Friday 27 February 2009

Coffee, fruit and cheese

Ah, Friday. As loyal readers of the Bombablog may have gathered, Sara, my erstwhile and erudite colleague, doesn't really like Mondays. I, on the other hand, don't much care for Fridays. It signals the end of the week and I rather enjoy my weeks at Bombadil. On the plus side though Friday does tend to be even madder than the rest of the week. Here is a brief outline of the sequence of events that occurred this morning.
  • Everyone drinks coffee in the fika room, at 10 o'clock sharp, like good Swedes/psuedo Swedes
  • Twenty minutes later, everyone gets up to leave the fika room to continue Bombadilling
  • Niklas (upon inspecting the contents of his mug and with a genuine tone of surprise in his voice), comments: "Ah, I have not drunk any coffee, I have only eaten fruits."
  • Everyone sits down again
  • Niklas drinks coffee
  • Swedish chi is restored
Our Media Centre is gathering pace (well, it is gathering staff at any rate). Veronica will be joining the Bombadil stable next Monday, hopefully she'll be able to put up with our horsing around in the fika room.

In other news, the Bombadil dog currently smells like cheese.*

*She smells of cheese bacause she stole several kilos of cheddar from the kitchen table last night.

Thursday 26 February 2009

Off to the royal capital of Sweden

Didn't have much time to blog today, since we are off to Stockholm to discuss international expansion and expansion capital. Not that Stockholm is the capital of capital, but there are some venture capitalists we are meeting there today. And the others at the office made sure I saw myself featuring instead of Barbara Andersson in Barbed Wire. Was it really Barb-ara Andersson? Weard bird, that one, at least the name. ;)
/Niklas

Wednesday 25 February 2009

Wensday blogging

Hello again everyone!

Blogging time again and Pixie is not around at the moment. Probably because Ubbe is with me again this day. He is a bit "low" when he meets a new female dog :-)). But he will get use to her if he meets her a couple of more times. On the picture Ubbe is sitting under the table looking at John who is taking the picture.



Yesterday me and Marianne went to Örebro to talk to the headmaster at Örebro Art Shool. I know him from before when we both worked at the Åkerby sculpturepark. Marianne told him about Bombadil and we will keep in touch! We are happy that there will be an co-operation in the future.

Ohh, very soon Saras poetry book will be finished. We will do some work on it tomorrow and print it out to se how it looks. It will be intresting when we have the real book in our hands :-)).

By, by for now
Mari and Ubbe on the floor

Tuesday 24 February 2009

Continental explosions, engagements, cream cakes and an unrelated picture


This week - and today was no exception - we have had several howls in the office. Not wolf-like howls, but jubilant, exhilarating, happy screams of, well, exhilaration. We now have a presence on every continent on the globe. I know there are not that many continents, but it was indeed a milestone for us and the number of countries in which we have a presence has risen to 19. There is a map on the website for those of you interested in the updates. However, the reason being on all continents was such an important milestone is that it means that the Bombadil concept has not only been accepted but also appreciated by writers from disparate backgrounds and cultures, making it a universal concept.

There are obviously many differences between the authors but there are so many things that unite these young people, their passions and their dreams and that really pleased me. It also pleases me that they are so talented, motivated and passionate and on a personal note, it pleases me that there is so much to learn from the generation ready to take over running the world. I have a lot of faith that they will make it a wonderful place in which to grown old. Yes, I am not quite old yet (according to my definition though not that of my children), but I look forward to the day, with these many talented young beings at the helm.

Another jubilant cry was when we heard that the Crown Princess was getting married to her Daniel. In my eyes, there is very little more endearing that watching love dance in the eyes of newly engaged couples. My sincere congratulations to them, and I hope I will one day be able to tell them so in person. Sweden is a small place, so it might well happen. Until then, congratulations Victoria and Daniel.

