The Land of Ice (Part 1)

A few weeks ago I returned from a nine day vacation to Iceland.  The vacation was very nice.  Not perfect by any means, but still an awesome experience.  For those who may be vague on where Iceland is, it's an island northwest of the United Kingdom and east of Greenland.  It's almost at the Arctic Circle - just shy of 66 degrees N latitude.

In terms of area, it's a little bit smaller than the state of Ohio and a little bit bigger than the state of Indiana.  Its population is 330,00, and the majority of those people (about 2/3) live in and around Reykjavik, which is the capital and largest city in Iceland.

In general the people of Iceland have Viking/Nordic heritage with maybe some German thrown in too.  Most of the people there claim to be Christian (Lutheran), but there is also still some influence related to trolls and elves there too.

We traveled clockwise around the island in general staying at each place about 2 nights with a couple places where we only stayed one night.  We stayed in Olafsvik, Akureyri, Hofn, Vik, and Reykjavik in that order.

That's the brief facts overview.  Now for the fun stuff - the bullet points.  And maybe a few pictures.  It's hard to pick just a few when you took over 1,000 pictures and so did Uncle Bex.

1. If there's one thing Icelanders know how to do, it's water.  You could get good drinking water from the tap pretty much everywhere.  In one or two places the hot water smelled a little bit like sulfur.
2. Icelanders not only do drinking water, but they also know all about hot water since they have all kinds of hot springs everywhere there.  It's like the Yellowstone of Europe.
3. The other thing Icelanders know how to do is heat their houses.
4. Natural wonders:  glaciers, waterfalls, black sand beaches, geysers, continental rifts, etc.
5. Because it gets dark early in the fall and winter, it's easy to go to bed early.  This was one of the few vacations I took where I felt like I came home rested, especially considering there was jet lag involved.
6. The early sunset around 5:00 or 5:30 also lent itself to playing games and writing postcards in the evening.
7. I called it availing myself of the free tea amenities at one of the places we stayed.  Bex called it stealing a few bags of tea.  Potato, potahto.
8. If the pictures make it look like I was wearing the same clothes every day, it's because I was......I may have forgotten my suitcase with almost all my clothes in it fully packed and sitting in the entryway at home.  Good thing I had the important things like my hiking boots, gloves, and warm coat.
9. Due to the clothes fiasco, only three pairs of underwear and one pair of socks were thrown away.  In fact, I came home with five new pairs of socks and 5 new pairs of underwear.
10. It's never fun to try to buy underwear in a foreign country when you're under pressure.  I learned that the first time when the airline lost my luggage on my Hungary trip.  I learned it again on this trip.  I'm not sure where the "average" people buy their underwear, but I don't think it was in the places where we looked.
11. The vacation was an exercise in making a conscious choice to keep a positive attitude, especially the first couple days.  This was when I first started being thankful I wasn't in a North Korean prison camp.
12. Due to the limited facilities there, we may have had to use the outdoor facilities behind a rock once.  Or twice.  Or more.  And maybe even used the grass behind a gas station one morning when it was closed.  Some pictures of bare butts may have been taken.  And deleted.
13. I learned why Europeans don't eat in the car.  It's difficult to shift gears while eating!  Bex and I had to do some cooperative shifting once or twice while driving when I was trying to eat.
14. After driving a stick shift for more than a week, I came home and found my left foot groping for the clutch and my right hand trying to shift gears on my automatic car.
15. Don't let the cheap airline prices to Iceland fool you.  The food and clothes (and most other things) are expensive.  The rental cars are too.  We got a decent price because it was kind of the off season, but I understand the prices are even worse in the summer.  However, much of the awesome scenery and good drinking water is free.  Maybe it all balances out.
16. Chocolate covered licorice.  It sounds strange, but it's delicious.
17. I didn't think it was possible, but I almost got pepperoni overload from eating it for lunch in the car almost every day we were there.  I couldn't bear to even look at the pepperoni in my fridge for at least two days when I got home.  But I'm over that now.
18. I lost 3 or 4 pounds over the course of the 9 days we were there.  Food was expensive, so I didn't eat all that much, and several days in a row we walked 6 or more miles.
19. Uncle Bex introduced me to a few new music groups.  Bond.  Nickel Creek.  Riders in the Sky.
20. If you're going to eat meat there, I suggest the lamb chops and fish.  They were out of reindeer the one evening I tried to order that.  We passed on the fermented shark.  I guess we weren't feeling adventurous.

OK, after culling through all my photos and combining some of them into collages, I still have around 60 pictures I want to show you.  So I'm going to break it up into a couple posts to try to keep in manageable.  Here are the boring scenery pics.  Don't ask me how to pronounce those places.  Almost all the Icelanders could speak English well, so we didn't learn much Icelandic.

Blue Lagoon - relatively close to the airport.  It's warm water, not ice.  You can swim/soak in it if you're willing to shell out the big bucks to use the spa.  We didn't use this particular spa, but we did go to two other spas.

General Icelandic Scenery.

Kirkjufellsfoss

Goðafoss

Valley view near Godafoss.

Mývatn (and the Yaris)

Giant rock piles.  Not sure what purpose they served.  Maybe marking a snowmobile trail?

Dettifoss.  The most powerful waterfall we saw while we were there I think.

Selfoss (the waterfall, not the town - and they aren't close to each other).  Selfoss is just up the river from Dettifoss.

Selfoss from another vantage point.

We drove in the snow for an hour or two one day.

Glacier Lagoon (Jökulsárlón) - We took hundreds of pictures and spent 4 or 5 hours here.  Because yes, it is that cool and looks even better than the pictures.

Looking downriver at the Glacier Lagoon.

More Glacier Lagoon.

The ocean beach at the mouth of the river coming from the Glacier Lagoon.  Those are giant ice chunks.

 

And one more picture of the Glacier Lagoon for good measure.

It looks like the glacier just ends on the grass there, but don't let the picture fool you.   More on that in the next post.

Where they grow giant marshmallows.  Vanilla flavored ones are shown here.  We also saw some strawberry ones and some chocolate flavored ones.

Svartifoss from a long way off.

Svartifoss up close and personal.

Dyrhólaey Arch

Looking left toward Vik, and looking right toward the glacial plain area.

Skogafoss.  They had a metal staircase to climb to the top.  428 steps if Uncle Bex counted correctly.

Beauty.

Gullfoss. Quite possibly the windiest place I've been on earth.  And that's saying something for a ND girl.  If I had small children, I would have been concerned the wind would pick them up and blow them away.  It almost blew me away.

More pictures soon!

Feeling Philosophical

Apparently presidential elections cause me to read in Ecclesiastes.  This morning this verse I discovered after the last presidential election came to mind (Ecclesiates 7:10).

Say not thou, What is the cause that the former days were better than these? for thou dost not enquire wisely concerning this."

This morning I found some verses in Ecclesiastes 8 that resonated with me:

"Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.

Though a sinner do evil an hundred times, and his days be prolonged, yet surely I know that it shall be well with them that fear God, which fear before him:

But it shall not be well with the wicked, neither shall he prolong his days, which are as a shadow; because he feareth not before God.

There is a vanity which is done upon the earth; that there be just men, unto whom it happeneth according to the work of the wicked; again, there be wicked men, to whom it happeneth according to the work of the righteous: I said that this also is vanity.

Then I commended mirth, because a man hath no better thing under the sun, than to eat, and to drink, and to be merry: for that shall abide with him of his labour the days of his life, which God giveth him under the sun."

Maybe those verses are a little bit depressing, but somehow for me they bring comfort.  And actually, I'm not in despair over the state of the world or the nation.  We have three branches of government for a reason.  Today I'm feeling thankful.  There are many things to be thankful for.  And even if you're not feeling very thankful today.....if you have the freedom to read this blog, then you're one of the lucky ones!  After all, you can be thankful every day that you're not living in a North Korean prison camp.

Today I'm thankful this is not my company's recall.  Occasionally my company does have to do recalls, but luckily this isn't one of them.  We live to design another day.

Election 2016 and Other Stuff and Things

Actually, I don't have much to say about the election.  I'm not a fan of Hillary or Trump.  I was kind of thinking about voting for Gary Johnson so I didn't have to pick the lesser of two evils.  However, I read an article last night that changed my mind.  It was talking about how this election is really about who gets to appoint the next Supreme Court justices who serve for life.  So I made a different decision when I voted today.

