Sometimes it snows in April

Finally my thesis has been sent out to the examiners - more than a week late - after being lost in "mail space" thanks to an amazing team effort of the Royal Mail and the Mail Room at Uni. Anyway, now my thesis is on it's way to the examiners and I can look forward to my Viva the 16th of May rather than just worrying about my thesis being lost in the mail.

Some more bad luck (and good luck). Monday after work me and maybe 15 others from Tideway went to the Trafalgar, a nice bar on King's Road in Chelsea. I placed my back pack (Angela's pack that I borrow for running and going to the gym) on the floor right by my feet. After maybe 10 minutes I looked down and it was gone! We called the police but I didn't have any hope left of ever seeing the bag my with running shoes in it ever again. Then Angela called. A guy had found a bag with Angela's phone number close to Sloane Square station. He said he would wait there for five minutes and then leave the bag on the street again. I ran there like crazy - powered by two Hoegaarden - and met the guy just as he was about the to leave. I thanked him, rushed back to the bar and then back to Angela's place since we were supposed to go to IKEA the same evening. The only things missing from the bag was some hair gel and my gym card. I can't almost help but feel sad for the thief. You go in to a fancy bar in Chelsea to steal a bag and manage to pick probably the only bag without a mp3 player, laptop or expensive phone.

At midnight, the same evening - after enjoying the food at IKEA - we couldn't find a parking spot on Lexham Gardens road. Instead Angela parked just outside Cromwell hospital (where George Best died earlier this year). Then the next morning someone had driven into Angela's car. It could've been worse, but the door is seriously dented and is hard to open.

I don't think I will play the lotteries this week...

I don't need to sell my soul - he's already in me

Aaaah, the final day of working on my thesis before submitting tomorrow!

I will make a few changes to the final chapter, make sure that everything looks ok, and then print it out in the two required copies. The only problem is that the evil geniuses of the university security force require that anyone that wants to enter uni today must have a special permission letter that I don't have. The reason being that I didn't know that you require one, since this kind of information only seems to be emailed out to a random set of people instead of all affected people just as to maximize the pain and misery of working there. Anyway, I will go there in the afternoon and hope that the disciple of the Dark One will let me in through the back door. Then I will hide in the shadows and hopefully have time to print out the required copies of my thesis and abstract before the security force arrives.

The queen is dead

I've now worked at Tideway for two days and I really like it. Haven't really done much yet though - mostly attended various introductory meetings. At least I got to check out all the code from CVS today and I also got to do my first check in. Just three lines in a shell script but it's always nice to do the first check in. I've also signed up for a gym located just by the office. £45/month including swimming and all classes (yoga, kung fu, etc) - a great deal for being Chelsea!

When doves cry

Last night me and Aris went to see The Evens again. They played at the Salvation Army on Oxford street - last time they played in a church. It was ok but I think the last time was better - Ian was slightly too agressive and the church where they played before had amazing accoustics.

My plan today was to do another half marathon but I got some pain in my left knee and ended up running only 17.2k in a rather slow pace.

Monday is my first day at work and Wednesday it's time for the mighty Afrirampo to play at Cargo!

Shoplifters of the world, unite

Now it's only one day to go at uni. My supervisor will give me some feedback tomorrow on my thesis and hopefully I can submit it next week.

Today I did some training called 'fartlek' (no, it's not what you think it is...). It's weird, I had never heard this word before I came to England even though 'fartlek' is a swedish word that means 'speed play'. The idea is to run continously for maybe 45 min but vary the intensity or speed as you go along. This means that both the aerobic as well as the anaerobic systems get a good workout. I first did a warm up of roughly 10 minutes of slow running before going roughly 80% of max speed for 10 seconds, then slow jog 10 seconds, 80% for 10 seconds etc. Nice stuff...

My dear friend Tommy in Sweden is getting married to Emma this summer! Here's me, Tommy, and Mie (a friend from my time in Brighton) at a cook-it-yourself okonomiyaki place in Shinjuku, Tokyo, 2003:



I've started to read Jared Diamond's new book 'Collapse: How societies choose to fail'. I really enjoyed 'Guns, Germs, and Steel' by the same author that I read while travelling in Morocco with Angela last year but for some reason I just fall asleep when I try to read Collapse. I've tried to read it the last three nights and I still haven't reached chapter 1 (the prologue is maybe 15 pages long). Usually I wake up around 5-6 in the morning with the light still on and my face in the book. Will make another attempt tonite!

Last night I dreamt somebody loved me

Ran back from uni today. St Albans way, 42:30. Not an amazing time, but decent considering that I ran a half marathon a couple of days ago. I now feel really excited about running and I'm really looking forward to the Stockholm marathon and then Sydney in September. Next year I want to do the Comrades race in South Africa, a 90k race (maniacs only).

Male Model and his baby robot

One day I realized there must be more to life than being really, really, really, good looking...

The more you ignore me the closer I get

Aaah, I had a lovely training run today. The sun was shining for most of the run and squirels were playing in the trees. I ran from home via Assif to Uni and then back and then through the park and the Abbey to make the distance 21k. The total time was 1.45 (5 min/km) excluding the stop at Assif's. The beauty was that I still felt quite fresh and ready to run longer in the same pace when I came home and had a stretch outside the house. If I manage to keep this pace through a whole marathon the total time would be 3.30 which would be great. A more realistic time is 4h. In that case I would have to keep an average speed of 10.6km/h.

Stop me if you've heard this one before

Sometimes I think that I'm way too quick to judge and make decisions. On the other hand, I suppose that's better than to be too thoughtful and careful and spending all your time thinking about what you should do rather than actually doing it. As Rodney Brooks said, planning is just a way of avoiding figuring out what to do next.

Last night I started to read Richard Branson's autobiography 'Losing my Virginity' that I have borrowed from Mike. Richard Branson is definitely a guy that has 'just been doing it' without much thought and has had plenty of fun while being extremely successful. In the book he recaps some business stories from Japan and tells about one company there following a 200 year business plan! Quite different from Branson's own business philosophy. I also read about an interviewer asking Deng Xiao Ping (the leader of China in the early 80s) what he thought about the implications of the French revolution more than two hundred years earlier. 'Still too early to tell', he replied.

I'm now training for two marathons - the Stockholm marathon the 3rd of June and the Sydney one the 10th of September when I visit Angela. It's only two months to go before the Stockholm one and I really need to train now to achieve my goal of a time around 4 hours.