Daily life in Finland

Any good blogs out there?

2012-01-09T08:59:00.001+02:00

During the last year most of my favorite bloggers have either stopped blogging altogether or have greatly reduced their posting frequency. I realize that for many people (including myself) one’s blog is a phase of one’s life and when that phase is over the blogging stops. That is part of the reason I don’t update often myself. I have no real need to blog but I think it’s important to maintain my writing skills in other languages than my mother tongue Swedish.

So to you people who are still reading my blogs, have you found any interesting blogs out there you can recommend? Those that update often and are written in an entertaining way about nothing and everything. Thank you in advance…

Fall to sping

2011-12-23T18:20:00.001+02:00

With an outside temperature of + 4 C accompanied with with a fresh breeze and rain we're definitely not getting a white Christmas or a winter. I'm still hoping for January that winter will turn up. Between fall and spring there should be a winter somewhere...

White Christmas...again

2011-12-21T14:32:00.000+02:00

It looks like we are getting a white Christmas after all =)

White Christmas

2011-12-20T14:50:00.002+02:00

It doesn't look like we are getting a white Christmas ora any winter at all

It's here...

2011-12-12T00:35:00.001+02:00

About a week ago it started snowing and has snowed ever since. You think we have a full winter now? Well not really, it doesn't snow much, about a centimeter each day. So we now have a snow layer of 5-10 centimeters. I haven't actually shoveled yet but I have begun moving the garden furniture and other things that our children have left on thew lawn into the garage.

Due to the fact that we are in the process of emptying my parents house and there are items that we haven't found buyers for the garage is already filled with some of those items and our own stuff that we don't need right now so we wont have a car in our garage this winter. I actually had to move things around to find room for the garden furniture.

Besides all of this I love the winter...

Oncoming storm

2011-12-01T12:56:00.001+02:00

This is a warm winter, for Finland. Right now we are having those autumn storms that usually comes in October, early November. It's rainy, it's dark, it's an oncoming storm that should last up until next week...

It's all for me...

2011-11-30T12:13:00.001+02:00

As most if not all bloggers I like readers and I like comments. The fact that they/you take the time of reading my posts and sometimes even making an effort to comment is something I highly appreciate. Thank you.

But I think in order keep the spark alive I need to do this for myself. I think most bloggers are exhibitionists in the sense "Look at me!". Whether it is to show of their writing skills, their clothes, their lifestyle, their kids it comes down to them and their life. I would even refer people who use their blog as a cheap therapist, although their need to be seen has a bit more serious side, to "Look at me!". I know because I wrote one almost a decade ago

For a number of years this blog has been about satisfying you readers. And when you forget yourself and start satisfying others you become self censoring beyond what is reasonable. You're too afraid to offend or bore someone. So you try to make everybody who reads your blog unoffended and unbored. Those of you who are familial with my writing style know I offend very few but it can be very boring when you try to please everybody.

But those who followed my blog about 5 years ago know that I can write very well. I didn't have many readers and most importantly I didn't have any readers among the people I know IRL. I didn't care what people thought because I was writing it all for me, myself and I. But when I got readers and comments from my friends IRL, encouraging comments, but still comments I started thinking about what I was writing. I started self censoring and I lost my spark. My blog posts started to deal with my difficulty to write and the imminent death of the blogosphere.

Well I think I found my spark again. I still care very much what people think of me but I'll try to ignore that trait of my personality here. I did it once and I can do it again. So for the sake of your entertainment I'm doing it all for me ;-P.

About the snow thing...

2011-11-29T12:00:00.001+02:00

About the snow thing thing two weeks and blog posts away. it rained away. then we got another centimeter of snow again the other day and it rained away. I think it actually might be possible to mow the lawn in early December. It would be a first and no I'm not worried that my neighbors think I'm crazy. One of them was mowing his lawn while I was changing to winter tires two weeks ago...

Cheap trick?

2011-11-28T11:41:00.001+02:00

Would it be a cheap trick to start using popular search word for my post titles? I could also use the names of movies, TV shows, songs, bands, video games...

I realize the number of people who find my blog isn't everything. I would still try to fill it with serious content . But a bit of marketing might attract a few people that actually find my post interesting and that would stick around. Then I also need to start updating more regularly...
.

First snow

2011-11-19T23:22:00.001+02:00

We got the seasons first snowfall. Not enough to be measured in centimeters or inches. Just enough to turn the ground white in most places...

Paternity leave

2011-11-19T00:36:00.001+02:00

I just had my six weeks of paternity leave, the last I could have with the twins and ever again. Yes three kids is enough, trust me =). So I had a few evening shifts and I'm doing the first night shift out of four. It's calm so far but you'll never know.

Anyway we started clearing out my parent's house and realized it's one of those things that will last for years. So it's not for sale yet or will be in the near future.

So that's what I've been doing the last six weeks...

MySpace

2011-10-01T08:38:00.000+03:00

I found the creator of MySpace on Facebook and one of his resent updates was this:

People seem very confused why I'm on Facebook. I've had a profile since 2005 and a "fan page" since 2009. FB just created a feature where you can "subscribe" to profiles. They asked me if I wanted to convert my "page" into a simpler profile. Complicated? I suppose. Why am I not on MySpace? Because, I left the company in early 2009, and like most of you, I don't like using it anymore.. not a fan of what the new folks have done with MySpace.

And also another update:

FAQ #2: People often ask me what I think of Facebook? Put simply, I love it. Facebook has accomplished what I wanted to accomplish when I started MySpace--that "everyone" would be online, and "everything" online would get more fun & useful because its social. To me, Facebook just keeps getting better & better. Now when they remove that 500 character limit on posting (rumored this week), I'll be able to say much, much more.

Enough said...

Restaurant

2011-09-21T01:03:00.000+03:00

The other day we visited a all can eat pizza buffet restaurant called Rax that is sort of aimed at students and families. We will not be visiting any restaurant with the whole family soon again. Not that there were anything wrong with their family friendliness but some of our younger family members had a *grumpy throw all the food on the floor and scream like I'm possessed if I can't use my fork and plate as a drum set*-mood...

Look what I can do

2011-08-03T11:42:00.001+03:00

I've learnt how to post blog posts from my mobile...

Creation and destruction

2011-08-03T10:21:00.000+03:00

I'm feeling a bit philosophical today so let's talk about the big things. You now the universe, reality, God and the grand scheme of things. And then I got stuck playing with my mobile...

Vacation

2011-07-31T13:49:00.000+03:00

My 4 week vacation is over for this summer. I'm back in... well work life...

What's your personality?

2011-06-12T00:42:00.000+03:00

There's personality test out there created partly by C G Jung, the creator of analytical psychology. It's commonly called MBTI and it's pretty easy to do. You answer about 70 questions (with yes or no) for example here. Then you get a four letter code which indicates one of 16 personality types witch certain traits. I'm a INTJ or a mastermind. There's page upon pages out there that describes how these different personality types work and I think I actually understand myself better know, why I do certain things the way I do and so on. I found an interesting text on how to handle people like me, masterminds.

***

Here's a concise guide (mostly based on decades of personal observation:-)) on how to survive first contact with an INTJ. Don't take it too seriously but ignore it at your own peril (not a bad disclaimer, he, he).

Expect debate. INTJs enjoy tearing things apart to understand them and to prove (or disprove) their worthiness.
They will gladly argue a point they don't actually support, just for the sake of argument or to probe things. This bears repeating: an INTJ can easily and persuasively assume a point of view which is wholly contrary to his actual conviction. If in doubt, ask.
INTJs do have a strong sense of humour, often dry and quick, but also a bit warped. It can easily take a morbid streak.
Expect blunt, honest, sometimes even hurtful answers: if you don't want to hear the truth, you wouldn't ask, would you?
INTJs like to do lists, enumerations, pattern sorting and putting things into an ordered state (ordered for them, not necessarily for the rest of the world).
Statements you can't back up with either solid facts or solid reasoning will at best be ignored and at worst poked fun at in ways not many people would describe as nice.
Try to be both concise and precise. Using 81 woolly words where 18 sharp ones would suffice will not endear you to them.
They do love wordplay though: if you can re-package your 81 woolly words in a witty, unexpected, esoteric fashion, they'll appreciate that.
Don't expect an INTJ to respect anything you (or some other authorities) say just because you (or some other authorities) say it. INTJs bow to one authority only: rationality.
For an INTJ truth is more important than simply being right, so they will readily admit errors or mistakes (once they have been convinced something they said or did was indeed wrong — to convice them may not be easy though). INTJs unfortunately expect others to work likewise (and react bewildered if they don't).
Stick to a statement after being proven wrong by facts or reasoning and an INTJ will treat you as an irrational idiot and everything you say as probable nonsense.
Try not to be repetitive. It bores them to death.
Clumsy attempts at political correctness and similar aberrations will greatly amuse them.
Don't be surprised at sarcasm, hyperbole and flippancy. In fact, a non-sarcastic INTJ must be severely ill.
Expect punctuality and exactness. They try hard to be on time and they hate unpunctualness, especially of the casual sort: the words obsessive-compulsive come to mind.
They tend to be quite forgetful in everyday life, especially for trivial things like car keys, dropped tools or anniversaries.
You can't trust that an INTJ takes something, anything for granted. They do take some things for granted, but you'll never know what and what not. The more extreme ones are actually willing to put everything to the test (and I mean everything).
Remember that INTJs believe in workable solutions. They are open-minded to all and every possibility, but they will quickly discard any concept they deem unfeasible.
Their way of showing that something you say (an idea, a suggestion) has potential or merit is by trying to pull it apart (which shocks those poor souls who instead expected awe or admiration). The ultimate INTJ insult to an idea or suggestion is to ignore it altogether, because that means it's not even interesting enough to deconstruct.
INTJs can and will make themselves and everything else (and again, I mean everything) the butt of their jokes, witticisms and deeply nonsensical remarks.
Do not expect INTJs to care very much about how you view them. They already know that many people see them as arrogant bastards with a weird sense of humour and they long since got used to it.

***

It's not all entirely correct and I have learned to suppress certain traits that are not that socially acceptable and I do care what people think of me but that's very Finnish.

So who are you?

Did I write that????

2011-04-02T13:10:00.000+03:00

I've been going over some of my old blog posts and I have come to realize that I'm actually quite good at English or rather was when I was writing a blog post every second day, back in 2007. Nowadays my updates are somewhat less frequent, last year I wrote a blog post every second week.

I'm amazed how good my English was and I used quite complex sentences and grammar back in 2007. I must admit that it's not only the lack of inspiration and three children that is stopping me from updating more often. When it comes to the English language I'm very self critical. I don't want my post to look like a press conference with Mika Häkkinen. "How do you feel about the weather out there today on the track?"; "Yes!" Actually Häkkinen is quite good at English, I guess he didn't like press conferences. I want my posts to look like they were written by someone fluent in English or not posted at all. English is the lingua franca of our time and I think it's a very important language to know, even call it a sign of intelligence to know it.

Experience is very important when it comes to knowledge. Experience gives you the freedom to let your mind concentrate on more complex things while your fingers press the buttons on your keyboard to form a grammatically correct text automatically, expressing your ideas and thoughts in manner that they might even inspire others. That is knowing a language and I need experience to shine.

This is really good

2011-03-19T17:37:00.001+02:00

One of my favorite songs, one of my favorite bands and Nina's favorite band. Could it be any better?

It's still winter

2011-03-13T11:40:00.000+02:00

We have a competition at work. I could say we have a 5 € bet but that's illegal so we don't have that. The be... competition is about guessing when the bay on the other side of the bridge is free of ice. So far the competitors have placed their bids on around the 20th April but I'm going for the 30th of April. It's been a long and cold winter and ships in the Kvarken Archipelago(the sea area outside Vasa) can't move without ice breakers and haven't been able to do so for a couple of weeks. The ferry line between Vasa and Umeå is at a standstill. The ice in some areas and 3-4 meters(10-13 feet) thick. The wind has pressed some of ice together and formed ice walls up to 20 meters(60 feet) high. I'm definitely going for late April or early May.

1 feet and then some...

2011-01-19T16:05:00.000+02:00

I think almost half the snow that has fallen this winter has fallen the last 24 hours. That means that I got up before eight o'clock this morning (I'm currently working the evening shift) and started shoveling snow. Well actually operating a 5,5 hp snowthrower like this:

I would have removed 1 feet of snow and then some in our yard but the twins had their 6 months check up today and yes they are doing fine. I should be able to clear the rest of the snow with one hour of work tomorrow. This is the best investment we have done in a long time. Shoveling 1 feet of snow of the yard with a snow shovel would probably have occupied me the rest of the week. Now it takes 2-3 hours and it's really not that heavy...

Reinvent your blog

2011-01-13T10:41:00.001+02:00

Eventually all bloggers hit the wall, that one made of bricks and concrete. That's when you realize you got nothing to write about anymore. You have written all what you want to write about what your blog is about and it starts slipping silently into the night.

Then it's time to reinvent your blog. Lost your joy of writing? Try writing from a different approach and that joy may find find it's way back to your keyboard. In the beginning I wrote structured and thought out blog posts and some of them where actually quite good, but that's in my past. Now I usually prefer more spontaneous posts because it's more fun but I still do have my moments.

Have you written everything you know about cupcakes? Try writing about hunting.

Your blog about you everyday life is so boring that even you have become bored with it. Create a science fiction character and write about his/her fictional adventures.

The thing about blogs is that everyone isn't a writer but there are many of us out there who enjoy writing and the benefits it gives. Writing maintains and develops my language skills, not only my mother tongue but other languages as well. For other it's like seeing a therapist. Writing about your emotional and other problems for everyone to see can be very liberating and a way to solve or at least to understand your problems. Blogs may not have changed the world but it has changed many lives for the better.

Haircut

2011-01-05T23:43:00.000+02:00

I think the las time I got my hair cut was in July. Usually I get my hair cut three months apart but I never got around to it this fall. I have my suspicions why, a happy family life =). But now it's short and it was -24 C outside when I got out of the hair salon. Do you remember those old cold war movies where Russians always wore those big fur hats the size of a small country they've invade... sorry liberated. Well I wore one over my short hair and it prevented me from getting a cold shock ;-P. Well -24 C is really not that bad but 6 months of hair were gone and I didn't want to freeze.

Non-important update

2011-01-04T01:06:00.000+02:00

I do many things on the Internet and every now and then, just to pass time I chat on some web chat. I did that last week and this time it was one where Firefox's spell checker didn't work and I sucked. I have been sort of lazy with my blogging lately and I realized that if I don't use it I loose it. So I've sort of made this New Year's resolution that I'm going to update my blog even if I don't have this great post that impresses all my readers.

I'm a big fan of quality but history shows that quantity have a way of beating quality. And if I write more I get experience and that can lead to greater things: It's like taking pictures with a digicam, you may take 50 pictures and get one really great one while the 49 other suck. In the end it will benefit both me and my readers.

Plastic sledge

2011-01-02T23:33:00.002+02:00

The other day we did something with our children or actually our oldest daughter Mirelle which we should do a lot more often. We visited the local skiing hill Öjberget. The landscape is very flat around here but Öjberget is part of the the outer rim of a 560 million year old impact crater called Söderfjärden. We left the twins in the car sleeping, we parked our car 20 meters from the sledge hill just in case the twins awoke and brought out the plastic sledge.

She really enjoyed it and there where lots of other kids with their sledges and their parents in the hill. We should definitely do this more often.

Turn of the decade

2010-12-31T18:35:00.000+02:00

It's not just another new year a couple of hours from now. It's the turn of the decade. The last decade has been interesting in many ways, both good and bad. I hope the next decade is as interesting, in good ways only.

Happy New Year

Merry Christmas

2010-12-24T14:24:00.000+02:00

I wish you all a very Merry Christmas =).

Spontaneous is better

2010-11-16T12:18:00.000+02:00

This blog been lying around her for a while, silent. I've sat a few times in front of this page a few times with no words finding their way to this post. I saw an interview on TV with a blogger earlier this week and he said something like if you sit down in front of the computer and intend to write something for the sake of writing, forget it. You need inspiration and you need to write it down before the inspiration dries out.

This post was actually written as I sat down in front of the computer in order to write something for the sake of writing and I got inspired to write about how spontaneous blog posts are better then the daily blog at 9 PM. Well they are...

Unless you have a really good post, those that need planning, everything from hours to weeks, that feels so important that the inspiration doesn't dry out until they are written...

Waiting for the storm

2010-10-15T00:36:00.000+03:00

According to yesterdays weather forecast we would be hit by massive storm today. I work for a power company so they had prepared for a long evening and night. I'm working the night shift tonight and I was expecting a very busy shift. Power outages was expected, up to a feet of snow and really bad road conditions. At home I put everything that could blow away in the storm in the garage and I put on winter tires on both cars.

Then nothing, well there where some strong winds, lots of rain and the snow that fell melted away immediately as it fell to the ground. It's good that the storm wasn't really a storm, but I'm sort of disappointed. All this preparation and it's just another rainy night in the fall.

I haven't stopped blogging

2010-10-12T16:09:00.000+03:00

I still have a blog and I haven't stopped blogging. I'm simply having a break or something, due to laziness, lack of inspiration or a full house. I don't have the time or the inpiration to be a productive blogger right now. Maybe when the kids go to college ;-P. But seriously I'm trying to kick start my inspiration and this is a small step for a blogger ...

Barefoot or why I'm not allowed in the kitchen

2010-08-27T09:22:00.000+03:00

Right now I'm at work without shoes or socks. I'm barefooted and there's a good reason why I am. I think it was on Monday (but it could have been Sunday too) that we had some sticky leftovers in a pan and I decided to boil some water in it to get the rid of the sticky leftovers before I put it in the dishwasher. The sticky leftovers were soon seen floating in the boiling water. I turned off the kitchen stove and waited until the water had stopped boiling.

I then proceeded to pour out the hot water in the kitchen sink ( I always turn on the cold water tap when I do that, just in case). Unfortunately the pan was sort of full of hot water and I dropped some of my left big toe and it was hot enough to give me a singe. Let's just say that it's easier to use shoes and socks as little as possible right now. But I should be able to walk normally with shoes and socks next week.

It's been a month

2010-08-26T13:02:00.000+03:00

It's been a a month since I last updated this blog. A busy month in both good and bad ways. The twins are really keeping us busy. Fortunately I only have to get up at 6 AM four mornings every third week because those nights before I get about four hours of sleep. And I really don' t get the sleep that I need after my night shifts but then again that's only four nights every third week too. That's the good way because in my mind children are the meaning of life. Whatever happens down the road they have profoundly changed your life in a positive manner forever.

But strange things happen in our world, call it karma or the will of (the) God(s) but sometimes when life is given to a family another life is taken. Four weeks and one day after the twins where born my mother passed away. We had the funeral last weekend and two weeks from now the twins are going to be baptized. I'm sorry for the fact that we really haven't had the time to mourn my mother. Her passing and funeral passed by in three weeks and now it's gone. We are now busy planning and arranging for our twins baptism. The birth-death phenomenon are quite common so people who have experienced that says that you will mourn when you have time to mourn, whether it's a year or three years from now.

In this gloomy mood it's only fitting to be in the beginning of the fall. The days are rainy and right now it's about 10 °C and it's in the middle of the day. But I like seasonal changes. The fall can be incredibly beathiful with all the red and yellow leaves and the brisk cold air always makes me feel so awake and alive.

Twins

2010-08-01T12:51:00.000+03:00

I'm sorry for the lack of updates lately but I have a good excuse. Our twins(boy and girl) were born on July 5. Having twins are not easy and there were a few medical complications along the way. But everybody's home and doing fine right now.

This is my first day at work after my paternity leave so I finally ha time to write a blog post ;-)

My batteries are recharged

2010-06-27T09:06:00.000+03:00

I noticed one thing when I wrote my blog post yesterday. It was error free. I even dragged it trough MS Word's spell and grammar checker and it was flawless. I always have the spell checker on in Firefox, to correct my errors, which are plenty. I have at one point even suspected that I'm dyslectic. I can now confirm that's not the case.

But usually I have so much going on in my life (family/work/virtual reality) that I can't really concentrate on how I'm writing when I blog. I do know however what I'm writing about. So having a vacation once a year is a good thing =).

Vacation is over

2010-06-26T11:06:00.001+03:00

My four week vacation is over and I'm back at work. I'm doing my first morning shift out of four on Midsummer Day. In this part of the world Midsummer is as big as if not bigger than Christmas. So today, everything is shut down, except us who keep society running when everyone else is out partying in their summer cottages.

The weather is cold and I 'm pretty sure it will rain later today so partying outdoors today wouldn't be much fun. And my fiancée is expecting twins at any moment. Expected date of delivery is the 31st of July but the twin's estimated weights at this point are around 7-8 pounds EACH. If we where expecting just one child he/she would still be considered to be a BIG baby at that weight. We are awaiting c-section within the next two weeks but the doctors haven't set a date yet. Then of course the delivery could start at any moment so I feel slightly nervous sitting here at work, actually more nervous than when Mirelle was born.

During those four weeks of vacation I have also taken a partial vacation from the Internet. No blog writing, no Facebook updates (except mentioning that I'm on vacation). I've played some World of Warcraft, read the news and a few blogs, made a comment or two and logged on to Facebook every now and then to see what's going on. But that's it, no active social networking. It feels good to be offline for a while, to live in reality. But it's good to be back =).

This weekend Vasa is hosting a US Naval visit. The United States Navy guided missile frigate USS Simpson is open to the public between 13.00 and 17.00. I go off work at 15.00 so if it's not raining it should be an interesting ship to see.

Separation anxiety

2010-05-17T18:00:00.000+03:00

Six nights ago we began what had worried us for some time. We moved Mirelle to her own room at night. We worried about what happens if she wakes up in the middle of the night and we're not there? Will she cry? Will she feel lonely? What if she suddenly figures out how to climb out of her bed and falls to the floor?

She has never slept better, ever. During those six night she has awoken us once, it was the second night and after a half hour in our big bed she was sleeping again and I carried her back to her own room. She sleeps to around 9:00 every morning. She woke up anywhere between 6.00-10.00 when she was sleeping in our room and usually at least once every night.

So we the parents had some sort of separation anxiety that was uncalled for and Mirelle sleeps much better in her own room.

MSN?

2010-05-08T02:14:00.000+03:00

What was once called MSN is now called Windows Live Messenger, although most people still refer it by MSN. It's probably the most popular IM or instant messenger out there. ICQ was once the most popular IM out there, but then it sort of faded away. I'm beginning to suspect that that was a forecall of things to come, the end of IM.

People still like to chat but everyone's got Facebook and Facebook got a chat function. It's not even close to how advanced MSN was about 10 years ago, even further back when it was called Windows Messenger. But that is everything else in Facebook is for.

I log on to MSN every now and then, usually when I'm at work and there are about two people I talk to regularly although I got about 70 people on my contact list and there was a point in time about 5 years ago when I thought the 150 people limit on your contact list was set too low. When I log in there are quite often a couple of bots that has either sent me a message or try do add me to their contact list.

IM isn't dying but it's definitely fading away, and has largely been replaced by Facebook and/or Google...

We don't call ice cream ice cream anymore

2010-04-29T15:32:00.000+03:00

The word for ice cream in Swedish is "glass". Unfortunately our daughter knows what glass is and she knows where the freezer is. So we have began talking about "jäätelö" instead. That's ice cream in Finnish. But I think she might be on to us so we might eventually have to begin talking about "ice cream". Being somewhat trilingual have it's benefits but at some point we might have to resort to code words...

Learning the art of photography

2010-04-21T02:19:00.000+03:00

A few weeks ago I bought a new camera. Our old digital camera was of the tourist type of camera and our daughter managed to get hold of it and the battery hatch is now kept shut with duct tape. Nina's birthday is also coming up next week so it was definitely time for a new camera.

The camera I bought is a Nikon D3000. I have read trough the manual and I have taken some pictures. But I have realized that I need to sit down with the manual and the camera. Read trough a section of the manual and then try it out with the camera and then read another section and try it out. I have taken some really great pictures, far, far better then our old camera. But then there are a lot of crappy pictures. I realize that an SLR camera is a bit more complex and that I need to learn to master it if I intend to take those really great pictures.

So I'm slowly learning the art of photography picture by picture. It's spring here and soon nature will become green again and I'll have many opportunities to practice.

MySpace isn't Facebook isn't Blogspot

2010-04-07T20:38:00.000+03:00

I think three of my top favorite out there are MySpace, Facebook and Blogspot. In a sort of way they are all social networking websites. Blogspot used to be a a dedicated blogging service but with Google Friend Connect and Followers it's slipping into the world of social networking.

MySpace and Facebook has been the most similar but they have never been the same. Similar interfaces and content but while Facebook had wrapped their users experience around the people you know MySpace's thing is cultural exchange.

Facebook's popularity has grown past MySpace's. But I think Facebook will never replace MySpace. They each have their own niche. MySpace blogging was also quite popular, for a while. Then most MySpace bloggers moved their blogs to Blogspot for various reasons.

I'm still at MySpace although I prefer communicating with my friends on Facebook and blogging at Blogspot. MySpace was everything for a few years until your grandma created a profile on Facebook and opened a blog at Blogspot. MySpace was and still is one of the biggest players out there but it is a tool for more artistically inclined people, people who like having a cool nick instead of their real name and well, trolls...

First look

2010-03-30T06:41:00.001+03:00

I'm somewhat of a video game fan and I've probably seen 95 % of Star Trek television series and movies ever produced. I wouldn't call myself a Trekkie. There have been a number of video games made under the Star Trek franchise and unfortunately none of them have been any good according to player reviews. None the less I decided to try their latest game Star Trek Online. There's was a t-shirt in the box so if it is a total failure at least I got a somewhat expensivet-shirt for 49,95 €.

When it comes to MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing games) or MMO (massively multiplayer online games) games the benchmark is World of Warcraft. WoW was launched 5 years ago and they have never lost it's momentum, their player base are 11 million players. Contenders like Warhammer Online and Age of Conan got great reviews and got a large fan base, around a million players for each game, in the beginning. Today they're almost dead. Numbers are uncertain but is definitely below 100 000.

Star Trek Online didn't get great reviews. But they've are constantly patching and updating it so it might be a great game yet. Unfortunately Cryptic(the game developer) have to work fast while they still have momentum, while still being in the launch phase. If they loose momentum while having a game that the players don't like the will face the same fate that Age of Conan and Warhammer Online is slowly dying of. Trekkies my be compassionate about their Star Trek but even they won't play a bad game.

Those of you that played WoW 5 years ago might remeber what it was like then and what it's like now. It too sucked in the beginning, but on the other it had no real competition and people realized it's enormous potential, and in the end it proved to become much larger than it's potential...

We gave up the aquarium

2010-03-25T09:31:00.000+02:00

We have read books about aquariums,we feed our fishes, we clean the pump every now and then, we have a working thermostat/heater , we refill the water, we buy new fishes, we have had plants there and at some point we even took a water sample to the pet store for analyzing, it was fine.

