Thoughts about blogging

Just had an interesting discussion over coffee break about blogging and how few people actually can make a living out of it. I guess there aren't too many people in Finland who don't need to do anything else to earn their daily bacon than maintain a blog.

Anyway, the discussion got me reminiscing the grand plans I had when I started this blog. I thought I'd write a story about me getting back into fishing hobby and learning fly fishing. But very shortly I realized I don't have time or the passion to write often enough about fishing only. So I started writing about anything I felt compulsive need to talk about. Well, it didn't take long for me to understand that even that way I have neither interest nor time for writing often enough as well prepared posts as I would like. And for the stories to be interesting for anyone to read I'd really need to put a lot of effort in them.

But maybe I'll take on a project at some point to start a new blog about something new I'm learning. Perhaps by making an agreement with myself about the project term I can keep myself motivated and the content on a level I don't need to be embarrassed about.

Can Nokia differentiate from other phones with WP7?

It's somewhat funny to read analyses and opinions of industry "experts" about Nokia's chances in differentiating from other smart phone manufacturers with WP7. Most of these people have been saying that Nokia simply can't differentiate. What? We don't even know the details on how deep in the OS Nokia can make changes. But it has been publicly revealed that they will have more leg room than other manufacturers have had so far.

But most importantly I think Nokia can really differentiate where they have been the best smart phone manufacturer even in the current challenging situation with the Symbian. And that is the voice quality in calls and when listening to music or watching videos. For example the loudspeakers in my current droid phone HTC Desire Z are lousy, where as my N8 is brilliant there. The other thing where Nokia has excelled is the picture quality the camera's produce. Nokia can still make the competition look sad in that area. Built quality is something where some of the Nokia competitors have been catching up Nokia in the most expensive smart phones. But still they can't reach the same quality in as low cost as Nokia which means there cheaper phones really look and feel much cheaper than the Nokian's in the same price range.

I have two more days to go as a Nokia employee, but my opinion on this issue will remain the same still after Sunday. Ugh, I have spoken.

Nokia + Windows Phone 7 could be a winner

As a soon-to-be-ex-nokian (notice period ending on Feb 20) I have a lot of thoughts about the situation of the company and prospects of the freshly announced new Nokia strategy. I won't comment much the first one except that there are great people there and with good leadership and strategy Nokia can still remain #1 mobile phone company for years to come.

But I can't resist to comment the new strategy. I'm confident that it's the right one as the Windows Phone 7 is actually already a great mobile OS, at least as good as Android, maybe even better. I've only used one Win 7 phone for a few days but I was totally convinced by that experience that partnering with MS on smart phone OS is the right way to go. I'm sure that once Nokia starts working together with MS on the Win Phone 7, it can for sure become the best mobile OS leaving Android far behind. iOS doesn't even need to be mentioned and HP's WebOS, as good as it is, just won't fly. And Blackberry...well, that's just a one trick pony.

A lot of readers in both Finnish and international news sites and blogs are commenting that they don't understand how it would help Nokia if they take Win Phone 7 as the smartphone OS because Windows Mobile sucks. Well, these people just have never used any Win 7 phones. The old Windows Mobile was behind competition in every aspect but really the latest MS mobile OS has got nothing to do with the old one. I know the Win Phone 7 has thus far only 2% market share in the smarphones but that can easily be changed now.

Ok, so I'm convinced that this strategy is the right one if you purely look at the technology perspective of the smartphone OS. But what about the services side then? Well, that's a no brainer obviously with the OS selection. Partnering with MS on services as announced is a logical move. So the strategy is good I think. The only remaining questions are, can Nokia and MS execute the strategy fast enough and will they be able to convince consumers that Windows Phone 7 is actually a great smartphone OS?

New toy, Lynx Rave SC 600 E-TEC

I went riding yesterday with my new snowmobile, Lynx Rave SC 600 E-TEC, 2011. I drove a bit above 80 km, Ouluntulli-Muhos-Ouluntulli, and the trail was in the usual condition which means quite worn out and bumpy. I must say that based on the first experience the new sled is absolutely great. My old one, 2006 Lynx X-Trim 600 SDI, was so heavy and clumsy in tight corners. The new sled is tens of kilos lighter and the driving position is improved. I also invested in better suspension and better skis than in the original SC 600. And already now without any adjustments the package worked really good for me. I guess I'm the average size so the default settings work pretty good for me.

