I think there are patterns and shapes that inspire you everywhere. I was walking past the pool and took a picture of the tiles surrounding the edge.

They look ruff and give a nice symmetrical feel. The blue colour gives a nice cool association - reminding you of the sea and water - or the way one thinks that water looks like.

Enjoy your surroundings and see if you can incorporate them into your designs and ideas. I might use this picture as a header on the blogg – keep looking in and you might recognize it.

I have just come back from a vacation in Thailand, Rayong.
We stayed at a hotel by the beach on the mainland. One day we took a boat trip to two islands - turtle island where they had turtle breeding and to Talu island which is a small beautiful island with white sand, clear water and corals and make for snorkling.

We walked through the woods up a hill across the small island to the other side where this beautiful view met us. These are the moments that you remember and that are so peaceful for the soul.

When we were in Egypt over Christmas we lived at the Kiroseiz resort. We had a nice stay and, of course, did a lot of sightseeing. The hotel we lived in had a distinct sky-line as you can see on the photograph. Very nice lines and a super blue sky. Every day was pleasantly warm and sunny. The arches are nicely balanced with the squares – a good balance between the two – and especially in this corner above our room.

I attended two trainings this autumn for Salesforce to learn how to develop Salesforce applications and to get certified: DEV-401 and DEV-501.

At both occasions I stayed at the Mercure Thames Lodge in Staines outside London. It's a nice hotel located by the Thames and very close to both Salesforce and IBM if you are there to see any of them.

I lover English breakfast with sausage, bacon, beans in tomato sauce, toast and so on which was served at the hotel. I also had dinner every night at the hotel since the socializing among the training attendees weren't really there for some reason. They served a great ciabatta with sirloin steak and onion sauce that I can really recommend.

Staines is kind of boring to be honest, at least the part that I have seen. But the trainings were great and the hotel was good and if you like to run it is possible to do so by the river for a couple of kilometers.

It has been, and still is, a beautiful winter here in the North. It has been snow everywhere and it is a wonderful landscape – almost like in Doctor Zhivago or Narnia.

I saw some icicles yesterday and thought they actually are very pretty and inspirational.

There is perfect weather for tobogganing and building snow-caves.

Have a nice winter!

The very appreciated event LotusPhere 2010 took place in January this year again. I was there in 2006 and I'd really like to go back some year. During Lotusphere 2007 (if I remember correctly) there was a lot of focus on Secondlife from IBMs side and I created my avatar Nicolas Paravane. His current looks are on todays photo (ok, this is not a real photo, but it is a SecondLife photo).

There was a period when I spent quite some time there. I built a house together with a very talented Secondlife architect for the consultant company, where I worked for a while. I also created a secondlife football script.

I have had ideas to do more fun stuff and Secondlife still seem to be going strong.
Are you using it?

As you might have read earlier I have been on vacation in Egypt. We were in Sharm el sheikh – but I thought that we just had to see Cairo and the legendary Pyramids too. The pyramid treasures and design are from thousands of years ago.

We took the bus there – a long ride you can say that started late or in the middle of the night – to make it to the Pyramids in the morning. While entering Cairo and looking at today’s architecture in this pulsating city… as from nowhere I saw the first glimpse of the Pyramids appear in the far distance behind some buildings. The smog was still pretty thick and you can just see the famous silhouettes. One might have thought that we would travel over sand-dunes on camel-backs. Instead we arrive in this more modern alternative – by air-conditioned bus. Amazing feeling – finally we are here – at these legendary shapes and architectural master-pieces. The weather, sand and winds have taken their toll and made imprint on the surface of the pyramids – but it still is exciting and really nice to be here!

Very impressive atmosphere round the pyramids from the far distance. I was really looking forward to getting up close. Tell you more about that later.

This summer, down by the food store, I saw this rare thing on the parking lot and had to take some photos of it. I am not good with cars, in fact I am hopeless with barely no interest at all. But this is a beauty, isn't it?

I have done some researching and this is a Jaguar E-Type 4.2. It was in production between 1961 to 1975 and has certainly a very special shape.



The man who owned it saw me take the picture and admiring his car and he said "You have to be over 50 to own this car".
Now, I am not, but when I am I will probably buy one just like this

I have been going to a course this term – really inspiring. The title was Design Management – I have learnt a great deal and the course was very informative and challenging. Tell you more about that another time.

While out working on one of the projects I stumbled onto lots of other things too. This was just a sign that I liked because of its simple graphic character.

Sometimes the simple is the most attractive attention-wise. Not always – but sometimes!

Here is a taste of what can be done with flowers. I have not seen this anywhere but in Vietnam.
I wonder what it's for? If it's for special occations or if people just buy such a big flower arrangement and bring it home. Unfortunately I didn't take the time to ask. Maybe a nice reader can assist?

Anyway I think it looks beautiful and I'm sure it takes quite some time to learn.

I had to show this graphic photograph – it has of course nicely designed stairs – but it also has a very nice graphic look. The stairs lead up on to the next floor – and then finally - the very well made ceiling. The picture feels very powerful. Even though the main colours are yellow and black, the iron shapes really stand out and overtake the whole feeling of the picture. It almost looks inspired by Maurits Cornelis Escher’s impossible structures – “Ascending and Descending “.

Inspiring architecture!

Me and my kids went for a trip to a bathing place last summer and while we went to buy some ice cream a nosy (and hungry) mallard came to us hoping for something to eat. If you look closely you can see some waffle on his neb that we gave him.

Although I really appreciate the snow that falls down now for christmas, it feels nice to think about the warm summer.

Hope he is ok now and not too cold (the mallard that is)...

My mother was in Glasgow, Scotland, the other day. There she took this picture of a beautiful mineral called Hematite (a valuable ore of iron) – very creative I must say. Hematite has really nice colours and also shapes that absolutely inspire. This was displayed in the Hunterian Museum at Glasgow University.

I might use this in a nice background for a cool invitation or something like that - maybe for a coming new-year’s eve party or something similar!

Enjoy!

The winter is coming slowly now – getting darker much earlier and much quicker too. So I thought I should post this beautiful summer-picture of the jetty out at Outer Sillö (Ytter Sillö), where we have a little cabin. A very old jetty, that has been through a few winters, and looks like it has been weathered a lot by the wind. A relaxing feeling I must say!

This is a closeup of the beach in the morning as the flood-tide is turning to ebb-tide.

Would you have guessed that if you didn't know? I guess it could have been mistaken for a very long distance photo as well of some delta or so.

Anyway, this is magic and peaceful to me

Here is a nice piece of art from Brussels. This photo was taken by my mother, who just happened to pass by this art-piece. She very often works and lives in Brussels – and she often sends a picture or two to show me some things she sees – like this for instance.

I think it was a really inspiring-looking work of art – so had to post it to show you too. Nice combination with the blue painted steel construction and the orange people hanging or walking within it.

It is good for your inspiration to see other people and what they are creating – even if it is not in your field or imagination just right now - but it could be a great boost for new ideas and getting something completely different going – activate your brain – activate your imagination.

Do you see the human standing in the water saluting the sun and a new day to come?

I took this picture an early morning and tried to focus not on the sun as the center but instead the almighty blue sky and the beach which gives me a feeling of something bigger.

Not much to say. I'll let it speak for itself.

The church cross is a powerful religious symbol rising towards the sky. This is a picture of Allhelgonakyrkan located at Södermalm in Stockholm. The building of the church started in 1917 and was inspired by churches from the rural area. The original thought was to let it stand for ten years and then replace it with a permanent stone church - but it still stands just as it did back in 1917 and it probably will for many years to come. Regardless if you are religious or not, I think you can enjoy this powerful picture on a dusky day from the heart of Södermalm, Sweden. Until we meet again enjoy the cross and let your mind fly free…

This autumn I have been out sailing to Sandhamn as I have mentioned before. It was a super weekend with lots of good and strong winds. When staying over in Sandhamn for the night, I woke up early the next morning and went for a walk. There I saw the sun rising over the islands and the sun bouncing off the white-water and top of the wave-spray - very beautiful sight to see.

