What's up with me?

Etiam victus

2008-04-07T20:25:00.003+03:00

"It is impossible to achieve the aim without suffering"
- J.G. Bennett

Ps. the header is possibly wrong, but it should say 'still alive' in latin. Wasn't that clever...

Inner silence

2007-11-16T12:10:00.000+02:00

Spiced up the morning jog some. I ran 3km interval at 11km/h, with the elevation following a standard bell curve over a 20 min duration. Looking back at some earlier posts, I must have been doing some slower speeds.. Back at Arcada I ran (trotted?) 3 km in 30 minutes. That's just barely over walking speed. 11km/h is alright.

When I'm practiced up I'll try to maintain 15km/h, which should give me a good 3km Cooper. This is more running than jogging though.. Maybe one day it would be nice to have run the marathon. To be a Marathon man. Level-up IRL. hah! It would be easier if they created like a 'miesten kymppi' event (after the women's 10km annual event).

... so much for that, here's something that came throug on my last.fm personal radio station here at work, and I wanna share it with you. It may seem a little emo, but I really like this song.

Anathema: Inner Silence

When the silence beckons,
And the day draws to a close,
When the light of your life sighs,
And love dies in your eyes,
Only then will I realise,
What you mean to me.

Have a nice wknd

Time flies..

2007-11-15T15:29:00.001+02:00

Wow, weeks go on by. Here's a quick update:

1. I got the thesis done.
2. Got some free time now
3. Work is good, life is good/ok.
4. Fall sucks, it's just too dark.
5. I like my work & co-workers!

Good stuff. I've been trying to get a little more active with sports.
The training regimen I'm trying on now is as follows:

- Tuesday, before work: 3km jog and some weights.
- Thursday evening: Squash 1 hour
- Friday, before work: 3km jog and some weights again
- Sunday noon: Squash 1 hour

The main bulk of my new-found free time has mostly been spent on catching up on reading, watching movies and playing some games. The computer's been upgraded a little thanks to a motherboard meltdown. I'm now running an Asus P5k with 4Gb ram and an Nvidia 8800gts 640. Seems to be running games alright. A bigger, better monitor is something I'd like very much, the 22" is a little limited by the resolution.

Some other purchases: A Canon S5is digicam & Canon Pixma mp600. They get the job done for most of the digital work that needs to be done.

Minna's been quite busy trying to juggle 3 jobs and her final year at school. There's also been some unwanted drama from her family's side. Without getting into details, I'll just say that we're not currently on speaking terms with the most of them. Minna's little brother is still cool, but the rest I'm not so sure about. Sad state of affairs, but what can you do.

Anyways, that's it for now.

BLASTOFF

2007-10-23T11:24:00.000+03:00

I think I'll start typing again, friends.

Some of the more recent events:

Workplace changed to Verkkokauppa.com
Thesis deadline 7 days!
I feel positive... :)

"Spring is in the air"

2007-04-12T16:35:00.000+03:00

Well, it seems like spring is back again. The first symptoms of allergy are here, hooray. Time to dig out the old recipes and get some meds.. Have to cancel the squash game with Mr. M. today. So far I have not managed to write a single line of text for my thesis, but have instead been reading a 1950s history classic by Mr. Alf Henrikson: "Alf Henrikson: Antiikin tarinoita 1-2" third Finnish edition. "And how is that relevant to your thesis?" I hear you ask. None of your goddamn business! Perhaps I was trying to get some inspiration from the rhetorics of Cicero? :P

Anyways! It is a very readable history of ancient times. Periods covered are roughly 1000 bce to 500 ce. Great source of stories and highly acceptable. One thing that is bothering me, though - is the complete lack of accurate references. Given the sheer volume of quotable material, and the projected reader's interest in references (and the fact that the book was written in the 50s) this is arguably quite understandable. The author has a very casual writing style, similar to Veijo Meri (note: his non-fiction Finnish history series) & Henri Troyat (biographies..). Sometimes it is rather fun to just blaze through authors such as these. The more serious (from an academical perspective anyway!) writers, such as Anthony Beevor are a little more tedious to read. This does not mean that their books are any less enjoyable. The amount of detail and research that for an example Mr. Beevor puts into his books is quite respectable.

Back to other tasks...

It's been a while

2007-04-11T21:43:00.000+03:00

Hello friends and e-friends. Looks like I will have to step it up some to make the 52 posts! That is still the big idea. Anyway, I will give an update of what's been going on in due time, perhaps with some backlogging posts, that'll go somewhere in the middle.

Here is a "thought for the day", taken from the proposed Blogger's code of conduct (against trolls):

"Never wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty, but the pig likes it."

Lite brådis

2007-02-12T17:22:00.000+02:00

I've been doing some hardware upgrades. Here's the short shopping list:

22" Samsung LCD display
Intel Core 2 Duo E4300
Asrock 4CoreDual-VSTA motherboard

The old 22" CRT display went bust and I had to get something to replace it. After a short browsing frenzy I went and got the Samsung from downtown, from the only place that actually had it in the shelf, Serv-it. A week or so later, I got annoyed by not being able to play HD-Divx movies. So it was time to look at a budget-friendly computer upgrade. The asrock's motherboard makes it possible to run either ddr or ddr2 memory, it supports both agp and pci-e slots, and takes any goddamn intel socket 775 cpu. Another plus is that it's dirt cheap. See, as far as motherboards go, you can shelf between 50-300 euros on them. This one is at the bottom range. I noticed it too, as soon as I had installed everything. Lots of crashes and freezes. Apparently their hardware support for ATA drives is pretty bad. Luckily it seems most of the problems are gone now that I used the drivers from the CD, and did not use new ones from the web. Strange. The E4300 is running at default clock speed now, I cannot be arsed to fiddle with it since everything is running smooth as it is.

Found a new, very handy image backup application. Acronis True Image 10. Speedy backups possible, easy to run restore (you can either install a boot menu, or run it from usb/cd, cool stuff). It helped quite considerably when my C:\ partition was being raped by the ASS-Rock motherboard. Luckily no important data was lost, but it was not a pleasant experience. I'm not used to fighting shitty hardware. But I'll have to say, now that it's running smooth, all is well.

Eventually I'll make the jump to decent motherboard and buy a monster 8800-gtx series graphic card. And overclock the HELL out of this cpu. But as things are now, I don't want to spend money in more hardware untill I've graduated.

Another monday half spent

2007-02-05T16:06:00.000+02:00

Been a while since the last update. I've got to keep up! :)

Been a little sick again. Some fever, but it went away in the same day. Situation now: home alone, drinking coffee and getting ready mentally to work on my thesis.

I've been pulling 3-4 work shifts per week. On the off time I've been watching some episodes of twin peaks, Rome second season & playing games (America's Army, Continuum, Europa Univeralis III, Fable, Medieval 2: Total war). I've done quite a considerable amount of reading as well, sadly I don't have the library receipts to see the reading history. Anyway, it's been history mostly + some business books.

I've also done some work on the thesis. Btw, procrastination is a bitch.. but have no fear friends! There are ways to combat it, such as goal setting. The following is a dirty copy-paste to make this post appear longer:

Goal Setting
This is a very effective mechanism for limiting procrastination. The process requires taking some larger goal and breaking it down into a series of smaller tasks. For optimum effectiveness, these goals should have four properties: Specificity, Challenge, Proximity, and Routine. It works very much as Discounted Utility Theory, outlined on the Theory webpage, would predict.

Specificity
Goal specificity refers to explicit standards and conditions that indicate their fulfillment. Increasing specificity has been shown to increase performance and, in turn, should decrease procrastination. To the degree one does not have a clear understanding of when goals are about to be achieved, the motivational benefits of temporal discounting do not occur. In other words, you should know exactly where your finishing line is.
Challenge
Challenge of goal essentially increases its value. Achieving a difficult challenge is more rewarding than achieving an easy task. To avoid procrastination, challenging goals should be set as they have higher value and less easily overshadowed by other alternatives. To be effective, challenging goals should be set as they have higher value and are less easily overshadowed by other alternatives. Of note, expectancy is somewhat diminished by challenge. Consequently, there is an optimal breakpoint where the decreased expectancy of a goal outweighs the potential gains in satisfaction.
Proximity
Ideally, your goals should be set though that they can be completed in a timely manner, perhaps today or even just this morning. Distant goals are substantially delayed, reducing the motivational effectiveness. The only reservation regarding proximity is that by dividing a large goal into variously spaced sub-goals, each sub-goal must necessarily be easier to achieve and thus less satisfying. Consequently, there should be a breakpoint where the further subdivision of a goal decreases achievement motivation more than can be offset by the decrease in delay.
Routine
One predictor of procrastination is the number of “choice points” a task requires. The more junctures that require choice, the more likely it is that we will procrastinate. Consequently, one of the most powerful self-control techniques is the development of automaticity through routines. Automaticity refers to a habitualized course of action that can be conducted with little or no conscious attention. These automatic routines can maintain goal pursuit as they limit decision making to that relevant to the task at hand. Consequently, you should try to schedule your goals to occur at a regular time and a regular place. For example, if you trying to exercise, choose a day, a time, a place, and stick to it as best as possible. If sickness makes you miss a day, get back to it as soon as possible. Eventually, you won't be deciding to do other things. You will just find yourself effortlessly performing."

(In)discipline

2007-01-09T20:29:00.000+02:00

Just a quick update. Typing frenzy. Thesis not coming along that well at all. There are so many distractions in the world. I'll keep this post short and wrap it up with a short responce to my problem from Mr. Robert Fripp:

Here is a question: what do you do when you have
no enthusiasm, no interest, and no energy?

Another question: what do you do when you
can't do anything?

The answer is simple: You do what has to be done.

The principle is this: suffer cheerfully.
Deliver your commitment on what has to be done.
Reliability is elementary.

RF

2007, another go at it

2007-01-03T14:43:00.000+02:00

Hello all you boys and girls. My new years resolution is to try to give you 52 updates this year. I'll give you a brief 5-points update on what's gone down since the last time I updated:

Got married
Went on honeymoon (Bratislava & Prague, missed Wien due to shitty weather)
Started writing on a thesis
Got sick with pertussis, still recovering (!)
Started studying spanish

Untill next time

Ruisrock

2006-07-10T10:26:00.000+03:00

Last Sunday we went to Ruisrock. The weather was hot (30-something celcius) and the music was good. That Sunday sported an amazing roster. I got to see four of my favorite bands. It cannot get much better than that. On top of that, there were quite a few decent bands to keep the good vibes rolling (Teräsbetoni, The Crash, The Cardigans, Poets of the Fall, Amorphis etc). Ismo Alanko threw a tremendous gig, I'd say one of the best, most intense performances I have ever seen live. It was well worth missing two songs from Morrissey's set to see Ismo Alanko Säätio. Speaking of Morrissey, he was surprisingly heavily built. I would not say fat, but stocky. Nevertheless, the setlist comprised of a few Smiths songs, while the main focus was on songs from the last two albums. I was really glad that they played "To me you are a work of art", however the performance of the guitar parts in the latter section of the song left something to be desired; perhaps the problem with that was in the mixing - the band seemed professional enough. Also, we were foolish not push our way to the center of the action (right in front of the stage), and thus were not really part of the performance; more just witnessess to it.

It was all different for the Ismo Alanko gig. There we went quite close to the stage, and as we knew almost all the songs by heart - we had a good time singing/shouting the lyrics. Ismo was all into it and really gave 110%! At times it seemed as if he had lost his mind turned into some primal creature. It was magnificent sight to behold.

Another favorite band that performed in Ruisrock was Scandinavian Music Group. We have seen them like 5 times in Tavastia. This was our first 'open air concert' with them. They were quite good, though they sadly did not play any songs that we had not heard before. The only unrecorded song which they played was "Lopulta Olemme Kuitenkin Yksin", which is one of their best slow tunes so far. The guitar playing and melancholy feel of song bring to mind an impression of Sade. That is a high compliment imo.

Anyway their gig was one of the highlights of the day. Joel Melasniemi was high on 'rock'n'roll' (compare with Ismo Alanko). At the ending stages of the song 'Rannalta Toiselle' he stepped up to the mic and began to scream as long and loud as he could, all the while giving his guitar a terrible riff-beating. Laughter and amusement! :) This is the kind of stuff good summers are made off.

Finally, the last band we got to see was TOOL. It was the last gig of their european tour. Tool is perhaps a studio band. They played absolutely brilliantly, but sounded 1:1 with their albums, which for me was a bit of a turn off - however not enough to ruin it for me. I would not have minded seeing them work some of the songs towards new paths. Improvisation and song transformation does not seem to fit into their consept. They put in a good show however, and I'm really glad to have seen them live. It's one of those bands that I've always wanted to see live (right up there with say, Nick Cave & King Crimson).

Jak se máte?

2006-06-26T21:47:00.000+03:00

Many things have passed since I last posted. I studied an intense course of 'Czech for beginners' at the summer university of Helsinki. "Why the fuck did you want and go do that for?" I hear you ask. Well, firstly for the ECTS, secondly in preparation for our honeymoon. The schedule was grueling. For two and a half weeks, there were lessons from Monday to Thursday, 4.30pm-7.45pm. This mean going to work at 7.00am, so that I could leave at 3pm. I went to the classroom early, to catch up on homework (or should it be calle coursework, we're not in gradeschool anymore, folks). Due to my schedule (work, wedding plans etc), I had some difficulty doing the forementioned homework after class (in the late evenings), since usually when I came home I was hungry and had to cook something. Quite often there was also the regular chore of doing dishes before being able to do that. Naturally after having done all that crap & eaten, I regularily lacked the energy to pull off a proper final effort of the evening (say plowing through 4 pages of Czech grammar homework + learning 20 verbs by heart + 30ish nouns per day). Long days, they were, yes sir indeed. Not your average cakewalk summer, goddamnit. To top it off, there was the constant detail-minding of wedding related issues. You get the picture. It was hard times. I don't think I have ever been tested as much as with this course. The professor was constantly on your case. Would not leave you alone. Got you involved, whether you wanted or not. I suppose even getting it wrong is a matter of learning. Certainly makes you remember how to NOT say something, yeah? His methods were effective, though stress levels were high. Reminded me of the first week or two in the Army.

This is a good time to comment some of my fellow students. Out of a class of 15, two were male. Average age I would estimate to be around 40. During the course, three people dropped out - shame on them, and what a fucking waste of 98 euros! Out of the final 12, 8 were either teachers or university level students of languages (one was writing her thesis Russian language at the time). Rather academic a bunch. I have some aptitude for languages, but I could not hang with these damn women, with their superior language/communication oriented brains. Goddamn them all! Very discouraging. But of course it made you either 1. drop out or 2. try harder. I tried harder, but it was still annoying to see some of these women with their Czech workbooks filled before hand. Of particular annoyance to me was this approximately 45 year old 'student' majoring in russian. She was the worst. I bet you she had bought the book months in advance and learned it beforehand, even done all the homework. There was not a single eraser mark on her worksheet. Psycho. She was visually disappointed whenever she made a mistake in grammar or could not find the right word(s). And then when she got it right and -particularily- when the teacher praised her for her efforts, she had an annoying knack of raising her hands to the sides of his head, and pressing the palms of her hand to her cheeks, in order to not reveal the glowing smile that started beneath. Oh man. Overachiever. Nerd-geek-bastard. No-lifer. Loser. Ok I digress - I'll give her props for being good at what she's good at. Yawn... Languages are not my main forté, so I should let it slide. But still, her satisfaction with herself reached almost autoerotic heights. Pathetic.

Anyway! Eventually I managed to pull off grade 1 (out of 5) for the 4 ECTS. Not bad, considering how goddamn demanding the course was, and how limited my resources were. I am proud that I passed, truly am. After our honeymoon, there will be a continuation course starting. I plan to study a little bit for it in advance, and outdo myself...

What the fu**

2006-06-16T14:40:00.000+03:00

I cannot keep this shit updated, it is impossible! Short scoop: I'm pulling 50+ hr work/studyweeks, and busy prepping the wedding. It has been a while since I last had 'proper time' just to do whatever the hell I liked. Next Wednesday is my Czech exam, untill then I will be grievously busy. Untill then & after, adios

What's new, pussycat?

2006-05-12T09:46:00.000+03:00

Holy crap it's been a while has it not!? I've been keeping busy, honey. Keep your pants on. Or take them off! I turned 26 yesterday. Nice festivities at a nearby joint called Soul Kitchen. It's a cool theme bar: 60s 70s funk & groove music only. Cheap dishes of food, quite good too. We were there with a small crowd of 7. Started at 8pm, got home eventually around 1.40am. It was not so nice to wakeup at 7.40 to go to work. Minna had it worse, since she had to wakeup a little after 6. Ouch. Speaking of which, we are both working now, gearing up the financials since we're getting married this summer. I'm at my comfortable office, doing some accounting stuff. Minna's working at a hospital on a surgical ward, serving food & making beds and the sort.

I'll try to update some more shortly

Breaking promises

2006-04-04T17:59:00.000+03:00

Sorry dear readers. Time is too scarce to fulfill my duties. I make no promises, except that my schedule should become quite a bit easier after easter holidays. Thank you! I will end this post with a quote from a Prince song, which is rather fitting considering the time of year.

"Sometimes it snows in April
Sometimes I feel so bad, so bad
Sometimes I wish that life was never ending,
But all good things, they say, never last"

Btw, I'm not depressed! It's just that it's snowing in April!

Oops I did it again

2006-03-27T18:00:00.000+03:00

18.00 Hi. Yeah, a month rolled by. Blame it on the Hockey game Finland lost. I'll try to update a little later today, just letting you know that I'm still alive!

Rather decent tidings

2006-02-25T17:05:00.000+02:00

Well now. The skiing holiday was a trip. Sitting in front of a fireside is one genuine pleasure. Adding wood when needed, drinking something warm (Stroh+water+sugar) & just relaxing. Hartola is pretty nice place. We have been there a few times together. It's Minna's uncle's old family place, a couple of cottages by the lakeside. Beautiful scenary, fresh forest air. We got lucky and managed to have one cloudfree night. The stars shone something incredible. It's simply impossible to see so many stars when you live in a city. Makes you feel rather small.

A few days away from Helsinki does one good. You get to tune out. Wake up when you feel like it, eat good food, drink wine & other alcoholic beverages. I enjoy being outside, but not so much in the city I guess. Having a sauna over there is different as well, as the bathhouse stove is manually wood-heated. The washing water has to be obtained from under 30 centimeters of ice.
This includes a few tasks. A littlee ice-boring, water-pumping, and bucket carrying. By the time you're done and actually have the sauna warming up & ready to go, you'll be needing it :)
Anyway, I got to know last friday that I was picked for the job. Excellent! I'll start working there from the beginning of May. I'm eager to see what it really is, though I can't say I'm expecting too much. But at least I will get to know something I've learned in school, even though I'm not specializing in financial accounting...

Finland vs Sweden in the Olympic hockey finals! Tomorrow's game is going to be a huge nailbiter. Let's hope we finally win gold. It's about goddamn time, and the team's good too!

Quick update

2006-02-21T22:56:00.000+02:00

We just returned from a 4 day skiing holiday. And yes, indeed - it put on ski's for the first time since like the 80s! Wow. A proper update with some good news shall be given tomorrow. Now it's email frenzy & a quick roundup of what I've missed due to being disconnected for 4 days. Tomorrow also marks a nasty return to everyday life. Lectures from 8.30 to 16.00. Son of a Bitch.

It has begun.

2006-02-13T13:16:00.000+02:00

Good day to everyone. With bacon and eggs on the stove, I begin my quick typing exercise. My final thesis is on the way! It's a humble beginning, a mere page: managed to type out a bit of an introduction. Only what, 39 pages to go? Hurrah. It's still something. I have yet to hear from the potential employer to be. I'll try not to get nervous about it. But I have to say, I was expecting an email to be sitting at my inbox saying 'welcome'. [The author returns to the kitchen to flip over bacon & eggs - returns] Sizzling - every now and then it's good to have a proper unhealthy breakfast. Or dinner. I confess, I slept a bit late. It's not so bad, I only have lectures from 3 to 6pm today. [The author has quick breakfast - returns to chair with a cup of coffee]. Simple pleasures, folks. A bit of the old salty & peppered bacon & eggs followed by a cup of joe.

Let's have a recap on the weekend:

Friday evening: King Remedy: honest rock n' roll @ a seedy bar downtown. Came home around 2.30am. A bit of a latenight snack & off to bed...

Saturday: Rather uneventful, a bit hungover. Did not get much typing done at all. Spent most of the day maintaining my windows XP installation on C: partition. I had not done a proper backup in 4 months. Speaking of which, stay the hell away from Norton Ghost 9 or 10. Keep to the 2003 version, or perhaps Acronis True Image 9. Why? Because Norton has gone shit. While going through all sorts of backup options, I managed to get my computer infected with a rather nasty worm. I managed to clean it out without using any antivirus program, but it took bit of time. Now I've Norton Antivirus 2006 installed - but I plan on uninstalling it. It didn't find anything wrong with my set, other than the zipped files I had made of the worm infested dll's & exe files. What a wasted saturday that was. I could have done a lot more interesting things than backing up my files, geez. That was my fun for the first free Saturday in ages! Pathetic. Just goes to show that weekends are overrated. Relax & get some piece of mind whenever you can...

Sunday was bit more eventful. Me, Minna, my brother & Martti & Pia went to do some sliding at the peaks of Paloheinä (using classic model plastic sleds, aka Pulkka's). I have no idea how long it has been since I had last been on one. It must have been in the early 90s. A lot of fun! We started out rather roughly at the highest peak. (yes yes, it pales in comparison with the bad boys). But let me tell you, were up for a rough ride. Consider around 140 kilograms of manflesh riding down a semi-steep, ice-covered, hillocky descent on top of a flimsy, treacherously crooked pulkka, it's serious business! Only my bro managed to ride it all the way down without tipping over. I failed both with Martti & Minna. The first ride with Martti ended up in disaster after we hit a big bounce. We both got thrown out of the pulkka, rolling & tumbling - eventually sliding downards in prone position for maybe 20-some meters with the sled who knows where. Nice! I was foolish enough to leave my wallet in my right hip-pocket. When we landed down after that big bounce, all the change I had in my wallet (which was all neatly packed in one corner of the wallet) struck me rather nicely at abductor magnus muscle. The bruise is not very visible, but it hurts. Pooey. The second descent on that peak was with Minna. It started out rather nicely, but then something went wrong again. We fell over properly. I actually ended up somersaulting over Minna! Dangerous business. I remember seeing her rolling downhill (this is all happening in split seconds), she was all hair (it had spread out like a fan!) and I was just trying to keep out of rolling over her... Luckily neither of us got hurt, and it was all laughs :) Later on in the evening, I did have a bit of a headache. Suppose it was more due to the constant small bumps on the hill, rather than the big crashes. Sliding is not too dangerous since you are right on ground-level. It is only the damn bumps that screw it up! There were many more fantastic descents, but I think you get the picture. What made this trip really rather out of the ordinary, was that 1. It was on a Sunday 2. It was during the day (1.30-3pm) 3. There was no alcohol involved! It was great though, and we intend to do it again, inside 2-3 weeks time.

By the way I fixed the link on the right-hand side. The lastFM one should be working properly now. You get to see what kind of music I have been listening to lately. Or rather, what has been played in our winamp. After all, it is not I alone who use it. This turned out to be a rather long post as opposed to the short 'morning update' I had envisaged. Time to head out for my Synthesis I:Import/Export class.

Let us hope this week is a good one!
I'll update later today if I get the email...

Score!

2006-02-10T11:09:00.000+02:00

The interview went rather well I must say. While I was waiting at the lobby, I met an old co-worker from my ICT-specialist days. We had not met in 3 years, and it was really good to see her! It was most convenient too. As my interviewer arrived, we all three took the same elevator up. The former co-worker gave my interviewee a quick recommendation on my behalf while we were ascending. Nice start indeed. Then what followed was the usual. "Would you like some coffee?" etc. The interview took about an hour, and it was easygoing, face to face. I'm pretty sure I got the job. She said she will call me today or by Monday at the latest (slyly noting, that she's pretty sure we'll be seeing each other again soon enough). I hope so. That would make my future all set until the late fall, or perhaps even beyond. The only big question mark is: accounting - is it really for me? That remains to be answered. Nevertheless, the least I can do is give it an honest shot. Maybe it's not all that bad. Though I must say, sitting in a cubicle surrounded old women does not sound excessively tempting. The main thing is that I get to try my hands on a job on the same field where I've been trained to work in. Though it's not only accounting I can do. It's actually perhaps the least favored of my possible orientations, alongside with marketing. Finance & Investments is where it's at. Perhaps a little human resources? The IT-sector is still quite close to my heart. A job in the purchasing side of a large company would be quite interesting. Speaking of which, my potential & probable future employer is rather large in size, with net sales in billions... There will be loads and loads of insider-only job advertisements. In fact, my old co-worker said that she came to the firm just to get her foot in - and managed to land a much better job within a year. Nice! She's working on the 6th floor, while I will be on the 7th. I'm looking forward to having lunch together getting to hear all the dirty gossip about her last days at our former workplace.

Now it is time for me to convert the amount of the hours I've been putting in as a sales rep into decimal format. The wages clerk will be most happy to get my time list pre-done. I can't wait until next Wednesday to get paid. After fixing the numbers I'll eat something quickly and head off to work. Good stuff. The only thing bothering me right now is the fact that I've yet to begin typing my final thesis. That's a real son-of-a-bitch of a boulder on the sole of my shoe! Glad I have this weekend off work, so I can perhaps commence work on it. Here's hoping!

Over & Out.

The defining moment

2006-02-09T20:31:00.000+02:00

Dear readers! (I know there are very few of you, but bless you nonetheless). This past week has been good to me. Nothing out of the ordinary has happened, but I have enjoyed it! Work has been great. Social life acceptable. Squash good.

Tomorrow I will have a job interview at 10.15. Wish me luck! It'll be a job closer to my field. I like my current sales rep thing just fine, but they cannot promise steady 40 hours workweek for the summer duration. Let us hope all goes well. I've a good feeling.

On a sidenote, isn't it strange how caricatyres - or should I say 'offending drawings' - can create huge friction between groups? I'm observing the 'Denmark/Norway/West/Freedom of Speech' vs Islam situation heating up with a steady and unnerving pace. Expect an angry Muslim outburst in Paris any day now. Strange times...

Existentialism

2006-02-01T16:40:00.000+02:00

I finished a series lectures on existentialism today (lecturer was Professor Robert Solomon— From the University of Texas) . It was a 12 hour audio book. The lecturer went through some ideas by Camus, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger & Sartre. And what did I learn? Good question. The lectures revolve around responsibility & passion. The latter give life some meaning - we can choose to follow them! Do we exist in a sense that we live our life to the fullest? Or do we perhaps just go along with the crowd ("so called existance"), just doing what we're supposed to, being good persons etc. We're encouraged to take hold of our own lives, towards realizing what & where our particular talents and virtues are. Existentialism argues that life is about is about passionately throwing yourself into the work you do, thus "becoming the person you really are". No excuses: our personal choices and commitments define us. However, it doesn't tell people what to do, or how to do it. The choices, passions & discoveries must be made by you. We are in charge of our lives, we make ourselves. I thought it was entertaining and enlightening. A bit on the heavy side though.

I have yet to begin typing my final thesis. Research needs to be undertaken first. The first few books have been reserved from the library - I should go and pickup the first one that came available today. Naturally it would not hurt if I knew exactly what I am aiming at. Needless to say, some clarification and discussion is needed before I continue. Survey or interviews is the main topic. The thesis requires solid & useful first hand material.

Current weekly schedule: 20 hours of school, 20 hours of work. In addition, all homework & projects, and whatever time I put into the final thesis. Next week will bring some changes. I today (partially) finished 1 course, but have 3 new courses beginning shortly. The current bane of my life has been accounting. I did the final exam (second out of two) for it today, it went well I suppose. Now I need to quickly do a monster of an assignment for it - and take the midterm as a re-exam on March. If all goes well, everything will be passed & I will be a happy man. I flunked that on my first year, and never got around to doing it again. I thought the course was starting on January, but it turned out they had begun already last November. Therefore, I had quite a bit of catching up to do. My good luck was that the teacher split the course into two parts. 1. Proper accounting (double-sided, T-accounts), and 2. Understanding & evaluating financial statements. This latter part was cake, as I had already taken Finance & Investments. I really dislike the first bit though. Now I have to make a monster excel assignment by Monday. Bitch. Thursday & Friday will be full-blown workdays, with little energy left in the evening. Saturday is just 4 hours shift, so maybe that'll be the day to do it.

That's it for now.

Latenight links

2006-01-29T01:39:00.000+02:00

Hello. Work's been ok. Friday went by with ease, though I was working much harder than on thursday, when I was just learning the ropes. Saturday was the worst though. People queuein for 20 meters before the store opened. Crazy bastards, thinking that if they're early they'll avoid the crowd & lines. Fools! Anyway. Here's a quick link before I got to bed. I thought it was mildy amusing, not having heard the song before. Let's make it clear that I am not a WoW player/fan either! Did you know that it's 20 years since the Challenger disaster? Anyway, time to go to bed. I'll finish up with a quote from one of the investigators of the case, a special friend of mine: Richard 'dick' Feynman: "For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled." Amen.

First impressions

2006-01-26T20:12:00.000+02:00

Hello there. How can I help you? First day at work. The work of a IT-equipment & supplies salesman is not too shabby. But do not get me wrong. It's not glamorous either.

The good sides:

I can buy hardware & software for my own use, slicing through the margins.
The customers are humble - for the most part.
You're constantly selling different things - from 42" lcd tv's to laptops to 10-packs of dvds & the odd cables & connectors.
The co-workers are easy-going, smart, and helpful.
It's a hell of a lot closer to home than my last place.

The bad sides:

I can't buy that much hardware because the salary isn't SIZZLING. It's OK. I get a whopping two thousandths of whatever I sell as commission. Well suppose I sell stuff worth 30k per day, that's 60€ bonus. Wee. May all the fucking yuppies come my way.
Some of the customers are annoying PERIOD.
Few breaks, you cannot relax much. People are watching.
It's taking away my evenings and saturdays. Well I get compensated for that!
Still not quite what my schooling should get me.

You do the math and tell me. At least I am moving on.

New template

2006-01-25T21:43:00.000+02:00

To celebrate my 50th post, I opted to change my template to something a little more, err, green. 50 posts in what, 55 weeks is not much, hey? Perhaps a little more discipline is needed of me. Anyway, here's a link for all you sickos who want to learn of the evils of this world: The Crime Library!

Arbeit macht frei

2006-01-25T16:10:00.000+02:00

A twist of good luck. I got a job as a sales rep in the IT field. I went and quit my old & dreaded warehouse job! Good bye, good riddance, & farewell. As my old workfriend with whom I've been through 3 different jobs noted: arbeit macht frei! It's quite possible to get rid of a shitty job through getting a better one :) Awesome. In another fantastic strike of good news, we will get a free accomodation in Copenhagen come April. We are going there to attend my cousin Anne's wedding & she's promised to let us stay at their flat during the weekend. The married couple will be staying at a hotel. This is excellent and most welcome news.

I checked yesterday, and my work practice credits have been approved in full. Superb! I was a bit worried if my old POS work could be approved, but damned if it didn't. This day has been full of good news. Things are on the up & up! I just hope everything goes well tomorrow, as I start work at the new place.

Freezing!

2006-01-19T17:05:00.000+02:00

This morning had to be the worst in a long time. Waking up - fine. Quick and hasty (and tasty) breakfast, ok. But the weather. -20'c with 8m/s winds. I walk to school regularily, regardless of weather. That principle may have to change. For reference, go here and click on the link to see an interactive graph that depicts how much 'bite' the weather has. It shows how cold the weather feels on your skin by taking into account the wind speeds. So this morning, I was exposed for 15 minutes to approximately -32,5C. When it is cold and windy, quite often my eyes start to leak. Today, in that weather, the tips of my eyelashes developed small round bits of ice. I kid you not. The worst part of the walk was while I was crossing an approx 170m long bridge at an elevation of... hmm say 15 meters. The wind on that bridge is viciously penetrating. There was a couple of times last fall when I almost fell into the ground because of a vicious whirl! Well this time it blowing that hard, but felt cold enough. Ouch! The wind was head on. Breathing was difficult. I couldn't keep my eyes open for long periods. Suppose the breeze was 15m/s. That would be -36 in the 'bite' index. At that level, you get frostbite if exposed for ~10 minutes or longer. I believe it :P

Tomorrow morning is going to be another struggle. But have no fear - I shall be better prepared. Sidenote: as I was walking back from school (the weather relatively cozy now with the suns warming effect) I got to thinking about all the poor bastards throughout history who have had march or wage war in freezing conditions. Poor bastards indeed. Well, enough about the weather - I apologise (even though I am excused by my geographical area with 4 seasons!)

It'll be a busy spring. My final thesis is starting to take form. Did some initial research at the school library today. Apparently there has been some interest in the topic in the last couple of years. I found two somewhat similar thesises made. I'm wondering whether I should take a peek? Perhaps get some ideas for references. I have had to sign a nondisclosure agreement with the company I'm making the final thesis for. The good thing with this is that the firm will be providing me with information, guidance, and ultimately - money. Not bad. Too many of my colleague students past & present have had to do their thesises without getting financially compensated for their efforts. Anyway, as far as secrecy goes, any & all information about the topic, as far as details to the company in itself is conserned - shall be beyond the scope of this Blog. However! The final thesis after all is a public document. It will be reviewed by senior staff at my polytechnic. I will present it to public in an 'open to all' seminar. And finally, there will be a copy of it available at the school's library. It'll be a fine day indeed when I am done with this project. Cash and glory. Well, at least cash and a sense of relief.

Work front news: email frenzy back and forth. I may become a freelance technical writer. An ISO certified translation agency contacted me regarding my open application. We have exchanged several emails and it looks good. If they find something that would fit my experience and talents, they'll send me a small sample. I will process it (translate most likely) and send it back. The company will then decide if I'm up for the project or not. Naturally, I have no idea when such projects will come my way. Maybe never. But the fact that a senior staff member of the company has been willing to exchange emails with me so freely has led me to believe that perhaps there is hope. Today, around noon I got a phonecall from another company. About a position in an IT sales. I'll go to the job interview on monday 12.00. It would be part-time. Decent pay. Nice benefits (though I really shouldn't be buying hardware right now). Just what I need. Let's hope it works out! I'm also expecting a couple of responses to my summerjob applications. These would be accounting firms. The topic does not _really_ interest me, but hey - anything is better than what I've been doing for the last two summers. Well maybe it's not that bad - but still. I'd rather have a real job.

Interesting times indeed.

Frenzy

2006-01-18T18:24:00.000+02:00

Hello there! School's kicked off. So has the ever annoying search for summerjobs! Maybe this summer I will finally get something good going. I should be done with 95% of my studies by the middle of april. It's going to be a rough ride untill then. The topic for my final thesis is pretty much set now. Gotta start doing the research for it. It'll be about how to economically internationalize an new-media company. Around 40 pages will do it. Back to studying Accounting, out of all things. Sigh!

