The little Inn by the wayside

[Chroelle]

Good for you Pager!

[Pager]

Thanks Chroelle!
I get this weekend to be completely unemployed and stress-free!

@ Tormuse: All I can say about commuting across the city is...gah, freakin' 401...for anyone who wants to read more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_401

I had moved to Kitchener about 1.5 years ago, but my job was still in Mississauga (about 75km each way)...so the drive has been getting progressively worse and worse...The new job is for Manulife...I will be doing IS Integration, which is what I had been doing at my current job. So it was exactly what I was looking for at the right time.

[Chroelle]

Pic says it all.

I am off on vacation after work tomorrow, and I am leaving for a week to go to a vacation-house. Unfortunately they promised rain the entire week so far, so I am a bit down beause of that. Good news might be though that my allergies might not be killing me so hard while im there.... At the moment I can hardly speak, my nose is one big mess of snot, and red-ness from blowing it, and my head is hammering at every single sound.... Good thing I am work with 40 screaming 6-year-olds running around me...

My blog has been on a standstill as well as my CWF work, as I am so under the weather. I hope that my 5 week vacation might help a bit with that!

Hope everyone else is still having fun, and I hope Scythe is still alive - even thought the Danish weather have been sunny and HOT for some days...

[Tormuse]

Heh, the 401 isn't always that bad. Still... I'm glad I don't drive. Taking public transit takes longer, but it's much more relaxing.

(Also, that pic is surprisingly close to where I currently live!)

Have a good vacation, Chroelle! I'm going on one shortly myself. I leave for an international barbershop music convention in Kansas City next Tuesday.

[eMTe]

I love that overlengthy wiki articles about American highways, they're like road movies.

As for the weather, I feel like for last 120 days 100 were rainy. The weather this year gone bollocks. Good side is that low temperatures and empty paths are good for my running, 10 km runs are now everyday life.

[Chroelle]

Good for you eMTe - due to the damn allergies - having a guilty conscience for nothing running is part of my everyday life...

The weather forecast changed - and in such a way that it created news headlines. "Forecast wayyyy off" and similar headlines.
They now changed the weatherforecast so the rain will stop sunday (should have started tonight but unfortunately, for my damn allergies, haven't) instead of wednesday evening... So it seems I might get some possibility to run outside and do some fun stuff with Anna (I brought a kite).

[eMTe]

It seems we're back. Just when I was going to reply Chrolle via Face.

I havent heard about heavy rainfall in Denmark, I hope everything, except Surftown's servers, is ok for everybody. Ive followed forecasts for Tatras only in recent days, cause Im going to Slovakia on Friday. Looks like it's starting to get better, but in current circumstances it means for me "not rainy and moderately warm" after last two days of heavy downpour and 13 degrees.

If youre interested in what Ive been doing recently on gaming side you can check The Company, site providing Amiga classics preconfigured with WinUAE and compiled into single exe file. Currently testing how some of them work, because there are games I had always trouble running, with DOSBox or WinUAE, like Desert Strike, which I havent played since 1993 because of that.

[Chroelle]

Well, Copenhagen got hit by 150mm rain in an hour. Trains aren't running properly, basements got flooded including our hosts serverroom. They are currently working 24/7 getting Things back up and running again.
Things were rather hectic here and lots of people won't have hot running water for a week... lots of floods everywhere - and I missed it because I went to the south of the island on vacation. Me who loves when nature shows off, went away hours before the biggest rainfall in Danish history, and I woyld have been right in the middle of it more or less. I can imagine Scythe can tell more as he was smack down ground zero on this one iirc.

[Pater Alf]

After four days with doors shut the whole inn is singing:

"I, oh, I'm still alive
Hey I, oh, I'm still alive
Hey I, but, I'm still alive
Yeah I, ooh, I'm still alive
Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah...."

[eMTe]

This is what I could sing also...

If not the occasional hail which caught us during descent it would be a perfect day, unfortunately it was only very good.

[Chroelle]

Amazing pic eMTe...Where is it at?

Regarding having good or bad days... I am having a CRAPPY CRAPPY DAY. I came home from vacation yesterday to find that it wasn't only Surftowns basement that got flooded... My own is also suffering, and my towers of movingboxes that have been the safe storage of many an odd or end has all tipped over due to the lowest boxes going from 40 cms high to 7 cms high... That means that as soon as I am done with my unpacking stuff from the vacation, I am going down to the basement and trying to see how much is damaged. Unfortunately I put a lot of valuable stuff down there the day before we went on vacation - which would be a total of 24 hours before the rainfall....

Oh and this morning when I was trying to find some peace of mind after unpacking a lot of stuff, and being pretty bummed over the basement I decided to go write on an article for my blog, which is beginning to have an effect on my company in a positive manner, I found that the blogpost I wrote before leaving on vacation (and spend a full hour EXTREMELY concentrated on - with a result to show the hard work) got cancelled out by Surftowns backup-restoring of their databases....!!! I just cannot get a break here...

But still: (turns on Eddie vocals)

I, oh, I'm still alive
Hey I, oh, I'm still alive
Hey I, but, I'm still alive
Yeah I, ooh, I'm still alive
Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah...."

Edit: Well actually it was written by guitarist Stone Gossard...

