So yesterday a German friend of mine, Benny, and I went to a music instruments store a few yards away from our dwelling and walked away with some stuff. Benny bought his very first guitar and I bought a nice pair of bongo drums. We rock. On our floor there are actually a lot of people who play guitar so Benny thought of this as an opportunity to learn, something he's always wanted to do. I agreed with him and helped him pick out a guitar. The guitar he got was a Hohner which is a german company and it came with a book to learn guitar which teaches in both english and german. It was meant to be. The guitar also came with a harmonica and one of the those things that goes around one's head to hold the harmonica up to the mouth handsfree. It's pretty rad. So I've taken it upon myself to help teach Benny and he's doing very well for owning a guitar for less than a day.
My bongos are sweet. I tend to play a lot of tahitian beats on it but it works and it sounds very cool. Our floor now has plans to play on the streets and get some money. It's gonna happen as soon as my voice comes back. I'm still pretty sick but slowing getting better. A Thai friend gave me some Thai medicine and I think it's working. I think I'll be good in a couple of days.
It's sunny today, btw.
Friday, August 29, 2008
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Sickly frustratind day (and its only noon)
I am sick. I think I have one of those sinus headaches or something. It's pretty stuffed up in there. It even hurts if I roll my eyes too far to the left or right. And I'm not sure if I've mentioned that I have a new roommate but yeah, not more privacy. It's okay the guy seems okay. He's from Scotland and sometimes he's hard to understand. Yesterday he was asking me something along the lines of whether it was hard rain coming down or not. He had to rephrase his question a couple of times before I understood. I am sort of sick so I blamed it on that.
So guess what, I outside the place where I'm supposed to show my documents to prove I'm here but they closed at 11 this morning. This is pretty lame. Oh and I had to get my password validated again. It apparently expired yesterday. Luckily I got to the help desk before the rush. It still took like an hour to get it done.
It's sunny today. maybe I'll go and lay in it somewhere. That's what the swedes do but it's only in the mid 60's.
I'm going to start taking more pictures. I hadn't really cause there's a bunch of Asians covering that but I'll post some soon. I promise.
So guess what, I outside the place where I'm supposed to show my documents to prove I'm here but they closed at 11 this morning. This is pretty lame. Oh and I had to get my password validated again. It apparently expired yesterday. Luckily I got to the help desk before the rush. It still took like an hour to get it done.
It's sunny today. maybe I'll go and lay in it somewhere. That's what the swedes do but it's only in the mid 60's.
I'm going to start taking more pictures. I hadn't really cause there's a bunch of Asians covering that but I'll post some soon. I promise.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Cloudy times in Jonkoping
So I've been around a bit. I've figured out how to do most everything that I need to. I even got my computer fixed. Yeah, you didn't know? It broke on my way over here. Luckily there's a mac place here in this town that told me how to get it fixed. My hard drive broke some how so I lost all my data, so i had to buy a new hard drive and have that mac store install it. There was a store around the corner to buy a new hard drive so it worked out. I cost me about 1000 kronor which is about $120. Not bad. I also knew someone with Leopard for my OS so I got that rolling now. So I'm typing on my computer which is a lot easier than the weird Swedish ones with extra letters and different spacing.
My schedule is pretty sweet so far. Classes are only on Monday and Tuesday and the rest of the week is free. I'm sure I'll get a lot busier as the year goes on but it's pretty nice not to have anything substantial to do today. It's a good thing too because I, along with most of everyone on my floor, am sick with a bad cold. And on top of that my legs are pretty sore from playing soccer on Monday. I don't play soccer or really run at all and me being American and trying my hardest not to look like a complete fool I ran as hard and long as I could to help my team. My team lost but it was fun. Some of those swedes are really good. Two days later and I still sore. To add a little bit more to that: I did my laundry yesterday. here's the situation. The Delta house is where I live and it is newly renovated office made into student housing. Making an office building into a resident building takes some changing. One of those is the drainage. In the Delta house we have two washers and in the morning when people are showering, others doing their laundry, and everything else, the water can't drain properly so it pools in our laundry room and this happened a few days ago and they shut down our laundry room. Plan B is to do laundry over at an adjacent building's facilities. And this is what I did yesterday but this involves taking the elevator to level 1, walk through their corridor, turn into this green house looking building that connects the two dwellings, head down another set of stairs, down a long hallway to get to the laundry facilities. It takes a bit of time to get there and it really sucks when you have sore legs and coming down with a cold. I found out too that the washing machines take like two hours to complete and they're really small and there a lot of people that want to use them. laundry is not fun here.
