Lekaro

2009 is over and twenty ten is upon us.
2009 was a good year and I bet 2010 will be even better, at least it looks promising. Africa trip coming up and there are talks of going to the October festival in Calella, Spain with Soffa this year.

But all that is in August to October so I guess there will be a lot of fun before that to.

I’ve added a few pictures from New Years eve. Nice and quite afternoon at home and just our on to the veranda for some pictures around midnight.

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That’s where I spent my Saturday

This years airshow was blessed with nice weather and I returned home tired, a bit sunburned and with 1600 images to look through on my camera. And this time around quite a few of them was actually quite good.

I’ve uploaded a few to a new gallery and will probably add some more after doing another look through all of them

This years show was not as good as the one two years ago I’m afraid. The speakers wasn’t always on the action and I lost at least a few good shots because when listening to the speakers the show by that crew apparently was over when there still where a few passes left. They also seemed to have problems with the speaker system which was annoying.

But even so we got to se some spectacular flying. And I have to say that even if the big teams like the Patrouille Suisse and Aerostars YAK Aerobatic Team was impressive I’ve sort of seen it before

I was more impressed with the Norwegian Air Force tactical F-16 and chopper display. And there was some nice formation flying with De Havilland Vampire and two F-16. Showing the first jet fighter in the Norwegian Air Force and the current active fighters.
I’m hoping for a similar show in a few years where we’ll have the Vampire, F-16’s and the new F-35

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Or at least that was tonight’s plan.

I bought a new lens for my camera today, a Sigma 18-50mm f/2.8 EX DC Macro, nice piece of kit So i thought I’d go out and take some pictures. A few weeks ago i found there is a path down along Ljanselva and I decided to walk it down to Fiskevollbukta, a nice 2.5 km walk along the river in the woods.

When i got there i got the bright idea that a walk into Oslo wouldn’t be to bad so I set out. So my little stroll ended up at about 12 km when I caught the buss from the National theater.

I just wish that I solved some world problems along the way, but thinking back i guess my brain was blank for the most part. Zombie walking, living in my own little world watching time fly by.

Guess that’s the story of my life

And i got a few photos. Thought I’d post my first attempt on a HDR image, so here goes.

Guess I’ll have to use some more time on post processing, and selecting a nice motive for such an image seems to take some practice to.

So what has happened ? A lot

After Muskeldundermarsjen to Verdalen I had a great time  with all my friends from Sørkedalen. The week after my trip to Verdalen I went to Tallin for a few days. Working. But still got some time to have a look around and find some GeoCaches. Yes I just got my self a new hobby. I guess Geocaching is the nerds way to get fresh air, or perhaps not.

Geocaching is a way to find places and read stories that you might have missed if you were just passing by. All over the world people hide geocaches, containers which at least contain a logbook that you can sign when you find it. You then get the GPS coordinates of the hiding place and post it in the Geocaching website other people can the locate the cache, and learn a bit of local history. Bigger caches can contain track able items that you can pick up and drop in another cache somewhere else, leaving a trail across the world on the Internet.

I guess it might fit just as well as a family hobby as a nerds hobby

The week after I came back from Tallinn I went to London for a few days to do some Blackberry training, and since the training was set for Thursday and Friday I got the weekend in London. Doing some more caching while seeing the sites and did a bit of photography. I’ll see if I can upload some more photos soon to. I’ve been experimenting with HDR images.

And the finally last weekend I went to Gothenburg with Lilleaker Janitsjar which was fun to. I guess that was the last of my concerts before summer

I guess that’s it for tonight, I better start writing a bit more often.

So what has happened since the last time.

A whole lot, it’s been a busy week and weekend before that.

On Friday i went to my friends wedding in Moss, an event that almost got spoiled when i suddenly got a call telling me that there was a forest fire in Vestby and that we were needed there. Luckily I later got a message telling me that the fire brigade got it all covered and I didn’t have to go after all. Which was both good and a bit sad. I feel that we need to get some action soon, not just exercises.

Then Sunday was the 17Th of May, which as always is a long day. Getting up at 5:30 to be at Slurpen by 7:30, doing our round playing when the flag was hoisted around Sofienberg and then back to Lakkegata at 8:00 and our traditional 17Th of May breakfast.

The we got some time of before we marched down into town to join the 17Th of May parade up Karl Johan and past the royal family at the palace. I guess we finished off just about 12:00 since we heard the last of the gun salutes form Akershus festining just as we marched past the city hall.

And then some of us ended up at Tempest having a beer as we usually end up doing

The rest of the week has been a little of this and a little of that. i had Monday of, Tuesday in Trondheim, Wednesday on Grorud on a civil defence officers exercise, where we were part of some planning concerning the large three day exercise that is taking place in June.

And of course today I’ve got the day of. Just slept in a bit and went to the gym and just now came back from town where I’ve just lingered outside reading my book until it started raining.

This weekend we had a bachelor party for Oskar, a friend of mine from college.We started out by going to the airport at Kjeller where he got to ride a Harvard T-6G LN-TEX which is a old WW2 era fighter trainer. This particular one was built in 1944 and served in the RAF until 1949 when it was sold to the Belgium air force. It has been in civilian hands and was equipped with guns by the portuguese air force and served in Angola. In 1979 it was bought by Anders Sæther in Scandinavian Historic Flight.

After the flight we went to Våler where we did a bit of paintball in the woods, which culminated in Oskar getting a bunny suite on and we went rabbit hunting

After the paintball and some giant boxing we went to Petters cabin at Foten and got Oskar drunk, as planned

So all in all it has been a great weekend, and on Friday it’s back to Moss for the wedding. just hope the bruises have healed on the groom.

And a long one as well

On Friday i got up early and went up to Lamberseter to play there and then we went down to Slurpen where we spent a few hours before marching the city center to be part of the 1st of May parade. As I was busy doing that Susan and Alwyn arrived in Oslo.

After we finished playing i went to Traktørn a small pub just up the road. I was supposed to have one beer and then go to meet Susan, but as everyone know .. there is no such thing as one beer .. so I ended up having two before I left.

Then I meet Susan and Alwyn at the central station, and we went home to my place and did a quick change around before going back into town.  We went to Aase and Jeanettes place at Frogner, where we meet up with some of the other people from my band. All in all i thing it was a good 1st of Mai.

On Saturday the weather had deteriorated some but we still decided to go to Kjelsås and do the walk down by the Akerselva. And with only a few drops of rain on the way down i guess we should say that we were lucky. On the way down we also dropped in on the market at  Olaf Ryes plass where we got some lunch.

We then went to Majorstua and took a stroll through Frognerparken and had a look at the statues by Vigeland

Then we went back home for dinner and spending the rest of the evening just relaxing at home.

Susan and Alwyn flew back to the UK today but we still managed some sightseeing. We took the boat out amongst the islands from Vippetangen, jumping off at Hovedøya where we had a look around. Then we went and had lunch at People & Coffee in Rådhusgata. I’ve been there before for coffee and not been to impressed, but now the place has changed and I enjoyed it a lot. I’ll most likely end up there at other occasions.

After lunch we had a stroll on Akershus fortress before walking up to the Castle to see if the king was home. And judging from the flag he was

Then it was time for Susan and Alwyn to catch their bus to Torp and the end of their Norwegian adventure for this time. But I guess they’ll be back to have a proper look at Norway later. Meaning going up north I guess. I’m just pleased that they seems to have had a nice weekend here in Oslo and that the weather Gods seems to at least partly be playing along.

Today’s been the spinning day, three hours of it in fact. And all in all it worked out quite good. I was worried that it would be a lot harder than it was. But then again that might mean I didn’t try hard enough

But I’m happy, looking at my pulse graph after i got home shown that i managed my pulse rather good.

I managed an average of  145 bpm over the three hours which i think is good.

And now I’m getting ready to go to Marabella in Prinsdal to have a few beers with some of the people from the gym. should be good. if not I’ll just have to see whether i should go into town or not. It’s such a nice day today, sunny and calm. Kind of a shame that I spent most of it inside on a bike.

But shit happens.

Next weekend I get visitors all the way from Australia. Susan and her boyfriend are coming to spend the weekend here. I’m looking forward to that.

Just hope the rest of my OZ friend find their way to Norway to some day

And a bit tired one to

This has been quite a busy weekend for me. It started out on Friday with me and some friends going to a concert. We saw PLAY! A Video Game Symphony. Which is a rather cool concept. A symphony orchestra playing tracks from well known computer games. Bot hold and new. I’d never think I’d ever cue in such a long cue to see that kind of concert.

But I guess computer games are what makes younger people aware that a symphony orchestra isn’t that bad.

Then on Saturday we had our last band practice before the Oslo Mesterskap on Sunday. And we had a little mini concert with Sagene skoles Musikkorps. And the rest of the evening I spent at home watching TV and relaxing.

On Sunday we meet up at Folkets Hus at 1300 and we were scheduled to play at 1420. But the whole event was a bit behind schedule so we had to wait for quite a while.

But we got in there, did our thing and wasn’t to unhappy with it. After hearing the other bands in our division we went to Justisen and had some food and started drinking. A few beers later we moved on to Politiker’n to save some money. Which saved us 5 NOK a beer

We spent the time there waiting for the prize ceremony to start, and we managed to get there just to late for the whole thing. But we didn’t win so I guess it didn’t matter to much.

We came second in our division with 86 points. Two points below the winners in our division ( 2. division ) and I think that we beat at least one band in 1. division if you look at the score.

We were hoping to get to above 90 points but I guess this wasn’t the year for it. It seems to me the judges were strict since as far as I’ve understood only two bands got a score above 90, and the just barely.

After the ceremony we went back to Politiker’n and sat there drinking until they closed, actually for some time after they closed. The girl working in the bar was cool and didn’t chuck us out, and me and a Aase ended up going to Mono and having a drink with her and some other people after Politikeren closed.

I caught the last train at six past one and I’ve suffered the consequences today. At Least earlier today, no I feel good.

But I better be off, back to band practice today, and it will be good to finally play something other than Concert Prelude and Variations for band.

and I’ve yet to have blogged about last weekend. Guess that’s life

But the seminar was fun, drinking, playing and having fun. My order at systembolaget got messed up so i got a bottle of red instead of Bacardi. But I’m a bit unsure whether it was a good thing or not

The rest of the week has been busy and now I’m looking forward to a quite Friday. just got to do some spinning at the gym first

Tomorrow I’m going to Aase Kristin’s place where shes having a party, guess it’s going to be a bit delayed birthday party since her birthday was on Monday. Should be good.

Hmm better be off or they are going to give away my reservation at the gym.

Have a nice weekend all !

Oh .. and another thing.

Congratulations Tomas and May Britt … They got a baby girl yesterday !