NEWS: Merry Christmas All!

Just want to wish everyone a merry Christmas, and hope to see some of the Danes for New Year's and maybe in between.

Running blog will stay my most active, but I do have some interesting work news to share quite soon. All the best!

DIARY: First Car!!!

I've bought my first car this Friday and am absolutely chuffed with the result!


I think I've pulled off a real bargain, couping a low mileage 97 Mitsubish Challenger 2.8TD (only 60.000 miles, or 95.000km on the old lady).

Here's a few photos, look how proud he is! I haven't named this Beast yet, but plenty of names such as Sam, The Mountain Mobile, Big Basteward, and The Tank (or Frank the Tank?) have sprung to mind so far.

I may also name it after a beautiful coleen, but haven't decided who should be honoured with this poetic comparison yet (some girl with pretty yellow eyes, wide hips, and a big nose).

First Drives!
I've driven the Challenger for a week now and am absolutely delighted with it. It took a few days to "break her in" and get used to the bulk of the car, and the fact that you need to rely much more on your mirrors than in a normal car.

The 2.8TD engine really packs a punch even carrying the 1.9ton frame, and can get you out of a tight spot with no trouble at all. The ability to change from 2 wheel-drive to 4 wheel-drive is handy as well, saving fuel in the city, will enjoying the full extra grip and strength when prowling the wet, uneven roads of County Wicklow.

I've installed a GPS in the car, so don't have to focus on finding my way, just follow instructions, which is great for a first time car owner. I've purchased the Garmin Nuevi 660, and I'll just send my warmest recommendations for this product, it's superb and will get you anywhere (and for you thieves out there, I don't leave it in the car, so you'll have to clutch it from my cold dead hands if you want it).

Thirsty Beast
It's not the most economical car you'll ever buy, but I will recommend it still. Considering the punch and space you get in this car, the insurance and motor tax are really relatively cheap, and the classical look of this model makes it so much more satisfying to own than the never "Pick Up the Kids" model of jeeps.

The Challenger (also called Pajero Sport in most countries) comes with a 79 litre tank, and enormous tires (apparently 140 euro to replace a piece, but they'll take some breaking).

I've already formed a bit of a bond with this car, and can see myself sticking with it to the end. I have included it in my will, and made sure that it will be buried in our family cemetary (next to our late dog Wikie).

There's no limit to the usability of this vehicle for trips into the wild and way, so that's where I think it'll really come into it's own, now let me get a few cool gadgets to it. The rear compartment is so big and so flexible that it can be turned into what looks like a very comfortable double-bed, so you've got half a camper van and base-camp build right into the car.

And did I mention that it comes with a hanger and will pull 2.7 tons? Or as the salesman said: "This is the kind of car that will be pulling your landrovers out of the muck..."

In other words: Joy alround!!!

DIARY: The Tønder Festival

The Festival is over...

4 days of working as a volunteer bartender all the while having a few drinks, meeting all the old friends, and, of course, sampling the superb folk, folkrock, and jazz programme on offer.

I managed to take in most of the Thursday concert with Scottish Runrig, as always the most popular band at the Festival, got into some very (very!) rough pseudo-satanic folkrock with English Levellers, and my personal favourites this year: Canadian drink-singers Great Big Sea.

There was torture to be had as well, as my old friend Janne dragged me out for a "Polka Rave" late at night on the plaza. People who know me will not have missed the fact that I'm no fan of dancing (so much in fact, that I have never verbally uttered the words: "Do you want to dance", at least not while sober enough to remember!). But but, you have to make an absolute arse of yourself once per year, and I definitely got the chance here, displaying an amazing lack of motor skills despite the fact that I was the only sober person in the tent!

Low Alcohol Policy
The Festival was the Litmus test of my new alcohol policy, and it went quite ok, which leaves me optimistic that its now a permanent feature. Thursday to Saturday I had between 2 and 5 drinks per day, Sunday i believe perhaps 6 or 7, before refraining completely at Mondays Volunteer Party.

Its quite different I must admit, especially for the people around me, and it will take a bit of adaptation to "party hard" while being all ascetic...

The "Traditional" Sing-song
Sunday nights have turned into a personal highlight for me. Everyone from Tent 1 gather together to "take stock" of the remaining bottles in the bar, and last year I had the chance to follow my passion for singing, going through a repertoire of Irish and Scottish songs, urging people to sing-a-long.

This year, I had to do it sober, which was definitely more difficult (apparently the only two things that can make my nervous is singing in public and asking out a pretty girl!). After a rough start with the warm-up "talksong" General Munro, I had to abort "Fiddlers Green" as I could not make it work. After a brief interim in which Jannes musician friend, Alain entertained with Blues Songs on his guitar, I had warmed up sufficiently and it was with great glee that I observed most join in on Molly Malone, Whiskey in the Jar, Wild Rover, Loch Lomond, We Shall Overcome, and a few other songs that I now forget. More glitches jumped in surely, such as our botched attempt at "Rare Ould Times" (too pretty for that hour of the night), but overall, great fun, and I will be practicing some more tunes for next year, as I think I have finally gotten Boulavogue down right after 5 years of fighting with that old anthem honouring the men of 98.

The musical entertainment did not end there, the first love of my life, Signe, and her girlfriend Camilla (who are getting married, congratulations!!!), arrived and sang a song that can not be described as "dirty" but more "pornographic"! After that the girls went on to entertain with some Danish songs, before we all filtered back to the Volunteer bar for a long night session. As I thought the night had ended, my oldest friend David staggered in from the darkness and we chatted away until the first rays of Sun broke over the flatlands of Tønder.

Sick but on to Aarhus
I have started running again, but today I have fallen slightly ill and am desperately trying to recover my strength for Saturdays 30th Birthday party in Aarhus with my friend Kristian, or "Kedde" as he is known on these parts.

Him and Michael "Miv" bartended with me and Janne throughout the festival, and it will be intersting to see how much energy remains for the next big party.

I will be posting the pictures from the Festival shortly.

DIARY: A Return to the Old Land

Things may be quiet here for a few days, tomorrow I'm flying home for a two week holiday in Denmark.

It's my first holiday since March, real one anyway, so I'm naturally chuffed. I'll be bartending at the Tønder Festival, and not only that, going to Århus to celebrate a friend's 30th birthday and run the traditional Marselis Run.

Reports to follow!

DIARY: St Pats vs. OB

Our HR guy from work, Gareth, an ardent Shamrock Rovers fan, told me that OB, a club I supported from 1991 to the early 2000s, were in town to play the UEFA Cup 1st Round game against St. Patricks, or St. "Pats" as they are colloquially known.

Sure enough, my ex-colleague Steen, who know plies his trade with The Irish National bank, aka Danske Bank in disguise, called me up and asked if I wanted to brave the trip out to Inchicore and watch the match.

See all the pics here.

Glories of Yesteryear
Odense Boldklub, or OB as they are known, have long been one of the 5-6th best clubs in Denmark, and have won numerous Danish championships, the last one tracing back a long long time, however.

I used to support them, spurred on by their glorious victory over Real Madrid back in the early 90s when they overturned a 3-2 home deficit to clinch a last minute 2-0 victory at the Santiago Bernabeu, before being cruelly defeated 1-0 on aggregate by a strong Parma side in the Quarter Finals.

So while today's opposition was less than stellar, it would be no walkover. Danish club football is not what it used to be, and while it's still a few levels above Irish, all Irish and British teams know how to sell themselves dearly at home.

Richmond Park
Steen and I arrived early in the little neat stadium of St. Pats, currently Richmond Park, a stadium that has also served as the home of Shamrock Rovers. St. Pat's are known as the "Pride of Inchicore", and their fans did them proud singing heartily throughout the game clad in their red and yellow colours.

The match itself was a mixed affair, glorious sunshine and a well-kept pitch, meant that there were signs of good football, mostly from OB, while Pats got their chances from a few counter attacks and set-pieces.

All in all, OB didn't look to sharp, and on a good day would have hit Pats for 5 without reply (we'll come back to that).

In the stadium, Steen and I ran into Niels and his IBM comrades, and catched a glimpse of Kristian's mates "Anders and Anders". Oh yes, the Danes were out again!

The Return Leg

0-0 it finished, a good quiet night out with no incidents, but the EUR20 charged was a bit exorbitant for the quality of football at display.

St. Pats were buoyant, a freak goal in the away leg could secure progression.

Personally I was confident that OB would go through, though, barring a disaster. The difference in technical ability was quite pronounced, and St. Pats did not have a striker capable of creating chances on his own (he's injured I hear!).

And so it proved, two weeks later, OB won 5-0 at Fionia Park in Odense, Denmark's third biggest city at about 150.000 inhabitants, slightly smaller than Cork, and progressed to the 2nd round.

DIARY: Oli's Visit

My old friend Oli, who's real name is of course Oliver, was over a few weeks ago, just for a prolonged weekend.

We somehow couldn't be arsed to take too many pictures, but the few I got are here.

He's been touring the world with his girlfriend Juliane for the last year or so, and has only recently returned to Denmark. Chances to meet up have therefore been far and few between.

Family Pic: Julle, Oli, Laila, Vibs, Janne, Mathilde

The Good Ol' Dorm
I've spend some of my funniest (but also most chaotic!) times at Otto Mønsteds Kollegium, in Aarhus Denmark, a dorm with some 100 souls living there. I spend almost 6 years in that place, and in the final years we were a small clique of people who turned into somewhat of a surrogat family.

Oli is a member of this extended family, being an exchange student from Germany, and so is his girlfriend Juliane, Brian whom I visited in Madrid earlier, and of course, Mathilde, who was my well-organised host for the snowy holiday in Canada.

Now, I'm fortunate enough to go home on holidays on the 22nd of August, and on the 1st of September I'll be in Aarhus, hopefully reacquainting myself with all these faces as we all gather to celebrate my friend Christian "Kedde"'s thirtieth birthday, the end, I mean beginning of his life! But before that Oli and I had a chance to catch up with the usual stuff....

Whiskey, Pool, Good Food, and Scrubs, Scrubs!!!

It's somewhat of a testament to our common obsession with the tv-show Scrubs that we actualy got through 16 episodes in the three days Oli stayed here (before you yell "Gewalt", the episodes are 20 minutes long!).

No wonder that we can laugh ourselves to death to the show, let's face it, it's perfect for men: Dr. Cox is the man we all want to be, Ted is the guy we're happy we're not, J.D. is probably who we are, and The Todd says all the things we wish we could get away with saying everytime there's a hot female around!

Now, our friendship wasn't build solely around an American sitcom (it was in fact build around endless lines of Fisherman's Friend shots in the Dorm bar, but that's another story from my alcoholised past!). Oli is a bit of an amateur chef, having a big idol in his namesake Jamie Oliver, so when we weren't wining and dining downtown, he took the chance to cook up not only two excellent breakfeasts but a great dinner as well!

I wondered for a second if that was how marriage would be, but before dismissing that a dream, I couldn't help sending a wish to my atheist gods not to tie me up with a blackhaired German guy down the road!!!

Back at the Table

We spend a few nights at the Palace as well, a great pool place on Camden Street, playing good old rock classics from your untroubled teens (Metallica, there ya go!), while Oli, a terrific poolplayer, handed out his usual beating.

