Freedom in living

Don't read this blog;

2009-01-10T22:08:00.002+01:00

I'm not here anymore. I'm on my wordpress-blog - http://blog.thorrune.net

I'm two decades old

2008-11-25T00:31:00.004+01:00

Just to inform you all. My birthday ended 30 minutes ago, and to sum it up; A regular day at school, but with the exeption that i actually got up in time and was not late. I'm planning to keep that up - a good start to the day leads to better days. After school, i microwave-warmed sundays lasagna for dinner, and then went to work for 4 hours. 4 rather regular hours, but nothing stressfull or annoying today, and actually for once was done 5 minutes before time. Phonecalls from my sister, my brother, my dad, and one from a friend that i didn't catch. Driving my friend Alf to the store, playing around with handbrake turns and ending in a ditch for a little while. And after that i came online to like 30 birthday greetings from people i know, love, or hardly know at all. All in all, a good day.

(But there was no kake!)

A bit too much fun with my car

2008-11-25T00:14:00.005+01:00

I've recently discovered the joy of handbrake turns. Pull the handle in a turn and slide (hopefully) controlled around a corner. It's rather fun, and i think it trains my feeling with the car, and might help me in a real case of loosing grip.

However, as my topic indicates, today i had a little bit too much fun. At a very slow speed, i slowly and nicely handbrake-turned around a lone corner, but then the car kinda dind't stop turning when the road did, and i ended softly and nicely with one wheel in a ditch. Damn my camera to hell for braking at the wrong moment, because this is something theat should have been documented on a picture. I was stuck, no motion in my car no matter what i did, and i couldn't move it a centimeter.

Now you'd expect me to get red and feel like an idiot, but though i realise the stupidness of what i just did, i'm so used to schrewing up and shitting myself on the leg, that i don't really react to it anymore. I just laughed, not even a manic laugh of dispair, but a hearthily laugh.

And by a strike of luck, i was in the ditch 10 meters from the closest gas station, and by even more luck, 10 minutes later a guy in a big 4x4 Toyota Hilux pulled in to that gas station, and got me out of the ditch with no problem at all. So i got a reason to buy a thugging rope, i got to use my warning triangle for the first time, i got to laugh a lot at myself, and i got to realize that i was getting too confident where i had insufficiant control.

All in all, a positive experience!

Getting into my car...

2008-11-23T21:35:00.005+01:00

...is not such a easy task any more. Since i baught it there has been something strange with the driver-side lock, and the passanger side one has been completely broke from long before i baught it. About a month ago, the driver side lock jammed as well, so the only lock working on my car is the one in the trunk. So i allways have to lock and unlock my car from there!

And then recently starts the real issues. Winder, frost, and frozen locks! Getting in the car to go to work, i discover that the lock won't turn. I try all the tricks in the book - a bag of hot water, a lighter, defrost spray... nothing ever works before i take a bag of hot water and pour it over the lock. But this solution is like peeing your pants to keep warm - as you know, water and frost becomes ice, and it's even more stuck next time.

I'm yet to find a way out of this. Looking for a remote control for my central lock, but it costs about 2500 originally, so i'm hoping to buy a set and make it myself. Looking forward to the response from Elfa.

Oh... and i installed the new speakers and mounted extra headlights, but i'll show you that when my camera is back from repairs.

My secound single anaversary

2008-11-17T21:54:00.002+01:00

Is this month. I forgot the date, but my last real thing ended somtime november 06. As i in no real way enjoy the benefits of being single, it's not a very happy anaversary, but i won't compalin that much ether. Time will show what'll happen, and i am in no way desperate, my standards are as high as ever.

Nine things you can do wrong working at a grocery store

2008-11-15T17:34:00.005+01:00

Sell 6 bottles of beer as 63 bottles of beer 'cause your fingers slip. Luckily the cotumer said "no, i'm not paying that much" and i fond out.
Sell a 6'er of beer (6X1 bottle) as 36 bottles of beer because you do 6X6. This costumer baught it, looked at the receet and got her money back - a lot of money.
Ask people for ID when they're buying non-alcoholic drinks (in todays case, a 4-pack of Burn energy drink). I got rather red.
Not ask people about my age for ID when they are buying alcoholic drinks. I do this very little, but somtimes my mind slips.
Ask somone who could be my father for ID. I've asked a guy aged 32.
Mistype when somone i making a whithdrawal of 300 NOK, so that you accidentally withdraw 8000 NOK from their account. That's a bad one! Luckily i had enough money in the register, but if it'd been a less bussy day, i don't even know what i'd do.
Yawn loudly. I didn't think any much of it before somone else said i couldn't do that.
Throwing away the receet, get asked for it, and ask the costumer if they would like to look trough the trashcan. I didn't intend it rude, didn't undertand that it was, before the manager took me aside the day after and told me that he had got a complaint from a costumer and that he was very angry and that if i did it one more time, i could easily loose my job.
Write a note to the manager that i'm gone from 31st of october till 3rd of november, and instead write 3rd of may so the manager goes and hires a new person because he thinks i'll be gone for half a year.

I really really really loath the EU

2008-11-08T19:14:00.008+01:00

(Warning: Long angry political ramble comming up)
I'm getting more and more annoyed, and more and more glad Norway is not part of this Union of shit. Look at them! They want to create one single big gouvenement from the whole of europe! With common laws, common money, common directives... Directives that makes no sense, laws that the single EU citizen would have no real input on. They're not a democracy, even less then the US, as they have the founding countries with veto, thus leaving every other country rights significantly lessened - and who votes for the EU heads? And now this retard president of France comes and tires to turn it into an extreme control unit, with detail-control of every single bank in all of the EU. With good intentions up front doubtlessly, but i really loath any thought of a big brother society. Freedom and trust is important! Watching this idiot talk on the news is what triggerd this ramble.

These directives... EU directives count in Norway because we (along only with Iceland) is part of the EEA, and we need to follow them to trade into the union. My former stepfather was denied to start a fish refining buisness because the smokery was placed outdoors, and because the shelves in hes cooling room was wooden. What the hell!? He invested a lot of money in building a production room, and they deny the start of it because he has to walk outside in fresh roural seaside air for 2 meters to put the fish in the smokery?

And along with the WTO, also a piece of shit organisation, the EU don't want any subsidieries, they want free trade. Did they stick their heads up their asses and forget all about reality? What do you think free trade will do to the resource balance og the world? What will it do to the self-sufficiantness of countries? If norway was to become a part of the EU, let's just cross our fingers, feet and penises we never will, we would loose all our agriculture as we would be unable to compete with EU markets - even if we cept todays subsidiaries. What do you think will happen to the world, if all agriculture moves to the south? It's good for a little while maybe, where the climatically best suited places are used for producation. But think twice! We're in a time of climate change! The weight of agriculture will inevedably be shifted northwards, and countries like Norway will be the ones to feed the world. Have you seen any statistics of what parts of the world has the most ruined soil? It's Europe. We've been driving our soil too hard, using too much unnatural fertilizers and such. I say we, but actually... Norway, and northern sweeden, is the exeption. As we traditionally have not had these monster-giant farms driving their earth to death, and in stead have had smaller and less intense uses of out soil, we have among the best soil in the world. If norway now learns, as we are in the proggress to, to use organic framing - we'll be great, we'll be a stable and long-lasting high-producing suplier of food. And what then, if the EU has choked all of norways agriculture, and the expertise and interest in the population is long gone..?

I admit one thing that's great about the EU. The freedom of travel. But that's for us inside the EU - it's making things hard er for the people outside. If you're a refugee from a third world country, you've got one shot to get into the EU. Just one. If you get rejected by one country in the union, you're rejected by all countries. If you're a non-poor person from a non-EU non-rich country, you'll have to struggle if you want to travel within the EU.

Phew. This has to be enough for today. Feel absolutely free to disagree with me, even loudly and angrily in the comments field. Good day to you!

After a few minutes ideling in the school cantine,

2008-11-06T11:30:00.004+01:00

i now know who's been fucking who the last months. Very invoulantarily at that. Hrm...

OD info-day passed!

