Project

My Masters degree continues. My average for this, my third unversity degree, is 8.14. That's not too shabby considering my past attempts at learning something. I guess that this marine biology crap really does agree with me. Today I've been going over the data I've managed to collect so far about the animal communities between 240 - 374 meters. interestingly, my hypothesis seems to hold true so far. There does seem to be a connection between the type of substrate and both abundance and diversity of animals on the bottom. If ican show this is true for many types of substrate then I can go on to suggest that the type of substrate can be used to estimate what kinds of animals are present and in what abundance anywhere around Iceland. That would be pretty cool. Here's a picture:
As you can see by the four curved lines, the number of species found increases faster and to a higher maximum on a stoney bottom than on a muddy bottom. This is not really much news in the scientific world, but for my prject I had to show that there is an association in order to continue to the step of showing what species are characteristic of each substrate type. This is a trick ecologists use for the purpose of surveying areas too huge to be surveyed directly. Hopefully I'll get a whole bunch more data this summer so that I can get a very clear picture of things.

News

Nothing much to report recently...well except for a great visit to Prague where I met a whole bunch of great people and had a new potato soup - well, new to me, anyway! As I had heard, Prague is a great city for photography. I kept almost 500 of the photos that I shot - deleting the rest was not too difficult with so many to choose from! The architecture is wonderfully rich and fascinating - although coming from a country where the word decoration is not used in architectural design meetings maybe it was inevitable to be blown away by the variety and richness of the decorative motifs on the buildings everywhere. I get the feling that we were really downtown in Prague and I though I would have liked to get out of the touristy part of the city and see more of the countryside as well, there just wasn't time. The positive side of that is that I have reason to go back to the Czech Republic. Of all the places I've been, Prague is the first city I feel like I want to go back to right away.
The Comenius Project that was the reason for our trip to Prague will require Inga to go to Belgium in November. I really hope that I can save enough for me to accompany her then, too.

Now, I've spent the last week laying down new flooring in the Dear Girl's room. I think it looks pretty good. I'm not much of a parket-layer, but I can do okay when I put my mind to it (and when the Dear Wife gives me a kick in the ass to get me started!)

All of a sudden I just don't feel like writing anymore...

A lot of a little

In case anyone still looks at this blog after such a long pause in published articles...

Markús Ingi Ericsson, the new baby, and the rest of the family are all doing well. I've been studying for the exam I have to take on the 7th of May. We got a passport for markús today. I'll have to try to take a photo of the picture of him that the customs people will see until 2012 when we renew it. The expression on his face is fantastic! Anyway, nothing else much is going on here in Vogar, the most beautiful town in Iceland - far more beautiful than Hafnarfjörður. Dagbjört and Inga are well on their way to planning the big Confirmation party. For anyone who isn't Icelandic, the Confirmation sacrament is extremely important to Icelandic culture. In fact, it's so important that kids undergo the ceremony (and the required party featuring overly extravagant gifts and too much food) that even people who don't believe in God themselves hold a non-religious confirmation ceremony hosted by the town they live in! I'm not joking - people really ARE that gift crazy. It's bad enough that Godless children lie in front of the altar swearing to worship Jesus Christ and do their best to follow his teachings for the sole purpose of getting a new tv, computer, and hundreds of thousands of krónur (that's lots of money, to all you Gringos). Now the parents who are willing to admit to the world that they don't believe in God and that their 13-14 year old children are too immature to have formed a true idea of religious faith have created a faithless ceremony in order that their greedy little stinkers don't feel left out simply because the true ceremony doesn't fit in their belief system (or lack thereof)! The whole thing makes me sick. It's worse than the shambles that Christmas has become. Jim Carey's Mr. Grinch points out the materialism and greed that consume western culture in November and December, and if he could see what is going on here in the Spring, he'd have an even worse taste in his mouth. Easter is another day that has completely lot its meaning. My kids got so much candy this year that they voluntarily gave much of it away. I got too much, myself and have decided to forego the large chocolate Easter egg next year. I know I'll be the only one in the family that does so, though.

I agree with my wife that the sacrament of Confirmation is a beautiful thing in and of itself. I also think that kids should be made to think about their faith. But like the rest of Christianity, it quickly loses its beauty when the meaning behind it is not taken to heart. I really don't like the idea of blowing so much money, time and effort celebrating a false idea. However, I am not going to raise a fuss about this. I know that there is nothing I can do about this. It's just another in the long list of things that make me feel ashamed of the world I inhabit. We spend way too much time thinking about stuff and money and not enough time thinking about bettering the quality of our lives.