Miss. and La. Road Trip Pics: 1st Set: Leave DC, Drive, Arrive, First Day/Night in NOLA

UPDATE: Here’s a master page of New Orleans pics and videos: www.buzzpal.com/no.

Here’s the first batch of pics from my 9-day road trip down to Pearl River, Mississippi, and New Orleans, Louisiana.

Why/how’d I go on this trip?

To help my friend Alan move all his stuff down to his and his wife Amy’s organic blueberry farm, Pearl River Blues. Plus I absolutely love great road trips, and what could be better, especially if you love music, than a road trip to Mississippi and New Orleans, the birthplace of jazz, funk, and blues?

Snow Falling on Dog

Snow Falling on Dog

Today at my parents’ house in Cambridge, Maryland, USA. Looks pretty, but the snow is wet, heavy, nasty!

BTW, for those of you who don’t know Izzie, she is my parents’ dog, a 9-year-old Doberman. She is extremely sweet. Here’s a pic I took of here a few years back.

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New Year’s Eve Fireworks in Gothenburg, Sweden

This was one of the best displays I’ve ever seen — and I’ve seen a bunch of good ones on the National Mall in Washington, DC on July 4th. These Swedish guys rocked it! See this video of the grand finale (click “watch in high quality” mode, expand to full-screen mode, and turn up the sound).

The last pic is from our balcony about 8 minutes after midnight, after a 15-minute barrage of fireworks from everywhere (all over the city). The fireworks were going all night up to the midnight finale (video clip shot from our balcony).

The four  bonus pics after that are from our New Year’s Day walk.

Overall, it was a great New Year’s Eve with Annica and Henrik and a great New Year’s Day with Birgitta and Roy!  Happy New Year to you!

Käringön Island (Sweden) Christmas Party

Another great Jul Bord at Peterson’s Krog. There were about 21 of us this year, with 19 of us closing the place down. I don’t know what time we went to bed (around 3:30 or so, I think).  Jorgen didn’t teach any new words this year, but Anna taught us how to say “marsipan gris” (”marzipan pig”) in Danish.

-Skål!

PS: I was kind of hurting this morning, but thankfully Martin hooked me up with one of his Hustlers. Not the Larry Flint kind of Hustler, but some crazy energy drink they got here. BTW, Maria is somehow related to Larry Flint, so maybe he did hook us up with these power drinks, I have no idea. I’m just glad I was able to start my day with a Hustler and some Advil Liqui-Gels, washed down with some cold San Pellegrino. Ah!

Thanksgiving at Per’s Wine Cellar

Thanksgiving came early to Sweden, and a dozen of us celebrated at Per’s wine cellar (that’s Per with the cast on, which he had to get after our pool and game night a few weeks back.  Per’s parents belong to a club and they let us use it Saturday night – thank you!  The dinner party lasted from 7:00 Saturday night until 2:00 Sunday morning.  Good times!

Unrelated trivia: Bill Gates was the best man earlier the same day at a wedding in the church you see, which is basically across the street from our wine cellar.  Also attending the wedding, I hear, was Elton John, Ulf Ekberg (Ace of Base), and the Prince of Monaco.  Mick Jagger was a no show.  The reception was a few blocks away.  Article here.

Photo Dump: Pool Night, Dalsland, Stockholm, Kiel

Everything is posted in chronological order:

• Berlin and Web 2.0 Expo: See pics here: business and personal.
• Pool Night: Boys night out, organized by Magnus. I came in second place in the pool tournament. After that was dinner, then video and sport games competition. Good times, but three of of us injured our hands during “how hard can you punch” game. Par punched so hard he fractured a bone.
• Dalsland: Susanne, Birgitta, Roy and I to visit family (Arvid and Agnes). We love visiting them, even if the whole “moose” thing is a big scam here in Sweden (just kidding).  The group pic you see if at their guest cabin.  Arvid and Agnes came to “our place” for dinner Saturday night and we had lunch at their home on the farm Sunday.
• Stockholm: BuzzPal business.  Susanne came to keep me company and meet our friend Anne. They went to a Lebanese restaurant Saturday night and I was at the Thai place you see pictured (good food, good meeting).  Sunday was breakfast with Anne, then drive back to Gothenburg.
• Kiel (Germany): Susanne, Ulrika, Johan, and I.  You leave on the boat in the evening and arrive in the morning. Dinner and party in between. When in Kiel, if you’re coming from Sweden, you stock up on alcohol because it is MUCH cheaper in Germany than in Sweden.  We bought a LOT (see pic).  After dropping off the alcohol on the boat, we went strolling around town, stopping here and there to eat, drink (coffee), and shop (the girls, anyway).  Then back to the boat for the overnight trip home.  Good times.  And, if you buy enough booze, you almost make money on the trip.  We didn’t buy THAT much, but I did turn 50 SEK into 300 SEK at the roulette wheel (in two minutes). In the morning, we saw some seals as the boat docked in Gothenburg.

Berlin and Web 2.0 Expo

These are our “personal” Berlin pics. The “business” pics are here: Web 2.0 Expo Berlin Photo Story.

The upscale restaurant you see is the Aigner, which is on the ground floor of the Sofitel Berlin Gendarmenmarkt, one of Berlin’s most modern hotels (we didn’t stay there, we stayed here). Here’s Frommer’s Aigner Restaurant review.

Susanne and I liked the place so much we went there twice, and that’s after getting recommendations and checking out at least a dozen other restaurants. Super nice people, amazing service, and fantastic food.  Aigner gets our top rating, especially considering the price, which was quite reasonable.  See their website for more info and some of their recipes.

We had the liver dumpling soup and the creamy parsley-root soup to start, then split a Weiner Schnitzel for the main course (so we could save room for a chocolate soufflé desert). Everything was incredible. Our second visit we had the Tafelspitz and the veal dumplings. Both also incredible.

Barack Obama Wins, We Win! Acceptance Speech Video and Transcript

(Note: the screenshot above is from this morning. Since then, the Obama margin has increased. See The New York Times interactive election map and Big Board for the latest. You can toggle the map to any of the past four presidential elections. There are also links to speeches, polls, and more.)

My hope in USA is restored; we are not scared anymore. Fear, bullying and “me, me, me” loses. Courage, cooperation, and “we, we, we” wins. Thank you is all I can say. Thank you, Barack Obama. Thank you, world! Be the change!

Video of Obama’s acceptance speech:

• BBC
• New York Times

Did it bring tears to your eyes the way it did mine?
Yes, we can! That message is global; it’s for all of us.

Here is my uncut reaction video and below is the transcript of Obama’s speech. Here is how Washington DC voted.

UPDATE: See the comments at the bottom of this post.  So far…

London Pics

Just posting the pics here. See this post on The BuzzPal Blog for the day-by-day action and this post on chrisco.us (this blog) for my initial summary plus some market and economics commentary. Cheers!

PS: More pics are posted here on TechCrunch UK.

Second (and last) Batch of Gotland Pics

That art is kinda creepy, huh?  All “Silence of the Lambs.”

You know, they do have a lot of lambs on Gotland.  And those lambs are pretty jumpy.  You’ll see what I mean in a minute when you get to my “field full of black sheep” pic and see how they’re looking at me.  Of course, that could have something to do with the fact that I basically threw down a hockey stop when I saw them and pulled off the road to take their picture (hey, I love black sheep, and this was the best field of them I saw the whole time).  They jumped to attention from lying down and saluted.  I don’t think they blinked until we were well out of sight.  Maybe they were wondering if I worked with their “giver of life and taker of life”, their god, the farmer, who will be coming for some of them soon. “It puts the lotion in the basket.” I know that quote applies to a different time and place in the movie, but we can mash things up like that here. Cheers!

PS: Speaking of lamb, that’s what you see us grilling (actually it was mutton).

UPDATE: Here is the first batch of Gotland pics.  Below are the rest of the ones from this batch.

YouTube Clip: Clarice/Lambs.

First Batch of Gotland Pics

Susanne, Birgitta, Roy, and I had a great week on the Swedish island of Gotland.  We were based in the medieval city of Visby, staying in an apartment owned by Roy’s cousin and his wonderful family.  From Visby, we traveled all around the island, including to the tiny island of Fårö, which is where Ingmar Bergman made a home until his death last year.  By coincidene, our visit overlapped with Gotland’s annual Medieval Week fastival, which was really neat.  Now on to the pics.  Note: All of these were taken with Susanne’s Canon Ixus.  I’ll post the pics from our Canon Xti (400D) soon.

UPDATE: Here is the second batch of Gotland pics. Below are the rest of the ones from this batch.

Lena and Magnus Wedding Pics

Some of my favorite pics so far. I’ll probably find some more to post when I can.

Magnus and Lena, I’ll give you guys a CD next time we see each other (to drink some of the leftovers?!). Beautiful wedding!

$15-Off Coupon Code for BuzzPal T-Shirts

A friend just emailed me about a $15 coupon for BuzzPal’s USA shop. The coupon code is APOLOGY. That means you can get one of the less expensive t-shirt for FREE (plus shipping) or one of the more expensive ones for under $10 (plus shipping). Not sure when this coupon code will expire, probably real soon, so best to use it right now. If it doesn’t work, check here and search Google and Yahoo for other Spreadshirt coupon codes.

For those of you in the EU, you can order from the USA shop or the EU shop, but I think the coupon code only works in the USA shop.

Either way, check ‘em out! The one I’m wearing here is the American Apparel with Flock printing from the EU shop. Totally sweet, as some of you have seen at The Next Web Conference in Amsterdam, Reboot in Copenhagen, and OpenCoffee in Gothenburg.

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Some Great Sunsets From Our Window the Past Few Nights — Thank You

I know, who wants to see another sunset pic. But beautiful sunsets are one of life’s most simple and free pleasures. They provide a connection with nature, peace, and beauty. They help us remember how lucky we are to be here, and to say “thank you,” which is one of the most positive and uplifting phrases I know. It’s so simple, yet means so much. It doesn’t cost a penny. Being thankful and saying “thank you” can change your world. Thank you.

July 17 to August 1 Pics: Sailing, Sus B-Day, Concert, Many Beaches

Had to combine all these into one post b/c I’m super busy right now. Hopefully some good BuzzPal news to share next week.

Pics:

1. July 19-20: Varberg: Susanne’s birthday weekend and sailing.
2. July 26: Gothenburg: Disk golf (no pics), BBQ, and Iron Maiden concert (my YouTube compilation).
3. July 27: NAME-OF-ISLAND-COMING-SOON: Beach day with Susanne, Birgitta, Roy, Emily, Felicia, Philip, and Caterina.
4. July 28: Fiskeback and Liseberg: Beach day and free concert featuring Ola Svensson, a 2005 Swedish Idol winner (and still a teen idol), singing his hit song Natalie (song on YouTube).
5. July 31: Lilleby Beach and Kungsbacka: Beach day. then dockside BBQ.
6. July 1: Asa Beach: Beach day.

Visit Birgitta’s Cousin in Lidkoping

Sunday, Susanne, Birgitta, and I took a day trip up to Lidkoping to visit Birgitta’s cousin. We also drove around the area where Birgitta’s grandparents were from (the gravestone is theirs).

Varberg and Ride on Johan’s Restored Wooden Boat

Johan has been bought this boat last summer and has been restoring it all winter. It is sweet! A classic. The other old wooden boat you see is a friend of Johan’s boat. It’s almost 100 years old and is completely restored. I think he just put it up for sale (I think around $100,000). And before you ask about the dog, Otto, no we didn’t slip him a space cake, he’s just happy.

Red, White, and Bruce

These first three pics and this concert video (”Radio Nowhere”) are from the Gothenburg Post, which gave the show a perfect 5-lighthouse rating. I do too, but I was scared for a few minutes when they opened up with “Born in the USA” and the sound quality was horrible. But they tuned it up fast and it was loud, crisp, and clean for the rest of the 3-hour concert (9:00 to midnight).

Below are pics from our pre-party BBQ at Martin and Anna’s place and then my concert photos, some of them blurry and probably should not have been posted, but screw it, here they are!

Happy FOJ everyone! I might update this post later with an original (but low quality) video clip or two. Cheers.

PS: Here’s a link to yesterday’s post and pics about how we got our Bruce tickets (camped out in December).

UPDATE #1: NEW VIDEO CLIP: Here’s one of the video clips I shot (will post more later if any good). Depending on how sentimental [or empathetic] you are, this one might tug your heart strings, the way it did mine.

UPDATE #2: NEW VIDEO CLIPS: 4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy).

UPDATE #3: NEW VIDEO CLIPS: Out in the Street.