Velhola

Hyvää Joulua - God Jul - Merry Christmas

2011-12-15T01:42:00.000+02:00

Hello my readers,

Your lazy blogger is just as lazy as you could expect, so I make this entry as short as possible.

I only want to wish all of you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New year with this picture.

Your Lazy Blogger

Autumn

2011-11-05T22:24:00.000+02:00

Sadly summer is gone, we're way into the autumn, near it's end.
A weekend when both Velho & Velhotar are at home, so today we've beeen doing a lot of work in the garden and around the house before the winter comes with a suprise, with snow and cold weather.
While outside today, I also had my camera with me, and snapped a few photos, one attached.
Now we're waiting for next spring, two booked events, first "Sadoin sähkökitaroin" (a hundred electric guitars) at the Savoy theatre in Helsinki on march 3.

Later in the spring our Italian vacation, seeing friends and relatives in a bit warmer climate!

Your Lazy Blogger

The web is 20 years today

2011-08-07T02:01:00.001+03:00

As you all know I'm the lazy blogger, so to prove it I simply link the next news for all of you to read:-)

http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/06/the-internet-is-20-years-old-today/

Your lazy blogger

Two milleniums!

2011-07-26T01:47:00.000+03:00

According to the story, about two milleniums ago, a good guy was crusified because of his speachs about humanity and caereing about the people you're living with.
Last saturday we experienced the same, a person we all cared about was beeing buried with the nearest relatives present.
He was a good father for the children, but also a good father-in-law for the ones that married or otherwise stepped into the family.
We all miss "Lauri 'Lasse' Mäkelä" from the bottom of our hearts. Our wish is that he have reached a better place, and is thear waiting for us when our days are ending, if we only can live according to the same values that he did.

Your Lazy blogger.

Sad news

2011-07-13T23:05:00.000+03:00

Hi my readers,

Even if I'm the lazy blogger, I have to write this so soon after my last entry in my blog.
As I previously wrote, I was speaking at a family reunion, and attending my father-in-laws 80th birthday celebrations on july 3 2011.
Last weekend early on sunday morning we got the sad news that my father-in-law had passed away early in the morning july 10 2011. It's with great sadness I share this with you, he was a good human, a fine friend and a great carpenter, he always wanted the best for all living beeings, I simply miss him.
The ceremonies will be held within a week and a half with only family members and the closest friends present.
My father-in-laws 80th celebrations was held on july 3 because his daugther living in Italy had the possibilitie to be present at the celebrations. This still did not helped him to reach the real 80th birthday mark, he missed it by two weeks, but it doesn't really matter, hope he reached a better world.

Your Lazy blogger.

No vacation!

2011-06-28T01:52:00.000+03:00

Velhola manor age 211 years don't permits any vacations, there is always something to do to keep the manor up to date.
This year the north side of the roof is to be replaced, and also the warehouse on the north side. Pictures will be published after the job is done
Next weekend my father in law will be 80 years old, so the celebrations will be held in Ikaalinen with lots of friends and famlily members present.
The same weekend I will also be attending the reunion of the Wallin family in Karkku, making a speach about the Calamnius Family as the chairman of the family. The Wallins are one branch of our widespread family.
The next week I have a reunion with my Italian language group called "Il gruppo Pazzo", we have been studying Italian for over five years together, waiting for it! We're a really crazy group:-)
After that it's time for the "Talkoo". Talkoo means you have your friends and relatives over for helping you with a job, they get the food and beverage, and you get the job done with a little luck:-)
This time it's all about the roof job and the warehouse restauration. My brother said that he has ordered good weather for that weekend, but lets see the reality

Your Lazy blogger.

Vacation - Escape

2011-04-05T00:37:00.000+03:00

Hello my readers,

It's a long time since my last post, but I had to wait until I got my celebrations over :-)

We had a lovely vacation in the south of Hungary, the spring was at it's best, so what more can one ask for as a birthday present.
Ten days in good company, having good food and wine, visiting many beautyful places, some already seen, some new, in the country I love.
We spent three days in the south of Hungary, in the Pécs area and the wine-area south of Pécs. Then for the rest we seattled in Tihany the penisula in the Balaton lake. From there we made excursions to many places, and believe it or not, I went hiking a couple of times along trails around Tihany.

