Last sunday I went with my friend Thomas to the islands near Oslo. It is a nice trip, and the most amazing thing is that you can use the same ticket that you use for buses since the ferry is still part of the same transport system.
Don't imagine islands like caribbean islands, this is Oslo after all. These islands are small, cold and with a vegetation that is very different from palm trees and coconuts. But overall, they are very nice and very relaxing. I spotted a few places where snorkeling could be an option, so I need to get snorkeling equipment (I already checked and it costs around 2000NOK to have a decent equipment) and wait for the temperature to become a little warmer and then I'll go snorkeling and see what's out there.
The only problem in the islands is that it was forbidden to start fire except in two specific spots, so barbeques are out of the question. I hope I can go tomorrow again, if it's raining they may be very interesting.
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Running in the mornings
I decided that the best I could do was to start running in the mornings, so I started running near 7am following the river trail. It is awesome, the air is really fresh and to my surprise is full of people running, doing exercises, walking dogs or simply walking. It is kinda weird, since it is still cold (for my taste), but the days are getting very bright and the sun is coming, slowly but surely. This experience reminded of what a norwegian colleague told me once: "norwegians are sun worshipers", which when said was weird since sun seems a very scarce resource around here, but now that we have a little more, people seems to be going out and doing lots of activities outdoors. And norwegians seem to even become more social and sometimes they even smile....
Anyway, coming back to the runs, I decided to start my days like that. Running, taking a shower and having breakfast. Totally perfect for me.... except that I have to do it slowly. Last week I overdid it and my body resented it, so I had to stop running for a few days. I plan to restart next week.
Anyway, coming back to the runs, I decided to start my days like that. Running, taking a shower and having breakfast. Totally perfect for me.... except that I have to do it slowly. Last week I overdid it and my body resented it, so I had to stop running for a few days. I plan to restart next week.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Hey! Running in the rain!
They say there is nothing better for your body and mind that exercise and fresh air, so despite the fact that yesterday (technically today) I came home at 05:00 after a birthday party, I decided to go running.
It was amazing, I ran on the river trail which is very beautiful and it is a moderate level of difficulty. I went from my apartment all the way to the big waterfall near Grunerløkka. That took me about 15 minutes and it was just to warm up. After I decided to sprint the little hill next to the waterfall for a few laps... it was amazing, it was raining very heavily and it was very hard because the little hill is very steep, plus the added rain making it very slippery but it was totally worth it. It was a little painful, specially the last sprint but quoting a colleague from work: "pain is just weakness leaving the body"... I decided that I will try to recover the physical shape I had when I was 17/18 years old when I was able to swim 4,000 meters and play waterpolo for 2 to 3 hours every day. I'm not sure if that is a realistic goal, but it is for sure worth of trying it. I already found where to go swimming, I haven't registered yet but I think it is time to do it.
Well, to finish the running story the way back to my apartment was a little hard since it is completely up the hill, but I made it all the way without stopping so, little by little I'm regaining my shape.
It was amazing, I ran on the river trail which is very beautiful and it is a moderate level of difficulty. I went from my apartment all the way to the big waterfall near Grunerløkka. That took me about 15 minutes and it was just to warm up. After I decided to sprint the little hill next to the waterfall for a few laps... it was amazing, it was raining very heavily and it was very hard because the little hill is very steep, plus the added rain making it very slippery but it was totally worth it. It was a little painful, specially the last sprint but quoting a colleague from work: "pain is just weakness leaving the body"... I decided that I will try to recover the physical shape I had when I was 17/18 years old when I was able to swim 4,000 meters and play waterpolo for 2 to 3 hours every day. I'm not sure if that is a realistic goal, but it is for sure worth of trying it. I already found where to go swimming, I haven't registered yet but I think it is time to do it.
Well, to finish the running story the way back to my apartment was a little hard since it is completely up the hill, but I made it all the way without stopping so, little by little I'm regaining my shape.
Friday, April 11, 2008
Desilusiones, Heridas
Decidí escribir este post en español porque no quiero arriesgarme a escribir algo en inglés que puede no representar lo que siento.
Objetivamente, aqui estoy teniendo una vida bastante buena. No tengo mayores problemas en ningún plano excepto en el lado personal. Al principio no lo noté, pero ahora estoy notándolo cada vez más: los noruegos me hieren bastante fácilmente. Lo que es peor, no lo hacen intencionalmente es simplemente su manera de ser. Cuando creo que por fin puedo confiar en alguien, me encuentro con la sorpresa que esa persona ha estado ocultándome gran parte de sí. Digo que no es intencional porque los noruegos son bastante reservados y nunca dicen nada, pero cuando conoces a alguien y desarrollas una relación de "amistad", al menos yo espero que esa persona confíe en mí y me diga que es lo que pasa, no espero descubrir de sorpresa que lo que me habían contado no tiene relación con la realidad.
