Month: August 2004

Alright so I decided to make it final. I will be visiting good old California for the first two weeks of November.

The plane tickets have been arranged and I have warned my mother.

Here are the main reasons why I will probably skip my 25th Stanford reunion and go to America two weeks later:

• All the cheaper flights for that period are already booked.
• The reunion would cost me a whopping $400, believe it or not.
• Only about three people I would like to see are on the attendees list.
• The reunion events are boring, overly intellectual and snobby.
• I would gain two days extra to spend with my family and friends.
• I would not miss Maarten's 10th birthday (most important reason).

All in all pretty darn good reasons I believe.

Of course, even if it is threatening to pour down outside any minute now, the older kids refuse to wear their raingear when cycling to school.

They would be the laughing stocks of the class. You don't want them to look like a bunch of idiots now do you?

Better to arrive drenched to the hilt than give in that you are a loser who listens to one's parents.

You figure it out.

As a long-standing user from the early days, I have qualified as a full-fledged beta tester of the upcoming release of MovableType.

In other words, I am now honored and privileged to play around with and test the newest version 3.1 beta. This is what this new blog is all about.

So far only a few minor problems and it looks really great, but we will have to see.

If all works out, I plan to move on over here.

Welcome, look around and have fun...

As a long-standing user from the early days, I have qualified as a full-fledged beta tester of the upcoming release of MovableType. In other words, I am now privileged to play around with and test the newest version 3.1 beta. So far only a few minor problems and it looks really great.

Have a look at the new-and-improved Kiffin's Blog if you dare. From now on I will be adding new entries here to see how well it works.

About ten months ago they decided to rearrange the television channels and radio stations on the cable.

Configuring and re-tuning all of the televisions, radios and video recorders to work again is a real pain. So you can imagine why I have been procrastinating this for many months.

Most appartussesAbout ten months ago they decided to rearrange all of the television channels and radio stations on the cable network.

Configuring and retuning all of the televisions, radios and video recorders to work again is a real pain. So you can imagine why I have been procrastinating this for many, many months. Such a task is something one does not like to do during the weekend.

Most of our apparatuses do channel selection via the cable automatically by selecting the correct item in the menu and pressing the ok-button. While after this action all of the stations are present, they are unfortunately not in the correct order.

Nederland 1 is located on channel twenty-eight, channel two is Deutsche Welle, SBS 6 is located on channel thirty-three, and the fish tank (meaning that station is reserved for future use) appears about five times. Things are completely mixed up.

Each apparatus has its own so-called standard way to accomplish this, but each device is not compatible with the other.

This means that in the end I manually have to run by the stations one by one and choose which channel that is supposed to be. Each user instructions manual has to be studied carefully, and a slightly different procedure must be followed for each television, radio, etc.

Even the video recorders have to be reprogrammed, because their selections must match the television to which they are connected. Otherwise if one wishes to record As The World Turns, the video will only show a blue screen and Marlies will be very upset she missed an important episode.

We are a typical modern family of two parents and four kids, and we own: four televisions, one video recorder, one dvd recorder, and several radios.

At last every audio-visual device in our house has been synchronized. For easy reference I printed out a table listing the programmed television and radio stations.

Glad that that is over and done with. I will use the remaining half-day of this weekend to relax and prepare myself for the upcoming work week.

Her name is Fatima and she has not eaten in two days.

She explains this to me in broken English and all the while her breath reeks like alcohol, tobacco and other unpleasant odors. I look like such a fine and friendly young man. Please, please will I help her out with a euro or two?

(From her coat pocket a large can of beer lies open, and it nearly falls out. In the bag she is carrying, I catch amongst the wads of old clothes a glint of green glass from the half-drunk bottles of wine).

Why should I spend my days working long and hard, and then give Fatima some euros? To run off and blow it on some more beer and wine?

I think not, and then I tell her that sorry I do not have any money. Fatima stands up and leaves me in less than a second.

There I remain all alone, such a fine and friendly person that I am.

Julia Child has died at the ripe old age of ninety-one.

We will all miss you.

There is something about the masses of people and faces all around that makes one think a little more deeply.

In many ways very similar to the unknowing wad of paper over there spiraling around endlessly because it is caught in the corner by some gust of wind.

The motion never stops and no one ever seems to get to where they are supposed to arrive.

Finally when the day is over and it is time to return, the same motions and masses reconnect and cross-over as if for the very first time.

The old bearded man with the crooked hat plays his accordion like he has never done better before.

Better run more quickly before the train departs for good.

For anyone interested, I made a photo gallery of our summer vacation to Crete.

Just click on the following link:
http://www.cyber-gish.com/pictures_crete/

Hope you like it.

So there could be a number of reasons why I am running so lousy lately. Mostly that fun and relaxing two week vacation in Crete has a lot to do with it, but that has been awhile ago. Compared with my time before the vacation and the time I ran today there is a difference of nearly two minutes. How is that possible?

Here are a number of reasons why I think that this is so:

• I have to carry 3 kgs. extra fat (see my belly).
• Another heat wave has just started.
• That fun and relaxing vacation mood distracts me.
• I need to be more stressed from work.
• My legs muscles have atrophied slightly.
• Shins splints is acting up again.
• I am too occupied thinking about all of the above.

With time and lot of patience (and eating a little less and getting a little more stressed) I will be back up there soon before I realize it.

Starting last week, my poor blog has been showing signs of old age and unpredictable failures here and there.

I contacted the fine folks at MovableType and have been told that the cause of this instability is more than likely that I have too many entries and that the ever growing database cannot handle so much junk.

Berkeley is the default database for MovableType, and it does not fare too well with humongous amount of information. So I am afraid I will have to migrate everything to good old MySQL. In time that is.

Bummer.

In the meantime, I will try and figure out what I can do about this. Please be patient while I work on it.

Quirks and hiccups and inconsistencies will come and go.

Once you are sitting in the train you are accepting totally that it will take you somewhere, preferably to the specified destination. Call it faith, call it surrender, belief in the unknown, or whatever. So when you wake up, you are not quite sure anymore what is happening, where you are now, what you should do next. Of course, no one is preventing you from getting out at the following stop. If you are impatient and feel a little adventurous, you can always crank down the window and jump out (though this is not recommended procedure). But if you choose to do that then what next? It all depends on the velocity and direction and the general orientation of things.

The following article appeared in the Dutch newspaper Het Financieele Dagblad on 22/7/2004 under Personalia column:

"Internetprovider Demon heeft Kiffin Gish aangesteld als teamleader Development. Voorheen had Gish een eigen bedrijf en was hij actief als senior consultant op het gebied van e-business, web analyticus en mobile internet solutions."

Interesting, isn't it?