I had to notice with a slight tingle of sadness that I just can't invest my usual competitiveness into other sports than running these days: Or in other words, I play as well as I can, but I don't invest the "extra" anymore, maybe it's passion, maybe it's something else. Hard to say. Losing or winning used to be life or death for me, but now it's just a game. For much the same reason the bowling ball lies dusty around, my poker book hasn't been opened for months, and Liverpool defeats just don't hurt quite so much anymore.

Is there a limited amount of passion in every person? I think that's a very good questions, but not one I will attempt to answer, and while it would be scary to have it all set aside for running, I find that's not the case. I'm just saving the rest of mine for something that's really worth it, and that doesn't involve cues, darts, or balls. It's still (or perhaps finally) a fun game, though, and a great way for us to reminisce as we spend several nights every week at the dorm playing pool while having a few bottles before sleeping in and forgetting to study! (there's the drinking again!).

Porters and Whisky

Back to the present again, another common hobby of ours has been good beer and whisky. In the past we've shared some good bottles of both from Belgian Chimay to Scottish Ardbeg whisky and Irish Connemara. This time we started out by sampling the special homebrews at Porter House where I had taken Brian and Jens a week earlier on their stopover for the American roadtrip.

On the final day we decided to give the whiskys a look-in and went to the Jameson Distillary (which I haven't visited in my 2.5 years here!). The tour was quite interesting, especially since I've previously visited the Whisky Museum in Edinburgh and this tour highlighted the differences between the two whiskey productions.

We had a few samples at the end, and I must say the Jameson is much smoother than it's given credit for, and I got to take a good Gollum-lookalike picture of Oli with his 12-year old in hand!

All in all, a good fun weekend, but nothing more than a warmup for my holidays. In the meantime I make a promise to all my friends to try and practice my ability to party without being hammered! It's a bit of a change, to give it time alright!

SITE NEWS: Finally Updates!

That my life revolves mostly about running, would be apparent to anyone who compares the post count on this blog (17!) with that on my running (73!), but this weekend I finally have a bit of peace and quiet all for myself, and can be completely lackadaisical in my approach.

While I'm putting in huge mileage even in this weekend of course (gotta train!), I've managed to catch up with my running posts, and now I'm ready to add a fileshare to my Blogs, so I can share documents with those interested in them.

Second, I'll be posting an update on my old mate Oli's visit to Dublin. He came over two weeks ago, and we had a great time, and shot some photos...

UPDATE TO FOLLOW...

DIARY: Birthday and Year End

It's been very quite on the private front, as some may have noticed I mostly post on my mountain runner blog these days (that's were the interesting part of my life seems to happen!).

Departures
A few "interesting" things have happened lately, though, most of all the departure of my best friend Per, and his girlfriend, to Madrid. They left after we celebrated a few "leaving do's" in the beginning of June and are planning on staying there for 2-3 years. Its a big loss personally, as we've had great times together, but I'm sure we all need a bit of fresh experiences, and there'll be load of tales to tell when they return to Dublin.

I'll miss the many good football evenings and weekend coffee sessions, though, Per! Good luck my friend!

Year End

Things are quite busy at work since it's Year End. It does not affect us trainers as much as everyone else, but we had a few things to sort out and quite a few projects to finish, so I think I speak for everyone when I say: Roll on July!

Getting older
Yep, Friday it happened, yours truly turned 28 (well past my peak in many ways I guess, but thankfully not the "endurance runner peak"!). I've never been a great upholder of the birthday tradition. In fact, I managed to forget my own birthday two years ago when I first came here.

This year I knew it was coming, though, but I didn't want any celebrations as I have some really busy (running wise) weekends coming up (real adventures if you ask me), so I thought the best possible present was a quiet weekend.

As readers of my other blog will know I took a long mountain trip the next day as a little "extra present", but have also bought at ton of running gear for myself the last few weeks, as well as some good books, notably "God is Not Great", a fantastic book, highlighting the deficiencies of religion in a very reasoned manner (and less provocatively and reductionist than Dawkin's, otherwise excellent, "The God Delusion").

I got nice cards from the family, and a great present, Bruce Springsteen's "Live in Dublin" featuring most of the best songs from his Seeger Sessions Band. As a great lover of these old songs and of "musicians who love to play" in general, this is an album you can't miss. Particularly moving are "Further On Up the Road", "If I should Fall Behind" and "Highway Patrolman". Good on you Brucie for bringing some well-deserved attention to Folk Music and being relevant at the same time. Plastic artists out there: Take note!

ARTICLE: The End is Nigh...

I have long had a suspicion that something is terribly wrong with our civilisation. At first it was just what I could see with the naked eye, the policies of neo-conservative governments in the US (not such a surprise) and, my heart bleeds to say it, my own native Denmark.

It is not that the political alternatives are on the right track, but knowing what I know now, these governments will only serve to propel us faster past the brink of oblivion at which we now stand.

Political Bankruptcy

That true democracy ever existed anywhere is debatable, all we can know for sure is that it certainly doesn't exist in the Western World. Thomas Jefferson warned us a long time ago that if we ever bestowed the rights of individuals on companies, we would thrust ourselves into a new era of dictatorship, worse than any that had come before, only, this time no one would notice. To know that this is true you only have to observe curiousities such as the fact that the fallacy that is "free trade" is universally accepted as a "right" of companies, while on the other hand, plentiful supply of food and water is not considered a "right" for human beings. That makes perfect sense of course...

The rule of companies permeates up through the upper echelons of our societies, controlling all decision-making policies in all major so-called "democracies", blocks most reasoned debate (as newspapers are owned and sponsored by companies too), and cuts off and discredits any scientist or researcher who strays too far from accepted dogma. Granted, some countries, like the UK, allow a far greater freedom of operation from its academics than say the US, but overlying political strategy remains the same, and leads to the same end result: End of Civilisation.

