augusti 2003 Archives

I had a nice and relaxing weekend with my family. Yesterday we spent the whole afternoon watching TV and we saw among other things the 3 first episodes of 24 season 2. I like season 1 very much and season 2 started very promising.

Today we worked a bit in the backyard preparing for the winter (it feels like it will start snowing tomorrow). We created a new stone step in front of the garage back door and stacked the last of our fire wood. We only use the wood for enjoyment fires in the garden. For dinner we had sushi (yes, again :-) followed by a nice fire and marchmallows.

After a while it started to get really cold (like 5 degrees) and we headed inside for a movie, The Pianist. It was a very good movie but I think IMDB readers are overrating it. It currently has a rating of 8.6 which puts it in #29 on the top 250 list. E.g. Schindler's List got a 8.8 and I feel that that movie is very much better than The Pianist. Don't take me wrong. I highly recommend both movies.

Tomorrow is my first day of teaching in SDM151, Multimedia Systems.

Sleep tight and don't let the bedbugs bite!

This morning me and J booked our spring vacation. Two weeks at the " Phi Phi Island Village Beach Resort & Spa" in Thailand. We leave on January 23 2004 and we will get 12 nights on site.

This week has been filled with my management education and many long meetings. During the management course we worked with sociograms revealing good and bad about ourselves and our projections about others in the group. This, once again gave me new insights about myself and how I work. "What you see in others, you must have within yourself to recognize." I think that is very true.

When I was cycling home from Brändön (in shorts with rain and HEAVY wind) I made a rather substantial decision that hopefully will make me happier in the future. I cannot share it with you (yet) but I will as soon as possible. Some things have to get settled first. Just taking the decision has lifted a big stone from my chest.

I haven't had time to write very much on my blog this week and that is something I really miss. I have instead chosen to prioritize sleep and my family,, which I think is rather important :-)

Now Tovah is asleep and I am going to watch the second half of "The Ring" together with my lovely wife, some candles and crackers with cheese.

A problem&solution for my own record.

Two bugs disappeared in PHPBugTracker and the reason was that the status_id field was set to a value that did no longer exist. The following sql solved it the problem but the bug is still there.

update phpbt_bug set status_id='8' where bug_id =31;
update phpbt_bug set status_id='8' where bug_id =32;
select * from phpbt_bug where bug_id='31' or bug_id='32';

Shouldn't service be something that is provided as a service for the user, not a hinder? Right a very very minor thing happened but it still annoys me. I requested the sysadmin to remove the DHCP service for my laptop so I could provide it from my own server instead, but they refuse with the argument that they cannot keep track of the computers otherwise. Wonder how they managed for the last 8.5 years which is when I started working at Systemteknik and I already had my own DHCP server running. I guess I better not tell them that I have 17 other hosts handled by my own DHCP server.

Argh, why do I get upset about such minor issues. I just block the DHCP traffic from their server and be happy. Quicker than asking them to remove it in the first place :-/

Tovah drew her first self portrait today! Isn't it nice?!

I will be gone Monday until Wednesday evening on a seminar in Brändön. It is the final seminar with sleep over in my management education course, but I cannot really say that I want to go :-( I would rather sit under my corkoak and program on my SIP prototype. It is like all the work related issues are washing over me. Issues I am not really interested in or care for. Being a researcher is very fun. Being a research leader with the financial responsibility is rather boring and creates a lot of anxiety (for me). For me getting funding for research feels like begging and I don't like doing that. In the industry it can be compared with living of stock money but the main difference there is that eventually the goal is to live of the profit. I.e. do something good that the market want then you don't have to beg anymore. That is unfortunately not the case in the research world. The individual researchers can get rich (spinoff companies, patents etc.) but that doesn't make the situation easier for the research group (unless personal profit is put back into the research). The latter is really a Swedish problem where the inventor owns the results, whereas in the USA the university owns the results. The Swedish academic system is a bit strange where if a researcher is successful that only creates envy instead of admiration and the researcher doesn't really get anything "for it" (unless s/he commercializes the results on their own).

Anybody interested in hiring an assistant professor in Media Technology and Chief Science Officer at Marratech?

Kiss Tuning contains a number of cool tips on how to modify your Kiss player!

Raven found out how to change the MT calendar to show Monday as the first day of the week (as we Swedes like it).

Today we went on a picknick with the children's playgroup at Hägnan. It was about 10-15 children in all ages and we had a very good time. We grilled chicken, sausages and ate it together with breadsticks and melon. It was very delightful. It is the kind of place where you can just let the children run around on their own. No strange places where they can fall down, no cars, no high speed bicycles and just tons of fun things to do. In the beginning I was a bid of a protective dad and followed Tovah around but I got over that after lunch but that unfortunately proved not to be to good as Tovah for the first time in her life got lost. She was on her own about one house away but it was still very scary for her.

They also had straw barn where the children (and adults :-) could jump into the dried straw. Tovah was a bit scared, but she jumped nicely when she held my hand. Later there was an unfortunate accident :-( Tovah and another girl were supposed to jump together. They held hands and Tovah started counting to three and the other girl jumped immediately, pulling Tovah with here. Tovah landed on top of the other girl. It must have hurt quite a bit as they both cried for some time and I couldn't get Tovah to jump again.

When we got home I was really tired, and found myself just sitting in front of the computer for a while. Some the and chickpeas helped my mood back to happiness. Played with my photos for the rest of the day and learned tons of new things about Photoshop and the most misnamed filter, Unsharp mask which is actually a tool for making the image look sharper.

During the evening I also made IP-telephony experiment. I used Marratech Pro as a SIP client towards DigiSip and called my mother using it as a phone replacement. After a while Tovah wanted to speak with her as well so I called the Pingtel phone as well and included that into the conversation using Pro as a mixer and gateway. It worked very well and the only real problem was sound levels as my speech came out much louder in the Pingtel than my mother.

It is my mother's birthday today! Happy Birthday, mom!!

Today was also Dick's funeral. Tina was there. I couldn't go as I was giving an exam today and honestly I didn't feel like going.

Now I am just waiting for Tovah to fall asleep so I can get into bed with my lovely wife.

I have now been playing with scanning my photos for a while and I have come to some conclusions. For the record, the scanner is a Canon Canoscan 9900F and I have connected it using USB2.0. My target is publishing them online but also saving them is original PSD (I use Photoshop) for later editing. The source is all negative film.

As you can imagine, the settings you use when scanning a photo affects the result and I have currently found that the following produces the best result.

* Resolution 1600: This produces files of about 2288x1464 pixels and each raw file is 9.56MB in PSD format which in turn can be compressed non-lossy to 7.2MB using Winzip with maximum compression. The resulting JPEG as created with Adobe ImageReady using JPEG quality 90 is 1.35MB. For comparison the PSD file becomes 34MB if the resolution is increased to 3200.

* Remove Dust and Scratches (FARE) Hard: FARE is a technique that uses infrared light to detect dust and scratches on the source and does a VERY good job in removing them. This features as I understand it is unique for Canon scanners. Most of my old negatives have been stored badly and are a bit damaged.

* Fading correction Normal: This makes the colors a bit more saturated.

* Grain correction: Normal This was actually the hardest one to decide on. If I set it on soft you can see the grains on e.g. white walls but if I set it to hard then the image gets to blurry. I decided to use normal.

* Quality High Quality: This just means that it scans in higher quality than normal.

* Not using Unsharp Mask: The unsharp mask is very important but Photoshop makes a much better job than the scanner software. More about this later.

Using these settings scanning on negative takes 5 minutes 20 seconds.

The scanner can scan 24 negatives at one time but that requires that the negatives are cut in sheets of 6 which most Swedish negatives aren't (they are cut in sheets of 4).

That was the scanning part and I will post more details about handling tomorrow.

Update: changed the text about Fading correction.

I have just put a child to sleep. My child. She is so beautiful, lying there in the light from the lava lamp. The light goes up and it goes down as the wax gathers at the bottom of the bottle covering the lamp. She turns this way, she turns that way, she checks if I am there and then finally, she is really asleep and I can leave. Do I really have to leave? Can't I just sleep there, right next to the princess? Well, I have another princess to take care of to night. Good night!

Scan 002 is now finished. It contains among other things photos from when we got Timbo.

I have always been fond of money, who isn't honestly? Anyhow, this is what 1 billion kronor looks like.

Thanks for the tip Rolf!

Giving bloods makes me feel good, but I did feel fatigued and aggravated during the cycle home. I recruited Johanna today and got an extra 50:- as a thanks. T was running around the place between me leaving blood and J in the testing room for the newcomers. Nobody seemed to mind my little critter running around and being cute.

Me and T had planned to visit the icebreaker Frej today (after a great tip from Jalle) but unfortunately the two last yours were sold out so we were only allowed to view the 4 icebreakers from the outside. Instead T and I hid from the rain down in the harbour and did some creative drawing, on the ground and other creative places :-) Tovah even found out that she could draw and stones and in places where I couldn't reach.

After that Tovah got a small burger and an ice cream and we headed for the blood central, then Kvantum and then here I am.

I must admit that I feel good.

By the way, T woke me up at 5.30 this morning and after tossing for 30 minutes I got up and showered. Then J came and pulled me back into bed and we slept until 0900. I am really glad she did!! When I awake that early, it seems like all problems get ten times bigger and I get queasy feelings in my stomach and my chest and I cannot sleep. Later when I get up at an reasonable time the problems are all gone, well they are still there, I just don't care anymore :-)

Personal Problem&Solution for my own notes only.

Today my PC audio on Blipp got distorted and mic-in vanished. Many BSODs and much testing showed turned out that the driver for the USB pccard reader is not very correct. Uninstalling the driver and drive solved the problem. It was the violet LexarMedia reader with dual drives. The drive itself worked with the driver.

