Preparing for Christmas

Lots of stuff to finish off at work before the end of the year.

People are going crazy in the shopping malls.

We're getting close to Christmas, but who cares?

Crappy creepy commercial Coca-Cola Christmas.

Santa Claus is coming with presents. I guess he won't get as far as the children in Africa, as usual. It's quite understandable. He's coming all the way from the North Pole.

This year, we're doing it differently. We just go up to the mountains for a 10-day skiing vacation.

No Christmas tree, except a picture to put on the wall.

Kids will get presents, don't worry. I don't need anything. I've got too much already.

I'm looking forward to the days on the slope. Cold days with white snow and the faint December sun. Great! This will probably be the best Christmas ever.

I'm preparing for Christmas; waxing my skis >:)

(The picture above is from my archives, taken last Christmas, on a beautiful day, with the low December sun burning between the birches.)

Water war

Right now it's an interesting war going on in East China Sea. At the heart of the conflict are some small islands that Japan argue about. Recently Taiwan entered the scene too.

The islands themselves are not important. The reason for this conflict is the United Nation's Law of the Sea Convention.  A coastal state is given exclusive economic zone as far out as the continental shelf goes, and at least 200 nautical miles from shore. Huge areas of oceans are associated with the smallest piece of dry land raising above sea level.

(These issues are very important for offshore petroleum exploration; that's why I know it.)

Most interesting and innovative is that the war is being fought with water weapons. Ships from the Japan, China and Taiwan are shooting at each other with water cannons.

From a warfare point of view this conflict is a great step forward. Finally, the armed forces are taking HSE (that is, health, safety and environment) seriously. Zero damage to people nor environment.

This is the way all wars should be in the future. Nobody's killed. Nobody's injured. Still the message gets through, no doubt: "I don't like you. I'm angry with you"

The same principles should be applied to the 2nd Amendment of the US constitution.  Just add one word to it: water.

"... the right of the people to keep and bear water arms ..." 

This would solve many problems. The gun-guys can carry their water pistols wherever they want, and sleep with them under the pillow. Some of the water guns look quite macho.

People would just get wet instead of getting killed. The gunner would get a fine instead of life time in jail.  Great idea, isn't it >:)

(I found the picture above on the internet. It's probably from one of the international news agencies that cover the on-going water war in the East China Sea.)

Dubinin's out of Dubinin Dark

The traffic jam in Moscow is bad. The metro is good, but crowded. I read somewhere that the Moscow metro transports 9 million people every day. 

When working in Moscow, we often stay in a 4-star Marriott hotel just a five minute walk from the office. Then we avoid both the traffic jam and the metro-crowds.

At 8 o'clock in the morning, we meet the rush outside of the railway station. Everybody appear to be going the opposite way. Then we cross under the street, through a tunnel with small underground shops, offering newspapers and tooth paste and matryoshkas (the Russian nested wooden dolls).

Every morning the same guy is advertising cheep hostels, the same man sitting on a chair playing accordion, and the same old peg-legged woman is begging for money.

Fashion-flashing women and designer-suit men are hurrying to the law firms and merchant banks.

Moscow has become a modern city in good and bad. The middle-class is growing. The rich are richer and the poor are poorer than they used to be in the Soviet days.

We work long days, and then walk the same way back to the hotel at night.

We often stop by at Dubinin Restaurant to get some food. Up the stairs to the 2nd floor, smokers to the left, non -smokers to the right. TV screens on the walls show soccer games or hockey from KHL (the Russian equivalent of NHL)

Dubinin has become like our regular place. They serve some really good sausages; Dubinin's Meter if you're really hungry, and Munich sausage with sauerkraut. To drink, we order Dubinin's Dark Beer, served in a 1.5 liter jug or a 0.5 liter mug. Very good.

Last week they were out of Dubinin Dark. Sold out. Waiting for the next batch from the brewery. Fortunately there are alternatives, such as Cernovar (dark of course). The Checks know how to make beer too >:)

(I took the picture above on a sunny morning on the way to the office last week. Dubinin Restaurant is the opposite way; behind my back)

Genre Favorites Blogfest

Today Alex J. Cavanaugh is hosting the Genre Favorites Blogfest. That's a fun blogfest, too fun to miss. 

But let's get to the point. Here are my favorite genres:

Favorite movie genre: 
I don't really have any favorite movie genre, but I have some favorite movies. From the top of my head I mention Night on Earth; great movie by Jim Jarmush. Five episodes from taxi trips in various cities. The best part is the last one, from Helsinki, made in co-operation with the Kaurusmaki brothers, Pink Floyd The Wall: Great music, cool movie,  and Dr Zhivago, based on the book by Boris Pasternak.

Favorite music genre:
Black metal and death metal and Italian opera. Verdi was heavy metal of his time.

Favorite books: 
That's easy. Ever since high-school days, I've been a big fan of Russian Classics; Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Turgenev and Lermontov.

Guilty pleasure genre: 
I still enjoy the good old Zorro movies. Except from that, I'm probably a little bit nerdy; too interested in science to keep work and leisure time separate. And I love reading maps, which means I'm pretty good in geography.

(A Hero of Our Time is a thin but great book by Nicolai Lermontov, one of my very favorites. The picture above is the cover of my copy, Penguin Classics.)

The Moscow Times

Every morning, when waking up in a Moscow business hotel, you get The Moscow Times at the door. It’s Russia’s only English newspaper, and it’s a good paper.

The Moscow Times print some critical articles about the Russian government, and apparently Putin doesn’t care. The paper probably has relatively few readers among the Russian people, and stays under the radar of the regime.

Here are some highlights from the last Friday’s issue, the last one I received during my recent trip to Moscow:

'White Steam' Rally Ends in Trickle
The cross-country auto rally leading up to Saturday’s March of Millions arrives in Kaluga as just one car. 

One car only; does that make a rally? Maybe it does in Kaluga.

Pilot Error Blamed for Kamshatka Crash
The crash of an An-28 propeller plane in Kamchatka this week was likely caused by a pilot error in difficult weather conditions, a crash investigator said Thursday. 