At this very moment I'm at school in the business building. I'm here on an errand to show the school that I actually belong here by showing them my transcript, passport and other things. The weird thing is that it is now 3:14 in the afternoon on a Wednesday and I missed the office hours. The office closes at 2:30 and I missed it by 15 minutes. I think this is ridiculous. Every where in this school has very short office hours, like a three hour window. It's hard to get things done here. I'll just come back tomorrow.
So I got a new roommate the other day. I had lived in my room for over a week without a roommate and I was getting pretty used to it. Then one day while riding my bike home I found some of my flat mates who told me that I was no longer alone in my room. I was a little disappointed but it's alright. The guy is named Euene from Scotland. I really haven't talked to him much but he seems alright. He moved in Monday and I don't think he's unpacked yet. I'm sure it'll all work out.
So nothing too exciting, I'm sure this post is rather boring but if you've made it this far, thanks for reading.
My schedule is pretty sweet so far. Classes are only on Monday and Tuesday and the rest of the week is free. I'm sure I'll get a lot busier as the year goes on but it's pretty nice not to have anything substantial to do today. It's a good thing too because I, along with most of everyone on my floor, am sick with a bad cold. And on top of that my legs are pretty sore from playing soccer on Monday. I don't play soccer or really run at all and me being American and trying my hardest not to look like a complete fool I ran as hard and long as I could to help my team. My team lost but it was fun. Some of those swedes are really good. Two days later and I still sore. To add a little bit more to that: I did my laundry yesterday. here's the situation. The Delta house is where I live and it is newly renovated office made into student housing. Making an office building into a resident building takes some changing. One of those is the drainage. In the Delta house we have two washers and in the morning when people are showering, others doing their laundry, and everything else, the water can't drain properly so it pools in our laundry room and this happened a few days ago and they shut down our laundry room. Plan B is to do laundry over at an adjacent building's facilities. And this is what I did yesterday but this involves taking the elevator to level 1, walk through their corridor, turn into this green house looking building that connects the two dwellings, head down another set of stairs, down a long hallway to get to the laundry facilities. It takes a bit of time to get there and it really sucks when you have sore legs and coming down with a cold. I found out too that the washing machines take like two hours to complete and they're really small and there a lot of people that want to use them. laundry is not fun here.
At this very moment I'm at school in the business building. I'm here on an errand to show the school that I actually belong here by showing them my transcript, passport and other things. The weird thing is that it is now 3:14 in the afternoon on a Wednesday and I missed the office hours. The office closes at 2:30 and I missed it by 15 minutes. I think this is ridiculous. Every where in this school has very short office hours, like a three hour window. It's hard to get things done here. I'll just come back tomorrow.
So I got a new roommate the other day. I had lived in my room for over a week without a roommate and I was getting pretty used to it. Then one day while riding my bike home I found some of my flat mates who told me that I was no longer alone in my room. I was a little disappointed but it's alright. The guy is named Euene from Scotland. I really haven't talked to him much but he seems alright. He moved in Monday and I don't think he's unpacked yet. I'm sure it'll all work out.
So nothing too exciting, I'm sure this post is rather boring but if you've made it this far, thanks for reading.
Monday, August 25, 2008
I made it!
Okay, ya'll. I made it to Sweden but it was one of the longest, most stressful trips that I have ever taken. Getting to Sweden wasn't bad it was taking the train from Stockholm to Jönköping that was horrible. First of all I brought way too much stuff with me, much more than everyone else from out of the country. This is how it went: I had a big suitcase (70 lbs) that everyone has and a rolling carry on (40 lbs)like a normal person, but I also had a travel backpack (50 lbs) and a bike case for my bike (65 lbs and large and awkward). This is a lot of stuff to be dragging around a big train station. So much in fact that I had to have help from very nice swedish people to take my stuff from one floor to the next because all of my stuff wouldn't fit in the elevator at the same time. And on the trains there isn't really a good place to put all this stuff so they were in the way of most people so I sat and watched my things when I was super tired from traveling and would've just rather've slept. But I made it and have gone through the introductory week which consisted of a lot of partying and boring lectures to get us ready for what is to come. My first class starts tomorrow and it's my only class for the week. I only have'em on mondays and tuesdays. so it should be alright.
