by Henk ter Heide on Wednesday March 3, 2010
The paper tell me that we have more snow this winter then in the last 30 years.
It started a few days before Christmas. I had taken the last few days for Christmas holidays off of work and that turned out to be a good thing. I never would have been able to reach my work because trains and buses didn’t run.
Luckily the snow was predicted, so I had stocked me cupboards with enough food to reach the first day of Christmas.
For the last 15 years my father and I have created the tradition to eat out on the 26the (we call it second Christmas day). So it didn’t seem necessary to stock for more then a few day. Especially because I was planning to order take out for the Sunday after Christmas.
But with both the weather and the weather forecast getting worse, it didn’t seem very likely the me father and I would have our Christmas dinner.
My father is 79 yrs old and is a little afraid that he might fall and break something. So with the kind of snow that was expected he was thinking of staying at home.
So two days before Christmas I decided that I had to go to the shops and restock my cupboards.
By that time we had 30 cm of snow. Which is a lot for the Netherlands. I can’t even remember ever seeing that much snow in the streets.
Since the last time I cycled on a slippery road I broke my hip I decide to walk.
Going out I expected it to be very cold. But despite the cold I found it to be a very nice day.
There are two routes from my house to the shops. One takes my passed two very slippery bridges and the other takes my along a road filled with dozens of cyclist who don’t take kindly to annoying slow moving pedestrians.
Since I didn’t want to fall and break something it seemed wise to take the latter.
But I found that I wasn’t the only one who had decided that cycling was to hazardous. The road was filled with pedestrians. Mostly middle aged and old folks. The kind of people who usually take the car.
By the tracks in the snow I could see that some cyclist had past.
Looking at those tracks in the snow it felt as though I was traveling through some mountaines moon landscape. It looked far more beautiful then I would have expected.
In hindsight I feel it’s a pity that I didn’t take the time to wander around to admire this winter landscape. But that day I just felt cold and wanted to get my Christmas shopping done as soon as possible so I could return to my warm and cosy home
The paper tell me that we have more snow this winter then in the last 30 years. It started a few days before Christmas. I had taken the last few...
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by Henk ter Heide on Monday March 1, 2010
I promised you a second article about my creative process. And I think I’m still going to write it.
One of my readers told me that the technique of drawing lines I’ve been using recently has a name. But I’ve forgotten what the name is.
Doesn’t really matter because to me it feels like the 1000 monkeys typing theorem.
It is said that if you would have a 1000 monkeys typing for all eternity you should be able to reproduce the works of Shakespeare. I don’t know about that. But I do feel that if I would draw enough lines drawings at some point I should get some inspiration and should be able to do some very interesting drawings.
So the last few months I had some other, mostly work related, problems to think about. But now I feel I have the time and the energy to go on with what I want to do on this site.
Which is to daily publish either a little story or a drawing.
I promised you a second article about my creative process. And I think I’m still going to write it. One of my readers told me that the technique of drawing...
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by Henk ter Heide on Tuesday January 5, 2010
The Netherlands is experiencing a bit of a cold spell at the moment. We even have had some snow.
Actually I can’t remember the last time we had more then 20 cm of snow on one day.
The Dutch railway company has a lot of trouble coping. Two weeks before Christmas I had to take a day off because no trains were available to take me to the Rotterdam Alexander station. But even if had been able to reach the station, I doubt if I could have gotten the bus I need to reach my place of work.
The week before Christmas they had even more problems. During a period of two or three days they advised people to stay at home because it was very unlikely for them reached there destination.
But that didn’t matter much to me because I had taken two weeks off of work.
Today was the first day I went to work after the Christmas holiday. The railway company still had a little problem. They were suffering from a lack of carriages. So instead of 3 trains consisting of a total of 6 carriages every thirty minutes. All those people had to get into one carriage.
So you can imagine that it was a little bit crowded.
