July 2006 Archives

Which, incidentally, now costs $135.

Nigeria may have ordered 1 million of the OLPC laptops, but India isn't saying "Thank you, come again" to Nicholas Negroponte and his band of MIT hooligans. The Indian Ministry of Education said the laptop was "paedagogically suspect" and that "We cannot visualise a situation for decades when we can go beyone the pilot stage. We need classrooms and teachers more urgently than fancy tools."

He goes on to say: "We do not think that the idea of Prof Negroponte is mature enough to be taken seriously at this stage and no major country is presently following this. Even inside America, there is not much enthusiasm about this." Harsh words, as Nigeria probably doesn't like being called a minor country.

Although Nigeria ordered 1 million, they won't be getting their shipments until other countries jump in and push the total order number up around 5 or 10 million units. – Jason Chen

Source: India Rejects $100 One Laptop Per Child Project - Gizmodo

Yes, I'm ranting like a rabid dog! Get these people out of office!! And, remember when "W" said the war would only cost us about $70 billion. Well, oops!

BAGHDAD, Iraq, July 29 — The State Department agency in charge of $1.4 billion in reconstruction money in Iraq used an accounting shell game to hide ballooning cost overruns on its projects there and knowingly withheld information on schedule delays from Congress, a federal audit released late Friday has found.

Source: Audit Finds U.S. Hid Actual Cost of Iraq Projects - New York Times

This is a direct, word-for-word quotation from "W":

I set a goal for this country that we cut the deficit in half by 2009 --just had an interesting statistic come out in the Mid Session Review recently. That's the time we take a look and see how things are going. When Rob Portman, who is the Director of OMB, analyzed revenues and spending, he projected that tax revenues will grow by $246 billion during this year. In other words, when you cut the taxes and you grow your economy, more revenues come into the Treasury. And it looks like we're on track to balance our budget by 2008[sic].* The current deficit is now --projected to be 2.3 percent of GDP. We're fulfilling our responsibilities. We're meeting the goal of reducing this deficit. The best way to reduce the deficit is to keep pro-growth economic policies in place by keeping this tax code -- making these tax cuts permanent and being wise about how we spend your money. (Applause.)

*What he probably meant to say: "Cut the deficit in half by 2008"

Source: Whitehouse.gov

The public claims by ultra conservative media extremists and national court jesters that we are presently in the middle of WW III or even WW IV are nothing short of irresponsible fear mongering. Are these rabid lunatics not calling their sanity, let alone their credibility, into question? Are they so desperate for money and media air play that they will stoop to frightening older citizens to rally the troops behind the "W" in chief?!

Dear god in heaven! I am even more appalled than I thought possible!

I hope they are correct!

With Election Day just a little more than three months away, the Morning Edition polling team was asked to take the pulse of likely voters in the most competitive districts across the country. Democrat Stan Greenberg and Republican Glenn Bolger found that, while republicans do a little bit better with these voters than they do in a nationwide sample, the numbers still point to trouble for the party in power. ...

Source for entire article: NPR : Poll Suggests GOP Control of House Is Tenuous

Tonight I attended the closing show of Mamma Mia at the Fox Theater. The show was great fun. And, even if only for a couple of hours, it was as if Bush weren't the horrible president of our nation. For a few hours once again one could hope, and life was simpler and more carefree before the show ended and everyone realized that the Supreme Court placed a buffoon in the White House.

Try Happy News!

When you take as many pictures as I take, and I really love taking pictures, keeping your online picture albums up to date with a realitively consistent look is a real challenge, especially when you have used a variety of software packages to create them over the years. But the albums are more or less in shape and current.

I don't know how many pictures I've put online, but I now have over 10,000 digital images on my hard drive. And yes, I keep a backup!! I could never have this many traditional pictures as I simply couldn't afford to develop them all!

At any rate, if you haven't visited the Photo link in a while, now would be a good time.

A random thought just popped into my brain...from my Norway vacation. When I was sitting in a restaurant in the arctic circle on July 2, 2006, what should I hear? "Georgia on My Mind"

During my vacation in Norway, I shot over 2,000 pictures. This country is beautiful. As I traveled each day, I would do my best to upload pictures from that day's explorations. Each of those posts precede this one.

Now, all of those photo albums are linked to my main Photos link in the top navigation bar of my website. In addition to enhancing a few pictures and increasing the size of the main pictures (after clicking on their thumbnails), I added an additional album: some of my favorite Norway shots.

There's still more work to be done, like adding the breadcrumbs at the top of each page to facilitate navigation, but all in all, the hard work (time-consuming) is done, and I present the albums. Enjoy!

Click on the pictue above for the Norway Favorites Album

Click on the pictue above to visit The Norway Gallery, a collection of 14 ablums

So AT&T and Cingular are trying to merge to become yet once again the huge telephone monopoly, but Skype is up to this... This could prove interesting: Cox versus AT&T. Well, it will be interesting until they merge.

Skype Introduces Wi-Fi Phones
New handsets will allow Skype users to access the phone service from wireless hotspots. Open wireless Internet hotspots will soon serve as virtual phone booths, as four manufacturers plan to introduce Wi-Fi handsets for Skype's popular voice over Internet Protocol telephony service this quarter.

The phones can be used at open Wi-Fi access points that do not require browser authentication, and come preloaded with Skype software, Skype said today. The move is designed to give Skype users the mobility of a cell phone, but retain the ability to use the eBay-owned telephony company's free or inexpensive calling rates, Skype said. There is no difference in fees for calls made from Wi-Fi phones than for those made from PCs.

