A look back at my 2012

The first two months were pretty uneventful. Pretty much all I did was start this blog in January.
Then in March several different people told me if I really want to get a job I need to get a driver's license. So at the end of March I spent a lot of my savings and started doing just that. I finally had the license at the end of June, so approximately three months to get that.
Then when I still didn't get any job offers people kept telling me I had to have a car to be interesting on the job market so I spent even more of my savings to buy a cheap car at the end of July.
Just to keep score:
Job offers without a driver's license = 0
Job offers with a driver's license = 0
Job offers with a driver's license and a car = 0
So yeah, that helped... It helped wasting almost all of my savings on nothing. Yay...
Anyhow, after that nothing much has happened. Not even the end of the world happened like that moron said and that everyone spread as if it was real. For all of us who actually bothered to read about the Mayan long count calender it came as no surprise at all. That calender lasts for at least another five million years or so before it starts over and goes on forever. Kind of like how we count months, years, decades, centuries, millenia and so on.
What else happened this year? I got back to pretty much my high school weight again. That's about the only positive thing that I can think of...

My plans for the new year. Get a job... As if that will happen.

Where I lay my head is home?

On Sunday, October 21, I have lived in my current apartment for 5475 days (approx. 15 years). That's one whole day longer than I've lived in any other apartment/house. The weird thing though is that I still don't feel like it's my home.
Even if I would move soon I will not get more than one or perhaps two chances to beat this record. If I can't feel at home after 15 years, how big is the chance that I will find another place where I do feel at home?
I actually hope I can move out really soon. I need to get a job though. That's the biggest problem.

I don't know where I wanted to go with this rant, I just felt so sad that I've lived here longer than anywhere else and can't shake the feeling that I don't belong.

Swedish months

About a month ago I made a blog post about the names of the weekdays in Swedish. I haven't had time to make any posts since then but I thought I'd make another post now with the names of the months in Swedish.
This one is going to be so easy because the origins of the names are exactly the same as in English. It's just the spelling that differs for most.
January = januari
February = februari
March = mars
April = april
May = maj
June = juni
July = juli
August = augusti
September = september
October = oktober
November = november
December = december

Swedish weekdays

I'm sure this information is available all over the internet but I thought I'd make a post about it anyways. The names of the Swedish weekdays and what they are derived from.
To begin with I should perhaps mention that the Swedish word for 'day' is 'dag'. While we're at it the Swedish word for 'night' is 'natt'. Also the Swedish word for a 24-hour period (usually starting at midnight) is 'dygn'.
On to the weekdays (this is what I learnt when I grew up, I only looked up the spelling of the names in English):
Weekday - Derived from - English description - Simple meaning
Måndag - Måne - 'Måne' means 'Moon' and he was the personification of the Moon in Norse mythology (in English the Norse god is called 'Máni') - Moon's Day
Tisdag - Tyr - 'Tyr' was one of the Norse gods (in English his name is spelt 'Týr') - Týr's Day
Onsdag - Oden - 'Oden' was one of the Norse gods (in English his name is spelt 'Odin') - Odin's Day
Torsdag - Tor - 'Tor' was one of the Norse gods (in English his name is spelt 'Thor') - Thor's Day
Fredag - Freja - 'Freja' was one of the Norse goddesses (in English her name is spelt 'Freyja') - Freyja's Day
Lördag - Löga - 'Löga' is an old word that's not used anymore, but it meant something along the lines of 'to wash oneself' - The Day you wash yourself
Söndag - Sol - 'Sol' means 'Sun' and she was the personification of the Sun in Norse mythology (in English her name is spelt 'Sól') - Sun's Day
So basically we have six days named after Norse gods/goddesses and one day we had to name so we didn't forget to wash ourselves at least once a week.

Weight loss update

One year. One whole year. August 22, 2011. That's how long ago I weighed 113,5 kg (250.2 lbs). Today, August 22, 2012 I weigh 70,6 kg (155.6 lbs) and I feel so much healthier.
It would've been awesome to lose 100 lbs in one year, but 94.6 lbs lost in one year isn't bad. Also my current weight is pretty decent for me. So I probably shouldn't try to lose more. Losing 50 kg would've been a great milestone as well, but if I'd lose that much I would've been unhealthy. I know BMI isn't an exact science, but my BMI has gone from 37,15 to 23,11. If I had lost 100 lbs it would be 22,3 which isn't bad. If I had lost 50 kg it would be 20,78 and that's way too thin for me.
Now after this year has passed I kind of wish that I had taken a photo of myself each day to see the transformation. Oh well, too late for that now.
Next goal: Not gaining the weight back, and also get a job...

