It's the midsummer Eve's eve. The day most of us Finn's head towards north to the cabins, camping areas or other places to spend the weekend. For the next three days our cities are mostly deserted. It's hard for me to even imagine the midsummer in the city.

Midsummer is the old celebration of the longest day of the year during the summer solstice. Of course the Christianity has assimilated it as many other old mark days and for most it's known as the day of the John the Baptist. In Finland the day is even called Juhannus after him.

A huge thunderstorm swept over us today in the afternoon. After it passed the weather has remained at steady 20 degrees and everything is fresh again.

We had a nice front row seats watching the storm front approach from the south-west. It had been a cloudy day, yet the temperature climbed above 30 again at noon. A couple of hours later the sky was getting dark. The thermometer was up to 35 degrees. The air was still.

In the age of the streaming media I really want to support all these streaming service providers. Unfortunately they are making it really hard.

First of all there are way too many of them. Sure competition is good, but having to subscribe in half a dozen services is just too much. All those subscriptions wouldn't even give you all the content. Some content is still out of your reach if you happen to live in the wrong region.

It's been over 30 degrees here in Finland for a couple of days already. Forecast is promising at least a few days more. It was nice for a day or two, especially on Saturday when I had s chance to be at the lake. But now it has already become unbearable. It doesn't get too low even during the night so it's hard to sleep.

We do have a portable AC unit, but it doesn't help too much during the hottest times. It's also so loud (even with the night mode) that it's not convenient to use it during the night.

I went to sleep at around two o'clock last night. After a long day and more than a few beer it didn't take long to fall a sleep even in a strange place while others were still continuing the party. Of course, my body doesn't care when I go to sleep and I woke up around seven in the morning.

All the drinking, heat and physical activity yesterday also took the toll, so I'm been pretty tired (no hangover!) the whole day. Yet, I still need to write.

My brother is getting married later this summer. Today, we are going to throw him the "mandatory" bachelor party together with his friends. We have enough age difference that I don't really know hus friends that well. Mostly, I only meet them on his bachelor parties. This is the second, and hopefully the last time.

Today, while driving I was listening to the radio. They were playing "old" hit songs from early 2000's. While none of them weren't exactly my style of music I recognized most of them as they were the kind that at the time were playing everywhere and you couldn't miss them.

But that wasn't the problem. Instead, I realized thinking about those songs and artists as "recent" and "aspiring". Of course, save the few one hit wonders, those artists have had successfully careers spanning several decades already. Some of the songs were probably older than the radio DJ playing them.

Tomorrow is my last day of work before my vacation. Well, first part of it. I only have one week now and the rest after three weeks of work in between. And tomorrow won't even be a full day as I have some extra hours to take of.

It's going to be a busy and eventful week. First, on saturday will be my brothers bachelor party. Next week there will be midsummer and also my youngest will turn 18. It feels like there is more coming up within the next 10 days than has happened during the whole year so far.

When I'm reading English sometimes I become confused when the writer has used just the person pronouns of two people of different gender. I know it's obvious to a native English speaker to understand what's going on. But for me it can get confusing when I understand all those pronouns as a same concept in my head. They just refer to a person.

Now that I have gone "out there" I once again feel that I should see people more often. Foe the past few months I've noticed I had become rather reluctant towards any social activities and would rather opt to stay home even of there has already been more possibilities to such things.

I don't know where to start. There was so much happening today, many things that could hold up on their own post. But I just can't hold back it all and write about some parts of the day later. Or can I?

Today we had the municipal elections here in Finland. As a responsible citizen I did my duty and cast my vote. But it wasn't easy to find the right candidate.

Even though I'm not that much into politics I do have "my" party. Unfortunately they didn't have any candidates at our city this time either. So I had to resort to a voting aid application.

I don't deny there is wisdom to be found from the books. The problem is some people take that wisdom literally. At times I hear someone "changing their whole life" after reading a single book. Usually it's not that dramatic. The change is something smaller, but still complete.

Change is good and sure those life changing stories are great. But reading one book and keeping it the highest authority of the subject afterwards is not the way. There is usually more than one view on the subject. The one you get from a single book is just one author's opinion of the matter.

I got my first COVID vaccine yesterday. The process was really streamlined. First, you book a time from the website (you could book both times at the same time).

A suggestion was to arrive at the vaccination site as close to your designated time slot as possible. I was actually ten minutes early, but it didn't seem to matter. I checked in and was directed at the end of (really short) line. In no time I was called in to one of the room where the vaccination happened. After a couple of standard questions I was already rolling up my sleeve.

Today, when I again woke up unreasonably early I realized I have been doing it rather constantly every week. To make sure it wasn't just some confirmation bias I needed some more data to back this theory up.

In the world where this is almost unlimited amount of entertainment available it's amazing to find yourself in a situation where you habe nothing to watch. But that's where I have been for a while again.

Chrome has become the menace of the internet. Everybody who has worked in web technologies in the past decades remembers the challenges Microsoft's internet explorers notorious reputation.

There is a particular spice mix we use to season our taco meat (or vegan equivalent). We need two packs to have enough of it for single serving. So it makes sense to buy the triple back that it's also available in addition to buying singles.

Obviously there is 2/3 of the time a pack or two left over. It's also a thing that I usually forgot to check before leaving to the store. I might have a vague memory that there were some in the pantry. But was it one or two packs? Better buy another triple pack to be sure there is enough of it.

Until now the accepted model of our galaxy has been that there is a supermassive black hole (named Sagitarius A*) in the centre of it. But recently scientists observed an event that really didn't fit into that model.

A gas cloud was passing near the center of our galaxy. According to the black hole model the cloud should have been sucked into the hole. Observations however showed a different result: the cloud passed the center unharmed!

Bow might be the single biggest investment when starting archery, but in the long run it's the arrows that end up costing the most. They are the consumable part of the hobby and while the single arrow might not cost much, you need to have a bunch of them.

So far I have been lucky with my arrows. The first set, the cheap wooden one has lost a tip from two arrows (out of six), but I haven't actually broke any of those. Sure I haven't shot with them after I got the better quality carbon fiber set. That set too hasn't suffered any damage... until today!