Horse riding in northern Skåne

Jenny and me test driving Therese's horse. Me driving. Jenny actually riding...

Christmas 2007

Even though Tilda doesn't look that happy it was actually a great Christmas - me and Jenny spent it at her mother's place, together with her family.

Recipe; Jansson's Frestelse

In Swedish

6 portioner

• 12-15 fasta potatisar (bintje).
• 3 stora gula lökar.
• 3 burkar anjovisfilé á 100 g.
• 4.5 dl vispgrädde; går att ta hälften mjölk om man vill ha light variant.
• Ströbröd.
• 3 msk smör eller margarin.

1. Skala potatisen. Skär den i fina strimlor. Skölj den i kallt vatten och låt rinna av väl.
2. Skala löken. Skiva den tunnt och fräs den i lite matfett.
3. Varva potatis, lök, och anjovis i en smord form. Potatis i botten och överst.
4. Häll hälften av grädden och 4.5 msk anjovisspad i formen.
5. Strö ströbröd över; 2-3 msk totalt, inte för mycket.
6. Klicka matfett över.
7. Grädda i ugn, 225 grader, 30 minuter.
8. Efter 30 minuter i ugn, ta ut formen och späd i kanten med resterande grädde.
9. Grädda ytterligare 15 minuter i ugn tills potatisen är mjuk.
   

Recipe; Saffron Buns

In Swedish

40 bullar

• 1 pkt saffran; 0.5g
• 200 g normalsaltat smör
• 0.5 liter mjölk
• 50 g jäst för söta degar
• 2 dl ljus baksirap för bullar
• 1 tsk salt
• 2 ägg
• 1.5 liter vetemjöl
• Russin
• Ägg till pensling av bullar

1. Stöt / krossa saffranet med en sockerbit och lite kaffe på ett tefat (smälter).
2. Smält smöret i en gryta. Häll i mjölken; degvätskan ska vara 37 grader.
3. Smula ner jästen i en skål.
4. Tillsätt degvätskan.
5. Tillsätt saffranet, sockret, saltet, äggen.
6. Tillsätt 1 liter av vetemjölet.
7. Arbeta degen smidig.
8. Tillsätt resten av vetemjölet (brukar totalt bli närmare 2 liter än 1.5 liter).
9. Låt degen jäsa i bunken i 10 minuter.
10. Arbeta degen på bakbordet.
11. Dela degen i fyra lika stora delar.
12. Rulla ut varje del till en avlång rulle som delas i 10 bull-delar (ger totalt 40 delar per sats).
13. Rulla ut varje bull-del och forma ett "S". Lägg på bakpapper på plåt. Tryck i russin.
14. Låt bull-delarna jäsa på plåt i en timme.
15. Pensla med ägg.
16. Baka i ugn, 250 grader, 5-10 minuter.

A few days in Rome

Mobile 2.0 conference in San Francisco

Me, Peter, Karl.

• Mobile 2.0

Rigmor Gustafsson at Jeriko

Another great jazz session at Jeriko.

"Rigmor Gustafsson är den klarast lysande stjärnan på den svenska vokaljazzhimlen. Hon klarar balansgången mellan att turnera runt om i Sverige och samtidigt nå internationella framgångar stadigt balanserandes mellan det folkligt genuina och finstämt finlir. Rigmor har spelat på Jeriko förut, men aldrig tidigare med sin nya kvartett. Dessutom har hon en helt ny skiva i bagaget, Alone with you, som är producerad av Lars Danielsson." DygnetRunt.se

• http://www.rigmorgustafsson.com

New shoes

Just got a pair of shoes delivered from Grand Shoes; a net shop that specializes in selling shoes in euro sizes between 47 and 52.

• Grand Shoes

Biking on Ven

Biking on Ven with Jenny.

My first trip ever to Ven. Weird, I have been living in Skåne for more than 30 years now, and to my knowledge I have never before sat foot on that island.

• Ven, Sweden

Big in Beijing

Business trip to Beijing. Spent most of the nights out in the city, walking around, shooting photos...

