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Working for an international company means that I have a lot of conference calls (daily), luckily the technology has matured over the years and is more than advanced enough to deal with the challenge of organizing people who are geographically spread.

The tools nowadays are many, most are easy to operate and available for all…still people use not so advance personal ‘skills’ and their powerful capability (interest?) to screw up conference calls, just about every single time, jeez!

The YouTube clip below is a typical example…I *know* y’all have gone through this before, aahhhhh!! (it IS hilarious though! )

Storm Jameson: “Happiness comes of the capacity to feel deeply, to enjoy simply, to think freely, to risk life, to be needed.”

It’s Tom’s 34th Birthday today, so: Hurra for Deg…Happy Birthday to you!

Below a Youtube clip with the ‘Hurra for Deg’ song.

I actually didn’t know there were three verses in this song…well, at least I know the first one!

news.yahoo.com: “…abstaining from alcohol does actually tend to increase one’s risk of dying even when you exclude former drinkers. The most shocking part? Abstainers’ mortality rates are higher than those of heavy drinkers… …These are remarkable statistics. Even though heavy drinking is associated with higher risk for cirrhosis and several types of cancer (particularly cancers in the mouth and esophagus), heavy drinkers are less likely to die than people who have never drunk… …the new study provides the strongest evidence yet that moderate drinking is not only fun but good for you.”

Great! Who wants a beer?

Some say that opposites attract; that tall man being married to a woman of 1m50, the 140kg guy having a 55kg girlfriend, Einstein and Marilyn Monroe having a baby together**.

These are all attractions between humans, then there is the love that most people have for animals (aren’t we all pet lovers? ), but you don’t often see ‘opposite’ animals being attracted to each other…be ready for a small surprise around 0:44s into the YouTube clip below, nature is amazingly beautiful once again!

** that actually never happened, although it is a popular urban legend that Einstein once sat next to Marilyn Monroe at a dinner and she told him that she wanted to have a child with Einstein — with her looks and his brain, it would have been the perfect child. Einstein is said to have responded: “Ah, but what if it had my looks and your brain?”

W. Somerset Maugham: “Often the best way to overcome desire is to satisfy it.”

The bunch of people that followed me today via Twitter, Facebook or on the Birkebeiner tracking site know by now that I made it, again! My time (5h57) was even slightly better than last year (6h01), while the conditions were worse, *and* this time I stayed for approximately 20-30 minutes at the company stand (thx for taking care of everyone Tom!)
This year’s ‘birken’ was my third participation and I can confirm, all good things come in three! And with good I mean that I finished, the race itself was a crrrraaaazy one, especially weather/conditions wise. Jeez, it rained the whole friggin’ 94km causing mud all over the place; I reckon that we had to walk (/swim?) through the mud for least 5km, probably more!!! And the cold…MAN, was it cold!! My fingers almost froze; I had to use my whole hand to shift gears, since my fingers didn’t want to move no more!!
Oh well, this is why they call it Birkebeiner, and I am very pleased that I participated again, *and* that I made it without any damages (except for my frontfork suspension that went to shit after 20km; the rocky roads almost ruined my arms and shoulder, not to mention the headache!).

Unfortunately the returning home part is quite cumbersome; the car is at the start in Rena and the race ended in Lillehammer, that means a 2h bus ride, and from there another 2,5h to finally arrive back home…oof, I will be back after midnight, I wanna zzzzleep!
And still, it was all worth it!!

It’s that time of the year again, last Saturday of August, Birkebeiner Day! It’ll be the third time that I participate in this heroic 94km mountain bike race through the forest from Rena to Lillehammer…as you can see below it should be easy, uuhhh!

(and the fact that I hardly trained will certainly not help my pace uphill…)

The history behind this event is quite special:

Way back in the 13th century there was a civil war in Norway.  Two groups were fighting for the throne, one of them was called the birkebeiners. Their leader died and the birkebeiners wanted to find safe haven for his son, then still a baby. Because of the difficult winter conditions, two of the birkebeiners had to go ahead with the little boy and were able to save him by taking a heroic shortcut via a mountain trail. The boy later became King Haakon and ended the civil war.

Read the full history on the Birkebeiner side or WikiPedia.

If you are interested, you can track my progress via the Birkebeiner site, just search on my name…I expect to start around 11:45h!

Scandinavians are known for their ‘special’ taste for fish food…the rest of the world considers this a terrible taste though, hehe.

This cartoon shows that Iceland has the worst taste of all (or perhaps they are the toughest of all?)

Mary Hemingway: “Worry a little bit every day and in a lifetime you will lose a couple of years. If something is wrong, fix it if you can. But train yourself not to worry. Worry never fixes anything.”

I saw a great videoclip at Lowlands; an animated video clip of Truckers Delight by Flairs (directed by Jérémie Perin). It brings you back to the 80′s computer games era…HILARIOUS! (oh, and NSFW!)

For all you iPhone owners, check out the Truckers Delight iPhone game/App…yay!

Even great things come to an end, and also the 2010 Lowlands festival is over now. After a SUPERB Queens of the Stone Age concert, the last night ended with another blast; a crrrrazy show with Kees van Hondt!

Mannnn, I’ve never *ever* seen something like this before, a totally messed up dance party with people going WILDDD in the process. The whole point of the show seemed to be that the audience keeps ‘stuff’ up in the air; I’ve seen balloons, all sorts of inflatable toys, air beds (including the big ones for two persons!), rubber boats (!)…basically anything from plastic that can be filled with air and doesn’t hurt when it lands on your head , but…I’ve also seen toilet seats, chairs, garbage bins (the big ones…uhh, oops!), mattresses, wooden tables (WTF!), complete tents….and obviously people who were crowd-surfing on top of all this!
I am not sure if the videos I made show enough detail of the craziness, but if you’re interested, check ‘m out at the bottom of this post (oh, and sound off plz…a phone camera is definitely not made to record loud music! ).

We left before the show ended, so I’m not sure if anyone got hurt and honestly, I would not be surprised; it was amazing to watch and great fun to be amongst the dancing crowd, yet it was too much at the same time, over the top (just think about garbage bins and wooden tables ‘surfing’ over the crowd…)!

Oh well, it was a great end to an amazing festival…thanks *everyone* for making it an unforgettable weekend!!!!!

And here are the videos (also in my Youtube channel):

Yet another splendid day at Lowlands; I enjoyed a top line-up with a great group of friends, and…the predicted rain turned out to be just a 2 minute drizzle, yay!
We had a relative slow start today after a good night sleep (THAT doesn’t happen often at a festival! ), we then shifted gears into party-mode with Pendulum (second time
I saw them, they rocked the stage at Pohoda 2009!), The Drums and then I waited almost an hour (!) in line to pick up my iPhone from the charging station (it’s SO nice to carry a popular phone ). On to The xx (saw them before at Pohoda this year), and the highlight of Lowlands 2010: Placebo!!!
Massive Attack is playing now, creating an amazing atmosphere with their bassy trip hop sound, Queens of the Stone Age is next…hehe, the party ain’t over yet! Good times @Lowlands!!

We’re enjoying out first full day at Lowlands; splendid weather, great bands, good atmosphere with amazing friends, and still so much to come….Anouk (dutch), Miike Snow and Snow Patrol…and those are only the ‘big’ names!! Life’s grande, again!

And, we are ON DA ROAD!! A long weekend filled with sun, fun, music and more; Lowlands here we come!!