Leftovers and Communication areas

When I prepare for the ABC Wednesday I have at least two different way of thinking.
Shall I find the most spectacular object or idea, or shall I show a variety of photos covering the chosen letter.

I have done the last and also shown some of my own works with paintbrush in Acrylic on Paper or Canvas.

The result of that thinking is that you sit with a lot of leftover photos which could have joined my presentation, but did not match volume and theme for the day.

Therefore you just have to look at some additional photos this Thursday under the vignette C (i.e. the Chinaware here)

In addition many of the new Blog-fellows are interested in Interiors, Furniture, Books and Cats so why not give them something.

Today blogging is therefor only a photo presentation under that area. It is up to the visitors and readers to evaluate if this way of blogging, also is in the commenting mode.

I start with the Cervantes Monument in Madrid for all the lovers of Don Quijote, the world best bookI follow up with the Cat from the Pavillion in BrightonContinuing with my Chair in the painting studio (old but excellent to sit an evaluate my works in operation)Ending up with a photo taken out fishing for Cod, as a reminder that it is Skrei season and that is the only recommended dinner at the time

ABC Wednesday – C

C is for the Chinese New Year moving from the Year of Pig to the year of Rat – Wu Zi.

C is also for my - Camera - of which I have taken many of the photos presented in my blog.

C is for COCO Chanel and the scent of my wife. (my own Platinum Egoiste to the left)C is for Construction Cranes, and this photo can also be seen as an invitation to join - The Sky Watch Friday fellowship .


C is for one of my first painting from 2002, the Clown (Trist som faen)

As you may be able to see has he lost one of the buttons in his jacket. May be there is a suitable button in - DOT´s Collection from last week ABCW.

C is for Cars like those I presented in my - Blogpost in May - last year.

C is for Chopin and Stanislav Bunin playing fantasie-impromptu at this - YouTube - video of 5.24 minutes.

C is for City Houses at - Camilla Collets gate - in Oslo

Super Tuesday and Fetetirsdag

Today people in 24 states of the USA can make a great contribution to World Peace (hopefully) by voting on their Candidate for the Commander-in-Chief .
It may be dangerous to give any advice to my American blog fellows, but for me as a far away Norwegian, my preferred winner must be Ms. H.R. Clinton.

I think USA now would have profited by getting a woman as CINC not only as first lady. It could be interesting to have a President with brain instead of fake muscles.

May be we can expect some of the ABC Wednesday bloggers to use C in this direction for C tomorrow.

The map below shows the States in stake for Super Tuesday nominations. Click on the grafic for more details


Regarding the Shrove Tuesday or "Fete tirsdag" as called in Scandinavia, I shall make pancakes for dinner.
Wheat flour, light milk, a touch of salt and two eggs mixed together by hand and cooked on my hot iron frying pan as thin as possible.
Served with Norwegian Brown Cheese (click and see photos) or Blueberries. Not much fattening food on this Fat Tueday in my home, so my BMI will not be too influenced today.

This is not a photo of today weather in Oslo, but why not just give you a lovely view of Hypogymnia physodes ( Kvistlav).

Blåmandag and Cycling

After the heavy Fastelavn Buns from yesterday, and even more heavy snow over SouthEast Norway during the weekend causing closed main airport OSL Gardermoen and creating lots of problems for the traffic and electricity, I invite you this BlueMonday to start preparation for the springtime and the cycling season.

If not fit for exercise and that sport, join me on a ride through Oslo and Brussel and look for these two sculptures shown below.

The left one is made to honor one of the heroes in our resistance movement during the occupation of Norway 1940 – 1945 No.24 or Kjakan .
The other sculpture we found close to the Center For Comic Strips it Brussels.

Fastelavn Sunday

This Sunday is called Fastelavn Sunday or Quinquagesima.
In earlier days Fastelavn marked the beginning of the Fasting or Lent.

Today you have the last chance to eat as much as possible, but be aware that tomorrow Blue Monday can be problematic for your body and soul. On Fat Tuesday you need to get as much fat as possible by eating white bread cocked in oil with sugar, or pancakes, because on Ash Wednesday the LENT starts.
Lent is the period preceding Easter that in the Christian Church is devoted to fasting, abstinence, and penitence in commemoration of Christ's fasting in the wilderness. In the Western Church Lent runs from Ash Wednesday to Holy Saturday and so includes forty weekdays.

Enjoy your Fastelavns buns today. Recipe Here See also a comparison between the Norwegian puritanical symbol of Fastelavn through colorful Brushwood (above), and the spectacular costumes used in the Carnival do Rio de Janeiro:

Henrik og fremtiden

On this Saturday my intention was to write about future challenges and probably problems in the IT world.
I had some thoughts about coverphoto, but late yesterday night some lovely photos of my grandson Henrik Isak came by e-mail so no alternative could compete.

Henrik is now ab.4 months and looking like his mother who again looks like her father, so ..........
See the start of his life here on Blip.TV


So to the "planned" topic in which Henrik too will be a participant as a schoolboy.

If you look at the map from yesterday blogpost, you will find some dark areas without flags.

In an article at my old company DNV Homepage you can read that the so-called BRIC-countries – Brazil, Russia, India and China – are supposed to invest in IT infrastructure to a volume of 800 million more PC users within 2015. These users will operate standard Laptops 30 times more powerful, less expensive and with more storage capacity than we use today.

That challenge will also create problems as about 2% of human CO2 emissions will come from this manufacturing (equal to today emissions from the maritime industry). To learn more fact of the CO2 Challenge, download The little green DataBook 2007

Another problem in the CIT area we could read about in yesterday Wired , was the Internet blackout in Asia, when some communication cables was cut off. Regarding the cable see update here

Yesterday we also heard that the browser Netscape with which we started our Internet experience in Singapore 1994, now was due to the graveyard. You gave us much, rest in peace.

All of these topics could cover many blogposts, but for you sitting inside in front of the fireplaces and with heavy snowing outside, I thought I should help you with surfing possibilities.

Have a nice weekend.

Sky Watch Friday and “Broer som binder”

This Sky Watch Friday I have to start with a small photo dedicated to Rune Eide, Professor, DDS, Dr.odont (Ph.D), Department of Clinical Dentistritry - Section for Biomaterials Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, University of Bergen, and also known as the ABC and SkyWatch active blogger RuneE , who on this day (and hopefully in the future every first day of the month) has started a blogging fellowship called “Broer som Binder”, or as I will call it “Bridging gaps”.

Therefore my Sky Watch photo today has to be of a Bridge.
The bridge connect Jylland (Jutland) and the island Fyn (Funen) over Lillebelt (Little Belt or “The Narrowing”) and is taken from the harbour at Middelfart (the lovely town between two bridges at Fyn)
From Fyn to Zealand (Sjælland and Copenhagen) you have another bridge to cross over Storebelt (Big Belt) but last night this bridge was closed due to heavy weather.The fellowship "Bridging Gaps" has the intention to extend the word BRIDGE from all the physical small or large constructions, to “Connecting People” (as Nokia says), special friendship or recovery over problems and challenges in abstract manner. My Pacemaker (supporting energy from the Atrium to the Ventricle due to total AV-Block) is physical but the consequences of giving energy to replace death with life, is abstract.

Bridging Gaps between America, Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia through Blogging are also under the widget as my traffic map shows.Join the fellowship at RuneE´s Norwegian blog.

You are not alone

After almost 40 comments yesterday (and zero the day before) I continue to write my blogtext in English.
In addition to that I received one cellphone photo and two intriguing articles.

The photo came from my youngest daughter Rikke, B.Sc. in Psychology, but at the moment Telemark Skier at Hemsedal, Norway. It could have been presented tomorrow as Sky Watching, but today and tomorrow it will snow and more difficult to see nature as it was yesterday.The first article I received was about Mulitasking and
the second about The Life Cycle of a Blog Post The system map (Click the photo to see graphic better) is described in the article from Wired. You may investigate deeper yourself. However, to rise your interest:

You have a blog. You compose a new post. You click Publish and lean back to admire your work. Imperceptibly and all but instantaneously, your post slips into a vast and recursive network of software agents, where it is crawled, indexed, mined, scraped, republished, and propagated throughout the Web. Within minutes, if you've written about a timely and noteworthy topic, a small army of bots will get the word out to anyone remotely interested, from fellow bloggers to corporate marketeers

38 comments, hundreds of visitors, thousands of tags in databases. You are not alone when blogging.

The Danish text, from Politikken (the first article), many of you have no chance to understand so I give you my version of the topic:
Human Multitasking is:
The ability of a person to perform more than one task at the same time.

This is often seen as a female habit. Men can to the best concentrate on one task at a time. Women can take care of many tasks. May be that is why we meet mostly women as fellow bloggers.
Women check emails, download music, read the news, communicate through texting, talk in cellphone, are driving cars, make dinner and “take care of” children and partners at the same time.
Men have problem enough with swapping TV programs. Agree?
I believe many of my visitors know somebody that may fit into the description.

I do not dare to comment further on the argument in the article saying that multitasking also creates stress-related hormones like cortisol and adrenalin, and thus makes you slower and “dumber”? Waste of energy?

That is why men say Breaks are important. When you calm down, do nothing, do not answer when your partner asks why you only are staring silly and empty into the air - seeing nothing - do not worry.
- Men are only recharging for the next task.

ABC Wednesday - B

For this ABC Wednesday I have chosen five examples for elaboration on the letter B.

B for today Breakfast with Bacon and egg.
B for the Burning sun and the Blond Beachgirls at FKK MaspalomasB for theBaccalao Pot made ready for Dinner tonight. For recipe, see my comments.

and:

B for Blogtext swapping.

I have many visitors on Wednesdays and Fridays. They come from all over the world. On these days I also use English as text-posting language. Everyone can comments on photos and text.
I have also many global visitors all other days, but they cannot comment because Norwegian is not a global language.

Will the feedback improve and the net-connections expand if I swap to English text every day? All of my visitors in Norway can read (and write?) English, and if not wanted, they do not need to write comments in English. I indeed understand my mother tongue.

Bridging gaps between the writer and the reader can be looked upon as Bridging the gap between two counties like here at Svinesund between Norway and Sweden (the old Bridge seen from the new motorway bridge).
Connection established. No blocking of the road on each sides.
Start communication! Make Comments!



If you still are scrolling, looking and reading my post, I invite you to use some more minutes to see and listen to Freddy Kempf playing the
Piano sonata No.8 - Pathetique (YouTube video takes ab. ten min.)

B for Ludvig van Beethoven.

Mot Norrmalt eller avviksrapportering

Vi kjenner alle til Leif Justers sketch om det som var Mot Norrmalt (You Tube video på 5,33 min)

At nesten alt som presenteres av nyheter i media også kan tituleres som avviksmeldinger (eller negative nyheter), er det vel også flere enn meg som blir litt frustrert over.
Jeg berørte temaet i en blogpost sist mandag, men nå vil jeg se dette blant annet i lys av utviklingen av nyretransplantasjoner (TX-Renis).

Først litt historie:
Den første såkalte vellykkede TX-Renis fant sted i 1954.
To år tidligere hadde man gjennomført en transplantasjon av et nyre som ikke ble “vellykket” da pasienten døde etter 22 dager. Hjertetransplantasjonen (TX-Cor) til Chr. Barnard i 1967 blir imidlertid karakterisert som vellykket selv om pasienten bare levet i 18 dager. Den mediaskapte presentasjonen av hjertetransplantasjonen var så masiv og positiv, at det negative ikke ble gitt spalteplass i det hele tatt. (pasienten hadde ikke mulighet til å overleve da avstøtingsproblematikken ikke var godt nok ivaretatt.)

