From the desk of Risto Pakarinen

It's amusing

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 17:39:30 +0200

Frankly, amusement parks don�t give me much amusement. I can see all the happy people running around, sprinting back to the end of the line to ride the same rides over and over again, but like Steve Butabi told his brother Doug in �A Night at the Roxbury�:

I can't taste it, Doug! I can't! I'm so scared right now I don't know what to do!

Of course, I never say that out loud. That�s just something I tell myself when I�m leaning against a wall somewhere, guarding everybody�s bags, clothes, cameras, while updating my Facebook status, looking as cool as I possibly can.

I don�t like the rides that just spin, fast. I don�t like any of the rides where I don�t actually drive the thing, where I�m just a passenger. But I do kind of like a good, old-fashioned rollercoaster � if I pretend I�m driving it.

But love can make you do silly things. Love, and the stupid macho need to impress the girl you�re falling for. Maybe mostly the stupid macho need to impress. Love then sets you free. It�s love that lets me guard all the bags.

The first summer I was dating Wife, she took me to Gr�na Lund, the Stockholm amusement park. An annual tradition of hers, she wanted to bring me in to it, too. I�d told her that I don�t really like amusement parks, but I had also told her that I couldn�t swim, and she had seen me float, so maybe she just thought I was an overachieving type who always sets the bar high.

The biggest - and baddest - attraction of Gr�na Lund at the time was Fritt Fall, the Free Fall, where they strap you into a seat, hike you slowly up to about 80 meters, and then drop you down at about 100 kilometers an hour.

And when I say �you�, I wish it were you.

But after all the games, the lotteries, the fun house, the merry-go-round, and the love tunnel, Wife wanted to do Free Fall. And Sister-in-law wanted to do it. And suddenly I heard a macho man voice say that I also wanted to do it.

And I did it.

I had no idea how high 80 meters really is. I could see all the way to Finland. And I had no idea how long a time three seconds is. But now I can tell you that it feels like a lifetime, and you can scream your lungs out three times on your way down.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH! [Inhale] AAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!!! [Inhale] AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!

Maybe nobody could hear me scream in space, but Wife and her sister surely did hear me. Apparently, the macho man stayed on the ground.

And it�s hard to play cool after that. Sister-in-law ran back to the end of the line to do it all over again. I stayed on the ground with the bags.

Oddly, though, later that same summer, Wife managed to talk me into going back to an amusement park. We had been on a road trip across America, driving from New York to Atlanta to Vegas to Oregon to LA, and she wanted to go to Six Flags, Magic Mountain.

For her, a road trip invoked memories of stopping at various amusement parks and riding roller coasters with loops with her other sister. And while the Goliath didn�t have loops - I don�t think - its opening drop was, at the time, the longest and fastest (135 km/h) on a closed-circuit roller coaster in the world.

Well, just the name, �Goliath� says it all. It was huge, and the drop was even bigger. As a side note, let the record show that the drop is officially about 60 meters, even though Wife refers to it as a 80-meter drop - as recently as last week. But she is her father�s daughter, and her sister�s, um, sister, and they�re not embarrassed to embellish a story to make it even better. Sister-in-law has told amazing and colorful stories about her adventures, even though she wasn�t really there when the events unfolded, but instead, heard it all from a friend.

Anyway, there I stood in line with Wife, wrestling with myself whether to get onboard Goliath or not. Unfortunately, the line was about an hour long, so I went back and forth about a dozen times. Looking up at Goliath, then at Wife, then Goliath again. Thinking I could do it, then that I would die. Then looking at Wife, thinking I could do it.

And then we came to the gate. The car was waiting for me, Wife had jumped in � and I turned around and walked back out. The loser walk. The walk of shame. It went alongside the line going in, so I couldn�t even slip out through the back door, but had to face all the people standing in line.

Hopefully, my walking out gave some other quitter the courage to walk out.

After Free Fall, I had told Wife that yes, it was scary, but that I could probably even like doing it in reverse instead: to get shot up. Little did I know that two years later, we�d move to Helsinki, and that the local �amusement� park had just one of those rides. The ones where you get strapped into a seat at ground level, and then get shot up to 75 meters.

�I�m too stupid to realize what�s going to happen, so that�ll suit me just fine,� I said.

And I did it. Once.

Good news: I wasn�t as stupid as I thought.

Last weekend, we went to another amusement park in Finland. By now, both Wife and I know our roles. She rides the big ones, alone, and the fast childen�s rides with the kids, I go to the fun houses, and the dark rides, and the house of mirrors.

It�s been easy because the kids haven�t been big enough to get to ride the really big ones. This year, Son got to ride one of those big Chair-O-Planes, the swing carousels, and he loved it. Wife and I stood on the ground, looking up, watching our little boy fly high above our heads, waving to us with his feet, because he had to hold on to the swing with his hands.

But he loved it.

He loved it so much that I decided I would ride it with him.

�Was it scary?� I asked.

�No, it was fun, just a little scary, but I have a good trick for that. I sang �Olamababa just a sweet Caramaba�, he said, referring to a song that is also known as �Get On�, by Hurriganes.

�Great,� I said, as we ran to the end of the line.

Son took a seat in the inner circle, I grabbed the seat next to him, and fastened my seat belt. I felt good, swinging my feet in the cool air, looking at Son, who was about to burst out of excitement.

�Get reeeeeeady!� said the kid responsible for the ride.

And off we went, �round and �round, and �round and �round, and higher and higher, and higher and higher, and higher, and my swing started to go farther and farther away from the center, and that�s when I heard from the seat next to me, �And like a rubber ball, I come bouncin' back to you rubber ball,� in a young boy�s light voice.

I replied with �Well, old Alabama, just a sweet Carolina, just a-rockin' and rollin' may leave town, got to be a scoogie, lay on my boogie�� and felt my swing go higher and higher, and higher and higher, and I was sure that in just a few seconds like a rubber ball I�d be bouncing off the concrete below me, and I sang some more, and I closed my eyes, and I sang, and I opened my eyes, and I tried to see Wife somewhere but couldn�t, and I told myself that the ride probably only lasts a couple of minutes and that we must have been at least halfway through, and that it was a good thing Son was behind me.

A minute later, everything slowed down, and I got my feet back on the ground. I wanted to kiss the ground like the old Pope used to do, but instead, just grabbed my shoes and walked through the exit with Son.

�You looked a little tense up there,� Wife said as Son ran back to the end of the line.

I took the backpack and said I was fine. But that I was a little thirsty.

Trendsetter

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 21:23:54 +0200

It finally happened. For weeks now, I�ve been walking around wearing a white shoe on my left foot, and a black one on my right, except on a few days when I�ve had a black shoe on my right foot and a white one on my right, and nobody's said anything.

Today, though, when it happened, I was wearing white on left, black on right, and I had just got scrambled eggs, a sandwich, and the local Tampere specialty mustamakkara, a blood sausage.

The gentleman in the next table coughed, and succeeded in getting my attention.

�Um, excuse me� um,� he said, and smiled.

His wife looked away, but turned back when I said, �Yes, sure.�

�Um � why are you wearing one black and one white shoe?� the man asked.

Like I said, I�ve been doing this for weeks now, proudly wearing my mixed pairs, hoping that somebody would ask me that, because I�ve thought that it�d be a great moment, that I�d feel a little special - and not in the air quotes kind of way like I�m sure many people who've seen me have described me - and maybe score some cheap points off a stranger.

Silly, yes.

But when the British gentleman finally asked me, I suddenly didn�t know what to say. I know I wanted to say �just because� but because I keep telling Son and Daughter that �'just because' is not an answer�, I knew I had to come up with something better.

I�ve told Wife - jokingly - that I�m starting a trend. That in a couple of years all the cool people will be wearing mixed-pair shoes. And that when that happens, she�ll know who to thank for it. (See �Slow� for more about my trendsetting abilities).

(In fact, the night before, I had scored a small victory with her, when we saw a teenaged boy wearing one black and one red high-top sneaker at the amusement park.)

The British gentleman, in his sixties, was still smiling, and looking slightly embarrassed for asking such a silly question, but patiently waiting for an answer. I laughed, shrugged my shoulders and�

Just then his wife said, �It�s surely a fashion thing.�

�That�s right," I said "I�m about to start a new trend, so when you start seeing people with shoes like this, you�ll know where you saw it first."

Wife looked at me, knowingly. She knew that even though she once traveled to Nice, France, with one white and one purple shoe, she did it so by mistake, and you don�t start a trend just like that.

She knows that you have to keep at it, and she knows that this isn�t the first time I�m trying to get this shoe thing started. I spent the summer of 1999 in two pairs of shoes, wearing one yellow and one orange shoe at a time, alternating the pairings. I like to remember it was a huge hit, that people loved it, and if I'm not mistaken, they may have even carried me on their shoulders on the streets of Stockholm, for being so cool.

Twenty minutes after the British gentleman had asked me about my shoes, I met with a hockey writer colleague for a cup of coffee. When he saw me, he said, laughing: �Oh, I can tell that wearing different colored shoes is the new trend in Stockholm these days.�

Not yet. Not yet.

The Decision

Sat, 24 Jul 2010 19:39:37 +0200

Let�s say you�re in charge of a big science park, a place that introduces science to kids and families. Let�s say you want to have a unique attraction, something to keep people buzzing about your fine establishment for years and years.

Because you know that what you have is pretty darn good. You have all the cool things that people love to try out; the Indian fakir spike mats, the mirrors, the car with the square wheels, and dozens and dozens of other cool tests that explain gravity, light, mathematics, and laws of physics in an entertaining way.

But, like I said, let�s say you also want to spice it up a bit. Would you go with dancing bears, or an Einstein lookalike walking around, solving math problems with the visitors, fireworks in a bottle, or a full-blown particle accelerator?

Or would you instead train rats to play basketball with a ball that - in its former life - used to be in a deodorant roll-on stick? And would you then stop there, or would you create a pro league for the rats?

Don't speak

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 22:16:56 +0200

You know how �they� always say that 80 percent of human communication is body language. Some of them actually throw the numbers around a bit, based on �new studies� - this is where Son would ask me if I meant that ironically, and I kind of do - or whatever happens to suit their message so who knows which number is right. Maybe it�s 55 percent, or maybe 93.

Let�s just agree that it�s very important, muy importante.

However, today, to get to the bottom of this, I conducted some field studies of my own.

I tested people�s reactions to - and their ability to communicate with � beings that were somewhat handicapped in the areas of verbal and facial expression. Yes, the family went to Moomin World.

The test subjects were asked to put on Moomin character suits, and spend an entire day entertaining children - and surprisingly many adults - by welcoming them to the theme park, and staging a play about a competition between different methods of flying. I, in turn, then monitored and evaluated their success with conveying different emotions and ideas.

The findings were stunning. Without different facial expressions it�s very, very difficult to tell the difference between a very happy Sniff and a very agitated Sniff and practically impossible to see whether Hemulens is inviting people to his house or trying to chase them away.

This is especially true when the Moomin family members came in contact, because, unlike Little My who talks (in a very high pitch), all they can do is shake their huge heads and wave their arms.

Also, minimal eye contact also made all characters seem a little untrustworthy.

In conclusion, I find that the term, �body language�, gives too much credit to the body. According to my empirical studies, the body is responsible for about 30 percent - tops! - of the communication, words 20 percent, and facial expressions 50 percent.

So if you choose to have just one, choose it well.

No sweat

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 21:08:28 +0200

�Success is 10 percent inspiration and 90 percent perspiration.�
� Thomas Alva Edison

Terry, my Canadian (exchange student) brother had a buddy called Sweaty. I�ve never met Sweaty, and in the only photo I�ve ever seen of him, he was asleep - or passed out - and not really sweaty, but I�ve always felt a connection to him.

I�m sure you can figure out why.

Since I know something about perspiration, let me just say that there are two kinds. The good kind, and the bad kind. The good kind - and even that, only in moderation - is the one you get at the gym, or while jogging, working at a farm, or doing any kind of exercise.

Or, like Steve Martin�s character in �The Lonely Guy�, you can spray it out of a can.

The good kind of sweat lets people know that you�re working hard, and that you�re a dependable kind of person who cares. You care about yourself, and other people, and by Toutatis, you�re willing to sweat for it.

I like the good sweat. Of course, being a lazy, round guy, I like them good foods, too. Like Anna, a fellow language course student told me in Oxford in the 1980s: �I bet you�d be really fat if you didn�t work out so much.�

She was right, of course, but she also came to the conclusion one night when a group of us was, once again, hanging out at the local burger joint, and I was the only one eating.

But I did work out almost every day even during that trip, because back then, I was still dreaming of a career as a hockey pro.

That�s the kind of sweat I love. I don�t mind my light blue T-shirt turning into dark blue, completely dark blue, at the gym. Or when I�m riding my bike, as exercise.

