Rob and the California George Family

The process of updating this blog has obviously been tough for me lately. I have so many other things drawing my attention that it's tough to get over here and post an update. I know that there are ways to get it done, but I don't want it to feel like work.

I got online today to check out my neighbor's blog. He retired recently and is heading out on a cross-country ride on his Harley. I saw him off this morning with his SUV and trailer with his two bikes. He will cross the country to his brother's house in Virginia and then start the motorcycle riding part of the trip. If anyone is interested, he plans to blog his trip at:
http://GonzoCrossUSA.blogspot.com
(If I am less lazy later, I will turn that into a hyperlink.)

On the personal front, things are well. I still have the same job. I am about to transition from one customer project in Canada to another customer project in Canada. That will carry me through at least the end of the year at which point I will have been working exclusively on international projects for 4 straight years (starting with my New Zealand and Sweden trips in Dec 2007)!

Bethany turns 18 years old today!!!! She is very excited about starting at San Diego State University at the end of this month. She will be living on campus, although we still have a few details to learn about that.

Hayley had to make up her 2nd semester of Geometry with a summer school class to improve her grade. From what she is telling us, she is doing a great job! She has her final tomorrow and it sounds like she is on track to get an A this time.

Honestly, I am not sure what all Andrew is up to lately. He still lives with my mom in Costa Mesa and spends a lot of time on his passion: music. He is doing some sort of self-employed web site design work now too, but I don't know many details around that. I think he is just finishing his first project now.

Thanks for letting me share again, even if it has been a while. Even if no one has time to read it, at least I got a little writing practice again!

Labels: Andrew, Bethany, Hayley, School, Work

My blog was dormant for a long time mainly due to heavy work demands on my time.

The dwarves sang their working song with such joy. I enjoy my work, but I don't live for it. However, being a consultant leads to busy times and slow times. You dread the slow times because consulting is all about utilization (i.e., being busy). You dread the busy times because they usually lead to trade offs in life between long work hours, family time, helping with homework, volunteer activities, etc. For me personally, the trade off is usually met by cutting back on activities that are fun for me personally and sleep.

The key is to remember that this is all a phase. The need to spend time with the kids for homework, volunteer work for their groups, etc. is drawing to a close soon. Bethany will be away from home next Fall leaving us with just 3 people at home. Hayley is just 3 school years behind her. I expect that a few years from now I'll look back at these times fondly and wonder why they are gone. I am saving up a lot of the fun things that I want to do for then when I will have the time to do them. Maybe that will keep me from looking backwards too often.

I have heard an expression that no one ever gets to the end of their life and regrets that they didn't work more hours. Really? I'm sure that there are plenty of people that are miserable at the end of their life because they weren't willing to put in enough work hours. For me, the trick is balance. I need to work enough to provide for my family and hopefully have something left over to retire someday. However, I need to be around my family enough to enjoy and share the fruits of my labor. I hope that I will look back at the end of my life and think that I found a good balance of work, family, and meeting my personal needs.

Labels: Family, Work

Since my posts last year...

I have been traveling back and forth to Canada (Toronto and Montreal) a lot for a customer. The project is continuing and I am about to head back again.

Andrew is working at "Prehistoric Pets" - a store in Fountain Valley that sells pets such as reptiles and arachnids. They also do birthday parties with said animals. He is also taking music classes to expand his musical skills. He still lives with my mom on Costa Mesa.

Bethany just decided to become an Aztec. This is breaking news. She will officially be at SDSU in late August, but the payments started last night.

Hayley keeps active with Club Volleyball, Girl Scouts, Sea Scouts, and of course school. So far she has been able to effectively manage all of these activities, but it keeps her (and us) very busy!

Labels: Andrew, Bethany, Hayley, Work

Things have been very busy for me since the cruise. The week after the cruise I was in Montreal visiting my current customer. This was followed by a week of preparing for another prototype review for that customer. This week, I am in the Toronto area at another office for the same customer. However, I hope to find more time for blogging again.

Since it has been a while, this post will cover a lot of ground.

Andrew has been playing with a couple of bands and starting to make some money here and there. He is a lead singer and plays guitar and bass guitar. His band has had a couple of out-of-town trips with the most recent to Arizona where they played at a bar and Utah where they played at a wedding. Celeste had a chance to see him play at a local bar/restaurant near home while I stayed home with the girls.

