Autumn is coming

BREAKING NEWS: First signs of autumn have appeared on Estonian nature. In addition, weather has been quite cloudy and even a tad rainy this month. Well, entire summer has been rather ... un-summery. I have seen better summers. However, this is Estonia and I should be grateful for any good weather we have.

At least the jinx of eclipses being clouded out got broken. With difficulties I saw the solar eclipse on 1st of August, and the eclipse on 16-17 August was rather well seen too despite the fog.

Some other news - I have graduated high school. Even now, post-graduation, I occasionally see dreams of high school classes, but ... Since 19 June 2008, I am a free man. However, I will keep doing revision in some high school subjects as I am thinking of taking some extra exams so I could go to the university to study Geography and with that also Meteorology.

I am a tad mad at the International Olympic Committee right now... Their restrictions on broadcasting even made The Berlin Wall pale. In fact, their shameful restrictions on Internet streaming probably left some countries without live Olympics footage - in some countries, Olympics were not carried live, at least the opening-closing ceremonies and people were also unable to watch it from any foreign link thanks to The Great Firewall of IOC. Thanks, IOC, for ruining the show for some.

Birthday reminder: Only 12 days until my 19th birthday.

Weather camera from my neck of the woods

Trying to reincarnate the weather feed from my home:

Video chat rooms at Ustream

LRET 5: Waiting for snow

All right. You might have heard about the imaginary TV channels I have imagined... And the callsign system where L stands for Laguja and the rest of three letters are the call letters... But leaving that aside, a "transcript" from my fantasies...

SUNDAY 23 DECEMBER 2007
LRET 5
10:02 ESTONIAN STANDARD TIME
Reporter: "... will be brown, maybe even green. Josh Nirmi, LRET 5, Laguja."
News anchor: "All right, we have now a breaking news story to follow. We have just been notified that it is snowing outside.
IDENT: BREAKING NEWS
News anchor: "We are now looking at a live shot from Laguja and yes, it is snowing. Some areas outside are turning white - this is snow. We will now continue from our weather edition, go ahead Brian."
Brian, weatherman: "All right, good early morning to everybody in the US, and good forenoon to viewers in Estonia. It is quite unorthodox for us here in Estonia, where snow is common at winters, to do a breaking news on even a small snowflake, but we are becoming desperate here. Looking now outside at the live shot, it is indeed snowing. Snow is gathering in some places. You can see how it is turning whiter. However, this is not much giving hope for Christmas, as it may melt at every time. Now let's take a look at the current weather conditions. Temperature is hovering at 32 degrees Fahrenheit - still very hot. The precipitation may turn into sleet or rain at any time. We don't want to be Grinches, but I am afraid that I can't deny it: we here in Estonia must face Christmas without snow for a second year in a row."
--
10:13 Simulcast from LWTV
Reporter 3: "Well, we are facing a sad truth here. The snow has turned wet again, and it was just a teaser for us. I am signing off, no more snow here"
News anchor at LWTV: "So so much for the snowfall. It has either stopped or turned into sleet or rain. Let's have look at the Christmas forecast now."
Weather announcer at LWTV: "All right, the weather is still expected to be a Grinch. For the Christmas Day, we are expecting windy, cloudy and hot day, with temperatures over 0 degrees Celsius. Winds may gust up to 8 meters per second in our area here, but gusts may be higher in the coastal areas. Sorry, White Christmas will be just a dream this year, just like a year ago. Taking now a look at the longer range forecasts and we will see that as the new week progresses, weather finally starts to get colder, with temperatures going to negative sides of Celsius scale. It might turn below freezing point already at Boxing Day, but still, we are not expecting any precipitation. Back to you"
News anchor at LWTV: "So much for this newscast right now, now back to programming"
IDENT: "This is LWTV, The Weather Day"
---

Note: I am desperate for snow! Looks like there will be a Christmas without snow for 2nd year in a row

Update to my political views on American scale

You are a Social Liberal (60% permissive) and an... Economic Liberal (20% permissive) You are best described as a: Democrat (20e/60s) Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid Also: The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

Did I forget something?

Oh yes, to write here. It has been ages since I wrote here. Well, to round up things, I just say that I hopefully managed to graduate 11th grade and I hope I also continue studies at 12th. However, nothing is sure. In less than 2 and a half months, I will be officially a grown-up, on 6 September, I will turn 18, and per Estonian laws, that makes me a grown-up. However, I am feared of this though - I've got to start paying taxes, army probably tries to drag me into it(mandatory army service in Estonia :( ) despite my Aspergers Syndrome and the other fun stuff...

