Happy winter solstice

Yesterday was the darkest day of the year. Today we have started the journey towards lighter and brighter times. That’s good.  Also, my best friend is gone, for a while, and Christmas is coming up soon. That’s not so good. This perverted commercial-religious holiday is the time of the year that I dislike the most. Whatever, I will probably survive, once again. It’s just about switching the brain off, do what people expect me to do, and wait till it’s over. January, please come as soon as you can.

Happy winter solstice >:)

(I have never understood why we chop down trees and put them into our houses with lights and glass balls. They look much better in the forest where they belong. Picture from my collection) 

Crowded

It's so crowded on the mountain today.  It's the annual ski testing weekend, and the Alpine Racing World Cup is visiting.  Last weekend was much better. We even got a day of powder skiing. Some days are great. Some are not so good. That's life.

(Picture taken in the powder one week ago.  The skier is Little Boy)

Wet shoes

I'm out traveling again. Tonight I was out drinking a dark beer with two good colleagues and friends. Last night I had even better times with an even better friend. tonight the rain is pouring down. My shoes got soaking wet when I was walking along the streets. I should remind myself that there are bigger problems in this world than a pair of wet shoes. They probably dry up by tomorrow, or the day after >:)

(Picture taken last night, when the clouds were coming in, but before the rain. Good times.)  

Not too bad

I'm out traveling for a couple of days, to the capital. I don't like it very much so I don't go there very often.

After work I checked into the hotel. Then I went for a walk in the city center, near the King's castle and the parliament building. For a while I walked behind a fat and cute girl. She was more sexy than the skinny girls I met.

I went into a bookstore and bought two books, by Stig Sæterbakken and Michel Houellebecq. Then I went to meet a friend. We had a good dark beer (porter).

It was a nice evening in this city that I don't like very much. Not too bad >:)

(Picture taken tonight when I was out walking. That's the King's castle at the end of the street.)

Writing a blog post with cold fingers

I'm sitting on a rock in the mountains, writing my first blog post outdoor and above timberline. I had to search a little bit to find a spot with cellphone signal.

It's such a nice day, in this bowl where you can just ski everywhere. Mountain men (like me) know of course that this beautiful landscape can turn into an inferno when fog and blizzards come in. But today it's just paradise, with blue sky and white snow. 

Its the white gold.

My hands are getting a little bit cold while typing, cold as heaven. Time to get my gloves and my skis on and get back to the offpiste slopes >:)

(Picture taken 10 minutes ago with my cellphone camera. The pictures get a little bit random because it's hard to see the display in the strong sun. But if I take a  lot of pictures, I always get some good ones.)

Summertime in Winterland

There's something about staying up late. I like that, but it sometimes makes me tired the next day.

Yesterday, I had a great day of skiing. It was nice and sunny. It was the kind of spring-winter when you can feel the sun is warming, even above timber  line in the mountains.

I spent last night reading and writing in the cabin, and then chatting with a good friend on Internet, while enjoying a cold beer.

I didn't stay up very late, just about an hour past midnight.  But this was the night we changed the clocks to summer time, and lost one hour. So today I'm a little bit tired.

Time to finish my coffee and get out on the slopes again. Then I will wake up, for sure.

(Picture taken yesterday. Little boy was skiing with a buddy in the snow park, and I was enjoying the company of my shadow while skiing in the high zone )

Money

Today I tried to go shopping without money. It didn't work very well.

I tried prayer.  It failed, as usual.

Then I went home to get my wallet. It solved the problem.

Money rules >:)

Gold rush

Yesterday we had a crazy storm coming in from the west, with strong winds and lots of snow. Today the wind had calmed down. It was time for the gold rush.

The white gold; tons of it. Awesome!

Little boy and I took our skis and went out in the mountains. We had a full day of off-piste skiing in the powder. It continued to snow all day. Great. Best day of skiing so far this season.

(Picture taken today. The skier is little boy, and the photographer is me.)

Signed up for the A-Z Challenge

I signed up for the A-Z Challenge again this year. It's gonna be fun. This year I will go for a theme, but not sure which.

Today, I took a day off from work, and went up to the mountains with little boy and a couple of his buddies. The boys are already out skiing in the snow park, jumping on the big jumps.

I'm sitting in the cafe drinking a cup of fairly good coffee (not the best), and reading some work mail. We have another two days of skiing ahead of us, so I think I will skip the skiing today. I will try to get some work done, and think about a theme for the A-Z Challenge.

I should find a theme which is interesting, and doesn't provoke or offend anyone. No, I think I will reduce my ambition. I'll find a theme which is just interesting. There are som nice options in the sub-heading of my blog:

"about science, mathematics, skiing, drumming, black metal, opera, sex, summer, winter, Heaven and Hell"

Science would be a cool theme, with plenty of topics to write about: astronomy, biology, chemistry, dinosaurs, evolution, Feynman, gravity, Hubble ...

Maybe I should go for mathematics, which also has lots of topics: asymptotic analysis, Banach space, complex numbers, divergence theorem, error function, functions, Gauss distribution, Hilbert space ... Might be fun to write about, but maybe interesting to only a few readers.

Opera could be a cool topic, with posts about Aida, Bizet, Carmen, Donizetti, ...

