Every early morning during the week, I think about the upcoming weekend with all it's joy. Quiet mornings, alone with my coffee and newspaper on the net.
When the weekends is for real, things doesn't turn out that way. Silent mornings is replaced by really late nights with the family ogling at the telly as brain dead zombies. When they eventually wakes up at lunchtime, things turns worse and even a funeral would cheer things up...

I got me a present...
A nice Shakespeare quote from biggelois . She's amazingly nice, I guess that her temper is about to accept her new non-smoking habit. I keep my fingers crossed for her.

First really relaxed day of Christmas!
It's nice to meet family and friends, but I wish there was a way to do this easier. The last three days has been more booked than any other day at work. When you need a time planner to find out when and where you're going to have breakfast, things has gone way out of hands.
This morning I took some time of and got me some nice coffee at biggelois place. A chat with her and her family did the trick for me. Now I'm healed and will probably survive a few days more.
I'll get me some lunch any minute now, then it's time to do some cabling for my son. He got himself a nice TV yesterday, on his eleventh birthday. He's quite eager to get an antenna outlet mounted in his room now. Where's my power drill?

Man, I'm an old geezer! The son of biggelois and my son found my old camera. Guess what, they didn't believe me...
-How can this be a camera? Look at the size!
-How do you mean, is the flash an add on? Not built in?
-Power Winder? Wind up what? Why?
I guess that I'm as hip as a janitor at an museum. This is more humiliating than when my daughter asked about my LP's and told me that the idea of tracks on both sides where totally stupid...

I'm totally addicted to webcomics. In my view, it's one of the best part of the Internet. I've always loved comics as a small kid and I see no reason for that love to fade away, not now when there's plenty of free comics to enjoy. My latest find is Questionable Content. It's a wonderful story about young people, complicated relations, sex and lots of coffee. I wonder how all that could appeal to me? :-)

It has been one hell of a week this...
Three days away to study some business bullshit, ITIL Foundation. It is really some absurd method to add a lot of administration to your daily (IT-related) work. Obviously developed by a whole bunch of angry managers and board members who don't like IT-folks fiddling around and throwing technical acronyms in their faces. If I look at the concept with my most positive eyes, I can find a few good point and we will probably just focus on nibbling the good pieces out of this cake. I had to finish those three days with a test to get my certification, and thankfully I passed.

I got a call from my brother today. My mood went upwards when his name showed up on the display, we don't talk every day. To be honest, not even every year. Despite the fact that we live in the same town, only a few km from each other. As soon as I answered I remembered why we don't talk so often. Not a single word of normal chitchat, straight to the subject: "My computer is broke, I need you to fix it!". Well, well, I heard his voice at least...

Knocking on wood and a quick prayer often fix it for me...

Wow! New, fancy stuff for my bike! I'm happy as a kid on Christmas Day! Can't hardly wait for the next flat tire so I get a (real) reason to take the bike apart and replace old stuff with new shiny ones. Why can't everything in life be this easy and fun?

I've got yet another offer to get tax deducted household services. My employer has some part in this and I can get 50% of the regular price if I sign up. Two companies has sent me their pamphlets so far, but I'm not ordering anything without a promise that includes a skimpy French maid outfit...

Things starts so slowly to brighten up in my life. I really dislikes autumn. Rain, darkness and dying nature isn't fun. You can't focus on sad things like that for too long without get really depressed, so let's get over it!

Last Friday was a lifesaver, a sneaky hour at biggelois place really saved my weekend. Some discussions with her always perk me up. On top of that, I did get a link to some really nice writings by softbluebuddy. That took my mood to new heights.

When I'm not enjoying what my friends write, I'm eagerly waiting for a total makeover of my bike. I posted a order for spare parts during the weekend, gears for 2.000SKr will arrive in a few days. I'm a hardware geek, you know...

Summer is almost over. No more long evenings on the porch together with friends. No more BBQ, hardly a cup of coffee outside without risking frostbites. Makes me kind of sad, but one got to look forward. Must try to see the fun stuff in winter, rain, cold and winter vomiting disease.

On the positive side, I'm trying to develop some new habits. Evening walks with my wife is one of them. All of the sudden we got a few minutes together alone. Amazing feeling, but a bit awkward. We got a lot of silence, but the possibilities to discuss stuff that been hidden in the closet for too long is looking good.