Everything moves slow here in sweden in reference to paper work. it's going to take a week for me to open a bank account, and three weeks to reissue my personal number (ss # in the states)They're still doing minor construction in our appartment too that is taking way too long. I still don't have a place to do my laundry yet.
Sweden isn't a bad place. It's been really fun so far but we'll see how things are when classes start.
Everything moves slow here in sweden in reference to paper work. it's going to take a week for me to open a bank account, and three weeks to reissue my personal number (ss # in the states)They're still doing minor construction in our appartment too that is taking way too long. I still don't have a place to do my laundry yet.
Sweden isn't a bad place. It's been really fun so far but we'll see how things are when classes start.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
2 More Weeks!
hello readers. Guess what! I've got two more weeks in this country till I head over to Sweden for s'more school. Time flows by like a ranging river sometimes. And yes, I'm looking forward to it but also a little nervous/scared and stuff. There's a bunch of stuff that needs to happen before my nerves settle down a bit. First of all I need to sell my car. Btw, the same day as my last post I tried to roll my window up by pushing the button and it sounded like it was going to go up but no, and now it cost me about $500 to fix it. Geez. Couldn't it've waited a few weeks. I don't really mean that. It would be cruel for whoever buys this car. If anyone of you out there in internet land would like a different car you can buy my '98 Audi A6 from me. It's a great car; my favorite one that I've ever owned in fact.
The second thing that needs to happen is actually traveling over to Sweden. I've done this a couple of times before and I've glad I have because I know what I need to do to ge where I'm going. But i also know that it's going to be a huge pain. You see, I like to ride bicycles and I want to bring one with me when I move. The thing is if I want to ship it, it'll cost me more that it did to fix my car window. And if I bring it with me on the plane it'll cost a lot less but would mean that I would have to drag it in its bike case along with my suit cases from the airport on a subway car to the train station, through the train station to get my ticket, then to the train platform, then onto the train, then off the train in Jonkoping. That might not sound like much but remember I'm dragging pretty much everything I'm moving to Sweden with. It's a lot. And this is probably what I'll have to do. Not really looking forward to that.
After that just settling in and hopefully I can get a job over there while I'm in school. And hoping that my swedish comes back to me. I've been brushing up a little and I'm amazed at how much I've forgotten. It's coming though.
On a different note I'm finally back to the cycling weight that I was at before my accident which is about 155 lbs. Although a week after my accident, surgeries and other sufferings I was all the way down to 143 lbs. Getting hit by a car is a great way to loose weight.
Another note. I've been wearing contacts for the first time in my life starting from the middle of last week and I've never seen as clear as I do while wearing my glasses. I'm going in tomorrow to see what they can do. It's just a little frustrating, that's all.
The second thing that needs to happen is actually traveling over to Sweden. I've done this a couple of times before and I've glad I have because I know what I need to do to ge where I'm going. But i also know that it's going to be a huge pain. You see, I like to ride bicycles and I want to bring one with me when I move. The thing is if I want to ship it, it'll cost me more that it did to fix my car window. And if I bring it with me on the plane it'll cost a lot less but would mean that I would have to drag it in its bike case along with my suit cases from the airport on a subway car to the train station, through the train station to get my ticket, then to the train platform, then onto the train, then off the train in Jonkoping. That might not sound like much but remember I'm dragging pretty much everything I'm moving to Sweden with. It's a lot. And this is probably what I'll have to do. Not really looking forward to that.
After that just settling in and hopefully I can get a job over there while I'm in school. And hoping that my swedish comes back to me. I've been brushing up a little and I'm amazed at how much I've forgotten. It's coming though.
On a different note I'm finally back to the cycling weight that I was at before my accident which is about 155 lbs. Although a week after my accident, surgeries and other sufferings I was all the way down to 143 lbs. Getting hit by a car is a great way to loose weight.
