As usual after donating a pint of blood I feel good. Not sure if it’s a mental feel good about doing something good or a physical thing, but I generally feel good afterwards. And the other day I was surprised at just how well I felt – I didn’t have an ache anywhere. No sore back, no headache, nothing. That was nice.
Unfortunately it didn’t last – yesterday I woke up and my throat felt like I’d swallowed fire. No problem with that, I just have to refrain from talking. But later in the afternoon the fever came and man what a fever. Eventually I had to resort to taking prescription painkiller to get over it and went to bed at 8! And today I feel a bit better but tomorrow morning at 5 I have to get up and go to gothenburg. Last time I felt “bad but not bad enough to go to the hospital” and had to get up early the next day to travel somewhere I ended up in an african hospital convinced I wasn’t gonna make it back.
That was a few busy days in scotland, but now I’m back and settled in again and took the chance to upload some pics from that little semi-improvised trip. We didn’t have any plans of anything really but it’s been over a year since we last saw each other. Unfortunately we just missed Amy’s husband Paul who was offshore again but it was still alot of fun and as usual, coming back with alot of goodies that we don’t get here (still don’t know why they discontinued Salt & Vinegar crisps!).
Expect a day by day event report soon, meanwhile, enjoy the pics.
I’m so lazy that I haven’t done my laundry in a few weeks. And then i realised that “hey, I’m going to scotland on monday, wouldn’t hurt to have some clean clothes for that”. But I’m so lazy, and my schedule is totally full, that instead I went out and bought new clothes… I’m such a guy…
Here you can find my report regarding what went down in the Czech Republic during the weekend and here you can find some pictures as well.
To put it mildly it was an awesome weekend! I was afraid it might turn out to be boring and “same old, same old” but it was just great fund and actually motivating!!
Oh man what a party!! We left on friday morning (and I mean morning, sipped my first beer at 7 am!) arrived in Karlovy Vary at noon, spent some time in the town and had a wild friday night. On saturday it was time for a conference and some teambuilding activity (that was actually the most rewarding teambuilding I’ve done, and I’ve done alot!) and then the most posh dinner I’ve ever been to (got away with skipping the tie though!). Another wild night and today we took a 4 hour walk through Prague and then headed home and I’m exhausted…
BUT MAN WHAT A PARTY!!!!
(pictures coming up tomorrow)
Tomorrow morning I’m off to Prague! Yay, finally going out of the country again like the good old days 🙂
But this time I’m going with the entire lawfirm and it includes a posh dinner. I’ll see how that goes. Will let you know when I get home which should be sunday night… SHOULD be…
And today I found out what people that don’t have a site like this do when travelling and want an online diary – Resedagboken.se. Didn’t know that place existed until a cyber-friend of mine went downunder to australia and started a diary there. I’m gonna go there someday too, I just suck at saving up for something like that.
Ok, so here’s the story of our Silverstone Weekend ’05!
This year I turned 30. And when that’s happened to my sisters we’ve always done something special so we had to do something special this year too. And the one thing we all wanted to do was attend a Formula 1 Grand Prix. And since Amy lives in Scotland with her family and all it was decided that we were gonna attend the British Grand Prix at Silverstone. Amy’s husband Paul also loved F1 so he wanted to go and so did my brother Joakim. 5 people all in all. We ordered the tickets around Christmas, no problem. The problem was accomodations! Naturally all hotels and everything in a 10 mile radius was overbooked! Fortunately for us we found a family living in Blakesley that rented out a few rooms for this special occasion and they had 3 rooms available. My parents paid for that part and said “that’s all your birthday presents for this year all taken care of at once”. Sweet deal for all. And this year hasn’t really been the greatest for our family so we were all looking forward to getting away and just have fun for a whole weekend. And it was good!
