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Archive for ‘Life’

Fast Food

Fast Food

Fast food restaurants, a love-hate relationship! Just from the headline people start to frown. Yet, some might start to feel hungry. Are the traditional fast food chains just a big evil trying to impose their fat dripping junk on us, or do they fill a real need? No, they are not paying me for this article!

Special needs

Me and my son both suffers from Celiac Disease, also known as Gluten Intolerance. This means we cannot eat anything made from wheat, Rye, Barley or Oats. This makes travelling a challenge. During his teens he was a promising sport dancer and we traveled all around Sweden and even Europe for competitions. Training hard he needed food and the big fast food restaurants offered Gluten Free dishes.

Fast food chains

Is it tasty? No, not really but it is fast and it is consistent. If we just put the health aspect aside we came up with pros and cons for the three major chains along the roads in Sweden.

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First the Swedish company Max who has the best fries. Actually tastes good and are not so greasy. A bit expensive but the serving speed is good. Best burgers, you will find at Burger King. Not really sure they qualify as fast food as the serving is quite slow. It is all in the sauce right. McDonalds, or the Donk, has the best Barbecue sauce. Very plain but the serving is generally fast.

Music and noise

Fast food restaurants is very noisy. Beeping cocking machines and loud guests. To top this of, loud music is also played. I do not know if this annoys me because I am from the country side. Are people in cities immune to background noise? The Donk plays modern music with somebody wailing away to a children’s chant. In BK it is similar while Max sticks out playing music from 70- and 80-ties, the decades when wailing was invented.

Why this stressful music? To get a fast flow of customers? Some may like this. Sit and listen to calmly digest their meal not build up to much flatulence? At any other restaurant you will probably hear some calm classical music. Check out my type of music, here.

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Environment

So fast food chains are very fast on picking up on trends, or even creates them, and it is not all bad. More and more dishes are plant based and there are more healthy alternatives. Efforts are made to reduce food waste by cocking to order. Offering charging for electric cars. Some adoptions to trends seems more dishonest like not offering plastic straws. Still the plastic cup cover is there and they still fill up half the cup with ice.

So I think there is a place for the fast food restaurants but we need be aware of the choices we make with our health and the environment just as when we go to the local restaurant. Like, Subscribe, share and Comment.

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The house

The house

This was the latest he said. Everything was prepared and just shipped to the site on a truck, even the doors and windows. The salesman put up a dental commercial smile. They were actually a bit surprised when he didn’t pull up that toothpaste tube. Instead he pushed the contract forward on the table for them to sign. To make sure they didn’t read to close he offered more coffee. Again with that perfect smile he spent a full week perfecting at the sales training.

Photo by Ulle Haddock©

The couple looked at each other as to seek confirmation. He had been promoted to manager and with that he earned more money. Now was the time for that dream house on the west coast. Everything was prepared. A piece of land and a permit to build was granted from the county. The only problem was that the road was not able to carry a loaded lorry. They solved that by delivering the parts to the small village across the fjord. Then they simply loaded into rowboats and rowed across to the small beach. It was put there in a perfect order just waiting to be assembled.

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But it was never built. Nobody came to put it together. Days turned into weeks. Then into months and into years. A storm took the tarpaulin to the sea. Now nature had free access. Rain, snow and wind. Somebody did move in, but not humans. The tidy pile of building material became home to insects. Insects that started feast of the trusses and the window frames. Finally ants found a perfect spot for their empire. A tree grew next to the pile, higher and higher until a storm tilted it over the pile. Sounds of shattered glas was drowned by the howling wind.

Photo by Ulle Haddock©

Slowly nature wins and soon only the roofing tiles and the shattered glas remains. Remains of somebody’s dream. Why was it not built? What happened with the couple in front of the smiling salesman? There is a true story and I’m sure my father-law knows it. I would like you to use your imagination and fill in the missing piece in the story. Please share your thoughts and ideas in the comment section.

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Meet my family

Meet my family

It is only the closest family, she said. My grandparents and my parents. It will only take a few minutes. Then we can go on our dinner date. It is my grandfathers birthday.

She held his hand and looked up at him with her blue eyes. He drowned in them again, like the first time they met. He could not argue against those blue eyes. Her dimples made her lovely face even lovelier as she smiled up at him.

