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I just picked up the bimmer, the engine problems turned out to be cylinder and camshaft related which got fixed for a small fortune. 🙁 I guess it’s the drawback of driving a 14 year old car that drove a little over 250.000km…then again, it’s a great drive, I love it! 😉

I have a two day Sales training this week and the trainer showed us a YouTube clip in which a cab driver (‘Taxi Terry’) teaches everyone a lesson in Customer Service…an eye opener!

Short after we bought the house last year July we discovered that there was no floorheating present in both bathrooms (and trust me, that is *needed* during wintertime!! 😉 ). It should be there according to the brochure, so we claimed it with the buying insurrance. The dispute between our insurance and the sellers insurance has dragged on for 1.5 year now and I was todayinformed the we are going to court with it…WTF?!?

This seems a more than straightforward case…amazing that both insurance companies couldn’t find a settlement! (and trust me, we have been reasonable!)

Two cheeseheads involved in a courtcase in Norway…March 1 is the date, wish us luck!

What a nice way to come back home; knackered from an intense weekend in NL, driving a car with potentially serious engine problems, 20cm of snow in front of the garage giving me a nice outdoor exercise before entering the house and cats that left a shitload (literally 🙁 ) of presents in the basement…oh well, I am HOOOOME, and that feels goooodddd! 😉

The weekend in NL is as usual *packed* with visits to family and friends. It is great to see everyone again, especially as it has been quite some months since the last trip to dutchland. 😉

The available time is used to the max, we’ve been going out in Rotterdam on Friday and partied the night away in De Paap in The Hague yesterday (big fun!)…hehe, there were not too many hours dedicated for sleeping! 😉

And still time for some more partying today; Carlo’s 40 year Birthday party this afternoon and a dinner to celebrate Jaap’s 60th Birthday…a true Birthday Sunday. 😉

Heating up the house is (obviously) an extremely important thing during Norwegian wintertime, and while we have (some) electrical heating in the house, nothing beats a good old fashioned log fire!

In order to get to the nice part, the warmth and joy of romantic flames coming from the fireplace, some physical work needs to be done. In my case it meant moving two big pallets of wood from the trailer to the wood storage, almost piece by piece, so quite some work!

Oh well, at least I didn’t have to cut a tree and chop the wood myself this time! 😉

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Wow, the temperature at home went into plus degrees today for the first time since end November!! It was just +0.5C but still, snow *did* melt! 😉

Of course, this *is* Norway, so while the forecast for tomorrow shows snow and a temperature dropping just below zero, cold *will* return, and fast too: a sweet -23C on Friday (!!)…hehe, I love the opportunity to burn some wood and heat up da house, yihaa!!

This is the ‘F’ word explained…HILARIOUS!! 😉

‘It’s the one magical word
Just by it’s sound can describe pain, pleasure, hate and love’

well, let’s use it more and more for the pleasure and love of it! 😉

I heard it on Adam Curry‘s DSC #857, but his clip had Bert Kaempfert’s ‘Afrikaan beat’ playing in the background…I like that one a lot better, but couldn’t find it anywhere…Adam, can you drop me the mp3??

A great way to spend a Sunday afternoon; go out skiing!! (uhh, for the Norwegians reading this; *downhill* skiing that is, NOT cross-country! Hehe 😉 )

It’s the second Sunday in a row, this time we went to Varingskollen, slightly smaller than Tryvann where we went last Sunday…hehe, mastering fresh powder slopes and improving my technique…I love it!!

I took this picture on a skiing vacation in Canada (2006)…HILARIOUS!!

My ‘father in law’ has his 60th Birthday today…Happy Birthday Jaap!

You wouldn’t say he turned 60 when you see him and he told me that he still feels like a young man so it’s all good! 😉

Oh well, time and thus age are relative anyway, and since the life expectancy is increasing, being 60 still gives you on average 20 years to love and enjoy life!

Steve Jobs: “With more than 1,000 apps, the Mac App Store is off to a great start, we think users are going to love this innovative new way to discover and buy their favorite apps.”

As ‘we all’ know from the iOS App Store, , “The Mac App Store offers apps in Education, Games, Graphics & Design, Lifestyle, Productivity, Utilities and other categories. Users can browse new and noteworthy apps, find out what’s hot, see staff favorites, search categories and look up top charts for paid and free apps, as well as user ratings and reviews.”

It will be interesting to see if the Mac App Store will become as successful as Apple’s App Store for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. Obviously Apple is not as dominant as computer OS compared to its mobile iOS, but still…it could become another Unique Selling Point for Apple to sell more Macs? 😉

Andrea, our first guest of 2011 (and the last of 2010 😉 ) has left two days ago, and the next guest is coming tonight. Kissy’s mom (a.k.a. ‘mother in law’ 😉 ) is expected to land in 20 minutes, so it’s about time to go to the airport for the pick-up!

