The interview went really well so all I can do now is wait.

On Wednesday I’m getting inteviewed for the position of El capitan at Mekonomen. I really don’t have a clue if I’ll get the job or not as there are a a few other candidates with varying experience and education.

What speaks for me is my experience within Mekonomen and a few other things too hopefully. Well, whatever happens it’s at least worth applying for the position.

My boss is quitting to start working at a new Mekonomen place. That leaves an empty seat at our place.

I figured I might just give it a shot so yesterday I applied for the job. I’m not sure if they want to recruit internally or not but it´s worth applying anyway.

Hopefully (I think) I´ll get it. I think it would be kinda fun running the new store. Besides the store itself we´ll have a garage and a “bilprovning” (the Swedish Motor Vehicle Inspection Company) in the same house. We’ll be competing with the bilprovning so we´ll be able to provide everything inhouse.

That would be pretty sweet, on the other hand if I don´t get it it´s not that bad. I´ll still have a job to go to……

0.00001 thats the percentage of internet users who has visited my site within the last three months.  My site is ranked 13,972,606, not sure if that qualifys as awesome or not.

Ps. I really hope the spam isn´t included in the stats, that would suck.

They say  celebs always die in threes, they’re right. Peter Steele, Dio and now Dennis Hopper. Three great rebels just died within a months time. I don’t lend any truth to sayings like this as there have been and will be more celeb deaths this year. Maybe it’s time to start saying something like only the cool celebs die in threes.

I’m not sure if Celine Dion would even register on my celeb or deathometer when or rather if she finally dies. If Lemmy goes and dies on me that’s another story all together. Thenn I will shave my beard in honor of him. Not all of it mind you, only the invisible parts. Still facial beard you perv.

Finally, we’re in Rome. I say finally as if it had taken a long time getting here, it didn’t. We did stay a night at Arlanda and took a quick detour to Frankfurt on the way down, just long enough for a beer and a Branca. When we got to Rome we took the buss in to the termini station and a cab to the hotel and then a cab to the hotel (not a typo).

We had been in central Rome all of fifteen minutes before we got pulled over by the police. Passports out, smiling, trying to understand the cop who didn’t have a firm or even loose grasp of the English language. What we could gather from his few words was that we were in no trouble but the guys driving the cab were. We had suspected that the cabbie might have been unlicensed and our suspicion was confirmed as soon as the copcar came up behind us. The cabbie said – my name is Roberto and my colleague is Pino.

He also said he was sorry for the misunderstanding and he was treating us to the fair. If he drove us for free it wouldn’t be illegal. The cops pulled us over and Roberto said something to the effect of Aiaiai and sighed loudly. After a while we decided to get out of the cab and talk to the cops.

- Noche, no problem for you (points to the curb and we move) no problem for you.

I ask if we can go get another cab and go to our hotel and he says -  no problem for you miister.

This goes on for a while and after some more strained and tedious attempts at communication they let us go. We get a new cab and got to the hotel which proved to be a big surprise.

We had been checking out a whole lot of hotels before going down here as we were supposed to be around ten people including kids. We needed a hotel that worked for everyone’s budget, was close enough to the centre and was reasonably kid friendly. What we got was this really cool, funky, modern and fun hotel. The hotel is of  modern 70:ies retro style and has the feel of a cool cruiser. It’s kinda eclectic in a cool way, will post pics when I get a better connection.

We went down to the bar for som late dinner and  a quick beer and headed for bed soon after.

When we woke up we headed down for a quick brekkie and left the hotel. We have this really cool park next to the hotel that was unfortunately closed so we headed to the next park instead. We had been there six years ago but didn’t go the the “park” itself which we quickly remedied. We went to the zoo which was a hoot, had a beer went to Piazza Popolo and headed towards a restaurant Em had been to a couple of years ago, missed the target by fifty meters and an hour and had a nice dinner at a restaurant next to it instead, it was still closed when we got to it hence the other restaurant. We had a beer at trinity, a nice Irish College like bar where we met a couple of American guys a few years back, they ended up in Luleå the next summer.

