Archive for May, 2008

The good life :)

Friday, May 30th, 2008

Some of you have asked what I’ve been up to while Adam is at work. I have had no problems filling up my time! I usually spend about half of my day working on projects, including freelance projects, my graphic design portfolio, or learning new techniques for Illustrator and Photoshop. I may even learn PHP, but I am a little intimidated right now, and having way too much fun with Illustrator and Photoshop to start coding. :) Usually the second half of the day, I spend downtown or hiking around. I am enjoying being able to spend several hours each day being outside and walking around, especially now that it stopped raining!

I really treasure the luxury of time that I have right now – deciding what to do, having time to learn new skills, and having time to discover Trondheim. It is especially welcome after an extremely busy/stressful final semester of graduate school! Looking back at it now I cannot believe I finished everything I did – two jobs, my master’s project, and designed several publications. Knowing I had this summer in Norway coming up was certainly good motivation to finish everything on time!

I thought I would share one of my freelance projects with you. It is in draft stage, so some tweaking will be required. As you’ll see in the image below, the letter “t” is a bit hard to read, so I will be reworking that. This project is for an upcoming nonprofit, Sustainable Trail Design. Let me know what your favorite logo mockup is!

XFMR Research Team

Thursday, May 29th, 2008

Here are a couple of group shots of the transformer (XFMR) research team that I am on. These were taken in Houghton outside of our building. The tallest guy is my adviser and leader of this group. The guy with the blue shirt and white ball cap is the other student in Norway working with me this summer.

As always – Click to enlarge the pictures.

Old Town Pictures

Thursday, May 29th, 2008

Here are some picture from the part of town that is known as “Old Town”. In this part of town there is an old bridge that has some unique wooden arches, an old warehouse district that has been rehabbed into shoppes, restaurants, and pubs. This area also includes many old homes as well as many nice areas for walking and soaking up the sun.

Over the last few days we have made several trips to this area to explore and check out the old buildings. This gallery contains a sample of what the area is like. Make sure and click on each picture to enlarge it and to get some more details on that photo – remember to click on it again to get it to its maximum size.

Musician

Thursday, May 29th, 2008

During our Sunday afternoon stroll through Old Town we came across a free concert that featured what we believe to be a local artist singing and playing his guitar. He is a solo artist and was singing in several different languages that seemed to range between Norwegian, French ,and English. He did a really nice job and was pretty fun to watch.

Click on each thumbnail below to enlarge the pictures and click on each blue link to watch a short video!

Video 1 of the singer

Video 2 of the singer

Video 3 of the singer

Video 4 of the singer


Something seems fishy… very fishy…

Tuesday, May 27th, 2008

I originally had a taste of the “svolværpostei” during a lunch with my research team. One of the guys told me that it was definitely unique to Norway and he has not seen in any where else including the six months that he spent in Houghton as a researcher at MTU. I liked the taste of it so I had to get some of my own.

I’m not exactly sure on its contents because I have eaten it and thrown away the can, but, I know that it was mostly cod fish liver, and according to my team members it also contains cod meat and cod caviar in it as well.

It has a salty, fishy taste but when spread on bread and even with onion or garlic flavored cream cheese it is VERY good. As I typed this blog entry I was searching online for the ingrediants and instead found some health warnings against easting fish livers because they contain a high level of PCB’s, dioxins, and other toxins. Although this was tasty I doubt I will get it again – I don’t need any of the problems associated with PCB’s and dioxins.

Also in this picture I picked up two slightly different varieties of mackerel fillets in tomato sauce, sursild which is pickled herring (yes – it is excellent!), and polarbrød extrem which is packed with extra fiber, whole grains, and protein.

Fish Products

Here is a view of some of the treats that Karen bought during the same shopping trip.

Piano Rislunsj – Rice pudding with raspberry saus

Lefsa Snacks – Lefsa with cinnamon sugar

Raspberry Grazia Cookies – from Denmark

Sibas Crackers – kind of like graham crackers

Karen\'s treats

Trondheim Fjord: Sheds + Buildings

Saturday, May 24th, 2008

To see the full size image, click on each picture.

Trondheim Fjord: Boats

Saturday, May 24th, 2008

To see the full size image, click on each picture.

Trondheim Fjord: Food

Saturday, May 24th, 2008

About halfway through our hike, we came upon the Sponhuset – a quaint fjord-side cafe. We had heard about this cafe but we weren’t sure if they were open. We enjoyed a roast chicken meal and dessert vaffles, as well as beautiful views. This popular spot was crowded with hikers and families.

To see the full size image, click on each picture.

Trondheim Fjord: Birds + Slugs

Saturday, May 24th, 2008

To see the full size image, click on each picture.

Trondheim Fjord: The Hike

Saturday, May 24th, 2008

Today we enjoyed a beautiful hike along the Trondheim Fjord. We had the good fortune of not only breathtaking views, but sunny and warm weather to enjoy the day. We took the bussen to Ladestein, the lake path, and started at the Lade Kommune and walked westward about 7 km (4.3 miles) into the city.

Below is a gallery of our hike.

Click on each picture to see the full size image.