The fishes die and the plants rotten. It's as simple as that. So we gave away the last 5 living fishes to my fiancée's brother's family. They have an aquarium and it looks great with plenty of living fish and green plants.

So the aquarium with accessories is going into the storage room (part of the garage) once I get it properly cleaned and dried up.5-10 years from now someone will probably think it would be a great idea to set up an aquarium and we will have all forgotten about the fact aquariums in our family is not a place for the living but for the undead ;-P

Summer time isn't here yet

2010-03-24T10:45:00.001+02:00

We will switch to summer time on Sunday. I think it's more problematic then useful but a worked in system is difficult o change.

I'm working the mornings shift this week, actually four days of it. I have noticed that the sun has risen when I start driving to work 6:40 (AM). Next week it will rise around 5:30 (AM). I'm still sleeping then.

I write about those things since the snow layer has gotten so thick that one of our dogs walked over (notice that I didn't use the word jump) over our 120 cm (4 feet) high dog fence the other day. But the snow has begun melting in the spring sun, that's why the surface of the snow are hard enough for dogs to walk on. Not hard enough for me to walk on with a snow shovel...

It's official

2010-03-20T18:35:00.000+02:00

Some of my regular readers are probably aware of this fact due to various reasons. But we have decided to make it official now. The fact is that my fiancée is pregnant and the expected date of birth is 30 July. And not only that, we are having twins =). Well it's really not official until I announce it on Facebook and I haven't yet ;-P. Nina did has but she did it in a cryptic way and then someone asked if she was pregnant and she had to answer yes.

You don't want to be overconfident in cases of pregnancy, especially in the case of a high risk pregnancy such a twin pregnancy. I can do that when we are a family of five.I've heard of people who have denied everything to everyone until they sent out the invitations to the baby shower, but that is just mean ;-P.

Beauty is a bitch

2010-02-19T01:27:00.001+02:00

Don't be fooled by the title, this post is weather related. We haven't had minus °C since the 29th of December and before that a few days in early December. And plus °C in those cases mean a few hours of around 1 °C. No snow melting temperatures. The last of those were the 1st of December with around 5 °C. Then the temperature turned minus °C and has stayed that way. Century old records have been broken.

In a normal winter it gets cold, it snows a bit, it gets warmer, the snow melts away, sometimes it rains away, before it gets colder again. So even if it snows alot with a winter like that the snow isn't a problem because a large part of it melts away every now and then. This winter we have close to three months of snow and none of it has melted away.

And it's not just that it's minus °C it also very cold, around -10 °C to -20 °C with a few freak days with -5 °C or -25 °C. You have to be careful before going out, you have to dress yourself in warm but bulky winter clothes. Cold temperatures are unforgiving. Two winters ago I worked outside with a tuque on but it did not cover my ears. Last winter I couldn't go outside in minus °C without covering my ears, they ached. This winter I can go outside in minus °C without covering my ears, but I'm careful The frostbite has healed, it only took two years.

But this winter is also the most beautiful I have ever seen. A cold night covers everything in white and I'm not talking about snow. There's moist in the air, even in the cold winter, sometimes fog, covers everything in hard rime that can be up to a centimeter thick. Ant it's not ice, it's snow crystals, much like snow flakes. Imagine such a landscape after a foggy -20 °C cold night lit up by the morning sun.

Our winter is a beautiful but she is cold and unforgiving to the unwary.

I'm on Google maps

2010-02-09T15:58:00.005+02:00

I finally made it on Google maps' street view. They have put together the material they've filmed here and made Finland "street viewable". Anyway go to Google maps street view, trough this link. That's me, too bad they've blurred the faces, my surprised expression would have been priceless.

To the right behind the mailboxes and a couple of birches there's a small green field(lawn). Behind that field you see a red painted wooden fence and within that fence there's a red house, a garage and lots of trees. That's where we live. Have a nice look around my neighborhood =).

Satellite TV

2010-02-06T17:04:00.003+02:00

I wrote a while ago about we're going to switch from cable TV to satellite TV. We'll I finally got the dish up. I built it myself. I got a leftover dish from my father-in-law and I ordered the rest from Germany. Except for a few screws, the DVB-S module to the set-top box and a bit of cable I bought in town. The stuff from Germany I got for 42 € (the stuff itself was 29 €) and that includes package and delivery to the door. I ordered it on the Internet on last weeks Thursday and it got delivered to my door on Tuesday. I'm deeply impressed by the German Post. If I had ordered the stuff from some company in Finland it would have taken at least a week to arrive, 100 € added to the price and you have to collect it yourself at the Post office. You could buy the stuff in town, but we're still looking at a price tag around 120 €.

It was a bit snowy and windy but the temperature was only around -2 °C. That meant that I could actually take my gloves of for the more delicate work and that the sealant I put around the cables where they went trough the wall will actually harden. I didn't have any applicable frost resistant sealant at home.

So all that remains now is to connect he ground cable to the ground and the four cables from the LNB:s to the DiSEqC-switch and replace the cable receiver with the satellite reciever in the set-top box and we could actually se something on our TV tonight. Well if I have positioned the dish correctly which I tried to, otherwise it's tomorrow's work. I'm doing the evening shift right now.

On a funnier note, after I had left for work my girlfriend decided to go to the grocery store. Well she was looking at the dish while driving away and managed the drive her car into one of the snow walls on the side of our drive way. She had to ask the help of two neighbors to get her car free =).

Winter

2010-01-30T00:17:00.003+02:00

We're having a severe case of winter again. The last few days the temperature has been around -20 ºC to -25 ºC. Since the snowfall hasn't been heavy there's no need for yard work. I try to avoid heavy clothing because it's difficult to move around in them. Get out, get into car, if possible have the engine heater and compartment heater plugged in, like at home and work, drive, get out, get inside.

One of the guys at work who lives 50 kms away in a less populated area use heavy winter clothing while driving to and from work. He figured that if his car breaks down it may take a while before someone comes to pick him up. I manly drive in the city area and a lift home is not far away.

But for longer drives in this weather I stuff some heavy winter clothing in my car, just in case...

Busy

2010-01-25T13:44:00.003+02:00

It's been a while since I've written anything here. I've been sort of busy lately. We are renovating our kitchen and I'm trying to figure how to loose a dog in 30 days or keep it. The reason or more correctly the two reasons why we have too many dogs are the fulfillment of lifetime dreams. But as said by George Graham Vest: "He is your friend, your partner, your defender, your dog. You are his life, his love, his leader. He will be yours, faithful and true, to the last beat of his heart. You owe it to him to be worthy of such devotion." And right now I feel unworthy.

Facebook profile

2010-01-02T08:31:00.003+02:00

I'm thinking about linking my blogs to Facebook. Either on my Blogger profile as my homepage and/or as a profile link. You can choose what you put in your profile link but it's a small box that could contain your picture, e-mail and status update and when you click it you find yourself on my Facebook page. There's also a link on how tocreate a profile link of your own. But I'm not sure it's a good idea. I mean it's not difficult to find my Facebbok profile. It's a matter of not making it too easy. What do you think?

-15 °C

2010-01-01T21:56:00.003+02:00

This is what you have to wear if you intend to work outside all day long in -15 °C. Due to various reason (mainly work) I haven't had the time to shovel all the snow off the yard that has fallen this week until today. This should work down to -20°C , -25 °C. After that I have a heavier jacket. When the temperature approaches -30 °C you are going to have to start taking breaks (inside). The colder it gets the longer and more often you have to take those breaks If you intend to work outside below -30 °C it has to be very necessary work, like a tree that has fallen over your driveway. If it's below -35 °C you are crazy. There are clothes that you can stay outside with in any temperature but they're difficult to work in, think spacesuit.

But I can tell you that you feel very alive after a day outside in this cold.

Finland made the headlines

2009-12-31T17:51:00.004+02:00

Finland made the headlines in the form of a lone gunman, again. This time it was a guy with a couple of firearms related convictions and an assault conviction, in short an aggressive guy who would probably have a gun but not a permit. The last two lone gunman that have made the headlines during the last two years had gun permits, which has strengthened gun laws to the point where it is virtually impossible the get a permit for a handgun.

This guy had a a job, wife and kids but it seems like he never got over his ex girlfriend for whom he had a restraining order placed upon him. He shot and killed four employees(the ex was involved with one of them) at the ex's workplace, which happen to be one of the largest mall in Finland and it was evacuated and searched by heavily armed police officers. In the mean time he had managed to get away and drove to his ex's apartment where he shot and killed her and then he went back to his own apartment where he killed himself.

I have always considered the country where I live in as a very safe one but it also have one of the highest gun-ownership in the world. I don't remember in which order they come but the top three countries are USA, Yemen and Finland. Many legal guns around, many guns to steal and make them illegal...

