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Yayyyy! The future of interacting with my Mac is here; the Leap Motion Controller gives me a ‘Minority Report‘-like experience, w00t!!

I pre-ordered the Leap Motion Controller months ago, and it arrived yesterday after its international release on July 22. the device is *really* small, has a nice ‘Apple’ inspired packaging and design, as you can see in the geeky unpacking photos below.

My first impression; grrrrrrooovy! It will take some time to get used to the amazing sensitivity and accuracy and yes, I did accidentally close a browser window while trying to click on a link which showed me that I have to be careful; accidentally deleting files or unfriending a Facebook friend could happen these first days… 😉 So, not completely ready for productive computing yet, but that should come when I am more used to it and the OS and programs are ‘Leap-aware’!

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What better way to end a roadtrip than with a festival! And coincidences don’t exist so here I am, at the Canal Street Festival in Arendal!
Main acts for tonight; Bugge Wesseltoft ‘n friends feat. Mike Mainieri, Datarock and BigBang!
Especially Datarock will be great; I first saw this band in 2007 at an obscure festival in Slovakia called Pohoda 😉 and again in 2010 in Oslo!

Their performances spread loads of energy, always great to be part of that!

There is much more to see down South than ‘just’ Kristiansand, Helleviga and a stunning moon; Mandal with its Sjøsanden beach, Lindesnes (most southern point of Norway) and once again; a fantastic wild camping spot, great sunsets and a stunning moon over the ocean!

Once again; pictures are worth thousands of words! 😉

The road down South is called ‘North (of the) sea road’. 😉

Beachtime!

My camp site for the night.

Mandal by night

Once again, a stunning moon over the ocean (full moon + 2 days)!

Wakey, wakey, rise and shine! 😉
Amphi theater as seen from the tent, and the ocean on the backside…

Almost at the most Southern point of Norway, a meteorological stone…a warm stone means sun, a wet stone means rain, a white stone means snow and no stone means fog! 😉 😉

There it is, the Lidnesnes Lighthouse on the southernmost tip of mainland Norway!

The plan was to go to the North of Northern Norway, instead I reached South of Southern Norway…this sign closed the circle of my trip, I love it! 😉

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I left for the South of Norway yesterday, and what a great experience it has been so far! First stop was Kristiansand, and the tourist office pointed me at a fantastic spot for wild camping, Helleviga/Hellevika. “Just park your car, find a spot to set up camp and enjoy a magnificent view over the ocean” is what she said, groovy! When I came there it turned out that wild camping is not allowed?!? (one of the few spots in Norway, as one is allowed to camp nearly everywhere in this country!)

WTF?!?

Well, luckily I met Høvard and Sverre who are staying with their families in a house owned by the community and they allowed me to ‘wild camp’ on the grass field nearby! A nice spot which came with a zillion of mosquitos and small flies, yet was perfect for the night!

The bonus I got was a brilliant view of the ‘full moon + 1 day’ over the ocean…words cannot describe the beauty of it, perhaps some pictures can…wow!!

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The advantage of being handy with computers/internet is that: many ask for help, and I can help them with the funkiest kind of geeky challenges.

The disadvantage of being handy with computers/internet is that: many ask for help 😉 quite often with ‘challenges’ that are solved by typing the question into the Google box and clicking on any of the top five hits. I found a hilarious way to answer those requests so from now on I will respond with a link to ‘let me Google that for you‘ (with its tagline “Was that so hard?” 😉 )

An example: “are macs better than pcs” (well, Google is actually not needed to know the answer to that question (=fact) 😉 )

So yes, I will still continue answer and help…with a smile! 😉

Weather has an interesting ability to change plans…the original plan: me, the X5 and I on a 2000km road trip to North Cape!

Goal: to enjoy the beauty of the high North and drink a beer while seeing the sun shine at 2 a.m. 😉 The disruption factor: weather forecast shows heavy clouds up North for the whole coming week… 🙁 and, the temperature will be below 10C instead of the blue skies 25+C predicted at home.

Ha, there is an easy way out…I am heading South! Never been to Kristiansand before and as said; weather will be swell, the sun will shine and that beer tastes good at 2 p.m. too! 😉

The White Collar TV series, though four seasons / 62 episodes, didn’t last long and made it to my ‘watched list’; it was THAT good and got me totally hooked! 😉 So, new TV series were needed to fight my insomnia 😉 and Suits, following a concept pretty similar to White Collar, it was…uhhh, yes indeed, it *was* (!) as both two seasons are on the ‘watched list’ since yesterday, a new record! 😉 Suits Season 3 starts tonight, in the USA, so it will take months (actually into 2014) until it will make it to my living room…

So now what?? Suggestions are welcome… 😉

“Death Becomes Her” made it all the way to Norway! Well, not Micky Hoogendijk‘s infamous photo itself, yet a pretty nice alternative; a limited edition T-shirt (25), signed and numbered by Micky herself…and I happened to have number 7/25, HAPPY!!!

I have enjoyed the Great (or Blue) Tits flying in and out their bird house for weeks, feeding the baby Tits, but unfortunately just missed the big moment when the little ones flew out for the first time, it happened when I was in NL.

There is another bird house on the same wall and that one too got inhabitants…yayyyy, or?!? Uhh, these flying animals ain’t no birds!!

After reading Anastasia they should bees, as I planned to build a beehive to help the bee population in this world, but…it turns out to be a wasp nest! Arrgghhhh and noooooooo…I have to get rid of it, especially with Misha playing on the veranda!

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I have been a bit lazy on the blog, I wrote my last post when we just left for a sailing weekend last Thursday. I am making up for it with a bunch of pictures! As 1 picture says more than a 1,000 words, I wonder how much 13 pictures will tell you! ;).

We cancelled the sailing trip on Friday, Misha needed more space than the not so tiny boat and got bored after one day (he too was not too happy due to what seemed to be chickenpox, but might not have been that after all).

We got back to the my friends’ family summerhouse (Spilltoppen) and enjoyed some lovely days in the sun (and, more than enough space and toys for Misha to have a blast!)…all in all a fantastic semi-sailing weekend!

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A premier for Misha today; it is his first time on a sailing boat!!

Me and Misha were invited to join our friends Per & Ingrid for a three days trip through the Blindleia area, a 20-kilometre long inland waterway in the municipality of Lillesand. We left this morning, unfortunately no sailing yet (to gain some time against the wind), that should come tomorrow, yay! The first day was a success, Misha loves to be on a boat, there is soooo much to see!

It will be Misha’s first night to sleep ‘on the water’ (in a boat though 😉 )…as you can see below, sailing makes you tired so it should not be a problem. 😉

I already knew it was supposed to be a hectic day today; flying back home with Misha (*and* 3 suitcases, 3 pieces of hand luggage plus a stroller, pretty packed 😉 ), coming home late afternoon having about an hour to unpack and repack for a 4 days sailing trip, then driving 3.5h to the cottage…oh well, slight change of plans; the X5 got jealous on the electric powered LEAF next to it and used a cruel tactic to show it: it emptied its battery so I couldn’t start its engine when I was about to leave, darn!!

I am currently charging the battery via the engine heater (which comes with a battery charger), so both cars are happily enjoying the AC juice in the garage…a diesel car turns electric, huh?!?

After the rock experience last week (courtesy of Mr. Bruce Springsteen 😉 ), it is time for something completely different today: the Awakenings festival, techno dance, woohooooo!! I love diversity!! 😉
Dance and joy and most of all: live life and be fully awake!!

Today exactly 25 years ago the Dutch won the 1988 European Football Championship, ‘our’ first and only time to win a major football tournament (and no, we *do not* mention the 2nd places in the 1974, 1978 and 2010 World Cup finals!)…NL beat Russia 2-0 and the whole country went crrrrraaaaazy (in a good way 😉 ), do you remember where you celebrated it?

The Euro 88 championship was the only major football tournament that ended without a single sending-off, goalless draw, nor any knockout matches going to extra time or penalties…pretty special. Also special (fan-friggin-tastic!!) was the second goal in the final, Marco van Basten scored one of the greatest goals in the history of the European Championships:

Well, well, who wouldn’t like to do something that: de-stresses, is a great form of exercise, lowers high blood pressure, builds your immunity, makes you look younger, gives you a healthy heart, reliefs pain, builds trust and intimacy, lowers chances of cancer, strengthens pelvic muscles, protects your prostate, induces sleep, gives more regular periods, prevents erectile dysfunctions, makes you live longer and improves the health of your semen????

Curious what this ‘wonder’ exercise is all about??

Check it out at whydontyoutrythis.com or preventdisease.com!! 😉

A supermoon is a term created and defined by Richard Nolle: …when a new or full moon which occurs with the moon at or near (within 90% of) its closest approach to Earth in a given orbit (perigee). In short, Earth, moon and sun are all in a line, with moon in its nearest approach to Earth.

Tonight there will be a moon meeting this criteria and, it is even more special as the moon will be the closest and largest full moon of this whole year (out of three supermoon 2013 – May, June and July). That makes tonight the most SUPER of the supermoons!!

Ha, werewolves unite! 😉

After three days working with the power of men in my ‘Men Strength’ workshop, I can’t think of a better way to close it than with some masculine rock music: Bruce Springsteen in concert tonight, The Boss on stage yay!!!

I try to make one journey every month, and this months trip will be a journey into me; I am starting a three day workshop ‘Men Strength’ (‘Mannenkracht’) today.

The workshop is going to be intense though has been described as the most beautiful gift a man can give himself…I am looking forward!

Ha! After Apple showed off its upcoming iOS 7 last week , I couldn’t wait the 3-4 months before the release; I am a sucker for design and it looks SO good! 😉
So, I enrolled myself as an iOS developer (!) and downloaded and installed the iOS 7 Beta! I have it running for 3 days now and despite some small glitches (it is beta software afterall), I LOVE it! The design is stunning, it runs very smooth on my iPhone 5 and has some handy features that make the overall experience a big step forward.
It feels very mature already and just needs some polishing before it can be released, most likely alongside the new iPhone 5S (and perhaps another killer feature that Apple holds up its sleeve 😉 ).
I am able to add up to 100 iDevices as an iOS developer to ‘my’ iOS 7 Beta program, so send me an email if you want it too!

PS. I wrote this post on my iOS 7 iPhone on 3G as my Internet provider ‘decided’ today to screw up the upgrade of my internet connection which leaves me without internet this week…aarrgghhh!! (Luckily I am off to NL tomorrow 😉 )

It is Father’s Day today, my second, and one to remember, again! Misha made me not one, not two, but three drawings! We still don’t really understand the reasoning behind Father’s Day…why is it just one day?! So, being the sweet angel that he is, he agreed to make every day Father’s Day….and Mother’s Day *and* Children’s Day…easy!! 😉