Flippin' Sweet

Ok, children of the 80s...remember making mix tapes??

I ran across this site today: http://mixtape.exopolis.com/

I think this site is one of the funniest, best designed pieces of art I have seen on the web. This Napoleon Dynamite inspired satire is a definite laugh. Be sure to listen to the commentary between songs as well....I was in stitches all day today at work! The attention to detail is amazing.

Champagne High

Just came back from poker night, which basically consists mostly of my lovely Swedish friends...couple of us Americans and now one German! Anyway, tonight Miller High Life beer was served, oh yes the High Life. And how is it that I never noticed the slogan on the side of the can? Leave it to a Swede who had never seen the can before to say, "Hey this is the champagne of beers!" to open my eyes to this. What a hoot....champagne of beers, indeed....

What's an even bigger hoot is this one Swedish singer that is popular over there....Thomas Le Diva is his name...He kinda reminds me of Boy George without the makeup. Oh my gosh ...it's hilarious. He is hippie to the extreme with the long hair and the peace, joy and happiness lyrics. His one song went something like..."We are all Jesus" and every Swede in the room was singing this in unison...oh Lord. Amazing what is popular in other countries....

At any rate....I finally came out ahead!!! Oh yes, I put in $10 and left with $25!!! Very exciting to finally win.

Ode to Joy

So it finally happened...yes something I have been dreaming about for quite some time. I have been wanting to get back into sailing for ages. I used to sail in junior high school…and no little sun fish things mind you...oh no. Back then it was all about the big boats. And yesterday took me back to those days. I was on a Catalina 34 thanks to my good friend Cécile!I truly was in heaven yesterday. The weather was absolutely perfect. The bay was absolutely littered with boats. It was quite a sight.So many times I have gone over the Hampton Roads Bridge tunnel and seen the sailboats. So many times I have longed for that to be me. And yesterday it finally happened. For that hour or so, I was feeling what can only be described as pure joy...I mean literally pure joy. I thought of nothing...but the sky and the waves and the wind..So I will be joining the crew of the ‘Impulse.’ They race most weekends and that is something I have never experienced. Yesterday was practice time and boy do boats come a bit too close to one another for comfort. After all it’s a race and every boat is jockeying for position and doesn’t want to give up a thing. The skipper called it ‘threading the needle.’ Yeah, I would say that’s about accurate. Luckily I don’t scare in sailboats. It’s such a different feeling than being on a motorboat. It’s so quiet and smooth and fluid. It’s great to know that these guys will teach me and get me back into the swing of things...I have forgotten just about everything. I could not even remember most of the sailing terms. But I know it won’t take me long to get the hang of it. I am going up to Florida this weekend to visit Caroline so I can’t race this weekend. But stay tuned...my first race experience should be happening soon!

Födelsedag kalas

So Marie’s birthday was this week and she had a little gathering at her place with the usual suspects. And we played a uniquely Swedish game that I have never heard of before...Kubb. This is an outdoor game where little posts are lined up and each side has to knock over the other side’s posts with a thin little stick. It felt very much like an alternate version of beer pong but there was a ‘king’ in the middle that had to ultimately be knocked over to win. Very interesting game. I really liked it.

Of course there was lot’s of great food...you know something is gonna have salmon in it where there are Swedes...but the best...oh yes...the best was the Swedish birthday cake...oh do I love the Swedish birthday cake!

Spicy Iberia

Ok, so I know it’s been a little while but a couple of weeks ago, I did go to up to Hampton for the wine festival. It was quite a bit smaller than the Norfolk one in the fall but still a pretty good cross section of Virginia wineries there. There weren’t a lot of people there so that meant no lines...YES...and a place to sit...YES again. Of course I knew I would like Horton. I really like their fruit wines, especially the blackberry. What I was surprised to discover was how much I enjoyed one of their reds, in particular the Iberia. They describe it as a spicy Rioja style blend. Definitely something I would buy again. Also this time I discovered that First Colony has really good wine. I liked every one they had but in particular their Chardonnay Reserve 2002...which was strange because I don’t tend to like chardonnay all that much. It was definitely on the fruity side and light on the oak, which is probably why I liked it so much. Theresa felt the same. Let’s see another surprise was finding a Gewurztraminer I liked over at Rebec. It was very unusual, not sweet like you might expect...more like spicy. It definitely had a kick to it. Rebec definitely had the most unusual wines. They had another one called Sweet Sofia. Ok, this wine tasted like herbs. Honestly, it tasted like the kind of herbs you put in your pasta sauce or a typical French herb sachet...a bouquet garnis…they call it. Very different indeed. Interesting to see these folks out there pushing the wine industry into new territory.

In the end, me and Theresa seemed to have similar tastes and we went back to Horton for more. They even asked us if we would be interested in volunteering for them at the wine fest in the fall. The payment? All you can drink during the fest plus 3 bottles of your choice...hmmm...if they actually contact us…may just take them up on that!

