Nobody said it would be easy, Nobody told it would be this hard.

Dear Bloggers,


Sundayafternoon we visited my Dad who is hospitalized with stomachproblems.
When I entered the room I saw a broken man who became very quickly old and fragile.
Not really the picture that I remembered from the last time that I saw him.
He was sounding depressed as he was telling that his head could not follow all the things that he wanted to do. He had not that long ago a few minor strokes which effected his memory.

I all of sudden realized that he feels trapped in his body as the mind and body are not working on the same frequences anymore. and that I can tell you is a horrible feeling. I had a similair feeling after I fell of the stairs a couple of years ago and my brain was heavily disturbed by the fall. My God I was so frustrated as I knew excactly what I would say but there were no words. I still have problems in places where a lot of people come together and make a lot of noise.

My Dad is not a real complainer but you can easily sense that he had enough. My mind is making overtime and I somehow had the feeling that this might be his last moments, hours,days of his life. He is mising my Mum still every day, eventhough she passed away a couple of years ago. She was the engine of our entire family as friends were always welcome and most of the time she had fresh brewed coffee. It really grabs me by the troath if I think about what might come, do not think that I am down or depressed as it is all a part of the daily life.

I have to call myself lucky as I did not loose a parent on a younger age due to a car accident or what so ever could have happened. This came to my mind as a car crashed in front of me when I drove back from Leeuwarden on line 14, the things that flashed through my head when I saw the fire brigade busy to cut the victim out of his vehicle. I will light a candle for a dear lost one today and I should do this every day.

No one said it would be this hard either. Screaming, shaking, crying. Cascades of water running like rivers down my face. He doesn't care. She doesn't care. Does anyone in this world care anymore? If you care so much for someone, why do they continually hurt you? Is this what life is going to be? Loosing yourself is like a never ending domino effect. Is that how every decision in life is? Every decision effects someone in an entirely different way than you can even imagine? I think that's how it is. If it weren't for that, crazy things would be happening all over the world.

We are a generally self centered people. We say we don't want people to kill themselves (or whatever... make a bad decision, ect.) because we care, which is true, we do care, but we are mostly worried about ourselves. What we would go through if they were gone. What would happen to us, not neccissarily what would happen to them. Why is it this way? Why can't we be focused on the others and not ourselves? I believe there are some people in the world that would care if about the person more than what happened to themselves, but honestly how many are there? Are most of the people in this world just as selfish as me?

What about the people who don't know how to care? How do we teach them? Can they learn to care if they don't care? I honestly don't know if they can. Man there are a lot of questions in my head. If you care for someone who has no need to be cared for or anyone that is done with this life their reaction is not a fun thing to recieve. They push you in every direction away from their heart. You can't even know their true colors anymore. It's a difficult thing. It makes you feel that you want to give up and give in, but you can't. Because you swore to yourself you never would. How can you be there for a person who has no idea what to do with his life? How do you go about showing them that they have a future? I don't understand these things. Are they pointless, or worth it. There are so many thoughts spinning and whirling through my head. I don't know what to do in this case with myself. He doesn't care. She doesn't care. Does anyone care?

Nobody said it would be easy. Nobody told it would be this hard.

The Old Sailor,

Raindrops are falling on ..........

Dear Bloggers,


Last Saturday night I had to work and the weather forecast is not really something to write home about. The evening is peaceful and sometimes it rains a bit. After my break I drive from Heerenveen to Drachten on line 20 and it starts to rain harder and harder. When I drive from Drachten Leeuwarden starts to thunder. The horizon is fully illuminated by the flashes of lightning and it is still a beautiful natural picture.Als I start to drive back from Leeuwarden, the rain is downpouring from the sky and several streets are flooded with water. The harsh winds make my job as a driver quite interesting. Below you can read the forecast of last saturday.

Lots of rain is coming
For outdoor activities, the weather over the next two days is extremely precarious. In the back room we see with some feelings of pity precipitation calculations. It could well be that a number of Dutch regions soon 50-80 millimeters of rain gauges come. The first heavy rainfall moved through the Southeast today, within and tonight will gradually cover a significant part of the Netherlands. I think about that whole thing and then some hanging and some are very unstable in the air heavy rain and thunderstorms. And all because a bubble of cold air in the upper layers of the atmosphere in conjunction with the pile up of colder and warmer air.

