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2002-01-31 21:50:33 Source: Web

What a day! I had a day long meeting to lead today discussing our plans for development of our site and services for the coming 3-4 months. A lt of planning had gone into the meeting, but I actually had bad dreams about it last night! In the end it went perfectly - we even managed to keep to my timeplan! Amazing.

To top that off, when I got home I paid the first part of the deposit on our apartment. Pretty difficult for anything to go wrong from this point. (It's also the biggest sum of money I've ever paid for something in my life!).

I also managed to top 100,000 points for my soul in soulXchange. It's taken a while (Level 3 is tough as hell), so that was quite an achievement. Next stop, the top 100!

Finally, my team - Frölunda Indians - won at the icehockey match I went to this evening. A pretty resounding victory too - 6-1!

All in all an excellent day. Now excuse me, but I'm absolutely knackered! It's time for bed.

2002-01-29 07:45:55 Source: Web

It's been a really strange morning so far. It was blowing a gale last night and this morning and I was apparently not sleeping very soundly as I woke up from biting a hole in my tongue! Seriously - this morning I have a bloody hole in the tip of my tongue.

While that set the morning off to a bizarre start, when I woke up the view from my living room continued the strangeness. It was a full moon (or near as dammit) and I was able to take a pic or two with the digicam. Unfortunately it's at home, so no pics just yet.

Then with the wind blowing hard enought that I was worried for trees suddenly blowing down I went off and got the bus to work. Now I'm just hoping the day starts to sort itself out and become normal again!

... or do i???

2002-01-28 20:10:13 Source: Web

Mmmmm! I picked up a new printer today (my old one comes from 1991 when I bought my first computer). It's an Epson Stylus Photo 890.

I'm seriously impressed! It's a bubble-jet, colour of course and as the name suggests it is specially designed for photo printing. While the speed for b&w or basic colour printing isn't blindingly fast, it's fast enough for me. however I tried out the photo printing capabilities using the supplied roll of glossy photo paper and I am seriously blown away! The prints have come out looking every bit as good as really good quality developed photos.

My digital camera is now looking like an even better investment when I can print unlimited copies of my photos from the comfort of my own (soon to be our own) home.

2002-01-27 15:11:39 Source: Web

It's been a while, but I just wrote a new article for evolt.org. It won't be of interest to most people here, but it feels good to have written something again (other than cookstour).

Review

2002-01-27 10:33:21 Source: Web

Phew! Last week was hectic! We went from flathunting to contract signing in no time at all! Exciting stuff! The completion date is now decided, we'll be exchanging on the 26th April. From here on, things should be pretty straightforward. The system in Sweden protects the sale a bit more strongly than in the UK. We've already signed a contract, so barring any major problems (like not getting a loan) there should be no problems. Bearing in mind that we've already been approved for a loan I think things are looking pretty good.

So the next steps are to pay the first part of the deposit and to sell Lotta's flat. All very exciting!

The apartment itself is great. I'll do a floorplan once I get a copy of Lotta's measuremets, but for the time being, here's a quick description:

3 bedrooms. One is a larger room which will be ours, the others are smaller and will be our separate work rooms. Mine's next to the kitchen and Lotta's is next to the lounge. The main bedroom includes a wall with fitted wardrobes.

The lounge is a fairly good size, with doors in two walls and a window in a third. So a corner based furinture layout seems to be called for. Nice wood floors!

Bathroom is small, but well organised with lots of cupboards (Lotta heaven), bath & shower plus a "wash tower" - ie: washing machine and dryer.

The kitchen (my domain) is a very good size with room for a smaller dining table and with lots of storage. There's even a big double fridge freezer. Heaven! The only drawback is that there's no gas (it's löess and less common in Sweden) and the oven is pretty old, so we'll be getting a nice new oven system. Mmmmm!

From the kitchen there is a good sized balcony looking over the courtyard/gardens to the apartment building. Room for a table and 4 chairs for those pleasant summer evenings (it faces West, which is good for evening sun).

Finally the hallway has room for bookshelves etc and there's a walk-in wardrobe/guest toilet (it has the plumbing access, but is fitted out as and will remain a wardrobe).

The apartment is on the 3rd floor of 4, with a good lift. We're at the end of the building, which is sort of U shaped. Imagine that our apartment is at the end of the left-hand "prong" of the U. This means that we have windows on 3 sides. There's no real view, but we're not uncomfortably close to the neighbours either.

Changes that we are planning include:

• Some painting
• Replace linoleum in hallway with wooden flooring
• Replace oven
• Wire for broadband network access
• Strip ugly wallpaper from wardrobe doors in bedroom

Other than that there's not so much to be done.

