dot dk

I just got back from Christmas with my family in New Mexico. (Lisbeth is due on Februry 5th, so she stayed in Denmark and had Christmas with her family.) This was the first time I’d had two stopovers, and I was a little surprised at how much difference that one stop makes the trip. I saved about $400 doing it this way, so that’s $200 each way… but I’m not sure it’s worth it.

It’s not really the layover that’s the problem. I don’t mind having time to stretch my legs, and if it’s no longer than three hours, the time isn’t really the issue. The problem is that each layover increases the chances of a missed, delayed or cancelled flight. Coming into I came very close to missing my flight in Houston. So that’s one lesson — saving some money can cause a missed flight. But I noticed a few other things about air travel on this trip. (more…)

Pictures from my trip to New Mexico for Christmas are posted.

Perhaps it’s just because I’ve been busy. Perhaps it’s because it’s winter. Perhaps it’s because I’ve lived in Copenhagen for almost three years now and just don’t find it as exotic as I did before.

Whatever the reason, I haven’t felt as motivated to take pictures recently. And so, last week when I managed to pull my camera out of my bag and snap a few pictures, it seemed worth posting.

Magasin is the iconic department store in Denmark. Most big cities in Denmark have one, but the one in Copenhagen is clearly the flagship — sort of a Danish version of Macy’s in Manhattan, I suppose, never having been there…

At any rate, it looks pretty nice at Christmas.

As a way of thanking Lisbeth’s parents for all they did for the wedding, we took them on a tour called Sort Sol, which means black sun. It’s the nightly resting place of the starling, which settles in massive flocks in different areas in Southern Denmark as part of migration. We were told that this particular night there were up to 600,000 birds.

We were also told that one of the reasons that the location varies is because people (who are not, it was made clear, on one of their tours) occasionally use loud noises to rouse the birds once they settle in order to see them darken the sky again. (more…)

I’m no wedding expert, but I’ve been to enough to know that the couple getting married doesn’t always have a very good time. It’s easy to see why, with all the planning, the expectations, the logistics, and the fact that — hopefully — you only have one chance to get it right. So I was a little surprised that it was such a fantastic day, and we enjoyed ourselves so much. That’s not to say that it was perfect, but the imperfections were harmless and pretty funny.

The Preparation

There were a lot of things about this wedding that weren’t like others I’ve been to. For example, Lisbeth made the wedding cake. It’s not unusual for the bride to make the cake in Denmark, but I’ve never heard of that in the US. (It was utterly fantastic cake!)

The party (or reception as it’s generally called in the states) was held in the back yard at Lisbeth’s parents’ house. If you’ve been following this blog then you know that they live in a really pretty setting, and so there was no debate where we wanted to have the party. (more…)

Pray for our Republic. She’s being placed in … very greedy hands.

Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio, on the bailout

George W. Bush just signed the largest government intervention of the free market since the Great Depression, freeing up the better part of a trillion tax payer dollars for injection into large, private corporations.

I don’t know if it’s the right thing to do. It seems to me that the core problem is people defaulting on their mortgages, and so the way to keep things from getting worse would be to help them stay in their homes. (more…)

On Saturday, September 20th, Lisbeth and I were married in her hometown, Vejle. We’re both very pleased with the way everything went. The weather was great, the service was beautiful, and the party afterwards was a lot of fun. More here.

My least favorite part of living in Denmark is the scooters. I wouldn’t mind so much if they were limited to the street, but they aren’t. Most are on the bike lanes. Worse yet, they are there legally. 

There are two types of scooters: those that are speed-limited, and those that aren’t. The speed limited ones are required to use the bike lanes by law. Their speed is limited to around 30 km/h (about 18 mph), which is just a bit faster than I often ride my bike. So when one passes you, it does so slowly, and then you’re stuck behind a machine that’s spitting out 2-stroke oil. Then you have a choice — slow way down or breath fumes.

But some of the scooters are on the bike lanes illegally because they aren’t speed-regulated. Apparently it’s easy to modify a speed-limited scooter to be a un-regulated. So it’s not unusual to by passed by a scooter that’s going two or three times faster than you are. That’s much more dangerous. So, it’s either be subjected to fumes or be overtaken suddenly and at speed.

That’s bad enough, but scooter drivers seem to be annoyed by all the bikes in the “bike” lane. They honk their honks and blow past you as if you had no right to be there. And then you get to wait at red lights with them, inhaling more fumes.

And all the while I can’t understand why it’s legal for a motorized vehicle to travel in the bike lanes in the first place.

During almost four decades of watching people reproduce, sometimes foolishly and sometimes on purpose, I’ve never thought much of it. It didn’t compel me to follow suit. There certainly wasn’t any jealousy. And the kids, while I enjoyed them (some more than others), they didn’t make me want kids of my own.

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