Lego adventures: Ice fishing

Finally we have some nice weather to feature the following Lego Minifigure:

Ice Fisherman

More Lego fun may follow...

R&C

Holidays and the winter that never was

This is a short blog about our holidays which, sadly, has come to an end. Ronnie and I had a very nice two week holiday over Christmas, which we spend mostly indoors doing as little as possible. Actually that is not entirely true since we did a lot of fun things on which I will elaborate on a bit more below (more complete blogs on some of these may follow).

Thus far this winter the weather was very disappointing. We only had one good snow storm but since the temperatures stayed above 0, the snow quickly melted. What was left was a rainy, wet winter with temperatures oscillating between 1 and 5 deg C and clouds that never cleared. Perfect weather for cozy indoor fun. The first part of the vacation we spent time on preparing for Christmas and enjoying the Christmas spirit. The second part were spent mostly playing with our presents. New Year was (unlike most previous New Years) snow free. We went up to the castle to watch the fireworks. Every New Year people congregate on various spots in town and shoot their own fireworks. We did not take any ourselves, but watched the usual mayhem of slightly unstable hands lighting up fireworks, with the occasional accidental explosion on the ground between crowds of yelling people. The castle is a very nice place to watch these goings on with a nice panorama over town with fireworks everywhere and the church bells ringing in the New Year.

Christmas tree and presents

Christmas food

Fusion South African Swedish Christmas food

New Year at the castle

So a bit more about what kept us busy during these two weeks of deserved laziness ….

As Christmas presents to ourselves we bought two sets of Lego modular buildings, the “Grand Emporium” and the “Fire Brigade”. Quite a few hours were spent assembling these giant 3d puzzles. But the end result was very nice actually.

Lego modular buildings:  "Grand Emporium" and "Fire Station"

The second present to ourselves was the “Wii U Fit” software and balance board. Using the Wii game console and the TV in combination with the balance board, the Wii Fit offers a wide range of routines to help you exercise and monitor your own fitness and weight. This is the perfect way to keep yourself moving even though it is cold and rainy outside. The routines are combined with fun games and there are nice graphs that tracks your progress.

To balance out the exercises on the Wii Fit with the appropriate amount of laziness, we laid in front of the television for hours, watching many different series. We finished the “Game of Thrones” series, which is highly recommended and also watched various anime series. At the moment we are continually watching the “Hunter x Hunter” anime and watch them as they become available each week. We finished the first series of “Attack on Titan” which is a really nice series so far. During the holidays we also watched the whole “Death Note” series. All three of these animes are highly recommended to watch. They have very strong storylines, multifaceted characters and gripping intrigues. Especially recommended is “Death Note”, a series that sweeps you up in the plot and keeps you captivated until the end.

As the vacation draws to an end (we are starting work again tomorrow), we are looking forward to an eventful 2014 and eagerly anticipate the actual start of winter (seemingly from next weekend on).

Wishing everybody a prosperous 2014!

C&R

Ants and flies...

In July 2012 we caught some queen ants. After a long cold winter spent in the refrigerator (winter 2012-2013) we placed them in a new nest and they started to increase in number. Currently there are approximately 200 individuals and a huge brood pile.

Colony within test tube

Being in Sweden there is a problem with finding nice ant food throughout the year. A solution is, however, to grow your own food. I chose to try my hand at Drosophila. They are very very easy to get, feed and breed. I keep them in a plastic cup with a bit of potato and vinegar, yeast  and sugar (my special recipe is available on request). Here their population climbs to more than 500 in a few weeks (way more prolific than the ants). I make a new medium once every 2 months and transplant a few flies (I create a population bottleneck without shame). The rest of the flies are frozen served to the colonies. The Lasius ants love these frozen treats.  

Meat for my ants

The most active colony is still in the original test tube within their nest (here are pictures of all the nest I have) but they are building structures within the main nesting area. I expect they will move soon...

R&C

Tinysaurs...

Carina recently gave me a couple of Tinysaurs (available at: http://everythingtiny.com/). These are like the familiar wooden kits that you assemble by slotting together the pre-cut pieces. However these are really small and a tiny drop of glue is recommended to ensure that the model remains in one piece after assembly.

Below is a time lapse video (around 5 minutes) of the T-Rex assembly. This took me 1 hour and 22 minutes to build (shorter build time estimates are however provided on the website):

A few pictures of the other models:

Matchbook size kits.

Kits and instructions on the inside.

From left: T-Rex (pre-build), Hominosaur, Woolly Mammoth and Stegosaurus. 

Woolly Mammoth closeup.

Stegosaurus closeup.

Prowling T-Rex

Hominosaur held in huge fingers.

Assembling the T-Rex:

Work area.

Enlargements of the T-Rex laser-cut pieces.

A 400x enlargement of the laser cut pieces.

These models are really fun to build but you do need a bit of patience and if possible small fingers.

R&C

Lego Star Wars Christmas Fun

Carina and I like Star Wars, Lego and Christmas.

We thus found got ourselves a Lego Star Wars advent calendar (the 2011 edition since the small models seemed more awesome that the others). Here are our current favorites:

Day 5: Slave I - Bounty hunters Jango and Boba Fett's ship:

Day 6: Chewbacca: 

Day 8: Rebel pilot Zev Senesca (read more about him here)

and our current favorite!

Day 9: The X-wing starfighter (an awesome minibuild):

More Lego fun may follow...

R&C

Lego minifigures in our house

Recently Carina found a picture of a Lego minifigure that she identified with.

I thus got her this individual:

We also found one that I identified with:

We also found our this Sith Lord and Supreme Commander who we could not refuse:

More Lego fun may follow...

R&C

A sad day for first snow

Finally the snow of winter 2013/2014 arrived. The wonderful whiteness arrived on the back of storm "Sven" that swept over Sweden. Out of the 4 winters we've experienced so far in Sweden the snow this year arrived earlier than two of the years and later than two. The mood of many lifted considerably when the winter darkness of November was replaced by the bright snow. All this was happiness with a tear though, since today is a sad day for many South Africans (and other people worldwide) with the passing of a great man...

C&R