I don' know ...

I work with IT and information systems every day. I use the Internet and I am often working with project regarding knowledge management. I always work with things that can be related to knowledge or information. I find information, I use information, and I share information. Today I got two questions from my family that i couldn't give an answer to.

That made me think of a Danish poet, Piet Hein:

Knowing what Thou knowest not
Is in a sense Omniscience.

-Piet Hein, poet and scientist (1905-1996)

My youngest son has been through a tough year. Last year in January he went to the hospital to get his left leg fixed. It was approximately 6 cm too short and without surgery it would end up being 12cm too short (shorter than the right leg). We are just about to finish the treatment and today he asked me:

Dad, do you think I will ever be as the other guys in school ?

He was referring to the fact that he is limping a little and that he doesn't run very well. He would very much like to play soccer again. For six months he didn't use his muscles, so the legs are still quite week. All I could do to answer that question was to refer to the doctors and physiotherapists: They don't know.

We know where you started and we can see how far you are now. But we can't say how far you can get. Perhaps because we don't want to know the true answer. The true might be too much for us.

Piet Hein again:

If you knew
what you will know
when your candle
has burnt low,
it would greatly
ease your plight
while your candle
still burns bright.

-Piet Hein

The other question ?
From my wife - and thats none of your business ;-)

Happy Christmas to you all

I know that my blogging frequency has been a little lazy the last week or so. I have been busy buying presents for my family and friends.

I wish you all a happy Christmas.

Whats up duck ?

I haven't been blogging that much lately. Sorry, but I feel rather busy at the moment.

• Busy trying to catch up with all the information floating around, both in the community but also regarding ODF and in the NOOOXML world.
• I have spent the last couple of days on a small travel to Aarhus ( http://www.findvej.dk/,8000 ). You know, I also need bread on the table ;-)
  
• Translation of 2.4 is going slowly forward. But we are still missing several hundred strings.
  
• Also preparing the next (December) edition of the Danish newsletter (expected to be out one of the first days in December). Sign up for it here: http://da.openoffice.org/servlets/SummarizeList?listName=nyhedsbrev (if you understand Danish)
  
• I am also trying to contribute to the new certification project and today I have submitted my comments to the Spanish syllabus (http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/OOo_Certification_Syllabus). Please join the project here if you think you can contribute in any way. Sign up here: http://documentation.openoffice.org/servlets/SummarizeList?listName=certification
• And then I have been trying to plan how to approach the new Parliament after the election this month. Hmmm. I think we have to act on this very soon. I better get on with it, eh ?

And then of cause

• I promised my family to be present once in a while. On Saturday I think we will all go to the movie theater together. Perhaps I should ask my wife out for dinner too. Yes, this is a high priority task on the list :-)
  

Miscellaneous things before my vacation

I'm just finishing the Danish OpenOffice.org Newsletter for July. You know, the final brush over and corrections. Try to get additional information in the last minute. The newsletter will be send to approximately 1.000 receivers in the weekend.

I'm announcing release of the Danish version of OpenOffice.org 2.2.1. This time we are far behind schedule, because of several unfortunate things. First the QA was late. Bad luck, but that wasn't enough. When we wanted to upload to dotsrc, where the Danish versions are stored, we couldn't connect because of some problems on the Danish server. We can still see some slow performance once in a while. We will look into another solution soon because we can't live with this situation. We are trying to find out how the bouncer server works.

Lots of things are to be done in the summer period. Translation is in good progress: 69024 of 69336 strings are completely done and I think the last 300 strings will be translated and approved over the next couple of days. Nice to be finished with that. Thanks guys.

My travel to Barcelona in September is safe now. I managed to raise funds here in Denmark. Thanks to Symfoni Software and Sun Microsystems. Now I just need to prepare my presentation.

Rain, work and reading a book

After a week with 28 degrees celcius we had quite a shock this weekend. 40 mm. of rain in 12 hours. The drain from my roof was stuck, so I had to go outside to clean it, at the most dreadful time. It took me about 5 minutes to solve the problem, but when I came inside, I was wet all the way in to my underpants.

Well, then I could just as well do something useful. I got the objection on Ecma 376 to the Danish ISO standard committee in Denmark done. I have send it to a few others for review and comments. Nice to get things done in good time for once. Deadline is July 2th.

Finished a book I started long ago:"The 7 habits of highly effective people" by Stephen R. Covey. I think it's 3 months since I started reading it. I'm not much of a reader.

Never mind, it was a good alternative to my wifes book "Advanced biochemistry" and similar subjects on the shelf.

Therapy

Today I didn't do much work on the computer. The last few days has been quite intensive.

So today I thought I should take a day of. The garden needed someone to attend to it. I got the hedge trimmed. But when I wanted to move the lawn, I couldn't start the lawn mover. I must see to that tomorrow when the shops open again. I hope it's just the sparking plug. If it is, I can fix it my self. Otherwise I need someone to see to it.

It was really nice to get out and do something else than thinking. Pure therapy, except that my shoulders and my back hurts...

I have been working on my speak for a couple of days now. I think I have received about a hundred mails with suggestions for the speak. But unfortunately I can't take all the good subjects into my speak. I have 15 minutes with the committee and I must focus on one or two subjects. I don't want to talk about the economical consequences because everybody is talking about that at the moment. So I think I'll talk about something else. Openness. Yes that will be my keyword. Try to have a look at this report.

Important personal experience

Most people has some kind of relation to religion. No matter if you are christian or atheist, Muslim or Hindu. Most people has some considerations about religion.

I'm not religious in particular. I consider my self as christian because I follow the basic conducts that was given to my by my parents. So the Christianity is somehow inside me.

About one year ago I has an experience that was very close to a religious experience. I couldn't help thinking: Lord.

It was in the late summer and I had spend a week with my wife and two sons in a cottage on the west coast of Denmark. Very close to the ocean. Close enough to actually hear the waves on the beach in the evening.

Around midnight we saw a spectacular light outside and we looked up in the sky and we saw that the sky was covered with light. Northern Light.

When I was a boy I have seen something similar, but only a few waves floating over the sky. This night it was completely dark and at the same time ...light. The sky was completely covered with this carpet of waves. The waves came from a center point. All waves came from this point and moved out towards the horizon. The whole way around. Spooky, but also very calming and peaceful.

I was standing outside the cottage for about 10 minutes before it disappeared. I didn't have time to get a camera. Today, I would like to have had a picture from that night now, but I just didn't have time. (This picture is just a picture from the Internet. )

As I wrote: I'm not religious. But I am very happy that I have had this beautiful experiance.

Creative ...

My family and I are taking part of a group or network for families with handicaped children. Our youngest son Alexander has a small handicap.
I just made a logo for the group. Thanks to Inkscape and openclipart.org.