/T/BLOG/

Olympics

2008-08-02T12:48:00.000-07:00

In the spirit of my blog and after several years there is finally a post again and of course as I always used to do with a photo. I can't believe my template is still working as it is. It does need a couple of updates because a lot of the links on the side are outdated or not my cup of tea anymore but there is a sign of life from this blog again.

So the title Olympics, cause that's what I want to publish a picture about. And it's not the Olympics as in Beijing where the Olympic games will start shortly, but it's the Olympic peninsula near Seattle where I went for a few days after I spent time with my daughter in Seattle.

I had a great time and the scenery just tremendous.

With my daughter again

2007-09-24T05:12:00.000-07:00

After more than a year not seeing her I finally was able to hold my little girl in my arms again. Been talking to her every week and she was excited for me to come over, but still was wondering how she would react when seeing me. But it was better than I could have hoped for. From the moment she saw me, she stuck with me. And I know parents always think their daughter is the sweetest, cutest, greatest, bestest etc.. well I know for a fact that that is true, cause my daughter is all of that :)

Blog on hold

2005-12-16T05:25:00.000-08:00

Blog has been on hold.. there was just nothing to blog about.
But on hold means.. it will come back..
And it has.
/T/

Skolan i Sverige (School in Sweden)

2005-12-07T06:55:00.000-08:00

So I started school in Sweden. Yeah school, and it looks like time has stand still in the last 30 years. I go with the bus every morning to my class in town. The bus takes me there in about half an hour, and with walking to and from the bus and waiting time it takes me a little less then an hour to get to my destination every day. Well let me tell a little bit about my class. I sit in a class which is the class where will be determined if you are ready for the fast track or the intermediate track to the swedish language. But it's kind of funny.. 'konstigt' We have two teachers (yeah they both work part-time) and one has been a teacher since the mid 60s and the other used to work with little children. Well it shows. On the Friday before I started I had with 2 other guys an introduction meeting where we were handed out a pencil. So this Monday pencils were individually handed those who had not received one yet. After this routine on deciding who already had one and who not, there was a second round of items that were being handed out: the erasers. Again the same routine.. those that had not yet received one got one (including me.. yippee!!) and those who had already been given one in an earlier meeting were carefully being skipped. Then there was a problem.. They had ran out of ruled writing pads .. they only had writing pads that were for graphs.. So with the announcement that we would get our regular writing pad later we were given our checkered ones. Then another routine of handing out binders and we were set.
The classes itself are just like the teachers: slow.. We start every day at some time after the scheduled 8:15 a.m. and at 9:30 we have our first coffee break that last a little longer than the scheduled 15 minutes. Then we continue till 11-ish, we have lunch till noon and after lunch we work about an hour to have another coffee break and we finish our day at 2 p.m.
And of the time in school that we don't have a break we have 50% at least what is called "Eget arbete" which means study/work by yourself. The other time is when the teachers actually try to teach something.. maybe it's me, but when we covered the pronounciation on Tuesday of the letters A O and Å, I don't think they have to be rehearsed again on Wednesday... they are only 3 letters. Thank god not the whole alfabet are vowels, but there are still 5 more vowels to go..
To give you the literal excersize of today we had to listen to the teacher say the following:
1. Moooooooooo... Moooooooooo... (here we had to write "mo")
2. Mahhhhhhhhh... Mahhhhhhhhh... (here we had to write "ma")
3. Moeeeeeeeee... Mowwwwwwwww... (here we had to write "må")
4. Soooooooooo... Soooooooooo... (here we had to write "so")
5. Sahhhhhhhhh... Sahhhhhhhhh... (here we had to write "sa")
6. Ahhhhhhhhhl... Ahhhhhhhhhl... (here we had to write "al")
7. Ooooooooool... Ooooooooool... (here we had to write "ol")
8. Bowwwwwwwww... Bowwwwwwwww... (here we had to write "bå")
9. Sowwwwwwwww... Sowwwwwwwww... (here we had to write "så")
10. Boooooooooo... Boooooooooo... (here we had to write "bo")
11. Oohhhhhhhle... Oohhhhhhhle... (here we had to write "ål")
12. Bahhhhhhhhh... Bahhhhhhhhh... (here we had to write "ba")
I wonder what surprises await me tomorrow.

Julgran

2005-11-30T08:30:00.000-08:00

This week placed our landlord, who owns most rental units on this island, the "Julgran" in pretty much every street that they rent out. So far I am pretty happy with our landlord. When we moved in we had quite a list of things that were not in a good state and about we informed the landlord. And pretty much everything has been taken care off. Yesterday we even got a comlete new hardwood floor in our livingroom because we pointed out some water damage by previous occupants. We had already our kitchen, hall, 2 bedrooms and one bathroom painted and/or wallpapered and now we also have a nicely lit Christmas tree to enjoy in these dark days before Christmas.

Ads on legs...

2005-11-25T04:21:00.000-08:00

I never realized that with the cold in Sweden there also comes the neccessity for dressing animals. This picture I took here on the island when I went for a walk the other day while it was still freezing cold. The horses are all wearing their wintercoats. And as you can see they come in a variety of colors. It turns out that there are plenty of resellers for all kind of horse blankets, and a little image search on google gave me tons of different colors and patterns. I wonder if the horses care what color they wear. And if they don't maybe they could be used as live billboards.. Having a horse with a big NIKE logo on it, or maybe even have a Marlboro add on it, so that the Marlboro man just becomes a Marlboro horse. Or am I going too far now with my ideas? If anyone sees at some point a horse with a big ad on it's blanket, then trust me they got the idea right from this blog ;)

Weather blog?

2005-11-24T00:21:00.000-08:00

This photo I took on just 3 days ago on a very short distance from my home. It was November 21st and this is what the weather looks like. Everything is icy and snowy, and it is only November. It looks like the change from Californian winters to Swedish winters is definitely on my mind. Every post lately is about the weather in some way. So does this mean my divers blog is slowly changing into a weather blog? I show the temperature almost live on my blog, I post images of the cold weather. I'm wondering if you are even interested to hear/read what the next coldest temperature shall be. And winter has officially not even started. Well I'll do my best with a variety of photos, but please let me know if you have seen enough snow and ice ;)

Morning Moon

2005-11-17T00:33:00.000-08:00

This morning it was even colder than the day before, it was a clear sky and the temperature had dropped according to the thermometer outside the kitchen window to -6.5C (20F). The roofs of the houses get more and more icy and it looks like the Swedish winter has really started now. And since the (full) moon was still shining into the window it was a great morning to show you the view from the breakfast table.
The first photo shows the moon in close up with the very common "skata" (black-billed magpie) in the trees.And the photo below is the view of the street I live on taken through the kitchen window with still the same full moon.

First snow of the season

2005-11-15T04:17:00.000-08:00

This morning I woke up and everything outside was covered with a thin layer of snow. I thought ok, let's go out and take some photos near the bridge to/from the island and show you the island in it's new colors. Well eventhough there is snow here at my home and on the rooftops, near the water there was pretty much nothing visible. But since I have not showed any photos of 'my' island yet.. here are some for you to enjoy:The first picture shows the bridge with a view towards the island.This second picture shows the island in a southward direction.This third picture gives an idea of the different typical Swedish houses you can find here on the island.

