We've been enjoying unusually nice weather here for the last week. In fact, I think it's gone a whole week without rain. It's been clear and sunny with highs between 24-27 C (75-80 F). While this would hardly be worth a mention in Southern California, it's really exciting in this part of the world. This is the type of summer weather that Swedes long for all year. At first I didn't get it, but now I'm beginning to understand how people just want to drop everything and bask in the sun at the beach, lake, or pool. A lot of people seem to think that it's simply to hot to do anything else, but for me, I'm finally in my comfort zone.
Today I took my daughter to the town pool after work/daycare as I have several times in the past week. She really loves playing in the water, and she usually finds some friends at the pool too. She's gotten over her aversion to putting her face in the water, but for some reason she refuses to jump in from the side of the pool (this from a girl who is normally fearless). I usually slather myself in sunscreen and sit in the shade with a book. At this time of year, most Swedes are tanned like George Hamilton since they've been wearing bikinis since May regardless of the weather, but I'm still blindingly white (still a noticeable improvement over the fish-belly white that I turn in the winter). That's okay though, I'm used to not fitting in (in so many ways), and I've learned to be comfortable in my own (rather pale) skin.
Anyway, today I was forced out of my spot in the shade by a group of boys smoking. My guess is that they were about 12-13 years old. And they did this right out in public without anyone even batting an eye at them. I went and asked the personnel at the pool if this was okay, and they said it was. As long as the kids weren't smoking in the changing rooms, they weren't supposed to do anything about it. Isn't there a minimum age for smoking? Obviously some kids do smoke this young, but I would at least expect them to be sneaky about it.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Sunday, July 27, 2008
been busy
It's been a long week. Last Saturday I photographed a wedding. It was a little bit different in that I didn't do the portraits. My photography was a present from the groom's parents even though the couple had already booked portraits with somebody else. (It's common here that wedding photos are portraits only, so the all day thing that I do is relatively new.) Anyway, the people were nice, the wedding was fun, and the food was good. I took over 900 pictures in 8 hours. This wedding was a little unusual in that the couple had so many friends. The bachelor party (which was presented in a powerpoint presentation) included over 20 guys, and the bachelorette party (which was presented verbally and with a photo album) had over 20 girls.
During the week I've been busy dealing with all those pictures. First I go through and sort out all the ones that are clearly duds or duplicates. Sometimes this requires rather careful examination of several nearly identical shots to find the best one or choosing the most telling pictures out of a series. Hopefully this process will reduce the number of pictures to half or even fewer. It has been tough to learn to be so brutal with my own pictures, but nobody wants to see more than 500 pictures of a wedding even if it's there own wedding, and I'd discovered that it's not an efficient use of my time to present too many options. Then I go through the keepers again and correct them using photoshop as necessary. This hopefully also results in more pictures being eliminated. Then I upload the photos to Flickr for the couple to see as proofs, and I put the pictures together in a book. At this point I'm about half way through the photoshopping part.
Also during this week the couple from my previous wedding finally got back to me with an extensive list of changes they wanted made to their photobook. This is the first time that's happened. In this case they did not want photos of each of the guests. Obviously people would be less interested in preserving the memory of a cousin's girlfriend-of-the-week, but this couple actually wants me to remove all picture of about a dozen people, and this means a lot of work for me reformatting the book.
And then I had another wedding to photograph on Saturday. This was 10 hours including portraits. They were really nice and the food was good, so I gave them an extra half hour so that they'd get dance pictures even though they were way behind schedule. This means I didn't get home until almost 2 AM. It was a really scary drive home because I'm so afraid I'll fall asleep. Luckily by multitasking (singing, digging for things in my purse, eating, drinking, etc) I was able to keep myself awake. Usually a cola right before I leave and the adrenaline from the event are sufficient to keep me awake, but this time I was struggling already 10 minutes into the hour + drive.
Highlights from this wedding were the appetizer and wedding cake. According to the menu, the appetizer was Avocado Cheescake which I thought sounded pretty gross. But I was hungry, so I dug in. It was fantastic! It had the texture of a light and fluffy cheesecake, but it contained salmon, shrimp, and dill. The only avocado I noticed was on top as decoration, but it could easily have been concealed in the mixture--not bad since I know they're good for you even if I'm not particularly fond of them. The crust was, well, imagine a graham cracker crust made with a flavorful dark rye bread. The main course was a rather disappointing mystery-meat and potatos. Then there was dessert, and a couple hours later, the cake. It looked like a normal wedding cake, but instead of the usual princess cake that they like here, it was a dense layer of to-die-for chocolate brownie type cake, with a light lemony mouse on top, all encrusted in a fondant that tasted like cream cheese frosting. Definitely one of the perks of being a wedding photographer! I made a conscious effort not to take redundant pictures during the party (something I think I do if I get bored and want to look busy). This resulted in a total of about 900 pictures from this wedding as well even though I also did portraits and was there longer.
So after getting home at 2 AM, the alarm clock went off at 3. It was my husband getting ready to leave for the airport for a week long business trip in California (silicon valley). I got up to see him off, then went back to bed and slept to 8 (late for me). Our daughter had spent the night at her grandmother's house, so today I went to pick her up and also celebrate the grandmother's birthday. It was a pleasant, laid back day, and the weather was fantastic. (It's actually been lovely since Thursday-- ~25C/mid 70's, clear and sunny.) I hope the weather keeps up for a while so we can enjoy some real summer.
During the week I've been busy dealing with all those pictures. First I go through and sort out all the ones that are clearly duds or duplicates. Sometimes this requires rather careful examination of several nearly identical shots to find the best one or choosing the most telling pictures out of a series. Hopefully this process will reduce the number of pictures to half or even fewer. It has been tough to learn to be so brutal with my own pictures, but nobody wants to see more than 500 pictures of a wedding even if it's there own wedding, and I'd discovered that it's not an efficient use of my time to present too many options. Then I go through the keepers again and correct them using photoshop as necessary. This hopefully also results in more pictures being eliminated. Then I upload the photos to Flickr for the couple to see as proofs, and I put the pictures together in a book. At this point I'm about half way through the photoshopping part.
Also during this week the couple from my previous wedding finally got back to me with an extensive list of changes they wanted made to their photobook. This is the first time that's happened. In this case they did not want photos of each of the guests. Obviously people would be less interested in preserving the memory of a cousin's girlfriend-of-the-week, but this couple actually wants me to remove all picture of about a dozen people, and this means a lot of work for me reformatting the book.
And then I had another wedding to photograph on Saturday. This was 10 hours including portraits. They were really nice and the food was good, so I gave them an extra half hour so that they'd get dance pictures even though they were way behind schedule. This means I didn't get home until almost 2 AM. It was a really scary drive home because I'm so afraid I'll fall asleep. Luckily by multitasking (singing, digging for things in my purse, eating, drinking, etc) I was able to keep myself awake. Usually a cola right before I leave and the adrenaline from the event are sufficient to keep me awake, but this time I was struggling already 10 minutes into the hour + drive.
Highlights from this wedding were the appetizer and wedding cake. According to the menu, the appetizer was Avocado Cheescake which I thought sounded pretty gross. But I was hungry, so I dug in. It was fantastic! It had the texture of a light and fluffy cheesecake, but it contained salmon, shrimp, and dill. The only avocado I noticed was on top as decoration, but it could easily have been concealed in the mixture--not bad since I know they're good for you even if I'm not particularly fond of them. The crust was, well, imagine a graham cracker crust made with a flavorful dark rye bread. The main course was a rather disappointing mystery-meat and potatos. Then there was dessert, and a couple hours later, the cake. It looked like a normal wedding cake, but instead of the usual princess cake that they like here, it was a dense layer of to-die-for chocolate brownie type cake, with a light lemony mouse on top, all encrusted in a fondant that tasted like cream cheese frosting. Definitely one of the perks of being a wedding photographer! I made a conscious effort not to take redundant pictures during the party (something I think I do if I get bored and want to look busy). This resulted in a total of about 900 pictures from this wedding as well even though I also did portraits and was there longer.
