrival of new family members 4 & 5 from my cousin Gaynor (not long to go now!).
2) Easter going to England. Some nice weather wouldn't go amiss...
3) Spring holiday to Devon with family
4) Wedding of Mr Chayseff and Ms. Dawes (here's hoping for a date soon!).
5) Wedding of Miki's best friend Nathalie!
6) Kingsley and I are planning to go to the Games Day and Golden Daemon event from GW if I can just find out when it is!

Hope to blog a bit more this year! Not that I have gotten off to a very good start of course...

Long overdue update

noreply@blogger.com (Steve & Miki) — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 22:14:00 +0000

I can't believe we last posted in July
So much has happened since then i can't even remember!

In august I had a birthday

In september we did loads.
Steve's parents cameover and we had a great time

And then we went to Eurodisney

And then we had a Capgemini party

And then we went on holiday to La Palma

And then we went back to work...

In other news:
our friends Nathalie and Jaap are getting married
-- more wedding news soon
we have chosen somenone to do our garden
we have ordered a new lease car (well another Sue)
we are working ahead getting presents for Sinterklaas and Christmas
our downstairs toilet is blocked
I have finally ordered a needlepoint project for the new niece/nephew due december 5th
I'm trying to get an end date for the assignement I'm on
Steve's granddad B is doing great
Steve's granddad C needs a triple bypass
Steve's cousin G is pregnant with twins
My cousin Vinnies wife is pregnant with twins
we are not pregnant yet

and I'm sure I'mm forgetting stuff...

Story of much woe

noreply@blogger.com (Steve & Miki) — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 09:01:00 +0000

Last weekend I went to a big city (Utrecht) for a girly weekend with my best friend Nathalie. Took the car, put it in a parking garage right in the middle of town. We had a great day , shopping - eating - drinking - Shrek 3 - loads of catching up.

We spent the night in a hotel and this morning we checked out of the hotel and went to the carpark to put our bags in the car before finding a place to have breakfast.
Turns out the carpark is only open on 'Buying sundays' which in Utrecht is the first sunday of every month. All other sundays almost all shops are closed and apparently also the parking garage!! No way at all to get to the car, let alone get it out. The enquiry number: no-one picking up.

So there was nothing else for it and I took the train home. I had a backpack and two big plastic bags, but no coat or umbrella. Arrive at our station in the pouring rain, walk a fair way to the bus. Waited for the bus for over half an hour (sunday innit) and then had to walk in the pouring rain from the bus to our home (about 10 min).

About half way hunpty dumpty had a great fall, went down like a ton of bricks.
So I lie there, fully stretched out, ankle twisted and hurting like hell, my backpack still on my back, my other two bags further on the pavement, in my t-shirt, in the pouring rain...
So I pick myself up and limp the rest of the way home and Steve opens the door with a big grin and says "heeey you're home! Did you have a great weekend?"

Luckily I had the monday off (oh irony - I was supposed to take the car to the garage) so me and my sore foot hobbled back on bus and train to utrecht to bail the car out. Of course they billed me for the extra time it spent there and I ended up paying 55 euros for the privilege...

Trip to Bosnia + anniversary

noreply@blogger.com (Steve & Miki) — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 10:27:00 +0000

So we went to Bosnia to see my family and show Steve around as he hadn't been there before. We drove so it was quite a road trip as well!

On friday the 8th of june we started driving at 7 in the mornig all the way to Austria where around 8 in the evening we got a B&B in a little village called Kalwang. The B&B was excellent and we were both dead tired. We had had a little rain in the evening and woke up to fog, but by the time we started driving again (8.30) it was sunny again.

The second day we drove through Austria, Slovenija, Kroatia and Republica Srpska all the way to our destination: my fathers house in a small village named Vrapcici near the town of Mostar. We arrived around 6.30 in the evening and were quite chuffed about our travelling 1764 km in total!

We spent a week with my father and stepmother, visited loads of family and friends/neighbours and also did some sightseeing. We also did loads of eating and sleeping. It was really nice and interesting and new for Steve, but it was quite hard for him as he couldn't talk with anyone but my father and me. Some of my aunts still talked Srebo-Kroatian at him nontheless :D Also very funny to me that an English man and a Bosnian man talk Dutch together :D
My fathers garden

Father and Steve

Mostar old town

Blagaj

Pocitelj

My family were quite dissapointed that we were only staying for a week and that my mother hadn't come with us, but what could we do. I also found it a little hard to talk to my family and to my father (as there is quite a bit of history there) but it all went very well.
On the saturday before we were going home we had a small party at my aunts, with a BBQ and all the family. My cousing had made us an anniversary cake as the next day (sunday the 17th of june) was our first wedding anniversary! She doesn't know english so no comments by spelling nazis! ;)

So sunday the 17th of june, our fist wedding anniversary, we set out driving again (08.10)! We took a different route, driving south to the coast of Kroatia and following the coast to Split, a lovely schenic route!

