Some people might have been wondering why it has been so quiet on the RIFE front and also why I haven't been blogging more regularly for almost half a year.

First of all, I started working at Terracotta in April 2007 and it has taken me a few months to get comfortable with the code-base, the concepts and the architecture. The technology is truly amazing and my colleagues are extremely smart and friendly. I've been learning a lot about concurrency and clustering and made a couple of friends that are already very close to my heart.

Then, in fall last year, it seems that fate decided to show us that life can't always be smooth sailing. I'm not complaining, we have been surprisingly fortunate for many years but this series of unfortunate events followed up on each-other so quickly that for the first time in history I truly took an effort to write sincere New-Year wishes to my friends and family. Wishing someone 'good health' and 'joy' got a whole new meaning.

First, I had a motorcycle accident and my girlfriend did so too a couple of weeks later. We weren't significantly hurt, but it does shake you up for a while.

After that, our youngest daughter almost lost her eye after hitting her head against the table corner. She has nothing permanent except for a small scar in the corner of her left eye.

A few weeks later, we were all evacuated out of our house with carbon-monoxide poisoning. Our oldest daughter escaped death by a couple of minutes and we had to get intense oxygen treatment to reduce the CO levels in our blood. People, really, get CO detectors! CO poisoning is NOT something that only happens to others! You can die from it in a matter of minutes! I installed the detectors now and had the source of the CO leak fixed.

Just after that, my father was found on the floor of his kitchen by the police. They forcibly entered his house at my request, since he hadn't been seen by anyone for several days. He's got permanent brain damage due to many years of alcohol abuse and will most certainly live the rest of his life in an institution, not remembering 99% of his life and constantly confusing dreams and reality.

Finally, I lost my dog after she escaped from the enclosed field at the back of our house. After calling all animals shelters in the area, alerting the police and putting up many posters, someone finally contacted us saying that they had found her.

All in all, after looking back, I actually consider ourselves lucky. All of these events could have had severe consequences, but finally the outcomes were all much more positive than what they could have been.

Happy New-Year to everyone! I wish you a soothing 2008 with lots of joy and pleasant surprises, and also an excellent health for you and your loved ones!

I'm getting back in the saddle. I will be working on RIFE again and will be blogging more frequently.

This post: "Don't be afraid to be wrong by Jim Cushing -- How fruit flies lead to a revelation about software development", is exactly how I feal about these matters. Since many years I've always taken risks and been very flexible towards design decisions and customer requests. I've had the chance to have been wrong many times and will probably be wrong many more times, and all the better! It helped me to advance quickly, to experiment, to learn, to discover, to be productive in many domains and to start my own business.

Admit that you're wrong as quickly as possible when you identify it and, more importantly, take responsability for it! Boldly fix the problems and move towards your new insights. Many small efforts like this will be bearable for your ego and still leave you with enough energy. One huge revelation in the end is often a fatal blow and difficult to accept.

When you're listening you'll feel when new insights and directions appear, be on the lookout for them, but also be alert enough to not jump on another track each time you arrive at a crossroad. When you need to decide you'll know it and the best decision will always present itself if you're patient enough to wait for the signs. It's sometimes as important to resist a temptation as it is to take another turn, but most importantly: don't be afraid since "Fear is the mind-killer" (Dune - Frank Herbert).

At last we were able to take a hot shower. Our landlord's insurance assistance service sent over a heating expert who took the machine apart and cleaned its interior. Luckily it was just very dirty and not broken. Let's just hope that the next rain will not flood it all again.

Looks like we're in a lot of luck :-/. The warm water heater has been submerged by the flood and refuses to work. Since the sewer contents have probably touched the interior of the heating machine, there's a high probability it's broken.

The landlord came by and contacted their insurance assistance service. They are sending someone over this afternoon to evaluate the situation. Let's cross our fingers since it's already clear that the landlord would have a lot of trouble to free the funds needed to install a new heater in a short notice.

Last night our beloved municipal sewer system decided that it was time to expand its horizons, to enlarge its kingdom beyond the straight lines of the evacuation pipes. Oh how happy we were to discover at 4am in the morning that our little cellar had been chosen as one of the noble destinations. Floating turds, minced shit, layers of used toilet paper and disposed condoms graceously wrapped themselves around all the objects in the cellar.

We spent the whole day wading through excrements and trying to wash them in an antiseptic way from everything that was worth saving. Sadly Nathalie's Powermac 8500 and my Amiga 1200 were not so lucky and the brown substance covered most of the circuit boards. We decided to dump them instead of trying to wash it all off and being allmost certain that it wouldn't work anymore anyway. An era has thus passed and I'm now left without the computer that so fundamentally changed my life so many years ago. I honestly have to say that I felt a grip on my heart when I tossed the ruined parts on the scrapeyard. I almost bursted in tears, really!

After cleaning for 14 hours we finally got most of the stench out of the house and got everything back into a supportable state again. We however didn't not clean the cellar in perfect detail since it's very possible that the next rain will have the same tasty outcome. Until the mayor decides that the cause is a flaw in their sewer system, they'll probable not do much and just leave us sitting in the shit. Monday we should know more about this and if not, we're preparing with the other neighbours to take legal action.

Below are some links to pictures that show what state the cellar was in after the water had all gone away. Note that this is probably not for the sensitive and easily shocked people, it's quite disgusting : first and second