Happy New Year

2006-01-03T14:38:00.000+02:00

Hello. Still alive! Time flies by fast, and blogging is difficult without discipline. I'll just start on the theater bit. It was surprisingly good: Shakespeare done in a modern adaption with sexy undertones. My grades for school were rather good, 4's and 5's (out of 5). I had a few nice evenings between friends, cousins and family. Wintertime is perfect for sitting together with a few good people, eating snacks, drinking Glögg and maybe playing a bit of Carcassonne.

Christmas was rather nice and cozy, except that I had to go to work on boxing day, d'oh.
The eve we spent at Minna's parents, and xmas day at my parents. Nice set of presents we got, yessir. Not a single CD or DVD this time though, which may strike most people as weird! What with the days of burning dvd's & fast connections, perhaps people don't see the point anymore. Unless you really like & enjoy something - then you prolly want 'the real deal' - given you've got the money for it.

New year was a strange affair. Minna had work from 10pm-4.30am, while I had work on new year's day from 8am to 4pm. Not much of a party. But we did try - we went to one party at around 7pm - but naturally Minna had to leave pretty soon. I followed suite an hour after that with Martti, Emmu & Heljä. Got to see the fireworks, and drank a few beers. Even thought I showed considerable restraint as far as drinking went, it still wasn't easy to go to work the next morning. Most likely it's just because of lack of sleep.

With the days being so short, you've got to have something relaxing to do in the evenings, or you'll go crazy. Sitting in front of the telly, or watching movies nonstop will get you fucked. At least it gets me very edgy. Which is why I've been try to get some exercise in... I actually borrowed my brother's ice-skates and went skating with Ali last week. What a disappointment that was. Maybe it was the skates, or the fact that I was last on ice in the 90s - but man, I was crap. Back in my early & later teens, I was pretty good. In the A-team in school. But damn. I think it's at least partially due to the equipment. The skates blunt & loose from the ankles, hockeystick was too long, and the ice sucked.. Excuses? - I really need to find a saw from somewhere. And buy some skates. The old ones I own are a few sizes too small. Besides the slight discomfort and disbelief of noticing the degradation of my skills, I really enjoyed exercising outdoors for a change. Squash & gym are both cool, but you don't get the same feeling afterwards. Being outdoors for a couple of hours in mild frost temperature is something else. I plan hitting the ice again this week, either today or tomorrow.

Let's hope 2006 is a good year. Some of the future highlights: we are getting married, I will graduate, and (possibly) get a decent job. Cheers!

dribble drabble

2005-12-02T19:08:00.000+02:00

Two weeks zoomed by and what happend? I haven't got the faintest idea since I haven't been keeping this blog up to date! Well, one thing that's turned around; final exams. One down, two to go. Pretty easy going it seems, but I still want to do these properly, if not for anything else, then for the fact that I haven't been doing anything else schoolwise! Would suck to blow those grades since I've not exactly been busy doing other stuff for the last couple of months. Tomorrow: work. Followed by Theater.

Thought of the day

2005-11-16T13:08:00.000+02:00

Tolerance should not tolerate intolerance.

Arr

2005-11-11T21:32:00.000+02:00

Re-exam today, went well. After that I went to the gym - damn place was packed, so I did a quick workout & tried on the running mat for size. I ran 3 kilometers in 30 minutes, then walked one km to ease down. It was fairly painless - I was surprised. Jogging's always been a pain in the ass for me... But of course, my pace was slow enough so it wasn't really straining... But I sweating like a pig! After having a shower, I went to the local Pizza place & got a badass superpizza of 8 fillings, ate it, staggered home & opened a big can of beer. That's living healthy for you. Over & Out.

Abacab

2005-11-10T14:17:00.000+02:00

Saw Maisa's first gig a couple of days ago, go girl! 2 songs played acousticly @ the Velvet club in Semifinal.

Finished the Roman lectures. Now I'm doing the American history bit. It seems informative, even though a tad bit colored :( Oh yes, Civilization 4 it out - that game is taking whatever time I can give it (I'm trying to limit it! damn it's good). Right now burning a bunch of DVDs while updating my CV's and applying to various companies... Let's hope some of them catch the bait.

Sony service called a while ago, the finally have my Silver-coloured mp3 player. I just need to find the time to go get it... Bastards! Their products are still good, but they're really cutting down on all their personnel costs by outsourcing etc.. this can be seen in the shitty level of their support! This evening we're gonna see our upstair's neighbour's debut, a monologue he's directed. Looking forward to it.

It's that time again

2005-11-03T21:42:00.000+02:00

So I've been lazy again. It's rather pathetic isn't it. Anyway let's get down to business. I am still on the lookout for a proper job, let's see what comes my way. The bitch of the matter is, I can't do full-time, really, knowing that I'll be swamped come springtime... And I want to get out of school. I recently got a good invitation, that I should apply & get into the IT business again, but after some comtemplation, I had to turn it down. It's better to finish what I've started in the International Business scene first.

Other news: I've started on a healthier path. Haven't smoked much at all since July (didn't mark the day into my calendar or anything like that). Smoking is all right by me though, not condemning anyone. Anyway, I'm taking a break at the very least... Haven't bought a pack since summer, and only taken a few drags since. It's going steady.

Been going through my gym program again. I managed to get one through doing a favor to a personal trainer back in 2002. Mananged to go to the gym a few times then, but dropped it due to being lazy... Anyway, I went twice last week, and this week it's gonna be the same. Met Martti on the field of glory (squash) today, he won 2-1, bastard! Next week's gonna be more intense, since we're gonna go twice, and I'm still gonna hold on to my 'twice a week' motto for the gym bit, too. It's great if I manage to get this gym thing to be a part of my life, I'll be so much the better for it. All the extra energy is welcome. It's that time of the year again, sun is rising around 7-8am, and going down around 6. Too much darkness around, it'll get to you if you don't start doing something...

Throughout & after the summer, I've been listening to audiobooks, mostly lectures on history. Roman times, baby. I'm not talking about any shitty 1-2 hour lessons. Each topic has been ~ 40 lectures -over a thousand minutes. Listening to music is all fine and good. But lately audiobooks have had more appeal. I've gone through many topics, here's a brief list of them:

Isaac Asimov's Foundation, books 1-2 (I have all 7, but got bored)
Hellenism
Famous Greeks
History of Rome
Rome and the Barbarians
Famous Romans
Early middle ages
High middle ages
The long 19th century, European history from 1789 to 1917
Churchill's biography

That's what I remember and what I still have. I've been deleting most of what I've listened to.
I'm looking forward to getting into the History of the United States, The Rise and Fall of Soviet Communism, The history of Hitler's Empire... there's tons of listening to be done! "When does he have have the time to listen to all that crap?", you may ask? While walking, @work, doing dishes, eating (note: only if alone), in a bus/train.. you get the picture. It has sort of become a part of my life, frankly. It's cool, because it's been increasingly difficult to find the time to get down and read a proper book. The current piece (btw) is, Albert Speer - his battle with truth. It seems promising.

Squash was good, but now I must attend to my sports gear, and eat something: Minna's been cooking and it's almost ready now, woohoo :)

Ave atque vale - Hail and farewell

Stress

2005-10-14T21:09:00.000+03:00

Must finish a goddamn paper today. I remembered I had to do it only yesterday. Couldn't do much about it since I had re-exams today. School blues, even though I'm only taking like 3 courses now!

Btw, the fall came today. We were out @ a pizzeria & saw dark clouds approach. It got pitch black & cold - it also began to rain. Summer is over, RIP. I can feel the light running out, and my spirits following. Time to put some Anathema on Winamp.

Link of the day: Audioscrobbler & lastfm. Install it & start discovering new music.

Tomorrow - work.

Commercials

2005-10-05T21:50:00.000+03:00

Interests elsewhere, update pending

Bd frenzy

2005-09-21T12:03:00.000+03:00

"The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons", said Dostoyevski. What do you think? I'm sure he didn't think much of the level Imperial russian civilization after having been to Siberia! Whatever... anyway, I've been slacking. I need to find a new job, preferably one where I can do the rest of my work-practice & final theses - and get paid. Picking up a few free-electives & a 4th language would not hurt.

The Sony mp3 player is supposed to be fixed by this week. What a bunch of shit, only took them 4 weeks. Breakfast waits. Today's my dad's 59th birthday. Yesterday was my mom's 58th. We're going there with Minna later on today, to take part in the celebrations! On the topic, explore the wonders of the birthday paradox! And oh yes, do find out your half-birthday. Always good to have more excuses to be cheerful.

Good times.

2005-09-15T15:41:00.000+03:00

There isn't that much school. And I'm starting to get used to it. Scary. Been a good few last days, mates. Been to Tallinn. Been Go-Karting. That's a lot of fun! Ali left us, he's pretty close to old London town by now. Cheers mate, see you soon :)

I bought a new toy: an HP DVD burner. Seems pretty nice. I got got rid of my old Pioneer DVD drive & an even older Plextor cd-burner. I wonder if they're worth selling even? Maybe one day I'll build a second computer... you never know! I'm due to go to town shortly, to catch up with Minna. She'll be coming from a job interview. We are to go shoe-shopping. Yee-haw! :P

Well

2005-09-09T23:46:00.000+03:00

Tennis, Tallinn, tennishh.... and so on. Bloggin is not as easy as it used to be. I hope I haven't run out of things to say. That would be bad.. Stay tuned for better days. Btw. that Finnish history through books project (if I've even mentioned it), I'm in the years 1920-1940 now. Going strong. :) It's not so bad you know, knowing why some of the streets in your hometown are named after certain persons - even if that is not directly implied in the text...

The Dire Straits' song "Planet of the New Orleans" has just gotten a whole other meaning.

It has begun

2005-08-31T23:02:00.000+03:00

School. I have 3 courses this period. What a joke. I'll have all the time in the world to figure something out for the final thesis, or get a better temp job. When you've gotten used to keeping busy, this going to school for only mondays and tuesdays is really fucked up. I'm not used to sitting around doing nothing. Though I tried pretty hard today. Didn't get out of the house for anything else than to buy some food across the road. I'm glad I managed to do something else yesterday. Ali asked me out to play tennis a few days ago, and so we finally went. Could have done it sooner if it was not for the weather. Anyway, I've improved my shots quite a bit in the last (and only) 3 times I've done it this summer. Too bad the season is starting to draw to a close. Indoor courts are too expensive imo. Soon it'll be possible to start playing Squash again. The two courts that me & Martti have been using were closed for the summer because of renovation. Let us hope they've fixed them & that they open them up soon!

Wow

2005-08-27T17:32:00.000+03:00

My name is so and so, and I am an alcoholic. Not really, but that came to mind when I woke up today, around 10am. We celebrated Minna's moms birthday up till almost 6am. Doh. But nevermind that, I INSIST that you go right now, and download Google Earth, I'm absolutely blown away by it. I've been playing with it for a while, and it seems to be quite frankly the best possible Atlas ever made. If I were rich, I would buy Google stock :)

Reelin' and Rockin'

2005-08-26T14:01:00.000+03:00

Well, we did not make it to the theatre, or to the movie. From around 6 to 11, we were with Emmu, making tortillas, eating, drinking & watching some DeviantArt her friend has shot (she knows everyone on those picture galleries, and is in some of them herself). Later on, At midnight - we went to Manala, a nice joint downtown. There was a show with "The Manala Allstars band" (Marzi Nyman, Pirjo Bergström, Mariko ja Olavi Uusivirta & others). They had selected 17 different lovesongs, preferably with lewd or suggesting lyrics, and turned them around & made new and cool renditions of them. I personally really liked "Sukkula Veenuksen" (Shuttle to Venus) and "Fiilaten ja höyläten" (different, finnish lyrics to the tune of "Reeling and rocking" by Chuck Berry).

After the show, we met Maisa & went downstairs to eat. Manala is an excellent place to eat while on a night on the town. They're making food all the way untill 4am. Saw Sauli Niinistö in the restaurant, and later on also in the mens room. He was not too impressed with the drunking urinal-users who wished to engage in conversation with him while releasing their bladders (I was almost expecting someone to be stupid enough to try to offer him their hand while doing the deed with the other hand - they would have later been able to exclaim that they had shaken the hands of two 'chiefs' at the same time! :P) Anyway, for those of you not in the know, Niinistö is running for president. I think he just might be the strongest competition the current president, Tarja Halonen has.

Today is Minna's moms 47th birthday. I expect that we will go over to pay our respects around 6pm for dinner. It feels just like Sunday today. Maybe it's because we are free from all work & study related engagements today. Quite often Sunday has been the only whole day we have together.

Run around

2005-08-25T12:12:00.000+03:00

Yesterday we went to see Astrid Swan perform. She was good, let's hope she makes it. I bought her autographed cd for 15€. Sort of like Aimee Mann, if you've heard her. Helsinki is having a party week, celebrating, well, err.. Helsinki. There is a lot of free arts, music & theatrical happenings all over the town. Today we'll go out to see some play & a movie, the details for both of which are unsure to me. I'll comment about them later.

Now it is time to take my Sony Mp3 player to an official after sales service joint. The poor thing's menu button is stuck down. So whenever I try to change a song, it just pops to the menu. Great. First I called the company that sold it to me. They told me to talk to the importer. The importer told me to refer to the official Sony after sales service. (I really enjoyed the run-around, thanks guys. Goddamn incompetent, responsibility-dodging bastards!) Just look at that site. They haven't responded to my emails, but I got through to some clerk there, who just told me to ship it in. I'll deliver it personally and see to that they take a quick glance at it/fix it before I leave. I feel really comfortable giving them my baby to tweak/fuck around with! I guess Sony is running out of funds, or they just don't give a shit.

It would be nice to open the player and fix the spring that's bent myself (that's my SWAG, anyway) but the chances that it'll blow up in my face & ruin the guarantee are too high!

-- update 16:46

My impressions of the place were quite accurate. The clerk receiving my player & typing out the documentation refused to yield any relevant information. Nor did anyone take a look at it. They took it and gave me a receipt and said "don't call us, we'll call you". Haha, right on.. bastards!

Dear diary...

2005-08-22T11:57:00.000+03:00

I will make no excuses, or apologies for lack of updates!

Summer is almost over, and I'm done with work, at least for a week. It was a nice couple of months, the weekends full of fun & enjoyment. I'll try to resume active updates from now on. During the course of this summer, I've read tons, and gotten hooked to audiobooks. Expecially ones made by The Teaching Company. History mostly.

It would feel shallow to me to start typing in detail about how my summer went, suffice to say, there was the Pori Jazz, many great weekends @ different summercottages, lots of barbecuing and a couple of trips to Tallinn. Not the greatest summer ever, but way better than the last one.

School & studies will resume at the beginning of September. Minna started in a private art school today, let's hope she likes it.

Screw Stahanovism

2005-06-07T23:32:00.000+03:00

Hello, the weekend was a blast. Had an impromptu party later on friday, after shopping, going to Kiasma, and drinking cider outdoors.. Saturday we had 3 graduation parties to go to, with little sleep & both of us hangover. We pulled it off like heroes, though we left the last place before midnight. Sunday we slept late & went to my brother's place for some coffee & delicacies - it was his 29th birthday on saturday (but we missed it because of the grad parties). Our presents to him were a t-shirt & poster made by by M.C. Escher. We walked to Minna's parents later, and picked up my birthday presents, and something they got us from hungary.

I've been working for two days now, and let me tell you, there wont be much to write home about.

I

Work ethics

2005-06-01T17:18:00.000+03:00

Nasty, I begin work in 5 days. Arbeit macht frei.

Bicycle

2005-05-31T13:56:00.000+03:00

It's time to whip out the bicycle and go pay a visit to my parents. Minna's working, so I have all the time in the world to do whatever suits my fancy. I picked up a new memory stick today, the little bugger cost me 70€. My parents are thinking of buying a new digicam, so I'll have to go and talk some sense into them - so that they won't buy "the one on sale at Gigantti" or whatever. A good place to start www.dpreview.com... Anyway, I better get on the road, I promised to show for coffee between 2-3pm. I'll get a good 15km worth of cycling today, yay! One-way shouldn't take longer than 20 minutes. Adios.

Last week

2005-05-31T00:20:00.000+03:00

If I nothing proper happens this week, I'll be doomed to go back to the warehouse on monday... that's when I'm supposed to start my 11-week grind there. Fucking hell, and I've tried to _hard_ to look for a job. I need to get out of this country. Where the grass is greener, and proper jobs plenty! Who am I kidding? Ahh... Maybe when I graduate, I'll be finally able to get a decent job. Not a proper job, but a decent one. This is my last week of freedom for the whole summer, unless of course I end the Odyssey short. I might be happy with working just 2 months, or just 1 month... to scrape together enough to survive the summer. Though how much fun is it just to 'survive'. Need skills to pay the bills, and preferably then some. Weekend went by fast, didn't even notice it. Picked up a few books from the library today. One is on war prisoners, it'll set the mood for going back the warehouse :X

Computers suck

2005-05-24T15:58:00.000+03:00

Great day today. It's been sunny outside. But guess what I've been up to? Last night, one of my 512Mb DDR sticks decided to go nuts. To make a long story short, it totally fucked up my Windows partition with all the weird errors it was causing. Of course I didn't immediately figure out just what the hell was causing all the weird errors. Luckily, I had two sticks, so it was fairly easy to test which one was the evil bastard, by using memtest. Now all I had to do was just revert back to a backup copy of the partition. But guess what? My backup was almost 6 months old! But have no fear - I always knew I was a louse backup-cloner, so I had a backup batch file running nightly, which copies all the important documents, files, settings, etc.. that I have one the windows partition. Now I just have to do the grievous task of putting everything back in it's right place.

I could have been outside enjoying the sun if it was not for two things: 1) I managed to burn myself pretty damn bad already on sunday, when I went to the local cliffs to do some reading, for about 3 hours worth. With no sunlotion, or t-shirt. The night towards monday was spent in agony. Yesterday I stayed indoors for the most of time, except for going to play squash. I still resemble an indian with my torso, though it's starting to get better.

Tomorrow I'll have a job interview for a fund-assistant job. Let's hope all goes well. This friday I have a re-exam in swedish, have to find the motivation to study for it from somewhere. It's a 5 credit-unit course, which ran a bit over half a year. I do not want to re-take the course. There! That's my motivation. It's 22.5'c outdoors.. terrace time, big time. But alas, poor me has to study, pooey pooey. Might as well get to it. Adios!

School's out for summer!

2005-05-20T13:54:00.000+03:00

Yes ladies and gentlemen. The exams are over, the coursework is done. It's time to relax for a while. I ended up with pretty decent grades I have to say. And it's not too bad to notice that you're already 2/3 done. I'm a little ahead of schedule, and things are going alright. One thing that's been a constant cause of concern for me, however, has been the summer job issue. Yes, so far I have not secured anything better than logistics work. Meaning very basic logistics, mind you.

I'm terribly sorry for the lack of updates, but I have no spine. Err maybe I do, but not enough for daily/weekly updates. I'll try to fix that. Honest! Let's see.... what has happened since the last post. First week I had 2 exams and finished most of the coursework. 7-8th May we were at my parent's summer cottage in Perniö. That was a great time. Sauna, burning brushwood, target practice with a "22 scoped rifle & walks in the surrounding forest paths. Just what I needed to recharge the batteries for the coming week! Monday I had Business Strategies exam, which was a bitch, I ended up writing 7 pages... On Tuesday I had another exam, this time in Quality Management.

Wednesday
May 11th was my 25th birthday. I did not celebrate it much, as I had a databases exam during the day, and squash in the evening. But behold! When I came home, Minna had fixed a wonderful meal, which we then proceeded to feast upon, accompanied by a rather good red wine.. When it got close to midnight, we went to the balcony and I opened a bottle of sparkling wine on the minute that I turned 25. Romantic? Silly? The bottle was expensive, but turned out it had a poor taste. And! I also managed to break a champagne glass, as I was reaching for matches which were on the other side of the table -- and the lapel of my leather coat tipped the glass... which of course went into smithereens. I hope broken glass does indeed bring good luck, as 'they' say. Thursday was a quiet day, spent studying for the final exam in Cost Management.

Friday
I had the exam in the morning, and after it spent some time in school, drinking coffee, chatting & smoking cigarettes. It felt surreal that school was over. And that two years had passed. It took a while to sink in. Later on in the evening I went to Osku's place for a bit of pizza & alcoholic beverages; which was his & Jenni's way of saying "thank you for helping us move on Vappu, despite the fact that you were hangover/drunk at the time!". We had a blast, and I really didn't want to leave the place (I was there from 7pm to a bit after 10pm I think) - but I had to get to Valtava (or whichever way you type it --- the new 3-story bar/diner that has opened between the railway station & main post office - I think it used to formerly belong to Finnair.)
I met school comrades Ville, Carina, Tara, Niina & Leena there on the second floor. I ordered some Budvar. I don't think I had too much to drink. Conor showed up a bit after midnight, after he had finished work. (I see a pattern here, by the way... whenever Conor shows up after work to a bar where I'm at, all hell breaks loose later on..) - Anyway! I believe everything went fine & was under control until it got close to 1am, and the devil incarnate, senor Osku made his entrance (with Jenni of course). This evil man was on a mission to get poor me drunk as a skunk. To succeed in this fiendish task, he began injecting alcohol into me, in the shape of shots of varying kind. Frankly, don't ask me what they were or how many there were, because it all starts to get a little hazy for me after the 2nd or 3rd shot. See, I'm not even sure of that. Anyway! The 2nd floor bar closes at some point, so we were asked to move downstairs. Apparently while there I managed to stumble into a waitress - all apologies, miss. I didn't remember us going downstairs, so it's hard to say anything more about it. But we stayed there until the bar closed, and Martti, bless his soul, walked me all the way home. I managed to fall twice on the way. I also walked into a streetlight. Well anyway, I got home around 5. Minna wakes up. There's some hassle. I throw up, crawl to bed. 6am: Lights off.

Saturday.
Birthday party. I woke up initially around noon, feeling surprisingly okay given the circumstances. Minna went to the shop, and got some Jaffa (soda) & Sparkling water for me. She fixed me a meat pie with two sausages & brought it to bed, too. Ahh, lovely creature! I stayed in bed & managed to catch sleep again, while she left the house with our upstairs neighbors Karo & Eeva. They went to shop around, trying to find us a new garden table (for the whole house community), some plants & seeds, and finally some food and beverages. This Saturday was booked as a community effort/work party. The idea is to clean up the large wooden house where all of us (6 apartments, 10 people) live, and then after the chores are done, have a good time. I woke up around 5.30pm. This work party was supposed to start around 6. My birthday party was set to start at 8pm, with some of the first guests arriving a bit earlier. I rushed to the shop, bought some more sparkling/mineral water, and you know, the usual hangover cure-kit. After I had gotten all the stuff in me, I started feeling a bit better. The next two hours were spent cleaning, vacuum-cleaning, and mopping the place. I almost started to lose faith when it was a bit after 7pm, and it felt like the whole thing was so unfinished. I wanted to have the work bit of the work-party over by the time my birthday party was supposed to start. See, my idea was to have the work party & my birthday as a sort of combined grill-fest-free-for-all. The neighbors are such good people & friends, that I would have invited them anyway. The house budget really ran out after we had gotten the gardentable, the plants & a proper Winmau dartboard & something to drink (12-pack, some ciders). So the barbecue foods, salads & booli was on us. I am letting you know all this just so you kind readers are not tempted to think that: as there is/was a housebudget for the 6 apartments, of which some of it is commonly used for partying & boozing, that I would have the evil mind of putting my birthday on the same date to save money! There, I’ve said it. Anyway, moving on. The time between 8-9pm was a bit of a hassle, with half of the guest having arrived. I rushed out of the house to do some work on the balcony, or downstairs… But luckily it all worked out perfect. We fired up the grill a little after 9, and had a GORGEOUS time. The evening consisted of eating (duh), drinking, sauna, darts-games, playing Alias as pantomime. People started going to bed after midnight, but the some of us kept going. Conor & Jonna, my brother & Jarno were there until around 6am. Me & Minna stayed there for 3 hours more, just by ourselves. I guess we talked, danced & drank whatever was left. Sad affair! Oh dear… last time I checked the clock, was when we were already in bed: it was 9.30am. Ouch.

Sunday
Slept late, managed to go to Minna’s parents. Lovely dinner. Fairly uneventful day otherwise.

This week has been spent mostly on recharging batteries, applying for work and sneezing. Birch trees are messing with me, but I’ve got the meds now. It’s starting to level out. Long update, you can probably see that I ran out of energy. I typed it all in one go. Hooray! Thanks for reading if you made it this far!

Vappu

2005-05-02T14:24:00.000+03:00

Wow it's been almost a month now. A lot of things have been going on and I just never got around to typing about them. I should get a phonecall early this week, to let me know if I got the job or not (doing purchasing at a publishing house). I skipped going to my swedish exam today, because three days of drinking and partying finally caught up with me. How lame. I'll take the re-exam date & ace it there. No worries. I did not have time to prepare for it anyway, what with Vappu and everything going on. Cross fingers that I get the job :D I'm hungover, tired, bored, and feeling guilty. What a great way to start a week! I have a couple of papers to hand in mid-week, plus it's final exams time.. Where's the motivation? Hello? Two weeks, and "school's out for summer", yeah!

I think I'll just fire up Stronghold II and built a few medieval castles.

Ursula!

2005-04-05T13:24:00.000+03:00

Oh yes, my friends. It's time to go to Ursula. The weather is sweet, and Kaivopuisto awaits. I'm gonna go meet Ali there, it's a classic place for us.

Btw.It seems like fairly busy times again for me & Minna. We get to spend maybe like 1-3 hours per evening together. It sucks! It's been ages since we've last had a chance to cook properly together - with a little wine and so on... hrmm

Wellm we are going to see the play "Putoavia Enkeleitä" tomorrow, should be fun. Then I'm going to a gig on thursday (Ben Granfelt-Band & Crumbland), venue: On the Rocks. Then, it's time to work: friday evening + saturday morning, blah! Oh well, at least school pressure is starting to ease off a little. Today was a day off from school for me, but I still had to wake up at around 10am and work till 1:20pm doing *sarcasm* interesting *sarcasm* stuff like Fault-Tree-Analysis, Ishikawa diagrams & Pareto Histograms. The course is Quality Management. Iso 9001 and so on. Fantastic! :P

Anyway, it's time to Call Ali and go outdoors. Clear blue skies and +8'c wait for us. Plus a pint or two..

APRIL

2005-04-02T14:41:00.000+03:00

Hey! Update time. What's happened? I got the English project done, finally! Does it make my life any easier? Guess :P We saw Scandinavian Music Group live at Tavastia on wednesday, for the 4th time now. I confess, I'm a fan! :) They had videocameras there, maybe we will end up on tv or on a dvd.. we were around 1,5 meters from the performers. It was a special setup: unplugged & acoustic, they had moved the stage to the center of the floor, with tables around it. Pretty neat. We finished watching the Napoleon DVD, it was a whopping 6 hours. It was pretty good, but they should have made it into a 25 hours series :P I hear there's a 3 dvd special version that goes up to 8 hours, damn. I'll have to keep my eyes open for it.. :)

I have still got a whole bunch of schoolwork to do (sorry for the whining) - it seems like they don't let off (anyone else tried to squeeze in 42 ECTS worth in a spring term?). It gets rough, I'm telling you. But hey, after this term's done, it's all steady sails from then on.

It's Saturday. I'm stuck inside writing papers, while Minna's already gone to the gym, and is now horseback riding. Later on she's going to go to Tavastia to listen to Funk with some girls. It is good at least someone is living it up for the both of us!

I had a great yesterday, so I'm all recharged and happy. I got the Kela thing sorted (they asked for some more information "or else", but I managed to get it, so there! up yours, KELA! Later on in the evening, we went out for supper, proper winin' and dinin'. You can figure out the rest... quality time.

I’m feeling pretty good both physically and mentally. The weather outside is fucking glorious. A walk doesn’t sound like a bad idea at all. I should fix Minna’s bicycle (the rear wheel’s blown). Hmm. I didn't go to work today. But I'll have to make this Saturdays shift up by working both next fri and sat. Oh well - then I'll see how it feels, whether I could stand it for another summer in a row. I think I already know the answer for that. You know, they've given me two weeks to decide if I wish to continue there for the summer or not. I'm pretty certain I'll say thanks but no thanks. I'll find something better. I don't see myself working there for another summer - I need to move on, progress. Maybe it'll happen quicker if I fire myself? Actually, I should let them fire me so that I can get unemployment benefits should I need them. So far, I have still yet to score a summerjob. I'm active and bugging people left and right, something's bound to come my way soon..

Anyway, life is good. Our London lounge lizard, Ali, is coming back to Finland this Sunday. Let’s go for a few beers on Tuesday, Ali? Monday’s hectic for me.

Conor & Jonna had their 1 year engagement anniversiry a while ago, and this picture is devoted to them! Sorry Conor old buddy :)

Easter holiday

2005-03-22T19:23:00.000+02:00

Howdy. It's already Tuesday, is it? Geez. Time flies. Quick wrap-up: worked on Saturday, it was very tiresome and boring. Came home, and after a while we went to Maisa's 21 birthday party. It was a comfy affair, with food, wine and music as the main entertainment. On Sunday we cleaned up the apartment and went to Minna's parents for the classic Sunday supper. On Monday I went downtown and picked up three tickets for a Scandinavian Music Group unplugged concert (for me, Minna and my brother). I also Checked out Anttila because I had heard that they had quite a few good DVDs selling for cheap. Kill Bill volumes 1 and 2 were selling for 11€s a pop, not bad. I got myself something else though. Memento for 6€, No Man's land for 12, and finally: Napoleon, for 22€ (yes, that wasn't cheap, but hey - it's over 6 hours long!). I wonder when I'll ever have the time to watch them.

I spent over 7 hours today struggling with Sebbe, we were working on an investments project that's half the grade of the course. What a way to spend the 'holiday'. I've completed 1800 words / 4500 for the English project. Yay! I have a week left to do it. Better start the typing right after I'm done warming up my fingers with this blogpost!

Still no sight of a proper summer job, though I've been turned down from a couple of places. It's looking to be another spectacular summer. Fucking hell. I don't remember being this stressed in a long time. Looking for jobs which are hard to find is the worst, let me tell you. That, plus this totally unnecessary stress regarding schoolwork is getting to me. It's lowering the quality of my life. When did I start to care? Have I grown old? Well, I am turning 25 this year. Maybe that's it. Then again, maybe it isn't. Who is to know? All I know is - I'm on my holiday, but it is near impossible to enjoy it. You're NOT on vacation if you have serious shit to do. Anyone who has ever been worried about getting a career or hell, let's just call it "a job that doesn't fucking blow", must know what I'm going through. I'm sure I could have made it in the IT industry. I have the credentials to show that I can walk the walk. But it just got so boring.

Hell, maybe after I'm done with my current studies, maybe I'll just apply to study History at the University of Helsinki. Now there is a topic that's always been close to my heart. Computer stuff I know, but I don't read computer literature on my free time. History books, I do. I watch programs about it, browse websites... I'm hungry for the stuff. I had a conversation with my schoolmate and upstairs neighbour, Conor, about this. We both noticed that the respective fields that we are studying are not really enough for us to be even remotely interested in the literature. At least, not enough to read that stuff on our own time. For me, that's almost as good as saying I'll never make it in the field. For an example, the guys and girls on the TV show Apprentice or Diili make me want to puke. But then again, reality TV in general does that to me.

I suppose that if you want to be really good at something you should prolly have natural crawing to do so - and some capacity for learning it. Right now I'm basically semi-interested, and am just stuffing all these courses and all this material down my throat. I'm getting through the exams with decent grades, but forgetting most of it inside a few weeks. Economy and how money makes the world go around are still interesting topics to me. But perhaps my real interests lie elsewhere? I originally explained it to myself that it is better to keep history as a hobby, since I didn't like the idea of being forced to read about time periods and people that did not interest me. I don’t see how I figured that it would be more enjoyable to be required to read about shit that didn’t interest me half the time. Go figure! I have to end this rant, as it’s too long and I have to get back to the English Project.

My blood pressure is slightly on the rise, by the way. Is it possible that my body finds stress un-agreeable?

2005-03-18T15:36:00.000+02:00

Priorities elsewhere. Holiday starting soon. English project dragging behind. Work tomorrow.

Week went by

2005-03-08T19:23:00.000+02:00

Hello there. Happy womens day, to those of you who it applies (I guess only one girl's reading this blog.) I've been keeping busy. School sucks as usual, it's taking up most of my time. So far no summerjob, but I've scouted quite a few potential candidates. I may end up working for the city of helsinki, of all places. Let's see what happens. I'm gonna send out a bunch of applications in the next couple of days..

Today was my investment's exam. I'm expecting somewhere between a 2 and a 4. We'll see. Next midterm is Business strategies. Enough of school. I've started reading Peter Englund's Poltava. Seems pretty nice. I've gone through three of his other books, and they've all been absolutely superb. If you ever want to get into the 30 years war & the 1600-1700 era, he's your man.

I bought Minna some tulips, and did the dishes, but ran out of energy and bought a frozen pizza for supper, sorry hon :P It's gonna be another of those busy weeks when it seems that you have no time for anything that you would like to do (outside your compulsory commitments).

I'm looking forward to week twelve, when I'll have a luxurious week's holiday. May it come soon.

Tuesday Whine

2005-03-01T11:56:00.000+02:00

It's been great weather for the last week or so, it's really making a difference. It is light after around 7am, and gets dark only around 6pm. Plus it's great to see the sun. Blues skies rule!

On Thursday it was Minna's little brothers 17th birthday, and we went to eat some food downtown. Had 3 beers there. After having finished eating we come home, and Jake calls me up. We go to a nice local joint, Vanha Mestari for some 8-ball (games tied 3-3) and beers. On Friday I was hung-over and having cold chills. I went to my employers health care place and got a day's worth of sick leave for Saturday. I could have just called and agreed with my boss that I wouldn't show for Saturday - but since I was feeling sick I thought I might as well take it as sick leave. We had plans for the weekend, you see.

On Friday evening we set out to Hartola (~200km towards & beyond Lahti), Minna’s aunts cottage. It's a fantastic place and we had a lot of fun on the first evening. Good food and wines, sitting by the fireplace. We walked on ice (lovely frozen lake), and looked at stars. You can't see even 1/10th of them from Helsinki. While on ice, we played tag a little, it's surprisingly funny if you're in a jolly mood..

On Saturday, shit hit the fan. Minna works in kindergarten, with children from ~1-5 years old.
There's been a series of eye infections rampant
there lately. So Minna apparantly received her eye infection from there. She could barely open her eyes since because of the oozing, yellow colored eye secretion making it difficult! After a quick breakfast, Minna's parents took her to a doctor where they gave her some eye drops, which started to help after a few administrations.

