Pictures from Easter holiday

We spent four days at our cottage in Jalasjärvi over the Easter holiday. We had the pleasure of visiting with our good neighbors and just hanging out with them. One of them has an exchange student from New Zealand and the other other's son has a girlfriend who is an exchange student from Mediterranean island of Sardinia. Tiina and the boys spent some time learning Italian from her.

We attended the lighting of the Easter bonfire and stayed there for about an hour. There were a few witches to be seen and they didn't seem to be frightened by the fire at all. Pictured here are Jasmin and Jessica Moilanen from Oulu.

Grilled sausages were being served as well as little cartons of juice. The fire was really good this year. Not so much junk in the bonfire so it burnt clean, fast and very hot! It was starting to level out about an hour after it had been lit.


Tiina is pictured in the photo to the left.

These pictures were taken with the Nokia N73 ME's 3.2 megapixel camera.

Some past information...

Well Tiina didn't make it into Finnish Parliament this time around. She did manage to secure 289 votes though. She seemed pretty happy with those results being it was her first Parliamentary election. Now we shall wait and see what will happen in four years from now! But wait, there's more! She is already planning for the Espoo city council elections in two year's time. Oh brudder. A big thank you for all that helped in Tiina's campaign. Better luck next time Babe!

Happy Easter; Hyvää Pääsiäistä; Glad Påsk

Hope everyone has a nice, safe time during the Easter holidays. We will be heading up to Jalasjärvi, as we have done the past 12 or so years, to partake in the Pääsiäiskokko = Easter bonfire in our local village. The weatherman says it is supposed to be cold and possibly snowing over the weekend. I don't mind though. It adds to the atmosphere of the place. A nice fire burning in the kitchen stove with the aroma of Tiina's good cooking and wood smoke makes it very enjoyable. For that cold day the sauna is always nice to warm up with. For that cold night there is always a big, fluffy blanket to get lost under along with a nice, soft bed.

War on Terrorism

I am sick to death of having to read, hear or view anything about George W. Bush's war on terrorism. This goes especially for what is going on in Iraq. Political supporters of Bush say the war must be winnable in order for the terrorists not to win. I say BONK! Iraq had nothing, absolutely nothing, to with terrorism or any attacks against the USA. How about Afghanistan? The only thing I can gather is that Osama bin Laden was hiding there so the USA decided to try and kill two birds with one stone, Osama and the Taliban, oh, and let's not forget al-Qaida.

How long will this rage go on? How long will the USA allow this madman to continue his rage? Congress, with Democrats in control, fear that if they cut off the cash cow for this stupid war that they will be labeled as abandoning the troops abroad. They may pass a bill that sets a deadline to bring all troops home by 2008. Bush will probably veto it or if the usual trend continues he will just ignore it because he feels he is above the law of the land and the rest of world in the name of America's freedom. And people wonder why the rest of the world think so badly about the USA. Duh! I borrow a phrase from Forrest Gump, "stupid is as stupid does".

How many more servicemen must die or become injured before this idiot of a president realizes that he cannot win in Iraq. Global War on Terrorism. I don't hear anything about this war outside of Iraq and Afghanistan. In given time there will be no more able bodies to fight in this war. A draft will most certainly be needed because people are beginning to smarten up and realize that they would be idiots to sign up with the military. Nobody wants to enlist to die for nothing. To die in Iraq is to die for nothing. It is sad but true. The whole war was based on a few lies and the fear that the USA's president, especially the vice president Cheney, had impressed on the American people. What will happen when the military is spread so thin and abroad? Will America be that much safer? Think about it.

America is involved in a civil war in Iraq and its mere presence there adds fuel to the fire of hatred. The USA has done a bad and the government needs to admit this and step down and take the shame like a man and begin to work on renewing America's image both on the home front and abroad. There is nothing wrong with that. Many other nations have done so and they continue to thrive and be strong to this day. What is wrong is to continue the pace that has been going on the past four years. Bush has nothing to lose, America does.

Banner's up!