My first car

I was going to wait with this post until I had had a chance to take a few photos of the car, but I think that won't happen anytime soon.
On July 30 this year I bought a 2001 Ford Focus stationwagon. All was fine until later that evening when my brother found that the "backup light" (or "reversing lamps" or whatever you want to call the white light at the back of the car that turns on when you put the car in reverse) didn't work. So yesterday we tried changing the light bulb. Still didn't work. We tried changing the fuse. Still didn't work. Now we notice that the "central locking system" didn't work as it should either. If I lock/unlock the passenger side door all four doors lock/unlock as they should, but if I lock/unlock the driver side door I only lock/unlock the driver side door. The remote that's built in to the key doesn't work at all, but I knew that when I bought the car.
So after those two "awesome" findings I thought nothing else could go wrong. Well, think again... Today I got the bill for the vehicle tax. A tax that the previous owner should've paid in April... GREAT!
Well, at least I have a car... That I can't drive, since it's illegal to drive without having working lights, and because having to pay this tax I can't afford any petrol.

Driver's License!

Forgot to post about it yesterday, but at 12:09 CEST (10:09 UTC) I passed my driving test and from that time I'm allowed to drive a car on public streets/roads.
Considering I took my first driving lesson on April 3 this year I'd say it's not too bad to have gotten the license on June 28. If I had gotten a date for the test sooner I would've been able to get it two weeks ago, but hey, I got it now!
In total I have spent 18530 SEK (that's ~$2680 US, ~£1710 or ~2110 Euro) on this license. That's about twice as much as it cost when I was 18 and "should've" gotten it...
There are two tests you need to pass to get the license. First a "written" test that's done on a computer with multiple choice questions. You need 52/65 correct answers to pass, I got 63/65. Then it's the driving test. What that test contains depends on the instructor. There are 26 different situations that they can choose from and you get to do about 10 to see if you have the skill to actually drive safely. The test takes about 30 minutes and if you're prepared it shouldn't be a problem.
Next goal I need to accomplish: Get a job so I can afford buying a car and fuel.

Failed Venus transit

Ok, so I got up early to try and see the Venus transit from sunrise. As you can see in the photo it was a bit cloudy at the horizon and clear sky above. Actually if the photo had shown more above me it would've shown a completely clear sky above my head. Unfortunately the Sun is not above my head at sunrise. The clouds moved from North to South which meant the Sun was behind the clouds pretty much the whole time. It was also too windy to project the Sun onto a piece of white paper. Excuses, excuses, excuses. Truth is I should've been more prepared and gotten a piece of welder glass or some "eclipse glasses" so I at least could've seen the transit in the gaps between the clouds, but hey, only 105 years until next time. I'm sure I will have been able to prepare for it by then...

Yes I know there are a lot of trees in the way in the photo, but I was on my way back from a big open field (a.k.a. a golf course) when I took it.

2012 (the movie)

I just watched the movie 2012. Even if I overlook all the made up "science" and faked stuff and bad CGI it wasn't a very good movie. They did get one thing right though. If we ever find ourselves in the situation that we need to evacuate this planet the rich will be the first in line to board the spaceships (or "arks" that stays on the planet). The really important people that know how things actually work in the real world will be left behind and that will be the end of humanity. Now that I think about it, it's not such a bad thing if humanity did exterminate itselves...

The little house on the mountain... revisited

The view of most of my hometown from the top of the mountain.
That's the ocean in the background.

In a post a few weeks ago I said that I would come back and take new photos when there's leaves on the trees. So here are some photos I took today.

The sky got a bit overexposed because the sun was too close.
At least there's leaves on the trees now.

Looking down the steps from the top. It was scary walking down.

The view of some of the rest of the town.

Decisions...

I've been posting here on this blog every Monday, Wednesday and Friday for a few months now. However I feel that I have too much to do IRL at the moment so I've decided that from now on I will only post when I actually have something to say or show.

Spring is in the air... continued

As I said in my previous post I dislike this time of year. So I dug up two old photos from the season I like the most. I'm sure you can all guess which one that is.

Spring is in the air

The Sun is shining bright in the sky. Almost no clouds can be seen. The temperature is rising. People are wearing less clothes. I HATE THIS TIME OF YEAR!
Ok, that some people are wearing less clothes is fine with me, but I can't stand the heat. Also this is the time of year when everything starts to blossom. That means allergy season is here... Woo... hoo...