Of course, the line between the good sweat and the bad one can be a bit blurry at times. For example, a good workout sweat on a T-shirt that�s forgotten in a bag for three days and then pulled out may force other people at the gym to cover their noses with their shirts.

(Or, at least I�ve seen one guy do it once, doing a shoulder workout next to me, while I was doing bench press).

On a hot summer day, just a simple bike ride to the city may turn into a workout only because I can�t ride slowly. Relative to my own ability, that is. There are times when that�s not a good thing. For some weird reason, a lot of people interpret a few beads of sweat running down the temples as nervousness. I bet Mentalist would, too.

Sometimes it is. Like when I held a baby for the first time.

But not always.

Ten years ago, after I had let go of my dream of making it to the NHL as a player, I still nurtured my dream of possibly making it to the big leagues some other way. Maybe as an executive. Maybe as a player agent. Maybe as a stick boy (if the price was right).

I found a Swedish event management company and cold called them about wanting a job there. The man was amused, but just like the ad agency guy some ten years earlier, curious enough to set up a meeting with me. Thrilled, I penciled in a meeting, and started to visualize how I would decorate my new office at the Royal Tennis Arena.

That�s where there offices where, at the Royal Tennis Arena. The place where Bj�rn Borg and Rod Laver had played, where Ingemar Johansson had fought, and that had been the venue of a Beatles show.

Just so happened that their office was about ten kilometers from my house. Just so happened that it was such a nice early summer day, in June, that it would have been foolish, stupid even, not to take advantage of the situation and skate there, in my inlines.

The meeting was at 1pm, I left the house at 11.30 am. Listening to music, admiring the beautiful city on my way, I was on schedule when I passed the Royal Castle, my mental halfway point.

I was at the 1912 Olympic Stadium early, but worried that I wouldn�t find the Royal Tennis Arena, I kept pushing, thinking that I could then take it easy for a good 15 minutes. I got to the RTA, took off my skates, and pulled my shoes out of my backpack.

I could tell that my shirt was a little damp, but I wasn�t worried about it, because I did have time to recover. I just sat on the chairs and stretched my legs. What company wouldn't want to hire such a sporty fellow?

Ten minutes later, I went in to look for the office, and met the man who�d agreed to meet me. He showed me to a cafeteria, and we sat down to talk shop.

�Tell me about yourself,� he said.

�Well, I�m Finnish, and I have a degree in marketing�� I started, getting the two most important facts out of the way, and then launching into a presentation about my strengths and weaknesses, while carefully, quickly, wiping some sweat off my brow.

The bad kind of sweat.

�Interesting, interesting,� the man said a minute later. He then got up, and got me a some napkins.

�Just in case,� he said.

�Thanks, um, it�s kind of hot here, isn�t it? Nice day, though, I�m not complaining,� I said and continued my speech, while using the napkins to dry the sweat on my forehead, and sideburns.

In fact, I used them all up, so that three minutes into my meeting with the event management executive, I had a pile of crumbled (and sweaty) napkins next to my glass of diet Coke on the table. About the size of, say, two tennis balls.

�� And like I said, I love sports, and I�ve been looking to�� I said as the man leaned back in his chair.

�Would you like to go wash up a little? I mean, if you�re uncomfortable��

Just to please the guy - like I said, a little sweat never bothered me - I went to the bathroom, and splashed some water on my face. The man in the mirror approved.

I returned to the table, and kept on talking.

When were done - turns out, they didn�t have anything for me � but before I put on my inlines and skated back home, the man also told me he had never seen anybody sweat that much.

But if Edison was right, at least I�m doing something right.

Yes, I'm from Finland

Sun, 18 Jul 2010 00:26:34 +0200

�What an honor that the amazing Markoolio was born in my fatherland�
� Son, July 15, jumping up in joy

You can take the boy out of Finland, but you can�t take Finland out of the boy. Even if the boy sometimes does everything to keep Finland deep, deep, deep down in the dungeons of his soul. All you have to do is trash talk Finland - or tell the boy everything you know about the country - and the boy will come to the country�s rescue, or answer in mono-syllable sentences.

Unless you�re a Finn, of course, in which case the boy will join you in trash talking Finland.

I�ve lived in Sweden since 1998 - minus the two years that Wife and I spent in Helsinki, Finland, where Son was born � which is about half of my adult life. I spent the first three months curious about the differences between Sweden and Finland. I told myself that since the countries are so similar, it�s natural to focus on the things that are different.

Which meant: things that the Swedes did wrong. Like that the store doors always open inward. You always push to get in, never pull, like in Finland. Or that the line at the ATM was always running to the right of the person getting cash, not behind him.

Except for that one stubborn guy who thought he could single-handedly change the was Swedes stand in line at the ATM.

You may know him.

Finland felt so beautifully raw and honest that I laughed when I told my friends how on one of my ferry rides back to the old country, I asked the waitress at the bar if I was allowed to take my glass out to the deck and how she just shrugged her shoulders and said, �I really don�t care�.

During my first six months in Sweden I was more Finnish than I�d ever been in my life. I read classic Finnish novels, I watched Finnish movies, and I traveled back a lot. I joined the mailing list for Finns living in Sweden and weeks before my first Christmas in Sweden - of course, I spent the holidays in Finland - I walked over to the Finnish church next to the office to see if they�d know where to get plum jam in Stockholm.

I vowed that if I ever moved back to Finland, a scenario that seemed very likely at the time, I would be an �active citizen�. I would want to get involved, and shape the country to what I wanted it to be.

(I did move, but wasn�t an active citizen.)

Then along came Wife, and opened me the door to the real Sweden. The land of the svenssons, where justice and solidarity rule, where if you�re very strong, you also have to be very nice, as Astrid Lindgren said of Pippi Longstocking.

It�s absolutely not everybody�s Sweden, but it is mine. And I like it.

Finland wasn�t very nice to Wife. My Finland was cold and gloomy, and angry, and it depressed Wife. I danced my funny dance, but it didn�t help.

In fact, Finland now felt so raw and honest that I winced when I told my friends how on one of my ferry rides back to the old country, I asked the waitress at the bar if I was allowed to take my glass out to the deck and how she just shrugged her shoulders and said, �I really don�t care�.

The same scene got an alternate ending, with some different lighting. In the first scene, Miss Finland was smiling and pretty, in the latter, an old witch.

These days, when people ask me where I�m from, I don�t know what to say. Then I start to stutter and pull out a lame joke about having flown in from Stockholm � but that I�m Finnish. Then I hand them a printout with my bio which will, in the future, probably also have a link to this post.

