No country for old men

I'm back in the North, just for a few days.

Today they served sun buns in the cantina at work, to celebrate the return of the sun. The sun buns have some yellow egg cream in the center. Except from that, they're like regular buns.

The sun has been hiding behind the horizon since early December. Now we can see sunshine on the mountain tops at least. It's the end of the polar darkness already. The sun is gone for only 7-8 weeks. That's not bad, and I like the darkness. It has it's own mysterious charm.

Tonight I've been out eating, alone. That's not very fun, so I made it quick. I had a cheese burger and a Mack beer, brewed by the northernmost brewery in the world, according to the commercials.

(The brewery is located in the Paris of the North, a 4-hour drive from here, across a mountain pass, and around a couple of fjords, or less than 3 hours by the fast catamaran boat that runs on a regular schedule along the coast.)

On the way back to my hotel, I passed by the bookstore, and couldn't resist. I have become a fan of Cormack McCarthy, since I read The Road and Child of God recently. So I bought No Country for Old Men. Looking forward to read it.

But the first thing I'll do is to write a couple of scenes for my so-called novel >:)

(I wrote this piece of text with my own hands (and brain). I also took the picture myself, early in February three years ago. Then we lived walking-distance from that little hill I'm shooting from. My hotel is right outside the left edge of the picture. Today, I can state, with the best conscience, that I haven't stolen anything ... In Satan we trust >:D)

Top ten music

Today Alex J. Cavanugh is hosting the Top Ten Countdown Music Blogfest. It's almost impossible to pick a top ten, but that's the rule, and that's what I'm gonna do.

Since I'm a metal head, I have included some metal, of course, but there is other good stuff too, like Pink Floyd, Tom Waits and Giuseppe Verdi.

This is my list:

1. Stairway to Heaven, pre-metal classic by Led Zeppelin. The first time I heard this song at age 13, I was sitting in my room reading The Hound of Baskervilles. Every time I hear the song it reminds me of Sherlock Holmes.

2. Måneskyggens Slave by Gorgoroth. Old-school black metal at it's best, and the most desperate vocals ever recorded.

3. Freezing Moon by Mayhem. I still prefer the original studio recording with vocals by Dead (who committed suicide in 1991). Mayhem is still a good band. Last time I saw them live was in May 2010.

4. Mother North by Satyricon. The link will send you to the uncensored video, which was banned by MTV and most TV channels. Here is another cool version, recorded live with the National Broadcasting Orchestra. I've seen Satyricon live many times and Mother North is always the last song in the concerts.

5. Shine on You Crazy Diamond Part V1-IX by Pink Floyd. I've always listened to Pink Floyd, and I still do. Actually my favorite Pink Floyd song is Echoes from the Meddle album, but it's too long, so I picked this one in stead.

6. O Don Fatale from the opera Don Carlos by Verdi. I've seen this opera twice: The first time was in Leningrad (now St Petersburg) one year before the collapse of the Soviet Union. The second time was in the Vienna State Opera a few years ago. Mezzo-soprano is the voice I like best, and this is one of Verdi's best arias.

7. Lashed to the Slave Stick by Nile, a technical death-metal band from South Carolina with very good musicians and a special style.

8. In the Neighborhood by Tom Waits. I saw this video on TV in 1983, and ran to the store to buy my first Tom Waits album the next day. Since then I've bought many more.

9. Bobby Brown by Frank Zappa. The song was released when I was in junior high school. We didn't really understand the lyrics, but had a feeling it was a little bit dirty. So we brought the lyrics to English class and asked the teacher to help us translate it. She looked at the text, blushed and refused.

10. När vi två blir en by Gyllene Tider. I had to include one of the Scandinavian party hits from the 1980s, not because of the music, but for the memories of friends, girls, parties and good old days. Note the clothes, hair-cuts and glasses of the audience in the video.

There are many other bands that should have been on my list. Among those who almost made are Iron Maiden, Metallica, Black Sabbath, Jethro Tull, black-metal bands like Taake, Burzum and Arcturus. And then there is all the classical music, operas by Verdi, Rossini and Puccini, Symphonie Fantastique by Berlioz and The Planets by Holst. That's what would make up number 11 to 20 on my list >:)

(The picture is a book cover from www.amazon.com)

Wet weekend on the race course

It's been a wet weekend in our local skiing center, snowing in the upper part of the slopes, and raining at the base. I got soaking wet both yesterday and today.

I've been on duty as gate judge, in giant slalom yesterday, and slalom today. My job is to check that the racers pass the gates correctly, and disqualify those who don't.

The parents in the ski club need to do all kinds of jobs when we arrange ski races for the kids. I was in the time-keeping team for many years, now I enjoy doing something different, such as race course patrol or gate judge. It's fun, actually.

I often have a book in my pocket, to have something to read when nothing's happening and we're waiting for things to start. Yesterday, I brought "On Writing" by Stephen King. I shouldn't. The book is in a miserable condition now, wet and creased. I hope I'll be able to dry it and bring it back to a readable state. It's a good book >:)

(Since I was on duty, I wasn't able to take pictures from the races. The picture above was taken by a professional photographer in a Super-G race 6 years ago. I don't know the photographer's name. At that time my older boy was 11 yo and doing alpine racing. Now he's in freestyle skiing. Little boy is an enthusiastic racer)

Real dimensions

Here's some more cool stuff about dimensions. It's about real dimensions that are not really real (it's funny how the word real has different meanings in English).

Usually when we think about dimensions, they are integer numbers, like 3 for our regular space, and 4 if we include time to make it space-time.

In physics we sometimes have to compute infinitely long sums (integrals if you know calculus). Sometimes these sums in 4-dimensional space are infinite. That's not what we want.

