Oravannahkakauppaa?

Aikanaan on kauppaa tehty oravannahoilla. Jos olet koskaan miettinyt, mikä olisi oravannahan hinta Euroissa, nyt se on selvitetty;

Espoossa kotipihalleen oravan ampunut mies tuomittiin maksamaan valtiolle oravannahan arvon eli 17 euroa. Tämän lisäksi mies joutui maksamaan 15 päiväsakkoa, yhteensä 555 euroa eli pitäkää aseet kaapissa ja oravat pähkinäjahdissa...

 Oravannahkatorin kupeessa asuneena osaan arvostaa tätä, joten suosittelen käyntiä Pub Oravanhännässä ;o)

PS C'mon guys, let me know what you think about the new layout? I find it e.g. difficult to watch via mobile but what do YOU think?

Bread & Midsummer

It seems the dark side of Finns has been again proven; so far 9 people are known to drown and over 20 overall dead over the Midsummer weekend. Several in traffic accidents and one of the unfortunate "common" ones with 3 young people driving too fast, loosing control of the car and crashing - 3 people died.

Be smarter people, you can do better!!!

Then one tip for the friends and relatives in US - or whom ever might end up here looking for a place to get some healthy Finnish Ruis bread - rye bread in New York, Connecticut or surroundings;
www.nordicbreads.com

Two Finnish cook brothers started this as more of a hobby but now it is becoming a profession. They have a factory and the lovers of Foodies-culture can enjoy this!

Bon Appetit - Hyvää Ruokahalua!

Football / Soccer and Midsummer

The FIFA Worldcup has been a strange one. We all knew that Italy and France had epually good chance to win the title, but nobody suspected it would actually be so bad chance that they both would drop out in the first round. Ghana and England got through form the qualification round by scoring only 2 goals.

In the best 16 we have 6 teams from Europe, while in the previous games there were 10 European teams. From Africa is only 1 team in best 16, Ghana. They are right now starting to play against team USA, so my wish is that (unfortunately) in best 8 there will not be any African teams.

Still I hope that several out of the 5 teams that have their FIFA ranking over 30. For reference, Finland is 52nd on the list and has never played in Worldcup or Eurocup.

Let's play ball!

PS Until not there has been 6 people drowned during the midsummer, I truly wish I am wrong and no more unnecessary lifes are lost!

Midsummer Magic - is it real?

Midsummer is the only summer event we Finns celebrate. The summer is short as said a few times, and also the weather at Midsummer can be anything between <+10C and the optimum +25C. Midsummer also involves traditions, one of them is burning a big bombfire at midnight. A short info of what it is you can more from Wikipedia.

Many single women believe in magic like collecting certain type of flowers and putting them under your pillow at Midsummer night will help you to see during the night who is your husband-to-be. Flowers or not, if you see enough wet (or dry) dreams of someone hot in your life I bet the "magic" works with certain % level.

Biggest magic people believe in is however King Alcohol. Midsummer is the second highest sales peak in local liquire store (that is state monopoly with high taxes). Most people get out of the city to summer houses by the lakes, enjoy the countyrside, eat good food (salmon, herring, new season potatoes, meat, sausage...) and drink, drink, drink.

In Finland we also have some level of schnaps culture but only the Swedish speaking minority has got the great habit of schnaps songs. And the ones who wonder what schnaps is, it is a small glass of (usually) ice cold vodka.

Of course sauna is part of the package and we do it from one round to another and another. Many people also have boats and Finnish archipelago with +100.000 islands give a great chance to enjoy boating. A bit different from the Belgian coast line. And since it is dark only for less then 2 hours, people will not easily stay indoors.

Hence my sad Midsummer magic estimation is that over 10 people will drown during this weekend. Most of them men and many with their zipper open. Sad but so realistic. I believe in good magic so I hope I am wrong in this case.

Men, keep your zippers locked and wear life jackets! And be smart with combining alcohol with vehicles, be it boat or a car.

Have a fantastic Midsummer, I know I will!!!

Long live taxi monopoly!

Or not.

Today the Finnish Government decided to increase taxi rates by 4% as of July 1st. Fairly high increase with zero warning time tells me about excellent lobbying by the monopoly industry. The news info says the increase is in line with the cost increase. I don’t doubt that at all – question is always about what you want to show in a report…

I have written about this earlier and I gotta say I am still unhappy with both the service as well as the tariffs. Part of the issue is that most taxi lisence owners change their cars every 3 years – and provide the service with fairly expensive cars.

Earlier almost all cars were Mercedes, but in the past years many have decided to increase their profits and drive cheaper ones. We still pay the same.

Some time ago the driver was from Iran – very friendly man. Some weeks later the driver was from deep Africa, from Gabon if I recall right. His car was a Huyndai that had seem some ass. Plenty of it. It had over 300.000 km in the meter, but that didn’t matter since the driver again had realized he was in a service inductry.

He was studying economics at the Helsinki University and finances the studies by driving the evening and night shifts. He plans to go to North Africa, most likely to Algeria to make a market analysis – having as a target to set up a mobile phone dealership with his friends. I wish all the best for him!

I’m not sure what would be the right solution, but I can claim today we don’t have the best one. Unless you are a taxi license owner. Still, this is considered as part of a transportation solution, controlled by the government so it should be possible to make changes. But please go to Sweden to check how they have done it – and learn from the mistakes.

Few words still about football - or soccer;

Hats off to England and Team USA in the football Worldcup. Both of them had to win to continue and they did it. Team USA lost today their second game winning goal in 3 matches due to a bad call by the referee. It would have been injustice if they would have been out from the games after these...

We have seen some flops in the games – perhaps France as the worst for now. Let’s see how Germany plays in a similar situation tonight.

Hyvä Sauli!

Jonkun aikaa sitten Eduskunnan Puhemiehestä Sauli Niinistöstä oli kolumni Hesarin Kuukausiliitteessä, kirjoittajana sopivasti "Nimimerkki Kuutautinen"...

Tämä tuli tänään vastaan ja koska se sai minut hymyilemään, päätin jakaa sen kanssanne. 

Hyvä Sauli!

Sorry guys, this is so local that I won't even bother to try...

Tourist Guide Hired

I will soon get a chance to host some people coming from around Europe - or actually the World as one is from South Africa. It has been fun to think about what places, tastes and habits/traditions I will introduce to them. I have spent some time with all of them so they have already heard some bits and pieces about Finland.

But now they will come here and experience it themselves!

It has been already tested that some like salmiakki, the salty liquirice (particularly one Dutch visitor) so I fixed some salmiakki vodka.

 I think for the BBQ salmon is a good option.

Simple but very good. I hope we can already get the new season potatoes that have a special taste. Those with herring is something else...

In Helsinki city there are many places to go, some of them used also by tourist buses but I've got something else up my sleeve... Perhaps I should keep them out of the bars though - they are used to the central European alcohol pricce level so Finnish prices are likely to shock them.

You can check some tips and start planning your trip from here and get to the feeling by clicking the "kesävideo" link in the pic on top of the page. English page opens from top right list...

The weather in Finland can be something like a winter in southern Europe or what do you think about this?

Before that I get to experience again another Finnish city, Turku. I have few pics from there and will try to take some more. Let's see if I will give you some of my favorite tips some day...

PS Today I got 50th country visiting the site since January, welcome and thank you for visiting! Last week we reached another milestone of 1500 page visits and we are closing 500 unique visitors limit. You can see these numbers by clicking the flag counter on the right side bar.

PSS The football/soccer WorldCup started today. I hope this will not cause any domestic arguments around the world. They last only for a month so hang in there, the final is already 11 July ;o) Congratulations to South Africa for the opening point, they pleid 1-1 against Mexico. France and Uruguay just finished 0-0.

My favorites are Spain and Brazil.

Johtajakoulu täyttää vuosia

Kaakkois-Suomessa on kaupunki nimeltä Hamina ja siellä on Suomen pitkäaikaisin ja eniten opiskelijoita tuottanut johtajaoppilaitos. Harmi vain että matkan varrella oli jakso jolloin työssä kuolleisuus nousi korkeisiin lukuihin mutta tänä päivänä ollaan taas paremmalla tasolla.

Opiskelun hintaan kuuluu täys ylläpito vaatteineen,  majoituksineen ja aterioineen eikä vapaa-ajan ongelmia ole. Suuri osa on tekemällä oppimista joten pääset myös kokeilemaan oppeja käytännössä - niin esimiehenä kuin ryhmän jäsenenä. Koulutus kestää kokonaisuutena noin 3 kuukautta ja ymmärtääkseni työnantajat ovat suhtautuneet kannustavasti osallistumiseen.

Eikä siinä vielä kaikki...
Myös fysiikkaharjoitukset kuuluvat ohjelmistoon joten todellista "kunnossa kaiken ikää" -meininkiä pääsee harjoittamaan. Yksi osa kokonaisuutta on jatkotapaamiset, joihin ei kuitenkaan ihan kaikkia kutsuta. Ilmeisesti niissä keskitytään enemmän opintojen kertaukseen joten olen tulkinnut että minä opin kaiken kerralla kun ei kerran ole kutsua kuulunut...

Unohdin mainita kustannuksista: Hassua mutta itse asiassa sinulle maksetaan koulutuksesta, sinun ei siis tarvitse maksaa mitään niinkuin normaalisti koulutuksissa homma toimii. Lisäksi siellä on isäntien organisoimana kohtuuhinnoiteltuja herkkuja ostettavissa.

Oppilaitos esittelee toimintaansa juhlavuoden kunniaksi parin viikon päästä, valitettavasti en itse pääse paikalle sillä isännöin k.o. ajankohtana Euroopan ihmeitä... Jos sinun kalenteriin mahtuu, suosittelen piipahtamaan ja tutustumaan tähän mainioon opinahjoon!

Kuva suurenee klikkaamalla 

Lisää koulusta: http://www.mil.fi/maavoimat/joukot/ruk/

PS This is about Finnish Army Reserve Officer School that is 90 years old this year...

Who's got the power?

The government of Finland approved recently licences to build two new nuclear power plants. Is this good or bad decision, I can't say. Perhaps only future generations can determine that but what are the options?

Wind power?
This does not harm environment similarly as fossil fuel but apparently we would need to build the coastline full of windmills if we would try to cover the same need as what is covered with nuclear.

Would you want to have a windmill humming at your backyard? Or next to one of the hundreds of thousands of the summer cottages by the Finnish coastline?

I thought so, NIMBY - Not In My Back Yard...

What about the solar panels?
Apparently a good option for some places. I have seen them also in Europe at the roadsides providing energy for the emergency phones. It seems the cold winter would cause an issue at this part of the world since the battery charge runs out faster in winter conditions.

The area the panels require can be way too large vs the need. Some parts of the world are more likely to benefit from this but e.g. in Lapland, northern Finland, where the sun doesn't come up in 6 weeks you must have some other options.

The battery has been an issue also with the electricity van our company tried to use already 5-6 years ago. Also the charging options are still weak. It's all nice to have an environment friendly vehicle but would you like to drive a car with a 10 liter fuel tank and in the city only few places to fill it?
Water power is also an option but I think we have used in Finland a big part of the capacity that can be taken without large scale environmental compromises.

We have 180.000 lakes in a country about the same size as Italy but not that many rivers that would enable having water power production.

The sun energy should be used where it brings reasonable benefits but again some challenges.

I guess we all agree that the fossil fuel usage is not a truly sustainable solution? The oil resources are said to run out sooner or later and the global warming link is obvious so I guess that is not a solution.

Also the events in the Gulf of Mexico are not encouraging... However, what will happen to the oil do the sea? Will it all come to our beaches, kill our birds, fish and shrimps? Or will it cause some damage and most of the oil will go into the bottom and convert into hard material which will just "be there". I don't have an answer...

Funny, I thought the damage would increase oil prices but on 17 May the price sank below 70 Euros, lowest in 3 month period...

What about fission energy (is this a correct term?) then, when could we get benefits of this development? Some time ago the scientists were able to make breakthrough test in CERN so there is progress. This also would be without the waste problem that nuclear energy has got.

I saw a documentary about the animals in Tshernobyl area. So far there are no 3-eyed frogs but the cancer monitoring is ongoing; one reason for fairly low cancer rate until now can be short life of the animals... 

All and all, I guess we all agree we should think about the options and where possible, take smaller or bigger steps towards sustainable environment!

...BIG words but I claim we can make a difference, every day...

PS You should also read this! And if you are in Helsinki by June 9th, you should visit Narikkatori at Kamppi (mentioned at the end of the linked article).