MS Wireless Gaming Receiver

MS Wireless Gaming Receiver, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

I had a meeting at Kista Entré this afternoon, and did a bit of shopping in Kista Galleria afterward. After having no luck at two shops devoted to video games, I found this little gem at On Off, a big electronics chain similar to Best Buy.

It's Microsoft's Xbox 360 Wireless Gaming Receiver for Windows. It allows one to use a wireless Xbox 360 controller with a PC. I'm planning to use it with the controller Kelly gave me as a birthday gift last year. Now I just need to wait until Mac OS X drivers for the device become available.

In the U.S., the receiver can be found for as little as $16. I paid 250 SEK for mine, roughly equivalent to $36 — more than twice the price of the same thing in the U.S.

Typical.

Oh well. At least I have it now.

Skating on Edsviken

PICT0005, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

This afternoon Lotta and I went skating on Edsviken. The ice was quite good, and there was no wind. Although it had been overcast this morning, the sun came out after midday and we had a nice skate around the 18-km track plowed in the snow atop the frozen lake surface.

By coincidence, I ran into Maria on the way. I met her on the bus to Idre last weekend. She lives on the other side of the water from my neighborhood and was out for a walk on the ice. It's a small world!

Lotta had her lovely 7-megapixel Sony camera with her, so I hope to have more photos tomorrow.

Day trip to Kungsberget

_MAL7957, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

On Saturday, I joined Matt, Lisa, Lotta and Lena for a day trip to Kungsberget for a bit of downhill skiing. Kungsberget (literally, The King's Mountain) is a small ski resort just 2½ hours away from Stockholm by bus. Click the link for more photos.

Skiing weekend at Idre Fjäll

_MAL6337, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

This past weekend I had a great time skiing at Idre Fjäll with Åsa, Patric, and some of their skydiving friends. I took lots of photos, so take a look.

In yet another of life's recent peculiar coincidences, I learned that one of my companions on the trip, Jenny, was sitting at a table next to me during a coffee break at Karbin a couple of weeks ago.

MRI data

Today I went to the hospital and picked up a CD containing the data files produced during last week's MRI scan of my knee. Naturally, the CD included a viewer program for Windows but no program for Mac OS X that could open the DICOM medical image files contained on the disk.

I performed a search for “DICOM” on MacUpdate.com and quickly found Madena X, a handy program that appears to be made for radiologists and physicians. It not only displays the images; it displays them in the proper arrangement and lets the user navigate through each series graphically. Furthermore, the program shows any other information stored in the files, such as patient name & date of birth, hospital name, date, type of equipment used, and so on.

Here is a midsagittal view of my right knee.


Pretty cool, eh?

Lindy hop social

_MAL7447, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

Here are some photos from the Lindy hop social at Chicago on Wednesday.

Skiing at Idre Fjäll

I have been dancing and climbing a lot lately, but this weekend it's time for something different.

Tonight I'm going to Idre Fjäll for a few days of skiing with Åsa, Patric, and a bunch of their friends. Some of them are folks I met back in September when a group of us went downhill biking at Åre. I haven't been skiing yet this season because of the lack of snow. But now it looks like there's plenty of snow on the mountains, so I'm looking forward to some great skiing. And anyone who knows me knows I love a good sauna; so I'm looking forward to the after-ski almost as much as the skiing.

The sun is shining now, and the forecast calls for at least partly sunny skies for the next couple of days. So with any luck, I'll have some nice skiing photos to post here soon!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Knee MRI

Ever since running the Stockholm Marathon two summers ago, I've gotten pain in my knees when running long distances. The orthopedic specialist I visited a few weeks ago believes he knows what the problem is, but he wanted me to get an MRI of one of the knees just to confirm his diagnosis. So early this morning, I went to Sabbatsberg Hospital to get an MRI taken of one of my knees.


The sign on the door into the room housing the machine warns that metalic objects should not be brought inside the room. Along the edges of the door and the door frame are flexible strips of copper, no doubt completing a Faraday cage around the entire room when the door is closed.


