2007. Bring it on!

So it's 2007 already. I think I'll spare everyone a recap, but let me just share these two last things I learned in 2006.

One, do not force open a sparkling wine bottle with your bare hands. It was bothersome noticing how I'd smeared blood on people's glasses! It doesn't hurt, but yes, I did get those scrapes all across my index finger and palm just by twisting open a sparkling wine bottle's cork. The champagne we had opened so easily - don't settle for substitutes!

Two, if you want to get somewhere by midnight on New Year's eve, do call a cab well in advance. The cellular network was busted and the cab service was clogged up. I thought half an hour for the less than 2 km trip would be sufficient, but I was dead wrong. I was on time to kiss my wife only because a cab accidentally picked me up instead of the customers next door. Lucky, seeing that there were already quite a few people waiting for rides on the street when I came out to wait for mine. I don't actually know why the cab chose me, I didn't wave him down or anything. I was around five minutes late to my wife from seeing friends, but well in time for fireworks. Too bad the other customers had to wait the extra ten minutes or so!

Over the evening, we played with the Nintendo Wii and re-learned chess. I sucked at Wii. I was actually rather intrigued by chess, which I didn't expect at all. I haven't played since junior high.

Better living through technology

Sports, or the lack thereof

I regret to say I've slacked off on sports. With first snow I stopped running and while the snow has melted away, I haven't been to the track since. I'm not sure why. Partly because of being tired and stressed out at work, partly because I just can't bother myself. With that said, I realized the situation last week and decided to go running again. We'll see how it goes, I'm hoping to do a run three times a week. That way it would maybe become routine and not something extra I have to bother myself to do after a tiring day at work.

Delivered

I've been a little active in other ways. I set up a forum for my class from 1999, as I promised. I chose BBPress, which isn't really that suitable for us, but I'll see if it's worthwhile to tinker with it. I do like it how it's very stripped down.

I'm not posting the URL because the forum's not closed to outsiders and I rather wouldn't have to deal with spammers.

Bakkanaalit

I set up a forum for my friends, too. We've spoken about it many times, but now it felt like a good idea, with the hosting already available. I don't really know if we'll learn to use it, but it's there, now. There have been quite a few times I've felt like posting about something, but not really considering it worth an email or a call. I chose Simple Machines, which initially feels alright. There are troubles with updating it, though.

If I know you, especially in real life, you're likely welcome on the forum: bakkanaalit.mcmuumio.net. It does require registration and activation by a member.

I'm not really active in any other forums these days, apart from my roleplaying association's rather active forum. I do post in the comments of Kotaku and Eurogamer, but they're not societies like forums are.

Routine

While "routine" may very well become part of the "grind", I still think it's a good idea to establish some social routines to prevent the situation where you're too tired to arrange meetings with friends.

My wife introduced a habit of hanging out at a coffee shop on Mondays, post-school and -work. I think that's a great idea. Mondays always go to waste, as you're too stressed or zoned out to really do anything at home, anyway. We did that this Monday, and it was good. We're also thinking of hanging out regularly on Fridays, watching telly and whatnot. Most people have probably come up with similar schemes ages ago, but they feel like revelations to me. I've been really holed up at home when I'm not at work.

I'm thinking that maybe I could extend this to the other things I never find the time to do. Like gaming - besides videogames, that is. I'd like to continue our shelved roleplaying game campaigns and play with miniatures, but we haven't been able to come up with dates. It might be a good idea to agree upon playing every other weekend or so. There's still the problem of our university-going friends finding the time, but maybe the rest of us could play something else when they can't make it.

Running

Yesterday I did the six-minute run with no problem whatsoever. It was raining properly, too - it felt absolutely great to run in the rain! My ankles didn't hurt either, though they're aching a bit today. Still thinking about those running shoes.

Setbacks and good encounters

My ankles have hurt all past week. I kept off running for a few days because of that. On today's run they hurt in the beginning, but it subsided, so I guess it's all right. Maybe they're just protesting about not getting to lay there uselessly, maybe I need to invest in some proper running shoes. Today I did the six minutes target. It was hard, and I was running in the rain, but it does feel good afterwards! I really can't wait being able to run for, say, half an hour at a time.

Yesterday I was seeing off an old acquintance who's moving abroad. We're not at all close, and some months ago I maybe wouldn't've gone, but going by my new rules, I knew I had to. It turned out to be an excellent night. The music was very good, the bar was cozy, the GTs all right and there were a lot of guys I see rarely to catch up with.

I met three new people, one on account of a really cool shirt he was wearing. We talked about videogames for a long time - our friends must've been pissed off. Sorry about that. I've never met a hardcore videogame enthusiast with a perfectly matching taste in games in real life before. So it serves to wear your colors!

And I don't have the slightest hangover! Today's supposed to be Zombie Walk Helsinki, but the weather's... lacking. Which of course may fit the theme rather well.

Initial efforts

In which I bring you an update in two parts.

One: friends

I reached two old friends of mine in one day. Effort taken: 30 seconds on writing an email, 172 seconds on the phone. Seemed like a worthwhile endeavour; I met with one of them the following day. The other one is living abroad, but we agreed on seeing each other when he visits Finland the next time. We haven't seen in, oh I don't know, around three or four years, despite being good friends in high school.

It was about high time, too: his old university email address wouldn't've worked in two weeks' time. So don't just sit there thinking about maybe trying to reach your old mates one day - do it today!

Sitting down with my college buddy yesterday, I took it upon me to arrange a meeting with the rest of the class, too. Well, the ones we can still reach, anyway.

I've actually set myself some social rules to ensure I don't lapse back into a working coma any more.