Hurry before it's dark...

2005-11-11T14:17:00.000-08:00

It's still more than a month till the shortest day of the year, but since the clock has changed 2 weeks ago it feels like every day it is dark before you know it. So I checked what today's official sunset is: 3:13 PM!! Luckily the sunrise is still before 8 in the morning, but when I am typing this I have not much time left before it is dark again. But still enough time left to type this post without turning the lights on. The move to my new home in Sweden went good. The place I moved to is a nice townhouse on a quiet area near the center of Alnö. We had the landlord over pretty much every day the last week to fix all kind of little problems we had with the appartment, but it all get (slowly) taken care of. What made quite a stirr in the neighbourhood was that we discovered "råttar" (one word for both rats and mice) in our home before we moved in, but with the poison placed they were gone (dead) in no time. Now I am here for about 4 weeks the biggest thing I miss is my car that I am still waiting for. The container with my furniture and my beloved car should arrive in a few more weeks and only then I will be able to call this home. Being without car makes me tied to my home too much. The supermarket is still on walking distance but too far to haul a big load of groceries on foot. And for other things you need to have your car because those things can not be found here on the island. Ikea (short for the big mall around the IKEA store) is about 8 miles from our home and is the main shopping area for the whole Sundsvall region. Ikea itself is building a much bigger store there in their ugly blue and yellow trade mark colors and it's current store which gave the mall it's nickname will be replaced by 35 other stores. Well it's only less than an hour before sunset, so I'm ending this post to get a little bit of sunlight outside and will keep you informed more soon.
Below a photo of our place that I took just before the move.

Missed me? I did!

2005-11-09T01:03:00.000-08:00

Thanks for all the comments on previous post, I was unable to access the internet for more than a week because of our move. The internet provider has some kind of policy that when you move it take 8 business days for them to press a button in their computer that the new address has access to the internet. And if you call customer service they say it's because of this department in their company determines that, and that department does not take customer calls.. The only thing is, that they forgot to mention it when we moved. Oh well.. at least they stuck to their 8 business days which meant that as of this morning they did press that button on their end and I am back!
And to honor my return I show you what I meant earlier with the beautiful colored skies they have here. This photo I took on Halloween (10/31) at 4:30 p.m. And since Halloween was here almost a full week later I still feel I have the right to post it on my blog. And welcome back to my blog for those that did miss me.

IKEA and Moving within Sweden

2005-10-31T02:47:00.000-08:00

Now that I am in Sweden for 2 weeks I get to experience what it is to move within Sweden. With my wife and her kids we move from her current appartment to a new appartment, something I would call a townhouse. And what struck me was the same weirdness that I remembered from when I was living in the Netherlands and that is the stripping of all items in an appartment. All light fixtures are gone all blinds are gone including the curtain rails etc. when you get the keys of your appartment. So the first thing you have to do is restore what the previous owners took with them. And that is when I figured out that it must be IKEA's idea to have it that way. Because on Saturday we went to IKEA (what other store is there?), and there I experienced something I only know from TV in countries like Russia: in the middle of the day we had to stand in line to enter the IKEA store. It was like getting into an amusement park. They had a big gate rolled down halfway.. first I thought there had been an accident or a fire.. but no, it was as it was explained on a sign (which indicates this happens on a regular basis) that for the "safety" of the customers they don't let in more than a certain number of people in the store. So when the number had gone down they opened up the gate and let in this huge line of people at the same time. (I guess that was a safe thing to do???). Anyway we did our shopping, got some of our curtains and things we needed but with these crowds of course a number of things were sold out and now we have to wait for it to arrive in the store again. Looks like IKEA will be ruling our lives now.

Where are the updates?

2005-10-25T04:20:00.000-07:00

Yeah, it's been a while since there was a single update on this blog, in fact there hasn't been one since I left California. Well, those reading my Front Doors blog, must have noticed that I still am blogging, there has just been too much around me that has slowed down the posting. But I still take photo's ;)
The first Swedish photo I show here will actually be a photo I took only 2 months ago near Indal. The reason I post that one is to show the last sliver of summer, because as of today the temperatures have reached below freezing during daytime already.. Looks like it's going to be a long winter so there will be plenty of opportunities to show you the snow and ice and the incredibly beautiful colored skies that often come with the season too. So more to come later!

Moon over California

2005-10-13T09:54:00.000-07:00

This is the moon the way it looked on my last evening in California before my move. I took this photo last night when I took my rental car to see the area by night. Next time I see the moon, I'll be on another continent.

My move - the packing and picking up.

2005-10-10T13:33:00.000-07:00

With this little truck and only 2 people the moving company showed up at my door at 9:00 in the morning. I thought this is never enough for all the stuff. Not enough people and certainly not a big enough truck.But after just a mere three hours this is what my home looked like on the inside.the kitchen areamy livingroomand my bedroom. And in this bedroom I was sitting on the floor with my laptop connected to the cable modem. Yeah they left me a little corner next to my suitcases for me to hang out.
Then the young guy who was definitely in charge started labeling the boxes and writing the inventory list while the other guy was carrying everything down the stairs. And the loading of the truck began. More packing was done in the garage area and slowly the truck started to fill up.And to my surprise it all got done in 6 hours total. They filled up the truck it all fitted in there and left me with an empty house.What I think is strange, but they apparently think is efficient is that they will unload the truck and pack everything in a container. I wonder why they dont pack the container at my door. When I moved from the Netherlands to California, they loaded the container and sealed it in front of my door and when it arrived in California it arrived in that same container at my door. Would have liked it if it was like that again.

No sleep till... Sweden

2005-10-09T17:53:00.000-07:00

With my bed taken apart (see photo) and my mattresses brought to the dump for which I had to pay $14.00 per mattress, is there not that much sleep for me until I will arrive in Sweden on Friday.I have already slept in my home on my camping mattress, that served me well during several camping trips in the past. But it was not a great success to sleep in your home on a thin little camping mattress without the fresh air of the outdoor living. Yes, it is quite a different experience. If I didn't have my tent moved, I might even consider going to a campsite and sleep there. But tomorrow the movers will pack everything and load it into a sea container. All that will be left for the last few days here are my suitcases. And... my laptop to keep you updated on my move. I'm tired already. But then again, I did organize everything for the movers to take out what should be moved. To be continued...

Coming weekend

2005-10-06T08:55:00.000-07:00

These photos I took a little while back, but it will give you an idea of what I will be doing this weekend. And with my move coming up it will be a long time before I can go there -as in Happy Hollow- again.

And the reason I'll be going there is because Sydney loves animals. She just can't get enough of every animal that exists and the fact that she can pet all the goats is the best that she can think of. And then there are some merry-go-rounds that she enjoys too. Maybe she can get to ride the little train again. By the way the cute little boy is Aiden, the son of a friend of mine.

