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.