Tomorrow I’ll leave to London for a couple of days with my family. The programme includes a few meetings, shopping, good food, and hopefully also a lot of sleep — the latter has been in a short supply during this week.

We have two full days to spent there, so the plans are really low-key. One day for shopping, and then visit to London Transport Museum. Probably this is as much as (or even more than) the boys can cope with. Fortunately, they are eagerly waiting for visit to Hamleys.

I’ve been a happy Mac user for more than three years now. During that time, there has been seldom any issues with the computers, and compared to the Windows experience, using computers has been a bliss.

Until yesterday evening. When I woke up my MacBook Air from sleep, it was extremely slow, like it was running in 10% of the power available. Finally, I had to do a hard boot on the laptop. It was still slow, so I had to boot it again with the power button. Then it got itself in order and was its responsive self.

This kind of incidents, of course, make me worrysome for the data. I’ve been backing up my laptop with Time Machine, and I plugged in the portable hard drive as soon as possible. The backup took ages. I finally left the computer to do its magic and went to sleep. Only to find out that the backup had failed.

I’ve continued my sage today, running Time Machine almost constantly — it is still running, and it is almost midnight. The computer slows down now and then, but the backup seems not to go anywhere. And being an Apple OS, there is not that much of helpful information on the Time Machine dialogs. It is either “preparing backup”, “backing up” or failed.

I need to dig up some more data, and try to pinpoint the failure. Until then, I probably left the system to run the backup every night until the problem is found, or the backup succeeds.

The art museum Ateneum has been hosting a big Picasso exhibition for a while, and last weekend we got a spark (from a friend) to visit the show. Today was the day. After gently waking Niilo up from his nap, we got everyone dressed, out of the door, and to Helsinki city center.

Ateneum enjoys an excellent location in Helsinki, next to the central railway station, and thus it is easily accessible from all directions. They was a queue already outside — something that rarely happens in Finnish museums — and it took about fifteen minutes to get in and pay the fare. We met our friends while queuing, and their presence probably toned the boys down a bit; Aapo is not that fond of strange people…

The exhibition was crowded, too, but fortunately not overly so and you could enjoy the works. I was walking with Niilo and his stroller while Sanna took good care of Aapo. Our friends enjoyed much bigger freedom of movement, as we were only ones that have kids. That said, boys behaved really well, and Aapo showed some interest in the works, too. Niilo was just happy to sit in the stroller or climb on the chairs.

The works of art are from Paris — the museum there is being renovated and the collection is loaned to other museums during that time — and it was a good retrospective throughout Picasso’s career. There were numerous paintings for all his artistic eras, and a good amount of sculptures, too.

We visited also a café on the third floor, and then the boys vent off their steam by running and fightning. Nothing major, but Sanna decided to take them to a walk — that ended into a playarea built in the museum. The rest of the museum tour consisted of Finnish modernists and some more traditional Finnish art.

If you are visiting (or living in) Helsinki, do pop over to Ateneum while the works of Picasso are there.

My younger sister’s and our families have a mutually beneficial agreement that the boys spend one night every other month with their cousins. This month it was Aapo’s and Niilo’s turn to go to Järvenpää, to meet Onni, Eino, and the rest of the family there. I drove them to Järvenpää yesterday after lunch, and Sanna picked them up today, again after lunch.

For me and Sanna, this was a hassle-free weekend. We spent it by going from shop to shop in Helsinki downtown. Stockmann was having crazy days, so we ended up buying some stuff there, and then generally just store-hopped. Nobody got tired or cranky, and there was enough time to browse through the whole selection, and not just some parts before rushing to hush someone.

We paid a visit to an excellent sushi restaurant (Umeshu) in Töölö, and spent the night watching 2001 A Space Odyssey from DVD. This morning we could wake up whenever we felt so, and read the morning newspaper without interruptions. I could even code a little while Sanna was driving to and fro.

The weekend was nice, but it was also pleasant to spend time with the children. While Sanna and Aapo were watching movies — Up — I and Niilo cooked a magnificent dinner: duck, potatoes sauteed in duck grease, carrots cooked in butter, and peppermint chocolate fondant. It was surprisingly easy to cook while Niilo was toying around the kitchen. Although besides cooking I had to build a Brio train track, and help Niilo out countless times with the trains that didn’t stay on the tracks.

And being able to update Nomadig.com was sort of icing on the cake… If money would buy more of these weekends, I would not hesitate to spend it.

