Yes, I didn’t get the year wrong. As I started looking into the pictures from 2019 I realised that I didn’t post the pictures from 2018.
I had them prepared though, I think it was done as long ago as April, but I didn’t get the last touch done. Here a little sample from the pictures.
Now I did get it done, so here they are:
I have finally managed to get the pictures from 2016 and 2017 sorted.
Here some highlights from 2016:
Here you find the pictures of 2016: wolfmaier.se/2016-in-pictures/
And some highlights from 2017:
Here you find the pictures from 2017: wolfmaier.se/2017-in-picutres/
Enjoy!
(Picutre from Ringsjön runt)
On Saturday I’m going to cycle Ringsjön runt. It’s a local cycle-race around the lake we live next to. There are 4 different distances, 3 road and one off-road, I’m going for the middle road one of 65 km, as that one passes our place just out on the main road. The other two don’t even come close. (35 and 125 km)
There still are spots open if you want to join me: www.ringsjonrunt.se/index.htm (Page in swedish)
If you want to follow my progress just check out this link: www.greenalp.com/RealtimeTracker/index.php?viewuser=wolfie217 on greenalp. I will also try to make it possible to track me on Runtastic for you of my friends that have facebook. (I haven’t tested that it really is Live, a link should show up on my feed there).
If you want to cheer me on in real life you can look at this map and find a spot. www.ringsjonrunt.se/index_htm_files/ringsjon-runt-alla-rundor-2014-2.jpg
I’m on the yellow route.
I have finally got all the pictures from 2015 sorted out. This last year I’ve made more than the years before, mainly because I’ve a new phone with a better camera, I’m just not dragging my good camera around as much as I wish.
Here a little preview:
Here comes the link to the pictures: http://wolfmaier.se/2015-in-pictures/
Enjoy!
I guess it wasn’t easy to figure out what bridge it was in the pictures of the advent calendar. I will now give a clue about three days after I posted the picture so you might get it as long as it hasn’t gotten three (3) right answers here as a comment to the post. So you might want to check back a few days and continue guessing. So far there aren’t three right answers on any of the bridges I’ve posted.
The last bridge with clue is this one: 3d December Bridge Tomorrow there will come a new clue…
Good luck!
2013 was an amazing year. As it started I didn’t know what it would hold for us. I had a few expectations, but they are dwarfed by what actually happened.
(See my post from the 10th of January last year: http://blog.wolfmaier.se/wolfie217/2013/01/10/new-year-what-will-you-bring/)
Here are the points that I thought of as certain last year:
“
“
Little did I know then that some of the things on the list would be bigger, more altering than I thought.
We had already been thinking of making the move when I wrote this, but nothing was planned. So now to what actually happened:
But the biggest things that happen were not thought of:
We made the move, leaving our home in Stockholm for a new one in Skåne, first in Höör, then in our house in Gamla Bo.
This leads me up to the headline question: 2014 – A year to remember?
It definitely will be. We will have our second kid; that is really big. We have been looking forward to have at least one more kid, but as things dragged along it wasn’t easy for me at least. I wanted the kids to be closer in age. One just has no say in how fast things go. Now there won’t be too long between them, just a little less than three years and that is fine, it was just longer than I hoped for.
I don’t know how our daughter will react to Poff arriving but I think she will become a great big sister. She already talks about the little little baby living in mom.
I do know that Poff will be born into a nice home.
By the way, Poff comes from the fact that at some point a friend of ours called Susanna and me Piff and Puff, as the chipmunks in Donald duck. Our daughter had the working name of Paff before she was borne.
Now we just have to get the home in order. We have had my parents here for Christmas and New Year and they have helped us a great deal, making our home liveable. There are still plenty of things to be done until some real ordinary life will show up, many boxes to be unpacked, lamps fixed (they have to stay at the apartment until it is clean; we keep it until the last of January). Curtains and pictures on the walls might take a longer time.
Owning a house is much more an ongoing project than renting a place. The list of what is to do will grow faster than we can check things off.
Back to the question, now a few points to remember from 2014 that we already know:
There will probably be a few more things. It won’t be an ordinary year. It will just not be the life changer that 2013 has been.
(And we do have a guest room).
Our TV has been acting strange for a while. I don’t know exactly when it started but it might be a bit more than a year ago; it just didn’t start at once anymore but clicked a while until it started. In the beginning the clicking was just going on for a short time but it soon increased to be about five minutes. And this way it stayed until recently.
One Sunday evening a few weeks ago I wanted to chill in front of the TV and I started it, thinking it would take about 10-15 minutes (it had after the move started to take a little bit longer to start up). Half an hour later it still clicked away in the living room and I started getting worried. After one hour I gave up. I had chilled in front of the computer instead (not as chilling as the TV) and it was about time to go to sleep. I did not go to sleep, but started searching the internet if there are other people out there with the same problem.
