Author: alex

(for the english readers : the below is a rant on Belgian pedophiles who hunt down all images of children in bathing suits or naked in bath, etc… and the reason why I already removed some images of my sons from my site as I got suspicious of the high page visits to a 1-year old post)

Hier is de reden waarom ik niet veel foto’s van mijn kinderen op mijn website zet.

Bij de aanhouding onlangs van enkele Belgische pedofielen bleek dat ze niet op kindpornosites zaten, maar andere zaken zochten….

Hun internetgebruik zag er op het eerste zicht heel normaal uit. En het was niet op het internet dat ze hun kinderporno zochten en vonden.

Nee, op het internet waren ze voortdurend op zoek naar foto’s van kinderen in bad, onschuldig naakt of in badpakken. Deze vonden ze in familie-albums online, vakantiefoto’s en websites van o.a. scouts en sportclubs.

Voor de ouders is het dus belangrijk om dergelijke foto’s van uw kinderen af te schermen met een paswoord.

Als ik de traffiek vergeleek naar de enkele foto’s van Sam en Tom met de rest van de site, had ik al snel een paranoisch vermoeden dat hier iets niet klopte, dus heb ik er al een paar verwijderd.

Klojo’s ! Dat ze met hun pollen van mijn kinderen afblijven !

Update:  Ik zou iedereen die Flickr gebruikt aanraden om de foto’s van hun kinderen in badpak of adam-en-eva tenu op ‘privé’ te zetten. Voor een pedo moet dat een paradijs zijn…

Hold on to your eyes, ladies and gentlemen – I am trying out a new theme called Anaconda, and it rocks !! Loads of things to muck about with.

For the next few days, ouch ! Although soonish I’ll be settling back down to normal, don’t ya worry.

The installation of the theme went surprisingly easy – just unzip the file under your WordPress theme directory and you’re good to go. If you want to have some widget fun, install that one too (the unzipped directory goes into the WordPress plugins directory).

Update :
This is a really flexible theme – I just activated the plugin section, and I have succesfully configured my new left-sidebar just the way I like it. Anaconda is still in beta, currently at version 0.7 but it seems stable enough. A bit slower on loading the page though.
I think I am going to keep this theme, although I might need to do some tinkering, but I have to say it is the best theme I’ve come across so far !

What I am currently missing is a simple way to change the color of the theme’s titles and put my custom picture on top…

Recently, I’ve done a small experiment : I started wearing a tie to work again.

I don’t have to wear ties or jackets to work, as I don’t meet a lot of customers. However quite a few people here do ties and jackets and suits – and the higher you are in hierachy, the more it is expected.

Here, it seems that if you are really serious about your career, then you wear a suit to work every day.

I’ve always had my doubts about the efficacy of this, certainly after wearing a suit to work for the first 7 years or so of my working life. Having to mandatorely put a suit on really made me dislike wearing them. Plus, in my previous work everybody wore a suit, so the effect seemed nullified.

Now that I am in a company where it is by choice, I actually want to wear one from time to time. So the impact should be greater. So after many years of going tie-less, once more I am wearing a tie and occasionally a jacket.

The results are in : after a week, the difference is surprising. The tie and jacket do make a difference in the way people regard you, I even get nods from people who normally pass me by. It’s not like I am doing different work, but you definitely get more respect.
So there is definitely truth in the saying “The Clothes Make the Man”… or at least, they do in the eye of the beholder.

Sam is running around now, faster and faster. When he is running in your direction and he sees you he laughs, and then runs the other way ! He can be VERY fast.
During the last 2 weeks or so, with us repeating the motions in front of him all the time, he has learned to point his hand and finger to something he wants, and since a few days he says ‘aa’ (stand for ‘ja’ or yes) when we ask him if this is the thing he wants.

He seems to reflect on stuff he has learned and then re-using it when we least expect it. He loves opening and closing doors. Especially closing them, always repeating ‘deutoe’ (aka ‘deur toe’ aka close the door).

All this while he is 14 months old !

Tom is going bikeriding. Yesterday we went for a walk in Hallerbos, the woods nearby. No cars allowed during weekends, broad roads, so excellent for Tom and his little bike. Still on side-wheels, but that will change in the future. For now he has to learn to have fun on his bike, which he anyways prefers vastly to walking.

He was very brave, and for the chance of getting a pancake at ‘Het Kriekske’ (they didn’t have any, but he had a nice real-raspberry ice-cream instead) he biked for 2.5 hours through the woods. Both he and Sam slept very well !