Winter / On a holiday / vacation / Autumn rhythm / A plan

A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject. Winston Churchill

Winter

Winter. It was about time for winter to arrive, yesterday. It arrived with full force, with a storm, blizzard, snow, but only 10 kilometers north of the city center. Here, we do not have much snow, up north there is enough for cars to get stuck and run into each other. The storm sank a few ships, cut off electricity from thousands rural homes, and made me happy. I like storms, at least as long as I am safe in a city.
I like winter, I like the freezing wind, snow, slippery roads, darkness. I was so happy today, walking to a Chinese restaurant for a lunch with her. A good, cheap Chinese by the Hakaniemi market square, the square without even pigeons, too windy for life.

On a holiday / vacation

Again, I am on holiday. I have not worked much this year. In January I finished my thesis, traveled in the USA, idled. I returned to Finland by the end of February and started my daily visits to the Nokia office. They did not have anything for me to do there, so the visit got shorter and shorter. So passed April and May. In June, I took part in the MIT commencement and traveled in California. July was an idle month, visiting the office with not much to do and nobody there. In August, I had something to do in the office. Then I got sick and had sick leave until mid-October. And then I resigned and am on holiday. Soon, I will travel with S to London, Venice, Syracusa, Valletta, Naples, and Rome. In December, I will start at the Finnish Postal Service. At last, I will have something else than holiday. Not that I am complaining too much. I did more than my fair share in 2005.

Autumn rhythm

In Autumn, the sun avoids me. I do not mind, for I can adopt my favourite daily schedule. It is simple: I stay up reading/hacking/surfing the net etc until 4am, then sleep some 6 hours, read some more and skip breakfast. At noon, it is time for lunch, then running errands etc, maybe until 6pm, after which back to reading/writing.
Too bad that the normal office worker schedule does not allow this. I will try staying up only until 2.30am, then waking up at 8.30am, working 9 to 5, taking a nap. If this rhythm works out well, I will be very happy.

A plan

First, holiday and travels. Then, work and climate activism. It seems that even some politicians are finally taking climate change semi-seriously. Maybe it is time for me to become active again. I have been thinking and reading a lot about energy, climate, society, economics during the last few months. It seems that very few are able to think about energy systems holistically. Most, especially Finnish politicians, see only technologies. As long as we see only technologies, we will not get anywhere. We will just optimize parts of the system, most likely the very wrong parts.

October 2006

Alun perin julkaistu kuukausikoosteessa "Blogs October to November 2006".