These pictures tell the tale of Jeff Vaughan and myself at PLI '03, and the subsequent visit to Tromsø. It is by no means complete, as some incidents did not pass the censorship stage.
NB: all pictures linked to from this page are full-quality (i.e. 700KB+).

PLI '03 took place in Uppsala, Sweden. We stayed at the Grand Hotell Hörnan, which was a nice hotel centrally located in Uppsala. The view from our hotel room was beautiful as we could see the famous Uppsala cathedral, among other things. The presentations at PLI were held in Uppsala University's main building (Universitetshuset), which is a magnificent building from the 1880s. At times one felt out of place in a building that appeared designed to intimidate students. It was, however, undeniably a splendid setting for the presentations, and we toasted many times in appreciation (we'll get back to that shortly).

Subsequent to holding our presentation and listening in on numerous other presentation we were slated to stop by my hometown of Tromsø. Jeff got to meet my quirky family (this picture is of my mother Unni, father Tore, myself, and father's mother Margareth) and observe me wrestle my brother (Helge) at least a dozen times (pictures fail to do this justice). I showed him how I have perfected the art of throwing cousins around. As tradition will have it for all visitors to our home, Jeff also found himself dumbfounded by my father's record collection.

Unknown to Jeff (though not for long), I had instructed my friends back home to prepare for Jeff a basic introduction into the life of present-day "metropolitan" (it's relative to your perspective) Vikings. A brief intro to a small subset of the crew follows in order of appearance that fateful Friday night. Frode Henkriksen a.k.a. Freddie (your neighborhood philosopher/writer/politician), Trond Ringvold a.k.a. T-Bone (art historian come ladies man), Gaute Kramvik a.k.a. G-Money (military man), Reza Yazdani a.k.a. The King (pre-med soccer-buff), Gunnar Moe (hits on older ladies), and the list goes on... With all these people, Jeff naturally had a difficult time remembering the names of everybody. It doesn't help when multiple people are named Haakon, nor certainly when your new favorite beer is also called Haakon (and you've had a bit of it).

It was thus established as a rule that Jeff could not sit at the table without at least one beer in front of him. The list of people who contributed to this (either through toasts or otherwise) is too long to enumerate, but I think we can safely say the day(s) were a smashing success (thank you all!). Certain people wanted Jeff to have even more "fun" and experience snus, but I vetoed that (thank me later, Jeff). Jeff himself attempted to stumble around and capture the moment, but in hindsight it's unclear whether he was taking pictures down girls' blouses or something else. We quickly forgave him because, as it turns out, Jeff is a blast when he has some wind under his wings. Immediately to my right in this picture is another one of my great friends, Carl Christian Lein Størmer, who plays in Turdus Musicus and, to all of our great enjoyment (another story for another time), put on a concert during Jeff's visit. Jeff was amazed at how he got to be "on the list" for a concert, but I will leave that story for Jeff...

In recapitulation, I'd like to reiterate my appreciation to all that participated - until next time!

Two added pictures: Stockholm from the Old Town, and a picture from our dinner in Tromsø before heading out on the town (from the right: Carl, Jorg, Jeff, and Trond).