We can fix this by making the dimension slightly less than 4, for instance 3.99, which is a real number (and not an integer). The infinite sums now splits nicely in a finite term, which is the answer we seek, and an infinite term that we trash.

Then, in the end, we let the dimension go almost back to 4, say 3.999999999999.

It's magic, isn't it? And what does it mean? It's just a math trick that let us do computations, nothing more and nothing less. The dimension of our real space-time is still 4 >:)

(The trick outlined above is called dimensional regularization. It was invented by the physicists t'Hooft and Veltman who won the Nobel Prize in 1999. I have no idea how to picture a 3.99 dimensional space, and there's no need to do it as long as the math works. The picture above is a 4-dimensional hypercube from Wikipedia)

Higher dimensions

I'm working late today, preparing a lecture for Friday morning. It's on a cool subject, something called Hamilton's canonical equations. It's a funny game that takes place in a 6-dimensional space (so-called phase space).

The first 3 dimensions are the familiar world where we live.

Maybe we can use the other dimensions for something funny, like telepathy or getting in touch with the dead? Sorry, folks. You can't >:(

The first 3 dimensions describe where we are, and the last 3 dimensions describe how fast we're moving and in which direction. The 6-dimensional space is just a convenient way to represent our motion with mathematics. That's it.

Hamilton's equations are fundamental in both classical physics and quantum mechanics. In the quantum world of superstrings and such, there are other funny things coming into the theory as well. But still it's just a convenient way to describe physics in the language of mathematics.

Higher dimensions can't be used for anything exotic at all in our peaceful lives on Earth.

Sorry if you got disappointed, but I can tell you that theoretical physics is really cool >:)

(I found the picture of Sir William Rowan Hamilton (1805-1865) on Google Images. The photographer is probably dead long time ago, so I guess he doesn't mind if I use the photo. Sir William looks a little bit grumpy, doesn't he? Anyway, he was a really smart guy)

Stairway to Cold As Heaven

There has been some complaints about the stairs recently, the stairs in front of our main entrance. They are icy and slippery and difficult to walk, due to snow fall and somewhat sloppy shoveling earlier this winter.

I have argued that this is good. Reaching the top has never been easy, and shouldn't be easy. It should be a real challenge and take some effort.

Maybe this doesn't apply to stairs?

(The photo was taken by me. I even built and painted the stairs last summer. All right reserved) >:D

Freedom

“What would you do if I told you that I’ve been sleeping with another man?”

“Have you?”

“No, just imagine. What would you say?”

“Great. Did you enjoy it?”

“It means you don’t care about me. You don’t love me.”

“Quite the contrary. It means that I don’t want to own you, or decide over you. You have all the freedom you want. If there is anything you would like to explore, you can do it.”

“Do you really mean it?”

“Yes”

“Wouldn’t you be jealous?”

“No. Jealousy is a sign of uncertainty. I’m not uncertain. I trust you. It’s been you and me for a quarter of a century, and it will remain so. I don’t need to keep you on a leash.”

“You’re unbelievable”

“Maybe.”

(Excerpt from my so-called novel, in progress. Painting by Arne Ekeland)

The first year

Today is my one-year blog anniversary. No big celebration planned. I will be out skiing again this weekend.

It's been a fun first year. I looked back to re-read the first post I ever wrote. It wasn't much.

I was going to write something about January, but then I found my 2nd post. It's still valid; no need to rewrite it.

Enjoy the white gold. Powder to the people >:)

To write or not to write

"What are you doing?"

"Writing."

"I thought you were working."

"I was working. Now I’m writing."

"What a useless waste of time."

"My writing is about as useless as your sewing and broidery."

"Sewing is something everybody are doing, following a straight-forward pattern. You can’t just write a novel."

"Why not?"

"It's not the kind of things that anyone can do"

"I'm trying anyway"

"Why can't you just do normal things that other people do?"

"I'm doing that too."

"Like going to black-metal concerts and reading Dostoyevsky. Is that normal?"

"It's normal for me."

"You’re always so eccentric. You learnt to play drums on the Internet, and now you’re gonna learn to write a novel."

"Yes."

"Your biggest fear is to be viewed as ordinary."

"It’s just the way I am."

"I guess that’s why I liked you in the first place."

"Thanks."

Corduroy piste

I took little boy to skiing practice in the local ski center this evening. It was cold, but no wind, and the slopes were perfectly groomed. Corduroy piste.

It's a good way to spend the evening after work.

Tonight I wrote another 500 words on my so-called novel. My old lady doesn't like it. She thinks it's a waste of time, something I can do when I retire at age 67.

She's probably right, but I keep on writing anyway >:)

Powder and broken glasses

We got 25 cm (10 inches) of dry white snow last night. Today we went up to the local ski resort.

Older boy and his buddies got to try their rocker skies, for the first time this season. Rocker skis are wide skis with inverted shape (banana shape), built for the sole purpose of deep-powder skiing. They look almost like water skis with alpine bindings (picture above).

I skied with little boy and a friend of his. The other boy wasn’t very experienced, so I tried to teach him some basic skiing technique; goal-keeper position, with arms forward, moving weight and pressure from left to right to left, in long giant slalom turns. For effective skiing, the weight must be on outer ski and upper part of the body facing down-slope all the time (powder skiing is slightly different, but that’s for advanced skiers).

For some reason, I wrecked my glasses while skiing, my regular reading glasses. I ski with goggles, but keep my glasses in the pocket, to be able to read my cell phone and other things that I need to read. When we finished skiing the glasses were broken in my pocket.

I know the way back home very well, and I was able to drive, but I couldn’t see a damn shit of the speedometer nor the signs by the road. We stopped at a gas station when we got back to town, and I bought some cheap +2.5 reading glasses for $10.

They will do until tomorrow. See you later >:)