Terri -- Rest In Peace

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My heart goes out to parents and siblings of Terri Schiavo nee Schindler, may God give them courage in this moment of grief and Terri's soul rest in peace.
I always avoided to debate on this but today I find it fit to mention these 3 points.

1.The guardianship should also be with parents and not ONLY with spouse.
2.Thirteen days without food and water, this is a wrong way of giving death even if wished.
3.Parents and siblings of Terri should have been allowed to be with her at her last moment.

My deepest condolence to all those in grief at this moment.

Spring

It does seem to me that like rest of the world we would also have spring one day.God, never before in my life I gave spring so much of importance.It is good to see the snow melting and temperature coming to O C and now for the whole of yesterday evening and today morning it is above 0, though the Met department forecasts snow fall again on Monday :((.

Whatever it be, tommorrow I am taking the early morning bus to 'Turku' and from there I have decided to go to 'Rauma'.If everything goes well then I would be posting the pics on Sunday.

Just this much

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*Honesty is the best policy -- Don Quixote

*Truth is the highest thing that man may keep -- Geoffrey Chaucer

*No legacy is so rich as honesty -- William Shakespeare

*The truth is always the strongest argument -- Sophocles

Walk in the woods

Today it was nice weather, the temperature after hovering around minus 20 was sub minus 5, there was bright sunlight after two days of snow storm which had wreaked havoc on the vehicular traffic in south Finland

Afer lunch I thought of foregoing my nap to go for walk along the 'Hame - Castle',going across the circumference of the frozen lake in the wood.By the time I got dressed up and ready to go, the weather changed suddenly,a gusty wind laced with snow started and then clould appeared. However this didn't deter me and I continued with my plan.

First I crossed the castle(it looks similar to the castle in the Mario game :-p or rather Mario game castle looks similar to this castle ).This castle was built in the 13th century and used as prison until 1953.

This is the tourist information board.



 

Front view of the Castle


 

The castle has a moat surrounding it.See the wooden bridge it's piers still as strong as they were in 13th century.


 

This is how castle looks from about 500 mts.



 

Just behind the castle there is one tank museum displaying World War II vehicles. Here is a photo of it.


 

As I continued with my walk I saw one train passing the lake, immediately I took a snap.

 

All this time the Sun was playing hide and seek in the woods.Here is a snap of the 'peekaboo' of the Sun.


 

While continuing further I saw this cabin like structure but I don't know what is this and what it is used for ?


? 

I returned to my aparment after the 2 hour long walk, evening was descending and I needed one hot cup of tea.

Bad Day ..

Today my day was not good it started when I burnt the sleeve of my shirt while preparing my breakfast and two of my stocks fell sharply at the bourses :(.

Jersey Girl

I don't know why but this evening after coming back from work I felt like watching a movie and I found that I could see "Jersey Girl".Hmm I think it was last year around this time when it was released,I had seen it once but felt like seeing it again. Kevin Smith has done good work on this movie.


 


I really like the christmas scene in starting stage of the movie much like the christmas time in "Serendipity".Ben Affleck though labelled as action hero in Hollywood is perfect in this movie, which according to hard critics might be synthetic but for me is touching.The starting scene in the classroom of 7 year old's is the best way to arouse interest in the viewer's.Jennifer Lopez does not have much airtime in this movie(frankly speaking her "Anaconda" didnt make me like her in movies ).The one person who has upstaged all the actors is cute little girl "Raquel Castro" who plays the daughter of the single father.

The music also goes hand in hand in making the movie emotional and touching.I think this movie should teach people "selflessness" in relationships,though Kevin has based it on his relationship with his daughter.

To top it all the punch line "He wanted it all...but he got more than he bargained for" is great.I don't know how others think about this movie but it is kind of soothing for me.

Morning

These are the pictures I took this morning from my bedroom window.I love the bright sunshine that we are having these days though the temperature still hovers around minus 20 C.


Dawn 



Absolute beauty 


Behind the trees 

Sunday siesta

From the days, when I have been in Finland I have got into this habit of taking siesta after lunch every Sunday.I like this so much that I won't trade my sunday siesta for any damn thing.It is so satisfying to wake up in the evening and then prepare a cup of tea, english black tea splashed with milk mmmmmm :).A 15 mins view of any good movie is the perfect compliment my sunday evening tea.

By the way few facts about tea

According to Chinese mythology, in 2737 BC the Chinese Emperor, Shen Nung, scholar and herbalist was the one who discovered tea.

The first mention of tea outside China and Japan is said to be by the Arabs in 850 AD and it was they who were reputed to have brought it to Europe via the Venetians circa 1559

The Indian and Japanese legends both attribute it to Bodhidharma the devout Buddhist priest who founded Zen Buddhism.

The modern term "tea" derives from early Chinese dialect words - such as Tchai, Cha and Tay - used both to describe the beverage and the leaf.

