biking with vikings

piggies

perhaps it goes with the territory of being a 4 year-old boy, but Malcolm makes quite a mess when he's eating.  Typically there's food on the floor and his seat (as well as the table) when he's finished.

We're off to France in a few days and Susan has been trying to get him to be more tidy, so she's using the trip to try and correct his behavior.

Malcolm:  (mouth full of food) "hrmphfumphafrumpha..."

Susan:  "You know, in France, if you eat like that, they will make you wait outside while we eat.."

Malcom: (eyes getting big, mouth goes down, starts crying) "but, but I don't want to stand outside!"

Now he's afraid of going to France.

We have to remember sometimes that irony and sublety are completely lost on four year-olds.

i'm a pc

first and foremost I should make clear that, in many ways, I'm a huge Apple fan:  I love the elegant industrial design of the Mac, the cohesive user experience and the attention to detail in the bundled apps that come with every Mac. 

but like many MS employees I've been running Vista for months now and I must say that I absolutely love it:  Like Office 2007, once you get used to the new interface it is great, and it's now a tad painful to return to Windows XP or Windows 2003.  I think Vista is a huge advance for Windows PCs in many respects... yes, it is very similar to OSX in some ways, more advanced in others, but for many users it is a significant upgrade and better experience.

So (like Bill) I was really chapped to see these Apple "I'm a PC" ads portraying the 90% or so of us who use PCs as 'dullards', and the sophisto-Mac user as a relaxed, with-it, hipster.  The ads are very funny, no doubt, but:

• It's really bad form for Apple to piss on Microsoft's launch with infantile attack ads... is that really the best they can do?
• They're all about Vista -- but not about Mac features i.e. Apple is trying to define themselves by what they are *not* rather than talking about what they *are*.  Could it be that some of OS X's core benefits are now also available to Windows users?

But my real problem with it is that the ads are fundamentally dishonest.  The truth of the matter is that more music, video / {creative stuff} is made using PCs than all the stuff created on Macs put together.  That's because the big, messy PC ecosystem provides many inexpensive rigs (often costing hundreds, not thousands, of dollars) that lets your average kid-in-a-bedroom get started with creating whatever it is they want to create.  If Microsoft controlled the hardware and software like Apple does, we'd also control the end-user experience more tightly (and prevent things like driver dialogs from popping up in your face) but that is the price of providing a platform for other companies to develop their products.  The Mac will never be a platform in the way that the PC is (and I'd include linux in that definition of PC, not just Windows).

I can't say it better than Charlie Booker did in The Guardian, so I'll just quote him:

Ultimately the campaign's biggest flaw is that it perpetuates the notion that consumers somehow "define themselves" with the technology they choose. If you truly believe you need to pick a mobile phone that "says something" about your personality, don't bother. You don't have a personality. A mental illness, maybe - but not a personality. Of course, that hasn't stopped me slagging off Mac owners, with a series of sweeping generalisations, for the past 900 words, but that is what the ads do to PCs. Besides, that's what we PC owners are like - unreliable, idiosyncratic and gleefully unfair. And if you'll excuse me now, I feel an unexpected crash coming.

No idea.

rocket man

Malcolm has decided to invent rocket packs using bicycle water bottles with a diving mask and snorkel for breathing apparatus while in orbit

here you can see the 'rocket tanks' watter bottles on his back

but unfortunatley the blast-off is a failure

 

back to the lab!

I can hardly wait until he's old enough to read the Tom Swift books...

funny old world, eh?

[an interesting story from my recent trip back to Seattle... not sure if I can call it 'serendipitous' yet until something comes of it :)]

an Icelandic friend of mine who works for MS here in DK is considering a move to Microsoft in the US/Seattle, but his wife (also from Iceland) is a teacher here and has just completed her first couple of years as a teacher and doesn't want to relocate if it means losing her job... which is completely understandable.

another friend (Scott Sherman) in Seattle (whom I hadn't seen in years) is engaged to a woman who is an immigration specialist/attorney and she knows a great deal about the rules for immigrants & spouses regarding employment.

So the first interesting occurrence was that I had dinner with John and Jackie and... Scott and his fiance (now wife... congratulations!) were also there.  I chatted with Scott's fiance about my Icelandic friends and their situation.. she described how they could come to the US on certain visa types that would allow her to work -- no problem.  But she wasn't sure about the rules for working as a teacher in Seattle/Washington state.

Now the only person I know who is a teacher in Seattle is my erstwhile friend Anoo but I hadn't seen her since... oh, 2003 or so, not since Malcolm was a baby. 

I was out with some friends having dinner at an Indian restuarant in Seattle on the first Saturday back, and who walks in but Anoo!  I was shocked... especially since I had been thinking about her in regard to my Icelandic friends' situation.

So besides the fact that Anoo is going to have a baby (congratulations!) and we're going to be neighbors in Green Lake (hurrah!) , her school is looking for a female teacher to teach elementary grades!

I don't know if anything will come of this, but it really was very strange how this all transpired within a few days.  I had to ring my Icelandic friend back here in Copenhagen to tell him this strange chain of circumstances.

St. Patrick's Day / Three-Legged Race in Copenhagen

The day after returning from Seattle was St. Patrick's Day, and as this is now our final months here in DK, it is important to do as many silly/wild/embarrassing and hopefully memorable things as possible in our remaining time.  That in mind, I agreed along with my friends Jesper & Nelda, Erlingur and Mauro to participate in the St. Patrick's Day Three-Legged Race for charity in Copenhagen - which is organized by our friend Siobhan.

The pint, erm, point of the race is for two persons to tape a leg together and hobble as quickly as possible along a 2 Km route between 6 Irish pubs, while chugging down a 1/2 pint (of Carlsberg) at each pub.  As you can imagine it is more comedy than actual race.  Here we are about to start in front of Kennedy's near the planetarium

My friend Mauro drew the short straw and got taped to me, and the poor guy seemed most uncomfortable during the race.  And adding insult to injury, he had to watch Italy lose to Ireland at rugby in The Dubliner:  You can see by the look on his face that he is none-too-pleased by this point

 

But it was overall a very jolly outing: the vibe during the whole thing was great, people were friendly and of course rather drunk.  Jesper introduced me to the singular joy of Bushmill's Irish Whiskey which we enjoyed in copious amounts, and even though I hopped the wrong train home and ended up in Farum/backtracking, I must say we had a great time of it!

back from seattle

I've been awfully quiet on this blog - the last post was end of January, nearly two months ago.  That's terrible to let the blog go stale like that - I'll try to do better.  But I have been extremely busy:  Switching to a new Redmond-based team (and finishing up with my team here in Denmark) and getting the house project up and off the ground, through city approvals, negotiating costs with the builders and arranging financing with the bank.

So it was a two-week whirlwind tour when I returned to Seattle the first half of March.  The primary purpose of the visit was to ramp up with my new team and meet my teammates etc. but we had also set the goal of closing on a contract for building the house and getting the financing in place; since I wasn't sure when/if I'd return before construction is slated to begin (June 1st) it was critical to get things done while out there in March.

So the first thing I noticed on return was -- surprise, surprise -- it was considerably warmer in Seattle, and spring was already underway; the cherries were exploding with blossoms

 

 

Even though it's been a mild winter here in Denmark, it was still encouraging to feel the stronger sun and see the plants blooming.

Meeting the new team went great - I'm very excited to start working with these guys.  Suffice for now to say that it is a new and rather ambitious (but not, as far as I know) announced product and I'll have some very meaty problems to work on, which I'm really looking forward to.  I got a very good impression from my teammates and new manager, and after all, that's more than 50% of your happiness in any job, right?  So we're off to a good start there.

Of course I made some time to visit friends - here's some crap pictures (sorry) just for posterity's sake :)

that's Andy & Tracy with Levi & Henry in their great, refurbished basement/kid's area; and

 

Susan & Alex with Charlie and Clara.

It is a cliche but I'm continually amazed by how much these kids have grown in the months since I have seen them last.  For the older siblings (Charlie and Levi) they're no longer toddlers but young boys and the little onces aren't babies anymore! 

I also managed to see my friends Mike & Jackie and their daughter Anna who has also blossomed - she's only 3 and was writing her name on paper at the restaurant (Red Robin - kid friendly :)) where we met

 

and the Robin herself (himself?) came out for a photo-op with Anna, much to her delight

 

 

I also saw my friends Jeffrey, Francois, Christopher, K.C. from MS and a even few friends (Alessandro, Anoo, Scott Sherman, Peter Kron -- thanks Sharron for wonderful dinner!) from 'back in the day' 4-6 years ago!  More on Anoo in another post. 

There were several long meetings with the builders on plans, costs, timing etc. -- rather stressful and the numbers are shocking, but I'll cover those details over in the house blog -- which required meetings over on the Seattle side, and my friends John & Jacki graciously put me up for a few nights. 

While staying with them we popped into Paddy Coyne's Irish Pub in Lake Union for a brunch, which coincidentally is the same building where we'll be living for a few months when we return to Seattle in August, until our house construction is finished (which should be around Thanksgiving)

 

And I squeezed in a quick visit with Elizabeth and Alan at the end. 

In spite of all these hook-ups, I still managed to miss a few people.  It really makes me realize how much we miss our friends, that's a large part of the reason for going back: Like anyone, we miss our friends and family.  But as it turns out I'll be going back for two more two-week visits between now and August 1st (late April and end of May) so I should be able to catch everybody then.

Well I guess I have indirectly announced the details of our return:  We move back to the States from Denmark on August 1st, nearly 3 years after arriving here in Denmark.  It has been a fun ride, but it time for us to return, we miss the lovely climate and dramatic scenery of Seattle as well as our friends very much.  And as anyone who has lived as a non-native speaker in a foreign country will know (I will include Brits in America in this definition) in your adopted country you sorely miss the ability to exercise the verbal shorthand, double entendre, irony -- even tell a joke --  that are second nature in your mother tongue. Let's just call it "banter".  I'm really looking forward to banter again!

But before we return, there is much to do here and some adventures (read: travelling) to be had.  South of France is next over Easter break, then Italy in May, and there will be others (Barcelona? Berlin?) before we return, plus of course long bike rides here in Denmark.  So please read on, and I'll do a better job of keeping you informed these next few months.