I haven't been blogging much the last two days and the reason is that I have been working, working and working. I woke up full of energy today and got to work immediately. After a great lunch of chili marinated grilled chicken and curry rice I got a bit tired and headed out for a 10KM cycle ride. This was my first training ride since the accident and it just felt great. When I got home I felt pumped up (though physically tired). By the way, Tovah joined me, at least half the way as she fell asleep. She usually does when riding the bike cart in the afternoon.

During the morning I created an exam for SMD151 so students, now you can begin to crack into my account and read all the questions.

I get to do what I want to do and just have to do some minor "boss bullshit". I worked longer than I had planned today but now I am finished and I am going to eat some supper and then dig into my photo collection.

Anyhow, just wanted to say that I feel great :-)

My first photo scan is now online, 35 photos from 1994. It is mostly of my dog Timbo but you can also see me, Johanna, Johan 'K' Karlsson and Jalle.

Sony has created a dedicated site for the new Clie UX-50. Sony knows how to design stuff. Expansys takes pre-orders here.

We had a nice afternoon with Jalle and Ida. We ate 8.5 rolls of sushi and then we played EBay and Chee'z Dork. EBay was really fun but Chee'z Dork was so so. I am disappointed in you, Steve Jackson!

Tovah found a new game, throwing sand around and of course most of it ended up in her hair. Check out the cloud and pebbles.

We threw them out around 19.30, Tovah took a bath (because of all the sand) and she ended up washing her hair twice in a day. She hates washing her hair.

After she fell asleep J and I dove into our analog photo collection and starting matching up missing negatives and sorting the rest a bit. I have started putting captions on the first set.

Good night everybody!

Welcome oh wonderful world.

It is now Sunday afternoon I have have managed to not work this weekend. That is something new for me and something I will try to maintain. We woke up around 08.30 and I started the day by reading "Pablo, the penguin that always froze" with Tovah. Continued the day with some photo handling. The first roll is now scanned and I will caption it later. The second roll is currently being scanned. Some great photos from 1993.

I feel good for two reasons,
1) Johanna said yesterday that she I going to give notice on her other apartment.
2) I today realized that I have found the hobby I have been missing for so long. Handling my photos. I enjoy this very much and I feel it being an investment for the future. It will be great to be able to view the old photos when I am getting old as well as Tovah will enjoy it when she gets older.

Jalle and Ida are back in town. They came during the night and I of course immediately invited them for dinner today. They will arrive in 50 minutes and they will get sushi - the Parnes way. I enjoy their company very much and I have to admit that I have missed them both during the last weeks. Actually I haven't met Ida since midsummer.

By the way. I have to explain the subject. Tovah cannot pronounce "s" inside words and this becomes rather funny when she is trying to say "fuskar" (Swedish for cheating) and it becomes "fuckar" which loosely means fucks :-) She says "Ja, det låter spännande!" as response to almost everything we are going to do (Swedish for Yes, that sounds exciting).

Catch you all later and don't do anything I wouldn't do.

More captions on old photos again. Misc December 2002 are done.

It is a tad bit quicker to handle digital photos that to scan old analog ones.

I started the day with high energy. Started cleaning the computer room so I could fit the scanner in there (yes, I know I should clean it up more properly, some day). Anyhow, the scanner is in place now.

Before I got to scan anything we headed out to recycle all the bottles and cans Tovah and we had collected this week. Total this week was 50.50 and we continued to Barnens Hus (big toy store) to buy a fart bag ("pruttkudde"), We found the last self inflatable and as it didn't have any packaging we got it for 19.90 which meant that Tovah paid 10 and I 10. She has 40.50 left in her recycle fund. Here she is testing it in the store.

Back at home I continued installing the scanner and testing which software to use. I decided for Photoshop 7 to correct the color levels. I am now scanning at 1600 DPI and it takes about 4 minutes per photo in just scanning time. I guess I will be finished with all my photos by year 2032.

In the meantime Tovah found a new place for reading, the cabinet underneath the stairway. Close up.

Lunch was Teriyaki Salmon with potatoes baked in the oven.

By the way, I am really stupid. In the computer room there is a window that is divided into two parts that open. A bigger one that I have had opened for ventilation the last 3 years and a smaller one. My problem has been that the window doesn't stay open or it flies up and hits one of my monitors. So what is stupid with that? Well some of you have already guessed that the other part, the smaller window part stays locked in place when the handle is turned downwards. It just hit Johanna earlier today that that must be the case and we tested. I AM STUPID.

The summer came back to today and currently (19:37) it is 20C/68.1F and max today was 22.9C/73.1F. It is a perfect summer night right now. Lovely. So what am I doing here in front of the computer? I guess I AM STUPID.

I have always liked sleeping long in the morning, but these days Tovah drags me out of bed around 07.30 every day and it actually feels rather good not to sleep away the day. During the night you anyhow just end up in front of the computer or another inhalation of the peoples modern opium (TV).

Catch you all later, I just wanted to say that I feel good!

Found these rather cool photos of the blackout in NY.

Some more captions done, Misc January 2003.

Today we went to the children health care centre for measurement and three year checkup. Tovah was healthy as a whatever and passed all the tests with honors. She got a tattoo for her efforts.

