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.

Miksi suomalainen urheilija kämmää?

Vancouverin talviolympialaisten päättymisestä on jo kohta viikko kulunut ja olen ehtinyt Suomen menestystä, tai paremminkin menestymättömyyttä sulatella. Sulattelu alkaa pikkuhiljaa tuottaa tuloksena kaksitasoisen analyysin syistä siihen miksi suomalainen urheilija harvoin onnistuu ylittämään itsensä kauden päätapahtumassa ja tavallista useammin jää jopa oman normaalitasonsa alapuolelle, ja mikä tärkeintä ei usein edes pysty maksimaaliesti koskaan saavuttamaan lahjojensa edellyttämää tasoa.

Pitkällisen syvällisen analysoinnin ja taustoihin perehtymisen jälkeen olen siis tullut siihen tulokseen, että suomalainen urheilija kämmää, koska
1) kotimaassa yltää staran statukseen pelkällä kansallisella menestyksellä
2) suomalaiset lajiliittojen sekä olympiakomitean johtajat ovat epäonnistuneet

Otetaanpa tuosta ensimmäisestä syystä esimerkki. Suomalainen pikajuoksija Markus Pöyhönen oli iso stara Suomessa vaikka ei koskaan yltänyt oikeastaan minkäänlaiseen kansainväliseen menestykseen. Ja kaverin nimellä voi vieläkin myydä lehtiä vaikka ura on jo jäänyt taakse ja aktiiviajan suurimmat saavutukset olivat muutama SM-mitali ja Ruotsi-maaottelussa kuuden parhaan joukkoon sijoittuminen.

Suomessa siis pääsee suhteettoman suureen suosioon jo sillä, että pärjää kansallisella tasolla. Ja Suomen pienuudesta johtuen kilpailu on pientä ja kohtuullisen helpolla voi sopivaan aikaan sopivassa lajissa yltää Suomen mestaruuksiin. Kun sitten media alkaa saman tien elätellä epärealistisia ennenaikaisia odotuksia arvokisamenestyksestä, alkaa urheilija helposti leijua ja kuvitella, että nyt sitä ollaan jo maailman huippuja. Leijuminen johtaa tekemisen tason laskuun, kun eihän enää tarvi ponnistella, kun kerta huipulla jo ollaan. Loogista, eikö?

Lääkkeenä tähän ensimmäiseen ongelmaan tarjoaisin medialta kriittisempää otetta kirjoitteluun ja kansalta kovempia vaatimuksia urheilijoiden kansainväliselle menestykselle ennen jalustalle nostamista.

Lajiliittojen ja Olympiakomitean tärkein tehtävä on huolehtia riittävästä rahoituksesta jotta harjoitteluolosuhteet ja kaikki tarvittavat tukifunktiot urheiljoille ovat parhaassa mahdollisessa kunnossa siten, ettei anneta tasoitusta muiden maiden urheilijoille. Tässä tehtävässä epäonnistutaan vuodesta ja olympiadista toiseen. Ja mikä hassuinta, urheilujohtajat tykkäävät käyttää resurssien puutteellisuutta selityksenä huonoon menestykseen vaikka juuri siitä huolehtiminen olisi heidän tärkein tehtävä. Ja epäonnistumista ei missään vaiheessa tunnusteta eikä osata tehdä oikeaa johtopäätöstä. Ja tämä oikea johtopäätös olisi irtisanoutuminen. Mutta tämähän on suomessa toki monilla muillakin aloilla tunnettu ilmiö, irtisanoutuminen on pois laskuista vaikka miten pahasti olisi tyritty. Häpeämätöntä touhua.

Yksi selitys mitä usein tarjotaan jos Suomi on menestynyt heikosti jossain kisassa on, että toiset käyttää dopingia. Tämä väite on varmasti puolittain totta sillä on olemassa maita joissa dopingin käyttö on paljon järjestelmällisempää kuin Suomessa. Mutta kokonaisuutena en usko tämän olevan mikään suuri tekijä taustalla, sillä kyllä Suomessakin osataan...valitettavasti.

Oikeastaan root cause molempien edellä tarjoamieni syiden taustalla on koko Suomalaisen yhteiskunnan nössöytyminen. Ei uskalleta vaatia mitään sen enempää muilta kuin itseltäkään. Kun ei muilta vaadita mitään, kuten urheilijoilta kansainvälistä menestystä ennen fanituksella palkitsemista, ei myöskään tarvitse itse hävetä omaa epäonnistumistaan. Lopputulos on, että epäonnistuminen on ihan ok. Phuh...sainpas tämänkin sydämmeltäni. Nyt voin taas keskittyä tekemään työtäni ja ehkä näin saan sen suoritettua kiitettävällä tavalla. Jos en, niin syytän olosuhteita ja pomoa ja vaadin lisää palkkaa.

