First strawberries of the season

First strawberries of the season.... yummy!
Spring is coming amd with it the strawberries!!!!

Thanks Alice!

Thinking of me card

I've been away from work for a bit more than a week now. Well, physically away so I can rest my back.
Last night Wolfram brought me a card from my department. A card with get better wishes.
I have to say I was very touched by the gesture.
I know my admin always makes sure we never miss a birthday, a birth, a wedding, etc. But when you are the recipient of it, it does mean a lot to receive a note from your colleagues.
So thank you Air Care team'

Washing machine is fine

10 days ago the washing machine refused to spin. We called for help and this morning a technician came. Based on our description and searching the web we thought it would be a problem with the pump.
We were wrong.
First thing he asked was whether we emptied the filter. We did but apparently there was some more inside to be evacuated. He opened the filter and found more of that blue thing we already removed.
It was as simple as emptying the filter and we called a technician for that.
I asked him to check for anything else leaking, which he did, but he didn't find anything.
It was just the filter!!!!
I felt the same way as when you call IT and suddenly your computer works perfectly. Stupid!!!!

One is working

What about the others?

Evidence of the cold

This morning the washing machine refused to spin. It probably has to do with the leakage we spotted a week ago and didn't have time to fix yet.
Anyhow my wool sweaters were in the machine when it decided not to spin not rinse.
I got them out, rinse in the sink, squeeze as much water out I could and put them on a rack.
Given they were still full of water and dripping I put them on the terrace while I took my shower. By the time I was done, stalactites had grown on my sweaters!
If you needed evidence that it is freezing cold in Belgium, there you go!

Business justification

Monday morning I call IT to ask about my Outlook calendar that had gone missing.

Obviously this was a first for the person I talked to. He asked two questions:

-          Are you the only one who has lost her calendar?... Yes

-          Do you need your calendar? I mean did you have many meetings?...Well, my whole life is in there, so Yes I need it.

Sadly he couldn’t fix it and after talking for 5 long minutes with his manager (while I was on hold) he told me my manager’s approval is needed for the restoration of my calendar.

I asked my manager, I got his approval on email, I forwarded the email to the IT guy and a few hours later he came back to me with the following:

-          What’s the business justification? I need your manager to explain the business justification on top of his approval.

This is one of these moments where I choose not to answer right away because there would be blood. Why on earth would I need my calendar to operate? Why would I need to know with whom I need to meet, where and when?????

I was utterly annoyed and told the IT guy via email to try without. If they reject the request, I will survive.

Reality is that by the end of Monday I had recovered about 30% of my calendar by asking people to forward me invites. By Tuesday I was easily at 50%. By the time the IT team starts working on my case, if they start, I will have probably recovered 80% by myself making the restoration pretty useless.

Still I find it highly frustrating that when something like this happens they can’t fix it within 24H and I need a business justification on top of my manager’s approval. Grrrrr!!!!!

My calendar has disappeared

In an attempt to synchronize my calendar via server instead of manually, i.e. via iTunes and a cable, I set up my phone to connect automatically to the server, the same way as the iPad does.
In theory this is a good idea.
In real life this turned into a disaster. My calendar disappeared from Outlook, and from the iPad which means from the server too. It only showed on the iPhone...well for a while until we managed to re-establish full connectivity between the three devices... thus loosing the Calendar on all three.
In summary, I have a whole week/month/year of meetings and gatherings ahead of me and no idea what/where/when.
Let's hope there is a back-up of my Calendar somewhere on the server and that IT can rescue it.
In the meantime if I'm supposed to meet with you, send me another invite.

Introducing...

My first niece or nephew!
13 weeks, everything is fine.

Lamia, already very proud aunt to be :)

I'm trying to work here!

But Muffin has decided differently...

It is an art to put oneself just where it's the most annoying for the other while still looking extremely cute.