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Even though he felt it to be too soon to meet her parents on the third date he went along with butterflies in his stomach. Holding her soft hand as they walked across the village. He felt like walking on clouds. A connection he never felt before.

Her grandparents lived in a retirement home at the center of the village. The butterflies in his stomach turned into full grown seagulls as they walked along the corridor to her grandparents room. Was it a bit noisy behind the door?

They knocked and the door slammed open. He immediately wanted to turn on his heels and run. The small room was filled, no crowded, with people. Was it even possible to find room for them there? With a nervous smile he entered the room with a firm grip in her hand. An image of sardines, popped up in his head for some reason!

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She pulled him across the room, eyes starring, to the side of the bed where her grandfather lay. He was suffering from a lung disease and could hardly get out of bed anymore. Even if he was very sick his eyes was full of life and humor. The grandfather took his hand and held it tight. He said with an wink of the eye and a smile that he would have his hands full with the granddaughter.

Now introductions to the rest of the family started. Three uncles and two aunts with spouses. Then there was all the cousins! Even if he felt heartily welcomed he still have not learned all the cousins names after twenty years of marriage.

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To my brother

To my brother

By Ulf Kalkyl

I knew I wanted to make a speech at my brothers funeral. Much for my own sake, but also for my brother. It has been an impossible task to find the right words. I want to tell you everything, without having to say anything. It is hard to find a way forward in my own sorrow and loss. I want to say farewell without saying, god bye.

The strangest things catch your attention when you mourn. I got stuck in the grammar of sorrow. When someone passes away many tenses can no longer be used. Most obvious is tense for now, present tense. My brother will never again play his grand piano, code on his computer or drive his boat. We are left with past tense, preteritum. My brother was a fantastic musician, he could dance, he welded this and that.

When a young person passes away, tense of the forthcoming is used more, future tense. More accurately we use futurum preterit and futurum preterit exaktum. These two describes a possible future that never came to be. My brother would be an engineer, he would be a cantor, he would live many more years.

But I refuse to give in to the grammar of sorrow. You can speak of my brother in present tense. He is and remains my brother. Nothing in the whole world can break that bond. My brother is important and irreplaceable to me. I have only one brother, the finest brother a sibling can have. I am infinitely proud to call you my brother.

I’m proud over how he manged to graduate High School, get his drivers licence and get accepted in his dreams University, Chalmers. I’m proud over how he excelled in everything he did. From coding a compiler to replacing a catalyst converter. I’m proud in how he managed to excel me in most things.

My brother was never much for the meaningless. Grammar definitely falls into that category. But there is no point in drowning in “What if’s”. When I look ahead it is with all my brother is, and was that I carry with me. I carry with me what a fantastic, multifaceted, Renaissance man my brother was. I carry with me all his music, his puns and moments we spent together as brothers. I carry all the memories.

My brother, you are for ever my baby brother and I am forever you big brother. I love you, I miss you.

Ulf Kalkyl is a pseudonym of my oldest son. He held this speech at my youngest sons funeral. Ulf Kalkyl studies at University of Göteborg to become a High School teacher in Swedish and History.

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Stroke part II

Stroke part II

This is the second part of the story of a stroke. The first part you can find here. I considered to call this part Strike but that could give misleading associations?!

More corridors with bright artificial light. The hospital architects should be forced to ride in a bed along the corridors. They might come up with a better idea for lighting that does not poke patients eyes. Some decorations in the ceilings perhaps? He was laying there with the early signs of boredom and anxiety of what was happening in his brain. Also this time he lost count of the lights as the orderly wide-charged the corners.

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Noise

Arriving in the ward he had to tell the story again to yet another nurse. The emphatic nurse heard his loud complaining stomach and offered something to eat. After the stomach has settled down he was taken in to a room. Now is past midnight but the room was not silent. Had he arrived in the engine room? Maybe a sawmill? No it was his new roommates snoring! Call the Work Safety Officer, earplugs needed! He was tired so he managed to doze off. Only to be woken up by the night shift nurses coming to draw some blood and measure the blood pressure. This goes on every two hours until the morning. They let people know it is not a hotel.

