brain too fried to work, must be time to check in and let mom know I am alive
True to the patterns I have developed since moving to Sweden, I haven't posted much lately. I am just not on the computer much during my leisure time, and have been too busy at work to do so when I should be working. However, I am still reading lj regularly--now that I have a smart phone I read LJ while doing my morning situps. A most efficient use of time, and if you guys are chatty it keeps me moving for longer. Therefore I encourage everyone on my f-list to post often.
Now that the grant proposal has been submitted you would think I would have dived right back into the science part of my work. But no, my brain seems to be not operating at full efficiency today. Two symptoms of this:
1) I went home during lunch to get some information which exists only in paper form and while there took off my baldric that contains my phone, keys, and other things I need with me. I set it over the back of a chair, and sat down and visited with lord_kjar, who was also home for lunch. After eating he was driving back to his office, which is a 5 minute walk from my work. So to continue the conversation I rode with him, intending to head straight to the office from there. However, as I walked away from the car and reached for my phone to look at the time I realized that I had left it at home. Oops! Luckily, he was still in hearing range, so I called him back, borrowed his keys and walked home, got my own (and hung his up where his coat belongs, so that he will put them back into his pocket this evening, rather than leaving them in mine), and then walked back to my office. However, since this turned a planned 5 minute walk into more than 25 minutes, I can't really complain.
2) In the new version of Excel I have noticed that if you change the range of data a graph points at by clicking on the series on the graph and then going to the now highlighted cells and dragging the blue and or pink boxes to cover a larger region the name of the series vanishes, being replaced with something helpful like "series 9". I had done just that to include March on the graph for this year, and today I noticed that I needed to rename the series as a result. So I opened up the correct box and carelfully typed "2009" into the box and closed it. Luckily, I noticed that I had typed the wrong year and promptly corrected the error, but it is a clear sign that my brain processing isn't quite at its normal abilities today.
This weekend lord_kjar and I did the 2 hour drive down to Skellefteå. First we stopped by a gaming con, arriving just on time to see our local knight from Frostheim (the shire I live in) doing a great presentation on the mechanics of sword fighting and gaming rules. He had some folk with dice rolling the results of his and his opponents actions, and they moved their bodies and swords appropriately to show how things work. He included a great demonstration of ways to deal with superior numbers: He stood facing three opponents, standing side by side, forming a wall in front of him, who were still just out of range. They all took one step straight forward, while he took one sidewards. They took another step forward, and he took one more angled mostly sidewards, and a bit forwards. After the second step he was now in range to engage the guy on the end of the line, but that guy stood between him and the other two opponents. simple, efficient use of movement, which might given him enough time to deal with the first guy before he has to face the other two.
We stayed at the con long enough to watch that presentation, and visit with a few people we knew, but we didn't actually stop to play a game. From there we drove another 15 minutes to the home of lord_kjar's little brother. The brother and his wife own a full-sized bus which had been converted by a previous owner to a motor-home. However, that was quite some time back, and there were children involved. Needless to say, much of the work needs re-doing now. One of the issues the bus has is the electrical wiring, something that lord_kjar is reasonably good at. So he and his brother spent a good chunk of the afternoon testing the wiring and the batteries and coming up with a work plan to get it all working properly again.
We also measured the cargo areas of the bus. We have talked the brother and his wife into doing a road trip with us to Double Wars this year. We will take the bus (we will be driving down a few more times between now and them to help them finish getting it ready. Luckily all of the work is cosmetic--the engine and things needed to actually drive it are all good, and have passed the appropriate government tests for road-worthiness), which seats nine people comfortably. Luckily one of the local SCA members (the wife of the above mentioned knight) has a licence to drive a vehicle that large. She is also keen to do a road trip, and let her husband fly down with the kids this year, which means we have two drivers for the trip (last year he joined the other shire folk in the rental mini vans, and she and the kids flew). In the mini vans the trip took 19 hours, but buses are not permitted to go faster than 80 km/hr, so it will take longer this time. However, the bus has a toilet, which means that we won't lose hours for frequent stops to pee.
Sadly, I will only be able to do half of the road trip. I finally found out the dates for the Cyprus trip. I will be one of the teachers taking students to Cyprus to look at rocks from 7 to 14 May. The bus plans to leave Frostheim on 11 May. I have sent an email to the Uni travel agent asking them that when they do the booking for the Cyprus trip to please only book me back as far as southern Sweden. I have no wish to fly all the way to Luleå and then turn around and head back south again. It will make for an odd event, contrasting two such different trips back to back like that. I kind of hope that there is someone in Frostheim who wants to join the road trip south, but then wants to stay down there, so I can ride their seat north. That way each of us going has cheaper petrol overall. We also plan to let people send gear down with us, for a fee. I just need to enter the measurements I took into a spreadsheet, subtract the amount we need for our stuff, and then do the math to determine a reasonable rate to charge based on expected fuel costs.
On Sunday I fly to France for a short course on 3D modeling. I have mixed feelings about this trip. On one hand the class should be interesting, and it will be good to meet others who are in this field. But on the other hand I am spending more time away from home than I really want to do this year. I have already spent 31 days away from home this year, and March has barely started. I have another 31 days between now and the end of May that are already scheduled to be out of town.
Another concern is food--those of you who know me know that 1) I am a very fussy eater (but that doesn't show when I am cooking, as I use only ingredients I eat), and 2) *when* I eat really matters to me. During the day I tend to want a bit of food every 1 to 2 hours, and if I don't get it I start noticing problems with my mood/energy levels. However, in the evenings I am not interested in food at all, and can't be tempted with my favourite things. sadly "evening" is not something that my body has clearly defined. Some days my interest in food stops as early as 15:00 or 16:00, while others I am still hungry and eating at 18:30 or even, rarely, 19:00. Why is this an issue? Because in France they tend to eat late in the evenings. The program for the course shows dinner scheduled for 20:00 to 22:00! This is so not workable for me and my body. Luckily, there is a coffee break schedule for 15:00, so I can eat then. However, what will I eat?
I will be staying in a hotel, so no place to cook, and as late as the course goes there won't be much time, if any, to shop for food. I could pre-cook enough meals for the whole trip (it is only four days) and just bring them with me, but that would mean needing to check some luggage, as four days of food would take up too much room in my backpack (if it would fit at all). At this point I am leaning toward flying carry-on only and bringing enough muesli for my breakfasts and making up a batch of hais (my version contains more different types of nuts and dried fruit and a lower percentage of breadcrumbs than the original, and I do not roll them in sugar) and oat cakes to bring with me for snacks, and just hope that I will be able to buy more food somewhere that I can eat.
I have heard that we don't need to bring our computers, and I am thinking of leaving mine at home and traveling only with the tablet. I won't have time/energy left over after class to do any work, so will only want it for internet, anyway, and the tablet can do that.
Now that the grant proposal has been submitted you would think I would have dived right back into the science part of my work. But no, my brain seems to be not operating at full efficiency today. Two symptoms of this:
1) I went home during lunch to get some information which exists only in paper form and while there took off my baldric that contains my phone, keys, and other things I need with me. I set it over the back of a chair, and sat down and visited with lord_kjar, who was also home for lunch. After eating he was driving back to his office, which is a 5 minute walk from my work. So to continue the conversation I rode with him, intending to head straight to the office from there. However, as I walked away from the car and reached for my phone to look at the time I realized that I had left it at home. Oops! Luckily, he was still in hearing range, so I called him back, borrowed his keys and walked home, got my own (and hung his up where his coat belongs, so that he will put them back into his pocket this evening, rather than leaving them in mine), and then walked back to my office. However, since this turned a planned 5 minute walk into more than 25 minutes, I can't really complain.
2) In the new version of Excel I have noticed that if you change the range of data a graph points at by clicking on the series on the graph and then going to the now highlighted cells and dragging the blue and or pink boxes to cover a larger region the name of the series vanishes, being replaced with something helpful like "series 9". I had done just that to include March on the graph for this year, and today I noticed that I needed to rename the series as a result. So I opened up the correct box and carelfully typed "2009" into the box and closed it. Luckily, I noticed that I had typed the wrong year and promptly corrected the error, but it is a clear sign that my brain processing isn't quite at its normal abilities today.
This weekend lord_kjar and I did the 2 hour drive down to Skellefteå. First we stopped by a gaming con, arriving just on time to see our local knight from Frostheim (the shire I live in) doing a great presentation on the mechanics of sword fighting and gaming rules. He had some folk with dice rolling the results of his and his opponents actions, and they moved their bodies and swords appropriately to show how things work. He included a great demonstration of ways to deal with superior numbers: He stood facing three opponents, standing side by side, forming a wall in front of him, who were still just out of range. They all took one step straight forward, while he took one sidewards. They took another step forward, and he took one more angled mostly sidewards, and a bit forwards. After the second step he was now in range to engage the guy on the end of the line, but that guy stood between him and the other two opponents. simple, efficient use of movement, which might given him enough time to deal with the first guy before he has to face the other two.
