Back from Off-line outback

I just got back from spending 10 days at sea without accessing the net fom the daily dose of neighbourhood watch and news consumption, it was refreshing. I did however use my phone for photography and video recording. I did enjoy tuning out of technology. One of the things I discovered, was that my fully charged iPod touch completely run out of battery, without being switched on even once.

One of the things I noticed was what I call the 'curse of comfort' is spreading fast. It is a mobile curse. People have become comfort spoled. They want their boats to be comfortable, they should have a front and rear cabin, this drives up length to 33-37ft, people want fridges, water by turning the tap, many want a TV, a good heater is a must and suddenly you realize that you consume lots of energy. This leads to overcowding in guestharbours where electricity is abundant.  Suddenly sailing has become camping at sea. The good news, is that there is muh more room off the beaten track, where there is no electricity, no comfort, only lots of rocks.... People do not dare to adventure into the deeper archipelago. Next year I have to do even more power optimisation to ensure I can spend more time in 'white water' where others don't hang out. This ruggedness and wilderness is such a wonderful contrast to London. Imagine not to see any significant signs of civilisation is cool, but it requires a strict gadget diet, no battery hogging gizmos turned on...

Velorution – The total bicycle experience in London

In my slow going greener campain, I have been thinking what wheels to get, and I decided on a Brompton, a classic foldable bike made in England. I will post more on this cool bike later; this is the story of where I got it: Velorution. Velorution is a fanastic bike shop in London, just 3min walking from Oxford circus on 18 Great Tichfield Street. The shop is a fusion of gallery and bikeshop. There is lots of space and the bikes are a feast for the eye. I had never imagined the range of bicycles as I saw there. The walls were filled with bike related art. Unfortunately the charismatic blogger/owner Andrea, who runs the popular blog Velorution was not there.  The blog, mixing tech reviews, lifestyle commenting, art commenting and politics and some light veloporn. The blog is fantastic, and very informative. Velorution is an example of retail renaissance, where its presence is far greater than the neighborhood it spans. Mixing of blog, showroom and ofcourse meticulous maintenance in basement. I had to wait for 30minutes as the previous customer got the right Dynamo for his Christiania. First I thought it was poor service, but then I realized, it is ultimate service, real care, there was only bike Doctor and he had another patient. I was warmly velcomed and encourage to fiddle with the bikes, I did. It was great to do that without someone breathing down my neck. Even Maud enjoyed herself, inspecting the bikes, the different lights. Andrea, seems very keen in Fashion, he is Italian, and has created something he calls Pret-a-Rouler, a fashion show of bikes and suitable clothing, not the tight synthetics with big ads, no this is haute couture. It is discoveries like this that makes London totally unique, the market is big enough for this kind of segmentation and tribute to retail lifestyle – A real moving experience - Horaaay.

Look into the crystal ball and make 2008 a blast

I wanted to wish all of you a wonderful New Year. Going through my pictures, I stumbled on these glass balls and I thought they looked like 2008. I did not want to wish you a new year with some great snow motif, as I have not seen proper snow this winter. London does not even dream of a white winter anymore, the folks in Helsinki still do. We spent it in London with the girls and some good food. Lots of Fireworks.

Tuscany is timeless beauty

Dawn in Castellina

Having grown up in Finland and having a Danish heritage the scenes of Tuscany seem very exotic. The very wide and deep vista, small winding roads everywhere, not built for cars. Ancient villages where one can sense the long heritage. This region has enjoyed an amazing surge, the property prices for Tuscan farmhouses are surreal. One of the best things with Tuscany is food. The kids simply loved the pasta, Gnocchi with Gorgonzola was a real hit.

This view from the house we had rented in the beginning of June is was simply amazing. This picture is taken 5.22 with a Nikon D40. I think the view was 40km deep and 50km wide. It was like a live movie in fron of the eyes, everyday was different, fog, dark clouds, bright clear light, plain sunshine. This kind of views does not exist in Scandinavia.

