sat 31 jan 2009 09:59:25 — witte de withstraat
many australians are still alive
despite relentless heat, with daytime temperatures reaching as high as 47° C, many australians are still alive -- including my friends there. i hope they stay that way. in adelaide on friday 18 people suddenly died, including 14 old people. today the high temp there is still supposed to reach 40° C. if the same thing happens tomorrow, they say it will be the worst recorded heat wave in 100 years.
there has been a severe ice storm across america, and again a lot of people got their electricity knocked out, in some places not to be repaired for two or three weeks.
last week in france and spain there were wind storms up to 150 km/h which is over 90 miles an hour. at least 15 people died from wind-related injuries.
it's been kinda nippy here in amsterdam.
last night i decided to return to nachtwacht, went there with dvr. everything was fine. nadia has a new sweetheart. she and henk recommended a nearby two-star hotel on the corner of utrechtsestraat that might be an option for b & j's trip here in late june. dvr and i walked over there and found out that yes they do have some rooms available then.
jk's fish still seem healthy. the cleaning lady never showed up friday, or maybe she showed up and saw nothing that needed cleaning. later today our upstairs neighbor needs to leave a bit of flatpack furniture here, cuz it's too soon to move it upstairs, but she needs to get it today. i also have appointments to go out tonight, sunday and monday. that's a lot of uitgaan.
yesterday i sent in the two proposals for sc09. i hope to get that approved this week so we can get started doing the work.
ajw is being persecuted by her upstairs neighbor. she's a smoker, and has lived in her condo apt on the third floor since the early 1990s. recently a doctor moved in upstairs from her, and then started to complain about second hand smoke, threatening her with possible legal action. i think people should be entitled to live in a smoke free home if they so choose. but if you deliberately choose to buy an apartment upstairs from a smoker, i have a hard time blaming the resident who was there first. antismoke frenzy is getting pretty extreme, infringing on privacy. not that i'm a big champion of privacy mind you. but where are we addicts supposed to go, when after banning smoking in the pubs and our homes, they also ban smoking on the sidewalk -- which some communities are already doing?
i know we can't move to australia, cuz then the heat would drive us into the sea and the sharks would eat us.