Lost for words

I started this entry by writing about yesterday's fireworks show - the previous entry refers of course to the second entry in the Celebration of Lights competition yesterday by the Swedish team - when my mother called.

The news was that my aunt had very suddenly died yesterday.

It wasn't totally unexpected, she had been suffering from a second bout of cancer for over a year now, but it was unexpected that everything happened so fast. I saw her last time last summer - she had just started chemo and was ill and exhausted, but still in relatively good spirits. Turn for the worst happened couple of days ago when she was taken to the hospital where the situation was deemed to be terminal, and she was supposed to be able to go home to die but didn't make it in the end.

She is someone I have known all my life, loved all my life. She was always friendly and funny, and I'm very sad for the loss. I shall miss her.

Heja Sverige!

Hooray

I’ve saved you from describing my two last dentist appointments, but to celebrate the last appointment for a while I just have to open up.

Firstly, I’d like to say that my dentist is absolutely fantastic. She is very considerate, gentle and skillful. I’ve also learned new things – I’ve never had a rubber tent inside my mouth for example… it’s a little piece of rubber cloth that has a clamp in the middle, the clamp is attached to your tooth and it allows the dentist to expose just the tooth they are working on in your mouth covering the rest with the cloth, a bit like the cloth a surgeon would have. Weird, but not too unpleasant.

Today was the first time it actually hurt – my dentist is very thorough with the anesthetic, first a swab to numb the gums so that the shot doesn’t hurt, then at least two shots every time, but now she was going close to a nerve so I jumped when she got too close. She immediately stopped and asked if I wanted more freeze, to which I just nodded – she put in one shot more and then you could have had a rave in my mouth and I wouldn’t have felt it. Still hate the big drill though that makes it feel like your teeth are going to shatter.

But now I can’t feel my face, or even my right ear, and my dentist told me that it will take about four hours to wear off due to the extra shot. Still, it was all worth it as it was totally painless and as pleasant as humanly possible. Glad it’s over though.

I'm still debating though if I should have my other wisdom tooth taken out - I've never had any problems with it, but all my dentists have told me so far that I will. Would it be better to do it now or wait until it hurts?

Cake!

The company's way of saying happy birthday. Appreciated, even though it's not real cream.

Perfect birthday

Did I say I don’t really like fireworks? Well, I take it all back, I’m totally convinced after yesterday’s show.

We left the Community Center around half past nine – the show was starting at ten – and by that time they had already closed Denman and Davie for traffic. It was just starting to get dark, and everywhere was full of people heading to the beach. There were probably well over 100,000 people in West End, and although beaches and lawns seemed to be totally full we managed to find a nice spot for two (but not much more) without much effort.

By this time the sun was almost set, and the horizon was red while the sky was deep blue. We were sitting there quietly enjoying the atmosphere, the beach was packed but there were very little drunks or any other disorderly behavior - this is unusual for me as both in England and Finland this would have turned into a huge who’s-most-drunk competition, think about it, several hours on the hot beach waiting for the show to start. But people were there with their families, with young kids, with their friends, with their partners, and lot of people were they in their boats keeping a distance from the cargo boats that were going to be used for launching the fireworks.

Then it started. The cargo boats lights turned off, and the music started, Canada’s entry to this event was called "Jazz in the Sky" – we didn’t hear it too well from where we were, but we’ll get a little radio for Saturday’s show – and pretty much from the first moment on I was completely stunned. I took couple of photos but pretty soon I was just staring with my jaw on the grass – I wish I could explain what it was like. There were so many things I’ve never seen before – red fireflies that moved around like they were alive, different purple formations, huge huge golden palm trees that exploded into sparkles, hoops with different colours, stars, hearts, the flowers with white petals... It was pure poetry. Crowd was alive, cheering and clapping for the best ones, most of the time there was just the chorus of ooh’s and aah’s, which we joined clasping each others hands because the experience was just so perfect.

So fireworks? I adore them. We have already picked a place for Saturday’s show – the Swedish team – closer to home this time, because although we were not far, normally it would take about five minutes to walk home from where we were, in the crowd it took almost half an hour. We’ll take a radio so we can hear the music better, maybe some picnic food... it’s gonna be perfect. Just hoping Dragon can make it this time.

See also Vancouver Sun’s article about the show.

Happy birthday to me

Chu arrived safe, although late, and I left her sleeping when I dashed out this morning.

It feels strange – it’s my birthday and it doesn’t feel special, and that fact that it doesn’t feel special doesn’t feel bad, and that’s strange. My birthdays have always been special days for me in some way, but today it is just another day – very different to the angst I was feeling last year, too. Seems that there’s no time to celebrate today anyway – I’m planning to go to the meditation class as usual today which lasts until half nine anyway. Dragon won’t be able to be there anyway because he’s working, but it’s nice to have Chu there for company.

Mind you, they have arranged a three day long fireworks display in my honor starting tonight at 10 pm, right on our back yard on English Bay – they call it Celebration of Light. Personally I’m not a huge fan of fireworks – while Chu absolutely adores them – but maybe that’ll get me into the mood anyway.

Sleepy

Very sleepy today. Spent too much time yesterday on my poor sore feet, and I spent the whole evening cleaning up the flat so it would look respectable when Chu comes today. I’ve gotten so used to having Dragon around to help me that I get very frustrated when I have to do everything myself. Got everything clean and neat though, and Dragon even woke up earlier this morning to do the vacuuming.

It’s actually going to be really busy month or so now – right after Chu is gone my sister and her boyfriend are going come for a visit, and after that Orava and Janka are dropping by on their way to Burning Man (which we have to pass this year due to my work).It’s really inconvenient that we can’t make copies of our apartment keys, as it would make life easier if we could let the guests go as they please – now we have to make sure that the one that comes home last will be the one without the keys.

Today at work we haven’t had to endure any more fire alarms (there were three altogether yesterday) – someone said that apparently they were due to the sun shining on the roof. Sounds a bit simplistic, but whatever it was it’s not happening today – weather is not quite as hot either though. I’m also sleepy because the work isn’t as challenging I’d hope it to be – apparently the shit is about to hit the fan next week so I should keep busy then. Oh joy.

In fact, so far being back at work hasn’t really been what I was hoping for. Somehow it seems more meaningless than it used to, I used to be a lot more attached to my work and work place. This might be a good thing too – I’d like to work to live, not live to work. At the same time it doesn’t really bother me because I’ve got plans now – even few years back career was my only plan and now that seems so… small.

Fragile

Feeling a bit fragile today.

Not only are my shoulders hurting – which I was expecting – but also my hamstrings and calves are killing me which was a surprise. I guess it never occurred to me how much of a hamstring and calf stretch down-dog is, and I most definitely didn’t overdo it. I mean, yes I can feel the stretch but I can’t remember ever getting sore from just that.

Other reason for fragility is the fact that I’m nursing a small hangover today. Shannon invited us to her place last night to celebrate the studio’s second birthday and we accepted – even though it was Dragon’s first couple of free hours off work in couple of weeks. Had a really nice time with fellow yogis, and talked about other things than yoga too, to the benefit of couple of non-yogis. And I had two glasses of white wine, hence the hangover today.

What comes to hangovers – my hangovers – this one is not too bad, but it just once again reminded me why I don’t drink. Then after being at work for about an hour, the fire alarm went off. We looked at each other – “There’s no drill today, right?” – and went outside. The noise was really loud, but sun was shining so we spent about 20 minutes sitting outside chatting before the fire marshal okayed us to go back in. Fast forward couple of hours and the alarm goes off again, this time to “Oh not again” and this time we decided to go and have some lunch.

