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Diary 2007

Oulu, Finland, Saturday 18th August 2007, 16:30

This diary is suspended for now. Current PDA update method for this page has proved to be somewhat cumbersome, hence the availability of new methods and tools is a prerequisite for further content.

Oulu, Finland, Saturday 7th April 2007, 20:15

Few days ago my wife and daughter returned home after a four-week trip to my wife's home country. Trip had been a successful one: both came back in the pink of health invigorated by the tasty food, good weather and the joy that our daughter had brought to my wife's relatives. During the trip she sent me photos about the happy grandparents spending time with their granddaughter. Even though our daughter is so young that no permanent memories will probably remain in her mind about this trip, we have a load of photos for her to look at in the future.

When I was waiting for their arrival at the airport, I kept wondering whether our daughter has changed in these past four weeks or not. She had. The second I laid my eyes on them I could tell that she had grown and her hair had become blonder. Sadly enough, she kept staring at me as if I was a stranger and the next few days surely proved this assumption to be true. Today was the first day she did not start crying when she was alone with me. Until now she accepted only mom and dad was, well, nothing. It was sad to realise this. Before they departed to the trip, our daughter was daddy's girl. Now it was evident mom was the ruler and dad did not exist. Well, fortunately things seem to be going back to normal again. Dad is again accepted to change diapers, feed her and play with her. Amidst the Easter I also learned that one of my best friend is having a baby in the autumn. Congratulations to the new family!

Below is a photo of our daughter today when we bought sunglasses for her. The spring sun combined with a snow cover poses a threat to the eyes of infants in Finland and that is why glasses are needed. She looks cool, huh?
Cool daughter

Oulu, Finland, Sunday 18th March 2007, 19:12

Week was an interesting and educative one. I spent three days in Tampere in training and the course was an enlightning one professionally speaking and gave me a handful to think about. Now I have to refine the given material, adapt it to our case, draw conclusions and make change proposals based on it. We will see how my colleagues at work react to it.

This was the first time when I actually stayed in Tampere for some time. So far I have only stopped there briefly or simply driven through. I was happy to see something that Oulu has been busy getting rid of: old buildings and other signs of history in the landscape. First evening was spent with a friend of mine and his friend who are both in movie business (check out http://www.karismafilms.fi/ for details). We met in a student bar and watched Ilves (local ice hockey team) kick the stuff out of Lukko (team from the town of Rauma) in play-offs. The second evening was spent in another bar watching improvisation theater performance. My friend had reserved us seats right in front the actors so I was afraid we are going to be part of the show. I noticed that the person playing the keyboard was a familiar face from TV, the tall guy from the series of Elisa adverts (Elisa is a Finnish communications and ICT solutions company). Performance of the group was funny, people laughed a lot. Whether performing is in your genes or not, it is probably not an easy task for anyone to step on stage, ask ideas from the audience and then act on it straight away - and be funny.

Tempted by the possibility of tasting a local beer, my friend guided me to another local bar called Plevna after the show. Being an active brewery, it had an impressive interior with a sense of history in the air. Fortunately the place was not crowded so we had a chance to have a man-to-man talk under the influence of few beers. After some time a group of young people dressed in somewhat black clothes appeared and - without saying a word - they formed a choir and started to sing. Interestingly enough, all the staff members were wearing traditional Finnish dresses or costumes. As I was making my order (try dark Plevna if you are around, it is good) I asked the bar person whether the brewery equipment at the background (see the photo below) was real and in use or simply decor. She scorned at me, said "well it is a bit expensive set of equipment to stand here just as decor", handed me the beer and left. Contrary to my usual reaction to this kind of customer service, I started laughing. "OK, I guess I deserved that...".

Yesterday I went out with work colleagues to celebrate the 30th birthday of one of them. Today I went to cast my vote in the Finnish parliamentary elections. Apart from that, the weekend was spent mainly with work issues.
bar_plevna_in_tampere

Oulu, Finland, Sunday 7th March 2007, 09:47

My spouse and our daughter travelled to my spouse's home country for a month yesterday. My spouse is on a maternal leave and it provides the best chance to spend a long period in our daughter's second home before returning to the "working world" again. They were both in a flu when they left so I was slightly worried about the flights. However, this morning I woke up and saw I had received a text message. They had arrived safely to the destination and our daughter - a six-month-old baby - had been an angel. She had slept the whole trip!

Sudden end of daily routines does create an unusual feeling. The house is empty and silent. The amount of things to be cleaned and laundry to be washed is significantly less than normally. Add to that the fact that I am on a winter holiday currently and you have a completely different daily life. Have to make the most of the good things within these next four weeks and then enjoy the return of my women when they come back :)

We have attended a baby-swimming session twice. What is baby-swimming? Well, it is a guided swimming session for the baby with the parents. Since babies have spent the first nine months of their lives in water, they are natural swimmers to some extent. This is why they feel at ease in water. In baby-swimming sessions babies are moved in the water with their parents and they even make short dives. It is impressive to see the nature at work when the babies close their eyes and control their breathing instinctively when submerged. Here is a photo from the baby-swimming information session.
Information session for baby-swimming

Oulu, Finland, Sunday 4th March 2007, 15:28

Although it has been four days since I got back to work after a flu, I am still recovering. Today amidst the usual domestic chores I noticed that I got tired and started coughing. No wonder people have been absent from work for ages, this just does not seem to go away.

Finnish parliamentary elections will take place within the next two weeks. Finally the administration has acknowledged the existence of the climate change in clear words. However, in one sentence they emphasize the importance of the prevention of climate change and in the next one they declare continuous financial growth to be the number one target. Perhaps they think that most of the voters do not understand these two issues to be contradictory targets at least to some extent. Continuous financial growth is the phrase that you hear people repeat all over the place. Those people who can also explain in layman's terms why it is needed and why it is the number one target are a bit harder to find though. In fact, I still have not met a person who could explain this. Until someone does, it is hard to consider this matter as nothing more than the current religion or fashion.

We have joined a so called food circuit. It is a local group that buys organic food from the local producers without any middlemen. Here is a photo of the first lot of eggs we had. Unlike industrially produced eggs, these ones vary in size and appearance.
Organic eggs

Turku, Finland, Sunday 14th January 2007, 14:30

I am sitting in a train in the trainstation of Turku and I have around twenty minutes before the train departs to Tampere. My long weekend in Turku is about to end. The purpose for the stay was to attend a training session concerning youth exchange certification. These two days have been packed with informative and interesting discussions and presentations. Both days were literally jump-started by a group of previous and current exchange students who conducted a brief exercise to get our engines running. The surroundings were attractive: an old building that currently houses a theater. All the activities took place amidst a genuine theater environment. Saturday culminated to a performance called "The history of Turku".

Here is a photo from this morning's panel discussion.
Panel discussion in Turku