The Graduate

On a personal note, Grant graduated from Elon University this weekend. The good news is that he's starting a new job straightaway. The bad news is that he won't be able to join us in Sweden.

I'm disappointed, but I remember that he can't visit us because he has a job, so that's very good news.

Congratulations, Grant!

Mackmyra Whiskey

I'm not a whiskey drinker. However, it's not uncommon to end a meal out on Aspö with a little taste of spirits. Having access to (relatively) cheap Scotch at Heathrow duty-free has made it easy for us to bring over a few interesting bottles, either as gifts, or for serving ourselves.

I had heard of Mackmyra, a locally-made Swedish whiskey which was apparently well-regarded by those in the know. It was available at the Systembolaget, although at quite a high price. Not really being a spirit drinker, I always passed it by, preferring to spend my kronor on my beloved Pripps, or perhaps a nice box of wine.

Earlier this year, I decided to see if Mackmyra was available in the USA. It was, but hard to find. Being a Texas resident, mail order wasn't possible. My local vendors weren't able (or, I think, willing) to order me just one bottle.

A Scandinavian connection came to the rescue. I found a store in Minneapolis, close to my family, which had it on their shelves. My sister picked me up a bottle, so now I can say I'm a Mackmyra drinker. (I did the math, and the cost to me in Minnesota was exactly half the cost in Sweden.)

Sooz likes it quite a lot; she's much more of an expert than I am. I've had a few sips in the evening, and it's growing on me.

I might be a bad luck charm for the company, though. Not long after I obtained my bottle, the distillery announced losses, and a retrenching of their business. It appears they'll be focused on their home markets, with no more sales in the USA.

My sister got me another bottle before they disappeared. If I do acquire a taste, I'll have to pay Swedish prices!

Cafe Saturnus

Sooz and I were watching House Hunters International the other night about a couple looking for an apartment in the swanky Östermalm neighborhood of Stockholm. Sadly, the episode isn't available online, but suffice it to say the asking prices were in the $1.5 million range.

The episode did serve to remind me about my visit to Café Saturnus in Östermalm last March. I went there for brunch with Marcia & Rutger and their friend Patrick. We had a fabulous meal, everyone was very nice, and the place was as trendy-hipster as it could be.

The New York Times wrote a review a few years ago about Saturnus and a number of other fashionable Stockholm bakeries. I'm happy to report the café is still thriving, and the bulle are just as supersized.

A messge from Lars today

I received a bunch of info from our handyman Lars today. He is almost finished with washing and sealing our deck, and he is very happy with the results so far.

Through the miracle of iPhone technology, he sent along a little video of the process. It's obvious the deck is much lighter underneath the scrubbed portion! We are looking forward to seeing it in person in just under three weeks.

I don't believe the painting will be done by the time we arrive, however. It's not yet consistently warm enough to paint safely. Who knows? I might be able to be part of the painting process when we're there.

A six-hour workday

News arrives from Gothenburg about an experiment with a group of municipal workers. A group of employees will work a 6-hour work day (with full pay) to see if they are more productive than another group working a traditional full day.

Part of this is the left-wing local government flexing its muscles in favor or worker's rights. But there is science behind it, too. There is a correlation between shorter working hours and greater productivity. German workers, for example, work fewer hours on average than their European counterparts, yet have the highest productivity. The OECD has a great data set online that tracks many statistics about work hours and productivity across developed countries.

I've blogged before about happiness, and how Scandinavian countries usually lead the pack in that measure. Work/life balance is an important component of that formula. It will be interesting to see the results of this experiment!

Conchita Wurst is our Eurovision winner!

Our Danish hosts put on a fantastic show last night. It was a perfect mix of whistlers, trampolinists, rappers, trapeze artists, erotic butter-churners, circular pianists, and in the end, a bearded lady won it all.

Austrian drag queen Conchita Wurst ended up winning fairly comfortably, although the country & western duo from the Netherlands came a respectable second, and Sweden's Sanna Nielsen finished third. My sister somehow managed to pick first, second, and third places correctly. Seeing how I manage to only pick the winner every 5 years, I'm amazed at that!!

The final line-up is set

Another great show from Copenhagen today. The last ten acts were chosen, including Swiss whistlers, Greeks on trampolines, Slovenian flautists, and everyone's favorite transgender belter, Conchita Wurst.

The final running order has been set, and the United Kingdom are in the coveted last spot. Sweden is exactly in the middle at 13th. As I wrote before, going later (at least in the last five) is far better for the final vote.

A couple of news stories have surfaced today, too. The Economist reports on an analysis of voting patterns, which finds that "block voting" of neighboring countries is not as prevalent as some think.

For my American readers, the New York Times has a good recap from the U.S. perspective.

