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ABC News: “Aerial photos taken over Japan have revealed the scale of devastation across dozens of suburbs and tens of thousands of homes and businesses. Hover over each satellite photo to view the devastation caused by the earthquake and tsunami.”

Yuriage in Natori

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Since important things may be repeated, here they are once more: the Ten Rules for Being Human!!

1. You will receive a body. You may like it or hate it, but it’s yours to keep for the entire period.
2. You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called, “life.”
3. There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of trial, error, and experimentation. The “failed” experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiments that ultimately “work.”
4. Lessons are repeated until they are learned. A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it. When you have learned it, you can go on to the next lesson.
5. Learning lessons does not end. There’s no part of life that doesn’t contain its lessons. If you’re alive, that means there are still lessons to be learned.
6. “There” is no better a place than “here”. When your “there” has become a “here”, you will simply obtain another “there” that will again look better than “here.”
7. Other people are merely mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects to you something you love or hate about yourself.
8. What you make of your life is up to you. You have all the tools and resources you need. What you do with them is up to you. The choice is yours.
9. Your answers lie within you. The answers to life’s questions lie within you. All you need to do is look, listen, and trust.
10. You will forget all this.

(by Cherie Carter-Scott)

There is so much happening these days, it’s crazy…

The good news that I was supposed to blog about yesterday completely turns yesterday’s mood:

*** Our house in NL is SOLD!! ***

After 2 weeks of negotiations we reached an agreement yesterday, the transfer should be within 2 months, yayyyy!!!

Hehe, never a dull moment in life, eh?

…back in to HAPPY mood! Do I hear champagne? 😉

Damn, this post was supposed to be about good news, but everything turned upside down after I crashed the bimmer on my way to home this evening… 🙁 🙁

It became very slippery on the highway tonight (all of a sudden I was told), and I slowed down as I saw a police van a couple of 100m’s in front of me, I intended to slow down some more to match the speed of the cars on the right lane, used the brakes and…NOTHING happened!! I ‘pumped’ the brakes, the car lost grip, started sliding, I hit full brakes, ABS kicked in…NOTHING! I pumped the brakes again, tried the handbrake…still NOTHING!! The few cars on the right lane prevented me from switching lanes and I couldn’t avoid crashing into the police van! Quite a big and scary crash which deployed both airbags…DAMN!!! 🙁 🙁

I was not alone, as it turned out that the police van drove slowly on the left lane, approaching another car that spun some minutes before…it was extremely slippery, it was even hard to walk on the highway without slipping…

Oof, I am so glad that I drove a solid and heavy BMW, so I have no injuries. I guess that the car is total-loss however. 🙁 I won’t put up the pictures I took, since it is just sad…

Hmm, I even made it into the local news, Romerikes Blad…it’s in Norwegian and tells that it was extreme slippery on the road.

And the good news? Well, that will follow tomorrow, now it’s time to zzzzz…

One picture says more than a thousand words…

Exactly one year after our Ode to Love, we are bringing a new Ode: an Ode to Life…YES, we are expecting our first baby!!

We had our first scan today:

There is a big difference in celebrating carnival just one day/evening and being there two or more days; there is not so much rush to put all carnival-experience in one day, you can see more parades (Oosterhout yesterday, Breda today), you can take a short break and even have dinner at home (for some reason the food turns out to be much healthier 😉 ), take a nap if you need, load the batteries and the option to switch outfits; I have been captain (Aye, Aye), a Lackey and am now considering a boyscout outfit…uuhhh, well, I’ll probably settle for the Captain’s outfit once more…Captain Love… 😉

There is a first time for everything; today and tomorrow I am experiencing the ‘proper’ way to celebrate carnival. This means that I am ‘South of the big rivers’, in Oosterhout, uhhhh, Kaaiendonk as the city is called these days. Most companies are closed and everyone is in carnival mood for five days….part 1, this afternoon: people dressed up in the most creative outfits, beer, a parade with amazing vehicles (see pictures below!), beer, sunshine, beer and great company…so far I really enjoy the carnival tradition!!

It is Grannies Day today; we’ve just been to my grandmother celebrating her 91th (!) Birthday and we’ll go to see Kissy’s grandmother tonight when she receives the ‘Anointing of the Sick’ sacrament. Two events with almost opposite emotional feelings…very glad that we can be there, for both grannies!

When you know for sure
that you are indeed connected
to All-That-Is
through love,
then you have,
even if it is for the briefest moment,
a perfect understanding
of who You really are.

For you are this love.

You are the very love
that connects all things
and all ideas
and that is the basis
for all creation everywhere.

In fact,
you could never be anywhere
that this love is not.

It is unconditional.

This love,
this powerful force,
does not know
that you are
ever
contracting away from it
or forgetting it
or pretending
that it does not exist,
for it never once loses sight
of who You really are.

So,
no matter the circumstance,
no matter the struggle,
no matter the matter,
you are always held
perfectly
in this perfect,
always expanding love.

To experience this love,
all you need do
is find something
or someone
to appreciate.

In that moment
when you see him
or her
or it
or them
as the delicious creations
that they are,
then you are experiencing
the love of All-That-Is.

In that moment,
you are connecting
to Source energy.

And we can tell you,
quite certainly,
that you will never
see things
the same way
again.

(via Communion of Light, thx for this! LOVE truly IS…and it is beautiful!)

Less than a week after Apple updated its MacBook Pro line of notebooks, yet another ‘update’ event was held: Apple introduced the iPad 2!

