There are just 10 days left at work, it truly feels amazing that habits created in almost 10 year working in the same environment are about to radically change. Obviously I am myself and will stay close to my own feelings and values, still, life *will* be different…exciting!!

…saying “rabbit, rabbit” upon waking on the first day of a new month will give good luck for the remainder of the month…

Wow…I'll stop working this month, lucky me 🙂

Including today I've got only 11 days left, the final countdown has started!

Spaceflight Now: ‘A commercial Sea Launch Zenit 3SL rocket disintegrated in a fiery catastrophe aboard its oceangoing platform Tuesday, destroying a sophisticated telecommunications satellite payload in a dramatic launch pad explosion reminiscent of the space program’s early days.’

The rocket was carrying the New Skies NSS8 satellite, which obviously has been lost.

I’m (still) working for a satellite service provider having tight relationships with New Skies (based in NL) this is bad news. I watched the live webcast via the Sea Launch website last night…it was a big one.

As one can expect these days, the movie has been posted on Youtube:

Seems someone wanted some firework…

Adam Curry owns a car in San Francisco, kind of special one; a 1984 Mercedes stationwagon 300 turbo diesel, 5 cilinder, running on biodiesel and ow…did I mention 'she' is eggnog cream in colour?? 'She' has been named 'Trinity' 🙂

She has had some motor problems lately, mainly coz Adam is driving her only occasionally. Last week he came up with the idea to give her away for free 'special-offer-for-dedicated-DSC-listeners'. One listener jumped on it suggesting a 'father-son' roadtrip driving her coast to coast while podcasting the trip! Sjeez, did this spin-off some attention and ideas! Check out the latest DSCs for updates…the project is called 'Free Trinity'…it's gonna be a big one!!

Hey Adam, I'll have enough spare time from mid February…lemme drive her for a while and put Trinity to the ultimate test; a dutch A4 traffic jam podcast!! 🙂 🙂

I arrived late last night into Oslo and will be working from HQ this whole week. Trapped in a meeting room from today till Friday, working from early morning till late evening…yet, I am not complaining; am in a spectacular building!! 🙂

Check it out! (I marked the part I am in)

Have been playing around with Google Apps for Your Domain this week. My raymondpoort.com domain is actually just a domainname forwarded to the raymondpoort.nl site (this coz I got the low-cost solution with my hostingprovider when I registered the domains over 2 years ago).

This means no hosting nor email available on the .com domain, but…Google does it again! I managed to get their Apps for Your Domain up on the .com domain and have email configured! Heyheyheyyy, you can now reach me via raymond at raymondpoort dot com!

Leave me a message! I probably will start using this address as main email soon!

My hosting provider has had some issues over the night causing my site (and some others I admin) to be down from yesterday 21:15h till just now 10:30h (GMT+1)…it's the first time in over 2 years that I experienced/witnessed a 12+ hour outage with them, so kudos to my (cheapo) provider, Mevershosting! (it still sucks though, isn't it amazing how important online presence has become, at least for me :))

I was just about to shoot of an email to Jason Calacanis asking him when he intended to continu podcasting. I became a huge fan of this 'ADHD' type of guy/entrepeneur and his CalacanisCast, still in Beta 🙂

Then what?

He put up Beta #9 last week and he's taping Beta #10 at this very moment! A pity there are no transscripts of his shows (hmm, I might have some time at hand from mid-February :)), the content is passionate and inspiring. I intend to blog a bit more on specifically CalacanisCast #5 later since the things talked about in that one could come right out of my own mouth!! For now; listen to last weeks CC #9 and enjoy the 'not-the-Gillmor'-Gang…members of the good ol' Gillmor Gang are discussing Apple's iPhone, yay!

PS. Jason, thanks for not splitting this one up in 28 and a half orso pieces!! 🙂

Yesterday I finally found time to watch 'Painful Deceptions' (via Google Video).

This documentary provides an critical/alternative view on the world-changing-events on the day better known as '9/11'.

Funky stuff, which changes the perspective on 9/11 completely, a must-see for conspiracy theory fans! It *is* important though to understand that also this is 'just' presenting a subjective view and cannot be seen as the whole truth, which will probably lie somewhere in the middle… at least the official statements provide enough room for speculation.

To quote Fox Mulder (X-files): 'The truth is out there'…and Adam Curry: 'There are no secrets, only information you don't yet have', so true!

Sjeez, it has been quite a week, and it ain't over yet. Got home from Brussels tonight, took me just 5.5 hours instead of the usual 2 due to heavy storm winds, it is spooky out there; bridges were closed off, trucks were blown on their sides and causing the detour roads to be closed too!

Yeah…great to be back home in one piece! Then again…saw that I'll have to climb the roof tomorrow to put back some tiles…bbrrrr!