The MRI machine used to take the pictures of my knee was a Philips Panorama 1.0T; according to the operator it's the first of its kind to be installed in Skandinavia, and it cost fifteen million Swedish crowns.

It's big and loud. The noise is something I didn't expect. Plus, the whole aparatus vibrates and pulses when in operation — bit unsettling at first. After a while though (each image took 3-4 minutes to capture), the droning and throbbing of the machine became soothing, almost hypnotic.

I ordered copies of the data files produced in the examination, and hope to have them tomorrow.

Hot spiced cider

Yesterday and today I've been at home with a cold. When I'm sick during the winter, I often like to warm up with a cup of hot spiced cider. I pour a liter of apple juice into a small pot, and add a few cinammon sticks, cloves, and alspice seeds, as well as the juice of a small orange and strips of orange peel. I throw in a few tablespoons of sugar and a pinch of salt, and bring the mixture almost to a boil. I let it simmer for 20-30 minutes and then take it off the fire to cool. The result is a hearty, spicy cider that seems to warm my whole body the moment I take a sip. The aroma of the cider reminds me of the many ski vacations I have taken with my family in Colorado.



In addition to being warm and tasty, the cider also contains lots of vitamin C! I'm already feeling much better than I did yesterday, and I imagine I'll even go climbing tonight if I still feel okay later in the afternoon.

Daytrip to Sandhamn

_MAL5582, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

On Sunday, I went with my photographer friend Sara to Sandhamn, way out in the Stockholm archipelago. We spent the day exploring the island and taking photos. Unfortunately, I also came down with a cold during the day, and that was a bit annoying. I have posted the best of the photos from our excursion. Check 'em out.

Dancing Saturday night

_MAL5497, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

I went dancing Saturday and had a great time. I danced with lots of great dancers, including Inga, a charming girl from Riga.

Lindy hop social

_MAL3996, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

I went to a Lindyhop social last night. I've been to plenty of salsa socials, but this was different. Salsa and Lindy hop are both fun dances, but they have subtly different characters. Whereas salsa is sultry, Lindy hop is carefree.

Lindy hop is different from the sort of swing I have danced the past decade. I learned East-cost swing when I was in college, and I've been dancing it ever since. I'd consider both East-coast swing and Lindy hop to be forms of swing, but Lindy hop is more complex.

Lindy hop is essentially a superset of East-coast swing. It includes all the 6-beat moves of East-coast swing, but adds a whole repertoire of 8-beat moves to the dance. It's a bit difficult for me to remember to insert the extra 2 steps that make it a Lindy hop, because I'm so accustomed to the 6-beat swing. Experienced practitioners of Lindy hop flow seamlessly from 6-beat to 8-beat moves… without missing a beat.

I learned to appreciate Salsa music because of how much fun I had dancing to it. With swing, it was just the opposite: I learned to love dancing swing because of how much I enjoy jazz & big band music. Last night, there was a live band playing a Chicago,the Tommy Löbel Swing Band. They were quite good, and played a good mix of tunes. I'm sure I'll return for next week's Lindy hop social.

Be sure to check out the photos I took!

Sunny, snowy Stockholm

This week has felt like a full week, and it's only been a couple of days!

On Sunday, I went salsa dancing downtown at a club called Container. I had a great time and saw many familiar faces there.

Last night I had a fun and largely successful climb at Klättercentret. I rode my bike there through the snow, even though I do not yet have studded tires on my bike. I took it a bit slow and was careful not to brake or turn too suddenly. That seems to have worked because I didn't fall either going there or coming back.


_MAL3920, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

The sun was out for a good portion of the day today, and it was absolutely beautiful outside. I let Alex outside for an hour, and he actually enjoyed walking around in the snow. Sasha declined to follow her brother, and opted instead to lie on the windowsill, soaking up the morning sunshine.

This evening at sunset, I took a walk down to the lake to take some more nature photos. I didn't manage to get many good ones though, in part becaus the clouds moved in from the North just as the sun was setting. I did take one decent shot of the moon, and a few other shots that I took more for practice than anything else.