I went to see a few of the classical tourist spots. After all, it was my first trip to the city. Besides that, I also visited some of the many hidden away treasures, like e.g. a couple of Hutong areas, the Underground City, etc.

• Tiananmen Square
• Forbidden City
• Temple of Heaven
• Hutongs
• Underground City

Forsakar

A trip with Jenny to the Forsakar waterfall in Degeberga, Skåne.

• http://www.kristianstad.snf.se
• http://www.vattenriket.kristianstad.se

Per Gessle at Sofiero Slott

At a Per Gessle concert in Helsingborg with my sister. No rain - Therese had to leave her umbrella at the entrance.

For some reason one of Per's gorillas (not on any of the pictures) thought that I stood a little too close to the platform with my camera. Hm...

OSGi conference in Munich

Where are the other delegates?!

My second trip to Munich, capital of the German Federal State of Bavaria. Just to make sure that the Doppelbock Dunkel was still ok - from the last trip - I paid a few visits to Andechser am Dom. It was.

Climbing art

A small part of Nimis, a non-gov-approved work of art that can be found and climbed at Kullaberg, a beautiful nature reserve in southern Sweden.

It was my first visit to the construction. Had a great guide and a great time - Jenny had climbed Nimis a few times before.

Kosovo and UN

A dn.se article series by Maciej Zaremba on UN's Unmik mission in Kosovo and the corruption, decay, and chaos that came (?!) with it...

"Det var FN:s stora chans och största uppdrag. Missionen, Unmik, skulle bygga framtidens Kosovo från grunden. Åtta år senare vill många i Kosovo kasta ut den ljusblå kolonialmakten."

"Koloni Kosovo", by Maciej Zaremba

Refrigerator woman

Action shot. You never know where she'll appear the next time...

Real women

Slightly modified model search poster found on a wall on the way to work; "Real women stink onion..." added by retoucher.

Onion?! Why onion?

Jazz And Blues Festival in Malmö

Danish vocalist Hanne Boel during her band's performance at Malmö's first (?!) Jazz And Blues Festival. A great set, a magic performance...

I grew up with music like this - it brought back a few memories...

Reboot 9.0 conference in Copenhagen

Rebooting at Reboot 9.0. Human?!...

Bike trail, Sweden; 39km, Lund

Most of it on small roads with light traffic. It's a perfect trail for a shorter exercise after work.

Link to map on maps.google.com here.

Nordic Game conference in Malmö

There are no such things as vampires...

JavaOne conference in San Francisco

In San Francisco for the annual JavaOne conference. It's sunny. It's warm. It's cable cars in a fantastic city...

J2EE and J2SE are still getting the most attention at the conference - just as previous years. J2ME lags behind; count e.g. number of tech sessions with ME focus...

Ove Nordström has posted a recap on his blog on the J2ME part - here.

Weekend in London

Spending a weekend in London with friends. Photographing. Walking around in a t-shirt. It's sunny, it's warm, and the ale is great...

Networking in Düsseldorf

People from the standardization group standing outside the Vodafone building in the sun. It's almost summer here...

From one location to another

Where am I and where am I supposed to be?

Staying at the Radisson SAS Media Harbour Hotel for a few days. I'm part of the JSR-290 EG and it's time for a face to face meeting in Düsseldorf.

Needed direction and got it, fast - even though I'm intending to walk instead of drive, to follow the river instead of turning right, to go straight to the red dot instead of following the blue line...

Twitterized

I just joined. I just got hooked...

There's been a lot of buzz on the net around Twitter recently. It seems to be IM broadcasting gone web, phone, IM clients, etc. Definitely interesting.

Haven't found a dedicated J2ME client yet for the service, but I guess it's just a matter of time; a few public APIs exist and there's apparently more in the pipeline.

http://twitter.com/kristensson

Anthony Zimmer by Jérôme Salle

Another great French production that I stumbled upon. Anthony Zimmer is a combination of a beautifully captured story, a story that got thriller ambitions, and action - not too much, just enough.

Most of the story takes place at and around the French Riviera. Jérôme Salle has managed to capture exactly what I look for in a movie - great photography, a story that holds together during the whole play, music that's perfectly blended with the visual parts, ... See it.

