Time is running!

Hej folks!

Gosh, is it my age or is time accelerating with an exponential rate, making months feel like weeks, weeks like days, days like hours? It is probably the overfilled schedule of my life that makes me feel like time is flying by... but is that something to worry about? Actually not - because a feeling like being bored has become so unfamiliar to me, which I really appreciate. Although I would appreciate even more if I had more time for my beloved ones. But I am not complaining, life is treating me well and you just can't have everything.

A full month is over, a month where many things were more important than leaving a trace of life here. However, I felt like I should at least drop one post before the month is over so that you guys are a little updated.

So what has happened recently? The Swedish nature "exploded"!! It is like somebody turned a switch and from one day to the other, grey turned to green. The grass, the trees, green is everywhere you look. And as a bonus, we have the best weather all over Europe and wearing a T-shirt is usually fine, even in the morning at 6:30 when I take the bus to my site. I really love it. Also, the days are so much longer than I know it from more southern latitudes. It is not even getting dark when I go to bed at 11pm and it is not dark anymore when I get up at 5:30!! That's so great and it makes me feel so much more alive, being able to see the sun all day!

Last weekend, I had some visitors. My friends and former roommates from Mannheim came to Stockholm and we did some sightseeing. The nicest tour was when we took a sailing tour through the archipelago, even though on that very day, the weather showed its grey side to us (one of the few days in May when this actually happened). A couple beers, however, made that trip even more fun. :)

Sonja was here too, and her belly is starting to show some true signs of pregnancy! I love watching this little guy (or girl - we don't know yet) grow, even though all you can see is the amnion that is bulging the belly from the inside. We are so excited every day we can see some changes!

Job-wise, the last three or four weeks were as crazy as the ones before. I am working 60 to 70 hrs a week, which of course is not healthy, but necessary. But we are getting closer to a state of being up to date with all stuff, and the mysterious tree balcony that I am working on is developing. I am aware that I still did not really illuminate what this is all about, but I am working on it! It is a unique piece of engineering which I will let you participate in if I find the time to prepare a nice description with sketches and photos. I promise, this will be the case in June!!

So far, so good, there is more to come here and I hope some of you are still curious about my life and work in Sweden, although I could not really write much recently...

Hejdå,
Stefan.

News from my Stockholm site

Hello my friends!

Looking back at this very busy week, I have to mention this one thing above everything else: Keep your desk and file system clean. Because now I see what happens if you have a system which is, on one hand, logical, but on the other hand, only to yourself and nobody else. Why do I say that? Well, for some reason, some of my colleagues chose to take this year's vacation right now, and all at the same time. Which leaves me more or less alone there, being new on the project, having a full desk and calendar anyway, and now on top, subbing for two of my colleagues without having made a useful exchange of information. And now for everything I have to do, I'm digging deep in their files in order to execute simple actions, such as checking invoices, looking for delivery notes, updating flight plans for our workers, and many many more. Oh, and looking for material stored on site and not finding it and nobody knowing what happended to it is great fun too! Stuff like that really messed up my usually good mood... Worst thing of this all is that when you're done with making a foul system run properly again, you still have your own work waiting for you and it's already 5pm. And guess what - the next two weeks will be like that again!!!

However, I'm not only complaining here. I'm having my good moments almost each day when I go out on site and check the work progress. And I always get to see those absolutely interesting things that a couple years ago made me decide to become a geotechnical engineer.

The first one is that each day, there are blasting works on site, since a lot of rock material is in the ground which needs to be excavated. And I witnessed a couple of them and everytime, it is quite an event! I mean, it's not like in the movies where it always looks like the end of the world, but if you feel the pulse of the explosion under your feet, it's still somewhat impressive. One time I also took a camera to record this event. See here:



The second thing that totally rocked me in the literal sense was a site walk that I made with a colleague, which took us to the adjacent construction lot - a rock tunnel. These are also blasted into the rock (here, however, blasting is already finished) and then secured with so-called shotcrete (concrete that you apply on the fresh rock surface by spraying). When we walked through the quite complex tunnel system, there were some drilling works ongoing (which I think are done to inject rock cracks afterwards - I'm not a tunneling expert, though!). Walking through this man-made tunnel system really made me feel humble and small and really appreciate the good work that many engineers and drilling or blasting experts have done there. Have fun with the pictures - again, these are interesting for all of you, not just the engineers' section. :)



To finish, I just want to let you know here that whoever of you feels like visiting me, will get a decent site tour. Don't miss out on that one! :)

Bye and hejdå,

Stefan.

Tour to Flaxenvik

Today I visited my colleagues Claudia and Rainer who are working on the same project here in Stockholm as I do (more on the project the coming week). They are living in Flaxenvik, right at the water, in the middle of a typical Swedish picturesque and beautiful scenery. Their house is facing East, with a complete window front where it is easy to picture some amazing sunrises. Here is a map of Flaxenvik and surroundings:





And not only do they live in this beautiful area, they also have a small motorboat which Rainer and me took for a ride after a decent barbecue (when the giant cat "Lucky" also got some bites...). Although it was quite chilly, it was the greatest fun to watch the archipelago and cruise between all the tiny islands, taking great pictures and enjoy the vastness and scent of the Baltic Sea... But take a look yourself (photo show on webshots):



So one thing is for sure: When Sonja and our baby are moving here, we will try to find a place like that. And maybe there's some Öres left for a small boat as well...!

Stefan.

A new era...

Yes, a new era, and that is all but exaggerated. How's that?

Since most of you (friends and family) do not hear from me as often as you'd wish, it's time to think about something new. And the only way to satisfy your requests of getting to know what's happening in my life and my need to not have to tell everything twice (or in fact, several times), I'm starting this blog. This is so useful because every now and then, you are wondering: "What's this guy doing right now?" And now you have the opportunity to just visit my blog and check the latest entries...

So much for now, but still: Why new era?

Is it because I'm now working in Sweden?
Is it because I turned 30 recently?
Is it because my hair grew long again?

Yes to all, but here's the main change:

We are expecting!!! Check our blog about that topic:

http://der-kleine-astronaut.blogspot.com/

In the coming days, I will post more on everything else, especially the quite interesting job that I have here. Even for geotechnical engineers, it is quite interesting to see what I'm working on currently. I call it the giant flowerpot, but in fact, what we are building here is a tree balcony. But that's something for the next entries that will come, together with pictures. Hope you're excited!

So far, and hejdå!

Stefan / Maroney