Got a message that my friend that is fighting cancer (mentioned two days ago) is feeling better after a few days at the hospital! I feel so helpless in this situation. You want to do something to help but you cannot really do anything directly. It is very frustrating!!!

It is now rather clear that the extra “tax” I mentioned two days ago will affect the department and not my division directly. That is a relief but it will still influence the department result this year. The sum is 2.5% of the whole turnover of the department.
I can now also say what it is all about as it has been all over the press. The cost relates to Dick Schefström leaving the University after making enemies with many researchers and management at the University. As a “punishment” he had to leave resign and for that he got 2.5 million SEK (about $/€ 260000). I have a hard time seeing that as a punishment though. Perhaps, I should make some real enemies as well and get forced to leave with 2.5 million in the pocket 😉

I just got word that the close friend I mentioned yesterday is in stable condition after the surgery! A real relief!

Can’t Telia ever make anything right? That is a slogan I hears quite often and Telia hasn’t earned it for nothing. The latest thing not working is their Unified Messaging system where they are supposed to connect their fax/phone system with the web allowing to e.g. see my incoming FAX messages on the web (and even to get them as emails). This system was rather reliable until about 2 years ago when they redid the whole backend and since then it has been very unreliable :-/
I am sitting here waiting for a fax I have in my fax box to appear on line and in my mail box but it never seems to show up. The fax is actually a recipe for waffles from the hotel I stayed at last week in Umeå!

I am currently taking part of 18 months long management education as part of my employment at Luleå University of Technology (I am an assistant professor). The first part was the whole first week of February and the main goal of that was to get to know yourself better. I have to admit that the week was very tough and very intensive, I was “dead” all of the weekend after I got home.
Today, was the first follow up with the organizers (Personal Management International – PMI) and I sat down for 1.5 hours with Freddie Lyngeraa and it felt really good to discuss all the issues again. Doesn’t it always feel good to be the total focus of a conversation 😉
The real challenge is to apply everything one has learned in the process to ones daily life, both professionally and at home! I am convinced though that I have taken some clear steps in the right direction towards becoming a better being. Have you noticed a change? Please, let me know!
If you get the opportunity to take a personal development course, take the chance, it might be your best experience in your life!

Just wanted to write that I am very proud of my graduate student Mikael Drugge. I just read a draft of a paper he is writing on and it is very good. This is the cyborg I mentioned yesterday!

I just saw the movie Sällskapsresan aka The Charter Trip. This is one of the best Swedish movies ever made but if you are not a Swede you would probably not get the humor 🙂 If you haven’t seen it, see it, if you have see it again! I must have seen it at least 10 times and it only gets better each time 🙂 Plot summary from IMDB:

“Stig-Helmer Olsson isn’t the fashionable, jet-set type, but for the first time in his life, he’s gonna travel abroad. He takes a trip to the Canary Islands over the christmas. Before leaving, his doctor asks him to bring a package to a friend of his. Without Stig-Helmer knowing it, the package contains 50,000 SEK, which of course is illegal to take out of the country. However, Stig-Helmer’s bag with the package disappears at the airport. Dr. Levander’s friend believes that Stig-Helmer has stolen the money and is anxious to get them back.”

Going to Umeå and need a hotel? I can very highly recommend Comfort Hotel Uman on Storgatan 52. I have traveled quite a lot in my life (that makes sound really old 😉 and I have to say that this is one of the best hotels I have ever stayed at. The welcoming I got from the lady in the reception was really overwhelming and I felt “at home” immediately.
The hotel is rather small with 89 rooms but it offers large nice rooms, sauna with free beer, free dinner buffee (simple but very tasty, salads, “sill”, bread, pasta and meat sauce) server until 22.00, normal size breakfast buffee with fresh waffles. On Mondays the manager offers a free glass of wine. And if you enjoy movies, I know I do, then “Filmstaden” is just 100 meters away.

The Blog wave finally caught up with me and I have started yet another journal type service over. The first I ever started was actually a service I called “news” where I reviewed ALL new websites that appeared on the WWW. How did I manage to do that you might ask? Well, this was back in 1993-94, before Internet was invented ;-). Back then everybody that created a new site (or modified it heavily) posted a message on a Usenet news group (also known as Google groups) and I checked it out and wrote a short review. I kept this up for about 1 year (updating it daily) but after mid 1994 it just became to much work (to many sites to review). Unfortunately, I don’t have any copy of these news pages anymore but if anybody out there that was around on the WWW 1993-94, and have a copy of this pages I would REALLY appreciate an email!
My family and I will be adding “interesting” blogs about what is happening in our lifes in Luleå!