K's school

This week K got a note home from school regarding the staffing problem they have at her grade. They are supposed to be divided up into three groups with three teachers and two assistant teachers.

Here is the short version of the note:
”Teacher A has been working 50% for the last two weeks due to illness. She is now on a 100% leave until Christmas.
Teacher B has been away since August, but has now started working 50% again.
Teacher C has been on a 100% leave due illness since November 10th. She is now back working 50% until she is due in labour in February.
Teacher D (temp) is working 100% until March when she starts in a new job.
Assistant teachers A and B are on sick leave this week.”

What on earth is going on? Do they have the worst possible working environment at this school since they are getting sick all the time? Why can’t the school hire in more teachers so that our kids get the education they are entitled to?

Maine Coon

A fortnight ago Elin had her aunt visiting. She was bringing her cat along for a cat show close by. It was a cat of the Maine Coon breed, and the biggest cat I have ever seen. It was like a dog, and in many ways it behaved the same. The cat scored high at the show and I believe Elins aunt was satisfied with the results.
Myself being a “dog person” I never seem to connect with cats. I find that they just walk around doing their own stuff hardly without noticing people around them. Or maybe it is just me they don’t notice?




Maine Coon

Lanzarote again

Let me elaborate on why we ended up on Lanzarote. My parents have for many years wanted to go on a vacation with us, but our schedules have never matched up. This time it looked possible. K and I actually had confirmed tickets for Bangkok that week, but my parents did not want to travel so far so we settled for Lanzarote. Actually we bought last minute trips just two days before we left.

It obviously was a bit off season for younger people to travel to Lanzarote. The plane was filled with retired people. Most of them actually looked as if they had been retired for at least 20 years.
Upon landing we were told that our hotel was in Puerto Del Carmen.
We were reasonably lucky and ended up side by side at the same hotel – Bitacora. The apartments were ok with a combined kitchen/living room, bath and a bedroom.
Puerto Del Carmen is a typical tourist place - just like any other place you would find around the Mediterranean. There is a Neptune's Bar and a souvenir shop at every corner. The rest of the island is volcanic and hence completely arid and dry.
We spend most of the day at the beach or exploring the few things we could find in our surroundings. The ocean water was pretty cold and one could not stay in long before one had to get out again. The pool at the hotel was freezing as well so it was empty most of the time.
One day K and I went to the Rancho Texas Park. Usually I try to avoid zoo like parks as I hate animals being looked up, but we had to find something to get the days to pass. We were lucky since there were maybe 50 people in the park all together and we could walk on paths and watch shows almost as if we were alone.

The highlights on Lanzarote is the volcanic ground. How interesting is that? Have you seen a rock you have seen them all!!?! And water boiling when thrown into deep gaps in the ground – well…

This was my first time to the Canary Islands and probably my last (except for work). There are so many better places in the world to visit.

Bye, Bye Freedom

Last Sunday my two years of freedom ended. I started working 100% position again. SAS would not grant me any more 50% so it is back to normal life again. It has been two great years!

Lanzarote

I am off to Lanzarote, Canary Islands, for a week.


Lanzarote

A weekend of music

Last Friday I went with a good friend to see The Ark at Rockefeller Music Club in Oslo. I did not know much of this Swedish band but I discovered, as the concert progressed, that this band actually has many big hits. The lead singer was quite entertaining but unfortunately the vocal sound was a bit too low compared with the rest of the music.


The Ark

Saturday I had two tickets for the Support Concert for the Asian Earthquake Victims at Oslo Concert Hall. Several well known Norwegian and Pakistani artists performed. H.M. The King was attending as well.
Among the artists were the Pakistani group Junoon, which I understand is one of the biggest Pakistani groups.
Many great performances but to me Norwegian singer Anne Vada stood out.


Earthquake concert

Tromso

Sunday afternoon I ended up in Tromso for a 24 hour stop. The city is also known as "Paris of the North". It is located at almost 70 degrees North. It is the same height as Victoria Island in Canada - or North of Fort Yukon in Alaska. The snow had already arrived there.
The hour before pickup I spent in the hotels sauna. It is located at the top of the hotel and has a nice panorama view of the city and mountains. It had a temperature above 105C / 221F so walking out into the cold air just a few minutes later was just a relief.

Last Friday I changed to winter-tires. It showed out to be a wise move. This weekend the first snow arrived where I live as well. It is actually still snowing as I write this. I am off to work in a couple of hours and can't actually say that I look forward to todays delays whith deicing and slippery aprons and runways. On top of it all Air Traffic Control is short manned and this as well leads to delays and cancellations.