Two: sports

I told everyone at work that I'd go running yesterday, just to generate some pressure on myself. In the end, I didn't, as I couldn't bother to after a heavy dinner and a couple of beers. I did go today, though.

Sticking to my plan, I did a 5-5-5 running routine. It turned out that it takes me exactly five minutes to walk to the park and warm up in the process, another five minutes to run around the park, and of course a further five minutes to walk back home. With the shape I'm in, it's enough to start with. I was winded, but not exhausted.

With such a quick exercise, I'm thinking I might get into a habit of running before work. For now, I'm sticking to a twice a week minimum, but I'm really pretty psyched about this.

Life-marked music

Sometimes a record or a given song gets imprinted with life. There's like a permanent stamp on it, something that sends me back to a moment in life. Everyone must be familiar with this phenomenon - yesterday my wife told me that for her, some songs associate with smells and tastes. She always had a better sense of smell and taste than I do.

I'd like to share some songs I have strong associations with. If you have similar examples, I'd love to see you post them in the comments.

Paradise Lost - Enchantment (from Draconian Times): this brings me back to the gig at Tavastia in Christmas 2004 (I think). It was a great show. I also recall many scenes from my teenage years; Draconian Times has been with me since its release in 1995. (Damn! That's eleven years already!)

Garbage - Version 2.0: the whole record brings to mind my long-gone pet dog, Piki. He was a miniature schnauzer. Especially the track The Trick Is To Keep Breathing really hits me to this day. I wasn't living with my parents anymore - I think it was 1998 or 1999. I visited my parents to say my good-byes to Piki. My mother, a veterinarian, had decided to put him to sleep the next day - he was just so old and tired. Returning to my wife-to-be later in the evening, I borrowed the album from my sister and listened to it on the road. I was overwhelmed with grief, and the album really got inside my head from that single listen-through.

James Dean Bradfield - An English Gentleman (from The Great Western): I first listened to this album the same evening in summer 2006 when I heard that two of my best friends were going to move away - yes, one of the events which also sparked this blog. I have a feeling that the song will bring me back to this still continuing phase of self-growth, which I believe is going to be a great time of change for me.

Alphaville - Forever Young: This is something I rather wouldn't mention, but I'm going to anyway. I succumbed to junior high peer pressure and hosted a house party when I was fourteen or fifteen years old (1992/1993). It was a disaster: my parents' just renovated house was a wreck. The next morning, floating somewhere between surrealism, being hung over and despair, awaiting for my parents to return home, I remember this song playing on the stereo. That was one of the few days I wish never dawned. It was also the last time I drank apple wine (eugh!).

The Cure - Burn (from The Crow OST): The movie is one of my all-time favorites and the scene in which this song plays does come to mind everytime I hear this, but I also get a warm memory of the best times from my (goth) teenage years (around 1994-1997).

Push the button

"Push-button publishing", they say. Blogger won't let me rearrange the right-hand elements, so until I can indeed push the "Save" button, bear with me.

(Edit: okay, the ol' sign out - sign in did the trick.)

That said, I did choose Blogger, again, to set up this blog, even though I'm in the process of getting a shared server with friends, which will in turn enable me to set up WordPress, for instance. I don't know what I'll do with the server, really, but I'm all giddy about owning a domain.

(Edit 2: The Blogger Beta this thing's running on isn't entirely co-operative. I can't figure out how to make a clean footer section, it wants to make it all huge and ugly. Will be beautified someday.)

The grind

I got a couple of wake up calls over the last few days. I guess this happens to everyone at some point: you lose people you're close with, you suddenly realize your loved ones won't be there forever, maybe you just barely escape with your own life. Life has been trying to teach me these things before, but only now it's really hit me.

Reflecting upon these recent events made me understand, among other things, that I'd completely wasted the summer. We talked about stuff we should do in the summer, and we did none of that. Now my best friends are moving away: it's too late to do those things, at least for the time being. Of course, us all being internet-savvy young people, we can still be connected, but I'll miss the closeness.

Instead of despairing (I did a fair bit of that already), I wholly intend to not let my life become like this again. Sure we worked all summer and I was really stressed out, but we still had the weekends. There was no real reason to not socialize in the evenings. Being "too tired to hang out" equals "being alone when the dust settles". I've now experienced loneliness, and it's something I want no more of.

Related to this is a bigger issue, one I haven't really talked about with my friends. I don't know most of you nearly as well as I'd like to. As you might guess, I wish to change this while I still can. It's funny, really - we've been thinking about how to improve things at work, and it's always "communicate, communicate, communicate", and I've failed to grasp that in my own life.

As sad as I am over the departure of my friends, this just might be a lesson I was sorely in need of.

Sports

We talked about running the other night. I went on a "let off steam" type of run a couple of weeks ago and discovered that I'm in rather poor shape - no big surprise there, I haven't had any exercise in ages. I must've been winded for an hour afterwards. I did go to the gym during last spring, though, but somehow I dropped that along the way.

This is precisely the kind of "numbing" I meant in the introductory post; stuff just flows into a routine, where the loss of some detail or other - sports, friends, acquintances, hobbies - doesn't feel like much in the day to day grind, but you end up much poorer. I'm hoping that since putting these developments up here means that I need to process them, maybe I won't let it all slide.

Now, some of my friends have picked up running this year. They're doing this interval training program where you begin with only a couple of minutes at a time, gradually working your way to 10 km (6.2 miles. Get metrical already) runs. That sounds like my kind of thing. I can spare half an hour or so (to begin with) a couple of times a week. As it happens, there's a nice track through the woods and a park right outside my front door.

So beginning this week, I'm going running. At least twice a week, preferably three times. My first goal is to be able to run to the nearby train station and back, a 3.2 km roundtrip.