Archive for the ‘Rambles’ Category

Since I’m from a country where the native language is not exactly widely used around the globe, English lessons are mandatory in school. When I was a kid we had our first English lessons in the 3rd grade in elementary school, however, that has changed many times since then. According to some, kids in the 3rd grade is not mature enough to learn a second language, so some years the students didn’t begin their English classes until the 5th grade. Then it’s been changed back again to the 3rd grade and so on. For a while it was different for every year actually.

Anyway, no matter when the student had their first English lesson, the grades have dropped a lot since I was done with school and these days it’s also very rare that anyone will choose a third language when they reach collage. You would believe that at least a second language would be very useful and valuable since anyone can look for work within the EU countries…and to be honest about it, very few people in any other EU country is speaking Swedish. It’s not exactly a big language.

So last night while I was counting Daddy Longlegs in the bedroom ceiling, being unable to sleep as usual, I remembered something that our English teacher made very clear. A piece of information that I sincerely hope not every English teacher is giving their students these days. By default, the English they teach is British English. If you have an American accent you won’t get any grades in English, it’s that simple. And I doubt that changed much. However, from what we were told by our teacher the accent doesn’t really matter much because no one in the UK would understand a word of what we have to say anyway. She made it very clear that the version of English they taught us was pretty useless if you took it outside the classroom. How’s that for encouragement?

And after living here in England for almost 7 years, to an extent, I agree. But it also depends a lot on where in the country you are. Besides, as Robin said, a lot of people here will seize to understand English the moment they hear that you’re not a native. So it’s not so much about the language itself as it is about attitude. But no one told us that in school.
It happens now and then when I order something in a pub or similar that I have to repeat myself, only to have the person in the bar look at me as if I was from a different planet. When they see that I’m getting frustrated they all of a sudden understands me perfectly just to repeat exactly what I’ve said. And how the hell you can pronounce “Coke” in more than one way, I don’t know. Robin told me that sometimes I pronounce it in an American way, but I don’t even know what that means. Or what the difference really is because I can’t hear it myself.

Why so many students ignore to give a second or a third language a chance in Sweden these days, I don’t know. All I know is that it’s rubbish not to teach a second language earlier in school. Kids are not in any way less mature when they are 9-10 years old than they are a couple of years later. The younger, the more they behave like a sponge and learn faster. Especially when it comes to expressions and words.
I think that overall there would be a bigger interest in this subject if the kids were allowed to start a bit earlier. Because it’s more fun and more interesting the younger you are, and later in life it feels more natural to use a second language if you start out when you’re a kid.
Also, there’s very little consideration taken to the fact that a second or third language is not very useful unless you learn how to socialize while using it. No one ever told us during our English classes that in order to communicate in a second language, you also need to think in the same language. Otherwise it will sound as if you translate.
I believe that the younger a student is, the easier he or she will have when it’s necessary to switch language and use it in a natural way.

They say that when you teach a toddler how to speak correctly, you take away 99 other languages. And if that’s really the case, it should be a piece of cake to teach a toddler a second language as well. Maybe it’s time to start teaching a second language from the first grade in elementary school. Because later at least some students lack interest in any language.
Just like me, my son had his first English lessons in the 3rd grade, and then the following year no 3rd grade had any English lessons at all, while the 5th grade began their very first lessons instead. It also means that when they mess around with the system at school, some students have had 6 years of basic English, while others have only had 4 years.

In any case, I sure hope that my English teacher was a big exception from others. She was a very good teacher and she gave us opportunities to learn a lot of things that was not even on the schedule, like conversation in English…even if it wasn’t mandatory. But she could have kept quite about her insights around our basic English and what was around the corner in reality. That’s no way to encourage kids to study a second language.

When I found this Linksys WCF12 CompactFlash Card for £10 on eBay I really was a happy bunny :) The old card seems to have turned invisible and I just can’t find it. For those of you who don’t know what you use this card for, I can tell you that it is a wifi card that makes it possible to connect pretty much any PDA to the Internet.
Now, this card was newer than the card I had before, but there was plenty of drivers online so I didn’t think it would be a problem. And was I wrong :p

I spent most part of yesterday afternoon and evening trying to get this to work. And so did Robin. By now I doubt there is a driver available that we didn’t download and installed.
Finally I had to give up. The green light at the top right corner on the card seemed dead (they usually flash when you put the card into the slot and start searching for a network) since it never came on at any point. Instead it kept asking for the name of the card since the iPaq couldn’t identify it no matter what drivers I installed.

What should have happened is this: You install the drivers, do a soft reset and then put the wifi card in the slot. It will ask for the name of the card and depending on what drivers you’ve got you name it after that. In most cases it’s the name of a dll file to begin with.
When that is done you set up your connection and at one point in that process you are told that after this point your wifi card will have a different name that it will remember the next time you use it.
And that’s where things went wrong. Every time. As soon as I disconnected the card and put it back in again, the iPaq acted as if it never seen the card before.

So when I wrote to the guy who sold it to me late last night I didn’t have any big hopes to solve this in any way. Since it said in the listening at eBay that the seller would not accept any returns on this card or give a refund, I decided to ask him if he had any drivers that worked, or if he had any similar problems when he tried it out.

This morning I had a reply from him. It was a while since he tested it and at the time it “just worked”. Which is a phrase I saw in a lot of forums yesterday while I was searching for a solution to this. And that is an experience I’ve had with the older version of this card as well…the one I can ‘t find :p
But since I’ve spent so much time trying to get this to function he said that the card might be faulty. He wasn’t sure how it happened, but he took the blame for any problems that might have occurred in between his testing and sending it out to me.

So he offered the money back :) And I don’t even have to send the card back to him. However, I’m not really comfortable keeping it, so I think I will drop it in the mail anyway. Since he’s been a real good sport about this and trusted me, it’s the least I can do. He can have a faulty CompactFlash card back. There’s enough junk around here as it is ;)

It’s a bummer, but it’s not much I can do. Except from the fact that the green light on the card never came on, the hardware I’m connecting are like light years apart. My PC is running Windows 7, which complicates installations that are dated back to 2003 and 2006. Win7 is very good when it comes to solving compatibility issues in software, but these installations simply won’t work once you’ve gone through the hassle to run the installations as a different OS.
Then it’s the iPaq. Mine is a HP iPaq h2200 running WinCE 4.20. Steampunked, as u can see in the picture here :p HP made only one version of this iPaq and there are no updates for the OS and it’s not very forgiving when it comes to compatibility either. There is no way I can run anything that wasn’t made for it since the next version that HP made of this PDA was completely different.

So it’s a mess just putting those two together and try to sync them. ActiveSync, which is a software that came with the iPaq, won’t work on Win7, but built-in to Win7 there’s Windows Mobile Device Center and that works just as well. However, yesterday I think that it did make a difference for some installations I tried to do.

It doesn’t matter much. I will have to turn this place upside down and find the old wifi card. Doesn’t seem to have a choice.

Today I’m alone and unsupervised most part of the day. Got some stuff to do, but since it’s Friday and everything it won’t be in a fast pace :p The sun is shining and the rain we had last night is gone. Was really nasty out there for a few hours last night.

Whenever someone is trying to reach for their dreams, I’m among the biggest supporters. I believe that without dreams we are not the unique creatures we are meant to be and living a life without something to reach for is rather dull in the long run.
My own dreams (or at least one of them) are sweet, covered in whipped cream and sugar paste :p They reach very far back in time and I’ve had a lifetime to practise.
Some of you already know that I’ve got one huge sweet tooth and that it’s not always a positive thing. However, the main reason for that is that I do love to bake. Maybe not when we have a hot day like today, since the oven tend to turn any room into a sauna, but at this very moment I still got a strawberry pie sizzling along for another 20 minutes. I think the main reason for this interest is that it brings me closer to home and to the bits that I used to love about being a kid. Our kitchen back where I grew up was always hot, summer or winter, didn’t matter. Granny had a big table in the middle of the kitchen that she and mom used for pretty much nothing but baking. In the daytime it was almost always covered with flour and I was often around just watching mom shaping cookies, Swiss rolls, buns, cupcakes and on occasion cakes for a birthday or similar.

So a hot kitchen and the smell of baked goods from the oven has a weird calming effect on me.
Throughout the years I’ve gathered a lot of different recipes from both here and there. What I know best is the cookies and cakes from my native country of course, but on occasion I make pastry from a lot of places. And I put my own signature on some of them if possible.
To open a bakery and offer a small and exclusive range of pastry is one of my dreams. And after being in this country for nearly 7 years I’ve seen most of the pastry that is on offer, at least in this town, and I know for a fact that I’ve got recipes that they don’t ;)
Which still doesn’t mean that it would go down well. Robin is sceptical, which is rare for him, and since conducting a market research around here seems to be impossible, I listen to what he has to say.
But, I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t do things my way and took a detour off that big motorway where safety is almost guaranteed. I love a good challenge if nothing else :) However, it’s difficult to do market research in a place where people are too polite to be honest. Even when you ask them to. And since my range of goodies are not scones or biscuits, you just never know what will work and what won’t.
Another thing is that rents for commercial space is sky high in Chesterfield. The counsel won’t do a thing to encourage new business to grow, and for a bakery you really need the right kind of space too. Then of course it’s a matter of money. Most things are these days. Just to get the ovens and chilled storage space would cost a fortune that I don’t have.

