Tim Child

Another week gone by, another update.

So this week gone by was a bit of a strange one, though probably normal for a Swede, Thursday was off, Friday back to work and then the weekend off. A lot of people take the Friday off from work so Stockholm was beautifully quiet, just like the holiday period.

So it was more bike rides, around Djurgärden up in to Östermalm and back in to Södermalm.

We also went for a trip to Saluhallen and bought some really nice Monkfish and other products.

Also been watching breaking bad, one of the best series that I have seen on TV.

Sunday we went to Hermans which has a great view of the city.

Really like the idea behind lastyearsmodel.org. Even though I would love new shiny things all the time there doesn’t seem much that point most of the time.

Examples for me are:

• iPod. I still have a 30Gb old style model. New touch would be great, but mine still works and plays music well. New iPod touch might be nice when it holds 128Gb+ of music and video
• Phone. Still using my 2+ year old HTC windows based mobile. I would actually probably use some of the software that I could get on an iPhone, but it still isn’t yet worth the price.
• Xbox 360. My old Xbox mainly just runs XBMC media centre, the Xbox360 just isn’t as good media player.
• New dishwasher. My old one isn’t perfect, is a bit noisy, but the hassle of changing something that isn’t quite perfect of this size just isn’t worth it. Besides is better for the environment to get the most out of this one.
• New kitchen knifes. Who doesn’t like new Kitchen knifes, but the old ones can be sharpened up nicely.
• Wireless-N router. Wired is better if messier.
• New speakers. The old ones work ok, but my new amplifier probably deserves something a bit better than 10 year old missions.

Life just seems to be one upgrade. Or does it.

Seems along time since I have given an update and I guess this is due mainly to lack of time in my part. Since the last update I have been skiing and hanging out some with friends. So this weekend was fairly typical.

Friday:

• Finished some design work for work, got the documentation out and built a new version of some Windows software.
• Went and got Kristin a Kronan miltary bike – really nice.
• Took it home and then went out to meet friends at Landet.

Saturday:

• Got up far to early and went out for breakfast at a really nice little cafe that we some times go to on Tjärhovsplan. Going to have to find out the name of that place because it has some of the best coffee in east Södermalm.
• I finally started work on the bedroom. The filler/plaster that I had used to fill in the area surrounding the old door frame was extremely hard and is taking an age to sand down. Think I will be at this for some days.
• Needed to rest so went to the small park outside the back of our apartment. I think its called Stig Claessons Park, it’s on Beckbrännarbacken, Söder. Stig Claessonwas a writer and illustrator apparently.
• Then we went out to a chinese in Söder. Also have forgotten the name of it, but its a nice place with good atmosphere, perhaps not the best food in the world though.
• Later we went to see Coraline in 3D at the cinema. Its an excellent film, visually a real treat.
• Then I went to see friends in Mariatorget.
• And on to a warehouse for Office#10 till about 5:30am.

Sunday:

• Well got woken up really early..
• Went and looked at some wallpaper, have perhaps found the shop that we might buy it from if not the wallpaper itself.
• Brunch at Moseback. This was really nice, they have a buffet, a great view over stockholm and a live jazzband playing. Landet.
• Went to look at some bikes for me. Probably going to get an old English bike now.
• Back home again, chill out on the sofa and watched Valkyrie and Traitor. Surprisingly both are actually somewhat ok.
• Bed!

In between this I have continued to mess around on my little Javascript project. More details on that soon.

Its funny, my posts about moving to Norway are far more popular and getting many more visitors than any post about moving to Sweden. Could it be because Norway is quite a difficult place to enter compared to Sweden?

Saw this on a blog the other day, with no description and it was from a Apple Mac Expo.

I really want to see Google PowerMeter adopted in Sweden, I guess it will be a long time coming, but an overview of power usage would be excellent.

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/02/power-to-people.html

For that matter I would like to see Mint.com adopted by Swedish banks though I am sure they will argue that they have to do it themselves with some stupid software developed by a kid out of University that knows nothing about UI, and banks that complicate everything as much as possible.

As promised I have updated this site to the latest version of WordPress – 2.7

Its actually really impressive, and really shows why I updated to an off-the-shelf blogging tool instead of sticking with my own home grown set up several years ago.

I also cleared up many of the problems with images being aligned on the site, and finally have decent code previews thanks to the CodeColorer plugin by Dmytro.

There is probably some work to be done on making sure the feeds are 100% and then on to the design – the grid is totally messed up, but at least I feel confident in the software backing this up now.

It seems that my move of feeds from feedburner to the google feedburner service has messed up my RSS feeds quite a bit. Not sure what has happened or why the links on my site got messed up, but its probably something to do with the plugin that I had installed.

All in all it highlights the need for me to update this site from its current version of WordPress to the latest version.

I will be doing that shortly. Hopefully then the RSS feeds will resume properly.

So its 2009, and it came around all too quickly. I can see from MarsEdit that the amount of posts that I have put on this blog is quite down from a couple of years ago, which is testament to how busy I have been.

For the Christmas period I tried to step away from my computer a bit and calm down, and the other period I was in Karlstad enjoying the festivities and doing a small amount of work and reading the great RESTful Web Services book.

But soon its back to work, and so back to computers, renovating the apartment (soon it will be done!) and back to everything else that makes up my day.

I have been thinking about what I New Years resolutions I should do and I have so far only come up with the following:

• Give up Snus
• Post more on this blog
• Create something of value
• Become more self sufficient
• Try not to kill every plant I ever get
• Increase my fitness

Of course, I could probably do all of these, but with such goals is it just setting myself up for failure, so what can I do towards them and why am I doing them (if you wonder why I am posting this then these posts often serve as a reminder to myself of what I should be concentrating on and as a diary for the future).

1. Why do I want to give up snus – its messing with my gums and together we spend 29000Kr a year on it. I think thats reason enough, rather than just doing it.

2. Post more on this blog – it serves me in many ways, and more often than not I post for myself to remind me of what I am doing rather than keeping a diary. Its not hard to do, I just have to remember to do it!

3. Create something of value – this could be the hardest if I wasn’t already started on this. I feel I really am doing so at work with the redesign that I am working on, and in my personal life I am probably adding value, but there is much more planned for this year.

4. Become more self sufficient – This is a very open goal that encompasses much, such as being more energy sufficient, growing my own herbs, not spending 500Kr every day in the supermarket on rubbish, cleaning green and many more improvements to my living style. I should make a list on this one!

5. Try not to kill every plant I get – Well I am quite bad at understanding the needs of a plant, and so I need to find out more about that. Perhaps it will even be enjoyable?

6. Get fitter. My fitness level is quite poor even though my body is perhaps in the best shape its been in for many years. I have a skiing trip planned this year and that is an excellent goal for getting fitter.

So thats it. 2009 a year of none resolute improvements.

So this weekend we went up to Karlstad, and it feels like quite a while ago that we did. Kristin had her birthday this Monday, so it was a small family gathering for her eating good food, dealing with too many chickens and picking Chanterelle mushrooms.

Yesterday was Kristin’s birthday so we went out for a meal at Brassier Godot. It was good food, but perhaps not as cosy as we could have wished.