Also the wind shield is just the right size. It's big enough to actually cover you from the wind and yet it's not too big so it would look like a sail. It was -15 C degrees yesterday and it didn't feel cold at all. And I'm really not interested in driving in much colder conditions.

There were only two issues I noticed. First of all either the seat is really slippery or my new pants are more slippery than the old ones. And I keep hitting my right knee painfully to the edge of the hole in the hood for the starting device. So I need to buy knee pads but I was planning to buy those anyway.

I can't wait to get the breaking in phase to end so I get to use the full potential of the engine. Only 400 km to go to that :)

Happy?

Sitting in a cafeteria waiting for my son from his swimming practice
Read a book about happiness, happiness at work
Thinking of life
Am I happy? I think I've always been
Sometimes I get sad, like today, but I'm never unhappy
I hope to stay this way
Sometimes I want more, like the other day, but I'm never unhappy
I hope to stay this way
I've been pushed around, I've been hurt
But I've never been unhappy, just sad
I hope to stay this way
I've bullied, I've been an asshole, I'm sorry
I hope I'm bigger now
I'm happy, but let me be sad for a while

Playing drums in a band - Can 37 year old dude still learn new tricks?

I had payed drums just a little bit for a few months when I was 10 years old. So when my colleagues starting a band asked me in March this year if I'd like to come and play drums in the band, I wasn't sure how that would work out. Anyway I said I can give it a shot. I also told them to give me a boot if I wasn't learning. Luckily there is a band training room available for bands of Nokia Oulu music club, a music club for Nokia employees, with some PA equipment and drums included. So we started practicing during March trying different songs. After a few practices I started to feel like, yeah I can manage this. The first song we learnt was Paranoid. For along time it was our warmup song. We had practices once a week from late March to late June. During July we really didn't practice as all the band members were on holidays.

Early August there was an email from the music club president telling about Muterock event in September 24 and asking bands to enroll. After thinking and discussing about it for a week or so we decided to enroll. The band's working name had been Sun Faded, but we now changed it to The Misplaced at this point. At that moment we had probably only like 4 songs that we were able to handle decently. And we had our first own song cooking as well.

Now that we had a tangible goal the motivation to practice was really high. But still we had problems in getting all the band members to participate all the rehearsals, it's pretty damn difficult to match the calendars of 4 family guys. So we were making progress in learning the songs we had chosen, but really when it turned to September, it felt like there's too little time. I don't have drums at home at all so I could only practice when we had the band practice. That wasn't making me any more confident with the upcoming gig, but on the other hand I didn't want to spend big money on drums before I would see how the gig goes and do I feel like I want to continue the hobby after that.

Early September I was able to lure my dear colleague to create a logo for the band. Once I got that, I set up a fan shop for the band. It was part of the scheme to keep having something to tell our friends in Facebook, you know, to keep them hooked :-)

So the big day eventually was two days ago, The Misplaced gave it's first gig ever at the Muterock event with four other bands. There was a lot of people there in the small pub called Ykän Pub as friends of the player's of the five bands were there supporting. We were playing third, and I can tell you it was a long time to wait for one and half hours+. I was pretty nervous but couldn't even drink much alcohol to relax my nerves before the gig as I was sure I would blew it if I got drunk at all. So after Crimsonics and Embe Brothers it was finally our turn. Man I was nervous and excited. I was sure I'm going to drop the stick from my right hand at some point (that happens to me every now and then). And there was this one point in Lil' Devil I was sure I'm gonna play wrong. And I only figured out how to play one part of Hide Your Scars the day before the gig. Hence I was sure I wouldn't remember it from the excitement.

Due to fear of dropping the stick and overall excitement I was squeezing the stick in my right hand so tightly that after two songs my arm was cramping. I was sure I'm not gonna make it to the end through all the nine songs. I had to change my grip of the stick to hammer style every now and then to give the cramping muscles a little break. And between the songs I tried stretching and massaging. It all helped enough to get me through the gig. It was really hot there so when we finished off with our own song Biker, my t-shirt was all sweaty. And I was so happy, bathing in endorphin. And seeing the glowing happy faces of my band mates, it was clear we want more of this drug.