Well back in Finland now, and I wish to express my thank you's to all of you who have wished me congratulations on my 60th birthday, even if I escaped abroad for the time:-)

Your Lazy Blogger.

Hyvää Joulua - God Jul - Merry Christmas

2010-12-22T22:59:00.000+02:00

Your lazy blogger is back online,

Once again a year has come to its end, a year full of good things and also some sad things. Nothing for you readers to worry about.

Tomorrow morning I'll be heading north, driving to Ikaalinen to spend Christmas there with my inlaws, Leena has been there already for a few days helping out in the preparations for Christmas. We're staying only for the rest of the week, because next week is all work again for both of us.

Here is our Christmascard for all of you.

Your Lazy blogger

What a summer

2010-09-14T00:15:00.000+03:00

This summer there have been lots of things happening.
In mid june I spent 4 days in Rome, Italy, with 12 other italian language students, we simply had a great time, even if it was a bit warm for us from the nordic, days 34 degrees Celcius, nights hardly belowe 25. Did I mentioned all the great food we had during our stay.

Over here in the south of Finland we also had a very good summer, around 30 degrees for weeks, very litle rain.

Well everthing can't be good, in july we had thunderstorms that damaged most of my PC equipments, it took almost 4 weeks to fully recover, I did had backups:-), but installations and restoring from backups can take a lot of time.

At the end of july the next epidemy hitted, many of my customers my self included was hitted by a malware attack on our web servers, the cleaning and checking of all internal computers at my customers sites and also at my office took about 2 weeks, no bigger harm done.

Despite those negative things, there has also beeen positive things happening, for example here at Velhola I got our new terrass built, the old one was removed last summer when we did the roof job.

We testdrived the new one in the end of august with our closest neighbourghs, spending an evening having good food the Italian style (the shorter version of the menu).

The last weeks I've beeen busy painting the southside of our house, interrrupted now and then by some rainshowers.
Your Lazy Blogger

This week

2010-05-27T23:34:00.000+03:00

My fellows and readers,

this have been a real fast moving week, been visiting customers and upgrading their software, done some web page programming, visiting an old cemetery in Porvoo with a group of genealogists.
On the old cemetery in Porvoo you can find the grave of one of my ancestors Johan Holm, born 1789, better known as "Näse-Jutte". His wife Eva Amalia Krook is also buried in the same grave.
On saturday I will attend the spring seminar of the Finnish Genealogical Society's board as an member of the board. The older one gets, it seems that genealogy's becoming more and more important, knowing our ancestors and relatives is more and more important in our hectic world where the closest relatives lives far away from you.
Just came to my mind that the Armenian Eurovision Song Contest song is in some way very good (simply my taste), it could of course have something to do with the fact that some of my ancestors are originating from there centuries ago.
Now the focus is on our upcoming 60th anniversary Family Reunion of the Calamnius Family in july in Helsinki.
Life isn't real without less wanted news, recently I got a very sad message, one of my really good friends "Ismo" had passed away, I do miss him very much as do my partner also, on the other hand we feel very lucky that his children are also our very good friends, and we wish them strength in their sorrow. Velho and Velhotar will attend the ceremony in the beginning of june.

Your Lazy Blogger.

My Library.

2010-05-18T03:17:00.001+03:00

Walking in from my garden today, I had a short glimps on my library, a few walls filled with books. It hitted me that someone could analyze the person based on their library, so here are your analyzing material.

First it hitted me that I have nearly 40 books by Alexander Dumas, one of my favourite writer, one of his sons wifes have roots in Finland, surname Knorring..

Second, there is a lot of books about exrtaterrestial things, like books of von Däniken and others like Manning, Berlitz and Kampman. There is also pure Sience Fiction as Arthur C. Clarks’s books, and classics like Franz Kafka and George Orwells 1984.

You can also find the follow up on Alexander Dumas “The Count of Monte Cristo” called “Världens herre” ‘ The master of the World’ by Adolf Mützelburg from 1863, part I and II, both very good on continuing the story in the spirit of Alexander Dumas.

There can also be found over ten books by Övre Richter-Frich, a Norwigian writer making a adventure series about a guy called Jonas Field from the later part of the 50’s

There is also books from the later parts of the 1800’s, like H Rider Haggard’s Ayshya and others by the same writer, very interesting books about the reinkarnation and the adventures about finding Ayshya that they already meet in a previuous life..

Then there is of course a few basic erotical books, like the ones by Marquise de Sade and the all famous Fanny Hill book.

There can also be found many classical books like Robert Louise Stevensons Threasure Island and other similar books.

All over this I have numerous books about history and familys that made the history, of course from my own point of view.

Your Lazy Blogger

2010-04-01T01:19:00.004+03:00

Hi all my fans ;-)

Velho has been attending a course in the Italian language for a few years now. Note! This doesn't garantie that I've learned anything.

Our group is unique, we have more fun than learning during the classes, alright, maybe we'we also have learned something during the years, but basically we could be desribed as a group of Italian lovers, especially the good food and the good wine from the different regions. Many of us are visiting Italia regulary, and have gotten friends in Italia, some also have relatives there.

This year our group have made a decission to visit Rome in june, everything is setup the flight tickets and the Hotel rooms are reserved, and our group members are waiting, waiting, waiting for the take off on june 11.
Our visit is 4 days, so we will have a full program to visit most of the historical sites, and still leave time to enjoy the good food and wine.

Our journey can be followed on the groups web pages we try to post something every day, mostly late in the afternoon before we head out for some good place to eat at.

Our Italian course will take a break for the summer starting in the middle of April, but the group itself will continue to meet up now and then also after that.

Just a week ago we suprised our teacher with an evening at an italian style resturant on her birthday, instead of trying to learn Italian gramatics :-)

Lorenzo d'Isola alias your lazy blogger

Calamnius Family Reunion

2010-02-25T02:37:00.002+02:00

Hi to all of you blog readers,

The 60th anniversary family reunion of the Calamnius family is slowly starting to come together. We have published our program for the days on our website at www.calamnus.fi , look at the memberletters page.
This meeting is special, because it's also a part of the 350th year of finnish genealogical research, in the year 1660 the bishop Tersereus, started his trip to Ostrobothnia. During this trip he started to notice the many releationships between the different social classes, mostly among the priests, and the merchandants. He got what we could describe as the flu of genealogical research, and he started to note down the releationships. These notes would a few hundred years later become the famous Genealogia Sursilliana, a basis for many genealogical researches in Finland.
The Genealogical Society of Finland is celebrating this as the start of genealogy in Finland with many events during the year. The main event has already occurred, but, the most waited for event will take place in Seinäjoki on sep 25 2010, in a so called Sursill Seminar.
The lazy blogger will be one of the speakers, but wait, this is not all, there will be new research information on the Sursill family that might change the old picture totally, at least that's what I've been told. So please show up at the seminar, to be among the first ones to be told about the latest research.

The Lazy Blogger.

Seven RIngettes Nurmijärvi

2010-02-25T02:24:00.002+02:00

First the excellent news from Canada,

The team where my wife's son's daughter plays ringette have won all plays so far, they became champions in Thetford Mines in Canada, against all odds, amazing...
The winnings seems to continue, I'll keep you posted as the tournament trip goes on.
Here is a picture from the Canadin tour.

2010-01-02T23:08:00.004+02:00

Well we're in the 2010 now,

Not much different from other Chrismases or New Years this year.

The Christmas day was spent at the in-laws place in Ikaalinen in central Finland. ON the second Christmas day most of the relatives gathered at the same place for a dinner, many came from the south and the south-west of Finland for the event.

Here is two photos of all that gatered up in Ikaalinen. On the first one Velhotar in front, on the second one Velho in front.

Little Christmas "Pikku Joulu"

2009-12-04T01:12:00.002+02:00

A few days ago, it was the first advent, and Velho went to a small party held by the Finland-Hungarian Association in Järvenpää.
This event is held once a year, the members coming together eating good food, chatting and having fun.
This year this party was arranged by our sister association the Russin-Finland Association, and we had the opportunity to taste some traditional russian foods, interesting combinations and tastes.

