Jule hilsen fra Familien Larsen

'tis the season

I made a movie like this in the middle of the night, the lighting was great. It had a feeling of cold weather, as it was just great. but the movie turned totally black when I imported onto the computer. So I re-did it in the daylight. Now I contemplating to re-do it again, with pictures into a slideshow.... We'll just have to wait and see if that happens.

Ohhhh, Christmas Tree

'tis the season for a Christmas tree.

We took ourselves a trip out in the country, and we found ourselves a very nice tree on a tree farm, Carrol's Country Christmas Trees.

We were greeted by a nice young guy named Jared. He gave us a little tree saw, and told us to find the tree we wanted, and he would cut it down, unless we wanted to do so ourselves. We walked the whole tree farm, until we found ourselves the tree we wanted. We walked the whole farm to see if they had at least one nice Noble. That's the kind we have had for all the years our families have been..... meaning... both Lea Anne's parents and mine have had NOBLE's throughout our childhood....
But they did not have any .... well, they had some, but they were not nice enough to pay about $40 for, especially since we had a card for one free tree, given to us from our friends Larry and Diana Walker. We figured, we might just get a DOUGLAS here, and we can buy a NOBLE somewhere else if we don't like it.


Here is the tree we finally decided on. Our Christmas tree 2008.


Look how happy we were when had decided on our tree.

Sam in cutting action.

He was a trooper until the tree fell.

The joy lasted until the tree was placed in the stand. How could our beautiful 9' tree become THIS???

I can guarantee you that we don't have a 9' ceiling!!

If you look closely, you may be able to see that I put a two inch block under the tree to get it higher, but that it is still about a foot to the ceiling.

And I did measure it twice!! I even joked with Lea Anne how silly it was of me to measure height on the exact same spot we were to place it, as our ceiling is the same all over.


I put a little two inch block in the bottom of the stand to elevate the tree.
notice how few branches there is at the bottom of our tree....

I filled in with branches to fill it out... a trick I learned from my dad.... he always made the trees much fuller. Our trees always looked perfect.

I think I will add one more branch before I call it good, and we can start decorating it. Good activity for a snow day.

Did I mention... Sam was too effective in cutting the tree... TIMBER! First take.

If the camera guy is not ready when the tree is going down.... well, then a second take have to be taken....

TIMBER! !
Second take......


(We call it: "To do a Jeanette" in our house.... We love you, Jeanette)

Arborist in action.

Here is the first picture from the tree removal party that was at our Bishops house yesterday, Saturday December 6th, 2008.

I took about 70 more pictures and movie clips that morning. A selection of those will appear on this blog, but the rest can be found at

http://picasaweb.google.com/norwayfamily/TakingDownBishopsTree#

The pictures on the Picasa site is in a small format, but if you like to have a larger picture, let me know, and I will send it in a larger format to you.

This is about an hour into the event. The other guys started about 10 AM, but I came at about 11 AM.

Until I can get the movie of the tree top removal in place here... here is a link to it.

http://picasaweb.google.com/norwayfamily/TakingDownBishopsTree#5277011932655488834

I could have a couple of movies where the guys are taking turn using sledgehammers to wedge the wood to fireplace size pieces, and it may come, but for now, I will put in a link to where Peter Bergeson breaks apart a huge log with his bare hands all by himself. Those logs WERE REALLY HEAVY, I NEED TO MENTION IT AGAIN! I carried or rolled more than half of those logs by myself to the guys that split them.

http://picasaweb.google.com/norwayfamily/TakingDownBishopsTree#5277014015881528898

OK, guys... here is a link to where you did a great job splitting the logs.

Neil and James http://picasaweb.google.com/norwayfamily/TakingDownBishopsTree#5277013372022958258

Deleted blog

I guess there is a couple, maybe even a few that my have noticed that I have deleted a whole post right here. It so happen that I had posted a post in the wrong blog. I guess when you have many different blogs, that can happen. At least that happened to me.

It's a SMALL world

The world seems to get smaller and smaller as I grow older and older. Here I have been doing research on the Bottelsen family line. And a couple of days ago, I received an email from Else Egeland. She found my Bottelsen blog and was able to find some common ancestors, and she gave a link to parts of the family tree that I had been thinking of looking into next. While I was looking at the information and the names, I came across a name that was very familiar to me. It was the name of a teacher at my high school from many years ago, and many miles away. Even in the very northern part of Norway. I was not quite sure if it was a coincidence or if it was the same person. There was one man named Olav Erichsen, who was married to a woman with the name Sigrid Rokne. I told my wife as soon as I saw that, about my teacher friend that was named Olav Rokne Erichsen. And sure enough, a little further down the page, I found a son named Olav. How many could it be with that name? I know I am the only Rune Trygve Larsen in the world, even if I have found that there is no-one with that name in the US... (guess where I live.... and if you have read one of my old posts, you'll understand what I mean.)