Another jubilant cry was when we realised it was cream cake day. It is the last day before lent, and traditions proclaim that one is allowed to eat copious amounts of cream cake. I only managed one, but it was very good indeed. I could not manage more than one, but neither would I need more than one to make it though lent :-(

Now on to something completely unrelelated to jubilant howls, though I was rather jubilant about it. I just realised that it was Sara who had taken over my kitchen duty because she had forgotten to blog yesterday. I was so busy yesterday that I did not even check (I usually enjoy catching up with my colleagues thoughts by reading their blogs) and today I was very surprised that coffee was made and that the kitchen was spick-and-span. I actually just thought that somebody had taken pity to my workload and done it for me. Regardless of the reason, I am pleased not having had to do it: Thank you Sara.

And in case anybody wonders, the dog is cuddly and lovely! I have a cold, so I cannot comment on the smell.

Monday 23 February 2009

Monday blogging on a Tuesday morning....

I give up, I surrender and I confess: I FORGOT. Ok, happy now? I forgot to blog yesterday, Monday is my holy day you see, I blog and I have kitchen duty. Both was more or less forgotten yesterday, I did manage to put on some coffee, but forgot to do the washing up (I did it this morning). For anyone who is not very familiar with the routine of kitchen duties at Bombadil Publishing shall now be enlightend:

"During one´s kitchen-duty-day one shall make sure that breweries such as coffee and tea is available at 10.00 am and at 15.00 pm. One shalla also keep the kitchen neat, clean and tidy"
I´m embaressed to admit that I failed yesterday. One can not succeed every Monday I guess.

After all it was a very productive Monday yesterday, the weather was maybe not at it´s best, but I don´t mind, everyone knows that Mondays has the delegation of being the weekday with crappy weather, that just how the world works. Today is beutiful though, snowy, sunny and freezing. Yeah, we still got winter for sure. I´m waiting for spring, I know it might be a bit early for expecting spring in February if you are located in the midlands of Sweden, but as a wise man or woman once said "Hope is the last to surrender".

As I said, yesterday was a productive Monday, indeed! It involved doing the setting for my book "Where´s the manual", which was great fun, Mari is really awsome and is helping me out a lot=)
I got a new collection of poems which I´ve been going through and the day finished off with me and John runing around the town church of Nora to get the last pictures for my book. Well John was taking lots and lots of artistic photographs whilst I was on the phone. But still, a very productive Monday, indeed.

Friday 20 February 2009

Dancing the can't-can't

The neighbours invited us over for dinner last night. I know that this is a blog of office news and that dinner with the neighbours is not, strictly speaking, office news, but most of us were there and it did mean that we were all slightly more sedate this morning than we might otherwise have been. I tend to judge the success of a dinner by the number of different drinks that are served at the table and let me assure you this particular culinary event was absolutely excellent.



And now an apology. Sara has been responsible for editing the Bombadil Shorts this week. It turns out that I do rather a lot of singing and dancing in front of the camera, usually whilst wielding power tools and other manly paraphernalia. I have no idea why and generally don't realise that I'm doing it. If I'm editing, I consign it to the Bombadil dustbin. However, Sara has decided that me shaking it with a cordless drill is what the public are baying for and consequently Youtube's servers are groaning under the (metaphysical) weight of scores of video clips featuring my rather dire dancing. You all have my most sincere condolences and rest assured it was NOT my idea!

In other news, the Bombadil dog currently smells like fermenting herring.