We continued down town where I bought a Lava Lamp. Finally, I have wanted one for the last 20 years. We bought at Cervera that is going out of business so it was on half price. Lunch on Waldorf. The rest of the day I spent working and during the evening we went on can hunt and passed by work. We met Ghyslain. It must have been at least 1 year since I saw him last. Also got the scanner today and I have just had time to install it during the evening and test scan one item, a cd.

Oh, I almost forgot, down town we went by Tradition and they had a sale on games. We bought Chez Dork and the EBay card game. We haven't played any of the but they look "interesting".

I just finished putting captions on my Hurghada photos. Puuh. Hard work for a soft man.

Anyhow, during the afternoon the family went to the recycle market but we didn't find anything worth anything and it was a bit cold and windy so we cycled directly home again. I must admit that I for some strange reason felt really agitated around lunch. I get like that from time to time. :-(

Talking about lunch, today's lunch was a vegetarian potato and cauliflower soup/stew with bread sticks. My knee still hasn't healed. The evening we spent watching both episodes of "Virus i paradiset" and now it is time to go to bed.

Tomorrow, the chimney sweeper is coming. Between 07.30 and 09.30.

There is a new virtual GSM operator in Sweden, Pepppar. So what? Well my old nickname is Peppar. Welcome to a brand new day!

During the afternoon we took a bike ride to Gültzaudden and looked at the art in the wood. Though I and Tovah ended up looking more for cans, which we found 10.50 SEK worth. After a nice walk we took a quick drinking pause and continued to Norrbottens Museum to look at the Hideaki Sasaki installation. Here is a movie of it in action. We only got 15 minutes at the museum after which we played and looked at the art in the museum garden.

After a while in the museum garden we headed toward Kvantum in the rain and shopped. We were only going to buy some milk but as always ended up with tons of stuff. At home I made bread sticks and they were much better this time than the last.

I also added a few more scripts to my gallery. One for getting a random photo from the gallery. It can be seen on top of this page. Just reload to see another. Also added Top 10 viewed and Recently changed. The two latter will be added and integrated later.

I watched "Heist" and entered some captions for my Hurghada photos (not public yet).

There are many cool things one can use Google for, like searching the web or just use it as a calculator :-)

It have been a bit quiet here for the last days and the reason is that I have started working again, only on one of my jobs Marratech but still. My work hours are dynamic at Marratech but the target value is 4 hours per day. Just working 4 hours per days is something new to me and I have a hard time relaxing in the afternoon without thinking about work issues. Or not really, I don't think about the job but I have a hard time relaxing and just being. It only took one day to reach this "normal" state of mind again :-(

My knee is getting better and now it only feels like a skin wound. Perhaps I can cycle today. That would be good as I feel rather restless and I have to do something physical.

Yesterday the terminator arrived and he found a nest in an old tree stump. He went to work on them with his poison and that should keep them away until the winter.

During the weekend we introduced Tovah to the concept of finding cans and returning them to the store. The first time we bought candy for the received money, but that turned out to be a huge mistake. The next time we went to the store all she wanted was to buy more candy. We convinced her that it might be better to save the can money and buy toys instead. We agreed on that on Saturday we would go to the toy store and see if we can buy a "fart bag" ("pruttkudd"). The deal includes that we double her money if she buys something else than candy. It seems to work. Yesterday afternoon we spent the walk to Björsbyn looking for bottles and cans and found about 10SEK worth.

Yesterday I ordered a scanner so I can scan all my old analog photos as well.

Now it is time for lunch, Chili con Carne. Catch you all later!

This summer I attended one of the best parties ever, it was the midsummer party in Böle Bom. We were 12 persons in total and the party lasted 18 hours. Between 12 and 6 in the morning. Here are some photos taken by other people using Jalle's camera.

We didn't end up doing much at all yesterday. We took a walk in the wood close to the house and the local playground where Tovah spun until she got dizzy. I also took a couple of movies of Tovah running and singing.

Today I actually decided to work a bit and I put up a new bug tracker for Marratech to replace the old Gnats system. We had initially decided on Bugzilla, but I never really got it working as I wanted. The new system selected is PHPBugTracker and it seems like it is just perfect for our needs.

My knee is feeling better, but I will continue resting today to make sure it gets healed up. It still hurts a bit when I stand up more than a few minutes.

The sun has come back and it is 24.7 degrees right now. Take a look at this temp curve. Now I am going to help Tovah fill up her out doors tub.

Now I have mixed mine and Jalle's photos from our trip to Riksgränsen and put captions on all 483 of them. There are now 1468 photos in 8 albums.

Organizing ones photos is fun but there are so many :-) A nice thing with having some meta data attached to them is that you can make nice searches. Here is some: Tovah, Spirit, Burley, Peter, Teknikens Hus, Pooh, and Tiger.

SInce my last post I have added Misc March to June and 122 photos and a movie from Magnus Berglund's 30 year party.

So what have I done besides playing with my photos. Yesterday we had a really relaxing day. I was resting my knee so we stayed home. This morning I woke up at 8 which was before Tovah. I am catching up with my sleep needs. The girls woke up around 9 and we spent the next hour by me reading out loud from my current book, "Ont Blod". Not the most perfect Tovah book but she enjoyed it for at least 30 minutes. Ended up in front of the computer and it might be time for breakfast?!

Unfortunately, it looks the autumn is approaching. It is getting colder. The SUN is out but it is only 16 degrees :-( It is also getting dark at night. Luleå where I live has had the most sun hours of all cities in Sweden though. We have had a great summer.

Haven't decided what we are going to do today.

Added misc July images and another 100 images to the misc August album.

Yet more photos with captions. This time from the F21 open house. Planes, planes and even more planes. This is my favorite. Tovah is sleeping with ear protectors while jet fighters are screaming close by.

Steffanie blogs about Googlism. It is way fun. Here are a few related to me.

Peter, Peppar, Tovah, Johanna, nanna, Parnes, Luleå

Just finished putting captions on Johanna's pictures from her two trips to Jönköping, Växjö, Värnamo, Stockholm and Oslo. 101 images in total.

I just finished putting captions on all my Orlando, USA photos. All 363 of them. "Duktig Gubbe".

My knee hurts very much and I woke up several times during the night. Ouch. Yes, I know, Be a man and shut up. :-) Wounds can look rather ugly. Of course I had to take a photo of Tovah's blister as well. Due to my knee hurting we are staying home today and that means we will miss the Mora Träsk concert. I had been looking forward to that. Dancing with Tovah. Instead I put on some Beatles bootlegs with some rare tracks and this is what happens then.

I think I have forgotten to mention that we have a new pet, a larva that I think is a caterpillar. We have him in a glass jar and feed with fresh leaves every day. He seems to feel well as he is growing nicely.

Yesterday I found out that my mothers web hotel has lost everything known about her company, ParnesInterior and this morning I have moved it to another temporary sever.

Tovah woke up around 8.45 and for the first time in a week I actually was already awake before her. I had been reading for a full 5 minutes. Got up, showered, had breakfast and waited for the terminator. At 10.15 I gave up and called Anticimex and they tell me "Yeah, I was just about to call you. The terminator cannot make it today and the next opening is on Tuesday." Thanks for not calling me earlier.

Installed the Anki & Pytte, the bottle cap hunting game. Tovah was thrilled and sat with it until 11.30 when it was high time to head out for the Molly Maguire concert. We packed up and then it happened. On the way down the hill next to Erisoft/TietoEnator I had bit too high speed and and when I braked at the end of the hill I fell. OUCH. I banged up my bike, bent the disc on the rear brake, and worst of all I banged my right knee. Tovah was in the bike cart and she just looked up and continued to read her book. Not to worried about her dad. We headed up to work and cleaned the wound and headed down town.

We got to the concert 30 minutes after it started and the acoustics were so bad so it was much better to listen to them from the middle of the park. Anyhow, we got tired of them after 5 minutes and bought some lunch. Langos times two. I got a Bomba and Johanna a Vegitarian. They were quite good but rather fat. Tovah got a lollipop from the Langos maker which she consumed with high energy after lunch.

After lunch we went for a walk and waited for the childrens' circus that was going to start at 14.00, but know what? They cancelled it :-( This was Tovah's high today so we ended up on the playground just next to the scene. Johanna didn't join us until 15.20 so we spent 1.5 hours there. As the circus was cancelled there was a kind of flash mob on the play ground which was really crowded. Tovah slid down the high slide that is for children 6 years or older. Tovah is 3 and she loved it and she played on the "cycle train".

We got home and quickly prepared for Sonja's 30 year party. We had some very good sandwich layer-cake. Sonja got a home made necklace that Johanna had made for her. On the way home Tovah showed me some new ways of riding her stroller.

I have been publishing my photos immediately instead of once a month and today's bunch starts here with a picture of my favorite jeans, now ruined.

All in all it has been yet another nice day with the family. It is nice to have them home :-)

Marratech's agreement with Apple to sell their products is now complete. Apple will sell Marratech's e-meeting solutions world wide. Here is a Swedish article in Computer Sweden. I guess I have to brag a bit as I am co-funder of this company and work there as chief scientist, besides my position as assistant professor at LTU.

If you are developing advanced WWW sites then BrowserCam might be very useful. It shows how you WWW page looks in various browsers on several platforms. Here is how my blog looks in 800x640 in 26 different browsers.

I am feeling fat. I have been eating way to much in the last week. Take yesterday e.g. both a cooked real lunch and pizza for dinner. I am used to only eating one cooked meal per day so I guess I have to cut down on the amount of food I stuff myself with.

Just watched episode one of Coupling. That is a great show and I just love it.

Now it is time for some reading in bed. Have to see how my serial killer is doing today....

