Waffle Party

I am in a period of my life where all my energy is focused on work. As work is a touchy subject to write about ( all those NDA's and intellectual rights agreements have a tendency of getting in the way) I am reduced to write about the mere mundane... such as my party last week!

I turned 25 in August and wanted to do a proper celebration. Now August is not a good month to have parties so I combined it with my annual waffle party. Not being able to speak for all I'll just say that I had great fun! The blanket fortress seemed appreciated as it was rarely unoccupied and all of my prepared waffle mixture was eaten. No all time record was beaten (12 is the standing record since 3 years back I think) but B combed in the title of Waffle Eater with a tidy number of 9 waffles.

 

I always do waffle mixtures from scratch, not being a fan of the ready made mixtures so here is the recipe for those who ant to give it a go. Serves 2 normal people or 3 weaklings:
2 eggs
3-3½ dl flour
0.5 - 1 dl melted butter/margarine
2 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
Enough milk to make the mixture smooth (somewhere around 4-5 dl)

Mix everything and pour in the milk last to avoid clumps . Count on around 1-1½ dl of mixture per waffle. It usually tastes better if the mixture is prepared the day before.

As everyone seemed too busy eating the waffles than taking pictures of them ( I deem that a success) you can get a picture of me licking a lollipop instead.

The party did however beat the record of the longest party I have held, with the first guests arriving a few minutes after 13, and the last one who was in any condition to leave exiting after 01 in the morning. Lets just say that the blanket fortress seemed to have done a good job of doubling up as a place to sleep.

Five Elements Beta Release!

Every day when I have come back from work I have found either a bouncing Matte holding out his phone saying "Look at this! Look at this new thing I've done!" or a bouncing Matte saying "I've pushed a new version. Can you download and test it?"

Our former agreement that demo-days were to be Thursdays flew out the window as every day became demo-day. But now, finally, a beta version of Five Elements has now been released! This means Matte can get feedback from more people than just me :-)

Matte has written a guide for those who want to become Beta-testers. Just click the link and follow the guide if you want to become a Beta-Tester:

Post by Mattias Selin.

If you can't see the above, a direct link can be found here.

I've taken a few screenshots of Five Elements to show off the game design - but mainly to show off my high-score. I've had a few weeks to play this game, and so far I am second-best in the world at this game!

Progress of Five Elements

When most people buy a dining-room table, the idea is to have a lovely place to sit with visitors and socialize. That was also our idea when we bought our table last summer. This has not become our reality. Since May our table looks like this:

The reason? Matte is spending every Tuesday and Thursday working on mobile game app development. Four weeks of this has brought the first results! An alpha version of Five Elements is now uploaded and being tested:

Being one of the stakeholders, I have the privilege of being one of the testers. I am impressed. The game has a good structure and is technically very stable. Matte's single-worker adaptation of the SCRUM framework has ensured deliverance of a shippable product after just four days and an alpha version within eight.

Just a few more days and it will be available for the public! Matte is of course loving the fact that he gets to program all day long:

Christmas is over...

I've had a lovely Christmas, celebrating Christmas Eve with my husband's family and Christmas Day with mine.

The Christmas Day dinner turned out great with everyone chipping in, sister decorating the apartment and table, dad making sure there was space in the kitchen, husband making the starter, me making the turkey, mum making the Yorkshire puddings and gravy and Kiara making us all laugh with her obsession over her new "Poppy". As I'm not one who takes pictures of food... or pictures at all for that matter, here is a picture of Kiara taken by my mum.

Kiara

Sooo...I've ordered an e-book reader! I am going to pick it up tomorrow... and then. Then. The whole world of literature will be at my fingertips!

I will never need to ask myself, "Do I have enough space for this book?" Never wonder if I've brought along enough books to the holiday trip nor lie just exactly right so that the bedside lamp will light up the page so I can see the text. Now why didn't I get this sooner?

Visiting my sister and other ghost stories

So last night I cycled down to Karlberg Castle grounds to visit my sister who has just started her 3 year education at the Military Academy there. 

When I arrived, I was taken to a guard to be registered and my sister asked if it was possible to show me the castle. Another guard came along just then and informed that the castle had just been locked down for the night. He must have taken pity on our disappointed faces because he looked us up and down and said

"Alright, I'll take you on a personal tour."

The joy! We followed him in through the back door and spent 1½ hours doing a tour of the different rooms, listening to ghost stories and plenty of laughter at the stories he could tell of previous cadets at the academy.