No, I think I go for the last two options: Heaven and Hell, or some variety of it. Just wait and see till April >:)

(Picture taken today, when I sent little boy and his buddies off in the chair lift)

In the time of sanctions

The morning in Moscow was nice and clear, but cold, as cold as the relations between Russia and the West right now, a new Cold War emerging. In Moscow things appear to be normal, business as usual. In the streets, people commute to and from work in their fur-collared winter jackets and fur hats. My commute from the hotel to the office is quite short, just a 10 minute walk.

The conflict in east Ukraine is not resolved, and probably won’t be for a long time. Russia is under sanctions, from USA and its allied. The goal of the sanctions is to hit the Russian government and the rich oligarchs who support it. The exchange rate of the Ruble is down 50% compared to US dollars. Consequently, the cost of imported goods has increased a lot.  The sanctions hit ordinary people too. That’s what my Russian friends and colleagues tell me.

I doubt the sanctions will work. Russia can’t be forced in any way. The Russians don’t give in to external pressure, and never did.  They didn’t give in to Napoleon. They didn’t give in to Hitler. They certainly don’t give in to Obama. They will rather perish.

The Russians like to criticize their government, the bureaucracy, the misuse of power and corruption in their country. However, they don’t want to be criticized by foreigners. What happens when sanctions are imposed is that Putin becomes more popular than ever. He is gathering the Russian people against a common external enemy; USA, EU and NATO.

From the western point of view, the Russian annexation of Crimea is unacceptable. It violates international rules and laws. The Russians see it differently. They have bad experience with laws in general, from past and present corrupt regimes. The laws are obscure and ambiguous, and can always be twisted and interpreted in favor of the mighty and powerful. Law doesn't imply justice. For the Russian government, the same logic applies on the global scale; USA is an aggressor, supported by international regulations, which threatens Russian rights and interests.

The Russians have a good, but quite subjective, sense of justice. And justice says that Crimea belongs to Russia. When Leo Tolstoy was a young man, he served in the Tsar’s army during the Crimean war. He wrote about it in the Sevastopol Stories (a good book). Crimea was given to Ukraine by Khrushchev in the 1954. At that time it was only an administrative formality within the Soviet Union. Then Crimea drifted away when the Soviet Union collapsed and Ukraine became independent. However, many Russians still see it as a part of Russia.

That’s what they say. I just say that different people see things in different ways. The politicians in America and Western Europe don’t understand the Russian mentality. That’s for sure.

(Picture taken in Moscow this morning, when I was walking from the hotel to our office, and crossing the bridge over the frozen Moscow River to Krasnye Holmy.)

Charlie is back

Last week, we were shocked by the acts of terror in Paris. This week, Charlie Hebdo is back with a new issue. That’s great.  The artists and cartoonists are brave.  

I think duck liver is a hype, but I always liked the French cheese, and the French attitude to freedom of speech. Charlie Hebdo’s satire offends the Muslims. That’s fine. They just have to learn to live with it, like the Christians, Jews and Satanists have learnt.

What’s holy for you is not holy for me.  Mocking the gods and prophets can be fun, for sure. But blasphemy is more than entertainment. Blasphemy is an important part of the freedom of speech. Religion mixed with a political agenda is a bad combo, because it makes the agenda indisputable. Who are you to challenge God?

• Imagine Obama coming to The House proposing a new law received from God, and the Republicans could do nothing to stop it. 
• Imagine the Labor party coming to the Parliament with a political program given by God, and Cameron had to approve it right away. 

The French and the Americans (I think) were the first to develop a secular constitution. This is very important, splitting governing, legislative and religious power. Turkey is Muslim-secular, but develops in the wrong direction. Many Muslim countries are stuck in their political-religious swamp. The list of ridiculous laws and rules coming out of religion is endless:

• Women are not allowed to watch football games (Iran)
• Women are not allowed to drive cars (Saudi)
• Death penalty for blasphemy (Pakistan)
• Separate ski lifts for men and women (Iran)
• One-hour marriage with prostitutes (which makes prostitution compliant with the Quran; Bahrain).
• Men can’t sit next to women on airplanes (orthodox Jews)
• Women can’t become priests (Catholics)
• Priests must live in celibate (Catholics)
• Ban on condoms (Catholics)

None of these rules come from God. They were invented by powerful people as tools to control people. When rules can't be justified by rational arguments, the easiest solution is God. No wonder religious authorities  who make up such laws and rules (and their Prophets and Gods) become subject to satire and blasphemy.

The French author Michel Houellebecq once said that “among all ridiculous religions, Islam is the most stupid”. He was taken to court in Paris for this statement, but was acquitted based on freedom of speech. They are all about equally bad; I dislike religion in general. 

I have plenty of religous books in my shelf; the Bible, the Quran and the Book of Mormon, and I have read a fair part of them (but far from everything). Sharia is mostly useless as legislation for the modern world. But taking the worst of the Bible, it would make a pretty bizarre law too.

Some of the religious texts can be quite entertaining. Once we had fun drinking beer and reading load from the Quran in a pub up north. I think the pub was a safe place for our blasphemy. It's an unlikely place to meet jihadists and inquisition.

In Satan we trust >:)

(Cover page of this week's issue of Charlie Hebdo; link to WIkipedia. The text above Muhammsd's head says "Everything is forgiven".)