Tonight, my wife and I had dinner at a sweet Italian restaurant in Uppsala, after an energetic show by Jonas Gardell, a Swedish comedian (and author and entertainer).
In the table next to us, there was a group of young girls getting ready for Friday night, giggling and chatting as only young girls can. All of a sudden, I saw a man lean against the window, trying to talk to the girls.
March 28, 2008 is the 10th anniversary of my relationship with Stockholm, give or take a few years that I spent with my first love, Helsinki. Time flies. This is a shot I took today, I’m sure you can appreciate the beauty of Stockholm.
She’s still beautiful to me in that classy kind of way. She keeps surprising me, she brings me up when I’m down, and she carries me through the dark winter wrapped around in her silent strength and radiance that gives me hope of a better day. She makes me laugh, she makes me feel good about myself, she makes me proud, she makes me skip on the streets, and she gives me a sense of a purpose.
My wife, that is. She celebrates her birthday today, on Valentine’s Day, as always.
But Stockholm’s pretty damn nice, too, as cities go.
Quitting is underrated. When you’re in the position to say those magic words, it’s a pretty powerful feeling. When you do it for the right reasons.
I once had a boss I really didn’t like that much. When it was time for me to leave the company, and I had got a new job, I waited a whole week before giving my one month’s notice. The plan was for him to do one more annoying thing so I could stand up, raise my arms, and say, “That’s it! I quit!”
And nothing could have changed my mind.
Well, that was his good week, so on Friday afternoon I had to go to his office and just tell him that I was leaving.
He looked up from his papers, smiled, and said: “Good for you.”
“I know,” I said.
Due to a sudden lack of motivation, there will be no updates here today. Have a great day.
Edit: Check back tomorrow, though. OK, see ya.
Edit2: But since you’re here, feel free to browse older entries below, or in the archive.
Edit3: Yeah, that’s me in the photo. Nice belt buckle.
With all the pop stars messing around, all the superstar athletes making a fool of themselves everywhere, it’s heartening to know that there are still men like Raimo “Raipe” Helminen around.
The six-time Olympian, and the world record holder with his amazing 330 games with Team Finland is a good as they come.
Today, Finland just leaped over the day part completely and went from the evening of the January 17th straight to the evening of the 18th.
I think.
This is what it looked like in downtown Helsinki at noon.
Tough.
I’m puzzled. Confused, even.
See, I’ve got these two friends. On Facebook, that is. On the same day that I connected – on Facebook – with one of them, let’s call him “Austin Powers” (why not?), the other (Dr. Evil) had joined a group called “Send “Austin Powers” to Siberia.”
Do I need to do anything? What’s the code of conduct in a case like this? Should I tell Dr. Evil to back off or leave the group? Unfriend him? Should I care?
What would I do in real life? Yeah. We’d laugh and laugh and laugh. Austin and I.
Back in the 20th century, I worked at a hockey pant factory in Canada for one summer. Or, right next to the factory, because I, being a business graduate, almost, I was sitting in the office. I also happened to be boarding with the boss.
One afternoon, the boss packed his extended family, that being his wife, two kids and myself, into their van, and drove up to the cottage country in northern Ontario to meet up with the company lawyer in a casual setting.
When I first met Jessica, we emailed each other. But if you’re in love, you reeeally have to email each other. How much? A lot! (Life of Brian is also her favorite movie to the point that she can recite the entire movie, line for line, by heart. No joke.)
Well, we did. When we celebrated our first year together, she gave me two huge binders with every single email we had sent each other in the first six months of dating.
I’ve only won in the lottery once. It was 1982, and I won 85 Finnish markka. It was so much money that even though it was pouring, I rode my bike to the post office to collect it. I’m not surprised that I haven’t won since, though. The last time I bought a lottery ticket was in 1984.
The iPod shuffle is like lottery, and I think I won last night. I was on my way to a hockey game and decided to do the shuffle. And I hit the jackpot. Here are the seven songs I got, and I didn’t even have to jump over any songs. This is gold.