Planet ##uk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2b-fJxzpK7s

I haven't blogged much lately, been pretty busy with work, life, stuff. And when I've had some free time I have dived into the wonderful world of Marvel

Everyone else was doing it, being a lamb I had to follow...

Soo... atleast I'm not as nerdy as some of you! Hah. Some new exiting people in my life, which is great. I love getting to know new people. Booked tickets for Christmas in Norway the other day, looking forward to a trip home.

Spending a fair chunk of time looking for a new place to live, need somewhere bigger.. but trying to take the time to find the 'perfect place,' viewed this one house at the weekend which was pretty rad. More country-sidey than where we presently live but really nice.. I'm crossing fingers and toes!

Bar that, all is well. Busy but well.

It's almost the weekend - Thank God! Can't wait to just have a couple of lazy days to chill out. If the weather is nice I suspect we may head to the sea front and laze on the beach for a bit too. 

This week has been.. a multitude of various shades of interesting. I've gotten to know some really interesting new people, I've learnt a ton of things which hopefully won't be entirely useless.. Caught up with work, sort of. And been amused beyond belief.

The internet never fails to provide the best entertainment.. sometimes it may be wrapped in a package which wouldn't have made it all that attractive in the shop, but who am I to resist a good proper bottom of the belly laugh which leaves me heaving for breath and with tears running down my cheeks for hours? I for one, raise a glass to my new delusional and raving mad overlords!

The house hunt has so far been.. I won't say unfruitful, if we want the first house I decided I liked then it's ours.. but, while the house is a good size, and the garden lovely and all that jazz the kitchen and living room are somewhat on the small side. So I am desperately trying to find a few more properties to view before we make our minds up. Now, we've spotted a couple of properties which could be ideal, while somewhat out in the sticks.. which I am all for, just need to convince Chris that the benefits of a detached house with a huge garden is worth not doing the city thing for...  Hopefully we'll manage to book a viewing at a couple of them for Saturday. 

This evening I intend to have some proper me time, I have a nice bottle of white chilling and a pile of new books to pick from... I suspect I shall have a nice, long, bubbly soak and just enjoy some quiet time.

My weekend started on thursday this week, which was nice! The intention was to house-hunt friday and saturday, though, so far one hasn't found the dream property. Have decided that Topsham is fairly nice and a very possible place to live, it's pretty, nice, quiet but close to the city. Did lunch, scenic green walk and a quick bout of bird watching with Simon while out in Topsham.. I enjoy spending time with Simon, he also introduced me to some of his other friends who seemed most charming and who had two gorgeous children who were both tremendously well behaved! Adore

The evening was a fairly quiet one, mexican food and beer.

The bestest thing about the weekend must be having spent hours and hours catching up with my friend Norm, we speak way too rarely these days. It was tremendously enjoyable, also made me realise how much I miss that group of my friends and how crap I have been at keeping in touch for the past year.. (not to mention my attendance record for any get togethers..:/ I'm sorry guys! I do love you!)

Relaxing with a cup of coffee and some 90s music right now.. wishing the weekend wasn't nearly over.

I'm also thinking about, and sending good vibes to my friend Roz (and her family) whos dad passed away earlier today. Having had the pleasure of meeting him a few times I can attest that he was a really nice guy, really smart, friendly, helpful, funny in a super quirky way.. and the man I hold solely responsible for me getting so tipsy at Roz and James' wedding! Roz, James.. if there's anything I can do, don't hesitate to prod me, ok?

I am really tired today. We got back to Exeter at like 8 last night, just as I'd sat down to open two weeks worth of post the phone rings; it's Matt Lee (GNU Community Manager) wondering if he and his entire stag party may pop around for a quick drink! They just also happened to be outside the gate to my place.. a couple of bottles of vodka later we've all endured his best man Nick playing the guitar and singing while trying to convince Liam (who owns a record label) to sign him.. '12 pints later with Nick Hancock..' 

Had a good time, nice to meet more of Matt's friends, decided we're all of to New York next July for the last HOPE, should be fun! Managed to crawl into bed at 4am and am suffering for it today

Done some house hunting these last few days, off to view a few places this coming week. There's one which I am totally in love with.. Fingers crossed and all that jazz eh?

I ordered the Avengers boxset before I went to Texas, it has arrived! Hooray! Well, I only ordered the episodes with Emma Peel, but hey, 17 dvds, I can't wait to watch them all

Chris just set off back to London a couple of hours ago, the next few days I need to focus focus on work. I want a holiday tho..

Rumour has it that James Nesbitt may be replacing David Tennant as the next Doctor, having mulled over this I have decided I may not have too much of a problem with it. I mean, I adore David Tennant and I think they will be hard pushed to find a really good replacement.. but James Nesbitt is incredible.

I just hope he doesn't do a Tennant and drops his accent, while I'd have preferred Tennant as a Scottish Doctor I think Nesbitt could make a wicked Irish Doctor! I mean, wow, he has the most awesome Irish accent, ever.

I'm unsure if I like the rumours about Kylie Minogue becoming the next assistant though.. I mean come on? I want Billie Piper back! While it took a while before I warmed to her as Rose Tyler I came to adore the character and I have missed her tremendously since she left.. I don't particulary care much for Freema Agyeman/Martha Jones.. hell, I preferred Catherine Tate to her!

I'm also not much liking that there's no Dr Who for the next few months, the Christmas special is oh so far away!

In other non Dr Who related news.. I am back in England, over the jetlag, trying to catch up with work, Gentoo and freenode in between attempting to get my head around the PDPC paperwork I picked up when in Houston.

It's nice to be back home, just wish the next couple of months weren't poised to be quite so busy.. but hey..

Looking forward to meeting a few more Gentoo developers in Zurich next month, and we've started semi planning a mini vacation/long weekend to Ukraine in October, which I am really, really looking forward to. The next few months are going to fly by I suspect and then suddenly it will be christmas.. and a trip home to Norway. Can't wait to see my family again.. and snow, I like snow.

I should consider getting changed as Chris shall be arriving home from work any moment and I believe I am taking him out for dinner.. because it seemed like the sort of thing I should do today..

For some bizarre reason I always react really badly to insect bites and stuff, like I was bitten by a horsefly years back and ended up at A&E.. well, something bit me.. and yesterday I noticed this stupidly itchy little bite.. as the day went by the pain and discomfort went up until I had a golfball sized big sore area on my stomach. 

The locals had a look and could inform me that I had been bitten by a chigger larvae.. the bite got (is) terribly infected, I'm having hot flushes, fever, pain and am throwing up like crazy.

It has made me realise that I completely love and adore Richard (RichiH) and Marek (nalioth) as they've been so good at looking after me, hot compresses, various ointments and topical antibiotic has been applied. Every time I throw up, or make them stop the car so I can do a rather impressive bout of projectile vomiting Richard appears by my side holding tissues and water. They've made me nibble on salty crackers and generally just looked after me well and proper.

Also, Richard gives the bestest hugs when I'm feeling 'bleh', the combination of feeling sick due to infection, feeling emotional and upset after visiting Rob's grave and feeling a whole host of stuff from meeting up with Debbie and Ben made me a somewhat wobbly lipped and exhausted Christel.. So I was given an amazing supar hug, it was good.

Marek and Richard are both napping at the moment, I just hung up the phone with Chris.. we should probably head out to do some stuff soon.. then tomorrow evening we set off back to Europe. Looking forward to coming home, although, overall I've had a really nice time here.

Have a busy couple of months coming up, but it should be all good. Oh, and I wrote a platform for the Gentoo Council elections.. then my battery died and Ooffice decided to not let me recover it! Damn. I guess I have to start over again when I get back home

Mmm bit sleepy, it's only 10.30pm but I am dead ready for bed.

Admittedly I woke up before 5am this morning and was unable to get back to sleep as it was rather on the hot side, and as the AC makes Richard (RichiH) sick we can't have it on.. tossed and turned for a couple of hours attempting to not wake Richard.

Chris phoned around 7am to let me know that he was bored out of his mind and had decided to fly to Holland to look at monkeys(!?), part of what attracts us to eachother is the love for travel, the impulsive streak and our shared love for monkeys. I hope he has a kickass time, and of course, that I don't come home to find that a chimpanse(sp?) has taken over my half of the bed!

After breakfast this morning we headed off to the jewish cemetary to visit Rob (lilo) Levin's grave and put down some flowers. I miss him.

I then sorted out some PDPC business with David before we all headed to Katzs Deli for lunch, went on a hunt for Cowboy hats (hey, we're in Texas, I thought I'd get myself a hat...), didn't find any wicked cool pink ones that I liked but er, ended up with a funky handbag. 

This evening I have mainly relaxed, broken a nail.. far enough down for it to be immensly painful and bloody.. currently using plasters in abundance to keep it in place until I can visit a nail place to have it fixed.. and er, what else? Oh yes, relaxed in the outdoor jacuzzi with a book. T'was nice.

Now I think it's time for snooze, in the morning I shall set off to locate a nailbar, a Hot Topic, somewhere they sell postcards so I can do the 'Hi mum, wish you were here.. oh wait, no, I dont' thing and then meet up with Debbie and Ben for lunch.

Tada!

The last couple of weeks I've been having serious issues with my moods, like, proper moodswings. Overly sensitive to anything said or done, proper exhausted and generally just feeling pretty blah. Worked on the assumption that I just had a really bad case of PMT, but have realised that it appears to be a combination of PMT and needing to have my Thyroxine dosage adjusted as I am now at the forgetting stuff stage. Go go gadget me!

Gloom aside, I am currently in Houston, TX where it is nice and hot, Air France decided to leave my luggage in Europe mind so it only caught up with me late tonight. Been doing Texan things like play with guns.

Had a nice time at GUADEC at the end of last week, and a decent weekend with friends before flying out.

Missing my man.

Now I shall sleep. When I wake up, I shall sneak off outside to test the pool!

While GNOME isn't quite my desktop flavour of choice I shall still be heading up to catch the tail end of GUADEC tomorrow.

As it happens, my friend Daniel (drobbins) once introduced me to a nice young man called Eitan (eeejay), who happens to be a GNOME developer.. having hooked up at previous conferences he made sure to poke me to let me know he was in my country and it seemed like a good reason to head up and say hi to him and a few others.

So, I'll be hitting Birmingham around 5pm tomorrow, heading home friday evening as I am hosting one of my geek parties this weekend. I know a few Gentoo devs are at GUADEC, but I can't remember who.. so er, if you read planet, prod me or come find me and say hi!

On a entirely different note, I caved in and realised that when it comes to laptops I am very much a Dell whore.. so my four month old pile of crap Sony Vaio is being replaced with a bubblegum pink inspiron 1720. I can't wait to have a laptop with a decent screen resolution again.. it should be arriving just around the time I get back from Texas! Hooray!

I should crawl into bed as I need to get up and head out to Stansted to locate Richard (RichiH) around noon, haven't seen him since FOSDEM so it should be fun!

Just as I typed 'bed' Chris decided to make me a double chocolate mocha, I guess I'm not heading off for beddy-byes just yet then... oh yes, we've been invited to one of his colleagues wedding. Now, the couple are muslim and I am super excited at the prospect of attending a muslim wedding ceremony!

True to my Gentoo roots (cough) I shall be going to the Debian UK BBQ at the end of August... Annabelle and Jorgen is coming over from home, so they've convinced me it is infact the place to be. We also had a discussion about wintery type stuff earlier as I said I'd like to bring a few of my UK friends over for a week of skiing in Trysil this winter, provided the weather is decent.

Annabelle and I realised this was the perfect time to introduce these poor unexpecting Brits to snow rafting, drunken telemark and 'rumpebrett' (assboard) sliding.. Fantastic. I can hardly wait! I miss Norwegian winters..

More often than not these days I find myself without the time to blog, however, I suspect my family (who in part use my blog to gauge whether I am still alive..) deserve a quick update!

Work is busy, busy, busy these days and take up a bit more of my time than what I would ideally like, however, I shant complain.

Managed to get my ass over to the friday night social gathering of Gentoo UK, but had to miss the rest of the weekend. Nice to see a few faces again, and match names to new ones. Saturday morning (well ok, afternoon, may have been somewhat of a hangover involved) one headed off to the South-West.. nice to get home, even if it was just for a mere night. Got some stuff done, wrapped up some work, watered plants and headed back up to London Sunday evening..

Decided to take the A303 back, which is a nice drive, I like it.. but realised that when dark and foggy parts of it are tremendously scary in a haunted sorta way and I'd never dare make that drive on my own. (ok, so I'm a bit of a chicken!)

Today I'm mainly focused on work and trying to wrap things up before the weekend, I have a few friends staying at mine over the weekend.. then I'm off to Houston, TX on tuesday.

Anyhow, I am alive and well, and mum; I shall be purchasing plane tickets for Christmas soon.. I'll be in touch when we've picked dates and all that jazz! <3

Headed up to London on Wednesday as I had made dinner arrangements with Joerg (Ganneff) for Thursday, however.. he stood me up! I know, unbelievable.. something about 'Debian pancakes'. (I presume they have the swirl and all..?)

Chilled out, got some work out of the way and tried to get sufficient rest to be able to enjoy Lugradio Live despite being drugged up on morphine for the past few weeks. Set off down to Wolverhampton when Chris finished work on saturday, headed over to the hotel to check in where I bumped into a few freenode users; Dave2 and Ebola who informed me that we arrived just in time for the LRL party.

Having dumped our luggage we got ready to head over and made our way out, bumping into Chris DiBona in the corridor, a hug and a quick catch-up later Chris (mine, not DiBona!) made our way over to the LRL venue where I was instantly ribbed by Jono for arriving late.. The bar was located as were old friends and a load of #lugradio users who wanted to say Hi!, I love meeting users in person, it's always great to put faces to names and chat to people face to face.

We decided we needed to search for some food and located the most bizarre and totally excellent take-away place which did roast pork sandwhiches.. They alone were reason to drive down! Found a couple of people from my GLUG; Simon and Gemma.. was a nice evening which ended in the Hotel Bar. Jono carries a white paper heart around in his wallet, signifying his love for Gentoo. Or was it Gentoo's love for Ubuntu? I don't remember anymore.

Woke up slightly later than intended today, made our way back to the venue, caught some talks, met more people, were fed pizza by the Bytemark people! (What excellent hangover food, thanks Alex and Matthew!) and wandered around a bit with Matt Lee discussing various bits and pieces. Were highly amused by the Great Lugradio Quiz... and when the conference were announced over struggled to drag Chris away from the synth he had taken hostage from Gordon and the guy from 64Studio. Managed it at last and went off in search of food, where Matt, Simon and I ended up discussion something rather geeky while Chris' eyes started glazing over.. realizing it was probably time to make a move I left him to head back home to London while Simon gave me a lift to Exeter.

Currently downloading a few days worth of e-mail (amazing, I didn't get my laptop out once during the weekend!).. when I've perused some of that I shall head to bed for some much needed sleep.

Had a really great weekend, it was low-key and really funny. Congratulations on a job well done; Jono, Ade, Stuart and Adam! Already looking forward to next year

Chris survived a weekend with geeks, and a few of them tried to convince him that he should yanno, become geekier and one of the collective. I will do my best to prevent this from happening.. though I was glad to see him wander away from the Ubuntu stand with a bootable Ubuntu USB fob!

The coming week shall be filled with GSoC, Work.. a bit of PDPC/freenode related work and will be rounded off with Gentoo UK this coming weekend in London! Looking forward to seeing a few new faces there.

I managed to do my back in with my crazy DIY obsession and the past week and a bit has mainly been spent in bed, doped up on morphine and having wild and obscure dreams as a result of being high on prescription drugs.

When I have't been asleep I've been at my chiropractor having my pelvis pushed and crunched and forced back into place.

Slowly recovering, a lot more straight (I am no longer loopsided, hooray!) and the pain is lessening and so I am slowly lowering my dosage of pain killers while trying to catch up on work and stuff in between snoozing. (Sleep is all I want to do still, damn drugs!)

The good thing is that before I managed to misalign stuff we got loads of DIY out of the way and threw away tons of crap that we don't really use that much and don't really need. Having some stuff being picked up by 'Turntable' next week so that they can pass it on to someone who could actually make use of it (some furniture, TV, Freezer etc).

All that remains to do is hang up some shelves (kitchen, smaller bathroom and study) and replacing the coffee table and the entertainment unit. I am having no luck actually finding a entertainment unit which has enough room without being incredibly large.. I just want something fairly simplistic that can hold a 32" flatscreen tv and has shelves for digibox, dvd player, hi-fi, amp, PS2 and XBOX 360.. and I guess a teeny bit more DVD storage would be useful...

Let's see.. what else is new? I'm looking forward to the next couple of months. We're off to LRL at the start of July, Gentoo UK the weekend after and then hopefully we can manage a little trip to France one weekend.. August has a fairly full social calendar also, I am still unsure whether I can make it to CCC Summer Camp, I would really like to. Depends on whether we can get the time off work and stuff.

Then theres Picnic, Pidgeons and Pimms in the Park in Bristol on the 11th (or was it the 10th?) courtesy of Mr. Durrans.. I am looking forward to that. Week after Helen's exhibition opens and we do of course intend to go check out the art and partake in the wicked cool party at opening night! And perhaps pick up a nice painting or two

Then I was invited to a VIP boat party the weekend after, must remember to go pick up our tickets from Simon one day.. shall dance the night away and attempt not to fall into the water and drown, as that would suck.

September doesn't look bad, I think there's a couple of free weekends before we head to Belgium for a few days (17-19th iirc) before heading over to Switzerland for Open Expo.

I'm not 100% certain but I think I want to spend christmas back home again this year, so need to look for tickets at some point soon-ish. However, it would only be a quick trip, like, 10 days or so.

Ok, I am rambling. I shall go lay down on the floor (!) for a bit and then I shall try eat something and take some more drugs, which unfortunately wants to be taken with food.. which is shite as the other drugs make me feel nauseated. Duh.

Here's to hoping that I'll be properly on the mend by the end of the week!

Decided to take a different to normal route back from London yesterday and were under the impression that this would infact be quicker. So, instead of the M25 we drove straight through London, to find that it takes er, 50 mins to go 30 miles. Then we hit the M3 -> A303 instead of M4 -> M5. 

It didn't save us any time, infact it took slightly longer than the usual route. However, the A303 route is a shedload more scenic, lots of green and uh, stonehenge and stuff. I guess if we knew the road better, and had more of an idea of which speed cameras are in use and such we'd have put it behind us faster than we did.

Anyhow, arrived home around midnight, chilled for a bit before heading to bed. Today has mainly been DIY day, just wiped myself down with white spirit after covering myself with chocolate stain (as in, varnish type stuff).

Gotten loads done though, and a visit to B&Q means I now have an electric screw driver and an electric alan key! Hah, take that flatpack devils! Finishing off stuff tomorrow I think, bar the stuff that I have yet to stain.. I'll stain it, but leave assembly 'till next weekend.

Need to test out the hammer drill I got too by hanging some shelves, some rails and some wicked cool glass jar shelf type thingies in the kitchen tomorrow.

Asked Chris to pop out to pick up a couple of parcels for me today as I had to stay in waiting for a delivery, and the post office closes at like 12.30, gave him a map/directions and off he went. Now, the post office is pretty close, admittedly the parcels were to be picked up at different post offices, but they're like.. super close. All in all I figured he'd be gone like 15-20 minutes, max.

Close to two hours later I am starting to feel somewhat nervous, wondering if something has happened to him, so I pick up the phone to ring him.. only to realise he has left his mobile at home. Duh.

Luckily he did show up again, brought in my parcels (for those curious, a ballgown and a massive quilting cutting mat thing) and then he goes "I'll be right back, there's one more," of course, I argued that there wasn't... but he still ran off out to the car while I was wondering if there really was a chance he just happened to be at the post office when they randomly discovered another parcel for me..

Well, he walks back in, holding the most gorgeous bouqet(sp?) of flowers, ever. I was aww'ing, lots. The colour scheme was pink, and the story of how he walked into Stems and asked for 'something pink' was really rather cute, and the result stunning... the card.. the card left me speechless. He's been so sweet today, made me breakfast and all. 

Post B&Q we've mainly done DIY stuff, Chris dozed off on the sofa while I was staining some wood earlier and my white spirit dizziness is informing me that I may wish to locate bed unless I too want to doze off on a sofa..

I am really not having much luck on the 'new coffee table' front. Last week, we decided not to pick up the table I looked at because, well, I'd picked up so much other stuff.. and decided to pop in this week to grab a table instead.

Between then and yesterday I did of course change my mind and while at IKEA last night I decided I wanted this other table which had useful hidden storage space. So, after wandering around for a few hours we finally made it to the furniture pick up bit.. and it was out of stock. Meh.

I'll see if I can order it online instead.. as Chris has banned me from going to IKEA for the next 12 months!

Tiziano (dev-zero) poked me yesterday and asked if we (PR/Events) would be interested in helping out with organising the Gentoo booth for Open Expo in Zurich, September 20th and 21st.

Which of course we would be delighted to do, it happens to fit nicely with when I have just finished off a few days in Belgium so I figure I'll fill the car with Gentoo gear, drive to .be, do my stuff there and then drive to Switzerland before heading back home. It will be fun.

I'll get an order in towards the end of this week for posters, fliers, stickers, giveaways, CDs, T-shirts etc. I may see if it perhaps is useful to do a larger order to cover some of the other upcoming events too.

So, if you're a swizz dev or user, you should definately a) visit us at Open Expo, b) help out with the booth and c) prod us and get on the list for the Gentoo get together/dinner/drinks type thing we'll be doing one of the evenings! I'm looking forward to it, it shall be tremendous amounts of fun!

I've also just been collared to order some stuff for GUK, which is coming up on July 14/15th at UCL. I hope there'll be tons of people attending the Gentoo UK meeting. Although, I am mainly looking forward to the social on friday 13th!

I am feeling tremendously tired. The week so far.. has been interesting.

Monday was fairly decent, tuesday I got up bright and early as I had to meet someone in the morning.. after waiting around for a couple of hours I realised they weren't likely to show up and started trekking back homewards. Somewhat annoyed, as my time could have been used very differently and in a much more useful manner.

Barely made it back in time to head out for a semi-important meeting, wrapped up some work and embarked on the task of clearing out the study / spare room. Throwing away tons of crap I now have loads more room, which I shall fill shortly! Hehe

I managed to put my passport through the washing machine (Go me!), and it is now proper faded.. such luck that I ordered a new one when in Norway, must remember to have my mother post it shortly.