Old friends ask me whether I�ve moved to Sweden �for good�, and for some reason, I can�t answer to that question, either. I can�t say �no� because there are no immediate plans for us to move to Finland. I can�t say �yes� - even if the likelihood of that increases by the day - because that feels like betrayal.

I�d betray Finland if I said I was never coming back.

A couple of months ago, I wrote a piece about the Finnish-language radio in Sweden for the Finnish Union of Journalists� paper. I haven�t really listened to the radio - but I have been on their Chrismas show! - because while I�ve read tens of thousands of emails sent to the mailing list, aimed at Finns living in Sweden, I�ve never made the effort to enter the Finnish community. I haven�t attended the seminars at the Finland Institute, haven�t listened to Sisuradio, or subscribed to the paper.

I didn�t get it. If you decide to move to Sweden, why hang out with Finns? Sounds silly now. Besides, the Finns that I saw, apart from the amazing Markoolio, always seemed so militant about their state of affairs as a minority group in Sweden. Always up in arms against the Swedish government.

There are five official such groups in Sweden. The other four are Sami people, Romani people, Jews, and the me�nkieli speakers, a language spoken in Northern Sweden.

There are almost 300 000 Finnish speakers in the country. But their country isn�t Finland, it�s Sweden. Finland is their, our, heritage.

It took me a long time to get it.

Exactly 24 hours ago, I sat at a dinner table in a Helsinki texmex restaurant, surrounded by 14 of my old schoolmates. And by �old�, I mean �former�. I lost them in a world with no Internet, or mobile phones, and apparently no pens and papers, or telephones, either, because apart from one guy, I hadn�t seen any of them since May 31, 1981.

But last night, I got them back. Before the reunion, I told everybody who�d listen how much I was looking forward to it, but quickly adding - because I�m Finnish - that it�s probably going to be awkward, as �we�re basically complete strangers�.

In a way, we were. We went around the table, telling each other what we do, about our kids, about our jobs, and where we lived. But we weren�t complete strangers. The cool guy was still pretty cool, and the funny loudmouth still very funny. As they should. And the girls were smart and funny, and looked good, and the girl whom I always thought was like �Rizzo�, the leader of the Pink Ladies, was still the leader type.

And, in her own words, �pretty damn smart�.

That�s the Finland I want to remember. Sure, that Finland could be pretty raw, too, but it was also good to me then. That Finland made me feel good last night. That Finland made us us.

"Son, isn�t it funny how you say 'fatherland', but 'mother tongue',� I said.

He looked at me and laughed.

�Totally.�

�Except that you have two mother tongues. Like mother and father tongue.�

�For sure.�

He then skipped along, towards the beach, because we were on a beautiful island in the Stockholm archipelago. My beautiful Finnish-Swedish boy, even more amazing than the amazing Markoolio.

When we were kings

Sat, 17 Jul 2010 13:36:53 +0200

Turns out, I didn�t know anybody. I thought I could put all the names and faces together, but I didn�t recognize my best buddy. I probably would have had somebody asked me to find him in the crowd sitting in the sun, but when he came to shake my hand, I drew a blank.

Then again, he wasn�t sure who I was, either.

Almost like the first day of school.

Except a lot more fun.

Because on the first day of school I cried.

Those were the days

Fri, 16 Jul 2010 12:06:04 +0200

The last time I saw the dozen or so people I�m about to meet in six hours, Ronald Reagan had just sworn in as President of the United States of America, and a rockabilly fever swept over Finland. No cause and effect, at least I don�t think so, but simply a coincidence. Finland had two TV channels, and I was hooked on Love Boat, mostly because the cruise director Julie was such a sweet and cute chiquitita. Urho Kekkonen was in his 25rd year as the president of Finland, and we accidentally pushed our biology teacher into the river Vantaa that flows sort of through Helsinki.

None of those things have anything to do with each other, either.

The Blues Brothers had been a huge hit, and one of the posters had been on the bus stop just outside our house. I thought Mork from Ork was way cooler. And somehow I got bitten by the Woody Allen bug, so one weekend, I saw both Manhattan and Bananas. First Bananas which a buddy of mine and I thought was so funny we wanted more so we saw Manhattan, which we didn�t think was funny at all.

And at school, we drove a substitute teacher into therapy.

My newest favorite hockey player was Vladimir Krutov whom I had seen play at the World Juniors, but as a sports idol, he wasn�t as cool as Kevin Keegan or Atik Ismail. I had just bought my first record, an Elvis record - �The Rocking Days� - and our music teacher, a national celebrity and a TV personality, made everybody buy block flutes while promising that whoever would learn to play this song, would get a 10, the highest grade.
,
I only learned the one below, and got an 8. I can still play it. I wonder if the others can, too.

Somebody else's bucket list

Wed, 14 Jul 2010 22:05:14 +0200

The first time my father came home and told my mother that he�d just witnessed a man die, I was about 11 years old. And - at least as far as I know - my father wasn�t a Mob hitman, so this was not an every day occurrence at the house.

Dad was upset, shaken. Mom was upset and curious to hear everything. And I was minding my own business, probably reading a book, but faking it, and instead being all ears, and yes, somewhat shaken.

With me being 11, and the dead man in his 60s, and not related to me, it wasn�t surprising that I didn�t really know him, but I did know of him. He was the team leader of my hockey club�s men�s team, and a prominent figure in the club. So prominent was he that the next fall when the new season guide was published, there was an obituary of him.

My father was in his early thirties, an up-and-coming, and passionate coach in the club, and he�d been meeting the prominent team leader during the men�s team�s dry-land practice session, when he�d got a heart attack.

They did CPR on him, but it was too little, and he died, watching the men�s team play soccer.

�He just turned blue,� my father told my mother.

Five, maybe six, years later, I was at home with a buddy when Dad came home from his oldtimers hockey team�s practice. We were in my room, listening to Journey, or Heart, or possibly Survivor, when Dad came home. He was a little more quiet than usual.

It may have been my birthday, and I may have had buddies over for that, because for a couple of years, I was on the ice with his oldtimers team every time they had a practice. I was their designated referee.

But not that time.

Dad came down to my room, and my buddy - also my teammate, and also one of the kids Dad had coached earlier - asked him how the practice had been.

�A rough night?�

�Yes, one guy died,� said Dad.