Coming Soon
Belkin, Accton Technology's Edge-Core, Netgear, and Standard Microsystems are all introducing the handsets to support the new service.
The phones will hit the market in the third quarter, Skype said, and will be sold directly from the Skype online store. Edge-Core's phone, which features and a color LCD screen, carries a suggested retail price of $251. Netgear's phone is displayed on the Skype store, listed as "coming soon" and priced at $258.

Source: PCWorld.com - Skype Introduces Wi-Fi Phones
Steven Schwankert, IDG News Service
Thursday, July 20, 2006

I had lunch with some friends today. One of them is a Windows network engineer--brave man indeed. He changed the topic of conversation with this statement:

The astronauts must be incredibly brave people. I mean, they're riding on a rocket that's probably driven by MSDOS for god's sake!"

It still makes me laugh.

The cup holder in the Hyundai, rented for scooting about in Norway, was cool--literally. It popped out just under the air conditioner vent. Thus, the drinks we immediately in front of the air conditioner vent, stayed cool, and went flat before they became undrinkable. Clever idea.

And Rupert always gets what Rupert wants!

I didn't realize that Rupert Murdoch owns MySpace until this past week. He doesn't just want to completely control government and news outlets, he wants to also control culture. Danger, danger, Will Robinson!! Check out the whole article at Wired. Here's a paragraph:

That’s where the Internet comes in, specifically MySpace and the millions of young trendsetters who make it the most disruptive force to hit pop culture since MTV. This nonstop global block party of music, video, and hookups is starting to look like the most powerful mass-media launching pad ever invented. To take advantage of that power, though, Murdoch’s crew faces two challenges. The most immediate is to avoid doing anything that might interfere with the runaway growth that has already made MySpace the biggest aggregation of people on the Web. But that’s just step one. Step two is to turn MySpace’s teeming masses into a wholly new kind of media entity, an advertising, marketing, and distribution vehicle that gives News Corp. a hand on the steering wheel of popular culture worldwide.

Read the Whole Article: Source: Wired 14.07: His Space

I disliked the idea of a user having to decide to run windows on the Mac instead of the OS X operating system. This solution seems to allow both running at the same time. In Virtual PC, the Windows emulation software here-to-fore, one could drag and drop information between applications running on the Windows side and open applications on the Mac side. Will this software do that as well? They tout the use of shared folders...

Parallels Desktop for Mac is the first solution that gives Apple users the ability to run Windows alongside Mac OS X in a secure, isolated virtual machine. Parallels Desktop works with any Intel-powered Apple, including iMac, Mac Mini, MacBook and MacBook Pro.

Source: Virtual pc, virtual machine and multiple operating system solutions by Parallels, Inc.

OK, so I made up that last word. Here are a few take-aways:

• Water is everywhere: falling from the sky (260 days a year), falling from the mountain sides, gushing along in streams and rivers, in the many small lakes that dot this countryside, and in the fjords. Almost everywhere I went I could hear waterfalls or the sound of vigorously rushing rivers navigating their way through the rocks and boulders. This country will never run out of fresh, cold, beautiful clear or blue/green water.
• The water pressure in this country is astounding! When taking a shower, one has to decide: "How many layers of skin do I wish to remove this morning?" and adjust the water flow accordingly.
• Super high speed internet is everywhere. I suspect that the hotels at which I stayed had T3 access. The uploads were blazing fast.
• Cell phone coverage was full strength along all of the roads on which I traveled (over 1,500 kilometers this trip)--even in the most remote and desolate uninhabited areas, the arctic circle, and inside the tunnels. Amazingly, in the middle of a 10 kilometer tunnel, I had a full strength cell phone signal. At one point, I was horrified to only have 4 bars instead of 5. This is a very connected country.
• Fish is frequently served at breakfast (every breakfast I had here) and often is raw.
• The road signs at the higher altitudes are obviously industrial strength--3 heavy metal poles placed in a triangle with with a large number of metal crisscross supports between them. I suspect that gets translated into really, really serious winter storms. Come to think of it, there were virtually no plants in these locations, just rock-clinging ground cover.
• One can only be wed 3 times. To get married a fourth time, one must request permission from the king, no matter what the reasons.
• Crime is low and people generally trustworthy. I accidentally left a $2,600 camera lens in the lobby one night. It was right where I left it when, to my sheer horror, I realized what I had done the next morning and went to retrieve it.
• The weather in this country can change literally in a matter of seconds. A storm cloud can unexpectedly come over a mountain top and drench you in rain.
• The northern lights are showing all of the time in the arctic circle. They are just not visible because the sun doesn't go down in the summer. Rats. I want to see them. I need to see them. They want to be seen by me.
• In Atlanta right now, it's in the 90's. In Tromsø, Norway, it's in the 50's. Frankly, I prefer the later for July.
• The iPod is quite popular even in the arctic circle. A store in Tromsø had a large advertisement for them on the sidewalk.
• Doors always open to the outside. This is just the opposite of doors in the US. You have to take care not to hit some unsuspecting soul walking by. I frequently was pulling a door that should be pushed.
• In every hotel, the light switch for the bathroom was outside of the bathroom.
• We have 4.8 million people in the metro Atlanta area. There are only 4.5 million people in the whole country of Norway. This translates into a lot of square footage per person. Traffic is never a real issue and many of the roads in the countryside are only 1 lane wide
• I suspect that the above fact constitutes a significant reason for this nation's wonderful view of property rights..

