Learning Curves

After a long two years, myself and Klara have at long last finally managed to complete our design sketching book, Learning Curves. :) The last months just before the summer holidays were pretty intense, with many working nights lasting well in to the early hours. So far everyone who has seen the book has been impressed, which has of course been good to hear, and is something that we certainly have to thank our contributors for! The work they offered us for the project is a pretty inspiring collection, so thank you all.

Of course, i also want to thank everyone who put up with my strange working hours, unsociable last 6 months and general stress level! I took a long summer vacation and it was a perfect way to round off the project. Of course, now comes the long task of publicising and selling the book. So, on that note, please pop along to the website (www.designsketching.com ) and have a look, and you can also join our facebook page ( http://www.facebook.com/DesignSketchbookLearningCurves ) as well. Dont forgot to buy a copy as well! :)

V8 Event

Old news now, but this one is for you Paul. Was down in Italy over the summer for the launch of the new Scania V8 range. Two lovely weeks in the brilliant sunshine showing off the most powerful production truck in the world. Not only did i spend two weeks driving those, i also got to play around in the cream of the Audi range, including the V10 R8 (you will be pleased to note paul that it broke the Audi trend of having a heavy flywheel!)

New Motor

Finally got round to ordering my new runaround. Delivery time around christmas (why sooooo long). Its coming with 6speed manual, touch screen sterio, LED taillamps, Bi Xenon Headlamps, window tints and a James Bond rear camera. Pity it will be arriving in the middle of winter on a set of cheep winter tyres! (has a pretty well balanced flywheel though)

Where have I gone?

Damn, nearly 6 months without an update? Whats happening? Well, let me look some stuff up and see what i can get online this week.

Had a great week showing off the new Scania R series. I was very happy to be given charge of this 25.25 meter long 60 ton Topline for the week...its a thing of beauty to drive. As you can see the above video of me doing a quick drive past (i guess you just have to trust its me driving)!!

Nothing to say

I leave the whole thing to your imagination!

Silly boats

Ok, its a bit out of date now, but i see i forgot to add my boating pictures to the blog. A great weekend in Stockholm it was... and the boating was great, until of course i crashed the boat. Oh well! It was not my fault honest! Anyway, i really look forward to next summer as it would be great hire a boat for a long weekend...

Bus driving

Come on Ingrid... when are we going to drag you up to drive one of these things? You do design them after all!!

I need one of these (or all of them!)

Just a normal day in the Scania carpark! Mmmmmmm, matt black.

Oh NO!

How can I ever live this down. My own father... driving a DAF"t". Is there no justice in this world. And not only that... its nothing more than a transit van. I work my ass off to design a fantastic Volvo... which is now availale in 700BHP flavours, and am currently striving to help Scania top anything Volvo can do... yet no... he drives a toy truck?

It CAN happen...even to me

Found these old pictures of my first ever (and so far only) crash. All my fault sorry to say, and i did get booked for it. Too fast in the wet, and hit a van coming in the opposite direction (you can see it on the pavement in the background). Nobody hurt...thank goodness....except pride. I remember thinking just before the impact, damn it...now i cant say ever again that i have never had an accident.

Beetle by Beasley

Some very nice pictures of my lovely car (which may have to go soon)... :(

What an idiot.

What a disaster. Only one season old, and they are horribly coroded already. Why, oh why didnt i wash and dry them before putting them into storage for the winter. Any suggestions on how to repair them are of course welcome.

I CAN parallel park a truck!

So, Magnus, this one is for you. Its not super tight...but hey, i dont drive these things every day you know!

Scania V8

Managed to borrow a Scania V8 for the weekend (range and split manual) to keep my hand in on the driving. Fully loaded, it gave me a chance to get a bit more familiar with a manual, and particularly Scania manual gearbox. Also took the time to have another practice at reversing. It was all good fun!

Cool

Borrowed a very fast car the other day. Managed to take this snap on a quiet stretch of road!

Or like this. Spot the differences!

New DesignerTechniques

It feels like time for a overhaul of DesignerTechniques. Been working on some new layout looks, with a wider, and page centred format. Think its looking good. New Logo too. Comments?

Seriously, is it me who is stupid...or facebook?

