In old beautiful days of my childhood my father took us (my brother and I) on bicycle trips across Poland. I don't remember much from the earliest trips as I was from four to seven years old, but I do remember the later trips when I was around twelve. That thing western countries call civilization looked completely different on this side of the Berlin Wall.
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Friday, July 22, 2011
Million bookmarks management
In the normal using of internet you see interesting stuff and want to keep it in your sight - be it a blog, a news clip or something you want to read later. What you will usually do is to add the page to bookmarks, then another one. Then another and suddenly there are so many of them you loose orientation what did you add them for, and in most cases you can't find that one you really need right now.
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Strange friday
That was one strange day - all day... first, since we moved to 5th floor it's so silent in the office that I almost fell asleep, the strange weather and not much to do didn't really help.
Friday, July 15, 2011
Internet stuff - save youtube video
As home "go-to-IT-guru" I find myself often searching internet for useful tools that help the overall internet usage experience. My favorites are add-ons to web browsers and sites that make available some of locked content.
Newly discovered tool is - savetube if you want to have one of youtube movies on your desktop or just the music from it, this nice and easy in use site will help you to do the magic trick.
Newly discovered tool is - savetube if you want to have one of youtube movies on your desktop or just the music from it, this nice and easy in use site will help you to do the magic trick.
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Cultural Thursday
Thursday the magic day of "museum entry free" will be another part of do something outside home program. Which works quite nice for me as I have exactly 1 hour to visit a chosen exhibition before the museum closes the gates.
Today it was the "Amber - Baltic Sea Gold"
Enter....
There is a family expression that describes a moment in which you have a lack of understanding of obvious steps... to explain it better let me use an example from which the expression came from.
My genius mom was the first one to have internet at work, she used it quite well till one moment... she is writing to me on gadu asking why the hell some site is not opening... to minutes later she writes again "I forgot to push Enter..."
So now, when we forget something completely obvious we call it "enter!".
I used it also to name one of my late blogs - 40+Enter was supposed to be a blog to help people over 40 to work with internet and computer (okay for younger ones too). Unfortunately it was a classic example of straw enthusiasm (quite typical for me... so let's hope this blog will not end the same way). The blog didn't survive long, but hey I have a new blog and I can actually just add the computers/internet topic in. So from now on the tag: enter will be added to all computer/internet related posts.
My genius mom was the first one to have internet at work, she used it quite well till one moment... she is writing to me on gadu asking why the hell some site is not opening... to minutes later she writes again "I forgot to push Enter..."
So now, when we forget something completely obvious we call it "enter!".
I used it also to name one of my late blogs - 40+Enter was supposed to be a blog to help people over 40 to work with internet and computer (okay for younger ones too). Unfortunately it was a classic example of straw enthusiasm (quite typical for me... so let's hope this blog will not end the same way). The blog didn't survive long, but hey I have a new blog and I can actually just add the computers/internet topic in. So from now on the tag: enter will be added to all computer/internet related posts.
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Slow me down
There is something seriously wrong with network for the past few days. At work surfing lately is composed out of: go to the site, see error message, click on refresh, tadam the site is working - weird. Internet aside, local network (if you can call EMEA wide network local) also has it's humors, one of the files opened for over 10 minutes! Slow internet I can live with, slow company network not so much!
Strange thing is internet at home is doing exactly the same thing - go to, error, refresh, read... hmm need to test a theory that maybe it's Chrome fault and not Internets... but that would be so wrong on so many levels...
Strange thing is internet at home is doing exactly the same thing - go to, error, refresh, read... hmm need to test a theory that maybe it's Chrome fault and not Internets... but that would be so wrong on so many levels...
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
"Your mom will not use it...."
Since Google launched their social platform Google+ (or G+ as I saw in net), I'm curiously reading blogs and internet news to track the revolution. One of articles used the above sentence, I don't really agree.
My Mom is a Genius :)
My Mom is a Genius :)
Eye catchers
Window shopping is great past timer if you are bored out of your mind, have no money, or frankly when you just pass by on some other business.
New category of fun: eye-catchers!! You know you will never buy it, but it looks: fantastic, hilarious, funny, awful, cute, kawaii etc.
It's also another way to use the photo camera you have in your phone... cos for what else could you use it?? huh?
New category of fun: eye-catchers!! You know you will never buy it, but it looks: fantastic, hilarious, funny, awful, cute, kawaii etc.
It's also another way to use the photo camera you have in your phone... cos for what else could you use it?? huh?
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| Od Odds and ends |
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| Od Odds and ends |
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Saturday lazy day
Saturday started unusually early. After exhausting week, I fell asleep on the couch at Friday evening instead of writing another part of fanfic. After waking up I decided bed is much more comfortable and simply changed the places, with no real conviction I will sleep again soon. You know how it is, you fell asleep during the day and then toss and turn in the night. This time I just slept, quite long, but still waking up at 7AM. I did standard home cleaning, cat caring, and personal fun and by 12PM I was done with everything including stocking the fridge and drinking coffee.
