Sunday walk, Akerselva from Maridalen

Yesterday I posted about Christmas. A wrong message to the world.
Today we had +11C, clear high sky, beautiful autumn colors and perfect weather for walking along Oslo´s main waterway Akerselva. The entire river is about 8.2 kilometres long, and has a difference in altitude of approximately 149 meters. The river starts at Lake "Maridalsvannet", the most important water reservoar for Oslo.From the water reservoar the river moves slowly like a smile-wrinkle, but the altitude variations make the waterfalls down to the fjord very spectacular.In the "new" city at Nydalen (previously Christiania Spigerverk) artificial waterfalls are constructed for strenghtening the combination of modern buildings and traditional waterways.
Further down the beauty of Lower Voyen Fall at Graah´s Spinning Factory and HønseLovisas House, had to be part of this blogpost.Turning west and away from the beauty along the riverside we pass Damstredet at Fredensborg on our way back home.
Damstredet was mostly built from 1810 to 1860, as part of the expansion of Oslo that begun at this time. The first house, Solberg, was erected in 1756 by sculptor Ole Meyer. His nephew, sculptor Andreas Hansen Meyer, took over in 1767, while his son Ole, also sculptor, erected another building in 1838. His friend, author and poet Henrik Wergeland, then newly wed, moved in and spent two of his most productive years here, until moving to Grotten in 1841.
The monumental building of Deichman Library (Norway´s lagest public library at Hammersborg makes the photo report from our Sunday walk complete. The Library will move to Bjørvika close to Oslo Opera House within a few years.

More photos from Akerselva can be found at our riverside walk September 2009

Christmas is here

It is the last Saturday of October 2010 and the Christmas table is already covered and ready for Christmas dinner at Glassmagasinet down town Oslo. However.Tomorrow we are having Lutefisk for the third time this season.
And Rakfisk is also coming up once more during next week.
I is a lovely eating time here in Norway and Gammel Opland is still our favorite

My Internet and Blogging World

In January 2008 my blogtext still was in Norwegian. I had been "on the air" since March 21st 2005 as a continuation of the Homepage option given by Apple through iPhoto. Today my Internet World looks like this with visitors spread all over the Globe counting almost 91,000 page views. While I in 2008 had 61.5% Norwegian visits. I then swapped to English text. The statistics now show 63,372 unique visitors from 159 countries. They have for one reason or another found my Blog on the Internet, and the percentage of Norwegians have been reduced to 39%.

In April 2005 I found the possibility to add photos to my blog through Flickr, and in the same month The First YouTube video ever was uploaded at 8:27 PM on Saturday April 23rd, 2005. The video was shot by Yakov Lapitsky at the San Diego Zoo.
The speedy development accelerated.
Today over 2 billion views are registered on YouTube. 24 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube every MINUTE. The average person spends 15 MINUTES per DAY on YouTube . More video is uploaded to YouTube in 60 days than all 3 major US networks created in 60 YEARS.

In September same year (five years ago) I made some (not so good) experiments on Video-blogging myself, but have never reached any point of competence above pure pre-amateur bad results. Today I more recommend the online communication through the Facetime possibilities both on Mac and iPhone. Try it!

In April 2007 our family bought our last Newspaper, and turned completely into the ITC-age by reading news and all other stuff only on digital media (in addition to watching TV and Radio). At the same time Twitter was chosen as our social networking platform. Follow me @ArneA.
Looking deeper into the updated map above you can see the French Polynesia / Tahiti as my westernmost visited country. Paul Gauguin (1848–1903), French impressionist painter, spent the last years of his life in French Polynesia.
When preparing this post I discovered a website Worldometers where I could follow in real times the population growth on earth. We are now almost 6,881 million persons in the world. The net population growth with more than 100.000 per day, which will give us a total of 9 billion people in 2042. Will my transplanted new organs and pacemaker be operating, and will I still be here, at that time. It is only 32 years ahead.
32 years ago I got my first daughter and was working with computer programming by coding COBOL on Punch Cards with instructions.

We are presently about 2,010 millions Internet users in the world creating more than 500.000 blogposts a day.
If interested in other statistics you can also find out that we have (on global basis) only 15.378 days or about 42 years left til the end of global oil storages. However it is 160 years till the gas reserves are out, and water and wind are still circulating.Therefore we need Gas Power Plants, Windmills and Transport systems (high voltage lines). In the meantime be careful to blog too much. Big Brother NAV can see you. Instead use your time watching the beauty of stormy weather. Here from Alnes outside Ålesund.