Speed & Angels movie is a mind-blowing experience

Fighter jets have always fascinated me in some way as the ultimate power machines. Ever since seeing the fictional Top Gun with Tom Cruise I have had an image of these amazing men in their flying machines. It was with this though I went to the screening of Speed & Angels in San Francisco last week. I got an invitation from my friends Sarah and Steve who said in their discreet way if I did not have anything special to do that evening that I should come to the screening. I went and was blown away, I mean completely blown away. (trailer). Here I am watching a documentary, which immediately forgot, about two people, yes two ordinary people with a lot of drive, passions to become fighter pilots. One is a woman and the other is a man. The story which follows them through their last year of flight training is so amazing that my brain somehow forces this movie into the fictional part of the brain, filtering what is said and experienced. Let me take an example, the leading man in the movie Jay is an ordinary guy who grew up in a small town. At the age of 17 or so he is shot in the mouth by a marine soldier showing off and having an accident. If you are shot in the mouth and the bullet goes through your neck you are, in every case except in Hollywood screen writing, dead, but no, this is Jay and I am watching a documentary. The other character is Meagan an ordinary 24 year old woman, who is the Kelly McGuiness of this Top Gun movie except she does not fall in love with Jay and waits on the ground, but she is up there with mostly men in this amazing machine, kicking well most guys but. Again Hollywood could not have written this character, a beautiful funny ordinary girl who is a top notch fighter pilot. It does not fit the fictional mold, well again it is not fiction; this is reality.

Without giving the ‘plot’ away I can only say that this was one of the best action films I have seen in a very long time and being a documentary, it just does fit into my mind. This is a movie that feels, sounds like a Hollywood movie, but it does not have any special effects, stunt actors, it is just the true story.

I know nothing of movie making, other than it is darn hard to shoot any meaningful footage as an amateur. But the challenge Spellbound Entertainment has in positioning this, distributing it and marketing it is amazing. They sit on a story far beyond what

Hollywood could produce and at the same time they are trapped in the convention of what a documentary should be. Fortunately these are very smart people, so I am sure they will figure it out. I am sure this will be a bigger hit than Super Seize Me or Fahrenheit 9/11 provided they find a way how to unlock it into the wide audience. I can really imagine a high school jock invi ting a girl on a date and that the girl is not only entertained by the jock, but inspired of what women can accomplish in a world of men. So if you have a chance check it out when it hits the theatres and I am sure you will like me, be blown away. This is about a 8,5G movie, it will knock you out!

Vittel water encourages waste.

The ad at Green Parkon on Jubilee line. It is a bit of a hard read, but you get the point.

This ad made me furious. How stupid and unresponsible do you have to come up with this dumb idea. Not to speak of suggesting it to a client and finally for the client to approve it. There is acute shortage of water in the world. Even the Mayor of London sent us a 'personal' letter urgeing us to save for example not to water plants. Then I see Vittel encourageing people to waste even waste as a competition which will just put fuel on the fire. If you share my anger lets not buy their water. With me they just lost one customer for life!

Live from the world cup semi-final

The amazing stadium in Munich.

It is kick off. Let the battle begin.

The French supporters are ready.

But so are the Portugese.

The second semi final started and the mood in the stadium is amazing. It will be an tremendeous battle. Seeing it live is a full sensory experience and something worth feeling. The game lends it well to gigant stadiums. We are sitting on the 15 row in the French end and we have a great view. The architects did a great job in getting a feeling of cosyness in a place hosting 66000 people. The drama is amazing France is got a free kick and scored! Great start! Allez les bleus . . . (Added later: The Goal scored by Zinedine Zidane was the only one scored and France moved on to the Finale. )

