Over the past near-fortnight, we journeyed to Norway with brief stays in the UK on the way to and from. We landed in Heathrow Airport, and instead of taking the usual Heathrow Express, we took the London Underground (a.k.a. the Tube or the subway) which turned out to be longer and a more crowded ride (it was rush hour after all), but definitely less expensive.
Obviously keeping up with this blog has been the least of my priorities over the past 12 months, but to quote that line from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, “I’m not dead yet!” I’ve recently migrated this site to a different cloud platform, figuring out how to reinstate SSL via Let’s Encrypt along the way. Now comes the hard part of catching up on what actually went on IRL since the last post!
I learned the hard way that the foam pad included with the Fjällräven Kånken backpack is not packing material, but is a combination seat pad and “shape-holder.” After having tossed a couple of those pads and learning that the local Fjällräven shop (a) gets a lot of inquiries from folks like myself who chuck those pads and (b) does not stock replacement pads, I ordered this foam sheet roll and crafted replacements for our Kånken backpacks.
The foam sheet is a bit thicker than the OEM pads, so a bit of creative trimming is required, but it’s a small price to pay for a lesson learned!
A couple of months ago I took and passed the Amazon Web Services Certified Solutions Architect Associate (AWS CSAA for those not in the mood to be verbose) exam.
We recently went on a quick weekend trip down to Los Angeles to see our friends’ bands play a rare live gig and to soak up a bit of the sun and the haze.
Nancy will be the first to point out that it takes quite a bit of effort to get me to go see a show, so a bit of nudging was involved in my attending the Robyn Hitchcock gig at the Aladdin Theater this past weekend.
Two weeks is a long time to be away from home (“Tell that to the dog!” said Wanda the Wonder-mutt who spent our vacation in boarding… “Unfair!”), and while we weren’t totally champing at the bit to get back to Oregon, we were definitely looking forward to couch-time with Wanda and other homey delights. But, the journey back can and should be as interesting as the rest of the trip!
I’m sure you’re wondering, “Holy crap, how long were you guys gone for?” As mentioned at the outset, it was about a two week trip, and recounting it even in the format of a blog post has turned out to be a bit of a task. Traditionally folks often kept a “travel diary,” but with tech being tech, I’d been relying on smartphone camera roll-assisted wetware as my notes. So thanks for reading this far, and we definitely are well past the midway point.
It’s a bit over 300 miles from Bergen to Oslo. We’d originally considered renting a car and driving, but the winding roads through the mountains and the high cost of a one-way rental nudged us into buying train tickets. “Surely that’s gotta be easier than driving ourselves, and we’ll be seeing more scenery than if we were flying!” we said to ourselves.
When we mentioned to our friends that we were headed to Norway, the consensus response was that it’s “really expensive over there.” One friend in particular advised us to “avoid the $8 Bud Light!” (multiple levels of wisdom contained therewithin).