The lost symbol, I finally got around reading it...

I really enjoyed this book, Mr. Brown has once again succeeded in creating a thrilling, and mentally challenging story. If you like philosophy, there are a slight chance that you will find this book to be, even though fictional, a story that will spur you to dive into the ocean of contemplation. 

Recommended reading !

A very nice and informative post titled:

 "Why I am not worried about Japan’s nuclear reactors."

http://morgsatlarge.wordpress.com/2011/03/13/why-i-am-not-worried-about-japans-nuclear-reactors/

Exam-week...

Two days of sunshine, and lovely weather, I do not to be sitting here by my computer.
Yesterday I went for a walk, and I am considering doing the same today,
I've lost that burning flame of energy, the stubbornness.

Yet I should probably concentrate on the upcoming  exams.
Tomorrow, Monday I have one in "chartering and marine economy"and on Wednesday I have another exam for "ship security officer".  On Thursday, my thesis is due, and on March the 18th it is time for opposition on the thesis... "sigh"

I see the light in the tunnel, yet, I feel so tired, so tired of it all... 

But I guess, everything will turn out for the best in due time.

If you have the opportunity, go out in the sunshine and enjoy it a little for me to !

Some Of The Best 80's Songs

Last night I spent some time on YouTube and found this channel, with a 4 part compilation of music from the 80's. For those of us who experienced it, it is a walk down memory lane, and for the rest of you, it is an insight to music, real music !  ;-) 

You can find mentioned channel on http://www.youtube.com/user/outlandz

Tomorrow, the first day of the last term at KMA

It has been a few very relaxing weeks, featuring birthday, christmas, new year with a birthday surprise. I spent new years at my brother and it was great, I look forward to leave Småland for Stockholm, or at least move further north, closer to them.

I'm 30 years young now, as of the 23rd of december, and my brothers and their families gave me a trip with an air balloon for prezzie. YeY, I am certain that it is going to be great fun, I just have to remember not to forget my camcorder.

My grandparents gave my a pocket-flask that has a great deal of family history to it.
From my mother I got a gold ring, both for my birthday and to celebrate that I got my 2nd officer license. And my father gave me a beautiful knife that he in turn got from a lapp, he met a few years back.

Now, it is the last day of my presumably last educational holiday, it feels a bit strange, but at the same time it feels great to be able to see the light in the end of the tunnel. I'll have to start looking for jobs now, at the same time i'm at university. It will most probably be a very hectic spring, but everything will turn out for the best. <-- Self Affirmation...

Well, I better go back to the preparations, one of my teachers were kind enough to give us work for the holiday, but I refused, I really needed the break. So I'll have to take care of that now instead.

Have a continuing great start of the new year !!!

A very Merry Christmas !

A lovely Christmas Eve at my parents !

Another year has passed, and since of yesterday, I am a grownup, at last, and my grey temples more justice to my new found age. This year have been a very eventful year, and I guess that next year will be equally eventful. 

And with that short conclusion, I wish you all a very Merry Christmas, and a perfect Christmas Eve !

Memories from my childhood...

This YouTube video, is something I remember from my childhood,
it is the poem, "Tomten - en vintersaga" by Viktor Rydberg recited by Hilda Borgström.

One of these days I just might provide you with a rough translation.

Communication issues...

My old iPhone 3 and I are in disagreement at the moment.
It does not want to accept the electricity I am trying to feed it with...
So until further notice, I am without mobile phone...
I will try to resolve that issue tomorrow...

If any of you needs to reach me before I manage to get the issue resolved,
please feel free to use any of the methods listed below.

- Local Hamradio repeater ( Kalmar - SK7CA-R - 145,600 MHz ) EchoLink nod nr: 164541
- Morse code on agreed frequency
- Regular phone
- Semaphoring
- Signal flags
- Smoke signals
- Telepathy
- Teleportation

 

One of my favorite Bible Quotes, a description of the Swedish politics of today ?

