Archive for the 'Personal' Category

Andrew Gazaneo quoted a comment from Marc Driscoll, about perspective, which I liked:

“You can pray for a woman I just met. Got off alcohol only to get on prescription drugs, just lost her 2 little kids to the state, & her husband got arrested for beating her. Meanwhile, some people are really frustrated that their 3G connection is slow. Perspective is a great gift.”

I just finished a poll for Avaaz, a worldwide human action network. And the results from 40,000+ members trouble me slightly:

I don’t care about the specifics of global warming (or cooling), or climate change perse… but I am committed to being less wasteful and destructive on this planet. But not if it means I must turn a blind eye on HUMAN issues. I think Avaaz is a good organization, but it troubles me how their members have prioritized the above list.

By far the biggest event for our family this year, was adding a third member. The XKCD comic from a few weeks back was thus. I felt it appropriate to share with you all.

Happy new year, everyone! From the four of us here in Finland.

I’m trying to convince Maija to ditch her 2 year old white Macbook and get a netbook. She’s almost sold on the idea… and once I find the perfect model, I know she’ll go for it. Why ditch the Macbook? Because she was looking for a small machine… and it’s 13.3 inches is really not that small anymore… and it’s quite heavy for it’s size. It’s dog slow… ever since she bought it, and it’s falling apart (casing cracks in multiple places, stopped charging the battery this week).

So… I’m hunting for the perfect model. It needs:
- an 8-10 inch display
- graphics powered by Nvidia ION
- Windows 7
- multitouch swivel display
- upgradeable RAM
- full size (or close, >85% size) keyboard
- other obiqutious features that don’t really need listing (webcam, enough usb ports, etc.)

So far the Asus T91 seems to be the only machine sporting the tablet-style display with multitouch, but it lacks ION. There aren’t too many Nvidia ION powered machines yet, though the HP Mini looks good (but lacks the touch display and Windows 7). I think we’ll have to give it another few months…

Picasa 3.5 just came out… Picasa being the fantastic photo management software from Google. 3.5 features, among other things, photo tagging. Which is all fine and dandy… except that once you’ve started tagging people, it figures out what their face looks like and tags the rest of your photos automatically. It’s insane. I mean… I tagged 1 photo of a friend of mine, and within a couple of minutes (I have many thousands of photos) it pulled up another 15 photos of the same person… perfectly matched.
It’s not foolproof, and you’ve got to keep tagging and fixing incorrect tags, but it’s flipping awesome. Download it today. Oh, and the tags can be integrated with your Google Contacts… so you’ve got lots of fun options for stuff.

I’m in Toronto for 2 weeks (half-way through now), for the occasion of Mike Livingston and Brieanna Enwiechter’s wedding… and also to launch some new websites for work. I’m having a serious case of highs and lows… some evenings are spent with friends having a great time, other evenings spent late in the office trying to get this project completed. I’m missing home, missing the family… and am feeling a bit distant from God at present.

It’s interesting to me… I find my experience of Christ changes over time. At present it seems intricately linked to my family, to my home. To the day to day. Tidying, working (from home), playing with James, loving my wife, are all spiritual matters. I believe life is inherintly spiritual. Now that I am removed from that usual climate, the forms of worship now typical for me… I feel empty, drained, exhausted, lonely. The struggles at work seem harder to clime over… the battles harder and faught with less support.

But as I said… highs and lows. I’m sitting in the lobby of a hotel where I’m staying for the weekend (currently waiting) for the wedding of one of my best friends. He was my best man, in fact. We’re going to have a blast. 2 hours from now I won’t feel or sound so melancholy at all.

Also… a friend of mine passed away from cancer this week, so I know that’s weighing on my mind and my soul.

Aghh… I’m rambling now. I know this reads very melancholy… I’m really not depressed… just trying to vent a little of my frustration/sadness/low energy, before the rest of the wedding party arrives :)

I’ve never had cause to contemplate the year 2056… but in that year I will be 70 years old. That seems an unfathomable amount of time away from now. I find it fascinating really.

My (new) Finnish drivers license expires in 2056.

And here’s more pictures of our boy!

Maija’s contractions started in earnest this morning, and within 45 minutes we were on our way to the hospital (leaving uncooked cookie dough on the kitchen counter… shock!)

Upon arrival, the midwives seemed to relax just a little when they found out it was our first child. “This’ll take some time” I’m sure they were thinking. Until they checked Maija out, and found she was already 8cm dilated. This baby’s coming out!

2 hours later… for a total of 4 hours labour… James Eden Puddle!

Born naturally and healthy, with a full head of red hair! Just like his uncle. 2.9kg… 6.3lbs. Mum and baby are doing great.