I finally managed to put together a panorama from a bunch of pictures I had taken for that purpose quite a while ago. What kept me from posting this earlier was that the TIFF source files were too large for the program I was using; it ran out of RAM (no matter how large I made the scratch file). I finally put it together manually, after wasting more hours than I care to admit.

Anyway, the star of this post is this magnificient view, overlooking the landscape in Norway where I used to live before I came to Canada. In the picture you can see Lake Tyrifjorden, the Hole peninsula and beyond that the region of Ringerike. The viewpoint is called “The King’s View” – and it is truly fit for a king. Here is the general area on Google Maps.

Merry Christmas to everyone!I’m celebrating Christmas this year with Jenna and her parents in Michigan. We’re having a wonderful and relaxing time here, despite the economic gloom hanging over this country currently. Here’s a picture I took last Christmas when we were in Norway celebrating with my family. It is one of my favourite pictures, even though there’s fish on the table (well, salmon is quite decent for being so fishy).

Welcome to the new version of my homepage :) Hope you like the colours! This is the seventh incarnation of this site. It is still lacking some polish, but i’d say it’s 95% per cent done. Which is about as finished as the old theme ever got… There will probably still be some changes around here as I gain some critical distance, but this is the result of a lot of work (and a lot of scrapped drafts!) so the changes won’t be drastic (hopefully). Mostly bugfixes (there are still a few bugs crawling around).

Shot of the Chicago River (is that its name?) from a bridge, facing upriver (west-ish).

Sunset shot from Port Dalhousie in St Catharines, Ontario. I was taking pictures of the sailboat (which I thought would make a nice pictures), when this flock of Canda geese came paddling past, almost as if on cue…

Here I am, at my convocation ceremony. I received my Bachelor of Arts in Political Science, with Honours (totally Canadian: it means I got a four-year degree as opposed to a three-year pass degree).

Picture courtesy of Jessica Arcaro.

A major update just occurred here regarding the structure of this website. I removed the /en/ and /no/ suffixes. From now on, the structure is simpler.

English is now the default language. If you want Norwegian, try adding the prefix no.laurelindon.com.

No permalinks will break! If you have something as a favourite (how likely is that… *sardonic smile*) you can use the old link, it will redirect – for a few months at least. Or you can remove the language part, and add the prefix if you want.

One bug I know of: Photoalbums do not work.

I have to do this directly in the live environment as I have no other way of testing it.

Sorry, and thanks for your understanding.

**Update** Renovations complete and upgrade successful. All parts of the site are known to work!

Hei! Det er lenge siden jeg bestemte meg for å ha denne siden både på norsk og engelsk. Det viste seg snart å bli uhorvelige mengder med dobbeltarbeid og etter at jeg installerte WordPress, nesten uoverkommelige tekniske vanskeligheter.

Det siste er nå løst, og to versjoner av hjemmesiden min lever endelig fredelig side ved side. Den norske versjonen er nå fullt funksjonell! For alle linker som fungerer på engelsk kan du nå slenge på no. helt i begynnelsen, for eksempel http://no.laurelindon.com/photography/

Før du sier noe mer (“men det er jo på engelsk jo!”) — joda, det er sant det. For det blir fortsatt en del dobbeltarbeid. Mesteparten av bloggen kommer _alltid_ til å være på engelsk, men en og annen post på norsk blir det nok. I tillegg jobber jeg med å oversette menyer og statiske (faste) sider.

Så hvis du er mer komfortabel med norsk enn engelsk er det alltid bedre å gå til no.laurelindon.com :)

-Bjornar

I’m still waiting for more information about the Global Governance programme, which I’m starting this fall. Here’s a summary of the information I’ve been able to gather so far, mostly through press releases and news coverage. Then there is a selection of links for further reading. I will write more later about the Global Governance programme specifically when I know more.

• The Global Governance programme is part of a new school called the Balsillie School of International Affairs, a major new joint initiative between the University of Waterloo (UW), the Wilfred Laurier University and the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), all located in Waterloo.
• The Balsillie School also has a PhD programme and an MA in International Public Policy.
• The school bears the name of Jim Balsillie, co-CEO of Research in Motion (RIM), maker of the Blackberry phone. Balsillie also founded CIGI.
• Balsillie donated $33 million to the school, and another $17 million to CIGI at the same time. UW and Laurier will contribute approximately $25 million each, totalling over $100 million.
• The school has attracted Thomas Homer-Dixon, one of Canada’s leading political scientists, from the University of Toronto.
• The school will get a new building in downtown Waterloo, to be done in 2009 (I hope so, so I can enjoy it too…).

Am I allowed to be excited?

Links to further information

• Press release: $100 million initiative in Waterloo for social science
• Globe and Mail article: Grand ambitions drew professor to Waterloo
• Embassy Magazine: New School Aims to Breath Life into Global Affairs
• Balsillie School of International Affairs home page
• Global Governance home page

…and about 11 hours after seeing the sun set, I was up to see it rise again on the opposite horizon. I climbed up on the causeway between Clearwater and Clearwater Beach. Hence you can see Clearwater outlined against the sun. It was very dry (amazingly, considering that this Florida), so the sunrise wasn’t quite as spectacular as it could have been I think.