It all started on thursday when Jocke and AC came over to my apartment to spend the night. It was the easiest solution since we had to go up early to get to the airport. Unfortunately we didn’t get much sleep since we watched a few movies, sat around and talked and just hung out. I got 3 hours of sleep, AC less than that and Jocke didn’t get any. But we got up early and headed to the airport. Smallest airport I’ve ever seen (not counting the one in “Wings”). After checking in we sat outside and a crew from the swedish TV showed up wanting to interview people about how the bombing on thursday has affected them. They interviewed AC but since we left the country we never got to see if they showed it or not. Two hours later we touched down at Luton and was greated by Amy and Paul. The weather was EXACTLY as I expected. Cold, grey and drizzling. We decided to skip the London part and just do the shopping up in Northampton instead so we got ready to go on a bus for over an hour up there. That is if the bus had arrived but after 30 minutes and no bus me and Paul decided it was time for taxi. £65 later and we were in Northampton. I did my shopping (which consisted of a new memory card for my camera) and then we sat down at the local pub for some beer and food. The ladies continued shopping and we continued consuming beer. After that we went over to Towcester and … had some more beer and food but by now we started feeling the sleep deprivation. So taxi out to Blakesley and me and Jocke went to bed right away while the others went to the pub.
After about 11 hours of sleep we were good as new and ready to head out to the track! The arrangement was that Christine, the wife of the family we were staying at, would give us a ride to and from the track for some compensation. Said and done, but we still had to walk for a mile or so to the actual track. We got there during the saturday practice session so we caught a few glimpses of the cars. Then we walked for another mile to the Hangar Straight grandstands and took our seats to see the qualifying. By now the Porsche race was on but that was just foreplay! The Blue Eagles had an airshow with some helicopters and then it was time for the real qualifying. And even though they’ve tried to make it more interesting and audience friendly it was still a very predictable event. After that we made our way back to Copse to just sit around with beer, burgers and watching the GP2 race. Then it was back to Blakesley and that’s when one of the few bad things happened – when she was coming to pick us up she hit a parking post that did a good job of scratching her car. Not a big thing but it’s still gonna set them back a little bit which we all felt bad about. Not that it was our fault or anything. Then we hit the local pub in Blakesley and then back to Towcester for some food and stuff. Unfortunately the pubs there were so busy they couldn’t fix the food part so we got a few take-out pizzas and sat down at the pub with the beers and just talked the night away. Then back to the pub in Blakesley for the closing-up party that lasted ’till 2 am!
Then on sunday it was time for the main event! We still had to walk all the way over there and made it just in time to see the drivers going around the track waving to the audience. Then time for Red Arrows to do their thing (which they do very well!) and now it really started to feel like a special event! Unfortunately for us the race turned out to be a pretty dull race, not many overtakings, crashes or anything and the Ferrari’s came 6th and 7th, but none of it matter because it was the thought that counted!
After the race we picked up our stuff in Blakesley and went back to Northampton where it turned out to be really difficult finding a pub open past 11. One that isn’t a gay bar that is (I’m not juding!). And the ones we did find didn’t even know what Jägermeister was. So we got bored at 11.30 and took a taxi back to Luton airport. The planes lifted off at about 7am so you can imagine how bored we were at 3am! And then without getting any sleep me and Jocke boarded the plane going back to sweden while AC followed Amy and Paul up to Aberdeen. Landed at about 10am and buss into Stockolm and train back to my apartment and that should have been it. But no, I’m still suffering from the second bad thing this weekend – the sun burns! Noone expected it to be THAT much sun and I’m right now in a not-so-pretty pink state. But that’ll pass but the memories of one of the greatest weekends of my life will remain with me forever!
Thanks everyone for making it such a great weekend! Thanks mom and dad for paying for the accomodations and taking care of Amy and Paul’s kids over the weekend! Thanks to Amy for even finding accomodations and Paul for making it down there (was touch and go there with the fog) and AC for being the crazy girl she is and Jocke for taking all the crap I give him and the family that rented us the rooms and all the bartenders (even the one in Towcester ’cause she couldn’t add)!
So now I’ve got to go back to work. Doesn’t matter, I could’ve taken 5 weeks vacation and it still wouldn’t have meassured up to this weekend.