Then I walked by these nice kayaks – the sun is shining on them and really made the colours come out great. I was so caught up in taking some nice pictures that I didn’t notice that my shadow got in the way too.

When you walk on the beach early in the morning you get to see much more than when taking the same walk in the afternoon. Things have been flushed up from the sea and the creatures of the beach are getting ready for some rest after a long night's work.

One of the things you might bump into are crabholes. Here is a larger one which I found on a morning walk on a beach in VIetnam.

We have planned to sail out to Sandhamn for some time now. Finally we got round to it and nothing could stop us. It was a bit rainy at first but there was a strong wind blowing. I would estimate it to be about 12-15 m/s. It kept picking up. The rain got heavier and the wind got harder – but it was great sailing and we had great fun. We put up the spray-hood to not get hit too hard by the crashing waves.

We sailed on and crossed Kanholmsfjärden and had a nice finish at Sandhamn. We had made reservations at the “Sandhamns Värdshus” for dinner – before going to dinner we decided to go to the spa and warm up in the hot-tub - very nice indeed. The dinner was very good – we all had some fish of some kind.

A good night’s sleep in the boat – which by the way is of the make Hanse – made somewhere in Germany. We started the next morning with a walk up to the bakery and had a coffee.

Then back home again. This time the weather had changed a bit. The sun came out and the wind did too. It was as strong as the previous day. So it was a great weekend I must say.

Amazing sailing weekend!

I come from the northern and cold Sweden where we have pine trees and fir trees. Therefore I wouldn't expect to find them in the southern and warm Vietnam.

We took a trip of to the mountains at one point (not very high altitude though and still very warm) and there we could see lots of them as in the photograph above.

One really interesting thing is that the pine needles look different in Vietnam from the ones in Sweden. The needle from the Pine tree in Sweden has two parts or blades whereas the Pine tree in Vietnam has three parts or blades which are also much longer. My guess why this differs this way is probably that the trees in Vietnam need to do what they can to get as much sun and nutrition as possible in a warm and dry climate.

See the photo below if the Vietnam pine tree needle.

I think orchids are very pretty flowers – they give a certain calmness to the room. There are several in my home. Even though this one is mainly white it has a lot of beautiful colours inside and so many wonderful patterns. They are very well balanced as so many things in nature. So is the shape of the flower. Take some time and visit a botanical garden too and you can see even more exotic flowers – which you might not meet on your everyday walk in the forest.

As I have said before – enjoy nature.

Me and my family took a trip to the southern of Sweden for a few days during the summer and down there in Skåne (Österlen, Simrishamn) there were lot's of poppies (in Swedish called Vallmo). Here's one of the photos I took - a very beautiful flower.

I wish I knew more about this flower that I could tell you, but unfortunately not. So if you're interested maybe you could take a look at the Wikipedia source.

I was out in the archipelago this weekend. It was very nice weather and I couldn’t resist going for a little walk. While walking over the edge of a lawn I found some of these orange mushrooms. I´m not certain what kind of mushroom they are but I thought they looked very pretty in their orange colour against the green grass. As you might have read the other weekend Niklas Waller wrote a little about his mushroom-picking this summer and he had a great picture from his gatherings. That is why I thought I would take some more mushroom pictures to show here on Wohill.

Nature has a lot to offer as you can see. I’ll make a nice wallpaper for the computer too – check it out.

This summer was a great year for gathering good things from mother nature.
I love taking walks in the forest looking for mushrooms and I also like to pick blueberries and wild strawberries while doing so.

One of my walks this summer was a bit extraordinary since it was jackpot in all three areas. I came home with yellow chantarelles, blueberries and wild strawberries enough to arrange a nice photo.

I brought out three flowery wine glasses to the outdoor table and placed my catch in each glass and here's the result. I think it looks nice, reminds me of this summer and how great it can be.

I was looking through some old photos I took when I was in New York to visit the home of my mother’s Uncle. I told you about this in an earlier post. He was a naval architect designing ships. I took some pictures in New York and some in his home. This one I have been looking for - for a long time. It was taken down in his cellar where he had a little work-shop and storage area.

You can see the characteristic chain that you pull to put on the light and I liked the plain bulb shining in the dark.

A couple of weeks ago me and my son Casper caught a nice pike down in the reed by the shore.
It was caught on his small fishing rod so it became quite a tough struggle!

I had to go down in the water as well to pick it up by its neck since the pike fouled itself in the reed with the fishing line - what a mess, but definately worth it.

It was a great feeling for both of us with lots of adrenaline

Oh, and the weight? 9 lbs or 4 kg

A few days ago it was a bit cloudy in the morning – we had been talking about going for a ride in the boat and hanging out at some nice place where we could go for a swim - but the morning didn’t seem to be as great as they had promised on the news. Didn’t matter that much – we thought we would do something fun anyway. We jumped into the boat and took off to Waxholm - or more exactly Waxholms Kastell. We had a great time and went looking at the old guns, cannons, cannon-balls and mines from the old days when Waxholms Kastell was a strategic point to defend in the Swedish Archipelago.

I took a nice close-up of one of the mines at the restaurant. There were several mines surrounding the seating area in the restaurant yard. It gave it a very nice feeling when we were enjoying our lunch. At the same time the clouds cleared up and the sun came out.

It got hotter and the sun cleared all the clouds away – so we took off to Badholmen, right next to Waxholms Kastell and went for a swim.

This summer the forrest has been full of blueberries, wild strawberries and yellow chanterelle - three things that I really enjoy both looking for, picking and eating. The forrest also has been full of mosquitos and ticks which is not as pleasant but it's worth it anyway.

I have taken many pictures and here's a closeup of some blueberries that I picked and that we later ate with milk, yummy!

At the end of last week I took the old Ockelbo (a little motor-boat) out to Möja, which is an island in the Swedish archipelago. The archipelago is composed of thousands of islands. It is very pretty and inspiring to travel through all these islands. The little Ockelbo we call “Lilla blå” which means little blue. You can see part of it in the bottom corner of the picture.

It was a pleasant ride with a beautiful sunset. A lot of the old gang from when we were kids were coming out to Möja for the evening – so I thought it would be nice to join them. It was fun to see some of the old friends that you haven’t seen for quite some time now.

It is nice to meet good old friends again – don’t forget to send an email now and again or just pick up the phone.

Here's a close-up of the foamy beach I walked on every day for three weeks in Vietnam.
I like these close-ups and on this one we can see the water, the sand and the foam in between which is created when the two first meet.

Imagine putting your feet down there. That would be nice!

The other morning, when I was out at Möja, I woke up very early and took a stroll down by the harbour. The sun was just rising and the birds were waking up. The water was like a mirror - just like the other day, when we were out at Sillö.

The picture is of the cliffs called “Storbranten” at the harbour in the village of Berg on the island of Möja. I have grown up here in the summertime and at weekends and love the beautiful landscape of the archipelago. If you get the chance you should visit this unique island and its surroundings.

Enjoy nature!

I found these white tree mushrooms yesterday when I was taking a walk with the kids in the woods.
A nice picture where you can see the sun looking down from above the trees.
I have always before only seen tree mushrooms that are hard in their consistency but these were soft like a regular agaric mushroom that grows on the ground.

