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2002-09-29 21:55:33 Source: Web
4 years!
Yup, that's how long I've been living in Sweden. It was four years and 1 day ago that I hopped on a plane with a rucksack full of clothes intended to last me the month or so that it would take me to find a place of my own.
A lot has happend since then - to say the least!
Lotta and I are still going strong of course (we went out to celebrate a little this evening, so of there are more typos than usual you can blame it on the low alcohol beer I was drinking ;-)
I now own property!
I've had 3 different jobs and have been through some *major* ups and downs! (Fortunately on an upwards trajectory at the time of writing).
I've changed a lot as a person. I mean sometimes I look at myself now and think that the person I was before I moved would never have been able to predict that I would develop as I have done. The nice thing is that at least I'm comfortable with most of the changes in myself. I'm even starting to get used to driving a car for chrissakes! I very much like the fact that I have started to settle down a little and I've done some things over the last few years that I've always hoped to do. On the whole I think I'm happy with my changes.
If I'm going to criticise, I would have liked to have travelled a bit more, I would like to have had some more free time - though I don't always appear to know how to use it when I get it!
I'm also slowly making my peace with London! After I moved away I was so extremely negative in my attitude to London that visiting was almost painful for me! Now I realise that I don't live there any more and so my attitude is a little more relaxed. Last time I visited I felt pretty negative about the place, but I think that I was feeling pretty stressed in general. I can visit London as a tourist and not have to buy into the whole dog-eat-dog London mentality.
Finally, I thin I can definitely say after 4 years here that Sweden is most definitely my home now. As a friend of mine pointed out this evening, I've lived here for an eighth of my life! For someone who aged 25 counted that he had moved more or less once a year on average through his life, that's quite an achievement! I feel extremely settled here, I feel like the pace of life suits me very well and above all I constantly feel lucky, gifted and rewarded to be living in Gothenburg, a town which feels more likie home than anywhere I have lived since Exeter.
One thing I do know about life is that you can never predict what lies around the corner. I just hope that the corner leads to another pleasant Swedish street ;-)
2002-09-26 20:36:25 Source: Web
We move office tomorrow. I'm quite looking forward to being in a new space, although the fact we are moving away from the centre of town to an industrial estate doesn't exactly fill me with joy. Oh well, at least we get more space, air conditioning and a lovely new server room with a custom laid LAN and rack mounting! Mmmmm!
Driving lessons are going pretty well. I've now driven on motorway (that's compulsory for learners in Sweden), though only a section rated at 70kph. Apparently we'll be doing some 90kph motorway next time! My new teacher (the old one retired - was it something I said???) reckons I only need another 5-10 lessons. That's pretty good going I thinbk considering I haven't had any chance to drive apart from my paid lessons. However I'm hoping I can rope Lotta's folks into accompanying me on a drive at the weekend.
Apart from that I'm pretty tired and looking forward to getting tomorrow's chaos over so I can concentrate on the weekend ;-)
2002-09-20 11:01:01 Source: Web
OK - so Slashdot have published a whole bunch of evidence that the Smiley was around earlier than 20 years ago. Bah humbug I say - let us have Smiley day ;-)
Also, following up the general amazement that I was at the Swedish Masters golf tournament, I thought the attached photo would raise a few laughs from peeps who know me well. This was taken at a jammy junket thrown by our hosting provider - Tripnet. Yup, that's me taking a wild swing at a golf ball. Fortunately they didn't let us beginners out on the course, but we did get to have fun thwacking balls at the driving range. Pretty good fun all in all ;-)
2002-09-19 07:55:22 Source: Web
Today is a landmark day in the world of the Internet.
Today we celebrate the birthday of a character (or set of characters) that have changed the face of human communication.
Today is (as I'm sure you of course all knew) the 20th birthday of....
drumroll please
The Smiley!!!
:-)
Yup, according to this article, the smiley sprang fully formed into the world on the 19th September 1982.
http://research.microsoft.com/~mbj/Smiley/Smiley.html
Smiley, we salute you!
2002-09-16 21:32:16 Source: Web
We went live! Hurrah!
http://tickets.eviantour.com/ or http://tickets.solheimcup.golf.se in case you're interested! We're handling the booking for the whole of the 2003 event - that's a whole lotta tickets!
Let's just say that this project has the biggest potential audience of any I have built to date (oh - and if you find anything on the site that doesn't seem to work right, just give me a shout!).
2002-09-15 20:04:00 Source: Web
More work - 76 hours of it this week!
Hopefully we go live tomorrow (though it may drag on until tuesday) after putting in 20 hours this weekend I will not be sorry to see this site go live.
More later!
2002-09-10 22:19:00 Source: Web
In case you're wondering why no updates for the last week - I'll sum it up in one word - work!
Yup, my holiday was broken off the day after my last blog entry as things started to happen again on the project I've been working on. *sigh* However, all in all, I was not really getting much out of actually holidaying so I'm taking the attitude that I had a break and now I can put in another couple of months before I take another break and hopefully travel somewhere with Lotta.
So what *haven't* I done? I haven't cycled any long distances. I haven't been swimming for a while. I haven't done any programming for my new site idea.
On the other hand, I have been getting further with driving (getting in basic "Drive around without hitting people, cars, kerbs" practise lately), I have fitted IR sensors and much, much better wheels to my robot and I have spent too much time watching TV.
Oooh! And we saw a completely brilliant soapbox downhill race at the weekend. Remember how pretty much every month or so there would be a soapbox (home-built go-cart) race in Whizzer & Chips or The Beano? Well I always dreamt of taking part in one. At the weekend there was a major soapbox race in the park near our flat, sponsored by Red Bull and featuring over 60 carts! There's some pics here under the link "Galleri" (the site is Swedish I'm afraid!).
Man! I *so* want to take part next year - and so does Lotta, so maybe we'll remember the race in time to build our own cart next year. I want to go with an Adams Family inspired hearse theme ;-) However, we may need to try and find a bit of garage space or similar somewhere if we want to take on a project like that.
Hmmm - a workspace!!! Now *that* would be something nice to have ;-)
2002-09-03 16:05:42 Source: Web
I've finally gotten round to adding some photos from the Strange Fruit performance we saw. Here's a small example, but you'll find a few more in the Gallery.
My holiday so far has been OK. A little up and down perhaps, I've been much less active than I would have liked, though in a way that was the whole point of the exercise! However I haven't done a lot of the things I had hoped I would do with my free time and that's left me feeling a little down.
On the other hand, I have done some of the fun things I was hoping for. My second robot chassis is now finished and today I picked up some IR components to give it the ability to sense objects and navigate around them. Seems to work pretty well. The driving lessons have been coming along swimmingly as well. We've been driving in tighter traffic lately and on the whole I think I'm coping with it pretty well. I'm starting to get my head around the fact that I probably can manage to be an OK driver after all!
Hmm, perhaps if I go for a swim I will feel like I've done something active today ;-)
2002-08-28 13:54:04 Source: Web
Mmmmm! Banana bread!
I just made some banana bread for the first time in many years (we had a whole pile of bananas that were turning black). I dug up a great recipe on the net which turned out to be almost as good as the one I remember my mum making many years ago.
Recipe here
I can't think of a nicer way to try out the new oven (well, apart from the great chocolate cake that Lotta made the first time we used it!).
I'll be putting on some weight then this holiday!
2002-08-26 20:51:17 Source: Web
Well, I got parole holiday at last! I'm free from tomorrow for a week and a half. I've said I will be available in case anything pops up, so no trips to the UK or anything, but for the first time in ages I have a holiday ahead of me where I can just chill out, work on some private projects (robot building, flat decorating, cycling, swimming etc) and relax.
Should be plenty of time to keep my site updated then ;-)
The weekend was great as well - we saw 5 different performances. Outstanding were Strange Fruit - an Australian performance group who's almost indescribably work is a ballet where the performers are atop long flexible poles! We saw them a couple of years ago and I posted a link a couple of entries ago. I've taken masses of photos, so I'll be posting some to the gallery before too long.
Also outstanding were La Compagnie Du Hanneton - a small group led by the grandson to Charlie Chaplin (James Thierry). I remember seeing his earlier company - La Cirque Imaginaire - many years ago in London. His work has a wonderfully surreal style, combining circus with Dadaist humour, slapstick and some of the most fantastic constumes you will ever see in the theatre. This was definitely one of the best pieces of new circus I have *ever* seen and they received a 5 minute standing ovation! Absolutely astounding.
We also saw a French/American collaboration called Cahin-caha. They were much more in the style of Archaos, though without the industrial machines. Lots of dark French visual humour and unfortunately some really uncomfortable seating. They are running a 3 day workshop, which I'm currently deliberating over attending as I happen to be free thos days. It sounds like a real challenge including some aerial work. Having only just found out that I'm going to be available I haven't quite decided whether I want to do it yet (it costs a bit as well), however as the people in the circus were completely mad, it would probably be a great experience. Hmmmm!
The other performances we saw were a high-wire act based on Nosferatu(!) and a traditional Japanese Bunraku puppet performance (if you ever thought western opera was intricate and involved you ain't seen nothing yet!). The Bunraku was quite fantastic, though pretty deep.
Well, that's another longer update. I'm gonna think through my holiday plans and I'm sure I'll be back real soon!