Matti in Finland

21 Years in the Old Country

2011-09-25T13:22:00.000+03:00

The other day I just realized that I have been living in Finland for the past 21 years. That date passed on the 5th of September. What can I say? Well I am very fortunate and happy to be living here. I love this country with all my heart. Now before my good friends back in the States decide to question me, you will do so because you always have, I miss my home state of Montana, more specifically the Fox, Roberts and Red Lodge communities. I miss the mountains and the country fresh air and the land that surrounds all. I miss the people, family and friends. Most all I knew have passed on to greener pastures and bluer mountains but I still miss them. Basically I miss or am homesick for what was. My life is here now and this is where I am happiest. I won't get into the politics of it all because there is way too much to discuss. So perhaps I will save that for a later post. I have kept some close connections and gained new ones via Facebook.

I still remain an American citizen but do have my eye on becoming a Finnish citizen sometime in the near future. Why not? I have lived here for so long and have no intentions on returning to the States to live. The question is will I retain and maintain two citizenship's or just the one? I don't know. If I were able to travel to the USA with just a Finnish passport then perhaps but since I would be required to use a USA passport then maybe not. We will have to wait and see.

Suomi, minä rakastan sinua!!

Catching Up

2011-09-11T22:48:00.001+03:00

Well it has been almost three years since I last wrote something here. I decided to change the style and layout of my Blog in order for a fresh feeling or start, if you will.
So where do I begin? I guess for the moment I will begin where I had left off. On Monday, September 5th, Tiina had her fourth year control exam for breast cancer. The mammogram and ultrasound all showed clear! The radiologist was very happy as were we. Tiina will have a consultation with the nurse on the 19th concerning her blood work. We are confident that all will be okay. The past three years have been quite good and without any serious complications. Tiina did get fitted for a compression sleeve and glove to help whenever her hand and arm began to swell due to lack of lymph nodes in her left arm. She hasn't had to wear it very many times but it is there for her just in case. She has to be a bit careful with what kind of physical activity she does. For instance cross-country skiing is a bit of a no-no fir her. She has to be careful not to get any deep cuts or pricks to her left arm and hand. So over all everything is calm and clear under the rainbow of hope.

Well Tiina had her meeting with the nurse and all was clear there with the blood test results. They want to do an abdominal ultrasound because the have never done one (the private clinic had) and to check out a fatty lump that she has had for many years. I think deep down she would like to have it removed, if possible. So all is well for another year! Yes!!

Update on Tiina

2008-10-05T14:18:00.000+03:00

January 18th, 2008

On this date Tiina had her last Chemotherapy treatment. This was the sixth out of six. This time around she had been given a prescription for a stronger nausea preventive medicine that has been in use in the USA for about a year. Three pills only and the cost was about 30 Euros apiece taken one a day for three days. The treatment went well as did the recovery. She felt queezy but managed not to vomit and she was able to eat as well. In this photo she is preparing tomato soup to eat on the evening of the following day after her treatment.
January 26th

We had gone to the mall to have lunch in celebration of Tiina's 45th birthday which was on the 23rd. She wasn't up to celebrating very much at that time. You can see by this picture that she was much more chipper. She was feeling good and happy that the worst of the treatments was finally over. Now all we had to do was wait to see when the radiation treatments would begin. Should be in about three to four weeks. We calculated that we probably wouldn't be able to to to our cottage in Jalasjärvi because of the treatments. She would have to go in every day so the most time we would get would be a weekend. Two days isn't really worth the travel time.

February 6th

Tiina had to go to Helsinki to get tattooed so that she would be in the same position for each radiation treatment. The tattoos were just a few tiny dots. She had been scheduled to begin the treatments on the 13th during week 7 but the doctor decided that another machine would be better for her so the start time was moved to the 21st of February in the middle of week 8, which was in the middle of our winter holiday! Those because of this we were able to go up to our cottage from the 16th through the 19th. It was our first time there since spending only 8 days last summer. Tiina wanted to recharge her batteries whilst there by taking in fresh, country air and just relaxing before the 30 days of radiation began.

February 16th

Here Tiina is pictured with our eldest son Niki at Päivi and Raine Rautanen's home in Jalasjärvi. This was taken just after our arrival. The next photo was taken that same evening whilst we were playing the card game called Aggravation. She doesn't look aggravated at. That's because she is winning! Playing Aggravation is how we pass the evenings (late evenings) away after the kids have gone to sleep. We turn the radio on and begin to get aggravated. Sometimes we play until 2 or 3 AM. But we are on holiday then, so who cares!

February 19th

The next picture is of Tiina driving home from Jalasjärvi. She had her pink "Bad Hair Day" knit cap on. I was putting it on her so that it rested in different positions and then took pictures. She didn't seem to mind so much. Over all she had a good and relaxing time at the cottage and with the neighbors.

March 26th

This next picture was taken at Pizza Hut after she had gone to her radiation treatment and then to the SFP party office where we stuffed mailer envelopes. We were hungry so decided to have a date at Pizza Hut. Before meeting her at the party office I had just returned from having physical therapy on my right wrist in Tikkurila. I took the train from their to Helsinki where I had met up with Tiina at the party office, which is located in the center of Helsinki.

April 3rd

Well this was the last day of Tiina's radiation treatments. She had a total of 30 sessions with the last five being boosters and only in the area where the tumor had been found. Her skin was becoming quite red, like a bad sunburn, especially on the neck and throat areas. Over the course of the next few weeks this would become a little more worse and then begin to fade into a tan. She hadn't had any bad blistering as I thought there would have been. It did interfere with her breathing from time to time. She had to use an asthma inhaler and wasn't able to walk very far or fast without having to stop a rest a bit. This was especially worse going up stairs. Tiina was a bit tired but the people at the hospital told her that this isn't mainly due to the radiation itself but due to having to go there every day for the treatments. Whenever possible Tiina took the train or bus to the treatments but usually came home by taxi. This time of the year there is always dust or smoke in the air and it makes it difficult to breath if one suffers from breathing disorders. The following photo was taken on the 15th of April to be used in Tiina's FaceBook profile. Here you can catch a glimpse of the radiation damage done to the skin on her neck and throat area. She still is smiling though! Now all we had to do was wait for the first control in the summer.

Hyvää Uutta Vuotta = Happy New Year 2008 !!!!

2008-01-01T00:00:00.000+02:00

May ye all have a happy and prosperous New Year!!!

Some pictures snapped from our balcony.

Update on Tiina

2007-12-28T23:00:00.000+02:00

I have neglected to inform everyone with an update to Tiina's treatment of breast cancer. I believe I left off with her coming home after the surgery and recovering from that.

Tiina began chemotherapy on the 5th of October. She tries to explain to me what everything is and how it works but for the most part it goes over my head. I know that there consists a total of six treatments. The first three were Taxotere (brand) docetaxel (substance) & Herceptin (brand) and the last three called CEF.

She continues to work even during the treatments. She is able to juggle her schedule in order to do so. I think she has some pretty understanding bosses. She could just as well taken five to six months of medical leave as was offered to her before treatments began. She declined this because she doesn't want to sit at home thinking about it. By keeping busy it helps her mentally to deal with it.

The first treatment seemed to be the worst one after a few days. Tiina had so much pain one night that no matter what she took the pain wouldn't go away and there wasn't anything I could do to help the pain go away. She cried and I cried. She wasn't able to sleep and yet during all of this she was more concerned about me getting my sleep because I had to work the next day. I told her that work was the last thing on my mind and that everyone understands if I am not able to make it into work on time or even at all after a treatment. So she decided to go upstairs and watch TV to help keep her mind off of the pain. I was able to sleep but for only a few hours. When I got up at 6.30 to go to work I saw Tiina back in bed and sleeping like a little baby so I knew she was feeling better. She stayed home and rested that day when she had planned to attend class. She also cancelled two of her courses she was teaching in Hyvinkää just to make sure she wouldn't need to do so at the last minute.

Tiina's hair began to fall out on the 14th day after treatment. She managed to take enough of it and tie it with a ribbon then had me cut the rest off. That was harder than I thought it would be for two reasons. One is that she has such thick hair and the other is that I hated to cut it off. She cried and so did I but after discussing the fact that it will grow back we both felt better. I continued the shaving and then we both went to sauna where we calmed even more. Tiina did get a wig but she doesn't like wearing it as she says it makes her too hot. She mostly goes without anything or wears a knit cap or just a scarf. The latter makes her look like a pirate or Gypsy.

The doctor told Tiina that beginning with the second treatment that she should use Panacod before she goes to sleep so that she doesn't feel the pain. She had this all along but hates the way it makes her feel. The doctor told her that she would be sleeping anyway so by the time she woke up most of the effects would be worn off. So she did that and it worked good for the second and third treatment. She only had to use it twice each time.

She had her fourth treatment with the CEF on the 7th of December. It wasn't the same as the first three. This made her quite nauseous. She remained in that state for a least ten days. She said she preferred having the pain because at least she could make it go away.

Now she has had the fifth treatment today. So far she has vomited only three times. Her treatment began at 11.30 am and it is now 11.58 pm. She said that she is getting used to the vomiting as opposed to the last time. She knows now that it just has to be and no need to try to put it off as long as she can. I suppose it makes her feel a bit better just to go and do it as well. Still, it must be no fun. The boys are a little stressed about it. I kind of explained to them why it is happening. They mostly think it just sounds so terrible, which it does.

Well Tiina has the meds she needs to fight the nausea so all we can do is wait and see how it works out for her. She is a tuffy and will do just fine. Right Babe? Right !! :)

Tapaninpäivä = St. Stephen's Day = Boxing Day

2007-12-28T22:11:00.000+02:00

December 26th, 2007

Today we made the traditional excursion to Tiina's father's place in Vihti for dinner and exchanging of gifts. There were a ton of people there this year. That is mainly due to all of us having kids..... and one on the way :) No not us silly.

Let's see there was Saku, Tiina's father, and his wife Leena, Sampo and Marleena and their two kids Verneri and Marikki, Veera and her husband Jouni (Veera has one on the way), Leena Nuora and her husband Petteri and their kids Siiri, Elina and Salli. Siiri is the daughter of Leena and Sampo. Then there was Petteri and his girlfriend Pia and Me, Tiina and our sons Niki and Alexi. So that makes a total of 19. A household full it was too. The kids all had fun playing together and the adults had fun just visiting with each other. The food was good as well as the dessert. After the meal the boys, Niki and Alexi, played a few songs on the guitar and flute for everyone.

After we left we stopped by to see our friends who built a house not far away from Tiina's father's place. They also live in Vihti. They are the Elstobs, Allan, Tea, Jonathan, Benjamin and Michaela. Allan is originally from South Africa. We met when were attending the same immigrant course in Nummela during the year of 1994. At that time neither Tiina and I nor Allan and Tea had any kids. We both were to start a family the following year just 4-5 months after our course ended. Allan and Tea are our eldest son, Nicholas's godparents. We had a nice time at their place and stayed quite late. We got home around 11 pm. So thus ends the Christmas days here in Finland.

Christmas Eve & Christmas Day

2007-12-28T20:17:00.000+02:00

December 24th, 2007

Christmas Eve

The mad rush to finish wrapping those unwrapped gifts and sorting to whom goes what has finally come to a close. Now it is time to clean house a bit, prepare the Christmas meal, set out the decorations and set-up and decorate the tree. Once all has been done then comes the Christmas sauna to relax and get new energy. After sauna the tasty meal is served and eaten with delight. Afterwards the gifts are opened. First those from other people and relatives then those from each other and finally any that Santa may have brought by that evening.

The price of Christmas trees this year are quite high. Many come from other places other than Finland. I have seen prices ranging from 10€ to 40€ for a 6' plus tree. This year we purchased our tree from the same farmer we got ours from last year. We paid 10€ for it. It is not a perfectly symmetrical tree, but then what is in nature? It was a Finnish tree from a forest nearby here in Espoo. It looks great standing in the corner decorated and lighted. That is all that counts, right?

The boys and Tiina decorated the tree while I finished wrapping a few gifts I had for them. I placed the star on it and lit it up. Seems to be my job and I don't mind it at all. I like decorating the tree too. But the kids like it even better so I let them be kids and have at it after all I already had my share of it as a kid.

The boys went to sauna first and then Tiina and I after the food was ready to be set on the table. In sauna Tiina and I shared a bottle of Joulu Lapin Kulta beer. I bought it because I liked the pretty white bottle. The beer was okay and served its purpose for the sauna. We had the birch oil in the water that is tossed on the rocks which made it smell like Christmas.

After sauna we had the first course of food which consisted of herring in mustard and wine sauce as well as herring Tiina prepared herself. There was cold smoked rainbow trout and cured Norwegian salmon (Graavi). We had liver pâté, hard boiled eggs, olives and pickles not to mention the rosolli = diced redbeet, pickles, onions and carrots topped with a non-sweetened whipped cream with a tad of beet juice to give it a faint, pink coloring and boiled potatoes.

The main course consisted of smoked turkey breast and a ham roll, mashed potatoes and gravy, and the traditional casseroles, rutabaga (lanttu), carrot (porkana), potato (peruna) and liver (maksa) without raisins. For the beverage we had a fine South African fruity white wine called Pearl Bay. Thanks Allan & Tea! The boys had apple cider.

After the meal and the table was cleared we retired to the living room to open the gifts. I think the boys had a nice Christmas this year. They seem to enjoy all of their presents equally well. They were very surprised to see that Santa brought them a few things that they had wished for. We all played until about two in the morning before calling it a day.

December 25th, 2007

Christmas Day

Today was spent at home in peace and quiet just watching TV or playing the Nintendo Wii or with the electric race car track. It brought back many nice memories of my own childhood.

We had a dark Christmas this year. No snow. It did rain some and it was quite windy. I never give up or gave up hope for a white Christmas. I am sure sometime soon we will get the snow. This picture was taken from our bedroom's door window just before Noon. A squirrel had been eating out of the feeder nearest the terrace. By the time I could fetch the camera it had gone away.

So thus wraps up another year of Christmas joy and happiness. We hope everyone had a Very Merry Christmas!!

Joulupuuro = Christmas rice porridge

2007-12-28T18:22:00.000+02:00

December 24th, 2007

Ahhhhhh....... what can I say? I wait for this day the whole year! For several years now we have been invited to Tiina's uncle and aunt's place on lake Bodom for Joulupuuro. You might say sort of a family tradition for us. We watch from TV the Turku Cathedral bell ring 12 times for Noon and then the reading of the Christmas Peace = Joulurauhan julistus from the balcony of the Brinkkala Mansion in Turku, Finland. It is always read in Finnish and Swedish by the Turun kaupungin kansliapäälikkö = administrative manager of the city of Turku.

The following borrowed from Christmas City of Finland :

"In Olden Times, the Declaration was Read from the "Doors and Windows of the Town Hall"
Christmas Peace was proclaimed from the Town Hall from the Middle Ages until the Great Fire of Turku in 1827. The Town Hall is known to have stood in the same location at the top end of the medieval Town Hall Square (nowadays the Old Great Square) since the 1320's.

After the Great Fire, the Brinkkala Mansion underwent repairs and became the Town Hall. The Declaration was then read from the middle window located above the archway. As the Brinkkala House underwent thorough renovations, a balcony was added to the facade. Christmas Peace was declared from this balcony for the very first time in 1886. The year before, the Declaration was made from the balcony of the building now housing the central administration of Åbo Akademi University. Today, Christmas Peace is declared from the balcony of the Brinkkala Mansion."

(Finnish)

Joulurauhan julistus

Huomenna, jos Jumala suo,

on meidän Herramme ja Vapahtajamme armorikas syntymäjuhla;

ja julistetaan siis täten yleinen joulurauha kehoittamalla

kaikkia tätä juhlaa asiaankuuluvalla hartaudella viettämään

sekä muutoin hiljaisesti ja rauhallisesti käyttäytymään,

sillä se, joka tämän rauhan rikkoo ja joulujuhlaa jollakin laittomalla taikka sopimattomalla käytöksellä häiritsee, on raskauttavien asianhaarain vallitessa syypää siihen

rangaistukseen, jonka laki ja asetukset kustakin rikoksesta

ja rikkomuksesta erikseen säätävät. Lopuksi toivotetaan kaupungin

kaikille asukkaille riemullista joulujuhlaa.

(Swedish)

Julfred

I morgon, vill Gud,

infaller vår Herres och Frälsares nåderika födelsefest;
och varder förty härigenom en allmän julfred kungjord och påbjuden,

med åtvarning till envar att denna högtid med tillbörlig andakt fira,

och i övrigt iakttaga ett stilla och fridsamt uppförande,
emedan den, som häremot bryter samt julhögtiden genom något olagligt eller otillbörligt förfarande oskärar, gör sig under försvårande omständigheter förfallen till det straff, lag och författningar för varje brott och överträdelse särskilt påbjuda.
Slutligen tillönskas stadens samtliga invånare en fröjdefull julhelg

(English)

The Declaration of Christmas Peace

Tomorrow, God willing,

is the graceful celebration of the birth of our Lord and Saviour;
and thus is declared a peaceful Christmas time to all,

by advising devotion and to behave otherwise quietly and peacefully,
because he who breaks this peace and violates the peace of Christmas by any illegal or improper behaviour shall under aggravating circumstances be guilty and punished according to what the law and statutes prescribe for each and every offence separately.
Finally, a joyous Christmas feast is wished to all inhabitants of the city.

After the declaration has been made the national anthem of Finland, Maamme-laulu, is sung and the president's march, Porilaisten marssi, played. When they have completed we toast with glögi and wish everyone a merry Christmas.

This year we arrived early to have the joulupuuro first. It was delicious as always. We also had a fruit soup to go with it as well as cinnamon and sugar. Bread and liver pate was also available. I had my puuro with a punch eye. This is done by making a small dent in the middle of the puuro and then filling it with some Swedish punssi = punch (liqueur).

Afterwards the boys entertained everyone with their guitar and flute playing and a few silly songs. This year present were Antti, Heidi, Hanna, Ese, Tuomas and Tarja and Tarja's mother, Mami-mummi and the four of us. Very lovely time. When all wound down we headed home for our own Christmas traditions. Kiitos paljon Antti, Heidi, Hanna ja Ese !!!

Pikkujoulu = little Christmas

2007-12-28T17:53:00.000+02:00

December 15th, 2007

This evening our housing association had a Christmas party outdoors. Sausages were grilled and hot alcoholic/non-alcoholic glögi (Glögg in Swedish) = mulled wine was served along with beer and cider. Mostly some of the tenants just hung around the grill and gabbed about events that have happened over the year. Some stood near the fire to keep warm but most stood away because the wind was blowing smoke in everyone's eyes. We had no snow but it was rather chilly, especially with the wind.

After some time of the adults mingeling and the children playing hide and seek in the woods we were told that Joulupukki = Santa Claus was on his way over to us and had gifts for the children. He showed up and I managed to get a few shots with my phone camera but it was so dark that only one image was faintly viewable. My son, Alexi, just happened to be in the foreground. The kids were wondering how he got down to us from Lapland when there was no snow on the ground. They also wanted to know where his reindeer was.

Niki's guitar recital

2007-12-28T17:17:00.000+02:00

December 12th, 2007

Niki had his second guitar recital since he began classical guitar lessons 2,5 years ago. This time he played a piece by Patrick Benham called Invitation. He did very well and was quite relaxed throughout his performance. Notice he is wearing his winter boots :) Good job Niki !!

Happy Birthday Finland!!!!!

2007-12-28T01:18:00.000+02:00

December 6th, 2007

Hyvää Itsenäisyyspäivää Suomi !!!

Today marks the 90th year that Finland has been an independant republic. Lots of activities and festivities are planned around the country. As usual the TV will be turned on and tuned into the Presidential Ball to view the 2,000 some guests that president Tarja Halonen has invited to this yearly event.

Also it is my son Nicholas's name's day. Hyvää nimipäivää Niki !!! ;-)

Happy Thanksgiving!!

2007-12-28T00:17:00.000+02:00

December 1st, 2007

What's that you say? Thanksgiving happened already a few weeks ago. That is correct. But since Thanksgiving is not a Finnish holiday there is no national day of celebration for this. It has become a tradition between two families to celebrate this dinner over the years since moving to Finland in 1990. At first we invited different branch of the family each year for the dinner so that they could experience the meal. After we had run through the family we had some friends over for the meal. These are Marko and Päivi Haikkola. At the time, way back when, both of our families had no children. Now we do. Our family has the two boys and theirs two girls, Josefine "Jofi" and Frederika "Freja". The eldest, Jofi, is less than a year younger than our Nicholas and Freja is two years younger than Alexi.

Tiina and Päivi first met when they were studying at Åbo Akademi in Turku. At that time her husband, Marko, was a Lieutenant (now a Major) in the Finnish army and stationed at Säkylä. We were living in Kustavi at the time. Päivi was renting a small flat near the school so she wouldn't have to drive the long way back and forth from base to school. Tiina was in the same situation. Päivi offered Tiina a place to stay in that same flat so that she wouldn't have to make the long trip back and forth as well. We were very thankful for this and it allowed Tiina to carry on with her studies. As time went by we moved to Espoo and started a family and the Haikkola's as well began their family. I haven't counted exactly but I think out of the 17 years we have lived in Finland we have shared Thanksgiving with the Haikkola's about eight or nine times. In 2003 we didn't have a dinner.

We coordinate between the two families for a free day on a weekend as close as possible to Thanksgiving Day. Sometimes it is closer sometimes a few weeks later.

This year was a bit different. Päivi came a day earlier and spent the night with us. Her and Tiina went shopping for the food and then began to prepare it that evening and continued the following morning. Päivi made most of the dishes as well as preparing and stuffing the bird by herself. She did a fantastic job at it and all was just so picture perfect as you can see by these photos. As usual we ate too much! We had the turkey, stuffing, creamed green beans, fried breaded carrot sticks, in memory of my Grandmother Flossie Kujala, deviled eggs or (evil eggs) as the kids called them, for the first time, mashed potatoes and gravy, a salad made with orange peppers that we grew ourselves, cranberry sauce, black olives, miniature pickles, and corn bread. The dessert consisted of two pies, apple and coconut cream and two flavors of homemade ice-cream. Yummy!

During the meal preparation Marko and I watched Nicholas Cage's movie Next. After the meal we all watched the movie Click. Again it was another successful dinner with our good friends. We do look forward to next year for another fantastic meal and get together!!!!

Alexi's first flute concert

2007-12-27T23:52:00.000+02:00

November 23rd, 2007

This evening Alexi had his first flute recital. He was selected to play first and Niki accompanied him on the guitar. They played Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. They played very well together with only a few mistakes. Unfortunately Tiina had to step out of the room for awhile due to her stomach hurting.

This is Alexi's first year of playing flute. He also is studying music theory as well. Niki has been taking classical guitar lessons now for 2,5 years and is also studying music theory. All of these activities are done after the normal school day. Niki will have his guitar recital next month. I am very proud of these boys wishing to learn music and an instrument of their choosing. They play and sing very well together.

Happy Birthday Sis!

2007-12-27T20:20:00.000+02:00

November 25th, 2007

Happy 40th Kristy! Wow 40 ! Where has the time flown? I still remember being called Bat and finding all kinds of things in my shoes! Hope you had a nice birthday with many more to come!!!

Happy Birthday Bro !!

2007-12-27T19:49:00.001+02:00

November 12th, 2007

Happy 44th Jay!!!

May you have many more to come. Sorry to hear that you were ill but glad you can recover enough to get by ;-)

One of these days we will be able to kick out the tunes again. LOL

Happy 22nd !!!

2007-12-27T18:57:00.000+02:00

October 12th, 2007

Today marked our 22nd wedding anniversary. We didn't do much but our eldest son, Nicholas, took a train to a shopping mall to buy us flowers and a card. He wanted to have a better and bigger selection to make the bouquet. He is always so thoughtful. We thought maybe we would catch a movie but all the good ones were playing in Helsinki and being that Tiina had her first chemotherapy treatment on the 5th it wasn't certain if she would be able to sit through the whole movie and then have the trip by train or bus home. So we decided to just stay at home and take it easy. Maybe for our 25th anniversary we can go to Iceland or even Hawaii for a Honeymoon we never really had!!