I did manage to be pretty productive yesterday and got loads done, however, not quite enough to satisfy me. My mood was also really crabby, a combination of annoying clients, people not showing up and wasting my time, lack of sleep and.. I dunno, those at least.

Headed up to London in the early evening and luckily my mood improved upon arrival, Chris took me to this incredible Thai place for dinner. It was lush, the place was really, really nice, the staff really friendly and sweet, the food.. oh wow, the food was made to perfection.. and the company was great. Good food, good conversation and teh Christel was feeling much better!

Today I need to get some work out of the way, then I have a 'date' this evening.. with IKEA. I need to pick up a few bits and pieces that I didn't get last time I went. Yay!

Oh, and I've been semi-watching "Britain's got talent," it's been fairly entertaining.

I must find my mojo and get productive!

I'm a bit torn, I'd like to attend Hackday this weekend, and I am on the list. However, I need to be in Exeter saturday.. I need to figure out if they'd let me do Sunday only.. if so, I shall hit the motorway early-ish on sunday and try catch most of that day!

• Having a quiet friday evening relaxing before heading out to hunt
  for take-away only to discover a lovely little spanish tapas place
  instead.
• Waking up bright and early saturday morning, enjoying a mug of
  strong black coffee while reading the news and knowing that you have
  the weekend ahead of you.
• Feeling happy and content and totally at ease with who you are and where you are in life.
• Knowing that the friends you've chosen, and the family you're stuck with, are the best you could ever wish for.
• Sharing your thoughts, your passions, your life.. with someone who makes you feel attractive, wanted, safe and cared for, while also allowing you to be childish and silly, creative and affectionate and simply just yourself.
• Contemplating doing the grown-up thing and buying a house.
• Planning a trip to the British Lawnmower Museum.
• Monkeys.

These are all things that make me feel happy, right now.

[17:30:55] chris says:
can you get citizenship yet?
[17:35:56] chris joins conversation
[17:35:57] christel says:
no
[17:36:14] christel says:
i can apply for 'naturalization' whatever that is, as ive been there >5 years
[17:37:31] chris joins conversation
[17:37:31] chris says:
hehe naturalisation?
[17:38:14] chris says:
is that where you go to special beaches on the south coast and parade around naked with a load of other old weird naked people?
[17:38:24] chris says:

[17:38:42] christel says:
hahaha
[17:38:54] christel says:
no darling, that'd be naturism(?)

I have this friend that found a small lump five or so weeks ago. After spending two weeks working up the courage to go and get it checked out, he was told by the specialist that he could possibly have testicular cancer. Since seeing that first specialist he has had further tests but he still hasn't let on about any of this to his family or friends. And he doesn't know how to tell them that he needs a little help...

That friend is actually me. :/

Wait, you want to do what?

You want to destroy the Internet do you say? But what about all those pictures of kittens being chased by Domu-Kun? How will Warren Ellis poison our minds? And breasts! What will happen to those? A(ny) new Internet, like the GENI (what a stupid name?), could instantly block anything involving breasts! Including tutorials on breast feeding, unless you have a certificate signed by the Czar - Nicholas II, for preference - to say that you're able to look at this stuff, because a) it'll be The GENI, sponsored by Nestle, Monsanto, Texaco and McDonalds, and if we don't like it you can't see it and b) WILLSOMEONETHINKOFTEHCHILDREN?!?!111!!!oneoneone

Most of you are aware that I occasionally have strange random blog entries urging people to come meet me in London for whatever strange reasons.

Well, once again I have a PLN. My friend Rosie made me aware of this exciting happening... namely the Coconut Orchestra World Record Attempt!

"Monty Python's Spamalot, the London stage production inspired by' Monty Python and the Holy Grail', will lead on an attempt to break the world record for number of people playing in a coconut orchestra, currently held by New York with 1785 people. Registration from 5pm onwards. Coconut Orchestra rehearsal at 6.30pm. World record attempt at 7pm. Be there to guarantee your place in history. Coconuts will be provided!"

When? Monday April 23rd, 2007. Where? Trafalgar Square, London. More information can be found here.

It's St George's day, much fun could certainly be had. Up for a day of fun and debauchery? Don't have my number? Drop me an e-mail, prod me on IRC or leave me a comment here and I'll send it to you. Let's go get some free coconuts guys! Oh and fame. Lots of fame.

I am going to speak a bit about what has become known as the great conspiracy of 2007.

If the -dev ML threads are to be believed this will result in the Council turning their wrath on to me, smiting me and turning me into a pile of smoking ashes.

There is a whole host of intriguing rumours to read and gossip about for those with spare time. I figured I'd add to them, er, I mean, try and give my view and account of what I saw as happening while being part of the whole procedure leading to us drafting and adapting a code of conduct. Please keep in mind that these are my experiences, my interpretations and mine alone. Other people involved may have experienced the situation differently.

First allow me to put to rest the rumour about the Council deciding, writing and deciding upon a Code of Conduct in the span of a couple of days rumour. This is untrue, the idea of a Code of Conduct or an improvement of the Etiquette Policy we had at the time has come up over and over again. Then at the March Council meeting it was brought up as an agenda item and I was asked whether I would consider making a mock proposal, a draft.

I accepted the challenge and we agreed that I would have two weeks to write it, followed by a two week peer-review on the gentoo-dev mailing list before the Council would vote on it at the April meeting.

Things didn't happen entirely as planned.

There are a host of rumours going around about how the CoC was written and pushed through as a response to threats from sponsors and bad PR.

While bad PR certainly is a factor in why some people felt a CoC was warranted, there was a lot more to it.

