Frozen dogs

So what else has happened over the past year which has brought my blogging to a standstill?

Well, I guess there was the band. I was playing bass for Infinite Loop for most of 2009. Brilliant band, great songs, but it all got a bit too much for me in the end. Gorka and I were heading in different directions, or at least had different ideas about the best way to do things. And after Dad died, I started to give much less of a shit if I’m to be honest. Which was a shame, as it was such a great band – really good songs played really nicely by everyone. And I do miss playing those songs together, even if it is a relief to be out of the whole thing.

Ah, its only music (says the man that can’t go 5 minutes without picking up his guitar or having a quick noodle on a synth).

2009 was also the year of Ollie and I deciding to say ’sod this for a game of soldiers’, and start our own business. Ollie did the dirty deed first, and quit her job in February. I joined her when things started pick up at the end of the summer. It’s a hugely exciting and also quite busy time. Ollie is putting in so much work that I feel like a bit of a fraud sometimes, but then I have my moments too. Really need to get into the habit of stopping work earlier in the day, so we can actually sleep when we go to bed. Working until midnight is no good for anyone. Hopefully all our hard work will pay off, and our dream of owning a successful business i.e. working less and living more (yeah, that is the plan here, despite appearances to the contrary) will become reality.

And of course 2009 brought us Chilli the dog. She is now a year old – officially a teenager, which means she gets stroppy and difficult regularly. Either that or shes taking after her dad.

It’s winter here in Norway – and has been for far too long. I find the winters difficult to get through to be honest. It is of course incredibly pretty, with everything under a permanent blanket of snow for months on end. And I have fallen in love with skiing (the downhill variety – I know, I’m not a true Norwegian if I’m not on cross country skis). But the whole winter thing.. its just seems like a lot of unnecessary hard work when we could be living in a warmer country – its not like theres any shortage of them. We could always come here for holidays to enjoy the snow and skiing, but then safely retire back to somewhere where anything more than a tee-shirt is overkill any time of year.

Enough complaining. Time for a spot of lunch, then a venture out into the cold abyss to take the dog for a walk.

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Dad

I’ve tried to write this a number of times. Never know how to put things, or what to write, what to keep to myself. I think I will keep it short.

My Dad died a few months ago.

He was diagnosed with cancer in March. He was getting radiotherapy, and seemed to be doing ok. I was home for my birthday in September, and he even had a beer with us. Five days later he was dead.

Mum made the observation that all his life he always took forever to do things, and yet he managed to go from being reasonably ok to dead in 5 days.

He was always such a gentle man, so kind and patient.

We all miss him so much.

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Quick update

Ok, so i have been a useless bugger updating this site. And I have let down my faithful blog followers. Apologies Bård

Well, I am in Wales, I have just eaten a bloody lovely curry from the Shobs (our local Indian place), and am now gonna settle on the sofa and watch a DVD, so will make this a quick one.

Of course, the reason I have not been updating this regularly is cos we have been fantastically busy. The following is a quick summary of whats been happening these last few months.

* I have been playing bass with Inifinte Loop several times a week.
* Chilli the dog has been needing regular walks.
* I have quit work and now both Ollie and I are working full time on our own business.

Theres other stuff as well, but that will have to wait for the next post.

Hope everyone is well and happy!!!!

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The Arrival of Chilli

We are now the very proud owners a dog

We ended up getting a female rather than the male we looked at originally – the female was much more laid back and gentle than ‘Igneous’, who seemed to be intent on killing as many of the other puppys in the kennel as was possible.

Our dog is a beautiful female Staff called Chilli, and has been living with us for just over 3 weeks now. Shes coming up to 12 weeks old, and is a completely brilliant animal with bags of personality and energy. She switches between being incredibly affectionate and mellow to being stubborn as hell several times a day, and has completely taken over our lives.

Yesterday evening we let her off the lead for the first time during a walk, and it was just brilliant To see her free, running about and having a good time was so nice. Plus she got growled at by a couple of other dogs – its always good to give a potentially over confident dog like Chilli a bit of respect for others.

