Hired to be fired

Posted on March 21, 2011 by Risto

I got fired from my first job. I had fought long and hard to get it, finally landing a position that I hadn’t even applied for, getting hired just on being persistent. Having seen the scores of my interviews and psychological tests, the consultants had recommended hiring somebody else.

I knew that when I called the CEO a few nights later, while driving on the highway. We talked about the job, and my tests, and I remember telling him that I disagreed with the results because I knew I’d be great at the job. He agreed.

“I agree, those tests are a bunch of crock,” he said. “I like you.”

There's no business like import/export business

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The stuff that legends are made of

Posted on March 16, 2011 by Risto

A few blocks from the hospital where I was born, a few blocks, but the other way from the house where we lived when I was born, two blocks from where we lived when Son was born, and just around the corner from where my parents’ friends, and my sometime babysitters lived, there used to be a movie theater.

For decades now, in its place, there’s been a Pentecostal Church.

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Escape to the Witch Mountain

Posted on March 15, 2011 by Risto

I suppose that when you grow up in a country that has only two TV channels and no programming between midnight and 4 pm, films become a big thing and going to movies even bigger.

The first movie that made an impression on me was Escape to Witch Mountain. The 1975 version, not the 1995 version which I made Wife watch just as we had started dating, thinking it was the 1975 version, my version, the movie that explained my love for harmonica, and by extension, for Huey Lewis.

It was not. We did watch the entire movie, with me first complaining about how I didn’t seem to remember anything, and then about the poor quality of the re-make.

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The Pursuit of Hockeyness

Posted on March 11, 2011 by Risto

A couple of years ago I wrote a chapter for a book published by The Hockey News. The book is called The Pursuit of Hockeyness: 99 Things Every Hockey Fan Needs To Do Before They Die. My chapter was about witnessing a European rivalry, or, a Finland-Sweden game, in particular.

Here it is.

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New kid in town

Posted on March 10, 2011 by Risto

A year before we moved, Dad had another job offer, and everything about it sounded nice, but we stayed put in Helsinki. I used to like to think that I had vetoed the move, but upon a few decades’ reflection, I’m not sure if I should be so proud of that – if it was true. But I just liked being where I was, playing hockey with the guys I knew, going to the school I had gone to with the same people I had known for the past six, seven years.

Me and another buddy.

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Tweet, tweet

Posted on March 8, 2011 by Risto

I’ve been playing around with Twitter short stories lately. So, if you’re on Twitter, you can follow @finnjewel*, and get these 140-character stories delivered to you. (And yes, it’s surprisingly easy to follow a story with 140 characters.)

Here they are, in no particular order:

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Razzle dazzle this

Posted on March 3, 2011 by Risto

“Sir?” said the man.

I laughed. “Sir?” I repeated, looking at my wife, and lifted my old Oakland A’s hat, as if it were a top hat. A move straight out of an old movie. She laughed, too. And when she laughed, I laughed, because she was my wife, and we had been married for just 22 hours.

What happens in Vegas, happens in Vegas.

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Where have you gone, Tarzan?

Posted on March 2, 2011 by Risto

Across the table from me, an aspiring alchemist is working on a potion. His formula includes four teabags, hand-washing dish detergent, and nails. The kind you hit with a hammer. The purpose of the potion is still unknown, but it’s also beside the point. He just wants to be a wizard – not unlike a certain Harry Potter, the latest of heroes in Son’s life. And if he was happy to think that Han Solo’s real name was Hannes, just like his, like I told him, he’s also delighted to be “HP”.

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Tough guys don’t dance

Posted on February 27, 2011 by Risto

The times they have a-changed: This morning, I woke up to an invitation to come dance at the nearby disco. There was a time when waking up to an impromptu disco dancing pajama party would have been nothing short of cool. That would have been the kind of story I would have told my friends over and over again, as proof on my own coolness.

The impromptu disco dancing event I woke up to this morning wasn’t that, but there I was, dancing in my pajamas, like the rest of the family. Son woke us up to join him in his room, in his disco, where he was the DJ, playing music from the Harry Potter movies. Daughter did cartwheels, and Wife and I careful dance moves: she was cool, I was the dork that I am on the dance floor.

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Driving Mr Risto

Posted on February 25, 2011 by Risto

I have a love-hate relationship with cab drivers. While behind the wheel myself, I find their driving mostly arrogant and obnoxious, yet sloppy and careless, and have recently started to add mock admiration – “Oh, sorry, you must be right since you’re the professional driver here” – to my litany of insults and honking when I try to put them in their place in traffic. Gently, but firmly.

That changes when I’m in the backseat myself. Now, I’m the kind of guy who knows exactly what Wife meant when she came back from a massage last week, glowing, and raving about the masseuse, who was “so good, and didn’t say a word.” I never chit chat with the masseur, either, and when I get my hair cut, once a year, or so, I try to fall asleep in the chair. (And succeed).

But I do like to speak with cab drivers.

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