Finland made the headlines

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

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

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

Welcome to Pandora

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

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

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

Watch out

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

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

Christmas Card weather

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

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

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

I'm dreaming of a white Christmas

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

How long have you've been working here?

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

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

Changes that doesn't affect you

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

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

I need to blog

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

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

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

Butter of the Gods

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

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

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

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

Bone marrow

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

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

The perfect housewife

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

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

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

Winter tires

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

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

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

Translation

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

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

Travel report

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

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

Next stop Turkey

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

Drama

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

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

Sushibar

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

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

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

We did pick up satelite dish

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

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

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

It all started 550 million years ago...

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

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

Scraping the windows

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

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

Facebooking

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

Sofa on the lawn

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

Reality check

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

Fashion blogs

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

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

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

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

I've probably seen the Google car again

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

Back at work

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

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

I was filmed by Google

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

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

I'm Home

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

I'm on vacation

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

Short update

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

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

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

Brilliant

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

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

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

We forgot

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

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

Magic mornings

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

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

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

3 out of 4

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

Open minded

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

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

9 months

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

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

Lazy

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

Dreamworld

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It's summer

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

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

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

Stop the mass physocosis

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

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

The second evening

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

Blogging isn't what it used to be

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

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

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

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

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

I'm back

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

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

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

My blog on Facebook

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

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

The smell of old clothes

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

As a result I smell old clothes today.

Good Morning

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

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

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

Blogging again

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

Dementia

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

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

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

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

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

Can I have more flamebaits please

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

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

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

I'm not on the Internet

Due to some firewall updating where I'm currently at there are a number of pages I can't access right now. Pages like Facebook, MySpace, part of Aftonbladet(Swedish news site)... I have also problems publishing writings on pages with flash and autosave. I'm on the Internet but not all of it. But hopefully they will get it fixed soon. At least Blogger is working and I'll be out of here in 5 hours...

Next Blog

Do you see where it says "Next Blog»" on top of the page? I sometimes click that link and suddenly I'm in some unknown person's blog. A lot of times that blog is written in some language I don't understand but luckily English is the lingua franca of the blogosphere or anywhere else online or irl for that matter. Other times the next blog redirects you automatically to some... well let's just call them the shadier back alleys of Internet.

But the next blog is often enough so well written and/or that interesting that it's worth going trough a few bad blogs and the questionable ?free?/commercial side of the net.

Yes it happens that I'm bored when I'm here...

Hallucinations

When you start seeing things that other people don't see it's time to clean your glasses ;-).

Next stop Ikea

We're going to Ikea on Friday. This time we are going to Raiso just north of Turku. It's the closest Ikea we have. It's a four hour drive without breaks, which we will have, at least one, probably two. I'm not sure when the new Ikea in Tampere will open but I think it later this year, maybe next year. That will only be 3 hours away.

However we will not buy furniture, we are already over furnitured. It's the small stuff, the little things, like maybe a new lamp, a kitchen tap and some kids stuff and we are not forgetting meatballs. The Ikea restaurant may not be a top of the line restaurant but they know their meatballs and mashed potatoes.

And as a good rule it's not a good idea to write in your blog that you are going away and leaving the house all empty. Because we are not, we are leaving behind our four dogs to guard the house and the city is digging and laying down a new sewer line right next to our house for the next few weeks every day.

2 hours

2 hours left before my first night shift out of 4 ends and I can go home and get some sleep. The nice thing about this winter (which affects my job) is that it's stable. The same temperature, a bit of snow on the ground and no surprise weather. It's nice...

I'm nice to Jehva's Witnesses

I've sort of avoided the question of religion in my blog. Simply because one man's faith is another man's delusion. The risk of offending someone is substantial.

But I'm fairly sure that I can write this post without upsetting too many people. Because I'm actually nice to Jehova's Witnesses, yes I really am. They knock on the door and the dogs go crazy. We have 4 dogs, we don't need a doorbell. So I slip trough the pet gate between the entry hall and the hallway and open the front door. I stand on front door's threshold and with 4 dogs barking 1 meter behind me trough a pet gate and an open front door I can't really hear what they are saying but one of them is holding a "Watchtower" so that suggests that they are in fact Jehova's Witnesses. We talk for a while, about a minute or two. But we can't really hear each other because of the barking dogs but I think it's small talk. They eventually hand over the Watchtower and leave and for some strange reason I haven't seen them again. I talk to them and I actually read they Watchtower they give me.

No I don't think this is upsetting to my readers because our dogs have already scared away the people that this could be offensive to ;-).

It's me

I can't help to think that this is my favorite place on the web. It's me, the letters of my keyboard, my readers (who's writings I also read) and nothing else (well maybe a camera). I admire those who have spent the time to learn html-coding or javascript but like everyone else they have to sit down and write something that was created in their mind every now and then. A graphically advanced web page or blog is nice thing too see but your words and pictures are the thing that is truly you, that is truly interesting.

New range hood and frying pan

We do not need to go into details but my attempt today with preparing lunch ended with a visit to to an electronics store where my girlfriend picked out a new frying pan and a new range hood which I will install later this weekend. I paid for them. We had lunch at McDonalds.

First evening

After my 6 days off I'm doing the first out of 4 evening shifts. The winter is here, a bit of snow and not that much melting in between. The weather is warm but not on the +°C-side. So this is the winter I like =)

Don't feed the trolls

Trolls are on the move, whatever you do, do NOT feed them...

-18 °C

This morning when I left for work it was -18 °C outside. One of the coldest places in the city is where we live. I think it's because it' not by the sea, it's about 2 kilometers away and there's a lot of islands out there, you can almost jump between them. My workplace is right next to the sea so there it was -9 °C, we also have another place, the other side of the city which is not by the sea about a kilometer away, where we measure the outside temperature and this morning it was -15 °C. Snow is nice but if you really want something called a winter it needs to be cold and it's cold.

Mirella was on her monthly checkup yesterday and got her first vaccines. I wonder when you stop doing monthly checkups? Don't get my wrong, it's good that they get that; I just wonder at what age the become every second month checkup and every half year checkup. And the results where: a healthy growing happy baby =).

And now for the last part of this post, our weekend plans. We are going to Kajaani in northern Finland for a dog show and we are hiring a cabin for three nights in nearby ski resort Vuokatti. This is the first dog show since Mirelle was born and our first "vacation". The dog show is just Saturday morning so the rest of the time will probably be spent in Kajaani or in the cabin or admiring the beautiful(I'm not sure it is since I've never been there before) landscape.

I should blog

I've noticed that the last time I wrote in this blog was before Christmas. I think it's time to write another post. And this is the moment when my mind goes blank. But I'm doing my third evening shift out of four for those of you who are wondering. Peace and a Happy New Year...