Back to basics

This fall has been quite busy, somewhat too busy, I must admit. It’s all the stuff going on at work, as usual. In addition, my handyman season has lasted longer than usual.

Living in a 100-year old house is like rowing a leaky boat. You need to bail out water continuously to keep it floating. That’s OK. I’m used to it. But this fall there has been more. We have refurbished the ground floor (still going on). We have ripped out everything, and rebuild it from the core; putting in insulation in the walls and floors, installing water-borne heating, and so on.

We have hired craftsmen to do the most difficult and time consuming things, but I’ve done a lot myself too. So, I’ve been working as a scientist at day time and as a carpenter in the evenings and weekends. It’s a nice combo actually. I rest my body when doing research in the office, and I rest my brain while swinging the hammer and saw.

In fact, I enjoy it. It feels like I’m doing some real work, not just fiddling around with physics and mathematics and computers. However, it leaves too little time for reading and writing. Things are too complex right now.

I don’t believe in any gods and superheros, and I think that from the beginning, the (pre)humans were much like any other species of animals. Our mission in life was very simple; to eat, fuck and die. We were supposed to spread our genes to the next generations, and then get our bio-mass recycled.

But at some point, our brains just got too big, and we started to worry about religion and science, and stuff like that. I don’t like religion, but I’m happy with the science.  

But there’s more. There’s no end to this craziness. We shop for hardwood floors and induction cooktops, and what the hell should we do with all the old crap that we have bought at the mall over the years? At work there are company strategies and deliverables and achievements, evaluation systems and key performance indexes (so-called KPI’s). Management is pretty insane. I've developed my own management theory. More about that on a later occasion.

Right now, it feels like I wanna go back to the basics. Fortunately, there’s the Christmas vacation coming up. I don’t like the Christmas part of it, but I do like a mid-winter vacation. Tomorrow we go skiing in the mountains for a week. Great!

To whom it may concern: Merry Christmas.

I prefer to say Happy Winter Solstice >:)

(The pictures were taken some years ago, when little boy was really a little boy. He had heard the Christmas Gospel in the kindergarden, and re-told it at home, in his own way. I made the clay models while little boy directed. There were Jesus and Mary and Joseph and the Holy Kings, and little boy insisted that they played soccer. This was unknown to me, but who cares. I just made it the way he wanted)

Higgs and other fields

 This week, Peter Higgs was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics. More than 40 years ago, Higgs and his co-workers predicted theoretically the existence of an elementary particle known as the Higgs boson. In 2012, the Higgs particle was finally detected in the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Geneva.

In a popular-science book by Leon Lederman, the Higgs boson was nick-named the God particle. This name is strongly disliked by both physicists and priests, because it could give the false impression that God has something to do with it. That’s not the case.

Science deals with theoretical predictions and experimental confirmation (or rejection) of the theories. Religion is just a question of belief (or lack of it), and is outside the scope of science.

Lederman, in his book, first wanted to call it the Goddamn particle, because of the enormous efforts and billions of dollars spent in the search for the Higgs boson. But the publisher didn’t approve it

I thought it was really cool when the Higgs particle was found, because I used to work with this kind of stuff when I was a physics student. Elementary particles are the basic building blocks of everything, all kinds of matter, and even light. The weird part of theoretical physics known as “quantum field theory” is the mathematical description of elementary particles and their interactions.

For every particle there is a field, and for every field there is a particle, the observable quantum of the field. Even light has a particle; the photon. And of course, there is a Higgs field, associated with the Higgs particle.

In fact there are many Higgs fields, at least four. Three of the Higgs fields are busy, giving mass to other particles, by so-called spontaneous symmetry breaking. The 4th Higgs field is free (because light, the photon, didn't acquire a mass), and is observable as the Higgs particle.  

More than 20 years ago, I wrote my master thesis on an even crazier part of quantum field theory, something called super-symmetry. In super-symmetry, there are more Higgs-like particles, and a myriad of other new particles, none of which have been observed in the labs so far.  

Working with super-symmetry was very entertaining, but I’m not sure it’s useful. I was in doubt if I should continue with this, or switch to something else. Once, I discussed this with a professor I knew (he was an outstanding teacher). The advice he gave me is probably the best I ever got:

“It doesn’t really matter which wave-equation you solve, but for some you get better paid.”