Welcome to Pandora

2009-12-28T17:23:00.002+02:00

How do you review one of the greatest movies of all time if not the greatest in one short blog post? We went to see James Cameron's Avatar in 3-D last night and it was amazing, it was fantastic and yes it's really that good. It's a milestone in science fiction. It's computer-generated imagery taken to the next level. It's a strong environmental message that talks directly to you heart. This is one of those movies that people will refer other movies to in the genre as before and after Avatar. Did I tell you that's it's really that good?

The setting is on a fictional moon called Pandora in the Alpha Centauri system and it was so beautiful that you wanted to weep. I'm not going to spoil the plot, just go see it.

PS. Is suspect James Cameron has been playing World of Warcraft. The Na'vi are blue, tall, have somewhat pointy ears, are connected with and worship nature, have a sacred tree which they live within and like to keep to themselves. Night Elf anyone?

Watch out

2009-12-19T04:07:00.003+02:00

I'm doing my first night shift out of four and it's around 4.00. I'm usually not that active this time of the night but I'm sort of experiencing the aftermath of a really cold Thursday. That means that I need to keep an eye or two on things. Anyway this is the time of the night when I have been known to write a bit to honest blog posts. Some scientist claim that being really tired is equivalent of being drunk. I believe them.

I know what I could write about =). But I'm not ;-P. I get to go home and get some sleep in three hours from now.

Christmas Card weather

2009-12-17T12:46:00.003+02:00

I've been dreaming of a white Christmas and we're having one. Today we have what I call Christmas card weather . Yesterday and the night before last night we got about 40-50 centimeters of snow, that's about one and a half feet. I've had four morning shift up until now but today is my day off, since I begin the night shift at 22.00 tomorrow, I technically work tomorrow but I still got all day off tomorrow too, before nightfall =).

I was fairly could (-10 - -15 °C, 5 - 14 °F) during my working days so running a distant heating system was relatively busy. However this morning the temperature was and still is now in the afternoon -25 °C (-13 °F). Now I can tell you that my work can be VERY busy when it's this cold, but I'm not there. Drop the temperature another 10 °C (to -35 °C) and it's outright difficult and food is something you have time to eat when you're at home.

But back to the Christmas Card. These weather conditions means that there is no wind and the time of the year means that the sun is just above the horizon in the middle of the day. Just go outside ant take the camera with you and take a picture in any direction before the camera freezes over and you'll have the perfect Christmas Card.

I'm dreaming of a white Christmas

2009-12-13T08:45:00.002+02:00

Yes it's snowing outside and yes the next week will be really cold. Conclusion, we're having a white Christmas. Up until about a week ago the ground where still green and/or muddy. Some years winter comes this late but I don't mind, less snow shuffling =).

How long have you've been working here?

2009-11-26T08:07:00.002+02:00

I saw an episode of Globe Trekker (called Pilot Guides in certain countries) last night about New York City. I'd like to visit The Big Apple someday but that's not what I found fascinating about the episode. The fascinating thing was the interview with the oldest stock broker in the world. He was 94 years old and he started working on Wall Street in 1927, yes 1927, he's been working there for over 80 years. I found a CBS video of an interview made with him in 2008 so if he's still alive and working he is 95 by now.

Most people don't make it until 80 and this guy have worked at Wall Street that long. He have truly seen it all, the rise and fall of the world economy more than once. He's been there in it's darkest hour and in it's finest hour. There are certain traits I admire in the older generations and he's got them...

Changes that doesn't affect you

2009-11-19T00:36:00.004+02:00

I have moved my Swedish and Finnish blogs away from Blogspot to a WordPress based blog and WordPress in that order. For the simple reason of generating more readers for those specific blogs and to evolve my blogging. Wordpress has high learning curve but if you spend a few days with it you will learn it and find it very rewarding. I mean some of the not so skilled bloggers in computers on the Wordpress based blog site which used to be a homebuilt blog site managed to make the transit within a week when they switched from homebuilt to WordPress. If they can do it, anyone can.

This blog however is going nowhere. I have my readers here =). I actually like Blogger more, for its user friendliness, its large user base, its popularity and that has something to offer evry blogger out there, novices and professionals alike.

I need to blog

2009-11-18T17:53:00.006+02:00

I looked at my blog and I noticed that my last post was written on the 1st of November. It's time for another post with or without inspiration. The days go bye so fast that don't noticed that you haven't written anything in the last 2-3 weeks. We can blame that mainly on the 10 days vacation I got from work that ended 3 hours ago. I'm back at work, doing my first evening shift out of four.

I've also noticed that it's easy to miss appointments when you're on vacation. I usually don't check my calendar when I'm not working which is a minimum of every third week. So the people reading this, do not make appointments with me off work, months in advance. I can almost guarantee that I will forget it and that I will probably have no idea why you are calling and wondering where I am when you are there and I'm not, until I look in my calender, "Oh, look there's an appointment in my calender. I'm sorry, I'm in Sweden right now. But no worries, I'll be home next week".

I haven't missed or forgotten a day of work in my entire life...

Butter of the Gods

2009-11-01T15:38:00.004+02:00

In my last blog post I wrote about us wanting to have bone marrow after seeing an episode of "Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations" and how we bought a chunk of meat containing bone marrow on Friday.

Today was the big day, eating that chunk of meat with the bone marrow. I barbecued it and Nina made some salad and cream potatoes. After it was done we got ourselves a couple of teaspoons and separated the bone from the meat. You know there are certain things that when you eat them for the very first time you know it's like love at first sight or taste in this case. It's like there has been a part missing from your life and now you've finally found it and you can't continue living without it.

Anthony Bourdain called it "Butter of the Gods" and I totally agree with him. I can't emphasize enough how good it was. The closest thing to it's taste and structure that I have eaten before is snails in garlic butter. It's a dish that has to be experienced if you like the good things in life because after that there is no turning back.

A warning thou, do not eat too much of it at a time, the cholesterol kick will probably kill you then ;-P.

Bone marrow

2009-10-30T16:08:00.002+02:00

I think we have seen too many episodes of "Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations". In yesterday's episode when he and his chef buddies where having bone marrow as desert and they described how delicious it was, we actually bought it. The thought of eating bone marrow started to feel tempting. Normally I think a few of the things he eats is not something I would eat but bone marrow actually sounds delicious in a weird way.

So one of the items on todays shopping list was a chunk of meat with large piece of bone in it containing a fairly big piece of bone marrow. So sometime during this weekend we'll be eating bone marrow.

The perfect housewife

2009-10-25T20:20:00.003+02:00

We saw a television show called "The perfect housewife" it's actually a whole series but we will not be watching more than the 10 minutes it took me to realize that I hate that woman, the perfect housewife. Nina hated her after 5 minutes but I imagined for 5 more minutes that you could actually learn something from that show.

The show is about a perfect housewife that comes into people who are having a hard time keeping their home in an interior design magazine shape. So the woman in questions gives them advice about everything, how to wash vases with rice inside, how important it it to keep the dish washing water at 45 C and to use cold water for the last part of the rinsing to keep the water from vaporising to fast from the drying dishes and couple of hundred other advices on how to keep the perfect home.

You know when you have a perfect home you're not having fun anymore. All your time goes to doing the perfect home and the people around you aren't allowed to touch anything. Remember this, the day we have the perfect home there's probably something that has gone terribly wrong...

Winter tires

2009-10-22T00:19:00.005+03:00

It's been below freezing point now and then the last few weeks but when I left work this morning two cars was standing at the side of the road 50 meters past the driveway to my work. It looked like the owners where arguing. That was the sign I've been looking for, the sign that it's time to change from summer tires or just tires if you live somewhere where it never snows to winter tires.

The roads where icy this morning so the fender bender outside my work was not the only one involving people who where still driving with summer tires. Three cars skidded off the motorway and the local police advised people on the local newspaper's website to change their tires immediately if they haven't already done so (they used those exact words).

Winter tires are tires that have metal studs and are marked M+S or M&S which stands for Mud and Snow. I've changed the tires on Nina's car tonight (I'm driving it to and from work tonight) and tomorrow I'm changing the tires on my car. They make more noise than summer tires due to the metal studs and the M&S profile compared to summer tires that are made for AC roads. It's only about 6 months until I can change back to summer tires...

Translation

2009-10-20T02:40:00.003+03:00

I'm writing a blog in Finnish or rather I should be writing a blog in Finnish. It's there but I'm not updating very often. It's there mainly for the sake of practice. However I checked out Google's translation program and it's a lot better than the last time I checked it out. Last time the translations was outright hilarious. Now you can actually use Google Translate and get a fairly serious result.

It's a bit like cheating. I'm not really practicing writing in Finnish. I'm using a translation program. I get a few blog posts in Finnish and I get to see how it's written correctly. It's not as effective as working out the grammar with every word an sentence but it's small steps. It's better than not writing a blog at all. Google rocks...

Travel report

2009-10-15T09:42:00.003+03:00

If have realizes that I'm not good at writing traveling reports. To write down a week of new experiences from places which sometimes can be called paradise is difficult. I usually find it overwhelming.

I wouldn't call Turkey paradise but I can definitely recommend it to anyone. It was clean, the people are friendly and the sun was shining. I can see myself visiting Turkey again...

