Wow, Google Maps combined with GPS data...

I had no idea that something like this would be possible! but please check out this flash tour and be prepared to be amazed about the new possibilities this offer. In a few years most of us will have GPS phones, and this will definately bring blogs and photologs to a new level. =) Cool...

More info on this page.

You really ought to check it out. Bookmark the 'load' link on the side and go to maps.google.com and open the bookmark! This will load the last route that this guy walked! =) Amazingly cool stuff...

Mit barndomssted vil altid være i mit hjerte

I have been thinking about Denmark today... mostly because I spoke to one of Lívia's friends Debora, who hope to move there soon. Currently, she is living in Sweden with her Danish husband Thomas.

I hope to take Lívia to Denmark when we get a bit closer to summer time... then we could go a week or two and I could show her around in Jutland, and we could also take a trip to Copenhagen to meet my friends there and to meet Debora and Thomas, as well.

The picture is from the town of Ribe, located in Western Jutland. The oldest, still existing, city of Denmark.

Today hasn't been a very exciting day. Mostly I have worked on my coral growth project that I didn't touch for one and a half month :| I am working on it with Aard and we are communicating though MSN. We are progressing, but not so quickly as I would have liked =( Maybe tonight will show some big improvements... we'll see...

Jeg savner min familie... hvorfor er de aldrig hjemme når jeg gerne vil snakke med dem?... :( og hvorfor har jeg ikke et godt billede af både min far, min mor og min dejlige lillesøster?



I miss my family... Why are they never home when I want to talk to them?... :( and why don't I have a good photo picturing my dad, my mom and my lovely sister at the same time?

This is a picture showing me at the market in Groningen - taken by my lovely girlfriend. The market is located at the Vismarkt, which means something like Fish Market.

Zaterdag...eller også kaldet lørdag

Saturday again. Actually, I was supposed to do a lot today, but I cannot seem to pull myself together. Well, it is not that I am not doing anything, but I am not doing enough to feel on top of things, nor do I have any interest in.

In the morning Nico dropped by. I am supposed to give a 2 hour lecture with him and I wanted to copy the pages from the book that I needed. We drank a cup of coffee together and went to the copyshop.

Afterward I couldn't really concentrate and all I was doing was thinking about my Lívia...I decided to add some pictures of her to my website and did so eventually. She came online for half an hour or so and it really helped hearing her voice...I though it would get my through the day, but right this moment I really wish she were by my side. :D Hey, while writing this she just popped up in Skype...let me finish later!!!



hmm, apparently it wasn't her :( Probably it automatically logged onto her account :( Oh well... Anyway, whatelse did I do today. I went to the market and bought a some fruits etc... the price there still amazes me... you really can get a lot for little money. When I got home I got to read the paper about UPPAAL; urgh, this isn't easy stuff to understand... Since it is lørdag...which is Danish for Saturday and which really means Washing Day, I decided to wash :) Puh, what a huge wash! It is so hard washing in this house as if I turn on the washing machine and the oven is on, or the dryer or the dish washer...well, then it results in a power failure...and we don't want this. This on the other hand, means that a lot of planning needs to be done in order to wash your clothes :) Now I just made some lasagne and watched the first episode of Battlestar Galactica - a new sci-fi series that is running in America...interesting.

Almost like she was beside me...

Another day went bye. Not the most exciting day, but now a bad day either =) This morning I got up quite early as an Ugandian guy from school phoned me, wanting me to help him find an extra course that he could follow. I don't know if I was helpful, but at least I tried doing my best.

A bit later my lovely girlfriend phoned me over skype! Cool, it worked so well! It was the first time we tried it since she lives in Germany. It was sooo great listening to her voice, and we had some very nice conversations and some times it almost felt like we were next to each other.

