Holy shit! It's a new post!

Well, it's a new year and everything, so why not? Nothing exciting to post really, just a quick overview of my morbid decision about my funeral when that day comes.

I know that with my twisted mind, I don't want people to sit there feeling sorry etc. So, to make sure I get my wish, here is the music that will be heard during my funeral:

Opening Tune:

After whoever wants to talk has talked:

Then it's time to carry out the coffin:

While the poor suckers who have to carry me walks out:

And finally, get me in the ground:

And that's it.

And that was also it for this pointless blog post :-)

And Life Just Keeps on Rolling Along

No, blog updates aren't my strong side. I don't post much, and when I do it's usually nothing exciting. But hey, it's my blog, and I'll post when I want to :-)

I've just finished my first week back to work after a two week vacation. While it's good to be back and all, it's also a lot of work. With the boss gone, I'm trying my luck as backup boss. So far it seems to go quite well, even though doing my own regular work in addition to another job is taking it's toll. Every day this week I've been quite tired at the end of the day. It's worth it though. New challenges and some new experiences is never a bad thing.

The two week vacation went by way too fast. First week was quite lazy, spent sleeping, relaxing, doing some packing and some more sleeping. But at least practically all of Louice's stuff got packed up and ready to move over. She's now "officially" living with me, since the address change has been sent as well. Just have to move all her stuff over, and then sort out what we'll find room for here and what needs to be either discarded or put in storage. Going to be quite a job to sort through it all, but that's going to be up to her :-)

The second week was spent in Tønsberg, visiting Louice's mom and her boyfriend. All in all it was a quite good week. Good to meet the girlfriend's mother, and we got to really relax and take it easy before it was back to the salt mines of Ljusdal.

Fritte, the dog, got a bit of a scare meeting the cat that Louice's mom has, but luckily no serious injuries, just a scared dog that got clawed under the eye.

And this is what it looks like when the train leaves Tønsberg at 6 am on a Saturday morning. Girlfriend and gremlin trying to catch a bit more sleep before reaching Oslo to get on another train.

Besides the above, not much is happening with the Lazy Ass. Just enjoying life and being happy. It's all good.

Peace out.

5 Topics "blog challenge"

So, I got tempted to play the "blog game" of 5 topics. What it means is that someone writes a list of 5 topics, and then give 5 topics to someone else who should then post them. So here are the 5 that my x-wife Linda gave to me. Anyone else feel like challenging me, feel free to do so either in comments here on the blog or on Facebook where this got shared.

If you give me a topic, I'll answer almost anything. So far I can only think of one that I won't write about, which incidentally was the 3rd topic in this entry.

1. Future plans.
Wow, this is a difficult one. At the moment, my future plans are kinda all over the place. The only thing that seems to be certain is that I'm not going to stick around in Ljusdal for that much longer.

I've started looking for other jobs that are a bit more relevant to my education and interests. No, not the nerdy interests, but the business interests. I seem to be rather stuck with no chance for progress where I'm at, so it's time to move on before it kills all motivation and work ethic.

The future plans on a personal level will probably include some small things, maybe a third marriage at some point etc. The way it's progressing there right now would make it look that way :P

2. Louice.
Well, what to say about this topic?

I think Louice is something of the most random good thing that has happened in my life. Here's a chick that I met one night when out partying in Ljusdal, and now I have ring on my finger and live with her. It was probably as far away from my original plans that it's possible to get. I was supposed to stay single and free at least until summer/fall this year, and then maybe see if it was worth trying something. Didn't quite work out that way...

There is a significant age difference between the two of us. Nothing that bothers us though, so if it bothers other people, too bad for them.

Without saying anything bad about previous relationships, this one has a different feel to it. There's just something that makes it "right". The previous ones weren't wrong in that sense (hell, something must've been right since I got married in two of them), it's just a different feeling here.

3.
Subject number 3 is not posted here. Just something that I don't want to share with the world.

4. Your "recent" change from atheist to agnostic.
I was a die-hard atheist for a loooong time. Nothing you could say would change that, as I just didn't believe there was any chance of anything "supernatural" existing. Simple as that.

Over the last couple of years though, there has been some occurrences that have changed that die-hard stance to something a little bit softer. I'm still not convinced, but things I have seen and experienced has made it so that I can't say I'm atheist any longer.

5. Your favorite memory.
This requires more time to think. I have a lot of good memories throughout my life, and picking just one as my favorite will take some time.

