hHp's Journal

1:03PM

Another day at work with mostly gradually working with inching thesis towards completion. It is now practically a week since I arrived back from Germany, and I will start off my travel report with first part concerning time until arrival at Suhl on EF early arrival day.

( 'Vorsaison' or 'early outbound departure', pre-EF15 prologues at Helsinki and Nuremberg )

Now having finished the report I had started earlier at home, it is now time for me to go for lunch before continuing the day at work.

10:09AM

I'm back at work for the second day after returning from EF. This year was a very good one altogether, and also my pre-EF tour at Nuremberg was nice and rather relaxing. I will write a more detailed report in a few days. Otherwise it is still rather silent at work, most of the co-workers are elsewhere, but as far as I know, the problem that has prevented me from finishing my thesis has been solved, I only need to find out details once possible. I'm rather determined to also otherwise get out any remaining issues and submit thesis to see if any additional changes are still required.

I have again somewhat started to consider a specific travel laptop as I usually do not take along any of the units I use around locally, partially due to durability and usability concerns. This has led me to somewhat consider a slightly earlier Pentium III-class Panasonic Toughbook platform as one possibility, with rather good performance, moderate prices and high durability. I also need to visit the customs office today, as finally a package ordered by my brother has arrived. He bought a rather rare device meant to synchronize speed of two Nagra III magnetic tape audio recorders, useful for him as he records environmental sounds as stereo tracks through use of two mono recorders. The equipment was shipped from Australia with surface transport already back in June, and had arrived only a few days ago.

10:36AM

Progress with thesis has been rather slow lately after returning to work, but there fortunately isn't anything else remaining before graduation. I will probably be leaving work earlier today and going to Helsinki to watch Kraftwerk and Aavikko live. I bought a ticket already months ago, but I didn't really decide until today that I would indeed be going, as getting back from Helsinki to Jyväskylä by the time the concert probably ends isn't especially easy, having to take a night bus back. Also that the weather seems to be rather good affected my decision, if it would have been as rainy as yesterday, I probably would have been less likely to go.

2:30AM

Vacation ends early next week, albeit I do have a few days of vacation before traveling off towards EF. Not much progress has been made with getting thesis finished, as I can't get final simulation results for the thesis until the problems are resolved by others. I still need to wait somewhat until I'm able to add results and write the conclusion chapter, then I can submit thesis again for feedback and it shouldn't be far from finished , then.

Otherwise, I got new fursuit transport box a few days ago, choosing a German Army surplus aluminium box. It took nearly a month and a half to arrive in mail, clearly economy transport indeed, but here delivery time wasn't the issue. It is very sturdy, and with two latches, full length hinge and two straps to hold the cover, it for sure isn't going to be detached from the box. Similarly the box itself is well made, and for sure is going to survive luggage handling much better than the plastic box, which often arrived with corners dented in, but fortunately didn't shatter. The box needed a good cleaning, though, having apparently contained some kind of anti-chemical warfare decontamination equipment. The decontamination solution must not have been a pleasant chemical, judging from the strong scent left behind in the box. It took quite some cleaning to get it out. Below I'm working with cleaning the box a few days ago.

11:15PM

Last week was more of vacation, even if rather often occupied with kitchen renovation here. The ceiling now has new wood paneling instead of earlier somewhat faded wallpaper, with a white, slightly transparent surface treatment leaving some grain of the wood visible, it is a rather elegant ceiling solution. Also new light fixtures were installed, altogether with improved results, especially as the light-colored ceiling makes the area nicely a bit more bright.

My attempts with getting the record player to function properly haven't progressed mostly at all, I called today earlier about the stylus and the order hadn't even been forwarded to Denmark to Ortofon, for reason or other. I did today receive the standard type SME carrying arm for 1/2-inch mount cartridge, but had no mounting screws left, so couldn't test that one out yet (with an Ortofon 500-series Mk. II cartridge I also have). By now I'm somewhat considering actually ordering a 530- or 540-type stylus for the cartridge rather than persisting with the integrated carrying arm, but can't be totally sure as couldn't test the other solution yet (a minor possibility exists that the distortion is a problem either with cabling/connections or some odd mechanical issue outside of cartridge/carrying arm/stylus influence, but it doesn't seem probable).

My access to workplace was enabled again still during the Friday I discovered the issue, and I was there for part of that afternoon. Afterwards haven't yet gone back there, as situation hasn't changed with ability to obtain the final results. Otherwise thesis isn't mostly missing anything, so once I can run the final simulations, I should be able to put it together for another round of feedback with a few hours of work at most.

9:33AM

Last week or so have again been continuing to work with finishing my thesis for MSc. There isn't much missing, but currently I haven't yet been able to produce the final results due to technical problems, which I can affect only to a degree myself. I also today tried to arrive to workplace after two days away only to find out that despite my efforts to make sure that my access would extend to this month as am not yet quite finished with thesis, my key had been disabled. I wrote a few mails, but of course, most are on vacation now, and my vacation practically starts today. I still would need to be able to go to work now and then to finish the thesis, so I need to try to ensure the matter is taken care of despite vacations.

Currently am sitting at the students board room, unable to get to workplace, and it has been quite a while indeed since I've had time to sit down and have coffee here, several months at least. Nobody else is around, though, most students having traveled home for the summer. It is a bit surprising compared to the time when I was fully a student, I would spend a lot of time here between lectures and otherwise, and even wrote my thesis for BSc here for the most part. I found it easier to concentrate also in the writing here despite company and relaxed atmosphere than at home for some reason.

I have been also lately trying to fine-tune my record player (Technics SL-1100 with SME Series III tonearm and SME-Ortofon 30H integrated carrying arm/cartridge), as there is some distortion occurring on very loudly modulated passages, mostly on left channel. I did order a new stylus, as I had intended to do that anyway, the cartridge having been delivered with cheaper stylus (Stylus 10 instead of 30 which the cartridge usually uses) of slightly questionable condition. I'm somewhat concerned that reason might be somewhat hardened cartridge suspension, in which case I need to look for the usual 1/2-inch mount carrying arm and set of balance weights, as the tonearm wasn't unfortunately delivered with all the accessories (albeit, for the price paid for the tonearm, not a major issue to obtain them separately). I will be trying a bit later today to see if anyone is around at the workplace to let me in there for the afternoon.

10:53PM

Just arrived back after dinner and sauna at the hotel area with people from work. The day was a bit of a disappointment in terms of the main feature, no golf. As we arrived to the course, it rather immediately started to rain, and rain came pouring down for the rest of about 45 minutes we waited at the club building before deciding that it wasn't viable this time. We went to play pool for the rest of the afternoon, and it was rather nice, but it would have been interesting to try golf out. I had some birthday cake at home with family after arriving back and am probably going to fall asleep in some time, still, a good day mostly.

8:27AM

Birthday it is, then. Woke up as rather usual and got to work, where am now starting the day. Today isn't very usual, though, as coincidentally today is activity day at work. Golf has been organized for the evening, and afterwards use of a sauna has been arranged for at Hotel Alba closeby to the university buildings. I haven't ever really tried real golf except a few attempts at range long ago, so I do suspect that it will be rather interesting.

11:49PM

I got feedback from the other person who was supposed to provide feedback for thesis. It proved to be no feedback as such, mostly only positive remark, thus not at least helping much with developing the content for final version. Otherwise the week has begun rather usually, there is still some work left before the final results and some verification material can be added, but otherwise, it isn't far from completion.

In other matters, last week I received two new chargers for the phone, so it has been back in use now without any problems, only the transport box issue still awaits solution, of course it is much less pressing as it needs to be solved by EF. On a less fortunate note, this year I couldn't go to Lahti railway day that was on Saturday, not that there would either have been the steam train from Helsinki due to more strict traffic regulations now in force. I intended to go to the event itself, but as rest of the family also left on the same weekend elsewhere for a dog show, someone had to stay behind to mind the rest of the dogs. Later it transpired that my brother decided on the last moment to stay home after all, but unfortunately it was too late to arrange to go by then. Also weather was rather cold, though, so it wouldn't have been as nice as two previous railway days, both of which had very good weather.

A bit different, namely botanical matter has also been in my attention, after a few attempts at growing kiwi and always getting them about 10-15cm tall before they inevitably withered, no matter what I tried, I decided to try a different plant to start with. This year I'm trying to grow lemon, and have this far gotten encouraging results:

I moved them to separate pots on the weekend, and they have grown slightly more since, so I do hope I do succeed in getting them to survive also over the winter, but time will tell.

10:42PM

Week at work was rather uneventful, as I haven't yet received feedback for my thesis from one of two persons who should give such. Feedback from the other I've already accounted for in the current version. Otherwise it is currently about getting the rest of the results for, and then it should be rather ready for more final review.

As the weather was rather advantageous today, I washed my fursuit and it has dried out outside rather well, so Radium is now all nice and fresh again. Of the items lost when the cover of the transport box was lost by the airline, I've already ordered two additional chargers for the mobile phone I currently usually use (Motorola StarTAC 130), fortunately chargers for such an old model didn't cost much anything, either (10 euros for two, including postage). Otherwise I need to look at either a new cover for the current transport box or a new box by EF, as the current one of course isn't usable without the cover.

11:19PM

Today I returned around 6am today from Confuzzled, coming on the night bus from Helsinki-Vantaa airport, having slept on the bus at least somewhat I just turned around at home and went to work for the day. Was a slightly tired day to a degree, but as what I currently mostly have to do is finishing only my thesis with all required courses done, I continued along with it rather well. As I have all required courses done, it should also mean that it is at most a matter of a month or two to graduate for MSc, depending on how long it takes for the thesis to be accepted once final version is finished.

But, to give a bit of a report of Confuzzled and things related, I will write a bit of day-by-day narrative of main occurrences and some related details. So, let's start:

'Failing to Arrive Twice - or - Confuzzled 2009 and Five Wonders of International Luggage Transport'

( Click here to read )

11:26AM

I returned home around 4am today, due to time I arrived and transportation concerns I didn't yet go to work today, as I could have slept all of about two hours before having to catch the bus to work at 6.30am... Fortunately I did at work mention that I might not arrive yet for tuesday, so I will get to work tomorrow, much better rested now.

EF was very nice also this year, and I did probably more fursuit outings for events than at any con before, as I did take part in two skits at the fursuit show, took part in the fursuit gameshow (second place in team with KuddlePup), went out for the parade (very first time I ever did go to the parade at any con, actually), went out for some time in suit at both dances and did a couple of non-event-related outings.

I had unfortunately arranged my travel plans without taking into account the dead dog party, so I practically missed most of the sunday as I already started my way back on sunday afternoon. In retrospect it wouldn't have mattered much as while traveling by train towards Nuremberg I began to feel comparatively sick. Afterwards the sunday evening was very uncomfortable with apparent con crud. Slight fever, sore throat and feeling generally somewhat sick made for more demanding time getting to Nuremberg to spend the night before catching flight to Helsinki on monday.

Fortunately on monday morning I felt again in nearly normal health and started my way towards the airport in better mood. Long day of travel commenced, after arriving from flight to Helsinki taking bus from Helsinki to Jyväskylä, and finally taxi to home from Jyväskylä. I left unpacking for morning and fell asleep quickly, waking all well this morning.

Albeit the slightly uncomfortable return trip, it was for sure a very good vacation, and I do feel well motivated returning to work for tomorrow, my thesis also having progressed well aside of work. For now I should probably go to have more to eat, especially yesterday not having had the possibility due to traveling most of the day.

11:58PM

It has been a quite busy spring and early summer with thesis work. I did get a thesis workplace, and have been doing research work on system level simulations of mobile communications as work with my thesis from the same subject. I did complete my practical period and otherwise came very close to having everything but thesis done by the deadline for graduating with the old requirements in place. With thesis it proved that schedule to have it ready by about this time in the summer simply wasn't realistic, writing besides work and obtaining research results to include in the thesis do take their time.

Fortunately it seems that it won't be a too strenuous effort to graduate by the new requirements, either towards the end of the year or by next summer. Also my successful effort last year to have the bachelor's degree done will help somewhat as I have a complete degree to include rather than separate courses some of which could possibly be required to be done again, were they not included in a completed degree.

I will be starting my way towards ConFuzzled on Thursday evening, still finding myself maybe slightly uncertain, having never before traveled to UK and it being a new con I don't have too many specific expectations. I do now have new photographic equipment to replace the Praktica that broke last summer. I first bought a Pentax ME Super as a secondary camera, my brother bought it from me as he liked it very much. So I bought the next model, Pentax SuperA with the rare Motor Drive A.

I also have invested a bit in medium format photography, my brother having gotten himself a Pentax 6x7 (very early late 60s model with no mirror lock up and oldest style film loading) got me interested in trying medium format for different camera handling and high picture quality. I had more interest in a Hasselblad-style camera rather than the large SLR format of the Pentax. I did look at Hasseblad 500C/M, but didn't find the square 6x6 picture format and comparatively costly leaf-shutter lenses desirable features, so I did put together a Mamiya m645 1000s system with 45mm lens and PD-prism finder. I have this far tried it for only about two films, but it seems to work very well.

Of course one matter making medium format viable to work with is the fact that I and my brother do now develop our own films ourselves. Having obtained neccessary chemicals and equipment we do now routinely develop both our C41 process color negatives and E6 process color slides ourselves. I have found developing color quite easy once the correct work methodology has been practiced, especially what comes to maintaining both the chemicals and the film at correct temperature for processing, critical issue for obtaining correct color rendition.

It has been a bit different start of the summer altogether, as I don't have too much vacation from thesis work. This year being the first summer when I have continuous work rather than varyingly going to electronics repair work when needed. It has taken a bit of adjusting to, but it seems that it will mostly be a very nice summer still. Now I will continue to get ready for tomorrow at work and then to sleep, tomorrow evening I need to mostly pack as I will be leaving for ConFuzzled in the evening on Thursday.

12:55AM

Has been quite a while since I've written an entry. Generally the time in between hasn't been mostly too much to describe, though. I've been occupied with studies and work, varyingly both at the electronics repair place, and also at times with the university faculty for different project tasks to have practical orientation period completed to hopefully graduate by summer. By now it does begin to seem like a considerably realistic target if everything goes well, as studies have been progressing about as I had intended.

I've been to some degree concentrating on organic chemistry as my secondary subject, as there aren't too many information technology courses remaining that I would either need or really could take. Otherwise I need to choose a few courses more, and write my final thesis during the spring, and then about everything required for graduation should be done with. So it does currently seem like the situation with studies has developed in a good direction (through hard work, of course) even while faculty politics has at times caused some difficulties.

Working through last year also made saving a comparatively good travel budget for next summer a possibility, and if everything does go well, both EF and ConFuzzled are to be in my program for next summer. I chose ConFuzzled partially as I do have an interest for seeing a bit of UK, never having been over there before. Otherwise it will probably be a quite busy springtime with studies and work continuing, and strongly hoped that graduation will be possible by summer.

8:17PM

It has been a quite uneventful late summer in general, mostly been occupied with work and a kind of project I was attached to at university to complete practical period required for graduation. Work has been quite busy in general, and actually made a record what comes to both units repaired and earnings, making previous month my most productive at that place of work. The project I got attached to at university has been everything but easy to work with as I seem to get suddenly pushed to consult on things that each time are in a different direction outside my specialities. Having already worked with such varied subjects as analytical geometry and workflow management I tomorrow have to actually try to do a systems evaluation, apparently everything coming up that isn't what I have specialized in...

I did choose courses I will be doing this autumn, and by now it does seem quite realistic indeed to graduate by next summer, I just need to find a subject about which to write my masters thesis, probably having to contact people who nowadays work in different universities due to embedded systems practically not existing anymore as a line of study in my own faculty. Tomorrow studies will again begin proper, going to be a quite busy day tomorrow, so probably will be going to sleep early. For now will relax for practically last day of vacation.

I did also finally find time to yesterday get around and photograph the new back stripe arrangement on my fursuit. (I apologize for the slightly odd position, it would have probably looked better from other directions than behind):

9:32PM

My summer has been mostly nice this far, even if a bit uneventful at times (partially caused by a quite rainy weather pattern). I did in mid-June go to a steam locomotive-powered museum rail travel on the route Helsinki-Lahti-Helsinki, steam traction being provided by Hr1-class heavy passenger locomotive. Pictures might be provided at a later date once I get the film developed, I finished it only yesterday, in somewhat unfortunate manner to be mentioned later in the post.

In July I did visit Junkvist for a weekend and had very good time indeed there. We also did modify my fursuit, replacing the somewhat weak airbrushed stripe on the back with longer black fur, which does at least in my opinion give a much nicer definition to the color pattern from behind. Big thanks again for help with it! Afterwards most of the remaining month of July and beginning of this month have been spent either at work at the local electronics repair place or at home without too much to do, so it has been a bit uneventful if demanding repairs after lightning strikes don't count.

Yesterday I did go to photograph the rally cars as they went by from closeby larger road on transition to service area from last special stage that day. I did get good pictures of most of the top competitors, using up remaining film in both of the camera bodies I normally use, at which also the slightly unfortunate happened. My recently acquired Practika MTL5B broke on the last frame of the film, thus having lasted exactly 36 actuations, that having the first film I put through after getting it used. It works now like B-setting would have been selected all the time, but the longer shutter times also time themselves if shutter button is released before the time ends... I apparently have to take it apart some time and see what has gone wrong. A bit unfortunate as I had just found the Practika to have been quite a bit better replacement for the Zenit I had used for a few years as my secondary camera body, I couldn't get the USSR product to hold light totally no matter what I did, producing stripes on pictures when sun was behind me or directly above.

Apart from those mechanical troubles and quite rainy weather, my summer has been quite nice this far, and of course with the somewhat longer vacation out of university will still continue for nearly a month, even while I need to look at what things I need to do quite closely to be able to graduate next spring, which I very much aim for. But for now to continue the evening and probably go to sleep quite early, as I again will be going to work at least for tomorrow.

10:56PM

Today I did wash my fursuit. It was in need of washing after EF last summer both due to somewhat poor conditions at the room I was in for getting it to dry between events, and lack of proper disinfectant to spray it with to inhibit later fouling (I need to obtain proper disinfectant soon). I at first was slightly puzzled about how I was going to accomplish washing it with the washing machine here far from robust enough to be able to handle such a load (and the non-detachable tail made it also otherwise a quite demanding proposition, also taking into account I didn't really want to machine-wash it), and as the house has no bath-tub, I had to think for a while about where to wash it. Then I came up with the simple solution of using the transport box for the purpose.

It did go well, and as the weather was beneficially warm for drying the suit, it is now all nice and fresh from washing and drying outside, so I do feel quite accomplished that I got up to doing it. My brother also took a picture of me washing it, it could be playfully noted that I seem to look very concentrated about it:

For now I'll be relaxing for the rest of the evening today. Will be at work for tomorrow and friday as the owner of the shop is at a ship cruise vacation.

11:39PM

Had quite a busy spring with studying and work, but now everything is done with until next autumn. I did finish my bachelors thesis (subject was Multics and it's significance in the history of computer systems) and just got informed that I passed also the maturity exam. Now I just need to fill the appropriate forms and university will declare my bachelors degree. I will of course directly continue to a masters degree, but it is a very good intermediate step to have a finished degree in case any difficulties with graduating should arise due to faculty politics or otherwise.

Otherwise there are several projects I'm more or less working with, I've designed and am building a vacuum tube-based audio amplified from different tubes I found from work (an electronics repair shop having existed very long time at the same location has left a large old overstock of parts mostly used in vacuum tube-based television sets), using the slightly unconventional combination of two PL504 as power stage, two EY500A as rectifier diodes for anode voltage, two EF86 as pre-amplifiers and two ECC84 to form a phono pre-stage. All the tubes used are Philips or Telefunken vintage examples, and I do expect interesting tonal results from the design.

Otherwise I've been still at work randomly, depending on whether there are enough devices to repair to warrant going. Otherwise I've been mostly trying to get used to being on vacation. I've also planned to travel on the first steam-powered museum train to traverse the new track built to shorten rail distance between Helsinki and Lahti. I did reserve a place well in time about two months ago, and if nothing catastrophic happens, I will be going. Otherwise I haven't yet specifically decided about travel plans for the summer. But for now, I will be continuing the evening.

11:51PM

This week is quite much the first normal week after the christmas break, so I've been again getting things ready for studying. I did have the safety examination for chemistry laboratory courses last week, apparently did pass, but it was very easy with mostly having to recognize warning labels and such things one has the absolutely know to be able to operate safely in such an environment. Studies have been progressing well, and I very probably will graduate this spring with what would in English be called a Bachelor's degree, but I will immediately continue on to Master's degree. It is good to have an intermediate one though, especially with the faculty trying very hard to cancel my line of study, so I can move elsewhere if absolutely necessary without mostly any losses of already done work due to having one already completed degree which has to be respected in similar manner in all universities compared to individual courses, which can be lost or credited only partially when moving to another university.

Otherwise it has been a bit uneventful still for the beginning of the year, the PS2 proved very much a runaway success at the coffee room especially after I did succeed in putting together a working SNES emulator disc, at first I did put all the files into the root directory and succeeded in making only discs that didn't boot. I did learn after a while that PS2 filesystem allows only 32 entries in the root directory itself proper, and after tackling the issue I did get a bootable disc immediately. I also have contemplated plans for this summer, unfortunately not able to go to EF (or any other con for that matter) this year due to financial limitations, but will probably be able to do a tour of Finland by train and photographing locales I have traveled less in along the way.

Otherwise I think I'll be continuing the evening for now, but here we have a somewhat belated (christmas tree is still inside here, though) christmasy picture of my fursuit, Radium:

11:50PM

So, it has been a while indeed since I wrote here. Soon it will be a new year and I will indeed try to remember to write more about things. Mostly the end of the year was uneventful, excepting going to EF. It was a very nice trip, and I will probably be posting some photographs once I actually get around to scan all the negatives. Otherwise I mostly spent the autumn with studies, which of course isn't made any easier by my line of study (embedded systems) constantly trying to be cancelled by the faculty leadership before I graduate.

My holiday season has been very uneventful due to mostly staying at home, didn't have too many plans to go anywhere, so I've been mostly working with some projects left over otherwise and taking it easy for some time. I did repair a Playstation 2 to replace the original Playstation I installed at the students board coffee room. Having been a runaway success it was apparent that if I had time to build a PS2 from leftover systems, it would be a good addition.

This year there has fortunately been much less problems with power around here, but that is of course especially explained by the nearly total lack of any snow for most of the time this far, so there hasn't been any snow load on the power lines to cause problems either. It has been fortunate in the sense that I still have the same slightly poorly reliable hard disk on my main desktop, as it still works very well as long as I can get it to spin in the first place.

I did also today order the Dargaard - Eternity Rites CD, as I have for some time wanted a better quality copy of that album, it didn't cost too much either, about ten Euros so I would consider it quite good price. I think it is time for me to get to other things for now, so I'll be writing soon more.