Goodbye to the car Nice Pug.. But Skip the car keep the house

Pug is british shorthand for Peugeot . Just FYI.

We had the car from last march till yesterday when I sold it on to a used car dealer, for a price of DKK 76.000. As we bought the car for 115000 privately, spending a new clutch installed by myself, underbody protection we have lost about 40.000, but considering we have run the car for 37000 kms and the market for mid size business segment cars has bottomed out completely, that was probably a very vise decision right now.

Only thing is... Now we are back to the old BMW again. Stepping back 27 years technological wise is quite a bit.

Our house finally nearing completion

Now while spring is nearing, I just found out its about time to reflect a bit on our House.

We have had so many problems with the installation firm and the builders faults.

Also I have done a huge work with last summers bricklaying and the carport the first year, not to speak of finishing the lower floors twoo rooms with cupboards and flooring.

Guess what ? We have actually forgotten to enjoy the view and the setting in beautiful Slagslunde.

Simones (Marias classmate) s father mentioned the lovely indoor lightpatterns of the sunshine outside the other day. And he was right!

Besides I can be very proud of the work I have laid into the house, welding the stair railing, milling the wood handrail, building the carport with cast foundation and siberian larchwood cladding, putting up the cupboards and flooring on the floor and finishing outdoors with bricklaying on our very nice porch outside facing south.

The IHC intelligent house control is a beut too, only the antenna amplifier for our new digital MPEG4 Sony TV, just didnt transfer all the QAM's (digital compressed signal package), so after fiddling and adjusting I finally gave in and pulled out the Nopovic cable pulling in a normal coax cable, splitting the signal in our systems frame, and having a direct YouSee signal feed to the Sony leaving the split signal for the remaining IHC cabling.

Maria got her first chance to work as master electrician there, helping me feed in the coax cable while I pulled the Nopovic out.

LK (IHC producer) is rumoured to come up with a new amplifier for digital TV so lets hope!

Slumber party and job interviews

Nice friday..... .

Went to a jobinterview about a very promising job with a danish energy company.

Would have been nice and very interesting, but seems I was tripped by my hearing aids.

I dont however doubt there is also a bit of discrimination in this, in the sense that is is actually hard for some to accept that they should make an effort to understand other people some of the time. Impatience sort of. And then of course the also start speaking very loud and painfully clear

Now I will contact the communication institute in Hillerød and ask for advice. Also the hearing aids seem to have a technical problem with compression (keeping as much of the dynamic span of sound even if amplifying) when I am talking.

It is not very just, but there You are... As I actually can speak reasonably nice, I must be able to get some training for pressed situations like jobinterviews, so lets get on with that.

Fortunately and very lovely I came back home to the slumber party of our daughter Maria with all 12 girls of her class.

The had had lunch and I came home just in time to fill the spa, so they could take turns bathing.

As You can see they are queuing very nice, Nønne in front-

As we only have a 150 l or so hot water tank, heated by a heat pump system, the filling takes some engineering expertise :-).

Xmas 2008 with steam train and tram at Skjoldenæsholm

This post is badly delayed, since we are now in the middle of march.

Some of you know we have a very nice tram museum in the middle of Zealand, Sporvejsmuseet at Skjoldenæsholm Manor.
Every Year the museum arranges a combined christmas trip with the museum arm of the Danish State Railways, whereby one goes by steam train to Borup, alights for bus transport to the tram museum.


At the museum rides go out in the woods, where christmas trees are for sale, with included transport to the railway station where one initiated the trip.


Annette, Maria and I went, and had a grand day, and enjoyed the trip with the train, recalling the old days when one had to cross the great belt by ferry, often alighting at the harbor as only 'lyn' (lighting) trains were transported by boat.

Well so that was Rockwool..

I'm still out looking for a job after Rockwool International.

Bad job, and my dog agrees as You see :-)

I just couldnt resist taking this picture.

Actually Rockwool was a good experince professionally speaking as I worked with PLC's , tag numbering and electrical projects.

With my generalist background combined with large areas of deep technical insigt and quick learning, with a visual rather more than detail oriented mind I am in some respects a atypical engineer.

So the job at Rockwool strengthened my basic engineering competencies.

Meanwhile the economic situation is a bit of a challenge of course. It would have been nice to have avoided the two month pause between two jobs last Year, as I then could have signed up for IAK (Engineers Unemployment Association), paycheck insurance , giving a much needed boost to the state guraranteed benefits-

We are now looking to sell the Peugeot 307 again after having it one year, but then so what.

House and family is more important than a car. Anyway the ashtray was full :-).

New family member

We have just got one more member in the family:

Marco...

Aint he sweet ?

Actualy he isnt, but he is becoming much better as I have taken up training him.

He is 18 months old now and came to us 'FOB' from a family which had been through a divorce, and where his somewhat boisterous manners (ahem) was too much for the mother and kid of Marias age.

We promised to take care of him, and since hes really a very nice dog, we love to do so.

Maria loves him very much too.