wednesday 5 april 2006 | 1 | new....

I'm working on a new blog -- still tweaking stylesheets and doing lots of editing. But if you cannot wait... look here: http://ariealt.net/blog. Beware, it might sometimes look strange, garbled, or you might get to see the wrong info... But if you do not mind that...

tuesday 7 march 2006 | 1 | nothing

Yesterday I realized, for the first time after three months of deadlines and working every day, that I can also do nothing. Just nothing.

It'll take a few days. Then I'll be back in working mode. Now = recharging.

sunday 19 february 2006 | 1 | routes 5

19/2 | 75? | 3.10 | (tellertje = nog steeds kapot) | Eindelijk weer kunnen rijden, na al het slechte weer en geen tijd wegens werken | 9.50 - 13.15 | De straat was overal nat na de overvloedige regen, soms een heel waterig zonnetje, zo'n 4 graden, oostenwind. Goed genoeg voor een iets langere tocht. Mijn conditie laat duidelijk te wensen over. Ik heb te weinig eten bij me waardoor ik in het laatste half uur bijna niet meer vooruit kom | Kanne - Eben Emael - Loen - Lixhe - Moelingen - St. Gravensvoeren - St. Martensvoeren - Veurs - Veursbos - Remersdael - Opsinnich (en van mijn favoriete klims) - Sippenaeken - (ai, de verkeerde afslag genomen: wilde over Terziet naar Epen, maar nam het kleine weggetje waar de fietsroute (Vijlenerbosroute/inkorting) heenwees, en die is half overhard en in het Geuldal voorzien van diepe plassen over de volledige breedte van de weg) - Cottessen - Camerig - Epen - Eperheide - Slenaken (waarom rij ik hier, ik heb een godsgruwelijke hekel aan deze weg, de klims liggen me niet en ik ga er altijd helemaal kapot, de eerste gaat lekker, de tweede gaat allright, op de Hoogcruts -- is het de Hoogcruts, of heet het de Wolfsberg -- is het op en moet ik de 30 erop gooien, 40 x 24 lukt niet) - Noorbeek - Mheer - Libbeek - St. Geertruid - Gronsveld - Maastricht - Kanne.. Klassiek rondje.

tuesday 14 february 2006 | 1 | Open University

Googling images for 'manuscript'. Dumb search, you'd say. Three clicks further on I stumble on open directories full of texts and images; mainly on Cassiodorus, but there's also some Whitehead. I just know one book that deals with Cassiodorus, and that's Avatars of the Word of John O'Donnell. Excellent book. It wouldn't be that these are directories with the research of John O'Donnell? O, yes, they are: http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/jod/.

thursday 9 february 2006 | 4 | Yang

I'm not doing my own publicity very well. Totally forgot that my piece about Vollmann's Europe Central has been published weeks ago in Yang. Good news: it's also online... http://www.yangtijdschrift.be. Very nice, next to a review of Wallace's Oblivion.

Which reminds me: I have to get the new Vollmann and the new Wallace:

thursday 9 february 2006 | 3 | De Contrabas

Ik had 'r n tijdje niet naar gekeken, en ja, terwijl ik niet oplette is De Contrabas -- Dutch weblog about poetry -- beter en beter geworden: : http://decontrabas.typepad.com/de_contrabas/. (Alleen in de comments laten sommige mensen zich steeds weer van hun minste zijde zien -- alsof ze niets beters te doen hebben. Of valt dit allemaal onder 'jennen'?)

thursday 9 february 2006 | 2 | Gibson

Doing a 'round' reading blogs, following links, opening lots of new tabs, then going through the tabs. Seems that William Gibson puts up posts once in while, again: http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/blog/blog.asp.

Also, an essay from 2004, about history and SF/speculative fiction: http://www.infinitematrix.net/faq/essays/gibson.html/.

thursday 9 february 2006 | 1 | Lecture

Next wednesday, 20.00h, February 25th, Mediamatic hosts a lecture by Ulla-Maria Mutanen, a.ka. 'Hobbyprincess': http://hobbyprincess.com//. Mutanen recently received quite some attention with her Crafter Manifesto, and her idea of thinglinks, http://thinglinks.com/, by which each object is assigned a unique digital identity, a sort of ISBN, that makes it traceable online.

The crafter manifesto is here: http://ullamaaria.typepad.com/hobbyprincess/2005/03/draft_craft_man.html.

For directions to Mediamatic &c.: see: http://www.mediamatic.net/artefact-10486-en.html.

