Hi all,

I hope you have had a great Christmas.

Been off the board (and the whole net) for a week or so, as Elaine and I have had a slightly different Christmas from what we originally planned. The Plan was for us to go up to Helsinki for a couple of days (flying in Saturday evening, 18.12., and back lunchtime Tuesday, 21.12.) to see my family, and then to fly to New Jersey on Christmas Eve to spend a week with Elaine's family.

Well, we did get to Helsinki on Saturday, but before the trip I hadn't actually shut down my laptop completely for several weeks, and thus not noticed that the latest operating system upgrade had broken the wireless LAN driver - something I only discovered when powering up the laptop in Helsinki. So no internet or e-mail - no major problem for a 2-day visit.

Except that on Sunday evening I got violently ill, with heavy stomach pains and vomiting. According to Elaine, she's never seen anyone so ill.
Managed to drag myself to a doctor on Monday morning, and got sent to the university hospital surgery unit, as he couldn't rule out my appendix as the source - and a burst appendix is not a very good thing to have. The local surgeons agreed - it was a borderline case, but they couldn't rule it out, so (with my agreement) they decided to take it out just in case. Went in for surgery under full anesthesia at 3am on Tuesday morning (they left all the "easy cases" last in the queue), and everything went OK. Too bad it turned out the appendix was perfectly fine. But, well, in case we ever decide to go to Antarctica, I am prepared...

Poor Elaine was stuck in a country with a language that she didn't understand *any* of, and left with quickly rearranging everything (as it was pretty clear we were not going to be flying back to Amsterdam later that day). After a number of phone calls and faxed documents to KLM she got the flights rescheduled and the hotel extended. I got released on Wednesday, and we spent a leisurely day and a half in Helsinki. Our flight back to Amsterdam was on Friday afternoon - and as Christmas Eve. not Christmas Day, is the big day for the Finns, *everything* was closed in Helsinki on Friday. Finally found a place for lunch (even the hotel restaurant was closed), before heading out to a rather quiet airport.

Of course we had to cancel the New Jersey trip (long flights definitely not recommended after surgery due to greatly increased risk of deep vein thrombosis), and as we got back to Amsterdam late on Christmas Eve, we didn't have any Christmas decorations, Christmas food or presents - until we went into "well, let's improvise" mode. Have to say it was actually a very nice Christmas, with a very psychedelic optic fiber Christmas tree, and recycled presents.

The funniest part was back in Finland - Elaine couldn't speak or understand Finnish, so she was being very quiet, while carrying all my stuff (as I am not allowed to lift anything heavier than 1 kg/2 lb for a couple of weeks). All he finns must have thought I had found the ideal wife (well, I have, but that's another story...).

So, anyway, my belated wishes for wonderful and happy holidays!

Julf