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Exactly 13 months old today, and Misha reached a new milestone: after he got up and stood by himself 2.5 weeks ago, his first steps last week (and a lot of training in the past days 😉 ), Misha now officially walks!! (I have a supercute video, send me an email if you want to see it…it is worth it! hihi)

Ha, he really discovered it and doesn’t want to do anything else…his world just became SOOOO much bigger!! 😉

Proud daddy!!!

Since I was still in NL today having Misha with me *and* though it was windy, the sun was shining, I took up a typical dutch challenge; bicycling in the wind, with your son in the front bicycle-seat! 😉

Heaps of fun, and from the sounds Misha made I could hear that he really enjoyed it too!

Hahaha, yes…Men *are* from Mars and Women from Venus! (and yes, this one could nowadays also be opposite 😉 )

ROTFLMAO!!

Yesterday’s Apple event was all about the new iPad mini, as ‘everyone’ expected (the tagline ‘we’ve got a little more to show you’ was pretty obvious in that respect). It is interesting to look back an remember Steve Jobs some years ago saying that there would be no ‘mini’ version of the iPad (well, he actually also stated that there wouldn’t be an iPad some years before that…one should trust people, eh? 😉 ).
It will be interesting to see it in action, and discover whether it would make sense to have one, in addition to the 13″ MacBook Air and my new iPhone 5 (expected by the end of this month)…
Oh well, it is Apple, the iPad minilooks fantastic and obviously works like a charm…I am pretty sure iWant (and yes, it *will* be a success…)
Check out yesterday’s keynote speech here!
Apple also released an update to the Mac mini and iMac (ssssuper thin aka mini!)…ha, that’s a lot of mini Apples. 😉

And…we’re back in NL…again! 😉

It will be a similar trip as last week (though this time I will stay a little longer and head back home with Misha on Sunday), so that means a lot of public transport and an occasional taxi (or nice walk 😉 )…hmm, that was a nice thing of having my car in NL; some independence and mobility. I am not complaining though as I have the best taxi one could wish for: Taxi Robbert! 😉 My friend of friends is always there to pick me up, drop me off, having great conversations and…extremely cheap!! Thx buddy, really appreciate it…always!

This is what you get when boy and girls try to do what adults say that they do… 😉

Most of us know (the ones that are awake know for sure 😉 ), but the educational system is broken…it is based on old principles and not suited for todays world.

Watch the animated YouTube clip below in which Sir Ken Robinson goes through all of this in a funny, ‘educational’ 😉 way…I wish some decision makers were like him…

As if the road trip last week wasn’t enough, this week is travel week once more. This time not by car though; I flew to NL tonight, will enjoy a short overnight stay at Robbert’s and continue to my final destination Brussels by train tomorrow. A tad devious, I know, but the direct flight OSL-BRU was outrageously priced…950 EUR (!!)…I just refuse to pay this amount for a 2h flight (even though the company is paying), and was able to book two return tickets to NL for half this price…easy choice, slightly less convenient, but hey, I get a change to try the Thalys train, uhhh… 😉

So, the beamer (/beemer/bimmer) is back home!! Robbert and I drove it to Norway yesterday/today in a memorable road trip (all of our road trips actually are 😉 ). Yesterday was pretty hectic, I flew together with Misha in the early afternoon, was in NL for 3 hours (!), mainly filled with traveling from airport to Kissy, pack the car and pick up Robbert…we hit the road thinking we would have more than enough time to make it to the Travemünde-Malmö  ferry, but…it turned out that we barely made it (30 seconds to spare!)…

Road work around Groningen got us (and the nav-system) lost, the german police decided to have a big traffic control last evening and two guys driving a Norwegian X5 got them triggered…twice! The sign ‘Polizei – folgen’ is *not* what you want to see in front of you when you need to catch a ferry…car papers, driver’s license and passports were all ok both times (…), so it only costed time, not money. Yet, time was what we didn’t have and the average speed needed to catch the ferry went up and up…still doable though (German Autobahn has its advantages 😉 ), until we hit a huge traffic jam between Bremen and Hamburg and got stuck behind slow Convoi Exceptionnel for kilometers and kilometers…it became virtually impossible to reach the ferry in time.

I am still puzzled how, but seconds before the check-in would close we arrived at the port and then received a phone call from the ferry operator asking us if we were still planning to come….well, ‘YESSSS we are’ and they kept the check-in open for another minute allowing us to make it on the ferry with nearly 30 seconds to spare…woohoooo!!

The ferry trip itself was pretty uneventful (sleeping 😉 ) and we decided to enjoy a scenic drive through Sweden today instead of the speedy trip through Germany last night…mission accomplished!

Just after his first Birthday, Misha went for his 1 year health checkup today. Once again, the doctor confirmed what we already know; the little angel is doing great! 😉

He reached a new milestone at the doctor’s today: he got up and stood for a while, without any help or support, woohooo!!

He is growing so fast…and becoming a geek like his dad; interested in all this tech!! 😉

You might remember Steve Kardynal from the hilarious (yet freaky 😉 ) ‘Call Me Maybe’ (Chatroulette) parody. Well, he has more funny and creative videos such as the one below, ‘Songs in Real Life’.

Steve’s tagline is: ‘Today you need to smile. You need to smile so big it hurts your cheeks’…so, SMIIILEEE!! (and LYAO! 😉 )

You might not know, but there are seven words (the ‘Seven Dirty words‘) that you can never say on television.

I would love to list them here, but hey, they are Dirty and there is no ‘Parental Advisory’ on this weblog, so I can’t say shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, and tits! (oops! 😉 😉 )

The seven dirty words are first listed by George Carlin in 1972 in his monologue “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television”. Check it out below…yet another superb performance by George Carlin, he is (/was) awesome!

Every season has its own beauty, and I experienced autumns beauty today! Blue skies, trees showing off their amazing coloured leaves, cooler temperature yet far from too cold, fresh air to breath and a beautiful afternoon hike in ‘my backyard’ with friends and Misha.

Life is great, gimme more of these days!! 😉

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Today is World Animal Day, a day to remember and pay tribute to all animals and the people who love and respect them. October 4 was chosen since it is the feast day of Saint Francis of Assisi, a nature lover and patron saint of animals and the environment. I am actually named after Francis of Assisi, one of my my Christian names is Franciscus, which also means ‘free man’……

So, how do animals, people, ‘Christian’ and ‘free’ connect on this World Animal Day??

Well, I found *the* YouTube clip…wow…BEAUTIFUL!!!

Having three cats in da house, I know all about the ‘Oh boy, I need to have my nails done’ self-service that cats love so much. Ha, I bet they would have loved the manicure option even more…after all it is as they say: dogs have a boss, cats have personnel! 😉

Today was Misha’s first day in kindergarten after he came back from NL, and of course his Birthday would be celebrated there too.

Hmm, that meant that daddy needed to come up with a treat that he could give the other kids…I didn’t want to give a ‘sugar’ treat, so it needed to be something else…well, what about a ‘hedgehog’ with cucumber, grapes, tomato, a small piece of typical dutch cake (eierkoek), surrounded by raisins? It all came out very nice as you can see below!

HUGE success!! 😉

And here is the Birthday Boy at home with his kindergarten Birthday hat:

…an angel was born at 05:21h on September 29 2011: Misha has his first Birthday today……Happy Birthday Misha!!

His birth has been the most wonderful experience in our lives, a magical moment followed by many more in a very intense year…

No longer a baby, though still and always an angel; it is truly fantastic to be his daddy!

Check out Misha’s first year in pictures below:

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Wow, what a year this has been; one big roller-coaster with ups and downs that created a kind of twisted balance in life that is both a-typical and ‘as it should be’ at the same time. Reflection on the past year, the evening before Misha’s Birthday makes me realize that all of this has to do with the process of birthing; both literally and figuratively…it ain’t easy, is not straightforward, extremely intense, with peaks and lows and yet an experience that fits and matches the energy flow of the time we live in…

So, since I would be traveling these days *and* there was a deadline coming Friday for a project that I am working on, I worked through the night last night in order to have everything prepared for my colleagues (Mr. Nice Guy… 😉 ).
Well, today in the late afternoon the customer sends us an email informing us that the deadline is postponed until next week Wednesday…darn!!! That’s allnighter down the drain! 🙁
More of these weird things going on the past days (flight reservations gone wrong, delayed flights without a good reason, and more)…I wonder what the cosmos is trying to tell me here, guess I will find out over a good night sleep, Ray-out!

This hilarious video of a man gobbling at a bunch of turkeys just made my day! (it is midnight and I am still in the office…yeah, I could use a laugh! 😉 )