So, I swapped field (literally speaking), from elementary particles to acoustic and electromagnetic waves. I did my PhD in applied geophysics, and started to work for BigOil. I never regretted, and I even think I’m useful to society, sometimes >:)

(The picture is a random page from my master thesis, written back, in 1992. I still have a copy of the thesis in my bookshelf. I haven't opened it for more than 10 years, until recently, when I wanted to refresh my mind on the Higgs stuff.)

Left is right

Today is election-day in our country. We're gonna elect members for our parliament and government for the next four years. I have to make up my mind about which party to vote for.

The election is serious stuff. That’s when we do our duty as citizens. We dress up in our best suit and tie and walk with dignity to the poll place. Not anymore. That’s the way my grandparents did it, the generation who had lived through the war, and really understood the value of democracy.

But it’s still important to vote, even though we show up in washed-out jeans and black T-shirts, to put the ballot in the brown envelope. I agree with the election analyst in radio who said: If you don’t vote, you effectively give half of your vote to the guys you don’t like.

Our political landscape Is quite different from e.g. the United States, where the options are only right wing (Democrats) and ultra-right wing (Republicans). We have a much richer fauna of political parties to choose from. We have the right-wing parties (two of them), the Christian-democrats, the social democrats, the socialist party, the left-liberal party, the environmentalists, and the communists.

Usually, but not always, I have voted for the social democrats, the Labor Party. They’ve been in the government office for eight consecutive years now, and I think they need a break. Some years in opposition would be good for them.

I support the general idea of a society of equal opportunities, free education and free health care, and just distribution of wealth and prosperity (and I’m happy to pay about 50% income tax). Therefore, I can’t really imagine voting for the right wing, or any party in their coalition.

So who should I vote for?

Maybe I should vote for the communists this time. I like some of the ideas of Marx and Engels, but experience has shown that the system doesn’t work very well in practice. Marxism doesn’t fit with human nature. I don't want to be ruled by the communists, but it’s good to have one or two of them in the parliament, as watchdogs and whistleblowers, when the bonds between right-wing politicians and Big Corp become too tight.

Yes, I think I’ve found a solution.

But wait, we have two communist parties; the China-communists and the real (Soviet) communists. Hmm … there’s still a choice I need to make.

And after all, the ballot is secret; I won’t tell what I’m actually going to vote >:)

(I took the picture last week, in the Russian ghost town Pyramiden. The Lenin statue is still there, more than 20 years after the fall of the Soviet regime. I guess nobody have bothered to remove the statue in such a remote location.)

Arctic magic

Last week I was up north, in our archipelago in the Arctic at 78 degrees North.  The archipelago is basically the continental shelf lifted above sea level.  It’s one and half times the size of Denmark, and more than half of it covered by glaciers. The rest of the land is free from snow and ice in the summer.

One week away from the modern world, away from cell-phone coverage and wireless networks. It was the last week of midnight sun, and still light around the clock. We stayed in a nice and comfortable ship that took us around in the fjords. When I woke up one morning and pulled the curtains to the side, the first thing I saw was a Beluga playing outside of the window.

It’s cool to hike around with geologists, because they know everything about the landscape we pass; how and when it was made. Layer-cake mountains and rivers, valleys and fjords, carved by the glaciers of the ice ages.  Present-day glaciers flow slowly from the mountains to the fjords. Sometimes ice bergs break off the front of the rugged ice, and exhibit the bluish ice core.

In the morning we went by Zodiaks to work, from the red and white ship to shore. There were smart and shy students, and loud professors with big egos, and everything in between. All of them were nice people. We had a great time.

We hiked over shorefaces and plains with scares flowers, into the valleys, and up in the mountain sides. At interesting exposures we stopped to study the rocks, and to get a lecture by an expert. The outdoor classroom, as stunning beautiful as it can possibly get.

Polar bear scouters armed with rifles were ahead of us and out to the sides. This is the kingdom of the polar bear. It’s his home, we are only visitors. We must behave according to this. 

The polar bear is the perfect raptor, waiting patiently by the seals breath holes, climbing vertical cliffs to get to the bird nests, and running twice as fast as Usain Bolt. The polar bear is the king of the Arctic, and one of the few raptors that hunt humans.