Just a little self bragging

Wow, another update and just a month after the last one :-)

This time it's just an update about me feeling good about myself. Yeah, self confidence etc you know :-P

I'm signing up for beginners classes in dancing. They won't start until after summer, but the decision has been made, and there's no turning back now. The nerd will be dancing, probably to the entertainment of others, but to hell with it. I tried it, it was fun, I'm doing it.

Relationship is going good, progressing nicely etc. It kinda killed my original plans of remaining single at least until the summer, but hey, plans are made to be broken and changed. I am definitely not going to complain about these plans being changed, as I'm quite a happy Lazy Ass, not so much living alone anymore it seems ;-) There are 3 more animals and one human that has "occupied" my place, and I don't mind the slightest. So it's all good on the Swedish front.

Now, for the self bragging bit.

Sometime last fall (around November) I set a target for this summer on my weight. I wanted to get down to double digits (meaning I wanted to get under 100 kg) before summer vacation time. At the time, I didn't really have any plans for how to do it, and had a starting weight at ~120 kg.

Current status as of this morning: 92.5 kg. So that's ~30 kg down without really working for it at all. Yes, it actually makes me a bit happy, even though my weight never really affected my self confidence. My main reason for being happy about it is because I feel better. I just feel like I'm in better shape and have a better mood because of it since I'm not getting worn out all the time from such minor things as walking to and from work.

That's it for this time.

Peace out.

Movies. Horses. Dancing. Oh my...

I'm not really too good at this whole blogging thing. I guess I'm supposed to write stuff here about what's going on in my life and all, but it's really not that easy. I'm kinda enjoying life a bit too much to take time out to sit down and write about it. At the moment I'm home sick though, so it would appear I have some spare time anyway.

A little while back I wrote a little piece on cutting down the nerdy bits of me and becoming more social. This is still an on-going project, and it seems to be developing quite nicely at the moment.

After more than 7 years in Ljusdal, I ended up taking a couple of trips to the cinema. Nothing really strange or special about that I guess, apart from the fact that it took 7 years to get around to it. I have decided that it'll be happening a bit more frequently in the time to come, as long as the company is right. There are some movies coming up that I really want to see, and the cinema is a good a place as any to do so I guess.

Now, the more shocking thing for me to do, was to take a trip to a stable. I hate horses. In my view, they are evil creatures and minions of whatever devil there might be. They would love nothing more than to take all humans and throw them on a BBQ to have a big ol' party. In other words, horses scare me. But, the chance to face that fear came along, and I grabbed it. Still need a lot of work before I can manage to feel comfortable around these demon spawns, but I've decided that I will get there. I will at least manage to get to a level where I can stand still and let them walk past me without feeling like I'm about to run off in wild panic.

The last step so far in my little project, is that I have said yes to attend some sort of dance lessons. I was supposed to go to the first one this Monday, but with being sick it's postponed for one week. I'm not much of a dancer. My dancing skills could best be described to be just below this guy:

But I've said I'm going to try it, and I will. Who knows, I might even enjoy it. Won't know until I've tried so I will as a minimum join once. This is what happens when you get a girlfriend that insists on coming up with challenges.

In my last post, I also mentioned something about my personal life that was an on-going process. On that front, I'm done, and it's done. My only comment to that thing is the last part of the title for this post. Oh my.... Now the waiting game is underway.

And no, I'm not saying what it is. Not here, not on Facebook, not on Google+, not to anyone in person. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you won't get to know. At least not yet. Maybe later.

2011 stuff

So, it's the time of year where every blogger on the face of the planet seems to be doing their year-end reviews. So I figured I'd go with the flow and try to sum up 2011 and what happened in my life.

2011 for me has been a year of huge changes in some areas, but also a year of absolutely no progress in other areas.

The first part of the year was a time for a lot of thinking and pondering. Spring, summer and fall were spent thinking about both personal issues and work related things.

While I enjoy my job, and definitely enjoy the work environment with my colleagues, I have to admit it's been a year where I've felt a bit "stuck in a rut". I enjoy working under what many others see as stress and high pressure. This year hasn't really offered much in that area. It's been a year of mostly watching things run smoothly, which means it's been a year where I have quite honestly been a bit bored. It's also been a year where I have gotten some insight in how the possibilities for progression are in my current job.

Earlier in the year I turned down a couple of job offers, because I was initially planning a specific move. Looking back at it, purely work related, I probably should have taken one of those offers. Right now I'm very glad I didn't, but more on that a bit further down. Getting offers is a good boost for self confidence though :)

Anyway, looking back at 2011 work wise, I'm determined to have a better 2012. I hate stagnation, so it's time to buckle up and make sure there's some progress in the coming year.