Velho had the opportunity to meet up with other friends of Hungary, that have aquirred their own cottage in the south of Hungary, in fact a small wineyard. We spent the whole evening speaking about Hungary. As all of you know, the plans for Velho and Velhotar is to find a small place down there in Hungary, where we can spend part of our pension days in a bit warmer climate than here at home.
As with all dreams, you have to have them for a long time to increase the possibility to get them fullfilled. Our dream started nearly ten years ago, so maybe it's our turn soon:-)

Your Lazy Blogger

2009-10-16T01:13:00.002+03:00

Hello everybody,

The Lazy Blogger is back;-)

The summer has gone by with lots of small restauration projects on Velhola Manor, the social life has been forgotten, the year is simply too short this year.
Now it's nearly winter, at least cold and bad weather outside, making me wonder, why am I still here up in the north of Europe, when I should be around 2000- 3000 km south?
The dream is to get a cottage somewere in the south of Hungary, or even in the south of Italy, a place where one can live a peaceful and easy life within a bit warmer climate during the upcoming pension days (a few years left, I'm not that old yet;-)).

The rest of the year is filled with different events and meetings, mostly concerning genealogy. The Finnish Genealogical Society have a few meetings every month, and I'm also attending meetings with the Calamnius family board, planning the upcoming 60th anniversary meeting next summer in Helsinki, more information on their website.
My hunt for information on the Holm familys incompleate branches also continues, some progression made this year, mostly on our Franck branch, but there are still a few other branches to take up to present time.

Well, what I'm trying to say, is that it has allways seemed that old people doesn't have time, they're allways busy with something. Now it seems that the same flu is catching me also, even if I'm not that old yet, or am I?

Your Lazy Blogger

2009-06-14T02:47:00.002+03:00

Ciao everyone,

The last few weeks, Velho has been participating on a "Talkoo" in Lepsämä, in the south of Finland. The enntrance, kitchen and the living room is going through a main restauration, today we've finally started to see kind of how it will be when it's ready.
When Velho left the site, late in the evening, it began to rain and a heavy thunderstorm came up, the rain was so heavy that one could drive only about 50-60 km/h, anyway safe home.
This was the first thunderstorm this summer, hopefullty there's not to many of them.
The picture is from Velhola west wing. as it's now ready.

Your Lazy Blogger

2009-06-07T19:47:00.002+03:00

The Lazy blogger is back,

It's allmost midsummer, and much colder than it should be this time of the year, today we reached 12C, forecast for tomorrow is 15C. Hopefully it'll be warmer on midsummer.
This year most of the Velhos will spend the midsummer in the archipelago of Uusikaupunki on the westcoast of Finland.
Velho is planing for the upcoming roof job, yes our old roof will get a makeup, this year the south side, and next year the north side. Either the first or the second weekend in july, there is a so called "talkoo" at Velhola, when the roof restauration takes place, so lets hope for a weekend without rain.

Yours truly,

The Lazy Blogger.

Visiting the Porvoo Museum

2009-04-27T00:51:00.002+03:00

Dear readers,

On april 16 yours truly, Velho was visiting the Porvoo museum to have a look at their exhebition about what happend in 1809 when Finland and Sweden separated, and Finland became a Great Dutchy of Russia, which later was resulting in the independency of Finland.
The museum had an impressive collection of things and information on the event.

Today Velho also made some small updates to the Holms pages concerning our connection to the Calamnius family, these can be found on the descendants page of our family site.

Your lazy blogger

New chairman at www.bsbf.net

2009-03-28T20:23:00.002+02:00

As I wrote previously:

::>Borgånejdens Släkt- och Bygdeforskare rf. Since two years ago I've been the chairman of this ::>association, hoping to pass it over to someone new and fresh tomorrow, lets see...

I could retire from the chairman post, and we got a new chairman Ulli Gabrielsson on the 26th of march, I'm happy to pass over the Assiciation to her.

The Lazy Blogger.