My buddy laughed. My mother and I jumped up to see what was going on. Because - to paraphrase a line from �Airplane�, the movie - Dad never joked around like that. He joked a lot, still does, and he was, and is, a prankster, but a joke like that would have been totally out of character. And he was very much in character.

The man in question hadn�t actually died, but was rushed to the hospital unconscious. Dad wasn�t sure if it had been a heart attack or a brain aneurysm, and neither was the doctor, their teammate, who was on the ice that night and was the first responder. The dead man had been my coach just two years prior, and a very popular one, thanks to his easy-going personality which was reflected in the way he taught the team the Art of Fart.

Back then, he had been a chubby, funny guy, but that summer he had lost a lot of weight, sweating it all off running. The life-long bachelor had also that same year met a woman � I�m not sure which came first.

After he had told Mom what happened when the prominent hockey manager had died, Dad then said something that has stuck with me ever since.

�Now I�ve seen a man die,� he said, as if it was something everybody should do in his lifetime.

I�m not in a hurry to check that one off the list.

Another caption contest

Mon, 12 Jul 2010 23:56:22 +0200

So, what's going on here? Write your suggestion in the comments section.

The Great Partly-White North

Sat, 10 Jul 2010 19:31:39 +0200

I�m writing this in the kitchen of the northern-most Swedish family in the world, looking over the world�s northern-most concrete plant, with my back towards the northern-most hospital in the world. I believe that right now, I may just be the northern-most Finnish freelancer in the world, and for sure, this is my northern-most blog entry ever.

I�m in Troms�, Norway - the self-proclaimed �Paris of the North�, where everything is the world�s northern-most. The golf course, of course, but also � according to their own submission � a brewery (and by extension all the beer they brew), a university, a business school, a protestant cathedral, a soccer team, a volleyball team, and a basketball team in the highest national league, a botanical garden, a glass studio, samba parade, an electric car association, a catholic church, an observatory to study the northern lights, a windsurfing club, and if the plans for a mosque for the 1000 muslims in the 65000-people-strong town become reality, that would be the northern-most one in the world.

It�s a nice niche.

It reminds me of a car dealership in Ilomantsi, Finland which right after Finland had joined the EU, advertised itself as the eastern-most car dealership in the European Union. Not sure if that brought them more business, but we all have to live with the niche we�re dealt with.

Surprisingly, Troms� doesn�t have the world�s northern-most McDonald�s. That honor goes to Rovaniemi, Finland.

But I�m sure the Burger King on Storgata is the northern-most BK in the world.

And Storgata is the nicest street I�ve ever seen this far up north.

Interlude

Fri, 9 Jul 2010 10:25:16 +0200

FADE IN.

INT. CAFETERIA - DAY.

Two men standing in line to a buffet table. They work in the same office, but don't usually eat lunch together.

MAN IN A SUIT AND A RED TIE
So, who do you think will win the World Cup?

MAN IN A SUIT AND A BLUE TIE
Oman� I don�t know. I like Samoa.

MAN IN A SUIT AND A RED TIE
You'd like some more what?

MAN IN A SUIT AND A BLUE TIE
Some more Turkey, please. I�m Hungary.

MAN IN A SUIT AND A RED TIE
Sure, help yourself.

MAN IN A SUIT AND A BLUE TIE
Thanks, I was Ghana.

Man in a suit and a red tie steps aside, and lets the man in a blue tie reach for the turkey.

MAN IN A SUIT AND A RED TIE
Anyway, you think Spain can do it?

MAN IN A SUIT AND A BLUE TIE
Norway, India dreams! No, no, they�re Finnished.

MAN IN A SUIT AND A RED TIE
Care to make it interesting?

MAN IN A SUIT AND A BLUE TIE
I�ll bet Macau that they won�t win it.

MAN IN A SUIT AND A RED TIE
Well, OK�

MAN IN A SUIT AND A BLUE TIE
OK, Czech this out: I�ll Sweden the deal, and even predict the score: 1-1.

MAN IN A SUIT AND A RED TIE
But, that�s .. What is that?

MAN IN A SUIT AND A BLUE TIE
Yemen of little faith. That�s my prediction of the World Cup final.

MAN IN A SUIT AND A RED TIE
Sure. Fine. Listen, I have to go now. See ya!

MAN IN A SUIT AND A BLUE TIE
Actually, I have Togo, too.

MAN IN A SUIT AND A RED TIE
Oh, I Bolivia.

FADE OUT.

Mr. Know-it-all

Tue, 6 Jul 2010 18:19:16 +0200

Don't know much about history
Don't know much biology
Don't know much about a science book
Don't know much about the French I took
� Wonderful World, Sam Cooke

Yes, I do know that I love her - and since it looks like a wonderful world to me, she must love me, too � but still, I can�t get over the fact that I really don�t seem to know anything.

Well, I have no problem with that, it�s been a slow but steady process since the day I laughed when our high school biology teacher told everybody in the class that we�d be at our smartest when we graduate.

I really don�t even understand how a guy with a university degree can know so little about so much. What baffles me the most, though, is that I seem to pretend to know so much about, well, everything.

Every day, I spit out these half-truths, lies, and random sentences which I, upon reflection, don�t even know which ones they are.

I�ve probably always been doing this because a few months into our relationship, Wife was at my place and she burned her hand on a pan or something. I rushed to help her, with a box of butter in my hand.

�You gotta put this butter on the burn, it�ll help.�
�Why?�
�I don�t know!�

The next day at the office, she got better advice from a colleague who said that the worst thing you can do is to put butter on a burn wound. Apparently, it�s like deep frying it.

I keep catching myself talking without really knowing what I�m saying more often with the kids, though.

Daughter wanted to go to the back yard and eat raspberries. As she was racing down the stairs, I told her that there probably wouldn�t be any. �Because it�s not the season.�

I have no idea when raspberries are in season.

The other day, I was making waffles. A little bit of milk, and a little bit of flour, and a couple of eggs, a couple of spoonfuls of sugar, and then I put the dough into the fridge. Because apparently, that�s what you do because � don�t know why.

Today, I explained the mechanics of a ski lift - sitting in one - to Son, and while watching him stack up stones on the side of the beautiful Norwegian mountain, I think I may have mentioned Stonehenge, and how it was built.

Last week, on our way back from the playground around the corner, Son wanted me to explain to Daughter why the trees were important to the ecological balance. So I pushed my glasses further up on my nose, coughed a couple of times, and launched into a ten-minute lecture of oxygen, and breathing, and carbon dioxide, and how it�s not easy being green, and how the sunlight makes the plants grow.