So after getting home at 2 AM, the alarm clock went off at 3. It was my husband getting ready to leave for the airport for a week long business trip in California (silicon valley). I got up to see him off, then went back to bed and slept to 8 (late for me). Our daughter had spent the night at her grandmother's house, so today I went to pick her up and also celebrate the grandmother's birthday. It was a pleasant, laid back day, and the weather was fantastic. (It's actually been lovely since Thursday-- ~25C/mid 70's, clear and sunny.) I hope the weather keeps up for a while so we can enjoy some real summer.
Friday, July 18, 2008
The Bucket List
I wanted to thank Betty for recommending The Bucket List. We saw that recently, and I agree that it was really good. With Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman, you can't really go wrong. I thought I was going to be sobbing by the end, but instead I felt good. Thanks for the tip!
(trailer)
(trailer)
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Marknad
Today I went to Marknad with my husband and daughter. A Marknad is kind of like a fair in that it has a variety of vendors and carnival type entertainment. Most towns have a Marknad once or twice per year, but this was by far the biggest in the area. We usually go every year. Popular items for sale this year were handmade jewelry, imitation crocs (brightly colored plastic clogs), socks, T-shirts, cheap/tacky clothes and purses, candy, cheap toys, cheap tools, fruit, hand painted rocks, kitchen implements, flower pots, bottles, and other decorative items. What I usually look forward to at the Marknad is the food: a full range of greasy fast food including, sausages, hamburgers, kebabs, tacos, thai takeout, fried pickled herring sandwiches, pizza, piroges, donuts, cotton candy, frozen bananas, ice cream, slushies, beer, sodas, roasted almonds, and a variety of chips, breads, and other baked goods. My favorite is Langos. It's kind of like native american fry bread except it's topped with garlic, sour cream, red onions, and cheese. My husband likes them with shrimp and caviar as well. OK, so it's like fried grease with fat on top, but I only eat it once per year. Then I get jelly donuts for dessert.
My daughter wanted to go on the carnival rides, so we didn't do much shopping (no loss, really). She started with the bumper cars which she thoroughly enjoyed. Then she wanted to go on a ride that spins like teacups and goes up and down in waves. There was no way I'd get through that without losing my dinner, and since my husband didn't want her to go alone, he went with her. BIG mistake. HUGE. He's been absolutely green for the rest of the evening. The squirt loved it, of course. After a futile attempt to walk it off and a trip to the portapotties, we were back at the bumper cars. My daughter ran into a classmate there, so they wore themselves out on the bumper cars, a giant inflatable slide, and a small roller coaster. Fortunately he was content with the kid-friendly rides, so there was no more begging for the vomit comet or such.
My daughter wanted to go on the carnival rides, so we didn't do much shopping (no loss, really). She started with the bumper cars which she thoroughly enjoyed. Then she wanted to go on a ride that spins like teacups and goes up and down in waves. There was no way I'd get through that without losing my dinner, and since my husband didn't want her to go alone, he went with her. BIG mistake. HUGE. He's been absolutely green for the rest of the evening. The squirt loved it, of course. After a futile attempt to walk it off and a trip to the portapotties, we were back at the bumper cars. My daughter ran into a classmate there, so they wore themselves out on the bumper cars, a giant inflatable slide, and a small roller coaster. Fortunately he was content with the kid-friendly rides, so there was no more begging for the vomit comet or such.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Gopher update
For those of you wondering what happened to the gopher, most of it was found this morning on the rug by the front door. The head was missing. Gross as this may seem, I'm pleased with the outcome. Nobody stepped on the remains, I do not still have a gopher scampering around my house, and I hopefully won't have a nasty smell to locate and eradicate in the next few days.
Monday, July 14, 2008
Weekend trip to Astrid Lindgren's World
We had a fantastic weekend at Astrid Lindgren's world in Vimmerby, Sweden. The weekend started out rough with losing several hours Friday afternoon due to car trouble, but my talented husband managed to keep the car going until we had picked up our friends and made it to the auto parts store. There in the parking lot, he performed surgery on the Suburban and somehow made an alternator belt that didn't fit work anyhow. So the car worked perfectly for the rest of the trip, with the exception of the air conditioning which crapped out during our last offroading trip in Anza Borrego. Luckily that's not such a big deal here in Sweden.
This was our first major outing with our Danish friends since our offroading trips in San Diego, so it was kind of a surreal flashback with lush Swedish forests instead of desert. We rented a house for the weekend in the countryside outside of Vimmerby, and even though it was after 10 PM and beginning to get dark, the landlord came out to welcome us. (Which was a very good thing since we weren't sure if we'd found the correct place--no street names or numbers, only landmarks such as hen-house and garage.)
We spend much of both Saturday and Sunday at Astrid Lindgren's World. While I thought admission was quite expensive, the two-day family package was a pretty good deal, and it was good not to feel rushed. I'd been expecting something more like Disneyland with rides, and at first I was a little disappointed that there weren't any. However I quickly warmed up to the low-tech playgrounds that encouraged creative play and the frequent performances with characters and music from the books/films/TV series that I'd guess pretty much everyone in Scandinavia has grown up with. The kids loved it, and they often got the opportunity to meet the characters after the shows and explore the settings. The shows were particularly good in that they encouraged interaction with the kids, and while everything was in Swedish, language skills were not required to follow along.
A thunder storm on Saturday afternoon forced us into the shops, and we soon left the park when the kids got whiny and the husbands got bored. We decided to check out a "folkrace" that was also going on in town. This is an interesting Swedish thing where ordinary people race beat up old cars on a dirt track. The cars can be bought at the end of each race for a fixed amount (less than $1000), so this keeps people from investing a lot of money into high performance options. I was amazed how much the kids loved it. Even the moms had to admit that it was at least a huge improvement over tractor pulling that we'd seen at a fair in Denmark earlier this summer.
My daughter was cheering especially for the Volkswagen beetles which she called Herbie cars. Unfortunately two of them crashed causing one to roll, and she was totally traumatized. She talked about that poor car for the rest of the weekend. The drivers both walked away, but she wasn't concerned about them--just that the car had been wrecked and even if they fixed it, it may never be as nice again.
OK, one of my cats is now chasing a gopher around under my desk. This is rather disconcerting since both cats have been indoors for the past several hours. Maybe they brought it in earlier and it got away. Fortunately it seems pretty badly injured, so I hope it won't get away again. I hope they either eat the entire thing or leave the carcass intact somewhere easy to find but not where somebody will step on it in the morning. It's 11 PM and I'm too tired to deal with this.
This was our first major outing with our Danish friends since our offroading trips in San Diego, so it was kind of a surreal flashback with lush Swedish forests instead of desert. We rented a house for the weekend in the countryside outside of Vimmerby, and even though it was after 10 PM and beginning to get dark, the landlord came out to welcome us. (Which was a very good thing since we weren't sure if we'd found the correct place--no street names or numbers, only landmarks such as hen-house and garage.)
We spend much of both Saturday and Sunday at Astrid Lindgren's World. While I thought admission was quite expensive, the two-day family package was a pretty good deal, and it was good not to feel rushed. I'd been expecting something more like Disneyland with rides, and at first I was a little disappointed that there weren't any. However I quickly warmed up to the low-tech playgrounds that encouraged creative play and the frequent performances with characters and music from the books/films/TV series that I'd guess pretty much everyone in Scandinavia has grown up with. The kids loved it, and they often got the opportunity to meet the characters after the shows and explore the settings. The shows were particularly good in that they encouraged interaction with the kids, and while everything was in Swedish, language skills were not required to follow along.
