Don’t think I’ve gone all sport nuts now.

I’m entering a bike race next August 11 that will take me between Sälen and Mora, that’s 90 Km of mixed terrain.

It’s like the Vasa ski competition but on the saddle. One of the bosses down south was challenged into it and he continued the challenge by inviting all the bosses working for Mekonomen.

Here’s where the back to the future title comes in. I just can’t say no to a dare so now I’m on a diet and I’ve started to excersise for the race. Scary shit, it’ll be fun though. Me and one of the guys at work are doing it together and every hour someone else confirms their participation so there’ll be a whole lot of collegues racing together.

The next time we meet you’ll see a beer starved man sans belly but with legs like an Ent.

I told the some guys from the head office that we need an app before our competition build one and the reply was that we don’t need one and that it’s expensive. My reply was that 95% of all the apps are made by bored teenagers and I left it at that.

It pisses me off when people are afraid or to cheap to adapt newish ideas and can’t see the value in them. So I decided to build a beta app to show them how it could work.

My general pitch will be the app in itself but there are obviously subpitches too.

Subpitches:

1. We will be the first choice when getting parts simply due to the fact that we are easily accessible, click the part and get an answer from the nearest store.

2. book your service via the app, order a towtruck or look for the nearest store with google maps based on your location.

3. Since the app has all the categories included you only download the parts in that category, reducing the server-load.

There are more pitches but I will fill you in as I implement them. Building a beta app is my way of showing them that it is doable for less money than they think and also to show them the usefulness of it.

I’ll post the app as soon as it’s done so you can beta test it. and then hopefully I can sell it to them and they’ll get to finish it.

This i what I do at work on a Sunday after a festival in Luleå when the customers are at home being hungover.

So I finally got to put in an order for components for a small Tesla coil. It will be a solid state coil, I would like to build a proper spark gap coil but that will have to wait, mostly due to space.

This one will be pretty small, it’s still in the kilo Volt range of course but still small. Starting small is a conscious decision, I want to do it right the first time when I go up in size. Later on this fall I will build a coil that will produce 20 or 50 inch arcs depending on which model I choose.

It’ll be a dual resonance solid state coil which means it can be audio modulated so it will work like an amp for most sources including guitars.

Will post more when I get my first box of goodies.

I mean really, I like travelling a lot.  luckily I’ll get to go to Stockholm a couple of times this summer and also we’re going to Munich.

Hells yeahs. We try to go on a trip at least once a year, usually by ourselves but this time we’ll go with Ems Brother his wife and her brother. Name them all and win a prize, not a big one but something closely resembling but legally distinct from Hubba bubba. First we’re going with Em’s dad and his wife to Stockholm, then a couple of weeks later it’s time for Stockholm and Munich.

Got myself a new companion for the trip, a Nikon D7000. A sweet piece of optoelectronics indeed. It’s so much faster than the D50 i have, unfortunately I use the lenses i’ve had all along. they’re a tad slow but one can’t buy everything one wants in one go I guess.

That said I’ll most likely start posting more pics in the near future as a new piece och tech usually gets used a lot. That’s about it for now I guess, took a break from preparing for the staff meeting we’re about to start.

As the title states I’m settling into the groove and I don’t even care where Susan is.

At work doing the monthly paperwork that has to be done every single month. Not complaining though, we just have slow computers so it does take forever. This coming month will be fun, I’m going to Stockholm to learn everything there is to know about boats and their accessories and spare parts at the biggest boating show/convention in Sweden. We started selling snowmobile parts a few months back and now it’s time for boats.

That’ll be fun, I’m going with a friend/colleague From Boden which will be extra fun. We’ll have a night out in Stockholm with a friend of ours I haven’t seen in years so that’s an added bonus.

Other than that it’s just work, work, work right now as there’s a whole set of stuff I need to know and do now. Hopefully I’ll get the time to write more, so you know how much I work if nothing else.

I think I hear the printer working so I’m heading home.

They didn’t find what they were looking for in my competition so I got the shot.

To begin with they will elevate my position and after I’ve done the economic, union, working environment and some other classes I will be qualified. So as soon as that’s done I´ll be the new boss for real.

Sweet indeedy doodely.

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.