Friday, January 28, 2005

about something else

I'm always trying to satisfy those needs of mine about creativity by taking some photographs. One evening this week I vent to a cemetery to take some photos. I was thinking about a dpchallenge competition about light and did plan to capture a light in the cemetery at night. I don't think the photos will do anything but perhaps the brown ribbon on dpchallenge but they are scary enough to be good as they are. Here are two of them.
cemetary in reykjavik
A cemetery at night
I'll perhaps post more of them in my fotolog.

I wasn't particularly afraid of all the ghosts there since most people buried there died long time ago. But I was afraid since it is a dark place close to the centre of the city and all kind of people can be there. And that people isn't necessary nice people. Can be all kind of junkies or some crazy people.

But unfortunately I didn't see anyone there. Neither they were dead or alive.


That cemetery is a matter of a fact one of my favourites places in Reykjavik to take photographs. I think this one here is about 20 years old.
that cemetery in reykjavik 20 years ago
Later on I made a charcoal drawing of that photo.
cemetery 20 years ago
The drawing is from year 2001 I think. I wonder if I should keep on drawing. My mother says I should go to art school. Should I?



>

That dp challenge thing....

Another thing that make me sad now is totally different. It is that photography challenge at dpchallenge.com, where I posted this photo last evening in the "three" challenge.


Three shadows


It is not doing as I expected or I hoped for. When I woke up this morning it was at average 5.8 on scale 1 to 10. And today someone was giving it the lowest score that is 1. Well another guy was giving it a 10 so perhaps I shouldn't be so disappointed. But I am and this photo challenge web is somehow destroying the last peace of self confidence I ever had.

It is now around 6 which is perhaps not so bad but I was indeed hoping for at least 6.5.

Wednesday, January 26, 2005

It's so strange

If you read my last blog (from this very morning) I can tell you I fell a sleep one hour before I had to wake up. And it is just amazing how tired I could be after that one hour long sleeping. At least I was much more tired when I woke up but I was when I fell to sleep.

Now I'm going to have some sleep again since it is more than midnight where I live. I don't think I will stop drinking coffee but I almost (or perhaps I did) promised myself to stop drinking that unhealthy Coca Cola. I had one 2 L bottle and I drank all of it this evening. I will be fat and ugly if I continue to drink that black liquid in such quantities.

Well. Now I have to get some sleep and I hope I can sleep to eight o'clock next morning.

is that me?
"Breakfast for two"

Tuesday, January 25, 2005

Perhaps I should stop drinking... coffee

It is no good. Last couple of nights I woke up at 5 AM. Last night I was laying in my bed for at least one hour until my brain finally decided to sleep again. And of course I Had to wake up couple of hours later and was awfully tired when I had to go to work.

This night I woke up at the same time and now it is 6:35 and I'm not sleeping yet and I have moreover started my computer as you could guess. Perhaps I should just go out of bed now and try to start this day real early!

I'm not sure the reason for this is all that coffee I'm drinking everyday. I doubt that. In bed not able to sleep I started to think nonsense as usual.

I'm some kind of a strange creature as someone might expect. I started to think about last Saturday when I was in a bookstore and saw that girl who used to work at same place as I do couple of years ago. I always kind of liked her and I hoped she liked me as well. Once or twice I had perhaps some reason to believe she did like me as well but at other times she just ignored me. That was sad. Later I heard she thought I was gay and told every body who wanted to know I was. Then I hated her.

Perhaps she is just gay her self.

I'm not sure if she saw me in that bookstore. I don't care. She has seen me many times. I'm not sure if she has any more boyfriends last years as I have girlfriends. Perhaps I have more. I don't know. Perhaps I should have asked her for a cup of coffee (since it was the bookstore with the great café inside) but of course I didn't. If I had done that she would have refused or not. If not I would have been all clumsy and not know what to say to her.

I'm not sure if anyone understands me but this Charlie Brown here is somehow more like me than anything else.

How strange it is I still think about her for couple of days every time I see her. And I see her quite often walking up or down the main shopping street in Reykjavik. Sometimes she is drinking takeaway coffee as I do and usually she is not with anybody. I sometimes think she is also just as stupid as I am.

Well now I have to wake up after just one hour. Perhaps my brain wants to sleep that hour?

Monday, January 24, 2005

Lets party and have fun!

Last Saturday I went to friends of mine because they were having a kind of a party at their house. It was great. If there have to be a reason for everything, purpose or something, then the reason and purpose for the party was to meet one of our friends that lives now in Africa. He is working there for the UN for the peace there. I'm sure he is doing a great job!

Since one other friends got a new questionnaire game last Christmas we played it in the party. It was a great fun although I didn't win the game. That was okay since the game was all about pop music and I don't know as much as all my friends know about pop music. I know more about other things anyway. If anyon reading this bullshit knows about Icelandic TV programs, then the game is called "Popppunktur" and is based on a popular TW show with the same name.

As in all good parties some of us got a little bit drunk. The reason for that was firstly the bear I drank. Then it was the red wine I drank and finally it was all the whiskey I drank. But that was okay since it was a good 12 years old whiskey and that can only do you good.

The party was in a new house and the African guy didn't know it properly and when he opened one door and walk through it he was in the air falling down where the balcony will be in the future. Well he didn't hurt himself since he fell only one or two meters and he is also fully trained soldier.

Well it was fun anyway. I had my tiny camera with me and took some pictures showing part of the fun.



Popppunktur
In the beginning there was that game, Popppuntur...

partý
...and everyone was playing. The guy in the black jacket was in my team. I don't understand why we didn't win the game since he knows everything about pop music. Well it came clear that evening that some other know even more!


lukkuhjólið
This is the lucky disk that gave us a great luck in the game...


Snorri desperat

But the timing wasn't as good as Snorri thought!