The Arctic is magic, the Arctic is addictive.  I had to get home before I got stuck.  But I’ll be back >:)

(I took more than a hundred pictures last week. Above are just a few of them)

Last trip to Moscow

I just came back from Moscow. My one-year multi-visa to Russia expires on 24th of August, and this was the last chance to use it. I have used it a lot, and hope I don’t need another one.  At least that’s what it feels like right now.

This time, it was almost impossible to find a hotel room in Moscow, because of the Track&Field World Championship going on. One evening we went to the Luzhniki Olympic Stadium  to watch.

The stadium was built for the 1980 Olympic Games, which were boycotted by most Western countries due to the Soviet invasion in Afghansitan. 

This was my first time ever on a major track&field event. It was fun and well worth the 2200 Rubles for the ticket. The atmosphere was amazing when Isinbayeva won the pole-vault gold medal in front of a home-crowd of 50.000 people.

We had some interesting but tiresome meetings; BigOil (that’s us) on one side of the table, HugeOil on the other. Words were flying back and forth, in English and Russian, with simultaneous translation. Everything needs to be said twice; first in English, then in Russian, or vice versa.

There were three translators in action, sharing the task. It’s probably an exhausting job, being a bilingual echo of the conversation. Most of the time, they do a great job. Occasionally, the translators mess up the science terminology a bit.

The main topic was science, but in practice it becomes a delicate soup spiced with business strategy, politics and the Law of the Sea Treaty.  

It was sunny and warm, and in the evenings it was time to enjoy Moscow, with good Russian food and drinks. I usually eat fish in Murmansk and meat in Moscow. This time I made an exception, eating pike from the Russian rivers. I haven’t tasted this since I was a kid. It was better than my memories of childhood pike-cakes.

The Russian beers are always good, much better than the boring beers that you get all over the world, Heineken, Bud and stuff like that. The Russians don’t seem to agree. They prefer the imports.

Russia is a proud country, huge in size, and with remarkable historic sights. Stunning palaces and churches of the Tsar era, giant monuments and buildings of the communist era, and events of great merits and sacrifices in war. Neither Napoleon nor Hitler made it to Moscow.

Napoleon was stopped in the battle of Borodino, depicted in literature by Tolstoy (War and Peace) and in music by Tchaikovsky (1812 overture).  Hitler got as far as to IKEA.  By the Leningradskoye highway, there’s a impressive memorial where the German nazi-army was forced to retreat.

However, when it comes to consumer goods, everything made in Russia is considered inferior; They prefer German cars, American electronics, Italian fashion, and Dutch beers, even though the Russian ones are twice as good and half as expensive. 

It’s kind of strange, but there are things about Russia that are not easy to understand

(Picture taken at the Olympic Stadium in Moscow. Track&field, like downhill skiing, is best to watch in TV, and you have to watch the big screens to see what's going on.  But it was fun to be at the venue.)

A very special city

Last week we were on vacation. We traveled through DDR, or what used to be DDR during the cold war. Now, of course, it’s part of the re-united Germany. We spent most of the time in Berlin. It’s an awesome city, with a very special atmosphere.  

Berlin has been at the heart of European history for almost a century.  Berlin was the capital of the nazi regime before and during the 2^nd World War. The Berlin wall was an important border in the divided Europe during the cold war.  The fall of the Berlin wall marked the collapse of the communist block and the end of the cold war.

Today Berlin is the capital of the re-united Germany, which is the economic engine of the European Union.

There are plenty of interesting sights. The Reichstag building and the Brandenburger Tor, which was just inside the Soviet sector, and a few meters from the wall, where John F Kennedy gave his famous speech (“Ich bin ein Berliner”). 

The DDR museum gives an impression of everyday life in East Germany.

Checkpoint Charlie, manned by the US Army, was the site for many dramatic events, in real life, and in spy thrillers, such as “The Spy Who Came in from the Cold” by LeCarre.

Today there is a big McDonald’s restaurant at Checkpoint Charlie, and for 2 Euros, you can get your picture taken with men in military uniforms at the checkpoint.  Capitalism vs. Communism 2-0.

I remember 1990 when the wall was taken down. Gorbachov was still the leader of the Soviet Union, and I was still a physics student in the university. Late August (or early September), I sat in a small apartment in Leningrad (presently St Petersburg) together with some Russian students. They had made borscht (the Russian soup) for us. We were drinking beer and smoking White Sea Channel  (Soviet cigarettes, terrible stuff) while watching Roger Waters on TV, performing The Wall live in Berlin. It was amazing.

