Unseasonably Warm Season's Greetings

(Photo: Sunset from my kitchen window, 1:32pm today, the Winter Solstice)

It's 5 degrees today, predictions are for 2 degrees on Christmas day. It snowed a bit on Tuesday, but it's all melted. Translation for my Australian readers: that's freakin warm!

A White Christmas is pretty much a given here. This time last year, we had been under a metre of snow for a month already.

It's all academic, though, since I won't in Sweden for chrissy anyway. I'm going civilized this year, I've been invited to spend it with my old friend Wai Keet at Cambridge, with Kings College Choir and all that fancy stuff. Don't worry, I'll regress in time for New Years.

Before that I'll be in London, staying once again in the lavishly appointed bathtub of Jo H. (Egypt Jo, the first of the four Jo's I've travelled or stayed with this year).

I don't have firm plans for NYE yet, but numerous other previously featured personalities including but not limited to Jo S. (i.e. Spain/Norway Jo), Jeremy, Katie H. (Jo H's sister, not KT), Chia, Mikey, and Pedro, will be orbiting London around that time, so I'm sure it'll be great. Could be a bit a logistical mess though, as none of those people know each other at all, association with me being their only common element (aside from general jubbliness). I'm sure something will fall into place.

Anyway, to all my friends:

God Jul (Merry Christmas)
+
Gott Nytt År (Happy New Year)

Last year's New Years resolution was to watch less episodes of Joey. Despite the tractor-beam-like force of temptation, I think I've at least given it a good shot. Time to aim for something bigger.

Last week in San Diego, I met a couple of Aussie gals who had managed to talk, or flirt, their way into The Viper Room* in L.A., which inspired me to the following dream: to get in there, and request that the DJ play TISM's (He'll Never Be An) Old Man River**.

I figure it'll go down pretty well - "That's what he said!" - Badoom tish!

Might be asking a bit much to achieve this over the next year, so maybe it's a
Rest of my Life Resolution.

Noo York

No trip to the USA would be complete without a night on the turps in NYC. And turps there was! Also, there was night.

Katie's blog has a couple of pics and unconfirmed rumours.

Mat and KT were the perfect hosts. With less than 24 hours between my arrival and subsequent departure, we ate/drank/saw/discussed (in no particular order): A lovely birthday cake, Huge chunks of red meat (Although I think we embarrassed ourselves slightly by sharing one burger between three people), neckbearded college students playing with light-sabers in a local park, Will Smith's man-wife, how to invest a $1 note in a new york club, hot apple cider, the plight of russian dancing bears, Britney Spears's genitals, amateur pole dancers, bagels from the bagelry, large quantities of alcohol, fat aggressive squirrels, tea with soy milk... In fact, with such a quick visit it became necessary drastically reduce the usual time delay between something happening, and the subsequent nostalgic reminiscence about it happening. E.g. sitting inside a burger joint, tearfully looking through the photos we took outside the same burger joint, just minutes before.

I'm now in stockholm airport, about to fly back to Umeå. Will up some more pics when I am in position to do so. Miraculously, I managed to sleep for almost the entire flight back to Sweden. Feelin' Fresh.

Update: back home, time for some pics, care of KT (but carefully chosen to avoid duplicating those on her blog)

SUPER SPECIAL!



Me, My Crotch, and KT (wasn't that a Jim Carrey movie?)



Mat and I remember the fallen (pigs and cows)

Note the guy in the background. The best part of his whole night was being in the background of our photo. Honestly.

Good friends, great cider!



Darth Tard



Mat and I brazenly sitting in full view of the clocktower.

Sandy Aygo, Part the Second

Yet another successful revolution of the sun without dying. Huzzah!

The conference is in full swing. Last night some folks from General Atomics took a few of us on a tour of the local Tokamak. What's that? Well, I can now inform you that it's a toroidal nuclear fusion reactor.

What's it got to do with control systems? The plasma is held in a donut shaped cavity by controlling the currents through various coils around it. Can't let the plasma touch the sides, because it's quite hot at 230 million degrees!

Here's the general plan:



And our tour guide standing in front of a life-sized cross-section mockup:



The real thing is somewhat obscured by pipes and wires:



twas very tempting to swipe one of these signs for my bedroom wall:



It was all very impressive!
Also, we got a free dinner.

My plans to dive earlier in the week didn't come through (the seas were angry that day, my friend) but if conditions are better tomorrow I'm going to sneak out of the conference for one of the sessions, go for a quick dive, then come back in time to do my presentation, perhaps with some kelp still tangled in my hair.