From the Caribbean Sea to South East Asia

Once again I am pleased to present new visitors. We have now moved from The Caribbean Sea and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines to Myanmar on the 22nd and Macau today.
Republic of the Union of Myanmar, adopted a new state flag on 21 October 2010 (6 days ago) to replace the former socialist flag in use since 1974. The new flag was introduced along with implementing changes to the country's name and national anthem, which were laid out in the 2008 Constitution. The design of the flag has three horizontal stripes of yellow, green and red with a five-pointed white star in the middle. The three colors of the stripes are meant to symbolize solidarity, peace and tranquility, and courage and decisiveness.The previous flag adopted on 3 January 1974 upon the declaration of a socialist republic by Ne Win depicted 14 stars, encircling a gear and a rice plant in a blue-colored canton against a red field. The rice stands for agriculture, the gear represents industry, and the 14 stars represent each of the 14 member states of the Union. Both flags originated in the Burmese Resistance and the country call them: Flag of the Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma (1974-1988) and the Union of Myanmar (1988-2010).
Maybe it is time for us in Norway to start using Myanmar instead of Burma as the name of the republic. We did so (as all other Asian officials) when living in Asia Pacific 15 years ago, but as you know, it took some time to stop using Peking instead of Beijing too
The other new flag is from Macau.
The Regional flag of the Macau ( Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ), is light green with a lotus flower above the stylized Governor Nobre de Carvalho Bridge and water in white, beneath an arc of five gold, five-pointed stars: one large in the center of the arc and four smaller ones.

Macau was a Portuguese colony and both the first and last European colony in China.Portuguese traders first settled in Macau in the 16th century and subsequently administered the region until the handover on 20 December 1999. Before the Portuguese settlement in the early 16th century, Macau was known as Haojing (Oyster Mirror) or Jinghai (Mirror Sea).
During our stay in Southeast Asia we mostly thought of Macau as a gambling city, and we never visited the Portuguese colony (both the first and last European colony in China) although it was close to Hong Kong where we stayed many times.

Lisbeth Salander and I - part 2

In August I had just finished reading the Millennium Trilogy about the Hacker Lisbeth Salander and "jævla Kalle Blomkvist".Tonight I have been watching the forth episode the TV version of the Millennium Trilogy covering the first book Men Who Hate Women or "The girl with the Dragon Tattoo". A great and intense production, and I almost cannot wait for upcoming Monday when the next book The girl who Played with Fire starts, and for the last book (starting November 29) The Air Castle That was Blown up or "The girl who Kicked the Hornets Nest".
All three films and twelve TV episodes feature Michael Nyqvist as Mikael Blomkvist and Noomi Rapace as Lisbeth Salander.

When I published my post in August the comments was that I should not wait for the American adaptation of the trilogy expected to be released late next year. I am glad I followed their advise and spent these hours in front of the TV.

From garden to garden

Yesterday she made the front garden down town. Today she made the lawn at our summer residence. Leaves are placed on top of the flowerbeds so now the cold and snow are pleased do cover and protect it all.

A walking trip around Sognsvann in a sunny autumn day when the job was done, made the Sunday perfect. Now its time to prepare dinner without public recipe this week.Greetings from Andalucia and Puerto Banus make the day even more perfect. See you later.

Volunteer Work in our Joint Ownership

This Saturday our Joint Ownership had Volunteer Work performing some minor repairs in the foundation of the house and leaves raking in the front garden. At 11 am the garden looked like this.Then Jannicke and Tullen started the job on the pavement before Jesper took his turn with equipment borrowed from a neighbor, friend and old college Odd Sollien next door.Hedda put all the leaves in black bags
and when we all gathered up in our apartment for a homemade Pizza lunch the first image had changed to the image that can be seen on the last. Well done all of us, and my two large Pizzas (plus an extra Grandiosa with Mozzarella) was well received and all gone.

An evening with Sound

As a following up of Kaare Berntsen´s 80 Years Anniversary Exhibition "The Five Senses" we participated this evening in a Gallery-concert with the percussionist Eirik Raude under the title "An Evening with Sound" A very interesing event, and all my complements to the artist, here performing in front of the 16 sqm painting "untitled" by Kaare Melgaard.However, as I mentioned in my previous blogpost Andy Warhol´s portrait of Mick Jagger is the highlight of the exhibition if you will spend almost 300.000 nok. A good buy and I envy them with enough money for getting the work.On Tuesday we had lunch at Bølgen and Moi, Tjuvholmen together with AnneKath and Asbjørn. For their information after returning to Sykkylven, the area looks like this when the dark night is covering Oslo.As I posted in yesterday blog we could expect snow in Oslo tonight. The evidence of the first snowfall can be seen here, and we are curious about the situation in the streets tomorrow morning.In the meantime we can enjoy the blossom of our dark red Gladiolus while watching "Bones" on TV.

Last day of Autumn 2010 ?

The weather forecast for Oslo this Wednesday evening indicates that this season´s first snowfall will arrive late tomorrow. In the northern and western part of Norway the slippery roads have already created trafic problems. The last information indicates that we will be hit by snow in the afternoon or early evening.
Can we however trust the computer simulations or will we be surprised as always.
I do not take any chances and present therefore a photo taken out of the window from my working desk this afternoon. It can be the last image of this year Autumn.
About 8 mm precipitation from 8 pm to midnight, and temperature around zero will give challenges. If the snow arrives earlier, when people are traveling home from work, chalenges turn to problems.
Friday morning I may possible present images from the first snowfall like I did November 5th last year and October 30th 2008

A follower onboard a ship?