Chocolate

As I've said before I haven't eaten any candy or snacks or such in a long time. Today I heard someone talk about a certain type of chocolate pralines. That made me almost drool and really, really want some chocolate. It's going to be hard for a few years to stay away from all kinds of snacks...
One advantage I have at the moment is that since I'm unemployed I can't afford buying any snacks.

Friday...

So it's Friday again. Nothing to do but sit at home. Actually even if I had something to do I probably wouldn't. So damn tired today. Haven't slept well in a few days. I'm feeling kind of like this photo that I took a few years ago. Empty and a bit foggy with some light shining through. Maybe tomorrow I can do something fun.

Driving lessons

As I've said a few times already I'm taking driving lessons. So far I've only had four. At first I was a bit scared of driving on the road with other cars around me, but now I'm already getting more comfortable with it. That does actually make me a bit scared. What if I'm relaxing too much?
Oh well, I guess I will get over it before it's time to actually get the license. With a bit of luck that will be before Midsummer. It kind of depends on how many driving lessons I can get before all the kids start picking them because school is out for the summer...

Läckö Castle

The photo was taken in the summer of 2011
click to enlarge

A few hours drive North from here is Sweden's largest lake Vänern. On a peninsula there you can find this castle. There has been a castle in some form on this location since the late 13th century. I'm not sure when the current castle was built, but I assume it was somewhere around the 16th or 17th century.
If you're ever near the Southern shores of Lake Vänern or the town of Lidköping it's worth paying a visit to this castle.

Train tracks in the mist

Last year I took a photography class. One of the assignments we had was to take photos around sunrise. So one August morning I got up at 4am and took a walk. Unfortunately it was foggy that morning so I couldn't see the sunrise at all. I did however get this photo of the train tracks disappearing into the mist.

Too many books. If that's possible.

I'm currently trying to pack all my books, CDs, DVDs and VHS tapes in boxes in case I get a job so I can actually move somewhere. Some of it, like the VHS tapes, I will probably never unpack ever again. Anyhow, I have a lot of books. A LOT of books. Maybe even too many. If that is possible. I've packed three boxes already and it doesn't even make a difference in my bookcases.
It's really hard to find boxes that you can pack especially CDs and DVDs in. I've managed to find boxes and pack almost all my DVDs so far, but less than half my CDs.
The day after I move my back is going to hurt so bad from carrying all those boxes... Maybe I shouldn't worry about it until after I get a job. Before that I won't be able to move anyways.
Hm... Maybe I should give some of the books away. Or try to sell them. At least the ones I will never open again.

Weird dream

Last week I had a weird dream just before I woke up. I think it might have something to do with my weight loss. Either way here is what happened:
I had a dream that I was eating a LOT of candy and cookies. I woke up and felt sick, like you do feel when you actually do eat a lot of candy, and thought "Damn, I shouldn't have eaten all that. How am I going to work that extra weight off now?" Then I realised I still hadn't eaten any candy for months and it was only a dream. Just like that I wasn't feeling sick anymore.

Photos from London (part 3)

Click here for Part 1, Part 2

The third and last time I've been in London was the same trip as when I was in Edinburgh in 2010. So it was with my friend Olívia and her mother. We arrived in London the day before the volcano on Iceland erupted so that was a bit of luck. We took almost 300 photos during the 10 days we were there so I had to pick just a few to show here.

The glass ceiling of the great court at The British Museum

Parthenon at The British Museum

The London Eye (with a missing pod)

A blue door, but not THE blue door in Notting Hill

A Squirrel in Kensington Gardens

A bird bathing in the round pond in Kensington Gardens

Olívia and a raven inside the Tower of London

A space suit at the Science Museum

An aeroplane at the Science Museum

The stage of The Phantom of the Opera. Just after I took
This photo they told us we weren't allowed to take photos.

Photos from London (part 2)

Click here for part 1, part 3

My second time in London was just a weekend. Didn't have much time to take photos but here are some of the ones I did take.

The London Eye

St. Stephen's Tower

Westminster Abbey

Rogerio and Marcos trying to read a map

The Brazilian bank in London

Photos from London (part 1)

Click here for part 2, part 3
My first time in London was back in December 2004-January 2005. I visited some of my Brazilian friends who used to live there back then. These are some of the photos I took (or that was taken with my camera) during those days.

