From the desk of Risto Pakarinen

Highest pranking officer

Fri, 3 Feb 2012 13:09:49 +0100

Yesterday, on my way to the gym, I thought I saw a 50-krona bill in the snow on the pavement. I stopped to check - of course - and realized that it was, indeed, a mustard yellow bill with the singer Jenny Lind on it. I quickly picked it up, and then, before slipping it inside my red mitten, I looked to my left and to my right, to see if somebody was watching me.

I�d like to say I did so to find the poor old lady who had dropped it so I could return it, but that was my second thought. That did come before �I can�t believe my luck!� My first thought, though, was: Who�s pulling my leg?

Now, I�m a joker. I sometimes tell a joke, although I can�t seem to remember very many of them at the same time so I mostly do puns, wordplay, and sarcasm. In fact, I monitor my development in Swedish by seeing Wife�s reactions to my puns. Ten years ago, she used to say she�d heard my puns before. In third grade. These days, I seem to be making 7th grade puns.

My Dad, on the other hand, is a prankster. He�s the kind of guy who hides eggs in other people�s pockets, or sticks pepper inside a chocolate bar.

One summer when I was 14, and I had buddies staying at our house, he hid an alarm clock somewhere in our room, and every night, for about a week, the alarm went off in the middle of the night. One of my friends spent hours every evening trying to find that clock. He fell asleep, convinced that Dad hadn�t hidden the clock anywhere that night, but sure enough, at 3.15 am, he�d wake up to the beeping sound of the alarm. I�m sure Dad woke up, too, quietly laughing.

He�s a guy who�s called his buddies, changed his voice, and told them that there had been an accident and that a crane had fallen on their car. Or that the cops just towed it away. For years, he sent his old books to a friend with a cover letter from a �book club�, thanking him for joining, and for collecting all those points so he�d reached the silver, then the gold level. He always added a line about somebody calling them soon to discuss the books.

This is the man who used to hijack the family bathroom for hours to work on trick photography. And he�s someone who loved Candid Camera and now has hours of Just for Laughs episodes on his DVR, and who doesn�t mind sitting at home alone to watch them.

So you can understand that when we, years ago, one Sunday morning noticed something strange outside the kitchen window, as if a groom was leaving his bride at the altar, Dad was on the case like bees on honey. It was probably him who first noticed that there was something strange going on at the church right across the street from us. The bride had run away from the church, he told Mom and me, and the guests were now standing outside the church.

The groom took off in a cab, leaving the bride behind. She was hysterical, and finally, she walked to the bus stop, and sat down.

�Oh. My. Goodness,� said Mom. �Can you believe that?�

�Wow, this was interesting,� said Dad, as he walked to the bedroom so he could get a little better view, with the kitchen counter stopping him from getting as close to the window as he would have liked to.

People stopped to watch, and some of the guests were stopping cars to get help.

�And we got the best seats in the house,� Dad shouted, even though he didn�t have a seat.

Then, suddenly, a camera crew - and the groom - appeared, and everybody, including the bride, was laughing it up.

�Hey! It�s Candid Camera!� Dad yelled, beaming.

Mom and I were dumbfounded. Not disappointed, but a little shocked. All that drama had been just a hoax? Dad, in turn, was elated. For him, the fact that it had been candid camera made it even better.

After all, he had just witnessed a great prank.

I didn�t see any old ladies, or kids anywhere, so I did slip the 50-krona bill into my mitten, and continued walking to the gym. When I felt the bill with my fingers, I thought the paper felt a little rough, and it reminded me of the one prank I�ve pulled in my life.

One winter, a hardware store had printed out five Finnish markka coupons that looked exactly like the real five-markka bill. Well, except that it was three times as big. However, if you folded it, and rubbed the edges a little, it looked just like a folded fiver. Some kids told me that some other kids - or maybe their big brothers - had actually gone into a store, got loads of candy - because back then five markka got you a lot of candy � and run out the door before the lady at the register had unfolded the bill.

My friends and I only did the old bill on a string classic. (Nobody went for it).

I pulled off my mitten and looked at the 50-krona bill in my palm. There was something strange about it. For one, there were two of them, but also, my hand looked huge in comparison. I looked at the image of the "Swedish Nightingale" a little closer, and realized that the bill was one third of the size of a real one. On the back, it also said �PLAY MONEY�.

And just like Dad was happier when he realized the runaway bride had been a Candid Camera episode, seeing those two tiny bills made me happier than if it had been one real 50-krona bill.

After all, I had just got myself a story.

Column: Fear of sharing

Thu, 2 Feb 2012 12:08:26 +0100

�Social anxiety is the fear of interacting with other people, which can bring on intense feelings of self-consciousness. Put another way, social anxiety is the fear of being judged negatively by other people, leading to feelings of inadequacy, embarrassment, humiliation and depression.�

Let�s just face it. Sharing is a little scary. We all know the feeling when the teacher singles you out for talking in class. You do not even realize that she is staring at you. Once you do realize it, and look up, the teacher looks you in the eye and says: �If it is such a great story, would you like to share it with the rest of the class?�

Of course not.

People generally want to share their ideas, thoughts �and feelings, but only when they get to choose what to share and where to share it. In Medieval Europe, sharing food was normal practice, but when the aristocrats wanted to differentiate themselves from the masses, they stopped sharing and started using silverware. The masses followed their lead, because they, too, wanted to be cool. It is the old dream of social upward mobility.

Interestingly, though, while we have more things in our lives than ever before � and therefore more to share � we share less than before. The ideal of sharing has gotten lost in the shuffle. The idea of having a roommate is going the way of the dodo bird, and it is only a last ditch effort if you can not find your own home. We like to think that car-pooling is a good idea, but not today, not for me, maybe later.

According to a recent UK study, 75% would like to share more. Seven out of ten people say that sharing makes them feel better about themselves, and eight out of ten say that sharing makes them happy, proving correct the wisdom of the old Nordic proverb, �Shared joy is double the joy and shared sorrow is half the sorrow.�

In the information age, we are sharing stories � and little pieces of ourselves. We share our location, our state of mind, our jokes, and our photos. We do not mind when Facebook reminds the world of our birthday.

When we open ourselves like that, we also open ourselves to criticism. What we share of our world leaves us vulnerable for open evaluation. They may ridicule, bully and humiliate us. It is not easy to let it all hang out.

That kind of social phobia can be summed up as a �fear of being judged.� Some people try to deal with it with a preemptive strike, blasting �I do not care what you think of me� and doing it with the help of a megaphone.

Beyond, a UK-based digital agency, recently conducted a survey of 1,500 people in the United Kingdom. Their most frequently cited reason to share was the desire to be helpful (39.6%), while the second highest was to selectively share relevant content to a specific friend (26.1%). Beyond called the first group Altruists, and the second group Selectives.

Passionates (16.7%) share because they share a passion with someone else. Connectors share to inspire socializing with friends (7.9%). Trendspotters share because it shows others they are on top of what is new (5.6%). Provocateurs share because they want a reaction (2.6%). Finally, Careerists share because it helps them in business (2.5%).

So, while it is easy to be cynical, modern sharing is not all image building.

Sharing is caring.

(Published in Aalto EE's Profile 1/12)

A funny thing happened

Wed, 1 Feb 2012 18:26:33 +0100

Here's the year 2011 as chronicled in the opening lines of stories published in the New Yorker throughout the year. What a year!

One afternoon in early March, the shoe designer Christian Louboutin decided to go for a ride on his Vespa.

One day last March, students crammed into the Great Hall at the University of Ghana, outside Accra.

One sticky morning last summer, Sara Blakely, the inventor of Spanx, which over the past decade has become to women�s foundation garments what Scotch is to cellophane tape, was sitting in the Park Avenue offices of her husband Jesse Itzler, confronting a new challenge: the male anatomy.

One day in June, Jaron Lanier was lounging barefoot in the living room of his house in the Berkeley Hills.

One day in July, H�l�ne Grimaud was practicing piano in a hotel room in Munich.

One bright September morning in Rome, when it still felt like summer, Her Serene Highness the Principessa Rita Boncompagni Ludovisi stood with half a dozen Japanese tourists and a German couple under �Jupiter, Pluto, and Neptune,� the only painting Caravaggio is known to have executed on a ceiling.

One day last fall, Ted Mann, a Brooklyn restaurateur, got a call from his father.

Late one October evening, I flew into Urfa, the city believed by Turkish Muslims to be the Ur of the Chaldeans, the birthplace of the prophet Abraham.

One cold, wet morning in December, I headed into Istanbul to watch the Besiktas soccer team play a match against Bursapor, a team from the city of Bursa, the original Ottoman capital.

One afternoon last December, inside a long tent pitched beside a busy road in a southern district of New Delhi, a punchy young drunk was shouting, �Why are you not including me? Take my photograph!�

One morning last month, Lady Antonia Fraser was stuck in a security line at the Toronto Airport and missed her plane.

One recent afternoon, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach stepped onto the patio of his neo-Gothic mansion in Englewood, New Jersey, where he lives with his wife and nine children.

One afternoon this spring, the twenty-one-year-old country pop star Taylor Swift was in the back seat of an black Escalade going up Madison Avenue, on her way to the annual Costume Institute Gala at the Metropolitan Museum.

One recent Tuesday, a tall man entered F.A.O Schwarz and, beelining through the stuffed-animal displays, stopped at the Whatnot Workshop, a kiosk where you can design your own Muppet.

On January 20th, the fiftieth anniversary of President Kennedy�s Inauguration, a group of fifteen staffers who had worked in the Kennedy White House held a reunion at a local D.C steak house.

On the afternoon of March 11th � a Friday � the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, on Japan�s Pacific coast, had more than six thousand workers inside.

On the morning of March 12th, Osama ben Sadik, a volunteer ambulance driver, arrived for duty at the red Crescent clinic in Brega, an oil-refinery town in eastern Libya.

On May 30th, as the sun beat down on the plains of eastern Pakistan, a laborer named Muhammad Shafiq walked along the top of a dam on the Upper Jhelum Canal to begin his morning routine of clearing grass and trash that had drifted into the intake gates overnight.

On June 13th, a fifty-four-year-old former government employee named Thomas Drake was scheduled to appear in a courtroom in Baltimore, where he will face some of the graves charges than can be brought against an American citizen.

On a bright Sunday afternoon shortly after one o�clock in Manhattan, a few days before his eighty-fifth birthday, which he would modestly acknowledge on August 3rd by dining at a neighborhood restaurant on the East Side with his wife Susan ��who, within a few weeks would be celebrating her own, forty-fifth birthday � Tony Bennett was standing behind a microphone at the Avatar Studios, on West Fifty-third Street, rehearsing a few lines from �The Lady Is a Tramp� while awaiting the presence of Lady Gaga.

On a chilly Tuesday morning in November, so early that the previous night�s full moon was still glowing in the dark sky, Ree Drummond, a blogger who calls herself the Pioneer Woman, drove her family�s pickup truck to the middle of a winter-brown pasture in Osage County, Oklahoma.

On the night of November 20th, two weeks before elections for the State Duma, Vladimir Putin set aside the cares of the Kremlin and went to the Olympic SportComplex for an ultimate-fighting match ��a �no rules� heavyweight bout between a Cyclopean Russian named Feodor (the Last Emperor) Yemelianenko and a self-described anarchist from Olympia, Washington, named Jeff (the Snowman) Monson.

On a warm December afternoon in Rangoon, the largest city in Myanmar, Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate and the country�s most popular politician, sat in the headquarters of the National League for Democracy.

On a recent morning in Miami Beach, a middle-aged man in a tracksuit was walking along Lincoln Road, the glitzy strip that runs from the ocean to the bay, where he veered away to investigate an orchestral tumult emanating from a nearby park.

On a recent morning in the rain forest of northern Brazil, a wiry man in a faded T-shirt and shorts leaped from a marshy riverbank onto the trunk of a palm tree.

On a recent flight from Tokyo to Beijing, at around the time that my lunch tray was taken away, I remembered that I needed to learn Mandarin.

On a recent Friday, Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic Minority Leader of the House of Representatives, showed up for her morning power walk along the Potomac.

On a recent Sunday, I woke up around 8 A.M.

Picture perfect

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 22:12:58 +0100

Last week, just as I was about to make a long-distance Skype to America, my laptop quietly died. Well, before it died, it froze, and went into a coma. I don�t know if it could hear me, but it didn�t react to anything I did. Not mouse movements, not my tapping on the keys, not even Escape.

I had to switch it off and have it examined.

Two days later I got a call. The man had some good news and some bad news. The bad news was that the hard drive had, indeed, died. The good news was that they were able to retrieve the data.

�I�ll put a folder called �backup� on your new disk then,� said the man with the message.

Today, I picked up my laptop, and carried it home in a white plastic bag. I put my red Olympic mittens around it, for protection and warmth. At home, I turned it on, found the backup data, and imported my photos back into the system. And with the 121,422 items re-entering the laptop in what seemed to be a random order, my entire life flashed before my eyes. I sat there with my hand on my cheek, and this is what I saw:

A newborn son
My parents
Son getting bigger
Wife pregnant
Me hoisting the Stanley Cup
Another baby
Grandpa, grandma, standing next to each other in the 50s
Grandpa, grandma, me sitting between them on the steps of their house in the 70s
Son riding a bike
My old skates
Kharlamov�s old helmet.
My funny mustache
Russian hotel room
Finland�s hockey gold in 1995
In-laws
Cousins
Cousins� in-laws
In-laws� cousins
Wife in winter clothes
Wife in a summer dress
My favorite pants
That leather jacket
Friends
Teachers
Stockholm
The Old Town
Son riding a horse
Helsinki
Xmas, Easter, another Xmas, midsummer
Benches in sweden
Son taking a bath
Son brushing his teeth
Son playing golf
Doors of helsinki
Classmates
Class photos
Son�s classmates
Daughter as a pirate
Kids running, kids jumping
Wife running
Birds, lions, elephants
Young Dad looking like young me
Me looking like young Dad
Me looking like Mom
Son looking like me
A yellow umbrella
Kids under the umbrella
Wife smiling, laughing
Daughter standing on her hands
Daughter crying
Stefan Liv
Wife in Italy, making a toast
Me in a green helmet
Son walking naked on the balcony
Mom pushing the trolley
Bryan Adams in a Team Canada sweater
Me looking way too chubby
Me looking pretty damn good
Wait, too fat again
Still pretty good
Stanley Cup party in Sweden
The Stockholm subway
The Stockholm archipelago
Son reading comics
Son playing bandy
Wayne Gretzky
Wayne Gretzky with the Olympic torch
Daughter riding the bike
Daughter hugging Moominmamma
Playgrounds, slides, carousels
Son sitting in a Moroccan basket
Son sitting on the backseat of a NYC lilousine
Son fishing with Dad
Royal wedding
Daughter blowing candles
Reindeer in Troms�
Water drinking street entertainer in Cologne
Zdeno Chara
The Phantom
Wife reading a book on a ferry to Finland
Wife sleeping on a ferry to Finland
Son playing Scrooge
Daughter under a rainbow
Teammates, teammates, teammates in black and white
Teammates, teammates, teammates in color
Hoisting the Stanley Cup with Son
The leaning tower of Pisa
Me eating my 12th pizza in 12 days
Summer, spring, autumn, winter
Darth Maul at Legoland
Daughter dressed as Spiderman
Jaromir Jagr skating in shorts
Gr�na Lund free fall
Linnanm�ki space shot
A fireplace crackling
Wife�s grandparents
Walking the streets of Mariehamn
Danish hockey fans in viking helmets
Swedish hockey fans in viking helmets
Finnish hockey fans intoxicated
Son�s christening
Daughter�s christening
Wife and I smiling at the camera

L�st in tr�nsl�tion

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 18:00:15 +0100

When I first moved to Sweden, I was more than shy to speak Swedish. For a non-Finn that may have seemed a little strange, since I had seven years of Swedish studies - with good grades - under my belt, and I had translated hockey magazines from Norwegian and Swedish into Finnish. And yes, I could read the papers, watch the late night news on TV, and every now and then, I would even send an email in Swedish to my colleagues.

But every Finn knows how difficult it is for us to speak Swedish. Partly because the Finnish accent always gives us away - and Finns would like nothing better than to blend in - and partly because while that fantastic educational system did teach us Swedish grammar, it didn�t teach us how to speak.

At a casual conversation at lunch, I could follow the discussion but by the time I had constructed the perfect sentence in my head, with the right verb conjugations, and the correct suffixes to the nouns, the moment had gone, so I never said anything.

That�s why I, for the first year and a half in Stockholm, only spoke English. Well, publicly. I did practice my Swedish with the usual suspects: cab drivers and waitresses.

But, along came Wife, encouraged me to switch, and I did.

Unfortunately, there�s still sk�nska, the dialect spoken in the southern tip of Sweden, close to Denmark, a dialect that sounds like what the Swedish chef would sound like if he was really, really drunk. Words become shape shifters. Extra vowels are added to words, the r�s become rough and Frenchy, and the rhythm of the sentence is like rush hour traffic, accelerating and stopping at random times.

I once asked a Sk�ne friend how kids ever learned to read there if a word that looks like �boat� is pronounced �bewout�. He looked at me and said there was nothing special about it.

�Look, it�s easy. �Bee, ew, ou, t, bewout.� Nothing to it,� he said.

Now, according to studies, Danish children do lag behind Swedish and Norwegian kids in language comprehension because words are difficult to extract from a Danish sentence in which everything gets slurred together, but they do learn to read eventually. I assume the same is true for Sk�ne kids.

All I know is that I�ve never been as grateful for McDonald�s fantastic processes as I was when I was in Lund, a university city in the middle of Sk�ne.

I walked in, and when I got to the register I ordered a Big Mac. She asked me something, and I said, yes, let�s make it a meal. Then she asked me something else, and I said, �Cola Light�. She turned around, grabbed a burger, took a drink, and got my fries. She put them on the tray and said something. I gave her the biggest bill I had in my wallet, and she gave me my change.

�Thank you,� I said.

Mission accomplished.

The other day, I had to call Apple support to register my laptop.

�Hi,� I said, �I�d like to register my laptop.�

�Sure,� said the man in a young male voice, and in a sk�nska dialect, so it sounded more like, �Sheware�.

�What�s the serial number, please?� he said.

�One,� I said. He repeated it.

�Zero,� I said, �or maybe that�s an O, not sure.�

�It�s a zero,� he said.

�Great. So, one .. zero .. and a T��

And an S, a K, and then, suddenly, out of nowhere, Y.

�Y�, I said, and he repeated it.

Just then, as I heard him say it, I also heard Wife say it in my head ��and correct me. The letter Y always trips me up because for some reason, I can�t make that sound. When I say what I think is the Y sound - like the u in �furious� - it comes out as the Swedes� �U� sound. And the Swedish O - like the o in �cool� - is then my U. Very confusing.

But, I went on to the next letter, until I had spelled out the entire serial code.

�It doesn�t work,� said the young Sk�ne male.

�Oh, wait, I think we got it wrong. I think that when I said B, it may have been an 8 instead,� I said.

I heard typing at the other end of the line.

�Nope, that doesn�t work. Let�s try again.�

And we did. It didn�t work so we went through the whole serial number again, now in all Army code, except neither one of us knew the proper �Alpha Bravo� phonetic alphabet. So we improvised.

�S as in Sigfried,� he said.

�Yes, S as in Sigmund. Like Freud!� I replied.

�T as in Ted,� he said and I said yes.

�And U as in university,� he said.

�No, no, no. It�s Y,� I said. �Yyyyyyy, as in ��

I was silent for a second, trying to come up with a name that begins with a Y, and then shouted:

�Y as in Yngwie Malmsteen!�

Now he was silent.

�You know what. I�ll give you an email address that you can send a copy of your receipt and a photo of the Apple Care code to, and you�ll get the certificate sent home to you, how does that sound?� said the yound male in a Sk�ne dialect.

I sighed.

�Sounds good,� I said.

�Let me just type in your name here in the system, and assign a case number,� he said, and then spelled the email address for me.

Ten minutes later, I sent the photos to Apple.

I got my certificate yesterday. It was addressed to Hristo Takarinen.

Catch a rising tsar

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 16:28:22 +0100

When I was 17, many moons ago, I lived in a small Finnish town called Joensuu, in the eastern part of the country, about an hour from the Russian border. Except that it wasn�t the Russian border, it was the Soviet border, and it wasn�t such a big of a deal. There�s nothing on the other side of the border, anyway, just forest. There�s nothing else in about a hundred mile radius from the city.

There was no Internet, and therefore no YouTube, but there was rock�n�roll so my friends and I spent a lot of time sitting in each others� rooms listening to tapes and records, and swapping tapes and records with each other.

And trying to learn those first few chords to Smoke on the Water.

(As it happens, still the only chords I know).