On Kvantum there was sale on nice meat, actually cheaper than minced meat so we bought some extra and minced it ourselves when we got home. We were a bit tired from out long bike ride yesterday so the tempo wasn't to high. We minced about 2KG meat which we fried before putting into the freezer. This meat tasted so much better than pre-minced meat from the store. For lunch we had spaghetti with meat sauce. It was good as always. After lunch I was just relaxing on the porch, surfing, having water wars with Tovah. I finally decided that my old photo album software wasn't enough so I found Gallery which I installed. So far it looks very good and it seems to do almost everything I want it to do. It even allows pictures to be uploaded directly from XP explorer which is nice.

Johanna was active all afternoon, she pulled some weeds, washed the bike cart, repaired the lawn mower which was later used by Tovah. Indoors Johanna cleaned her room and installed a drape so she could hide her messy shelves.

The terminator didn't make it today and he will show up tomorrow morning instead. We have killed a number of ants today. Tovah is very good at killing with a spoon.

My family has now been home for almost a week and it feels very good. It is nice to have them here. Tomorrow we are heading down to Hamnkalaset

Right now we are watching Terminator 3.

I have been experimenting with some new software for publishing my photos and have created this gallery. Tell me what you think.

Update: The system allows for comments from viewers, scaling, searching, slideshows and many other features.

My fiber to the home connectivity saga continues and here is a summary:

1) Last winter the computer support division at the University (DC) tells me that there isn't any problem in buying a VLAN solution via LuNet between my home and the University. Great. I order the fiber.

2) During the spring I get informed that this is no longer the case due to DC thinking it is to much hassle to take care of it. Instead I should order normal Internet connectivity via e.g. Tele2 and during or after the summer local peering will be arranged.

3) Last week I get my fiber and the I have to decide which ISP to choose and now DC tells me that it doesn't really matter as none of them have local peering and there are no immediate plans for local peering. Sigh.

Yes, I get upset with this. Solution 1 is technically simple to arrange as LuNet already have a switch inside the main switch room at the University. Why cannot service organizations be more service minded?

I know I am saying negative things about DC, but I feel that they disappoint their customers so often it is validated. And I have worked there as well so I know the inner workings, or actually the inner "non-workings".

Anyhow, good morning everybody.

I tried the Google's News Alert on a tip from mymarkup.net and it seems to work OK. I tried Parnes, nanotech, marratech and Luleå. The latter didn't work though as it seems to look for "lule" instead and that matches some activities in Africa.

Today the Anticimex "terminator" is coming after lunch to kill off all our horse ants. Stay away from my house, you critters. Before lunch the family is taking a bike ride to Kvantum for some food shopping.

But before that we need breakfast. "Guggemux" and the. A salad consisting of tomato, cucumber, egg (loads) and sour cream ("gräddfil").

I spent the the morning with Tovah cleaning the wood behind the wood. After she moved the first 70cm stick she said, "Sigh, that was hard work." :-) She is 3. Anyhow we started a fire and burned about 2 m^2 of sticks, leaves and other woody things. For lunch we had pasta with meat (kassler) in red curry sauce with a green salad. Yummy.

After lunch the whole family went for a bike ride around town. First stop was the playground at the Arcus Camping. Me and J were sitting under a tree reading and T was climbing and running around the place. Tovah is a good climber, so good she makes her father's heart stop from time to time when she is really high up and her father is afraid that she is going to fall down. Hint, father = me. I was reading my first nanotech book. That is an interesting area. Anybody have nanotech job for a assistant professor in computer science.

After about two hours, T said she was hungry and wanted a hamburger. Of we went and on the way we stopped at Inneting. They have some really nice decorating things there and I will definitely go back soon.

We headed into town and bought a hamburger and fries at McDonalds for Tovah and cycled on to Casablanca where we bought a large family pizza. Just as we left the pizzeria with the LARGE pizza box in Tovah's lap it started raining. Where can one hide from the rain and eat a pizza? Hmm, we headed to the southern harbour and ended up on a loading dock where we had a nice small picknick with hamburgers, fries and our huge pizza.

Then home we went but we did a quick cruise around S.O.D.A. where there was a gathering of big American cars (raggare) and I wasn't really sure if they were looking more at our cool cycles or we on their cars :-) That was fun. Yes, I am an exhibitionist.

We got home at 20.00 and after watching Dharma and Greg it is now time for some reading in bed. The story in "Ont blod" continues about the American serial killer in Sweden.

Update: added images above.

test of azure

Azure is a Java based blog client that allows me to post from my Palm and my phone. The latter remains to be tested. This is written on my Palm Tungsten C.

breakfast time...

Pixar has done it again. Finding Nemo is great for all members of a "normal" family. I, Johanna and Tovah all enjoyed it. Tovah's comment right after the end was "again again".

Right now we are watching a really retro TV show, Doctor Snuggles and I just realized where I had gotten the word "Skruttibangbang" from. It is the name of the Snuggles' rocket. What is so special with that name? That is what I have called Johanna for the last 12.5 years but I haven't seen the TV show for at least 20 years.

A fun episode today, I wanted an ice cream and I asked Johanna if she wanted a "G" as in glass which is Swedish for ice cream. Anyhow, before Johanna gets a chance to answer Tovah says, "I want ice cream". So much for speaking in code.

