Here are a few more Christmast photos. This is the music room in my parent's house, the traditional place for the family Christmas tree.

Ellie, Mark and Melanie down by the creek.

My mother's parents joined us at Heimat (the Karbach homestead in New Braunfels) for the Christmas celebration with my dad's side of the family. All of my aunts, uncles and cousins were in attendance.

Jake opens a gift while Gwynna, Dustin and Lowry look on.

Jon, Beth, Oliver and Matt were also paying close attention.

Jake seems fond of his Karbach sign. All the cousins got these becuase Karbach is the name of our great grandfather.

Gary and Oliver show off for the camera.

Kelly watches intently. My dad distributed gifts from under the tree.

I'm sure something really interesting caught everyone's eye, but I don't remember what. :)

In what promises to become an anual event, the cousins participated in a lego building race. It was all arranged by Ethan, who let each cousin choose a lego set to build. The one who finished building his set first won an extra set! Here Jake starts to build the Millenium Falcon.

Master lego builder and professional engineer Taylor took an early lead.

Gwynna didn't chose the easiest model.

Lowry chose the twin pod racers -- probably one of the more difficult ones.

Matt -- another expert lego builder -- chose the twin space ships.

Duke chose the most complicated of the lego sets, and decided to build it in the bedroom away from distractions.

The race is on!

Taylor declares victory.

Gwynna (third place after Taylor and Matt) displays her creations.

Duke wins the booby prize for finishing last -- a Duplo kit for remedial Lego training.

But wait! There's a problem with the Millenium Falcon model. Jake wins the booby prize instead!

Here's a nice photo of me with my mother's parents.

And here's my dad distributing the Karbach sausage signs.

Here's a photo my aunt Melanie took of me in the meadow behind my parents' house.

This afternoon we drove down to my aunt and uncle's house on Lake Dunlap in New Braunfels.







A heron took off just as I was taking this photo.

We sat and visited for a while, had lasagna for dinner, and then played games until bed time.

Bull Creek photos











The stems of some of the tall grasses had these delicate ribbons of ice at their bases this morning. My guess is that these plants finally succumbed to the freeze last night (the first hard freeze of the season here), and the water oozed out in tiny droplets, freezing in the cold night air.

This morning, I took a walk in the meadow behind my parents' place in Austin.

The recent rains probably explain why the creek is flowing so much.||

After several failed attempts to meet up, Tina and I finally managed to get together for lunch at Mikado, a nice Japanese restaurant on Burnet & 183.

This is the new Frost Bank building in downtown Austin. I think it's pretty.

Dave Hill's party

Dave Hill's party was fun as usual.


Ethan and Kelly seemed to have a good time too.


Dave wore his black Bah Humbug hat.

My mom says hello from Austin. Note the two bottles of starkvinsglögg on top of the fridge.

Homesick

Being back in Austin has been an interesting experience. It's good to be back among framily and friends, and I feel comfortable navigating the city. Despite having lived in a foreign country for more than four years, I can quickly blend in when I get back "home" to Austin. But the odd thing is that Austin doesn't quite feel like home anymore. It does and and it doesn't. I feel at home in both places, but totally at home in neither. It's an odd feeling. When I drive around familiar places in the city, I feel homesick for them because I know I'll be leaving soon. But at the same time I feel homesick for Stockholm and the people and places there. Being an expatriate can be rewarding, but also confusing.

Safe and sound in Austin

Yesterday I flew from Stockholm to Austin, to visiy my family for the holidays. When I arrived at the gate at Arlanda, I got an upgrade to Economy Flex, where I had a slightly nicer seat and better food than ordinary Economy. The seat also had a power outlet for laptops and so on, but I never got a chance to use it. The flight passed quickly: the food was good and I actually managed to get an hour or so of sleep. I also watched the new remake of The Manchurian Candidate. It was okay. O'Hare was uneventful. The flight from Chicago was quick and smooth. Ethan's girl Kelly picked me up at the airport and I joined the family for dinner. Tonight we're going to David Hill's party, which is usually quite fun. This afternoon I'll try to go running for an hour to keep up my training regimen.

Lucia 2004 @ IBM Stockholm

Today is Lucia, a holiday celebrated all over Sweden. Here you can see the choir that came to the IBM HQ today and sang Lucia and Christmas songs.

Sunset walk

As the sun set this afternoon, I took a nice walk along the southern shore of Brunnsviken. Here are some photos I took along the way.

Sasha & Alex sleeping on the blue couch.

New knife holder

To clear up some space on my kitchen counter, I replaced the bulky knife block with a magenetic knife holder.


I've had this set of Henkels 4-Star knives for about six years. I keep them sharp, and I wash them by hand right after using them. I expect that they'll last another 60 years. The kitchen shears are the most solidly built of any I've seen. I can really recommend this brand.



In addition to being more practical, I think the new knife holder is also more attractive. I tried to take a few artistic shots; I think these turned out okay.


Zwilling J.A. Henckels is welcome to send me a free set of knives in return for the publicity. I don't need them, but they're great gifts.

IBM sells PCD to Lenovo

Well, it's the end of an era. Today, IBM announced the sale of the Personal Computing Division to Lenovo. Lenovo's press release provides another perspective on the deal. Although Apple is generally credited with inventing the personal computer, IBM introduced the PC to a larger audience. After Compaq reverse-engineered the IBM PC, the market was soon flooded with inexpensive PC clones. Soon after, Microsoft's Windows became the standard operating system for PCs. AMD brought competition to the market for x86 microprocessors, and Linux now stands to give Windows some competition. As a result of these developments, PCs are now commodities; and it no longer makes much of a difference what company makes the PC. This is a good move for IBM. IBM has probably lost money on its PC business for the past 5 years. IBM is wise to concentrate on the markets where it does well: high-end servers and consulting services.

IBM is getting out of the business of selling x86 computers. It will be interesting to see if IBM now embarks on a new crusade to sell more computers based on Power Architecture.