2009-03-25T23:06:00.002+02:00

Hello all my readers,

I know your not many, because my lazyness to write more frequently, but anyway, here is the latest news.
I've been having genealogy as one of my hobbies for the last +-40 years. For the last eight years I've been a member of the Borgånejdens Släkt- och Bygdeforskare rf. Since two years ago I've been the chairman of this association, hoping to pass it over to someone new and fresh tomorrow, lets see...
Since the beginning of this year I am also involved in the Genealogical Society of Finland, as a deputy member of the board, and also as a member of the Work-Group and the IT Group. This gives me an more broad inside view of what's going on within the field in our country. I can see that there is a lot to do, to satisfy our members, but hopefully we can meet their exceptations, there is lots of work to do.
Adding to this, I'm also a special member of the Calamnius Family board since 2007. Now we're starting to plan for the upcoming Family reunion in 2010 when the Family Association celebrates its 60th anniversary. At the same time the Genealogical Society of Finland celebrates the 350th year of genealogical research in Finland.
All this ends up in lots of thinking, planning and acting to achive all goals for the year 2010 wich is special for both societies in many ways.
The national socities and the Calamnius socities main events will take place in the Helsinki area in the summer of 2010, stay tuned.

Your Lazy Blogger.

2009 started a while ago

2009-02-09T20:36:00.002+02:00

Hi fellow readers,

As all can see, I'm really the lazy blogger. We're already into february, and it's my first post this year.

It's vinter, dark and cold (cold means belowe +15 C for me), a good reason to stay inside and concentrate on genealogy.

During the last few weeks I've got a whole bunch of new members collected into the Holm family on the Franck branch, this wouldn't have been possible without the forum of the Genealogical Society in Finland.
I posted a query, and voilá, got answers, and hints where to continue searching. As a result I now have a few generations more on that branch, have a look at the descendants of Anna Maria Holm

Because of the winter time, I've also done some research on a possible vacation trip south to warm and sun. Nothing specific yet, but target is either the south of Hungary next september, or Sorrento in Italy. Let's see what I can come up with.

Lasse

2008-12-24T14:38:00.001+02:00

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all.

Middleage! or Old?

2008-12-22T02:04:00.003+02:00

Today I was watching the World Music Award on the TV, it's been a few years since I last saw the program.

I have to admire the artists for their perfomances, and talents.

But what's amazing me, is the change in how they classifie music today, compared to, about five decades ago. Can you imagine that just in the midle of the sixties R&B was synonymous to The Rolling Stones, and now the Worls Music Award in the same class goes to Alicia Keys??
Ok! I know that the world is changing, and faster that I can hang on with.

I remember when in the middle of the sixties, my favourite piece of music was the House of the Rising Sun with The Animales, later on this was to become one of the songs I collected, every version that I could find with any band in the world. The Animals was introduced into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1994. But it took fourteen more years before my favourite band was introduced, The Ventures, that made numerous different versions of that traditional masterpiece.

The theme of the song is marvelous, I can easily make an halfhour jamsession around the theme, and I often do with my old Hagstrom II guitar from the sixties, now even more often after the restoration of the guitar. I managed to find allmost all parts in orginal, last spring when I restuarated the guitar as near to orginal as possible.
The Hagstrom II guitar is absolutely the most easy and the fastest guitar to play, I have tried all the other big brands also.

I personally bought my Hagstrom II from the Hagstrom store in Stockholm, Sweden in 1971, and was informed that the one I bought was the last one of the production year 1965 that was on sale. Here is a picture before the restauration in 2008, 43 years after the production.

The Hagstrom Guitar has been reborn, but havn't had the opportunity to try one yet.

These are thoughts and memories from my lifetime and love to music.

Your Lazy Blogger wishes all of you,

a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Lasse

2008-10-24T02:55:00.003+03:00

Ciao everyone,

Velho and Velhotar har been attending am Italian wedding on the 18 octobre in Vico Equense in the south of Italy. Here is a link to a few pictures from the occation

VicoWedding

We also saw a lot of friends from both Finland an Italy at the wedding.

Waiting ...

2008-10-02T13:56:00.002+03:00

Hi everyone,

Here at Velhola it's starting to be autumn, the leaves are falling from the trees and it's raining.

Nevertheless, soon we are going on our vacation trip to Sorrento, Italy, where we hope to have a bit warmer and overall better weather. We will also attend an italian wedding, so maybe I'll post some pictures later from the wedding.

