cabuki.com
The Sun is announced. Don’t forget to bring your balls.

Grocery stores in Belgium aren’t necessarily the best organized. Just because the shelf says “Chicken Salad” doesn’t mean that’s what’s actually on the shelf. I had to get pictures taken for my passport renewal and next door was a market. I felt like having some chicken salad on crackers for lunch, so I went to the deli, found the chicken salad on the shelf and grabbed it. It wasn’t until I got back to my office that I read the package: Tuna Salad. It wasn’t that different, but when you want one thing and get another, it’s a surprise.

It wasn’t even good tuna salad.

The weekend started out great and stayed that way. On Friday, I resigned from my job after 4.5 years to take a position with a friend’s startup in Brussels. I also had an offer from another company in Brussels, but Simon’s company was a better fit so that’s the offer I took. It was nice to have options when choosing a job after 4 months of searching.

On Saturday, one of my college roommates and his wife flew in from Columbus. They’re going to be roaming around Europe for a couple weeks so they made a short stop in Brussels to visit. I decided to give them a Belgian Beer Tour (we grabbed a bunch of trappist-style beers at the grocery store) while watching the first round of the NFL draft. Later, we went to dinner and took a short walk in Leuven. They crashed around 11 and I got them up this morning and put them on a train to Amsterdam. I’ll be up there for work Tuesday through Thursday, so we’ll get together again Tuesday night. They’ll be back in Brussels for our anniversary/Cinco de Mayo party Saturday before heading to London Sunday morning.

Today, I played a couple baseball games. Well, I played one and was on the bench for the other. In the Reserves game in the morning, we team won 12-3. I pitched and batted 5th. Batting, I ended up going 0-4 with an RBI. I flied out once and grounded out 3 times. I need to work more on my hitting. Pitching I had a respectable game. 4 IP, 3 R, 3 ER, 2 H, 4 K, 6 BB, 1 HBP. I also had 2 put outs and 2 assists. I also broke the #3 hitter’s bat in the 1st inning. He was not happy. Because the reserve games are played on a time deadline, the 4 innings was a complete game victory. Not bad for my first pitching action since 2005. I need to do some more bullpen work to find some control on my curve ball, but I kept the ball down in the zone.

I was invited by Chris to join his pub quiz team at The Old Oak last night. I wasn’t expecting much from myself since I hadn’t played any kind of trivia game in ages. The team (Anne, Joe, Tim, Chris and myself) had a good night. We finished tied for 8th out of 20 something teams. There seemed to be a lot of geography questions, but we did ok on those. I think our worst rounds were song identification and famous faces. I’ll have to start listening to the radio and watching more TV.

The scheduled scrimmage games were rained out yesterday. Which is probably a good thing. Saturday night was Jean-Mi’s birthday party. I wasn’t planning on staying too late, but it was 3am before I got into bed.

The Reserves game was supposed to start at 12:30, so that meant getting to the field at 10am before carpooling to Brasschaat. I rolled out of bed at 9:30, got my stuff together and made my way to the field. When I pulled into the parking lot, there was no one there. My first thought was, “Did I get the time wrong?” I pulled out my phone to make a call and I saw that I had missed a message. The message informing me the game was canceled.

It could have been worse. We could still be living in Lier and I would’ve made a 1.5 hour round trip for nothing. The new house has already proven it’s worth.

Spring arrived this past weekend and it was great. Warm weather, sunny skies, frites and beer. I attended my first practice of the season on Sunday. Recovering from the off-season is getting harder to do. I actually started getting sore *during* practice instead of later in the evening. It was my first real physical activity since last season ended in September so I’m not really surprised. We’re moving back up to Division 1 after a one year stint in Division 2. The competition is tougher, but I’m hoping for the best.

In work related news, I’ve been assigned to a project in our Amsterdam office. For the first few weeks, I’ll be in Amsterdam 3 days a week. Hopefully, the project manager will see that working from Belgium won’t be a problem and will adjust the schedule accordingly. I don’t mind spending some time in another office, but the commute won’t be much fun. We’ll see.

