Oh how fast a week goes, especially when it's short. Did you know that Midsummer is arguably the biggest holiday in Sweden? And did you know it’s celebrated tomorrow? And that there’s no work tomorrow?

Neither did I, and neither did CJ otherwise he probably would have tried to schedule this for a different week. Originally it was scheduled for the middle of July, when I am unavailable because of the imminent birth of my son.

In fact I’m not really able to do a craftsman swap from oh..now…until the end of this year when the new baby might be old enough that I could leave my incredibly understanding wife at home alone with 5 children with a clean conscience. So really I have to thank CJ for forgetting a national holiday so that I could have this fantastic experience.

In celebration of midsummers we had what we Americans call a Pot Luck and what the Swedes call a “llAHHRdcdfagageeees.” I really don’t have the language down, but I’m sure that’s pretty close. We got to eat out on the veranda and I ate some pickled herring! Despite being warned I actually quite liked it and the view of the “lipstick” building is fantastic.

Plus the eLabs folk (and @keavy-in yellow) are great people so you’d be pressed to beat the company. I’ll have a full post-mortem tomorrow ( as well as a special bonus post I’ve been sitting on for a few weeks) so let me just take this opportunity to thank 8th Light and Elabs for a great week.

I’m honored to have been chosen for such a trip, and I hope I was able to give back a little of what I was given.

Now hopefully tomorrow I survive the insane bicyclists.