We just got back from 7 hours down town. We had lunch at Baan Thai, Swirleys at the northern harbour, 6 visits to the bathroom with Tovah, and way to much time shopping time. We didn't actually buy that much. Johanna bought a Esprit top, a piece of metal net for her lamp we bought in Egypt, 1l milk and 1l sour milk.

20 of the 40 roses I bought for Johanna last week withered after 1 day so I complained about it and guess what, I got 20 new roses. That is nice service. Or as Tovah would say: "Oj".

"Pappa, jag måste bajsa. ..... Det kommer inget.... " times 5.

Inspired by Andreas I took the OS personality test:

Which OS are You?

I like PalmOS, I have a Tungsten C although I was a PocketPC person between 2001 and 2003 (actually used both a PPC and a Palm between 1999 and 2001).

It is my fathers birthday today!

Morning all appreciated colleagues in the weblogging business!

Yesterday Jennifer told us that the ants we had on the porch were actually horse ants, the Nordic termite. Oh no, my house is going to fall to pieces. I sent an email to my insurance company and right after 8 this morning they called me up. Had a quick talk with them and they referred me to Anticimex, an the exterminator (Arnie is that you?) will come on Thursday afternoon. I just hope they won't have to use strong chemicals that will prevent us from being there or even prevent us from not allowing Tovah to be outside. It is summer....

Breakfast time and after that we are heading down town. We are going to buy wick for J's new oil lamp, go to the employment service, eat lunch (Waldorf perhaps?), buy some clothes for J and other things I cannot think of right now.

Here are misc images from March to May 2003. 109 images in total. Have fun looking through them.

I have gotten accustomed to reading other people's blogs and it isn't just random blogs but I follow about 15 blogs, mainly written by fellow Swedish bloggers. I feel like I get to know these bloggers very well. You know what they do, what they like, what they eat, what they hate etc. etc. I especially enjoy Andreas, Niklas, and Malin, but there ar emany more...

I have one question though, what do you call the writers? Friends? I have never really met them and friends is something mutual, right? I mean, I don't know if they like my writing and I have definitively never met them (with one exception, Tina).

Anybody have any suggestions?

I have had a nice day together with J, T and Jennifer. We have eaten good food and had a water war in the garden. Tovah especially liked the latter and she was running around as mad chasing us. I must admit that I helped her a bit and the scary pants (:-) Jennifer hid behind my camera so I would throw water on her. Just wait until next time Jennifer :-)

Lunch was a chili made from smoked falu-sausage, bacon, kidney beans and chick peas together with rice and for dessert we had American cheese cake.

After lunch J, T and Jennifer went for a bike ride, during which I got time to sort some digital photos. This had not been done since march 2003. Bad boy Peter. It is actually nice to wait a bit as memories have been lost and you get nice reminders from looking at all the photos. As I wrote earlier today, our trip to Orlando was really nice.

Jennifer left around 18.20 together with Rolf (after a short visit) for a dinner at Rickard's place. Hey, Rikard you still owe me a dinner :-)

For dinner I had Tom Yam soup, Johanna had sandwiches and Tovah had gruel. After dinner we quickly cleaned up the kitchen. It is nice to not have anything to clean up when you go to bed later. A nice clean kitchen in the morning is something I recommend to everybody.

Right now me and Johanna are sitting in the kitchen, J is sorting here stones and beads (to make necklaces from) and I have just finished sorting photos taken from March to Maj 2003. T is half asleep in the sofa watching Winnie the Pooh. It is nice to have the family home again. I have been very lucky, very lucky indeed!!!

And here are my photos from Orlando May 2003. 365 photos in total, primarily from Disney World.

Here are some misc photos from July 2003 (and the first days of August).

The rest of the photo album...

I am sitting here sorting pictures from my last trip to Orlando and Disney World and I cannot stop thinking that we had a great time there. It was so much to do all the time and we had many laughs. We have to go back there soon again.

Woke up around 06.30 from thunder and heavy rain. The thunder was really close and you could feel the massive sound from it in the bed. The power of nature...

Around 06.50 I picked up my Tungsten C and wanted to check my email but there wasn't any network to the rest of the world. Oh, well. During thunder things usually break, but normally it is on the other end, at the university. That was not the case today. After we got up and showered I started looking for the error and found that the 16 port switch on the second floor had stopped working on the auto-uplink port. A quick switch to a 5-port brother solved that part, got a link light but still no conectivity to the rest of the world. Hmm, let us verify the 8-port hub downstairs. No link light to the switch upstairs. That port on the hub was broken as well and I moved the cable to another port on the hub and it all started working. Verified the 16-port switch and yes it was broken. Called Netgear and I am getting a new one, again. This is will be the second time it is replaced with a new one.

Everything felt OK and finally I could eat my breakfast. Half way through Johanna wonders where Jennifer is and she heds up to check her email. "Gubben, I have no net." Hmm, I have net on the other computer but not on hers. Some detective work shows that the ethernet card on her computer is broken and after a quick swap her computer is up and running again. Update the DHCP server to give her the right IP-number. All great.