Really looking forward to the weather warming up, so we can take the Chills on longer trips into the mountains. Winter is doing its best to cling on at the moment – its still snowy and cold, although the sun isn’t setting until around 19:00 now. The switch over from dark winter days to light summer ones seems to happen so quickly. And the clocks are going back next weekend, which also helps

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Tales of mucus, music and snow

Well, feeling like a bucket of shite again. I’ve been plagued by a re-occurring cold for the past couple of months. This weekend it turned decidedly flu like. Been feeling like a pile of wank these last two days – cant breathe, and when i do my throat feels like I’ve just inhaled broken glass, and my body cant decide if i am overheating or getting hypothermia.

Its an exciting time though, despite the lergy. Joined a band recently – just realised I haven’t blogged about it yet. I’m playing bass for Infinite Loop, an alternative/indie band fronted by Spanish singer/songwriter Gorka de la Camara. Gorkas songs are excellent, and the other guys, Thor S on guitars and Arne H on drums, are really talented musicians and make me feel like a bit of a fraud. Been playing together for about a month now, and its really starting to sound good. Damn exciting.

Started my new job at Rubberduck Media Lab last week. Thats going well – nice people, and much more organised and professional than my previous job. Have lots to learn though, so aren’t feeling like i’m contributing much at the moment, but I suppose thats to be expected.

Went skiing last weekend. Sigurd and Marie treated us to a day on the slopes at Norefjell for my christmas pressy. Decided to try out snowblades (or wankerskis as my brother likes to call them). Had a seriously brilliant time, and am itching to get back on the slopes again now. Had planned on buying some snowblades yesterday, but what with the lergy it hasn’t happened yet. I’m really glad we bought a house opposite a ski slope now

And of course theres the arrival of Igneous, our wee puppy, in a few weeks, just in case things weren’t exciting enough.

But enough of exciting things.. I’m going back to bed, try and get some sleep and get myself well again. Don’t think sleep is gonna come easy tonight though….

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Dog

After dreaming about it for oh… around 5 years, we have finally got ourselves a wee dog

Hes a Staffordshire Bull Terrier. Have been to visit Staffys, Whippets, Greyhounds and even a Shiba Inu, but we always came back to Staffys. Just couldn’t resist them – so much personality, and so affectionate.

Apologies to Marie, who will be disappointed that we didn’t get a soft fluffy dog, but we are just not soft fluffy dog people. We hope you will like him anyway.

We will be picking him up at the end of the month, so we have a wee bit of time to prepare.

First things first – a name. Ollie quite likes Slate. I also like Slate, but think Igneous is cool too. Votes for either (as well as suggestions of other names) can be left in the comments.

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Drunk in Dusseldorf

This post appears to be written by me while on a business trip to Germany last week. I just discovered it saved in the Wordpress app on my iPod, with only vague recollections of actually writing it. I thought it probably needed to be published, so here it is.

After a weekend in Amsterdam, Erik and I took the train back to Dusseldorf for a few days of teaching at E.on.

First time I’ve been to Germany.. so I’m not sure whether Dusseldorf is entirely representative of the country in general, but I kinda like it. It has a certain charm, if you are able to ignore all the concrete. In particular, the Dusseldorf office is much nicer than the Swedish one in Malmø, and most importantly the food is light years ahead. Mikael advised caution with regard to the food, but the low expectations made for a not unpleasant suprise. Not the best food in the world, but compared to the delights of E.on Malmø, it was gorgeous.

Went out for a few quiet beers tonight with Erik, played a game of darts before meeting up with a German, an Austrian and a Scot who challenged us to a game for a round of beers. I dutifully lost the first round, but Erik played like a daemon all night. How he managed to consistently hit triple 20s when he could barely stand up, I will never know. An excellent evening with decent people.

Thankfully its Eriks turn to take the class tomorrow, although after struggling to get him back to the hotel this evening, I wouldn’t be suprised if its me that ends up doing it.