It was cold out, but this time I was well prepared, wrapped in layers of Polartec & Gore-Tex. My fingers were the only parts of my body that got cold. The big ski gloves I was wearing arn't terribly good at keeping out the cold. They're also too bulky to allow easy operation of the camera through the gloves. I think it's time to invest in some thinner, warmer gloves. Next weekend I'm going skiing, so I guess the timing is right.

Just after sunset, the snow began to fall. It began as a light snowfall of tiny flakes; but the gentle fall of snow became gradually heavier as I carefully trudged down the hill toward the lakeside. Once on the path by the lake, I walked under the shelter of the pine trees, along the shore and back to the warmth of my apartment.

Tonight I'll go to Chicago, a dance club on Hornsgatan, for a Lindy hop social. I have been to several salsa dance socials, but I haven't been to one of the Lindy hop socials; so I'm eager to see what it's like. There will be live big band music, so it can't be all bad!

Snow around Tivoliudden

_MAL3520, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

I took a long walk at lunctime today. I walked down to Tivoliudden and walked up to the top of the little hill there, where I had a nice view over Brunnsviken. Then I walked back down again and followed the water back toward Kraus Grav and back home. Along the way, I met another photographer who was taking photos using a very similar set of equipment to mine. He got some great photos at the edge of the lake, where birds were occasionally alighting.

_MAL3612, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

I'm beginning to get the hang of macrophotography, but I'm also realizing that it's a lot more work than I thought. Getting the right shot requires planning and patience. I found that capturing snowflakes is especially difficult. The autofocus is almost useless because of the low contrast, and sideways shots often require a very tight aperture in order to have sufficient depth-of-field. Today I got the best results when I used my tripod, so I'll probably be lugging that thing around with me a lot more in the future.

_MAL3553, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

The light during today's walk was quite inconsistent, but I managed to get a few good shots when the sun shone through gaps in the clouds.

Snow!

_MAL3192, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

Last night while I was climbing, the snow began to fall. By the time I left the climbing gym, there were several centimeters of snow on the ground.

After climbing, I went downtown to listen to some live jazz music at Glenn Miller Café. On my way there, I took this photo of snow-covered bicycles with the Stureplan's Christmas tree and famous “mushroom” meeting place in the background.

BloggerBot is dead. Long live BloggerBot!

Today, BloggerBot was deactivated. It has been widely known for a while that the end was near, but BloggerBot's final demise is nonetheless disappointing.

Since 2004, I have posted photos to my weblogs using Hello and BloggerBot. The interface made quick work of the job of uploading a series of photos and providing a short caption of each one.

Nothing Google has provided offers the same simple way of uploading photos to a blog. For this reason, I have stopped posting many photos to my blogs, and have started posting them to flickr instead.

BloggerBot was a useful tool, and I'll miss it. I hope the good folks at Google are working to make improvements the remaining systems, so that uploading photos is again as easy as it was with BloggerBot.

Apple's iPhone a wonder of innovation, but not without faults

Last Tuesday, Apple announced its revolutionary new mobile phone, the iPhone. The iPhone combines a cellular telephone, a digital media player, and an internet appliance into a sleek iPod-like handheld device that is set to become the next must-have item for the fashion-consious technophile.

Pros
The iPhone introduces several important technological innovations that set it apart from other so-called “smart phones,” and at present, the iPhone has no rival that can match its capability and ease-of-use. I will categorize these innovations under design, user interface, applications, and integration.

Design
Apple is famous for its groundbreaking industrial design. From the original Mac to the iMac and the iPod, Apple has shown the rest of the industry how to make great-looking and fun-to-use devices. The iPhone is like a modernized combination of an iPod and a Newton. The sleek and solidly-engineered stainless steel and aluminum case of the iPhone just begs to be held on one's hand. It's a bit large compared to some smart phones, but one doesn't get the feeling that any of the space is wasted. Most of the front of the device is devoted to the gorgeous display. The display is an innovation all by itself. Its 160 dpi resolution offers unprecedented clarity and detail for a device of this kind. The absence of a mechanical keypad may seem unusual at first, but it seems like a smart move. Why waste space on the device with lots of different buttons when the screen itself can be any button you like? I'm confident that Apple is ahead of the curve on this one, and that other mobile phone manufacturers are already scrambling to catch up.

