Tonight I sucked AND blew!

Drunk post, yay!

So, racing today. Didn't do as good as I'd have liked, but managed to pull out a 3rd place finish. Pitchers, I mean pictures fo ffollow later.

ASbout a 12 pack later I'm sitting at the bar and I'm told I have to suck and blow. If I was marriedman, I'd probably have gotten excited, but since I"m not, I was sort of leery. Turns out suck and blow is a to either suck a jello shot out of a tube, or blow it into someone else's motuh. Of course, I opted to suck.

Time for berd!!

If I ever move abroad, you can find me here.

Most people that know my full first and last name think that I'm Italian. I'm always quick (and proud) to inform people that I'm not Italian, and that I'm actually Finnish. I usually get a few strange looks from the geographically challanged, and then I have to explain where it is. Some of the people that do know where it is chuckle under their breath, and I can almost hear them thinking "what's so great about that?". Every once in a while I'll come across an article that helps explain why I'm proud of my heritage:

Finn facts Click here for the Yahoo article.

Land of Nokia. (You mean it's not Japanese?!?!) The world's No. 1 cellphone maker is based in Finland. It holds 32 percent of the global cellphone market. Nokia started in 1865 as a forest industry company on the banks of the Nokia River. Today, it employs more than 60,000 people (about 24,000 in Finland) with factories in 10 countries and research and development facilities in 15 countries.

Nokia's share of Finland's:
GDP 4% Business sector R&D 35% Exports 25% CEO Jeremy Ollila's yearly pay: $4.64 million

Upwardly mobile society. In 1998, when some Americans were still getting funny looks for using cellphones, mobile subscribers in Finland already outnumbered land-line subscribers. In fact, 20 percent of households relied solely on cellphone service.

No censorship here. Reporters Without Borders ranks Finland (and several other countries) No. 1 for freedom of the press. The US ranks 22nd.

Speeding is expensive. A 27-year-old Finnish heir to a sausage business, Jussi Salonoja, was famously fined 170,000 euros (about $217,000 at the time) for going 80 kilometers per hour in a 40 kph zone. Speeding fines are based on the offender's income. Mr. Salonoja's reported earnings for 2002 were 7 million euros.

Linux is from where? The open-source operating system was started in 1991 as a hobby by Finnish university student Linus Torvalds. But he wasn't the only entrepreneurial student: In 1992 (before Netscape came along), IT students at the Helsinki University of Technology developed the first graphic-based Internet browser.

Where Santa's sleigh garages. The residents Mt. Korvatunturi - in the northern part of Finland known as Lapland - claim this is the home of Santa Claus. Some 600,000 letters a year are sent there in the hope that it's true.

One fact that I know, that wasn't in the article, Finland is the only country from WWII to repay their war debt to the United States, and they paid it off early.

The article goes on to describe Finland's very high taxes. As my regular readers know, I'm pretty much a tax cut's kind of guy, but I wouldn't mind the government taking my money if I knew they were going to take care of me like the Finnish folks are.

Some interesting tax facts:

The government will pay a mother 60 percent of her salary to look after her baby for the first year.

When the mother does go back to work full time, the government will pay 4/5 of daycare expenses.

If you lose your job, you count on unemployment benefits that range up to 70 percent of their salaries for 18 months. And when they retire they can look forward to generous pensions that amount, for the average Finn, to 60 percent of their last salary.

Government pays your college tuition.

What you're not likely to hear on the nightly news..

From 365 and a Wakeup:

Last night a grain of hot metal tumbled through the air, a swift manmade meteor crashing through the heavens. The statistical chances of this solitary round impacting one the scattered buildings was negligible, and the chances of it actually injuring someone were almost infinitesimal. But in stark defiance to all known laws of probability, this small sliver of dead steel plummeted downward, downward, downward… until its path intersected a house. And then it continued on, tunneling its way into a little girl sitting down for the celebration of Ishtar.

You'll have to read the rest of the post here to learn why the average Iraqi is quite glad we decided to liberate them, and even more glad we have continued to stay.

Featured Blog.

Something I've been planning to do for a while is to feature a blog each week. It may be a blog that's already listed in the "Blogs I read" section, or it might be one that I've just found. I don't really have any criteria for this weekly feature. It might be for the entire blog, or it might be because of a particular post. The Featured Blog will also get a seperate section on the sidebar until a new blog is picked.

This week's Featured Blog is A new life; same as the old life? For those that are familiar with it, you'll know it's Gordy's blog. I didn't choose Gordy as my featured Blogger because we met and I had drinks with him. I chose him because he blogged about his trip to my area.

A lot of us locals don't necessarily appreciate what we have, since we see it everyday. Since I moved away for about 10 years and have recently moved back, I see what newcomers see, and frankly I'm proud of where I live. When people around the country think about family vacations or couples getaways, you'll typically think of places like Cancun, Disney World, Cruise Boats, etc. I think everyone should consider coming to my area, Door County. I won't say that you can spend a week up this way without spending some money, but I'm pretty sure you'd spend less than you would at some of the more known tourist traps around the world.

Gordy has a great post about his trip to the great north, and I hope you read it.

Bloggers and Beer!

As promised, here is the picture of Gordy, Lorraine, and I:

I'm Inspired.