Then was time for “dolce farniete” which lasted only two hours as I decided it’s time to get myself out of the house.
Then was time for “dolce farniete” which lasted only two hours as I decided it’s time to get myself out of the house.
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Secesja Cafe
Thursday marked a day when we finally found time to go for a coffee with Syl. It took us almost a year to agree on a moment when neither of one was working. Syl has moving work times, and in the past year I was in the office for 10-12 hours a day, neither setup was promising. That’s one of the problems in today world, you never have time for anything! Anyway finally we were able to match our calendars and have some free time to talk.
The Secesja Cafe is something new I spied on my way through city. Hidden a little bit on the way to City Hall in one of old townhouses, decorated nicely have not only chairs but also comfortable sofas? (not sure as it’s something old, like a bench but with pillows...), plus nice ladies behind the counter. It also doubles as a restaurant with “sale” prices between 1 pm and 3 pm, so if you seek a new place for lunch take a look, oh and it’s on Jana Pawła II street. Prices are not so reasonable, but the coffee and cake I tried were worth every penny.
We talked for hours and I hadn’t so much fun in ages - one of the topics was writing, cos I’m thing bad person that really needs to hear about opinions about my creations. The strange thing is I still can’t write as good as I could tell the stories in person. One of the ideas for this blog is to tell the stories in writing that I can tell in words and have the same effect. The strange thing is, it works also the other way around - I’m not able to tell the same stories I wrote...
The Secesja Cafe is something new I spied on my way through city. Hidden a little bit on the way to City Hall in one of old townhouses, decorated nicely have not only chairs but also comfortable sofas? (not sure as it’s something old, like a bench but with pillows...), plus nice ladies behind the counter. It also doubles as a restaurant with “sale” prices between 1 pm and 3 pm, so if you seek a new place for lunch take a look, oh and it’s on Jana Pawła II street. Prices are not so reasonable, but the coffee and cake I tried were worth every penny.
We talked for hours and I hadn’t so much fun in ages - one of the topics was writing, cos I’m thing bad person that really needs to hear about opinions about my creations. The strange thing is I still can’t write as good as I could tell the stories in person. One of the ideas for this blog is to tell the stories in writing that I can tell in words and have the same effect. The strange thing is, it works also the other way around - I’m not able to tell the same stories I wrote...
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Daily craziness
Yesterday evening I had fantastic occasion to talk to a professional jewelry maker - not your girl friend playing with some ready stones and clips, but real professional working in silver and gems etc. Friends of my parents came for dinner and John was very kind to answer all of my crazy questions - especially as I asked about forging gems, creating artificial ones and forging jewelry :) I made million notes and it will be extremely helpful for future fanfics, plus I have his email and can ask whatever I need more.
I’ve also got this lovely tin of Catbury chocolate fingers - I love tins! And first through was... “Neal is of course stealing the chocolate fingers...”
And today was finally - Move day! Hurray... till I packed all my things in a neat package - cabinet filled with all precious office necessary stuff... computer on top and I’m ready to go. Small struggle by the entrance as the mud mat is great for mud, bad for the cabinets wheels, it’s always stuck. And then waiting for the elevator, only one as the other was broken for the past week (yeap that’s our fantastic office building). And waiting, and waiting, and.... when the door finally opened I had a unique opportunity to view the top of elevator with all the equipment and two guys working on it. Resigned I come back to my place and moved the computer to work a little, five minutes later the facility guy come back and complained I didn’t move yet... and that the elevators are working, d’oh!
New office is very nice! It has big windows, gives lots of light and the boss agreed to let us use his terrace as “break terrace”.
And with the all movement, excitement and additional work I forgot about a call I was hosting, thank programmers for Outlook reminder option!
I’ve also got this lovely tin of Catbury chocolate fingers - I love tins! And first through was... “Neal is of course stealing the chocolate fingers...”
And today was finally - Move day! Hurray... till I packed all my things in a neat package - cabinet filled with all precious office necessary stuff... computer on top and I’m ready to go. Small struggle by the entrance as the mud mat is great for mud, bad for the cabinets wheels, it’s always stuck. And then waiting for the elevator, only one as the other was broken for the past week (yeap that’s our fantastic office building). And waiting, and waiting, and.... when the door finally opened I had a unique opportunity to view the top of elevator with all the equipment and two guys working on it. Resigned I come back to my place and moved the computer to work a little, five minutes later the facility guy come back and complained I didn’t move yet... and that the elevators are working, d’oh!
New office is very nice! It has big windows, gives lots of light and the boss agreed to let us use his terrace as “break terrace”.
And with the all movement, excitement and additional work I forgot about a call I was hosting, thank programmers for Outlook reminder option!
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Morning rant...
Seriously? It’s July! Summer, hellooooo it should be warm in the morning, not freezing my fingers off. And the heat attack that will come after eleven, really? That’s how it will work this year? I don’t agree, nope, not at all...
Ooo and the facility guy at work just told us we are moving, tomorrow, again. Yay finally, we just moved two weeks ago to other floor and I was waiting impatiently for the final move - fifth floor will be ours (well 1/5 of it, but hey it's something...)
Ooo and the facility guy at work just told us we are moving, tomorrow, again. Yay finally, we just moved two weeks ago to other floor and I was waiting impatiently for the final move - fifth floor will be ours (well 1/5 of it, but hey it's something...)
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Catch the cat - with camera
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| Od Kociaki u nieseryjnej |
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| Od Kociaki u nieseryjnej |
As usual catching the cats with camera is a challenge - this time the mini camera in my phone was used.
Accounts fever
I’m usually quite happy with google tools - but few days ago I made a gigantic mistake of allowing myself to use ‘Multiple-sing in option’. I have few google accounts, for reasons not needed to be explained - yes I’m a spy... anyway.... to ease my life I decided to use a multiple sing-in and only switch accounts when needed.
Disaster number one: although google provides notification - in red so you don’t miss it - that only some of services will work, I happily marked everything “yes, I’m aware” and then cursed when docs opened always on the wrong one, as for some reasons it was marked default. Even when I logged in first with the other one, and following logic it should be the default... right??? HELP! I love google but really it’s not like them to make it sooo NOT intuitive.
Disaster number two: the option to sing out should work only on the one account I didn’t want to use... in theory. In practice every time I used sing out (instead of sing out of all accounts) I landed on the lovely page - to use google services please sing in. Agggrrhhh!!!
Before I’ve been using three web browsers to keep the main accounts separate and logged in always. Now when I use only Chrome I’m back to sing in/sing out dance that I just limited to two accounts to spare myself some headache.
Having several accounts is cool, as long as you don’t have to switch between them every day - it helps to direct most of email to only one of them, but it doesn’t work with other google tools. Pity.
All in all with Google implementing lots of changes due to Google+ campaign I hope they will fix some of this strange things - like why the links bar is not the same everywhere, or why blogger seems to stop in design in pre-beta-era...
Disaster number one: although google provides notification - in red so you don’t miss it - that only some of services will work, I happily marked everything “yes, I’m aware” and then cursed when docs opened always on the wrong one, as for some reasons it was marked default. Even when I logged in first with the other one, and following logic it should be the default... right??? HELP! I love google but really it’s not like them to make it sooo NOT intuitive.
Disaster number two: the option to sing out should work only on the one account I didn’t want to use... in theory. In practice every time I used sing out (instead of sing out of all accounts) I landed on the lovely page - to use google services please sing in. Agggrrhhh!!!
Before I’ve been using three web browsers to keep the main accounts separate and logged in always. Now when I use only Chrome I’m back to sing in/sing out dance that I just limited to two accounts to spare myself some headache.
Having several accounts is cool, as long as you don’t have to switch between them every day - it helps to direct most of email to only one of them, but it doesn’t work with other google tools. Pity.
All in all with Google implementing lots of changes due to Google+ campaign I hope they will fix some of this strange things - like why the links bar is not the same everywhere, or why blogger seems to stop in design in pre-beta-era...
Saturday, July 2, 2011
The weather from hell is good for reading
While I was obsessed with weather for the past few days, just after the concert I completely forgot that they still forecast rain for weekend. It was actually pouring when I woke up, unusually late for me (well unusually for my new habit of waking at 6 AM, but normal for my old habits of sleeping till noon), but I still think it's only fair in that weather.
Deciding I'm too lazy to move around I took a book to finish reading - Fuchsia Dunlop " Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper" was brought to me by mom last week. It's not only a cook book, hmm it's more like a dairy, story about China and Fu Xia (her Chinese name) adventures starting from early '90. Through her eyes you can see incredible amount of kinds of food that do exist, and how the country changed through the years. It's kinda sad that with so amazing culinary history the country is slowly going the same way as most European countries do - into full McDonalysation. Fast food, without taste, completely unhealthy, and filling only temporary.
The book despite describing tone of foods I would never, ever even try made me hungry!! Very, very worth reading also for amazing number of historical information about China and really unique view of someone that is currently "half-Chinese" (after spending fifteen years on and off in China, and immersing herself in culture so much that she is speaking about Sichuan as hers)
Read it!!
Deciding I'm too lazy to move around I took a book to finish reading - Fuchsia Dunlop " Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper" was brought to me by mom last week. It's not only a cook book, hmm it's more like a dairy, story about China and Fu Xia (her Chinese name) adventures starting from early '90. Through her eyes you can see incredible amount of kinds of food that do exist, and how the country changed through the years. It's kinda sad that with so amazing culinary history the country is slowly going the same way as most European countries do - into full McDonalysation. Fast food, without taste, completely unhealthy, and filling only temporary.