Art School

Although I didn't go to art school...I was an art major...painting no less...so this film looks like something I might want to check out...
Art School Confidential

Beer Festival

So last weekend was the beer fest down at Town Point Park….was absolutely a gorgeous day for it. We rode the ferry over from P-town as well which was really nice…I hadn’t done that since I first moved here.
For me one of the best feelings in the world is a sunny day on the water cruising along. Being on the water in general makes my day, but a calm sunny one just kind of fills my heart up.So after filling my heart up, I proceeded to fill my belly up with a bunch of beer (here’s a pic of me in the process)
and then get my groove on to this great local band that was playing…Sol Libre…I would describe them as a Spanish Dave Matthews sort of sound. They were great. Lot’s of big name beer vendors, probably too many main stream ones, like Guinness, Harp, Bass, Dos Equis, etc. But my favorite is still the local brewery St. George’s. I loved their seasonal ale but they also had a porter this time which was great. It was a relatively dark brown beer with a hint of chocolate…very nice. Overall, the beer fest was a lot better than I remembered from a few years back. Here’s Hung and Anders.
Afterwards we headed over to get this…the Bier Garden back in P-town. Yep for more beer. A lot of us had the Belgian beer Chimay. Apparantly this restaurant has a phenomenal selection of beer and the only place you can get Chimay. So after a full Saturday of beer sampling last week, this Saturday it’s wine up in Hampton at the wine and jazz fest. Cheers!

Coachella rocked!

So I haven’t had a chance yet to tell you guys about Coachella. It was a blast! I saw so many bands. The hardest part was making tough decisions to miss certain acts in order to stake a position for the ones you really like. So many good acts were in tents rather than on big stages and if you didn’t stake a position early you couldn’t see a thing….talk about claustrophobic. Big stage acts were no problem to wander in and out of. General thoughts about it all….

It was HOT, really hot. They had fans spraying water mist which helped a lot and they also had these really cool tents for resting, all of which had an artistic theme and were professionally designed. One tent had internet access and a cell phone charging station. Here's me in the winter themed resting tent.

It was dusty! I think I had perpetual hay fever.

Food and drink cost you big time! Drinks generally cost $9 and you had to stay in the alcohol area at any time that you were drinking. But one vendor had Indian food…Chicken Tikka…yummy.

Lot’s of cool art, especially interactive exhibits. They even had one exhibit about porta johns through the musical decades. They had one porta john representing each decade of music. I think the 80s had to be the funniest. Themed around Guns N Roses, it had a giant Slash like top hat on the top of the thing. Another cool exhibit was this machine that generated lightning…oh yes lightning. Here's John on a bike exhibit.

The setting in general was gorgeous…the palm trees, the mountains…the displays. At night everything was lit up quite nicely including the palm trees.

Madonna showed up 20 minutes late and people began booing and whistling until she finally came on.

Funniest moment…while resting in the internet tent we notice a Napoleon Dynamite type guy passed out with his face pressed against a table. So I captured him, along with Dana, John and Michael of course.

Imogen Heap was by far the best act I saw! It’s too bad that she overlapped with Kanye West because I think every reporter there covered him instead and she got no mention in any story I have seen. Too bad, because she was incredible. She had her powerbook on stage with her and that was her backup band (with the exception of one live celloist) as well as her backup vocals. She mixed everything LIVE. Oh yes LIVE. Absolutely amazing. She still hasn’t worked out the kinks in doing something like that so a few times she had to start over, but still INCREDIBLE. She would literally sing a line of song, record it in her mac live, then start looping it, then play a phrase on her keyboard, and do the same, record and loop, and keep going. She would also add effects to her voice to give the sound more of a resonance or echo. And she kept the layering going. She had all the produced effects of her CD but LIVE on the fly. The most amazing thing was when she sang one song acapella with herself by using this technique. It was sooo beautiful. I managed to record most of one song. I was trying to figure out how to record video on my camera and I didn’t know how much space my card could hold. So I regret that I stopped recording after 2 minutes but you can see how she played all the instruments and how they were attached to her mac. At the end is a good example of how she used the mac to add effects to her voice.


More observations of the Palm Springs area:

Date shakes are good!

The windmills are cool.

Things are expensive there.

Drivers are very polite and immediately let you in if you need to get over.

In-N-Out burger animal style is as good as I remember!

Happy Mother's Day!

Congrats go out to my two closest friends on becoming moms. First little Jackson arrived for Caroline (and Mike) on Monday, April 17 weighing 8 pounds and 3 ounces.



Then it was little Sophie's turn for Christie (and Evan) on Saturday, April 27 weighing in at 8 pounds and 4 ounces.



A little eerie how close together they were born and even weighed...anyway congratulations you two! Can't wait to meet them.

Happy Easter!

Hurray, finally the fast is broken! I started the day with an egg and cheese sandwich and then followed that up with a chicken burrito for dinner…yummy. Can I just tell you how good that egg and cheese sandwich was….I do believe I inhaled it….

Christos Anesti everyone!