randomness to clear my head*

fitful sleep, filled with nightmares about the environment and global warming, tossing and turning and hearing the alarm even tho' it wasn't ringing. strangely, when i woke up, the bracelet i always wear on my right wrist was on my left one. i don't really remember the dreams exactly, they were disjointed and noisy and colorful yet dark at the same time. there was some kind of planned landing in water (my dreams always involve planes), where we smoothly went under and lodged in the soft bottom of the sea and proceeded calmly to gather our things and get ready to leave the plane as if things were totally normal. at least no wings were sheared off from landing between tall buildings that were simply too close for that--that's what usually happens. and there was something about sabin being missing and me frantically searching for her. i woke up, heart pounding, having to check that she was indeed here, because although disjointed, it was very real. but it was strange to wake up to the life that's going on over here in the (ostensibly) awake world. perhaps i should go to bed before 2 a.m. tonight.

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please check out the wonderful, giving post on how you can help kelaya over on tangobaby. kelaya is a woman who fled an abusive husband together with her three children and because all of the shelters are full, she needs your help. the lovely and talented tangobaby has set up a way for you to do that. because she's just that cool. please go read kelaya's story and do what you can, even if it's only leaving a note of support.

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the poor swedish police, they always seem to have the worst luck. just reading in my newspaper that a 40-year-old swedish count and his 38-year-old girlfriend were brutally shot on tuesday outside his daughter's school in the middle of gamla stan in stockholm. and, as is often the case (remember olof palme and the early days of the anna lindh case, tho' thankfully they eventually solved that one), they have no clue who did it, despite it happening in broad daylight. they brought in some jetset ad exec for questioning (he's friends with the count's ex-wife), but released him again after a few hours.  meanwhile, the count and his girlfriend are in critical condition in a stockholm hospital. 

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interesting:

annual danish military budget: 20 billion danish kroner

amount made by maersk on US military shipping contracts in 2007:
18 billion danish kroner

source: information 

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a few people among my influx of new readers here and those checking out my photostream on flickr have asked me for advice for amateur photographers. ha! imagine that, asking me for photographic advice! i am the most amateur of amateur photographers myself, i'm just fortunate to have access to some good cameras and lenses (nikon, nikon, nikon). and also fortunate to be part of the digital age. when you take a dozen pictures of every subject, one of them is bound to turn out, right?
 

but to be serious for a second, i will say that developing your eye is the best advice i can offer. and carry your camera with you everywhere. everywhere. i take my camera in when i go to the grocery store (that's only partly to do with the fact that it's worth more than my car). i am never, ever without a camera.  and when you do that, you start noticing things...like shadows and light and eyeballs on the trees. 

you also find that you get increasingly fearless in stopping and snapping pictures (i don't do much of that with people, mostly with things, if you take pictures of people, you should ask them if it's ok). you lose your self-consciousness and you get down on your knees to get the right angle, and you stop caring what people might think of that. you may also start carrying a little pouch containing subjects that you photograph in various places.

so my best advice to amateur photographers--take your camera everywhere and be totally fearless. 

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please tell me i did not just hear a CNN weather man say expecially....

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please forgive crappy quality of phone picture

do you ever stand next to such a door on a plane at cruising altitude and feel a nearly irresistible urge to open it? don't worry, i resisted. they were about to come around with cocktails and those great little bowls of posh mixed nuts (no peanuts), so the urge passed.

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and finally, a question: what would your dream job be? it sounds like a weird question to ask in these troubled economic times, but perhaps a bit of creative thinking is warranted these days. what would you most like to do?

*this may become a regular feature. my head seems to need a lot of clearing.

taking off

iPhone photo of SAS in-flight shopping catalog

despite the fact that i have, for years, now, thought known that i will die in a plane crash (a statement that makes people very, very nervous when you utter it calmly and matter-of-factly), i love to fly. i adore it. it gives me a rush and a high.  sitting on the runway, catching a glimpse of the shadow of the plane, i feel a flutter of good excitement in my chest:

just thinking about how incredible it is that such a large hunk of metal can be airborne. the moment where it's our turn and the plane pivots into position at the end of the runway.

you can almost feel the whole plane taking a deep breath and getting ready for the rush of speed that will  lift it off the ground. and then, the blissful rush of speed. and lift and the sight of the ground moving away beneath us. the feel and the sound of the landing gear tucking up into place in the belly of the plane (unless you're on one of those Dash 8-400s (note: never name a plane something that rhymes with crash) planes that SAS sold off to Philippine Airlines, the landing gear not so reliable on those, naughty design, you Bombadier people. however, i digress). the climb up to cruising altitude.  i love it all.

i love seeing the ground recede. i love catching a glimpse of sunshine glistening on the wing. i love bursting through to the quiet, clear skies above the clouds (which almost always happens in leaving copenhagen, since it's ALWAYS cloudy).

i have more affection for taking off than for landing. i think it's because i'm always a little disappointed that we're landing already, especially on the short flight from oslo to copenhagen, which i will be taking more frequently again, since i'm starting a new job up there. with the same company as i worked for last year, but in a different position and this time as a "real" employee, rather than a consultant. and despite the GEC and CO2, i will be flying quite a lot, not only to work, since i live in a different country than my workplace, but also to all sorts of exciting destinations to interview people and gather stories. so i have lots of take-offs and landings to look forward to. and i think it only hit me yesterday, when i flew for the first time in nearly two months, how much i crave that take-off rush. i hope i never get tired of it.

maybe i was a bird in my last life.