Bethany has started the SAT/ACT testing process. You can definitely tell a motivated teenager when they are willing to PAY to get up early on a weekend and take a grueling test! She is especially looking forward to getting out of school. The day after her last final, Beth is off to Norway to visit Ina and her family for three weeks!

Hayley has continued playing volleyball. She moved up a level and has real coaching instead of just me now. Her skills have definitely improved with her specialties being serving and setting. Hayley is about to graduate from 8th grade and become a freshman at the high school.

Hayley and I went to see the latest Shrek movie last weekend while Bethany was taking her SAT Subject Tests. It was fair, but not as good as the first one IMHO.

Hayley continues to be my last hope for playing my board games. Bethany is not into them at all, Andrew will play some when he is around, and Celeste will only play a few. Hayley has really enjoyed quite a few of them and occasionally I pull out an old classic. The most recent classic was Battle Masters. This is close to minatures, but still on a game board. Granted the game board is around 4' by 5' and with lots of cool plastic pieces to move around (knights, orcs, archers, beastmen, etc.). We pulled aside the dining room table to have room to play and kept it around for the weekend. Lots of fun pulling out the old stuff!

As I write this, I am in the Toronto area for work. I am outside of town without a car since my hotel is across the parking lot from my customer. I can see downtown Toronto in the distance from my hotel room, but no time on this trip to visit. I've posted some pictures from there. Also, when I checked in they were out of regular non-smoking rooms. Rather than moving me to smoking (Yuck!), they upgraded me to a suite with a Jacuzzi and Sauna. Despite all of my trips to Finland, I have never tried a sauna. I did try out the Jacuzzi, so maybe I have to give the Sauna a try tonight. Maybe. I posted some pictures of that too.

I did take a nice walk last night and found a local geocache. I was disappointed to see the the geocoins that were supposed to be there were not. However, when I read the log today I see that a new geocoin was dropped off. If the rain stays away, I may go get that one.

My hotel is very near Pearson International Airport, so I can see planes in the final approach to landing from my room. The hotel is soundproofed nicely, so it is cool to watch. This is obviously a very international destination. Here are some of the airlines that I can remember seeing from my hotel this week:

* Air Canada
* Jazz
* Continental
* United
* American
* Korean Air
* LOT (Polish Flag Air Carrier)
* AlItalia
* Lufthansa

OK, that is enough for now. I'll try to post shorter blurbs more often for a while!

Here is the Toronto skyline as seen from my hotel window:

This is the jacuzzi and sauna in my hotel room:

Here is the jacuzzi in my room when I prepared it for use:

I found a geocache in that small tree behind me:

Labels: Andrew, Bethany, Blogging, Family, Games, Geocaching, GPS, Hayley, Ina, Movies, Rob, School, Travel, Volleyball, Work

One of my customers (very funny guy) is trying to get home to Sweden, but can't due to the Iceland volcano-related airport closures in Europe. He has moved around a few "tropical islands" off the Pacific coast of Southeast Asia while he waits.

I particularly enjoyed this photo.

Good luck getting home, Rauiri!


Sending out an SOS...... Stranded on a remote Indonesian island. Your help is appreciated!

P.S. More Hawaii info/pictures in my next post.

Labels: Work

Not that I am complaining. Work continues to be busy. I was out all last week on vacation in Hawaii. Got home late Sunday (technically early Monday) and now it is Monday night and I am back in Montreal.

I have a lot of topics and some fun pictures to post. Hopefully I can find some time for that this week.

Anyway, it is midnight here and I should get some sleep. More later...

Labels: Travel, Vacation, Work

The sun has been shining for the last two days, so the roads are at least somewhat usable. People obviously returned to work today because there was a LOT of traffic on the roads this morning.

My flight is scheduled to leave on time direct back to Southern California, so no problems there. I am headed to the airport right after I post this entry. I am returning next week just as a new snow storm arrives. No one is sure, but it looks smaller than the last one.

Here are some follow up photos from my hotel room window from yesterday and today. The car that I was watching is slowly starting to melt out from under a pile of snow!

Labels: Travel, Weather, Work

I am working in Arlington, Virginia this week - across the Potomoc from Washington DC. For the first time in my life, I can use the words "snowed in" to describe my condition. As I have documented, my company has sent me to some cold places over the last 2+ years. However, the snowfall here beats anything from my prior trips.

The Washington DC area is getting historical amounts of snow this year. Last weekend they were hit hard with airports and roads closed, people stuck in homes or businesses, etc.

They cleaned it up enough so that those, like myself, that don't know any better could fly in to the area on Monday. Tuesday afternoon the next storm came in. Today they are having "near blizzard" conditions.

Don't get me wrong - me and my coworkers are fine at our hotel. However, the customer has closed their office for the day and the authorities are urging people to stay off the roads. Due to that, I am working from my hotel room today. With an internet connection and a phone, I can be just as effective as I can from my office or home for most things that I need to do.

The hotel that I am at is fine, but does not have a restaurant. They had a continential breakfast, but no other meals are offered. In this weather, there is nothing in a reasonable walking distance. However, the rooms do have full kitchens. Keeping those facts in mind, we all hit a grocery store last night and brought lunch and dinner good to keep in our refrigerator. No problems there!

Naturally, I took a few pictures with the camera on my phone. I wanted to document the level of snow that we got.

The 3 pictures below are all taken from my hotel room. The first was taken today at around 8:00am, the second at around 9:30am, and the last at around 12:15pm. They are basically the same angle. In each photo, there is a parked car near the bottom of the picture. You see less of it as time goes by. Also, you can see that my room window is clear in the first photo and has more snow on it in the following photos.





My impression of my first blizzard-like conditions? Much less impressive than I expected. If I were out in it, I would definitely be miserable. That is not my point. I really expected to see heavy snowfall and more accumulation of snow on the ground. The snow is not done, but should finish by tonight. I think that the heaviest of it is behind us now.

I do take it very seriously. Here are some excerpts from the weather service winter storm warning:
PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...
A BLIZZARD WARNING MEANS SEVERE WINTER WEATHER CONDITIONS ARE OCCURRING. DO NOT VENTURE OUTSIDE. THIS IS A LIFE THREATENING SITUATION FOR ANYONE WHO BECOMES STRANDED.

FALLING AND BLOWING SNOW WITH STRONG WINDS WILL CREATE WHITEOUT CONDITIONS... MAKING TRAVEL EXTREMELY DANGEROUS. DO NOT TRAVEL. IF YOU MUST TRAVEL... HAVE A WINTER SURVIVAL KIT WITH YOU. IF YOU GET STRANDED... STAY WITH YOUR VEHICLE.

PEOPLE ARE ENCOURAGED NOT TO PANIC... BUT TO SIMPLY STAY INSIDE... ENJOY YOUR FAVORITE INDOOR ACTIVITIES... AND RIDE THIS STORM OUT... THE HAZARDOUS CONDITIONS WILL BE IMPROVING LATER THIS EVENING.

IF YOU GET STRANDED IN YOUR VEHICLE... DO NOT LEAVE YOUR CAR TO TRY TO WALK FOR ASSISTANCE... YOU CAN QUICKLY BECOME DISORIENTED IN WIND DRIVEN SNOW AND COLD. THIS STORM WILL SUBSIDE EARLY THIS EVENING... SO WAIT IN YOUR CAR FOR EMERGENCY HELP TO ARRIVE.

PERIODICALLY RUN YOUR ENGINE FOR ABOUT 10 MINUTES EACH HOUR FOR HEAT. ENSURE YOUR EXHAUST PIPE IS CLEARED OF SNOW AND ICE. CRACK YOUR WINDOWS TO AVOID CARBON MONOXIDE POISONING. TIE A COLORED CLOTH TO YOUR CARS ANTENNA OR WINDOW TO BE VISIBLE TO RESCUERS. FROM TIME-TO-TIME... MOVE YOUR ARMS... LEGS... FINGERS... AND TOES TO KEEP BLOOD CIRCULATING.

Labels: Travel, Weather, Work

I have a new project that started in October. It has required 2 trips to Montreal, Quebec, Canada so far. If all goes well, I will be headed back there a number of times in 2010.

