Returned to civilization last night. A couple of days earlier than planned. It's been a bit of a sick house (colds, eye infections, upset stomaches, etc) up in the winter cabin in the mountains, so we have spent more time inside than on the skis. Lots of nice snow though and respectful temperatures, sometimes around -15 C during skiing. Even colder down in the valley, around -24 C. So yes, we have felt the strong winter weather for sure, but it's somehow nice. I like it, as long as the car works and water & electricity in the house are OK. I can remember times from the past with some small problems due to this kind of things faultering. Once it was -42 C in the valley and the car just stopped working (frozen cooling system), then when we came up (by taxi) to the house on the mountain, the electricty in the whole area had been knocked out and stayed like that for almost 18 hours. Then it was nice to have a fireplace, a bottle of whiskey and a woman ;-) It created some good memories though.

My total kilometer tally on the skis during this trip was just 55 km's, so it's been lots of resting instead of training. That's OK, I will soon get back into some proper training again. Important to be free from sickness first. My motivation is still on a high level and that is much more important than quantity and quality, but sooner or later I have to get some mileage in my body. Hopefully, the winter weather will remain also down here in the Gothenburg area. Now it's very nice and cold. The ice on our lake is solid and we went across the lake today. Misia on skates and me pushing the babies in the stroller. A new and very nice experience for Misia. I hope for a heavy snowfall soon, so we can ski on the ice or on the golf course. Easy to collect miles and also good type of skiing for Vasaloppet.

Time to go up north for some skiing. Most of the packing and preparations are now done. Postponed the drive until tomorrow morning. Need a good nights sleep first. Our white mystery machine will now be tested for the first time in true winter conditions on a longer trip.

I will be away from computers and internet for a whole week, so no blogging for a while. Be patient, I'll be back. I realized after some weeks of doing this blogging, that it's rather liberating for my mind, regardless of what the subject might be. Sometimes I check my own bloggs weeks later and it gives me a bit of perspective on things. It also marks the time with a touch of uniqueness each time. A bit like photos. That's my main reason for taking lots of photos. Personal documentary of what's happening around me/us, more than trying to capture any nice shots. When I see a photo from the past, I can quite often recall lots of other related detail memory pieces from that particular period of time. Photos or notes are often working as keys or ignition sparks to open up your own memory. It's nice to do some reflections from time to time and when your life situation is a bit hectic, like it is for me at the moment, then I need this kind of support.

I also feel that I suddenly have earned some recognition for my blog, after some interesting and aggresive feedback over the content lately. That was a major break-trough for the Goofy blog ;-)

Happy New Year 2009!

I haven't got caught by anything on the screen similar to this, since I saw Rome & Rome II about a year ago. This is good stuff and I love to drown in the story by watching as much as possible in an as short time as possible. Now I've seen 5 episodes out of 7, during the last 2 nights. The final 2 parts will be consumed late tonight. What can be so exciting about following a battalion of American marines on a recon mission during the first 40 days of the Iraqi war? I don't know and I can't say that I like the idea of war, but since it actually happens over and over again (Gaza strip right now), it is a thrill to try to understand how the soldiers are thinking and interacting within the extreme environment where they are. This is of course far away from my own experiences as an UN soldier on Cyprus in the 80's, but the internal mentallity between soldiers are rather much the same. Tough, raw, macho, bad language, etc but yet a very strong sense of brotherhood. All these abusive on-the-edge dialouges, in combination with some restlessness and fear for what might happen, creates the drama. Not everyone will agree with this or even understand this. These people will most probably not even see a war movie/serie like this.

It feels to me that this TV-serie is rather realistic, and it's also based on a live reporter's view of what happened. Alexander Skarsgård (awesome acting) has a leading role as Iceman, a squad leader for a Humvee unit. That would be me, by the way.

It gives me the same feelings like when I saw the "Band of Brothers" many years ago. Easy to get sucked into.

Look forward to the last epsiodes. Thanx Kenneth! Excellent pick!

It even has a fabulous homepage http://www.hbo.com/generationkill/

War
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Say it again
War
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing  (Bruce S)

That was a new word for me, but also the title of a movie that we watched yesterday. I must say that I like the actual word much more than the movie, that was over-the-top-serendipity-times-1000-cheap-story, even though Kate Beckinsale is nice to look at. "Faculty of making happy discoveries by accident" according to my NZ Oxford Dictionary. That has always been extremely fascinating to me, since I sense these kind of hard-to-explain situations around me very often. Can you actually trigger some of these magic coincidents to happen through some mental mechanism or is it just happening by pure chance? Destiny or faith? Or are there some other higher spiritual powers behind it (sometimes called Swedenborgare in Sweden according to Kenneth)?

This crappy movie just proved the opposite through simple created fiction shit. My reality is much more interesting in comparsion. I will come back with lots of long true stories on this topic when I'm writing my autobiography one day. The contents in the stories tend to be better and better over the years, so I'm already excited to read it myself ;-)

Nellie got another soft toy animal from Victor & Sara yesterday. Eeyore. Very nice & cuddlie, but for me it's a direct association to Tony Adams. Currently managing Portsmouth, previously central defender in Arsenal for many years. I've always been an anti-fan of Arsenal and Tony Adams was a symbol for their style at the time. Remember this back line: Dixon, Bould, Adams, Winterburn? Boring and efficient. Today that has changed under Arsene Wenger with much more attractive and offensive style. I still like to see them loose though. Tony Adams was often called Eeyore on the pitch, due to his not so intelligant look and slowness in combination with bad technique. He was still rather successful as a player (19 seasons with Arsenal and 66 caps for England). What I have a problem with right now, is to understand how he can be an inspiration for the team as a Manager. I've seen him along the side at some of the Portsmouth games and he is sending all the negative signals that are possible. His body language is super negative, so it doesn't really matter what he says or how much smart tactical systems that he knows or what kind of experiences he has a player. He needs a mental coach for sure. Portsmouth has lost 3 games in a row now (yesterday 1-4 to West Ham at home) and before that they have mainly managed to collect a few draws against easy opposition under his management.

His predecessor, Harry Redknapp, might not either look like a smart chap, but he is showing the right spirit, which has paid off nicely at Tottenham. I think that Tony Adams will be the next manager to be sacked in the Premier League. It was no surprise to me that Paul Ince got sacked a week ago. He had the same problem. Negative attitude.

Carolina Kluft actually had Eeyore as her mascot during Sepathlon competetions. Carro is always extremely positive and she probably used Eeyore to cool her down and got help from him to reduce the stress & drama from the big arenas and public pressure.

Let's see how Nellie will be able to get the best out of her Eeyore doll. He's in tough competition with loads of Goofy's in her room. Go Goofy Go!

Knocked out sick with a very bad cold. Typical, when I suddenly have lots of available time for training. I just have to be patient and make sure that I get this shit out of my system a.s.a.p I have had a boring cold with a rinning nose etc since 2 weeks ago (after Lucia Marathon) and now on top of that one I've probably caught Nellie's cold from Kindergarten. So I'm not in any good social position at the moment. I might survive ...

So this is Christmas
And what have you done
Another year over
And a new one just begun
And so this is Christmas
I hope you have fun
The near and the dear one
The old and the young

A very merry Christmas ... (J.Lennon)

No further comments. Feels like I've been here before.

True. I have to admit that I'm not a believer anymore. I do like the idea in theory, but when I realized that it's not actually 100% like in the Santa Claus workshop on TV, that has been my vision around the Xmas process and the underlying gift delivery system etc, then I also lost my enthusiasm about the whole thing.

We spent Xmas according to the traditions year after year when I grew up and it was probably very good, but being the spoiled brat that I was, I mainly paid attention to the gifts, like most other kids at the time and even now. It grew more and more into a repetetive yearly time-killing session together with the family. The highlight was the poker game that we always played. I could easily do without the food. But of course, I wanted to please my Mother by acting nicely. When I later had the chance to run the Xmas agenda myself, I had already got stuck with my own family and baby. Suddenly you think that you have to do it in the same way as your parents did for you, even though I probably didn't really like it that much. Everyone else is also doing it. Hmmmm... I can't really recall any specific Xmas from any of those years, since they are just a copy of the previous year. I do remember a couple of Xmas celebrations in an other stage of my life from New Zealand and Australia in the 80's because they were exciting and were breaking the patterns (beach parties). Then again I had a series of years with traditional Xmas celebrations in the 90's with my new family here at home and it became obvious for me that this is not my favourite tradition, so I rebelled a bit and made myself less popular with my wife all through the month of December each year. Still, I kept a good face and tried to be happy. You know the classic phrase "do it for the kids". After my divorce in the beginnig of the new decade, I had some Xmas weekends up north in the winterhouse with Ronja. That was great. Snow, outdoor activities, fireplace, silence, harmony & peace. We were able to meet our families before or after Xmas anyway, but it was a relief to be able to escape the actual traditions. Now, in the current phase of my life, we have spent the last couple of Xmas weekends in Bali & Sydney. No snow, but lots of other fun activities.

It's now 2008 and as they say "when the Devil grews old, he goes religious", so I am somehow back on trad-track a bit again, having a Xmas tree, Xmas ham, Xmas party with the extended family in our house tomorrow. But when I was out doing some Xmas gift shopping today, all those old feelings came back to me. Snap snap, take me out of here. The commercial hysterical bullshit is killing all the spirit. So the trick is probably to cut off that part from the Xmas tradition and focus on just being together with the near and dear ones.

Perhaps I'm Claustrophobic ;-)  GOD JUL!