Day 77

It's good to have those "reminders" in your mobile. You know those sounds you hear when the message or email arrives.
I gave a lift to Virpi to the work this morning and I was planning to have a cup of coffee in Ice Cream House, and already planning my next move to golf cource, when my mobile gave a sound in my pocket. It did not sound like an ordinary message, and it did not sound like an arriving email either. When I picked up the mobile I saw a "task" symbol. When I opened the expiring task, it said "Hae työpaikka!" (" Get a job !").
Even my mobile is giving me a hard time now; I did have my coffee, but I did not have me golf. Instead, I had 25km cycling to get all those unpleasant thinks out of my mind. It did worked out, I haven't applied any positions today either.

-77. The number always brings to my mind bands like The Clash, Sex Pistols, Damned... old good times.

Day 76

Cooking. I hate cooking.
Well, maybe the word "hate" is a bit strong. Let's say that I don't fancy cooking. It's been the same story for the last 7 years or so: I should decide what to cook today for me and the kids, and I'm so boooored to prepare the same food every week. I only know 4-5 different type of meal which to prepare. I know that there are many kind of cookbooks around, but I'm not keen of reading and learning. Even now, when I have plenty of time (as mentioned quite a few times in this blog), I don´t find it interesting enough to learn to prepare something new kind of meal(s). Instead, I will dig out some old potatos, sausage, eggs from the fridge, and mix them together, and shallow-fry. Nothing wrong with the content as such, when served together with salad, but I'm fed up making same type of food so often, and consider every single day "Mitä tänään syötäis".

Any help, anybody? Share some easy methods for cooking, nothing fancy but easy to go. Please.
And now Sirviö, look at the another direction but not down :)

Day 75

..exhausted.. I've been doing more exercise during last month than..ever.. or for years (and that's not much actually, but for my standard it's something more than driving a car for a destination which is just two blocks away, or .. watching telly even there's nothing on).

It's great to have a chance to walk, run, cycle or play golf, floorball.. and just because I have time. I remember saying that I'm too busy to do any exercise, when I was working. And it's somehow true: even though it's a priorisation issue more than anything else, you don't usually fancy to do things, which you are not too keen to do, or feels uneasy, if the time you have after work is limited. All that is changed as I would go nuts, if I couldn't get out of the house every day. I hope this feeling stays once I'm at working life again..

Day 74

Guess what I have been doing all morning?

I have been looking for a job via mol.fi and linkedin.com. I have also asked some recommendations from my ex-boss and updated my contacts and groups to follow in linkedin. I've been very productive! Now I can relax and just wait that those big companies are contacting me and offering a nice job for me. That was easy.

.
.
.
3h later
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.
Guess what else I've been doing today?

I've been dancing -alone- around the living room in a beat of Suvi Teräsniska. I never thought to see that day coming.
But we have a wedding party coming on Saturday -not ours, but a friend of Virpi- and I kind of promised to dance with Virpi -and only with her- on Saturday.

I still have a lot to practise for, so better to stop writing.. ( I just would like to see those faces of our neighbours, if they see me dancing by myself.. Oh, luckily they all are decent people and working during this time of the day..)

Day 73

These Mondays are more restless than other week days. It took me awhile to settle down, after I had cleaned the house, visit the grocery store and cooking. Rest of the day I just downloaded games to my tablet PC and played more or less boring games.

I also downloaded a PC Magazine to tablet and it´s so handy to read magazines in an electronic format. Suits for me. I also have a local news paper only in electronic format, no paper magazines at all to this household. Apart from Aku Ankka (Donald Duck) as they don´t have an electronic format yet.

"Save the trees and save the world - use electronic format instead ... and nuclear power.." doesn't sound that good, does it.

Day 72

Sunday 26th of August

You can also spend your unemployment day in the school gym watching how youngters are playing floorball. That was my day. I played some floorball last night myself too, and I was so tired that went to sleep very early. Thus I did not update my blog immediately last night. Another reason being tired was our Saturday night Venetsialaiset as we went to sleep at 03 AM and woke up at 07.30 for floorball.

