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Showing posts from October, 2009

Meat market and other memories

Wednesday's photo was taken from a bus stop at one of Bergen's main intersections, between our historic, Hanseatic wharf "Bryggen" and our open-air fish market. In the comments, Alice asked me what the building in the middle was, and this was my reply: The building in the middle with the stepped gable used to be our meat market. We shopped there when I was a kid, ropes of sausages and whole sides of beef or mutton hanging all over, and a contrasting black and white tiled floor (which is still there). The tiles are large, and on a diagonal. Today, the meat market houses a café and a few delicatessens. What used to be the city's main delicatessen (with jerkied reindeer meat and innumerable types of cheese) in the basement, is now part of the restaurant chain "Egon" (oddly, the traffic isn't that disturbing when you sit in the outdoor part). But when I was a kid, and going to the city was a project, with lists of which stores to hit where, and ther

Wordless Wednesday - Reds

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Wordless Wednesday

Miscellaneous catching up

So somebody missed me (hi, Protege !). If it weren't for Wordless Wednesdays, they wouldn't know I was still alive. Well, I am, and here's a run-down of what's been grabbing my attention this month: Autumn got busy, as it usually does. I've been trying to focus on my astrology in order to forecast the weather and am rather behind on that. But maybe I'll catch up today because I'm home from work. Which brings me to the other distraction of the month: Inner health I bought a book about adult children of abusive parents , trying to sort some things out from childhood because my shoulder problem (it is doing better, thanks) is related to my stomach problems (I've had IBS since I was a kid), and stomach problems have their root in emotional upsets. Whenever I do a number on my stomach, it usually takes a week for it right itself again. After a party last Friday, I've been queasy ever since Saturday (which I spent throwing up - not good), and finall

Wordless Wednesday - Wing

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Wordless Wednesday

Deliveries (a complaint)

Well-meaning people in the US ship me stuff via UPS, FedEx, TNT and the like (hereinafter referred to as Other Delivery Company, or ODC). The latest to do this was Amazon.com. You know what? They all suck. You know why? Because in Norway, you get the best service from our post office. Seriously. Some mail order firms in Norway will use some alternative delivery system and deliver to a store near you. For an extra NOK 95, I can get my local post office to deliver the same package to my own front door, in the evening when I'm home, if I want. Or, I can walk in the opposite direction of the aforementioned store to my local post office and pick it up myself if I want to save some money. Since I pass by the post office every day to and from work, it's actually convenient for me to use them. The alternative package delivery firms that companies seem to be so fond of are not for regular working people. They are best suited for company-to-company deliveries that take place during w

Wordless Wednesday - Morsels

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Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday - Lit!

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Wordless Wednesday

Am I… old???

I first saw a computer in the 1970's and my first job out of high school was for a manufacturer of so-called mini-machines: The size of a washing machine, with storage and memory measured in kilobytes, not megabytes, and running BASIC. Barely 10 years later, I was an expert with WordPerfect on an IBM PC, after several years of using a Wang (look it up), and what I learned about Lotus 1-2-3 back then has helped me use Excel ever since. Then came e-mail. What fun! Then came the internet, and I got hooked up at home in 1997. More fun! I even learned HTML and designed my own webpages. I became an eager user of Usenet. I even figured out IRC and took an entire course via ICQ. Web 1.0 was good to me. Web 2.0 came along with interactive applications embedded in the web browser. Some were cooler (and more useful) than others. I like del.icio.us and still use it, and Twitter and Facebook are also in use. And blogs and Blogger, of course! I found a good use for Google Docs the day I