#TerosTidbits, short autobiographical notes continuing:

Since we're in the topic of teachers, let's do a honorary mention to my primary school and high school teacher Matti Mäkynen or "Mäxä". He also worked as a radio announcer in the local radio station in Kurikka, Radio Paitapiiska. He was extremely knowledgeable about everything related to pop music and UK. He taught music in primary school and English in high school. In the radio he was called "the black-bearded man", "mustapartainen mies".

https://finnishradiostations.wordpress.com/2017/06/02/paikallisradiolahetysta-vuosien-takaa-radio-paitapiiska-1993/

In the primary school he had this huge wooden rod, about 3 cm in diameter, as long as a standard teacher's pointing stick. Apparently some past students had given it to him as a gift, made in the woodcraft class.

He used it liberally and menacingly, and he often hit it to a student's pulpit with a huge "BANG!" like a club that it was, which certainly woke everyone up. There were rumors that he had broken some kid's fingers with it, but those were probably untrue. He did break many pulpits though.

In the high school he had a habit of distributing candy for correct answers to obscure trivia in the English class, I got many of those.

In high school he asked me if I could program a database app for Radio Paitapiiska to keep all their records in order. I did that in Delphi, which is a GUI toolkit on top of Turbo Pascal. I don't think I ever got paid for it, but they did test it out. Probably didn't quite fulfill all their requirements, but they never got back to me about it.

I got many more gigs from here and there regardless, for example from the sports club Kurikan Ryhti for their web pages, and assorted other media like 3D rendered TV ads and print media. I also taught IT to kids, did occasional tutoring gigs, and did software development for one security company for their billing and accounting.

I played a lot of chess in #KurikanVisa, or #KurVi chess club. Some of the game results are still easy to find on the web by my name. Our best player who is internationally renowned was Sampsa Nyysti.

In gymnasium I founded a chess club and got a grant from the school for the boards and pieces, and most importantly the digital chess clock.

We played speed chess every break, the whole school came to watch our manic 3 minute + 3 minute games. I wonder if the #chess equipment is still there.