Tuesday, November 27, 2007

The Boon and Bane of heated sidewalks

They are both the greatest thing since sliced bread, and treacherous at the same time.

The snow from yesterday turned into rain, and froze, bet you can see where this is going.

well walking to work this morning, I am merrily walking along the nice heated sidewalk, and you step out onto the street, Pure Ice!

Wow was that slippery, also remember that it is all up hill to my place. so it was icy, going down a fairly steep hill.

I found the best way was to go with it and slide across the street and hope you can stop once you get back to the heated sidewalks :)

Monday, November 26, 2007

Holy Wind batman!

Yesterday it started snowing. And iw as walking home after spending a day playing wow here at the office.

Well I have never run into a wind that stops your forward progress when walking. And it was blowing so hard the noise drowned out my ear bud for my iPod...

Well I got home and am not deaf, the house is fairly old, but seeing as many houses here in Iceland are concrete they would tend to last along time. Anyway there is not good seals around many of the windows, and the wind was whistling thorough the house a good bit.

Really wish Karen's quilt was here already, would have been useful last night.

Well it is monday, and the work doesn't do it self... Ta for now.

Sunday, November 25, 2007

Breaking news


Winter is here!
It started snowing just after I got into the office today.

Like the rain the snow is coming in sideways :)

not much else has been happening, been working and a gave a demo of path finding system I wrote on Friday, people seem to be impressed with it :)

Well dad is about to ship stuff from Canada for me, going to be $580 to ship 50 lbs here :(
Oh well it needs to get here.

Sunday, November 18, 2007

The saga of the keys

It was a cold and rainy day, our hero was in search of a place to call home. The place to call home had been located, but the keys of access where missing (Ian took them back to the states with him when he flew home). But never fear, the fearless Chantal had keys of access, but our hero could not have hers, but she would let our hero copy them.

Our hero set out to make copies of the keys, the keepers of lore in the HR department said "Go across the street, there is a hardware store there". Rain coat adorned our hero set out. Upon arriving the helpful lady said that they could do that and gave direction to the crafter of keys.

Upon locating the crafter of keys informed our hero that he lacked the blank keys for to make copies of these keys.

So our hero returned to the keepers of lore and informed them of the state of things. They said, oh goto Byko ( "y" is pronounced like "ye" so it is said "bee-ko") just a little further south.

Once again our hero set out into the cold rain. a short 10 min hike into the wind later he arrived at Byko. Again the helpful lady directed him to the crafter of keys. (surprisingly not the same lady). The crafter of keys took our lady Chantal keys into his lair and there was much talk in a strange language. Eventually the crater of keys came back and said he only had a blank for one of the keys. Our hero decided to get that one done, he could now get into the apartment, but not the building....

The crafter of keys also knowing some lore gave direction to another crafter of keys that might be able to do the other key. So our hero turned up his collar and began the 20 min hike to the other crafter of keys located on on Laugavegur (yes it is pronounced, don't ask me how!).

After a bitter cold hike to this crafter of keys our hereo finds a kindly old crafter who has no problems making the last key.

Our hero now begins the 30 min hike back to his place of work, hiking once again into the blowing rain our hero becomes chilled and goes "to heck with this!" and ambushes a idle cab for a ride back.

And that is the tale of our intrepid hero got a place to live.


There

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

House and info about what i do.

Moved into the apartment last night. Should be interesting, the apartment is basically a 3 bedroom attic suite. We have a large bathroom with a big tub. In the laundry room is the washer (have to line dry everything) and the shower.

Have one bedroom sized space as a living room, the kitchen has a dish washer which I understand is kinda rare in Iceland Chantal . Chantal was nice enough to wash the sheets from the bed i will be using. They are flannel sheets so it was like staying at Grans house :). It seems the preferred bedding here is a comforter with a flannel cover and a bottom sheet. Different, but warm enough.

turns out i was wrong about Chantal she is from Holland not england.

And here is a picture for Karen.


Snædís Perla C. Sigurðardóttir was wearing these on the weekend, I liked the style, and though of Karren


Well on to other things, there was a comment, Thank you Joan nice to know someone is reading my ramblings.

Yes there are cameras on the street, not as much as i here england is like, but they are there, allot of buildings have security cameras, even the small shops. which considering I hear crimes is very very low here is surprising, but maybe that is why. At the moment I am going with the rough number that everything is about 40% more expensive. The cheap Inn room I was staying in was charging ccp about 9k($150) a night for the room, and in the summer he charges about 11k($183) a night. When I was in the hotel it was 10K a night and I can't imagine what they charge in the summer.

Job, I am working as part of a team, not leading it but it is a small team with 2 full time engineers and 3 part time. Björn Swift (pronounced Be-Urn) teaches part time at Reykjavik university, Matti has a chronicle sick child that they are taking care of so he is in only 3 days a week. And Kristján Valur Jónsson( Pronounced Christan) works from home for a couple days a week.

I am working on a project called ambulation for eve-online. Since eve is a space based game you mostly fly around in a ship, but this will allow the player base to get out of there ships and walk around on stations. So as you can imagine there isn't allot of experience here with character based movement and the required systems at CCP.

Anyway I now have a place and i will save the Saga of the apartment keys for another day...

Friday, November 9, 2007

Contracts signed

title says it all.

For a place to call home.

Well it looks like I will be moving in with Chantal and Vilhelm Monday or so, there current room mate was here from Atlanta to learn. Now he is heading back, it shall be interesting living with other people again :)

Vilhelm is Icelandic, and Chantal is from England.

more to come, stopped and took some pictures this morning on the way in, will see if they turn out ok or not. Low light, and long exposure, in the rain ...

Thursday, November 8, 2007

Action!, Lights! Camera?!?!?

Icelanders seems to really like there emotion detectors. You find them not only on doors, But also the lights. For a country that has allot of cheap electricity they are very conscious of turning things off.

Like Briton there is a large number of CCD cameras around. so we have Action, that turns on the Lights, which makes you show up on the Camera!

On the living front it looks like i could be rooming with a couple of people here as early as next week. So maybe i will have a place to have dad ship my PC to :)

Other than that life goes on. the rain doesn't stop but the temperature feels allot like early fall. there have been a couple of cold days but nothing really bad, and am starting to see some ice when walking to work in the morning.

The swans and ducks are still in the pond around the city hall.

So write comment so I know that there are people out there.

Sunday, November 4, 2007

The Books, Om My! For the love of the books... and other things.

Above is a picture out the office window near where I am sitting.

Well the new terry Praticht book Making Money come out.. And you know how much i love his books, well i picked it and another pocket book up. The Pocket book was $11 Canadian, and the hard cover was $35 Canadian. All told it cost me $70 Canadian for the two.. Book prices are unreal here, I think I might have to beg people to bring books with them when they come from Canada.

Fan Fest went well and the fan's seem to be excited, there was lots of talks about eve, and some of the round tables where very interesting and some good ideas where put forth.

This is a picture of the producer I am working for, Torfi.


Here is another nice picture.


Well that is all for now, off to find some lunch and then back to wow.

Thursday, November 1, 2007

Christmas and the fanfest

Well fan fest is here, so i will be off to Laughrdallstloll (last O has two `` over it) wich is the local stadium/ sports location.

And got the tickets for flying home at Christmas this year. will have to do all the packing and storage arrangements the first week while business are open..

anyway off to the fun and festivity's.