One of the great thrills of traveling used to be the different kinds of ice creams and candy you’d see outside your own country. Never have I eaten an ice cream as exciting and exotic as the Swedish popsicle with two wooden sticks instead of one I had in 1978 in Huddinge – a southern suburb of Stockholm, not far from the spot I landed in with my green Nike bag twenty years later.

In fact, I would go as far as to say that modern traveling makes us dumber. We’re not using our brains the way we used to, back in the, oh, 1980s.

Because we’re not forced to.

» Continued

Dear Hannes,

Last night after you’d fallen asleep, I had one of my hockey games again. We lost, which is never fun, but I scored a goal which is always fun, so all in all, it was more fun than not.

Skating is so much fun. When I was eight or nine, a little older than you now, I used to dream that it’d get so cold in Helsinki that all the streets would freeze over and I could skate to school. Skating was so much more fun that walking, or running. (For some reason, inlines don't do it for me).

But I did have to to walk to school and back. If I didn't walk with my best friend, I was always kicking pieces of snow and ice, and after school I’d play ball.

» Continued

Who came up with the ‘all you can eat’ concept? It’s a very dangerous one, that’s for sure, for two (obvious) reasons. First, there’s the financial aspect. The price is fixed so that just one portion of rolled salmon doesn’t seem to make any sense - especially since the buffet is all pizza. But even with all-you-can-eat-pizza, eating just one slice is madness, when the unit price of one slice is a fraction of the buffet.

So, the more you eat, the cheaper it gets.

(Or, as with my old company which arranged a ‘bonus lunch’, the more I ate, the bigger my bonus).

» Continued

Apparently, I suffer from some kind of an early winter blues. That’s not very unusual around here, and I am sure there are physiological reasons for that. The lack of sunlight, the lack of warmth, and then, at the other end of the spectrum, the lack of the cold, too, the cold that would make it a real winter, and give us snow which would make everything a little lighter again.

» Continued

In 1959, Paul Anka played at the Linnanmäki theme park in Helsinki, and the country went nuts. "Paul Anka at Linnanmäki" became a catch phrase to describe a wild and crazy herd of people. It was Beatlemania before there were the Beatles. He was a teen idol, a pop star in an era when there weren’t any.

At the same time, he was still rooted in a tradition that was different from the one that the Beatles and the Stones and the rest came from.

» Continued

Just like it’s difficult to keep up with the changes in a child growing up in front of our eyes, the world around us changes so slowly and fast at the same time that it’s hard to overlook how big some of the changes in the last 50 years have been. Fifty years is a long time for a person, but not for mankind.

Sometimes, Son and I play a game called, “Tell Me What Didn’t Exist When You Were Little, Dad”.

» Continued

You gotta hand it to ABBA. They wrote some pretty amazing songs back in the 1970s, songs that we still listen to - and love - here in 2009. I was listening to Mamma Mia this morning, thinking about this, and how Björn and Benny tapped into something universally human pool of emotions that still resonates with us.

» Continued

INT. ITALIAN GROCERY STORE - DAY. CHECK-OUT LINE NUMBER 7.

WIFE, SON, and DAUGHTER lift a lot of groceries from a basket onto the conveyer.

WIFE
Put that pasta on there, please, Daughter. Thanks, good job. And Son, don't pile all the stuff in one spot, OK?

WIFE, SON, and DAUGHTER keep adding groceries onto the belt.

WIFE
I wonder ... I wonder which side the bar codes should be. Oh, see, over here they have the bar code reader installed facing up, in the same place where we at home have the scale, so we should probably turn the groceries so that the bar codes are facing down, OK, Son?
Husband, can you give me that divider bar so that that lovely and picturesque Italian couple - don't look now, but he looks just like Rocky's brother-in-law - behind us can put their stuff on the belt.

HUSBAND
Here.

WIFE
No, wait, the bar code reader is where it is at home, so everybody, turn the groceries over so the bar code faces us.

INT. ITALIAN GROCERY STORE - DAY. CHECK-OUT LINE 6:

» Continued

Apparently, all signs in the economists’ magic 8-balls point to recovery and it looks like we missed Great Depression: The Sequel, after all. But for somebody who remembers the recession in the early 1990s, the past year has been an unwelcome flashback.

» Continued

Quite recently, there was an interesting - and comforting - article about parenting in the local paper. The one thing that stuck to my mind about it was that some research expert - probably a Fellow at some Institute - noted that we, human mothers and fathers, tend to forget - and overrate at the same time - our own childhood by the time we’ve become mothers and fathers.

When we also overrate our own children’s abilities.

The result: We rush our kids into doing things.

» Continued

We may all be brothers and sisters, and on some level I kind of like that idea, but, honestly, I just can’t feel it. I’ve never had a friend, or a teammate, that I’d say was “like a brother” to me.

Then again, I’m an only child, so how should I know what it feels like to have a brother.

I never even had an imaginary friend, let alone an imaginary brother.

» Continued

The place where I sit and write this
Is the place where the washing machines used to be
When Dad was the manager of the store
And I always tagged along, like I did when I was four

Or, to be sure, this is where the window used to be
I once decorated it in a christmas theme, with cotton snow and all
I knew those things, I knew what was cool
because I had just got home from the business school

The place where I sit and write this
Is the place where Dad’s buddy stood with a video camera on his shoulder
And shot me and my schoolmates (and I was the Phantom, looking cool)
As we drove around the city, at least four times, on our last day of school

The place where I sit and write this
Is where I made my best mixed tapes
And where good old Mr Grön picked me up for my first driving lession
Then proceeded to have his own afternoon napping session

The place where I sit and write this
Is where I gave my first interview
“A star was born, he’s got potential,” they said, I think
And they asked what the star liked to eat and drink

The place where I sit and write this
Is the place where the washing machines used to be
When Dad was the manager of the store
But, I’m sure you guessed it by now: the store is no more

The place where I sit and write this
Is now another coffeeshop, with cookies and latte
There’s a new building, new business where my life used to be
But they do have wireless internet, and they let me use it for free

Sweden is many things to many people. In the last couple of centuries, Sweden has given the world dynamite, a internationally renowned prizes (that sometimes get misspelled in Hollywood movies), cheap furniture, meatballs, pop music, more pop music, a car that has ignition on the floor, three-point seatbelts, refrigerator, and according to an old client of mine, color.

I think he was trying to say that some Swede had invented a color printer, a color TV, or maybe something even more basic color technology, but the way he said it made it sound like people had been living in black and white - and not just in the Dark Ages - until that Swede invented color.

Anyway, Swedes are an industrious people and the world has a lot to thank them for.

» Continued

Here's my column from the April issue of Scanorama. Enjoy!

» Continued

Apparently, self-control is a good thing:

Once Mischel began analyzing the results, he noticed that low delayers, the children who rang the bell quickly [to get marshmallows now instead of waiting and getting two later], seemed more likely to have behavioral problems, both in school and at home. They got lower S.A.T. scores. They struggled in stressful situations, often had trouble paying attention, and found it difficult to maintain friendships. The child who could wait fifteen minutes had an S.A.T. score that was, on average, two hundred and ten points higher than that of the kid who could wait only thirty seconds.

[T]he ability to delay gratification ... was a far better predictor of academic performance than I.Q. In other words, “intelligence is really important, but it’s still not as important as self-control.”

That's my problem. I would have failed the marshmallow test. I've always been the kind who eats all candy right away, hand to mouth until the bag is empty. The upside is that I would have been just fine with getting only one marshmallow now. No regrets, either.

However, I always did well in school, I had the patience to learn those German verbs, and work my through the math problems. Maybe I'm a genius?

But I can't get up at 5 am to work out, I'm no good at dieting, and I generally prefer now to later. Which is why I can never have projects just lying around. I've published three books, two of them were collections of my earlier articles, the third an oral history of a hockey team.

I would love to have "work-in-progress". When I picked up painting, I loved it - the actual work - but I always had to finish everything in one sitting. (Standing).

So, now I'm actually trying to practice having unfinished work lying around. I go to bed in the middle of a sentence instead of burning the midnight oil and working my way to the end of the story. I would love to have a half-finished crossword puzzle folded inside my notebook, so that I could add a word every now and then, over a course of days and weeks.

And this weekend, I did something that may be a step to the right direction.

This:


Although, I chose Monday's crossword because it's the easiest, and I finished it in one sitting.

Upside: I should have been working instead. I feel like a better person already.

Below is a fairly long thing about running.

Get the printer-friendly pdf here or keep reading the 3 000-word beast below.

» Continued

The small path to the gym goes through a tiny piece of recreational area. I want to say forest, but that's just too grand a word for what is a very tiny green spot on the map, but yes, the path goes through the woods.

It can be scary in the winter, especially when I'm listening to music on my Apple® iPhone™ music player, especially after J told me that the urban predators look for people just like that.

It only takes me a minute to cut through the "forest" - with real living animals such as roe deer and hares - but a lot of different thoughts rush through my head. I know, there's nothing in the dark that isn't there in the light, and all that, but yesterday, I walked to the gym in full daylight, and saw three of these shady beasts hiding by the side of the construction site, and my heart missed a beat.

Then I turned on the music and cut through the forest, knowing that I'd be able to outrun the 'saurs.

Traveling can be a lonely business, even if you're surrounded by people all the time. The biggest number of people I've been surrounded by on this trip is 11 417 (capacity crowd) but of course it'd be nice with some familiar faces.

There's a family legend about one of my father's hockey trips. It's not about him, but I think it nicely captures the human need to feel at home. My Dad's' hockey team was in the Oldtimers' World Championships in the UK somewhere. I may confuse this with his trip to the Edinburgh tournament but it doesn't really matter.

There they were anyway, seeing the sights when a teammate of his said, "Look, there's a sign in Finnish!"

And indeed there was. The sign said "Coca-Cola."

Well, see this sign! It says "me". Made me feel welcome in Bern, Switzerland.

In Blink, Malcolm Gladwell writes about an experiment where people were given fifteen minutes to examine a student's college dormitory to gather information about him. Afterwards, they were interviewed, and it turned out that they could describe the subject’s personality more accurately than his or her own friends.

» Continued

It's not easy being man.



Just look at man's life in the headlines, and that's just today.

» Continued

The six-word memoir of the day:

"Waiting for the phone to ring."

Here's my six-word memoir of the day:

"You still ain't seen nothing yet."

There are two things a true professional never does.

1. He never works in his underwear. There's something about underwear that makes any activity seem less professional, no matter how fine the final product is. I'm sure F. Scott Fitzgerald didn't write Great Gatsby in his underwear. That's why I'm writing this entry fully clothed. In this case, Speedos are also considered underwear.

2. He never goes to a meeting without a bag. A suitcase, a messenger bag or the like, but never a backpack. It doesn't matter what's in it. It can be a lunch sandwich, a newspaper, notes, even underwear (as long as it stays in the bag), it doesn't matter, but the bag has to be there or you might as well yell, "I don't know what I'm doing" when you enter the meeting room.

Now, go take over the world.

Every city has its own special personalities that everybody knows of, but nobody really knows. And while I understand that some people look at them and feel bad, I've always been fascinated by them.

Maybe I've even admired them. The courage. The way they've decided to do whatever it is they want to do. The best ones are obviously the ones that are not dangerous.

Here are some of my favorites:

» Continued

The Stockholm Konserthuset, "the concert house", had an open doors day today, in a effort to get kids to come to the city, see the fabulous blue building, try some instruments, and get so totally hooked on classical music it ain't real, baby.

» Continued

Sports is best enjoyed live. I’m sorry to disappoint avid readers, but that’s just a fact.

For example, there is nothing better than to hear 6 000 Slovaks cheer and yell and play their drums and horns and whistles creating a noise that makes your ears pop, and the hair on your arms to stand up and salute – only to welcome their hockey team onto the ice. Because the noise they make when their team scores a goal can’t be called better. Just more.

» Continued

Hey, I’m back from Magnitogorsk. I was just here, a mere 50 hours earlier, waiting for a stylish little Atlas suitcase that never came. I was just an innocent little Finn, curious about Russia, a wide-eyed kid, venturing out on a journalistic adventure in George Orwell’s footsteps. On a charter plane, of course.

And here I am now, tired and weary, with images of a memorial to a war that’s mostly a part of my grandparents’ past, and a city, going forward and backward at the same time flashing before my eyes, and memories of my journey from Europe to Asia, and back, still vivid on my mind. There I was, for what seemed like days, weeks, a lifetime, with one of Magnitogorsk’s most famous TV personalities as my travel companion. In a taxi cab, naturally.

My mother believes in the power of thought, among many other things, but this one is so strong that she's instilled some of that into my brain. Which is why, when I wanted a job at the Canadian Embassy, I actually walked around the block every day for a few days, to send good vibes up to the third floor.

(I did get the job).

Unfortunately, it also works the other way. This morning, as I was packing my tiny suitcase, I went back and forth about packing/not packing my glasses and contact lenses. I decided to pack them and ... (drum roll) ... my bag didn't make it to Oulu. Not yet, anyway. I wonder how long I can wear the same pair of contacts. (Please, no comments about how long I can wear the same pair of underwear).

They promised me that the bag would be on the next flight, landing about now. Or if not on that one, surely on the 1 am flight. And at the hotel at 5 am.

But who knows, "they" are tricky people. "They" also say we put a man on the moon. Really?

It started so innocently. My son and daughter had started this moving business - "Max Moving Men", freely translated - and all I needed to do was lie on the bed while they would move our pillows and blankets from the bed to their storage.

My son took one end of the pillow, and my daughter the other as they carried everything to .. I don't know where.

While I was lying there, they got tired of me and threw everything on top of me again. And then I moved my arm, and I heard how they ran away, screaming "monster!"

That sounded great so I got into it. They came back, I made a move, they ran away.

Then the pauses started to get longer. I heard them running towards the bedroom, and away from the bedroom, but not really into the bedroom. I thought they were just getting ready to meet the monster.

So I did the grown-up cheating thing: I looked. I peaked through a hole in my mountain of blankets and pillows, and I saw my son running past the bedroom, with a plastic helmet and a sword in his hand.

Just as I thought. They were preparing themselves for meeting the Monster.

I pulled the cover over me again and waited. I made a little breathing hole to myself, and waited. I heard the tapping of the tiny feet outside the bedroom, and laughed a little. Were they in for a surprise! This was a monster like none they'd ever seen!

And then the tapping stopped. I heard voices from far away, muffled voices, so I figured they were hiding. So I decided to wait them out and hide longer.

Ten minutes later, my wife came to tell me that she was going to the gym.

"What about the kids? What are they doing?" I said through my breathing hole.

"They're reading in their little home in the bathroom," she said.

"Oh."

There's something about Skype that makes phone calls longer than necessary. Maybe it's the fact that it's free. This is how it goes.

» Continued

Ever listened to a random 80s song in your iPod, and then have a random person hum that same song when you pause the music and put the iPod away?

For a second today, I thought I heard a guy hum this song at the gym when I came there listening to it. He wasn't – but it got me thinking about the odds. Pretty high, right?

Hey you. You know who you are, even if I don't, my secret friend. My new, secret, gym friend. Do you remember when our friendship began? Who knows, right? At first, it was all very random, very sporadic, but over the next few weeks a pattern began to take shape.

» Continued

I just got a letter from last week. In the envelope, there was a picture of me interviewing Henrik Lundqvist.

Risto: "What's your name?"
HL: "Henke Lunkvist"
R: "What's your favorite team?"
HL: "Ilves."

I've been talking about winning with a lot of hockey players and coaches in the last two three weeks. The interesting thing is that winning isn't the only thing for them. I find that comforting. When we kick the ball for the first time, or stand in the snow watching others play hockey, it's not about winning, is it?

On that note, let's walk down the Memory Lane, and see if we can't find my first hockey sweater there. Keep reading it below, or here.

