Crowded house ...

 

We decided to invite our friends before the end of year madness starts. Our house was nice and full with 10 adults and 9 kids , a nice gang.  Everybody was asked to bring something along, we made sure we had the wine, the drinks and pancke brunch for the kids ...

It was a nice relaxed atmospher, guess the old days of parties and overloading with wine are over, guess we are all a bit wiser and calmer now. But coming to think of it, we realized we did not do this enough ... After the last left we started looking into our mental diary and made a little list of all the people we really call our friends on the left and all the dinners we had the last year , and know what ? We hardly came to 5 , 6 overlaps ...

Seems our lives are filled with social activities with people you know, but not prese call your friends . A lot of my dinners where with work colleagues, and bless them, i enjoyed all of them with great pleasure, but where is the timeslot for my friends ... Yes we come across them on market day in Mechelen or one evening at the theatre, but sitting down and also enjoying a moment of silence ...

So here i go with a resolution for 2008 - yes i agree a bit early , but it needs some sinking in, and i want as many of you doing the same - we will invite at least once a months our friends over for dinner.

For the rest the week-end was packed with running to music schools, band rehearsels and school party ... too nice to be true . But in between i could not resist the desire to get on the bike and just feel the winter cold flowing over my hands, arms, chest ... Maybe a prelude of what is slowly taking shape in mind mind and dream: a trip through cold places ...

For now: happy travels

 

Toon

The teaser video ...

 

i just love the music ... i wished the band became popular ... that would be a laugh

feel free to play the game and give me your thougths

The changing face of adventure travelling ... why McGregor and Boorman ruined it ...

As you know  i just started planning to go from Brussels over Beijing to Bangkok, still considering to take the journey home ont he bike or just load the bike on a ship / aircraft to fly over to Brussels. Maybe the safest option since the foreign policies of Mr Bush towards his so-called "axis of evil"  has made a possible return over Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran to Potentially Syria and back to Belgium almost impossible.

But back to the start of tha planning. I have been reading a lot about adventure travelling and the do's and dont's on these trips, watched a number of video's and browsed the web for tips and tricks. One thing is for sure: I'm not the only one dreaming of it and will not be the only one who finally gets to realize his dream.

But there is a little thing that nags in me : am i not too late with my trip. Has the world not become a village and does the adventure of going around with a bike not been tried and tested for too many times. Have Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman not killed the possibility for support of a solo trip and broken the romance around adventure travelling.

You might ask yourself, what was wrong with Ewan McGregors and Charlie Boormans Long way round and Long way down. Well yes they did it to raise awareness for Unicef project, but how do you feel if you know they had a crew of more than 20 working on the full project (www.longwaydown.com), get the nicest material for free, are being babysitted by a producer and a director and i could go on and on and on ....

 

I admire what they try to do, but can not rub off the negative connotations and impact it has on other people trying to do the trip. I from my side will need to cough up all the costs, when stuck i will be stuck with a nice Nissan pulling up to help me ....

I guess i will have to come up with a better idea on how to run the expedition, maybe connect it to a social networking idea .... don't know yet, but ideas are welcome.

And for Mr McGregor and Mr Boorman thanks for selling the soul of adventure travelling to the highest bidder in your celebrity world.

For all the others: Happy travels

Virusses and virals

 

My god a cold really has got me this time ... never thought i would be so under weather from a damn cold. But well , i maybe exaggerated a bit with the sunday afternoon walk in the beautifull Mechelen Nature reserve.

But on the one hand the virus is keeping me not away from the lastest stuff i have been working on.: Free your buddy. A fun way to explain to people that now your Messenger buddy does not longer need to be enclosed inside your computer but can use his mobile to chat with you any place he or she wants .... Check it out on www.freeyourbuddy.com

In a way i'm very happy with the results because it is moving the bar a little further on where an ingredient software can stand out of the crowd and makes the experience come first, before even ever thinking about the hardware.

But the litle vanity in me is even more happy with the teaser video that was produced by the agency . Put on the speakers and listen to this wonderful tune ... if only this could become a little hit in the UK i would be dancing the samba on the polar ice :-) .. so go out there and make it a hit ....

but for this you will have to play the game :-) ... if you need clues, just send me a mail ...

Happy travels in these short days ....

the wrong book to read ...

does it really exist, reading the wrong book, or is it just me trying to convince myself that I should not be reading the book I’m reading right now.

what is it that i'm talking about. well, some time ago I read Jupiter’s Travel, a transcript of Ted Simons travel around the world in I guess it was 1973. He packed his bags and set off on his Triumph to go from London down to Africa, cross the ocean to Latin America, up to North America, crossing to Australia and than heading back over India to Europe again. Not that Ted was so experienced as a bike rider, but he described in full color the dream I was chasing before I went to Morocco ....to experience from close by other cultures combined with a true sense of freedom, to break away from my comfortable habitat and to feel, smell and see cultures that seemed in a way so close by but at the same time far away ....

He gave a new sense to motorcycle traveling, not the sense of achievement, but the sense of experience to ride on your own and to be open to others ... Although I was also very much charmed by the adventure of Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman on the Lond Way Round, they could never reach the level of adventure of Ted since they were supported in a whole different way ... They had 2 support vehicules, technical support, financial backing, sat phones and all the bells and whistles one could imagine .... Ted did it on his own, scraping the funds together and solving his own problems without being able to rely on a home crew of 5 people doing the admin work and 4 guys following you in case something went wrong ...

Now our dear Ted, who left in 1973 when he was 42, did his trip again, but now in 2001 as a 69 year old veteran .... and again , although he tried , the material backing and support was minimal ... nevertheless he did it, fueling my hopes that is still could do my trip ... (read his story on www.jupitalia.com) ...

I'm gazing at the map of Asia that decorates my wall in the living room ... dreaming along the yellow lined that marks out a trail : Brussels - Beijing - Bangkok - Bombay and back .... wondering if I ever will put this into reality ... but who cares in a way ... the mind travel along the marked line already fills me with the feeling of achievement, just daring to dream about the adventure ...

so in a way no, reading the wrong book is not possible ... its just that the books confronts your current reality with your aspirations ... it is merely the bridge between reality and the daydream that makes it scary ....

Happy travels