Sandy Aygo, Part the First

Sandy Aygo is, like Spain was, a pseudo trip home to aussie for me. For one thing, it's sunny and 25 degrees.

I'm staying at an awesome hostel, on 5th and G street, two or three blocks from where we stayed for Steve's wedding. Half the people here are Australian, including several of the staff. During the day they play triple J streaming over the internet through speakers all round the hostel.

This is my 2nd day here. Yesterday, I met a gal from melbourne at breakfast and we joined forces for the day's sightseeing. She's doing a PhD in history, and is over in the states for a few months travelling around researching sources and what-not. Twas interesting hearing about what life is like on the dark side (humanities).

We went to La Jolla, (people say it's pronounced La Hoya, but I don't believe them), a site fondly remembered for the picnic day with Jess's fam. There were arseloads of seals about:





Wikkid. Tomorrow I'm going diving at the same spot, so hopefully I'll encounter a few underwater. Last night melbourne-girl and I went to Yardhouse (its deja vu all over again), a pub which has about 120 different beers on tap - apparently the largest selection in the world - and tried a few tasty local numbers.

This morning I met up with my contact at the local university, who had received my dive certification card in the mail from my pez. Tis in my wallet now. Noice.

More news as it comes to hand!

Off I go again

I've got my "Stay Classy San Diego" shirt packed, and in 45 minutes I begin another journey westward to that land of contrast and brightness, the U.S. of A.

Last night I had some drinks at the local with some mates for my birthday. Turns out the local is pretty quiet on a Thursday, for most of the night we were the only ones there. But that's okay, all the better to talk amongst ourselves, and listen to the smooth sounds of DJ Fresh, whose catch-phrase was "be there or be squared" - nothing if not fresh.

Twas nice, except that one girl who had promised to bake me birthday cookies turned up cookieless. The situation was smoothed over with a promise of postal cookies later on, thus narrowly avoiding an international incident the likes of which we could all do without.

Those of you on the edge of your seat, waiting to find out what happened in the diver certification card fiasco previously reported - my parents found it in my old room at home, and mailed it to an San-Diego-residing Indian friend of a Sweden-residing Russian colleague of mine, from whom I can collect it when I arrive. Perfect!

I'm not quite sure why I chose to leave behind my dive card when, just looking on my desk now, I clearly chose (at least implicitly) to bring to Sweden my Blockbuster video rental card, several cityrail tickets, my old UNSW student card, and somebody else's old student card which I only had because it gave me access to the dive club gear room. I guess its just one of those mysteries of the deep we keep hearing about.

Anyway, next time you hear from me, I'll be abusing the staff at Dick's* once more.

* - pub in S.D. famous for its rude staff, and as the scene of much hilarity during the recent Steve&Jess's- wedding-themed trip which was widely reported in August.

Miscellaneous Debris

Check out this page, from the Westboro Baptist Church in America:
www.godhatessweden.com
as mentioned in this segment on the chaser.

Truth is I've never seen a country as peaceful, calm, safe, polite, friendly as Sweden, not by a long long way. Not far from the christian ideal, I would have thought. Everyone here is atheist, but I think that's neither here nor there.

On the other hand, I just switched on the tele, and they're showing a live feed, with commentry, of a transvestite rodeo. I'm not kidding.

Either way, today I went to IKSU Downhillmässen, a big sorta information day for all the skiing coming up over the next six months, oh boy it had me licking my lips. Caught up with some folks from last seasons trips, and met a few new entries. Holy moly.

Also present was one of sweden's most famous Xtreme skiers. Now, I can't really vouch for his skiing, in that I've only seen him stand around and chat to people, but his dreadlocks were pretty Xtreme. You could rig up a spanish armarda with that head of hair.

My hair, on the other hand (or, perhaps, in the other hand) is currently being pulled out. By me. Because I can't find my PADI diver certification card. I can barely even remember what it looks like, since I've all my recent diving with the uni club it has been unnecessary. If I recall correctly, the last time I actually used it was 3 years ago, when I went to a conference in Hawaii and dived in and underwater volcano... ah, memories... but I thought I brought it to Sweden... Could this spell the end of my diving plans? Hopefully Sandy Aygo dive shops are dodgy enough not to require one...

But keep inhaling those pumpkin pies, little new yorkers, you might be my only hope. And start the bath running, or the sink if you don't have one.