2006

2005-09-30T17:30:00.000-07:00

FedEx "Airmail"

2005-09-30T14:30:00.000-07:00

Today FedEx dropped a package off in front of my door and if I had not known what I had ordered I would never have guessed what was in the package. The box that it came in was 12" x 9" x 6" and all I ordered was a tiny little memory card for my camera.Well as you can see the memory card did fit in the box. But considering the memory card is only 1.5" x 15/16" x 1/16" it could fit in the box with another 7381 of the same items. Well now I know why FedEx is doing so good, they ship air and get paid to do it.

Windy Hill

2005-09-29T19:12:00.000-07:00

With my new camera straight out of the box I went to the nearby Windy Hill open space preserve to see if I could capture some wildlife. I didn't have the extra memory card yet, only the out of the box 16MB, so I had room for only 6 photos, but for a short hike I thought that is ok for now. In the past I've come across quite a number of different animals there and I thought let me see what I can capture. Well here is the result of my 2 hour hike at Windy Hill:As you can see I wish I had the extra memory card.. When I ran into the coyote I had to delete photos first to make room. I wish I didn't have to delete those few hawk shots first, because the coyote took off when he spotted me strugling with the still unfamiliar camera. So I only got a distant shot of that one and not even smiling at the camera. I also ran into at least 6 deer, a couple of rabbits and all of them I could not capture because of the fact that the camera was full. Well according to FedEx, my 1GB memory card will be there tomorrow. Let's hope for that so I can shoot as much as I want.

Custom Calendar (1/12)

2005-09-29T09:59:00.000-07:00

And here is the January photo of my calendar. This photo is another Yosemite photo. People who are familiar with this park will recognize that this is the top of Half Dome covered with some snow and sticking through the clouds. I took this photo in the first week of May 2003. And because I like it so much it also is featured as the front page of my calendar.

Custom Calendar (2/12)

2005-09-28T10:28:00.000-07:00

The lake in this photo is located in Yosemite National Park and it's called very appropriately "Mirror Lake". I took the photo early May 2003 when the higher parts of the mountains in Yosemite were still covered with a little layer of snow. It was cool weather and very cloudy, but the clouds helped in creating a good light for this photo.

Custom Calendar (3/12)

2005-09-27T22:21:00.000-07:00

This photo I took on the 17 mile drive at Pebble Beach, CA in January of this year. The Monterey Bay is so beautiful, so another California coastal photo made it to the calendar. Again the light but also the fine mist over the water made me decide to put this one on the calendar.

Custom Calendar (4/12)

2005-09-26T08:15:00.000-07:00

This photo I made on the slopes of Mount Diablo in the middle of April 2002. I have never seen an area with so many California poppies. And when you see them in such abundance, it's not strange to understand that it is the state flower of California.

Custom Calendar (5/12)

2005-09-25T08:01:00.000-07:00

The always impressive Grand Canyon, that I got the opportunity to visit after 15 years again in April 2005, stood model for this photo. Something that I have realized is that there is no way possible to really capture with a camera the overwhelming image that it leaves in your mind. But of course one can always try. I liked that I was able to capture some of the depth with this photo. But it still doesn't come close to the live image.

Custom Calendar (6/12)

2005-09-24T07:02:00.000-07:00

When you drive along the California coast, you can find many little beaches that are limited in access and size due to the cliffs surrounding them. This photo I took near Big Sur in September 2004.

Custom Calendar (7/12)

2005-09-23T09:18:00.000-07:00

This photo I took at the Big Sur Coast of California in september 2004. The coastline here is so rugged which makes it the most beloved and also the most photographed stretch of the Central California coast. And eventhough I am not completely satisfied with the quality of the photo, it still made it on my calendar.

Custom Calendar (8/12)

2005-09-22T08:03:00.000-07:00

The photo for August is this photo I took at the Kaanapali Beach during sunset at Lahaina on Maui, HI. The calm ocean, the little boats, the clouds over the mountains in the horizon, it all give it a real peaceful feel to it.

Custom Calendar (9/12)

2005-09-21T05:19:00.000-07:00

The photo for September I took on the island Maui on top of the volcanic peak of Haleakalā at a height of 10,023 ft (3055 m). In the the eroded valley carved into the mountain recent signs of volcanic activity are still evident as you can see from the various colors of the soil. What played a big role when I took this photo were the strong winds that pushed the clouds over the top of the vulcano and gave it its magic.

Custom Calendar (10/12)

2005-09-20T07:32:00.000-07:00

Many who have been in Yosemite should be familiar with this view from the Yosemite Valley. What I like a lot in this photo is the light that makes it very dramatic. It was early in the evening and the sun only showed its face from time to time. And I was able to get this shot at one of those moments when it lit up a nice part of the valley. So this became my October photo of my calendar.

Custom Calendar (11/12)

2005-09-19T00:00:00.000-07:00

The calendar I created of landscape photos has more than one photo taken at Yosemite National Park. A photo, I took in September 2004 at the base of the Vernal Falls, stood model for November. This was at the end of the season when many waterfalls have dried out. Can you imagine how much water there would be in spring with the melting snow?

Custom Calendar (12/12)

2005-09-18T00:00:00.000-07:00

When I ordered my camera (see previous post) at Amazon.com, I was given a free calendar I could order at Shutterfly. And I thought that would be another nice early Christmas gift. So of my best landscape photos that I have taken over the last few years with my 'old' digital camera, I made a selection of 12 that stood model for my 2006 Calendar.. Here they are: starting with a photo of Spikarna on the island Alnö in Sweden.

Santa is coming

2005-09-17T00:56:00.000-07:00

It's only September, but today I had a good talk with Santa. And for a very good reason. You know that Santa lives on the north pole, and now that I have made my decision final to move much closer to Santa, I thought it's time he and I had a little chat. Every year he travels in December to all the homes to give presents that are either bought at Macy's, JC Penney, Pottery Barn, Amazon.com or you name it. And with all gifts Uncle Sam says "Thank you Santa for that nice percentage of sales tax". So uncle Sam and Santa are best friends. In Europe it's a little different. The local uncle Sams love Santa, but Santa doesn't like them too much. In Sweden for instance the sales tax is 25 cent on the dollar, or should I say 25 öre on the kronor.

Want to read more?And with that kind of percentage a lot of times it is Santa that is suffering from it because he cannot give the gifts he would have loved to have given.
So I talked to Santa today and told him to be a smart Santa and give me my presents before I move to Sweden. This way he can avoid Farfar Sven, and I get my presents sooner. A win-win situation! So I froogled on the item that I have had my eyes on:and decided to get it from amazon.com. So now I only have to wait 5-9 business days and Christmas is here!

Citibank customer service

2005-09-15T22:56:00.000-07:00

I thought I share with you a little conversation I had today with the intelligent people who work at CitiBank. Or maybe they are they on some outsourced offshore help desk center in Bangalore or so. It is as if you are talking to a brainless machine. But hey, at least they work in the evenings, pacific time. Come to think of it, I have seen computers answer smarter than the people behind this help desk. So I show you litterally the conversation I had today, except that I took out the actual address and dates, and replaced "you wrote" with "/T/ wrote". Nothing else has been edited.