I was too caught up with listening to both my sister's and the guards' lively stories of the place that I didn't take any pictures but some googling brought me to this blog post with some good pictures. I will link to just two of them that I liked especially

First, a picture of the ballroom:

The ballroom is used often for dinners, wedding receptions and, of course, the famous winter ball that the cadets get to go to. This is also where the ghost story of Queen Ulrika Eleonora starts. The story can be found here, although I can say that being told the story in a completely empty castle, as the light is slowly fading as night creeps in and the storyteller is the guard who has worked there for the past 15 years was much more fascinating.

And that leads me to the second picture, the picture of Queen Ulrika Eleonora with her dead children in the background:

So finally a 3D model of the castle

Wedding Anniversary and Travel optimization

Today is our one-year wedding anniversary and we will be celebrating it by putting together a wardrobe for our bedroom and going out to eat. Nothing brings two people closer like putting together IKEA furniture...

Anywho, in other news; Matte and I were discussing the pay-off of traveling when considering changing modes of transport and total time spent travelling in public transport.

Let's assume that all distances have no monetary cost difference. That is to say travelling by one mode of transport from A to B costs exactly the same as changing mode of transport several times and traveling from A to C to D etc to B. This is the case when travelling with a monthly boarding pass within the city boundaries. Let us also assume people don't enjoy travelling and nor do the enjoy changing modes of transport. What aspects would once have to consider to create a good goal function?

In layman terms, will a person choose to travel a certain route from A to B if the total travel time is longer but there are less changes of mode of transport? Which aspects will effect the person's decision?

Some of the thoughts Matte and I had that would effect the decision was:

Risk
How long time is there between the changes?
Is there a chance of missing one of the changes?
How often do the transport come if you do miss a step of the way? Is it every half hour or every 5 minutes?

Regularity
Is it a one-off trip or one that is done regularly? Will a one-off trip be more sensitive to changes or not?

Total time
Is the total trip time short or long? Will a 5 minute increase in the time be weighted more on the 15 minute trip than the 1 hour trip?

Number of changes
Is each increase in the number of changes weighted the same? Is an increase from 0 to 1 weighted more than from 1 to 2?

I'm itching to create some optimization functions now...Anyone else have ideas of what could effect the decisions?

Lastly is a short video of 2 people zorbing. I couldn't get anyone to film us when we rolled down so this video will have to do. As you can hardly see the people in the ball, you can imagine it is Matte and I :)

New home

A lot has been happening the past weeks, which has meant that I put the blog on hold. But now there is more routine in our life so I'll be writing regularly again. I have several draft posts of things I want to write about and will gradually put them up when they are complete.

Moving
So we've finally moved in to our new apartment, thanks to help from A, R and B. The kitchen is in order and after D's help last week-end the hallway looks lovely :-) We are still missing a lot of wardrobe space and need to go to IKEA. so we still have plenty of boxes all over the place. Neither do we have a sofa so we (I) are using a mattress on the floor...which is very uncomfortable. I am trying to convince Matte that buying a purple sofa is a great idea...;-)

Midsummer
We spent the midsummer holiday with both Matte's and my parents at Matte's parent's summer place in the middle of the woods It was very nice, with plenty of good food and laughter. It is definitely a lovely place to relax. Here's a picture I borrowed (stole) from A of the garden:

Visitor
We had just spent a night in a new apartment, before we had our first guest. Our friend J, who's doing his PhD in the US, was visiting Stockholm so we didn't want to miss an opportunity to meet him before he made his way to other places. It was lovely meeting up. He and Matte was soon in deep discussion in which I could, unfortunately, only partly follow. He lent out a book by Bryan Magee called "Confessions of a Philosopher" which I'm enjoying a lot, even with my limited knowledge of philosophy. I, of course, followed J's advise and watched a Youtube video Magee, and am enjoying reading the book and hearing his British accent in my head :)

And a final picture of what I saw on my walk around where I live :)

Natalie, Tasha & Jay story

When my sister and I were little, our aunt, Jay, would sometimes bless us with her famous Natalie,Tasha and Jay stories.  I therefore want to dedicate this story to her and her husband who got married 2 weeks ago.

Natalie Tasha and Jay were sitting in the living-room with nothing to do. Natalie had just finished a really great book and was in her post-read depression. Jay had just finished her music video and was uploading it online. It was taking forever and she was busy staring at the loading bar which did not seem to move. Tasha had eaten sweets and not had her daily exercise so she was in hyper mode and was doing hand-stands against the wall.
"I'm bored!" Natalie complains.
"Me too!" says Tasha, slightly muffled as her T-shirt has fallen down over her head.
Jay sighs, but then brightens up.
"I know! Let’s use the magic wand!"
She proceeds to fish out the wand she had tucked away in a hidden draw.
"Yes!" exclaims both Natalie and Tasha.

