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30 May 2008
Jumping and Singing
Yesterday we were on the kindergarten's spring outing/fest.
We're very happy that Aron got into this kindergarten as it's kind of different and totally awesome.
The weather was great, we grilled some sausages and drank some juice.
I talked with two dads I've never talked with before.
And our car made it all the way out there and home again without breaking down.
It was fun and lots of kids and Aron was happy. :)
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29 May 2008
Now Reading
Interesting book, some good points made, some things that force you to think things through, some things you may not agree on.
A interesting read nonetheless.
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28 May 2008
Aron Plays His Little Guitar
I finally got myself around putting some videos on youtube.
This is the first, and so far only, one that's up.
It's Aron, being himself, only a much quieter version.
I guess he gets a bit nervous infront of the camera. :)
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24 May 2008
Now Reading
Kazuo Ishiguro - An Artist of the Floating World
I like this book very much so far.
It kind of reminds me of Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, as in both books there isn't really a lot happening but they are written in such a manner that you still just float through the book while having that content feeling of reading a very good book.
It's one of those books where you aren't checking which page your on, how much of it that's left, how many hours it will take to finish it and thinking about what you will read next.
Ishiguro's novels share certain qualities. The chronology of his plotting is elaborate and the narration is highly subjective. His ability to capture the details and atmosphere of a period has received high praise.
An Artist of the Floating World (1986) is a novel by British-Japanese author Kazuo Ishiguro. It is set in post-World War II Japan and is narrated by Masuji Ono, an aging painter, who looks back on his life and how he has lived it. He notices how his once great reputation has faltered since the war and how attitudes towards him and his paintings have changed. The chief conflict deals with Ono's need to accept responsibility for his past actions. The novel attempts to ask and answer the question: what is man's role in a rapidly changing environment?
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20 May 2008
New Camera And Stuff
We just bought a new camera.
It's a Canon PowerShot A560.
According to some internet reviews it's a really good compact digital camera.
And we got it rather cheap.
So that's fun.
The new baby should come in two weeks.
That's a tad bit more exciting than a new camera.
We might also be moving to a new appartment soon.
That is also more exciting than a new camera.
And when I start working again we will buy a new car (well, it won't be that new...)
That is also more exciting than a new camera.
But a new camera is exciting nonetheless.
And you might finally be able to see more pictures on this here blog.
That is one of the reasons we bought a compact camera.
The other one is just big enough for us to never really bother to bring it along, or just snap a few pics every now and then.
It's like we have to really go somewhere just to take pictures.
You have to think "Oh, I want to take a picture of that object".
Then go and get the camera and start shooting.
But a smaller camer you can take with you for no really big reason at all.
And while out walking Aron does something silly and you can just snap the camera out of you pocket and go "click!".
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17 May 2008
Working Saturday Again
...and it's boring.
So, I will give you two great videos from the one and only Youtube!
Dan da da daaaaa!
Brplrplrprlpl....
Do you know where break dancing comes from?
It comes from the Brazilian martial art Capoeira.
Take a look:
And this song has been playing like crazy on the radio here and it's so totally stuck in my head.
The video is pretty nice as well.
Take a look:
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15 May 2008
Working Evening Again
And it's boring...
No working buddies, no fast pace.
Just being here looking out for the place.
Listening to Jazz.
My brain is tired.
I want to write cool stuff that comforts people, but it just won't come.
So, what's up?
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12 May 2008
Mother's Day and Such
Friday
Sweaty working day moving loads of stuff, among other things a piano up a little hill.
Party at Tomas Mattsson who turned 25, ate grapes and other weird fruits.
My mom came to visit us, Aron was thrilled.
Thanks for all the support and help you give us!
Saturday
Up early and away to Sion (our congregation) for a cell-leader meeting.
Aron stayed home with grandma.
Great meeting.
Away to buy groceries for the planned dinner (lobster and whatever animal bambi is...).
Back home, Aron and grandmother are both taking a nap.
Preparing dinner for 3 hours.
Eating dinner with neighbours Dadde and Loola, they made the sauces.
Ate lobster for the first time with a green sallad and white bread.
Ate Bambi for the first time, with oven baked potato slices and the sauces.
Excellent sauces, excellent food.
Thank you for giving us food.
Aron went to my sister with grandma and got bitten by one of my sister's pet rats.
He bled pretty heavily but it was a clean wound and not too dangerous, a bit unfunny with all the blood though.
He is ok now.
Saw a movie about a Jewish couple that fled to Africa during WWII, very good movie.
Sunday
Arose early and gave grandma a mother's day present together with Aron.
Made Tanja breakfast and got the plant I bought her the day before from the cellar where I had hidden it, it's called a Wonder Bush, freaky name but a nice plant.
At 11 grandma went back home and we drove off to Tanja's mother's house.
There we ate more good food and celebrated mother's day.
At 4 we went to Sunday Service at Sion.
It was good, Tanja was leading the meeting and I was interpreting to English.
Then back to Tanja's mother's house for tea.
Then home again.
Watched a bit of hockey, Finland clubbed USA so totally... :P
And then to sleep.
It was a good weekend.
Got two new books as well, written by Colin Dye, one about the Spirit and one about prayer.
Will read them as soon as I find time to do so.
Thanks to Tanja for being a great wife and mother to our child, and coming children.
Have a nice week.
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09 May 2008
Now Reading
Why Me? by Jacob Damkani.
A book about a Jew who grew up in a poor, religious part of Israel, who rebelled against his parents, went to New York, met a Christian who knew the Bible and then got saved.
It's a great book.
Jacob Damkani later founded the ministry Trumpet of Salvation, who reaches out to Jews in Israel.
Interesting read.
And after this book I have a huge pile of new books that I have to read. :)
Amongst them can these be found:
An Artist of the Floating World - Kazuo Ishiguro
Oryx and Crake - Margaret Atwood
Freedom Writers - Freedom Writers
Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson
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07 May 2008
The Weekend From Long Ago
It wasn't last weekend, but it was the weekend before that.
I was supposed to write a post about it but I forgot.
Now I will.
Friday
At about 3 PM in the afternoon we boarded a train in Vaasa and headed for Helsinki.
The trip went by rather fast, we read books and just sat there being relaxed.
Aron didn't join us for the weekend, he was going to spend the weekend with his grandma while me and Tanja would spend a weekend just the two of us in Helsinki.
We walked through the chaos that was the children's cart and smiled a little when we went back to the quietness of our seats.
We reached Helsinki at about 8 PM.
My almost-brother-in-law Ace came and picked us up together with their son Atticus.
Their car is a small Nissan Micra.
It's small.
But a nice car.
The weather was nice and we spent the evening at my sister's place.
They took so good care of us, even though we were the ones that didn't have to tend to a child all the time.
We ate good lasagna and drank tea, and I got to taste banana beer for the first time (and the last, bleurgh!).
Went to bed rather late.
It was a good day.
Saturday
Woke up rather early but didn't get out of bed until 10 AM, which was a really wonderful experience.
Was served breakfast by Ace.
REAL scrambled eggs, those that will keep you full for the whole day, I had never eaten such a breakfast before.
Thank you Ace.
Then me, Ace and Atticus took a quick walk along the small river (what's the word for that smaller version now again?) that flows along their house.
It was very nice weather again.
Then we got a ride into town, where we said goodbye to Bodil, Ace and Atticus.
Tanja headed off to meet an old classmate of hers, and I went strolling around waiting for a good friend of mine to come into Town, Dankku.
While just walking around we met up with Ace and Atti again.
I went for a tea with them.
Then Dankku came.
We then headed to a local heavy metal music shop.
I just love the feeling in those stores.
Then we headed to Dankku's school to watch the documentaries that he has made during the last year.
I was genuinely impressed.
Dankku, you rule.
Then we went for a pizza, and on the way we saw the most impressive Mercedes I've ever seen.
It was wow.
After the Pizza we bought some soft drinks and sat down on a bench in a park and just talked.
Then we visited a couple of malls and stores.
Dankku went home before we all were to go to a house-warming party at Mathias and Carina Rosenlund.
I met up with Tanja and waited while she and her classmate met more old classmates and talked through all the time that had past since they graduated.
We went to the train station and picked up Carina and Mathias present that we had locked into a locker at the station.
I got lost and went into the wrong direction.
Tanja corrected me.
Dankku laughed at me when we found him again.
We went to the party.
There were a lot of known people there that we hadn't met in a long while.
We drove with small cars on an electric racing track.
We had fun, lots of fun.
Then we headed back to town.
Oh, at some time during the day we had checked into Hotel Linna, the building on the picture.
...
I'll continue later, have to go to the phone-change and sit there for a while now.
...
I'm back.
We came back to the hotel watched TV and went to sleep.
It was a great and very nice hotel.
A hotel where I can imagine a writer would enjoy living.
Sitting in the lobby and just observing.
Sunday
We woke up, ate a great breakfast (hotel breakfast rules!), checked out and went to town to meet up with Tanjas sister.
But she couldn't come as she was ill.
So we went to a cafe and ordered some of the coolest tea ever and some of the most marvelous sandwiches.
Then we sat there and read papers for about an hour.
After that we went to the train station where Linda and Henkka picked us up.
They were our ride back up to Vaasa.
It went fast as we had company to talk to.
We ate ice-cream on the way.
When we came home we had a very joyful meeting with Aron.
He was happy to see us and we were happy to see him.
There was much hugging.
Thank you so much to all of you who made this weekend fantastic!
Carina and Mathias for your love and party.
Dankku for being total awesomeness.
Henkka and Linda for taking us back home and just being the nice people they are.
And especially Bodil, Ace and Atticus who provided us with roof, rides and food (and got us in to Hotel Linna!).
Thank you so much.
It was a great weekend.
Lots of love to all of you.
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06 May 2008
Pantokrator Day!
Many of you might not know that today is Pantokrator Day (May 6th), but I know about it and I am one of those who celebrate it. :)
So now you of course ask yourself how YOU can celebrate Pantokrator Day.
It is very easy.
You can:
-Go to their Myspace and listen to their music, http://www.myspace.com/pantokratorofficial
-Go to their homepage and order albums and shirts, http://www.pantokrator.com/
-Or order their latest album, Aurum, from either Maanalainen Levykauppa or Nordic Mission
-Blog about either the band or Pantokrator Day
-Just check them out if you haven't heard about them before
Pantokrator is a Swedish death metal band formed in 1996. The band has released 2 studio albums, Blod in 2002 and Aurum in 2007, one compilation album titled A Decade of Thoughts and an EP titled Songs of Solomon as a split-CD with the band Sanctifica. In 2001 they played a concert at the reputive Swedish metal festival, Bobfest, and appeared on the national TV in a short report of this festival. Their first album was released on Rivel Records, and the second one on the German label Whirlwind Records. In USA, the album Aurum is distributed by Open Grave Records. Their musicvideo for "Divine Light" appeared on the videocompilation titled Power from the Sky. The band has played at the Gates of Metal festival, a major Swedish hard rock and metal music event, with acts such as Dimmu Borgir and Edguy. They constantly play concerts in Europe and have achieved positive media reviews: for example the Scandinavian music and media magazine Monster gave Blod 4/5 and the German magazine Rock Hard gave it 7/10.[1]
The band's sound is old school death metal with progressive and technical elements. Their lyrics contain mystic Biblical themes and are noted for their Christian point of view.
The band will feature in the upcoming documentary "Light in Darkness - Nemesis Divina".
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05 May 2008
Gotta Love Them Proffessors
I will write a post about one very nice weekend we had in Helsinki, but I haven't found the time yet.
But I will.
Until then, enjoy this lecture by this rather interesting proffessor.
It really is an interesting lecture if you have the time for it.
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