TorAa Mirror

It's here my dear reader. A least, you can watch photos.

Labels: ABC, blog, toraa, toraamusic

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Story (from yesterday):
Due to circumstances, we had to pick up Felicia and her 4 kittens this Tuesday.
Which means they are back, where the kittens lived their first 4 days of their lifes. In fact, they have not seen the place (our Summer Home) before. They were still blind when they left.

And Stompa can not go back to his Winterhome due to the same circumstances.
So, at the moment we have 7 cats here.

The Kittens were more or less very shy when they arrived. (It is 3 of the in the Cage)
You can see from the following photos. They are very cute and special. Two of them are invisible.

Mieoow - I'm clean

I feel safe under this bed

I do play when mother Felicia have a meal

We hope it all will end luckely.

More to come....

PS. If you want to know more about the reason, send me an e-mail

Labels: Cats, kittens, wordless wednesday

Me dear Wife, Anna, has Birthday this Sunday.

Some of my dear readers may remember last years 3x20 years celeb?

Here are some glimpses from the year that have passed since then.
Anna and Solvi during a Spring walk. Oslofjord in the background. Close to our Winter Home. In Oslo, Capital of Oslo. Can you believe it's allmost 600.000 people living here? Not from this part of the City. And if you visit RennyBA's blog as well, it's unbelievable.

Anna and Ingelin. At the Vernissage of Zeynep's paintings in March this year.

Two weeks later we were officially informed: It's a new member of the Family to come.
In October. So Anna started knitting. May be this is more suitable for Sebastian?

My Mother and Anna enjoyed the Photos from that event.

Two weeks of summer, we had this year, and Anna had to swim of course.
Here she is nearby our Summer House. In the Oslofjord. 22-23 C (72-74 F)

When Ingelin did visit her Brother in Michigan, Anna and papa went visiting her Husband and father in Law, in Essen, Germany. We had a wonderful walk around the Baldeny Lake. It's really beautiful. And went walked for a couple of hours.

A late evening zip in St Maximin - August 1 - 2009. This little town was transformed by the well-published discovery, 12 December 1279, in the crypt of Saint-Maximin, of a sarcophagus that was proclaimed to be the tomb of Mary Magdalene

Here is Anna in Provence - France - August 3. More to come.
Anna in Ollioules - chez Claudie and Pierre. You may be familiare with some people here?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7

It was a blast of a time we had with Marjolein and Wim the last weekend of August: We were invited to Marjoleins 3x20 celebration. This is from the Day after. Our Dutch test.
From the Party, well, there will be several posts to come from this wonderful weekend in Holland here on this blog.

More to come......

Labels: anna, Birthday, blog, toraa

When you see a kid, and take a photo, it's allmost allways from Upside and down. Have you thought about that?

This Photo is from a very special meeting in Holmsbu, South East Norway.
The persons on the Bench are Wim, our Dutch Friend, Anna and the charming girl is the grandchilderen of Anna's Hosts (you see grandpa O. to the right) when she celebrated her half a century some years ago. That was a blast of a celebration. And a very nice meeting.

More Upside down here

Labels: blog, grandchildren, holmsbu, norway, photo hunt, toraa, upside down

Dear blogfamily, friends and readers;
Can't believe it. Kan ikke tro det.This is the end - not A-Z, But A - Å (A-ring)
(pina dø -første runde er nå slutt. Skal jeg ta neste runde på ---, jo, den blir på norsk på min blogg 2 - OK?)
We have this week reached the end of the Nordic Alphabet.
(Not very different from other Germanic languages, but in Sweden and Germany they have even more vocals to help pronounce exactly.)
You might recall my challenge: Same object/meaning beginning with the same letter in both English and Norwegian.

Letter #29. Vocal #9. See here what we are talking about - in English
That's the difference between our Nordic Alphabet and the English -we have 3 additional vocals - after Z.
The Å or A-ring as it is called in digital programmingl: .

So what to present, when my ABC challenge is to give you in Words and Pictures what means the same in both English and Norwegian, beginning with the same letter.
In English Å or A-ring does not exist.
Impossible?

Not at all. You can visit one of this worlds most scenary places named simply with the vocal Å . Simly one vocal: The A-ring. Where is it? Take the tour, and you will find out why this a world heritage nature.

Let me tell you a story, from back in 1967, when I had a "summer assignment" in a French Bank.
At that time, it was a very popular TV-serie named:
Impossible, n'est pas francaise - Impossible is not French.

I have adopted that ever since.

At last, you are all invited to our Summer Paradise ( invitert til vårt sommer paradis).
The first letter is A-ring. Pronounced like the O in Open

You may do a Google search. Åros
Nothing much to find. So to speak. Maybe the people who lives there year around will keep the place a hidden secret?

Look at this. It's practical and charming homes for the retirees.
A small community. 2 Minutes walks from the Grocery shop, Medical Center etc.

Here is, what do I know, a reason, the locals do not want to expose something about the spot:
The last River in SE Norway with Saumons and Sea Trouts. I was not allowed to take more than this photo.