Last business trip with Viz. Ends up being the most fun. Good one to end on.

Looking forward to getting back and getting on with the band now

I’m not entirely convinced by the conclusion I came to regarding Dusseldorf… a certain charm?! I suppose I was looking at it through a fairly hefty pair of beer googles at the time.

Erik did a remarkable job of not appearing hungover the following day, and happily took the class while I hid in the corner trying to stop my head from pounding. There were suggestions that a second trip to Dusseldorf might be needed this week, but thankfully (for my livers sake at least) this has been called off, and my final week at Viz is being spent in Oslo.

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Happy New Year!!!

After a good christmas back in the UK, Ollie and I are spending new years in.. um.. the UK.

We were due to fly back to Oslo on Monday, but managed to miss our flight. Alex and Tammy have been brilliant and have not only put us up for the week, but kept us fed and watered with bloody lovely roast dinners and lots of nice beer and wine.

We have booked another flight back to Oslo on Saturday morning (flights before this were either full or bloody expensive), so will be back just in time for Matts birthday

Hopefully going to catch up with Miles and Rie as well as my brother before we go back home, so missing that flight has worked out quite well for us.

Off to get myself a bottle of Landlord and welcome in the new year with Ollie, Alex and Tammy now.

I hope everyone has a happy and prosperous new year!!

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Photos from Croatia, and the arrival of Leonard

A selection of photos from our trip to Croatia the other week are up in the photos section. Will put some photos of our new house and Leonard up sometime this week.

Housey things are slowing getting sorted. We should be back on the internet on Monday, we´ve started hanging up our pictures and I even have some of my music equipment connected up again (I´m waiting for my new patchbay to arrive before I put everything back together properly). Theres still a load of boxes lying around though, and loads of small jobs to do around the place.

We were finally able to bring Leonard home yesterday. Picked him up from the garage, although he still hadn´t had his boot fixed – gotta take him back on Monday to get that sorted. For those that don´t know, Leonard is our new car – an estate / station wagon version of the Volkswagen Golf. He is a practical car – lots of room for kayaks, skiis and a mattress in the back, but he isn´t the pretties of vehicles, despite being purple. Looking forward to exploring our corner of Norway now, although the bigger trips might have to wait till Spring.

The arrival of Leonard means that we can start looking for places to train again. Have found a Tae Kwon Do club in Kolbotn, but it looks like we might have to travel quite a bit further if we want to train Kung Fu again.

Off out for a drive now

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Lots of news from Croatia

Sat writing this on my new iPod touch while enjoying a cold drink in a wee cafe overlooking dry stoney hills just north of Dubrovnic Arrived in Croatia yesterday and already my shoulders have dropped several centermeters. The weather is fantastc here – big blue skies, warm and sunny!

Had a busy and tiring but quite productive few days moving in to our new house last week. Leif and Astrid helped Ollie, Matt and myself with the move (thanks guys!), and so it only took us Monday to shift in. Getting everything unpacked took us the rest of the week and we’ve still only done downstairs. We bought our first washing machine, a fridge and a ton of stuff from Ikea, some of which still needs to be put together.
We are chuffed to bits with our house It has lower ceilings than our previous place (which was a flat in a building built in the 1880s), and this makes it feel a bit more warm and cosy. Our new furnature, all our plants, a fire roaring away in the fireplace and a brilliant view of nice sunsets from our living room also helps of course

The other big bit of news is that I have got a new job. It is with a small company called Rubberduck Media Lab and they develop software that streams TV and movies to mobile devices. I will be working in their R&D department doing Java development. Looks like a very cool place to work – nice people, exciting projects, plus it looks like I can install Linux on my laptop there Their offices are located right in the centre of town as well, on Karl Johans gata. Will be nice to be based in the main street, especially as we have just moved out of Oslo – the bus that goes from outside our new house will drop me off just round the corner from the offices. Will start there in Feburary next year.
Will be a shame to leave Viz though – will miss the people there.

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