Archive for the ‘Blog Entries’ Category

Lazy Saturday: IKEA fun and some movies

Saturday, March 13th, 2010

Wow, that has been a LONG time ago; Saturday without any plans or ‘obligations’…I’m enjoying it heaps…and we even got most of the left-over IKEA fun-stuff installed, great!

Ending this lazy day with two movies; a fairy tale (The Brothers Grimm) and some science fiction fiction (2012).

TGIF: Attention – Drunks

Friday, March 12th, 2010

Mirror.co.uk: “Desperate road safety chiefs in Romania have put up traffic signs warning motorists of drunk pedestrians. Following an increase in traffic accidents involving drunks stumbling into the road the Mayor Petru Antal ordered the signs saying ‘Attention – Drunks’ complete with an image of a reveller on his knees with a bottle.”

“We are a border town and have lots of cars thundering through here all the time…But we also have a very vibrant nightlife and the two don’t mix. We have to target the drivers because by the time they get to this state the pedestrians are beyond caring.”

Flying boat

Wednesday, March 10th, 2010

THIS is cool, hehe, I could use it for my commute; take off from the nearby lake and land in the Oslo fjord close to the office, easy! 😉

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

In Belgium

Tuesday, March 9th, 2010

It’s always nice to drive from NL to Belgium…jeez, I have driven that road (for work) SO many times that I can see my tracks on the highway! 😉

I’ll have an all-day  supplier meeting tomorrow, followed by some social activity I presume (we are in Belgium after all, better make it fun too 😉 )…so, it’s bedtime for me, nightynight y’all!

Group Study Exchange website

Monday, March 8th, 2010

Back in 2004 I have been part of a Rotary program called ‘Group Study Exchange‘. We went with a group of 4 non-Rotarians and a Rotary member and had the opportunity of a lifetime to visit Japan and stay with Japanese families! An amazing experience filled with a lot of good memories.

I had to think of it again last weekend when I prolonged the internet domain gse2004.nl for historic reasons…good times! 😉

Mouse fitness

Sunday, March 7th, 2010

Nutrition and exercise brings great achievements, also for mice! 😉

Oh, don’t stop watching halfway even if you feel like it (I can understand)…play it through till the end, it’s worth it…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7YvzrwpQxA

Happy Birthday grandma

Friday, March 5th, 2010

My grandmother is turning 90 today, so Happy Birthday to her!
A respectful age, although she is still very active and young at heart (going to the gym once a week for a workout as well as flying to Norway last summer!).
Hehe, she shows us the ultimate way for a long and happy life!

Avatar 3D

Thursday, March 4th, 2010

Finally I will see Avatar 3D, am wondering if it is really as special as ‘they’ say. I guess that if I start LARP’ing it really has been too much for me, ha!

The Annoying Orange

Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010

Hahaha, this is hilarious: The Annoying Orange…indeed, pretty annoying! 😉

Check out the The Annoying Orange YouTube Channel, packed with this stuff!

Ten Rules for Being Human

Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010

For everyone who has been wondering, wonder no longer because here they are: the Ten Rules for Being Human!!

(by Cherie Carter-Scott)

  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.

‘No Agenda’ love ;)

Monday, March 1st, 2010

Haha, I got mentioned on No Agenda #176, Adam Curry and John C. Dvorak’s podcast (which they recently called ‘Open Source Radio Show’)!

According to John, Adam was keeping track on how long the Daily Source Code was off the air for (one year and three days, patience IS a vitue! 😉 )…Adam actually wasn’t keeping track, but read my blogpost last week, funky! (no link love though: raymondpoort.com dudes! 😉 )

Have a listen below, it’s around 6 minutes into the show:

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Adam & John, I haven’t donated to the No Agenda show yet (so much for hookers & blow 😉 ), so I’d at least like to plug your show:

I recommend listening to No Agenda to everyone who is interested in an alternative view on the ‘truth behind the news’, eye opening and not controlled or censored by mainstream media…people, wake up and listen!

Skiing and a concert

Saturday, February 27th, 2010

A pretty interesting day today; I went to Romy’s Birthday at Carmen and Tore’s place in Sørkedalen, a pitoresk foresty area outside Oslo. Since it’s great to do cross-country skiing there, we did that too, and oof, was that tough; we went ‘off-piste’ through 30cm’s of fresh snow!
Tonight is a whole different play; I’m going to the DumDum Boys concert, a great Norwegian band! Hehe, another event that I consider to be a part of my integration into Norway, it’ll be good!

