So my tip failed miserably but I was tipping with my heart. From this link you can find the full result and see the Willebroek won. Again - the second year running.

From the live result service of 4BarsRest I understood that the playing from all the bands was exceptional. I’ve also spoken to some bandsmen in the Gothenburg band and know that they was very pleased with their playing. How the judges missed that I don’t know - but you never do.

I still think GBB made and excellent job and really went out with a bang. This is the last we will ever hear from GBB. What a way to end an era of high level brass band playing - a tour (playing with Black Dyke) a CD recording (I’m looking forward to it) and then the Europeans.

I’ve just ended a long period with lots of stuff on the agenda. Since April 10th i’ve had at least on “extra” thing to think about each day. It’s been some presentations, funerals, talks at work or just practices with band.

But yesterday I did the last of this long row of items. Feels really good and tonight will be laid back to say the least… Some practice and then a movie I think.

Soo - today the Europeans will start. My thoughts and hopes are of course with the Gothenburg Brass Band. I had the opportunity to hear the band a few weeks back I can say that they are in very good shape indeed.

But - I don’t think it will take them all the way. There are some insanely good bands competing this year.

Here is my very “from-the-hip” prediction of how the Europeans will end:

1. Cory
2. Stavanger
3. Gothenburg

It of course will have to do with how and what the judges think about the different styles of playing.

When I was on Sardine we went to a nice (and expensive) jet set place at the top of the island, called Porto Cervos. And there outside the Hotel Cervo, that looked like one from a James Bond-movie, we found the car on the picture above.

When looking closer we found that it had Swedish plates. So we checked with Bilregistret and checked who owned it. It was mr Behernad von der Osten-Sacken!

After we had laughed for about 10 minutes to that name we found out that not only was the name real, he is an economical doubtful person in the news in Sweden right now.

So he’s probably hiding away in Sardine, at Hotel Cervo. Did I mention that the car wasn’t paid in cash? Very nice car though…

Just started the first day after a trip to Sardine (?) in Italy, with Avega.

What a great bunch of people! I really enjoyed myself during this trip. On the way home I had a feeling that often have come over me when I been on tours or camps… you know: “so - now it’s over I we will never have this much fun again. Just think if it would last forever”. Only difference this time is that it will last.

So a big thank you to all the organizers for the trip and to all the Avega People that made this trip into what it was - great fun and a great feeling of “we can do anything”.

I’ll upload some pictures to this post - some that not is to … exposing

I love the new System.Transaction found in .NET 2.0. I have been and will continue to use it in my applications.

When you compare it with for example the Enterprise Service management it’s so slim and lightweight. And the scaling up to SQL 2005 Transactions when need is a feature that will be nice when that kick in.

My favorite among them all, though, is the TransactionScope, which makes a nice and easy visual way of showing what is part of the transaction and not.

However, I found out a small glitch yesterday. Apparently there is a configuration value (maxTimeout) hidden away in the machine.config-file on each computer. This value defaults to ten minutes and that value overrides any values found in other configs (web.config or app.config).

So - if you need long running transaction you will have to tweak that value. See this articles for more information.

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Chuck is back - a few years (i think) back there was some sites around the Internet listing how hard the ex-action-hero Chuck Norris is.

You know Chuck, I presume - he’s the hero of such great epic movies as missing in action and foremost the long runner Walker Texas Ranger. They are both crap and probably mr Norris shouldn’t have gone into making movies at the first place. He’s a karate guy.

Anyhow - here is a list of the top quotes about how hard Chuck Norris is. http://4q.cc/index.php?pid=top100&person=chuck

Something says me that I’ll be needing this link further on http://www.agiledata.org/essays/tdd.html

It is a good introduction to TDD and very down-to-earth and practical. Which we of course like a lot.

When trying to force something to be what you want you have to know when to give up and when to keep trying a little while longer… that’s my lesson from this week.

Last friday (?) i wrote about namespaces in VB.NET and how to make them appear a the top of the class file automatically. Well I learned a lot about VB since then (actually!) and one of the things are the philosophy of VB.NET. VB.NET comes from a long row of Visual Basic releases, who all are alike in the way that the frees the user from having to care about the stuff behind the scene.

(If you don’t like VB.NET please feel free to exchange the word “frees” to “hides” in the previous sentence :))

Although there are lesser and lesser stuff tucked away there are still some inheritance from that traditions and Default Namespace is...

OK, the weekend is over (yes, prolonged I know) and my list of scary stuff is now down to almost nothing. Which I take that I am not afraid of nothing anymore - good!

On Sunday I was presenter on the last concert of Gothenburg Brass Band. Sad - but I tried to keep the focus of that fact and keep focus on the music instead. For me the concert also was a milestone since the conductor was Nicholas Childs - the musical director of Black Dyke Band, brass band personality extraordinaire and one of my childhood idols. I still have posters of him (and his brother Robert) on my boy room wall.

The concert went well with a bit of awkward twist since an early flight spoiled the order of the program. From what I heard in the audience that didn’t interfere much. The band was also in...