Anniversary couple

We then took a brand new shiny motorway to Zagreb, hurried through Slovenija, flew through Austria and over the German border one minute before 8 in the evening! We drove on a little longer and at 8.30 we went in search of petrol and a place to sleep.
We ended up in the cutest little Bavarian village called Schwarzach in a lovely little hotel, where we exchanged anniversary cards and sat on the terrace relaxing and having a drink and lovely apple-pastry thingies!

The next morning we had a nice breakfast and started driving again at 8.30. We had incredibly good luck through Germany, and no rain untill Holland. We were home aound 4.15 in the afternoon and found my mum had put up some balloons and lots of people had sent us anniversary cards! Plus Steve found his little present from me in thepost :D We also got the top tier of the wedding cake out of the freezer and were really happy to be home after driving a total of 1929 km back :)

Obviously there are loads more pictures on flickr :D
Miki

Halo: Combat Evolved (PC)

noreply@blogger.com (Steve & Miki) — Thu, 03 May 2007 18:31:00 +0000

I just completed Halo: Combat Evolved and I have to say that the game did not live up to the hype for me.

One of the biggest hypes was the "incredible landscapes and visuals". I hate to disagree with so many reviewers online, but I saw a disgraceful amount of cut and paste level building in Halo.

Another point of mention are the vehicles. I guess they really come into their own in the multiplayer mode, but in the buggy there are three places you can sit - the driver side, passenger side and in the back with the no-nonsense heavy machine gun.

I think when a player is faced with a vehicle in a FPS game, as seems common these days, that the player should get to choose how to experience the vehicle. For example, there is no way to sit at the machine gun and have a marine buddy do the driving. You have to always do the driving, which is most fun when you have a couple of marines on board, one in the passenger seat with a sniper rifle and one at the machine gun. If you are alone, then you have to drive to an area with some bad guys, jump out and jump in the back to use the gun.

I did enjoy the later levels as they were more challenging. Overall the game wasn't bad, but I would say it was average when compared to other FPS games.

Garden

noreply@blogger.com (Steve & Miki) — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 19:32:00 +0000

We've had some nice weather recently and we are starting to get around to looking at the garden. I have created a new photo set on flickr with some pictures, but our main project for this year is to rip out the stuff along the side of the path and make a raised flower bed and pond.

flickr set

New Blog

noreply@blogger.com (Steve & Miki) — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 19:06:00 +0000

I posted a java tip here the other day, but Miki rightly pointed out that it should be in a separate section. Therefore, I have created a new Tech Blog. I intend to shove useful tips that I come across in there, as much for my own benefit as for others.

I hope that it helps someone out! I have been thankful many times for the tips, tutorials and websites that people maintain online and this is my humble attempt to help as well :-)

Life, the universe and everything

noreply@blogger.com (Steve & Miki) — Sat, 10 Feb 2007 09:36:00 +0000

Well we are still very busy with life, the universe and everything. Like the great Dr. Phil PhD says, life is managed, not cured, so I guess "busy" is the term we will be using for the rest of our (working) lives...

Anyway, we have embarked on a new quest, namely getting our guest room sorted out. We made a start last weekend by painting and taking some carpet up and we are about to do some more today.

On the work front, Miki is still busy in Rijswijk which is good cos we can drive to work together and I dont have to catch the bus, w00t!

I am back to working with Java again which I enjoy, so my current work is good too.

Happy New Year!!!

noreply@blogger.com (Steve & Miki) — Sun, 31 Dec 2006 21:11:00 +0000

We have been home for a few days and it has been wonderful! We are finally in our new house, things should be returning to normal and we are starting a new year. What a busy year we have had! Organised a wedding, got married, found a new house, bought the house, worked on the house, moved into the house and went to England (twice)!!

Happy New Year!!!

Long Time No Post...

noreply@blogger.com (Steve & Miki) — Sat, 18 Nov 2006 19:35:00 +0000

Well, we have been really rather busy in the last few months.

Therefore, the highlights since finding our house!

- Bought our house, it is now ours!

- Began work on the place. Removed all the wallpaper from upstairs and downstairs.

- Painted all the ceilings upstairs, wallpapered the first bedroom today. Making progress!

- Miki started a new project for MN Services in Rijswijk (near The Hague). Went bowling with old colleagues from Tennet in Arnhem.

- Steve had three days of training and an exam for the ISTQB software testing certification and is now waiting for the results of the exam. Also preparing for the Sun Certified Java Programmer exam in two weeks time.

Will post more when time and energy permit!

- Steve

Castle Chamberlain!!

noreply@blogger.com (Steve & Miki) — Fri, 22 Sep 2006 18:22:00 +0000

We have found a house finally! We have seen over 20 houses and browsed lots more online, but we have finally found "the one"...

View from the back of the house

We will be moving to Alphen aan den Rijn in November. Alphen is closer to my work, so at least one of us has a reduced journey time to work. Miki will hopefully have a new project by the time we move, so that she doesn't have to drive to Arnhem everyday.

