January 29, 2008
As you may know, we cycle to work most days rather than drive or take the train. Yesterday it just so happened I had to drive in to work and it took me a very long time to get in to work. For a while I have been wondering how long exactly it takes me on the bike and how that compares to the other modes of transport. Hence, today I timed my self as we cycled in. The results were as follows:
- 04.02 – getting ready to go
- 33.24 – cycling to work
- 02.58 – parking and getting to changeing room
- 05.54 – changeing clothes
All in all it took 46 minutes. The train in comparison takes approx. 10, 10, 20, 10 minutes or 50 minutes in all. When I cycle fast in it takes me upto 10 minutes less so when i dont have to change clothes and cycle fast the overall time is about 30 minutes and I get really good exercise. I hope I never get too lazy to keep up this lifestyle.
January 5, 2008
Christmas this year was very nice. We had Suze’s whole family gathering at our place for lunch on Christmas day. This was the first time in two years that her family had got together. Lunching and gift ceremonies were enjoyable and the internationally traditional Trivial Pursuit game in the afternoon gave the day an authentic Christmas feel. Fortunately the day was only about 25°C but to be on the safe and mod-oz side we opted to serving seafood during lunch followed by Valberg’s ever popular chocolate & mint ice cream (recipe). Naturally Christmas time in the southern hemisphere does not feel like ‘real’ Christmas to a globetrotter from the north. Even many Australians find that the whole ideology, colors, obsession with lights and snow a bit out of place on a hot day with the sun melting even the tarmac. Southern Christmas time has a different kind of meaning. Christmas here marks the start of the summer holiday season. Most people take their summer holidays during and following straight after Christmas. It will surely take me a while to get used to this. I kind of feel that Christmas as I remember it has exited the calendar to be replaced by a completely different kind of Christmas. No matter, she´ll be right!
+ Christmas Pictures 2007
October 16, 2007
Yesterday was the hottest day in Melbourne since I arrived. It got up to 30 degrees, which was all well and good except, I had a job interview that day. I got all suited up, even put on a nice tie and headed off. As I kept walking to the train station I just got hotter and hotter and hotter. By the time I got into the shade at the station I was sweating like a pig. A nice hot day is all very well, but I don’t recommend wearing a suit and a tie.
The interview went well. I had probably lost some of my professional look having taking off my jacket to try and cool down a bit but the guy interviewing me was quite nice and we had a good conversation about the job.
Once I got back home I have to admit that I did not get straight into my work. I got my towel and trunks and went for a swim at the beach. That, is how a hot day should be spent 
April 18, 2007
Eurovision season is upon us again. The songs have been selected and the contest will be held soon. As usually the assorted collection of songs is mostly beyond listenable, they are worse than Barry Manilov in overly tight pants. In between however there are a few that are reasonably good. To my own surprise the Icelandic one is amongst those and the Finnish one is in my opinion the winner. Go here to see all the songs. Here is my list of not so bad songs for this years competition:
April 17, 2007
Well now, I have to admit that I am not the kind of person who enjoys riding in cars. As any normal Top Gear watching geek, I do enjoy driving an amazing and powerfull car or going on a 4×4 excursion every now and then but the act of using a car to get from A to B I find not only exceedingly boring but particularly frustrating. Especially in cities where every other car is right there smack middle in your way. Needless to say I can get pretty angy when driving. My fantastic solution to the problem is not to use a car at all! Most of my life can be arranged so that I dont have to use the car. When we lived in Miðstræti I walked to work, walked to the pub, walked to the sailingclub, walked to the coffeeshop, walked to the park and walked to the cinema. Everything was close at hand and I have very little use for the car. Admittedly getting the groceries is a pain without the car but everything else was fine. For the whole two years we lived there, this was my life and the car was no major component in it. A friendly little bugger called James actually. Most of our time spent together was me cleaning and waxing. Then we moved to the burbs about 6 months ago now. The INNER burbs mind you, I´ll have none of that outer burbs crap thank you very much. And all of a sudden me and James become best pals. We ride together to work, to the shop, to Suzes work, to the cinema, to the gym and even to the video store sometimes (how lazy is that). From the moment we moved to the burbs I vowed to start cycling to work but for a long time, nothing happened. To be honest the Icelandic winter is nothing to look forward to so I did have something of an excuse. Eventually though I decided to make good on my promise to my self and get the bikes into shape with the intention of cycling to work instead of driving. At this stage the relationship between me and James was getting a little frosty. It was just one of those too-much-time-spent-togeter thing. James is a fantastic car and it wasnt really his problem. Spending my time in a car is just not what I like to do. Finally then, after almost half a year of living in the burbs I got my act together and started cycling to work. It was actually much easier than I had anticipated and so pleasant to spend time in the fresh air doing a little excersise before starting the working day. I now cycle to work most days, even on the really cold, rainy windy days. Today I even brought my other old friend a long, my GPS. Me and my Garmin GPS 12 go more than a decade back and have spent some very exciting times together. Today Garmin told me the stats about my ride to work
- Max speed: 62.2 km/h (actually this might be a lie, Garmin is only human)
- Average speed: 22 km/h
- Distance: 4,4 km
- Elapsed time: 12 minutes
To compare this to riding with James to work it rarely takes less than 15 minutes to get to work due to traffic and traffic lights in the morning rush hour. It has actually taken about 45 minutes to get home from work during especially heavy traffic and frequently takes 30 minutes. In fact getting home during peak hours rarely takes less than 20 very frustrating minutes.
April 16, 2007
I had this theory. A neat little theory that people are either good linear thinkers or good creative thinkers. You are either good at one or just able to do both, not good at both. In most part this theory stands. My creative friends who work in advertising will never come up with the most efficient solution to a practical problem and my more practicaly oriented, somewhat geeky friends usually dont do anything that cool. One person broke the mold though and I have been rethinking my theory ever since, as of yet to no avail. Dave is a geek. He is an engineer with some family history of mathematical genius. He is friendly and a nice person, but not the most socially skilled person I know. So I safely assumed that he was a good linear thinker, which so far I think he is. If my theory holds true, Dave should therfore not be a good creative thinker. As I was telling him this he gave little credit to my theory and claimed to be a reasonably good creative thinker too. I ofcourse challenged him to prove it and gave him a pen to draw a sketch of his father in law Rick, who was with us at the time. The result was a sketch accurate enough to convince me that my theory might not be as solid as I had thought. Now, I am left to rethink my thory and as of yet I have go nowhere.
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March 9, 2007
I don´t know why people insist I write a blog, I can´t possibly think of why anyone would want to read about my daily life events. However, I will pass on this little story from my beautiful niece in Melbourne that my sister told me. My sister and her husband Dave were discussing his bosses demands when my niece pipes up with a solution to the problem. “Why don´t you just run away” she exclaimed or you could also put him in the “naughty room” (the naughty room is the laundry in my sisters house where little girls get sent if they can´t control their tantrums until they calm down). I love the way children come up with the best sollutions. Perhaps there should be a naughty room for demanding bosses 8*). I wonder what the world would be like if we let our children take care of more of our problems,…. beautifully simple I suppose.
March 6, 2007
As you probably know by now, if you are not a complete internet recluse, Google is now much more than just a search engine. They keep comming up with new and really cool stuff and buy up companies which have made interesting products. A couple of their most recent aquisitions are by now amongst my favourite computer toys; Google Earth (previously Keyhole) and SketchUp. If you have not yet downloaded and tried these two applications I strongly reconmend that you do. Google Earth is a map of the earth which you can browse like you were spinning a globe. It is much more powerfull that just that but I wont go into too much detail here, let it suffice to say that trying out this tool is an absolute MUST. SketchUp is a 3D design tool that makes drawing houses and other real life objects very easy. Its fun to work with, altough design newbies like my self just end up designing houses that look like space ships. Dont blame the tool though for the tool is great, it’s just the designer that isnt.
The coolest thing though was when Google brought those two together and made it possible to publish your 3D building from SketchUp in Google Earth! Now you can draw up the house you live in, or the house you would like to build and view it in the context of where in the world it is meant to be. Needless to say, I have drawn up and placed “Our house”, or rather the appartment we currently live in. Go here to see the result. Click on “View in Google Earth” and you will see exactly where on earth we live. If you have been missing out on the latest and greatest from Google, make sure you go and get “Google Pack“. It is a bundle with the latest tools and an updater to keep them fresh for you.
* Our house [1]
January 16, 2007
James, our trusted servant has today passed his yearly checkup with perfect results. Not that we expected him to give us any grief but for a 10 year old car this is a good result. James has been in our service now for two years and given us much pleasure. Admittedly he was a bit sick when we first hired him. Nothing that some TLC could not cure though. Soon he was better and has been fine ever since. Now James has a doctors pass untill the 8th of the 8th of 2008, witch as many people know is the same day as Suze and I are getting married.
