It is time for a book report. What have I been reading during the autumn?
The Teeth of the Tiger, Tom Clancy. Very good good book. The Ryan story continues, this time with about Jack Ryan Jr. If you have enjoyed the other Clancy books the you will like this one.
En annan tid, ett annat liv. Leif GW Persson. Good police story about a small murder that turns into something bigger. Not the best book I have read but entertaining.
Ondskan. Jan Guillou. The book about Guillou’s childhood, or at least that is what he says. Rumours say that he has made up the whole thing though. Independently of it is true or not it was a very good book.
Häxornas försvarare. Guillou, Jan. Started reading this a while back but I stopped after a few chapters. I started reading it just after finished the fourth Arn book and it was just too much old times (at that time :-).
Tornseglarna, Kristoffer Leandoer. A childrens fantasy book about parallel worlds. I didn’t know it was a childrens book when starting it but it was good anyhow đ
Ont blod, Arne Dahl. Murder, murders, murders. Very good detective story. Read it!
Skuld, Karin Alvtegen. Now this was a good movie. Sort of a book with a nice twist. I like those. Well worth reading.
Rita Rubinstein åker tunnelbana i den bästa av världar. Anita Goldman. Boring. About how it is to be jewish in Stockholm. Only read about 1/3.
Right now I am reading The Plague, Albert Camus. I have read bout 1/5 but I am thinking about switching. To the Davincy Code perhaps?
And several more that I have forgotten about.
All posts by Peppar
Equilibrium
I just saw Equilibrium. One of the best movies I have seen in a very long time. Reminded me very much of Matrix, but a Matrix done right, a Matrix with an ending. See it!!
Buying
Why should it be so hard to buy things? Last week J bought some new stuff including a dishwasher. It turns out that the dishwasher wasn’t as good as the salesperson promised. Johanna told the shop last Saturday and we have been talking with them every day since. The thing was that Johanna wanted a model with AAA classification (energy consumption) and she was originally set on a Miele 647. The sales person said that she could get the 641 for a better price and it had a lower sound level, 46dB (the 647 had 48dB). Yesterday we found out that the 641 actually has a sound level of 51dB!! As it is no longer generally available (last years model) we cannot find any technical information on it in Sweden but checking around the net we found specs for it that it actually is a 51dB machine in UK, Norway, Finland, Germany, Netherlands and USA. Nice. NOT!
I lost 600:- yesterday on the stock market, not so nice either. Got to get it back on Monday đ
This morning we went downtown and I totally lost all energy. It took me several hours before I got it back during the afternoon. For lunch we had stuffed bell peppers followed by “maräng swiss”. Yummy. But I ate toooooo much đ
Preschool
Tovah’s preschool training lasted one day, and not a full day either. Only 2 hours. Yesterday was her first day alone and it worked perfectly until she saw mummy and didn’t want to go home. As of next week she will start going 5 hours per day, 3 days per week. This morning I left her at the preschool and she was really happy to get there.
Yesterday I had my first real spinning session and I was really beat when I got home. 32 minutes active cycling. Nice but it does not beat my own cycling during the summer. A spinning bike doesn’t behave the same as a real bike.
Today I did day trading on the Stockholm Stock Exchange for the first time in my life. I actually earned 20:- (SEK).I one “bet” 2700 but tomorrow I will bring up the stake. I have given myself 58000:- to play with and if I had staked all that today I would have earned more than 400:-. Not bad for a few minutes work. I bought the stock at 270 and sold at 272, but it actually ended at 275.
In the afternoon I got into a heated discussion regarded budget issues in a group of projects we have. The contracts have been dragging out in time (since April). That is not the thing, but that I get so agitated when discussing these issues. I make myself miserable and my environment likewise. And it makes me really sad that I get angry for no reason đ
Spinning
Went spinning today! It was the first time in my life and it was rather nice. I am going on Wednesday again. This first time was only an introduction lasting 30 minutes but I feel good.
This morning me and J took T to her first day at preschool. She is going to Udden’s preschool, the “Biet” group. This first day she was only there for 1 hour playing on her own. Tomorrow she will be there for 2 hours without me or J around. I am convinced that she will do fine there!
Puh, training takes the energy out of me.
Saw the first half of Kill Bill yesterday. Cool movie. I hope the second half will be just as good đ
Hi!
I am sitting here in the sofa watching TV (Robinsson). This is the first actual TV program I’m watching since last Saturday. I have more and more switched over to only watching series and movies downloaded from the net. Earlier this week I finished the series John Doe which I highly recommend. The availability of so many movies and series (before they get up on the big screen or are aired) totally changes my TV habits!!
Earlier this week I was out at Brändön with my leadership education group (three days) and as always it had its lows in the beginning, but after 1.5 days I felt great. I had a very good session with Jerker where we ironed out a number of issues, both professional and personal. As always I learned a number of new things about myself and I also came to some conclusions. The latter includes that I should not plan for the rest of my life but try to keep the horizon closer. Since the summer the horizon has drifted further and further away from me making all decision huge. The conclusion I have come to regarding my personal future is that I should relax for a while (weeks? months?) and let the future iron out itself. Barbro “painted” me a nice picture where I am standing with one foot on each side of a trench with each arm being pulled by myself in different directions. Her suggestion was to relax, take a good stand and let the solution grew out and show itself. I was out at Brändön Monday to Wednesday and since I got back my energy level has risen and I feel rather good. My trip to San Francisco was very good and relaxing. A climate change is always good, but as soon as I got back my energy disappeared. But as I said, now it is back and I feel rather good!
The only concrete thing that has happened with my work situation is that Kåre now is the division head. It was settled Thursday a week ago and Kåre announced it to the division Monday this week. Unofficially I was demoted before I left for the US, about one month ago.
For recreation I have been reading a lot (a book update will come later) and playing the car racing games Need for Speed Hot Pursuit 2 and Need for Speed Underground. The latter is really cool!!
Last week our dish washer broke down and while I was out at Brändön J went out and but a new one, as well as a new freezer, a new refrigerator and a new microwave oven. Even T got a new toy, a “baby” dish washer đ
Yesterday we watched S.W.A.T. which was a disappointment. A while back we watched Identity and it was really good. I like movies with a new kind of story or a twist in the end.
Blaaaaaaaaa
For the first time in a long time I wrote a long message about how I feel this weekend. I had been writing it on and off during the afternoon and to be honest I forgot about it. While installing a new webcamera under Windows it asked me to restart the computer, and hey I wasn’t doing anything important was I? No, and it rebooted. Of course my blogging tool, w.bloggar doesn’t save anything by autosave and my whole post got lost in /dev/null. đ đ
To summarize, I don’t feel to well this weekend. All agitated and jumpy. I have not been sleeping very well (woke up at 5.30 this morning). Now I have to iron a bit before putting T to bed.
San Francisco 2003
Our photos from San Francisco are now online and can be viewed here.
Laptop with a thin edge?!
I like cool devices and Sony has “done it” for me a couple of times. Their latest laptop, the PCG-X505 is THIN. 9.7mm thick and weighs only 785 grams! Than is thinner than my palm!!! It has a 1GHz processor, 512MB of RAM, and a 10.4-inch display but no wlan built in and all normal connectors are moved to an external mini-dock. Read all about it!
Sound too loud?
Here are some neighbours that got tired of the high volume from a HIFI-store!