To see all the facts underlying this quick-intro, I recommend you read anything Noam Chomsky (you can't read too much). Hailed as "perhaps the most important academic alive", Chomsky strips the veil from our eyes and shows us the grim truth of the people we have entrusted with power.

A Divided People

Eckhart Tolle, Author of the "Power of Now", hit the nail on the head when identifies humanity as a species infected with "ego-possession". We identify with the ego that our mind creates as the image of ourselves. Our true selves, as anyone privileged enough to have observed such moments of clearness and peace, only reveals itself when you shut off the mind, and the ego with it. Descartes said, "I think, therefore I am", and he was close to the truth, but when all thought ceases, you're still observing your mind. Who's the observer? The silent watcher? That is what you could label your "Being" or "Soul" for lack of a better word. A state of peace completely attuned and connected to the surrounding universe.

The ego, as mind-construct, can only exist by separating itself from that around it (otherwise it would be indiscernible and thus non-existent). Therefore it spends every moment attaching labels to itself: "sad", "lucky", "Catholic", "in shape", "man", and builds a wall against those who are of opposed "labels" ("happy", "unlucky", "protestant", "fat", "woman").

This fact is made all the more disturbing by the recent discoveries that we are one of the most inbred races on the planet, with a smaller genetic diversity than the average group of chimps. Reason: 10.000 years ago our numbers were reduced to as low as 10.000 by a global catastrophe (which nature has recently been discovered, I will speak of that another day). We are truly, family, yet we spend our lives hugging the illusion of "us" and "them".

To get the full details on these fascinating insights I recommend Eckhart Tolle's "Power of Now", and a "A New World", as well as Peter Laszlo's "The Whispering Pond".

Religious War

No construct of the ego serves as a more powerful separator of people than the mass delusion known as "religion", whose flaws, dangers, and fallacies were finally fully exposed in Sam Harris' "End of Faith" and Richard Dawkin's masterful "The God Delusion".

Together with our sick political system, religion more than anything magnifies our nature for division, bringing with it no benefits whatsoever that could not be procured from more rational and less damaging sources.

For the full argument, refer to the books above, but also take the time for Lomas and Knight's four books: The Hiram Key, The Second Messiah, Uriel's Machine, and Book of Hiram, that not only reveals a sober interpretation of the history that created the monotheistic religions of the present day, but shows how these religions hounded and destroyed the original "religion", a movement based on understanding of the universe, brought down the balance of the sexes (laying the responsibility for 1000 years of persecution, rape, and oppression almost solely on the last remnants of the Roman Empire: The Roman Catholic Church), and sowed the seeds for the era of unreason and superstition that persists to this day.

The Revenge of Gaia

Leading climatologists, among them Royal Society member James Lovelock, have long understood that the planet operates as a whole, that biology, geology, climatology, and physics, are not separate sciences describing separate systems, but part of a unified system, called Earth System Science.

James Lovelock refined this theory into his "Gaia Theory", attaching the name of the ancient Greek goddess to his theory. In the Gaia Theory, the purpose of the planet's regulatory system is always to adjust itself towards the optimal conditions for whatever lifeforms exist on it, and so it would, if we had not thrown the system irrevocably out of whack through 150 years of mismanagement of our planet's natural resources, arrogantly setting ourselves up as stewards of the world, a role that we are incapable of fulfilling.

Around a black hole is a boundary, known as the Event Horizon. You would not notice that you passed beyond it, but once you do, there is no return, nothing can stop you from being pulled slowly towards the all-consuming singularity at the centre and crushed to smithereens.

So it is with our civilisation. James Lovelock offers a glimmer of hope. The time for "sustainable development" has long come and gone, but a "sustainable retreat" can still salvage the remnants of our civilisation, and perhaps over many centuries allow the planetary system to return to its normal modus operandi.

I offer no such hope. While there is great promise in the individual humans I have met throughout my life, I have seen nothing from our political, industrial, and religious leaders to suggests that they have the wisdom, the foresight, and the will to take any of the extreme measures that are now necessary.

The rate of temperature increase per decade is now close to a level estimated to be almost "science fictional" in nature by climate experts in 1987. A rise of 4 degrees Celsius will cause the Greenland glacier to melt away (permanently) and the tropical rainforest to turn into desert. At the current rate of development this scenario will have unfolded before 2060.

We are caught in a positive feedback loop, where everything we do strengthens the effect of the mistake that came before it. To list just a few:

- We fell more and more trees for agriculture, industry, windmill parks, mining and residence. We're cutting scars in our lungs while poisoning the air around us.

- We're reducing the amount of aerosol in the atmosphere, something acting as an artificial sunblock, reducing temperature slightly.

- We persist on burning fossil fuels or investing money in useless "sustainable energy" such as windmills, or utter madness such as "biofuels" (destroying valuable forest land to plant energy-inefficient crops to burn)

- We vilify nuclear power, the only energy source that can maintain our present civilisation at a reasonable cost to our surrounding world.

- We waste billions on wind energy and other dead-ends, while our only permanent hope: fusion energy is being criminally neglected.

- We obsess with preventing dangerous carcinogens, wasting billions, when the main carcinogen, and greatest trigger for cancer is: Oxygen!

It is a telling testament to the danger we pose to the planet that some of the most verdant spots on the planet are those surrounding nuclear waste repositories. Even the wildlife is abundant as the few months cut off the average animals life because of radiation, is much preferable to the consequences of living next to humans. Where we are not, the planet thrives, with or without radiation.

For the full account of our slides to destruction read James Lovelock's "The Revenge of Gaia".