It looks to be a super show on Saturday. We will be having our usual Eurovision party in the evening Texas time, so I will resist the urge to see the result live!!

The first semi-final is over

Thankfully, Sanna Nielsen and Sweden made it through to the final, as did Aram from Armenia, so the favorites survived.

Rounding out the ten were Montenegro, a hunky guy from Hungary, Russian twins (whose selection was roundly booed for what I assume political reasons), Ukraine (who featured a guy on a hamster wheel and were roundly cheered for perhaps the same reasons), Azerbaijan, plucky little San Marino, the Netherlands (with an odd California-country rock duo), and a bunch of colorful dudes from Iceland.

Even better was that Marcia and Camille were also watching from Stockholm so we were able to keep up a text chat in real time. Perfect.

It was a textbook broadcast: lots of charmingly stilted banter from the three hosts, hokey little interstitial videos, and a bizarre intermission dance number. Very well done, Copenhagen!

The countdown to Eurovision has begun!

We are only one week away from the big show. Actually, things are hotting up already in Copenhagen; all of the acts and their entourages are in town, drumming up support, and practicing on the big stage.

The first semi-final is only 3 days away, on Tuesday the 6th; the second semi is May 8th. Sixteen countries will compete in each semi-final for ten places in Saturday's show. Sweden's entry, Sooz's look-alike Sanna Nielsen, performs "Undo" on Tuesday. One potential sticking point is that she sings 4th out of the 16 acts, and going early is usually bad news. (In the past seven years, all of the winners have come from the final 5 songs performed.)

I admit I didn't like it at first, but after hearing it on Swedish radio these past weeks, it is growing on me. Interestingly enough, the bookies have it as the second favorite in the betting!

Who's the bookie's favorite, you ask? Why, that would be Aram MP3, with "Not Alone."

It's not bad, actually. It appears the bookies are going for ballads this year. However, he has an even worse spot in the semi-finals, going first on Tuesday. Ugh.

And who has the longest odds of winning? at 250-1, it's Tijana from the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia with "To the Sky." The video for the song has a nice eurodisco thump and lots of beefcake if you're into that sort of thing:

But it's the live performance from the Macedonian final that shows why bookies have it at such long odds:

I will be reporting after the lineups are set on Thursday. It looks like another great show!!!

Security

Last fall, I met with Lars, a local handyman who is going to clean and seal our deck, and (finally) paint the front of the house this spring. I've been pestering him with videos and emails about exactly what I want these past few weeks. He has withstood all of my input with good grace.

Lars recently told me he's retired from the police force and will be working full-time on a firm that offers security and management services in the archipelago. Their website, obevakning.se, (in English here) is one of the most beautiful and professional I've seen.

The idea is a good one. Most of the people I know on Aspö are there quite frequently, so keeping an eye on one's property is easy for them. But many more island residents aren't.

A guy like me is a perfect candidate for Lars' services: far away, and with little ability to address problems as they occur. Fortunately, I am blessed with such great neighbors as Olle and Annika, who really go out of their way to look after our house, especially during the winter.

Although I don't see myself using his security services, it is good to know somebody like Lars, both personally and professionally. And his website is a real winner!

Another incinerating toilet

I found a fascinating article about a project which combines a bunch of my favourite toilet-related things: high-tech design, environmental solutions for the third world, and (especially) waste incineration.

The Solar Bio-Char toilet is being developed at the University of Colorado in Boulder. Solar power is used to generate very high temperatures, which turn waste into a sanitary charcoal. It's like my beloved Cinderella, except it uses the sun rather than electricity.

Given sanitation issues in much of the third world (more people have a cell phone than have access to a sanitary toilet), a self-contained system such as this could make a significant improvement in public health for many millions of people.

Boulder is a good place for such a project, as it is one of the sunniest places in the US. (It's also Sooz's alma mater!)

A home in Nova Scotia

A friend recently sent me a link to an off-the-grid house in Nova Scotia. The article is much longer than my usual links, but is really worth the read.

The house is off the grid by choice, and the design and living decisions driven by that choice are really interesting. Real-time feedback allows the residents to alter their behavior to meet the energy that is available. In fact, the owners host local schoolkids to see how the house works.

Another thing I liked in the article were the number of construction photos included. Usually, these kinds of pieces just show the finished house in a carefully-edited state of cleanliness. This time, I got a much better sense of what it was like to build and live in the house, which is what I'm after in the blog.

Personnummers

When we moved to Sweden in 1989, it was immediately apparent that the most important thing we needed to be part of Swedish life was a personal identity number, or personnummer. Everyone in Sweden has one; it's like a social security number in the US or national insurance in the UK, but even more so.

In Sweden, even 25 years ago, everything that had to do with the government in any way was tied to one's personnummer. Sooz and I got our own numbers, and I have kept the original document to this day.

When we moved away from Sweden, those numbers were kept, but turned inactive. When we returned to build our stuga, I found we couldn't use them to open our bank account, as personnummers are only for residents. So we had to use a workaround for our bank, the electric company, the tax authorities, etc. Although everything is set now, it was much harder to do without a personnummer. A recent column on The Local describes the problem of the numberless very well.

Workarounds aren't always available. Sooz has been trying to get a bonus card (for discounts and deals) at our local ICA for at least a year. Her application has been either ignored or rejected for various reasons. I called ICA on my last visit and finally got to the bottom of the mystery: we needed a personnummer. Sooz couldn't even get a discount card at the grocery without it. She has a Swedish driver's license, we own a home and pay taxes in Sweden, we're both EU citizens, we both had personnummers, but no number, no grocery card. Annoying.

I heard a story on Swedish radio which indicates I'm not the only one impacted by this numberless status. The National Board of Trade wants authorities to make it easier for foreign nationals to obtain a number, and therefore move more easily into daily life. I'd love to re-activate my old number one day!

The Farnsworth House

Sooz and I flew up to Illinois to tour the famous Farnsworth House. It was an excellent trip, the house is beautiful. I have a flickr page of photos from the visit for anyone interested.

Environmental Stoves

I've blogged a lot about my love for fireplaces.  My head knows it's not a great idea to put one in our little stuga, but my heart still wants one. (I'm not Emily Dickinson, so my head wins that argument. For now.)

As part of my trolling the internet for fireplaces, I came across Envirofit, an organization that designs and sells small stoves for the third world. They're a inventive company with a product that fills a useful niche, and worth a look.

New transportation systems

We've developed a pretty solid public transportation routine for our trips out to Aspö, at least for those times we're not mooching a ride or borrowing Marcia's car!

However, everything's been thrown into confusion now. We used to buy a strip of coupons for our travels on the bus and subway. Each journey simply decremented part of the strip. Anything unused on one visit's strip could be used our next time over.

However, that system has been replaced by a stored-value access card, much like the Oyster cards in the UK. Fill it up with money, and touch the reader whenever you get on a subway or bus. Quick, simple, and much less susceptible to the fraud that paper coupons allowed.

Marcia gave me one of her access cards, I filled it with kronor, and I was on my way. That transition to the new system was smooth.

However, I had another wrinkle when I boarded the Waxholms boat. Many years ago, we bought an access card from Waxholmsbolaget. I could pay 750 kronor and receive 1000 worth of credit on the card. Everytime we traveled, I popped in my card and the boat trip's value was deducted from the 1000. It was quick, simple, and a 25% discount!

When I used my card on my last trip, though, I was told that the cards weren't being used any longer, although it was unclear just what was replacing them. I asked at the ticket office in Stavsnäs and didn't get a full answer. It appeared the Waxholms card was going away in favor of the new access card. But not yet because of technical problems, and the 25% discount was probably going away. I was told to keep my Waxholms card "just in case" but I couldn't refill it just now. Very confusing.

I'm glad to report that it's not just me, the dumb tourist, who's confused. The local skargarden newspaper ran an article (in English and Swedish) recently which captured my confusion perfectly.

I'll be curious to see what system is in place when we're back this June!

This is why I love Eurovision

Austria has announced their entry for next month's Eurovision contest, and it's a doozy. Drag artist Tom Neuwirth, performing as "Conchita Wurst", will be singing "Rise Like A Phoenix" in Copenhagen. I'm sure the broadcasters in places like Turkey are just thrilled.

It's a nice-enough ballad, with a fairly standard video to go along with it. The designer stubble is what sets it apart.

A couple of story updates

The Economist has published a couple of stories lately that touch upon my favorite blog subjects.

First, my February 7th post on Swedish domination of pop music is followed up with news that Swedes are leading the way on music consumption as well as creation. Spotify, a Swedish company, is on the forefront of consumers moving from downloads to streaming. It's an interesting read.

Secondly, it appears tall wooden buildings, or 'plyscrapers', which I wrote about last August, are also gaining further acceptance in the marketplace, according to this recent article.

"Welcome To Sweden"

There's a new TV show on Channel 4 in Sweden. It's about an American who travels to Sweden to live with his girlfriend. It's based on the true story of its writer and star, Greg Poehler.

It's common for English-language shows to be broadcast with subtitles, but this one is a bit different. Although it is a locally-produced show with a local cast, it is largely in English. This has allowed the show to be shown on the NBC network in the US this summer. (Greg's having a well-connected sister also helps, I think.)

There was a pertinent exchange in a recent episode. Greg is at the summer house of his new Swedish family, and the father is always busy working and building. Their conversation describes my life on Aspö perfectly :

Eleanor Pritchard

I stumbled across her website recently, and it is filled with all sorts of beautiful textiles and upholstery. Her style is right up my alley.

My favorite is the 625, perhaps because I'm a TV geek, too!

When I was in Stockholm last week, I visited one of my very favourite stores, the Nordiska Galleriet. 

And what should I see as soon as I walk in? Yes, it's the exact same pattern by the same designer. Amazing. It looks even better in person, too. I was sorely tempted to make a purchase...!

Back in Texas

I've been fighting jet lag the past few days. For some reason, this return trip hit me pretty hard, but I'm returning to normal now.

We'll be back to Sweden in just a couple of months. It looks like we will be able to spend much of this summer out on our island. That's an exciting prospect for both of us.

There's a number of things to write about until we leave, however. Stay tuned!

Time to leave. Sigh.

Of course it was a beautiful sunny (although windy) morning on Saturday when I left! That usually seems to happen.

But I made it to Marcia & Rutger's house with no problem, and we spent a fun weekend together. On Monday I want into the city to do a bit of sightseeing and shopping. I also met up with Marcia, who took me to the Kaknäs tower for lunch. Lots of photos on the flickr page.

Today, I am heading home to Texas, but not without stopping through Manchester on my way back. There is the small matter of a derby tonight. I am hoping to board my flight tomorrow in a jolly mood!

UPDATE: I was in a very jolly mood, indeed!

Checking in

I've spent the past couple of days busy with small projects. Wednesday morning was fairly clear, so I repositioned the TV antenna. Annika and Olle told me they saw lots of water running down the antenna to splash against the side of the house when it rained. So I added a pole to raise it above the roof, allowing any water to stream harmlessly downward.

Of course this meant my cable was too short, so I had to reroute it, which meant more drilling, and going up and down the ladder about 50 times. Doing it myself meant I had to go back and forth inside and outside, taking off my snow boots every time. What should've taken an hour took me five! But I got it done just as the snow started to fall.

Thursday was another snowy day, but as the day progressed, it became warmer. (It was an almost balmy +3°C when I went to bed!) I entertained myself with building a fold-up table to the side of the kitchen counter. I intend it to stay folded 95% of the time, but to pop up to hold dishes when we have people over for dinner. It's an idea I cribbed from Margaret and Janne's house.

I am thinking about perhaps getting a cushion made to cover it, as we did for the seat, to complete the bench look. We'll see if I get Sooz's approval for that!

The heat wave is continuing this afternoon. It's 52F/11C as I write this. The island path, especially down by us,  is a sopping mess right now as the snow is melting quickly. On my walk, I found both of my wellies developed a hole, so my feet became soaking wet. I ran across Ronnie, working his wood chipper, and he loaned me a pair of good boots, which were a godsend.

Photos of all this are on my flickr page, of course.

My Tuesday Jaunt

I had planned to head into Värmdö today to do a bit of shopping. The boat timings are good; I left Aspö around 1045, and was at the Mölnvik bus stop at noon. I had a bit over 4 hours to play with until I caught the bus back to Stavsnäs for a 1655 boat home. So I was away for about 8 hours to accomplish 4 hours of shopping. Not that bad a deal. There were no snowstorms in the forecast, so off I went!

The great thing about Gustavsberg is that it's really designed for those of us who live in the archipelago. There's every kind of store one would want: a Systembolaget for the booze, a giant ICA for the groceries, Bygg-Ole and Jula for building supplies, my favourite McDonalds, along with electronics stores, toy stores, a pharmacy, etc., etc.

Sooz used the Systembolaget's fantastic website to tell me what box wines she preferred. I was able to tell how much was in stock, and even what aisle it was on in my store! I was in and out in 5 minutes. I did spend a lot more time in the building stores, though. I had the luxury of walking through the power tools at a leisurely pace. What fun!

As usual, though, I bought a heck of a lot, probably too much, and I comically dragged everything onto the bus or the journey home. Fortunately, the bus and boat were both almost empty, and kind fellow passengers lent me a hand.

I wished I'd had a hand with my wheelbarrow home in the approaching darkness. I got my day's workout pushing everything through a few inches of snow and slush. Fortunately, everything finally arrived safely, and I was able to have a nice meal of Swedish meatballs and salad!

Snöig Måndag morgon

...which means "Snowy Monday morning" in Swedish. I woke up to quite a bit of snow. It's fairly warm, so it's perfect snowball snow. There's no wind, so it's falling straight down, smooth and beautifully quiet.

I walked down to the dock to take photos and see if there was anyone else around. I saw a number of animal tracks, but no moose, though. I did see one other set of people tracks. Our neighbors by the sea, Lennart and Marit, were on their way home, so I waited with them at the Waxholms dock.

By the time I got home, I was getting pretty cold! It was good to put my socks on the radiator while I made lunch.