Across the tall bridge, which must be closed at times because the wind is so strong it will blow the cars over as they cross, is the Ishavkatedralen Church. A beautiful, unusual church structure the design of which was inspired by the shape of a huge boulder in the Bering Sea--a boulder I got to see in the midnight sun. The church gives two organ recitals a day.

The view from the church, of Tromsø, is wonderful, even when the cloud cover prevents your seeing the snow and ice capped mountains all around and behind the island city.

The weather was very changeable but cooperated (somewhat) just long enough for me to shoot this pano. I shot the Storenstein Mountain pano from the top of the mountain to the right of the church. You can make out the cable car landing and the rock cliff, engulfed in the rain clouds, to the right of the cable car landing. The Storenstein Mountain pano was shot from the edge of the rock cliff overlooking the city.

Click on any of the pictures above to see a larger version. Click on the large picture below to enjoy this brisk summer day in front of the Ishavkatedralen Church.

(This is a rather large file, 15.2 megabytes; so, be patient while it downloads. It's worth the wait.)

This pano was shot on the top of Storenstein Mountain overlooking the island of Tromsø. The problems were many: the wind was blowing very hard and was freezing cold, so cold my fingers didn't want to move. Thus, manipulating the camera equipment became a real challenge. The shots were therefore not level, and in my rush, I even missed shots.

Then to make matters worse, the wind began to blow cold rain horizontally. In fact, some of the shots have blur shots on them because of the rain landing on the lens. And if that were not enough, the clouds were moving so drastically fast, that the lighting conditions between the shots were dramatically different, making the stitching process impossibly problematic. I basically had to do it by hand. Not good!

All of that to say, it's not a good pano; in fact, I would say it's a really bad one. But the subject matter is so dramatic I had to show it to you even in its lackluster state.

Click on the picture to view the panorama.

For this panorama, I am standing in the center of the dam that feeds the astounding waterfall at Vøring. This reservoir is part of Norway's hydroelectric system. Click on the picture to view the panorama.

I shot this panorama on the way to the Briksdalsbreen Glacier in Olden. You can see it in the distant mountains. The valley was beautiful, and the water color is that of glacial melt. Within seconds of shooting the shots, the rains fell.

This is actually the first panorama that I got mostly right. While it does have an issue or two, it'a actually pretty good!

Click on the picture below to view the panorama.

Well, sorry the last couple of posts were so delayed. The hotel in Grotli didn't have internet--no big deal as it suits their lodge motif. They didn't even have TVs in the rooms! But then the Raddison Hotel at the Oslo airport, which touted free internet, supposedly had to reboot their servers. In the 18 hours I was there, they supposedly had to reboot their servers 3 times. I don't believe them. No internet was ever available.

The flights home were fairly non eventful. I was dismayed that Continental didn't have electrical service on the international flight, so I couldn't work much on my computer as I was using an external hard drive which quickly exhausted the computer's battery.

Security in the Oslo airport wouldn't allow me to take the pano head for my tripod on the craft as carry on luggage, claiming it was too heavy. They insisted I check the camera bag. I insisted I would not as it was too fragile and too expensive to be banged around by the luggage handling equipment. We reached a compromise, and I checked just the tripod head. I hope it was not damaged in transport.

The flights were so long. In Jersey, I sat on the runway with the engines to the jet turned off for about an hour. The pilot announced the control tower said their was bad weather in New York City. He then said he wasn't a weather man, but you could look out the window and see Manhattan. There was not a cloud in the sky.

But, I'm back. Lots to do. Routines to get kicked into high gear as I'm heading off to Boston this week to present at a conference there. More detailed information, reflections of, and a collection of my favorite pictures will come as I have time.

The trip today was rather long and only had one objective: return to Oslo for the flight back to the US tomorrow. I was again impressed with how much water is in the country. Everywhere you look, gushing, rushing, teal green tinted, clear water is everywhere. It's just beautiful. I snapped a few pictures as I went along. I enjoyed another early morning rainbow in this land of rainbows. And I had lunch at the top of the ski slopes in Lillehammer, home of the 1994 Winter Games.

Enjoy a few pictures.

I thought I had seen it all. I mean really, how many dramatic waterfalls, glaciers, mountains, and fjords can one see before they all start to look, well... ordinary. Isn't that how life is? Give me bigger, better...

Well today I was sort of maxed out on the landscape. I thought nothing would impress me. Wow, can I say "Wrong!"? The drive today was astounding, at times even terrifying.

As I drove up to Dalsnibba, the dirt road was simply dangerous. Large tour busses were making there way up this road with all of the cars. The road was scarcely wide enough. What was frightening was that the road had no rail and at the very edge of the road, where I felt the tires of the car were most of the time, it just dropped off--thousands of feet straight down. I was afraid a bus would bump me over the edge. The curves in the road were often 180º making the turns for the cars problematic, for the busses all but impossible. Going up the road made me legs feel like rubber. Then add to this the huge washboard-like ruts in the road bouncing the car up and down. Was I going to just bounce off of the road? Coming down, driving by the edge itself, was unspeakable!

The view was worth it--since I managed without injury.

