Osku and Elisa

Mister Sandels

05. May 2009 by Elisa Zenari on General blah, Travelling

Abbiamo avuto visite dall'Italia per la settimana di vappu (primo maggio). Se guardo fuori dalla finestra in questo momento stento a credere che solo un paio di giorni fa a Oulu ci fossero quasi 20 gradi e il sole. il tempo per fortuna é stato gentile durante la loro visita e ci ha permesso di godere dei bei paesaggi della Lapponia e della sacrosanta birra dopo la sauna sulla terrazza del cottage. A Oulu invece abbiamo speso il nostro tempo tra birrette, pic-nic al parco e partite di Uno. La guest star della settimana é stato Mister Sandels, classica birra finlandese dal 1878. Il primo "assaggio" è stato un fustino da 5 litri al quale sono seguite una cinquantina di lattine, classico vino dalla vigne di Kuopio (come direbbe Flavio) e la grappa made in Finland, Koskenkorva. Un omaggio poi è andato anche al limoncino fatto in casa dal mio papà. Insomma una settimana abbastanza etilica, dalla quale stiamo ancora cercando di riprenderci :-)

Probabilmente se chiederete a Simone quale sia stato l'highlight della settimana vi dirà sicuramente il Bar Reggae, forse una delle uniche ragioni che l'ha spinto ad avventurarsi in Finlandia. Altrettanto probabile che le aspettative siano state deuse, infatti il tanto nominato bar reggae è un localino di solo alcuni metri quadrati che non fa musica dal vivo, come invece si aspettava lui e dove non c'è nemmeno il "real reggae". Comunque bello o brutto abbiamo fatto le cinque e ovviamente il giorno dopo tutti con i postumi.

Elena invece ha sperimentato e apprezzato la sauna, convinta del "io tanto il costume non me lo tolgo" al secondo giro di sauna era invece già a suo agio senza veli e se non le dicevo andiamo fuori a prendere un pò d'aria lei avrebbe continuato a parlare e ogni giorno chiedeva "ma questa sera si fa la sauna?".

Da quando se ne sono andati non abbiamo più toccato un goccio di alcool, non abbiamo nemmeno pensato di fare una sauna e stiamo tornando a una dieta vegetariana, però è stato bello averli qui e adesso attendiamo i prossimi ospiti. Datevi una mossa perchè non si sa se rimarremo qui ancora a lungo!!

Update update, and a bit more

11. March 2009 by Osku Tervonen on General blah, Photography, Travelling, Work

Long time no write, one could say. I feel like I don't have time to write, and on the other hand as if no one would even be interested. I wonder if the blogging culture in general is dying out bit by bit, eaten by Facebook and other such services. They cover pretty much everything one would do in the the Great Internets. They also cover the area of blogs, kind of. They do all this and more, but they do it without really offering anything of real value. It seems they just occupy peoples free time. It's blogging for people with ADHD or something.

Oh well, enough of that. In the real life it has been quite interesting lately. We had visitors from italy for a bit more than week. A 4 year old girl and her mother. That was... interesting ;-) For the sake of the kid we had to be really, really active. We did the Kemi Snowcastle and the office of the Santa Claus in Rovaniemi in one day. And the day after that we visited the zoo of Ranua. That's quite a bit of driving around for just two days! On top of that the girls wen to the swimming pools for like, too many times.

After that we had roughly a weeks trip to Åre, Sweden, for skiing holidays. Most of that week went to travelling as we went there by car, 1000 kilometers there and back. But we had 3 good days of skiing and sun. And in between of these two events, I went to St Petersburg to meet my clients development team. Interesting trip also there.

On an "interesting" sidenote.. I've noticed I like to shoot vertical photos more than horizontal. If you check my latest photos I think at least half of them are vertical. For some reason they seem more natural to me I guess, although it should be quite the contrary. Anyone have any thoughts on this? At least I found myself a bit surprised.

And to not make this posting too short (yeah, with me writing that will probably never happen anyways), Elisa just got a job! She will teach italian in the university of Oulu and one of the two evening schools of the town. She's pretty stoked about it, and so am I. The only problem being that we practically won't see each other for 6 weeks ;-) Oh well, I guess that's life.

New wheels for the family

08. February 2009 by Osku Tervonen on General blah

Moving around in Oulu, where we live at the moment, is by far easiest with bikes. There is a relatively vast network of cycling roads, taking you practically anywhere you need to go. It's usually also faster than with the local busses (well, maybe not if it's Elisa biking...), most of which go between the university and the city centre. Apart from that route you need to change busses and wait almost surely a quarter of an hour between all changes. And owning a car is expensive as we all know (besides being uncool and not hippyish).

So, bike it is for us. I used to get by with old granny bikes, with their bendy frames and generally rusty parts, changing tyres every two weeks or so. My previous bike I actually took from a pile of trash on its way to be recycled, kicked the tubes straight, changed the chains and a few other parts, and cleaned everything. It has now served me for a year without too many problems considering its background, while Elisa used my previous previous blue (!) granny bike. But.. we felt it was time to step up our biking experience a bit. So what did we get? Not less than the all new and shiny remake of the true Finnish classic...

Jopo, an abbreviation of "Jokaisen Polkupyörä" or "Every ones bicycle", is a small-wheeled bike designed and manufactured by the finnish bicycle factory Helkama. The original model was released in 1964, and was hugely popular in the sixties and seventies. Like the name suggests, Jopo is bike for every one, and also every situation. It is simple and durable, unisex in essence. Despite its small wheels it rolls really good and is perfect for city environments. More than 10 kilometers starts to feel a bit too much like sport though.

We've now had the Jopo for a few days and we've been really happy with it, although the wether hasn't been exactly ideal for biking around. We're just a bit concerned about bike robbers. So.. if you're interested in robbing this one, beware that I will break your legs at the very least if you do it.

The Cat - how it all starts

21. January 2009 by Elisa Zenari on The Cat

About a year ago we were celebrating christmas 2007 in a very old house near by the fire place and I was opening my present from Osku, and what I found?

A very cute cat – teddy bear cat – at first I was a bit disappointed but as soon I read the card it turned out to be the most romantic present I ’ve ever got, the teddy bear was the promise that one day we will have a cat.

That day have come at semptember the 3th, my birthday. We had been looking for many months from the animal home, but none of the cat was the right one until we found her…

Mimla is her name, a mix from finnish culture and italian language, Mimla is italian translation for Pikkumyy, one of the Mumin character.

Pikkumyy personality: small, energetic and she bites, well Mimla is exactly the same, except that she is also very hairy.

The Blog finally up and running!

15. January 2009 by Osku Tervonen on General blah, The Site

Yes! It is here, the long talked about, so much hyped, and oh so very nice custom blog. To tell the truth it's just a very very simple blog as you can see. So what is so special about it then?

For me personally this blog is special for two reasons:

1. It is my first real Django project
2. It is my first finished blog. Well, ours actually

The functionality set is really quite basic here. There are blog posts and photos , both with their own index page. The photos are syncronized from our Flickr pool for the convenience of not having to write custom code also for that. Now we'll see if it really is a good and easy-to-use solution. If not I may have to go back to more conventional methods. I do have some ideas for a custom image gallery solution so it's not a far-fetched idea. If by chance you're interested on the implementation of this site, please leave a comment on the site and I will get back to you.

Anyway, for my part I would like to welcome you to our new blog. As for now we don't even know exactly what we are going to write about here. I suppose anything of our life, work, the cat called Mimla, travelling, hobbies, things we like, things we don't like and so forth.

I also hope I'll learn how to write :-)