As for threats? While I sincerely doubt that the sponsors in question would be stupid enough to threaten anyone (think of the bad PR they would get were such a thing to take place!), I also feel that if I were a sponsor I would use my leverage to nudge the project into doing something before being affiliated with Gentoo started affecting my organisations public image.

So, we scream and shout about how this was rushed, how it makes our Council an awful Council, how they should have done better and differently.

Having had some time to step away and think about it, I think the Council handled the situation as well as they could under the circumstances. We elected them into a position of management were they have a lot of responsibility for both the future of the distribution, its developers and its users. The Council were under a lot of pressure, externally and internally to 'fix the problem'.

This pressure resulted in a Council who spent most of their time worrying about, thinking about and trying to come up with a solution to our problem, affecting their day-to-day lives and their productivity.

Under the circumstances, I feel the Council acted well. I wouldn't have done better in their shoes, and I don't really think many of us would. Sure, in retrospect it's easy to say how different we'd do, or how much better we'd act.. but in the heat of the moment? All eyes on you? They did well, they did what they had to.

They made an unpopular decision. And even better? They stuck to it. And that gives me faith in the Council. It gives me faith that in the future they will also be able to make decisions, I also believe that every single person involved have learnt from the situation and that their experiences will make them stronger and more prepared to do things that benefit Gentoo in the future.

So the timelines changed. Who cares? The Council did something management-y, they made a decision.

While that is said and done, it is no secret that I stepped away from the proctors/CoC idea, in somewhat of a huff and a puff deleting my implementation proposal and basically feeling like I wanted to shout 'Screw you!' at people.

I'd put a lot of thought and time into the CoC and the implementation proposal, I got annoyed when someone else made me feel that I had wasted my time and waltzed in and took over, while steering it in a direction I didn't agree with.

To those of you who gave feedback on -dev and to me privately, thank you.

However, that's personal, and 'my thing'. I'll find something else to focus on. I have something exciting brewing with kloeri when we find the time to discuss it proper and I have a bunch of SoC students to welcome! But first.. It's COFFEE time!

Oh, and as a total aside.. I've cut my hair short.

Tonight I am intending to listen to the RADIO. 9pm BBC4 "Open Source."

Paul Bennun finds out how Free and Open Source software is making its impact felt across the world, fuelling development and saving businesses millions of pounds. Produced by a global network of software enthusiasts and freely given away, community created computer programs can compete with big business. Their creators are driven by an ideology as much as price, challenging traditional intellectual property rights and placing power in the hands of the public rather than private corporations.

It's fantastic to have my friends randomly deciding that they are spending Easter at mine (and giving me a few hours notice before showing up! ), had a great weekend, much fun, much laughter, geekery, yummy food and alcohol consumption.

But my oh my did it feel nice to close the door after having hugged and kissed them all goodbye! Silence.. ah. Today I've tidied, cleaned, done tons of laundry and enjoyed silence. When they'd all left I made myself a nice cup of coffee and a small baileys and just sat down and had a moment to myself. It felt nice.

Matt (aka mattl aka my immediate boss over at GNU) prodded me on IRC to inform me that he thought he had left his hat behind.. so I went on a hat hunt and found his geek beanie in my study. As the webcam snap can attest it doesn't suit me, at all. This I suspect is all the proof needed for me to say the words 'I am not a geek.' (yup, my logic there was something like 'if it suits me, then I am a geek').

It's just gone midnight, I am about to crawl into bed and finish reading Red Dragon, today (well, yesterday by now) was the last day of the holidays so tomorrow it's back to business.

Thank you all for coming down to Exeter, it was a nice surprise, tons of fun and well, yay for the most awesome friends anyone could ever have! Love you all to bits.

Lounging on the sofa, re-watching season one of House. Just had breakfast (yup, rather late in the day) and my hangover is finally releasing it's claws. 

Decided to head out and meet Matt (mattl), Nick, John, Matt (!) and.. someone who's name  I have forgotten for a drink over in my local pubs beer garden. Having planned for just a quick one we sort of ended up at my place for Dr Who, pizza and drinks.

We got a bit merry and Matt started inviting random people over, along came Chris and Andrew, and Simon from my GLUG.

4am ticked around and my business partners Alan and James, and Alan's new girlfriend Kat arrived.

I woke up this morning with FSF people asleep on my sofa, Kat and Alan asleep with me in my bed.. Then my head started pounding, badly! Fell asleep again and when I next woke up Matt and Chris had vanished!

Cleaned, cooked breakfast and did the whole "I will never drink again" thing.

Today the plan is to actually discuss business related uh, business. And cooking roast dinner! Hooray.

My friend Dave is in hospital, and in my thoughts and prayers. I am hoping for a speedy recovery.

I'd like to also wish Alec (antarus) and Simon (blubb) the best of luck with what they choose to do with their time now that they have left Gentoo. I hope you both occasionally stay in touch!

Mmm. Thank you Christian, for making my day. Reading your blog this morning made me want to hug you.

I hope you all have a great Easter! Don't OD on chocolate eggs, remember the good pagan traditions of fertility and friskiness! Have fun

It would appear that the latest issue of the Gentoo Weekly Newsletter announced my engagement and upcoming wedding.

"While this nice evening was the first real life meeting of Gentoo developers in Prague ever, there hopefully will be another one in not so distant future as our beloved Christel Dahlskjaer is planning her visit to Prague. Rumors say she is willing to marry a goat here, but the GWN team couldn't get an official manifest before the issue went to press."

Marrying a goat was never one of my big ambitions in life, but I read it on the internet so it must be true. My fate is sealed.

