Temporary stop

See the danish version at http://mit2009.wordpress.com/

Day SeventyEight

Spent the whole day at a customer site. I now introduce a fourth line in the right sidepanel; my bedtime. I sleep too little or irregular, but it is my own fault. In a small effort to help myself, then best - I think - is to accuratly and honestly note down what one does. This way you can reflect on the state and improvement, or lack thereof. Just look at what has happened to my weight - not a lot. (But then I have not changed the habits of what I eat ... yet)		Weight: 99.0 Kg
		Portions: Normal
		Sweets: Cake at customer
		Sleep: 11pm, 8 hours

Day SeventySeven

Wednesday evening we are again having our "evening class" at work (for customers). I had the first half (a little over an hour). Last December I presented at a large conferance in the UK, and I choose to reuse the presentation here. I thus needed no preparation, it was a "simple" repeat show. It went down well. The subject was about the different alphabets (english, spanish, hebrew, japanese, sanskrit, viking runes ... there are hundreds!) and how this is solved in IT.		Weight: ? Kg
		Portions: single-"plus"
		Sweets: Cake in evening

Day SeventySix

What is this strange weight. I did not gorge myself last night. Or ? Working from home. My Norwegian/London machine is back. Agreeing with the CT to lock at a Plan B implementation. I also need to worry about my presentation tomorrow at our evening arragement.		Weight: 99.5 Kg
		Portions: ?
		Sweets: ?

Day SeventyFive

Started the day with a run with the wife. I do not run any real distance, so it usually s a longish walk, interspersed with short runs. My wife could run the distance non-stop. I weighed myself carefully before and after and there was a difference of 0.7 kilos. I use (misuse?) my time with computergames, and today I thought I would use the whole day, rather than just a few hours in the evening, just to get a thorough session. My wife decided to use the day to bake bread. We had closely watched a TV cooking series with just baking bread, and now some of the good ideas were going to be tried. She enjoyed herself with that, and then we had a good leisurly bread tasting session in the afternoon. The fact that I have a day off every Monday, is not something our customers need to know. Our company has no switchboard, our cell phone numbers are public and customers call us directly. This means occasionally my Mondays are interrupted by a customer. If it is a simple question I handle it there and then, if it is longer than that I arrange for a colleague to take over. This Monday I had three of those.		Weight: 98.5 Kg
		Portions: Double
		Sweets: -

Day SeventyFour

Nice slow start to the day - helped by the wife kindly serving tea in bed. We took a trip to the exhibition center, where there was a large fleamarked. We had to concentrate on keeping up with our daughter who kept on walking so as not to loose her in the crowd. She found a nice train but her meager 100kr was simply far too little for the antique train. Sigh. We were in a cafe for some refreshments, but they somehow lost my wife's order in the kitchen. To compensate I later bought some cake from the bakers and had a nice afternoon at home. A little later the customer from yesterday (& friday) called, and I spent few hours on the computer from home and we got his problem finally fixed. So he could have weekend, too - what was left of it. :-)		Weight: 98.9 Kg
		Portions: single-"plus"
		Sweets: Cake with the afternoon coffe

Day SeventyThree

I got woken up at 9am by an SMS from my colleague of yesterday. He wanted me to be ready to take a possible followup call from the customer. My colleague had worked until 5 am, and things were working now; but just in case... of course I say yes. Customer has not called yet. Otherwise the day is spent with a long walk with the wife and daughter, doing some incidental shopping in our neighbourhood. Quite unexpectedly we got to buy two gifts for a birthday party we will be attending soon, and we got to ook at a nice but pricey wallpaper. We are having some vauge ideas about redecorating our livingroom.		Weight: 98.5 Kg
		Portions: single-"plus"
		Sweets: None

Day SeventyTwo

Got a good nights sleep yesterday, and thus woke up very tired. Contradictory I know. At work is was the quarterly meet; the CEOs tell about how well (or not) we're doing, and our way of getting through the much talked about financial crisis. We finished early, there was free beer, but most people preferred to get home. I did the grocery shopping at the store next to my office, and went home. Got called up by a colleague with a sticky problem, so I used a few hours to help him out via the phone and remote connection. Otherwise a normal Friday evening.		Weight: 98.5 Kg
		Portions: single-"plus"
		Sweets: Cake with meeting

Day SeventyOne - No Sleep

Yesterday I could not fall asleep. I "fantasize" that it is the Full Moon that is causing it. I tossed and turned, tried with warm milk, reading, music and watching boring TV. Nothing, so in the end I gave up and YouTube'd all night. Here is a fun link, it goes to their website, mentioned on their videos. There was nothing to do at work. Well, there is always mail, trying new software, reading manuals, but nothing customer related. Just as well, as I (surprise, surprise) ocassionally, and far too late, was very tired. It took a quarter of an hour to think one thought.		Weight: (?) Kg
		Portions: Double at lunch - fish
		Sweets: A handful in evening

Day Seventy

I worked at home in the morning (this way I can enjoy my tea in peace). I was at the office from 2 pm until 8pm; we have an eveningclass-event running the next 10 Wednesdays.		Weight: 98.0 Kg
		Portions: Normal
		Sweets: One sweet.

Day SixtyNine

A busy day at work. It started even as I was trying to enjoy my morning tea at home, but it wasn't too early. So I had to connect up remote to the deeply troubled customer from home and fix his problems. Managed to get to the office proper just in time to get the lunch. Left for home even though I wasn't quite finished with the next customer, but the wife was going for her evening talk, and someone had to mind our daughter (and dinner etc). Still no real problem, I just finished the work after dinner, it was about half an hours work.		Weight: 98.5 Kg
		Portions: Normal
		Sweets: A few

Day SixtyEight

The usual swim in the morning. I then made a large bowl of porridge for us two. I had a dentist appointment (continuation of last week's visit) to redo a filling from amalgam to plastic. I always choose the local anasthetic, this way I can relax, close my eyes, listen to music, whilst the dentist does her thing. After a while she taps me on the shoulder and I can close my mounth again. I bought another three DVDs from Hayao Miyazaki, so we now have 8 of his works. We watched one in the evening.		Weight: 99.0 Kg
		Portions: Normal
		Sweets: One tiny

Day SixtySeven

During the morning my wife and I take our daughter to the local school where she participates in some gymnastics group. We keep the large ghettoblaster music monster for the group at out home, as we live the closest, so that has to be carried to and fro. This meant the wife and I had a few hours without our daughter, so we went to brunch at the café. A quick call to our son, and he could fortunatly join us. My wife decided on having only a single cup of coffe, as she had had breakfast before we went out. In the afternoon some family called and invited themselves over. They brought along some homemade cake with homegrown fruit, so the afternoon was spent chatting about this and that. Dinner was my turn, and it was traditional pork roast. Minor disaster - I miscalculated the time. Although the potates etc had had enough time in the oven, the roast was too rare. The indidvidual slices thus had a quick trip in the microwave, although this makes the pieces a little soggy.		Weight: ? Kg
		Portions: Normal
		Sweets: Cake

Day SixtySix

When I got in the morning, the wife had made pancakes for breakfast. Nice. I then spent a couple of hours to clean and tidy the kitchen (had been a bit remis in doing that for a few days - it really piles up). Did the groceryshopping with my daughter, whilst the wife was at an afternoon reading in town. I have to make 5 blog entries today. I did not have the time or drive to do them in the last four days. As I can set the publish date, though, all will look nice and tidy when I am done - one entry per day. It takes about a hour to do that much. Akthough I am writing todays entry already here in the afternoon, I expect nothing significant will happen as we end up watching TV. Well, I do have to make dinner first.		Weight: 98.4 Kg
		Portions: Normal
		Sweets: Some

Day SixtyFive

At work, business as usual. It being a Friday tough, it starts with a morning meting with bread and Danish and a good chat with all. I spend too much of the day fighting connection problems, but get them solved. The net work done for the customer was marginal. I also managed to get my SQLExpressServer to work in my virtual machine, so I experiment a bit with that, too. It is a another piece of software that I need to know. At home, after dinner, I briefly go out to get some more wood for the fireplace. When I get in the wife looks disapointed - she had hoped when she heard the fonrt door open, that I was on my way to the corner store for some sweets as we lounge in fron t of the TV. Well, later i sneaked out quietly and came back with a good one and a half kilos of it.		Weight: (Didnt weight) Kg
		Portions: Normal
		Sweets: Danish in the morning; A cake with the lunch; Lots sweets in front of the TV

Day SixtyFour

To ensure my daughter is fully recovered, they are staying at home. As I get ready to say farewell, my wife and my daughter are lying in the double bed, clearly intent on having a super cosy time. Well, good for them. Back at work. Fortunatly I did not have a large backlog, so easy enough. I spend most of the day battleing some connection problem to reach a customer's machines. I don't really suceed, but it is not an urgent issue. I do briefly revisit my Norwegian/London machine for a minor adjustement and it breaks down again. Discouraging. I inform the customer that there is most probably something wrong in the network hardware and he has to get that fixed before I waste more his money. It ends up being nearly 7pm before I leave for home.		Weight: (didn't weigh) Kg
		Portions: Normal
		Sweets: A small bag at work

Day SixtyThree

The second day with staying at home with my daughter. She gets some electrolyte solution in the morning to combat the dehydration - and to my relief it does not come back up again. In fact there is no more throwing up at all, and as the day progresses she gets better and can drink and eat again, carefully.		Weight: (Cant remember) Kg
		Portions: (Cant remember)
		Sweets: (Cant remember)

Day SixtyTwo

We had to get up during the night a couple of times, as mour daughter threw up. It happens she sometimes gets an irritated stomach. Well, I did not have any particular appointments that day, whilst my wife did, so I stayed at home with my daughter. Normally it is not a problem to do that, but this day I could not do much else, apart fro being ready to leap up with bucket and aid when she threw up again. Which happened a few times. Fortunatly with each time there was less, if anything, to throw up (but that did not make it less unpleasant for her). Experience has shown us it is no good giving her anything to eat or drink while she is that way. Besides she does not want to eat or drink herself.		Weight: (Cant remember) Kg
		Portions: (Cant remember)
		Sweets: (Cant remember)

Day SixtyOne

Another morning trip to the swimminghall, though after breakfast. Then I had to go to the dentist in town. Just a checkup against potential paradentose with some ultrasonic cleaning of the teeth. I spent some time shopping afterwards and ended up buying a stack of DVDs. Amongst them 3 films to complete our collection of Hayao Miyazaki. On comming home we watched Castle in the Sky.		Weight: (Didnt weigh) Kg
		Portions: Single
		Sweet: A couple of cookies

Day Sixty

The wife and I decided for an early swim at the swimminghall before breakfast. Then followed a little household chores, and I took a few hours extra with shuteye. As we were expecting a visit we bought a bunch of Danish Pastries. Our visitor came and went, we picked up our daughter and it was a normal evening.		Weight: 98.4 Kg
		Portions: Single
		Sweet: Several danish

Day FiftyNine

Saturday without our daughter. In the morning some daily grocery shopping, then the bus to see the movie. A cosy lunch in town. Then home, where I made dinner. I tried to do some chinese SweetandSour Pork, using the deep frier and batter. It was OK, need to adjust the vineagre in the sauce next time.		Weight: (not weighed) Kg
		Portions: Single
		Sweet: A few

Day FiftyEight

Got to work early, so as to participate in the friday morning office "breakfast" (some bread with cheese or marmelade). Finally cracked the problem with the Norwegian/London machine, just before lunch. Missed lunch, but had a couple of hours work at another customer, on site. Our daughter was given a lift to were she will spend the weekend. The wife and I bought a couple of movie tickets to a new film (Men who hate women) which we will see tomorrow at noon. Otherwise the evening was spent in front of the computer and TV.		Weight: 98.4 Kg
		Portions: 4 stuffed Pitabreads
		Sweet: filled chocolate pieces with the evening coffe

Day FiftySeven

Sometimes I think I should title each entry "Night FiftySeven", instead of "Day ...". Worked from home in the day, just in case I needed to have a short nap or rest. The wife came home early, so I took a long-ish lunchbreak and we went for a walk and had lunch at the 3rd of our local cafés. In the evening there was a mail about a old/ex-employees at Oracle, where I have worked, meeting at a not to distant pub. I read the mail too late, but I threw myself on my bicycle and ended up having a nice evening talking to old nearly forgotten colleagues.		Weight: 98.0 Kg
		Portions: Normal
		Sweet: None

Day FiftySix

Had a bad night with stomach- and head-ache. Slept until 4 pm..

(no data)

Day FiftyFive

Work: An hour long visiting a customer in town, the rest of the working day at home. Home: The wife was to have been away all evening, but she came back early, as the presenter at the talk she was going to did not turn up. Just a quick coffe drink at late evening at the other local café.		Weight: 98.3 Kg
		Portions: Normal
		Sweet: None

Day FiftyFour

The usual visit to the local swimminghall. This time we rode on the bikes as the weather was OK for that, although cold. A bit of daily grocery shopping, a visit to the local café, otherwise again - easy life. I made dinner.		Weight: 98.0 Kg
		Portions: Normal
		Sweet: None

Day FiftyThree

In Denmark this the day of Festelavn where kids put on costumes, and bash the hell out of a small barrel, which contains sweets to be collected on the utter destruction of the barrel. So I attended the neighbourhood arragment for that with my daughter. The kids may also go from house to house and trick-or-treat, but we did not do that. Otherwise a leisurely Sunday. Baked some bread. Had a small walk. Did fun things with the computer. Made dinner.		Weight: 98.5 Kg
		Portions: Normal
		Sweet: Cake at the Festelavn

Day FiftyTwo

A plain Saturday The wife was out to the movies and dinner with friends. My daughter and I had a very late and large lunch at the local cafe, so we skipped dinner, except my son who was happy with warmed up leftovers. In the late evening he started the deepfrier and made some chips himself, sort of as an experiment. It worked, they were a little to brown, but next time he'll tweak the temperature and time to get it better.		Weight: 98.5 Kg
		Portions: Normal
		Sweet: None

Day FiftyOne

A whole day spent at the problem mentioned yesterday. Progress. Now (yes, this late) I have to mail a long report of things tried, results, hours used and so on. At our spot here in Denmark we've now had our yearly week of winter, i.e, snow. This means shoveling the few centimeters from the pavement outside our house in the morning. It also means the fireplace gets used and it feels supercosy.		Weight: 97.8 Kg
		Portions: Double both at lunch at evening
		Sweet: Friday - cake for desert

Day Fifty - Already?

So, already 50 days of the year have elapsed, and I have achieved nothing significant (yet). At work is was not a nice day. I have a project that is almost stranded in technical difficulties. I had to spend most of the day writing mails and status reports, but success; the customer feels he is in good hands, and I get another shot at cracking the problem.		Weight: 98.3 Kg
		Portions: One
		Sweet: Someone gave cake at work

Day FortyNine

Whilst on route to the office, got a call that diverted me to custome who had an immediate need to check on his system. Spent most of the day there. At home, after dinner, had a short walk with my daughter to the local café.		Weight: 98.5 Kg
		Portions: One, plus
		Sweet: Nope

Day FortyEight

Plain day at work. Wife was out in the evening at an evening class.		Weight: 98.9 Kg
		Portions: One
		Sweet: Nope

Day FortySeven

Svimminghall in the morning, 1 km (20 lengths). Baked bread with the wife at home. An hour walk in the park in the falling snow. Cosyness all round. On Mondays, too, I usually make dinner. Fortunatly there was still plenty left from yesterday, so I only had to make a fresh supply of potatos and a salad, the rest just needed warming. So what is this with the weight?! It just shows all eating and nothing to counter it is not good. I will introduce another "fact"-item to the right: the portion. Did I stick with one serving or go overboard?		Weight: 99.2 Kg
		Portions: Nearly two
		Sweets: (Too much marmelade?)

Day FortySix

Spent the morning at a board meeting for my daughter's organization. In a couple of weeks, at the next general meeting, I will retire from that post. The afternoon was spent dazing in front of the TV, and a nap or two in the sofa. We were supposed to have guest this evening, who had to cancel due to illnes. On Sundays I usually make dinner, and I had prepared a large but simple "meat&potato" meal. The (expensive) rare roastbeef was so tender - well worth it!		Weight: 98.4 Kg
		Sweets: A cake with the coffe

Day FortyFive

Today it is my wife and my 24th wedding anniversary. We did not do anything special - except smiling warmly to each other, and thinking of what we will do on the big 25th next year. We were to dinner at and with family. We have a large European Cooking book, where we take turns to invite to dinner for a chapter. This evening the theme was Italian. There were 3 courses and a dessert. One of my brother in laws was on visit, too. He, too, is technical-minded, so we talked about such things until late in the night. (Forgot to weigh myself this morning, thus the "?"-mark)		Weight: ? Kg
		Sweets: Dessert

Day FortyFour

I arrived late at work today. It is one of the fringe benefits of flexible working hours. I value that a lot. In the afternoon I had an incident. I had adjusted the disk configuration of the system I worked on and after a reboot I could no longer connect to it. The problem is the machine is a long way away (at least an air trip to abroad) so I have to wait until whoever can go to the machine's local terminal and correct the error. In the meantime, it is weekend :-) At work I also renewed my membership of the "Old Men and Mobile Phones"-club. This happens, quite automatically, when you turn up at work and have forgotten the mobile at home. We do not have any other office phome system, so it does limit one a bit. "Sweet:Desert" - What is that in the sidebar? Well, it does have an effect whether you loose weight or not. If I have had a bag of sweets, a cake with the afternoon tea, or a dessert, then it is noted as a "minus point" for the day. I will do so from time to time - after all I am not on any diet. But it must not end up something I do every day. Thus it is noted here. There will be a bad day tomorrow in that sense - long dinner on a family visit.		Weight: 97.9 Kg
		Sweet: Desert

Day FortyThree - 99½ !

I was on the scales recently, weighing myself. I do not do that often these days. I know I am "little" over my ideal weight. What might be called "heavy", "chubby", "fat", "overweight" or downright "obese". I know, I know. Our scales is a proper model, where you push the counter weight around until it balances. It is very sensitive and accurate. It balanced at the depressing weight of 99-and-a-half kilograms. I have always said a three digit weight is too much. I have got to pull myself together on this. This morning it showed a slightly better weight of 98.7. The loss is probably due to the late night yesterday, where I had missed dinner. I think one kilo swings are expected, dependning on whether I have been to the toilet or dehydrated due to too much coffe. In my opinion, claims like "I lost 200 gram yesterday" are therefore rubbish. But the trend of the curve is vital, and from now on must be downwards. This blog is not to turn into another "slimmers dairy", but to keep my motivation high, I will put the daily weight in a sidebar of each entry. I have plans for other realted stuff, but all in good time. To give myself an easy start, I'll use the heavy weight from a couple of days ago as the starting point.

Weight: 99+ Kg

Day FortyTwo (42)

The number 42 has a very particular meaning to me. So this blog entry should be full of deep and philosophical comments. Unfortunatly I worked all day and half the night yesterday, so I dont have the time/energy for it now.

(Actually, I cheated; this entry was written the day after, the 43rd)

Day FortyOne

A lousy nights sleep, and little of it, too, for no real reason. Drat, that means I am "low" on sleep again.

In the morning I made a weak attempt to move some of the wood. Of course I knew I could not finnish it before I had to work (whether at home or at the office), and it is not because we have any defined meeting time, but rather, the customer is waiting for his job to be finished.

In the office the whole day was spent battling a Linux RedHat Rawdevice udev issue ... good thing I decided to be at the office today, as several colleagues could assist in cracking this (minor?) problem.

Back at home, the good wife had finished moving the wood. :-)

Day Forty

Woke up arund nine-ish - that's twelve hours of sleep. Nice.

Spent the day at home, interrupted by the daily shopping and such like. Despite it being my day off, I did work a little for a customer (the internet has been invented), it sort of fitted nicely into the day, this time.

In the evening at a spanish "Tapas style" resturant that was quite cosy (as was the company).

When we got home the wood for the fireplace had arrived, in a standard 2meter high wooden frame. We just hoped it would not rain (too much) during the night, and move the wood piecewise to under a roof tomorrow.

Day ThirtyNine

Got a litte too late to bed yesterday, because I just wanted to have one tiiiiny little game before I turned in. I got up around 10:30 am this morning and had then slept about 5 hours.

Three of us went to the Zoological Museum (part of Copenhagen University). So did a lot of other people, especially with small (preschool) children, so we decided to try again some other day. Instead we went to a local bowling hall for a quick hour.

Afterwards a short café visit, and the rest of afternoon/evening was "just" at home. It is now around nine o'clock and I am going to bed.

Day ThirtyEight

Late morning, a very short exercise run - my head was heavy like a headache, dont know why.

The afternoon was spent at the Louisanne museum with the wife for four hours. In the evening we first watched a french DVD, an ordinary love story, I din't quite watch it, and then with my son we watched the spoof/sendup version of "300", "Meet the Spartans" to great amusement.

Day ThirtySeven

A slow day with almost no work at work (everything waiting for something) except for an awkward meeting with a customer where we had to decide how to finish off a project that wasn't going to finish in the forseeable future.

My daughter is at her "away place" for this night so the rest us are just relaxing, at home. A simple DVD with snacks evening. Just seen "Knocked up" and will see another one shortly.

Day ThirtySix

Worked from home today. That means peace and quiet for breakfast (after the others have left) and I got done what needed doing. Gave my self a small treat of one (1) coffe (instead of the usual 5-8 cupsat the office) and some fresh air at our local café round the corner.

This evening saw the last episode of "Green Wing" on the DVD set I got for christmas (from myself), and my wife and I laughed a lot. I am confused however, as I remember a rather different ending to the series when watching it on TV.

Not playing any computer games tonight, this means I will be in bed <gasp!>BEFORE midnight.

Day ThirtyFive

Ordinary day at work with some meeting, and nothing happened at home either. Oh well, we did get the new router and it has worked with error for several hours now.

And it is wayyyy to late - several hours past midnight. (Yes I have cheated on the "published date" for this entry)

Day ThirtyFour

Got to bed a little to late (again) yesterday. This is something I think I will blog a little more about. I am speculating whether to add some "threads" to this blog, where one is the "daily" as it has been until now, and another physical and emotional wellbeing or "caretaking" thread. Maybe some otherstuff, too.

Today was a simple day. Normal work, mostly with the remote Norwegian machine in London.

At home, the wife was out for the (early) evening at an evening class/lecture on danish architecture. Us remaining at home decided a quick takeaway pizza would be a good solution to the dinner problem.

Day ThirtyThree

Up in the morning and call the drainage company. "We will send a man around some time later today". Great they could come the same day, not so great I have to wait the whole day.

In he swimminghall, I managed to do one kilometer. Just as we got home and were thinking about the breakfast, the drainage guy arrived. He flushed and rinsed all the drain wells, and now it flows freely again, and that should be that. Of course, need to keep an eye on the drain well, and maybe in the summer I could dig it up and get a new one put in place.

Then I remembered to call the ISP Support. Bit of a wait on the telephone, though not bad, only a quarter hour or so. I briefly described my problem, and the conclusion was quick and simple; They will send a new router, my one is getting "too old". So on Wednesday or so.