"Abracadabra bouncy ball
Make us very, very small!"

With a burst of light and music that sounded like "sparkle sparkle" Natalie, Tasha and Jay had become tiny and were standing on the edge of the computer desk looking up at the giant computer screen in front of them.
"Oh, let's explore!" exclaims Tasha, always ready for an adventure.
"Let's try and get in to the computer" says Natalie, the tech-nerd part of her lighting up.

Jay takes the lead and all three of them start approaching the screen. As they got closer they see there is a crack on the underside of screen. Both Natalie and Tasha look at Jay, who suddenly looks embarrassed.
"It was an accident!" she exclaims defensively. When they keep on looking at her she sighs.
"I was practicing my belly-dancing, and got a bit over-enthusiastic and knocked the screen off the table"
Tasha sniggers. Being the one who usually breaks things, it was a relief not to be that person for once.
"Well, at least we can get in now" says Natalie, diplomatically.
They look up to the hole. It looked dark with random bursts of flashing colourful lights
"As it's my computer, I get to go in first" Jay clambers in and then helps Natalie. Tasha proceeds to do a mega ultra back-flip with extra spin and lands neatly next to Natalie, who is huffing from the effort of clambering in.

They gasp at what they see. In front of them is a huge field with what seems likes grass growing on it. The sky is black as coffee (without milk) but would suddenly be lit up with sparks that looked like fireworks.
"What is this place?" Tasha wonders.
"It shouldn't look like this", says Natalie, the know-it-all. "There should be wires and stuff"
"It's probably because my computer is special" Jay decided. "Let’s explore."
As they always did what Jay said, they started walking. The grass-like substance rustled while they moved through it, but they couldn't feel any wind. After closer examination, the substance looked like electrified seaweed and would send sparks whenever they moved. As they couldn't work out what else it would do they carried on.

They suddenly noticed something moving in the distance. While they watched, it got bigger and bigger and they could finally make out it was a train. It stopped just before their feet so Natalie, Tasha and Jay, who are all curious by nature, walk forward to examine it.
"It made of paper-maché!" exclaims Natalie.
"The whole train is made of it!" Said Tasha, who had had time to run around all the wagons
"Shall we make a tear to see what’s inside?" suggests Tasha. Both Natalie and Jay look uncomfortable. For some reason it felt very wrong, although they couldn't understand why.
"Ok," Jay finally says and reaches forward to make a tear

"Stop it!"

All three of them turn around hastily looking very guilty.
In front of them is a very strange sight. It looked like a centaur, except on his head there were a pair of huge moose horns. The man part of the creature was wearing a tight t-shirt with two giant M's entwined together. He looked very upset.
"We're sorry" apologizes Jay, "We just wanted to know what was inside.
"There nothing in it! It's my train and you shouldn't go around destroying other person’s things"
"Who are you?" says Tasha, feeling that the most important question was not being answered fast enough.
"I am..."
The creature proceeds to strike a super-hero pose.
"Moussa-Man!"
All three of them try to stifle a giggle but fail miserably. Natalie manages to recover first.
"S..s..sorry! So what is your super-hero power then?"
"I can run faster than light!" he answered haughtily, feeling a bit hurt from the laughter.

"That's impossible!" exclaims Natalie, who had read all about physics laws and always believed everything in her books.
"I'll show you! Jump on to my back!" he retorts!
Natalie looks sceptical, but Tasha, who loved riding, did a running jump and landed smoothly on his back.
"Giddy-up" she shouts excitedly. Both he and Tasha suddenly vanish.
Jay and Natalie look worried at each other. Tasha is the baby of the three and it wouldn't do if they suddenly lost her. That she was in her twenties didn't matter, they still felt responsible for her. They didn't have to worry for long though. Both Tasha and Moussa-Man reappeared right in front of them.
"Wow! That was awesome!" Says Tasha, sliding off.
"Where did you go?"
"I had some errands I had to finish, I was delivering a package to a satellite half way to Pluto."
This impressed both Jay and Natalie and they both wanted a ride. They took turns, but both Natalie and Tasha noticed that Moussa-Man took Jay on a longer ride. When they returned, they were both smiling and chatting away
"Where did you go?" Tasha asked, slyly with a huge grin on her face.
"Umm...to a beach...and watched the sunset" Jay mumbles.
"Oh really?" says Natalie, trying to raise one of her eyebrows.
"Yes, and he got me manti."
"How nice, I think we should go back home now," said Natalie, seeing where this was leading.
"You should come and visit" says Jay too Moussa-Man.
"I would love that!" said Moussa-Man, staring deeply into Jays eyes. Both Natalie and Tasha start pulling at Jay and head towards the exit.