Snorri lögga
And he gave it a closer look.
raggi ekki desperat
But me myself was semi cool all evening.

Yes it was the time of that night!


But now talking seriously:
I told the friend from Africa I plan to go there in two months from now. He is actually in Liberia that is on the west coast of Africa. I'll be on the east coast but at similar degree of latitude as Liberia I think. He told me some bad stories about malaria and other sickness I could have there. He knew one guy who became ill on Thursday one week. He went to a doctor next Saturday but that was too late. The malaria had become in his brain and was dead next Sunday.

So if feel something strange happening to me in Africa I have to go to a doctor immediately I think. I don't want that malaria in my brain and I don't want to die in Africa.

Saturday, January 15, 2005

Shit happens as someone said and was fired or what?

One week ago there was a great party where I work. We had a big new years celebration with the costumers of the company where I work. After the party with the costumers I went with some peple from work (which I like a lot) and also some of the costumers (which I also like a lot and have known as a nice persons for several years and even for longer time than I have been working where I am working)

Well after a while everyone got drunk and I was not the best one. After that I was walking from one pub to another and fell down and on my other side and I'm afraid I broke a ribbon or something. I'm still not good which is bad since I was practicing 5-7 times a week for the Kilimanjaro trip in March. But I think I will go to the gym again tomorrow but I have to go slowly!

But anyhouse.

Today was beautiful weather. Temperature has been above zero now for couple of days so it was not so cold at all. But Ice and snow still everywhere. I went out in my car to take some photos. I drove outside of the town (Reykjavik) to a little lake called Hafravatn where I saw three guys fishing and they were from Russia of all places. They didn't speak any Icelandic and almost no English neither. Since my Russian is as poor as their Icelandic I couldn't speak to them but I think it was ok to take some photos.
HafravatnFishing on Hafravatn

I also saw that guy flying over the lake. I think I would like to do that!
flying

Those photos were not as good as I was hoping for. I had the idea of sending them to the biggest newspaper in Iceland. But I think they are not good enough for that. Long time ago when I was in college (or you would perhaps call it high school) I was used to sell that newspaper photos that were mostly from life at school. Then most people who knew me thought I would be a photographer. When I meet people now from that time that I haven't met for a ling time they sometimes get surprised when they hear that I "just" went to a university and became an engineer and is working at a computer company.

Thursday, January 13, 2005

rrrring rrrrrrrrriiiiiinnnnng

The postman always rings twice, wasn't. But it was a post woman and not so Icelandic since she was from Asia somewhere and hardly spoke any Icelandic. She was delivering my Swahili dictionary I ordered at Amazon.com couple of months ago. It is strange how this delivery service can be sometimes. Yes I know Iceland is far away from the states but I can't understand this. Perhaps the book wasn't on stock.

You might wonder why on Earth I'm ordering a Swahili dictionary. You should know. I'm going to Africa after a couple of months.


But stop disturbing me, I'm trying to work now!

Wednesday, January 12, 2005

My fotolog page

I have been on fotolog for a long time. Fotolog is one of the most nice communities on the web I have seen. A lot of people there likes my pictures and gives me comments. But the servers there and connections are really bad I have to say.

Some days ago I noticed a couple of emails I got in my mailbox from them about pictures I posted at least one month ago didn't go through. And at the same time some pictures I posted many times to get through began to appear there all at the same time.

At that moment I decided to go finally to Flickr. But to my disappointment Flickr was also doing poorly and having trouble with all the pictures they were getting at the same tim. I think nothing is totally good and perhaps I will stay at Fotolog also for some more time.

You can see how my fotolog page appeared:
fotolog
And how ironic things can be. That picture is from Flickr since I can't publish fotolog pictures on this page.



..............


Wednesday, January 05, 2005

Climbing Kilimanjaro

I'm not sure if you [the reader] know about what is on my mind those days. Apart from work (which is unfortunately usually most on my mind) I'm now thinking the whole time about Africa. I'm going to Kenya and Tanzania in March this year to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro.

I should be doing something else now but I have been making a web page for the group and made a short version of it in English if anyone is interesting.

Monday, January 03, 2005

The holydays are over

If I'm not wrong then there will be just a Monday tomorrow [today if you have a syndrome or something"]. And moreover there will be five days working until next weekend. What I can look forward to is the new years party next Friday where I work. Til will be a great party with all the customers. The party is in the first week of the year every year. It was good last year but I will never forget the party the year before that.

But the time is past midnight and that Monday will be for real when I'll weak up next morning so I think I should go to bed not later than now.

Sunday, January 02, 2005

Joke of the day

THE TRAIN DELAY
A mother was working in the kitchen listening to her 5 year old son playing with his new electric train in the living room.
She heard the train stop and her son saying, "All of you sons of bitches who want off, get the hell off now cause this is the last stop! And all of you sons of bitches who are getting on, get your asses in the train 'cause we're going down the tracks."

The horrified mother went in and told her son, "We don't use that kind of language in this house. Now I want you to go to your room and you are to stay there for TWO HOURS. When you come out, you may play with your train, but I want you to use nice language." Two hours later, the son came out of the bedroom and resumed playing with his train.

Soon the train stopped and the mother heard her son say, "All passengers, please remember to take all of your belongings with you. We thank you and hope your trip was a pleasant one. We hope you will ride with us again soon."

She heard her little darling continue: "For those of you just boarding, remember, there is no smoking in the train. We hope you will have a pleasant and relaxing journey with us today." As the mother began to smile, the child added, "For those of you who are pissed off about the two hour delay, please see the bitch in the kitchen...."

I'm now moving some posts from my old blog to this blog. Most of them appear on the original date but some of them "accidentally" appear as of January 2005. This one is btw from my friend Stina.
And yes, HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYBODY!