THE BIG AND THE BOLD!!!!

Well, my friends.........looks as though summer is beginning to peek around the corner in my little home town.  This morning is absolutley beautiful, sun shining brightly, warm air with a slight breeze, coffee, newspaper and my trusty laptop.  This is what life is about.  Sitting on the deck at 10am.........just thinking.  

This past month was a time for celebrating within the confines of my mind.  Lunch in Sweden with my guy friends, coffee with an old (and I don't mean that in age old) but in time old friend, my gig at Rubarber Jazz club in Stockholm,  baseball game for my birthday with my whole family (daughter and her spouce, Son and his spouce and twin boys grandsons and my wife)......a day to remember.  Midsommar party at a friends lakeside house.  Tried to take pictures of everything that happened so here goes with a few of them.

""The big and the bold.""   Typical of Swedish for Midsommar celebration and the drink of the day for my May Luncheon with........."the guys"     Beer and Aquavit.          The beer is used to cool down the effects of the Aquavit........of course

The guys............or better known as,   the family of friends (2 missing) plus  one never forgotten.




Play Ball !!!!!

Bryson, Cormick, Grandpa, Grandma,   Mariners lost  but still a GREAT DAY !!!


Midsommer (longest day of the year) at Lynn's    .................another day to overeat and overdrink.

The midsommar pole..........time to dance...........the frog.



or something like that.

Can hardly wait for July to start and life begins to slow down for a couple of months

Not to let you off the hook for listening to a little of my political ranting,  how about this sent to me from a friend.


The Wonder of it All

1. The sport of choice for the urban poor is BASKETBALL.

2. The sport of choice for maintenance level employees is BOWLING.

3. The sport of choice for front-line workers is FOOTBALL.

4. The sport of choice for supervisors is BASEBALL.

5. The sport of choice for middle management is TENNIS.

And....

6. The sport of choice for corporate executives and officers is GOLF.

THE AMAZING CONCLUSION:
The higher you go in the corporate structure, the smaller your
balls become.
Therefore, one might conclude, there must be a ton of people in
Washington playing marbles!


PS This also should include those with little "common sense".

 See you next week...................................................

BACK HOME.............

Well, back from Sweden and raring to go.  This trip was.........to say in a very few......or.....ONE WORD...............AWESOME.    My luncheon was........as always, the thrilling part of the trip.....but......this year I added a few other ..........."days to remember"    I met and was pictured lip singing a song with Deri Rowlands, a singer from Wales and his band........the Dream Team!!!!!

(even though a few of the words happened to..........slip out).

  Visited a real castle, the summer home of one of the members of our group

but also having a coffee with a SAS colleague and friend that I met ........oh......perhaps 50 or so years ago and haven't seen in perhaps the last 43 years..........but it was that moment when we each looked at the person we were facing  and instantly remembered not only the name of that person but how we met.  We then spent the next two and a half hours just talking, sipping a latte and reminiscing about days gone by.  Thanks Barbro  for  waking the Cob webs from days gone by.

Anyway,  the trip to Sweden is always fascinating and I must say.......I do look forward ......to those few days each year to be with..........DFG  (der four gang) and this group of amazing guys.

Now, Sweden also features another really fun day during the month of June,  usually on ..........the longest day of the year........but always celebrated on the closest Saturday, to give you some needed rest before starting back to work.  The day is called    MIDSOMMAR......(mid-summer) and includes eating, drinking, joking, dancing and lots of friends.  I hope this little video will better explain what I mean.   We usually attend ........our midsommar party at a good friends house, located on a lake in Federal Way............but does not lack anything from those parties in Sweden.  Lots of herring, aquavit, singing and the little surprises one might get  for having a blue paper cup or sitting on a green chair with a red dot painted on one leg.  Lynn,  you do one helleva job with this celebration , Thanks for including us!!!!                                    (CLICK ON THE NAV. POINT) 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8ZLpGOOA1Q&feature=player_detailpage


Just wanted to bring a little bit of Sweden to you and hope that ..............just because one advances in age..................Don't stop having fun..............or friends, two ingedients I think you need for a longer life.

