... A father and son tradition ...

.. It has been hectic weeks at work. A lot of preparation for different rather important meetings made me feel the buzz again from the days at Sony Ericsson. Late hours and very short deadlines are what make me going. In the end the work paid off since we presented very good projects at the management and are getting the permission to work further on them ...

this week-end has been a thrill in all aspects. I was to go to the MotoGP races in Holland (Assen) this week-end with some could contacts and some customers. I already dragged and convinced my girlfriend to come along to also taste the vibe of worldclass motorcycle racing but much to my surprise my son came along. Last Thursday I called the kids and he although he never mentioned it he asked if he could join.

Since Assen is quite up in the north we planned a first stop Friday night in Amsterdam meeting up with Brenda, Olly and the gang. Unfortunately we could not go for the very very long hours since Riens (my son) had to go to bed rather early , but anyhow there was still plenty of time to be updated on the latest gossip and trends .... The wine, the Greek food and the stories were in abundance ....

The next brought however some sobering up: how to threat a scale in the bathroom. For the record I do not have a scale in my bathroom mainly because of the fact I do not want to be reminded of my weight. Well I could not resist the call of the scale, but I could not oversee the consequences. I will not mention the figure that appeared but it left us both in shock. As you can imagine the diet fever already kicked in :-) .

The next morning we left rather early for the races and it was a glorious day. The weather was superb and all my guests were so excited and impressed. Riens his highlight of the day was the autograph he received from James Ellison and Carlos Checa and the fact he could thanks to the Jeremy Ferguson (My colleague who is running the International Motorsports division) get a look at the bike from up close .


After the race we were amazed again by the Dutch. Along the highway people were putting up their little barbecue and chairs to watch the bikers pass by. It was just hilarious (I will be uploading an image later this week). On every exit people from the neighborhood were sitting on the bridge and the side, they had their sun chairs even their barbecue with them. A phenomena that continued to well 100km outside Assen...

back home and today Sunday it was so nice to see my sun with his signed cap and t-shirt, guess he is bitten by the same virus as me : the virus of speed and bikes, let's hope this all turns out to be harmless ...

Happy travels my friends and hope to hear from you all soon


Toon

.. when is the last time you let your hear speak ....

.. it has been a bit of a rumble lately. The emotional rollercoaster took our little family to all ends of the spectrum, but now it seems all is calming down again and we are looking forward to the holiday.... oepsss .... we were planning the holiday for July 31st till August 15th, but i just found out today that this was a bit of a mistake. Mieke - the kids mother - had booked the same week , so we are moved back to 13th of August till 27th now .. not really a problem, but now everybody has to adjust the schedule to my little mistake ....

on the title now: we had dinner with Serge, Onno and Lotte from Luon. They have become very good friends and we enjoy a bit the similar things in life: good food and very good wine. During the dinner we came to the different projects they were involved in. Well they have a brilliant and unique concept which made me feel good about working in this business. On Tuesday they will launch a unique mobile operator. Ello Mobile (website will go live tuesday on www.ello-mobile.be) is a totally webbased operator with a heart of gold. All profits will be going to social projects selected by the King Boudewijn foundation (very famous belgian foundation of our former king) www.kbs-frb.be

in the same area i had a quick summer lunch with another friend who just came back from a mindblowing experience: taking a step back in life and asking yourself what you really want. Not the 5 second question that you ask yourself when rushing into two meeting, but genuinely asking yourself the question and confronting yourself with it and only with that for one week ... when is the last time you did that ....

The same day i could not help me dropping by Dare Digital ... the sight of Flo Heiss and James Cooper hanging out of the window put a smile on my face the lasted all day long .... not talking about the good old days but just catching up on how life is and the small things that make us happy .. when is the last time you did that ...

Saturday evening: bbq at my dads place with the whole family (my brother and 3 sisters). sitting there with all of us and listening to the joyful conversations about our lives ..... when is the last time you did that ...

I guess that we all do these things from time to time, but sometimes we forget to make the time to really enjoy them ... this last week we needed to have this kind of things in our lives to look back and say: we are lucky.

recommendations:

Life after the 30 sec spot of Joseph Jaffe, a brilliant piece of literature that puts the work of current TV advertising marketers in the spotlight as being a species under threat of extinction. I loved the booked enormously, especially since I read it on the way to the ad agency for a creative and budget meeting :-) ...

Matchpoint: the latest movie from Woody Allen, not really a recommendation during this lovely weather but anyhow. It was one of those movies that still today's spooks in my mind. A story about luck, what it means and how destiny can play such a predominant role in where you end up and have to lead the rest of your life ....


Happy travels friends and hope to see more of you all in the coming months

Toon

PS: the Africa trip is becoming more and more serious. Can you imagine we bought the maps and we are already figuring out where all the gas stations are for the trip in the deserted area's :-)