International Move

09/15/05 08:56:53 PM

2 of 2

/T/ wrote:

Hello, I am moving to Sweden on *******, 2005 and want to give you my new address as of that date.
Current address till **/**/****:
#### My Rd,
My City,

Temporary address **/**/**** - **/**/****
Blablablavägen,
Stad,
SWEDEN

Address as of **/**/****:
Anotherroad ##
Min Stad
SWEDEN

Thank you,

Re: International Move

09/15/05 09:50:20 PM

2 of 2

Customer Service Wrote:

You are requested to contact us when you want to change your address.

Thank you for using our website.

RE: International Move

09/15/05 10:51:11 PM

2 of 2

/T/ wrote:

I thought this message is a way of contacting you with my address change. I just followed the instructions on the website to send you a message. Please let me know if I need to call a number, or what to do, because now I am confused.

RE: International Move

09/16/05 12:03:51 AM

2 of 2

Customer Service Wrote:

To update your address and phone number, go to the Manage My Account menu and select Update Personal Profile. Then select Address and Phone Change.

Thank you for using our website.

RE: International Move

09/16/05 12:13:31 AM

2 of 2

/T/ wrote:

Again.. this is an international move and on the "Manage My Account menu and select Update Personal Profile. Then select Address and Phone Change." it clearly says for international moves you have to send a secure message, which I did. So what do you want me to do now? I cant update my address there because that is ONLY for moves within the country.

RE: International Move

09/16/05 12:57:57 AM

2 of 2

Customer Service Wrote:

We apologize for any confusion. We have updated your address to change on **/**/** to the first address you provided.

We are unable to add another address change at this time. You will need to contact us when your address changes again on **/**/**.

Thank you for using our website.

I hope they read this blog, because then I can also answer with: "Thank you for using my website."

Sundsvall data

2005-09-15T14:30:00.000-07:00

Because my wife is in Sundsvall and I will be going there soon again, I wanted to know how long the days really are in Sundsvall throughout the year and what the average minimum (blue line) and maximum (red line) temperatures are there as well. So with some help of the weather channel I created a little graph that displays it all. And I discovered something that I never had even thought of. I always assumed that the longest day of the year is the day that the sun rises (yellow line) the earliest and sets (orange line) the latest. And that the shortest day is when it is the opposite. Pretty straightt forward, right? Well wrong!

It turns out that there is not a single day in the year where the sun sets the earliest aswell as rises the latest. It turns out that the sun rises the latest (at 9:22 AM) on December 25th, while the day that the sun sets the earliest is December 18st (at 2:15 PM) Making december 21st the shortest day in the year with only 4 hours and 55 minutes! And part of that is only twilight.
At the start of the summer it is the opposite.. The day that the sun sets the latest is June 22 and the day that the sun rises the earliest is June 20, making June 21st the longest day of the year with 20 hours and 2 minutes of daylight.

The temperature is pretty straight foward.. average maximum of 20 degrees centigrade (68F) in mid July and an average night temperature of -14C (7F) at the end of January. No surprises there.. yeah it's cold in winter.

What am I really?

2005-09-13T08:06:00.000-07:00

Don't you also think, that people who believe in astrology a lot, always tend to say that when they know you are a Libra, that "You are such a Libra". Or when they find out you are a Sagitarius, that "You are a typical Sagitarius".
Well I wonder what I am really.. Because I did this online quiz "How much do you match your zodiac sign?" and it gives you back a percentage on how you rank according to your zodiac sign. Well I thought let me do them all and see what my true Zodiac sign is. And if it turns out to be a perfect science, I might even figure out that my birthdate is another date then my birth certificate says.

So here are my results:

You are 60%
Aries

You are 40%
Taurus

You are 40%
Gemini

You are 53%
Cancer

You are 60%
Leo

You are 73%
Virgo

You are 53%
Libra

You are 60%
Scorpio

You are 33%
Sagittarius

You are 47%
Capricorn

You are 47%
Aquarius

You are 60%
Pisces

Well so this experiment proved that I am not much of a Sagitarius, but more of a Virgo. What do you think I really am and do you believe that these test show your real Zodiac sign? I am not convinced.

Life saver, sleep killer...

2005-09-09T01:23:00.000-07:00

It started about a month or two ago. It was a hot day and my appartment got warmed up quite a bit. And since my airconditioning is just making more noise than cold air I thougth I leave some extra windows open at night.
My hallway is downstairs and has a window next to the door, so in order for the aircirculation I thought let me open up a window there so the cooler night air will flow through my appartment and cool things down a bit.
Not a bad thought, right? Well wrong. The cooler air from outside contained something else than a lower temperature.... In the middle of the night I hear this penetrating beep every 30 seconds or so. Of course I wake up. Strange sounds always wake me up. I am light sleeper. It turned out that it is my smoke alarm downstairs in the little hall that produces that sound. So OK, I know there is a lot of traffic in my area, and I guess the polution from it is so much I can't have the window open there.
So next day I change plans and instead of having the window downstairs open I open the windows in my bed room and let a draft through my whole apartment cool it down at night. Well this was even worse. Now the smoke detector in my bedroom start to beep, and that above your bed is absolutely not a pleasure. So I curse and shut the windows in my bedroom and luckily the alarm goes off and I can sleep again.
Weeks pass by, everything seems fine. The smoke detectors don't smell what I don't smell either and they are quiet as they should.
Then a few nights ago, even while I didn't open the window in the hallway anymore... I wake up at around 3 in the morning. The smoke alarm senses an increased level of carbon monoxide again and starts with it's twice per minute beep. Night destroyed. What do I do now? Window is closed, so only got one window open upstairs. That can't be the cause, can it? But it continues for hours and hours until the morning after I had left the home and came back.
Next night.. same story. Again at around 3 a.m. beep .. silence .. beep .. silence .. beep and so on. And it went on night after night, and I got somewhat used to it. I closed the doors so I wouldnt hear it's penetrating sound too much. And I got to sleep again. (Ignoring what I was breathing, but at least sleeping). I even figured out that when I press the test smoke alarm button in the morning, it would after it's super loud sound be quiet for the whole day.
Then there was this night. 12:30 a.m. I was just in bed for a little while and it woke me up.. again.. Oh no, I thought, this is getting worse. A beeping sound from 12:30 till 8:30 that is eight full hours of beeping. That is too much.
If these smoke alarms were old, I would just have removed the batteries, but no in this appartment it is connected to the electrical net, and since I rent this place I cannot just remove the alarm all together. I had to come up with something else.
So weaponed with a little stool, some cloth and masking tape I went downstairs to silence this sleep killer as much as I can. I thought the cloth would at least absorb most of the sound and then with doors closed I should be able to get some sleep.
Well I did a good job. Not only did I manage to let much less sound come out of the alarm, but I acchieved an incredible side effect. The cloth works like a gas mask, no more bad air reaches the smoke alarm and it got quiet all by it self. And now after I am done with this post I should be able to get some good sleep.