I mentioned it to Else in an Email, and she confirmed that he is a second cousin of her, so all along, I have known a decedent of my 'old friend' Peder Bottelsen.

And this is the third time this have happened to me. The second time was when I told my friend Lea Anne (she later became my wife) that I knew only one person in Oregon, and her name was Kathleen Nordgaard. Should you have known.... she went to Church with Lea Anne, even if the place I knew that her hometown was a few hours away from Eugene. But that is how I got Lea Anne's number. She can tell you what she thought of me after the first time we talked on the phone.

I also had a similar experience happening to me while visiting the London Temple after my mission, when I met 7 people or couples (or families) that had a connection to me via a friend.

This was also how I became the boyfriend to an old girlfriend I had looooong ago.....

Who have you met lately that you may have a common connection with that may not be obvious.... Maybe it is me? I know of one woman that knows four of my friends from four different periods in my life. I don't know her myself, but being in the same Facebook group, I found that out. BTW, Facebook is very interesting tool to find out that kind of thing.... Maybe there is one of your friends among my friends on Facebook. Who knows who knows who!

A great day

I have enjoyed a day with the family. We took a trip to Portland, and for those that are not familiar with the distance, it's about two hour drive each way. I was happy to do so, and everyone in the family were exited for us to do this today. We were hoping to try their 99cent breakfast... but we got there about 10 minutes late as we stopped to vote. We also stopped as Big Lots have or had a good sale on portable DVD players- A 9 inch for only $49. We come to a closed location of the first Big Lots in Albany. The second Big Lots in Salem said they had been out since the first hour of the sale, on SATURDAY.... And then we made a wrong turn... making us 10 minutes late for breakfast... We survived.... and enjoyed lunch instead a little later.

On the way back, we stopped at Fry's Electronics, and found that they had the computer memory that I requested, with a $17 mail in rebate on a $30 purchase. I should have known it was too good to be true. I looked forward to installing the RAM to be able to get it going noticeable faster. As soon as I powered down the computer and opened the case, I found that my information about what RAM it using and that I had requested the wrong kind of RAM, and now I just have to travel three hours to return it, or put it into Lea Anne's computer, and have her be able to enjoy her computer even more then she is doing now.

What more can I say: Happy Belated Birthday Lea Anne!

At least I got a new supply of Cloudberry Jam at IKEA today. That is for those that speak Norwegian, Multebær syltetøy. That is what Lea Anne brought home the first time she came came from IKEA. I'm sure I will get my RAM one of these days.

I like to experiment computer stuff.

I'm on it again... I have been waiting at work for an hour now to be able to continue with my job distributing papers.  Not my dream job, but it gives me time to do my own thing while I wait.  Today, or in fact tonight, or now that is, I decided to try to mix my two new online things... actually three.. as I am using Windows Live Writer to write this blog that will be on my blog at theonlyruneyouknow.blogspot.com, but will automatically feed to my facebook profile at http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=590835403 

I just checked back on my facebook profile and found that it had imported a link to all my 50 blog entries.  I can hardly believe that, as my wife Lea Anne that I thought was blogging much more then me, have just passed 100... that is only  twice as many... and she started blogging long before me.

I am also going to see if the pictures from our picasaweb albums will import, so I can share our pictures in one spot, and accessible from my multiple public spots.

If you want to see our pictures, you can find them at picasaweb.Google.com/norwayfamily

So this is what I do when I have nothing to do at work... and get paid for it .  I guess my job is not so bad after all :)

I am open for new and exiting ways to surf the net so let me know of any new things to try.  Happy surfing.

So close to a YouTube moment

My nephew Jason celebrated his 7th birthday yesterday. And as traditi0n have become in the Webb families there have to be a piñata.  And this is when the YouTube moment almost happened.

I started with a Darth Wader Piñata ...

Notice the strings = a pull the strings Piñata ...

And all the kids are sitting ready and willing to hit Darth Wader in the head.....

And the lucky first get the band over her eyes....

One Small hit... and the head goes plop...

Then the candy is up for grabs...

Poor Jimmy boy.. he seems a little red..

Jason... I am your father....

Well, Jimmy boy, this is your lucky day... you could have been YouTubed. Heather almost got it.  But this hat on your head...  LOL. 

 

Just remember we all love you.

Fond childhood memories

Welcome to my fondest childhood memories.

I grew up jumping on these rocks.

It's amazing what a few boats in a row can do to a mans brain. 

These boats were laying as they have always done.

There were so many memories that flowed back into my mind when I saw these boat laying like they, or the boats like it have done for at least 35 years.

Not much have changed. 

You can see the Jelly fish, just an arm length out in the water.  There were always a ton of jelly fish right at the boatlanding.

I used to try to get the shell that looks like a little Chinese hat off the rocks, hopefully without braking them.  I never knew what they were called.

There were always a ton of  Blåskjell, or clamshells as they are called in English.

What would this place be without the the fish skeletons.  My dad would always filet the fish right there on the shore after we got in.

It was like time had stood still...

except they added a molo.

They made the boat landing wider.... it used to be room for only one, maybe two boats if you really had to.

And I had my wife with me.  I so wish that she could even have a tiny little glimpse into my mind when we were there. 

It were the closest I have been to be 5 again.

1st Larsen Family Garagesale EVER!

WOW, we're having a garage sale!

It have been a project 8.5 years in the making. Garage sale is not something that is common in Norway. We have something that were more common a few years back, even before I was of school age... it was flee market. But we never participated.

Even used stores are uncommon where my mom lives, and I grew up. In fact, it's just a couple of years since it the first one opened. But living in America, I have become very accustomed to them, but never been part of one.

So far at our garage sale we have had;
1 early bird, that were looking for antics
three cars that turned around so fast that they almost do not count.... (before we had all our stuff out,)
then we had a woman and her daughter,
a man on a bike,
at the same time as we had one that just turned around, and one couple that viewed our garage sale from the comfort of their car,
- Three potential coustomers at the same time, WOW, Sam should have seen it... he would have been in HEAVEN. He have been complaining that we have no-one coming to our garage sale, but that every one is going to our neighbors down the street...
We also had a young lady, and also a single lady of a few more years...
And that is the status of our garage sale at the time of 10:45 AM, and we started at 7:30 AM to get ready...

And here came Grandpa to contribute as well- some well read paper back books... what is a garage sale without book... you just have to have it. No garage sale without them.

This is the story behind our garage sale....

When our niece Anita were here a couple of years ago, she became a big advocate for us to have a garage sale. To finance a trip back to NORWAY, but we have now found a better way... just ask mom.....
So in the process of time we have talked about having a GS. But it was this summer, when our dear friend and neighbor Delores, suggested that we should have a GS, and I told her that I did not think we had good enough stuff to have people spend the time to come to our GS, and suggesting that a better deal would be to have a GS covering the whole street. With that in mind, we started thinking of a date for the 'big' street wide GS. With lots of stuff planned, we could not have it in June, as it would be to soon. July and August were out due to travels. Not only our Norway visit, but also theirs.

So now, so many months of planning, and preparating, and collecting all our stuff, we had A SALE! We had two ladies, with a little 5 month old beautiful red head, that were our first real customers - a whole $ worth. They bought a pair of pants that matched the baby girl's red hair, at 11:02.

And then there were two cars, that would have been, if they could have been drive-by's. But since we live on a dead end, they just turned around.

I don't know if Lea Anne just could not bear parting with the wreath, or just realized that adding a few fall colored leafs into it, it could last for another year. So I sold it back to her.

Then there came an older grandpa guy, that found one of our child swings that he wanted to have for a grandchild, and our third sale were a fact!

The last hour of our garage sale have been alittle slow. But that's OK, as the sun is really shining on us now. It beats the rain that I was afraid we were going to get. This will make it easier to stay 'open for business' a little longer.

You may wonder what our garage sale looks like. Well, I have pictures of it all, except the customers. I figured it would be a little aquard to ask them to pose for a picture.

But here are the pictures I took of our garage sale.


Overview of the Garage sale stuff


Lilly at the Child Play thing department


The children cloats department


Lilly looking for a good deal in the 'Computer and electronics department'


The only good was herself...


A fancy IKEA hack.... drying rack is good to hold cloats. Picture was taken before fancy London Fog Coat were added to the inventory.


Lilly found what she wanted ...


The electronics department features a lamp that sells for $30+ on ebay, but no takers at our sale.


The furniture department with an expensive glass table top among the couches.
No takers of the FREE couches! What have the world come to?


