All of us got new phones a few days ago. Our plan was nearing its end and we figured this would be a good time to start looking for new cell phones as well.

We first got our daughter a very early birthday present. She was still using a very basic Nokia phone, not big but still a brick nonetheless. She got a pretty new Samsung G600, which is basically an upgraded version of my old U600, which features a media player, a whopping 5MP camera with many options such as panoramic shot, Bluetooth, and as always the easy to use Samsung interface.

While my old U600 has a few touch buttons she previously already expressed she didn’t like that one bit. She’ll tend to push it by accident too much. :P So we made sure this one didn’t have any. :) So we gave her the phone on thursday and she was very happy with it. She had no idea we bought her a new cell phone and was still trying to figure out ways to buy one herself.

My wife got herself a Samsung F480 TouchWiz after some deliberation. It’s compact and features a full 320×240 touchscreen with Bluetooth, 5MP camera, HSDPA, WAP browser, extensive media player and FM radio, and more. She likes it a lot :)

Me, I had a hard time deciding between the LG Renoir of which the TV ads have been continuously running, or the Samsung Omnia. The LG features an 8MP camera and the Omnia ‘only’ 5MP but it does have Windows Mobile 6.1 and the familiar (and pleasant) Samsung interface. So after much consideration I finally went for the Samsung Omnia and I’m not regretting that decision a single bit!

The Samsung i900 Omnia features are countless. RSS reader, podcast listener, 5MP camera, media player (it plays DivX!), Windows Mobile 6.1 with pre-installed Opera Mobile browser which is really fast (IE is on there too somewhere), 400×240 full touchscreen with handy pen, 8GB (!) internal memory, and even a tiny Bluetooth headset came with it.

It has WiFi so I’ve been using that around the house to use fast and free internet. I can chat in IRC, use MSN, and even twit from my phone. It’s awesome. It also has GPS and combined with Google Maps it’s damn near a TomTom. :D The organizer is great and I’ve been filling it up with upcoming appointments. You can also make the screen rotate if you hold it sideways.

It does *not* feature a slide-out keyboard like many HTC cell phones as that adds a lot of bulk to the phone which is exactly what I didn’t want. My hands are small and dexterous enough to use my pen with ease over the entire display on type on the mini keyboard on screen without too much trouble.

It’s very customizable, I’m still making wallpapers ‘n stuff for it too. As you can tell from the pic above my websites aren’t really optimized for the mobile web so I guess I have some work to do. :)

Best cell phone ever!

When we got up yesterday it was still very dark and dawn was nowhere in sight. My mom and Jan (The Handyman) picked us up at about 7am and we left for the hospital. The kid came too despite the fact the school didn’t really agree to her being out. We feel she would’ve been too nervous to do much in class anyway and she’d want to be at the hospital for this.

The appointment for surgery was at 8:15am but when we got there (early) and one of the nurses went over the pre-op procedure again that the surgery was not going to happen until 10:15am. Great, so now we have a 2 hour longer wait for things to even get going. Not like we all weren’t nervous enough.

She was then shown to her room she’d be staying in and told where she can put her belongings and to make sure to remove all jewelry. She had already done so, apart from her wedding ring which is on left hand right now.

So now we had to kill tie for another 2 hours.. No TV yet, though we applied for it they still didn’t turn it when I left at the end of the day. No Spongebob. Time passed and we were all very nervous. 10am… almost! 10:15am…. nothing… wait, what? 10.30am.. still nothing.. gah! Then at about 10:40am someone finally came to tell her it was gonna be a little later (well duh, we figured that out already).

Then like 3 minutes after that came another doctor to tell her she was gonna be taken to the pre-op room and be prepped for surgery. This was it, no turning back now. When it all still felt somewhat surreal at first, this is where the realization of the situation kicks in. It’s like standing in line for a rollercoaster and the closer you get the more nervous you get. Then the gate opens and it’s your turn to go… and you almost want to just turn around and run away.

So they took her away and then we were left with more time to kill.. They said this kind of surgery takes about 2-4 hours, so there was plenty of time that needed to be wasted. We went down to the restaurant for a bit and had something to eat and drink. Mom and Jan then left for a bit while the kid and I remained at the hospital.

First we went to the little gift shop and looked around a bit. The kid bought a Donald Duck pocket. Then we decided to explore a little, starting at the top floor and work our way down. We looked at the various paintings there are hanging around, mainly in the stairways. There isn’t much you can go to though, so we were done pretty quick with that. Eventually we winded up in the waiting room on our section.

They had a TV there, but there wasn’t a whole lot on. Watched part of Two and a Half Men (I think) and some other silly sitcom. The kid then found a ‘hidden’ stash of games ‘n stuff in a cupboard on the other side of the room. We looked to see what all was there. They had a ‘200 in 1′ game box of which was evident upon opening there was no way even one of those games was complete.

First we tried Mikado (pick up sticks) but they didn’t have a lot of sticks left and they came in two sizes. So we decided to play some Snakes ‘n Ladders instead and after losing to the kid a few times we looked around for something else to do.

There were some (mini) dominoes in there, but again in no way complete. We just recently watched Domino Day 2008 though so we figured we’d try out a few tricks. Not easy with only like a handful of dominoes but we got some basic stuff working. We even made a small tower and later on we used some knock-off Lego’s to build a ramp. Up and down was ok, but then I wanted to try a slide down using rooftop pieces. That worked a few times, just not the one time I recorded it on the phone, lol.

More and more time was killed, every so often checking back in Sha’s room to see if she was back yet. God, this was taking forever. Finally, just after 3pm Lynda saw she was back and we went in to see how she was doing.

She looked sore, but good. I talked to her or a bit but she was also very tired. She said she could not remember anything from the operation itself. Just the part where the nurse went “Slaap lekker” (Sleep tight) and where they woke her up post-op. She initially said she wasn’t in any pain, but about an hour or so later she started to feel something so the nurse gave her 1000mg of Paracetamol.

Mom was informed and after I talked to her a bit she said she’d go look around for a bit in the nearby shopping area and come back later. She and Jan both gave me cards to give to Sha and a a little flowery basket she got for me to give to her.

We went back to Sha’s room and I showed her the cards ‘n stuff. We talked a little more but we mainly just tried to let her sleep. We sat in the room with her and the kid read her Donald Duck pocket. We also watched an episode of South Park on my Zen. Every once in a while she’d wake up and we’d give her something to drink they had there for her, water and lemonade.

Mom and Jan came back later and we ate something again at the restaurant downstairs. Expensive place. I then went upstairs one more time to say goodbye before I leave for the day and told her I’d be back tomorrow. She has her cellphone so she can text me when she wants to. She told me today she was feeling good, though her head hurts a bit.

I’m still nervous, I want her home, but it may take another day. I read her chart thingee and saw that in normal cases they won’t release until day 2 after the operation.

– UPDATE

Just talked to her and she’s not doing so well. She’s bleeding from both sides and is feeling dizzy. They’re doing blood tests. She also threw up a bit. :(

I was gonna edit some more pictures that I took the other day but after a few Vista crashes I figured out the problem. One of my hard drives is kaput, broken, b0rked. :( It’s a relatively new Samsung 300GB drive tho I don’t think the warranty is still valid.

Every time I tried to open one of my recently taken photos for editing it was completely locked up my PC and I’d have no choice but to reboot. First I thought maybe Lightroom and/or Photoshop was being dumb, or that one of my drives they use for caching was just too full. But even after clearing several gigs of data the problem remained. I finally figured out it was an actual physical problem on the drive itself so it was time for a rescue mission.

The suckiest part about this is that the drive in question held all my pictures, all the family photos and everything from years ago up till now. The good news is that I managed to salvage most of them, the bad news is that I have lost a few when the drive was failing. When I was transferring files it was easy to see where it was having problems as it came to a complete dead stop for sometimes over a minute until it went further again.

I’m still looking for backups I’ve made in the past to recover the few files I’ve lost, luckily it wasn’t a lot. I’ll have to make backups more often tho, that’s for sure. I don’t wanna lose my pictures. :/

Schools have started again this week and so our kid is off to high school for the first time. From monday through wednesday they had their ‘fun days’. On monday it was brief, they just had to get their schedule and meet up with their class. Next day they were supposed to go ’stepping’ (scooters) in a nearby town but due to the very bad rain it was canceled and they did other stuff at the school instead.

Later that day, at like 7PM the school had the official yearly opening in their main building, which happens to be right next door so that was convenient. It was only supposed to last like an hour but you know how it goes. It consisted of teachers talking a little about the school, their no-bullying protocol that will have to be signed by every single student later this week.

A senior grade school band was there too. They were performing jazz, it was kinda weird. It wasn’t horrible but the singer definitely needs some practice. He was better when he used more volume in his voice. And in the end there’s was another guy that wanted the entire room to sing in canon. I passed on the opportunity to let everyone hear my beautiful singing voice. ;)

Wednesday she went swimming and today is her actual first day of school. She’ll have French! Oui oui madam! She’s gonna get her fair share of subjects this year, and they’re adding German after xmas. So she’ll be busy learning stuffs. I hope so anyway, she could use some proper education, her last school didn’t do much at all to be honest. (Stupid school for foreigners to learn Dutch).