After coming out of a 4 kilometer tunnel, the wind through this whole section was nothing but a constant, unyielding, tremendous gust. Closing the car door required concerted effort. On top of Dalsnibba, I held onto my glasses. I literally thought they would be blown from my face. Several times I felt certain I would be blown off of my feet. The views from 1,500 meters above sea level were incomparable. I was as high as or above a number of enormous glaciers on nearby mountain tops. I'm very glad I did this today, but I'll never go up there again.

The hotel Gotli, though the first place without internet, is my favorite of all of the hotels (hence the reason this post is delayed). Aside from the best food on the trip, It is uniquely warm and welcoming. Be sure to see the pictures. The hotel has a strong sense of sky lodge and has been frequented by many world class sky teams. The hotel also has the smallest, most quaint bathrooms on earth.

The hotel has a huge snow covered mountain in front of it. I was amused by the sound of the weather over the mountain, which remain shrouded in clouds the almost the whole time I was at Gotli. I took a digital recorder outside and recorded the unique sounds. You can hear the birds and the low rumble and roar of the wind around the mountain in the distance. (Regrettably I didn't have a separate mic; so, you hear a slight annoying high pitched noise in the recording. I could have eliminated it, but that would have also removed the birds chirping and the sound of the rain at the end.

You can play the file to hear the one-and-a-half minute recording in your browser. Remember, this is the sound of a mountain that is about 25 kilometers away!

To view 59 of the pictures from today, click the picture above. And no, those aren't toy boats in a pretend lake, they are huge ships in an enormous fjord.

I got this email as I checked in to the Hotel Alexandra after visiting Jostedalbreen, the largest glacier in Norway, in Olden at Briksdalbreen:

Thought you might enjoy getting an e-mail from deep in the Mayan rain forests of Belize at a remote outpost on a lagoon where the humidity yesterday defied anything I'd ever experienced to date. The point wasn't the e-mail per say, I just thought you would like to tell people you talked with a friend in the rain forests of Belize as you traveled around the Arctic Circle.

SMall WOrld.

Chris was right. I thought it was cool--literally and figuratively. You can't be near this much ice without feeling how cool it is, especially when the wind is blowing, even in July.

Two climate extremes in a very huge, very small, connected world.

An early morning ferry boat ride in the rain; glaciers, goats, cows, and horses everywhere; too many waterfalls to count; and more dramatic landscapes (two new panos were shot today) the likes of which no camera can capture. But, I tried anyway. To view today's pictures, click on the surreal beauty captured in the picture below.

High drama waterfalls, dramatic landscape changes, ancient churches (1100's), sheep, gorgeous plants, and a historic hotel with a view. More info later, but you can check out the pictures from today's trips by clicking on the picture below.

Today I headed off to the quaint ancient city of Bergen. The drive wasn't too bad, and miraculously, I navigated the round-abouts without a single error, even when I encountered three of them in a row, connected to each other! Jeeze!

I think this town is the second largest in the country, second to Oslo. But it is decidedly smaller than Oslo. The main heart of town is very small really, though this area definitely has suburbs.

I only spent a couple of hours here because of the weather. It rains 260 days a year in Bergen. This was one of them. Fortunately, about 75% of my time in the city was rain-free.

The remainder of the day has been spent catching up on sleep and doing some laundry. This hotel room, with the cross-flow of the wind through the scenic windows on both sides, is nice and cool. Most of the hotels thus far have been much too hot for me as they have no air conditioning.

Enjoy some pictures of the town by clicking on the picture above.

Today I left the grand and tall, snow-capped beauty of the Hardanger Fjord for the expansive view of the Solstrand Fjord. Most of the roads clung to the edge of the rocky mountains and were frequently only a single lane wide. Oncoming traffic was interesting to say the least. The trip required two ferry boat rides.

Additionally, these two hotels were without doubt world class. Here are some brief facts about each.

Hotel Ullensvang (Hardanger Fjord)
Edvard Grieg, a Norwegian composer born in Bergen (1843 - 1907), was a frequent visitor to Hotel Ullensvang. His composer's cabin, where he wrote The Peer Gynt Suite and other well-known works, still resides on the property. From the window in his cabin one can see the Folgefonna glacier.

The hotel has been in the Utne family since it began in 1846. It is today a modern conference center and hotel that has welcomed royalty and major European figures, such as Kaiser Willhelm II.

The water used by the hotel comes from a nearby mountain srping.

Solstrand Hotel and Bad (Solstrand Fjord)
Lyse Abbey, in Os municipality south of Bergen, was founded in 1146 as a daughter-house of Fountains Abbey in Yorkshire. It was soon one of the richest monasteries in Norway, owning over 200 farms, including Hauge Manor--one of whose tenants was Solstrand.

In 1873 the Lyse estate sold Solstrand. The property had neither good soil nor a harbour, and no one saw anything worthwhile in it until January 29, 1895, when it was purchased because of its scenery by Christian Michelsen, the first prime minister of independent Norway, who then built Solstrand Hotel and Sanatorium.

In 1929 the Schau-Larsen family bought the hotel.

To enjoy nearly 50 pictures of the day, including this dramatic view from the cabin where Grieg composed The Peer Gynt Suite, click the picture above.

Today's travels yielded the most dramatic countryside thus far. Perhaps the most astounding views were those of Voring Fossen. Once again, people walked right up to the edge of the cliff to shoot the most dramatic shots. That people are not killed here routinely amazes me.

I came upon a reservoir system that feeds the hydroelectric power plants. I shot a pano from the center of the dam and anticipate that it will be most dramatic: glacier on one side of the reservoir and dramatic drop to beautiful green valley leading up to enormous mountains on the other.

