Another gate

Today evening the Mrs. got an idea, and wanted to see if Klara could climb the stairs.
 She could. And it's fun and she's fast.
 Fortunately we found out before she thought of it herself. So before she even fell asleep, the bottom gate was up.

Valentine's day

We started the day with going to my mum and dad, leaving Klara there until tomorrow, her first sleepover without us. The leaving her part was initially not as bad as we thought, but now, tonight, it is pretty sad seeing her little chair and thinking of how she usually sits there... anyway, back to the story.

All day they promised clear and sunny weather, and mother Earth delivered. We drove to Helsingborg...

...took the ferry across to Helsingör, where the Mrs. met "mat-Tina" ("food-Tina"), a famous cook and TV-celebrity :) . It was fun being "abroad" for a short while, eating an semi-expensive, but very tasty sandwich (worth the money so to say) and walking around on the shopping street. Then we sat on a bench for half an hour, in the sun, in warm clothes, like an old couple.


Back in Helsingborg, we ate at the restaurant that we were in on our first in-official date. There we ran into mat-Tina and her family again. We had a hard time leaving the place, due to the amount of food we ate, we both felt like we were going to explode.
IKEA is another favourite place on Valentine's day, so we got that in the program as well. :P

On our way home, we had the chance to race a little with some danish cars, so I got to have some extra fun.
So far, this has been the best Valentine's day I can remember.

Back home it's a little strange. We didn't live here long before Klara popped out, so this house without her is... just strange. I wonder how she feels right now... :(

Instant adoption

This morning I started with shoveling in front of the house. We got 10cm of snow during the night. Then I rode my bike to work, I love doing that when there's snow on the ground. Also, I have to, otherwise my socks would be soaked by the time I'd get there walking. :P

Yesterday afternoon, my sister in law and her two kids arrived, creating an instant huge family for me, since I suddenly had the regular kid, plus two on my back, literally. Her two kids are old enough to climb around and jump around on me, which they didn't have problems with doing today evening as well.
While it's fun to be so "appreciated", it also leaves me feeling really bad for not being able to give Klara more of my attention. I mean, it's quite hard to play with her, while being a human tree house at the same time. :)
Tomorrow evening it will just be the three of us again, so I'll try to make it up to her.


We just finished watching a great movie, Taken, with Liam Neeson, who does a great performance here. Luc Besson is one of the writers, and it shows. There are great action and fight scenes, and the bad guys get what every normal person wants them to get. Dead.

Why complain?

This is what the weather has been like this week.
Today it should have been somewhat sunny according to the forecast, but no, still foggy. So, instead of going on a small picnic somewhere, I got a nice headache due to tension in my neck, and the massage at the gymn made it even worse.
On my way home I wanted to cheer myself up by buying some sweets, or other treat, just because I felt so lousy, but I didn't crave anything really.

Then, when I got home, my family reminded me how good life really is...

I have an adorable daughter and a precious wife, who both were at home to greet me.
I have my ever loving and supporting parents no further than 15 minutes away by car.
I got a really delicious lunch that boosted my energy back to a normal level. Something I am spoiled with every day, thanks to my wife being a great cook, though not realising it herself.
I have a job. Even better, I have a job I like and my co-workers and boss are great.
I live in a new house, in a nice neighbourhood, with great neighbours.
I've got a good, reliable, fast car (a generous gift from my parents), that never fails us.

I realised, that despite the headache I have, there is so much (immaterial and material) that makes me a lucky man, that I could just ignore the pain and focus on other things. Things that one often take for granted. And that, one should really not do.

Lousy news from Hungary

Just saw this on the news, geese are being plucked while still alive.
The beginning of the clip is in Swedish, then at around 25s the under cover team films on location. It's really sad to see how they treat the animals. There are laws in the EU that prohibit this behaviour, but apparently, joining the EU, this wasn't a law that they cared too much for.
Being from Hungary myself, I can't say I'm proud.

USA, the great nation of crap

Since she got ill, this is the first time she actually even opened her mouth when a spoon approached. No matter how well you know that it's only for a few days, the kid not eating is stressful and a waste of food. (Food that you still heat up, because she might turn around this time...)
My cold is almost gone too, so soon I can start working out properly, pushing myself again. I hate being ill, mostly for the lost sessions at the gymn. If I would be sure of not losing strength and volume while staying in bed, I wouldn't mind that much.

