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YESSSSSS!!! Finally I will see Prince live in concert again, yihaaaa!! 😉

I wasn’t able to go on several occasions last year (in Norway and NL) and even this year (North Sea Jazz Festival in NL which coincides with Pohoda), but today a new opportunity came in: Prince comes to Oslo on July 23 and…I HAVE TICKETS!!! (thx Ink for the tip!!)

W00t, I am SOOOO looking forward to see the ‘skinny motherfucker with the high pitch voice’ / ‘His Royal Badness’…it’s gonna be GOOD!!

It is amazing to realize and see what can be accomplished by one talented guy with some iPhone 4s. Check out the video from Ronen V below (direct link here), it’s truly amazing! (oh, and it gets especially good towards the end, so keep watching! 😉 )

I took the opportunity this weekend to watch an interesting mixture of movies; The Emperor’s New Groove (I *love* animation movies!), Paranormal Activity (not one to watch all alone, actually 😉 ) and Black Book (Zwartboek). Especially the latter was friggin’ BRILLIANT!! Great picture shots, an interesting storyline and, well, Carice van Houten, *gorgeous* and WHAT an actress! 😉

I didn’t think I would have the chance to see (part of) the Champions League final between Barcelona and Manchester United tonight, but the TV was on at Ingrid’s Birthday party, so I saw Barcelona win the Cup with a 3-1 victory.
Based on the play shown this whole year, I’d say that Barcelona is indeed the rightful winner, their game (aka. Tiki Taka) has been from a different planet…but it would have been a nice farewell gift for Edwin van der Sar, the Dutch goalie from Man.Utd., who played his last and final match tonight…40 years old and exactly 100 matches in the Champions League, he has had an amazing career! I saw him play once, in his very last match in the national team, Norway-NL, two years ago! 😉

This weekend we will have a house full of girls; six of Kissy’s ‘tourism school’ girlfriends are coming over for their yearly ‘girl’s weekend’…instead of living every man’s dream (uhh, really?) and spend the weekend *with* them, I *won’t* be there; hehe, been kicked out of the house for the weekend, damn! 😉
Oh well, some ‘me’-time is something I look forward to actually, so no worries, I will survive!

There you have it: time management, the key to success!! 😉

More of these comics can be found on xkcd.com.

(thx @Eduard Möllenkamp for posting this one on FB 😉 )

Oof, today was not my most active of active days; an intense ‘low-on-sleep’ week with the Bulls Eye training exam and the trip to NL this weekend took its toll; I felt like mushy toast today! 😉 (I guess that the drinking at yesterday’s BBQ contributed somewhat, hehe).

Oh well, it helps that the week was overall very successful; I nailed the Bulls Eye exam, the ultrasound in NL on Friday showed us a perfectly healthy baby, we found a very nice Joolz pram together with my parents on Saturday, the BBQ was splendid thx to the terrific weather and a great group of friends, and we managed to come home today while we were flying on standby and all AMS-OSL flights were overbooked (thx to the KLM cockpit crew Michel & Frans who allowed me on the Embrear E-190 jumpseat in the  cockpit, a very nice experience!)

Oh, and I, the guy living in Norway, became Foursquare mayor of my favorite bar ‘De Paap’ last night, haha, truly crazy when you think about that! 😉

Yeah, it *was* a crazy week and I feel that ‘Let’s Go Crazy’ sums it up! This Prince song was the only thing missing this weekend, we asked for it lasted night in De Paap, but it never came, so…here it is, enjoy!

The contrast could almost not be bigger; I spend the morning buying a pram (found one and really happy btw. 😉 ), and enjoyed a terrific afternoon/evening on Kijkduin beach! 😉
With the amazing weather on our side and a brilliant sunset, the BBQ was a huge success…uhh, the beer/wine helped too I guess 😉 These moments define the love for life!

The three wise monkeys have a brother, living in today’s world! 😉

Today was exam day for the ‘Bulls Eye’ Sales training that I’ve had during the last months. The extra preparations done yesterday instead of partying paid of: I reached the ‘GOLD’ level!!

Very happy about that!

Norway celebrates its Constitution today, May 17 (‘syttende mai‘), and the whole country is partying: GRATULERER MED DAGEN!!

Besides the drinking, one of the main activities of the day 😉 , the norwegians give the celebration a quite nice touch; everyone dresses up! Most will wear a Bunad, the traditional clothing, and if you don’t have one, then your best suit or dress will do too…truly great to see everyone on the street wearing the best clothes they have! (and so totally opposite to the somewhat clownish Queensday in NL…)

I can’t do too much partying unfortunately, since I have an exam tomorrow to prepare for… 🙁 the one setting the exam date can’t have been Norwegian…

(and indeed, he is Danish; a sweet revenge  for the fact the Norway became independent from Denmark on…May 17 1814, the origin of this day!! 😉 )

Our friends Per & Ingrid gave us an amazing present (actually, it is a present for the baby! 😉 ).

