Well, I’m back in Helsinki. It’s kinda Yeh and a little Meh. “Yeh” cos I got back to my friends, boat and girlfriend, “Meh” cos it’s back to the grind, and travel is so much fun. Oh, and also cos they finally cut off access to Facebook and MSN at the office. Damn corporate firewalls..! *shakes impotent fist*

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Hippies!!

Anyway, my glorious return to Helsinki was well celebrated, so well in fact that I don’t remember much towards the end of that evening. However the beginning still stands fairly clear. That horribly rainy Saturday Helsinki was hosting a “Maailma Kylässä” festival, or a “World Village Festival” in English. It’s basically a large collection of handicraft and cuisine tents, full of crappy, expensive and fairly useless produce in case of the former and delicious and fairly cheap food in case of the latter. The stalls were all run by mostly stoned and usually dirty hippies and a variety of dubious “ethnic” people. Some shitty bands were playing very repetitive music with an astounding lack of talent as well, at least while we were there. Add occasional torrential downpours and you have an all-round nice way to spend your Saturday with some friends.

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Zombies!

Oh, we also stumbled upon some zombie-nurses while picking up cash from the bankomat.I dunno, theydidn’t seem to be going to the festival, and I didn’t hear or read anything about a zombie-flashmob, but whatever. Maybe they just roll that way. We then proceded to bar-hop to Kallio, that bar district I have the good (mis?)fortune to live near that we so love and loathe. I’ve partly lost my recollections around the fourth bar. I have some memories of Lepakkomies, of meeting some friends there, and afterwards of buying an incredibly delicious chicken burger at a “snägäri” (or one of them midnight snack places that reek of grease, serve your burgers or hot dogs with a side order of pubes and that you’d never buy anything from when sober) on my way home. Except that I apparently didn’t go straight home, but walked my friend home first, which I only found out later by discovering a full can of lager in my bag that I apparently liberated to enjoy on my crawl home. I also suspect that I left one of my lenses for my new Olympus E-420 at one of the bars. It was the kit 14-42mm Zuiko, so not a great loss as it is not terribly good nor terribly expensive, but it still smarts.

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Boats!!

The following morning, after getting over a moderately bad hangover, I drove to the boat and started preparing her for launch. I preliminarily agreed upon 15:00 or 16:00 for launch time with my usual crane driver, but nothing was set in stone, and the bastard never showed up or called. However that was of no consequence, since I managed to catch another crane driver in the act of lowering some H-Boat, and we agreed that he’d lower my boat for 80€ a bit later. Before that I tidied up a bit, touched up some paintwork on the sides, and waited for my fellers to arrive and give me a helping hand. And when they did, the crane guy drove up, swung my honey up, and plonked her down by the pier. We set the mast and that was it! Easy as 1-2-3. The engine started up ok, even thought the gasoline and oil mixture in the tank has been sitting there all winter, and might have had some remains of even older gas in there. And I must say that the guys from outboard maintenance in Puotila have done a heck of a job with my old Yamaha, especially considering that they only took 90€ and changed several parts as well. She purrs like a kitten now… We motored her to her berth, about 300m away, and didn’t do much else that day. The following day was spent trying to scrape the grime of the decks and cockpit surfaces in marvellous sunshine, and drinking weak, almost alcohol free beer. The decks now look as good as when I bought her, which is to say not that good but fairly acceptable. We also adjusted the stays, put up the railings and cleaned out the cabin. A very pleasant and productive day indeed, all thanks goes to my girly-girl, and Simich & Bonus! Their patience with me is a virtue quite beyond mere mortals.

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Ok, then some links. First, these 10 artists would have been much better off if they quit while they were ahead. I don’t fully agree with the Weezer bit, but a good list overall. And speaking of artists, here are some promising fellows! Then one more comic relief bit, namely a dumbass pornstar named tried to set a blowjob world record and ended up in a hospital. The lesson here is probably to never bite off more than you can swallow, although that “bite” bit might not, and should not, be applicable to blowjobs and penises. Ok, time to go all science on your arse. Here are the 10 things that you probably didn’t know about the Hubble Space Telescope. Then feast on the 6 mysteries of the solar system. Oh, and now that North Korea has tested another nuke, and Iran is about to join the nuclear club, here’s a nice and simple guide on how to build a fallout shelter. Ok, me over and out.

Well hello hello from Moscow City! I remember thinking that as soon as I’ll install WordPress on my blog a door to the world of travel blogging will be opened up to me, and I’ll write many a witty and, more importantly, interesting update on the road. Ha! As if. I’ve been around since then, geographically speaking, and did I write any updates? No! Well, now it’s time to break that pattern.

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Monument to The Conquerors of Space

I started writing this update at a seedy and weird little internet bar near our Moscow flat. It’s the closest place to our corporate flat that offers free interwebs as well as beer (although unfortunately you have to pay for the beer). And it’s weird cos it touts itself as an “Internet Club for Adults” and has booths for customers. Kinda reminds me of them Japanese media pods, the ones you can even spend the night in, the kind that occasionally burn with dozens of casualties, but not quite. I suspect that these booths are being used for more sinister purposes… Or then just to play WoW and other on-line grinds. Oh, and I am not writing this from some cum-splattered booth, no sir, I’m using the WiFi on my HP Mini from the bar. Yet, despite it being an “Internet Club for Adults”, there is a distinct lack of topless waitresses. But I guess that’d be kinda distracting, so it’s ok. Anyway, I’m in Moscow because our branch office decided to move, and I was needed to help out. Which is weird, because they could have hired an army of Tajik or Uzbek gastarbeiters for the money it cost the company to bring my fat arse here. I guess they wouldn’t be quite as trustworthy though, so here I am…

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Memorial Museum of Kosmonautics

I came here on a rainy Wednesday morning, after a very nice train trip in first class, which meant electical outlets, which in turn meant power for the notebooks, which meant games and movies! And a well stocked restaurant wagon only one wagon away meant beer. Despite my plans to watch a movie or two, I nevertheless fell asleep at about 22:30, and slept until we arrived at Moscow, around 9:30 next morning… Then there was work, work, work, and a crappy mayonnaise sandwich for lunch, after which the pattern changed to crap, work, crap, work, crap… After running out of work and crap I went to the Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics! I’ve always wanted to visit it, but the last time I was in Moscow it was still closed for repairs, so that didn’t happend. Luckily, it just opened up once again after a thorough reconstruction that increased its area x3, and added tons of wonderful new exhibits. The cool thing is that, according to the guides and backed up by my own observations, about 90% of the artefacts displayed either were to space themselves or are perfect, working replicas of the craft/equipment that did. Equipment that was used, for instance, to train crews for space missions and stuff like that. Anyway, I thoroughly recommend the experience. It costs 100RUR to enter, and another 200RUR to take pictures. If you wanna use your flash, add another 50 Roubles. I paid the fees, and didn’t flinch, the procedes are going to support the museum after all (minus 30% to account for the corruption), and are nothing compared to some entrance fees in Europe… Only problem was that I came to the museum straight after work, at about 17:30, and the museum was closing at 19:00. So I had to hurry, and couldn’t really spend as much time as I wanted to at all the exhibits…

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Yay planes and rockets!