See you next week.

STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN............

Malmo, Sweden.    Beautiful,warm days are now a welcome after some light rain showers...........great day for shorts. Since I will be here for 8 days before heading north to Stockholm, might as well take advantage of this good weather..............and start my summer tanning.

My time in Malmo is always interesting as some friends drive me around showing me .........what they consider...........interesting sights and gives me the historical history attached.   A true way to visit and appreciate a city. Love the way, they enjoy life.

Now, the day has come when I must make my way up to Stockholm.  I will spend a week in Stockholm before the luncheon I attend.

An exciting Saturday.   A friend met me at Central Station in Stockholm and ................my day began.  A wonderful lite lunch at a seaside Bromma Restaurant .

Salmon, thinly sliced and accompanied by small white potatoes with a white cream sauce. Drink was a wonderful  Chardonnay.  Left the restaurant and taxied to his apartment, where the dessert was served as we watched film of some days gone by.  Left his apartment for dinner at  RUBARBER restaurant downtown Stockholm.  Was greeted by the matre de and then introduced to the band playing that evening. A singer from Wales named Deri Rollins accompanied by a saxophonist, drummer, base and keyboard. Excellent band . 

Was also introduced to Christer Andersson and his wife Lillemor, good friends of Sven, 

.......and apparently are well known amongst the patrons and especially the band. Wonderful people who are now working with me to try and bring Deri to America to perform.

                                          It just so happened that I was asked to a sing- a- long

The whole day topped off at about the strike of midnight.   Thanks for the day Sven. You

                                                                    are a wonderful host.  

That ended day one in Stockholm, Sweden. A gig with a great Jazz band in a fantastic restaurant.

""Rubarber"".

STOCKHOLM LUNCH...........

Leading up to the luncheon this year, I had the pleasure of meeting a colleague of mine from SAS and the last time seeing her was perhaps 40 years ago. We met downtown Stockholm and had a coffee that actually lasted about 2 hours before she had to leave............but 2 hours was simply not enough time to go over 40 years of time.  We did reconize each other immediatly and also remembered the last time we saw each other was at the airport in Stockholm when Margot and I arrived and was met by Barbro running between flights meeting VIP's............trying to cover her 40 years and my 40 years in 2 hours was a struggle but with skype, email, etc. etc. etc. we can now say HELLO more often.

The lunch that I travel approximately 6000 miles for is a very simple, lunch.  It's called Stromming, in Sweden...........fried herring fish with a bit of parsley.  It is accompanied by mashed potatoes, lingonberry,  hard cracker type bread called knacke bread, and a LOT OF SNAPS called aquavit.  Off hand I would say more snaps that herring.  Sure, there is other things i.e. cheese of many types, nuts etc to snack on with your scotch leading up to the luncheon  or as in this year  coffee, weinerbrod (sweet rolls) and scotch before the luncheon and one might ask.................WHY HERRING for lunch, since in America, herring is a prime source of BAIT..............but perhaps we should think about it for a moment. Fish is brain food and aquavit wards off any poison that might enter the blood stream.  At any rate...............it is really not a factor for going over to Sweden for the fantastic lunch................it's the guys I'm having the lunch with. They are literally worth a kings ransom.

In this photo, two men are  missing.........one had not yet arrived and one was in Mallorca filming movie.

The photo at the introduction pictures the  HERRING IN A PAN.............

This May the Luncheon was hosted at the summer home of one of the members located about 2-21/2 hours south of Stockholm.  Since Swedish law is so strict on drinking and driving ..........a bus........was our mode of transportation...........equipped with a sandwich and drink bar. ..........but the end up place was in one word...............................FAB--U--LOUS.

A true Castle.     A special thank you Aje ( I-ja).  and thanks to all the 4 gang.(DFG)  for another fantastic luncheon.      

SWEDEN.........HERE I AM.........