Lastly I ordered wood for the fireplace. It is quite expensive, I think it is roughly the same as the district heating costs, to heat the house. On the other hand it is very cosy :-) ! When it is below zero and windy outside, then my radiators can not cope, and the house doesnt heat up proper. It is not "tightly" insulated, a bit of draught so we pay more for the heating than we should. On the other hand we do not have "stuffiness" or damp problems in our home.

Day ThirtyTwo

An even more "busy" Sunday. We were going to have a visit of an American university student. (They take a term here in Copenhagen and some have opted to have a Danish family to visit). Easy enough, we have had some student live with us a few years ago, so we knew roughly what to expect. We had mailed we would serve a typical Danish lunch (smørgåsbord). This had to be bought and served, and the house needed a "little" tidying, too. Fortunatly, although shops normally are closed on Sundays, the first Sunday in the month is the exception to that rule, so shopping the ingredients was without stress. And that is the great thing about guests - you get a clean and tidy living room.

The visit went very well, we had pleasant lunch and talked a lot.

For a change and challenge I tried to make dinner, porkroast, in the tiny oven that is part of our fireplace. It did not work, I had to use the microwave to get the meat done properly.

I was just sitting down to write this days blog entry, and note that the support guy from the ISP probably was right as the internet connection now was stable .. and the router died there and then. And came back again. So tomorrow, Monday morning, I will call a sewage company. Because, today, also, there was water in the cellar and one of our drain wells seems to be blocked. Fortunatly it only is the one from the kitchen, so there was no shit stench. I will of course also call the support line of the ISP. One of the good uses of a non-working workday.

Day ThirtyOne

[This is the real ThirtyOne]

A "busy " Saturday. Got woken up by the wife, when she returned from her morning exercise run, a little after nine o'clock, where I jumped out of bed to call the ISP to get the problem of yesterday sorted out. I guessed they would exchange the unit (it is theirs after all) but the support guy just went ahead with a total reset and reconfigured it. I could just call again if it did not help. Hrmph.

My daughter was going to bowling with a few of similar kids so my wife and I drove her there at 11 o'clock. Then we had a few hours until 3 o'clock for the pickup again. So we went to a new(ish) shopping centre in the arfea (Spinderiet) for a brunch, then onwards to a small(ish) conferenace centre where there was a "Wellness Exhibition". This consisted of near-touch healing, stones with energy, and biodynamic-cosmic cremes or herbal teas and such like. I bought on small stone for 10 DKK .. it was pretty. We also manged a quick rush through a supermarked for some evening meal stuff prior to picking up our daughter. They said she scored best.

Back at home, I had to spend a few hours to reconfigure the router with my choice of securty setup, MAC adresses, NAT passthrough and that sort of stuff, that got lost during the mornings reset (and which he forgot to mention). It is also is usually my day to make dinner. I then realized I had gotten a few days behind in my blog so that is what I am doing whilst the TV drones on behind me with the National Grand Prix song contest to decide who will represent Denmark for the European final.

Day ThirtyOne (Thirty)

[This belongs to Day Thirty]

Rise and shine at 5.20 am. Actually I had slept a bit irregulary, probably worried I would miss the alarm clock? Into the car for the "short trip", arrived well in time at 9.05 am. No queues or other hinderances on the motorways, even though I passed the "three point area" (3 towns in east Jutland) during rush hour.

The work went well. First a little consulting about this and that, then a "firedrill" (see if the backups actually were usefull in restoring the database). We finished ahead of time, just around lunchtime. So after lunch they had "a small intriguing question". Yes, the question was small and on appearance easy - but it proved very intriguing indeed! The solution when I finally found it (after a good hours work with plenty of aids from a few colleagues via mail and phone) was just one small command, and the problem went away. I learned a new feature/trick of Oracle that day.

2.48 pm in the car, homeward bound, arrived 6.30 pm (occasional queues and congestions on the motorway)

At home a minor catastrophy awaited - the internet connection was gone. Either the router had given up or a fault elsewhere in the central. I twiddled with the obvious things, and after a half hour the line was up. All well. A few hours later it dropped out again, came back a while later ... Unfortunatly the support for the ISP was closed for the day.

Day ThirtyOne (TwentyNine)

[This belongs to Day TwentyNine]

Yesterday, some of it in the evening, I had composed a largish mail detailling all the missing prerequisites for the Norwegian machine in London. They replied immediatly, that this would take them time to answer, so the rest of the day I was just treading water. Went home early, as I was to visit a remote customer next day (almost 4 hours drive each way).

Thus the amount of twiddling with the computer or anything else was limited in the evening, and I went to bed early. So early I forgot to blog, actually before 10pm and that was a record early night this year.

Day TwentyEight

Another Quite Ordinary Day.

My main item at work today was a complex installtion done remotly on a machine in London for a company in Norway whilst sitting in Copenhagen. In the afternoon I finally got the access codes and could start checking the machine for prerequistes prior to installing. Nothing accomplilshed all day, in other words.

Well, dinner was a non-happening, too; we had "eat what you find in the fridge". Normally we have proper sit down dinner for the four of us. There are three potential cooks in the household (unevenly divided) but on some days, nobody can be bothered. Besides, the leftovers have to be eaten some time before they grow hair.

Found an update that needed to be put on my router after the increase in download speed. The ISP company had sent the info to an OLD mail address I checked almost by accident. The patch was put on and now it should be full speed ahead on the internet highway.

Day TwentySeven

A normal working day, a normal evening at home.

Some of my colleagues mentioned they had problem with their internet connection at home (sponsored by our company to enable 24 hours service to our customer). This was due to the download speed had been increased from 8Mb to 20Mb. Nice, but that also explained the occasional dropout I had been obeserving on my home machine. I thought it was some minor flaw in my new machine, but this explanation fitted the bill. This did not explain how to get rid of the problem, however.

Day TwentySix

The day began with the swimming hall, with the wife and son. Afterwards a stroll in a shopping mall. Bought two brightly coloured shirts. Nothing really happened today, but that is the point of the free Mondays. Work tomorrow.

Oh, yes, the dinner. Had to throw the porkchops out, as they smelled bad when being fried. We had fried eggs instead. The porkchop were within their dates on the label, but I trust my nose more.

Day TwentyFive

An even layzer start on Sunday than Saturday yesterday. Some of us pottered around in dressing gowns in the morning, no formal breakfast, just a bit of sunday paper reading and ditto internet.

The afternoon was spent at my wife's aunt for lunch, which ended about five'ish. Unusually my son had agreed to come along because it was "just lunch". He is not a fan of familiy gatherings, as we just talk talk talk. Around four o'clock his patience had been used up, and he left to take the trip back home with public transport. It being Sunday (longer intervals between each bus/trains) and that the trip being "across" the normal radial pattern of the routes, meant that we arrived home in the car before him. He was NOT pleased, when he arrived, and it will be some time before he will come along again. Pity, but he is grown up enough to decide for himself.

Today is my brother's birthday and he lives far off (16 hours drive according to the GPS) so we usually indulge in an hour long telephone conversation about life and anything else. I just finished that one. Yes it was late, and I barely made it before the day was over, but that is part of tradtition, too.

Day TwentyFour

Saturday - lazy start, my daughter managed to lie in bed until 1pm! Did the grocery shopping with her. I cooked two soups (one vegetarian, mostly for my wife, one with sausages) and then we sort of vegetated in front of the flat screen(s), i.e tv and computer.

Day TwentyThree

Another simple working day with a very short revenue earning engagement - a review of a customer's design of a system. Otherwise talking to colleagues, helping them.

At home, after dinner, three of us went to a local café where we played a few rounds of a cardgame; "Donkeys Game".

Yes, definitly what could be called an ordinary day.

Day TwentyTwo

Short two hour talk with a customer about software migration (it aint easy or without pain = costs money) and then catchup on ordinary office workstuff.

At home, the wife had been to an evening parent meeting outlining some of the future occupational possiblities for our special needs daughter, and they are not cheerful.

Day TwentyOne - a chance encounter

Today work involved doing the last of the three day course, I've mentioned a few times or days ago. This course is held at the customer site. Went there with bus and subway, rather than the car, in particular as I managed to get out of the home at the scheduled time. While I was changing between the bus to the subway, I saw my wife bicycling past! We just managed to wave to each other. Neither ofus had thought of that today our routes intersected.

On the way home I bought flowers. Not of any other reason than that I was happy seeing here, unexpectedly, in the morning. And she is lovely.

Day Twenty

Not a lot to blog - went to work, came home.

Day Nineteen - including Cheese and GPS

The normal "run" around the lake with my wife. Unfortunately, I get a pain in my right knee after 500m or so, and have to walk the rest (with a few pathetic attempts to run a little every now and then). That the knee has been going on for some time, is only by race. My wife takes a different path to do running on her own. She is probably about 23 times better at running than me. That left me taking a minor detour past the bakers to pick up some fresh bread for breakfast.

Otherwise, I used most of the day at ... yes, you guessed right! ... twiddled with the computer. It is now as good as complete. The challenges were to put old mail accounts back, even though it is a new machine, and this is not webmail but a normal pop3 client. In addition, I want that large amounts of data (documents) is on the D drive, not C drive. Tricky for the shared documents. Last, but certainly not at least, when reusing a data disc and reinstalling with new accounts, the ownership has to be adjusted i safe mode.

The work was briefly interupted by the normal shopping, which for a change we did in our immediate neighborhood (no need to use the car) and thus included buing the cheese in the chees shop. This cheeseshop is NOT liek the (in)famous one from Monty Python - rather the shopkeeper keeps urging us to buy more :-)

We also bought a new GPS for the new car, it ended up with a Navigion 2110Max. We will see how it works tomorrow. It has worked out where I live :-)

In the evening we lit up up the fireplace - there was some sad remnants of the Christmas tree still in the livingroom, and we "de-installed" it with a garden shears and fed the fire with that. Cosy, and definitely 100% recycle and CO2 neutral.

Day Eighteen

So far, a normal (sun)day, and yet:

This morning the wife and I went to the swiminghall, and got 30 minutes exercise, followed by lazy wallowing in the sauna, and likewise doing very little when we got home.

I am reinstalling Windows on the new machine, this time with a danish version. The wife fetched our daughter, and now they're on a quick nip down to the local café, and I'll join them shortly.

While the big machine is digesting one CD after another with windows, drivers and programs, I am writing these lines on the laptop. The evening will be busy enough, I am cooking, so I thought I'd write this days blog now (afternoon)

By the way, should any of you have set up RSS feeds, then I appologise now, as I will be doing minor edits to the previous 5 days to remove various typos, thus possibly confusing your download.

Day Seventeen - Movie real life incident

[This really is Day Seventeen]

In the morning, close to lunch time than breakfast, my wife and I drove our daughter to her weekend stay (which was only one Saturday night, this the first time) and then we were sort of "free". We took a walk in the shopping center, just to look but ended up spending 1000kr some cookware, a sweater and a new lamp for the enterance with low energy light bulbs.

In the evening we went to the cinema and saw "The day the Earth stood Still". In the middle of the film, after we had seen how the extraterrestials could stop all electrical power in civilization, everything went dead in the cinema! The emergency lights came on, and after a while the normal room lights. I think the film simply broke, but for a brief moment it was an exciting mix of movies and reality! Five minutes later the fault was fixed and the movie continued.

Day Seventeen (Sixteen)

[This belongs to Day Sixteen]


It was the alarm clock that got me up that morning, not before (as was planned). Moring and getting off was "normal". Safely arrived at the office, I miss my wallet (with the drivinglicense and all that stuff). Sadly, I'll need it when I probably have to do a little shopping on the way home. I needed to discuss some stuff with a colleague, so I suggest we keep our little meeting in my car while I take a quick round trip home. I somehow manage to forget my PIN of the petrol card when I needed to fill up the car, so another round trip home to find the letter with the PIN code. At least we got to talk about all that needed work, so all this whimsical driving around did not wast any time.