I decided to pamper myself and bought myself a piece of delicious chocolate cake which I was able to eat half before starting to feel funny again. I really, really, should never drink again.

I did a 'thon

I'm home after the Vancouver Yogathon. Fantastic happening, lots of yogis, good athmosphere and lots and lots of sun saluations (108). The photo on the right is how I saw most of the event - upside down in a down-dog.

It's an absolutely perfect day for Yogathon today, sun is shining and it's so warm - but we started early enough so it didn't get too hot. The organising instructors took turns in guiding the practice, five salutations each. Couple of times we did resting poses like swan or twists, but mostly it was just sun salutations, one after another. I rested out few, and took child poses with few, but all in all I must have done close to 100 proper ones.

Then at half-way point they suddenly started playing Bon Jovi - till then we had a live sitra player and a singer - and I couldn't understand it before the chorus: it was of course "We're half way there - Livin' on a prayer" and by the time "'Cause it doesn't make a difference if we make it or not" everyone was just giggling in fits and shaking their hips to the music in the down-dog. Excellent fun.

Around 80 I started to get really tired and stopped doing jump backs, just stepping back - but when we got over hundred, the athmosphere picked up again and I did my last ones with full jump-backs. It was really nice, once and a while Jason came to help me by pressing me down on my heels, and at one point when I was resting in frog Shannon came to do the same. Felt good, felt like I belonged.

After the sun salutations were finished we did a short mediation, and the Eoin Finn gave out the prices for best fundrasers - and our Flow Yoga team won the prize for the Top Studio Fundraiser! I say a prize as they promised us yoga mat bags and a dinner, but it turned out that there was really no price... it doesn't really matter though, we didn't do it for that.

Now my arms are killing me and I'm wondering if I overdid it with my wrists - I'm using full support on my both writsts, but even then 100 sun salutations might have been too much. Oh well, it was all for a good cause.

There's nothing to see here

I never commented on the London incidents because there was so much going on in my life at that particular moment. It doesn't mean I haven't been thinking about it. Quite the contrary, when I woke up to the news the first thing I did was to contact all my friends that live and work in and around London to check that they were ok.

Fortunately, all of them were - but there were far too many close calls for my comfort. One was in a train coming to Liverpool Station when the bomb there went off, another one was at King's Cross when the Russell Square bomb went off and was stuck in a tube with the electricity cut off. Someone who uses the Circle line daily just by accident had gone to work an hour early. And numerous other stories like that that made my heart skip a beat.

After the initial panic and getting the good news, the actual news really sank in. It wasn't a surprise, as such - it was always known that London was a big target - but the fact that it had actually now happened. The perpetrators claim to have links to al-Qaeda, I don't think it necessarily means they were close pals with Osama. Accoring to reports, they seem to be totally ordinary men who just for some reason decided to embark on a mission of mass murder. They could have made the bombs ten times more powerful but chose not to.

In many ways the hysteria was felt much more in US than it was in UK - when the news came through I was trying to get the news on TV, but none of the Canadian channels had deviated from their normal schedules and were showing the normal daytime crap. Whereas all the US channels - and we get quite a few local channels from pretty much all the states in West Coast and North-West - where all showing nothing but news of the "London Terror Attacks" (and Canadian channels called them "London Attacks" in their scheduled news). LA was set to state of high security although they admitted they had no evidence to support it.

But the terrorists chose the wrong target. If you want to cause hysteria, US is a good place - Brits, especially in London, are not as easy targets. London emergency services have been practicing this not only for the past four years since 9/11 but for the past 30 years with IRA, and if you want to go further back than that, London has been under attack quite a few times in the last two thousand years. People of London have suffered though the Blitz and through IRA years - yes, a new attack is always going to be a shock, but it's nothing they can't deal with. London was up and running the next day, and back to pretty much normal in couple of days after that.

Brits are stubborn and proud people, always have been. They handle these kind of issues with dignity - they might not take very well to newfangled things like Mad Cow Decease or Euro, but if it's an enemy attacking you - no problem, after all the ancestors in Agincourt did it. I'm not trying to be flippant about it, I really belive that Brits have that stoic resolve and courage about them that not many nations seem to have these days, and that I'm really proud of them.

No matter what they do, UK wont let them win this war on intimidation. Good for them.

Goal achieved

I finally reached my modest yogathon fundraising goal today. I have to say I'm slightly disappointed that it was funded entirely by my new work collegues - the readers of this blog must not take me seriously or are just lazy, because I know they're not poor. In the beginning I was thinking about applying the ransom publish model for blogging by stating that I wouldn't blog about the event unless money started pouring in... but then it did, so it would have be kind of pointless - shame, I congratulated myself for the idea. (But if you're feeling guilty, it's not too late. It's a good cause.)

Practiced with Kathy again today (as she was standing in for Jason), and although I have to say I'm starting to like her, I don't like her teaching style. It's difficult to put down why - but I think it's because her classes don't flow. I don't know the secret to this (yet) but somehow ashtanga vinyasa style classes need to have a certain flow so that they make sense - if you do too many asanas without vinyasas the flow stops and body cools down. That's why in primary series and classical ashtanga a vinyasa always separates asanas - it makes sense, it works and it feels good. Certain asanas and vinyasas go together well, others don't - I need to mull on this idea more, but I'm sure I'm on the right track.

So practice was ok - it was peaceful and wholesome - but it wasn't great and although my breath was good this time, I didn't get hot. Except savasana, that was heavenly.

Next week I've decided to put the alarm back 15 minutes, and start meditating in the morning before I get to work. Morning is a good time to meditate, and I feel that if I don't do it in the morning I can't find time to do later either, evenings are so irregular and hectic. I get just about enough yoga, but I don't get enough meditation and I feel I'm going to benefit from it. For the past week or so I've been thinking about Buddha's words:

Finger points at the moon. Don't look at the finger. Look at the moon.

What Buddha means that you should always keep the goal in mind and not get too attached to pedantics. Finger is the Bible or the Koran, and instead of looking at the moon people keep looking at the finger and debating that. I've suddenly started seeing yoga in the same way - yoga is the finger pointing at inner peace, and I should look at the moon more. And thinking about it this way has made my practice better.

Getting there

I've slowly started to feel more comfortable with my job. Or maybe not the job, but the workplace - starting to slowly get familiar with the collegues and the company. This week work-wise has been slow, we've been waiting for developers and I've been learning to play Texas Hold'em poker. Very interesting game, and I can definetly see why people sell their houses and leave their families for the thrills.

I'm still looking how my time table turns out - trying to fit in yoga, meditation, healty eating and work takes probably more time than I have awake. I'm thinking yoga three times a week, meditation and Buddhism class on Wednesdays and cooking on other days (and I seem to count that as a hobby nowadays). It takes a lot but at the moment it would seem a bigger loss to give up any of those... we'll see how it turns out. I'd also hope that Dragon could take up some of the other housekeeping duties - but at least at the moment it's not possible, he hardly even sleeps here.

The summer has finally arrived to Vancouver - the weather is hot and I feel so incredibly lucky living in this city. I walk to work every morning through the Sunset Beach where the geese are just starting to wake up. It's usually calm and quiet, and sun is just starting to come up, just me and couple of other early birds on our way to work, or just walking the dog. I take the little ferry from the beach to Granville Island which is just starting to wake up when I walk through it.