The unfortunate thing is that I am actually staying in a suburb of Montreal called Anjou. There is not much around. It is not like the trips to Helsinki where there are a lot of cool historical places in walking distance. I did get to drive into the main city with some co-workers one night, but that was it.

The area where I am staying seems safe to walk around, but there is not much there. Mostly strip malls and residential areas. Not much of interest.

I did take a few photos on my first week there (see below). Per Lee's suggestion, I checked out a Tim Horton's and had dinner there one night. I think I would appreciate it more if I were into coffee, but it was fine for a quick meal and a donut.

A typical residential street near my hotel. It will be snowing soon, but for now the weather was in the 30s and 40s.


The picture above shows apartments or condos. Not far away was an area of single family homes such as this one.


Below are a couple of pictures of park areas that I passed as I explored.



Everything is in French and sometimes also in English. The sign below was for a local election. The idea of marking up the signs seems pretty universal. I went to a couple of restaurants where they only speak French. I will have to have Bethany tutor me some (she is in her 3rd year from French at school).


More signs in French.



My hotel is on the right. Straight ahead is a major highway (freeway in California speak). The hotel is near the intersection of two major freeways. There is a mall across the freeway and a bit to the left of this photo, but it seems pretty quiet over that way in the evenings. I did not get a chance to go check it out.


Here is a self-portrait across the street from the local Tim Horton's. Tim is everywhere. I thought that Starbucks had a lot of locations in the US, but Tim seems to have them beat in Canada!

Labels: Bethany, Rob, Travel, Work

Once again, work and life activites are keeping me busy. It shouldn't be that hard to write a few lines once in a while, but I obsess over my postings. Usually. Not this one. I will keep it free flow and let it go no matter what warts it may contain. My goal is to post something despite not having a lot of time. I am also not checking what I have written before, so apologies in advance if there is any repeat material here.

My customer in Sweden has gone live with our software. They have been using it for a few weeks now and so far, so good. There are still issues to resolve, but nothing that is stopping use of the software. This customer has operations around the world. The next step is planned to be Germany in September.

Last week I was in Finland working with another customer. They plan to go live with the software in January 2010. I have 2 more planned trips back to Finland during the process.

Hayley is in the middle of volleyball season. I had to miss our first game against another site last week. I understand that the team won 2 and lost 1 game. This is a co-ed league and not very competitive (no playoffs for example). However, the kids really like to win and try hard. My team is in the 11 - 15 age bracket. I happen to have all 7th grade girls. The one team that they lost to was mostly boys on the older side. From what I hear, they made a respectable effort against them (the score was something like 25 - 15).

Ina (our Norwegian exchange student) goes home next week Tuesday. This is before school gets out, but she is getting home early for a family function. She has finished her finals and is going through her last week of school. After school on Friday, we are going to a beachfront hotel in Oxnard to let her get one last California beach weekend. It has been a great experience having her here, but after this weekend we need to give our budget a break from all of the travel and activities!

Bethany is taking French as her language in school. She plans to take it all 4 years and is finishing her second year. She was invited to join a French student honor society and had the ceremony last week. I missed it due to being in Finland. I really, really don't like to miss things like that, but had no choice this time. At least I take solace in knowing that I attend way more than most dads (based on my experience when I do attend). My job requires a lot of hours, but it gives me a lot of flexibility most of the time to attend events like this.

Andrew has gone back to school and is almost done with his first semester. He seems to be more serious this time around and in some of our conversations has recognized that he has lost a lot of time. On the other hand, he has gotten some real life experiences. He still performs a lot: singing, guitar, some keyboard. He has had a chance to play in a few for-pay shows which is good experience. However, they have been places that are not "family friendly" so far. We really want to see him perform sometime, but need to wait for a venue that he thinks will be ok for the girls to attend.

Damn. I couldn't resist. I just went to paragraph 1 and made a correction. I caught myself and stopped before doing any more. It's like an addiction!

OK, back to work. I think I spent about 10 minutes typing this up, although I really didn't time myself. In any case, it was significantly less than I usually spend!

Labels: Andrew, Bethany, Family, Hayley, Ina, Work

We got home from vacation which went very well. I'll have to post more about that another time.

Back at home, work is very busy. My customer in Sweden is in the process of going live on our software. That means very long work hours at unusual times right now. However, it should be behind me by the middle of next week.