Blame it on the dead. That’s easy, and the dead don’t argue about it. I’ve been flying many times on the An-24. No crashes yet. Good pilots, I guess. No vodka before take off.

Gessen Rebuffs Putin at a Kremlin Meeting
President Vladimir Putin invited Masha Gessen, fired as editor of the Vokrug Sveta magazine for refusing to cover his hang-gliding stunt with crane, to the Kremlin and tried to help her get her job back, but she refused.  

Putin’s macho-man show goes on. Obviously, it doesn’t impress everybody.

Investigator Killed in Likely Contract Hit
Alexander Leonov, 38, had just arrived at his house on Ulitsa Krylatskiye Kholmy about 11 pm Wednesday with his common-law wife when an unindentified assailant shot him in the head and chest, killing him.

Don't mess with the big guys. They might send a contract killer.

(Picture of the front page of The Moscow Times, taken by me. By the way, the paper can be read online as well; www.themoscowtimes.com/)

Bad guys and good guys

I haven’t been to Russia since May, but next week I’m off to Moscow again. I plan to work all week in our Moscow office.

In the evenings I’ll be running around on Red Square shouting “Free Pussy Riot”. You know, that punk band which broke into the Cathedral of Christ in Moscow, and played a song criticizing Putin and the Orthodox Church that supports him. They were sentenced to two years in prison for so-called religious hatred. 

Running around in the streets isn’t my style anymore.

In Moscow, I will just work long hours and relax in an Uzbek restaurant with a dark beer at night. I’m working for BigOil, and we’re co-operating with the bad guys (as seen from Pussy Riot’s point of view). We’re not supposed to show any political views. Get the job done, and keep quiet.

In fact, we’re co-operating with bad guys all over the world; in Africa, South America and Asia. Historically, the oil industry has a bad reputation when it comes to environment, corruption, and exploitation of poor countries (the top three are weapons, mining and oil). No good.

Officially, my company has high standards. I hope that’s the way we do it around the world, though it’s not easy, with all the weird regimes around.

But we keep your cars going. We're the good guys >:)

(I took the picture above in Moscow three years ago. I have no idea who the girl is. She's probably not a member of Pussy Riot. I just thought she had a cool outfit.)

Out of the silence

I’ve been silent for a while, for various reasons. It’s a long time since I was writing anything at all, except technical stuff at work of course.

Before the summer, I filled the last page of my notebook. Like Hemmingway, I buy these small Moleskine notebooks. I immediately bought a new one, because I always want to have one in my bag or in my pocket.

I must admit the I haven’t written a single word in it yet. I didn’t feel like writing, and summer has been busy doing all kind of things:

Vacation in Greece. When summers in the north are cold and rainy, we escape to the south for a while.
Vacation in the mountains. Gone fishing for about a week.

Painting the house. That’s a Hell of a job when you live in a 100 year old house. Hours and days scraping off old paint (of various vintages), before we even get to start the painting. Actually, we hired the kids to do most of the heavy work, in particular the highest parts. I don’t like climbing high anymore, so I sent the kids to the top. That’s what kids are for.

Summer Olympics. Spent too much time watching TV.

Working a lot. July is a great time to work, because everybody else is on vacation. No bosses around, not much mail to reply to. Time to do some science. Great fun.

Reorganization at work. Very good boss replaced by not-so-good boss. Fortunately the next reorganization will come in only 1-2 years (according to statistics).

Now the bosses are back bossing, and I’m writing e-mails and status reports rather than doing science. 

Anyway, I’m out of the silence. Time to find my new notebook

(I took the picture above some time ago when we were painting the house. It’s older boy and one of his buddies working on the uppermost level of the scaffold. Fortunately, they enjoy climbing, because I don’t)

Summer days

The science of meteorology defines a summer day as a day with maximum temperature above 25 degrees Celcius (77 Fahrenheit). That's the international definitions, according to met web sites.

In north we use a more conservative definition: A summer day is a day with maximum temperature above 20 degrees Celcius (68 Fahrenheit). 

So far this summer we've had only three summer days in our town. No swimming in the fjord. Usually wearing a fleece jacket when going outdoor. Some people think it's been a chill summer.

I have a somewhat more optimistic view. I define a summer day as any day with 20 hours of light. We've had many of them, since the mid of May.

And still we're only in July. We might even get some warm days before the fall comes >:)

(A random summer picture from my archives, taken some years ago, on a nice summer day out in the archipelago on the coast, some four hours with the fast catamaran from our town)

Narrow fjords and narrow minds

On the way back home from our summer skiing vacation, we went via the fjords for a weekend together with family.

We took a boat out in the fjord, and were set on-shore on a strip of rock by the steep cliffs. Then we climbed the trail up to one of the old farms on a narrow shelf some 800 feet above the fjord. The farm was inhabited from the 16th century till the 1950s. Now it's maintained by the descendants of the last farmer.

For centuries people along the fjords  have been living from farming and fishing; hard-working and God-fearing. I guess the hard work is what kept them alive. Still they continued with the useless prayers, and they still do.

Nothing fails like prayer. But tourism helps to make a living in the 21st century.

The fjords are scenic, with breathtaking views. Huge cruise ships arrive every morning in the summer. No wonder that tourists come in thousands to see high and snow-capped mountains and steep cliffs going straight into the green water.

I like the high mountains and the open archipelago on the coast. The narrow fjords are not my place. Roads blocked by avalanche in the winter, hazzle with ferries and narrow hairpin roads.

Beautiful, for sure. But most of all, I find the fjords claustrophobic.

It feels like your mind becomes locked in. Narrow fjords create narrow minds.

(Picture taken from the shelf-farm we visited by the fjord. The farm house and barn were behind my back. In the past, goats and sheeps were grassing on the green field, which ends on the edge of a 800 feet vertical drop into the fjord. If you look closely, you can see a similar farm on the other side of the fjord, above the gray cliff  to the right of the water falls.)

