Christmas goat

* Knut will devour your souls! *

Joulupukki, Christmas goat, literally, that's our santa here in the North ^___^ The original Finnish Santa was known as Nuuttipukki, Knut goat. Young men dressed in inverted goat fur, leather or birkbark mask and goat horns. On 13th of January the Xmas goat wanders around the houses demanding food and alcoholic beverages while scaring the kids. If they were not offered any beer they might break something and leave. Sometimes he may bring small presents for the kind kids and twigs for the naughty ones.

In some regions in Finland they still carry on this tradition, however, as everything, it's toned down a bit and it's more like a funny play for the kids and stuff.

As the old Finnish proverb says "Good Thomas brings the Christmas, bad Knut takes it away". Have a nice and traditional Christmas where ever you are and try to be nice and stay on the better side of Knut so that he doesn't come and eat your soul! o/ ... you have been warned...

Jazz!

* oldschool hipster *

This one was supposed to be called Harry the Hipster but apparently in the olden tiems there has been a famous Jazz guru Harry "The Hipster" Gibson... and as this picture and/or post doesn't have anything to do with jazz or Mr. Gibson I decided to call this just Jazz!... but then again it doesn't have anything to do with jazz either. I'm just too stubborn to give up with my original catchy title. And then again, now, so far it's been all about jazz and Mr.Gibson. So, should I just change the title back? I give up.

We got the internet yesterday, yay! It's slow as hell (booooo!) Still renovating the kitchen (another booooo!). I asked another ISP to check if they are able to offer us fiber which would mean speeds around 100-300MBps They will also check what it would cost to create such a line. The starting price is 1800€ and the help desk guy said that in some cases (if you live in the woods) it could be more than 10 000€... so no... let's hope for the best though. Google told me that in most cases here it's normally around 2000€ which is still ok... I'm a nerd and I need my cat pictures to load without any lag!

beyond redemption

New house, kitchen renovation, oh man. The house is great so far... I'd love the internet to work though :/ I need to call to the ISP and ask if they have even connected us... and check if the lines in the house are working. Fortunately we have 4G LTE router so we have at least some internet connection but it gets stuck if two devices tries to do anything heavier than just browse the internet so there is a constant argue who can watch Netflix and who can play online. :)

Lyhyestä virsi kaunis, until next time o/

Hidden

Lisää kuvateksti

There's a hidden message for you, can you spot it?

Today is the day when, oh, oh, hold that thought... You know the feeling when in the middle of the sentence your brain gets stuck to a certain word or a phrase? Well, I just need to listen this right now before doing anything else, ahhhh, thanks.

So, today is the day when the money actually changes bank accounts and we sell our old house and buy the new one. Actually, the time is 9.05 (am for those who live in the weird realm of 12 hour clock) while writing this so I need to be in the first bank within one hour, urgh. The buying happens later this afternoon so there will be several hours when I can live my life free as a bird without any debts to anyone, yay!

Oh man, can't concentrate to this at all today, I need to listen the whole ... And Oceans - Cypher album now before I go, so... o/

Chip

Yes yes It's been a while I know, now let's move on. I was supposed to post this a month ago but oh well... We sold our house and started to search for a new one. After going through hun... a LOT .... of houses we finally found a potential candidate and bought it, yay. It's bigger, in one level and it has a garage o/. It's a bit further away from the office so no more bicycle commuting... well, at least I should have more energy saved for the MTB trips right? The thing is that the closest actual forest with more than ten trees in it, is over six kilometers away and I'm used to basically live in the forest all my life, that sucks :p And I'm not so keen in sitting in overcrowded trains one hour per day either... What have I done! :o

So, my excuse for the lack of any activity in general is the new house process thing... running in the banks, checking the houses and packing. It sucks. Until next time faithful minions o/

Bubble Bobble... and stuff

Ah the memories ^___^

I'm too busy I say. I got a raise, new fancy title and haven't had time to stop even for a coffee break since. Yay! Well, nothing has changed in the end still working the normal 7.5h a day :p I've heard that in other countries *cough* USA *cough* people tend to work ridiculously long days (for the team!) on their own time, have minimal vacations and all for the illusion of the company really caring about you, maybe? I don't really know but eventually they burn out... :/

Well, here, as long as you are just an employee without any executive powers what so ever, we work for 7,5h per day. And our vacation is 5 weeks, 4 in the summer and one in the winter usually. In this field you need to be a bit flexible on the working hours but for longer period of time if the want us to do long days they need to pay overtime salary or nobody does nothing extra.

Regaining the motivation...

the office demon

... not only for the blog stuff but the motivation to do anything other than just sitting and playing or watching movies. I have these few drawing projects I need to start  doing. Learning new stuff, yay! Aaaand I need to continue the gym and mountain biking activities again. I planned to participate in a specific World Cup race next year so I I see more leg days and more technical training in the woods in my near future. Hmm, I don't need to, I want to is more like it.

They found my uncle drowned few weeks back so it's eating a bit of the regained motivation...but we'll get there right? Goal for the next spring: Mountain biking BEEFCAKE(tm) with new madz drawing skills!

Vacation tiem!

...give me back my q-connect pens!

One more day to go! Then next four weeks full of nothing. Summer house, nature and coffee ^___^ + mountain biking ofc.

We had this tiny incident at home, she broke her back and she's been unable to take care of the kids for about last three weeks... so I've been a bit busy so to speak. We have a nanny to take care of the kids (cha-ching!) while I'm working and when I come home it's my time to wear the apron until the next morning. And the weekends, oh man... Well, it's getting better and the last week wasn't so bad anymore...

Oh! And these new pens at the office! My old trusty Q-connect dried up and I went to fetch a new one from the storage room and here we are... a new brand... and it's not good even for writing.

Blurry corners

...something fishy...

Happy times, the car maintenance cost almost 1000€ *cha-ching!*, the kids have been sick last three weeks so, yeah, looking like a zombie and my tolerance towards the office stupidity, well, let's just say that you might want to be sure that I got my morning coffee before talking to me... and! And my new SanDisk mp3 player doesn't recognize all the music in it. What the hell man? The files are there, all the music is in the same mp3 format, the ID3 tags are in the same format.. this thing should recognize at least 32GB card and I have only 14GB worth of music in it... WHAT THE HELL MAN! Aaaaargh!

Divided

feat. Kirby

I like it, it calms my mind. Kirby was an accident. As always, what has been seen... so there it is.

Oh man, the twins have their first birthday this week. Have I really survived a whole year? (YAY ME!). They should celebrate my achievement of not going mad and still being, at least barely, alive.

Church of Poké Balls

Night of the living Pokemons

A quick one. Not so pleased with it but here it is. The church thing was an accident I swear. Is there a Cthulhu like monster in Pokemon? Because if there isn't, I think we are in trouble.

Also, family tragedies!... There's been mistresses  and secret meetings and stuff (not me not me not me!), you know the thrill :p Let's just say that someone I barely know left his family for another woman. Actually I barely even know the other half of this family. Right, so why on earth am I in the center of cross-examination here? The theme of the weekend went something like this: "did you hear what happened?.... so, where's your girlfriend?... are you leaving us?... how can I know what you do when you are somewhere else" And I'm like o__O "what? did I do something?". I never even liked the guy. He looked and acted just like the typical guy who would do things like these anyways. So, I'm looking forward to any activities I may have after work in time being... this is going to be fun.

Trucking like a nerd!

On the road again...

Yes, I've been playing Elite dangerous lately. A lot. Too much to be exact. But it sure is fun. Although I suffered through several schools in order to leave the truckers life behind me I sure seem to enjoy it virtually... without any salary and voluntarily on my own time :p

Also, I finally got my new gaming PC home, wooooooo! \o/ I built it myself *proud* with only two calls to a friend because I wasn't completely sure where to plug the USB 2.0 wire and how to setup the BIOS.

And oh man, let me tell you, it is hard to operate Windows 8.1 after ten years of using only Apple products :p Sure, I've been using a PC at the office, but at the office you just point and click. Even if you have the know-how how to fix things you are not allowed to due to warranty issues. So basically if there's any problems at all at my laptop I just call the support and enjoy a big cup of black coffee while someone fixes my issues. Handy but at the same time I seem to have forgotten a whole lot of the small things how to find certain settings and stuff... So if any of my friends are reading this, you can expect the phone to ring quite often during the next few weeks. Sorry and thanks \o/

Does it ever end?

...great, more snow...

It's perfect time to post this as when I did this there was snow, lots of snow and now we haven't had any snow in weeks, I'd say it's been like this almost a month... but... today... more snow, oh man, I already changed the bike tires and all.

