Goa team building trip, a set on Flickr.
Went to Goa with the Life Tools team I helped build here. Can't think of many better ways to get closure to my two years here professionally. It was my first visit to a north Goa resort and some of the scenery was pretty special too, which hopefully these snaps convey...
I've been a bit lost in terms of aerobic exercise choices now that we're back in Finland. There's no ice or snow trails yet so skating or skiing is out of the question. The trails have a thin layer of show and ice that makes running a very uncomfortable experience even without my history of calf muscle problems. The winter will be over when I get my bicycle here so I needed an outdoor activity for the typical neither here nor there winter weather that's so typical for Southern Finland.
Winter running has been gaining in popularity and there are more brands now selling shoes with metal studs in the soles. The nearby sports superstore had Salomon Spikecross 3 CS shoes on sale so I got these yesterday. I went to the store wearing pretty thick socks not to buy them in too small a size for colder conditions.
I went for a test run this morning and the first real challenge came almost immediately as there was a north-facing wet and icy downslope early on on the run that would've been impossible to even walk down with normal running shoes. I didn't even have to concentrate on each step - once I trusted the grip was there I could run completely normally. Packed snow that's turned into ice is still not a perfect running surface as it's uneven and very hard, but dealing with that is a lot easier when the grip is always there.
Otherwise exercising in the cold felt OK, but going out was a messy affair. I put too much clothes on for the zero degree temperature and kept remembering stuff I had forgotten as I was going out the door. This is a bigger problem with the metal spike studded shoes than normal, because walking with those inside will immediately kill the hardwood floors - you have to either crawl on all fours or remove the shoes and feel ridiculous either way :-).
I'm in Finland, but just had a very Kingfishery (an Indian airline teetering on the brink of bankcruptcy) no-fly experience with a local airline, Blue1. I arrived to the airport early, e-checked myself in, went through the security check and camped beside the gate 14A to fly to Oulu. The scheduled boarding time came and went, but I was much more alarmed when suddenly the gate label was changed from Oulu to Brussels.
I went to have a look at the departures board and saw that my flight was cancelled. Sure the weather was not perfect, but mine was the only red blinking island in a vast sea of green.
There are other airlines flying to Oulu every morning and my cancelled flight was the first one to go, so I went to the transfer desk to get a seat on either of those. Not much luck there, as you can see.
I went to ask the SAS/Blue1 lounge if there was anyone who could help me and they kindly told me I need to exit the airport area and go back to the Blue1 ticket office only to find that I was hardly the only person with the same problem.
The flights I could've taken took off well before the queue even inched forward for the first time. Blue1 took great care to make sure every person on their cancelled flight missed every one of those - of course this way they save money as their worst case scenario turns into a re-schedule to a later flight of theirs or full refund - a ticket on any of those competitor flights is undoubtedly the dearest option. They'll refund the flight tickets, but the lost time, groupwork and 90€ of cab money are mine and my employer's losses. I'm not holding my breath to hear back from them, but I've posted a link to this post to their feedback form in case they'd like to comment or compensate.
Companies nowadays try very hard to define an identity. Here's an excerpt of Blue1's lofty corporate goals, which financial realities seem to have thrown out the window:
Blue1's more than 400 employees are actively and daily involved in thousands of passengers’ everyday life. With Blue1 a new era of air travel is created of the courage and passion to our own work and importance in our customer-focused perspective.
I must say I'm pretty pissed off about the airline now - it's one thing to cancel a flight and at least make an effort to take of the affected passengers and another to cancel a flight and make absolutely sure no customer gets any help to keep their commitments.
Kumarakom, Kerala, a set on Flickr.
We spent our last weekend in India in Kerala. We styed in Kumarakom Lake Esort, which I must say is one of the best resorts I've experienced. We did take a backwater trip by just three of us and went on short sunset cruise on Lake Vembanad, but otherwise stayed in the resort enjoying the facilities.
As I'm typing this, we're already in Finland preparing for Christmas - unortunately without snow. Merry Christmas to all who've kept reading!
All the picture post-processing was done on the iPad with Snapseed, even for the DSLR RAW pics. I'm seriously considering bypassing the PC alltogether.
Once I get to Finland I really should figure out what's wrong with my back. It's bothered me on and off for almost 20 years, but nobody's been able to tell me what's wrong with it, exactly. I originally injured it inthe gym doing leg presses but nowadays it gets sore if I don't stretch my posterior chain often and hard enough.