Today's been a really crap day, and what is really more annoying, I can't pin-point one specific reason as to why I've been in a such foul mood for most of yesterday (Wednesday) and now today (Thursday). I've done stupid things (I won't go into those here...), and I appear to have annoyed one or two good friends - maybe more. Excellent. So, erm, sorry. Really.

I'm a muppet. A Big Muppet.

I also appear to be 'developing' tonsillitis again, too, which is bloody excellent: no going to Prague in two weeks, probably no DJing this week or next, and lots of "bed time". Blah. I've been trying really hard these last 3-4 weeks to find reasons for me to stay in London/England and not go away for the next 6-9 months; I've... thought a lot about past times, experiences, all sorts; a few times I also thought I'd found that reason, and it was quite a nice find too. But instead, I ges this. Yay for having tonsils. :)

On a more positive note, the last 5-6 weeks have been the best of my life. I've met loads of people and made lots of new friends (which I really love doing), I've partied for what must be at least 8 or 9 solid days, I've started DJing again - only this time digitally (CD decks &c;); no vinyl, I've lost my spare tyre (again - woo hoo! ;), I met two of the coolest people in the world (Hola Dani and Diego! :D), went to some extreme parties, and probably lots more that I have now, er, forgotten! ;)

So yeah, life is, yesterday/today excluded, treating me very very well. Which is fantastic. Also, one or two people seem to have misinterpreted something I said recently. I, er, didn't 'do the deed', tho' I did get propositioned. And I said '"no". And that is, all I shall ever say on the matter. ;)

Wow. I'm really looking forward to (a) going on holiday and travelling a bit around Europe (Dublin, Czech Republic, Poland, Italy, Spain, possibly South Africa, Wales, and then back to England) and (b) moving out of the Family Home (ahem) and living by myself. I've done the 'living with someone else' thing before, but I'm really - and I mean really - looking forward to being able to lounge about in my Space (no, not that Murdock "social networking" site *cough*) without having to worry about any single other person. But me. :D

I think I'm going to take the next two weeks out and concentrate on getting better. The last month and a half has flown by so so fast, and my body really needs time to regenerate. My mind could also use some down time... Plus, when I have the tonsilectemy(sp?!), I'll need to spend a good few days getting in lots of R&R; too, so I guess now's a perfect time.

À la prochaine (until next time).

SportChick! I thought that since my timing is impeccibly bad, I would write this blog post just to say hello to you! Fingers crossed, I might actually catch you around some time soon! :P Mega hugs from London

Hmm. I've spent quite a bit of today just relaxing and recuperating after spending most of the Easter weekend (Friday through to Monday) partying. I really needed it too as my throat started getting a bit soar towards the end, and after all that dancing my legs and arms were quite... tender.

All this relaxing has given me time to go over a few things and have a bit of a think. Here "things" mainly breaks down to Gentoo stuff, though I have been thinking a lot about what I'll be doing in the next few months with regards to where I'll be living (I'm in the process of moving) and where exactly I'll be working (I've been offered quite a few jobs, and only one of them is actually in this country...).

So, I now consider myself to be retired from Gentoo. I've had my IRC cloak removed and I'll shortly be requesting that any access I have to Gentoo IRC channels be revoked. And, if you're a member of one of Gentoo's many cliques and you're reading this, please consider this a request to remove the privileges I was granted elsewhere (such as Bugzilla, e-mail, etc.).

I still have loose ends within Gentoo; namely, I have a few repositories or ebuilds that might as well be put to good use (NX, some Apache-related work, other web server stuff, ...), and one or two people to speak with, but apart from that I am Done.

Now, I'm not going to bullshit and say what a wonderful time I've had being a Gentoo developer. Granted, there've been fun times and I have met a lot of fine people. That has been a privilege. However, the last 3 months have been crap-filled in my opinion, and I think my time can really be put to better uses, sadly.

Here's to less red tape, and to hoping that Gentoo will continue to be such a great distribution!

Next time I have such an epic, fun 4-day weekend I'll remember not to do something. That thing being not to check my bloody e-mail. Why? Well mostly because, right now, it's completely full of cold and depressing bullshit. And I thought I was the immature one...

Mmmmm. So, I've been partying quite a bit recently. Mostly just enjoying the fact that I'm all better and lots of things! And well, things in Gentoo land have left me feeling rather fuc***g depressed, so it has been great to get a break from all of that. That said, I'm now feelin guilty I have quite a TODO list - including but not limited actually coming through to people like kloeri, Signore Invader, the Apache project, the XFCE people, etc etc. But that can no doubt wait 2-3 days. :)

So! I have a rather exciting, fly-by-night job to start soon; I'm training and everything, and generally keeping myself busier than Christel, our local Superwoman. ;) But yeah, I find more time soon to go into the exciting (sic!) world that is now mine, and hey... you never know: I might actually do some work around here cough cough ;D

Arg! Have to leave these wonderful vhildren of mine and go and relax in a comfortable bed. ;D Bye Bye Internets!!

Wow. Long time no blog. Again. (I say that a lot, don't I folks?)

Anyway, I've been pretty much completely cut off from the world wide web'nets for the last couple of months really. I've spent at least two whole weeks wasting away my braincells (or rather, what few braincells I had left...) in a few Lovely (ahem) NHS hospitals. Long story short, I've now returned briefly to the world of IRC and Internets..

And with me I bring two bits of news. Mostly sad, but one's a little bit spiffy, and happy jumpy too. I'm leaving London (UK) in a few months and basing myself somewhere else in Europe. And I'm resigning from Gentoo and related projects. Probably expected news... at least, that's what rumour has lead me to believe. ;)

I really need some sleep but, before I bugger off to bed, there's one or two smaller things I want to say:

First off, my friends - I've let a lot of you down recently while I was in/out of hospital. I'll make sure we get some good hardcore partying in before I leave the You Kay!