Heh, that reminds me that Lívia were explaining me somethings about Portuguese and writing things on her computer just like I was sitting next to her...but unfortunately, I couldn't see what she was writing, hihihih :D We ended up speaking almost 3 hours...1 hour in the morning and 2 in the afternoon...sooo good! =)

Yesterday it was Lívia's sister, Karine's birthday! PARABÉNS!!!! She told me that she would have liked to spend the day with Lívia and me...We would have liked very much to spend the day with you as well!!! I really hope you had a nice day! Once more, CONGRATULATION WITH YOUR BIRTHDAY!

Yesterday evening, Abel from Drentse Taol dropped by to drink a cup of coffee, chat a bit with me and in order to record his translation of The Wren story. He seemed very nice and I am sure he will drop by another time for a chat and a cup of coffee!

Today, I started doing my first practical for my course Advanced Computer Graphics and Virtual Environments. It was kind of cool... I now have a ball bouncing around in a room. It doesn't work perfectly yet, but I have some idea on how to improve it... We will see how it turns out tomorrow.

What always amazes people about Groningen, is the amount of bikers :) Just take a good look. And hey, there are a lot moooore!

The view from the station. Yes, :'( the time had come for Lívia to return to Passau :'( I hope we will soon be together again my sweetie - my love!

Evening at Georg's and Laurenz's place

Yesterday I went by Georg's place, in order to eat with him :) It was quite nice. We shopped a bit, talked a lot and cooked some nice Chinese dinner :) As the picture shows, Georg, is a GNU supporter, which makes me wonder why he doesn't use GNOME (GNU Networking Obj...) =) Well, maybe we can still save him. At least I left a Ubuntu CD in his room...so now we will see ;)



Later, we went to Laurenz, who lives quite close by, in order to watch some Japanese animation series and some Monty Python :). It was quite cozy and the time flew away.

When I biked home, I was mentally preparing to get a nice sleep, but it turned out that the house was full of people! Thus, once more no sleep...well, I did sleep a bit from 5am to 7:30...as the people were in the city while I was laying quietly in my bed. Well, the people didn't stay there, so later they partied on in our kitchen. The party just stopped now (an hour ago, around 9 o' clock) and I spend quite some time cleaning up, so that I don't have to be ashamed bringing anyone to my house.

What a night....

Oh this night I didn't get to sleep at all. Well, as usual I went to bed late, but around 3am or so one of my room mates (huisgenootjes) decided to throw a party in the kitchen...well, that meant loud music and lots of talking. Oh, well, annoyed as I was I decided to stay in my bed. Later I heard a lot of noise; glasses being broken, people being thrown up agains my door etc. Well, apparently the room mate and one of his good friends decided to fight for fun, and since they were extremely drunk it got more seriously and they managed to ruin many things, like a thing to hang the wash on, my notebord, plus various plates and glasses.



Oh yee! What a mess! Something also happened to the heating controller (which was also hit) so it was extremely cold in my room when I went to bed around 7am. Luckily, my painting wasn't standing in the hallway any longer... if so, I wouldn't have had it today.

Jens came by ...and hijacked my laptop

Nice evening tonight. I was chatting a bit with Jens and since none of us were doing anything we decided to eat together =)



We shopped and decided to cook Pasta Carbonara...and later eat some apple pie. Well, it turned out that Jan-Willem and his friends ate Carbonara as well and had plenty left - so we ended up eating there Carbonara instead =) Anyway, just wanted to say that it was quite nice that Jens dropped by. Next time we will eat Stampot Kartøfler or something similar, ...apparently it is one of Jens' favorite meals and something that I have never (?) tasted.

I wanna learn to use a calendar

For a long time I have avoided using calendars. I simply hate them. I tried many times, and I am quite good at writing things in them...but not at looking in it.

Computer-based calendars have worked a bit better for me, probably because I can quickly scan though them, show/hide birthdays on the fly, and look at my calendar with different views. Quite handy! Sunbird is a good example of such a calendar. Unfortunately, I want my calendar to be available everywhere! Well, on the net is sufficient, but I want to be able to modify it there as well. So far this has required me to use an expensive groupware solution, which has been out of reach.

Yesterday I read about a very promising new project called Hula. Apparently Novell open-sourced their NetMail groupware server and are now trying to build a community around it. The idea is not to make a new super groupware server with tons of features that most people don't care about. Instead, the idea is to make a server application that works for normal people, that is so cool that no-one can live without it :)

The way they want to accomplish this is by creating a nice Gmail-style web interface for the mail and the calendar part. They also want to make the calendar work well for students. Thus, good integration of school schedules, easy ways to show your calendar to your friends and easy ways to arrange parties :)

I wish the team at Novell and the community around Hula the best of luck. This looks just like what I have been missing!

Finally!

Finally, I got to hang up my Van Gogh painting! It has now been standing in the hall for months :) It was kind of hard though since the wall is made of plaster (gips) and it is hard finding something behind the plaster that I can mount things to. Anyway :) it worked!



Today we have also been quite busy in the kitchen. Jan-Willem and a friend bought a table and removed a lot of old garbage like glass, old non-functioning oven etc. and Marielle and me did a looot of cleaning :) It is a lot nicer now!

Yesterday I participated in a beer drinking competition...we didn't get so far though, as one in our team was quite slow at drinking..oh well :) it was fun anyway, and I think I got my share of beers .... at least it was quite hard getting up to my morning meeting.

I started with my new lectures this week. Some sound interesting, but it seems like I will have plenty to do...in two weeks or so I need to teach the whole class for two hours! :S The subject is Lighting, Raytracing and Radiocity... I hope I will make some nice slides. If I do so, I will put them online =)

I also got a mail back from one of the companies I wrote to in Germany. They will let me know in two-weeks time. Crossing fingers!

Maybe I shouldn't pretend to speak Frisian?

Heh, oh well. Frisian is not that hard understanding, but I shouldn't assume knowing all words. I once learned the word sneon, but since I never have used it, it changed from being Saturday to Sunday in my mind - highly unhandy as I now missed an appointment! :| Yes, people made me dinner, with more than one meal! and where were I?!?! At home :( Shit, so stupid...also stupid that I didn't make sure they had my phone number!

Oh well, live goes on! and I went there to drink coffee today...just like a short visit that ended up being quite long! I hope I didn't stay too long for their taste...but I talk a lot and find it hard stopping! I also got to taste the frikadeller they made for me yesterday, and we also ended up playing a lot of guitar :D It was quite nice. Nice people and nice afternoon!

Praktikumsplatz in Deutschland

So, I have been ill this whole weekend. I feel a bit better today, so I hope I will be up and running again within a few days.

Since I wrote here last, I changed my study direction from Computational Science and Visualization to Software Engineering. There were a couple of reasons for it. Some that mattered more than others.

First of all, when I choose for Comp.Sci and Vis. I did so because I thought it would be fun and nice to use a bit of my Math knowledge and also because I like working with 3D graphics. It turned out that I didn't like the Computational Science part that much and the courses I had to take for next period sounded quite boring. I decided not to study Software Engineering, though the topic interests me a lot. The main reason was that it was the traditional route and I wanted to be different :) Anyway, after talking to my fellow Dane here, and thinking about what I want to do after my study, it becomes more and more clear that I should have choosen for this direction.

I am not a guy who easily "give up", so I stayed on the direction I chose. Anyway, I always wanted to do some kind of internship and this is not part of my direction. When I looked at what courses I could choose, I saw that if I was studying Software Engineering, I would have 2 months of internship in approx 2,5 months time! Wow! This means that I have to find a company myself and do an internship - hey, why not do that in Germany, close to where Lívia lives...? :) I see no reason not to =) ...so I changed my study direction and spend most of my weekend searching for companies in the area and writing German :).