I received a cell phone call while at the base of Voring Fossen. I am dumbfounded that in every remote location at which I have been, I haven't just had cell phone coverage, I've had full strength signals everywhere! Now if the Norwegians can do that in some of these intensely remote locations, why can't Cingular at least cover all of metro Atlanta?! I'd even settle for a signal of 50%!

Today I shot over 350 pictures. Here are 102 of them.

As you can tell, I uploaded a lot of posts and pictures this morning. I back-dated them to correspond with when they were written or when they took place. The link to the glacier pictures now works. (Sorry mom, it wasn't you!)

An interesting observation not mentioned in any of the posts: our two tour guides (neither of whom know each other as far as I know) spoke rather casually of "Your Mr. Bush" as if he is the village idiot. Certainly I agree with them. Tove, our glacier guide, referred to his absurd statements that global warming doesn't exist as Tove showed us how much of the glacier has disappeared over the past decade alone. Ivar referred to him when I asked about a large object on top of a boulder near the beach of the Bering Sea. He said, "Your Mr. Bush thinks he needs to know where all of the oil tankers go." I wouldn't be surprised. For W, it's like tracking his cash flow.

Well, the Dr. Holms Hotel has no air conditioning. Everyone here seems fine with that. Not me! Without getting the fan for the room, I would never have fallen asleep last night! I suspect their focus is on staying warm the 11 months out of the year in which this place is cold. This is the second hotel in which I've stayed that has heated tile floors in the bathroom. Nice touch--literally.

The internet in Norway is blazing fast. I have high speed access at home, but here in Norway, high speed takes on a whole new meaning. I don't know what they have done to maximize speed, but these uploads (pictures) are taking 10% of the time they would take in the states! Maybe these hotels have T3 lines?

Today I drove through:

[I'll have the list up soon.]

I took several pictures along the way. For some reason the churches struck my fancy as well as some striking views of low lying valleys. I'm staying in the Dr. Holms Hotel which was started by the good doctor in 1909 as a sanatorium and treatment center/spa for those suffering from asthma. The Germans occupied the hotel in World War II and used it to house submarine sailors. The hotel is obviously a fixture in history and serves as a dramatic lodge during the ski season.

Enjoy the pictures from today by clicking on the one above.

The flight this morning back to Oslo was delayed about an hour, but no worries. I still had more than enough time (until the legs said "No!") to tromp around the docks and the old city in Oslo. I'll be back here for my last day in Norway.

Click the picture above to enjoy the pictures of Oslo.

At 9:00PM we met up with our guide. Objective: see the midnight sun due north over the Bering Sea in the night sky directly over the north pole at midnight. We began by leaving what the locals all call "the city," Tromsø. Apparently no matter where you are up here, "the city" always refers to Tromsø. We drove along the coastline. Our guide was very knowledgeable about the local history.

He spoke of this area as the intersection of a variety of groups of traveling peoples: the Sami (laplanders), the Finns, the Swedish, the Russians, and the Norwegians. He said that the area was populated by families who both farmed the land and worked the sea: the women were the farmers, and the men worked the seas. Fishing is most plentiful from January through March, when there is no sun in the sky and the winter storms are at their peek. Still today, the hardy stock that is these people is very evident.

Our guide, Ivar, actually spoke of at least three winter seasons: when the snows come before the sun disappears, when the sun is gone, when the sun first re-appears toward the end of January. Then there is the series of Spring seasons (with snow, without snow) and multiple Summer seasons... You get the idea. The weather systems here are richly varied.

We stopped at The Lady Bug Kafé, an old farm that had been in this family for hundreds of years. The current generation has turned the barn into a museum/craft store and Kafé. The mother and father were out so one of the sons and the daughter prepared for our visit. We enjoyed a wonderful cod stew, from the cheek of the cod. A local fisherman began harvesting the cheek muscle from the fish, which had here-to-fore been discarded with the head. He has created a thriving industry as the meat in this part of the cod is widely sought after. Ivar said that the emphasis here is on a higher quality of food rather than mass production of food. (He had also showed us where the locals dry the fish and discussed that process which is only possible in the cold season of summer before the bugs appear.)

The son, Klaus, lowered a screen to show a music/slide presentation projected from a laptop, of pictures his mom had shot over the years in the area. Klaus had composed the music, which was surprisingly good, using Encore on the computer. He is also an actor. Many of the pictures were surreal: astounding colors in the sky over the fjords. The dad later arrived and began talking of the strange sheep wool gloves with a thumb on both sides worn by the fishermen. They were enormously oversized, and the wool kept the fishermen's hands from freezing.

Amazingly, in this remote area, wireless internet abounds. Paintings and nick-naks adorned the walls, including shoes made of reindeer hide and worn by their great grand father. When we told them of the glacier walk we had taken, they got out a map for us to learn its name and the coordinates of the glacier. I had memorized it as "stained dolls brains" just so I could later figure it out. It's actual name is Steindalsbreen (which means "between stony wall") near the Storfjorden fjord. They also located the coordinates so I can later find it on Google Earth: 19 28 51 x 69 11 24

Our visit with these folks was delightful. Their little kafé was warm and welcoming. It is open during the day until 5:00PM and by appointment--ours was by appointment as we were the only people there.