Thursday 19 February 2009

Count on things getting lost

Thursday again, weeks fly fast don't they?
Well, it seems I haven't done much of use this week, but maybe I can just call it winter holiday? Most of yesterday, for example, I spent looking for a control card for the computer. I bought it last year for making a weld metal deposition robot for the moon-mine analogue. It has not turned up after the move, so I spent a lot of time going through the remaining ununpacked boxes. Without success - I must have put it somewhere very safe. Have found the old computer I intend to use, and all other bits and pieces collected for the purpose so far. Still missing is one control card and one stepping motor. Some other stuff I had thought hopelessly lost turned up, though, including my collection of strategic computer games, and my comptometer (see picture). The comptometer is a patented contraption, that is capable of adding 8 digit numbers, it has a movable decimal point, and I believe there's a way of also subtracting 8 digit numbers, though I am not sure how, since the manual was lost before I procured it. I didn't buy it new, you see, but in a rather worn state in a country auction. I bid on a box of miscellanea, but was aggressively overbidden by a man with a passion for a hammer or some other tool also in the box. But as I approached him after his claiming the lot, he unexplicably had no interest in the gem of his find and donated the comptometer to me.
It has been a valuable addition to my office ever since.

Wednesday 18 February 2009

Work + candy

Pixie here.
I wonder if Mari has any candy for me today, I shall shout for her.


-Mari, where are you.
-What is It Pixie? (Mari)
-Do you have anything for me, fast please?
-Is this chewing thing OK for you or shall I have it into two pieces? (Mari)
-Oh come on, just give it to me. Hurry up!
-Not so fast little friend. You will get one piece now and one in the afternoon. (Mari)
-Hmm. I want it all now, and fast.
-Well here you have it, but just one. (Mari)
-Crunch, crunch, crunch.


And small paws going away......


Well Pixie likes candy and bones, but she is not allowing anyone else to come near It.





Ubbe discovered that last week when he was with me at the office. Being at the office was a new experience for him and when we came home he sleept almost the whole evening. We will see if he will come with me one more time.
Or else the work has going fine and I´m getting into it more and more. I have helped Sara a bit with her book and Niklas with the Moon-Mine homepage. And right now we are looking at pictures for a book cover. That is really fun because I like to look at picture and trying to do something with them. I think I´m a "picture reader" :-)). And writing English in a blog is new to me, a bit difficult because I put the words in wrong order from time to time. But I luckily have John and Marianne looking at it before it is published :-).


Have a nice evening Mari and Pixie

Tuesday 17 February 2009

Businesses of tomorrow



We are expanding, and taking in strong and capable artillery to get there to give best value to our authors and our ideology. The cornerstones are in place and the goal is in sight. We will let you know all the details soon, but it is still a bit too early to say anything. And yes, for those of you following our blog, it was all decided in Stockholm last week and the troops are marching at full speed.

I see Bombadil as a peaceful, democratic company, so it is interesting that I feel we have the need for artillery, a word that has war-like connotations. But artillery is also used for protection, and I sometimes think we need protection from the old world, the 20th century economic business model which has brought so much grief to so many during the past months. I read a very interesting article by Umair Haque, Director of Havas Media Lab and contributor to Chris Anderson's Long Tail. He wrote that we now have a tectonic global shift. It is not a recession; it is merely that there is no more growth because a structural transformation is needed in the world. I hope I am not misquoting in anyway, but I read it as if he says that there are four pillars of smart growth, four pillars that distinguishes the winner from the loser. Google him and read more if you are interested in economics, or why the world is in the state it is in. Or just read about him if you want to check my facts. Comments are appreciated. Anyway, I am sure there are many more answers, and many more shades of grey, but his reasoning nevertheless fascinates me. He says companies of the future should concentrate on:

1. Outcome, not income. I could not agree more. There needs to be an ideology and a passion. Like our authors and our readers. We do not publish books just to make money, we publish books because we want young people to be heard, and certainly because we want young people to have a choice. And then there is freedom of speech leading to democracy. But it has very little to do with money. Most of my struggles with "the other generation" are that many believe that money should be the driving force, and not a by-product. Of course a business - as well as authors - should make money, but if they only do business - and write books - to make money, then there is no passion and no future. It felt good to read Umair Haque’s reasoning and to have such an acclaimed person write about the need for outcome not income. Bombadil Publishing is now in 17 countries and it is because of young people's ideology and trust in the future that we are there.

