All Those Yesterdays: A letter from Pearl Jam to me

Don't you think you oughtta rest?
Don't you think you oughtta lay your head down?
Don't you think you want to sleep?
Don't you think you oughtta lay your head down tonight?

Don't you think you've done enough?
Oh, don't you think you've got enough, well maybe...
You don't think there's time to stop
There's time enough for you to lay your head down, tonight, tonight

Let it wash away
All those yesterdays

What are you running from?
Taking pills to get along
Creating walls to call your own
So no one catches? Drifting off and
Doing all the things we all do

Let them wash away
All those yesterdays
All those yesterdays
All those paper plates

You've got time, you've got time to escape
There's still time, it's no crime to escape
It's no crime to escape, it's no crime to escape
There's still time, so escape
It's no crime, crime...

The mirrors' dome

Another work of my late uncle, I have been spending endless hours staring at this.

God damn it, pure nostalgia!

Bavarian cream pie

Scene from the episode "The Soup Nazi" of season 7 of TV series Seinfeld.

Jerry: It was stupid of me.

Sheila: Well, it was very insulting.

Jerry: No, I know. I...I was really sort of half-joking.

Sheila: Well, behind every joke there's some truth.

Jerry: What about that Bavarian cream pie joke I told you? There's no truth to that. Nobody with a terminal illness goes from United States to Europe for a piece of Bavarian cream pie and then when he gets there and they don't have it he says:" Aw, I'll just have some coffee." There's no truth to that.

Sheila: Will, I guess you're right.

Jerry: So, am I forgiven, shmoopy?

Sheila: Yes, shmoopy.

Jerry: Aaaaw!

Some of the gears used in CV 45

Topeak RaceRocket MT pump

Continental tire levers x2

Park Tool Rescue Tool MTB-7

Elite Hygene 550 ml

Suunto Ambit with HR strap

Sony HDR-AS15

Continental tube 28''

Giro Athlon 

Shimano XC50N

Hestra Bike Short Sr

Rawlings Eye Black

Oakley Radar Range

Cykel Vasa 45

Beautiful riffs courtesy of Iron Maiden

Playlist XVIII.

1. "Fear of The Dark" 

2. "Wasted Years" 

3. "Aces High" 

4. "Run To The Hills" 

5. "The Evil That Men Do" 

6. "The Trooper" 

7. "Seventh Son of a Seventh Son" 

8. "The Number of The Beast" 

9. "Hallowed Be Thy Name" 

10. "Afraid To Shoot At Strangers"

12

It has been 12 years now since I moved 'out'. Never would have imagined that I will have such a long run. During this course, I have gained many things and lost many things as well and I have been though some.

I guess I will never know if I have made a right move or not, probably not even the time would be able to tell.

It went by just like that...like many other things...like almost everything else.

So strange...so strange...

Sigh!

My new hoj*

Here it is: 

Trek X-Caliber 2012, 29er

* hoj noun (Swedish everyday language): bike [informal]

CHOP SUEY!

I don't think you trust
In, my, self-righteous suicide
I, cry, when angels deserve to die

Father! Father! Father! Father!
"Father into your hands, I commend my spirits"*
Father into your hands
Why have you forsaken me
In your eyes forsaken me
In your thoughts forsaken me
In your heart forsaken me


* Luke 23:46

147!

Yes, it has been 4 months since I last wrote here, not that I forgot about it but it was just complicated given the series of events that happened and what not.

I will now exit my self imposed exile and try to reflect on that. A couple of days after my post on Vasaloppet, I had an unfortunate accident on the XC track which left me grounded for 2 weeks at home and left a scar on my face. Then I saw my little princess to go through the toughest period of sickness ever. It took me some substantial time to realize what had actually happened but it did have a major impact on my mindset.

If only I could turn back time...

I sought comfort in other aspects of life but they only thing which helped me was my immediate family and in particular my daughter. I cannot say that I have fully recovered from that hit (as the scar is still physically there and most probably will never go away fully) but the only escape or rather defense was to attack. I got very much inspiration from the following quote which I read somewhere:

"Tant que je respire, j'attaque!" - "As long as I breath, I attack!"

So I got myself to another quite dangerous passion of mine, mountain biking and I will take part in my bike race ever really soon (I have to write more about my relation to cycling later on and some of my escapades back in the days). I just want to take part and enjoy the atmosphere, so no competition really... not to be a winner but feel like one.

I have been thinking very much about my blog and I deeply regret not 'pouring out' here during all the hard times but I didn't mostly due to fear and a good deal of laziness as always; it's much easier to write posts in my brain as they come up rather than writing them down here. I was afraid and broken and for some inexplicable masochistic way, I wanted to stay that way: I just can not figure why.

I witnessed a close friend of mine one lose a dear one and that also gave me shock and added more emptiness to the way that I see the world and our relations with people around us: family, friends, coworkers etc...they all will 'go' at one point and so will I. At the very end, I just realized the most meaningful thing in this life is my child who gives me the utter joy in life, without expectations, without prejudice and will always always forgive my faults and loves me exactly the way I am, as crazy and as distorted as I may be.

Vasaloppet

Vasaloppet is a long distance cross-country skiing race that is held annually in Sweden. The race distance is 90 Km between the village of Sälen and Mora and is the oldest, the longest and the biggest cross-country ski race in the world. It is held in the first week of March each year. Legend has it that King Gustav Vasa was escaping the king of Denmark toward Norway. He first tried to convince the people in Mora to start a rebellion against the king and they refused. He continued toward Norway and was later caught in Sälen on skis. The people in Mora had changed their mind in the meantime and now wanted him to lead the rebels against the king. 

