Hello from Aspö!

It's been a whirlwind few days, that's for sure. My route to Aspö took me via New York and Barcelona, which isn't the most direct routing. But I am happy to report that all of my complex logistics came through. I made it with all of my stuff safely to our little stuga Friday night.

Special thanks go to my friends: Marcia, who drove me into the city on Friday afternoon, where I was able to meet up with Olle and Annika, with whom I rode in their car down to Stavsnäs.

Friday was a beautiful day, but Saturday started with a gale and snow showers. I fired up the radiators and stayed inside, nice and cozy. It dried out in the afternoon; Olle helped me straighten out the shed door (again), but everything at the house looks like it is in top shape.

On Saturday evening, I joined Olle and Annika, along with our neighbor Karin, for dinner. Besides being a great carpenter, Olle is a heck of a chef as well. He really puts me to shame.

My jet lag caught with me today, so I slept in and then took a long walk around the island. (Photos are available here.) It's sunny but brisk. The forecast is for more snow and rain during the week, so I'll have more time to post on the blog!

An electric wheelbarrow

I came across the website of a Swedish company selling electric wheelbarrows.

The motor is inside the hub of the wheel and it has a great amount of torque. It'd be perfect for pulling things up that steep hill from the Waxholms dock! I could probably use it this weekend when I head out, loaded down with groceries. (Yes, that's right, this weekend! Yay!!)

If I lived there year around, it might be handy to have. But for my infrequent visits, it's better for me to get the exercise.

Their gallery of demonstration photos is quite amusing, it's worth a look.

The Melodifestival grand final!

The show begins in a few hours. I will update this post after the winner is chosen, but I wanted to share my predictions in advance.

The bookies really like Sanna Nielsen, and I do, too. However, I like Sanna because she looks a lot like Sooz, not because of her song. It's a pretty ballad, but frankly, a bit boring for Eurovision in my book.

Next on the bookie's list is Ace Wilder. She's the Avril Lavigne lookalike from the Gotebörg show. I think this is a much catchier song, although I'd like her to work on her costumes and staging.

I still have a soft spot for YOHIO. Swedes love their glam rock, and I think the band is tight and professional. I can see this doing well in the final.

So, what's my pick? My head says Ace, but my heart says YOHIO. I'm going to fudge a little bit and leave it at that.

UPDATE: The bookies called it. In a fantastically close vote (212 to 210), Sanna Nielsen won out over Ace Wilder. I almost got it right!

But then again, YOHIO finished sixth, so I can't give myself too much credit.

Weather stations

Once we have full-time internet connectivity out at our stuga, there are a couple of things I really want to do. First is to install a webcam (or two) so I can monitor the house when we're not there, and to do a bit of video moose hunting.

Secondly is to install a weather station so I can monitor the weather at the house. There are many different ones available. However, from what I've read, they can be expensive and a bit fiddly.

I found the Netatmo recently. It is an indoor/outdoor unit, and the cool thing is that it is internet-enabled right out of the box. I didn't realize just how cool it was until recently, when I found their weather map. It aggregates observations from every Netatmo onto a world map. You can zoom out, pan around, and look at real-time observations all over the world.

The closest one I could find is on Värmdö. Perhaps one day, there'll be an Aspö reading on the world map!

Melodifestival: Lidköping

This was the 'second chance' show. Frankly, my expectations were low, given the level of the performances so far. I wasn't that keen on the winners, and this contest of the second-best didn't fill me with hope.

Going through to the final are Helena Paparizou, who strikes me as a bit too old for this sort of song, and Linus Svenning, who spent way too much time at the tattooists'.

I spoke to Marcia over the weekend, and she was very disappointed with the acts this year. I sense that she's not the only one who feels this way. Perhaps the Melodifestival format needs to be refreshed? I don't watch any of the singing competitions on TV these days, but it seems there must be a way to attract and nurture more talent than what's being put on the Swedish stage these days.

The BBC has gone the opposite route of our contest-loving Swedes. They have found their own new artist and commissioned a customized Eurovision-winning song. It was simply announced yesterday, with nary a television show, let alone a contest, in sight!

Here is (the very Britishly named) Molly Smitten-Downes with the UK entry, "Children of the Universe". I believe the Eurovision rules only allow 6 people on stage, so she'll have to prune her backing band a bit. But it has a good chorus, and Molly can sing, which is becoming less common these days.

Stay tuned for my prediction before the Melodifestival grand final!!!

A prefab cabin in Norway

The fine folks at Dwell have an article on a little jewel of a Scandinavian prefab home.

