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South Sea Serenity in Vejbystrand
Here’s what it looked like just after I got back from Lund yesterday evening. I’m spoiled insofar that I’ve seen many a beautiful sunset. Formations like last night’s magnificent cumulonimbus clouds are still fairly unusual this far north. Reminded me more of the Maldives, Seychelles, and islands in southern Thailand than Vejbystrand. Thankfully, I had the wherewithal to look up from my computer screen, take notice, grab my camera, and perpetuate the unique scene. Later, just as we were trying to fall asleep, a hale storm passed overhead.
Back at Grand
Back at Grand Hotel in Lund again and was briskly checked into a cozy room on the fourth floor yesterday evening. Have a spectacular view of the park and a partial eyeshot of the train station. Supporting a client during a Zoom interview with a stock market analytics firm and then shooting a presentation.
Walk in Sinarpsdalen
Shot these low-hanging flowers (Magnolia blossoms?) during Charlotte and my 7.5k walk this morning in a lush valley not far from Vejbystrand called Sinaparsdalen. It’s one of many mapped walks in and around Hallandsåsen – a hilly area south of Båstad and north of Förslöv. Here’s a satellite view of Sinaparsdalen brought to you by Google. Not many people out and about today – despite really good trekking weather – but those we met kept their distance and we were careful not to touch any of the many wooden gates with our bare hands. Strange times are theses.
Powerwalk with Swans
Instead of Qigong and Yoga, this morning, I hooked up with Charlotte for a 6k powerwalk along the beach here in Vejbystrand. It was calm but for the strangely sounding calls coming from a dozen or so beautiful swans floating offshore and a few dozen distant seabirds. I’ll have to come back one day with my audio recorder to try and capture the swans weird sounds.
Lovin’ The Root Fruit
Shot this crate of root fruit sometime last September during my outdoor exhibit “Malmö Upside Down”. The exhibit was immensely popular and a fun show to produce – in the midst of a large public garden in Malmö’s Slottsträdgråden. I’ve not always enjoyed eating root fruit. But I’ve enjoyed it tremendously for the past five years, which is about when I stopped eating meat and bird.
Does Anybody Remember Laughter?
Everything and everybody is so serious right now. I know, I know. These are really grim times. But unlike any other animal on the planet, at least as far as I know, humans have a particularly unique ability to let off steam and zoom out from even the gravest circumstance through humor and laughter. And for some, humor seems to be off the table. As Robert Plant once sang; “Does anybody remember laughter”?
I feel thankful for having what some call a sick sense of humor. The absurd, provocative, and disgusting have always served me well when I need a good laugh. And however you slice it, the ongoing pandemic is certainly absurd, disgusting, and provocative. Absurd in how fast the virus swept across the globe, disgusting in how it ravages the body of some victims and provocative in that it’s really forcing us to reassess just about everything and anything we’ve previously taken for granted. Which in the long run might be a good thing. At least where the planet is concerned. Probably for its inhabitants as well.
One of my few “humor heroes”, David Letterman, recently made me laugh out loud when I read his commentary about VP Mike Pence’s visit to the Mayo Clinic. So spot on.
Podcast Host: VoxelFlow & Road Safety
The day before yesterday, on Monday, I hosted the first in a series of international podcasts for Terranet in Lund. This first (pilot) episode was focused on autonomous vehicle technology in general and Terranet’s 3D sensor and motion detection system called VoxelFlow, which will be able to reduce traffic fatalities to a minimum and increase road safety to a maximum.
Participants in the podcast were:
• Henrik Christensen, the Qualcomm Chancellor’s Chair of Robot Systems and the director of the Contextual Robotics Institute at the University of San Diego and also a Professor of Computer Science in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering.
• Dirk Smits, inventor of the 3D vision motion perception technology, VoxelFlow, and CTO at Terranet.
• Nihat Kücük, Head of Navigation Maps at the Mercedes-Benz research and development center in Stuttgart, Germany.
High Speed Internet vs 28.8k
After weeks of incomprehensible and tremendously frustrating disruptions to our usually stable and speedy broadband – with umpteen tech support calls, Google searches, and two router purchases – our “pipe” to and from the Interwebs is once again working reliably and smoothly.
The other day, in the midst of our little connectivity crisis here in rural Sweden, Charlotte asked me what I thought it would be like if the ongoing financial crisis eventually impacted the Internet’s ubiquitousness. What if the ability to go online became limited, slower, and less useful? Would our smartphones turn into dumb phones? Can you even get a landline these days?
When I first connected my computer (a clunky, grey and sluggish Macintosh Performa 630) to a modem and finally succeeded at getting online sometime in late 1995, I soon understood that I was at the doorstep of an entirely new era. A new world where megabits and megabytes determined speed and experience. A layer of connectivity that spread across the planet and provided new relationships to people and eventually to brands. An epoch where both Charlotte and I would earn our living and integrate the global economy in our lives as both service providers and consumers.
Being old enough to remember what it was like before the Internet was such a critical part of society is an advantage. Especially if for whatever reason, “the web” one day regressed into something less omnipresent and less useful. But I think I would be able to deal more easily with such a dramatic change if the Internet stopped working altogether. If it slowed down to the 28.8k modem speeds of 1995, I don’t think I could handle that for very long.
Grand Perks
I’ve been frequenting the legendary Grand Hotel in Lund, the only really nice, full-service hotel available in that city, for a couple of weeks now. It’s one of the most affordable luxury hotels I’ve stayed at in Sweden. While room rates are very reasonable and eating and drinking in the restaurant is certainly a comfortable, culinary experience, it’s not quite as wallet-friendly. Their large shrimp sandwich will set you back a whopping $24 buckaroos.
I’ve got quite a ways to go before I can call myself a “patron”, but already I have been able to enjoy some of the perks that being a frequent guest brings with it. The above shot of yesterday’s breakfast is a good example. Because of Covid-19, Grand doesn’t offer their usual buffet. Instead, they serve you more or less everything available from the buffet directly at your table (with gloved hands) a la carte style. Now, since I’ve never stayed there before, I don’t know if smoked salmon could actually be found at the buffet. But when I kindly asked for some, three times out of the four that I’ve stayed there so far, the server has appeased my request with a smile and small plate with a pile of pink, sliced fish.
Avoiding Handy Handles
Without even realizing this before, it turns out that I am somewhat of a germaphobe. Not so much at home or when I am with family and close friends. But in public spaces, avoiding door handles, stair rails, elevator buttons or any type of knob is something I’ve been doing automatically for as long as I can remember. I can’t explain why – other than that my notoriously vivid imagination can easily envision how grimy and filthy the fingers and hands of the person before me were. Especially when it comes to men – which I know from half a century of experience of visiting public bathrooms – do not care nearly as much about cleanliness as they should.
Some men, not all, seem to think that at least part of their maleness lies in an ability to completely disregard personal hygiene or consider the implications their neglect of it could have on others. If I had a dollar for every time I saw a dude come out from a toilet stall in an airport or restaurant after “discharging” and then leave without even glancing at the sink or thinking of cleaning his hands, it would certainly be a tall pile of bills.
So, being extra precautious about touching stuff in the public realm isn’t much of hassle for me. All things considered right now and for the foreseeable future, having a hands-off and cleanliness approach will hopefully be the new normal for most people around the world. But hopefully, we’ll all be able to give and receive hugs more generously within the not-to-distant future. I miss them hugs!
Shot these handy door handles in Málaga a few months ago.
Qigong in Vejbystrand
From the other evening in the harbor of Vejbystrand where I found the perfect spot to practice a few of my Qigong moves.
Forgetful Yet Uneasy
Thanks to or because of, depending on your choice of perspective, my current workload distracts me from thinking too much about the pandemic and the tsunami of physical, emotional, and financial implications it carries with it. For hours on end, I am so immersed in my work, I can totally forget about it all.
Like most folks that have yet to know anybody that has been directly hit by the virus, it’s the indirect impact I hear of; from one friend in Malmö whom will likely lose his expansive restaurant business, to another pal, scared and hiding in complete isolation deep in one of Los Angeles sprawling suburbs.
The weirdest part of this unfolding drama is our collective uneasiness. We, including all the self-proclamied experts, still don’t know squat about how this craziness will actually conclude. Antithetical to an earthquake and other natural catastrophes, where there usually are plenty of historical precedents and aggregated statistics to help fill the void, map the scope (and to cope), here there are just too many puzzle pieces missing to provide a full picture of what the Covid-19 pandemic will look like going forward. Is there going to be even more radical plot twists? Like not becoming immune even after recovering from the disease? Or, that even if you only experience mild symptoms the first time you contract the virus, will they worsen the second or third time around – after your immunology has been compromised and exhausted? To put our current situation in a comically contextual perspective, it’s kinda like having a really bad stomach flu. Even several days after the last time you had diarrhea, you feel uneasy about letting out the tiniest fart. It’s just so friggin’ hard to relax these days.
