This year Kim met her targets at work. This meant the she got invited to Hawaii (with a partner...me) as part of the Chairmans club.

We got back two weeks ago and had a fantastic trip. The first few days we spent in Honolulu at Waikiki Beach...we got to see all of Oahu, went snorkeling and Kim went shopping. One night we all went to a shooting range in Honolulu.


After this we went to Kauai where we were staying at a big resort. Here we went snorkeling, sailing and played golf.

There was parties every night and we also managed to find a bit of time to ourselves.






See the rest of the photos from our trip here: Hawai Photos/Slideshow

In Mid 2006 I went to a work meeting in Krabi in Thailand.

This happens to be a few kilometers away from one of the best rock climbing destinations in the world. So, after the meeting I took a few days off to go rock climbing.

Kim happened to be travelling in the Northern part of Thailand with some friends who had to leave on the same day my meeting ended. Kim flew down to Krabi where I picked her up at the airport.

Unfortunately it was rainy season, so most of the time in Railay it was raining, but we did manage to get one day of climbing done and the rest of the time we spend in the restaurants and playing cards.


Click here to see more photos from: Thailand/Slideshow

I have now started adding photos from 2005. For this I have created a new blog just for 2005, the plan is that I will add blogs for the remaining years as well.

Click here to see what happened in 2005

I have now added photos from 2004. The highlights from this year was a trip to the United States and Canada as well as a family trip to Egypt. This was also the year that Australia entered the war in Iraq, so there are a couple of photos from the anti war demonstrations.

Click here to read about 2004

In Mid 2006 I was in Portugal for our International Partner Conference with the company.

It was a week of being busy setting up for the conference, socialising but also a lot of fun and partying.


Click here to see more photos from:Portugal/Slideshow

I quite regularly head up to the Blue Mountains to go Rock Climbing.

We normally camp overnight and then depending on the weather and temperature decide on the day what walls we are going climbing on. The photos in the gallery are a selection of some of the photos I've taken in 2006, but there will be more to come in 2007.

Unfortunately I don't have a lot of photos of me climbing as I tend to forget to pass my camera to someone else.

Most of the time I go with my friend Sarah, but she has now moved to Canberra so she doesn't come up there as often as she used to.


Click here to see more photos from: Climbing in the Blue Mountains/Slideshow

In September 2006 I went on a business trip to Tokyo along with a colleague of mine Tsukada-san.

Most of the trip was hard work and very long days, but I did manage to snap a couple of photos here and there.

We did get the deal in Tokyo, so the trip was worthwhile, and we are now installing our solution across all of Asia.


Click here to see more photos from: Tokyo/Slideshow

In early 2006 my Mum had a stroke while my parents were on holiday in Thailand.

A few months later in April when I was in Europe for work I used the opportunity to go and visit and check up on how my mum is doing.

She is now in a wheelchair and still getting used to finding new ways of doing things.

I didn't do much while I was there, because it was mainly a social visit to help my mum and dad.


Click here to see more photos from: Denmark/Slideshow

I have a number of photos that don't really justify being in individual albums. I have now added all these photos from 2006 into one album.

Click here to see more photos from: Miscellaneous/Slideshow

In early 2006 I went a trip to Seattle for our annual kick-off event.

Some of us flew over there a few days early to go skiing in Wanatchee east of Seattle. If was a weekend of perfect skiing. It was my first time skiing so I took some lessons after which I was doing fine (blue slopes).

During the week we had lots of meetings and dinners. There were award nights as well as just social nights where we could meet up with the rest of the company.

The following all of us in International went down to Crystal Mountain at Mount Raineer to do some more skiing. It was a lot of fun and we all had a great time.


Click here to see more photos from: USA/Slideshow

Aiden has finally learned how to ride his little tricycle (the one his grandma gave him just before she passed away) by using the pedals.

He is very proud...hopefully he is able to soon using his new skills on the bike he got for christmas.



Even Lucas was proud and gave Aiden the victory jump.

At the moment I am going through a phase where I Loooveee baking bread.

There is something really satisfying about working with something that is so diverse and alive. And there is nothing like eating a freshly baked bread with a nice crust.


So far I have found a couple of recipes I really like...one of them is this walnut and fig bread.



On the weekend I made it for the family dinner and they wanted the recipe.

- 400g white flour into a bowl
- Add 100g of wholemeal flour
- Add 10g of sea salt flakes
- Add 5g of dry yeast into the bowl
- Add 335ml of water
- Mix it all together using your hand
- Kneed it by stretching it out on a table and then roll it up...do this 3-6 times
- flatten the bread to a thickness of about 15mm and then place walnuts and chopped figs on top. Roll up the bread with the walnuts and figs inside.
- Stretch the bread another couple of time and roll it up until the walnuts and figs are mixed into the bread.
- Put the bread in a bowl and cover it with glad wrap (or better yet, just leave it on the table and cover it with the bowl) for one hour...knock back the bread every 20 minutes (3 times in total).
- Leave the bread for another one hour (without knocking it back). After 30 minutes (30 minutes prior to baking) start preheating the oven with a baking/pizza stone at 250 degrees. Also put a small metal tray in the oven (for the ice cubes)
- Add a bit of semolina (or flour) to the baking stone and to the top of the bread to avoid it sticking.
- Place the bread on the baking stone and make a couple of cuts to the top of the dough.
- Add 3-4 ice cubes to the metal tray
- Close the oven and turn down the temperature to 200 degrees immediately.
- Bake for 30 minutes and remove from the oven.

Every year hunter valley garden put up a light show where they decorate part of the garden in christmas lights.