Ahtaajien lakko...wtf

Ihan pakko on avautua täällä, kun ottaa päähän niin ankarasti tuo ahtaajin lakko. En ymmärrä miten tällaisessa taloudellisessa tilanteessa kuin koko maapallo nyt makaa voi mikään ammattiryhmä katsoa oikeudekseen ajaa omia etuja lakkoilemalla. Arviot vientitappioiden summasta lakkopäivää kohden pyörivät 100 M €:n tietämillä. Tähän ei vielä sisälly tulevaisuudessa menetettävä myynti johtuen siitä, että asiakkaat vaihtavat toimittajaa suomalaisten ytitysten toimitusvaikeuksien vuoksi.

Kauppalehdessä julkaistuun Iiro Viinasen haastatteluun on tässä tilanteessa helppo yhtyä. Mistä löytyisi voimia jotka saisivat nämä vastuuttomasti toimivat AY-johtajat kuriin? Ja miten heitä seuraaville lampaille saataisiin omaa ajattelukykyä?

Uutisten mukaan valtakunnan neuvottelija totesi viime yönä, ettei mitään edellytyksiä sopuun ole, eikä näin ollen edes jättänyt sopimusehdotusta. Ilmeisesti eniten hiertää AKT:n vaatimus ahtaajille maksettavista erorahoista irtisanomistilanteessa. Vaatimus on aivan pöyristyttävä, eikä tuollaiseen missään tapauksessa voi suostua. Tietysti kyseessä voi olla neuvottelutaktiikka ja tuo vaatimus vedetään hyvän tahdon eleenä pois parin päivän lakkoilun jälkeen, jotta saadaan muut pienemmät vaatimukset läpi. Uskomatonta pelleilyä.

Party plans

Enpä ole pitkään aikaa kerennyt tänne mitään kirjoitelemaan. Twitter- ja Facebook- älyttömyydet ovat saaneet riittää tyydyttämään avautumisen tarpeeni. Mutta nyt ajattelin kuitenkin jotain tarinoida, kun ei vielä uneta ja koko muu perhe on jo unten mailla.

Joulukuussa on tideoosa parit mukavat bileet. Ensin on 4. päivä firman pikkujoulut. Odotan innolla etenkin etkoja ja jatkoja. Etkoilla on tarkoitus mennä porukalla Gloriaan lauleskelemaan karaokea. Laululistaa on töissä mietitty porukalla. Ehkäpä Easyn ja Kissanaisen voisi kiekaista. Toiset bileet onkin sitten paljon merkityksellisemmät. Vaimokulta väittelee tohtoriksi 11. päivä ja sitähän tietysti karonkassa ja karonkan jatkoilla juhlitaan. Saa nähdä kuinka suureksi osallistujamäärä nousee. Juhlapaikkana on Aleksanterin Sali. Menu on jo päätetty ja DJ ääni- ja valolaitteineen tilattu. Boolin ainekset pitäisi vielä päättää ja tietysti käydä ne ja muutkin juomat hankkimassa.

Olen syksystä asti Vihantilaisten esimerkin inspiroimana pohdiskellut, josko alkaisin järjestelmään Utsjoelle siellä 80-luvun lopulla nuoruuttaan viettäneiden kokoontumista. Lähinnä ajattelin ikäluokkaa 71-75 syntyneet. Toisena vaihtoehtona pohdin myös rajaamista 90-94 lukiosta valmistuneisiin. Vähän tuota haarukkaa nuoremmat jo toissakesänä järjestivät omat bileensä ja kuuluu olleen ihan onnistuneet juhlat. Myös noin kymmenen vuotta nuorempi polvi näkyy Facebookissa yrittävän viritellä jotain vastaavaa. Mutta ehkä meidän pitäisi kuitenkin nuoremmille näyttää, miten ne juhlat oikeasti järjestetään (tähän tulisi hymiö, mutta kun ne ei kuulu tällaiseen vakavasti otettavaan tekstiin, niin enpä sitten laita).

Täytyisi saada muutama ihminen innostumaan asiasta joiden kanssa bileitä voisi alkaa yhdessä järjestelemään. Kuinkahan tuo tapahtuma saisi kannatusta ja keräisi osallistujia? Jätetäänpä vielä hautumaan, mutta varmaan tähän teemaan vielä palaan.

Spotify on steroids?