Guess what? It is a…rocking MOOSE (in Dutch a ‘hobbel…uhhh…eland’ 😉 ), the Norwegian variant of the well-known rocking horse…truly FAN-TAS-TIC, thx!!!

Today I participated in the Holmenkollstafetten again, the worlds biggest relay race! I ran the 1330m stage, hehe almost 3x last years distance! And trust me, without training it can nearly kill you (when you push yourself)!! 😉
Check out the stagemap, I ran the 13th stage.
Anyway, the relay race is done now and none got killed, hehe…it was fun, and truly a team effort!!

As every year, we are having a company teambuilding event also this year. It takes place in Vettre, close to Oslo, and after a day of presentations and a so-called fishbowl discussion, we went to the Fram museum where we learned more about Roald Amundsen’s trip to the South Pole. He led the first Antarctic expedition to reach the South Pole exactly 100 years ago this year, so as half-Norwegian I can be proud of that! 😉

Anyway, we are now ready to start the party and since there is no better way to build a team than to party with them, you can find me on the dancefloor! (or at the bar! 😉 )

Today I sent in a formal request to the police asking for a reduction of the 4 month period that my driver’s license is taken, which lasts until July 9.

I really hope they are nice to me and take one month from the penalty…since I won’t be in Norway anyway the last month of those 4 months, and the right to drive a car was taken specifically for Norway, they should, right?? 😉

Cross fingers…being allowed to drive after June 9 will have a BIG influence on the summer holiday, and Pohoda!

TG Daily: “As if it weren’t irritating enough to have to listen to people on their mobile phones, a South Korean team has just given people an excuse to yell into them even more loudly. Dr Sang-Woo Kim, of Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul, has devised a technology that allows phones to be charged simply by talking to them – and the louder the noise, the more quickly the phone will charge…Kim says the technology could also be used on a larger scale through the installation of sound-absorbing walls alongside major roads. These could not only generate electricity, but would have the added advantage of reducing noise levels.”

It is a nice idea, but honestly, I believe this to be a hoax or at least far-fetched…it requires  quite some groundbreaking research to increase the efficiency of the ‘charger’ to a more usable level.

Then again, what if this technology is used in environments with loud natural noise, such as deep underground, specific wind-catchers, ocean wave breakers…who knows, it could become the ‘unlimited’ energy source of the future!!

Apple’s AirPlay is slowly unleashing its true potential now that more and more iOS Apps support the protocol.

AirPlay enables you to stream media directly from your ‘iDevice‘ (iPod Touch, iPhone, iPad) to your AppleTV or AirPort Express which is connected to your audio system and/or TV. The first Apps supporting the protocol were some ‘native’ Apps such as Photos, iPod and YouTube, but more and more 3rd party Apps start to support AirPlay as you can see in this list.

It is already great to play music on your iPhone and listen to it in any room where you have an AirPlay enabled device available; I have an AirPort Express in the kitchen and the AppleTV in the living room.

The bigger potential for AirPlay however is that you can play video straight from your iDevice to your big-screen TV with an Apple TV attached. It will give you to possibility to create your personal TV experience: every App on your iDevice will be a TV channel, available whenever YOU want, with content that YOU choose!!

The sun is shining, it’s 25C+…I am ON da beach! (drinking Polish beer 😉 )

My Karma call from last Monday worked: we went up in the sky in a Hot Air Balloon today, yay!!! Absolute a FANTASTIC experience!!
They say that pictures say more than a thousand words, but this is something you have to experience for yourself…

And…the ride gave me the title ‘Baron from Utrecht to Nieuwkoop’, hehe I’m royal! 😉

A lot happening on this Liberation Day in The Netherlands:

As every year my dad has Birthday today, 66 years young and still going strong…CONGRATS! Life and death came together as it was the funeral of Tjerk’s dad this afternoon; strength and love to him and his family.

One of the reasons to be in NL this week was the transfer of our (ex-)house. Today we put all signatures are on paper, which made it official and final; the dutch house is really SOLD!

Haha, that left us without a house, so no place to stay…uhh, we went to the north of NL, to a farm close to Groningen, to have a ‘Night in the Hay‘… 😉 it was Jaap & Sonja’s gift for our Ode to Love, super romantic!