Some pictures from last week’s success show - Hjultorget. Captions in Swedish today - sorry, got lazy.

Bordercollievalpen Niko praktiserar till assistanshund.

Vi premiärvisade TiLites nya superstol som flögs in från Italien. För att visas i 6 timmar i Sverige. Ibland är det glam även i vår bransch.

Mer flärd. Köping Hillbillies-stjärnan “Norrland” utmanade mässbesökare i gatloppsrugby.

Vi fick besök av ett filmteam som ville göra testreportage. Jag satte vår tekniker Göte i rampljuset.

Polsk par som dansat tillsammans blott ett år. Duktiga och snabbt tempo.

Little Chibi followed me to work yesterday. There was enough attention to go around and he didn’t sleep for the entire work day.

Other pets that has taken HEA as their territory:

Joppe - dog of my sister trying a Tilite chair.

Signe - dog of our purchase and order manager, chilling in the marketing room.

Current location: favorite part of country

I’m not going to twaddle about my special connection to this northern hemisphere - I think I’ve done enough of that before.

Still, passing the Arctic Circle and entering Gällivare as the sun sets cannot be described as anything but special. I somehow love passing the road signs telling you to get off here if heading for Jokkmokk, Karesuando, Arvidsjaur, Koskullskulle, or Nattavaara. Dogding reindeer families slowly crossing the highway.

The vastness is spectacular. So spectacular you really didn’t expect the police sitting in a remote corner, doing…nothing, apparently. Very Laponian though, taking it easy. And not that my extremely tired Volvo V50 would ever know what speeding meant anyway. Volvo safety.

I doubt you enjoy images from these exhibitions in general, they look pretty much the same. But the (we) Danes…they’re just..reluctant to plain ordinary. “Det er jo klart vi ska ha heste, bile, hunde og öl, det er jo messe!”

Danmark ER dejligt. And I’m not saying that for obvious patriotic reasons. A routine drive to Fredericia for a show on highways turned out more interesting than expected, photo-wise. Photo: H. Adamsson.

Greve, a small town just outside Copenhagen hid a beautiful wide beach behind the restaurant.

Storebaelt Bridge connecting Sjaelland and Fyn.

Coffee break in Odense.

Heading back to Sweden, Oeresund Bridge connecting Denmark and Sweden.

Someone once told me: There IS a life after the show.

Well - I’ll work on that. It’s a love-hate thing I suppose. You prepare for months. It lasts for three days. And requires weeks of follow-up. Ten minute lunches or non at all, no sun or air for an entire day and getting so fed up listening to your own voice you wish someone could hit the OFF button. But being out-of-office meeting clients, users, colleagues and competitors is a kick needed.

It was undeniably the best show since I started in the business six years ago. Who says recession is mere bad news?

Photo: Yours truly in our brand new Ti-Lite chair introduced during the show.

Visit Leva & Fungera - especially if you’re in the rehab business as an OT, PT, nurse, personal assistent or just curious. Free entrance and lots of activities. The most beautiful stand and prettiest staff is located at B01:41.

Daily between 21-23 April from 9-17, last day 9-16.

A little greeting from the intiating of xmas @ wrk - looking forward to total darkness at 3 pm.

Our office got itself a facelift. With sliding glass doors and frosted film. With a name tag. So that the four of us don’t get confused in this huge office space.

This morning at Sunderbyn Hospital

Sometimes you say things you don’t really mean. To emphasize, stress an emotion or a psysical state. Like “freeze your butt off”. If you haven’t actually frozen your rear off you don’t know what you’re talking about. Tonight I learned the difference between having a jacket that goes below the posterior and above. My decision to walk back from the clinic to my hotel was at glance a good one. Cristal clear night, no wind, dry, frosty snow covering the ground and an easy route to follow. Oh yes. And -10C.

The last words from my client was: “You sure you’re not gonna be too cold on your legs?” to which I respond “No, I walk to work every day. I’ll be fine.” Which I was. For the first 500 meters or so. After 35 minutes my bum goes numb and my thighs are deep frozen. Waist up I’m warm and comfy but I never thought that particular body part could actually…freeze that bad.

You know I love it up here though. The rare fact that it snowed last night had me smiling all morning of sheer joy. My reward for the bold/spontaneous attempt to walk with thin summer jeans in -10 will be Max. As usual when I’m up north I have to go to Max. Having northern burgers with snow outside is just a bit unique. And this part of the country has a special little place in my heart.

Now that the gallery tool’s working again I give you a review of my trip to Atlanta in pixels. 

Being a time optimist does not work in your advantage when it comes to blogging. Wordpress messing around with you doesn’t really help either. For some reason my image upload tool is out of order. But I’ll try. Here are the latest observations/experiences, brought to you directly from Atlanta:

• It’s freezing. Being colder than back home doesn’t make sense at all. Its sunny though…
• There are still no people than downtown than the ones working during daylight.
• The few people you do bump into are very talkative - for better or worse
• Since there are basically no stores downtown one must take the train to different malls around town
• Everything I’ve eaten so far has been very good - from sushi to fried green tomatoes.
• Yesterday on the Marta (subway/metro) I was actually mistaken for a local. I’m already blending in.

Today is the last full day. I will try to see town a bit more than the walk from the hotel to the fair grounds before leaving tomorrow evening. We’ll see how that goes. Back to you!

Atlanta is different. I starting to wonder where the people are. The only few locals I’ve seen where on the Marta, the metro, during rush hour. Almost empty. The streets are empty. Getting lost last night wasn’t easy, there was no one to ask!

I do know there some activity here. Helicopters are circulating in the sky (after all this is CNN town) and some huge companies have their head quarters here. Maybe they’ll all be at the show today? More on this story later, over to you.

I didn’t upgrade to first class. Not even business. Nope. I’m still in coach, with one skinny blanket, a kid in front of me discovering the reclining seat for the first time, all the time. It’s a 9.10 hour flight to Atlanta and yet… travelling just got really comfortable.

 Most airlines cut back, adding costs for passengers or simply retracting service. They will not be named here, but on this flight I choose, for convenience reasons, a different carrier than the one who add miles to my mileage account. However it was a good choice. The carrier, KLM, is having me and the other 234 passengers flewn in a quite comfy Airbus from 2005. Now, any flight nerd, like yours truly, would know that that’s pretty new aviationwise (I know I know, it’s not the A380, but still). Any flight nerd of course would also have carefully selected a seat after consulting seatguru.com, as yours truly.

So. I’m in my favourite seat, no box under feet, close but not too close to the washrooms, and as front as possible in the cabin. And the personal entertainment system is finally starting to get somewhere. I mean, I will never pay 2,50 USD to send a text from 30,000 ft, but I will do this:

• Create a playlist (re-living memories of Superstring, No Regular and Greece 2000 while writing these lines, only on a Dutch airline!)
•  Play on demand – never re-see the same movie throughout the flight again
•  Ponder over why any company making lavatory doors for airplanes in the 21st century will still feel that an ashtray is an appropriate decoration for a new plane. Nostalgia? Poor internal communication?
•  Be glad I always end up having nice neighbours – they either sleep through the entire flight or I’ll make a new friend.
•  Watch some episodes of Dexter…or Heroes..or Frasier..or Back to you.
•  Listen with my own headphones, manufacturers of Airbuses finally got the in- and outputs right but they forgot… 

 The powerplug for ..my laptop. Ugh! You just can’t have it all in coach can you?

On Monday morning I will be departing for the US. This time it’ll be to the sunny southern of Georgia, Atlanta for an exhibition. I’m told that I have to try some real southern food like fried chicken, sweet potato pie and what else they eat down there.

Happy weekending!