Il Padrino

4 days old - with a smile to melt the glaciers of Greenland
© Tone

Turning 3 weeks
© Me

I have been asked to have to honour to be gdfather for my stepsister's firstborn son, Håvard, An honour I am very moved to get and would then share with her brother and baby sister along with Haralds brother. I have already gotten the trust to be the first one outside the Mum-Dad circle to babysit him. Be it just an hour. Be it just walking his trolley around Sandvika Storsenter, nonetheless - it felt great. To be responsible for something that precious. To have your heart beat like that. Sure we ain't blood related, but we sure are Family.

Traditionally, the godparents were counted informally responsible for ensuring that the child's religious education was carried out and for caring for the child should he/she be orphaned. Today the word "godparent" may not have explicitly religious overtones. The modern view of a godparent tends to be an individual chosen by the parents to take a vested interest in the child's upbringing and personal development

From what I have seen he is a very calm and happy little fella. He sleeps well and does not rely on screaming to get his will through. I have very high hopes that he will be a wonderful acquaintance and is indeed a welcome addition to the Bryn-James_Olsen-Karlsen-Hahne family.

And we're back!

Draw your own conclusions ... I've drawn mine.
And my conclusions are that if I was able to stay offline for two months now I can't really be all too addicted. And if I show the tendency to be once again I'll uninstall it again. Wish me luck as I re-enter Azeroth. Even though it may take some time. The installation is 8 CD's and the patch file has grown to 1125 mb.

The 20080123-post that stated:

I can't really see myself staying and playing WoW very casual
- that just ain't me

Quess we'll just have to see about that

Who is Tyler Durden?

Friday mood sets in. I could do something constructive. Or I could post random Fight Club-quotes. I chose the latter one.
I'll let you in on a secret. I actually don't like Fridays very much. I am more of a Tuesday-guy.

Lars, proving life in Sthlm is dangerous

Tyler Durden: We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives.

Tyler Durden: We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off.

Tyler Durden: It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything.

Tyler Durden: You're not your job. You're not how much money you have in the bank. You're not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You're not your fucking khakis. You're the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world.

Tyler Durden: Listen up, maggots. You are not special. You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake. You're the same decaying organic matter as everything else.

Tyler Durden: How much can you know about yourself, you've never been in a fight? I don't wanna die without any scars. So come on; hit me.

Tyler Durden: Without pain, without sacrifice, we would have nothing.

Tyler Durden: Self improvement is masturbation. Now self destruction...

Tyler Durden: What do you want? Wanna go back to the shit job, fuckin' condo world, watching sitcoms? Fuck you, I won't do it.

Tyler Durden: Warning: If you are reading this then this warning is for you. Every word you read of this useless fine print is another second off your life. Don't you have other things to do? Is your life so empty that you honestly can't think of a better way to spend these moments? Or are you so impressed with authority that you give respect and credence to all that claim it? Do you read everything you're supposed to read? Do you think every thing you're supposed to think? Buy what you're told to want? Get out of your apartment. Meet a member of the opposite sex. Stop the excessive shopping and masturbation. Quit your job. Start a fight. Prove you're alive. If you don't claim your humanity you will become a statistic. You have been warned- Tyler.

There is a light that never goes out ...

... but it has been shining with all too low intensity these wintery months. I do, fortunately see it shining in again.

So I am opening up my window, letting it find it's way in here.

I feel warmer, more alive, more interested, more alert, more lively, more loving, more caring. If I ain't mistaken we are going in to brighter times and we are going there fast - at last!

"Flower with butterfly wings" (Orchid @ Mum's)

The Walk

Easter came and went. As I had hoped and expected, it brought a good solid walk for friday-saturday through the forests of Örebro county along Bergslagsleden. We started up early friday with a 140km drive to get there (thank you bro'!) and set off eventually.
We just had to start by walking a couple of kilometers in the wrong direction to warm up and get used to the pace.

The experience gained was that even though the Swedish Military didn't chose to take me on, I can apparantly do some good marching. And regardless of what the thermometer says,
you can get some good (hmm ...) sleep in a shelter at -10 ºC.
I suppose we proved to ourselves that we can stand each other's company once more (thank you Hugo!)

The Death-Defying Duo. Batman & Robin

The receipt was on the minus side, a couple of hundred SEK spent on food, same couple of hundreds on gas to get there and a sleeping bag to stay in and slightly more to get a pair of trekking pants. And a few layers of skin on the feet got peeled off.

On the plus side is a new experience, a strenghtened confidence
... and a whole lotta fresh air.



