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| I'm lazy and I know it | ||
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The thing is, I just don't have the drive to post much anymore. I've got too much to do in my life to wither it away writing about all and nothing here. I'll update it occasionally though, which is only proper, if only to let my many friends know that I'm still alive and kicking. So here's a little update on what's been going on since my last post. 1. I don't really play as much golf as I want to, mainly due to me spending more time with the family and Kolla needs the odd breather from Egill, since he is quite a handful for her alone during the day. So she gets to do the things she wanted to do during the day, but couldn't get around to, with that little rascal bouncing around the house all day long. 2. I've finally asked for a raise of pay, or at least a little something to reduce the hit I've taken on my paycheck since the petrol prices blew through the roof. It's bad enough having to drive 65 miles a day back and forth, to show up at work, not to have almost 20% of it forced into petrol money. There's a lot of other things that I have to pay for, like the car loan and other various bits and pieces, not even mentioning the cost of groceries, which have spiraled through the roof. 3. The motherboard of my main computer has kicked the bucket, making it refuse to boot and there are no beeps or anything coming from it. All it does is freeze on the RAID BIOS screen, telling me that there's no drive hooked to it. Duh, I didn't know that, I wonder who moved the SATA drives to the expansion card, which, incidentally, is suddenly not working anymore. So it looks like I have to invest in a new motherboard, which will force me into replacing the graphics card, unless I can find a motherboard that still supports the AGP standard.  4. For the past week we've been living in Mosfellsbær, a small town on the outskirts of Reykjavik. Kolla's parents live there and we've been house sitting for them while they're abroad on holiday. I understand that they'll return on Sunday evening, which will see us returning home to our own bed. The only downside to returning home is that it will bounce the petrol costs into the air again. So that's what's been going on lately. Oh, I almost forgot one thing, which happened during our stay in the Canaries. Something I completely forgot to mention in previous entries. On day two at the hotel, I was relaxing on our veranda, listening to music and enjoying the sun and a good book. 10 minutes into listening to some Alan Parsons songs, the laptop froze on me, refusing to boot again, despite multiple attempts at it and plenty of cooling between tries. So when I returned home, I took the damn thing to the repair shop for the fourth time in less than a year. This time it turned out that the hard drive was fucked and it had to be replaced. Saving the data on it was too much hassle and way too expensive, so I decided to just get it back with only the Operating system installed. Of course the bastards at the shop decided to install fucking Norton Internet Insecurity on it, which prompted me to go to the Symantec website, to get the latest version of the removal tool for those products. I refuse to use something that's completely useless and only eats the resources of the computer. I wonder what's going to get fucked on that machine next time around. I just hope it starts behaving like a computer should, by the time it goes out of warranty. Currently listening to: Electric Light Orchestra - Telephone Line |
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| I believe it's time... | ||
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for an update, or don't you agree with me? I know I've been extremely quiet lately, but that might change soon, as the golf season is coming down on us quite fast. As you may remember, I was in the Canaries over Easter and had a bit of a play there. The performance wasn't exactly something to cheer about, but I had a lot of fun, as you can imagine. Just visualize cows being let out for the first time in spring, after a very harsh winter, and you'll know what to expect. So I've gone 3 times, in this past week, to Básar for a bit of practice. Seems like I'm heading in the right direction, despite having been very lazy and lacking time all through the winter. I can't really wait for the first full round on an Icelandic golf course. Which one it will be, is impossible to predict. Too many options around here. I'll try to keep you posted. Egill (remember him?) has started climbing up and down stairs, something that's dangerous when you're still less than 11 months old. He also walks while supporting himself on anything that he can get his hands on, even some of his toys can work as a mental support for him while he takes a couple of steps. I managed to get him to take 4 steps a few days ago, but since then he's limited it to 1 or 2 steps at a time, before he sits back down and starts crawling on all fours. At the time of my writing this, he's fast asleep, after having been fighting to stay awake, waiting for daddy to come home and give him his bottle, a chore that I really enjoy doing, along with all the other little things (changing diapers, bathing him, changing his clothes, etc.). The English football season comes effectively to a close this weekend. Nothing of note going on there, except maybe Fernando Torres has a chance of breaking a record set by Ruud van Kneestillsore from a few years back. He's already equaled the record, but with the great big difference that he hasn't scored a single goal from the penalty spot, at least not that I can remember. But I trust that somebody will correct me if I'm wrong here. Here's to Nando getting a brace and perhaps Kuyt will be among the goals too, who knows. Current CD I listen to like the world's about to end: Silent Rivers - Silent Rivers |
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| Our vacation in the Canaries and thensome | ||
