Merrry Christmas

This is a big Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to EVERYONE who is reading this or should be reading this =). It's confirmed, we're having a white Christmas. Snow fell on Sunday and yesterday and it's still below zero °C.

This is the night before Christmas Eve and I'm working. It's my first night shift out of four, but it's OK, since it's the night shift. If you're going to work on Christmas, and some of us have to in order to keep society going, the night shift is the way to go. I get to be part of everything and when I'm here, everyone else is at home sleeping.

Weather

If you have nothing else to write about the weather might be a good idea. It was snowing this morning, Now the snow has turned into rain but he weather prophets (that's what they do!) had a vision about snow later this week. I'm dreaming of a white Christmas...

Almost

Mirelle was in her best mood this morning and I thought it was a great moment to get a sunshine baby picture. It was, until I brought forth our camera and she decided to start chewing on her hand. But I managed to get a semi smiling picture before her own hand got more interesting. So the sunshine baby picture still do not exist.

Sunshine baby

Our Mirelle has her sunshine baby moments, yet to be captured on film but when we get it I will post it here, sooner or later. I know I'm a bit lazy with posting pictures so that's why I'm writing it here that I will. Otherwise it will be a lot later...

Going to church

We had Mirelle's baptism last Sunday. We had invited almost 30 people, family, relatives and the Godparents (4 of them) where friends of ours. We had it in Gerby Parish House which is only 2 kilometers away. It worked out well and I think everyone liked the event.

Now to some thing that doesn't happen that often, we visited church today on a regular church service. The Finnish Lutheran church has largely become a ceremonial institution for weddings and funerals in a somewhat secular society. A bit sad but cultural change is an ongoing process that can move back and forth but that's the way things are right now. The thing about our visit is that the priest read out the names of the new members of the parish meaning the children that have become baptized during the week.

Mythbusters

"Y'know, the only difference between us and a couple of 14-year-old pyromaniacs is this ballistics glass."
- Adam Savage, "MythBusters"

I like Mythbusters and in tonight's episode Adam really summed it up =).

Snow

Look, it's snowing...

Dentist appointment

I was at the dentist this morning, my last visit for a long time. All my teeth are fixed now =).

The calm before the storm

I'm back at work and the Finnish Meteorlogical Institute has issued an orange awareness level for this region and two neighboring regions for wind and snow/ice which means that: The orange awareness level means that the weather is dangerous. Unusual meteorological phenomena have been forecast. Damage and casualties are likely to happen. Be very vigilant and keep regularly informed about the detailed expected meteorological conditions. Be aware of the risks that might be unavoidable. Follow any advice given by your authorities.. It's a nice evening to be at work during this winter's first worst case scenario blizzard. But seriously, the peak of this storm should hit us sometime during the night and I go off at 22.00 and extra people are called in to deal with the storm.

Back at home in the real world (I call it the real world now) there is only one thing that matters, our daughter. I'm amazed how life has changed for the better although sleep is a relative thing nowadays and you often smell milk puke. I love it.

Father's Day

Tomorrow is Father's Day in Finland. It’s a weird and good feeling because I’m a father this time. It’s been a while since I’ve actually celebrated Father’s Day by being personally involved in it since my dad passed away 6 years ago.

Our daughter is only a month a old so she doesn’t grasp the concept of Fathers Day yet but I think Nina have arranged some kind of surprise, she wrote so in her blog =).

Anyway I’m working the morning shift tomorrow but after that ends we are going to Nina’s brother’s place, her parents are there too. It’s cake and coffee, it’s a nice way to celebrate Father’s day with family.

Back to reality

Well, I'm back at work after four weeks in baby world. I did find a "good" reason to call home and I might be overdoing the daddy thing =)

I'm a father

Long time, no blogging: Sorry for the lack of updates but I've been busy elsewhere. On the 8th of October at 3.28 AM our daughter was born. So I guess I've been busy being a parent since then =).

I got 4 weeks off from work. The birth of our daughter was born at the right time so besides my usual 6 days off in between shift tours I got two weeks off as autumn vacation and 8 days paternal leave and my last two night shifts off before all that when our daughter was born. I'll return back to work 3rd November.

Besides being a parent I'll also been busy going to the dentist and I got no more amalgam in my teeth anymore. After all it contains mainly mercury and it's dark grey in colour, not for nice looking teeth…

Our psychedelic corner

You asked for pictures and here you got one of a very pregnant Nina(10 days left) and a corner full of wall stickers. Anyway the wallpaper as you see has a good color but after we moved the cabinet that used to be in that corner there where some cracks in the wallpaper.