Apparently the county I live in is overall Republican, but the township I live in is overall Democrat because all the county elected offices only had one choice and they were all republicans.  The township offices were the opposite.  There was only one choice for each office, and they were all democrats.

Today I saw on facebook an acquaintance did a hashtag called liberalchristian.  What does that mean I wonder?  Is it necessary to make sure you say that you're liberal so you're not confused with all your conservative brothers and sisters?  Why is it necessary to be distinct from your conservative brothers and sister?  I don't think Jesus was into politics all that much......

Now on to other things.  How was your Halloween?  I kind of ignored it and sorted through my Iceland pictures.

Oh, and daylight savings as well......this has been a terrific past 10 days, huh?  I'm enjoying the morning sunlight.  The evening darkness not as much.  I spent my "extra" hour on Sunday morning vacuuming water with my shop vac because a valve in one of my pipes started to leak overnight.  It was the valve going to the humidifier on the furnace.  It seems almost too coincidental that this happens less than a week after the furnace guy was here.  Maybe in the process of turning the valve he weakened the pipe a bit?  One will never know.  The plumber said only DIY guys and furnace service type guys use those kinds of clamp-on valves.  So he replaced it with a real valve kind of like a toilet has.  You gotta love a job done right.

Also, these things have happened:

You know it's healthy because it's organic.

Here's a sarcastic video to go with that.

In the process of finding that video, I also found this one on being gluten intolerant.  Now don't get all offended.  Yes, I know gluten intolerance is a real thing, especially for people with Crohn's disease.  And yes, there are some gluten breads and things that I really like.  But if you read this blog, hopefully you can handle that video.

These two guys have been hanging around the neighborhood all summer.  I saw them on Sunday morning on the way to the meets.  They finally lost their spots in the last month or so.

A closer up look.

After four hours of yard work on Saturday, I rewarded myself with a beautiful evening kayak on the river.  It was lovely, despite my expression in this picture.

 I raked leaves for 2 or 3 hours on Saturday, and by the end of the day Sunday it looked like I hadn't done anything.  Today the leaves have really started to pile up again.  Oh well.  Such is life.

2016 AC and Furnace Status

Well, I was really negligent this summer.  I didn't even tell you when I turned my AC on - possibly because it was embarrassingly early in the year.  In early June!  What a wimp!

I made up for it this fall by setting a personal record and not turning on my heat until October 31st.  I probably could have made it past that, but the furnace guy came on Monday, and the warm air felt pretty good, so I let the furnace stay on.  Plus today I would have had to turn the furnace on anyway because of visitors coming for BS.  It's not polite to make people endure a 60 degree house just because you like to play mind games with yourself.

The furnace guy heavily hinted that I need a new furnace several times when he was here, but he didn't have any good reasons other than "it's old".  He said everything was still in good condition and working fine, so I find no reason to get a new furnace at this time.

I recently returned from a lovely vacation, so I hope to post about that in the next few days.

Recent Randomness

See the picture below.  I got the dishes for free from work as a prize.  It's a set of ceramic dishes (without covers).  What does one cook in this kind of thing?  I suppose I could do personal sized egg bakes in the two smaller ones.  Maybe baked oatmeal in the medium sized one.  Any other ideas from you wise cookers out there?  What would I cook in the large one?  I would estimate the largest one is about the size of a 9 x 13 pan but not quite as square as a 9 x 13 pan.

I saw this guy in an aquarium at the doctor's office yesterday.  I think it's some kind of snail.  It was interesting to watch how it moved around, used its foot to cling to the glass, and ate the algae on the glass.

This week I've been hearing owls who-whoing outside.  I can even hear them when I have the windows closed.  This is a new occurrence - very cool to hear them.

I saw this on facebook yesterday and it cracked me up.

In the same vein, this video about how the earth is flat cracks me up.  I like how he pinpoints one of my biggest pet peeves about facebook.  And some of the news media in general.

That's all for now.  Life is a bit slower now that summer is over, so maybe I'll get a few more posts done in the near future.

A Good Weekend

It was a lovely weekend, and I didn't even have to travel anywhere.  I worked sort of late on Friday, and just as I was wrapping up I received a text from JC asking if she could stay the night on Saturday night.  But of course!

Saturday morning and afternoon were the mundane weekend things.  Yoga, Cooking food, Staples, Target, Grocery store, Mowing lawn, etc.  As I was finishing the mowing, JC arrived.  We loaded up the kayaks and headed for the river.  It was a lovely, leisurely paddle that ended right at sunset.

Sunday was the morning meets and lunch, and then JC headed out.  I couldn't waste such a lovely day by staying in the house, so I loaded the kayak again and went down to the river for a 4 hour paddle.  Yes, four hours!  It was great, but I think I'll be sore in the morning.  I paddled 10 miles total.  5 upstream and 5 downstream.  Funny how that works.  Also, about half of the paddle was through the trees with lots of downed trees and tricky navigation.  A couple times I had to paddle so much I was breathing hard.  I went farther up the river than I had ever gone before be a large margin.

And.....I also saw and got some good shots of wildlife.  On Saturday we did see a muskrat, but I didn't get a picture.  But that does remind me of a song.....

You may notice the pictures are heavy on blue heron.  Because they're just so cool.

The first time we saw the blue heron on Saturday.

Swallowing a juicy morsel.

JC on the water (not walking, but paddling)

Awesome sunset.

Did you know ducks like to eat the green scum along the edge of the river?  True story!  They were so energetic in eating it that I could here them munching and slurping.

In a tight spot with my kayak.  My kayak was high centered on a log, which is why I had time to get my camera out and take a picture. 

The blue heron on Sunday.

Butt shot!  Hahahaha!

Not sure what the deal was here.  He did this without flying.  He did this right after 3 or 4 geese flew overhead.  So I'm not sure if this was his "king of the water" pose or if he was trying to intimidate me.  Maybe both.  I was probably 50 feet away though, so not sure it was at me.

After he finished fluffing his feathers, he almost disappeared there among the cattails.

Look at all those birds on the wire!  They fly in big flocks and like to roost in the cattails.  They all sing together kind of in the same manner that frogs do.  Not sure what kind of bird they are.

Of Interest

Someone told me about this news article about a blind female engineer who works for Apple.  I found it interesting.

http://mashable.com/2016/07/10/apple-innovation-blind-engineer/#mmPXOMbNZOqQ

Last week we had a lot of rain.  In one of the parking lots at work while it was raining cats and dogs on morning, facilities sent out an e-mail at work warning of floods.  This was the icon they used.  My boss tried to get into his car to get his wallet during that time, and he said the water was almost up to his knees!

I can also tell there has been a lot of rain when my yard looks like this.

Complement

In relation to a couple previous posts, here are a few supplemental pictures.

I was going to freak you all out and say these were my new glasses:

 Or maybe these were:

But I forgot I had those pictures earlier, so I ruined my own fun.

Also, it is peach season here.  Can you say "delicious"?

All for now......

Peachy Experiment

In the vein of "food experiments at work (think muffins)", here's a good story.  There's a guy at work who is one of those brilliant yet often impractical people.  Lately he's been gone a lot.  First he had training for a week.  Then I think he went to Poland and Italy for two weeks.  Then maybe he was back for a day or two, and then he took vacation for a week or so.  At some point during all of that apparently he was in the office long enough that he brought a peach into the office one day, likely intending to eat it as a snack.

Then he forgot about the peach.  This wouldn't be difficult to believe if you saw his desk.  He pretty much doesn't sit there.  He uses it to store stuff.  Maybe a week or 10 days ago when I walked past his desk I noticed this peach and that it was starting to get moldy - in the beginning stages of moldy.  I kind of kept my eye on it to see what would happen to it.  Unfortunately I didn't have the presence of mind to take a picture then.  But last week it definitely was extra fuzzy with white and bluish green fuzz.

This week the guy was back from vacation and he hadn't even noticed the peach after more than a day, so I pointed it out to him.  I took a picture before he threw it in the garbage.  This is what happens when you let a peach sit out on your desk too long.  In case you've never done it yourself.

That's real peachy.

On a completely different note, someone e-mailed me a link to this article about leadership.  You can read it for yourself and see what you think.  The part that caught my eye was the paragraph below, mostly because Uncle Bex sometimes teases me about being this way.  At least one of the leadership characteristics comes naturally.  :-)  OK, maybe one or two of the other ones do too.  Like honesty.

"Continuous learning. Show me a know-it-all and I’ll show you someone who doesn’t have a clue about being human. Curiosity and an insatiable desire to always do better is the mark of a great leader. They are rarely satisfied with the status quo, and welcome new knowledge and fresh (even if challenging) input. It’s all about investing in yourself."

Glasses Update

Two or three weeks ago I received my new glasses.  Here are the old ones:

Here are the new ones:

The ladies at the glasses place said they have a little bit more of an "open" look.  They have a very similar shape to the old ones except on the one outer corner.  And they're a different color of course.  I suppose an engineer would call that an incremental update and/or a digit change.  I've adjusted the nose pads a little bit too so you see less of my eyebrows through the lenses.  I think they'll work for the next couple years.

Modularity

Do you know what company had a genius idea related to modularity?  Gillette.  That's right, the company that makes shaving razors.  I was in that aisle at Target the other day and was struck again with how well they created that business model.  First of all, you can buy several different handles.  A "manly" one or a "womanly" one or a travel size one depending on your need.  But all the handles have the same interface to the disposable blade heads, and you can easily snap them on and off to change them.  That way you can be environmentally friendly by throwing less of the shaver away.  And, customers can try different types of shaving heads.  3 blades!  5 blades!  Sensitive skin!  With aloe and vitamin E!  The possibilities are endless.  And I'm sure they charge more for the blade heads that are "new" styles while using minimal raw materials.  Genius, I tell you.  Maybe other razor companies have a similar model, I haven't really done much research.  I don't even know if Gillette was the first.  But still, it's a good illustration of modularity.

Oh, and while I was at Target (and TJ Maxx), I bought another matching bedside table and matching lamp so everything matches and stuff now.  See below.

High Class.  Right there.

Ignore the state of the closet still.

The summer is crazy, so that's all I have for now.

Big News

Today in our sleepy little town there was a shooting.  A prison inmate was in the courthouse and apparently took a gun away from a deputy, and when the deputy tried to get it back, the guy opened fire and killed two bailiffs.  The shooter also died - it's suspected he was trying to escape and not that this was related to the other recent shootings going on in the country.

Because the courthouse is relatively close to the beach and apparently some thought it would be crass to play beach volleyball, beach volleyball was cancelled for the evening.   So I worked late and then went for an enjoyable kayak paddle this evening instead.

But I was wondering.....is it considered lack of respect to go on with your life when you don't know the people who were killed?  I mean yeah, I feel sad in a vague way like I feel sorry for the starving children in Africa.  But what else do I do?  Maybe stop and reflect on life and say a prayer or something.  I don't know - maybe it's my borderline Asperberger's showing up or something.

The news reports also had one government representative's statements about how we need to make sure the proper procedures are in place to keep everybody safe in the courthouse.  And how we need to do better to prevent these tragedies.  How much more security and procedures do you need?  It wasn't like the guy brought his own gun in - it seems like he took a law enforcement person's gun.  The metal detectors can't stop that.  It seems like you call it what it is - a tragedy - and move on.  And maybe you train deputies on procedures to use to make sure an inmate doesn't take your gun.

I thought I had something else as well,but it escapes me at the moment.  This amused me on facebook this evening:

Have a good week!

The Science of Stuff and Things

As I was sorting through some of my work e-mail, I found a link to this video on the science of happiness.  It's a video that's less than 10 minutes, is fairly entertaining, and has a few interesting statistics.  So if that's your kind of thing, I suggest you watch it.

As I was looking through my old bookmarks, I found this article on the 5 biggest worker shortages.  The article is from 2012 so it's a bit outdated, but I think engineers are probably still on the list.

We're trying to hire several people at work, and it's slow going to find good talent.  I'm not the official hiring manager, but I've been on the interview panel.  Sometimes interview candidates say some really surprising things.  And sometimes the calibration between all the interviewers afterward can turn on a dime.  People can be somewhat positive about a candidate, and then if one interviewer is kind of down on the interviewee about one thing, it can turn the whole conversation in a different direction.  It's a very interesting study in human nature and the power of persuasion and group think.

I'm feeling too lazy to actually post real stuff like my trip to China and how my 4th of July went.  I'm like Goose Goofs Off.  Not today.  I'll do it tomorrow.