Earlier today I used 90% of my remaining brain power to create a new post. Since the standards are pretty low around here, I was quite proud of my new post and I decided to see if anyone had bothered to comment on it. Sure enough, someone had taken the time to leave a note. No real suprise, it was just some comment spam. Luckily for me this spam led to an actual website, not another blog.

Guess who just signed up for animal porn? info@onlinewebsolutions.com !

Guess who left a post on Usenet requesting child porn? info@onlinewebsolutions.com !

Guess what contact info will get randomly posted anywhere I see fit? info@onlinewebsolutions.com and 404-303-7350!

Guess which phone number will go on all spam marketing requests I get in my inbox? 404-303-7350!

Guess who just signed up for fax machine contests? 404-255-2163

Guess who is getting new magazine subscriptions with the "bill me later" option?

Online Web Solutions
175 W. Wieuca Road, Suite 239
Atlanta, GA. 30342

Maybe they will learn to market their crap in less annoying places.. but I doubt it.

Home Sweet Home.

I can't believe it's been a week since my last post. It certainly doesn't feel like it's been that long because I really haven't been all that busy. I guess I've just been lazy.

I'm still trying to figure out what my next move will be for work. I'm sort of laid off until January, and that doesn't sit well with my wallet. I'm not too worried about it though, things always seem to work out in the end. There is a possibility that I might get a second chance at the nuke plant job I missed out on a few months ago. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

Friday night Gordy and his girlfriend were up in my neck of the woods, and me managed to get together for dinner and a couple of beers. It's always great to meet up with people you've conversed with on the net, and I'm glad I didn't miss out. Gordy and Lorraine are some pretty cool people. He should have a couple of pictures up on his blog in a few days. I'll put them up here as well.

Saturday was spent doing a little racing. This race is one that we do every year, but it's not part of the circuit that we run. It would be considered an exhibition I guess. We did well though, finishing with five 1st's and one 2nd. Here is a picture of us winning a race:
















Here is the name of the place we raced at. All you can do is shake your head.

Change in the Wind!

Alrighty folks. I'm back from my roadtrip and I've decided to make some changes to the blog, starting with a new and unoriginal template. My plan is to go with a cleaner, simpler layout. The google ads are gone, the Bravenet code is gone, and for the moment all of your blogs aren't linked. I will be adding them back in soon, they might even be back in there by the time you get around to reading this.

Temptation.

One of the nice things about the work I was doing is that pretty much all expenses were paid for, and what I did have to pay for on my own was almost always covered by the daily allowance they gave us.

I need to make a major purchase here pretty soon, so I have to fight the impulse to blow money on things like a shiny new laptop. The computer I'm using is on it's last leg. I could use a new one, and why not make it a laptop? If I do have to go back on the road in a few months, at least I'd be able to keep up with my blog a whole lot better. I'm sure if I dig around a little I could probably find a better price, but a 15.4" screen, DVD burner, integrated wireless, a Centrino processor, 80GB hard drive, and 512MB of DDR RAM for $929 isn't too bad. I'm not really a gamer, so the lack of a strong video card doesn't really bother me. I just need an all around decent computer for communication, my blog, and some bookkeeping. This would do just the trick.

Too bad I'll be a good boy and pass on this offer.

My trip

My trip around the southeast is done for time being. As I've previously mentioned, there hasn't been any fun stories to relate. My days consisted of getting up early, working at a particular jobsite, driving to the next jobsite, finding a hotel, and relaxing until I fell asleep. Instead of going out I spent most of my downtime reading or watching Adult Swim on the cartoon network. To paraphrase Digi, my life is more fabulous than yours!

I'm a non-fiction reader for the most part. I enjoy biographies in particular, but on this trip I read 3 different books. Some nights I only got to read a few pages, and other nights a few chapters.

The first book I read was "The Interrogators: Task Force 500 and America's Secret War Against Al Qaeda" by Chris Mackey. I definitely recommend this book to everyone, especially those who wrongly think that all we do with prisoners is stand them on boxes, make them simulate oral sex on each other, and make them assemble into human pyramids. This book will tell you the real story of U.S. Army interrogation tactics.

The Second book that I read is one that I haven't actually completed yet because it's a very slow read. I wouldn't recommend 1776 to anyone unless they are a history buff who enjoys reading about the Revolutionary War. I like the book so far, it's just hard to keep at it.

The Third book that I read was "Killing Pablo: The Hunt For The World's Greatest Outlaw" This book was written by Mark Bowden. He was the author of the book "Black Hawk Down" from which the movie was made. Killing Pablo is also a documentry that airs on the History Channel occasionally, but I'm hoping they eventually make a major motion picture out of this story. The life of Pablo Escobar is pretty fascinating and his eventual death provides a good storyline.

A Quick Update.

My apologies for not updating the blog. The last week and a half or so has been real hectic!

At the end of last week I was in Charlotte, North Carolina. I flew home friday night and didn't get home until 1 AM or so. Then I had to get up early and drive the 3 hours to Wausau, WI for the snowmobile races that we were entered in. Then I had to drive home Sunday afternoon, do some laundry, repack, and catch an early flight Monday morning back to Charlotte. Most of this week has been spent in Raleigh-Durham area of North Carolina. Tonight I'm in Atlanta wrapping up a few sites that didn't have all the materials the last time we were here, then it's off to Tulsa, OK to do the same thing.

After all of that we get to drive home! I can't wait to spend a few days at home enjoying the cooler weather, turning leaves, and people without accents.