I'm still finding time for family even with the work. Last night I took Andrew, Ina, and Hayley to an Angels Baseball game. The Angels lost, but it was still an exciting game. Lots of hits and the score kept going back and forth. Unfortunately, the Angels were on the "back" side at the end of the game.

Tomorrow we are taking Bethany and her Girl Scout troop on another college visit (have I written about that? Need to check.). We are driving up to UC Santa Barbara. Between the drive and the on-campus time it will be a very long day. The girls need lots of hours to apply to their Gold Awards, so that is a good thing. However, it also means a Friday away from my projects so I have to figure out how to keep everyone busy when I have very little way to communicate with them.

Volleyball season started last week. Hayley is doing it, but Bethany has gotten to old for the league. I am coaching Hayley's team again. They picked their team name: Fergilicious (need to confirm that spelling). I told them that it could not be a dull name and it had to be family-friendly. Beyond that, it was a team vote. The name Caliente Loco (Crazy Hot) came in a close second.

I'll close with a couple of pictures of Hayley from the end of our vacation. We are at my aunt's house. The house is by a private runway and has a hangar attached to it. For car fans, you can appreciate this. My aunt has owned a Shelby Cobra since 1972. It is in great shape and is often taken to car shows. For those that are not car fans, this is a very expensive car by a renowned designer and is personally signed by that designer (see the "glove compartment" area in the photo showing the dash). The girls had fun taking photos in the car and in the (not seen in this photo) airplane that is also in this hangar.




(by request) ... and now you're all caught up!

Labels: Andrew, Bethany, Hayley, Ina, School, Scouts, Vacation, Volleyball, Work

I am back in Finland to visit my customer here. However, I do not have a camera with me this time. I borrow a cell phone that works in Europe when I travel here, but I usually bring my regular cell phone too so that I can use it as a camera. However, at the last minute my regular cell phone was left behind at the office to see if I can get an upgrade. Long story, but this may be my last chance to do that on the company's dime.

Anyway, I will be here for the next week. Temperatures look to be right around freezing (32F, 0C). There is some snow on the ground, but not a lot. I am the same hotel from two of my other three visits. This time my room overlooks the Natural History museum and to the right the Parliament building.

Finland is 10 hours ahead of California, so I had a chance to call and say good night to the family a few minutes ago. Now I am off to work on my Monday morning.

Labels: Travel, Work

While I was in Sweden last week, I had my first ever chance to ride a snowmobile. It was big fun! Below are some photos taken with the camera on my phone.

Labels: Driving, Rob, Travel, Work

I have not updated for a while, so here are a few random tid bits.

Live has been very busy preparing for a "User Acceptance Test" with my customer in Sweden. This is a very important step where the users get to say if the system is ready to be used. I was in Sweden last week and we passed with some caveats. We have a few things to fix, but we are basically ready to go at the end of this month. This is a world-wide company, so if the pilot project in Sweden goes well then I have potential to travel to much more of the world.

On the home front, we took Ina (our Norwegian exchange student) to Las Vegas for a weekend. She really liked it and wanted to stay longer -- even though she is not old enough to gamble. She enjoyed taking lots of pictures and generally seeing all of the flashing lights and interesting decor. Andrew went along with us, so it was a nice family reunion weekend of sorts too.

Here are a few random photos that I have gotten lately.

In January, four representatives from my customer in Sweden came to visit. The weather was great. We went to the "Great Park" to ride the balloon. The weather was clear enough to see almost all of the way to downtown Los Angeles.


We have been keeping an eye on some of our outside wood, and decided that it was time to replace some pieces and get the house painted.



Ina (top photo) and Bethany (bottom photo) at the Treasure Island pirate show in Las Vegas. Unfortunately, the show was cancelled due to wind. However, they did not make that decision until after we had stood out there for 1/2 hour.



Hayley at M&M World in Las Vegas.

Labels: Exchange Student, Family, Travel, Work

This posting is a little bit late, but still something that I meant to share. In mid-December, we had a colder-than-normal storm come through and drop snow in the nearby hills. It is not unusual for Saddleback Mountain to get snow a few times per winter. However, the nearby hills rarely do. This time, we had a lot of snow.

