Amsterdam

Blogging while traveling seems to be my new schedule. Now I'm sitting in a bar in central Amsterdam. Fortunately they have lots if TVs because the match between Germany and Portugal is starting very soon.

(I took the picture around noon today in a street crossing in Amsterdam. I have no idea who the girl is. I just thaught she had a cool hair)

The land of the midnight sun

It seems like I’m back on my old informal blogging-schedule;  blogging while traveling. That’s when I get the time to do it, when I have the evenings  off, by myself. 

This year I have hardly been traveling at all. Yesterday, when I got to the airport security, I realized how much I appreciate being at home, with just a 10 minute commute to the office (thanks to the inventors of video-conferencing).

This week I’m up north, in the city known as The Paris of the North, and The Gateway to the Arctic.   

It’s quite some time since last time I was here for real. I’ve been here many times in transit. This is the town were I used to board the Antonov-24for Murmansk, when I travelled regularly to Russia. This is the transit stop if you want to experience the Arctic magic. This is where I have boarded vessels heading for the Arctic Seas, and where I slept over when I returned.

It’s great to be here in the summer, at 69 degrees North, well beyond the Arctic Circle. The mountains are still capped with snow, and the birches have just got a slight touch of leaves. It’s not very warm, but it’s light.  The sun shines around the clock. The last sunrise was 20^th May, and the next sunset is 25^th July. Two months of continuous daylight.

My hotel  (and all the other hotels in town) are down on the harbor, with a nice view to the bridge and the Arctic Cathedral on the other side. God present is here too, apparently. Religion is hard to get rid of no matter how far north you go.

The north is challenging for the Muslims. They all died out one summer when Ramadan was in the months of the midnight sun. I’m just joking.  The Muslims up here has a special permit (from God?) to follow the clock-times in Mecca. During Ramadan, they can eat when the sun sets in Mecca. Funny isn’t it?

Religion (all of them) is pure madness. That’s why I stick to science >)

(I took the picture above this morning. When I checked the last link above, I realized that I had basically the same picture 4 year ago. But if you compare, you will see that the weather is better today.)

Such a nice and sunny day

It's such a nice and sunny day. People are hiking
the trails along the fjord, and I'm sitting indoor in my office. Not for a long time, though. I'm just in for half an hour to print a student thesis that I have to read through, tonight on the plane to the North >:)

(It takes some time to print 170 pages. In the mean time, I took the picture above through the window, and wrote this post.)

Strategy

I could have posted something interesting today, but I'm not. I'm saving it for the AZ Challenge that kicks off next week. My line managers call it strategy. I maximize my own benefit, and don't care about yours.

It's a mean world, an I'm no better, sometimes >;)

Whatever. For a moment,  I don't care if the world is bad, when the skiing is good.

(I took the picture  half an hour ago, when I was skiing above the timberline. Another post written on my cell phone. It works quite well, except I can't control the size and position if the pictures)

Going to Hell

The Italian mafia bosses will end up in Hell, unless they stop doing crimes. That's what the Pope has told them, according to the news. (Maybe they will share destiny with the Vatican mafia).

It's pretty rediculous with the Catholics, and the Christians in general. You can be as bad as you want to, if you just remember to pray for forgiveness before you die.

I'm just an atheist, blasphemer and God-mocker, and I'm not gonna ask for forgiveness. I wonder where I will end up >:)

(Another post from my cell phone, written while eating lunch in the ski resort. I took the picture half an hour ago. The snow-covered mountains is my cold Heaven, which can quickly turn to Hell if the weather changes into a blizzard.)

War profits

BigOil is evil. That’s something everybody knows. BigOil co-operates with all kinds of corrupt regimes around the world. When conflicts escalate towards war, energy prices rice, and BigOil make more money.

I work for BigOil, doing technical work. The scientists and engineers are good guys. The evil part is taken care of by the corporate-strategy department.

However, I also own some shares in BigOil. I’ve been thinking about selling some of my shares for some time (we need the money to pay for the refurbishing of our house). This week I sold my shares, and the price was quite good.

The recent increase in the share price is of course due to the escalating conflict in Ukraine, and on the Crimean peninsula. This means I've become a war profiteer. That’s no good. What should I do with the added value of my shares? Donate the excess money to the Salvation Army, or just keep it? What would you have done?

(The cartoon is from The Moscow Times, which is a very good and interesting newspaper. I used to get it on the door of my hotel room when I travelled frequently to Russia. The Moscow Times is published in English. Therefore it has few readers in Russia, and is basically a newspaper operating under the radar of Putin’s regime.)

Pi day

Today, 14. March, 3/14, math lovers (including me) are celebrating Pi day. There are also some people celebrating Pi day on 22. July, since 22/7=3.14 (approximately). What is your main Pi day?

(The formula is the volume V of a sphere with radius R.)

Arguments

We have this big refurbishing project going on. It has taken some time, but now It's close to completed. I wanted to spend this weekend finishing the last details; painting some moldings and stuff like that.

Little boy had other plans. He wanted to go skiing in the mountains, like we do almost every weekend and every vacation.

"We can ski only when there's snow", he said.
"We can refurbish the entire summer", he said.

I think he had good arguments. Guess what we did?

(The picture wad taken about a week ago, on our previous trip to the mountains, which was winter break, and a full week on the slopes)