» Continued

My mother's computer got screwy on her way from China to Stockholm. The keyboard went crazy, and when the Dell support didn't reply in 20 hours, she was naturally left with only one option: to buy a Mac.

I wonder what she'll do if her car doesn't start when she gets to Finland.

Urban life is fast. It's dog-eat-dog, and every man (and woman) for himself (or herself). And if you need proof, go to a gym. That's where we become the animal that we are.

I know that, having spent more time at the gym than you'd think by looking at me. Inside me, though, there's a ripped and strong man.

» Continued

It's in the air. Everybody's talking about the need for change. Few of us make a move. Snoopy is an inspiration.

The other day, I interviewed a Swedish idea guy about innovation. He was all energy, all passion, all ideas. And a lot of quotes by famous people.

This is one he threw at me:


The greater danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.



"Michelangelo said it," he added.

Michelangelo would have made a great coach.

I just heard that February is a non-flying month for many. Apparently, there's a group called the Feb Four, that promotes February as a non-flying month for moral, environmental, religious, and financial reasons. I must say that that was news to me. I'd never heard of the Feb Four before, but there are so many of these groups these days.

Anyway, I realized that if that's the case, you haven't seen Scanorama, the SAS in-flight magazine that I completely own in February, with the Henrik Lundqvist profile, and my usual Web & Tech stuff.

Being your Web friend, I had to do something. And this is what I decided:

Here's the link to the Henrik Lundqvist story that I posted earlier. My February Tech column from Scanorama behind the "Continued" link.

» Continued

Thank you for all your emails and comments regarding my liveblogging day on Thursday. It was a lot of fun to do so I'll do it again in about two weeks. However, here are some answers to the questions you sent my way.

Why did you do it?
At first it was really just a test to see what that does to the traffic. But once I hit the road and started to write and update the blog, it became a way to record the trip for future generations. In 50 years, that entry - this entry - may be used as an example in a classroom somewhere, to show how people communicated in the old days, and what Helsinki looked and feeled like back in circa 2010. Thirdly, it was a way to send secret, coded messages to my wife stuck in her cubicle somewhere.

» Continued

Looking out the window, I see a man changing snow tyres to his car. About time. We got 20 cm of snow this morning.

This is the same guy who two years ago came home in the middle of night, and parked his car on a big rock next to his/our house. The car only had three wheels at that point. And no, he's not changing snow tyres to that car, he traded it for another one. And that to another one. And that one to another one. And then once more.

So, what does this man do for a living?

That's right. He's a truck driver.

He's a pro.

How do you spot a farm boy in the city? His every seventh step is longer (to avoid the ditches). That’s an old Finnish urban joke – not that Finns can really boast with their urban state of mind.

» Continued

Inspired by the previous post, I bought a newspaper yesterday, and walked into the Coffeehouse By George at Odenplan, got myself a cappuccino, and sat down to read the paper.

» Continued

Drove down to my local sushi bar a couple of blocks away and... well, it was raining and it's closer to 700 meters to the place and... anyway, I drove down, and saw a police car with the sirens on coming towards me. It's not something we see every day around here, so I got kind of curious. 

» Continued

Yes. Yes! Make that New Year's resolution. Buy that gym card! Start doing yoga. Don't worry about failing, enjoy the energy you get when you decide to do something great that will make your life better.

Do it. Do it.

I read somewhere - I think it was Malcolm Gladwell that wrote it, either in New Yorker or his blog - about the benefits of being a public writer, i.e. doing his writing in a public place. Like a café.

Like me, right now.

And hey, he's onto something. There is something to be said about the image of a public writer. The creative type, the intelligent one, the thinker. Here I am!

» Continued

A couple of days ago, I was sitting in the backyard, reading David Remnick's "Reporting", when a man walked by me. Well, he didn't just walk by me, I don't think I would have noticed him had that been the case.

I noticed him because his dog stopped, and decided to take a dump on our lawn.

No, seriously. The dog retreated into a kangaroo position, pulled his ears back, and just ... let ... it ... rip.

Meanwhile,

» Continued