Sunday I went with Tiina to help her and Katinka put up the campaign banner. This was done at Katinka's brother's golf course just across from IKEA in Espoo. It was mildly cold but with a wind. My hands got somewhat chilled as I didn't bring gloves but as long as I wasn't touching the aluminum ladder I was fine. The banner measures 1.5 meters high by 4 meters in length. Tiina climbed the ladder to attach the banner to the poles whilst I held the ladder and Katinka the lose ends of the banner. It actually took longer than I thought it would but we managed to get it done before Tiina had to head over to Suna school for an invitation to the public to come and chat with her. I helped her take the things she needed into the school then walked on home from there. The first picture is of me and Katinka where I am driving a nail into the pole. The second picture is of Tiina under the banner after we had finished. One can see the Medieval stone church to the far right. Remember to vote !!!!

18.03.2007

86 TIINA KUJALA
Nyland/Uusimaa
sfp/rkp

Purrs like a kitten

I had meant to do a quick follow up to my last posting concerning the great computer overhaul. The puter now boots up quite quickly. I feared that the CPU got fried and that was the reason for the slow boot and re-boot. Well as I sat here looking at the machine during each re-boot after a program installation, I had a lot of time to think due to the slow boot-up, I ran everything I could past my mind to try and figure out why this wasn't working when it had done so before I cleaned everything out and re-installed Windows XP. It wasn't until after I had installed the scanner drivers and program that I had noticed the scanner went though its checks before the memory test. I then noticed the two unopened printer ink cartridges on my desk then it "downed on me" - to borrow an expression from former, late neighbor of Fox, Montana, Waino Rintala, that I had attached the USB cable to the printer but hadn't installed the drivers. So to test this theory I unplugged the USB cable from the printer at the next re-boot. The computer booted very quickly and in no time I was ready to go! So with this greatly welcomed and relieving news I quickly installed the printer drivers and all problems were cured. No more worries.

With all said and done I was very anxious to get to work on transferring VHS tapes to DVD. After all, I had purchased a second hard drive, 2 GB of memory and upgraded from Pinnacle Studio 9 to Studio 10 Plus just for this purpose and my mother sent me a VHS player/recorder from the States so that I would be able to capture native signal NTSC. I found all to work perfectly well after I partitioned the second hard drive to 30 GB and dedicated that partition for video capturing only. So far I have captured and rendered five VHS movies and burned them to DVD. I have many more to go but am truly happy and quite satisfied that this is working, finally!

Dust Hotel

A few weeks ago I began to experience my computer shutting down for no apparent reason. As I began to investigate the problem I discovered that the CPU was working at 100% just before this would happen. This did not happen immediately but after some time of running a memory labor intensive program such as analyzing and encoding a DVD or generating a kinship report in the family tree file that I know has many interconnected people. The next step I took was to look up all that I could on the Internet to see what the problem might be. The general consensus was that the CPU was overheating causing the system to shut down. So I began to monitor the BIOS at boot-up to see what the fan speed, system and CPU temps read. Of course when in the BIOS one doesn't get the true temperature of the working PC as nothing is going on to make the processor heat up, or so I thought. I watched the processor heat up from 35 C and ending at about 94 C +/- 3 C in 20 minutes time !!! The normal temperature for my system should be around 40-45 C !! How long had this been going on? Well I had planned to clean out my system inside and out and adding the 2 GB of RAM I had purchased so many months ago but never seemed to get around to it. My computer was acting so sluggish and knew XP Home had collected a lot of junk over the past three years since I first bought it. I had the case off before when I put in a second hard drive and it looked pretty clean then. That wasn't quite a year ago. Well when I opened the beastie up it looked fairly clean, still. BUT when I got to removing the cooling fan from the heat sink that is when I got the surprise of my life!! The dust must have been 1/4" thick on top and extending down inside the fins another 1/4" or so. I whipped out the mini-vacuum kit and canned air and went to work. I then put it all back together and crossed my fingers as I switched her on. She purred like a kitten. I monitored the temperature from the BIOS and found that the system temperature stayed at around 38 C and the CPU at 41-43 C !! That was all it took! My system is very slow in booting up yet. This occurs up until the memory check. Perhaps something got fried in the processor or the BIOS got damaged? After Windows loads all works fine and dandy. In fact as I am typing this I have been generating a kinship report that has been going on for the past four or five hours at the most! It is on its second and final pass and at 86% complete. The CPU usage is showing a steady 55-65% with both going. Before I had to change the affinity to only run CPU0 in order to keep the usage fixed at 50% but I couldn't wait for the extra hours for the report to generate. I couldn't even run very many other programs at the same time. But now it seems I don't have problems multi-tasking.

