raymondpoort.com

Damn, I missed the ‘official’ Global orgasm Day yesterday…well, my motto; make everyday a GoD…!! 😉

I’ve spent most of today in a huge shopping center doing X-mas shopping. Heaps of fun (if it’s not lasting a FULL day ;)) and you run into all sorts of things…an elliptical trainer for instance. A tiny little bit too big to fit under the X-mas tree, but since it was 30% off and something Kissy wanted to have for a long while, so…we bought it!

I can’t avoid doing some serious indoor training now, can I? 😉

Highly fascinating; the Real-time Dot from the Global Consciousness Project. I’m still figuring it out, one thing is clear; if this Dot turns red, we’re screwed! 😉

(click on the Dot for an explanation)

My ears are still ringing from the Motörhead concert last Sunday and yet, I couldn’t resist:

I GOT TICKETS FOR THE AC/DC CONCERT IN OSLO THIS SUMMER!! 😉

It’s time for the next step into Vikingization (my integration into Norway, I’m half-way, at LEAST! ;))

I’m in the market to buy a true ‘norwegian’ car (at least, one that is registered in Norway)…ha, it’s about time to get rid of the ‘dutch’ family-car. 😉

I’m not too picky, as long as the specs match the ‘BRC’-standard (uhmm, that would be Big, Reliable, Cheap)! Something like a Volvo 740 from around 1994 orso would be good enough, anything above even better.

So, if you know a good car, lemme know!

I just upgraded my WordPress blogging tool to v2.7…it took a little bit longer than the famous 5-minute installation (or 3-step upgrade process) tells you, which was mainly due to problems transferring the files to the server (crappy ftp-client 🙁 ).

Anyway, things are running smooth now, and I like what I see so far; indeed a major UI change! Other features have to prove themselves in the coming weeks.

I’m going to see Motörhead in concert, tonight in Oslo!! Trust me, it’s gonna be an night filled with good’oll rock, Rock, ROCK ‘N’ ROLL…yeah baby!

Yahoo! News: “Six people died and at least 12 were hurt in a fire in an Oslo apartment building Saturday that prompted a tense scramble to rescue residents from windows, firefighters said.”

Damn, I was just some blocks away from that appartment building last night, staying over at a colleagues place after the Julebord/Xmas party…haven’t noticed a thing though. There’s a full report on vg.no (in norwegian).

I’ll have ‘Julebord’ at work today. I wrote a little about this tradition last year, and I KNOW it’s gonna be heaps of fun again! I won’t get much sleep tonight though…luckily I arranged a bed in the city, avoiding hassle with the nightbus back home. 😉

The new version of my blogging software, WordPress 2.7 “Coltrane”, has been released today.

I have been waiting for this upgrade for some weeks (it was initially expected mid-end November) since it has some interesting new features.

First of all, the user interface has been completely redesigned, it is now customizable throughout the entire platform with all the flexibility one could ask for. Also great is the fact that you’re able to have new versions of the software automatically installed (no more backing up and ftp’ing). And these new versions are likely expand the tool further into the social networking area, the new code has paved the path for this move according to WordPress’ founder, Matt Mullenweg. He had an interesting interview with Robert Scoble / Scobleizer talking about the latest release, check it out if you’re geek enough! 😉

Unfortunately I don’t have the time to upgrade right away, I’ll probably have to wait until the weekend…life gets in the way every now and then and these days are like that (filled only with good things, so no drama!).

PS. I didn’t forget about taking some pictures of THE Xmas tree, as said, life got in the way… 😉

Check out this YouTube clip, it’s truly amazing how fast they are able to change their clothes!!

The word of the day is: ‘selvfølgelig’.

It means ‘of course’…of course! 😉

Not an easy word to remember, since there is no relation/association with dutch, english or any of the other languages I know.

With Sinterklaas going back to Spain and Xmas coming close, tonight was THE moment to get THE Christmas tree!

Not an easy task, oh no, although some people might just come in the ‘Xmas tree shop’, pick one that looks like wood with needles, pay and leave…well, not us! Picking the right tree (aka THE tree) is a quite delicate and time consuming task. There are normally only a few trees in the ‘Xmas tree shop’ that are matching the  requirements in length, shape, number of branches, lack of any weird parts, etc)…it normally takes years for a tree to become THE tree, so finding it in a random ‘Xmas tree shop’ is merely a matter of using the Law of Attraction!

The good news is; we found him, or her…probably ‘it’ (I have to be careful here, someone told me tonight that trees have feeling too 😉 ).

Anyway, THE tree is getting time to acclimatize overnight, and will be decorated tomorrow…a picture will follow afterwards.

I LOVE this time of the year!

Yesterday’s Sinterklaas celebration was one to remember, again! Everyone got a shitload of presents, some great and funny rhymes and enough sugar treats for the remainder of 2008. 😉

After a short night we had to get up to catch the plane back to Norway, taking all the presents and some of the vacation stuff that I couldn’t take last week…AND of course my new guitar + amplifier! Quite a lot to take, and I was lucky to receive my Flying Blue Gold Wing status last week, which allows me 30kg luggage instead of the standard 20kg. My handluggage still was way too much (trolley, guitar and laptop bag), I don’t know if it was the fact that the KLM-staff couldn’t see my tired face behind the bags, or they just thought I was too tall for economy; I got upgraded to business-class!! Thank you KLM!! 😉 Even though normally couldn’t care less on a short flight like AMS-OSL, the extra ‘hand luggage’ allowance in bizz came in handy this time.

Back home, I could pick up my favorite hobby; clearing the area in front of the house from 20cm snow. It wasn’t too bad this time; with the white snow, the blue skies and the sun outside…it surely was BE-AU-TI-FUL!

I’m in a great flow of getting things done that I wanted to do for a longer time; today I bought a guitar…that’s a wish I’ve had for YEARS!

It was not easy to choose between an electric or semi-accoustic, since both have their pros and cons. In the end I decided to go for the Tanglewood TW-145 SC, so a semi-accoustic guitar to start with…it looks great, eh? 😉

Together with a Roland Cube 30X amplifier you can say I’m ready to rock!

Last year we celebrated the dutch family tradition of Sinterklaas in Norway. Despite that ‘up north’ is a pretty long way from NL, Sinterklaas (aka my parents 😉 ) passed by the house, brought some nice presents, and more important, good times.

This year we turn things around and will celebrate it at my parents place in NL tomorrow. That is one day after the ‘official’ day of celebration (which is today, December 5), and I’m sure we’re gonna have some good family times again with dad, mom, my sis/bro and their baby boys will be there

A guy goes to the supermarket and notices an attractive woman waving at him. She says hello.

He’s rather taken back because he can’t place where he knows her from.
So he says, ‘Do you know me?’
To which she replies, ‘I think you’re the father of one of my kids.’
Now his mind travels back to the only time he has ever been unfaithful to his wife and says,
‘My God, are you the stripper from my bachelor party that I made love to on the pool table with all my buddies watching while your partner whipped my butt with wet celery???’

She looks into his eyes and says calmly, ‘ No, I’m your son’s teacher.’

We already had some snow end of October, but that disappeared in the last weeks (November apparently has been rainy and not too cold)…the first new fresh snow arrived in last weekend, marking my return to Norway and last night/today things became more serious; about 20cm in the garden already and more to come. The contrast with Bali couldn’t be bigger!

Uhmm, that also means I can pick up a good norwegian tradition tomorrow morning; shoveling snow to clean up the area in front of the garage, niiiiice…

After an uneventful AMS-OSL flight and a drive in snowy conditions I came home after being gone for almost four weeks…it’s good to be back! Quite a difference in climate; coming from a nice 30+ (degrees Celcius) in Indonesia to winterwonderland and -1 in Norway is crazy! 😉

The house got pretty cold, so the heaters are ON…actually, a nice log fire is helping me out…I *love* my fireplace!

Damn, this really was my last vacation day 🙁

I just have the weekend left over from a luxurious period of 3 weeks off…time has been FLYING, a good sign, I really enjoyed it! 😉 And, I’m looking forward to start work on Monday (wow!).