ho ho ho

So I thought I`d try to decorate my site a bit to get into the Christmas spirit.

vernissage II

Friday I went to another art opening. This time at Kreaktiv in Drammen.

Here with the lovely Rita (to quote John and Paul), the curator of Kreaktiv. This is one of her pieces from the Elva Rundt, where I posed together with Ann Karin for her.
It`s a great piece!

There were lots of great pieces by many different artists that use Kreaktiv as their base. And as always, it`s pretty cool to see the different results.

This is another one of Rita`s pieces.

This was done by Rikke, Rita`s sister, who joined in on the croquis class for her first time. Pretty cool drawing.

One of the artists has his slipper for sale, supposedly worth 3000 kroners.

let it snow, let it snow

Taken this morning at about 9 am.
So maybe this is not exactly winter wonderland just yet. It snowed again yesterday, but as usual today it is about 35 F outside and raining.
Basically it`s just dark and wet outside, which makes my bike ride to work all that more fun.

yoga yoga yoga

Finally! I signed up for an hour of yoga at one of the exercise clubs nearby. And I could tell it`s been a while since I last did this. Had some problems with the basic balancing moves. But this just proves that I need to keep doing this.

I don`t stretch enough, and I think that both the back problems this summer and my last little scare with the pain in my side can all be related to muscular problems.
Plus the fact that the class consists of 99% girls should be an extra incentive too ;-)

when cyclists party

Once a year, my bike club Frikransen gathers together for an end of the year christmas party. It`s always strange at first when we see each other in our "civilian" clothes and not our standard cycling gear. But as always it is alot of fun.
So Friday night we were invited to Øyvind`s place and were served an incredible meal, including an appetizer that you can see below.

With a champagne welcome drink, and very nice red wine for dinner, followed by coffe and cognac, led to a pretty happy group. The christmas presents game at the end has become a tradition as well... although this year I did not get a present. Oh well. I still have a bunch of nice photos I intend to use for blackmail.

And here`s a link to my photo gallery
Merry Christmas! :-)

sunday spin

What was supposed to be jogging outside turned out to be a 2 hour spinning class with a good friend (we opted for something indoors due to the freezing rain).
It felt really good to be "back in the saddle".

I actually had 2 offers to go working out today, which is pretty surprising considering I haven`t been the easiest person to get out of the house these past few months. But I guess thats what good friends are for.
Thanks :)

vernissage

My friend Sissel is one of the students from Nydalen and has drawn me for about a year now (like this one).
She has her own art exhibit at the Cafe Deja Vu in Frognerveien 58, and had her vernissage last night.
This piece was one of my favorites, entitled "Father and son" if I remember correctly. Her work will be hanging here for about a month so go see!

norseman 2003 - where it all started

I miss these days. Everything was new and exciting. We were a small bunch of friends who ventured into the unknown. 21 guys would turn up to do something that nobody before us had done before. My girlfriend at the time was my support during the whole event, and in the weeks prior to this.
We even got a 5 minute slot on NRK! It has been posted on youtube and can still be enjoyed here:
Norseman Xtreme Triathlon 2003

Ever since the first Norseman Xtreme Triathlon, my life has been consumed with triathlons and bike races. It defined me.
But things change, people come and go, and things are not the same. I need to find that "spark" again. The excitement.
Maybe looking at these old videos will bring it all back.

true blood

A 4 hour True Blood marathon, a huge pizza and a good friend to share it with.
Haven`t done that since college.
Thanks for a fun evening :-)

marketing

Translation: "Opening soon an exciting take-away kitchen!"


Not sure what attracted me to this the most... the stylish sign written in marker, the fact that they are describing this as exciting, that we don`t have a Norwegian word for "take-away", or a mixture of all of these.

warning signs?

I had just finished lunch at work, Thursday, when suddenly I got this pain in the side of my chest. Felt mostly like the cramps you get when running. I didn`t think much of it at first and excused myself from class, thinking I could "walk it off". Well it didn`t go away but rather it got worse. It was painful breathing in and I could barely keep standing.

I dropped everything and took a cab downtown to the emergency room.
The doctor was not sure what this could be, so she took some x-rays and took about 3 viles of blood from me.
Before I knew it I was in a hospital bed in my own room waiting for the results (well, actually I shared a room with an older Pakistani man who turned out to be very talkative).

The blood results didn`t come back until 7 pm, but they all came back negative. None of the x-rays showed anything either.
This was all good news of course, but basically I still didn`t know what this was. Maybe it was muscular? Was it an anxiety attack? I got to talk to the doctor again, before going home, but all we could do is speculate.
Today is Sunday and I have tried to just take it easy the past few days. Went swimming for a while yesterday and that felt really good. It still feels like somebody punched me in the side, but I don`t have any problems breathing.

Maybe my body is angry with me for not training actively anymore.
I don`t really know what to do, but I am taking this as some sort of warning sign and I need to change my daily routines.

croquis drawings

These 2 drawings are done by 2 of the girls, Sissel and Margrete, from Nydalen Kunstskole and they hired me in for some extra croquis classes. I love to see the different results, so I took a picture of them (unfortunately my cell phone is not the best camera).

gaining weight

No, not me.
My bike.
Last night I switched out my front tire with the studded tire. The normal tire weighs 700 grams while the studded tire weighs 1000 gr.
So far it`s just the front tire but when I get both of them on there then my bike will weigh over 1/2 kg more than normal.
Should be good for the uphills ;-)

cold, dark and wet

I am reminded of "Planes, Trains and Automobiles".
Steve Martin: "What do you think the temperature is?"
John Candy: "One."