Another note. I've been wearing contacts for the first time in my life starting from the middle of last week and I've never seen as clear as I do while wearing my glasses. I'm going in tomorrow to see what they can do. It's just a little frustrating, that's all.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Weird day
Okay, it's been awhile. I know. And there's been a lot that's happened too, but I really don't want to reach that far back in my mind to type everything noteworthy. As for today, however, I feel fine about explaining. Today was a little unusual. It started out fine; I went for a bike ride like i usually do. A 25 miler that I try to do a few times a week. I saw a group of emergency vehicles while out. They were surrounding an accident. One that involved a compact truck and a motorcycle. It looked bad. The moment i saw it I remembered what it was like when the few times I had been in the focus of those vehicles. The emotions flooded back. It was kind of weird. I kept going and made it back home fine. Watched a little of the Tour and was about to go and get my car washed when it started raining, hard. I didn't think much of it till I got out of the shower, walked downstairs to the basement where my room was, opened the door and saw water pouring out of the window. I immediately closed the window and tried to grab anything valuable off the ground. Mind you I was completely naked while frantically searching for things. A few electronics got wet. I'll try them later when I know that they're completely dry.
At that moment I didn't have time to do anything about the water because I had an appointment with an optometrist. I finally entered the world of contact lenses. Right now that world kind of sucks. I'm really terrible at taking them out. I was staring at the bathroom mirror for the last few minutes trying to take them our. I'm doing alright at putting them in but taking them out is a bitch. It's still an exciting world; I'm looking forward wearing sun glasses while cycling and such, but I'll be glad when I'm better at this stuff.
So I get home and the work starts. We pulled out a wet vac to try and suck as much water out as we could. It got a bunch out. I must have filled the thing up a couple of times. That thing sucks well. Right now we have a few fans trying to blow some the rest of the water away. I hope they blow as well as the vac sucked.
I got another scar. Well, a potential scar, probably two. Last week I was up in park city with my family for a week. I went down the Alpine slide way too fast, approached a tight turn, and when I went through it I went too high and rolled out of the sled. I slid for a while till I could get back in but by that time I had some good burns on my left arm. All my other scars on my right arm. You could say that I've got a lot of work to do to even the arms out.
so there you have it. Everything I want to type right now. btw, check out the new batman movie, it's ill.
At that moment I didn't have time to do anything about the water because I had an appointment with an optometrist. I finally entered the world of contact lenses. Right now that world kind of sucks. I'm really terrible at taking them out. I was staring at the bathroom mirror for the last few minutes trying to take them our. I'm doing alright at putting them in but taking them out is a bitch. It's still an exciting world; I'm looking forward wearing sun glasses while cycling and such, but I'll be glad when I'm better at this stuff.
So I get home and the work starts. We pulled out a wet vac to try and suck as much water out as we could. It got a bunch out. I must have filled the thing up a couple of times. That thing sucks well. Right now we have a few fans trying to blow some the rest of the water away. I hope they blow as well as the vac sucked.
I got another scar. Well, a potential scar, probably two. Last week I was up in park city with my family for a week. I went down the Alpine slide way too fast, approached a tight turn, and when I went through it I went too high and rolled out of the sled. I slid for a while till I could get back in but by that time I had some good burns on my left arm. All my other scars on my right arm. You could say that I've got a lot of work to do to even the arms out.
so there you have it. Everything I want to type right now. btw, check out the new batman movie, it's ill.
Saturday, June 7, 2008
Best Boise Bevy Broadcast
It's finally June. There's some great stuff about June. First of all it was my last day of work at Hartvigsen on June 5. They totally get a summer break. It'll be my last day of work for a long time; I don't know when my next job will be, seriously. In a couple of months I'll be off to Sweden for 2 years and I don't know if I'll work there. I would like to, but only Sweden knows for sure. So yeah, I'm unemployed. It feels wonderful. So what am I going to do with all my extra time, you ask? Well, I'll get to that later. I'm still writing about June, remember? Another glorious thing that happened on June 5 was that it was my two year anniversary for when I dangerously hit a van and severely injured myself. I was feeling pretty crappy that day with a headache so I didn't do anything to celebrate. I should've the next day (yesterday) but that day was another special day. It was my brother's last day here before he left to go report for active duty or something. He recently graduated from the ROTC and now he has to do real work. June 21 is also my birthday, btw.