I was not alone. Not alone at all. There are plenty of people who had the same problem as I had. Some got it fixed by the warranty. Most (that I found) didn’t due to the fact that the TV was more than three years old. Bad quality Samsung TV, with things in them that just barely survive the warranty. And it was all kinds of models affected. Ouch, that didn’t feel good. I already saw myself trying to find a new TV (from a different brand) spending lots of money we really don’t want to spend. (And no, I don’t want to live without TV, it’s just too nice to chill in front of it after a hard day).
But then I looked at the links that Google had shown me a little closer. And there were some people talking about fixing the problem. So I looked at one of the links; http://redpushpin.blogspot.se/2011/08/repairing-samsung-lcd-tv-with-clicking.html
and it looked kind of easy to fix. So I decided I would give it a try. One or more of the capacitors could have popped. The fix being replacing the capacitors and then it would work again. Just make sure you don’t use the same ones as they were not really good enough only coping with 10 V, one should use at least 12 V or higher (all other things the same).
The day after, in the evening when our daughter was asleep, I unscrewed the back of the TV and saw the problem right away. Two of the capacitors had popped.
Here they are marked.
So I unsoldered them and ordered new ones. Then the big wait started. It took ten days until the parts came. Ten long days without TV. Okay it was not that bad, but still.
When the parts arrived I soldered them into place. I’m actually kind of proud of my soldering even if they are not as perfect as the others on the circuit board:
It is the two objects called CM 852 and CM 853 that I replaced.
This is how they looked from the other side. (It’s the two black ones with a “K” on top).
After that I put everything together again and plugged all the parts in. I pressed the on button, it started right away and I had a little victory dance.
Sure all warranties are void now but hey, they were void already before due to high age. And watching TV isn’t an activity that needs to be planned ahead anymore.
Today our daughter slept till half past nine. And it was just the right day. We didn’t get into bed before late. She had already slept for five hours when we joined her. That usually is a good plan to get a short night’s sleep. Not so tonight.
The reason we stayed up late last night was that we watched the third and final part of the miniseries “Unsere Mütter, unsere Väter” (our mothers, our fathers) or “Generation War”. It made me thinking, this is what my grandparents lived through. Maybe not exactly, but the things going on around them were the same. It made me think of grandfather’s diary that he wrote during his imprisonment in France. It made me remember the things grandmother told me of the time, mostly the time after the war. How they had to walk home. How life changed.
I can really recommend the series. It’s three 1½ hours episodes so it takes some time, but it is time well spent. And you get a free lesson in German, as the series is a German production. Here is the link to the IMDb site: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1883092/
I have finally finished 2012, that is organising the pictures of the year. (This time I did it before I filed my tax-report).
Here is a short preview:
Many pictures of our daughter:
A few from my trips:
A few from our trips:
And some other more random pictures:
As most of you noticed a new year has started. (Sure in some areas it hasn’t started yet or it had started a bit earlier than here, but I’m thinking of us living in the part of the world where time is related to the birth of Christ).
Some years are just normal years. The last one was that in some way. Normal years are good, they give you time to reflect on life. No real life changing thing happened. As far as I know anyhow. (Some of the life changing things have the tendency to first show themselves after some time).
Will 2013 be a normal year again, or will it bring big change? I don’t know. There are things brewing, but nothing is actually planned.
A few things are more certain:
None of these things will qualify this year as non-normal.
I just hope I can make the most of every moment of this year anyway. I have started out good I think. Like today, when I took our daughter for a ride in the bicycle wagon to go shopping despite the snow. (You who know me know that I like bicycling in the snow). After dinner tonight I also took a few rounds down the slope beside our house on the snowracer. I think I might enjoy it more than her, but she likes it too. Now the snow is really fast so we have to turn around the house to not go through the thorn bushes and down the steep slope into the nature reserve (that contains plenty of trees before ending in the lake Mälaren, that isn’t frozen over here so far).
This morning I saw this post on facebook where there were 45 good advices given by a 90 year old lady named Regina Brett. I looked it up, since I liked the advice given and found out it wasn’t a 90 year old lady after all giving the advice and it wasn’t only 45 but five more. But it is good advice anyway so I shared it there, and I share it here too: http://www.reginabrett.com/life_lessons.php
I think I might print them and post them on my board here at home.
