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Quite some intense nights this week: yesterday out in Amsterdam, tonight Rotterdam, tomorrow Antwerpen and Sunday back to Norway…he he, I’m having a GREAT time these days!!

I’m at Oslo airport Gardermoen at the moment, flying to NL later today, and noticed a piece of ‘art’ in the terminal.

Look at the picture below…no doubt that this statue is supposed to be ‘art’, but then again…WTF!?! 😉

It has been one of those days (actually evening): leaving the office after 7pm, one of the last, and then finding my car without any battery power…even the electric door lock didn’t work! 🙁

…how was *that* possible? I had no problems in the morning, it’s around zero degrees in Oslo these days (and well above zero in the parking garage!)…and no one in the office at that time who could help me out…damn!

Luckily I’ve got the jump start cables, so the only thing I needed was a helpful driver to get the car started…well, THAT seems difficult in Oslo these days; it could be bad luck just this day, but all men in the four (!!) cars I stopped told me they couldn’t help me for some different BS reasons!! Jeezzzz, how difficult can it be to be helpful?? 🙁

It’s good that I’m a member of NAF, the norwegian ‘ANWB‘ (NL) or ‘AAA‘ (USA), they came one hour after I called them and the man got the car started within the blink of an eye! He then made me a great deal on a new, superb battery and also installed it…hey, hey, the days of a non-starting car are over, yesss!! 😉

Btw. it was interesting that the guy had an Acer Netbook fixed on his dashboard *with* a live internet connection (having his Facebook page up), hahaha…welcome to 2010, when guys helping you on the road still need to be connected to the Net!! 😉

All you ladies out there will *love* this advertisement…well, at least the first part of it! 😉

What better thing to do on a Sunday than to put together some IKEA stuff? 😉

This time some goodies from the Bestå series; a pretty flexible tv storage solution which can be customized till you drop (yes, I did spent several hours at IKEA again! 🙁 ).

Not all parts were on stock yesterday, so there is more IKEA fun expected later this week…uuhhhhh.

A new tv and a weekend without plans; a perfect moment to start watching Season 7 of ‘24‘!

He he, it’ll most likely mean that I’ll be a couch potato for a few days, finishing the 24 episodes in no time! 😉

A full day of hard work with a great team of people can move mountains…the job is done!

The complete satellite system has been built up, pre-configured, tested and currently on its way to an airport in Sweden!! It will fly out tomorrow evening and arrive in Haiti Sunday. We have an installation engineer flying also tomorrow, so everything looks good!

Again; this work and being able to do at least something for Haiti makes me proud!

These are the days that make me feel proud to work for the company I work for, despite the fact that the reason for it is a nasty one…

Some of our customers in the Humanitarian Aid and Government sectors have offices in Haiti, which makes the terrible earthquake disaster come closer. While the satellite services we deliver to them are still operational, not all organizations can use these circuits as they just can’t access their offices due to the risk of collapse!

They are therefore trying to establish alternative temporary office and obviously need communications, which means that we are currently with a team of people preparing some quick deployable satellite systems that will be sent to Haiti!

We help people help; one of the great things of working in this business.

Oof, there is a HUGE difference between the good old CRT tv and the new LCD/LED tv and I’m not talking about the next generation image quality and other options…the pictures below speak for themselves! 😉 (oh, the table is 1m wide!)

Pretty simple story:

I went to the store to check for possibilities to order the Samsung tv of my choice one way or the other…found out that there were some options to have an internet delivery, but again with some restrictions…checked out the Philips 46PFL9704 once more, which I thought would be way too expensive…did some poking on the net for competitive prices while being in the store…checked the picture quality of both tv’s as they had the Philips and Samsung (both in 40″ models) exhibited next to each other…saw the difference…got silent…decided to corner the salesman and made him make me an offer I could not refuse…and, I did not refuse…so, my new tv is the Philips 46PFL9704H/12, seriously an amazing tv: perfect quality image with its full backlit LED panel, and more, much more (he he, and I am supporting the dutch finest in the process!)…Ray’s happy! 😉

(oh, and it’s just a friggin’ tv, nice, but not all that important…really!)

Damn, I was SO ready to buy a new tv today. Did all the research I needed to do and I made my choice: the

Samsung UE46B8050 it would be!

So…hop, hop, and off were Robbert and I to the store to get it in, right? Well, not really; none of the stores had one in stock, shit!

I guess there is nothing else to do than to wait, or ‘settle’ with the LG 47SL9000, I read some good reviews on that one too, although I’m not really an LG fan.

Kristel’s father Jaap has his Birthday today…I guess that I can call him my father (in law) despite that we’re not married, since we’re together for over 19 years now…so, happy Birthday ‘dad’!

…for the right price! 😉

It ain’t all that easy these days: plasma, LCD, LED-LCD. Each with their own pros and cons.

Initially I was all in for a plasma TV, because of its great picture quality. The fact that it would be heavier and less energy efficient was not really a problem (he he, it would even heat up the house a bit more! 😉 ), but since I intend to use the TV also to hook up my Mac mini as a media center, and hope to have a PS3 soon, plasma ain’t the best choice.

LCD it would be then! Well, and there came LED-LCD ’round the corner with some good price drops…it is being put in the market as the best of both worlds; better picture quality (more contrast/warmer feeling/black is black, white is white) than LCD, and still good for gaming/computer use. And incredibly energy efficient. Hmm…

Easy choice, eh? And the Samsung UE46B8000/UE46B8050 is the model for me!

Well…I was at the Sony shop tonight and the S-guy told me all about the fake promises from LED-TV manufacturers; it ain’t full LED as there are only LEDs from the edge which causes blurry pictures when there is a lot of white and some black on the screen, the LED display would reflect too much, etc., etc. He said; go for true LCD (Sony Bravia KDL-46W5500) and I would be the happiest dude in the world! I guess he wanted to sell me something 😉 and after reading a bit more tonight, the Samsung still has my vote.

That is, unless someone has more arguments not to…in that case: leave me a comment!

Jeezzz, temperatures have dropped even more today; it was -27dgr C this morning, ooffff!

I knew that it could get cold even in the Oslo area, but this is crazy he he! It’s good that there are heaters in da house, it warms up pretty nice, and it’s great to have the car in the garage, no problem starting it today! 😉

At least this kind of weather gives some nice views…yeah, I live in Winter Wonderland!

Saturday is expected to be even colder, I’d welcome some Global Warming hahaha!

The trip of my father in law and his girlfriend to Norway has not been that smooth, at least travel wise: on the way to Norway their plane got delayed for three hours (causing them to arrive at 02:30h in the night 🙁 ), and then they couldn’t open the car which we parked for them (probably due to a frozen lock and the spare key has no infrared). Pretty hopeless and it was frrrreezing cold so a taxi brought them to our house.

Tonight they’d leave and I would drive them to the airport.

Guess what? The bimmer didn’t start, while it worked all week without any problem…we tried starting cables, but the problem didn’t seem to be battery related. Luckily the neighbor was willing to lend us her car and we were able to make it just in time; 5 minutes before closing of check-in. Pfeww!

After I came back home I decided to try the car one more time and…it STARTED at once without any problem!!!

WTF??

I don’t believe in coincidences, so why did this happen? It is as if they were not meant to come to Norway and after they stayed here for a week, they were not meant to leave…?!? Weird…

My ‘father in law’ and his girlfriend have been staying in the house since last week, enjoying the cold and snow and in the process taking care of the cats while we were in NL. 😉 Unfortunately they’ll leave tomorrow since we always have nice conversations on topics like the essence of our being and existance, spirituality, etc.

Tonight they pointed me to Nassim Haramein, researcher and founder of the ‘Resonance Project Foundation‘, a non-profit organization dedicated to the unification of all sciences and philosophies. He has pretty radical thoughts on the Grand unification theory and presents his Unified Field Theory in an 8-hour video (available in 45 parts (!) on YouTube)

I have read a bit and the Unification of all sciences and philosophies matches thoughts that I expressed years ago, amazing when I think of it and verrrry interesting stuff. It will keep me busy this week…8 hours, oof! 😉

Three years ago I wrote a piece about taking control: I became aware that I had made the first steps back in regaining control of my life and my future…quite an experience!

I am still very much aware of the importance of mastering your own life, although I also have to admit that the ‘threat’ of sliding when living everyday life in a exciting, yet stressful working environment is always there. It’s good that I am awake…and aware!

Happy New Year y’all!

Am no guy for New Years resolutions, so don’t expect them here. I believe more in New Day resolutions 🙂 …in the end, January 1 is ‘just’ another new day, eh?

Especially when you consider that half the world population (China and India) celibrates New Year on a different date!

Today is that one day in a year when we turn the imaginary page of time…page 2009 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, read and learn.

Writing things down and then turning the page also means that things can be put to rest…it’s time to go on and look towards future, something that comes naturally when you start living your life in the now, in the present…

Stefanie turns 50 tomorrow, and that means it’s PARTY time tonight! It will be a classy gala event, so everyone is dressing up…I love that!

Friends brought a special beer (Zwickelbier) on the tap…he he, I just became an official member of the Zwickel-club…yeah, it’s gonna be a great party! 😉