Ah, who am I kidding. Here are some more pictures:
On top of the world – again
Close to the North Cape
On the way back from the North Cape
Even Sweden has some epic places
Stekenjokk
Stekenjokk and the Boyfriend
Meeting the locals
My trusty (and slightly dirty) ape on gravel
Flatruet – one of the highest roads in Sweden
Finally managed to find the time to sort through the pictures from this year’s motorcycle trip. About time, too. The entire batch can be found at my gallery, but here’s a taste:
Even the view in the rear mirror is great
On top of the world
Fjord!
Through Nærøyfjord
Over mountains
And over bridges
And a lot of small ferries
Lofoten – a cat’s paradise
The perfect campsite
“The land shall be ours”
A scenic gas station
That’s it! Click here for the entire gallery.
I am currently feeling slightly more stupid that I did just an hour ago.
Whatever possessed me to start experimenting with VBA in Excel?
First day back at work. Back in the dark and drizzly icebox called Stockholm. When people hear “Stockholm” most think of meter-high snow drifts, snow scooters and possibly polar bears prowling the streets. Sorry to say, there are no polar bears. And while snow and snow scooters most likely can be found further north, Stockholm is having none of it.
It’s bleak, is what it is. Typical northern-Germany-weather, except that it’s already pitch black at around 3pm. Coming back from sunshine and 25-30 degrees it’s all rather depressing.
So, the first day at work has been a bit of a challenge. Not ready to fit back into the 9-to-5 job and everyday life. It all feels a bit meaningless. Unreal.
Midlife crisis come knocking? Possibly. Maybe it’s time for a change.
I’ve never really understood the point of new year resolutions. After all if you want to do something just do it. Why wait until new year? And if you don’t, starting at the new year is not going to help you. The increase of people at the gym in January and the corresponding drop off in March can attest to that.
Lately I’ve started to see a point though. I treat new year like a scrum retrospect; a time to consider what went well and what didn’t go quite so well. And most importantly, what to do about it. A time to lift your head from the “small stuff” and take a look at the bigger picture. Am I where I want to be right now? Where do I want to be in a year? What should I do about it?
People change, priorities shift and sometimes what you imagined you wanted to achieve a year ago is not even in the picture anymore. If you don’t lift your head to adjust your path from one to time, you’re going to pass by your goal by a mile. Or walk into a tree.
I’ve had a lot of time to think during the last week. Zickzacking across the argentine pampa will do that to you. There is only so much plains and cattle you can take before you start questioning life. I’ve realised that my priorities have changed a lot over the last three years. When I set out to acquire my motorcycle drivers license in the beginning of 2009 I didn’t think it’d end up having such an impact on my life, my way of thinking.
Having had the privilege to travel to Bolivia, Chile and now Argentina helps to give you a certain perspective as well.
Last year the boyfriend and I travelled 7000 kilometres in 17 days through Norway, Sweden and Finland to the north cape. This year we’ll be gone for four weeks. Austria, Slovakia, Croatia, Montenegro, Albania, possibly Macedonia, Greece, Italy.
If it doesn’t fit on your bike, you don’t need it. Sounds simple, but it’s turned out to be a lifestyle. One of my plans for next year is selling off a lot of the “stuff” which inevitably is acquired by most of us over the years.
Of course, there is no need to pick new year as your yearly retrospective. In fact, a year may be too long a period to begin with. But it’s important to do this once in a while and to get started, new year is a good a time as any.
You know you don’t wear makeup a lot when…
…instead of returning your greeting, your colleague exclaims “But you’re wearing make-up!” upon entering the office.
Compliment or insult? To be decided..
Next time you remove the battery, it might be a good idea to check whether or not you’re already driving on the reserve fuel tank. And if you are, how much of it you’ve already used up.
But if you fail to do either of those things, at least have the brains to fuel up at the first opportunity.
The meter might show that you’ve only driven 30 kilometres on the reserve and you might think that you have 20 kilometres left. But trust me on this: you don’t.
Ever had one of those insane tea cravings? When all you want to do is sit in a tea house, with you perfectly brewed tea in front of you and a really good book? Because for some reason tea houses are one of those few places where it is still socially acceptable to sit alone at a table. Without people automatically assuming you’re either too pathetic to have any friends or you’re desperately want a guy to approach you and deliver his one-liner.
And then you head to the office kitchen. Pour some water in a cup and shove it in the microwave. Because the coffee-maker (which only produced lukewarm water to begin with) has been removed and a water cooker has yet to be purchased. And you wait for two minutes, all the while trying to not think about that tiny little tea house you found some time ago, where they managed to get the tea just right. And then you open the microwave and retrieve your cup. And you put your tea bag in (because, of course, you’ve run out of the real tea some time ago and haven’t had time to buy more yet) and you set your timer and you go back to your table.
And then, after your timer has gone off, you extract the abomination from your cup and you look into the cup. And you see that your tea bag had been punctured.
Your know? It kind of sucks.
The year is 2009. DevExpress receives a request for the ability to be able to hide the column headers of an ASPxCombobox. The request is processed and accepted.
Fast forward to the year 2011. Nothing has happened.
I shudder to think how it takes for them to develop an actual feature.
Just about 10 days left until our three-week-trip to Norway and Sweden. Equipment purchased, packing tested (mostly, at least), planned the first four days. We have a room booked at the Rica Seilet Hotel in Molde for night #4, so we needed to make sure we get there in time. After that, not much is planned. A 10′000 km service is scheduled for my trusty Ape in Trondheim and the boyfriend will probably have his service done at the same time, but that’s about it. No hotels, no routes, no schedules to keep.
We do have a map (digital, so far) with interesting bits and pieces of routes and alike jotted down, but nothing is decided. The whole not-planning-thing has become a bit easier for both of us I think. Easter, we went on a bike trip with two friends for three days in southern Sweden. Neither the boyfriend nor I had anything to do with the planning which is rather unusual for us. And guess what, it worked out great!
Depending on how often free Wifi can be found, I’ll try to update our current position, but don’t expect anything too frequent.
I really need to update my blog header.