Christmas Eve at the Cabin
It’s now Christmas eve and I’m sitting comfortably on the cabin bed, trying to raise enough energy to go and add some firewood to the sauna stove and to start preparing the Christmas foods. I’m here all alone, which makes this the first Christmas I’ve ever spent without seeing any family or friends. This solitude is self imposed, though, and so far very very comfortable.
Susi and her sister went to spend the Christmas with the family and I didn’t want to spend several days alone at home (freelancing from home made the apartment walls pretty familiar…). Neither did I want to go to a place where there was no chance for privacy after an autumn of a whole lot of people around me, so I ended up here in the wilderness.
The Autumn in Retrospect
This autumn has been hectic and very busy, but at the same time quite pleasant. There’s a distinct difference in being simply tired from working too much and doing too many things, and being pissed off and stressed about stuff. The autumn has been of the former variety, not the latter. The advantage is that a good mood is just a couple of well slept nights and lazy days away. I’ve had to travel so much that one time I literally had to check the plane ticket in the evening to see where I was going the next day. I’ve spent countless hours in airplanes squeezed in between two lardasses in the adjoining seats and running with a camera case from one interview to another. Things at the work have progressed in a pleasant way, though. My efforts and the risks I’ve taken have actually started to pay off in several ways.
The last week has been a barrage of good news, that has left me feeling almost suspicious. The ancient Finns used to believe that onni, which translates as luck and happiness, is a limited resource in the world. If you had some, you should hide it, lest someone steal it. I’m kind of amused, since although I don’t of course believe in that, I have inherited some of that philosophy in my blood. I seem to feel that there has to be some kind of equilibrium with things – wild streaks of lucky breaks leave me feeling suspicious of what kind of nasty stuff will counterbalance them. I find these superstitious feelings amusing, but can’t really help them.
One nice thing is that in spite of the global economy, I’ve got work for the next spring and quite certainly for the next autumn too. TV is not the stablest of fields when it comes to holding a job, because the networks often buy shows one season at a time & funding is at times hard to come by. The decisions are often made quite late, so theoretically you can be out of job every spring, autumn and new year in a few weeks notice. The spring season looked a bit bad for a moment, but our executive producer managed to secure us a full season. The company is also doing well enough to give out christmas bonuses, with lots of productions that have traction, so things are looking pretty good.
In addition to the day job I’ve had my own projects. One of them has been to get my credit card debt zeroed out before the end of the year, which I almost managed to do. This meant cutting down on expenses and doing work worth an additional 4000 euros in three months. In addition to that there have been hobby projects, like role-playing games and of course the whole brouhaha with Älymystö’s new web page. So there have been long days, insomnia and moments when taking a dose of Fukitol and hibernating for four months has sounded really good.
We’ve managed to go diving only once since the previous entry, which sucketh. Either we’ve been busy, Susi or I have had the flu or there’s been a miscommunication. The diving trip we did a couple of weeks back was a real blast, though, with lots of interesting sealife and so on. But more of that in a couple of days.
The Christmas
So, yesterday I wrapped things up at the office and left for our cabin site. The weather was quite sucky for driving, since the temperature was just at the point of freezing, nodding slightly below it, so the roads were at times very slippery and all the cars threw out a cloud of freezing muddy mist that smudged the windshield. At the cabin site I started with the ordinary routine of warming up the sauna and the cabin, while finishing the last of the work over the cabin net connection.
Apart from one godawful thundery blizzard earlier in the autumn we haven’t seen much snow in Helsinki. Our cabin site is about 150 km to the north and luckily there’s some snow from here. Just a handspan or two, so not too much, but at least the ground isn’t completely dark, muddy and bare. When I got to the cabin, the first song I heard from the radio was “Walking in the Air” from the snowman animation they show every Christmas, which was kind of a pleasant emotional nuclear bomb.
The first evening’s sauna is a kind of a ritual in the cabin for me – it sounds corny, but it’s kind of a purification from all the crap of the everyday life. Sweating out the stress, the pissed off feelings, the vinegar-like stress-caffeine sweat and so on. Yesterday was no exception. After I had sweated it all out and scrubbed myself with the coarse sauna brush ’till my skin felt tender, I was feeling very light, content and relaxed.
The sauna stove stones glowing cherry red.
I set all the things that go “beep” to silent mode, even turned the cell phone face down so I couldn’t see the light if someone called, and went to bed. I did the usual panic wake ups at 6:50 and 8:30, but steadfastly continued the very heavy and in many ways communicative dreams I was having. I finally got up before noon, feeling very good, rested and well slept.
Walk in the Wintery Forest
I had a breakfast of traditional rice porridge, cinnamon and milk. In the early afternoon I left for another eight kilometer walking trip into the forest. I went looking for the same geocache I tried to find earlier in the autumn without success. After the August trip I’ve found a couple of quite cleverly hidden caches, so now I managed to take a right point of view to this one and found it in a couple of minutes.
It's not very cold, so small streams and large ditches haven't frozen over.
The walk in the forest was pure bliss. Surprisingly enough it’s often easier to walk in the forest in wintertime than in the summer. This time I also had better shoes, ie. army boots instead of running shoes. There was no undergrowth, the snow acted as a “smooth more” -filter to the ground and the leaves had fallen off the trees, replaced by a frosting of snow. It was quiet and peaceful, the weather was cool but warm enough to go without gloves and a wool cap and the world was really beautiful. There is a certain peace to be found for me in trips like that.
There are a couple of bad thickets on the way to the geocache. Much more pretty and fun in the wintertime, though.
When I was walking back and reached a road that connected a few houses to the main road, it was already getting dark. It was that moment of gray winter twilight when the eyes aren’t sure if they should rely on the cone cells or the rod cells more, leading into a slightly unreal feeling and the colours and the light level fluctuating. I met some people coming the other way, two kids who were sliding on the road with a kick sled and two women. A small girl was sitting on the sledge and she saw me, she sharted shouting “Santa Claus, Santa Claus!” I replied in Finnish “Ei kun ihan tavallinen tonttu“, which has a double translation of “nope, just an ordinary elf” and “nope, just an ordinary doofus”. The kid was a bit confused, as were the women, because there was really no other place for me to come from than the three houses (were they probable were staying or at least knew the inhabitants) and the forest.
There were candle lanterns lighting part of the way. Nope, the colours are not retouched.
I used the walk in the forest to think about the last year and where things are now. I have to say that finally I’m pretty much in the place in my life I have aimed for. I have a job which I find comfortable doing and which challenges me, but also takes me into nice situations and gives me things other than just the money. I have a great, stable relationship which especially for the last couple of years has been better than ever, I have great hobbies and the means to pursue them, great friends, my health is ok, the finances are more or less balanced now and so on. The situation doesn’t feel fragile or a milestone on the way to somewhere either, it feels like the endgame to a lot of stuff I’ve been doing during my life.
No doubt this current blissful status quo will be broken soon, but I’m not worried about that – on the whole I’m not afraid of losing things. When something is attained once, it can be attained again. Being thoroughly happy and content like this is a proof-of-concept -kind of thing for me.
Some of the lanterns were hanging on fir trees.
The Christmas Eve
After I got back to the cabin it was almost pitch dark. I wasn’t that tired, but nevertheless some hot coffee, Christmas star-pastries and gingerbread biscuits tasted really good. So, this is were I’m now, watching the fireplace roar. I just took a short pause from writing to add some firewood to the sauna and set a fire under the water cauldron to get some hot water for washing. The lake hasn’t yet frozen over, but it’s been cold enough today that there’s an one centimeter crust on the lee side of the cabin shore – nothing you couldn’t get through after hammering it with the buckets.
The sauna is almost ready, so I’ll better start setting up the meal. I brought with me the traditional casseroles, a ham which I roasted at home, sweet Christmas bread and all the relishes that go with the deal. I very much doubt that after today’s mini hike in the forest, a hour or two in the sauna and then eating myself silly I’ll be good for much during the rest of the evening – but then again, what is there to do apart from curl around my tummy to sleep.
Thanks for a great year to all of my friends reading this!
Gaming, Diving, Friends and Firearms
Long time, no update – mainly because of life being busy and me being lazy. I’ve poured a lot of my time for work and overtime, but also wading through the flood of excellent games that have come out this autumn. I’ve managed to cram in Fable 2, Fallout 3, Mirror’s Edge, Gears of War 2, LittleBigPlanet and Dead Space. I also finally finished the last Phoenix Wright game which I’ve been playing from since the spring.
Two years of playing the Ace Attorney -games on practically every lunch hour – now the life feels empty. Well, there’s Hotel Dusk: Room 215 to wade through now. DS has become an adventure gaming platform for me, it seems. If you have recommendations for good adventures on DS, please drop a line in the comments.
On the diving front the autumn has been disappointing. Either there has been a storm which has kept the diving boat at bay, or Susi, I or both of us have had the flu. The only diving thing we’ve managed to do was an intro dive for Susi’s sister and her boyfriend. Originally my step-brother would have attended too, but it was his time to get the flu. Clogged nose and diving doesn’t really mix, unless you want a ruptured eardrum and a mask half full of blood.
First breaths under water.
Finding balance.
Into the deep end.
Me. Not shown: a buoy Jukka attached to my ass and the ginormous booger that filled half of my mask.
J-Sep - too cool for this pool!
Jukka made a funny.
I also managed to finish a diving video from our summer trip to M/S Coolaroo – enjoy:
This weekend Susi, Jori and I went to Imatra to meet my old pal Juha. He works in the border guard and is intent on collecting boys and firearms. The theme of the weekend was eating ourselves silly, shooting with Juha’s guns, saunaing, chatting and so on. Here’s some photographic evidence of us playing with guns.
Jori was dressed in full combat gear, including a bullet proof vest with extra plating. There was no actual reason to do this.
Surprisingly enough, none of us got a black and blue bicep from the shotgun.
We used balloons as targets. Festive!
Fun was had by all, although the night’s sleep was a bit short on my part, on account of staying up to chat with Juha ’till six in the morning or so and being woken up by the boys.
This evening – bath, a good book and bed. Here’s hoping for 12 hours of sleep.
Rescue Diving, Gaming & Cutting Down Trees
For a moment it seemed that this weekend is going to really suck. The week has been rather unpleasant and tense, not the least because of yet another flu that doesn’t know if it’s coming or going. It probably didn’t help that on the previous Friday we had our Rescue Diver pool exercises and on Thursday we did the same stuff in the cold sea. Stuff like that does wonders for the flu – it really makes it bloom.
We also had the EFR-training which came with the course. My previous formal first aid training was when I was a boy scout, but I’ve been trying to keep up with the info. It felt good to refresh my memory on resuscitation and stuff like that, although I was surprised the course didn’t have anything on burns and cold injuries, something which I remember we went through during the previous course. I guess they are not really priority when diving, though, although the course was supposed to be general purpose. Getting to see and try an automated defibrillator was fun though. Seeing a machine which has ridiculously easy instructions and voice commands to restart someone’s heart felt childishly cyberpunkish.
What was this stuff? Well, bringing up unconscious divers from the sea bottom, towing them to the shore while giving them resuscitation breaths & simultaneously removing our and their diving equipment (without breaking the breathing rhythm), giving them oxygen and CPR on the shore, and of course acting as the victims ourself.
The Rescue Diver course was very illuminating in many respects. I learned a lot of things – like that giving CPR in water is impossible and trying to breathe into someone’s mouth while trying to tow him is only nigh impossible. The most surprising thing I learned was that none of the previously mentioned activities was the most strenuous one: the thing that was most tiring was acting like you are panicking – trashing around and trying to irrationally climb up from the water. It was really eye-opening how quickly you can tire yourself out completely by trashing around aimlessly.
So, now Susi and I are certified Rescue Divers. This means that we have a faint clue of what to maybe do in an emergency and we are qualified to try and rescue someone nobody really cares that much about. It’s going to take a shitload of practice to get our skills to a really usable level.
Friday Evening Gaming
Friday afternoon we were filming the TV show I produce. All of us were either fluish, tired or both. We ended up laughing like morons at everything, sticking berries up our noses and throwing them at pigeons. Yeaah, adult professionals, that’s us – through and through.
In any case, it seemed that the flu made up its mind when I got back home. I felt exhausted, feverish and completely out of it. We had planned on leaving for the cabin, but instead of that I collapsed on the sofa and fell asleep for a few hours. After I came to, it was already too late to leave. Instead I thought I’d spend the evening playing some Condemned 2, but my trusty old Xbox 360 did the thing that’s hip with the consoles nowadays and gave me the red ring. Luckily I had a debug console and Dead Space preview version, which conspired with Spore to keep me entertained through the evening.
I’m a big fan of System Shock games and Dead Space really shows some promise. It also promises to be pretty frustrating in certain ways, but it’s hard to say from the preview version only. I’m going to keep my eye on the game, though. Spore… well, I’m still a bit of two minds about it. The protozoa-level is very good and the animal level is interesting. The tribal and the civilization-levels… meh. I didn’t really get anything out of them, because the game mechanics are just too simple and seem to leave a million chances unused. I’m sure they were much more ambitious on the drawing board and when you are combining five games into one, you have to make compromises, but still – not impressed. The galactic phase shows a lot of promise, but after just a couple hours of gameplay it’s hard to say. I have to say that in the end, personally I’m disappointed. I didn’t expect the game to walk on water, but I expected something more. Like an inkling of challenge.
Lake Diving
On Saturday morning I woke up feeling far better than in two weeks, so Susi and I decided to default back to the cabin weekend idea, with some added fun diving. On our way to the cabin site we stopped at Iso-Tiilijärvi, which is a small spring-based lake. This means the water is low on nutrients, rather cold and clear. This was our second lake diving, all the other dives have been in the sea. Our cabin lake was a bit of a disappointment, since the lake bottom was like the surface of Mars (with shellfish, tons of beer bottles and a back plate of a TV). We chalked it under practice and it wasn’t a total waste of time by any means. Here’s a video from earlier in the summer:
Iso-Tiilijärvi was in a different league altogether. The visibility was close to eight meters, a big patch in the bottom of the lake was covered with vegetation and there were a lot of fish. A couple of times we ran into a school of 200-300 perches, which let us quite near. It was fun to see them swimming around in a relaxed way, then notice us and go “PERCHES, ATTEN-SHUN – DEPLOY THE DORSAL FIN!” Perches are a very common fish in Finland – in spite of the spiky dorsal fin they are good eating and easy to catch.
The water wasn’t terribly cold, being around 12C, but the temperature got to my flu-ravaged bones pretty fast. Additionally I had forgotten my gloves home, but luckily there was a bunch of other divers also on the site and one of them was friendly enough to lend me a pair of thin gloves. They kept my fingers warm enough to operate the camera, the results being below.
This looks about right, even the overwhelming greenness.
An underwater Susi.
Yes, that is indeed a rock with neon green dreadlocks. No idea, what that plant is, but man - it looked weird.
After the dive we grabbed something to eat and drove to the cabin, where I promptly found the iPod I had lost on the previous trip (found it in a place, which I had checked five times… go figure), and warmed up the sauna. Some gaming, warming the bones in the hot room and then reading a few pages – perfection.
Felling Trees & Finding Lake Ore
On Sunday I woke up well rested after a load of very weird dreams. After spending some time browsing stupid stuff on the net I went out for some yard word. I laid down the law for weeds with a scythe and then got around to cutting down a couple of trees, which have been shadowing the berry bushes. I had to cut off a couple of branches before fell the whole tree, so it wouldn’t squish the berry bushes or the garden. This required prancing on top of a ladder and hacking at the branch in a really awkward angle.
Cutting down trees is fun. Especially with an axe. MANLY BUSINESS.
"Man, you have a chainsaw at the cabin, why not use it instead of an axe?", you might ask. "Well, where's the fun in that?", I would answer.
The first colours of autumn.
After the yard work Susi and I went for a short dive. It was indeed a feat some people take months, even years preparing for. It took 20 minutes. Our maximum depth was 2,5 meters. I did it without gloves in a 12C water. Truly hardcore. The other side of the cabin lake wasn’t much more interesting – lots of clams, Susi found some lake iron and I stuck one shellfish upside down on the bottom mud, until I started feeling bad and turned it right side up again.
This has been a very good weekend, one in a series of quite a few. The cabin gives and the cabin taketh away, though – I found my iPod, but it seems Susi lost her keys. Hopefully they turn up somewhere, because changing the security locks in the whole building won’t be cheap.
Next week, an overnight press trip to UK. I’m feeling good and enthusiastic about work, which is a state to cherish – doing something that’s fun and pays the bills at the same time.
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