We stayed at the con long enough to watch that presentation, and visit with a few people we knew, but we didn't actually stop to play a game. From there we drove another 15 minutes to the home of lord_kjar's little brother. The brother and his wife own a full-sized bus which had been converted by a previous owner to a motor-home. However, that was quite some time back, and there were children involved. Needless to say, much of the work needs re-doing now. One of the issues the bus has is the electrical wiring, something that lord_kjar is reasonably good at. So he and his brother spent a good chunk of the afternoon testing the wiring and the batteries and coming up with a work plan to get it all working properly again.
We also measured the cargo areas of the bus. We have talked the brother and his wife into doing a road trip with us to Double Wars this year. We will take the bus (we will be driving down a few more times between now and them to help them finish getting it ready. Luckily all of the work is cosmetic--the engine and things needed to actually drive it are all good, and have passed the appropriate government tests for road-worthiness), which seats nine people comfortably. Luckily one of the local SCA members (the wife of the above mentioned knight) has a licence to drive a vehicle that large. She is also keen to do a road trip, and let her husband fly down with the kids this year, which means we have two drivers for the trip (last year he joined the other shire folk in the rental mini vans, and she and the kids flew). In the mini vans the trip took 19 hours, but buses are not permitted to go faster than 80 km/hr, so it will take longer this time. However, the bus has a toilet, which means that we won't lose hours for frequent stops to pee.
Sadly, I will only be able to do half of the road trip. I finally found out the dates for the Cyprus trip. I will be one of the teachers taking students to Cyprus to look at rocks from 7 to 14 May. The bus plans to leave Frostheim on 11 May. I have sent an email to the Uni travel agent asking them that when they do the booking for the Cyprus trip to please only book me back as far as southern Sweden. I have no wish to fly all the way to Luleå and then turn around and head back south again. It will make for an odd event, contrasting two such different trips back to back like that. I kind of hope that there is someone in Frostheim who wants to join the road trip south, but then wants to stay down there, so I can ride their seat north. That way each of us going has cheaper petrol overall. We also plan to let people send gear down with us, for a fee. I just need to enter the measurements I took into a spreadsheet, subtract the amount we need for our stuff, and then do the math to determine a reasonable rate to charge based on expected fuel costs.
On Sunday I fly to France for a short course on 3D modeling. I have mixed feelings about this trip. On one hand the class should be interesting, and it will be good to meet others who are in this field. But on the other hand I am spending more time away from home than I really want to do this year. I have already spent 31 days away from home this year, and March has barely started. I have another 31 days between now and the end of May that are already scheduled to be out of town.
Another concern is food--those of you who know me know that 1) I am a very fussy eater (but that doesn't show when I am cooking, as I use only ingredients I eat), and 2) *when* I eat really matters to me. During the day I tend to want a bit of food every 1 to 2 hours, and if I don't get it I start noticing problems with my mood/energy levels. However, in the evenings I am not interested in food at all, and can't be tempted with my favourite things. sadly "evening" is not something that my body has clearly defined. Some days my interest in food stops as early as 15:00 or 16:00, while others I am still hungry and eating at 18:30 or even, rarely, 19:00. Why is this an issue? Because in France they tend to eat late in the evenings. The program for the course shows dinner scheduled for 20:00 to 22:00! This is so not workable for me and my body. Luckily, there is a coffee break schedule for 15:00, so I can eat then. However, what will I eat?
I will be staying in a hotel, so no place to cook, and as late as the course goes there won't be much time, if any, to shop for food. I could pre-cook enough meals for the whole trip (it is only four days) and just bring them with me, but that would mean needing to check some luggage, as four days of food would take up too much room in my backpack (if it would fit at all). At this point I am leaning toward flying carry-on only and bringing enough muesli for my breakfasts and making up a batch of hais (my version contains more different types of nuts and dried fruit and a lower percentage of breadcrumbs than the original, and I do not roll them in sugar) and oat cakes to bring with me for snacks, and just hope that I will be able to buy more food somewhere that I can eat.
I have heard that we don't need to bring our computers, and I am thinking of leaving mine at home and traveling only with the tablet. I won't have time/energy left over after class to do any work, so will only want it for internet, anyway, and the tablet can do that.