10 years online!

Today is a bit of a milestone for this website. It is officially 10 years old. The very first version wouldn’t impress many today, but at that point, it was pretty decent for someone who had no formal training in web programming. If you would like to find out for yourself, go on and have a look at the site as it looked then.

The software behind the site has changed several times, as have the ambition level and the design. But I think my aim behind the site is the same as always. I created the site out of fun and I still keep it for fun. Back then, I didn’t have much content. In fact, the site was predominantly a set of links to other sites. With time, I added more and more jokes, but back then – with nothing but static pages – I eventually had to give up. It was too difficult to update.

I don’t have any jokes on the site anymore. The primary content is in this blog and in my photo album. And here, the world has changed dramatically. The blog may be on my site, but the actual page creation is courtesy of Blogger and the photo album is created by JAlbum. I put in the raw photos and raw text. The software makes it presentable.

In the last few years, the internet has taken a dramatic turn. It is no longer the domain for programmers and other variations of geeks. Instead, the geeks have made software that allows other (more normal) people to use the web. They use the social aspect without worrying about the technology. My friend Matthew is a guru in this field, and he can take a fair bit of credit for me having a blog… and for finally adding the comment field. To many today, that is a just a fact of life. For me, it was a bit of a challenge. I had to accept that people other than myself could write comments that would appear on my site.

Like I said at the beginning, this page was created and is kept alive because I find it amusing, not because I really use it as a tool. But maybe that will change.

I have had fun with my baby website this past decade. Perhaps I will soon have to take the biggest step yet. Not one of technology, not one of design, but one of intent. Perhaps it is time for this site to be a real tool for communication and sharing of ideas rather than my personal playground. What do you think?

31 (in Earth Years)

On January 23, 2003, the last, very weak, signal from the Pioneer 10 space probe was received. Having been launched on March 3, 1972, the spacecraft was on track for almost 31 years. It was the first spacecraft to travel through the Asteroid belt, and the first spacecraft to make direct observations and obtain close-up images of Jupiter.

I am a fan of science fiction as well as real science and I actually get a kick out of looking up on a starry sky, wondering what might be out there for us to discover. And Pioneer 10 is one of the highlights so far.

Quite impressive, and yet – I have beaten one of those statistics. Contrary to one of the most fantastic pieces of space faring hardware ever built, I managed to celebrate my 31st birthday.
Turning 30 last year was a big deal. Psychologically, it is one of those moments where your life starts to change. Or at least, so everyone expects.
In my case, I can look back at several changes during my 30th year. I got married. I got a new job. Pretty big stuff, you could say. But I have so far avoided growing up or even showing hints of eventually growing up.

Birthdays are funny in the way that they are perceived as actual occasions. I love them, don’t get me wrong, but they are an odd construction, aren’t they? I mean, if the Earth had been any faster or slower in its rotation around the Sun by even a third of a percent, the year could have been 364 or 367 days long, and suddenly, birthdays would follow that rhythm instead.
And seasons aside, very few things really follow the cycles around the Sun. I change only slowly as part of the growing up that I deny takes place, or through sudden events, like when I first met my wife. It rarely follows a 365 day pattern with an additional day almost every four years.

For the first time ever, I celebrated the day with my wife (the first of my birthdays since the wedding). Breakfast from the local bakery gave a nice start to the day. And it also ended rather well, with dinner and a movie. At my request, we had sushi. I mention this only because everyone who knows me has asked if it was my idea, since they know me as a picky eater. But yes, sushi is one of those things I had learned to love over time. Hopefully, that is not a part of growing up?
After dinner, we saw the last instalment of the Pirates of the Caribbean-franchise. Seeing a film about pirates helped me keep up the illusion that getting older doesn’t mean getting wiser or more grown up.

Geek – Moi?

Is «Geek» a term you can claim with pride for yourself or does it have to be given to you by the schoolyard bully as a Mark of Cain? Most people would probably say the latter, but in my own memories going back to school, I knew that I was geeky. It was my identity and I was willing to fight for it.