Hole in the upper air
The 'source cause' of this wet weather is called a upper air hole. This is an area of about 5 to 10 km altitude, which is pretty cold, colder than over other areas in Europe. That well in recent days from the north pushed southward and is now over France and Switzerland at 5 km above the surface temperatures around -20/-21 degrees. Such an area with low temperatures leading to rising motion of air to the ground. The air at the ground as it were drawn up. And where air rises from the ground, forms a low pressure area. Since the heaviest lift movements on the east side of a pit place, are now low pressure zone over Switzerland, Germany and Luxembourg.

Slide over each other air masses
Besides the aforementioned 'hole' there is another physical phenomenon that will bring precipitation to our cause, namely that the different air masses meet. On the ground because a north wind blows, while at 1500 meters above ground on a north-easterly winds and 4 to 5 km altitude the wind blowing from the east. With winds from different directions, there is some height relatively warm air raised over a relatively less warm air flows / slides. The air on the ground from the North Sea (west of Denmark), the air at some height has its origins in Denmark and northern Germany. The air moves from the east over the relatively cooler air is thereby forced back and some extra lift. That bit of upliftment leads to an additional impetus for the formation of precipitation. In other words, partly arises and intensifies the rainfall over the country.

How much will fall?
As said before the afternoon and evening from the southeast progressively fewer locations rain (partly the result, partly within the slide). Then, the night almost anywhere in the rain. The expected rain tomorrow amounts to 08.00 hours vary mostly between 10 and 70 millimeters. Most of wetness in the western, central and southern expected.

Tomorrow during the day, it seems that the precipitation zone over the west and southwest will drag. In the central and more eastern parts of the country dry for some time, possibly with a faint sun there. Do arise in the unstable atmosphere just as several heavy showers, accompanied by reasonable chance of thunderstorms and hail. The expected rainfall will tomorrow daytime (from 08.00 to 20.00) between 5 and 25 millimeters vary. Thereafter it tomorrow and during the night to Tuesday in many places quite wet.

Then the precipitation zone over the western part of the country yet again, by becoming a land wind from west to east it will slide over us. This seems to happen Tuesday, Wednesday and then again from the same corner after a rain area in draws. In short, until Wednesday there will be locally heavy rainfall to come down. Who out again, doing well to the weather forecast to follow. In addition, this situation again in his sights very difficult to get. Small changes in positioning of the rain area, can have a huge impact on the expected weather.

For the first time in my life I'm glad I've come home again without any damage, when I crawl into bed enjoying the rain lashes the window. To get the sound of the humming of the motor out of my head I decided to watch some TV. To my surprise, there is only snow on the screen, a consequence of the last thunderstorm hit which ended with a large bang.

The Old Sailor,

It's a jungle out there

Dear Bloggers,


It is the last day of the school holidays time to do something adventures. I start pushing the bunch of Sheila’s to hurry up. There is not any speed at all in this chicken farm they only make a lot of noise and hardly do anything usefull. Finally (one hour later) I have gathered them all in the car. There is no plan made and I ask them what we possibly could do. After an hours drive there is still no progress, I tell them if they don’t come with a plan I will drive back home. Suddenly they want to go to the zoo in Emmen.

A day at the zoo brings to mind many images of visits when I was a child. Buying bags of peanuts to feed the animals; crying at the sight of reptiles, and ducking the spray from the whales. Years have passed since I visited a zoo, choosing not to view animals in captivity.

The progress of mankind and the inevitable destruction of the world’s natural ecosystems, has meant that in the foreseeable future, it may only be possible to view our wonderful wildlife in captivity. That being said, with progress, comes education. The knowledge we now have of the natural habitats of animals, means that we are now able to house them in environments perhaps even more hospitable than those they would experience in the wild.

Founded in 1935 by Willem Oosting the Emmen Zoo puts its emphasis on education, research and conservation, by participating in several breeding programmes.

Eventually, it is with reluctance that I say goodbye to my newfound friends the skul monkeys. I gather my now seemingly useless possessions as a skul monkey approaches me. I looked into his eyes feeling that he was trying to communicate with me. I gaze into his angelic eyes and am saddened by my imminent departure; yet thrilled to have had the experience.

I walk about the zoo admiring the wealth of flora and fauna. The buttterfly garden is something you must have seen. I watch as the giraffes stretch to reach the leaves perched atop a tree and the elephants slowly making their way through hollowed logs. Finally I see the kodiak bear, the most treasured of the wild animals. Despite their soft and cuddly nature, my thoughts are now with these monkeys.

A memorable day, a memorable moment, a longing for the world to be as it should. Wild.

The Old Sailor,