Destiny of a ski dad

It's summer and it's vacation. We could have been on the beach. We could have been down south in the warm sun.

But we have our habits. Guess what we do. We go to the snow. Same procedure as every year. In the first week of the school's summer vacation, we go skiing on a glacier in the mountains. We've done this for eight years in row now. No training camp and no races. Just vacation, and skiing for fun.

Yesterday was foggy and white-out, but good skiing. Today we had a nice sunny day with four inches of fresh powder and great skiing. Tomorrow we get who-knows-what; probably the oposite of what the weather forecast says. The high mountains and glaciers are unpredictable. Anyway, I hope night temperatures go below freezing.

Then skiing will be good. After a day of skiing, we go back to camping down in the valley. We barbeque, skateboard and play football (soccer), and we watch the Euro2012 games in TV.

Yesterday there was no TV-football, so we went for a historic walk around the camping. We visited the 12-century stave church, and passed by a farm from medieval times. Finally, we stopped by the house (more like a log cabin) of the author Tor Jonsson, who ended his life at the age of 35 yo.

Something for the body in the morning, something for the brain in the evening. That's a nice combo.



We've got six months of snow and winter. Why do we spend the short summer in the snow? Because the kids want it like this.

I could think of better ways to spend my summer vacation, no doubt.

America has soccer moms, and Canada has hockey moms. Winterland has ski dads, and I'm one of them. I enjoy skiing a lot, and I gave the kids the chance to get hooked on it. So here I am, stuck in the snow. It's my own fault.

It's the destiny of a ski dad >:)

(I took the top picture at the glacier today. It's the best day we've had so far. The 2nd and 3rd picture are from yesterday's historic walk near the camping.)

Two kings and a queen behind bars

For the next couple of weeks, I’m spending most of my free time in front of the TV. It’s Euro2012, the European football (soccer of course) championship finals going on right now. The event is almost as big as the World Cup, and better quality. Different from the World Cup, all the teams are very good.

The championship is hosted by Poland and Ukraine. Poland is a country in good progress, a young but stable democracy with steady economic growth. Ukraine is a parody on democracy, ruled by a corrupt president. Nobody understand why Ukraine was chosen to host the football event.
 
 However, five years ago when UEFA made the decision, the situation was different. The orange crowds had won the election. Ukraine was making progress. The queen of the Orange Revolution, Yulia Tymoshenko, was prime minister in Ukraine.

In 2010 she lost the presidental election to the oligarch Viktor Yanukovych, after election-fraud. Yulia Timoshenko was charged for abuse of power and sentenced to 8 years in jail. Yanukovych wants keep his poitical rival imprisoned till after the next election. Yulia Timoshenko is considered a political prisoner by USA, EU and Amnesty.

Yesterday Ukraine played their first match in the championship finals, and Yulia Timoshenko probably watched it on TV in her prison cell. Ukraine vs. Sweden, with two football kings on the field, captains of their respective teams; Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Andrey Shevchenko. 

Zlatan, the Swedish football genius, scored once.

Shevchenko, the former AC Milan and Chelsea superstar, scored twice. Ukraine won 2-1. Ukraine’s biggest hero, uniting the country across political divides, at least for one night.

There’s nothing like football >:)

(Pictures borrowed from the Internet. The prisoner (top), the loser (center, and the winner (bottom).)

Venus and Satan

This morning there was this rare astronomical event; a Venus passage, where Venus passes in front of the sun. I happened between midnight and 6 am, and we were in a perfect location to watch it.

The public broadcasting was sending live all the time (these long and slow broadcast is one of the things I like about public broadcasting).

But I wanted to see it live, with my own eyes. I enjoy watching astronomical events; last time was the eclipse of the Sun in 2008.

So, I set my alarm clock for 3am. That’s about the time of sunrise in June. I grabbed a piece of over-exposed film (the kind of stuff we used before DC cameras), for eye protection, and then walked up to our 17th-century fortress (a 5-minute walk). The fortress was built to have a good view, of attacking enemies and sunsets and Venus passages. A perfect place to watch the event.

Unfortunately, it was partly cloudy, and the sun was low. I didn’t see much, but at least I got a glimpse of that black little spot moving very slowly across the face of the Sun. Very interesting.

And when I walked back home about 5am, it all became clear to me; the Grand Conspiracy.

Venus is not only a planet, but she’s also the God of love in Roman mythology. When God (the Trinity) conquered the world, she got offended and teamed up with Satan to get revenge.

Today is the 6th of June, the day Satan was born. And there’s more, it’s 6/6/12 which equals 6/6/6*2. Do you see the pattern here? The number of the beast, and the 2 for Venus’ and Satan’s engagement.

The Venus passage was her spectacular present to Satan on his birthday! Pretty scary, isn’t it?

We may argue that the Venus passage yesterday is a consequence of us happening to observe the Sun and Venus from our Earth. Every day there is some point in space with a Venus passage.

However, keep in mind that both Gods (all of them) and Satan exist only in the imagination of man living on Earth >:)

(I borrowed the picture above from the Internet, since I don't have a proper camera to photograph this myself.)

Summer in Winterland

It’s June, and there are signs of summer. The trees are dressed in green leaves. I have cut the grass once already.

Last Sunday, we had a nice and warm day. Little boy and I biked to town in shorts and T-shirt to buy ice cream.

Yesterday it was snowing.

Today I’m wearing wool socks.

It’s summer in Winterland.

Summer in the north doesn’t mean it’s warm. It just means it’s light all the time.

The light summers are addictive (and the dark winters too). When you’re used to living in the north, you won’t consider living anywhere else, at least not for a long time.

The nature of the north is like a chubby woman, shaved by the cold and harsh winters, and then in the spring her fur grows back, just as it should, just where it should, leaving the highest mountains bare >:)

 (I took the picture above on a late summer night about a year ago, when I walked across the old town bridge on the way back home from a late night in town.)

Before Man made God

I just came home after a week in Spain, on a geology field trip in the Pyrenees. They call it work. At least we get paid for it.