We then continued our travels on to the beaches of the Bering Sea. Once we left the fjord country, the landscape changed dramatically--far more severe with only low level vegetation and without any trees--a result of the severe winter storms that come from the north and the west over the seas. Most of the houses were built behind the shelter of enormous rock formations to protect them from the extreme weather conditions.

The bridges were one lane. The final bridge onto the island, our destination, had heavy metal grates just before the bridge to prevent the reindeer from entering onto the island. The main industry here was, of course, fishing. However, a growing number of younger people are building vacation houses here. We also saw a number of vacationers in parked "caravans"--what we would call campers.

Perhaps most interesting to me is the Norwegian concept of property rights. Perhaps because this is rugged land which is managed to maximize survival, land ownership has a very different meaning. Anyone can stay on any land at any time without permission. In a sense, everyone owns everything, or nothing at all really. So the campers just pulled up onto whatever property they chose. They can build fires on the land, hunt and pick food from the land without asking who even owns it. The two exceptions are 1) active farm land being cultivated for market, and 2) an orange berry, the crackberry, which is greatly valued in this country and can only be picked by farmers. We were told that this concept of property rights is very important to the Norwegian people. In essence, no one owns the land and everyone uses it.

The view from the island was perhaps the most dramatic so far. We learned that a huge rock out in the sea, with a very distinctive angular shape, served as the architect inspiration for the design of the church, Ishavkatedralen, in "the city" as well as a church and a school on the island. Enjoy the pictures. Even with the wide angle lens, they fail to capture how astounding this sight was. I had wished I had taken my tripod for a pano as this turned out to be the perfect location. Instead, I attempted a make-shift pano shoot using the horizon as my only marker. I hope it turns out.

For pictures of this amazing adventure, click the picture above.

Today I slept in as my muscles were revolting from the rigorous physical activity yesterday. After a leisurely breakfast, I headed off to shoot a panorama in front of the church, Ishavkatedralen. This proved very problematic as the weather was most unstable and unpredictable--mostly a drizzly rain and very cold, colder than yesterday on the glacier. No problem. I was sure to pack my rain coat. I hope the pano will turn out acceptably. They are very sensitive to significant variations in lighting conditions--exactly what was happening here.

Carrying the camera rig up over the bridge was no small challenge. People love to bike and walk here. The walking "lanes" on the bridge were at times a little crowded. I should have made that shoot on the first evening in Tromsø when the weather was considerably better. The panos will probably not appear on my site until after I return to the USA as they require a faster computer than my little laptop.

From the church I walked about a half mile to the fjellheisen (cable car) up to the top of the mountain, Storsteinen, that overlooks the city. The cable car departs ever 30 minutes. The top of the mountain was freezing! The wind was constantly gusting, even howling. Unlike the USA, the Norwegians seem to think that a person's safety is the responsibility of the individual. With the exception of one small fence near a small section of the rocky cliff edge, a person could easily walk right off the edge of the mountain and perish--a sheer drop off of about 421 meters (about 1,200 feet).

I got slightly close to the edge to shoot some pictures. The gusting wind made it too frightening to get too close. The weather vacillated from extremely cold and windy to extremely cold and windy with rain. I had no idea that the 4th of July could be so cold. A rainbow appear a couple of times and I actually caught a couple of photographs of it. Periodically I went into the lodge at the top for something warm to drink. They had a lovely fireplace burning for warmth.

After spending a couple of hours on Storsteinen, I headed back to the hotel for a nap. The evening was going to be busy with a trip to see the midnight sun.

For several pictures from the top of the mountain overlooking the city, click on the picture above.

During my second day in Norway, I was scheduled to do a glacier walk. I suppose in my typical American manner, I assumed I would drive up to the glacier, get out of the car, and walk on it. OK, maybe, under extreme circumstances, I would have to get on a train or in a chair lift and be carted off to the block of ice.

Silly me.

Tove Sørensen met us at the hotel. I immediately knew I was in trouble. This guy is seriously physically fit. He asked me what information I had been given about the glacier walk: none, just where to meet up with him. He was very pleasant and conversational as he shared that we would be driving about an hour and a half to the glacier. No problem.

Tove began telling us about his company: his passion and hobbies turned into a business. He has run 54 marathons. He has run 2 marathons in a single day. He competed in a husky driven sled race across Alaska. He leads mountain climbing and mountain hiking adventures, kayaking trips, canyon climbs, glacier walks... I began to fear for my life!

Well into the ride, a person in the back said, "Are we going to be using this climbing equipment back here?" Dear god! What?! Everyone quickly began bemoaning every conceivable medical condition know to man. I was worried! I knew I have no upper body strength and would not be able to climb up a block of ice using ropes and picks and harnesses and things.

The trip was gorgeous. Norway is beautiful. Tove told us that only 4.5 million people live in the whole nation. We have 4.8 million in the metro Atlanta area. This country is very spread out. Atlanta is much too densely populated. Tove also said that Norway is extremely long. If we unhitched the nation and rotated it down using Oslo as the axis, Tromsø would be as far south as Rome, Italy! I knew I was well into the Arctic circle. It took 2 hours to fly (at 39,000 feet) up to Tromsø from Oslo.

We arrived. We drove back along a path into the forest. I heard the sounds of vigorously rushing water--from the melting glacier. We unpacked the gear, strapped on backpacks(!) and began to hike. Tove said we would hike for 1.5 miles to a cabin, leave dinner there, hike another 2.5 miles in to the glacier, set up a base camp, and then trek up the glacier itself.