What Must Be Done, But Will Not

Only the strictest of measures have any hope of working now, but some of the necessary steps include:

1. Population Control: A benevolent form of population control must be found. In the West our changing lifestyle has already led our women to have healthy birthrates (reducing populations). This must happen worldwide. The planet will, at most, be able to support 1.5 billion people. We are currently estimated to hit 8 billion soon. It is a tragic consequence of our current state that for every life we save, we push our race one step closer to extinction.

2. Total nuclearification: All energy that can be supplied from a nuclear source, must be provided by a nuclear source. Major increase in funding for fusion power must be given, as it is the only realistic hope for a stable clean energy source to supply our needs.

3. Worldwide Rationing: Energy rationing needs to be implemented immediately. Usage of computers etc., should be encouraged, though, as the humans sitting in front of the screens are actually very energy-efficient from a planetary perspective. Redesign of air planes and cars to become more energy-efficient must happen, or usage of these means of transportation restricted.

4. Cessation of all Felling: All felling of forestland must cease immediately. Extra spending must be implemented for all forest-fire fighting units. Re-forestation of all possible areas.

5. Change of the Food Industry: All non-efficient farming must be stopped, including, sadly, organic farming. Major research on synthesized foods must begin.

6. Industry Control: Production of all non-essential goods must be stopped or subjected to strict production quotes (to allow for continuation of such culturally necessary goods as music, books, sports equipment etc.).

7. Reroute Emergency Help: If we spend a dollar supporting a humanitarian cause, we should spend that dollar supporting an environmental support organisation instead. This may seem cruel at first, but it makes perfect sense: If we do not save the remaining forests, most everyone we support now with our money, will die anyway. First we save the planet, then we can start thinking about saving ourselves. Everything else is equivalent to trying to resuscitate people on a drowning ship. Even if you succeed, they'll drown minutes later as it is, you should be down plugging those holes in the hull!

If these, and many more, measures are not taking, then our only hope is, ironically, that a comet strike or major volcanic explosion will cause the atmosphere to be covered by a layer of dust for long enough to cool us back to a healthy level.

The Day After

What then, will the world look like, when the disaster strikes, when all those who have not heeded the warnings see the full extent of their idiocy, and all those millions more who had no choice in the policies that caused the Armageddon to unfold, suffer the consequences?

My prediction is that most will not perish in the initial disaster (though hundreds of millions will), but will simply lose the will to live in the barren years that will come after. Great areas of the world will turn into a chaotic mess, ruled by warlords and bands scrambling for the limited resources left across a dystopian arid landscape dotted with ruined cities.

The waters will raise to a maximum level of 8 metres from their present level, taken valuable land with it into the deeps, maybe forever, and flushing nations such as Denmark, Holland, and many small islands around the world off the maps.

As temperature rises to five degrees above current levels, only the southernmost tip of South America, Madagascar, New Zealand, Northernmost Europe, Alaska, Northern Canada, and the Himalayan region will not have turned into scrub and desert. The rest of a the Earth will be an arid wasteland, and will eventually turn into a mirror image of the Martian landscape.

It is in those few regions that we must build our "Fort Lasts", the last strongholds of this civilisation. We must prepare these magnificent structures now, as our contingency. They must be self-supplying, nuclear powered citadels, where we will store all the collected knowledge of our civilisation and were the greatest experts and champions of our race can seek refuge. From there, they will watch the end of the world, or rebuild a new, and better, from the ashes, holding on to our knowledge through the Dark Ages, like the monks did before them...

A Ray of Hope

Even if you do not believe any of this, or choose to ignore it, you may ask, how do I find hope, if I truly believe in all this? I have cast aside hope in religion, hope in our leaders and our civilisation, and hope in our future. What is left?

First of all, the "Power of Now" teaches acceptances of every moment, no matter how bad, and while you cannot be happy that the world ends (that would be insane), you can be at peace with it. And this is how I feel.

But there is some hope left, and much work to do. If there is a new world to be build on the other side, I want to be there to help lay the foundation. I have a hope that there will be leaders worth following in this future, leaders who will listen, knowing the errors of our past. We won't all make it through this, many won't want to, they'll find themselves unable to deal with the loss of all they knew.

Even in the far future, when the Earth is uninhabitable, an advanced enough civilisation could move on. The huge moon of Saturn, Titan, is basically a slightly smaller version of the Earth, just "in the freezer". Once the Sun expands it girth and destroys the Earth, a highly advanced technological civilisation could make its life on Titan for a billion years after.

So I see it as a duty to be there for this second chance, if we are given it, and work hard to take advantage of it, for it will certainly be our last. Everyone who makes it will share one responsibility above all: To make sure that the people who are in power today, will never come to power again, and have the opportunity to repeat their mistakes.

A Consolation?

Is there any consolation in this grim scenario? Not much. We can hope that the people in power will wake up in time, that their hands will not remain tied by the religion called capitalism that has put us at war with our own planet. A war we cannot hope to win.

Sadly, even if we go beyond that, our eventual fate is sealed, as is that of the universe, as latest research combining Information Theory with Quantum Mechanics has shown. For this read "Decoding the Universe by Michael Seife", but that is a topic for another day...

DIARY: Pool Championship with ASI

As president of our Sports & Social Club at work, there are some nights that you cannot take off, even if your recently torn meniscus is telling you that a quiet evening with the feet up wouldn't be so bad.

One of these is our annual Pool Championship at The Palace in Camden Street. Last year I had the indecency of winning both the company Pool and Bowling tournaments (never a good thing when you're the event manager!), so I was happy that a big competitive field turned out, among them my good mate Per, an avid snooker player, and our Managing Director, Tom.

To see all the pictures from this event, click here.

