Nieuwendammerdijk revisited

Some background on the Nieuwendammerdijk: It is named after Nieuwendam an old village that has been there for centuries. It was a port an became prosperous because the port was a lot cheaper than the port of Amsterdam and, I suppose, because of the import of wood.

The Noorder IJ en Zee dijk is a dike going along the coast of what used to be the sea and is now is the IJselmeer, not only in this part of Amsterdam but along a big part of Noord-Holland.

Nieuwendam, and some other small villages around here were annexed by the city of Amsterdam in 1921 after a flood in 1916.

Some information and a map/cycle route can be found in the pdf Noordje Fietst.

System Upgrade

I have been thinking about re-installing Fedora on my main machine, I had been upgrading it a few times but this time it was time for a complete clean install. Also because I was able to back everything up to a 1TB extrenal hard disk (Note that the disk came preformatted for windows but Fedora had no problem mounting and reading/writing to it).
So now everything is clean and fresh, and up and running again, except for the 'compiz' part.(gives you wobbly windows and applets like you have them on the Mac, including the Mac taskbar. I now use a Mac/Leopard theme with icons and all. The compiz is nice eyecandy and I think I can live without it.

The only problem is adding a 500gb hard disk, as soon as I plug that in the machine does not go past the system boot screen and I can't get inthe bios. All basic debugging has been done (Cables:check, power:check). I will test the disk with a usb thingy I have that lets you use any disk through usb.

Niewendammerdijk

The other day I cycled down to the Schellingwouder Brug to buy some plants. I decided to go down the Niewendammerdijk, an old dike in Amsterdam-noord.



Actually this is the old Leeuwarderweg but part of the dike.

Small old houses

It is part of the Noorder IJ en Zee dijk.

The beginning of the Niewendammerdijk.

You will also find typical (partial) wooden houses here.


A lock halfway.

The house of the lock-keeper.

The pillar indicating that this is a part of the Noorder IJ en Zee dijk.

A ferry stop and some strange construction of houses/apartments, judging by the moored boats not a cheap place to live.

Look Vincent: people; waiting for the ferry.

Another view of the dike.

There are not only old houses on the dike, also some very modern.

Not quite sure if I like it that much, The 'schoonheids commisie' might have been asleep when permissions were given.

This house is next to the very modern one.

This used to be a private hospital.



Obligatory picture of cat sleeping on the pavement (it was a very warm day).

A long overdue update

First of all, I updated my photo album, a lot of cat pics, some pics from Finland (with bikes and numberplates).

Last week I bought another album for on the wall: Dakota Staton

They finally removed the lift that was attached to my balcony, so everything is back to normal, Will need to do some work and/or think about a big plant container.

I also repainted the top of my desk, with glitsa this time to make the top hard and smooth enough for my computer mice.

It has been and still is very hot and moist, lots of thunderstorms last night, which made me stay in instead of going to the daiquiri party.

Not much else is new, am mentally preparing for the Ikea visit.

Mijn tuintje terug

Het schilderwerk is de laatste tijd goed gevorderd, ze hebben op mijn etage alle tussenschotten weer geplaatst (behalve die met mijn naaste buren omdat de lift er nog staat. Wordt gelukkig ook minder wakker gemaakt door de lift, hij komt niet meer zo hoog en ik heb ook geen schilders op mijn balkon om kwart over zeven.

Helaas valt er weinig te genieten van het balkon, het regent hier ontzettend veel, mooi voor de tuin die de laatste tijd wel erg te lijden heeft gehad van de droogte, zo te zien zal een enkele boom het niet overleven. Het gras trekt alweer aardig bij.