I am lucky to have some nice friends who have helped me out. For instance, I talked a long time over skype with Christian Meyer from Munich and Martin Gimme from Passau - trying to look at my options! Helge has also been quite helpful in finding good German equivalents for my Danish education :) Quite difficult! and required a lot of discussion. Thanks friends! I am sure this will work out! and I know that my love will do hers too! Muaah!

Something else: Oh my Gosh! You don't really want to find this in your ketchup! :|

Oh what a day...

Well, as you can imagine, I didn't get much done today. I tried working a bit, but quickly gave up again :( Then I spend some hours organizing my photos and bought some DVD+R so that I could make some backups...didn't really help on my mood as only one of them worked :S Picasa2 burned a DVD without problems but all other applications ruined my expensively bought DVD :S Oh well :)

There were also some nice parts of today. For instance I talked to my friend Geir for quite some time! He had birthday 2 days ago, so TILLYKKE GEIR!!! I really enjoyed talking to him, and it makes me very happy to hear that it is just going perfect between him and his girlfriend who are now living together!

I also talked a bit to my mom and my sister, but the latter I didn't really get to talk to as she was going to some school event. She will call me Saturday - I really look forward to that.

Yesterday my school friend Frank dropped by for dinner and some beers :) Damn, now I have to buy new Hoegaarden again. It was nice, and we talked, listened to some music , played a bit of guitar (me teaching a bit) and looking at some funny video clips. =)

On a side note, I learned today that the name Passau is derived from Batavi[1]:

Batavis >

Old High German Bazzowa >
Bavarian voicing of consonants Pazowa >
Middle High German Pazzouwe >
Modern High German Passau.

Well, I don't know that much about the Batavi tribe, nor their, originally, Scandinavian brother tribe the Heruli[2], but what is funny is that the Latin name for the Netherlands is Batavia[3] also named after the Batavi. :) So apparently there is a connection between the Netherlands and Passau...oh, well I already knew that :) Lívia and me, of course.

[1] Batavi means something like Deep Water. Bat comes from Greek báthos and avi is related to German Aue.

[2] which originates from current Denmark, but which the Danes forced away - just like they tried with us Jutes, before they decided to inter-marriage us and name us all Danes.

[3] which was also the old name for Jakarta - the capital of Indonesia (Dutch India).

Nogle gange bliver man meget glad.

Jeg vidste godt af min kæreste havde en blog, men jeg mistede adressen på et tidspunkt, og læser derfor aldrig i den. I går sagde en af hendes veninder at min kæreste elskede mig, og jeg spurgte hvorfor hun pludselig sagde det. Veninden gav mig et link til min kærestes blog og jeg læste de følgende ord og blev meget glad (oversat til dansk):

hej, festen var perfekt, men i dag vil jeg fortælle noget andet. Jeg er i en ny fase af mit liv. Meget forelsket ... meget glad :)

flink, sød, nuser, kærtegnende, smuk, min kæreste

[klip] ...og jeg elsker min kæreste. ja. jeg fik ikke fortalt ham det ...men det gør jeg næste gang (tårer af glæde)

Jeg kan ikke beskrive hvor glad jeg blev da jeg læste det. Selvfølgelig har jeg følt hvad hun føler for mig, men at hun fortælle det på denne måde overfor hendes venner gør mig meget glad.

Everything seems to fall into place...

Yesterday I got to talk to my German friend Christian again. That was kind of nice since I never talk to him since I stopped using IRC. He lives in Munich so I told him I was there on friday and that I spend my weekend in Passau. It turned out that he also spend his weekend in Passau! What a coincident!

Apparently, Christian is in the progress of moving to Passau to finish his study in Computer Science there. This is like really good news! It means that if Lívia is going to study there, then it will be possible for me to study there as well! And then as a bonus, I already have a friend there! Great! He also knows the drill - how the system works there - so that might also help me a bit. =)

It seems that the path for me is open, now I just need to follow it...

Wow, so romantic walking here...

