My life changed couple of weeks ago as our Christmas present arrived. My son was born in end of November (about a week before the due time). He really was a big boy, weighing 4630g and being 54cm tall at birth. Both the baby and the mother are doing really well.
Buying an apartment together and getting married seem like small things now in comparison to this (I guess since it's been a while they don't seem so bad any more either). This really is for life as once you have a child that is a lifelong commitment. It's hard trying to get my head around this change in our family, now a family of 3.
We've been trying to get the routines sorted out. It's amazing how much time taking care of someone so little takes. You really can't take care of more than two things in a day. :) He sleeps really well (normally 6 hours in row during the night) but the sleep deprivation keeps piling up on us parents. Still considering I've been sleeping really well as Sanna takes care of the baby during nights (I can't really feed it, can I? ;).
If you want to see more pictures of our little one (no he doesn't get a name until mid of January) have a look this picture gallery of boy Lakkala.
Sorry for the long silence (the previous post was in March). I've been too busy with work and not very inspired to actually write about anything. Been quiet for a while also revealed that I have at least a couple of readers so perhaps I'm not just shouting to the void.
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But on to the topic of the post. Facebook is experience a boom here in Finland. Everyone seems to be joining this social networking site and it's being talked about in the television and newspapers. I actually joined it already a while ago but I haven't really used it much so I'm still a newbie.
One thing I discovered just now are the Causes. You can join a cause you want to support and invite others to join one as well. I've already joined and recruited a couple of people to Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Creative Commons (CC), and Change A Million Light Bulbs. EFF fights for our rights in the digital world, CC offers a new way to handle your digital copyrights and the last one tries to save the world by getting people to use energy saving lamps.
Just recently we changed most of the lamps in our home to the energy saving ones. They come on pretty slowly so I've mixed them them with light bulbs in some lamps (one traditional + several energy saving lamps). That way you know the light was switched on and you get some light instantly. Changing the lamps also saves you money because they last a lot longer and consume less electricity. For a good explanation of the benefits see this New Light Bulbs Plain English video by the Common Craft people.
A friend and collegue of mine Arto Lehtiniemi has a band that he's putting a lot of effort into in his free time. Pland has now released their first album "Things she said" which you can listen to on their website and order for yourself for 4 euros + 2,25 for shipping.
I haven't had yet time to listen to their full album but I've liked the songs I've heard already previously. At least "I talk to myself" rocks nicely, has nice melody and catching tunes. So I can recommend checking this out, you can listen to the songs for free online and even if you end up buying the album bit over 6 euros really isn't too bad.
Arto has recorded the album at his home studio and I have to say it sounds really professional. If you need to use a studio in Tampere area you can book some studio time too.
Pland has also appeared in some podcast via the Podsafe music network (e.g. I talk to myself). I might have had something to do with this. :) Basically the idea is that artist can give podcasters permission to play their songs in podcasts and get new listeners that way. The network also makes it possible to sell your songs online if you wish.
Sorry I had to disable commenting on this blog a while ago because I was receiving only spam comments and since I haven't been too active in blogging it was too much a bother to do anything about it. Let's see if I have enough energy one day to install a plugin for Movable Type to combat the comment spam. Meanwhile if you want to give me feedback please mail your comments to hrry (at) iki dot fi.
I'm also receiving trackback spam though those won't show up in the blog getting notifications about them to my email is irritating. I don't even know about any method to fight that annoyance. I guess being a blogger isn't very easy, at least if your hosting your own blog.
P.S. This post has been written with Windows Live Writer. That's an excellent piece of software that makes writing blog posts much easier. It's pretty much like using Word instead of a web form.
Whatever happened to Poets of the Fall and Gwen Stefani? Both produced excellent first albums but failed to deliver on their second ones. They had some okay songs but the on the whole the albums weren't that exciting. I guess this might be a pretty common phenomena in music but still it's disappointing for a fan of both acts.
Bands and artists basically have to reinvent them for every record because producing exactly same kind of music record after record would be boring but this also means risking the things that made the music work on their previous record. Sometimes things go wrong and the second (n-th) album flops or things can go the other way as well, a band can find the thing that makes them a success.
Hopefully things go well for Von Hertzen Brothers and My Chemical Romance whose latest records were great (check them out!)...
P.S. Sweatmaster will release their next album in March or something. Definitely a must-buy for me.