With a little luck I positioned myself at the entrance of the first class compartment. Usually I can’t sit there because I have an second class train ticked. But if the train is really crowded you never see a ticked controller. Since most people don’t take the chance and stand second class, it’s the least crowded bit of the train.
At the end of the first class compartment I had a whole meter to myself.
Coming up on Rotterdam Alexander station I realized that I better work myself to the door. Otherwise I would run the risk of being blocked by a stream of people entering the train while I was still trying to exit it.
So I asked a two men and a lady if I could pass them. Then I got to the really crowded part of the compartment. So before trying to pass those people I asked them if they were exiting at the next station. They were.
As I decide that I wouldn’t try the pass them the lady went into a fit. She started yelling “COULDN’T YOU HAVE WAITED UNTIL I LEFT THE TRAIN”. No, how could I have known that you were leaving at this station? “COULDN’T YOU HAVE TAKEN A SHOWER THIS MORNING?” What do say? Didn’t you take a shower?
By this time the whole compartment was paying attention and some people were laughing.
“SMELLY BASTARD. YOU SHOULD PRESS YOURSELF AGAINST YOUR GIRL FRIEND”. No I’d much rather press my body against yours.
Now most of the people in the compartment were laughing. With an other “SMELLY BASTARD” the lady simmered down.
A few minutes later the train reached the station.
Politely I waited for the lady to exit the compartment, but she didn’t. Turned out that she was trying to get a seat of one of the disembarking passengers.
So I wished her a good day. And after a last “SMELLY BASTARD” I left her.
The Netherlands is experiencing a bit of a cold spell at the moment. We even have had some snow. Actually I can’t remember the last time we had more then...
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by Henk ter Heide on Thursday January 29, 2009
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by Henk ter Heide on Tuesday January 27, 2009
If there is one thing that stands out at my two hospitalizations over the past three months it’s how boring the nights were. Not the pain, not the food but the boring nights.
In the night of the 24th of November last year there was a particular treatures cold spell that froze over bridges end bicycle routs. But I didn’t know that when I set out for work on Tuesday the 25th.
Only Ten meters from my front door I slipped and fell and broke my left hip. Luckily I was discovered within minutes by a lady who called for an ambulance and I was rushed to hospital. An other lucky circumstance was that I hadn’t eaten that morning, so I could be operated on the same day.
That was where the luck ended.
From the moment I met the first nurse I started telling telling that I’m autistic. I’ve had enough experience in the last two years to know that autism has the tendency to complicate things. But sadly nobody at the hospital took any notice of it.
Two days after the operation I was given my first walker and was told that I should start learning to walk again. But I soon found that I couldn’t.
The first time I tried it I could manage to put a little bit of wait on my left leg but I kept tripping over the walker. The second time I couldn’t get my left leg to bear any weight. Which seemed strange because that didn’t seem that difficult the first time. The next day they came with crutches, which was even worse. I couldn’t get my left leg to bear weight and I couldn’t keep my balance.
After that the physiotherapist told me to practice with the walker on Saturday and Sunday. But I couldn’t. i just couldn’t walk with that thing.
Sunday night after a little panic attack I finally realized what was going wrong. This was a simple problem having to do with one of the symptoms of autism. Autistics can only learn one skill at the time.
Learning to walk and learning to use crutches are two different skills. There just too much information. My brain can’t process it all at one. Walking with crutches actually feels like walking with four legs and I have think about the place where I put every one of my four “feet”.
To learn to walk I need a rollator.
I got one on Monday. From then learning to walk became much easier and I could leave the hospital on Wednesday. Only four day after the hospital wanted to send me home.
One and a halve month later I was back in hospital. After a checkup the surgeon decided that something had gone wrong with my hip and had to be corrected. So last Friday morning 11 o’clock I was emited and by 1 o’clock operated upon.
Tomorow, Tuesday around 11 o’clock I will back home. Again 4 nights in hospital.
The problem is I don’t feel really sick. Yes my leg is operated upon and it hurts a bit. But for the most part that’s kept in check by the the pain medication.