No sé si voy a ser capaz de soportar este tipo de cosas mucho tiempo más, ni tampoco sé si me voy a acostumbrar a ellas, pero de seguir asi me voy a tener que buscar algún otro país, porque de lo contrario voy a terminar volviéndome loco.
Objetivamente, aqui estoy teniendo una vida bastante buena. No tengo mayores problemas en ningún plano excepto en el lado personal. Al principio no lo noté, pero ahora estoy notándolo cada vez más: los noruegos me hieren bastante fácilmente. Lo que es peor, no lo hacen intencionalmente es simplemente su manera de ser. Cuando creo que por fin puedo confiar en alguien, me encuentro con la sorpresa que esa persona ha estado ocultándome gran parte de sí. Digo que no es intencional porque los noruegos son bastante reservados y nunca dicen nada, pero cuando conoces a alguien y desarrollas una relación de "amistad", al menos yo espero que esa persona confíe en mí y me diga que es lo que pasa, no espero descubrir de sorpresa que lo que me habían contado no tiene relación con la realidad.
No sé si voy a ser capaz de soportar este tipo de cosas mucho tiempo más, ni tampoco sé si me voy a acostumbrar a ellas, pero de seguir asi me voy a tener que buscar algún otro país, porque de lo contrario voy a terminar volviéndome loco.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Thinking about software patents and stupid things like that
Despite the fact that I love open source and that I love the idea of sharing knowledge, I worked 18 months for Microsoft in Redmond. I cannot say that I had a terribly bad time, I enjoyed working there and I enjoyed living in the small town of Issaquah.
However when I left (actually when I accepted the job offer), one of the points in my contract was to never divulgate or talk about what I learned about Microsoft technology. That means that after leaving Microsoft I cannot tell anybody what I know about how they do things on their products.
At some point that seemed kinda ok, after all I accepted the terms. However last weekend, it happened to me that I found a way to improve one part of a product very drastically. The irony is that I cannot tell anybody, nor can I tell to Microsoft people..... so that made me wonder, what the hell is wrong here?
I've been all these days trying to find an answer for that, but the only one that comes to mind is that preventing people from sharing knowledge in any way is the MOST STUPID idea ever!
I mean, our civilization came to this point precisely because people shared knowledge. Can you imagine somebody like Newton being requested not to express his ideas? (DISCLAIMER: I'm not comparing myself with Newton in any way, it's just to show the point). Or imagine Descartes being forced to shut up, or Voltaire, Pascal, Einstein..... it simply does not make sense.....
So to summarize, patents are very stupid specially if the patent system is broken and you give patents to everybody. Or if you are allowed to patent something, throw it into the basement and come up some years later complaining that people has "stolen" your precious intellectual property.... (if it was so precious, why the hell you didn't use it before?). Or even worst, if the system allows you to shut up people and generates ironies like not being able to tell anybody about your ideas not even the ones that showed you the idea in the first place.....
Please legislators of this lonely blue planet, don't listen to the "intellectual property" lies that you hear, just ask yourselves the same question that I've been asking me these past days: "How can I accept a system where I cannot tell what I think not even to the same person that told me the idea in the first place?"
However when I left (actually when I accepted the job offer), one of the points in my contract was to never divulgate or talk about what I learned about Microsoft technology. That means that after leaving Microsoft I cannot tell anybody what I know about how they do things on their products.
At some point that seemed kinda ok, after all I accepted the terms. However last weekend, it happened to me that I found a way to improve one part of a product very drastically. The irony is that I cannot tell anybody, nor can I tell to Microsoft people..... so that made me wonder, what the hell is wrong here?
I've been all these days trying to find an answer for that, but the only one that comes to mind is that preventing people from sharing knowledge in any way is the MOST STUPID idea ever!
I mean, our civilization came to this point precisely because people shared knowledge. Can you imagine somebody like Newton being requested not to express his ideas? (DISCLAIMER: I'm not comparing myself with Newton in any way, it's just to show the point). Or imagine Descartes being forced to shut up, or Voltaire, Pascal, Einstein..... it simply does not make sense.....
So to summarize, patents are very stupid specially if the patent system is broken and you give patents to everybody. Or if you are allowed to patent something, throw it into the basement and come up some years later complaining that people has "stolen" your precious intellectual property.... (if it was so precious, why the hell you didn't use it before?). Or even worst, if the system allows you to shut up people and generates ironies like not being able to tell anybody about your ideas not even the ones that showed you the idea in the first place.....
Please legislators of this lonely blue planet, don't listen to the "intellectual property" lies that you hear, just ask yourselves the same question that I've been asking me these past days: "How can I accept a system where I cannot tell what I think not even to the same person that told me the idea in the first place?"