Anyway, while they were at the doc’s, I stayed at the cottage and was typing away at my laptop (well, it's borrowed: my brothers work laptop), trying to get the Academic Writing Project rolling... I was feeling sort of weak and chilly. I measured my temperature and had a lovely 38.7'c. I continued typing for about an hour still, drinking hot rum toddy. I only got about a page done.

What a waste!

The rest of the weekend was spent mostly lying in bed, drinking both alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks. I grabbed Burana's only before eating, because my appetite isn't the greatest if my temperature’s high.

Yesterday I went to the company healthcare place again, and received a throat culture (throat and tonsils swab). I'm about to call in for the results. It's possible I have a strep throat (forgot to mention it earlier). I'm getting sick of being sick! Fuck this, man. I got so much stuff to do and I can't afford it. It's starting to get so bad, that I'm starting to think of dropping one course. Guess which one? The Academic Writing Project. I'm not throwing in the towel just yet though.

Wish me luck, I'm stressed, pissed off & ill :P

Squashed

2005-02-23T21:07:00.000+02:00

I got home a while ago. Played squash with Martti again. Ahh, I whooped him! Close & good games though, especially the last one (I managed to pull a 2-0 out of my ass..). Heheh. Now to other things: nothings changed as far as school goes, I'm still lagging behind on the Academic Writing piece of shit.. no matter, I'll get things rolling tomorrow and on friday. That's the plan, anyway!

A sidenote: Kela's trying to rob me out of ~ €2000. Isn't that sweet of them? But I got the fuckers cornered. I have the proof that will set me free. Basicly the situation is this: they know I made XX'XXX amount of money in 2003. I started my studies in the autumn of that year. They don't know which months those salaries are spread onto. So they try to get back their 4 month's of study aid + the works... But as I said, the situation is under control, now I just have to mail the damn complaint with all the documents that help my case.

By the way, there's nothing quite like having a cold one after squash :P

Over & Out.

Busy times again

2005-02-22T12:32:00.000+02:00

ahh crap. I worked both days last weekend. I have tons of stuff to do. School's keeping me busy, I'm lagging a couple of weeks behind on my english project: I'm supposed to type out 5000 words in 'academic style' on some business related topic. It's basicly practice for the final thesis. I'm planning on doing it on business ethics, should be easy enough to bullshit my way out of that one! Then there's projects for quality management, investments and cost management. I also need to prepare a presentation for a Seminar course, and so forth..

So far, I haven't scored as far as summerjobs go. I really have to call some companies up and ask what the hell is wrong with them, if I'm not good enough! :P

Something's wrong with me since I can't be efficient with me studies while I'm home. I do schoolwork best when I'm at school. Maybe it's because there's less distractions there (I sometimes stick around after lectures, and do stuff for a couple of hours).

I've been reading quite a lot lately, finished Troiat's Rasputin, Clostermann's Big Show, and Brown's "Bury my heart at wounded knee".

Apologies for the lack of updates, but I have my priorities - and right now they are elsewhere.

Wednesday wining and dining

2005-02-16T17:12:00.000+02:00

Hello again. Yes, I know I've been a bad blogger lately. Apologies.

The workload has been easing up a little now, and life is starting to win again :)
I've been listening to a lot of 'new' music lately, provided by a classmate, Tara. She borrowed me ~10 cds of music from 'up and coming' irish bands. Good stuff, I haven't heard anything new in a long while, and was frankly getting bored of listening to the same old songs over and over again.

I haven't cooked a meal since friday evening. We basicly spent the weekend at mine and Minna's parents - stuffing ourselves. From monday onwards this week's been pretty hectic, and frankly there's been no energy nor interest to do housechores. Today, as it's payday and the studies are starting to release their stranglehold, I think I'll prepare something nice to eat (instead of eating bread and fuits.. or warming something up in the microwave). Minna's coming home from work now, and is gonna stop by Alko for a couple of bottles of wine.

She's later on today going to go to the gym, so I've got time to fix something proper..
Things are starting to brighten up a bit, baby!

Hi

2005-02-10T01:44:00.001+02:00

I've been out of steam but steaming on anyway.
The soundtrack to the last few days has been Tool.

"Mention this to me
Mention something, mention anything
Watch the weather change."

I can't believe it

2005-01-31T22:31:00.000+02:00

I just typed a whole fucking essay, and then started doing something else... forgot which browser window the damn blog thing was on.... and closed the browser window(s) later on. So there you have it, cruel fate. No update for the whole week, I can't be bothered to type it all again. Let's pretend last week never happened. Now, towards new challenges!

That day of the week again

2005-01-24T01:58:00.000+02:00

Went to school at 10am, came home at 7pm. Ouch. I'm doing 42 ECTS this semester, and I bet there will be more days like this to follow. I can't afford to lose time or miss deadlines. Gotta have the discipline to do the work in time - or even ahead of time.. because otherwise the workload will pile up, and it'll get difficult. Anyway, the highlight of the day: I managed to go and play squash at 9pm - I lost 2-0, damn you Martti, you know it coulda gone either way! :P

Quick wrapup of the weekend:

Friday evening: It was most pleasant. We arrived at my parents house and were led straight to the dining table, where we proceeded to eat quite a bit. Me & Jarno (my big brother) had brought over some wine, as we knew our cousin Anne had carried some exquisite danish cheeses with her... The evening progressed, and wine flowed. It was nice to catch up again. We left for home around 1am.

Saturday: I didn't go to work this weekend, as I had other things to do (studying, recharging my batteries). Later on in the evening we had our ex-neighbours (the engineer fellow, who used to live in Connor's apt) housewarming party in Viikki. We stayed there for only around an hour, but it was good times! Our timing was sort of off... and anyway, we had another party to go to. Martti's long-time 'better half', Pia (or is it with two i's?) was having her going-away party. She's going on exchange to lovely Spain, for 6 months, grrr. The party was cool, great punch.. and an excessive number of potentially lesbian floorball players were there (the shame...) We left 'early', and were sleeping by 4am.

On sunday morning Minna went to a gym to do some neck/shoulder exersizes, and then riding, and later on cleaned the corridor! What did I do? I slept, I read, and catched up on some schoolwork - hoo-fucking-ray. Later on we went to M's parents, as seems to be the case almost every other sunday. All was okay untill me & M's dad went to our customary after-supper cigarette. We had the usual smalltalk about weather and all kinds of nice things like that, but after we got back, M's mom was trashing M's little brother's girlfriend (he's 16, she's 18), who had just left the house mid-supper to see a friend. It was like walking to a warzone. I'll not go into any gory details, but let's just say that voices were raised, tears were shed, and there was more than one storming out of the room-kind of thing. I stayed at the dining table and tried to talk & figure out what was going on, but it was difficult and generally speaking the whole thing sucked. What a fucking waste of a sunday evening. We ended up taking M's brother to our place for the night...

And of today, I already typed about. There you have it, folks. I haven't had any time to play HoI2 lately. That is not necessarily a bad thing - there's lots of better ways to spend (I wouldn't say waste, as it is a good game!) ones time. I've found it quite true that when there's lots of stuff to do, time does fly - indeed. Of course, it is presupposed that you do the things that need be done, be they house-, school-, or just regular work.

Screw this, I'm starting to sound old. I feel tired, I'll catch you all later.. got a long day of schooling to go to again, this time from 9.45am to 6pm.

History takes a strange turn

2005-01-21T19:04:00.000+02:00

Let's start with the game update, since that's been asked for! Well, it's 1943, and I'm engaged in a two front war. One good thing though, I have the USA in my backpocket, and they will not attack me. I begun my campaign by grabbing Hungary (blitzkrieg style), then Austria with dirty politics , and finally Czechoslovakia (creating Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia + an Independed, Axis Slovakia). Then I tried to appease all the allies and spent a lot of time and money on diplomacy, all the while still of course building my army :P

I managed a huge breakthrough, and got an experimental nuclear reactor going on around late 41, and I if all goes well, should have the a-bomb by 44-45, depends how things go. It would be neat to nuke London and Moscow, buwhahaha :P (as if I have the resources for building two bombs..) Anyway, France is getting pounded hard, I've already got Paris taken. What's left is just the cleanup. I used the proven, dirtyBelgian trick.. Btw. a nasty thing the Russials pulled, they declared war right just a little after I had taken Paris, and are now trying trying to cross the polish border (I went through the Ribbentrop plan)

Also, as soon as I got through & behind the Maginot line, the Italians wanted to join the Axis. I turned them down. They'd get run over by the Brits in Africa and I'd have to go bail them out. And I can't spare Rommel to play around in the sandbox of sahara. We'll see what he can do vs the Russian hordes with 9 divisions of Tiger tanks (which will not run out of oil.)

------- ahem, back to real life

Busy school week. I got 3 papers to do for next week. I canceled tomorrow's work shift. Got other things going on right now. My cousin, Anne has come over from Copenhagen. We are just about to go and see her. It should be a nice evening, and I'll be sure to update later.
Cheers!

Loose

2005-01-16T16:01:00.000+02:00

Saturday was pretty neat, I was surprised. Work went by pretty fast. The evening was filled by the following events: sauna, supper and wine & conversation. Today's been pretty alright, I've gotten some things done. I filled out a huge job application to Fortum and put up a little webpage for recruitment purposes, it has just the basic information about me, a picture + a cv. We shall see if I can score a proper job for the summer. I've already sent applications to Wärtsilä, ABB, Nordea and now Fortum. I also emailed a couple of CEO's I know, asking if they'd have any use of me. I will make follow-up calls during the week. You can't trust email to be read. It's too easy to skim & delete.

I think I'll now reward myself by getting absolute immersed in Hearts of Iron 2, perhaps the greatest WW2 simulation/strategy game ever. The game starts in 1936, the buildup. I'm gonna play as germany, with a non-historical strategy in mind. I'm thinking of keeping my belligerence to a minimum, while secretly building a very competetive fighting force that'll be technically at least 2-3 years ahead of any allied technology. I'm gonna scrap the Bismarck & other marine projects (except submarines, maybe) and use the extra resources on tank & fighter research and manufactoring.. of course I'll have to keep my army techs up-to-date as well. I'm not going to occupy Rhineland untill 1940 or so, and let Poland and Czhechoslovakia take it easy while I proceed with the Anschluss, and make a drive to the oilfields in Bulgaria, effectively grabbing Jugoslavia, Romania and Hungary in the same campaign. That should keep me well stocked when the Allies start blocking my ports :) I may give some updates on the game situation during the days/weeks on how I manage. (Anyone out there interested in the "what if's of history?)

Update - 10.37pm

Nothing is as simple as it seems. But neither is it otherwise. I didn't get around to do any HoI2, but instead ended up typing silly little text for school (in swedish), and later reading Leon Goldstein's Nuremberg Interviews, pretty interesting stuff... Gotta love those Nazi bastards spilling their guts out to the psychiatrist author :) Now it's getting late but I still feel like reading the book. I guess you could consider this as getting some backround information, e.g. I won't be appointing Wilhelm Frick as minister of the interior :)

Blues, anyone?

2005-01-14T18:36:00.000+02:00

Five days zoomed by. Who gives a shit? Tomorrow, work.

Weekday morning number one

2005-01-10T21:31:00.000+02:00

School started. I didn't go. I only had swedish, and I just couldn't be arsed about it. I managed to get a book for that swedish class. I chose Henri Troyat's Rasputin - it's around 200 pages, but well-written in a good style. Why read Astrid Lindgren or some other shit, children's stories? What good is that for language-learning purposes..

Tomorrow I'll be getting down and dirty with Quality Management and Investments. On wednesday I got Business Research Methods and Environmental Engineering. Thursday's it's Environmental again + some swedish. On friday it's just Cost Management. Not a bad period. I still have to finish a paper for Business Ethics, but it's almost done.