[eMTe]

Slovakia, like I said one post earlier...

Pretty bad with flooded basement; as for valuables I hope you mean things youre emotionally attached to, not case with one million kroner inside or something... youd need long washing line to dry all banknotes.

How exactly the water got inside the cellar? Overground or underground? I mean, was the flooding caused by water flowing through window gaps or by rising of ground water level?

[eMTe]

And btw, Happy Birthday, Tool Time!

[Chroelle]

Rain got from ground level where it had seeped up through sewers as well as come down from above, and unfortunately the basements lies somewhat deep, so the rain got down a staircase, assembled and ganged up on the door, then flooded the hallway, that ends up with another staircase down, where it flooded the basements door, and then ended up in this pretty small room where only 4 apartments have basement storage rooms. A room of about 20 m2, so the water was allowed to rise a little higher than it would had it been a bigger room. Unfortunately I put stuff down there that was new, and that we need for Molly... I am worried that my box of sentimentals also might be hit, and that a folding matress we have down there which we bring out when guests come around to sleep over, also got wet. I haven't had time (or nerves) to go down there just yet, but I will in a couple of hours when Tanja comes home.

But enough about my wet basement - Happy Birthday PA! Hope both you and Tool Time have a pleasant day!

[Pater Alf]

Thank you! I have a pretty quiet birthday this year. Being on a monday many of my friends and my family didn't come around (as they live far away), but my neighbours and some friends were there with there children and we had a nice afternoon.

[eMTe]

I asked, because my friend, who is an engineer told me once funny story about basement flooding. There was new housing estate built somewhere in Cracow and cellars suddenly got flooded. Nobody could explain it, all necessary measures, like ground water level were made, everything seemed to be in order, there was no heavy rainfall or flood nearby or anything. Experts have been called and they also couldnt explain what's happening. Only after some time a crew of another experts solved the riddle - there were high and thick trees growing previously on the site where estate was planned and theyve been cut during development. Since trees no longer took water from the ground the level raised as a result.

Makes you think about power of nature.

[Chroelle]

Kind of funny observation! I liked that anecdote.

Unfortunately I looked in the basement and it seems we have damages of around 20-30.000 kroner (2500-4000€), perhaps more as I am only halfway through the room. It all smells of sewage, and there are fungi/mold forming on the wooden walls seperating the storage rooms down there. I tried to move a moving box, and my fingers went right through, as water flooded out of it, and the smell of sewage burned my nose, like when you throw up and it goes out the nose as well. It was that bad... So I know where I will be at in the coming days... Taking pictures for the insurance and throwing stuff away asap.

One thing that really bugs me though - I love seeing nature at its worst/best/most powerful and always enjoy a good thunderstorm, downpour whatever. I had just left to Bogø when it happended and Bogø was only slightly hit by it, so I feel kind of cheated...
Good thing that I try to think of when I am down there, is that finally I get to throw out a lot of the junk I have been moving around different apartment storages for years. Finally a huge cleanup - but did it have to hit my box of electronics.... I think I might have lost my spare keyboard, mouse, speakers, netcard, wiring for lots of stuff, manuals, Playstation 1, and games for this...

[eMTe]

Sounds bad... I was joking about one million kroner; 4000 euro sounds really bad, of course I have no comparison because of wages and prices differences, but it looks like a serious loss. After all, at some age, you realize that losing childhood photos is more serious loss than losing spare keyboards which you can buy instantly, but anyway it sounds bad.

Being on the way to find a humorous way out of this...your post sounds like a description of AGS one-room game. Curly's cellar got flooded, help him get out of this mess. Intro: you get down, see a knee-deep water, poke first box you see and your finger goes right through... It doesnt sound funny now, but I hope this post will be funny once you get out of the mess...

[Chroelle]

I am gigling you should know.
I am seeing the end of the basement now, and along the way came some clearsight with a positive twist. I found that I can now get rid of all the clutter that I have been moving around for years from one storage basement to the next and so on... The difference between the before and after picture can be spotted easily - so that was the silver lining.
My box of childhood pictures didn't get hit, and only some photos from workstuff and such got flooded - but that isn't so bad. Tanja lost all her old letters etc that she has been keeping but the box with all her late mothers stuff was spared - so she is happy as well. We lost alot of childrens playtoys, clothes, beds, cribs, and a babystroller, also a lot of my electronics (but mostly DVD-players etc that wont be missed as I upgraded) and all of my old Donald Duck books, and magazines which might have been worth something one day - at least to me and my girls when they get old enough to read.
Wanted to give you and idea of how much water hit us so here are some pics.
This is more or less the view from my living room - only 2 stories up.

http://plimg.no.publicus.com/storyimage ... 0&Border=0

This is the steel door safeguarding the Surftown serverroom.


This is how much water was in the serverroom.

[eMTe]

It looks bad. It didnt hit the news in here (at least internet ones, I dont watch tv and dont read papers) and I wasnt aware that Denmark is that susceptible to floodings, like for example Netherlands is. Ive always thought that it' relatively safe, even considering the general surface flatness and sea's proximity.

That door... Water broke it or they had to break it to get inside?

As for weather, after two hot days it's heavily raining again. And forecasts for next days are bad. Looks like September will be again, like in recent years, most sunny and dry month of the year.