Lesson learned is that you CAN drink water straight out of a stream or lake and not get ill. And you CAN learn to appreciate slightly more spartan food than you are used to just by adding a little element of necessity and survival in to it.

Déjà vu

This last week gave me a small glimpse of a life I used to live. A small window opened up to a past where pairs was the rule. And soloists wheren't singing in those choires.
-A life were you can find yourself involved in a discussion where it can actually be a theme how one can clean his wardrobes best and where you are expected to show great interest in said topic.

A straightforward - no bullshittin' - friend of mine involved explained it as a pain in the ass and he hated spending time with people he didn't share any interests at all with.
Luckily for me we share the interests of diving, climbing, weightlifting, wintersports, summersports, underwatersports :)

Unfortunately for me, I can't say I loathe the pair-living that much.
I actually do miss it from time to time. At least the pair-thing, the pairs-things can indeed be slightly too much.

[Editors note: just had to post this post I started up writing to be able to get to new posts. Don't wanna leave any open ends in my Post-listing]

I love the smell of baby in the morning.

Fredrik Strage starts up a column by taking a starting point in two famous movie quotes in today's DN. (Paper format one slightly different from web version)

I love the smell of napalm in the morning

Robert Duvall in Apocalypse now

Nobody puts baby in the corner

Patrick Swayze in Dirty Dancing

And goes on to discuss gender differencies based on that. How you would never hear a girl quote that line from DD but they still carry it in their hearts. Their hope to be rescued away from their safety and day-to-day boredom by a hunk with strong arms.

Yupp, those arms seems strong enough

And how on the other hand you'll hear every man alive - at least every stereotype heteronormative man - toss the Apocalypse Now-quote in whatever context possible:

The meat is getting burned on the bbq honey
Don't worry sweetheart - I love the smell of napalm in the morning.

Or while at the gas station, gasoline fumes dense as a fog:

Ah, I love the smell of napalm in the morning

And well ... I would place myself somewhere in between, I love the smell of you in the morning. I love the subtle smell of a girl I on the bus' perfume. I long for a neck to hang on to and pick a trail of flowers left there, be it Kenzo's or a rosescented shower gel. Let me wake up by your side, but if you go please leave a fragrant trace on my pillow as you rush off.

---

This is also when I feel the most abroad, when reading Swedish papers like DN. I get in to the discussion and can relate to it. Like Zarembas discussion on the Lärarhögskolan and how everyone that can will go and report the school for violation of his or her's rights.

I have given it a try on reading Aftenposten, Dagens Næringsliv and other magazines back home in Oslo but I don't get drawn in to them that easily. Leaving the hotel after a good long breakfast with an hour's read in for instance DN or SvD. leaves me revitalized and ready to face a new day with endless possibilities.

Perhaps I haven't tried hard enough, but I have been subscribing to Aftenposten and peak in to Dagens Næringsliv as often as I can. But there are still too many unfamiliar faces and too many themes I can't get a feel for.

I haven't been bred in a society where discussions are about the Oil Fund and the "problem" that the government never seem to use it as much as people wish. I am born and raised in a Sweden with debths over their ears where media yearly lists how much the National Debth is on each and every one of us etc. (120 000 at the end of 2006)

-Is this even a problem? Well perhaps not, I don't see myself n o t beeing able to find and date a Norwegian girl over this. But I feel that I participate slightly less in discussions, I care slightly less about Stoltenberg and miss Halvorsen but I do know what I feel about Sahlin and Reinfeldt.
I suppose it will get better over time, I will assimilate and slide in to my new home. I am definately not fighting it. Kvikklunsj-eating langrenning Norwegian as I have become.

Dreaming of Strawberries

March has come upon us, and Easter is lurking just around the corner. Sms-ual reports tell me that the Swedish west coast has seen its first moped drivers ride around without a helmet. If that ain't a sign that spring is here I don't know what!
...and all I wanna do is "talk tonight, until the morning light". But since that isn't the case I will instead get off for a few hours of sleep before I am airborne and off for a Växjö job trip.

Whenever I'm alone with you
-You make me feel like I am home again
Whenever I'm alone with you
-You make me feel like I am whole again
Whenever I'm alone with you
-You make me feel like I am young again
Whenever I'm alone with you
-You make me feel like I am fun again

The Cure

I hope you know you really do.