The other day as I was bicycling home from church I went by a little group of people that were taking photos. I thought that one of them looked familiar, but she lives a bit away nowadays so I thought it is just someone similar. Then when I glanced through her blog the other day, I recognised a picture taken at the spot I bicycled by. I should have stopped and said hi. (And here is the link to that blogpost: http://litenlisa.blogspot.se/2013/01/en-ovantad-grej.html)
After Susanna proofread this post she said she wanted to show me a thing. We had the book that Regina Brett wrote on the 50 advices standing in our shelf (translated to Swedish). Now I have a new book to read.
It’s about time. I finally got my picture-documentation of 2011 ready.
It was a year with many things happening but not as many pictures taken. Still I have managed to put together a little resume like the previous years.
A little preview:
From winter,
from trips,
a few trains,
and of course us.
Here comes the link to the page: 2011 in pictures
Enjoy!
Happy New Year!
This time last year I didn’t even know I was becoming a father. Didn’t know how living with a kid would be like.
Susanna and I were thinking that it would be nice to have a kid during the year, not knowing that she already was growing in her.
Not in our wildest fantasy could we have expected a more wonderful kid than Ellinor. She is just so cute, letting us sleep at night and giving us an easy time.
A few highlights of the year:
I will remember 2011 as a great year. Only one big change accrued, but this change was probably as big as change can be.
What will 2012 bring? Hopefully a kid that starts to walk, maybe even say a word or two. I will go on father-leave from work in September. That will give me much more time with Ellinor. I don’t hope for too many other things to be done then, but that is just not the focus of being off work then. During my father-leave Susanna will be working.
Maybe a trip or two should be possible too, nothing really far away though.
In March I will be part of a team from work skiing the “StafettVasan” a relay cross-country ski race in the track of the in Sweden famous ski-race “Vasaloppet”.
I don’t have that many other plans for the year. Maybe I will try to be more aware of injustice and lose a kilo or ten.
My year will be great! May yours be great as well!
Second of advent I went to Gothenburg with work. As usual I went by train. But I didn’t take a train from SJ on the way down, “Blå Tåget” (the Blue Train) a new train-company was my choice this time.
Blå Tåget has been in service for a couple of months now. It is run by Skandinaviska Jernbanor. Their homepage talks about a new experience in travelling with train in Sweden. (Here is the link to their page).
The ride takes a little bit longer, but that is compensated by higher comfort and good food. And the food is served on real plates not in plastic containers, at the table. The carriages are old Swedish first class carriages and an old German diner. All restored to high standards, equipped with wifi and power outlets at every seat.
One thing that is on most peoples mind today is if the train is on time, so many aren’t. This one was, but it is a bit easier to be on time when one doesn’t go as fast as most passenger trains. We’ll see how it develops, they have spare engines and carriages if things break and for a company that only has one train a day from Gothenburg to Uppsala and back that is something.
Here is a picture of the interior:
Here one of my dinner:
A few things are maybe not as good as they could be.
The power outlets are above the windows, leaving ones cable dangling around. Not the ideal position really.
I didn’t have an assigned seat. Not a problem when the train is half empty like this time, but when there are more people on board it would be nice to have a choice of seat, preferably pre-bookable, like many airlines do.
My total review of this new concept is good with only few ways of improvement.
Good luck, hope they survive.
Today we ordered a bike trailer. Now we will be able to be even less dependent on a car.
I’ve been thinking about getting one for a while now and I convinced Susanna that it would be a good idea.
The one we decided to by is a kind that can be used as a stroller, children’s trailer or cargo trailer. This will give us possibilities to use it both to go on tours with Ellinor (once she’s big enough to wear a helmet) and to do our weekly shopping.
Now I have to learn how to bike with a trailer. It shouldn’t be that hard, but I have to learn to not speed along as usual, since one should not pull it too fast.
Last week there was a proposition made that cars would have to yield at bike path crossings. I think that is a really bad idea, in some cases it’s smart, when there is a yield sign before the bike path and the adjacent road is a main road it makes sense that cars yield to bikes, but when a bike path is crossing a main road it’s just plain stupid to not slow down and yield to cars, since there is a big chance that the driver on the main road won’t see the bike in time.
Here is the link (in Swedish) to a post by Stina Bergström where she writes about it. I think it is good to do promote bicycling, but to give the bicycles right of way is not a good way of doing it, it’s just too dangerous. Making it legal to bike on the road if you keep some kind of minimum speed (maybe 20 or 30 km/h) when there is a combined bicycle-walking path along it is a far better idea, due to the dangers of going fast on a path where there can be pedestrians.
But as usual, the first things to do to promote bicycling are not new rules but to see to that the rules there are, really are enforced. Both when it comes to bicyclist (like driving in the wrong direction, against red light or on the sidewalk), or motor vehicles (like parking on bike paths or turning without using turn signals).
And keep the bike paths clear of snow and slush in the winter!
The start in Norsborg
Our wedding
Our new home
Our trip to Germany.