Before anyone comments about it, when I say "a lot of snow" you have to remember that I mean by local standards. I have been to Sweden and Finland in the snowy months and know what "a lot of snow" means by most people's standards.

Below are some pictures that I took from my office window of the show on Saddleback and the surrounding hills on Dec 18 and Dec 19. The camera phone doesn't catch it very well, but the snow is in the middle of the photos. Clicking on the photos to enlarge them helps. To borrow a quote from The Lion King: "Look closer!"

Labels: Rob, Work

I am officially heading back to Finland again later this month. There was a chance that I would not be going, but the customer and partner were very insistent that I return.

One thing I am looking forward to is placing some Travel Bugs in a geocache that I found the last time I was there. Continuing my theme of caches that could lead to international incidents, this one was located on the door of a power vault at a large fire station in Helsinki. Shoo suggested that I wear a trench coat and dark glasses when I go caching over there. Nice to have helpful friends!

In any case, this cache required unscrewing 4 screws to get in. This was in the area where the fire fighters cars are parked. The cache entry says that they know about it, but it just takes one suspicious person that does not know about it to cause a problem.

In any case, I got it opened, signed the log, and left a Disneyland map. That sounds like a fun thing to leave in Finland. The cache is large enough to take some caches and should be in walking distance of my hotel.

Another discover close to this cache is shown in the picture below.


The owner of this shop is a nice young lady that has dual US/Finnish citizenship. It turns out that she went to school at UC Irvine and learned to surf here. We had a nice chat when she saw me taking this picture. She said that she can always tell the Americans because they are the ones that take the photos!

I also found a possible future Rosetta Stone. This sign includes English and the two official languages of Finland: Finnish and Swedish. The bird in the second photo was sitting on a rock near this sign. I think that he said "Nevermore" in Finnish, but I'm not sure since that word is not on the sign!



It will be dark, cold, and possibly snowy on my next trip. Also, I will only be there for 4 working days. That means that I will probably not be able to take any pictures. However, I still have some from my last trip that I can share if I find some blogging time.

Labels: Geocaching, Rob, Travel, Work

I have done a few blog entries about my international customers (Sweden and Finland primarily). We are very close to taking our customer in Sweden live, but that is requiring a lot of work hours. My priorities right now are something like this: Family, Physical & Mental Health, "Minimal" sleep, Work, "Extra" sleep.

Family means things like helping the kids with homework, having dinner together, doing as many family events as possible. Family includes our exchange student, Ina, too!

Physical & Mental Health includes obvious things like showers and eating and non-obvious things like playing WoW with my friends twice per week if possible.

"Minimal" sleep means that I am sleeping a little less than I should, but enough to avoid the nasty side effects of lack of sleep.

Work means having a schedule that includes interaction with my customers that are 9 and 10 timezones away from me as well as my co-workers in the Pacific time zone. That has literally meant things like falling asleep at the keyboard while trying to get some things done (that happened last night for example).

"Extra" sleep means getting 7 - 8 hours per night.

Other things, like making Blog entries, falls below the list above. As things calm down on the projects, I will be able to do more posting. In the meantime, I am sharing a random photo taken during my October trip to Finland. The sign shows the name of the church.

Labels: Rob, Travel, Work

This is the first of what will be a series of blog entries about my trip to Finland. After this I plan to do a series of small entries as time permits to get the rest of the trip info and pictures out there.

The client wanted me here for 2 weeks. I rarely travel for that long, but since it is such a long flight and there is a lot to do, I agreed. The nice part of the 2 week trip is that I get the weekend to myself to see some sites. It is a rare treat to get this much free time on a business trip!

The sightseeing started yesterday since we stopped working early and I was at my hotel a little before 4:00pm. I took a nice walk around a nearby lake and took a few photos along the way. My hotel is in downtown Helsinki, so I am near a lot of interesting things.

A couple of points about my pictures. They are taken with my camera phone -- fine for the internet, but not something that will become printable pieces. Too bad, since there are some nice things to see. However, I didn't want to be responsible for carrying a camera along with all of the other stuff that I have.

