If your dreams get crazy

Dear Blogger,

As the weather is wet and moisty, my body is not my friend as everything is being sore again. I am using since a long time my painkillers again. I am not much of a dreamer but last night I woke up and had this weird dream about working a dull office job. As I am still unemployed and they give me advise to do an office job and I am really scared to end up in a job that would kill the happines in me. To give you an impression of what was happening in my dream, I wrote the following story. It is not that I do not respect people that work in offices or call centres but it scares the crap out of me if I needed to stay all day in between of these four walls, time for the story so sit back and relax.

I'm all at sea ", if only for a day


The city provides a sad sight. The rain drizzles down. People with umbrellas raised high above their heads, they can walk as fast as they can to get into their heated homes or buildings. The facades give a gray, sad impression in this miserable rain. The busy traffic, what the weather does not decrease roars past me. The wheels of the cars splash through the rain puddles. Deeply wrapped in my long raincoat I walk through the streets. It is a new day and a new job.

I do not look forward to do this job. Slowly I slander towards the building. Too soon, against my will, I stand before the cold gray office building. Workatmosphere immediately faces you when you get inside. It feels like a cold shower above my head is turned on. I walk into the large concrete staircase, which brings me to my department. My new boss of me looks at his watch. For the first time in my life I am late on the job. Then he walks away disapprovingly. I sigh and put my sodden raincoat to dry on the heater. With a thud I sit down in my black office chair that protested against my weight. I press the button of the computer "power" on it. The screen I enter with a blow because otherwise it does not work.

I grab from my pen tray one of my gnawed pencils. I slander, armed with pencil and sharpener to the bin. When I arrive at the bin I am grinding a nice sharp point on my pencil. Then I walk back over the dusty, especially gray office carpet in my office. I lean back in my big chair. My colleagues are busy with their work. Yes, I work at a large call center. The men and women here are busy with some stencils to boost up their sales. You hear the tapping of keyboards. Somewhere in the distance a cell phone goes off. Nervously they talk to each other because using a mobile device is punishable by dismissal. I look gloomily out of the window.

I see another large gray officebuilding. There will be almost the same things going on as here at least that is what I think. Tapping of keyboards. Ringing telephones. Busy chattering people. Rustling papers. No, I have nothing to complain I have a beautiful view here. But wherever you look, everywhere you see the same gray office buildings. With my mouse I move the white arrow on the screen, double click. My mails are opened. Big huge letters let me know that I have five unread messages in my inbox. I click bored on one of the mails. My eyes fly over the lines. 'What's wrong with you''' asks a voice I tear my eyes from the screen, and I look blurred at my colleague. Abruptly I pull up my shoulders. ,, Let's go and have a break! The customer must be happy at the end of the day but we as call agents need occasionally a bite to eat.''

Oh, yes that's right, I should now take better care of myself.” Duty calls again and yes I should be happy with this job because there is not much work in this area. I sigh and rise to start again at my new job for the coming hours. I frog on the concrete stairs and I hang my wet raincoat back on the heating. Get inside and go hunting for new customers. After one day of answering calls from both nice and happy customers and badly mannered persons and completely numb from all the new things that I need to learn.

I walk with appropriate step down the concrete stairs. The smell of exhaust fumes hits my nostrils and the rain falls relentlessly. Slowly I walk to the bus stop, and it had it's best time. The windows were smashed, and the bench is stained with chewing gum and graffiti. On the roof is sitting a set of thick gray citypigeons nestled deep into their warm plumage. The bus is coming and stops at the shabby bus stop. I step into the bus. Despite the weather it is actually very quiet in the bus. I sit down in the nearest chair. I still think to myself why I'm not the one driving. The heater is on and the temperature is comfortable.

A radio plays softly the following melody. I'm all at sea. Where no one can bother me. Forgot my roots. If only for a day. Just me and my thoughts. Sailing far away. I listen to the lyrics of the song. In my head I translate it. I am in the middle of the sea Where no one troubles me and I forget about my heritage, If only for one day. Just me and my thoughts sailing far away there. Yeah, that was my life and I also occasionally dream away from the worries of daily life. It seems that time never stands still, and now the creeping hands of the clock move so slowly. Weird. Actually, we have much more to enjoy life and should not be so buried in our work.

The whole bus ride are my thoughts on it. Is that why I am never bored and that I live mostly on the bright side. I also look at work as a past time for many, as an escape from the loneliness and a number of other social contacts. It's such a shame that you need to spend so much of your free time on it. I am happier with a half time job then a full-time job although it is financially no glory. Anyway I am again building up my life though I have no illusions that I will be happy in an office job. But for the welfare authority, I do my best and I hope for a better future as a bus driver.

The Old Sailor,

French for beginners

Dear Bloggers,



Today is one of these days that you think "I wish it was summertime again". Outside the rain is drizzling down mixed with snow. A nasty combination of cold and wet is forcing me to stay indoors. It makes me dream away about better days that the sun was out, and it makes me realize that it is the perfect time to make plans for the coming holidays.

As an old sailor I have travelled the world and I saw many beautiful places on my journey's. I have a lot of ideas of where to go and also where not to go. My memories are flashing back to a few years ago. I was in a not to good position financially and we had a hard time to survive. A good friend of mine Erik suggested to visit his farmhouse in France.

I answered that it was a nice idea and tried to crawl back with the fact that my French was not to good. No problem he said, the younger generation will speak some English. I expressed the idea to my wife and after a discussion about the costs she agreed with me and we should not turn down this offer. We saved some money for fuel and started on this new challenge, in the early morning we drove off to “la douce France”. When we prepaired ourself for the trip my not very detailed map could not find the village of Reithouse.(pronounce as Rétouzje) I picked up the phone and called Erik to give me some more detailed directions and now the adventure could begin. A GPS system was still extremely expensive at least it was for us. As soon as we had crossed the borders of Belgium and Luxembourg and ended up on the highway in France.

We drove Southbound and past the cities of Metz, Nancy and Dijon from this point we had to follow the signs towards Lons le Saunier. Especially the last part we were stunned by the picturesk scenes where we drove through. The beautiful mountain scenery of the French Jura is impressive, and this is where Reithouse is situated. My wife and I had something were have we seen this before? Just a couple of kilomtres later we realized that the tour the France is passing through this area. I must admit that the picturesk scenes are live even better. When we arrived in Reithouse the sun had hidden itself behind the mountains and it was getting dark and we were all pretty tired of the long journey.

We entered the house and fired up the stove in the kitchen, the nice smell of burning wood was filling the room. We shoved the kids into bed and sat down at the kitchen table. In a few minutes it was nice and warm, it was time to enjoy the holiday and I opened a bottle of wine. Now it was time to relax. Eventhough it is very quiet in the small village of Reithouse our kids got up at six o'clock in the morning, I stumbled to the kitchen to make some tea and coffee.

After having some coffee and some crackers, we drove to the town of Orgelet to buy some fresh baked bread and of course croissants at the boulangerie. We also bought some other basic things at the local shops. Back at the house we had a great breakfast. (you should call it a breakslow as we really enjoyed it.) I the entrance hall of the house we found some leaflets about the surroundings and after breakfast we drove to Lac de Vouglans a huge lake with a dam that is providing most of the area with electrical power. We had a late lunch at one of the lovely beaches of this lake and this is only 15 minutes away from the house.

The scenery is overwhelming the mountains are covered with pinetrees and there are some beautiful waterfalls on extreme heights. On the lake you can also do a lot of watersports as they thought about safety they have divided the lake in sections for speedlevels. Far in the afternoon we got back to the house and my wife started preparing our diner. Together with the kids I explored the garden and they started playing with a ball, I layed back in a lawnchair with a book.

Before I realized it I had a conversation with Claude the neighbour that keeps an eye on the house and keeps the garden in shape. This conversation was brilliant as Claude does not speak much English and my French is as poor as his English. We were both surprised how well we understood eachother. We talked about all kinds of things the weather and of course this lovely little village. Eventhough we talked with hands and feet we had a nice chitchat and a good laugh. As one of the other neighbors joined in who did speak English I did get some nice tips about the wine and cheese of the Franche Comté in the area. And who know better than the locals about the area if you have a look on the website you will find also some nice tips.

We have done to many things to mention but we really enjoyed our stay. The house is as picturesk as the surroundings and I felt like living in a fairytalebook. Although our budget was not that big but this was one of the best holidays we had. We will absolutely go again as we only explored half of what we wanted to see. And believe me when I say that it is a small peace of paradise if you live in this stressfull world.


The Old Sailor,

How to get a job?

Dear Bloggers,


Guess what? Yes, I had a talk to a jobcoach this week, but I left the building with the feeling that nobody is waiting for a 42 year old person. It made me think again of starting a small business from home. For me the first question is what is it that I am going to sell? And second thing is a part of it should go to a project in a third world country. What I found most interesting about my way of thinking so far is that it makes you ask yourself the question, "Are you working on your business, or in it?" Anyone who is self-employed can tell you they are probably working in their business.

This is especially true for freelance workers, contractors, or anyone with their own brick and mortar business who does all of the work. When will I take off on my own? That is a good question I just need a good product to sell and my wife needs to back me up. I am thinking of how much happier I would be by working for myself. Grant it, I am very happy. I don't experience any of the stress or the long commute. I once did, however, I basically have traded one job for another, except now I have much more freedom in terms of time and choosing who to work with.

Now I am working on freedom from doing all of the work. I rather work on my business instead of in it. When you become self-employed, you also take on multiple roles. You become the project manager, the technician, marketer, and any other task that is needed to keep your business going. Many self-employed individuals actually find themselves working more hours than they had at a previous job. The only difference is that you can devide your hours better.

Like myself, what used to be your passion becomes your downfall. I used to really enjoy web developing but now I view it as a chore. I used to enjoy reading about programming and learning new techniques. I'd make websites for fun and learning. The passion is gone.

I know I lost the desire for my work because my body totally gave up on me and I must admit that I had a hard time to get myself back in the saddle. And even I changed my lifestyle, my rythm one thing will never change I'll guess I will do it all on my own. Outsourcing is not an option for me due to the fact that I am just not able to give the work to someone else. My passion now lies in affiliate marketing and network marketing. Both are exciting and both will create hopefully residual streams of income. Best of all, there will be clients to answer to.

My goal is to actually move away from the labor and create revenue streams that allow me to be free to do the things I want. If you are finding yourself in the same boat, maybe it is time to start already now before you get unemployed. I think it is the right time to start as the economy is slowly crawling up again.

The Old Sailor,

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