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Dancing in the rain

I got this e-mail earlier today, and I liked it!

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It was a busy morning, about 8:30, when an elderly gentleman in his 80's, arrived to have stitches removed from his thumb. He said he was in a hurry as he had an appointment at 9:00 am. I took his vital signs and had him take a seat, knowing it would be over an hour before someone would to able to see him. I saw him looking at his watch and decided, since I was not busy with another patient, I would evaluate his wound.

On exam, it was well healed, so I talked to one of the doctors, got the needed supplies to remove his sutures and redress his wound. While taking care of his wound, I asked him if he had another doctor's appointment this morning, as he was in such a hurry. The gentleman told me no, that he needed to go to the nursing home to eat breakfast with his wife. I inquired as to her health. He told me that she had been there for a while and that she was a victim of Alzheimer's Disease. As we talked, I asked if she would be upset if he was a bit late. He replied that she no longer knew who he was, that she had not recognized him in five years now. I was surprised, and asked him, "And you still go every morning, even though she doesn't know who you are?". He smiled as he patted my hand and said, "She doesn't know me, but I still know who she is...".

I had to hold back tears as he left, I had goose bumps on my arm, and thought, "That is the kind of love I want in my life". True love is neither physical, nor romantic. True love is an acceptance of all that is, has been, will be, and will not be.

With all the jokes and fun that is in e-mails, sometimes there is one that comes along that has an important message. This one I thought I could share with you.

The happiest people don't necessarily have the best of everything; they just make the best of everything they have.

I hope you share this with someone you care about.

"Life isn't about how to survive the storm, but how to dance in the rain!"
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Thanks to the person who sent it to me. You know who you are, but you probably don't read my blog... :smile:

Being cultural and stuff

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Last weekend was very cultural to me. I honestly don't think I've ever been that cultural in such a small amount of time - ever!

Friday night I was at the theater where I saw "En Folkefiende", or An Enemy of the People as it's called abroad. It was really great. I know the play, but this time they had an empty stage, and it was more modern. Loved it!

Saturday night I saw a new musical production here in Oslo, "Sound of Music", all in Norwegian. The role of Maria is played by Maria Arredondo, and she has a huge voice that fit this perfectly. If I had to say something, it must be her acting. You can tell she's not a professional, but who cares with a voice like that?

Sunday started with a guided tour of the new Norwegian National Opera and Ballet which is really awsome. The building costed a lot of money, but you have to admit it looks pretty cool! Then I swept by the National Gallery to have a look at different art work of painters from my home town. The most known are Adolph Tidemand, Amaldus Nielsen and Olaf Isaachsen. But, I guess the most famous artist from Mandal is the sculptor Gustav Vigeland. You can see his most famous sculptures in Vigelandsparken here in Oslo. It's magnificent, but beware, there's a lot of nudity! :smile:

I honestly can't believe I did all this in one weekend. It could have something to do with my mother visiting me... p:

Vacation is over

I had a great vacation this summer! :D

First I went on a sailing trip in the Caribbean, going from St. Maarten to Martinique. It was great! There are some photos coming soon. Photos in my album section. We spent 11 days on the sea, and we saw a lot of interesting things. People are so great on the islands! We also got to dive some, and during the dives we saw barracuda, stingrays and sea turtles, among other things. I also got to eat barracuda. It was very tasty! Unfortunately (?) there were no :raider: anywhere... We always kept a bottle of Rum in the boat, just in case Captain Jack Sparrow would show up. :smile:

I came back to Norway, and after about 12 hours at home, I went to the southern part of Norway to visit family and friends. The weather was wonderful all the time, and I got to enjoy more sea life, bbq'ing, sea food, and a lot of time spent with people I care about. Really great!

Now I'm back in Oslo, and Opera, trying to catch up with work. It's hard returning to work after such a great vacation, but I'll have to manage.

Travels, concerts and other stuff

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This spring has been quite hectic with Opera Mini 4.1. beta and then the final. I'm happy we had a good release, and the feedback has been very good!

I spent a long weekend in London during Pentecost, and it was very nice! I haven't been there since 2000 (this was my 4th time there). Things hadn't changed much, but this time I was actually staying very close to Trafalgar Square, and that was wonderful! So close to everything! Looking out of the hotel room, we saw directly at Big Ben. :D We did some sightseeing, and saw the musical Chicago. I'm a musical lover, and I've seen Phantom of the Opera twice, and also Mamma Mia. All in London. Chicago was nice, but nothing can compare to Phantom at Her Majesty's Theatre, in my opinion.

Next weekend I'm going to a Kiss concert here in Oslo. I'm really looking forward to that! I've been a Kiss fan since I was in elementary school. I had one of those denim jackets full of Kiss labels my mom had to sew on for me. :headbang:

Mid June Bon Jovi is visiting Oslo, and I can't miss that! I'm very pleased to say that I got a ticket, and it's going to be sooo much fun!!!

This summer, I'm traveling as well. I'm actually going on a sail trip in the Caribbean!!! Never done anything like that before, and I'm really looking forward to that trip! We are joining a boat with a Norwegian crew, and we don't have to help sailing if we don't want to. We can just stay on the deck and get a tan. We will start off in St. Martin/Sint Maarten and then cruise around the islands, stopping on several, and end up on Martinique. This is gonna be a blast!!!

Facebook

I suddenly realized I'm a terrible blogger! I never write anything!

Well, as many of you, I'm on Facebook, and lately there have been a lot of fan pages popping up everywhere. I just want to encourage you all to become a fan of
Opera: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Opera/7669659561?ref=s
Opera Mini: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Opera-Mini/6085213943?ref=s

:yes:

It's Christmas time!

Wow! Time really flies! This fall has been very exciting for Opera Mini, with the 4.0 release which has been a huge hit! The whole team has put in a lot of hours to be able to release Opera Mini to the masses, and I honestly think we did a good job. :smile:

So, what's up now? Well, we're (as always) working on improving Opera Mini. I can't say much about it, but we're looking forward to showing you new versions in the future! :up:

It's soon time to relax and spend time with our families, and I think everyone is looking forward to that. I will be away for a couple of weeks, trying to charge my batteries. I'm sooo looking forward to Friday afternoon when I'm on that bus...

I really love Christmas! I love shopping for gifts, and I'll be doing a lot of that next week. I've started already, but I want to finish it when I get to my home town.

So to all of you: Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

:hat:

Update...

Wow, I'm really bad at blogging! It's been over two months... :whistle: I'll try a quick recap:

I had four weeks of vacation this summer, and went back to my hometown, Mandal (as far south as you can come in Norway). It was great, but the weather was horrible! Rain almost every day. Either way, it was great spending time with friends and family. I had plans for intense snorkeling, as I had signed up for a diving course after my vacation. The only time I wore a mask and snorkel, was in my cousin's swimming pool (just to practice some stuff). This didn't look good! :smile:

I came back to Oslo, started working on Opera Mini 4 beta 2. I then started my PADI Open Water Diver course. I soon found out that diving really requires the right equipment, and I had some problems at the beginning. After a while I found the right suit, and things went better. I took the course with Eva, a good friend of mine. We managed to get the licence, and felt pretty good about ourselves! p: In Norway, the rules are a bit different than in the rest of the world. We have 4 dives in a swimming pool, and then 6 dives in the sea. The last two, Eva and I did alone. The visibility really sucked some places, but we managed, somehow. We took the course in a town outside of Oslo called Drøbak, and where we dived, there's actually a wreck lying at about 12-14 meters.

