Last night I went over to Steve & Jill's place for dinner. Steve is in D.C. on business so it was just Jill, the kids, me and the next-door neighbors.

Anna Rose was running around like a little wildcat. I managed to get her to hold still long enough to take this photo.

Jill &: Steve's neighbors, Roxanne & Danny.

Jill & Grant.|| Supposedly Grant was sick, but he didn't let on.

Anna Rose wanted to play chase. But there's no running in the house! Mommy scolded me too!. :)

Check out Jill's new 20-inch iMac! Aweome, eh? Anna Rose played some online games before going to sleep.

After running around non-stop for 20 minutes, Grant decided to watch figure skating on TV. And by watch figure skating on TV I mean fall asleep on my lap.

The sun shone for a brief moment this morning.

The weather is improving here. The temperature is well above 10° C, and the sun even peeked out between the clouds for a while. I have fixed a big breakfast of Fredricksburg bratwurst and scrambled eggs with pressed orange juice. Yum!

The Draught House Pub

I went to the Draught House tonight for a couple of pints.

I met soe nice people there, including a guy from San Marcos and another fellow from Toronto.

I also met a couple of runners who had just run the marathon and half-marathon here in Austin. We chatted and exchanged stories.


The folks I met were very interested to know about Sweden.

The beer was delicious. I'll definitely be returning soon.

Here's the apartment where I'll be staying in Austin for the next 6 weeks. It's conveniently located just half a mile from the IBM building where I work.

Ok, one more for good measure.

I started work on the redbook today. I'm working in the ITSO office in building 905. Everyone here is complaining about the weather. It's not that bad. Heck, it's above freezing. What are they expecting? It's winter, for the love of tomatoes.

Here's the view outside my office window.

My desk. The U.S. and Swedish flags represent the home countries of my co-author and me. But they could just as well represent my two homes.

In the background, on the top of the cabinet, are dozens of other national and state flags. These are used to show the nations of origin of the guest residents working on projects at the ITSO.

I had breakfast this morning with my mom and dad. It was still below freezing outside, and there was an almost invisible layer of frost on the deck. Tom nearly fell while walking out on the deck. He caught himself, but not before spilling half a cup of coffee on Angel (one of the cats). Angel didn't seem to mind though; he just licked the coffee off his fur.

In the afternoon, we went over to Ethan & Kelly's place to help them a bit with the IKEA cabinets they are installing. Ethan is recovering from a construction injury sustained yesterday. It's a nasty cut on his back. He had 13 staples put in to hold the wound closed. Ouch. I must say though, the kitchen is beginning to look like a kitchen. Almost. It brings back memories of the renovations Lotta and I did back in 1999. Ethan has already told me that he expects me to help lay tile. Sounds like loads of fun, eh?

We went to Mangia Pizza on Gracy Farms Lane for lunch. It was yummy. Here Kelly details the nuances of her life as a rogue in World of Warcraft.

My mom wore the Dale sweater that she bought in Norway last summer. I think it looks great on her. Even though it is a bit too big. ;)
Tomorrow will be my first day at the office. I'm looking forward to meeting the folks with whom I will be working, and of course seeing some familiar faces again. I'll be working in one of the IBM 90X buildings on Burnet Road — much nicer than the old former manufacturing plant buildings across the street.
It's barely past ten o'clock here, but it's well past bedtime according to my body. I won't have any trouble getting up tomorrow morning.

Here are a couple of photos from the approach into Chicago over Lake Michigan.

Arrival in Austin

I have arrived safely in Austin. It's cold here, about 30° F (-1° C). When I picked up my rental car, I almost slipped on the pavement because there was a thin layer of ice covering the ground. The car (a Chevrolet Malibu) warmed up quickly and the ice on the windshield melted after just a few minutes.

On the drive out to my parents' house, I had to take the 183 access road most of the way because the raised sections of the roadway were closed — probably due to the risk of icing. Near MoPac there was an SUV turned on its side in the middle of the highway. Several others had stopped to help, and there was a tow truck just arriving when I passed.

When I got out to my folks' place, I distributed the gifts I brought from Sweden (Chivas & Marabou for dad; Höganäs, Clarins & Anton Berg for mom). Now I'm getting ready for bed. It's been a long day and I'm sure I'll sleep like a log.

