Michael's Journal

This journal is now closed. See you over at _likelife, perhaps.

After I leave on Tuesday morning, I will cease using this journal.*

The new journal I will be using is _likelife. Start adding it to your friends list now, but it'll be friends-only.

* Okay, I might keep using this journal for posting pictures, but I don't know yet. Or, I'll post pictures openly in _likelife and everything else will be friends-only.

I have a full day of dog grooming, aquarium cleaning, and, oh yeah, packing ahead of me tomorrow, but I just finished one more picture before I go to bed.

( Jungfrugatan )

Here are three of the pictures from my stroll into the city today. It was the last time I took one of the weekly jaunts I love to do in Stockholm.

This is one of the many mannequins in the Christmas storefront displays at Åhléns City.



( Two more )

I'm really going to miss Stockholm a lot. Its downtown has a charm that I've completely taken to, and it feels natural for me to be there. Alas, I can't afford to live there, and I can't take it with me.

Encouraged by the feedback to last night's picture from Union Station, I decided to work on another picture, this time a 4-image panorama set I took back in the summer. After spending a good bit of time scanning it in and working on the joins (common points between the images, which helps the panorama tools application stitch the image together), I sat back while a test image was rendered. Normally my first test images are a bit dodgy, but this one takes the cake.

( It looks like something out of a nightmare. )

Since I'm leaving in less than a week, I wanted to trim Pelle before I left so I could gaze into his beautiful brown eyes with ease. Today was the big day, and it's been a long one for us. I'm not quite finished yet, and he's not coöperating with me about his belly and paws.

But, his face and head are done. His hair was pretty long before I trimmed it, and I decided against trimming his head's hair, so that it could remain long, and maybe be tied up in a ponytail. For kicks, I combed it out and it poofed into a gigantic Afro. It looks great.

However, it's a big contrast with the rest of him, since he's a small dog. While out on our walk just now, I racked my brain wondering what he reminded me of.

And then it hit me. He looks just like The Brain. I have a picture or two for comparison, but the camera and my laptop aren't speaking to each other, so you'll have to take my word for it.

Under Exposure is still down, so I can't post any pictures there. Here's one I've scanned in from this past summer. It's of Union Station in Washington, DC.

My websites (including Under Exposure) are all offline now, and it's my fault for once. I haven't had the money in my bank account to pay the tri-monthly hosting bill (all of $30) and since it's a week or two late, they shut me off for that.

It'll be at least a week or so until I'm able to do scrounge up the money to pay the bill and get the sites back online. I hope no one goes looking for anything in the interim.

Here's a picture I took last summer when I was in Florida. I only got around to scanning it in tonight. I think it's either really good or really crappy, and I can't decide. However, Anna-Lena and Johanna both seem to like it, so here it is. I'm too lazy to create a new subdirectory on Under Exposure, so I'm posting it here.



By the way, does anyone use Skype?

It's Friday night, so if you want to come and party, one of my neighbors has a party that's in full-tilt now. Just take the green line out to Vällingby once you arrive in central Stockholm. Walk about seven minutes from the station and look for the P-A-R-T-Y. I'm sure they won't mind if you crash, it seems like half the city is already there.

How do I know? They just woke me up from my nap. And it stinks of cigarette smoke in here from the stairway.

1 AM addition: The party seemed to die out around midnight, but it will linger on thanks to the person who puked in the snow just outside the front door.

Today was just another Thursday for me, albeit a busy one.

I met with my lawyer about the revised divorce settlement, got my hair cut, did a little shopping, and spent seven and a half hours at O'Leary's suffering through two incredibly boring football games. They have an XBox set up at O'Leary's with Madden 2005 for free playing, and I even played a couple of boring games on that.

It wasn't until I realized that it was a weekday and I was watching football did it really occur to me that it was Thanksgiving. Of course, it feels like tomorrow's going to be a Monday since I watched football tonight, but I'll get over it.

I didn't even get to see Alex today. He's who I am most thankful for, and I didn't get to tell him that today.

It's strangely beautiful, mystifying, and mind-blowing. It's also not as disgusting as I thought it would be.

What is it?

Mating slugs. (Vaguelly work-safe link. It's sex, but not like you've ever seen it.)

The Swedish tax office just sent a letter to Alex.

Inside the envelope was Alex's dog tags. You know, in case he goes to war or something.

Apparently, every Swedish kid gets them (when they're 15 months old?) "just in case." I don't know if Sweden is planning to join into the fun in Iraq or not, but Sweden hasn't been in a war in almost two hundred years.

It's not that often that I am completely perplexed, but now I am.

The first snowfall of the year is late: it's about a month past the first snowfall dates from the previous two winters.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to take my dog outside to play in the snow.

I can't use this, but I'm sure most of you wouldn't mind a 20% coupon at Borders for this upcoming weekend.

Right?

(One caveat: Thou shalt not buy The Da Vinci Code or any John Grisham novels with this coupon.)

Of course, I can't seem to find the article now, but I'm pretty sure there was a story in either the Washington Post or the New York Times recently about how breakfast cereal has become an all-day meal, and that people are eating it in record numbers for non-breakfast meals.

Still, I'm sure I'm the only person in the entire world who eats cereal as dinner at 4 in the morning.

Since O'Leary's on-again off-again affair with staying open to 1am was on again tonight, I stayed until (nearly) the end of the late game, which was a fairly exciting matchup between New England and St. Louis. I left the bar at 1.30 (they were still open) and hauled ass up from Slussen to Sergelstorg to catch the 198 night bus home.

It was my first time doing this, so I didn't quite know what to expect. What I learned:

• It takes about 20 minutes to walk at a very brisk rate from Slussen to Sergelstorg. Figuring out exactly which way to go from Slussen to Gamla Stan took up the better part of the first five minutes.


• Riksdaget looks really pretty at night. I'll have to go back with my camera one night.


• The Sergelstorg bus stop for the 198 is really in front of Åhléns City.


• A svarttaxi (black market taxi) from downtown to Vällingby costs 200 kr normally, but the driver will discount it to 150, and possibly lower, if you tell him that you are awaiting a bus and you already have a bus pass.


• The ride from downtown out to the 'burbs goes really quickly at 2am. It took just about twenty minutes to get from downtown to Vällingby, including time for stops and random passenger-driver conversations.


• Strange people ride the night buses. There was a drunk guy with his face and hair painted red passed out on the lap of another drunk guy behind me.

Is it just me, or are there more Rolex-related spam e-mails lately?

In any event, I don't really want or need a Rolex.

Anna-Lena bought a ceiling lamp for the living room, finally. The old lamp was so old it didn't fit in the socket when we switched apartments in the spring and it took until now for her to get a new one.

Anyway.

It has a compass design on the underside that actually looks really nice. Once I got the lamp hung correctly, I used my pocket compass to spin the underside so that the north side of the lamp points to the north.