HB COLD

I've been hitting the gym lately, gearing up for the rowing day that will commense tomorrow. It's some sort of film industry event, where teams from different film companies row their collective asses off. When I've been going to the gym I've been doing the rowing machine. I go 2000 meters in roughly 10 minutes at the highest resistance. At the end of which I am completely gassed and drenched in sweat. Now this is only 2000m and this is also indoors. Tomorrow I will be on a team - which is good - and will be rowing outside for 35,000 meters. If I make it through I will let you all know.

Then on Thursday K and I will be going to Turku for the last of our summer time fun. Bjorn's band is playing at a Rock festival - there are more than 100 music festivals in Finland in the summertime (at least it seems that way). This will be the first time we will have seen him perform in a band. It should be fun. The next day or Saturday we will head out to the summer cabin for one last summer trip. Karoliina really wants to row. I think there is a chance I will not want to row, but we'll see.

Then on Tuesday I will go to Jyvaskyla for a business meeting where I will be presenting the film Finland project. Then it's back to Turku for a bachelor party and then back on the train to Joensuu, where there will be only 2 weeks left of normal life. Scotland and school are right around the corner and then my life will be one long train ride. Fortunately, the weather will be getting a little cooler. 6 hours on a train without AC can really mess you up.

So that's that right now.

You know, I'm an idiot. All this time I've been complaining about the heat and the sunshine. All this time I've been saying how I wouldn't really mind a little cooler weather, maybe even a little rain. Then we get it and I'm back to wishing for the sun and the heat. Although I will admit to not missing the heat as much as the sun. For the first time in weeks, it is comfortable, bordering on cool in the house. And with the cloudy night because of the rain, there is a good chance that tonight could be a dark and cool sleep. Okay, so maybe I just miss the sun and the heat in the day, especially when I'm getting rained on throughout.

Other thoughts, we're having guests tomorrow and the next night. Virpi and Jyrki are on a tour of Finland and will be heading East in to the lake country, into Brodsky country. They just returned from a week long tour of Italy. I can tell you right now which one I would rather do. Big difference.

This Wednesday I will be participating in a rowing event for the film industry. I will be on a boat with Markku - my friend the director - and some of his actors and we will be racing other people in the film industry. And then will sit naked in an enormous sauna and drink lots of warm beer. It should be a real good time.

Also, before I leave for Scotland, Karoliina and I will be attending a party for NYC lovers in Helsinki. People who have lived there, or been there, or just like the place will be getting together. The event is a little pricey, but hey, it's New York. The next day I will leave for Glasgow and will be there for 5 days. Then I'll return and Karoliina and Anneli and I will leave for a small Swedish - Finnish town in West Finland called, Skaftun (I know I'm misspelling that), which no one has ever heard of. Our friends Sanna and Henrik are getting married. Man, it will be nice to be able to live near friends again. 2 years in the wilderness is well, two freaking years in the wilderness. After the wedding I will remain in Helsinki for the first week of class. Summer's ending in no time. But that's not too bad, because it means that before too long, we will be out of this enormous forest.

Also, as I write, Karoliina and I are celebrating our 5th wedding ceremony anniversary and our 6th wedding anniversary.

There was a population explosion this past weekend. Ilosaari Rock happens once a year, for the past 30 odd years and has allowed Joensuu to blow off a year's worth of steam. And they blow hard.

On Friday morning, on the way to work I came across 3 shirtless stumbling young drunks who were making their way from the lake into town. It was 9am and a precursor of things to come. The festival goers had been arriving for the past few days and all the signs pointed to a weekend celebration that would be one for the ages. The amount of beer in each store had easily quadrupled and the prices were slashed by 30%. Security guards were hired for all local kiosks downtown and drunk people were sleeping wherever there was shade to be found.

Friday night was Ilovaari Rock, which was for the older folks in town and was a lot more calm. Although when our guests arrived and we went out after the concert, the old folks were doing their best to relive the glory days. All the bars in town were packed, the streets were filled with people drinking - there are no open container laws in Finland and, at least for the weekend, no laws against urinating in public.