Day 71

Kind of celebration this also: "Venetsialaiset"; we celebrate the end of the summer in many parts of Finland, mainly in the west coast and south, not so much in eastern part  I believe (correct if I'm wrong). Fireworks and carneval atmosphere is expected, and it's in Kirjurin Kesäravintola:
http://www.facebook.com/#!/events/459161794117840/

I would rather not to see summer to end, but when it does, let's do it in style:). Me and Virpi are joining the celebration tonight (after late Chelsea game). I'll update the blog with picture later tonight IF I can get some decent pictures. The weather is OK, not rainy, not windy, but the night will be a bit chilly like always during this time of the year.

Day 70

Yet another thing you can do when you are unemployed: you can spend a whole day in Teuva. Just to watch people passing by. You should try that. I did. Relaxing. Here's the picture of the city centre, and you  understand what I mean :)

Day 69

I started a new school today! Don´t they say that when you reach a certain age, it´s good to try something new. And now I´m in "a certain" age and I also have plenty of time to try something new. So, me and Virpi went to the dancing school ! I´m good with poko dancing, but humppa and valssi are strange for me, not to Virpi so much. We started with Foksi. It goes like " step, step, pam, pam" etc. Pretty interesting and only what we need now is practising,and a lot.

We will continue our lessons in weekly basis. Next week we´ll have Fusku, a basis again. It´s  a bitty that we can´t do the advanced sessions as I have a floor ball (salibandy) training at the same time of the week. It means that we need to practice and practise even more and without a teacher.

Day 68

I forgot to add a picture yesterday, for day 67. The number 67 is always remembered with this player in Pori. Look the jersey, not the person :).

But we are not yet in ice hockey season, luckily, and we dont have that white stuff yet, luckily.

Day 67

Looks like the summer is over and we are heading towards autumn. One might say that the summer never even started. Anyway it's getting a bit colder and it is not so tempting anymore to cycle to the coffee shop - or terrace actually - in the mornings. But there is still a hope that the temperature stays around 20 for some weeks, or is there?

When the weather starts to get colder and darker, my days start getting longer and I'm getting restless.. let's see.

Day 66

I had a payday today. I got a fake salary. I used to have a payday 20th of each month. I decided to continue this habbit and pay a small "salary" to myself every 20th day. By that way, I have a little chance to control my spendings, otherwise I will run out of cash too soon. So now I have to stick with my monthly limit, there's no way to exceed.

Day 65

Sunday 19th of August.

..The big mobile operator wanted to have a better control on their network and optimize parameters to serve their customers better. But before they could have a full control of their network they must understand what's going on among their subscribers. I was leading a matrix organization of experties on that time and these people really had all the knowledge of measuring the network performance and subscriber behaviour. I gained the knowledge through them, thus I was ready to visit the customer and share the knowledge. I took an Irish bloke with me as he was a master of selling optional products for customer needs. We spend a couple weeks with the customer and oh boy, the Irish bloke was good. I learned a lot from him during the trip. Not only how to talk with the customers - I knew that already- but how to take life and people around you in positive manner. I'm not sure how you behave in the elavator with strangers, but I usually (read: every single time) stay very quiet and avoid eye contact. He, Mervin he is called, introduced himself to strangers after saying "good morning", had some light jokes and wished people a good rest of the day; and all that in the elavator going down from 11th floor towards the basement for breakfast in a nice hotel in the middle of  SYDNEY...

Yes Mikko, the picture is from Sydney indeed (picture is taken very close of the famous bridge, see below picture) and I wonder how come you knew it right away? And Virpi knew it even before you, she just did not write it to my blog soon enough. So Virpi, I owe you a pint, cause you were the first one to quess it right. And Mikko, I owe you a beer too, cause you were the first one to write the right answer to my blog. Kimmo and Katja, you were pretty close with Melbourne. I'm surprised that all of you knew it was from Australia right away! I was already planning to have next "five points vinkki" and then "3 points vihje" and so on..

