Month: October 2007

I struggled last night into the wee hours of the morning scratching my head and yanking out my hair trying to figure out why I kept getting those awful 403 forbidden error pages when all I was trying to do was run a simple CGI-script.

That's when all of a sudden I realized that I had forgotten that all import asterisk, meaning that the correct apache directive should be:

Let's be more careful the next time, alright?!

I upgraded my Gnome desktop to 2.20 and everything went perfectly well.

Well, almost.

My fonts looked overly large and botched, but this was quickly remedied by firing up the good old gnome-control-panel and changing the appearance of the fonts to 96 dots per inch.

The other day while listening to Radio Paradise I was charmed to discover Imogen Heap.

Smooth variation combined with a subtle reverberation between this and that.

Here's a review for those interested.

Who cares if I can really slam that ball wickedly into the distance. The more important thing is hitting it straight and making sure that the ball lands somewhere near the middle of the fairway.

I will have to concentrate more on accuracy, which probably means sacrificing distance by easing down the speed of my swing and hitting the ball less intensely.

In my dream I rolled over in bed and glanced at the digital alarm clock, seeing that it was ten fifteen and time to get up - don't want to waste a good Saturday by slumbering the time away.

That's when I woke up, rolled over in bed and saw the digital alarm clock snapping from ten fifteen to ten sixteen, deja vu style.

If I had such a big ugly wart, I would certainly have had it removed ages ago. Getting up every morning, looking at myself in the mirror and being confronted by such a disgusting protrusion would have made me feel very uncomfortable or driven me insane.

Obviously the old man does not seem to care, hasn't yet noticed it, or has simply become so attached to this extra facial ornament, that living without his big ugly wart would make his life unbearable and perhaps even not worth living.

There is nothing more disgusting than standing in the shower next to some other guy who is blowing his nose against the tiles, clearing his throat loudly, coughing up even more mucous and spitting out one wad of spit followed by another onto the floor, not even making a minimal effort at aiming at the drain. There she flies.

Perhaps those kind folks coming from those other southern lands tend to think that this makes them more manly, athletic and maybe even more attractive to the opposite sex.

I despise the idea that my bare feet are sloshing around this odd mixture of unwanted fluids when all I wanted to do after a good workout is clean up and freshen my sweaty body.

Now that I finally decided to go for a digital television subscription, for only a little more than ten euros a month I can get something like 277 extra stations via the cable.

Don't you think that so many available stations is a bit exaggerated?

I can zap my way from the first to the last station and it takes me about an hour, especially since switching stations via the settop box has a slight couple second delay longer than the regular television (bummer).

Ignoring the many German, Italian, French, Russian, Polish and other foreign channels, there are some useful and interesting stations I like, namely: History Channel, Golfer's TV, North American Sports, Discovery Science, Discovery Civilization, TCM, MGM International and SciFi.

Time to become reborn as a good old couch potato, I say.

My children and wife keep insisting that our wonderful dog Luca is really really smart and can do all these amazing acts of intelligence. However, I have my serious doubts. She's an okay dog, but she's no super dog that's for sure.

When she is naughty, like when she keeps coming up to sniff my food, lick my plate or pounce at me bashing her sharp paws against my back and side, I raise my voice and say out loud: NO!

I even do the so-called ignore trick where by turning your back to her you are instilling more emotional pain by 'shaming her' that they say that the effect works wonders. I see no difference, as Luca keeps coming back again and again to bug me, until I have to lock her up as punishment. This does not seem too smart to me.

Also when she keeps guard in front of the living room window and sees a bug or spider or other insect on the other side of the glass, she'll keep jumping at it and banging her poor snout against the hard glass surface, again and again without learning. This does not seem too smart to me either.

The other day just for fun my wife bought this big dog puzzle made of sliding wooden panels behind which you can hide tasty treats. The idea is that by sliding these panels back and forth with the paw, the dog learns the gist of the puzzle so that it can instantly snatch up the hidden tasty treats without thinking.

It's been two weeks now, and I am sorry to admit that our dog still hasn't figured it out. Poor Luca gets all frustrated and panics by biting, jumping and sniffing wildly with zero affect.

I think I have proven my point. Mice are a hundred times smarter.

Could it be that as of lately I am hitting the ball so fast, so far and so true that more often than not I am unable to see quite exactly where this sweet shot of mine has actually landed?

More likely it was a combination of an overcast day and my less than optimal eyesight that has been causing me to lose the exact trajectory somewhere near the apex.

Once I get my swing going more consistently I should be able to focus better within that narrow funnel through which the sweet shot will be traveling with pure gusto.

Isn't golf a truly amazing sport?!

In the backyard of our Stockton house we had several large cherry trees which had the most delicious cherries you have ever tasted.

As I kid I happily climbed up high in the trees which were very familiar to me. I'd memorized every branch and how they bent, and I'd scamper up and down and all around like a true monkey.

When it was cherry season we'd pluck the cherries, eating half of them from right off the trees and putting the other half in brown paper bags.

We put out a fold up table in the front of the house where the driveway met the street, and we'd sell bags of juicy cherries at ten cents apiece. We had this big paper sign hanging from the front of the tables, and all our big bags would be displayed passionately along with our happy go lucky faces..

Sitting in the hot sun wearing shorts and being barefoot, we waiting patiently for the occasional neighbor to walk past, compliment us on our fine catch, and toss a couple dimes on the table as they saved the brown paper bags from spoiling in the intense sunlight.

I thought back then about how easy it was to make tons of money feeling that I'd easily grow up to become a rich young man because of my cunning business acumen.

Today our little Luca is one human year old which is equivalent to seven dog years.

Perhaps it might make more sense and be fairer to the dogs out there to celebrate each and every real dog year, as this is surely more meaningful to the dog.

For humans however this is pretty unpractical, and sorry but the master wins.

On Friday, October 19, 2007 at 14:33:01 (CEST)
the hit-count for Kiffin's Blog is: 300000.

I'm really excited about my daughter Marlies having a fun adventure in Australia.

She's leaving on November 19th for several months with a Dutch organization called TravelActive that's specialized in these kind of travel and work trips for young adults.

Although it is so far away, and I will certainly miss her very much, the trip will prove to be a fine learning experience for her, which matters the most.

Now that I have successfully survived half a century on this planet, I look forward to enjoying the next half century as much as I can.

Surprise, surprise. It's off to Barcelona for a long weekend of fun and relaxation. Thea just surprised me with this wonderful birthday gift, and we will be leaving tomorrow which is my official birthday, later in the afternoon. I've been dreaming of traveling to this fine city for many years now, and soon it will be actually happening. Hard to believe that it is merely a two hour flight. Can't wait.

When I was in second grade or thereabouts and had just learned to write, one of my favorite pastimes was to compose short stories consisting mostly of long and complicated-looking nonsense words.

At such a young age, my imagination was unbounded as I put my mind to scribbling endless series of words that sounded great even if on paper they looked bizarre and didn't make much sense at all.

These amazing constructions of thought flowed freely from my mind and assumed quick and dynamic form on the page in front of me. Before I realized it, I had two or three or even more pages filled with these strange utterances.

Of course I could not wait to share my youthful masterpiece with family and friends.

There I stood proudly in front of the interested gathering ever so eager to read out loud my famous creation. There he is standing in front of us all, please be quiet and listen to what this young genius has to say. In silence everyone listened as the words were uttered and articulated with extreme care so as to maximize affect and inspire awe.

And it went something like this:

"The zatoication we prefolicated is irratagonally a part of the diatronal subrespotical as I can cantapolize under suprepriasicatical things for umbellicallistic contraptotational bibagonanians where...."

And on and on it went. Pure driveling nonsense but loads of fun nonetheless.

When it was all over I accepted the loud applause with a smile and a quick nod of my head, bowing a couple times as I stepped backwards, disappearing into the shadow of youth. I ran back to my room to start yet another nonsensical masterpiece.

There is nothing better in life than impressing family and friends, don't you think?

Now in addition to my nice driver, I am also the proud owner of Benross v3 and v5 fairways woods.

Now all I need is a new set of irons, which will more than likely either be Titleist Forged 704 or Ben Hogan Apex Plus.

First I need to practice some more, work hard to earn extra money, and then when I feel certain I can spoil myself even more.

Can't wait.

The poor guy over there has been left to himself to figure things out, deal with the daunting situation on his own, which is not easy. Do you see him? There he is sitting on the oversized sofa. Nobody in the near vicinity feels even the slightest urge to give him a hand. A low-flying bird flutters by in front of the window and no one seems to notice. Not that he couldn't handle it himself, but it would have been nice if others beside himself would take the initiative. He already knows that that will never be the case, never happen. Ten minutes later. Same bird is now high-flying over there in the distance and everyone notices. Because that poor guy has gathered up enough courage to raise his voice and point to it. "Over there, that's where it is. Have a look!"

Every story contains within itself a reason for its own existence, whatever that may be. Just like when every day you sip thoughtfully from your cup of coffee or tea or whatever other substance, not worrying about the effects of not thinking about it, thereby not worrying at all. Things just happen and that's it. Everyone has a ready-made story to share, with oneself, with others, friends and stranger alike, whatever that may be. You can choose to be the hero or the victim or both, whatever fits best into the current situation and the person you really want to be rather than the person you think that others want you to be.

Slowly but surely it is getting darker, the moment I wake up and have to cycle to town, time to think differently, moving through the darkness as it approaches and envelops me, and then what? We will have to see.