I learned a great deal about wireless networking, keeping the PC clean and recovering a system these past six days. It all started simply because my brother-in-law gave my youngest son his old Dell P4 1.3 GHz computer without a hard drive. Pretty straight forward stuff here. Purchase a hard drive pop it in and install the operating system. Been there, done that more times than I care to remember. But this time all went sour when I couldn't get his machine connected to the Internet via the wireless network. One by one each of our machines went down like the domino effect. After intensive reading I decided to reset the wireless router and re-install everything from scratch. I knew the machines were connecting to the router but they weren't getting past the ADSL modem to collect an IP address. Resetting the router worked. I think the main problem may have been with the ADSL modem. We had it replaced a few weeks ago by our ISP for free because when we had originally rented it, later purchased it, there was no 1 MB speed for the ADSL. Gradually we were upgraded for free but the modem was not. We found out it couldn't handle 2 MB/512K so they gave us a new one that is good up to 25 MB. After I got it home I just disconnected the old one and connected the new one. Perhaps it needed to be set-up first? Well, it is all done and taken care of and all works fine for the moment. I am almost done with installing the programs on my own system. I need to install a USB 2.0 PCI card in Alexi's machine and then put it back in his desk. All that is left is to wipe Tiina's hard drive clean and do a complete re-install as well. That should pretty much finish off my week of winter holiday! No Jalasjärvi this winter holiday :-(

Lustila - Torpan Sauna.....

The following sets of pictures were taken in July of 2002 from the old Lustila croft in the village of Hirvijärvi of the municipality of Jalasjärvi. This sauna, as we were told, is more than likely the original one built. It is all that is left of the croft. We could see where the foundation was for the house and the caved in remnants of the cellar. Our guide, Seppo Pentinmäki, even found where the well was by the divining method!

The photo on the right is of the inside of the sauna. Here is pictured the stove and chimney and an old bed to the left!

If this sauna is the original sauna, which it does appear to be by the way it has been constructed, then there is a good chance that my great-grandfather, his siblings and my great-great-grandfather and some of his siblings were all born in this sauna!

My great-great-great grandfather, Samuel Matinpoika (Valkama) Lustila acquired contract to the torppa upon marriage (5 Feb 1842) to his wife Ulla Simontytär Palomäki. Ulla's father was a farmer/tailor and her maternal grandfather was isäntä (head of household/estate) of the farm Marttila.


The Lustila torppa burned down in the early 1920's. The current owners of the property have built a small log house, a lean-to and a small man made pond. The place is still called Lustila.

In these photos one can see how the hay is placed on poles to aid in drying as the ground can have a lot of dew, especially in wooded areas where the sun doesn't shine all day.

Hooray for the Chicks

I personally congratulate The Dixie Chicks for their current taking of all five categories of which they were nominated for at the 49th Grammy Awards. I especially applaud Natalie Maines for sticking to her guns and her freedoms granted her by the Constitution of the United States of America. Go girl! French fries and the Chicks. What more can one ask for? Before you all who happen across my blog decide to bombard me with words such as turn-coat, unpatriotic, disrespectful, etc., etc., I would like to enter a quote right here and now from one of the boldest presidents the USA has ever had.

"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public." - Theodore Roosevelt.

I stand by these words as should everyone else that believes in the Constitution of the United States of America. BULLY!

Freedom what???

The other day at work my co-worker, I will call him TF, and I were discussing some things that have occurred in the United States since the illustrious Dubya took office. One of these was the re-naming of French fries to freedom fries simply because France was against the invasion of Iraq. Perhaps if I had been living in the USA at the time I wouldn't have thought much about it. No, I take that back. I would have thought it as a childish gesture all the same! I mean, think about it. Americans tend to believe that the US military were the only ones that won the war in Europe. France was invaded by Hitler and liberated by the Allied forces. To this day whenever France takes an opposite opinion from that of the USA people go nuts about it and drag out W.W.II and how "we" won the war for them. Even I know better than this. Why is it I learned it in school? Perhaps the rest were sleeping during this time? Anyway, it was an embarrassment to say the least for me, an American citizen and living abroad having to put up with this. Was I ever offended by the rude and crude remarks by my peers. No, I was not. Simply because I had to agree with them.

So now we have the change of French fries to freedom fries, later changed back.

TF, the other day said to me in a laughing manner, "Freedom Kiss". I asked, "What?"
He was wondering if the Americans changed the name of French Kiss to Freedom Kiss. Then we began to think of other things that began with French that Americans use in everyday speech.