The following day was spent at the VDNKh park. It’s not really a park, or, well, how could I explain it… It was built to showcase how progressed the Soviet people and their industry was, with the newest and best inventions and innovations displayed in the lavish pavillions amidst beautiful fountains and tree-shaded alleys. There are statues, wonderful architecture, and even a plane (a Yak 42) and a Vostok rocket on display. Not all is fine and dandy at the VDNKh land, however. It used to be a place for knowledge and contemplation, but no more. After the dissolution of USSR in 1991 the place was invaded by rampant commercialism, and it is kinda that way still. Actually, one of our Moscow employees used to own a stand at VDNKh back in the wild 90’s, and according to him the place calmed down a lot these days. It used to be that you could buy anything you wanted at VDNKh. Luckily the authorities cracked down around the change of the century, so it’s a bit better now. I wondered about for a while, taking pictures and soaking in the atmosphere, until I found a nice beer tent and sat down to rest my weary flat feet… I didn’t cover very much of the park though. I only made it to the rocket (see park map here), about 2/3 of the way through the park, and was disappointed that I didn’t walk far enough to see the iconic ”worker and kolkhoz woman” statue. I later found out, however, that the statue was removed until 2010 for rennovation, so I guess I didn’t miss anything after all. And that was that for my VDNKh stroll. I only walked along the main alley, didn’t stray, and didn’t enter any of the pavillions either, since most were closed by the time I got there. There is tons to see there still, the decaying architectural marvels, the parks, the ponds… The place is bigger than Monaco, fer crissake! Ah well, maybe next time then.

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  Unfortunately the creepy ”Internet Club for Adults” closed before I could finish this post, so I am writing now from the office, with the cleaning woman furiously scrubbing the windowsill behind me and indicating in every way possible that my presense is unnecessary, and is rather a hinderance to her duty. Today is the last day I spend in Moscow, so will see some extended family and visit the more central locations before boarding the train at around 22:00. I will also attempt to buy touristy stuff for some friends, a task that has proved surprisingly hard so far…

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So then. Links… Hmm. I have received some complaints lately, so I’ll try to rectify my ways. I think today’s list of topics is somewhat carsey, but what the hey. For instance, I really liked this review of the Honda Insigh hybrid by Jeremy Clarkson! And speaking of bad cars, lets take a look at the greatest flops of the car industry for the past 25 years. Pretty timely, now that Chrystler’s folding and the American car industry in general going tits-up. Another car-related link: this guy really wanted his drink, and, apparently, you don’t say no to someone driving a Rolls-Royce! Then, uh, on a completely unrelated side note, a cool ultra-slow-mo video of lightning strikes filmed from an airplane. Oh, and here’s some news: men are going to succumb to extinction. I’ve heard this one before, but here’s the latest study. It’s all dykes in the future, I guess. And speaking of dykes, some Aussie blokes have managed to stay away from all the surfing and crocodile wrestling long enough to invent a new way to store data on optical discs, so that we may have 12TB disks in the near future! But enough for now. It’s nearly lunch time!

Whoa! It’s been a while, hasn’t it? A bit over two months, in fact… Depressing. Oh, I tried updating before today, but something just made me hang my hands and quit at the first sign of writer’s block. The change of seasons and the onslaught of Spring can be traced through the many autosaved drafts of that one update I’ve tried to write, from the first rays of proper sunlight to the disappointment of the late April snow, ending with the first leaves and sunny days that smell of Summer.

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A bit unnerving.

So what’s been up? The title sort of says it all. It’s been a busy two months, at least when it comes to traveling. So let’s re-cap. First, flew to Dusseldorf, then took a train to Köln to see grandma and aunt, and of course the darling little cousin. That was the first time I’ve visited them since 2006, I think. Or maybe even 2005? I can’t quite recall. The last time I visited Grandpa was still alive, although he was already in a bad way. This time I only got to visit his grave. Quite creepy, seeing your own first and last name on a headstone. I was named after him, see… Anyway, it was a visit well spent. The reunion was happy and noisy, the family is as crazy as ever, and although it is always sad to see your relatives age, it was nice to see the young ones grow. I guess that’s just the way life is.

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I staid in Köln for four days, visiting Bonn as well. Ambled around the old town, saw Beethoven’s home, some nice churches and squares, and then jumped on a tram and in about an hour or so was back in Köln. Basically all I did in Köln was hang out with grandma, walk about the city and sit in bars and cafes with wifi. Oh, I also bought a watch, just like I planned. I got kinda bored with my digital Casio, so found a Citizen Marinaut, Eco-Drive, at a discount for 150€. Woulda set me back 250€ in Finland. And that was that for Germany. I hopped on a train to Dusseldorf, boarded my plane, and was back in Finland in no time. And not even drunk.

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Behold, Prague.

Then there was Prague again. Our company was invited to a biometric security conference, so I came along. I didn’t do much in Prague, except eat and sleep. I’ve been to Prague in 2000, plus was there for a day trip only a month or so before, so it didn’t excite me the way it could have. Plus being there without friends didn’t really get me in the mood. So I had a few pints here and there, walked around the old town, took a few photos and that’s it. Still, it was better than being at work. Besides, I also got to visit Copenhagen at the same time, since our flight was routed through it. Btw, couldn’t help but notice one startling difference between the Czech Airlines and Finnair stewardesses. You can guess what it was yourself.

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Majestic sunset in Hania

And lastly, but by no means leastly, I was in Crete. My girlfriend’s father wanted to spend his 60th birthday in Crete, where he spent his birthday exactly 20 years before, deciding to take the extended family for a ride! One of my good friends is married to the sister of my girlfriend, so the company was good. We stayed in Crete for 7 days. The first day was rainy as hell, the second a bit better, and it was all clear for the rest of the week. We climbed hills (sweaty), drove around mountains (scary), swam in the sea (cold), walked the gorges (hard)… An all-round perfect holiday. We also rented a MB Vito for 3 days, which we used to visit Knossos, Balos Beach, Elafonissi Beach, the towns of Rethymno and Kissamos… I drove about 700km in 3 days. Driving that mini-wagon was nice, it was a bit like steering a big boat. The only minus was not being able to drink any of the fine local beer during those three days. And boy would I have liked some on those perfect beaches… Oh, and I finally broke my trusty Powershot 570IS. Dropped it on the rocks on a beach, and it was all queer after that until finally dying in the Samaria Gorge. Will have to find a replacement soon… The warranty won’t cover it, since I already broke it once while snowboarding in Slovakia, and they then gave me a new one.