At six o’clock new nurses comes in and start drawing blood. He asked the nurse if the blood bank at the hospital was running low? The nurse only answered by showing her fangs (was there blood?). Almost like hearing a silent alarm the nurses was simultaneously ready with him and his roommates and went out the door with a wooshing sound. As the door closed it fell down from the ceiling. Boredom! He lay there with his arm folds looking like a teenagers face from all the needles. It is Amazing how much sound the human body from four older men can produce without anybody saying anything. Again he was thinking about having some art in the ceilings. There should be a hash tagg #hospitalceilingart!

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The Doom of Boring

The door opens. Strange that the doors closes with a silent woosh but opens with a bang! A nurse comes in and attaches him to a portable heart monitor. Gluing on the sensors at his chest. Later when they came of he wished he had gone over his chest with the razor. At least the nurse tells him he can wander around in the corridors of the ward. He soon realized that the monitor was there to make sure he did not leave the ward. Too far away from the ward the monitor set of an alarm. Now it came at him from three angles, the ceiling and each end of the corridor. Boredoom!

The only thing breaking the looooooong hours was the ever occurring blood drawing and pressure measuring. He never thought that breakfast, lunch and dinner would be such highlights of a day. Even when he was taken away by an orderly to a new test with a machine going “ping” or “pong”. He was amazed by how far into his body the probes could reach. As a Star Trek fan he found his dream come true when entering the loudest machine in the hospital. That is apart from his roommates. The Magnetic Resonance Imaging Machine (IMR)! At least he was offered earmuffs for the sound. The result was that the ears was the only part of his body not going blue from cold. He was pleased to hear they found something in his head! Not so rude at this machine!

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Not so pleased when the doctor later told him they could confirm that he suffered a smal, but yet a stroke. The words hit him like punch right in the face. Would he now turn into a walking zombie like the other patients in the ward? They reassured him that he would probably be fully recovered but they needed some more test to figure out why he had this stroke. He was convinced the nurses only wanted him to stay since he was the youngest inmate, no sorry, patient in the ward.

Needles and pins

He had to spend a few more days at the hospital to find out how many differents sizes of needles there is before he was sent home. Finally this is over he thought. Just before he was leaving the doctor gave him a long list of medicines he needed to eat for the rest of his life. So this was the reason for all the probing, to make sure the pills would fit the throat. As he went of in the Taxi did he not see the doctor carrying a golf bag with a medical company logo?

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Invisible

Invisible

He was grunting to himself as he poked through the waste basket. Without looking up he moved to the next. Now mumbling louder he started to poke this one also. He looked up triumphant as he found a returnable bottle. A half eaten hamburger was also collected after he taken a bite.

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People walked passed him as if he was not there. Amazingly nobody bumped into him even if the railroad station mall was really crowded at rush hour. Even the mobile phone zombies managed to avoid him. It was like there was some kind of advanced radar system keeping the two worlds apart.

I wondered why this man ended up here. Dirty and worn down clothes. Hair that was a long time away from Head & Shoulders. I recalled the commercial with that hockey player telling the team. “First shampoo, then balsam”. I didn’t think he would care if he only was allowed a shower.

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I was disturbed by the waitress that came with my coffee. When I looked out for the man again he was gone. Suddenly I saw him between two security guards leading him out from the station mall. Out in the cold. Strange that the only ones saw him was the security guards. What was the risk? Probably that he dampen the shopping spirit by reminding us what can happen if we stop fitting in.

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Stroke

Stroke

A strange tickle in his left arm and side. Like the feeling when a part of your body is sleeping even if you are awake. He rationalized it with sleeping in a bad position. Sleeping poorly in the extra bed at his sons flat. He got up and made breakfast for him and his son. Sat down to work as his son went away to a lecture. The tickle did not stop and now he could feel it in his leg and his face. He tried to walk it of with a tour around the campus without any success. The school and work week was finished so they decided to drive the 150 kilometers by car to home. He drove out of the city and half way home. The son took over the driver seat after a lunch stop at a fast food restaurant on the way.