The French Connection has now been renamed the Freedom Connection
French Horn to Freedom Horn
French Drain to Freedom Drain
French cut bra to freedom cut bra
French lingerie to Freedom lingerie
French's Mustard to Freedom Mustard
French bread to Freedom bread
French restaurant to Freedom restaurant
French curve to Freedom curve
French toast to Freedom toast
French dressing to Freedom dressing
French dictionary to Freedom Dictionary
"Excuse me, but do you speak Freedom?"
Victor French, the actor, has now become Victor Freedom, long after his death in 1989.
French Embassy to Freedom Embassy
French poodle to that of Freedom poodle
and the French tickler to Freedom tickler
and last but not least, New Orleans' French Quarter became Freedom Quarter.
Now is this silly or what?

Don't politicians have better things to do than trying to change a name of a product just because a nation of opposite opinion, and one that was right if I may add, disagrees with the great Capitol Hill???

Viva La France!

More Winter Pictures

Well it had snowed again last evening and then later on today. These pictures were taken from the terrace in the backyard this afternoon. One can see how much snow fell by the amount on the bird feeder hanging in the lilac tree. This last snowfall was wetter than the previous. We actually had to go out with the car so all of the snow needed to be cleared from the car and from the parking area. Niki had gone out earlier and made a path from the main door to the gate and around the shed door. I later took away the rest of the snow after removing the snow from around the car. Now the temperature rests at -5.3 Celsius so no fear of it melting all away over night. The forecast calls for more colder weather but not much more snow for a few days. This is enough for me to make it feel like winter. Of course if it does snow more I won't mind ;-)

Snow, Snow, Beautiful Snow !!

At last, at last my winter has arrived! Now this is the kind of winters I do enjoy. Lots of snow and cold enough to keep it fluffy. Today it snowed most of the day with hard winds so there were some quite big drifts to negotiate whilst walking out and about, mainly to the bus to get home. I took these few pictures this evening. One is from our door off to the balcony overlooking the backyard and forest. I always like viewing the snow in the trees lit up by the pathway light. This light turns off around 11 pm. All times during the day one can find people either walking, jogging, biking or skiing depending on what time a year it is. The other two photos were taken from the front door. One is looking towards the front gate and the other in the opposite corner

WINTER !!!

Looking out my window I am wondering if wintertime has finally arrived in Finland. Although I doubt it very much I can only think that it has. So beautiful the trees with their fluffy, white snowy dresses and the flittering about of the tit-mouse and sparrow as they either forage for food from under the mountain pine or from the feeders. The temperature is only -3 Celsius. The children are at play out on the hill and in the woods, finally getting to go sledding in decent snowfall. I took the opportunity of the below freezing weather to defrost our upright freezer last evening. It worked well only that my eldest son, Niki, complained that his ice-cream had looked like it had been frozen and unfrozen five times and thanked me very much for ruining it for him. He ate the slightly disfigured cone all the same and didn't complain about it not tasting good.

Some interesting relatives in ye old family tree

The past few days I began to compile some names that are in my family tree. The ones I will list here are quite distant to say the least. Those that are represented are found via my late Grandmother Flossie's mother's side of the family that came from Powys, Wales. They sailed aboard the ship called the Vine that left Liverpool, England and arrived, more than likely, in Chester, Pennsylvania on 17 Dec 1684. This would be the family of my 9th great-grandparents, Robert Owen (1628-1686) & Jane née Vaughan (1626-1686). It is through the Vaughan family that I am connected to the nobility of Europe. In the following list one will find actors, painters, authors and leaders of nations.

AUTHORS/NOVELISTS/POETS

Jane Austen (1775-1817) novelist
14th cousin 6 times removed

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861) poet
16th cousin 4 times removed

Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875-1950) author
28th cousin once removed

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson
a.k.a. Lewis Carroll (1832-1898) author
15th cousin 4 times removed

Ernest Miller Hemingway (1899-1961) author
Half 20th cousin 4 times removed

Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
a.k.a. P.G. Wodehouse (1881-1975) novelist, cartoonist
14th cousin 5 times removed

Lyman Frank Baum (1856-1919) author, actor, independent filmmaker
27th cousin 3 times removed

Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson
a.k.a. Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) novelist, poet, travel writer
22nd cousin twice removed

Adeline Virginia Stephen
a.k.a. Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) novelist
16th cousin 4 times removed

Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) Scottish historical novelist
17th cousin 8 times removed

PAINTERS/ILLUSTRATORS

Norman Perceval Rockwell (1894-1978) illustrator, painter
19th cousin 3 times removed

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) French painter, draftsman
21st cousin 6 times removed

Walter Elias Disney
a.k.a. Walt Disney (1901-1966) illustrator, producer, animator, director, etc.
21st cousin once removed

Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) Flemish Baroque Era painter
Half 11th cousin 15 times removed

ACTORS/PRODUCERS

Humphrey DeForest Bogart (1899-1957) film Actor
15th cousin once removed

Margaux Louise Hemingway (1954-1996) actress, model
Half 22nd cousin twice removed

Mariel Hadley Hemingway (1961- ) actress
Half 22nd cousin once removed

Catherine Oxenberg (1961- ) Actress
19th cousin once removed

Katharine Houghton Hepburn (1907-2003) actress
15th cousin once removed

Peter Sydney Ernest Aylen
a.k.a. Peter Lawford (1923-1984) actor
12th cousin 3 times removed

Terrence Steven McQueen
a.k.a. Steve McQueen (1930-1980) actor
19th cousin twice removed

Christopher Reeve (1952-2004) actor, producer, director, writer
20th cousin

Olivia Mary de Havilland (1 July 1916- ) actress
20th cousin twice removed

Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland (22 Oct 1917- ) actress
a.k.a. Joan Fontaine
20th cousin twice removed

Randolph Scott (1898-1987) actor
17th cousin 3 times removed

George Walton Lucas, Jr. (1944 - ) Film director, producer, screenwriter
Half 26th cousin 5 times removed

U.S. PRESIDENTS/VICE-PRESIDENTS/GOVERNORS, etc.

George Washington (1732-1799) 1st President
11th cousin 8 times removed

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) 3rd President
12th cousin 5 times removed

James Madison (1751-1836) 4th President
13th cousin 7 times removed

James Monroe (1758-1831) 5th President
16th cousin 3 times removed

John Quincy Adams (1767-1848) 6th President
Half 10th cousin 5 times removed

William Henry Harrison (1733-1841) 9th President
14th cousin 7 times removed

Franklin Pierce (1804-1869) 14th President
20th cousin 7 times removed

Ulysses Simpson Grant (1822-1885) 18th President
18th cousin 3 times removed

Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822-1893) 19th President
18th cousin 6 times removed

Benjamin Harrison (1833-1901) 23rd President
15th cousin 5 times removed

Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. (1858-1919) 26th President
21st cousin 3 times removed

John "Calvin" Coolidge (1872-1933) 30th President
16th cousin twice removed

Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945) 32nd President
17th cousin 3 times removed

Richard Milhous Nixon (1913-1994) 37th President
15th cousin

Gerald Rudolph Ford, Jr.
a.k.a. Leslie Lynch King (1913-2006) 38th President
20th cousin once removed

Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller (1908-1979) 41st Vice President
18th cousin once removed

George Herbert Walker Bush (1924- ) 41st President
20th cousin

George Walker Bush (1946- ) 43rd President
20th cousin once removed

FIRST LADIES of the WHITE HOUSE

Abigail Smith (1744-1818)
Half 9th cousin 6 times removed
wife of John Adams, Jr. (1735-1826) 2nd President

Edith Bolling (1872-1961)
15th cousin 5 times removed
wife of Thomas "Woodrow" Wilson (1856-1924) 28th President

Elizabeth Virginia Wallace (1885-1982) "the Secret President"
Half 27th cousin once removed
wife of Harry S. Truman (1884-1972) 33rd President

Anne Frances Robbins
a.k.a. Nancy Davis (1923- ) Actress; First Lady
Half 27th cousin once removed
wife of Ronald Wilson Reagan (1911-2004) 40th President

MONARCHS/RULERS of direct ancestry, etc.

