Living in Trondheim Some thoughts from Sun's "outpost" in Trondheim, Norway.

Summer in Trondheim

Playing chess with my youngest son at the Waterfront (Solsiden - The Sunny Side) in Trondheim. Relaxing a week between Molde International Jazzfestival and the Svartisen galcier. I Molde we were at an outdoor concert with Elvis Costello/Alan Toissant and Steely Dan. Great fun.

Lunar Eclipse

Last night we had a Lunar eclipse here. The weather was overcast so we didn't get to see the start, but after midnight, the sky became clear, and we could watch the second half od the show. The picture is taken just after the moon has started to leave the earth's shadow.

Just put on the skis at home and glide into a winter wonderland

Today, we had experienced one of the nice things with living in a small city, not too far from the polar circle (Actually, in Trondheim we have Sun Microsystems' northenmost site in the whole world).

It has been snowing for several days now, and yesterday I was out showeling twice. But the reselt is magnificient. The town is covered with a clean white carpet of snow and today the kids and I put on the skis at home for our sunday hike.

A short way from home, passing the church.

A rets in the snow. Hot chocolate and hot dogs.

The route

Tagged

I have been tagged by Max with "the five things you don't know about me meme". Had to figure out what this meant, and found that it meant that I have got a kind of "chain letter". Since I've never liked chain letters, I'll probably not tag other people, but found it kind of fun to answer this one.

Ok, so this is "The five things you don't know about me" (i hope :-) ):

1. I have played the 1st flute in a symphonic orchestra and was so good when I finished college that I considered a career as a musician. I started out when I was 9 years old and have played ever since. After college it was pop combos, musicals, punk bands, folk music, psychedelia on both variuos flutes and guitars. The last 6 years, however, just in a parents orchestra at the kids' school once a year at the school's celebration of the Norwegian constitution day.


2. I have worked some months as a plumbers assistant at a shipyard where we built large tugboats. We used to hide away for an extra coffee break in an attic where they made the wooden models for molds used in casting. There were steep wooden stairs up, so we could easily hear it if the foreman was coming.


3. I introduced the use of Mac computers in an local anarchistic magazine in the late eighties. I also contributed some articles and was out on the streets selling this magazine nearly every saturday for three years.


4. A couple of years I was in the management of a world music festival with musicians and performance artists from all over the world. We never sold more than 1300 tickets and we lost a lot of money (not mine, fortunetaly).


5. I did my military service in Northern Norway in the late seventies during the cold war in the infantry. My weapon was a heavy machine gun. During winter exercises, we used skis and pulks (sledges) to haul the machine guns to places where British and American soldiers never dreamt we could get to with the heavy equipment. That took them by surprise several times.

Autumn & winter at once

We live at 112 meters above sea level, and the winter has arrived here. It means that I had to change tyres on the car this weekend, and a need to buy winter tyres for my bike. I bike to work the year round, it's my daily workout, especially on my way home when it is uphill all the way. And the kids enjoy the snow, building snowmen and snowcastles, play war with snowballs etc.

Downtown, it's still autumn, just 10 minutes away from home by carn (and by bike down the hills). This Sunday we strolled in the parks, fed the ducks in the river and visited the coffee bar my wife started a couple years ago. The autumn colors are wonderful.

Winter is getting close

The autumn is here and winter is near. We experienced the first snow in the mountains some days ago.

And, the autumn is here with rain and wind, but a hike along the fjord may be nice with the right outfit.

Java DB 10.2 beta is now available for download. Try it out!

Java DB (or Derby, or Cloudscape if you prefer) 10.2 beta is available for download at http://people.apache.org/~rhillegas/10.2.1.0-beta/

There has not been a feature release since august 2005, so this should be what Java DB/Derby users are waiting for. New features include:

• Scrollable Updatable Result Sets
  
• JDBC4
  
• Grant/Revoke
  
• Online Backup
  
• Stronger Network Authentication
  

More information at http://wiki.apache.org/db-derby/TenTwoRelease. We in the developer community will appreciate feedback on very much. Try it out!

Inspiring talk by Ken Coar at ApacheCon

At ApacheCon Europe 2006 in Dublin today, Ken Coar held an inspiring talk about what gadgets he has in his belt. His talk was one of the highlights of the conference. In the picture, Ken shows his Leatherman.

Celebration, Speech & Tattoo

Sitting in Dublin and contemplating on my family and my friends. I think I'm a lucky guy. The celebration of my 50th year was a nice event, held on Stokkøya (The Restaurant at the End of the Universe). 30 grownups and 30 kids having a active outdoors weekend. A lot of us lived in tents and the weather was mostly nice. And my wife held the best speech I ever heard. She even had a new tattoo for the event (the first one in very many years....).

Thunder

Thunderstorms are not very common here in Trondheim. I think the climate is too cold. But this afternoon we had one. It has been a very hot sunday, and I have sweated in the garden the whole day. My youngest son was visiting a friend and phoned home with his cell phone to tell us he had forgotten the time, but was going to hurry home right away. Suddenly he exclaimed: "Lightning! Thunder! Wow!
Cool!".

My oldest and I went outside to watch. I find the light, the clouds exciting. It passed just north of us, so we did not get very much rain here.

Do you need to learn how to use transactions? Again?

See my blog at java.net

Let's go to the beach...

... the Norwegian way. It's June, one of our boys has his birthday, and we have of course to plan in advance and invite his friends. To a beach party? In Trondheim? Well, with our unpredictable weather and high living standard, we have a solution to that. Our pretty large indoor bathing and swimming facility out on the harbour. With a nice view to the fjord and Munkholmen, and old monastery and in later times a fortress, with lot of pools and even a wave machine and of course a burger-joint.

In 10°C, wind and rain, our sons, his friends, my wife and I had a nice and relaxed day "on the beach".

My wife & Munkholmen

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

... well, not exactly at the end of the universe, but pretty close. 2-3 hours drive (depending on the ferry) northwest of Trondheim, in the middle of nowhere, at the end of the road (highway 723 to be precise), on the island Stokkøya with a view to the North Atlantic, some enthusiasts have put up a restaurant on a beautiful beach. Here, you can wine and dine and watch the sea. They invite chefs from different restaurants, and when we were there this weekend it was Kenneth from Kampen Bistro in Oslo who had prepared a delicious meal for us. For starters we had mussels with chilis, ginger and onion. The main course was a deliciously prepared roe deer (hunted on the island by the owner) with rice and aspargus. Finally we had coffee and apple pie. Definitely worth the trip. We spent the night in our tent on the camping site close to the beach, did a couple of kayak trips and had a really nice time.

Summer's first swim

The last days we have had extremely high temperatures compared to what we are used to at this time of the year. Several days of temeratures above 20 degrees is not normal the first week of May. Well, do not worry, the forecast promises colder weather and maybe some snow in a week or so. Anyway, the kids wanted to swim today. I tried to tell them that the lake was frozen 2 weeks ago, but they had to discover it themselves. It was COLD!

Spring, finally

Spring is definitely here. The migrating geese have passed on their way to the Arctic. The grass is starting to get green. Although it may well snow in May, it won't last more than a day or less. I find the woods close to the city intruiging at this time of the year, before they get dense with green leaves.