Honestly, I am afraid of growning up... Especially that I might not have all the mental abilities needed for a grown up. Well, let's live one day at a time... However, I am looking toward this autumn with worry... I hope this wouldn't be so scary though...

On Linux for some time

Well, yesterday at about 8:45 PM, computer went wacko. Mozilla Firefox didn't open anymore after clicking on its icon and after managing to reset its settings using MF Safe mode, the browser opened, but then it hard disk went active and this ended up in complete freeze of the computer. Well, I don't know what's up. I did virus check and spyware check(there were some registry entries found though...). Well, I think that mother has to call one of our relative who knows the computers better than I and who restored lost files after a virus deleted them in 2004.

Until things get fixed, I am running computer from Knoppix Live CD. Besides that it is Linux, not Windows, it runs from CD and therefore uses hard disk only for its swapfile... Well, please pray that things get fixed and everything would be OK.

Knoppix is kind of interesting, it has its own Winamp-like media player, it has 2 web browsers and many other useful tools... If I only could get MIDI and Windows Media to work...

Whoa

I almost fell out of my chair when I found out(thanks to Google) this morning that as of year 2000, 25 thousand Estonians were living in USA and Florida was ranked 5th in the states what have Estonians... Well, I think I will become more active in tropics section of Estonian weather forum this summer. Yesterday I heard about deadly tornadoes in Central Florida. I hope that there weren't any Estonians affected...

Whoa...

Silent evening...

It is currently a dark, cloudy and depressing evening here in Laguja village. Unusual warmness has hit us. I am already worried that my uncle's son is going to show his wife blank grounds, not snow when they come to Estonia from Brazil for the Christmas. Well, I haven't seen him for ages. Thank God for Skype! When I have visited my uncle's home, we have stayed in touch with him over Skype.

But things are not so happy always. I just heard few weeks ago that a friend of mine, who was impressed in my weather enthusiasm, passed away in September :( :( I was mentally knocked out for a day.

Things are gonna get very ugly tomorrow. I need to study and I need to study a lot. It could be possible that I will have FIVE tests(3 scheduled and 2 work up tests(since I go to school 2-3 times a week, I have missed some tests)) on Friday at school. I have done some revision already today, on Wednesday evening... Friday will have 8 lessons... Day begins at 8:15 AM, ends 3:35 PM... I guess I am not gonna see daylight in my home again... And this means taking off from my home at 7:20 AM... and getting home after 4:30... Brr... Well, let's see how things turn out.

What is the best expression?

Here's something I wanted to share with you. Few months ago I got a homework assignment at school to do a story containing at least 20 Estonian expressions. I have now translated it to English and supplied some language comments too so you could understand what I am talking about. Have fun!

