Monday Odd Shots

As an introduction to this week blog meme, and giving the web memories from our visit to Barcelona, Spain some years ago, this photo from Fundacio Juan Miro showing Tullen as model for a painting by Antonio Saura, starts it all, as well as delivering this Odd Shot Monday.
For those not living near costal areas, or don´t like or are allergic (= Tullen) to shellfish or crustacean, my Friday dinner may be Odd enough. Two different dishes in the family that evening. Tullen had Halibut.

Olympic Games 2008 is history

Beijing 2008 Olympics is at the posting hour in the the Closing Ceremony. Yesterday Norway got the second and third gold medal. Total score is 3 Gold, 5 Silver and 2 Bronze. China got totally 100 medals. Congratulation to all.
Many bloggers will leave their computers and have their eyes on the TV screen, but may be some will use the moment to surf the net and visit blog friends.

The darkness of night will soon cover the sky in Beijing, and as we did last night may be the half moon can be watched from the Great Wall.Within hours olympic participants will find their departing planes and return to their home countries in triumph like the Norwegian Handball Team. We love them all.
When somebody is celebrating after swimming, rowing, walking, throwing, shooting and so fort, I have worked out another painting called Night and Day.
From tomorrow the political trivialities again will make the headlines in media but we will meet again in London 2012.

Thank you for 31 years neighbourliness

Yesterday strangers visites the cottage next to ours with the intention to buy this red cottage.

The cottage has been in the ownership of the Sønsteby family since the building in 1930, but present owners Kjell and Else Marie have soon reached the age of 80 and are tired of maintenance and gardening. Their children and grand children are living outside Oslo, and therefore not eligible to take over.

Tullen and I have in all these years had good relation to Kjell and Else Marie. We have never had any fence between our properties, but never went across the border without any specific purpose. They taught us how to live and work at a place like this. They as we, have always used the cottage as summer residence. They have been great to our daughters through their childhood life at Solvang, and "inne hos ´abon" was often the answer when we asked them where they had been.
We really will call them GOOD neighbours.
This photo was taken eight years ago when celebrating the garden´s 70th anniversary. We also celebrated the 50th anniversary in 1980, two years after we were newcomers.
Thanks for all during these 31 summers.

Saturday Urban Life - Salzburg

I have during this week presented some of the spectacular Austrian Alps.
However, a trip to Austria without visiting some of the major cities in the country, would not be normal for an urban person. Our weekend trip to Vienna in April 2005 have previous been blog-posted, and during our holiday in 2003 we stayed one night in Kitzbuhel.
In 1999 we had our hotel at Zell am See, but with only 10.000 inhabitants the real urban lifestyle was difficult to find. It is almost like Bad Hofgastein where we stayed a week in 1989 for skiing.
Austria´s fourth largest city is Salzburg and well known as the birthplace of Mozart. The shopping street Getreidegasse, is extraordinary in the way that Salzburg has very strict rules regarding marketing signs. Even McDonald´s has to follow the rules with a small m in a wrought-iron guild sign hanging autside the establishment.
Shops in this street is a combination of fashion and specialized merchandise. We visited the street in June but both Christmas and Easter goods were on sale.
At the intro.photo you may see the Festung Hohensalzburg (used as scenery in the movie Sound of Music) the bank of the Salzach river and thedome of Salzburger Cathedral
I had to take photos inside the Cathedral and as in St. Peter´s Basilica (see the similarity) the altar paintings are beautiful.

To be or not to be

Sometimes I feel that I have to join Blog memes to get my blog known. But what is "known".
Is the number of visitors an indication of being a success. Is the number of countries the visitors come from or the number of comments most important.

Is visibility or being known the utmost indicator of to be or not to be.

The statistics below show some of these indicators.

As a total I have had over 46000 visits. I have the last month been visited close to 1700 times from people living in 66 countries. I have got about 260 comments. The highest score of comments is on meme-days, and most often from the same visitors.
More than every third visitor are blogging in countries outside Norway.
Nevertheless, if the question is to be or not to be, I AM (alive and happy)

The photos at the end of this post is only to show that I know that the meme for today is :and add one more photo of a sunset like hundreds of other bloggers. Boring.

Rankin and John Rebus on NRK1 (TV)

Two years ago on Wednesday, 23rd August 2006 I wrote a post about the small world in which we are living. I got the following comment from my daughter:

"even weirder, and this is where this is relevant to your blogpost, it turned out that the man actually *taking* the photo - the man sitting with David's friend Richard and his mates - was no other than Ian Ranking, the famous (but obviously not *that* famous) author!
it is a small world..."

The world is even getting smaller today when Norwegians through NRK1 TV can see Rankin´s The Fall (rightmost book above, Fossen) and follow the "hero" John Rebus and his colleague Siobhan trying to solve the plot.
In a review of the book Drone007 is writing:

The book starts by throwing you straight into the action two days after a banker's daughter, Philippa, has gone missing. Rebus and his colleague Siobhan begin their chase using an involving computer game which she was involved in. To help get to the bottom of this, Siobhan plays the game and the affect the Quizmaster has upon the disappearance becomes clear aided by Rebus' investigations. Their chase takes them through hundreds of old cases of body snatching and murder, and the continual appearance of tiny handmade coffins with dolls inside, left mysteriously at scenes of crimes both old and new.

John Rebus as an inspector drinks heavily and goes about his operations in an unusual and at first surprising way, often linking the two together.

In 'The Falls', Rebus is older than in previous books and is slowly suffering because of it. The book consists of a cyber-based mind game plot and the strong, compelling cast of suspects, informants, and law enforcement officers.

As with all Rebus Novels, Rankin creates a living image of Scotland and Edinburgh in the readers mind. This is largely helped due to its accurate basing on Edinburgh itself, with the details great enough to almost guide you round the city

Additional information that will help you when watching TV is complete knowledge of Single malt Destilleries in Scotland and you may learn more about Rebus´habits through this Single Malt Flavour MapHave a nice TV evening, and for you without Norwegian Television look forward to my next blog of Friday.

ABC Wednesday - Edelweisspitze

As a continuation of yesterday post regarding my visit to the Alps in Austria, I want to show some of the photos taken from Hochalpenstrasse.
The highest point on the High Apline Road has a spectacular panorama view of more than 30 peaks above 3000 m. Find the 360gr Panoramas on the link (right sidebar) and enjoy the spectacular mountaind

E is for Edelweiss spitze 2571m

In the background you can see, from right: Johannisberg 3460m, Sonnenwelleck 3261m and Austria´s highest summit Grossglockner 3798m. To the north and on the other side of the valley from where we climbed by bus, you may see Grosses Wiesbachhorn 3564m. The panorama view east and south shows Brennkogel 3018m and Kloben 2936m. To west we have the tunnel through Hochtor 2503m and to the north Hohe Dock 3348mIf you don´t want to go back to my Tuesday post I show you Grossglockner once more

Tuesday facts - Berchtesgaden and Eagle´s Nest

Two of my daily followers: John and Ivar have lately posted photos from the world of Mountains.
That gave me an opportunity to share with you some of my experiences from the Alps in 1999. We stayed mostly in Austria, but one day we took a trip to the southern Germany

From Berchtesgaden we drove up the mountainside to Berghof above the village and through tunnel and elevator reached the Kehlsteinhaus or may be better known as the Eagles Nest. The Kehlsteinhaus was an official 50th birthday present for Adolf Hitler. (nicknamed Eagle's Nest by a French diplomat). It is told that Hitler only visited the Kehlsteinhaus twice. He may have had Vertigo.
I felt myself some of the dizziness when I was at the summit, and after that I do not like to go on high areas with open air all around me.At the summityou have the fantastic view down to Berchtesgaden, but as you can experience at Besseggen Ridge it feels being a long way down and the slope is steep. From the same trip I also want to share with you the highest mountain in Austria; Grossglockner (3798 m) but as you see I felt much safer behind the fence at Keiser Franz Josef´s Høhe at altitude 2369m.