I got curious when I discovered biggelois  newly developed taste in muscle-cars. So I took the test myself and I think I did quite well! :-)

I'm a Ferrari 360 Modena!

You've got it all. Power, passion, precision, and style. You're sensuous, exotic, and temperamental. Sure, you're expensive and high-maintenance, but you're worth it.

"Take the Which Sports Car Are You? quiz.

 

My legs began to protest after the first week of my vacation. Poor things, unused for so long... This problem was an easy fix, I grabbed my bike and took off. 40 minutes and 17 km later I was back. Much happier! A bit of exercise clears your brain like nothing else. So now I'm heading over to biggelois for a evening of BBQ and chatting.

Yesterday didn't end very well. I had a fun day with the family, but I got grumpy and pissed of after dinner. No big deal, but all these small annoyances makes me go berserk once in a while. Small shitty things like how badly I miss my work and the hot weather we have right now. All these unimportant issues grow on my back and then the whole family looks stupid when they throw the last stone on me, the one that makes me explode.

I often feel alienated in my own family. At work I got a function, I know that people listen to what I have to say and I know that I have a value. It the other way around at home, I'm just another annoying sound, like a mosquito in the middle of the night. You don't have a function, you are one, like a dishwasher or a fridge. When nobody cares about your opinion and no one gives a crap about your mood, it's hard to keep the spirit up. This is why you need friends, visiting others outside the family and discuss with them confirms you as a human being, you're suddenly a bit more than the dork that does the dishes and makes growling sounds...

It's too easy to take each other for granted. I've read a bit about it at a forum for parents. I don't know why, but there seems to be a lot of women who complains about it. When the family is formed and children has arrived, their husbands sees them as another household appliance, and expect them to be there and perform their functions without any grinding noise. I wonder why there seems to be a female thing? I'm no woman, but I often feel the same. I'm just the grumpy guy that brings home money, takes out the garbage and doing the dishes. Since I'm aware of the feeling, I try to show appreciation to my wife, but one thing I've learned about marriage is that “treat others as you would like to be treated” is pure bullshit. Do something nice to your other half and see her watch TV happy, don't do the nice stuff and see her watch TV anyway. As you would say at work, the ROI is zero. My guess is that it's too easy to get used to attention, you appreciate it and instantly expect it to be there, always and without you doing anything in return.

Is the lack of empathy an biological factor or is it a result of you upbringing? Maybe it's something that you can suppress by focus on your own well-being? What do you do when you're hurt by someone you love? A silent forgive and forget? Lots of alcohol does the trick for me at the moment, time to sleep...

OK, been away from work two days now. The post-work stress starts, I do already walk around the house like an angry dog, barking at all and everyone... Going for a cruise on tuesday, I hope that will calm my mind, but of course the trip itself makes me a bit nervous (what doesn't?). I don't like to be trapped inside the belly of these ferries...

I hate my work now! It's almost empty, all the others does enjoy their vacation. It should be peace and quiet, but not so! I have more than enough with all the others work, the few still on duty tries to back up for the ones on vacation, but somehow I got to help them anyway. So I've got more than my share to do. No fun at all! Highlight of today was a short (to short!) drive in a brand new Porsche Carrera S, I need to borrow one of those soon... :-)

Had a nice chat yesterday. Almost anyway. Firefox did fail on me, in a bad way. So the chat with biggelois and eden77 quickly went into simplex mode. I missed all their saucy details, and I went to bed disappointed. I'm replacing my Firefox 2.0 today, it has been time for an update a long time now.

Girls, I'm sorry for last night. I'll hope for another gossip-session soon.

I had a nice day today. Despite the drawbacks of having fun. I celebrated a bit too heavy yesterday, and to be honest, my body doesn't like that. I always get a nasty hangover, and today was no exception. I had good intentions, but as usual, they failed... I had the beer under control, but the mean custom to drink dram is bad...

Well, with a little help from biggelois, I managed to get my head clear again. Coffee and nice company does wonders for a mind in pain. A fun time with her little squee did make my day a little bit brighter as usual.

After she had left, the whole family set off for a trip to another friend. A friend with a summerhouse in Strängnäs that is, and we're always quick to take advantage of his hospitality. So we had a afternoon (and evening) there with coffee, cake, bbq and lots of nice company. Even my friend Hobbe dropped by, good to hear from him! The wife was probably satisfied with his visit, she has a good eye for him I think... :-)