I really didn't want my holiday to end, it's a sad story isn't it? Getting back to studies is not so bad, starting the regular saturday shifts at work is. I've been working mostly only sundays for the last few weeks, with double pay. Now it's back to shitty saturdays, with shitty saturday pay. Guess my real worry is about summerjobs.. I'm rather going to starve than go back to where I was last summer. I'll take any pencil-pushing piece of shit office job they put my way. I'll work at a bank, at an insurancy agency, anything, but not that place. Down to earth logistics suck balls! That in my case has meant low-level *but medium pay* warehouse stuff. It was a huge leap down from my years in the IT sector, where the pay was good, and the benefits spectacular.

Today I woke up around 11, had breakfast.. went to the library to pick up the Rasputin book, proceeded to read a bit of it (it's hard) and later on made some chow with Minna. The daily grind, nothing much to write home about. You do your everyday chores and then try to cheer & stimulate yourself by doing something you think you might want to do. Most of the time it works, sometimes it doesn't, and you end up with a light case of the finnish disease, depression.

The modern day man is so busy keeping time and making time. But what's done with the time that's been fought for so hard? It's spent on dicking around doing nothing of any purpose.

Ain't it cool?

Partied out

2005-01-09T17:09:00.000+02:00

We had a little party with the neighbours. A group of us (7) begun with blacklight bowling, then came back to our little cellar conference room, ordered some food.... and started drinking! The whole night was free, as it was sponsored by Nuorisoasuntoliitto (the Youth Housing Association.) I remember going to bed around 7.30 in the morning, after eating breakfast.

We woke up a while ago, at 4,15pm. I don't really like living like this. Yesterday was cool, it was fun, but it took away a big chunk out of my sunday. Of course I could have woken up at say noon and made do with a little less sleep.. To make things absolutely clear, I'm not in a bad hangover of any sort. Minna was fine when she got up, but no she's a bit worried that she might not be. We should start heading off to see her parents soon. They're preparing us some food. Let's hope we make it.

Tomorrow, school starts.

On the mend

2005-01-07T16:58:00.000+02:00

Hello there. I've been sick the last few days. Some strange flu struck me on sunday, accomppanied by a lovely addition of coughs from hell.

I managed to get outdoors today: first to the post office, to pick up the just arrived new li-ion battery for my digicam, Canon S40. I ordered it from digitarvike. Later on me & Minna went to Arabia's mall, where we shopped for some groceries and did some odd purchases (a 150cm tall mirror) and a flapjack pan :)

Later on today, we're going upstairs to my neighbour Connor's, where my buddies Ville & Ali will also be joining. The evening will consist of drinking (less for me, I'm still not 100%), going to the sauna, and who knows what.. Knowning Connor, there's gonna be lots of listening to Pearl Jam at least!

Minna & her friend Maisa are making Karelian Pies behind me as I'm typing. Let's hope they manage it, as it's supposed to be one of the more difficult types of bread/pie to make.

Link of the day, Dragon Illusion! make sure you watch the video.

January 4th, 2005 already!

2005-01-04T18:22:00.000+02:00

Christmas came & went, so did new years? What's new? I can't be bothered to type too much about it, and want to focus on more current issues. I've been reading a lot, and basicly relaxing my holiday of 3 weeks. Have been working on sundays, and drinking perhaps a little too much. Some books I've finished during the past couple of weeks:

- Berlin 1945 - The downfall
- a book on Robespierre by Albert Manfred (in finnish)
- "Kirottu Sota" a WW2 ace biog by Pierre Clostermann (now I just HAVE to get my hands on this)

I'm currenting on page 160 on "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee"
Add on top of those a staggering pile of various comics (including the stellar MAUS) that I borrowed from the library.

My plans for this year? Get a good summerjob, go tour eastern Europe... and try to maintain the decent level of effort that I have been able to exert in my studies. Let's hope this year rocks. I'm looking forward to big, enjoyable, funny things happening in the summer.

Excuses

2004-12-22T01:58:00.000+02:00

Christmas is hell, what can I say? I have been busy.

Let's see, on friday: I beat Martti 2-1 in a set of pretty good games. When I got home around 10.30pm, Minna was just getting ready to go party with a friend of her, Anu. As warmup, she had already finished a bottle of wine which we started on earlier (well, I had a small glass only, as I was going to go play squash) during supper. As Anu was running late, she had time to consume 3 warm gloggs laced with 80% vodka. She seemed ok when she left. But things took a bad turn for her when she and Anu + a few others were walking to their club/pub of choice ('System') - and Anu produced a bottle of sparkling wine out of her purse. The girls proceeded to engulf the contents inside a very brief walk of only a few minutes. Minna managed to get into the club, and ordered a cider, and that's just about where the memories start to blur for her.

I was woken up by Minna's call at around 3am (I had work that saturday, my wakup at 6.20.) Luckily the girls had stumbled onto my friend Osku, and he had eventually escorted Minna to a bus homewards.. The problem was, Minna didn't know which bus she was on, or where it was going. And I was trying to figure it out, and she wasn't making any sense, being very much off her chops, seeing her visuals in triple (I'm not joking, it has happened once before) and so forth... Anyway, I kept talking to her as she was getting closer to our place -upon her insistance, mind you- when suddenly I hear a noise as if the phone was dropped, followed by some drunken woman noise (screams, you could call them). I knew she was only a few hundred meters away, so out of bed I went, cursing like a mad sailor, put on my clothes and started on a dashing jog of rescue. I found her almost immediately. The girl was zig-zagging her way as if it was ww2 and she had a few enemy fighter planes behind her. The thing about the screams and all was related to her losing balance and keeling over onto the pavement :P

After this latenight episode I didn't sleep much. I'm lucky if I got even 3 hours in that night.
Woke up at 6.20, had a quick breakfast and went to work. Once there I pulled my shift, and agreed to come work on sunday as well. Got home, ate a little something, and then me and the now sorry hangover-queen of the day proceeded to go pay a visit to my parents. We got home from there 2-3 hours later. I went to bed almost immediately, tired as used up old bastard.

Sunday: woke-up, went to work, got home. Then a little bit of tidying up the place, going to the local shop to buy some foodstuffs, shower and -> ultimately entertaining guests. I had 4 classmates (Carina, Tara, Leena & Ville) + my upstairs neigbour, Connor (he studies at the same school, in industrial management) come over for a nice little get-together. We had a great evening - the atmosphere was warm and pleasant. We had a laugh! Carina has roots in Lebanon, while Tara & Connor are Irish, the rest of us were barefoot finns - lots to talk about..
Party ended around midnight, as some of the participants had work on monday.

Monday: Shopping hell. Minna's work shift got canceled, so we had the whole day for.... you guessed it... christmas shopping! Yayer! We only got to downtown around 12. First thing we did was to get us librarycard's to the University of Helsinki - it's free. Minna needed to get some books for her examinations on Jan 17th.. After that, we visited a million shops and spent plenty of euros. We got together with Minna's sister & brother at Iguana (a bar) and later on spent some time with Minna's friend Hanna, ultimately coming home around 10pm. Same evening still, I started to install the videocard heatsink I purchased recently, but I couldn't get my computer to boot with it. Maybe I was too tired to make a proper effort, because when I took it off the vidcard and attached the old noisy piece-of-shit heatsink+fan combo onto it, the bastard booted as if nothing was wrong with it! I shrugged, went to smoke a much needed stress cigarette (don't you just hate those moments when after installing or putting something together into your computer, you don't hear the damned monitor get signal and make the familiar noise it does when you start the computer - that's when you know you've got trouble!), and read one of my classic late 80's Conan comics and went to bed. Later on I think the only reason it didn't work was that it must have had poor contact with the GPU. Installing the thing was a bitch, you'd need 4 arms or a proper toolbench for it.

Today: Well, nothing much happened today. Highlight: I went to a new library in Arabia (an area of helsinki named after a somewhat famous finnish pottery company of the same name) and got a ton of goodies from there. It'll take plenty of hours to skim through all the books & comics I got from there (mind you, I don't loan Donald Ducks or anything silly like that - I mostly prefer the, ahem, adult themed comics: Milo Manara, Frank Miller, Art Spiegelman etc..) Minna managed to go see her aunt, and to go to a concert in a church with her parents, where they performed Adiemus-style music. I'm sort of glad I missed it :P

There's the update (~1000 words!) - worth the wait!

7 days and counting

2004-12-17T12:17:00.000+02:00

So, it is one week from Christmas, and counting

creepy!

Woke up, got lost in wikipedia, and here's a nugget of information:

On this day, 101 years ago, Orville and Wilbur Wright managed to get their POS aircraft (more a kite) "Flyer 1" (more popularily known as "Kitty Hawk") off the ground.

Wilbur Wright 'Flying' - notice that there is no engine yet.

After looking into the subject, it seems they were not that revolutionary after all. For the curious, here's a list of the greatest technical breakthroughs in manned flight.

*pause, gonna make some coffee *

Anyway. What's new? Jake brought me some of my old comics back. Nothing better than to read a little Conan the Barbarian at the breakfast table! It feels like old times. Guess it's good I never sold my comics. Perhaps they will eventually pass from father to son, getting a status of their own as the scrolls of my family :P

I reserved tickets to a Judas Priest gig here in Helsinki, going to go check it out with my big brother . That should be fun. I'm not a Huuuge fan, but let's just say I own a few of their albums and be happy at that. I hope they will be playing some of their older classics, as I haven't been listening/following any of their stuff after 1990's Painkiller album.

I might be receiving the recently purchased passive-cooling apparatus today. I believe I may just have to install it on the same day it arrives, screw Christmas! :P Suppose during installation I fuck something up, and end up making my Videocard useless? That would make for some happy holidays. So I better do it now - so that if I happen to do a blunder, I have a valid excuse of purchasing a proper monster of a videocard, just in time for happy holidays *grin* :)

Later on today, at 21.00 it's time for the traditional squash game vs Martti. I need to do some stretching & warmup before, as last time it took me almost 30 minutes to start playing right..

*update 16.39*

Oh my god, check this out: Mr Methane

X-mas break - the decadence begins

2004-12-15T20:26:00.000+02:00

Got out of bed around noon. I was surprised when I looked into the mirror. Almost had forgotten that I had dyed my hair darker yesterday (it's basicly black now)!

I then got on to browsing for some potential christmas present candidates. I think the old trusty computer needs a small upgrade: a noiseless, fanless cooling system for the videocard. The old fan broke some months ago, and I had to get a new one for it - and it turned out to be damn noisy. It creates a loud, high pitched humming noise that gets to my nerves every now and then. Anyway, here is a review of the thing.

I've yet to have breakfast, it is now 2.37pm. Guess I'll read some comics borrowed from the library nearby and sip coffee. As the chore of the day, I am going to venture out and take away the ~15 misc bottless that can't be returned to any regular grocery store. Having nothing to do is strange, after all the rush & fuss of final exams. Maybe I'll do some laundry as well, clean clothes are cool.

-- update -- 8.24pm

Minna went to a gym to do something similar to bodypump. A sort of 'forming/shaping' class. I fixed us supper, my elite version of the finnish culinary classic, Makaronilaatikko :D

I think we're gonna watch Woody Allen's 'September' this evening, as it just finished downloading. I remember it as a fairly serious, and (surprisingly) good grownup's drama about relationships. Hope it's as good as I remember it to be.

On a sidenote, tomorrow I plan go to my last class before the x-mas break really begins. Swedish. Even though it starts as late as 3.15pm, I think I'll have major motivational problems :)
After class, the plan is to meet up with Jake - an old friend of mine - for a few beers & maybe some pool. He is going to be a (planned) father soon, so it's interesting times..

First post

2004-12-14T01:50:00.000+02:00

So I finally got around to creating a BLOG. Wow.
I'm happy with just getting these first few lines in.

I envision this as a dual-functioning service,
helping me clear my thoughts, and giving you, the
reader an insight into what's going on in my life/head.

Link of the day: an online art gallery... this site has
come in handy for Minna from time to time.
Example: works of Leonardo DaVinci

If you haven't seen this before, where have you been?