Lekaro

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 !

This was my initial reaction today after seeing a news story today. The story was about a guy running in the hills, got ill, and on how is family means that slow response from the police killed him.

This got me thinking, shouldn’t people take some responsibility of their actions ? Why did one of his friends call his mother who called 1-1-2 ?

Would this entire story had a different ending if they had done things a bit differently?
First as the heading says, why call an electrician if you need a plumber. If they had called 1-1-3 directly they would have had a dispatcher that was a health professional. And if they held on to the line the emergency services would have a better understanding of the situation.

Of course the police might have done things differently to. It was said that they waited quite a while before asking for assistance from the red cross. I’m always baffled that they keep calling for the red cross people when they have civilian defence forces groups that are trained for and suppose to do these kind of tasks.

All in all it boils down to this:

1. Call the correct emergency number. In Norway that would be:

   • 1-1-0 : Fire Brigade
   • 1-1-2 : Police*
   • 1-1-3 : Medical emergencies

2. Remember to state who you are, what has happened, where you are
3. Do NOT hang up unless you are told so by the dispatcher.

* This is the international emergency number and will get you help in all emergencies. But whenever possible calling for what you actually need would help remove any errors in communications.

You know, one of those days when you have nothing planned and the a lot of things happens.

The day started with a good nights sleep, and i woke up wondering what today might bring. Got up and tried to decide whether to run and catch a spinning class at the gym, wait for a while and catch a strength exercise e class or just go and pump some iron.

I ended up going to the pool for a good 45 minute swim before I got tired of swimming in congestion, there are usually just a few to may people in that pool to make it really enjoyable. But still, it was all good.

Then I got a message from Petter asking if I wanted to grab a bite and go shoot some pool, which i haven’t done in ages. And i was starving  

We went to a Indian restaurant and had a nice meal before we played a few rounds of pool.

On the way out of that place we figured, why not go to the movies ?

So we ended up at the cinema watching The International. I haven’t heard anything about it before seeing it but it was actually quite good, in a special way. It’s said to be a thriller and with some action, but it’s one of those movies that has a plausible plot.

Do you see it ??

I hope not. Since it’s all, or at least most of it, been updates to the back end system Since WordPress, that this page is built on, has come in version 2.7 I thought I’d better keep this thing uptodate.

And i had to do some fixes to my gallery since I forgot to backup that CSS file, shit happens

Have a look in my gallery to, as I found a few new photoes that I would like to share.

You can say what you want about the new law which is making it illegal to buy sex.

But tonight is the first evening in a long time when i could walk down Karl Johan without getting harassed by prostitutes, and it’s great !

Tonight i went to the movies with a friend and saw the new Norwegian movie Max Manus which i had high hopes for and which came through. then we had a few beers at the Oslo micro brewery before going home, and soon to bed. Tomorrow brings an early start so that i get to have clean clothes for a new week

Ålesund airport Vigra !

Traveling home yesterday was quite an adventure, or rather going thru the airport security was. First they had to look in my hand luggage, which isn’t a supprice since my bag is full of pencils, camera equitment, chargers and so on.

Then a few minutes later I was called back to security, they wanted to have a look in my checked in luggage to, apparently there was a bag of something scary in my top pocket.

And there they discovered the white powder !! Scary ..

Except it was the detergin i had packed when i left for Australia in January and i’ve forgot all about. So this bag of white powder has traveled with me the last year. Going  Oslo -> Frankfurt -> Singapore -> Sydeny -> Alice Springs -> Sydney -> Singapore -> Frankfurt -> Oslo -> Volda -> Oslo -> München -> Oslo -> Ålesund

That is that bag has been scanned atleast thirteen times before someone reacted to the little plastic bag.

i’m not sure if i should be scared or not

It’s that time of year again and I’m now at my parents place. It’s nice to be home and it’s been a while since the last time. I came home last night and today has been a nice and slow day And I guess the next week is going to be most of the same.

But I should really start charging for computer fixes