National Gallery, London

The National Gallery (Picture: atpm.com)


Saturday I had the day off in London. I went to the National Gallery and had a look at their collection. My favorite painter is Pierre Auguste Renoir. It is strange, but whenever I stand in front of one of his paintings I get tears in my eyes. My favorite at the gallery is La Premiere Sortie. (The First Outing) (Below).

I had a nice walk back to the hotel again through Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens. There still were some roses along the path and it smelled lovely. Lots of squirrels were running around trying to fill their winter storages.

Later at evening I went out with some of the crew and had a nice meal at an Italian restaurant close by the hotel. We had an early pickup Sunday morning so it turned out a nice and quiet evening.

La Premiere Sortie

Hell Hotel

"Entrance" Taken with my cell phone.

Hell Hotel
Literally. I spend 2 nights at work there last week.

In SAS we - the pilots and CA - earlier have been so lucky as to get rather nice stops in interesting cities all over Europe. We had them often, they were reasonably long and we got to explore the cities. In some cities we had airport hotels which we used when we had short layovers (less than 14 hours).This to cut down on the transportation time.

Since 9-11 the story has been quite different. The stops have been dramatically cut. Understandable. We have to save money.
The pilot union agreed, among lots of other things, to extend the limit for short layovers to 16 hours. Not good, but understandable.
Since then things have gotten worse and even more worse. The “management” (I want to add mis-“) seems to have gotten it in for us. Maybe they want us to quit voluntarily instead of having to fire us? Just one of many things; since we now have agreed to work almost indefinitely every day, they have started to schedule us with a two/three hour break before we fly the last leg of the day. This to get us below the 16 hour stop limit so that we have to stay at a remote hotel somewhere in no mans land. Quite frustrating. You work 12-14 hour days and then you are stuck at an industrial area for the next 16 hours. Then a new long day at work.

Well, back to Hell Hotel.
In Trondheim, Norway, we have been lucky with the airport hotel. Only a 5 minute drive away from the airport there is a small community named Stjordal. It is a typically nice little Norwegian town, with a mall, theatre and several restaurants. We had it ok there. Management probably discovered that we enjoyed this layover, so now they have found us a new hotel a four minute drive in the opposite direction - in the middle of nowhere. It is to top it all named Hell Hotel. I guess management threw a party among themselves after doing this. It all reminds me of the Dilbert comic strips where this little “devil dog” does its worst to make life a living hell for the employees.

Flying Spaghetti Monster

JonBen introduced me a while ago to the theory of Intelligent Design. Today I stumbled upon this website. A great initiative to the ongoing battle of what is to be taught to American kids.

Work

I have not been airborne for a month. (It is great to work part time)

However - Friday I started a 5 day block with some “easy” domestic flights. First a roundtrip to Stavanger and then the same to Trondheim.
The Trondheim flight was a rude awakening to the approaching winter: Coming from relatively calm conditions with the -800 we were thrown into gusty winds, turbulence and rain.
The approach to the airport comes down a narrow valley where the hillsides are only a couple of hundred yards away so you do not want to drift off the localizer. The winds were gusty all the way down but got worse as we approached the ground so the speed was fluctuating and I had to use all from zero to maximum thrust to keep the airplane within limits. In addition a heavy rain shower made it almost impossible to keep contact with the runway.
One big problem with flying in such conditions is that the flying pilot very often gets so fixated with the landing that he (or she) tries to get the aircraft on ground no matter what happens. We are therefore trained to be aware of this and make a go-around if a landing looks or becomes risky in any way.
This time it all went nice. We were very, very close to having to make a go-around - but we got a visual and got the aircraft stabilized in time to make a safe landing.
By no means the worst weather I have been in – but not having flown for a month and being somewhat rusty this was not the best way to start a day. The poor cabin crew in the aft had a really rough approach as they are thrown “all over the place” in turbulence.

Yesterday I got the day off as we are too many pilots to fly the weekend program.

Today I have been to the west coast of Norway and then to London.
We had an hour on the ground at Heathrow so I ventured into the shopping area. They had changed the security gates during the last month so I had to walk a somewhat longer and labyrinth looking way to get inside. Usually we try to buy some magazines when we visit Heathrow but today the lanes were so long that I did not bother. I just walked ‘round a bit and looked in the shops and at people.

Tomorrow morning I am going to Stockholm and back. Then a 2h 30m stop at Oslo before I get another London flight. A long day tomorrow…

I’m back again!

Summer has passed and the fall has arrived. It has been a hectic but nice summer. K has started a new school and I have discovered the beauty of only having a 9 minute drive to work instead of a 1200 km commute.

I have had some weeks off from work which also has been nice. The working environment has - to put it nicely – not been the best there the last year. Constant conflicts between the pilot union and the (mis)management have stirred up of most of us pilots and we are becoming pretty desperate. There has to come some changes – and they better come soon!

