XC- In Ringwood

In northern New Jersey is a mountain bike heaven called Ringwood. Most of the state park is full of old carriage roads that people call "mountain-biking trails". This could not be further from the truth - it is boring double-track that the only resemblance it has with "mountain biking" is that it takes parts outside a paved roads... but when you explore further there are some amazing trails to be found. These are not so much flowy and fast but more of the technical and gnarly stuff.. and EXTREMLY fun... sometimes pretty well hidden and sometimes well marked.
Last weekend Johan and I was there riding there "race - course" loop with a couple of "add ons" and as always had a great time. I was a little disappointing that at one of my favorite trails people have started to cut corners and done "ride-arounds" some of the more technical spots - this is mountainbiking 101 - if you can 't ride a part - get of your bike and walk - by cutting corners you destroy the flow of the trail and if other people start following your example -destroy the nature around the trail and ultimately reduce the experience for other people.
There is a group of people that does a great job maintaining the trails and build natural obstacles and deserve a big award for their fantastic work with always improving the trails and building new terrain features. And for you who don't know- Whitney is rocking the skyline drive trail!

Window to Wall Street

Before I started to work on Wall Street I had no idea about what it looked like on a trading floor or no idea what people were actually doing. So after 2 years I kind of know what it looks like but I am still working on figuring out what people are doing :-).
Anyway.. I thought I might share a window to wall street or at least a window for my family to see what it looks like were I sit 10h-14h a day.
Here is a picture of my workspace. The top screen calculates how much money I and my team is losing. The one to the left is message central that keeps track of my email and chats with other traders. Second from left is Excel - the place where I create my models, do my calculations and figure out what the most probably scenario for a security is. The other middle screen is my security monitor where I keep track of everything from the stock market, trading volume, oil prices and steepness of yield curve. The screen to the far right is my trading platform were I buy and sell stocks (green means buy - red means sell - "so easy a Harvard student could do it" - that is our motto this year since our Summer intern that sits next to me comes from Harvard)
The big black thing below the screens is my phone -I can use it to contact the Millenium Falcon with -but also just push a button and I get connected to other traders instead of dialing a bunch of numbers which would be sub-optimal when you want something traded quick. \
Most importantly to the left under some papers you can see the same calculator that kicked ass in Fyris-skolans mattematik-tavling for nastan 15 ar sedan - fortfarande en forbannat bra miniraknare!
As you can see I have 2 keyboards and 2 mouse's because all this stuff needs 2 computers to run. So these 2 computer - 5 screens and TV-monitors and stuff is just to figure out 1 basic concept
BUY LOW - SELL HIGH - That is all it is.
-Barfotabarn

Monte Alban - 1200 year reign

Monte Alban is a site of old Zapotec (native Mexicans) ruins right outside Oaxaca. The bus-ride up took no longer than 20 minutes, and what a fantastic site. It was absolutely amazing to see how a place looked that had been the center of a civilization for 1200 years starting 800 BC. One can’t help but wonder if New York will still be a financial center 1000 years from now? Seems unlikely. The ruins were amazing and it felt very special to walk the grounds in a place that some high priest walked 800 BC. Makes our churches in Uppsala seem like modern architecture - all very fascinating.
See more pictures here
Also check out our Mitla pictures

Moutain Biking - Sierra Norte - Day 3 - Vamos

The 3rd day was the shortest and mostly downhill. We basically biked back to the city of Oaxaca. We first climbed up on a mountain ridge close to 3000 meters in elevation and then descended down to Oaxaca, which is at 1800 meter, mostly on single track and dirt roads. The single-track is one of the most amazing ones I have ever experienced. The trail twists and turns on a narrow mountain ridge while you look out on the jungle and valley below. Just amazing. Apparently, local downhill bikers use the same trail for training and I must say that some portions where pretty tricky on a hard-tail. The day was just an all around fun experience even if we only spent 4h biking which by now felt like a day in the park.
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Moutain Biking - Sierra Norte - Day 2

Pedro and I biked straight from the house while Whitney rode in the van up the first hill. Considering we did 7h on bike the day before and had at least 5 more today it might have been a wise decision. Pedro and I took full speed from the start, racing each other up the climb that lasts 8km and takes us from 2300m to 3100 meters in elevation. Pedro does better when it “flattens” out and is below 10% steep while I excel when the grade is close to 20+% and “it is more like skiing – not much biking,” unfortunately it is very seldom that steep.
After the first uphill we meet up with Whitney and start our long single track. 27k of trails in the land of no cars was ahead of us until we could meet up with the van on the other side (Abel drove around with the van). It was an absolutely fantastic experience and the trail was amazing. Some places so narrow it felt like you were falling of a cliff. We end up in a mountain-village with an amazing view at 2300m. It was so peaceful that you thought time stood still. Whitney and I bought some sodas in a “shop” and it was like being in another world.
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Moutain Biking - Sierra Norte - Day 1 - Hammerfest 2009