Speaking for myself, I'm really looking forward to it all. However, right now there's not so much to be done other than sorting through my own posessions to chuck anything not needed and doing some planning. Gonna have to sit tight now for the next 3 months and be patient.

2002-01-24 10:43:36 Source: Web

Well folks, you read it here first (except Dave who read it on ICQ), we got the flat!

Wahoo!

I just heard that we came in with the highest offer and the others we were bidding against have folded. So Lotta and I are going to sign a basic agreement this afternoon to ensure that no higher bids come in. After that it's all about the money, which shouldn't be a problem. The apartment came in lower than the projections that I have been calculating, so I doubt we'll have a problem. Oh - we also have to sell Lotta's flat of course...

Anyway, I'll keep folks updated on such details as moving dates, floorplans, loan arrangements and so on as they happen. Tonight Lotta and I are going to see Lord of the Rings (finally) and I think there might be a glass of champagne or two involved somewhere along the line.

2002-01-23 12:49:09 Source: Web

Things are quite exciting just now. Lotta and I are in a bidding war for the flat we are interested in. We're down to just one couple competing against us and so far the price has stayed within our limits, it is creeping upwards though. We're gonna visit the flat again this evening and Lotta's father (who is a surveyor) is going to come along to take a look at it too.

Keep you fingers crossed for us out there that the other couple decide to drop out now before raising the price too high ;-)

2002-01-18 16:58:15 Source: Web

... and so begins another weekend!

Just arrived home on a Friday evening and the air is full of possibilities. Lotta and I are going to take it easy I think, but I love that Friday feeling. Some almost certainties for this weekend are:

• Playing with Linux on the GigaBeast(tm)
• Laundry
• Visiting Lotta's parents (Lotta's mum's birthday this weekend)
• Lots of time on soulXchange

Lotta and I saw another apartment last week, which was very nice. We're currently waiting for the estate agent to get back to us so we can enter the war of the offers! I somehow doubt this will end up being the one, as I have a gut feeling the price will soar, but it would be nice to land it as the apartment itself was almost exactly what we are looking for.

I also found out this week that there's no tax penalty for moving money from the UK to Sweden - so that's a relief!

So a fairly full-looking weekend than, with some tantalising gaps waiting to be filled!

2002-01-15 17:44:44 Source: Web

Living in Gothenburg right now is like living in the middle of a cloud. It has been completely overcast with a constant drizzle and mist for the last few days. Cold with it - ghastly weather all in all.

On the brighter side, Lotta and I have started the search for an apartment. We saw a place last Sunday which was kinda OK, but not perfect and as it was the first place we had seen the search continues until the perfect place does show up. We're seeing somewhere tomorrow which sounds pretty good. It's all jolly exciting ;-)

The new computer is performing beautifully! I can watch DVD's and VCDs full screen without the slightest problem. I tested playing SoulReaver 2 (a 3d 1st person game) at 1152x864 and it runs smoothly as anything. Beautiful stuff.

Linux wise I've repartitioned and installed RedHat 7.2 but it's having problems with the networking at the moment. Basically I can't get it to go past my router (while the same machine running Win NT and my other Linux machine both have no problem at all). I'm gonna see if I can get round to checking the firewall rules this evening (try opening it up completely to check it's not that). Any tips gratefully appreciated to cookie@yoyo.org.

Otherwise life is pootling along as per usual.

2002-01-09 12:49:50 Source: Web

I witnessed the strangest behaviour on the bus this morning.

I was sitting minding my own business as usual when I heard a mobile phone start to ring near the back of the bus. It had a new sort of ring tone that seemed to vary itself within a pattern. The phone continued to ring and then stopped and then started again. I assumed it was some kids I had seen get on earlier so I tried to ignore it, but even though it was fairly quiet, the phone could clearly be heard by everyone on the bus.

It continued ringing, on and off for over 10 minutes. I was starting to get pretty ticked off, but like most people around me I tried to ignore it assuming there were people sitting closer who would be better suited to tell the kids to put a sock in it.

Then a chap sitting several seats in front of me turned to a woman sitting on the other side of the aisle who was wearing a walkman and asked if it was her phone. It stopped as she took off her walkman and she insisted it wasn't hers. When it started again, the chap again got her to take off her headphones and it suddenly dawned on her that the phone was down the side of her seat. It turned out that it *wasn't* her phone, but someone had left it on the bus and was ringing it to try and get it back.

What was strange was that everyone seemed to hear the phone, but from different places. People were clearly irritated, but nobody had anyone else to blame, or assumed that it was kids who would probably ignore them anyway. A woman sitting in front of me in fact discussed it with her fellow traveller and had apparently gone though the exact same thought processes as me.

All in all an odd and quite unsettling experience.