Today after work I did my grocery shopping at the market and then walked back home too - in a sunny evening like today the beach is full of people. Vancouverites love the outdoors and use all the opportunities to get some sun: people walking, jogging, rollerblading, skating, playing volleyball, with their friends, dogs or just alone. Everyone seems to be at English Bay - I was grinning to myself like mad when the waves broke against the seawall spraying me with some refreshing water. I love my life.

Sankarit by Johanna Sinisalo

I’ve been a lousy reader this year. You’d think that I’d read more when I wasn’t working – and I intended to, but it just didn’t happen. Now that I’ve started working, I’ve also started reading more – go figure. So yesterday I finally finished Sankarit by Johanna Sinisalo I’ve been reading for months, and it’s really not the book’s fault.

This is actually quite a funny and clever book, but not one that would ever open up to anyone who’s never lived in Finland. Sinisalo re-writes Kalevala, the Finnish national epic (compiled from folk songs and poems – you can find an English translation here) – firstly you have to be familiar with the epic, and secondly she writes about Finns in a very Finnish way that probably wouldn’t make much sense to anyone else.

That being said, for me this was pure fun. Sinisalo’s style is mixture of fantasy and sci-fi, and figuring out what character in Sankarit corresponded to what character in Kalevala, guessing how Sinisalo would work the plot and how to change it to fit modern day Finland is entertaining. Some characters were easier than others – personally I wasn’t that fond of Rex (Juha K. Kuningas) as Väinämöinen, the shamanistic hero with magical power of song transformed to a rock star. My favourite is probably Mahti Karjalainen who is the modern day Lemminkäinen – he is a trickster who loves to please the crowds but lets his testosterone do the thinking which leads him to all sort of trouble.

Unfortunately in a way the clever bit of the book is also its downfall – the fact that you know what’s going to happen starts to lose it’s glamour at some point. I think some stories could have left out – like Kullervo, no matter how delicious that story is it served no purpose in the book. In fact, Sankarit, 150 pages shorter would have been a full 5 star book – the idea in itself doesn’t quite carry it far enough to justify the “epic” length.

R.I.P. James Doohan

Sadly, though not unexpectedly, James Doohan of Star Trek fame has passed away at 85. He suffered for a long time with pneumonia and Alzheimer's disease and died with his wife by his side.

Funnily enough one of my fondest memory of him is a recent dream - I met him in a park, and he was happy and well and sat next to him leaning on his shoulder and we chatted. I remember feeling so happy when I woke up because I knew in reality he was very ill, but at least he had been happy and free of pain in my dream. Silly, I know, but it comforted me.

He will be missed.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling

Sunday was the most beautiful hot summer’s day, so I decided to stay inside and read the new Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I liked this book, quite a lot – I think it’s the best book since Prisoner of Azkaban. Goblet of Fire never opened to me, and I though Order of Phoenix was just ok – here I think we get back to the basics, even if it means (and maybe because) leaving out more elaborate b-plots.

Couple of things I’d like to mention and speculate about. So under no circumstances read forward if you want to avoid spoilers.

First of all, Severus Snape. I don’t believe he’s a traitor. I think this is all a big plot to get him where he needs to be (close to Voldemort), and I think everyone needs to believe that so that’s the reason Harry wasn’t told about it. I think Dumbledore knew that to gain Voldemort’s trust Snape had to go to extraordinary lengths, and was willing to sacrifice himself for it. You remember Snape arguing with Dumbledore and saying that he was asking too much of him – I bet that conversation referred to killing him, and so did Dumbledore begging for it right in the end. And the reason Dumbledore can trust Snape so implicitly must be an Unbreakable Vow – I don’t trust Snape’s character enough to think that he would have some kind of unselfish reason behind it, at least I can’t think of any. [Unless… something to do with Harry’s mother perhaps? He promised her, or something?]

Then, death of Albus Dumbledore. I think this one has been rumored and once it became quite quickly clear that Draco’s task was not to kill Harry, I knew it must have been Dumbledore. I couldn’t figure out who Draco was supposed to get this done however, but the ending was quite good and logical. I’m still a bit puzzled about Dumbledore acting the way he did – he honestly had a death wish and I still don’t really get that.

Horcruxes – very cool idea. Personally my favorite theory is that Harry himself is one of them, what else would be a better trophy for killing Lily and James. Would also explain why Voldemort has told Death Eaters not to kill Harry, and why the prophecy says that one can’t live without the other. It makes perfect sense – think why else Harry has been able to see Voldemort’s thoughts and such? This would of course mean that Harry needs to die in the end, and that’s my only doubt – for now I had always kind of assumed that he would live.

Half-Blood Prince – that took me by surprise. I thought he would be someone we didn’t know although had a connection with, but then looking back it seems kind of obvious – lets see know who’s the person who’s a wizard in potions (pardon the pun)… But I love how Rowling does that: she gives you enough information so that it’s possible to at least make you suspicious, but you (or I) rarely do. The potions book is also a testament to Snape’s character – that he started out good, but turned bad for some reason that’s not entirely clear to me yet (but will be, I’m sure).

And the teenage love – very well done. Teenagers are just as stupid as that, and I liked the fact that Rowling didn’t try to artificially prolong it either which was a temptation I’m sure. But at this point they were smart enough to figure out what love and crush meant, and what "that funny feeling inside" was all about, I would have hated it if they’d been too naive. Next book, there will be sex! Bookmakers William Hill give 1/1 odds to Harry marrying in the next book – while personally I don’t think that’ll happen, I do think he’ll get it on with Ginny.

All in all, very substantial book, and a very satisfying read. Can’t wait for the next one.

Centerfold

Another white - this is cream and not pure white like the previous one. I think I prefer the Snowstorm, but only when they are together - I think this would work better alone.

Little yellow pill

Behold, the last yellow pill.

From now on, I'm officially off Paxil. Don't get me wrong, I don't and I didn't hate the medication. When I got it, it was absolutely imprative and I wouldn't have been able to cope without it. It made me happy and content, and helped me to get back on track with my life. In a way it probably made the spiritual journey I've now started possible, as it brought me calm I've never experienced in my life before.

It doesn't mean either that I'm not happy to be off it. I am, and I feel good - I feel I'm able to cope and I feel happy. Maybe not as calm as before, but I can deal with it because of lessons I learned while on it.

I hope I'll never ever have to take it again - but then again I'm happy that the option is there should I need it.

Snowstorm

First of the whites opened today, and it's indeed a snowstorm in the middle of the most beautiful July day. Breathtakingly white.

Sponsor me for yogathon

I decided to take part in the annual Yogathon here in Canada, and I'll be doing 108 sun salutations in the Plaza of Nations with other Vancouver yogis next Sunday. The event is raising money for Camp Moomba which is organised by The Western Canadian Pediatric AIDS Society (WCPAS) - they committed to helping children living with or affected by HIV/AIDS through the provision of recreational, social, educational, and support programs.

If you're feeling generous, please dig up your credit card, and sponsor me.

La Center

Probably bloomed yesterday, but I don't open the curtains in the morning when I wake up so I don't disturb Dragon, and Dragon doesn't believe in opening curtains. I like this - it's very bright yellow with very curved petals, and very cheery. Makes me happy.

Over and starting over

First working week is finally over, and feels like it lasted forever. I'm relatively comfortable there - I'm going to be doing another project next week so this week's issues should be history. I'm looking forward to the weekend and relaxing, doing a bit of shopping maybe as I got payed today for the first time in nine months.

