Happy holidays!

An Attempt At Unrhymed Verse

People tell you all the time,
Poems do not have to rhyme.
It's often better if they don't
And I'm determined this one won't.

Oh dear.

Never mind, I'll start again.
Busy, busy with my pen...cil.
I can do it if I try--
Easy, peasy, pudding and gherkins.

Writing verse is so much fun,
Cheering as the summer weather,
Makes you feel alert and bright,
'Specially when you get it more or
less the way you want it.

-- Wendy Cope

Maze - Celine Clanet

Check out these really cool photos!

It's a new dawn, it's a new day

2:15 AM: Lights out.
2:16 AM: The wife falls asleep. I'm thinking: Wow, that was fast! But that's wonderful. She really needs to sleep after all she's been through.
2:18 AM: The wife starts to snore.
2:23 AM: Still snoring.
2:26 AM: Right...
2:36 AM: Should I wake her? No, she's sleeping so well. That's really good.
3:21 AM: On the other hand: I need to sleep too! We're driving home from the hospital tomorrow, and we both need to be alert.
3:27 AM: And isn't snoring bad for the quality of your sleep? Perhaps I'd better wake her.
3:28 AM: "Sweetheart! Sweetie!"
"Huh? What?"
"You're snoring."
"Oh, ok"
3:29 AM: The wife falls asleep again. Wow, that was fast!
3:31 AM: Silence.
3:35 AM: More silence
3:36 AM: I probably fall asleep.

And the third little person in the room has been sleeping, well, like a baby through all of this. As you should when you're 3 days old.

October 23rd 2010

Outside:


Inside:

Poem

Thank-you Note
by Judith Viorst

I wanted small pierced earrings (gold)
You gave me slippers (gray).
My mother said that she would scold
Unless I wrote to say
How much I liked them.

Not much.


Here's another poem that I like, by the same poet.

Sunday trip, October 3rd

Taking a walk not far from where we live. Lovely weather! But if you look closely you'll see there's a little ice on the water in the first photo. Fortunately it's been nice and warm this week, so winter isn't here yet:-)

Fun stuff

If historical events had facebook statuses

Summer 2010 - Trondheim

Spent some sunny, lazy days here...

Summer 2010 - Sundsvall

We immediately noticed these cool dragons while walking around the centre of Sundsvall. According to the hotel receptionist Sundsvall is called the city of Dragons. I didn't know that, but the sculptures is a nice way of showing it. Every year you can vote for you favourite dragon - I guess new dragons are added every summer? The flying dragon was the winner of 2008.

Mosjøen

This is actually the area we were driving through today! But we skipped the cliff diving. Only because it was raining, of course:-)

Holiday 2010 - Luleå

We drove through Sweden on our way from Alta to Trondheim. This is from the park outside our hotel in Luleå. Luleå was a lovely little city, but very quiet when we were there, because of some kind of midsummer celebration. The celebration was obviously not in Luleå!

Finnmarksløpet

Some impressions from Finnmarksløpet, the northernmost sled dog race in the world! More dogs! And, of course, most of the photos I have "borrowed" from the lovely wife.

Some photos from the opening of the race in the centre of Alta:





And here are some photos from the start of the 1000 km race on the Alta river:











And they're off:

Lots of energy!

Ready, steady...




GO!

Snowy night

Walking home from a pleasant evening with friends, Saturday night in early March. It had been snowing all night, but when we started walking it stopped for a little while.

I think we might be missing out!

From a short interview with designer Afroditi Krassa:
If you could travel back in time, which period would you most like to visit and why? This is a no-brainer for me; it’s got to be Classical Greece. We are talking about a time when you had a Goddess specializing in the protection of prostitutes, a God of wine which you celebrated by getting totally high on alcohol an drugs, free theatre, as well as a chance to work on projects like the Parthenon. 2,500 years later, are we missing out on something?

Read the rest here.

Cross country skiing today

Starting off from home:


Ten minutes later:


It's nice living this close to the skiing trails!

Whole lotta winter

Today I got the bright idea that I should take a walk along the water. I started out on a nice little path, that sort of petered out. I ended up wading through snow up to my tighs! Got some nice shots with my mobile phone camera, though:-)

Good reading

From Mark Morford's column:

Behold, an item known henceforth as the National Impact Survey of the Radical Homosexual Agenda in California Public Schools, as recently and furtively received/discovered by yours truly, your humble and sexually perverted and imperfectly liberal, very-straight-but-very-gay-rights-supporting satire columnist, in a roundabout manner I cannot divulge right now lest I might get shot waiting in line at Starbucks.

What is the NISRHACPS, you ask? Why, it's a document. It's a mailer. It's a survey of sorts, a short, wretched little questionnaire made entirely of sadness and bile and fear.

It's a piece of paper sent out en masse to particular members of the Republican party who are so openly terrified of all homosexual personages, they fully believe said gays are actively bewitching and recruiting your innocent children behind the locked doors of hugely perverted schoolhouses near you.

This document is, apparently, highly confidential. Everything about it -- the shouty ALL CAPS HEADLINES, the copious red ink, the simpleton second-grade language -- screams that I'm not supposed to be reading it, given how I have, you know, a functioning intellect, can walk upright, enjoy copious amounts of sex, and speak in complete sentences. Often all at the same time. I know!

In fact, most liberals, moderates, chimps, garden gnomes and humans with intact brainstems have likely never seen this document, given how it is carefully targeted only at persons of dangerously limited consciousness, people who clearly think book learnin' is for elitists, the vagina was created by the devil and Sarah Palin is like, super-duper smart, and stuff.

Read more here!

Driving over the mountain to Hammerfest

33 degrees Celsius below zero! More photos here and here:-)

Sunday Morning in Oslo

This is where the government do some of their work:


Grand Hotell:


The street leading up to the royal castle:


The royal castle:

Winter trees in Lillestrøm

We're visiting the south of Norway - they actually have more snow here than we have up north! Perhaps they can send some of the snow to Vancouver? :-)