I have to be in Amsterdam that day (in the afternoon I do a lecture for students of the Rietveld Arts Academy, about Arjen Mulder's book Understanding Media Theory), but timewise it'll be hard for me to catch Mutanen's talk: I have a band rehearsal at nine...

wednesday 8 february 2006 | 3 | Free Jazz

Some great freejazz-mp3s on the blog Word the Cat: http://www.wordthecat.com/goku/.

wednesday 8 february 2006 | 2 | Sonic Acts

Just two weeks from now SONIC ACTS XI will kick off. That's what I have been busy with the past months. The book and the programme booklet have gone to the printers now. When you're in Amsterdam you should've seen posters and flyers designed by Coup, http://www.coup.nl, (the hiphop-crew at Paradiso seems to be very impressed and jealous).

The conference entitled The Anthology of Computer Arts is not to be missed -- pioneers of computer art like Frieder Nake (first exhibition in 1965) and Manfred Mohr (http://www.emohr.com), will come over, and Jasia Reichardt (curator of a.o. Cybernetic Serendipity in 1968) is doing the keynote lecture, and, yes: Curtis Roads will speak and perform. Also this time Stephen Wilson will be present.

If you're interested: get a passepartout -- it's just 45 euro's and it gets you into the whole conference, but also into all the concerts (3 nights, which normally would cost you 37.50 anyway -- and I think, but am still not sure, that we will give you a free copy of the book + DVD with it as well...)

The film programme is also impressive -- lots of early computer graphics, both from the art-scene and from the world of industry. Of course with some John Whitney stuff, but also 3 hours of shorts from the archives of the INA in Paris, animation movies, often with sound from the likes of Iannis Xenakis and Pierre Schaeffer that've hardly ever been shown!

If you're coming for the music and A/V performances: thursday is for Curtis Roads and for Granular Synthesis. Friday is co-curated by Jace Clayton a.k.a. DJ /rupture -- see his blog to get an idea of his direction: http://www.negrophonic.com/words. It means lots of border crossings, heavy bass, mean grime and improv. Saturday features amongst others Fe-mail, an N-Event (http://n-collective.com), Tiny Little Elements, Matthew Dear and Jason Forrest. On both days the programme starts off with a mix of song-based stuff, improv, relentless noise and ends with dance-oriented beats. (Like Hrvatski on friday).

Come early: otherwise you might miss, for instance on friday mnk-toktek (Tom Verbruggen & Karl Klomp) and a duo of DJ / Rupture and Andy Moor; or, on saturday Ann Laplatine, SKIF, Akuvido and Boris & Brecht Debackere. (Tip: get tickets for the movies at 19.30, and immediately afterwards head off to Paradiso.)

And then there's even a small exhibition in De Balie with early computer graphics, puit together in cooperation with bitforms NYC: http://www.bitforms.com. (Exhibition design by Michiel Koelink & Anja Hertenberger).

Anyway: the full programme is online since some time -- excuses for the typos, we're working... -- http://www.sonicacts.com.

wedensday 8 february 2006 | 1 | Mediamatic

The opening was last saturday, but it'll run on for some time, a hang-out space for artists and musicians, designed by James Beckett, Morten Olsen and Koen Nutters: http://www.mediamatic.net/artefact-9997-en.html. It includes an open podium, an editing room, a practise studio, a music shop and a minibar/restaurant. On some nights there are performances. I would hang-out there. But I'm in Maastricht now...

tuesday 7 february 2006 | 2 | Claire Denis

Yesterday I watched Claire Denis' L'Intrus, here at the Academy. Discussion afterwards, mainly between Anthony Hudek, Stephan Geene, Tim Stu¨ttgen and me. I won't try to summarize that, instead here's an interview with Denis about her movie: http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/05/35/claire_denis_interview.html. L'Intrus is fascinating to watch, yet a bit boring as well. I guess Beau Travail is intenser (and also more aestheticized), and surely Trouble Every Day is a lot more disturbing. I like her movies because of what is sometimes called 'bodily cinema' and the 'haptic camera'. I like it because in any case it is 'cinema': it's images (rather than a story, a plot, good text, or good acting). Is it thinking in images? I do not know. My own viewing experience is that I refrain from thinking and interpreting when watching her movies. I just look at what is there. The question is: is that good?

tuesday 7 february 2006 | 1 | Verne again

Verne's Mysterious Island is very good reading matter. "A good read". I love it, the way the whole book is like a lesson in what civilization is, and how scientific knowledge (which comes from good observation, natural curiosity and knowledge of the world) leads to civilization (from the metallurgic age, to the invention of agriculture etc.). Of course every 'dark side' of that is totally missing from the account, but exactly that makes it interesting as well: here's the pure, 'noble' believe in man and science... But his characters are in a lot of ways hardly 'humans'. They are the incarnation of 'noble science'.

