Self-solving problems and pleasant surprises

Last week I had a couple of sound measurements planned in Eskilstuna and Uppsala. However, just a couple of days before departure, I realized that I had forgotten to book a hotel. In big cities, that is usually not a problem, but in a smaller city like Eskilstuna it is quite possible that all the rooms run out on a given night. And that is precisely what happened to me. I found one room left on a place called Thottska Villan, about 20-25 minutes from the city centre. When you consider that you park in front of the entrance, I am not convinced that I even lost any time. But when I arrived on site, I was blown away by what turned out to be jackpot as far as hotel nights go.

Diary, Parenting, Travel, MusicRikard ÖqvistFebruary 13, 2023road trip, travelling, hotel, surprise, expectationComment

Road trip

This last weekend I experienced freedom of a kind I haven’t felt in years. I went on a road trip with my 2,5-year-old son Elis and my Labrador Jussi. I had been looking forward to this trip and been prepping the whole week. Elis is now old enough that he is no problem at all to travel with. And he loves anything with an engine so long car journeys are pure fun. We would spend the night south of Luleå at my friend’s house. After a quick stop in Skellefteå where we both had a smoothie as a snack something unexpected happened, that made the road trip even more enjoyable. Around 21:30 Elis suddenly decided to replicate Gary´s puke scene from Team America in the front seat of my car.

Parenting, TravelRikard ÖqvistAugust 23, 2021dad, child, parenting, road trip, travelling, familyComment

New year's resolution 2021: Double up

We all have different personality profiles with corresponding strengths and weaknesses, and I have learned the hard way that one of my biggest weaknesses is my ability to gather and pack my stuff on a short notice. For example, a couple of years ago I was going to do a university lecture and record it for later YouTube publication. As you can imagine, it involves a lot of technology with microphones, cables, sound cards, cameras etc… My lecture was scheduled to start around 10:00 in the morning, and since we lived close to campus back then, I thought it would be fine to gather up my stuff in the morning just before I leave. My wife got home before me that day, and when she entered our little office the whole place was a complete mess. Cables and stuff were lying everywhere, and it is probably what a home burglary looks like. However, my wife knows me well so she could easily figure out what had happened.

Habits, TravelRikard ÖqvistJanuary 2, 2021habits, travelling, productivity, lifehack, packing, simplify, stress, planning, focus, new years resolutionComment

Epic video gaming moments

What Microsoft has done with Flight Simulator 2020 is nothing but mind blowing. They have digitalized the entire world for us to fly around in. They have used map data with height geometry and flight and satellite photos from Bing and combined it with AI magic that have generated buildings and trees with image recognition technology. The weather is rendered in real time, so if you look outside and it’s a rainy sunset in Umeå, that is precisely what you will experience if you fire up the simulator and take off from Umeå Airport. If you go low enough, you can even see cars driving on the roads. The graphics are nothing short of stunning. It is by far the most beautiful video game I have seen. However, that last sentence will probably age poorly, because I have said the same thing about Super Mario on the NES.