Me: I’m going to have some ice cream. Do you want some?
Christine: I just had a pear. It was so good. You know how they get real juicy and you can just suck on them?
Me: I’ve got a pair you can suck on.
Christine: rolls eyes

Well that certainly was fun. A quick trip to grab a sandwich for lunch turned into a little bit more. The getting of the sandwich was quick, it was the returning to the office part that caused some problems. We got on the elevator and proceeded to the 3rd floor. Just after the elevator started moving, I decided I wanted a Coke with my sandwich so I hit the button for the 2nd floor (where the company’s Coke machine resides). The elevator skipped the 2nd floor and went to the 3rd. Not a problem, I’ll just take the stairs down. But wait, the doors haven’t opened. Hit the door open button. Nothing. Crap. Being trapped in an elevator with 4 programmers, we did what you’d think we would. We looked for a trap door in the ceiling so we could climb out. After realizing there wasn’t one, we hit the alarm button so the maintenance crew would come and open the door. They didn’t come. So we called our receptionist so she could call them. They finally came and tried freeing the people trapped in the working elevator. Once they were freed, they came over to the non-working elevator and rescued us.

We were only trapped for 30 minutes, but I’ll never forget this harrowing experience. Trapped like caged animals with only our freshly purchased sandwiches. Not knowing when or if we’d be rescued. It forces a man to think when faced with his own mortality and I am no exception. Did my life flash before my eyes? Thoughts of past regrets come to light?

No. I was just worried that Christine wouldn’t call and say her water broke.

I just got a phone call from the hospital in Lier about an appointment I (supposedly) made for my back today. I had called about the appointment in early December and I remember the phone call. I don’t actually remember them telling me when the appointment was for. They asked me a bunch of questions about the pain and any other symptoms. I seem to recall the nurse saying they’d call me back to schedule something but they never did. It’s entirely possible I missed something since the entire conversation took place in Dutch and I didn’t understand everything she said.

So I get a call today and it’s the nurse asking me where I am. I apologized and said I forgot about the appointment and she starts in on me about how I was irresponsible and that I should have called and canceled it so someone else could have used it. I would have if I had known when the appointment was. Unfortunately, my Dutch sucks and I was caught a little off guard, so I just said I’m sorry and that I didn’t need the appointment or any follow ups anymore (I went to another doctor that was able to see me right away).

I need to improve my Dutch so I can argue better instead of just accepting blame that might not be mine.

The house move went smoothly with the slight exception of internet and cable installation. Those were supposed to be done before we moved into the house but due to a mix up at the cable company, we didn’t get access until last week. Christine made a few angry phone calls and made some threats involving the CEO of the cable company and things got fixed quickly.

Also during the break, we threw a fancy dinner party for New Year’s Eve. It wasn’t too big, just 9 of us, but we all dressed up in our fanciest duds and had a nice relaxing evening. I made a 5 course dinner as well as a few appetizers. It was a great first test for the new kitchen. The stove is induction so it cooks a bit like gas and the ovens are combination microwave/standard ovens which means they cook things differently. All in all, it came out good.

Menu:

Appetizers:

• Sushi
  • Spicy Tuna Roll
  • California Roll
• Home made Guacamole

Dinner:

• Roasted Pepper Soup
• Tomato, Mozzarella and Rocket Salad
• Lemon Sorbet
• Rack of Lamb with Potatoes Au Gratin and Green Beans wrapped with Bacon
• Cheesecake with a Raspberry Port Sauce

Everyone seemed to enjoy the food and had a good time meeting new people. This party had a couple of twists to our normal parties. Usually, we throw casual BBQs in the Summer for people from the baseball club, but this party was the opposite. Formal dress in the Winter for friends from (almost) all of our social groups. Unfortunately, many of Christine’s friends couldn’t make it or backed out at the last minute. Despite that, we had a good mix of people.

The big surprise of the night wasn’t discovered until a few days later. One of my friends proposed to his girlfriend on our front porch as they were leaving our party to head to another one in Brussels. Looks like I’ve got a wedding to go to in October.

When you work with electricity, the number one rule is to make sure the electricity is switched off at the circuit breaker, not just the switch.

I did not heed this rule. In preparation for the upcoming move, I had to take the lights off the ceiling throughout the apartment so the contractor could install them in the house. I thought I had flipped the breaker for the hallway when I turned off the power to the green room. I found out the hard way that I had not.

At first, it felt like Christine had crept up from behind and grabbed me to scare me. Then, the shock registered and the screwdriver I was using fell out of my hand. My hand stung for a couple minutes, but nothing major happened. It could have been much worse. Obviously, death was possible. But I was standing on a step stool near the top of the stairs. That would have made the upcoming move fun.

So, the lesson from this is: Don’t be lazy. If you’re not sure the breaker has been switched off, go check.