| Counting the days |
|
Written by Kristoffer on Monday, February 1st, 2010
|
Me and Helena have gone into "counting down the days"-mode, which right now is down to 2 weeks! It's going alléer and slower now when we know our son can come out at any moment! He's really kicking her hard in there! We're also running around trying to predict what we'll need and buying everything but as always you won't know what you'll need until it's too late!
Meantime we're warching tons of movies. Weirdest good one yet was the timetraveller's Wife. Weirdest bad one yet was New York I Love You, even though it had Natalie in it. 2012 was bettet than I thought, then again I am a big Cusack fan!
|
|
|
| A long long time ago... |
|
Written by Kristoffer on Sunday, January 17th, 2010
|
Ok maybe it wasn't that long ago, just over 2 years ago, back in November 2007 one of my friends got married. And they had a professional photographer called Christel there (along with an "assistant") that was running around all day taking photos. I saw a few of them on her website Estethia.com. I thought she did an awesome job of covering the wedding, took some really nice photos and also spent alot of time fixing them up in photoshop or whatever. But it wasn't until recently that the bride sent over the photo of me from that wedding. And I gotta say... if you're a photographer and can make me look this good, then you're really good!!! Check out her website cause she does really good work! When I get married and if I can afford it I know who to call :)
And when I showed that to Helena she said "oh you looked so good back then. Pity I didn't know you then". What the hell is that suppose to mean!?!?! :)
|
|
|
| To absent friends. |
|
Written by Kristoffer on Wednesday, January 13th, 2010
|
Yesterday I finally got in the "Star Trek Online" beta! It's an online roleplaying game in the Star Trek universe. And being a huge trekker and huge Warcraft geek I think I'll like it. So far I love it! Some parts of the game feels like being in one of the episodes, really well made. Although it's almost more than what my graphic card can handle!
When creating a character you have to chose name, which was relatively easy. Then you have to name your ship. Which was easier 'cause my first thought went to my best friend Eden who passed away almost 8 years ago. So if you're in the game and see a ship named USS Eden pass by, that'll be me :)
|
|
|
| Happy new year! |
|
Written by Kristoffer on Friday, January 1st, 2010
|
Since every other site is summoning up the past ten years I thought I'd do the same. Because the past ten years have been completely revolutionary in most ways for me.
10 years ago I was just settling into my rental apartment in south of stockholm, never having set foot in the northern parts of Stockholm. Didn't have a drivers license, worked at the "customization" department at a computer retailer, didn't have a girlfriend or even any prospects and was rarely going outside the Stockholm region.
Then I got promoted, lost my job, got a new job, got my drivers license, got to travel the world for the state department, got laid off again and got a job at a former customer. And that was just in the first five years. But then I got so comfortable that I have really no reason to look for any other job!
In 2005 I had my 30 year crisis and was slowly realizing that you really need someone to share your ups and cheer you up in your downs. But it wasnt until 2006 that I really understood just how much I needed that and after "playing the field" for 2 years I was almost ready to give up when I was contacted by Helena through an internet dating site and I realised quickly she was something special! We met for the first time 3/3 in 2008 and by September I was moving in with her. Then in April we signed the papers to have a house built and in June when the house was being built we found out we were pregnant.
So now, 10 years after, I'm living in my own house (north of Stockholm!), have a good job, good friends, awesome fiancé and in 7-8 weeks I'm gonna be a dad. So except for still going to "Star Trek" events, watching Formula 1 and playing computer games nothing in my life today is as it was 10 years ago.
Overall the past 10 years have been very good to me. Except one huge thing. 10 years ago my best friend was Eden. I loved that guy and for who he was. In February 2002 he died only 32 years old. That was a huge bummer but taught me a little bit about appreciating live. Still find myself thinking about him.