Google Earth helped out with this shot. In fact, Google Earth have updated the whole of Holland with much better satellite photo's recently

We have put some photos up on Flickr: flickr set

The kitchen is new, all the windows are new double glazing, there is a new boiler and also underfloor heating downstairs! There is a downstairs toilet, three bedrooms on the first floor (two double and single which will be good if we have any brand new family members ;-). The attic is a usable space with two separate room areas and a proper staircase into it. All topped off with a nice little garden complete with waterbutt, outside electric and an apple tree and blackberry bush.

We went to Amersfoort on Monday evening for a course about mortgages, so I learnt quite a few new Dutch terms there!

So, once we are settled in people can come and visit us as we will have a guest room! YAY!

- Steve

Happy Birthday Miki!

noreply@blogger.com (Steve & Miki) — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 05:42:00 +0000

Happy birthday to Miki! We both took the day off yesterday and went into town, had some lunch, did some shopping and saw Pirates 2 at the cinema :)

- Steve

Grandma Viool

noreply@blogger.com (Steve & Miki) — Mon, 17 Jul 2006 19:34:00 +0000

My mum turned 60 this saturday!

We had a lovely evening in Brugge, a lovely town in Belgium. We had a culinary walk through the old town which meant we had a course meal in 4 different restaurant with walks in between, all with a weird belgian guide. It was excellent :D

- Miki

Piccies

noreply@blogger.com (Steve & Miki) — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 20:25:00 +0000

A few of our favourite photos from the wedding (so far, we are still getting pictures!)

Three funky dancers

Married!

Old school!

Update

noreply@blogger.com (Steve & Miki) — Tue, 04 Jul 2006 19:15:00 +0000

I have made a small update to our wedding page, it now contains links to all our pictures on Flickr :)

I have also uploaded all of our honeymoon photographs, check out the wedding page for the link!

Wedding Page

- Steve

After-show round up

noreply@blogger.com (Steve & Miki) — Fri, 30 Jun 2006 09:53:00 +0000

Well the chaos is over, we are back from the honeymoon and our flat is stuffed to the rafters with stuff to be sorted out.

We had an amazing wedding day, it went by so fast and we feel like we didn't get the time to talk to anyone properly.

The honeymoon was great, we filled up our digital camera so there will be plenty to see on Flickr soon. Speaking of Flickr, we were delighted to see that a group has already been made for the wedding day! We had planned to do that when we got back, but it was a great suprise for us when we came online and saw it there already done! Thanks guys :)

Finally, a BIG thank you to everyone who contributed and came to celebrate our day, the people who didn't or couldn't come who gave there best wishes and everyone else that we have forgotten and will remember in the coming months!

Less than 1 week!

noreply@blogger.com (Steve & Miki) — Mon, 12 Jun 2006 11:07:00 +0000

Not long to go now! In less than a week we will be flying to Madeira on our honeymoon, we can't wait!

I only have two more days at work, Wednesday we are going to meet friends in Amsterdam and then the party starts properly!

Tot zo!

- Steve

1 Year!

noreply@blogger.com (Steve & Miki) — Wed, 24 May 2006 06:39:00 +0000

It's been an entire year since our first blog!

1 Month Countdown!

noreply@blogger.com (Steve & Miki) — Tue, 16 May 2006 13:49:00 +0000

The big day is drawing very near! We have only one month left to go. :D

For those who have not yet booked a hotel room, hotel Arneville have no more rooms left for that weekend, sorry but you should have booked earlier like we have been saying for months!

A good alternative is Hotel Du Commerce in Middelburg. It is on the water and also not far from the main station, which is useful for a lot of people. There are already some guests staying there from Collis. We are planning to have a bus pick up guests from Hotel Arneville and take them to the ceremony as the way there is a little complicated and the fact that there is a big market like event going on that weekend in Middelburg doesn't help things. We also have a few people coming without cars. We might arrange for the bus to go past Hotel Du Commerce, but this is not yet confirmed.

- Steve

Wedding List

noreply@blogger.com (Steve & Miki) — Thu, 27 Apr 2006 05:25:00 +0000

Many people have asked us what we would like for the wedding and whether we will be making a list. Well we have! In keeping with the geek theme, we have made an Amazon wish list which can be found here.

It's mainly smaller items, as we would generally prefer money (our flat is just too small to be asking for kitchen appliances!). Of course, we would be very happy indeed to receive some of the items in our list!

Twips

noreply@blogger.com (Steve & Miki) — Thu, 30 Mar 2006 13:29:00 +0000

Sometimes I hate working with computers. Sometimes I love it.

Today I have been delving into the mysterious chasm that is Microsoft's RTF specification (not a task I would recommend or wish on my worst enemy). One interesting passage that caught my eye was this:

"N is the width in twips of the pen used to draw the paragraph border line"

Fair enough.

After a quick Google search I found out that a twip is 1/1440 of an inch. Very useful indeed.

- Steve