Khrys weblog

I was to talk about the islands of Suomenlinna, with references to history, and precise description of the place, but I realized that Wikipedia does it much better than me :)
Instead, I’ll post a few pictures, and confirm that this is quite a popular place, even for Finns. The place is ideal for a picnic and/or a nice walk, when the weather is good.

You can get there with the bus-boat from the Helsinki market place Kauppatori with the same kind of ticket you would take a bus, which is good if you want to leave your car at home.
This is a view of Helsinki (and Kauppatori in the middle) from the bus-boat:

And here’s a view of the first island of Suomenlinna:

The gates already gives you somewhere interesting to visit, but pictures were not good. Once you pass the gates, you end up in a plaza where a monument recalls of the founder of the place:

After the plaza (where you also find a navy museum), you get more into the island, and discover how strong the fortress has been. These hills are to keep ammo and equipment, but on the second and third picture you can notice one of those massive guns that are still aimed towards the sea:
  

Along the coast, on the more remote side of the island, you may find some different walls and smaller guns, from another period:
  

You’ll find some interesting Vauban-styled walls:

It is also on Suomenlinna that you’ll find the still only submarine of the Finnish navy:

While walking back to the first island, you can get nice pictures too:

And here is the church. Note the guns and the Finnish symbol atop one of them (the lion, armed with a straight sword, walking on the curved one):

Lidingöloppet is an event that lasts 3 days and groups a few races for runners of all ages. It is located in Stockholm, Sweden. It is a very popular event and was announced to be the biggest event of this kind in the world, with around 30,000 runners. The highlight is the 30Km race that happened yesterday (Sat 29th). This is not your typical jogging: the track is almost never flat, uphills and downhills are steep, very steep … and since it was raining and the track is mostly going through the forest, it was very muddy !
I got tricked into it by a Swede friend of mine against whom I’m gonna have to device a revenge :) just kidding (or not)
It was definitely much harder than I thought. I both was over-confident and underestimated the race. As a result, my training was not even close to being enough, and I started way too fast … and worse of all, my friend finished it before me and is gonna talk about it for years to come :)

To start with, we barely made it to the starting line, as the queue to get our number+chip was so long, and the office located 2km from the starting line. We had to run quite fast to get there, and reached the behind of the group just when the start signal was heard. After that, I wouldn’t see my friend until the finish line.
Since we were behind the pack, it was impossible to run at my pace, so I decided to pass from the left, even if that meant going very fast for 15 seconds to pass a group, slowing down behind another one because the track tightens, repeating the operation a million times. That also meant never really running at my pace anyway, but i thought it was better option.
Around the 10th Km, I was still ok, even though uphills already took a toll on me, and I was still optimistic. I was also ahead of my friend. I also realized I just missed the water point. 2Km later, I realised that I was already walking for all the uphills, but since almost everybody seemed to do the same, I thought it’d be ok. Somewhere around the 15th my friend passed me, but we didn’t notice each other.
A bit before the 20th, a very painful cramp forced me to stop by the side. it took me several minute to recover and I had to go on walking. Every time I tried to run for 100m, I’d need to stop for 2 or 3 min :( Situation didn’t get better, as my legs grew tired of walking, getting more painful in each uphill/downhill.
You can’t imagine what a relief it is to see the finish line just 200m ahead of you. I’m of the stubborn kind, but still there is always a moment when you ask yourself if you are really gonna make it. Seeing this line is like seeing the doors of heaven when you have been condemned to crawl in hell for 30Km … And passing it, is both bringing so much joy (that you cannot show much because you’re totally cramped, and cannot talk much) and so much pain as your muscles get colder.

I’m happy and proud I finished it … but there is lot of room for improvement, and if my friend manages to trick me into it next year, I’m really gonna have to train seriously !
The race itself is quite nice, otherwise: running in the forest means softer surface to run on (roads make my knee hurt like hell after a few Km). Occasional part out of it show nice fields, cute houses, well-maintained gardens and beautiful seascapes. I believe that going to this island in the summer must be an excellent idea if you like walking, picnic, and of course running/training for the Lidingöloppet !

Un petit en Francais, il y avait longtemps.

D’habitude j’aime pas les chain-posts, qui, comme les chain-mails, sont en general indesirables et/ou stupides. Mais bon, celui la m’a amene a reflechir plus de 3 secondes, et comme c’est Alex qui m’a invite a prendre la suite, je ferai exception.

Raison 1: j’avais deja un site, mais un blog est bien plus vivant, interactif. Je peux maintenant publier mes humeurs et parfois avoir un debat sur une question. J’adore les debats :) meme si je sais que j’ai tort, je tenterai d’argumenter juste pour le plaisir.

