Niclas Gustavsson

Today is the birthday of Carl XVI Gustav, king of Sweden. I would like to congratulate him on his 60th birthday. Long live the king.

I have two observations about the king, besides that he is loved by the Swedish people like no other. It might not be obvious to people not used to a royal family, but 1000’s of older Swedes have had the Royal children as their official grand children since they were born. Almost every home has some form of picutre of them. The royal family as also extreamly down to earth which brings me to my 2 observations.

1. When the King had just become king, he traveled throughout Sweden and visited allot of small places including my hometown Mellerud. As he was leaving one event on the way to the next, his car got stuck at the rail road crossings and I was right outside of his car on my bicycle. Down came the tinted window and out came the kings head. “How are you?” he asked. “Very well thank you” I replied. He smiled and made a devoted subject on the spot. He was as natural in this short exchange as if he had been family. Very cool.
2. Once on a ski trip in the Swedish mountains, he was invited to cut in line at a ski lift and bypass a great number of people. To this he replid “oh no, if they can wait so can I” and went to the back of the line. What makes this story all the more special is that the others in the line began to sing the Swedish National Athem and the king was visibly touched.

People generally want to like their Royal Family and in Sweden we are blessed with the best family of them all. You have to work very hard not to like them. I bring my tribute to an end by again wishing His Majesty a very happy birthday and many more to come. Hipp Hipp… Hurra! Hurra! Hurra! Hurra!

Alexander and his principal. Today was registration day at his big boy school.

Some of you may know I love dogs and used to help out at the local shelter to train dogs for adoption. I would deal with all the big dogs who may have been too strong for some of the folks there. It was a great time and I am pleased to say we helped allot of dogs. At the top of the list - Leo. he was adopted by my friend Robin and I have been a second owner to him ever since. So what does this have to do with Cesar Millan? Everything. He is the best dog trainer I have ever seen. We are not talking about tricks here, just good solid communicatinos. If you ahve a dog or know someone who does, you should pickup his new book Cesar’s Way. I just got it and it is wonderful. If I ever make some big monay, I will buy 1000 of these and donate to shelters around the country. Should be required reading for all owners looking to adopt and for the staff. Read it, it totally rocks.

Today is Alexander’s first “real” Swim lesson. Held at Sheri’s gym (MAC) it has been the highlight of this week. He can already swim like a fish under water but not he will learn how to stay on the surface as well. I am very proud and happy for him. Where I greew up it was 50 miles to the closest pool and we might go there with my school class as a treat one time per year. The rest of the time we hopped in 60 degree water during the short summer Sweden had to offer. But I learned too.

There are a few shows that have stood the test of time better then others. I am a great fan of Star Trek (with the exception of Deep Space 9) and I think allot of geeks are. So why would then not be? Cool ships, gadgets and endless problems to overcome. They also have an undying and deeply rooted trust in that tomorrow will be better then today. Or as the SEAL’s would say, “the only easy day was yesterday”. None of the shows brought this home stronger then Voyager. Here we have a super-problem to solve - stuck 70 light years from earth. So what do they do? Start heading in the right direction and stick to it. It might not be obvious, but they are like a startup in many ways. Far from their goal, low on resources, high on spirit.

If you are interested in the show, Amazon has the complete 7 year box set of Star Trek Voyager at a great price. You can buy them one by one, or all together.

So for all you guys who are starting a business… point the ship in the right direction and hit the gas.

Here is a cartoon that might as well have been made of my friend Ara. The phone, the slickie-boy look and all that. It is so him.

The latest Hamachi version (1.0.0.54 beta) has a way cool feature. It now includes a web proxy. Whan you can now do is allow any of the hamachi peers to act as a webproxy to allow you secure browsing from even the most unsecure locations. Read the rest of this entry »

What a cute bunch.