Monday odd shot and more

According to my dictionary.:
Odd = " different from what is usual or expected; strange"
Odd = " having one left over as a remainder when divided by two"
Odd = " happening or occurring infrequently and irregularly; occasional"
Odd = " separated from a usual pair or set and therefore out of place or mismatched"

Yesterday I posted the infrequently odd situation with the Lunar eclipse.
Today these strange feet of king Bladuds pig Abi give you a possibility to give bids (current bid £1400)In addition I think the last bowl of left over raspberries from yesterday garden work is odd enough for the blog this Monday.And at last a painting from autumn 2002 showing the combination of green, black and pink which somebody would find mismatched. (ps. I don´t have or use a pink scarf) For more Odd Shots you are welcome to visit Katney

Sunday posting

No special meme today.
Thanks all gods.
Therefore only some of the photo shots from last days.
First Henrik Isak 11 months or 8 if not been too early born. His first tooth is in place.Then shots from the parade at Karl Johan yesterday (Oslo Jazz Festival) The Olympic Games are running in Beijing. In Oslo there is acceptance for demonstrations. and this Organ theft is disgusting.Last night we had full moon (at 23.16). Two hours earlier we could watch the moon rising over East Oslo, and also watch the Lunar Eclipse coming at 21.30 (down left).At 22.10 the eclipse looked like thisEarly this morning we cut the raspberries. This summer we have got about 15 kilos (under average).

Saturday Urban Life - Strolling Akerselva

Strolling the bank of the river Akerselva from "Maridalsvannet" to "Vaterland Park" is a habit citizens of Oslo do at least once in their lifetime. The stroll is 8.2 kilometers long and has an altitude difference of about 150 meters, passing meadows, rocks, woodlands, housing establishments on its banks. The river has 20 waterfalls and 23 bridges for public traffic and people walkways.

In previous times Akerselva divided Oslo into an Eastern and a Western part. This is an interesting aspect, geographically speaking, because there was a certain social gap between the people living on each side of the river. Today many areas of East Oslo are more "in" and more expensive than western areas, but a considerably diversity is still a reality.

The photo above is from the area close to Beyer-bridge, which was referred to by Oscar Braathen as the “factory girls bridge”. The bridge is known from 1671, and was driving bridge from 1837, now walking bridge. Named after taylor Anders Beyer.

The main bridges (which could cover two years in RuneE´s Bridges meme) are:

Brekke bridge, in Kjelsåsveien binding Kjelsås to Brekke
Nydals bridge, in Rolf Wickstrøm´s road (ring 3)
Walking bridge in Nydalen
Gullhaug bridge, in Nydalsveien at Gullhaug square, Nydalen
Bridge in Kristoffer Aamot´s road, Nydalen
Gangbro ved Badebakken, Bjølsen
Treschows bridge in Treschow´s road, binding Bjølsen to Sandaker
Bentse bridge, in Bentsebridge road, binding Sagene to Torshov
Walking bridge at Myra, Sagene
Vøyen bridge, in Marcus Thranes road (ring 2), Sagene
Beyer bridge, walking bridge binding Sagveien (west) to Biermann´s road (east), Sagene
Sanner bridge, binding Waldemar Thranes road (west, Ila / Sagene) to Sanner road (east, Grünerløkka)
Åmodt bridge, walking bridge, binding Ila to Grünerløkka with the inscription: "100 MAND KAN JEG BÆRE, MEN SVIGTER UNDER TAKTFAST MARCH."
Kuba bridge, walking bridge, Grünerløkka
Grüner bridge, in Møllerveien, binding Fredensborg and Grünerløkka
Walking bridge binding Brenneri road at Blå (west) and Nedre road (east, Grünerløkka)
Walking bridge binding Østre Elvebakke at DogA (vest) and Nedre road (east, Grünerløkka)
Anker bridge in Torggata, Grünerløkka
Ny bridge, down Grünerløkka
Hausmanns bridge in Hausmann´s road
Vaterlands bridge, binding Brugata (west, Vaterland) and Grønlandsleiret (east, Grønland)

Based upon the waterfall photo the painting below is an attempt to show the difference between copying nature through camera and painting it.
If you want to see a camouflaged portrait of the "deity" living in the river - "NØKKEN" The Neck I have painted her in a modern way. Reference to living persons is unintended .