Fremmed mann på terassen! ALARM!!!!!

Som de fleste vet nå så ble naboen min drept (link). Etter denne episoden er det naturlig nok litt amper stemmning i bygget. Og derfor var følgende episode ekstremt fustrerende.

Det er lørsdag morgen og jeg har nettopp stått opp. Surfer litt på VG og andre nettaviser mens morgen-kaffen står klar. Plutselig hører jeg noen hopper ned på terassen min.

Det er i dette tidsrommet uklart om vedkommene kom fra takterassen (fellesområdet), eller om det var/kom fra en nabo sin terasse. Persiennene var nede så jeg kunne ikke identifisere vedkommende, men naturlig nok ble jeg ganske skremt. Han sto stille i 10 sekunder før han gikk nedover terassen min.

Jeg hørte noen risle-lyder og var overbevist om at vedkommende prøvde å ta seg inn i leiligheten min. Jeg holdt hodet kaldt å løpte bort til verktøyskassa. Den fant jeg en tapetkniv og stort skrujern. Leiligheten er bygget slik at det er vanskelig å løpe om noen først har tatt seg inn i leiligheten.

Nå er det på tide med en tegning:



Sekundene gikk og ingen tok seg inn i leiligheten. Sakte beveger jeg meg ut i stuen klar for alt som kan skje. Det er ikke lenger noen mann på terassen, men jeg oppdager at begge naboene mine er ute på sine terasser. Det er derfor trolig at Nabo 1 (se bildet) brukte MIN terasse for å ta "snarveien" over til Nabo 2. Ett senario jeg kan se for meg er at Nabo1 sin katt hadde forvillet seg bort på min terasse. Det er alltid hyggelig med besøk av nabokatten, men det er da virkelig normalt å ringe på er det ikke ?

Spesielt sett i perspektiv fra hva som har skjedd den siste tiden.

Jeg har derfor startet å bygge / kjøpe inn ett MEGET avansert alarmanlegg som også dekker terasseområdet.

Småfly

Den siste tiden har jeg vurdert STERKT å ta sertifikat på småfly.

Det er noe jeg har tenk på i mange år, og når en kollega fikk samme idé over seg ble det jo mye mer motiverende.

Jeg tenker at det i første omgang blir snakk om en prøvetur med fly, samt en legesjekk (påkrevd). Det er ganske tungt pensum med over 10 fag og utallige eksamen, men gu! hvor morro det hadde vært å klart det.

My beloved Acer Aspire One

I just got my new credit card and i needed to test something called "buyers advantage". Its basically an agreement one has with the bank that if any product bought with the credit card drops in price within 90 days, you get the difference back. So i decided to buy one of those cheap Acer Aspire One computers.

Maybe you haven't heard of it, but its basically a really cheap and lightweight computer costing around 300$ (NOK 2600,-). It runs linux, and is super portable.
And if you dont mind running linux , its an awesome choice!!!!

I dont think the device will drop it price, but it pursvaded me to use my new credit card .. :)

Building a board game

Yes, it's finally time to go through how i made the christmas present for Lise. A lot of people have asked how I made it, and I was planning a high speed video of the whole thing, but I can't transfer the video I've captured to my computer. So, let's stick with screenshots. First off, DONT copy this project unless you have a huge budget and a shit load of time! That's the two factors I really miss judged.

Shoppinglist:
I didnt have anything to make this game, so I had to go out and buy everything. So it's not just the material that cost money, but also the tools to make it.

You need:
* Paint (A LOT of it)

* Clay (that air dryes)

* Decorative elements like moss, trees, towers, bridges etc.

* Soldering iron

* 30/40 LED Lights

* Batteries

* Batterypack

* Beach sand

* Grayned sand

* Super glue (A LOT is needed)

* Misc cutting tools

* Eletric wireing

* Cullotape

* Foam to build the initial structure.

* Grass (on a roll)

TIP: I started buying material that was meant for miniature trains etc. DONT do this. It's way too expencive, and blew my buget to SF#%"#. You can get a lot of good material for this project at a local pet shop. Because a lot of the things I use , are originally ment to be used in aquavariums.