Greetings from 37,000 feet!

Hello from 37,000 feet! I'm using Boeing's nifty Connexion system — basically onboard wireless internet access. The flight attendant gave me a card with an access code good for 30 minutes of free access. That's just enough for a bit of chatting and blogging.

Right now we're somewhere over Northeastern Canada.

Here's a picture I took when we were somewhere beetween the UK and Iceland.

Swedish meatballs!

Cognac in the stratosphere.

Hello.

Wing.

Eye.

Cheers! See you soon, mom & dad!

It's snowing today in Stockholm. Nice big fluffy flakes. I'm almost sad to be going. My plane to the U.S. leaves in a couple of hours so I'm doing some last-minute cleaning and packing. See you on the other side of the Atlantic.

Are you up to the challenge?

I received this challenge from Åsa, who received it from Wånkan. Now I'm passing along the questions to the rest of you!

Four jobs I have had:

1. Stocker in a warehouse at Best Products
   
2. Computer lab administrator in my dormitory at UT Austin
   
3. Intern at Apple
   
4. Consultant at Tivoli / IBM
   

Four places I've lived:

1. Austin (parents' house on Rogge Ln.)
   
2. Austin (various dormitories and apartments on and around campus)
   
3. Austin (condo at Mesa Village)
   
4. Stockholm (condo in Bergshamra)
   

Four TV series I like to watch:

1. Babylon 5 (It's over, I know... doest that count?)
   
2. The Simpsons / Futurama
   
3. The Colbert Report / The Daily Show
   
4. Battlestar Galactica
   

Four places I've gone on vacation:

1. Croatia (from Split to Dubrovnik and back)
   
2. France (mostly the Nice area, but also Paris & Normandy)
   
3. Switzerland (I love mountains)
   
4. Colorado (did I mention mountains?)
   

Four films I can see over and over again:

1. A Bug's Life
   
2. Brazil
   
3. Blazing Saddles
   
4. Mulholland Drive
   

Four websites I visit daily:

1. My friends' blogs: Tobbe, Åsa, Danne, Anne, Erlend, Kevin
   
2. Ars Technica
   
3. Google News / Gmail
   
4. The Superficial — my guilty pleasure
   

Four favorite dishes:

1. Anything with curry (red or green)
   
2. B.C.D.
   
3. Sushi
   
4. Bratwurst, sauer kraut & mashed potatoes
   

Four places I'd rather be right now:

1. Conundrum Hot Springs
   
2. Backpacking somewhere I've never been
   
3. In bed with a friend (so nice, I had to copy it!)
   
4. Climbing at Klättercentret

Four people I challenge to answer these questions:

1. Steve & Jill
   
2. Ethan
   
3. Lotta (& all the girls I've loved before)
   
4. My legion of cheering fans
   

Curling is fun. But which team should I support?

Salsa dancing at La Isla

Last night I went to La Isla on Flemminggatan near Fridhemsplan. I took the level 4 salsa course. It was fast and tricky, with lots of turns. Still, I managed to make it all the way through the routine and remember it still this morning.

Here, Harvey and Pilar show the ladies how to do a fancy bit of styling, basically a bit where the girl shows off. Since the men didn't have to practice this part, we just stood on the sidelines and took pictures. :)

Harvey is one of the instructors with Stockholm Salsa Dance, the group that arranges the drop-in courses held at La Isla. He's a great dancer and is good at coming up with clever routines. Tonight's dance routine was a good one -- challenging, but doable. It also flowed really well: each move seemed to follow naturally from the one before.

After the lesson, they turned down the lights, turned up the music, and people began social dancing. Here are some of the pros.









And more folks on the dancefloor.

That's all for now. I was having so much fun dancing that I forgot to ask someone to take a picture of me. But guesss what? My picture is on one of the posters advertising the drop-in courses!

Yay! I'm famous!

Wireless network troubles

For the past few days I've been having some difficulty with my Linksys WRT54G wireless router. Every hour or so, my ThinkPad has lost its connection with the access point. This has been particularly frustrating this morning because I'm on call today, and have been trying to get work done since I was called at 5:30 to solve a problem with the scheduling system at work. I have to be able to connect to the IBM network to get any work done.

Well, I discovered what was causing the problem. I ran NetStumbler displayed a list of the WiFi devices within range of my computer. I quickly saw that another device in the neighborhood was using the same channel as my AP.