When it comes to my personal life, 2011 has been anything but stagnant. While I haven't been too public about what's been going on, some things have been written and hinted at. Other things have not been mentioned at all. What's very clear, is that 2011 has been a year of big downs and is ending with a huge up.

The big down was, unsurprisingly, that I split with my wife after an 8-year relationship. While neither me nor Linda was shocked at the time we came to the conclusion it was right to end things as husband and wife, it was a hard decision to make. You don't simply toss away someone that has shaped your life for nearly a decade. Because of this, the big down did have a silver lining. The friendship that I have with Linda survived the split. We're no longer a couple, but we're still very good friends who can talk about almost everything.

The split probably shocked friends and family more than it shocked myself and Linda. We had been slipping apart for quite some time, and our lives are simply going in different directions. We decided that it was better to split as a couple before the friendship suffered. None of us wanted to end things in a way where we'd end up despising the other one and losing contact. So we made a really tough decision, but it was the right thing to do.

The fact that we lived apart for over a year before the actual split probably made things easier as well, and has probably contributed quite a bit to the both of us being able to move on as quickly as we have.

Which brings me to the big up of 2011. Louice. It's a quite strange and intricate story on how me and Louice ended up together, and I'm not going to go through all the details. What I do know, is that I'm just going to accept that I'm lucky, and that there really is no logic in how it happened.

We went from a very brief talk at an after-party sometime during summer to ending up as a couple in December. During the months in between, becoming a couple really was never a topic or something either of us was "aiming" for. It just wasn't something that was in any plans what so ever. But it happened. When I'm sitting here thinking about the criss-cross road that led to it, I'm just going to say thanks to the people that unknowingly brought us together:

• Jens and Gudrun for dragging me down to Järnvägs from another party that summer evening.

• The ones telling me it was time to head on back up to the hill, since that walk was the first conversation me and Louice had.

• Kent for housing the after-party that night, and Toffe for telling me I should join instead of going home to sleep.

• Sofie for running off with Louice's apartment key, leading to her going to the same after-party.

• Daniel for several months later making me see that I might have some feelings, even though I denied it.

• Jessica for asking me some questions that started the thought process which concluded in a relationship.

All in all, a long chain of random and seemingly unrelated events that eventually gave a really good ending to 2011 :)

Another personal change that happened this year, is that the die-hard atheist has been redefined to an agnostic. In short, it means I'm still a huge sceptic, but I quite simply can't manage to be completely sure any more that there's nothing going on.

There is one more thing on the personal front that's happened in 2011 which is still an on-going process. I'm not going to go in to any details on that, and no, there's no point in asking. You won't get any answers. I just want to say thanks to Shaya and William for the kick in the ass, and yes, I'm almost done ;)

Some Updates

So, after my last post it has been very, very quiet on the blogger front. Even more quiet than usual. Because of that, I figured it was time to do a little update.

First of all, I've set up a new blogger blog address. So this is where future posts will be happening, in the same infrequent manner as usual.

Life is going quite well for the x-Norwegian here in Sweden. The project of cutting down nerdyness in favor of a more active social life is continuing on, and has lasted for some time over a year now. The results have been, in my opinion at least, quite good. I will always be a nerd at heart, nothing to do about that since it's simply who I am, but I'm combining the nerd and the social guy quite well at the moment.

Apparently, cutting down the nerdyness is also cutting down my size. Thought my pants were getting a bit too loose lately, and when stepping on the bathroom scale this morning I found out why. It showed 11 kg less than what I expected to see, and that's happened in only a couple of months. Have to say I'm quite happy about that one. Even if it does mean I have to spend a hefty sum of money on new pants. And I have to use the fitting rooms in clothes stores since I now don't really know my correct size any more.

Very soon, I'm taking a 4-week vacation. Next Sunday I'll be heading to Norway to celebrate Christmas with the family, which I'm quite looking forward to. It'll be the first time in 2 years that I get to see my nieces, my parents, my sister and her fella, which I have to admit is way too long to stay away. Will have to do that trip a bit more frequently in the future.

After Christmas with the family, it's back to Ljusdal for new year's eve. It looks like it'll be a split new year's this year, but that's okey. The way the plans look so far, it'll be spent with wonderful people and should end up being quite fun and exciting. If all plans fall in to place, there could even be a couple of surprises for some people.

All in all, at the moment, things are looking quite good for the Lazy Ass Living Alone.