news.yahoo.com: “…abstaining from alcohol does actually tend to increase oneβs risk of dying even when you exclude former drinkers. The most shocking part? Abstainersβ 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.”
Some say that opposites attract; that tall man being married to aΒ 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? π ), 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?” π
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!! π
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! π
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 Lillehammerβ¦as you can see below it should be easy, uuhhh! π
(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.Β 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.
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.”ο»Ώ
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! π ).
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!!!!!
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! π
We had a relative slow start today after a good night sleep (THAT doesn’t happen often at a festival! π ), 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 π ). 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! π
Some months ago Facebook changed their RSS-feeds so that I couldn’t use my Facebook Status to ‘disclose’ where I was enjoying my life on this globe. Shortly after I decided to sign up for Foursquare, a location based Social Network (and game) which gave me the alternative to the long gone Facebook Status feed. I’ve been test-driving Foursquare for some time (and becoming ‘mayor’ of my home and work in the proces π ), and today I put the 4sq RSS-feed on my blog-sidebar. At the very same moment I read that Facebook is moving into the Foursquare-space by adding the ‘Places’ feature, which allows you to do about the same as Foursquare; show your friends where you are…ha!
For the moment 4sq wins over FB, since the Places feature is not yet available outside the US, but one can just guess what happens when this feature is available for all; tough times coming up for the Foursquare team, size does matter and the 500+ million FB users will crush Foursquare (at least, *if* Facebook gets their implementation and privacy policies right…not sure if that ever happens though π ).
The combination of too much alcohol and setting up your tent ain’t the best one as you can see from the video below. Hilarious, although the cause of it is actually pretty sad…I’m sure that Robbert and I will set up our tent much, much easier @LowLands this weekend!!! (hehe, experience counts! π )
This morning was the start of a crazy week filled with shitloads of traveling! π
I left home before 7am and I’ll be out until next week Tuesday night! (besides a short stop at home this afternoon and next week Monday night)
Early this morning I left for a 125km car ride to our Holmestrand office, I came back home late this afternoon to pick up my luggage and feed the cats, and am now at Oslo airport Gardermoen, waiting to board my 1h delayed π flight to Amsterdam. I’ll be trying a new hotel at the airport, Yotel, cheap but conveniently located inside the airport terminal. From there I’ll catch the early bird π to Zurich tomorrow for a 1h meeting, will return in the evening and then stay in NL to work and…the Lowlands festival!! I am really, really looking forward to that!!!
I’ll be flying back to Norway Monday evening and then fly to London Tuesday morning for another meeting (don’t bother asking me why I can’t fly directly from NL to London π )…will finally be back home Tuesday night.
Oof! π It’s all good though, since I really like traveling…AND have some very exciting meetings coming up, so I am filled with energy!!
My nephew Jurre is turning two today, so congrats to him! Two years already…jeez, does time fly! We saw him two weeks ago; the boy has grown and developed *so* much! Well, that’s what you get when you’re living abroad and not have a chance to pop by regularly…in a way it’s nice since you really see them grow up in steps.
OK, OK, this will be the last time I blog about my new iPad toy, and this post is (obviously) FROM my iPad!! π
I unpacked her yesterday and by now filled with around 50 Apps, 3500 songs, 12000 pictures and 10 books and still half of the drive is empty, waiting to be filled. Well, movies are next! Hehe, yeah, she’s working like a charm! π
Hehe, it took three stages and the help of two great friends to accomplish the mission to bring my iPad as mentioned in my blog post two days ago home! π
Yesterday Robbert delivered it (or is that ‘her’ π ) to my Norwegian colleague Birgit (who works in NL). She then took it/her on her flight back home to Norway tonight and just handed it over to me, the iPad in IN, yayyy! (well, I still have over an hour drive to really bring her home, but that’s the easy part π )
Ha, and I have a weekend without plans while Kissy is in Bangkok…hehe, that means geek-time!! π
On May 20 this year I posted a video of 24h worldwide airtraffic simulation and said that looking at the airtraffic movement in Europe, this simulation was obviously not made with the ash cloud in mind. Today a friend pointed me at a YouTube clip showing the Air trafic over Europe during and after the first Iceland volcano eruptions…nice!
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