The Pantheon was close to the restaurant so we went there as I had only been during daytime and wanted to see it with the sun setting on it. Fontana di Trevi got visit from us as well as it was another place I had only seen at day, it’s so much nicer at night.

After that we headed home as it was getting late and we had don mile after mile after mile anyway. I’m guesstimating a little here but 20-25 sounds about right, will confirm with google earth later.

In a few hours I get off work and head for the airport. I just need to tell my boss that. I applied for the vacation mid December and have yet to get it approved.

He knows the trip is paid for and everything but hasn’t gotten around to mark that little radiobox that says approved.

He allso knows I am going, I told him I can’t come to the company BBQ next weekend because I’ll be in Rome having some Branca. He didn’t even flinch but said we might do the BBQ at another time.

I hope he’s gotten someone to take my place while I’m gone or they’ll be swamped.

Evs, I’m going to Rome baby.

Edit: got  off at two and five  to three I asked my boss if I could leave with a clear conscience. He looked at me.

Boss – when are you leaving again?

me – in four hours.

Boss – today?

me – yes

Boss – what? Today? I thought you were leaving in like a month.

He started checking the schedule and fixed extra staff, so we’re leaving today.

Today I went home for lunch, Em came home yesterday and started working again at three today. When I have the chance and she’s home I come home for lunch.

Coming out of the store where I bought some lunchrelated items I saw smoke rising over the city which is normal when looking in the direction of the iron works. As I got closer to home I realized it didn’t come from the smelters but from the area where I live. Coming even closer the smoke seemed to come from our house, a few hundred meters from home I saw a whole bunchof fire engines. My heart started pounding a little faster to say the least.

I figured that with the luck I’ve been having as of late with computers dying on me, TV:s being smashed and receivers giving up the last thing I needed was for my house to burn down.

I started biking faster and soon realized it was the house next to ours that was on fire. Two apartments that are next to our “back yard” was burning pretty intensely.

Luckily they could stop the fire after destroying “only” two apartments and some of the attic space. I really can’t imagine having my home burn down and really don’t want to experience it.

All the memories and everything you own, gone within a few minutes.

Spanish cedar whilst not Spanish nor cedar is close to impossible to find in Sweden. I need it to complete my bar, it’s to be used for the inside of my large humidor cabinet. I¨m covering the back side with glass doors and behind one of the doors there will be a humidor and behind another a liquor cabinet.

Since it will be a custom build I can use whatever I find and adapt to that, not finding any Spanish cedar is harder to adapt to. There is one place that’s more than willing to help but they want to sell me a tree trunk. It’s not to bad price wise, I can easily sell what I don’t need as there are lots of people looking for said faux cedar over here.

The problem is my location. Where I’m at it’s expensive as hell to get the trunk shipped, be it by road or rail or even water. And when I have gotten it sawed down to the right size/thickness I would need to sell the stuff to people in the south who like me think the shipping is too expensive.

I can get the stuff from the states and get the planks relatively cheap but again, shipping wood seems to be harder and more expensive than shipping the space shuttle.

I was supposed to build when Em’s away having fun in New York but no way Jose.

Well whatevs really, I do have a really nice Humidor Em got me for Christmas and it’s not too crowded yet. It’s just that I want to finish the effin bar and call our home finished. That and obviously have way more room for my growing collection. I’m getting a cigar oasis electronic humidifier, that way I just have to check the Hygrometers to know it’s doing all right. It’s basically care free with those puppies.

Now I’m heading over to flightstats.com to see if the SAS 903 is ever leaving Arlanda, right now it’s 530 minutes late. After that I’m having a Macanudo maduro on the balcony with a glass of Balvenie, not to shabby for a guy who’s wife is stuck on a plae.

Eyjafjallajokull has kinda messed stuff up over here. Nothing too bad, we can’t even see the ashes. It’s got to be kind of a drag living in Iceland at the moment though.

