Since our home web server died in March, I came back here to do my blogging. But I didn’t have a backup for the blogs I did from January which was the time I renewed my interest in blogging using the iPad. I spent a lot of time working with the Editorial app and worked out all the problems for photo uploads and everything was in super shape for me to blog easily. It was a fantastic work flow. I took pictures on my iPhone, and the photo stream automatically sync them to my iPad, I then used the Editorial app to upload the photos, grabbed the link and inserted it into a blog entry for me to add text to. Then another button in Editorial publish it on my site.
But poof, everything was gone when the server died. I have the photos directory but the MYSQL database was never backed up and all the entries were gone. I found out though that because I used the wordpress app on my iPhone to blog sometimes and it did sync with my site and have all the entries since January. I looked everywhere to see if I could easily move the entries to here at wordpress.com. But I found nothing.
Today, I finally bit the bullet and manually copied and pasted the entries one by one using the iPhone. Then I re-uploaded all the pictures and linked to the entries. Now everything I had is here. It took a few hours. But at least It’s done finally. Had to find a few pictures on iPhoto and re-exported them. Learned the lesson to have backups!!
Now I can try to see if I can use the Editorial on the iPad again to blog. I really like that workflow and it was the reason that I was blogging so much in January. Probably will help renew my enthusiasm if I can go back to the process again. Let’s find out.
There are so many scenic views in the neighborhood. Every time I walk Benny, I am compelled to get the iphone out and take a picture. The park is one of those places that you can never get tired of the scenery.
There is an advantage of having the kids around. Ryan cleaned everything in the kitchen after breakfast this morning and Elim baked a banana bread with the over ripen about to be thrown out bananas. What nice kids! I really like having them around. I get to talk to them about their day after they get home and we have dinner together. It’s too bad they are only staying for a few weeks.
The other benefit is I am more active when they are around. Instead of lounging around watching youtube videos or taking naps, I am motivated to do more cooking and some housework than usual. One I like to have dinner with them, two I don’t want the house to be too out of control when there is compnay. Double benefit.
Elim’s Summa Residency Graduation Ceremony on June 23rd, 2014
and some video clips on youtube
It was held in the Urgent Care Building lower lobby. The reception was beautiful with wonderful appetizers. The shrimp cocktails was great, the chicken kabobs, meatballs, all tasted wonderful. The ceremony itself was moving and funny at the same time. We all had a warm feeling afterwards. Plenty of hugs to go around and tears in every eye. It was a great day.
The sky was gorgeous when I walked Benny so I snapped a picture with my iphone. I even used it to replace the sky in he windmill photo from the Finland trip. Now that I look at it, I think I need to go back and redo it.
Finally, after two weeks of traveling via planes, car, and walking a whole lot and having meals ranging from cold meat and bread to 25 euros martini, we are finally back home. It’s been an exhausting trip for me but Leo has fulfilled his dream and his root searching project.
I tried to take as many pictures as possible to document the experience and the places we discovered. Just finished editing them and putting them online.
Still have video clips to process and eventually putting together a slideshow + video to document the whole thing.
The impression I got for the trip is that Finland is not that much different from the US when you travel in the car. Sure the language is different and they use euros but most of the Finnish people understand English so there is no problem in communication. Their hotels are similar except the bathrooms all have heated floors and even the public bathrooms have bidets. I still haven’t figured out how to use this d* thing yet. In a way, it’s very similar to the modern hotel bathrooms in Taiwan now I think about it.
Along the trip, we got lots of help from the Finnish people, the hotel clerk, the church clerk, almost everyone we approached to ask a question is happy to help us out. And we got lucky in finding places like Leo spotting his great grand father’s grave from the roared as we drove by the graveyard. And the reporter that heard about us and met with us and took us to the house his great, great, grand mother worked as a maid. And through him we got to go inside the house to take pictures and look around.
The documentary would be filled with interesting observations if I start that project sooner than later before I forgot about them.
I regret that I didn’t write much down while I was on the trip. Now that we are home, I would say why didn’t I ask for their names, why didn’t I use my iPhone to get the GPS locations, etc. Yeah, much smarter after the fact.
We are still jet lagged and couldn’t stay awake pass 5pm. Finland is 7 hours ahead of us so that would be midnight Finland time. But hopefully, we will get over it soon and get back to our normal routine.
We went back to the market square and went on the boat to svomenlinna island. Leo thought his ancestors may have worked on the island and he wants to see it. Watched a movie about the history of the island in the museum. It was actually very interesting to me. They had parties for the officers and their families on the island. It is not a big island and I can’t picture how they can fit the elaborate parties. Afterwards, we walked around a bit more, took lots of pictures and came back to the market square. Had lunch at Penisulla, a Chinese restaurant. There was a big group of Chinese that stayed in the same hotel and happened to be at that restaurant also. They kept the serving staff busy and they seemed to have a very high standard for their food. We saw the serving staff bringing big dishes back from their room to the kitchen as rejects. One of them actually showed up at our table as a freebie for us because they want to apologize for the slow service for our order. They didn’t say it was a reject from the other room, but we knew. It was called “Eggplant Dragon”. It was breaded and deep fried and looked like a dragon. That night, I had stomach problem because I ate too much of it. Maybe there was a reason for the reject.
When we got back, Leo went back out trying to find a Starbucks to look for a mug for Tom, but arrived 15 min after they closed. He came back empty handed. There are actually only two Starbucks in Finland. One in Helsinki and one in its airport we found out. They planned to go to an italian restaurant for dinner, but Dale didn’t want to go and I was going to skip it because of my stomach problem, so Leo and Deborah decided to eat at the hotel restaurant again. Leo came back to ask if I want to join them there, I decided to go and enjoy their company. Lo and behold, the Chinese party was there too. And they were doing the usual salute with each other over and over again. Each time, they had to stand up to cheer and drink their booze. It went on and on and on. Always a different combination of people standing up and saluting to each other. This time, we didn’t get any reject from their table.
I had a small appetizer and a drink, we talked till 11:30. There was still light outside and we didn’t realize it was that late already. It was an experience to have light till the wee hours of the day, you tend to stay up later thinking it is still early. This was a full day and fun too.
http://youtu.be/kJuKePBbu4E
i taped this with my ipad so the audio is really bad. But I’m glad I remembered to do it.
View from our room in Helsinki. Tried to upload a video but it didn’t make it. A bird and two geese were lounging by the shore near our room. It is a very nice day. A special treat after 20 hours of travel. The exciting part was the 30 minute between the flight from Stockholm to Helsinki. We had to go through customs and security and we made it with 5 minutes to spare. It was a bit nerve wrecking.
Leo went back to the airport to get his brother Dale. He just can’t wait to start exploring the city. He already got a 3 day bus pass and he’s taking the bus and the tram back to the airport. Dale doesn’t even know he is going to meet him. Hope they get connected.
i am taking it easy here at the hotel. Made a cup of tea and enjoying the view. And try to jot down some memories of the flights.