Karoliina and I were working for the website, writing articles about the bands, the crowds, whatever. This festival was like a two-day, city-wide Lollapalooza. Here is a sampling of one of the things I wrote. It was about the soccer match between the Finnish rock stars and some local athletes. http://www.ilosaarirock.fi/2005/felamaa/pivot/entry.php?id=152

All in all, it was a fun and exhausting time and I am glad it is over. Karoliina and I are just waiting for the heat to end and for the television to start broadcasting good shows again. Too much Knight Rider can cause serious brain damage.

So I've mentioned the boredom thing and the heat thing. These two things pretty much make up the entire day. Yeah, we are going to Jazzercise - which has officially earned the term Body Pump, cause there ain't much jazz about it - and we're eating ok. But pretty much the days are long and hot and the nights are long and hot. But for a brief moment or two, there is fun to be had here in Joensuu. From 6pm-8pm the lake welcomes some of the best relief from the heat imaginable.

It's funny to think that the heat is so unbearable, considering the fact that it only hovers above the 80 degree line, but it's all relative. When we are used to temperatures in the teens and 20's, the 80's seem like an absolute heat wave, and so the lakes are packed all day long. Karoliina and I try to absorb as much heat throughout the day - unintentionally, but still the case - so that we can enjoy the medicine of the cool lake. I would say that the lake is in the 65 degree range, at best. Which is normally way too cold for my liking, but nowadays it is just right. The only problem is that we cannot go straight from the lake to the dinner table and then to bed, ala the summer house. Instead we trek back home (not really a trek, more like a 5 minute bike ride) and cook dinner, which inevitably makes me hot again. Then we sit in the sauna come living room and wait until it's time to move into the even hotter, but exceptionally windy bedroom.

I think I should retitle the name of this blog from hbcold to hb hot and sweaty. The weather lately has been wonderful - if you live in Texas or New York, or anywhere that has AC. In Finland, it has simply been hot. I know, I know the high's are only in the mid-80's, but with no AC around, anywhere, it has made me rethink the term long, hot summer. I can't believe I am about to write this - considering we only have a few months of decent weather here in, what can usually be called Siberia's doorstep - but I am ready for a little cold front. Maybe just for a weekend.

Our house is hot. Our bedroom is even hotter. We now have 2 fans operating while we sleep, which has reminded me of the time when our AC went out in Dallas and I had 2 fans plus a ceiling fan going at all times, plus a spray bottle of water in case it got too hot to handle. All this makes for a great day at the lake, which seems to cure all heat related problems for a while, but the problem is that we still have many more hours of sunlight, even after a cool dip at 9pm.

Last summer we hardly ever used the fans, since it was almost always raining and cool. This summer, we have received precisely what we asked for - hot and dry and lots of sun - and I think I am becoming a little ingrate. However, there is just no way of getting cool, except for the lake.

Boredom has set in, quickly. Returning home to Joensuu from a 10 days off is a welcome relief...that lasts a day at best. Next weekend we will have guests and will be quite busy with the Rock festival, but until then we will be monumentally bored. The long days simply add to the boredom. Yeah, their nice and all, but they are very, very long. Tonight we will cook beef fajitas and have dinner on the balcony. We may even go to town and sit out on the boat, but then Sat. and Sun. come along and we've already done all there is to do in J-town.

Oh, that's not exactly true. There is, this weekend an Adult Entertainment award ceremony and Erotic show exhibition at the old ice hockey arena. I must admit my curiousity is peaked in the most unusual way. What the hell kind of exhibition could this be? Here in the middle of nowhere? Oh, and the party begins at midnight. Now, I know I should be nowhere near this thing, but you all know where I live, right? This could very well be a once in a lifetime event. I will keep you all posted.

Jazzercise has come a long way. There very well may have been a lot going on these past few weeks, but the thing that has been dominating my mind and body for the past week is the fact that Jazzercise ain't what it used to be. After much cajoling, Karoliina and her mother, Anneli, convinced me to join them for their Body Pump class. I've never been big on class exercising. I prefer disguising exercising, usually with a ball, or lifting weights, or some other more macho means of muscle mass. But this time I gave in - we are trying to get into shape during July and this seemed like a decent enough idea.

