Tied it!

On November 25, Mikaela and me finally tied the knot, she carries my name now and it feels good. It was nice to see everybody having such a good time at the party, the pictures sure are ridiculous, you all did your very best :)

The band was great and also seemed to enjoy the significant number of Dutch people screaming "Who the fuck" Alice was. They had not experienced that before with the mostly Finnish audiences they played for. It was really nice to see both Mikaela's and my family and friends together, it clicked well and I hope we get to see more of that: We'll do our best trying to drag some over to Holland next time we decide to go!

Save the Planet: Buy a tree!

Anyone claiming global warming is a natural phenomenon and there's lacking proof that something very serious is happening to the green-blue ball we all live on, should get themselves checked.

Our ever increasing consumption of goodies, electricity and gasoline may seem to improve our standard of living. Reality is that we are working extremely hard on destroying the possibility for the generation after us to have a life.

There's two things we can do about it:
- Reduce our carbon footprint
- Offset our carbon footprint by funding planting a tree

With our well isolated house, my working from home and planting of about 30 trees this year I guess I am putting in my effort. Still I just bought a tree in Kenya. Hope they take good care of it.

Oct. 4 - Autumn

Well, well...autumn's here and still so many things to do. Better get it done before the first snow tells me it's too late...guess I'll start with the booze.

Oct. 3 - Zandvoort

Last Sunday we got what we came for: one hell of a race during the opening of the A1 Grand Prix season at Zandvoort. Jeroen Bleekemolen showed everyone that he's probably a better choice than his predecessor. Good for him he got the opportunity to do it, hope he can show it again in Czechia next weekend.

Robin clearly enjoyed the race, good we brought our ear plugs cause man not only did they drive outrageously fast, the noise was fabulous (read: deafening :) )

Oct. 3 - Loosdrecht

Last weekend, Robin and me paid a "blitz visit" to the Netherlands. The weather was ex-cel-lent, frikandellen tasted great, so did the beer and (for Robin) the cola.

Friday evening after a long drive from Cologne we made it to Leerdam where we met up with Leen & Trudie, Marloes and Nico & Tieneke. We hit the sack early as we were dead-tired. Saturday, we started our day with coffee at a nice coffee shop where the folks spoke Swedish after which we drove up to Loosdrecht, rented a "sloep" and hit the water with Marco, Chloe, Maarten, and Japie. Fiko and his son joined us later. It was great to spend some time with los amigos. Many laughs, good times.

Sep.19 - A1GP

A bit more than a week to go and Robin and me will fly off to Germany from where we drive to the Netherlands where we will visit the opening race of the A1GP, world championships of motorsports at the Zandvoort Circuit on the Dutch coastline. Hopefully we don't forget out ear plugs :)

Sep. 5 - Cruising in style

My jaw dropped when I saw it for the first time. What a beauty!
With most cars today looking all the same, characterless, one-size-fits-all design, this Alfa Romeo 159 is defenitely refreshing...sexy really. It drives like a dream and - I noticed - it has many other people dropping their jaws when we drive past them :)

Hopefully we also get to trade our "exciting" 1998 Renault Laguna Break for something more eye-catching as well...sometime...

Jun. 26 - Midsummer

It seems to become tradition that on the day of Midsummer the weather changes from warm and sunny to windy and rain, also this year. Luckily during the afternoon it changed and we were treated with sunshine.

Here in southern Finland the sun does set, but only for a short while and that often provides stunning skies. It's a very long sunset/sunrise. The picture I shot with my phone on our way home at 00:30. If you drive 30 minutes up North though, you will still see the sun. Kela, Robin and Dani were below in the cabin of the boat, resting, it had been a long day...literally :)

Jun. 8 - The knot

Six excellent years have finally made us decide it's time.

We are confident that what we've always thought and felt is true,
this is it, this is how it should be, this is how we always want it to be.
"We" really starts from November 25!!

May 11 - The trees

Did I ever tell you about my love for planting trees? I love it so much that I am doing it every %¤##"@!!! year. Usually around autumn, only to find out that once the loooong dark cold Finnish winter has retreated further north, most of the sad looking little leftovers didn't make it....again.