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Descent to Balos Beach!

Anyway, back to the topic at hand, I thoroughly recommend Crete to anyone. The main thing is not to get bogged down in the vacation/party villages. They are either full of geriatrics and families with kids or young semi-retarded brits and germans that puke and piss around like there’s no tomorrow and then nurse their hangovers on the beach the following morning. Not that I am saying there’s anything inherently wrong with going on a relaxing beach holiday with the kids, or partying till sunup with slightly older kids, but there’s just so much more to having a good time in a place as varied and as beautiful as Crete. So rent a car, or a scooter, or a bike. Actually, don’t rent a bike. Not unless you want to climb steep mountainsides and risk life and limb from local cars speeding around the corners. For long drives, be motorized. And preferably on top of four wheels.

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So that’s that for now. I’ll try getting the boat into the water this weekend, on Sunday May 17th, and then it’s new horizons for me. Or old ones, since I’ll be working all summer, but still, it’s sailing. I just hope the weather won’t disappoint. And that it won’t snow much in the Summer.

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Ok, then a few links. First, there is this awesome study that’s been going on in Harward since the late 30s, a study to determine what makes a happy man. They took what, 268 men and followed them for 72 years. No conclusive reults, but still makes for a fascinating read! Read the whole thing here… I recently read another thought provoking article, but of a different nature. Are we doing more harm than good to Africa with our aid? Dambisa Moyo argues that yes, we do. Here is her personal website, and here is an interesting interview with her. But for now, enough.

Well. It appears that Finns have once again been blindsided by snowfall. I can just picture the headlines “Talvi Yllätti Suomalaiset” or “Winter Surprised Finns” again. So yeah, once again a complete fucking pile up on the roads of our beloved frigid capital. At least it looks sort of pretty with all the falling snow, plus it’s fun and easy to make “donuts” in the company parking lot.

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You should hear him reggae. Very annoying.

Apart from indulging in automotive insanity and snow-watching, I’ve been doing shit all. Well, ok, that’s not quite right. I’ve also been working, albeit not very productively, and even went out on the weekend! Actually, attended a party for the people involved in the Beauty of Black Block calendar. It’s a calendar that attempts to highlight and bring to our attention important socio-ecological issues, like the state of the Baltic Sea, free public transportation, globalization, mental health etc etc, through provocational posturing, use of controversial imagery and, of course, good olg fashioned nudity. You get the picture. Well, there was one model representing every issue. I was the mental healthcare model. And dude. My picture rocked balls. One of the best, yo. Couldn’t get a digital version for my own use, yet, but once I’ll get my grubby paws on it I will definitely put it up somewhere on the blog. If permitted. The party was also quite ok. Some fairly interesting and almost undrinkable drinks, met some of the other models, was positively surprised by the overabundance of Russian speaking finns. It’s interesting how well can an absolutely typical and unremarkable finn learn and master Russian pronounciation, even when starting his studies in late teens. For some reason the other 99,9% of the finnish-speaking population has an absolutely atrocious accent no matter what foreign language they speak. Kinda like the Russians, I guess. And the French. And ze Germans. And don’t get me started on the asians… But on with the show. We also went to the movies, for the first time in ages, on Saturday. Me, girly, and girly’s girly. Faced with the choice of Benjamin Button, Gomorrah, Milk, The International, Che, Valkyrie and Waltz with Bashir, we decided to watch Gomorrah. Unfortunately. Gomorrah turned out to be very dull and messy, kinda like life in a small Italian town I guess. We later downloaded Waltz with Bashir, and it turned out to be fucking brilliant, maybe in part due to the memory of the crappy Gomorrah still so fresh in our minds.

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And now I am going to Germany. Well, not now now, but later today. My flight is at 1800, with Air Berlin. And man, I just hate flying… You might remember my flight to London last November. I hope to avoid getting that drunk this time, otherwise I’ll never find my way to Köln from Dusseldorf. I can just about picture it, waking up on the floor of some dirty men’s room, naked and covered in something sticky that smells suspiciously of cum, with a scar on my back and a kidney missing. Brr. So why do I take such horrendous risks? I have to visit my Aunt, Cousin, and Grandma in Köln. I haven’t visited them in ages, last time probably in 2005 - 2006. Hm. Let me check with the old blog… Yep, January 2006. Check the blog entry for the 15th. That time the rigours of air, rail and sea travel pushed me over the edge of sanity for a while, or it might have been the alcohol, or something else altogether, whatever, I just hope that it won’t happen this time and I won’t have to spend another 6 months in a straight jacket. Anyway, it’s going to be nice to get away for a while, being pampered by granny etcetera. I’ve always been a bit bored in Köln, and traveling alone has never been my thing, so I am not that excited. Will probably finally climb the Dom Cathedral, visit an aquapark/spa to soothe my nerves after the flight, and just hang out in bars with wifi. But now for important matters. If I happen to plunge to the ground in a fiery fireball of agony, and not miraculously escape unscathed, I want all my PC’s to be donated to Supp, while Bonus gets Blowfish. The rest… Girly can decide about the rest. Wish me luck..!

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Ok, some links before I blast off into the skies. Check out the Michael Jackson auction! God, what a moron. And a suspiciously large amount of child lures video games and stuff. And then a couple of articles on airplane safety and survival. First, one by Popular Mechanics, and then one by Aviation Safety Network, both on safest location in a plane. Then a comprehensive survival overview by BBC. Let’s just add an additional article by Time on how to survive a plane crash, and we’re all set to fly! I just hope they’re not out of Chivas Regal or Green Label at the airport bar..!

So I’m back. I’ve been back a while, four days, no less. It’s been a fairly nice few days. I’ve been busy playing Silent Hunter 4, trying to get through David Lynch’s terrifyingly awful extended edition of Dune, and idling on IRC. Oh, and enjoying frequent and vigorous bowel movements interspersed with an occasional bit of vomiting. I guess that’s the price you have to pay for eating greasy things stuffed with fat and fried in lard, with a topping of mayo and salt. Blog was far from my mind, as it usually is. But now that things are starting to be forgotten, I think it’s finally time grab myself by the neck and write an update.

Leaving Helsinki behind.

Yeah. So how did it all begin? It began with a trip to Slovakia in 2008. We gathered up some friends and booked a week long trip through Blitztours. We loved it, even though Ruzomberok, the town we stayed in, was kinda dull and limited in terms of cultural and entertainment value. The trip was successful largely due to the novelty of experience and the male camradierie, I guess. So we decided to book a trip with the same tour operator for the following year as well, except this time to the Czech Republic. And that’s when things started going wrong. Even though nine people originally promised to come along, most dropped out along the way. One didn’t cancel at all, but stood us up at the ferry terminal, for which he became a target for general scorn and derision. Come February this year there we were, only 4 of us, me and my girlfriend included, standing at the ferry terminal awaiting departure with a forlorn look in our red rimmed eyes. We who were nine, were now only four.

There he is, the motherfucker..!

So we crossed the sea of gray on a slow and shitty ferry full of slow and shitty people and came to Estonia, where we boarded a fast yellow bus full of shitty people and streaked through the shitty Baltic states and even shittier Poland on our way to the glorious Czech Republic. See, that sentence took about 12 seconds to write, and it compressed about 25 hours of suffering into a neat and tidy package. They say hell is other people. And all it takes is a long bus trip to truly apreciate that saying. There is also a Russian saying that goes something like “Insolence is the second happiness” (наглость - второе счастье) which describes the situation fairly clearly. There were a couple of undesirable elements on the bus that made the trip an infuriating experience by their boorishness and complete disregard for the other passengers, first and foremost a young(ish) couple, the guy a bartender named Kimi something with a moronic little braided beard and the chick Tea or something like that, bloated and red from all the booze she consumed. Fuck they were loud. Jesus christ. And never, not even for a moment, sober. Thank god for ear plugs, but a good taser would have been so much better. There were other antagonists on the bus, but those two were the worst. They were worse than fucking “Matti & Mervi“. My finnish readers will understand the reference.

The crash...

The trip went fine, stops were fairly frequent, scrabble was played on my PDA, Frank Herbert’s Dune was read, beer was slowly consumed and the toilet successfully clogged. We were quietly watching Simpsons on the bus’s TV when suddenly the bus screeched to an abrupt stop. Something was amiss. Our drunk zombies started wobbling up from their seats, intrigued and confused. It appeared that we came to a scene of a bad accident that had happened barely minutes before. Some moron was trying to overtake other cars and plowed right into an oncoming vehicle. One of the cars was burning, dirty yellow flames flickering on our dirty windshield. And that’s when things started happening. Our lovely bus alcoholic and entertainer Kimi mumbled something incoherent, rolled out of his seat, belched, and started loudly demanding to be let out, banging on the door. The driver complied. Kimi tumbled out and made a beeline for the crashed cars. Alarmed, me and my friends decided to follow. And right behind us, out tumbled a completely pissed middle aged woman, and promptly rolled into a ditch beside the bus. Winos to the rescue, indeed… The picture we were presented with was grim. The overtaker’s car was burning, and some drivers from the cars that stopped to help were running around and trying to put the flames out with their tiny extinguishers. They appeared to have succeded at one point, and we came nearer to see what could be done, when the flames suddenly flared up again, and that with all the extinguishers used up..! The drivers nearest to the burning car prudently put the pedal to the metal and raced to safety, plowing debris aside. We also put some distance between us and the burning car, fearing that it would explode in a spectacular Hollywood fashion. But it didn’t. Somebody dug up a spare extinguisher from somewhere and, risking life and limb, reduced the flames to billowing smoke. As I came nearer, I noticed that the driver of the burned car was lolling sideways in his seat, with his head hanging down dripping blood, held in place by his seatbelt, long flowing white hair that had miraculously escaped burning hanging limp. I am still unsure whether it was male or female… The engine was driven inside the salon by the force of impact. The driver was very, very obviously dead. There were some other unidetifiable remains in the car, but I decided not to look to closely. Meanwhile our piss-drunk “friend” has taken it on himself to rescue the driver of the other car. That guy was jammed in tight, and showed no sign of life for the first few minutes, but then started this heart-rending, pain-filled moaning. He was obviously in serious pain, and looked to be badly mangled. But alas, the doors were jammed tight, and besides, what could we have done were we to pry them open? You shouldn’t move victims that might have broken necks and spines before the paramedics arrive, that much is repeated in every first aid training scenario. And that guy looked unable to lift his head. But our heroic Kimi persevered. He smashed out the back window and climbed in, despite our protests that it was a stupid move, since the other car could flame up again, and so, theoretically, could this one. We implored him not to move or touch the fellow, and he thankfully appeared to understand. So he started shouting encouragement in drunken Finnish, which was not a particularly bad idea, but might have been better coming from someone speaking a language spoken by the victim and not reeking of a distillery. To make the matters worse, his drunk girlfriend stumbled along and started shouting at Kimi to get out of the car, and got it into her drunk head that he was stuck there as well and was in peril. It was an embarrassing pandemonium, the drivers of other cars looking at the pair of clowns with badly concealed anger and contempt. There was nothing more we could do, so we dragged the morons away from the cars and carried on driving. Oh, and remember the drunk middle-aged bitch that fell out of the bus and tumbled into the roadside ditch? Well, she stumbled to the back of the bus a bit later and accused us of “belittling her efforts at saving life”. What a piece of drunk shit! We just told her to get the fuck away from us. Needless to say, the rest of the bus trip was, at least by comparison, uneventful.

Our yellow bus in front of our hotel.

Early in the following day we arrived in Vrchlabi. The “ch” is pronounced as “h” btw, as we learned during the last day of our stay. The town was very pretty, with ye olde buildings and a cathedral, nice bars and cafes, and very little socialist style construction, all capped by the beginnings of Elbe running through the town. Our accomodation at Pansionat Lucky proved satisfactory, fairly spacious even, with our own kitchenette, except that it looked like somebody had taken a dump on the sheets and then smeared them with blood, although upon closer inspection it turned out to be some kids work of art made with markers. The boys were even luckier, since the hostel reserved a 6 person room for them, a proper apartment with two rooms and lacquered board floors, with a great view down the main street of Vrchlabi. Hostel’s owners were not thrilled with letting two guests use a six person room, but boo hoo, they got paid what they asked anyway, so all their attempts at making us vacate one room and live with the boys were ruthlessly turned down. The only trouble with the rooms came from the boilers. Each room, you see, had its own gas-powered water heaters. Ours was small, and could accumulate 100l of hot water a night for daily usage, while the boys had a larger one in their room, a unit that was also responsible for heating the water radiators. Our boiler stopped working on the second day and didn’t work for the following two days, until one night it just sort of started right back up by itself. The hostel’s boss came by in the morning of the second day, poked it with a screw driver, muttered something about “night electricity” and went off. Guess she was right. Those days we showered in the boys’ shower. A few days later their boiler also had some sort of a nervous breakdown, and started spraying high pressure water-steam mixture, while its internal pressure rose to three times normal, so the boys took the cowards way out and decided to turn it off. It would have been fun to see how the situation would have unfolded if they left it on. Once again the staff were less than helpful… Oh, and one more incident at the hotel. On the morning of the third day I locked our only key inside, sticking out of the lock on the other side of the door, but as we were about to hit the slopes, and had all our stuff with us we decided to go and leave the door opening for later. I did, however, inform the reception about the situation. I thought it would be just a matter of getting the second key from the reception, but noooo… They had old-style locks that you couldn’t turn if there was a key inserted on the other side of the door. So there we were, sweaty and hungry after a day on the slopes, girly quite literally on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and with all our fresh clothes on the other side of the door. Yay. It took the repair man 3 hours to arrive and cost me 500CZK to open the door.

