So, what have happened since last time?
I’ve been riding. And riding. And riding.

First off, two days after passing my driver’s exam and buying my bike, I went upp to Strömsund in Swedish Jämtland, around 700 km from Stockholm by bike. From there we went to Finnish Lapland by car, to a town called Ranua about 80 km from Rovaniemi. After close to a week we went back, and I took the bike back to Stockholm via a night in Mora.
Back home I took a few days to wash, repack and plan,and also to install my first modification to the bike: A 12 volt power outlet (cigarette plug) hidden inside the toolbox compartment. This is in turn connected to a relay that I installed, so that it only gives power when the bike is started to prevent the battery from discharging in case I forget the power adapter to the GPS plugged in.

Anyway, me and three friends went back on the road again.
First stop was Tibro, where I lived between I was 5 and 16. Of course we went straight to Tibro Bar & Grill, and then off to our respective friends and family to sleep (3 of 4 were raised in Tibro). The next day it was more or less pouring down the entire time, so we took the shorter route to Hökerum, Ulricehamn, where my parents live. After spending the evening and night there we went on to Linköping, still in the rain. We split up again, and met the next day, when the sun finally came through. Onward to Västervik where MC-dagarna, the largest bike event in northern Europe, was held. Lots and lots of awesome bikes, both at the exhibition and in the camping area. We camped there for a night, and then the rest of the guys went back to Stockholm while I continued on to Öland where my parents had rented a house. After 5 days there, I went back to spend another night in Linköping before going back to Stockholm. Besides that I’ve been cruising around a lot in between, both in Stockholm and on Öland.

Pictures have been requested so pictures are produced:

Me and Marianne has applied for testing my current dream camera, Canon EOS 550D. We have been talking for quite some time now to buy a new one, preferably one with more manual settings and better at taking pictures in low-light situations without using flash, and the EOS series has always been my favorite. This camera has an incredible 12’800 ISO, and it would be very interesting to see how dark you can go without having too much noise. Hopefully this would mean more night photography! Back in school when I studied photography, we used the Canon EOS 500 (analog), and it would be fun to see how much of the functionality that has remained or improved since then.

Other highlights from the spec that I find myself smiling for when I read:

• Sensor: CMOS, 18 Megapixel (APS-C)
• File format: JPG, RAW
• Movie:  1080p

Judging from how much you get from the camera the prize of around 7000 SEK is not that high, but unfortunately that is more that I can afford right now. Smartson does however have the possibility for four test teams to evaluate the camera for a month, and where you then get to keep it afterwards. The chances of being selected are quite slim, but here’s to hoping! Sign up here if you are also interested in applying.

Yesterday me and M went to The Target, a shooting range in Stockholm and tried a bunch of handguns.

Jolly fun!

I’m not sure about the model for one of the Magnums, but I think it’s a Smith & Wesson – let me know if you have more info!

Yesterday my brother and his fiancee were over at our place for dinner with wine. Afterwards we were going out and thought that we should take the empty bottles with us since we were passing the recycling cabin anyway. While there my brother threw a bottle hard into the glass bin to make it crash. Unfortunately, part of the bottle ricocheted back up and came straight for me. Instinctive I put up my hand to protect my body from the whirring glass, and it hit my right ring finger.

And there were blood – lots of it. In fact, I even had an arch of blood across my face, going all the way into my right ear. The floor in the recycling cabin had blood splattered on an area about two meters wide.

We rushed back into the apartment, pressing the finger together, putting three compresses and a makeshift tourniquet made of tape while M called for a taxi.

After arriving at the emergency room at the hospital, I only had to wait for about 5 minutes before getting my hand looked at. After removing the bloody compresses and cleaning the wound with salt water they cut off the blood flow with a rubber tube and a peang. Prodding the finger with what looked like toothpicks, the conclusion was that I had lost feeling in about half my finger. After two anesthesia shots in the finger (that really hurt), I soon didn’t feel anything at all.

Despite the nerve damage they had to close the finger to stop the bleeding, so they started to sew. It was a really odd sensation to see them doing it and not feel any pain. After 10 stitches they released the peang to let the blood through the finger, but immediately had to put another two stitches due to leakage.

The people who closed up my finger were really nice, and we even had a few laughs together.

After getting my stitches it was time to  x-ray the finger to look for skeletal damage (since the cut was so deep). For some reason this was considered a really high prio case, I got to go before people who had been waiting for several hours. Anyway, the x-ray turned out fine and the glass hadn’t damaged the bone.

A quick bandage and a tetanus shot later and I was on my way home again. Total time in the hospital was just above three hours, which was probably a new record for me.

Today the finger hurts quite a bit, and I will soon go the pharmacy to get the pain killers and antibiotics that I got prescriptions for.

Tomorrow I will have to go to another hospital, where a specialist in hand surgery will assess the damage and possibly open the finger up again to try to repair the damaged nerve(s).

Now, time for some (quite gory) pictures:

Today me and Marianne are having a pre-halloween evening, pumpkin carving and stuff. Tomorrow we will have a horror movie marathon, eating sandwich layer cake and other goodies, some of which needs preparing.

In a couple of hours we will go out with Fredde, Ester and possibly Moa to a Japanese-Korean-Monglian restaurant, so I have time to post a few pics from the evening so far: