Last day

Today is the last day of the year.  Tomorrow comes a new day with a new year. Who knows what ut will bring.

New oportunitues and new challenges? New problems and new obstacles?

Maybe it will be status quo, or maybe its time for a revolution, for me and for you.

We will see.

Happy new year >:)

(Picture taken a couple of days ago when I was out skiing with the boys. They are much better skiers than me now, even little boy. So I hang around watching them in the snow park from time to time. It's fun)

Skimas

Vacation in the mountains. Skiing with the boys. That's nice. There's only one person I'm missing right now.

Christmas. Christ mass. I'm not into the religious part if it. I should call it something else.

Snowmass? No, that's a place in Colorado, close to Aspen. Nice place. I've been there many years ago, when we lived in Colorado

Skimass or Skimas?  That's a nice name for the holidays. I have to check on the Internet if it already exists.

Lunch break is over. Time for a couple of more runs on the slope before its getting dark. Days are short in the north at this time of the year. Sunset at 2pm.

Tomorrow is another day, I believe >:)

(Picture taken today, before lunch. Blogpost written on my cell phone)

Winter solstice

Tomorrow is the darkest day of the year. It’s the winter solstice. We only get about 4-5 hours of daylight. The day after tomorrow we start the the journey towards increasingly longer days. That’s good.

Also, we are approaching Christmas. That’s not so good. I’m not into the religious part of it, and the commercialism just makes me sad. I try to keep it on a very minimum. When I enter the malls with Christmas-pop-music on the loud speakers (Jingle Bell Rock, Santa Claus is Coming to Town) and people running around carrying bags full of stuff, it makes me feel sick.

The only place I feel fairly comfortable is the bookstore. So that’s where I try to do most of my shopping.

It’s been a rush at work as usual. Projects and reports need to be finished before the end of the years. Managers sitting with there Excel spreadsheets counting deliverables, worrying about the KPI’s.

If you don’t know what a KPI is, you’re lucky. KPI means Key Performance Indicator. That’s the measures by which managers can maximize their bonuses, by local optimization in their little pond, and private agendas. At the same time they usually harm the overall interest of the company. But who cares. This is competition. This is the wonderful capitalist world.

Whatever, it’s great with two weeks of vacation, skiing in the mountains.

I hope I get the book by Thomas Piketty for Christmas. If not, I buy it on sale in January.

Happy winter solstice >:)

(Picture from my archives, from a past Christmas, in 2010 or 2011 I think. We have less snow this year, but thanks to efficient snow making system, the skiing is not at risk)

Soviet retro style

The streets were dark and cold. It was winter in Siberia.  It was silent. No people around, except us.  The old brown log house was lit by only a weak lamp.

They brought us down in the basement.  Heavy brown chairs and tables.  Small bronze statues of working class heroes. The the red flag with hammer and sickle. Old pictures on the wall. Pictures of Yury Gagarin and Leonid Brezhnev, and the hockey team from 1985; Krutov, Larionov, Makarov, Fetisov and Kasatonov.  The best team ever, raised and trained under the red star.  An old TV set showing a classical Russian movie. Black and white.

We were back in the Soviet Union. Retro style.  Even the menu. Russian vodka and Russian beers. Traditional Siberian dishes. Fish from Lake Baikal. Steamed sig.  Frozen omul in thin slices, eaten raw with salt and onion. It’s called Stroganina. Siberian sushi. Sig and omul. That’s the Russian names. The English names of these species of fish I don’t know.  But the fish was very good.

After the food, we got a Soviet-style chewing gum. Made from resin. Tasting of pine. Quite interesting. Just like the chewing gums we made ourselves when we were kids.

(The pictures were taken at the restaurant, Unfortunately, my crappy cell phone camera takes bad pictures in the dark. Sorry about that. I need to get a new one.)