A 1 way ticket to Helsinki is about $1000 a person.

An apartment in my old neighborhood is somewhere in the $1500 to $2000 a month range. Food and monthly expenses might be a bit higher, but I think I would be able to manage.

Wouldn’t need a car. Looking at street view, my old grocery store, bakery, liquor store, and all that are within walking distance of where we’d live.

There are 2 really good parks in the neighborhood, so I’d have somewhere to walk the dogs.

The Young Prince needs to learn a second language, so that would be a plus. Also, tall, half-Finnish grandchildren someday.

3 hours from Estonia by boat, 4 hours to Sweden. Norway, Poland, and Germany are a very brief flight away.

I’m not seeing a downside here.

Now to discuss it with Irish Woman. I think I’m old enough to run away from home, but I’d like for her to tag along.

Plus for her – White nights between May and August. Pleasant summers, beautiful falls.
Minus for her – Dark days between November and February. Winters that get brass monkey cold starting in October.

I wonder if she likes salmon soup and reindeer steak?

• Question – What’s the difference between a Chinese bio-researcher saying “I wonder if we can…” and an American redneck yelling out “Hey, y’all! Watch this!”?
  • Answer – NHS funding
• Had a couple of flights yesterday. On my first leg, there were two mothers with toddlers
  • One was sharing her double-caff, extra syrup, no foam mocha thingamajig with her two-year-old, then gave him her iPad.
  • The other already had the tyke in his pajamas, was giving him a high-carb snack just before boarding, and read The Cat in the Hat to him as we taxied.
  • Guess which child made me stare longingly at the emergency exits for a couple of hours and which fell asleep right after we took off.
• I was worried about Iran and Pakistan exchanging missile strikes until someone mentioned that they were helping each other scratch fleas.
  • Hey, you got high explosives on my terrorists! Just for that, I’ll get high explosives on your terrorists!
• It’s probably a coincidence that the protests have tapered off since winter finally made its appearance. I wonder what the mob will be outraged about come springtime?

• I’ve read both versions, and I have to say that President Biden’s latest speech flows better in the original German.
• Now that the New Year is here, Louisville has reverted to its normal gray, chilly, and wet state. I’m just hoping that we get enough rain to flush a good chunk of the city into the river.
  • We’d have to do something about what that would do to the innocent people living downstream, but I think the loss of the Orifice on the Ohio would make up for it.
• With the upcoming ‘change’ in leadership of the NRA, I wonder what the preferred executive clothing line will be. My money’s on either Carhartt, for those who want to appeal to the grass roots at photo shoots between cocktail parties in Aspen, or Hugo Boss, for those who want to just be honest about their desire to curb stomp any competition for power or dissident thought.
• I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, the best way to stop illegal immigration is to prosecute the companies and organizations that regularly employ illegal labor. Walls and border guards are all good, but the day after you perp walk the head of Tyson Chicken after you charge him with human trafficking, that problem will start to solve itself.
• I think the Israeli government missed a PR trick when they failed to name their Gaza operation “Dinah Vengeance.” For those who missed that one, Dinah was the daughter of Jacob. He was going to marry her into a neighboring family, but the supposed groom decided to rape her instead. To make up for this crime, Jacob asked that all of the men in the offending family be circumcised. While they were recuperating, Jacob’s twelve sons crept into the village and killed them all to avenge their sister’s honor.
  • The patriarch wasn’t too happy about this, but you can be sure that nobody ever messed with his family’s women ever again.
  • It’s all about setting expectations and sending a message.
• I’ve heard some shrill reportage that North Korean and Iranian missiles and drones are being used in Ukraine. Some see this as a way for Putin to bolster his flagging materiel situation. I see it as a way for us to get battlefield performance data on the best that those two shitholes can produce.