Middagsfrid - or how to start a rebellion among your parents

Oh my God- this (http://www.middagsfrid.se/) is a thing that is tempting me right now. The concept is as follows: each week a bag of groceries are delivered to your home. It contains raw material and recipes enough for you to keep you and your family going for the week, dinner-wise.

So in short - no more going to the store and not being able to find out what to do for dinner. You’ll get surprised with new recipes each week.

But, I can only imaging the kind of uproar this will cause among our parents. And also - here dies the last hope of keeping home-cooking as an art…

We’ll probably try it anyway…

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British Open - the results

OK, my guessing from last week blew up… Dyke didn’t make it three in a row by the narrowest margin as they ended up in second place. It also had to sting a bit extra since Cory (who won) are conducted by Robert Childs brother of Nicholas Childs who conducts Black Dyke.

Now we will never know how the organizers had intended to solve the gold medal problem. It says in the rules (from the 185o’s) that if a band manages to win three times in a row the band cannot compete the following year - AND should also be rewarded a gold medal! That would have been something to see…

4BarsRest really outdid themselves with some marvelous coverage of the event, with live photos even. You could almost feel the tension through the site…

So - now the contesting for the season is open.

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British Open Brass Band Championships

This weekend is the first and maybe the greatest competition in the brass band year. It’s the prestigious British Open.

My money is on Black Dyke who I think are playing marvelous at the moment, better than in many years. Also I like that they not cling to the brass band idiom but instead is going to a more modern and symphonic sound and approach.

If they win it will be the third time in a row for them. That feat has not been done in a lot of years, so that will be exciting in itself. I can just imagine how tagged they are…

Also there will be some great music, a brand new piece of Kenneth Downie. He is a great guy and a great composer writing lots of high quality music for every size and quality of band. We are right now playing a lot of his...

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Scrum - bringing fun back to development

OK - I’ll make no fuzz about it. I am really excited about Scrum and what it can do. But now after two complete days with mr Scrum, Ken Schwaber, i am completely turned around. It was as closed to a religious wake-up as you will ever come without God.

I can’t imagine how development can be done with certainty, speed and most of all FUN - in any other way… Also I am a bit embarrassed about the way I’ve counted and tried to predict everything in advance - just half a year ago.

The big differences are also the easiest - things like that people can take care of them self, change will always (ALWAYS) occur.

So as long as I have a say in the question I will always conduct my projects as Scrum projects from now on. There is really no other way if you want...

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Demo done - and training in the pipe

The demo last Friday went like a charm. Of course the occasional demo-ghost showed itself but it was nothing some quick talking couldn’t handle.

I am still in wonder on how much you can get done by working with SCRUM. It all boils down to focus and sharing, in my opinion. The team gets to focus on the task at hand and the frequent sharing and communication makes every team member aware of her/his role and importance. From that some great result are achieved!

Tomorrow and the day after that I will take a SCRUM-master certification. Great to be on a course and it will also be great to have that certificate in the CV. Below is a picture of the place where the course takes place… Nice huh.

Training

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Demo-time - sprint 5

Phew - the last week has real been something else…

We are closing in on a demo (tomorrow) for my project and as always that means wrapping things up. Which in turns means that you’ll have to tend to all the stuff that has been unattended for way to long.

Well, well - everything seems quite alright as it is now so I am not that worried. Fingers crossed.

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Intensive pair-programming - comparing entity data

For about four days straight now we have been battling a classical, but hard programming problem; given two entity objects return a list of all the differences between the objects data. We solved the problem with reflection and some hard thinking. I am thinking about posting an article on how later.

It has been quite fun but the real lesson for me was pair programming! Try it if you haven’t. It is intense, I can say - but also very productive. Not as many errors and the code gets an immediate review that is priceless. While the “driver” writes the co-pilot have a chance to reflect on was is going on.

Also - it is lots of fun!

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