2. Connections, not transactions. I really like that one and it fits well with our philosophy. It is essentially about co-creation and collaboration, not about getting one up on the neighbour or competitor. I often get asked how we protect ourselves from the competitors and very blank faces when I say that we open our doors to them. They are welcome in. Collaboration is better, peace not war. Not many of the traditional publishing houses agree, most are protective and believe that if an author is young, the quality is bad. And they say this without even having read one of the books. I used to get so upset, and try to want to convert them. Now I just tell them that the door is open when they want to come in. Might sound condescending, but it is not. I mean it. We would reach our goal much faster if we all cooperated, than if we spent time trying to eliminate each other. So we don't! We don't walk over people - we run around them. Why spend energy where energy should not be spent :-D

3. People not product. How I agree. A product is a good product if the people behind are right. It is not just about products anymore, people are what count and I am so pleased to hear that such a future is alive not just in my mind but in others’ as well. Bombadilians of the world unite! Show your worth!

4. Creativity, not productivity. I like that a lot too. It is about new value and economic creativity. And we have so much creativity, which is great. I have been spending time trying to analyze our growth, mainly to aid it, but also to protect it. And it seems that we are here for the long haul: we are a company of the future. Our new partners are here for the future as well, and they will help protect our growth and our expansion, not start wars against other companies or people. Though mind you, we are starting a revolution, albeit a peaceful one, and we keep our doors open to all who want to join. But we also wish those that don’t, all the best in their worlds.

Monday 16 February 2009

HTML-coding might be the way forward...(?)

I´m suprised by myself, I´m amased by myself. Stunned by my own capacity.
This is not said in a cocky or rude way, just in an honest one.

I never ever thought that I, Sara Karlsson would be a webmaster, when I first was introduced to role and tried my best to shoulder this burden I was truly pettrified. Me, who never got futher than Facebook when I put a computer on, on a good day I managed to access Majhong and Word. Should I become a webmaster?! Since I quite recently had started working with Bombadil Publishing when Marianne informed me about my tasks I didn´t dare to mention my rather limited skills regarding websites and computers. I seem to remeber that I nodded and replied something like:
"Mhhm, that sounds interesting"

Marianne hopefully didn´t see the fear in my eyes or saw the sweat that came pourring down my forehead. If she did see these signs of insecurity she was kind enough to ignore them, instead she said: "I believe you can do it Sara". At the time I didn´t put that much trust into her words, I was concentrating too hard on not fainting. One can say that I was struck by suprise.

This is why I now dare to say that I´m stunned by my own capacity, before I used to say that I acted as a so called webmaster at Bombadil Publishing (among many other tasks of course). But now about a month later I can proudly introduce myself as webmaster of the Swedish Bombadil website. Because today I´m a webmaster, and I enjoy it. I know how to work all the different functions and I even get to help others at the office (John mainly) with updating the English website even! I set designs, upload pictiures, insert advanced hyperlinks and bookmarks. I AM STUNNED. Funniest part of all this is that I´m really enjoying it. Of course some days I do wanna tear all my hair of because stuff won´t work etc. But most days I have a smile on my face because I managed to for example start a new page on the site och link to our newsletter. I have become such a computer geek. It´s a fact.

One thing that must be mentioned is the tiny, little detail that even made all of this possible:
Andreas the support-guy. I really can´t recall how many phonecalls and hours I have spent with him to finally have reached this stage of development. But I did because of him. Bless his cotton socks, really please do. And I guess Marianne should have some credit for actually believing in me to begin with. And that kind of sum up the Bombadilian spirit I guess; believe and inspire. You might become an author or maybe even a skilled webmaster, in my case both.

Over&out from your proud Monday-blogger Sara

Friday 13 February 2009

Dog multiplication

I'm blogging just before going off to the airport to pick up a friend who is coming for the weekend to see Sweden. Rather a good choice of weekend too - snow and sun.

It's been a successful week. Marianne has been on the hunt for some more high-level people to sit on our board and early indications appear to be excellent. We've been featured in the regional newspaper and our website statistics seem to suggest that lots of people have read the article and are looking us up. I'm particularly pleased as the authors that I'm mentoring, some great ideas are coming together and we will have new titles in print before too long.

Honorary Bombadil dog Ubbe has accompanied Mari into the office today. Pixie is mentoring him and guiding him through the important steps that will mean that he is proficient at barking at the postman.



In other news, the (original) Bombadil dog currently smells like an elderly dishcloth.

Posted by John

Thursday 12 February 2009

Organisation, structure and the reduction of complexity

Blogging, blogging...
Thursday, and I think I'm supposed to say something scientific now. Hmmm...
Marianne is in Stockholm, to discuss expansion plans and trying to get some artillery support for our continued international campaign. I chatted briefly with her, and she was very enthusiastic about the peoples she was meeting. They think like Bombadillians, she said. Sounds good to me, and I hope she gets a bit of additional support. We do have a good team here, with quite complementary strengths, but Marianne is often the one pulling. Naturally, the idea is her baby, after all. I provide the structure, so I had a discussion with Sara about intranet structure today. She made me reduce the number of levels and branches in the quite elaborate and beautiful structure I had designed to something much smaller. :( But I have to admit that it will be quite sufficient, at least for the time being, and also easier to get into for all the new authors, mentors and other people that keep joining Bombadil. Organisation would be soo much easier without all the people though!
Over and out

Wednesday 11 February 2009

Hello everyone

Pixie here, I'm getting some help with the blog today. Its the new co-worker Mari who is helping me. She is nice because she has treats with her some days :-)), she knows what a dog likes. But today she had a cap with her for me, that was not funny at all :-( I don't want things like that. I will now leave over to her so she can do some "blogging"



Hello everyone, Mari here.
Well what shall I blog about, hmmmm. First of all I like dogs and it is heaven to work in a place that the other staff also like dogs. I have 2 dogs at home - they are Basenjis and there is also an old horse.

I have only worked here for about 1½ weeks so I am still learning how it all works here. So far I have helped Sara with her poetry book, placing the really nice pictures on her in proper places. I like to do things like that so I hope it will be more layout work. On Monday Niklas also asked me if I could help him with the homepage for Moon Mine, he want to do some changes on it and to do the update a bit easier. So that have I done since that, fixing with the site.

So bye bye for this time and have a nice week
Mari and Pixie

Tuesday 10 February 2009

New snow, new offices, new colleagues.



I did not have to be reminded about blogging - not like John who needs to be reminded... and was three days late. Losing three days indeed. Come to think about it, it might be that he wishes to change his time to fit in with our North American authors. And we have quite a few now which is really lovely. Just keep those manuscripts and ideas coming! We are designing a world map which will get different colours depending on the number of authors we have in a particular place. It will be on our webpage when it is ready. I'll be quite a journey, and we'll be pleased if you share it with us.

We have a lot of snow at the moment. Today's picture is of the trees at the back of our garden. I love it when there is snow, as it all gets so light and picturesque. There is also a very special blue light in the sky in Sweden, both summer and winter. Very clear and very pure. I just love it. When the sky is grey I long for spring, but when it is blue and wonderful, I just love the winter and the snow. Particularly making snow angels.

Tomorrow, Mari will be blogging instead of Pixie. I guess Pixie will ensure that she is still being heard and seen, but Mari needs a spot too. There is a nice introduction to her in one of our shorts, but she is essentially our lay-outer. She is very patient and very careful, and very good at adding structure and precision to the Bombadil team. Very nice indeed!

