Blip, blip.

The following is the completed travel checklist used for the latest trip. Feel free to use and adapt to your needs. Note that it might be revised during the AAR/Lessons Learned activity after successful completion.

INTERNATIONAL TRAVEL CHECKLIST
==============================

PREPARATIONS -------------------------------

   UPON RECEIPT OF TICKETS
    - Check airplane seat availability
    - Check passport
    - American ESTA visa application

   PREPARATIONS BEFORE
    - Wash clothes
    - Post office should hold mail during trip
    - Cancel newspaper during trip
    - Pay bills in advance
    - Notify landlord of absence for the rent
    - Verify travel insurance (normally 45 days)

   D-DAY MINUS THREE
    - Complete operations plan
       - Detailed itinerary
       - Confirm addresses and phone numbers
       - Investigate getting to the airport, parking, and return
    - Review US Embassy, DHS, TSA and Airline information
    - Review Swedish UD information (foreign department)
    - Review airline baggage and packing guidelines
    - Transfer all interesting stuff from home server to computer

   D-DAY MINUS TWO
    - Clean dishes
    - Clean floors and apartment
    - Initial packing
    - Acquisition of requested items for friends

   D-DAY MINUS ONE
    - Defrost fridge and freezer if turned off
    - Finish packing
    - Check name and address on suitcase
    - Check weather
    - Check car (gasoline, oil, water)
    - Pull out cables from all electronics (TV, DVD etc)
    - Turn off home server

   D-DAY
    - Check tickets, passport and wallet.
    - Turn off all lights.

PACKING LIST -------------------------------

SUITCASE (CHECKED BAGGAGE)

   Clothing items
    - Towel *)
    - Plastic bag for laundry
    - 3L ziplock bag for
       - Underwear
    - 3L ziplock bag for
       - Socks
    - 1 T-shirt
    - Shirts
    - Sweaters
    - Extra shirt
    - Extra pants
    - Extra shoes (?)
    - Assorted extra clothes (nice shirt, tie etc)
    - Swimming clothes (if necessary)

   Basic hygiene kit (see separate items in carry-on)
    - Toothbrush
    - Toothpaste
    - Deodorant
    - Hair brush
    - Hair comb
    - Shampoo *)
    - Dental floss
    - Hand cream
    - Tweezers
    - Nail clippers
    - Medicine package
       - Headache (Ipren)
       - Congested nose (Otrivin) (if necessary during flight, pack in carry-on)
    - Ziploc bag containing
       - Electric shaver, charger
       - Hair/beard trimmer, charger

   Other items
    - Computer mouse
    - Intl. electricity adapter
    - Other electrical chargers
       - Camera
    - Ziploc bag containing
       - USB cables (small devices, camera)
       - Assorted cables (computer, phone, net)
       - Small USB-compliant devices
    - DVD movies
    - 1 Bible
    - Assorted books, if necessary
    - Earphones
    - Umbrella
    - Foreign money (evenly split with carry-on)
    - Bank login device, if necessary

   Gift items and packages
    - Carefully screened against illegal or banned goods (see TSA policy)

   *) Items marked may not be necessary for hotel stay.

BRIEFCASE OR BACKPACK (CARRY-ON BAG)

   Electronics and fragile items
    - Computer, power cable
    - Cell phone, charged
    - MP3 player, charged
    - Camera
    - Other fragile items (hard disks)

   Ziploc bag containing (take out bag when boarding)
    - Ear plugs
    - Medicine
       - Allergy (Loratadin)
       - Stomach (Immodium)
       - Motion sickness (Postafen)
       - ...others as predicted...
    - Chewing gum
    - Pen

   Travel documents
    - Passport
    - Tickets
    - Itinerary
    - ESTA application + visas
    - Travel information
       - Reservations
       - Phone numbers
       - Destination address
       - Insurance information

   Stowaways (especially in security check)
    - Wallet
       - Credit card
       - Money
          - 200 SEK for bus passes, etc
          - Verify presence of 500 SEK emergency bill
          - Swedish pocket change (for restrooms)
          - Foreign money (evenly split with suitcase)
    - House key
    - Car key
    - Receipt from parking at airport

   Other stuff
    - 1 good book
    - Inflatable pillow
    - Flashlight
    - Compass
    - Sunglasses

HOMECOMING ---------------------------------

   Travel home
    - Buy breakfast, food

   Coming home
    - Turn on fridge/freezer at earliest convenience
    - Unpack outside or on balcony (guard against bugs, cockroaches etc)

Chicago is a city I visited back in 1999. I found it to be a wonderful city, probably one of the cities I liked most throughout the U.S. In comparison with Gothenburg or Stockholm, Chicago finally feels like a really big city – the Chicago Metropolitan Area boasts of some 9.5 million inhabitants, which is more than the entire country of Sweden.

This is pretty amazing, considering that the city was founded in 1833. It’s growth comes primarily from being a major transportation hub through North America, with an extensive railway network and one of the world’s busiest airport (O’Hare International). It’s also been a part of the North American industrial boom of the 19th and 20th Century, being no small part of the US industry. Some jokingly say that Chicago was built by Swedes; this may be partly true since Chicago was a large stop-over for large parts of the migrating Scandinavian population, on its way out into the further Midwest.

Although rumor has it that the name “Chicago” comes from an Indian term for “no good”, a more etymologically correct version is that it derives from an Indian word “shikaakwa”, meaning “wild leek”, or the particular plats that grew along the Chicago river. A literal translation of the word may be “striped skunk”, probably a reference to the smell of these wild leeks. But among its many other nicknames are “The Windy City” and “The City of Big Shoulders”.