This year we chose to do it in Spring...against the advise of many "wise" people who say Autumn is defenitely the best time. We've tried 30 big ones, then 20 small ones and today 10 mid-sized ones, we'll give them all our love and water, hoping that one day they will love us back.

Today I have good hopes for the future of our trees, they look good, feel good, smell good. Maybe someday I get to tell my grandchildren about how grandpa planted ALL the trees...several times :)

Apr. 1 - Solo

2 weeks ago we said goodbye to Snoop. Yesterday I heard that his old buddy Solo joined him. They're both off chasing cats, running on the green fields of dog-heaven.

It's the end of an era. Both the best dogs you can imagine. I remember walking in the streets in Utrecht together with both of them and people saying "hi" to them, because somethimes they knew them without even knowing their owners - if owners is what you could call Marco and me. They owned themselves really, and roamed the city streets while we were having drinks in a bar - always checking in on us (not the other way around), to see if it was time to go home.

I hope they're together after being apart for almost six years.

Mar. 16 - Snoop

Snoop, 14-April-1997 ~ 15-March-2006

Yesterday we had to let go of Snoop and at 14:30 he passed away peacefully, Mikaela and me held him.

We hope it is good there, wherever you are buddy. You were a wonderful friend and truly part of our family, often more human than dog it seemed. We will miss you and remember you like you were in your best days.

Goodbye Snoop, our friend.

Feb. 25 - 24 Months

Life certainly is amazing. Not only having created life but also the way it develops. In just 24 months human goes from 2990 grams and 47 cm to a wild boy, running around, playing with his new car garage, singing songs, being naughty, telling pops and mom what to do or be silent and already knowing that when he's done something he's not allowed to he can make it all good with a single look (because both me and Kela cannot hold back our smiles). Combine that with the ability to already speak a fair share of 2 languages then you can only conclude: Amazing.

Feb. 9 - Believe it baby

Any belief worth having - be it love of a country, a deity, an ideology or a person - must be strong enough to absorb criticism and impervious to mockery.

Anything less is the true insult to whatever it is you believe in.

Feb.1 - kids and rockets

Man I tell you, raising kids IS rocket science, or actually, rocket science is probably peanuts compared to raising kids. I suppose not all kids are alike and I am too "old" or smoked too much grass to remember how I was as a kid, but I have a feeling that our kids are......a bit wilder than your average kid. Maybe it all has to do with how you raise them but I think we're doing a pretty good job. Still every day around 9pm I am quite exhausted and it feels a bit like relief when finally the house comes to rest a bit. In our house it does not really seem to matter if you say "don't" cause to the kids it really always translates to "do" and the second "don't" basically sounds like "do it anyway". Today I decide the situation has gone far enough and action is needed. Actually, as I write I have to admit they are remarkably quiet...this however can be a good as well as a bad sign :)

Jan.27 - Road Trip

I am playing around with the idea of a holiday in Europe by car. From Finland we could take a cruise to Rostock, Tallin or Riga and continue by car from there. Admitted, it's a pretty long drive to the Mediterranean and considering Dani already thinks the 40 Km trip to Helsinki is far too long, doing it will have to wait a couple of years. Still, from Riga you should be able to reach northern Italy within two days. You could also take it a bit slower since cities like Warsaw, Prague and Vienna are basically on the same route.

Jan. 22 - Munich

Last week I spent a couple of days in Munich on a conference for software development. I was lucky to miss the worst of the cold that visited Finland. Mikaela and the kids were dealing with -25 temperatures. At those conditions your car usually starts to do weird stuff, especially the electrical system. Last Friday Mikaela's Ford Focus decided to lock itself while the engine was running and Dani inside. With Mikaela outside, scraching the ice from the windows and no spare key, she could only do one thing, it involved a hammer....

Munich by the way seems like a fun city to be, not only is there lots to see, there is also an excellent park (Englische Garten), it even has a beach, and has some great events (the Oktoberfest to name one). Like last year, it surprised me that Muncheners love to eat out. Restaurants are packed really every night, prices are acceptable and people are in a good mood generally. Furthermore, they love to drink beer man....

Jan. 11 - Cool mouse

Now this is cool. Makes me think, when will my nokia phone be able to connect to my laptop via bluetooth and serve as mouse for it AND play MP3's AND be my navigation device the minute I step into my car looking for the supermarket AND take the dog out for walks?