Having started my own adventure on a pair of cross-country skis this year, I got curious about Vasaloppet. On the day of the race, I woke up a couple of minutes prior to the race by chance and got to see the a mighty and jaw-dropping sight: 15800 skiers at the start point! I somehow felt like Jalal Al Ahmed in "A straw in Mecca"...a tiny drop in the ocean...gave me goosebumps directly. Next thing I know, I am stuck in front of the TV and watching the race until the first person (Jörgen Auckland from Norway) passed the finish line. Hell, I have fallen much into XC skiing that I even had some favorites in the top 10 and wanted them to win (Daniel Tynell and Jörgen Brink, both from Sweden who finished 2nd and 4th respectively). Needless to say, I have never bothered to care for Vasaloppet all these years but like everything else when it comes to skiing, I noticed that I have been missing something big so far. Ah well, better late than never, eh?

Here are some pictures of the event:

Here's the winner of the race in 2013, Jörgen Auckland as he was about to pass the finish line. Funny thing that the Daniel Tynell just behind him took the 2ns place...for the 2nd year in a row!

And here's the starting point as seen on the TV.

And finally, here's me drinking coffee in my kåsa and having cakes while watching the race and hoards of people were killing their bodies by double poling for a good 6-7 hours. I just couldn't help it so I put on my hat and XC glasses on while 'watching' the race!

On a irrelevant note, cross-country skiing has nothing, and I repeat NOTHING, to do with downhill or alpine skiing. The mindset and the the way that its joy is considered is totally different to begin with. I would even claim that one of them (and I'm not sure which one) should even be called 'skiing'. I just leave it here although I am fully aware that this is subject to massive debates.

Figuring out the streets according to Roger

Roger: Here's a joke boy. One day this man walks out of his house to go to work. He sees this snail on his porch. So picks it up and chucks it over his roof, into the back yard. Snail bounces off a rock, cracks its shell all to shit, and lands in the grass. Snail lies there dying. But it doesn't die. It eats some grass. Slowly heals. Grows a new shell. After awhile, it can crawl again. One day the snail up and heads back to the front of the house. Finally, after a year, the little guy crawls back on the porch. Right then, the man walks out to go to work and sees this snail again. So he says to it, 'What the f---'s your problem?'

Everybody hurts

When your day is long and the night
The night is yours alone
When you're sure you've had enough of this life, well hang on
Don't let yourself go
Everybody cries and everybody hurts sometimes

Sometimes everything is wrong
Now it's time to sing along
When your day is night alone (hold on, hold on)
If you feel like letting go (hold on)
When you think you've had too much of this life, well hang on

Everybody hurts
Take comfort in your friends
Everybody hurts
Don't throw your hand, oh, no!
Don't throw your hand
If you feel like you're alone, no, no, no, you are not alone

If you're on your own in this life
The days and nights are long
When you think you've had too much of this life to hang on

Well, everybody hurts sometimes
Everybody cries
And everybody hurts sometimes
And everybody hurts sometimes

So, hold on, hold on
Hold on, hold on
Hold on, hold on
(Hold on, hold on)

Everybody hurts
You are not alone


Words by R.E.M.

Das Boot

This movie gives you insights of how great of nations the Germans are: hard work and obeying the rules as well as respecting the hierarchy almost at all costs, their attitude toward the work and their working culture in general under the most difficult of circumstances are just a few elements of the their success secret. No wonder that they rose to the to top of the world once and almost did that again after being completely flattened after WWII. It also masterfully depicts the fact that despite the hard work and dedication and sacrifice from many men on the work front, they were doomed to be defeated due to mismanagement and grave mistakes by the leaders above resulting in massive failure and causing all the hard work to yield nothing but catastrophe at the very end.

A very fascinating war film, however a bit too long, which gives insights from the other side of the war front, a well-made WWII war movie made by the Germans - we don't see that very often. 

KG is saying now:

"I think there's something you should know
I think it's time I told you so
There's something deep inside of me
There's someone else I've got to be
Take back your picture in a frame
Take back your singing in the rain
I just hope you understand
Sometimes the clothes do not make the man

All we have to do now
Is take these lies and make them true somehow
All we have to see
Is that I don't belong to you
And you don't belong to me
Yeah yeah!

Freedom...Freedom...Freedom
You've gotta give for what you take

Freedom...Freedom...Freedom
You've gotta give for what you take..."

Down he goes

The downfall of one of my all-time hero and a true source of inspiration, Lance Armstrong, is complete now after his confessions, and I still can't believe it.



These falls are very painful and the worst of all is the emptiness and the cavity that they leave behind that does not refill easily. I remember that on another occasion another hero of mine let me down in a very critical situation and left me devastated for some good time.

"Forgive and forget!" , however cheezy, is the only remedy that comes to my mind.

Such a shame...deepest sigh!

All alone!

I am all away...the memories of the last extra wonderful trip seem just like a pleasant dream as if it never happened.

I am all away from the people that I want to be with at all times.

You are all in that mess, somewhere in your orbital and, I am all alone in this corridor.

It's cold and dark outside and nobody except me is in here...in this corridor...at work!

What am I doing here?

What are you doing there?

Why can't we be together...forever?

We can't!

We aren't!

We won't!