The book despite describing tone of foods I would never, ever even try made me hungry!! Very, very worth reading also for amazing number of historical information about China and really unique view of someone that is currently "half-Chinese" (after spending fifteen years on and off in China, and immersing herself in culture so much that she is speaking about Sichuan as hers)
Read it!!
Friday, July 1, 2011
Live Concert - Chris Botti
Wow! That was amazing, simply amazing. I was exited for a whole week before the concert, watched youtube movies, listened to the music on my ipod and fell in love with the interpretations of Chris Botti. The ticked was a surprise gift, as my aunt asked if I wanted to go I didn't even understood exactly who will be playing. After browsing all available concerts I got only one favorite - and that was IT! All exited I kept my fingers crossed as the weather lately is playing games and you never know what will happen sun, rain, thunderstorm... all three??
Thursday luckily wasn't rainy, although little bit cold and windy. The queue to enter the Duke's Castle - where the concert was - looked like a snake, looooong but quickly going. The main courtyard was full of people - and then the magic started. Chris with a band and two guests, what an evening.
The first guest was violinist Caroline Campbell. WOW. She was fantastic, never I have seen someone that worked violin in such way (hmm May something doesn't count it was in TV and this was LIVE! oh let's not forget Nigel Kennedy, but he is now our treasure so hands off :P). I took a look on her site and my heart fulled with even more pride for our city. She played with best orchestra's in the world, in famous Carnegie Hall etc. etc. And there she was playing in Szczecin. Nice, very, very nice.
The second guest was Lisa Fisher - amazing voice that was fantastically in tune with the trumpet of Chris. There were few funny moments - first when she very flirty lost her shawl on the beginning. Second personally for me - when she was singing "Italia" in Italian with american accent... sorry but after listening to original Italian and Italians for past five years I couldn't do anything more than smile.
I could go, on and on what a magical show it was, but well get yourself a ticket for one of Chris concerts and you will get it too (He is back in states next week). Or maybe not, as he one admitted that Poland is his favorite place to play. There was one additional funny moment, that also showed how really good person he is. With Caroline on scene he told a story about her violin and how much it takes to play it on such world-class level. He asked a reporter he spoke with before to translate what he will say to Polish. When he explained that Caroline plays normally on a very expensive violin 1-5 million of dollars worth - the translation was "that kind you have to sell your kidney for" the public exploded with laughter, I have to admit he almost kept his head cool as his next move was to ask her "okay now you have to translate them to me". It was coool.
Yep if he is in Szczecin next year I will be there. I even want buy the "Italia" CD - just need to wait to fill my list for shopping from Amazon, as really Poland is strange country, it's cheaper to buy in UK Amazon than in our local AND internet shops....
Thursday luckily wasn't rainy, although little bit cold and windy. The queue to enter the Duke's Castle - where the concert was - looked like a snake, looooong but quickly going. The main courtyard was full of people - and then the magic started. Chris with a band and two guests, what an evening.
The first guest was violinist Caroline Campbell. WOW. She was fantastic, never I have seen someone that worked violin in such way (hmm May something doesn't count it was in TV and this was LIVE! oh let's not forget Nigel Kennedy, but he is now our treasure so hands off :P). I took a look on her site and my heart fulled with even more pride for our city. She played with best orchestra's in the world, in famous Carnegie Hall etc. etc. And there she was playing in Szczecin. Nice, very, very nice.
The second guest was Lisa Fisher - amazing voice that was fantastically in tune with the trumpet of Chris. There were few funny moments - first when she very flirty lost her shawl on the beginning. Second personally for me - when she was singing "Italia" in Italian with american accent... sorry but after listening to original Italian and Italians for past five years I couldn't do anything more than smile.
I could go, on and on what a magical show it was, but well get yourself a ticket for one of Chris concerts and you will get it too (He is back in states next week). Or maybe not, as he one admitted that Poland is his favorite place to play. There was one additional funny moment, that also showed how really good person he is. With Caroline on scene he told a story about her violin and how much it takes to play it on such world-class level. He asked a reporter he spoke with before to translate what he will say to Polish. When he explained that Caroline plays normally on a very expensive violin 1-5 million of dollars worth - the translation was "that kind you have to sell your kidney for" the public exploded with laughter, I have to admit he almost kept his head cool as his next move was to ask her "okay now you have to translate them to me". It was coool.
Yep if he is in Szczecin next year I will be there. I even want buy the "Italia" CD - just need to wait to fill my list for shopping from Amazon, as really Poland is strange country, it's cheaper to buy in UK Amazon than in our local AND internet shops....
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