Good night every one!

Happy Birthday Blog

2005-09-05T14:14:00.000-07:00

You never want to forget a birthday of another blogger? Well this brand spanking new blog shows whose birthday it is. Now you don't have to worry that noone will congratulate you on your birthday, and you can't forget your friend's birthday either.

Happy Birthday Blog

Captured thoughts

2005-09-03T13:22:00.000-07:00

When you look at these pictures it is as if you can see exactly what she is thinking. First it is "What do you have there, daddy?"; then it is followed by "Is that ME there on that little screen?". The third picture is "Wow, yeah that is me!" and finally in the fourth it is "Look at me, I look so good on there!"

FrancoJo

2005-08-31T13:37:00.000-07:00

This photo I just grabbed from a blog that I think is worth seeing. (credits of this photo goes to FrancoJo) It's the blog of my youngest brother who lives in Southern France. He just started his blog named FrancoJo a few weeks ago and I think he has some beautiful photos on there. So take a look for yourself and maybe leave him a comment or two. And the reason why I show this particular photo is because it is in my mind gorgeous. Live art. Down hill skiers on a climbing wall is something you don't see every day. Well enjoy his blog!

Victims of Hurricane Katrina Need Your Help!

2005-08-30T20:56:00.000-07:00

The disaster in the states of Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama and Florida is enormous. Many people are dead, many people are still missing and the loss of homes is countless. The Red Cross can help. Please help those who need it!

Donating to the Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund enables the Red Cross to meet critical needs of victims and thousands of other disasters each year.

Mushrooms Galore

2005-08-30T12:47:00.000-07:00

Based on the comments in my previous post, I guess you want to see some more detail of the mushrooms photos that I took in Sweden. Well here they are:

I am not a biologist, so I cannot tell you what kind of mushrooms these are.. maybe you know?

...and you know that you can click on (almost) each image in this blog to see them in a larger format.

Vacation pictures

2005-08-29T17:59:00.000-07:00

You probably all have experienced this scenario.. Someone comes home from vacation and has taken of course a number of pictures. You ask politely "Did you take any photos on your trip?" And before you know it you get to watch photos and photos and photos as if there is no end to it. Of course you like to see a couple of them, but to see them all in such a lengthy period of time plus you get an anecdote with each of them. So be before you know it you sit there, stuck with the photos that you, after you have seen a few, don't care less about. All you can think then is how do I make myself invisible and disapear without anyone noticing.
Well with that thought in mind, I will show everyone my vacation photos here. All you need to see is an overview, right? Well enjoy!
Of course if you need to view a photo in more detail, leave me a comment which one you like to see closer and I might post it later.
And if you haven't figured it out yet... these are photos of my trip to Sweden around my birthday this year.

5 Qs 4 U

2005-08-06T19:33:00.000-07:00

Doris of Gran's on Bran got this from Scott-o-rama who got this from Larry who got it from...

In this little diversion the "tagger" asks five questions of the "taggee," and then the "taggee" ends the post with the instructions for how the game works so that it propagates like any good meme is supposed to.

Doris asked me:

/T/ -

1. What is the most unusual thing you have seen on one of your treks?

This was an easy question, because just the other day I saw something that kind of spooked me out. In fact I took pictures of the objects that I saw and thought to even write a post about it on my blog.
Well it was just this last Thursday, I hiked along the Crystal Spring reservoir. It has some nice views over the water, but there is a road (Cañada rd) going pretty close along the whole trail which makes it defintely less attractive. But after a half anhour hike I saw 4 packages tossed away in the bushes. Black garbage bag plastic taped shut with blue masking tape. And the first that came to mind was CSI.. what else could be in these packages than body parts?? Well I took 2 pictures while being uncomfortable with the situation and looked good at the spot if I could see any others than the four, which I could not. It felt weird, but since I am no hero, I did not even dare to touch or open them, affraid what I might find.
Then at home I tought, nah this can't be.. first of all the packages where too light.. 2 of them were still hanging in the bushes and did not fall through down on the ground. Second the size was for all of them approx. 2 ft long and a diameter of about 6 inch. Well that will never fit a body. And third, with coyotes and other wild animals around these bags would have been teared open if it contained some kind of flesh. Plus I thought what will the police do if I give them a call about it and it is just garbage? I felt stupid. The pictures I took with too little light they did not turn out good at all, so I thought I just forget about the whole thing, I even deleted them just to put it out of my head until I was asked this question about the most unusual thing and I recovered them from my trash can to show them here.
Well if anyone is interested in solving the mystery, the location is (packages might still be there) about 2 miles south on Cañada rd coming from highway 92 in San Mateo county on the hiking trail that goes along the right side of the road.

2. We usually have all sorts of half used jars in our refrigerators. Name a couple of things in your refrigerator that really need finishing off or throwing away?

You make the questions easy for me.. I took a quick look and I am pretty good with cleaning up my refidgerator, but there are a few things that are kind of sitting there for a while and they probably fall in this category. I took a picture of them. One is the french mustard. Probably just perfectly fine, but when I eat mustard I always eat dijon. So this was just sitting there in the back of my refridgerator. Maybe I should eat more burgers and start using it.. hmmm thanks for the idea. The other one is the Guava Jam. It's so sweet it can hardly ever go bad.. but I just don't eat it because it's not jam really. Picked it up in Kauai several years ago.
While reading over what I wrote, I think those beers really need finishing off too..

---- edited ----
3 questions and the answers of this post has been removed later by the author.
---- edited ----

.

Thanks Doris for taking the time to come up with these questions.

In accordance with the rules of the meme, I need to post these instructions:
Instructions:

If you want to participate, leave a comment below saying “Interview me.” (”Tickle me” or “Caress me” are not acceptable substitutes.) You must leave your blog address so I can think of good questions for you!
I will respond by asking you five questions - each person’s will be different. I’ll post the questions in the comments section of this post.
You will update your blog with the answers to the questions.
You will include this explanation and an offer to interview others in the same post.
When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

Don't forget, you will need to check back for your questions and it might help if you let me know when you have answered them.

Time to say goodbye

2005-08-05T14:36:00.000-07:00

A little while back I wrote something very positive about NeoCounter and how much I liked the scrolling counter and all. Well that was then. All free things come for a price, and this free counter comes for a price too high for me. After 2 weeks of trial use they make the counter, that looks nice in it's original form, look like a circus attraction. They pause the counter for a couple of minutes and attach a huge google advertisement banner to it. And do this twice for the online visitors and the total visitors.. So the image I show you here shown twice below eachother in the sidebar that was too much for me to deal with. So I'm sorry but I have to say goodbye to it. I will miss the cute flags of Macedonia and Guam that used to come up at the end of the scrolling list for their resp. 2 and 1 visitors, but even I do have an eye for aesthetics. We'll miss you.

A new dot-com hysteria?

2005-08-05T13:32:00.000-07:00

Baidu.com had it's Nasdaq debut, and the shares of this company which is sometimes referred to as the Chinese Google, rocketed! The stock which was priced at $27 opened at $66 and ended its historic opening day at $122.54!! That is a 353.85% gain on a day that the stock market in general was sluggish. Baidu.com showed on their website the picture you can see here to mark their historical debut. To find a comparable performance in the IPO market, you have to go all the way back to the dot-com hysteria of 1998-2000. Well I didn't buy it, but I sure will keep my eye on it.

By the way, who reads chinese and can translate what it says in the arrows on the picture?

This must be my lucky day

2005-08-02T17:41:00.000-07:00

When I was preparing dinner today, which I admit am not always too consistent in, I did something that apparently I had never done before. I took a number of bowls out of my cupboard and when I did that and had them in my hands, things started to shift and before I knew it, a stack of 4 plates came tumbling down on my lime stone kitchen counter. So far always the weight of the bowls kept everything in place, but by taking them all out, the balance was disrupted. I only knew it were four plates that were broken when I collected the pieces to estimate the damage, I was able to create 3 1/2 plate from the pieces and the rest was too small to fit really well. I'm always careful with my stuff because I always hate it when something breaks. It feels like it is such a waste. But this time I thought of something else: I know in some countries it is tradition to throw plates for good luck. In other countries they say that broken pieces itself bring good luck. So maybe this is just what I needed and will my luck come back today. :)

Alpine Pond and Horseshoe Lake

2005-08-01T22:38:00.000-07:00

Today I went to do a medium (approx 6 mile) afternoon hike as a continuation of what I had discovered a little while back.. (see here) So I parked my car on Alpine Road near the Alpine Pond and hiked the route I marked in red on the little map I show here. And this hike was gorgeous. I constantly surprise myself with the amount of incredibly beautiful nature that is so near by. So the pond I had seen, but the ridge along I walked, that was awsome. The photos dont really show the beauty, because it is so much bigger and more colorful than the photos show. But here is still a little photo summary for you to enjoy:
- Alpine Pond

View from Ridge -

- California Oak

Grasses -

- View from Ridge

Horseshoe Lake -

Hey man, or should I say Hay Woman!

2005-07-28T19:10:00.000-07:00

Today just by accident I ran into this very interesting hay-art (is that a word?). It is a friendly parody of the famed 1857 painting "The Gleaners", a tribute to rural work and rustic piety, by French artist Jean Millet that you can view in the Paris' Louvre. This art I saw when I went out for a walk today at the pathway to Stanford's radio telescope, "the Dish". They are huge! There are 3 of them and they are all about 16' (5m) tall. They are made of hay and steel and they stand amid 11 large decorative bales of hay. The figures will stay at the Stanford Dish for a year. Read more about in the Stanford Report

The Money Look

2005-07-23T08:10:00.000-07:00

You always wanted to look like a million bucks? Well how about creating your own Dollar ($) or Euro (€) shirt. I took these instructions and created my new wardrobe. Looks cool right?
Now the question for you is.. From what money you think I created this children's shirt that you can see on this picture? It can't be that hard if you look at the image on the money shirt.

Greece in California

2005-07-22T20:50:00.000-07:00

When you see this picture, what is the first thing you think about? Well for me when I took this shot, I thought this is just like Greece. The white fence with the beautiful blue ocean in the background, the bright blue sky.. just as I remembered it from several years back. But no, it isn't Greece, it is at the Pigeon Point Lighthouse with the Pacific Ocean in the background as it looked today. Then there is something else that I noticed here that is remarkable. If you look in detail at the little image here (click on it tot enlarge it) you will see a date above the door saying 1872. Well if you would look at the lighthouse itself (photo on the Front Doors blog), you would see a different date. Interesting isn't it? Now the question is who is right.. The people who made the tourist sign (based on historical data), or the people who built the lighthouse and just put the current year on it. Do you know the answer?

Lunar driving directions..

2005-07-20T14:00:00.000-07:00

Today it has been 35 years since the first manned Moon landing by Neil Armstrong, Edwin Aldrin and Micheal Collins took place. And in honor of that Google added it's space view which they have of our planet earth also for the moon available to the public. The site is accessible through moon.google.com.So if you are one of those people (and who isn't) and love to find the aerial picture of your home... Now you can find your lunar summer retreat as well.

The only thing I am missing are the lunar driving directions. What is the shortest route from my home to the landing site of the Apollo 11.

On this very same day Star Trek's Scotty was beamed up to heaven. Click here for Reuter's news story. He will be missed.

3 bad taken pictures transformed into triplets

2005-07-17T14:52:00.000-07:00

Normally these pictures would be considered as poorly shot. The vertical sunlight on the middle of the day made it hard to take right. But I thought I can do something else with it instead. So as of today Sydney got 2 more identical twin sisters.

A random moment yesterday

2005-07-17T08:08:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I went out with my camera to take some pictures of things I see, and this is what I ran in to. A guy behind me was irritated that he could not pass because it took me a few seconds to aim. And even though I hurried taking this shot, it came out almost exactly as I saw it with my eyes. The light and the shadows were just magnificent.

I'm satisfied

2005-07-15T23:17:00.000-07:00

It was a lot of work, but I am pretty satisfied with the result. I redesigned my only 2 weeks old Front Door blog. Why already after 2 weeks already you might ask? Well I started with my Front Door blog just as an experiment and some in my mind beautiful pictures. I picked a standard template and thought that should do it. Well no.. the light background color did not add values to the pictures. The wide screen of the template made the pictures look small because almost all door pictures are portrait oriented. That is just how doors are designed. With the new design, which is based on a picture of the Cheese Cake Factory in Palo Alto (try to find it in the Blog...), the photos look much better. What do you think? Better? Anyway, please take a look and see for yourself. Also please send me those photos of doors to frontdoors@gmail.com. I want to nominate 3 photos at the end of the month to be elected for the "winners circle".

How American are you?

2005-07-14T07:47:00.000-07:00

After living in the US for about 5 years I did this little survey thingie and it turns out that I am already 31% american. That is more than I expected. If I had only been 15 and a half years old, then I would have lived 31% of my lifetime here, but I am considerably older than that. So either I am americanizing much faster than anticipated or this test was probably designed for people born here. Anyway, here are my results:

You Are 31% American

America: You don't love it or want to leave it.
But you wouldn't mind giving it an extreme make over.
On the 4th of July, you'll fly a freak flag instead...
And give Uncle Sam a sucker punch!

How American Are You?

NeoCOUNTER sure is a new counter!

2005-07-13T13:40:00.000-07:00

While browsing I came across something today that caught my attention. It's called NeoWorks NeoCounter and I thought I'd share that with bloggerland because I think it is something pretty neat. On their The Matrix-like website they announce it like this:
"You thought you had seen all there was to see in matters of counters? Prepare to be impressed! NeoWORX proudly presents NeoCOUNTER, an innovative and unique web counter that displays on your website the number of online visitors by country. Ever wonder where "on earth" your visitors come from? Do you want to wow your friends with a cool new tool on your blog? Do you need to show your clients, patrons or users how truly global your website is? Search no more! NeoCOUNTER will put your vistors in their country and your website... on the map! And the best part is that NeoCOUNTER is FREE!"
Well I think they are right.. This scrolling counter sure looks nice and different then a little ugly button that you see on most websites. Maybe it doesn't give you all the stats you need, but it at least is good for the eye I think. I immediately did a suggestion on their website to allow for multiple counters within one account. We'll see if they will make that addition possible in the near future.
And the image on the right is a screenshot with my stats only a couple of hours after I put the counter in.. pretty neat, right? (The real counter is scrolling, as you can see on my sidebar.)

The 2005 California quarter

2005-07-11T14:24:00.000-07:00

Today I discovered what the California quarter will look like that this year will be released. Maybe it is old news and I just never saw it, but I liked my discovery and felt the immediate urge to place the quarter here on this blog.

This quarter is the 31st in the United States Mint's 50 State Quarters® Program. California was admitted into the Union on September 9, 1850, becoming our Nation’s 31st State.

What I like a lot about the quarter is that for once it is not the Golden Gate bridge that gets all the attention, but California’s quarter depicts naturalist and conservationist John Muir admiring Yosemite Valley’s monolithic granite headwall known as "Half Dome" and also contains a soaring California condor.

Yosemite is one of the most beautiful places in the world, and having that on "our" quarter is something that makes me feel a little bit proud.

Late lunch

2005-07-10T15:00:00.000-07:00

Today I ate (actually not yet started) left overs. Still looks good, doesn't it? If you look closely you can also see where I will be eating it... at my desk. Bon appetit!

And this is what it looked like 14 minutes later.

I'm not looking...

2005-07-09T17:34:00.000-07:00

Sometimes just eight fingers are enough for the picture she must have thought. And she is right, why should a little girl pose for the camera when she can have fun instead. And that is what she had in the park again.

Created my Front Doors Blog

2005-07-06T15:58:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I created a new Blog. It's a blog about Front Doors. And it looks like this Blog is getting some attention. Quite a number of people started linking to my blog. So I am quite honored. It has been on my mind for a while now to do something with doors. And finally I decided to post them in a blog. The purpose is that it one day this blog will grow big. And that then actually people will be sending me pictures of their front doors, or pictures of beautiful doors in the area where they live, instead of me taking all the pictures. There are many millions of doors in the world and many of them have the character that I am looking for on my website. So spread the word about this Front Door site and we'll see where it will lead to.
So far I have only taken pictures in the U.S. Some of them are pretty old. But I definitely will be taking more pictures of doors when I am on my trips. In fact I am looking forward of getting front door pictures of my family in Sweden, the Netherlands and France. If you haven't discovered where to find the Front Door blog.. well here is the link spelled out:
http://frontdoors.blogspot.com

Alpine Pond

2005-07-03T19:20:00.000-07:00

After I hiked the Russian Ridge and came back to my car, I looked on my map of the area and then I noticed that I was also very close to the Alpine Pond. I had heard about the beautiful pond but never seen it, so I went out of my car and added a little bit to my hike of the day to check out the pond. Well it sure looks beautiful. I checked out the area a little bit to see if it is worth to come back another time, and I bet this area will be explored more. I bet a future coverage about it will appear here in this blog.

Hiking Russian Ridge

2005-07-03T19:05:00.000-07:00

The weather was (like most of the time) great today and I decided to check out Russian Ridge. So I took the car drove up the winding Page Mill Road for a couple of mile to end up at the Alpine Road parking lot of Russian Ridge. It's as you can see on the pictures I took, really beautiful up there. I went over the Ancient Oaks trail, via the Alder Springs trail to the Hawk trail. And from there I went back over the Ridge Trail to where my car was parked. The only drawback about this hike is that flies were bugging me. They constantly decided to land on my arms, neck and wherever they could annoy me. But all and all it was definitely a well spent afternoon.

At the Palo Alto Junior Museum and Zoo.

2005-07-02T13:27:00.001-07:00

Today I took Sydney to the Palo Alto Junior Museum and Zoo. It was a nice change of venue. In the Zoo section Sydney got to see some bats hanging from the ceiling, a bunch of turtles swimming and sunbathing, two geese that were welcoming Sydney with their sounds, 2 sleepy racoons, an owl, snakes and more. I was impressed when the peacock showed all it's feathers but Sydney did not seem to care much about that. The museum part where we went in first was fun too. Here Sydney could run around, climb through little holes and play in a little children's kitchen. Overall I think the most fun Sydney had was when she made the green frog hers that she was sitting on and also told everyone else that that frog was hers and that the red frog was daddy's.

Sydney

2005-06-26T18:44:00.000-07:00

Looks like this time Sydney really wanted to be on the picture. And that doesn't happen very often.

Sydney is getting big fast. Today she is already:

Midsommar in Alnö, Sweden

2005-06-24T21:52:00.000-07:00

Today it is Midsommarafton in Sweden and on Alnö the tradition is that everyone gathers on a big stretch of grass between the 2 old churches where they celebrate the longest day of the year with music and dancing around the "midsommarstång". Many people wear flowers in their hair and some wear traditional swedish clothing.

And as you can see on this beautiful picture taken by /M/ the children on Alnö really enjoy the summer too.

Father's Day 2005

2005-06-19T18:41:00.000-07:00

Today it was father's day. And it was a good father's day.. well actually it's more of a daughter's day because as you can see Sydney had a great time in the park wih me. And even though Sydney was not aware that it was father's day... in Sweden they were aware of that and sent me those beautiful cards ("because you are like father to me and I love you").

Back at the farm..

2005-06-17T18:47:00.000-07:00

Well I am back at the farm.. And what a different feeling it is. Not that much has changed there, but just the fact that I am there now as a contractor instead of an employee sure makes a difference. Or is it just the floor in the building that makes the big difference?

I had a little conversation about the fact that even though the place can drive you crazy with the way it is organized from time to time, there is a big group of people that makes it a very enjoyable place aswell. And it was sure good to see a number of them again.

new dynamic icon

2005-06-15T21:07:00.000-07:00

I have a new dynamic icon that gets updated whenever my feed gets updated. So even this post should come up there any time soon. I thinks the idea is cool.. although the button itself looks a little bit old fashioned.

Visit www.kemme.tk!
here you can find the latest news about me!

Today I completed "Windy Hill"

2005-06-12T20:24:00.000-07:00

Now I can finaly say I completed Windy Hill... I've been hiking here for about 1½ year and never I hiked the Lost Trail and the Razorback Ridge Trail. But today with a temperature of 83ºF (28ºC) I decided to complete the full circle of the preserve (about 9.6 mile ≈ 15.4km). I started at Portola road; took Betsy Crowder trail and Spring ridge trail to get to the top of the summit. There I took Aniversary trail to the Lost trail, staying high up on the hills. Then I took the Razorback Ridge trail which I had never hiked before. This trail and winds more than a thousand feet down, through dense foliage, to where it meets with the Corte Madera Creek at Eagle trail. And from there on it was a straight walk to where my car was parked.

The route I took is marked in yellow.