My biology teacher would have been shocked, but possibly also pleased about how right she had once been � at least with this particular specimen of human life.

Is it better to have known stuff and lost it than never to have known it at all, like the famous poet, William Shakespeare once said. By the way, he lived in England in the 16th century, at the same time as Robin Hood.

Who was a fantastic swordsman � and a cook.

Agoraphobia

Fri, 2 Jul 2010 11:19:02 +0200

Here's a column I wrote for Profile, Finnish Aalto University's School of Economics - my alma mater - magazine about the fear of social media.

�Agoraphobia is a condition where the sufferer becomes anxious in environments that are unfamiliar or where he or she perceives that they have little control. Triggers for this anxiety may include open spaces, crowds (social anxiety), or traveling (even short distances). Agoraphobia is often, but not always, compounded by a fear of social embarrassment, as the agoraphobic fears the onset of a panic attack and appearing distraught in public.�

Companies aren�t really afraid of social media. Companies aren�t afraid of anything. It�s the people that run (and make up) companies that are afraid � and not only of social media.

Being afraid of throwing yourself in the world of Facebook and Twitter is like suffering from many different phobias. The fear of social media is a mixture of things. Partly, it�s like the fear of being in an open space, with no clear places to hide in. Partly, it�s the fear of losing control, and partly, it�s the common fear of speaking in public.

In the words of American comedian Jerry Seinfeld, �According to most studies, people�s number one fear is public speaking. Number two is death. Death is number two. Does that sound right? This means to the average person, if you go to a funeral, you�re better off in the casket than doing the eulogy.�

MAYBE NOT. Like the fear of flying, and even agoraphobia, the fear of social media could be more of a symptom than the diagnosis. Being afraid to fly may be related to other fears, just as being afraid of entering certain locations can be a symptom of panic attacks that have been triggered in that particular place previously.

And being afraid is natural, fear is hardwired into our brain to protect us. With no fear, humans would take fatal risks. Evolution has helped us. Those of us with some fear in the brain, and common sense, have been able to reproduce. The fearless ones, they�re gone. In flames, with style, but gone.

Although, in a study made with wild monkeys � monkeys are afraid of snakes to the point where they would rather starve to death than face a snake to get food, a sentiment often voiced by those who are anti-Facebook � it was found that monkeys born in captivity didn�t have that reaction. They weren�t afraid at all.

However, when a researcher showed these monkeys videotape of a wild monkey in panic, the same reaction was triggered in the monkeys born in captivity. The fear for snakes was in their brain, just never triggered.

The good news is that the same method can be used to cure the fear. Footage of a monkey not afraid of a snake helped the others not to be scared.

The fear of social media is the least dangerous or even restrictive of the fears mentioned above, but the same laws apply. Facebook is an open forum where others get to comment on you, and your behavior, in a way that you have almost no control over. You can control a lot of things, but never everything.

In essence, you, and your organization, will stand naked in an open square, speaking to people, about to board a plane. And there�s nothing you can do about it, so you might as well take the leap of faith, and trust people.

THAT�S SCARY. The severity of the fear of the social media seems to correlate with age because kids don�t seem to be afraid of the Facebook, or Twitter, or Flickr, or any other place where you out yourself. Kids let it all hang out. Kids share everything with the world. Kids swear by transparency, because like monkeys that have never seen a snake, they�re not afraid of something they�ve never been exposed to.

Yes, on the Internet, some people will make comments about you that you don�t like, and not everybody is in love with your new slogan or your deals. There�s no way you can control the conversation. Then again, you never could control the conversation at water coolers, either.

You just didn�t know about it.

It�s OK to be afraid. But it�s a shame if it stops you from having fun. Acknowledging the fear is the first step to a witty status update and a lively network on Facebook.

� a PDF of the article here.

Poor taste

Wed, 30 Jun 2010 20:06:00 +0200

�Now that I�ve just tasted coffee, it tops my list of things that taste bad�
� Son, June 28, 2010

Many of the human treats are truly acquired tastes. Who really likes the taste of beer? Coffee? Wasabi? Any kind of alcohol? Blue cheese? I know I didn�t. On the other hand, some of my early favorites don�t taste that good anymore. Like, milk, and specifically breast milk.

According to a family legend, I learned to walk by chasing a piece of cheese that a family friend was dangling in front of me. (So, for me, the proverbial carrot was actually a piece of cheese). And once walking, I developed a bad habit of sneaking up to the coffee table every time we were visiting somebody, asking where my cup was.

Of course, back then - not too much unlike today - my �coffee� was one sixth coffee, and seven sixths of milk. But that wasn�t the point.

By the time I had turned four, I had stopped eating cheese and drinking coffee. All of a sudden, I just didn�t like them anymore. I found cheese again in my teens, thanks to pizza and grilled cheese sandwiches (which I found thanks to the Canadian Z-boy), and coffee in my late twenties at work, being too lazy to make my own tea when everybody else was drinking coffee on their breaks.

One thing I stopped eating as a kid, for good, was tomatoes, no matter how you pronounced them. And for that there is a reason. Apparently I had refused to eat my tomatoes one time, and my father had made me sit at the table until I ate them. So I tried. Until I threw up.

Within the family, I was - and am - famous for not eating tomatoes. I eat ketchup, I love the tomato sauce on a pizza, and these days I can - and do - enjoy a well-made bruschetta (and a cappuccino, and gorgonzola), but I still can�t make myself a sandwich with just a slice of tomato on it. I used to taste even the leftover juice on a sandwich after the tomato had been carefully removed from it.

I may or may not remember the actual incident with Dad. I do have a visual of it, but I may have reconstructed it afterwards. That�s what people do. We think we remember things, but we really don�t.

On my first day of school, after I had stopped crying when my father left me there all alone, but before I realized it was going to be a lot of fun, we had lunch. The whole class walked from our classroom across the big yard to the main building where the cafeteria was when I heard a boy say, �I hope they don�t have fishballs, I hate them.�

I had never had fishballs, and didn�t even know what they were. So I asked him.

�What�s that?�

�It�s like meatballs but made out of fish. And they�re disgusting!�

�Oh,� I said, now hoping that my first school meal wouldn�t include those disgusting fishballs, and trusting that nobody would want to make our lives so miserable on our first day of school?

We walked in, I was second in line, being the second shortest person in class. I got a plate with some carrots, potatoes � and fishballs. And an order to eat it all. Nobody would leave the cafeteria with food left on the plate, I was told.