We have returned a couple of hours ago from Tallinn, and I’m enjoying a surprise slot to update Nomadig. Usually I have no way of writing here when the boys are awake, but now Aapo is busy with his Lego pirates set, and Niilo is helping Sanna downstairs.

Anyhow, the trip was good. The hotel was excellent, review can be found in earlier entries or from the reviews section, and we enjoyed most of our time. Having children with you adds more hassle to the trip, and there were some black moments — especially when children or adults were tired.

I went to buy a new pair of shoes, but we didn’t find any. Instead, Aapo got white Adidas sneakers that he is really proud of. Boys got also two boxes of Legos, pirate castle (as already briefly mentioned) to Aapo, and new Duplo roadster with detachable tyres.

We’ve arrived yesterday to Polvijärvi to celebrate midsummer within Kalliola extended family — including my parents, our family and my sister’s family. Total ten people.

Currently, the weather is not favouring us. It has been raining since last night and there is no sight of change in the near future. Thus, I and Sanna have been working while children are playing with their grandmom.

I do hope that raining would cease soonish, so we could go to the cottage, have a sauna and go to dip in the lake. The water temperature of North Carelian lakes are above the average currently, so dipping might not be that icy cold — only about 15-17C…

After long discussions between my and Sanna, we’ve finally reserved a trip to California on end of April and beginning of May. I’ve been in need of visiting a certain business contacts there for half a year, so it is a good time to go there.

The flight tickets are pretty cheap now — we got an excellent deal from KLM to San Francisco and Los Angeles. We’ll fly to San Francisco, spend a few nights there and in Silicon Valley area, coupled with a trip or two to East Bay. Then we’ll drive to Los Angeles, and finally to San Diego.

The return flight leaves from Los Angeles, so we can skip driving back north. In fact, it was cheaper to fly this way instead of returning from San Francisco. Flight ticketing has mysterious ways… But this time, I don’t complain.

The whole family comes with me, and the trip has been carefully planned to keep boys active and satisfied while allowing me and Sanna to conduct business of our own, too. Hopefully it rolls out as we’ve been figuring it out.

We spent last weekend in Tahko in eastern Finland. I’ve been unable to write about it earlier due to work pressure, but finally there is some time to share the experiences before dozing off.

Tahko is a big ski resort near Kuopio, about 450 kilometers away from Helsinki. It is the biggest in southern Finland, especially with regards to services and accommodation.

We got a good deal from Spa Suites (see separate review), three nights’ accommodation in two bedroom suite with less than 250€. The only catch was that we had to participate in two hour weekly shares’ sales meeting. The sales guy was really relaxed and somehow the whole thing was way cozier than the usual weekly shares’ sales events. We haven’t made our minds yet.

Anyhow, we packed our stuff to the car and headed towards north on Thursday. The trip took about six hours, and boy were we tired. The boys dozed off pretty fast, and I could focus on some work items that needed my attention. The suite was equipped well, and there was a good Internet connection among other things.

Friday morning, we attended the sales pitch; the boys were ushered into play area and supervised by a nanny provided by the sales organisation. Nice touch! After the sales, I run some errands in Kuopio and Sanna spent time with a sled and Aapo.

After I got back, my parents joined us and stayed for one night in the extra bed. We visited also a friend of mine back from the university. Haven’t seen him for more than five years, so it was a good time to have a reunion.

Saturday was a cold day, -23C or so in the morning. We went to the spa, and soaked ourselves until lunch. Then it was time for boys to have a nap and my parents to drive back to Polvijärvi. Sanna’s brothers and their families joined us in the evening to celebrate Niilo’s first birthday — yeah, it has been a year already. Time flies.

On Sunday, Aapo and Sanna tried skiing with moderate success. Then I and Niilo joined them for a short sled session. Then it was already time to move on, eat some pizza for lunch and pack the car. Driving back to Espoo took six hours, and I felt once again drained. I deftly continued to work on an offer that I submitted on early Monday morning…

The trip was excellent in that sense that it moved our focus away from the daily grind, and the accommodation was luxurious enough to be really enjoyable — especially the sauna with always hot stove was splendid; it heated up in five minutes. Luxury!

We didn’t catch that much of snow time that we expected, and at the end the boys didn’t see much difference between Tahko and the hill next to our house. Maybe that will change in the next five years or so, and then we will go again…