Gary Writes A Blog

There is an American election coming up (in case you didn’t know) and although I don’t get a vote, I’ve been following it quite a lot and watching a few speeches etc. especially by Mr. Obama.

I’ve got to say that I’m actually quite impressed by him. I’ll post a few video’s on this blog in the months to come, but the big question is whether the American people who have just (twice) voted for George W will change their tune.

I’m sure that reporting like this from the FOX network will help people focus on the issues rather than slurs about Obama’s race and background…

Was sitting working away this afternoon when it started to get a little dark outside. “Might be a chance of rain” I thought to myself…

The weather was a little different from in Bulgaria, anyway. At about 2mins 55 of this video, I nearly get hit by lightning and decide to make a strategic retreat…

That’s me back from a nice week in Bulgaria with Maria and her parents. Was a bit on the warm side though and I now resemble the lobster man from Mars…

Got up to quite a lot of different things. The first thing all four of us done was to visit a famous cave called Ledenika which is 300m long and has many different caverns, especially the “concert hall” cavern which is very impressive with hundreds of giant stalactites and stalagmites.

Some of the gaps that you had to fit through were only a couple of feet wide or high. Don’t think many of the punters I saw at Livi shopping centre a couple of weeks ago would have made it!

It was only about 7 degrees in the cave so after an hour we needed to get warmed up. We came down the mountain to the town of Vratsa which was a very beautiful town with views up to the mountains and excellent ice creams It also had a statue of Hristo Botev, who Maria’s home town is named after.

Next was to the beautiful Cherepish monastery which was built in the 1300’s next to a very nice river and chalk mountains.

After a busy day, the best way to relax was by meeting up with Maria’s uncle and family for a massive BBQ with plenty of salads and the odd glass of Rakia…

Last week was a really busy week for me with a lot of things to do at work etc. In order not to over-extend myself, I jumped on a plane on Friday night and flew over to Bourgas in Bulgaria. (everyone needs the occasional holiday, I just happen to be takeing them at 1 week intervals )

 After a bit of a dodgy overnight bus journey to Sofia I met up with Maria and have spent the last 4/5 days visiting different sites in Bulgaria and eating large ice-creams. A fine combination.

Plenty of pictures that I can post when I come back!

I was going to write a post about how the current SL Stockholm Bus strike is causing me and millions of others a lot of hassle and how SL basically stole 270Kr from me for a bus-pass that is completely useless when there are no buses, but I decided not to focus on the negative and instead to write about one of my very favourite websites.

I’ve been a frequent visitor to www.ted.com for about a year and every time I find something new and interesting. According to TED…

“TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from those three worlds. Since then its scope has become ever broader.

The annual conference now brings together the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes).”

All these talks are videoed and shown for free on ted.com.  Watching TED is very inspirational and is perfect for those of you who like me are ever so slightly unhinged from reality (just slightly). No one at TED thinks that anything is imposable and your never quite sure if they are crackpots or geniuses. I like that.

Here’s a couple of suggestions to get you started…

Underwater Astonishments
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/david_gallo_shows_underwater_astonishments.html

What can you learn by putting a cockroach on a treadmill?
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/robert_full_on_engineering_and_evolution.html

The worlds excess in pictures…
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/chris_jordan_pictures_some_shocking_stats.html

Why crows are your friends…
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/joshua_klein_on_the_intelligence_of_crows.html

Did you by any chance read Sundays copy of the Hangzhou Daily? It featured an article about Stockholm and the fact it had the Olympics in 1912. I was interviewed and featured in the article (picture too).

I would just like to point out to anyone who can speak Chinese that very few of the things in the article are actually what I said. Typical newspapers!

hangzhou_daily.pdf

Gone.

An old friend to this blog looks like she will be making her last appearance on these pages for a while.

Wendy has stepped down as “heed bummer” of the Scottish branch of the Labour party. With her lip in full petted mode, she blamed all her political opponents for her downfall, while others said it was just because she was a numpty.

What will this mean for her grand vision for a new Scotland? Surely we can’t let these plans die with her leadership? (I tried to do a search on BBC news for her grand plan to secure it for the nation, but out of 10 pages, all I could find were stories about illegal donations and gaffs).

I actually think this is a shame. We need to show that the parliament is a place capable of running a successful Scotland and having a non-existent opposition just plays into the hands of those who say it’s not to be taken seriously.

On Tuesday, the Scottish summer reached a record breaking second nice day in a row. Another perfect day on the beach at Cruden Bay and a great chance to take the kites out for their maiden flights.

Neil had brought back two kites from China as presents to me and Maria after we had lost ours in the great kite disaster of 2007.

Although there was a good breeze coming onto the shore, it took a few crashed attempts to get the hang of flying the kite, but eventually we got it airborn and flew it for a good hour. It was even long enough for my Mum to have a shot and my Dad to come back from fishing the Ythan (catching two seatrout) and take the controls too.

After all this, we ate one of the seatrout for lunch and then went for a walk along the beach and back. In the evening it was off to the Kilmarnock Arms for a seafood platter!

On Monday the weather was much better and we could appreciate being at Cruden Bay.

After a walk and some lunch, my Dad and I went down to the rocks near the harbour to see if we could make contact with any mackril, but maybe it’s a little too early in the year for them.

Instead we changed location up to Loch Insch for a bit of rainbow trout fishing. This is a nice little fishery and although it’s well stocked, it’s certainly not an easy place to fish and I have struggled many times in the past! (Maybe thats more to do with my fishing skills?) Anyway, this time we both had good sport on the dry fly using size 18’s to catch trout up to 3lb. Final tally was 5 to me and 7 to my dad, all returned.

Last night we drove up the road to Neil’s house at Cruden Bay. Neil wasn’t there because he was busy running the length of the West Highland Way which is 153Km with 4499m of ascent. He managed to smash his personal best and completed it in 23h 11mins. Crazy, but well done Neil!

Today it was typical Scottish summer weather; windswept and interesting (with torrential downpours). We first went to Inverurie to see a Sunday Market which was held in a cattle market and there was very few buyers or sellers because the weather. We bought some cakes and some fish for dinner and then after lunch headed back to the coast and to Peterhead where the cormorants were drying their wings on the rocks.

We headed down to the harbour which at one time at least was the biggest white fish port in Europe. There were a few boats around and a lot of seals cruising around looking for fish falling off the boats. We saw a couple of seals finding and eating flat fish that must have fallen overboard (bottom picture).