Hello there!

First the quick facts:

Born: In Tampere, Finland. In the beginning of the 80's, no exact date given.
Whole name: Jari-Pekka Mäkeläinen or if you get confused over the a with dots (a-umlaut) you may think of it as Makelainen. But please call me just Jari or J-P. I hardly use Jari-Pekka even officially as it is way too long. I am thinking about officially separating the combined Jari-Pekka to Jari and Pekka. If I do that I also may pick up a third first name. I have been thinking maybe Oliver or Roger but they don't seem to get any cheers from my peers.
Geographic location: Helsinki, Finland.
Obtained educational degree: Bachelor of Business Information Technology, 2004, Satakunta University of Applied Sciences, Pori, Finland.
Employment Status: Employed full-time.

(Very) short history

I was born and raised in Tampere. Tampere is the 3rd largest city of Finland with a population of just over 200 000 people. After living relatively short periods, for example study reasons, in Lammi, Espoo and Pori I ended up to Helsinki, the capital city. One of my brothers lives in Helsinki also. My other brother, sister and father live back in Tampere.
I like living in Helsinki because of the big city pulse and the services that are both near and plentiful. Also I like Helsinki a lot because the city is by the sea. Even though I have grown accustomed to living in Helsinki, I wouldn't mind moving back to Tampere at all as it is in my opinion a very relaxed city to live and be in. And besides Tampere is the home of the yummy delicacy "mustamakkara" (black sausage).
Well - I wouldn't mind working abroad for a year or so either, in case the oppurtunity would present itself.

Tampere - City between two lakes, divided by rapids

Personal description

Deep down I see myself as a basic honest Finnish guy. I have no religious opinions, I have even resigned myself from the state church. Also I don't have any politic views either. However my dirty little secret is that I was a member of Finnish Youth Social Democrats for around 8 years. In my defence I joined totally by accident but being so lazy it took me that long to resign myself. Whenever I moved apartment I never voluntarily gave them my address but they were always able to find it out and the membership magazine regularily came through my letterbox.
My laugh nerve gets tickled especially by sarcasm and irony. In addition British humour amuses me quite a lot. For example short sketches in the style of The Fast Show make me roll on the floor laughing my head off.

Hobbies

I do regular sports, currently I build my fitness and let off steam twice a week at fitness boxing or a Savate Forme class which is fitness version of the French kickboxing sport. Occasionally I play badminton and sometimes I do bowling too. I try to force my ass up from a couch to go for a longer walk couple of times a week.
One of my favorite hobbies is writing, I mostly write short stories, you can read a couple of them in the Texts section. It is my dream to be able to write an actual book one day.
I am also interested in the Italian culture and so I have been studying the Italian language on a hobby basis in an adult high school. I have now completed all the available courses.
Two years ago I was also on the board of Capital Area's Bachelors of Business Administration. I was mostly involved in organizing the member events. I haven't continued this activity since because life has kept me "busy" enough anyway.
Naturally ICT field also takes up some of my free time in the form of fiddling with my computer, building web pages (like these) or keeping up to date with the latest news in the field.

Music I listen

My musical taste leans mostly towards 80's and 90's rock/pop. Artists such as U2, Queen and The Scorpions blast out of my earphones often. In addition to those I listen widely to different artists such as Jay Jay Johanson, System Of A Down, The Streets, John Mellencamp and several Finnish artists. As a curiosity in my listening habits is Adelmo Fornaciari, better known as Zucchero, an Italian softrock artist that isn't well known here in Finland. Zucchero is best known for the song "Senza Una Donna" which I think isn't a very good example of his material. I would encourage you to listen to his latest album titled "Fly" or the older "Shake" album or the duet album "Zu & Co" to get a better idea of his music. I belong to Un po' di Zucchero, an unofficial Zucchero fan club. Naturally I also belong to the official Zucchero fanclub.

When I am big...

My future dream is to have my own house, nice car and maybe a summer cottage with a sauna by a lake. A quite common Finnish dream that is. Winning the national lottery coudn't hurt my dream to come true.

That's pretty much it, quite a long story then. So you have a good reason to congratulate yourself for reading it all, well done! If you still want to know about something not covered here, feel free to fill in the guestbook or email me and I'll try to scribble something here about the subject. Well it's goodbye for now!