Edward III (1312-1377) King of England
19th great-grandfather

Edward I Longshanks (1239-1307) King of England
21st great-grandfather

Gwladys Ddu ferch Llywelyn Fawr (1194-1251)
a.k.a. Gladys the Dark, daughter of Llywelyn the Great
23rd great-grandmother

Henry II Curt Mantle d'Anjou (1132-1189) King of England
24th great-grandfather

Owain Glyndŵr (1359-1416) last Welsh Prince of Wales
17th great-granduncle

Gruffudd Maelor I (1121-1191) 2nd Lord of Powys Fadog, Wales
24th great-grandfather

Bleddyn ap Cynfyn (1025-1075) King of Gwynedd, Deheubarth & Powys, Wales
29th great-grandfather

Renaud de Châtillon-sur-Loing (1128-1187) Prince of Antioch Sn de Kérak
26th great-grandfather, beheaded by Saladin at Hattin

Malcolm III Canmore (1031-1093) 45th King of Scotland
a.k.a. Maelcolaim III Ceanmohr
27th great-grandfather

David I the Saint (abt 1082-1153) 50th King of Scots
27th great-grandfather

William I the Conqueror (1024-1087) Duke of Normandy; King of England
27th great-grandfather

Conan III le Gros de Bretagne (abt 1094-1148) Duc de Bretagne
28th great-grandfather

Balduin II du Bourq (1118-1131) King of Jerusalem
28th great-grandfather

Béla I ( - 1063) King of Hungary
29th great-grandfather

Richard I the Lionheart (1157-1199) King of England
23rd great-granduncle

Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar (1943-1099) Castilian nobleman, military & political leader
a.k.a. El Cid Campeador
28th great-grandfather

John Lackland (1166-1216) King of England
29th great-grandfather

Rhodri Mawr ap Merfyn Frych (820-878) 1st ruler of Wales
a.k.a. Rhodri/Roderick the Great (first Welsh ruler to be called Great)
30th great-grandfather

Manuel Eroticus Comnenos ( - 1020) Patrikios; Protospatharios, strategos
30th great-grandfather

Hugues II Capet (939/41-996) King of France
30th great-grandfather

Constantine IX Monomahkos (abt 980-1055) Byzantin emperor
30th great-grandfather

Godgifu (abt 990-1067) Anglo-Saxon noblewoman
a.k.a. Lady Godiva
30th great-grandmother

Olaf III Skötkonung (965/970 - 1021/22) 1st King of Sweden
a.k.a. Olaf the Tax King
30th great-grandfather

Alfred The Great (849-899) King of Wessex; England
31st great-grandfather

Eadgar the Peaceful (943-975) King of England
31st great-grandfather

Rollo (846-931) Viking founder of Normandy; 1st Duke
a.k.a. Hrólfr Rögnvaldsson; Göngu-Hrólfr
31st great-grandfather

Merfyn Frych ap Gwriad ( - 844) King of Gwynedd
a.k.a. Merfyn the Freckled
31st great-grandfather

Wenceslaus I (907-935) Duke of Bohemia
a.k.a. St. Wencelaus (Good King Wenceslas of the Christmas carol)
32nd great-granduncle

Baldwin I Iron-Arm (835-879) 1st count of Flanders
33rd great-grandfather

Charles I the Great of France (797-814) King of Franks, Holy Roman Emperor
a.k.a. Charlemagne, Karl der Große
35th great-grandfather

Basil I the Macedonian (abt 811-886) Byzantin Emperor
35th great-grandfather

Kenneth I MacAlpin ( - 858) King of Scots
35th great-grandfather

Guido I of Spoleto ( - 860) Duke of Spoleto
37th great-grandfather

Clovis I (466-511) King of the Merovingian Franks
43rd great-grandfather

Valentinian I (321-375) Roman Emperor (West)
a.k.a. Flavius Valentinius
50th great-grandfather

other related MONARCHS/RULERS, ETC

Beatrix of the Netherlands (1938- ) Queen of the Netherlands
19th cousin

Margrethe II of Denmark (1940- ) Queen of Denmark
19th cousin

Carl XVI Gustaf Bernadotte (1946- ) present King of Sweden
19th cousin

Victoria Ingrid Alice Désirée Bernadotte (1977- ) present Crown Princess of Sweden
19th cousin once removed

Birger Jarl
a.k.a. Birger Magnusson (abt 1210-1266) Swedish statesman, founder of Stockholm
3rd cousin 26 times removed

Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon (1900-2002) The Queen Mother
16th cousin 4 times removed

Elizabeth II (1926- ) present Queen of United Kingdom of Great Britain & Northern Ireland
a.k.a. Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor
18th cousin once removed

Ferdinand II of Aragon
a.k.a. Fernando el Católico (1451-1515) King of Aragon & Castile
Half 6th cousin 17 times removed

Isabella I of Aragon (1451-1504) Queen of Aragon & Castile
3rd cousin 17 times removed