Already available from March 11 (NL & Norway March 25), it is the next generation of its magical device for browsing the web, reading and sending email, enjoying photos, watching videos, listening to music, playing games, reading ebooks and much more.


The improvements compared the original iPad will make iPad 2 a killer once more!

• 33% thinner design
• 15% lighter
• Apples dual-core A5 processor giving twice the performance and 9x faster graphics
• Two cameras, front and back
  
• Still up to 10 hours of battery life
• Available in black or white
• New innovative iPad 2 Smart Covers which are magnetically attached to the device are available for screen protection

Engadget posted a first hands-on impression; it’s THIN and FAST…nice!

Well, well, almost 14 years after I started my career in the satellite industry and thus almost 14 years after I installed my first VSAT, I am finally certified to do so, yayy! 😉

Today I completed the ‘Global VSAT Forum Course No. GVF510 – Core Skills for VSAT Installers‘ and obtained my certification, hehe!

Uhh, do I expect to install a VSAT any time soon? Well, actually not, although I am more than willing to go for another trip to sunny Kinshasa, D.R. Congo, or sweet Lagos, Nigeria if I am asked; it was an amazing experience, back in January 2001!! 😉

If I counted correct 😉 , *this* is my 2000th blogpost…yayyy!!

Quite a number which takes some dedication…’the road’ to #2000:

I published my first post on February 10 2005; it was a standard test-post coming from my blogging tool at the time, Pivot. 6 Months later, from early September 2005, I started blogging daily (though weekdays only), the true daily posts came from June 12 2007, coincidentally just before I moved to Norway (I guess the availability of mobile internet also has something to do with that 😉 ).

After I changed my main site from raymondpoort.nl to raymondpoort.com in January 2008 (and changed blogging tool from Pivot to WordPress in the process), post #1000 was published on June 13 2008. As I didn’t miss a day since then (March 28 2008 was actually the last day I ‘missed’ a post), so we are now around 1000 days further! (990 days to be exact 😉 )

This is my personal weblog (I’m blogging for me, myself & I 😉 ) and the 2000 posts became a valuable ‘diary’. The blog gained quite some traffic after I moved to Norway, I guess it provides easy access for friends and family to keep up with day-to-day life!

Well, I have no intention to stop, so expect #3000 on Friday November 22 2013 (or earlier)! 😉

This YouTube clip shows the B737-800 assembly line at Boeing and the painting of Florida One, a Specialty Plane made for Southwest Airlines…cool!

Norway is going wild these days (even wilder than normal 😉 )…the reason? The Oslo 2011 FIS Nordic World Ski Championships; in other words, 12 days of biathlon, cross-country skiing, ski jumping and the combination of those two!
A friend got me a ticket for todays event; ski jumping at the Holmenkollen Ski Jump. I was pretty excited since this would be the very first time for me to see ski jumpers coming down the ski jump or at least, that’s what I thought I’d see…unfortunately it was FOGGY, so there was not much to see… 🙁 The atmosphere was fantastic though: singing, dancing, drinking, cheering, especially for the sole Dutch participant (!!), Wendy Vuik. She finished 23rd, not bad for someone from the Low Lands…below a picture of her jump, uhh, can you see her?? 😉

Apple updated its MacBook Pro line of notebooks today with next generation processors (2x faster) and graphics (3x faster), a new FaceTime HD camera *and* the brand new high-speed Thunderbolt I/O technology! Once more, Apple sets the standard for other notebook manufacturers by including Thunderbolt I/O which is targeted to become the standard for connecting virtually any type of I/O device such as external drives, displays (incl. HDMI), camcorders, etc.

Uhh…iWant! 😉

Well, I promised myself the new 17″ model when the house in NL is sold, so…Mr. Buyer, please come now!  😉

My sister got her second child this morning!! Born at 05:19h, Amber is the first baby girl in the family. Martine & Arjan called me just before I left for work and even though it was a long night for them, both were still filled with lots of energy. Everything is fine with mother, father and son…hehe, Tygo actually slept the entire night, ain’t that a great kid! 😉

I can’t wait to see my niece tonight, long live Skype!!

I got a message from my internet provider informing me that they would start a remote upgrade of my router in order to improve security, and they would start it, NOW! Oh, and the router configuration would be deleted in the process…wtf??

Jeez, ain’t that a great way to satisfy your customer…NOT!

And I don’t want to know what this so called improved security means; I guess that the router software is now filled with sniffing and tracking ‘features’,  bye bye bittorrent… 🙁

Wow!! Finally someone has been able to create M.C. Escher‘s Waterfall for real, check out the YouTube clip below!!

Wow, this means that we are coming very close to the actual creation of an infinite (clean) energy supply!!

Byebye Global Warming / Climate Change / Biodiversite!! Right??

Uhhhhh… 😉

Today was a GREAT day for outdoor activity; extremely nice sunny (yet cold) weather, and with the loads of fresh snow that fell this week, the conditions were perfect for cross-country skiing. We went to Buvannet, a lake ‘around the corner’ (the same lake that I went to with my sister last year, having slightly different weather though 😉 ).

The pictures below show it all; a fantastic trip!!
(click for a bigger version)

Both my passport and driver’s license would expire later this month so I needed to get myself some new government papers. 😉

I already applied for a new passport at the embassy some weeks ago, and arranged a new driver’s license while I was in NL earlier this week. The passport was waiting for me at the postoffice when I came home this week, so within a week, I’m all set for the coming 5 (driver’s license) and 10 (passport) years!

I *did* loose the sweet photo of this youngggg guy though…hehe 😉