Veckans ord: ströget

Uppe i Klippiga Bergen är det ensligt, man ser bara en och annan ströget.

V is for Victory

This probably only makes sense in full resolution, click the picture.

Better this way?

I have upgraded to a fancy new Layouts-based template. Some things seem to have not transitioned exactly the same. Is it an improvement, or should I tinker a bit more with the details?

I did exactly this as late as yesterday

I'm still sticking to Dr Pepper

This would be the perfect drink for Linux people, unfortunately I don't like the taste.

Think of little Gandalf soiling his diapers

The kids were discussing unsuitable names.

“It should be possible to give a child a name that doesn't become visible until they're thirty or so.”

Excursion to see stuffed people

Next Saturday, 2008-03-01, I intend to go visit the National Museum of Natural History and see their exhibition of reconstructed hominids. Anyone else prehistorically interested is invited to tag along. I will be hanging around the entrance around 11:00. I'm the guy with the embarrassingly shaped crocheted red hat.

Getting screwed by a Woody,or,The single man and his tool

Late Friday evening I unpacked the last moving box. There is still work to be done, but gradually the flat turns from a construction site into a home. This hasn't been an entirely straight-forward process. Some highlights for your delectation:

Getting unhooked
The previous tenant was apparently a man with a deep need for beauty, the flat had been filled with decorative art and the ceilings bristled with hooks for hanging lamps, flower pots, stuffed animals and whatnot. My tastes are somewhat more austere, so these would have to go, with the concomitant spackling and repainting. In passing I note that every screw and hook used is a different dimension from all the others. This annoys my sense of orderliness, so I spend a lot of time at John Wall to buy matching screws.

The mauve-coloured bathroom is in urgent need of renovation, but after having gotten an offer from a contractor I realise I will have to save for a while before I can afford it.

Victorinox rules
My Swiss army knife turns out to be surprisingly useful for many tasks in flat renovation as well. For slashing down structure wallpaper it's just fabulous. Some of the uses it gets put to even bend the blades, but they eventually unbend.

Not burned, yet
Before repainting the ceiling I remove the smoke detector—it actually drops into my hand as I tug on it, it was not very well attached to the ceiling. My forensic eyes note additional marks in the ceiling indicating that it has already been reattached twice before. Just out of reflex I press the “Test” button. No reaction. Oh, has the battery run flat without anyone noticing? I check. No, the problem is that the battery is still in its transport wrapping, some six years after the indicated production date. Somebody has apparently dutifully just mounted the detector without ever activating it. (Or perhaps worse: purposefully never activated it because it might make a noise.) Well, I plug it in and now testing makes the desired screech.

Sanding the floor
I decided the living room parquet needed sanding. I called a couple of companies and then decided I could probably save a bit of money doing it by myself. So, soon I stand there, with a big floor sander, prepared to attack the floor. The first round over the floor is a disaster and I think: “Damn, this is difficult, I should have gotten a pro to do this!” But then I suddenly realise how all the levers are supposed to be operated, the machine starts to behave much better and I glide along thinking: “Wow, this is easy, good idea to do it myself!” By the tenth or so round over the floor I'm thinking: “Damn, this is boring, I should have gotten a pro to do this!”

After sanding and cleaning it's time to lacquer the parquet. I have purchased a huge can of horribly expensive lacquer at Woody. I spread the required two layers of lacquer and note I still have half the can left. So, the git of a shop assistant was not aware that the recommended amount per m² already assumed two layers and made me buy twice as much as needed. Argh!

If anyone needs five litres of parquet lacquer they can get it from me for cheap.

Mein goye mame
My mother is overjoyed that I've left that horrible woman that stole her darling boy away (“Moom!”) and takes enthusiastic part in the renovation work. In particular she and a couple of her friends spend two days putting in a new wood laminate floor over all linoleum floors. (Or “linonium” as it was consistently spelled in the prospect.) Thanks ever so much, Mom, but keep that tongue sheathed.

The drill
The walls in the flat are two kinds: drywall and concrete. My two least favourite wall materials, they both suck each in their way as soon as you want to attach anything to the wall. At one point, while drilling in concrete, I hit something hard. The drill is strong enough that the bit actually unwound.

Shopping
If IKEA makes a record profit this year, I may be to blame. But then again, they're both cheap and good. When putting up my bed I decide to reuse a set of legs I have lying around. Unfortunately the screws have gone missing, so I call IKEA and ask for the screw dimensions. 5/16", what, inch screws!? (Which of course becomes ”tumskruvar” in Swedish, very funny.) These are not usually carried by hardware stores, but I locate a store on Kammakargatan that has them. 71 SEK for four screws! Checking the IKEA catalogue I find I could have gotten screws and new legs for 69… Well, at least I saved on not having to go out to Kungens Kurva right then.

All hail mein Kamprad! I go on a shopping spree and buy bookshelves, beds and various bits and pieces. I find that home delivery of an arbitrary amount of stuff is less than 500 SEK.

The unreading classes
The Ivar bookcases just look like lumber when unconstructed (and smell good of fresh wood). The delivery guy, having hauled them into the lift looks curiously at them:
“What are these?”
“Bookshelves.”
“What are they for?”
“Uh, books.”
[pause] “So many..?”

Yup, so many. But as I start putting the shelves up I find Ivar is a monster—it swallows row after row of books without even blinking. Finally I have put up all my books in just four cases with room to spare. I have to double-check, yup, 20 shelf metres goes into four Ivar, no problem. Apparently I will have plenty of storage space available.

