Off to Greece

Some might call it stupid, blogging about going away for a week, but since this only applies to myself and not the rest of the family I see no immediate threat in telling you about the trip I am going on, starting tomorrow.

It all began 4 years ago when I took my son, then 7 years old, to the USA to visit my parents, during the time when they were planning on retiring and becoming Florida residents in their late years. We had a lovely trip he and I, and it became one of those great memories for him, that he still talks about from time to time. The reason that I only took my son with me was that my daughter, then 5 years old, was a bit too young I thought to appreciate the long trip, plus I wasn't too confident in taking responsibility over two kids on a trip like that. It was the first trip I made on my own as a parent.

So my daughter stayed at home that time, but I promised her that I would do a similar trip with her when she was 7 years old. Now, things didn't quite turn out the way I had planned it. First off, my parents sold the house two years later, and decided to not become Florida Old People so our natural destination kind of disappeared. Secondly a lot of other things happened in my life that made it difficult to find a suitable time for a journey of that magnitude. I mean it's not like going on a weekend trip to London or Paris. You need to clear at least 10 days or preferably a fortnight in your schedule to pop over the pond.

But this year, when Marie and my vacations where planned and carved in stone we noticed that I would have an entire week all by myself when she had gone back to work, so suddenly I saw an opportunity to repay my debt to my daughter and take her on that trip.

Since one week is bit short to go all the way to the States I figured that a regular charter to Greece would be just what we both needed. So I set it all up, surprised her one afternoon in June with the news and here we are now, only a few hours away from maing the trip that she has been waiting for and longing for for over 4 years. I am so excited and I know she is too.

We are going to a little village called Platanias, on the Island of Crete, south east of the Greek main land. From what I heard it's a nice little place and it turns out that Marie was there when she was ounger together with her parents, which is kind of fun.

I will be sure to post more info about our trip as soon as we get home and hopefully together with a lot of pictures.

So as they say in Greece (if they speak english that is); See you on the other side!

/ Andy

Getting things together

Just a quick post to promote my new website, and to tell you a little bit about why I've made it. Because it wasn't just on a whim.

The new site is called The Art of Andy and can be found on the internet (where else) through www.theartofandy.com. The point of the site is to gather all things I do on one site. It will work like a portal for all my crazy projects. I have noticed over the years that I have a lot of friends out there from different media, but very few people know of all the stuff I do, so in this way I can get people listening to my podcast to find my blogg, and people who follow me on Twitter to perhaps take interest in the book I'm writing etc.
I have devided the website into a few different categories, making it easier for you to check out what I am up to.

As of now I have the following categories:
• Writing - Here I will present all the books I intend to write, with possibility to order directly from the website. The first one coming up is STATIC, which will be released during the fall of 2008.
• Podcasting - Here I will present the various podcasting projects that I am involved in, foremost the Polarbear Podcast and Podcast Helsingborg. But there might be more stuff in the future.
• Blogging - Well, guess what. Your reading it right now! Plus I will add links to Twitter too eventually.
• Photography - I have started to take an interest in photography, and even if I am still a novice I thought I'd simply post my best work (according to myself) on this part of the website. Maybe I can attach some kind of commenting-system to that. We'll see.

So as you see the categories will be filling up and maybe I'll be adding more categories to as life takes me on more fascinating rides in the years to come. "Music" feels like something that will need to be added pretty soon!

I haven't yet figured out exactly how I am going to approach the site from a technical perspective, but I am sure that I will find a smart solution to that, any day now.

As of now, when I write this, the page is still in beta, so please bare with me and give me a few weeks to get everything in order, but please visit the site today if you want to and just check it out and put the website address in your memory. There will be a lot of creative things coming from that site in the future. Believe me!

/ Andy

David Gahan on top again!

I know I haven't been very good at posting things here lately, but I've been very caught up in life (as usual), writing the book, which is soon to be done, and working. But I made a reflection today, on the musical side and I'd just like to share it with you all.

The lead singer of Depeche Mode, David Gahan, recently release his second solo album. The first one, Paper Monsters, didn't do so well. Not in my taste anyway. The second one however, titled Hour Glass, is really good. I would even go as far as to say that it's better that the last two Depeche Mode albums, which I think weren't as good as I had expected from the Depeche Mode I know and love. But I have to say that Playing the Angel (the latest DM album) was much better than Exciter, which became the "never listened album" for me. I just can't take it.

So to sum it up, I think David Gahan's new album Hour Glass is really good. I would recommend you to buy it if you like this type of music, and you can be expecting a bit more Depeche Mode sound on this album compared to the more drunk-rock sounding Paper Monsters.

Now, I have to get back to work and try to produce a few more pages on the magazine I'm currently working on. I really need some vacation now!

/ Andy