Comedy

Just a small plug for an old classmate, Tormod Lien, who is trying to brake in to the stand-up scene in Norway. He's submitted his act to VG's summer competition and here is a link for your enjoyment, provided you understand Norwegian and you can turn your volume to 'extremely high', to me it was all just a faint whisper (so NO, I can't vouch that it is really really good) : http://www.vg.no/video/videoplayer/player.hbs?id=1499

You can vote for him here: http://interaktiv.vg.no/avstemning/?id=2851 even if you haven't heard a word he's said, or indeed understood it.

Homeowners once again

So we did it - signed a million papers, and voila - we're in debt for the next 30 years. But we met with the seller at closing (things are so different here in the States!), and she was telling us all about how she moved into the house at 11 years old, lived there for 44 years, and is now finally selling to retire to the beach with her new husband. She was the youngest of 11 kids to be raised in that house, and her brother still lives next door

I told her about Cecilie's love afair with 'The Yellow House', that she'd picked out her room already, and she seemed happy that our family would take over.

Pictures of the wretched interior to follow soon - I always wished I'd documented the shocking interior of the Sonning house better!

Speaking of action packed lives...

I think it was only a few days ago that I said I lived a rather mundane life, due mostly to poor planning this week should put an end to all of that, greetings from Las Vegas, where it is raining (if you would believe it) .

I am here at the Las Vegas Market http://www.lasvegasmarket.com/, the hottest new in the furniture industry, with ambitions to topple High Point as THE place to meet and buy / sell furniture.

The venue is red hot, it really is a step up from High Point, but the question is if we will be able to meet more qualified buyers here than in New York or Los Angeles... jury 's still out, got to suck it in and talk to more people (networking, my favorite;)

Last night I stayed in the very "old Las Vegas" Four Queens. Made me think of a time a long time ago in the middle of my hayday of gambling when I won $400 at the Golden Nugget across the street (I am still in the black on the aggregate); here's to Rangvald, Paal and Thomas for the best roadtrip in history.

I doubt I will have time to make it to the strip this time, miles of floor to walk before I am taking the red-eye back, tomorrow I am seeing Peter and Brad (and possibly Jim), then we are completing the house purchase on Wednesday, before we have our anneversary on Thursday and I head up to Cape Cod on the weekend after seeing Claire's play and possibly wedging in Chelsea v. DC United at FedEx field.

A regular international (more "national" I suppose) man of mystery...

Other people's action packed life

While Amanda and Peter gets to send out emails about how they are OK in spite of terrorist attacks in London, I spend most of my working time in the basement and sometimes have the feeling that even if the Russkeis should nuke DC I would just come up after an attack brush some dust of my shoulders and get on with my very mundane life.

This morning I got an email from Jon Endre (my brother) about his new job as a financial adviser at Fokus Bank's flagship "store" in Oslo, he's NOT too impressed about his email address ("JONI", how do you get there from his name?) and he wanted to know about shirts and suits which he now needs a few of, so I replied with my standard advice: http://www.brooksbrothers.com and got on my merry way.

Heading for the headlines next, it turns out that his bank was held up shortly after he sent his email. http://www.aftenposten.no/nyheter/iriks/oslo/article1084583.ece I got this stinging feeling that maybe I should have written some sentimental stuff in that email too, at least tell him I love him. His cell phone is turned off, so now I AM panicking, and call dad... "Oh, you've found out already!" (still being blown away by this new technology, my dad) I'm told, "he's fine, he was in 'the line of fire' if that's what you can call it when you are being held up with toy guns. What they got away with we don't know, but he is fine!"

So there you are, he is fine, and I am really glad that I managed to tell him that at Brooks Brothers you can get 100% cotton non-iron shirts, sized by arm length and neck width (another thing to add to my top 10 list about living in America), because that means he can actually make use of this very important information.

I suppose it is a little bit ironic that today Washington seems to be the most peaceful place (from our list) we could choose to live (some severe knocking on wood going on in the background...)

In which Kirsten finally speaks up

Hullo all. Seems as if I've finally found a medium where I can update no one in particular and hopefully therefore update lots of people wondering where the hell I've been for the last 2 yrs. This first posting will be short, as it's late at night and last night was a tough one: Lars up to eat at 12am and 3am, with Cecilie then up at 4am having wet the bed. Not to complain, really, just wanting to put my reality out there...

The woods are lovely dark and deep, and I've got miles to go before I sleep.

More soon

Technically Challenged

Just wanted to say that the list is mine, I just didn't know how to make look as if... Now I know!

Top ten list of reasons I love America

This was my gift to Maria for her birthday, I am so proud of it I wanted to "have it published" (in no particular order):

• Cheap mixed drinks
• Water brought to your table in restaurants without having to ask or pay for it
• Public Broadcast Radio
• HBO
• Optimism
• The Yellow house (that's our new one - yes)
• Climate
• Size (of the "market" (be it for jobs, services, our business, the arts, etc.))
• Friendliness
• Madness - and lots of it
• Straightforwardness
• Service
• Early releases of independent movies - the day of preferential treatment of blockbusters seems to be long gone
• Mexican food
• Family - if you are family and don't live in the USA, please don't feel offended, just move here;) (it is of course compared to England, where we have a lot of really good friends, but sadly NO family)
• Convenience
• Dramatic weather
• Cheap consumer goods

Good ideas, catching like wildfires

So, here we are, the Nilsens in the USA...

We recognize a good thing when we see it and when Eileen introduced us to blogger.com it took a 4 second family conference to move and pass that we would do our own.

Shameless, we know, but SO MUCH FUN.

This is this summer's official family picture, it was taken in May, when the Schneider clan met up in Charlston to celebrate Grampa's 60th. Lars has grown a lot since then, and lost most of his hair, like daddy!