Electing homosexual as the president makes a difference
Monday January 30th, 2012 | 
Author The conservative camp of the Finnish presidential elections has made comments that have criticized (appropriately) that for many people Pekka Haavisto‘s homosexuality is the only reason to vote him. It is true that if Haavisto wasn’t a homosexual he probably wouldn’t have got to the second round of the elections. His popularity has been a counter strike against the extreme conservatives’ and fundamental Christians’ homophobia.
It is also true that he doesn’t have such a complete resume of state leadership as Sauli Niinistö. Luckily his resume is concentrated in the area where the president of Finland has official power – the foreign policy outside EU. Haavisto is certainly capable of being the president. I think it’s unnecessary to talk about which one of the candidates would be more capable. They would be different kind of presidents. Whereas Niinistö would travel around the world with trade delegations, Haavisto would also, but he would do peace negotiating at the same time. Haavisto does regard human rights more important than trade but thanks to his pleasantness he can criticize governments without them blowing their tops off – as he did in Vietnam with one trade delegation. Wouldn’t it be great if we had a president who would have balls to tell China that “Hey, I think you should honor human rights” and meet Dalai Lama?
I like that Haavisto has emphasized about him being a peace middleman and stressed the benefits of world peace to Finland. Wars bring asylum seekers and are expensive to the society. It’s more economical to solve the problems where they occur than deal with the consequences. It’s best for everybody to encourage business in third countries than watch living standard refugees gathering in developed countries. Haavisto has also talked about getting the social footprint to import product prices. It’s wrong that Chinese teenage girls do slave work so that Finns could buy products cheaper. If labor unions would prosper in China the prices of the Chinese products would rise which would even out the competition. If they won’t prosper, in long term we’ll be in a situation where Finnish workers have to give up their rights and benefits.
Haavisto has emphasized his foreign politics know-how so much that it has begun to irritate some people. He hasn’t forgotten to talk about the regular people’s problems, but in homeland the president can only be a value leader – a thing that is not an insignificant one, though. I believe that Haavisto could be the uniter of this scattered and each others scolding people.
Then the homosexuality. I’ve heard comments that “it’s not appropriate that the president is a homosexual” and “how could Haavisto’s partner Antonio Flores represent Finland?”. The first claim has barely ever been reasoned with anything but the Bible or the perception that Finland would be laughed at abroad or Finland’s status would deteriorate on the international political field. I’m not even going to argue with fundamental Christians. I’m just pointing out the anecdotal analogue of them: Arguing with a fundamental Christian is like playing chess with a pigeon. First it knocks over the pawns, then it craps on the board and finally flies to it’s own flock to tell that he won the match. The analogue means (I’m really explaining in words of one syllable) that people referencing the Bible throw away all the rules and laws by using a 2000 year old book as their source. A book that has not been written by God but people – some of which may (you can’t prove otherwise) have been total nutcases. I myself don’t regard Jesus as the son of God but a great religious leader who preached sympathy, love and equality. The fundamentalists read Bible as devils would and pick only the negative things. Oh yeah, but they love homosexuals too and support them in their quest to become heterosexuals. *Sigh*
Well does Finland’s status deteriorate abroad? Will Haavisto get hanged if he goes to Saudi-Arabia? One election worker from The Green Party told me that she had asked that from a Pakistani group of men when she was working on Rotuaari pedestrian street in the city of Oulu. The Pakistanis had stared at her like “Oh, you’re asking this?” They thought that the Finns choose their own president and if Saudi-Arabia mistreats Haavisto it’s their own shame. How bad self-esteem we Finns can have? Additionally I’m wondering why suddenly the nationalist party of Finland, The True Finns are suddenly worried about what the Saudis think… I’m also referring to the article in Kaikki Elämästä -blog (sorry, only in Finnish) that remarked that the openly gay foreign minister of Germany Guido Westerwellen has made several visits in the Middle East without problems. Also Haavisto himself has visited some very homophobic countries. The president is (also) protected by diplomatic immunity so he will certainly not be physically violated.
