Contemplations by Thor /tɔː(r)/

This fall, a trip to US involved meetings in Elkton, Maryland, Cleveland, Ohio as well as Los Alamos, New Mexico. Since we were three persons travelling, a fullsize car was not fitting all luggage. The first leg, driving from Washington D.C. via Elkton to Cleveland was done with a Chevrolet Trailblazer LT 2006. This car has a 4.2L inline six with about 290 bhp. It was supposed to be fuel efficient but an average of 15 miles per gallon did not impress us. Neither did the 4x4 (although set to 2x4) cruising on the I-80 West. When we arrived in Albuquerque in the evening I was so fed up with the thought of driving another 4x4 so I asked the guy at the counter for alternatives. He offered me a Chrysler 300 Hemi C 2005 for 200 bucks extra. We agreed on 125. The Chrysler has a 5.7L V8 with 340 bhp and 530 Nm. This was the first time I'd driven a V8. The sound of the engine was of course smooth; one does wish the car was not so soundproofed. The torque was instantaneously noted, and not bu...

the last couple of years the garden work has been scarce. the lawn is moved; the basic maintenance. but no real effort has been put in. for this year, it seems that both me and Sissel are more interested in having the garden look nicer. not only is the lawn moved more frequently, but the dandelions are removed by the root as well. the flowerbeds are a pretty sight. one problem has emerged: goutweed. I think our neighbour is the source of the problem. he is a professor, unfortunately not in biology. the birches there gives enough shade for nettle and goutweed to dominate the undergrowth. I started cutting the weed down. no luck. it grows surprisingly fast and it would take continuous garden work to keep them out of sight. reading up on goutweed on the net, I learned that they are very persistent. no luck cutting them down. no luck keeping light out for one year. the only thing that works is to dig down at least half a meter. removing every single root is a must to ensure you ...

Today, I had a fantastic hike. The weather was great and 15 cm powder snow made the hike simply fantastic. I visited several hills and found three geocaches. I started the trip from Tømmerdalen. This location is about 10 km outside town and a dirt road takes you there. Normally, I am not fond of driving my BMW E39 there. I have realised the limitations of the 5-series in winter. When I got there at 10:30 am there were no other cars around. When I returned at 2 pm the lot was crammed. On my way out I saw a brand new MB ML 320 CDI parked at the side of the road. I passed it slowly only to discover that I knew the owner who was standing outside the vehicle. I stopped for a chat, but I realised the guy was in distress. Embarrasingly, he admitted that he was stuck: both front and rear tyre on the right side was submerged in the snow. I tried to help with my .5 bhp available but to no avail. The car was stuck in the snow. I did not even try my BMW for pulling it out. I visited the nearest fa...

I recently cancelled my ISDN subscription. Since the installation of broadband, I found the monthly NOK 230 a waste of money. Cancelling the phone completely was tempting, but since this involves a NOK 60 fee added by the ISP I settled for a "mini" subscription at NOK 89 a month. Calls cost about 0.45 a minute and I started looking for viable alternatives. IP telephony is very popular and are offered my most ISPs. Although it is indeed very cheap to make a call, the monthly fee is still +100 NOK. For us averaging about NOK 50 in calls a month we don't benefit much from this offer. Since I recently bought a USB headset for my PS2 I started looking into the possibilities of making calls over the internet. Of course, voice calls over MSN, Google, Skype etc. is nothing new but the problem is that most of the neccessary phone calls can't be performed this way. Well, the exception is Skype. Skype makes it possible to call regular subscription phones at a low rate. As an exa...

Picked up a WET54G bridge at Mamoz today. The purpose was to replace the Laptop as a bridge, a tiresome task to set up every time I wanted to play. I'm fairly experienced with wireless networks. Not an expert, but know enough to handle most issues. I've got a 3Com access point after the D-Link gave in after 3 years. The process of installing the WET54G appeared very similar to the 3Com: plug the bridge into the existing network or a PC then run the accompanying software. Well, no bridge found. Instead of connecting to the switch I plugged the RJ45 directly into the Laptop. No dice. This was crucial. NHL '06 was fired up on the PS2 and I had an online opponent waiting. I was very angry with the progress so far. I simply had to read the quick installation guide. On the last page it said the IP was fixed to "192.168.1.226". Hm. The solution was near. I reconfigured the IP protocol of the laptop to match the subnet and voila! A quick change of IP from the set...

I have to go back to 1994 when I played this fantastic vintage on PC. What made it all the more fun was the ability to create leagues. Each player could take a 1.44" diskette home and play those of the 82 games where the opponent was computer controlled. The other games were played face-to-face. Great fun. With the PS2 online, I was hoping that I was able to once more enjoy the fun of a full NHL series played. I guess my presence at the Washington-Detroit game in D.C. last year had motivated me slightly. All set up last night, I tried a random online opponent for an exhibition game: 1-7 loss! A couple of offline games made my fingers memorize the control buttons. Going online again, I tried to find the league option. Well, there was none. Basically, only exhibition games and short tournaments were available. Strange, since the lobbies are set up with advanced EA messenger systems very able to handle advanced player interactions neccessary. Looking for a quick game, the logging of...

I needed something other than the MSN Spaces to express myself. Reading up on most clients I figured I'd use too much time on PHP and MySQL that I resolved to use this service.