They leave this open until end of January, so this year we headed up there to have a look....enjoy.

Last weekend we made an overnight trip to the Hunter Valley a couple of hours drive north of Sydney.

The main reason was to see the lights in the Hunter Valley Garden (see separate post), but also to go and taste some wine and generally have a good time.

Pretty soon after we arrived the girls were distracted by the chocolate and cheese places.






We did however go to a couple of places for wine tasting.







We also had some really nice food up there. I was especially impressed by a really nice gnocchi salad I had....it was yummi.


Outside it was really hot...like 39 degrees in the shade. There were a couple of horses relaxing under a couple of trees.



We decided an alternative approach of checking into our hotel and jump in the pool to cool off.

In the evening we went to the light show and on the following day we just did a number of wineries before heading back to Sydney.

On the weekend we did some ten pin bowling with the family.



Kim had managed to secure some cheap tickets so it was great to play against the family.

We had one lane for the kids (with rails) and one lane for the adults.






I had a bad start and was behind much of the game, but my luck eventually caught up and I started playing a good game.




Afterwards we had a bit of a play in the games arcade





Aiden was absolutely terrified of the big scary bear (I can see why).



The kids also tried to figure out what this machine was for:



I love some of the old 50's style decor.

It is summer and Lucas and Aiden is enjoying a bit of water play in the back yard on warm days.

This Sunday we had Aiden and Lucas baptised in the local church in Maroubra. Lucky that both Aiden and Lucas behaved throughout the 2 hour long service.

The rocks at Malua Bay were quite spectacular and dramatic. A couple of times I ventured down to try my luck with some photos around sunset (grey every day)...I really suck at this style and constantly got my tripod soaked.

These were the two best results.

Having the beach so close was great. I went for a run every morning before breakfast.



We also had a lot of fun playing at the beach with the kids.















And everyone was just really enjoying the time there.

On news years day we had a very nice dinner at an Indian restaurant (I was soooo full afterwards).

The restaurant also had lice indian music as entertainment.

I celebrated Christmas and New Year with my parents in Thailand.

We spent the time in the Northern Part of Thailand in the Golden Triangle around Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai.

We rented a car for a couple of days and got to see a lot including all the hill tribes that still to this day live in this part of Thailand.




Click here to see more photos from: Thailand/Slideshow

In 2003 Kenneth got married to Anica. I was asked to be the best man by Kenneth.

The wedding took place at a homestead in Sofala three hours drive west of Sydney.

It was a wonderful weekend surrounded by wonderful people.



Click here to see more photos from: Kenneths Wedding/Slideshow

Contents . . .

My photo collection is vast. Many of them are in my albums, others scanned as images here. I have tried to include the best of the best, and will keep doing so. Feel free to explore any of the links - it make take some time to peruse them all...

( We recommend viewing of the photos through MS Explorer )

AUSTRALIA - HOME
Cockatoos at Home	Narrabeen Beach	New car	My Jobs

MY FAMILY
Grandmother's 85th	Grandmother's 80th	Donkey Day Out	My Brother Claus	My Father

2001
New Zealand (Mt Cook)	South-East Asia

2000
Chilli Festival	Ecochallenge Borneo (Sabah)	Sydney Olympics

1999
Thailand (Bangkok)	Laos	Morocco

1998
Port Macquarie	Pete's Bite	New Zealand (Sth Island)	Denmark

Created: 11 Aug 2001 Last Updated: 21-jan-05

My mum and dad spent some time in Sydney over christmas and New Year.

While they were here I raught my dad how to absail.



And for Christmas I gave my parents some tickets for the Sydney Harbour bridge walk (they gave Arumi a ticket too).

My brother passed away in the end of 2002. He had been suffering badly from his disease for almost a decade and eventually it got the better of him.

I still miss him a lot even though we weren't close when he was alive....but I still feel him close to me to this day!



I still light a candle for him once in a while.



His two biggest wishes in life was to become a professional tennis player...he was a pretty damn good player and I never played against him because I didn't have a chance.



His second biggest wish was to get himself a girlfriend. This is one of the last photos that was taken of him.



I still blame the psychiatric system in Denmark for what happened. They were too focused on treating his disease with medication and never paid any attention on teaching him to live with his disease and provide quality in life.


I still love him very much and I really miss him. I also regret that I wasn't there more for him.



He always looked after me and he has never hurt anyone.





This is the last family photo that was taken.



I would appreciate if you click here to see some of the photos from my brothers life: May he not be forgotten

Before Claus became ill, he was a rising star in the world of tennis. He was featured in the local newspaper as Amtsmester - he came first in the local "Amst" - level similar to state-level.

Claus loved being out in the wind and the sun. He was also prone to seasickness.

Claus and my family came to visit me in Australia in 1999. I think he liked it here - warmer winters and friendly people. I really like the top middle photo, of Claus eating oysters. He looked very happy. They did a lot of sightseeing here, and even visited my apartment on Narrabeen beach.

The following are the last photos that were taken of Claus, on one of our sailing trips.

My brother had schizophrenia, and he passed away not long after his 33rd birthday.

I love my brother, and I regret not telling him this. My girlfriend tells me that Claus knew I loved him.
I am not convinced of this, so I wrote him a letter, in the hope that he will read this, wherever he is.

There is so much I wanted to say to him.

I want to remember him when he was not sick, when he was happy, and when I was last in Denmark in June 2002. I want to remember him, as you will see him in these photos.

My Big Brother . . .








Created: 8 Oct 2002 Last Updated: 24 Oct 2002