Back to my brother. His name is Greg. And since he'll lose a few freedoms doing army stuff full time he wanted to do some stuff before he got reeled in. One of those was to go to Boise to visit his best friend from high school. His name is Robby. So one Sunday Greg left and I wanted to go with. We have a brother that lives in Boise to. His name is Nick. Got all the names straight yet? good. Cause I'll stop all that. It's annoying me too. Alright. So we drive up there Sunday night, we see Robby first, then I get dropped off at Nick's cause that's where I want to sleep. I got the couch which really screwed up my back, just a little. But most people work Mondays, but not Robby, so we go dirt bike riding that Monday. Here's some pics:
That's Greg and Robby.
Robby
This is me, and let me explain some things. I was not expecting to go dirt biking that day. That is the reason that I am wearing shorts and a T-shirt. I had to borrow shoes from Robby cause I didn't know what we were doing. All my stuff was at Nick's and we didn't want to go back to his house to my stuff. I didn't even bring pants. Anyway, check out the wicked air I got on that little bike.
Okay. I crashed once. I was going off a jump, hit the breaks a little hard because there was a turn a little after one lands, and I hit some loose dirt right there too. I'm also not that experienced on dirt bikes. I had a ton of fun though. There was something good that came out of my fall. Because I didn't want to ride anymore I was able to take a bunch of pics and video of the other guy's stuff. We made a movie out of it too. We did it on Greg's computer and since it was his he made it crappy. I got the same clips on my computer and I'll make it super awesome and I'll post it here later. That is, if I have time.
That day after the dirt bike riding we also did some awesome stuff. We got cleaned up and went go kart riding. Something that I could do well. Not as well at Robby; he was a member at this place, but I kicked Greg's butt pretty hard. I also got some of the top lap times in that place for the month and stuff. It was fun and we were the only three riding. We didn't see anyone else go through those doors. After that we went to old childhood favorite PoJo's. It's an arcade place where we used to go when we were kids. Oh, yeah, I should mention that my family used to live in Boise for a couple of years. We were like the only people there at PoJo's too, which makes it kinda fun too. We all put $10 down and it lasted a couple of hours. I got a stuffed dolphin with my tickets. I think I left it in Greg's car, and now he took off with it (son of B!tch).
The day after that it was raining, and hard at that. But that didn't discourage us; not at all. We went frolfing (Frisbee Golfing) at a course they got there at a park. We hadn't done it before so we did then. We went and got the special frisbees, which are a bit different to throw than normal frisbees. So I really sucked at it. the worst by far out of the three of us (Nick is still working). I'd like to blame it on the fact that I crashed the previous day and my arm was a bit swollen and it hurt a little to throw the thing. So this park has ditches and things where our frisbees went a few times. It was all good though, it was part of the fun:
That's Greg getting his frisbee.
We all got emergency ponchos on too. I'm Red, Greg was Blue, and Robby had Yellow. What better way to attention as newbies. robby kicked butt at frolfing, btw.
After that we were hungry and what better place to go than a place that serves 1 pound burgers. You know, one of those places where if you finish your meal you get your picture on the wall. And yes, I finished my burger, but sadly didn't finish my fries.
Notice the difference in my brother Greg before and after. I think I could've finished my fries if we sat there long enough, but Greg wanted to do more dirt bikin before we left, that day.
Let me remind you that it was raining hard most of the day. So we got to the place where we were to ride, almost got stuck in some puddles, started heading back, got blocked by some cows crossing the road, see an opening in the clouds, and head back to the spot. I need to explain that Greg used to have a dirt bike but recently sold it and bought a bullet bike. He really missed his bike and really wanted to get it back but knew he couldn't ride much in the military or the base he was going to something. So he was a little more excited to ride than anyone else. There was some cool rainbow action going on too. No, not what you think. Well here:
Nick was there this time and he rode a bike for his very first time. I didn't ride though. We were heading back to Salt Lake and I didn't want to get muddy. There were more pictures takes but my battery died the pics were all on Robby's camera, we gave it back to him through windows of two moving cars. Awesome.
So we dropped Nick back at his place, I borrowed the first season of Dexter on DVD, which I finished last night. And left for Salt Lake. Good trip.
