Hippo

Javapolis 2006

Unbelievable... I didn't know it was still possible to hold a Java conference with 2800 attendees and *no* WiFi access! :-(
Oh yes, there's a signal, but it just doesn't do anything. And given the sad look on the faces of people sitting around me, I'm not the only one!

So, I had to get back to the hotel for some old school 6 euro's per hour WiFi access ... But hey, it works :)

If you are at Javapolis, are able to read your email, *and* care for a beer or two later on in the evening, send me a text at +(thirtyone)-six-185167-seven-eight :-)
I got no clue how SPAM sensitive phone numbers are... ;)

-- Arje

New year's resolution: Apache running challenge

Ok, so here's my new year's resolution: I will run a minimum distance of 15 kilometers a week, spread out over an average of 2.5 workouts.

Because I believe that a tool can make all the difference (yep, I must still be a geek), I bought some shiney new shoes and a Nike Plus connector to my 8gb iPod Nano.
I've got a heartrate monitor too (from back in the days, when I was still a rowing hero), so when running I'm entirely gadgetted up. That should lower the barrier for putting on my shoes every night after a hard days' work! :-)

The Nike+ thing is awesome, and Apple has in all its ingenuity put up some really great music compilations in its iTunes database. The combination makes the whole running experience so much more fun. Yep, I'm a happy running hacker now.

After your first run with the Nike+ thingy, iTunes will upload your training statistics to the central Nike server where they will probably do horrible things with all that data and sell your lap splits right away to your insurance company, who will laugh about them and after that send you a notice that they've doubled your monthly fee because your condition sucks so badly. Nevertheless, it's fun to see what you've achieved projected in this nice and geeky Flash user interface.

But the really cool thing is that you can form a group and compete against each other or try to complete a goal together!

So here's my call to all Apache people that could lose a pound or two (pretty much all of you I guess :-p ): buy yourself some gadgets this Christmas and join in on the Apache Running team! The goal is to all run 100 miles starting on January 1st. The challenge is completed when *all* runners have finished :-)

So, in my case, it should take me about 10 weeks to finish...

Who's with me!?

5 things you don't know about me

Well thanks for the tag, Andrew! I was actually expecting a trackback from you on my running efforts instead of this... But I fully understand that that would've forced you into renaming your weblog, and we can't have that, now can we? ;-)

Anyway, here goes.

Five things you don't know about me:

1. I once had a cat named Supercallifragilisticexpialidocious
2. I get claustrophobic on planes
3. I've tried reading Godel, Escher, Bach several times but never made it past page 200. Although I pretend to know all about this fantastic book, I don't. Same goes for The Origin of Species. What a shame! :-(.
4. I used to row a lot
5. I used to play drums, had Cubase running on my old Atari 1040, with a sampler and midi keyboard attached to it, and was the beat master for the greatest highschool Hiphop band ever ;-). Yup. You didn't know that! :)

Next up are Jeroen Reijn, Maurizio Pillitu, Eelco Hillenius and Martin van den Bemt!