A Furry Visitor

2007-12-27T14:18:00.000+02:00

October 7th, 2007

The night before this picture was taken Tiina had been in the bathroom and said she had seen something sticking out from under the washing machine. Sometimes we get small, thin millipedes that come down through the vent in the sauna when it rains. At first she thought this was one of those critters she doesn't care for very much, mainly because they go crunch when she steps on one that has already died and dried quickly over night. Anyway, it moved too fast for it to be a millipede, she thought. So I came in and had a look see around the bathroom, the sauna, hallway and kid's room but found nothing. I did notice about a week earlier something that appeared to be mouse droppings on the white rug on the bathroom floor but thought it unlikely. I just picked it up and tossed it in the garbage.
The next morning Tiina had gone into the bathroom to wash up and she let out a scream and came running into the bedroom waking me up. She said there was a mouse on the sink in the bathroom. I drug myself out of bed to investigate, my eyes barely open enough to see. At first I didn't see anything. Then I saw a strange, curved shape from behind the clear, plastic pump soap dispenser. A few seconds later I saw some whiskers twitching to one side of the bottle. I then noticed that the bar of soap Tiina had removed from the soap dish, only to drop it quickly in the basin, had teeth marks all around one curved edge of the bar of soap. So the little beastie was hungry. I put two and two together and figured it must have been in the bathroom at least a week and was famished. I sent the boys to fetch a slice of bread. I put on a leather work glove and held the bread in my palm. The mouse came out from behind the soap bottle and onto my hand where it began to eat the bread like no tomorrow. It then decided to take the whole thing away and back behind the bottle. I thought perhaps I could catch it with the glove on but that was not to be. Instead the mouse leap to the floor and shot up and over Alexi's foot and under the washing machine. I placed a towel on the floor to block the entrance to the sauna but the mouse just squeezed its way between the towel and wall and made it under the door into the sauna where it disappeared. It was then that I figured it, too, had come down through the air vent and couldn't get back up as it is a vertical drop. I went outside to check the cover on the vent and sure enough it had been removed. I put it back into place and stuck rocks in front of it to keep it in place. After 30 minutes I came back to the sauna and turned on the light. Mr. mouse was out from hiding. This time I would see where it had disappeared to. As I approached the mouse quickly turned and shot up between the sauna wall boards and the wall. There is space between the foundation wall and the sauna wall to allow for air circulation. I figured little rodent was hungry enough to do almost anything to get food, including falling for a simple catch 'em alive trap. There was no need to kill it. Besides it was rather cute. So I took a piece of picture framing wood and propped it up against an empty mop bucket. I placed three pieces of bread along this piece of wood and tore up the remainder into smaller pieces and dropped them into the bucket, turned off the light and left for about an hour. When I returned I found the fur ball in the bottom of the bucket enjoying its meal. It stayed eating long enough to get a few snapshots off but then became nervous and tried to jump out. It almost succeeded once. I placed a towel over the bucket and had Alexi take it up into the woods to release it along with the food. I think it was very happy to be back in its own environment just as Tiina was happy to be back in hers.

A sign of Autumn

2007-12-27T14:06:00.000+02:00

September 30th, 2007

Snapped this picture on the way to the bus stop. The leaves were beginning to fall from the trees and there was a slight chill in the air. Hoping that an early Fall will bring a nice, cold winter with lots and lots of snow!

Host family for a week...Meet our son Justen Ray

2007-09-18T22:04:00.000+03:00

From September 5th - 11th we hosted a fine, young gentleman from Texas who is a cast member with the Up With People 2007 touring troupe C. His name is Justen Ray. Justen came into our home straight from being in Thailand for a few weeks. He settled in as if he had always lived here. Niki and Alexi took a quick liking to Justen and liked the idea of him being their big brother.

Justen's family should be proud of having a son that is well behaved, for the most part, and very courteous and polite. I say for the most part because at heart he is still like a kid and fit well into the family.

His first night here we washed two loads of his laundry that "wreaked" of Thailand. Actually it wasn't so bad but apparently Justen thought so and it was good enough for me to aid him. He and I also went to sauna so that he could clean Thailand from his pores. He, perhaps, like most Americans was a bit shy about going into a sauna buck naked. But being the person that Justen is he went along with the traditional ritual of the Finnish sauna and certainly enjoyed it to its fullest! Especially with the hint of terva = tar in the air. We would stroll from the sauna to the back yard for a brief cooling down with the Midnight air. One night we even walked out into the yard where the dew was heavy on the grass and the sky clear of clouds with millions of stars shining brightly in the Nordic heavens. Justen was awestruck to say the least. I could tell he truly enjoyed himself.

When Justen was around there was never a dull moment. He would be singing and dancing every chance he got. He even got Niki and Alexi involved in some of the Up With People routines they perform on stage. Our boys were not shy and they, in turn, even performed a few of their own songs for Justen as well.

We truly regret and feel badly that we weren't able to attend the one performance in Finland that the troop had in Tapiola. We had to attend Tiina's brother's wedding the same day and evening of this performance. The reception ran a little late so we weren't able to get home in time enough for the show. We had to leave the reception early as it was because we needed to pick Justen up from Tapiola at Midnight since there was no bus transportation to our place that time of night. He said the show went well but not as many people attended as could have. That was too bad because all the proceeds went to charity.

The troupe, outside of rehearsal and performances also do community impact work. They visited schools and children's hospitals. One of the places they went to was the Ronald McDonald house in Helsinki.

Justen experienced some of Finland's finer sides of culture with glee. For instance salmiakki or salty licorice as it is called in English. He took a liking to this substance like a cat to a bathtub full of water! We didn't trick him into eating it. Someone else had that pleasure. I dislike it myself and would never offer it to anyone. He also got to taste Sisu which is a strong tar tasting candy. He thought it was good for the first few sucks then it hit him. He said he would always be reminded of us because he would have that package of Sisu for a long time. I think he later ate half the box whilst out in the woods one day. Justen was also introduced to Jenkki chewing gum. Jenkki is a Finnish term for Americans in general that basically comes from the word Yankee. Jenkki brand chewing gum is sweetened with Xylitol, which Finland is its "home country". It is very tooth friendly. Justen's teeth just kept getting whiter and whiter when he chewed that Jenkki. Oh! Lest we forget, VIILI. Now Justen took a liking to this like a babe to candy. Right Justen? Viili is Finnish curd milk. It is very slimy and loose in texture. Sometimes it is eaten plain or with sugar and cinnamon or with some fruit already mixed in. He tried both. He and Alexi even got the idea to make a viili shake and drank it all up.

Some not so pleasant things, I suppose, or perhaps just rather unusual on Justen's part. He asked what kind of a store that was that had the KKK on the outside of it? Haha. We had to explain that it had nothing to do with the Ku Klux Klan! It was just the ranking used of the various chain of Kesko stores. Another was when Tiina had her white bathrobe on with a pointed hood. He came out of his room and she said hey Justen look. He said that that was bad. It was just something Tiina and I were thinking of at the time. A what if type a situation. I suppose he would have been very taken back just walking in on Tiina with that on and her not saying anything. We didn't want that to happen. We aren't that kind of people.

Sunday was family day. We let Justen sleep in as long as he wanted. We knew he just had to be exhausted. After he woke up and we ate breakfast we took a small tour of the Espoo center. We went to see the Medieval stone church but it was closed for remodeling. We walked around the old cemetery a bit then headed over to the train station. We took a train to Helsinki from Espoo and back. I think Justen enjoyed that as well. In Helsinki we went inside the Helsinki Cathedral and stood out on the steps that overlooked into the harbor and the Silja Line terminal. We then walked through Senate Square and the Market Square and onto the ferry to Suomenlinna. We just barely made the ferry. Justen truly enjoyed Suomenlinna fortress. It is old and big with lots of places to explore. After walking around awhile we stopped and ate some chips and energy snacks atop a knoll overlooking the Gulf of Finland. We watched the tourists walking by and the sailing ships and boats of all sizes coming and going. The forecast for the day called for scattered showers but it turned out to be nice and sunny for us. Justen ran into a few "Uppies" while we were venturing around the fortress. Before we had even left for Helsinki he made the comment that we will see some of the troupe somewhere along the way. We did and twice at that! Too tired and exhausted to make dinner we all had McDonald's take out :) Family day ended quite successfully I do believe.

The following day Justen and the rest of the 69 members spent the day in Nuuksio National Park here in Espoo. They went hiking, swimming and partook in sauna as well as grilling makkara = sausages. Justen explained that after his sauna experience with me he popped into the sauna there in Nuuksio buck naked whilst all the rest were wearing their swim suits. So not to make them all feel uncomfortable he donned his trunks as well but the scout said he was Finnish and would be staying there naked. This was also the evening of viili for Justen. It was also our last night of having him in our home.

The following morning Alexi said his goodbyes reluctantly and went off to school. Tiina, Niki, Justen and I took Niki to his school with his backpack all loaded up for school camp in Tammisaari. So Niki said his goodbyes to Justen there. The three of us then proceeded on to Tapiola where we dropped Justen off to join his troupe. They would be there for awhile and then would leave early evening on the Silja Symphony to Stockholm. They would be performing on the boat as well. We said goodbye to our son for a week and wished him all the best in life and a safe and continuing trip. We also welcomed him back anytime he wished to visit Finland and he did the same for us. As we left I could see some tears in host mom Tiina's eyes. She truly was a mother to Justen and treated him as one of her own. Things certainly quieted down around here after Justen left. Mind you it was not bad that he was here but did leave a feeling of emptiness after he left. I don't think we will ever forget you Justen Ray! Respect! God Speed and good luck y'all!

Tahdon.......Wedding Bells Were A Ringing

2007-09-18T13:49:00.000+03:00

Saturday September 8th marked a happy occasion for a very lovely and happy couple. They are my brother-in-law, Sampo, and his beautiful bride, Marleena. They were married in the Porvoon pikkukirkko where Pastor Kari Leikko officiated. It was a fairytale like wedding at best! The guest list was kept small but the atmosphere was gigantic. Celebrities that filled the pews included Miro, all the members of Egotrippi, Teleks and Jore Marjaranta to name a few. The newlyweds left the church in a Ford Mustang. Sorry I didn't catch the year.

We all relocated to Solbacka in Pernaja for the reception. The reception kind of got a late start as we were all waiting for the newlyweds to arrive. They probably had gone home to comb the rice out of their hair :)

The food was all natural and very, very tasty! I don't think I have ever had such good food at a wedding reception before. Of course, all the food I have ever eaten at receptions has always been good. Something about this made it taste different. Maybe because it was all organically grown?

The program of events for the evening were great. Unfortunately for us we had to leave just before the waltz and other musical entertainment. All three of Marleena's brothers entertained us with their gift of music. Emppu and Emil playing the accordion and drums in one segment and Miro doing what he does best composing live using live-looping. It was fantastic as I had never seen anything like it before. When I later asked if he had made a recording of this masterpiece this was his reply, "I am sorry but I did not record my show from the wedding, it was once in a life time shot and the music goes on in our memories. I like that way to do music sometimes. It makes the music different because then it lives its own versions in everybody's memories or something." Believe me you, it surely did and continues to do so!!!

Here is a recipe for A Happy Life that was given to us by my Aunt Carolyn when Tiina and I got married way back when. It serves hundreds!

Take equal parts of kindness, unselfishness and thoughtfulness. Mix with love and scatter with helpful words. Add a smile or two. Throw in the spice of cheerfulness. Stir with a hearty laugh. Share with everyone!

Sampo and Marleena may you two have many, many, many wonderful years together. Remember the good times but never forget the bad times as they are what makes us stronger as the years go by. God bless you and your family!

Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon.......

2007-09-02T10:10:00.001+03:00

Here's a picture of me that Tiina snapped a few Sunday's ago. It was a warm and muggy day and I went out on the balcony to get some fresh air. I couldn't resist taking up Niki's new classical guitar and strumming on it while I sat outside. Not that I can actually play anything useful but it helps to relax and to keep my fingers exercised. Tiina was sitting on the sofa and thought the image was cool looking with me sitting in front of the insect screen we have in the doorway. She snapped this photo using her Nokia N73 phone's camera. She always has this way of seeing things that are interesting and if she can she manages to snap a few pictures to try and capture that same moment. Niki's guitar has such a beautiful sound to it that from time to time I just enjoy playing it. When Niki plays it sounds so much better. I am proud that he decided to stick with the guitar. I always wanted to learn but when I was his age I really wasn't given the opportunity.

I got my first guitar in the summer of 1978. This guitar was probably one of my Dad's first guitars. I don't even recall the name of it but it was an acoustic with a wide body. I believe it had been refinished to a deep Burgundy red color. His name of Bob was painted on the head stock. It sat on a guitar stand in the corner of the Grandparent's room for as long as I could remember. I used to pick on it whenever I visited them during the summers out of school. In 1978 I was presented this guitar by the Grandparents after I had moved in with them. They said my father wanted me to have it and that they saved it for me until I was a certain age. I was 16 then. I got new strings for it and the neighbor man, Wayno Rintala, strung it up and tuned it for me. Sometimes Grandma would try to teach me some chords and have me strum along while she played Little Brown Jug on the piano. I was never any good it seems. Another neighbor man, Dennis Harrison, who lived up on the hill behind us, drew up some chords for me to practice. Practice those chords I did. They are probably the only ones I know! Sadly I do not know what has happened to this guitar. It never had a case for it so I couldn't take it with me on the airplane to Alaska or here to Finland. I am still trying to find out if it still exists or not. I do have a Grammer Guitar that my Dad gave to me in the early 1980's. He used to work at the Grammer Guitar Factory in Nashville, Tennessee. It needs to have some work done on the it but other than that it still sounds good for as long as it stays in tune.