We (Nina) had ordered the wall stickers you see to decorate the wall in our children's room. Putting them all in one corner seemed like a good idea. I would look stylish and conceal the cracks in the wallpaper. I think it look stylish, sort of.

However I have two objections. These wall stickers are made for children's rooms but if you look closer at them you begin to wonder how high the designer was when he/she designed them. My second objection is that putting them all in one corner is that it sort of look psychedelic. So now we have a psychedelic corner in our children's room =).

Last night

I got my last night shift tonight. It's these days my girlfriend can give birth at any moment so being here all alone at work is a bit nervy. My workplace can never be unmanned so before I can leave I have to call someone and wake them up and get them here. So the plan is, she calls a cab, then she calls me and I go to the hospital when I'm able to leave.

Children's room

Since we are finished with redecorating the house, well the stairs are still undone but it’s no hurry with them, we moved all the stuff where it’s supposed to be. The baby is coming in early October so we made a children’s room.

Unfortunately the children’s rooms is popular among the dogs especially the cradle from 1848. We have caught two of the dogs sleeping in it and a yellow stain on the covering, yes a dog has peed in the cradle.

We are buying another pet gate on Monday. We have a pet gate to the entry hall, another to our new bedroom (future extra bedroom) and two baby gates not yet installed at the top and bottom of the stairs. Anyone interested in a dog or two?

Old profile

I just realized that my profile is old. We moved in a long time ago,we are almost finished with the redecoration and where having a baby in October. I think I should do something about it...

I'm lazy

I know I haven't posted anything on this blog for the last three weeks. I'm sorry, I'm lazy. But life is great, life goes on. It's about 5-6 weeks until we become parents so life is very good =)

Good Morning

My first night shift is about to end in a few minutes so good morning to you and good night to me...

Summer

It's finally summer. The sun is shining and the temperature is just above 20 C. According to the weather report this weather will continue for the next few weeks =).

Warm and sunny weather means that I can paint the dog fence. It rained most of July up until this week and painting wet wood is not a good idea. We borrowed an air compressor from my father-in-law which means that I can spray paint the fence in a couple of days which would have taken weeks with a brush. Anyway I ran out of paint yesterday with about 3/4 of the fence painted so today we bought another can of paint. When it's painted I'll do a second coating as long as the new can of paint lasts.

The reason I'm not out their painting right now is that I'm doing my second evening shift. Two more to go before I get one day off...

Mamma Mia!

It's my last night shift before my 6 days off. We are actually having summer weather here right now. The temperature is around and above 20 C during the day and there's a bit of sunshine and a few rain showers every now and then. It's nice =).

Earlier this evening we were at the movies and we saw "Mamma Mia!". It's sort of a musical movie with a lot of great actors and a lot of Abba songs. However I have one complaint. Pierce Brosnan is a great actor and he performs his role in the movie very well . But this is a musical movie and singing is not one of his best qualities. The final verdict is that I liked the movie and I would recommend anyone to see it.

Last evening shift

I'm doing my last evening shift out of four. Tomorrow is my day off which means that I'll spend part of it renovating our home. Well it's not actually much left, one room to change the wallpaper in and make a staircase child safe. I'm still removing the old wallpaper. There are at least three layers of wallpaper, partly removed and layers of putty here and there in between. I understand why people only remove the outer layer of wallpaper and repair dents with putty because it's a lot of job to remove the old wallpaper entirely before putting up new wallpaper.

When I (we) have removed the old wallpaper, which will be sometime around next week I'll fill the dents and the gaps between the actual wallboards, not the old wallpaper which will all be in the garbage can outside. A layer of paint and a bit of grinding and after that comes the easiest part of the work, putting up new wallpaper.

Apart from playing Mr. Handyman we are going to a concert tomorrow and my mom's elderly home is on the way so we'll stop for a short visit there too.

Friday morning I'm going back to work, my first morning shift out of four starts 7:00.

Home sweet home

Milan was fun, in a different way. It's not a tourist city. It's for business and shopping ann shopping in Milan is very expensive. Fortunately there was an outlet store about 100 km south of Milan. There were daily bus tours from Milan and on Thursday we took that tour. I'm not lying when I say that the prices where about half of what they are at home and compared to Milan extremely cheap. And you fit right in walking into a Prada store with the other tourists wearing shorts, sandals and brightly colored shirts. I actually felt well dressed, wearing black Levi's jeans and shoes and a semi white t-shirt.

I have one complaint about Milan though. The weather was hot and humid. With an afternoon temperature of 30-32 C it was difficult to be outside.

We're now back home. The temperature outside is 10 C, there's a chilly wind and it will probably start raining any minute now. I love it, it's absolutely wonderful, a cold Finnish summer day.

It's a girl

...or actually will be. Public health care is good but can be very basic sometimes. So in order to find out if it is a girl or a boy and if everything is really alright (we are first time parents, we worry, ok?) we or rather my girlfriend did (well I was present in the room) a 4-d ultrasound in a private clinic. So it's a girl and everything is alright. We even have a 20 minute video and a 3d picture in color. But since my girlfriend already has posted that picture in her secret blog I'm not putting it up here. You'll have to wait three months ;-).

Back at work

My vacation is over and I'm back at work, at Midsummer. Vacation was great, we spent the last week camping. We traveled trough eastern Finland and spent a few days in Helsinki. It's been a few years since I've been in Helsinki, unless you count Helsinki-Vantaa Airport.

Helsinki is in Finland but it's a whole different world from the rest of the country. It's a great city to visit and a lot cleaner and safer than most cities I've visited(Edinburgh is still number one) but I wouldn't want to live there. It's tuned to a different beat than the rest of the country, faster and prettier. It's more cosmopolitan than rest of Finland but it also lacks something that can only be found outside Kehä 3.

Vacation

I'm on my vacation now. So if my blog isn't updated until the end of June you now know why =).

29 hours

It’s 29 hours until my vacation starts. I’m doing my third night shift out of four and tomorrow morning my vacation starts =).

My mom has finally decided to move into a home for the elderly. It’s a 29 m2 apartment in a terrace house. When I was studying we were two guys that shared an apartment that was about 38 m2 (I don’t remember exactly) for 7 years and that apartment included a sauna. It’s not big but people in their twenties with full social lives and work/studies live in smaller apartments. If she wants to she can move in next month already. So I guess part of my vacation will be spent with helping her to move.

Vacation

I'm doing my last out of four morning shifts. Tomorrow is off and after that my last four night shifts start before my vacation. My vacation starts 7.00 Wednesday morning the 21st of May. I'm going back to work 15.00 on Friday the 20th of June. One month of Vacation.

I’m going back to work on Midsummer, summer solstice or Saint John the Baptist’s birthday. Around this part of the world Midsummer is bigger than Christmas and absolutely everything stops, so the only people that are working are then ones that keep our society running and I’m one of them.

Two dog shows, an Ikea shopping trip and a Bon Jovi concert are planned. Otherwise I’m planning to take it easy on my vacation.

Vet day

Today it was time for our puppies to be vetted. The got a clear bill of health and we put micro chips in two of them. There are four puppies and the two that are going to be exclusively family dogs are not getting chipped. The micro chips are a mean of identification. Put a dog under a "dog scanner" and a number comes up in the display and that number from the micro chip is registered to the owner. The two that got chipped needs to be identified because if you are going to a dog show or an agility contest your dog must be identifiable and if it gets lost among thousands of other dogs they who finds it will know who's owner it is.

One if the chipped dogs are probably going to compete in agility contests and the other on is "given away" for breeding terms, thus it need to go to a few dog shows and get some results to be eligible for breeding.

Other than that I'm doing my third evening shift out of four...

I'm not allergic to cats

One interesting side effect with my efforts to remove ticks from a cat is that my scratch marks didn't swell. Cat scratch marks used to do that when I was allergic to cats, it's an allergic reaction. This means that I'm not allergic to cats anymore. Well I would become allergic again if I lived with 5 indoor cats but that not a problem right now.

How to remove ticks from a cat

Today when I visited my mom I noticed one of her cats had two ticks. She had a tick remover and everything. Well the ticks are still there, I have scratch marks and the cat spent most of my visit hiding under a bed. I actually got two attempts but all I got from that was a non cooperative cat…

Good night

I'm the only one who's awake in our house. I'm waiting for our washing machine to finish washing. Unfortunately there were to much clothes and stuff(too much weight) in it so it was unable to spin-dry at all. Of course I first had to test if it would spin dry it a second time, it didn't. But then I took out a cushion(we have puppies, they need to sleep softly) and it seems to be spin-drying the way it should. I just need to spin-dry the cushion afterwards but one spin-dry only lasts 11 minutes so it will be about 15 minutes before I can go to bed...