Well, my friends, here I am once again in Sweden..........the land of the Vikings, and at the present moment........rain.  Gee, just like Seattle, wonder if this is a sign of welcome for me.  I am here for my annual visit to Stockholm  to have lunch with a group of fourteen (14) of Sweden's finest gentlemen. A day of eating fried herring (stromming)    and mash potatoes..............and the usual washing it down with Aquavit and beer..................oh heaven on earth!!! It's always such a great time to spend with these guys, it's worth the time and money spent making my way over.  This year, I spent a little more time travelling than usual, I decided that even though I still get my SAS employee discounted  tickets, that I would splurge and buy a full fare ticket...........in economy class..........simply because my return is during the month of June which is.........  the beginning of the busy summer season for international carriers and the flights are beginning to fill up............also makes it hard for us poor standbys and........could cost me more in hotel costs than I really want to spend.   I selected to travel Air Canada from Seattle to Toronto, Canada and then onward to Copenhagen, Denmark and return the same way............of course in reverse.  Before leaving Seattle, I happen to get two calls from Air Canada with schedule changes.....which I didn't mind to much.........before the act.   The first was a cancellation of my 11:45am flight from Seattle to Toronto and  rebooking of a flight leaving at 8:00 am doesn't sound so bad but actually meant getting up and to the airport by 6:am since apparently the TSA(airport security) suggest you being there 2 hours prior to your schedule departure.  This was OK with me since I like being early rather than late. Getting Margot up at that hour to drive me to the airport was another matter.  Now, just for a thriller, AirCanada is handled by United Airlines in Seattle making for another complicated point.  The check in went very easily, checked my bags through to Copenhagen got my boarding passes for Seattle and Toronto and off through security I went.  Much to my surprise, things were very easy, only problem was the entrance to the security point with the most direct access was jammed up so I decided to go to another checkpoint to avoid long lines.  Got there and went through the security check very quickly  got to the  gate at 6:30 am and there I sat until my row was called at 7:40 I noticed the gate agent was having some difficulty with the boarding computer and when I finally passed through noticed that my seat number transmitted that someone else was sitting in my seat.........but being given the OK from the gate agent I proceeded down the jetway.  Sure enough by the time I reached my seat I found someone else sitting there, I flagged down the flight attendant who checked both of our (identical) boarding cards,..........and as I was the one standing asked me to stand in the rear of the aircraft until they could straighten it out.  Well, to beat all, I simply joined two other people with the same problem.  Finally It was determined that the best thing to do was to stop the boarding, straighten out what they already had in errors and then proceed.  Just so happens it probably worked in my favor since now my 5 hour scheduled lay over in Toronto would be cut down.  Flight Left 1/2 hour late, full ..........and unknown to me how many people taken off that aircraft.

Toronto, was another nightmare.  Going through Canadian authority check was no problem but what to do for 4 1/2 hours.  I roamed the transit hall, visited all the shops and finally made it out to the gate 2 hours before the schedule departure, only to find out that , at that time we were estimating 10 minutes late.  At boarding time the line was forming to board as the Captain came out to the boarding area and began discussions with the boarding area manager.  It was determined that , due to a mechanical malfunction, we would now see a one hour delay...........which turned into a two hour delay and after 2 1/2 hours we passenger were now being seated on the aircraft when the Captain announced an additional hours delay for the final repair and the paperwork.  I wonder why the paperwork takes so long...........does it need to be in two languages???? or do they just write so slow?  Could not quite figure that one out.   There we sat until the aircraft departed the gate, taxied to the runway and took off 3 1/2 hours after scheduled departure. To top off the whole day, it was discovered 40 minutes before landing that the tax-free items I had ordered as gifts to my hosts in Sweden was not on board as I had been told they would be..................I could now hear my hosts "  WHAT NO BOOS......NO CIGARETTES!!!!......AND  you expect us to feed you..........."NO FOOD FOR YOU".....  luckily, the flight purser..............a gem of a guy...............found my package hidden away ................but made me one happy dude.

After the short train ride over the bridge between Denmark and Sweden I now met up with my ride to my hosts house.............. with all my baggage, and a story to tell during dinner.   After that tall scotch and soda..................it became even longer.    (more exiting days ahead ............will be reported)