Networking
As usual, I have problems with Comhem, so currently I have no Internet connection of my own but instead sneak out through a neighbour's unprotected wireless network. Thanks and apologies, whoever you are! On the other hand reception is a bit flaky most of the time.

Out in the woods
Having moved out to the suburbs I have ended up in an area where ethnic diversity means more than just speaking a non-Stockholm dialect. I feel my street cred increasing greatly. Still, I'm really just a paleskin inner city middle class yuppie who is a bit shocked to notice that about half of the tube passengers pass the gates not with an SL card, but using a well-trained leg swing to make the gate open the other way and then squeeze through.

I aten't dead

Renovating the flat currently takes all my time outside work, but have patience, in a week or so I should be back blogging again.

Getting moved, being moved

My moving house is proceeding apace. Today, with the help of half a dozen burly friends and a rented lorry my things were moved to the new flat. In the end, the collected stuff of twenty years weren't all that much, the boxes barely covering the floor of the lorry, lifting it down from the flat taking barely half an hour. It was with fairly mixed feelings I looked at the pile of cardboard boxes. Or would have, if I'd had the time to think very much during the actual move; this is more retrospective emotion.

Hauling the stuff into the new flat was also quite quickly done and then I was subjected to a torrent of good advice on how to renovate the flat and what ludicrous objects that the prior owner had left behind would absolutely, no excuses, have to go. And I listened, yet again amazed at how many friends will come to my help when I need it, fearfully standing at the edge of the diving-board, looking into the abyss.

Tomorrow I'll continue spackling walls, then cover up the floor and start painting.

Veckans ord: friskola

Ola joggar och håller sig i trim, han är en riktig friskola.

In the top 5%

What a surprise, not.

Here are your EQ SQ results:

EQ	: 22
SQ	: 81
Brain Type	: Extreme Systemizing

What does your score mean?

Click Here to learn more.

Take the EQ SQ tests

Useful knowledge alert!

Revere blogs about a couple of recent articles that suggest new procedures for cardio-pulmonary resuscitation: if a person has collapsed with circulation failure (because they have had a heart attack, been electrocuted or drowned) it seems more important for survival to keep up circulation than inflating the lungs. So, if you are alone, don't bother with mouth-to-mouth, just keep compressing that chest.
If you don't know how to perform chest compression, get in contact with your nearest Red Cross centre, they regularly give courses in first aid. (CPR is visible and dramatic, but I think the most important thing taught in these courses is the habit to go up to people lying on the ground and check on them instead of just stepping over them.)

Outnerded!

Kibitzing with the Only-begotten Daughter:
“Hold these papers for me while I put on my hat.”
“OK. Hey, hey, I didn't say yes to mittens as well!”
“I am altering the deal, pray I don't alter it again!”
“It's actually ‘alter it any further’”
“D'oh!”

Tindra med ögonen, ungjävel!

The window dressing at Åhléns has been rather uninspired this Christmas and I fully understand the pain of having to look like a Christmas tree all through December…

Veckans ord: vårtrött

Det förefaller åter ha blivit modernt att bättra på rosigheten på sina liljekullar, alltså står kosmetikfabrikanterna beredda och tillverkar vårtrött åt damerna.

God Jul!

I'm so grateful to have you all as friends, it's greatful!

Lunch conversation

The family was disposing of some Gnocchi al salmone and reading various things, as is its wont. I found Jens Littorin's article on Stilton cheese in today's Dagens Nyheter:

“There are six official criteria on a real Stilton, and one of them is that it has to taste like a Stilton. But, if it is a Stilton, doesn't it by definition taste like a Stilton?”
“Well, adher to a previously defined Stilton taste.”
“Hmm, so there'd be an official Reference Stilton in Nottingham Castle? But how do you make sure its taste doesn't change? Even the International Prototype Kilogramme has lost weight.”
“It'd be difficult to make a Stilton standard based on constants of nature.”
“Indeed.”

Veckans ord: verklighetstorget

Postmodernismen som filosofisk idé skulle kunna tänkas utgå från den tämligen rimliga observationen att verkligheten är så pass komplex att varje given beskrivning av den inte täcker viktiga delar; olika i sig ”korrekta” verklighetsbeskrivningar kan till och med vara motstridiga i delar som blivit förenklade på olika sätt. Olika beskrivningar är bra till olika syften.

Att därifrån komma till att man inte bara kan välja mellan ett antal beskrivningar inom givna restriktioner, utan att man fritt kan välja en verklighetsbeskrivning vilken som helst kräver en i mitt tycke fullständig losskoppling mellan den verklighet man lever i (där saker faktiskt händer, vare sig man anser dem politiskt korrekta eller inte) och den man väljer att beskriva i sina artiklar och böcker.

Man talar ofta om en ”åsikternas marknad” där man kan välja bland olika idéer. Det är nog gott och väl för politik där våra kunskaper om verkligheten är så pass ofullständiga att även väldigt olika (men inte hur olika som helst!) beskrivningar inte nödvändigtvis kan visas vara falska.

Men jag vill inte riktigt acceptera idén om verklighetstorget, där man kan strosa runt och välja sin egen verklighet efter vad som verkar behagligast. Verkligheten synes vara en och oböjlig, även när våra beskrivningar är ofullständiga.