Nature Gallery updated

2008-08-20T00:11:00.002+03:00

Hi everyone,

I've just updated the Nature Gallery at www.velhola.com

The newest pic's are taken from a distance of more than 15 meters using the lately aquired camera Olympus SP-560 UZ, looks promising!

A more deep test of the capabilities of the camera will be performed in October when the Velhos and a bunch of other finns will visit Sorrento for a wedding, wait and see...

Lasse

Photographs

2008-07-01T01:15:00.001+03:00

Ciao tutti,

Velho has just updated his Gallerys at www.velhola.com so why don't you just have a look:-)

The lazy blogger.

Midsummer

2008-06-20T18:33:00.003+03:00

Ciao Readers,

It's midsummer over here in Finland, the sun is up allmost around the clock, and Velho and Velhotar have a babysitting phase, Velhotars sons dog is here while her son and family is visiting Greece for a two week holliday in Kefalonia.
Our traditional midsummer is postponed to August when all of our children can be present, so for now we're celebrating a different midsummer, only us and the brother of Velhotar in the middle of our renovation of our Sauna building, pictures of the result later, but here is one picture of the babysitting dog using my t-shirt from years ago:-)

Velho

2008-06-01T23:46:00.003+03:00

The weekend is over!
This weekend we've been visiting two graduation party's, one in Kankaanpää, and one in Närpiö, both can be located to the south of Ostrobothnia in Finland.
My notices about them is that pink is a major color for the moment, so instead of showing pictures of participents, I'll show a picture of an old tree all in pink, instead of showing all the ladys.
The tree is in an old willage called Karttu in the town of Ikaalinen at the place where my wifes parents have their house.
We have been visiting first the home of my wifes cousine, her dauhgter graduated from her school the day before. Next we visited my brothers residence in Närpiö to celebrate his sons graduation, present was nearly all of our main family branch, and a lot of other friends of the family. Sargon, the head of my sisters family took his role as the chief of staff and handled the serving and other things just as a butler would have done earlier in the 18'th century, a great Thank You to him for helping Susanna in this.
Sargons daughter, Nicole is also graduating later in june, but due to workreleated matters we aren't able to be present to celebrate her, so we will express our sincerly best wishes to her at her graduation day.

Lasse & Leena

Sis family visiting Velhola

2008-05-29T21:57:00.002+03:00

Today my sisters family from Sweden visited Velhola. We've last meet in Stockholm Sweden last september at my brothers wedding.
I took the whole family to visit the house of our ancestors in Porvoo, the house is now a days a museum telling the story how the Holm merchandant family lived in the 17'th century.
I could tell from what my sis told me that she would have picked a few or more furniture pieces with her if she would have could! I also believe that my nieces in the picture got a whole new picture of their ancestral heritage line.
After the museum visit I took my guests to an resturant in the Old Porvoo for a late lunch before we headed to Velhola for good finnish coffe and ice-cream with a glas of good Italian wine from the Puglian area.
My sis family continued to drive up to ostrobothnia to visit my younger brother, and be present when my brothers son Linus gets his graduation papers from school on friday 30.05.2008.
On saturday most of the main branch of the Holms will meet up to celebrate the event.

In the picture there is from left, Nicole, Michelle and Michelles boyfriend Kristian.

2008-05-08T22:40:00.010+03:00

Hi,

A short description of our stay in Malta.

On the arrival day and the following day we strolled around in Bugibba, the town where we had our accomodation. Because we visited a bit outside of the main tourist season, there was not so crowdy, and one could walk along the streets fairly undisturbed, observing buildings and nature, taking pictures without needing to wait that someone dissapears from our camera view:-)
On the 1th of May, we still stayed in Bugibba observing how the Maltesians celebrated, it was a whole lot different than in our home country, no big parades, no speeches, seemed that there was no difference compared to any other normal day. In the evening we went to the closest pub for a few beers, and found our selfs in an karaoke evening, where also one of our group member made a few performances receiving lots of applauses and a request to come back the next karaoke evening.
Over the next days we visited the capital of Malta, Valletta. We also visited the town of Mdina, called the silent town.
One day we took the local bus and drove to the north part of the main island, from there we hiked back to Bugibba. The trail went through the the sparse highland landscape of the north west part of Malta. At some point we took the bus for a few miles, and then again walked our way back to our town.
The last evening we went out for a good meal at one of the many restaurants found in the neighbourhood of our residence, after that we ended the evening by rejoining the karaoke gang at local pub with new performances of our singer.
In the morning of our last day at Malta we left Bugibba early in the morning with a taxi arranged by our host at Falcon Court, were we had been staying the whole week, the taxi took us to Malta International Airport for our flight to Bremen in Germany where we had to stay one night before we could fly back home.
In Bremen we had good luck with the weather, so we visited the old town for a few hours, before we went to our hotel sleeping a few hours before our early morning flight back to Finland, facing temperatures 10-15 degrees Celcius lower than we had in Malta.

Your Lazy Blogger.

2008-05-03T02:50:00.002+03:00

Hi, it's me again,
I've noticed an other thing on my holiday, the cars here in Malta is a mix of old and new ones, lots of brand and marks that we dont anymore see in our traffic, and lots of new models not so common in our country.
Beeing a fan of nordic cars, I've noticed that after for days in Malta I've seen only two Saabs and two Volvos, both around 5 to ten years old. The other thing noticed is that the buses (pullmans) are very old, but suprisingly working very good, for instance today we went on a few busstrips with those old ones, without any problems even if they are the age of the busses we had in the beginning of the 60's to the 70th's.

Lasse

2008-05-03T02:16:00.002+03:00

Hi, we're here at the Malteesian islands, the first thing that catches your eyes is the language, here is an example, english and malteesian about smoking.

I'll be back with more stories when I'm back home due to that our internet connection is a bit pour and breakes every now and then.

Lasse

Vacation!

2008-04-14T00:44:00.002+03:00

Velho and Velhotar is going on a short vacation to the Maltese Islands with a few friends of ours between 28/4 - 7/5 - 2008.
Our intension is to explore the islands and some of the historical anicent remains found on the islands.
We're hoping for good weather during our stay, we'we learned that this time of the year there should be around 20-25 degrees Celcius during the days, and around 15-18 degrees during the nights.
We intend to explore the islands by buss ans by foot, and hopefully we will have a whole bunch of new photos to post at the Velhola site after our journey.
Because of lack of direct flights our gang has to stay overnight at Bremen in Germany on both the flight out and the flight back, so with a little luck there might also be some photos of the Old Town of Bremen coming up on the Velhola site.

Your Lazy Blogger

My best winter!

2008-02-29T02:30:00.002+02:00

Hi everybody,

The media is going hot about global warming, so who cares?

Well I do! I've been waiting for this to happen since I was a kid, and finally it seems that my dream's coming true.

- I hate winters.......
- I hate to have to clear the drive path to my house from snow...
- I don't need winter at all!!!

This is the second winter in a row, when it's really no winter at all, it's kind of On/Off winter, one day we have snow, and the other day it's gone. The temperature is above zero degrees centigrade allmost all the time, I love it.

Well I do know about all the backsides of global warming, and we do not want them, or do we????

I guess that to get rid of the winters that I hate I most probably need to relocate to somewhere south, and start hoping that the Global warming STOPS in the north.

Your Lazy Blogger.

Late summer vacation

2007-10-12T21:56:00.000+03:00

Been a while since last entry, that's why I'm the "Lazy Blogger"

At last we could leave for a mini vacation, and the destination was the southwest part of Hungary. We had rented a villa in a little nice town by the name of Zalakaros, known for their termal spa, but the spa was not the reason for us.

We always had fancied to see this part of Hungary, the south we already knew, because of our many visits to the area around the town of Pécs in the Baranya county.

The Zala county was new for us, and we found it very beautiful. We made tree different trip by car, the first one was driving around in the Zala region, the second one was driving south to the Pécs area, showing it to a friend of ours, that never before had visited Hungary. The last trip we made was driving around the lake Balaton, Balaton is the largest lake in central Europe, and known for it's beaches and spa's. The pic is taken on the shores of Balaton in a small place called Balatonberény, near the southest part of the lake.

