Ole's online internet presence

Just checked the weather. I'm glad to see it's getting better for you guys up in cold northern Europe. It's almost plus degrees in Denmark right now. Fighting between -1 and 0 DEG C. Also it's no longer snowing, just very gray - and almost close not to raining.

Down here, in southern Germany, I am just about to finish for today - then out and enjoy the 12 DEG C, no wind, sunny and blue sky! Ahhh... it feels almost as summer now!

9 DEG C, no wind. Sunny. Nice.

Had coffee and cake at Dani and Markus's. They announced that they are now engaged to get married (with each other).

22 FEB 2002: Had sushi at Yang Ji.

1136 I was informed by Geert that the servers in the Network Engineering Laboratory had not come up themselves after the scheduled power break last night. I spent the next hour trying to get power back, so I came too late to the Friday 12 o'clock run - the others left without me. That didn't stop me from doing a quick 6 km by myself (not including the hill!). Was back at 1330 to have lunch with Keith, his daughter and her boyfriend who were here to visit him.

Winfried dropped in today. Payday!

Also, today I rearranged the office, moving the the desk where Silvia used to sit.

Reread favorite passages of Stephenson's Cryptonomicon. I read it the last time (the second time) in September 2001. I think I'm ready for a complete reread. From the back cover:

'Pynchon meets Gibson in the biggest novel of the season' Time Out

'The Gravity's Rainbow of the information age - an astonishing, monumental performance; and if the rumours of a sequel are true, I can hardly wait.' Independent

'Mixes history and fiction in the way that Don DeLillo did in Underworld. Stephenson's book is more successful than DeLillo's, and much funnier.' TLS 'Books Of The Year'

'What cyberculture needs right now is not another science-fiction novel but its first great historical novel, and Cryptonomicon is it' Village Voice

'Proves that [Stephenson] is the rarest of geniuses, capable of appreciating math, cultural traditions, free markets, computer programming and the human psyche... without ignoring the subtleties involved in any of them' New York Post

Now, people. All of you have read Pynchon, Gibson, and Delillo? Right? If not, have a look at my book page for titles and order those books now!

6 km, blue sky, 2 DEG C. Three times the hill.

Poached halibut steak on Pizzaiola sauce with potatoes for lunch. Strawberry juice. Water. Cremino (what the f... is that? That's what it says on the menu. White creamy stuff with fruit in it. Hmmm.) for dessert.

Got new soles on my Yellowmiles. 10 EUR at Mister Mint's in Karstadt...

Silvia had last day at work today. Moving to Kosovo.

Ran the short 6 km route today in great weather (but cold). Steve forced us to run up and down the hill three times!

Reread Scott Card's Ender's Shadow yesterday evening. Some 500 pages in four hours, including time for eating and going to the toilet.

Saw Star Trek Nemesis in Helia at 20:30 (6,50 EUR). I preferred the Borg queen. Or T'pol from the new Enterprise series. Besides from that it was entertaining and funny also. Will not win the Golden Palmes in Cannes, though.

Got MS Windows XP Pro on my new office peecee. Dell Optiplex GX240 with 512 MB of memory and a CPU running 1.8 billion clockcycles per second. Maybe I will now be able to start Lotus Notes in less than a minute. Sigh.

Went to Frankfurt to play indoor paintball with 7 collegues. It took place in an abandoned factory - cold, wet and with 4 cm of mud/paint/shit on all floors. There were no changing rooms, the mens toilet was a hole in the ground, and there was no providing of coveralls. Luckily I did bring an extra pair of jeans, but I had to borrow a jacket from one of the others. Also - indoor paintball is just two teams in each end of a big hall, and when the game starts they start shooting at each other, until one of the teams have been killed. Outdoor paintball, like we played it during high school is much fun: running around in the woods, hiding, searching for enemies, maybe shooting a bit. A game lasted several hours and afterwards home to the summerhouse and drink beer and watch video films.

Oh. And in Germany we don't use guns, we don't shoot each other, and you don't die when hit. And the paint is not allowed to be red, and camoflage combat uniforms are forbidden. We use markers, we mark each other, and we are "out of the game" when marked.

Extracted waypoints covering everywhere I have been for the last 2 years from my Garmin GPS. Now it can run out of battery, or I can drop it in the toilet - the waypoints are safe! London, Paris, lots of places in Germany and in Denmark, the Atlas mountains, the Caribbean. For example:

Lat/Lon hddd.ddddd°
WGS 84
Name    Position        Altitude        Symbol
ORLY F  N48.72805 E2.36918      103 m   Airport
FDF     N14.58333 W61.08333     -47 m   Marina
MARINH  N14.46869 W60.86617     -1 m    Marina
MAG     N13.96708 W61.02384     -3 m    Marina
BLULAG  N13.12750 W61.19058     21 m    Marina
ADMBAY  N13.00790 W61.23925     9 m     Marina
TURTLE  N13.02578 W61.21420     -21 m   Flag
MYSTIC  N12.88039 W61.18994     4 m     Marina
MYSAIR  N12.88669 W61.18210     -21 m   Airport
BAR     N12.88951 W61.18527     -13 m   Flag
TOBBAC  N12.63189 W61.35561     2 m     Marina
LOBS    N12.63633 W61.36043     2 m     Flag
UNIONI  N12.59585 W61.41711     12 m    Marina
UMBREL  N12.54460 W61.39524     -19 m   Swimming Area
PETIVC  N12.53357 W61.38419     3 m     Marina
PETMAR  N12.52561 W61.38698     -23 m   Marina
SOLBAY  N12.64752 W61.39156     1 m     Marina
CUMBAY  N13.26396 W61.26111     6 m     Marina
PITONB  N13.82127 W61.06567     3 m     Marina
SOUFRI  N13.85495 W61.06031     1 m     Marina
PANORA  N13.84848 W61.06120     68 m    Park
POOL    N13.83740 W61.06088     71 m    Swimming Area
VULCAN  N13.83720 W61.04557     202 m   Skull and Crossbones
RODNEY  N14.07513 W60.94921     3 m     Marina
SCANNE  N14.43342 W60.88513     4 m     Marina
CHURCH  N14.43461 W60.87920     57 m    Trail Head

Finished Love in the Time of Cholera last evening.

I have started to look into XML and XSTL to make my homepage design more spiffy. I have been receiving complaints that I should make a visit to the site more like a tour - a visual and emotional experience for body and soul! - says a person with the world's coolest website himself...

Ran 6 km in the woods at 12. Good weather, many people showed up.

Ran for the first time since end of December. Approx. 5 km in the woods behind the Agency. Fuuuck. The weather is nice, no snow, but quite wet.

I'm currently reading too many books at the same time. Yesterday I bought and started reading Judith Hermann's Nichts als Gespenster. Her first, Sommerhaus, Später, written in 1999 was very good. I have high expectations of her new one. I'm halfway through Love in the time of Cholera - hope to finish that one today.

Space shuttle Columbia crashed over Texas, yesterday afternoon. I heard it on HR1 while watering my pot plants. I don't remember where I was 28 JAN 1986 when Challenger exploded during launch from the Kennedy Space Center - I was 10 years old, and I remember that I was shocked - but I don't remember the exact circumstances.

Bought myself a Krups 350-Watts hand mixer in replace of that 10-year old thing, which I stole from the student dormitory, when I moved out in August 2000. Baked bread yesterday and pancakes this morning. Yumm.