The Good Life... a weblog about life, technology, and the Opera Web browser

For this wondering what happened with Rebekah's dance audition, here's an e-mail she sent out about it:

I know a lot of you were rooting for me to win a spot into Jump Rhythm Jazz Project after the audition I went to in Chicago on the 13th. I got my letter today from JRJP and thankfully, yes, thankfully, they do not have a place for me at this time. I realized that as much as I do love the style and do want to perform and study it more, now is not the right time. There are other things that are happening that need nurturing here, at home. Someday I may move to Chicago so I can study the technique regularly - as for now, I am thankful to complete a dance contract I already have, continue studying tap, take up ballroom dancing with Tim this summer and spend more time with my family. Maybe I will even get permenently hired by the American Cancer Society in a couple months.

Again, thank you so much for thinking about me, praying for me, and encouraging me. I do hope for another opportunity in the future and I believe God will bring it. I thank God that he is in control and has perfect timing.

I run into problems trying to juggle my time. I have the obligatory 40 hours a week of work. And there's all that sleep stuff. Time waking up, time going to bed, time eating, time making oneself presentable. The rest is where things get tricky.

I don't have great relations with my family. However, I do try to spend time with them, hoping that somehow we'll work through our differences. I have a wonderful girlfriend that I enjoy spending gobs of time with. Then there's all the rest of the stuff that I enjoy doing and the stuff I am obligated to do.

I have a couple of hobbies that I've picked up over the years. Though I do loads of writing each day at work, I still muster the urge to pour out more words in the evenings on my site. I've taken up learning Japanese (read: I like to watch animes). I'm a bit of a shutterbug. I'm just starting to get involved in an open source development project. This is only the beginning, too, as I'm sure I'll find other things to whet my appetite.

Juggling and balancing acts ensue. I'm having a hard enough time doing this right now. I'm having an even harder time imagining what it'll be like when I'm married. I've been walking the dog and doing other things around the house to try to help out my parents. However, this means I have to change my work hours. So, I either have to work earlier or later. I usually opt for later. And since everyone else seems to start working earlier than I, I end up losing work time when everyone gets home. Sometimes I make this up on the weekends. And all this cuts into Tim-time.

I'm going to try cutting out some of the less important things. I'm going to increase the family and friends time and decide what really needs to be a part of Tim-time. I hope it works. Asking for more time in the day only means I'll find more ways to fill it.

The first release of Opera for Mac using the 7.x code enhancements is finally here! After over a year of hard work, the time has come. I've only been involved with the project for the past month or so, but it's been an absolute blast. We've got a bunch of great volunteer alpha testers and some very dedicated developers. It's great to see the way the release has progressed to tonight, our release!

Take a look at the Opera for Mac forum post to join in the fun!

At around 4pm (Oslo time) today, I'm heading into the office to call Rebekah. She's in Chicago this weekend auditioning for a place with the Jump Rhythm Jazz Project (JRJP). She auditioned yesterday and probably already knows the outcome. And now I'm waiting for her to wake up so I can call.

I've had this nervous energy around me this week, especially the last two days. She dreams of joining the JRJP troupe and performing with them, sharing her artistic gift with the world. For both of us, a lot of things are up in the air as Rebekah waits to hear if she got a place. If she does, she'll have to move to Chicago. And if she moves, I may also.

I instinctively want to have control over what happens here. I want to know how things will turn out for her audition, for my job, for our marriage plans, for the future. But I can't. And that's a beautiful thing. Because of the uncertainty that surrounds our future, I can either worry about it or give it all up to God. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't worried. But I'd also be lying if I said I didn't trust in the plan God has for us. Through the five years we've known each other, He has brought Rebekah and I through so much and given us this wonderful love and joy we share now. I couldn't have dreamed of things working out any better than they are right now. And the same will happen no matter if Rebekah gets a place or not. It's better not to know, not to be in control, and to have faith in His plan for the future.

Sometimes I feel like a broken record, talking about how wonderful things are, despite my worries. It's this struggle I have between my instincts—my humanity—and what I know in my heart to be true. Someday I'm going to get it into my thick head that worrying is silly as it's all out of my control anyway. That'll be a good day.

The news today has some great stuff on two Opera employees:

Johan Borg, the Windows Team manager, was recently interviewed on Lars Kleinschmidt's web site. The interview contains some nice tidbits about Opera for Windows.

Pål A. Hvistendahl, Director of Marketing and Communications, won the Stevie Award for "Best Marketer" in the Individual Categories. Check out his nomination for details about the work he's been doing.

I've grown up a fan of cartoons. Now, instead of Saturday Morning cartoons, I await Fridays and new versions of the anime Naruto. I've graduated to the next level of animation: anime. But I'm still a fan of the classic Warner Brother cartoons, enjoying Bugs Bunny, Yosemite Sam, and the Road Runner in all their various exploits.

We recently got Cartoon Network as part of our cable package at our flat in Oslo. I was looking forward to some Toonami and/or Adult Swim. I turned on the TV in the morning to some Tom and Jerry. In Norwegian. This is wrong on so many levels.

Cartoon characters have very distinctive voices. They're specifically chosen to fit the character. But when there's a voice-over, it's rarely as good as the original. For the same reason, I always try to get animes with Japanese audio and English subtitles. Try to imagine Bugs Bunny, chewing on a carrot, confident yet not arrogant. Marvin the Martian walks up to him, Bugs opens his mouth and someone else says something in a language you don't understand. It ruins the whole experience.

Thankfully, I'm only about two weeks from going home. Bugs Bunny, here I come!

I've been using open souce software (software which has the code available for download and which can usually be edited by anyone) for a while now, enjoying the freeness and quality of it. Up until now, I haven't contributed to such projects (other than some bug reports here and there).

For whatever reason, I've seen some areas of Drupal where I think I have something to contribute. Tonight, I submitted two bug reports and my first patch. Earlier this week, I submitted an additional page to their documentation. I'm working on making the process of importing data from other content management/weblog systems much easier, which could possibly bring a lot more users to the project.

I've never done PHP coding or created patches in CVS, but I (think) I figured it out. I still have a lot to learn, but I'm looking forward to that and contributing to a great open source and free project. Most of my work will probably be in documenation, but I might end up doing a fair bit of coding, too.

My site should be moving to Drupal soon, as it has a lot of advantages over MovableType. The first hurdle to overcome is importing all my current data. I now have the blog and comment importation figured out, so next I'll be working on writing code to import users, categories, and trackbacks. It should be fun.