The builders finished their part of the barn Sunday, 09-Feb-25 22:38:38 CET

Sunday, 16-Feb-25 14:47:06 CET

Repaired the washing machine

This week we repaired the washing machine. We went to our cottage in Sweden, where we took out the tractor and put tree logs on the wagon.

Monday 10 February

It was a chilly day today. It was a couple of degrees above the freezing point of water, but the air was humid, making the cold more impactful. Today, both DW and I worked from home. I studied new tooling and did not understand much initially, but it all fell into place in the afternoon.

Along the road, we got a tree that had birds in them. Last week, I noticed two birds at the very tip of the tree. It looked so funny. I took a photo of a larger group in the tree, not at the top, but looking good anyway.

I remastered my new song, Glow in the Night, in the evening. I doubt it is brilliant, but I am pushing the boundaries for what I have done before.

I did not like it when I failed to master the Cinnamon Rolls song. This time, I tried something new. I downloaded the stems for the song. The instruments and the vocals came into separate tracks.

The instrumental track ran through a stereo shaper, making it more mono. I ran the vocal through a reverb filter, which gave it a little reverb and, thereby, a stereo effect. The two tracks were then run through a limiter, avoiding clipping. The bass will kick in several times in the song, which will be great. The risk is that the bass is too loud. We will see how it works when it is live.

The artwork is made in Gimp. I took a black background and put a supernova effect on it, and on top of that, a lens flare. It is that simple.

Here are the lyrics of the song Glow in the night:

#Verse
Clouds hung heavy day and night.
We forgot the stars, forgot their light.
Then tonight, a spark so tiny.
Was it a plane? It is so shiny!

#Pre-Chorus
It didn't move. It just shined bright.
A golden glow in the night.

#Chorus
Saturn's calling way up high.
Lost in stories in the sky.
With an app, I traced the past.
Constellations built to last.

#Verse
Atlas holds the world so tall.
Achilles runs, and I see them all.
Zeus still throws his thunder wide.
Their tales still dance across the night.

#Pre-Chorus
It didn't move. It just shined bright.
A golden glow in the night.

#Chorus
Saturn's calling, way up high,
Lost in stories in the sky.
With an app, I traced the past,
Constellations built to last.

#Bridge
Years went by, but here they stay.
Whispered legends light my way.
The sky was full of ancient laws.
For each story, I gave my applause.

#Pre-Chorus
It didn't move. It just shined bright.
A golden glow in the night.

#Chorus
Saturn's calling, way up high,
Lost in stories in the sky.
With an app, I traced the past,
Constellations built to last.

#Bridge
Years went by, but here they stay.
Whispered legends light my way.
The sky was full of ancient laws.
For each story, I gave my applause.

#Pre-Chorus
It didn't move. It just shined bright.
A golden glow in the night.

#Chorus
Saturn's calling, way up high,
Lost in stories in the sky.
With an app, I traced the past,
Constellations built to last.

#Outro
It started with a light in the sky.
Constellations, stories, Gemini.
Childhood memories glorify.
It was time for bed. This was my lullaby.

#Instrumental

#Verse
Clouds hung heavy day and night.
We forgot the stars, forgot their light.
Then tonight, a spark so tiny.
Was it a plane? It is so shiny!

#Pre-Chorus
It didn't move. It just shined bright.
A golden glow in the night.

#Chorus
Saturn's calling way up high.
Lost in stories in the sky.
With an app, I traced the past.
Constellations built to last.

#Pre-Chorus
It didn't move. It just shined bright.
A golden glow in the night.

#Chorus
Saturn's calling way up high.
Lost in stories in the sky.
With an app, I traced the past.
Constellations built to last.

#Pre-Outro
It started with a light, a golden glow in the night.

#Outro
Saturn's calling way up high.
Lost in stories in the sky.
With an app, I traced the past.
Constellations built to last.
It started with a light in the sky.
Constellations, stories, Gemini.
Childhood memories glorify.
It was time for bed. This was my lullaby.

I made the art in Gimp. It is a supernova on a black background with an extra lens flare. Easy.