First night

I'm doing my first night shift out of 4. There was a dog show in Vaasa this weekend and we visited it both days. Saturday we received a price for one our dogs that was in the "dog friend" program. Friendly dogs in the program are taken to elderly homes, schools, kindergartens and other similar places. Kids are introduced to dogs and elderly people like dogs, love on four legs that adore people.

Today, Sunday, we brought two "show dogs", they did well but didn't win. It was ok but we could have done better.

Yesterday I received my first mosquito bites this spring. Suburbia is surrounded by forest and there are a lot of swamps and small lakes in the forest. It's going to be a lot of mosquitoes this summer.

Last morning shift

Today is my last morning shift. There's a dog show in Vaasa this weekend so our program is full. My night shifts starts Sunday night.

Can I bring my RPG as hand luggage?

I read an article in a Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet about what people have tried to bring aboard airplanes on Gardermoen airport which is the capital in Norway, Oslo's airport as hand luggage. There was a long list but my top three is definitely:

1. A rocket propelled grenade launcher, also designated Light Anti-Armor Weapon or LAW by Nato.

2. Chainsaw.

3 Bow and arrows.

A small change

Here I go again with my blogs. I have placed my blogs in Swedish and Finnish under other Blogger accounts, accounts with their presentation in their appropriate languages. Not much change really but getting a long list of blogs to chose from can be confusing when you look at someone's profile. Getting a blog in a language you don't understand will probably cause you to leave that profile and never return, just because you clicked the wrong blog. My other blogs are still linked to the right...

Evening shift and happy news

After my six days off I’m starting my first evening shift out of four later this afternoon. I’ve been busy with garden work today. Since most of the snow has melted away it was about time. Before the snow fell we raked some leaves and dog shit, but not our entire yard. So I gathered it and put it in our compost. I also straightened up our dog fence. It would have straightened up by it self when it dries up in the warm spring sun. But there’s nothing wrong with strengthening the supporting poles by putting stones around them.

We’re becoming parents in the fall =). Expected date of birth is the 6^th of October. I don’t think I have fully understood it yet. Or yes I have but I haven’t truly started to believe that everything will go well all the way. Life is moving forward in a good way =).

Last night

So it’s my last night shift before I get six days off from work. I like working this way. I work two weeks intensely with different shift and then I get one week off before it starts all over again. Having different shifts mean that I’m still free during the daytime most of the two weeks I work. Worst case scenario is that I get only one weekday off. I work four shifts in a row. Having four morning shifts means that if it’s during weekdays I get either Friday or Monday off.

But anyway we got a packed schedule for my six days, well at least for the weekend. Tomorrow we’re going to see a show called (free translation) “Temporary guest in your life” by a Swedish stand-up comedian named Jonas Gardell. This is comedian without limitations. Let’s just say I’m glad we didn’t get front row seats.

Sunday it's dog show time. It’s a 2-3 hour trip one way so it shouldn’t take all day. We’re bringing two dogs. After that it’s a few days with absolutely nothing to do. Well I think I’ll visit mom on Monday. But since they are predicting snow on Sunday and Monday that means that the work in the garden has been postponed a few weeks. We did take out some of the garden furniture when spring looked and felt like spring earlier this month. They are now covered in snow and icicles are hanging from them…

Dog house

So we bought a dog house. It’s very well made and the reason they sold it was simple, the dog they built it for never lived there. So it’s been standing on there yard for three years while the dog has at most smelled the corners and stuck his head inside to take a look and smell around.

It was quite big, there wasn’t much rum left on the car trailer we borrowed. Then again it was a very small trailer. When we got home we realized that it was tot wide to get trough the gate in the wooden dog fence. The next idea we got was to lift it over the fence. But since it is very heavy that would have required 6-8 guys. So there was only one solution left, cut up a wide enough hole in the fence ant nail it together again.

So after doing that I got some help from a neighbour and the 2 of us where barley able to move it to the right place. He was holding it up while I placed a few bricks under it. The only thing wrong with is that it’s painted yellow and white while our house is painted red and white. But later in the spring when I’m going to paint the dog fence red, the dog houses yellow parts will become red.

