Christmas approaching

Another nice coconut-day, afternoon. I was in MiniMarkt to do my water shopping, passed the hotel girl that is always nice to exchange some words with. The hotel bit is new since last time, but she said it was almost full and will for sure be for the holidays. The guesthouse bit where I am, 2 empty rooms of - maybe 18 or so.

After my nap I passed again - I had found the web site of the Malaysian air company that has flights between Koh Samui and Penang, that surprisingly is not so well known. http://www.fireflyz.com.my - and gave it to her (hm, I DID ask for her name in my best Thai, but what was it, Pook?... something like that) so - they look for agents and she can always get some extra commission on being the intermediate on that. My 60-day visa expires on Jan 25 so still lots of time. Going there for 3 nights would be fine, then back here.

I have written some thoughtful mails to discussion groups I am in, that really are not about coconuts, but sometimes also specialized groups need something totally different to think of - and I got some positive responses. They know my obscure brain windings, so I am sure that a portion of them simply automatically jump over what I write, and it is fine. I only appeal to those with an ability still to think along new paths.

Have you ever read the book Lortsverige, Dirt Sweden? I did not know about it until maybe a year ago, when I found it online on Projekt Runeberg, http://runeberg.org/lortsvrg/forord.html - similar to the very well known USA Project Gutenberg - that for decades have collected non-copyrighted literature, scanned, usually done OCR to make it into text, edited it, and put online. Runeberg was a famous Swedish writer 150 years ago or so, so they have for - more than a decade I think, in a similar way put non-copyrighted Scandinavian literature online, sometimes also literature with sort of copyright still there, the author has not been dead for 70 years quite yet, but possibly they check up so there are no plans to reprint it before that crucial date.

Nah, it is evening, still I can make an hour of historical documentation...., did not take time for it today. I am editing material in a historical magazine from my town,that started to be published 140 years ago, just now I edit an article about the age 200 years earlier, when southern Sweden tried to become Swedish and not Danish after the big war, much about making the Danish Church Swedish. It is a slow job as OCR on the rough paper and old print creates many more errors than OCR of a modern printed text, which usually works without any fault.


Dec. 22, 11:11, the day is supposed to be slightly longer from today, but I have not seen any, the sun still goes up at 06:00 and down at 18:00 ??? One of my nicknames is Santa but I have decided to take holidays this year ha! Look in the major newspapers of the world!

Jumping Pigggg

Soon after meeting me, my wife started to call me Pig, Moo in Thai, for no particular reason at all. Maybe it sounds cute?... I know also pretty girls here can have it as nickname. Anyway, my room here has a peculiarity: the toilet is 2 dms higher than the room! I have not jumped that high for decades! Ah well - here sooner or later I actually found serious reasons to do it.... So I take it as sort of an exercise, I hear it in the knee every time I do it, but has not hurt so far. To jump down - I have started to overcome the fear of falling now, in the middle of the free fall.

My other regular nickname here in Thailand is of course Santa - even in the middle of the street people say "hello Santa - got a gift for me?" when my beardy head passes.....