Still in the middle of moving, no home several houses

It has been a while since I posted last. Lots has happened. My wife emptied our flat divided everything in two piles one for London and the other for the summer house in Tammisaari, it was a huge task, I think around 130 boxes. Well done super woman! . I hurried along in airports occacionally stopping by at the tempory flat in London if not flying home to the girls in Helsinki. Now we are all in London, on Wednesday we looked forward to moving into our house in London, but our landlord let us down. When the moving men with our boxes knocked on the door the place was a work site. Fortunately we had the tempory flat which is big enough to host us, two bed rooms, one for us four and one for our au pair Ansku, who is really nice. As our move to the summer house was delayed and generally a catasrophe, the moving men came 9hours late at 9PM. For a few weeks we found our selves having 4 houses and no home. Now we have 3 houses and still no home. It is quite stressful, but all part of the adventure. We hope to move in next Friday, I gave them 9 extra days. The workers are making progress, and I have managed to get the landlord to fix it up to a better standard, which I actually think does the location justice.

Borgström Konst & Antik is becoming the most interesting antique shop in Finland

Antique destination in the making.

Bamse decorating the new shop.

Silly dog to decorate antique chair.

Bamse Borgström infront of his new shop

                
My friend Joachim "Bamse" Borgström just moved his antique shop to Korkeanvuorenkatu, very close to where I live. This is great news as I now can pop in and check what is new and have a chat about art and antiques. It is also in my opinion at the best location in town. Bamse is a unique character. He is in his early thirties and has been in the antique 'business' more than 10 years. He is already a renounded expert on Finnish and Russian silver. He was the Vice President of the most famous auction house Bokowski-Hörhammar, here he learned alot about high quality stuff. He has a sharp eye for good stuff and searches for stuff with lasting value and a touché of humour. He showed me a cigar train he recently found. At the moment he has found an interest in sculptures, something he feels is not properly valued, as so much beautiful is being sold at very resonable prices. What I liked most were the two 17th century Dutch paintings he bought and recently renovated - Stunning. I would have bought both, but I looked in my wallet and there was 40 Euro... ;-)

Great menswear in Rome at David of Rome

David of Rome is a my favourite mensware shop in Rome, it is owned by Jack Sasson a Itialian gentleman with a deep understanding of italian quality menswear. I have been a passive customer for several years, as my business very seldom takes me to Rome. Last week I had a chance to go to Rome meeting press about Lifeblog. I called Jack and he said he would wait for me. I knew from the past that he runs a sale from mid January until mid February and from mid August to mide September. This is a great time to buy as he runs 30% off almost everything. He carries Georgio Armani, Versace (they seem to be working on a new site) and Ermenegildo Zenga. I am mostly fond of the Zenga stuff. The reason I like to shop with him is that he is very knowledgable, honest and has a really great service. For example once I called him on the phone and asked if he could send me two shirts, I specified what I needed and I arrived few days later, I think he did not even charge me for postage! This time he offered to deliver my pants to my hotel, as I was too busy to pick them up. Few years ago I bought some Zenga suits and a jacket and the quality has been fantastic. I travel alot and stuff down my stuff in a carry-on bag so the quality has to be good otherwise it comes out with wrinkles all over. You can find Jack at David of Rome, Via Berberini 61, about a 10 minute walk from the Spannish steps towards the train station.

His shop looks a bit touristy, but when you discuss with him and feel the quality of the cloth you know that you are in a shop where someone cares for quality and for the customer. If you visit him, send regards from me and drop a comment on this post. He told me that the fall was a bit slow, so I tried to help out a friend...

Il Duomo di Milano is breathtaking

Beautiful floor in the breathtaking Catedral in Milan

Il Duomo di Milano

Duomo di Milano from the outside. They as restoring the front. This is a side view.

I had 15 minutes extra on the way to the airport and I could not think of a better way to spend it than visiting the Cathedral in Milan. It is amazing. Everytime I come in to these marvels of engineering and design I ask myself what will be left from our generation. Everything we create is short term. There are very few business models which could handle projects like this. Everyone wants returns in less than 5 years or some bold wants to be profitable in 25. These projects where signs of power and maybe the fact is that there are noone powerful enough to build stuff like this. I am ofcourse very well aware that creating these landmarks have not come without great sacrifice of individuals.  I just arrived in Rome one of my favorite cities in the world. I just love the blend of old and new, the human culture is so tangible in Rome. I posted this in the taxi on my way downtown...