Windy Hill from the sky. (Thanks to Google with their awsome map website!)

Podcasting

2005-06-07T19:25:00.000-07:00

Well I still don't have an iPod, since I am not too thrilled about the design of the devices, but lately I am listening to the so called "Podcasts".

On the Wikipedia Podcasting is described as "a method of publishing sound files to the Internet, allowing users to subscribe to a feed and receive new audio files automatically. Podcasting is distinct from other types of audio content delivery because it uses the RSS 2.0 file format. This technique has enabled many producers to create self-published, syndicated radio shows."
My favorite Podcast that I am listening to is Adam Curry's The Daily Source Code. The reason why I like this podcast has partially to do with the fact that I grew up with Adam Curry being the host of the very popular pop-music television program in Holland called Countdown plus he was a dj on my favorite radiostation there. I included the RSS feed of this podcast here too:
Even Apple's Steve Jobs talked extensively about this new phenomenon and even used Adam Curry's podcast as an example in last weeks Worldwide Developers Conference 2005 Keynotes.

Love my Dyson, Hate my carpet!

2005-06-05T18:49:00.000-07:00

Today it was time the dust had to go.. I didn't vaccuum last week, and God what do I hate my carpet.. what is that stuff made off? To give you an idea the dust collected on the picture with my Dyson comes from just the living room and one bedroom in about 10 minutes time. (yeah, yeah, I didn't do all the little corners) But too bad next week there will be a similar load to be cleaned up... sigh...

Some animals along the way..

2005-05-31T08:08:00.000-07:00

Here are a some of the animals I see along the way on my hikes...

And some more animals..

Mt. Diablo

2005-05-30T16:42:00.000-07:00

On this memorial day 2005, I drove to Mt. Diablo for a nice hike. The weather was great, not too hot but very sunny. I parked my car on Regency Dr, in Clayton and from there I started my hike.

First I hiked for about 1.5 mile over the Donner Canyon trail. This part of the hike was a wide and easy trail with quite some people on it since it was the main entrance of the park. Then after half a mile on Cardinet Oaks Road I took the narrow Falls Trail. This was a great trail (although quite steep at times) that crossed many little feeder waterfalls. Also it had some gorgeous views. Along the way I saw many many butterflies, lots of beautiful flowers and again a big snake. Seems like I run into them constantly this spring. Still have not been able to take a good picture of it. They are too fast. After the Falls Trail I continued on Middle Trail, this part of the trail slowly takes you out of the canyon again and via Meridian Ridge Road I returned to the Donner Canyon Road and traced my steps back to the car. If I lived closer I would hike here many times for sure.

April showers bring May flowers!

2005-05-21T17:34:00.000-07:00

Once again the old saying proved to be right. The abundant rain we had in april definitly brought an abundance of flowers this month. This picture I took on the "anniversary trail" on Windy Hill. This is one of my favorite places to hike. And today with the incredible nice weather I hiked there for about 7 miles (2 hours). I took Spring Ridge trail to Anniversary trail and back via Hamms Gulch trail. (I found a description of this exact hike here)
Usually I see on windy hill every time one or two new animals that I have never seen there before. In the past I've seen rabbits, deer, coyotes, humming birds, snakes, hares, prairy dogs, woodpeckers, lizzards and others. Once I even got a glimpse of either a bobcat or a young mountain lion. But this time I had less eye than usual for all the beauty that nature brings here, because I brought with me the the audio book "Angels and Demons" by Dan Brown that I was listening to on my mp3 player during the hike. But luckily, even though the book caught most of my attention, these beautiful flowers I did not oversee.

"My Daddy, Mine!"

2005-05-14T16:37:00.000-07:00

Sydney is today almost 2 years and 4 months old, and we spend some good time in the park in San Mateo again. Sydney knows very well what is hers.. so when another little girl just happen to come close to me she had to tell her "That is my daddy, mine!" Of course I couldn't suppress a little smile and couldn't feel more proud.

That's Life I guess..

2005-05-13T19:29:00.000-07:00

After popping up at my frontdoor and garage several times over the last year, I found him dead today. He did not look good the evening before when he (or is it a she?) was just sitting at my garage door, but this evening he choose to die on my front porch. So I made him a little "stone" and then I tossed him away.
It's been a weird day.. earlier I tried to brake for a squirrel that slowly crossed a 55Mph road.. and when I passed it and looked in my rear mirror, I did not see anything hopping away.. so I guess that one died too.
Well that's life I guess.. at least it was.

Kingdom of Heaven

2005-05-06T08:45:00.000-07:00

It doesn't happen very often to me that I get to see a movie before it is on the big screen in the US, but this one I got to see in Filmstaden i Sundsvall, Sweden where the movie premiered 2 days (+time difference) before it premiered in the US.
It would be hard to avoid comparing Kingdom of Heaven and Gladiator since both were created by the same director but Kingdom of Heaven just didn't have the same appeal.
The main flaw I think was that Balian was not as charismatic a character as Maximus. This meant a less of an emotional attachment to the film. If they had casted another actor for the role of Balian, it might have created a complete different picture.

San Francisco

2005-04-27T13:28:00.000-07:00

Today we did some sightseeing in San Francisco. This picture is a composition made of two pictures taken from Coit Tower.

My cars over the years..

2005-04-13T22:15:00.000-07:00

I just collected some images of the cars I have owned over the years... My first car was an Opel Corsa. Red just like the one in the picture. Then I had my first company car. A Renault Megane.. brand new and with a strong engine. I loved that car. Had a major near head on crash with it after having it for less than 6 months but the thousands of dollars in damage got all restored. After I moved to California I chose the sunny Mustang. Top down is nice.. Mustang is nice.. but missed the space so then it was time for the SUV. My 4Runner was the first Japanese car I owned, but I sure like it. What's next I am not sure, probably little bit more fuel economy. Still love the space. We'll see...

Sydney in San Mateo

2005-04-09T18:21:00.000-07:00

Created my blog

2005-04-09T18:01:00.000-07:00

OK, I got one too. Today is the first day I created my blog. It's also the first day in a long time that I got to see Sydney again. What have I missed that little girl. Then after I created this, I finally brought back kemme.tk because that one has been offline ever since I left Stanford.

Pictures of my daughter

1990-01-01T00:00:00.002-08:00

Sydney is getting big fast. Today she is already:

I'm not looking...
At the Palo Alto Junior Museum and Zoo.
Sydney
Father's Day 2005
"My Daddy, Mine!"
Sydney in San Mateo

Hiking and nature

1990-01-01T00:00:00.001-08:00

Alpine Pond
Hiking Russian Ridge
Today I completed "Windy Hill"
Some animals along the way..
Mt. Diablo
Grand Canyon
April showers bring May flowers!

Everyday life stories

1990-01-01T00:00:00.000-08:00

Late lunch
Created my Front Doors Blog
Back at the farm..
new dynamic icon
Podcasting
Love my Dyson, Hate my carpet!
That's Life I guess..
Kingdom of Heaven
Roses are Red...
My cars over the years..
Created my blog