Sometimes people just drive me nuts! As I wrote, when the DSL guy hooked up my new connection, he managed to kill the phone. Well, I finally called the carrier and asked them to fix the problem as two more weeks of no phone would be too much.

And they did - and only 1½ days after my asking them to do so! Only to kill my internet (Grr). Would a little taking-your-head-out-of-your-beep-while-working kill these guys?

By the looks of things, I'm without internet for the weekend (thanks to the 12 work-hour service that makes sure, that any error report filed on Friday is postponed until after the weekend .. sigh)

If this were any other country than Denmark, this issue would be solved within minutes (ok, maybe hours) and with an apology for the inconvenience - which I'm sure not to get. Service sucks in this country.

So now that the phone's back on (or at least until the guy up on the right "fixes" the internet) I should propably go buy a new cordless phone, as the old one is now only holding battery long enough for me to dial a number or answer the phone to scream "call my cell!"

Well, I thought I might give an update. Basically there's nothing new, except for some of the trivial stuff - but here's what is keeping me busy these days.

The phone still doesn't work. I have switched operator (to ip-based telephony) but the number is only ported on October 16th :o(. But that leaves me a little time to find a new phone to replace the old, broken one.

I wrote earlier, that my brother-in-law came from Portugal with Kimie and me this summer to get a job. He's been sleeping on our sofa the past 1½ months, but now he's moving out. It'll be nice for him to get a place of his own - and nice for me to get the living room back.

I'm still doing the Kung Fu thing. Last Thursday I took a kick to the elbow while holding a punching pillow, and in 2 minutes it had inflated to something like double size. It didn't hurt much at the time and now it's back to normal but with a nice blue/violet colour. Also we did some hardening excercises yesterday- basically repetetetive hitting of the same areas on arms, shins, thighs and torso to harden them so you won't feel as much pain when you get hit for real - I'm sort of bruised, especially the shins (ouch!), but "no pain, no gain", I believe the saying goes.

Oh, and bridge (cards) started last Wednesday. Christian and I did rather poorly, but we sort of expected it (we're not cut out for the type of tournament we played). We're hoping to do a lot better in the next tournament.

And finally! We have the ski-trip planned for winter. We're going to Samöens (http://www.ski1.dk/Destinationer/Hygge/Samöens.aspx) by train (which) and staying in a cabin. I cant' wait! And we convinced Heli and Thomas to go this year. Don't know about Heli, but it'll be Thomas' first time ... we need to bring a video camera this year :o). We're propably going to be 10 this year, which will be great, the more the merrier!

Ok, that's it for now.

In merry old Denmark, one (1) company owns the copper lines that make up our telephone grid. The same copper is used to carry DSL signals. Recently it has become possible to give up you phone but still retain the DSL signal, which is great news for us Voice over IP converts.

So I converted my DSL from one technology to another so that I could a) get a faster connection and b) give up my phone subscription (which is quite pricey, I think). But naturally our monopolistic managed to screw that up... Yes I got a new internet connection, but they also disabled my phone (which shouldn't have been affected).. Probably crossed some wires somewhere - because they knew they were about to loose money soon :-(

On the other hand, our trusty old wireless phone has taken about all the talking, being dropped on the floor and roasting in the sun it can stomach. Battery life is close to 'extinct' (I get an angry 'battery low'-beep the second I lift the receiver from the cradle) - so maybe a few days rest will do it some good, who knows? At any rate I won't be picking up calls the next couple of days unless you call my cell phone.