So a couple of weeks ago, I had a one-day visit from a couple of Newbold people, and in the honour of the 4th of July (and seeing as I got a can of pumpkin from one of them), I decided to make a pumpkin pie!
Results were apparently quite good 
Basically used the recipe at joyofbaking.com, without the pecan and gingersnap layer and with some added vanilla suger. Nice!
Add comment juli 20th, 2009
So I was at the wedding of two good friends last week, which I wasn’t planning to blog much about, except: (this was really awesome) as the (excellent) dining was over, and we moved to more comfortable seating where the entertainment took place, somehow the newly wed couple in an unexpected move of surprise turned the whole thing into church, right then and there.
And so, right there, as we were sitting with our coffee, beer and whatnot around little tables, there was a flashback of something reminiscent of Aarhus Café Church old days style at their wedding reception, though with a decidedly new touch. Complete with thoughts from the bride and groom, worship songs and such. It really felt like the mode for a short while was changed and we were no longer at a wedding party, or rather, we were, but suddenly we were also in church! (which was nice, seeing as practical reasons made it hard to do earlier in the day)
I don’t know what you think when you hear this, but I thought it was really cool. To the wedded couple: Keep this up, and you’ll do amazing stuff!
Add comment juni 20th, 2009
Just randomly check my stats, and saw that one of the most used search terms to land on this blog is ‘church of raabjerg’. This strikes me as a strangely odd thing to search for…
4 comments juni 6th, 2009
So I just went to the ‘camp-meeting’ of the Adventist church in Norway (where, by the way, I’m staying for the summer). For those that don’t know what this is, it is where many members of the Adventist Church get together for sort of a day of fellowship.
First thought: It was nice. For various reasons, it’s been a couple of weeks since I last had the opportunity to worship with other believers, and that was really nice. Raafat Kamal – known better to some of us as Nat’s dad – gave a very forceful talk about the mission of the church, especially touching on the way we deal with people. Spot on.
Second thought (why am I putting this in bullet-point fashion?): It seems to me – it may not be so though, cf. a conversation I had in the car on the way back, but still, it seems to me – that often we can classify people in our church as belonging to two groups: Those that have their focus on the here and now and those that have their clear focus on his second coming. Within the Adventist Church, with our background and tradition, the latter translates to having a heavy focus on our being in the end time, the coming trials, the call to come out of her (interpretations of Rev 18.4), historical prophecies, and the signs of the times. The latter group seems to be more ‘mainstream’ in their Christian thinking, and generally (i) focus less on these things, while (ii) focusing more on the difference God can make in their lives here and now, the walk with God, the kingdom of God being at hand, and so on (if this group speak of the second coming, it is usually in quite general, more mainline, terms, and not as a focus-point; it’s just part of the bagage). Many times when people step up to the platform to sing a song, contribute with their thoughts, or take part in a debate, I get the feelings they are likely to belong to one of these groupings. I also get the feeling that the directions in which these groups are heading are not the same.
It would be nice to see a synthesis, or a direction that would maintain both, of these two foci – the here and now and the second coming / eternal life – if nothing else, because it seems that both Jesus and Paul managed to have them coexist in their thinking and doing and life. True, this picture is stylised, and I also see a more healthy middle ground in the church, but this seems a minority. I don’t have the answer on how to do it – my theology is probably flawed as well – but I recognise the need within our church for some sort of integration. Much of what has seemed integration up to this point to me does not seem so, since there is often still a lack of focus on the kingdom of God among us, as especially laid out by Jesus in the Gospel of Mark (forgive me if my labelings are not entirely consistent or my thinking not crystal-clear; I hope it still makes sense on some plane of thought). The music program did a good job of trying to integrate though. That was quite good.
Third thought: I have been able to be near – in different settings during the day – a small number of ‘core families’ that seemed to be working very well. It’s funny how you can usually tell when you come into the presence of such a family – the way they interact, the way they treat each other, the implicit respect the parents enjoy from, while not commanding of, the children. Simply a good solid family. Yes, solid is the word. Not coming from such a family myself, I may be more prone to picking up the difference. Whenever I meet people my age who has grown up in a solid family like this, our whole instinctive feeling about marriage seem to be completely opposite. For me, it has been interesting to note that for some people, it would be a strange and foreign thought to worry about the ‘what if’’s and the potential problems (true, some of it may be personality-related, but still I see a pattern). They simply assume, by instinct or experience, that things will work out fine.
Fourth thought: Norway is a really beautiful country. Driving up to Tyrifjord is simply amazing.
12 comments juni 6th, 2009
So today, having a fever, I took a bath. Having recently seen the movie Pi, where Sol paraphrases the story, and possible as a result of my feverish condition, I began to ponder the Archimedes principle of displacement. The quote from Pi goes:
“The king asks Archimedes to determine if a present he’s received is actually solid gold. Unsolved problem at the time. It tortures the great Greek mathematician for weeks – insomnia haunts him and he twists and turns in his bed for nights on end. Finally, his equally exhausted wife – she’s forced to share a bed with this genius – convinces him to take a bath to relax. While he’s entering the tub, Archimedes notices the bath water rise. Displacement, a way to determine volume, and that’s a way to determine density – weight over volume. And thus, Archimedes solves the problem. He screams ‘Eureka’ and he is so overwhelmed he runs dripping naked through the streets to the king’s palace to report his discovery.” (Sol’s point is that Max needs to ‘take a bath’ to solve his problem, but this quote spurred my interest, apparently)
Not remembering the quote exactly, I seemed to remember something about weight, and claims being made that the amount of water displaced were somehow related to the weight of the object, but I couldn’t get it to make sense that anything but the volume of the object would determine how much water it would displace. Enter google: Search archimedes gold displacement.
