Pictures telling the story

Chill out and

Stop needling me...

I know it's not what it's cracked up to be...

Even the trees are leavin'.


The mound on pic 2 is needles from trees and other stuff collected by sweeper machines.

Swimming season is open!

I saw some people on the beach, obviously going for a swim in the river. Why?

Temperature curve.

We're hitting +25C, which is a practically a heat wave. So going for a swim, in the river might be tempting... until you remember it wasn't so many weeks ago it was covered by ice. The sea water is probably +5C at most , and river water might be a few degrees warmer but definitely chilly. I'm not sure if all the ice out on the sea has melted yet?

For some reason ("No videos found", maybe due to too laggy wlan connection?) I can't embed my latest youtube video on the post so you'll have to go there to see it.

One Inch of Grass

There's some green grass on the lawns. Maybe one inch high in average. On some spots it's even two inches, amazing. I can't say the trees or bushes are getting green yet. No leaves, you see.

Excellent driving by OYS-941

The May 1st celebrations are the unofficial opening of picnic season. This time the weather kept any picnics from getting out of hand (rain showers, 10m/s wind, temperatures below +3C tend to cool the enthusiasm for it even if plenty of alcohol is included) but I was happy to be back to normal. This afternoon, after the sleet had stopped raining I met this example of fine driving.

The driver is obviously a highly trained professional driver, because he managed to keep his big vehicle on the narrow bikeway. Then he jumped off and went inside, probably to ask where the loading docks are. ( I doubt they'll use the front door for moving things? That's what loading docks are for, right?))

He picked a good spot by stopping there. Blocked the whole bikeway. On the left, a narrow gap with snow. On the right, soggy mud. Excellent.

Goodbye!

This was probably the last time I rode on ice this spring. So today I took the plunge and swapped out the studded tyre. Now I'm riding a lot more quietly. :)

The ice fishers have been fighting a losing battle for a long time. Last week they still had some ice. The ice field was away from rapid currents of the hydro plant so it was slow to melt.

Here they only have a tiny bit left before they are beached. Or forced into boats.

Ice fishing report

It's flood season right now. Snow is melting, the ice is floating downriver... I guess ice fishing season is mostly over. Although I saw someone on the ice yesterday just a few meters off the free flowing river. He was nuts, I say.

The police reports about 200 bicycles has been stolen during January, February and the first two weeks of March. That's a lot, during the coldest months of the year. On the other hand, it shows a lot of people were riding their bikes, otherwise the thieves wouldn't have gotten them!

Which reminds me, go see the lost and found- maybe they've found my bike now that the snow has melted...

A few days ago on "King Consumer" (a tv program giving advice to consumers and testing things etc) one of the topics was convenience stores. The big malls and hypermarkets have taken a huge share of the market, but the small shops are still alive. The hypermarkets have the benefits of economies of scale: buying gazillion packets of toothpicks is cheaper per item than buying two packets. The hypermarkets have increased their share from 50% to 60% during the last ten years. Mid-sized shops lost, while the small shops have maintained the share. (Small shop in this case has less than 400m2 and they have a bit different regulations about opening hours than bigger shops).

The tv-show interviewed some big wig expert, who pointed out that the big shops have also outsourced the 'last-mile delivery'. Instead of having to transport half a dozen packs of toothpicks to dozens of small shops, the big shops get one big delivery. If the customer has to drive 10km for the toothpicks, instead of 2km, that's their problem.

The expert said the costs of shopping trips for an average Finnish family would be about 5000€. That's quite a lot of toothpicks!

Spring 2013 Collection pt 2

April 13th:

Add a few days of above freezing temperatures (even during the night!) and drizzling rain and the snow and ice vanishes in front of your eyes.

April 16th:

The sun has not been shining these last few days, but it has been warm and the rain gets through the trees, too. April 13th the bikeway had ice everywhere...

And on April 17th there was just a few tiny patches left. Nice fog between the trees, by the way. Very photogenic.