It wouldn't have been as nice without the support of other bands and having my wife, brother and a lot of friends and colleagues in the audience. Thank you all for your support!

I guess it's time for me to then buy the electric drum kit so I can start practicing at home.

The songs we played and comments on how it went from my perspective:

* Don't believe a word - Thin Lizzy (this went pretty well, I only missed some of the fills)

* Lil' Devil - The Cult (a small error exactly where I was expecting it to happen, but I think not too many noticed anything)

* Hide Your Scars - Doom Unit (this went very well)

* Mama Said - Metallica (small problems in remembering every small detail, but overall ok)

* Sex On Fire - Kings Of Leon (This worked otherwise really well, I only forgot how to end it nicely)

* Under The Bridge - Red Hot Chili Peppers (Again problems in remembering when the song ends and thus missed the ending fill)

* Lithium - Nirvana (rock, no problems)

* Rebell Yell - Billy Idol (this was heavily altered version of the original and we nailed it, it was amazing)

* Biker - The Misplaced (I was a bit too hasty in one of the switches between parts, but still a good performance).

Pics and Video from the gig will be available through our Facebook page shortly.

Snowmobiling in Riksgränsen

I was on a snowmobiling club's trip to Riksgränsen, Sweden last week. And I have to say WOW! It was simply amazing. The fells there are something else compared to the low one's in Finland and you're allowed to drive anywhere, no need to stay on dedicated snowmobiling trails. This means you get to do hill-climbing on untouched snow.

This time there was a lot of snow and it was packed hard with only 5-10 cm of loose snow on top of it. This meant you could basically drive anywhere climbing unbelievably steep and high hills. And there wasn't much of a risk to hit a stone hidden under the snow.

We drove to Riksgränsen on Thursday and arrived at around 10 pm local time. Kari's Ford Excursion did a good job towing all our five sleds on the trailer, no problem there. Only small hick-up was when we started the trip back and the break of one of the trailer's wheels was dragging. After a few kilometers we stopped to check if everything was ok and saw smoke coming from the breaks. A little knocking on the bolts released the break and snow on the rim cooled it down so we were able to continue.

We stayed at Katterjåkk in a new apartment hotel that was opened last year. Another one of the two apartments we had had a sauna so it was ok. The apartments were specified to be for 2+2 but really 3 is the max number of grown ups for one room. Based on the number of sleds on the parking area there were more than twenty other snowmobilers also staying in the Katterjåkk.

But back to the snowmobiling. First day the weather was just great, sun shining all the time. Somehow we ended up driving our sleds to Abisko which made absolutely no sense at all as there was no snow left there. And we even knew it as we saw it the day before when we drove by it in a car. One of the sleds, Pekka's Yamaha Phazer almost died there as the cooling fluid started to boil and and there was a problem with a broken slide runner that ripped the track. Also Kari's Polaris had cooling problems when there was only ice or very icy snow. Anyway after a lunch in a restaurant in Abisko we headed back to fells except Pekka who's Yamaha was broken. In the end Pekka was able to fix it into such a condition that he was able to drive back to Katterjåkk in Riksgränsen on the ice of the lake Torneträsk.

The rest of us drove to Unna Allakas and were planning to drive to see Kebnekaise as against our original thoughts we had been told that it is allowed to drive there if you stay on the trail. Well it was not allowed and we were told so and we had to ditch that plan. Then we ended up spending the rest of the day moving back towards Katterjåkk climbing up nice hills we saw along the trail. The second day started also well as the weather was ok. We headed to northern side of Riksgränsen and basically did hill climbing all the day until early afternoon when we went to Katterjåkk for a lunch and a short break. After the break the weather was turning worse with clouds covering the sky and after an hour of driving it started to snow lightly. After about 2 hours of driving the it started storming and visibility was so lousy we had to quickly head back to Katterjåkk.

As the trip takes about 9 hours from Riksgränsen to Oulu, we didn't do any snopwmobiling on Sunday but just drove back to Oulu. On the way back it was agreed that we will be back to Riksgränsen next year the same time. The only exception to this year will be that we'll leave there already 5 AM on Thursday so we get to drive snowmobiles a little already that evening.