Self-solving problems and pleasant surprises
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.

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Diary, Parenting, Travel, MusicRikard Öqvistroad trip, travelling, hotel, surprise, expectationComment
Red light is awesome
Red light is awesome

A couple of years ago, I was very interested in stargazing. One important and useful lesson that I learned when carrying around large telescopes in very dark places, was that red light is your best friend. When you spend time in darkness, eventually your eyes will adjust their ability to see in darkness. If you are exposed to strong light from e.g., a flashlight, headlight or device screen, you will instantly overload your sensitive eyes and consequentially wait for a while until your eyes adjust themselves back. Needless to say, it is thus crucial to adapt your eyes when stargazing – and to keep them that way until you are done. But how to orient oneself in pitch black darkness? By using red light!

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Photography, Diary, EducationRikard Öqvistrgb, physics, light, stargazing, telescope, nightComment
Accelerate, it might work!
Accelerate, it might work!

For a couple of months now, I have occasionally been a bit angry with myself, struggling to stay focused for prolonged periods of time. I have had this problem for as long as I can remember, and it does not serve me well. Well, there’s probably some kind of upside even to that, but I can’t think of it at the moment. However, I have found a quick fix for this problem that was blatantly obvious. I have put a small photograph of one of my sons on my desk, just below my computer monitor. That way, he will never leave my field of vision ever. And every time my eyes pass by, it puts a smile on my face and instantly guides me back to the right path again. As soon as my mind starts to drift, I look at him and remember that whatever I am thinking of, it is probably not as important as finishing what I am working on ASAP so that I will get a couple of more minutes with the family.

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ParentingRikard Öqvistfocus, parenting, priorities Comment
There is no work-life balance
There is no work-life balance

About ten years ago, I was the lead guitar player in a successful metal band called Meadows End. Playing on that level, including international tours, was something I had dreamt about since I was a little kid. A couple of thousand hours of hard work later I finally achieved my goal. The joy was unfortunately cut short. After only two albums, my life hit a fork in the road. I was writing my PhD thesis at the same time and had been under heavy stress for a long time. After many long conversations with my wife, and mental gymnastics on how to make it work even though it meant placing three suitcases (career, family and the band) in a baggage compartment that had room for two, I finally realized that I had to let go of one of them. That was the hardest decision of my life.

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Engineering, Diary, Acoustics, ParentingRikard Öqvistfamily, career, goals, teaching, music, bim, civil engineeringComment
Two wrongs can make a right
Two wrongs can make a right

Yesterday I decided to clean one of my computers, which had a thick layer of dust on every single component inside. I used compressed air, which is a very nice option. However, you must be careful not to point the jet directly at a fan, because it will spin up to extreme speed in no time. That’s why it is a good idea to block the fan from moving, before your compressed air goes anywhere near the fan. I was in a bit of a hurry and slipped with my blocking of the CPU cooler. In a couple of 1/10ths of a second I heard the sound of a fan spinning up from zero rpm to like 20000 and it instantly ripped itself to shreds. There were broken plastic fins everywhere. To assess the damage I decided to remove the heatsink and inspect the cooler. I loosened the fasteners and pulled straight up and BAM. The CPU was ripped out from its socket because the thermal paste had hardened to something resembling epoxy glue. I also bent a couple of CPU pins in the process. Two pretty serious mishaps happened in about one minute. However, I am grateful for the important lessons I learned.

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Diary, Computer, PhilosophyRikard Öqvistdiy, repair, fixing, retro computers, electronicsComment
Computer necromancer vs Knitting
Computer necromancer vs Knitting

At the dinner today, I told my wife that I today had listened to a very interesting podcast about computer power supply units (PSU) with one of the world’s foremost experts on the topic. I might not be as painfully self-aware as James “Here’s an interesting fact about screwdrivers, for people who are interested in screwdrivers” May, but apparently enough to not be surprised by her bursting into laughter, with her mouth full of food. That kind of laughter you struggle to keep inside, because of the messy consequences. It is probably one of the nerdiest things she has encountered. Ever. Isn’t the internet lovely, that you can find such very high quality content on ANY topic within ANY micro-niche?

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Computer, PhilosophyRikard Öqvistvintage, retro computers, refurbish, pcComment
Christmas Cancelled
Christmas Cancelled

Perhaps the best thing about the Christmas holidays is that pretty much everything stops. The email is silent. The phone is silent. It even got more silent than what we had planned. Our respective families are split between two cities separated by a 4-hour drive, and we take turns every other year on the 24th of December. This year it was Umeå’s turn. We were planning to head North a day or two later to celebrate “small” Christmas/New year instead with the other half of the family. Unfortunately, that didn’t come about due to illness and on duty work. That’s rather sad, but there’s usually a positive flip side to the coin.

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Diary, ParentingRikard Öqvistfamily, parenting, rest, teambuildingComment
The closest thing to seeing the face of God
The closest thing to seeing the face of God

We were just about to leave for Christmas celebration this past Saturday, when my soon to be 4-year-old son shouts out “Wait dad!” and runs off back into the house to our two Labrador retrievers. First the old one got a big hug and a “Merry Christmas Gibson!” and then the 2nd dog got an equally big hug and a “Merry Christmas Jussi!”. And then he tells me “Dad, we must give chewing bones to the dogs because it is Christmas eve, and they should also get gifts.” I was so surprised by this spontaneous display of love and couldn’t stop laughing and smiling because it was one of the cutest things I have ever seen. It was so nice of him, and I was not expecting it at all. But he had it all figured out. That’s one of the coolest (and scariest) things with kids. They are always at least one step ahead of you. I.e., they always understand a lot more than what you think.

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Diary, Philosophy, ParentingRikard Öqvistchildren, love, parenting, growthComment
2nd hand Christmas presents and shared passion
2nd hand Christmas presents and shared passion

This year I finished the Christmas presents with a couple of weeks of margin for the first time ever. The most important thing is to find some wonderful experiences for my boys. I managed to grab a couple of 2nd hand bargains on Tradera (Swedish Ebay). My older son loves Legos and vehicles and before long I found a super nice and large fire truck which I grabbed for 200 SEK (new price close to 2000 SEK) and a small jet plane for half the price of a lunch. The only thing that is missing is the sealed boxes. He’ll get cardboard boxes and plastic bags with Legos instead, and I don’t think he will care at all. I wonder what the Lego group is thinking about my 2nd hand purchases. Reusing instead of new is wise of course, but I also wonder if they consider it a lost sale?

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DiaryRikard Öqvistchristmas, lego, music, 2nd handComment
Don’t waste your time with daytime noise measurements
Don’t waste your time with daytime noise measurements

Last week I got an urgent call to measure noise from installations as soon as humanly possible, in a project which have had some problems with too loud ventilation. The problem had just been mitigated (hopefully) but they still needed a protocol to give the green light to the building. I basically booked the next possible flight and went to Stockholm. Usually, I hate doing these one-day trips. They can often be exhausting. This time however, it wasn’t a complete disaster. I had planned extreme margins both before and after the measurement. Still, I learned a couple of valuable lessons on why these one-day trips are a bad idea anyway.

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Engineering, AcousticsRikard Öqvistnoise, installations, ventilation, acoustics, buildings, quality Comments
Running with a bicycle on your back
Running with a bicycle on your back

I am almost embarrassed to tell you that I haven’t jumped on the dwg bandwagon until 2022. On the other hand, I have a feeling that I am far from alone among acousticians. It is common that we “paint” on PDF files instead of working with “real” dwg files. This has been a thorn in my eye for many years. PDF painting works fine if you are only going to do one (1) drawing and no updates, preferably in a small building. But that’s not how it works! To do multiple revisions of drawings in large multi-storey building can easily take hours to do in Bluebeam Revu, because it is not the right tool for the job. For example, I recently did an update of a school with new floor plans – 18 drawings in total. With Revit, I could update them in minutes, what would previously take at least half a day. I was smiling the whole of last week.

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Acoustics, EngineeringRikard Öqvistrevit, cad, dwg, civil engineering, acoustics, drawingsComment
Rainbow barf boosts productivity
Rainbow barf boosts productivity

When I go on stage as a performing musician, my mind activates another setting. I get much more focused and find it a lot easier to enter the “flow” state. And when practicing at home, I often find my thoughts drifting away to irrelevant things. I’m probably not alone in this behavior and it’s also not surprising. There’s no “skin in the game” when practicing. There is no cost of messing up. But when you’re on stage, you will make a fool out of yourself if you don’t deliver. Hardcore, no extra lives when you mess up. I have found a very simple way to trick my mind that I am performing at a concert even when I am practicing at home.

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Habits, MusicRikard ÖqvistRGB, music, drums, studio, DIYComment
A sine wave shaped staircase
A sine wave shaped staircase

Any practicing musician knows that continuous practice over long periods of time will resemble a sine wave shaped staircase, with varying frequency. You experience good days and bad days, sometimes also clustered into good streaks and bad ones. Never has this been clearer to me than today when I am in my fourth year of daily drum practice of one single song: Bleed by Meshuggah. Any normal person´s gut reaction will probably be that a bad day feels like a failure. But a couple of weeks ago I realized that those bad days are the most important days of all. Because they reveal the truth. They show you what you can really do, without any sugar coating. Tonight, with a high fever, sleep depravation and a severe man-cold is a wonderful day for drum practice. Tonight, I will learn how far (or close) I really am to the goal of nailing this song.

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Music, HabitsRikard Öqvistmeshuggah, habits, practice, drums, bleed, incremental improvement, compound interest Comments
Early adopter (VR)
Early adopter (VR)

A couple of weeks ago, my right-hand controller for my VR headset HP reverb G2 broke. It started to disconnect and reconnect at random, which was extremely annoying and interrupted my workflow and immersion. When I bought my VR headset about 1-2 years ago, I specifically chose the HP because it was marketed as a great productivity headset for professional use. Indeed, it is, when it works, that is. Unfortunately, the HP reverb is in a class of its own when it comes to technical problems. A while ago I wrote a post about divine intervention in a positive sense. This little VR story is perhaps the antithesis.

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EngineeringRikard Öqvistvirtual reality, early adopter, technologyComment
A good conversation
A good conversation

Monday evenings is writing night for me. I’ve been doing it for several years straight. And still, here I am, half past eleven when I should been in bed long time ago, blogging together this week’s piece. For some reason, I often end up in “talking mode” with my wife on Mondays, which is easily the worst day of the week to sit down and talk. Because I know that it is my sleep hours that will fuel the conversation. On the other hand, you will be hard pressed to find anything more meaningful way to spend your time than deep conversations with your wife. And thus, it is probably a price worth paying.

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Diary, Parenting, PhilosophyRikard Öqvistflow, conversation, marriage, kids, habitsComment
Divine intervention (again)
Divine intervention (again)

Sometimes things happen, that are so unlikely that they can only be explained by some kind of divine intervention. We’ve had two of those occasions recently during our renovation project. The first one, and most unlikely, was the impeccable timing of our electrician who arrived here just in time to install new wiring in my office at the same time as the construction workers had torn down the old roof. To have a house without a roof is obviously a bad idea, so this type of work is dependent on weather conditions. Then they work very fast to remove and replace the ceiling in a day. So, we’re talking about a time window of 4-6 hours, maximum, when the roof is gone (i.e. half of it). And there will never be a better time to reinstall the electrical wiring. I booked my electrician months ago, with a gut feeling that “this day will probably be the day when the roof is removed”. And he arrived with the precision of a Japanese bullet train, exactly when the roof was gone.

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Engineering, DiaryRikard Öqvistrenovation, construction, diy, electricalComment
It’s not over till the fat lady sings
It’s not over till the fat lady sings

For weeks on end, our home and office has been like a construction site. But today, our last (planned) renovation project – a brand new office air heat pump – was installed. This calls for celebration indeed, however, I don’t think we have earned it just yet. There are still plenty of extremely small things that I think needs to be taken care of before we can claim “mission accomplished”. Things like scanning the lawn for leftover screws and nails, small chunks of insulation, packaging materials, leftover wood etc. And finally, a proper house-cleaning. One should be careful to claim a project is over prematurely.

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Acoustics, DiaryRikard Öqvistnoise, heating, health, workComment
The snowball effect
The snowball effect

We are now (hopefully) in our last two week of renovations. Our houses have been in dire need of not just upkeep, but improvement. On the top of my head, I can think of two reasons why everything seemed to break down at once. Some of the broken stuff should have been fixed last year, but much of the schedule had to be postponed due to a little baby boy. That’s the obvious one. The not so obvious one is that we might have started a momentum of fixing things, that is hard to stop once you get it in motion.

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Diary, Habits, PhilosophyRikard Öqvisthouse, renovation, diy, momentum, incremental improvement, growth, progressComment
Conversations reveal solutions
Conversations reveal solutions

Last week I had a call with my nurse, a routine thing because I recently turned 40 years old. I had left some test samples and answered a lengthy questionnaire regarding just about every topic regarding my physical and mental health. Or Body and Soul, which are the terms I would prefer. In the questionnaire, one of the topics was “Is there anything in your life that you want to reduce?” or something similar. My gut response was screen time. I spend way too much time behind screens and just a little while of free thought here and there would make a huge difference. When talking with my nurse for an hour, I cracked an idea that is ridiculously simple on how to achieve it. Isn’t it fascinating how you can often find solutions to your problems yourself as soon as you articulate and define your problem to someone else?

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Diary, Photography, PhilosophyRikard Öqvistsoul, mind, addiction, screen time, dogs, walkingComment
Tools and knowledge
Tools and knowledge

Last week we tore down our old ghastly kitchen FTX unit, which left a gaping hole in our kitchen above the stove. And today I had the pleasure of observing a kitchen carpenter working his magic. I had sent him a couple of phone pics and an outline of the idea a couple of days in advance. This morning he turned up with his van and portable workshop and before long we had a brand-new kitchen cabinet instead. The thing that impressed me the most was the speed of his progress. It is a beautiful thing to observe a professional doing what they do best, when knowledge and tools harmonize perfectly.

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Acoustics, DiaryRikard Öqvistwork, knowledge, incremental improvementComment