As they clamber down the hole again, we can hear Jay saying
"Don't you think he had very nice antlers?"
Needless to say, Kevin- oh, I mean Moussa-Man, did come and visit.

Week-end fun

From my speakers I'm listening to "Sailing" by Rod Stewart which I found on my "Old favourites" playlist:

I love going back to old songs and re-listening to them. One should always have time for short periods of nostalgia.

Now, for something completely different.

My mum stayed Friday night and it was great to be able to talk. It's been a while and it's always good to get a mum's point of view on matters. We are both excited about going to Turkey on Thursday and also the wedding on Saturday. It's been 5 years (Really?!) since I was there last and I need to see what's changed including how much Turkish I've forgotten.

At Hammarby Sjöstad with mum

Saturday evening Matte and I went and had dinner with A and N. The food was delicious and the company was excellent :-) Being the camera man that I am, there are no pictures of the event. So instead I will leave it to your imagination. We decided to start playing "Drakar och Demoner" (Not to be confused with "Dungeons and Dragons") in July once we've settled in our new apartment.

D and I are going to Gothenburg for a spa weekend in August so we have now booked the place we are going to stay at, the train-tickets to Gothenburg (1st class!) and planned the other activities we're going to do. I'm really looking forward to that! Here's a picture of hotel:

I rounded off my weekend watching Day[9]'s Day Off - Antichamber with Matte.

A really interesting game, I loved the minimalistic design and the mind-puzzles it had, reminded me of Portal 2 but less stressful. I'm in the balance of deciding whether I want to play it myself, or enjoy watching other people play it more...

Wedding preparations and skydiving

I spent Saturday shopping for the wedding; a dress for myself and a shirt for Matte. I also tried to find a specific book but as there is only one bookstore company in central Stockholm that I could find and they didn't have it in stock in any of their stores I'm going to have to order it online. I miss Linköpings Bokakademin...

Anyway, as Matte's white shirt isn't very interesting, here is a picture of my dress:

It pretty scary how soon the wedding is... Time really flies and there are so many other things happening at the same time. But I'm really looking forward to it!

Today Matte finally got a time to do the skydiving present that he got so here are some pictures:

Summer Plans

Summer plans are slowly taking shape and the required reservations are being made.

First stop will be Selcuk to attend J and K's wedding and also show my husband where I grew up. The flight to Turkey has been booked, the hotels that we'll be staying at have partially been booked and the schedule of activities have been revised. It's going to be great to return to dear Selcuk after so many years.

Selcuk Castle and part of the town

As soon as we return from Turkey it will be to pack boxes and start our move to our new apartment. This move will be much easier then last as it's "only" across the city and we don't have much left since we had to get rid of so much when we moved to Stockholm. (Loads of thanks to R,S and A for helping us last time btw) After making the best decision ever to book cleaning help when moving out of our last apartment we will do the same this time as well.

Plan of our new apartment

Unfortunately, the first festival that I've wanted to go to ever is right bang in the middle of our moving week, so I'm having trouble persuading my husband that we should go... He is right, we shouldn't go off on festivals when we're moving...but... Hoffmaestro will be there! And Timbuktu...And Green Day...

Hoffmaestro playing att Bråvalla festival in Norrköping 28th of June

July will be spent putting in our new home in order. It feels great that it will definitely be ours so I can actually move in for real!

I just got off the phone with D and we've decided a Spa-weekend 3-4 August in Gothenburg is the plan for this year which I'm already looking forward to! Now to book the train tickets, hotel and spa location...

The only thing that's missing at the moment now is a hike/bike ride. Who's interested in joining on a two day hike/bikeride somewhere? (Remember, I'm not very fit so the pace will have to be slow!)

Fun Weekend

I've had fun weekend :-)

Friday evening started with my sister-in-law, J, spending the night and we had a nice girl-night, eating tacos, watching My Little Pony and teasing Matte.

Saturday, I followed Matte and J to the blood bank (J donated, Matte wasn't eligble and I didn't want to)  I then went to A and did some scapbooking. The album is really getting along and it's looking very good!

I then tried to recruit somone to join me to go to Kulturnatt, but failing, I went myself and had a great time, spending most of the time at Dragon's Lair playing Magic.