2008-10-31T12:38:00.003+01:00

The OD-info day is over, and it went relatively as planned. The day started with two less fun messages;

First, the water to the school was cut, so the free brunch would be significantly amputated. That’s actually their fault entirely, because they changed plans from just the fried chicken and curry-rice that we had agreed upon, wich don’t require that much water, to a chicken soup that requires a steamboiler. They had to go with my plan, though, but that meant they had far, far too little chicken. Lesson learned: Never trust the chef.

Secound message was that one of the 3 teachers that was going to do the first half of the day, had decided it’d be a good idea to just go to a meeting instead without tellings us, and give the ball to two random students, and then not come back again untill after the day claiming he tried to reach us yesterday but didn’t manage. If he’d asked for us at the office, they’d known… But we compensated with people from the committè, and it went relatively okay. Lesson learned: Never trust teachers. Or, at least; never trust Roy.

The other two teachers however did a great job, and I think the students actually enjoyed and learned things from both their classes. I guested both for a while, and it was largely informative. A interesting thing to notice though, was that only about half the students was present. But, their absence has been noted.

The brunch was very tasty even if chicken was scarce, and I think people were happy about it. My presentation was largely crappy, much because I wasn’t all that prepared, and much because I’m not all that good a leacturer. But, the other two raised that level a bit, and considering the people they are used to standing on that stage, I suppose it was quite okay. The came the play!

It’s on youtube allready. Mind, it’s in norwegian, recorded with my camera, sometimes hardly audiable, slightly amputated because I forgot to turn the camera on before the play started… But it should still be worth the watch! I think it went very well, people laughed a lot. Unexpected awsome things happened. But I’m afraid you’ll miss the blood, because I turned the camera on too late.

Last we watched the project movie, wich wasn’t all that good, and the summary from the project we executed 2 years ago, wich was rather not good. Then people were happy to go home, and I think we managed a rather good day!

Operation Days Work rolls off tomorrow!

2008-10-29T23:54:00.003+01:00

As i mentioned earlyer, i'm the leader for the events around Operation Days Work at my school. Lat time i blogged about it, it was with a lukewarm tone. Since then my thoughts about the project and about my task around it, has lighetned considerably! Talk about a great group of people to have in a comittè! We get stuff done, and have a lot of fun inbetween. Pretty much everything i've wanted to do has gone trough the system without big problems, and tomorrow it's going down with the schedual i first suggested.

First half of the day i've delegated to 3 teachers. They are going to have different related activities that i have little control about, but i have delegated it to the best teachers we have so i know it'll be good. And then we have a free 'brunch' with my own twist of bangladeshi food. The national dish of bangladesh is fish and rice. I changed it to chicken and curry-rice just for tomorrow. Much more tasty! As if anyone is going to check. Then comes my leacture about what OD, and this years project, is. Then comes the play, then we watch the project movie.

The play is crazy! I've got to be director and self-proclaimed artistic mastermind og my own play, i laid the basis scetch for the scenes, and with a lot of help from my fellow actors it's now evovled into something that i think will be a great and perhaps overly hilareous play. The theme for the play is involountary marige and education, whilst the read thread without my intention seems to have turned into menstruation. I'll tell you more about this later, hopefully it will end up on Youtube.

Greatness! I'll be sure to give you a proper report of how things worked out tomorrow.

Murmaid in Simeiz

2008-10-23T22:48:00.006+02:00

Picture of the month!

Click picture to fullview. I'm not meaning to do a murmaid theme for my photos of the month, but this is a good photo. I actually took it myself with a borrowed superzoom camera, this is Ingeborg-Marie from Ukraine-seminar 'swiming' in the black sea. Beautiful girl and lucky shot, memories from the seminar makes this picture special to me.

Hiking Flekkostind

2008-10-19T16:18:00.006+02:00

About a week ago me and dad went for probably the last hike of the season - to Flekkostind, not far from Breitind that we hiked earlyer. This mountain is just a nice pathless relatively easy walk, quite steep in the end but with grass almost all the 700 meters up. Though the nearby mountain blocks much of the view northward, it gives you a nice view over the Northfold-fjord.

Northeastward. Breitind is behind the closest mountain. You can see this is fall - there even was small patches of early snow! Dad was hit by the seasons first snowball.

The flekkos lake, we both saw it for the first time - it's hidden from most other angles.

