vogwurk + werdwurk
glimpsed: [] melbourne time

my flight from oslo to london is overbooked so they have invited those interested to travel via stockholm with a bonus of $400 that you can redeem for travel or $200 cash on arrival in london. would be sort of fun, say i got to visit stockholm, but it must be 90 minutes in completely the wrong direction (anyway it won't give me time for my connecting flight to australia). it is a funny economy when they do this, though i understand flights are regularly overbooked. if it was $400 cash, and they mean us dollars, then that would be interesting. but looking around it is clear most are business travellers not paying for their tickets so arriving 2 hours later with all that extra travel really isn't worth $200.

the anxious flyer: would you actually want to know this?

are campagnolo cycling gloves any good? i own a pair of black long fingered ones with velcro wrist straps that have some sort of rubber like stuff on the fingers. they're rubbish. they cost a fortune, when they're wet they are freezing, and one seam is already splitting and they have been used for a total of 3 months. i haven't even fallen off while wearing them so the split seam is not because they protected my hands in a fall. if the weather is dry they are ok, but if it is cold and wet, don't bother.

with the way in which google works it is now perfectly reasonable to use the www (in particular blogs) as 100% public notice or bulletin boards. what i mean by this is not how a blog lets you write what you like and some audience (more or less minor) forms, but how you can write something quite specific knowing that one day someone will want that information and will ask google just that question. like this:

is there wireless internet access at oslo airport? or is there wireless internet access at gardermoen? well, yes there is. the entire airport has a wlan or wireless network which gives you free access to the airport web site. if you want internet access then you can purchase 1, 2, or 4 hours of access via the web site using your credit card. as of today the costs are nok70, nok110, and nok180 respectively.

if you need to borrow electricity there are quite a few power points in the central cafe (immediately opposite the security gates where they scan your bags and stuff). look for the long wooden island bench thing that has tubs of plastic plants and seats on either side. behind the seats that face outwards you'll find some powerpoints. at the same cafe there are also some on the side of some of the low wooden pillars next to some of the tables.

is a term that i think mark amerika uses, or perhaps it is nomadic narrative? either way, i'm sitting in oslo airport with a 5 hour wait and have discovered a subscription wireless service. not cheap nok70 for an hour or nok110 for 2, but i'll probably pay for at least an hour after i've done some work to send some email and stuff.

i leave bergen thursday morning to fly back to melbourne. been here for a very busy 3 months where as is probably usual in an underresourced research centre most of my time seems to have been trying to make funding applications and proposals for things that may, or may not, fly. regardless. right now i'm desperately trying to finish the things that need finishing, pack, shop. strung out and lost.

this for a moment of nationalism. i used to be a bike racer. that's bicycle's not motor bikes. back in the olden days when i was a competitive cyclist australia was only just beginning to become good. just. but on the road we were no where apart from the odd exceptional individual (such as phil anderson). right now i am watching the world road cycling championships. about an hour to go. 2 australians are among the legitmate and serious favourites to win (they were both interviewed on eurosport the other night). there is currently 3 riders away who are about to be swallowed by the bunch, which the italians have been controlling. but now there are 6 australians there, keeping an eye on things. that australians would know how to ride as a team, could ride as a team, and would be one of the major national teams at a world road titles was foolish fantasy 20 years ago. (the dutch commentator just listed the 6 australian's individually, apparently to indicate the depth.) it is impressive and yes i'm proud (no idea why it has a thing to do with me, but i grew up idolising european road cycling). if only we could pursue excellence in research and education in the same manner. (i am not one of those who think success in sport comes at the cost of success in academic excellence - witness europe. rather it shows that a small nation can achieve extraordinary outcomes when excellence is fully funded. look at norway at last year's winter olympics.)

in the last 2 km if it comes down to a bunch sprint (very likely) i expect an italian and australian train. awesome.

in my recent effort to find a more efficient email client i had thought that mailsmith was the one, lean mean email client, brilliant filtering and very complex text handling stuff. but alas no. it just doesn't have the speed. scrolling, deleting, it is just too slow on my tibook (which isn't exactly in the slouch category of computing). eudora does it tons faster. had a quick look at entourage. it looked good, but i couldn't find stationery anywhere, and that's something that when i need it, i really need it and it saves a heap of work. so it looks like i'm returning to eudora...

what i have learnt is that i have too many mail boxes, and that i need to streamline that to be more effective i using my email, as well as some basic filters for the incoming mail.

to fly from bergen to volda i travel with the regional airline wideroe. the route is bergen to sogndal, then change planes to volda. the first leg takes 25 minutes (a few weeks ago when jill and i went to flam by train then boat to bergen we went near to sogndal, going that way it would be about 5 hours). there were 5 passengers.

sogndal is on the sognfjord. norway's longest (and deepest as the tourist literature likes to remind you) and it is impressive. the mountains rise up it must be 1200 or 1400 metres straight from the water. so towns are always nestled into tiny little tributaries of flatness by the water. i wondered where they would find room for an airport.

needn't have bothered. it was on top of the moutain. an airport for the buffs, and i imagine expensive video shoots you might make of planes for potential customers. the landing strip must be at 1000 metres or so. we flew past above and alongside the strip, then descended banking over the sognfjord coming into the airport. underneath water a long way down, then cliff, then the mountain top. taking off is the same. you rise above the earth then watch it fall 1000 metres into fjord below you. you could charge extra just for the experience it really is that spectacular. (someone needs to show this place to american location managers.)

i'm reminded of the book that was sitting on torill's desk in her office, marc auge's book about non places. i'm waiting at the airport. i want to call it volda airport except it lies half way between volda and østroy so is their mutual airport. the flight is delayed by at least 30 minutes. so the non place that is the airport gets exacerbated by the delay which can only be endured.

out the window, as i write, are a series of enormous (i think on the map i found they are 1400m above sea level) peaks, ridges and possibly a plateau. from the same map i know that they form this immensely knobbed lump between two arms of a fjord which volda on one side, and østroy on the other.

most the mountains are above the tree line, and from here appear as ruddy cheeked scree slopes and very steep cols. in winter i imagine ice climbing.

if a bit smaller volda could be a perfect location for one of those northern exposure style tv dramas. in the taxi to the airport we stopped in the centre of town, by the boat ferry, to pick up the second passenger who needed to get to the airport. the driver worked out the split fare (mine was 7 kroner more since i was picked up first). in town as we walked to the college there was one car we needed to get off the road for. though it helped that we didn't walk along the one main road.

i met the dean of the department, who was lying on his back on one of the many couches in the staff room. we had an excellent talk about teaching media production and new media teaching, i saw some more of the facilities they have, and then got lunch in the new campus building.

first impressions. intimate community. not quite like the american college town because in town you knew the elderly people were not retired campus folk (as might happen in the united states). it was more two cultures. friendly, provincial in a positive

i am not in volda.

i missed the plane.