The greenhouse effects not working or what?

18. april 2011... Looking out of my bedroom window... snow outside in late April and my woolen socks in the foreground

I somehow thought spring was coming couple of weeks ago - but I was wrong - terribly wrong.

Yesterday I actually was out on my racer bike but this morning we had some brand new snow in the city!

My new watch

Just to help me following the deadlines for all my projects!

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On a lecture in meteorology last Monday the Meteorologis Einar Sveinbjörnsson made diagram shoving the average wind in Reykjavik from year to year since 1940 something. And it showed how much it have decreased since then. He said the reason was all the new city building in Reykjavik. For comparison he was talking about the two airplanes. One in the middle of Reykjavik and the other in Keflavik where there are not so many big buildings as is in Reykjavik. He suggested we would look at some real data for this.

In Iceland all weather data is very reachable since it is all on the web page of the Icelandic Meteorologic Office so I checked it out. I will not describe why but I used the data for Reykjavik (not the airport) and for a small town, called Stykkishólmur.



Ég svindlaði örlítið og tók ekki flugvellina, heldur Reykjavík og síðan Stykkishólm til samanburðar. Hvor það er alveg eins og flugvellirnir er reyndar ekki alveg ljóst en niðurstaðan er merkileg samt.

Rauða línan er meðaltalsvinur fyrir 5 ára meðaltalsvind í Reykjavík og sú bláa er fyrir Stykkishólm. Það er greinilegt að línan fellur verulega fyrir Reykjavík og mun meira en fyrir Stykkishólm. En það sem er kannski undarlegast í þessu samhengi er hvað línan fyrir síðustu 15 árin er lík fyrir Stykkishólm og Reykjavík en þá minnkar vindurinn verulega á báðum stöðum. Það sem sker Reykjavík helst úr er e.t.v. það hvað meðalvindurinn minnkar mikið á áttunda áratugnum í Reykjavík á sama tíma og hann er að aukast lítið eitt í Stykkishólmi.

Skiing with my rescue team

I have been long enough in the rescue team with out going skiing with the people there. Finally I managed to go skiing with some of the newbies there in Blafjoll area where we went almost 20km. Great day in variable weather. The weather was not always bad in the beginning when Sigþóra came smiling but still complaining over my continuous photography.



And then again the weather was not so good and people were falling down all over the place.

Not doing so badly

Igla... the monster worm eating my trees!

I'm perhaps not doing so badly. There are weekly exams or so in two of the courses. I have not yet got any result from one of those courses but I have got test results from the other one. And I can say I'm not doing so badly there at all!

In the environmental course I'm working on a project about the climate change regime with 5 other people. Before I started this study I had no idea what those International regimes really were but now I'm reading the UNFCCC document and tht Kyoto Protocol to find out the norms of the regime. I hope I have some success in that.

The photo above is related to the climat change. That insect is coming more and more common in my forestry in Myrdalur. That worm will change to a butterfly or some kind of an ugly moth but not before it has eaten some leafs or one tree of the tree is small. Since it is really getting warmer in Iceland those creatures are becoming more and more common in the south part of the country and even they are beginning to spread over the whole seashore of the country.

What did you learn in school today

Anthropocene

What have you done?

I have some doubt about if the courses I'm attending make any integrated knowledge base I can use in the future but two of them connected surprisingly this morning.

One is about history of the Earth and the professor holding the lecture began telling us about a new article he is writing about the newest period he think has begun some decades ago and he wanted to call it "Anthropocene". That is the age of the human being and began when the man started to have serious effect on the Earth, effect that will never go back.

Later I was reading an article in the environmental course and there was talked about this Anthropocene as some kommon knowledge!

Better now

The illness in first week of the year was really very bad. I got high fever, almost 40°C and had this debate with the illness for the first week of the year.

And now I'm the schoolboy. I'm not sure what on Earth I'm doing there but I hope it will be OK. I'm now in four classes and they are all somehow different and the people in them as well. Two of them are geology courses and one is geology. The fourth is from the Environment and natural resources line. That is the line I' going for. The difficult thing is that I think I have to quit one of the courses and at least until yesterday I liked least the environmental course. That course is teach in English and it is very different from the other courses and in that course I Have to think a little bit different than in the other courses. But perhaps that is the best. I don't know exactly. This blog in English is moreover at the moment some playground for me to practice my English writing. I just hope I'm not totally hopeless in that!

Last Friday I went with some of the students from the environmental line to a science trip to the Icelandic electric power company Landsvirkjun. It was strange to be there a guest since I used to work for them as a consultant. The people I met there didn't know me at this time. I got to know some of the other students. They are a little bit strange as myself so that's perhaps not so bad.

More things to tell about... on the photo in the beginning of this blog entry is me and Anna Maria when we went on out bikes along the shoreline in Reykjavik yesterday. Below is a photo from my current knitting project. A new brown sweater that is supposed to have a hood. I will be a renewal of my favorite sweater that has become teared down on the sleeves.

A new year beginning with illness

I have been busy for the last couple of days or more.

Christmas time was just great. I was at my sister's home on Christmas eve (24th of December) and on Christmas day my people including Anna Maria came to my home and had some icelandic traditional smoked lamb meat for dinner - called hangikjöt.

On Second Christmas day I was with Anna Maria at her house with her boys and her mother. All went very well. The days that followed I was very busy selling fireworks for moneymaking for the rescue team I participate in.

On New Year's Eve I in a great party with Anna Maria's family and now I have my first illness of the year. I'm not very often ill but I began feeling something not so good in my stomach yesterday when visiting my brother. I had to leave very early to go home and throw up and lie in my bed with fever as well as the throw ups.

Since it was coming out of both ends it is something we call Gullfoss and Geysir here in icealnd. Geysir going uppwards but Gullfoss (The Golden Waterfalls) is going downwards.

What is the matter with Christmas lights that can't be turned on after hours of preparation

All the Christmas lights in the living room at my apartment

Some days ago I was trying really hard to make my home more Christmas like. In the morning I went to a shop in Reykjavik and bought some indoor Christmas lights on a sale with a 30% discount. I thought the discount was because there were only few days to Christmas and most people put those lights up in beginning of December. I just thought it was a bargain but I didn't know it was just some junk lights not working at all!

I put plastic suckers to the window and fixed the lights with them. Before I started I tried the light series and yes it was working just great. All colors of lights. Then after one hour work I could just finish half of the lights since I didn't have enough suckers for fixing them to the window. Before I went to the shop again I wanted to see how marvelous the lights would be so I turned them on and... nothing happened. Nothing at all did happen. I just had some ugly dark bulbs made of glass and plastic in my window. Not Christmas like at all.

I was not sure if I wanted to go to the shop just crazy and claim for new lights or if I should just throw this garbage out of the window and just use old fashioned candle lights not depending on Electric at all. But before I could do either of this I had to take down those stupid lights as I did. And of course... when I was in a bad mood scraping down the last lights the whole series turned on. I'm not sure if I was more disappointed or surprised. Since the suckers were more or less still on the window I just threw all the lights up again and afterwards I bought some more suckers. I also found from last year the very beautiful lights made of full wool from my sister and with some candle lights and the christmas houses I also have I just think it is not so bad at all.

Lunar Eclipse

When the Moon was almost orange on 21st of December 2010.

It was cold... terribly cold. I got this great idea (or was it bad idea) yesterday. I should take some photos of the Lunar Eclipse since I'm unemployed at the moment so I have all the time in the world.

I read the main shadow would start making The Moon dark at 6:30 in the morning so I had to wake up very early. I went to sleep shortly after 10 o'clock and I woke up at 5AM. I made hot water for Swizs Miss chocolate drink since I knew it would be very cold. I had some worries about the long waiting time for the eclipse to finish so I took some wool with me so I could just do some knitting while waiting. I went off from my home at 6 AM and I had to stop and return home again after just 200m drive since I both forgot my down jacket (absolute must because of the cold weather) and my forehead light (also a must because of the darkness).

I drove outside of Reykjavik the road toward Krisuvik. I was almost to late because the eclipse was starting when I stopped the car on a place I thought would be preferable for my astronomical observation. In the beginning it was preferable but after one hour or so a couple of strong lights appeared not far a way and was in a nearby mine I had forgot. Well, the lights were in opposite direction from The Moon so it was not a total catastrophe.

I put my camera with my longest lens on the tripod. 300mm with 1.4 teleconverter so I had 420mm telescope lens. When the shadow appeared on the moon I also put my Celestron astronomical telescope in use and unfortunately the cold began to bite my hands, my feet and my face and finally my body. I was drinking my hot cocoa but nevertheless I was colder and colder. Finally I decided to have the engine running and also in dawn the temperature rose for couple of Celsius degrees I think. I did finsh the photography project but it was far to cold to do any knitting! My hands were freezing most of the time. I also was more busy doing the photography work than I had expected.

I just hope I can do something of the photos but the photo above is just one of them. I do not regret doing this and I'm pretty sure I would be devastated if I had not gone. In that case I would be thinking of all the wonderful photos I did not take!

In all I was watching The Moon (and also The Venus) for more than three and a half hour so it was quite a job I did there.

About Venus, I think I saw it was not full as the moon. It was about half at that time. I could clearly see that in my astronomical telescope.

Below is one photo that shows how the moon was disappearing during the Eclipse.

Knitting

Since no one seems to be reading this I will use the opportunity to tell one of my secrets

Knitting a long wool scarf in my kitchen year 2009, wearing a sweater I also made.

It is perhaps not so much secret but sometimes do some knitting. Yes I love to knit some clothes mostly made of the marvelous icelandic wool (see the traditional icelandic wool sweaters, called lopapeysa). I wear the traditional icelandic lopapeysa very often but I usually never talk about that I have knit them more or less all myself.

I had liked those sweaters very much for some years and I owned couple of them and some how I got the idea of making them myself. I just tried and now I also like very much to knit.

Although I like those woolen sweaters very much now I have not done so all my life. When I was young I never wore them while everybody else in my family were using them. When I was young I told my mother I couldn't wear them since I itched so much while wearing them. I'm not sure if that was the real reason. I think I was just thought those sweaters were not good looking and cool kids were not wearing them at all. So during my teenage years I never owned a lopapeysa and everybody thought I didn't like them, but I did.

Somehow my mind changed and I began to desire one when I became a teenager. But since everybody thought I hated them I did never ask for one or buy myself one. My mother used to knit them for selling and I can remember I tried them on, just to feel how they felt. I even began to like the itching when the wool was next to my naked body.

Some of my knitting projects you can see here on my Flickr page.

Family gathering

WARNING: This blog entry could be rather boring for people to read but I think someone could like the photo

The beard of my uncle Ásgeir

I very seldom meet my family, that is the relatives of my parents but that happened last Thursday at my parents home. There have always to be a reason for people to meet each other - at least in my family. The reason this time was that one of few cousins in my father's family was in Iceland. She lives in Denmark and has been there for many years and when she is in Iceland there you could say you had a reason for a party or what you call it.

My father's siblings were there almost all. That is his two sisters living in Reykjavik and his brother with the great beard. Funny when people around 80 years old start to change their appearance as my uncle Ásgeir did. Two of them are in good condition but not one of the sisters that has got Alzheimer disease. It was strange and sad when she thought she had never been at my parents home before and also had to ask where her own daughter was living. This disease is in the gens of the family but only females have got it as far as i know so I'm perhaps safe but not all my relatives. I just hope for a remedy before too late.

I had my camera with me and wanted to take photos of the family, since I never know when I'm meeting them all for the last time. I were just able to take a few photos of the beard of my uncle and even fewer of my aunts when some people started to argue over my photography. I just hate that kind of an attitude. I was perhaps taking the last photos I could take of this people and people were just complaining and criticising me as some paparazzi!

My two aunts and my cousin

On The Pool in Reykjavik last Sunday.

Always about the ice. Although we don't have so much ice any longer on the streets and it is unfortunately melting also in the Reykjavik Skiing area, the birds on The Pool in Reykjavik still have their ice but water flowing over it. That conditions make a great scene and opportunity for photography since The Pool appear as a mirror that the birds are walking on!

I went there yesterday [Sunday 12th December] and shoot those images there.

The cold days are over

Or what...