Can't wait for the mushroom season to start. But then I will not pick them from the tree of course

Last weekend was a beautiful weekend. We had gone out to Ytter Sillö for the weekend. The sun was out all day and not a cloud in sight. It was warm with a slight breeze of a warm wind. We all went for a swim and the kids ran up and down the shore-line and really enjoyed themselves.

In the evening the wind completely disappeared and, as you can see in the photograph, the water was like a mirror all over Rödkobbsfjärden. We put out a few nets Saturday evening after dinner. The sun had hardly set before it became morning and the sun rose again. Like a red ball of fire slowly changing over to orange. It is very inspiring to watch. So I took a little walk in the morning just before everyone woke up. All you could hear were a few birds chirping. Shortly after, everyone woke up – the kids full of anticipation and eager to hop into the boat and get the nets up and see if we had caught any fish. We all got into the boat. Slowly we cruised over to the other side. We pulled up the first net and nothing – but the second one was full of fish. Abborre (perch) and flundra (flounder). We even lost a few while pulling up the net. One would think I was going to say that they were the biggest ones… But I confess – the ones that got away weren’t very big!

Back to the shore again to get the fish out of the net and also the seaweed and sea-shells that had got tangled into the net as well. Now Knut cleaned the fish and Magnus started up the grill to get ready for lunch. He grilled the fish in tinfoil and put some spice and butter in with the fish too. Delicious!

It’s a beautiful world out in the archipelago and it was a great weekend out at Outer Sillö.

This is my son Theo on the beach in Phan Thiet in Vietnam. His head is almost covering the sun in the late afternoon which gives some nice effects from the sunbeams.

Vacation somewhere away from home is really something special. It is relaxing in a special way since you don't have to do any of the usual stuff like cleaning, washing, cooking etc. which gives you time to think about other things and to stress off. I wonder when and to where next vacation will go.

An old Scandinavian tradition is to celebrate Midsummer. In some parts of Sweden this is when the sun never sets – the day never ends. The Midsummer celebration and tradition is also well known in many parts of Northern Europe. This picture is taken on the island of Möja, in the village Löka, where a lot of people come to enjoy the summer games and dancing round the midsummer-pole - as you can see in the picture.

I try to get out to the archipelago as often as possible, and we usually go to Möja, where we have a house in the village Berg. Especially at Midsummer we really try extra hard not to miss out – to go there and welcome summer.

Happy Midsummer everyone!

A few weeks ago I was on a business trip to Frankfurt to attend a training course. On the flight back home the airplane flew up above the clouds on it's way up to 10.000 meters. And at that time just when we reached the top of the clouds I saw a different and very special sunset above the clouds. It was amazing!

Check out the photo above. The clouds look like a landscape themselves like hills but only white instead of green. And the sun which is more white and has more hazy edges than normal is about to set. I only had the camera in my cell phone so the quality could be better but nonetheless this one will almost be a framed one on my wall.

A few weeks ago I drew a cartoon to enter a competition. The competition challenge was to write why you wanted to win a pair of DC sneakers, a pair of DC Journal more exactly. I thought about it and the idea popped into my head right away. So I started drawing the cartoon.

A few weeks later I got the pleasing e-mail from Mats at Mediapuls, the company that organized the competition. They “make” the magazine ”Sportguiden” that is distributed here and there, for free. I had won the sneakers! You should pick up a magazine if you see it some day when you are out on town. It’s got a few good articles and stuff to read.

They look really nice – the DC sneakers - white, or bright white right now, with brown details.

I’m off for a run on the skateboard and going to cruise around in my brand new sneakers.

I like black birds or black animals in general. They are mystic and beautiful. And there are really not that many that I can think of if I try really hard. Maybe you can do better

In Sweden we have two very black birds that come to my mind (except for the neb) and that is the raven and the blackbird. On our trip to Venezuela we took a trip with a boat in a delta and there I spotted two rather large black birds up in a small tree. I have no idea what they are called but to me they seem to have typical seabird features.