A little back to normal life....

2007-07-31T01:20:00.000+03:00

Now that Tiina has been home for four days and been a week since her operation we have gotten back to a half-way normal life. The second day home she decided she wanted to go for a walk to get fresh air and exercise. That walk turned out to be nearly 4 miles! First we went to the library where she needed to turn some books in, pay some fines (shame, shame) and pick up some that were being reserved for her. Then we walked to the mall in the center of Espoo and grabbed a bite to eat. After that we went to the pharmacy to get some gauze and stuff to keep the mosquito bites from itching when they bite Niki whilst he is up in Lapland all this week. We then went to the grocery store in the mall and bought a ton of groceries. There were two cloth bags and a small backpack's worth. Guess who got to carry them? I didn't mind. Tiina decided we should take the bus back because she was feeling a bit beat. Unfortunately for us the bus came a few minutes early and zoomed right on by before we could get out the door. She didn't want to sit around to wait 30 minutes for the next bus so we started walking. She did stop to rest at a bus stop halfway home. We just crossed the street near our place when the bus came! She took a shower and changed her dressings and felt new again. She did sleep like a baby but only until being awaken by the neighbor's teenage daughter who decided they should have a party at 2.30 in the morning. Tiina got up and climbed her way up the stairs and out to the balcony. She knocked on the wall separating us from the neighbor and told them they had two choices, be quiet or she calls the police and then asked if they understood. They did and they got quiet but only until 5.30 when they went at it again. This time I woke up. So I sent a text message via my phone to their father who is away somewhere on holiday with their mother. I think he got the picture that we weren't happy. He called his kids and then he called us to check the stories. He apologized.

Yesterday we went for a walk on the path through the woods. Tiina wanted to take a bucket in case we found some wild raspberries. We did and we walked up into the woods collecting about a liter or so. We then came back home as it looked like it was going to rain. But it didn't so I fired up the gas grill and cooked some hamburgers and chicken along with red bell peppers, corn on the cob, and one tomato. Check out my new apron and oven mitt that Tiina bought for me. It is from the Marimekko shop! ;-)

Niki and I left on the bus to Helsinki where he was to meet up with his Scout troop at the Helsinki Railway Station. Their train was leaving at 22.27 for Rovaniemi. They were headed for Muonio up in Lapland where they will be hiking and camping all this week. He has been pretty excited about this trip since he learned about it last winter. He was all excited as I let him wear my prized Suunto Vector. He said he would be honored to wear it! Cute kid. He will be returning to Helsinki something like 7.30 a.m. on Sunday. The weather forecast has called for rain and cool temperatures whilst he is up there. Nothing more miserable than staying in a tent when it is wet outside and damp inside. I am sure they will manage though. Seems like he took everything with him but the kitchen sink!

Breast Cancer and Tiina

2007-07-24T15:50:00.000+03:00

Many of you do not know that just before Midsummer (20th of June) that my loving wife, Tiina, had taken it upon herself to have a mammogram performed. Well the mammogram and ultrasound revealed a growth approximately 3 cm = 1,18" in size. A biopsy was done immediately but she had to wait until the 3rd of July to really find out what the diagnoses was. She had been notified by phone on the 28th of June that it was bad and that it needed to be researched more. On the 3rd she found out what hospital she would be treated in. The nurse gave her a run down over the phone but her actual appointment wasn't until the 9th of July. So we both went in for the consultation and additional tests. A blood test and lung x-rays were taken and both turned out clear and negative. The doctor explained that the surgery would take place on the 17th of this month and explained what the procedure would be, etc. Tiina asked if it would be possible to have reconstructive surgery done at the same time since the total amount to be removed would amount to smaller than a tennis ball. The doctor called in the plastic surgeon who examined Tiina. She said it wouldn't be a problem to do that but the surgery date would have to be moved from the 17th to the 24th of this month. We left for our cottage as soon as our son Alexi was finished playing soccer with his team in the Helsinki Cup. We had an enjoyable time at the cottage. Both of us are quite calm, positive and optimistic that this will be overcome.

Tiina and I went to the hospital yesterday for the injection of a radioactive dye into the tumor in order to locate the sentinel lymph nodes that will be taken out and examined for cancer. Well the first round didn't reveal anything so she had to be injected again. This time it was under the skin. Luckily one, only one was to be found! So this will be the one they remove for testing. I guess as many as 10 can be found which means they would all have to be removed. If none are found then all the lymph nodes in the breast and under the arm as well as the fatty tissue from under the arm are removed. Tiina explained to me that before the dye was used the lymph nodes were automatically removed during the surgery. By removing the nodes this can cause swelling in the arm as well as numbness.

We got to meet the doctor who will be performing the actual surgery to remove the tumor. She had been on her summer holiday during our first visit. She is very nice and from what everyone tells us, the very best that they have. This is also a comforting thought. She drew lines on Tiina to indicate where the incisions would be made and how much would be removed. It appears that the size will be reduced from a D cup to a B cup. When the doctor had finished her drawing Tiina looked like a 3 year old got hold of a marker and had his way! These markings had to remain on her until today's surgery. The doctor was very pleased with the location of the tumor and with the texture of it. She said it should all go well. Another comforting thought.

So now Tiina has been in hospital since 8 am this morning. The time is now 4.13 pm. The doctor couldn't say for certain but thought the surgery would begin around 11 am. She said if all goes well it should take about four hours or even less.

I wasn't awake when she left this morning with her mother. She did come in to kiss and hug me and to say that she was leaving. I, of course, could not go back to sleep. It is a very eerie feeling. Heaven forbid something to go wrong but if it did that would have been the last time I would see her! Enough of that! No news is good news. So far I haven't heard anything yet. We had asked the nurse or doctor to call if something drastic had to be done. To let Tiina rest we decided that she would contact me first from the hospital.

So to all of you friends of Tiina you can check here for any results. As soon as I get them they will be posted here! I thank you all for your concerns, prayers and wishes. They truly mean a lot to us.

Tuesday 24.07.2007 22.15

Well my mother-in-law had called several times to the hospital to find out how Tiina was. She hadn't come back to her room by 8 PM so she called again at 10 pm. The surgery ended at 6.30 PM and if I understood right it went well. Too what extent that is I am not sure. She is being kept in recovery over night due to lack of personnel because of summer holidays. I will know more tomorrow and hopefully get to visit with her.

Wed. 25.07.2007 08.37Well my mother-in-law called this morning with good news. Tiina's operation had gone well and she had been moved to her own room just after Midnight. She had already eaten something this morning and had received pain killers and is now resting. She said we would be able to visit her just after Noon sometime.

Wed. 25.07.2007 14.44

I just talked to Tiina via phone. She is doing well. Unfortunately all the lymph nodes in her breast and underarm had to be removed. We were hoping that it wouldn't have to be so. The doctor found one that was quite hard and decided to do away with them. The tumor has been sent to the Cancer Research Center in Helsinki and the results should be back for Tiina's first follow-up on Aug. 1st. The surgery lasted from 2 pm - 6.30 pm. She was transferred to her room around 11 pm last night. She is on antibiotics and painkillers. She can sit up and go to the bathroom on her own now. She still feels a little dizzy when she does so but said it is getting better. We will go to visit her after the meal time so that would be after 4 pm.

Thurs. 26.07.2007 11.00Tiina called this morning and said that she will have to remain in hospital until Friday. She still gets dizzy and nauseous when she stands. They want her to move around more as well. She only started walking about around 8 pm last evening. The draining tubes should be removed today so that will make it easier for her to get around. She won't be able to drive for two weeks and will have at least four weeks sick holiday. Other than that she is progressing just fine!

Saturday 28.07.2007 10.47 Okay! So now Tiina is finally at home and doing well. She was released from hospital yesterday at 1 pm. She came home and rested a bit while watching TV catching up on all of her favorite shows that had been recorded on the digibox, especially All in the Family ;-) With a little guidence from her I made supper for everyone. Usually I am good at just throwing pre-marinated chicken thigh/legs in the oven and making macaroni and cheese or goulash that I have made since I was about 11. This time I fried up some small pork steaks with onion and cream and made macaroni and corn for the crew. Tiina ate it well enough, even though she doesn't eat much meat. She slept the night really good. I had the window open so it was much cooler downstairs than up. Her stitches are healing fine. Today we will try to go for a walk to the grocery store. She can't lift or carry anything but the walking and fresh air will do her good. Hopefully it won't rain before then or whilst we are walk about. Now that she is home I won't be updating here so often as she will be back on board with her Internet lists and groups (you all). I will make seperate entries for major things that come along concerning her future treatments. For those that just want to know leave me an email or comment and I will get back to you. I thank you all for stopping in and reading up about Tiina. I also thank those of you that have left nice comments about me to Tiina as well ;-) God bless you all!

Kesäloma = summer holiday

2007-07-24T14:39:00.000+03:00

Ahhh.... at last the long awaited kesäloma!
This year's loma is a bit unusual compared to previous years. This will be explained in the next entry. We only got to have about eight days at our cottage. I think it is the shortest we have ever stayed a summer at the cottage since purchasing it in 1998. Well it isn't going anywhere. We have some good news concerning the property. We were finally granted the permission to split the property from that of the person from whom we purchased it. This has only taken nine years to accomplish. Our property is less than the minimum that the municipality requires. So with this permission we will be able to have it split with the boundries drawn on an official map and most importantly we will finally be able to rename it from that of Luhtala to that of Kujala! We will probably have to wait until next summer to do this but at least we know we can.

We didn't do much this year because of the short time and some rainy weather from time to time. We managed to do some real spring cleaning inside the cottage. It needed it pretty bad. I have never seen the place so clean! We visited with the neighbors who are distant relatives of mine but family all the sdame to me. I think they are the closest I have to MY own family here in Finland. I am very thankful for this as I always feel I am returning home when I visit the cottage.

I spent some of my time helping the relatives with their computers. It is something I enjoy doing. I taught their son how to back-up DVD's to the hard drive or burning them. All legit of course. They had some problems with getting the new laptop connected to the wireless network. I started out working on it when another friend of theirs came along to work on it. For a while we both worked on it. You know the saying, "two heads are better than one". We had to call it quits around Midnight as the son and mother had to get to sleep as they both had to work the next morning. By the time I got over their the following morning the other guy had it pretty much up and running. So that was good.

We went to visit a friend who lives in Jepua. We finally got to see her little son and had a tour of the fine, old house and all the improvements that had been made to it. The last time we had visited that house was in 1992. It was a nice day trip. We had last tanked up the car in Espoo the day we left on the 13th. We tanked up in Jepua on the 18th with 48 liters. The car holds 60 liters. We had gone 543 km on that tank. We are quite happy with that. The Volvo would have used much more. We even had the air conditioning on most of the trip.

Our last full day at the cottage we had invited the relatives over for sauna and food to honor the 100th anniversary of my great-grandfather leaving Finland (see earlier entry) for the USA on 17 May 1907. The sauna was ever so great. I think it has become quite popular with everyone. We are very proud of it ourselves.

So now we are back home in Espoo. We did some gardening work but that is about it besides the ton of laundry that needed to be washed. Got it all washed but then it began to rain and rain. I think I will have to take the sheets in and hang them in the sauna to finish drying. No, the sauna isn't turned on ;-)

I still have two weeks of holiday left so I will have some things to do as well as taking care of the boys and Tiina.

New car!

2007-07-24T14:06:00.000+03:00

Well we finally did it! The 1986 Volvo just got too old and expensive to make the yearly repairs in order for it to pass the auto registration inspections. She will surely and sorely be missed.

So this year we decided to put the money that would be spent on repairs into a newer car. As it turned out the man who generally services our car happened to have a 1998 Nissan Primera SLX for sale! What a beauty she is too. When Tiina saw it for the first time as we turned into the parking lot and fell in love with it right away. I also like the color.

It is a 1998 model that had only 125,000 km = 77,671.4 miles. All other cars that Tiina checked out for the same year had well over 250,000 km. We had purchased it on the 18th for 8,000 Euros + the Volvo. I don't think that was a bad price. This car's interior is like new and she runs very smooth and fast! It is front wheel drive and even has air conditioning. Lovely!

Helsinki Cup 2007

2007-07-24T13:23:00.000+03:00

July 8th-15th, 2007. Well Helsinki Cup came and went for our star #9 Alexi. His team EBK Vilperit Sininen unfortunately lost all four of their matches so they didn't get to continue to the next round. They all played well and their spirit was quite favorable. Even with losing they came off of the field with smiles on their faces and bubbly spirited. This is what it is all about boys. Winning isn't everything but being able to get out there to play the game, being given the opportunity to do so and to have fun doing it. Better luck next season!