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The call

The tickle was still there and now he started to be a bit concerned. So he went online with his phone to find information regarding these symptoms. Nothing fitted very well and as soon as he arrived home he decided to call a medical advice service. He was set on a long waiting time but he soon got to talk with a nurse. Half way through describing his symptoms she interrupted declaring she connected him to the emergency service and at the same time instructed them to call out an ambulance! Now he was spooked and surprised. The alarm operator told him nearest ambulance was thirty minutes away but an emergency doctor vehicle would be there in five minutes. The questions flew through his head. He was not sick. It was just a numbness in his left side. The doctor took an EKG to check his heart and gave him some pills that would make his blood flow easier. He told him that he suspected a stroke. A STROKE!? But he was a man in his prime age. Only 54 years old and very fit. It cannot be. No smoking and hardly any alcohol. It must be something else.

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ER

Ambulance came but he did not want to go. Afraid to leave his autistic son alone before his wife got home. Finally he gave in but insisted to walk by himself to the ambulance. It started already in the ambulance. The probing and piercing. Afraid of needles? Try get a huge one stuck in your arm while the car is moving 100 km/h on winding bumpy roads. A nice chat with the ambulance guy before arriving the hospital an hour later. There the nurses stripped him of the clothes and left him in a thin gown. Not sure if this was part of the examination but he soon started to shiver of cold. Next test is patience, waiting, waiting. Oh, a doctor opens the door. Looks in her papers. Wrong room! A low rumbling breaks the waiting boredom. What is it? A helicopter with more patients? After a while he realizes that it is his stomach complaining over the emptiness. A new nurse comes into the room and wonders what he is doing there. Symptoms for the tenth time. The nurse answers with a frown the question when he can see a doctor. Soon!

Corridors

After a decade or so she enters the room and the symptoms are presented again. Now shorter and to the point. The doctor looks concerned and orders an X-ray. An orderly comes in after some more waiting. With a short nod he releases the breaks of the bed. He takes him on the most fun you will have in an hospital. The Bed Ride. Before your emagination runs wild. This means you get transported to an examination in an expensive machine in the other end of the hospital. The orderly was very skilled and avoided bumping in to the other bed traffic. The man was thinking the metal rod sticking up at the head end of the bed was not there for the drip bottle. No it was like the flags little children have on their bikes to be seen by cars.

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He was already freezing when he entered an even colder room. Tocked in so he could not move his head. Difficult since he was shivering of cold. He was moved into the X-ray machine and the machine and his stomach competed over who was loudest. Out of the machine and the orderly rapidly pushed him back to the same room. He lost count of the lights in the corridor already after fifty something. The clock was close to midnight when the doctor came back and told him that there was nothing in the pictures of his head. That was RUDE! It was decided that he needed to stay to the next day for more exams and probing.

To be continued….

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Friendship

Friendship

Everyday with good weather he passed by the house. Walking or cyckling. With his black packpack. When she sat in the garden she saw him coming. Most of the times it was the dogs barking that alerted her. She waited for this moments. A small chat with the nice young man. There was something special about him, of that she was sure. At first he hurried pass with just a quick hello. But she wanted to know more so she tried to start a conversation with him.

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She was long retired and lived on a peninsula and the house was at the end of the road. Passed her house was only a tractor path to the fields. Surrounded with water and cliffs this was the only way to the fields. On the fields there was sheeps grasing all summer. The dog was her only companion since her husband passed away several years ago. The house was a bit big but she enjoyed living there in the tranquility. Even so it soimetimes became a bit loonely so when somebody went pass her house she wanted to know who it was. Some of the summer houses in the area also had some break-ins. After that she took upon herself to check for outsiders.

So she was not letting this young man pass her house many times without knowing who he was. On the seccond or third time she stopped him and bluntly asked who he was and what he was doing there. He was very polite in his answers. The grandson of the local farmer at the beginning of the road. He came to sit among the sheep to practice drawing and painting. He could do that now due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The university was closed and all lectures was online. He even attended some out there in the green pasture.

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As time passed that spring and summer it became a ritual and the days he did not come or she missed him she wondered what he was doing. She knew he would not come on rainy days as it was not possible to draw or sit with a computor in the rain. She really enjoyed those short conversations and he seemed to do the same. At one point he told her passingly that he was autistic and struggled with social interaction. She did not reall know what that was but she noticed that gradually answered with longer sentences. In mid August he stopped coming and she knew in her heart that something bad happened to her friend. Yes, she really considered him a friend.

By Ulle Haddock 2020. Please like, subscribe comment and share. Find more from me here.

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Plastics

Plastics

Why is it a problem

It has been under debate. Single use plastic and the fact that it ends up in the oceans and nature. To me very evident as I live by the coast. We usually have voluntary activities to clean the beaches from plastics and other waste. As much as five normal size bathtubs of waste flushes up on the shores of Bohuslän due to the currents. According to the Swedish environmental organization “Håll Sverige Rent” (Translates Keep Sweden Clean) 70% of all waste in the ocean is made of plastics. The most dangerous type is the plastic part grind down by natures forces into micro plastics. So small you cannot see it. It creates problems for fish and birds to digest their food and to reproduce.

Found in the forest on an island.
Human behavior

So where do all this “shit” come from? Is it the locals and tourists that drop of their garbage after their fishing trip or pick nick at the shore? This is part of the problem and this behavior is unacceptable. But most of the waste floating to the shores and bays of Bohuslän comes from Europe with the currents. The plastics parts, packaging and other, has somewhere in the world been thrown away by a human. It is an indisputable fact that no animal drops plastic parts in the nature!

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It is us humans and hand to your heart. Have you ever dropped a package, cigarette-end or a bottle to the ground and not picked it up? Have you ever put your waste in, or rather beside, an over filled dustbin? This is then taken by the wind or the rain water out into the waterways and finally into the sea. Around 50% of this sinks to the bottom and the more close to the shore the more damage it does. Sea freight and fishing is also a huge source of plastic waste to the oceans, boxes blowing overboard, nets and ropes lost, and finally amazingly waste dumped from the very boats that has the sea as their source of income. It takes up to 100 years for a plastic part to be broken down by nature.

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So trying to reduce this by banning single use plastics like bags and mugs is a good start but not enough. For many this sounds more like political symbolic but I guess we need to start somewhere. We need to realize that plastic is a fantastic material that solves many problems for man and even nature. As with all tools we need to use it correctly. To quote Bob the Builder: “don’t use the saw as a hammer”! I like to draw the attention to another, in my view, big contributor to the problem. Over packaging!

Over packaging

I guess you all have cursed and had your blood pressure raising when you try get to the product you actually bought. But you stand there. Blood running from your fingers. Sweat pouring down from your forehead. You try using a scissor but it was destroyed the last time you tried to penetrate a package. Yes, you know the type preferred by the electronics industry. The hard stiff plastic. When you finally get to the product. Hopefully without any damage. You realize there is more package material to get rid of than the actual product.

If you are lucky you live in an area that has a good recycling collection system where you can get rid of it. However in many areas this will end up on in a landfill. Landfill sites close to the ocean.

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Call to action

As a consumer you buy the product and not the packaging material. But this is part of your consumer experience and you can actually do something about it. Check out the company website or read on the package to find a e-mail adress to give your feedback. In worse case they send you a band aid but in best case they change to a more environmental friendly package.

Was the environment even considered here?

Finally I need to share the above picture with you. What do you think? My best guess the brewery tried to make it Covid-19 safe. Then they decided to make a crash display making most of the lids fall of! Even worse that on the shelf there was a six pack variant. In shrink wrapped plastic! We cannot rely on the politicians to solve this. We need to take sound consumer decisions and raise our voice to the producers.

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Missing

Missing

Missing the improvised tunes from the grand piano. Fingers moving with ease over the keys. The harmonies and mixes from psalms to Rammstein.

Missing the intelligent puns. The playing with words. In English and Swedish and sometimes both.

Missing the sound of the drums. Pounding away. Learning fast. Heal toe technique on the base drum.

Missing the walks in the forest. Picking mushrooms or just walking. Thinning forest with chainsaw and clearing saw. Working together.

Missing the keyboard clicks. Coding or mixing music. The sound of guitar strings. Then base guitar. Then piano. Click to record then sliding over the floor to play.

Missing working in the garage. Grinding and welding. Creating and mending stuff. Building that Cross Cart. Fixing the car Mulle Meck.

Missing going fishing or just having hot chocolate in the boat. Excursions to the small islands.

Missing that hug in the morning. The click on the remote to start the TV. Being your breakfast machine.

Missing my best friend.

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