Introduction to my blog

If you are concerned about the mega trends or, if you are interested in politics, science, fashion, climate change, energy production, health care or hobbies, you should follow this blog of mine. The opinions published here are mine and they are based on my experiences, adventures and research work.

My motto is: Dreaming big, making it simple!

Here are some examples for introductions to topics you may find in this blog in the near future:

Have you noticed that many l experts put the blame on sugar for making many people fat and sick? I can tell you more about it.

In USA they call it “Obama care”. It is the new offering for citizens to acquire a health insurance plan. Some 7 million citizens in USA took advantage of the offer starting on 2014-04-01. Would you like to get a comparison between Obama care and the Finnish solution?

Pros and cons for being active in social media. Should you be there at all? Should you have just some Face Book friends or maybe gather hundreds of them? Let me give you some hints.

In UK most of the coffee is consumed as Instant coffee. It makes you wonder doesn’t it? I will dig into this later in my blog and give you some detailed facts and figures.

Most of the answers we will find in the coastal sea or in local terrain of mainland but in some cases we need to sail overseas to get a confirmation!

Welcome on board my blog.

Simo

Lost in Athens? Ye gods!

I was sitting in The Hip Café in the heart of Athens on Sintagma square. It was late afternoon. Finally the sun was about to set. It was not that hot anymore. I glanced through the menu: ”Hip Hand made pasta, Hip Pancaces , Hip Toasted Sandwich….” But no, I had totally lost my appetite. I guess it was because I was worried!  We had finished our week long cruise and taken a taxi to Athens and now she was lost!

Enjoy Fine Dining?

Do you often dine at restaurants; have you had surprises with the service there?

I’m not a frequent restaurant customer but I’ve had some new experiences lately.  A friend of mine had made a table reservation at a popular restaurant. The time he told me about it, he had been in the reservation queue for about two months. Once the date of the reservation got closer he noticed that he had an overlapping appointment and requested me to take advantage of the reservation. Oh, yes of course, what an opportunity! That’s how I responded. I was aware of the long queue and had noticed the reputation of the establishment rising, but I knew nothing else about the place. I still thought this was a great chance to take my wife dining out to a fancy and popular restaurant.

Taking care of Exercise

It has been a whole week of Olympics in Sochi and I try not to let that interrupt my weekly exercises. How has it been with you? Have you watched the games and have you kept up with your normal rhythm?

A good start to Skeleton

Today I was taking my daily walk in the morning. This time around the Töölönlahti bay.  First up the Linnanmäki hill and then again down the  hill towards Eläintarha park. There I noticed some children with their sledges and my thoughts jumped to the House of Horrors in the neighboring  amusement park and  “Skeleton”, the Master of the House of Horrors. Taking a few more steps down the here and there icy path my brain combined the children’s sledges to the sport I had watched on TV yesterday: Yes: “Skeleton”. I don’t mean the system that provides the support to my living body but I was thinking about this strange looking Olympic sport discipline where sports men and women will accelerate their sledges down an icy chute.  They are dressed in shiny outfits of fabrics with plastic touch as they rush down with their heads leading the way and their noses nearly touching the fast by passing icy surface. The speed of their sledges reaching up to 135 km per hour they seem to be risking their lives for their sport of choice. And the strange name “Skeleton”?  How did it get there? I remember the sport was named after the bony appearance of the sledge they use.

Then I needed to take a crosswalk to get to the other side of the street and I had to concentrate on the traffic. I walked on and passed the Opera House and kept on going in direction of Finlandia Hall. Quite a lot of people did the same. They were doing the circle around the bay, making a walking distance of about 3 kilometres.  I could not avoid overhearing the discussion as a couple passed me. They were praising the amazing styles and the vocabulary of the snowborders they had watched: “Goofy foot”, “clean air”, “nose grab” and “rail slide”. I smiled and silently accompanied their opinions: Really relaxed sportiness and refreshing language.

Soon I returned home. Walking felt good. It must be a good exercise discipline for me. I admire the people, the sportsmen and women in the Olympics practising their fancy sports and even enjoy watching them in the Games. But I don’t envy them. How about you? What do you think of all this? Have you got a passion to exercise more or are you happy with what you are doing to keep yourself fit? 

Structures of blogging

This is my blog post about the qualities of different blog structures and my comparison between two interesting blog examples. I can somehow sense your enthusiasm although this is not exactly an interactive way to discuss. Anyway I’m certain I can manage to surprise you and catch your attention.  I do have a challenge here, as some of you are experienced bloggers, thus having your own preferences; but I’m confident we share some!

Now on to the Topic for today. I started  browsing this site  “Thirteenth Annual Weblog awards” (http://2013.bloggi.es/ ) that has lists of award winning blogs. After surfing a great number of blog categories I soon felt like a tourist walking around Salzburg, Austria,

Saltzburg, a city of many wonders

looking for  W. A. Mozart, my favourite, if not everybody’s favourite composer. Trying not to get too excited about all the beauty I encounter, I decide to axe every other category of blogs except the category: “Most humorous WebLog”.  I go on with my inspection of the Salzburg of blogs but now just walking through this one block of the city. I realise that it well could be that Mozart never lived in this block. So I forgot about him and just picked two different nice looking blogs for comparison:

The Oatmeal  http://theoatmeal.com/

This is a kind of a toy box, or if you want to take a more adult attitude, a tool box of entertainment. It includes an assortment of humor: Comics, Quizzes, a Blog, Books and even a Web Shop. It’s got lots of checkboxes which offer alternative ways to move forward, sideways or backward.

The Bloggess  http://thebloggess.com/

The structure here is, if I dare say, the traditional one: the post, the reader comments; then after an intermission, the next post, the reader comments for that and so on. The analogies to the music world now come back to my mind. I’m not looking for my favourite composer, but I see The Oatmeal-blog as a symphony orchestra. The reader of the blog has for a moment the power of the conductor:

He can choose the instrument which takes the lead and makes a sound and in which volume. Unfortunately the conductor himself or herself also has the responsibility to have all the members of the orchestra well trained and tuned; there’s a lot of work there.

On the other hand The Bloggess is more like a solo pianist who makes her or his

solo in the rhythm chosen by the blogger, and the readers (listeners) digest it and hopefully respond.

For a moment, be the conductor

Liking – disliking and conclusion

You may well already anticipate what I’m going to say here, but I’ll say it anyway. The blogs in comparison are very much different. At first I thought The Oatmeal was a real mess and a potential target for my dislike, and Bloggess appeared to be just what to expect and very straightforward, easy to like. My conclusion is that both of these blog structures can be justified. It just depends on what are you aiming at with your blog. If you want it to be a day-to-day source of contents with a partly constant content and partly with some often updated current information you may choose the Oatmeal –style. If you aim to offer mainly a current and often updated journal –like service, then you might choose the Bloggess –style.

So I say both are fine. It just depends on what you aim to achieve. What do you think?

Now then, please return your opinion as a comment to my blog text.

A Tram Derailed

My  new Wheels, electric Co2 emission = 0!

 Just beginning my journey to the Monday morning meeting.  At the garage opening, before I curve into the flowing traffic: a quick browse of some news sites with my smartphone. A couple of sweeps and pull downs. "Hello world",  I know all about you in seconds and I’m ready to react if anything important occurs:  EU stable, Syria: oh I wish.., Swedish krona rising, UK making her own way, ”A tram derailed” a header in
the breaking news section of the Helsinki Times.  “Well they really had nothing important to say, had they?They just had to put something there.”

I'm so proud of my new wheels: an Electric car. I step on it. The “gas” pedal to the metal, an imposing acceleration and the shiny vehicle hums away towards my destination, just about soundlessly but above all rapidly. Oh look at all those buses. Noisy and spewing so much co2 and other pollutants.  Luckily I don’t need to resort to public transport. I’m free of time tables and fixed routes! My GPS gives me several routes to choose from. I take the shortest; why not? At this time of day traffic is not so bad and it will help me keep the battery of my car well charged.

The smooth ride of the car lulls me into a brief day-dream regarding the week-end and the party I enjoyed with my wife. Suddenly I realise. "My lane is jammed. The other one too. Here I am sitting in my car". I feel I’m a mouse in a disorganized rat race. It takes some time and I'm getting irritated. My battery level is not too good.  Still some waiting. My car gives a warning: "Recharge battery". "Darn, I’ll be a pedestrian soon. Why didn’t I choose another route"? There was no reason to, no news concerning my travelling.

Just that stupid: ”A tram derailed”. 

Tram Nr 9 was derailed. Blocked my route to Monday meeting!