Archive for December, 2008

Julebord 2008

Friday, December 12th, 2008

I’ll have ‘Julebord’ at work today. I wrote a little about this tradition last year, and I KNOW it’s gonna be heaps of fun again! I won’t get much sleep tonight though…luckily I arranged a bed in the city, avoiding hassle with the nightbus back home. 😉

WordPress 2.7 “Coltrane”

Thursday, December 11th, 2008

The new version of my blogging software, WordPress 2.7 “Coltrane”, has been released today.

I have been waiting for this upgrade for some weeks (it was initially expected mid-end November) since it has some interesting new features.

First of all, the user interface has been completely redesigned, it is now customizable throughout the entire platform with all the flexibility one could ask for. Also great is the fact that you’re able to have new versions of the software automatically installed (no more backing up and ftp’ing). And these new versions are likely expand the tool further into the social networking area, the new code has paved the path for this move according to WordPress’ founder, Matt Mullenweg. He had an interesting interview with Robert Scoble / Scobleizer talking about the latest release, check it out if you’re geek enough! 😉

Unfortunately I don’t have the time to upgrade right away, I’ll probably have to wait until the weekend…life gets in the way every now and then and these days are like that (filled only with good things, so no drama!).

PS. I didn’t forget about taking some pictures of THE Xmas tree, as said, life got in the way… 😉

Change your clothes, fast!

Wednesday, December 10th, 2008

Check out this YouTube clip, it’s truly amazing how fast they are able to change their clothes!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bdgffnf8Hfw

Word of the Day

Tuesday, December 9th, 2008

The word of the day is: ‘selvfølgelig’.

It means ‘of course’…of course! 😉

Not an easy word to remember, since there is no relation/association with dutch, english or any of the other languages I know.

In search of THE tree

Monday, December 8th, 2008

With Sinterklaas going back to Spain and Xmas coming close, tonight was THE moment to get THE Christmas tree!

Not an easy task, oh no, although some people might just come in the ‘Xmas tree shop’, pick one that looks like wood with needles, pay and leave…well, not us! Picking the right tree (aka THE tree) is a quite delicate and time consuming task. There are normally only a few trees in the ‘Xmas tree shop’ that are matching the  requirements in length, shape, number of branches, lack of any weird parts, etc)…it normally takes years for a tree to become THE tree, so finding it in a random ‘Xmas tree shop’ is merely a matter of using the Law of Attraction!

The good news is; we found him, or her…probably ‘it’ (I have to be careful here, someone told me tonight that trees have feeling too 😉 ).

Anyway, THE tree is getting time to acclimatize overnight, and will be decorated tomorrow…a picture will follow afterwards.

I LOVE this time of the year!

Byebye Sinterklaas, hello snow

Sunday, December 7th, 2008

Yesterday’s Sinterklaas celebration was one to remember, again! Everyone got a shitload of presents, some great and funny rhymes and enough sugar treats for the remainder of 2008. 😉

After a short night we had to get up to catch the plane back to Norway, taking all the presents and some of the vacation stuff that I couldn’t take last week…AND of course my new guitar + amplifier! Quite a lot to take, and I was lucky to receive my Flying Blue Gold Wing status last week, which allows me 30kg luggage instead of the standard 20kg. My handluggage still was way too much (trolley, guitar and laptop bag), I don’t know if it was the fact that the KLM-staff couldn’t see my tired face behind the bags, or they just thought I was too tall for economy; I got upgraded to business-class!! Thank you KLM!! 😉 Even though normally couldn’t care less on a short flight like AMS-OSL, the extra ‘hand luggage’ allowance in bizz came in handy this time.

Back home, I could pick up my favorite hobby; clearing the area in front of the house from 20cm snow. It wasn’t too bad this time; with the white snow, the blue skies and the sun outside…it surely was BE-AU-TI-FUL!

Guitar hero?!?

Saturday, December 6th, 2008

I’m in a great flow of getting things done that I wanted to do for a longer time; today I bought a guitar…that’s a wish I’ve had for YEARS!

It was not easy to choose between an electric or semi-accoustic, since both have their pros and cons. In the end I decided to go for the Tanglewood TW-145 SC, so a semi-accoustic guitar to start with…it looks great, eh? 😉

Together with a Roland Cube 30X amplifier you can say I’m ready to rock!

Sinterklaas

Friday, December 5th, 2008

Last year we celebrated the dutch family tradition of Sinterklaas in Norway. Despite that ‘up north’ is a pretty long way from NL, Sinterklaas (aka my parents 😉 ) passed by the house, brought some nice presents, and more important, good times.

This year we turn things around and will celebrate it at my parents place in NL tomorrow. That is one day after the ‘official’ day of celebration (which is today, December 5), and I’m sure we’re gonna have some good family times again with dad, mom, my sis/bro and their baby boys will be there

Joke of the day

Thursday, December 4th, 2008

A guy goes to the supermarket and notices an attractive woman waving at him. She says hello.

He’s rather taken back because he can’t place where he knows her from.
So he says, ‘Do you know me?’
To which she replies, ‘I think you’re the father of one of my kids.’
Now his mind travels back to the only time he has ever been unfaithful to his wife and says,
‘My God, are you the stripper from my bachelor party that I made love to on the pool table with all my buddies watching while your partner whipped my butt with wet celery???’

She looks into his eyes and says calmly, ‘ No, I’m your son’s teacher.’

QOTD December 3 2008

Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008

Jean Houston: “At the height of laughter, the universe is flung into a kaleidoscope of new possibilities.”

Snow!

Tuesday, December 2nd, 2008

We already had some snow end of October, but that disappeared in the last weeks (November apparently has been rainy and not too cold)…the first new fresh snow arrived in last weekend, marking my return to Norway and last night/today things became more serious; about 20cm in the garden already and more to come. The contrast with Bali couldn’t be bigger!

Uhmm, that also means I can pick up a good norwegian tradition tomorrow morning; shoveling snow to clean up the area in front of the garage, niiiiice…

QOTD December 1 2008

Monday, December 1st, 2008

Henry David Thoreau: “If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.”