Perceptual differences

We are definitely going to the right direction. Now I only need to speak to the cashier to say that I don't want a receipt when we've done our business. With NFC phones the process can be made so much smoother and Finnish (non communicative). Today using the loyalty card and your credit / debit card with these payment terminals is so easy and fast. I just saw a number... Only 1/3 of Finnish people use cash anymore. Huh?

In customer meeting this week we met some Finnish customers with my boss, who is not from Finland. After the meeting he mentioned that he didn't get the feeling that they were excited in anyway about the meeting and action points etc. I was a human WTF :-) The non verbal communication minimum that we do comes as a surprise to most foreigners. To me the customers looked very excited and interested. Even more than I had expected. For my boss though, this was his second visit among Finnish customers. Damn - what will he say when we actually go to a meeting with customers who don't get excited at all. "Were those guys alive?"

I also got my Finnish Mobile ID this week. Now I'm waiting to get to try all the exciting services that they bring, where I can use my cool mobile PKI credentials. It's been a long time coming. I was already waiting to get this in 2007... For the PKI illiterate this means that I transferred my citizen ID (Carta d'Identita, ID card, henkilöllisyystodistus) to my mobile phone.

Now - some sauna, beer and entrecote with cesar salad (and some nice Italian red wine).

Pretty cool things

So - last week on Thursday I reserved the flights to HKI-Milan-HKI and only told Marko about it as he was picking me up from the airport. The family had a heart attack when I go to Italy. What did I do? Enjoyed the sun for ½day, ate a lot of pizza and slept. I still have the damn flu.

This week? Truly interesting things happening. I wasn't even dreaming that the job that I have could be this interesting, or that I could actually make a difference for millions of people. But if things pan out - my comments made last week will shape up something big. Maybe... But today after hearing the same kind of wishes from the Minister-level, well...

I still have huge problems adjusting to the tasteless food. If anyone says that Italian food is tasteless or anything like that - please take them behind the Sauna and shoot them. Repeatedly. But, thank god I have SubWay close to my place. Easy dinner for a single male - One whole grain sub 30cm. The wonderful thing? I discovered that the stamps you collect to the SubWay frequent eater cards are valid all over the world. My card had stamps from Germany and Finland. No problemos.

And today I went to this bankrupcy sale and bought one electrically controlled recliner (mekanismituoli), normal price 1200e and 1 3-seater sofa, normal price 1700e. Both for 420e. Coool...

From the land of living dead

Flu is not a nice thing. I have to remember not to clean the house with a full draft on with both doors open and only wearing shorts+T-shirt. But the meds are brilliant - just one pill and your nose dries up in just a few minutes.

Although still feeling like a living dead I've had so much to do that my head is spinning. Seems that I'll be travelling quite a lot as well. Some familiar places, some more exotic. Hopefully I can "drop by" in Milan Malpensa on those trips. Still waiting if I can arrange myself to Asia somewhere... That would be nice.

And naturally I've managed already piss off some people - hopefully not too bad. It just sort of happened, and just after I pushed the "send" button I realized that the text might come back to me and bite my a$$ off. We'll see.

Otherwise, it's like living in Ispra/Biandronno. It's cloudy, rains all the time and somewhat chilly.

I've started to realize that 3 years in Italy has changed me (ok I did realize it before). But the more relaxed attitude and not stressing out too much has proven beneficial. You don't fret too much if a plan goes south, or that you didn't have time to do that other thing.

Also great thing. The company floorball practice is about 200-300 meters from my place. When I get this flu out of the way... (yeah sure says Marko)

Long time no näky

The adventures of the Aneto Detective 2nd grade, MID continues.

So - I've returned to the country where I was born. It's been now 5 full days that I've enjoyed one of the best countries in the world - at least according to PISA studies, Newsweek, corruption studies, information security awareness etc etc. No doubt, this country of mine is great in many aspects.

But... Having lived outside a few years led the Aneto Detective to deduce that the people in this far far away dreamlike nation are the weird ones walking the globe, and the rest of the world will twist and turn on the more or less same principles. My best friend in Italy, Bogdan, showed me that. Without his intelligence I've never truly realized how out-of-the-world we Finns are. We'd really be at home in Venus or some other place not on this planet.

This blog now continues after a few years silent treatment. Now that I've gathered some experiences outside of Finland, and lived a little in another environment I hope I can convey some stuff about my country that strikes me weird now. That used to be like a norm.

One thing that I will comment often will be the food. It has become very important to me. Not the quantity, but the quality and taste. I've tasted some amazing stuff in Italy. Not just the local stuffs, but one thing that I will always measure food against is Colleens food. I do not think that I will eat food as good has her food in a while (or I have to pay dearly for it, like Michelin *** dearly). And I'm truly sorry to say but I have to actually agree with Mr Silvio Berlusconi. We don't know shit about cooking compared to the Italians. Just go to Parma and taste the ham.

How was my first week? Exhausting. I came to the port of Helsinki (Vuosaari) at 6.50am on Monday. After which I did the customs stuff for my car and went to work. No rest for the wicked. Immediately when I stepped on the ground I developed a extremely persistent cold. My nose turned to a hose that could've distinguished fires. So I sneezed my way through the first week in the new office. And guess what? Even if my head was filled with snot almost everyday and I felt that my brain cells were swimming in glue, I loved it. Only time when I was check FB statuses were actually when I had to go the toilet... This makes a bad dent to my Angry Birds play routine. But the point is that I had so many things to do and so much new things to learn, but at the same time I realized that the stuff I learned years ago were not obsolete...

Today I've been mostly eating steak.

Autokuvei - jos joku haluais vaikka ostaa

RIP isi

Elämä alkaa ja loppuu
Sen aikana muita alkaa
Alut lupaavat toivoa
Toivo tuo mukanaan kokemuksia
Loput lupaavat muistoja
Muistojen kautta me emme unohda
Alkujen kautta emme koskaan lopu
Vaan ihmettelemme ja nauramme
Ihminen joka oli luonamme
Oli ainutlaatuinen ja paras mitä olla voi
Saimme musiikkia korvillemme ja DNA:llemme
Opimme elämän perusasiat ja
Opimme että emme ole tulleet lijalta ilman virheitä
Vaikka kuinka opimme
Emme voi olla olematta lapsia
Olemme aina lapsia, jotka oppivat
Keräävät muistoja, muistavat, rakastavat
Kaipaavat... Kovasti... Sinua... ISI.

Maailman parhaalle isille!!!

Matoja

Nice housepets we have. Any idea what these are? They appear from somewhere, crawl the walls to the ceiling, travel some (apparently towards heat and / or light) and they can descend from the ceiling using something similar that the spiders use. The stuff comes from their ass... And they prefer the kitchen. They are approximately 2cm long. We haven't seen them in other rooms (yet).