The results were as follows:

tu 10 08:15 Laajasalo 2
EBK/Vilperit Sininen - VeVe 1 - 3

tu 10 17:35 Leppävaara 2
tn PK-35/Kobrat - EBK/Vilperit Sininen 11 - 1

we 11 09:25 Käpylä 8
TiPS/Juventus valkoinen - EBK/Vilperit Sininen 6 - 0

we 11 17:35 Käpylä 8
EBK/Vilperit Sininen - Valtti/Bandicootit 0 - 2

The boys have something to be proud of for their efforts in their first Helsinki Cup being such a new team. The last match played was probably the best game they had all year. A few more matches like this and they for sure would have been able to advance to the next round.

Juhannus/Midsummer

2007-06-23T22:07:00.000+03:00

Today was Juhannus or Midsummer. We didn't do anything spectacular as it is getting close to our summer holiday. Tiina and I had morning sauna and sat out on the terrace with the morning sun in our faces. It was very refreshing. After sauna we had breakfast and then went to work in the yards.

The boys decided to go on an adventure and rode their bikes to Matinkylä which was about 15 kilometers round trip. They were gone for some time. Each had a backpack with them and some water to drink. They tried find a place that was open selling icecream but had to settle for the gas station in Finno before returning home. They were pretty beat but had a good time. Tomorrow they will probably go to Tapiola and do the same.

First Tiina weeded her flower beds and then placed supports for the bigger leafer plants such as the Bleeding Hearts and Rhododendron. We hung a trellis in one corner for a climber to use. Tiina had cut it all the way to the ground earlier this Spring. I trimmed the hedge out at the front gate as it had become very overgrown. After the front had been taken care of we went down to the backyard and began to chip up all of the branches we had pruned from the Lilac trees and berry bushes. We pruned out more dead branches from the Lilacs as well and chipped them up too. The chipper works very nicely. After this work was done Tiina did a little weeding and then went to BBQ our Juhannus food. She grilled Norwegian Salmon, hamburgers, mushrooms, onions, tomatoes, red peppers, corn on the cob, egg plant and Zucchini. While she was BBQing I mowed and trimmed the backyard then raked it all up finishing just in time when the mosquitoes tried to make a meal out of me. The pictures included in this entry were taken around 10 PM. The days will start getting shorter now but we will still have light throughout the night.

There are a few things that need to be done to the front yard. One is that the whole structure where the gate is needs to be replaced as all of the wood has become rotten. The other is the awning over the front door due to the same. When the place had been painted (before we bought it) it hadn't been done right with the wall between us and our end neighbor. The paint is peeling off so that will need to be scraped away, sanded and new added. This all can wait until after summer holiday. That is if I am not too tired to do it ;-)

Felix Matias Kujala, 100 years ago today...

2007-05-17T10:11:00.000+03:00

On this day, May 17th, one hundred years ago my great-grandfather Felix Kujala left his home of Finland and moved to what would become his new home, the U.S.A. Felix never became a U.S. citizen but it is known that he had initiated the process, although the documents haven't been discovered yet. At any rate from 1909 to December 1952, the year he died, Felix would call Montana his home.

Feeliks Matias, or Felix as he was known in America, was born April 2, 1887 in Jalasjärvi, Finland to Hermanni Samuelinpoika and Adolfiina Malakiaantytär. He was baptized on April 5, 1887. His godparents were crofter Matti Kaseva and his wife Ulriika Serafiia Samelintytär. He was baptized by the Vicar, Julius Ivar Engström.

Felix and his family lived on the croft (torppa) by the name of Lustila (See earlier entry in this blog about the Lustila croft). Lustila was a part of the large Marttila farm in the village of Hirvijärvi that had been founded by his 9th great-grandfather, Martti Sipinpoika, 326 years earlier. Martti was born in Kurikka on the Vähä-Tuisku farm. After having been isäntä of Marttila (1561-1571) in Jalasjärvi he went to Kauhajoki where he started the Iso-Aro farm and was isäntä there from 1580-1621.

Felix's mother died at the young age of 34 on May 15, 1892 having given birth to seven children by that time. Felix, was the 5th child of seven but only three of his siblings lived to adulthood. He was raised, along with his siblings, by his aunt (mother's sister) and her husband after his mother had passed away when he was only five. As he grew to manhood he started working around farms as a renki or hired farm hand. He ended up working for his sister, Hedvig = Hetviiki and her husband Samuel Konstantin Kujala, at the Kujala farm in Sikamaa=Sikakylä. When Hetviiki passed away on January 22, 1906 her husband remarried on November 4, 1906 and would later, in 1926, pack up his family and move to nearby Peräseinäjoki.

Felix was left out in the cold, so to speak, so he must of thought that there would be better opportunities in America for him. This, however, is all lost to history as Felix never spoke of his family back in Finland. He only mentioned that he had two living sisters when he had left Jalasjärvi. He also had his birth date off by one year and a month. The headstone at Roberts Cemetery reads June 14th, 1888. It has also been told to us that he was an orphan raised by a mean step-mother. He indeed was an orphan in the respect he had no mother but he didn't have a step-mother until after he moved to the States as his father re-married only in 1910 and assumed the surname of Puisto, his 2nd wife's name.

Felix received permission from the local magistrate on May 6, 1907 to apply for a passport to America for five years. He was 19 at the time. He had to travel south from Jalasjärvi to Hanko where he took a steamship called the Virgo, belonging to the Finland Steamship Company, Ltd., on 17 May 1907. The cost for the complete fare was 350 Finnish Marks. The Virgo sailed, more than likely, to Hull, England. He then boarded the C. F. Tietgen, belonging to the Skandinavien-Amerika Linie, which departed from Copenhagen, Denmark on May 23, 1907 and arrived at Ellis Island, New York on 5 June 1907. The C. F. Tietgen's manifest shows Felix listed as a laborer, age 19, having a ticket to final destination, having never traveled to the USA before, having $8.50 cash on him, not a polygamist, not an anarchist, in good health, physical and mental, not crippled or deformed, 5 feet 6.5 inches tall, healthy complexion, fair hair and grey eyes. No marks of identification and born in Jalasjärvi.

Felix lived in Calumet, Michigan from 1907-1909. A work card #10394 from the Calumet and Hecla copper mines lists the following info: Felix Kujala hired 7 June 1907 left 4 March 1909. Immigrated in 1907, doesn’t read or write English. Work history shows various laborer jobs paying from $52.00 to $60.00 per month. It also shows where he had been docked pay a few times for being late and disobedience! Felix is listed in the R.L. Polk register as boarding at 2555 D Calumet Township, Michigan. This was a mining house where workers shared the same bed with another. While the day shift person was at work the night shift worker would be sleeping and vice-versa. This same address (2500 D) is given on the passenger list as the final destination that Felix was headed for in the USA. So sometime after 4 March 1909 Felix made his way to Red Lodge, Montana where he worked in the coal mines a while then turned to farming.

Felix is listed in the 1910 Census as Felix "Kaulla", 23, coal miner, born in Finland, and one of 7 boarders living with the Finnish family of Martin & Greta Leeman at their boarding house on Platt Street (South Platt and 15th Street) in Red Lodge City.

Felix was married to Helmi Elizabeth Lampi by Finnish preacher, Nestor Tikkanen on March 19, 1912. Helmi was born in Red Lodge, Montana on December 18, 1895 to Matti Matinpoika (Kontolampi) Lampi and Serafiia Juhontytär (Honkola). Their marriage license was the key to my finding Felix's roots in Jalasjärvi. I was able to obtain the original copy in exchange for my signature in August of 1990 from the Carbon County Courthouse in Red Lodge. This beautiful, old and well preserved document lists the most important clue. That would be the name of Felix's father, Herman! His mother is listed as Fija Kujala but research shows that Adolfiina was his mother. I think he used his mother-in-law's name since he had no living mother at the time. Also interesting to note is that Herman never used the Kujala surname but as matter of keeping things simple I believe he attached the Kujala name rather than having to explain Lustila and such. Besides, who would know or ever find out? Helmi's brother Svante married Selma Elizabeth Hakala on the same day. Each couple acted as witnesses for each others ceremony.

After Felix and Helmi were married they purchased 160 acres of land in Roberts (Cottonwood) from Svante and Selma Lampi (his in-laws) on 11 April 1913 for the price of $3,000. On September 4th, 1919 Felix and Helmi sold the above land to Peter B. Gardetto of Roberts.

A bad jpeg image of Felix Kujala's W.W.I. Draft Card lists the following; 25-1-5-A. Name: Felix Kujala; Roberts, Montana; born June 15, 1888; Alien (Int. papers); Born: Wasa, Finland; subject of Russia (Finland had been an Autonomous Grand Duchy of the Russian Empire from 1809 to 1917); present trade: farmer; employed: self; wife and 3 children solely dependant on him; married, caucasian; no prior military service; does not claim exemption from the draft on any grounds. Signed Feelis Kujala. REGISTRAR'S REPORT: Medium height and build, eyes blue and hair is light, no disabilities. Signature of registrar: J. H. Lochridge; precinct 7; Carbon County, Montana June 15, 1916.

Sometime between 1919 and 1920 Felix and Helmi had purchased a house and lot in Red Lodge where they had lived for about a year. Felix worked in the coal mines during this time. The house is still there today. It is not certain where the Kujala's moved to exactly after this but is still being researched. This property was sold to one Matt Lyytinen for $1,300.00 on the 29th of June 1920. They did end up moving back to the Roberts area where they farmed. In later life Felix engaged in carpentry work and the last house they lived in was situated across the street from the Roberts school. It was the first house on the upper end of the block and next to this house was another identical in structure.

Felix and Helmi had a total of eight children with seven of these living to adulthood.

They were:

1) Melba Josephine, born January 16, 1913; died October 30, 1965; married Clifford Walter Lorash on February 28, 1934. They had seven children: Lloyd, Curtis Walter, Norman Ray, Gary Gene, Carol Charlene, Linda Lorraine & Kayla.

2) Matt Raymond, born December 20, 1914; died April 24, 1982; married Florence Evelyn Leimback on December 25, 1933. They had six children and stillborn twins: Mabel Helmi, Gladys Emily, Robert Mathew, Marilyn Kay, Carolyn Sue & James Edwin.

3) Johannes "John", born December 14, 1916; died of Diptheria on November 8, 1922. Buried in an unmarked grave in Red Lodge Cemetery.

4) Ina Elizabeth, born October 21, 1918; died July 11, 1988; married Leonard Hunter on March 20, 1941. They had four children: Betty Jean, Leonard Eugene, Marlene & Robert.

5) Elsie Elenor, born October 25, 1920; died February 17, 1992; married Albert John "Peewee" Slehofer on September 6, 1938. They had six children: Judy, Gerald A., Jack Ray, Richard Donald, Sharon A. & Steve Ronald.

6) Verna Virginia, born May 15, 1923; died November 16, 2006; married Theodore John "Teddy" Kansala on October 9, 1942. They had three children: James Theodore, Karen Ann & Hal Leslie.
2) 20 July 1971 James Joseph Allen.

7) Helmi Lillian, born September 18, 1927; died January 4, 1997; married 1) Ervin Emory Dempster on November 27, 1944. They had four children: Bruce Ervin, Lillian Darlene, Richard George & Jeffrey Allan.
2) March 31, 1972 to Max Sylvester Thomas.

8) Margaret Jane, born September 9, 1932; died December 31, 2000; married 1) William E. "Bill" Normile on December 19, 1950. They had two children: Elizabeth Dean & William Matthew.
2) October 27, 1956 Ramiro "Rod" Garcia.

Helmi Elizabeth passed away on July 12, 1952 at the age of 56 1/2. Cause of death was due to massive cerebral hemorrhage. She is buried beside her husband of 40 years in Roberts Cemetery, Roberts, Montana.

Felix Matias passed away on December 12, 1952, exactly five months after his wife, at the age of 65. Cause of death was coronary thrombosis. He is buried alongside his wife of 40 years in the Roberts Cemetery in Roberts, Montana.

I never had the pleasure of knowing my great-grandparents. In a way I feel like a reverse image of my great-grandfather in the sense that I left my home country to try life in another country. In this case I returned to his land of birth. I did so during the 83rd year that Felix left. I was nine years older (28) than Felix was (19) when he began his journey. I couldn't speak Finnish and I was coming over as a laborer. I came by plane rather than boat and I began work just a few days after my arrival.