The Tournament in Short
All in all, we had a good night out, with a good turn-up, making for a really exciting and well-contested knock-out tournament. The quality of play was a lot better than the year before, and Ben and Karin ran away with the team competition early in the evening.

The singles tournament was the real highlight, Alan, Thorsten's friend, and Tom wiped their way through the tournament with ease, while I limped my way into the semis only to be completely massacred by Tom, barely touching the cue in the process.

The final was breathtaking stuff. Tom playing Allan best of three, and pulling out with a slender win in each game to crunch a 2-1 victory. Top of the company? You bet!

Like seeing "Fast Eddie" Falsom all over again...

DIARY: Quarter End Party Tomorrow

Haven't had too many posts on this site lately, I guess my life is all about running at the moment (as my other Blog will attest!).

I do have room for a little party, though, as I'm attending our company's Quarter End Celebration tomorrow. I have a mighty weekend of racing ahead of me sadly, so I'll be spending all my free drinks vouchers on water and coke! (not that kind of coke! The unfunny kind!).

My camera still isn't working, but hopefully I'll get it fixed soon. Take care all, and drop me a line and let me know how you're doing...

DIARY: Karaoke Night

Well, as some of you now, I have the enviable task of being the chairman of our Sports & Social Club at arvato services Ireland.

Last Friday, we held another big event, one I've been advocating for some time, a Karaoke Night at a Japanese Restaurant.

Let's just say the night was a great success! Good attendance, very nice food, and everybody singing and dancing like crazy for two hours!!!

See the pictures here (Warning: Bad quality as I'm still forced to use my camera phone!)

DIARY: Two Year Anniversary!

Well this is it, yesterday on the 2nd of April I had my 2nd anniversary in Ireland!

Tomorrow, I will have my 2nd Anniversary of service with arvato services Ireland at Microsoft.

Will I celebrate? Well only time can tell ;-) With my running calendar stocked, its not going to be easy, but my overstrained leg might keep me "grounded" for this weekend, so you never know!

Well, I'm off to see Liverpool's eradication of PSV...

DIARY: Back from Spain

I wanted to provide you all with a lengthy review of my trip to Madrid, but truth is I'm simply too knackered today, so I'll give you the condensed version! (praise God, I hear you say!)

See all the pictures here.

I'll start by apologising for the poor picture quality, but my ordinary camera is broken, so have to use my camera phone!
Why Madrid?
Well I just love beautiful metropolises. Seriously, though, these were my (alterior as always) motives:

• Visit my old dorm mate Brian!
  
• Cross another country off my "seen" list!

• And most importantly: Watch the Euro qualifier between Spain (booo!) and Denmark (hooray!)

The Trip

Overall, it was a successful trip. Madrid is a beautiful city, the weather was perfect, and the food very very affordable!

On Saturday we spent a great deal of time on Plaza Mayor swarmed by Danish roligans and a few cows (look at the pics for an explanation!). There was football and canned beer everywhere, and thus much rejoicing...

In the late afternoon we ran into "the lads": Jacob, Thomas, and Kristian from work, and our regular football buddies Bisgaard and Kaiser. Let's just say they all looked like they had taken a swim in the nearest Jameson distillary tank before taking off for Madrid!

The Match

Stadium great. Atmosphere, generally good, apart from some animosity from angry young fans a the end. The Spanish were good craic before and after the game, and I didn't get lynched even though I stood up with only Brian at my side and sang the Danish National Anthem amidst some 75.000 Spanish supporters...

End result was a very undeserved 2-1, with both Spanish goals scored when we had three men in defense due to a terrible sending off of Niclas Jensen by the overwhelmed (or bought) Swiss referee (if he's representative of Swiss football, then God help them at the Euro 08).

The players showed fantastic attitude, though, dominated completely until the sending off and managed to press Spain back for most of the second half with just ten men. It was a gutless performance by a lot of the Spanish players, and as much as I like the team, and the technical gifts they possess, they'll crumble at the first hurdle, if they don't improve...

As for our status. Toughest game over, and still one point ahead of Spain. Northern Ireland will drop too many points against the other teams to be a serious challenger for top 2, while Sweden seem likely to run away with one of those spots, having racked up 4 wins without ever lifting their game beyond mediocrity (as usual, but in football, winning badly is a gift that generally means qualification).

If we can take 6 points of the Swedes, and in the belief that the Spanish will get no more than 1 point in Copenhagen, then 1st spot is still a possibility. Realistically, though, we are only slightly better than Sweden, man for man, and 4 points looks like the very maximum we can get out of the next two back-to-back games against our old rivals.

On the other hand, two defeats at the hand of us, and a loss in Spain, could condemn the Swedes to 3rd, still, so a very open group, and the promise of an exciting run-in...

The low....
Well, my wallet got stolen! (lifted!) In a quiet cafe while sitting there with my back against the jacket holding it. A shame we didn't catch the guy in the act, as my friend Brian would surely have relished the opportunity to deal out some vigilante justice and renew his martial arts training.

I lost only a 100 quid, though, and all my cards, but the damage was contained in the end. Anyway, here's hoping the culprit has a nasty run-in with the police very soon....

DIARY: Going to Madrid!

Hi all,

Tomorrow I'm going to Madrid to visit my old dorm mate Brian (below right of Mathilde, who you'll remember I visited a week ago, yep, all the same family!) and (more importantly - sorry Brian!), watch the game: Spain-Denmark (football Euro-qualifiers for the unbelievers amongst you).

I'm hoping for at least a draw, we're one of the best teams in the group (player for player I'd say second-best only to Spain), and are advocates of a great brand of attacking football (sadly rare these days), so I'm hoping for a historically good results against Spain, even if it means eliminating them from the competition (which is a shame since I find that they stand for a much more attacking brand of football than the other teams in our group and I would have like to see them go through in second, but well!).

Well, I'm off to join the army in Red on Plaza Mayor! Till' Then!

DIARY: My Celebrity Friend

I have a celebrity friend! Well, at least so I have just learned :)

My old friend Janne, with whom I have shared countless drinking session to the early-early-early morn' at the last many Tønder Festivals, has reached the final in the Danish tv-show "Scenen er Din" ("The Stage is Yours").

I am chuffed to bits for her as she has a talent the size of your average supernova (without the destructive side-effects!), and I know how much her music means to her, and how much time and practice she has invested into it over the years. So here's hoping she makes the big break, especially since she's not afraid of singing songs from the "niche" genres such as Folk. You go get them Janne!

In the meantime, I'll have to find out if I can catch the episodes on TV2 Sputnik!

DIARY: Canada Trip 1

Well, I've returned from Canada, and now I have also recovered from St. Paddy's weekend! Even though I stayed true to my "max three beverages" rule, Friday was still late (very late!), so I feel slightly below optimal today.

Not too tired to talk about Canada, though. Overall it was a great trip (thanks Mathilde!), here's my day-by-day tale:

DAY 1 - Endless Atlantic Miles and Arrival
I decided to go to bed at 02:00 in the morning, to make it easier to sleep the first night and overcome the -5 hour time difference.

I flew over Amsterdam directly to Montreal, and while the flatlands of Amsterdam always have depressing effect on my mountain-loving soul, everything went great in Schiphol Airport, and the transatlantic flight (my first in a 747) was very pleasant and we were well-fed!

On arrival (around 17:00 local time), I quickly got a bus and then a taxi to Mathilde's apartment close to downtown (that's "city centre" in English) Montreal.

After much hugs and kisses (actually it was more like "a look who's arrived, ready to eat?"), we went for a walkabout and I got reminded was real cold was!!! (temperatures were around -13 degrees Celsius on the first day).

Well you don't mind it too much when you can snuggle into a warm sleeping bag afterwards and have a long exciting week to look forward too!

DAY 2 - Mount Royal & Mathilde's Office

On day 2, we had a long stroll, and our first destination was Mt. Royal (a mighty cliff of 211 metres, the name reminded me of our own Danish "The Sky Mountain" which also stands at a staggering 151m). The mountain has given the name to the city, though, and is actually quite impressive (its much broader than its high!), and offers a spectacular panoramic view over the island of Montreal and the rest of the Monteregian Mountains.

The lowlight was that my camera started malfunctioning because of the low temperature, so I'm gonna have a serious talk with Dell about that! Fuji Cameras surely must tolerate below zero temperatures!

After that we went back "downtown" (YEAH), and Mathilde took me to her office located on the gazzilionth floor in one of those fancy skyscrabers (known as "glasscages" by older Irishmen). I was very impressed, especially with the offices with a view, they don't let you forget that you've reached the top in those places. I wonder how far into the basement you can be demoted....

After that we had lunch with one of her colleagues and I inspected some local outdoor shops (this is part of a "little plan" of mine, but I shall not speak more of that here, shhh...).

The evening introduced me to a little tradition called 5-7 (in French!) where you get two beers for the price of one (a ritual that translates well into all languages). I got a good taste of the local brew (which isn't too bad at all!), and met our designated driver for the weekend trip to the mountains, an Austrian friend of Mathilde's called Christian.

Day 3 - THE BIG DAY

This was the day were would leave for the mountain and forest region North of Montreal. But before that we had another (for me critical!) visit to a huge Canadian Outdoor Shop called Mountain Co-Op.

The centre was just as impressive as I had hoped, and I was blitzing away and recording notes like a madman of the make of this shopping centre while indulging in (WARNING SEXIST REMARK) a shopping spree worthy of any woman (WARNING OFF). All in all I got: 2 trail running socks (one winter, one summer), 1 Sleeping Bag, 1 Compression Bag, 1 Toughskin madras, a bunkload of energy bars (for the trip!), and a balaclava (renamed to "balaclalavala" after lengthy discussion with Mathilde. In Denmark we call it "elephant hood" which is weird since it doesn't feature a snout...).

On our return to Montreal city centre (sorry, downtown, and no, I won't let it go!), we packed up our stuff and got picked up by Christian in a nice big American style convertible.

We then went on to pick up the girls from Ottawa and drove up North through great sceneries of frozen pine forests and densely vegetated hills between which small Christmassy villages were scattered in what seemed like idyllic semi-isolation.

As you can see, the night finished with a nice dinner, a well-lit fireplace and general coziness in a magnificent cabin (I'll put one of those on my "to-buy-when-I-get-rich" list. And before you ask, no plastic surgery is not on that list!!!).

To be continued...

Return from Canada

We'll I'm back! I had a great time in Canada, and will be sure to post a big update on the trip here as soon as I've de-jetlagged.

Until then, you can see all the pictures here

Goodnight!

DIARY: Trip to Canada!!!

Across the Broad Atlantic

...is not only the title of a great Wolfe Tones' album, its also where I'll be going tomorrow. Not huddled on board one of the grim Coffin Ships of days gone by like so many other's from Ireland before me, but riding a KLM transatlantic plane.

Visiting an old friend!

Now experiencing the spectacular wilderness of Canada should be reason enough to go in itself, but yet its not my primary reason. I am going over to visit my old friend and dorm-mate Mathilde (girl in black on the left seen four years ago at one of our many spectacular Dorm parties, during an, not surprisingly, "Irish-themed" room session in my room back then).

Montreal and Mountain Cottage
I'll be spending the first and last days of my one week trip in Montreal (checking out the city, watching a game with the Montreal Canadians, and more!).

The highlight of the trip will, undoubtedly be our weekend trip to a cottage in the "wild and way" close to Mont Tremblant (more on that on my mountain runner blog).

I'll be posting pictures and stories upon my return, so there should be a few good shots to look forward too!

See you on the other side!

THE PAST 3: The Way Home

This is not the title of some epic Western, instead its a few shots of my road "home" every day (taken on a nice sunny day, not that its the norm here!).

Looking back at the Atrium Building.

The Sandyford LUAS station (right and below). The LUAS are a light urban train system operating two lines (north-south and east-west through Dublin). They are the quickest transport to most of the Industrial Estates.

Ten years ago Sandyford was nothing but fields and horses. Still the air is nice and clean down there...

As I get off , there's a nice old nursery home on an old manor estate.

A castle-like house...

A lovely green walk in summer!

Another nice house on the road.

HOME!

THE PAST 2: First Day at Work

Hope you'll enjoy today's post, when it comes to trilogies the second part is often the best (the original Star Wars, Lethal Weapon, Back to the Future spring to mind, admittedly LotR and Indiana Jones 2 were not the best, but good enough alright!).

Nervous Schoolboy
Do you remember your first day at school? I do, well at least the part until I got pummeled unconscious by the schoolyard bully (my shrink insists that never happened...).

Going round that first corner with my shiny new blue/red backpack completely oblivious, well, going to work the first day was not so different, all that changed was 20 years spend doing things the Catholic Church would not approve off...

Approaching Microsoft...
You may imagine I was more than a little curious as to how "Microsoft" (not the most unknown company in the world!) would actually look from the inside. All my previous work experience had been in dusty stock halls, in aluminium filled factories, or behind the desk of an old "Rocky-style" gym.

So as I took the LUAS (our urban rail, I'll talk about it later: www.luas.ie), got off 15 minutes later, and walked towards the two imposing white towers (the twin towers were a bit ominous, but I got over it...), I was more than a little excited...

I didn't know anyone, since I had been hired on the phone, and I was wearing my fanciest grey suit since the agency that recruited me told me it was "business attire".

This soon made me look fairly stupid as I arrived completely overdressed and it was a fair Spring day so the heat didn't help any (there wasn't tattoos and piercings everywhere, but let's just say the dresscode was definitely "casual").

The taxi driver who took me from the airport on the first day had told me to approach Miriam in the reception and so I did, and sure enough minutes later I was picked up by my "supervisor-to-be" Line and we rode up the elevator to the 7th floor (left).

Moving up in the world...

From here I could admire our large (but frustratingly inconsistent and slightly overpriced!) canteen, and look up at the beautiful glass roof of my new "work home": The Microsoft Atrium Building.

On the 7th floor I took my place with the Nordic team as a Transaction Specialist, and they all proved to be a great bunch of guys and gals, lads and lassies: Jannick, Kamilla, Louise, Timo, Tess, Dorthe, Lars, Mads, Steen, Michael, Hanna, Mike, and Per.

I put the one's that are still my colleagues in bold just to show you how vibrant a place it is (Dublin and work!), and it truly seems like ages ago that I went into that team feeling like a complete newbiee (think J.D. from Scrubs! I would later meet our version of Dr. Perry Cox in our manager Helge Tønnesen!).

My first desk! (While I've had four jobs in the company, I must have had double that amount of desks by now!)

One "half" of the Nordic teams area after work hours...



The first week I spend newbieeing around in the team like a headless padawan trying to understand the ins and outs of the business as much as you can as a part-time spectator, and then I went into training for 3 weeks before returning as a fully fledged...not swan...but agent! Ready to take on partners any time of the day...

And???

As for the rest? Well as they say, its history, but it is also a story for another day...

So as Lorne said in the final episode of "Angel": Goodnight folks...

-Renny

THE PAST 1 - Moving in...

Since I have loads of pictures from my first two years in Ireland, I'll be doing a series of posts about all the stuff I have done over the course of that time, and I'll start from the beginning.

Today, we'll take a look at some pictures from my flat when I first moved in.

My first two weeks in Ireland were spend on Bewley's Hotel in Sandyford, which was great since it included free breakfeast and had a hot-tub (which I hadn't had since I was a wee-wee laddie!). Great de+stress, and I really miss one now that I'm running. Aahh, the memories.

Moving time
Anyhoo, on the very final day before security guards would drag me out of the hotel and place me on a street corner with a sixpence in my hand, I finally got lucky (no, not that way!), and found a flat through Ireland's excellent rental site: www.daft.ie

Red Couch!!!

I was searching for a flat that was big enough to add my own desk and a work-out bench (much to my chagrin I found out that Irish Gyms are not only overpriced but also underequipped compared to their Danish counterparts!).

Notice how my kitchen looks like something on a ship! The moisture and wind level is much the same!

Once my bench arrived it was time to play Bob the Builder! (one screw didn't fit, so I angrily hammered it in place. Now the bench will no longer disassemble...).










Still clean and tidy, notice the trendy curtains. Whoever thought washed out blue, barely yellow, and boring purple would be nice???

My new computer arrived weeks before my desk, so for a while it was cereal+power surfing for breakfeast as I parked the rig on the kitchen table! (Now the big screen is broken :(, three months before warranty goes, Dell thought they'd get away with it, but I'll show them...)

Well, that's it for now, next we'll look into some more pictures from my moving hell, and follow my first day working at Microsoft!

Renny

Short Welcome Back!

Hi all,

I've finally returned to work on this website, so once I'm done focussing on my other Blog (http://mountain-runner.blogspot.com), I'll be posting loads of updates about the last 2 years I've spend here in Ireland.

Drop me a line if you like, to let me know you're still breathing...

So Welcome Again!

And see you around...