Mad Men celebrates Finnish design

We all know that Finland is the design center of the world! The clever writers and set designers at Mad Men know it too. This season opens at the close of 1964 with the new firm of SCDP in the Time Life building.

Everyone's favorite character, Roger Sterling, has the best lines and the best office furniture. Check out the tulip table in his gleaming, white office. The Tulip Table was designed by Eero Saarinen. He also designed the arch in St. Louis and Dulles airport.

If you can't watch Mad Men on television, you can listen to the Mad Men radio station on Pandora. Enjoy!

P.S. You can see Eero Saarinen's Tulip chairs on the deck of the Starship Enterprise!

8 -- 9 -- 10!

Today in US history!

A Sad Post

I feel this is a very sad news story, but one that I needed to post on my blog of all things Finnish. From the BBC via Gawker:

The annual World Sauna Championships in Finland have ended in tragedy with the death of one of the finalists, the organisers said.

Russian finalist Vladimir Ladyzhensky and Finnish rival Timo Kaukonen were both taken to hospital after collapsing and Mr Ladyzhensky later died.

The event, which has been running since 1999, requires participants to withstand 110C for as long as possible.

Its chief organiser said all the rules of the event had been followed.

The competition was held in Heinola, 138km (86 miles) north of Helsinki.

Organiser Ossi Arvela said in a statement that the organisers were grief stricken at the events.

Mr Arvela said the police were already at the venue and were undertaking an investigation.

He said: "All the rules were followed and there was enough first aid personnel. All the competitors needed to sign in to the competition with a doctor's certificate."

Mr Kaukonen, who was last year's champion, is being treated in hospital at the city of Lahti.

Still pictures from the event released by news wires showed the pair being treated after having collapsed, apparently suffering burns.

Lau Nau: unravel her melodies

This musician is Finnish. I love listening to her. Also, my knitting looks like this!

Summer's lease

I have blogged about the Finnish affinity for the kesä mökki or summer house. Seemingly everyone has one. A kesä mökki is usually a small home lacking plumbing or other amenities so the family can enjoy the togetherness of survival without television.

We have a kesä mökki of sorts. It is on a lake...however, it is has many mod cons. You do have that feeling of being away from it all especially as there is no cell phone coverage or high speed internet access!

Above are some pictures of the kesä mökki in Canada. The water level of the lake changes drastically on our shore in the winter so that any lake side sauna would need to be on wheels.

The lack of high speed internet access in rural parts of New Hampshire or New Brunswick contrasts sharply with the Finnish guarantee of high speed internet access to all. The Finnish government realizes that people living in more rural parts of the country are excluded from modern civic engagement if they are unable to meaningfully use a computer.

Without my wireless internet server I would be unable to fritter away my time on the computer or on my iphone. My iphone is full of fennophile gadgets: Radio Finland, Word Power, Hei Finland. I can listen to Turun Radio while I make dinner.

My daughter leaves tomorrow for what must be a peculiarly American institution: sleep away camp. Two weeks in the equivalent of kesä mökki on a beautiful lake in northern New Hampshire. Ipods are contraband at the camp.

Her departure for camp heralds the close of summer...Summer's lease hath all too short a date. This has been a particularly Shakespearean summer, especially in Finland where the highest temperature on single day was set near Joensuu--37.2. Hesari keeps using the word "helle" meaning heat or hot weather. It makes me smile because it is so similar to our word, hell.

I will close with Sonnet 18--a love poem but the nature imagery seems apt when I think of the July that Finland experienced and the hot weather scorching the southern states.

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer's lease hath all too short a date,

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimmed,

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimmed.

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,

Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st.

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Where can you find a greener IT? In Finland of course!

I heard this story about Helsinki Energy recycling heat from computer server rooms. The server rooms are cooled by piping water from the Baltic. By recycling the heat the data center will save $240,000 in heating costs. You can listen to the story on PRI here.

What to do when paper mills are no longer profitable--Make rayon!

My father found this article in the Globe and Mail yesterday: A town in Quebec is transforming their pulp wood plant over from paper to rayon using equipment purchased in Finland.

The strategy is the result of a forward thinking entrepreneur reports the Globe and Mail:

The man behind the strategy is Fortress chairman and chief executive officer Chadwick Wasilenkoff, a 38-year-old contrarian investor who seeks out opportunities in overlooked or depressed sectors, like the forest products industry.

“There isn’t enough dissolving pulp to feed the market demand for rayon,” Mr. Wasilenkoff said in an interview.

Maybe Berlin, New Hampshire, should consider rayon. I volunteer to shop for used machinery in Finland.