Gentoo folks - there was so much I wanted to do Gentoo-wise, but I no longer have the time, or in some cases the patience. I'll do my best to tie up all loose ends before I disappear from the 'net for a few months, and maybe make Jakub's day and actually close all of those bugs he's been assigning moi. But yeah, the time has come, so they say.

That special person who knows who she is - I only have one thing to say to you: Bunnies go boing boing. Nod (Oh, and I love you m'dear.)

Ok, really time to go now. I shall hopefully be back online sometime this week depending on how hectic things get, so if you're (un)lucky, you might get to hear more details of my Plan! Rar.

Right. Bed. Sleep. Nooooww! :D
(Line cheesily stolen from Hackers, the movie)

Mmm. Have been training for three days now, and I'm really rather enjoying it, even though it requires that I sleep more than just sensible hours and me getting up at silly o'clock. It's also quite intense, too. This morning, for example, I got up at 0250, got ready etc, and left for Alexandra Palace to meet James. Got there at about quarter past three, began warming up, and before I knew it it was 6am and getting light. Must've ran at least 15 miles, coupled with lots of other stuff mainly involving steps (don't ask!). But yeah, it's fun. I am feeling rather achy though, so I'm sure my body will appreciate a weeks holiday - roll on SCALE!

Genters

Not much on the Gentoo front, sadly. I keep finding myself doing little bits and pieces, but that's not really making any noticeable dent in what I still have left to do. Fell kinda guilty and a tad shitty. Oh well...

Oh, and I bumped app-doc/howto-html and app-doc/php-docs the other day, fixing a handful of bugs. I've also been working on a few updates for packages such as coppermine, dotproject, usermin, visitors and webmin. Hopefully I can break these out of my overlays soon-ish.

The last couple of weeks have been a complete blast in many, many different ways. Time is certainly going waaaaay too fast for my liking, that much is for sure - so much so that I've neglected my friends much of the time, have been working like mad (yay for 28-hour days!), and well... generally doing way too much and neglecting way too many people/things. Luckily though, things seem to be gently winding down, so - fingers crossed - my life will start to normalise a little in the coming week. At least that's the plan.

So much has happened in the last seven (seven!!1) days alone that I don't even know where to begin; much of the last 10 days have been spent making career and, well, Life decisions, and I'm really starting to surprise myself. Really....

Here's a prime example. For the last 5-6 years I've pondered going into teaching; I had a real 'fun' time at school, but when I think about it... I very nearly went off the rails a few times, and I likely would have er, well, turned out differently had it not been for few teachers who believed in me, even when I was complete and utter brat, or what have you. And I really think, or rather hope that I might be able to help others in the same way I was helped a few moons ago.

So, I'm actually going to go for it, and pursue a career in teaching. It's going to be tough; I'll need to go back to college/similar and/or Uni for a few years at least before I can even begin training, but well... Life is short. And as one very remarkable person said recently, "Don't dream it, be it!" Can't argue with that, can you?

As if that wasn't big enough a change for such a short period of time, I've began setting up a business that will, once incorporated, be working with a very talented bunch of guys who specialise in web eye candy! There's a hell of a lot I need to straighten out, but so far I have a (willing!) board, a mostly-complete business plan and enough clients and work to get the company off to a great start. And I know I'm taking on way too much, especially taking the above into account, but if things work out the way I hope they will, there'll be at least three of us sharing the work load.

And now, at quarter to four in the morning, I need to go and get ready to meet James, for we apparantly have to go and do "training" (since I promised that as I didn't compete in last year's London Marathon, I would definitely compete in this year's). I'm sure I'll regret this in a few hours - I feel completely knackered as it is - but hey, I need to get used to it, as there's no chance in hell I'm pulling out this year! :D

I've slacked so badly on the Gentoo front that I don't really want to even mention it; let's see how tired I am upon my return... maybe once I have induced large ammounts of coffee, I'll be able to catch up on my huge backlog of Gentoo stuff. That's if I don't die first, of course!

Madness, I say. Madness!

"Things that make you go 'Hmm!'"

I'm in a really funny mood, have been for the last 12-24 hours... and, well, it's nice! :D Someone also keeps sneaking into my head and they're making me giggle. Hmm. Reminiscing is fun.

Currently pondering the existence of the Psychologist's Guide to the Galaxy - Women, Life and the Universe. I think? Maybe. Hmm!

I have actually managed to be pretty productive overnight, admittedly I haven't slept, but I've managed to do some work and I have managed to get some freenode related stuff out of the way. Go go gadget tiger^WChristel.

It's nearly 9am, I am doing my morning catch up of friends blogs, various planets, online news and nettby.no

The latter making me realise I really miss my friends back home and makes me pretty psyched about the fact that I am going home for nearly a month shortly (15 days to go!). nettby.no has also allowed me to reconnect with so many people I haven't really spoken to for years, old school friends and such. It's pretty nifty.

Holiday. That will be so nice. Spend time with my friends and family, dote over and play with my niece and nephew. Go diving, shooting, party a bit, sweden trip with Khai planned, 'hyttetur' with Maiken.. It shall be pure bliss.

Hmm. I am spending entirely too much time browsing the sort of websites I really shouldn't be looking at.

I need to get a bit more work done, though, I am most tempted to just spend the entire day grinning and being silly. Just cos that's what I feel like doing! Thank you, Cariadon.

Last few days have been semi-busy, but not too busy to have fun! Spent a bit of time doing SoC related fun, shall make a proper entry about SoC shortly. Spent some time doing freenode things, big surprises are underway!

But mainly I have just been happy. Sometimes amazing things happen when you least expect it. And sometimes you get really surprised and wow'ed by things. 

And sometimes.. sometimes that's just perfect.