I've provided the local kids plenty of amusement by hanging upside down in the nearby playground. I got these hooks a long time ago, but they've served me well over the years. I can really feel the lower back stretch a lot once I can get all the muscles to relax. I hang for a maximum of 60 secs at a time. I don't know how long I should be upside down to pass out, but want to stay far from the limit.
It's better to do these without too much stuff in your pockets (speaking from experience).
My flickr photostream recently passed 1,500 uploaded photos and today it crossed the 50,000 picture views mark. Now I know full well, that in the grand scheme of all things Internet this is very, very little, but for this amateur photo snapper it's an amazing number. Thanks to all who've gone there to have a look and even a bigger one for those that took the trouble to write a comment.
Here are the stats in more detail:
| Photos and Videos | 39 672 |
| Photostream | 5 427 |
| Sets | 4 901 |
| Total | 50 000 |
We did a 6-day mini-tour of Rajashtan last week. It was more "mini" than it was a "tour", actually, as we flew to Jodhpur via and only spent time there and Jaisalmer. Rajashtan would've offered a lot more in Jaipur, Udaipur and so on but this way we didn't have to spend the entire time sitting in the car driving miles and miles under the scorching sun. Two words about the weather: quite hot. It was sunny all the time with not a lot of humidity. The place is inhospitably hot in the summertime but this was pretty close to optimum.
We flew uneventfully (lucky!) with Air India via Delhi and had our driver from Car Rental Rajashtan meet us at the airport. We had booked a car with English-speaking driver for 6 days and everything went as planned. Well, almost at least. To say the driver was fluent in English would've been quite an overstatement, but we understood each other enough. We also booked a guide through the same company for our first and only full day in Jodhpur and Mr. Asfrah Khan who took us around for a day was a real find. If you want no-nonsense info about Rajashtan and Jodhpur do give the good man a call, his number is +919829022090. In true Indian style he did get his pay hiked with commission by taking us to Maharani Art Exporters. They told us an unbelivable story, the same show they put on everyone else, and while we didn't really believe in the pitch we did buy some fabrics for the home. Always makes you wonder if the whole business model is based on lying - in the age of easily accessible information their days must be numbered.
The main part of our tour was to see the Merangarh Fort and it's definitely worth the visit. Not only are the views to Jodhpur fantastic, especially to the old city with it's blue buildings, but the inside of the fort is a real sight to behold as well. The grandeur always makes me cringe a little as everyone knows the coffers of the successive maharajas were filled by taxing the poor to near starvation. We also visited the Umaid Bhawan Palace built by a recent maharaja, which was nowhere near as a nice - while the palace is very nice from the outside the museun only covers a minuscule portion with the rest begin occupied by the last maharaja's living quarters and a Taj-run hotel. We stayed in a Taj hotel as well, but a more traditional setting in the city than the pompous palace.
From Jodhpur we drove to Jaisalmer. We had an idea of staying a night in the desert in a tent camp, but booked into the wrong resort. We stopped for a coffee in Manvar but had pre-booked to spend the night in Mirvana resort. My first impression when arriving to Mirvana was to turn back to Manvar and in retrospect that's we should've done, pre-booked or not. Don't make the same mistake if your trip to Rajashtan is still on the to-do list...
We survived the night however and completed the trip to Jaisalmer the next day with a short stop in Pokaran to see yet another fort. Forgettable. We made our way from there to Jaisalmer fort, which is definitely is not. The setting is great like in Jodhpur, but instead of a museum the fort is an integral part of the city with houses, shops, temples and restaurants. Tourism hasn't been kind to the original way of life here with more and more buildings turned to serve the influx of visitors selling handicrafts, serving Italian food and providing comfortable accommodation. We decided not to stay in the old fortress but lived in a modern replica instead; Suryagarh is a five star luxury sandstone hotel some 10km from the city centre. Despite being almost brand new you can easily forget that with so much detail resemblance visible everywhere to the great palaces we had just been around in. We also toured the Jaisalmer fort museum, which is a far cry from the carefully arranged display we saw in Jodhpur: it's a cramped setting made worse by the hordes of visitors pushing and yelling their way around it and the artifacts on display are not on the same level of wonder either. So after two nights in Jodhpur, one night in-between and two nights in Jaisalmer it was time to come back. Doing it back to back to back meant a 13-hour journey with car and plane - uneventful again but tiring at least for my back. Saw this nice sunset though:
