raymondpoort.com

We’re closing in to Misha’s first Birthday as he turned 11 months today, WoW!!

Just look at him, the happy sweet angel, pure life in motion!

It is quite a week for him; many changes, loads of new experiences and impressions during his first week ‘out’ (in kindergarten),  and he seems to enjoy it heaps! (he started ‘crying’ today when we picked him up from kindergarten where he was playing in the sand…can you believe that? 😉 )

Today was Misha’s first day in kindergarten, a new phase begins!

All went very well; ha, just give the angel enough space to crawl and toys to play with…life can be so simple! 😉

It was very good to see how much attention is given to the children, the interaction between them and the natural way of making him (and parents 😉 ) feel welcome. I am sure that he will have a great time there!

Day one was relatively short, just until lunch-time…tomorrow will be including lunch (and perhaps a short nap 😉 ): ha, they do take time for familiarization (for both sides) which is good.

Y’all can expect some ‘more-than-usual’ ‘Misha-posts’ this week…the sweet angel arrived back in Norway today (it is lovely to hug and cuddle him, and he had a great time on the veranda as you can see below).

He came back just in time (=planned 😉 ) to begin the next phase in his exciting and ever changing life; kindergarten! (barnehage in norwegian) Kissy and I are both here in Norway this week to confirm the cliche; ‘they say’ it is actually more exciting for the parents than for the child, which apparently has to do with letting go…oh well, I will be able to tell you more tomorrow, so far all good.

Tomorrow will be his first day, just an hour of play/getting to know each other before he can go back home, the duration will be built up in a few days until he feels happy to stay ‘full’ days (which in Norway means until approximately 15:00h-16:00h 😉 ).

Kindergarten start, him turning 11 months this Wednesday, *and* being with both his mom and dad this week, make this week ‘Misha-week’ on the blog! 😉

Exactly what I like when coming home from work around 20:30h on a Friday evening; stormy weather getting out of control…hail, thunder and lightning welcoming me home and keeping me trapped in the garage (I love sun more 😉 ). It’s gonna be a great weekend?!?

I couldn’t resist and filmed parts of it…I also noticed that I need to improve the water management; parts of the soil got washed away and are creating a swimming pool in front of the garage (not good!). Work to be done, soon!

It is the returning highlight of Lowlands (at least of the festival closure): Kees van Hondt! The tagline of his show is ‘High Quality Nonsense for the Intelligent Nitwit’, I guess that says it all. 😉

The man has the gift to make an audience go WILD with nothing more than some (very) simple tunes and anything inflatable (balloons, toys, air beds, rubber boats, you name it! 😉 ). The festival security was slightly more active this year compared to two years ago, as I saw them stopping people who were carrying toilet seats, chairs, garbage bins (the big ones!) and wooden tables (WTF!) to the ‘Grolsch’ stage, all intended to go ‘crowd-surfing’ over the audience.

I created a short compilation video from last Sundays show…check it out below, I think it will give you a pretty good idea of the party craziness! 😉

I had a lovely day in NL today; weather was not too hot, yet still warm and sunny enough with just a slight breeze…perfect circumstances for a cycling trip through the dunes, along the coastline from Kijkduin to Scheveningen. I love it!

Oof, *that* has been a LONGGG time ago!

No complaint, but it was way too hot to be very active today at Lowlands. The search for some shadow and a breeze of wind were the main activities this afternoon, and a bit of sleep catch-up as the party last night lasted until well after sunrise. 😉

A lovely veggie curry for dinner is IN and the grande finale is about to begin; first the Foo Fighters (a whopping 2.5hours show!) followed by some random partying with Kees van Hondt which I have great memories of from Lowlands 2010… 😉

Nothing beats a good old water fight in weather like this, the Lowlands water fight Facebook event was a huge success…we LOVE to get wet!! 😉

A relaxed start of the day, the sun slowly breaking through a thin layer of clouds, hardly any traffic on the way to the festival terrain and expecting to set up the tent within 10 minutes (experience 😉 )…YESSS, Lowlands…here we ARE!!

Sun, fun, music, friends, drinks and then some…rock on, HELL YEAH!!!