Above the mountain, there was only masses of bare rock up towards Kråktind, the tallest mountain in the range. At 1200 meters, it stands without vegetation, and as you can see it's allready quite covered with snow. I really hope to get to climb it sometime!

Too bad about the poor light conditions for photos, but i'm sure you've got the picture. A nice trip!

Party driving

2008-10-19T09:51:00.002+02:00

Last night i was a party chauffeur for a group of people from my boarding school. Out of the 8 people i drove that night, 3 fell asleep in the car on the way to the party, 2 of them puked on the way back, 2 more had to take care of the puking ones, 1 got an official warning from the school for having a party in her room.

Why do they do this? Where on earth could the enjoyment be? 5/8 could not possibly have enjoyed this at all.

And so comes my morale. Should i do this driving, when i'm getting paid and getting a revenue brutto about 380 NOK tonight, for making it possible for these people to party? Not that they wouldn't have got any other driver, they could easily have got a less careful and less expensive one of the type that's out driving anyways. But i don't like what i've seen tonight. Some in this group was underaged and using false legitimation. Many were too drunk. I had to stop my car thrice so people could puke. Bah!

PC is back online

2008-10-16T23:21:00.004+02:00

I've now revived my PC. No more Linux, only Windows XP Pro, the OS that has definitely been the most stable to me. As Eivind commented, it wasn't fatal in form of data loss, and as reldred commented, it would probably have been fixable if i happened to know a lot about Linux. But i'm not going to bother with these problems any more, i'm back on safe and well-known grounds. So long for now, Linux.

Linux BSOD

2008-10-15T08:47:00.002+02:00

Windows is all-Famous for the BSOD, but today linux showed me that it can do the same. This means my pc is dead, and i am temporarily forced offline.

Painting my car

2008-10-14T21:40:00.004+02:00

After the collition, my car got a severe wound. Until today, it's been looking like this;

To improve the looks and to defend against rust, i decided to paint it. I chose a matte black laquer, the matte color with the intention of making the contours (aka damages) less visible.

Cover the area not to be painted with tape and plastic bags, clean the car with a strong solvent - has the be really clean! Then matte down the old paint and remove any loose bits of paint with sandpaper. Spraypaint with grounding (above), let it dry for a couple of minutes and spraypaint with the matte black colour. Voila;

Okay, it's not pretty. But it's better, definitely! I've reached the effect i wished for with the matte black (at least as far as i can see in the artificual light), and when they start salting the roads i won't have to be as afraid of everything rusting to peaces.

Studying russian in Moldova

2008-10-09T13:38:00.006+02:00

I'm dreaming again. Aftet this seminar i serached for study posibilities in Moldova, and i found maybe the perfect thing - a one-month intensive course in Russian. A widely spoken language, and native russian speakers don't tend to speak english. Try navigating in ukraine without somone who can translate! I'm sure the month would be a blast, particularily seeing as i'd be living 14 kilometers from Nastya! I'm sereously considering applying for the course this summer.

A week in paradise

2008-10-07T22:15:00.004+02:00

I'm home after the Ukraine-seminar, and i can truely say i spent a week in paradise. Extremely relaxing hotel in a scenic area with a pool and only nice weather. But far more importantly - with fantasticly great people that really made this one of the best weeks of my life.

Sober Moldovans, Belarusans, Norwegians and Ukranians gathering socially in a scenic place in Simeiz in southern Crimea is the recepy for utmost enjoyment. Beautiful, great, social, fun and even cuddly girls, a suprisingly great guy, new friends of both genders and all nationalities, networkbuilding, exurtion and nature, for once feeling popular, learning things both socially and 'professional'... It was all fantastic.

I'm posting many pictures in my photoblog when i get around to it, but for now, enjoy my most beutifull sights of this trip!

Ingeborg

Nastya & Marina

View from conferance room

Ida & Erling

EDIT: Pictures are here!

Work takes all my social time

2008-09-24T22:10:00.002+02:00

I'm not too sure if it's worth it. Currently my work is eating all my social time. I'm at school full-day, and then i'm at work for 4 hours. Around 9 in the evening i've got time to start doing something for myself, and guess what... I've got no energy for it, there's no time, and it's really too late anyways. Last week i worked all workdays but one, this week i was supposed to do the same. However, though today was supposed to be my free day, and i even had plans for it; Guess what? I get a phonecall that somone is sick and they really need me at work today. Bah! These were the slowest 4 hours at work so far, when i had my mind all set on free time. And this sunday, wich is the universal free day, the store has a ware-counting, so i'm at work sunday too!

Sure, it could be worse. I could be without a job and not getting enough hours, then i would be sereously in trouble. And! Next week i'm going to Ukraine. The week after that is spring vecation. Do you think i'm looking forwards to it? I'm not having a bad time at all right now, i'm just letting out steam because all this work is more than i've bargined for.

Murmaid in Vesterålen

2008-09-22T21:50:00.004+02:00

Picture of the month!

You have to fullview this. I was not part of taking this picture though i was there, all credit to Karoline and Remi. I love the color, the concept, the mountains and - most of all - the details! Fullview is a must.

Operation days work

2008-09-21T16:55:00.003+02:00

I'm leader of Operation Days Work at my school again this year. Dosen't feel particularily great, but i might as well just do it as i do anything else. Operation days work is a charity project where students all across norway, in all signed-up schools, work somwhere one schoolday to earn 200 NOK for the central pot that goes to a charity project, wich is a different one each year.

In this years project, they're providing a 1-year education to girls in Bangladesh, who are otherways married away, as the families don't want girls who cannot make money like boys can in the male-dominated society. The edications is rather basic and increases littaracy and hygene awareness, as well as giving some basic foundation to do some jobs. The project is run by the Strømme-foundation, wich means it is christian-based. It's luckily based on the thought of solidarity rather then charity - help to be self-helped.

It's a good project and a great way to found it, but i can't honestly say i care too much about it. I'll do my best as leader, though!

Surprising smile

2008-09-20T19:52:00.004+02:00

So I'm sitting in the register at the store, doing my work, completely in my own thoughts, monotonely beeping the wares and typing weightcodes. And suddenly, there's a girl smiling warmly at me! My first thought is if i know her, but i soon realise i don't. I'm too stumped to really smile back, but i say hi to her more cheerfully then i usually do, and she keeps smiling all the time she's there. Such a big, warm, beautiful smile! I don't think i manage to smile back, but as she leaves i thank her for smiling, and she says everything is more fun when you're smiling. And I'm in a brilliant mood for a good while after, being more nice to the other costumers and looking more brightly on my job.

That was a few days ago. Today she was there again, and surprised me just as much with her smile. This time i smiled back, spontaneously and probably quite wide, because I'm properly happy to see her again - and I'm happy the rest of the workday, and i still feel good when i think about it. Such a wonderful thing to do! She actually really lifted my day twice now!

I wish there were more people like that.

Four girls died and cheap toilet paper

2008-09-15T21:35:00.004+02:00

Quite a strike of proportions. Today i had two e-mails in my inbox. First said that it was sad days for the people in Zulusponsor, as 4 of the girls in the project has died - without much more details than that. Second said that my local store has half-price on toilet paper. You know, 2 big packs of toilet paper in the original price is enough to have a child in the Zulusponsor project for a month!

Zulusponsor

Headed for Ukraine!

2008-09-11T20:04:00.003+02:00

Holy otter! I'm going to Ukraine on an Active-seminar the start of next month! I just got a phonecall from Ida in Juvente, who asked if i still wanted to go to the Ukraine seminar. "Yes?" "That's good, because you get to go!" I never thought so, i just went to Budapest on a Active-seminar earlyer this year! So, paying not a dime, i'm going to Ukraine for a full week seminar, meeting great Active-people, having fun. I'm happy!

Interrail this summer?

2008-09-10T23:11:00.004+02:00

As i preveously announced my crazy plans for driving around the balkans - things makes me realise that i'm evidently not experienced enough for that yet. Nether will i be in one year. A good idea to substitute, as proposed by Mari, is to Interrail! It's cheap, it's nice and it'll be exiting. Maybe combined with some hitchhiking? We could go as many as we want, we could travel where we want and see a lot of the world. I could easily afford two full months of interrail time! Sleeping at stations, seeing the balkans... Brilliant idea!