I guess I could start out in a small scale to begin with and see if there’s any demand. But in that case I would need a much bigger kitchen and an oven that is more reliable than the one I have today. I want an electric oven, not a gas oven like I have now. A bigger one would be helpful too :)

We do need to move in any case and we’re looking around every week for something closer to town and bigger than what we have today. It’s difficult to find anything that got enough counter tops for projects like this. Most kitchen are fitted by men and men who fit kitchens rarely bake in that way. If at all. So a bigger kitchen with enough space is what I’m looking at whenever we go out to take a tour in something that is available to rent.
Among other things :)

Well, my strawberry pie is done and I need to make some custard for it. Then it will be dessert tonight after the steak and the potato salad ;) However, I could make loads of that kind of pie a day, but I would need someone else to eat them :p And preferably pay for it as well ;)

We’ll see. I will start by trying to do some market research and then time will tell if it’s doable or not. Because frankly, I’m sick and tired of the design business and setting up stores for others online. Not to forget the dreadful creations of web graphics that is something I do these days because I have to, not because it’s one bit pleasant.
To me, work should be something you really want to do, and if it is, you never have to work a day in your life again :D

I’m pissed off.

Since almost 2 years back I’ve had the broadband at O2. And I’ve had the phone with BT for about 3 years. Always paid my bills and I’ve got no debts. However, O2 won’t let me switch to their Home Phone because I won’t go through their credit rating system.
How stupid is that??
I already pay for the broadband every month via Direct Debit with them and there’s always money in that account, so there’s been no payments missed either. O2 asked me to talk to my bank….but I haven’t got a clue what I should talk to my bank about. My credit rating should be just fine and my bank can’t do anything about this.

This pretty much means that I’m screwed. I can’t continue paying over 50 quid just for the sake of having the phone line connected. Especially since I don’t even use the darn phone more than maybe twice in three months. The one thing I need it for is for the sake of the connection, but it’s a darn expensive connection.

I haven’t got a clue what to do right now.
The first call to O2 was interrupted and by the time that happened the set up for the phone was almost done. No problem at all to get through their credit rating. Then another guy called back to pick up where the first conversation ended, and all of a sudden they changed their mind. What changed since the first guy said it everything was good to go I don’t know. All that was left was a confirmation letter.

During the past 3 weeks I’ve mentioned here and there that I’ve not been doing too good. My chest is burning and during the past week I also had a nasty cough. I’ve got no fever, but I sneeze like crazy, my skin in the forehead especially is dry and flaky with red spots showing up now and then. I also get headaches out of nowhere and sometimes I live in the Land of Confusion with memory gaps and other nasty things like dizziness.

At first I thought I had bronchitis, but I’ve had that a lot of times in the past and I almost always end up with a high fever after a couple of days. Then last night when I couldn’t sleep I was staring in the ceiling seeing a collection of black spots that grown to become a pattern during this past winter. The hallway looks similar and what you see in the first picture here is one corner of it, and most of the walls look like that as well.

The second picture is the ceiling in the same room. It’s leaking like a sieve and I bet that if I rip off the carpet the floor will be just as nasty underneath. I’ve cleaned that room I don’t know how many times by now and even repainted it a couple of years ago, but it always keep ending up like this.
And it’s really nasty since it’s black mold, which is toxic. Today I’ve cleaned it again, this time using rubber gloves, a scarf around my nose and mouth and used hot water and a lot of bleach. And just like it does when you wash it off with soap it came off easily.

I won’t touch the big spot in the bedroom ceiling though. At least not with the bed and the clothes in there. Besides, I found out later that I should have sealed off the room I was cleaning with thick plastic and duct tape over the door opening, and I should have used a respirator with a filter instead of the scarf. Also, goggles to protect the eyes is recommended. And no one should be around when you do this since spores from the mold is flying around.

I suspect that my declining health has got something to do with all this. There’s also an area in the living room where you can actually see the mold on the wall down by the floor, and I have a feeling that if you looked a bit closer under the wallpapers and the ceiling boards, you can find it there too.
So tomorrow after I’ve been to the doctor (will start calling them VERY early tomorrow morning to get an appointment) we will take a walk up to the landlord and have a talk with them. And I will print these pictures to show the doc as well. According to the Environmental Health Department, mold is not acceptable in any living space. However, to do something about this you would probably have to rebuild the entire place.

That also means that the landlord can threaten to evict us instead of doing these repairs. As a tenant with a private landlord and nothing but a verbal agreement, the protection we have isn’t very strong. However, the kind of lease we have means that the landlord cannot legally evict us unless we refuse to pay rent or disturb our neighbors. That’s in theory anyway.
But somehow we need to get this fixed, one way or the other.

In the meantime I will see what my doc says and if there’s anything he can do to help out in case my condition is an allergy reaction on black mold. We might need it if the landlord turns nasty…and she’s got a way of doing that a lot of times unless you hand her cash.