The 'Woody' is quite a bit smaller than our house, only 35 square meters. It is designed to be a true cabin, not a second home. For example, the shower is outdoors, which is traditional for a summer home. It also reduces space (and water) usage.

In such small homes, things with more than one purpose are valued. For example, Margaret and Janne's Aspö house had a cutting board that hinged up during meal preparation. It was out of the way the 95% of time it wasn't needed, but was up in a heartbeat when it was.

I am looking at doing something like that in our own kitchen; more to come on that as I develop ideas!

Melodifestival: Örnsköldsvik

Another so-so contest last night, this time from Örnsköldsvik. Don't get me wrong, nothing against the nice people from Örnsköldsvik, they put on a good show. It's just that none of the acts were that inspiring yet again.

The two acts that went through to the final were those Eurodisco warhorses, Alcazar, participating for the fifth time, and Anton Ewald, whom my mother thought looked to be "about 12 years old", although he is actually 20, and a Melodifestival veteran as well.

The second chance acts were a young girl who looked way out of her depth and an generic hard-rock band. To me, there's not been any kind of a standout act this year. I can't fault the production or the staging; SVT has done a super job as usual. However, I can't really say any of the finalists so far have a chance at winning at Eurovision.

A Swedish friend has told me that voting is down quite a bit this year, and I can see why. I wonder if the contest needs to be revamped for next year? Perhaps a refocus on quality over quantity? Of course, I'm not the target audience, that's for sure!

Astrophotography

I've experimented with taking some photos of the Aspö night sky over the years. It is fun, and I look forward to developing my photographic skills.

However, one of the recent tweeters on the Swedish official website, Göran Strand, is a master of the art. He has a number of breathtaking photos on his website. I urge everyone to take a look!

An ergonomically correct toilet

Everyone knows I love my toilet technologies here on this blog.

I recently came across a new type of toilet that was designed by a team in the UK. The idea is that the sitting position is much more conducive to the actual act of eliminating one's waste.

Most non-Western toilets are more of a 'squat' type, and apparently this is more natural and efficient for the body.

I'm not too sure about this, myself. I would have to give it a try... but not in the middle of a busy office building, I think!

Melodifestival: Göteburg

I thought things in Gothenburg were a little 'meh'. There weren't any really good acts, or more interestingly, any really bad ones.

The most entertaining was Outrigger, with some sort of death-metal act with all the performers in cages and the lead singer in a straightjacket (and a Hannibal Lecter mask for good measure). Although afterwards, they all seemed like really nice guys. They made it to the 'second chance' final, but I can't see them going past that.

The first winner was Ace Wilder, an Avril Lavigne lookalike, who is apparently successful in Germany (but then, so is David Hasselhoff).

Oscar Zia, a boy singer with just a hint of endearing pudginess, also went to the final. His staging was very inventive, with he and his dancers partially behind a set of suspended TV screens. Unfortunately, SVT keeps a tight rein on the videos, so I can't share the performance here. I did find an audience video which gives a good sense of what it's like to be in the crowd:

There are a couple of great websites with Eurovision news in English: eurovision.tv and and esctoday.com, in case anyone's interested in reading more than my weekly missives!

Changing IKEA drawer fronts

I referred obliquely about a 'small kitchen remodel' back when we were last at the house.

Long-time readers with a good memory might remember that I had intended to mix and match the drawer fonts into a colorful pattern. Unfortunately, everything I had intended to buy was discontinued, so we went with straight white.

We found a few black and green glass drawer fronts on sale some time later for the ridiculous price of 5 kronor each. I couldn't pass up that deal, so I bought a few and promptly forgot about them.

I installed the small black ones to break up the white a bit. The green ones are for the drawers just below, but I couldn't figure out how to install those so we will wait on that idea for the time being. (A quick look at the IKEA website shows that wood is apparently what's in these days for kitchen cabinets.)

The other funny thing was that I could not figure out how to disconnect the drawer fronts. I assumed there was a trick, but for the life of me, I could not see it. A quick search on You Tube brought me the answer in under a minute. The range of knowledge available on the internet is amazing.

My next visit is set!

I'll be coming to Sweden on the 13th of March, and I plan to spend around 10 days in Sweden with Marcia & Rutger, but mostly spending a week out on Aspö.

Astute readers will note the "I" in the previous sentence. This is a solo trip for me. Sooz has a chance to go skiing with friends during that time. I've also been spending most of my time at home these days, so she could probably use a break from me, too!

It's also a bit cold for her liking out on the islands. Weather history for the past few years indicate a 46% chance of snow, and temps around freezing at best.