Now I’m sitting in the airport waiting for the Aeroflot flight SU2175 to Moscow.  Here I go again. Business trip this time.     

(Picture taken last week at the Parisien Platz, by the Brandenburg Gate. During the Cold War, the Parisien Platz was was in The Soviet sector, and part of the so-called Death Zone. After the fall of the wall, the area has been re-built and taken over by the Americans; US Embassy to the left and Starbucks to the right.)

Fun at work

It's summer, and it's time for fun at work. Sounds exciting, doesn't it? Sure, it is. It's not about sex or anything like that, unfortunately. All the girls are gone on vacation, and all the bosses too. No meetings, no phone calls, no mails to reply to.

July is the best time to work. Hours and days undisturbed. Time to do some real science. Just doing the mathematical analysis, with a pencil and a notebook. Great! And in the end, new ideas often end up in the official research activities of the company.

July this year was as usual, at least for the first 3 weeks. Then they called from the Moscow office.

My one-year multi-visa to Russia expires on the 24. August. It's good for another trip to Moscow in mid August. Now I'm preparing for meetings. Bye bye physics, bye bye math. Back to Powerpoint.

Whatever, I won't complain. This what they pay me to do, and the weather is warm and the sky is blue. I plan to take some vacation the next couple of weeks.

Then I'm ready for Moscow. It's a very fascinating city, and always a pleasure to visit.

Maybe I will meet Snowden at Sheremetyevo, if he's still there, in the transit area. I read in the papers that he might get permission to leave the airport. I hope it's true. There are better places to spend the time in Moscow.

(I usually scan my notes and trash the paper original. It's a convenient way to keep track of things, just a file on the computer.)

Spies and heroes

When I was a kid during the Cold War, I read a lot of spy-thrillers; Our Man in Havana (Graeme Greene), From Russia with Love (Ian Flemming), The Fourth Protocol (Frederick Forsyth ), The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (John LeCarre), and many more. In the Cold-War thrillers, the Russians were the bad guys and the Americans (and Brits) were the heroes.

Now everything seems to be turned upside down. What I have in mind is the Snowden case.

To me Snodwen is a hero. He is a whistleblower who stands up against powerful organizations violating American and international law. He told the world that NSA violates rights of privacy, monitoring millions of accounts on Google and Facebook.

Whistleblowers never win. They’re always shot down, unless they stay undercover, like Deep Throat. But, history often gives them the credit they deserve.

The NSA claims they have prevented several terror attacks. That’s great. We can probably accept surveillance of selected groups and individuals to prevent terror.

But why does the NSA spy on European embassies and government offices? We don’t like that. I’ve always been a fan of Obama, but in this case he has disappointed me, if he knew what was going on.

I hope the NSA has noticed that Napoleon is no longer Emperor of France, and Hitler is not Chancellor of Germany. 

Today most EU countries are social democracies. Is this the motivation for the surveillance?

In America the only word that appears more scaring than terrorism is socialism. It means collective farms and gulags, Stalin and Mao and Pol Pot.

Social democracy is not the same as communism.

In practice, a social democracy is a capitalist system with a socialist touch. The social democracy has invented horrifying things like free health care and free education. Except from that, there’s not much to fear.

We’re friends of America and will always be. Part of a friendship is to tell your friend when he has done something unacceptable. 

(The cartoon was borrowed from joyreactor.com)

Amazing glacier

We’re back on the glacier. It’s time for summer skiing. We have been doing this for about ten years now.  In the beginning of the school's summer vacation we go skiing on a glacier.  It has become part of my duty as a ski dad, because my boys are addicted to snow (and I've posted about this before).

Actually, this year it’s only little boy and me. Older boy is running around on his own, with his buddies. This summer they have picked a different glacier. They’re driving down to the Alps, to spend 3-4 weeks on a glacier in Austria.  That’s OK with me, as long as he works to earn up the money himself.

Little boy and I made it simple. We went to the closest glacier, a four-hour drive from home, and we stay in the same camping down in the valley. We plan to ski four or five days, depending on the weather. So far it’s been shifty; partly sunny yesterday, snowy and foggy today, good forecasts for tomorrow.

