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This one comes from the award-winning documentary, “Playing For Change: Peace Through Music”, a great initiative as music unites…check out http://playingforchange.com!

I already blogged about the LilleHolmestrand Coffee House, THE place to get your coffee in Holmestrand! Today we (or I at least) had a new experience; LilleHolmestrand Soup! We gathered with some colleagues to have an (initially non-alcoholic?!) alternative to the monthly Friday Beer…well, obviously there *was* beer and wine involved, after all this is Norway!! 😉
The soup was great, and so was the company…socializing with colleagues is a nice way to close the working week…which reminds me; it’s WEEKENDDDD, yayyy!!

Did you ever hear of the term literal music video? You might not know the actual term, but I am sure you have tried the concept yourself. 😉 A literal music video is a parody of an official music video clip in which the lyrics are replaced by lyrics that describe the visuals in the video.

Watch any (or all) of the clips below…ROTFLMAO!!

Bonnie Tyler – Total Eclipse of the heart

Meat Loaf – I Would Do Anything for Love

Red Hot Chilli Peppers – Under the bridge

2010, the online era and a could-have-been love story; is this the typical online conversation between a man and a woman these days, or?

Self Expression. Try it. Tell someone how you feel today. You won’t regret it.

It’s only ten days to go when Kristel and I will have our Ode to Love, in a way our alternative to marriage. It’ll be a whole weekend, filled with LOVE…love for each other, love for the people around us and love for life. I am feeling the flow of love and positive energy getting stronger and stronger each day, there are so many things happening and in sync at the moment, everything seems to connect and pointing to spreading LOVE around, a magical feeling!

Kristel wrote the following text which we put in the invitation:

“Als je beseft dat je liefde niet moet zoeken
maar het kunt herkennen in jezelf
herken je het ook in de ander
en maak je ‘t samen tot iets groots”

Translated into English this is:

I tweeted this morning about my commute being shitty, but it ain’t all that bad if you compare it with the ‘commute’ that people working on broadcast towers have. Check out this YouTube clip…wow!

Despite the sun and blue skies today, it is fair to say that the temperature has dropped a bit and the days are seriously getting shorter…this evening turned out to be the grand opening for the Fireplace Season 2010/2011!

We still have wood to burn, although I’d better make sure to cut some more so that the two fireplaces have enough fuel to keep the house warm through winter! 😉

Yay, we had to wait a week to say: Thank God It’s Friday!!! Robbert is in Norway, so we are having our ‘typical’ guys weekend; a lot of gaming followed by p-p-partying in Oslo…tough weekend! Hehe 😉

I started a new position at work last Tuesday, and noticed that this is the same period that I changed position two years ago. (third position since I moved to Norway in 2007 actually)
I am moving from Manager Engineering to a Senior Bid Manager role, responsible for the tender/bid response process in the company (there is a lot to it, so ask me if you want to know more 😉 ).
It’s a long expected (by some at least 😉 ) move from Technical to Sales…and I like it! I really feel it is the right time and right move in my career at this moment, so am going in with full force!!

It’s good to realize how big the African continent really is! Since it is one of the target-markets for the business I am in, this was actually no surprise for me…but still.

Wow, life is full of surprises:

First there was this opportunity last Friday to meet Adam Curry in person at the dutch No Agenda meeting, years after we ‘met‘ on the dutch highway A4 while he was doing his Daily Source Code podcast (that was in 2004). I couldn’t make it last Friday though. 🙁

Then the following happened this morning:

Kissy started her work today, she’s flying to Los Angeles for five days (actually going there together with our friend Katka!)….it was the 10:40h flight and just before it departed she sent me a text message that Christina Curry is on board (!), directly followed by a message that Adam is on board too!! I assume both of them are flying Business Class, and since Kissy is a Business Class stewardess it is *very* likely that she will be serving them (and in the first place looking after their safety, of course!! 😉 ).

Wow, now *she* will have a chance to talk to them…life truly moves in circles!!

This weekend was put completely upside-down from yesterday late afternoon; it was time for my bachelor party (even though I’m not getting married…nice!!! 😉 )

I knew something was up when Robbert appeared at the IBC yesterday. He had a simple message; you’re coming with me, now! No escape possible…

We went to The Hague where the others were waiting for me; a HUGE surprise! I won’t go into details (what happened in The Hague stays in The Hague, especially on a bachelor party 😉 😉 ), but what followed was an evening/night of drinking&chatting at De Fiddler, eating&drinking&chatting at Le Connaisseur, and more drinking&chatting in my favorite bar, De Paap…I guess I got lucky (well, my friends know me! 😉 ) since I was not asked to dress up like a chicken or duck (guys; I love ya for not doing that to me! 😉 )…this was all about having fun and enjoying the time together!

And, it was fabulous…thanks Amit, Andre, Axel, Carlo, Marko, Rob, Robbert, Roy, Tom and Willem-Jan!

Every year around this time several thousands of people working in or related to the Broadcasting industry invade Amsterdam to attend the International Broadcasting Convention, IBC. Being in the satellite communications business means that we are here with a number of colleagues to meet and catch up with most of our suppliers. There are plenty of  cool developments in the industry and since this IBC trade show lasts for five days, there should be enough time to see everything, eh? (luckily I won’t be here every day though! 😉 )

Wow, that has been years ago; I have been out shopping tonight with my father and mother. In Naaldwijk centre no less, the place I grew up! Ha, I haven’t been there on a Friday evening for a looonnngggg time!

After a nice dinner we went hunting for THE shoes, the kind of shoes that would match THE suit I bought last weekend…and, we succeeded, so THE outfit is in! Yay! 😉

dutchnoagendameeting.com: “The Dutch No Agenda meeting will be an evening with N/A fans which will be held in Amsterdam(Holland). The purpose of this meeting is to unite N/A fans from all around the globe in an evening where we discuss the topics where the show is all about.”

No Agenda is a podcast by Adam Curry (Crackpot) and John C. Dvorak (Buzzkill) who provide the (real) ‘news behind the news’ to a loyal base of (executive) producers/listeners/followers. It is live streamed twice a week and the 233 episodes so far have enlightened many, helping people in their awakening.

Guess what, the meeting takes place tomorrow evening (does that qualify for an ‘In The Morning’ on this Thursday? 😉 ), so that’s Friday 10 September in cafe De Heffer, Amsterdam from 20:00h, be there!!

Unfortunately I won’t be able to make it due to other priorities (a typical case of ‘so close and yet so far away’ since I *am* in NL!)…double pity since Adam flew in from the USA especially for this meeting, it would have been a great opportunity to meet him again, after we ‘met’ in a traffic jam on the dutch A4 highway almost 6 years ago.

CNET news: “in a deep and sonorous study by the dating site OkCupid, there seems to be no doubt: iPhone owners have more sex than BlackBerry owners and a lot more sex than the worthy, solemn, dedicated purchasers of Android phones…There will be those who believe that the iPhone makes them look and feel sexier. Others will claim that only sexy people purchase an iPhone in the first place.”

Ain’t that the dream of every man; coming home and having 7 (seven!) girls working in the kitchen, preparing a rich and superb dinner!! Kristel organized a girls night at our place, quite international too since there were 7 girls from 6 different nationalities…Wow, I could have this every night haha!! Lots of talking, laughing, eating, drinking, singing (!?) and checking out the latest KIS jewellery designs!

Hehe, I think I fitted in nicely, but that could also be wishful thinking. 😉

Well, it was ‘that’ time, again: me and my travel expense reports…they’ve been keeping me busy for part of yesterday and most of today. Well, the travels dated back to March (quite some traveling since then) and the friggin’ more or less *manual* system (web-based though 😉 ) made it quite a lot of work.

Then again, I’m not complaining…this is the kinda work that pays off, literally! 😉

Hmm, we don’t seem to learn: instead of ‘over 2 months‘ it has this time only been ‘almost 2 months’ ago (7 weeks) that we both were in Norway *and* able to spend the weekend together…hmm, at least things improved a little bit! 😉

We spent the day down town Oslo, hunting for (and finding!) THE suit (yay!) and completed the quality time day together with a steak meal at the Big Horny (uhh, the Big Horn that is) and a movie (Inception, friggin’ brilliant!)…good times!

Working for an international company means that I have a lot of conference calls (daily), luckily the technology has matured over the years and is more than advanced enough to deal with the challenge of organizing people who are geographically spread.

The tools nowadays are many, most are easy to operate and available for all…still people use not so advance personal ‘skills’ and their powerful capability (interest?) to screw up conference calls, just about every single time, jeez!

The YouTube clip below is a typical example…I *know* y’all have gone through this before, aahhhhh!! (it IS hilarious though! 😉 )