Amat victoria curam!

The first time I saw Donna Summer it was in Van Oekel's Discohoek - one of her very first performances when she still lived in Austria. The song was "The hostage" - later with Giorgio Moroders' I Feel Love she became the Disco Queen and that's how she will always be remembered.

As a true Quantified Self person I needed a FitBit Ultra. It's great as has a pressure altimeter that will not only track the number of steps that you take, but will also keep track of when you climb stairs or walk up hills. It can also can be used to turn into a sleep monitor when attached to a special wristband. But I already have my ZEO for that. All the data that is collected by the Fitbit is relayed wirelessly to the Mac. Sweet.

While I am still wondering how in the hell I should run the HALF Amsterdam marathon in October, Fauja is laughingly running marathons at a 101 years old - what am I doing WRONG?

willem

Henk

The amazing popular TV show "farmer seeks wife" started again, this time with a gay farmer, Willem. Probably best if Willem stays inside his farm and never comes out... The farmer who I would like to know better on the other hand is Henk, 25...

The cover for this week's New Yorker issue by artist Bob Staake

hmmm... I start saving :-)

Yesterday evening was the long anticipated homage performance in the Amsterdam Stopera by te National Dutch Ballet Company. It was a great, moving and excellent evening with especially an awesome performance of "Die Vier Letzte Lieder".

I am enjoying very much the quest of Joanna Lumley to find the source of the Nile in her (already from 2011) documentary. She is really a warm, friendly and funny lady who sparkles on the screen and makes everything seem so easy, while all the time it is probably very tiresome, scorching hot and smells like hell...

I was sorry to hear that Albert Falco died. Together with Jacques Cousteau he brightened up my weekends with their adventures on the Calypso (and under water of course). For more then 40 years he sailed the globe to explore, explain (and thrill). Thanks Albert - you are still one of my heroes.

I really like Simon Reeves - his stories from around the world are real, funny, moving and inspiring. His new series "Indian Ocean" is now showing on BBC 2 (HD).

Be bright, Be one, be GAP - Like the new posters :-)

At the beautiful Felix Meritis building at the Keizersgracht Dirk & Roland got married today by the always witty and nice Fatima Elatik. The guest were an international mix from all over the world and Eddie and I had a great time meeting new interesting people (och talar svenska!). Good luck Dirk & Roland :-)

In preparation of our upcoming UK trip I am fine tuning our final route. On CCN I found this (one of the world's 10 ultimate) drive in Wales and put it right away in our GPS data. Of the ultimate drives we already did 8 so only The Transfăgărășan Road in Romania is left...

After the shocking scenes last weekend amids the financial crisis the Netherlands is in everyone was baffled by the amazing developments the last 48 hours. Parliament really took charge and showed leadership in coming up with a coherent package of savings and measures. All under excellent guidance of the Minister of Finance, Jan Kees de Jager - of which I am proud to have him as a minister and as an fellow alumni of Nyenrode.

order it here

'Music is a legal drug for athletes," claims Dr Costas Karageorghis, an expert on the effects of music on exercise, at Brunel University. In his latest book, Inside Sport Psychology, he claims that listening to music while running can boost performance by up to 15%.

See my post of a couple of days ago...

In this week New Yorker a nice piece about Flynn McGarry, age 13, and his passion about food. He is already an accomplished chef who apprentices at two restaurants, caters parties, and hosts a monthly pop-up restaurant Eureka, that is located in his family’s California home, features tasting dinners. This means that each course is small (about one or two bites), and Flynn creates between ten and seventeen courses for the meal. Wow I would love to have dinner at Flynn one day :-)

I probably did the pull over last week with a little bit to heavy dumbbell - anyway I hurt my back and couldn't hardly walk/sit or do anything actually... I hope that during the coming week things get better :-(

When I rode home on my bike today - it was pooring. I felt like a dog afterwards...

Since the new "Never Hide" advertising campaign of RayBan I almost cannot ignore them when looking for new sun glasses...

Andreas, alias Daskadasenibordet har en mycket roliga blog på Qruiser och på youtube. även om du inte talar svenska du vill se den här ;-)

Today after work Wes decided to bike back to home (that took him about 2 hours) - funny that almost all of us @auto.nl like other transportation methods more then just cars :-)

After I seen all the films in the cinema, purchased the VHS and the DVD's after that I am now thinking of buying the complete blue ray set (it will only be released in October this year) It always amazes me how much fun the bond movies are. I saw the man with the golden gun on the plane this March - and I enjoyed it very much. So maybe I will just start watching my (old) DVD box. Penguin issued a new box with 007 a while ago with fantastic art work by Michael Gillette - It is new, but at the same time very iconic from the 60's. You can buy the book set here and the original art work here.

This new video camera from Black Magic really looks cool and seems like the ultimate pro-am camcorder. ($3.000)

Farfar, får får får? Nej, får får inte får, får får lamm...

Although already released in 2011 - I just discovered this "new" Michael Franks album. I don't know why I missed it, but I am very happy that I can now listen to it (and listen to is and listen to it again). It's your classic Michael Franks album, nice sweet songs, beautifully produced and it simple makes you relaxed and happy.

Our hotel in Schmallenberg, Schutte is a hotel since 1460 - and now after 18 generations still owned and operated by the same family. It consists of a complex of building and has all the luxury you can wish for for a relaxing long weekend. We drove the original motor trip by car and promised ourselves to come back by motor soon.

We were planning to to on a motorbike trip to Sauerland this Easter, but just on the German border Eddies' battery stopped working - we had to return all the way home, pick up the car and drive to Sauerland in stead. (Which was a sort of blessing in disguise because the weather there was way to cold (snow!) for a pleasant motor ride.

Latetly one of all(5!) of the internal fans in my Mac Pro were a lot noisier then they used to be. What happened? I was checking fan control programs even considering buying a new (solid state) Mac Pro till I came across an article that recommend to vacuum clean the inside of the mac pro. The dust that collects on the boards and other parts makes cooling more harder and thus the fans have to rotate faster. (normal speed around 600 RPM - now more then double).
After a simple dust and vacuuming job everything is back to normal again and I even have to check now and then if my Mac Pro is on or not :-)
How simple can silence be?

Sadly Ferdinand Porsche died - luckily his most famous design lives on: the 911. I have owned 3 types of (modern) 911, but I think that when I return to the 911, I will pick one from the early 70's - they are the most iconic. And if you add a nice color like orange or yellow and maybe even a Targa roof I am sold.

Barack Obama flashes the Vulcan salute with Nichelle Nichols (Uhura) of Star Trek

What if you put Maggie Smith, Bill Nighy, Judy Dench, Tom Wilkinson, Penelope Wilton and Dev Patel in one movie? You cannot go wrong! And you are right: The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is a gem of a film. Based on a story by Deborah Moggach (funny see Penelope reading a copy of her other great novel “Tulip Fever” in the hotel). I am not sure if I would like to retire in Jaipur, India. But on film in vibrant colors without the smells and the sounds it looks awesome... Maggie is playing her Downton Abbey role in India, so is a great laugh! ("I do not eat food I cannot pronounce...")

About Author

Twitter Updates

Follow Me

Popular Posts

Latest Post

Total Pageviews

Blog Archive

My previous blogs