Summer officially started today and since weather is as beautiful as yesterday we enjoyed another BBQ dinner tonight, I *love* that! And since today is the longest day (at exactly 11:28h UTC today the sun reached its northernmost position, a.k.a. Solstice) we plan to enjoy the bright night to the fullest…a warm campfire, good wine and great company make it a perfect Midsummer night!
As mentioned yesterday, a new version was released for WordPress (see the changelog) and I just upgraded to v3.0. The upgrade process itself was beyond easy, it took just 1 minute with the automated upgrade process…ha, the ‘safety’ database backup process took me *much* more time.
There’s nothing much to see right away for you, blog-readers, since most of the new features are on the back-end, but I am considering a new blog-layout using some features available in the new WordPress 3.0 default theme (‘Twenty Ten‘).
Today is filled with the Magic Number 3;
It’s June 18 2010 (18.06.2010), adding up numbers this comes down to 1+8=9, 0+6=6, 2+0+1+0=3, or 3×3, 2×3, 1×3 (=3×3+3×3)…that’s a lot of three’s! 😉
I also have a problem with my blogging tool, WordPress, and I just noticed that version 3.0 is available now, which will solve all of this…how convenient!
I actually started to write this blogpost when I realized that it is June 18 today, which means that three (indeed, 3! ;)) years ago on June 18 2007 (crap, that’s again a LOT of three’s! 3×3, 2×3, 3×3 ;)), I started my new job / adventure in Norway…something I never regretted!!
And there is a Magic Three once more; it looks like I will go through a third phase in my ‘norwegian’ career (following some announcements earlier this week and a phonecall I received today).
As you might know, Lofoten is lying within the Artic Circle, an area that I always thought to be too friggin’ cold to go to, ever, period! 😉 Later I learned that this circle of latitude has not so much to do with the cold, but all with the fact that it marks the southern border where the phenomena ‘polar day‘ (24-hour sunlit day, aka “midnight sun”) and ‘polar night‘ (24-hour sunless night) occur at least once a year.
It’s my my first time this far ‘up North’ which is exciting in itself and the amazing nature of Lofoten makes everything even more special, see the pictures below!
The special thing about this last picture is the time it was taken; 2am last night!!
It must be the most Northern Birthday wish ever ‘all the way from Lofoten’!
Happy Birthday mom! Have a great day, we’ll have an extra prosecco on you tonight, cheers! 🙂
A title like this could mean many things;
That we lost the way and are not sure where we are?
That Denmark unfortunately lost its match to Holland with 2-0? (well, nothing unfortunate about that; we followed the match via an internet stream of the radio report with Jack van Gelder and cheered the orange lions to the victory! 😉 )
That change is all around and we should be open for ‘losing’ things we know and are o-so familiar with?!?
Nah, nothing of all this; I took the final Season 6 of the TV series ‘Lost‘ with us, and as we all know that means we’ll be low on sleep for some days…haha, I actually proposed to watch it until it gets dark, but that ain’t a very good idea in Lofoten with 24h light! 😉
I slept half of my first vacation day and still it didn’t feel like I lost any daytime, perhaps the fact that it is light 24h here has something to do with that! 😉 We went to see Å, a picturesque village located at the most Southern point of Lofoten that we will see (and also; å is the last letter of the Norwegian alphabet, nice to visit it on the first day in Lofoten! 😉 ).
Absolutely stunning postcard picture views of nature and the Å village; one big museum surrounded by red wooden houses (rorbuer) and drying stockfish.
An early wake up this morning (at least for a Saturday 😉 ), made it possible to spend some time in and around Bodø today, somewhat halfway our Oslo-Lofoten trip; the 1.5h flying part is behind us, and we getting onboard for a 4h ferry trip now.
Besides sitting on a terrace ‘downtown’ Bodø, enjoying a beer in the sun, we went to see Saltstraumen, the world’s strongest maelstrom! We were a bit unlucky with the tide, so no speedy water, but the surroundings were splendid!
Yeah, this feels like vacation!!
Terrific! Work is done and the bags are packed; we are SO ready for Lofoten!!
Weather is a bit on the chilly side (8 dgr), and we hope for sun, or at least no rain. 😉
After all, the sole objective of this trip is to take a picture of me drinking a beer with sunglasses on…at uhhh 3am (!!) in the night. Ha, I want to experience that 24h sun everyone speaks about, magical!
I’ve been working from our Holmestrand office today and used the opportunity to visit the new Coffeehouse there; LilleHolmestrand (apparently also the only true Coffeehouse in Holmestrand).
Well, the positive things that I heard about it are all true (shameless plug alert!); TERRIFIC coffee, great interior design, good atmosphere, chess, backgammon, and of course Siri and Siri, making the experience complete! 😉
Make sure to visit them when you’re around, even if it is only for a coffee-to-go!
When Apple has news, the whole world seems interested and up-to-date in the blink of an eye! 😉
Today was no different; it’s only hours since Steve Jobs held his keynote speech at Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference 2010 (WWDC) in which he presented the new iPhone 4, and already Google shows over 1.5 million hits on the search term ‘iPhone 4’ (and that is with a time=today customized search filter!).
So, no need to repeat all the details, as said there’re a zillion websites describing all ins-and-outs of: …iPhone 4 and iOS 4 (the new name for the iPhone OS)!! Click on any of the links in this blogpost and read for yourself, or watch Apple’s iPhone 4 video / entire Keynote presentation by Steve Jobs! 😉
Ha, that leaves me with two things;
1. a picture (below) and 2. a big: iWanna HAVE!! 😉 😉
Well, uhh, sailing…we’ve been sunbathing most of day! 🙂
We still made some nautical miles down the Oslo fjord and anchored the 46ft Bavaria and 36.7ft First in the shallow waters of Hallangspollen. Time smoothly progressed to BBQ time now; good fun in the evening sun and wine helps too! 🙂
I’m getting ready for a sailing weekend in the Oslo fjord, leaving tonight and won’t be back before Sunday!
Weather is supposed to be great for sailing; sunny and still enough wind! It’s gonna be heaps of fun; two boats, 11 friends, food, drinks…good times!
Well, well, meeting the dutch Queen Beatrix today was quite special! We didn’t really get a chance to talk 😉 , most of that was pre-arranged actually, yet it was nice to shake her hand, say Majesty and some more small words, see the arrangements around a State visit, listen to her speech, be actually amazed about her appearance (still young at 72) and obviously, checking out her outfit; dress and hat! Hehe 😉
Purple was her color today, see below:
It’s the first day of a new month and when starting it by saying ‘rabbit, rabbit‘ I’ll receive good luck for the rest of the month! Ha, that’s just what I need! 😉
HILARIOUS!
So, here we are, waiting to enter the stadium for the AC/DC concert; this place is packed, oof!! Hehe, we’re having an interesting combination this weekend; an Eurovision songcontest party on Saturday and AC/DC on Sunday! 😉
Last year we skipped the concert, so it’s extra special to be here in 2010, ROCK ON!!
Yay, I managed to still find tickets for the sold out AC/DC concert coming Sunday!! Robbert will come especially from NL for this concert, so it will be funFunFUN! We actually had tickets for last years concert, but since his father passed away days before the concert we obviously could not to go…so, it’s great that we were given a second chance this year and will see AC/DC live! ROCK ON!!!
Looking at the clip below, I am glad that we ‘only’ had snow yesterday and no hail. This is crrraaaaazy, true Hailmageddon! 😉
(especially after 1:00m into the clip!)
(found via dvorak.org)
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