Lekaro

Well it wasn’t meant to be quite such an adventure that it ended up being.

On Wednesday I went to North Cape to do a training session for one of our customers. Quite an ordinary deal, just going up on Wednesday and then back on Thursday

Flying up there on Wednesday morning was wonderful, clear sky all the way and nice snow in Honningsvåg. Training went good and I was hoping to be able to take a few good photos of the northern light. But in the afternoon the wind picked up and it started to snow a bit.

Still not to bad.

During the night the weather did a total 365, from cold, calm and clear to warm, windy and raining like crazy. When I got to the airport I had to wait for a while before we got the message that the flight was canceled due to the bad weather.

Which wasn’t to surprising.

We were told to get on a bus that would take us to Alta which has better weather and a larger airport and we would fly from there, something that happens a lot at these small airports.

Then the adventure started.

The roads were covered in thick ice, it was raining and we had very heavy gushes of wind.

Our bus had snow chains on two of the wheels, one for traction and one for steering.

Apparently it wasn’t good enough.

After about an hour a strong gush of wind took hold and literary just blew the bus straight off the road. We rushed down a 10 – 15 meter incline and came to a stop about 30 m from the road and less than 10 meters from the sea. I guess the drivers reflexes saved the day.

If he hadn’t manage to turn the buss a little one the way down we would have gone into the sea. And if he had turned it to soon we would have tipped over. In any of those cases we would have had to abandon the bus and someone might have been injured.

Not to mention that I cannot imagine how it would be to be outside in the freezing rain for the hour it took to get help.

But we were lucky and the bus skidded to a halt on dry land and on its wheels. And with the engine still running the wait wasn’t to bad.

After an hour a minibus came to pick us up. Then it got messy, getting up the bank to the road was a real pain. The bank was made of round stones, frozen, with snow on top. One slip and you would just slide all the way back down. Which I did at least 4 times, and then when I finally got to the top and walked over the road the wind kept pushing me back and almost over the edge again.

But we got into the bus and got going. By now we were all wet which isn’t particularly nice. Especially when you know it’s still at least three hours by bus to Alta. And of course we would miss our flight again.

When we got past the worst part we transfered to a bigger bus and thought that we were home free.

But it wasn’t to be.

When we came to Olderfjord where the road starts over the mountain the driver found the road to be to slippery to get the buss over the pass. But a scheduled services bus was due i not to long and that bus was properly configured to get over the pass.

But I guess that this was the day when nothing went right. The weather was so bad that this bus had to stop and mount equip more snow chains.

This meant sitting another hour in the bus, even if the bus is warm it gets a bit chilly when you are wet.

Finally the buss arrived and we managed to get on to Alta without any more delays, except slow driving across the mountain, passing a snowplow who had hit the ditch to.

By now we were way past the last flight from Alta so we were lodged at Rica Hotel Alta for the night, and for me the trip went on back to Oslo on the first flight today.

Which was blissfully uneventful.

Except I ended up in the seat next to a “reindeer mechanic” or as the rest of us would say, a vet

Well at least next next August.

I’ve finally got my stuff arranged at work and booked my trip. I’m going to go to Tanzania and hike Mt. Kilimanjaro. I got a tip from a friend of mine about this particular trip and I figured that it would be great to be able to do it.

The whole trip is arranged by Rosa Bussarna which is a Swedish travel company that specializes in adventure trips around the world. The one I’m going on is a 18 days trip where we’ll visit the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Kilimanjaro and Zanzibar. You can read more about the trip here. (Swedish only)

I’m really looking forward to this. Except that I’ve got to go get a bunch of vaccinations, I really can’t stand taking shots. But I guess I have to

And if the preliminary dates are kept like today I’m probably going to have a long weekend in Stockholm too prior to leaving.

Time for a little update from back home.

Since Monday I’ve been at my parents place where I grew up, doing as little as possible

Which means that the first ting I had to to was to mowe the lawn

On Tuesday we had a little break in the rain and I managed to do a hike up to Leinehornet, the highest point on the island where I grew up (363 m.s.l.) it is quite a nice walk except that the part from my house to the main trails has not been used to much in the recent years and have almost disappeared. Which led to me being soaking wet before I was half way to the top.