Next stop Turkey

2009-10-05T15:07:00.002+03:00

As the temperature here slowly gets closer to the point where water turns into ice it's time to head south for a week. So if you wonder why I'm not updating my blog or commenting yours it's because I'm on a beach in Alanya, Turkey. More likely sightseeing but however the weather will be warm =)

Drama

2009-10-04T13:01:00.003+03:00

One of the things I like about blogging here at Blogger is the lack of drama. Most of us who have blogged at a social networking community have probably not escaped the drama. If not part of it yourself you have most likely witnessed it. Those participating in it like to call it blog wars or something like "the most important issue ever debated on the Internet and I'm RIGHT". I like to call it sandbox fighting because of the three year old attitude of the participants and the most important issue ever debated on the Internet is about as important as what a couple of three year old kids are fighting about in a sandbox, seriously.

I'm not saying that there isn't drama here, there probably is somewhere. I think the reason why is that on a dedicated blogging site you do not get points for who many friends you got or how active you are at that site. There's nothing to prove here except telling a good story and talking about it in a civilized way...

Sushibar

2009-09-30T22:59:00.003+03:00

The city where I live, Vaasa, has a number of restaurant that offers international food. In Vaasa's case that means Mediterranean food and kebab. So there are still a few gaps. But today they started serving sushi at a cafébar. The cafébar is located in an old cinema. The cinema is now called a cultural stage. They have stand up comedians, amateur theater and local film festivals. The cafébar has up until now served coffee, beer and alcohol with cakes, danish and toasts.

But they have started serving sushi on Wednesdays and today was their their first Wednesday with sushi on the menu. We've made sushi at home and the last place we ate sushi out was in sushibar in Stockholm with an all Japanese staff. As their first day of serving sushi it wasn't bad. It wasn't as good as in the sushibar in Stockholm but it looked better than the stuff we have made at home.

It's not a sushibar, it's a cafébar. The other customers looked like artistically orientated students. But now we can eat sushi in this city in a restaurant environment. I don't think a dedicated sushibar could make it here so it's nice that someone makes the stuff once a week.

We did pick up satelite dish

2009-09-27T07:42:00.002+03:00

Well last nights visit to Meteorian visiting center in the Söderjärden impact crater turned into a drive by visit. The problem was finding a parking spot within walking distance. The parking lot was full, the dirt roads around the visiting center were filled with parked cars. Not to mention there were a lot of people outside the visiting center waiting to get inside. In short everyone had found out about the event and thought it would be a great way to spend Saturday night.Our daughter still travels around in a stroller and moving around in crowded place is not that great so we decided it was worth paying the entrance fee another time for a smaller crowd.

But however one other thing that we did do last night was to pick up a satellite dish. We have decided to go from cable TV to satellite TV. There's nothing wrong with cable TV if you forget the fact that the number of channels are limited. I mean they have actually coded TV channels that are free if you have an antenna or a satellite dish and demanded fees for them. Not to mention that the fees are quite high. So for more freedom, more TV channels and less fees we are getting satellite TV.

But back to the dish. My fiancée's parents have a summer house nearby and they had a leftover satellite dish there. It's missing a few installment screws, feedhorns and cables but my fiancée's brother should have at least some of those. I also need to buy a satellite receiver card and replace the cable receiver card in my decoder. Anything else missing can be bought at the same place. I'm a HAM radio operator so I find the concept of building my own antenna and receiver system interesting. It is a hobby of mine, although it's been dormant for many years...

It all started 550 million years ago...

2009-09-26T10:36:00.003+03:00

An event that started around 520 to 560 millions years ago in the southern hemisphere has led up to our plans for this evening. You see a few miles south of Vaasa is an old impact crater called Söderfjärden. Around 540 million years BC Finland was placed somewhere in the southern hemisphere and the meteorite that struck created an impact crater 6,6 kms wide and 300 meters deep. It was later filled with sand and clay that was formed into sandstone creating a large circular field inside the outer rim which is clearly visible in the landscape.

But back to tonight plans. There is a visiting center in the middle of the impact crater called Meteorian. Tonight there are having an open house evening between 18.00 and 22.00 with no entrance fee. It's not only a meteorite exhibition but since the crater floor is fully cultivated it's a bird haven so they got a bird watching tower and they make their own electricity trough renewable energy.

Scraping the windows

2009-09-25T09:12:00.006+03:00

This was the first morning this fall when there was a thin ice sheet on the windshield and the roof of the car. No ice on the side windows and back window, just moist. That was easily cleared with the window elevators and the back window wiper. Unfortunately I had my window scraper somewhere under the the floor in the back of my car with a dog cage on top of the floor. I used it last in April. I'm tired in the mornings so that meant I started the car, set the heat on full and started working with the windshield wipers and the windshield wiper fluid. After a minute or so I could actually see the outside world trough the windshield. One trick in this climate if you are in a hurry and the windshield is all frozen is to roll down the side window and stick your head out. Always bring warm head gear when going somewhere and it's not recommended on narrow roads 7.45 AM in urban areas.

This means that it it's time to put the the window scraper next to the driver's seat, install the compartment heater and start using the engine heater. The summer is over, the winter is coming. This is the fall, the transition season between summer and winter. I'll probably hate the winter in February but I have always loved the seasonal changes so when the first snow falls sometime between late October and Christmas I'll love it. But until then we have a great fall ahead of us, full of colours...

Facebooking

2009-09-21T23:10:00.003+03:00

You know those little short blog posts you, or least I did, used to write about the little things that happened in life. Those are called Facebook status updates nowadays. I'm not a twitter but I like to update people who are not on my Facebook list. Just a few lines...

Sofa on the lawn

2009-09-19T18:04:00.004+03:00

Tomorrow I'm going to do something that I've never done before. I'm going to take out the sofa and put it in the middle of the lawn and spray it down with the water hose. The pillows have removable covers so they will spend the day in the washing machine and in the tumble dryer. But the sofa in question is a large sectional sofa. There's no other way to wash it than to take it outside and use the garden house and some liquid pine soap. It should be environmentally safe, pine soap is used for washing carpets in the sea and spraying on apple trees against plant lice. Anyway after the washing is done it should dry in the sunlight and the wind.

Reality check

2009-09-07T13:23:00.000+03:00

I have noticed that fewer and fewer people at MySpace are actually blogging. Most of them have stopped blogging or moved to other dedicated blogging sites like this site. The socializing part well, that still the same apart for one thing, people have moved over to Facebook. Why it's like that one can argue over but I think that Facebook and Blogspot have developed in the right direction while MySpace has developed in the wrong direction. I'm not deserting MySpace but I can hear a subtle voice (in my head) everytime I logon to MySpace "Abandon Ship!, Abandon Ship!" and it grows stronger each time.

Fashion blogs

2009-09-04T09:04:00.002+03:00

I'm a very tolerant blog reader but I have a limit. You know if you select a random blog (for example the function "Next blog" on top of this page) you are likely to run into a fashion blog sooner and later. I can deal with the spam or porn blogs, you just click them away. But the fashion blogs will be the end of the Internet.

You got this 17 year old girl who takes a picture of herself every morning in the mirror with the clothes she's wearing that day. She then posts the picture on a new blog post called "Outfit of the day". She posted an "Outfit of the day" yesterday and she will post one tomorrow, and every day for years to come. Also included in the post is a list of her clothes in that picture, where she bought them and their price. Innocent maybe but I think they have become more common than spam.

Then we have the 27 year old journalist who works for a fashion magazine who also posts a blog called "Outfit of the day". If you can tell the difference between her posts and the 17 year old wannabe please let me know because I can't.

I know I'm sounding a bit like a know it all but I think blogging should be about updating and evolving your own posts. Doesn't matter if you only post pictures or write about what you ate. Writing the same posts 367 days a row and calling the change of your socks an important blog update isn't my kind of thing.

I've probably seen the Google car again

2009-09-01T16:52:00.004+03:00

Today when I drove to work in the afternoon I probably saw the Google car again. I can't actually swear it was the Google car because I didn't see what was written on the car and it was a red station wagon this time, not a white. But on the roof top of the car was the by now familiar octagonal camera rack. And it was another road than last time.

Back at work

2009-08-30T15:58:00.003+03:00

My vacation is officially over. I'm back at work. It feels good and it will feel even better when they get the elevator working again, hopefully tomorrow. I like a soft start after my vacation and running up and down four stairs once an hour can be exhausting.

Well the vacation was great too. We saw a Madonna concert and spent a week camping in the Northern part of our country, complete with a visit to Santa Claus Office, a zoo and Ikea. There where also a few museums in arctic and Sámi style along the way. Other than that there have been some yard work and the yard is almost 100 % child safe, she's not far away from walking without support.

I was filmed by Google

2009-08-25T23:39:00.003+03:00

Today was a fairly interesting day. We are a group of people that go for lunch once a week or should, lately it's been at best once a month. We meet trough a web community set up by a radio station and this week that same radio station is broadcasting live from the town square and they offered free lunch for our lunch group nearby.