It seems reasonable to go from the top, and this site is on a .gov domain, carries the emblem of the US department of energy, so it seams at a 10-second glance to have some reliability. While, when reading it again, the scientists answering do not appear to give any outright wrong information, they don’t at all seem to convey the essence of the story. And when initially reading it, I strongly got the sense that some of them were arguing for a heavier object displacing more water than a lighter object (of the same volume).
Right, let’s try link 2: Now, suddenly, the crown under inspection could be partly silver instead of iron (as claimed by the first site), and this site is more or less about posing a critique against the method anyways, ending up suggesting a setup with scales, reminding me of the epic scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail where Sir Bevedere goes ‘we shall use my largest scales’.
Browsing through the google-list once again, my eye caught (after having discarded link three as relatively unuseful for my purposes) a debate at ‘Science forums’. This debate again reminded me of the debate preceding the use of Sir Bedevere’s largest scales in the forementioned movie. A guy called Vexer seems determined not to get it, and during a full 2-page discussion seems to hold that the water displaced has to do with weight and not volume.
While scrolling down the list further, my eyes catch something most welcome: What looks like an authoritative source indeed – the Encyclopædia Britannica in it’s very person (the linked page was followed through a couple of additional links). However, my rejoicing is short, since you can read about 5 seconds off that page, before a nag screen pops up asking you to register. So I took a screenshot of the info and read it at my leasure. It seems that indeed, the volume of water (or any fluid for that matter) displaced by a fully immersed object is – dam dam dam – the volume of that object; irrespectable of its weight I might add (while it is of course true that the upward force has to do with the weight of the object, and so becomes relevant for determining to what degree the object will be immersed). Which incidently is the same conclusion found (albeit in even more understandable terms) at Wikipedia. Which adds another point to the trustworthiness of Wikipedia.
So I’m happy; I got confirmed what I initially thought to be true (which raises again another set of questions on the biasedness of my inquiry). However, what’s the point of writing it here, or, as one of my lecturers like to reiterate, ’so what?’
I had a chat with my dad yesterday evening about postmodernism and the pluralistic society in which we live. He thought much of it had come from technology (perhaps somewhat like Lyotard). And I was reluctant to accept that (there must be more). However, as this little exercise confirms, on any given topic – even the ones we consider to be very established and universally true – we can find a host of both confusing, opposing, and confirming information, since anyone with a keyboard and Internet access can contribute even further to the confusion (you and me both).
I think my dad said something about how it used to be simpler. I agree. Maybe I’m missing a bit of that simplicity, even though I’ve never experienced it, or rather, I’ve probably experienced it growing up, since as a child, you tend to trust your authorities much more. I don’t think I’d like to go back though.
And even further, within especially religious communities, there tend to be those groups who view everything as being very simple. I am envious. However, I find it difficult to go back. And yet I agree. It is very simple. But perhaps simplicity is about choice, and that choice starts out with examination. And entails inspection. And then perhaps in the process, we learn which voices to ignore and which to include.
Add comment februar 1st, 2009
Met a cute dog in the Metro yesterday. The owner wasn’t too bad either 
During Christmas, me and my sister walked past the saddest looking dog. The owners lurked behind it and had exactly the same sad expression on their faces.
Funny how dogs and owners often look equally dull or interesting.
P.S. Me and my sister also met some other people with a quite nice dog, so if they should be reading this, don’t be mistaken
Add comment januar 8th, 2009
Just finished making a couple of Tiramisu’s. Haven’t had the finished product yet, but from the previews (of the biscuits dipped in coffee and dunked in the mascarpone mix) it promises to be very good indeed
For the Danish-minded people, I found the recipe here: www.dk-kogebogen.dk.
2 comments januar 4th, 2009
So I just went to see Händel’s Messiah with the quite (at least in Denmark) renowned choir Camerata, in Holmens Kirke. Though we didn’t exactly get the best places due to late arrival, it still remains an excellent work and was performed quite well by the choir.
So many bits going through my mind:
‘Every valley, every valley shall be exalted’
‘For He’s like a refiner’s fire’
‘And He shall purify the son’s of levi – that they may offer unto the Lord an offering of righteousness, of righteousness’
‘He was despised, rejected, rejected of men’
‘He gave His back to the smiters. And His cheeks to them that plucked off the hair, and his cheeks to them, that plucked off the hair’
‘And by his stripes we are healed’
‘I know that my redeemer liveth’
‘Worthy is the Lamb that was slain. And hath redeemed us to God, to God, by His blood. To receive power and riches and wisdom and strenght and honour and glory and blessing’
Just to mention a few… Is there anything left to say but amen?
Savouring the impressions as I’m sitting in the silence of the kitchen at night enjoying peppermint tea and some very nice cheeses and biscuits… 
Add comment december 18th, 2008
So, Tuesday morning, I woke up at about 6.20 from the rumbling of my bed. Being quite tired, I only managed to think ‘this can’t be an earthquake’ and that someone must’ve slammed the door very hard (on reflection that wouldn’t have accounted for the continued rumbling though).
It turns out that Copenhagen was indeed hit by an earthquake that morning. Only a measly 4.7 on the Richter-scale, but for a country that hardly ever experiences such things, it’s quite big.
So there you go: Earthquakes now also in Copenhagen.
2 comments december 18th, 2008
Just stopped by the Royal Library in Copenhagen, in search for some resources, namely a Hebrew Bible and some lexica. I got more than I hoped for; they have the stuttgartensia, Koehler Baumgartner and a number of other reference works I recognize from Newbold – and also some pretty nice facilities
However, I must say, the Newbold library actually quite well competes with the theology section in the diamond – which is no small feat.
Ok, sitting in the researcher’s study area now; need to get serious…
Add comment december 16th, 2008