Tuesday 11 February

DW and I went to work today and gave a neighbor a ride. I played the song for DW and the neighbor. I cannot say I got standing ovations, but it was accepted. I liked the mastering. The bass came out nicely in the car speakers.

Our neighbor missed a train in the afternoon and arrived 17 minutes late, but we waited for him. DW went to a store for Asian products near the train station. While waiting, I sat in the car, trying to sing my new song. It is more challenging than you think to sing the song. I would need to practice more to be able to sing the song.

The neighbor arrived, and we drove home. We picked up the package with the brushes for the washing machine.

Before going to bed, I put the brushes in the motor. It did not work. The washing machine may need to be replaced anyway.

Wednesday 12 February

Before work, early in the morning, I pulled out the brushes from the washing machine's motor and put them back in again. This time, the washing machine started and spun happily!

I worked from home in the morning. In the afternoon, I changed the tires on the car. I switched from summer tires to winter tires. DW was also working today.

Today, Washington's white house administration started acting in the world arena. The disintegration of the rule-based world is going quicker than I expected.

Piet Hegseth, the former Fox News presenter now the US defense administrative assistant, addressed the Nato allies: "I am here today to directly and unambiguously express that stark strategic realities preventing the United States from being the primary guarantor for security in Europe." I understand it is hard to be a security guarantor when you are about to steal Greenland from one of your allies. Piet is not good at the diplomatic fuss language. He does not say many new things, but he talks sharply. That type of sharp talk is not necessary when talking to supposed allies. Could the US not send a real diplomat? On the other hand, the only role of Piet in this administration is to translate the 6-grader talk of his boss into coherent language to avoid linguistic embarrassment in the more respectable palaces around Europe. He is just a mouthpiece.

Then came the resident of the white house. I hope you notice that I deliberately omit the letter P every time I talk about the person who now lives in the white house. It is funny and precisely to the point of how I see this person's role.

The insurrectionist spoke to the world about how he talked to Mr Putin. Now, the two criminals are talking to each other, and I suppose we all should be standing in lines cheering. The United States has a fifteen times bigger economy than Russia; why is it so important to talk to Mr Putin? Putin is well on his way to killing one million of his people. He can stop that anytime he wants.

The European Union has a five times bigger economy than Russia, and it commented on the talks between the two criminals that the EU will continue to support Ukraine to stay as a sovereign country. The mood in Europe is gloomy. They don't like that the best-known rapist in the United States is talking over the heads of Europe to the dictator of Russia. I included a link to the ICC page about who became Russia's president after a special nomination operation last year. If you call a war something else, why not call an election something else?

What is it with these kind of people that they fool around with kids? Putin has stolen at least twenty thousand kids from Ukraine. The residents of the white house put kids in cages, separating them from their parents when the families crossed the border from Mexico during his previous time in the white house. They are cruel people. They probably talk about how well they can deport kids when they get together.

Thursday 13 February

Today, we both went to the office again. This time, we had no passengers. We were early. DW had to prepare for a presentation at work. Unfortunately, she had to continue work. In the early evening, she came back by train. I ordered food at a restaurant we picked up on the way home. In the evening, I scrolled feeds. It is a useless activity.

Friday 14 February

Last night, Merida came to sleep next to me. First, she was standing on the bed, kneading me. Then Merida tucked herself tight to me on top of the duvet. Later in the night, she decided I had to have another round of kneading and loud purring. She also cleaned herself while lying next to me. It is not so that I get the same love over day. Especially when I am pasing. I like to do that when I think about really complex matters. She disapproves of moving around in the house without a proper reason. DW is not doing that in general, so DW is allowed to go about it. For me, it is another story. According to Merida, walking into a room and then out again without getting or leaving something is annoying. You need a purpose for going around the house. There is a punishment for this, which is claws into the feet.

It was cold this morning. The rooftops were frosty. It was overcast and almost a little misty.

This morning, we had a smoothie for breakfast. I hear you say, "But Jens, you have a smoothie every morning?". That is correct, but this morning, it was incredibly delicious. I don't know why. Even DW praised the smoothie!