I also managed to get to yoga, and had a long chat with Jason afterwards about the teacher training. I told him about my apprehension regarding my wrist injury (or wrists, as it seems to be at the moment) and if that was going to prevent me from becoming a yoga teacher. He said pretty much what I had already thought myself, that my injury actually probably will give me insight to yoga that someone who's never suffered any setbacks won't have. I knew that really, but it was really important to me that he said it to me too. We had a chat about the training (and it's definetly now happening in November) and life, and I feel very comfortable about my decision now.

Slowly forward

Work is a pain. This is the problem when I'm coming to the project on it's last meters - I don't have the knowledge to do the more complicated tests, and the more simple ones are done quickly so I spend lot of time idling. It'll get better in time, I know, it's just a bit frustrating in the beginning. I spoke with Vlad today, one of my Russian collegues, and he said that he had originally very difficult to find a job in Vancouver because "he didn't have enough Canadian experience" - while I find this kind of attitude from employers quite offensive, I'm kind of glad that my theory regarding why job hunting was so difficult for me validated (and that it probably wasn't me). You know, in some countries it would be considered a definite advantage of having worked in another country.

Today I decided to skip yoga as I was far too tired, and while I missed going, I feel better now: not as completely wiped out. So we had a nice evening with Dragon eating cherries, watching wrestling and strongman competitions, and I played around with Comic Life and created the most stupid comic ever - and consider it a favour that I'm not sharing it with you. Once I'll have access to something else than photos of cheesecakes, I'll make something that might be worth sharing... But so far I can say that this program is every bit as fun as the claims say.

I've been thinking a lot about yesterday's meditation. Since I've come off the medication I've had to work a lot more to calm my inner chatter. My teacher says that your mind is like a little monkey, jumping from tree to tree looking for food - I find the desrciption very fitting as that's exactly what's happening inside my head. So letting go of all those thoughts going through my head near the speed of light is very difficult - but when it happens it's so rewarding. Yesterday during the contemplation on Loving Kindness my teacher asked me to let go of all the worries and doubts in my mind - and I just did it and the inner peace stayed with me well into today.

Those are the moments when I know I'm on the right path.

Married Dragon

As I look back to the last four years, I see huge changes in my life, dramatic moves from place to place, triumphs and despair at life, happiness and sorrow.

But where-ever and whenever I look into the past, one thing remains constant: bravely beating her wings to stay abreast with her man through good times and bad, is my wife. We've sometimes gone through stormier clouds and through greater distances than most, but we've stuck together.

Thank you for travelling with me kolibri, and being the closest person in the world for me. Here is to the next step in our journey together.

Happy anniversary

It's our fourth wedding anniversary today, but I've only now come home from my meditation class and I got a message from Dragon saying he would be late. So what I'd like to do is describe our wedding day - I wrote this piece back then when we didn't have a blog, but it's a good memory so I'l like to share it with you. And to clarify - for practical reasons we got married on a different day to our wedding reception.

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Friday morning (13th of July, 2001), despite staying up till 3 am on the previous night with my mum and my maiden of honor Chu doing embroidery on the napkins, I woke up before nine - maybe anxious about days events, or maybe just waiting to get Dragon back from his stag night. And he did arrive shortly after nine after being away for 24 hours doing... whatever it is that men do when they gather in these occasions... (We have photos - maybe I can convince Dragon to write about that some day.)

Day was going to busy - we had finished almost all the napkins, but we still had lots of other arrangements to do - so while Dragon went to bed after having slept only couple of hours, me and Chu went to see the make-up artist who was going to do my make-up the next day. After we got back it was my parent's turn to use the car and they went to buy most of the drinks for the reception (wines were going to be picked up on Saturday - since the shop could keep them cool).

After midday we got Dragon up, he drank some coffee, and we started to get ready to go to the magistrate. It was Chu's job to look after the ring until we'd meet bestman Esa at the magistrate, and she also looked after the marriage permission certificate (if you don't know what it is, you can read how difficult it was to get it). We had decided that no-one would have to wear anything special - I wore the blue dress I had bought for the occasion, Dragon wore a red shirt with and a Kalevala koru pendant. Chu was worried about wearing black, but I don't think anyone cared. We decided to leave early, and I didn't feel anxious at all - in the contrary I was very exited.

When we got to town, I noticed that no-one had brought a camera, although we had intended to. Almost immediately when we got ti the magistrate Dragon's mother and his brother (who had brought a camera!) arrived, then bestman Esa and Henri. Kristiina got in few minutes after we got in. We were asked to produce a marriage permission certificate, and fill in a paper where we would need signatures of two witnesses (Chu and Esa), which we did. Only afterwards did my mum tell me that she was so worried about the certificate being accepted that she couldn't bare to be in the same room when we showed it. Then we had to wait couple of minutes before we were called in.

The room took me by surprise - the Helsinki magistrate is very ugly building from the outside, and from the inside it looks very much like an office - but this room was beautiful. Paneled with light wood, some light curtains with a painting and a big table where there were two candles lit and the book of Finnish law between them. The man who was going to marry us was big solemn looking man wearing a dark blue suit - he came and shook our hands and asked us to put the ring on top of the book (Finnish Law). We were asked to stand in front of them, which we did - and then he broke the ice and said that this was a happy occasion and that we should stand close to each other! We both took a step closer - I guess before that we had been like just about the get detention or something... Dragon took my hand, I felt myself shaking.

He started to speak, and his first words were "Purpose of marriage is to start a family" and I (who four years ago found the idea unthinkable) felt like laughing - and wondered what would it look like if I suddenly started to laugh hysterically (I guess he's seen that happen). It passed though - and before I knew we where asked to say "I do" and Dragon put the ring in my finger - both of our hands were shaking visibly! Then we kissed, and Dragon's brother took some photos - and all the women in the party cried a bit. Then everyone came and congratulated us, everyone smiling from ear to ear.

Then the man continued, telling us that now that were married we should look after each other, and it was over. The whole ceremony took maybe ten minutes at most, and before we noticed we were standing outside again. We took couple of more photos, and me and Dragon (now man and wife!) my parents, Chu and Kristiina went to buy some more stationary that we'd need for next day. But when we got back home, and although we had planned to start working straight away, we just sat (or collapsed) down in the garden - the day was beautiful! - and when my mum suggested that we should open a bottle of bubbly, no-one could think of a reason to say no. We sipped the wine and talked for an hour or so - I can't really recall what we were talking about, except that we had a really nice time.

Then it was time to move on. Our toast master Jaakko had booked us a suite in a hotel in city center, and really wanted to get some rest before going out in the evening. So we left my parents with the final arrangements and took a taxi to the hotel. The hotel room was nice - we had some flowers waiting for us from a friend, and we got a little bit to eat as well. There was a bottle of champagne as well, but we didn't really feel like drinking any more. Instead, we just collapsed to bed, put an alarm on and fell a sleep.

We got up again just in time to have a shower and get to the restaurant. Most of our foreign friends had flown in that day, and Jaakko had arranged for us all to go out to eat in the Leningrad Cowboys restaurant. We got there just in time, only to find out that everyone else was going to be late. Except for Chu of course, who was keeping our seats warm, and Jaakko who was only slightly late. Well, everyone got there eventually - our foreign friends from UK and US, and Hakkis who was acting as a native guide.

Now for those who never went there, it's very difficult to explain what this restaurant is (was? is it still there?) like. I mean, in how many restaurants can you be seated under (yes, under - it was hanging in the ceiling) a statue of Lenin, and eat "Back In The U.S.S.R. Salad" or "Volga Boatman Perestroika" for starters, "Mixed Grill Fish Revolution" or "Pravda Tandori Chicken" for main course and "Kalinka Ice Cream" for dessert? I guess you kind of have go there to see what I mean.