And now for a very adult comment - I really hope the next 10 years is way less eventful! I don't want to move and don't want to lose my job and I don't want to lose anymore friends. :)
Have a great 2010 everyoe!
|
|
|
| "Star Wars Episode I - The Phantom Menace" |
|
Written by Kristoffer on Wednesday, December 30th, 2009
|
Do you remeber this? My monologue about how terrible "Star Wars Episode I" was and why it sucked so bad? It was written back in 2001 and my english & typing is so bad I'm embarrassed but it was written for fun.
Well this guy here takes it to a whole new dimension! How long did that guy work on this clips? Months probably! And they are hilarious, brilliant and makes so many good points, everything from shallow comments like "what's that doing there" to downright deep analysis of lightsaber duels! It's really fun if you have the time (7x10 minutes)
|
|
|
| It was a very merry christmas indeed! |
|
Written by Kristoffer on Monday, December 28th, 2009
|
Although it was a hectic few days to get everything ready for our very first Christmas dinner ever it was so worth it! We were about 13 people there over the day, 6 stayed the night so a bit of planning but it was so fun! Helena's brother with his family and my sister with her kids and my brother, and Helena's mother, grandmother, it was all fun and most people had a good time. It was a bit tough in the evening trying to make sure people of four generations had a nice time (what can you do when the kids wanna play Guitar Hero and the grandmother wanna watch the news!?).
Then on Christmas day we went home to my parents for a more British christmas with turkey and the crackers and even more fun was had by all.
All in all a very merry christmas! Thanks everybody!!
Some photos can be found here.
|
|
|
| White Christmas! |
|
Written by Kristoffer on Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009
|
It looks like it's going to be a very, very white Christmas here in Stockholm! It's been snowing for days now and although the temperature is almost up to 0 again I hope the snow is gonna last atleast a day more so we can all enjoy a white christmas for the first time in I don't know how long!
My darling Helena has worked her butt off trying to organize the perfect Christmas dinner! We're having 11 guests over for Christmas eve so it's gonna be busy! But it's gonna be a blast I hope but it does hurt when you go to the supermarket and the total is up to $200!
And this winter landscape encouraged me to take out my old camera (since our new one sucks, we sent it back to Canon to have a look at it 'cause it must be something wrong with the optics) to take some "screenshots" of a white christmas. And the best photo of them all is here. I liked that one, alot! :)
I've added a new album in my image gallery so head over there.
And Merry Christmas if I don't have time to write something tomorrow!
|
|
|
| Hate to ruin the christmas spirit.. |
|
Written by Kristoffer on Friday, December 18th, 2009
|
Yesterday I was flipping through our channels and actually stopped on National Geographic. They were showing a 2 hours documentary called "Six Degrees Could Change The World". And it's just what it sounds like - a documentary with scientists and sociologists going through what would happend if the earth got one, two, three, four, five or god forbid six degrees hotter. The conclusions were not pretty. At two degrees it'd start spiraling away beyond what we could control and at 6 it'd be game over. And when it was produced we were at 0.8. And at the same time all the world leaders can't unite in Copenhagen (which in itself is a huge CO2 fest flying in all the people all over the world)! And this morning in Metro they said behind each kilo of ham on the dinner table at christmas is atleast 10 kilos of CO2.
If that doesn't kill the christmas spirit I dunno what does!
|
|
|
| New imagegallery |
|
Written by Kristoffer on Monday, December 14th, 2009
|
Hey everyone. As I mentioned in the update a few days ago I was working to get a new imagegallery up and running. It's based on "ImageVue" which has some really cool things going for it but it lacked any form of password protection which made it impossible for me to use. Publishing pictures of me or my family has never been a problem but now when more than half of the pictures I take feature Helena or a member of her family I've had to have a password so noone can google their way there. For some reason Helena have been very good at keeping herself off the grid!
Anyway, here it is!
As before the username is "friend" and the password is the name of the company I work for, with a capital first letter. I know it's easy to figure out but it's good enough to keep it off Google anyway!!