"But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. 

When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: 

but when I became a man, I put away childish things. 

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: 

now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known." 

1 Corinthians 13:10-12

It sums up many things of the world of today.

Open thine eyes, and look upon our wondrous world.

Struggle, though not by force, but with logic, understanding and sympathy. 

Require nothing less, or more from your fellow beings !

The Swedish politics are flawed, what can we do but try to correct it ? 

Love is paramount, but it is not the point I am trying to make. 

Love is worthless if it is unanswered, 

and in our society of today, there are no respect, no understanding, no tolerance.

 And it is our own fault, it is our flawed politics that has been in effect since the 70-ies. 

We can not expect any inhabitants of this country to evolve, and better themselves, unless they are spurred to do so. I see a government, trying to correct this flawed politics, yet they do it somewhat covertly since, the people of this country is indoctrinated to believe in the tired phrase :

"From each according to his ability, to each according to his need".

We all have rights, but we must never forget our obligations ! 

We must all take responsibility of our own lifes, and we must demand of everyone to strife to do the same. To become a citizen, a fellow citizen who will abide with law, rules and obligations as well as enjoy our rights.

We must be able to feel sympathy with those less fortunate in our society, and we must help them by helping them to be able to help themselves. We cannot have a society where a party of discontent feeds its flame, only because we are afraid to discuss the problems our flawed politics have given us.

We have indeed a problem, and together we must try to correct this problem. 

We must strife to find an all-party solution to this problem. It will not be easy, but big battles seldom are. 

It can not be done by deception, or evasion, it must be done together.

Do not stop at the symptom of the problem, find the cause, 

and correct the problem by removing the cause.

Reach for the sky, or ocean rather !

It has been a few quite eventful weeks. 

I do have a tendency to overdo things, yet, in the long run, I think the positive effects outdo the negative ones. It has been a blast, manoeuvring exercises, meteorology, administration, case studies. I know for a fact, what I want to do in the future. I will probably try to find myself a job on a big company, outside of Europe, to get my wings... Or sails rather ;-)

But once I have grown my own sails, I will return to the costal trade because the best thing with this job, is the manoeuvring, to become one with the ship. To know her, and her quirks, and guide her to where I want her to go.

One is never better then the ship you are  guiding, yet, one can strive to ever improve on one's skill.  I guess that this is one of my many faults, I have a need to improve on myself no matter what. I never settle for what is good enough, even if I might say so to people who might be listening.

Life is a steep learning curve, and I try to climb a few step each day.  

M/S Lofoten, mooring...

The Majestic Plastic Bag - A Mockumentary

A mockumentary well worth a view !

An other weekend in Nybro...

It has begun,

   I am back at KMA ( Kalmar Maritime Academy ) for my final year, 

   before my Master Mariner exam.  It has been an interesting summer, 

   the first summer in years in which I have been at home.

   And what a summer we had ! Warm and sunny, 

   I got plenty of things done at my parent's house.

   The refurbishing is well under way, but there are always more work to be done. ;-) 

   I was intending to continue my refurbishing here in Nybro as well, to be more precise, 

   this weekend, but because of an evil, annoying lumbago, I will have to postpone 

   those plans. Never the less, I could not stay perfectly still, so I spent my weekend 

   cleaning my whole apartment. Thorough cleaning of my aquarium and preparation 

   of lunches for next week. 

   So for the next 4-5 lunches I will enjoy a quite spicy and hearty curry chicken soup ;-)

   

   All in all a rather fruitful weekend. 

The movie of Hurtigruten is now on Youtube !

After some initial problems with the rendering I got it running as was first my intention.
I suggest you watch it in HD if you want to watch it.It does indeed make quite a difference.
A special thanks to Edvard Grieg for composing his Peer Gynt suites.
http://www.youtube.com/user/sm7wyg
And don't forget to change it to 720p HD !  ;-)

The silence is no more ! ;-)

I've been silent for quite some time, been participating in an other blog.

Since the 14th of August 2009 quite a bit has happened.

I've managed to fall deeply in love and move together with a lovely girl,

but after some months we decided that we just might have pushed things forward

just a bit too fast. So we decided to part our ways whilst we are good friends.

I guess it is the natural order of things, nevertheless it is not fun, not fun at all...

The past year has been something of a rollercoaster.
By my own fault I managed to become "in between jobs".
So I have spent my summer refurbishing my parents house instead.

I have kept myself quite busy, yet it is not the same as being at work.

But, I've finished yet another of the years in Kalmar. ;-)

And the last of those years starts the 17th of August,
in other words, not that many days left ;-)

But before I go back to Kindergarten, I will accompany my parents to Norway,
and to be more precise Hurtigrutten. We will go by ship, M/S Nordnorge,
from Kirkenes to Bergen. My cameras are prepared, got a new tripod,
an extra telephoto lens, and my father got a new Xanti VPC CG100.

So hopefully I will have a lot of photographic material to share with the world
when we get back, or even during the trip,
it all depends on time and the possibilities on the ship.

At the Airport of Nantes.

After a contract of a little bit more then 2 month, I am now at the airport, signed of at noon, had an interesting taxi journey from Donges to Nantes. He, the driver, was driving like he was on fire... And now I am checked in and waiting for my flight. Flying to Linköping via Amsterdam.

And I will have a few hours on Schiphol, so some shopping and a beer or two is in order.

Its great, I will have 1 day off before school ;-)

In Lexioes, Portugal...

Now I have been at work/sea for little more then 8 weeks.
And there will be a few more before I go home again.
Sadly enough, I have had problems with logging in to blogger, so
all the pictures I was planing to place here will have to wait till I get home.

At the moment we are loading about 15500 cbm of Rafinate, for Themes...
So after completion we will steam northward again.

I will soon go out on my evening watch so its due time for a cup of coffee...

Alongside in Kaliningrad

Loading aprox 18000 cbm of Naphta.

Waiting times...

This has been a fairly nice spring after all, life have it's ups and downs, but altogether life have been fair to me. At the moment I am waiting for a phone call, the phone call. That will tell me where and when I will go to work.

I look forward to it, I really need to get a change of scenery, and of course improve upon my economy. This year did not start the way I was hoping, but the change might be for the best in the long run. Furthermore time has really been flying, so before I know it, this year will be a dim and distant memory.

School has been very interesting this year, I learnt a lot of new things, and that's always great. It, sort of, brings meaning to this life I am living at the moment. So far, all exams have gone well, still waiting on the result of the last one though, but I am hoping for the best.

I might be home for a longer time that I initially thought. If so, I have to get me some more victuals. It's a bit tricky to live both economical and healthy, even if I do my very best, they don't always coincide.

Simple life

I bought a rosé wine today out of curiosity, AUSSIE - Flamingo Blush (nr 6452), and I got pleasantly surprised. Is a lovely wine to brighten up a rainy day, or to enjoy on a sunny balcony. It is not that sweet, but its just sweet enough, for a rosé wine.

The last exam-period for the term are about to start, fingers crossed...

And after that I will go back to work, or to be more precise M/T Ramira, I look forward to have a new ship, a lot of new things to learn. And as part of my summer I will try to read up on Astronomical Navigation and Morse. So that I will have a head start on next term.

There is light in the other end of the tunnel, I see it, and I long for it !

A new, real life worth living, and share with those I love and hold dear.

Quiet

Well, been quite quiet for a few weeks, and I guess that I dont have that much to write about sometimes. I look forward to the end of this term, and the possibility to go to sea, and work again. It is sort of depressing to see your savings slowly diminish.

Spring is here though, life is just a triffle of a bit brighter and enjoyable.

I am content,

although,

life could be a lot better...