Mika Pennanen

I split this entry to two posts as it seemed to grow a bit too long.

The polterabend party continued after the ice swimming and sauna with a refueling of kebab from Sidar and a tour of the local three pubs: Peltohovi, Havanna and Pikku-Kiuru. It seems a half-orc isn’t a common sight at Kiuruvesi. Our merry party seemed to turn a few heads and lift some eyebrows.

For the rest of the evening we headed to a holiday cabin, Kurrela, near Kiuruvesi. There I was given the task to cook for the whole party of ten with just a few ingredients picked at random by the others, while they just laid back and laughed at me sweating and curse. The ingredients contained things like avocado, rye bread, macaroni, bacon, a few sausages, bananas, cocoa nuts, pesto sauce and chocolate bars. It suprised me how I was able to make three courses out of those with just my expertise feat in experimental cooking. Everyone at least _said_ they liked my cookings, but let’s let the truth remain unsaid…

The rest of the night it was all drinking and merrymaking including poker games and Singstar, but the next morning… it’s a chapter of it’s own better left unraveled. Let’s just say it’s the reason I’m writing these posts now, Tuesday evening. This maybe answers the question about the topic of these posts….

Oh well, all’s well. Thanks everyone for arranging this party and for regarding me a friend worth escorting to his doom(?) and despair. :D

Last Saturday my brothers and friends arranged a polterabend party for me. They were a bit late since I’m already married, but a much appreciated gesture altogether. I’ll give a brief description of the day’s program.

The modern Finnish polterabend or “bachelor party” tradition differs from the wikipedia definition by being much more the last bachelor night the groom or bride has before dedicating their life to their marriage and family. You might guess where this leads to…

At 10:00, Saturday morning we were having our morning coffee at my parents at Kiuruvesi when my older brother busts in with a bunch of my closest friends. Almost immediately they stick a bottle of Jalokahvi in my hand and order me to paint my face green(!). After I finished my makeup, we all headed towards a nearby ranch where we parked in front of the stables. I was a bit excited because I’d never ridden a horse before. Even more, I was a bit scared when they just told me to mount and take a little spin. It wasn’t that bad after all as I was able to stay on top of the horse the whole time and even managed to have her gallop for a moment. A fine experience.

My friends seemed to be freezing this whole time as they were laughing at me swaying on top of the horse, it was about -15 degrees Celsius that day. After the ride I was sat on a Stiga sled towed behind a quad. This is a familiar activity for me, since we used to do this all the time when we were younger. I was dragged behind the quad to my aunt’s lakeside cabin, where we had a funny little ice fishing game and I was half forced to go ice swimming. It was very refreshing and I felt the effects of the Jalokahvi leave me at this point. I wasn’t at all suprised it was just a brief relief…

Continued in next post »

It seems, as I was writing those previous posts I received e-mail from our study record system, that my bachelor’s thesis has been passed. I thought it would take longer to review and that I’d have to make some corrections, but this is great news. The grade was an average 2 (on scale of 1-3).

Kandidaatintutkielma   TJTA302 11.02.2008 2   A   3.00

The thesis is a literary review and a technology analysis about mashups. In the thesis I explain the term ‘mashup’ and focus on different technologies surrounding it. What are mashups? What technologies are used to create mashups? How the technologies combine to create this kind of a application? The pros and cons via a SWOT analysis.

Today I finally married my long time sweetheart, Kaisa! Our marriage ceremony was held at the district registry here in Jyväskylä by the magistrate. We couldn’t have the actual marriage ceremony at a church, like my wife would have wanted to, because I am not a member of any church. We will be having a blessing ceremony at the Evangelic Lutheran church of Kiuruvesi, March 1st, so she can have her white wedding. We have invited about a hundred of our relatives and closest friends to the celebration held at the old hotel at Runni’s Spa.

There has been so much happening in my life these past months I decided to start a blog of my own. It’s not meant to be anything more than a recording of mentionable incidents in my daily life and a tracking tool for some of my work and hobbies. I think I will continue writing in english, because I need to improve it and it is a widespread language among the tubes of the Internet.

For starters I guess I need to introduce myself. I’m a 24 yo student living in Jyväskylä, Finland with my wife and a cat. We are expecting a third member joining our family at late August 2008.

I have studied information system sciences in University of Jyväskylä since 2004 and hope to have my bachelor’s thesis accepted this spring. I have no idea when I’ll be able to start on my master’s thesis. That’s about it. Read more from the About me page if you’re interested.

Oh. the topic “Päevee mualima!” is savo region dialect of finnish, and it means Hello world!