Paul's blog

Archive for January, 2010

Our first day in the New Year was a quiet one. We didn’t go out, other than having our traditional New Year Polar Bear Club meeting (in the pool). For more details see Dawnell’s blog entry.

Other than that, I didn’t do much: played some stupid Facebook game (now that’s something I should have made a New Year’s resolution about!), worked a bit on my picture collection, ignored my other New Year’s resolutions (except for that math thing!) and ordered us a Blue-ray player with Netflix access capability and “Instant  Tray Opening” at Amazon I think I will replace our wireless LAN setup with a cat6 wired one, which involves getting up in the attic and making some tricky wall drops.

Yesterday my previous boss (CEO at HF Engineering) asked if I would come along on a trip to a photo store in Orlando (he’s a serious amateur photographer and considering making his hobby his profession). He and I both now do contract work for our previous customer. He told me he’s looking for some cheap office space. I told him that in principle I wouldn’t mind sharing an office space from where we could do our contract work. I like the idea, but it probably means I would have to concentrate on getting more contract work. Plus there is the cost factor. We’ll see.

After that Dawnell and I  visited ex-coworker and fellow Dutchie Tim de Waal and his lovely wife Toni and their 9 month old baby Nathan: see Dawnell’s blog entry. They live in a wonderful apartment with a great view over Melbourne’s marina with beautiful sunsets. Unfortunately we had to cut our visit short, as I wasn’t feeing quite well. We’ll do it again soon.

Went to bed early (with a math book!).

This morning my buddy Bob Cuyt called from Belgium (he and  his family just got back from his wife’s fatherland Slovenia) and we chatted for a while. He turned 55 yesterday and will become an opa for the third time. Time doesn’t slow down.

Daughter Laurilee and grandson Jackson are on their way up here. Better get dressed.

It’s a somber and cold winter day. 9 C! For Florida, that’s cold! Bitterly cold.

The picture above is my first “Picture of the Day” for 2010 .. Bonnie on her new sofa.

A Wonderful, Interesting, and above all Healthy New Year to all the readers of this blog.

I fully intend to make this year a GREAT year, and I’m NOT going to let me distract from that resolution by the dark, grim, gloomy day it is today.
And on that same note: the cold drizzle is not going to keep me from my traditional "Polar Bear Club" swim either, even though the pool is a MESS right now (The potted conifer, that doubled as Christmas tree this year, just fell in it).

As for New Year’s resolutions: Yes, I made a few. One involves the garage, most others are simply "nonya".
Except maybe the one about my blog: When it comes to blogs (and real life conversations for that matter) I have always been of the opinion that if you don’t have anything to say, well, then don’t!
Until now, that is. At least for my blog.
I intend to start using it more as an actual log book, mostly for myself, just to have a record of my activities, no matter how boring they are.
So expect to find WAY more postings here than in previous years, but don’t expect them to be more than a simple status update for a boring Tuesday afternoon.

As for 2010 …

Work

I’m still unemployed, but have some interesting part-time contract work for, hopefully, another two months.
I will step up my efforts to find full time employment, but at the same time I will be looking for additional contract work.
I’m still trying to figure out what I would prefer: find an interesting full time job, or remain a contract worker, working from home, with the option to make it a business, and grow it into a company with partners and employees. With the economy coming out of a recession, this may be an excellent time to start a company and have it ride the waves up to prosperity.

Pleasure

We’ll be in Vegas for a few days in the 2nd half of January, where Dawnell will try to persuade some slot machines to cover the cost of the trip and where we also will meet some good friends of ours.
We had some plans to spend our vacation traveling the Californian West Coast (well.. duh! California doesn’t HAVE an East Coast), from San Diego to San Francisco.
Just the other day we started to kick around the idea to go to Germany, where Dawnell would love to see the world-famous Oberammergau Passion play, a 10-yearly event. A tradition that started in 1634! It may be followed by a side trip to “The Fatherland” and visit my army of sisters.
I’m sure more plans will be made, before we make our final decision.

Non-resolutions

Things that I’d like to accomplish but haven’t turned into resolutions to avoid disappointment and self-loathing on 12/31/2010:

• Start (seriously and frequently) practicing and studying the piano
• Start (seriously and frequently) practicing and studying the guitar
• Immerse myself in Linux driver and kernel development
• Start writing apps for Droid phones
• There’s that one subject in math, that I never mastered and would love to master: master it!
• Start reading Feynman’s 3 part “Lectures on Physics” (well ,‘starting’ I already did! Many times!)
• Do the various things around the house that need to be done
• Start writing that best-seller, and have it turn into a blockbuster movie.
• Take more pictures for the “Picture of the Day” club. It’s not called: “Picture of the Week” club!

Health

• Well, here I CAN reveal some – but not all – resolutions:
• go to a fitness club and start working out, even it it’s only once a week, or 10 minutes at a time.
• two words: medication: discipline.

And with that …

ON to the pool!