Self portrait from my bicycle tour last Friday in Reykjavik

Last Friday there was suddenly no more icen on the streets in Reykjavik so I used the opportunity and took my racer - The Red Lightning out for some training. Went very vell untill the rear tire went out of pressure. Luckely enough I was very close to my home when that happened.

The day after we had some ice again so now I'm thinking of buying nail tires for my racer and hybrid bikes as well as I have for my mountain bike.

The cold days

Winter is just one of the great seasons you can have.

My bike on The Pool in Reykjavik

I love the winter. Cold days, dim light, wool sweaters, snow, ski tours and everything. I love that all. But not to cold. The first days in this week was almost to cold for my opinion. It is not to good to take much to cold air in to the lungs. I you do that you can get cold. At least I can.

Anna Maria before the walk to Keilir, and you can see the small mountain in the left hand side of the photo

On Sunday I went with Anna Maria yes the girlfriend to the small mountain Keilir. That was just great walking tour. We started in the afternoon around 2 o'clock and had to drive some distance to get there and then walk to the mountain. So we were on the top of the mountain around 5 o'clock and at that time the last light of day was disappearing! We had to walk back in the darkness. But of course we were expecting this and had lights with us.

It was I would say too cold on Monday but on Tuesday I went downtown on my bike and did one thing spectacular. I biked on The Pool in center of Reykjavik. With the studded tyres under my bike. Flat surface and great to bike on!

Yes - truly a new beginning...

So many things have changed from my last post.

First: I am leaving my job where I have been most of my time las 10 years or so. My boss didn't like me and moreover I didn't like him so very much. But what I didn't like at all was that I did not make the decision my self but was actually fired.

This means I have now all the time I can imagine to do what ever I like to do. But I think I will not have all the money to do everything I would like to do in the future. But someone said time is money and I really think he has something right.

One of consequences is that I had to give the car I had from the company. I had a big jeep that I had to return. Well I was able to have the car three more months but it was more economic for me to give the car back.

Second: Some thing strange that is not valid any longer

Third: I applied for new study in the University of Iceland. What I am aiming for is a master degree in Environment and Natural Resource.

I was indeed to late for the application so at the moment I'm registered to some business administration education that I was able to apply for at this time. But I am planning to take courses in the environmental program.

I will use this blog for the next couple of month to practice my English since part the teaching will be done in English!

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...and then the second thing was valid again :-(

Is this a new beginning?

One has to look somehow and that's how I look now. Last post was more than two years ago and if the purpose of this blog is to practice my English... I certainly need some training or what?

I perhaps got this blog idea again tonight when I was writing some text in English where I work. I very soon realized I needed some English writing training.

Anyway... The photo above is couple of weeks old. I was on a camping hiking tour with my rescue team where I'm in charge of training the newbies in the team. We were walking through the mountains Botnssulur in Iceland... yes, where I live. Well... I don't live in the Botnssulur mountain but I Live in Iceland... in Reykjavik where all the people in iceland lives.

staring

Perhaps I will start bloging again in this international language someone else can understand. Above is a part of my head behind my glasses under my self made wollen cap. The last couple of weeks I have been taking a photo every day and the self portrait above is one of them. So while I'm taking those photos it is easy to write something down here in the blog.

And - yes - important
If someone is reading - please leave some messages since if no one is reading I will not write anything for the next year or what.

A small campfire and "bread of leaf"

It was last weekend. The weather was just great on Saturday. HK had been asked to lit a campsmall fire in the Reykjavik forest area called Heidmörk if someone is interesting or what. We had some problems with the fire but with some help we managed and we had this good fire. Later came a woman reading from her book for some children but it was actually a part of some Chrismas acviviti.

But not time for more writing now. I gotta go!

And yes.. this is the "bread of leaf"... laufabrauð sko

....

The health effort

There has been a health effort where I work for last several weeks. I was doing well in the beginning but later on I had too much to do in my work and had no time for running or any exercises at all. But this lunch time I finally went to the gym and even to the scary scale they have there. I was expecting some bad new but it was better than I had in my wildest dreams. More than 1 kg off since the last time I was there. Perhaps it’s just best to do nothing!

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