The K-word

Just before I got to Tampere some old colleagues from almost ten years arranged a get-together. I thought it would be nice to meet at least some and invited everybody for a spontaneous lunch. I think I sent the email invitation two days in advance. I reserved two hours of best lunch time so that everybody could come as they can. Luckily, I had a writing of mine to proofread, because nobody came. Not a soul! Well, I proofread the article for one and a half hours, ordered lunch, which was great, and left the restaurant.

I go out the building and who do I see? The only person I had failed to invite because of a missing email address. Pasi had been walking to his office before this chance encounter. So we went for a quick coffee to catch up. Boy, was it nice to talk after such a long time. We used to be real close, ten years ago. But then Pasi started his own company and soon afterwards I went to work for Nokia, which led me to Germany. Although he is no longer involved, Plenware is going strong and although I'm no longer involved with Nokia, I still live in Germany.

In the evening, from the old colleagues I managed to meet PAM, Mika and Mänttis (he's called Mänttis, although his real name is Marko, but because there is another Marko in the group, too, we need a unique name. Once we thought of calling him Marko-Marko, but then somebody misunderstood him for the other Marko and called him Mänttis-Mänttis, so we quickly returned to the old naming.) All the boys were great fun but seeing PAM was especially heartwarming as he had missed the get-together for a technical blunder of his own. He's the most technically adept person I know and he found a way to miss half of an email discussion. The geekiest geek (and I mean this with all due respect, PAM) who has been using email for twenty years, has still not learnt to use it properly. Isn't it ironic?

Well, we had a few whiskies to get over it and closed restaurant Natalie for Easter.

As always, we spent the Easter in Peurunka near Laukaa ja Jyväskylä. Bowling, badminton, table tennis, swimming, sauna, and general cheerfulness was on the agenda. This time the à la carte restaurant Peurankello delivered with quality. There had been other changes, too. The karaoke had been moved to a new "gastro pub", and our hotel rooms had been renewed completely. It was our tenth consecutive visit to the Peurunka Spa. It has become a real tradition.

I'm not ashamed to say where I now am, but the people who are from here, are. Suffice to say that it is a small town in Southern Finland starting with the letter K. Let's just call it town K. The best feature of town K is the railway leading out of town.