Speaking of the spring, there is a raging blizzard outside. The winter is truly late this year…

First night

I'm at work again. I'm doing my first night shift out of four. It's a rainy night...

Hidden in the snow

We have a part of our yard fenced in for our 4 dogs to run around in, a dog yard. Well the winter is over and the snow has melted. That means that there is whole winter’s supply of dog shit out there in the dog yard that has been hidden in the snow up until now.

We cleaned up half the dog yard and filled a 40 litre plastic bin with dog shit. That means that when the dog yard is fully cleaned up we’ll have another 40 litre of dog shit. The spring is here in dog world…

Summer time

It’s summer time or more officially called daylight saving time. In Swedish and British English it’s called summer time (sommartid in Swedish). It’s a bit troublesome to adjust the clocks twice a year but when we enter summer time it improves people’s mood. The evenings are brighter and longer and it’s sort of a “the spring is here”-signal.

This is my third evening shift out of four. The weather is windy but warm. That means that the effects of what was called “this winter’s worst blizzard” by MTV3 uutiset earlier this week are quickly melting away. The spring is here .

2 out of 4

I'm doing my second evening shift out of four. On Monday we got four puppies. They are gaining weight so everything seems alright so far =).

Small update

I've changed the template of this blog and I can't live without a Swedish and a Finnish blog on Blogspot ;-). They got new templetates too and I've made a few changes with the links. I know I'm crazy and I cant make up my mind ;-).

I'm doing my last night shift out of four so after tomorrow morning I got 6 days off =).

2 out of 4

I'm doing my second night shift out of four. The spring was well on it's way, until it got cold and started snowing again. Well the nights are cold, it's snows in the mornings and it melts in the afternoon and when the sun sets in the evening the temperature drops. It's spring time Finnish style.

The joy of blogging

I'm down to one blog here at Blogspot... again. The one I left is the one in English. I'm still blogging in Swedish and Finnish elsewhere, you can actually find the links to the right under "My blogs". They are on blog sites that are smaller, sites that are aimed at selected crowds, the people that visit those sites on a regular basis. They are more of web communities than pure blog sites which mean it's easier to get readers. It also means that I write for those sites and the people there, not more generally which I have done here on Blogspot.

Anyway if I stick to one blog it's more fun. I don't have to think about how I should translate this or what language I should write that post in and so on. If I can stick to this one and write in English only, I should be more creative because it's fun and maintain and improve my knowledge of the English language. I have done this before but I have other blogs in other languages. That should tempt me from creating another set of blogs here on Blogspot. This is it.

Facebook account

You can't terminate your Facebook account, or you can if you start mailing with the administration and they grow tired if you and terminate it. What you can do is deactivate it. Deactivation in the Facebook realm means that your profile is still up and the next time you log in it's activated again. I think it says somewhere on your profile that's it deactivated. You can check in but you can never leave.

What I now wonder about is if your account is removed by the administration, do they terminate it? I mean in that case my FB profile could turn rather ugly ;-). Yes I'm seriously Facebored =).

45 minutes

I got 45 minutes left at work. I'm doing my third morning shift out of four. Exciting, huh? ;-)

New glasses

Since I have noticed that my vision has deteriorated it was time to get new glasses. On Specsavers they had a two glasses for the price of one. I ordered one normal pair of glasses and one pair of sunglasses. My old glasses where the kind that darkened when exposed to sunlight and certain indoor lightning.

They phoned on Monday that my new glasses where ready and I picked them up yesterday. I'm still getting accustomed to them. The lenses cower a wider area to the sides but downward vision is lesser than my old ones. The eyes also have to adjust themselves to my new lens strength, I haven't gotten a headache but I can feel it lurking around.

The nice thing about glasses is that you also get a new look, hopefully for the better =).

Facebored II

This one is funny =)

All you can eat

Today we were at my cousin’s youngest son’s confirmation. After the church ceremony they had arranged an all you can eat lunch buffet at the Swedish university in town. Not only that it was really good food too. It’s been 4 hours since then and I’m still full. Did I mention that they had a good cake too ;-P.

Back at work

I'm back at work, life goes on...

Facebored

I will not mention Facebook in this blog again. Will at least not any more today. I'm Facebored, I think Facebook is boring

To my Facebook viewers

So here I am again with a new blog feed reader called "Simply RSS". It was fairly easy to install. The settings were straightforward. I do however have one complaint. The settings can't be changed after you have set them up the first time. I got them right and I'm not planning on changing anything but it's a small problem. Anyway, enjoy my blogs...

A few thoughts about Facebook...again

Facebook may be a social networking website but it's not like the other SNW:s I've seen. It's appeal is that everyone's got a profile on Facebook. So you can add all the people you went to high school with. It' s great to exchange a few words with people you haven't spoken to in 15 years. However there are not an infinite number of people you know or have known. When you have added all those people and exchanged "What have you done the last 15 years?" and "I'll look forward to hearing from you again sometime" with them a problem occur. Facebook is really not about meeting new people. You add the ones you already know, work with or are related too. It's like an advanced mailing list and once it's filled with all the people you know it's done, it's over and you start doing something else online.

Shopping spree

Today we went shopping to Seinäjoki and unlike yesterday when we weren't shopping and did shop a lot we didn't shop very much today. We were mainly window shopping. How many times can you use the words shop and shopping in one sentence?

Other than that I'm doing my fourth and last night shift for this week. I'll have a few days off until some work training on Wednesday.

Our weekly shopping

We were having a boring evening and decided to go by the supermarket. We were out of carbonized bottle water and ketchup. So the supermarket visit were simply a way to kill time and spend a few euros on ketchup and sparkling water. That was the idea, but they had grinded meat in 400 gram packages for 1 €. We bought ten of those, that makes it 4 kg of grinded meat.

At that point we realized that we where doing our weekly shopping tour. You know when you buy enough groceries to live trough the next ice age, well at least next week. So we bought the rest too, vegetables, fruits, yogurt... This is what happens when we go "window"-shopping.

1 hour

My second night shift is coming to an end. I got one hour left before I go home and get some sleep.

37 inches

So we got ourselves a new TV. The old TV is a 28 inch TV. We moved that to the extra bedroom. There is nothing wrong with it but since we are both wearing glasses there where some trouble seeing the subtitles across the living room. So we where left with two choices, place the sofa in the middle of the living room or get a larger TV. So we bought a 37 inch TV. The old one also had the old 4:3 format while most TV broadcast today are in the 16:9 format. So it was a good choice.

First Night

Here I am again, at work. I’m doing my first night shift out of four. It’s snowing outside but it’s not that cold. It will probably be a calm night…

Outside view

This is a picture taken with my webcam of the world outside our "office" window. It's snowing today =). The tree in front should be an oak tree. It's easier to tell in the summer when it's got leaves =).

The house

Due to popular demand I found a picture of our house taken a few weeks ago on my gf:s photobucket page =).

Inspiration

The key to writing a good blog post is going with the flow of inspiration. You can write an average blog post but just telling people how your day was because you did the same thing yesterday. It’s a habit. But if you want to give your blog post that little extra you need inspiration. When you go trough life, keep in the mind what of the things that happen to you everyday might make a good blog post. It might be a sad story, it might be something funny. But when you are starting to draw up the lines for your next blog post in your mind the moment it happens you’ve got inspiration. Find a computer, log into your blog and start writing =).

Forest Lake

Today is a very beautiful day. The sun is shining from a clear sky, a few centimetres of snow fell last night and the temperature is around 0 °C. Although I have arrived at work and I’m doing my first evening shift out of four we had time for a dog walk before I left for work. There are a few small lakes in the forest around where we live. So we went into the forest and once we where out of the populated area we let the dogs run free, except the hound mix Ella. She runs too far and can be quite jumpy when we meet other people.

The lake we went to is called “Byträsket” literally “The Village Swamp”. It’s far more beautiful than its name suggests. Although it’s been a mild winter there were snowmobile tracks on the lakes surface, suggesting that the ice was thick enough to walk on. And it was, we also met another guy walking his dog on the lake. We should have brought the camera with us because it was beautiful out there today…

The latest...

Well, the house project is going forward. Our toilet should be ready this week (new cabinet) and the prefabricated fireplace was delivered a few days ago. We are waiting for them to come and install it...

Blogging

So many blogs so little time.I know I should try to write more in my other blogs. But I think it's a quality over quantity thing. If i don't write everywhere the things I actually write becomes better. That's the idea. Or maybe I should stay off Facebook and stick to blogging instead. Blogging is about producing stuff and reading and evaluating what other people have produced. That is creativity. Facebook mails me if some long lost friend have found me. Otherwise there's really not much to do there...

