drama at sea

i can't stop following this story of the collision between the stena immaculate (a product tanker, not an oil tanker, as all the news reports keep saying) and the solong (a smaller container vessel) off the east coast of england yesterday. it's in the area of immingham, where i've spent a lot of time filming ships, so when i first heard about it yesterday, i rushed to the report to see if a dfds ship was involved. it was not. 

i am inordinately fascinated by a shipping accident and kept refreshing the bbc app all day yesterday, as well as following the string of rescue and firefighting vessels that converged on the scene in my marine traffic app. the product tanker was loaded with 220,000 barrels of jet fuel and sitting in an anchorage off immingham when the solong came along and rammed into the side of it at 16 knots. the crew of the stena immaculate abandoned ship within about 30 minutes because it turns out that jet fuel is quite flammable. there were reports that the container vessel was carrying containers of sodium cyanide, but those were apparently false. they had some containers on board that had once had that substance in them, but which were currently empty. 

the captain of the solong has been arrested for "gross negligence manslaughter "(one crew member of the solong is missing and presumed dead). it will be interesting to know more of the story. the crew of the solong was russian and filipino and it was americans onboard the stena immaculate since it was chartered by the us navy. 

both ships are still smoldering today, but expected to remain intact. there were rumors that the solong would sink, but they've been debunked. it has disappeared from marine traffic, but someone probably turned off the ais. it will be very interesting to learn how they could have missed a large product tanker at anchor in an official anchorage, but i guess that will come out in the coming days. and i will be glued to the news, ship geek that i still am at heart.

you can put the girl in the kitchen, but you can't take her off the ship. or something like that. 

added - this guy does a good early analysis using marine traffic.

 

a few of my favorite things

with all the utter madness being caused by a certain spray-tanned madman, it can be hard to look on the bright side these days. but some sunshine and warm temperatures this weekend made it easier around here. i worked on clearing all of last year's plants out of the greenhouses and pruned my grape plant back. molly lounged around, watching me. she's still my bestie. got her back in 2012 in minnesota and she's still going strong. when i get back from minnesota and arizona (i'm going on thursday), it will be time to do the last work to get them ready for the season. 

i went out to nina's to get some presents to take with me to the us and ended up buying these two tiny vases for myself. it's the little things that make us happy - i filled them with the last of the snowdrops and they're so cheerful. yesterday, we grilled the first sausages of the season. and today i actually went running (well running and walking, but there was some running), it was so nice. it's amazing what a difference a bit of sunshine makes on one's mental health. 

and the last favorite thing - these soft, comfy ugg slippers. sabin sent them home to be stored here and i had to have them. they are so soft and comfy, they make my feet very happy.

here's hoping you found some moments of happiness in your weekend!

it's been a good week

this will forever be the week where i learned that i will become a danish citizen. it's also the week we officially were accepted in 3daysofdesign at work. it's one of the coolest design expos in the world and it takes place in copenhagen (of course) in june. i also had really good days at work - getting to be creative in different ways with a variety of colleagues.  and getting a great reminder that the best ideas always happen in the moments where you bounce ideas off one another and they grow and become something better. i am grateful to have such creative people around me, who make my ideas better and who open up my world with their ideas. i really needed that in the face of all the madness the spray-tanned satan is causing. there are still bright spots in the world and i intend to keep embracing them. but now, like olga, i'm going to rest. 

a bright spot in a time of darkness

on the day after the election last november, i filed my application for danish citizenship. it definitely felt like it was time. and yesterday, i received notice that they would grant it. the news took my breath away. i had actually received the letter a couple of weeks ago, but i don't look at my official inbox often enough. it seems appropriate that i opened it on the day of the state of the union address by the spray-tanned clown. what a complete and utter privilege. i sent screenshots to everyone i know. and my beautiful people were as excited for me as i was for myself. i am so very lucky. 

my name will be written into danish law in january next year. then i will participate in a ceremony in my local municipality and then, a few weeks later, i can get a danish passport. and i can vote in national elections. i don't have to give up my american citizenship, as denmark now allows dual citizenship. but who knows how much longer there will be a united states. these are crazy times. i might actually end up stateless for a time before this comes through. but what a safety net to have. i knew husband was the right person for me. i had no idea how right back then, but i know now. 

sparks joy

i got these two cup shelves via work. we have a new category called kvik living. i am a little bit suprised myself how happy it makes me to have my mug and cup collections out where i can see them instead of tucked away in a cupboard. this morning, i stood and looked at the shelf to determine which of the starbucks mugs i wanted for my morning tea. i selected arizona, since i'll be headed there next week. it was nice to have a moment to think about it and admire the collection, rather than just grabbing the first one from the cupboard.

and the handmade cups are kept above the espresso machine. i always look and see which one i'm in the mood for. it's actually a different one every time. i don't always go for the same one. and i legit consciously think about how happy it makes me to see them all there on the shelf. 

in these dark times, it's even more important to find the small things that spark joy. the world has become quite uncertain. there's an enormous shift going on and it's not for the better. i don't know where it's taking us and i could let myself become consumed with worry about it. in the wee hours of the morning, those worries often surface. but if we look for small moments of happiness, maybe they will multiply. i want to hold onto some shred of optimism in the face of it all. it seems a small form of bravery, when i otherwise feel helpless and like i'm not doing a damn thing. maybe it starts with your morning tea in a favorite mug. or a little beautiful corner of your home. maybe it's from there that one gathers the strength for the storm that's surely on the horizon. 

noticing

the sun is noticeably returning. especially noticeable when it's actually shining, like today. it's 5:37 p.m. and the sun hasn't set and it's beaming through the bedroom window, casting gorgeous planty shadows on the wall. this is a picture i would have shared as an instagram story and not thought much more about it. i don't miss that one bit. the habit of noticing and taking pictures of things is something i've been doing since i got that first dslr back in may of 2008, so no credit to instagram there.

i'm still taking daily pictures and have been sharing them over on this tumbler since about 2011. honestly, though the pictures have been taken with my iphone in recent years, i consider that quite an accomplishment. i don't think i've skipped a single day. i might have almost forgotten and taken a grainy night photo, but i've for sure taken a photo every day since we did that blog camp 365 back in 2010 on flickr. 

ahh, those were the days. facebook for sure ruined all that. and i'm so glad that era is over. at least for me. i am still putting my daily photos on flickr. i use it more as a repository than a social space these days, though some of the old crowd is still there. it's sad to think of those who aren't because they're no longer with us...like cyndy and char. but thank goodness we had those times. coming back here feels like coming home. 

if only it were true

an old colleague from lego posted this on linkedin the other day. she's no longer there and i don't know why she left or if she was pushed out. this isn't about her story. it's about mine. and the stories of a number of other friends. it's a story that i haven't seen anyone telling. because everyone loves the product lego makes so much, but weirdly no one tells the truth about what an utterly shit place it is to work. 

i scrolled past this post, and i'll admit i had hard time taking it seriously, what with it being written in comic sans and all (despite the resurgence of that font in recent years). i'm quite certain this person is using it without knowledge of that. then i stopped to ponder. i think she's got the right things on this list, but what she doesn't realize (or is trying to ignore, because she's campaigning to get back in or to cash in on her time there), is that they're the wrong way around. everything that lego is actually about, when you are on the ground, inside the hallowed halls, is the stuff on the right, not the bits on the left. and i think if people started to speak up, there would be a lot of folks who agree with me on that. 

to be fair, if i read her caption, she's talking about innovation, not about it being a great place to work. but if you really look at them, those items on the list aren't about innovation, they're about a workplace where you'd like to work. and lego isn't that. except in the imagination. 

i'm still scarred by my year there. i had come to them with experience from companies like microsoft and maersk, but it was like i'd never had a job before and none of that experience counted for anything. the head of the department i was in had started at lego when he was 16. he was then approaching 60 and had been parked in an obscure corner of lego, forever a senior manger and never a vice president. he was known within the afol community, because people there recognized that if they wanted to be sent free lego, they needed to kiss the ring of this sad, awkward man, who had trouble looking anyone in the eye. 

maybe that was where i went wrong. i didn't kiss the ring. i had too much respect for myself and my experience. and maybe he knew that i saw right through him and knew he had been sidelined. maybe he could see that in my eyes and it made him have to face it himself, which wasn't fun for him. and that's why he had to do away with my job after only one year. 

at the same time as he did so, he had to admit that i'd actually done a really good job and he couldn't fault me. he told me that lego wasn't ready to work closely with their adult fans. what a joke that has turned out to be. they're working with them in a major way today. and i was a big part of starting how that would pan out. he can never take that away from me, even though he took my job away. that was ten years ago. 

he retired a couple of years ago, still not a vice president, even though there are many vps in lego. still a little norwegian nobody in an obscure corner of tech house in billund. that obscure corner isn't so obscure anymore now that he's gone. hopefully, he was also pushed out. and i suspect the old colleague that posted this was too. she was one of his minions. and so now, she's left spinning yarns about lego on linkedin...full of ego and strategizing, trying desperately to look an authority in what she thinks is an unironic use of comic sans.