Just came back from Norway, had dinner and there I go again! Volleyball match tonight and afterwards I'll drive to Brussels (customer meeting tomorrow)…kinda crazy, but I have no problem with crazy stuff 🙂

Am currently in Norway on a business trip…ain't it nice to travel at the end of my contract period? 🙂

Enjoying it heaps despite of the long hours of work (well, that has never been a problem for me!).

Hey, heeyyy! I've made it on the DSC again (the Daily Source Code, Adam Curry's podcast)!

Coz Adam is moving houses and lacks time to produce a full blown DSC, a series of 'Best Of Charlie' have been created by listeners…last Fridays BOC has been put together by Julien from the 'In Over Your Head' podcast. He took the time to dig deep into podcasting history, way back to 2004 where he found nice clips with the first introduction of the Dawn & Drew show, Rock & Roll geek Micheal Buttler made his appearance and the infamous 'godcast' moment between me and Adam was played…it still gives me a kick to hear it back!

I got the following forwarded today, thought it was nice to share 🙂

Mystery

There is extraordinary value in knowledge. And there is also
much value in what you do not know.

For in the unknown, there are possibilities that have no
restrictions. When contemplating the unknown, your
imagination has no limits.

Though the unknown can be frightening, it can also be
magnificently beautiful and inspiring. You can put into it
whatever you wish.

In the realm of things you do not know, there is plenty of
room for the joy of discovery and the enlightenment of
learning. There is ample space to dream, to envision, and to
grow.

To act as if you already know everything is to deny yourself
all the good things that are yet to be imagined and
discovered. Mystery gives life a depth and richness that you
would not want to be without.

As each moment passes, make good use of all the things you
know. And be thankful that you don't know it all.

More can be found on The Daily Motivator!

Am back from Copenhagen, missed out on the Little Mermaid (didn't even find a t-shirt saying 'I went to Copenhagen and all I got was this lousy t-shirt' :)). Today was filled with meetings, meetings and more meetings and tomorrow I'm off to Brussels to inform my main customer (BT) that they'll have to do without me from mid February…it's always nice to drop a bomb! So, no ordinary office work these days, yay! 🙂

Saw the time of this post…??? Am off to Copenhagen for work…7am flight, so had to get up before 5am…

Definately *not* good, aahhh…then again, I'm The Flash! hehe.

Have no idea if I'll get near an internet connection, so it could be quiet here till I come back, tomorrow evening.

Your results:

You are The Flash

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Test

Much in my current life-flow has to do with initiative and taking control/responsibility of me, myself and I.

I see and feel it as a natural part of the development of my being, which in a way has been slowing down a bit over the last years. Not that this is a problem…it just IS. (first of all, I don’t believe in problems, they are merely facts in life…you either create an opportunity out of it or not!).

Looking back I have been somewhat on the sideline, picking those things that passed by which somewhat caught my interest, more re-active than pro-active. And you know what? Living life like that is sssoooo easy, it seems that society/ones environment is tailored for that. There is enough entertainment and distraction, most decisions are made for you if you ‘choose’ so and money has been made so overly important for ‘people’ that it can be (and *is* in many cases!) the only motive worth living for…welcome to modern (‘western’?) society where true passion seems to float away and only sporadically comes to the surface, well, not enough anyway.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to paint a black picture here…I still see many many positive things happening all around me, but the overall trend is there. Mainstream media has, over the last decades, played a big role in shushing ‘the people’ and taking control over their lives, and actually, people feel good by that…as I said, living that life is in a way sssoooo easy! Remember ‘The Matrix’ movie, skip the amazing visual effects and read the bigger picture between the frames…the potential threat of mass-cultivation…it is happening, eh?

That is one of the reasons why the internet has been truly my thing from my first experience with it in the early 90’s and why it plays such an important part in my (personal) life. It creates opportunities for and links people together away from the paved (and cultivated) paths and by that mainstream media looses control (on a sidenote; check out Adam Curry’s blogpost ‘MSM Tipping Point‘; a prediction for 2007)

The internet; I think of it as the beta-program of something much much bigger…bringing people/spirits/energies together and become ONE again…hmm, that’s not likely to happen in 2007 though 🙂

What is?

Well, as said; taking control! It truly *is* the right time (and the only time too, namely NOW!) that this ‘happens’.

That’s the reason I am feeling so good lately, having made the first step back in regaining control of my life and my future!!

Check out the Apple home page!

It seems that something big is coming up, I wonder what will be announced at MacWorld coming week!!

Well, it's definately a nice way to say Happy New Year!!

Much more appealing than our friends over at Microsoft, guess the New Year for them is just business as usual. 🙂

Happy New Year everrryyybodyyy!

Am no guy for New Years resolutions, so don’t expect them here. I believe more in New Day resolutions 🙂 …in the end, January 1 is ‘just’ another new day, eh? Especially when considering that half the world population (China and India) celibrates New Year on a different date!