Almost Christmas

It's almost Christmas.

I finally managed to start writing. I wrote yesterday about 1500 words, which I need to print and check and rewrite before anything else. I'm going to have that article read by a few former colleagues before trying to submit it anywhere else. At least Julien has shown interest in my writings before, maybe Yrjö would also be a good candidate. He should have the time...

Today I've been condensing the training into presentation format. The material is meant to serve the purpose when the training needs to be sold inside a company by somebody other than myself. As always, condensing is harder than just producing text. I've test driven a Mac-native program called "Keynote". It looks great. I'm on purpose avoiding "PowerPoint" even though the NeoOffice package contains it. Keynote luckily can read PowerPoint files and export them mostly, too.

Here's a picture taken in Tampere in the evening. The reddish light in the sky are the city lights.

My niece, Julia, is like quicksilver. Inside she leaves just a bright flash of light behind her and outside she was also extremely hard to capture on film.

Here she's just turned the corner.

When we went outside to play (-10 degrees), I wanted to take her picture sliding downhill. Here's the result:

I changed my tactic, and asked her to jump on to the sled. Apparently it was too dark and she's just too fast, because this is what I caught:

In Nastola, the sun was shining the few hours that it does in winter in Finland. It makes the silvery trees golden.

But you shouldn't try too much. There is a saying in Finnish that goes "if you try for the spruce, you'll come crashing to a juniper". The trees are similar, the only difference being that the spruce is bigger. Somehow the Finnish loser-mentality or melancholy is apparent in that saying. Everybody has his place that he shouldn't try to change or bad things will happen. I'm sure to return to this theme of put-downs in the Finnish mindset. For now, here's a few proud pine trees (the trees in the picture were not associated with the saying at all). They actually remind me of the three soldiers who had to stand as penalty even when the enemy airplanes approached in the movie "Unknown soldier" (Tuntematon sotilas).

The birch trees lose their leaves for winter and their white and black trunks are prominent. Birch grows everywhere in Finland. They make the best wood to start a fire. Especially the white 'skin' (tuohi) burns very easily and fast. 'Tuohi' is also one word for 'money' in the Finnish language.

Christmas is a time of peace and one way to get away from the hustle and bustle of modern world is to go and visit a cemetery. A cemetery on a winter's day in Finland is the most peaceful sight there is. See for yourself. Lepää rauhassa, Ukki.

In Kouvola, we visited Anu. She's into making beautiful things herself. Her cards are always pretty and original. Here's a candle holder (a plate with rocks) up close. She says that her flat is small and depressing. I don't think it is so small ;-). The bright lights were also not that bright in my eyes... Next week we'll go and play billiard.