I do not know the reasons for his leaving Finland nor why he never wished to speak about his family he left behind. I am told that he was a kind, gentle man and that he had a way with discipline by a look he gave. Relatives here in Finland, who knew his father, Hermanni, said the same about Hermanni. This page in Felix's life shall be lost forever to history. I am happy with my life here in Finland just as happy as Felix must have been in Montana. He had a much tougher time I am sure. I could get by with English right away as most Finns can manage one way or another. He, on the otherhand, had to learn from scratch. Times were also more "primitive" for him in 1907 than they were for me in 1990.

I have my great-grandfather to thank for allowing me to retain my Finnish identity. He could have just as easily changed it to something completely different and non-Finnish sounding. The name of Kujala was not so easy to pronounce when I was growing up. But I learned how to say it correctly from my grandfather. Now I live in a place where there is no need to spell it out every time I say it or have to explain what nationality it is! So far, as I know, I am the only one of his descendants to return to Finland not only to live but also for a visit. I wish that all of his descendants could make it over here at least one time. It saddens me that some cannot but that is the way of life.

I honor this day in memory of my great-grandfather Felix Matias Kujala for without those events that took place 100 years ago I would not be writing this. Paljon kiitoksia rakkaalle esi-isällemme Felix Kujalalle !!

I am, Matti Kujala son of Bobby Kujala, son of Matt Raymond Kujala, son of Felix Matias Kujala.

In Memoriam Erik Kristian "Eeki" Mantere 1949-2007

2007-05-02T18:29:00.002+03:00

On April 30th, 2007 we received some shocking and sad news about the passing of Eeki Mantere, better known as Viktor Kalborrek of the Finnish musical group Hullujussi and Kari Grandi of TV commercial fame for those little Grandi ready to drink juice cartons that come with a straw in a plastic wrapper glued to one side.

Now I didn't have the pleasure nor the privilege of growing up listening to this style of humorous music. I only learned of Eeki and the rest of the band after I had moved to Finland in 1990. I saw more of him in the Grandi commercials at first than I had heard of him in his music.

Hän on kaikkien janoisten sankari, aikamme legenda: Kari... Grandi!

Later I would see him perform on several TV shows. One of these was BumtsiBum hosted by Marco Bjurström. This was an episode filmed in 2001 with guests Riitta Havukainen and her character of Hansu and her partner Eija Vilpas in character of Pirre. Eeki was his usual Viktor Kalborrek with bright white teeth and tightly curled handle-bar mustache decked out in a blinding white suit. Viktor's partner was Heimo Holopainen or better known as Frank Pappa, also of the group Hullujussi. My first encounter with Frank Pappa was when he had his own TV show "Frank Pappa Show" and later "Frank Pappa Late Show." This came about after the first year I had been living in Finland. Okay, so I didn't understand hardly any Finnish at that time but I enjoyed the show all the same. Frank could play a mean upright bass!

We had purchased a CD in 2003 by Hullujussi entitled "Bingo Bulvania". My family and I enjoy listening to it as well as singing along with some of the songs while we are in the car either on our way up to our cottage or coming back. Of course our favorite is always "Bingo Bango Bongo" and "Tyttö Lilla Nakkikioskilla".

I had the honor of meeting Eeki a little over a year ago when we attended my brother-in-law's daughter's baptism in Vihti. You see Eeki is the father of my brother-in-law's wife. They are Sampo Haapaniemi and Marleena Mantere. Sampo plays drums with the Finnish band called Egotrippi. Well the grandparents, parents and siblings were there as well as the cousins.

When I first entered the home of my father-in-law at the time of the baptismal I saw Eeki standing in the middle of the living room floor. He was much shorter than I imagined him to be and not as skinny as I had seen him on TV. His teeth weren't bright white and he didn't sport that handle-bar mustache nor the thick, black eyebrows. He was dressed in black and had a ponytail. At first glance he reminded me of the actor Steven Seagal!

After some time I found the courage to actually speak to the man. Eeki's son, Miro, was also there with his wife and kids. It was via Miro that the conversation with Eeki opened. We spoke about how big a family he had. He had been married twice and had two more sons, Emil & Emppu, close in age to my own two boys, Nicholas and Alexander. They hit it off just fine and hung out together most of the day.
During the ceremony Eeki read the Grandparent's poem. I remember it being so neat hearing Eeki reading the names of my children in this poem. After all his two grandkids via Sampo and Marleena are half-first cousins to my boys. His singing voice was supurb as well when all sang along with the priest.

I took a few photos of Eeki and his large family that day. One special photo is of him holding his precious granddaughter, Marikki, just after she had been fed. He was singing to her very softly. The moment required to be captured on film or in this case digitially.

After the ceremony everyone sat down to eat. I watched Eeki from time to time and whenever he passed me he would give me that Viktor Kalborrek look and smile and say something in English. He seemed to always mutter something about Rock 'n' Roll and would have some gesture to go along with it.

When everyone began to leave I had hoped to be able to say good-bye to Eeki and tell him how much of a pleasure and honor it was for me to meet him after all of these years. I stood in the hallway so that all that went out had to pass by me. When Eeki approached he just kept looking straight ahead. I thought to myself should I say something or not? Just when I was about to let it be and go find my family, Eeki made a quick, quarter spin turn in a crouching, almost ducking, position and with his arm halfway extended and pointed his finger and me and said in a low, quick voice, " It was nice to meet you." At that moment I could see Viktor Kalborrek in his face. I told him it was a pleasure to meet him and hoped that we would be able to so again in the future. We had talked about the possibility of him and his two youngest sons attending my son's birthday party the following year, which will be in the middle of this month.

After they all had left I went up to Marleena and told her how much I enjoyed her father. He was a real nice guy and hilarious. He was the same in real life as he was on TV.

It saddens me that we may never get to meet again. He has a legacy and that will continue to live on in the hearts of those who grew up with him and those who are yet to come.

Good-bye Eeki and may you entertain the angels of heaven as you had so many here in Finland.

My sincere condolences to the entire Mantere family and especially to my sister/brother-in-law, Marleena & Sampo and your family.

Pictures from Easter holiday

2007-04-14T13:24:00.000+03:00

We spent four days at our cottage in Jalasjärvi over the Easter holiday. We had the pleasure of visiting with our good neighbors and just hanging out with them. One of them has an exchange student from New Zealand and the other other's son has a girlfriend who is an exchange student from Mediterranean island of Sardinia. Tiina and the boys spent some time learning Italian from her.

We attended the lighting of the Easter bonfire and stayed there for about an hour. There were a few witches to be seen and they didn't seem to be frightened by the fire at all. Pictured here are Jasmin and Jessica Moilanen from Oulu.

Grilled sausages were being served as well as little cartons of juice. The fire was really good this year. Not so much junk in the bonfire so it burnt clean, fast and very hot! It was starting to level out about an hour after it had been lit.

Tiina is pictured in the photo to the left.

These pictures were taken with the Nokia N73 ME's 3.2 megapixel camera.

Some past information...

2007-04-14T13:11:00.000+03:00

Well Tiina didn't make it into Finnish Parliament this time around. She did manage to secure 289 votes though. She seemed pretty happy with those results being it was her first Parliamentary election. Now we shall wait and see what will happen in four years from now! But wait, there's more! She is already planning for the Espoo city council elections in two year's time. Oh brudder. A big thank you for all that helped in Tiina's campaign. Better luck next time Babe!

Happy Easter; Hyvää Pääsiäistä; Glad Påsk

2007-04-05T00:15:00.000+03:00

Hope everyone has a nice, safe time during the Easter holidays. We will be heading up to Jalasjärvi, as we have done the past 12 or so years, to partake in the Pääsiäiskokko = Easter bonfire in our local village. The weatherman says it is supposed to be cold and possibly snowing over the weekend. I don't mind though. It adds to the atmosphere of the place. A nice fire burning in the kitchen stove with the aroma of Tiina's good cooking and wood smoke makes it very enjoyable. For that cold day the sauna is always nice to warm up with. For that cold night there is always a big, fluffy blanket to get lost under along with a nice, soft bed.

War on Terrorism

2007-03-18T08:44:00.000+02:00

I am sick to death of having to read, hear or view anything about George W. Bush's war on terrorism. This goes especially for what is going on in Iraq. Political supporters of Bush say the war must be winnable in order for the terrorists not to win. I say BONK! Iraq had nothing, absolutely nothing, to with terrorism or any attacks against the USA. How about Afghanistan? The only thing I can gather is that Osama bin Laden was hiding there so the USA decided to try and kill two birds with one stone, Osama and the Taliban, oh, and let's not forget al-Qaida.

How long will this rage go on? How long will the USA allow this madman to continue his rage? Congress, with Democrats in control, fear that if they cut off the cash cow for this stupid war that they will be labeled as abandoning the troops abroad. They may pass a bill that sets a deadline to bring all troops home by 2008. Bush will probably veto it or if the usual trend continues he will just ignore it because he feels he is above the law of the land and the rest of world in the name of America's freedom. And people wonder why the rest of the world think so badly about the USA. Duh! I borrow a phrase from Forrest Gump, "stupid is as stupid does".

How many more servicemen must die or become injured before this idiot of a president realizes that he cannot win in Iraq. Global War on Terrorism. I don't hear anything about this war outside of Iraq and Afghanistan. In given time there will be no more able bodies to fight in this war. A draft will most certainly be needed because people are beginning to smarten up and realize that they would be idiots to sign up with the military. Nobody wants to enlist to die for nothing. To die in Iraq is to die for nothing. It is sad but true. The whole war was based on a few lies and the fear that the USA's president, especially the vice president Cheney, had impressed on the American people. What will happen when the military is spread so thin and abroad? Will America be that much safer? Think about it.

America is involved in a civil war in Iraq and its mere presence there adds fuel to the fire of hatred. The USA has done a bad and the government needs to admit this and step down and take the shame like a man and begin to work on renewing America's image both on the home front and abroad. There is nothing wrong with that. Many other nations have done so and they continue to thrive and be strong to this day. What is wrong is to continue the pace that has been going on the past four years. Bush has nothing to lose, America does.

Banner's up!

2007-03-06T22:13:00.000+02:00

Sunday I went with Tiina to help her and Katinka put up the campaign banner. This was done at Katinka's brother's golf course just across from IKEA in Espoo. It was mildly cold but with a wind. My hands got somewhat chilled as I didn't bring gloves but as long as I wasn't touching the aluminum ladder I was fine. The banner measures 1.5 meters high by 4 meters in length. Tiina climbed the ladder to attach the banner to the poles whilst I held the ladder and Katinka the lose ends of the banner. It actually took longer than I thought it would but we managed to get it done before Tiina had to head over to Suna school for an invitation to the public to come and chat with her. I helped her take the things she needed into the school then walked on home from there. The first picture is of me and Katinka where I am driving a nail into the pole. The second picture is of Tiina under the banner after we had finished. One can see the Medieval stone church to the far right. Remember to vote !!!!

18.03.2007

86 TIINA KUJALA
Nyland/Uusimaa
sfp/rkp

Purrs like a kitten

2007-03-04T16:59:00.000+02:00

I had meant to do a quick follow up to my last posting concerning the great computer overhaul. The puter now boots up quite quickly. I feared that the CPU got fried and that was the reason for the slow boot and re-boot. Well as I sat here looking at the machine during each re-boot after a program installation, I had a lot of time to think due to the slow boot-up, I ran everything I could past my mind to try and figure out why this wasn't working when it had done so before I cleaned everything out and re-installed Windows XP. It wasn't until after I had installed the scanner drivers and program that I had noticed the scanner went though its checks before the memory test. I then noticed the two unopened printer ink cartridges on my desk then it "downed on me" - to borrow an expression from former, late neighbor of Fox, Montana, Waino Rintala, that I had attached the USB cable to the printer but hadn't installed the drivers. So to test this theory I unplugged the USB cable from the printer at the next re-boot. The computer booted very quickly and in no time I was ready to go! So with this greatly welcomed and relieving news I quickly installed the printer drivers and all problems were cured. No more worries.

With all said and done I was very anxious to get to work on transferring VHS tapes to DVD. After all, I had purchased a second hard drive, 2 GB of memory and upgraded from Pinnacle Studio 9 to Studio 10 Plus just for this purpose and my mother sent me a VHS player/recorder from the States so that I would be able to capture native signal NTSC. I found all to work perfectly well after I partitioned the second hard drive to 30 GB and dedicated that partition for video capturing only. So far I have captured and rendered five VHS movies and burned them to DVD. I have many more to go but am truly happy and quite satisfied that this is working, finally!