So the kittens are a few weeks old now and going all crazy. I figured I’d post a few more recent pictures and tell you all a little about them.

Koetje, so named due to the fact his markings resemble a common cow. He’s very social and easygoing, likes to cuddle and recently found a home with my mom.

Kaiya, named after an online friend of ours. She looks very similar to Koetje despite the fact that she has a few spots of orange along her head and backside. Just a few, she’s mostly white really. She too just found a new home over at my mom’s.

Pongo, named after one of the 101 Dalmatians. Pongo is white with black spots all over, and not in any recognizable pattern. He looks really weird and acts it too, he’s got some form of brain damage we think. We’re keeping this one as he fears outsiders.

Pita, short for Pain In The Ass. She was a total brat at first but has mellowed down somewhat. Loves to lay with you and purr.

Kira, ‘twin’ of Pita with very similar looks. Her deep black eye makeup makes her look very unique. She and Pita are practically inseparable. For a home we need to find someone willing to take both. She’s very cute and cuddly.

Jack, aka Black Jack. He weighs a ‘ton’, being easily twice the size of the other kittens. He’s mostly black with some white and has an odd black splotch on his mouth. Jack is incredibly smart and a fast learner. You really have to watch this one.

Some pics:

Here’s Kaiya, Pongo, and Kira posing for a picture.

There are 5 kittens in this tiny basket, Koetje is in the bottom right corner, kind of engulfed by the others.

Feeding time is always fun, especially when we still had 12 cats. The twelfth being Eek who was visiting for a while. Nova and Sol are not visible in this picture.

Kiaya has a very pretty face.

Pita looking pretty.

Two years ago I got married to the one woman who could actually make me happy. Two years ago I gained a kind of happiness I never thought I’d had. Two years ago.

You saved me from a life of agony and despair, you gave me hope, love, and so much more. I love you with all my heart, and with all my soul.

I wish there was a way to show you just how much you mean to me, but it would require the world to unite as one, the heavens to be opened, and the music to never stop playing.

All I can do right now is pray that one day I can provide for you the life that you deserve, for less stressful times to start, and more relaxing times to begin.

I love you baby, always and forever.

Everyone knows the silly games that comes pre-installed with every Windows system, they’ve been around forever. In their latest version they added a few new games alongside their traditional cardgames. I especially love the fact they added a Mahjong to their collection as I have always been a big fan of the game. It is very enjoyable.

Other games I enjoy is Hearts and Solitaire, which is called Patience over here in the Netherlands. Now I think of myself of being at least slightly intelligent, and certainly smart enough to handle a cardgame. I know that when I used to play Solitaire in Windows XP I did pretty good and was winning about two thirds of the games. It’s mostly chance based, but there’s a small amount of skill involved as well.

Now, today, as I was idling a bit and chatting on IRC, I started up Solitaire and managed to lose not once, not twice, but thirty-three times in a row before finally winning one. That’s 33 times! That’s one big losing streak. I swear Vista is switching the underlying cards that are still faced down to make me lose. It almost feels statistically impossible to lose so many times in a row.

I’m still loving Vista, but I’m telling you they made that game a lot harder!

Edited, click here to view!

For a long time I think that part of my family thought I was gay, not that it was ever openly mentioned but it was just a feeling that it was simply assumed because I didn’t have any relationship at all beyond the one single friend I had at the time. Then a few years ago I suddenly announced I was getting married, and yes it was a girl.. really! Of course the catch was that she happened to be 6000 miles away but I was dead serious and pursued it despite the immense adversities my now wife and I sometimes faced.

About a year ago she came here to stay and was accepted as one of the family pretty quick, the doubts of my relatives faded as they got to know her, as well as the new me. They had to revise their opinion of me as I think it was generally assumed I was just the slacking trouble-making black sheep of the family and I would be lucky to be alive at the age of 30. Now I am probably exaggerating these things a bit, but this is how it felt to me, despite being born into this family I never felt included and I never felt accepted. Some did try though, and I really did appreciate that but I myself was also to blame for this skewed perception of me, as I too shied away from any social contact beyond the absolutely necessary.

Now, they may need to revise their opinion of me again, for again I did something that was completely unexpected and probably not something they ever thought of anyone in their social circle doing, let alone a family member.

I could have tried to keep this secret, I could have just moved to another town and try to start over there, but I really wanted to see how I would fare here, to see if I would find general acceptance or if the ignorance and ridicule would be too much and force me to leave anyway. Luckily I found understanding with the ones I did tell early on and even gained support from most of them. I am very grateful for that and I hope I’ll continue to have this much luck in the future.