Nyretransplantasjon kan skje fra levende og døde donorer.
I Norge er vi på Europatoppen for levende donorer av nyrer og nummer ti på verdensbasis. Mer enn hver tredje nyretransplantasjon i Norge kommer fra en nær slektning. Slik har det vært siden starten i 1969. Den positiv opplysning som ligger i at ektefeller og andre også kan være med på å redde liv, ikke må få drukne i avviksraporteringen om at dette "bare" er en tredel av alle nyretransplantasjoner.Norge har den høyeste nyretransplantasjonsrate (Antall TX-Renis per million innbyggere) i verden. I 2004 ble det transplantert 265 nyrer, som tilsvarer 57,7 pmi for TX-Renis. De tilsvarende tallene for Sverige var 41,3, Danmark 34,6 og Finland 37,8. I Europa har for eksempel England en transplantasjonsrate på 32,2, Frankrike 39,4 og Italia 37,7.

I 2007 ble det transplantert 260 nyrer ved Rikshospitalet. Av disse var 86 fra levende givere.2007 ble et rekordår for hele transplantasjonsvirksomheten i Norge. 401 pasienter fikk transplantert et eller flere organer i løpet av året, mot (bare) 333 pasienter året før.

Ofte fokuserer vi også negativt på at mange sier Nei til Donasjon i tilknytning til dødsfall. Avslagsprosenten fra avdødes pårørende var 23 % i 2007 mot 28 % året før, men det betyr også at 77% sa JA.

Dette er flott og gode nyheter. De positive nyhetene varer kort og ventelistene er fortsatt lange. Enda lenger er listene over syke som aldri kommer på disse listene. Kunne det være mulig å tenke oss at det ble etablert et register for personer som var villig til å gi ett nyre til et annet menneske som ikke kan fortsette livet uten en slik gave. Ville det bli oppfattet som et positivt tiltak eller negativt.

Spørsmålet reiser imidlertid endel etiske og moralske utfordringer slik B. Hofmann skriver om i sin kronikk i Tidskriftet. En del av det negative som Hofmann skriver om, bl.a. handel med organer, kaller A. Jacobsen anekdoter. Det positive som sjelden kommer frem er at den etiske standarden til helsepersonellet som arbeider i norsk transplantasjonsmedisin er langt høyere enn det mange synes å tro. Kanskje skulle det bli gitt fokus til forskjell fra rystende nyheter eller påstander/anekdoter fra utlandet.

Den gang jeg arbeidet i DNV hadde vi ofte kvalitetskontroller fra myndighetene, bl.a. Sjøfartsdirektoratet. De rapporterte bare negative avvik. Det syns mange av våre ansatte var urettferdig. Alle de positive og riktige funnene som revisorene ble gjort kjent med, kom aldri i rapportene. Det som var i henhold til vår egen selvpålagte standard (som ofte lå over myndighetenes) ble utelatt mens små avvik nedover fikk røde lys til å blinke.

Slik er det også i nyhetene vedrørende forholdene i skolen. Det finnes faktisk en hel haug av dyktige lærere, og flinke elever og studenter i dette landet. I dag kom avviksmeldingen om studietid på lærerskolene. Avvikene må ikke bli det godes fiende.

Tenk om Media i en måned kunne fokusere på det istedet.

Mandag morra blues eller noe slikt

Noen ganger har jeg skrivesperre.
Hva er det viktig eller riktig å poste i dag.
Helt tom er jo hodet ikke selv om det er mandag morgen, men kanskje er denne fokusen på ABC Wednesday og Sky Watch Friday samt den oppkommende Broer som binder med på å fjerne litt av spontaniteten som jeg føler bør ligge i web loggingen. Blir det på en måte viktigere å prestere noe overfor de "andre" der ute, enn å la tankene finne veien til fingrene og tastaturet. Blir loggingen av mine opplevelser her og nå erstattet av tanken om at det bildet eller det temaet må jeg gjemme til "den rette anledning".