Its history has oftentimes been rather troublesome; after initial problems in accomodating the rapid city growth, it burned down almost completely in the 1871 Great Chicago fire, but was rapidly rebuilt; and it was the home of famous gangster Al Capone during a period of remarkably prevalent organized crime. Recent developments have, however, put Chicago on the forefront of environment-conscious American cities; it is actively demolishing vast public housing projects and working to reshape the city into a more environmentally friendly and more accessible city.

And one of Chicago’s sister cities is, surprisingly, Gothenburg. So, go Chicago!

My NetGear router has been acting more and more weird the last months. I don’t really know why, but sometimes the DNS resolver inside just locks up and misbehaves something wicked. It would be a lot easier if it could just forward the DNS settings through DHCP, but it doesn’t do that, it just always sets itself as the dns resolver. Maybe it started appearing when I installed Vista, dunno.

So I made some scripts to change this. Just sharing it with the world in case someone else has a problem.

SetTeliaDNS.cmd:

@echo off

set IF="Wireless Network Connection"

netsh interface ipv4 set dns %IF% static none
netsh interface ipv4 add dns %IF% 195.67.199.24
netsh interface ipv4 add dns %IF% 195.67.199.25

netsh interface ipv4 show config %IF%

SetDchpDNS.cmd:

@echo off

set IF="Wireless Network Connection"

netsh interface ipv4 set dns %IF% dhcp
netsh interface ipv4 show config %IF%

Using the first, I switch my wireless network over to predefined DNS through my ISP, Telia. Using the second, I switch back to whatever I got through DHCP – when I use another wireless network, for instance.

And then, just a quick link to these two in the TrueLaunchBar menus, and… good to go.

I realized today that the newest update of Webshots (a program that displays wallpapers on your PC) includes a new Python 2.5 service that installs and runs in the background.

Not that I have anything against Python in itself, but I really don’t want Webshots running a Python service on my computer. A service? For what? Downloading wallpapers?

I’m sick and tired of software behaving like they owned my computer, and can stuff a zillion icons on the desktop, the start menu, under my pillow, create folders in c:\ (c:\msocache, anyone? Anyone?) and drink the milk in my fridge without permission.

Webshots is now uninstalled. More will follow. More will follow.

Så. Då är vi på plats i Skövde, hos kära mor och syster och julfirandet har börjat. I år skall jag vara modern och liveblogga från festligheterna, precis som på alla andra stora tillställningar.

Vi får se hur det går. Håhåjaja.

19:01 Efter en hård arbetsvecka drar jag mig så tillbaka. Dags att vila. Julfrukost, julmiddag och presenter under morgondagen. Och sedan… semester. Härligt.

18:37 Allting är klart. Eventuellt kommer nu det traditionsenliga filmarkivet att inspekteras och en lämplig film väljas ut. Tyvärr fick jag inte tag på någon DVD med Wall-E, som annars hade blivit en klar favorit. I väntan på detta diskuteras konst; både Madeleine Pyk och Heike Ahrends diskuteras.

18:20 Granen är snart klar, bara halmsaker som återstår. Årets gran är faktiskt otäckt fin; en riktigt tät och fin gran som faktiskt ser lite ut som en Disney-gran. Disney-granar är, som bekant, den standard mot vilken alla granar mäts och bedöms, och den här får gott betyg till skillnad från alla fula, spretande granar jag har tvingats klä genom åren. Det här kan bli en fin jul.

18:12 Bristande samordning och koordination har lett till ett betydande underskott på choklad. Tsk, tsk. Det enda som finns är Anton Berg och små Marabou Premium 70%. Detta duger inte alls. En räd får göras under morgonen bort till affären efter lite riktig choklad. Troligen belgisk.

18:04 Julstjärnan högst upp i granen är på plats. M. i #kristnet postar en länk om vi kan lita på Bibeln och dess julevangelium? Den överväldigande mängden bevarade manuskript från den tidigaste tiden efter händelserna i NT tyder på att ja, det kan vi. Så var det med den saken.

17:52 Sitter och chattar lite på #kristnet medan granen kläs. Trådlöst bredband har installerats tidigare idag, till min stora lättnad (10 dagar utan bredband?? Aaah!) Ms. Church fortsätter sjunga “Joy To The World”. Trevligt med lite engelsk julmusik, känns med traditionsladdad.

17:43 Systern tillbaka, granen är intagen och ljusen är uppsatta. Charlotte Church på stereon, lite glögg serverat och arbetet att klä granen fortsätter.

~15:00 På plats i Skövde. Julfestligheterna kan börja. Lite lätt fika, uppackning, konstaterande av att min syster är ute med kompisar.

There will be no web hotel scripts for Windows. It’s impossible, or at any rate simply not worth it.

Pray we don’t get a lot of ASP.NET customers.

Just two pictures…

Stepped out of my apartment today only to stand eye-to-eye with three sheep peacefully walking between the houses. They looked at me with the same kind of surprise that I looked at them, and then resumed walking past me. I got a good shot of them with my camera as they passed me.

The neighbor farmer must have a hole in his fence.

This was a warning sign posted on a gas pump. “Warning: The electronics in this pump is monitored electronically.” Well… I guess :)

Found this email in the “to-do” folder in my inbox…

A personal reminder, I guess…