From one home to another home
After having enjoyed my Danish home, I’m back in my Norwegian home 
and experience the very short days, 
but it is just as beautiful as the countryside down in Denmark,
but right now it rains and is really murky, or mokka (if I understand the local dialect correctly!:) and then it is good to be indoor and have wood in the stove
and of course wearing a nice pair of warm baggy overalls !:) preparing lectures for next week
Today 63, ready to enjoy life, best birthday ever so far !
Today is the day, when I 63 years ago was born, and still is alive and enjoy life more than I ever have done. What a privilege it is to wake up in a great farm house to a great birthday breakfast with candle light train, birthday bread etc. served by my lovely wife and then put on my fantastic insulated overalls, found in a thrift store in San Francisco and then go out and cut dead outlived trees, for firewood and to give space for fruit trees ! OBSERVE the small triangle cut so you can direct where the tree is falling !It works perfect as outdoor relax together with writing opera indoor, working well as indoor relax ! together a relaxing and strengthening life here in our farmhouse now in my vacations and for full time, when I retire in 2 years from now. I could wish everybody in the world have had the opportunities I have, anyway I’m having the best birthday I ever had have ! and in online company with so many great friends from my past, presence and future ! 
and after all this ready to a cup of tea and a movie, no less than “social network” what else !:)
soon turning 63, what next ?, opera director/dramatist !
Next month or in around 2 weeks from now, I turn 63, and I believe you have to think of what you are doing, not just waste your time here on earth and at the same time, do not get in panic and regret relaxing and just having fun, because what is life really about ? having a good life every day together with your family and friends ! I feel privileged to have a nice family and a lot of friends around the world, but I also need to have some kind of project, a kind of difficult thing to accomplish, not just maintain status quo, do my teaching and writing, but try out new things ! In the last 40 years I have organized things, brought people together across many kinds of borders and distances in many senses and ways. In the last 5 years I have developed a so called World opera, trying to develop a world wide opera house, creating opera for the new online worldwide community with a lot of physical people, wishing to connect their online world with their local physical community. They deserve a lot of stories told in an appropriate format, a distributed format. It requires a lot of time sitting down and make a staging in detail either of existing operas or making libretto/plot for new opera. That’s what I want to do now instead of trying to be general manager ! Somebody else must take the latter job ! We will see in near future of how it goes ! more soon !
Merry overalls Christmas – with dancing gnomes around the overalls !
What is good life for me ? living in patched overalls with a big smile !
After another great overalls day, getting in contact with creative overalls folks around the world, one of the shared joys are also the patches, often needed to ensure that you can keep wearing your favorite overalls, being your favorite because you have been wearing them for years and they are a kind of part of you ! In my youth my father realized his big dream and became a farmer with a lot of sheep while he also worked as an architect in Copenhagen. Therefore we had a farm manager, who took care of the farm in the absence of my father and his wife took care of their two boys and me, since I moved from Copenhagen to the farm and changed from being a city boy to be a tractor boy, and got a lot of help from the managers wife, who was a wonderful stand in for my mother in Copenhagen, and one of the thing I remember were her overalls, and after several seasons of potato harvesting, laying down on the bare field and pick up potatoes, her overalls were patched all over and full of dirt all the way up, but always with a big laughter and smile, since then I have connected well worn and well used patched overalls with good life ! Now turning to my own life, my wife is not into overalls, and that’s of course ok, you can live a good life without overalls, believe it or not 
but she has all the way since the 70ties been doing patches on her own thing and not least on my things and still doing it with a lot of funny fabrics with elephants or different colors etc. Before I started on overalls, I had jeans, covered with faces on the front as well on the back, and one pair of cut off denims were actually a shared pair with patches we have both made. Going back to my move to the countryside in ’63, I got a jeans jacket from my brother who got it in 61, 50 years ago, and I still have it, although patched and I have a little bit of difficulties in wearing it !:) but well, all this kind of clothes, overalls, jackets cut offs, they sort of have their own patina and becomes treasures just like silver ! and my overalls I’m wearing now soon needs a new patch. I think you can see patches small steps in making a good sturdy life based on simple living, hard work with a smile and a laughter ! That’s what I learned in my youth of a fantastic woman in patched overalls and what I am trying to practice as much as possible together with my wife and my family, each day being a test, enjoy your daily life !
