Proud!

About 220 days have passed since drTBBE had his last cigarette!
This is how I feel about it:

Image Source: juicylucydesigns.com

changes again !!!

Belgium, here we come!!!
I was offered a job at the Flemish Institute for Technological Research (VITO) and we decided to check if we could be happy in Belgium :-)
The offer came pretty unexpectedly, and it took us quite some time to digest it but we are quite excited about it! So, about two years after starting project Denmark we kick-off a new project: project Belgium!

It should be a very interesting experience:

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Done!

It feels goooooooood!

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Posted with Blogsy

Leaving to Melbourne in 24h

And here we go: in 24 hours we will be leaving to Australia!
The last days were pretty stressful (e.g. I thought I lost my passport, that we luckily found back in one of the suitcases) and full of work. The first attempts co close our luggage were very promising so most probably we have forgotten something ;-)
Anyway, first we will attend some pre-conference workshops, then the ISPRS Congress itself and on the 30th of August I need to present about 5 months of work in 20 minutes. And on the 1st of  September we will officially start our 2 weeks holidays!!!! Yeeeey!!!
Almost 3 weeks without staring at the computer/laptop screen!!! Yeeey, yyeeey yeeey!!!!



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Norway -> Denmark

Ufff, 80% of the removal plan completed! Yupppiii!!! We are tired but happy... and we are together in one place again :-D

Most of the things went veeery smooth. 

PACKING

Packing, especially the last bits, were much more difficult and time demanding than unpacking. We thought that 4 days will be more than enough to close everything into the boxes and load the rented VW Transporter. Four days is really short.... Fortunately we received a great support from S&A!!! The amazing thing was that we did not even ask them to help, they just came and spent several precious hours of their weekend on packing and carrying heavy stuff around.... THANKS GUYS, you are great!!!!  :-)

UNLOADING

The new flat is on the first floor with short but pretty steep stairs to climb. Two colleagues of drTBBE were supposed to come after work to help us with unloading the van, but amazingly we were ready with everything after less than 3 hours! A SuperWoman and Johnny Bravo ;-) 

UNPACKING

Well, than will take some time... Two wardrobes, a couple of bookshelves to assemble  + about 40 diverse boxes/bags to unpack. The desk in my new office is ready and the internet connection works like a charm so in the theory there are no obstacles to work...

But to be honest, I kind of lost my motivation to work: considering the fact that when I am ready with my PhD we would probably move again - I am not in hurry, I do not look forward to the next removal ;-)

Last week in Bergen: 

 Yesterday in Viborg:

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Project Denmark - our new flat

Ufff, finally we have a flat in Viborg :-)
Things were little bit slower than expected because of several reasons:

• 70% of the online advertisements of rental apartments (like this or this ) do not include photos! A short description like: number of rooms, area, floor number, location of the flat and a list fees to pay is a standard. If you are very lucky, you might get a glimpse of the house in Google StreetView but it is only available for the main streets where you probably wouldn't like to live anyway...
• housing associations (that dominate the rental apartment market) are not the best organized 'companies'... They might for example send you a list of available flats that, after you spent entire evening on selecting the ones that you might be interested in, happens to be outdated and non of the flats that you wanted to see is on the market anymore...
• drTBBE had much more busy and more stressful (and full of surprises) than expected time at work.

Another new thing that we have learned lately it the fact that in most of the housing associations in Denmark the tenant is paying the rent for the time (mostly 2 weeks) when his future flat is renovated for him. So in our case, we pay the rent from the 16th of October but we will be only able to move in on the 1st of November. As we discovered in some places it might be the other way around, you might have to leave your flat 2 weeks before the contract termination so that the housing association has time to paint the apartment and fix some small faults. I find it really awkward but every country has its own customs...

Anyway, the logistic puzzles soon will be solved and I will join drTBBE to start our common Danish adventure on the 1st of November :-)

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Busy days

Busy days...
My stay in Poland was simply great :-) Even if I did not manage to do all the things I planned and I got a cold, I really needed to spend some time with my family. Good to see my parents getting along together, spend time with the grandparents...
Bergen greeted me with truly wet and grey weather so I am looking forward to move to a little bit less rainy place even more!

drTBBE arrived to Viborg today and his Danish adventure is about to start :-)
I spend long hours on processing data, programming, trying to pack a little bit in between and listening to Adele...




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Relax

On last Friday I drove from Moab to Salt Lake City in order send all the scanning equipment back home, meet drTBBE and start our holidays :-)
Beginning of our trip was not that successful: drTBBE's luggage lost (but found and delivered quickly) and a broken rental car (3.5 hours lost) but it is going very well now :-D
After a very short stop in Las Vegas we have spent 3 beautiful days at the coast of California. In Santa Barbara we stayed at Chris' and Melinda's - thanks again guys, it was great to see you again!
Today we leave a little town called Morro Bay and drive back to Las Vegas :)

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art of travelling light

This is how girls travel now :-)

That's my luggage for the next 2 weeks: about 50-60kg of the scanning equipment plus about 30kg in my suitcases...
Taking off to the first scanning location tomorrow morning :-)

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Irony...

Irony!!! Nothing else!!!
Clear sky, sunshine and around 17-19C degrees for a couple of days in row and I have to work after hours to meet the deadlines!
Fortunately the days are getting very long now and I feel hyper-energetic :-)
Or maybe it is the prospect of pretty long holidays that makes me feel like that?
3 weeks in Southwest USA needs a lot of planning and reading but we are closer and closer to the final plan :-D


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first post from Ubuntu

Last weekend I finally installed Ubuntu on my laptop (in parallel to the old WinXp). Everything went pretty smooth, mainly thanks to drTBBE who tested the same thing 2 weeks earlier so I mostly avoided his mistakes.
But afterwards I decided to 'refresh' my WinXp and restore it from a system image. That took 5 times more time than installation of Ubuntu! Not to mention that I had to recreate the MBR and one partition of my hard drive... wrr.....
Anyway, I start to like Ubuntu more and more :-)
So far I did not have install any additional drivers and all the basic devices work fine. It starts in about 15s and shuts down in 4s. It is pretty intuitive and I really appreciate working with several workspaces. There is plenty of things to learn but I am looking forward!!!!
If I only had more time to spend on that...

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older again!!!!

I am one year older again!!!
It was a pretty busy year...
The 31. year of my life in short:

the prof side:

• coming back to studying and attending lectures (informatics!) was fun but I must say that I felt pretty old among the master students. And passing exams, even with A grades, was definitely weird :-)
• I realized that if I was about to start my master studies now, I would choose studying visualization
• I have also discovered that learning Norwegian is completely pointless because even if I am able to ask a question correctly I am never able to understand the answer and have to ask again in English...
• I do not think I will be ready with my PhD thesis on time...

the priv side:

• TBBE became a doctor! :-D
• we managed to see some of the old good friends and even make some new friendships :-D
• we were travelling quite a lot (but not as much as I would like to...)
• we started fishing :-)
• and tried cross-country skiing a couple of times :-D
• no paragliding though :-(
• I started to appreciate each minute of sunshine :-)
• I bought my first anti-age face cream (too late I guess..)

This year's birthday was also the first birthday in my life spent on skiing

and for the first time in my life I got a surprise party and almost 50 balloons!!!
Precisely 47 balloons + one broken (I counted just for you Andreas!)
Thanks again Guys!!! :-D

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short trial of fishing...

The weather forecast for Sunday said: "sunny with clouds".
I guess that expression "sunny behind the clouds" would have been more accurate:

After more or less two hours of waiting for fishes to bite our lures (even once!) and for the sunny weather to come we decided that we are not that patient in the end! I want Spring to come!!!! 

the best investment for 100NOK

The thaw has arrived and everything is covered with melting ice and water.
The best investment of 100NOK:

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buying cross-country beginner's ski pack in Norway

The big plan for today was to try cross-country skiing for the first time in our life.
Unfortunately we did not make it... and here is the story:

Introduction
There are big chains of sport shops in the Bergen area. After short market check (strangely, the choice of skis is pretty limited here) we decided to go for a standard beginner's kit from one of the sport shops.

Chapter 1.
Thursday afternoon, Shop A - no boots in my size (36). We are sent us to Shop B (20km far away) with a promise that my boots should be there

Chapter 2.
Thursday evening, Shop B. My boots are available (from the baby's shoes department), but unfortunately they do not have skis in our size. We buy the boots and 'reserve' the right skis in Shop C (city centre) to be picked up on Saturday.

Chapter 3.
Saturday morning, Shop C. We are there with the right boots, the skis are there waiting for us but unfortunately  they run out of bindings fitting our set. (AAA!!!%^!!!$^$ Wrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!) The bindings are available in Shop D (15km far away + 15minutes queuing to park the car!).

Chapter 4.
Saturday afternoon, Shop D. We are there with the right shoes, with the right skis and the bindings are there. We have them mounted and ask about the right ski poles. Unfortunately they do not have the right ones for me... AAAA!!!!! Wrrrrr!!%%$!!!!

Epilogue
The missing ski poles for me do not matter anymore because it is already 2p.m. and it will get dark very soon...

From the author:
Most of the sport shops in Bergen lack the ski bindings because of the delivery problems. The same is valid for the wood (for wood stoves). My guess is that the bindings and the wood are on their way here in one truck that is stuck somewhere on the icy roads right in front of the truck that brings salt (also difficult to buy) to our lovely city!



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size obsession

I didn't really want to comment on the fact that the largest statue of Jesus stands now in Poland (see news), but I could not resist to post this :-)

Poland

Here stands the world's largest statue of Aragorn

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uufffffff :-)

On the 10th of December, around 10:30 TBBE should become PhDTBBE :-)

All needed plane tickets bought, all the plans rearranged... uffff...


a very good end of the week :-)


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even closer now ...

The most promising PhD candidate that I know have just passed the last exam!!!!

On Friday we will know the exact date of the defence !

Happy! Very happy :-)

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PhDTTBE closer and closer !!!!

TBBE has finally received the two long awaited reviews of his dissertation!!!
And both are very positive :-]

Tratata :-)

And the upgrade from TBBE to PhDTBBE might even come before Christmas !!!






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Light painting

Hey, that is so cool!!!





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