More snow

Friday, February 26th, 2010

While I hear that NL is having temperatures up to 10 degrees (C) these days, Norway is still in the middle of wintertime; although it is not as cold as before (only -5 to -10, warrrrmmm!), the snow came back (I guess that is related actually).

I shoveled out around 20cm last Sunday, and another 10cm this morning…we’re close to 1m snow in the garden now! And, the snow is still falling in big flakes so I see more outside work coming this weekend in order to keep the path and the area in front of the garage clean…uhhmmm, yayyyy!?! 😉

LARP

Thursday, February 25th, 2010

LARP (Live Action Role-Playing game) is where the virtual world meets realit: dress up as your favorite character and pretend you are IN the movie or game.

I still haven’t seen Avatar (!), but some people apparently love it so much that they’re larping the movie, so LARP then becomes Live Avatar Role Playing…uhhh, no comment?!? 😉

Svencouver turns into Svencrossing

Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010

Sven Kramer’s goldrush at the Vancouver Olypics has ended after he got disqualified for not switching lanes during his 10,000m race today…Svencouver became Svencrossing… 🙁

The mistake was caused by his coach Gerard Kemkers who pointed Sven halfway the race to the inner lane while he should have taken the outer lane.

The fact that Sven Kramer skated one of the best races of his life, putting everyone more than 4 seconds behind and obviously good for gold, does not count…it would have been, no, should have been the all time 100th Olympic Gold Medal for The Netherlands, and yet it is not.

Damn, it’s pretty tough to get over this for a top athlete who is training for four years for this event. And I’d say it’s even tougher for his coach Gerard Kemkers…this is not the first time that he has to swallow the disappointment of loosing an Olympic medal; he himself fell during his 10,000m race in the 1988 Calgary Olympics which cost him valuable seconds, he came in fifth and missed a guaranteed Olympic Medal…

Well, I wish both of them good luck in getting over it…hopefully they’re able to focus again for the Team Pursuit later this week.

Facebook newsfeed flooded with animals

Monday, February 22nd, 2010

I recently joined the Facebook group  ‘I dont care about your farm, or your fish, or your park, or your mafia!!!‘ after my Facebook newsfeed got flooded with updates from friends who apparently got addicted to FarmVille, FishVille, Zoo World, Mafia Wars, etc.

Today I found a way to hide these updates from my newsfeed, thank God (and Mashable 😉 )!

I will still be a member of that Facebook group though, since I think people should be smarter about what they publish on their wall, if only they would follow the instructions from Tim Baker’s blogpost for instance…

The Lost Symbol

Sunday, February 21st, 2010

…and I don’t mean Dan Brown’s last novel ‘The Lost Symbol‘…nope, I refer to the ancient Egyptian symbol for protection that Jaap and Sonja gave me some months ago; the Eye of Horus (see picture), a symbol that I really liked.

Unfortunately I lost this symbol today… 🙁

I guess it is protecting the nature around Uvdal now! 😉

Cross-country skiing pictures

Friday, February 19th, 2010

It was a be-au-ti-ful day for a ski trip; dry and -15 degrees but no wind, a lot of snow and well prepared tracks, sun allover and great company!
The pictures below speak for themselves! 😉

Fjelltur – mountain trip

Thursday, February 18th, 2010

With the snowy mountains so close by, it is very popular among Norwegians to go skiing for the weekend. This is called ‘fjelltur’ – mountain trip (or ‘hyttetur’ if you’re staying in a cottage).
Not a bad idea if you ask me, and it’s our turn this weekend; we just arrived in the Uvdal area (close to Geilo) and will enjoy both alpine an cross-country skiing the coming days, it’s gonna be funnnnn!!

First Norwegian Gold

Wednesday, February 17th, 2010

Norway just won their first Gold medal at the Olympics, Marit Bjørgen won the Cross-Country skiing Sprint, heia Norge! 😉

So The Netherlands and Norway are even now (in Gold at least) as NL already won their first Gold medal last Saturday; Sven Kramer is still on track to turn the Vancouver Olympics into Svencouver after winning the 5000m Speed Skating! 😉