Petra

Petra, Jordania. Photos of our journey to Middle East  can be found here.   (Juha H.)

Raunioita

Ruins from Capernaum, Israel. Sini and I are back from our journey to Middle East - Israel and Jordania. We saw  rain, sleet, sandstorms and history so layered... All in all everything was very interesting and enlightening , very much so. (Juha H.)

Graffiti

Ensemble Hoikkaset played a gig for local veterans of WW2. We performed mostly Christmas carols.
Later in the evening I recorded some recorder and Sini's beautiful singing. Music makes me so happy! (Juha H.)

Hoikkaset

Ensemble Hoikkaset played a gig today for local veterans of the WWII. We performed Christmas carols for the most. And on top of that - some very tasty food. Nice.

Juha H.

Max Hastings

For some time I've been reading a book - Nemesis written by Max Hastings. It's a story of the battle of Japan, 1944-1945. Its timeline is the end of WWII around the Pacific Ocean. Hastings is a good story teller though many of the things he writes about are very horrible. He tells of men in foxholes, the misery of innocent civilians and the grandeur and/or stupidity of military operations... How would've I felt sitting duck as a rear gunner of a Superfortress and watching Tokyo burning 9000 feet below... I'm quite fortunate not to be part of any such horrors. And I can only wish that such horrors won't repeat themselves... It seems that mankind's actions every now and then are still quite awful...

Juha H.

Musaa ja lehvaa

Much of the day - just playing and writing music... In the evening I recorded my parts for a Mep/JoukoT-song - three, four tracks of percussion, bass and woodwinds are done. Now only singing is missing. (Earlier, some weeks ago, Jouko did his acoustic guitar...) - There is a date set for vocals to come true...

Later in the evening - a movie. Sini and I watched 300 ... The whole was an ugly bloodshed and - I'd say irrevalent, non-historical - legend, sort of...

Juha H.

Talvisota

Finnish Winter War ended 13th of March 1940. So today is its memorial day. The war had begun 105 days before in the end of November 1939 when Soviet-Russia attacked Finland. But this little country prevailed against all odds. There were so many Russians and so few Finns. They had so overwhelming amount of guns, tanks, airplanes... Finns had no battle worthy tanks at all against more than 1000 (one thousand). And the weather was so cold. But luckily Finland came out of the turmoil pretty much alive.

Before the war in August 1939 Nazi-Germany and Communist-Russia had made a pact and divided Eastern-Europe into spheres of influence according to which Finland belonged to Russia. And only after a few weeks later - when this Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact had been signed - Germany invaded Poland. And only after a few weeks of this Russia invaded Poland, too. Thus not only Nazi-Germany but the Communist-Russia was part of why the hell of a war broke loose...

But after some horrendously tumultous years around the Globe the war ended. And luckily Finland did keep its independence.

Juha H.