You see, this is something so big that in almost all cases it causes a severe and irreversible rift between friends and family, this is something so big that it causes marriages to end and for people to never see their children ever again. Luckily I have a very understanding wife and I happen to be the odd one out. Thank God for that. Even my parents seem to be willing to deal with this, which is more than I could have asked for.

I am sure that by now you are wondering what is so big that it could make me lose my wife, my kid, my family, and what little friends I have. Is this where I tell everyone I am a serial killer? A reformed terrorist? Starting my own suicide cult? No, nothing of the sorts. In fact, in my opinion this is something wonderful and beautiful, though I realize that sadly some people may view me as an abomination of nature. Regardless of what information I provide there is still a very hard set stereotype and stigma attached to it and that is precisely what makes it so difficult to tell people this.

Yet, here I go and tell the world that I am a woman.

No, I didn’t typo or misspoke, I truly meant to say that I am a woman, a transsexual, and always have been. I am sure that right now you are buzzing with questions and I will try to do my best to handle some of the issues you may have to hopefully clear up some misconceptions about me, transsexuality, and transgenders in general.

In more medical terms it is called Gender Identity Disorder (GID) which in simple terms means that my gender does not match my sex. Gender being the internal sex I associate with (in my case female) and sex being the physical body I am in (male). Or to put it pop-culture bluntly: I was born in the wrong body.

For almost as long as I can remember I have been suffering from depression, angst, social anxiety, high emotional responses, trying to ‘fit in’ and a whole host of other problems. I have honestly tried to be a man, for years I used to hang with them, but I was often bored stupid. I dislike sports, I don’t know anything about cars and don’t care either, and whenever my friends were doing ‘guy-things’ like howling, being drunk and loud or whatever I was embarrassed. Eventually I even started copying male mannerisms and behaviors. I deliberately taught myself to talk different (monotonously), walk different (still fail horribly), use different gestures, sit different, and yet I still failed to master any of those things. Now I have to unlearn all those things again.

I still got confused with being a girl, even with people staring me dead in the face at point blank range asking me if this was the “men’s room” while I clearly had a mustache and goatee at the time. This specific incident repeated itself twice in a row by the same guy in fact. That was not an uncommon thing either, I got confused a lot by my voice (when not paying attention and it slides up again) on the phone, or by my looks, almost every day it happened that someone honestly (and not jokingly) thought I was a girl.

Have I always known I was a girl? Yes and no. I was in complete and utter denial for a large part of my life and even when the signs did appear very clearly I just brushed them off and simply tried harder to be a guy.

So how did I finally have this ‘epiphany’ and admit I was a transsexual? For a long time I have been making statements like “I wish I was a girl” in reference to things only girls can do, sometimes silly things, sometimes not. Like wearing pretty clothes, guys just got jeans, t-shirt, and maybe a tux for a formal occasion, that’s it. Girls got all the cool stuff, the pretty stuff, I envied them. I also related more to the social activities of women, such as (window)shopping, or just blabbing about random stuff.

By the above you may be wondering if this isn’t just some women’s clothing fetish but I assure you it is not. I do not get an erection by wearing female clothes, it was merely an example of something I wanted desperately and could never have. Please do not confuse me with a drag-queen either. Let me stress this out a bit more:

I AM NOT A DRAG-QUEEN!

When you try to picture me, don’t try to picture some male construction worker with a mustache and a five o’clock shadow on his face, cigar in mouth, wearing a pink glittery flower pattern dress with a sparkling boa around the neck while sporting a platinum blond curly wig on his head. This is exactly what I am NOT!

Instead, please just try to think of a woman of my age and build in normal street-wear. That is what I am, that is how I look. There, that wasn’t so hard was it? I realize it may be hard for some people to view me as a woman instead of “the girl that used to be a guy” or “that transsexual” but I hope they realize it is degrading and demeaning. I’m sure you wouldn’t like being referred to your opposite gender either in every other conversation.

To continue, it was through the off-comment of my wife that it finally started to click. When I again told her one day that “I think I would honestly be happier as a girl” she told me that there are ways to make that happen now. At that specific time I was dead tired and fell asleep but when I woke up a few hours later my wife was behind the PC looking things up regarding this very subject. She started to show me people who have gone through this or are going through it.

I was stunned. It was at that very moment that my mental barrier broke down and saw the reality that was me. A transsexual. I never considered it a true possibility until that very moment. Suddenly my entire life made sense, everything fell into place, it all made perfect sense now.

We started doing a lot of research over the course of the next few days as well as talk to other people who were going through this. It became clear very soon that this would be a very intense and long-term transition. There is no short-cut or easy way to do this. In general it takes about 4 years from seeing a therapist until the final operation.