Mapping the Swedish blogosphere

In swedish.

Bloggfarbrorn Erik Starck på Framtidstanken tyckte det var dags för min blogg att få lite exponering i mediabruset. Jag är dock tveksam till att min blogg innehåller något av intresse för tredje part - jag skriver endast för min egen del, korta minnesanteckningar, tankar.

Nåväl, urpsrunget till pyramiden hittar du här. Om det ska gå att få en bild av den svenska bloggosfären ska de tre bloggarna jag listar nedan följ instruktionerna och bygga vidare på pyramiden.

Kopiera alltså texten nedan om du känner dig träffad av instruktionerna.

— Kopiera ALL text och ALLA länkar nedan —

1. Klistra in texten i ett nytt blogginlägg. Precis innan den kopierade texten skriver du ett kort stycke där berättar om listan och länkar till den bloggaren som lade till dig på listan. Det här är viktigt eftersom det därmed inte skapas duplicerade inlägg. Eftersom någon också lade till dig på listan torde det inte var för mycket begärt att bjuda på en extra inlänk till den personen.

2. Ta listan under “Mina 3 tillägg” från bloggen som lade till dig och lägg till dem under rubriken “Originallistan”. Känn dig fri att ändra länktexten till din egen blogg för att få varierade nyckelord i dina kommande inlänkar.

3. Lägg själv till max 3 st bloggar under “Mina 3 tillägg”

4. Kontakta de som du har lagt till och be dem göra samma sak.

Mina 3 tillägg
Fredrik Wackå
Linda Skugge
Anders Borg, Abiro

Originallistan
Andreas Kristensson
Wadström
Hakank.blogg
media:screen
Framtidstanken
Pelles blogg
Jimmy Höög
Fyra nyanser av brunt
Beta Alfa
Nobel Prize Winner
Webmastern
SEO Sverige - sökmotoroptimering
Code Odyssey
Digga.se Blogg
Rund Kvadrat

— Kopiering slutar här —

Volver by Pedro Almodóvar

Volver is a beautiful portrait painted with the lives of five Spanish women.

Once again a masterpiece from Almodóvar. Rewarded in Cannes 2006 for best script and best actris. What else can you say. He manages to capture life as it is, and even the simplest things in it can become an adventure in one of his creations.

The european DVD (for once) contained extra material worth watching. In the sequence 'Pedro Almodóvar and the Actors' it's extremely interesting to study how Almodóvar in a very gentle manner starts the conversation with the actors gathered around a large table, and then only in a subtle way steers it, trying to let the actors be as free as possible to express their feelings around the way the movie was created and elaborate on their respective roles.

Anders Bergcrantz Kvintett at Jeriko

I keep on finding / being introduced to great jazz music via the Jazz i Malmö forum at Jeriko in Malmö. Anders Bergcrantz and his team consisting of skilled jazz musicians was no exception - another superb jazz session.

Jazz i Malmö on Anders Bergcrantz Kvintett:

Trumpetaren Anders Bergcrantz är utan minsta tvivel en av de absolut bästa jazztrumpetarna i Sverige. I Norden. Ja, även internationellt står han sig oerhört väl. Bergcrantz känsla för tonval, sväng och uppfinningsrika improvisationer gör honom alltid hörvärd, inte minst på scen.

Med sig har Anders Bergcrantz en ypperlig grupp som rymmer idel bekanta musiker med prisade skivor och turnéer i egna namn. Se fram emot en gedigen jazzkväll på toppnivå!

The performance was recorded by the Swedish Radio, P2 channel.

First thoughts about Second Life

Where am I?
Why am I here?
What am I supposed to do here?

Initial thoughts that popped up in my first life when I entered my Second Life as the curious citizen Gap Nagy. I guess it'll all be clearer after a little exploration. It's almost like someone gives you the chance to start over again. Reset life. Weird.

Angel-A by Luc Besson

Well, seems like Luc Besson has once again delivered, staying true to his artistic self.

Angel-A is a passionate creation from the miraculous Frenchman and his team. This time set in Paris. A miserable man ready to take his life finds his inner self again with the help of the mysterious Angel-A.