Neil Barrett does the Tripple convergence shoe.

The shoe is an amazing example of convergence

The bottom combines hiking shoe with fine salon style leather

                                                                                                         
       Neil Barrett is an convergence master. He managed to combine the coolness of a sneaker with the looks of a business shoe and the utility of a hiking shoe. Not bad for a new kid on the block. My collague Olli picked these up recently and I thought they represent a new wave of what I dubbed convergence shoes in an earlier post. Neil went from school to a senior designer for Gucci to Design director of mensware at Prada to launching own brand in less than 10 years, pretty darn impressive in that field. Now five years down his own company he designs for labels like Puma and Samsonite. I am sure we will hear much more from this guy. Gee I guess I have to pick up a pair or wait for someone to send me a pair...

Moving Experiences - or the electronic me celebrates its first birthday

Time flies, it is today 1 year since I was born electronically and I feel I have learnt as much as a baby does in its first year. The site has undergone some major modifications. A timeline was added on the main page and flash timeline of my moving trail was added. We added improved category management and finally in December the family section was modified to add Maud.

I thought I would reflect a bit on my blogging experience so far:

* The blog is a good electronic representation of me, I feel it serves its purpose. I am happy with its scope and design. I get more out of my blog than I put in.

Continue reading "Moving Experiences - or the electronic me celebrates its first birthday"

The latest Lego house kit, the Building Bonanza is great

The front of the Lego villa.

The back of the villa.

Building Bonanza materialise the new Lego finding its lost core values. It is a typical Scandinavian suburbia villa. It has some custom roof and windows pieces. I think it looked great and at €49.95 it was a resonable deal. What I discovered is that it is now €59.95, which I think is not good value anymore. Wonder why this dramatic price increase after introduction. The key reason for my critique is the back of the building. No windows, no special elements nothing fancy. Their website has two shots of the model and the show a fron and a side view, he side with a window. The model is somewhat smaller than the impression in the pictures, but it is still a good sized model. One feature I really liked was that there were very detailed plans for three models and some concepts ideas for a lighthouse among others. Another thing which Karen really liked was that one could remove the rof easily, thus furbishing the inside. She filled the inside floor with floor tiles (not part of Building Bonanza) and build beds and sofas. The model was not really a gife for her, but for me ;-) Her comment: Daddy, you are silly when you buy presents for yourself. Well what can I say. She is right.

Try to relax, its Christmas.

I wish all of you a very peaceful Christmas. The time has again come to rush to relax. One of ironies of life is playing out tonight: As a child the Christmas day seemed to be the longest day of the year and as an adult there are not enough hours to get everything done. Once done the day is over and it is time to go to bed. Subsequently this is not a day I look forward to, so now you understand the headline. Tomorrow is better, do nothing day!

Wine from 1923 - a truly moving experience

Clos-De-Beze 1923 - The label was destroyed.

The amazing wine with such a rich story.

                                                                                                                     Last night I had an moving experience. My friend Jerome was hosting a wine tasting and the grand finale was a Clos-de-Beze from 1923. This bottle was one of many hundred found in a cellar in Belgium. This cellar was hidden from the Nazis so well that it was not until 60 after it was sealed it accidently was found by the new owners. Wine this old is almost always undrinkable but not this one. It was unclear almost like raisin drink and that also came through in its taste. Wine being a living product evolving slowly and gracefully. I have never tasted a wine like this it was so rich with taste, history and warm feeling. It was more like port without the sweetness. Thanks Jerome for sharing this treasure with us. Thanks to the amazing people having the foresight in dark times of war to hide these treasures so well that they could be enjoyed in time of peace a couple of generations later.