The main work of today was to use some 10-15 years old software to move data from it to newer systems. Actually quite a challenge, but there was two of us to guess our way thorugh the old menus. It was a well-deserved "Thank God its Friday"-beer at the day's end.

At home an ordinary Friday night.

Day Seventeen (Fifteen)

[This belongs to Day Fifteen]

Because of I was early in bed the night before, I woke early. Instead of just turning round and sleep on, I decided to stand up, make the kitchen completely clean, and then look a little more at the computer problem. Found out how to get the sound come out of the front jacks, but then it would not disable the rear jacks. It could live with that, but on the front there was only sound on one channel, so the front panel has a fault (and probably that fault is also the reason that it can not switch between the front and rear) Back to the shop on Monday.

Managed to make some morning tea and servers it to the wife as she got up. After a short but refreshing shower, I could start Day Two in my course (continued from day thirteen). I got out of the door a bit late, was further delayed in traffic, and when I arrived at the guest parking I saw the last slot being taken. So I had to drive around a little in the area (Christianshavn in Copenhagen) but was lucky to find a place not too far away and could then begin the course "only" an hour late (not something to be proud of).

Was there some more fiddling with the computer that night? Yes, a little, very little. I thought: another early evening and then I could do more in peace and quiet in the early morning, and therefore went to bed early (and forgot to blog).

Day Seventeen (Forteen)

[This entry belongs as day forteen]


Although I wrote "early to bed" on the 13th, I ended up "testing" computer a few hours more. In the morning I had to drive to an hour southbound to a customer. Completed the task at to o'clock so I drove directly home. There is always a lot of work e-mail to read and respond to.

In the evening there was a meeting of the firm's Senior Club. If you are over 50 you are enrolled mandatorily. We have many other clubs in the company: beer, wine, gadgets, running, diving, poker ... those I can think of for now. The company sponsors a little comfort (food and drink). We work away from the office a lot, so the clubs provide the opportunity to meet and keep the company spirit. The Senior Club, by virtue of its membership, ensures that our "gray gold" (= experience) remains in the company.

I also twiddled a bit more with the new computer, now that it had received a new graphic card and everything was tested in the shop yesterday. I could not get sound out of the front jacks, although it had worked in the shop. This frustrated me some (I am not thaaat stupid!), and resulted in a bit of friction in the mood of the living room and ended that day (and the reason why I did not Blog that day)

Day Seventeen (Morning)

Seems I have gone to bed too early the last days, i.e. without first writing down the daily blog.

tch tch ...

So here I am trying to decide whether to use the "adjust blog day"-feature to make the entries appear in the correct day, or to be honset and enter everything under today.

(edit in the evening: I decided on one entry per day, though all under Day Seventeen)

Day Thirteen

Yesterdays computer test went on and on - 3D graphics, need a game, ended up getting caught up in the play, bed at 3am. Machine kept working fine though :-) !

This morning off to do a whole days teaching, fortunatly only two students, but I do it purely "hands on" and without Powerpoint "safety-net" so I had to stay awake. As I really like doing sort of stuff it wasn't hard, both the teach and staying awake.

The afternoon evening I managed to buy two USB sticks and a letterbox and dash home for tools, and meet my obligations from Day Five at the communitygroup's place.

A good day, all in all. Bed time now.

Day Twelve

Monday, where I do not usually work. A few things were accomplished or happened all the same.

I got a hair cut. Tomorrow and a few days on, I'll be teaching a few bank people the joys of the SQL-language, and it is best to be properly attired when in the HQ of the bank.

My daughter was taken by us to look at a place run by the county services where she can spend a few days a month away from home. She requires quite a bit of attention, so this arrangement is to give us parents a few days of peace. She seemed quite thrilled and is looking forward to next Saturday. So are we.

Then I got a call that the computer was fixed (see Day Two, earlier). It was not as bad as feared, "only" the motherboard had been changed. On taking it home though it showed the same error symptoms. I managed to get back to the shop 15 minutes before closing time. The kind and energetic servicetechnician tried to fix it immediatly. After a while he claimed it was my graphics card. I disagreed as the error symptoms were more than just graphics. We agreed I take it home and run it for a while, with an older spare graphics card I had. This is what the machine is doing now (the blog editing is done a seperate laptop).

Day Eleven

Sunday, easy going. Three of us went to the swimming hall. Spent more time in the sauna and showers than in the pool swimming. I dont like the fact that I only did 6 lengths (and they're short) and I didnt feel like doing that many more. In other words, I am getting too, way too much, unfit, or too comfortable. Hmmm...

(P.S: I just spell corrected most earlier entries. Sorry for those of you using the RSS feed (and my illusions of grandeur!) )

Day Ten

Happy Anniversary! The 10th entry. Yeah, spontaneous celebrations in the streets will probably not occur . :-)

While enjoying the breakfast, I was browsing YouTube on the iPod Touch and came across this. I am fascinated by the biochemistry of the bacterial flagellum as well as the wonder, and I like the intellectual debate(s), although I have firmly chosen my side. Fascinating that Nature/Evolution/Chance did not "choose" the rotary movement in multicellular animals.

The day has been an ordinary Saturday, punctuated by a quick visit to a neighbourhood cafe with my daughter and a family friend, shopping, and viewing Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium with my daughter.

Day Nine - DVD movie

Another ordinary day (but that is the point abbout this Blog, right?)

We rented KungFu Panda. It amused me. I watched the English language version (I live in Denmark) and that is what I really like about DVDs - you can choose the language and subtitle. I prefer to watch films with their original sound, and only with subtitle if I cannot understand it (French for example). Subtitles are usually a bit ahead, and ruin the timing of comedy or suspense. Additionally if I do understand the language (typically, on TV an English film will have Danish subtitles) then I can't stop myself from checking the translation, and thus get distracted from enjoying the story told by the movie.