The above photo of a pineapple themed tapestry is totally unrelated to this post but works as a decorative featured image nonetheless.
From Grand to Park
Shot today from my hotel room on the 7th floor at Park Inn in Västra Hamnen, Malmö. While both have their respective merits, Grand Hotel Lund and Park Inn Malmö could not possibly be more different in every aspect except for two shining similarities; affordable, mid-week room rates, and an extraordinarily high service level thanks to an extraordinarily low occupancy rate.
At Night: Grand Hotel Lund
When I finally got out of the tub, I peeked out the window and noticed how gorgeous and calm the evening was. Once I dried off, I put on a t-shirt, a pair of jeans and slipped into my shoes. Then I grabbed my camera and tripod and headed down and out to the small park right outside the Grand Hotel Lund to create the above image.
In Lund
Here’s one of my views this evening in Lund. A bird settling on the head of a statue is just too much of a temptation for any serious photographer to neglect. While in the midst of a whirlwind, a statue provides an eternity of perdurability. It doesn’t sway from its stance, bow to any virus, or need to make excuses or feel embarrassed when a bird inevitably drops a huge dump on it. Such is the destiny of a statue. It takes the shit and still stands tall and unmoved by past bird dumps or from being ignored. Gonna take a bath now. Together with Toots Thielemans.
Doors
Found this old wooden door during our short visit to Båstad during the weekend. It’s a little corny, but I’ve been fascinated with doors for as long as I can remember, both from a metaphorical and aesthetic perspective.
Bjärehalvön – Torekov
A quick visit to Torekov where the weather is fabulous and spring is just around the corner. Charlotte and I went for a long walk and while a bit nippy, it was both refreshing and energizing.
Calmness in the Calamity
This is what it looked like last night when the gusty winds finally subsided and left behind a vacuum of placidity and tranquility. While standing there with my camera, I felt so far from the calamity and drama sweeping across the world right now.
If you look above to the right in the image, where the big tree is, you’ll see the silhouette of a small, wooden birdhouse that I hung up there a few weeks ago, hoping some fine feathered fowl would discover the place and find it so irresistibly attractive, they’d move in. Well, yesterday, I saw a potential tenant checking the place out. I want to remember that one of my first woodshop projects when I arrived in Sweden back in 1978, was a crudely made birdhouse of birch. The one I hung up on the tree was decidedly more stylish and well-built and probably made in a factory somewhere in China.
Slow Coffee & Drip Life
I shot this one morning while we were living on the outskirts of Hoi An in central Vietnam. We continue to make our coffee this way, but man, that trip feels super distant right now. Not just because of the time lapsed from October until now. The whole world was different back then. Nobody had any concerns about spreading or being infected by a virus. No hidden suspicious or irrational fears. A time when handshakes and hugs were abundant and generously shared. We shopped at open-air markets, enjoyed street food and didn’t wash our hands more than before meals and after toilet visits.
I doubt there has ever been a time in the history of our species where humans have been more preoccupied with self-negotiating and micromanaging our lives. Here in Sweden, where there is no lockdown, shelter in place or judicially enforced restrictions, we are admittedly more or less free to go wherever we want and socialize, albeit in small groups.
Unfortunately, I don’t think everyone is concerned about making decisions that could either be potentially life-saving or life-threatening. From what I have seen in Ängelholm, Malmö and Lund, few people, particularly younger folk, seem to take much notice of what’s going on in Spain, Italy and the US.
I totally get that the younglings feel invincible and that life seems blissfully eternal. They should absolutely feel this way – it’s like a prerequisite for their age and enables them to reach further, jump higher and instantly bounce back when they inevitably fail and fall. And I like to think that to a degree, I still have that mentality in place. But, being a middle-aged man with a mild case of asthma and a father that definitely wants to experience what it’s like being a grandfather, I am one of those paranoid dudes that constantly self-negotiates and weighs pros and cons of many of my most rudimentary daily decisions. Perhaps not so much while being fairly isolated here in Vejbystrand. But I am super-conscious of how I am feeling and even the slightest hint of a headache, sniffle, cough, or, really any strange feeling that occurs in my body, puts me in a state of hyperawareness. Oh, did I mention that I have a mild case of Hypochondria?
The Hot Water Knob
This was shot in a hotel bathroom not too long ago. I couldn’t resist documenting such a beautiful faucet. What a great tribute to vintage design and outdated function. Creating the right blend of hot and cold water isn’t easily accomplished and I tend to just use the left knob and hope that I’ll have time enough to clean my hands and rinse them from soap suds before the water gets scathingly hot. I usually fail at this.