LEGO innovating again

LEGO is back innovating. This time it has engaged kids in designing models using a virtual brick studio and factory where kids can design models and compete for the possibility to have them mass produced for real, more info here. The kids get their name on the package and they get enough of them to give to all of their friends. I found this concept extremely cool, it is the good old LEGO, the LEGO that brings the creativity out of the kids. Congratulations Mark (see the intersting article Mark wrote in ThinkAbout Times on page 13  about current LEGO developments.) and Lisbeth for creating this experience !. What makes it so cool is that winners will get their models mass produced.  It provides parents and kids the possibility to cooperate making the bond between kids and parents stronger. I was thinking of signing up with Karen, but she is too young ;-)

I looked at what kids where creating and submitting and it seemed to be alot of buildings. This makes perfect sense to me, there are not many good building models available and it seems that it what kids like to build. It correlates with my own building habits I had 30 years ago and that I have today. Karen and I cooperate on building buildings. The only problem buildings consume alot of bricks.

I went to their web shop and shopped around. I must say I found the site to be straight forward and easy to use. The key thing I was missing was a bit more of the: "People who bought this also bought that" so familiar from Amazon. What is cool on their site is the possibility to buy bricks by shape and colour, allowing you to get key building block in short supply in kits. I opted for a few bags of special and added their biggest box, the 1200 piece box. I found that the price (€39.99) is the same as for the 1000 piece box in retail, so shipping is not a burden, and with the special brick kits it became a real fun shopping experience. I think I spent more than 1 hour in the shop. The bricks arrived about 1 week after ordering, this was with slow shipping.

What I would like to see is more specials for signed up customers and good bargins. I am eagerly going to wait for a sale, I am very curious how dynamic their shop it. It has alot of potential, the challenge is how to drive more business into it. Another challenge is ofcourse the conflict between the physical channel and the virtual, but with LEGO having such a rich offering this could be avoided with some segmentation.

Winter wonderland. The first snow is always amazing, so calm and harmonious.

Winter wonderland arrived today in Helsinki. The first snow and lots of it The downtown Esplanade park looked like something out of a fairy tale.

Karen meets her little sister Maud Elise.

Big sister meets the little sister.

Study of her face.

Study of her hands.

Study of her feet.

Karen was amazed to meet her little sister Maud. She wanted to see everything, feet, face and feet. Karen holding Maud was the high point, she really enjoyed being the big sister. One could feel the responsibility in her face. The thought -This is no doll, must have crossed her mind. The newborn was 48cm and weighed 3690g and is healthy.

We decided that she would be called Maud Elise. It fitted our criteria of being poetic, short, international, rare and memorable. One inspiration was Dronning Maud, the Norvegian Queen, I guess grand mother of the current King Haakon of Norway.

Make the world safer. Get rid of Bush.

Wed 20/10/2004 09:32 Helsinki(027)

"You are either with us or against us." If a man uses these kind of statements in politics and at the same time has the most powerful war machine then it to me is an ultimatum and that is not the peaceful approach. We in Europe do not get to vote in this world election and yet our lives are affected. This is my personal pledge to my friends in the US. If you are a Republican do not be selfish, but cast the vote for a better world and I have to believe we will have one with Kerry at the helm. He will have a better chance to unite the world as the Europeans are all for him. PS. I trust George Soros when he says this is not an attempt to get into US politics. He just works for better market economies. Few years ago I went to Riga, the capital of Latvia. Soros had been a major sponsor of the first business school in Riga. Hearing the school management and the student speak of him made me a lasting positive impression.

The Cerritos library transforms access to knowledge.

The Cerritos library.

The Art Deco room.

The childrens department.

The reading room.

I had a great opportunity to spend two days at the Cerritos library talking with its creator Waynn Pearson and his wife Holly Henman. His views on on access to knowledge and his quest for the learning experience were very interesting.

Raisins from the bush

I just came across some dried grapes on the bush, which technically is raisins. I have very rarely had such a moving experience. Nature is the best at maturing stuff. These grapes were warm having been baked in the hot Napa sun. With most of the water evaporated what one was left with was intense flavours. I have never seen this marketed before, but as it does not look too appealing I think the consumers would reject it. Well atleas I got some and I will cherish it for quite some time.