Denne veggdekorasjonen eller skulpturen for eksempel. Fridtjof Nansens pass fra 1928 som jeg for første gang la merke til på lørdag. Kanskje er den ny, eller kanskje har den i årevis vært skjult bak parkerte turistbusser ved Rådhuset. Skulle jeg skrive om den i dag, eller skulle jeg ta vare på bildet til F ble onsdagsbokstaven. Gamle Nansen er jo verdenskjent (eller burde være) og ABC Wednesday er jo også informasjon mer enn bilder som på Sky Watch Friday.Og dette skiltet fra en vegg på Ruseløkka. Hva kan det bli til. En større presentasjon av "morsomme" tekster eller et innlegg i debatten om skattlegging av parkeringsplasser i sentrum. Nå foreligger jo ikke forskriftene til denne absurde tanken fra vegsjefen, men hva dersom det var en svensk sau som ville parkere her.
Vel, mandag morra med sperre eller ikke, tekst og blogpost ble det åkkesom.

Mellom to slott

Hovedstaden har to slott.
Det Kongelige Slott med leiligheten til Harald og Sonja, og en del flere høyst herskapelige og representative rom og saler, samt Akershus Slott med sitt mangfoldige og lange historie. Slottet eller festningen ble påbegynt i 1290 og preger byens Skyline fra sjøsiden sammen med Rådhuset.I nærheten av disse monumentale bygningene i Tigerstaden finner vi en av byens hyggeligste restauranter der restaurantsjef Atle Minothi og staben hans gjør sitt beste for at du som gjest skal trives med god mat og god drikke; Restaurant Cafe Christiania:Våpenskjodet over døren viser vei inn til en eventyrlig samling av reklameplakater, og skilt, klær (votter, sko, støvler, undertøy, hatter og luer) briller, pins, dokker, bokser, og jeg vet ikke hva.
Det er et komplett skomakerverksted (min morfar var skomaker) og urmakerbutikk. Det er ikke sikkert at interiøret hadde passet i de fine utenlandske og glossy bladene, men man kan si det samme som skjer når man møter en skorpion: Uberørt blir man ikke.


Gå på jakt blant bord og gjester, og du finner sikkert noe som kan mine deg om tidligere tider, og kanskje også navn som gir assosiasjoner.

Saturday posting, Nok en bytur.

Som de fleste av mine bekjente er vel vitende om, har Urbane mennesker som oss, en større sansynlighet for å bli påtruffet i byen på lørdag enn i marka.

I mange år var restaurant Casino i Stortingsgaten mitt, og senere vårt, faste oppfoldssted fra kloken 12.30 til ca 15.00 hver eneste lørdag. Her var vi alltid velkommen med og uten barn som alltid bare gikk til servitørene, og fikk ark og farvestifter til lunsjen. 

I dag er stamstedet Café Christiania.

Er dette bildet av min bedre halvdel “Strolling through the City”. et typisk foto av en Urban kvinne? Eller hva er oppfatingen av den Urbane person.

Sammenlignbare typer kan fines her.

Er stilen forskjellig i Oslo, Bergen, Trøndelag, Ålesund og Tromsø, for ikke å nevne stedene der mine mange blogvenner kommer fra.

Kartet nedenfor viser hvor i verden mine besøkende kommer fra:
Urban eller ikke, 

dagens blogpost blir også viet min svigersønn, Dr. David M. Berry, som i går hadde sin Graduation etter sin PhD ved University of Sussex, Brighton.

Congratulation David. 

We are proud of you.

Sky Watch Friday - The Moon

Fourteen days ago I presented a photo taken by my good friend Asbjørn from his terrace at Einehaugen showing mountains to the south.
This Sky Watch Friday I give you his documentation of the north-western view from last Tuesday morning. The moon was full and the light from the moon created wonderful reflection in the fjord. Astonishing.

The Norwegian painter Edward Munch often used the moonlight as a tag (?) in his Expressionistic landscapes.
I have made my own imitation of Munch through the painting below which I have called “Lonely”