Maya makes Folven camping work

Folven camping has terrible management. Luckily there are some exceptions: Maya. Not sure if giving her praise on the web without knowing her in person is proper, but what the heck, she deserves the credit.

During autumn I tried figuring out whether or not my deal with Folven Camping was still valid. After 3 unanswered mails, 5 unsuccessful calls and 3-4 broken callback promises Maya stepped in.

I was about to give up on Folven. My last resort was to write a frank mail about the issue from my office to underline the fact that 1. I'm an employed professional grown up and 2. I live close by. I was quite fed up with being polite so it was a no-bullshit e-mail stating my business and willingness to drive over in person and slam cash in their hands if they had some problems picking up the phone.

Maya to the rescue! Until now I'd been dealing with the official Management, the moment Maya stepped in it all got sorted. I drove in with the trailer, talked to Maya, parked it. Sun on my face and a gentle breeze on my back.

Next weekend on arrival I had no keys. I went to see Maya, she told me to ask the receptionist for some chain cutters. Then the whole thing escalated.The receptionist started asking all sort of question and wanted payment for the lot I payed for 3 weeks earlier. I was just about to get tempered when Maya ones again saves the day:

• Maya: What's going on?
• Rep: This dude says he has paid and now he want tools to get into his trailer.
• Seb: I see where it is confusing, but check your records.
• Maya: This dude is OK, just give him what he wants.

Maya is my Folven hero. I follow her on Twitter and her blog (in Norwegian) to get the inside scoop on Folven.

World's longest sofa, 890.25 meters, in Sykkylven, Norway

The results for the world's longes sofa attempt is in: 890.25 meters. On a rainy Sunday at noon 300 volunteers assembled what turned out to be the longest sofa in the world. The assembly took 47 minutes and was supervised by Kaoru Ishikawa from the Guinness Book of World Records.


Ishikawa mad sure the 890.25 meter sofa got it's place in the Guinness Book of World Records after precise measurement by the City Councilman and the Chief of Police.

- The idea of building the world's longest sofa across Sykkylven bridge made us all smile. When it made us smile the idea was the general public probably also would. This record will stay with Sykkylven for eternity. If not: we will take the actions required to protect it - says Arve Ekornes of Ekornes.

The sofa was sold before construction, probably to locals in Sykkylven and factories. The project took one year to plan and was a joint effort by all the local furniture manufacturers to ones and for all show what Sykkylven is all about: record breaking sofas.

Seeing the record is fresh there is currently no official info from Guinness but you may a video of Ishikawa's comment or a post by national press. Ishikawa seam happy about the record, sad about the rain and confused why anyone would do this in the first place.

World's longest sofa record - Sure beats your tiny thing

Update: The worlds longest sofa record is official. 890,25 meters.

What Sykkylven does for publicity is pretty interesting. This time it's building the world's longest sofa.

If you've never heard of Sykkylven (Norway), chances are you have no idea Sykkylven is the furniture manufacturing capital of the world. But it's true. The main export here is furniture - some 20 billion NOK worth (that's just a made up figure, I have no clue. Ekornes exported some 2 billion NOK worth in 2008 though).

So how does Sykkylven plan to claim its fame? By producing the world's longest sofa - A 860 meter long Sofa. (Sykkylven actually acquired this record back in 2008 with a 62 meter sofa but apparently lost it to Poland).

freshome.com's refection on the last record was about why people even bother. I think this is fantastic. Not only does Sykkylven plan to make the world's longest sofa, but also annihilate the previous record by 10 folds. That's one huge sofa. Can't wait to stretch out in it this Sunday.

Skate or die - Sykkylven builds a skate park

Never did make it to the boat festival so can't report much on that. However I did get an awesome visit from Ørsta! While we were walking past Aure Ungdomskole (a High School in Sykkylven) I noticed a bunch of people building stuff.

Later on when my visitor had left for the ferry I went back to investigate. Turns out we are getting a skate park in Sykkylven. Pretty awesome stuff. Being a Tony Hawk super veteran I'm pretty stoked.

The park is being built by some local old-school skaters I know with funding from the local government. They granted 50 000 NOK to the skaters building the park. In my mind that's way more useful than the 1 million NOK donated to build the church's tool shed. To bad skating is not a mainstream religion.