User interface
Apple's Multi-Touch user interface system is remarkable in its simplicity and intuitiveness. One flicks through lists like one might flip through cards in a Rolodex. On pinches to zoom in or out, just like pinching pizza dough to compress or stretch it. When I saw Multi-Touch in use the first time, my first reaction was “That's so obvious it's a wonder that no one thought of this before.” Once again, Apple has created an interface paradigm that works so well you don't have to learn how to use it. The integrated accelerometer and proximity sensor are also important innovations. Turn the iPhone sideways and the interface flips automatically. Put the iPhone up to your ear and the touch screen is deactivated. These features are so obvious that users will wonder how they ever used devices that lacked them. User interface eye candy is abundant. Transitions are smooth. Interface elements slide, fade, flip, and zoom to reveal new information. The user interface is a pleasure to behold. These niceties make using the iPhone a pleasing — almost relaxing — experience, and convey the impression of a well thought-out and carefully-designed device.

Applications
The main applications of the iPhone are mobile telephone, music player, and internet device. The iPhone delivers innovations in each of these areas. These innovations set the iPhone apart from other smart phones on the market today. The phone features are simple and intuitive. Making a call, switching from one call to another, joining together two calls into a conference call, switching to speaker phone — all of these functions are simple and easy to perform. As a music player, the iPhone builds on the best features of the iPod but also adds some nice capabilities from iTunes, such as Cover Flow. I'm sure that the iPod features work well; this is the area in which Apple has the most experience when it comes to mobile devices. Lastly, the mail and web features of the iPhone work pretty much the same as Mail and Safari do on the Mac. Apple is clearly hoping for another “halo effect,” and I think the iPhone offers a great opportunity for this. Once users have a chance to see how well mail and web applications work on the iPhone, they'll be more confident about how well these functions work on the Mac too. Although not talked about much, the iPhone also incorporates a small 2 megapixel camera. It will be interesting to see how photos taken with the camera look.

Integration
The iPhone is tightly integrated with other applications and systems. The contacts are synced with one's address book (I suppose this means a version of Address Book.app is coming to Windows); and music, photos, and videos are synced with iTunes. Apple's visual voice mail is yet another obvious innovation; it will allow folks to listen to the one voice mail in which they're interested, rather than having to listen to them all in order. The iPhone is also integrated with Yahoo mail and Google maps. On the phone, the applications are also integrated well with one another. For example, copying a photo from one's photo library to an email message is a simple matter. The iPhone represents a big step forward in the area of integration.

Cons
I have several concerns about the iPhone's limitations and drawbacks; and I will group them into four categories: battery, storage, camera, and openness.

Battery
Although Apple has said that the iPhone will have 5 hours of talk/play/browse time, the company has made no comment how long the battery lasts when the phone is not in use — in other words, the length of standby time of which the phone is capable. During his keynote address, Steve Jobs rightly pointed out that the “killer app” of a cell phone is making calls. But having a phone that works when you pull it out of your pocket is an important part of that, and most mobile phones have a standby time of many days. No one wants to be required to charge his phone every day. If the standby time of the phone is only a couple of days, this will be unacceptable to many people.

The battery is not user-replaceable; this is especially worrisome when one remembers the high fee Apple charges to replace the battery in an iPod. This also means that it won't be possible to carry a spare battery or two when one is away from civilization for many days at a time.

Storage
The phone has somewhat limited storage compared to the video iPods; if this phone is truly intended to play widescreen videos, it needs to have the capacity to store them.

There is no expansion slot and seems to be no way to add extra memory to the phone. With the falling prices of flash memory, it seems like a no-brainer to include an expansion slot in the phone so that the user can add the amount of additional storage he needs.

Camera
Considering that small pocket cameras are now averaging five to six megapixels, it seems odd that the iPhone's camera will be capable of only two megapixels. And when one beholds the lovely display on the front of the unit, one is at a loss to comprehend why Apple did not devise a way to facilitate iChat-style video-conferencing with the iPhone. Perhaps two cameras (one front, and one back) would have been too costly. A camera that can be flipped from backward-facing to forward-facing was surely an option, but this might have been seen as taking away from the simple, solid feel of the device. Improvements along these lines are surely destined for future revisions of the iPhone.