Being on a glacier is quite amazing. We’re skiing on snow and ice that fell hundreds of years ago. Actually the surface is not that old. The snow we skied today fell last night.

Some years ago I bought a text book on glaciology, to learn about the science of glaciers.

The core of the glacier is old. When the snow is buried it gradually turns into ice that moves by plastic flow. The weight of the ice makes it flow from the top to the bottom, slowly, but steadily, a few meters per year. When pieces on the lower edge break off, the old bluish ice becomes visible.

Big glaciers are very useful for climate research, because glaciers keep a record of past climate.  The ice in the core contains small sealed air bubbles.  This allows scientists to measure for instance the CO2 levels of past times.

There are two main types of glaciers; polar (cold) glaciers and temperate (warm) glaciers.  Polar glaciers are found in the Antarctica and the Arctic (e.g. Greenland). They’re often frozen to the rock surface below. The glaciers on the American and Eurasian continents are mostly temperate.  They’re near the melting point, with free flowing water at the base.

In the upper part of the glacier, the accumulation of snow and ice is larger than the melting (and sublimation). In the lower part it’s opposite. The line of zero net accumulation (over a year) is called the firn line.

When glaciers flow over the terrain beneath, they’re squeezed and stretched such that crevasses are formed. Crevasses can be deep and dangerous. Therefore many glaciers are not suited for skiing.

The glacier where we’re skiing has a nice and smooth surface. There are just a few small crevasses near the top.  That’s the way it was last summer. This year I haven’t checked.

That’s one of the things that make glaciers so interesting. They’re changing all the time. Every summer there’s something different, if you have the curiosity and patience to look closely.

(Some pictures taken with my cell phone  at the glacier. (1) Skiing at the glacier. (2) A cool rock by the edge of the glacier. Great forces are needed to form a mountain range. This rock have experienced both metamorphosis and faulting . (3) At the lower part of the glacier the old bluish ice core is visible.)

Bar math

A couple of days ago I met with some friends and colleagues in a bar to have a beer.  We had a good meal in restaurant nearby, and then we went to another bar for another beer.

We discussed a science problem and some ideas for have to solve it. I found a pen in my pocket, and got a napkin to sketch up the solution. We had a good time with dark beers and some interesting bar math. That’s the kind of things we do from time to time.

When I jumped on my bike to go home an hour after midnight, it was still light outside. It's summer, and at this time of the year it’s not really getting dark at all >:)

(Picture taken with my cell phone in the bar)  

Breaking my thumb with a hammer

You have probably seen these gangster movies where they break people's fingers with a hammer, to make them reveal or confess something.

A few days ago I tried this, on myself.

Did I confess? No, not at all. But I swore a little bit, I admit.

It happened by accident, of course. I was doing my handyman stuff in the attic. Then I hit my left thumb with the hammer. And I hit hard, damned hard.

As a torture method, I think it’s over rated.

It wasn't that painful, not in the beginning. But after a couple of days it was. I think I've broken the outermost part of my thumb. Something has come loose in there.

I don’t want to waste my time waiting in the line in the hospital, so I tried to take care of this myself. After all it’s just a minor injury, and I’m supposed to be a handyman.

I fixed it with a nail and some tape. No problem.

It’s like you don’t need to call a mathematician to do some simple calculus >:)

(That’s a picture of my thumb, after I did my self-medic-treatment.)

Mountain with a view

It was a nice and sunny Sunday in May, a great day for a hike in the mountains. We went up in the ranges on the coast.

Down in the valleys the fields and trees were dressed in the light green colors of spring. Up in the mountains, there were still patches of snow, and large areas of brown grass from last year, places were the snow melted just a few days ago.

The view from the top was great; fjords, islands and ocean. The coast is nice. Mountains are great. But there’s nothing like a mountain with an ocean view >:)

(I took the picture today. Can you see the wrecked airplane in the front of the picture? It’s a German plane from the 2^nd World War. In April 1940, the plane was hit by shell fire from a British navy ship, and crashed into the ranges by the fjord, with three men on board. The first died immediately, the second lived for a couple of days. They were buried next to the wrecked plane. The third soldier walked down fro the mountain, in hiding, and was able to re-unite with the German Nazi forces.)

Almost as always

Yesterday we celebrated the Constitution Day. It was the traditional stuff going on; flags all over the place, the children's parade and then the citizens parade, brass bands playing in the streets.

