The photographs were taken on March 1st in Helsinki.
We got 5 cm of snow today. The landscape was quite different in the morning, but most of the snow has already melted.
(Posting title is from the poem A Poem for the Cruel Majority by Jerome Rothenberg.)
The photograph was taken in Tikkurila on March 1st.
So far this year I have got 1,394 km riding the bicycle. This week I commuted by bicycle on four days, but tomorrow I'm planning to take a rest day. There will be snowfall, up to 5 cm, and that will make road conditions challenging.
Municipal elections will be held in Finland on April 9th, and advance voting has started. I have selected my candidate. She is younger than me, and knows a lot about education.
(Posting title is from the poem Univac by John Tipton.)
The photograph was taken on February 25th in Meiko.
I commuted by bicycle and went through the central park in Helsinki both in the morning and in the afternoon. In the morning the path was frozen, but in the afternoon the path had started to melt and was quite soft in some places, which meant heavier going.
(Posting title is from the poem Love After Love Poem by Derek Walcott.)
The photographs were taken on February 25th in Meiko.
This morning I commuted by bicycle once again through the central park in Helsinki. There start to be more people riding the bicycle. It has been dry and sunny.
(Posting title is from the song Behind Blue Eyes by The Who.)
The photograph was taken on February 25th in Meiko.
Today I commuted by bicycle through the central park in Helsinki, first time this year. Early in the morning it was quiet. There was some ice on the path in shadowed spots, and the ground had frozen during the night so it was easy going.
Last weekend I visited the local IKEA store. That reminded me of a Trump joke: "I've seen smarter cabinets at IKEA."
(Posting title is from the poem Head of Anahit/British Museum by Peter Balakian.)
The photographs were taken in Meiko on February 25th.
Earlier I wrote about the worst presidents of the United States, mentioning James Buchanan. Apparently he may be a relevant comparison to Trump after all, because the GOP seems to be on the brink of civil war. It is a terrible performance, and I'm feeling sad beholding a government of zombies without brains or hearts.
(Posting title is from the poem Sunday by Cynthia Zarin.)
The photographs were taken in Meiko on February 25th.
In six days I have got 11 hours of exercise, half riding the bicycle and half walking. Spring is coming. This morning I listened to a lark singing while I was walking across fields.
(Posting title is from the poem Los Angeles by Ben Fama.)
The photograph was taken on February 24th.
The forecast promised sunny weather for today, but there were showers of wet snow in the afternoon. Spring is advancing, anyway.
I have been thinking about the worst presidents of the United States, and noticed that there are several rankings available. In many of them James Buchanan is the worst, or one of the worst. It was fascinating to read about him. However, he doesn't seem to have been half as bad as Trump is.
(Posting title is from the poem Little Box Opens Up by Marilyn Chin.)
The photographs were taken in Petikko on February 24th.
Yesterday it rained, and during the night the temperature dropped to below 0 °C. In the morning there was frost and ice on the road, and it was good to have studded winter tires in the bicycle.
(Posting title is from the poem catchlight by Kirby Knowlton.)
The photographs were taken on February 24th at Petikko.
Now that my oldest daughter is abroad, with a seven hour time difference, I have been thinking about how the world seems to be changing these days, for the worse. It was different when my daughter grew up. The world was getting smaller, and even though there were conflicts, one usually felt that we are living in the same world, with interesting differences between people.
Of course, I feel a sense of loss each time I note that she is away for a year, for example when there is one place less at the dinner table. At the same time I feel extremely proud of her. I'm confident that she learns to live the way one should live, starting not from fear but from hope and trust.
(Posting title is from the poem What Kind of Times Are These by Adrienne Rich.)
The photographs were taken on February 21st.
I'm feeling proud and sad today. My oldest daughter is spending one year abroad as an exchange student.
(Posting title is from the song A Million Years by Mariette.)
The photographs were taken at Timmermalmi nature protection area on February 21st.
(Posting title is from the poem Torment by Daisy Fried.)
The photographs were taken on February 21st while visiting Timmermalmi nature protection area.
I noticed that Finland was being discussed in the United States, due to our health care system which has been extremely cost-efficient compared to the way health care is organised in the United States. Of course, fairness and value-for-money are not the only criteria in health care, but the proposal put forward by Trump and his minions makes me shudder - massive tax breaks to the richest people, and not taking care of the poor, sick and elderly. I hope nothing like that ever happens here in Finland. Choice is not a choice if one can't afford it.
(Posting title is from the poem Ballad of the Mermaid of Zennor by Vernon Watkins.)
The photographs were taken on March 17th in Helsinki with an iPhone SE. I managed to import the 200 photographs I took to Aperture, and most of them turned out fine, given my inexperience of using the iPhone. I even found out how to delete 200 photographs at one go from the iPhone.
Compared to the Nokia E7 which I had earlier, the camera in the iPhone SE is dramatically better, in fact quite useful when there is no "real" camera to use. In fact, it may turn out that I'll take quite a lot of photographs with the iPhone, given the convenience of carrying it with me always. Especially as there is a setting for using the square aspect ratio. The Camera app remembers the settings used previously, making it a rather convenient tool. I practised how to focus to a particular point and how to set the exposure, and even though the user interface is still a bit strange, mostly it works as one would expect it to work.
(Posting title is from the poem Les Saltimbanques by Matthew Sweeney.)
