Got back from Italy late last night. We decided to do the return trip in one go; we left the camping at 8:15 am, and arrived in Breda roughly at midnight. Long day, but glad we did.

The camping was great. Weather in the 1st week was so-so, but we escaped the worst day by visiting Rome. The second week was great. Lago Trasimeno itself was somewhat disappointing, in that its shallow depth and water plants weren’t pleasant for swimming. The was a pool on the camping as well, so it was no great loss.

The area is full of wildlife. All kinds of insects (including a few mosquitoes), varioys reptiles, loads of birds, wild boar, and most cute of them all: Nutria. These large rodents (”Beverrat” in Dutch) are non-native for Europe, but have established themselves here over the last century or so. The specimen at Lago Trasimeno weren’t very shy, and it was very easy to closely observe a mother (at about 40 cm in size, excluding tail) and her 4 young. Went to look for then quite a few nights. There was plenty of larger Nutria around as well, you could see and hear them on the water. Some nice footage of them can be found on youtube.

All in all a great relaxing holiday with pleasant company

Just returned my rental car, and ‘of course’ they found some damage. And it’s not just one spot, it’s two. The type of damage you get from fucktards who just slam their doors open. Given that I had my ‘own’ parking space in the Justice Department garage, and it’s hard (though not impossible) for that damage to have happened there, I strongly suspect it happened at the parking space at home.

This pisses me off so bad. How fucking hard is it to just gently open de fucking doors? I’m not sure if/how the rental agency handles this, but i’m running the risk of notting getting my insurance statement because of this. Great. Just fucking great.

Morgen mijn laatste dag bij Justitie/DBOB, waar ik intussen alweer dik 10 maanden zit. Zoals gebruikelijk, gemengde gevoelens.

62 years ago, at 8:15 am, the Japanese city of Hiroshima was hit by a nuclear bomb. Three days later a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki.

Having visited both cities, and the related sites, I can only express my hope that these two were the last. Seeing it in person definately gives it something more tangible…

As my employment at Atos Origin comes to an end, I exchanged my ‘own’ company car with a rental car. Atos rents petrol cars by default, but I was initially given a diesel. A few days later this was replaced by a band new petrol powered Opel Astra. While not my favorite car, in itself it’s not too bad a drive.

This morning the an error appeared on the board computer display: “coolant level low”. A quick inspection showed that the coolant level was indeed below the minimum mark, so I drove to the local Opel dealer, to have them fix (fill…) it.

What I expect when I come into a brand dealership with a new car with less than 500km on it, is a no-questions asked ‘we’ll fix it right away, sir’. What I don’t expect was what I got.

The guy behind the counter started moaning that it was a delivery issue, and that I should’ve taken it up with the supplying dealer and/or the rental company, and that they’d have to do all the paperwork. I was quite pissed about this, and I told him quite angrily that it was a brand new car, it was a bloody Opel, and that to my knowledge this was an Opel dealership, so suck it up and fix the damned thing. He gave in, but this is not the kind of discussion I want to have when I’m already aggravated by a car that doesnt work when it should.