We (as a country) are very proud of our Constitution Day. In particular, we appreciate that children are parading, and not the military.

There's a general consensus that parading children is a good idea.

I know there are some people (in particular European immigrants) who don't agree. To some, marching children are even more scaring than marching soldiers. Thousands of children waiving flags and praising the king can give an impression of indoctrination; a slight touch of North Korea.

Whatever, we've been doing this for almost 200 years, and probably will the next 200 years.

It was Constitution Day as always. The only thing unusual, was the nice and warm weather. No freezing in suit and tie, no need for gloves >:)

(I took the picture of the nurse's drum corps when we watched the citizen's parade.)

Democracy is un-Islamic

Skiing season is over, and my handyman season has started.  Living in a 100 year old house, there’s always plenty to do.

Yes, I can.  Now I’m refurbishing the attic, insulating the floor and ceiling and stuff like that.

I always listen to the radio while I’m working. It’s a very old radio. I bought it when I was in highschool. 

I can’t stand the chit-chat-and-pop-music stations, so my radio is tuned into the national broadcasting’s news station.  Most of the time they just switch in the BBC World Service, which is very good.  You get to learn a lot, not only about Europe and America, but the entire world (or at least the Commonwealth).

This weekend there was two main happenings: The resign of Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson after 26 years in charge, and the election in Pakistan.

I found the latter to be the most interesting.  And so did BBC World.

There was in-depth presentation of Pakistan’s political system. Reports from the big cities, and from rural areas, where politics, bribes and loyalty to local landowners are intertwined.

The campaign was very violent, with frequent bombings taking place. The Taliban did their best to undermine the election, claiming that “democracy is un-Islamic”.  Still voter turnout was 60%, including many women (provided their family allowed them to vote).  

It’s encouraging if Muslim countries start to move away from religious fundamentalism.

The election was won by the former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who was kicked out of office and exiled in the military coup in 1999.

The runner up was the former cricket star Imran Khan. His slogan was obvious:  “Yes we Khan”.

(I've never been to Pakistan. In fact, I've been to a Muslim country only once, at the World Petroleum Congress in Doha, Qatar, a couple of years ago. The picture above was taken inside the congress center, by the women's prayer room. Maybe I should build one in my attic?)

Gameboy in Texas

This week there’s a huge conference on petroleum technology in Houston. I’m not attending, and I don’t want to. First, Houston is not my favorite place to go. Second, the conference is too crowded (more than 50.000), too much business and politics, and too little science.

I have, however, been to this conference once, some 10 years ago. I was invited to give a presentation on some research we had done.

There was a somewhat complicating issue, because I brought older boy with me on the trip to the US. Back then, he was a little boy, only 8 years old. He was going to visit a friend who lived in Colorado at that time (the father of his friend was a professor on sabbatical).

Older boy looked forward to visit Denver (where we lived for a while when I was a student).

But first we had to go to Houston.

Houston is a big city with high crime rates (in some areas). It’s not a place where you want your kid to get lost. Also, he didn’t speak English. In case he got lost, he wouldn’t be able to communicate with anyone.

This was a challenge when I was giving my talk at the conference.

After some negotiations with the conference management, I got a special permission to bring the boy with me to the technical-session’s area.  He was not allowed to visit the exhibition halls, where lots of heavy-duty offshore equipment was shown.

I went to the speaker’s preparation room, to upload my presentation and check that it was OK. I put the kid on a chair next to me, with some candy and a Mountain Dew, to keep him quiet.

Then we went to the auditorium where my session took place. When it was my turn to speak, I put the kid in a seat in the first row, right in front of the podium. I gave him his Gameboy (a Nintendo device), and told him to turn off the sound.

I gave my talk, presenting the mathematical model and application examples. All the time, I kept an eye on the kid from the podium, while he was sitting still playing a Pokemon game.

After my talk, we went straight to the George Bush airport to get on the plane to Denver. Then we went up to the Rockies to enjoy some slushy May skiing in Arapahoe Basin.

(For some reason, I've never used my camera when visiting Houston. I took the picture above by the I-70, west of Denver, where the highway starts climbing up the Rocky Mountain Foothills)

1st of May

Today is the 1^st of May, the International Worker’s Day. It’s a national holiday in many countries, including ours.

