Archive for March, 2009

Hanging Loose!

Tuesday, March 31st, 2009

I decided to take the snowboard today; the sun was out, fresh powder snow on the slopes, and enough friends around to catch me on cam while falling! ๐Ÿ˜‰ (well, the last part didn’t happen ๐Ÿ˜‰ ).
Hugo was my teacher for the day, and I’m now able to make full 360 turns, YAYYYY…HANG LOOSE!! ๐Ÿ˜‰

The Trysil Troela’s

Monday, March 30th, 2009

It’s the second night in Trysil and we’ve had a great first day of skiing. Tonight we have been visited by ‘The Trysil Troela’s’, a spin-off from ‘The Malledivas’, aka Suus and Kissy, as quizmasters in the hitshow: ‘Ik hou van…’ (I love…). Everyone has been tested on our knowledge of eachother and Norway, really HEAPS of fun!!!

Summertime

Sunday, March 29th, 2009

Summertime started today, which is normally a day that people show up one hour late, as they forget about it. Well, the opposite happened to me;

I planned to watch the Australian Grand Prix live, starting at 08:00h (new time) this morning. The ‘Set Automatically’ switch on my iPhone is set to OFF and I didn’t expect the phone to change time to summertime by itself. So I did that manually before going to bed and woke up bright and early at 07:45h, well, that’s what I thought…it turned out to be 06:45h (new time) as the iPhone DID compensate for summertime, nice!

Summertime this year made me be one hour early, instead of one hour late…typically a case of getting caught up, and passed, by technology! ๐Ÿ˜‰

Well, the GP is starting NOW…and I’m here in time!

Movies & Tunes on skitour

Saturday, March 28th, 2009

I ‘found’ a shitload of fairly recent movies on the internet tubes, and with the 100GB of Tunes on the Mac that I will bring, Trysil will turn into a multimedia-maxi-dance-chill-and-party-center-extravaganza!

Oh, four guitars, a djembe, keyboard and didgeridoo will help to increase the party pleasure too…;)

I hope no one forgets to put the clock an hour forward tonight, it’s quite easy to miss your flight because of that…summertime starts this weekend, so let the sun shine!!

Vacation and snow

Friday, March 27th, 2009

It has been snowing all day, it’s truly byebye spring, hello again winter! ๐Ÿ˜‰

It’s especially nice for Jaap, my father in law, who’s visiting us with Sonja, his girlfriend…they get to see Norway in wintertime!

They’ll babysit our cats and house coming week as we are out skiing in Trysil with 12 friends, who are flying in from The Netherlands coming Sunday…in other words; I’m having vacationnnnn, and it’s gonna be heaps of fun!!

QOTD March 26 2009

Thursday, March 26th, 2009

Martina Horner: “What is important is to keep learning, to enjoy challenge, and to tolerate ambiguity. In the end there are no certain answers.”

FedEx plane crash in Tokyo

Wednesday, March 25th, 2009

Airplanes seem to drop from the sky quite a lot lately, and most of these crashes are making it to the headlines for days and days…and WHY didn’t we hear that much about this one? A FedEx plane, crashing on landing in Tokyo last Monday? (is it because it was ‘just’ a Cargo plane?)

It’s one of the worse crashes I ever saw, especially since the complete crash was recorded on cam.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiGDd2QGNUQ

You’ve been Hoffed!

Tuesday, March 24th, 2009

Yeah, it’s THAT time of the year; You’ve been Hoffed! (Urban Dictionary)

Hehe, it’s the NEW Rick Roll! ๐Ÿ˜‰

Homeless?!?

Monday, March 23rd, 2009

Last week we got the notice that the owners of our Viking Castle on the hill (the house we rent) will terminate the rental agreement this summer, as the mother and two of their daughters will come back from the USA…their initial plan was to stay until summer 2010, well, apparently not…ahhh, we’re being kicked out of the house!!

We intended to find a new Palace to buy in 2009 and move in 2010…well, plans are made to be changed, and there is a new deadline now…it’s gonna be a hot summer! ๐Ÿ˜‰

IMG_0197

Originally uploaded by raymondpoort

(and as you can see, the snow is melting already! ๐Ÿ˜‰ )

Guitar hero, part 2

Sunday, March 22nd, 2009

I have been a happy dude playing riffs on my Tanglewood TW-145 SC since the end of last year, and I decided to extend the pleasure of playing guitar by buying a full electric one; the Ibanez s470 (Black)!!

Look at this baby; truly be-au-ti-ful!!

And great value-for-money, considering the options it has…hehe, I’m an even more happy dude now, ROCK ON!

QOTD March 21 2009

Saturday, March 21st, 2009

Ellen Metcalf: “You have to recognize when the right place and the right time fuse and take advantage of that opportunity. There are plenty of opportunities out there. You can’t sit back and wait.”