In Passau you are only allowed to walk hand in hand :)

On the way to my love

This is written after I came home :) but posted on the right day.

Well, the journey to Lívia was of course boring and made me very tired, but it wasn't that bad a trip. I went around 18:00 from Groningen to Utrecht. Before going I asked my Polish friend, Ola, who lives in Utrecht if she wanted to drink a cup of coffee with me the half hour I had to wait in Utrecht. I had no idea if she lived close by or not. Apparently, she didn't really, but as nice a girl she is, she went there anyway - just to drink a cop of coffee with me :D Really nice of her! Actually, she was already standing there ready with the coffee as I arrived! This helped a lot on my mood and made the rest of the journey nicer.

I got on the night train leaving to München/Munnich and it turned out to be quite a nice train. I got to sit next to two girls (Bo Young and Himei) from Korea. They were quite nice and funny - which I think most Koreans are - but that is probably because they have quite a different culture. At first it was quite hard communicating with them, but after a while it was no problem.

I started to eat something and they asked me if I had hunger...of course I had (why else would I be eating *-)) anyway, when I said yes, they suddently wanted to give me food! :-O ...so I also got around to tasting some Korean food :) Imported from Korea! cool!

They also gave me a present that I had to open up. Nice, a nice key chain with a drum attached! of course from Korea :D I asked them how to say thanks (which apparently is kam sa hab ni da) :) and did so!

They also asked for my name, but didn't quite get what I was saying, so I wrote it down in Korean (ke-nu-teu - but with korean syllables) and they were like 'huh, that is Hangul? You know Hangul?'. Korean writing is actually quite easy and I think I learned it in a days time some years ago. I was amazed that I still remembered :)

Later, one of the girls moved her leg a bit too much forward - actually she put it between the seats in from of her. The German guy sitting there couldn't help him self, and layed his arm on her leg! She got really shocked and ashamed and the girls started to cry. In Korea I don't think you are really allowed to touch others in public, but I might be wrong. The German guy was kind of shocked of their reaction and try calming them down, and telling that he just couldn't resist.

Later I arrived to Munnich...the train was a bit delayed and people were soooo slow at getting out. Even though they told us that the train to Passau would wait, it wasn't there when I showed up :( And I ran though the whole station as quickly as I could. Bad luck, and 2 hours waiting at the very cold München Hbf! :( I tried walking a bit in the city, but because it was quite early everything was closed :( bad luck!

The trip from Munnich to Passau was quite nice. I sat in a quite cozy and warm new train, and the view was just wonderful! Such beautiful landscapes and snow!!!

2 hours later I arrived in Passau and there was my love! and another wonderful weekend began!

Yay, EU Software Patents Back to Square One!

I cannot explain how happy I am! Maybe, I now have a future in the IT business! Negotiations have restarted! (Danish). Once again, I will use the oppotunity to thank Polen! I am so happy that you became part of the European Union...what should we have done without you!

I searched a bit further for my name today, and bumped into a page in Arabic with two links to my site...hmm...I wish I could read Arabic!

I haven't talked to Helge for a week now. He has been in Oostfreeskland and also in Münster in order to do an interview for a job. I hope he got it! Good luck, my jung!

Other news: We are apparently going to win the bear competition because as Daniel puts it; Kenneth the undersized Viking? Denen hebben goede stofzuigers, dus met een degelijke Nilfisk in je team kan die overwinning jullie niet ontgaan! :) Undersized?! Yeah, but true vikings are indeed small :) Just look at Jens...tall, like all Dutch people...and where are his viking abbilities today? Tja...I donno...but at least he tells me that having him on the team won't result in victory. Maybe they stopped drinking mjød on Sealand.

In one hour I am sitting on the train! Gosh, I miss u Lillie! See you tomorrow morning!!! Muaah!