Ok, really. I run this Blog just fine, although the picture formatting can be a bit wierd, and of course I manage to write, publish and maintain DesignerTechniques.com .....all by myself. Today however I have lost an entire day trying to figure out how to use Facebooks company "Page" service to create something for DesignerTechniques. A whole day, and still I cant figure it out. Its full of links that take you down blind alleys for gods sake. You then have to re-enter from the start. I have not seen a website with such poor navigation in years!!? Certainly not one that popular. Really, its crap. In the last two days, I have even managed to arrange Google search, and Google ads onto DesignerTechniques. Peice of cake, and that involved fiddling with HTML for chr*st sake? I AM MAD. No really, i am!

This ones for you paul

I find myself missing Boris. Things are not the same without him. Even if you may end up dead at the end of the evening, it was always worth it.

Skiing for the first time

Managed to cart myself off to the slopes over the weekend thanks to Ingrid, the girls and Louise. Tried skiing for the first time and i thought it went surprisingly well. Much easier than snow boarding. Think i am going to ski all the time from now on...its the new cool. Snow boarding is soooo last year.

What the f??k

This kind of freaked me out a bit. COming out of the Mcdonalds drive through i saw my car? ? Same number plate and everything. I thought i had got into the wrong car for a second...even though i didnt even get out. Anyway, chatted to the owner for a bit and we both agreed it was very weird. I also agreed with myself that mine looked much better with the wheels. Nice one allan.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

That will teach em. Ok for those who dont know, i have been having a year long battle with a parking company over a parking ticket. If you want to find out more you will find the whole story below. The end of the matter came when they gave up. Since they had already put it in the hands of the swedish courts, in effect that means they concede defeat....ie. i win. ie. they spent a lot of money for sod all and i win. Think i am going to call them up every day to remind them of that. And the fact that they are in my opinion lying stealing bullies!!

Shit

Oops. First time for that. In my defense it wasnt my fault. God made me do it. Even Shumacher crashes. It will buff out. Boloxs

Look at that

Well, here is some old pictures. These must be from the late 80s early 90s perhaps. Or actually they may even be late 90s. Perhaps when myself and Andy Sweet went cycling in Scotland. Anyway. For those of you working at truck manufacturers take note. A full 43 foot artic, used for express parcel delivery.....ie distribution.

Another poker night

Played great the whole night...and had a lot of fun. Was 89% to win on the last hand of the game...and lost. Robbed! Nothing short of it. By the way louise. You owe Jonas 100SEK!!!

Non white White party

The non white white pary. Basicaly in swedish a white month means a non drinking month. So obviously this was a fully alcohol fuelled party....where everybody wore white. Hence Non White White Party. It was all very fun, and great when everybody went out wearing all white. Thing is. Meeting a girl at the bar who is drinking red wine can be troublesome. Especially when you spill it on her.....twice. It actually gets even worse when you follow her to the bathroom to apologise for the glass of red wine decorating her entire front when another girl comes into the bathroom and spills even more red wine on her! The fact that you then get her number? Well...at least she had the good grace to tell me perhaps meeting again is not a good idea when i called her a few days later.

Gotland...continued

So...didnt get round to updating the blog for a while. You forget one little thing and before you know it people are on your back! Anyway. The cycling trip was really really good. We did caving...almost did kyaking...cycled over 350km and had a really good time. I got a great tan, and came back feeling like i had one of the best holidays i have had in a while. I think Taras felt the same...but i am not sure he would do it again. I certainly would. Anyway, enjoy some of the pictures. Now.....to plan my english channel swim!!

GOTLAND on BIKE: Getting ready

So departure day is nearing. Spent a day getting in some supplies with Taras. We both needed the saddle bags, and i treated myself to a super lightweight camping tent. It folds up tiny...great for packing onto the bike and only weighs 2.1kg.


I wonder why my bike looks slightly more loaded than Taras bike??? I have to say i am rather pleased with the bags i got too. 36Litres each side.


We had a practise set up of the tent in the garden as well. Just wanted to get it all figured out so that we dont look a complete pair of plonkers at the camp sites!! Its not the biggest tent in the world, but so long as we dont fall out we should be OK.