A few days after we finished the course, my dear brother got married. It was a really happy day for everyone. A while back he called me, and asked me to sing in the church. His wife to be had written her own Norwegian version of "You raise me up", dedicated to my brother. I was nervous about this, as singing when your emotional can end terribly. Luckily it went pretty well, but I'm far from Josh Groban! :lol:

The day after my brother's wedding, I left for a new week of vacation. This time to Egypt. I've always wanted to see the pyramids, and snorkel in the Red Sea. I got to do both, but it was extremely hot at this time of year. It would be as hot as 36 celsius late at night... I have no idea how hot it was in the daytime, but whenever I got out of the water, I laid down in the shade. Of course, I didn't get tanned, but my back got pretty red for a while! I also got to do a dive there. It was really beautiful! The visibility was great! We even saw a stonefish. I couldn't see it until it opened it's gigantic mouth. When I was diving, the water held 29 degrees (C). I was diving in my bikini! :D

So, what's next? In a week, I'll be in our Linköping office, catching up with my colleagues there, and meeting those I still haven't met. I haven't been in Linköping since December (I think) last year, so it's about time. There are three new QA people working with Opera Mini I've only talked to over the phone, so I'm looking forward to it.

Vacation!

It's time for some summer vacation! Really looking forward to it! Leaving work in just a few minutes... :D

Ciao!

Baseball!

Today, I've been to my first baseball game ever! That was a lot of fun! San Diego Padres vs. Seattle Mariners. The Padres didn't win, but still... I got to see two homeruns (both by the Padres), and a batter actually broke his bat!!!

Lucky for me, one of my colleagues joined me at the game, and he knows the rules and a lot of general stuff about baseball. I'm a real noob! But now I know a few rules, and the difference between a strike and ball! The only thing I know about baseball was the bases, but only as Meat Loaf uses references in "Paradise by the Dashboard Light", and from watching a lot of American movies. :wink:

Other than baseball, a lot of other things have happened lately, but I will write more later.

Ciao! :smile:

The Mexican border

Today was an interesting day. I had decided to drive down to the Mexican border, and see the place where the fence goes into the sea. So, I got in my car, and when I arrived to where I thought I had to park and walk for 30-40 minutes, I was told I could drive all the way. I arrived, and the first thing I see is a guy standing on the US side with a video camera, talking to a guy on the Mexican side. Looked pretty weird. I also saw two girls on the US side with a video camera, clearly shooting some kind of documentary. I'll come back to those two later. There were so many people on the other side of the fence, and barely no one on the US side, except tourist like me, and maybe a few others. I was walking close to the fence, and you could see Mexicans looking over to the US side with longing in their eyes. I walked down a hill, to the beach, and there were several people on the Mexican side, and none on the US side. The Mexican side looked pretty clean, while the US one looked rather filthy. I also saw some strange things on the beach, looked like they belonged to someone who was now on the "right" side.

When I was on my way back up the small hill, this Mexican guy starts talking to me. He came over to the fence, and we talked a little bit. His English wasn't very good, but I understood that he had tried to get into the US, but failed. I asked him if I could take a picture of him, and he posed for me. It felt a bit weird standing there talking to someone in another country!

When I came back up the hill, I started talking to the two girls who had been filming. It turned out that one of them was a Minuteman (or should I rather say Minutewoman). Her name was Christie Czajkowski. She's apparently a known name here in the San Diego area. She has a page on YouTube with a lot of videos regarding illegal immigration. It was interesting to talk to her. I've been looking at some of the videos on the YouTube page, and I understand more and more that there are a lot of tension in this area regarding the illegal immigrants. I haven't been looking for them, but after someone told me how to spot them, I've seen them several places. They tend to hang around, waiting for someone to come pick them up and giving them a lousy paid job for the day. There's apparently some changes coming regarding the illegal immigrants. If they are illegal now, then can go back to their country, apply for a visa (which they should get), come back to the US, pay $5.000 over a period of 8 years, and then become citizens. I don't know if it will work, though... From what I've heard, those that are illegal immigrants now get free healt care, and they don't pay taxes. Also, it doesn't seem like the officials are very eager to kick them out of the country, either.