Sometimes few words can make one very happy

This evening I was reading some blogs and I read about the new Microsoft Search page. Though, I have no intention of ever using it, as I am kind of a Google fan :) I desided to check it out anyway. Well, that is a better way to check a new search engine out, than searching for your self!

Doing so, surprised me a lot. There are actually people out there who are thinking about me without directly saying it to me. The entry that touched me the most was this one:

Resumen del 2004: Un resumen del 2004 a través de 35 preguntas y respuestas.

34. De quienes conociste este año ¿Quién fue la mejor persona?
Kenneth Christiansen.

The above is written by Germán Poó Caamaño; a great chilean guy I met at a conference this summer. Since then I have exchanged a few mails, but for a long time I haven't heard anything. I am very bad at emailing all my friends as too many are emailing me. As a result I try keeping all my friends on my MSN list, but unfortunately not everyone is using MSN :(



Un foto con yo e mí amigo Germán! Not the best photo, but we are both on it!

I should definately write him now and tell him about my blog (he asked me earlier if I had one) and I should starting reading his.

What else has happened today? Well, we were out of electricity again :S sooo annoying...and now I need to open up for someone at 7:45 tomorrow morning...and that is 100 meters away from here :(. Anyway, while we still had electricity I saw the film 'The Butterfly Effect'. It was a really great and crazy movie. Even early on the film touchen me personally, and made me think about a whole lot of things in my own life. I think a lot, am very spiritual and this movie apparently touched me a lot...later on the movie took some turns and touched me again...and I was watching it with tears in my eyes,...as I probably indentified myself with people in the actual movie. Anyway, it is not a movie like the most. It is very crazy and weird, but VERY good! I will definately recomment it! Thanks Floris for lending it to me!

On to other news! I am now in a school/FMF commission! Yes, I am the first Dane to enter a school commission here in Groningen, NL :) Tje...I sure know how to get involved?!...and integrate?! Don't I? :)

Anyway, I am also the first non-FMF-member to join a FMF-commission.... but let's not tell that to anyone ;)

Sometimes time runs so slow...

...and that can make you really depressed - especially in this winter time, when every thing is gray and cold. I do have a lot of warmth in my heart, but the one I want to share it with seems far away this very moment. She isn't really, she is right there in my heart and always on my mind, but not being able to reach out, grap her and give her a kiss is hard when I have so much to give and want to let her feel that.




I hear the rain dripping softly outside my window
It keeps on raining, splash, splash, with no intention to change
Right this moment I imagine us, you and me, running in that rain
Cheerful, happy, not caring about anything, because we know
We know in our hearts that we belong together. Gone is that pain

The pain of being apart, because right this moment
We have no sence of time. Only the sence of each other.

That is how it is being with you, my precious Lívia!

Time for change

So long since I wrote anything; true. But a lot of things happened and I didn't have energy to deal with anything else. Some things I cannot tell, and others I can.

Everyone knows how much I loved Lívia, but our relationship has come to an end.

We had a wonderful time together and were both very happy together, but in Brazil she realized that she was not ready for any serious relationship and she started doubting if she wanted to be with me or someone else and the day before christmas she finally broke with me. That was a bit of bad timing, though and it ruined my whole christmas.

It was hard getting over her as I truly loved her and gave too much of my self to her, but now I realized that she is no longer the one for me and she really does not deserve me.

I am a bit sad that she made me look deep into myself and blame myself for what happened and for the mistakes she made. I know she didn't do this on purpose and tried not to, but it was her way of dealing with her still having feeling for me at that time and being confused.

If you are unfairful to someone, you are the one to blame, and you shouldn't be searching for reasons / excuses like unperfections / shortcomings with your partner and making them into something they are not, just to create the illusion that what you did was acceptable by making him/her take the blame.

Doing this is not really something to be proud of, and you only hide who you really are for yourself. But I understand and so will she with time.

Make no mistakes, Lívia is a wonderful, wonderful girl with a lot of good going for her. Never forget that my, once, grande amor! =)