Hmm, perhaps I should fix Tina's blog so the RSS-feed gives the full entry? Hmm, I cannot change anything on her blog. Log in as Tina. HUH, she doesn't have any permissions at all on her blog besides posting new entries. That is strange. After 1 hour I give up. I cannot increase her rights and I cannot add myself as an admin to her blog. That blog is living on its own in cyberspace.

What a day. And it is only 11.10... I really hope nothing else got lost during the night.

Today I have had a wonderful day with the family. We took a bike ride to Karlsvik where we had a picknick on the beach. The water was warm enough for Johanna to go for a swim and Tovah didn't want to get out of the water at all. The spot we found was just after the camping and fir the first hour we were completely alone (it was a bit cloudy before lunch) and the water was knee deep on me for about 100 meters from the shore. Perfect for just walking along in the water on the sandy sea bed. We ate our picknick food on the beach, sushi, fresh fruit and the last of the brunch bread I baked a couple of days ago. The weather was just perfect, not too much clouds and not too much sun. It was nice just to lie there and relax with J next to me.

On the way back we stopped at Storheden for some shopping and we actually managed to find some clothes for J at H&M. That happens very seldom. Food was bought at Överskottsbolaget and COOP Stormarknad and when got out the latter it was raining a bit and it looked like we had just missed a shower. When we were leaving the parking lot we met Magnus and Johanna and they looked soaked. It didn't rain at all on us on the way home. Lucky people.

At home it was dinner time. We made paprika soup and pancakes with whipped cream. It is Sunday, right?!! :=) After dinner Tovah wanted to bath some more outdoors so we filled up here smaller inflatable pool. J did some gardening when I played with T and around 19 we started a fire and prepared to burn some sausages. While waiting for the ember out friend the hedgehog came on a visit. He was heading up on the mountain but stopped for some crackers before tumbling along.

It is now 20.45 and J is putting T to sleep. I think I will try to get into bed right after J comes down as I am totally beat. I have been living alone for 1.5 months and having the rest of the family in the house drains my energy, in a positive way!!

All in all it has been a very nice day.

Tomorrow Jennifer is coming for a visit and we will see what happens then.

Sleeping is wonderful when you need it. Sleeping is something you not always get to do when you have a 3 year old daughter :-) Tovah wakes up every day between 7 and 8 and of course immediately thinks that everybody else also has to get up. Actually, only daddy has to get up, not mummy. I could have sleepy another 2 hours or so :-) But I am up, ain't I? T even helped me do my situps.

Yesterday we went for a picknink. We were heading for Karlsvik but just as we left the house it started raining. After some shallying we ended up in a small gazebo just next to the University, next to "Pussen", the small pond. We were sitting there eating, laughing, having fun and when we got cold we took out an extra blanket. It was quite fun actually.

When we got home we made sushi, while Johanna cleaned her room which at the moment was more a junk room than her room :-) We watched some movies and when Tovah was falling asleep I sat on the porch and read a new book, "Ont Blod" by Arne Dahl. It started quite strangely but I soon found out that the first chapter depicted someone's strange thoughts. While I was sitting there I got a visit from my friend the hedgehog. I call him Taggi. It is amazing how much noise these creatures make when they walk through high grass. He comes every evening and I found out yesterday that he really enjoys Digistive crackers. He first was very scared and shy but after eating half a cracker I could take photographs so close that I had to use the macro setting on the camera. He totally ignored me and camera flash.

During the day yesterday I was really tired, to little sleep and to much brace the last days waiting for Johanna.

But now it is a new day and unfortunately it is cloudy but thankfully it isn't raining. Perhaps we'll take a road trip around town with a picknick in Karlsvik. We'll see what the ladies of the house say.

If you are in Luleå and read this and see us floating by on our red strange bikes then stop us and say hello! :-)

I had a wonderful day yesterday. The ladies arrived 3 minutes late and we started the day with a fruit breakfast on the porch followed by presents. J liked 3 out of 4 presents as well as the flowers. The rest of the day we spent bathing, cycling, eating good food. After T finally fell asleep we ate some more fruit, drunk some bubbly and had you know what of the sofa :-). A great day all in all.

Before falling asleep I finished Pappa Polis. Good book written from a 10 year olds perspective.

Also found out yesterday that Dick's funeral will be August 23 10.00 in the cathedral ("Domkyrkan"),

At 06:50 T woke up this morning and in turn woke up me. We have so far eaten breakfast, climbed the mountain, played at the playground and T had bathed outdoors. It isn't so warm today, only 21 degrees and cloudy. Not the best bathing weather.

The big day is here, J-T day. They arrive TODAY but later than expected. Their train is delayed (well that was to be expected as trains seldom are on time unfortunately). This means I can take later bus downtown (cannot walk as I have to take a heavy car seat with me for T). It feels like like going out on a first date, but ten times worse. Not worse in a negative meaning but stronger. There is more at play here than at a random date.

T = Tovah
J = Johanna