christmas season declared open

We have developed a tradition to start the christmas season with baking and decorating gingerbread cookies.

This year it hit us today, one day before benjamin's birthday. Tomorrow we'll celebrate that, today a little foretaste of christmas. Here's some shots.

Boys enjoyed the sugary artwork, Olivia -the thief- specialized on tasting.

and I'll never be lost again

Great news for folks with a recent Nokia with Symbian 60 OS. Nokia is offering Maps for free. Which means that you can turn your cell phone into a navigator. Practically what you need is a GPS receiver (brand new from 50euros upwards) and 2Gb memory to squeeze the entire Europe into your pocket. You can do without, but then you'll be paying for downloading the maps as you go - which can cost a lot or like crazy - depending on your contract. You may also pick the maps by countries and add new anytime you need. From there on it works like any navigator, except it's all in your cell phone, and always with you. Nokia's deal is that they charge you a license for the voice guidance. But it's quite reasonably priced. (7e a week/8e a month/60e a year/80e three years). With no cost you can plan routes, view maps with info (hotels, restaurants, gas station etc.)

This is fantastic for me. I'm very prone to get lost. Whenever I'm moving , it's like I'm missing the log file, and I basically forget everything I leave behind. In result, every crossroad is random pick from equally good options, and finding the way back... ...just forget about it.

But now, this all is past and new has begun. Great.

Thank you Nokia for pimping my phone.

blow up your mind for the fun of it.

if you're like me, you find it funny occasionally trying to mentally swallow something way to big. The result either suffocation or bloat that lasts for days - and keeps you engaged with the dilemma - or better, a super sensation of the Grand Gulp.

I'm not a researcher type of guy myself - I do it if I really have to like in studies - but normally I prefer having my information as chewed-up to proper chunks for me. But then occasionally - especially in matters that doesn't really have anything to do with anything I need - I look for bites that challenge my swallowing capabilities.

One area that offers nearly endless stocks for super bloats and gulps, (more the first than the second for me) is theoretical physics and quantum mechanics. Nice bite ready to swallow - is an application lately reported in Tietokone news blog. They tell that some scientist are trying to come up with a 3D screen - that makes use of so called wormhole.
(wikipedia: hypothetical topological feature of spacetime that is essentially a 'shortcut' through space and time. The essential idea of the screen is to build wormholes and cover them up with a cloak of invisible material.

The actual screen is far ahead - to say the least, but they do have mathematical model to build up the wormhole - and the active research circulates in metamaterial that would provide the invisibility. That material should make the light travel around the wormhole pipe, instead of bouncing back from it - i.e. visibility. They already accomplish the material in relation to microwaves, and now they hope is to do same with visible light.

I say wow, what do you say? if my explanation sounded confusing, it's because i am confused. Just say wow - quite few of people around us would be getting it either. I do have some choking over idea of wormhole - a path that would take me from kitchen to toilet without having to go through - the time and space - of the hallway. Likewise the other bite of invisible material needs some chewing. Other than that is all sounds great. I swallow "3D" and a "screen" - especially separately.

but this blew my mind for today, and for a couple of more to come.

The last man falling (Oh, Mary, don't you weep)

we were driving to IKEA and kids were sleeping in the backseat... or trying not to. Here's the last man's fight and the final knock-out. Sort-of fitting background music is from Bruce Springsteen & Seeger Sessions, singing: "if I could I surely would stand on the rock where Moses stood..." ...well, sometimes you just can't.

father's day

It's father's day today here in Finland. Sarita and the kids has been nice to me all day... ...well... as they always are... it's more that I've tried to respond respectively today. Anyway, I was served a breakfast to my bed and treated with plentiful gifts. (that's different to regular morning, though) Sarita wanted to take a picture of me with kids and here it is, especially for my dad and momma to see =)

I have a great dad myself and i'm proud of him for countless reasons. Happy father's day to you, dad, and to my wonderful father-in-law, as well as to all the rest of the reader's of this blog who are sharing the bliss of fatherhood.

swan

Yesterday, from early morning on, we were wrapped in a beautiful white fog. At around 11 sun started to shine through it, turning everything into extraordinarily gorgeous white and shiny. ...now that i can do whatever and whenever, I hopped into car to drive to a spot by sea that I knew would look awesome in fog like that. As soon as my car turned out from the parking place the sun evaporated the fog and the rest of the day was just an ordinary nice day. But woe, I did not get to practice shooting fog.

Nevertheless, I drove over to the place and found a couple of swans swimming around. Here's one. From the picture he may seem like quietly floating around, but read it from the eyes, he was coming to attack me. He was stopped by the thin ice at his chest. Lucky me =)
well, they can't kill you, but they know how to make you feel uneasy anyway.

Buckling up the Spirit of Freedom

As someone may have noted, the sweetie of ours grows hair 95 times better in the back of her head than on the top. She will be glad that this is constantly improving, but for now we only have to fight with 50% hair-do. She appears to love dressing up, and comes to show off any new dress to daddy, saying "look" (actually: "kato" in finnish, of course) and lately she's been stealing and wearing momma's shoes. But, she wants her hair fly free and wild - with one time exception. Here's the proof.



Here's another pic from this morning. The bros' were enjoying a day off from school/club and built a den to Benjamin's bed.