Piccadilly Circus. The first thing I saw
in London when I arrived.

St. Stephen's Tower

Me (in sunglasses), Katia and
Rogerio in a phone box.
Photo by: Marcos Cerutti

Rogerio a guard and Marcos
at that horse guard place on
Whitehall.

Marcos, the late Jon Nödtveidt, Katia,
Jon's girlfriend and Rogerio.
We were on our way to an In Flames concert
in Hammersmith when Marcos saw Jon
(from the band Dissection) at the bus stop.

Marcos shows what he thinks of
Sainsbury's.

Me standing on London Bridge with
Tower Bridge in the background.
Photo by: Marcos Cerutti

Tower Bridge

Houses of Parliament on New Year's Eve.

Polish girl (Ana I think her name was),
Rogerio, Me and Marcos at the
Marlborough Head on New Year's Eve.
Photo by: Katia Schmidt

Tjolöholm Castle

Tjolöholm Castle is a castle/manor located by the ocean approximately 10km South of where I live. It's a beautiful building both inside and outside and there's a church built in the same style there as well. Not to mention the beautiful gatehouse. If you ever come to my neighbourhood, please go visit this place!

Side facing the ocean - click to see larger

Side facing away from ocean - click to see larger

View towards the ocean - click to see larger

Tjolöholm's church - click to see larger

The gatehouse - click to see larger

Statue that used to be inside
a mausoleum but now is inside
a glass box.
"Stay calm and don't blink!"

The little house on the mountain

I took this photo when I was walking to the unemployment office today. It's the old water tower in my hometown. 179 steps (according to the information sign below the steps but I haven't counted them myself) to the top. It was built in 1897 and the building itself isn't very big. Only like 2-3 square metres or so. The water was/is(?) inside the mountain from what I remember from school.
If you go all the way up there you get a great view of the town and can see all the way to the ocean. The problem is that, as you can see, there's nothing to hold onto while going up/down the steps. The old handrail was broken in several places so they removed the whole thing a few years ago and haven't put a new one up... yet. Maybe they never will.
Maybe I'll make a follow-up post on this one in the summer when there's actually leaves on the trees.

Edit: Took some photos of it again today.

The Hunger Games Trilogy

There has been a lot of talk about Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games lately (mostly because of the movie that I haven't seen yet). As a result I decided to check if the books are as good as everyone says. I know I shouldn't trust the masses on what's good and not *cough* Twilight *cough*, but this book series seemed very interesting.

I started reading the first book (The Hunger Games) on Friday evening. Saturday afternoon I started reading the second book (Catching Fire) and yesterday afternoon I started reading the last book (Mockingjay). I can safely say that I haven't been that caught up in a book series for a long time. I just couldn't put the books down until I had finished them.
In my opinion the first book is the best and the last book is the least good. Still the last book is good enough to keep me wanting to go on until the end.
It really catches you and makes you feel like you're actually inside the head of the main character (Katniss). It also has a lot of similarities with present day society. A few rich people live in excess and the majority of the people (i.e. poor/middle class) has to fight every day to stay alive.
I will definitely recommend this series to anyone!
As I mentioned I haven't seen the movie yet. If it's half as good as the book, then it's probably worth every penny.

Weird thing in a night photo

The other week I was testing what it would look like if I took a night photo towards North and had a tree or two that's lit up in the foreground. This 30 second exposure didn't turn out too bad (besides the fact that I missed North and Polaris isn't in the shot), but what's that up in the sky?

Here's a 100% crop of it. Part of it looks like clouds, but the pink/purple/yellow part does not. I took more than one shot that night and this photo is the only one that has this anomaly in it.

If anyone knows what caused it (I'm sure it's some kind of optical phenomenon), let me know.

What to do when internet is slow

Yesterday we had some internet problems which made everything very slow. I couldn't play online games and just loading Youtube videos took forever. So what did I do? This:

Learner's permit... possibly

This is an update to something I wrote about last week. I know I said in this post that I would not get a driver's license, but as I wrote last week I don't seem to be able to get a job without one...
Anyhow, I have finally been able to apply for a learner's permit. It appears that I was not in the database that everyone in Sweden should be put into automatically when we are old enough to get a learner's permit. Stupid government.

On a happier note, my weight loss is really turning out well. Today I was under 80 kg (176.4 lbs) for the first time. The scale showed 79,8 kg (175.9 lbs) this morning.

