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You can’t do it alone, the Ode to Love follows the basic communication principles; a sender and a receiver…without any noise since Love is such a pure form of energy!

…and we’re down to the final three!

A golden three since 3 is a magic number…I feel the LOVE, do you?

The countdown continues, a four-leaf clover for good luck! 😉

It’s just five days to go until we bring our ‘Ode to Love‘, we are looking forward to it and counting down!

Everything around us is in motion; the countdown is not ending on Saturday, the Ode to Love feels as a start for spreading LOVE around the world!!

This one comes from the award-winning documentary, “Playing For Change: Peace Through Music”, a great initiative as music unites…check out http://playingforchange.com!

Sophocle: “One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: That word is love.”

I already blogged about the LilleHolmestrand Coffee House, THE place to get your coffee in Holmestrand! Today we (or I at least) had a new experience; LilleHolmestrand Soup! We gathered with some colleagues to have an (initially non-alcoholic?!) alternative to the monthly Friday Beer…well, obviously there *was* beer and wine involved, after all this is Norway!! 😉
The soup was great, and so was the company…socializing with colleagues is a nice way to close the working week…which reminds me; it’s WEEKENDDDD, yayyy!!

Did you ever hear of the term literal music video? You might not know the actual term, but I am sure you have tried the concept yourself. 😉 A literal music video is a parody of an official music video clip in which the lyrics are replaced by lyrics that describe the visuals in the video.

Watch any (or all) of the clips below…ROTFLMAO!!

Bonnie Tyler – Total Eclipse of the heart

Meat Loaf – I Would Do Anything for Love

Red Hot Chilli Peppers – Under the bridge

2010, the online era and a could-have-been love story; is this the typical online conversation between a man and a woman these days, or?

Self Expression. Try it. Tell someone how you feel today. You won’t regret it.

It’s only ten days to go when Kristel and I will have our Ode to Love, in a way our alternative to marriage. It’ll be a whole weekend, filled with LOVE…love for each other, love for the people around us and love for life. I am feeling the flow of love and positive energy getting stronger and stronger each day, there are so many things happening and in sync at the moment, everything seems to connect and pointing to spreading LOVE around, a magical feeling!

Kristel wrote the following text which we put in the invitation:

“Als je beseft dat je liefde niet moet zoeken
maar het kunt herkennen in jezelf
herken je het ook in de ander
en maak je ‘t samen tot iets groots”

Translated into English this is:

I tweeted this morning about my commute being shitty, but it ain’t all that bad if you compare it with the ‘commute’ that people working on broadcast towers have. Check out this YouTube clip…wow!

Despite the sun and blue skies today, it is fair to say that the temperature has dropped a bit and the days are seriously getting shorter…this evening turned out to be the grand opening for the Fireplace Season 2010/2011!

We still have wood to burn, although I’d better make sure to cut some more so that the two fireplaces have enough fuel to keep the house warm through winter! 😉

Mary S. Calderone: “I truly feel that there are as many ways of loving as there are people in the world and as there are days in the life of those people.”

Yay, we had to wait a week to say: Thank God It’s Friday!!! Robbert is in Norway, so we are having our ‘typical’ guys weekend; a lot of gaming followed by p-p-partying in Oslo…tough weekend! Hehe 😉

I started a new position at work last Tuesday, and noticed that this is the same period that I changed position two years ago. (third position since I moved to Norway in 2007 actually)
I am moving from Manager Engineering to a Senior Bid Manager role, responsible for the tender/bid response process in the company (there is a lot to it, so ask me if you want to know more 😉 ).
It’s a long expected (by some at least 😉 ) move from Technical to Sales…and I like it! I really feel it is the right time and right move in my career at this moment, so am going in with full force!!

It’s good to realize how big the African continent really is! Since it is one of the target-markets for the business I am in, this was actually no surprise for me…but still.

Wow, life is full of surprises:

First there was this opportunity last Friday to meet Adam Curry in person at the dutch No Agenda meeting, years after we ‘met‘ on the dutch highway A4 while he was doing his Daily Source Code podcast (that was in 2004). I couldn’t make it last Friday though. 🙁

Then the following happened this morning:

Kissy started her work today, she’s flying to Los Angeles for five days (actually going there together with our friend Katka!)….it was the 10:40h flight and just before it departed she sent me a text message that Christina Curry is on board (!), directly followed by a message that Adam is on board too!! I assume both of them are flying Business Class, and since Kissy is a Business Class stewardess it is *very* likely that she will be serving them (and in the first place looking after their safety, of course!! 😉 ).

Wow, now *she* will have a chance to talk to them…life truly moves in circles!!

Laura Moncur: “I’ve decided that the key to happiness is low expectations.”

This weekend was put completely upside-down from yesterday late afternoon; it was time for my bachelor party (even though I’m not getting married…nice!!! 😉 )

I knew something was up when Robbert appeared at the IBC yesterday. He had a simple message; you’re coming with me, now! No escape possible…

We went to The Hague where the others were waiting for me; a HUGE surprise! I won’t go into details (what happened in The Hague stays in The Hague, especially on a bachelor party 😉 😉 ), but what followed was an evening/night of drinking&chatting at De Fiddler, eating&drinking&chatting at Le Connaisseur, and more drinking&chatting in my favorite bar, De Paap…I guess I got lucky (well, my friends know me! 😉 ) since I was not asked to dress up like a chicken or duck (guys; I love ya for not doing that to me! 😉 )…this was all about having fun and enjoying the time together!

And, it was fabulous…thanks Amit, Andre, Axel, Carlo, Marko, Rob, Robbert, Roy, Tom and Willem-Jan!

Every year around this time several thousands of people working in or related to the Broadcasting industry invade Amsterdam to attend the International Broadcasting Convention, IBC. Being in the satellite communications business means that we are here with a number of colleagues to meet and catch up with most of our suppliers. There are plenty of  cool developments in the industry and since this IBC trade show lasts for five days, there should be enough time to see everything, eh? (luckily I won’t be here every day though! 😉 )