Building
As I said in the intro, DONT take on such a project unless you have a lot of time.

The foam that made up the base structure.

Here is the base structure that is made up by foam plates that are cut to size. Then I "dressed" that with layers or clay and fake grass. The foam is glued together so you have a strong base, because the clay is heavy. Making the foam base takes 1 hour, dressing it with clay and grass takes about 6 hours. So after 7 hours, you should have something siminlar to the picture above.

But I never settle for anything normal, so I decided to jazz it up a bit. Let's make a glowing pathway. So I soldered all the LED lights together in a parallel connection, and connected that to a battery pack. The soldering alone is another 5 hour job.

Looks better in the dark:

Then it's time for some paint.
I started painting everything in a dark gray colour, and the softly brushed lighter gray on top of that. This will create a stone texture, that looks cool.

But that alone doesnt do much, and this game was made to make a very special girl happy - so I had to excel in all aspects of this project. So decoration was next. I used the moss I had, and placed small graynes of moss on the grass - one by one. This took about an hour to pefect.

The story of my game was that you needed to save a princess from a tower. So I needed to build a bridge. I cut to shape about 100 matches, and glued them together. The wired that together, and painted the whole thing. The tower was bought at a pet shop.

I didnt take pictures of the entire process, but I did video tape everything. So there will be a video showing everything very soon, including the finished board game. Here is the last picture I took, when it was almost done.

But if you want to make a game like this, for someone you find special. Well, make sure they like getting presents that you build. This project kind'a back fired on me, but well ... I can't predict everything. And hopefully someone out there on the o' great internet might oddly enough find this useful. Or not.

Summary:

Time to build: 27 hours

Cost: aprox 600$ / 380 euro.

Times I wantes to give up: 10 :p

Difficulty: 6 (where 10 is most difficult)

Would I do it again ? Hell no! Hehe..

Eternal hope

In business you have a saying like "cut your losses". A term that is used if you see that your investments are not paying off, and you just have to close down and move on. That expression is not just for business. I just realized that it's the perfect way to describe any difficult situation in your life.

Like any venture, you have faith in your self. You give everything to have your idea become true, or to be realized. Mix love into the equation, and judgement fades fast - as love makes you blind. But after those long nights lying awake all night thinking, it suddenly hits you. After all those efforts, after all that time - you are back to where you started. To the exact same place, and situation you where in one year before. That's when you just have to let go. A part of me wants to keep hoping, keep fighting .....

... Im cutting my losses ....

Back in Norway

It's amazing how fast things can change. Im now back in Norway and will stay here for quite a while. As soon as I landed in Norway I started getting calls about job offers, and although they where all interesting and from big companies - Norway is my place to be. But it's nice to see that people notice my work! :)

I bought an apartment in the city center, since Im going to stay in Norway for a while and I love it! The neighbhours seem very nice, and there are four apartments at the top floor. So we have a view, a balcony and a HUGE terrace we all share. It's such an awesome place! And the freedom of living all alone is superb. Im close to my family, friends and my favourite shops.
When you live alone, you can make your own rules so these days only the best food will cut it!
And dinner is usually served at 1 at night .... hehe ....why not?I make the rules.

It's nice to see my friends again, but they are all very busy now with exams and christmas shopping so havent seen them as much as I would like though. But hopefully that will change after christmas. So im going to Bergen in three days for celebrate christmas with everyone in the family, so trying to give away my christmaspresents but people are too busy to stop by .. so need some creative solution there I think.

So all in all, its nice to be back. I miss a lot of stuff from Ireland and I even miss stuff I had in Norway, that Ive lost since ive been away. So all decitions has a price, but hopefully it will all normalize. If not, well .... well ..it get's me creative, and I write a lot of music these days.

Sture savner meg ... hehe

Mange har sagt at de vil ha meg til Norge, men Sture hadde vel den mest orginale måten å si det på :)