In my teens and early twenties, the Geek in me was very noticeable. But in recent years, it has become less obvious. I still role play but not as often as I used to. It simply couldn’t compete with other more normal pastimes such as playing computer games (which in the days of play stations and x-box is considered «normal»). The Danish Star Trek fan club has been around for a decade. I haven’t watched Star Trek in over a year, but back then, I was one of the three founders. The only thing geeky that I never did was wear a pocket protector. Well, that and I never actually learned how to programme in visual basic, C++ or anything like that.

I am married, go to work, and pay my mortgage and all those other things that indicate that I can function in the so-called real world. Admittedly, my hat might lead you to question my normality, but that is your right. For me, it is simply a minor quirk.

All this normality was brought back into question a few weeks ago, when I sat down in front of SAS for the first time in over six months. A sentence or two ago, I proclaimed that I never learned to programme in C++. That is true. But I found my personal geek alternative. At university, I learned how to write SAS code, interpret output and rejoice in the glory of statistics. But in institutions of higher learning, we can claim that it has relevance. Hence, geekdom is easier to conceal. The give-away was that my personal quality of life was improved because I got to write snippets of code, heavily laced with semicolons and always ending with one word: «Run».

Normal people would take the hint and run – far, far away. But real geeks (with a fondness for SAS) know that running SAS can be done from the comfort of an office chair. If you are nodding in agreement, you might be like me (perish the thought): a geek disguised as a normal human being. And only the occasional smile when faced with a statistical table, a strange hat or perhaps a fondness for books by Terry Pratchett would give it away. The wonderful thing is that «normal» people usually don’t notice these small signs as they hurry along in their «normal» lives.

Grammar

It is an odd thing, grammar. I am particularly fascinated by verbs. Those who knew me when I was a kid can testify to grammar not being my favourite subject, but it has grown on me with time.Various languages have their own way of using verbs. In some, verbs are conjugated according to time, subject matter and the importance of the person one is talking to. In others, they are barely conjugated at all and all relevant information is found through other grammatical instruments.

Personally, I find it all very confusing when learning it, but usually rather useful once I get the system. And particular the way in which verbs can refer to actions at different places in time relative to the conversation one is having.

Let me give you an example. This moment – right here and now – will soon change. Yesterday it was the future – or perhaps even conditional. Now, it’s the present. And tomorrow… Well, you get the idea.

And hence, New Year’s Eve becomes a matter of grammar. 2006 will soon be relegated from present to past tense. The «what are we doing» becomes «what we achieved».
2006 was a very good year in my book. Indeed, I believe that the remaining days will be as well.

I turned thirty in 2006. I can hardly take credit for that since all I had to do was breathe and occasionally remember to look both ways before crossing the street. But it was fun. I celebrated with family and friends and have very fond memories of the event.

I got married in 2006. I went from fiancé to husband (which is a change in noun more than verb – but very memorable none the less) and again, our family and friends were there. Until that day, it was all in the future – difficult to grasp. That didn’t change during the wedding. The event was simply too big to fathom. But in time, it has started to sink in as wedding became past tense and marriage settled in as the new present. And it promises a great future.

By comparison, changing job was almost a minor event. I left the public sector for private sector employment. I love the new job and all my new colleagues – but will admit that I also miss the people I don’t work alongside anymore.

When referring to the points of change themselves – the birthday, the wedding and the job change – this will be described by verbs in the past tense. But the results are very much in the present: thirty-something, husband and corporate economist. So the grammar strikes back again: the verbs may change but they often denote simply the change itself. The nouns reflect the results.

I went through the change in verbs along with friends, family and colleagues and I am living my nouns with you all as well. If I should have just one New Year’s resolution, it is that I want to spend even more time with you all. Happy New Year and may 2007 give us many exciting verbs and nouns together.

PS: I think nouns are a lot easier to deal with than verbs - simpler grammar and all that.

Sect.

When I first decided to add a blog to my website, I knew that I wanted to avoid two things: posting about my personal life/work and posting too infrequently. Naturally, this is failing already. August and September have been blog-less, not because I had nothing to say but because so much happened in my personal life that I could not find the time to sit down and reflect upon it. But today is the perfect day:

Exactly one month ago, I got married.