NOTE! A late comment:
I DID NOT notice that the picture had a sign of "Australia" printed to it :) :). No wonder you knew the country. Shit, next time I need to check the picture in FULL screen before selecting any... this is so me..

Day 64

.. I was about to say something, but can't remember what was it anymore... well, I'll come back later today, meanwhile:

What's the name of the city in a picture? I'll buy a beer to the one who gives the right answer, when we meet  :)

Day 63

The weather in the morning was awesome and I went to play a round of golf at 08.00.
One of those benefits to be unemployed :)

Day 62

..I've been waiting for a storm and thunder.. which never arrives. It's been a hot day and the thunder has been around, but I can only hear the sound and see dark clouds. Sight, it's too far away and I'll miss the thunder again.

I'm sure you all know that Premier League starts on Saturday. Have you done your fantasy league already, hurry up: http://fantasy.premierleague.com/
Who's gonna be on top four this year? Chelsea, Man City and Man United. But is it Tottenham forth again? Or Liverpool, Everton? Arsenal it's not. Anyway, it's going to be fascinating season. Enjoy !

Day 61

I wanted to make blueberry pie, which I learned from Virpi couple of weeks ago. We did one together and I made all the notes and everything was clear. I just finished my first one just by myself. And the result was like my son said: "right, today we eat flours and heated blueberries". Damn! I managed to spoil it. I got one step wrong: "heat the margarine as its easier to mix with flours", but I melt the margarine (so it was fully running) and tried to mix it with flours; the end result was not expected.

Does it mean that I better ignore all the "cook/chef" ads  and not to apply, even if the salary would be good :) ?

Day 60

two months, two nice relaxed wonderful months up. And how do I do today? Like the sky looks like today:

Day 59

It´s ten in the morning. I knew it´s going to be difficult day. Kids are at school. All the adults are at work -expect me. I have walked around the house all morning wondering what the heck I could do today. Is it going to be like this for rest of the year? No, no it can´t be. This is the first day after all summer hassle and normal weekday rutine is back. I´ll quickly adapt to my freedom, I quess. But it is true that I just can´t lay down and do nothing; there gotto be some activities throughout a day.

But now I need to get out of this house. I still have this frigging flu so cant do any heavy cycling and stuff, but I´ll take it easy and cycle to the city center for a nice cuppa :) (cup of coffee).

Day 58

Kids are returning to school tomorrow after a long summer holiday period. It`s another "test" for me as I´m staying at home. Well, it´s not that big difference as you could imagine, cause I used to work remotely quite a lot from my previous job (means: staying home); most of the meetings were done via web anyway -IP calls and Webex for sharing presentations and notes; all you need is lov.. I mean IP network.

I found remote work to be perfect for me during those 6 years in Pori, when travelling to the office (Tampere) became more and more irrelevant all the time. In that perspective, the office does not need to be in the same locations than your home. I wouldn´t mind to have the office in Stockholm and only visit office when must - we have a direct flights to Stockholm from here (and that´s the one and only direct flight). Of course it´s not that straight forward at the beginning, but eventually it could work out; thanks to Mr. Berners-Lee (who invented www).

Day 57

Saturday 11th of August.
I was enjoying my coffee in the Ice Cream Coffee House - located in the middle of the city center- and watching people passing by, and then, I fully realized that I'm not just having a longer summer holiday, but I really have more tme for.. everything. Most of the people were over sixty having their own relaxed time with friends, mostly grouped like a teenagers, some suit ppeople and ofcource some drunks passing by. I didin't really belong to any of those group, but it was nice ro realize that I dont have to hurry anywhere and I can have my morning coffee in peace

Day 56

A night with friends and a fire

Day 55

No, these are not from Pori :)

Day 54

Strange. Do I star feeling restless or what is this? I got a strong feeling this morning that I must start looking for a job, now; "what if I don't get a job at all, am I acting too late?". Funny.

So what I did today was unexpected: I sent an open job application to one of the Finnish (global) company in Tampere. I begged a job! Well, not really, but first touch has been made.

It's actually pretty difficult to write a letter, where you have to say all the good thinks about yourself. Flatter yourself. To tell where you are good about. Most of the Finns does not feel confident when asked to do so. I'm one of those. It's not easy to say "I'm the best you can get" even though it would be true :)

Writing a CV was not easy either. I spend quite a few weeks writing one, but luckily it's done now. I completed both the Finnish and English versions already in June before I started to write this blog. I have kept up-to-date CV since 1998 in English. But when I tried to translate it to Finnish, I noticed that most of the words and terms used in English CV were practically useless. I needed to create a new CV using the words that everybody understands, first in finnish and then in english. At the same time the layout and the form was outdated, so needed to learn how CVs should look like today, not in 1990s. Luckily I got some education for writing CV as it's pretty important part of applying to any job. Make it look boring and messy and now one will read it and you are out before the game has even started. It could be that I need to do more modification to it as the time goes by, but's that's fine, it's not perfect yet, not even close. I'm not going to share it with you, but here's my LinkedIn profile for any interest: http://fi.linkedin.com/in/arminentommi

Day 53

I've been in a bed most of the day due this flu. Don't feel like writting now. bye

Day 52

Flu and tired.. I don't understand where I got this flu from, but the nouse is running like Niagara fall. No more text to be written today. Hopefully you are enjoying Bob Mould tonight my friends (Tavastia club Helsinki).

Day 51

... one rainy day I was travelling from Waterloo Station to Hammersmith by bus after a hard day at the office. (There was one of those yearly tube strikes in London where most -if not all- metro lines are closed, and only option is to use buses and all the roads are packed with cars). It was already dark outside and I enjoyed to watch what other people were doing in their cars while the traffic was mostly stopped and long queues ahead. People were dringing coffees, reading newspapers, singing, on the phone, texting or just looked numbed. I remember thinging that how come they can spend most of they day in the car in the traffic and how boring it sounded.

Hmmm, it didn't take too long time to find myself in a same position: It sounded like an excellent idea to move to Hammersmith and have a car, cause' Hammersmith is located in the west side of London close the major highway A4, which was the way towards my office --> quick and easy to travel. Well, I found out that A4 (and M25 after that -like a ring road (kehä) in Helsinki) are rather busy roads as well, and you can actually spend hours in a car :(. So I wasn't laughing anymore for those poor people reading papers and drinking coffee in their cars..

And I did one major mistake one morning, when the traffic was running nicely and I decided to start playing with my CDs while driving: I took me a second too long to realize that the lorry in the front of me was braking hard, and I crashed pretty nicely to the back of the lorry in a motorway. Luckily no-one were hurt. It was the car which sufferred the major blow, and next 3-4 weeks I was without a car. After the crash I never drive right behind the lorry, but I rather overtake or leave enough space between to be able to see what's the traffic in the front of the lorry, gives more time to react...

Day 50

Day 50! 150 days still to go.
I haven't spent any time to consider my future yet. But that time will come soon, just give me 30 days -or till end of the this month- and I'll start planning my activities for rest of the year. I'm not expecting to find a job just like that, it will be a tough task to complete, thus I would like to make  a list, or something, of my activities.

But let the music roll. A picture of yesterday: PMMP

.. and I almost fogot to share this wonderful picture of Maj Karma and a dear bassist from last Saturday.

Day 49

The music never stops!
Tonight is for:

Day 48

They did NOT let me down last night. Awesome!

Day 47

I'm lucky to see Red Hot Chili Peppers tonight in Tampere. I have seen them twice before: once in ProvinssiRock in Seinäjoki and that was in late 80's. And once in Hyde Park London in early 00's.
The weather is chilly, only +15 in the evening, but showers should be over by then.