A tram bus, taking people to the tram museum during Kulturnatt

Some of the games that were being played at Dragon's Lair

 
I will probably be spending more time at Dragon's Lair in the future :-)

Farmor - an outstanding woman

My Farmor (mother of my father) is an outstanding woman. A couple of years ago, a documentary was made about the role of the mother in the family and in society and Farmor was interviewed as a part of this documentary. The attached film clip is in Turkish and the interview with Farmor starts around 4 min and 30 sec in to video.

My Farmor is from a poor background and started working when she was 15 years old. The interview gives a lovely insight in what it was like when she was little and also how she had her hands full with all her 13 children.

Even now when she has recently turned 90, she spends a lot of her time working with Erikshjälpen, a  relief organisations with it's roots in Småland, Sweden. She regularly bakes buns and bread and donates it to their cause.

For those of you who would want a translation of the interview, contact me and I do my best :)

Keeping contact

Yesterday was a day of contact. A day when I realised how many different, important people there are in my life.

It started with my friend B phoning and telling me he'd got the job he'd applied to and is now going to move to the big city.Goods new for him and good news for me :-)

I spent a few minutes chatting with my mum on facebook, followed by a quick chat with my aunt concerning marketing.

The day continued with me calling my dad to hear what's going on in his life (marking papers so not very stimulating), getting a call from my friend P and hearing how life is going with him (stressful), a long discussion over the phone with my friend D (a subject that will conern a new blog entry) and having a chat with my friend T who I haven't had a lot of contact with lately. I also tried to phone my sister and realised that she's out in the woods and surviving on what she can find there for this week so she's cut off from the world.
 

Personal Motivation

Today I will be going to an evening seminar with two work colleagues. The title of the seminar is "Unleash the Power within" and even though is not a seminar I would have gone to by myself it will be interesting to see what it is. This seminar concerns what I believe is one of the most important aspects in Swedish culture; how to motivate the individual. This being said I want to reflect in what way motivation is represented in my own experience..

I moved to Sweden when I was 14 after having spent my 7 years of schooling divided between local Turkish school with 30 students in each class, individual homeschooling and international schooling in a mixed classroom with an age range of 6 years. The motivation I had was not "complete fourth grade, or you'll be held back a year" or "if I do this extra work I will end up on the honours list". For me there were no such things. Held back a year? what did that mean? I could complete all my maths for a year in 2 months and still have french assignments left from last year. End up on the honours list? What would I compare? How could I compare with people around me when they could be working on Turkish grammar and I had English literature?

My motivation, I believe most probably came from my parents. All their life they had spent working on something they believed in and their constant motivation of making a difference in the area they  found themselves. I saw my dad work constantly with the pioneer projects that were going on where we lived. I saw my mum motivate and See (with a capital S) the children and families in the area where we lived through her music, art and lessons. I saw both my parents make a difference to the people they met.

One of my mum's pictures from Turkey, Clicking on the picture will direct to her gallery

I entered the Swedish schooling system with an attitude that anything was possible. My childhood had just proven to me that there is more than one way to developing yourself so why worry? I changed schools 3 times in 3 years, every time because I and my parents did not feel the school did the job of what we believed a school should do, fulfill the needs of the student. Finally entering a school that satisfied our requirements I completed my high school and started university studying the subject that I enjoyed most of all; mathematics.

My motivation developed throughout this time. I studied economics and realised that the best way that I could make a difference is to specialize in the area I was good at and make use of my ability. And I focused on doing what I was good at. And because I was good at it I enjoyed doing it.

What lesson have I learnt from my own experience? I guess not to be afraid to do things differently. The "normal" way does not always have to be the best way.

This does not mean that the "unnormal" way is easy...

Kiara, the phobic dog

This past week I've spent dogsitting Kiara, my(or rather my family's) phobic dog while Mum and Dad were in Cyprus. 

Kiara is scared of the floor. This means I had to borrow a carpet for the week while she was at our place just so that she wouldn't lie in the corner and whine.

Two of the many floor coverers we had in the apartment

She also has problems doing her business when she is on a leash. The first day we had her, we went out 4 times from 12 o'clock to 8 at night and not once did she do a wee or a poo. At 8 it was dark and no people around so I decided to take off the lead so that I could throw a stick for her. She went trotting of and did her business 10 meters away and looked very relieved afterwards!

Kiara doing her silent bark

But other than that it has been fun having her... expecially when she came up to me, holding Matte's smelly sock and expecting me to play tug-o-war with her!