Now, I wanted to link to a video clip to the famous Hans and Franz, pump YOU up. As it seems, in some gay way, the "great" people of the states have come to the conclusion, that some stuff on the internet may only be watched, if you live in the US. That is somewhat like the censorship forced on the Chinese people, but in the other direction. I can see that there's a video clip, but I can't view it, because I am not in the states. This is because for example NBC owns the right to some old material in Saturday Night Live. Material that anyone could view on TV in the world, and could record to tape or DVD, but to view it again on the internet... nooooo. What the hell is the point? Not winning any wars lately, not the greatest (bwahahah) nation anymore, not enough to have fucked up the economy in the world? Go figure. Morons.
Thanks to someone, it's still viewable here. Arnold is actually appearing in the second half of the clip.

The total absence of power

This picture doesn't even come close to
her state of mind in the story below...


Yesterday Klara got quite ill, she has a cold, and for the first time a relatively high fever of 39°C. The really bad part was her not being able to sleep very well, coughing all night and crying at times.
One of the times, around midnight, she got so upset and probably scared, that she cried and screamed from the top of her lungs, and we couldn't comfort her. That made me feel so small and helpless, as if in a void where in turn no one could help me with the most important thing in my life, that I myself started crying. There she is in my arms, me being her whole world at that moment, and I fail her. I was ready to sell my soul to the devil, just for her to feel safe and calm again.
That was no fuckin' picnic.
I hope tonight she'll feel better.

Update, 21:30
After throwing up just a tiny patch on the couch, the carpet and the floor, it's business as usual. She's screaming at us and talking, playing with the computer and laughing, so it just might be a good night after all.

A regular view

If you look carefully, in the top right corner you'll see someone sleeping. I've been sitting in the car for a while now, I'm just glad it ain't to cold today.
 We went shopping, but someone fell asleep. :)

10 months ago today

A little girl popped out and changed the world permanently. Today is just another day in everyones life and in mine too, except for this certain little thing... =)

And right now while I'm writing this, at 10pm, she's still awake, crawling around and refusing to sleep. I really hope this is not her new thing.

Something fixed, something broken

Got my tooth fixed today. As you can see, I got a nose job, and put some lipstick on, so now it's just the rest of my face that needs a tune up ;) and I have a slight cold, that makes me want to sleep 2-3 hours more a day.
To much joy, my computer at work needed a reinstall today, something that theoretically should take 1-2 hours, but in real life, as anyone with 1 week of Microsoft Windows experience knows, takes a whole day. So now it's at the shop, returning tomorrow morning perhaps. Then the real work begins, restoring it to a lean state that I like.
In my spare time, spending time with Klara, watching her shout at the washing machine, is all I could ask for.

Old clip from Budapest

Panka has found an old Swedish film on bathing in Budapest. It's from 1936, just fantastic to see bridges that don't exist anymore in that form, and baths, that, if you look at them today, seemingly haven't been fixed since.

New camera once again

This afternoon I returned the 870, and got another, this one seems to behave better regarding focus. I can't say that it is all that I expected it to be, but I'll have to be content with it I think. I can't find another model that I'd rather have. :/ Still, in many ways it's a step down from the old 850.

Yesterday mom made schnitzel, and as expected, no one can do it like mom :) I got to choose how it should be served, so with salad in a bun it was.
Today I took two with me to work, eating one at the morning coffee break, everyone were a bit jealous (except for one vegetarian). Could be that they have never seen a sandwich that big :D

Potty training

Yesterday morning we put Klara on the potty, and she did number two in it within a minute. Today, she managed number one and two.
I really hope that she will understand the logic behind this behaviour pretty soon. Nevertheless, every occasion is a little celebration. Double so, because the potty plays a tune when pee touches the bottom of it. The only problem is, that it never stopped playing today, no matter how well we cleaned and dried it. So now it's outside, playing music for everyone passing by.

On a side note, I am very displeased with my Ixus870. It delivers quite many out of focus pictures now, despite showing locked and good focus on screen, and it's ISO behaviour is not consistent either. I have contacted Canon, will see what they say about this.

Chipped tooth

Just great, as if getting the ticket three days ago wasn't enough, my chipped and fixed tooth came undone. The plastic corner just came off, so now I'm, once again, "csorba-Csík".