I hate it that I have to use Win Media Player or iTunes to play the tracks that are not available on Spotify but that I have on my hard disc. Couldn't Spotify change the player so it could access the local music library as well. I would do it so that when you search for something to listen to it would first check the local library and if it's not there only then use their library. As a user experience this would be great, one stop shop for all the music. Still they could provide the editorial content ie. the biography of the bands/artists they don't have in their catalogues.

This way it wouldn't cost them that much to provide the service as currently people are using Spotify also to listen to tracks they already have on their hard discs. Avoiding the cost associated would make sense.

But then again, from the user experience point of view this is not needed if Spotify someday plans to have pretty much all the music in the world in their catalogue. :)

Roberta from Spotify

I've been using Spotify now for quite some time and I like it more now than when I first wrote about it. Perhaps 70% of my music listening is now on Spotify. If I don't take into account music I listen to from the radio in car, then the percentage probably is close to 90%.
I even use it to listen to music that I have already on the hard drive. But why is it like that, why do I use it so much? It's the user experience, the UI is very nice, there is no lag, and the editorial content is vey good. When you add to that the huge music collection, there you have it, an offer you can't turn down.

But I still must bitch about the scrobbling. It just won't work on all the computers I'm using and I really want to have my music listening history on Last.fm. And where's the S60 client that they demoed already some weeks ago?

I read earlier today that Spotify is facing serious financial challenges and that within a year they would need to shut down. This is unless they manage to lure more paying premium customers as the ad based model doesn't bring in enough money. This would be fortunate but still I won't pay for the premium account as I can live with the ads and can even live without Spotify. Besides I want to hear the lovely voice of "Roberta from Spotify" every now and then.
So Spotify, if you want to get more premium users you should get a less nice voice with less likeable face behind it to read your premium account ads. :-)

Floorball season opener

Went to the season opener game of OLS in Finnish Floorball championship league. It was my first time ever to see this game live on this level. It's pretty damn fast and very good entertainment. I sat on the first row so I was really close to the action. I totally recommend this to anybody who enjoys watching a fast team sport. The game is pretty physical also nowadays. I'm sure I'm going to see quite many of these games this season as I have free entrance as a co-coach of my son's F junior team.

Let's play hockey!!!

I can hardly wait to see how Oulun Kärpät will do in SM Liiga this season. The team has gone through some changes compared to last year and there are a few very interesting players in the roster now - Teemu Aalto, Kimmo Koskenkorva, Pekka Saarenheimo and Pavel Rosa. Especially I'm looking forward to see how Koskenkorva who is now returning to Kärpät after many years is going to perform.
Also otherwise the SM Liiga should be rather interesting this season with a few very talented young players trying to establish themselves as solid SM Liiga players. Last season's rookie of the year, Hartikainen, should now show what he's really made of. And then the 17 year old boy Mikael Granlund who moved from Kärpät to HIFK is certainly a player to follow. I hope he does well.

PS. Last weekend I bought a new set of hockey equipment for my 8 years old son. It's a damn expensive hobby. I hope I don't need to buy all the gear every year.

What is too much?

I read an interesting book during the flights on the way from Oulu to San Francisco. It was "Enough: Breaking Free from the World of More" by John Naish. It's interesting how Naish explains our consumer habits by survival instinct that was vital when we still lived in caves. But the question remains open for what happens if we all learn to realize what is enough and that we just don't get any happier after reaching a certain standard of living? The whole current economy is built on constant growth.

I'm not sure how much the book affected me. Maybe I didn't buy as much clothes as I would have thought although they are crazy cheap in US compared to Finnish prices.

One change I decided to make is that I will watch less TV in the future and will lock the Disney Channel so our younger kid can't watch it too much.

Easter in Utsjoki

We had a wonderful Easter break in Utsjoki with two other families - our friends from Oulu and Kuopio.

The weather was just great for the two first days. On the third day it was cloudy but it didn't matter that much. The first day we went ice-fishing on a lake in the fells. We didn't catch any fish though but that wasn't the point anyway. The snowmobile trip to the lake was a great adventure for the kids of our friends. And the sun was shining from a blue sky and the temperature was somewhere around +6 c so it was just great to be there. We sat around a fire eating and chatting, watching kids play in snow laughing and shouting.

The next day we went first skiing on the ice of river Teno. It was just beautiful, sunny day once again. The wind was quite heavy but it was from our back and we were skiing down stream so you didn't really need to do anything but spread your arms to get going. Now our friends have seen Teno in the winter and have skiid to Norway - Teno is a border river.
Later that day we drove up 100 km to see the Nordic sea. I didn't remember how beautiful it is in winter. Our friends who hadn't seen that kind of scenery before were just amazed again.

The last day some of us went skiing on the ice of river Vetsijoki - me, my son and the ladies and girls - while the rest went feeding raindeers in the fell with my wife's dad and brother. Those guys were all smiles after that experience :-)

The evenings with great meals with all the three families together were so nice I'll remember it for a looong time. On the last evening also the family of my brother-in-law and my parents-in-law joined the dinner with us. There were 19 people around the table enjoying good company, good food and wine.

I'll try to post pictures of the trip to Ovi Share within a few days, but I'll probably make those available only to the friends that were on the trip with us.

The snow mobile trip of the year

Only 4 nights to the start of the main snowmobile trip of the year. This time around we're going to Gällivare, Sweden. Expectations are extremely high! I've been reading trip stories from kelkkalehti.com discussion board and it all sounds almost too good. There's just enough snow right now (68 cm) even though I woudn't mind if there was more. The weather forecast for the time we'll be there looks very promising. And the snow slide risk is very low in the area.

The entourage consist of all together 6 guys of the snowmobile club of Nokia Oulu. I guess all others than me have short sports sleds so I guess they will be digging those up from the snow a lot as they will get stuck. I guess we have to make one trip to Stora Sjöfallet and one to Kebnekaise. Although the mountains, or fjells rather, in Utsjoki where I was raised are very beautiful and some of them pretty high, they really don't compare to Kebnekaise or Stora Sjöfallet at all.

I've understood that Gällivare isn't really a place to go if you're looking for vivid night life. But that's not what we're looking for anyhow so it doesn't matter :)

We will pack the sleds on the trailers on Wed evening and by 10 am Thu we'll be on our way to Gällivare. I hope we arrive early enough so we can already make a small warm up trip on Thu afternoon/early evening.

Net Gens own the world?

I'm reading Don Tapscott's Grown Up Digital and feel quite related to the Net Gen in some ways although I'm Gen X'er myself. I love many of the great social networking services and other nice stuff on Internet. I love to both consume and share things there. I want my Facebook, Last.fm, Flickr, Twitter, You Tube, Spotify etc.
But then again in many ways the Net Gen is so alien to me. I'm not as fast, I'm not as social with my working practices etc.
But if they are so damn efficient and clever, what is left for us Gen X'ers and baby boomers to do in the work life? Should we just retire and let these guys and gals take care of the business? ;-) Or is there something we're better at? Maybe the answer is there in the book, I just need to finish it first and digest it for a while.

Last.fm on Fring

I installed the latest version of Fring client yesterday once I saw the blog post about Last.fm integration to it from TechCrunch. I had been using Fring before but once we got our own Nokia Chat (now called Contacts on Ovi) out last summer I ditched Fring.
Now I played around with the new Fring client a bit and it is pretty nice...they have done quite nice job integrating Twitter, Facebook etc.
But the point for me to check the new client was to see how they've done the Last.fm integration. As I assumed Last.fm is one item on your buddy list. Basically all the main features are supported. You can create channels by a band name, listen to your friends' channels, ban and love music etc. The playback does continue in the background even when you're chatting f.ex. with a Gtalk buddy. So everything is cool otherwise but the UI could be better. It's a bit ugly and moving between the playback, ban, love, etc buttons and artist info field is a bit clumsy because the tab order is weird.

So will I start using Fring again? Well, not for chat as Contacts on Ovi does the trick for me. But I'll keep the client installed for the rare occasions I want to listen to Last.fm on my E71.

Spotify is cool, but that's it

I've seen a lot of discussions in blogs, emails and Twitter bracing Spotify. Some say after using it for a couple of days that they love it and couldn't live without it.
The laggard that I am, I only subscribed to and installed the Spotify client a few days ago. Right now I'm listening to the new Bruce Springsteen album on Spotify (quite a nice album...basic stuff from the Boss).

I'm not totally blown away by Spotify. I don't see it that revolutionary at all. I mean it's nice and all and surely I will keep using it, but I don't quite see what it brings that I didn't already have with Launch.com (later Yahoo! Launch), Last.fm etc. Being able to access your playlists on every computer you have the client installed on isn't a big thing to me as I don't even store playlists for later use 'cause I want to pick the songs for my playlist each time I'm listening to music.

But bringing social aspects to Spotify, scrobbling your music history and playing your friends' stations or stations based on a band name etc, would make Spotify my one and only player on connected computer. Ahh, yeah I'm also looking forward to a client for S60 phones. :-)