The geologists go on field trips all the time. Occasionally (every 10th year or so) they let the geophysicists join in.

We studied the making of the Pyrenees; the Pyrenean orogenesis. We didn’t bother about all of Genesis, just a small part of it, in the southern Pyrenees.

(And we had some great hikes while looking at the old rocks. I know that I’m privileged.)

The Pyrenees are younger than the Rockies, but older than the Alps. The Pyrenees have been there for a long time.

They helped Republicans escape from General Franco during the Civil War. 

They survived the Spanish flu.

They witnessed the Spanish inquisition.

The mountains were carved long before Man made God.

But in the end they will be gone, planed by water and ice. That’s the inevitable faith of a mountain range.

(We hiked a steep and stony trail. After an hour we stopped at the crest of a great moraine. The reward we got was the view of the mountain in the picture above.)

Who the Hell was Stroganoff?

I’m out traveling again. No need to say where. It’s almost become an habit. I survived another trip on the old Antonov 24, and arrived safely on Putin’s side of the border.

The driver took me to the hotel. Then I went to the café to get a dark Piligrim and something to eat. Irina was behind the counter, with a shy smile as usual. She gave me the menu, and I looked through it to find something to eat. Pizza? No, it’s terrible. Some Russian dish? I found beef Stroganoff on the menu. An international dish, but at least a Russian name.

 But who the Hell was Stroganoff? The chef who invented this popular dish? I Googled it and found the answer. Beef Stroganoff goes back to a Russian family of very rich merchants, during the Tsar era. The beer was good and the Stroganoff was eatable. I asked Irina for another beer, but not another Stroganoff.

Today I was working with our Russian collaborators. Not much to say about it, not much I’m allowed to say about it. But the lunch was good. Seafood from arctic waters. Herring and cod and caviar.

Then I started the trip back home, by car, through northern wilderness in early spring. Snow was mostly gone, but lakes still covered by ice, and no signs of green leaves yet.

We stopped at the cafe in Titovka, to get a cup of bad instant coffee and a rest. It’s become a habit.

When we passed through the Army town of Sputnik, I asked the driver if he had been in military service. I told him I had, in the navy, during the cold war (I will write about my merits in battle some time later).

 “You were our enemies,” I said, “the evil empire in the east.”

 Then we got a good laugh, on our way to the border between two countries that have never been at war.

 (Some pictures I took today, from top to bottom: Murmansk seen from the other side of the fjord. The cafe in Titovka, made from 3-4 old yellow railroad cars tied together. Not much of a cafe, but you can get a cup of coffee or a coke, and use the restroom for 15 Rubles. Nikel seen from the road ()my driver don't want to stop there). It was a sunny day, but the town was obscured by the smoke from the Nickel factory.)

Dogs and whales

I read in the news that the Republicans are mocking Obama because he ate dog meat when he was a kid in Indonesia.

I immediately realized that this will make my own campaign difficult. I planned to run for President of the USA in 2016. I know that the Republicans will try to dig up everything that has happened in my life. So I better tell it right away.

I have something to confess: I ate whale meat when I was a kid. I ate Shanu and Keiko and Moby Dick. They're so cute, though some are bigger than a school bus. Still I ate them. Not only once, but regularly.

It used to be the cheapest meat you could get. Therefore we had it for dinner almost once a week. My mother made fried whale beef with gravy and potatoes. It was very good.

Now whale meat has become  expensive, because of the international restrictions on whaling. But they serve it in the gourmet restaurants, at a high price.

Whale carpaccio is delicious. Typically you get it for a starter. Very thin slices of raw and tender whale meat, served with olive oil, Parmesan cheese and rucola. Try it, unless you wanna run for President >:)

(I had no pictures of dogs or whales in my collection, so I borrowed the one above from the Internet)

Return of the handyman

A couple of weeks ago, older boy and his buddies crashed our old Toyota. They ran off the road, hit a traffic sign, and wrecked most things on the passenger side. Fortunately the boys didn't get injured, except older boy cutting his hand when the window broke (he's a freestyle skier, so he has a high tolerance for pain, and didn't even bother to see the doctor).

The car is 12-13 years old, so we had no insurance, except the obligatory liability part. To make it cheap, I went to the junkyard and bought some used auto parts; head light and front and rear doors. I was lucky and even got them in the right color.

Cars don't interest me. I find them totally uninteresting. Therefore, I have never tried to repair a car, never touched anything under the hood.  But I thought, what the Hell,  it can't be that difficult. And I studied in a technical university (only math and theoretical physics).

I removed the wrecked doors, paying attention to how things were put together with bolts and nuts. Same with the electrical wires, and then the headlights. Then I mounted the new used doors and lights. And voila; everything worked right away.

New merits can be added to my handyman record. I hereby proudly announce that I've become an auto mechanic >:)))

(I took some pictures with my phone, to document my merits as a auto mechanic. At this point, I have replaced the rear door, and taken off the front door.)

Scream for millions

Yesterday, the Scream by Edvard Munch was sold by Sotheby's for 120 million dollars. That's pretty expensive for a painting. I submitted my bids, but had to back out when the price passed 100 million.

I'm not sure who bought the picture.  Rumors say it was the royal family of Qatar. Whoever the buyers are, I hope they're not too disappointed when they find it's not the only Scream. Edvard Munch painted four versions of this picture between 1893 and 1910. The three other versions are owned by the Munch Museum and the National Gallery.

I f you,  like me, were outbidden in yesterday's auction, there's a consolation. In the Munch Museum, you can admire two different versions of the Scream for only $15. And they have lots of other cool Munch pictures as well >:)

(The picture above is one of the Screams owned by the Munch Museum, probably the first version from 1893. I found the picture on the Internet, for free)

Closing time

Winter is coming to an end. The sun is warming, and the first flowers have appeared down in the valley. Shortly, the trees will start to acquire green leaves.

Today was a sad day for little boy. It was the last opening day in the ski resort. The warming sun is destroying his winter paradise, at least for a while. In six months, the snow is coming back.