The after picture... well, not, but it could have been...
$4.50 in profit of a whole days work.
You try to compare and find what is missing.

We are ending our garage sale on a high note. We had a run of 6-7 customers, even two at the same time, and the last one to leave was the big spender, as he bought TWO items, namely a chicken to have scrambled eggs in, and a book, totaling $2.50 bringing our total to $4.50 for the day.

It have been a great experience, that may be repeated in the spring.... we'll see....

Make me a Celebrity and Family History.

It's been a while since I took the time to blog.  I have had a couple of things that have kept me busy, and that is what I will write about now.  'Make me a Celebrity' on Facebook, held my interest for a month or so.  Lea Anne started playing the game, and I got into it by playing for her, when she was not at the computer playing.  I soon found myself so into the game that I created my own Facebook profile, and quickly had over 600 Facebook friends, that all wanted to be in my Entourage.  I guess you can say I got addicted.  I reached Z-list celebrity status.  That was our goal, and to prove that I was not  totally addicted, I cut down on the time I spent playing.  I then deleted all my 600 plus Facebook friends, and started adding my real friends and family to my Facebook profile.  You can find me using this link if you want to add me to your facebook friends.... http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=590835403 

Well, my celebrity days are over, I used to be theonlyRuneyouknow, but I am now known as 'Elvis has left the Building' on 'Make me a Celebrity' from Mesmo on Facebook.  I soon may be "The king is dead'.

After I stepped down from the spotlight on the celebrity game, I traded one addiction with another.  I got totally into doing my own family history.  And for those that do family history research, you will understand , as I have in my recent bust of treasure seeking among my ancestors, I found a great grandmother!  That was so fun!  She have been the big hole in my family history.  I finally completed my 4 generation chart, that I started on in 1993, when I first started with family history work.  I found just a few days ago that I have direct ancestors from Finland.  And one may also be from Russia.  My last find was a 9th Cousin.  By using Ancestry.com, I came across, Torkil Grindstein, who had some common people in his family tree to mine.  But we did not know who it was, until I, earlier today decided find out.  It turns out that he is married to my 9th Cousin Hilde Strand.

Test of new Gadgets

I, as you know, if you have read some of my old posts.  And I have now set my eyes on Windows Live Writer to write my blog posts.  And this will be the first to set a bench mark to see if it live (pun not intended) to the standard I expect.  I am writing this of line, for later to upload it.  Not that I need to do it off line.  It just happen to be that way it does the posts.  I am more interested in the possibility to cut and paste from ms word or something like it.  Being able to take something I already have written, and paste it into the blog.  For now, this is all I need to say, and really can say, except that I can tell that it seem to work fine so far.  The installation process took longer then I had expected.  But that could have something to do with the other gadget that I am testing out at the moment.  Let me clarify.  I have started the test of a different virus software, as I have recently experienced some problem with a different virus software.  I have been using AVG anti virus from Grisoft for a very long time.  And they have been the anti virus software I have recommended for all my friends until now.  But they recently changed.  And not for the better.  Even this last month they switched from the 7.5 version to a 8.0 version.  They have a free version, with limited ability, and they have wanted to let different companies "sponsor" their paid version.  But they made it difficult to find the free version, and they made it almost impossible to activate without paying after rejecting the paid version.

So I am now using Avast Antivirus software.  But I had a very hard time to uninstall the AVG, as it had not completed the installation since it was not activated.

In any case, the main reason I switched, was that I experienced that all our computers have been acting so sluggish that I was considering switching to Linux or Mac to get away from the sluggishness of MS. But it dawned on me that it may be the AV that was the cause.  And I were right, or at least I have found others that found the AV to make the computer sluggish after upgrading the AVG to 8.0 .  So I have only made the switch on one computer so far.  But so far so good.

So if you want to make the switch, here is the link that goes directly starts the download. After you have downloaded the file, that is 21.98 MB, you just install it.  Then you will need to register.  It is free, and you should not need to re-register for 14 months they claim on their web site. You will get the link when you install the software, and they send you a registration code to your email.

Now I just have to see if I will be as happy with Avast as long as I were happy with AVG.  And that must be something like, 4 or 5 years.

Let me know what Anti virus software you use, and how happy you are with your AV choice.

The Rune that don't exists.

HowManyOfMe.com

There are 0 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

Well, I just came from reading the mommyducks blog. She did not feel special, as she have about 280 with her name. I feel non-existent as there is non with my name in the US. So I don't exist or I am not here... You decide. I hope to find out who I am soon.