HB COLD

You learn something new everyday. Yes. I get it. It happens. Take today for example. Today I learned that my new boots don't track as much dirty snow into the house. They seem to get cleaner on the mat than my other shoes do. See, that's something new that I learned today. But is that interesting? Well, let's just say that if one were to find that interesting then... well, you'd be pretty dull. It takes a couple of days to learn something interesting. It takes life. You have to live it before you can learn it. So with that as today's theme, here are a couple of interesting things that I learned over the past few days and more.

First, it is not easy to walk in a snowstorm. I thought it would be a good idea, and it's not to say that it was a wholly bad idea altogether, it's just that there certainly were aspects of it that weren't good. I mean it was a snow-storm. Not just snowing, but really coming down. But whatever, it sounded like a good idea in my head and so I went.

When I got outside I immediately slipped. Not fell down or anything but did a little slide, and there are a lot of those little slides in the winter. So I knew that this could be a hard walk. I walk around town at night for an hour or two a couple times a week. It's a good way to get out of the house, listen to some music and see the city as it is. It's usually a brisk walk, but long. But in a snow-storm? Man it is tough to walk on all that snow. And then the snow. It was coming down small and hard and from all directions. It's not like postcard crap. Big, fluffy, fun, dogs running around, that kinda shit. It wasn't that. I was just glad I put my contacts in; my glasses would have hated me for taking them out in that kind of weather.

Hmmm...What the hell else did I learn? Oh yeah! Basketball games in Helsinki are much rowdier than basketball games in Joensuu. Tonight I watched my first Topo match and it was against Kataja, my team from J-town. I can't root against my team, but I watched the game with an objective eye and an open heart. After all, this gym is a five-minute tram ride from our house. It's in the old sports hall that they built for the Olympics when they had them here in 1952. So it's pretty old. In Joensuu they had just moved into an unbelievable building, Areena, that housed two indoor soccer fields and two regulation size basketball courts, plus a sandpit for track and field, pole-vault (seriously the first time I ever typed that word - something new! Today's theme! Just like that! Play some music or something.) And it had a boxing ring. Huge. Well this place was rough and so was the game and so was the crowd.

Back in Joensuu I sort of was the cheering section. But I liked to cheer against the other team more than for my own team. I guess I feel like they need me to hate on the other team more than love on them, since they already know that I like them and stuff. You know, yelling stuff like, "You got no game...Your mama got know game!" Pissing them off so they screw up. Just doing my part for the team. I'm not going to paint my face and go shirtless or anything, but a fair level of support? I can give that. So Kataja won, but I enjoyed the game and I think I'll give the Topo guys another go.

One more thing. Today I got to complain to the man about his abuse of my time. I was in a workshop about exploring the future of the digital cinema experience. In other words, how movie theatres are trying to get their audiences to spend as much money in their theatre as they possibly can. The workshop was almost exclusively with theatre chain owners and distributors. The man in this scenario. And I got to tell them what I thought. I did it diplomatically and at the right moment, but it happened.

Here's the deal. When you go to a movie in Finland they have ads and previews, just like any other place. But in Finland, the order is reversed. The previews start before the ads. So by the time you take your seat - assigned seating by the way, which is great, because it totally takes away the need to get to the theatre so as to claim the best seat - by the time you take your seat, you have already missed all the previews and get stuck watching the same damn commercials that come on television all the damned time. They even show a commercial with a woman shooting a home video and her husband is working on the roof and the kids are playing in the yard and, all of a sudden, the husband falls off the roof and dies and she's recording the whole thing. It's for some insurance or health care company. But talk about kicking the suspension of disbelief to the floor. "Hi, before you escape into the world of the film you are just about to watch, I want to remind you all that YOU ARE GOING TO DIE. Enjoy the show."

So in this meeting I got to complain that I feel totally used when I go to the movies and this inhibits me from going. And I like going to the movies. But I don't do it nearly as much as I used to. So I got to say to them that what we were discussing walks a very fine line when dealing with the customer. Too much pushing and you'll push me away. I have no idea if it will have an impact, but at least I got to tell it to the man.

I attempted a curious challenge recently. Perhaps this challenge needs a bit of background. Even all the way back to my days as a Radio-Television-Film major at UT. Although I have no idea why I even consider including Radio in that mix. I have never, nor do I ever envision working in radio. It's not that I would say no if I was offered a talk show but, like my hair coming back in full, that's seriously doubtful. I guess I put in a little quality television experience. But salesman for airline television show isn't really what I consider the TV business, but at least its on the periphery or maybe the bleachers of the television ballpark?

Mainly I studied film - production and screenwriting. Analytical and Creative at the same time. And I've sort of maintained a duality when it comes to those two things. However, over the course of the last 5 months I have been writing two lengthy items each one taking the efforts of one side of the brain and the other, well, the other side of the brain. A script and a strategy report. I was seriously concentrating on the script since the beginning of the fall, but had to put it aside when I began writing the strategy report. It was very difficult for me to concentrate on one, if the other was not very far out of my mind.

But this week I had a meeting on Tuesday about the script -well, at least what I've written so far - and today, Wednesday, I had two meetings concerning my report - which is about 80% complete and will be published in the next week or two. I began to get nervous about the fact that it had been a couple of months since I worked on the script and I was worried that I wouldn't be able to remember where I was, and where the story was going. I've had a lot of meetings the past few months, but this one was different. This one made me a bit nervous because it would involve feedback. K and I have been developing this story for a while and I've been writing the thing in various shapes and forms for the past two years. My previous 2 feedback sessions were positive and I was hoping this one would be too. And it was. The only way it could have gone better was if I walked away with a check. Didn't happen, but I do think I might be able to get financing to finish the story in the next couple of months. So you know, I bought myself a pair of fur-lined boots after that meeting. Of course.

And then today I met with the director of the Finnish Tourism Board to introduce him to my report, inside of which I mention the Finnish Tourism Board as a natural partner - and consequently, financier - to a lot of the strategies I will be putting forth. And he was totally into it. Later in the day I met with a guy to assist me with the business, meaning financial, aspects of my recommendations and that meeting went really well too.

Funny, when I think of the nerves that I have had lately it all revolves around receiving feedback for things I've written. I've been isolated and working on this report for so long, that when it actually comes time to make my opinions public, I get serious butterflies. But so far, those butterflies have been pretty okay,

Holy shit I should never had written any of that. I am totally going to eat it! Oh well, if I didn't write it, what the hell else would I say? It's cold? Dark? Snowy? Yeah, I've never touched on any of those subjects, huh? But seriously, it did get hella cold last week and it snowed a lot.

I cannot begin to tell you what a bitch this jetlag has been. Easily the worst I have ever experienced. And I think I speak for both myself and Karoliina on this one. Not only were we both extraordinarily tired throughout the day, but the hunger. The hunger! Neither one of us could believe our appetite. What the hell is that? My only theory is that we ate so damn much in Texas that we stretched our stomachs to the point that they now demand satisfaction, (i.e. middle of the night cereal binge). Oh, and the sweating was ridiculous.

I'm telling you, I've never had a jetlag quite like it. And I don't think that this bloody insane winter is helping in the slightest. I read the other day that this type of winter is the kind that hits Finland about twice every thousand years. It hasn't changed since before we left. Always dark and wet. Never quite cold enough to snow, and thereby shedding some light relief on this fricking film noir setting. I can't believe it hasn't changed since before we left, that's like 2 full months of this and counting. Thank God we were able to take a Texas break for a while. I feel sorry for the poor bastards who've been here throughout. I guess a stretched out and sweaty stomach is an okay price to pay for a little sun-induced sanity. Severe thunderstorm, and threatening wall cloud not withstanding.

So if you haven't guessed, it's been pretty sucky this past week. Okay, I just deleted something after I wrote it and you are merely reading that I wrote something, then thought better of it and deleted it. And now that I've brought it up, it's possible you are wondering what the hell I wrote, and then erased. Or, just as easily and likely, you couldn't be the least bit interested in what I wrote, and then didn't write. However, for the sake of this whole paragraph on the subject I am going to try and reveal what was so formerly written and the un.

In a word, jinx. I seek to head one off and consequently decided not to reveal in writing my thoughts about the year 2007, which, I am not afraid to speak about, but as soon as I began to write about it, I began to suspect a jinx, or at least that, once it would be in writing it would then be more susceptible to jinx. Just to put a little background here, I have been saying the same thing about 2007 since 1998, and now it is here and so I am not going to ruin 9 years of hype - at least in my own head - already on the 8th day of the year. So, I think I steered clear of threat with this rather ambiguous, but somewhat revealing statement. Or at least I hope I did. If not, I am totally erasing this post.