We have spent four days in the mountains skiing, just little boy and I in the cabin. The last four days of the skiing season. We took Monday off from school and work, respectively. Tuesday was 1st of May, the International Workers' Day, and a holiday in many countries, including ours.

Skiing was still good at higher elevations, still plenty of dry and fresh snow. For the last week of the season, they have built a big terrain park in the high zone. Jumps all over the place. Green and red lines for the freestyle rookies (like little boy), and black line with big jumps for the teens.

It was an amusement park made of snow. Great fun for those who have the skills and the guts to use it. And for the parents it was pleasant to take a cup of coffee in the sun while watching >:)

(I took the picture while relaxing in the sun, drinking coffee, eating chocolate, and watching the kids.)

Piligrim and pizza

It was a beautiful day in the north. Blue sky, sunny and no wind. I got off the plane and met with the driver. We got through the three checkpoints, filling out forms, checking passport and visa, and passport again.

It's always a somewhat stressing procedure. Something wrong? No. It's like a relief when you hear the sound of the passport being stamped by the officer behind the counter.

Then, we were on the way to Murmansk, about four hours drive, with Russian pop music from Radio Vania. We passed Nikel, which almost looked cozy today, and then Zapolyarny, Pechenga and Sputnik, where the road was incredibly bad; bumpy gravel road for some kilometers.

We passed through beautiful arctic landscapes. Not spectacular like the Colorado Rockies or the Swiss Alps, just overwhelming by its endlessness. Huge boulders and moraines, left behind by the glaciers that carved the landscape. Wide valleys and low and wavy hills, covered by snow and scattered birches. There are no leaves on the trees yet. Too early in the spring. It's still a month or more till the trees become green.

Finally, we passed the bridge across the fjord, and entered Murmansk, the world's largest city north of the Arctic Circle. The population is about 300.000, down from 500.000 in the Soviet days.

I checked into the hotel, and then went to the cafe to get something to eat. Irina was behind the counter, as usual. Black hair, red lips, white waitress-shirt with a red scarf. She's a chubby and cute girl. Always smiling, though she's working day and night for a salary which is just a fraction of mine. Life is not fair, and will never be.

I ordered something they called pizza, and a dark beer. Piligrim, local beer from Murmansk. The full name is “Piligrim Nord Svetloye”, according to the text on the bottle. Bad pizza, good beer. Very good beer. One of my favorites.

And I left quite some tips for Irina when I left. I think she deserves it >:)

(Some pictures I took today: An old mine in the hillside right outside Nikel. View of Murmansk from my hotel; note the Stalinist concrete blocks in the suburb on the hill; still decorated with old communist symbols,as you can see when you get close. A bottle of Piligrim dark beer on my table in the cafe, still waiting for the so-called pizza, and Irina behind the bar, counting today's income in the cashier machine.)

Russian break

The pace is high right now. The last three weeks I've only spent four nights in my own house.

I returned safely from Moscow on Friday 13th. Tried to book a seat in row 13, but it wasn't available.

Then I went straight to the mountains with the kids for the weekend. Nice weather, good skiing. Can't miss the last three weeks of this season.

Tomorrow I'm going to Russia again, to Murmansk this time. I'm not at all looking forward to the four-hour drive across the tundra.

Lots of traveling, but I don't complain, because most of the time I've been out skiing. And next weekend we're returning to the mountains >:)

(I took the picture above this weekend. Good snow and nice weather, a perfect day for taking the gondola to the top of the mountain. The top station carries the memories of recent blizzards.)

New winter

The last weeks of March were warm and rainy. Then came the Easter holidays with cold weather and snow. Lots of snow.

A new winter starting. Great!

We got some sunny days when the best thing to do was skiing in the backcountry. Alone in the wilderness, the tracks from our own skis where the only signs of human presence.

But most of the time tons of powder was falling from the sky. It's not often we get such large ammounts of dry snow in April. Little boy and I named it the Judas powder, in honor of the Easter jerk.

I borrowed older boy's wide rocker skis. We got a great time of off-piste skiing. Little boy enjoys jumping off cliffs (I'm too old for that). We're not speaking of very high cliffs, just 4-5 m (12-15 feet). No problem with a soft and steep landing beneath.

Once he lost a ski in the landing. It was buried under a foot of snow. We searched and dug for it, and it took us almost an hour to find it.

You see, that's the Judas powder >:)

Tomorrow I'm off to Moscow again. No powder I hope. It's just gonna mess up the traffic.

(The picture is from a trip on crosscountry skis in the mountains.)

Thanks to Judas

It’s been busy times, a Hell of a lot to do at work. That’s why my blog has been dead recently.

I’ve been working day and night for the last couple of weeks, to finish the stuff we have promised to finish before the end of the first quarter of 2012. That’s the kind of things that managers measure.

Now I’m looking forward to Easter vacation, going skiing as usual.

I’m not very concerned about the religious part of it, but I think the Christians should stop talking shit about Judas. He’s the 2nd most important person in Christianity. What would Jesus been without the acts of Judas? Just imagine Jesus dying in loneliness, from old age in a dark and dusty cabin.

Judas was an important part of the plot, the antagonist who betrayed the hero. Without him the entire story would fall apart; no crucifiction, no suffering, no resurrection. Jesus and Judas had equally important roles in God’s plan, for those who believe in the story.

I think it was just an effective twist of a good fiction writer who knew his craft, almost 2000 years ago.

Anyway, I thank Judas for the annual skiing vacation he gave us, and after Easter, I hope my blog will resurrect.

Happy Easter Holidays >:)

(I got the Easter egg in the picture from my boss today. The egg was on the desk in my office when I came to work this morning. Nice boss, good candy.)

After the election

This morning at 9am, my Russian driver picked me up at the hotel in Murmansk. Mission completed; I was going home. He was taking me to the Russian border, or more precisely, to the nearest airport across the border.