After breakfast, we started packing our stuff. We have a packing list so that we will not forget anything, but somehow, there is always something you can forget. We are going to Sweden today. I packed all the stuff in the car, and we left about 1:45 PM. It was sunny and beautiful weather when I packed the car. When we left while driving, it soon became overcast. We even had a couple of stains of rain.

We bought a cup of coffee at a gas station in the Netherlands, which was awful. It tasted like tar. It gave associations of a wood boat in a dock covered in tar or old telephone poles from long ago when telephone wires still existed. Here, I am thinking of poles made from wood and covered in tar. These days, telephony goes via the Internet. Tar is only used as a metaphor in email traffic to slow the operation. A tarpit server does not smell anything. I am sure you are as baffled as I am about how I can start talking about lousy coffee but end up talking about an email server.

When we arrived at the border of Germany, there was a border control. We did not need to show any passports, however. I remember when one could travel by car in Europe without showing ID at the borders. Is that over now? My joke used to be that every time you drive into a wealthier country, you need to show your ID. We will show our ID at every border on our ride to Sweden, but we will not need to show it anywhere on the way back. I don't think so.

While driving, we talked about how we would do in the evening. I suggested that we should go to a vegetarian restaurant. DW started researching this idea. It appeared that such restaurants existed in Bremen and Hamburg. We had just passed Bremen, so that option went away.

She found a restaurant in the middle of Hamburg. Then, we have an issue with the environmental tax. I don't know the official name. In German, it is called Feinstaubplakette. It turned out that Hamburg didn't have such environmental zones, so we were allowed to drive into the city. Horah, here comes our money, we will spend it in Hamburg. DW booked a table at the restaurant for 8 PM. Then where would we stay for the night? DW found a hotel within walking distance from the restaurant. She booked a room there as well. Now, the plans for the evening were settled. When we came so far we entered a traffic jam to enter the city.

We arrived at the hotel and found a parking. The hotel was modern, with matt black and chrome details. The walls in the staircase were untreated concrete. The hotel was Ruby Lotti. We had a room with a canal below the window.

The shower had glass walls towards the room. It is as if the shower is coming closer to the room for every hotel visit we make. Last time, the door to the shower was in the room; now, the glass cabin of the shower is next to the bed. Next time, the bed is built around the shower. "Darling, do you want to sleep on the right or left side of the shower?"

Then we went on a walk to the restaurant. On the way, we passed a nice-looking building with a canal in front of it. It was cold, around freezing point. We arrived on time for our reservation at the Green Table restaurant. We had not realized it, but it was an Asian vegetarian restaurant.

The menu was average, if that is what you call it. It was good, but we were hoping for a more culinary experience. It was a good restaurant, but there was no extravaganza. We got a small table for two, and the food was sufficiently delicious.

On the way back to the hotel, it was even colder. Usually, I got extra sweaters, but somehow I had left that in the car.

We went to sleep. The cushion was large and sufficiently stiff. I don't like it when you put your head on a cushion, which is so fluffy that it is lying flat on the mattress. That is pointless.

I asked DW if she thought we would get sufficient oxygen during the night, and she did not know. In the middle of the night, I could answer my question with No. I had to open a window.

Saturday 15 February

We woke up early. Had that shower in front of each other. On the way to the parking house, we picked up a cup of coffee, a croissant, and a bagel at a bakery.

Then we started driving. Google Maps was persistent in saying that we should take the ferry. They have a business deal with the ferry company. We had to tinker with the app to let us out from Hamburg to Highway Seven to Denmark, the land route to the bridge between Sweden and Denmark.

When we arrived at the border to Denmark, we had passport control. Gone are the days when you could travel in Europe without showing your ID.

DW took over the wheel when we arrived in Denmark. She likes driving in Denmark. I took a nap. I woke up two hours later. We switched back so that I would drive and DW could rest.

In Denmark, we can listen to Danish radio P1 about the current situation in the world. I could have missed the most intricate nuances of what was being said. As a Swede with Danish colleagues for many years, I understand Danish but am not a native Danish. But okay, I listened to what they talked about, and perhaps it was an entertainment program, but it did not feel like they took the situation seriously. They talked about buying California. I hope the people in this radio program did not represent how Danes generally see the threats to Denmark.

