Category: Journal

Stop the press, 4-6 babies are on the way

pups_scan.jpg

Ok, calm down parents, it is not human babies. It is our golden retriever Ginger (AKA Poo Princess) that is pregnant.
The new addition to the family will be with us in just 5 weeks. You see, a dog pregnancy is 9 weeks only.
Expect a plethora of puppy photos.
Right, back to that serious S.L.A.I: Phantom Crash beta testing.

Where are we going?

I thought I would be telling you about how our ski holiday in Courchevel, France is coming along. But you see, my wife managed to pull off the biggest surprise of my life and I am nowhere near France or Europe for that matter.
On the morning of our departure she confessed. There was no need for ski clothes and they were quickly unpacked. Instead I was given a fat itinerary and a travel guide to study.
Needless to say, I was completely flabbergasted. The illusion of a ski trip had been very real and I had been day dreaming about deep powder snow the last two weeks.
Nobody knew. Not our parents, not our friends. This one will be a tough cookie to beat if ever possible. Touché mon amor!
Good night Tokyo, I am signing off.
Japan, Tokyo and Kyoto photos

Finally a good weekend

Most likely because I did not open the work laptop a single time.
Visited the current Lee Miller portraits exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, London. Lee Miller was a (female) model cum photographer during the first part of 20th century.
Through her relationships she came into contact with a range of artists and was able to take many intimate photographs. Pablo Picasso, Max Ernst, Fred Astaire, Colette and Marlene Dietrich being some of those artists. If you are interested in history of photography the exhibition is worth the £7.
London’s Brick Lane is famous for it’s many curry houses. A good friend of ours had arranged a charity dinner event at a one such curry house. The event was well organised and a respective sum was collected for the cause but I will not be going back to Nazrul 2 Tandoori and Balti Restaurant any time soon. The food was bad and the service was worse.
Finally caught a flick as well, have been missing the silver screen lately. Les Choristes (The Chorus) is a touching story about group of boys at a boarding school and how a new supervisor changes their lives with music.

It should be done by now

In case you haven’t noticed, you have arrived to an updated version of “The Story”.
The main reason behind the switch of hosting providers was an increased storage requirement, mainly for photos (there are MANY wedding photos itching to be uploaded).
I also took the opportunity to upgrade several components of the site. A new Movable Type installation with better control over comments, a new phpBB installation that fixes that annoying howdark.com exploit, a fresh new Gallery (currently with some issues) and more.
There are ambitions of a total redesign in the near future, let’s hope they real.
That is all I have to say for a while…

It has begun

I have decided to switch hosting providers due to a growing archive of photos.
With my new provider I will get 3000MB of storage compared to 250MB of storage with my old provider. The new provider also works out slightly cheaper.
I have updated the DNS records for my domain name and it will take anything between 0 and 48 hours to propagate all across the Internet.
Meanwhile you may arrive at the old location or the new location or alternate between them.
Quite a lot of manual work was required to move the MySql data, phpBB, Gallery of photos, movable type db, custom scripts, http configs and more. I should write it up because it could serve as a starting point for other people in my situation.
Have fun, see you in my new home in 48 hours.
PS “ipconfig /flushdns” may help

Success

As much as I was worried before the wedding, the more am I relieved now that it is all over.
Most people settle with one wedding but we had to have two; one ceremony in the church and one civil ceremony the following day.
The church ceremony was mainly attended by close friends and family. It was the hardest part by far. Watching my family lined up along the church benches as I was walking towards the altar was quite a thrill.
It was then surpassed by the sight of the bride, my future wife, walking towards me accompanied by her father. A four men strong group of trumpeters announcing her entrance added to the suspense.
The following day was relatively easy. Sure there were a lot more people (close to 400) but for me it was a repetition and I knew there was a big party waiting.
Party hats and sunglasses, fireworks, the Swedish flag next to the Brazilian flag, late night Havaianas for the girls and a 13 men strong samba band were just some of the surprises prepared.
Early in the morning I was told by several of the people at the party that they doubted they would ever attend a grander party, not even at their own wedding. Now that is a great compliment if there ever was one!
Photos.

Wedding bells

Interesting; just 4 hours left before I get married in a stunning church and yet I am not freaking out.
People have traveled from all around the world for the occasion. A friends wedding is an important event that should not be missed but I suspect that the fact that the wedding is in Brazil was a strong puller as well.
The priest speaks English very well which helps a lot so that the non-Portuguese speaking guests can enjoy the ceremony as well.
Traditionally people settle for one wedding ceremony only but we are not traditional. There will be a second, civil, wedding ceremony tomorrow that will supersede today’s religious ceremony in grandness and party factor.
People keep asking where we will go for our honey moon but there will not be one; at least not immediately after the wedding. Family and friends have come from near and far and it wouldn’t have been nice to go away.
Instead some beach houses have been arrange where we will kick back, catch up on gossip and drink Caipirinhas until early mornings.
There is always room for a luxurious holiday later next year.
Just 2 hours left…

New address

Yet another address in London; this is the fourth time we shuffle all our lively possessions in hopes of bigger and better.
Moving is a pain in the butt but (intended) this time we had help from the amazing guys at Aardvark Removals. They were very professional, chatty and did not flinch even when faced with two 100kg+ rose pots (actually, they did flinch a wee bit) in the garden.
champ14 hours and 100 boxes later, we were settled in into our new flat and the festive bottle of champagne was uncorked. Still plenty of unopened boxes but with the bed assembled, a roof over our heads and the TV set-up I am content.
House warming party you ask? Send me your details and you will be invited in the very near future…
Memorable moments:
* The moving guys singing along to Dire Straits, Money for Nothing playing on MTV. “We got to move these refrigerators, We got to move these color TV’s”
* Pizza dinner and listening to 30 years of removals stories
* Ball room dancing in the new lounge while sipping champagne…

Don’t try this at home

I managed to swallow some descaler liquid the other day. Active ingridients sulphamic acid and citric acid.
I was descaling the hot water kettle in the morning and decided to leave the descaler product working during the day while being at work.
When coming back home I had obviously forgotten all about the descaler and put the kettler on.
I soaked some rice noodles in the acid water and I made some nice miso soup from it.
The noodles tasted a bit funny (sour) but it wasn’t until I had a few sips of the soup I suspected something was very wrong.
The soup was very sour and soon my lips and tounge had a tingling sensation. While thinking why on earth the food would all taste so sour it struck me that I had left the descaler in the kettle.
I summoned the pack quikly to see whether it provided any warning texts. Right after “keep away from children” it said “seek medical advice if swallowed“.
It was a bit late so instead of seeking medical advise I drank a couple of pints of milk and decided to weather it out. A quick search on the internet for “swallow descaler” led me to the helpful page of Emergency treatment of self-poisoning or overdose. The page assured me that diluted commercial descaler shouldn’t be lethal.
Woke up in the middle of the night due to a rumble in my tommy. Had a couple of bowls of Crunchy Nut with some more milk which seemed to settle it a bit.
Couple of days later and all seems fine. Bit worried about possible complications: “Oesophageal stricture and pyloric stenosis can occur after 14–21 days”. Any doctors around? What’s that when it’s at home?