Mars

This is the best I can do with my current equipment. I clearly need better stuff. A telescope perhaps? Or wait, have I not been down this road of thought quite recently?

 

Quite fittingly it is now Mars the month. Thankfully the ugly February is over, the light has returned to us in the north and spring is soon upon us.

Telescope

Often when I gaze up at the heaven and see Jupiter or Venus chasing the moon around the sky I get an urge to buy a decent telescope. It would be great to watch the rings of Saturn and remote galaxies together with my family.
But then I remember that I live in a city, so the view would be limited. So we would have to drive out of the city and find a nice dark place to set it up - But to do that we would have to buy a car, or possibly a house in the countryside. This is the point in my train of thought where I suddenly loose interest in buying a telescope.

A folded piece of paper

I just took apart my entire laptop, to get direct access to the cd-drive, into which Tage had stuck a folded piece of paper. And managed to put it all back into fully working order.
Savoring the victory with a few cc of Suntory whisky.

Todays science experiment

yields that you actually can blow soap bubbles when it is -19.8°C, and that they freeze within five seconds (rough estimate).

New

I did a new thing at work today. I dropped my moped keys down an elevator shaft. It is nice to know that you can do new stuff even after more than three years on the job!

Bad parenting - Update

A while ago I wrote about an idea that I had - to teach your kid something that is entirely wrong, just for the fun of it. Now I don't know anymore... Tage still insists that 'turning on the lights' is in fact when you turn them off, and vice versa. Totally without any encouragement from either of us adults, more the opposite. This has led to several fights, e.g. when we visited some friends and he and a girl got into a dark room and played with flashlights. After a while there was some shouting going on, so the other dad went in and turned on the lights and both kids started shouting Turn off the Lights!!! - so he did, and Tage continued to insist that he should turn off the lights, confused he turned the lights on again, and both kids just kept screaming for the lights to be turned off... This continued for some time. The other dad came out looking seriously bumfuzzled.

It is mildly amusing, but I can not help to wonder if maybe it will be dangerous at some point in his life. Maybe there will come a moment when something big depends on a light being turned on or off, and instinctively he will do the wrong thing. Some things are best to have a solid and correct understanding of and that understanding should not be played with by dads who have to much time on their hands.

Corn Succotash

I have gone around the entire day saying 'Corn Succotash' to myself. Not loudly I think, but still. The problem is that I can not deduce where it comes from. It is a fun thing to say so I do not suffer indefinitely but as I neither knows what it is nor why it is on my brain it kind of annoys me. (If I would have to guess I would say it is something that someone says in M*A*S*H but I have not watched an episode of that show in years...)

Industrial design

One thing that can really get me cooking is industrial design.
Today it is the plastic little flipp on the cat-5 cable connector that after some time, at least when it is connected to a laptop that is carried around the flat, breaks off. It really grinds my gears. I have not counted, but I believe that I currently have at least five cables that are broken. The cable is probably designed to be stationary, you plug it in to a router and a computer and then you leave it, and then there would be no problem. But I can not be the only one that use a cable connected to a laptop right? It baffles me that the connector has not evolved into something sturdier. (One reason might be that most people use a wireless connection and hence circumvent the problem entirely, but I don't since I got in a fight with my isp regarding a wireless modem that they promised me over the phone but then cheated me of).

Feelings of guilt

Am I alone in feeling guilty walking past my regular pizza place carrying ingredients for home made pizza?

(The pizza was good, the listeria bacon that I used as an ingredient on said pizza kind of ruined it though)

Who are you?

Especially you who come from: http://www.dongo.org/the_netherlands-germany/list_4_en/a_dutch_street_and_a_german_street_in_category_transport.html
And why do you come from there to this little corner of the world?

Quote of the day

During lunch today Tage says:
'Hur säger man på engelska pappa? Tack för maten?'
('How do you say it in english dad? Thank you for the food?')

I was stunned.

I am certain that there is a Nobel price in my future

The nurse at my doctors office told me, when I asked for some advice about my broken back, that I should eat the maximum amount of non-prescription pain pills. That I should combine paracetamol and ibuprofen (i.e. Alvedon and Ipren) to get a maximum effect. So, it came to me, the Nobel price winning idea: Making a pill that contains both substances! Alvepren! The maximum effect in One small pill! I can assure you that it would be a big seller.
I am giving the idea away to the pharmaceutical companies, but I do want the price money and a seat at the kings table!

Stupid criminals Or maybe it is me

We took a hike through the woods today and picked some shrooms. We used our new double stroller to get to the woods and then Tage walked on his own and I carried Knut in a BabyBjörn. To stop the thieves at least a little I locked the wheel with an old lock and then left the stroller next to a well travelled path. When we got back we noticed that someone had rummaged through the contents in the stroller, probably searching for anything of value, but luckily he/she struck out. When we walked home I could not make up my mind if I thought less of the thief for going through our things or for the fact that he/she was so bad at the job that they couldn't even pick the crappy lock and steal the entire thing (which is worth muchos dineros).

And now I am blogging about it, which reminds me of the time when someone broke in and stole some petty cash from the Hilbert (the break room for the physics students in Gothenburg) store room. We laughed about that the next day, about the fact that the serious money was located just under the tray with the petty cash, and the stupid criminal had missed it. Of course the room was burgled again the next night and all the money was gone. So, if we should learn anything from that story it means that we can not take our expensive stroller out to the forest again, cause the criminal will read this and realize his/her mistake and take the entire thing the next time. 

Bad parenting #2

Is there someone else than me who has thought of teaching your kid something that is entirely wrong, just for the fun of it. Something fundamental, like: dark is light and light is dark, or up is down (both of which Tage, on his own behalf, insisted on for some time). It would take a real effort to build up the conspiracy needed for the misconception to really take hold, but what a pay-off right?!?

But no, instead we try to force our son into the suit that everyone should wear, in which the room becomes dark if you turn off the light, you travel up with the elevator when in fact the elevator is gaining altitude, girls are girls and boys are boys and so on and so on. But I often contemplate saying that Yes, of course that (red) crayon is blue, just to see where it would take him.