There are a lot of things going on at the moment, most of which you can or will be able to see on our website. We were in the local newspaper today, which was rather neat, and... well, there is so much more. We now have a Bombadil office for Gothenburg and Trollhättan run by Sofia and an office in Västerås, run by Clare. Clare also runs the office in Newcastle. There will be a presentation about them on the website soon. Next week I will blog about our ventures in India and the US. Or perhaps one at a time since there is so much going on. Both of these markets are amazing. It will be quite a journey.

Until next week
Marianne

Monday 9 February 2009

Here we go again!

And yes indeed, another Monday has glorious risen upon us.

Is one bovvered tho?!

The chavy language has entered our lives at Bombadil Publishing, and by the sound of it the subject of matter does not intend to be heading off. Today at fika(coffeebreak in swedish) Marianne was the cause of a minor riot when she claimed that so called chavy expressions should have their own space in one of the most holy books, the dictionnary. This statement more or less blow John´s mind away, and not in a good way folks. I´ve never seen John Parry so intimidated in my entire time as his housemate. Blood was coming out of his nose and steam out of his ears. Almost anyway. It wasn´t quite as bad as I described it, but he did look a bit puzzled. John is the man behind the words "Stop butchering the English language" which was recognized the first time he heard me say "Innit". John also tend to pull really bad puns in order to make fun of the chavy way of speaking. Let me give you a couple of examples:

"What do you call a chav in a box?"
- Innit!

"What do you call a chav in a locked box?"
- Safe innit!!

And yes dear audience, that is that kind of low humour that we at the Bombadil office need to put up with. I have come to an acceptence in regards of John´s humour, but that is only because he never complains about my cooking or the way I drive my car.

"Qoute of the day:
One must learn to accept one´s surrounding and leave the bad jokes behind for the sake of a nice and quiet meal"

Over&Out

Time after time

Recently, the time zones have been playing up. Sweden is traditionally one hour ahead of the UK, however due to a rent in the space/time continuum, Sweden is temporarily three days behind. Therefore I am not writing my Friday blog entry on Friday, you are just reading it on Monday.

Honest...

It's a very beautiful day in Sweden today. We had around half a metre of snow on Sunday with the result that I fell out of my house and into a large snowdrift this morning. I'm now in the office, but I am on to my third pair of socks of the day.

Our expansion plans are, well, going to plan, which is exciting. If things carry on as they are at the moment, we will have a presence across the globe before too long. In the mean time, Marianne experimented with dog charming...



Then the dog decided that it wasn't charming and got its own back on Marianne.



The flute that she's playing has an interesting history. Niklas was in a musical instrument shop when he happened to stand on it, hence it came into his ownership. It was completely squashed at one end, but he worked on it with a pair of pliers until it played naturals as well as flats.

We're currently working on the Bombadil website, generally updating the interface and adding an FAQ section. If you think it's lacking something, let us know.

In other news, the Bombadil dog currently smells like three-day-old kippers.

Posted by John

Friday 6 February 2009

Snowstorm and mine maps


There IS a connection between Storgruvan and Lockgruvan! ("the big mine" and "the lid mine")
I guess that has very little bearing with Bombadil and books, except that the maps were stored in Falun, 3 hours drive from here, and I had to go there because the book of maps was way to large to get into their copier. I guess it is A0, the book, i.e. a square meter. As you can see in the map photo, the connection is at 164 meters, and quite spatious, from Storgruvan (entrance shaft approximately centered at the right map sheet) all the way to Lockgruvan (far left corner of the left sheet). It is just about 800 meters between them, so it makes a lot of sense to be able to walk at 164 meters depth in the warm and cozy depths of earth, rather than going up one shaft, cross the snowy terrain and then go down again almost a km away, don't you think?

Oh, and on this picture (from the office window, the mine cannot be seen because of the forest in the background hiding it), in this picture you can also see that we have started disassembling the barbed wire fence. Barbed wire doesn't match the ideology of Bombadil Publishing, you see. We intend to plant a Japanese garden where the fenceposts now stand, still with barbed wire at the top. Of course, a Japanese garden will be just as effective keeping intruders out, because no self respecting Swede would ever go into somebody else's garden stepping on the grass without permission.

Wednesday 4 February 2009

A dog's life

This week, everyone in my office has been running around like a headless chicken. Mmmm, chicken. I like chicken. I've been very sensibly sleeping most of the time. That's not to say I haven't been doing any work though; I barked at the postman once yesterday and twice today. I've been taking Sara for a walk in the evenings too. I'd be happy to snooze in my basket all evening, but if she wants to go out then I don't mind taking her. It's important to make sure that your humans get enough excercise, otherwise they can forget to buy delicious biscuits when they go shopping. Mmmm, I like biscuits.

.

Tuesday 3 February 2009

Expansion is amazing

It is already Tuesday again and my time to blog. This entry is going to be very short but also very, very happy. Short because i am tired, and happy because, well, because I am happy! We have expanded again. This time last week I was wondering why we did not have exponential growth, but this week we have indeed achieved it. And what a ride. I guess we had it last week too, but I was not quite able to read the signs. Statistics take a while to catch up. We now have a presence in 15 countries. Imagine, we now have authors in 15 countries! Happy Bombadilians expressing their dreams, their thoughts, their inspirations. Franchisers are following suit, though not quite at the same rate as writers which is hardly surprising. Soon Bombadil will have a strong presence all over the world. Wow, we are part of a revolution. Feels great. Thank you to all of you who are part of it. And thank you to those of you about to be part of it. And thank you to those of you who will be part of it in the future.
At an expansion meeting at the end of last year, I produced a map where I showed where I thought we would be at the end of 2010. Many shrugged their heads and wondered why I was so optimistic. At this rate, however, we will not just reach what I hoped we would, but we will be there at the end of this. Welcome to the Bombadil World and thank you for sharing the dream with us.
Now I am going to bed, it has been an exhausting few days.


This is where I believed we would be at the end of next year. At this rate, however, we will paint the entire world red - no, we will paint the entire world Bombadil Blue!
Over and out/ Marianne

Monday 2 February 2009

Yes, i´m awake!!


Monday-blogger Sara Karlsson at your service, reporting (as always) at the very first day of the week!

Today the sun has been with us all day, which is rather unusual for Mondays. If you remeber last weeks sara-blogg you might recall a bittersweet undertone in regards of the weather...Or just a bitter tone to be frank. But today I have no complaints what so ever. One might say that i´m satisfied. Not bad is it?! Another contribution to my exceptionally good mood is our new co-worker Mari, who started today. A very nice woman who just joined us at Bombadil to help us out with the video-blogging, editing pictures and give us a hand with the setting of books. Brilliant!

The first project we started of with was actually my Challenge Poetry book "Where´s the manual" that will be available in swedish this coming spring. I was choosing the order in which the texts should go and Mari did the same thing, but with pictures. And believe it or not but it turned into a book, at last! At the moment it is mostly odd pages with text cutted and pasted with tejp onto scrap-paper, but most important; it has the layout of the actual book! Tomorrow we are gonna be a bit less old-fashioned and actually use Marianne´s Mac to do they actual layout. So excited!

What a Monday. I even got some staples today, Marianne acknowledged my little hint last week, about getting a stapler but no staples to put inside it. So today when I got to the office a box of staples lay on my desk, nice!=) And my list of office-material is is getting longer and longer:
* Desk
* Laptop
* Desklamp
* Mouse
* Mousemat (with a picture of a moose on it)
* Shelves (having a picture of an 18-year old Marianne standing on the topshelf)
* Pinboard (with pins, thank you John)
AND
* Whiteboard!!! So now I can properly organize my daily tasks.
Wonderful, I love whiteboards, they have some kind of logical, organized and sophisticated touch about them. I´m glad that some object in my office can contribute to those things, since I can´t.

That´s all for today folks.
over&out
/sara