Rather decent tidings

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

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.

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!

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

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

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

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

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:

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

The bad sides:

1. 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.
2. Some of the customers are annoying PERIOD.
3. Few breaks, you cannot relax much. People are watching.
4. It's taking away my evenings and saturdays. Well I get compensated for that!
5. Still not quite what my schooling should get me.

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

New template

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

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!

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

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

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

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

Tolerance should not tolerate intolerance.

Arr

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

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

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

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

Interests elsewhere, update pending