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
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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.
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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.
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by Henk ter Heide on Friday January 23, 2009
Group Jump
Posted on Flickr by Eldad Hagar
not a church;-)
Posted on Flickr by Halsemann.
window trio
Posted on Flickr by D. Rogers photography
side door
Posted on Flickr by Fabien Guittard
God bless
Posted on Flickr by KittyKaht
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by Henk ter Heide on Thursday January 22, 2009
vertical
Posted on Flickr by eeiger
NYC Dusk
life on the canal
Posted on Flickr by BILBOV.(Lorus Maver)
“Ischia” il porto
Posted on Flickr by Pellorca Ida
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by Henk ter Heide on Tuesday January 20, 2009
Halberstadt – The Old Town, painting from 1930′s
Posted on Flickr by Rita Crane Photography
Shelter from paradise
Posted on Flickr by BARRY TOMLINSON
镇远的桥
Posted on Flickr by *utpala ॐ
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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…
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by Henk ter Heide on Wednesday June 11, 2008
Understanding how an artist feels.
This must be one of the most exciting drawings I’ve done up till now.
Two weeks ago, just before I went on holiday, I did a little drawing to experiment with flowing colors. Just starting to draw, I hoped that I would get some sort of idea of what I was doing.
Orange fish
Half way through the drawing I realized that I should have started in a corner. I didn’t jet know what the drawing would be about. But I did know that the colors should flow down. Not up.
I started a new drawing with a few blue drops in the right upper corner and went on holiday.
I knew that I would have a few lazy days during my holiday so I brought my drawing set.
Still not know were the drawing would go I drew more blue and gray drops and started wandering about the color I should use in the background. Should I leave it white or maybe color it yellow.
And what should I call this drawing?
“Blue drops”? “Blue drops on yellow background”?
As I drew more drops in different hues of blue and gray I began to feel a little tension.
Should I use different colors?
I should use different colors!
Thinking about this drawing I experienced something I’ve never have. The notion that I can use an abstract drawing to tell a story.
It’s only a short story. Even without using words I found that the story is so short that I ran out of things to say before I ran out of paper.
But it is still a very exciting feeling. To know that I can use (abstract) drawings to tell about my life.
I finally understand what artist are talking about when they say “just listen to my music” or “just look at my paintings” when asked about their life.
Escaping blue
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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.
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by Henk ter Heide on Thursday June 21, 2007
Did you know that every day about 170,000 people start a blog and about 120,000 blogs die?
Apparently most people blog for about two months and then they give up. Since most people who stop blogging don’t write a goodbye note nobody really knows why, but probably because people run out of ideas to write about.
I never quite understood that. There are thousands of subjects in the world and being on the Internet you run into them on a daily basis. So how could you run out of ideas.
Swimming trunk boy portrait blending colors 1th sketch
But this morning I run into my own little dip. I had the feeling that I was nearing the end of my rope. That it would be only a matter of time before I’d run out of things to say.
There is only so much you can tell about yourself. I’ve told you about autism. I’ve told you about my work. I’ve published my old stories that tell a lot about who I was before I found that I’m autistic (all be it in Dutch). So what to talk about next…
If this was just a other personal blog intended to tell the story of my live this would be the end of it.
But this isn’t just an other personal blog. This is the place were I publish my drawings and although I don’t know what I could talk about next, my drawings are still going strong. There are a few subjects I want to learn to draw; people, animals and trucks. Every time I run out of ideas about the next subject for a drawing, I try one of those and without exception I find that I have to try some new technique and thinking about this new technique I have several ideas about drawing I can do.
The stories I tell aren’t that important. In a sense they are only bait to get the search engine to index my page.
After climbing out of my dip I discovered that I was to pessimistic. Actually I’m still gaining speed. As I predicted a while ago my drawing skills increase and with that my drawing speed and the joy of drawing.
This week I even missed a few of my favored TV shows because I was busy drawing.
As for stories to tell. I have some. Slowly I’m getting a nose for interesting stories on sites as digg and in newspapers. Something else that I though of was something we did in school. You’d get a picture and had to think of a story. I make my own pictures, lets see if I can think up a few stories.
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