Dust Hotel

2007-02-22T21:03:00.000+02:00

A few weeks ago I began to experience my computer shutting down for no apparent reason. As I began to investigate the problem I discovered that the CPU was working at 100% just before this would happen. This did not happen immediately but after some time of running a memory labor intensive program such as analyzing and encoding a DVD or generating a kinship report in the family tree file that I know has many interconnected people. The next step I took was to look up all that I could on the Internet to see what the problem might be. The general consensus was that the CPU was overheating causing the system to shut down. So I began to monitor the BIOS at boot-up to see what the fan speed, system and CPU temps read. Of course when in the BIOS one doesn't get the true temperature of the working PC as nothing is going on to make the processor heat up, or so I thought. I watched the processor heat up from 35 C and ending at about 94 C +/- 3 C in 20 minutes time !!! The normal temperature for my system should be around 40-45 C !! How long had this been going on? Well I had planned to clean out my system inside and out and adding the 2 GB of RAM I had purchased so many months ago but never seemed to get around to it. My computer was acting so sluggish and knew XP Home had collected a lot of junk over the past three years since I first bought it. I had the case off before when I put in a second hard drive and it looked pretty clean then. That wasn't quite a year ago. Well when I opened the beastie up it looked fairly clean, still. BUT when I got to removing the cooling fan from the heat sink that is when I got the surprise of my life!! The dust must have been 1/4" thick on top and extending down inside the fins another 1/4" or so. I whipped out the mini-vacuum kit and canned air and went to work. I then put it all back together and crossed my fingers as I switched her on. She purred like a kitten. I monitored the temperature from the BIOS and found that the system temperature stayed at around 38 C and the CPU at 41-43 C !! That was all it took! My system is very slow in booting up yet. This occurs up until the memory check. Perhaps something got fried in the processor or the BIOS got damaged? After Windows loads all works fine and dandy. In fact as I am typing this I have been generating a kinship report that has been going on for the past four or five hours at the most! It is on its second and final pass and at 86% complete. The CPU usage is showing a steady 55-65% with both going. Before I had to change the affinity to only run CPU0 in order to keep the usage fixed at 50% but I couldn't wait for the extra hours for the report to generate. I couldn't even run very many other programs at the same time. But now it seems I don't have problems multi-tasking.

I learned a great deal about wireless networking, keeping the PC clean and recovering a system these past six days. It all started simply because my brother-in-law gave my youngest son his old Dell P4 1.3 GHz computer without a hard drive. Pretty straight forward stuff here. Purchase a hard drive pop it in and install the operating system. Been there, done that more times than I care to remember. But this time all went sour when I couldn't get his machine connected to the Internet via the wireless network. One by one each of our machines went down like the domino effect. After intensive reading I decided to reset the wireless router and re-install everything from scratch. I knew the machines were connecting to the router but they weren't getting past the ADSL modem to collect an IP address. Resetting the router worked. I think the main problem may have been with the ADSL modem. We had it replaced a few weeks ago by our ISP for free because when we had originally rented it, later purchased it, there was no 1 MB speed for the ADSL. Gradually we were upgraded for free but the modem was not. We found out it couldn't handle 2 MB/512K so they gave us a new one that is good up to 25 MB. After I got it home I just disconnected the old one and connected the new one. Perhaps it needed to be set-up first? Well, it is all done and taken care of and all works fine for the moment. I am almost done with installing the programs on my own system. I need to install a USB 2.0 PCI card in Alexi's machine and then put it back in his desk. All that is left is to wipe Tiina's hard drive clean and do a complete re-install as well. That should pretty much finish off my week of winter holiday! No Jalasjärvi this winter holiday :-(

Lustila - Torpan Sauna.....

2007-02-19T15:19:00.000+02:00

The following sets of pictures were taken in July of 2002 from the old Lustila croft in the village of Hirvijärvi of the municipality of Jalasjärvi. This sauna, as we were told, is more than likely the original one built. It is all that is left of the croft. We could see where the foundation was for the house and the caved in remnants of the cellar. Our guide, Seppo Pentinmäki, even found where the well was by the divining method!

The photo on the right is of the inside of the sauna. Here is pictured the stove and chimney and an old bed to the left!

If this sauna is the original sauna, which it does appear to be by the way it has been constructed, then there is a good chance that my great-grandfather, his siblings and my great-great-grandfather and some of his siblings were all born in this sauna!

My great-great-great grandfather, Samuel Matinpoika (Valkama) Lustila acquired contract to the torppa upon marriage (5 Feb 1842) to his wife Ulla Simontytär Palomäki. Ulla's father was a farmer/tailor and her maternal grandfather was isäntä (head of household/estate) of the farm Marttila.

The Lustila torppa burned down in the early 1920's. The current owners of the property have built a small log house, a lean-to and a small man made pond. The place is still called Lustila.

In these photos one can see how the hay is placed on poles to aid in drying as the ground can have a lot of dew, especially in wooded areas where the sun doesn't shine all day.

Hooray for the Chicks

2007-02-17T13:29:00.000+02:00

I personally congratulate The Dixie Chicks for their current taking of all five categories of which they were nominated for at the 49th Grammy Awards. I especially applaud Natalie Maines for sticking to her guns and her freedoms granted her by the Constitution of the United States of America. Go girl! French fries and the Chicks. What more can one ask for? Before you all who happen across my blog decide to bombard me with words such as turn-coat, unpatriotic, disrespectful, etc., etc., I would like to enter a quote right here and now from one of the boldest presidents the USA has ever had.

"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public." - Theodore Roosevelt.

I stand by these words as should everyone else that believes in the Constitution of the United States of America. BULLY!

Freedom what???

2007-02-15T21:54:00.000+02:00

The other day at work my co-worker, I will call him TF, and I were discussing some things that have occurred in the United States since the illustrious Dubya took office. One of these was the re-naming of French fries to freedom fries simply because France was against the invasion of Iraq. Perhaps if I had been living in the USA at the time I wouldn't have thought much about it. No, I take that back. I would have thought it as a childish gesture all the same! I mean, think about it. Americans tend to believe that the US military were the only ones that won the war in Europe. France was invaded by Hitler and liberated by the Allied forces. To this day whenever France takes an opposite opinion from that of the USA people go nuts about it and drag out W.W.II and how "we" won the war for them. Even I know better than this. Why is it I learned it in school? Perhaps the rest were sleeping during this time? Anyway, it was an embarrassment to say the least for me, an American citizen and living abroad having to put up with this. Was I ever offended by the rude and crude remarks by my peers. No, I was not. Simply because I had to agree with them.

So now we have the change of French fries to freedom fries, later changed back.

TF, the other day said to me in a laughing manner, "Freedom Kiss". I asked, "What?"
He was wondering if the Americans changed the name of French Kiss to Freedom Kiss. Then we began to think of other things that began with French that Americans use in everyday speech.

The French Connection has now been renamed the Freedom Connection
French Horn to Freedom Horn
French Drain to Freedom Drain
French cut bra to freedom cut bra
French lingerie to Freedom lingerie
French's Mustard to Freedom Mustard
French bread to Freedom bread
French restaurant to Freedom restaurant
French curve to Freedom curve
French toast to Freedom toast
French dressing to Freedom dressing
French dictionary to Freedom Dictionary
"Excuse me, but do you speak Freedom?"
Victor French, the actor, has now become Victor Freedom, long after his death in 1989.
French Embassy to Freedom Embassy
French poodle to that of Freedom poodle
and the French tickler to Freedom tickler
and last but not least, New Orleans' French Quarter became Freedom Quarter.
Now is this silly or what?

Don't politicians have better things to do than trying to change a name of a product just because a nation of opposite opinion, and one that was right if I may add, disagrees with the great Capitol Hill???

Viva La France!

More Winter Pictures

2007-01-27T23:34:00.000+02:00

Well it had snowed again last evening and then later on today. These pictures were taken from the terrace in the backyard this afternoon. One can see how much snow fell by the amount on the bird feeder hanging in the lilac tree. This last snowfall was wetter than the previous. We actually had to go out with the car so all of the snow needed to be cleared from the car and from the parking area. Niki had gone out earlier and made a path from the main door to the gate and around the shed door. I later took away the rest of the snow after removing the snow from around the car. Now the temperature rests at -5.3 Celsius so no fear of it melting all away over night. The forecast calls for more colder weather but not much more snow for a few days. This is enough for me to make it feel like winter. Of course if it does snow more I won't mind ;-)

Snow, Snow, Beautiful Snow !!

2007-01-26T20:46:00.000+02:00

At last, at last my winter has arrived! Now this is the kind of winters I do enjoy. Lots of snow and cold enough to keep it fluffy. Today it snowed most of the day with hard winds so there were some quite big drifts to negotiate whilst walking out and about, mainly to the bus to get home. I took these few pictures this evening. One is from our door off to the balcony overlooking the backyard and forest. I always like viewing the snow in the trees lit up by the pathway light. This light turns off around 11 pm. All times during the day one can find people either walking, jogging, biking or skiing depending on what time a year it is. The other two photos were taken from the front door. One is looking towards the front gate and the other in the opposite corner

WINTER !!!

2007-01-21T14:08:00.000+02:00

Looking out my window I am wondering if wintertime has finally arrived in Finland. Although I doubt it very much I can only think that it has. So beautiful the trees with their fluffy, white snowy dresses and the flittering about of the tit-mouse and sparrow as they either forage for food from under the mountain pine or from the feeders. The temperature is only -3 Celsius. The children are at play out on the hill and in the woods, finally getting to go sledding in decent snowfall. I took the opportunity of the below freezing weather to defrost our upright freezer last evening. It worked well only that my eldest son, Niki, complained that his ice-cream had looked like it had been frozen and unfrozen five times and thanked me very much for ruining it for him. He ate the slightly disfigured cone all the same and didn't complain about it not tasting good.

Some interesting relatives in ye old family tree

2007-01-03T21:26:00.000+02:00

The past few days I began to compile some names that are in my family tree. The ones I will list here are quite distant to say the least. Those that are represented are found via my late Grandmother Flossie's mother's side of the family that came from Powys, Wales. They sailed aboard the ship called the Vine that left Liverpool, England and arrived, more than likely, in Chester, Pennsylvania on 17 Dec 1684. This would be the family of my 9th great-grandparents, Robert Owen (1628-1686) & Jane née Vaughan (1626-1686). It is through the Vaughan family that I am connected to the nobility of Europe. In the following list one will find actors, painters, authors and leaders of nations.

AUTHORS/NOVELISTS/POETS

Jane Austen (1775-1817) novelist
14th cousin 6 times removed

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861) poet
16th cousin 4 times removed

Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875-1950) author
28th cousin once removed

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson
a.k.a. Lewis Carroll (1832-1898) author
15th cousin 4 times removed

Ernest Miller Hemingway (1899-1961) author
Half 20th cousin 4 times removed

Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
a.k.a. P.G. Wodehouse (1881-1975) novelist, cartoonist
14th cousin 5 times removed

Lyman Frank Baum (1856-1919) author, actor, independent filmmaker
27th cousin 3 times removed

Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson
a.k.a. Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) novelist, poet, travel writer
22nd cousin twice removed

Adeline Virginia Stephen
a.k.a. Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) novelist
16th cousin 4 times removed

Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) Scottish historical novelist
17th cousin 8 times removed

PAINTERS/ILLUSTRATORS

Norman Perceval Rockwell (1894-1978) illustrator, painter
19th cousin 3 times removed

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) French painter, draftsman
21st cousin 6 times removed

Walter Elias Disney
a.k.a. Walt Disney (1901-1966) illustrator, producer, animator, director, etc.
21st cousin once removed

Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) Flemish Baroque Era painter
Half 11th cousin 15 times removed

ACTORS/PRODUCERS

Humphrey DeForest Bogart (1899-1957) film Actor
15th cousin once removed

Margaux Louise Hemingway (1954-1996) actress, model
Half 22nd cousin twice removed

Mariel Hadley Hemingway (1961- ) actress
Half 22nd cousin once removed

Catherine Oxenberg (1961- ) Actress
19th cousin once removed

Katharine Houghton Hepburn (1907-2003) actress
15th cousin once removed

Peter Sydney Ernest Aylen
a.k.a. Peter Lawford (1923-1984) actor
12th cousin 3 times removed

Terrence Steven McQueen
a.k.a. Steve McQueen (1930-1980) actor
19th cousin twice removed

Christopher Reeve (1952-2004) actor, producer, director, writer
20th cousin

Olivia Mary de Havilland (1 July 1916- ) actress
20th cousin twice removed

Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland (22 Oct 1917- ) actress
a.k.a. Joan Fontaine
20th cousin twice removed

Randolph Scott (1898-1987) actor
17th cousin 3 times removed

George Walton Lucas, Jr. (1944 - ) Film director, producer, screenwriter
Half 26th cousin 5 times removed

U.S. PRESIDENTS/VICE-PRESIDENTS/GOVERNORS, etc.