Reading Verne also makes me wonder again about Houllebecq and his, well, positivistic 'dark' view on humanity. I'm not particularly a fan of his books (haven't read the new one yet), but am intrigued by his position and ideas concerning scientific 'progress'. Houllebecq's model in this seems to be the very troublesome books by H. P. Lovecraft (see Houllebecqs essay on that), and I suspect that reading Houllebecq from the that Lovecraft-perspective (even comparing then the positions of Lovecraft and Verne maybe), could be interesting. Anyway, just speculating.

thursday 2 february 2006 | 1 | Verne & Joyce

A birthday I somehow never forget: that of James Joyce. (My birthday coinciding with that of Virginia Woolf; Joyce & Woolf sharing the same year of birth (1882); 1982 being the 100th anniversary of both, which I remember because that was the year when I started reading Joyce (and Woolf as well). Sufficient random connections to make one remember.

Yet, yesterday I started reading The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne. Reading Verne has been in the back of my mind since some time. First there was the new Dutch translation of his Reis om de Wereld in 80 Dagen, made by Kiki Coumans (whom I know from my days working at the Perdu bookstore in Amsterdam). Then there was a documentary about his work that made me interested -- his meticulous research for instance and the depiction of scientific knowledge in his books. Then there's something of an interest in adventure novels that's triggered by Arno Schmidt. Then yesterday Imogen Stidworthy spoke here at the Jan van Eyck, mentioning Verne's Journey to the Centre of the Earth (the only Verne-novel I read when I was a boy). So then I decided that I really wanted to read Verne, relaxation after work. I bought the English translation of The Mysterious Island; and guess what, today Mike Nelson mentions that novel in his talk, here at the Jan van Eyck.

Anyway, that's all not so relevant. Just a description of random events leading up to the choice of a novel to read. Reading Verne I am struck by 2 things. First is the total absence of fear in the characters; totally optimistic they take on every challenge, finding a slution for everything using their cunning and knowledge. Theirs is a total believe in the power of the human and the power of scientific knowledge. The other thing is the very obvious way in which Verne creates narrative tension, which makes you want to read on. What might have been not so interesting to read in the beginning sixty pages becomes good reading material because the person that's clearly the main character, stays missing. It's like a course in storytelling too.

tuesday 31 january 2006 | 1 | I must be crazy

First time ever: completed two articles in one day -- 900 words for Metropolis M and 2000 for Sonic Acts. Okay, I must've known pretty well what I wanted to write. Yet these are crazy days.

The Jan van Eyck basically has me working every day steady from 10 till 22.30 (earliest); with breaks at 12.30 (soup), 16.00 (walk, shopping) and 19.30 (diner). Environs. At least once it was 1.30 before I left.

Luckily the heater in Kanne works again -- it was broke when I came home saturday night. Of course, it was minus 8 degrees that night.

sunday 29 january 2006 | 1 | routes 4

29/1 | 18? | 0.50 | (tellertje = kapot) | Prachtige zon, ijskoude noordenwind, 's nachts -8, om 10 uur 's ochtends iets van -5. Kanne - sas - kanaal - Haccourt - Halembaye - Eben Emael - Kanne. Idioot, het was veel te koud en ik had het steenkoud omdat de kachel in Kanne niet werkte. Maar ik wilde toch rijden, ik zag anderen rijden. Het was zo vroeg 's ochtends bij noordenwind echt niet te doen. Kort rondje dus. Niet weer bij die kou..

tuesday 24 january 2006 | 1 | listening in the train

[Sorry. Dutch]. Iemand van SDI zit met luide stem in een vrij lege trein te telefoneren over werk. Het gaat om een enorme opdracht (7 miljoen wordt genoemd). Superserverpark -- 'daarvan weer je nu al dat gaat toch niet lukken'. De opdrachtgever wil iets onmogelijks kennelijk. Te groot voor SDI, kennelijk. Nieuwzeelandse post en TPG worden genoemd als vergelijkbare projecten. Het blijkt dat de Oracle server niet goed is getest in een java-server omgeving, Aha. Dat is duidelijk. Oracle werkt niet lekker in een java-omgeving met dit soort grote projecten. Ja, dat is wel pijnlijk.

sunday 22 january 2006 | 1 | routes 3

22/1 | 60? 65? | 2.00 | (tellertje = kapot) | zwaar bewolkt (er was zon verwacht), 3 graden, noordenwind | Kanne - Eben Emael - Halembaye - Loen - Haccourt - Hermalle sous Argenteau - Richelle (klim) - St. Remy - Mortier - Julemont - Val Dieu - Mortroux - Dalhem - Visee - Lixhe - Albertkanaal - St. Pierre - Kanne. 3 uur weggeweest, vaak stilgestaan om op de kaart te kijken, begin door te krijgen hoe de achterafweggetjes 'in elkaar zitten'. Voel me rijk dat ik zomaar in januari door het Waalse maasdal, het Land van Herve en de Voerstreek rij.

saturday 21 january 2006 | 1 | writing

This is how it goes, typically. One day of writing to get everything in, all the ideas. Hardly time to get back to the books and online papers, except for a bit of fact checking. Write down what you gathered in your head in the past few months by reading about early computer art, Cybernetic Serendipity, Software, the relation between conceptual art and technology, the difference between an artist and a technician. Frieder Nake. Max Bense. Hoping it will make sense, tomorrow. One day of re-writing and tidying up. It works, mostly. Yet I will never be able to write a thorough academic paper using this method... (And of course, this is just one article). It's 1.30 now, nighttime.

saturday 21 january 2006 | 2 | Walther-Bense

Elisabeth Walther-Bense faxed me the english translation of Max Bense 'projekte generativer ästethik'. She must be eighty years old, and I am amazed by her great help. See also here: http://www.stuttgarter-schule.de/.

saturday 21 january 2006 | 3 | routes 2

21/1 | 45? 50? | 2.00 | (tellertje = kapot) | buien, 8 graden, westenwind | Kanne - Muizenberg - Albertkanaal - Veldwezelt - Rekem - Zutendaal - Veldwezelt - Muizenberg - Kanne. Ontzettend veel viezigheid op de weg, vooral op de Limburgse landbouwweggetjes waar ik verzeild raakte; aan het begin niet helemaal de beste route gekozen (fietsrouteborde richting 59 leidde me over een naar benenden lopende kasseiweg met 2 centimeter gladde klei, smerig en link), daarna prachtig en superrustig door het bos -- en was het Roy Sentjes die ik daar voorbij zag komen?)

friday 20 january 2006 | 1 | Burnham et cetera

Today & tomorrow I hope to write and finish my essay for the end exam catalogue of the Frank Mohr Institute... So yesterday night I read Johanna Drucker's essay 'Interactive, Algorithmic, Networked: Aesthetics of New Media Art', which is part of the new MIT-book At a Distance (http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=10451). Drucker deals with the relation between technological art and conceptual art in the sixites, touching upon Burnham and the Software exhibition, and confirming some of my thoughts on the subject. (A subject that also Edward Shanken has written about a lot: http://artexetra.com/, and that I really should research much better -- I still haven't read a lot of Burnham. On the other hand, I did read a bit of Max Bense and Abraham Moles, whose ideas are less present in the contemporary art historical discourse, at least in the english-speaking countries -- yet they were influential figures at the time.)

Anyway: I'm blogging this because I'm procrastinating, hesitating to 'really' get down to work.

friday 20 january 2006 | 2 | Melville

Yesterday I bought the Dutch translation of Melville's The Confidence-Man: only 2,50 (& it's a Atheneum / Polak/ Van Gennep hardback, bound). I suspect that the book is actually more Anneke Brassinga --- the Dutch poet who's the translator -- than Melville. The Dutch text is "erg weerbarstig", typically Brassinga. Yet, 2,50 for a "Brassinga" is something that should literature-lovers make a walk to De Slegte.

friday 20 january 2006 | 3 | Mobtagging & top 100s

Seeing my posts about the mobtagging workshop and the top 100 side by side I realize that my irritation about those top 100-elections might be more due to the fact that they are organized 'top down', by a newspaper, instead of letting the 'collective intelligence' of mutlitudes of taggers decide waht emerges as important (or, speaking of top 100s, the number one to see).

Also lately I have become interested in following the discussion in De Volkskrant around their blogging-experiments at http://www.volkskrantblog.nl/pub/blogs/index.php. What is interesting is that they (VK) discover (again) the definition of journalism, the different ways of editing, and the importance of the craft of editing.

But they (VK) are still struggling with the idea of blogs as journalism. When I read in the printed issue of today that blogs thrive on "controversial opinions", I think: that's the case for any information-source when it comes to "hits", a short shot to quench your curiosity, the 'onderbuik' ('guts'). Controversy = sale: The Sun, Bild Zeitung et cetera. Nothing new. And of course, it's humanity in all its bad and good forms that can be found on the VK-weblogs. As any longtime internet-user knows: don't pay attention to the trolls. It seems that the VK, and its readers, did pay too much attention to the trolls.

"Selbstbehersschung", being a key term in internet times.

And I must admit: the types of blogs one finds at the VK are conversations. (I do not like the current theoretical framing of blogs as conversation). In that sense they are much closer to forums and discussion-lists then the personal publishings of the "serious bloggers" that I am interested in. (Thoughts to be continued).

thursday 19 january 2006 | 2 | Mobtagging workshop

On February 15th & 16th there's a mobtagging workshop at Mediamatic. I'm afraid that (again) I will not be able to make it (being to busy with Sonic Acts). The programme sounds very promising: "By making online information more personal and exchangeable, a database emerges that lacks a dominant hierarchy of terms and subcategories. The threat, on the other hand, is that the practice of tagging tends to turn a large network of information into a chaotic pool of metadata." And: " We will discuss the self cleaning capabilities of user-tagged environments, the emergence of collective intelligence, and we'll look into the technical side of making to make existing communities taggable". More: http://www.mediamatic.net/artefact-9964-nl.html.

thursday 18 january 2006 | 1 |

Train back to Maastricht. Take an hour to read the Volkskrant of today. It publishes the top 100 of best movies of 2005, as chosen by the readers. As with all of these 'elections' it starts with referring to the actions of shocklog http://www.geenstijl.nl, that, as always, tried to sabotage the 'election', by asking its readers to send in a top 5 consisting out of commercial childrens movies. (Their actions were succesfull a number of times, so we have packages of crisps in the supermarket that are called "geen stijl", literally: "no style").

Yes, I feel somehow, somewhat sympathetic to these actions, or pranks -- although they are full of hypocrisy (aimed at generating attention at themselves). Sympathetic, although I do not like their idea of "journalism", that is always focussed at shocking content or hypocritically exposing someone else's hypocrisy.

I feel somewhat sympathetic because the prank exposes the uninterestingness of these elections, especially in internet-times'; and it criticises the importance that "old" journalism seems (?) to assign to it. I am just as interested in the top 100 of the readers of the Volkskrant, as I am interested in any other top 100. Boring. There no real importance to it. Don't think I am the only one who thinks so. I am interested in what a journalist, or critic -- who has seen more films than me, is informed, and has an idea about where film is going, what makes cinema important -- what he/she thinks are the films one should see. I do not read enough of that in the newspapers, not even in general film magazines. Papers and magazines should aim at publishing more serious content, editorial content and interpretations instead of the presentation of a bit of data-mining. Choosing for careful, informed and serious journalism is their only way of survival. Which is not: mailbox-journalism; an interview on the market to score a quote of "the people"; using weblogs (to get to know what the public is thinking); making articles even shorter.

So I see the sabotage of Geenstijl as criticism, what it is not (intentionally). I understand that making lists of "the best books", "the best soccer-player" et cetera is a nice entertainment. But I want a newspaper to be more serious than that. I guess. Hmm.

saturday 14 januari 2006 | 1 | jve etc

Typical: no blogging when lots is happening. Full opening week at the Jan van Eyck, which for me and a few others extends into the saturday with a Thinktank / Ubiscribe meeting.

In the meantime: trying to get sonic-acts-stuff done as well.

No time for cycling.

Discovering that 'live blogging' won't work when you're involved too much in the event you're attending. It would have been nice to blog the opening week at the Jan van Eyck, but there was too much going on... Some distance is needed. The question then is: how much distance, and how is that distance definied?

For the next issue of Metropolis M I wrote a short piece on computer art and software art. In a sense it was the only subject I could write about, being in the middle of editing a little book for Sonic Acts and helping out organizing the lecture programme of the festival. But I did my best to explicitely not write about Sonic Acts, emphasising issues that Sonic Acts might not go into (Burham's use of 'software' as a metaphor for art & the definition of software art as used by the German/Readme/Transmediale-scene). I do not want to write a short article for Metropolis M to publicise something else I'm doing; yet it is clear that the piece could only have been written thanks to my involvement in Sonic Acts. Personally there's no problem, yet for Metropolis M there's a fine line and I hope I stayed at the right side of it, by distancing myself, a bit.

Then decided not to publish this post. Blogging needs care. Then, later, decided to publish it after all.

sunday 8 january 2006 | 1 | a fresh start

So there you are. Wondering about the language to use. And, again, discovering the joys of simply writing html -- to do a little design. (Every weblog and every new start of a weblog begins with taking note of technologies involved).

Am I going to write in english? I might. Yes. Since this is a fresh start. All the time? I do not think so. Experiment: let's see how mixing languages works.

Writing then starts with wondering about how to start, stating what has been left out, trying to get started again. "Een aanloopje nemen". Procrastination as well. And I needed a break too.

So there you are. So here I am. In my studio at the Jan van Eyck. The incredible luxury of having your own studio, with a nice steel writing desk, bookshelves and a swiveling chair (... that the word? -- it actually resembles my swiveling chair (now in the house of F.) that once belonged to an uncle of Noortje living in Maastricht and that she used when she was living here, being a theorist-in-residence at the Jan van Eyck).

A year of research. That I will write about, (or: that I will write), in english.

Having a place in Kanne, just across the border, in Belgium. The research position comes with nice cycling area. I brought three bikes. (One is F.'s).

Actually needing more time to adapt than I thought. It's a bigger change than I thought. Going to Kanne, not really leaving Amsterdam, since I hold on to my appartment there, will be living there ('over there') part of the time. (Having left two bikes there).

How to begin feeling at home?
One needs to cook there (I did not, yet)
Write there (I did not really yet)
Read there (I did not yet)
Play guitar (I did not yet)

I did see a woodpecker (bonte specht) in the garden when I arrived in Kanne.

What I did do, feeling lonely, was watching the television. I brought my old tevee. It has antennas. I can receive 9 channels in Kanne, some snowy, some very clear. Luckily analogue tevee still exists. I won't have to miss my sports on the tele.

What you do is going back, to something which is over-familiar: public tevee. Discovering how much better it is than the commercial channels, and, not being able (and not wanting to) zapp, you rediscover what tevee can be. I saw some allright programmes. Programmes that did not make one feel miserable for watching.

What I did do, eventually, next to working all days untill ten or later at the Jan van Eyck, was cycling.

The weather was gorgeous.

F. started a visual blog / visual sequence at http://www.itchyfeet.nl. One new image a day.

Read, earlier on, This is not a Novel, David Markson, a sort of fugue of quotations, 'that makes the soul move' (Sven Birkerts, half-quotation). And Lauweryns (Flemish poet and neurophysiologist) essay SPLASH, which is sort of reply to the theories about poetry of Jan de Roder. (De Roder's essays about poetry and biology attracted some attention and are often referred to by poets and critics). But Lauweryns, being a neurophysiologist, knows so much more of current research, cognitive science and philosophy, that his ideas, which are formulated in reference to De Roder, are surpassing those of De Roder in all respects.

This year I will have a research blog as well. I did not set it up, yet.

Transforming this place, possibly, into a more personal record of the days. Possibly.

zondag 8 januari 2006 | 2 | routes 1 getting to feel at home

7/1 | 58 | 2.40 | zon, koud | Kanne - Eben-Emael - Halembaye - Haccourt - Visee - Bombaye - Mortroux - Neufchateau - La Heydt - 's Gravensvoeren - Mesch - St. Geertruid - Gronsveld - Heughem - Maastricht - Klein Ternaaien - Albertkanaal - Kanne. Bekend terrein, maar dan alleen van op vakantie in de lente of zomer, richting Ardennen. Rijk gevoel om er in januari te rijden, terwijl de noordhellingen wit zien van de rijp en er hier en daar nog sneeuw ligt. (Hier en daar rij ik verkeerd, en bij Kanne rij ik nog de Guldendael omhoog, dat loopt dood).

8/1 | 42 | 1.50 | zon, vrieskou | Kanne - Sas - St. Pierre - fietspad langs Jeker (ri. 407) - Bassenge - Glons - (Lf 6a) - Val Meer - Zichen - Kanne. Koud, want ik rij van 11 tot 1 omdat ik smiddags naar de opening van het jaar wil, de route is prachtig op een winterdag, achterafweggetjes langs de Jeker en betonnenplaten landbouwwegen op het plateau (hier niet rijden als het geregend heeft, een en al modder). Ik volg fietsroutebordjes.