We met with guides Pedro and Abel shortly after landing in Oaxaca. Pedro is former Mexican Champion in Mountain bike and ran a half marathon in 1.07 so he has been quite fit. Abel is a very helpful assistant. Pedro spoke a little English, Abel spoke only Spanish – our adventure begins...We drove out of the city of Oaxaca and into the Sierra Nortes. We drove the car half way up the mountain and then unloaded and started biking. It turns out that from the start Pedro was ok with what we call a Hammerfest. While Pedro and I pushed each other to the limit, Whitney was not far behind. We climbed straight up for 30 minutes finally reaching 9000 feet or close to 3000 meters in altitude. At the peak we are surprised to see a caravan of mules (or Donkeys) carrying big logs and firewood through the pass. We snapped some pictures while we sat down and rested. It took another 3h until we got to lunch and by this time we had grown mighty tired. The Sierra Nortes apparently have no flat land. Either it was uphill or downhill! – No rest. We climbed and descended so much we finally lost all count on how many mountains we had biked and gave up all hope of trying to make some sense of where we were. Then came lunch – such a fantastic experience. In a small village, we stopped at this old couple’s house. They were both in their 80’s and prepared a meal for us on the fireplace in their house. The fact that there is a stove and an oven in the house does not seem to matter since they are only used as backup when the primary heating source (the fire pit) is full. The meal was absolutely fantastic and we had a terrific time.
After lunch we biked for another couple of hours and got in some great single-track that was extremely narrow. The last uphill really got to our legs, so when we finally came to a small village late in the afternoon I think we all felt shared happiness in just laying down and eating some mangos and pineapple. What a fantastic day and we still had 2 more.
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The Churches of Oaxaca

We really don’t know much about these churches or anything – just that the amount of churches per capita was far exceeding anything I have seen. It seemed like in every corner there was a church – same as Starbucks in Manhattan. Fascinated with the concept of these extravagant churches, while the rest of the population lives in poverty one can’t help but wonder if there wouldn’t be a better use of the money.
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Co-pilot

After 1 week in Puerto Escondido, we traveled to Oaxaca city for a week there. The options to get to Oaxaca were 7h on a bus on a road that makes even the most experienced traveler car-sick or to take a small 7-seat plane for a 30 min flight. Considering my amount of vacation days and the fact that Whitney gets carsick in the back of a cab in Manhattan, we decided to take the plane… and boy am I glad that we did that. When we are boarding the plane it turned out that the plane was over-booked. So when I was climbing in, the guy that I think was the co-pilot pointed at me and says “co-pilot-e”. After some confusion it turns out that I am sitting (acting in as) the co-pilot for the trip. So the “travel” turns out to be one of the most interestingly parts of our trip (at least for me). Bernoulli was a smart man because I noticed that the speed of our plane was no more than 130 mph when we were taking of from the ground. Amazing. The whole trip I acted like a 10 yr old boy or Japanese tourist snapping pictures like crazy. Here are some from the plane and of us.
More Proof

Swimming with the fishes

Back to Mexico we finally got opportunity to use our snorkeling equipment which otherwise doesn’t get much use in our New York apartment. The snorkeling was pretty good but in general the sea was pretty choppy, so to get clear pictures you had to dive down relatively deep. Overall, it was great and we had so much fun even if the pictures might not do justice to the experience.
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Also check out our Kayaking Trip

California dreamin'

My tries to pick up surfing actually went better than expected. After 1h I could stand on the board in waves that were the size of something Nils makes in the bathtub at home. After 3 days I had actually come quite far and when I caught what I thought was the wave of my life I had a 12 yr old local girl catching the same wave looking at me silly as I was scrambling to get up on my feet – and failed. I am almost certain that she laughed all the way to the shore.
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Travel to Oaxaca

The travel was mildly painful with a 9h wait in Mexico City. Mexico City is the place that has been most affected by the H1N1 virus (together with New York – where 36 schools have been closed). It was both scary and funny to see people walk around with masks over their face (notice the guy in the background of the picture). 21h after we left New York we arrived in Oaxaca and one of the most spectacular hotel rooms I have ever slept in.

Why Mexico???

So the reason that we all traveled to Mexico was the wedding of our friends, Paul and Annie. Whitney had the privilege of being the Maid of Honor while I had the honor of being a groomsman. The wedding was one of the most fabulous -EVER as proven by the pictures in the gallery. The ceremony was extremely beautiful taking place high above the Mexican ocean and after the dinner we all danced the night away, literally.
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Hotel Pictures