Back to my brother. His name is Greg. And since he'll lose a few freedoms doing army stuff full time he wanted to do some stuff before he got reeled in. One of those was to go to Boise to visit his best friend from high school. His name is Robby. So one Sunday Greg left and I wanted to go with. We have a brother that lives in Boise to. His name is Nick. Got all the names straight yet? good. Cause I'll stop all that. It's annoying me too. Alright. So we drive up there Sunday night, we see Robby first, then I get dropped off at Nick's cause that's where I want to sleep. I got the couch which really screwed up my back, just a little. But most people work Mondays, but not Robby, so we go dirt bike riding that Monday. Here's some pics:
That's Greg and Robby.
Robby
This is me, and let me explain some things. I was not expecting to go dirt biking that day. That is the reason that I am wearing shorts and a T-shirt. I had to borrow shoes from Robby cause I didn't know what we were doing. All my stuff was at Nick's and we didn't want to go back to his house to my stuff. I didn't even bring pants. Anyway, check out the wicked air I got on that little bike.
Okay. I crashed once. I was going off a jump, hit the breaks a little hard because there was a turn a little after one lands, and I hit some loose dirt right there too. I'm also not that experienced on dirt bikes. I had a ton of fun though. There was something good that came out of my fall. Because I didn't want to ride anymore I was able to take a bunch of pics and video of the other guy's stuff. We made a movie out of it too. We did it on Greg's computer and since it was his he made it crappy. I got the same clips on my computer and I'll make it super awesome and I'll post it here later. That is, if I have time.
That day after the dirt bike riding we also did some awesome stuff. We got cleaned up and went go kart riding. Something that I could do well. Not as well at Robby; he was a member at this place, but I kicked Greg's butt pretty hard. I also got some of the top lap times in that place for the month and stuff. It was fun and we were the only three riding. We didn't see anyone else go through those doors. After that we went to old childhood favorite PoJo's. It's an arcade place where we used to go when we were kids. Oh, yeah, I should mention that my family used to live in Boise for a couple of years. We were like the only people there at PoJo's too, which makes it kinda fun too. We all put $10 down and it lasted a couple of hours. I got a stuffed dolphin with my tickets. I think I left it in Greg's car, and now he took off with it (son of B!tch).
The day after that it was raining, and hard at that. But that didn't discourage us; not at all. We went frolfing (Frisbee Golfing) at a course they got there at a park. We hadn't done it before so we did then. We went and got the special frisbees, which are a bit different to throw than normal frisbees. So I really sucked at it. the worst by far out of the three of us (Nick is still working). I'd like to blame it on the fact that I crashed the previous day and my arm was a bit swollen and it hurt a little to throw the thing. So this park has ditches and things where our frisbees went a few times. It was all good though, it was part of the fun:
That's Greg getting his frisbee.
We all got emergency ponchos on too. I'm Red, Greg was Blue, and Robby had Yellow. What better way to attention as newbies. robby kicked butt at frolfing, btw.
After that we were hungry and what better place to go than a place that serves 1 pound burgers. You know, one of those places where if you finish your meal you get your picture on the wall. And yes, I finished my burger, but sadly didn't finish my fries.
Notice the difference in my brother Greg before and after. I think I could've finished my fries if we sat there long enough, but Greg wanted to do more dirt bikin before we left, that day.
Let me remind you that it was raining hard most of the day. So we got to the place where we were to ride, almost got stuck in some puddles, started heading back, got blocked by some cows crossing the road, see an opening in the clouds, and head back to the spot. I need to explain that Greg used to have a dirt bike but recently sold it and bought a bullet bike. He really missed his bike and really wanted to get it back but knew he couldn't ride much in the military or the base he was going to something. So he was a little more excited to ride than anyone else. There was some cool rainbow action going on too. No, not what you think. Well here:
Nick was there this time and he rode a bike for his very first time. I didn't ride though. We were heading back to Salt Lake and I didn't want to get muddy. There were more pictures takes but my battery died the pics were all on Robby's camera, we gave it back to him through windows of two moving cars. Awesome.
So we dropped Nick back at his place, I borrowed the first season of Dexter on DVD, which I finished last night. And left for Salt Lake. Good trip.
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