After the lunch we spent a few hours window shopping, well I was mostly dragged along. Anyway when we got home I went by the mail boxes and picked up our mail. That when I saw it, the Google car. It was a white station wagon driving by. It had a three foot steel pole painted in black on top of it and on top of the pole was a octagonal box covered with glass all around it. And on the side of the car you could read "Google". I was just staring and thought "WTF is that???" and when it had passed by I realized what it was. You know the street wiew finction in Google Maps? Well they were filming our street for street wiev on Google maps. Inside the octagonal box was 8 cameras and I can be seen staring like an idiot at two or three of the cameras...

I'm Home

2009-08-23T23:03:00.003+03:00

We're home again from our camping trip. It was fun but I've still got one week of vacation left which means I'm still a week away from any serious blogging. But don't worry I'll write more about my vacation after my vacation ;-P

I'm on vacation

2009-08-11T23:48:00.003+03:00

I'm on my vacation. We've already been to a Madonna concert and next week we'll go camping to northern Finland which is sparsely populated and the same goes for the northern parts of neighboring Norway and Sweden. This is the place to go in Europe if you want to experience the great wilderness. In short Internet cafes can be hard to find. But I'll write longer posts after my vacation...

Short update

2009-08-05T01:10:00.002+03:00

It's been a long and busy day but also a good day. I got only three hours of sleep this morning due to a baby appointment. Then we did some errands around town. I think I was sort of lost after my night shift and too little sleep today. Anyway I managed to get a few hours sleep after town before tonights big event, the barbecue party.

Well it was actually the people in Nina's baby group ( and the guys) so it was good food and I found out that baby karaoke can be really fun. Social life isn't more difficult when children become involved but it changes for good and for worse. It goes trough huge changes. Some of the people that always been there stays there but some just quietly disappear. And then you meet new people, people that are in the same situation as you and you make new friends among them.

This short update got a bit longer than intended but I sometimes get lost in my own words. Anyway it's 19 hours since my 4 week vacation started and I'm going to catch some sleep after my last night shifts and a fun night. A sleep well needed =).

Brilliant

2009-08-02T23:00:00.003+03:00

I came to work tonight and the TV was on. As I sat down and started doing the things I do when I arrive at work I heard a TV show starting. It's called Being Human and what I later found out was episode 5. I heard the intro and I thought it was brilliant. It's a bit sad but a very honest and accurate description of a human love life. Here it comes:

“We meet people and fall in love and when we part they leave marks for us to remember them by. Our lovers sculpt us. They define us, for better or worse. Like a pinball, we slam into them and rebound in a different direction, propelled by the contact. And after the parting, we might be scared. But stronger. Or more fragile, or needy, or angry, or guilty. It’s never unchanged. Our lovers linger inside us like ghosts… haunting the corridors and deserted rooms. Sometimes whispering. Sometimes screaming. Invisible, but… always there. Waiting”.

However wrote the script to this episode should seriously consider becoming a poet or a novelist if she/he is not that allready because that is really good...

We forgot

2009-08-01T23:43:00.003+03:00

It just dawned on my girlfriend today that we forgot our engagement anniversary that was 4 weeks ago. We got engaged the 7th of July 2007 and we just forgot our second anniversary. Well when we went shopping earlier today we bought some barbecued chicken and we have a few leftover bottles of champagne from Nina's 40th birthday party in April. We only opened one ;-P. So it was sandwiches with barbecued chicken and champagne. It was well ahead before my night shift began although technically you could still drive legally after drinking a half bottle of champagne but I don't drive under the influence of alcohol even if I would be under the legal limit.

Anyway forgetting one's engagement anniversary can get you into alot of trouble unless your partner also have forgotten it. My excuses or our excuses is that it was a heat wave in early July and your mind was set on finding a cool spot to rest in and those days where pretty busy otherwise. Well there's a new anniversary next year...

Magic mornings

2009-07-27T11:59:00.002+03:00

My vacation starts in a week and I almost think it's the wrong time but only almost. You see now begins the time of the year when early mornings are foggy, quiet and a bit chilly. I have 2 morning shifts and 4 night shifts left so I'll still get to see few magic mornings. When I return to work in late August there's still a month worth of magic mornings.

An early morning in late summer or early fall brings a kind of weather I find beautiful beyond words. The temperature is just a few degrees above freezing point, there's a dense fog covering the ground and everything is wet. It's also very quiet, you can hear everything from miles away but everyone who's awake at that time are quiet admiring the same silence you are admiring. You can also see the sun just starting to rise above the horizon.

It is at that moment when the sun lights up the dense fog just before that same sun light starts clearing the fog I feel more alive and awake than ever before and it's also in that moment I feel absolute peace with myself and the world. It's that moment in my life I wish could last forever. It's magic...

3 out of 4

2009-07-23T15:15:00.002+03:00

I'm doing my third evening shift out of four. We actually did some biking in the early afternoon. Maybe 6-7 kilometers and a stop at the beach. It was warm but somewhat cloudy so Mirelle didn't get too much sun...

Open minded

2009-07-21T16:05:00.004+03:00

Our world can be a strange place sometimes. People who believe in things out of the ordinary often tell people who don't believe that they should keep an open mind. What the believers is telling the realists in reality is that they should believe too. Because when you keep an open mind you are also open to the possibility that the strange phenomena you have just seen is something completely normal or that the story you've heard from someone who claimed to have seen a strange phenomena are nothing but lies. That is what called having an open mind, not believing anything out of the ordinary you see, hear or read about, that is called gullible.

I would call myself an open minded realist. I need to see to believe. I'm an agnostic. I have seen and heard strange phenomenas, most of which could be explained and a few that I'll never know if it was for real or just something completely normal. And one that defies all known laws of physics. I've heard and read even more stories. Some by serious people that can be taken seriously and that I more or less believe in. Then there are a number of stories told by people I just wanted to say to but I have resisted the temptation so far: "You know that LSD stuff you're taking isn't good for you. It's like you're living in a fantasy world. If you can't stay off the drugs you should stick to ganja, it just makes you mellow." ;-)

9 months

2009-07-09T11:50:00.006+03:00

It's been 6 days since I last wrote something in this blog. I've been quite active in my Swedish blog in the last few so it's about time I turn my attention here. Anyways yesterday Mirelle turned 9 months old and she's too young to have a cake but she sort of solved that problem herself. Apparently one of the dogs had decided to take a dump inside when we where gone because we changed the dog food this week and some dogs have sensitive stomachs. I cleaned it up but I had missed some that was under the stairs. Guess who found it? Our 9 month old daughter and by the look on her face she thought it was yummy. We didn't think it was yummy.

After a quick clean up and change of clothes I googled on the subject and basically every kid out there have at some point eaten shit. Cat shit, dog shit, their own shit or all of them. I didn't find any testimony that any child ever had become sick or ill due to consumed shit. But I did find some advice that if her stomach becomes upset, probably in the form of a light diarrhea it would be a good idea the avoid wholegrain gruel and stick to corn gruel as long as her stomach is upset. So no visit to the emergency room this time.

Lazy

2009-07-03T18:42:00.000+03:00

I've been a lazy blogger lately. I think it's because it's summer right now =).

Dreamworld

2009-06-03T00:31:00.005+03:00

I got the idea to this post while I was doing my nightshift last night. I chose not to write it down then and you will understand why as you read further on.

As I have written before the world of the nightshift is a world of it's own in many ways. One of the more interesting aspects is the state of mind you are in while working at night. You are of course tired most of the time but there's a difference between being tired at night and being tired during the day. The difference is your state of mind.

Around 1-2 AM you get tired, sleepy tired but it usually blows over within an hour. At that point your social behavior constraints sort of a fade out. The person you have spent a lifetime at daytime pretending to be is gone and what is left is you, who is truly you. Writing a blog post or chatting on the Internet at this time could mean that you write too honestly, often bluntly honestly. It could be a good thing but it can also be bad.

The next phase happens around 4-5 AM. Your are still being honest but you start feeling exhaustedly tired and this is the point where you enter the dreamworld. You know when you had a strange dream and are waking up and the thought pattern that was created in your mind as a response to your strange dream is still fresh in your memory as you become awake. This is similar, but you are awake and you are not dreaming. You function normally, you do normal things and you can handle your job very well. But the mind goes off in a different direction.

You have strange thought patterns and emotions. Things you wouldn't think about or think in that way about at daytime. Your mind has gone weird. Your body is present and awake but your mind is living a life of it's own. I work alone at my nightshift which is probably a good thing because if you had someone to talk to during this time of night, you might have some really strange conversations.

If you have read some strange or even offensive blog post written by me, it was likely produced at around 5 AM by me at my night shift. It was me but it came from my dreamworld, a place not like the real world in daylight.

People have always performed their job well, the trouble with interacting with the real world usually doesn't happen before going of the nightshift in the parking lot. I call those troubles car problems. People haven't found their car among the 4-5 cars that are parked there the time people go of the nightshift or if they find it fail to understand how to start it. But once we get home and get some sleep we are back to normal when we wake up in the afternoon...

It's summer

2009-05-23T16:11:00.005+03:00

I guess I've been sort of lazy lately with my blog. But here I am again and it's summer. I have mowed the lawn twice, well almost, actually it's more like 1.5 times, tomorrow it will be done twice, if it doesn't rain. I'm doing my second evening shift out of four so that means I don't get much done at home.