The hike started off easy with a gentle slope up. This soon gave way to a steep climb. Tove was very understanding. I was gasping for my next breath, he wasn't even breathing heavy. We stopped frequently enough that I survived. The trail was at times very narrow and perched on the very edge of steep drop offs. Quite frankly, sometimes it was frightening, but I didn't have time to really look at the drop offs because finding the next place to put my foot was a never ending challenge. Every single step deserved careful thought or one could easy plunge to peril.

The trip to the cabin was physically exhausting. Even though the air was very, very cool, by the time we reached the cabin, I was hot and soaked through with sweat. The cool mountain air made the workout bearable. The cabin was rustic and deeply embedded in the woods about a quarter of a mile from an amazingly dramatic waterfall. Rushing water was everywhere. This place is unparalleled. I was astounded to realize I had cell phone coverage here! Tove said Norway has excellent cell phone penetration, along all of the roads, and some coverage existed in some of the areas in which we were hiking.

After a much needed rest, we began hiking in what was a relatively flat forest along the rushing rivers. One river was clear water. It's source was the dramatic waterfall high above us. Another river was from the melting glacier. The glacier water was milky white, full of rock sediment and minerals. Norway doesn't use chemicals to treat their drinking water. They just filter the sediment out of it. We refilled our water bottles twice with the freezing cold water from the waterfall.

The walk in to the glacier was continuously changing, both the plants, angle of sunlight and rock formations as well as the weather. This part of the trip was treacherous for a completely different reason: at times we had to navigate our way through rocks of every size fallen from the high mountain avalanches. Safe footing was such a challenge. Finally we reached a gorgeous valley with lots a sheep. This part of the trip was also not without issues: you still had watch where you put your feet as sheep droppings abounded!

Up ahead I could see the terrain was about to change dramatically: all plant life stopped. We had to climb up some very, very steep rock. I dreaded the thought of coming down this section. This section, unlike any here-to-fore was full of tiny gravel which would slip and slide underfoot. This was the most frightening so far. Tove said he would strike out ahead and set up the base camp at the foot of the glacier. We were to meet him there.

The closer we got, the more alien the landscape appeared. The base camp was up behind a huge boulder to shield us from the cold wind rushing down from the glacier before us. It was perched high up in the jagged rocky terrain. Footing was so difficult for a guy raised on the flat sandy beach. We ate lunch and donned our heavy coats and harnesses. I asked if I really needed my heavy coat, as behind the boulder, I was cool but comfortable. I was advised to wear the coat and probably would have died if I hadn't!

The land just before the glacier was flat. It had markings of where the glacier once was in 1994, in 2002. Global warming is a very real issue. I saw it with my own eyes! Just before stepping on the ice, we put on the krampons, these metal footings with about a dozen 2 inch spikes protruding from underneath the shoe. We were given our ice picks and connected by the rope. Our instructions: don't step on the rope or the krampons will slice it. Keep the 30 feet of rope tight between us in case someone falls. The lack of slack will make it easier to rescue the person without jeopardizing everyone's safety. Slack would case us all to be jerked and run a greater risk of injuring everyone.

O God!

I was afraid the ice would be incredibly slippery. With the krampons on, it wasn't at all. The teeth dug into the ice making walking a bit challenging, using a whole different set of muscles not yet abused on this expedition, but amazingly doable. Then the rains came. Tove said the glacier created its own weather systems. He was right. It was freezing cold and raining torrentially. I was only able to snap a couple of pictures because of the intense rain.

At the edge of the glacier, it appeared filthy dirty. But the further up the glacier we walked, the cleaner the ice became. Tove said the dirt was the product of the winds blowing sand up the glacier. Little tiny 1 inch rivers flowed along the top of the glacier--the beginnings of deep and enormous crevices.

As we hiked our way up the glacier, we had to jump over crevices that were frighteningly large. Some were horrifyingly deep. Inside of the glacial crevices the ice was a gorgeous blue. Tove said the blue was where the oxygen had not yet been released from the ice. We encountered deep pools of water atop the glacier. Tove through a large rock into one of them to see how deep it was. Regrettably, I was to afraid to get close enough to the edge to see how deep it went.

I always had this feeling that I would step in a place on the ice and it would give in, especially in places where the ice was blue. Somehow my brain thought the blue was melting water under a thin sheet of ice that would cave after stepping on it.

This was an amazing experience and adventure. The rain became to intense, and we decided to begin the descent from the glacier. Getting off of it appear more of a challenge than hiking up it was. Navigating all of the crevices was actually a huge challenge with the krampons. I only stepped on the rope once.

The trip down the steep rocks was the most difficult part of the trip. Again, a different set of muscles were used that quickly became exhausted. Small, tiny steps to prevent sliding. Clinging to the rocks with the hands was also essential (for me but not Tove. I suggested he was a mountain goat hopping from tiny rock to tiny rock without hesitation!)

The whole adventure took 11 hours! I was physically exhausted and slept deeply for 10 hours. Today I ache from head to toe! But I wouldn't trade this experience for anything. The adventure in nature was thrilling: the sounds of the birds, rushing water, sheep, sheep bells, the fresh, pollution-free air laden with the many sweet smells of nature, the constantly changing weather, fog and mist, the ever changing angle of sunlight against a backdrop of mountainous drama.

I highly recommend Tove's company. He and his wife lead this and many other trips. He was patient, easy-going, and I never felt we were in danger as he pushed us all to do something none of us ever thought we could have done. Without his expertise, I never would have had this once in a lifetime experience! Before I even think about doing something like this again, I will train for it.