2 out of 4

I'm doing my second night shift out of four. I also got my hair cut yesterday. It’s been 2,5 months since last time so it was about time. That’s it…

The weather

The weather is a great thing to blog about when you got nothing else to blog about. Well I have other things to blog about but certain things I would like to keep to myself. Don’t worry, it’s great stuff. A blog is sort of an announcement board. Everything that is written here becomes public knowledge and that can have its drawbacks.

But let’s go back to the weather. It’s been snowing all night and it’s still snowing heavily. There is a strong wind but I wouldn’t call it a blizzard. I haven’t really gone outside to check out if it feels like a blizzard out there. I don’t feel like it. Anyway it’s expected to snow all day and the sky should become clear in the early evening. That means I’ll be shovelling snow when I get home from work…

1 out of 4

I'm doing my first morning shift out of four...

I have an education

I finally have an education. We had the final examination today and I passed with flying colours. I don’t have the paper in my hand yet but I’m a power plant operator. I worked as that for the last 5 years but it’s nice to have it (soon) on paper too…

Dog show

We're going to a dog show tomorrow in Åbo (Turku in Finnish). We're bringing three dogs so let's hope somebody wins.

A Beautiful Winter Day

If every winter day was like today I wouldn’t mind if the winter lasted all year around. That was an exaggeration, I like a warm beautiful summer day too. Well yesterday and the night before we had a snowfall. I actually spent 2 hours shovelling snow from our yard. It was the first time this winter. It was a good exercise.

Today the sun is shining from a blue clear sky. It’s -5 °C. There is no wind. The newly fallen snow is lying on the ground. There is a light fog. Can a winter day be more beathiful?

We’ve got more snow at home

Last evening, night and today we had a snowfall. The temperature was around 0 °C. In the part of town were I live it was below 0 °C. It means that all the snow that fell is still snow on the ground, about 15 cm. However in the city a few kilometres away it was only below 0 °C last evening. All the snow that fell after that turned into sleet since the temperature was above 0 °C. Same amount of snowfall but in the city they’ve got 5 cm of sleet on the ground.

I’m not going to use a snow shovel. Instead I’m trying to drive in a different track with my car when I come and leave =). Works very well with this amount of snow.

2 out of 4

I’m doing my second night shift out of four. Other than that we ordered a fireplace stove today. It will be delivered in two weeks and then installed…

Tagged!!!

I was tagged by Canadian Kristin!

The rules of the game:
• Link to the person that tagged you and post the rules on your blog.
• Share 7 random and/or weird facts about yourself on your blog, as we all want to know them.
• Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.
• Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Seven weird/random things about me:

1. I love airplanes but I’m somewhat afraid of flying.
2. I’m afraid of the dark but when I do run into the entities that actually exist in the dark I’m like an ornithologist who’s discovered a rare bird specie.
3. I have never played Trivial Pursuit and not won.
4. I owned 3 different Toyotas from 1997 to 2007. They never broke down during those 10 years. Then I bought an Opel and it broke down after 2 weeks.
5. I can’t swim.
6. I have sung karaoke in Swedish in a Finnish bum bar.
7. I have an agnostic approach to EVERYTHING.

I am tagging:
You…

Why don't we speak English?

A question that I often dwell on is why we don’t speak English more often. Since I belong to the Swedish language minority in Finland I often run into the Finnish language majority. The minority should learn the majority’s language, right? Well in the region (landskap, maakunta) I live in the majority language is actually Swedish. You can get by pretty well just knowing one language in this region because there is no real necessity of having to learn the other domestic language.

I have learned enough Finnish to be able to get by at work. Every work place has its own vocabulary and I know mine in 2 languages. But if somebody asks me something that is not related to my work and would like an answer let’s hope they know Swedish or accept a short answer that makes no sense whatsoever. Don’t get my wrong, I understand Finnish but speaking it myself can be somewhat difficult.

But back to the first thing I wondered about in this post. Most Finns know some degree of English so instead of one speaking in very bad Swedish or Finnish and not being able to communicate with the other person in the conversation they could turn to English. But I know how it feels to speak English to another Finn. It’s feels ridiculous. It’s a sense of “I should know Finnish or he should know Swedish and we don’t”. It embarrassing not being able to communicate in the only two domestic languages we have and having to turn to a foreign language. It feels inappropriate. But maybe we should stop thinking about what is appropriate and start communicating instead…

If you don't know me...