I just arrived in NL, ready to get the party started at the Lowlands festival this weekend!! Besides traditional activities such as checking out known and less known artists (Foo Fighters, Triggerfinger, Kyteman Orchestra, Spinvis, The Antlers, Ben Howard, Ed Sheeran, Ane Brun, Kasabian, Miike Snow, Skrillex, Bloc Party, The Black Keys…just to name a few 😉 ), the occasional drinking, walking until your feet bleed and overall having a great time with friends, there is a special activity planned this year; a water fight to combat the tropical weather (expected temperatures to reach 34C!!)…over 9000 people signed up to the Facebook event already, so…bring on your Super Soaker and let’s get wet!!! 😉

What happens if you mix a guy with an extensive bikini collection, some random people on Chatroullete and Carly Rae Jepsen’s hit ‘Call Me Maybe’??

Check it out below…the reaction from the surprised ‘audience’ is hilarious!

Weather in Norway was fantastic this weekend (summer at last!) and I had my first (!!) BBQ of this year. A friend celebrated her Birthday and arranged a sport-minded afternoon filled with soccer, baseball, badminton, swimming and kubb (a typical Scandinavian game dating back from the Viking Age). And yes, that first BBQ of the year topping the day off with ‘pølser‘ (sausages, not for me 😉 ) and my home-made fish packages…hhmmmm!

More weekends like this please! 😉

Many people have an opinion of the world around them, and when common stereotypes are being put in a worldmap one gets interesting and quite funny results.

Below is one example; ‘the world according to the Dutch’…more, many more of these ‘mapping stereotypes‘ maps are made by ‘alphadesigner’, the pseudonym of graphic designer Yanko Tsvetkov, check it out!

(click to enlarge)

University of Leicester: “If an asteroid really was on its way, could we take a cue from the disaster movie Armageddon in order to save the planet? According to science research carried out by University of Leicester physics students though, the answer is definitely “no”…Department of Physics and Astronomy students Ben Hall, Gregory Brown, Ashley Back and Stuart Turner found that the device would need to be about a billion times stronger than the biggest bomb ever detonated on Earth – the Soviet Union’s 50 megaton hydrogen bomb “Big Ivan” – in order to save the world from a similar sized asteroid.”
Sorry Bruce…

I changed my Apple TV 2 for the newer Apple TV 3 some months ago, anticipating a jailbreak coming out sooner than later, but Apple’s cheapest iDevice seems to be the hardest one to jailbreak… 🙁

The jailbreak community is working on it, but the ‘attack surface’ for this device is smaller than any other iDevice so it can take a while still…well, I trust it will come one day anyway; jailbreakers are quite persistent and they want to win this battle!

In the meantime I am pleased with the Ariplay support in OS X Mountain Lion; playing movies via VLC on the MBA and streaming them to my TV works like a charm! (and so much easier than connecting VGA&audio cables, life is wireless these days! 😉 )

Misha flew back to NL today after enjoying almost three weeks of vacation in Norway. I really value the quality time with the little big angel; spending intense and very nice days together, seeing him grow, learn and discover the world around him…so special!! The next time he comes to Norway will be special too; Misha starts kindergarten (barnehage) end of August, we were there last week and looks forward to go there!! 😉

The art of presenting can reach a whole new level with the addition of seven iPads. Check out the presentation about Stockholm below! Very entertaining, magical and hilarious!

More on d1gits.com.

It is Full Moon today (actually was, at 05:27h this morning). This months Full Moon is called Full Sturgeon Moon according to the Old Farmer’s Almanac and August 2012 is a special ‘moon’ month as there will be TWO full moons this month (the second one is on August 31, which is also called Blue Moon)

Full Moon, it always makes me somewhat restless (I believe this to be spiritual related and not related to the werewolf in me 😉 )…and, it is great for photos! Not today though, as it is cloudy (and rainy) in Norway. Below a Full Moon photo that I took in May this year (which happened to be a Supermoon):

My life as student Electrical Engineering took place in the 90’s, *years* ago! Still, I remember the process class>homework>exam as shown below all too well. Mannn, do I remember this…so typical! 😉

And that is 10 mini-candles on the baby cake; Misha turned 10 months today!!

The ‘not so little’ angel is enjoying the Norwegian summer these weeks, taking short trips with his proud daddy, sitting in a ‘face-forward’ car seat and enjoying the view!

He even started to read books! 😉