Prince Charles (1948- )present Prince of Wales; Crown Prince of England
a.k.a. Charles Philip Arthur George Mountbatten-Windsor
19th cousin

Diana Frances Spencer (1961-1997) Lady, Princess of Wales
19th cousin

Constantine I the Great (272-337) Roman Emperor; King of Britain
a.k.a. Gaius Flavius Valerius Aurelius Constantinus
1st cousin 41 times removed

Harald V (1937 - ) present King of Norway
19th cousin

Juan Carlos I (1938 - ) present King of Spain
a.k.a. Juan Alfonso Carlos Víctor María de Borbón y Borbón-Dos Sicilias
19th cousin once removed

Alexander II Nikolyevich Romanov (1818-1881) Tsar of Russia; Grand Duke of Finland
Александр II Николаевич
16th cousin 3 times removed

Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim (1867-1951) Finnish military man/statesman, 6th President
Half 27th cousin twice removed

Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill (1974-1965) twice Prime Minister of England
18th cousin once removed

Rainier III Grimaldi (1923-2005) Prince of Monaco
20th cousin once removed

Abdullah bin al-Hussein (1962- ) present King of Jordan
39th cousin once removed

OTHER NOTABLES

The Prophet Muhammad (570-632) Arab political & military leader, established Islam
41st great-grandfather

St. Vincent Madelgarus ( - 677) Benedictine monk
a.k.a. Vincent Madelgaire de Hainaut
40th great-grandfather

Ann Boleyn (1504-1536) Queen consort of Henry VIII; 1st Marchioness of Pembroke
Half 6th cousin 14 times removed; beheaded by Henry VIII, 4th cousin 15 times removed

Daniel Boone, Sr. (1734-1820) frontiersman
12th cousin 7 times removed

Charles Robert Darwin (1809-1882) naturalist; biologist
Half 22nd cousin 4 times removed

Aga IV Khan (1936 - ) current (49th) Imām of the Shia Imami Ismaili Muslims
41st cousin 5 times removed

John D. Rockefeller, Sr. (1829-1937) Industrialist, Philanthropist
16th cousin 3 times removed

Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) mathematician, philosopher, logician
16th cousin 3 times removed

Josiah Wedgwood (1730-1795) Potter; founder of Wedgwood Pottery; grandfather of Charles Robert Darwin
Half 20th cousin 6 times removed

Manfred von Richtofen "Red Baron" (1892-1918) W.W.I flying ace "ace of aces"
a.k.a. Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen
17th cousin 4 times removed

HAPPY NEW YEAR !!!!

We had a nice time at our cottage over the New Year's holiday. There wasn't much snow and what little there was it melted away until the day we left when it began to snow...typical. Tiina baked bread and rolls in the old wood heated stove. It was her first time baking from scratch while using this oven. She had baked a ham and chicken before. They turned out pretty good. She also made a very delicious pot of chili and some carrot soup.


We spent the changing of the New Year in the sauna where we toasted with pear cider and then went outside to watch the fireworks going up from the surrounding villages and homes. Other than that it was a peaceful New Year.

I didn't do much more than keeping the fires burning and water stocked. Watched a few movies and TV and played cards with Tiina. The boys spent most of their time at the neighbor's playing with their youngest daughter and Nintendo. Let's see what the New Year will bring! Best to all!!

Hyvää Joulua, Merry Christmas, God Jul !!

May ye all have a very merry Christmas!!!

Hyvää Itsenäisyyspäivää Suomi! Happy Independence Day Finland!

Today marks the 89 anniversary of Finland's independence from Russia. Today is also my son Nicholas's nimipäivä = name's day. Happy name's day Niki!

Hauskaa Juhannusta! Happy Midsummer!

Well here it is again Midsummer in Finland. My family and I had a BBQ on the patio and then sauna later in the evening. It was cooler today than it had been the past week. We got some rain last evening so that helped to cool things down a bit. Still need to do some work in the backyard as it looks like a jungle out there. Soon will be summer holiday!

Hyvä Suomi !!

Congratulations for Team Finland with their 5-0 bronze medal win against Canada!

Congratulations Lordi !!

The Finnish heavy-metal rock group Lordi have just won the Eurovision song contest for the first time ever for Finland with their song "Hard Rock Hallelujah" in Athens, Greece.
check 'em out here:
http://www.lordi.fi