Another point - I learned that I have a panorama feature on my camera/phone. I used that for the first time yesterday and some of the results are below. It basically has me take 3 pictures side-by-side and it stitches them together. It depends on me lining up each photo correctly though. I get part of the picture to line up, but it is still a bit iffy. The more I use that feature the better I seem to get at it.

Anyway, here are some photos. You'll see that the weather was nice and sunny. It was only about 9C / 48F out, but that kept me cool with the brisk pace of the walk.


Me in front of the Finnish Parliament building.


Me in front of the Finnish National Museum.


My first attempt at a panoramic shot. It didn't turn out well, but I included it for historical perspective. This is taken from a small hill overlooking a lake that I walked around. This is the end of the lake nearest to my hotel.


The parks are well thought out. For example, this picture shows the path with a clear differentiation for walkers and bicyclists. That coexisting walk/bicycle theme actually carries throughout the city.


I was pretty happy with this shot which is basically 180 degrees from the walk/bicycle path picture. The places across the lake are exclusive bed and breakfast type places and small venue performing locations. I found that out when I walked by them on the far side of the lake as I was returning to the hotel.


This picture is the panoramic shot that I am most happy with. This is at the end of the lake farthest from my hotel. The tall buildings at the back, right part of this picture are close to my hotel. HINT: Click on the picture to see a bigger version of it.


I guess I have to save SOMETHING for later posts. This last picture is nearing the end of the walk. The tower in the center of the shot is the same tower from my earlier picture in front of the Finnish National Museum.

That's it for this entry. More to come later!

Labels: Rob, Travel, Vacation, Work

I am currently in Finland. From last December to now, I have taken 5 international trips.

Dec 2007 = New Zealand
Dec 2007 = Sweden
Feb 2008 = UK
June 2008 = Sweden
Oct 2008 = Finland

Not as much as many people, but a lot by my standards! I also went to Texas a couple of times last April which some people count as a foreign country. However, it is still in North America so I will not count that.

On most of my trips, my checked luggage has followed me just fine. However, I just broke my string of luck.

Between my New Zealand and Sweden trips last December, I had one night at home. My bag was delayed coming home from NZ and I had to pack a different bag for my Sweden trip. A bit annoying, but overall not too bad.

My trip to Finland was different. I arrived in Finland after 22 hours of travel and my checked luggage did not. All I had with me was my computer bag and the clothes on my back. The hotel gave me a toothbrush, comb, and razor. The next morning I had to go to work at the customer's office in the same jeans and shirt that I wore for 22 hours of travel the previous day. I didn't even have deodorant to wear (lucky I am in Europe). My bag DID arrive at the end of my first workday so I got to wear clean clothes today.

I suppose I could take some steps to have a small "just in case" kit that I carry on the airplane. However, I really like to keep my carry on load as light as possible. I think I will just continue to take my chances!

P.S. It looks like I will be back in Finland 2 more times before the year ends. I have only been outside of the Americas one other time before 2007. I guess I am making up for lost time?

Labels: Travel, Work

June 2008


I took a number of pictures with my camera phone this time. I will share a few rather than trying to document everything.

Interesting Item #1: Wild Lupin Flowers

These flowers were in large patches at random spots along the roads. They grow wild like weeds do here at home!

Interesting Item # 2: Where's the Dark?

It never got completely dark at night. That made it difficult to convince my body that it was time to go to sleep. The picture above was taken near my hotel at 10:30pm. My camera phone has no light amplification functionality -- it was as bright as you see in the photo.

Interesting Item # 3: Summer Ski Jumping

The main item of interest in this photo is kind of small. Near the center-right of the picture is a ski jump. The Norwegian Ski Jump Team was in town for their summer training. The ski jump has a ceramic surface for the jump and fiberglass grass for the landing area so that they can practice in the summer. We got to see a few jumpers using it when we drove by. The structure to the left of the photo is a large indoor pool and water slide facility that is very popular.

Interesting Item # 4: Speed Boat Ride


We stayed in a town called Örnsköldsvik because Mellansel was too small to have any hotels. The pictures above show the boat we rode and a small fishing village that we passed. The boat ride include some high speed jumps over the waves and a tour of the natural harbor including the homes of a number of NHL stars from the area. The yellow survival suits in the first picture were needed because, despite being the height of summer, the water was COLD!

Labels: Rob, Travel, Work