Back after a kick ass weekend at Silverstone! More info coming later…
Will you excuse me while I become a self-centered SOB for a few seconds? The day before I’m flying over to London to enjoy a weekend with my sisters, my bro Jocke and my sisters hubby Paul culminating in the F1 race on sunday afternoon, this has to happen? Something set of a series of explosions in London. It’s too early to confirm anything ofcourse, but just the thought of “great timing” hits me right away. Followed ofcourse by “oh my god, how bad was it?” and eventually “hope they don’t close the city down”. We were planning on taking a little sidetrip into central London, but I guess we’re gonna stay clear of that now!
A very weird thing happened today. Read one of Bush’s speeches ahead of the G8 summit (and if you tuned in to the “Live 8” show you know all about it) and I actually agreed with him on one point. Something that hasn’t been adressed alot is all the corruption down there in Africa. That’s something that has to be dealt with too, ’cause if you send 1 million bucks how much will actually help the people? That was the great thing with “Live Aid” 20 years ago, they bought their own logistical equipment (even a boat!) to make sure all the help they sent went to the people. Everytime I’ve been to Africa (all 3 times) I’ve always heard about how terrible corruption is. First time, in Kenya, I didn’t believe it that much, thought it was just the tourguide exaggerating. Then in Nigeria I saw it everytime I wanted a cab. And in Congo I wouldn’t have gotten the medical treatment I needed if the assistant from the embassy hadn’t taken the bag of cash with her. And they also told me the story of all the people they had to bribe to get Anna Lindh the trip on the river that runs through Kinshasa that she spontaneously wanted to do. So without “taking care” of that I can understand why they don’t wanna send more aid.
Some higher power must’ve heard me ’cause 8 hours after I wrote yesterday’s update I got the F1 tickets, the tooth is pulled, headache gone (thanks to 600mg Brufen) and I got $500 more in my last pay check than I thought I would. Now if through some miracle my body could bounce back from the shock of the tooth removal operation in just one day that’d be awesome, otherwise I’m looking at a very lame midsummer’s eve
Today I’m having my second wisdom tooth pulled. Or cracked is more like it. I’m hoping that will help atleast a little bit with the headaches! The worst part of it is that it’s gonna set me back some $200, just when I need it the most as I’m heading to Silverstone in 2 weeks. That is if we ever get the tickets. They’re supposed to be on the way but I’m sitting here expecting the worst. It also means I have to go on painkillers for a few days. I dunno why but I’ve never liked taking medication, atleast not for a long time. I don’t wanna get hooked on anything (’cause let’s face it, you do feel good after some heavy prescription Brufen) and pain is always the indicator something’s wrong and I can’t just take a pill and let it go away and think everything is fine.
I’m SO not 20 anymore! When my 30th birthday approached I was thinking about what kinda party I should throw, if any. The problem was that my main partying is gonna be at Silverstone in a month and that’s setting me back financially. So I didn’t wanna spring for a huge party like my house warming party, and we have already done that finnish cruise thing for my 25th. So this time I just told people “I’ll be at Dubliners (a pub one block away from work) from 6, swing by if you can”. And they sure did! I think we counted 16 overall, gaming-buddies, old school friends, former and current collegues and family. Overall a really good night out and nice way to spend my 30th birthday! But the main event is in a month 🙂 But when I woke up this morning I had the worst headache ever and considering the past 6 months have been full of headaches, that’s saying quite alot!
This will be my last update as a 20-something guy. In 6 hours I’ll be a 30-something guy. So let us recap the past 10 years:
After 1 academically failed year at the University in Växjö, I moved back home, got a job I liked at great company. Got new friends, co-started a Trekker organization, started my home theater system, got an interest for Formula 1, got to go to Greece, got a promotion, got to go to Kenya. Moved to my own place (blasting housewarming party!). Got another promotion to the best job I’ve ever had (developing our e-commerce site), took a few trips on the party-boats over to Finland (another blasting party on my 25th birthday). Company went broke, got a drivers license, re-educated myself to pc techie, started working a little off and on at a lawfirm. Celebrated one sister’s 30th birthday in scotland, lost my best friend, got a job at the state department, travelled around the world, celebrated the other sister’s 30th birthday, visited Africa while suffering from salmonella and then got to go to Italy. Helped organize the first Star Trek Convention in sweden (ever) and spend a few days in the company of Tim Russ. Had a few lazy months as a consultant inbetween jobs. Finally got the boot and a headache that won’t go away and got a steady job at the lawfirm and bought the last piece for a home theater (projector)… and that brings us up to date.
