Thursday, June 13

Another irregular start. I got up as usual then hung around at home. Irma volunteered to return my cds to the library at Stoa so I had nothing to do until I left for the centre for my dental appointment.

I got to Stockmann, went up to the seventh floor, found Pihlajalinna, and – somewhat to my surprise – Tero appeared at exactly the time of the appointment. He decided that the crack he thought he had spotted did not need any attention and so he simply cleaned my teeth and charged me a lot of money. I left happy with my mouth tingling fresh: a perfect marriage of science and capitalism.

On the bus from Sörnäinen I noticed the unusual mirror in which I can see me and the driver. I look at it for some time and then take out my iPad to capture the moment. Moment captured, I turn my attention back to the scenery outside where dark clouds have begun to pile up in the sky.

At Arcada I will turn my attention to the Erasmus Form Fandango. Yesterday I received copies from Vera in Akureyri that she had got signed in the required manner. I will send one to Micke and get Tomas to sign the other (Nathalie having one to England for a week). Micke will get his signed almost instantly and mail a newly scanned version back to me. I will take both of them to Christa, and the travel money will become ours.

In the afternoon Micke and I will sit at laptops in different parts of Helsinki and use the phone to coordinate our attempts to find flights. We will do it, ending up with two flights of the kind I would normally avoid at any cost: we will leave Helsinki at 6:55 and arrive back at 00:15. Ho hum.

I will then fire off mails to Christa and Helen, currently somewhere in Sweden at an EkotekNord meeting, where they also hope to find funding for this expedition. I will tell them which planes to book.

I will spend the rest of the afternoon editing episode 23 of the Miaaw podcast, featuring Timo Cantell talking about open data in Helsinki. It will work much better than I had thought it would. It makes an interesting thirty minute broadcast.

At 17:00 I will find myself sitting in the Pixelache office for the first time in months talking to Andrew, Jan, Kris and Sasa. Aga will arrive, and Steve will join us online. We will have a monthly meeting that will follow the usual path and end up talking about the structure of the monthly meetings that we have.

As soon as possible we will walk to the new Madhouse building which has its official opening today. We will get there (it sits opposite Kellohalli) and find nothing much happening. I will eat some marshmallows and stand talking until we notice that rain will happen at any moment. I will take my leave and head for the metro.

I will arrive home approximately twenty metres ahead of the rain clouds.