It’s a great day for the Labor Party and the unions. It’s always been an important day for their fight for worker’s rights, which I support. Workers should of course be offered reasonable working conditions and a fair salary.

Remember the days of the cold war. The 1^st of May parades on Red Square.  Brezhnev and the Politburo waiving from the top of the Lenin Mausoleum.  Soldiers, tanks and missiles show the capacity of the Red Army.  I have visited Moscow many times the last couple of years. Every time when I take an evening walk on Red Square, this bizarre show comes to my mind.

For us the 1^st of May is mostly a day off, Also, it’s the last opening day of the season in the skiing resort. Little boy insisted on getting his last day on the slopes. OK with me, off we went. We had a great day of spring skiing, dry cold snow at the higher elevation, and slushy in the lower part.

It’s the end, for this time. We’ll be back on the slopes in October or November.

(I borrowed the picture above from the Internet. Brezhnev (with sun glasses) at the Lenin Mausoleum on 1st of May 1972.)

The extinction of snow

I just came back from our last skiing weekend this season. March and April is the best part of the year. Then light is coming back to the north, but we still have winter snow, in the mountains. Long light days and good skiing.

Spring is arriving late this year. Nights are still cold, which slows down the melting of the snow.

Soon spring will take over. There’s no mercy. Sad but rue. It’s the time for the extinction of snow. 

(Picture taken from the chair lift yesterday; one of my last lift rides this season. The yellow and brown grass from last summer reappears. On the slopes there is still plenty of snow, but along the lift, only patches remain.)

Intrinsic motivation

Another nice weekend with sunny spring-winter. This winter have been very good. I fear we have used up all the good weather before the summer.

Today little boy was doing his first freestyle competition. He did the tricks he had planned to do and was satisfied. (Older boy didn't participate. He's injured and and tries to get fit for the national championship next week).

The boys have had kind of the same skiing development. They started with alpine racing at 6-7 yo. For more than 12 years, I've taken kids to the slopes for practice and races. They've always had about 60-80 days of skiing every winter (and me too of course).

The kids have found that freestyle skiing is what they really wanna do. They love it. It's the meaning of life!

It's OK with me. I decided that they should do alpine racing. It was their own choice to swap to freestyle skiing. Motivation is strongest when it comes from inside (the psychologists call it intrinsic motivation).

Alpine racing becomes very expensive if you're serious about it, with 4 pairs of specialized skis (for Slalom, Giant Slalom, Super-G and Downhill) and lots of training camps.  Freestyle is much cheaper; only one pair of twin-tip skis needed. That's great.

And I don't miss the Friday and Saturday nights spending hours tuning and waxing racing skis >:)

(Picture taken before the competition today. The bibs were somewhat big for the kids.)

30.000 feet

It's been a while since I wrote anything here. Don't worry. There are plenty of good blogs around. You don't really need mine. I'm just writing it for my own entertainment.

I do most of my writing when I'm out traveling. This year I haven't been traveling much, so far. Before Easter, I spent a week in Moscow, working long days. Now I'm on the way to Milan, Italy, about to cross the Swiss Alps at 30.000 feet. 

The last three months have been quite busy. Too much to do at work, very interesting and important projects, but intense, and with tight deadlines.

Half a year ago we were reorganized. We've got new bosses, doing administration and micro-management rather than showing leadership. No problem, we get used to it. We just have to make up the visions and grand plans ourselves.

You can't really stop researchers, just slow them down, by setting up weird obstacles. I've come up with a new management model. How to utilize the various facets of corporate management in the optimal way. Maybe I will write a post about it some time.

Winter is the most busy time of year. It's skiing season, and we've been skiing a lot. I've got about 45 days on the slopes so far. The kids have more. The Easter was great, cold nights, sunny days, and great skiing conditions. April is the best part of the season. There's more to come, for another month.

Finally, I've got a new favorite author, the French rebel Michel Houllebecq. He's a very good writer; pessimistic, ironic and provocative, pointing to the sickness of modern society. Accused of being a pornographer, and pulled to court by Islamic organizations for offending their religion. That's a real author, with his mission. Recommended.

I've read four of Houllebecq’s books recently, just started on the fifth. So, I've done a lot of reading, but not much writing, except the science reports at work.

(April is the best time of the year for skiing. It's not me in the picture, but I know the guy quite well. The picture was taken and put together by one of his buddies.)