White Mesa Mountainbiking

For Presidents Weekend O&W decided to take a trip to good old Albuqueque. As always it was sunny skies, great food and a lot of biking! Especially cool was a trip to White Mesa which offers some very unique trails. Just check out the video above!

Fusk-bygge och kold-knapp

Det har slagit till en lite kold-knapp har i New York. pa morgonen ar det runt -10 grader celcius och smakyligt. For svenska valbyggda hus ar -10 grader igent problem men har borta ar det mer kvantitet och mindre kvalitet i husbyggandet. Whitney och jag bor i ett "brown-stone" fran 1870. I normall fall sa gar uppvarmingskostnaden pa ett sandant pa mellan 800-1000 dollar i manaden (dvs 5600-7000kr) som skall delas pa 2 familjer sa det blir 3000-3500kr var (som tur ar har huset 2 olika matare sa vi betalar bara for var del). Nu ar det dock sa att jag vagrar att betala detta hut-losa pris sa jag kor knappt alls med uppvarmning. Nar vi gar och lagger oss har vi bada 2 duntacken var!!! och dessutom sover jag i langbyxor, T-shirt samt raggsockor. Idag efter frukost var det 13.7 grader varmt i koket - koket ar dock ganska varmt i forhallande till varat kallaste rum. Det drar som en oppet spjall i varat lilla badrum pa nedervaningen sa under vintern anvands det endast av mig under morgon. I morse var det 5.3 grader varmt innomhus! Bildbevis finns har intill. - Da biter det i kinderna att stiga in i duschen. Dock kommer inte elrakningen in pa mer an max 200USD i manaden for oss - tacka vet jag svensk byggnads-konst.

Avalanch Slide - Mt. Colden

Dags att testa den nya randonee utrustningen I staterna. Efter att ha kort lite hemtam terrang I Lofsdalen vilket Nisse gjort en fantastisk sammanfattning av har http://lookingthepartfeelinglikecrap.blogspot.com/2009/12/det-ar-mocke-nu.html
sa var det dags att ge sig ut pa aventyr. Inhandlade en karta och en turbok och begav mig. Dock var approachen av rullande slag sa det blev att satta stighud under ena skidan och kora utan stighud under den andra. Pa sa satt kunde jag ga uppfor och kora pa en skida utfor utan att beohva stanna och ta av och pa stighudar over de rullande kullarna. Jag korde sa svetten lackade och skrek ur spar till feta amerikanska familjer som var ute och gick pa turskidor. Tillslut kom jag fram till avalanch pass slide och efter att ha zick-zackat upp sa blev det nagra fina svangar hem.. ett perfekt satt att spendera jul-dagen. I bakrunden syns Whiteface Mountain dar OS holls 1980 och nagon mil bort ligger langd-stadion. En riktigt schyyst dag men visst langtar man till Klippiga bergen och fa kora nagra svangar dar.

Tomtar runt

Som sig bor sa halsar Tomten pa hemma i Uppsala. Men i ar sa kom tomten och halsade pa aven i Lake Placid (och inte ner genom skorstenen som i vanligtvis i America) Som tur ar sa lyckades dessa bada tillfallen tas pa kort och vi har nu bevis for att tomten finns!!! Kika bara in pa korten.. Till hoger ar tomten pa besok pa Radjursstigen i Uppsala, och till vanster sa ar tomten pa besok i Lake Placid i Amerika. Q.E.D.

Swedish Lucia

Pa grund av det antal svenskar som bor har i New York sa annordnas ett Lucia Firande i en kyrka pa Upper West Side. Och det ar inte vilket Lucia-firande som helst. Djaklar vilken klass det var pa sangerna. Sa nu har man fatt en ny syn pa Lucia och ranknar starkt med att detta blir ett arligt inslag. Det ar nasta sa att man tycker att svenskar borde komma hit bara for att se hur Lucia skall firas egentligen.
For Americans out there - Lucia is an Italian saint that comes to the cold houses in Sweden and brings the light when we need it the most - in the dark month of December. Here is some info about it - but the sight is in Swedish http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucia
Starkt jobbat Sverige! (och snyggt foto-arbete Olof :-))

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