Monday, March 24, 2008
Skiing in the alps
Last week I went to France for a few days since Eastern in Norway is a big holliday. Despite some problems with my return flight (read previous post), it was an amazing experience.
I went to a little village called "Le Freney d'Oisans", very near to two main ski stations: "Les deux alpes" and "Alpe d'huez". I stayed at a hotel called "Le Cassini", and that by itself was a wonderful experience. I've traveled a lot and I was totally surprised by this hotel. It is simply excellent. It is a little hotel (not more than 20 rooms I think), it is very comfortable and the food is simply superb. I look forward to the next skiing season since I'm going back.
Now coming to the point of skiing: I simply have no words. It was amazingly incredible. I skied on "Les deux alpes" both days, and I had very different conditions. On Thursday, the sun was shining and the snow was perfect. I went to the glaciar (3200m), and I skied all the way down. I skied for about 8 hours and it was simply perfect. When going down, the "easy" way was closed because there was not enough snow, so I had to take a black slope called "The Valentin". It was very hard, very steep and above all incredible large. However, I managed to survive it.
On Friday, it was a totally different situation. There was a "small" snow storm, and everything that had little snow was now totally covered. Very good since many other slopes were ready to be used, but not so good since the wind was strong and the visibility was very bad. However I decided to go ahead and I went again all the way to the glaciar. It was a totally different place, the wind was blowing and the visibility was very reduced. I had to buy new lenses in the shop at the restaurant near the glaciar since mine were not up to the task. After a nice hot chocolate I decided to go down and I found out (not surprisingly) that most slopes were closed for safety reasons, however there was one slope open so me and some other people there went down that way. It was an amazing experience, going down the mountain with the snow falling, very limited visibility and a strong wind was simply superb. I mean, it was really tiring and it took almost two hours to get to where we were going, but it was totally worth it. After that, I ate a pizza at the restaurant and then continued my way down to the town. Luckily when I got to the last slope, the easy slope was open because I was too tired to even think about taking the black slope again.
Overall, it was a wonderful experience and I look forward to do it again. But next time I'll stay for at least a week there.
I went to a little village called "Le Freney d'Oisans", very near to two main ski stations: "Les deux alpes" and "Alpe d'huez". I stayed at a hotel called "Le Cassini", and that by itself was a wonderful experience. I've traveled a lot and I was totally surprised by this hotel. It is simply excellent. It is a little hotel (not more than 20 rooms I think), it is very comfortable and the food is simply superb. I look forward to the next skiing season since I'm going back.
Now coming to the point of skiing: I simply have no words. It was amazingly incredible. I skied on "Les deux alpes" both days, and I had very different conditions. On Thursday, the sun was shining and the snow was perfect. I went to the glaciar (3200m), and I skied all the way down. I skied for about 8 hours and it was simply perfect. When going down, the "easy" way was closed because there was not enough snow, so I had to take a black slope called "The Valentin". It was very hard, very steep and above all incredible large. However, I managed to survive it.
On Friday, it was a totally different situation. There was a "small" snow storm, and everything that had little snow was now totally covered. Very good since many other slopes were ready to be used, but not so good since the wind was strong and the visibility was very bad. However I decided to go ahead and I went again all the way to the glaciar. It was a totally different place, the wind was blowing and the visibility was very reduced. I had to buy new lenses in the shop at the restaurant near the glaciar since mine were not up to the task. After a nice hot chocolate I decided to go down and I found out (not surprisingly) that most slopes were closed for safety reasons, however there was one slope open so me and some other people there went down that way. It was an amazing experience, going down the mountain with the snow falling, very limited visibility and a strong wind was simply superb. I mean, it was really tiring and it took almost two hours to get to where we were going, but it was totally worth it. After that, I ate a pizza at the restaurant and then continued my way down to the town. Luckily when I got to the last slope, the easy slope was open because I was too tired to even think about taking the black slope again.
Overall, it was a wonderful experience and I look forward to do it again. But next time I'll stay for at least a week there.
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Mental Note: Don't ever fly on KLM again!
I have flown on KLM two or three times, and in Air France two or three times also. Before and after AF adquired KLM. However flying with KLM has never been a pleasant experience and today they just confirmed it.
I flew to France for a short break last tuesday on Air France and I returned today on KLM. To start with the problems they charge me for my skies! When I went to France on Air France I was able to carry my skies for no extra cost. But when returning the lady at the check in told me that in KLM I'm only allowed to carry 20kgs in total, since my skies weight about 7.5kgs + ski boots 3kgs + clothing I was clearly over the limit. Notice that KLM and Air France are theorically the same company, so why the hell rules are different? Since I didn't have a choice I paid (60 euros!), and I expected to be the last of my problems. I should have expected more troubles since they only give me a ticket to Amsterdam and they told me to check in again in Amsterdam (my route was Paris-Amsterdam-Oslo), but since I'm optimistic I didn't think about that.
When in Amsterdam I was directed to the transfer center where a lady explained to me that my flight was oversold by 15 persons, so they would try to find me a place.... way to go, they could have just given me a inflatable boat and told me to sail my way back to Norway....
I arrived at the gate, and the lady there found me a spot, so I thought the worst is over, what could go wrong now?............ Of course, lots of things....
Before departure, a lady came and ask me how many pieces of luggage I had check-in and I told her two. She asked me for the numbers since they were about to unload one package because they didn't know who was the owner (Dear Airline managers, you ask all these questions when you book, then you ask them again when you check-in, and in my case they asked me again when I paid for something that it was supposed to be free, so HOW THE HELL YOU DON'T KNOW WHO WAS THE OWNER!?).... I checked my luggage numbers and what do you know? They were about to unload my skies.... At that time I was really beginning to wonder about the possibility of sailing my way back...
Finally we got to Oslo, and I was just starting to feel better when...... they lost half of the plane's luggage..... don't ask me how, don't ask me why... one would think that finding luggage in a small plane like the 737 is not a big problem, specially since there were no connections between Amsterdam and Oslo but they managed to do it.... So, me and half of the plane were waiting and asking questions at the luggage service and they gave us some forms to fill-in. Boy, I was pissed off at that time, and I just wanted to go home and forget about all of this. Luckily I started filling the form and waited for about 40 minutes because somehow they found the other half of the luggage.
So in short, remembering my previous experiences with KLM and topping everything with today I decided that I will avoid flying on KLM as much as I can, and if I was you I would do it too.
Weird side note, how the hell Air France and KLM are so freaking different? I mean, everytime I 've flown on Air France I have had a very pleasant experience but everytime I go on KLM problems start. Dear Air France Big Kahuna, could you tell your KLM colleague/underling/whatever to improve their service? Since now you own KLM I guess you have some kind of power to change things. A very humble request.
I flew to France for a short break last tuesday on Air France and I returned today on KLM. To start with the problems they charge me for my skies! When I went to France on Air France I was able to carry my skies for no extra cost. But when returning the lady at the check in told me that in KLM I'm only allowed to carry 20kgs in total, since my skies weight about 7.5kgs + ski boots 3kgs + clothing I was clearly over the limit. Notice that KLM and Air France are theorically the same company, so why the hell rules are different? Since I didn't have a choice I paid (60 euros!), and I expected to be the last of my problems. I should have expected more troubles since they only give me a ticket to Amsterdam and they told me to check in again in Amsterdam (my route was Paris-Amsterdam-Oslo), but since I'm optimistic I didn't think about that.
When in Amsterdam I was directed to the transfer center where a lady explained to me that my flight was oversold by 15 persons, so they would try to find me a place.... way to go, they could have just given me a inflatable boat and told me to sail my way back to Norway....
I arrived at the gate, and the lady there found me a spot, so I thought the worst is over, what could go wrong now?............ Of course, lots of things....
Before departure, a lady came and ask me how many pieces of luggage I had check-in and I told her two. She asked me for the numbers since they were about to unload one package because they didn't know who was the owner (Dear Airline managers, you ask all these questions when you book, then you ask them again when you check-in, and in my case they asked me again when I paid for something that it was supposed to be free, so HOW THE HELL YOU DON'T KNOW WHO WAS THE OWNER!?).... I checked my luggage numbers and what do you know? They were about to unload my skies.... At that time I was really beginning to wonder about the possibility of sailing my way back...
Finally we got to Oslo, and I was just starting to feel better when...... they lost half of the plane's luggage..... don't ask me how, don't ask me why... one would think that finding luggage in a small plane like the 737 is not a big problem, specially since there were no connections between Amsterdam and Oslo but they managed to do it.... So, me and half of the plane were waiting and asking questions at the luggage service and they gave us some forms to fill-in. Boy, I was pissed off at that time, and I just wanted to go home and forget about all of this. Luckily I started filling the form and waited for about 40 minutes because somehow they found the other half of the luggage.
So in short, remembering my previous experiences with KLM and topping everything with today I decided that I will avoid flying on KLM as much as I can, and if I was you I would do it too.
Weird side note, how the hell Air France and KLM are so freaking different? I mean, everytime I 've flown on Air France I have had a very pleasant experience but everytime I go on KLM problems start. Dear Air France Big Kahuna, could you tell your KLM colleague/underling/whatever to improve their service? Since now you own KLM I guess you have some kind of power to change things. A very humble request.
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