I selected channel 6 a long time ago because at the time no one else was using it. Now, there's another Linksys router out there (and very close, judging from the signal strength) that's also set to channel 6. This access point must have been installed recently, because I haven't seen it before, and the connection problems only begane a few days ago. Interference from the other access point (trying to communicate on the same frequency as mine) was surely the cause of my network troubles.

I connected to the web-based administration page of my router and select channel 14, because no other device within range was using any channel higher than 11. I then rebooted the AP to apply the change. To my surprise, my AP did not appear in the list of available networks when I refreshed the list. I waited a few minutes, thinking that it might still be rebooting. I refreshed the again, and still, my WRT54G did not appear. Uh oh.

After a few moments' puzzlement, I recalled that channels above a 11 are restricted in some countries (like the U.S. and Japan). I did a bit of digging through device preference windows, and eventually found the right option in the Advanced tab of the 802.11 a/b/g device properties window. I set Extended Channel Mode to Enable, applied the change to the device, and refreshed the list of networks again. Eureka — my AP appeared in the list.

I've been running happily on channel 14 for the past hour and a half, with narry a network problem to report. So far, so good.

Note1: I have hacked my Linksys WRT54G with custom firmware called Freeman. It makes the device much more capable than one with stock firmware.
Note2: If you're planning on getting Linksys wireless router and using custom firmware, be sure to get the WRT54GL. This model (with the L at the end) is the one that has sufficient memory to hold custom firmware.

Context is everything

I have often noted that context makes a big difference to how strangers react to a greeting. A while ago, I wrote about friendliness to strangers. I opined that random acts of friendliness, such as a smile or a simple hello, were a good idea. Well, recently, I have done some thinking about how the context in which the one meets people influences how they will react. Here are some anecdotes that illustrate my point.

• When travelling abroad, if I meet someone from my home town or from another place where I have lived, this stranger and I have an instant cammeraderie based on the fact that we share something that the others around us do not. Take for example, the folks I met at O'Leary's bar when watching the Super Bowl: we felt like we had an instant connection merely because we come from the United States. If I had met those same people in a bar in America, I am sure that we would not have felt the same connection.
• In 1992, I took a ten-week backpacking trip aroud Europe. During the trip I sought out other English speakers because we were a minority, especially in Eastern Europe. I noticed the same sense of cammeraderie with these folks because we shared a common language. Something funny happened the day after I returned from my trip. I was back in Austin, going to Threadgill's with my family. As we walked across the parking lot toward the entrance of the restaurant, there was a couple talking as they also walked from their car to the restaurant entrance. I overheard them and they were speaking in English of course. My initial instinct was to walk over to them and say, "Hey, you speak English! So do I! Where are you from?" I'd been in Europe for such a long time that the instinct to seek out other English speakers was still with me even though I was back in an English-speaking country!
• I was returning by subway from a party late at night a few months ago. Across from me was a cute girl, probably also returning from the evening's festivities. As most people do on the subway, we politley ignored each other, being careful not to make eye contect for very long. It's the sort of behavior one sees in animals when they're forced into crowded environments. Give the others as much space as you can. Well at one of the stations, a man stepped onto the train who was very intoxicated. He wasn't a mean drunk though; he was a hilarious drunk. He was making a fool of himself and talking with everyone on the train. He was a bit annoying though, and so the others on the train had this feeling in common. So all of a sudden, the girl across from me and I are on the same "team," so to speak. We're both thinking the same things about the drunk guy. She and I smiled and laughed a bit, and exchanged some small talk. So once again, having something in common, we felt a connection that hadn't been there before. If the drunk guy had not stepped onto the train, the girl and I would probably never have spoken to each other.
• At a fancy party, there seems to be the assumption that eveyone in attendence has something in common too, but what, exactly? Even if I hardly know the host and don'e know anyone else at the party, if I'm all dressed up and surrounded by others who are similarly attired, I feel like we're all in the same clique. The sentiment is probably not too far removed from tribalism.
• At parties in general, or when one has an introduction from a common aquaintence, there seems to be the assumption that the mutual friend has already checked you out. Consequently, people you meet this way are usually friendlier and more trusting that they otherwise would be.
• At the other end of the trust spectrum, there's the problem of meeting someone when walking down a dark street at night. A while ago I was working late at the office downtown. Around nine o'clock in the evening, I finally finished me work and left the office. It was quite cold, so I was walking quickly, hoping to get into the relative warmth of the subway station as soon as possible. I took a shorcut through the churchyard of Adolf Fredriks Kyrkan to save a bit of time. Ahead of me there was a woman walking in the same direction, but more slowly than I. As I sped up a bit to pass her, she suddenly stopped and braced herself, as though she expected me to attack her. She seemed positively terrified of me! I was shocked by her reaction, but I wasn't really sure that she was in fact afraid of me. Maybe she was in pain and needed help. I didn't know what to do. Anyway, I just kept walking. I figured that I would scare her even more if I stopped or spoke to her.
• Similarly,it has happened several times that a woman walking the opposite direction has crossed the street so as not to meet me. I don't think I look particularly scary, but my black overcoat and cowboy hat might give some people the wrong impression. A friend told me that a simple "good evening," really helps in situations like this. Don't stop, don't say more than that. Just say "good evening" and keep walking. She explained that this puts her at ease an reassures her that the stranger walking past is friendly and not threatening.
  I'm not a woman, so I guess I can't really understand this fear. But I can empathize. I'll try to remember to say "good evening" from now on.
  
• Another time, I was on a bus on my way to go dancing. There was a girl sitting across from me and we dutifully ignored one another because we were strangers. It felt awkward when we both got off the bus at the same time and walked to the same salsa club. We had acted like complete strangers, but we had something in common after all! As we danced, I mentioned that I had seen her on the bus but didn't know she was also going to the club. We both laughed at the fact that we had previously regarded each other with indifference.
• Sometimes, one is thrown together with another person by fate. Maybe you stop to help someone change a tire. Or you get stuck in an elevator. People you normally would never have met are suddenly there, and you have a reason to meet them. It's not that you or they are any different that when you pass one another on the street. Only circumstances are different.

As I think about these experiences and try to synthesize them into a common thesis, I am struck by how important context is to guaging the intentions of others. The stranger seems less strange if he or she is relatively similar to you. A common interest, background, language, or friend can be evidence for such similarities. And there are surely plenty of people out there who are dissimilar enough to us that we would normally not choose to spend time with them. Still, it's often circumstances and not the characteristics of the person that determine whom we meet.

Food for thought on a cloudy day.

Frukost i morse: pytt-i-panna med stekt ägg och rödbetor.

Women still underrepresented in industrial jobs.

STOCKHOLM — Despite the best efforts of government and women's groups, the percentage of women in certain industrial jobs in Sweden has failed to increase during the past three years. According to new statistics released in a report on Monday, women make up no greater portion of the industrial workforce today than in 2002, the last time data were reported. Of particular concern to feminist groups was a decline in female participation in some areas of industry that have typically been dominated by men. The number of women in waste disposal jobs, for example, fell from 2% to 1.5% during the period covered by the study. Women's rights groups are already reacting to the report by calling for more government regulation of industy.

Some groups have even called for the introduction a strict quota system to ensure that women are given equal access to important industrial jobs like waste disposal. "Fifty percent — no more, no less!" is the rallying cry of wewanthalf.org, new organization created with the intention of ensuring exactly fifty percent representation by both sexes in all areas of the labor market. When asked if there are enough women who actually want to work picking up garbage, a spokeswoman from wewanthalf.org responded: "With proper support from government, in the form of subsidies for female workers, there will be no problem ensuring that women are equally represented in the waste disposal industry."

Skating with Åsa on Edsviken & Brunnsviken

Today I went ice skating with Åsa. We started out by making one lap around Edsviken.



At Ulriksdals slott, we stopped for hot cocoa and snacks. We sat on a log down by the water. As we rested, organ music began to play in the chapel up the slope. I wonder if it was a wedding or just a normal Sunday church service.

After our break, we walked over to Brunnsviken and made one lap around before calling it a day. The ice wasn't as nice as on Edsviken, but it was still enjoyable.

Cowboy boots are fashionable in Stockholm.

Cowboy boots are in vogue here in Stockholm. Almost every woman I see seems to be wearing boots. They don't know about boot-cut jeans here though, so they wear their boots with their with tight jeans tucked inside.