Raison 2: source d’infos a partager, le blog c’est aussi un bon moyen de faire connaitre aux autres ses propres experiences, de sorte qu’une simple recherche sur Google votre moteur de recherche prefere vous permette de trouver ce que les autres ont cherche avant vous. Comme disait Alex :”pourquoi reinventer la roue ?”. Il y a toujours quelqu’un qui a eu le meme probleme que vous avant. Donc il y a sans doute quelqu’un qui en parle sur le web. Comme j’utilise souvent ce genre de choses, j’estime devoir en retour partager ce que je decouvre. Ca servira sans doute a quelqu’un d’autre. C’est d’autant plus facile que sur le web, je peut mettre des photos pour illustrer.

Raison 3: donner des nouvelles une fois de temps en temps. Comme je n’habite pas pres de ma famille, et que beaucoup de mes amis vivent egalement dans d’autres pays, c’est difficile de garder contact (et je suis trop faineant pour ecrire des emails a tout le monde). Alors je donne rendez-vous ici, c’est plus facile.

Raison 4: c’est un bon moyen aussi pour m’auto-analyser. Ca a l’air stupide, mais je veux pouvoir me relire dans quelques annees, et apprecier le changement eventuel d’opinion.

Raison 5: ceci concerne principalement les voyages. Lorsque je souhaite avoir des infos a propos d’une nouvelle destination, je trouve surtout les donnees habituelles : superficie, population, histoire, un peu de culture, etc. C’est en revanche plus difficile de trouver des approches plus personnelles. Ce que les visiteurs ressentent a propos d’un groupe de gens, etc. Parce que sur votre site, vous mettez ce que vous voulez, que les gens concernes apprecient ou pas. Je ne me ferai pas mon opinion rien qu’en lisant 2 ou 3 sites de ce genre, mais ca donne une idee. Ca peut aussi evitez des faux-pas. Par exemple, il est utile de savoir que des gestes ou attitudes qui vous paraissent naturels sont consideres impolis dans cet endroit que vous souhaitez visiter. On ne trouve pas ca sur Wikipedia, si vous voyez ce que je veux dire (en tout cas pas sur la fiche du pays en question).

Voila, je peux a present passer la parole … Voyons voir …
Yarrow
ekkooo

Bon ca ira. Pas besoin d’embeter plus de gens que ca.

A bientot !

It’s been a while since I touched it last, but I felt sort of motivated lately.
The goal was to make a script that scans through the hits I get, and get the crawlers, spider, etc. automatically (so far, I was doing that by hand), and add those bots to the “unwanted” list I had.
I just finished it, and it added quite a few of those :) but the changes in the stats were quite small, so I guess those newly identified ones didn’t come that often.

I have another idea of improvement for the future : right now, it is so that each user has its own list for bots, spam, own hits. This would change towards a user specified list only for own hits, and I’d keep spam and bots in a different central list. I feel silly I didn’t think of it earlier :-/ Late is better than never :)

If you need a webcounter for your site, please try this one, and give me your feedback !

It’s been a while I haven’t posted … All apologies ! a lot of work and even more laziness and lack of motivation lately are my excuses :-/ Don’t worry, I’m preparing a few articles.

I was at a concert tonight in Helsinki, a charity kind of concert called “Elämä Lapselle”, for an organization called Kummit. This organization helps kid in hospitals. You usually find one of those money collection boxes at the till in Finnish supermarkets. This concert happens once a year, if I got it right, and is shown on TV.
This year, my girlfriend got some tickets from her work (they sponsor the event) so we went in the famous ice hockey “Hartwall Arena” to watch it. This Teddy bear is the mascot:

I must admit I didn’t know most of the bands, since all artists are Finnish, and moreover, the concert was targeting a younger audience. But I recognized a few, since I heard their songs on the radio, and I even liked some songs, even though I don’t always get the lyrics. Songs were mainly in Finnish of course, but one or two were in German, and a few were in English.
One of those who actually impressed me was Ari Koivunen. The guy really had a voice (even if I think he should get a few years older to get the adequate voice for this), and had a good presence on the stage. You can see a video clip of his first single here. The most amazing of it, is that the guy got famous by winning the “Idols” competition … Probably the first time I can actually listen to an Idols’ song :) I remember some of the French or British winners and they s*cked so bad, I couldn’t possibly listen till the end. Well, I guess accidents happen :)

According to fans, this is the only “more commercial” song on his album, and the rest is even better. Maybe I’ll give it a try, but I’m usually not so fond of heavy metal. Have fun !