We drove through the winter-white wilderness of north-west Russia. We crossed a scenic mountain pass with two or three war memorials by the road. There were big battles during WW2. The Russians are good at building memorials.

It was a four-hour drive, and we had plenty of time to talk. We duscussed history, fishing, cars and kids. Then we talked about moving to Kaliningrad (not me, of course), and the recent Russian presidential election.

The driver doesn't like Putin. And I expect he didn't vote for Putin, but I didn't ask directly.

"What's wrong with Putin?" I said.

I have my own opinions, but would liked to hear his views.

"The main problem is that he's been in office too long; eight years as president, then four years as prime minister. People want change. Now we fear another eight years with Putin, at least."

Putin is in control of everything; the natural resources and the state-owned compenies, newspapers and television. He even dictates the super-rich oligarks, or jail them if they don't obey. The longer he rules, the more he behaves a Tsar, or a blend of Tsar and KGB officer (which he used to be).

Still people voted for Putin. According to official figures, he got 65% of the votes. Even the dead voted for Putin, thousands of people who had been dead for years. If the false votes are subtracted, he still gets more than 50% (estimated by international observers).

Halfway we stopped in Titovka, a small place in the middle of nowhere, with a cafe that serves instant coffee and something they called pizza. Maybe it was omelette; I'm in doubt.

Then we entered the military zone, where the roads are very wide. They were built for tanks, during the cold war. Built for a Red-Army invasion, that never came, fortunately.

We passed by the medieval town of Pechenga, and the depressive and polluted mining towns Zapolyarny and Nikel, where nothing has changed in decades. Then, some 10 km (6 miles) before the border, there is a check point. A grumpy guy in army uniform looked at our passports and searched the trunk of the car. He nodded , OK, but didn't smile.

Between the check-point and the border is a transit zone. You can drive through, but stopping is prohibited. At the boarder there is double-checking. A Russian officer stamped my passport, and let me through. Then finally, at the last check point, the officer greeted me: "Welcome home".

I was out of Putin's reach, for this time. Back from the USSR.

(Some pictures taken along the road; Pechenga and Nikel.)

Back in the USSR

Not really. I just borrowed the title from that old Beatles song. The USSR is history, split into a number of more or less democratic and independent republics. I'm in the north-west corner of the biggest one; Russia, the land of Putin.

Yesterday morning, I took a plane up to the Paris of the North. It was one of these big jet planes, a Boeing 7-Something. It was windy on the coast. Very windy. The first approach for landing was aborted right before we touched ground, because the pilots struggeled to control the plane in the wind.

In the second approach, the plane tilted again. Out of the window, I looked straight into the white-topped waves of the roaring sea. I don't know how, but in some way, the skilled pilots managed to level the plane right before landing. It was a very unpleasant flight, a real adrenaline booster.

The next flight to Murmansk was on a good old Antonov 24, a small propeller plane, a piece of Soviet technology from the 1960s. It's a robust plane, built for harsh conditions, simple and reliable technology, if they just keep up with the maintainance program. I hope they do.

It's amazing how these small propeller planes fly in bad weather, and it feels quite comfortable. The small planes kind of flow on the air like a little bee, moving with the wind bursts, rather than trying to oppose it.

The Antonov 24 has nylon curtains in the circular windows, and there is full Russian service on board. It means vodka. I don't drink that stuff; it's poison, and a tragedy for the Russian society. Vodka is the main reason why the avergage expected lifetime of Russian men is less than 60 years.

When I arrived in Murmansk, my driver picked me up in the airport and took me to the hotel. The road from the airport to the city makes a detour into the forests. They started out in the wrong direction when it was built.

Moscow is a modern metropol, but Murmansk is very much like it used to be in the Soviet days. Old buses and Red-Army vehicles (and some brand new Lexus'es and BMW's) are driving in the streets. Huge nuclear-powered ice breakers are anchored on the bay.

A few miles out the fjord is the town of Severomorsk, with the big navy base and shipyard. During the cold war, it was the headquarter of the Soviet Northern Fleet. It's still in operation, but the submarines are not as many as they used to be.

Murmansk was bombed to bits and pieces by the Germans during the 2nd World War, and then rebuilt in typical Soviet style architecture. The suburbs on the hills accommodate thousands of people in massive gray concrete blocks.

I'm back in the USSR >:)

(Pictures taken today and yesterday. The first picture shows central Murmansk, with the big cranes on the harbor and the fjord. In the upper right corner is the Alyosha statue, a 35m (110 feet) high concrete statue overlooking the city, a WW2 memorial built in the 1970s. The second picture is a close-up of the Antonov 24, parked on the snow-covered runway of the Murmansk airport last night.)

Great skiing and a good book

We just had a weekend of fantastic sunny weather in the mountains. The skiing was great. For the first time this winter, we could ski in the high zone, above timber line. The wind chill was still like -20 degrees (-5 Fahrenheit) at the top, but in the sun it was quite pleasant.

Little boy and I was mostly skiing in the off-piste area. I've realized that I'm getting older, so I need to be somewhat careful. So, this is what I do: When we take a new route, I first send little boy alone. When he comes down (I hope), he can tell me if the route is recommended for me. Then we ski it together.

I needed something to read in the evenings. So, on the way to the slopes I stopped by a bookstore, and picked a book at random: Siberian Education by Nicolai Lilin, an amazing book. It's an autobiographic novel about a boy of the Urka people, born and raised to become a criminal, in a traditional Siberian society.

(The Urka people was deported from Siberia to Transnistria, on the border between Moldova and Ukraine, in the Stalin era.)

The philosophy of the Urka people reminds me of Jean Genet (Thief's Journal, The Miracle of the Rose), in the sense that everything is turned upside down, compared to the "normal" society. Police and authorities are the enemies. Thieves and robbers, so-called "honest criminals", are heroic role models. Spending half a lifetime in jail is normal.

Nicolai Lilin doesn't quite match Jean Genet, though. But who does?

(I took the picture above this weekend. It's little boy, my main ski buddy, surrounded by the white gold, under the blue sky.)