Overall a good 10-year run I think. And to start my 30’s I’m gonna have a good get together tonight at The Dubliner tomorrow night (everyone’s invited) and then off to see the F1 race at Silverstone!
I hate wanting to kick myself in the ass saying “if I knew then what I know now…”. I usually say it when thinking about how I hated school or something that’s a few years off, but in the past two days I’ve gone through my last two years of updates and reading all the stuff when I was travelling and all I have to say to myself is “if I knew then what I know now”. But “then” in this case is only two years ago. Which means I must’ve learnt alot of stuff in the past two years. Maybe that’s why I’m feeling so indifferent to my current job, cause let’s face it, you can’t beat travelling the world, staying for 2 weeks in every country, living in hotels, doing something you’re good at, eating at restaurants everyday, making tons of money and everything on the tax payers dollars.
(yes Ricki, I know!)
Hope everyone had a great christmas, if you even celebrate it? Mine was pretty ok. Don’t know why it was only “pretty ok”, but it was. Probably my fault. But we finally ordered those F1 tickets for my 30th birthday! We’re going to Silverstone on July 10th which is one month after I turn 30, but this way Amy and her Paul will make it which makes all the difference!
Btw, pictures are up from the christmas weekend at my folks place.
I’m getting that retro feeling now! Maybe it’s the onset of the christmas spirit or something, I dunno. Anyway, a while back we had the “thanx for a job well done!” party at the state department to wrap up this project of travelling all around the world. And one funny thing they had done was to get pictures from everyone and assembled them into one long slideshow that just kept on going and going. It was really fun to see since I “only” did 1/6 of the trips. And then there were some pics of me that I hadn’t seen before. But going through the entire thing I just get this “damn that was some good times!”. Problem is I can’t say that without hearing Ricki and everyone else going “and you thought it was a bad idea!?” in the back of my head…
So anyway, here are some new additions to my digital gallery:
The Swedish Embassy in Sofia.
Me and Annika in downtown Buenos Aires.
Me, (little bit of Ellinor) and Annika planning the weekend activities.
House warming party for one of the guys in Buenos Aires.
Dinner at the ambassadors residense in Congo.
This is how happy I was when it was time to go home from Congo.
A common sight indeed. In Copenhagen this time.
Phew, that was one hectic weekend! Even though I wasn’t THAT involved with all the happenings during the SweCon it still felt like it! When we dropped off Tim Russ & Co. at the airport we just breathed a sigh of relief – it was finally over! And ofcourse I have some pictures thanks to my good buddy Ricki! Head over to My Pictures and scroll down to SweCon 2004″ I should be able to scan the signed pic with me and Tim Russ by tomorrow. Meanwhile, take a look at some new pictures I just added from my trip to Rome! And these pictures are taken by Ricki that was also “accidentally” in Rome at the time.
I’ve finally updated this place with information about what I’ve really been doing for the past 14 months. If you’ll go back through this years updates as well as last years you’ll see I’ve inserted comments about when I’ve been were and added some comments I haven’t been able to write earlier. And I’ve also updated My Trips with a complete listing of where I’ve been and all info you might wanna know. Enjoy! I know I did. The reason I haven’t been able to post this earlier was security concerns. And mostly for me. Who knows what certain security agencies would do to get their hands on a guy with admin access to that network. But that’s all over with now. My accound is disabled and all passwords have been changed so even if I could remember them it wouldn’t help anyone. So I’m thinking it’s safe to publish this now.