The other reason I'm going at this time is that I'm going to be in Europe anyway, Barcelona, to be precise, on March 12th. I was able to buy a cheap ticket on Norwegian Air to fly direct from there to Stockholm. The timing was perfect.

And why, might one ask, would I be in Barcelona on March 12? The UEFA website gives a clue!

Melodifestival: Lidköping

Another typically uneven affair from Lidköping this evening. The highlight was the return of Sanna Nielsen, with "Glow", a power ballad that will do well in the final. I also thought Sanna looked a lot like Sooz with her latest haircut:

The other act that went through was Panetoz, a five-piece rap group who are apparently pretty popular already. They were likable for sure, but I can't see them winning the big prize.

Through to the second chance was Martin Stenmarck, a previous winner in 2005, and, according to Sooz, quite handsome. Details in English are available here.


Speaking of haircuts, Manda Nilsénius didn't make it through with "Glow", and I put all of the blame on her stylist:

Those nails! The Lena Dunham tattoos! And that ponytail!! I mean, what the hell...?

Why are Swedes so good at pop music?

Apropos of the ongoing Melodifestival, that's a good question; many have given this subject much thought. Marcia sent me an interesting article from the Atlantic magazine that looks at Swedish pop dominance in some depth. It's worth a full read.

The summary quote is: "no other small country has the right combination of language skills, cultural values, tight-knit industry, and supportive public policy to transform itself into the music-exporting phenomenon that Sweden has become."

And it's not just ABBA (despite my cheesy photo here); Swedish influence is still all over today's pop charts. The Washington Post has a good summary of recent Swedish acts. I'm a big follower of the Swedesplease music blog.

Although I have nearly 40,000 songs on my iPod Classic, we often end up listening to the radio when we're on Aspö. Despite its being almost comically middle-of-the-road, we love Skärgårds Radio as they mix in local hits with the Shania Twain. Sooz has many Swedish songs on her own iPod's playlist. We've spent many a hot Texas night, listening to our little island radio station over the internet, wishing we were back in Sweden!

The Buddy Holly Center in Lubbock

I have lots of free time now, so I am planning to go on a visit to Buddy's home town.

I'll go soon. But not today.

Melodifestival: Malmö

Thanks to the miracle of SVT Play, and for better or worse, the reliable Melodifestival show was back yesterday.

YOHIO, a favorite of mine from last year, was back with a winning song, "To the End", which was very glam-rock, leaving behind last year's androgyny.

The other act that went through was Ellen Benediktson with "Songbird". It's not going to be a winner in the final, but at least Ellen can sing, unlike most of the other acts.

The amusing opening number poked fun at Denmark's winning song and their use of a flute. Many, many flutes were thrown into a fire onstage. We'll see if the Danish-poking theme continues over the next five weeks!

Lars the handyman

I've mentioned hiring a handyman, Lars Dahlin, to do a few things around our house. I posted recently about our discussion to fix a few leaks, but what Lars and I talked about a lot was cleaning the deck. He's an expert at helping restore island decking to clean condition.

Note: not our deck!!

Lars' secret is a long and patient washing with a scrubber, followed by Thompson's Water Seal. This will brighten and clean up our deck, and lock in the new look for at least a few years.

Sooz and I really want the deck to look less grey, so we are going to ask Lars to do that for us. I found a photo that represents the kind of change we want to see.

The other thing Lars and I have talked about doing is painting the front of the house. I've blogged about that ad nauseum, so I won't go into it any more here. Suffice it to say we'll be using the medium-grey linseed oil paint, and there will be a lot more on that subject coming up!

The Melodifestival is back!

It starts this Saturday in Malmö, then makes its way around the country each Saturday until the grand finale in Stockholm on March 8. The format is the same: 8 acts for each of the first 4 weeks, followed by a "second chance" round. The 10 winners slug it out in the final for the right to represent Sweden in the Eurovision Song Contest.

As I've written before, Sweden has the longest and most elaborate selection process of any country by far. They are usually the last to name their representative; many other countries have a single show to select their winning song. Others are selected by a jury of experts, with no public input at all.

Not the Swedes, however! Half of the Melodifestival's 32 acts are chosen purely by the public; the other half are chosen by 'experts.' The public vote is a huge, although not sole, determiner in choosing the winner. Swedish state television (SVT) has the right to overrule the public vote if they believe the  vote is inappropriate (say, for a comedy or protest act that has no chance of winning).

I will keep up with the contest events, of course. The SVT website for the Melodifestival has a great deal of info about the contest and contestants.  It also has put up a superb data analysis tool which is fascinating. Data on every song by every artist for every year can be looked at in many different ways. For example, which country has given Sweden the most points over the years? (No surprise: Norway. The fewest? Montenegro.)

A local news story on broadband internet

I made an inquiry of the progress of the laying of the broadband fiber cables in the archipelago. My faithful correspondent, Nilla on Nämdö, sent me a copy of a local news article about the ongoing work.

It's from a local Skärgården newspaper; the article is here in Swedish and auto-translated into English. I thought it was an fun read (in either language) as it shows the work involved to lay so much cable among many islands. The one disappointing thing was the news that phase 1 won't be complete until later this year. Aspö is in phase 2, so my hopes of broadband this summer are dimming.

This was the first I'd heard of the Skärgården.se website. I plan to look it it a lot more frequently. There's a bunch of good local information there, and I can practice my Swedish a bit, too.

A visit from Wille

I've neglected to report on a visit to our little house by our very own Wille in late November.

When I spoke to Lars Dahlin on my last visit, we reviewed the water leaks around a couple of windows around the house. He suggested I call Willie as he thought they were pretty bad.

I did, and sent him a few photos. He called Stefan at X-House and they agreed it needed to be looked at. Stefan gave Willie a few supplies and suggestions and he went out to our house to seal the windows (and door) at the front of the house.

He texted me these 4 photos of his handiwork. Willie did say he will probably come back in the summer with his tool box and we will look more closely.

It's likely I will be out at Aspö more this summer, so it would be good (and educational) for me to work together with him on addressing any other leaks!

A report from the Consumer Electronics Show

The CES is the big coming-out party at the beginning of the year for the newest wild and wonderful gadgets and technologies. Being a bit of a nerd myself, I love to see all of the crazy stuff that comes out. (My favorite so far is a wifi-connected crockpot.)

However, I did see something that might be practical as well as fun. A company called 'FLIR' has announced a "Personal Thermal Imager" for the iPhone.

I can see a number of practical uses; finding insulation leaks, for example. That would be handy in both Sweden and Texas! It would also be fun to spot a moose in the woods, or Ollie in the backyard.

I'm not sure I'll be buying one just yet. The idea that something which used to cost hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars is now just an iPhone accessory is something I really get a kick out of!

Photos from Annika and Olle

Annika and Olle are out on Aspö today and they both sent me a bunch of lovely photos. I've updated her set on Flickr.

Sweden's new official website

I saw recently that the country's official website, Sweden.se, has had a makeover. I have had a visit and it is fantastic. Visually and practically, it is a joy to use. I've already spent too much time looking through it!

The website is just part of an overall digital brand/design initiative covering all of the country's online operations. Söderhavet, the firm doing the work, has posted a great explanation of their ideas and tools in providing a consistent identity for the country. It, too, is worth a read.

Sweden's culinary renaissance

CNN Traveller magazine has a fantastic article on the rise of Swedish (and Scandinavian) cuisine. The most interesting part of this resurgence is a focus on chefs using "as many local ingredients in season as they can. The only next trend in gastronomy is whatever is growing next season.”

I've had a few great meals in Stockholm this year; a summer dinner in Söder, and a high-end pizzeria for Camille's birthday. (I can't forget Olle's great fish supper out on Aspö, either!) But our meals usually center around simpler, catch-as-catch can eating on Aspö. There, the menus are more set by logistics and the social calendar.

I am jealous of Annika's and Karin's green thumbs. They manage to grow an array of fruits and vegetables over the summer. When and if I live a whole season out in the islands, I hope to grow at least a portion of our own suppers. Perhaps we can start with herbs, at least.

Changes

Regular readers know that I work for a global airline, and I have worked in many places in the US and Europe. The travel perks of being an airline employee enables us to have a little house outside of Stockholm, yet still visit it easily from wherever we're living at the time.

From today, it's more accurate to say that I did work for a global airline. There's been a reshuffle where I work. After more than 30 years, I'm no longer with my employer. A bit unexpectedly, I find myself starting the new year without a job.

The good news: We get to keep our industry travel privileges as part of my departure, so we'll still be able to fly back and forth. I've always wanted to spend much more than two weeks out at our little stuga, and I may well be able to do that now. A shame my workplace freedom comes in January, though. We really can't head to Aspö next week!

The bad news is that I'm not ready (or financially able) to retire just yet; I need to find another job, which will be an odd thing for me after essentially my whole life with one company. Spending a full summer on Aspö would be a dream, but perhaps not the best thing for a career search.

I've always been darned busy with my work, with lots of travel and 24/7 demands on my time. Now I have to transition to being someone who has all the time in the world. Stay tuned over the next few months, it will be an interesting ride.