During the aftermath of the speeding ticket, I was thinking about what good the traffic police are doing. My conclusion is, none. All they do, is collect money for the state. They don't contribute to making the country safer. They don't solve crimes, bust drug dealers, protect and serve (the public that is) or help old ladies cross the street. All they do, is fining anyone going the slightest faster than the allowed limit. And get us (the public) to contribute to the state finances with money that have already been "taxed" once. Exactly of what use is that for you and me?
I know some cops, and they are all good guys. But as for the traffic cops, they are disliked even by other cops and belong to the bottom scrape of society.

Speeding

Today I got a speeding ticket, my first ever. Doing 130 on a 120 strech where everyone knows that the police usually likes to be. Stupid. It cost me 1500.
Three things to consider though:
1) Having had my license for over 17 years, first ticket is not too bad.
2) Having the margins on my side, I just made it on the upper limit to the lowest fine possible.
3) 1500SEK is still wasted... :P

Youtube sucks

Yesterday was great. A small stone chipped a piece of my windscreen on my way to the gymn, but compensating for it were my friends at my destination, we had a great time there, and actually managed to work out some too.
Nevertheless, it's amazing, how just little can be done over such a long period of time. Okay, we still got our pecks pumped...
I also had time to go to the hairdresser, I kind of looked like someone with a helmet on, so it was really refreshing to revert to the shorter style again.

Today I got the windshield fixed, but the man doing it felt somewhat unprofessional. The result is so-so, and it's still a visible defect, but I hope it will hold. I even went to another shop to check with them what they thought. Anyway, the next time I won't be using this dude.

To this post, I wanted to upload two video clips but damn it, Youtube (that I guess is handling all videos for Blogger, since Google owns both Youtube and Blogger) really sucks donkey. I attached one clip, perhaps 20s duration, 1,2MB, and since it still hadn't finished to process after two (!) hours, I discarded it. Really useful function to be able to blog a clip, if it takes hours to complete. Do I have to upload to my blog in the morning, to be able to finish it in the evening?! Go figure...
So, I say thank you vimeo.com, feeding you two clips showing you why you should get kids.

Bargains deluxe

We went to buy new blankets (or rather duvets) today, and wound up with one only. How do you know how warm blanket you need? I'm pretty warm, so I prefer thinner than the Mrs. for example. So we'll try this one, and buy another later. Depending on how warm this is, we'll see which one of us get this.

Also, in the bargain section, we found another less useful item...

We brought her home, and fed her, she seems to like it here so far :D

My new Ixus 870

Well, either my old camera will never show up, or it will take quite some time.
So, I had no choice (ehhum, hehe...) but to open the box, and pick up my new camera, which I bought this Monday. The shiny and sexy Ixus870, gold of course, not silver version.

It's so good, I can't believe it. OK, so I haven't checked the picture quality yet (I trust the reviews, for example dpreview.com and kenrockwell.com).
I have only toyed with it for two hours, but it's fast, powerful and smart. Controls are laid out in a perfect manner, some buttons can be set to do what you find useful.
Focus can be set to Face detect and Servo AF (a high end SLR feature!), so it tracks faces and should give perfect focus on moving subjects.
The 3" screen with awesome colours is viewable from ridiculous angles.
I don't know what more to say... oh yes, if you do not have a camera yet, or your old one needs to be replaced, buy one!

The cutest thing I've read

Two kids wanted to run away together and get married... :D
Read the story here

Going to Budapest this summer

Just bought the whole family's tickets on Wizzair. First thing that comes to mind is, fuck 'em. Tickets that start out as low as 700SEK for a round trip, quickly escalate due to:
Luggage? Oh, so you do not want to go naked? OK, add another 94SEK per suitcase per direction (!). Well no shit, of course I want to take my crap home too.
The kid, we will charge you 235SEK for taking your kid, although she will sit in your lap all the time. Double this if you like to bring your kid back home too. (Actually, I know of some relatives that could imagine us leaving Klara behind for them to take care of, hehe. )
Wait, do you want to pay for the tickets?! Sure, then we charge 50SEK PER PERSON! If I pay one payment, Wizz does not have to pay Visa three times, they pay once, but I pay Wizz 3x50SEK. That's bullshit. In Hungarian we'd say: A jó kurva anyátokat szájba édeseim. How the hell can they be such fuckers? I wanna piss on them actually, but since they may still be in business and be able to take us there delayed no more than 4 hours, which is normal for Wizz, all I can say is "fuckers".