It has however stopped travelers from getting home from or to wherever , Em’s hopefully going to New York in a couple of days. Hopefully sounds a bit negative but seeing how over 100000 Swedes have already been stranded or had to stay home negative is close at hand. Most airports from Kiruna to Rome have been closed for a few days but are opening up here and there so I’m not too worried .

When Emily gets home from NY it’s only for a few days as we leave for Rome in May. I’m not staying home just because a silly little volcano is upset so it better chill or I’ll have to go to Iceland and kick its ass. By boat obviously as I’m guessing the Reykjavik airport will be one of the last airports to open up again.

I’m really looking forward to going back to Italy, I really like the country. There is much too like, the food, the culture, the history and Branca of course. There are few things in life that a better than ending a good dinner with a Branca, or straight from the flask during a walk. Although Italy is not the best country for local beer they do cater to the needy by importing a whole lot and serve the stuff virtually all over the place.

We were meant to go with the same bunch of friends that we went to Milano with last year. For different reasons they couldn’t come so we are going by ourselves, we’ll still go to the tattoo convention but we probably won’t spend as much time there. We will be going to lots of neat places to eat, drink and shop.

Places like Casa del Habano will make me happy and since Rome is nice in May I’ll most likely go through a few stogies down there.

Now it tie to quit blogging and start watching StargÅte Universe.

Update:

Looking at this picture from today and comparing it with yesterdays says Em should be going to New York.

Eruptions continue but as the image tells us the eruption only reaches FL120 to FL180 which is less than half to above half the cruising altitude of transatlantic flights. Also the ash cloud is shrinking at a nice rate. Above FL200 it seems to be fine.

I can’t say I subscribe to the notion that games dull your sense of reality or that they make you to push triangles when dealing with real life situations.

There is however this game I’m playing where if you push triangle you enter a vehicle. You’re a mercenary in Venezuela and you behave badly in general, as any good mercenary should. Game wise it’s a mix between Grand theft auto and an arcade like version of Fuel of war. Not that exciting in itself but it sucks you in mainly due to its simplicity. Anyway there are quite a few missions to perform and the map is really really big, so to get around there are tons of different vehicles.

Most are military but there are a lot of civilian vehicles too, some nice but most are clunkers.

As I was walking into town (back to real life) I came up to a crosswalk and this piece of crap car drives up to the red light. There’s a couple of guys that are about 30-35 years of age sitting in the car looking towards me with the blank stare of bored driver and passenger.

They were Hispanic just like in the game which completed the illusion and I got that overpowering urge to push triangle and take the clunkers as to pass for a civilian while getting through town.

The guys didn’t have to worry though, I didn’t bring the controller that day but I did realize playing the same game day after day will mess with you.

I’m not the one to arrange my cables after color, length and function. Usually.

I actually cable-tied all the cables down for a sleeker look in the bar. Obviously this means my HDD in the DVR is on the way to die.  I knew I should’ve had a mess back there. I’m sure the HDD would be just fine. On the other hand someone would’ve showed up with a sword and kill the TV instead.

I have to fix the DVR today as we need to record the Oscars. Good bye cable ties.

If I were to build a model it could look something like this. More will come, just watched the fireworks and it’s time for bed.

That’s how long it took me to figure out the three shell thing in Demolition man.

I always figured they were uptight enough in the future that they had no need to poop.

You know the one I am on about, you can nod your head there is no shame in having seen the movie.

It really doesn’t matter how they were used it’s just that they’re on about it all through the movie. The reality of the matter is obviously that nobody know how they were used as they are only there as a setup for a joke. But according to Stallone this is how the writer described the use to him (Stallone did not make this drawing, i think you figured that on out though).

Pointless info but still an update to my blog.

There are real  live solutions that are hard enough to figure out like these privys.

No matter how much I want to be up in space I think I’d rather try the clam shells than  the space toilets, they kinda redefine the floater.