The new nanny is also in house. Her name is Elin, a 20 year old Swedish girl. Very nice!

Simone and her husband David are currently traveling in Spain. I hope you two enjoy your vacation!

Pictures from the last weeks.

Here are some pictures from the last weeks. K had a friend from Bodo visiting us the first days after we moved. Here are some photos of them in Oslo, and some from other places.



K and a friend on Karl Johan Street with the castle behind.

K with her Grandmother in a mountain lake.

Oslo Harbour.

In front of the Parliament.

K with her Grandfather.

T Rex

Botanical Garden

Botanical Garden

Dive position.

K with her Grandmother before the wedding.

Kjersti - my cousin, and Henry.

My sister and K.

K and her Grandparents.

K and her Grandmother.

My sister and K.

My good friend Lars at my parents home.

Update

All the cardboxes are finally in house. Most of them are also put away - but there still is a lot to do. Curtains and carpets for one. I really should get some female help with this. I guess my taste of colors and how to decorate are just as good as any man - which probably means that it is not worth much.
Big thanks to my Dad who has helped me a lot with loading and offloading the container!

Several summerguests have already come and gone, and this is the first day K and I have the house to ourselves.

Moving

The container (huge) arrived earlier today. I am rigging down my PC now, and hopefully I shall be online again some time next week.

Land of the midnight sun

The last weeks have been kind of busy.

First of all; I have found a new home! It is located close to Gardermoen Oslo Airport, just North of Oslo. Close to the city centre, 10 minutes drive to the airport, and a 5 minute walk for K to get to school.
I do not have any good pictures of it. The one below is from the prospect. (It is somewhat distorted - it is a two car garage.) (What am I to do with a garage? My old Subaru thrives in snow and rain).
Well, four bedrooms and 2-3 living rooms should do. We are moving next Friday.






I am also about to start the hunt for a new au pair or person to look after K when I am off at work. So if you happen to read this and feel like applying - or if you know someone that would fit - mail me! (Female, and being able to speak/understand Norwegian or Swedish is a criteria). It is always a hard job to find the right person.

As mentioned earlier; we had a junior high 20 year reunion last weekend. About 35 people showed up. That's about half of the graduating class. I had not seen many of them for 20 years, and I would have walked right by many without recognizing them. But since I knew to look for them I recognized them all. (Except for one girl: I remembered her name from third grade but I have no recollection of her since then. Strange! Well, I know her now). Most of us (all) have of course aged since we last met, but the personality of everyone had changed very little. Shaving off a few years and you would believe we were back in grade school.
Anyway, we had two great days getting to know each other again.

K has a friend over tonight. They are still up watching a Harry Potter DVD. It is nice to be nine years old, have summer vacation, and being allowed to stay up late.

The summer finally arrived yesterday. We have only had three days this year with temperatures above 20C but today it peaked at 28C. (Low 80s F). Wonderful! It is so nice to be able to go outside without putting on a lot of clothes. I love summer!!!
AND, we have the midnight sun. It is 10:50 p.m. now and the sun is shining. If you click the Bodo Harbor web cam on the right side of this page you can see Bodo "live" with local time indicated.

To end it for this time: Happy birthday USA!!!

Animal

New pet?

I just made a new blog for the graduating class of 1985 at Rognan Ungdomsskole (junior high).
We had our 20 year reunion this weekend. I hope some of my old classmates will make some funny and interesting posts there.

Passer domesticus

We have had a couple of sparrows nesting in our bathroom vent for two months now.

There must have been a hole in the wire at the front of the vent. At first I did not know what those strange scratching sounds I heard were. I thought for a moment that we might have a rat in the walls – but after some investigation I found that the sounds came from the vent.

At first it was a couple of parus major but somehow they must have been evicted because the sparrows got kids (chickens) 2-3 weeks ago. Up until their eggs hatched they were marking their territory with lovely bird songs.

The vent works as some kind of megaphone so we can hear them all over the house. The chickens make a lot of noise all day long. They are only quiet from 10 pm until sometime early in the morning. I guess their parents need those hours to get some rest because they are working their wings off.

Anyhow – I have read that they hatch two or three times every spring/summer – so I guess we shall enjoy them for some time to come.

Hauklandsand

Lofoten last August

Talking about the Lofoten Bunad in my previous post I got to remember some beautiful days in Lofoten last August. These photos are from Hauklandsand in Lofoten. It was a beautiful day with temperatures above 30C. Unfortunately the temperatures in the water were nothing like the air temperature. Remember this is above the Arctic Circle. We went for a swim, but could only stay in for like 10 minutes before we had to get out.

Lofoten

K after a short swim.

Skottind

Futa

This is Futa. He is a two year old lesser panda.

