Pretty in Pink

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New one.

I had one more loooong look... and gave up. Then got myself a new washing machine. A Zanusi ZWF-1410 to be exact. But... who wants to know?





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Nope

So far I wasn't very successful in repairing my leaking washing machine. Oh, I did manage to fix the tear that I found in the outside tub! Not completely without pride I'm showing you a picture here of a great job done (1 + 2).
But it hasn't stopped my machine from leaking... There seems to be a second leak somewhere. Somewhere I can't reach (3).
So now I'm thinking what to do. Do I give up, although I have come so far? Am I just going to buy myself a new one?
Or do I give it one final shot? Do I take the whole thing apart, unscrewing every single bolt I come across until I find that second leak and repair it? With the risk that I will never be able to put the thing back together again without having several loose and unidentified parts left over after trying.
I'll keep you posted.
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My favorite redhead

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Goodbye old building

In 1976 the paper I work for, Haarlems Dagblad left its residence in city center to move to a new building in the industrial outskirts of Haarlem, the Waarderpolder. The inner city had become too crowdy to be the home of a modern newspaper.

I first set foot there on March 1st 1990 – as an intern for three months. I studied journalism back than, in Utrecht. Since that day the Waarderpolder became an almost too familiar place for me.
In the years that followed I kept writing for the paper on a freelance basis. Until our relationship faded. But not for long.
Somewhere in the Spring of 1996 we met again. That is: I found myself upstairs at club Paradiso in Amsterdam together with J.O. We were waiting for a showcase of Maria McKee to begin and talked a little. J.O., then head of HD’s art department, asked me why he never saw me in the Waarderpolder anymore. There were no real good reasons, I guess. And I was flattered when he asked me to step by somewhere the following week to see if we could work together.
So I did. In that same year I moved to an appartment only 6 minutes from the HD-office - by bike that is. Four years later I got my recent appartment, whitch is even closer by.
March 1998 - eight years after my first day as an intern I signed my contract for a steady post. For the next seven and a half years I worked as a pop- and rock journalist, seeing a lot of concerts, interviewing some of the finest artists. Until things changed and my work would never be what it was ever again.
That was some 17 months ago. I changed jobs. Since September 2005 I am HD’s city hall reporter, a position I still enjoy every day.

The Waarderpolder is no longer, though. After the last merger there weren’t too many people working in the Haarlem office anymore. The building got too big for those of us left behind. In November we moved back to city center. We have an office now right next to Haarlem’s main railway station. It is a great place to work. And it feels good that the paper is back in town.
Today I went to see the old building one more time. It has been sold and the new owner is tearing it down.
Looking at the rubble I realized that, although I had some great years here, I have never really grown attached to the building itself. It’s strange to see it shattered, but that is all.

I'm digital

I got a new camera! A digital SLR! It's Canon's brand new EOS 400D. I haven't had much time to even look at it, let alone play with it, but still it is obvious to me that I got myself a very nice present.

Although there was one moment I almost regretted buying it. It was just after I paid. I bought this camera at an online shop in Rotterdam, because they had the best offer. Still, it's not a very cheap camera and I am not Donald Trump. So for me it was quite an expense.
Anyway, right after I placed my order I left my study to go to the living room, passing the bathroom where at that moment my washing machine is spinning. Then, from the corner of my eye, I see that from under the machine there's water streaming to the other end of the bathroom...

What exactly happened I still don't know, but somehow one of the drum vanes was torn loose with such force that it made a tear in the outer tub. Ouch! That's a biggie...
I was afraid that there was nothing else to do than to buy a new one. But I just got myself a far too expensive camera to have any money left for a new washer!!! With little hope I called a repairman who at first was indeed not very positive on the chances the leak could be fixed. But that was because he assumed that my washing machine had a plastic outer tub. While everyone knows that a Zanker CF 2056 has a metal tub!
So he gave me a tip: I can try to fix the problem with kneadable metal. So for 5 euro I just got some Bison Steel Epoxy. Tomorrow I will play the role of repairman. I hope it works. But I will show you the pictures anyway!

What the papers say...

As a newspaper journalist my name is off course often to be found in the paper I work for. "Mayor cheats on his wife again - by *my name*"... Well, something like that.
To have my picture in the paper is not so common. I had pictures published that I took, but pictures that were taken of me are for very good reasons hardly ever to be found in the columns of the quality newsprovider HD is. Except for today.
We held open house last Saturday. Partly because we have recently moved to a new office, partly as the closing ceremony of our 350 year's anniversary. Anyway, I was there to tell visitors whatever they wanted to know about their newspaper and my job.
Today we have a whole page about the event. And there I am. Just out of bed as you can see. I have no clue of who the little boy and his grandmother in the front are, but on my right side (actually it's my left side, your right side...) you can see a glimpse of my sweet mother.