Typical slope at Spindleruv Mlyn.

As for the slopes, what is there to say. The slopes at Špindlerův Mlýn and Medvedin were mostly ok. Worse than in Slovakia, that is shorter and lower, but still better than most of those in Finland. The longest one was 2,7km long but very gently inclined, and the loftiest peak was 1235m high (compare that to 2200m in Slovakia). One good thing about the slopes was the relative absence of queues. I recall you could easily spend 20min queuing for the gondola in Slovakia. The weather was good throughout our stay, it was snowing 24/7, there was 2 meters of snow on the slopes, but no proper powder slopes. Although I probably wouldn’t have gone on them anyway. The first day brought a pleasant surprise. I could still snowboard! Whatever lessons I learned in Slovakia didn’t go to waste, as I feared, but were instead ingrained in what I can only assume is “muscle memory”. I was flying down slopes in no time, and this time my ribs stayed intact! My feet were giving me the usual problems even with special soles I had made to fit, but that was to be expected since they are flat and are twisted in some unfathomable way, so I sometimes had to have a sit down on the slopes half way

Me & the board at Medvedin.

through to alleviate the pain. Still, my body’s overall performance was much better than last year. I remember getting out of bed after the first day on the slopes in Slovakia. It was hell! I couldn’t move my legs, my abs hurt, my neck was immobilized… But this time it was up & go! I blame the gym for my success. All said though, we didn’t do much ‘boarding. The boys only hit the slopes 2 days out of 6, preferring to stay in and watch South Park on Simiches N95 or booze it up, while I fared slightly better with 3 days and 30 total descents. But there were many factors to blame for lack of activity. We were too few for major fun, the boys were usually too hungover, my girlfriend got sick… Still, it was worth it. Next time I’d like to go somewhere higher, although realistically speaking the slopes in the Czech Republic and Slovakia are probably best suited to my abilities. I did plow down a granny and a kid, even though strictly speaking it was their own goddamned fault for getting in the way of a true pro-rider..!

Prague, city centre!

We also took a few trips outside Vrchlabi and Špindlerův Mlýn, visiting a local microbrewerey, Pivovar Basta, and Prague. The brewery was utter shit, with crappy overpriced food and even crappier beer, with inept service as an added bonus. I bought dad 5l of their dark beer, and I hope it’s better than what they had on tap that day. Speaking of prices, that was one cheap trip. A beer at a “classy place” would usually cost about 30CZK, or 1 euro, plus - minus 10CZK, usually less, and a good meal would cost about 140CZK at a restaurant! That’s french fries, tartar sauce, chicken breast and vegetables, my usual fare. You could get a full lunch for 100CZK at lunch time from almost any restaurant, and I’m talking a proper soup and a large main course! That’s what shit’s supposed to cost, man. What it really costs. And when they replaced a part of my snowboard bindings I broke on the slopes it cost all of 80CZK, the part included! The part was used, the work to replace it only took about 3min, but that wouldn’t have stopped anyone at a Finnish ski resort from charging me at least 25€! So yeah, expensive it wasn’t. Pragues was… Prague. Very pretty, very big, very lively. A perfect city, were it to have sea as well. Unfortunately our enjoyment was somewhat tempered by the cold weather, but we managed. Prague, even though it is the capital and a tourist destination, isn’t expensive itself. Mulled wine (Glühwein) at the main square cost only about a euro fifty. We had a nice walk about, ate, and boarder the bus back to Vrchlabi, tired but content.

Peak of Medvedin, 1235m...

Very soon, just as we started to properly enjoy ourselves and the boys got the hang of waking up early to do that skiing thing, we had to leave. But that’s the way it always is, I guess. And there was still the bus trip home, in the terrible company of the drunk and noisy monsters. The trip back was even worse because we had to sit right behind the bickering alcoholic couple, and the boys didn’t get their back row either, but had to listen to inane drunk chatter of 15 year olds. Brr.  Plus there was heavy fog on the road in Poland, and Kimi, ever wise, was shitting himself in drunken panic, yelling at the driver to stop and wait a few hours for the fog to dissassipate and giving other valuable advice. We were sort of glad that some of our hot-blooded Russian guys that wanted to come along on the trip couldn’t, since Kimi would have had his nose broken in the first few hours of the trip and we would have been removed from the bus already somewhere in Latvia. But yeah, as all things, good and bad, the trip came to an end, and we were back home in grim and gloomy Finland on 22.02.2009 at 19:45. My dear friend Supp came to pick us up, for which he received a bag of gummy bears and our eternal gratitude. I was so glad to get a lift that I would have offered him my virginal arse, but my girlfriend was there and might have objected, and he probably would have declined anyway, the picky bitch.

Phew. That’s it. Next year we’ll probably go somewhere else altogether, somewhere higher, better… But probably more expensive, as these things go. And without infuriating fuckers on the bus, although that might be hard to arrange. Maybe some Jookoskookos tour with young people… Hmm… They do seem to have a much nicer itinerary.

Ok, I know that this post ran on for way, way too long, but I’ll still throw in a few links. Here’s an interesting point of view on terrorism and 9/11 in Slate, the first article of a week-long series that just started. They make some good points there… And now on to something completely different. A fitness trainer decided to gain a shitload of weight in order to understand his clients better and to prove that major weight loss and getting fit is really possible and is not that hard. What a fucking show off. Meh. I also took it upon myself to gain a lot of weight. That’s where my brilliant plan ends, though. Then a few quick ones. Mobile phone art, looking suprisingly cool, humongous fucking stingray, and the Top 10 deaths caused by video games! Enjoy! I’m gonna go take a nap or something.

Top of the morning, folks.

Very inspiring, thanks.

And what a glorious winter morning it is. Gently falling snow, indifferent gray skies, deadly slippery roads… But what makes it all that more special is that I know it is the last morning I spend at work for the next 10 days. I am going to the Czech Republic (almost wrote Czechoslovakia there, whoops) with my mates and girlfriend, although it now looks like the number of mates actually going has been whittled down to two… One asshole didn’t even say anything, just stopped replying to calls and mails a few days before departure! That’s fine, be an asshole, buddy, but the dickwad is putting my mate’s room reservation in jeopardy (original reservation was for a 6 person room, and now that they are down to two the tour guide is grumbling at the waste of space and his money) by his sudden disappearance. Not to mention that we’ll have to explain, once again, to the tour guide that our mate isn’t coming, and that there are only two left out of five. Fucking brilliant..! That guy deserves a hobo turd stuck in his mail box, or, preferably, his mouth.

*

But anyway, we’ll be leaving tomorrow on the 8am ferry for Estonia, where we’ll board buses and head to Vrchlabi, Czech Republic. The drive on Via Baltica will take us through Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and, finally, to the Czech Republic, and will last from around 22 to 25 hours. I am basing this on last year’s trip to Ružomberok, Slovakia, which is about as distant as the Czechs, and lasted 21 hours there and 24 hours back not including the ferry trip. Last year I was snowboarding on the slopes of Tatra Mountains, this time it’s going to be the Krkonose (Giant) Mountains. They are a bit more modest, certainly not doing justice to their lofty name, reaching up to only about 1600m tops, but I guess they’ll do. We are going to be doing all (or at least most) of our skiing and snowboarding in Špindlerův Mlýn and Herlikovice, when not enjoying local beer and soaking in aquaparks or bowling. As for the costs, well, some would say that the trip is expensive while some would find it cheap, and I’m sorta falling in between with my opinion. At 385€ (no breakfast, ferry included) It is certainly cheaper than going to Lapland, not to mention more fun, and sure is cheaper than booking a week (or even a weekend) at the Alps.

*

My Omnibook 4150b is now up to 1999 standards!

I have prepared well for this trip. I am carrying a formidable arsenal of entertaining electronics, something vital on a long bus trip, as well as a good selection of books. Basically, I am taking along an iPod Nano, gameboy micro, iPAQ, cell phone, laptop and a camera, as well as a travel radio. That’s a lot of chargers. As for the laptop, it has been considerably beefed up for the trip. I bought a ”new” 40Gb HD to replace the old 6Gb one, 128Mb more memory to bring the total up to 256Mb, and, most importantly, a PCMCIA WiFi card to replace the old wire-only one! Now the old runt is perfect for casual web browsing, movie watching, or playing Diablo II and Baldur’s Gate II..! And to think I almost bought a 400€ new laptop for this trip. Now I can postpone that till next year… Ah, the joys of being cheap. Well, anyway, I am already almost done packing, so will soon go have a pint or three with some mates, since, judging from my previous experience, I am prone to breaking bones, having already broken a rib last year, and might not be coming back from this trip alive. But I’ve only myself to blame, since, as my girlfriend said, “It takes an idiot to strap both his legs to a plank and hurl himself down a mountain”.

*

Ok, so a few links and then it’s go time. You are probably not stuck in traffic right now, but here are 7 things to do if and when it happends. I wish I had number 7 and I do number 4 constantly, both intentionally and not, while number 1 has unfortunately been known to happend… And speaking of traffic and traffic jams, Google has a new service that measures your bandwidth and how it’s utilised, ensuring that you know what you pay for. Nifty. I swear, one day Google Inc. will rule the world, Cyberpunk Zaibatsu-style. We’ve plenty of time before that, though, so check out some weird words and bizzare phrases in different languages. My favorites are Sjöstygg: Norwegian for someone so ugly the tide refuses to come in if they stand on the shore, and Layogenic: Filipino for someone good-looking from afar but ugly up close…

Howdy, kittlings!

I somewhat uncharacteristically decided not to wait another month (and almost doesn’t count, smartass) before posting another irrelevant update, even though I have little to actually write about. Dum de dum dum. Most of my good blogging ideas usually happen when I am far from my PC, and it seems kinda silly to jot them down on paper, so they never make it to the blog. I’ve lost countless good rants like that. And so when guilt finaly makes me write something, there is nothing much to write about. But then again, is there ever..?

Ominous zombie crowd. Eerie.

I’ve gotten incredibly wasted during a gig in Tavastia, and can’t even recall what band was playing. Luckily I took a picture. That was the low point of the month. Everything else from there on is way rosier. I’ve revisited the Olkiluoto nuclear power plant, this time on my own, and loved every minute of it! Not the fact that it was Olkiluoto that I was visiting, but the feeling of independence and freedom that came from being, temporarily, my own boss. Even having to wake up at 6am and spending 7 hours in the car in total didn’t damp my spirits. I didn’t have a passenger, so could screach along to my favorite songs to my heart’s content. Besides, that drive made me 0,45€ richer for every kilometer of asphalt that sped under me, due to work trip compensations. I like money, no doubt thanks to my semitic ancestry. I save my money. I hoard it in my lair. They say that now is the time to invest in stocks or whatsits, but I think that with my knowledge of the subject I’d have better luck investing in slot machines and lottery. I mean, you still have to have some knowledge when it comes to investments, right? To showcase my ignorance even further, here’s what I’d invest in right now, were I to have say 10k laying about: some fairly stable tech company whose stock tumbled recently, like F-Secure or forest companies that have recently lost value, like Metso or M-Real. Some mining companies might prove a good value as well, in my eyes. Amirite? Correct me if I’m wrong.

But yeah. This week I’ll be mostly packing for my upcoming snowboarding trip, but more about that later. I’ll try blogging during it, but I can’t promise anything. I don’t even have a proper working laptop, for chrissake. I am thinking of buying a HP 6735s, new for about 400€, or an IBM x31, well used but store-refurbished with 3 months worth of warrantly for 200€. Still, I have my doubts. Buying an old (first released in 2004, I think!) system for 200€ might be a bit much. There is a high probability that my own cheapness will bite me in the ass with that deal. I already have an old P-III 500Mhz laptop for games like Baldur’s Gate II, Civ II, Diablo II and HOMM III. I might upgrade its memory a bit, get a bigger HD to replace its current 5Gb monstrosity, but it has generally just enough oomph for games of yesteryear and Windows ME.

Right. Enough with the chatter, link time. All that talk of games past has brought nostalgic tears to my eyes, and memories of better days. Here’s a list of 21 FPS’es that you should have played. I can’t claim I’ve played them all, but I can say that I’ve played the most. Oh what unsurpassable joy it was to play Quake 1 with your peers at an impromtu LAN-Party… I don’t think even holding my firstborn in my arms will eclipse that happiness.Sniff. Damn, I need to go get some tissues. I’ve also been looking at some pretty awesome photo galleries lately, so hey, check them out as well! London by night, from above, gallery I & gallery II. Great shit there. Made me wanna go there again, even though I was never a great fan of London Town. I guess it never quite answered to my overinflated preconceptions and expectations. And here’s an interesting photographic experiment, a 6 month long exposure made “..on a basic pin-hole camera made from an empty drinks can”. And then something for the guys to wank about. Sweden’s new Stealth Corvette, baby, yeah! Here’s some more information from the builder, specs and description as well as some more photographs. Frankly, having something like that coming at you in the picteresque skerries of Swedish archipelago can make you swallow your skipper’s pipe. I mean, I’ve saled extensively in Scandinavian archipelagoes, and that thing just seems… Wrong. It doesn’t fit. It’s like a damn Vogon Planet Destructor! And don’t you dare say I’m turning all pacifist on you. I still salivate at the sight of maritime militaria. It’s just that for me Sweden + Sea + Archipelago = Red Cottages + Sailing + Sunshine, not phallic battleship from hell..!

