27 years and counting
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Today I’m writing something a bit more personal by digging into some birthdays that have shaped my personality and made me the man I am today. After writing the story I realized something important: while this story is about me, what’s really important in it isn’t me. It’s my dad.
August 3rd, 1980: This is where it all started
I was born exactly 27 years ago at the Kätilöopisto hospital in Helsinki as the first child to two young students full of energy. I don’t know how they managed to do it, but having me and my brother Lauri (he was born about 1.5 years after me) didn’t stop them from studying and finally finishing their studies.
I don’t remember much from my early childhood (after all, who does?) , but I was lucky to be born in a supportive and loving family. And being the first of four certainly has it’s advantages: It gives you a natural leadership role among your brothers, and a responsibility to take care of them and provide something interesting for them to do. What could be a better school for life than that?
August 3rd, 1986: Legos!
On my sixth birthday I got a yellow Lego truck. I remember exactly what it looked like, and I loved it. Just like all my other Legos before and after that.
It’s fair to say that I was raised by playing Legos.
Most of the playing I remember from my childhood was in some way or another related to them. At first we followed the instructions, but pretty soon we just mixed all our Legos together, arranged them by color and started building all kinds of more complex things. First the houses grew bigger and more architectural (this is probably why I still occasionally dream of becoming an architect), and soon we moved on to really big things like big airplanes, trains and boats made by combining almost all of our Legos.
Then we got dad to take pictures of them.
You can guess that I just can’t wait for Oiva to be in the age when he starts playing with Legos. Our house will be so full of them that you cannot even imagine! If my wife just let’s me.
I learned a lot by playing with Legos, but the real lesson was that following instructions is for newbies. Building what you see in you own mind is the real thing!
August 3rd, 1987: Senegal
On my seventh birthday we were living in a small Senegalese town called Fatick. I spent most of my childhood living in this West African country far away from the place where I was born. And I loved it.
The greatest thing of all was our school.
It was a small school (about 10-20 pupils) for children of Finnish missionaries living in Senegal with a spirit that seeded in me the love for learning and the curiosity for new things: In a school where everyone knew everyone and no one had to be ashamed or afraid of doing or saying something that would make others laugh at you it was easy to be open and show the real you. That’s something that doesn’t happen in our schools with classes of 20-30 pupils.
Another thing that stuck to me during the years spent in Senegal was the feeling of globality. To me globalization isn’t anything special. It’s more like a law of nature: This is one world. It may be divided into different countries, but if you take a close look at it you notice that it’s actually just one planet.
August 3rd, 1989: My first computer
On my ninth birthday my uncle gave me his old Atari 800 home computer. The joy was enormous: a real computer! For me!? Wow!
And as it was always with the computers of that time, the machine came with a book teaching you how to create your own programs.
The first few days my dad, my brothers and I spent countless hours trying out all kinds of BASIC commands producing lines, beeps and small animations. You couldn’t really call it programming as we just copied code from the book, but still I think that’s where I got my first inspiration to programming. It has to start from something small, you know.
The joy with the Atari 800 wasn’t that long however. We couldn’t save any of our code and we didn’t have any games to play on it so my dad went and bought a disk drive. But it didn’t work out that well. I can’t recall what went wrong, but the outcome was that in just a few days after getting the computer we drove to a nearby city and switched the first computer to the second, a Commodore 64.
And boy, what a computer it was! On our Commodore 64 we played countless games, even breaking a brick in our living room floor because of my brother jumping in excitement while playing. On that computer together with my dad we learned the basics of programming. He stayed along for a while until I left him behind and continued to learn more and more.
Lauri and I are now both programmers, which means two third of the Commodore 64 infected kids in my family. I wonder if current computers have a similar effect - I doubt it.
August 3rd, 1990: Learning to play guitar
I’m not actually sure if it was 1990 or 1991, but one of those years I got a guitar as my birthday present. I started learning the chords, my dad teaching me (do you see a pattern here: all the great things I’ve learned in my childhood were somehow coming from my dad) . And almost as soon as I knew my first three chords it was time to start writing my own songs.
I was never into learning to play guitar solos from famous guitarists like most of the young kids playing guitar. I wanted to make my own music (just like my dad). My songs weren’t anything spectacular, but my parents were supportive and during the years I learned a lot more about writing both lyrics and music.
But more than anything, it was about creativity and expressing yourself.
August 3rd, 2002: Mari
On my 22nd birthday I felt like I was the happiest man alive. It was a sunny day, we were listening to great music at a rock festival right next door, and I had just got married to my lovely bride, Mari on the 27th of July.
Now we’ve been married for five years, and it just gets better every day.
Although childhood is the time in life that defines who you will become, learning doesn’t end there. These five years being married to Mari have taught me a great deal about loving someone, thinking about what’s good for not only you but also the people close to you, as well as life in general.
It is refreshing to have someone around who isn’t afraid to give you a different viewpoint to thinks you take for granted.
August 3rd, 2007: Oiva
Today is my 27th birthday. And I’m a father.
A father. Wow!
This fact has changed my life more than I could have ever imagined.
This little fellow is completely dependent on me and Mari. It’s up to us to raise him and be the best parents we can to him so that he can have a good starting point for his life. It’s time to pass on the gifts that I have received from my mom and dad and to support Oiva in expressing and acting on what he believes in and being the one and only Oiva he is meant to be.
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August 3rd, 2007 at 1:55 pm
I wish you the happiest 27th birthday ever! May there be many, many more…
August 3rd, 2007 at 3:40 pm
Thank You for your article. It touched me deeply, cause by reading it, once more I understood what really matters in life. Happy birthday to you, my son. It was you that once (27 years ago) changed totally my life (and of course the life of your mom - Teija). And now Oiva has done the same thing to you and Mari. So be happy - wow - this s life !!
Your Dad
August 3rd, 2007 at 3:42 pm
Congrats Jarkko! :)
August 3rd, 2007 at 4:50 pm
Thanks for the kind words!
The years we have shared have been full of great moments. As you said, our life has changed better and better year by year. And now, we have our lovely little son! I wonder if the life could be better than ours now?
Happy birthday my dear! And thank you for everything you have given to me. I love you soooo much!
August 3rd, 2007 at 6:30 pm
Now I know the whole family. You’re great, people. :D :))))
August 3rd, 2007 at 8:09 pm
Hey folks! Thanks so much for all your congratulations!
Dad, thanks for you kind words! And once more, thanks for the support and inspiration I’ve got from you and mom during all these years.
Mari, I love you too! Thanks for being there!
Nedzad, you bet! It’s the greatest family one can have ;). In my not so objective opinion.
August 4th, 2007 at 8:29 am
Oh now I understand where comes the dream to become an architect! It’s not so strong though for me as it was some years ago.
Reading your blog entry I just realised, that you really are my best bigbrother! ;)
I hope your first year as a daddy will be excellent and extrahappy with Oiva and Mari!
August 4th, 2007 at 8:58 am
Hi Lauri! Thanks, you’re an amazing little brother as well! :)
For some reason your comment was caught up in my spam filter. I hope it won’t happen again… Let me know if you have posted other comments that haven’t appeared on the site and I’ll check my filter again.