That was the day I realized that sometimes, when you happen to glance at the clock at just the right time, one second can be an awfully long time.

I�ve never eaten fishballs since.

Slate magazine ran an experiment in which people were asked to look at photos and if they remembered the events. And people did remember, even the events that had never taken place, but of which there was a photoshopped photo.

According to professor Elizabeth Loftus from University of California, Irvine, who�s been studying memory for decades, false memories could also be used for something good. For example, what if I could fool my brain to remember how I used to love fishballs, or always hated black liquorice. Enough to make me stop eating it by the truckload, maybe?

Or at least maybe I can have Daughter remember her gymnastics recital as a wonderful event because she was so good and had a huge crowd cheering for her ��instead of the memory that Wife has of it, as chaotic, uninspiring, and too long.

"So, now that coffee is number one, what�s number two? Who�s the former champion?� I asked Son.

�Onion,� he said.

In Character: the Stanley Cup

Tue, 29 Jun 2010 10:43:40 +0200

The 117-year-old star in character, Vanity Fair style:

Jackson Cage

Mon, 28 Jun 2010 11:18:49 +0200

Matti Vanhanen sits in his kitchen and makes coffee. It�s early, the clock�s not yet six, but Vanhanen has already been up for a good half hour. He�s showered, and fed the few animals he keeps on his farm. Four cows, a few pigs, and a camel.

In his lumberjack shirt, blue jeans, and an old Mighty Ducks of Anaheim baseball hat - yes, it�s that old - Vanhanen looks like many of the other men killing time at a local gas station. If you didn�t know it, you�d never, ever, ever, think that he used to entertain tens of thousands of people in concerts, and that until about a year ago, he was the world�s most famous entertainer, probably since the dawn of time.

You�d never believe that Matti Vanhanen used to be Michael Jackson.

�I just couldn�t deal with the pressure anymore so I decided to do what so any other artists had done before me. I decided to fake my death, move to a quiet place somewhere, and enjoy another kind of life,� he says, in a low voice.

�This is it.�

In hindsight, for somebody wanting to disappear, it probably had been stupid to take the same name as the prime minister of the country he�d moved to, but he had liked the sound of it. Plus the fact that his new persona would have a reference to �old� - vanha being Finnish for just that, old, had intrigued him. Anyway, it was too late now. On the other hand, if anybody googled him, they�d just get a bunch of stuff of the prime minister�s love life.

These days Vanhanen takes care of his animals, and works on his house. He�d like to keep a low profile but when he moved to this tiny village of Mulo in eastern Finland last year, it didn�t go unnoticed. Not only did he have some unusual animals with him, the small farm just happened to be residence of the former police chief, who had died two years earlier in a boating accident.

According to rumors, he had paid twice the asking price for the small, yellow, wooden house. That alone was enough to stir up some more rumors.

�I liked the place a lot,� he says of his farm that includes the two-bedroom house, a barn, a shed, and an outhouse.

Becoming Vanhanen wasn�t easy. First, there was the planning of the death for which he hired an agency. They found a suitable body, and took care of the funeral, and all the medical documents.

The planning had taken years, but Jackson had made the final switch six months before the King of Pop died.

He had had to re-invent himself yet one more time, inside and out, and this time, for good. He gained weight, grew a mustache, stopped doing manicure, had a minor surgery on his nose, dyed his hair, all in an effort to turn the formerly lithe and languid star into a more robust Finnish farmer. Mastering the language was a challenge, learning the eastern Finland dialect an even bigger one.

But he did it.

When he drives his four-wheeler to the nearby store or to Joensuu, the city of 50 000 just ten kilometers north of Mulo, nobody looks twice at him. When he sits at the window table at the local Esso, eating a sandwhich, he won�t have to wait long to get company. He�s now a regular in the four-man gang that plays cards at the Esso every day.

�We play mostly �hearts�, but we play for money, just to keep it interesting,� he says.

In fact, he had heard the news of Michael Jackson�s death at Esso.

�I bought everybody a beer, and we made a toast to Jackson,� he says.

�That made me popular here.�

Vanhanen won�t have to work for money, because every month, he gets a check from his agent in Indianapolis, specialized in handling deceased stars� estates. Last year alone, Michael Jackson made a billion dollars.

Working on a farm alone is rough work, and not only physically, Vanhanen admits.

�Sometimes I miss Bubbles, but I know he�s better off at the Florida sanctuary. We exchange emails and postcards every once in a while,� he adds while slowly stirring his cup of coffee.

�Sure, it�d be nice to have somebody here to talk to, especially in the winter when it�s dark. I�ve been to a couple of dances in Joensuu but haven�t found anybody special yet. Well, there is this one lady. Her name�s Tarja. She�s been here a couple of times, but we�re just friends,� he adds, and blushes.

With the closest neighbor living a good five kilometers down the dirt road, Vanhanen spends a lot of time on his own.

�Sometimes Juhani rows his boat across the lake and we jam a little. He plays the guitar, and he�s got a great voice, especially for an old man like that. He must be over 70. You know what? He reminds me of Elvis,� he says, and smiles.

Brand new tradition

Fri, 25 Jun 2010 10:34:17 +0200

Traditions are funny. Not in the ha-ha funny sense, but the other, the �you�re right, now that I think about it� kind of way. It�s interesting how they are created, and especially how fast things become tradition, or at least the way they�ve �always been done�.

Like, the Scottish kilt�s tartan patterns which, according to a book I�m reading, are a pretty late invention and have nothing to do with Highland�s clans.

There are plenty of examples of that in the sports world. These days, the NHL players let their beards grow all through the post-season, not shaving until they�re out of the race. But if you look at photos of Bobby Hull, and Gordie Howe, and even the 1988 Edmonton Oilers celebration photos (like this one, or this one, or this one), it�s hard to find a team of full-bearded players.

According to one theory about the playoff beards, the tradition was born in the late 1970s, during the New York Islanders� four-Cup run between 1977 and 1980. That happens to coincide with Bj�rn Borg�s domination of the Wimbledon. �The Iceberg� never shaved his beard as long as he was still in the tournament, and the few Swedes - Anders Kallur and Stefan Persson were the first Europeans to win the Stanley Cup in 1977 - who admired their fellow countryman, adopted the same custom.

A Swedish tennis player's superstition became a part of hockey tradition.

But Wayne Gretzky did start another tradition in 1988, when he gathered the team around him for a team photo. Now all teams do it.

The Stanley Cup will be coming to Finland this summer as Antti Niemi, the Chicago Blackhawks goaltender gets his 24 hours with the Cup, as is the tradition. Since 1995.