She’ll be staying here in winter wonderland until Monday, longer when we t get snowed in!! (the weather forecast shows a *lot* of snow coming our way the coming days…)

Some months ago I first heard of Viber, a much hyped iPhone VoIP App offering free calls from iPhone to iPhone. Not really a new thing if you ask me; Skype is the most known VoIP App and has been around for ages, as have many, many other VoIP/SIP clients…

So, why did Viber get so hyped?

My guess? The smooth integration with your addressbook, having the Viber logo next to contacts that have the App too does make it easy to use Viber as your Dialer.

But…

Viber is strongly promoting the fact that it is free and will ‘always’ remain free and also, the App doesn’t have any ads, no in-App purchases, you can’t buy credits to call non-Viber users (as Skype offers)…I really don’t believe in a free lunch (at least, in iPhone App-land), so what is the catch?

Today I got the first indication:

Read their privacy policy and learn: ‘Viber also maintains call and connection logs to the system. These logs contain your internal Viber identification which is a combination of your account identification (i.e., your phone number) and Apple Unique Device Identification (“UDID”) or Android Device ID. All call and connection logs are maintained indefinitely.’

They furthermore don’t guarantee what will happen to these logs if they merge or are acquired; while this can be seen as obvious it also shows what their asset really is: YOUR call logs which contain your telephone number, location data (IP-address) and the phonenumbers from your addressbook…this creates huge privacy and security concerns!! And without a strategy showing how they intend to make money with this App (again; no ads, no in-App purchases, no credit-plan, etc.), things get fishy…the Telecompaper had an interesting article some weeks ago summing things up and making the Viber-Skype comparison.

My advice; *de-install* it and use a more transparent alternative such as Skype or others.

Oh, one last thing; even when you delete the App from your iPhone, your account *including* your phone number will be kept indefinitely. If you want to delete your account completely you have to go through a cumbersome process of contacting Viber via “Viber Support” (available at Viber.com) and request that your account is deleted…sorry, no straightforward process for this exists…typical, eh?

Kissy, Andrea, Per and I went skiing today, a terrific way to start the New Year! Conditions were great; a blue sky and well prepared slopes, a bit crowded as half of Oslo went skiing, but that couldn’t spoil the fun…sun in the face and goooooo, hehe hang loose!!

Happy New Year everybody!

Mine started with the Vienna Philharmonic New Year’s concert (which I barely made, thanks to a bug in Apple’s iOS 4 causing the iPhone alarm clock not to function… 🙁 ), and ends with the movie The Ghost Writer. In between we had a friend visiting, ate all the ‘oliebollen‘ and ‘appelflappen‘  and enjoyed a relaxing evening as couch potatoes! 😉

I am no guy for New Years resolutions, so don’t expect them here. I believe more in New Day resolutions…after all, January 1 is ‘just’ another New Day, eh? 😉

My New Day resolution for today; experience something new every day, and embrace it with love!

Today is that one day in a year when we turn the imaginary page of time and wake up in a brand New Year…page 2010 in the ‘book of life and the world’ has almost been written, and all experiences of the past year are in it.

Good to know that they are stored in a safe place; in our memories…one can always look back, laugh, cry, read and learn.

Writing things down and then turning the page also means that things can be put to rest…a good moment to go on and look forwards towards all that future offers.

Time…o-so relative…live your life in the Now, fill each moment with unconditional love and share that…

Another ‘basement day’ has ended, and the end is near; most
of the IKEA goodies are installed and waiting to be used! It’s a
good feeling to complete this clean-up just before the New Year, it
means that 2011 begins with a head-start!! Only one day to go and
another year has past, wow…

OK, let the games begin!!

We received a first bid on our house yesterday and are currently in negotiation! The initial bid was way too low, as expected actually since ‘they’ say it’s a buyers market, meaning that potential buyers try to buy for a bargain…Well, we *want* to sell, but don’t *have to* and will therefore not go under the lowest price we set…there are more people interested in it too, so if you want it, you’d better hurry! 😉

For more details, please check:

– direct link to our real estate agent (Borgdorff in Wateringen)

– http://funda.nl/47975786 on Funda, ‘the’ house-seekers site  in NL

We’re spending the coming days in the basement; with a week off I finally have some time to sort out several boxes that have been moved a couple of times too much; two times in NL and two times in Norway, oops! 😉

Yeah, it’s about time to clean up and throw away some old shit!

The most obscure item I found so far: a SCSI tape drive (with four tapes!)…Ha, I guess you qualify for the geek-of-the-decade competition if you know what that is! 😉 Well, that unit is now trashed, together with two old floppy drives, several ancient hard disks (one had a stunning 125Mb capacity, wow!! 😉 ) and more…hehe, *much* more to go through tomorrow…the final result should give us a gym, sauna, home-office *and* ‘cat-room’ in the basement!!

With the good vibes and energy of last night still floating around, second Christmas Day turned out nice and relaxed; it started with a Xmas brunch at a friends place (well…’started’…it was 13:00h ha! 😉 ) where everybody brought something to eat. with many nationalities present, there was a great variety of yummy food to choose from…as the Xmas tradition dictates, I ate way too much oof! 😉

Tonight we’ve turned into couch potatoes and are watching movies; just finished Red and now starting The Social Network.