Expat Jon takes on the world (well... Sweden)

My first hero ever was my dad. He was the fastest, strongest, smartest and funniest man in the world. He could do no wrong in my eyes. I'm sure that's the case with many young children. My case of dad-praise had to have been extreme. I never snapped out of it. I stopped believing in the Tooth Fairy and Santa Clause at about the same time as other kids, but it took me way longer to stop idolizing my dad. It's weird because the signs were there. I didn't bat an eye when he would flirt with the lady at the fast food window. I even longed for my opportunity to do it one day when I got a car and drove with my sunglasses on, bobbing my head to the latest hot music. I passed no judgement when he had an affair with my older sister's mother while disguising it as an attempt to let us get to know his daughter. After all, he was such a cool guy it was understandable that plenty of women would want him. For years I'd go along with his version of events just to make it e...

I got this email from one of the contractor companies we work with.  It said keep a certain Saturday clear so that we can do something as a group.  This excited me.  I love doing things as a group!  It doesn't happen often here, so this was a welcome event for me.  I responded immediately that I would clear that Saturday.  Even more exciting was the fact that the event that evening would be disclosed at a later date.  What?  This was getting better and better. A week or so later we got word that the event would be bowling.  Even better!  I'm not "great" at bowling, but I can hang with other novice bowlers.  Not to brag, but when I was 12, my brother and I got bowling balls for Christmas.  They came in their own bags, too!  Like professionals.  For context, we never so much as got holes drilled into the balls.  I don't know what ever happened to those bowling balls.  I hope someone found them and used them ...

I'm standing on frozen water!  I still can't believe I caught these If you would have told me at the age of 15 that I would one day walk out on a frozen body of water and fish through holes in the ice I would have said you're out of your mind.  I would have laughed until my stomach hurt.  This southern city boy would never do something crazy like that.  That's what we would call "white people shit".  I wasn't down to do white people shit.  I like life.  As a matter of fact, very high up on my list of worst ways to die is falling through ice into a freezing cold lake and then swimming back to the top only to not be able to find the hole.  Drowning because of a bad decision is one thing, but throw in the embarrassment of having a bad sense of direction and that double whammy is top (or bottom) five ways to go. However, I'm not 15 anymore.  Adult Jon understands that life is a playground and ice fishing just might be a fun game.  Som...

Oh yeah, it's that time again!  The Rollins family is growing.  Bash doesn't get the concept yet, but I'm already certain that he's going to be good at big brothering.  I'm more excited than I expected to be about this new addition.  There was a time when I went around saying I'd be cool not having any kids at all.  I'm sure I would have been okay with it, but life with Bash has been such a blast that I can't wait to see this next little star. We decided not to find out the gender this time.  That adds a layer of excitement.  Not to be all hipster condescending, but it will be awesome to quench that curiosity after a labor battle.  It's funny that after almost three years of parenting I feel like I'm some sort of parenting pro.  I've only accompanied Swedie through labor once.  That means I pretty much don't know shit.  I walk around with an unwarranted confidence and I'm sure a rude awakening is coming. Bash was a pretty reason...

I have to start off by saying that I love my job.  Everyone has been very welcoming there, I like my coworkers on my team, my boss' style goes great with my working style and I LOVE the general corporate environment in Sweden (at least the part of it that I've experienced).  There's a lot of freedom here.  It's like you're trusted to do your job, so no one is breathing down your neck and adding a new layer of stress.  There are no TPS reports. It's been great to apply my skills and knowledge to a new company.  There's also this feeling that I can be more of my "off-the-clock" self when I'm "on-the-clock". I got my job because of a contact created through "Yrkesdörren".  It's an awesome program that I blogged about here  that was created to help integrate skilled immigrants like myself into the seemingly impenetrable Swedish work force.  I like the program so much that I agreed to be a part of a commercial they were do...

It's summertime in Sweden.  That means EVERYBODY leaves.  At work it's basically a skeleton crew.  Mainly me (the sucker that took vacation early in the summer) and another guy who is waiting until the fall.  Mother nature hooked us up this year with a beautiful summer so far, so that makes it a little less fun to be cooped up at the job.  The good thing for me is learning so much on the fly.  Sometimes I HAVE to find answers on my own because I'm the only one there.  Learning by doing is the best, right? Friday was a super crazy day.  There was a buzz about the office.  The mood was pretty much brink of insanity.  My counterpart forewarned me that at 2:45pm at the latest he was going to be getting out of there.  He had some summer stuff to do.  My brain immediately did a poop/lunch schedule check.  I could poop at 5, but I'd need to grab lunch at around 2ish.  Thankfully (and unfortunately) there is a Burger King ...

At Big Ben I made it!  For one year now I've been going on stage and trying to make people laugh.  It's been such a fun journey thus far.  I remember that first night like it was just yesterday.  Some American comedians were trying out material for their tour called "Team Amerika".  Cool!  My now friend Yemi called me onstage for my first set.  I was terrified.  I said my jokes and felt like the funniest man ever. This comedy thing was going to be a piece of cake!  I was on cloud 9.  I blogged about the experience .  I called it "My Next Chapter".  I was sure that I was on the road to realizing my calling... Never mind the fact that I loaded the crowd with friends and family.  I had a dozen or so people there supporting me.  Of course I got laughs! Guess what I didn't blog about... My very next standup set.  I went up the next week and asked Yemi for a spot.  I'm sure he could see the desperat...

I look at Bash these days and I see him go through many memorable moments.  For instance, he JUST crawled under an armchair and got stuck.  Swedie pulled him out before he started crying or anything, but if that happened to me now I would remember it.  The feeling of being trapped inside of a chair and the helplessness that goes along with it would be something that I would remember and then put into my blog.  But Bash is the tender age of one.  He won't remember that.  As a matter of fact he won't remember anything for the next couple of years. This is kind of a comforting fact for me as a new parent.  I can literally be mean as hell to him for a good year and a half longer and then be super nice to him from the age of three and he'll love me more than anything! I'm not suggesting that I'll do this, but it is possible. Thinking about this made me reflect on some of my earliest memories.  Most of them take place when I was between three and four ...

I get around nowadays mostly through public transportation.  The infrastructure here is amazing and the associated phone app is almost always on point.  I can find my way around easily.  I have become a podcast fiend, so my phone always has some goodies for me to listen to while I ride.  This is so much better than driving or riding in a car.  There is pressure to entertain in the car.  You have to listen to agreed upon music or talk about an agreed upon subject.  With public transportation it's all about me and what I want to do to pass the time. The simplicity of public transportation here has made road trips basically nonexistent. We've only been on one and that was coming back from Göteborg to pick up Swedie's car that we shipped from the States.  We took the train out there and drove back.  That road trip was pretty uneventful.  I normally look forward to road trips.  When we were kids, my mom would take us on road trips and ...

I don't talk enough about my dog Jasper.  I joke about wishing he would just run away or something, but I really love him.  Jasper is amazing.  He's smart, he doesn't shed and he's great with kids.  Yes, even bad ass kids whose mother acts like she doesn't see said bad ass kid pulling at his ears and tail.  I swear I almost did a secret pinch on that kid if he would have kept accosting Jasper.  I digress... Jasper is a little too smart.  Sometimes it gets to a level of manipulation.  That's not good.  But I guess you take the good with the bad.  He doesn't scratch or chew and he's good about holding his bowels.  As a matter of fact, it only took us a week or so to get him fully housebroken.  It was amazing.  I just had to spend a few weeks coming home for lunch so that he could empty his little bladder.  I remember it like it was yesterday.  His little furry body.  Him whimpering because he had...