I haven't had the time to tag and put captions on all of the photos yet but the albums themselves should be tagged. I had to put the years 1975 to 2005 into a sub-album because otherwise the menu would've gone on forever!
I hope you like it. I do!
|
|
|
| Server going up and down |
|
Written by Kristoffer on Thursday, December 10th, 2009
|
As you may have noticed this server is going up and down all the time. Reason for that is I can't quite get the new image system to work like I want it too. Or it works but then some other system doesn't. It's a real pain in the ass but I'm working on a fix...
So bare with me.
|
|
|
| Everything is good. A bit too good! |
|
Written by Kristoffer on Tuesday, December 8th, 2009
|
One of the things I had fixed for Helena's birthday was to prepare a romantic weekend at Villa Fridhem in Norrköping for us in December so we could just get away and enjoy ourselves. And my family chipped in and set her up with a massage at the spa!
So on saturday we were off. After driving for two hours we checked in and the champagne was on ice! Ofcourse it was alcohol-free but that didn't matter, the chocolate and strawberries still made it perfect! Then we had our first disappointment - the afternoon tea. It was just 3 cakes and one was just finished so we had two cakes and neither of them was any good. No cookies, nothing. Ok, we didn't pay any extra for it but we were spoilt rotten the last time we did this in Söderfors Herrgård! After that we walked around abit and the feeling that hit me was "if I was in charge of this place I really would fix these million small things that they are missing". Like when a horse pooped right in front of the entrance, took them hours to clean up!
Anyway, after that it was time for Helena's massage - and it was good and went on for over an hour! Meantime I was enjoying myself in the swimmingpool with a cold beer! And as I was floating around I had one of those perfect moments when everything is good, no worries, no problems, nothing, cause everything is good! It sured helped that the day before we had gotten all of the assurances in the world that our baby was ok, and that one week before we had frozen two of our three mortgages for the house for 2 years and making sure that interest wouldn't run away, and everything else was just good!
After that we had a shower and was off to the typical swedish "Julbord" (a buffé of traditional christmas-type food). And I kept eating and eating and at around 9 pm we were both so stuffed that we couldn't do more than go to our rooms and watch some TV and talk and then go to sleep! It was rediculous really. And we woke up the next morning still feeling pretty full but then it was time for breakfast which was pretty good but again, small things they should've changed to make it better. Like the waffles, took 10 minutes to cook a waffle!
After that we walked around a bit, took another dip in the pool and then we were off going back home. And then we stopped by the christmas market in stockholm city and bought some candy and sausages.
All in all a kick ass weekend! But I can't help to shake the feeling that life is going a bit too good right now... just praying nothing kicks me down to reality!
And if you want photos they are located here in my new gallery.
Btw, you'll need a logon for the ew gallery. The username is "friend" and the password is the name of the company I work for, with a capital first letter.
|
|
|
| That's my boy |
|
Written by Kristoffer on Friday, December 4th, 2009
|
Click here for pictures from today's ultrasound of our boy. ETA february.
:)
|
|
|
| All is well |
|
Written by Kristoffer on Thursday, December 3rd, 2009
|
No updates must mean everything is going well. Right?
Well pretty well! We've taken our first "becoming a parent"-course which was mostly about the delivery and all of that, expect alot more next time. Today we listened to the heartbeat and Helena had all the measurements and samples taken and everything is super fine according to our nurse.
But tomorrow is a big day! Tomorrow we are gonna do a 4d ultrasound so we can actually see the baby's face and feet kicking and all of that, really excited over that. We did it with her brother's kid last year and it was exciting enough but not it's our kid!!! :)
Will probably post pictures of it later!
|
|
|
| I regret buying the house! |
|
Written by Kristoffer on Monday, November 23rd, 2009
|
Yeap, you read that right - I officially regret buying our house. It's not due to any problems with the house or the building of it. Or the worth versus cost. Because it's a good house and definitely worth what we paid for it. No, the reason I regret it is that I gave this guy our money!
To summarize - it's our version of "CBS 60 Minutes" who try to nail "the powers that be" and this time they were after "Älvsbyhus" which is the company building the most houses in sweden per year. And they had 3 families who had their dreams turned into nightmares because of leaky roofs and heavy rain on the day of the assembly but most of all because of "Älvsbyhus" poor post-building customer service. Or lack thereof. When we got into this whole thing we quickly realised one key factor was if it was gonna rain on the day they'd be putting the house together, then we'd be in for a nightmare trip. And we also knew that you get what you pay for and "Älvsbyhus" is the cheapest option out there. But we also figured if they build 1.000 houses per year they kinda must know what they are doing. And we haven't had any major problems (although we still have four outstanding issues after our inspection but they have promised to take care of it).
But then when you see the segment in "Kalla Fakta" and when they interview Donald Johansson, the CEO of "Älvsbyhus" and the entire thing gave me a terrible feeling of being ripped off. I actually gave my money to this guy!? They make some 150 million swedish crowns per year but his ego and "we are never wrong" mentality stops them from the goodwill factor of fixing these three families nightmares that would've cost them a maximum of 1.2 million swedish crowns and saved them from being blacklisted and that PR nightmare that was shown on the TV?! The arrogance, the condescending "you don't know what you are talking about little girl" towards the journalist.. That f*cking old fart made Göran Persson look like a big care-bear!!
If I had seen this before we signed on I'd never have bought it and I sincerly hope they get alot of "we changed our minds" calls today 'cause a company that has a CEO like that deserves to go out of business. In my opinion.
Then again, if we hadn't bought that house we wouldn't be friends with Hanna, Micke and the Westbergs :)
|
|
|
| Politicians |
|
Written by Kristoffer on Thursday, November 19th, 2009
|
You know what job has really gotta suck? Being a politician in the opposition! Because no matter what the other person says, you have to disagree and make them look bad. And women do it really bad and to make it worse, in swedish it doesn't even just sound lame when the do head-to-head!
Last week there was a debate in swedish TV about the integration of immigrants into swedish society and the oddities that we swedes think are normal. There were two chicks, on being the minister in charge of integration politics in our current government, and one from the opposition. And even though what the first chick said made total sense and was calmly stating facts and figures and stuff the other was doing her best to discredit her and ranting on about the high unemployment that the current government has caused doing the most damage to immigrants and so on and so forth. I don't know which of them was right and wrong and I'm not sure I care about politics that much to even bother. But I know it's gotta suck having a job that requires you to disagree what the other person no matter what and to do it in public no less!
|
|
|
| > > LIST ALL ENTRIES FOR 2008 < < |
|
|
| Complete Menu |
 |
 Diary / Blogg |
| > > 2009 |
| > > 2008 |
| > > 2007 |
| > > 2006 |
| > > 2005 |
| > > 2004 |
| > > 2003 |
| > > 2002 |
| > > 2001 |
| Kris who? |
| Biography |
| My Pictures |
| > > 2009 |
| > > 2008 |
| > > 2007 |
| > > 2006 |
| > > 2005 |
| > > 2004 |
| > > 2003 |
| Eden Memorial |
| Links |
| My Travels |
| > > London, UK |
| > > Milan, Italy |
| > > Scotland |
| > > Czech Republic |
| > > Silverstone, UK |
| > > Hague, Holland |
| > > Rome, Italy |
| > > Copenhagen, Denmark |
| > > Ankara, Turkey |
| > > Helsinki, Finland |
| > > Kinshasa, Congo |
| > > Glasgow, UK |
| > > Abuja, Nigeria |
| > > Brussels, Belgium |
| > > Gdansk, Poland |
| > > Buenos Aires, Argentina |
| > > Sofia, Bulgaria |
| > > Budapest, Hungary |
| > > Singapore |
| > > Guatemala |
|
| |
| Random "me" picture |
|
 |
|
|