When we got to the gym I was delighted. It was the first time I had been in a real gym in quite some time and it was refreshing. The BB Gym we have here in Joensuu is serviceable, in a very rural sort of way. Come in, lift weights, leave. I forgot about rows of different machines and space. I was pumped for Body Pump. An hour later, I was dead. I couldn't finish the last half of the exercises. I hadn't done a lunge in a decade - that's what basketball is for - let alone 6 minutes of lunges.

But I soldiered on, as did Karoliina and her mother. I had the strength that you have when you haven't worked out in a long time - in my case months - and so I tried too hard for too long and now, almost a week later, my legs are just returning to normal and my triceps are still quite tender. Karoliina and I were walking like retarded donkeys these past few days of vacation. Getting in and out of the car required deep breathes and concentration. Needless to say we will be doing this as many times as possible for the next month. What the hell else is there to do anyway?

In a couple of weeks there will be a huge concert here in Joensuu, Illosaari Rock. It's sold out with 25,000 tickets sold for a weekend long festival. Karoliina and I have been asked by the festival promoters to write some articles for the website - articles of our choosing about our observations over the weekend. We've been given backstage passes - which would be cool if I was more into Anthrax, MC5, Backyard Babies or Monster Magnet, but we'll take what we can get.

Also, later this month I will be participating in a rowing competition among different groups in the film industry. My director friend, Markku Pölönen and his leading actor friend and me and a couple others will be competing and then going for a sauna. It should be great, but I think I need to hit the rowing machine in the gym a couple of times beforehand.

Speaking of Markku, today, on our way into town - after a 6 hour train ride without AC and the inside temperature in the 80's - we ran into my boss Jenni who told us that Markku would like K and I to translate his next script into English as he is writing it because he would like the film itself to be told in English. He and I have been discussing his idea for the past few months and I am really excited to do this with Karoliina. It is also very nice that he would like to work with us on this. It will give us a lot to do in the coming months, but I think that it is best to keep as busy as possible until my first term at school is over and we can concentrate on the future.

Jenni also said that she was leaving the EFFC, which among many other things means that I will be able to go to Scotland in August to continue promotion of my project. I will also be pitching to the Finnish media community in August and the Producers Union later in the fall and have been told by my potential sponsor in Helsinki to say that it is already begun and this bodes well. My commute back and forth from Helsinki will allow me the opportunity to see the pre-phases of this project and keep in regular communication until contracts are signed and blah blah.

This past week I made the biggest batch of pasta sauce that I have ever made, maybe the biggest meal I have ever made. 8 breasts of lemon chicken, artichokes and the pasta sauce. I was cooking for almost 5 hours. I had to feed 12 with the sauce, and 7 with the chicken. I had to make 5X's the amount I normally make, It came out great, but it got me thinking how important a good kitchen is. I would really love a big range oven, the ones here are ridiculously small, ridiculously. These is a lot of cabinet space, and decent counter space, but there is no oven space at all.

I also took out Karoliina's aunt Anja and met her husband Erkki. I figured it was the smart thing to do since I will be living with them 3 days a week for 3 months, starting soon and I had only met them two or three times. It went well. She's a nice lady and we enjoyed ourselves. The wait staff all thought our pairing was a bit unique - an older lady and a younger guy - and were all exceptionally nice. Still didn't tip. Hey, this is Finland, but still great service nonetheless. Still need to treat future roomies the right way.

Helsinki for Midsummer was deserted. It was great. We walked to the beach and sat outside and hung out in public places that were empty. The next day we went to a karoke bar which was packed. As it was a holiday the songs were all quite national and proud and in Finnish. I, of course got up and sang Bon Jovi's "You Give Love a Bad Name". The crowd was old enough and they were in a good mood. Perhaps the best mood of any Finnish bar I have been in, ever. Before the end of it I had an old Finnish dude in a suit cheering and punching his fists in the air, rocking out. In a Finnsh bar. Sure we had another old Finnish guy try to pick a fight with us, but that's to be expected.

And then a couple of days of cooking, walks and movies led right up to Body Pump and here we are now, looking at the end of the sunset at 10 till midnight. Summer in Finland.