Openness
Apple touts interoperability and adherence to open standards, but pays only lip service to these ideals when upholding them would conflict with the the company's goals and its relationships with other big players. For example, the iPod is a closed system because this allows Apple to lock iPod users to the iTunes software and iTunes store. And Apple's contrived system that makes it difficult to move ones music around was certainly a concession to the RIAA. Why is it easy to share photos, but not audio files? Simply because the RIAA is a more influential lobby than the photographers' guilds. It seems that the iPhone will represent one further step away from openness for the company.

At least initially, the only way to get the iPhone will be to sign up for a two-year commitment to the Cingular cellular network in the United States. This may simply mean that the user is contractually locked-in to using Cingular; but it may also mean that the iPhone will locked to the Cingular network. I realize that Apple probably relies on its agreement with Cingular in order to keep the price of the phone down, but eventually people will want to be able to use the phone with other networks. Also, Cingular doesn't exist in Europe, so it remains to be seen how Apple will release the phone outside of the U.S. Will the iPhone be locked to another mobile network in Europe, and if so, which one?

Steve Jobs said in his MacWorld keynote speech that the iPhone will run Mac OS X. He mad a big show of the various Mac OS X technologies that the phone will use, at his mention of CoreAnimation would appear to suggest that the iPhone will be running a variant of Mac OS X 10.5, “Leopard.” However, it seems that calling the phone's operating system Mac OS X was really more of a marketing decision than an accurate description of reality. Unlike a Mac, the iPhone will not be open to third-party software development. In other words, you won't be able to install and run on your iPhone applications that were not designed by Apple. This is too bad, because one could imagine all sorts of useful third-party applications that could be developed for the iPhone, for example, a program that allows text input using a stylus, or a program that allows video-conferencing (when used, say, with a mirror contraption that lets the camera face the user).

An open platform would encourage innovation and allow developers and network providers to offer competing applications and services; a closed system helps Apple to keep the backing of the big media companies and allows it to cut lucrative deals with its chosen network provider. It remains to be seen whether the iPhone will be an open or closed system.

Conclusion
The iPhone is a major milestone in the evolution of the mobile communication device. Its simple and innovative user interface will set the standard by which future mobile devices are judged. Its integration between applications and services will raise the bar for other mobile phone manufacturers and network providers. The iPhone is certainly not without problems. It dosn't have enough storage, and its battery is not easily replaceable. If the iPhone is closed to independent software development, or locked to a particular mobile network, this will limit its appeal somewhat. However, even its detractors have praised the iPhone. To paraphrase one reviewer, “the iPhone has several deficiencies, but I'm still planning to buy one.”

Climbing @ KC

_MAL1735 (1).jpg, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

I captured 30 photos at KC on Friday. I love this route of green-colord holds on the tall wall. The crux near the top is tricky and fun.

Photos from the New Year festivities in Oslo

_MAL0237, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

I have posted the best photos from Elina's excellent New Year's party in Oslo. Thanks, Elina, for a great party!

More photos on the way

PICT0032, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

I have begun to put more photos into my various flickr photosets. After looking around at different options, I decided to become a paying “Pro” member of flickr.com. This move stemmed from Googles decision to retire BloggerBot. Without BloggerBot, there is no easy way for me to post lots of photos at once. flickr works better than Google's Picasa Web Albums, it offers unlimited uploads and storage for a relatively low price, and there are several programs for the Mac that work well with flickr.

A bit of climbing at Karbin on Saturday

_MAL2218, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

I went climbing with Anna at Karbin on Saturday. We had a good time and I posted several photos from the day.

The Real Group

Recently, I've been listening a lot to The Real Group. They are Swedish vocal group that sings mostly a cappella, and whose repertoire includes classical works, traditional songs, jazz standards, and also some of the group's own compositions.