Anyway, we had a really nice time, and we were very happy to see our friends to mix together quite well - we had been afraid that our different friends - firstly my friends from emo, and secondly Dragon's old friends from GW, and thirdly... well, to be honest we really weren't worried about Josh and Sarah... - wouldn't have anything common. We were happy to be proven wrong.

We left relatively early to get ready for yet another big day, and our friends stayed in the bar drinking chocolate vodka (of course the restaurant had a wide selection of vodkas). Although I had set the sauna ready for us when we'd come back, we went straight to bed.

---

It's been (mostly) good four years. Hope to do many many more.

Nice things

Nice things happened today.

Firstly, I'm more at home at work. I brought in my lucky Xena mug, and when I was reading my emails Roman came and said that if I needed any help with my test cases, he's be happy to help. Small thing, but it made me feel really good. Then Karen from HR came and to my delight told me I would get paid on Friday! In UK this would never ever happen as cut-off dates for salaries are typically at least two weeks away - granted it won't be much for weeks work, but here it's the principle that counts. Then in the afternoon I found my first bug - well, I'd found several others earlier but nothing no one else had discovered - but this was my very own. So maybe I haven't lost my magic touch.

Then I dragged myself to yoga for the first time over a week, and had a fantastic practice. Most of the time my thoughts were squarely on the practice and feel my practice is going to be even more important for me now that I have a desk job again. I'm totally beat now - tt makes me wonder how on earth did I have the energy to work, commute and practice last time?

Last nice thing I'm expecting to happen is Dragon cooking the dinner. He's playing Dynasty Warriors 5 though, so it might be a while...

Fitting clothes

Here's another thing I'd like to complain. One of the reasons we went for shopping on Saturday is that I wanted to buy some more "work suitable" clothes as most of my current wardrobe is probably a bit too sexy and summery. However, it seems that my body type is different to Vancouverites' average body - I've never thought of myself as particulary large breasted, but it seems that here I am indeed that. I don't know if it's the Asian population that makes the difference here - but I'm having difficulties finding shirts that fit properly in both waist and chest. I found this one really nice brown frilly shirt with pink flowers (and it looks much better than it sounds, believe me) - small was perfect size on my waist but buttons didn't close properly upstairs. So I went for a medium which looked fine in the shop, if a bit loose on the waist.

Today I found out that medium is too small for me too - the buttons seem fine when I was standing up, but sitting down moves the fabric so that the middle button (and I mean middle of my chest) will easily come undone. And that stragic button indeed unbuttoned itself several times during the day - quite fast I learned to hold on to it when I was standing up.

So need to work on the wardrobe too in the future. Damn.

Aftermath

So, I went to work today. In fact, I left twice - as it was raining I couldn't walk, so I wanted to buy a faresaver ticket book for the bus ride - only none of the shops selling them were open at 8m (bastards). Then I had to go back home to get the exact fare the busses require before I could set off properly.

And I did learn something new today - previously I knew absolutely nothing about horse racing, and now I understand the secret language and can bet with the best of them (well, in theory anyway). You know, go to the teller and say "Abracadabra, $1 Trifecta Key on 1 with 2-3-4" and pay your $6. Kind of cool.

Otherwise - just getting to know the product, in and out. I was told that I was thrown to the deep end with this project, but so far it's not too bad and nothing I can't handle. I had sushi for lunch - these people don't seem to be that social and the custom seems to be that everyone eats by themselves. There are tons of good places to eat around here though, so it'll take a while before I've canvased them all.

I'm just thoroughly exhausted and sweaty and dirty now, and I think I'll need a shower followed by a good meal and some sleep. I don't know - feeling a bit melancholy, maybe I was expecting too much from my first day. Or maybe it's just that I got used to the exeptionally good athmosphere at my previous job that I'm expecting miracles now. Giving it time.

Guess what

I'm off to work. Eek.

It's a racoon

My wish to see a racoon has finally come true. We were on a peaceful Sunday afternoon walk (as is custom on a pretty day in Vancouver), and were just coming to Lost Lagoon in Stanley Park, when this little critter found us.

Racoons are normally nocturnal creatures, but I think someone has been feeding this one as once it saw us, it came straight to us. I was just putting my sunglasses on, and my camera was in my bag - so the prime time to take a photo of it's cute face passed there and then. We gave way - it didn't look overly friendly, and besides racoons and known carriers of rabies. Two girls with a baby watching birds behind us felt the same and retreated - the racoon didn't seem to mind the comotion it caused the least. It then proceeded to take a little drink, and then it swam to the other side. We stayed around for a bit to watch the swan abuse silly tourists, and the racoon appeared again - doing pretty much the same as before.

Ah Saturday

Spending my last free days as I please. Sleeping unusually late - as I stayed up unusually late talking to Chu - eating breakfast together and then heading to town to do some shopping. As planned, I bought some shoes: first a pair was Josef Seibel's "European comfort shoes", a pair of extremely comfortable red leather mules. Second pair was from John Fluevog, a Vancouverite shoe company - they make extremely innovative and sometimes outright strange shoes.

Then it was back home to the couch to watch the rest of the Fullmetal Alchemist, as the final DVD arrived at last. The last eight episodes were as good as the rest of the series, and even offered some unexpected surprises. Only the subs in the last episode were atrocious, and I mean absolutely unbelievably bad. Not only was the English almost totally incomprehensible, this guy hadn't even bothered to check even the names of the central characters - instead he had tried to guess the names and ended up getting every single one increbily wrong (like "Anne" instead "Al" jeez!). I then downloaded the episode with fan-subs and we watched it again, this time getting some sense out of it. But I'll let the fanboy write more about the series later.

Renoir

Behind the huge Royal River hybrid lilies, I found this shy little one - the Renoir lily in bloom. I have to say I'm slightly disappointed with my pink choices - they are nice and all, but not stunning as I was hoping. The pink in this one is cute though, with a shade of purple.

It's done

Well, I've signed the contract now and I'm officially going to be starting on Monday. My mood goes from extreme joy to panic, but it'll settle down.

I really appreciate everyone's comments, they've made the decision easier. My first reaction was like hfb - is it the same as working for a gun factory and claiming wide-eyed that it's not my fault if somebody gets killed? I like Mikki's version better though, and more accurate - it's a product that's meant to be fun (unlike guns, no matter what Charles Heston says) but some people just can't handle it.

Gambling is not something I know a lot about - it's never been of interest to me so I've never had to find out. So yesterday I did some research on the subject. There have been many studies made about the effects of gambling (although not that many objective ones - most of them have been sponsored by casinos, and we all know what that means), and it's undeniable that it's generally bad news.

According to John Warren Kindt, Professor of Law at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, an increase in the population of compulsive gamblers can be devastating. Every compulsive gambler impacts between seven and seventeen other people. Compulsive gamblers are a drain on society in a number of respects. The mean gambling debt of compulsive gamblers is $52,000 to $92,000. A study by Gambler's Anonymous found that 47% of compulsive gamblers had engaged in insurance related fraud or thefts where insurance companies had to pay the victims. In fact, 40% of white collar crime is thought to be caused by those with serious gambling problems. Crime in general seems to go hand-in-hand with gambling. Within three years after gambling was introduced to Atlantic City, the city experienced a tripling of total crime, rocketing from 50th to 1st in crime rate per capita. Similarly, the state attorney's office in Deadwood, South Dakota indicated that within two years after legalizing casino gambling, child abuse cases increased approximately 42%, domestic violence increased 80%, and burglaries and the writing of bad checks increased; overall, the town experienced a 50% increase in felonies and an 80-100% increase in law enforcement and police costs. Health care costs may also be affected by an increase in compulsive gambling, since compulsive gamblers are likely to have alcohol problems, and have a suicide rate 5-10 times higher than other Americans. The costs to society of rehabilitating compulsive gamblers, if it so chose, would amount to $17,000 to $42,000 per person. In all, the national price tag for compulsive gambling is currently estimated at $56 billion per year.

