Having recently published my big Californian vacation video to YouTube I think it's time to reminisce a bit about my adventures.

As you already know from seeing the video and by photos in my photo album I went to Grand Canyon. Before traveling to the US, a colleague of mine mentioned the place where he visited Grand Canyon West and suggested I go there to.
I looked up the place on Google Maps, found the GPS coordinates and plotted those into my GPS to get driving directions.
My colleague warned me that the drive would seem a bit wrong because you would have to go onto some gravel roads, so when my GPS directed me onto a gravel road I didn't think much of it.
I did get a bit more suspicious when the gravel road got more narrow and led into some mountains. My worry reached its peak when I suddenly got to a sign that said "Only 4WD vehicles beyond this point". My GPS advised me to continue, but the sign, and the fact that I didn't have a 4WD car, advised me to turn around. What to do?!

My sister got married on Saturday, September 1.
There was a great party with many great speeches. I'm not claiming greatness on my own, but I will post it here (translated to English for my foreign friends) for everybody else to enjoy (for the first time, or again if you were there).
I said it many times that day, but I'll say it here again.

Congratulations to my sister and her husband!

Today my nephew got baptized. Let's not dwell on that and look at what I got him instead.
A few days ago I actually went into an art gallery and bought a piece of art. There's certainly a first time for everything! I hope the little guy will appreciate a genuine piece of art as he grows older.

What I got him was this lithograph from artist Per Krohg, son of the renowned Christian Krohg. Per originally made a series of pictures for his son Guy when he was a child. Each picture represented a letter in the alphabet. The family of artists were typical of their time and lived in France, so each picture also represented something in French.
Unfortunately the gallery didn't have the letter L, so I got the letter C (for "Collage" or "la chambre") instead because I liked the motif and it had a fitting look for a baby room. The picture is also numbered, so there are apparently 75 copies and this is number 35.
I'm interested in more information about this series, so if anybody out there can help do write me an email or a comment on this post.

Because I'm using Twitter, Facebook and Google+ I haven't really made any good posts to my blog for a while.
I'm trying to remedy this by taking my blog in a new direction.
As a "Technology Enthusiast" I regularly get stuck in various situations where I have to do a lot of googling. Some times I can google for a week and not find a solution.
When I finally do find a solution I've decided I should write about it on my blog so that others can (maybe) find the solution as well.
So don't be surprised when you see lots of technical stuff popping up on this blog instead of the usual ramblings about what happens (or not) in my life.

Today is the World Blood Donor Day. Donating blood is such an easy thing to do, and is also a very easy way to help save lives. You only give about 15-30 minutes of your time, and a pint of blood. Seeing how many lives are saved each year because of blood donors, the choice shouldn't really be that hard to make, but still there is a profound lack of available blood in hospitals around the world.

I am, of course, a donor. Even though I hate syringes and needles, I go through with the donation roughly once every three months. Being such an easy way to help others, I gladly do it. I get a gift from the local hospital every time I do it, but I would continue doing it even if I got nothing at all.

Use today as an incentive to go to your local blood bank and sign up to be a donor! If you're at work, tell your boss you're taking a few moments off work to go register. The boss should welcome this action. If he doesn't, remind him that some day maybe he or his family could be needing blood.
I'm doing my part, are you?

For more information, see the following sites:

American Red Cross, USA
Give Blood, UK
GiBlod.no, Norway

I recently had to attend a class in Copenhagen, Denmark, to get to learn the CMS system we use at the office a little more in detail. I had planned on taking a flight down there on a Wednesday, attending the class Thursday and Friday, then flying back home Friday evening. However, Iceland didn't quite want it to go down like that.

I so want to write a serious entry in my blog. But I never find the strength. I have several subjects lined up (my jaw surgery, my couch surfing experience, my trip to TAM London) but I can't work up the strength to actually write about it.
Please, if anybody has any good tips on what I can do to get myself to write about these subjects, please let me know.

Last night, just before brushing my teeth before going to bed, I noticed something dark in the corner of my eye. I turned around and saw this monstrosity. Having mild to heavy arachnophobia I actually let out a short scream and suddenly found myself in the adjoining room.
After calming down I got my Nikon and attached the macro lens and snapped a few shots to document the creature. I then brushed it into a bucket (with some toilet paper. Not with my hand. Are you crazy!?) (it actually made quite a thud when it hit the bottom of the bucket) and then emptied the bucket into the toilet.
Now, about the arachnophobia. Me being scientific, and a critical and rational thinker, I know perfectly well that it is an irrational fear to be afraid of spiders. Yet, with this knowledge, I still can't help the small of my back cringing when I see one. Especially when they're that close before I catch sight of them. In a way, it's good to see that my primal instincts still work.
Yes, this makes me a bit of a wuss, but I'll accept that any day. At least I'm not afraid of other kinds of animals, like snakes... or snails.

UPDATE:

After some research it seems that this spider is a Tegenaria Atrica, a funnel-web spider in the Agelenidae family.

5 weeks ago today I was scheduled to have jaw surgery because my jaw keeps popping out of its joint (It's very annoying and can hurt pretty bad if it happens and I close my mouth quickly without thinking about wether it popped out or not). I got up very early in the morning, took the train to Oslo and a bus to the hospital. I waited, talked to a doctor, waited, waited some more, a nurse took a few samples of blood, waited again, until finally... I was told to go home since they wouldn't have time to do the surgery on my the next day after all. The person scheduled to have surgery in front of me got a more extensive surgery than planned, so they bumped me off the schedule (Those following me on Twitter already know all of this, of course).
I was pretty bummed out by this, of course, but there wasn't really anything I could do about it so I took the bus and train back home again.
In one week I'm scheduled to go the hospital again for another shot at the surgery, so to the other person scheduled for surgery the same day (June 5th), please cancel your appointment so that there's no danger of me loosing mine.
Stay tuned because I will try to update my Twitter to keep you up to date on everything regarding the surgery.

A few weeks ago I drove to the office as I usually do in the morning. At the last intersection before my office building I was turning left and noticed a car standing a bit further out than normal in the intersection, but he was waiting for me and I took a nice and wide turn around him. When I was right in front of him he suddenly started driving forwards towards me, and since I was in the middle of my turn I had nowhere to go, so he hit my car. The collision was at very low speed so fortunately no injuries or serious damage to either of the cars. Still, my car got a nice little dent and some scrapes right in front of my rear left tire, as well as on my wheel hub.
We both stopped and filled out the accident report and sent them to our insurance companies. Earlier this week I got a letter from my company saying that I was completely without blame and that my insurance will cover all the repairs. Not really a surprise since I came from the right and the other guy had to yield (and he even had a yield sign to top it off).
So next week my car will be admitted to the car hospital to get it's dent fixed and the damaged panel repainted (quite a big panel as you can see in the photoshopped photo highlighting the panel). My insurance also gives me a rental car while the repair shop works on my car, so it'll be nice to have a "new" car for a few days.

In other car news:

Every two years all Norwegian car owners have to get their car approved according to EU regulations (even though Norway is not part of the EU. Weird stuff for another blog post). A month back they found some rust on the brake pipes that had to be changed to make my car pass the approval. Earlier this week my car was in the shop getting it fixed, and that certainly was expensive enough. NOK 8769 (around USD 1350)!!! Not exactly what I needed this month (you don't need that any month, really). At least my brakes are now okay and should be okay for the EU regulation approvals the next 10 years (because my car is 10 years old this year).