This is very special: White Stones. Normally the Stones are more pink/red here. Photo taken about 1 km from the Summer House.

View from our tiny road - Northern Oslofjord. Close to our Summer Home. You like the view?

Here you see our Summer Garden and Home. In early Autumn dress. Norway.

ABC-bloggers waits for your comment. In your own language

Have a great wekend - ha en strålende helg -

Labels: å, ABC, Åros, blog, blog summer vacation norway holmsbu woman man, toraa

Teaching Cats - Wordless

Anna is a Teacher.
Can she teach Cats? Here is from the first Lesson.

1 - Stompa would like to learn, while Rosa thought she was very well educated.

2 - miooow - Rosa - don't sleep during the lesson

3 - Rosa Opened her Eyes - Stompa would learn more

Result: Both Stompa (the Black and White) and Rosa, stayed very interested inside, side by side, for 2 hours. And suddenly, they ran out together. I ponder what they did learn in School today;-))

Blog your own Wordless Wednesday here.
Recommended by hundreds around the Globe.

PS - do you want to know something about O-slash? What is O-slash?

Labels: blog, Cats, toraa, wordless wednesday

We have only one of our cats, besides Stompa, in the Summerhouse right now.
Rosa stays outside on the Roof. In the Autumn Sun.

Here she is as seen from behind. Controlling the hills. See her Tail? No - it's very short, as her mother was a genuine Manx.

Here you see her face - may be she will be on Facebook?

Both pictures taken with my iPhone 3G s

ps. The Kittens and Felicia is still at Solvi's home. They are announced for sale here.

More Cats here at Gattina

Labels: blog, Cats, cats on tuesday, manx, toraa

The letter Ø or as it is named in English: O-slash, is for me intriguing. And have caused me several practical challenges both privatly and at work.

Why?

Private:
The last letter in my Family name is Ø, or "O-slash". Check this post in html.

Why is it a challenge?
Have you ordered Air-Tickets in the past? Well, you have to order in the name exactly as written in your Passporte. But Air-Tickets are international and contains only the letters from A to Z.

Can this be a problem?
Yes, when you arrive at an International Airport and are asked to show your Ticket and Passporte.

-- The name in your Passporte does not correspond exactly to the name on the Ticket.

In English on Air Tickets and international credit cards the letter Ø - O-slash, is written as
OE.

(Photo taken Spring 2009 - Sharp Light)
Well, the challenge is then to convince the people at work that I'm me. Even though the letters differs from how they are written in my Passporte.
What happens? People behind me starts to complain.
About me.
- He have not the correct documents.
- Get rid of that person.
- Fix your papers etc etc.

At work ( About transmission of characters in digital networks):
Several years ago I was asked by an Americian Colleague:
- How often do you in Norway use those special characters?
- Every time I write my name, I replied, besides, you are calling 3 out of our national (Even Danish) vocals for special characters. In America you do have only 6 vocals. We have 9.
- If you reduce the Numbers of Vocals in the English Alphabet with 1/3, let'e take the U and the A. OK?
- Tell me from which country you are calling?

It took some seconds, and then he replied:
- From S - a short pause. Then, I see what you mean?

After that, the letters Æ - AE, Ø - O-slash or OE and even next weeks letter became a standard
for IT-communications. (Not all companies, Internet providers and browsers and IT-producers still not do apply to this standard - 24 years later).

Above is the Norwgian and Danish typeset. 29 letters.

Here is someone you might have heard about, with the letter Ø or OE.
Ødipus. Oedipus.

Click on the book to learn more

Labels: ABC - Ø, ABC-OE, blog, Oedipus, toraa

My regular readers do know we have kittens. But we do not see them every day. They stay at Solvis home. However, here you can see some photos of the very lively kittens.

Miuew - do you like us? We are the children of Felicia.
Here you see us with our wonderful mom Felicia. All of us. Do you see the one in the center of the Photo? A real Manx. Read about the breed here. I have had several Cats in my life. Of different breeds. Manx have become my favourite breed. Lot's of reasons for that.

mieiow . we like to play. We must be Twins. Don't you think?

Miauuu - this is really exciting playground.

Mieooww - did you find us in our secret hiding place.

Mieeeew - what are you looking at? Me?

Miuooow. Look at me as well. Even though my Mother is a Manx, well I do feel like one.

Do you think I'm charming? Well even after a good meal?
See my Tail? My Mother is a Manx. I'm a Manx too, even though I have a very short Tail.

More Cats at Gattinas

Labels: blog, Cats, cats on tuesday, kattunger, kittens, manx, toraa

Transport is very important for a modern society.
In fact it's basic for high level logistics.

This is the Aquaduct over the river Tarn, near Millau, France. Photo taken Saturday, August 1 - 2009.
When we passed here first time in the 1980'ies, we had to go down from the Mountains, pass the Town of Millau and the climb up again. The bridge saves a Truck with food and other necesarry other goods at least 1 - 1,5 hour in driving time. Besides lots of noise and pollution in the Town itself.
Read more....

Read more Transportation here

Labels: Aquaduct, blog flux, mandagstema, Millau, public transportation, toraa