My pattern

What Pattern Are You?

I've seen things...

...you people wouldn't believe.
Not far from where we live lies the small Rosslyn (Roslin) Chapel, and castle ruins, a chapel built by the Knights Templars in 1446 on an ancient Mithraic temple site. I'll say that again: built by the Knights Templars in 1446. The chapel also features in Dan Browns conspiracy thriller The Da Vinci Code.
This is an awesome place, awesome! You are in fact standing next to several tombs where Knights Templars are buried, one of which is the chapel's founder Sir William St Clair, third and last Prince of Orkney. And the Scandinavian links doesn't stop here (Orkney was part of the Danish Crone until it was given away as a wedding present to a Scottish Princess many years later). One of the pillars in the chapel depicts the eight dragons beneath the tree of life, Yggdrasil. Huh? Norse mythology in a Christian church? Yes, yes, indeed. The chapel is totally fillled with symbols from ancient religion, freemasons, Judaism and much much more. Brilliant.
Rosslyn Chapel website

G thanks

My friend T gave me a great birthday present: one of those new Google email accounts, called GMail. GMail is going to be a major competitor to Hotmail, and it will feature free 1GB storage. You might never have to throw away emails again, and I know that is something T really likes.
GMail is only out in a beta version, and thus not available unless you get an invitation from someone somehow connected to the right channels. The new address is per.fischer (at) gmail.com.

Apologies

I just realised that you have to have a Blogger account to post comments on our new blog. I'm very sorry, and apologies to everyone.
What really surprised me was that Blogger is owned by Google. Such nazi methods are usually something you encounter in connection with Microsoft ("you want to use this? make an account, give us your details and everything is fine")
Sorry.

Fortysomething

I am a year older today, and for the first time ever, the family were not together to celebrate this morning, as Mrs Rasmussen was working in St Andrews. But I opened my cards and presents with the lovely kids before they went to school. Later more cards and emails arrived, thank you all. The weather is truly terrible with rain and storm.
Yesterday the Danish football team gave me a nice present when they qualified to the quarter finals in Euro 2004. British television decided to show the match between Italy and Bulgaria instead, morons, so we had to find a neighbor with digital TV to watch the game.
Tonight we are having a few friends over for dinner. I am cooking Thai-style lamb burgers in Ciabatta buns, and the buns are raising at this moment in the kitchen.

Last days at Primary

Matthias has had the final tests and stuff at Primary school, and he brought home all his things from the last year at school. Among the staments from the school was "Matthias has been a credit to the school", which we thought was very nice indeed.

Teleport

Scientists in the US and Austria have at the same time managed to teleport atoms. Or something like that. It sounds good, but I have no idea what they mean. When I saw the graphic explanation, I was even more confused. But it's GREAT. I guess.

Recruitment

I am going to a graduate recruitment fair today. It's one of those one-day events where companies offer themselves to new graduates, and graduates hope to find a decent job with a decent income. My last 2 million job applications haven't been a success, so I am going along too. There are also workshops where you can make your CV better, as they say. I am still not used to that it is fairly common over here to lie on your CV, or exaggerate, and I can't do it. But the downside of it is that employers tend to look at CVs with a certain scepticism, and who can blame them? My CV is awesome, and that's probably why it doesn't help, I don't know.

High School

It's a fact. Matthias is going to High School next year, same school as Sofie, who just started S4.

This evening I was attending yet another parents evening at his new school, if not anything else then to buy new school clothes with the proper logo on. When I left home in just a t-shirt, it was very warm sunshine, when I left the meeting it was pouring down and thunder and lightning. I was soaking wet and cold when I returned home.

Four weeks more, then it is summer holidays. Wehee.

Reagan who

Reagan is dead. He did put his mark on the horrible 80s along with Mrs Thatcher, but making him into a saint is slightly over the top. When Charlton Heston supports a president, it's time to be sceptical. And it's beside the point that Heston was perfect in Touch of Evil, Soylent Green and A Man Called Horse.
Having Reagan as president of the World's most powerful nation is similar to letting your hamster drive you to Cambridge in your new Mustang V8. Scary and dangerous.

It's all true

We all know and have read the book by Dan Brown called The Da Vinci Code, so I will not resume it here, only the fact that it turns out there is a plan, a design, behind the universe and everything. It's called PHI, the golden number.
As you all know, Phi can be found anywhere - and by anywhere I mean absolutely anywhere. In the human body, in nature, music, colours and physics, to name a few. Even George Clooney is made of Phi relations. It's scary.
Phi is linked to the Fibonacci numbers (1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34....), and if you divide two Fibonacci numbers, you get Phi.
But the big question - and by big I absolutely mean BIG - is, who designed the whole damned thing? God? Moses? The designer from Hell? A fish? An alien from outer space?
There is a nice Flash animation of the Fibonacci numbers and the golden section here.

Chickpeas and war

Chickpeas are one of the most wonderful ingredients, and certainly is king among the pulses. Their only irritating feature, if you as I
refuse to buy them in tins, is that they have to be soaked in cold water for at least ten hours before you can do anything with them.
Before that, they are hard as stone and look pretty scary.
The fact is, you have to think a day ahead if you want to cook with chickpeas, and yesterday I put the bag of chickpeas on the kitchen to make sure I soaked them before going to bed. But I forgot, only to abruptly awake aroung 1 in the morning suddenly remembering, and then staggering into the kitchen in darkness and pour water over those darn peas.
Today's menu is hommous - or however you spell it - homemade hummous, which I haven't made for quite some time because you can buy very good organic hummous in Tesco. The thing is, every time we buy some, it's being eaten in no time. Hummous is a favorite in this family, even Sofie has grown into liking it.
Yesterday was the 60th anniversary of Omaha Beach, and BBC visited the town of Bedford in the US, where many men of the A Company came from. The A company were among the first soldiers to try to land on the beach, dodging German bullets and overcoming what must have been unbelievable horror. 97% of the company didn't make it.

Last of them holi days

Mrs Rasmussen insists on being called Susanne, at least when she is off on holiday. Granted.
Today has been a beautiful day. The kids were off early, as every Wednesday, and we spent time together in the garden - reading, throwing balls and Matthias stuffing his shorts with filled water balloons.