visitors!

[pilvikki]

tommy (my sister's first husband) 'dropped in' tonight. he left stockholm at 8 fri morning and arrived 6 sunday night. he likes driving. this is the 4th time, he's driven down. he spends a week or two, gets bored and drives home. he likes to keep busy and this time we have a mile long list of stuff to do, just in case in gets ..bored!

things like figuring out what's ailing wendy, (the car), replacing the hot water heater, switching around the diswasher in place of washing machine, installing a washing machine/drier/fridge with all the water features, help the neighbour with stuccoing his fence, replacing a seal on the the pool pump, (which apparently is the source of the basement leak).

stucco the fence, you ask?

well, yes, here they don't fool around with some silly picket fences, but build a wall out of cinder blocks. they, or course look like crap, so a layer of stucco is applied in some muted colour. same as around the pool.

the reason? termites.

[yogi]

I never realized Sweden was connected to the mainland via Denmark. Apparently there are a few bridges needing to be crossed, but it all looks doable. I'd guess y'all are in the EU and don't have to worry about trivial things like travel visas. Tommy is a good sport to be sure. I don't know if I'd travel all that distance for such a heavy work load. There has to be more fun ways to be un-bored. I like the idea of stucco walled fences. The only place I've seen them in any numbers is Puerto Rico. Then again, I don't get around much.

[pilvikki]

well, tommy doesn't have to do any of it, but he likes to putter, so the options are there.

there's a really long bridge that connects copenhagen and malmö/

https://www.google.fr/maps/@55.5962792, ... ,12z?hl=en

[yogi]

That looks like about ten miles worth of bridge. I'd hate to have car trouble in the middle of it.

[pilvikki]

no kidding! and there is nowhere to pull over to enjoy the view either, same as the millau viaduct. once you hit the bridge, you see nothing...

[pilvikki]

the öresungd bridge looks like it just pops up out of the water in the middle of the channel:

[yogi]

Is that öresungd bridge completed in the photo, or is is a picture of it being built?

[pilvikki]

that's it, folks! it consists of 4 km's on land, then 4 km's underwater tunnel and 8 km's across to sweden. quite the set up!

the land part is a manmade island and came about as the airport needed space to land and take off.

here's a bit more on it:

https://structurae.net/structures/oresund-bridge

[yogi]

I love the street view on the bridge map.

[pilvikki]

pretty cool!

nobody asked me, but i'm super baffled as to why they didn't go 6, or at least 5 lanes....

[yogi]

I'm guessing it had something to do with the krona (dollar) cost

[pilvikki]

yes, of course, but it'll bite them later... a 5th lane would have given them one extra in the direction of heavy traffic..

[yogi]

The traffic is heavy only in one direction???
Does that mean people are anxious to get out, or are they anxious to get in?

[pilvikki]

well, you know, certain weekdays/weekends everybody is off on vacation, and then they all want to come back on the same sodding day. here they're called black days, reds are 'difficult' days:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/desti ... t-traffic/

totally idiotic, if you ask me, but then, nobody did...

[yogi]

Way back when I had a job and worked 25 miles from home, four lanes of bumper to bumper traffic was routine for at least ten of those miles (on the expressway, of course) every day. When it snowed 6"+ one could count on a three hour leisurely ride home. The funny things was that the snow plows were stuck in the same traffic I was.

[pilvikki]

oh yesss... been there, done it!

and then weekends you'd find yourself stuck in a snowstorm 50 miles from home. lake effect and all that...

[yogi]

we were on the right side of the lake to not be very affected by that. People in Michigan and Indiana, however, would be inundated.

[pilvikki]

had a few good ones... once the streets in toronto went down to one lane as the snow was thick they could only dig out the middle.

[yogi]

I'm in a place where ice storms are more common than snow storms. Not sure that's an improvement

[pilvikki]

i'd take a blinding snow storm over ice any day!