The Swedish Church was upset with the Crown Princess�s wish to have her father, the King, to walk her down the aisle to her Prince. That, according to the church, was not a Swedish tradition, and was in fact, undermining the true tradition of the couple walking down the aisle together ��as a symbol that it was the couple�s own wish to get married. They were making their own decisions.

Of course, the new �tradition� is what we�ve all seen in Father of the Bride, and Father of the Bride II.

Since we can�t remember, since we don�t know, and since all the customs seem old and traditional, we believe in them. And when enough people do that, we have a a new tradition.

(In a true Swedish tradition, though, the King and the Princess and the Church came to an agreement, meeting each other halfway. Literally.)

Today is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, day of tradition in Finland and Sweden. The midsummer. People will travel to their summer cottages, or get to their boats, in droves. The Finns will light up their bonfires (nobody really knows why anymore, but it�s a tradition), the Swedes dedicate their day to dancing around a midsummer pole, and eating well. They already burned their bonfires on April 30.

In about an hour, we�ll walk to a nearby park to see people in folk costumes play the violin and raise the pole. As is the tradition, even though, my own tradition is not to do anything special. Our family never had a summer cottage so I don�t associate midsummer with anything special, and I don�t have any memories of great midsummer traditions. I remember one midsummer, though, because in 1990 I was in Canada.

Over there, it wasn�t called midsummer. It was the first day of summer.

That's just weird.

In character

Tue, 22 Jun 2010 13:05:54 +0200

Son, "in character", Vanity Fair style.

King of Finland

Sun, 20 Jun 2010 22:11:33 +0200

�The Crown Princess waved at me!�
� Son, outside the Royal Castle in Stockholm, June 19, 2010 at 6 pm

We made the trek from our Stockholm suburbia to downtown Stockholm, the self-proclaimed Capital of Scandinavia, now, thanks to the Royal Wedding also doubling as the love capital of the world. The subway ride was free partly to make sure no idiot - especially a Finnish-born idiot - would decide to drive to the city, and partly because the Princess herself wanted to keep her wedding as environmentally friendly as possible.

It was so environmentally friendly, and sympathetically down to Earth in a very Swedish kind of way, that the night before the wedding, all Royal, Imperial, and other Highnesses got to ride a Stockholm bus to the fabulous blue house, the Concert Hall, just one kilometer from the Royal Castle, for a warmup event.

We had watched the wedding on TV at home, and about halfway through it, right after they had said �ja� to each other, we packed the camera and some clothes into a backpack, and hit the road. We missed a bus by about four seconds, and when switching to another subway line, Wife stopped me from trying to keep the closing doors open with my arm.

She was probably right, as Son has just stopped talking about the New York man who tried to do the same, and, well, it looked bad.

Anyway, these two events made us miss the Prince and Princess�s carriage cortege by a minute.

Wife, feeling a special connection to the Princess, as the two are the same age, was disappointed. Even though I don�t feel a special connection to Prince Daniel, despite the fact that he�s from Ockelbo and I�m from �ggelby, and that we both are former minor league hockey players, I know how to keep my queen happy, so we decided to keep walking towards the Castle, �to get a feel of the whole event.�

The new prince, Prince Daniel, said in his speech that he probably wasn�t a frog before he met Victoria, but not a prince, either. Must be weird being a prince now. Not many people have their life goal to get married to a princess.

When I was in sixth grade, our school nurse thought I was the smartest boy around. I know that because she told me so. I was a quiet, well-behaved little kid, who answered politely to all her questions, and apparently those are the makings of a good President.

At least she thought so. And I know that because every time I visited her, she told me that I was such a great kid that I�d surely grow up to be the President of Finland.

I think it�s safe to say that she was wrong about that. The closest I�ve got to President was when I almost bumped into Tarja Halonen�s strawberry ice cream as she was walking up Aleksanterinkatu in downtown Helsinki. Only, back then, she was still the minister of foreign affairs.

In fact, I�ve had a better go with my career as King. Ten years ago, when I had just met my princess, we took her little sister out to the Stockholm Old Town, to eat the traditional Swedish semlor, those whipped cream filled buns we eat in February. I was goofing around - come on, we all know that the best way to impress women is to be nice to their relatives - so I told her that I was King of Finland.

�Really?�

�Well, have you ever heard of the King of Finland? Nobody�s claimed that title, so I just did.�

�Wow,� she said, not really knowing what to believe.

She was twelve.

When I proposed to Wife, on New Year�s Eve in 2005, a few minutes on the side of 2006, I was prepared for a no, as well. And my clumsy excuse to a proposal was so clumsy that Wife had to ask me if what I had just said was, in fact, a proposal.

When I said yes, she said, yes, too.

Unlike Prince Daniel, I hadn�t been groomed for years to be Husband. Like Prince Daniel, I had been welcomed to a new family, to a much bigger family than my own, with great warmth. And my father-in-law-to-be didn�t have to pay a million dollars for the wedding.

Wife and I planned to get married in Stockholm, but in a wave of despair, going over the guest list, I declared that none of my buddies would come anyway. We looked at each other and - the way His Majesty Carl XVI Gustaf described his meeting with his queen - �it just said �click��.

So we packed Son, Daughter, parents, sisters, and a brother, and flew to Vegas.

A limousine picked us up at the hotel, and dropped us off at the Little While Chapel. Our basic package included a priest, music, and a VHS tape of the ceremony.

Rev. Jackson was a warm, smiling man. He asked us if we wanted music with the ceremony, as we entered the chapel. We gave him the disc I had made, with Ronan Keating�s �When You Say Nothing At All�, and he put it in a CD player.

We were nervous, Wife was gorgeous, parents teary-eyed, and the kids asleep, as Reverand Jackson walked us through the ceremony, to our vows, calling me different names all through the process, ending with �Do you, Rusko��.

Rusko did want. And the King of Finland got his Queen.

On July 19, 1976, I was lying on the back seat of whatever car we happened to have back then, listening to Mom and Dad listen to the commentary from the Royal Wedding in Stockholm, as the King was getting married to his dream girl, Silvia, one of us common people.

Unlike President, the King is born to be King, and the Crown Princess is born to be the Queen. Barring a revolution, there�s no other way to the throne.

And the way out isn�t voluntary, either.

It may be outdated, and you might think it�s just plain wrong, but there�s nothing he can do about it. Except try to be a good monarch and make every one think that he's waving at them, and only them.