Visible Earth

NASA has published a lot of satellite images with high resolution on this page. Lots and lots of lovely pictures...

I know some other pages with lovely pictures as well, but of somewhat other nature... :-)

Earth by night

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Humor

What is humor?

Everybody says that Monty Python is so funny.
I have today – again – watched a DVD with Monty Python and the Flying Circus.
I just don’t laugh. I have tried and tried, ever since I was a youngster. It is not funny.

It is strange because I love John Cleese - especially in Fawlty Towers. That TV-show is ranked by me as the NR 1 TV-show ever! It always makes me laugh.

Old statues

I have always believed that the old Greek classic statues were white - just plain marble white.
Boy, was I wrong!

New techniques like uv-lights and electromicroscopes have shown that these statues were indeed quite colorful.

A display has been shown in Copenhagen where they have analyzed some marble statues and made replicas with the colors they were able to reconstruct.

Imagine what it would be like to walk the streets of old Greece and the Roman empire...

This is a picture of K and me in Athens below the Acropolis two years ago.

Golf

Two weeks ago I signed up for a golf course. So far I have had two evenings with theory and one day with “hands on” golfing. Tomorrow I shall have my second day of instruction.

The weather has not been the best. It is cold and rainy, so the picture above is not of me – nor anywhere that I have been.

Now I shall have to decide on which golfclubs to purchase. Iron or composite. Full set or half set. Expensive or cheap. Regular or not. Long or short. How on earth am I to decide?

The last month I have picked up two activities that require me to lean somewhat forward: Golfing and rollerblading. I just hope I won’t look like the missing link by the end of this summer.

Her is a link to Bodo Golfklubb

17. mai!!

Yesterday was May 17th - or ”17. mai” as we say. This is the day we celebrate our constitution which was signed in 1814.

Karl Johan street

It is a big day in Norway. Everybody, all over the country, is out in the streets in long parades. Bands are playing, children and grown ups are filling their stomachs with ice and hot dogs, and everybody are waving flags and yelling “HURRA!!”

In Oslo the King and his family usually stands on the balcony of their castle and waves to the crowd as they parade by. (The King could not meet this year due to recent heart surgery).

I spent my day at Oslo Airport as I had to work in the afternoon and evening. I got to do some reading for my upcoming 6 months test, this year involving filing of flight-plans and calculations of loadsheets (weight and balance).

Rollerblades

I have never tried rollerblading before, but today I stopped by a sport shop and bought myself a pair. I also had to buy myself some protective equipment.

So around noon today I put on my knee pads, elbow pads, wrist guards, bicycle helmet and rollerblades. Quite a sight, I guess.

The neighbors then got to witness a show starring a white male in his mid thirties trying to balance on 8 wheels. I spent the first 15 minutes trying to learn how to turn and stop those things. The little brake thing on the back of my right shoe didn't do me much good. It only worked for me at low speeds. I guess I shall have to get some better balance before I can utilize it fully. Until now the best way for me to stop is to make turns.

I then went on a 20 minute ride around the neighborhood. I have never really paid any attention to the asphalt before - but today I learned that there are several types. The best is the one that is completely laminate.

I returned after half an hour. I guess that should be enough the first day. I have used muscles I haven't used for ages.

Lately I have been gaining some extra kilos, and I hope this shall help me get in better shape again.

And - I did not fall once. (I did not dare)

Traffic Circle

North of London

A380

It's flying!

At 1029 local time today the Airbus 380 lifted off for its maiden flight.

Bumble Bee

Today I saw the first Bumble Bee of the year. They are always so large – the first ones.

There is a Norwegian saying that you may make a wish on the first sight every year. I made one…

I had a short night stop in London last night, and when I landed at Oslo this morning I jumped straight onto a plane home to Bodo. I picked up K and a friend at school, and we went down to the pier where they played - and I took an ever so little nap in the sun.

Bicycle

It has been a beautiful day outside today.

I finally got around and got my bicycle out of its winter storage. We went for a one hour trip around the city. On our way we stopped at the “Hurtigruten” where we got ice cream and coffee before it sailed on.
There is still a lot of snow in the areas and mountains around the city, but down by the sea it is pretty nice. We also saw several butterflies.

K, constantly growing, got a new bike for her birthday a month ago. Her she is at her grandparents home:

Hurtigruten

This is a picture of the ship, Richard With, were we had our lunch today.



Hurtigruten started in the 1890s as steam ships sailing between Bergen on the south-western coast and Kirkenes up North by the Russian boarder. For almost a century it was the main way of transportation of mail, goods and people along the cost of Norway. Today they have new boats - cruise ships - that patrol the coast. We occasionally use them when we go to the Lofoten Islands.

Shopping