It started snowing. I drove over the bridge between Denmark and Sweden. We went to a large shopping mall in Malmö. I wanted to pick up some gadgets from a gadget shop. This time, we bought primarily torches. One regular, one to wear on a hat, little lights to put on a bag, lamps that looked like candles. Then, we continued driving up through Sweden. We took E4 to Värnamo, and we drove west to the cottage. It was snowy in Sweden, but we had the most snow in Denmark and Malmö.

At 5 PM, we arrived at the cottage.

When we arrived, it was -4 degrees Celsius. DM and DF had preheated the house, and it was lovely. During the night, the temperature went to -13 degrees Celsius. We fired up the wood stove in the living room and the wood stove in the kitchen stove. We turned off the electrical elements. Usually, all is fine when the chimney is heated, but that was not the case. It takes at least 24 hours to heat the chimney. When that is done, we need to keep it reasonably warm. It was a little cold during the night, but I slept well.

Before going to bed, DW prepared a bowl of the fridge dough bread she likes making. The dough rises in the fridge until morning.

Sunday 16 February

This morning, it was sunny and beautiful. I noticed a fox along the road.

DW baked the bread. It was delicious!

The plan for today was to put logs on the steel wagon. A neighbor put down one of our trees standing in the way. I don't know what kind of tree it was. Perhaps a Pinus Sylvestris. It was relatively straight, so I wanted to make planks of it.

It was cold, so all the fat in the tractor had become stiffer. The motor would not like to start without the motor block being preheated. I have never preheated the motor before. I found the cables for that and got it working.

Then, I wanted to fill the tank with diesel, but the spout did not fit perfectly, so I spilled diesel on the tractor. I got two good and bad spouts and took the bad one. I had to clean the diesel from the front of the tractor.

I decided to read the tractor manual and found that I did not know the proper procedure for starting the tractor, especially when it was cold. It is essential to let the tractor pre-glow before igniting. Besides, there was a handle to drag for icy conditions. I got the tractor starting; that was nice.

Then, I wanted to put on the crane. The power transmission was one icy lump of steel. Usually, it can become longer and shorter while rotating. Now, it was solid. We took the bar inside the house to let it defrost. It did not help a bit. I had to pull the two parts apart with the help of ratchet straps. Then, I applied more fat to the parts and put them together. When it was together, it was stuck again.

With the crane on the tractor, it was time for the wagon. That was also challenging. The tip of the wagon was on the ground and embedded in ice. I tried to get it loose, but I was not strong enough. I found out I could use one of the siding beams. I put a block of wood next to the tip of the wagon, and then I dropped the siding bar, and the weight of it and the leverage due to the block made the tip of the wagon break up from the ice.

I pulled out the wagon from the barn. We do that manually. The tip of the wagon needs to be put below the tractor. The crane must be disconnected from the tractor so the arms can be lowered. When the arms are down, the hook can be released. Then, the wagon is placed in the hook.

Now, the arms can go back up again to the crane. This is critical because if the arms get stuck in the crane, it will be tilted. I managed to get the crane back on the tractor without having it fall over.

Then, I could start loading the logs onto the wagon.

I noticed that the left front wheel of the wagon had too little air pressure. We will need to work on that tomorrow. I have a little shopping list: a compressor, cooling liquid, and diesel. I will have a look into this. The tractor will be standing where it is until Wednesday. That is the day when we go to the sowing mill.

In the evening, I listened to conversations going on in Europe. It is hard to hear Mr Putin's talking points from the US administration in 6th-grader language. If you give me chewing gum, can I have your pen? It is challenging to have a 78-year-old child in the top position in a country. The rest of the world is waking up to a new reality.

Here ends this week's blog. I made a song, repaired a washing machine, and we went to our cottage in Sweden. This week, I wrote 3639 words. Some of these I finished Monday morning. I was too tired to blog yesterday evening. See you back next week!