Chicken in hell ... hell by Weber

Every coal griller's must have:

US economy collapsing in 5-10y?

The amazing speed and depth of increasing federal US dept has been mind boggling... Marc Faber says US will collapse in 5-10y. Sort of what make sense but I think not ( not that it matters). The US military only with it's huge development efforts will keep US in the front of all key technological developments. Not to mention that eventually it all comes to physical power... which is layer 1 force, whereas economy is layer 1andahalf force. Or, is it that economy is overtaking military power as key survival factor even in the nuclear age?

Two new (2 me) brilliant beers...

Torpedo from my favority Sierra Nevada and GREAT new (?) beer from Helsinki - Stadin Panimo's Spalt Pilsner... hmmmm

Fin...ito

I magically managed to find a rock again (in what I considered to be in open waters)... planing 98kg hitting a rock even with the tip of the fin _will_ explode the fin - even the screw got pretty twisted. The tail of the Tebou is tough luckily! Hail Tabou ;o)

Fishing nets ... I wish somebody would have told us

For years and years and years (I guess about 35y?) we had basically the same set of fishing nets... and got very little fish from Alvajärvi. Well, Eku had heard from one of his friends that you should really renew the nets quite frequently - he did... and as a result we got really nice amounts of big siika, kuha and ahven. Maybe I should not only start reading manuals of new electronics but also guidebooks of different hobbies?

Collapse....

I have been reading Jared Diamond's "Collapse - how societies choose to fail or succeed" (Thanks Marja!)... fantastically interesting and fascinating book considering the depressive subject (and basically scientific approach). I started reading it during the Thessaloniki week - nice light holiday reading ;o). Many things look now "slightly" different. Approach to Helsinki makes you think how well we in Finland might be positioned in the changing world - our soil is in great shape, there's lot of it, no big sources of pollution, amazing amounts of water everywhere... and we have culture of taking care of our forests (which we have shitloads of). Comforting, as long as the Gulf stream keeps moving and the ice away from us ;o)


Btw, this particularly I did not find very "intelligent" way of advertising new bikes for children... pretty discusting:



Money ("Arvon mitta ja vaihdonväline" as Robotti Ruttunen from Rölli Peikko so well it put) has taken too often over the common sense in the world which after all has limited resources ... The people in Easter Island just kept building bigger statues when the collapsing of their environment was speeding up... we repeat the pattern?

Peer valuations... http://www.surfkeppler.de/ part II

Over the few years that I've been writing this blog, I have also been (ir)regularly paying attention what brings visitors here... One of the top "topics/words" has been the writing about my first order from Surf Keppler http://www.surfkeppler.de/(which was a success). I believe it values quite a bit (more than eBay ratings?) when some nobody from somewhere writes without any "ROI" that he got what he ordered in good shape and in time (especially when the process requires a rather large advance payment with no real guarantee of delivery) - it's just sort of convincing to hear that it worked for somebody.
Well and update for those who end up here looking for http://www.surfkeppler.de/ peer valuation... I did another order this summer (a new NS Silver mast, new NS boom, F2 stoke board, boardbag, North Power-XT 42 extension, extra fin, mastfoot, ...). All started well and the price was really great. It was so great that I actually double checked it over the email. I got confirmed that yep that is the price, and that the shipping is free too. Great! However, when they were shipping the gear I got emailed that "uups the boom was not priced and they either need to charge more for the price of the boom (good price I have to admit) or the cancel the shipment and return the money."
Well I paid more.
Shipment arrived fast. The gear was in perfect shape again except mast foot was missing (and to be honest the NS Power XT extension had few rather large scratches and does not really work as well as my earlier one (this one does not derig decently)). Missing mastfoot came fast over the email straight to the summer cottage.
So overall pretty good still...
First 2006 shipment: 10
Second 2009 shipment: 8.5

... and I will most likely buy again from them, but have to pay attention a bit more to deal making.

Lack of website findeability is a bummer ... www.stonero.com

I had wonderful week in Thessaloniki. During the week I watched people freeriding in the bay, and of course tried really hard to find rental windsurfing gear... with no luck. Google was helpless with the Greek windsurfing sites - all the search combinations just did not come up with anything readable.
Thanks to very helpful skateboard shop owner I managed to find out finally one store's exact name. The owner Thomas was very helpful after I got into contact with him. Unfortunately the weather was not as helpful ... but anyway if you plan to go the Thessaloniki and windsurf there, go to www.stonero.com (you won't find it by Google). Phone to store is 2310 901999.
The place where they most often windsurf and kitesurf is (as far as I understood) here 40.475093,22.824955 in Googlemaps. Hope this helps you who look for "Thessalonki windsurf rental" with no luck.
Btw, I was told not to windsurf in the bay in heavy winds since the waves are pushing lot of garbage is floating from the city shore and the is quite a risk for catapulting...