On top of the world!

From Landscape

Tom Chandler once gave an advice: “Never skip a chance to blow your own horn.” And I’m going to take my chance here.

Here is the story.

150 year old Orvis Company (us, uk, fi) and Finnish Fly Fishing web site Perhokalastajat.net organized Trout Conservation Contest last year. To enter the contest one had to write down an idea or a plan for Trout Conservation in Finland. I entered with sort of 10 year restoration plan for selected watershed. That was in May 2006 and I had pretty much forgotten the whole thing.

Last week the results came to web sites. I scrolled down to see if I had won that CFO III Reel in random drawing. No. I scrolled up and noticed that I had won the whole contest.

The initial shock was followed by a sudden burst of combined hyperactivity and megalomania. An hour later I was having lunch with my colleagues. I now remember myself explaining to them that there are 5.5 billion people in this world and that most of them had at least theoretical possibility to enter this contest. And therefore: at that very moment you could put all those people in line and who can you find right there in the first place? Me.

There are just two more things to add:

1. The world population is actually 6.5 billion. This my fifteen minutes of fame.

2. Isn’t there a prize? Oh yes. It is going to be something very fine. Superfine.

EDIT: 'prize' was initially written above as 'price'. These words have a different meaning. I checked that from a dictionary. Why can't they add meaningchecking button right next to spellchecking? Oh well, sorry about that!