For the way i feel I could actually leaf my bed and walk around except for the fact that I can’t walk.
So I spent the entire day in bed. Reading a little, watching television and talking to people. And then at 10 PM the staff comes by, turns the lights off and I’ supposed to fall a sleep. But of course I’m not at all sleepy.
So I spent the night waiting. Watching a little television but there is nothing on and reading. But reading isn’t much fun if you only do it to pass the time.
For this, my last night in hospital, I decided to write this article. It’s now 3.49 AM. I only have to wait four more hours before breakfast is served.
If there is one thing that stands out at my two hospitalizations over the past three months it’s how boring the nights were. Not the pain, not the food but...
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by Henk ter Heide on Saturday September 13, 2008
My blog had an unexpected three weeks vacation.
Here’s why.
About a year ago I thought it would be a good idea to buy a new PC with windows XP before Vista would completely take the market over. But it turned out I was a little late. I could choose between an of the shelf PC that was only slightly better then the PC I had or a custom made PC with windows Vista.
Even though I didn’t like what I heard and read about windows Vista I thought it would be a waste of money to buy a new PC if it wasn’t a real improvement.
I did try to work and play with windows Vista. But it didn’t work very well. I could install the game Dirt but the wheel didn’t work. I tried to configure a network with my old and new PC but although the old PC saw the new one. The new one didn’t see the old one.
When I tried to install my email program I found that to be impossible.
After that my new PC just sat there for the better part of a year while my old PC became slower and slower.
Two months ago I decided that my old PC had become to slow. It took me a minute just to start my mail program and even longer then that to start Firefox.
At first I thought that enough time should have past to give the world a change to get used to Windows Vista. With all the new updates it should be possible to get my wheel and email program running.
Yes and no.
I still couldn’t find the update needed to get the wheel running but I did find an update for my email program Turnpike for only 160 English pounds!!!
Agh. What are these people thinking?
I bought Turnpike ten years ago for only 40 pounds. Over the years I’ve downloaded several free updates and now they want me to pay 210 Euro’s.
I’ve thought about using an other email program. But it’s to much of a fuss. There seems to be no easy way to export/import my email addresses. And the way Turnpike files mail is much easier then other programs.
The alternative was to clone the hard drive of my old PC and install Windows XP on the new PC.
I did so 5 weeks ago and at first everything seemed to go alright. Off course I missed a lot of drivers and it took some doing to figure out which ones I needed. But after a week the PC seemed to work.
Except for the fact that the wheel still didn’t work.
Three weeks ago I had my first Blue screen of death (BSOD).
I pulled the wheel and every thing seemed to be fine.
To be on the save side I went to my dealer to ask for advise and the told me that I should open the PC up to see what kind of motherboard was inside and install those drivers.
After figuring out that I had the Asus P5B and not the Asus PSB motherboard I installed the drivers and everything was fine… for a few days. (Why would they use a font that makes it all most impossible to see the difference?)
But by Thursday night I was again having one BSOD after an other.
Friday I dropped my PC off at my dealer and was told that it probably would be a driver issue and I could get my PC back by Tuesday. Tuesday they told me the motherboard was broke and it would take at least 1.5 weeks.
Yesterday I got my PC back.
They formatted the hard drive for no good reason so I had install my backup. (Only lost two days.)
I’m not quite sure whether the problem is solved. I’ve already had two BSOD and windows is complaining about missing a USB mass storage device driver. Which was start of the problem three weeks ago.
But it seems that the rest of the driver issues are solved and google tells me that the mass storage device driver is a separate problem that has something to do with windows XP.
I haven’t tried my wheel yet but I’m hopeful…
My blog had an unexpected three weeks vacation. Here’s why. About a year ago I thought it would be a good idea to buy a new PC with windows XP...
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by Henk ter Heide on Wednesday August 13, 2008
Designs by Lidat Truong, paintings by Miro Sinovcic and Gerald Schwartz.
Lidat Truong Portfolio
Lidat Truong is designing. The site offers little explanation about what it is that he is designing. But Googling around I found that at least some of his designs are used for childs toys. The majority of the site could be about some game or maybe even for an animation.
I don’t know but it’s still very nice work.
Panoramic shot by Lidat Truong
Miro Sinovcic paintings
Anyone who, like me, loves color more then shape should fall in love with the recent work of Miro Sinovcic.
In his cityscapes of New York he captures the city by nighttime in a way I’ve never seen before. Showing how beautiful the lights of the city can be without loosing the sky line.
Charlotte sunset by Miro Sinovcic
Skies the limit
Skies the limit is a very aptly named blog by a painter who clearly loves to paint skies.
He paints the tops of buildings, tops of cars, traffic lights. But most of all he paints the beautiful skies you can find over Hollywood.
In the shadaws by Gerald Schwartz
Designs by Lidat Truong, paintings by Miro Sinovcic and Gerald Schwartz. Lidat Truong Portfolio Lidat Truong is designing. The site offers little explanation about what it is that he is...
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by Henk ter Heide on Friday January 25, 2008
If you instruct me to do something in a certain way I will for ever do it that way. If you want me to do it an other way you should change your instructions.
I don’t know whether this is good or bad thing, but to me it’s just a trait of autism.
The department I work at has a machine that cuts strands of rubber to a length of 2 meters 39 centimeters and 5 millimeters. About a 400 a day.
My workstation is behind that machine and my work is to check whether this machine works the way it should. Sadly it doesn’t so about half the strands are longer or shorter then there supposed to be.
When I first started working at this task, early last year, I was instructed by the foreman that the strands had a tolerance of 5 millimeters but if a strand was less then 10 millimeters too long I wasn’t allowed to cut it because it would shrink and if it was less then 10 millimeters too short I wasn’t allowed to through it out because it would stretch.
These instruction didn’t sit very well with me. I’ve always been taught that you shouldn’t mess with your tolerance. But instructions are instructions.
Last year I have had to do this very boring job for something like 8 times. Every time I complained about I was told that I had to do it because of the high quality of my work.
This week was the first time of this year I had to this job again. After 5 mind numbing day some one of quality control noticed that I had an odd way of cutting the strands to length.
He told me that a tolerance of 5 millimeters meant that I should cut the strand if it was more then 5 millimeters to long.
I answered that if it were up to me I would have done so from the start but these were my instruction. So this guy from quality control called my foreman who immediately started to cover his ass: “No, he never gave me those instruction”. “No, he would have never told me to ignore the tolerance”. “No, he is never wrong”.
It’s all my mistake. I didn’t listen to the instructions. To punish me I have to re-check the 1200 strands I’ve checked in the last few days.
You can imagine that was was very angry. Not only do I have to do this very boring work. But the moment something is wrong I’m blamed.
Not to mention that only yesterday this same foreman complimented me on the quality of my work.
For a while I was thinking about ways I could take my anger out on my work.
I could cut the strands shorter than they should be. Or I could ignore strands that are to long. Or I could miscount the amount of strands I put in a box.
But all those those things would hurt the company much more then it would hurt the foreman. And it is not me. I can’t work that sloppy.
After 10 minutes I realized that I don’t have to take revenge the company for allowing this attitude.
They are doing that them selfs:
Two weeks ago I’ve been told that I would get a new job.
One of the largest companies of the Netherlands has given Promen a very large order.
This company needs 4 little holes drilled into thousands of pieces of rubber. Because of the noise some one has to work on his own in a little room. The foreman boasted that he had recommended me for the job.
The job is to be done very precisely so he and an other foreman spent two day positioning a template before making 10 samples. Apparently not satisfied the company asked for 16 more samples.
Since it’s supposed to be my work the foreman showed me how to do it.
But after doing 10 of the second batch of samples the foreman noticed that the holes were a millimeter off and I noticed that there was something wrong with the method we used.
I told him about my concerns but as ever the foreman told me that he is never wrong. He took a few hours to reposition the template and made the other 6 samples.
So instead of calling the customer and telling them that we have made a mistake and that we will make some more samples, we are now waiting for approval.
I would be very surprise if we’d actually get the order.
If you instruct me to do something in a certain way I will for ever do it that way. If you want me to do it an other way you...
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by Henk ter Heide on Sunday November 18, 2007
Windows vista comes with a few useless safety features.
New PC
I have a new PC. Birthday present by my father.
The new PC came with windows Vista pre-installed. I’ve been thinking about formatting the hard drive and staying with windows XP. But that would only postpone the inevitable. I’ll have to move over at some point and it will probably be less of a hassle if I have a running PC to render assistance.
Networks
On Wednesday I’ve taken a day off to deal with some personal business. Which gives a perfect opportunity to start with the installing of my new PC.
The first order of business is installing DSL. If I can get that running I can at least consult the Internet if I run into problems.
Sadly enough installing DSL presents me with my first problem. It’s seems that my administration account doesn’t have enough clearance to install the install CD I got from my local phone company.
At 7.00 AM I can’t call in to get some help.
Next on my list is installing the network between my two PC so I can start copying my programs. But that also doesn’t work because I have the wrong cable.
Playing around
That leaves me with nothing to do but to play around and see what kind of changes Microsoft has made to this new operating system.
The new screen looks very nice. There are a few new games. Windows still has the annoying power save configuration that turns your screen of when you walk away for a while. Microsoft has found a way to deal with home users who forget there password.
Never again forget your password
That’s interesting. Not that I’ve ever forgotten my password but I never had a password. I always felt that it was to much of a hassle. But with windows vista the advice is to install two accounts. One to make changes in your configuration and one to work. That way virri will have less of a change to install themselves.
The procedure for recovering from a lost password is very easy. You only have to make a recovery floppy disk.
There’s just one problem. Over the last ten years files have become bigger and bigger and people use less floppy disks. So when the builder of my PC had room to only install three out of four devices; Floppy disk station, DVD station, memory card reader and hard drive. You can guess which one he left out.
Windows vista comes with a few useless safety features. New PC I have a new PC. Birthday present by my father. The new PC came with windows Vista pre-installed. I’ve...
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by Henk ter Heide on Friday September 7, 2007
List
At BAVO they have me thinking about why I want to leave the sheltered workplace Promen. I already have fairly large list with items like the kind of work they offer and lack of control about your own work and the large number of people you meet on a daily basis.
This morning I though of an other reason: The lack of independence of most of my colleagues.
Temper
A few days ago one of my mentally impaired colleagues complained that she couldn’t control her temper and how that might lead to her being transferred to a different department. I told her that she should just try.
Which she is doing right now and it seems to be working.
Misconception
This morning I talked to an other colleague. I’ve seen him around a few times in the last few weeks and I actually thought that he also was mentally impaired.
He started complaining about how companies don’t pity people with disabilities anymore. He was fired after doing office work at this company for 30 years. When he started they only had 25 employees and they hired him out of pity. But nowadays they have 600 employees and they bullied him out.
He tried for five years to get an other job but companies just don’t want to have people with a disability.
I arguid that he should find a skill that they would want to pay for. But not only is he 51 years old and doesn’t want to go back to school but above all he is convinced that people don’t pity him anymore.
Mirror
The funny thing is that if he would take one honest look in the mirror he’d know why nobody wants to hire him:
He’s always playing with his dentures and he drools…
Mixing colors 5E
Mixing colors 5F
Featured on See me draw
“(“, is not only the stranges name for a blog I’ve come across up till now. But he also has some very nice simple drawings.
List At BAVO they have me thinking about why I want to leave the sheltered workplace Promen. I already have fairly large list with items like the kind of work...
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) I will be able to publish the 4th edition of the Art Showcase on the 26th of March.