Helsinki's been wet, mainly.

  Meh. So busy. Uncharacteristically busy. Busy with what, you might be tempted to ask. The last time I saw you you were busily wearing down the couch with your arse watching Frasier, enjoying yourself to quite an inappropriate extent, you might say. And yes, that’s the way I used to roll. Not to say that I didn’t do things, like travel, or sail, or go out with friends, or that I didn’t enjoy doing them. I just didn’t go out of my way trying to find things to do. If I had a day off and no scheduled activities to fill it with, no problemo, there was always a nice book, a movie recently downloaded, or a game unplayed. Or a local pub with a local friend, but that depended on the day of the week and that friend’s availability, so I’m leaving that out of this equation. I didn’t start panicking and feeling guilty that I wasn’t doing something productive or pre-planned. I didn’t fidget and moan. I’d just chill, with quiet grace and dignity. In fact I’ve always found people that are unable to just mellow out once in a while incredibly annoying, if not just plain dumb or severely limited. But now I do things. And while I am still quite at ease chilling on the couch, I am afraid that state of affairs won’t last. Nowadays I often notice that there is something gnawing at me, something that just won’t stop until I find myself doing someting productive, or at least something that I don’t enjoy doing. It has pretty much taken enjoyment from playing computer games. Or reading fiction, at least the kind not venerated by literary critics and not canonized as classic literature. Watching TV, strangely, is ok, because it takes on the form of temporary procrastination, of easy self-deception, or being in between states of doing, while playing games or reading books is a state of doing, for lack of a better word. I blame old age.

  So now I find myself swamped, by my standards, with duties and activities. First there’s the necessary evil, work. That generally follows a classic 9 to 5 pattern. Then there’s Gym. Another necessary evil, but one that I am starting to enjoy, another sign of apocalypse. That’s Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. In the name of honesty, however, I must add that it’s mostly two out of the three weekdays mentioned, no matter how hard I try. That’s 17:30 to 19:00, approx. That would have been quite enough ordinarily, but now I decided to add Coastal Skipper courses to the mix, held Wednesdays 19:00 to 21:00 for the next three months. Always wanted to do the course, mainly in order to expand my knowledge of things nautical and hone my skills, and in part because it will be useful if I decide to get an international pleasure craft operator certificate, something required by most charter boat operators in the Med, for instance. On top of that I’ve also enrolled in psychology courses at the open university, courses that span the entire year, at different times on different days, also something I’ve thought of doing before but never getting around to, and that eats up valuable time off-work. So now I actually find myself having to schedule things in advance, things that have always been spontaneous before, like meeting friends or going shopping for something in particular. At least now I have gained insight into why is it that any time my girlfriend wants to meet two or more of her friends for a drink without informing them three weeks in advance it requires sixteen hours of complicated phone negotiations, synchronisation of diaries and at least a terabyte of electronic communiques.

Struggling with the couch.

 I’ve another piece of “Extra! Extra! Read All About It!” news to air here. As of 24.01.2009 I now officially cohabit with my girlfriend, still in sin, at our new residence here in the picturesque Undisclosed Locationsville. The new digs are bigger, newer, spacier and more expensive, although lacking the sea view I’ve so enjoyed bragging about before. Sigh. The boxes are unpacked, the carpets laid, the curtains hung. A new chapter, so on and so forth. All thanks for aiding and abetting us in this mighty endeavour goes to Dima and Hanna. I hope that your finger grows back stronger than ever, dude. Now all I have to do is get a new internet connection… And clean up the old flat. As for now, all my surfing will have to be done from work and the library. I see it as a test, of sorts.

  So. Links, then. If you, like me, are in the least bit interested in space exploration and, in particular, the ISS, then do watch the 10-part video tour of ISS. I still haven’t myself, will have to once I get my new connection running, as watching all 10 of the 10min clips at work would be a bit much, I think. Then here’s a bit about lifting the Flight 1549 from the Hudson river. Just some nice photos, no more no less. I think the starboard engine is still in the drink, no? Following up on the subject of Flight 1549, here’s a game based on the ditching. See how many birds you can avoid, and once you inevitably suck a few in, test your skills at ditching. This last link, then, goes for all you Mac fanboys out there! Asmo out.

Ah, nice. The blog update rate is threatening to stretch into months once again… But it’s not my fault! Nothing interesting has been happening, I have had very little time to update… And it is completely my fault. There have been things worth writing about afoot, I have had ample time to write, interesting photos have been taken, more or less interesting places visited. I know I mainly keep this blog for my own perusal, a public diary of sorts, and have almost no audience, but that does little to reduce the guilt I feel for neglecting “my duties”.

A lot of things have happened since I last updated the blog. Barak Obama became the president, Israel started and ended a major offensive in Gaza, an A320 made a miraculous ditching on Hudson river, figure skater Rubleva showed her tit to the whole world, Amy Winehouse is trying to kick the heroin habit… As for me, well, read on.

15:30. Sunset at Tokoinranta.

For example, I swam in an avanto yesterday! I mean, is there even a word for avanto in english? Ice-hole? Sounds like something you’d call a frigid woman… “Hey! You! Yes, YOU, icehole!! C’mere and give daddy sum lovin’!”. Ahem. We were invited for an evening of sauna and dinner, eating meat cuts and melted cheese poured over some boiled potatoes (there’s a fancy name for that cheese thing in French, but I forget what it is) in Espoo, at our friend’s cottage near Siikajärvi lake. But anyway, I dipped beneath the ice for the first time since ‘96 or ‘97! Crazy, right? But people do it all the time here, at least some of them, and it goes great with a sauna. Very invigorating, if a bit emasculating. My genitals became external once again after 5min in the sauna though, so no harm done. Unlike back in 96′ - 97′, when I almost left my dingaling on the ice, as there was no ladder and I, as well as other corageous souls, had to be dragged out scraping my belly and nether regions against the razor sharp edge of the ice-hole…

A gourme meal, Wine & all...

What else..? Oh, yeah, I’ve been enjoying an uncharacteristic lottery winning streak! Twice in a row, in group games that divide the winnings (costs as well, while increasing win probability, which is why people buy them) by 10 and 5. Won 13 and 16 euros respectively! Haven’t lottoed since, but should probably “invest” some money into the Saturday draw. And before you say anything, I know that the odds are stacked overwhelmingly against me. It’s just a small thrill I buy for the price of pocket change, a little chance, a shot at wealth overwhelming. Oh, and just now, picking mothra dearest up from the train station, I won 5€ from a poker slot machine, from an initial investment of 1€. It just kept giving me wins, 4-Of-A-Kind, Flush, 2 Pairs at a minimum stake. I am not a gambler, so didn’t pursue my streak of luck, and walked away when my original euro ran out and the wins reached 5€… But this does make one think, perhaps it’s a sign that I should buy some lottery tickets? We’ll test that out. You’ll know whether I had the right hunch if I’ll be blogging from Carribbean next week from the deck of my own yacht.

As for work, well… It’s been kinda nice. Been to the Olkiluoto nuclear power station a couple of times after my last visit there, long drives but fairly good compensations. Then had an interesting gig in Turku, installing hardware and software, completely autonomous, all responsibility on me, but the feeling of satisfaction from a job well done (well, well enough) was worth it. Plus, once again, 0,45c of compensation for every kilometer driven sweetened the deal nicely. Now I am just waiting for a similar gig, to break the monotony and boredom of office work. Doing something like that in Moscow would be awesome… To get away from Helsinki for a week, and to get paid extra for it… Now that’d be the bees knees.

Oh well. Gotta go. So a light dusting of links is probably in order. I think we’ll go on mourning 2008, so here are some of the weirdest computing disasters of 2008. Then something that might interest you a bit more, the Top 20 Nude Movie Scenes of 2008! A very productive year, I must add. But what’s with the hideous flat tits with mutant man-nipples on Neve Campbell? And the sad grannybags on Kate Winslett!? To continue with the movie theme, here are the Top 24 worst special effects. They make a good point in a comment to “The Hulk”, it is incredibly hard to get jaw movements looking right. And the damn zombies/vampires in I Am Legend were shit. And the mask effect in Total Recall was pretty good, as I recall, although the fact that I was about 12 when I watched it might have had something to do with that. Although I was old enough to find the idea of a third boob alluring and the scene where the Governator’s eye-balls popped hilarious. Ok, gotta run to the uni.

  Another day, another something something. Another euro earned, perhaps? Another wrinkle? Another kilo gained? I don’t know. Today is special though, because it is the last day of 2008, but still I have to sit at the office until 17:00. At least I didn’t have to get up at 5am today. I got up at 8:15 instead, being wilfully late for work. Oh, and why did I have to get up at 5am yesterday? Here’s why:

That's as close as I was allowed to take pictures. Bummer.

I mentioned an interesting gig coming up in my Monday post, didn’t I? Well, that gig involved going to the Olkiluoto nuclear power plant to install personal access control and issuance systems for the security departament. I am not going to divulge any secrets, so put down that phone and take your finger off the 1-800-SNITCH speed dial button. I am not going to spill the beans because I don’t have any beans to spill. I was basically a glorified driver for that trip. My collegue did most of the real work, all that messing about with databases and shit. I did the program installation and some hardware setup, and then a lot of going to the toilet (they fed us well), staring into space, quietly freaking out (having had too much caffeine, a big no-no for someone on SSRIs), and playing monopoly on my phone. I didn’t dare take out my GBA Micro. I had to stop by the office in the morning, to pick up some hardware, so woke up at 5:20am. It wasn’t that bad. I picked up my collegue at 7am, and we were off, almost instantly getting lost on the motorway, because it was still apparently not ready, and at some point just sorta petered out, leaving us on the road to Hanko instead of Turku. We lost about half on hour with that, and had to drive along a narrower, slower, unlit road for most of the trip there. And that’s where I started zoning out and slipping into a dream state, drifting gently here and there… But we got to Olkiluoto just fine, although 45 minutes late, after a 3h 30min drive that included two pit stops. And the rest is history. We didn’t get anything to work properly, we ate at the employee canteen, and then we drove back to Helsinki, at around 17:00. After the 15 hour work day I didn’t want anything except to hit the shower and then the bed and watch CSI, drifting off to sleep to soothing screams and gentle death rattle.. Girly had other plans, however. She was at her sis’s place, and wanted me to drop by for a visit as well. Her concern for my social life had, of course, nothing to do with the fact that it was cold outside and her hair was wet and that she didn’t want to waste an hour on public transportation to get home. Her sis is married to Mr. Z, a good friend of mine and a capital feller, but still I almost didn’t go cos was just so damn tired. However, I was finally swayed by being offered an opportunity to taste their home brewed cider, which turned out to be delightful indeed. As another bonus I was given a tour of the newly installed geothermal heat pump, a heating system that… Well, it works on some sort of magic, trust me. I am not sure if his heat pump is geothermal as well as air source, though. But we will get drunk at their place tonight, as we celebrate the coming of another year, and disassemble it to get to the source of the magic, and figure everything out.

Yeah, 2008 is at an end, and it feels like it barely had the time to begin. In my case 2008 was one of those years that didn’t really stand out much. Not like 2005, when I bought my boat and sailed her to Gotland. Or like 2006, when I sailed the fuck out of East Estonia. Funny, only epic sailing trips and summers really stand out. That, and mental breakdowns, but I’m not gonna count that because we are concentrating on the listing positive things here. 2008 was the year of almost no sailing though. So what does stand out in 2008? Well, I moved out of my mother’s flat into my own at the beginning of 2008, after living there for something like 2 years. I liked to tell myself that I lived in a flat owned by my mother, no more, but she spent enough time there to make it akin to living with your mother. So moving out was a very good thing. I also met my girlfriend, that is I started going out with my girlfriend, having met her at least 5 years prior to that. That can also be added to the list of positive achievments, I guess. I also gradually climbed out of depersonalization disorder, as well as depression. But that was to be expected anyway, those things typically last about half a year with me. I started working full time, but not before taking a month off to visit relatives in the region of Krasnodar, Russia, and to explore the coast of Black Sea, Anapa to Sochi, with my girlfriend, who’s never been to Russia prior to that or met my relatives. The results were both fun and educational. Hmm. That was pretty much it for summer, I think, except for a DDT gig in Tallinn. Then there was the fall, with a business trip to Moscow, my first, and so far only, business trip outside of Finland, and the “long weekend” trip to London. So there. I think my 2008 was kind of tame. Not bad, just tame. Could have been better. 2009 will probably be worse. More work, less free time, less travel… But we’ll see about that.

So. Have you had enough of Top 10 and “…best of 2008″ lists yet? Yeah, me too. I don’t have anything else interesting though. Except for the always entertaining laws still on the books in the States. Oh, that seems to be a top 10 list as well. Aw crap. Well, here’s another list then. This one is good, trust me. The 7 best capers (crimes) of 2008! And where would we be without space links? Here’s a gallery that followed the progres of space shuttle Endeavour from launch pad to landing. You can buy the space shuttles now, too. Will be yours after 2010, barring possible disasters. And remember the plucky Mars Rovers? Well, you can’t buy them yet, but the fuckers are still alive and kicking, sending fascinating pictures of rocks and dust back to NASA after 5 years of service, despite being designed to only function for 90 days. Ok, enough, I am off home, and then to Z’s to celebrate New Year. Yippee… Maybe I’ll just sleep in instead.