Of course that is only talking about the physical aspect of it. The mental part no surgeon can fix. I will have to see a therapist for a large part of my life to evaluate my progress as living as a woman. It takes time to essentially rewire your brain to (re)adjust the mental image you have of yourself, especially after trying so hard to be a man for three decades. From how you see yourself when dreaming to your reflex responses.

You may also be wondering what will happen to my marriage. Well let me tell you that when my wife first met me (online) she initially thought I was a girl. It is how I am and act, and without a face to go with my words and actions people tend to naturally assume I am a girl and I never really felt the need to correct them. It was the one world I could be myself in without fear of persecution. When I told her I was actually a guy she thought I was gay. I corrected her and assured her I was a straight male, but added “I’m a total girl” which has always kind of been my catch-phrase on the internet. She figured, “oh well, maybe he’s transsexual” though I was still very much in denial at the time.

Part of what attracted her in me was my very obvious feminine side, I was unlike any other guy she knew. I didn’t brag about how many beers I drank the night before or cursed like a sailor every time my favorite sports team lost a game. Not that I have a favorite sports team to begin with. My time was usually spent simply socializing and being way too emotional for a guy.

So yes, we will be staying together as she kinda always knew anyway, and even our kid is perfectly fine with it all. She even gave me clothes to wear! Again, I am very lucky to have found the one person, across the ocean no less, that would accept this of me. I am very grateful.

Does this mean I’ll be a girl from now on? That’s an odd question because I have always been a girl. See, I won’t be a guy pretending to be a girl, I’ll just be a girl. Additionally, I haven’t gone ‘full-time’ yet, so I’ll still be switching back ‘n forth between girl-mode and guy-mode. Guy-mode sucks though and I’m trying to be more and more in girl mode each day. At home I’m pretty much always in girl-mode. I still have much to learn (and unlearn) before I can go full-time so I’m taking this period to practice things like make-up and whatnot.

It’ll also be a lot easier once I start on hormones as my physique will change a bit, eventually I’ll be looking more like an actual girl as my face, hips and butt will gain some fat (fat is redistributed), as well as the obvious addition of breasts. (woot!)

You may have noticed I changed my online nickname on the website. In fact, I changed it all over the internet because as far as I am concerned DMET-XIX is dead. I considered changing it to DMET-XX (the pun being it would go from 19 to 20 and double X chromosomes) but it still felt way too male and I needed a complete change, not just a simple shift of letters. I picked Amorous Eyes after some thought and I really like it. People call me Ame for short.

Yes, my real name changed too. While currently I still switch back ‘n forth between guy-mode and girl-mode I had to create a new identity for my female self. I could have simply feminized my old name but again I wanted a complete change. It had to be something that fit me. I didn’t want to go too extravagant and sounding like a porn star like some people do, I wanted a normal name that could blend in relatively well in every day socializing.

My name is Julie. Julie Ann Lansdell. Pleased to meet you.

EDIT: All transition blogs and similar things will be posted over on the brand new site > Amorous Eyes < from now on!

Yesterday we gained another 6 kittens as our pretty feline glamgirl finally went into labor. It took quite a bit and was pretty painful for Nebbie, especially at first, but mommy and kitties are all fine now. I’ll write up a more detailed log of what transpired later, but here are some pics!

So yeah, now we have 11 cats.. Gonna be a lot of fun, heh.

We took Comet back to our local vet the other day to check up on him after the accident. We still weren’t sure whether or not he had a broken rib but a few days ago we did notice a small hole on his back. Right on top of his spine was a hole a few millimeters wide and it was completely open, you could see right through it. I don’t know why we didn’t catch that before but it was yet another reason to get him checked out.

We made sure to go early so we’d be the first in their half hour walk-in. It didn’t take long after we arrived that they got back from walking their dog and had a look at poor lil’ Comet. I’ve been going to this vet for years and I’ve always had the husband looking over out pets but this was the first time the wife took a look at it. She’s usually the one that handles the surgeries and such.

Anyway, she didn’t think that Comet broke a rib, but even if it had been broken when the accident happened it most likely was already healing rapidly since he’s still so very young. There’s still a lot of cartilage in the place on bone. She looked at the hole in his back and thought that it was probably the most likely cause for all the air in his lungs last time as well. We had her take his temperature to see if he was getting an infection and he was indeed a little on the warm side with a 39.5C (and slowly rising but Comet didn’t like it anymore). So we had her give him a shot to keep him well and protect him from infections. He’ll be just fine in about 2 weeks. After that we can come back and give him his normal shots.