The shoulder season right between late fall and winter is what I consider as the worst time of the year. And by worst time I mean the fact that it gets cold, and dark. But when the snow finally arrives that darkness doesn't feel that dark anymore, the snow reflects the minimum light we get, and even with the moon you can have a bit of light in the dark. The moon also appears a lot earlier with this darkness, you can see it looming over the sky, reminding you that the evening is on its way.

However, the snow is kind of essential to do anything. If its only cold and dark what fun is that? We got some snow a couple of weeks ago, and it snowed for a couple of days, but that event wasn't enough for us to go skiing, and with the temperature reaching down towards -8 F (-22C) we didnt see any snow at all in the near future. Everyone was kind of upset about this, no snow!! Finally the other day the snow started to fall again and yesterday I got time to go out skiing. I have a couple of new office mates, all from the southern part of the US, Texas and Georgia...so really not that used to snow in large amounts. One of the first things everyone, including me, advised them to get was cross country skis. We have a lot of ski swaps up here where people sell their old skis and other winter gear. New skis can be very expensive, and there are so many other things you need your money for. The rent here is for example really expensive, even with a dry cabin (a cabin without any running water). You also have to pay heating oil, which usually ends up being around 900 dollars a year.

Anyway, I showed them all the basics on how to remove the old kick wax from the skis, how to apply the wax, where to put it and so on, and most important how temperature and the different waxes works. It was (for Fairbanks) a pretty warm afternoon, 22F (-6C). It is really hard to teach other people how to ski, or at least the basics. It really forces you to think about your motions and how you really get it to work. It was a really nice evening, but when we got back we realized that no one brought the key to the office...aah we had to wait a little while until the campus police came and opened the door. That made me so cold, the wind had picked up a bit and with a thin layer of clothing (pants, one base layer and a thin fleece) I felt really really COLD! It even took a while for me to feel warm in front of the wood stove, and then I fell a sleep on the sofa after reading two papers. I wasn't the only one who fell asleep

Today is a new month with new themes for "Friday Theme". The first theme for November is "Cooking Food", should be fun. But hey, remember I am 10 hrs behind most of you people in Sweden...so stay tuned.

Ohh and hey, remember that pumpkin i bought, I finally carved it last weekend by myself, not even W wanted to help me, I guess baseball or football is more interesting than pumpkins... Here it is, my very first pumpkin: