Audiofile #2

I'll try giving this a whirl again. In keeping with the last post, here's a track mandating easy-goingness - about getting away from the city to take it easy and find yourself. The lyrics are in Irish, but a translations is available from the band's website.















Tóg é go bóg é - [take it softly/easy]
by Kíla.

The file is in the .ogg format, which Winamp should play no problem - a comprehensive list of .ogg playing software is over at Vorbis.com

*Edit*
Um, yeah, there should actually be tracks at the end of the links now...

Juhannus

06242006133
Originally uploaded by delta_avi_delta.

In Finland "the dream" is a nice house in Espoo, and a nice summer cottage by the sea, or by a lake to disappear to, and perhaps a boat. Once you have this, you have life licked. More is considered gross excess.

This weekend was "Juhannus" or "Midsummer's" - when there's a mass exodus to these cottages. I hadn't understood the appeal before. I'm a country boy, the countryside is kind of "normal" to me, and cities are exciting. Swimming at 2am in the calm quiet sea, under a dark blue sky with one winking star bright enough to be visible, between bouts of sauna, it became very, very self evident.

Swimming

I was realtively ancient when I first learned to swim. A certain german friend seems to have deduced from polling that a large percentage of Irish adults don't know how to swim. I attribute this to ball shrinking sea temperatures, equally reductive dangerous lakes, and a pitiful lack of public swimming pools, or school-initiated classes.

In consequence, most haven't learned to swim by the time their natural instincts have been replaced by aquaphobia, myself included. I think I was 12 when I went to lessons for the first time, and freaked out entirely, ending up in the very shallow kiddy pool with a bunch of leaky toddlers. I moved soon after, to the classes of the indoubtable Mrs Smith, who lived in an old English country house close to my home, replete with indoor swimming pool. A 9ft deep swimming pool (around 3 metres). When you can't swim, 9ft goes down to Davey Jones' locker. Nessy could have lurked down there.

Her method was old school, and bullshit-free: swim over once or twice with water-wings to get some confidence, then - on the first lesson mind - she forceably removed the floats, and commanded you to swim a width of the pool, then screamed at you till you got across. Many didn't survive the abject terror of the first lesson.

I'll never forget that feeling the first time, letting go of the rope, letting go of solidity, and pushing out into "the void" - it felt dizzying, like falling, looking down from what seemed to be on high. It was all brought back to me with astounding clarity this Sunday, when I took my first tandem parachute jump - from 4000m. I've been trying to describe the experience ever since, from the shocking sight of people exiting the door and just *plummeting*, to the mind-warping experience of following them, to the bizarre relative calm after the shute opens.

And that metaphor is the best I can do. It's like the first time you venture out into deep water, before you know how to swim. Except, y'know, wow.

2.5 kilometres in 50 seconds' freefall.
50 metres per second.
180 kilometres per hour.
I highly recommend it

www.laskuvarjokerho.com

technorati tags: Helsinki, skydive, parachute, Finland

Bubble

I've had to work from home recently, on something that turned out (as usual) to be slightly more tricky than I'd anticipated, so what I'd estimated would take one afternoon took two. And the morning in between.

It was great fun, there's something about analysing network packets I find very entertaining. Computers are awfully polite things, they let everyone around them know if they have something useful, other computers who shout out questions generally get an appropriate answer, and then there's "handshaking":

"are you well?"
"quite well thank you, and you?"
"marvellous, marvellous, let's proceed!"*

*may not be representative of actual TCP/IP handshaking

Marvellously gentlemanly. However, they can be a little unaccommodating - you have to be damn sure to ask *exactly* the right question, or they'll just shake their heads in complete confusion.

So I've pretty much been in my room for the last 48 hours, with occassional, furtive sorties into The Out to for the essentials - food, bathroom breaks, cappucinos from that wonderful café down the road. Yes, it's essential.

Now I'm leaving my little bubble to go climbing, and re-learn how to interact with people.