Two more days and it's time for my two weeks winter holiday. I got some spare days left over from last years summer holiday + few extra days because of the Easter, thank you religious people for these lovely public holidays ^___^. We are traveling North to the place where people wrestle the polar bears and eat reindeer! Well not really, no polar bears in this country, we eat reindeer however... I'm getting sidetracked too easily nowadays... we are going to see the my grandparents, uncle and quite unfortunately, my dad, yay -__-.

Throne part 2

..good morning...

Privacy, an unknown concept nowadays. If taking a dump in company is a total no-no then don't have any kids :p

I was recently asked to join a band :o The music was awesome but it's been a while since I have played with anyone so I'm a bit unsure what to say... I haven't been playing much at home either since the kids so I've noticed that I've lost some speed, other skills seems to be remaining nearly at the same level they ever even were. However, the tempo wasn't so bad, it's more like "mid tempo" death metal so I'm not so worried about my skills to technically play the existing songs through... but with other people watching me and do I really have the time to practice? :p oh man, what to do, what to do?

I'm back bitches!

* doodling like a boss *

Finally I've been able to sit back to my own spot and work normally without running between different locations. It's not much, just a four person cubicle with frosted glass screens but still... It's my spot with my coffee cup and tons of post-it notes! I've also missed the grim old dude behind my back too... The blank "meh, go fuck yourself" glance that I get when I shout "morning", ahh ^___^.

I've been sitting in this same spot since I started the blog and we changed the office location, two years, and I swear to you that I've talked with the man only once. I don't even know his name. We waited for an elevator and it was snowing heavily. He said something like "great, more snow". I replied "yeah, I'm glad I have the studded wheels on my mountain bike"... he was driving a car I think. And that's it, a typical Finnish small talk. He's not interested, I'm not interested, let's just shut up and enjoy the silence. :p We stood there a couple of minutes, stepped to the elevator, still silent, went down and parted ways, no goodbyes, no nothing, and we've never talked since. I like him.

Indeed

* woof *

I was watching Kurt Indeed vlog channel in Youtube and I was so amazed about Kurt's beard that I just needed to quickly doodle him and Wolfie in Minecraft(ish) manner while re-watching his first vlog.

I've been following his attempt to reach the Minecraft beta Farlands for several years now. The channel is called Farlands or bust, for those interested... Basically he is just walking in one direction until the Minecraft terrain generator will freak out and the world will go mad. It will take several more years for him to reach his destination... Yeah, sounds crazy... And there are thousands of people, including me, just watching him do it... I know, therapist -> :p

However, He is also using this whole thing to raise money to the charity so big thumbs for Kurt. I kinda hope that I can meet him one day, he seems so nice.

Unlike predicted I had some kind of a brainfart and I have several notes ready. All these kinds of quickies though so nothing fancy. Stay tuned dear minions.

Defaced

o/

The projects are still keeping me overbooked, so no new notes at the moment. Bear with me. I've also been doing some overtime hours so there's literally no time for anything else than work. Well, at least the next salary will be huge :p I'm about to buy a new gaming pc, can't wait!

and yes, yes it is what you think it is.

Doodling old dudes

Bill Murray? ... Sir Patrick Stewart?

This one was done in November, so, yeah, been a while... I had few 4-5h Livemeeting calls to India and here's the result. :) For some reason the first guy I drew reminds me of Bill Murray. And now while writing this I noticed that the guy on the right reminds me of Captain Pickard, Sir Patrick Stewart \o/

I haven't actually had the time to doodle at home or at the office in a while. I've been between two projects that have kept me busy during the office hours. At home there are three boys that keep me busy, and World of Tanks, and Alien Isolation, so umm, sorry :p The thing is, when the work starts to suck ass and you are constantly tired something so easy and quick as posting something to the internet feels like a major task.

Fortunately at least one of the projects is successfully closed. I hope that I have more time on my own desk again, not only for occasional doodling but also because I feel like I get more things done here than in an environment where there is a lot of hassle and staring eyes. My work  requires a lot of thinking, technical stuff, processes, ITIL, and I'm also one of those people who'll implement the new things to the system. So I can't get anything done if there are loud noises around and people constantly disturbing me with ****** stupid questions that I cannot answer before I have time to properly think things through as a whole.