Not exactly what I wanted to hear, but still it's better to go in eyes open.

On the other hand, it doesn't need to be that way. Although in traditional bricks-and-mortar casinos organised crime often follows, on-line gambling suffers from this a lot less. While to start up a traditional casino costs somewhere around $300 million and will employ thousands of people, an on-line casino can be started up with only about $1.5 million and employ under 20 people - so mafia's traditional ways of getting a piece of the action don't apply. Player experience is often nicer too - you can relax at the comfort of your own home, and in theory you can have your "Gambling for Dummies" with you for guidance or you can rely on strategy charts which wouldn't be possible in a real casino. One could say that as long as you play sensibly - and it's possible - winning can be easier.

Proper reputable casions will always tell you the odds and payout rates for their games, they will let you try the games free and provide 24h good customer service. They will tell you where they are licensed, who's behind the operation, and what their game rules and cash policies are. As with every other business on the net, there are dodgy ones - as as with every other business, with little research they can be avoided.

So. I think I know what I'm doing, and I'm comfortable with it.

I must be dreaming

Well blow me down. I have an interview in an hour.

Yes. Another one. What is this, April Fools Day?

First nothing for months, then all at the same time.

And get this, before I had even reached home from the first one, I was made an offer. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Here's what you do when you have an hour before an unexpected interview. First, you blog about it. Then you chat with your friends that happen to be on-line about it. Then you start frantically looking for suitable clothes, try out three outfits before deciding to change once more a minute before you're out of the door. You fix your only interview-able shoes with a bubble gum as the heel is about to fall off (note to self: buy more shoes). You notice you don't have enough cash on you for a taxi, so you need to go and get some. While on your way to the cash point your heel falls off so you decide to go and buy some superglue. There is a long queue in the shop, and in the phone while trying to get a taxi. While waiting for the taxi you perform a complicated one-leg one-hand operation and glue your heel back on. In the taxi you perform another complicated manouver while trying to get the tube of glue back to it's box without glueing yourself or the taxi to anything. You spend the rest of the journey trying to get the superglue off your fingers. You arrive three minutes before the interview is to start.

Interview was good, the company looks really nice. You always know it's a good sign when most of the people have been working there for years - they actively want to stay there for a reason. Guys who interviewed me were nice, the office was nice. They liked me, and when asked the QA manager said that I was in the "top two" of the candidates they've interviewed (and the last one). He said that he wanted to check my references - although he admitted he knew I wouldn't give him bad ones - and would want to get me in for another interview on Monday, one with a technical test. I got the grand tour - I can see my house from their window - and we shook hands and I left.

I was playing with an idea of getting a bus, but decided to try how long it would take to walk home. The place is about ten minutes walk from Granville Island and I was home under 45 minutes which is nice.

But about two minutes before I was home, my mobile rang. It was the QA mangager saying that he just spoke to the other two guys that inverviewed me and they had just put me on the top of the list - and that he wanted to make an offer immediately, as he's of the school of thought that believes in immediate action - he thought I was the best candite and he didn't think anything would change that.

There's a catch though. The company's business is in a morally questionable area - on-line gambling. I've personally never thought about gambling that much - it's never appealed to me, nor has it ever had an impact (positive or negative) on me or my family or friends. But it is something that's commonly considered to make a lot of people very unhappy. In many places it's illegal (I learned that it's illegal to host gambling servers in North America). Most of spams on this blog are from on-line gambling sites.

Where to draw the line, then? This company is a pure development house - nothing to do with hosting and running the services. They are owned by a big reputable company in UK. Is that big enough separation? This is too difficult. For once I hate the fact that right now I can't talk to anyone whose opinion I respect about this, it's 2am in Finland and I don't know how to get hold of Dragon in California.

Interview

Well blow me down. I've got an interview in an hour.

Where did I put that suit?

Unpleasantness

Last week I booked myself an appointment with a dentist. I've been a really bad girl, as my last appointment was well over two years ago when we still lived in Bishop's Stortford - when we moved to Southsea I just never got around to getting a new dentist. So although I haven't had problems as such (I mean, that little pain now and again, that's perfectly normal, right? right?) I've had a nagging feeling I should go and have my teeth checked, just to be on the safe side.

So I was in the shower this morning when the thought occurred to me that I had something I needed to do today - when I realised that I had a dentist this morning. I ran out of the shower dripping water everywhere to check the time: and it was 10:30, the time of my appointment! So more dripping I grabbed the phone and called the dentist begging for forgiveness and asking if I could come in ten minutes late - which was ok, so I very quickly dried myself off and ran out of the door.

I'm not afraid of the dentist, as such, but it can be very unpleasant. Dr. Huang was very nice, but she had some nasty business to do in my mouth - even so, this must have been the most thorough check-up I've ever had. In UK I've tried two kinds: NHS is just a joke, I don't even think the poor overworked dentists do preventative check-ups, they just treat the immediate issues (and even with that I don't have such good experiences). Then there are the private dentists - they can be nice too, but because many peeople pay for their own dental care they don't overdo it, as prices are high as they are.

Well, Dr. Huang checked my teeth with a magnifying class, back and front and between, and did a full set of x-rays too. Then I got a very unpleasant cleaning - two and a half years... so I've got myself to blame, really - and a polish. Everything lasted for over an hour - and had a bill to match, oh yeah, but our insurance covers most of it so I don't care. Bad news is that I have quite a few small cavities that need to be fixed, but the good news is that I got a new appointment for Friday. I need to put some kind of an alarm for that, otherwise I'll miss it too.

My mouth feels sore, but very clean. This is just one of those necessary evils...

These are the voyages...

Today has been a pretty miserable day, I've been feeling very down. I ended up talking Chu (because that's normally guarateed to cheer me up), but that was cut short - first because we had once again mysterious problem with Skype, and then permanently because my internet connection terminated itself, once again. (Then it started raining and I ran out of toilet paper - but that's another story.) I spent rest of the afternoon trying to find a solution to the Skype problem - that might, or might not be something to do with my new router, and rest of the evening watching the last five episodes of Enterprise I've been putting off watching.

For four years I've had a love hate relationship with this series. I wanted to love it because - well, most obviously, because it's Star Trek - but also because the time period it took place in, and the huge potential it carried. Although the series slowly got better during the four years, it wasn't until very final episodes it got brilliant, and that my friends, is a crying shame.

But let's talk about the fourth season. This entry contains spoilers and whining, and some shippyness and fangirlishness. If you can't take it, look away now.

The season opened with awful alternative universe Nazi storyline that really should have been better left unfilmed. Now as you might know, I'm a huge fan of time travel - and most of Enterprise's use of time travel was ok in my books - but this was just one of those silly things. I mean surely there would be some better way of changing the future of Federation than letting Nazies invade US - the real motivations behind the episode seemed to be more about driving some xenofobic fear into the good folks of US of A by scaring them off by evil aliens taking control of the White House.

Then there was the "we're losing ratings, oh my God, let's bring in someone from TNG" episode arc with Dr. Arik Soong played by Brent Spiner - who was of course playing Data's future 'ancestor' and laying ground ripping off Space Seed. Despite the dishonest roots for this three episode story arc, it actually worked really well. We got to see Orion's Pirates - very cool, especially the one played by Big Show - and Brent Spiner was pretty damn fantastic. At least they weren't directly ripping off storylines and contradicting written history in these episodes, and story of the augments was actually quite touching.

But instead of doing something on their own next, they wanted to continue living on the edge and continue pillaging existing Star Trek history - this time taking the story to Vulcan. And this of course meant touching one of TOS' most memorable and loved character, T'Pau. There are billions of Vulcans, and possibilities are endless, so why did they have to go and ruin the character by making her a rebel - when she so obviously wasn't that in Amok Time - "oh yeah wouldn't it be funny if she had been a rebel when she was young". Well, no. It wouldn't. And to top that, they wanted to go further than no one had ever thought necessery by taking a concept of katra - that no one would hear of for the next 150 years - and take the father of Vulcan, Surak, and then put his katra into Archer's head. Just a huge gimmick with an intention to wet old-school Trekkies' pants but achieving quite the opposite.

This was the point we stopped watching back when the series was on. I continued saving the episodes with the intention of getting back to them once I could stomach it again.

But after the bad start, things got better. Followed a clever episode Observer Effect where Enterprise, observed by two alien,s is put through a cruel social experiment. Followed by another three episode story arc - this time about relationships between Andorians and Tellarites, with some Romulans put into the mix. Best thing about the Babel-story arc was without a doubt the wonderful Jeffrey Combs playing Shren, whose chemistry with born-to-play-Starfleet-captain Scott Bakula's Archer was just a joy to watch. Despite intial fears about the title, Babel was left alone, Andorians and Tellarites were left enemies and Romulan plot was not revealed, all in quite a smart and believable way.

I started getting my hopes back, and was immediately rewarded with another storyline that - again despite the fears - managed to touch quite a sensitive issue in Star Trek history, the appearance of Klingons, in a fairly clever way at that. Although I always loved Worf's "We don't talk about it"-explanation, I always suspected that in reality they wouldn't be able to come up with a reasonble excuse even if they tried. But in the next two episode Klingon-story arc they did just that - not everyone will agree, but I think the explanation, and the reason why they don't talk about it was as close to a good explanation you come up with.

Even the last filler episode Bound with more Orion Pirates was good solid, entertaining and superbly acted episode, that also continued developing the beautiful relationship between Trip and T'Pol.

And then. The most brilliant Enterprise episodes made, ones that made it all worth waiting for: In a Mirror, Darkly two-parter.

Now the original Mirror, Mirror episode must be one of the most important sci-fi TV episodes ever made. This is the mother of all alternative universe stories, and any TOS fan you ask will list this as one of their favourites. Who can forget the Mirror Spock and his beard, or Kirk with Captain's woman Marlena Moreau. The savage Mirror Enterprise where assasination was the only way to go up the ranks and where torture was part of normal routine - and how Kirk in the end manages to convince Mirror Spock that the Empire is illogical.

So imagine my apprehension when I heard that Enterprise was going to sink it's vampire teeth into the Mirror-universe.

But for once, worrying wasn't necessery as they did it just as it should be done. Not ripping off the concept, but paying homage to it. The intro for the first episode is pure gold: it's the end of First Contact where the first Vulcan ship is landing on Earth and is greeted by Zefram Cochrane - and then getting shot by him. Roll on the theme tune - only it's not the jolly country and western song we've all come to hate, but a sinister march accompanied by just as sinister images about the alternative universe and it's development towards warp drive.

Oh yes, this is a Mirror episode - a pure Mirror episode - without a single of our regular heroes: instead we follow the violent life on board the Mirror Enterprise. Captain Forrester is just inspecting Mengele-like Dr. Phlox's newest invention: the torture booth, with a a very power hungry commander Archer in tow. This time Hoshi is the captain's woman - Linda Park gives her best ever performance - and mirrors (pardon the pun) beautifully Marlena's speech to Kirk. Archer has a plan to get rid of Forrester and even better, a plan to become the Emperor himself - this is all going to be done with a help of a ship that Tholians have pulled not only from a paraller universe, but from hundred years to the future in that universe.

We are of course, talking about U.S.S. Defiant (Enterprise's sister ship) that will get lost in Tholian space in Tholian Web. We get it all - brilliant execution of Tholians' web deployment that actually makes sense and looks good, we get to be back on the Constitution-class starship with all it's wacky and wonderful gadgets, and we even get some glimpses of the old uniforms. And most of all - the episodes are not significant - they are not crucial part of some future piece of history or an forced explanation on why something would be the way it is now, or leave us groaning because we can't see how this piece of information would not be affecting the future as we know it. It's part of a parallel history and nothing to do with us, and I love it.

Nothing can possible top that, but the last two episodes before the finale gave a run for Mirror's money. In a very Babylon 5-style storyline our brave crew fights to rescue an unexpected baby from the clutches of an evil xenophobe who threatens to drive all the aliens from earth and destroy Starfleet HQ in the process.

What comes to endings... I have very mixed feelings about These Are the Voyages... - I love a happy ending, but this most certainly didn't give me that. I was most certain that after the penultimate episode climax Trip and T'Pol would end up together - and was deeply disappointed that it didn't happen, and even more disappointed that they killed off Trip in such a senseless way. On the other hand I started immediately blubbing when I saw Riker on Enterprise's bridge and absolutely loved the retrospective look on the final episode events.

The backdrop to the final episode is actually TNG's episode The Pegasus where Riker is pondering on the nature of Federation and responsibilities to captains past and present. Councellor Troi suggests that he have a look at the holonovel of first Enterprise's final mission and forming of the alliance that would later go on to become the Federation.

Enteprise NX-01 is on it's way back to Earth, after 10 years on the mission. Archer is to take part in the forming of a new alliance and is preparing a speech for it - other crew members think about their futures and new assignments after Enterprise is taken off the active duty. After a request from Shren to save his daughter that former associated who have kidnapped her, our heroes decide to embark on a last quest for old times sake.

It's funny - in the beginning of the series, Trip was my least favourite character - and my opinions very much reflect his crewmates talking about him to the chef. Connor Trinneer made him alive in a way that's very rare to see in TV - but it's his relationship with T'Pol that got the best of me. I know in the beginning they tried to put some sexual tension between Archer and T'Pol but that just never worked - Archer was far too correct and decent to get into it. But Trip in a very human way touched T'Pol, in a way even she didn't think was possible, and after much backing and forthing they should have ended up together. They so should have.

And it's not that Trip died that made me hurt - but the fact that T'Pol didn't hurt, and she didn't hurt because the intimacy was long gone, for a reason we don't know. Was it that they couldn't get over the Elizabeth's death, or that Trip couldn't stand T'Pol's distance anymore, or that T'Pol didn't know how to break it? I always needed to believe they would make it work.

So, mixed feelings in the end. Any other franchise than Star Trek, and the series would have never made it past the first season. On the other hand, it did continue to improve - and I hated to lose it at a point it was finally starting to achieve it's potential. Somehow it left me hungry for more - not necessarily hungry for more Enterprise, but more Star Trek.

And those who made it this far, thank's for reading. I had to get it off my chest.

Cancun

And first Cancun was blooming this morning. After Blackjack - that was the stunning dark beauty - this is my second favourite. Amazing colour.

Mail Order Dragon

YAY!