The photograph was taken on February 21st.
I took some photographs today with the iPhone SE. I haven't yet looked at how they turned out, but the camera controls were not too bad, and there was even a setting for the square aspect ratio, easily selected.
I need to check whether my workflow of transferring photographs to Aperture works well with the iPhone: manual mass transfer of photographs, and emptying afterwards the camera to make room for the next photographs. I'm sure that there is a way to automatically transfer photographs from the iPhone to Flickr, but that doesn't suite my way of working with the photographs. I'm quite fond of Aperture even though the software was discontinued by Apple.
(Posting title is from the poem The World’s Other Side by Derek Sheffield.)
The photographs were taken on February 21st.
I thought today about Iain M. Banks' science fiction novels about the Culture, which is an interstellar utopian society. In some of the novels the Culture encounters less advanced civilisations, and gets involved in rather tricky situations in which there is no straightforward answer on how to proceed.
What is happening in the United States feels almost like a plot of a Culture novel, in which an alien civilisation tries to manipulate the political situation to fit their interests. However, there is a difference in that the aims of the aliens don't seem to be well-intentioned, or in fact intentioned at all. Perhaps what is happening with Trump is a reality-tv series of the aliens, and they are trying to maximise the number of viewers with all the strange plot turns, and all the stupidity of the protagonists.
(Posting title is from the poem No Promissory Notes by Ish Klein.)
The photographs were taken at Sipoonkorpi National Park on February 20th.
The road conditions for commuting by bicycle start to be quite good. Almost all ice has melted away. The public works departments have started cleaning the road surfaces, getting rid of the gravel and dirt that was deposited during the winter. In three days I have got six hours of exercise. Perhaps I should take a rest day, but it feels so good to ride the bicycle.
(Posting title is from the poem Japan That Sank under the Sea by Satoru Sato.)
The photographs were taken at Sipoonkorpi National Park on February 20th.
The weather forecast promises snow and rain for the night. I'm wondering what the road conditions will be tomorrow morning. I hope most of the snow will melt away.
(Posting title is from the poem What In The World by Bill Madden.)
The photograph was taken on February 19th.
I'm flabbergasted about the situation in the United States. The totalitarian mind-set is taking over, and facts are the enemies of the people. It is as if aliens had taken over the government.
(Posting title is from the poem culebra canal by Roberto Harrison.)
The photograph was taken on February 19th.
It was cold last night. In the morning the snow was frozen, carrying a person walking. I did some exploring, going across the snow fields. Sun was shining, and it felt like spring. The length of day is now twice what it was at the shortest.
I got 11 1/2 hours of exercise this week, of which 8 hours riding the bicycle.
(Posting title is from the poem Sapphics: At the Mohawk-Castle, Canada. To Lieutenant Montgomery by Thomas Morris.)
The photographs were taken on February 18th in Helsinki.
(Posting title is from the poem In Perpetual Spring by Amy Gerstler.)
The photograph was taken on February 18th.
So far this year I have got 1,020 km riding the bicycle. I haven't had any punctures with the Schwalbe Marathon Winter tires, which is great. For summer I have Marathon Plus tires, and they have also worked fine with no punctures.
I changed my mobile phone this week. I had a Nokia E7 phone for over five years, but it started to show all kinds of problems. Now I have an iPhone SE, which was quite easy to start using, but I have a lot of things to learn, for example how to cope with the auto-corrections when writing text, and all kinds of little details to tweak.
(Posting title is from the poem The Delta by Bruce Bond.)
The photograph was taken on February 18th.
The snow started melting today. I remembered to check bicycle tire pressure. It was at 3 bar, and the recommended minimum is 3.5 bar, so it was a good thing to check the tires.
(Posting title is from the poem the new rumbón by Tato Laviera.)
The photographs were taken on February 18th.
Why do some people support Trump despite the lies and misdemeanors? One explanation put forward says that people like that he "fights" despite the serious mental handicaps. But is that a thing to be admired in a person who is in such a situation?
(Posting title is from the poem Solstice by Tracy K. Smith.)
The photograph was taken on February 15th in Helsinki.
This is how Orange Agent acts:
(Posting title is from the song Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands by Bob Dylan.)
The photographs were taken on February 15th in Helsinki.
It was cold and windy today. I commuted by bicycle and noted that the number of bicycle commuters is increasing. I guess spring is near.
(Posting title is from the song Stakes is High by De La Soul.)
The photographs were taken on February 12th.
Sun is shining today. I walked two hours in Nuuksio, southwest of lake Suolikas. In open places the snow had frozen so that it carried a person walking.
It is evident that a mentally ill person is playing the President of the United States. The last weeks have been a roller-coaster of mistakes, and the stakes are getting so high that anything can happen. Eight years of Obama were safe and sound leadership, but now there is nobody in charge with a full deck.
(Posting title is from the song Sun Is Shining by Axwell Λ Ingrosso.)
The photographs were taken on February 12th while visiting Timmermalmi nature protection area.
(Posting title is from the poem At the Grave of My Guardian Angel: St. Louis Cemetery, New Orleans by Larry Levis.)
The photographs were taken on February 11th at Oittaa.
Do I dare to read the news to see what grasping and grabbing the baby-carrot fingers have managed to perpetrate since I last checked?
(Posting title is from the poem Harlan County by Kate Buckley.)
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