Day Eight - Tired

Tired. Last night after the party, possibly because I had eaten too much (but very little alcohol, I was driving home) I just could not sleep. Lay awake all night. So today I left work early, snoozed a bit on the sofa, and I am to bed now. ZZzzz...

Day Seven

It just went past midnight and I've just gotten home to enter the blog ... so this entry unfortunatley is registered under the 8th when it actually belongs to the 7th. Drat. I would like to make a blog with one entry for each day, no more, no less. Edit: I just discovered I can "fix" the date published - that is slightly cheating, but ohhh so convenient here :-)

Otherwise, it was an ordinary working day. A bit busy (like: very busy) and the evening was a social but company related dinner at the CEOs home with a few select (=high seniority) employees. Whilst we are a young company, less than 10 years, the average age of those present was pushing 50. Still, we wanted to remember our early beginnings so a young and recent employee - relatively speaking - was required to take notes for a sort of Company History Book, lest we ancients start to forget.

On a side note - the problem with my daughter from yesterday: There was absolutely no problems this morning. I think she had regretted her behaviour of yesterday. Well, we can all have a time when things just get "too much".

Day Six - Troublesome morning

First day at work of the new year. I was delayed a few hours at home, but fortunately for me, my workplace is not interested in "hours present at my desk", but has other targets.

The delay was caused by my daughter who simply refused to get up or go to school. It was just a show of strength (rather than something unpleasant at school that was to be avoided, I think). So I spent a good hour of gentle persuasion - after the previous half hour with commands and loud voice. She got to school an hour late, but in a good mood, as opposed if I had forced her.

At work there was just a small mountain of email. Some it was cleared from home during the holidays. Only the junk mail, anything resembling work was quickly put back in the Inbox. Well, that needed reading and some action now. Discovered a couple of forgotten issues from before the holiday ... ouch. So now I am close to double booked for the next two weeks. Let's see how that goes.

Day Five

Although Monday (and the first one of the year) I did not have to go to work. On the other hand, I had to go to a board meeting for an association or community care group. It is real strange with these posts of responsibility; they only take a few hours a month, yet it feels like a heavy burden. Doubly strange, because I am a member for the good cause, and I want to help out, and the problems they have are, "well, it will only take a minute or two".

Tonight I volunteered to the minutes of the meeting, purchase and fit a new letter box, buy some minor computer accessories and help, or teach, another member of the board how to update the association's webpage.

Well, I better get on with writing up the minutes of the meeting.

Day Four - Yesterdays sofa hunt

Today very little has happened - it is Sunday. Actually right now it is that time of the day/week so well described by Douglas Adams in [ it is either the Dark Teatime of the Soul or in The Holistic Detective Agency .. I'll find the quote and update this post ] about Sunday afternoon at 3'ish where Time itself simply stops for a few hours.

Spent yesterday with the wife looking for a new sofa. 9 out of 10 sofas have the very same look, a look we do not want. Square, with loose pillows for the back. We went through five furniture stores and I guess we looked at over 100 sofas. So there were about 10 candidates, but most failed instantly on a short sitdown in them.

We've found one sofa that we might buy but it has ghastly covering, and until the holiday season is completely finished can't seem to get a clear answer on what other covering we can get. The other minus is that we want space for six persons. This sofa is only available as a 3 person or single chair. Either we want two two person sofa and two chairs (matching) or a three, two and one combo. Two 3's wont fit and 3 chairs give too much wastage. .

Why wasn't the above written under yesterdays blog-entry? Same reason as before: Limited access. Today I am back at home, and have proper internet and pc access when I want or need it. In short, a regular daily update will be the norm.

On reflection I did do some ordinary grocery shopping and we cleaned out the fridge of leftovers and items that had gone way past the "best before day" from the christmas/Newyear gluttony, but not exactly worth blogging about.

Tomorrow the ordinary life will slowly start again.

Day Three - so far

Just to get the peace of mind of having made an entry today - even if it just a placeholder. (Also, I want to see what happens to the headings etc when I update it)

Day Two - Late - Already Broken

Wow. Almost a record. One New Year resolution already missed. The intention was one entry per day, med every. Well, I've got a good excuse (?) - I am visting the in-laws and I couldn't get to the pc in the evening 'cause it was in a room where someone was sleeping.

Otherwise Day Two had its moments. I got "cheated", or was outmanouvered if you will, by a used car dealer that was buying my old car. Last year I got a company car. Of course I got less than I expected, but I couldn't be bothered to hardball. You can only trade/bargin/barter if you you're not already mentally commited to completing the deal. I just wanted to get rid of the car. So I in effect gave a 18% discount on the auction price the car had achived on a web auction, which only hurt my pride.

Also I had to admit I am incompetent at assembling a pc. This happened last year, but the non-functioning pc was handed in to repair/rebuild yesterday (Day Two) and in a week or so I will pay my "tuition fee" in just how much I managed to damage. When assembling a pc (with CPU chip and all) you need to have a antistatic surface - I just could not be bothered to set it up, and assembled the pc on an ordinary dinnertable, with carpet on the flooring just to make it better. It also helps to read the instruction manual how the chip is mounted - I did not. (I have done this before, and hey - how hard can it be? Well, this chip/motherboard was different). In the fight to get the fan assembly fitted to the motherboard (damn hard push to get the spring assembly to latch) I needed to take the fanassembly off a few times to see what was wrong and thus lifted the chip (before I got i mounted correcly) and touched it several times. And just to top it off, on of the memory SIMMS wasnt inserted all the way down.

To my relief it did boot. It ran stable enough whilst I istalled windows but after a few hours became more and more unstable with crashes (always in the graphics driver) and in the end even crashed whilst doing the BIOS POST. I'll probably end up paying twice for this machine. Last year, when I bought all the parts, and now again when they have replaced most of them to get it running.

Enough about that.

Day One - A Start Has Been Made

New Year, 2009, Resolution of.

A blog. A daily blog. A personal "dairy" of a typical year in my life. Well, I hope it remains typical. It is not important if this is read by many or few.

The long description of who-am-I and that stuff will come in a few days or so.