My Next Cake...

Beautiful idea.  Blueberries as the blue cross...

Sausage! Makkara!

A girl asked me what makkara was.  I told her it was a sausage.  She asked what meat was in a sausage.  I told her sausage-y goodness.  What animal?  A magic animal.  I think it's chicken and pork.

Horse Shoe Throw

I am not playing, but apparently Finns like throwing shoes just as much as Americans. Who'd have thunk?

Tesla!

I think this might be the highlight of the trip...

Vocab Practice

I recently learned the words for bouncer, rascal, and shut your pie hole.  I intend to use them all tonight.

Enough Booze?

Probably not for the Finns.

Finnish Festivities of Fun

This weekend I'll be at Juhannus festivities in Sonoma.  I'll be live blogging all the action.

Egg Man is Adorable

So, I think this blog is quickly becoming a log of my youtube viewing of Finnish comedy videos, but this makes me laugh and giggle.  Riku Nieminen is a very hilarious Finnish sketch actor and plays the egg man.  If you don't speak Finnish but think funny voices are adorable, please enjoy.  Otherwise please feel free to skip.

Me vs Sam Brannan Park Volleyball Court

So this Thursday, in preparation for the work picnic, I will be raking up cat poop, used drug needles, and crack pipes so our offices can play volleyball against each other.  My sister told me to get good gloves, which I will.

What Not To Do on a Date

Last Saturday, I went on a first date with a girl who, as it turns out, is my college roommate's cousin(ish) and whose father sold my father life insurance.  Small world!
So, we went to the zoo and saw some pretty awesome animals.  I enjoyed the tiger exhibit and the chimpanzees.  On the way to drop her off, which took like forty minutes, I started feeling really sick, like eating rotten meat sick, which made the good-bye scene really awkward.  I basically said ok good-bye and hugged.  No let's do this again or I had a fun time.  I was so sick I had to just get out of there as soon as possible.  So I slept the next day and a half (not straight) and called her back to apologize.  She's a great girl, but based on her not calling me back, I think it was a Chad-fail.  Oh well.  At least I got this picture of me and this tiger.

Alaaf!

This past February I went to a German party that is toned-down version of Mardi Gras.  I might some nice German people, ate delicious German food, and danced a little with some sexy Fräulein.  Overall a good time and something I'd love to do next year.
Here are some pictures from the event that you might enjoy.  The average age of the room was over 60, which is sad because the kids don't like the traditions, which are awesome.  So if you meet any Germans in February, give them a good Alaaf! for me.

It's a Bird. It's a Plane. It's Seppo Ilmarinen!

This past March I was in a reader's theater production of the Kalevala, Finland's national epic.  I played the blacksmith Seppo, who defeated Väinämöinen.  Don't I look fearsome?

It's not Dog Poop. It's Mämmi!

For Easter, I made this delicious Finnish treat.  It's made of rye, molasses, orange peel, water, and salt.  You'll like it best with lots of sugar and cream.

Best. Grafitti. Ever.

This was near my sister's place in Fres-yes.  But the man took it down.

Devil Dogs Come in Cute Packages

My parents' dog Ginger.  So cute, yet so vicious.

Pranks 2

So, I'm bored at church and have to free up room on my phone's memory.  Here's another prank that my office and my co-workers and I threw together.  To welcome our boss, we filled seventy two balloons and used streamers to "trash" his cubicle.  These are the results (below).  I won't be pulling any more pranks at work for a while, at least nothing physical.

Pranks

So I've had a few good prank ideas lately at work.  I believe I blogged about the first prank, but I thought I'd tell you about the second prank. Unfortunately this will give you insight into my twisted mind.
So, we have a weird thing about a planner from HQ at work.  We paste pictures of him in people's cubicles and such.  You know, a good bit of bizarre humor.  In any case, I thought, jeez, it would be funny to multiply that by five hundred and put that picture in miniature in my boss's cubicle.
So, after some discussion with my co-workers, we decided to take a picture of my boss and put miniature pictures of him in his cubicle.  After some team effort, we came up with the scene below.  I think it was worth the hours of yelling and threats of firing.

Love is in the (Nordic) Air

Below is a picture of all the Nordic Prime Ministers, with Finland's Jyrki Katainen in the middle.  From left, there are the prime ministers of Iceland, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, and Norway.

But look at Mr. Katainen in the middle.  He's looking at someone with a smile on his face.  I'm speaking about you, Danish Prime Minister Ms Thorning-Schmidt.
But it looks like Mr. Katainen has some fierce competition.  Here's Norway's Stoltenberg in his modeling days:

Norway knows what it wants in a Prime Minister!

And for you Finnish speakers out there, here's an awesome video:

Hidden Message?

Jilted lover, or fashionable woman who either hates trees or needs a convenient place to put her high heel.  What do you think?

Just Dance!

I like it when my Canadian electrofunk duos only use analog synthasizers.  Enjoy the following Chromeo video if you dare.

Also, I think you might freak out over the following roller skating video.  I get dizzy just thinking about it.

Run for Your Life!

One day when I was a missionary in Finland, I went from door to door in the beautiful town of Nastola, just to the east of Lahti where I was working.  You may not know this, but in Finland you often enter a house from the backyard.  Observe the picture below:

One day, I went up to this one house.  The people at the house were enjoying the nice summer weather and drinking a 40 of liquor.  The man there said: "What's up guys?" and we replied "The usual".  I'd never met these people before.
With him at the table were two women who faces looked as if they'd been drinking and smoking (in confined spaces) for the past forty years.  One of them springs up, makes herself "presentable" (complies with legal standards of decency) and slaps the other woman palm-down in the face, yelling "I've got dibs!"
At this point my companion and I realize "Oh man, these women are crazy and are going after us!"  We both started running for our lives as they chased after us, shouting: "Come here, boys, come here boys" while shaking themselves suggestively.
Fortunately, they were in such poor health that they never got closer than thirty feet to us.  And we probably could have fended them off.  But the sight of the women shaking at me suggestively will remain with me forever, burned into my memory.

Fremdschämen Part II

So, in an effort to ruin any future chance I have of becoming a politician or noted public figure, I thought I'd continue my series on embarrassing things that I have done/have happened to me.  This installment takes me to the halcyon days of middle school...
I went to middle school in Fresno, where the District, in its infinite wisdom, made every middle schooler wear uniforms.  So, one day in March I was in the library before school, reading a Mary Higgins Clark mystery (yes, even then I had the reading tastes of a 60-year-old housewife) and rocking the polo/shorts combo.  The chair was a somewhat worn, decrepit wicker chair that had wood poking my butt.
Time for class came, and I went to computers and algebra.  I put my backpack in the locker in preparation for PE.  I walked down the hall, thinking I owned the place.
Then I heard laughing behind me.
And more laughing.
Like 30 or so people laughing at me.
A dude came up to me and said: "Hey Chad, your pants have a massive hole in the butt!  They can see your tighty whiteys."  So I did the smartest thing I could think of and ran down the hall with my hands covering my butt.  Unsuccessfully, of course. I think it just served to draw more attention to me.
I ran into an empty classroom (a sub was there watching things) and grabbed a sweater to cover my massive hole.  I then had to go to the office to get a replacement pair of shorts for the day.
What did I learn? Nothing other than to avoid ratty old wicker chairs as they might just ruin my day.
Was this tragic?  Yes, it probably scarred me for life.