Yesterday I found the group's home page and learned that they released their first DVD just last month. Without hesitating, I ordered the DVD, The Real Group Live at Stockholm Concert Hall. It arrived today in the mail. Watching the five group members sing is a real treat; they clearly enjoy what they do. I look forward to getting tickets the next time they perform in Stockholm.

To get an idea of what their music is like, listen to one of my favorite songs, Words (in RealAudio format).

A bit of fun

To start of the new year with a smile, I offer some fun diversions for you.

First of all, a classic: SVT's horse choir.

Next, something my friend Lisa A. showed me. Mix and match to create any of thousands of different faces.

Entertainment Weekly's funniest quotes from 2006.

And lastly, some guy's pick of the 100 funniest jokes of all time.

Enjoy!

Happy New Year 2007!

Greetimgs from the future! As my friend in Australia told me a few hours ago, the future looks much like the present. But don't give up hope! The future will be better tomorrow!

Love from 2007,

Michael

Hej från Oslo

Hello from lovely Oslo!

Elina's apartment in Oslo is right on the Majorstuen square, one of the poshest neighborhoods in the city. It's an enormous apartment too, so there will be plenty of room for the 17 guests to spend the night tomorrow.

Cheers!

David & Hedwig

When I arrived last night, Elina, David & Hedwig were just preparing to sit down for dinner, so I joined them.

Elina in her lovely kitchen.

Elina

David

Hedwig


Kajsa & Kristofer showed up a little bit later in the evening.

The view from the balcony is quite nice.

The dining room.

The weather was not so great today, but we made the best of it and took a long walk in the rain.

Going to Oslo

This afternoon, I'll catch the 16.00 flight to Oslo, where I will spend a few days celebrating the New Year with Elina and her friends. She is Swedish, but she moved to Oslo for a her job about a year ago. Soon she'll move back to Stockholm, so this New Year's Party will be the last chance to visit her in Norway before she moves back. Norwegians usually know how to throw a good party, but just in case, I'll be bringing along some (relatively) inexpensive beverages from Sweden.


Speaking of Norway, I just watched the part about Christmas in Norway from Rick Steve's European Christmas. The show is available as a free download via iTunes, so check it out!

Blog template updated

As I noted a few days ago, I have migrated my blogs to the new Blogger. After moving my blogs over, I initially updated only a few of them to the new templates. These were the blogs that I had not customized very much, so there was less work to do to carry over the customizations into the new template. Now that I've had a little time to acquaint myself with the new templates, I've figured out how to carry my customizations forward.

I upgraded this blog to Blogger's new desgin and updated the template to a variant of Douglas Bowman's Minima Stretch template. The content now fills the entire width of the browser window, allowing more content to be displayed in a given amount of screen area. The blog archive section is now arranged hierachically; and I will eventually add labels to many blog postings to categorize them by topic. I wanted to add these new capabilities and to increase the blog's readability, but I also tried to maintain the feeling of the original design as much as possible.

Blogger's redesign offers a great deal of flexibility. Some folks have made clever modifications, such as adding the ability to switch themes on the fly. I might add new features to my blogs in the future.

Boulder open #50 at Karbin

_MAL9231, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

Here, Kjell tackles a tricky route on the back boulering wall at Karbin, during the December 22 boulder open competition there. I placed 22nd in the competition. I posted 31 photos from the evening.

Recent updates from Stockholm

Last night, I sat down and spent a few hours catching up a bit with my blogging. It has been an eventful week, and I've had my camera with me so there have been lots of photos to upload.


I had a lot of fun at Erik's company Christmas party on Monday night. We had a few drinks at a pub, had dinner at a Lebanese restaurant, and then went dancing at Café Opera.


Tuesday's climbing session at Klättercentret was a lot of fun. Lisa, Matt & Anna were there. KC has completely changed the bouldering walls. Almost none of the problems from before my U.S. trip remain, and the new problems are quite difficult.


Wednesday night, I went salsa dancing at La Isla. I saw lots of friends there and danced with many charming ladies.


Finally, I went for sunset walk near the lake yesterday evening. There wasn't much light, but I took my tripod with me and managed to get a few nice photos by using long exposures.