...and I have written a comment to one or several of your blog post I have done this for two reasons. The first reason is purely selfish; I like comments in my blog. So if I leave a comment in your blog you’ll hopefully leave one in mine.

The second reason is that, well it’s actually part of the first reason but I mentioned two reasons, I like to communicate with people that entertain me. So if I have found your blog interesting, funny exciting, intelligent or in any other way interesting chances are that I have left a comment in it. I like the way you write and I would like you to leave a few comments in my blog since those comments are likely entertaining. And in order for me to continue reading you blog it would be a good idea if we exchange comments every now and then so I remember you and your blog.

Friday night

First of all it's raining, the snow is raining away. This is not exactly a classic Finnish winter but at least the weather is warm. I'm doing my last evening shift and tomorrow is off before I start doing mornings shifts on Sunday. That was this weekend's program...

Customer of Murphy's Law

When me and my girlfriend goes to a restaurant it's Murphy's law in action. During the 2 years we have been together this have happened in restaurants we've been to: The have forgotten our orders several times, the staff doesn't speak Swedish or Finnish, they forgot part of the meal, the printer in the kitchen that collect orders from the cash register broke down (around 20-30 people had ordered food before they noticed that, guess who ordered first) the rice boiler broke down...

I have also noticed from a company viewpoint how certain customers seem to have extremely bad luck or being victims of Murphy's Law. They order something or they are having a service done for them and the first few times it's forgotten, then when it's done the first time(after a few angry calls from the customer) something goes wrong and it's usually not noticed by the company providing that service. A few more attempts are performed by the company that usually breaks something else in the process before the customer get what he wanted in the first place.

This might be a very professional company but the customer of Murphy's Law thinks that the people in the company he contacted are complete fools. Seeing this happening is watching Murphy's Law in action. Everything that can go wrong goes wrong, every person in the company the customer contacts forgets or makes a mistake or do the right thing and the process still goes wrong. And when you are part of that company and involved in this issue you see what is happening and you know how it's going and you try your utmost to help that customer and it goes wrong anyway.

Let's face it, some people are cursed by Murphy's law...

2 out of 4

It's my second evening shift out of four...

It's January

You now it's January and that you live in Finland when the first thing you do in the morning is going outside and plugging your car to an electrical outlet...

This is it

Well this is it, Christmas is over. I threw out the Christmas tree. Well it's actually still leaning against the the house next to the porch. But they usually have a Christmas tree collection and have a huge bonfire with all the collected Christmas trees on Mardi Gras. It's not quite the celebration they have in New Orleans or Rio de Janeiro. Here we spend the day at the beach (it's still cold enough to be able to walk on the ice) and among other things burning our Christmas trees. We also eat wheat buns with almond paste and whipcream and thats about it.

But back to the Christmas tree. I haven't read or heard where you can take your Christmas tree yet but as soon as I find out I will take it there...

Back to normal

It's late and I'm still up. There is a reason for that. I've just (well yesterday morning) done fine night shifts and I have 6 days off now.

To my Facebook viewers

I have succumbed to the Facebook phenomena. I finally figured out how to bring order into chaos and I set it up the way I want it. Anyway Live Blog is gone. I have an excellent blog(4 actually) at Blogspot and I found a nice application that made it possible for me to put my blogs on my Facebook page.

Our Christmas

Due to security reasons we had to put our Christmas Tree behind a fence. You can see one of the reasons why sitting in front of it.

Nina, Nina's dad and mom and my mom sitting at one table. We were on a few Christmas dinners this Christmas but the only one we took pictures of was coffee at our house.

Join the Facebook revolution

There are things I do not like about Facebook, the new Internet revolution. I like order and on occasions I like chaos when I can bring order into it. However Facebook is uncontrollable chaos. Application upon application is sent to you by your friends and you do not know what to do with them. However recently I have tried to put the applications I tend to keep in some sort of order on my Facebook profile. And new applications that are sent to me are tried out and either kept for a longer tryout or deleted. So I have brought order into chaos or it’s more of me mastering chaos because there will never be order in the Facebook universe.

But then there are things that seem have a strange attraction on me. The messages, the superpokes, the vampires and all the other things on Facebook is simply good old fun. And I’m slowly beginning to see the charm of it all and I think I like it =).