Mirelle has started taken interest in our media center so my Xbox has no longer any gamepads attached to it. No she doesn't crawl yet. She rolls (and she's good at it) to where she want to go. That's not a good thing according to the current charts and flows the people at the child welfare center have. Notice I used the word current, I know of parents who have had their child referred to a child specialist at university hospital the same day because his/her growth/development didn't follow the new chart but was perfectly fine according to the old chart which was still in use the week before. And here's come the big surprise, the child specialist told the parents their child was perfectly fine.

I do realize that these people are professionals. I appreciate that they look out for medical problems in our kids since we aren't trained to see those problems but sometimes they bury themselves in their flows and charts and forget about reality. We parents actually meet and our kids meet, we see that they develop independently at their own pace in their own way. So if you have a kid that has actually followed the chart, all charts please make a comment, your child is the eighth wonder of the world and we will worship him/her. I'm not trying to be sacrilegious, I'm just convinced that such a child do not exist. Or about as plausible as when the first men land on Mars they will be met by a flock of sheep with bells around their necks and goes "Bah! Bah!! Bah!!!".

Stop the mass physocosis

2009-05-02T18:14:00.005+03:00

Make no mistake, having the flu can be the last thing you have, especially if your immune system is not what it's supposed to be. Annually around 250 000 to 500 000 people die from having the flu. 36 000 of those deaths happen in the USA. To put it in perspective, each day 700 to 1400 people around the world and 100 of those die in the USA die from having the flu and each day means every day, even on Sundays. So can someone please explain to me why 17 deaths caused by the swine flu during the course of 9 days make it such a dangerous pandemic? There are two flu seasons each year so most deaths caused by the regular flu occur during those, but statically seen around 10 000 people should have died from the regular flu during those 9 days.

The swine flu is real and it is deadly as every flu that comes twice a year, every year. But it's no more or less lethal than last years flu, actually less so far. But the tabloid press have owners who actually want to earn money and what better way to sell newspapers than exploit our fears?

The second evening

2009-04-13T15:59:00.002+03:00

Here I am again, spending my second evening shift at work. It's Easter and everyone seem to be celebrating Easter. Yesterday was warm and sunny while today has gone towards the cold and rainy type of weather. but it could be worse, it could still be snowing. This is the spring and the winter is raining away =)

Blogging isn't what it used to be

2009-04-12T20:18:00.001+03:00

I must admit that blogging isn't what it used to be. I like blogging, unfortunately more and more people seems to have stopped blogging and moved over to Facebook. Nothing wrong with that, most of my irl friends and other people I know are there and it's nice to see the these little status updates about what they are doing in their life.

BUT and it's a big but, the things you write in your blog you can NEVER put out on Facebook. I'm really not that weird but in company of friends you play a role, you are the person you always been in their eyes. You may have evolved light years during the last 10-15 years but to them you will always be the person they grew up with. And in a sense I still am but there are other sides of me that they know very little about and that I can express freely trough a blog.

When I write and mean truly write from the hearth I'm good at this. I can write without my hearth present and my long time readers can easily tell the difference. I think that in the beginning most of my blog posts where from the hearth but as each post got written my matters of my hearth got told and there where no point in rewriting them again.

So in order to be a productive blogger I wrote about mundane things, again, nothing wrong with that, it's just boring and without emotion. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't good neither. Stephen King once said that productive writers doesn't wait for inspiration, they get up every morning and start writing. He knows how to write without inspiration or maybe he never lost it although he claims he doesn't need it. I read most of his books and he's good, really good.

But I don't compare myself to a literally giant like Mr King. I need inspiration from the hearth in order to write to you, for you. I can write without it but it lacks that thing that separates the bad posts from the good posts, inspiration.

I'm back

2009-04-12T18:47:00.003+03:00

Well my month vacation is over and I'm back at work doing my first evening shift. Back in virtual reality =). Anyway I got some work done around the house, mainly making the stairs child safe, well almost, but it actually looks nice from downstairs.

My mother has moved from her apartment at a retirement home to a nursing home. We tried to get her to a nursing home closer to where we live but since Närpes municipality, her home of residence, had free beds and Korsholm municipality, where we tried to move her, didn't have free beds and Närpes had to pay for her first 6 months in Korsholm (I was told it costs 200-300 € per day) and the district taxation registrar who both municipalities tried to refer didn't have any decisive power in the matter and it was finally up to the two municipalities to agree over the matter, which they didn't, it means it's a one hour trip to to go and visit mom. To top all that off the social worker responsible for the elderly care in Korsholm had a week vacation when I tried to contact her and the same goes for the district taxation registrar and us spending a week in Stockholm, Sweden somewhere in between. It meant a lot of phone calls back and forth for the sake of finding out that it didn't work.

But on the goos side is that her nursing home felt nice and warm and the staff seems caring. Because in the end it's how my mom likes it that is the most important thing and she seems to like it, not how far we have to drive to visit her.

My blog on Facebook

2009-03-10T13:16:00.003+02:00

I'm publishing my blog on Facebook and no it's not this one. I'm publishing my Blogspot blog in Swedish trough Notes (I think it's called Notes, I'm not entirely sure since I got my Fb in Swedish and I'm too lazy to switch languages back and fort just to get that 100 % correct).

Around 95 % of my Facebook friend's mother tongue is Swedish and the rest should be able to read Swedish. And any future friends that does not understand Swedish should be able to find this blog trough my Blogspot profile. You can even find a blog in Finnish trough my profile but that's not being updated regularly. That's why I'm publishing my Swedish blog on Facebook and not any other one.

The smell of old clothes

2009-03-10T09:26:00.003+02:00

I need to use all of my t-shirts, not just my favorite t-shirts or the ones in the front of my t-shirt shelf. Today however I managed to find a t-shirt that has been in the back of the shelf for a while. It's clean, all my clothes in my wardrobe are clean. But no matter how clean they are, if they've been at the back and on the bottom of a shelf for a while they smell old clothes.

As a result I smell old clothes today.

Good Morning

2009-03-08T09:15:00.003+02:00

It's my first morning shift out of four, on a Sunday morning. I like working Sundays, for a different number of reasons so I actually like being here. Although going home is even greater =).

Yesterday was spent in Reisjärvi, or actually going to and from Reisjärvi. And in Reisjärvi we did some dog mating. If all goes well, it's a puppy summer. You wonder where Reisjärvi is. Well according to the GPS you drive north along the E8 to Jakobstad and then turn right and drive eastwards about a 100 miles into to middle of nowhere and the middle of nowhere starts emidietly after you leave E8 .

Fortunately we didn't follow the GPS or looked on the map and drew a straight line when we went home. We headed to the nearest "big" road, which meant going north 30 miles, then going westwards until we got back on E8 north of Kokkola. Now on the map this is a bad choice but roads east of Kokkola and north of Reisjärvi are so good that we actually saved time going the longer route. The GPS choice might work in the summer but it's still winter and the roads you could legally drive 80 km/h on you where sometimes forced to to drive 50-60 km/h on do to the snow/ice condition on the road.

Blogging again

2009-03-06T19:23:00.002+02:00

Well, this is a post about blogging. Yes I'm blogging again. With two other posts this day already, one very serious and one less serious it's time for a post about...nothing. It's just that sometimes you feel like writing about everything and nothing and sometimes you just don't feel like writing anything at al. I'm right now in the write mood...

Dementia

2009-03-06T17:37:00.004+02:00

My mom is spending a few days or maybe a week or two in hospital in order to determinate if she got dementia (we're pretty sure she has, that's how she ended up there in the first place), how severe it is, what type of dementia it is and what can be done about it and if something can be done about it.

Best case scenario is that it's false dementia caused by her medication, they change her medication and she'll be back in her apartment in a couple of weeks and her new medication will work a couple of years again. She had an episode like that three years ago and it has worked fairly well up until now.

Worst case scenario is that she got dementia and this is how far it has gone. Dementia is not an illness that gets better. So then we'll have to see if she can live in her apartment again and for how long. After that or by the end of this month we might start considering a nursing home.

But we'll have to see first how her condition progresses during the next few weeks...

I thought about writing individual e-mails about this for whom this concerns but then I realized that no none that I'm not related to or don't have family ties with reads this blog.

Can I have more flamebaits please

2009-03-06T17:05:00.002+02:00

I've got a small confession to make. I'm easily provoked by trolls. Throw me a flamebait and I'll be all over it. A few years back it was one of my favorite things to do on the Internet. But as I grew into a seasoned and experienced flamer I got bored. Roasting a few trolls is fun when you get the hang of it but it never ends. There's always a new troll in the next forum thread and there's always a new thread.

It's fun every now and then to read a few threads in the forums I used to hang out in but the trolling and flaming I leave to others. The occasional blog comment troll I get occasionally I can leave alone. Well almost, I usually writes a flaming reply and when I have written all that needs to be said about the troll and his opinion I delete it and then I write something like " I don't feed trolls". A flamer turned diplomat, but there's a huge difference with debating some issue on an anonymous forum and having a blog with your own name on it.

And for the sake of old times: Bring it on!!! ;-)