All our stay we had really nice weather, around 20-25 degrees C during the days, and around 15 in the late evenings.

Everything comes to an end, we had to return back home, and when arriving back to Tampere Airport and finding out how cold it is, we nearly jumped back on the plane to return south.

2007-08-27T01:15:00.000+03:00

Hi all,

The lazy blogger is back after a summer filled with all kinds of carpenter works. The blogger have been helping the son of my beloved engaged woman with his villa project, and also made some restaurations on our own house.
The picture shows the west end of our house, where the whole wall has been replaced with a new windshield and the covering outher surface.
The problem of this summer has been that it has not been many days when it has been possible to paint the wood needed for the job, it has either been raining or otherwise been unpossible to paint due to being at other places those days not raining. All in all the task has taken over a month to fullfill, but now it's done, one forth of the house. The rest will require the next three years if the weather conditions remain the same,

Midsummer

2007-06-26T10:49:00.000+03:00

The midsummer is over, Velho and Velhotar spent a few days during midsummer at a villa situated in the archipelago of Uusikaupunki on the west coast of Finland.
The weather was excellent and the company also, we were 14 persons present during those three days.
During the days we done some small fixings to the villa, during evenings there was the traditional finnish sauna and barbeque food with the whole gang sitting around the fire into late night.

The lazy blogger is back

2007-05-22T19:05:00.000+03:00

Since last writings, we'we been having a short vacation near Sorrento in Italy in the end of April.
We had lovely weather during our 10 day stay, and we also made a trip to Matera an old south italian town where people was still living in caves on the first half of 1900. The place was simply amazing, we can recommend it to anyone travelling in Italy.
Now when we're back home, it has also started to warm up and the summer is coming, so there is a lot to do in the garden, that'll keep us busy for a while.

Lasse

February end

2007-02-25T22:16:00.000+02:00

Hi it's me, the lazy blogger.

The kitchen remodeling is ready, so now it's time for other activities over.

The last week I've been updating my genealogy database with lots of new members of the family, near and far. With a litle luck I'll get the web pages updated during this week, keep an eye on www.the-holms.org for updates.

I have also been testing FolderShare as a media to share photos and other documents with close relatives, those interested can have a look at www.foldershare.com on how the thing works. I will invite persons I want to share files with during the next week, they need to download and install the software from the site mentioned.

I've also tested a program called Tirminal that makes it possible to send a download link to people I want to have my access to files I've selected. The files reside on my own computer, and are transfered directly to my fellows computer encrypted.

More to come...

Lasse

Kitchen

2007-02-07T12:31:00.000+02:00

Well, it has been a busy week in the kitchen, old cabinets has been taken away, and new ones installed.
Because the house is over 200 years old, it has been a whole lot more to do than just changing cabinets, some has to be built from the ground up by hand because of measurements doesn't fit.
The project is now on the better side, only two more to build by hand, and a few doors, then it's time to do the finishings.

Year 2007 has started

2007-01-16T01:01:00.000+02:00

A few day's ago I asked one of my fellow genealogists information on one person that married into our family. After a few hours I got a reply containing more information on the persons ancestors. It also turned out that there was common ancestors to my friend among the ancestral line of the person who's information I requested. I'm very greatful for the information I got from my fellow genealogist, in fact I've got help from him earlier also in other branches of my own familytree.

We have had a very warm beginning of january, in fact unusual warm, but now we finally have a little snow, for how long, can't tell. The predictions telling us that the warm weather just might continue, with a little luck until the end of january.

Lasse

Leaves still in the trees

2006-10-10T17:20:00.000+03:00

Well, we are near halfway through October, and there is still leaves in the trees. Outside is around 10-4 degrees Celcius during the days, and around 8 during the nights.

A day full of work!

2006-09-12T21:53:00.000+03:00

The whole day has gone working on a programming project, and the evening checking my genealogy file for errors.

Septembre

2006-09-01T12:31:00.000+03:00

I still havn't figured out what to write about here, but soon...

Lasse

The First post

2006-08-26T23:20:00.000+03:00

Hello all

This is my first post on my blog.