We read about Deep Purple in Metal Hammer, and we thought that Don�t Stop Believin� was a. the greatest rock song ever and b. only Steve Perry should be allowed to sing it. And that�s as close to Deep Purple and Journey as we even imagined we�d get. Ever.

We were sure that even if, by some strange cosmic coincidence, a band of their stature would come to Finland they would never, ever come to that town of 45 000 people. And when I say �never�, I mean not ever.

And they never did. We kept listening to the records and Metal Hammer, then upgraded to CDs and most of us moved out of the town to pursue our dreams and careers. Only during holidays and college breaks, as if in a Thin Lizzy song, the boys were back in town.

Five years ago, it was announced that Deep Purple was going to have two shows in Finland. One in Helsinki, and one in Joensuu. Opening act: Thin Lizzy.

But it was too late, and in a way, the fact that they were finally going to play in Joensuu was the final proof of Deep Purple being past their best before date.

When I heard that Oulu K�rp�t had signed Jozef Stumpel to a contract that covers the remainder of the season, I thought of Deep Purple. Now, Stumpel is only 39 − 40 in the summer - and he did play in the Olympics just two years ago, and he did still score a few points in the KHL this season but I�m sure the Finnish league was fairly low on his list.

The KHL has changed the European hockey landscape, nudging the Swedish and Finnish leagues dow a few pegs. Four seasons ago, when the KHL was launched, there were six Finnish players, and nine Swedes, in the league. The year after, 15 Finnish players. Last season, there were 16 Finns, and this year, there are 31 Finnish players and eleven coaches - and 18 Swedish players - working in the KHL.

Oh, and 73 Czechs and 43 Slovak players. In other words, over 150 European players are now playing in the KHL, a league that�s looking to expand to Switzerland in 2014-15.

Seven years ago, in 2004-05, there were 42 Finns playing in the Swedish Elitserien. This season, 19.

The Swedish league has lost its spot as the leagues of choice, and in turn, the Finnish league teams have a little harder time attracting players as well. It will be difficult to get the next Tim Thomas or Brian Rafalski to Sweden or Finland. At least on their way to the top.

If that opens up spots for Swedish and Finnish kids, it may be a blessing in disguise. But that may also be the reason for the extreme parity in Sweden.

The 11th-place team, currently Link�ping, is only six points from the fifth place team, HV71. That�s only two wins. Only three wins separate the team that�s going to have to qualify for its Elitserien spot for next year form the team that will have home-ice advantage in the playoffs.

Maybe there�s parity because there�s mediocrity.

In 2010, Deep Purple was scheduled to play another gig in Joensuu, Finland.

They cancelled due to poor ticket sales.

Keep it real

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 13:49:24 +0100

[Professor Hood�s] researchers convince the pre-school-age subjects that their special item will be put into a machine that can produce a copy of the object which is identical in every way. The infants, who are offered the choice of having the original or the "perfect" copy returned to them, strongly prefer the original. � BBC, 2004

Every once in a while, when I�m writing longer pieces, my fingers seem to swell, and I take off my wedding ring. It�s something of a pause to collect my thoughts as well, and a minute or so later, I slip the ring back on because I�m worried that I might lose it.

Before Wife and I got engaged, we were fake engaged for a while. Or, I know that I was. We�d only been together for about a year when we moved in together. She had sold her apartment wanted us to take a really nice, long trip somewhere with the money she had made so we took a trip to Mexico. For a week, we traveled around the Yucatan peninsula in an air-conditioned bus with an active group of mostly retired people.

We rode the bus and we looked out the window, we read books, and stayed at nice hotels � and every once in a while, we made stops at the perfect Mexican places. Some of them were old, others even older. We climbed Chichen Itza - or �chicken pizza� as the helpful Mexicans called it to make it easier for tourists - we got hit by tropical rain on top of another pyramid, and we saw a hummingbird.

At night, after we�d arrived in a new city, we bought souvenirs: colorful mexican blankets, a wooden head of a god (I think), T-shirts, photos, and a pair of boots, to name a few. And then we bought the rings. They were possibly made of silver, but they had Mexican symbols on them for sure.

Wife and I often refer to our own �Stockholm subway� rule when thinking of buying souvenirs. If the answer to the question, �Do you really see yourself wearing that on the Stockholm subway?� is yes, you can buy it.

So, no sombrero.

The boots haven�t been on the subway many times, either, but the rings passed the test with flying colors. The rings made it to the subway, to the office, to the gym, and to the grocery store.

That winter, I had come home from the grocery store when I realized I wasn�t wearing my ring. Positive that I had had it on when I had left the apartment, I drove back to the grocery store. I was lucky enough to get the exact same parking spot I had had a half hour earlier so I could retrace my steps in, through, and out of the store.

�Then I went here � not here, I picked up the bread � not here � and why would it be there, I never took it off � it must be outside...,� I muttered.

Then I realized that the ring had probably just dropped off my finger. It was cold, my fingers had gotten a little thinner, and I hadn't even noticed that I had lost the ring. I decided that it must be outside, somewhere around the car. I walked around the car, I looked into the trunk, and I kicked the snow behind the car a little.

No ring.

I was desperate, angry, disappointed, and stubborn all at once. Cars came and went around me, the store was closing, but I didn�t want to give up so I combed the area around the car inch by inch. And then the spot next to it. Then I drove the car to the adjacent spot and aimed the headlights at the original spot to see better.

And there, buried in the slush, was my ring. I put it on and drove home to tell Wife the good news.

Two years later, when we lived in Helsinki, I took a moment to collect my thoughts at the gym, I guess. I was doing sit-ups, holding a weight in my hands and my fingers felt swollen. I took off my ring, and put it on the floor next to me.

Five minutes later, I got up, showered, and walked home.

Fifteen minutes later, I ran back to the gym to look for the ring, but it was gone. I walked around the gym, I asked the janitor, I looked everywhere, but I couldn�t find the ring.

I felt like an idiot.

Some time later, possibly for Xmas, Wife bought me a new silver ring, with a Mexican pattern on it. I wore it proudly for years, until we got married and got our wedding rings and Wife took our Mexican rings and put them into a red, heart-shaped box to rest.

The other day, we talked about the Mexican rings, and I reminded her of how I had lost mine.

�That�s right. I had forgotten all about it,� she said.

�But then I got you a new one, right? It was exactly like the first one,� she added, and smiled.

�Well,� I said. It hadn�t been exactly like the one I had had, but it was close. On the other hand, the second one was a gift from her.

�Yeah. Or even better,� I said.

Pay it forward

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 22:33:36 +0100

Even before my father had uttered a word, I knew what he was going to say next. I had heard it before, and always in a voice about two octaves lower than his own because that�s the tone he had heard it in the first time, some 30 years ago.

We were at a hockey game, when I mentioned to him that I'd be going to Turku to interview Juuso Wahlsten. As soon as "Wahlsten" had left my lips, I saw the twinkle in Dad's eyes, the lightbulb over his head, just like I had seen many times before over the years.

�It�s not every day you see a junior team play such good hockey,� Dad said.

That�s what �Juuso� Wahlsten told him in his distinct low voice at a cold Helsinki rink after our team had won a game against a Turku team.

Wahlsten was already a legend in Finnish hockey, having played in several World Championships and two Olympics, and the year after that encounter with my father, he returned to the Finnish elite league when he became the head coach of TPS in his hometown Turku.

To my father, a young, aspiring coach who had just finished his studies at the sports institute, that was highest possible praise. We were just kids, and the game wasn�t important, but obviously, whatever he was trying to teach us, he was doing it well.

That one sentence has stayed with him - and with me - for 30 years. For Dad, hearing that one sentence was probably better than any medal he won or degree he�s got because it came from a true hockey thinker.

This morning, I sat across the table from �Juuso�, with the tape rolling. I was in Turku to interview him about the 1965 World Championships, the first such tournament hosted by Finland. I leaned back in my chair and listened to Wahlsten, now 74, as he took me through the tournament and then the history of hockey in Finland and the history of the game.

At the end of our session, he wanted to sign his memoir for me, and as he wrote it, I told him about that day in Helsinki all those years ago, and how we still talk about it.

He stopped writing in mid-sentence, in the middle of a word, and looked up.

�That one sentence made one young coach very happy,� I said.

He smiled.

�I've always said that we should let people know when they do good things, and be positive,� he said.

�Thank you,� he added, and finished writing the dedication to the book.

It says, �To Risto, a hockey culture journalist of a new generation, best wishes, Juuso�.

That�s my sentence.

Back in time

Sun, 15 Jan 2012 15:35:20 +0100

First time you feel it, it might make you sad
Next time you feel it it might make you mad
But you'll be glad baby when you've found
That's the power makes the world go 'round

In the winter of 1985, JVC handed out free tickets to see a movie about a young kid traveling back in time. I had read in the Rolling Stone that Huey Lewis and the News had a couple of songs in the movie, but didn�t know much else. I didn�t even know that JVC handed out free tickets, but when my father asked me if I wanted to go, I said yes.

It was a special afternoon matinee, starting at 4.30, which was perfect, because it meant that I would still be able to make it to the hockey game the same night. The game started at 6.30 so if I ran or walked briskly, there was still a chance to make it to the rink before the opening faceoff.

Instead of going straight home after school, I stayed in town and hung out at Dad�s store, watching TV, and listeting to music, and probably making a mixed tape or two in the process. After all, the store was full of different kinds of turntables and stereos.

Then Dad pulled the ticket from the desk drawer in his office. When I saw it, I wasn�t sure if it�d work, because it looked nothing like a movie ticket to me. The tickets I had seen were made of flimsy paper you could almost see through, but this one was like a birthday card. A folded card, too, and inside, in blue ink, there were the JVC and Pepsi logos and a text inviting the holder of the card to the afternoon matinee.

I walked to the movie theatre, just a block away, and the card worked. I sat down, and after the JVC commercial, got sucked into an adventure that had mad geniuses � well, one mad genius � time travel, Libyan terrorists, Marty McFly, skateboards, beautiful girls, catchy music, and a happy end.

The movie was Back to the Future.

Huey Lewis made a cameo, but I missed that the first time around. I was too busy rooting for Michael J. Fox as Marty McFly.

After the movie, I was so pumped, and so happy, and so much wanted to be just like Marty McFly - or, rather, Michael J. Fox � and I felt so cool and because everything, everything, seemed possible, I ran and skipped all the way to the rink. It was cold and it was dark, but I ran through the city, and just like Marty McFly tells his girlfriend in the movie, I was telling myself, �someday, Jennifer, someday�.

I missed a few opening minutes of the game, but I didn�t care.

Someday � something.

Today, I left Dad at his place to go watch a junior hockey game at that same rink. Afterwards, I drove downtown and parked my car around the corner from the movie theatre. (There used to be three, now just one).

I walked to where Dad�s store used to be. They tore down the building a few years ago, and in the same spot there�s now a coffee shop. I bought a cappuccino, and found a table. As I took off my jacket, I made a mental note to check what I was wearing. I looked down, and I smiled.

I am writing this wearing a blue �Back to the Future� T-shirt.

Close encounters

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 15:47:33 +0100

Last week in Sweden, some 600 000 people stayed up or got up in the middle of the night to watch the World Juniors final between Sweden and Russia on TV. The average was 530 000 and by the time Mika Zibanejad beat Andrei Makarov in the Russian net, 600 000 people had tuned in.

And the way the game ended, it was obviously worth losing some sleep.

After the game, Sweden�s Jeremy Boyce-Rotevall said that Zibanejad had told him before the game that he�d "finish this game off." A bold prediction coming from a player who had scored just three goals in the tournament, against Latvia and Slovakia � but he backed it up.

"I [repeated it to Boyce-Rotevall] before the overtime too so it was good to get that goal," Zibanejad said. "You have to decide if you want to win this. In the morning, it was a joke, but obviously it�s not a joke anymore."

No, it�s no joke. And every time we repeat it, it becomes a little more of a truth until it becomes a true legend.

And when Zibanejad goes on to having a great career, winning Stanley Cups, and World Championship and Olympic golds - I throw those in here to show that I am European and that we do care about such things - it will all come back to the World Juniors overtime goal, the golden goal, he scored.

Sometimes it seems that people�s careers are made (and broken) in moments like that. Somebody is in the right place at the right time, and scores a big goal and everything seems to change.

Mike Eruzione scored the game winner against the Soviet Union, and clinched the Miracle on Ice in the 1980 Olympics. A few years ago that goal was voted �the greatest highlight of all time� on ESPN. Eruzione retired after the Olympics but the goal opened doors and other opportunities that probably wouldn�t have opened for him.

In the fall of 1981, I showed a bearded, young American guy how to strike a Finnish 20-pence coins really hard into the slot of the Helsinki arena cafeteria pinball machine to start a game that actually cost a whole one markka.

His name was Phil Verchota, and he, too, had been a miracle worker in the winter of 1980. In Helsinki, he played for the Helsinki Jokerit in the Finnish SM-liiga, scored 15 goals in 32 games, but his team finished last, and he took a sabbatical from hockey.

At least Verchota had made the US Olympic team, but somebody also has to be the last player not to make the team. On Herb Brooks�s Olympic team, that player was Ralph Cox, who came to Finland a year after Verchota.

Their roles might just as well have been reversed.

When coaches say that the games are so close that a lucky bounce can be the difference, they�re not kidding, especially in tournament play, like the Olympics or the World Championships. Last May, when Finland won the Worlds in Bratislava, Slovakia, it had to go through one overtime win, and three wins in a penalty shootout to get to the playoff stage.

The Swedish junior team beat Switzerland in a shootout, Russia in OT, Finland in the semifinal in a shootout, and Russia again, in OT, in the final.

And then, suddenly, a good backcheck by a Swedish defenseman going one way, a moment of hesitation by a Russian defenseman going the other, and Zibanejad found himself on a breakaway � and then under a pile of teammates, on fake stamps in the papers, and on a stage in downtown Stockholm in front of 6,000 people who were screaming his name.

Zibanejad�s teammate Pontus �berg has seven goals and 14 points in 29 games with Djurg�rden, fourth on the team in goals, and sixth in points. (Zibanejad has six points in 13 games). �berg, too, could have been on the stage, but he suffered a shoulder injury in the team�s last exhibition game before the tournament, against Canada, and had to return to Sweden.

His replacement flew in from Sweden the next day. His name was Jeremy Boyce-Rotevall.

The man with the hat

Fri, 6 Jan 2012 00:37:24 +0100

Longtime German national team player and national coach Xaver Unsinn passed away on Wednesday, January 4, 2012, in his hometown of F�ssen at age 82. With 107 games at World Championships and Olympic Winter Games as a coach he was the coach with the second-most international games behind only legendary Soviet coach Viktor Tikhonov.
� IIHF.com

One September morning in 1977, I was in a rush to read the sports pages of the Helsinki morning paper, even more than usual, because the Finnish SM-liiga had kicked off the night before. I turned to the back of the newspaper, and saw a headline about Lauri Mononen scoring a �Canadian hat trick�.

I had never heard of such a thing, but I learned that it was not just a regular hat trick, but a double one. Six goals.

Mononen had returned to Finland for that season, after two seasons with the Phoenix Roadrunners in the WHA, the other North American major professional league at the time. And he had returned with an even bigger chip on his shoulder than he left with, and he had put all his focus, all his energy into that first game, he told me later as I hung out at the sports store he and his partner, another Finnish SM-liiga player, Reijo Laksola, owned and operated close to our house.

He was fantastic that season, and scored 27 goals (and 39 points) in 36 games for Helsinki IFK.

Maybe he lost interest, or maybe he thought he could do the same without working in the off-season, but by the next fall he didn�t float like a butterfly, sting like a bee like Muhammad Ali, his favorite athlete, but neither did Muhammad Ali who had lost the heavyweight title to Leon Spinks in February 1978.

That was the summer I spent a couple of weeks at their cottage, jogging and playing badminton with him. Maybe I didn�t push him enough.

Ali regained his title in September, beating Spinks, just like Mononen had predicted to me in his store, in anticipation of the rematch but by then he had scored just one goal and was already on his way elsewhere again.

�And then I got a call. �Juuso� Wahlsten called me and told me that he had spoken with SC Bern�s coach Xaver Unsinn about an opening in Switzerland,� Mononen told me later.

�The management wanted an NHL player but Unsinn wanted Mononen. Money was not an object, Bern was determined to win the Swiss title,� he said.

�Unsinn wanted Mononen� may or may not be true because I spoke with Mononen about it years later when Unsinn had already become something of a legend in Finland, having coached the West German national team against Team Finland many times in the World Championships, and always wearing a hat. Back in 1978 Mononen may not have known who the coach was.

But in 1978, Mononen never spoke about Unsinn when I visited his sports store. The store wasn�t doing too well, even with two big SM-liiga stars behind the counter - literally - which may have helped him to make up his mind about Switzerland. But he needed help with the negotiations and he found my mother who was already helping the guys with the store�s book keeping.

Mom, who was and is fluent in German, negotiated the contract over the phone, and Mononen flew down to Z�rich. A few weeks later, Mom, Dad, and I were also at the Zurich airport, on our way to Bern to visit the Mononen family, and so that Mom could go over some details in the contract.

It was one of my first trips abroad, and I remember arriving in Zurich late at night, and then driving to Bern. And the Alps. And small airplanes hanging from the ceiling at the airport.

And I remember that we visited the SC Bern�s office. Dad and I weren�t included in the negotiations, but when everything was clear, the t�s crossed and the i�s dotted, the door to the office opened, and we were invited in. It was just an office, with papers here and there, and hockey coach�s clipboard on the desk.

It looked like a regular office, except for one thing.

There they were. The man and the hat.

Unsinn had wanted Mononen to Berne, and Mononen had wanted the Pakarinens to Berne, so it was like we were there as guests of that hockey genius.

From that moment on, and especially after Mononen and Unsinn did win the Swiss title together the next season, he was a legend in our household. We followed his career all through the 1980s and 1990s when he was the German national team coach, and we were always happy when (West) Germany won.

I had SC Bern postcards on the walls of my room. Mononen, the tall, blond Finn stood in the back, and Unsinn, the head coach, sat in the front.

Some time later, my Dad, the coach, and a student of the game, even bought a hat just like the one Unsinn always wore. It wasn�t even called just a hat at our house, it was always referred to as the �Unsinn hat�. Dad wore it proudly, too.

A note from Jimmy�s Grandma

Thu, 5 Jan 2012 12:04:00 +0100

Dear world,

Jimmy didn�t do it. He didn�t steal those billions of dollars. Trust me, I know. I am his grandmother and he was with me that whole week a couple of years ago because I had a sore throat and I needed love and attention. That and Jimmy�s special tea with honey. That usually cures any sore throat in just 24 hours. That time, however, it took me a whole week to get better.

And when the housing bubble burst? Jimmy was at my funeral. My first funeral. Funny thing really, that the doctors thought I had died when I had just sneezed really hard and knocked myself out.

It�s a little unfortunate that my little mishaps have so often fallen on Jimmy�s shoulders, because he�s such a fine boy. Always has been. He always puts his dear old Grandma first.

It seems that I�ve always been old, already when Jimmy was in first grade and missed the choir practices an entire semester because I slipped on the stairs and broke my hip, and had my rehabilitation on Fridays at 1 pm.

Most of all, though, it was my car that got him into trouble. My old Buick. It was a great car and it was built to last, but it sure had its problems.

Many a morning it just wouldn�t start. Ever since my second husband - Jimmy�s Grandpa Jack - passed away, bless his soul, there was nobody who could help me get it started in the winter. Except for Jimmy, that is. He wouldn�t even leave for school before he could get it started.

And we must have blown a tire at least a dozen times. Oh, we�ve had some adventures, Jimmy and I. There was a time when he had just got the Buick started, God knows how but he was always the clever one, and had driven for just a few blocks when we blew a tire. He patched it with tape so that I could drive him to the train, but the train was stuck because a tiny, tiny, tornado blew my hat onto the tracks and since it was my Sunday hat - I don't know why I was wearing it on a Tuesday - and Jimmy went down to get it, and the train had to make an emergency stop and, well, it was a mess.

I think that was one of the few times that he was really late for school, but I was always careful to write him a note to give to the teacher, explaining what had happened. I always wrote notes to people so that he wouldn�t get unnecessarily blamed.

One time, my little dog - Grace, she�s passed away, too - ate Jimmy�s homework. Oh, how we looked all over for it, and Jimmy was all beside himself because it had been his algebra homework, and we all know how much he loved algebra, and he had worked on that homework so hard. And then finally, there was little Gracie, my little white angel, lying on the floor, in a pile of paper. Jimmy�s math book.

I guess all that math made Gracie a little sick, because she then happened to throw up all over Jimmy�s English homework, and I had to throw the book away.

He may be a lot of things, Jimmy, but he�s no liar. So when he said that he couldn�t have been in that hotel with that, that, well, woman, he couldn�t have been there, because he was there with me. I had locked myself in the bathroom in that hotel, and couldn�t get out, embarrassing as it was.

I think it takes a vicious and a mean heart to think that somebody would use their old grandmother as an excuse to get out of a relationship. Yes, I am looking at you, Crystal. I sent a note with Jimmy explaining that he had been at my wedding. The fact that she didn�t believe it literally broke my heart, and I had to spend a week in the hospital, which made Jimmy miss a few days of work as well.

I believe Jimmy�s bank�s bankruptcy hearing was last Tuesday. It was unfortunate that we didn�t realize earlier that I�m allergic to cats. Last Monday, I got another one of those sneeze attacks and on Tuesday, there was my second funeral. Jimmy was by my side all day.

Sincerely yours,
Grandma Martha

As told to James G. Lyer, CEO and President, Acme Bank Inc.

Best Year Ever

Wed, 4 Jan 2012 23:07:53 +0100

NEW YORK � It was worth the hype. Just two days after its launch, �2012�, the latest version of Year, a life experience interface, has collected over seven billion users, making it the most popular Year in history.

Year has managed to add new users in most of its existing markets, a feat not many analysts thought was going to be possible. Also, while Year has dominated the global marketplace, it hasn�t always been embraced by the Chinese, leaving one of the biggest markets untapped, but �2012� seems to have broken that barrier.

The new Year is built on the same platform as the previous version, the �2011�, but users now can make slight modifications, such as opt for better nutritional and workout habits, a feature that the 2011 also initially had, but that disappeared mysteriously in early February in what is suspected to be an attack by the Anonymous.

The latest version was rolled out globally at midnight, starting somewhat surprisingly from Samoa, a country that has previously been one of the last markets to get Year.

�We wanted to do some last-minute tests and Samoa, as a closed market, was perfect for that,� said a Year spokesperson.

Rumors about an upgrade had been going around almost a year, creating an unprecedented hype around the launch.

In New York, tens of thousands of people lined up at the Times Square to make sure they were the first ones to get their hands on the new Year. Even in Moscow and Stockholm, people defied the sub-zero temperatures and gathered on the streets, a tribute to Year�s new social media element.

�I came here with a few of my friends three days ago, right after Christmas,, to be ready for the launch,� says Alex Shavatovsky, a Magnitogorsk, Russia based IT engineer, who had come to Moscow for the launch.

�I didn�t realize that they actually released Year earlier at home in Magnitogorsk, but I don�t care, it�s been fun, I�ve made a lot of new friends, and we�ve been sharing stuff,� he says, giving the thumbs up.

In just 24 hours, Year was rolled out globally. And the users were mostly happy.

�I love it,� says Sarah Watson, of Syracuse, N.Y. �I just got engaged, and it�s something I�ve been trying to do for a long time, but none of the earlier versions allowed me to do it,� she adds.

Many of the enthusiastic new users said they have been loyal users for a long time.

�I�ve had all their upgrades since 1962, and so far, this seems to be the most stable one,� says Janet MacKenzie, a Portland, Maine baker.

�There�s just something in the way they add new things, and let me tailor things that is very appealing. Now, there have been some real duds, too. After 1984 and 1985, I wasn�t sure if I was going to upgrade to 1986. Especially 1984 was gruesome, very buggy,� she added.

Not even this year�s launch went without complications as millions of users worldwide reported nausea and headaches just hours after they had upgraded their Year.

�I don�t know what happened. At first, everything seemed to be fine, I was a little happier with the new Year, and everybody was dancing and having fun, and then suddenly, somebody pointed out to me that my pants were covered in my own vomit,� says one Wall Street broker who wishes to remain anonymous.

The apparent bug was fixed in a quick upgrade.

�We really believe this is the best Year ever,� said a Year 2012 spokesperson. �We have very high expectations for it, but rest assured, there will be some surprises in the next version, as well.�

Tarasov's tough love

Tue, 3 Jan 2012 20:14:46 +0100

Hockey�s pretty much a year-round sport these days. Finnish teams, for example, play their first exhibition games already in early August when the rest of the world is still at their barbecues. Today, the players seem to be in shape all the time, August or April, they�re no slackers, and the Mario Lemieux kind of training � �not ordering the fries with my sandwich� - has gone the way of the Bobby Hull toupee.

I�m with Mario, always have been, but still, summer always feels like a new chance to get in shape. I don�t seem to succeed, but every summer, I still try. I even do some of the old conditioning drills back from when I still could. And when nobody�s watching, I try to run up a tree. I always have to get at least three steps up the trunk to feel good about myself.

Back in 1984 or so, when I was a freshman in high school, our hockey hotbed town got visitors from the Soviet Union. We, my team, were told to report to practice on the tennis court of my high school for an off-season practice session, headed by Anatoli Tarasov, �the father of Russian hockey.�

There we were, all twenty or so of us, standing in line in the scorching sun, looking around to see what he wanted us to do, out of breath because we had just sprinted there, as told. Except for those three teammates of mine who took a shortcut and walked through a hole in the fence, instead of jumping over it, like we were supposed to.

Uncle Anatoli wasn�t happy. As a punishment for their laziness � and undoubtedly lack of character � the three players had to turn three somersaults right there on the asphalt.

No mercy.

After a little warm up, Mr. T led us to the lawn by the side of the schoolyard. We all stood in line, as he explained the drill to an interpreter who then told us what to do, and then retreated to the shade to observe.

�First, run up the trees here, everybody has to get in three steps, but try to do four," he said. Only, he said it in Russian, so we just stood there, staring at him, waiting for the interpreter to do his job. And then we just stood there, staring at him, trying to figure out if he was being serious.

It was a birch, not huge, but solid enough to� well, be run on. None of us had ever done that so there was some nervous laughter.

�Then, you continue running and do three vaults,� he said.

We looked around at each other to see if we had understood the interpreter right. Or, even more so, if he had really understood Tarasov right. There was nothing there, just the lawn. Nothing to jump from � especially not skill � and no mats to land on.

�And then run back to the back of the line.�

I waited for my turn, took a deep breath and dashed towards the birch. One, two, three, up, up, up, and fourth, and down.

Jogged along to the next station and without thinking, without ever having done vaults before, I jumped and tried to do something in the air before landing on my back on the lawn.

I thought it was obvious that it was not only an impossible task, it was also idiotic to have young kids jumping on their backs on bare ground. But when Anatoli Vladimirovitch said �jump,� you said, �how high?�

After all, Tarasov was the man who once said that he saw two young players come to the practices, and without even seeing them play, he could tell which one of them would become a better player.

Naturally, it was the one who carried his own bag.

So, I took another deep breath, and jumped, twisted my 120-lb body every which way � and landed on my back. The pain was worse this time, but I still had to make one more attempt.

It took me a few years to realize that Tarasov wasn�t even trying to teach us to jump and do a vault.

He was trying to teach us to get up.

Rita Hayworth

Sun, 1 Jan 2012 23:17:25 +0100

While I was never one of those guys who could visualize their dream car, their dream house, or their dream woman, I always knew that Rita Hayworth was the perfect woman. You may not agree with me, but in that case I will have to respectfully let you know that you�re wrong. And I will tell you why. Rita Hayworth was the perfect woman because he was the star of my Dad�s favorite movie � which I assume was his favorite because she was the star of it.

The movie is Gilda, a 1946 film about an Argentine illegal casino, its owner, his right-hand man, and Gilda, the perfect woman, and the owner�s new bride who appears to share a past with the right-hand man.

But that�s just the plot. What keeps you glued to the screen is Gilda, the mystery lady with her long cigarettes, the long hair, and the even longer legs, as she takes the stage and sings �Amado Mio�.

Back then, he and Mom were still in charge of the car radio so the music that was playing in the car was their music: Finnish pop, often translated cover version of British and American songs, and Amado Mio. Dad had the song on one of his eight-track tapes, and on a cassette that he played in the car on our way to hockey practices.

The song would take us from our house to the bridge that took us over the Vantaa river. Sometimes he�d rewind it, often not, and since Dad isn�t a singer type, he never sang along. I guess the song just made him think of Gilda and Rita Hayworth, and the whole era of the 1940s which he had missed. The hats, the suits, the casinos.

When I was in high school, Dad bought a boat. Our family of three gathered around the kitchen table to brainstorm on good names for it, but the session was over as soon as one of us - and I like to think it was me - suggested �Gilda�.

"Gilda" it was.

A few years later, during my month and a half in the US, I bought Stephen King�s short story collection �Different Seasons�. I bought it for the short story that had become �Stand By Me�, the movie, but was pleasantly surprised by another story in it, called �Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption�. The movie based on that story is called simply Shawshank Redemption which I thought was a huge mistake since Rita Hayworth is, sort of, one of the story�s main characters.

I like Harry Belafonte because Mom liked it and played Matilda in the house. I sometimes listen to Edith Piaf and think of lying on our living room floor on a sunny day, with �Padam Padam� in the speakers.

I think Sean Connery is the real James Bond, because Dad raved about him, and I agree with him on putting Bud Spencer and Terence Hill in the Top 3 of comedy duos in the world, too.

And I also know that Rita Hayworth was once the most beautiful woman in the world.

The other day, as Son was supposed to be in bed, I sat at my desk, writing something, when he suddenly asked me to come to his room. He was sitting up in his bed.

�I can�t sleep, there�s something missing here,� said the smiling boy.

�What is it?� I asked.

�I can�t fall asleep because I can�t hear the sounds of TV, and you and Mom talking downstairs.�

�Why don�t you go down and watch an episode of Columbo or something,� he added, giving me the thumbs up.

�OK, I said. �And you�re right, Columbo�s always good,� I added.

I said good night, and walked downstairs to the living room, and turned the TV on.

They were showing �Gilda�. I sat down, and watched it with Wife. It was excellent.

Happy 2012

Sat, 31 Dec 2011 15:05:53 +0100

I�ve never understood why John Lennon would sing �another year over and a new one just begun� in a Christmas song. There�s still a week between Xmas and New Year�s and anything can happen.

For example, six years ago, Wife didn�t have any idea on Xmas Eve that a week later I�d propose to her.

Twelve years ago, we wished each other merry Xmas and a happy new year a couple of days before Xmas Eve because I spent that one in Finland, and wasn�t sure if I�d be back for her New Year�s party.

But I decided to come back because I wanted to be with her. That much I knew then, and that much I know now. Everything else has just happened.

A couple of days ago, I had a meeting, and if I say it was my first actual sit-down-let�s-talk-about-stuff meeting with a business partner this year, I�m not exaggerating one bit. I almost managed to cruise through an entire year without participating in a meeting.

But there I was sitting in one, meeting two Swedish guys, entrepreneurs, in their new, half-furnished meeting room, sipping coffee black, because they only had beer, no milk, in the fridge. And I leaned back in my chair and watched one of them give their company presentation, drawing boxes and arrows on a whiteboard.

Then it was my turn to give them the presentation of Me, Inc.

�Are you a real Finn?� the guy in front of me asked to get things going.

And I told him yes, and told him the story of my moving to Sweden. How I saw an ad in a Helsinki paper and thought I knew a little something about magazine production and writing because I had translated a hockey magazine from Norwegian into Finnish for a few years. I paused for laughter. I told them how I �somehow happened� to get the job and moved to Stockholm, and how I then �ended up� being an editor, and then met Wife.

�The usual story,� I said, and paused for laughter.

I told them how we then moved to Finland - �I moved back, she just moved�, pause for laughter - and how I �wound up� writing more and more at my new job. Even without a slide presentation, I made a smooth transition to Son�s birth, and how I then decided to go freelance.

I didn�t tell them that I actually never made a decision to go freelance, I just made a decision to do something and be at home with Wife and Son.

�And then, when it was time for Wife to return to work, we thought it was easier for me to keep doing my thing in Sweden than it was for her to do hers in Finland,� I said. I always say that, too. It�s true, but we never actually had a meeting about it.

It just sort of happened.

When I made that last pause, for laughter, I realized how many random things have happened along the way, to get me from my old Helsinki neighborhood to Sweden, to Sollentuna, Wife�s old hood, and to this office chair that Wife bought for 20 Swedish krona from her old company, to write these stories.

Sure, I�ve tried to set some things in motion, but the results haven�t always been what I expected. So I�ve made new plans, new decisions, new resolutions, and then revised them again. Other times things have just happened to me, forcing me to adjust and adapt.

�But, in short, these days, I write a lot about hockey,� I told the two guys, mentioned the hockey magazine I started and buried, but said nothing about a lot of other things I write about. Instead, I tried to backtrack a little to get in the fact that I actually have a Master�s degree in business. Somehow, that seemed important to me.

Not to them. The rest of the meeting we talked hockey. It turned out that one of the guys was a former player himself.

I didn�t know that when I, a few weeks ago, liked a link that a Wife�s friend had posted on her Facebook page, looking for Finnish writers.

And here we go again. Another New Year�s Eve with new resolutions - Wife is good at that, see here - and all kinds of new beginnings. Wipe the slate clean and start doing the things you really want to be doing � and then see where life will take you.

Countdown: Number 1

Thu, 29 Dec 2011 10:02:43 +0100

The Best of 2011.

1. True Stories
� A loser never quits

2. Hockey
� Stefan Liv

3. Random
� No chicken

Countdown: Number 2

Wed, 28 Dec 2011 09:02:00 +0100

The Best of 2011, nummmbbbeeerrrrr 2. If, for any reason, the number one stories of 2011 can't fullfill their duties during their reign, the first runner up will take over their places.

1. True Stories
� Mother

2. Hockey
� Jarda

3. Random
� It�s a small world

Countdown: Number 3

Tue, 27 Dec 2011 09:13:03 +0100

The Best of 2011, nummmbbbeeerrrrr 3:

1. True Stories
� Better than science, fiction

2. Hockey
� There�s that Valeri again

3. Random
� Princes of dorkness

Countdown: Number 4

Mon, 26 Dec 2011 09:35:32 +0100

And now - counting down the best stories of 2011 - number four:

1. True Stories
� Noteworthy

2. Hockey
� It�s all in the game

3. Random
� One unique idea