Top Gear’s ‘The Stig’

Friday, March 20th, 2009

One of BBC’s best kept secrets, the identity of The Stig, Top Gear’s test driver, has been revealed…already some months ago, and I managed to miss it…the Daily Telegraph broke the spell and revealed the identity ofย  The Stig (find the link to his name at the very bottom of the article).

QOTD March 19 2009

Thursday, March 19th, 2009

William H. Sheldon: “Happiness is essentially a state of going somewhere, wholeheartedly, one-directionally, without regret or reservation.”

A classy hotel?

Wednesday, March 18th, 2009

I decided to try a new hotel for this weeks stay in NL, the Crowne Plaza. Looking at the normal price for a room (> EUR 200 per night, I’m having a cheap(er) rate thanks to hotels.com though ๐Ÿ˜‰ ), one would expect it to be high class and well equipped to meet this millennium’s standards. Well (and here we go again), WiFi is NOT included in the room charge!! I am forced to use a crap ibahn WiFi service, which does not even allow me to share it between my laptop and iPhone!! C’mon guys, I’m asking you…

Besides that, the hotel restaurant ain’t all that good, I am feeling my back crapping up already due to a lousy bed and pillow, and I can’t open a window for some fresh air…hey, you can tell I’m having a ball here, eh? ๐Ÿ˜‰

UPDATE: well, well, isn’t THAT interesting…at the very moment when I was writing this post, a hotel satisfaction survey form was put under the door, wow! I don’t believe in coincidences, so you can be sure I will fill it in!

iPhone OS v3.0 preview

Tuesday, March 17th, 2009

Today Apple previewed the upcoming iPhone software, version 3.0, which adds a LOT of new features and adds some nice twists on how the iPhone interface is used.

It’s truly a MAJOR update to the iPhone OS, especially looking at the full list of features:

Push Notifications, Copy and Paste, Landscape Keyboard, MMS (Messages App), CalDAV, Stocks, Extended Search, Spotlight Search, Bluetooth A2DP, Voice Memos, In-App Purchases, Peer to Peer Connectivity, Maps, Accessory Connectivity.

And more:

Notes Sync, Audio/Video tags, Live Streaming (Updated media player adjusts streaming video quality according to current bandwidth), Shake to Shuffle, Wi-Fi Auto Login, LDAP, iTunes Account Creation, YouTube ratings, subscriptions, accounts and encrypted profiles, Anti-Phishing, Call Log, Parental Controls, Media Scrubber, OTA profiles, VPN on demand, Languages, Auto-fills.

I won’t repeat the ins and outs on all features, they can be found on a zillion different websites…all I can say is that I can’t wait until this summer when the OS will be made available!

Banks expiring

Monday, March 16th, 2009

Yeah, everything is upside down these days!

Happy 60th Birthday!

Sunday, March 15th, 2009

My mother in law turns 60 today, so it’s partytime!!

Quite a respectable age, you couldn’t tell when you see her…Happy Birthday mom!

Spotify is ON!

Saturday, March 14th, 2009

Someone left a comment on my earlier ‘Spotify‘ blogpost with an invite for Spotify, thx dude (or dudette ๐Ÿ˜‰ ), it worked!

Click on the logo and get yours! (the site is in Norwegian, just put ‘ja’ in the box and click the button…or ask me if you need help ๐Ÿ˜‰ )
bilde
Because I am in NL at the moment and the ‘Spotify free’ service is not available here, I couldn’t activate the invite straightaway, but thanks to an open webproxy in France (88.191.60.196:3128, put it in your browser) I could fake my location, and create the Spotify account! Am using the service and…I LIKE it, heaps!

Flying on Friday the 13th…

Friday, March 13th, 2009

Hmm, I’m traveling on Friday the 13th, some might say that this is not the best day to fly…luckily I am not superstitious! I mean…have you seen the date AND time of this post? ๐Ÿ˜‰

UPDATE: I guess I should start to be a bit superstitious: first, I had problems in getting the car started, I guess due to snow and the cold. I got it going in the end and then, just about 5km from the airport, I found out that I forgot my passport at home, aahhhhh…Friday the 13th???

The snow is back!

Thursday, March 12th, 2009

…and just when you think that winter packed its bags, it started snowing again. For most of the day, so another 10cm of fresh powder is waiting to be shovled out tomorrow morning, uhh…yayyy?!? ๐Ÿ˜‰

I’m flying out to NL tomorrow and since the bimmer is in the garage for some minor follow-up repairs, I will drive the family-car Renault to the airport. That car also needs to be freed from snow, since it is standing outside…hmm, at least I know that I get my deal of fresh air tomorrow!