Apps

I'm working with science and technology every day. Therefore I'm not very interested in playing with gadgets outside office hours.

I prefer to spend my free time reading, writing and skiing.

Yesterday I made a great leap forward: I got my first smart phone. Not because I'm interested in smart phones, but simply because people expect me to read mail when I'm out travelling. There have been some problems and misunderstandings when I didn't (like messing up time and place for drivers to pick me up in Moscow, not a good thing to do).

So, now I've got a brand new HTC phone (that's what they give us at work). And where do I go to learn how to use it?

Answer: Ask the kids. They have a natural feel for how these things work (older boy has an iPhone4S; guess who paid for it).

The kids taught me how to download apps from the Android Market. There are thousands of apps, for doing all kinds of rediculous and useless things.

So far, I've downloaded one app: Kindle Reader for HTC >:)

(That's a picture of my new phone, downloaded from the HTC homepage. I vivited their site to get the user manual on a pdf)

Tiger sharks

They appeared before my eyes, right inside of the door in the ski-shop by the lift; a pair of Völkl TigerSharks, demo skis, used once or twice, on sale for 1/3 of the list price.

I asked the cashier if I could try them a couple of runs on the slopes (buying skis is like buying a car; you should test before you buy). I made up my mind before I finished the first run, and bought the skis for $450, including bindings.

The TigerSharks are slalom-shaped skis (length 168cm, curvature radius 15m), perfect for making short turns, excellent grip at high speeds. They're pretty aggressive, and they bite, not me but the snow.

This is my 4th pair of skis. I have two pairs of giant slalom skis; my good old Dynastars that have served me well for almost 10 years, completely worn out, and I have a pair of Rossignol skis that little boy is currently using for downhill and Super G, so they're adjusted to his boot size right now. Also, I have a pair crappy twin-tip skis (K2), OK for jumping (which I hardly dare to do anymore), but to soft to make a proper carving turn.

So, as you can see, I really needed the TigerSharks >:)

(That's my new Völkl TigerSharks in the picture. I've been skiing them for 6 days in row now, and I'm very happy with them.)

Room with a view

I'm out traveling gain. This time I'm on a domestic flight on the west coast. This is one of the places I couldn't live. The town is nice, but it's too little snow in the winter. Skiing areas are too far away.

The funny thing that happened on this trip was as follows: I knew the hotels would be pretty full this week, so I booked long time in advance. Yesterday when I arrived, it turned out that the travel agency had messed up the booking, so I didn't have any hotel, and all of them were full.

But I found a solution, a small pension near the town center. It's a small and simple place. I think I'm about the only person staying here right now. Kind of scary to be alone in an old and empty hostel. Reminds me of The Shining. Bad weather and heavy winds outside, all kinds of weird and mysterious sounds ... mwuuuhaaahahaaah >:)

The price is less than 1/3 of the hotels we normally use on business trips, and the pension only has 7 rooms. It's like living in someones private house. I don't complain. This is different, and interesting.

Here are the pros and cons of a place like this:

Pros: Breakfast is very good. I'm being served by a table on my own by the lady who runs the place. Nice and cosy, and they do have a WiFi. No TV; then I don't need to waste my time on that (I hardly ever watch TV anyway. Bought a cool book in the airport yesterday; Invisible by Paul Auster). The center of the town, with bars and restaurants is a five minutes walk away. There is a library downstairs, same as the breakfast room, with books and newspapers.

Cons: No bathroom and shower in my room. I have to go down two stairs to get to the shower, and three stairs to get to the WC. Front door closes at midnight. Yesterday I checked in 5 minutes before closing time. Tonight I've got my own key to the front door, so I can come in as late as I want.

Cool place to stay. I don't miss the luxury of a high-class business hotel, not at all.

(It's my pension in the picture above. I downloaded it from the internet. It's a nice old house, in the old central part of town. I'm staying on the top floor. I have a nice view of the town center in the morning when it's getting light.)

Heat

It's been a freezing cold day with a lot of heat.

At work today, I solved the heat equation. I try to simulate a stack of sedimentary rocks being heated by the crust below, and how temperature develops through geological time.

When I came back home, I lighted the fireplace to heat the kitchen and the living room. Then I made a hot meal for the kids.

Tomorrow is race day for little boy. This evening, I waxed his skis. It's a long and tedious process to do it properly: First, sharpen the edges with a file. Second, heat the wax with a waxing iron and melt it into the base. Third, scrape of the excess wax. Finally, brush and polish the base. Then the skis are ready for the super-G race.

Now I'm relaxing with a hot cup of tea.

My old lady has been away on a business trip today. When she comes home tonight, I hope the heat is on >;)

(I computed the plot above at work today. It shows the diffusion of heat from below through a package of sedimentary rocks. After 50 million years, hot magma intrudes the sediments. The time-step between each temperature curve is 10 million years ... not much God could have done about it in 6 days, and resting on the 7th.)

Sublimation

Last Sunday, we had a fantastic winter day, cold and sunny and dry, hardly any wind. A perfect day for skiing above the timberline.

When the weather conditions are like that, the ice cover virtually evaporates from the highway. It's called sublimation, and happens in dry and cold conditions. Water goes directly from the solid phase (ice) to the gas phase (vapor), without passing through the liquid phase (water). It's the same as the process they use to make instant coffee (freeze-drying).

When little boy and I came down to the chair lift in the morning, we found a sign announcing: ski-in mass 11 am. I was curious.

"What the Hell is going on," I said.

"Maybe the priest wanna ski too", little boy suggested.

"Do you wanna attend the mass? Maybe the priest can bless your skis?"

"No, I don't want to waste my time," said little boy.

So, no mass. That's fine with me. Let the priest do whatever he wants, with or without skis. I'm done with that stuff long time ago. Little boy seems to agree.

I was just curious what a ski-in mass is like. I still don't know.

Anyway, the skiing was good. Little boy skied over the jumps. I'm too old for jumping. It hurts too much when I fall. Around noon we could even feel that the sun was warming. Maybe it was just the holy ghost leaking out from the mass.