When you come a bit higher the vegetation gets lover and it gets a bit easier. I was relay pleased that people seems to have started to use the old trails that I used to walk when I was a kid. The last time I went up it was almost gone to, but this time around there seems to have been quite a bit more traffic there. Which is good, that route is much nicer than the one going almost straight up the mountain.

I did the round trip in about two hours, but I like to stop and have a look around

The rest of the week has been slow, which I enjoy for now. Today started out with pouring rain, but then around 6 pm it suddenly broke up and we had sun for a few hours. I used the break in the weather to go out and get a few pictures og the sun and the rain at the same time. That’s the western Norwegian summer for ya.

I’ve added a new image category today to, I’m trying to get some nice HDR images and these are some of my first tries. I’ve not focused to much on the post processing part of HDR images since I’m currently figuring out how to take good photos as a base for a good HDR image.

Have a look at the gallery here.

Finally a few weeks of work and an opportunity to get out of Oslo for a while.

Today I’ve traveled south to Kristiansand to visit my sister and her husband. I’ll be here the rest of this week and I’m just praying for a bit of good weather. A bit of sun wouldn’t hurt

Today I flew in early, finally get some days off and I choose to start the day at 0500, go figure.  We went back to my sisters house for a while and then went exploring a bit. Ended up at Kristiansand Cannon Museum, an old fortress from WWII where the second largest land based gun is situated. The largest is in Harstad if you wonder, and you can see that they were constructed by the same army. Both have a similar basic layout and specifications.

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.

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.

And it’s back to the good old daily activities. And starting to look forward to my next break

I’ve been really bad at blogging my training the last few weeks, and not to good at doing it either, but now I’m back for a while. Today’s trip to the gym was great, i had a lot of fun and now I’m exhausted in a good way. And I’m loving the weather tonight , you can really feel spring coming today and I’m hoping that tomorrow will be a great day. The weather services are not as positive as I but I’m hoping to prove them wrong

And here comes today’s little chart.

Time for a little update here again, has been real slow the last few weeks.
Both with my blogging and the new and better life I’m afraid. The only good thing is that my new life has been just a tad better than my blogging

Right now I’m in Kristiansand visiting my sister. I came here on Wednesday afternoon and I’m staying until Monday. On Thursday I helped my sister and her husband to move from their apartment and into the house they have bought. Thank God it’s a small place they moved from. It took us only about three hours and three runs back and forth to get it all in. And the weather gods were on our side to. Nice, sunny and dry, couldn’t have been any better.

The rest of the time has been just relaxing and they have started to get stuff placed. Or rather, the kitchen is filled up mostly and the rest is still waiting in boxes. I guess it’s still a while before everything is in place.

There is some repair work needed to so it will probably be a while before they get really settled in. But I think they got a good house. And the surroundings here are just great, nice and quiet and just a few minutes’ walk from a large lake where you can just relax, swim or whatever when the summer really comes.

As I’ve already mentioned we were lucky with the weather in Thursday. And we had the same brilliant sunny day on Friday. Today has been a bit more overcast but no rain so I’m happy.

I’m just hoping it stays like this the next few days to.

The weekend has almost come to an end, and this one has been a good one.

I’ve been to Hamar with some people form Sørkedalen brass and Vivo brass where we have had a seminar with some south Africans that are in Norway on a exchange program. They travel around the country doing seminars like the one we have been to and performing.

This weekend it was our turn, and apparently we are the first grown up band they’ve had. Which would be challenging in it self. but it went very well, I thing everyone there have had a great time.

We have rehearsed a few pieces without sheet music, just by listening to the instructors. It’s a lot of fun and actually not to hard. The biggest problem is remembering which parts belong to which song. But when you put it all together it seems to be working reasonably well.

The real test comes next Saturday when we are giving a concert with the stuff we have been working on this weekend. I’m really looking forward to that to, and hope I’ll remember what to play.

A week is a long time

if you are in town you should come visit and ave a good time. The concert is held at Årvoll Gård

Check out the poster: concert poster

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