Lego is great, but have they lost their soul

I was reading an article about Lego and their struggles. Having followed their innovation I sometimes wonder is it self caused or a result of a fundamental change in children’s taste?

I think it was self caused, driven by the quest for growth, and in that quest they lots their soul – let the imagination to the builder not the creator.

Continue reading "Lego is great, but have they lost their soul"

Mobile digital Logbook

For centuries sailors have kept logbooks of their travels and experiences. Sailors log dates, positions, distances sailed and other events occuring during the journey. These became wonderful assets for historians, but were really poor for realtime sharing. As we now live in the digital age, I wanted to try to build a mobile and digital version of the Logbook. I then used it in the archipelago, yes, we have GPRS coverage, where there is 'just' nature.

The concept is a vertical timeline, where I have a small thumbnail and then a column of text and a button to open the full post. (See attached photo) The concept seems to be quite good. I invited my family to watch it and they seemed happy getting pics and updates of journey progress. I decided to write in Swedish, as it is only for a restricted audience.

What I noticed is that sailing at 5 knots and typing is actually more 'processor' intensive than driving 100km on the freeway. I just noticed that I either lost my course or made typing errors. This peaked one day with 30knots of wind.

What I really enjoyed is that it is quite unobstrusive to create content and while sailing there are plenty of small moments when it is posible to create content.

The PC is just too big, power hungry and vunerable at sea.

This type of concept will work well for all kinds of ad hoc travel logs, where the traveller travels light, only with the mobile.

I used the ATOM enabled blog client proof of concept we created. We we have shown once in a while.

The Hallberg-Rassy 29 is a Classic

The Hallberg-Rassy 29 is according to many one of their most beautiful designs. Its high sharp bow is as high as modern 36 foot yachts giving the boat a fantastic side profile and power to drive the boat through waves. The boat was designed by the legendary Swedish yacht designers Olle Enderlein and the founder of of Hallberg-Rassy boat yard Christoph Rassy. The design has so many great innovations, looks like there must have been some wonderful debates perfecting the design. It was first introduced in 1982 during its 14 years in production 571 yachts were produced. The boat has typically 4 berths, I have seen some pictures with boats with five. Our has 4 which means that the boat has an amazing amount of storage space in the steering area. This builds a fundament for ship shape. I can fit the liferaft, rubber dinghy, sails and all ropes, fenders extra gas. We even store the trash in the aftmost, when at sea.

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Holiday started - A period of family driven life recording

Today is the first day of my summer holiday. Five weeks of intense relaxation is exactly what I need. I think the Finnish tradition of long holidays provides a great work-life balance. Up in the north the winter nights are long and accumulating energy is crucial. We will spend the time along the coast, sailing and island hopping. A week at the summer cottage.

I am planning to do some mobile blogging with the Blog client which now is starting to be quite stable and having the client working alongside Lifeblog gives me good tools for Life recording.

Still life

Still life with Apples and oranges. This is not trying to be a dutch masterpiece, as you can see there are no beautiful waterdrops or flies in this picture as there would be in finer still lives from 17th century Holland. This was a picture blogged with the 7610 using new version of photoblog. I decided to keep it just as a small record. Check out the timeline for a more interesting little case. Two pictures with text that is a story and with a bit of idea behind it it is narrative...

Chez Dominique – the culinary peak in Finland

If we are to follow the advice of Guide Rouge also know as Guide Michelin, food lovers now have a reason to do a detour to Chez Dominique in Finland on their way somewhere. The guide states that two star restaurants are well worth a detour on the journey. For me it has been the destination twice this year. First with my wife, a food lover with a very delicate sense of taste. The second time last week with a partner also food lover and family centric recorder. Both evenings were culinary peaks elevated by good company. The restaurant is a wonderful small place with an utterly professional attitude, you come here for food, and everything else is reduced to professional minimalism in the Scandinavian design tradition.

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Do not litter the world with wind power

I do not believe wind power will solve our ecological crisis, it will just add another dimension to it – A visually spoiled world.