It's beautifully captured in black and white. It's art. It's eye candy.

JazzKamikaze at Jeriko

One of my cousins tipped me about this band that I hadn't heard about before. And what a great tip. JazzKamikaze - what kind of name is that on a band - delivered a powerful (muscle jazz) and intense jazz session based on material from their two released albums, Mission I and Travelling At The Speed Of Light.

Jeriko on JazzKamikaze:

JazzKamikaze bildades 2005 med ett tydligt mål: att vinna musiktävligen Young Jazz in Denmark. Det gjorde de. [...] Titeln på gruppens färska skiva Traveling at the Speed of Sound speglar den dramatiskt snabba utvecklingen genom att förena tung och aggressiv muskeljazz med en mörkare och mera eftertänksam sida som förtydligar de nyanser och kontraster som finns i gruppens musik.

Need more jazz like this. Now.

El Laberinto del Fauno by Guillermo del Toro

El Laberinto del Fauno is an interesting and beautiful creation from Guillermo del Toro. He succeeds in blending reality with imagination, human beings with fairy tale creatures, vicious fascists with fauns.

You get the picture. It's a good mix, a nice blend. The environments in the movie are stunning. It's actually a bit like the movie Mirrormask.

Geneva sky

The sky, the lake, and the mountains in the background, just before it was time to go to the airport.

Nature and more nature

Tigers frozen in time at Musée d'Histoire naturelle in Geneva.

This corridor gave me a strange feeling; it's almost as if it had been taken from a science fiction story.

History portal in Geneva

Musée d'Art et d'Histoire in Geneva is a true history portal. You can easily spend a few hours in the museum - it's huge. And it's worth it - not only we thought so.

Impressive paintings.

Pre-Internet communication form. Handwritten, with beautiful paintings.

There's even a cannon hall in the museum.

Indian cuisine in Geneva

Dining with Erik at Restaurant Himalaya, an Indian restaurant located at Rue de Neuchâtel 18. Even though the restaurant is a bit run-down, the food they serve is delicious. The place is definitely worth a visit if you are in Geneva.

CERN presentation at LIFT

CERN, a european organization for nuclear research located near Geneva, held a short intro to their research. Questions about dark matter, alternate dimensions, etc, popped up.

Deep field image from the Hubble space telescope. Higgs particle - will knowledge about it finally enable us to study the multiverse instead of the universe?!

User / citizen centered society at LIFT

Interesting panel discussion about how users and citizens, with the power of the net, with tools like blogs, podcasts, wikis, etc, impact corporations and countries. It's happening now.

Derek Powazek (picture), founder of JPG magazine, describes how users at www.jpgmag.com are the ones in control, the ones that decide which pictures are worth publishing.

Digital orchestra at LIFT

Lucas Grolleau (black LIFT T-shirt, to the right in the picture) operating a digital orchestra at LIFT+.

The orchestra consists of a number of mobile devices playing audio streamed from an iPod.

http://www.soundsgood.fr/

Dealing with technological overload at LIFT

Panel discussion at LIFT about the dangers with technological overload. Interesting and important. A few people in the audience actually admit that they are addicted by putting up their hands. One speaks up about his Internet addiction.

What's the core problem? Addicted to RSS flows? To mails?

Reading / answering one mail while ten new fills up the inbox. Not staying away from the Blackberry / Google's Gmail client - keeping on checking for new important (?!) mails.

Could it be that information overload is somewhat situation based, context dependent, personal - it might e.g. be the result of your own standards, the ones you have set yourself, for acceptable response time on mails / instant messages. This might trigger a sense of overload and also frustration; not being able to respond in time.

Erik - always with Google's Gmail client running on his mobile device. Victim or power user?! Can you become addicted to a tool?!

Coffee at LIFT

Friday. It's time to get caffeinated before the first panel discussion starts.

One?! No, that's not enough - you better give me two cups...

View from Hotel Eden in Geneva

Had to share the view from one of the suite's three balconies. The lake can be seen in the background and another balcony (mine as well) can be spotted to the right.

Shot from the right-most balcony - the mountains can be seen in the background.

Erik waiting in the lounge for me - he didn't get any balcony this time.