It’s half past twelve and I’m still not quite ready, mainly because I managed to more or less finish my paper and had to set some stuff up. And I still have to fit a pair of sneakers into my backpack before I can allow myself to go to bed.
Märrie made this - isn’t it cute? Anyway, wishing everyone who reads this a good two weeks - you can catch up with me via email or by reading the travel log…
I’ve been preparing for my vacation and am almost ready now. I’m pretty excited, because I’ve never been on a road trip like this before - Märrie and I will rent a car and tour Scotland for ten days! Exciting, exciting…
I’ve always wanted to see more of Scotland - and renting a car is cheaper and more flexible than taking the train or bus. My only problem is that I don’t have much driving experience, since we don’t own a car - but luckily Märrie is a good driver, so I’m sure we’ll manage.
We’ll also take a tent, but I’ve made it pretty clear that I won’t camp if it’s cold or wet. I’ve been to Edinburgh in July before, again with a tent, and the weather was simply awful. Wet and miserable, and me with a flu. Not doing that again, believe me… 
Am going to post a farewell post when I get back from work (where I will hopefully manage to finish the rough draft of my paper) and meeting Sibylle tonight. My parents will be back then, too - they’ve been on vacation for a week. I’m glad they’re back in time to say goodbye to me!
Unrelated - this week’s Unconscious Mutterings:
Well, turns out that Manu was at the concert, too - and being the huge fan that she is, she wrote a very cool post about the whole show, including a list of the songs that were played.
Check it out, if you’re interested!
Yesterday I went to the Stimmen festival in nearby Lörrach, right across the German border, to see Melissa Etheridge with Sibylle. It was absolutely lovely - the festival is right in the middle of town and had the most wonderfully relaxed summer atmosphere, despite threatening rain clouds.
It definitely was my most laid-back concert experience so far. We sat in a café that was part of the concert area beforehand and then went out when the opening act was playing. There was nothing like a ‘bad seat’ (or better - standing room), and there was no pushing, no pressing, no angry faces. Instead lots of happy people enjoying a kick-ass show. Wow, does that woman have power!
And she seemed to enjoy herself enormously, which affected the whole audience. I was actually a bit surprised at the diversity of people there - a lot of lesbians, of course, but really, people from all walks of life, of all ages and lifestyles. So even when I wasn’t busy watching Melissa rock the stage, I had a lot of fun people-watching.
Just came home from a night in Eglisau, which is a very pretty village, in which Sibylle’s aunt and uncle are currently renovating a house. Unfortunately I forgot to take my camera, because we took an lovely walk along the Rhine, passing beautiful old farm houses and enjoying the evening sun.
We slept on a mattrass on the floor in what will be Sibylle’s room and study, which turned out not to agree with my back, but had a really nice time nonetheless. Felt like a mini-vacation and made me believe that maybe summer is finally coming…
I think I’ve finally gotten more or less over the flu. Instead I’m not doing too great mentally today - I’m somewhat beside myself, sad yet just a bit dead. At least that means I’ve got something to tell my shrink later today… Not that I’m in the mood to talk about it.
Anyway, mainly I just wanted to moan about the horrible horrible weather we’re having. I’m certain it’s payback from last year, when everyone (myself included) was complaining about the heat.
This year, July seriously feels like April - I’m wearing my curderoy pants and a turtleneck, for heaven’s sake! And tonight I’m meeting a friend for the open-air cinema. Let’s hope that it doesn’t rain and that we won’t freeze to death…
Apparently I wasn’t the only one who had their site suspended because of hostees. Netrillium just sent out an email to all their clients regarding security issues and banned scripts, specifically stressing that hosts have to make sure their hostees know about it… Coincidence? I doubt it.
Naturally I’ve already informed my hostees and added some security notes to the site, so hopefully everything will be fine.
I’m feeling somewhat better today, after having quite a bad day yesterday. I guess my brother’s birthday was a bit too much for me - we spent the day as a family and went to beautiful Lausanne, to the Olympic Museum, and then had dinner in Berne. After that I was just wiped.
This is the last week of uni, so I’ll have to pull myself together and attend classes, despite still feeling a bit under the weather. I just wish I could work on my paper - I’m so behind schedule it isn’t funny…
Anyway, on a more cheerful note: This year there won’t be a Blogathon raising money for charities, but the people from Project Blog are filling in. I’d have loved to take part, but I’ve got to work on the 24th. Instead I’ll probably sponsor - not huge amounts of money, but just something. Check out the website and consider signing up if you’d like to support charities from all over the world!
They unsuspended my domain at about 1am. But boy, was that a horrible night! And I could not sleep any longer, so I’m dead tired in addition to feeling generally not so great again…
Well, I guess the day can only get better now! Happy Friday, everyone!
Beware, there will probably be language in this post…
I’ve been sick basically all week, with a short respite on Sunday (when I thought I was well again and went barbecuing with Sibylle and family), but today I felt as if I was getting better finally. I’m still very very tired, though, because I had to go to work, which isn’t very exhausting, but still takes its toll.
So I get home - and discover that my site collective, Raspberry Kisses, has been suspended. Since I’m my own host, I went and unsuspended it - only to discover it’d been re-suspended a short while later. Very strange! All the explanation I saw on the control panel was that the reason was ‘PsyBNC’, which doesn’t mean shit to me.
So I opened a helpdesk ticket - and learned that one of my hostees had been running a hacking/ircing script (namely this PsyBNC thingie) from their subdomain. What the HELL?!
I am just so fricking mad that someone I’ve been doing a favour by hosting them for free could repay me like this. I have no idea what the consequences will be - it’s been 45 minutes since I informed my host about the deletion of said account, and no answer whether the suspension of Raspberry Kisses will be undone.
There is no way I can go to bed as long as I don’t know what’ll happen. This has really shocked me - I never expected anything like this and I still can’t believe it has actually happened. How can anyone do this, to me, to the other hostees? I’m definitely expecting an explanation from the hostee in question - I informed them of the deletion and the reason for it, but haven’t heard from them either.
There are few things I hate more than people who betray my trust - except maybe people who betray my trust and force me to bear the consequences and fricking wait for something to happen. Fuckfuckfuckfuck!!
Sorry for this, but I just had to vent - back to waiting, and hopefully to bed at some point. I think chances are pretty good that my recovery will experience a severe relapse… Isn’t life grand sometimes?