Can I Relax?

I just spent WAY too much time trying to get that stupid picture to fit in the header. i had the idea to add a little pizazz to my page & then couldn't decide what i wanted to add. i then decided i wanted a picture of some sort.. hmmmm, but what would be good? i decided on a picture that looks nice & peaceful. you can imagine that it would be a great place to relax, well, let me tell ya; it IS a great place to relax. The only sucky thing about it is it's location. No, i'm not saying that Sweden sucks, i'm just saying that it sucks that the beautiful, relaxing hilltop that i was sitting on is in Sweden i don't have the privilege to just walk down the street and take a seat atop that wonderful hill. This then causes me to wish that i had a place like that to go, only to realize i sit in an office all day & can't go exploring for hilltops that are beautiful & relaxing. all in all it all comes back to the fact that i can't relax no matter where i am nor do i have the time so why even look for that wonderful hilltop?

where is your special place that you go when you need to get a way from the stresses life throws your way?

Singin' in my Sleep

I like to think that I am a person that usually rememebers my dreams, i'd say at least 57% of the time. I had a good one the other night that i was involved in a slow speed, wild west, horse & carriage shootout. the best part was that I was making the bullets out of ice as we went along. The fact that dreams can be so random (or not, as mine proves to be) is indeed a strange thing. Another strange thing is when you wake up with a song in your head, you know what i'm talking about, right?. However, the mornings that i wake up with a song in my head i don't usually rememeber many of my dreams. I mean, just this morning i woke up singing "Crimson & Clover" by Tommy James & the Shondells. You know the part, "Cri i. i. mm s o. n and Cl o. o. v e.r, O. O. ve. r & O. O. ve. r". Yes indeedy, i truly have that song going around in my head Over & Over. WTC (what the crap), I have not heard that song in forever! what could i have possibly dreamt about that made me wake up singing that song? and when this stange phenomenon occurs, what do you think the chances are that i might have been audibly singin' in my sleep all night? weird.

Coldplay!

I am trying not to count down the minutes that i have to wait until i will have the new Coldplay album, "Viva la Vida or Death And All His Friends" in my hands, but it is hard not to. I am very excited for this new record. I was able to listen to the album many times at "IHeartMusic.com" and, although it is different than their older stuff, i think it is simply superb. dang, i'm pretty excited & i totally can't relax. Just a few short hours away. Wooo!

Rain, Rain, Rain!!

i don't know how many people really know how much it has rained in central wisconsin over the past couple weeks but let let me tell ya, it's been a lot! I drove to chicago, to see my buddy joe, this weekend by way of milwaukie and about 40 miles west of madison traffic stopped. the four of us in the car were a bit annoyed that we weren't moving and still had a few hours to go. after nearly 2 hours and moving about 10 miles we came to the cause of the slow traffic; most of interstate 94 was under water!! there was water past the center line of the road and only one vehicle could go at a time. once we got past that it just poured rain for the next hour or so, i don't know the last time i've held the wheel so incredibly tight.
The next morning joe's wife rachel took a bus to minnesota and called when she got near madison and both directions of 94 were closed due to flooding!! i'm glad we made it past the night before prior to the road being closed.
keep everyone in wisconsin, illinois & iowa in your prayers as they are dealing with so much flooding, destruction and many evacuations.

am i the only one?

As i sit here and watch the sunrise i had a thought of early morning hunting come to mind. Then i thought about this past sunday when i was waiting ever so patiently in the customer service line at Cabela's & truly enjoying this wonderful opportunity to people watch. there was one particular couple that shone brighter than the rest. a mid 60's woman was standing about 5'5" and was definitely a "good eater / frumpy". her husband, same age range & body type, was dressed in a very faded camo t-shirt, non-faded camo shorts w/ camo suspenders and sitting in a wheel chair. at first glance, this couple was a treat in itself because the dude had shoulder length hair too.. but then i overheard the service attendant ask him, "how tall are you?" Not only did i think this was one of the weirdest questions to ever ask someone in a wheelchair but when he responded with a British accents i think my jaw dropped a little bit. It's not like any of these things were bad, but the combination was just spectacular!

Sweden Trip 2.1

1 WEEK AGO, AT THIS VERY MOMENT, i was sitting on the couch after a long day of trying be productive at work with my internal clock completely messed up. Not only was i pretty dang tired, everyone in the office was curious about my trip and would ask some variation of the following questions, "Timmer, how was Sweden?" or "Timmer, what was your favorite part of your trip?" My response was, and still is, "I am not sure, i honestly liked it all." (then i usually had a big grin on my face because i truly did like all of it and then thinking of it makes me remember the fun i had so i a NOW showing a big grin as i'm typing!! wow, i'm a dork) I know i have been very slowly logging my trip, this is partially because i'm busy and partially because i enjoy looking back and thinking of my trip :)

WE LEFT GOTHENBURG TOWARDS STOCKHOLM on Tuesday morning around 11am. It was yet another beautiful, sunny day; perfect for driving across Sweden! My sister had talked to some relatives back home prior to our departure and found out where a few of our ancestors lived, so we headed north in the direction of Lake Vanern (as we had some ancestors from that region). As we drove we came to a small town called Haverlund, there was neato aquaduct there. We took a nice little hike and decided that we were like 35 minutes away from where the family of long ago lived. This was as close as we got because we all figured we should get back on the road. Now its not like we didn't WANT to see exactly where we were from, but we were still hoping to make Stockholm and were about 4.5 hours away (without stops) and it was already almost 3:00pm.

WE CONTINUED DRIVING and were on some of the skinnier roads that i've ever been on, it was exhilarating & scary. We stopped in the city of Carlstad, which is on the north end of Lake Vanern for dinner and caught a nice view of the lake. This lake is very big - actually it's the largest lake in Sweden and the third largest lake in Europe After we ate it was finally my turn to drive, WOOHOO!! Before i got too excited though, i was reminded of how ticketing works in Sweden (you are fined on the spot, often several hundred dollars; if over 30 kmph(=18.64mph), your car is towed right then and there. yikes! my car might have been towed a couple times already if i lived in Sweden) With such strict speeding laws, they don't seem to need as many cops as we have here, but if you get caught... BAM!!! Aaron did point out one cop car to me, the only one we saw on our trip. As I drove, within the laws of this great country,i was still was able to enjoy myself very much.

WE GOT TO STOCKHOLM at around 9:30pm, after trying a couple different hotels, we found one. (we didn't get a hotel ealier cuz we didn't know if we'd be is Stockholm that night or not) This hotel was nothing fancy, but it worked. after and 10:30 check-in Aaron & went on a walk towards a lake that he thought he saw. we found it after a 10 minute walk and it was awesome! Now, we were about 24 minutes outside of downtown Stockholm and if i didn't know any better i would have thought i was in the wildnerness. There are no houses on the lakes(to help preserve nature)and you can't even realy see lights through the trees. We then took a path through the woods back towards the hotel, it was not paved and i honestly felt like i was in the middle of nowhere until we walked up a short hill and we were in the middle of the suburbs again.

OFFICALLY STOCKHOLM, DAY 1. It all started with Aaron and I getting ready before the girls so we went up to breakfast. It was again, a nice sunny day, nearly perfect, so we ate out on the patio. We were sitting in the shade, as the sun had not yet poked it's rays over the roof of the hotel. We both reached over the railing to get a little bit of warm sun rays on our skin and i felt something cool... that's right, cool, not warm. what was it? As i had a confused look on my face Aaron was pointing at my arm. Then we both almost puked! i had put my arm in a nice slimy pile of bird poop... it was SO disgusting! Anyways, off to Stockholm. On the bus stop, Aaron met this woman who ended up going to Covenant church in Stockholm and knew Aaron's roommate from Seminary, small world. We talked to her on the bus & train rides on our way downtown & after her and Aaron exchanged contact info she asked us to come over to her family's house for "night fika" that night. which we did and it was pretty cool.


We got downtown and started our tour. We were on our way to see the palace to see what time the changing of the guard took place when all of a sudden a tympani was pounding in the streets! a large group of horses rode past us with a soldier on each one. we booked it across the canal over to the palace and beat the horses there. We watched the changing of the guard, impressive.

NOW, we did so much over the next two days i'm not 100% sure of the order we did them all. so, here goes nothing. We saw the National Museum, The Royal Palace, The Architectural Museum, The Harbor Tour, The Vasa (15th century ship that sank in the harbor on it's maiden voyage) Museum, Drotningholms Palace (The Royal Residence) Skansen (the world's first outdoor museum) Many Churches, many squares, many coffee shops, many, many streets and SO much more. it was truly amazing and i can't explain how fun it was.

I feel like we saw so much history in those 2 days in Stockholm that i don't know what else there is to see (yes, i know i am way wrong with that thought, i'm sure there is a TON more to see) Hopefully i will get the opportunity to go back and see the rest of it someday.
Well, this is not the end of my trip, but it is for now. There isn't too much left, just a couple more days ;)

Peace out!
Timmer

Sweden Trip 1.6

2 weeks ago, at this very moment, i was soaring through the clouds on my way to Iceland. We landed in Iceland at 6:00am (1:00am our time) on Friday, May 23rd and everything that i experienced over the next 10 days seems like a dream.

We were only in Iceland a short 7 hours, but none the less it was pretty great. (see entry "Scandinavia Lands" for a few more details)









Onto Copenhagen, you may say, "Tim, you already wrote about Copenhagen!" to which i answer in a comanding tone, "yes, i did, but not very much!" SO, Copenhagen was a very nice place. i loved it. it was a beautiful day & it was quite perfect, about 70 degrees & very sunny (i was unfortunately in the shower while the sunscreen was being passed around and i missed out. I was very red at the end of the day). we spent all of saturday walking around this pedestrian & bicyclist oriented city. It is crazy, you have the sidewalk for walking (6 ft wide x 2), the bike paths for biking (8 ft wide x 2) and the roads for driving (5 lanes wide x 2) to cross a street with all of that is exhausting!... well, not too exhausting. I was amazed at how much everyone was out and about enjoying the day. the streets were filled with smiling faces, laughter and an occasional waft of cigarette smoke and i felt that most people were happy to be alive. We went to a few historic buildings such as Rosenborg Slot (the old castle at the center of the city) and a few different churches from back in the day. the amount of history here was awesome. We enjoyed the day by walking some more and then heading to the train station, getting on a train, leaving the country & onto Malmö, Sweden.

We were in Malmö just long enough to find out that the car we were renting wasn't at the train station, but was at the airport instead, an hour bus ride away. (OOPS! glad i didn't have to take the credit for that move)

We got to Göteburg around midnight & it wasn't completely dark yet (just a nice glow on the horizon, which was more to the north than to the west). The next morning, sunday, Aaron's parents came over to his place to have breakfast with us (they were there visiting for the past 2 weeks, very fun to have a mini family reunion all the way in Sweden) We then went to Aaron's church (Fisher's Creek International Church a branch of Fiskebäcks Missionskyrka - fisherscreek.net) where he is the youth pastor. After church we took part in the Swedish tradition of "fika" - "taking a break from work or other activities and having a coffee with one's colleagues, friends, date, or family." We were then invited over to the Jannerland's (practically Aaron's family while in Sweden) house for an amazing Swedish lunch. We headed up to a small village of Marstrand where we took a ferry to Carlsten’s Fortress, which was also amazing.

Monday was our tour of Göteburg by our very knowledgable guide, Aaron Thompson. We started off by walking on the "Postgaten" (the road the Swedish immigrants walked from the train station to the harbor). Just knowing that i was walking on the same road that my ancestors were on so long ago was a pretty cool feeling. We walked all around town, saw many restaraunts, shops and climbed a few hills to see awesome views. i don't think it would be much of an adjustment to move to a place like that.

Now that i've only written about the places that i already wrote about i'll leave you with that for now. Hope this has shown a little more of the amazing awesomeness that i was able to enjoy.

~Timmer

Back Home... will share.

SWEDEN WAS FANTASTIC!
I didn't get a chance to give as detailed of updates as i had hoped.... or as many. too bad. We got back to minnesota on sunday & I still kinda miss the great places i was able to visit the past 10 days. oh well, life goes on. Hang tight, I will give great details of my trip shortly, it was fun.




Ok, i gotta clean. pictures for house listing are being taken tomorrow. But first, i need to share that i played Kickball tonight for the first time this year (we're like 6 games into the season, oops) and it brought back all the feelings of joy that i had when playing a couple years ago. and if you're wondering, we won tongiht 14-3!



Oh, & Weezer's new album, "The Red Album" came out today. Not quite what i was hoping for. So far i like "Dreamin'", but I guess the rest is growing on me.


Peace Out World!