I think Finland would have this one opportunity to show an example in something. By choosing for the first time in the world an openly homosexual president with direct election Finland would show the rest of the world that it is a society that is slowly moving towards complete equality where origin and genes don’t determine how high a person can climb as long as he’s mentally capable. It would have a vast international significance. It would force all countries in the world to ponder their own attitude towards homosexuality. Then the question about how Antonio Flores could represent Finland would get a simple answer: by being Antonio Flores, a regular Ecuadorian hair-dresser who just happens to be the partner of the president of Finland. Who can claim that Sauli Niinistö’s wife Jenni Haukio’s market value would be higher than Antonio Flores’? Antonio Flores’ market value would be Jenni Haukio’s market value to the tenth power. I can only imagine the media rush around him if Haavisto would be selected as the president. Pekka Haavisto, Antonio Flores and Finland would get a lot of praising and of course a lot of criticism. But it would induce a lot of discussion and one motto and goal of The Green Party – “all different, all equal” – would twitch a millimeter closer to realizing. This would make me extremely proud of being a Finn.
Pekka Haavisto, the Finnish presidential election candidate
Web design
I made a site where I offer web design and installation service for WordPress and Drupal: Neettisivuut. Don’t look at this site, look at that! There’s a saying that shoemakers shoes are always ragged 
Third glass to old windows (quick and cheap)
If you’re planning to upgrade from triple glass windows to modern argon filled selective glass window modules, your investment may never pay itself back. However moving from double glass windows to triple glass windows or better saves more energy and payback time is shorter.
In our case destroying the historically valuable windows by moving to modern window modules was out of the question. I could have added window modules between the outer and inner glass but that would have been expensive, since every window has multiple screens: three or six. Every screen would have required its’ own module. The modules would not have been invisible either and could have spoiled the historical looks of the windows.
Still, double glazed windows do condensate a lot of water during fall and early winter when the temperature is going down and the relative humidity inside is still high. It’s a drag to wipe them every morning.
So I ran a little test: I added a third glass on the outside of the inner window frame last winter. That reduced the condensation a lot. There was only a little condensation at the lower edge on the most extreme low temperature days (I think we had something like -35 C degrees here). It evaporated by itself during the day.
Recently I added a third glass to every window we have. I cut the glass myself from the windows we had gathered from various sources, so the glass itself was free. I attached the glass with small strips of thin sheet metal that could be bent with fingers. I punched holes to the other end of the strips and screwed them to the window frames. I sealed the gap between the frame and glass with P-profile window seal (P-profile allows a bigger gap). Note that you may have to leave gaps in the seal if you see condensation between the inner and middle glass (only the inner seal must not have gaps). The attaching points of the metal strips leave naturally small air channels, so I haven’t left any gaps, but haven’t seen condensation either.
The whole job, dismantling the gathered windows, cutting glass, making the metal strips, cleaning the windows (and scraping of spilled paint drops: I hadn’t done this earlier) and attaching the glasses took six days. That’s for 46 screens. But I believe most of the time was used in cleaning the windows. The whole thing cost only 83 euros for the 200 meters of window seal. I think the payback time will be short.
The third glass is also almost invisible from inside. Only if you look from a steep angle, you can see the metal strips. From outside you rarely pay attention on the inside frame, plus often you have reflections to block the view anyway, or it’s too dark.
Here’s some pictures:
Outer hall (almost) finished
Our outer hallway is almost finished. I’ve been doing it last two and a half weeks, 10-14 hour days.
We tried to bring some Indian feeling to it. Since we loved the colonial English architecture (especially hotel Prince) in Mussoorie on our last visit to India, we took the popular colors green and white from there.
The big panel doors were in the house already when we bought it but I had to restore them first. Two of them were so badly burned that I had to put plywood on the backside. That’s alright since it only shows when you open them. I made the upper cabinet doors myself.
The folding seats were inspired by some pictures from internet but I had to design the exact mechanism. I wanted them as flat as possible since the room is not that wide.
The hat shelf and shoe rack are made by me. There are “trays” under the shoe racks so that if dirt falls from the shoes, it doesn’t fall on the shoes below. The trays can be pulled out and cleaned. I bought a shoe dryer which I put on the wall inside the cabinet.
The key cabinet was found from the junkyard and was made by someone called “Teuvo” at school. I modified it a bit.
Floor tiles and seals are brown simply because it doesn’t show dirt so well and we bring it in all the time in our shoes.
The elephant head handles were bought from Rishikesh. They also bring Indian atmosphere.
I still need to make the door between outer and inner hallway (that’s why the title says “almost” finished). Then we need a bronze Shiva statue on the key cabinet, a red carpet and an old Indian man in white uniform, red turban and an old Enfield rifle on his shoulder standing by the door…
Here are some pictures:
I painted a picture of myself
The last time I painted I was about 14. I used oil paints back then. Recently I read a book about painting and got excited again. Luckily there were acrylic painting sets and canvases on sale in Lidl (the pan-European cheap grocery store chain) so I bought them. Then I took a picture of myself, drew that and colored it. Drawing took about half an hour and coloring about two hours. So here’s my first painting in adult age and the first ever acrylic painting:
Cultural aristocrat
It’s name is “Cultural aristocrat”. I think it’s pretty damn good considering that it’s been twenty years since my last painting. Reading the book really helped.
Ergonomic mouse
My mouse hand has begun to show symptoms. My pinky got very sore after a day’s work because it was in a funny position against the table all the time. I looked up ergonomic mouse solutions, but they all cost 30e+ and cheapest ones weren’t even worth of considering. The more expensive ones, the kind I could have considered of buying cost 70e+. These prices are crazy since it shouldn’t cost more to manufacture an ergonomic mouse than a regular mouse. Why aren’t all mice ergonomic? Again, I thought I’d “make” the thing myself. I really doubt that a mass produced mouse could ever beat a mouse made just for your hand.
Here’s some pictures of the finished product and construction pictures:
The construction goes as follows:
1. Wrap your mouse into house hold plastic. This will protect it from moisture.
2. Get or make some paper mass. I had a big bag of it for house insulation purposes, but it can be made by ripping newspaper into small pieces. Paper mass is a nice material for this project, because it’s light and easily available.
3. Wet the paper mass in a bowl. At this point you can add about 50% of white glue to the water. I didn’t, but I did aply white glue afterwards. The glue will bind the paper mass and it’ll be more durable.
4. Put the mouse on some movable plate, on house hold plastic. (I didn’t but you should. I moved the mass on a plate afterwards.) Shape the paper mass around it using your hand as a mold. See that your fingers reach the buttons and your hand is in a good position. A good position is when the hand is a bit tilted (that is the principle of “vertical” mice, the hand is in handshaking position). The hand doesn’t have to be completely vertical, though. As long as it doesn’t feel “twisted” i.e. it’s feeling relaxed when you’re holding the mouse on the table.
You can shape the paper mass easily. Just squeeze it to mold it and if there’s too much in one place, take it off and if there’s too little, put some more.
At the end the paper mass should be squeezed pretty dense and the most of the water should have been squeezed out. If you didn’t put glue in the water to begin with, you can make a 50%-50% water-glue solution now and wet the paper mass with it.
NOTE: Don’t pour the water-glue solution to the drain but instead dry it with toilet paper and put in the trash. If you have a habit of pouring large amounts of solidifying liquids to the drain, eventually it will get clogged, and that will be EXPENSIVE.
5. Let the paper mass get stiff for a few hours. At some point the paper mass is stiff enough so that you can carefully pull out the mouse. Then you can put some newspaper balls to replace the mouse and hold the “roof” that goes over the mouse. Then you can stick the plate on which the mass is lying to microwave oven on the lowest level (“keep warm” or “defrost”) for 15-20 minutes at a time, to speed up the drying. Check the mass after a few minutes in the microwave, though, so that you don’t fry it and your microwave. I suppose you can stick it in a regular oven too, at about 50C. Or if you have time, just wait for a few days.
6. After the mass is completely dry, test the mouse. Stick the mouse inside the mass. At this point you can still return to the step 4, if you’re not happy.
7. Finish the mass. Sand down the worst edges and apply the finishing of your desire. I just stuck the mass inside my wife’s old pantyhose. This also made the mouse slippery and slide easily on my (plastic) mouse pad. If you have a fabric mouse pad, you can cover the underneath of the mouse with plastic, e.g. packing tape or such (I’ll leave it to you to experiment). I suppose you could also spray some silicone or spackle on it and cover it with some stretching fabric, but take into account that silicone and spackle are quite heavy materials, thus your mouse will be heavier also. You don’t necessarily have to attach the mouse inside the mass if the mass is tight enough around the mouse. But I suppose you could use some double sided tape or some strips of bicycle inner tire between the mouse and mass.
EXTRA:
I also taped my mouse pad to the table, because I really hate it if the mouse pad moves around. The tape also made it more slippery.
Then I screwed an elbow rest to my table, so that I wouldn’t have to reach to the mouse. (By the way, computer elbow rests cost 90e+ if you buy them and this one took me only 10 minutes to make…)
I had to get a wrist rest for the mouse already a few years ago but now the mouse supports also the wrist. I moved the wrist rest backwards under my elbow – feels really good.
Help the wolves
There are only 140 wolves in Finland and the Finnish government is still giving permits to shoot them. Poaching is another considerable threat. In Lapland there is no breeding population and still the reindeer breeders lobby to kill the last remaining wolves. This is how things are in the land of Santa Claus. Wolf is a good advertisement for Finnish tourism, but it doesn’t have a right to exist. Please do think about how you support this. Is it necessary to buy reindeer products? Is it necessary to travel to Lapland during Christmas?
You can visit the Finnish nature association’s wolf group and give a donation:
Transsexual cake
Last autumn my wife and my friends’ girlfriends decided to celebrate the very first men’s day and surprise us with this cake:
Outdoor sauna
I’ve been working on the new sauna for the whole summer now. We had to demolish the previous one – we couldn’t save it. I found a timber frame about 10 km away from here, dismantled it and brought it here. The foundations are made of big stones (there’s a concrete slab under them). I’m still going to panel the house, so when finished, you can’t see the timber frame anymore. There’s one picture of the house at it’s present form. Not much has happened to that in a few years now… I haven’t even started the porch.
Kitchen cabinets
Last winter I finished the kitchen cabinets. We wanted pretty clean lines so I made doors that are at the same level with the frame (doors don’t cover the frame). It also means that the frame is one block! In modern cabinets the frames are modules which have to be covered with the doors (doors go in front of the frame). We also wanted to stay away from fancy panel doors so I made these pretty simple ones. The top cabinet doors have windows with sandblasted pattern on them.
The sink cabinet doors have fancy ventilation holes in them. They are carved straight to the veneer. There’s a similar style ventilation thing above the refrigerator, too.
All drawers are dovetailed (lohenpyrstöliitos in Finnish).
There’s big drawers with grills on the bottom for kettles and stuff. There’s a water liner behind and under the whole cabinet and a floor drain so if you put wet kettles in those drawers the water drops on the liner and down the drain. Of course we always have drying cabinets for other dishes on top of the sinks here in Finland, too, and this cabinet is no exception.
Here in Finland we also have always chopping boards built into the cabinets. There are two of them: the one above is for wet stuff (vegetables) and lower is for dry stuff (bread). There’s a detachable grill on the lower chopping board (a place to hide bread crumbs!).
See that dishwasher: it’s 40 years old! My parents bought it in 1970 and it still works like a dream! They used to make things last…
Posted in House, building, construction | 
Tags: cabinets, diy, handmade, homemade, kitchen, self-made | 
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