---

And to once more refer to Oasis' song Talk Tonight:

...all my dreams are made of strawberry lemonade

Ah fuck it. These posts don't really add anything new. I will wait with posting until something new can be given. Something worth discussing, like Socialstyrelsens "Zero-vision" on suicides or how rewarding it can be to set out on a 100 km-trek with a dear friend with no other contact with the world than the random smoke signals our our camping stove will emit . But that ain't topics to be rushed through, and the first one ain't to be touched until Camus' myth of Sisyphus has been read through and the second one will have to wait until after Easter.

Stay tuned.

/Peace

I Take Pictures

I take pictures
Photographic pictures

Vince Clark, Photographic, Depeche 1981

Had a great session with Mr Olympus yesterday. And I keep posting the images on every availible channel I have. They are now availible at facebook, bilddagboken, forumet and most recently blogger :) So what do I make of this ....
well, I really need a flickr account. Read their homepage that 6,105 photos was uploaded in the last minute.

2008.03.09 Skøyen

Teddybjörnen Fredriksson
hans nos den var av garn
ja han var min bästa vän
när jag var ett litet barn..

Lasse Berghagen

The "irony" of this image is that I can actually see my office in it. It gives the picture an extra dimension. And writing this I get a message saying that my stepsister has given birth to a baby, a Håvard. Needless to say, I know what to get him for his baptism.

Jack is Back

I have up to today only seen the first three seasons (six released per today) of this masterpiece that is known as "24". That means 72 episodes of pure mean raw Jack Bauer-ish action. A man famous to go his own way and having a slight problem with authority.
When the series first came (late 2001) it was quite groundbreaking having a show that was played in "real-time". That is a minute in the show is a minute in the characters lives. When the first three seasons were out I had the "privilege" to work 16h night shifts out in the middle of nowhere watching some containers during my time working @ Securitas. I remember spending three nights in a row watching the first three seasons, and wasn't bored a second.

The show IS Kiefer Sutherland and his impersonation of the Counter Terrorist Unit-agent Jack Bauer. I think they have (or will) change most of the other persons in the cast but without Jack it would just be weird.

The first four seasons in short.
S01 - Jack is set to protect Senator David Palmer on the day of the Presidential Primaries
S02 - Jack has to stop a nuclear bomb set to go off in LA and help the new president Palmer prove who's guilty
S03 - Jack must stop a deadly virus from being released while struggling with a heroin addiction he caught while working underground.
S04 - Jack, now off-duty from CTU working for Secretary of Defense finds his new employer kidnapped in an event linked to an internet attack and a train bombing.

What I love about the show is that it doesn't soften up, the don't cheer it up and make it rose-tinted. Jack has been quite deep into heroin, shot terrorists during interrogation. Chopped the arm of his daughter's boyfriend. And the other characters aren't much softer. During his kidnapping the Secretary (S04) finds it better to try kill himself than letting the terrorists broadcast his execution et cetera.

Much similar to Mr Bauer is the Texas Ranger-actor Chuck Norris. Surrounding both Jack and Mr Norris is a small (huge?) internet hype. Based on the listings of facts like
www.jackbauerfacts.com, www.chucknorrisfacts.com

Chuck Norris does not sleep. He waits.
America is not a democracy, it is a Chucktatorship

Today's LG is along the same lines

....on the seventh day Jack said, "I'll take it from here."
A standard deck now contains 48 cards.
-Too many people were getting hurt for trying to play Jack.
Jack Bauer can talk about Fight Club.

I have taken my side

Well well. Can't spend more time here. Got 67 episodes to see before S07 is released this autumn.

Save the Cheerleader - Save the World

Gotten around to see the full first season of the TV-series, Heroes. It took me little more than a week and of course some 15h on a bus to Stockholm and back helped make that possible.
Long time since I have been dragged in to a show like this. I get the same fresh feeling I got when I saw X-files for the first time. But hard to compare it in other ways since back then seeing an whole seaons over a week wasn't really an option.


The story and the plot is well known. Some indivuals find themselves with superpowers. A force is working against them. A greater good is to be reached and a villain is to be slain. Add some X-files-ish conspiracy theories about men with power working behind the curtains and you got the recipe all set.
All in all I can't really see much new it brings, can't put a finger on where it excels over other series. But it do indeed, the sum of all ingredients brew quite a tasty soup. I have found myself curling up in the sheets seeing through 3 episodes straight (some 2h) before finally being able to bend my fingers of the videoplayer to get some much needed hours of sleep. I found myself going back to the office 9 PM Sunday evening to be able get to see the last twenty minutes of the last episode since the batteries died at a very inconenient time.

Thank you Sandisk, thank you Tim Kring (creator of the series)


The player is proven to be able to play through 6.5 episodes on a full charge, or close to 5h for those who go by regular hours.