A thunder storm on Saturday afternoon forced us into the shops, and we soon left the park when the kids got whiny and the husbands got bored. We decided to check out a "folkrace" that was also going on in town. This is an interesting Swedish thing where ordinary people race beat up old cars on a dirt track. The cars can be bought at the end of each race for a fixed amount (less than $1000), so this keeps people from investing a lot of money into high performance options. I was amazed how much the kids loved it. Even the moms had to admit that it was at least a huge improvement over tractor pulling that we'd seen at a fair in Denmark earlier this summer.
My daughter was cheering especially for the Volkswagen beetles which she called Herbie cars. Unfortunately two of them crashed causing one to roll, and she was totally traumatized. She talked about that poor car for the rest of the weekend. The drivers both walked away, but she wasn't concerned about them--just that the car had been wrecked and even if they fixed it, it may never be as nice again.
OK, one of my cats is now chasing a gopher around under my desk. This is rather disconcerting since both cats have been indoors for the past several hours. Maybe they brought it in earlier and it got away. Fortunately it seems pretty badly injured, so I hope it won't get away again. I hope they either eat the entire thing or leave the carcass intact somewhere easy to find but not where somebody will step on it in the morning. It's 11 PM and I'm too tired to deal with this.
Friday, July 11, 2008
Montreal
Thanks for your words of encouragement. We're busy now getting ready for a long weekend with friends at Astrid Lindgren's World in Vimmerby, Sweden. Astrid Lindgren is Sweden's best loved children's author (Pippi Longstocking among many others).
In other news, I'm presented with the opportunity to spend a week in Montreal, Canada, in September. My husband will be there for meetings which will probably occupy most of his time, but I could go along if I want. Has anyone been there? Any recommendations?
In other news, I'm presented with the opportunity to spend a week in Montreal, Canada, in September. My husband will be there for meetings which will probably occupy most of his time, but I could go along if I want. Has anyone been there? Any recommendations?
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
My first blog post
Welcome to my blog! I'm totally new to this, so tips are welcome. I figured I'd start by introducing myself with a short summary of what I've been up to the past 39 years. I now live with my husband, daughter, and 2 cats on an old farm outside of a small town in Sweden.
1969 I was born, lived in
1972-73 lived 1 year in
1975-76 lived 1 year in
1982-87 summers at Arrowbear Music Camp (violin)
1983 parents got divorced
1985 began a series of part time jobs: hostess at a Chinese Restaurant, Taco Bell, Crown Books, Scribner Booksellers
1987 Graduated from
1987-91 Attended UCSD in
1988 Stopped playing the violin and started singing
1989-91 part time job as research assistant at Scripps Institute
1991 got cats: Sienna then a few months later Ace
1991-92 SDSU Masters program in Nutrition & Food Science (did not complete)
1992-98 Research Associate at Molecular Biosystems developing ultrasound contrast agents.
1993 got married
1993 bought our first house in Clairemont area of
1994 got involved with wildlife tracking which eventually led to the founding of the San Diego Tracking Team.
1995 got dog, Freja
1998 sold the house and bought a farm (over the internet) in
8/29/1998 moved to
1998-99 attended SFI (Swedish for immigrants) at Komvux (the local adult school)
1998-00 operated a home-based quarantine for dogs and cats.
1999-00 continued at Komvux in the regular (non-immigrant) classes
2000 got cats Harley & Deuce. Soon gave away Deuce since she was giving Ace a complex.
2001 got a job at Akzo Nobel Decorative Coatings in Malmö as R&D coordinator (basically a secretary who knows chemistry in English)
2002 daughter born, quit job because of lack of childcare
2003 husband’s boss killed by terrorists precipitates return to
2003 started working as the administrator for the San Diego Tracking Team
2003-06 lived winters (September through April) in SD and summers in
2004 Sienna died.
2006 move back to
2007 start own business as a wedding photographer
2007 Ace died
2007 Got cat, Kattis who had 4 kittens the next day. Gave away Kattis and 2 of the kittens. Named remaining kittens Teddy and Dora.
2008 Freja died
2008 stopped working for the San Diego Tracking Team to focus on photography.
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