In other news, you may have noticed that the appearance of some of my blogs has changed. I have updated them to Blogger's new system and have migrated my blogs from my old Blogger account to my Google account. As a consequence of the “upgrade,” it is no longer possible for me to make large batch uploads of photos using Hello. This is because BloggerBot does not appear to allow logins using Google accounts — only old Blogger accounts. Once a user has migrated his blogs, BloggerBot stops working. The folks at Google announced last month their intention to retire BloggerBot permanently by the end of 2006; so I suppose this loss was inevitable. I will try to find a more efficient way to upload photos to the blog. Unfortunately, none of Google's current offerings is as efficient or versatile as the one they're discontinuing.

Jake & Sarah's wedding

Today, I finally got around to posting the best photos from Jake & Sarah's wedding. The wedding was in Dallas last month and was essentailly two days of partying with family and friends. I had a terrific time, and enjoyed getting to visit with so many lovely people. But most of all, I was overjoyed to see my cousin Jake marrying such a lovely and sweet woman.

Congratulations again, Jake & Sarah!

Lucia 2006

Today is Lucia, a special holiday celebrated each 13th of December in Sweden. Lucia is second only to Christmas among winter holidays in Sweden. Lucia traditions including listening to choirs singing holiday songs and sipping glögg.

If you can't find glögg in your local supermarket or wine shop, there are plenty of glögg recipes on the net. Here's my suggestion:

• 1 bottle dry red wine
  
• ½ cup sugar
• a dozen or so cloves
• a few sticks of cinnamon
• seeds from a few cardamom pods, crushed
  
• peel from an orange (or lemon)
• flesh from an orange, sliced (optional)
  
• ½ cup vodka and/or brandy (optional)
  
• a few slices of ginger (optional)
• raisins (red or white)
  
• sliced blanched almonds
  

Add all ingredients except the vodka, raisins, and almonds to a saucepan. Let the mix simmer for a while, but do not allow it to boil! How long your let it simmer depends on how spicy you want it. 20-30 minutes is usually sufficient, but some prefer to use a crock pot and let the glögg simmer for several hours. Add the vodka and/or brandy to the glögg just before serving. Serve in small mugs or glasses. Add few raisins and almonds to each mug. Serve with Swedish gingerbread cookies.

I'll never forget the first time I celebrated Lucia in Sweden. It was in 1999, when I was in Sweden for job interviews. It was my first time to visit Sweden, and I stayed with Lotta's cousin Anne-Louise and her then-boyfriend (now husband) Kristofer. Anne-Louise and Kristofer treated me to the Lucia concert in the candlelit Storkyrkan (big church) downtown in Gamla Stan. The beautiful choral music was poignant and uplifting. Afterward we walked to a nearby square and bought roasted almonds from a vendor. We munched on the sweet nuts as we browsed the other stalls in the winter market, ice and snow crunching between our shoes and the cobblestones. The next year, in December of 2000, I returned the favor by inviting Anne-Louise and Kristofer to the same concert.

Here's hoping you have a wonderful Lucia!

Muddy bike ride in Järvafältet

Matt and I went for a nice ride in Järvafältet yesterday around lunchtime. It has rained a lot in Stockholm during the past week, so the ground was quite muddy in places. Even so, we had a great time and rode once around the bike trail there.

Safely back in Stockholm after 5 weeks in Texas

This post started out as an observation about the weather, but then I realized that I should write a few words about my return to Sweden first.

I returned to Stockholm yesterday, after five weeks in Texas. I had a wonderful time with my family and friends and because the vacation was so long, I was actually able to relax a bit too, rather than feeling I had to run around every day to fit in as much as possible during my stay.

The flight back to Stockholm was a bit interesting. My flight to Newark was delayed a couple of hours due to congestion in the New York area. According to the plane's pilot, the whole area from Washington up to Boston is usually too crowded for the number of flights scheduled, and so delays are common. Unfortunately, I had only one hour between flights in Newark, so I missed the flight to Stockholm. I wasn't the only one going to Stockholm from Austin. There was one other person with the same itinerary. When we learned that we were in the same predicament, we began to chat a bit. Her name was Delta, and she was visiting Stockholm on business. While on the ground in Austin, we learned that it wouldn't be possible to make our connecting flight to Stockholm, so on the advice from the flight attendant & gate agent, we rebooked through Amsterdam.

When we arrived in Newark, Delta and I hitched a ride on one of the electric cars so that we could get to the other gate as quickly as possible. We arrived just a couple of minutes after they had closed the doors of the plane, so we missed the flight to Amsterdam too.

We went over to the customer service desk and rebooked our flight for a second time. Amazingly, we managed to get a connection through Oslo. It was only a few minutes afterward that we boarded the flight. The flight from Newark to Oslo was less than 7 hours long, so it went quickly. We watched the film Lady in the Water on the flight. It was interesting, but I cannot recommend it.

In Oslo, we mistakenly walked out through Norwegian immigration and customs, so we ended up having to go back through the security checkpoint again. Once inside the international area of the terminal building, I bought a few bottles of alcohol. Because Norway lies outside the European Union, there are no taxes on alcohol for folks travelling outside of Norway. A lot of alcohol is sold at that airport, I can tell you. Norwegian alcohol taxes (the taxes ordinary Norwegians pay) are some of the highest in the world.

The flight to Stockholm was very quick — like flying from Austin to Dallas. When all of the baggage had arrived on the conveyor belt, neither my bags nor Delta's were there; so we both filed claims with the helpful chap at the Servisair desk.

I said goodbye to Delta and caught the bus into the city. Once at home, I had a shower, unpacked my carry-ons, and had a hot bowl of soup for lunch. Two of my three checked bags arrived at seven in the evening: my suitcase and my computer. I'm glad to report that the computer survived the trip without any trouble, and I'm typing this post on it right now.



My mom gave me her old iSight camera as a birthday gift, and I have it connected to my Mac. I'm looking forward to using for video chats with friends and family.

I had a bit of a disturbing experience when I first walked into my flat: the place smelled awful. At first I thought it might have been some food that had gone bad, but then I localized the smell to the bathroom. It turns out that the water in at least one of the vapor traps had evaporated. There are vapor traps in the toilet, the floor drain, and the washer drain pipe. I put water in each of them and opened the windows to air the place out for a bit.

Later in the evening I joined Daniel and Jenny for a quick trip to the IBM office where I helped D. install the memory I bought him for his lovely little Mac mini. I stayed up late last night: partly this was due to jet-lag, but partly to watch the planned space shuttle launch. The launch was scrubbed due to thick clouds over KSC.

This morning was cloudy, but the skies cleared off around noon. I was not too surprised to see that it's colder in Austin than it is here in Stockholm.

This is partly due to the fact that it's nighttime in Austin; but even considering this, it's strange. This past December has had very few freezing days or nights here in Stockholm. The weather is strange sometimes.

A few minutes ago my third and final piece of checked luggage — my bike! — arrived at my doorstep.

I had packed a bunch of other stuff in with the bike to make the most of the fifty pound weight allowance. It seems the bike had a bit of a rough ride. Labels on the box indicate that the bike arrived here via Amsterdam. And oddly enough, a bottle of Tabasco sauce was missing from the box. I packed two in there, and only one arrived. I hope some Dutch airport freight handler is enjoying it right now.


I'll have to see if all the nuts and bolts arrived too. I hope so, because I'm hoping to take the bike for a spin tomorrow or Sunday. Although it's a bit muddy and wet out, there's no ice or snow on the ground, so if I manage to put the bike together, it should be decent riding.

Tonight I plan to go climbing at Klättercentret. I never managed to get in a climb while in Austin, so I look forward to tonight's session. My right wrist had been giving me a bit of pain about a month ago when I went to Austin, and now it's fine. So perhaps the time off from climbing was a good thing.

All is well in lovely Stockholm. Now I'm going to the ICA to get some groceries and to restock the fridge.

Yesterday, I went for a quick ride in Walnut Creek Park with Dave Hill. It was my first time to visit the park. It's quite nice, with several challenging creek crossings. Now that I have had a chance to ride it a few times, I am feeling much more comfortable with my new bike.