The Journey

I am sitting on the couch in my room on a perfect saturday evening and looking outside the huge window of my room.The dusk is falling and the lights from downtown have started appearing, I could see the lights of the skating rink coming to power just now which will be on till midnight.It's such a fun to do ice skating, allthough I haven't done it but I go there to watch other people skating and the ecstatic look on their face tells of the pleasure of skating.I will see if I can post a picture of the skating rink.

Skating Rink 
I think all the flats in my apartment are occupied now cause I am hearing sounds from neighbour's house these days.
I don't feel like writing much today but will post a poem from David Whyte, the poem from which I have taken the title of my blog.I owe an introduction of him if some of you don't know him.

David Whyte is a poet, captivating lecturer, and corporate consultant. He holds a degree in marine zoology; and has worked as a naturalist guide in the Galapagos Islands; led anthropological and natural history expeditions in Peru, Bolivia, and Chile; and subsequently traveled to India and the hinterlands of Nepal. In corporate settings, he uses poetry to bring an understanding of the process of change, helping clients to understand individual and organizational creativity, and to apply that understanding to vitalize and transform the workplace. He is the author of four volumes of poetry.

Here goes the poem,


The Journey
by David Whyte
. . . . . . . . . .

Above the mountains
the geese turn into
the light again

Painting their
black silhouettes
on an open sky.

Sometimes everything
has to be
enscribed across
the heavens

so you can find
the one line
already written
inside you.

Sometimes it takes
a great sky
to find that

small, bright
and indescribable
wedge of freedom
in your own heart.

Sometimes with
the bones of the black
sticks left when the fire
has gone out

someone has written
something new
in the ashes of your life.

You are not leaving
you are arriving.

. . . . . . . . . .

Wisdom is what's left after we've run out of personal opinions --Cullen Hightower

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I have learnt the true meaning of this quote now.After doing lot of reviews, online as well as in the stores, I finally bought one digicam it is Canon IXUS30(SD200 in USA).This is a cute little camera, the size of the credit card and weighs about 100 grams.While buying the camera I did lot of research on the various functionalities that could be in a camera. This one has lot of features like auto and manual mode,underwater shooting and what not(will tell later when I myself have figured all of them).

I got manuals with the camera that was supposed to teach me how to use those features.There were three copies of the manual one in Suomi, second in Svenska and the third one is in Dansk all useless !!!!.I sent a mail to Canon support and they pointed me to a site from where I could download the pdf version of the manual in English.I gleefully downloaded it and thought of reading it but it had 177 pages !!!.All the pages are highly condensed and had lot of graphics.In one week I think I have read only 50 pages, so much for my reading speed.I am pretty sure that it would be too hard for me to read through the entire manual and I would be forgetting the previous stuff as I progress.Now I am thinking if only I would have gone for a simpler digital camera I won't have been burning my midnight oil in reading the manual and I would have been able to use those features.

So the point is that sometimes when you look for more, you mighteven getthem by paying few bucks extra but it is useful only when you are able to use them.If you are not using them than there is no point in throwing your hard earned money for those extra features.I would post a picture of my cam when I take one of it :).Till then happy reading for me.

Afternoon in a Summer cottage

I know it's been a week when I last posted, but it has nothing to do other than that I was busy.

Last week we had an interesting afternoon when we went to the summer cottage of one of our colleague.Almost all the Finns have one summer cottage, far from city in the forest or beside the lake where they go and spend their weekends or during summer they spend their vacation there.

So this summer cottage was beside one lake which was totally frozen(the ice layer was about 50 cm thick, which I found out when I drilled one hole in it).Our colleague gave us ride in his car till the cottage which was about 15 kms from our office.It was my first time in any summer cottage and I was totally amazed by the sight of it. We were 9 of us there including 4 ladies.Beautiful kinda hutments made of wood and even one Sauna!! a whole collection of chopped logs of wood and all this by the side of lake in the forest.Here is the photo of the cottage.


The cottage 


So we started by going for walk in the lake, it was my fascination to walk on the lake and I fulfilled it.Then we brought logs of wood and lit the fire, kinda bonfire.Our colleague had one snow mobile, and I was riding it for the first time,it was so powerful and would zoom on the lake.I thought it would be as difficult as downhill skiiing but it was relatively easy atleast I had brakes to stop it :).

The snow mobile 

After the walk on the lake and then ride in snow mobile we all sat down around the bonfire,where the two half of salmon was also placed to be roasted and potatoes sealed in aluminium foil was placed on a wire mesh.

Salmon 

We drank berry drink, which I was told is home made preparation quite famous in Finland.It's like concentrated syrup in which you mix hot water and it tastes fabulous.
After this we all went for taking out fish from the lake where our colleague had hs fishing nets and there he managed to get 4 fish :).


Finding the Fishing net.. 

Fish!!! 


By this time the fish(placed earlier for smoking) had been smoked the salmon and potatoes were roasted.So we all sat down to eat with them salad and mayonese dresssing.It was so good to eat smoked fish, salmon I always like.

After this we sat in the cabin which had a nice fire place and had a chit chat for half-hour.It was half past five when we started back and reached my apartment in half hour.

It was wonderful outing, I dont remember when was the last time I had an outing like this.