What is the best expression?
By Tarmo Tanilsoo

“Morning!”, the news anchor Eva said when she entered the news edition of LRET 1. “Morning, morning! We have a major trouble! If I was bull, I would jump into the well,” says Janno, another news anchor. “Well, trouble drives bull to well, but what’s the problem?” asks Eva. “We got an assignment to find the best expression.” says Janno. “Vaat kus lops! (Estonian expression what is used when very surprised). This is indeed difficult.” Just then Fiona comes to work. “Morning!” says she. “Morning! I think we have the most difficult assignment on channel’s history. We need to find the best expression of all times,” says Janno. “Oh no! My head is already full of sticks! Now we are going to feel water and whistle.” exhaled Fiona. “Maybe we should make a competition on the news.” offers Eva. Janno and Fiona agree. “I will talk with the editor. Let’s stop building air castles, let’s grab the bull by the horns, maybe we can organize something!”
“LRET 1 launches new expressions contest “Vaat kus lops”. Viewers are asked to send their favorite expression to the contact info shown on screen and write, how this expression has realized or not realized in real life. We will award the best expression,” chimes Eva’s voice on news edition’s TV. Through the air, news spread across Estonia like wildfire. Meanwhile, muddy Janno walks into the news edition. “What end of the world did happen to you?” asks startled Fiona. “This is horrible. I made live report outside, I slipped and landed in a mud puddle! It is so embarrassing that it makes you sink into the ground.” exhales Janno. “Don’t start giving flour and mush!(This expression means like “don’t give this absurd!” etc, hardly possible to translate) We will make fun about this in our New Year’s Eve specials, including you!” shouts Fiona. Janno doesn’t say black nor white, but shrugs the shoulders
Next morning when they come to work, each of them found huge amount of papers. “You gracious time! (like Good grace!) What is this?” asks Fiona. “These are letters from our viewers. Very many happened to see our news yesterday at 4 PM.” says Mark, the news editor. “Now we did bear’s favor (favor, what brought negative consequences) to ourselves. It takes whole day to survey them,” exhales Eva. But then Mark horns into the conversation. “In several cases, expressions were repeating. I sorted mails by them.” says he. “Be thanked! (like Thank you very much)” says Fiona. They choose 10 pest expressions so they could announce the winner at 8 PM news
“It is now 8:21 PM and those were today’s news stories. But the newscast doesn’t end with that…” says Fiona on the air. Janno enters the studio. “Now we should have Janno here who will announce, who won expressions competition we announced yesterday,” says Fiona. Then she asks: “And there he is. Do we have a winner?” “We have a winner, but we are not going to announce it at once. We will start now at 10th place and will go upwards.” replies Janno. “Which of us will now read the first?” asks Fiona. “You,” replies Janno. “All right. 10th place. Mihkel who wrote about “stomach is so full that you could kill a louse on it” sent this expression to us. He used this expression after eating so much that he could hardly move.” says Fiona. Janno continues: “9th place. Kind like molten water. This expression has been used several times on Karl who sent this.” Fiona says: “Owner of 8th place is Jaana whose water started to boil,”(Play of words. In Estonian language version, word veri(blood) was confused with vesi(water) in this story) Janno asks: “Water boiled?” Fiona replies: “Sorry, blood started to boil. Yes, she sent this expression to us. She had went so angry once that she commented this with boiling blood.” Janno continues: “I think that somebody’s blood just started boiling that you confused water with blood although I can hardly hold my laugh. Somebody had caused owner of 7th place, Marek, to have blood boiling so much that Marek was calling him “eternal snake!” Here it was written, that he applies “eternal snake.” Fiona says: “Pepper on your tongue! And the same is written by Mikk, who got the 6th place.” Janno: “Owner of 5th place has name Andrea in her passport and she didn’t found her newspaper. She said, “vanished like twig to the water”. Fiona: “Owner of fourth place is Vilja, who gave new and old to a person, who had played a trick on her.”
Somebody whispers to Janno: “How long yet it is going to take? Weather studio will start a riot if they don’t get to the air pretty soon. We need to fit “Watching the tropics” also to this half hour.” “We have three left,” whispers Janno. “Now, we need to hurry up when we want to stay on schedule. Third place is “no deed no face.” Mihkel who sent this wanted to cook, but failed heavily,” says Janno. Fiona continues: “Second place is owned by Rait whose lung went over liver (expresses becoming angry) on a day when everything went behind the fence (expresses fail, unsuccess). But now first place!” “Drum roll!” shouts Janno. Drum roll will be on a background for a moment. “I don’t even see a finger to put into my mouth (expresses zero-visibility). Once there was such a fog that the winner Silvia commented the visibility with this expression” continues Janno. “We congratulate the winner and we will contact you shortly. With this we end our today’s broadcast, in a moment we will continue with weather and we will have news again at 21:00. See you!”
And now the winning expression reaches the human who gave the assignment to find it. “Njaa, pretty interesting results. But maybe would you try it again?” says Tiit, the program director. “Go to the Moon! After this water and whistle!” lashes Fiona out. “All right, I was kidding. I am OK with the results. I will now call to the NASA and then start packing my bags,” says Tiit. No one knows if Tiit took expression “Go to the Moon” literally or was joking, but news edition was full of giggling for whole evening.

In USA, I would be Democrat...

First yes, I haven't written to here for ages. But this is just that I didn't have Internet in my home earlier, I have it now. But here's interesting test results. I found that test posted at Talkweather forum and I gave it a try. And here it is.

You are a Social Moderate (50% permissive) and an... Economic Liberal (18% permissive) You are best described as a: Democrat Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid Also: The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

Summer

Finally typing to the blog. Well, the summer's here. And I'm right now
laying in my bed, reading newspaper and listening to the radio.
Finally, summer is here and I can have a rest from school. There will
be school's anniversary and reunion of nearby villages on Saturday.
Pray for good weather... I'm still messing with my podcast. Meanwhile,
some extra rooms will be built to the house... And I get a room on the
northern side of a house... Well, summer's here and currently 18 hrs
12 minutes long days are now shortening. This can be depressing
because we have only 6 hours of sunshine. Yes, sun sets at 3.20 p.m at
the winters.. But well, this is our yearly life. Reminding, only one
state in USA is as north as Estonia is - Alaska.

There is convection

After seeing towering cumulus clouds as rain clouds left, I've reached
conclusion that we have some kind of convective activity. TCU's are
relatively high and it is just 8 a.m.

Raining

Weather pattern has significantly changed overnight. I woke up under a
cloudy sky today and father reported it is raining... Whoa!

School scheduled on June 3!!!

I am at school right now and just heard in the math lesson that there
will be school on June 3rd too! That's Saturday! Reminds me days far
back in Soviet Union when school was from Monday to Saturday...

Schoolday has been pretty stressful today. There was a test in music
but I don't think I did it good. An old math test was returned with
4(70-90%)...

As soon as I get home, I need to start making homework... Last lesson
is about to begin.

Well, gotta go now. Some people are picking on me what am I typing.
They think I am visiting rate.ee from cell phone. Don't make me laugh!
I think I am only guy in the class who came to study! Classmates
attitute clearly shows it

Horrible event I just heard

Well, I was reading Talkweather.com forum from my cell phone and read
about tragic event with one user's ex-wife and their baby. A
completely insane driver hit the ex-wife and baby got killed. I have
no words... And I thought Estonians have bad traffic culture. Thank
god they caught that driver. Jail that driver and throw away the key!
And this is not the best punishment I can think of...

I send now my condolence to that forum user(can't remember his user
name right know). I have no words to describe your emotions you may
have.

Breaking news - Our cat's latest addition

Our cat Garfield has given a birth. We discovered the kitten just five
minutes ago... He-or-she seems to be name. We should start choosing
name for him-or-her now. I keep you posted

Going green

Laguja's nature has gone through a big change this week. Leaves are
appearing on trees with ultra-high speed. Week ago there weren't any
leaves, now the village is green. Meanwhile, I got a huge jackpot in
school. i had to write a school report about humidity and I found so
much material about it. Now when I have finished report I found out
that one pdf document I was using as an information source was
actually used as studying material in University of Tartu. So I
actually learned what future mets learned. We got another new
neighbours. They came to a neighbouring farm. Also I have an important
note to make. Whenever I am posting from a e-mail, the time of posting
is 10 hours behind of my local time. I can't correct it when I am
posting from wap e-mail. Right now, it is 6.34 p.m in Estonia. Oh...
Chars are out

Warm

It is pretty warm right now in my home. 23C currently outside.

Spring here... illness and stress...

Well... situation has not been very favourable for me recently. I just
got a nasty illness at the time when I last needed it. Ahh!!! I can go
crazy.

Meanwhile, started blogging from e-mail because I maybe update this
blog once in half year!!!

On Thursday I launched a new podcast Laguja Radio. You can hear it
from http://www.zone.ee/lagujailm/raadio/indexen.htm (that's english
edition, german ed. is indexde.htm and estonian index.htm).

Well, I am still having a stress... At least I had to write a school
report about humidity in physics and I enjoyed that(you probably know
why).

Well... Estonia is having huge wildfire threat right now... That
dryness should stop next week...

Uh, hot hot!!!

After deadly frost Estonia had a for a week and what happened a week ago, temperatures have risen to 2°C! That frost Estonia had also broke Laguja's cold record of past years. On the morning of Friday, 20.01.2006, it was -31,2 degrees Celsius... A bit less than 10 people left their lives in Estonia to that cold. Anyway, roads are getting slippery and I travel outside only with so-called finnish sled to avoid falling. On this season and especially after that frost, these temperatures seem to me like heat!

Anyway, latest grade updates from school, I've done some tests and they are between 4 and 5 (between 70 and 100%). Well gale-force wind gusts are expected(not in Estonia - gale-force begins from 9 Bft in Estonia)...

I don't know if I have shared this to you, but I've done a fictional weather story what is an autoportrait of me in 9 years. I now did a short story about it in English language(original is in Estonian language more than 30 A4 pages large). And this is available at http://www.hot.ee/tarmotanilsoo/hurrican.htm .

Well, I saw some beautiful cumulus clouds today and it smells outside like spring... But only half of winter is over so I call this Hotel Echo Alfa Tango... or HEAT!!!(Yes, I'm interested in HAM radio too... unfortunately this is unaffordable).

I apologize for any typos because I am in a rush... Well, I noticed that one user from Talkweather.com has linked to my blog. Thanks! Gotta go now, schoolwork has to be done