A new look and some changes for the blog

Published on March 12, 2010 in Uncategorized. 1 Comment Tags: , .

It’s been more than a year since changing this blog to its own hosting form and I thought it was time for a new look. So last weekend I changed to a new theme and have been doing some small tweaks during the week. The change in looks also entails some small changes about how I approach this blog.

Although I like the former minimalist look it had, I decided I wanted a bit more without going overboard. So I took some inspiration from around the web and created the new design. Being no designer whatsoever I’ll be the first to admit it’s not flawless, but I think it looks pretty decent overall. The design is a tweak of the K2 theme which is highly flexible and customizable. Being more tech curious than tech savvy it’s great to have someone to turn to with coding questions and luckily I have a great friend who’s been kind enough to let me muck about on his own server with the designing and coding and has been a true help. So Graham, once again, thank you very much for all your help and advice.

Now what about the changes. As of last weekend the lifestream has now been moved to its own page and will not be displayed as singular posts anymore. However it’s still displayed prominently on the front page in a widget which you can find on the right. Furthermore I’m still going to post at least once a week but I’m looking at ways of expanding that tally. I keep saying that I want to be a better writer, so it’s time that I do some actual writing.

I hope you enjoy the changes.

Things noticed in Lebanon

Published on March 5, 2010 in Uncategorized. 1 Comment Tags: , .

The opinions I had about Lebanon were mostly formed in my childhood with newscasts full about the raging civil war. A guy I knew went there as a peacekeeper for Unifil and came back with all kinds of horror stories. The region has always been a hotbed and just a few years ago things headed up again between Lebanon and Israel. But when 2 friends of mine went there to live for a while I decided to go and visit. Not only to see my friends, but also to see for myself what the country is like. Here are some of the things I noticed.

As it was the first time I visited the Middle East I had some predispositions about the region and Lebanon lives up to a few of them: regular power failures, chaotic traffic that seems to have no laws, not the best of roads, constant haggling about prices with vendors and taxi drivers and no “green thinking” whatsoever. But there’s also the friendliness and hospitality of the locals, the slower pace of life and the beauty of its nature. As with many countries it seems the politicians and its opponents create a unfriendly atmosphere (as is portrait on the news) while the local people are great to interact with.

Lebanon seems to be a place that want to gets back to its former glory with Beirut sometimes looking like a giant construction site. But it’s not trying to get away from its (sometimes horrid) past (the Hilton Hotel in Beirut which was completely shot in the civil war still stands untouched), preserving archaeological sites and I got the feeling people are proud to be Lebanese.

Especially in Beirut perception is everything. There’s a large difference between the haves and don’t-haves and the haves want to show it by buying big cars, flashy jewelry and designer clothes. Plastic surgery is also commonplace with women leaving the bandages for their nose jobs on even after it’s healed, just to show they can afford it.

Then there’s this thing that in my western views almost looks like modern slavery. Those who can afford it get nannies/maids from Bangladesh or the Philippines who have to take care of the household/clean/look after the kids. There seem to be agencies around Beirut where you can look in a brochure, pick the one you like and “order” one and pay them about 200 dollars a month (I’m told minimum wage is about 300, but for those women it’s a huge sum of money and for instance pays for the education of their children). I’m sure not all are treated like crap, but one time we were in a large supermarket getting some groceries for dinner and I saw this woman, maid/nanny with large cart and 2 kids in tow, who just pointed at the items and signaled the quantity. When it took the maid (this was a petite woman) some time to put 4 large 5 liter water bottles in the cart (balancing one kid on her arm no less) she definitely got an earful from her, well let’s call her employer. It was something to behold.

The countryside in Lebanon has beautiful mountains, valleys and various colors. Some of the sights are quite spectacular. Some of the historical venues in Lebanon are definitely worth seeing, especially the ruins in Baalbek.

Despite having soldiers with guns on almost every corner and having my passport checked at various check points, I felt completely safe there. Even in Baalbek, which is Hezbollah’s (now a legal political party) capital (again, some predispositions there) there was nothing to worry about. The southern part near the border with Israel can be somewhat scatchy, so make sure to check the safety advisory for the region.

All in all I had a great time there. Of course this has much to do with my friends Mark and Laura who have been the best of hosts. But Lebanon is a great place to stay with its friendly people, great atmosphere and interesting sights and sounds. It’s surely worth a visit.

For some impressions of my holiday you can also check out my Flickr photo set.

Experimenting: no-web week roundup

Published on February 28, 2010 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Last week I started a week of no-web experience (which happened to coincide with a week of fun visiting friends in Lebanon) because I wondered if I could last 7 days without the one thing I use most in my life. Did I last?

Yes, with a small exception of showing my friend how easy it was to get online on a phone in Starbucks and that was for maybe 3 minutes. But I didn’t tweet, read blogs or use the web for my usual stuff the rest of the week. As suggested by Graham, I also didn’t read my mail for a week.

I didn’t miss some of the things as much as I thought I would. Sure there were the occasional times I wanted to tweet some of the things I heard or saw (airports/planes are a gold mine for funny things to see and hear), check on the one social site I’m on or see what people I know shared or said. But overall that’s something I could do without.

What I did miss was the way the web makes communication so easy with email, chat or apps like Skype. I also missed the fact that it’s so easy to just whip out your phone and look something up. The information at your fingertips and it’s 24 hour access is really something I love about the web. Finding information about certain subjects (like say if my countrymen won something in the Olympics) could be done but not as fast or easy (especially when you’re in a place that doesn’t care about the subject).

Another thing is that after being away from it for a week a whole pile of mails, tweets and blogposts are waiting for you to digest and it takes time to catch up. This however gives me an opportunity to look at my feeds carefully and see which blogs I want to see every entry from and those I don’t feel as strong about. There will be some unsubscribing involved.

Being away from the web for a week and even longer is manageable and a lot of the things I do on it I could live without. The thing is though that they are so much fun to do and when I have the time and access I love doing them. I just have to be careful that they will not start to rule my life. And of course there are other ways than the web to communicate or find information. The fact is though that the web makes it so easy that it’s hard to find a good substitute. So I could live without the web if needed, but as long as I have it, i’ll use it. A lot.

Experimenting: a no-web week

Published on February 20, 2010 in Uncategorized. 1 Comment Tags: , .

The coming week I’ll do a little experimenting again: (almost) no web-related activities. This means no checking/interacting/downloading/posting on/from sites, forums, my rss-reader and even *gasp*…Twitter. I will check my email once in a while, but that’s it. So why do this? Is it to have a cleanse like John Mayer (although I will be using some of his cleansing rules)? Am I bored with the web? Not really.

I don’t suffer from web overload or boredom. I do believe it would be interesting to see how much (if any) I would miss the thing I spend most of my free time on. Especially what I would miss. It’s convenient that it coincides with a vacation I’m taking next week (more on that in a later post) in a place where I don’t know if I can get on the web easily (I know my friends place where I’ll be staying is connected, but know nothing about mobile web availability).

So what does this entail? As from sunday morning 21st of February 0.01 AM CET until 168 hours later I will just check email with my usual regularity (once a day) and that is all the internet activity I’ll allow myself. For all the other stuff I use the web for I’ll either have to find alternatives (for things like news gathering) or just be without (things like chatting or Twitter). Of course until midnight comes I’ll probably share, discuss and tweet so much it will look like spam-like activities.

See you in a week.