Catch 22

This isn't about the book by Joseph Heller, but if you get the chance you should read it. It's really good.
Anyhow, I have a bit of a catch 22 situation going on. I'm unemployed and I don't have a driver's license. For some reason companies nowadays wants you to have a driver's license even if the job in question is "sitting at a desk moving numbers from one excel spreadsheet to another" or even just working as a cashier. I don't know if they think you need to drive from one side of the store to the other.
However, since I don't have a driver's license I can't seem to get a job and without a job I can't afford getting a driver's license. It currently costs between 15000 and 20000 SEK (that's around 2225 to 2970 US Dollar, or 1680 to 2240 Euro, or 1400 to 1870 Pound sterling) to get a driver's license here in Sweden. So it's not exactly cheap.
Yesterday I thought I could at least start taking some driving lessons with the help of the money I have saved. So I went on the web to apply for a learner's permit. It turns out that I can't get one and I have no idea why. The customer service was not open in the evening, and I don't like calling unknown people anyways, so I sent them an e-mail to see if they could look at it. Still no reply. So I can't get a job and I can't get a driver's license apparently.

Irrational fears

As most people I have some irrational fears (also knowns as phobias or anxiety disorders). Two of them come to mind when I think about it. Aquaphobia and anxiety about talking on the phone.

Aquaphobia is a fear of water. The reason why it's not called hydrophobia (which would be the correct way to say it since most fears are named in Greek) is that the last stage of rabies is already called that and to avoid confusion it's better to called it aquaphobia. In me it's not a fear of all kinds of water. It's more specifically large bodies of water, such as rivers, swimming pools, lakes, oceans and so on. I can walk up to and even out into an ocean but when the water is starting to get high enough so that my head could, but not necessarily would, get under water if I sat down I start getting anxious. I have learned to swim, about 30 years ago, but my head was so far up that I think my neck would be completely dry afterwards. If someone would joke about pushing me into a pool I would get a panic attack and possibly end up hurting that person. When I say "joke about pushing me into a pool" I mean that I would walk near a pool and someone would pretend that they were about to push me but really not.

Onto the telephones. I can talk on the phone in a few different situations.
1. If I'm at home alone when the phone rings.
2. If I'm at home and I know the person calling.
3. If I'm at home (preferably alone) and I call someone I know well.
What gives me anxiety attacks is when someone else is around and I have to answer the phone. It gets even worse if there are people I don't know around. Also, whenever I have to call someone I don't know or not know well. The absolute worst thing is calling someone I don't know and have never talked to. I can walk around the apartment for up to an hour before I even pick up the phone to dial the number. To be honest I'm starting to get a bit anxious now just thinking about it. And yes I do often ask others if they could call for me, or ask the person I need to contact if I can e-mail or send text messages instead of calling.

Hot Pixels

I've noticed more and more that I have some so called hot pixels on my camera's sensor. I decided to test it out a bit so I took a series of photos (1 second, 2 seconds, 5 seconds, 10 seconds, 25 seconds and 45 seconds exposures) in complete darkness with the lens cap on. Then I looked at the photos in 100% on my computer and in the 1 second exposure I couldn't find a single pixel that wasn't black. That's good. In the 2 seconds exposure I was able to find one dark gray pixel. That exact pixel just got brighter and brighter the longer the exposure got. It even got some friends to join in around it.

Here's that pixel in 400% zoom in the different exposures.
From left to right it's 2 seconds, 5 seconds, 10 seconds, 25 seconds and 45 seconds.

Then I decided to check for all the hot pixels I could see in 100% zoom of the 45 seconds exposure. I've resized them (400% zoom), cut them out and pasted them in the area they appear in the photos. So they aren't that big in reality, it was more to show where they are and what they look like.

The last photo is to show how well they show up in real photos and not just complete darkness ones. This is the top left hot pixels and the lower right ones in 100% zoom from a not so good 60 seconds exposure of stars. An attempt at making a star trail photo around Polaris.

I'm not sure if it's possible to fix the hot pixel problem, but as long as I don't get longer exposures than 1 second I will be fine. Too bad half my photos are made at night.

Ölmevallasjön (it's the name of a lake close to where I live)

Looked through old photos again and found two that were taken at the same location a few years ago. They are both taken with the same camera. A Canon PowerShot A70.
The first one was taken on October 12 2003 and the second on July 29 2004. I think both photos are nice in their own way. The first one because you can see the sand at the bottom of the lake and the second because the water is so calm that it perfectly reflects the trees and sky.

October 12 2003

July 29 2004