Is it possible that I have a visitor or regular follower which is onboard a ship? Is it a cruise ship, a sailing boat or merchant ship. Maybe one of the surveyors from DNV is performing inspections, and spend her/his off duty time to visit my blog?
I don´t know, but yesterday I had visit from Bahamas, and today another new flag came up. The nation Saint Vincent and the Grenadines lie at the southern end of the eastern border of the Caribbean Sea where the latter meets the Atlantic Ocean.
The flag is composed of three vertical bands of blue, yellow and green (the yellow band forming a Canadian pale being half the width of the flag) with three diamonds centered in the yellow band and arranged in a V which stands for Vincent. These diamonds recall Saint Vincent as the "gems of the Antilles". Blue represents the tropical sky and the crystal waters, yellow stands for the golden Grenadine sands, and green stands for the islands' lush vegetation.

Who ever you are, I hope you were satisfied with the result of the visit and welcome you back soon.

Jeopardy and Flag 158

The Answer is:

A country consisting of 29 islands, 661 cays, and 2,387 islets (rocks). Located in the Atlantic Ocean north of Cuba and Hispaniola (Dominican Republic and Haiti), northwest of the Turks and Caicos Islands, and southeast of the United States. Its total land area is 13,939 km2.

The Question is:
What do you know about the country with this national flag?
The Flag of the Bahamas.
The black equilateral triangle on the left represents the unity and determination of the people of the Bahamas. The triangle is oriented toward three equal-width stripes symbolizing areas of natural resource; two aquamarine stripes at the top and bottom of the flag representing the sea and one gold stripe representing the land.

Following the link above you can learn more about my last visitor behind the flag nos. 158.
The origin of the name "Bahamas" is unclear. It may derive from the Spanish baja mar ("shallow seas") or the Lucayan word for Grand Bahama Island, ba-ha-ma ("large upper middle land").

However, do you know the differences between the 29 islands, 661 cays and 2387 islets?Islands is any piece of sub-continental land that is surrounded by water.
Cays is a small, low-elevation, sandy island formed on the surface of coral reefs.
Islets is a very small island or skerry (Skjær).
Skerry is a small rocky island, usually defined to be too small for habitation. It may simply be a rocky reef. A skerry can also be called a low sea stack.

I have heard that some have learned a lot from the quiz show Jeopardy and now I have contributed a little more thanks to my visitor from the site of Columbus' first landfall in the New World in 1492.

Thai Black Pepper Beef

Sometime we are longing for Asia Pacific and the spicy food. Our Sunday dinner this week was therefore Thai Black Peper BeefThe reccipe:

Beef , sliced very thin
2 large tablespoons soy sauce, divided
1 half red chili pepper, fine chopped (or/and 2 gloves garlic minced)
1 large yellow onion, sliced
1 half zucchini (green summersquash) sliced
1 green bell pepper (paprika), sliced
1 red sweet pepper (paprika), sliced
2 heaping tablespoon Thai black pepper sauce
oil

Marinate beef slices with 1 spoon soy and 1 spoon olive oil when preparing vegatabled
Stir fry beef slices in oil (and butter) until well cooked, remove from pan
Heat more oil and chili (garlic), add onion and zucchini, fry till yellow / soft
Add sliced Pepper and stir fry 2 minutes
Add back cooked beef and toss with the vegetables
Add the jarred pepper sauce and a tablespoon soy (and some water if sauce is too thick)
Cook / stir for a few minutes on medium heat when preparing white rice, thin noodles or mashed potatoes.
Serve
It is hot, hot, but can be recommended for everybody that love Asian cooking.

Weekend Reflections

James at Newtown Area Photo has a meme called Weekend Reflections.
I have from time to time participated with some photos. These are my contributions today.During our Sunday city stroll we discovered a "new" sculpture at University Square, Oslo Norway
From different angels the shape of the cube and the reflections changed.The reflections above show Domus Media and the two next images reflect Domus Bibliotheca
From one position it seems that the circles are going inward but when moving the camera a meter or two to the left or right, the circles are in a way coming towards you.Post a reflection during the week-end, log on to MckLinky via his site - and you're on the meme too.

Child-minding Maja

Music has always been an important part of our family life. Tullen has played the piano from her childhood with a.o a public performance (debut) in the University Aula. I have only played the trombone in the school boy-band for 6 years and our daughters have learned to play the piano (Trine) and the flute (Rikke). Now Helene has taken up the clarinet and do we see a female Benny Goodman coming up?
From memories, cultural experiences and future challenges we turn back to this Saturday activity. With Rikke at Svalbard and Tor busy working we had to do child-minding forMaja. We went to the child-park (Mor Godhjerta) where Maja had a lovely playtime.
The most spectacular experience for us all was, however, bird-feeding the ducks and pigeons at the riverside of Akerselva.
The birds were eating the yesterday bread out of our hands, and Maja was excited.