George Washington (1732-1799) 1st President
11th cousin 8 times removed

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) 3rd President
12th cousin 5 times removed

James Madison (1751-1836) 4th President
13th cousin 7 times removed

James Monroe (1758-1831) 5th President
16th cousin 3 times removed

John Quincy Adams (1767-1848) 6th President
Half 10th cousin 5 times removed

William Henry Harrison (1733-1841) 9th President
14th cousin 7 times removed

Franklin Pierce (1804-1869) 14th President
20th cousin 7 times removed

Ulysses Simpson Grant (1822-1885) 18th President
18th cousin 3 times removed

Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822-1893) 19th President
18th cousin 6 times removed

Benjamin Harrison (1833-1901) 23rd President
15th cousin 5 times removed

Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. (1858-1919) 26th President
21st cousin 3 times removed

John "Calvin" Coolidge (1872-1933) 30th President
16th cousin twice removed

Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945) 32nd President
17th cousin 3 times removed

Richard Milhous Nixon (1913-1994) 37th President
15th cousin

Gerald Rudolph Ford, Jr.
a.k.a. Leslie Lynch King (1913-2006) 38th President
20th cousin once removed

Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller (1908-1979) 41st Vice President
18th cousin once removed

George Herbert Walker Bush (1924- ) 41st President
20th cousin

George Walker Bush (1946- ) 43rd President
20th cousin once removed

FIRST LADIES of the WHITE HOUSE

Abigail Smith (1744-1818)
Half 9th cousin 6 times removed
wife of John Adams, Jr. (1735-1826) 2nd President

Edith Bolling (1872-1961)
15th cousin 5 times removed
wife of Thomas "Woodrow" Wilson (1856-1924) 28th President

Elizabeth Virginia Wallace (1885-1982) "the Secret President"
Half 27th cousin once removed
wife of Harry S. Truman (1884-1972) 33rd President

Anne Frances Robbins
a.k.a. Nancy Davis (1923- ) Actress; First Lady
Half 27th cousin once removed
wife of Ronald Wilson Reagan (1911-2004) 40th President

MONARCHS/RULERS of direct ancestry, etc.

Edward III (1312-1377) King of England
19th great-grandfather

Edward I Longshanks (1239-1307) King of England
21st great-grandfather

Gwladys Ddu ferch Llywelyn Fawr (1194-1251)
a.k.a. Gladys the Dark, daughter of Llywelyn the Great
23rd great-grandmother

Henry II Curt Mantle d'Anjou (1132-1189) King of England
24th great-grandfather

Owain Glyndŵr (1359-1416) last Welsh Prince of Wales
17th great-granduncle

Gruffudd Maelor I (1121-1191) 2nd Lord of Powys Fadog, Wales
24th great-grandfather

Bleddyn ap Cynfyn (1025-1075) King of Gwynedd, Deheubarth & Powys, Wales
29th great-grandfather

Renaud de Châtillon-sur-Loing (1128-1187) Prince of Antioch Sn de Kérak
26th great-grandfather, beheaded by Saladin at Hattin

Malcolm III Canmore (1031-1093) 45th King of Scotland
a.k.a. Maelcolaim III Ceanmohr
27th great-grandfather

David I the Saint (abt 1082-1153) 50th King of Scots
27th great-grandfather

William I the Conqueror (1024-1087) Duke of Normandy; King of England
27th great-grandfather

Conan III le Gros de Bretagne (abt 1094-1148) Duc de Bretagne
28th great-grandfather

Balduin II du Bourq (1118-1131) King of Jerusalem
28th great-grandfather

Béla I ( - 1063) King of Hungary
29th great-grandfather

Richard I the Lionheart (1157-1199) King of England
23rd great-granduncle

Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar (1943-1099) Castilian nobleman, military & political leader
a.k.a. El Cid Campeador
28th great-grandfather

John Lackland (1166-1216) King of England
29th great-grandfather

Rhodri Mawr ap Merfyn Frych (820-878) 1st ruler of Wales
a.k.a. Rhodri/Roderick the Great (first Welsh ruler to be called Great)
30th great-grandfather

Manuel Eroticus Comnenos ( - 1020) Patrikios; Protospatharios, strategos
30th great-grandfather

Hugues II Capet (939/41-996) King of France
30th great-grandfather

Constantine IX Monomahkos (abt 980-1055) Byzantin emperor
30th great-grandfather

Godgifu (abt 990-1067) Anglo-Saxon noblewoman
a.k.a. Lady Godiva
30th great-grandmother

Olaf III Skötkonung (965/970 - 1021/22) 1st King of Sweden
a.k.a. Olaf the Tax King
30th great-grandfather

Alfred The Great (849-899) King of Wessex; England
31st great-grandfather

Eadgar the Peaceful (943-975) King of England
31st great-grandfather

Rollo (846-931) Viking founder of Normandy; 1st Duke
a.k.a. Hrólfr Rögnvaldsson; Göngu-Hrólfr
31st great-grandfather

Merfyn Frych ap Gwriad ( - 844) King of Gwynedd
a.k.a. Merfyn the Freckled
31st great-grandfather

Wenceslaus I (907-935) Duke of Bohemia
a.k.a. St. Wencelaus (Good King Wenceslas of the Christmas carol)
32nd great-granduncle

Baldwin I Iron-Arm (835-879) 1st count of Flanders
33rd great-grandfather

Charles I the Great of France (797-814) King of Franks, Holy Roman Emperor
a.k.a. Charlemagne, Karl der Große
35th great-grandfather

Basil I the Macedonian (abt 811-886) Byzantin Emperor
35th great-grandfather

Kenneth I MacAlpin ( - 858) King of Scots
35th great-grandfather

Guido I of Spoleto ( - 860) Duke of Spoleto
37th great-grandfather

Clovis I (466-511) King of the Merovingian Franks
43rd great-grandfather

Valentinian I (321-375) Roman Emperor (West)
a.k.a. Flavius Valentinius
50th great-grandfather

other related MONARCHS/RULERS, ETC

Beatrix of the Netherlands (1938- ) Queen of the Netherlands
19th cousin

Margrethe II of Denmark (1940- ) Queen of Denmark
19th cousin

Carl XVI Gustaf Bernadotte (1946- ) present King of Sweden
19th cousin

Victoria Ingrid Alice Désirée Bernadotte (1977- ) present Crown Princess of Sweden
19th cousin once removed

Birger Jarl
a.k.a. Birger Magnusson (abt 1210-1266) Swedish statesman, founder of Stockholm
3rd cousin 26 times removed

Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon (1900-2002) The Queen Mother
16th cousin 4 times removed

Elizabeth II (1926- ) present Queen of United Kingdom of Great Britain & Northern Ireland
a.k.a. Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor
18th cousin once removed

Ferdinand II of Aragon
a.k.a. Fernando el Católico (1451-1515) King of Aragon & Castile
Half 6th cousin 17 times removed

Isabella I of Aragon (1451-1504) Queen of Aragon & Castile
3rd cousin 17 times removed

Prince Charles (1948- )present Prince of Wales; Crown Prince of England
a.k.a. Charles Philip Arthur George Mountbatten-Windsor
19th cousin

Diana Frances Spencer (1961-1997) Lady, Princess of Wales
19th cousin

Constantine I the Great (272-337) Roman Emperor; King of Britain
a.k.a. Gaius Flavius Valerius Aurelius Constantinus
1st cousin 41 times removed

Harald V (1937 - ) present King of Norway
19th cousin

Juan Carlos I (1938 - ) present King of Spain
a.k.a. Juan Alfonso Carlos Víctor María de Borbón y Borbón-Dos Sicilias
19th cousin once removed

Alexander II Nikolyevich Romanov (1818-1881) Tsar of Russia; Grand Duke of Finland
Александр II Николаевич
16th cousin 3 times removed

Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim (1867-1951) Finnish military man/statesman, 6th President
Half 27th cousin twice removed

Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill (1974-1965) twice Prime Minister of England
18th cousin once removed

Rainier III Grimaldi (1923-2005) Prince of Monaco
20th cousin once removed

Abdullah bin al-Hussein (1962- ) present King of Jordan
39th cousin once removed

OTHER NOTABLES

The Prophet Muhammad (570-632) Arab political & military leader, established Islam
41st great-grandfather

St. Vincent Madelgarus ( - 677) Benedictine monk
a.k.a. Vincent Madelgaire de Hainaut
40th great-grandfather

Ann Boleyn (1504-1536) Queen consort of Henry VIII; 1st Marchioness of Pembroke
Half 6th cousin 14 times removed; beheaded by Henry VIII, 4th cousin 15 times removed

Daniel Boone, Sr. (1734-1820) frontiersman
12th cousin 7 times removed

Charles Robert Darwin (1809-1882) naturalist; biologist
Half 22nd cousin 4 times removed

Aga IV Khan (1936 - ) current (49th) Imām of the Shia Imami Ismaili Muslims
41st cousin 5 times removed

John D. Rockefeller, Sr. (1829-1937) Industrialist, Philanthropist
16th cousin 3 times removed

Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) mathematician, philosopher, logician
16th cousin 3 times removed

Josiah Wedgwood (1730-1795) Potter; founder of Wedgwood Pottery; grandfather of Charles Robert Darwin
Half 20th cousin 6 times removed

Manfred von Richtofen "Red Baron" (1892-1918) W.W.I flying ace "ace of aces"
a.k.a. Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen
17th cousin 4 times removed

HAPPY NEW YEAR !!!!

2007-01-03T01:40:00.000+02:00

We had a nice time at our cottage over the New Year's holiday. There wasn't much snow and what little there was it melted away until the day we left when it began to snow...typical. Tiina baked bread and rolls in the old wood heated stove. It was her first time baking from scratch while using this oven. She had baked a ham and chicken before. They turned out pretty good. She also made a very delicious pot of chili and some carrot soup.

We spent the changing of the New Year in the sauna where we toasted with pear cider and then went outside to watch the fireworks going up from the surrounding villages and homes. Other than that it was a peaceful New Year.

I didn't do much more than keeping the fires burning and water stocked. Watched a few movies and TV and played cards with Tiina. The boys spent most of their time at the neighbor's playing with their youngest daughter and Nintendo. Let's see what the New Year will bring! Best to all!!

Hyvää Joulua, Merry Christmas, God Jul !!

2006-12-25T20:32:00.000+02:00

May ye all have a very merry Christmas!!!

Hyvää Itsenäisyyspäivää Suomi! Happy Independence Day Finland!

2006-12-06T12:18:00.000+02:00

Today marks the 89 anniversary of Finland's independence from Russia. Today is also my son Nicholas's nimipäivä = name's day. Happy name's day Niki!

Hauskaa Juhannusta! Happy Midsummer!

2006-06-24T00:58:00.000+03:00

Well here it is again Midsummer in Finland. My family and I had a BBQ on the patio and then sauna later in the evening. It was cooler today than it had been the past week. We got some rain last evening so that helped to cool things down a bit. Still need to do some work in the backyard as it looks like a jungle out there. Soon will be summer holiday!

Hyvä Suomi !!

2006-05-21T19:28:00.000+03:00

Congratulations for Team Finland with their 5-0 bronze medal win against Canada!

Congratulations Lordi !!

2006-05-21T01:11:00.000+03:00

The Finnish heavy-metal rock group Lordi have just won the Eurovision song contest for the first time ever for Finland with their song "Hard Rock Hallelujah" in Athens, Greece.
check 'em out here:
http://www.lordi.fi

Happy Birthday Boys!

2006-05-20T19:33:00.000+03:00

Today Niki celebrated his 11th birthday with six of his classmates from Lagstad school. He turned 11 on the 15th. Alexi also celebrated with 9 of his classmates from Lagstad. He turned 9 on the 18th.

Suomi lost to Czech Republic at the World Ice Hockey Championships in Latvia. So we have to play Canada for Bronze tomorrow. Revenge time! hehe Better luck next year boys!

Happy Mother's Day!

2006-05-14T20:57:00.000+03:00

Happy Mother's Day to all you mothers

Contact made

2006-05-05T16:17:00.000+03:00

Finally I have made contact with my first cousin once removed and her daughter, my second cousin, both living in Alaska. I am lacking information on this side of the family and it will not only be great to be communicating with my relatives but also great in being able to fill out the family tree a bit more!

A little milestone

2006-05-05T16:13:00.000+03:00

Well today marked 9 years that I have been with my current employer. So far, so good!

Vappua !!

2006-05-01T14:15:00.000+03:00

Happy May Day to all. Today just sitting back and relaxing at home eating donuts and drinking sima. Tiina and the boys went to Helsinki and to Kaisaniemi to listen to the choir and the Humpsvakar orchestra. Niki & Alexi sold their remaining May Day flower pins.

Happy 40th!

2006-04-30T22:43:00.000+03:00

Happy birthday to my sister Margie wherever she may be.