I am on the plane as I am writing this. Being home this week has been a pleasure, but it has also been very challenging. While the wedding was wonderful and a chance to relax, being home around Thanksgiving was not a chance to relax and get away from it all. Quite the opposite. When I got back from the wedding in New Orleans, my day was filled with errands and tasks, go pick this person up here and drop this person off there. Loads of friends to see and everyone wants more time than I can really give them to have it be meaningful. It was so stressful that I had a constant headache from Tuesday to Thursday evening. And it was at the apex of my disenchantment that I made a crucial discovery…a vacation is not the same as a holiday.

A vacation is an event one takes to relax and get away from the stresses and pressures of responsibility. A holiday is an event which by its very nature (specific in scope and deliverables, multi-faced, with many variables) is prone to cause stress. Over the past few years, because I have been taking vacation during holiday periods (specifically Thanksgiving/Christmas), I have usually come back from vacation in a worse physiological condition than when I began.

So now I made a choice. I decided that I would have to seperate vacations from holidays.

The good news in this is that now more of my time will be focused on fun and relaxing activities. And I will adjust my vacation schedule so that I now take one vacation in the first half of the year and the other vacation during the second half of the year, with annual home leave of 1 week to remain unchanged. I think using this approach will ensure that I don’t go back to Sweden feeling mentally tired and exhausted. I sure hope so. Otherwise, the bad news will be that I will have no choice but to stop going home for the holidays and instead focus on vacation and my mental well-being.

As fantastic as Thanksgiving was (four generations sitting down together for a meal), I am not sure I can do holiday travel right now. I hope my solution above works. I really do…. :-/

For those of you who have never gotten to know Chuck Kraemer, he a media personality well read and well-respected. The following below is called the “Ode to Christmas”, which he used to do yearly for many years. The 2000 version was the latest that I could find, but funnily enough, it is still very appropriate.

Lord… and Taylor. Anne Taylor. Ann & Hope, Anne Klein, Calvin Klein, Cuisinart, Kodak, cotton polyester, budget stretcher, store-wide, half off, dot-com.

What have we done? To Christmas?

What have we done to Christmas indeed? Maybe I am so heads-above-the-clouds to believe that Christmas should be about who we are with instead of how many toys we rack up into the house. Maybe I do forget that in my youth, all possible all I really cared about was the presents, whereas what I care about now is the company I keep during the holidays. Maybe I feel stupid because I think that it is the thought that counts behind the gift, rather than the store’s return policy. I don’t know. What I do know is that since college, I have come to dislike christmas.

blah….i am bitter about this…time for pills…

Calgon take me away (I’m in the office while on vacation at home because I can’t think of anything else better or useful to do than surf the net…I am lame…)

SimilarMinds Compatibility Results justmetn |||||||| 77% |||||||| 83% icecrmassasin ||||||| 74% ||||||| 72% similarity complementarity

How compatible are you and your stupid net friends?

Maha’s wedding was absolutely beautiful. Maha was stunning as a bride of course, there was an open bar, and the entire evening was a success for them. For which I am glad.

Steve and I went out again after the wedding. We partied all night again and then stoped for some pastries on the way back to the hotel. We helped this woman who broke her ankle, went back and packed, and then he left for Atlanta and I left for Boston. Since I only had 8 hours of sleep over the past 4 days, I was really tired when I got home, but I managed to squeeze in dinner with Jason, and then came back and got a solid 8 hours (from midnight to 8am) and I feel a lot better now.

Today involved making a trip to the post office, and I have to go pick up a relative from the airport and then meet another one of my friends for dinner at the Cheesecake factory.

Tomorrow will be about being involved with the family in different ways, and for making a final list of things that I have to accomplish before I leave. And finally, I changed my flight arrangements to Atlanta so that on Friday, I leave Boston at 6am and get into Atlanta at noon, giving me more time to party in Atlanta before coming back to Boston on that Saturday and making the trek back to Stockholm.

As I sit on the American Airlines plane to go to Maha’s wedding in New Orleans, I have had to do a couple of things which force me to wonder whether friends and money really go together?

My perspective on letting people borrow money is that I will always let a friend in need borrow money. And I think that I have done that without question, because when you friends need you, I believe that you need to be there to support them. Just like I would with my family.

So I have some friends in Sweden whom I have let borrow money. And then I have some to realise that this year, I have lent out a total of SEK 18.000 to various friends (it’s the equivalent of US$2,300 in constant currency). And unfortunately, it’s too large of an amount to forgive and since I won’t forgive it for one person, I can’t really forgive it for anyone. One friend borrowed SEK 10.000, one borrowed SEK 3.000, one borrowed SEK 1.000, one borrowed SEK 500, and one borrowed the remainder of SEK 3.500. The good news is that the person who borrowed the SEK 3.500 has initiated a transfer into my bank account, so they are all sorted. Now I need to sort out the remaining SEK 14.500.

