blog ::

Has it really been almost 2 years already? I really need to get a grip on my blogging, then.

I always had planned to finish off my vacation story before blogging about anything else, but I just never found the time to actually finish it off. More than anything, it has more to do with the fact that when I created my simple blogging system, I never expected to post as many photos as I have so far, which means that I never built in any image uploading/posting functions into it, or even a gallery function of any kind. The blogging system inputs pure HTML code and replaces only line breaks with the appropriate HTML codes for line breaks. Nothing else.

This means that if I want to insert any images, I have to resize them down to a more useful size (both as a thumb and as a "full" image"), then watermark them with my logo (to avoid too much stealing), then upload them via FTP, and finally insert the HTML code for displaying the image. For one or two images, that's usually fine, but with vacation photos, this time numbering up to 55 photos, this steals a lot of time beforehand.

And if you look at the image gallery below.... yes! All that is hand-coded by me (using a text editor and a lot of copy+paste) to make it look like it does. And even then, I don't always get it as good as I really want.

This also means that I'm putting off things like this until I finally cave in and get my ass in gear, to phrase it like that (American censors, go home). That's exactly what happened to me today. I just couldn't take it anymore, I had to get it out of the way.

I do have a more advanced content management system (or CMS) in the planning stages (some of the architecture behind it is more or less decided on), but since this is also something I need to do on the side of my day job, it could take weeks, months or even years to complete, although I hope it doesn't come to that.

I know, I could probably go for something open-source and already out there (like WordPress or something like that), but I really just want something to call my own.

There's not so much going on in my life of late (other than a slowly downturning slope economically the last couple of months, but I expect that to turn upwards in the next week or so - which has nothing to do with the next part).

On the positive side of my life right now, I've been working with a very sweet girl/woman called Kicesie (which, btw, is pronounced Kice-see, in case you're wondering) along with a team of administrators and moderators to create a forum for her upcoming website (to be launched Soon™). I can't go into more details right now, I can only say that it's been fun so far, and it's going to be fun seeing it take off once the website launch is in place. To say the least, we're all excited. I'll leave the full details up to Kicesie when the grand opening is closing in.

Anyway, to conclude where I left off about my vacation back in 2006, the trip continued on to an overnight in Leipzig (for July 10-11) the day after my last post, but not after spending a few extra unnecessary hours in Prague. Not by choice, mind you, but because we had managed to lock one of our room keys inside our apartment while checking out. We had two room keys, and had already gotten all of our luggage into the car. The keys were of the security lock type (T-shaped at the end), and the door auto-locks when it's shut. One of the keys had been left inside the lock on the inside after everyone had left the room, and in the worst possible position as well; ninety degrees across the keyhole, and not alongside the keyhole, enough so there was no way to wriggle the key out of the lock on the other side. This also meant that it was impossible to push the remaining key in to the lock from the outside, and without both room keys, we couldn't just check out of the room either. This also meant calling in a local locksmith to get the key out and get in to the apartment. Me and my mom stayed in the car, waiting for it all to pass, and I can tell you it was a very long wait. Just another dent in our vacation plans, I suppose (the first being a speeding ticket on the first leg of our trip). Anyway, after some hours of waiting and some more miserable hours driving, we finally arrived in Leipzig, where we got to this amazing luxury hotel called Hotel Fürstenhof. I tell ya, that is actually the first time I've experienced a hotel to look exactly as the pictures have promised. I'm also guessing that we came in during a low season, since we were told at the reception desk that they had upgraded our rooms. We were left speechless. If you ever come across a good deal on a hotel reservation site (like booking.com or hotels.com), I can absolutely recommend this hotel. At the time, I had paid about NOK 700 for each room, which is probably less than for a random "regular standard" hotel in Norway (or anywhere in Western Europe, for that matter). The only downside was that we were only staying for 1 night, since we had already a hotel waiting and paid for further down the road for the next night.

The next overnight stop was Schwerin (July 11-12, still in Germany), which was back to a "normal" hotel standard. The whole trip there was sorta pressing, and my mom had a small headache most of the way. Just after we had checked in and loaded our suitcases into our rooms, we heard several thunders, followed by a few hours of heavy, straight-down rain - which would rather explain that pressing feeling we had on our way over.

The next day, after a quick stop in Flensburg for our annual hoarding of alcohol and wine (way cheaper down there, as opposed to the heavily taxed alcoholic wine and liquor back home), we crossed the border into Denmark, drove all the way through this time, and ended up in Malmö just across the Swedish border for another overnight (July 12-13). The hotel we had prepaid for there was rather awful, though. I mean, we entered the reception desk on the ground floor, and after being handed the our keys, we were told the rooms started at the 3rd floor (!). For my mom, who's highly claustrophobic, it meant she couldn't just use the elevator, but had to get a set of keys to the "emergency stairs". When we finally got to our rooms, which appeared to be a five minute walk between (roughly a 2 minute walk in each direction from the elevator), we found the room standard was pretty low as well. Judging by the looks of the rooms, I wouldn't have classified it more than 2 stars, even though it officially had 3 stars. You can imagine we were pretty pissed. We decided to leave this hotel to find a different hotel instead, and after driving around for an hour or so, we ended up at The Mayfair Hotel (previously known as Hotell Tunneln). The rooms we had were at an OK standard, given that we were just spending a single night (I'm guessing we just took the cheapest rooms available, just to have somewhere to sleep).

The next stop we had planned was in Hamar, but our car engine was pretty much coughing and running at low power all the way to the Swedish border. You can imagine how tense it felt, considering how much we had in the trunk (alcohol over the limit), fearing that we wouldn't make it across before the car broke down (considering that road assistance is free in Norway with our car owner's association membership, but only once inside the Norwegian borders - outside Norway, it's cheap, but still a price to pay). We barely made it across the Svinesund crossing station, though, stopping at the first gas station possible. Luckily, there was a new motel located off the main road called Svinesundsparken Motell, which was just across from the Shell station we had stopped at. After a station attendant and a car mechanic had looked at the car engine, it became clear that repairs needed to be done (I don't remember the exact component that needed to be replaced, though). Considering the time was already around 4pm, we had no choice but to leave the car overnight. The car mechanic said he would come get the car at around 8am the next day (July 14, a Friday, no less), so we spent the night, got our car fixed, and were back on the road home.

And that, more or less, concludes the story of my summer vacation in 2006.

Eh, what the hell, I'll throw in the photos I took on that vacation as well...

It's me, the lots-of-updates guy! I usually try, but I generally don't get any further than thinking about it. I am, of course, talking about making a post in my blog.

Right now, I'm in Prague, enjoying the sun and a good vacation. We arrived here yesterday, and we're leaving tomorrow. And as I've come to notice, that's not nearly enough to experience the multitude of culture this city has to offer. At least we know that now for next year.

My only sadness is the loss of Internet connectivity, and I don't have the ability to bring along my laptop to the Internet café I'm at now. I do have the ability to use the GPRS connection off my mobile phone and connect to the Internet using my laptop there, but using GPRS from Eastern Europe costs about 4 or 5 times per megabyte than back home, so I've come to the conclusion that I can use that connection, but only in extreme emergencies. Another bad thing is the Czech keyboard layout, which is quite different from the Norwegian layout (or even the US layout), making it hard getting used to. The letters themselves (a-z) as well as the numbers (0-9) are in the same places, though (as is the same difference between the Norwegian and US keyboard layouts).

Other than that, it's been nice. So far, the route has been the following:
July 1-2: Oslo, Norway
July 2-3: Langeskov, Denmark
July 3-5: Berlin, Germany
July 5-8: Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic
July 8-10: Prague, Czech Republic

Meaning, we're checking out tomorrow morning and setting "sail" for Leipzig in Germany, where we have hotel rooms waiting.

And yes, the road trip part of my vacation is hot, awful and tiresome. Only the end stops along the way make the trip worthwhile.

I've taken a few photos, although not as frequent as on last year's trip, but still a small handful. I'll try to post 'em when I get to a proper Internet connection (ie. somewhere that allows me to connect my entire laptop), and, of course, if only I remember to update my site.

I've published the pictures I took at the LAN party this Easter.

Check out pictures from Exotic-LAN.

I think the next time I'll involve myself in something like this, I'd rather be on the arranger side of the thing. I'm basically too old for this.

Now's that time when I figured I might jump back on the LAN-party bandwagon for a little bit, just to see what it felt like.

Today (Thursday), I logged in to the Exotic-LAN area, setting the start of this year's Easter pastime for me. I'd show you pictures, but I forgot my camera at home. At least I don't live far from the party area (less than a km distance), so I figured I'd come home for dinner and grooming/showering/cleaning and a little bit of family time on Friday and Saturday. It all ends on Sunday (doors close at 4pm), though. I guess I'll grab my camera when I stop by at home tomorrow.

I'm 26 now, and the average participant age appears to hover around 16-17. You could say I'm more or less a fish out of water here. I did point out to myself I'd participate this year just to get the feel of it, and I think I'll settle for just this one.

More to come later.

I think the summer might finally be around the corner. Or at least springtime. We still have some snow left, and it's now April. We've had a couple of sunny days now, but Tuesday came as a shock to me. It started snowing again! Although it was a small snowstorm (more like a snow-breeze, really) up on the mountain, where I live (yes, there's a small one not far from downtown here), you can imagine how happy I was. I was busy enough just dodging the snow, so I didn't get any snaps of this crapper. I did, however, manage to catch some of the progress in the snow melting on a corner where I live:


My mood is getting lighter each day now. More sun = me happy. I couldn't resist taking a few more snaps of the sun each day this week. Here's a small selection:


These were taken Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, in that order.

I'm finally jumping back on the LAN party horse again. After a long while without a decent computer to bring along to a gettogether like this, I'm bringing my laptop along to the one being arranged around here this Easter (April 13-16). No, it's not The Gathering. I don't live anywhere near the Hamar area. And although that would've been my first choice, all tickets were sold out in a matter of few weeks after the ticket sales opened in January.

This is the place I'm going to this year: Exotic-LAN 2006. It's gonna be a lot of gaming, too little sleep, and socializing the geek way. I'm bringing along my laptop, and I just hope it's up for the task. It's working fine as a stand-along tool, and the occasional play of EVE Online, but I don't know about other network play just yet. I also hope I have some gamers willing to play the type of games I play. Counter-Strike (and the likes) and fast-paced strategy games are not my cup of cocoa; slow strategy (that requires a bit of pondering) are the type for me. To get an idea of what I'm into, I have Monopoly 3, Civilization 3 (Gold Edition), The Movies and Age of Empires II (with the Conquerors expansion) installed. At least one of them will have to do.

And if the games aren't quite working out, there still are the non-gaming competitions. Hopefully, my skills are up to speed there.

It's that time of year again. Break out the pills and hankies, we're heading off for another season of clogged sinuses and nosebleeds galore.


That's what I'm in for, anyway. At least my pills are small and handy, and I only have to take it once a day.


And yes, I did mention nosebleeds. Why? Well, at this time of year, the insides of my nose itches a lot. And when I have an itch long enough, I can't help but scratch (usually with a hankie). And if you scratch enough times, you get through to a vein. That vein punctures, and I just have to get out as many hankies as it takes for the bleeding to stop. It eventually stops on its own, so I just have to make sure none of that spreads out to furniture, clothing, etc. in the meantime. And yes, I've tried all the tricks in the book, and none of them have really worked. I've come to realize that all of these "tricks" to make the bleeding stop are just distractions and de-stressing techniques. I find myself unwinding during the waiting time by pulling out another hankie. Actually, I tend to fold a small piece of soft toilet paper (double-layered), as they do just the trick, and I use less amount of hankies. So there.


At least my big trouble doesn't start until the beginning of the birch pollen season, which starts around mid-May, and is relieved by the grass pollen season near the end of June. This will last all the way into mid-August, so you can imagine what I'm looking forward to.


But first, the snow has to melt all the way through...

Recent Muslim turmoils set aside (check my opinions section for my view on those issues), the largest phone company in Norway, Telenor, decided to change their graphic profile this week. I may be old-fashioned, but I generally think that was a bad idea. I mean, look at the differences:



To me, the new logo looks more like it was downloaded for free or cheap from one of those template websites. What do you think?

It certainly took long enough, 5 months after we got home. Not only that, it took me a full 5 days to complete the story and fit the writing of it among my daily tasks. The date on the article tells you when I started writing it. To be honest, the time it took me to write it was closer to 5 and a half days.

Article: Summer holiday 2005, part 2 of 2

Finally, the first (of two) parts of this year's summer vacation have been posted, including maps and pictures.

Article: Summer holiday 2005, part 1 of 2

If it hadn't been for those rainy days, I might've never put it up while on the road. That goes to show just how nifty this new laptop of mine is.

This is NeonNero, reporting to you live from a hotel room in Odense, Denmark. I found a freebie WLAN connection nearby my hotel room, which isn't as good as the one provided by the hotel itself (but it's free compared to the one within the hotel itself, and I'm a little short on cash right now). Just thought I'd share about another "item" I "won"...



Anyway, some of you might've caught the fact that I'm on vacation right now with my parents. We started off yesterday morning, and the trip will end up in both Opatija, Croatia (3 nights) and in Zalakaros, Hungary (10 nights). I'm typing up a travel report along the way on my brand new Dell laptop, and getting some help along the way with Microsoft AutoRoute 2005 (it actually came with my mom's laptop, but she's not using it, so I grabbed the license for it).

Since I'm typing the report while on the road, there will be the need for some heavy cutting and editing before it'll be suitable for reading on the web. Hopefully, I'll be able to do some of that when I reach either Opatija or Zalakaros. If so, I'll post first half of my vacation report the first chance I get for Internet access after that. We'll see.