TexasSwede

Well, I got my yearly pumpkin done. It ended up being Gollum from The Lord of The Rings movie trilogy. The pattern was somewhat complicated, due to the fact there were large areas when the skin was just supposed to be removed and the pumpkin walls made thinner. What I ended up doing was to mark the different sections on the pumpkin with white-board markers, different colors for areas to cut through (black), un-touched (green) and thinned (red):

Then it was just to start up the Dremel tool, using different size high speed cutters. Here is the result about 2 hours later:

What does your pumpkin look like?

Even if I am not originally from the US, and we don't celebrate Halloween the same way as here, I do enjoy it. Especially carving pumpkins. I found a cool website, ExtremePumpkins.com with lot of tips and pictures, where you also could get some inspiration.

Last year I created a stormtrooper helmet from Star Wars for my son, who is a big Star Wars fan. I have not decided what to do this year...

In Sweden, Halloween (or All Saint's Eve) is a more somber celebration of the dead, celebrated on the first Saturday of November. People go to the cemetaries and light candles on the graves of family and friends. It is a very special thing to see a cemetary covered in thousands of burning candle in a pitch black night. The last few years, people have "imported" the US kind of Halloween (just like they imported Valentine's Day) and throw parties and dress up. Traditionally, young Swedish girls dress up at witches the day before Good Friday and do a kind of "trick-or-treat", getting candy in exchange for hand painted/drawn Easter cards. This tradition obviously comes form the medivial believe that the witches left Maundy Thursday (the day before Good Friday) to fly away for a witch sabbath (where they eat, drink and fornicate) with the devil (usually said to take place at Blåkulla) a on the most sacred christian day of the year.

Have you ever watched Beauty and the Geek? They are now casting for another season. Why not give it a try?

More at the SweetOnGeeks blog.

As probably most of you know, the scandinavian (Norwegian/Icelandic) explorer Leif Eriksson (Leifr Eiríksson) landed in North America almost 500 years before Columbus, in 1000 A.D. or perhaps 1-2 years later. He there established a small settlement. Today, October 9, is therefor, by presidential proclamation, Leif Erikson day in the US. As it should be, Leif Erikson Day is before Columbus Day (coming up this next Monday).

Leif Erikson Day, 2008

A Proclamation by the President of the United States of America

On Leif Erikson Day, we remember that son of Iceland and grandson of Norway for his journey to North America, and we celebrate the influential role Nordic Americans have played in our society.

Leif Erikson was among the world's greatest and most daring explorers. More than 1,000 years ago, he led a crew across the Atlantic to North America. Today, the same desire to explore and open new frontiers inspires our citizens and contributes to the strength of our Nation.

America's friendships with Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden are strong, and Nordic Americans have added to our rich cultural diversity and proud ancestry. On this day, we recognize these individuals for their remarkable achievements in all sectors of our society. America is grateful for the many contributions of Nordic Americans, and we continue to draw inspiration from the courage and optimism of the adventurous Leif Erikson.

To honor Leif Erikson and to celebrate our citizens of Nordic American heritage, the Congress, by joint resolution (Public Law 88-566) approved on September 2, 1964, has authorized the President to proclaim October 9 of each year as "Leif Erikson Day."

NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim October 9, 2008, as Leif Erikson Day. I call upon all Americans to observe this day with appropriate ceremonies, activities, and programs to honor our rich Nordic-American heritage.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this eighth day of October, in the year of our Lord two thousand eight, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-third.

GEORGE W. BUSH

The other day I found some fresh yeast in the grocery store, and i picked some up because I wanted to bake something. After I can home, I decided I had not had any cinnamon rolls in a long time. So is I made some.

* Crumble 2 1/2 packages of fresh yeast (totalling about 50 gram) into a big bowl.

* Melt a little bit more than one stick (113 gram) of butter, I used about 130 gram. Add 5 dl (a little over a pint) of milk. Heat to body temperature/finger warm. You should not be feeling anything when you put the finger in it.

* Use some of the liquid to dissolve the yeast, the add the rest of the liquid, 1/2 teaspoon of salt and 1 dl sugar.

* Add 14-15 dl of flour. I first added 10 dl, stirred well, then added 4 dl more, stired, and slowly added 1 more dl .

* Put the dough on a table and kneed until smoth but not sticky. Add flour until you get the right consistency.

* Shape into a big ball, put back into bowl, cover with a linen towel and let rise for 30 minutes.

* Put the dough on the table, cut into two equal pieces, and shape into two rectangular flat pieces, about 20cm x 45cm (8x20 inches) using a roller.

* Spread a thin layer of soft butter over each piece, sprinkle granulated sugar and cinnamon over it, and roll them from the long side. Leave a 1/2 inch strip on one long side without butter, and start rolling from the opposite side. This will make the end of the rolls stay closed. As you can see in my picture above, I did not do that on this particular batch, which caused the ends to separate.

* Cut the rolls into about 1 inch think slices, place each slice laying down on a cookie sheet and cover. You should have about 32-40 rolls, depending on size. Rise for 30 more minutes. Note: I use AirBake non-stick cookie sheets, they work great at preventing the bottom of the rolls to get burned. Highly recommended! I got mine at WalMart.

* Heat up the oven to 225 C/450 F.

* Brush each roll with egg, and sprinkle over pearl sugar. It can be purchased at IKEA, they have a section with Swedish food items in most/all international locations.

* Bake for 5-9 minutes or until golden brown.

Note: 1 dl = 3.4 oz = just over 1/3 cup, 15 dl = 1.5 litre = 6.3 cups

Paul Mooney asked "What does your work environment look like?", and posted a picture of where he works.

So I had to do the same. Below is a picture is my desk at work. I have a main computer with two 19" LCD screens, a test server running Domino 5.0.12 (our production server version) connected to a 17" LCD screen (a left-over with a scratch), and two additional client systems, one test client runing Notes 7 and one system called Workhorse where I run more time consuming agents so I won't lock up my main/development machine... I took two pictures with my camera phone and then used AutoStitch (highly recommended free software) to make them into a panorama.

So what does your work environment look like?

Saturday 2 weeks ago, I was cleaning off my livingroom table. Had some trash there from the previous evening, some wrappers from my dinner, a Subway sandwich. There was also the lid from a can of pineapples, the kind that you just pop off. I found out the hard way that the edges of the lid in fact are razor sharp... I put the lid together with the rest of the trash (paper). As I often do, I crumbled the wrappers together while I started to walk back towards the kitchen and the trash can. Bad idea. The lid made a nice clean cut into the palm of my right hand.

I started rinsing it off, and got some band aid out of the cabinet in the kitchen. I made some paper towels into a ball and squeezed it with my hand to stop the bleeding somewhat, and avoid getting more blood on the floor. I then suddenly started feeling a bit dizzy and leaned over the sink to be able to stay on my feet. The next think I know was me laying on the kitchen floor, looking up at my worried 8 year old son who was with me over the weekend. I then went to the home office to get my cell phone, and actually passed out once more...

Eventually I felt better, and I rinsed the cut off, used hydrogen peroxide to desinfect the wound, and then glued the wound together using Cyanoacrylate (CA) glue (super glue), which I use for model building, but is also used in the hospitals today instead of stitches.

Below are two pictures, one right after I glued myself together and put some surgical tape on to cover the wound, and one the next day, when it was pretty much closed up and cleaned off. A week later, there was just a small scab, and today there is just a small nice scar. Perhaps I should switch to a career as surgeon? It does not seem to be that complicated, much easier that learning Java. :-)