Having given it some thought, when I get back to Sweden, I am going to have to create legally-binding paperwork for the person who borrowed SEK 10.000. I don’t think he’ll pay it back unless there is legal force behind it. And although we didn’t sign paperwork at the time, all of our mutual friends are aware that he borrowed the funds from me. And he owes our mutual friends money as well. The difference is that I think that I am the only one willing to do what it takes to collect.

The experience hasn’t soured me on letting friends borrow money, because I truly believe that you can’t let the actions of a few spoil it for everyone else. But I think that in the future, for my friends in Sweden, depending on the person, I will limit what I let them borrow and we’ll have to get it in writing, so that I protect my overall net worth.

I do feel kind of bitchy, because I don’t have an absolute need for the cash right now. But left unchecked, they have no incentive to repay. But ultimately, it is not about how much money I have, rather, it’s about people living up to and completing their obligations. Between my friends who I have let borrow money, escalating this issue with them is nothing personal. We can still be friends — good friends in fact. I think it’s just the right thing for me to do. Am I wrong?

Anyway, what are your thoughts and opinions on letting friends borrow money? What rules do or don’t you follow and how much leeway and time do you typically give people, consider the variety of circumstances that develop?

So just a quick update.

First, I apologise for not reading people’s journals and responding in them. I promise that I will be looking over them in the next few days and responding to everyone. It’s just been hectic 🙁

So anyway, my flight experience on American was quite nice actually. I got a coach seat, upgraded to business with miles, and got bumped to first thanks to a couple that was arguing over who was going to get the one complimentary first class seat being offer to them (in the end, since they couldn’t decide, I piped in and said I would take it jokingly, but they actually gave me the first class seat). I had forgotten what it was like to fly first class because it had been so long. The flight was mostly OK…some sleeping, some working, some plotting and planning 🙂 And for those of you in Boston who fly internationally, Terminal E kicks so much ass! I am impressed.

My experience from there gets a bit better. I get to te Hertz lot and they are out the styles of volvo and jag that I usually get them to upgrade me to for free. I was bitterly disappointed and shared my views with the Gold Counter manager, who then let me pick from a choice of Ford Mustangs. There was a blue one, a black one, and a yellow one. I went for the yellow — The Speedy Lemon as I called it. Quite a nice car. I told them I would be back on Sunday and expected a volvo, since Jags are too much of a high right item to be driving to New York with (if I go).

Finally, fed up with my US phone (a crappy motorola from 3 years ago), I called T-Mobile and reminded them that I had been a customer since they were Omnipoint (the first digital wireless provider in Boston back in 1997 when they had offices at Copley Square). So they offered me a choice of a free Nokia phone (they had two styles available), but none of them suited me. So I told them that I wanted a SonyEricsson T610 so that my SonyEricsson T68i (which I use for work in Sweden) “had a friend”. They laughed and offered to me for $249. I reminded them of my length of time with them, so they dropped it down to $199.00. I told him he could better and that since 24 November is right around the corner (the date when in the US, you can take your wireless number with you if you change service providers), perhaps we could focus on how we could deliver service with customer retention in mind. That brought the price down to $149.00 + tax wth free express shipping and a $50 mail-in rebate. I should have my new phone on Monday, but I told him I didn’t see any reason why he couldn’t organise Saturday. He said he’s try his best.

So today has been good overall and I lack the ability — actually the right — to complain too loudly.

OK, as much fun as this is, I need to scram if I am going to make my flights and get down to New Orleans to attend Maha’s wedding.

Ciao everyone!

So it’s been a long time since I have updated. I am now back in the USA. Just got back on 20 November. Today I need to travel to New Orleans to be a part of Maha’s wedding, so I will have to go to the airport in the next 90 minutes so that I can make my flights. I managed to sleep 2.5 hours today, so that was a good thing. Tonight in New Orleans, after the rehersal dinner, I will probably find myself at some bar in the French Quarter. Preferably at the place that serves hand grenades.

To give you an indication of the type of vacation this is going to be, when I first got home, I immediately dropped off my things at the house. Then I went to get my haircut (it looks nice actually), and then I went to the storage facility to pick up some more things to bring to Sweden (my LV weekend luggage and some computer software). I then did some minor shopping and then came home and watched some TV and chatted with my sister. For dinner I was naughty and had some KFC because you can’t get that in Sweden. Now I just need a caramel macchiato and a trip to the Cheesecake Factory, and both are in plan!

Work on the house is going along so well. It’s fantastic in fact.

So I have a lot to do this holiday season. But it will be good. I needed to get all of this done anyway. And besides, being busy with the stuff that I want to do is better than being busy with the stuff that works wants to do on vacation, so I can’t complain.

Ciao for now!