Click on the image above to check out 71 of the over 200 pictures I took of the expedition. They rock!

I have Karen Carpenter's song, "I'm on the top of the world looking down..." going through my mind. This is indeed an amazing place. Tromsø is the largest city (60,000 people) in the Arctic circle. I can tell you that indeed it is true: during the summer, the sun doesn't go down up here on the top of the world. I went to bed around 9:15PM local time with the sun up around what I normally associate with 5:00PM in Atlanta. I have begun typing this at 3:30AM local time with the sun in the same place, just coming from a different direction.

In fact, as I was eating dinner, I watched the shadow of a steeple move across a building. What made this experience odd: the shadow only moved horizontally across the building. It never moved down! During the 1.5 hour dinner, at Steakers, the shadow only moved sideways, passing from one window into another on the side of the building.

The drinking water has no taste of chlorine or chemicals of any kind. I was told it is melted glacier ice. The water in the Norwegian Sea is astoundingly clear. From high above the water, up on the bridge, I could see fish swimming far below in the water.

The cost of living here is nothing short of frightening. I'm having a hard time adjusting to their sense of currency. Everything has large numbers associated with it: 160 Kroner for the steak, for example. I'm told that you multiply/divide everything by about 6 to adjust for the dollar. Last night's steak dinner then was about $50. Perhaps, to compensate for the high prices, I'll be eating at the Burger King I saw last night. (not!)

I am told that Norway, unlike the USA, is completely financially solvent. The electricity is provided by turbines powered by the melting snow. (By the way, rough, jagged, snow-capped mountains abound up here.) The nation is a leading exporter of oil from the North Sea. Norway is actually investing heavily in their future, with no national debt whatsoever.

As I strolled about Tromsø yesterday evening, I came upon a sign advertising the Arctic Tattoo Festival. Rats! <kidding> I won't be in town for the event. I suppose when you live in a climate as extreme as this place is in the winter, you have to find odd things to amuse you. And speaking of extreme, I noticed a thermometer at the door of the hotel, which is right on the harbor (as in 8 feet from the water's edge), that goes down to -30º Celsius! (That's -22ºF).

I walked across the bridge. (I am staying on an island in the Norwegian Sea.) to look at this beautiful giant triangular church which is included in the pictures I am posting. It sits dramatically perched in front of a huge, snow-capped, boulder-like mountain on the one side, and a lush green mountain on the other. Gorgeous. They have organ concerts twice daily, including their midnight sun concert, which begins at 11:30PM. The people there in the church spoke highly of their renowned organist. I hope to attend one the concerts in this church perched in such a dramatic setting. Last night the organist was to play Bach and Widor, two of my favorite composers of organ literature.

I also hope to make a pano from in front of the church. The view their is breath-taking, dramatic and interesting from every angle!

I'm writing this at 4:00AM local time now. The sun, behind some heavy cloud cover, appears to be at about where I would find it at 8:00AM Atlanta time. The gentle breeze from the open window coming into the hotel room here on the dock is so pleasantly cool, probably in the 40's. The seagulls are squawking and splashing about in the sea, fighting over a fish one of them caught. On today's agenda: a hike out onto a glacier. I noticed in my walk yesterday a boat that goes out whale watching. I am going to try to work that in tomorrow's schedule!

Much about the hotel room is focused on staying warm: heated tile floors and towels, and thick insulated glass. Most people are wearing jackets and some even have on coats. Well, the first web gallery is almost done as a few lone vehicles cross over the bridge in the distance.

Click the picture below to visit the first of the picture galleries.

I can now officially add New Jersey to the places I have been. (About a year ago, I was as close as across the Hudson.) I landed in Newark (a couple hour flight from Atlanta) to catch me flight to Oslo (about 6 hours). From the air one can easily see that New Jersey is probably the most populous state in the union. I could see New York City in the distance. On the flight out, I saw, from above them, some fireworks below in anticipation of the 4th of July festivities.

I had never flown Continental before this trip. I think the overall experience with Continental is superior to that of Delta. Business class was more spacious, and the concierge asked if he could reserve a shower for me when we landed in Oslo. I had to decline as I had a domestic connecting flight with SAS Braathens on to Tromsø (another hour and 45 minutes). Our pilot into Oslo was Nancy. I have never had a female pilot before.

Flying in to Oslo was beautiful.. As I went over the fjords at 30,000 feet, I was impressed at how large, high and deep these snow-capped gorges are. I look forward to driving around them. Hopefully I will be able to take a good pano or two. Water is everywhere in this small country, lakes, rivers, streams, dramatic waterfalls from the melting snow. Now, as I fly up to Tromsø, I see the North Sea on the left and Sweden on the right.

The weather is stupendous--cool with no humidity, like the perfect Fall day in Atlanta! The Oslo airport, recently built for the 1994 Winter Olympics, while very busy, was amazingly quiet. Only once in my two hours here did I hear any announcements. In fact, they don't even announce when a plane begins to board. Pay attention or get left behind! The numerous, unobtrusive flat panel TV screens had no sound, unlike the Atlanta airport where CNN is blaring everywhere, and people are generally loud. And finally, the airport seemed a little less commercial.

As I'm writing this on the plane to Tromsø, in a very serious effort to stay awake, I'll be on the ground in the Arctic Circle in about 30 minutes.