Weddings are projects with three (or four) phases that they go through:

1. Planning. This is the time for stress. A wedding consists of a great many details that have to be sorted out in advance.
2. Execution. Really the non-stress part. By the time I got to church, the stress lifted - almost magically. Everything that had to be done in advance was done. Now, it was time for the purely romantic moment. The ceremony itself will forever stand out in my mind as one of the most beautiful moments in my life. When the doors to the church opened and the bride entered, I was left speechless with joy and excitement. Those who know me can testify to the rarity of me being speechless.
3. Post-wedding/Honeymoon. The next few weeks were spent in China, where we originally met back in July 2000. We started off with a few days in Beijing (wrecking what little sanity was left after the wedding preparations, by visiting the Forbidden City, the new Summer Palace and the Great Wall in just three days). Then a little bit short of a week was pent in Shanghai seeing all the places we knew from six years earlier - only to discover that many of them had changed beyond recognition. Finally, we went back to Shanghai for a few more days before going back to reality (or the deranged substitute for reality that we usually inhabit).
4. Married life. This is technically not a phase directly related to the wedding but more of a general state of mind that is the result of the wedding. But it is perhaps the most important because this is where one has to deliver on the promises made to one's significant other.

After the ceremony, an old friend seized the opportunity to comment upon married life in general. His words were: "Welcome to the Sect". I remember that sentence, because it seemed an oddly accurate statement.
Originally, I saw the wedding as a single point event: you get to church, say "yes" twice and then go back to life as it was before, except for wearing a ring. But affirming my commitment to my wife in a formal setting does change something - makes it even more real. Perhaps because I no longer have a girlfriend or a fiancée but now have a wife (still like saying that word).
So that is my current status: I am a member of the large sect of married people.

And I love it.

99 Days and Counting...

Modern interfaces all seem to have "desktops", an area where I can place files and have a background picture. Most people seem to like their virtual desktops as clean and uncluttered as the physical counterparts. I never understood that.
Every so often, I'll clean up my desktop, but it is so tempting to keep filling it up. I mean, they give you a large clean empty space that is always just one click away and then tell you that it is only good for decoration?
So what's there these days? Well, all sorts of files that I don't know what contain and I'll never use them again. And some shortcuts to my favourite folders and games. And then there are little programs called "widgets". They are little progrmas made with small codebits. They are not advanced, but can be used for small, dedicated uses. Examples are clocks, RSS feeds, internet camera pictures, etc. You can see more at http://widget.yahoo.com/.
On my home computer, I thus have three weather widgets, showing the current weather in Paris (where my parents are at the moment), Copenhagen (where we live) and Stavanger (where my fiancée is from). They have recently been a bit depressing, showing nothing but low temperatures and rain.
But I have one more widget on my desktop: a count-down. To be exact, it's a wedding countdown. It consists of a picture of my fiancées engagement ring and white text, informing me that there are now 99 days and change before she'll walk up the aisle. We're now less than a hundred days away. And that is sweet music to my ears. Now that's good use of my Windows desktop!

Me, Version 30.0!

It is official: my twenties are now to be referred to in the past tense.

In the weeks leading up to this, I hardly felt it to be a big deal at all. I admit, it could be because my head is wrapped around wedding planning and several other things. But 30 is really just a big thing because we decided to use the decimal system. Imagine if we had chosen hex. Then I would just be turning "1E", not the momentous "30".

But now I am ready to party and have fun. Okay, so it is a big deal. I'm in my thirties. That is supposed to be the time when you settle down, lay the foundation to become a pillar of the community, talk about things like "pension plans", "career paths" and "gas mileage".

I am settling down. I am just not settling.

If everyone aims at being a pillar of the "community", community itself will look a bit like an ancient greek temple: lots of columns, but no doors, windows or roofs.

And it's too early to start talking about gas mileage when we don't even own a car.

I think I'll enjoy being in my thirties: old enough to be taken more serious, but not too old to still be a kid. I'll go play some Sims and enjoy that work is closed to day.