Octodad

I am going to be the Octodad of Audi's. I only have 6 more to go. I purchased this fine 1996 example from a small dealer in Trondheim a couple of weeks ago. It seems to be in pretty good shape. I have only driven it a few times but so far no important parts have fallen off or caught fire. I did suffer the horror of paying $80 to fill it with gas yesterday. Leif and I stuffed it full of Ikea furniture yesterday and found out exactly how far forward you can shove the front seats and still drive. I think I have the Audi logo from the steering wheel embossed into my chest now.

One shelf for food, one for beer

I believe that Joel would be quite proud of this refrigerator arrangement in that I have given beer the priority shelf. We often have some small gatherings of the ex-pats here from Nordic, but the problem is we always buy twice as much beer as we drink. This oversupply is eventually going to lead to some sort of massive beer-party meltdown I am sure.

Norway doesn't do veggie burgers

They don't make veggie burgers in Norway. However they do import them from the Swedes, which works for me.......

Are my eyes really that close together?

Judging from this incredibly accurate portrait drawn during a team meeting, I think I can now say that I have earned the respect and admiration of my co-workers....

The little doormat that could

This is my doormat, sitting in the place where it belongs.
It rarely stays here for more than 5 minutes. For example, here is another picture taken exactly 5 minutes later:

This phenomenon could be attributed to several things, including trolls (the most likely culprit), children, people who like to mess with the American guy, wind, earthquakes, etc.

Or maybe it has a little something going on with the doormat next door. I don't know. I do think it is odd that none of the other doormats ever move. Just mine. Maybe the next time I go skiing I'll take it with me. Could be that it just wants more exercise or something. I guess I could buy a leash and take it for a walk.

I'm sure the neighbors wonder why I sometimes have a doormat in front of my bedroom window. Maybe they think I like to crawl in through the window at night.

This is Cletus

This is my friend Cletus. Cletus is a software engineer who started at Nordic a few weeks after I did last year. He moved from Bangalore to Trondheim, but his wife and 2 young children are still in India for the time being. They should be arriving with his mom sometime in April if everything goes OK. His mother fell down around Christmas time and broke her hip, so they have been waiting for her to recover before they join Cletus here in Trondheim. This picture is inside the building that we work in. Nordic uses most of the 3rd and 4th floors of this building. On Saturday Cletus and I looked at an apartment he is interested in renting. It was a nice place in the same neighborhood that I live in, only 2 buildings away, so hopefully he will get it. There were some other people there looking at it as well.

Ponytails of fury.......

Had another fun day of XC skiing at Bymarka yesterday.
We got a nice bit of snow last week so the trails were freshly coated. Joel and I decided to try out his new GPS on the ski trails, which was only partly successful. It's hard to figure out exactly what you're looking at sometimes on a 3 inch map screen when you're basically surrounded by snow and more snow in every direction. We skied around for a while on an ungroomed trail and decided that was no fun, so we got back on the groomed path and went back to our usual hut at Elgsethytta for a snack. On the way back we decided to go all the way down to the golf course which meant a trip to "the hill of doom". We had been warned about this hill long before we actually saw it. But the first time we went down this trail a few weeks ago, Joel, Leif and I looked over the edge and all basically came to the same conclusion - "there's no f!$*ing way I'm skiing down that on XC skis". Fortunately there is a wussie trail off to the side where ex-pats and other fraidy cats can take off their skis and walk down. We actually saw some Norwegians walking down as well so we didn't feel too bad. This time I had made up my mind though that I was going to give it try - what could go wrong?*
So when we reached the precipice of the hill of doom, I sent my trusty unamed* videographer down to the bottom to record the event in case of a you-tube worthy yard sale. "Man impaled on ski pole" would be the likely tag line - 500,000 views. Anyway the longer it took **** to get to the bottom and set up the more wobbly my knees got looking down that slope. Having just seen the ski patrol going to pick up an injured person that we had passed on another hill a few minutes earlier wasn't helping either. Eventually all was set* and I set sail down the hill. I momentarily thought about going into a full tuck, but the rapidly increasing speed in the first 50 feet left me in more of a "don't crash, don't crash, don't crash, half crouch. Through some miracle I made safely to the bottom and zipped up the smaller hill on the other side, Hooray!

My feelings of triumph were quickly squashed minutes later however, when three Norwegian girls who were all of 10 years old came down the same hill with pigtails and ponytails flapping madly in the breeze. I don't even think they paused their conversation on the way down. Arggh. Now I have to find an even BIGGER hill to scare the crap out myself on...

*note
Due to "technical difficulties", the video of this historic event was apparently lost. This is why the videographer will remain unamed.