It was one of those days when skiing is like a sublimation of God. The mountains are my cathedral. I don't need a priest >:)

(These sunny and cold winter days come now and then every year: I had forgotten my camera this time. The picture above was taken in January last year.)

Sun gone wild

The sun has gone crazy the last few days, with very powerful magnetic storms. I read in the newspapers that this has caused problems for the air traffic, in particular near the poles.

And it creates northern light.

The magnetic storms send bursts of electrically charged particles into space. When the particles come close to the the Earth, they follow the magnetic field towards the north and south poles. That's why you need to be far north (or far south) to see the norther (or southern) light.

It's not very often we see strong northern light as far south as our town (at 63 degrees north). It's a spectacular view, but it's just some cool physics in action >:)

(The picture is from our local newspaper. It shows the northern light flashing over the town.)

Christening of Christ

I've been somewhat reluctant to traveling to Russia recently. In Moscow there has been big protests against Putin, since the irregularities in the recent election. More than 100.000 people have gathered in demonstrations in the city center.

In Murmansk a nuclear-powered submarine caught fire in the shipyard. According to Russian authorities, the situation is fine, and no radioactive waste has leaked.

History has shown that when Russian authorities say everything is under control, there are reasons to be worried.

What would you choose? Anti-Putin demonstrations or a burning nuclear submarine? Where would you go? Moscow or Murmansk?

This week, my choice was easy: I take both.

According to our Moscow office, the situation is OK. There's no risk traveling to Russia, really.

My trip had a bad start. The airport in my hometown was closed due to fog, so I missed my subsequent flight with Aeroflot to Moscow. Fortunately, I got an alternative route, with Air Baltic to Riga, and connection to Moscow. I arrived in the hotel at midnight, some four hours delayed.

Yesterday was a exhausting. I was in a work meeting from 9am to 6pm. Then a driver took me through the Moscow traffic jam to the airport. I had a quick (so-called) dinner in the airport, before boarding the plane to Murmansk together with a Russian colleague. I'm completely dependent on help from a translator to get my job done.

Today is a popular Russian holiday, the epiphany. My Russian friends explained to me that they're celebrating the "Christening of Christ", when Jesus was baptized in the Jordan River. Maybe that's when he got the nickname Christ?

The celebration started last night, with mass in the churches, and hordes of Russians seeking frozen rivers and ponds. They cut a hole in the ice and jump into the water, three times, while saying magic and saving prayers.

Many people didn't show up at work today. I'm not sure if it was due to the dives in the cold water, or the following vodka.

Tonight I'm just relaxing in the hotel, reading and writing. Mission completed. There's nothing more i need to do.

Tomorrow I'm flying back home on an Antonov 24, an amazing old propeller plane from the Soviet times. This type of plane was built from 1960 to 1980. There are still more than 1000 of them flying. The plane feels pretty safe. It's shaking like Hell on start-up and take off. But at cruising speed, it's quite pleasant. It's a simple and robust aircraft, built for hostile conditions.

I've taken this route before, but only in summer time. Tomorrow will be another interesting experience; flying on an Antonov 24 across the white tundra >:)

(This trip, I've only been working and traveling, no opportunity to take pictures. Above is a picture I took last summer, onboard the Antonov 24. A nice stewardess was serving lunch, with all kinds of Russian drinks)

Things I hate about flying

Last year, I was traveling quite a lot, way too much for a normal family life. My resolution for 2012 should be to travel less.

When I updated my trip recording yesterday, I made a quick count. In 2011, I went on 19 business trips, to a variety of interesting places:

• Milan, Italy.
• Doha, Qatar.
• San Antonio, Texas.
• Moscow, Russia (7 times).
• Murmansk, Russia (4 times).
• Domestic, northbound (2 times).
• Domestic, southbound (4 times).

Fortunately, we use video conferencing quite extensively. We hardly do domestic travel anymore.

There are a few things I really dislike about flying. This is my top 3 hate list:

1. Sitting in a center seat: A long flight squeezed between two fat guys, and fighting for the arm rest is a nightmare. I want a window seat.
2. When the guy in the seat in front of me leans his seat backward and steals half of that small space I have to read and write and work. The seats should be fixed in the upright position.
3. Airport security is such a hazzle; taking off clothes and shoes, emptying pockets, taking lap top out of the bag, long lines.

I shouldn’t complain too much. I know I’m lucky and privileged, traveling to (some) nice places, and even getting paid for it.

Flying is not all bad. There are things I like about it too:

1. Sitting by the window looking down on interesting places as we pass by.
2. Getting some undisturbed time to read and write.
3. The comfort in business class. I don’t fly business class very often, only on flights taking 6 hours or more. Most of the time I fly Economy Extra, to be able to re-book flights as needed.

My ambition for 2012 is maximum 10 trips. That’s acceptable.

Anyway, next week I go again; booked my tickets today.

(I took the picture above last fall, on-board an Aeroflot plane, over the western part of Russia. The clouds make up an interesting pattern of almost parallel lines. I'm not sure what's causing this, but it was a nice view.)

After ski

The last December days were short and cold. We got six days of dry white snow and good skiing. At 2pm the faint sun disappears behind the horizon. It's getting dark when the lifts close an hour later.

And then the after ski starts, with a variety of options; pubs and bars with dance music, discotheques and live dinner shows.

I rather relax in the cabin with a warm lingonberry or cloudberry drink and a good book. This Christmas vacation, I finished two:

The Hypnotist. Quite an original story with some unexpected twists, from the shelf of Scandinavian crime, written by Alexander and Alexandra Ahndoril under the pseudonym of Lars Kepler.

Life Short, Rytkönen Long. Absurdism from Finnland by Arto Paasilinna. The book wasn't bad, some really funny moments, but didn't match The Son of the Thunder God, I think.

That's my after ski >:)

I took the picture above on a cold and clear day on the slopes this Christmas. The low sun is flaming in the frozen forest, before disappearing behind the horizon.