The worst day at the beach is better than the best day at work

Today I got on a bus in Auckland for the four hour journey up north to Paihia, to stay at a BnB run by relatives, look out over the ocean and read.

It was sort of unclear how we're related, until we sat down with some charts of our various families that they had compiled and had filled in by my parents when they visited a few months ago, and figured it out. The common denominator is two generations back from my grandfather, with the Dybecks. Back in the 1800s our common forefather Richard Dybeck wrote the Swedish national anthem, our family's only claim to fame.

The trip up here was cool. Winding roads up and down steep heavily forested hills, interspersed with vast green fields with sheep happily munching away. Like something out of Lord of the Rings. Oh, wait...

I wonder what this country looked like before the Maori (though they weren't Maori then, only becoming so after coming to NZ) and Cook came here, when it was all covered by bush. Dotted throughout the forest landscape along the road were ferns, some over 6 meters in height. Like something out of Jurassic Park. This must all have been very wild and untamed wilderness back then, seeing as how a lot of the country still is.

So now I'm at Allegra House bed and breakfast, a very modern building on a hill overlooking Paihia and the Bay of Islands. The view is spectacular. Too bad its pouring down. With a bit of sunshine it would be breath-taking.

Tomorrow a slow day, reading, writing, just kickin' back. Maybe a walk down to Paihia and look around. My brother is coming up on Friday, and we'll probably do some kind of tour on Saturday. On Sunday I'm leaving for Kuala Lumpur, and a completely different cultural experience.

Travel is glamorous only in retrospect

I walked outside at half past five this morning. The sky was already a lighter shade of blue. Pink in the east. Cold. Winter's last hurrah. In the parking lot where cars burn now and then, people were scraping the frost off their car windows.

Spring was in the air yesterday. "This is the first day that doesn't smell like winter", a friend said. It was true. And we all felt it. Spring in the air became spring in our souls.

This afternoon, in a car going to our pitstop for the night in Gothenburg, spring felt very far away. A landscape drenched in fog and rain, dotted with farms and ten foot milk cartons spread out around us. Endless traffic. Two people crammed into the backseat with me, and I'm not a skinny guy.

Now I'm sprawled on a hotel bed, the TV on, laptop on my lap (hence the name), and a book within easy reach. The backseat boys are trying to lure me down to the hotel bar with promises of beer, but the way things look now, I'll stay right here and go to bed early. Spring is very far from both soul and body right now.

Let's think the unthinkable, let's do the undoable, let's prepare to grapple with the ineffable itself, and see if we may not eff it after all

A new year has just begun. Outside it sounds like artillery fire, and the horizon is lit up by fireworks. Literally, lit up. It's spectacular. We live on the fifth floor, on top of a hill, and on a clear day, like today, we can see for miles and miles. Tonight, just like two years ago, we can see fireworks from hundreds of sites, detonating all over the horizon. Very cool.

I'm not much for resolutions, New Year's or any other kind. Last year our resolution was to go more to the movies. We did. This year my resolution is less clear-cut, less measurable.

2009 will be a better year than 2008. Not saying I've had a bad year, on the whole, just that 2009 needs to be better than 2008. I hope yours is as well.

(I was thinking about doing some kind of list over the year, top movie and CD and all that, but I won't. Instead I will do many lists. I will unleash a barrage of lists. And I expect you all to accept the challenge. Be prepared)

Drift like sleep

Drove through a flat and grey Sweden today, in a rental courtesy of Drunk Carl. Wovenhand on the stereo. Thy will be done, here on this highway.

Rainwash against the windows. Not a single snowflake, as far as the beard could see. When did it all change? White blooms to white and freezes white again.

Now cocooned in the comforts of home. Old home. Eyelids heavy. Right eye bloodshot. The headache is acting up. Sleep sounds like a good idea, but won't happen for a while. Jeff Dunham is on TV.

That state of mind where you realize that you're actually on vacation, that the office actually won't fall apart without you, is right around the corner, held off by the excellent combination of exhaustion and a major sugar rush. Hopefully it really hits me tomorrow.

Everyone must take time to sit and watch the leaves turn

I like the fall. I'm not a heat person. At all. At maybe 25, 26 degrees Celsius I just shut down. Headache, fatigue, the whole thing.

So September, October spells relief for me. Especially since all the windows in our apartment are facing south, and air-conditioning is very much a no-show in Swedish apartment buildings. I bought a portable one a few years back, but it's kind of noisy and not really a proper replacement for the real thing.

Then again, I'm not a rain person either. And so not a snow person. So, yes, mistlur, I am a complainer. A whiner. Weather is rarely right for me. If I had my way, we would have late summer evening weather, all the time, 24/7, 365 days a year.

Now the leaves are turning for real. I wish I had the time and peace of mind to just go out and walk around for hours, looking. Maybe next weekend. Or maybe the one after that. Or...

The stories of my death are highly exaggerated

In response to EGE's question on my last entry, and just to dispel any rumours that might be flying around out there on the BBI (Big Bad Internet), I am not dead. The laptop, however, remains so. Though not really.

Without going into mind-numbing detail about all the trials and tribulations surrounding the laptop, I can say that I am not a happy camper, and that a CD with a new, proper OS is on the way from LG. I expect to be up and running sometime next week.

So. My absence is mostly due to that but also due to a general lack of time. I will be back, though.

And as an observation: scraping ice from the windows of the car on October 6th is not OK.