My Fullmetal Alchemist merchandise shipment arrived today, and now kolibri and I are wearing cool (if slightly oversized) FMA t-shirts. I also got FMA soudtrack (Already downloaded into my trusty ipod) and best of all, silver state alchemist pocket watch. I think I can really get used to the pocket watch, since I've never been able to hang on to any type of wrist watch for any length of time. The only fly in the ointment was the fact that my FMA art book did not arrive -it (like most of FMA merchandise) was sold out. Oh well, I will wait patiently.

Of course after looking at Square-Enix site for official FMA mechandise, I am already fighting with myself to stop ordering all that they have on offer.

Materialism will be the end of me.

Cutting down

Last time cutting down on my medication, and again I'm suffering from nasty side-effects. I'm feeling sad and lifeless on the couch, and out of breath and dizzy if I stand up. At this point I know that this feeling is pureyly chemical and will pass, but I hate it, and I hate the fact that Dragon has to leave for California right now. Sometimes I feel like it would have been easier to go cold turkey on the medication, but on the other hand I know that the effects would have been much much worse had I done that.

Dragon apparel

I've recently had a couple of queries about the gym clothes and accessories, so instead of writing several emails, I thought I'd blog this list.

Here is what I use in the gym and why:

Lifitng gloves: I use Harbringer Training Grip with wrist wraps. Lots of people say that gloves are for sissies. I say screw 'em. I need padding for my palms and support for my wrists. These cost a fortune, but they are worth every penny. Just because they last such a long time you end up saving money in the long run. These gloves fit, well, like a glove (a rare trait in weightlifting gloves I've found), they have excellent protective padding, and perfect wrist support, so you don't have to buy separate wrist supports. Only minus side is that you have to re-adjust them when you want to train your forearms.

Water bottle: Nike makes the best water bottles I know of. They don't spill water, can take a beating, and hold plenty of liquid. I fully understand those who do not want to give Nike their money -I'll try to find a more ethical choice myself.

Gym Bag: Under Armor. Separate compartment for shoes and water bottle, tons of space, internal bag for a towel, perfect size and shape, and the bag looks awesomely cool as well. Perfect 10.

Gym shirt: Under Armor. Brilliant fit, durable, looks cool, does not have an intrusive logo, absorbs sweat, and keeps the body cool in the summer and warm in the winter. Check out their excellent website. Just be careful -you might end up spending waaaaaaaaaay too much money. I'm gonna get my training pants from here as well in the future.

Weightlifting belt: Harbringer foam core. Has splendid support for back, and is practically eternal. What more can you ask? Check out their website. Though it is difficult to navigate, their products are of high quality.

Lifting straps: I use Gold's Gym cotton straps, though I am not picky. I just avoid leather ones as they stretch and can snap when using heavy weights, causing injuries.

I've included a picture of my latest acquisitions, namely the Under Armor shirt and Harbringer gloves.

Instead of a muscular hunk, a pencil-necked geek, i.e. Yours Truly is used as a fashion model in the picture. Apologies to our readers.

Royal River

Royal River, first one of the pinks is blooming, and that's including the one the one that was vandalised earlier this week. Not as pink as I was hoping - nevertheless beautiful.

Great indoors

Past two days we've finished with two tv-series we've been following, and this entry contains some spoilers to them.

Firstly yesterday we caught the end of Lost. I have to agree that this series is very good indeed, but still may not be the best thing since sliced bread. There were few quite clever tricks used - introducing the characters worked very well, until we got the Babylon 5-esque "No one here is exactly how they appear to be" (and that was even before Delenn appeared), so you start to anticipate it. So if this person appears to be nice, he/she must have something to hide, and if this person appears to be naughty, they therefore must have some redeeming qualities, and so on.

I wouldn't want to call the series predicable by any means - but most of the "mysteries" that could be guessed, not counting magical number and such, we collectively did guess. Like who poisoned who and what child needs to be kidnapped and so on. But that doesn't really bother me, as Lost not about that. It's actually a drama series where the characters and the interaction is what matters - and that is done so well. Good writing, excellent dialog and superb acting - what's there not to like.

Another series we haven't had the time to watch till the last episode is Dr. Who where we had the two last episodes left of the 27th season (just had to say that - it just sounds so great). And talk about superb acting - I would just like to state that Christopher Eccleston is GOD and I worship his divine shadow. And David Tennant can't possible fill his shoes, and I might not be able to watch the next season, and I hates him already.

Ahem. The fact that Billie Piper has been signed for the next season - and that thrid (or 29th - depending on how you look at it) has been commissioned - and a hope that we might see handsome Captain Jack again (cute John Barrowman) might keep me gagging for more. And talk about Jack - just got to love the character, and I think it's quite ironic that it's his kiss with the Doctor that I was looking forward to more (and the only one I could find a screenshot for!) than kiss with Rose that was just so... natural "I think you need a doctor" - very cute. Maybe I should start a "Save Jack" campaign?

Anyway. Bad Wolf is definetly my favourite of the funnier ones (and Empty Child and Doctor Dances for the scary ones - and Father's Day for the emotional ones, or maybe the Dalek - did I mention most of the episodes already?). Just think about it: 200,000 years and all we have on the telly is Weakest Link, Big Brother and What not to Wear - how scary is that. Very funny (especially for Brits I think), and I bet they had Anne Robinson, Davina McCall and Trinny and Susannah to do the voice-overs too.

And then The Parting of the Ways - not counting the ending and the appearance of the Doctor's 10th incarnation who I hate as he can't possibly be as good as Christopher Eccleston - this was a very good episode too. Enemy was evil and Christopher (you don't mind if I call you that, hon?) did his scenes with passion that would put anyone to shame. Loving it, and can't wait for Christmas and more goodies.

Armstrong

You know I really love Full Metal Alchemist.

Once again it has provided an answer to one of the great questions of life.

In movies and books, comics and TV, one question is repeated endlessly. It is debated in schools and on the streets, smoky bars and tall office buildings. You can hear it muttered in army barracks and fine restaurants from Africa to Asia, form Europe to America. It is eternally mulled over by soldiers and doctors, bakers and shoemakers. This question haunts lawyers and sportsmen, celebrities and housewives. Great generals and conquerors have pondered upon it at the moment of their greatest triumphs, and wisest of philosophers have agonized over it in the dark of night.

Everyone wants to know just one thing:

Who’s the man?

Well, there is no question about this any more, thanks to FMA.

Major Luis Alex Armstrong, the Strong-Armed Alchemist, is the man.

Test subject

MIT Weblog Survey. You know you want to.

Canada, eh?

Well, today is Canada Day, which basically means an independence day without the country being actually independent.

Canadians are fine people, and it's fine country. They are very patriotic - almost as much as Americans, but without being as serious about it as they are. They love the maple leaf flag and use the symbol everywhere and all the time. Today is one of those rare days when all the shops are closed and everyone is on holiday - yesterday reminded me quite a lot of Juhannus in Finland: everyone was shopping and going home with huge amounts of food and booze, and everyone was happy and relaxed. If you want a brief introduction to Canada and all things Canadian, check out Vancouver Sun's All about Canada flash animation, and be sure to have your speakers turned on to get the full experience.

When I said that everyone was on holiday, I didn't mean people who make games, of course. Dragon was working as his deadline is very close now - and I was thinking about going to Granville Island to have a look at some celebrations they had going on there. But then I spoke with my parents for an hour, took a shower, got addicted to a Zuma clone Luxor and chatted with Henri and... well, then it started raining. Dragon was of course too tired to go anywhere after he got home so I've been enjoing the athmosphere from the comfort of my own home.

I love Canada and I'm very happy that we got the opportunity to live here.