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Well, it's time to break the silence on our vacation in Gran Canaria. We stayed at a bungalow apartment hotel called Lago in Maspalomas. The place was nice enough, despite our constant run ins with cockroaches. Apparently they live in the palm trees and fly through open doors and windows, if they can't be bothered to walk the distance at night. If light shines on them, they either scuttle to the darkest spot around or flip onto their backs, as a sort of defensive mechanism. Seems like the predators that feed off them lose track when they look like leaves. I managed to play two full rounds of golf, with both being rather poorly played. I also got to the driving range twice, the latter time with Kolla's daughter Birta. She had some fun beating some balls into oblivion, and I've started expanding on her collection of clubs. She got a 7 iron for Xmas and I added a putter, a sand wedge and now my old driver to the collection. All I have to do now is have the shafts changed to something she can use and of course make sure it's of the appropriate length. A good thing I have a good contact at one of our good golf shops here in Iceland. Kolla made one attempt at taking Birta and Egill to the beach, but with the winds being quite strong and the sand loose and very light, it turned out to be a rather poor idea after all. Egill had eyes, ears, nose and mouth full of sand and wasn't exactly enjoying life and Birta had a similar problem, but at least she knew how to prevent the biggest problems. So after a while they decided that enough was enough and they left the beach for some better cover. I had been playing golf that morning and was to meet them on the beach. Of course I missed them there, but in the end I found them on a bench, when I was returning to the hotel. Apparently they'd been out of credit on their mobiles, so they couldn't respond to my texting and calling. So that was the end of our beach going attempts, since we had quite a good location at our hotel, right next to the pool and other services like bar and hotel restaurant. We went quite far out of our way searching for good deals and one such search lead us to a mistake, not to be repeated ever again. I won't elaborate too much, but it involves a digital video camera, our eagerness to own one and a clever salesman, who's scared shitless of yours truly after the deed. I plan to get my revenge, even if it happens at a later date, since the guy did everything to get more over on us that day. If he only knew what he's gotten himself into Now let's talk about flying and the possible perils of that way of travelling. The trip to Las Palmas was rather uneventful, with all on board being keen on getting to their hotels and start their vacation. On the way back, however, it was a totally different story. Let's start with the airport: We were there early, about 2 and a half hours before our estimated departure time. Still we didn't expect to get a chance to start checking in until about 2 hours before departure and then we'd have plenty of time to look around, get something to eat and drink and stock up on necessities for young Egill. But nothing could have prepared us for this mess we were about to face. First of all the checking in didn't start until about 90 minutes before our departure time, and it took bloody ages to get done properly. Especially since the woman on the desk was as inept at her job as I am at flying an aeroplane. So we only got through about 35 minutes before departure and all dreams of stopping at the pub on our way to the plane had gone up in smoke. All we could do was find a toilet, so we could all relieve ourselves and change one nappy. Then it was basically a dash to the designated gate, so we wouldn't have any risks of being left behind. Eventually we got there, but then we found out that the monitors were completely messed up and got our gate wrong. Instead of going through gate A30, like the monitors said, we had A28, which fortunately was 20 feet away. So we got into the plane and settled in, expecting our flight to be very smooth and we'd be home by midnight, more or less. But boy oh boy, how wrong we were. After we'd been sitting in the plane for about 25 minutes, the captain came on the speaker system, telling us that despite the crew and passengers having been ready for departure for about 20 minutes, we still had 2 passengers missing and they were being searched for in the terminal. We half expected this to be over very soon, but how wrong could we be? The time passed very quickly and the infants were getting very cranky, for obvious reasons. Nobody likes having to wait so long, especially when no refreshments were forthcoming at all, until the crew decided to give everybody some water, which was ok for the grown-ups but not for the babies. The babies wanted their milk, which wasn't available, so things were getting rather tense. The captain told us that they'd be sending some of the crew to search for the luggage of the missing passengers and that would take some time, not that we would feel much comfort from that statement. An hour and a half passed and the captain came on the speakers again, telling us that the missing passengers had finally come to the gate and instead of trying to locate the last of their luggage, he thought it would be better for everybody to take them onboard and tolerate their presence en route home. It turned out that the 2 missing people, a middle aged married couple it seemed to us, were piss drunk and the male partner at least seemed to be ashamed enough not to ask for any trouble on the flight, only buying Coke and sticking to that. His wife was a completely different beast though. Demanding beer and liquors and other alcoholic beverages, though the stewardesses ignored those demands and gave her only water, which infuriated her even more. The other passengers weren't best pleased with her attitude and weren't very shy about letting her know what they thought. Still she kept up the nonsense, which angered quite a lot of our co-passengers even more. I told one of the stewardesses that if it had been up to me, both of the sinners would have been put in strait jackets and then taped to their seats, not getting anything to eat or drink all through the flight. She surprised me by telling me that she agreed with me, but they couldn't do much about this. So eventually we got into the air, 2 hours after the original plan. All the passengers were quite frustrated by the fact that there was no plan in place by our travel agency, to deal with something like this. So we got nothing from them except their thanks for being so understanding and patient, even though I had been neither. I decided to hold my peace because the last thing I wanted was to be led away by the police, upon arrival to the ol' Iceberg. We had some positives to take from the vacation though. We got to meet up with quite a few very nice people. Julie and Di, with their children, Adrian and Danielle, with Danielle's daughter Isobel (I hope I got the spelling right). We exchanged email addresses with them, so we could keep in touch later on. Especially since all of us got on so well during our stay. Birta also earned a new friend in Isobel, which will hopefully be a lifelong friendship. Egill charmed every single female out of her socks, with nothing but a smile, something I wish I could do when I was desperate to meet women. Now I'm happily married and don't need that so badly, though it's a nice thing to have, if I want to trick my Kolla into some carnal activies  As a final part to this entry, I want to tell you all a small story, which I came across in a post to the wall of one of my Facebook friends. The story goes like this, apparently it's a true story: The following scene took place on a BA flight between Johannesburg and London . This is a true story. A White woman, about 50 years old, was seated next to a Black man. Obviously disturbed by this, she called the air Hostess. "Madam, what is the matter," the Hostess asked. "You obviously do not see it then?" she responded. "You placed me next to a Black man. I do not agree to sit next to someone from such a repugnant group. Give me an alternative seat." "Be calm please, the Hostess replied. "Almost all the seats on this flight are taken. I will go to see if another seat is available." The Hostess went away and came back a few minutes later. "Madam, just as I thought, there are no other available seats in Economy class. I spoke to the Captain and he informed me that there are also no seats in the Business class. All the same, we still have one seat in First class." Before the woman could reply, the Hostess continued: "It is unusual for our company to permit someone from Economy class to sit in First class. However, given the circumstances, the Captain feels that it would be scandalous to make someone sit next to someone so disgusting." She turned to the Black man and said, "Therefore, Sir, if you would like to, please collect your hand luggage, a seat awaits you in First class." At that moment, the other passengers who were shocked by what they had just witnessed stood up and applauded. If you are against Racism, please send this message to all your friends. Please do not delete it without sending it to at least one person. |
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| Back from the sunny side | ||
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Yes indeed I am. I don't yet know if that's a good thing or bad, but at least I didn't come back looking like a burned cookie, despite tempting fate on a few occasions by not using any sun screen. I wish Kolla had been so lucky, but unfortunately she had a few rather bad days after getting burned a bit. Egill and Birta didn't suffer at all, especially not young Egill (9 months old on the day he woke up in a new country). But that's of course because we made sure that he had enough sun blocking cream on him at all times. Birta had a small burn on her shoulders, but then she started using the strongest cream available and her troubles were over. I've already been back to work for a couple of days now, it's still easy going for me, as I've set things up to pass along without many hitches coming along. That of course makes it easy for anybody who has to replace me on those rare days when I'm sick enough to not get out of bed, or when I'm on vacation. So all good on the work front. I still have to go on a rant about something though. The attack on the Icelandic Krona, our local currency, has caused all products to go up in prices and I really wish I could get my hands on that bastards who are responsible for this, because they wouldn't live to see another day, the stupid retarded fuckheads, with no disrespect intended to the unfortunate individuals who are categorised as retarded by the System. Those annoying misfits don't seem to realise that the Icelandic business model will survive this attack without much hassle, but on the flipside, the average Joe Public stands a chance of going under, due to all loans, groceries and other things catapulting up in prices. Yes, I'm fucking seething over this. Currently listening to: Joe Satriani - Satch Boogie |
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| Canaries, here we come | ||
Oh yes indeedy my loverlies. Me, Kolla, Birta and Egill are all going to the Canaries tonight  It's a place I've never visited, so it's bound to be a major deal for all of us. I get to try out a little bit of golf, we will go to the caves of Gran Canary and have a great old time for 17 days, including the flight over tonight. Granted, the flight will take about 5 hours, give or take a half an hour or so, but still it's a family thing and we just can't wait to go. Steini will be taking care of the dogs and his son Ingimar, so the two of them will have a great old time together. We'll be taking the laptop with us, along with the TVHDD, that we've been filling up with material for the longest time.I was wondering if I should install some games on the laptop, but then decided against it, since I'm not going there to play games, other than swinging a golf club on occasion. Of course the digital cameras will be accompanying us, anything else would be idiotic  So beach, swimming pool, wading pool for the young one, sunshine, nice bevvies and all sorts of great food. The perfect place, if you ask me, and a golfcourse close by, for my crazy addiction I was working until 8:30PM last night, putting the finishing touches on the warehouse, so everything would be perfect for my stand-in, Karim. He's very dedicated and has a sense of doing things properly, so I have no worries about him whatsoever. The only thing that might give him trouble is the computer bit, but he's learning fast, so he'll pass that test with ease. Currently listening to: My little boy singing to his mother |
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