Happy overalls day everybody – fantastic day !
Hello everybody, it is fantastic how this overalls community has grown since 2009, and I really think it is not just about overalls, it is just as much about having a good simple life, with garden, animals, knitting, opera, books, games, kids, grandkids, coffee, scones etc. etc. with no pretentious attempt of being more or less than one self right now, and be proud of that ! and have the opportunity to go to a party wearing your favorite oldest most patched overalls, that is good life ! overall love to everybody in our overalls commune worldwide, hope to see some of you some time somewhere, but for now Enjoy the day and I’ll be back with more later today !
4 days to 3rd international overalls day !
Hello everybody who loves wearing overalls, a still growing community worldwide. It is really fascinating how many around the world who share this love of wearing overalls giving you a freedom to move around and have fun and at the same time work hard, get dirty, or wear them years after years, getting them patched and then even more a treasure, even having them going from one generation to another ! I know you cannot judge people from what they wear, but in some way you can or at least, there is a possibility to meet relaxed people if they wear overalls ! see you all over all on Sunday ! overall greetings your bibprofessor, Niels 
My overall passions part III: walking
Some may wonder how it is possible to live today without being able to drive a car ! Well, it works just fine for me and my wife, neither of us can drive a car, but we are traveling around the world and experience a lot by taking public transportation and if that is not possible it goes either by bicycling or if at all possible just to walk ! Walking is a kind of way of living, since you really gets a lot of thoughts going through your head and resolved many inner conflicts by just walking and get it out of your body through walking ! The 2 first photos are taken from around Stinson Beach north of San Francisco and you see much on your way, especially a lot of flowers making you happy. 
but it is not only in the woods we are walking, but also a lot of walking in cities, not least when the city authorities make a whole street free of cars and other motor vehicles, allowing pedestrians and bicyclists to fill the whole street as they did in San Francisco on Valencia in May this year ! 
and then it is soon time for moving to the next passions, cafés, coffee and cakes, more soon !
My passions overall part II: creating opera !
One should not believe overalls and opera could go together, but in my case it works perfect, especially in the creating/rehearsing process. In workshops and rehearsals, you can easily wear overalls, especially when you are the boss, no need of asking anybody of permission. It is also somehow really fun and great to work with the parts back and forth before the actual performance. I must also admit that yesterday I took my nice jeans on for the opening night of the HDlive MET broadcasts of opera here in Tromsø just like many other places around the world, but when Bodil has made a really nice knitted jacket, I’ll wear my black overalls ! but, but opera aria can make me crying, I’m sold to opera so much that I’m making my own opera as well as my own opera company ! see www.theworldopera.org ! The two photos are from 2006 workshop in Berkeley with my own opera, libretto by myself and music by my landlord here in Tromsø, a composer and the other photo is of two opera singers, one, Bess (Karen Slack) standing in Stanford, California and the other one, Porgy (Daniel Hallström) in Stockholm singing I love you Porgy and other duets. I have written most of the libretto on cafés, another of my passions ! and yesterday I think I learned a bit more on how a libretto, the text to be sung in opera, should be written by listening to Anna Netrebko in the role as Anna Bolena in Donizetti’s Anna Bolena, the text should have its own life in the air ! and now I must do some of my work I get paid for, Academic work !:) have a nice Sunday, more about my passions in the coming week !
Hi, now the count down to the International overalls day have started ! and I’ll make a kind of tour into my passions, but first of all, I just want to say thanks to this growing overalls community, as Kelly often says, a group of creative folks around the world enjoying down to earth life, simple, hard work but also laid back and have fun, not be afraid of getting dirty, almost the opposite, be what you are ! In my younger years, some people told be not to be so enthusiastic about things, not to fool around and be happy, well, the last words of Steve Jobs at Stanford were: stay foolish, and I intend to stay foolish, if that means enjoying life and create it with my family and best friends in a nice and peaceful way ! and above some photos of me this morning in my favorite baggy overalls taken by my dear wife, 
she is not into overalls, but have so many other qualities, so it is ok ) more passions tomorrow
