raymondpoort.com

I’m packing my suitcase for yet another Tour d’Europe this week.

I’ll first be heading South, then East, a bit more to the East, back West and finally flying up North. In capital cities this comes down to Oslo – Amsterdam, Amsterdam – Vienna/Bratislava, Bratislava/Vienna – Amsterdam and Amsterdam – Oslo…yeah, I’ll be working from our Dutch and Slovak offices this week.

As always I’m looking forward to it, but having the first flight tomorrow at friggin’ 06:35h is NOT cool!! I’ll have to wake up around 04:15h, so I’ll hit the hay early tonight!

It has been snowing for two days in a row now, we’re having more than 70cm now!

Cleaning the path seems useless; you can start all over again after you finished! There’s SO much more snow compared to last year, hey, THIS is what they call winter!

Oh, and taking the car out for grocery shopping ain’t a good idea on days like this; it was slippery all the way to and from AND it took me four tries to get the car up the last and steepest part of the hill!
And nope, I’m not complaining!

Originally uploaded by raymondpoort

TGIF!!!!

So, what goes through YOUR mind when someone says “Let’s go for  a drink”?

(and let’s not generalize 😉 )

If yuo cna raed tihs, yuo hvae a sgtrane mnid too.
Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can.

I cdnuolt blveiee that I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd what I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno’t mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? Yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!

And, were YOU able to read this???

Last week I wrote ‘The Beamer is IN!‘…today I learned that not everyone is familiar with this term, and it got me wondering where it originated from.

Some poking around on the Net gave me a surprising answer; the term beamer, or beemer is not correct, I should refer to the car as ‘bimmer‘! (thanks to Yahoo Answers!)

Why?

In short; in the old days, BMW motorcycles were referred to as ‘beemers’ (track slang).

Since one obviously should not confuse cars with motorcycles, the cars were called ‘bimmers’…something not many know, but at least y’all know now!

Btw. in the German language, the correct pronunciation of  ‘bimmer’ is ‘beemer’, and that completes the circle! 😉

Yesterday I read an email/blogpost that Jason Calacanis send/posted some days ago. The piece was based on the documentary ‘We live in Public‘, telling the story of Jason’s friend, the dot-com entrepreneur Josh Harris. Iin his post, Jason describes the movie as: ‘a cautionary tale about the dehumanizing effects of technology, a somber topic that we all need to consider in the age of Facebook, blogging, linkbaiting, and, sadly, the MySpace and JustinTV suicides.’

I haven’t seen the movie myself yet, but will try to find it in a theater in Oslo (or otherwise uhh, download it…from uhh, somewhere!?! 😉 )

For now, one should read Jason’s post. It will give you some enlightment in the sudden shift in behaviour that many people encouter while turning their non-digital lives into purely digital focused lives plus the lack of empathy that seems to come with it…

I emailed Jason and told him that it is great to see him and others evolve over the years and (slowly) bringing the internet from the purely digital hype, back to our emotional/spiritual/’analog’ lives. Afterall, there is only one life, one NOW, and it’s up to us to integrate the different media and influences into it.

As I told many times before, I believe that the internet is mainly a TOOL, intended to bring us back together in order to become ONE again (trust me, it’s not as freaky as it sounds 😉 )…that’s a complete opposite to us loosing empathy and actually enlarging the gap between people.

Lastly, Jason started “empathy day” on Twitter. A pretty simple concept: say something nice to someone and put #empathyday at the end. I dig the concept…so:

I love you all! #empathyday

I reached the 100-milestone, both in Facebook friends () and Twitter followers ()!

That’s roughly one new friend a week. Not too bad, considering that I am not that active on Facebook or Twitter. It’s mainly blogging on raymondpoort.com these days, the daily posts are automatically cross-posted to the different social networks though.

Beatrix, Queen of The Netherlands turned 71 today, congratulations Majesty!

Her name is a Latin name and means ‘blessed woman’. Well, being 71 and still heading the dutch monarchy (for 29 years already!) you can indeed say she is blessed…

I saw a new dutch band called Rigby performing on dutch tv yesterday…check’em out, they ROCK!

And, they are the support act for the Kaiser Chiefs’ concert in Amsterdam February 16 2009, pretty cool!

Today marks the day that I have my iPhone for one year. Gadgets are normally not something worthy enough for a (small) one-year-celebration, but hey, this is the iPhone, myPhone! 😉 Introduced as a mobile phone, widescreen iPod and internet communications device it redefined the world of smartphones, it has had quite an impact on my online experience and the way I use the internet nowadays.

I didn’t feel the need to upgrade to iPhone 3G last year, differences were to little at the time, but I’m pretty sure to go for the next generation iPhone. The first indication that an iPhone2 is in the making surfaced the web today. It is likely to be announced/introduced around June 2009…let time fly! 😉

It was kinda hectic, but I managed, the Beamer is IN the garage!! 😉

I came back from NL early evening and had a nice surprise waiting for me; first at the airport where the car was half snowed in and consequently a similar surprise at home;  50cm of snow in front of the garage!

I’m getting used to the exercise, so I directly started shoveling. Unfortunately (or actually, fortunately! 😉 ) I had to clean BOTH the path in front of the garage AND the area next to it, all in order to make some space for MULTIPLE cars! 😉

It took took me 1.5 hours, and, a sore back again…:(

Then Willy picked me up, drove me to the workshop, and there I saw the new car…for the first time I might add! Hehe, it has been quite an experience buying a car that I never saw myself…well, what can I say, I have some great friends whom I trust till death!

And now; life is GREAT! The car looks fantastic (especially considering its age) and driving it back home was a Yippee ki-yay! 😉

We’ll have fun with this car, for sure!

Pictures of the evening are in my Flickr photostream! 😉

The search is over and the word is out; we’re the proud owner of a new (norwegian registered) car, a major step into Vikingization! Our friend Willy knew the right people and helped purchasing it. The car is currently in the workshop for its final ‘delivery service’ and I should be able to pick it up coming Wednesday evening, yay!!

Oh, it’s no Volvo as we were first looking for…instead it’s an uhhh beamer!! A 1997 BMW 520 touring to be specific, pictures to follow!

hehe, it’s ‘only’ a car, but can’t wait until it’s Wednesday!! 😉

It’s my sisters 31st and my nephews first Birthday today…they threw a party this afternoon and we sent them a postcard with a ‘sorry that we’re not able to come, hope this card brings us a bit closer to you today’…well, that was one big decoy! I was extremely fortunate that I have to be in NL for work coming week, and flying with a weekend inbetween is extremely cost-efective; a win-win situation, eh? Kristel had to be in NL coming week too, so we flew to NL last night! The end result; both my sister and mother in tears…mission accomplished! 😉

Yay, it’s weekend! About time, after yet another intense week, it wasn’t bad though, work was great and ofcourse evenings filled with Lost were addictive! Snow is coming, so I might go for another ski-trip tomorrow!

For some reason I lately receive more and more spam comments on my blog…luckily WordPress is catching them, pre-tagging them correctly as SPAM, so I only have to acknowledge  and delete them, but still…common people, this is SO 2008…find some better methods or stay away and don’t bother me, for sure I’m not gonna buy any of those products anyway!! 😉

As said some days ago; by now I turned into a fulltime couch potato…in other words; Lost Season 3 is done! 23 episodes in 5 days…pfew, a nice average, eh? 😉

And actually, Season 4 is ready to go…I’d better unwind a bit first and get away from the tv for some weeks, before starting that one!!

Yahoo! News: “The new 100,000,000,000,000 Zim-dollar bill would have been worth about 300 US dollars (225 euros) at Thursday’s exchange rate on the informal market, where most currency trading now takes place, but the value of the local currency erodes dramatically every day.”

I’m pretty sure that y’all know that the situation in Zimbabwe is out of control, already for a LONNNGGG time. The hyperinflation is breaking records, and that is not a good thing for the people (which is a huge understatement!).

Only 6 months ago, Zimbabwe’s central bank introduced a 100 BILLION dollar note, now it says it will soon introduce a 100 TRILLION dollar note! Also new are 50 trillion, 20 trillion and 10 trillion notes, which are said to be released for the “convenience of the public”..can you believe this shit?!?

Snow is falling (> 20cm as we speak) and ski conditions today proved to be good enough for a first cross country ski trip in the forest behind the house (this is basically in the backyard! 😉 ).

I have no idea if the technique was exactly as it should, but still it was a very, very nice trip through the forest…I’m sure I’ll do this more often! (actually have to too, as training for the Skarverennet race end April)

We’ve started watching Lost – Season 3  (the TV-series) tonight. Having Season 1 and 2 still in the back of my mind, it will probably turn into a couch potato the coming week. 😉

The tour around Europe from Norway to NL, Brussels, Vienna and Bratislava has been quite intense. It was a nice mix of (a lot of) hard work and enjoying life in between…all in all a very successful week.

I’m pretty knackered though and can use a good night’s sleep. Oh well, it’s close to midnight…time to zzzzzzzz!