Archive for October, 2009

QOTD October 31 2009

Saturday, October 31st, 2009

Tryon Edwards: “The secret of a good memory is attention, and attention to a subject depends upon our interest in it. We rarely forget that which has made a deep impression on our minds.”

Winter preparations and a Birthday dinner

Friday, October 30th, 2009

My first vacation days have been filled with all sorts of winter preparations as we’ll probably have snow when we come back from Bonaire! πŸ˜‰ So, the car has its winter tires now and I chopped enough wood to keep ourselves warm until April!

The rest of today we’ve been busy with other preparations; those needed for a splendid dinner with friends. The occasion is Kissy’s Birthday (again! ;)) and the menu looks ΓΌber-yummie…pre-dinner drinks start at 7pm, so…I’m OUT! πŸ˜‰

Str8ts

Thursday, October 29th, 2009

I’m hooked on a game called Str8ts, which I’m playing on my iPhone (Str8ts Lite from the App Store). The game is supposed to be the new rival to Sudoku since it has all the same qualities as Sudoku: easy to learn, addictive, exciting, great learning curve, compact in design, great newspaper presence and no math skills required.

Try it yourself, there’s a daily Str8ts puzzle waiting to be solved!

Vacation!!

Wednesday, October 28th, 2009

Yesssss…my (3 week!) vacation has started!!

Although I will work a little in the coming days finalize some last bits and pieces, I expect no problem to smoothly move into holiday mode. We’ll be leaving Sunday to this year’s exotic destination: the sunny island Bonaire, part of the Netherlands Antilles. It is world renowned for its excellent scuba diving and is rated among the best diving locations in the world and also recognized as one of the best destinations for snorkeling…what else do you want? YAY!

Hehe, I hope to at least match last years diving experience in Bali! πŸ˜‰

Train to work

Tuesday, October 27th, 2009

I took the train to work today; my first time, at least from the new house and probably the last time as well! Jeez, what are the odds…the train I planned to take got cancelled, leaving me literally standing in the cold for 45 minutes! Aahhhh!

And taking the train ain’t all that straightforward anyway since I have to be driven to the trainstation. Besides that, the minimum time to get to work (door-to-door) is at least twice as long as driving my car (including some traffic).

Taking the train; definitely a no-no!

Kissy’s Birthday

Monday, October 26th, 2009

Happy Birthday sweetie!

My baby turned 35 today and according to her this is gonna be HER year…I believe it will be! πŸ˜‰

A typical ‘little bit of everything’ Sunday

Sunday, October 25th, 2009

Ain’t that typical for a rainy Sunday; doing a little bit of this and a little bit of that inside the house? And it’s Sunday, a typical Sunday, so not much could be finished because of various challenges (tools not functioning, not having all material available, etc.)…oh well, it’s soon Monday, start of another week with more luck…I’m pretty sure about that since I will start three weeks vacation on Thursday! πŸ˜‰

New Apple ‘Get a Mac’ ads target Windows 7

Saturday, October 24th, 2009

Apple posted three new ‘Get a Mac‘ advertisements specifically targeting Microsoft’s new OS, Windows 7, which was released last Thursday.

I must admit, I do feel a bit sorry for Microsoft (a tinytiny bit ;)) since I believe Win7 is their best OS so far. Then again; it *is* pretty much old-school when you have to *manually* move your files from one computer to another if you’re upgrading from WinXP (like the majority of people will). Apple’s upgrade experience has been pretty much seamless since Mac OS X Tiger, released in 2005!

As always, the ads are right on and funny.

Check ‘m out! (the originals are here, here and here)

#1 is called ‘Broken Promises’:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gk4FIIkKXdw

#2 is called ‘Teeter Tottering’:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3F-ACkXn5tU

#3 is called PC News’:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuPR_z0eLrA

Making money from podcasting

Friday, October 23rd, 2009

It’s about 5 years ago that podcasting was introduced to a wider public, the movement at the time was lead by Adam Curry and Dave Winer. Around the same time Adam co-founded Podshow (now called Mevio), a digital media entertainment network aimed to help people publish and market their podcasts, and to help listeners find podcasts that suit their interests.

In the Youtube clip below, Adam Curry explains how the Mevio model works and how it enables people to make money from podcasting.

QOTD October 22 2009

Thursday, October 22nd, 2009

Chinese Proverb: “To know the road ahead, ask those coming back.”

Leadership training

Wednesday, October 21st, 2009

Interesting; one year after I started my new role as manager a group of 8 people, I am attending a leadership training program. Hehe, *finally* I’d say! πŸ˜‰

Then again, most of it is common sense, and it’s good to go through this program while having practical experience. Part of the training is self reflection and then work with some useful tools. Key to success is repetition and integrating the tools/behavior in everyday life. And as with most things, that really depends on yourself and the motivation to change your ‘ordinary’ behavior…hehe, come back to me and ask in a couple of months!

QOTD October 20 2009

Tuesday, October 20th, 2009

Robert Louis Stevenson: “The most beautiful adventures are not those we go to seek.”

Working in the house

Monday, October 19th, 2009

I am having some days off while my parents are visiting us. It makes it possible to work together with my dad, the handy-man in our family, on some things that still need to be finished in the house. The list is long and we’ll not be able to finish everything, but there is some nice progress and, still one day to go…I’m extremely happy so far (and can’t wait until he comes again! ;))

The days are not filled with working alone; there is still time to play the typical dutch card game ‘klaverjassen‘. The men won the first round yesterday, tonight is the revenche for the woman (they keep hoping ;))!

I gotta feeling

Sunday, October 18th, 2009

Tonight’s gonna be a good night…the Black Eyed Peas perform on stage, and an avenue filled with synchronized dancers complete the show!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9CmZXSSYmc

Singing on a Saturdaynight

Saturday, October 17th, 2009

The cultural center in the community we live in (Gjerdrum) has a quite active team responsible for the program. Last month I saw the two amazing guitar players JΓΈrn Hoel & Steinar Albrigtsen and tonight we went to see the finals of a local choir contest. The community has been divided into several areas and each one of them formed a choir to compete in a kind of local-Idols setup; they performed one Abba song and one self-chosen song. I have to say, it wasn’t all that bad and my parents who came with us also enjoyed the local evening out.

TGIF, back home!

Friday, October 16th, 2009

It has been quite a trip; I left home last week Thursday, have been basically living out of my suitcase for over a week and am now at Brussels airport waiting to board the plane back home, YAY! A true TGIF moment! πŸ˜‰

I’m looking forward to the weekend, as my parents will visit us for some days (flying into Norway just hours after me)!

IKEA’s Billy turns 30

Thursday, October 15th, 2009

Since I am such a big fan of IKEA (uhhh), I cannot overlook the fact that the 30th anniversary of the Billy bookcase is celebrated this month! This bookcase in its most simple form has already sold a stunning 41 million in total and is currently produced at the rate of 15 a minute, 3.1m a year!

It should be no surprise that my first bookcase was a Billy too, I bought when I was still a student. πŸ˜‰

Windows 7

Wednesday, October 14th, 2009

I got my work laptop upgraded to Win7 today, let’s see how it behaves.Β The reviews are great at least…hehe not bad for a Microsoft product!Β πŸ˜‰ (unfortunately Macs are not part of company policy, so the obvious choice for a new OS, Snow Leopard, was no option :()

The first impression is indeed good;Β it’s faster, snappier and looks way better than the old WinXP. I’ve still got a lot to discover, hehe, it’s gonna be geek-night in in the hotel tonight!

QOTD October 13 2009

Tuesday, October 13th, 2009

William Raspberry: “Your best shot at happiness, self-worth and personal satisfaction – the things that constitute real success – is not in earning as much as you can but in performing as well as you can something that you consider worthwhile.”

Start playing volleyball again

Monday, October 12th, 2009

I saw part of the dutch volleyball supercup match on tv yesterday, and now noticed that I blogged on a match I played today three years ago…it made me realize that YES, I want to start playing volleyball again, the game is just so much fun! (and I can use the workout too ;))