I am very fond of the Finnish archipelago, the sea and nature in general. My summers are spent in the archipelago and recently I learned that they are planning to build some wind power plants in one of the most beautiful parts of the Finnish archipelago on the Högsåra island. To me this plan is absurd! Fortunately there is now an organisation trying to stop it called Nature friends of the archipelago. I really hope they will succeed.

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Sea Horse is a pure Finnish melting pot.

Sea Horse is one of the oldest restaurants in Helsinki. It opened in 1934 and has been a favourite of sailors, workers, artists and locals. The Jazz legend Dizzy gillespie once visited the place and had the fried herring, which I also like alot. He ate everything and run into the kitchen demanding more. I can undertand his reaction.

The menu is rich with Finnish specialities, pure food made of natures best ingredients, with a genereous spoon of butter for that extra rich taste.

The fresco on the wall was according to the legend either done by a starving student or by students breaking in one late night. It was painted in the 1940's and is actually very trendy by modern measures.

Continue reading "Sea Horse is a pure Finnish melting pot."

The SUV of shoes.

There is a gigant trend in shoes which I call convergence shoes, where Cole Haan is driving mass market. I bought a pair of Eldridge shoes. They are as comfortable as sneakers, but are more business like. To me they are like the SUV cars, leisure car in a urban environment. Denmark's Ecco invented this type of shoe and Prada made it hot few years ago. Now Cole Haan, the Nike subsidiary is making it a commercial success. What I like with the Cole Haan is that they really represent a convergence shoe as they merge two brands, the Nike brand for technology and the Cole Haan brand for style. The salesman told me that these types of shoes already constitute 30% of Cole Haan's business. I must say I am impressed by this kind of innovation in such a mature product as a shoe.

Chill out with some serious soul food.

The Ian Schrager hotel Clift is an amazing place and its restaurant Asia de Cuba is serving fusion food with lots of chill. Very cool. We were sitting at the very cool bar table, with crystal engravings, giving a magical lighting. The food was an amazing fusion of Asian tastes with heavy meat components. We ordered several dishes which we shared among the table. It made the atmoshere feel casual. The setting of the place is truly moving experience, the quality of the place is very tangible, so tangible that they are in financial trouble. Here are some pictures of the interior. If you are in San Fransisco it is well worth a visit.

La Cinquecento would be ready for a renaissance!

La Cinquecento or the Fiat 500, is in my mind ripe for a relaunch like the Beetle and the Mini. The Mini has been a big success, with around 170.000 sold units last year. The roundish style and retro look of the Cincuecenta could be an interesting alternative to the Smart car seen frequently in downtown in European cities. I hope someone is thinking about it...

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Gourmet Junk - Not an oxymoron at Gregoire in Berkeley

Eating gourmet food from junk food cartons at Gregoire restaurant with the Berkely sun shining in my face was nothing less than a moving experience.

Here is a small collague from this Moving experience a sunny Sunday in February.

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On top of Google - As me as an editor

Today on the 9th of February, 20 days since my url and new identity was e-born, I emerged at the top of the rankings in Google.

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Lunch at Cantinneta Tra Vigne

The Tra Vigne restaurant in the hearth of Napa Valley has been a destination for food lovers for long. I had a chance to spend a wonderful day in their patio with great food and good company.

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Radio sailing - a truly moving experience

A very dear hobby of mine has been to build and race radio controlled sailing yachts. I have built more than 15 boats and raced in races all around the world. Here I am with my latest boat called 'Blåndin', a Graham Bantock design. Below you see a couple of shots of me with the boat giving you a sense of size of these little machines.

(The pictures courtesy of Bino Haeggström)

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Calm before the storm...

This is a picture of Amanda, our Hallberg-Rassy 29, anchored in the Finnish archipelago.

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Posting from browser

This is something I posted using Quikpost, lets see what happens

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Category Overview

The category Play will discuss experiences that rocks the sould and that have shaped my life in one way or another. These could be good food, funny moments or actually anything that pops up in my mind.