Greetings from sunny Finland

[Pagan]

(I say that with a smile - we have a rare sunny day today, and well, a bit of sunshine never hurts especially in these crazy times)

I've been here for a while, reading, but not posting so it is probably time for an intro. I've been in the adult industry in one capacity or another for some 22 years now, first as a phone sex operator and then as an adult webmaster. I currently have a growing network of a general adult link list plus about 15 niched TGPs, and several Tubes including Gay and Shemales. I am one of the few diehards out there that still build galleries and submit to other link lists for traffic. Why? I don't believe that everyone wants to deal with the "noise" of the tubes. It is nice to be able to pull up a gallery that isn't full of ads and watch a video or browse the pictures in peace and quiet.

I went a different route on my tubes than the usual scraping method. Over 90% of what I have online is hand-picked, edited, and directly from sponsors. I don't have users submit to keep the quality high. That also means I don't deal with copyright violations and headaches from malware. With my gay TGP, I hand build almost everything, first because most of the sponsors don't offer FHGs anymore and second, well, I can build them the way I want. Nice video clip, 10 to 16 images, 1 graphic ad, 1 text ad. Time consuming? A bit, but very satisfying. I do love building galleries. I am always looking for quality link list/TGPs to submit to.

My days are spent in the rural, peaceful countryside of Southwestern Finland. It is a radical change from growing up in Los Angeles, and a huge change from just living in the US. We finally went back to the States for a visit last October, and it was quite an experience. It was so much noisier, dirtier, and more crowded than I remembered. We also spent a couple of days in the Texas Hill Country, where I had lived right before moving to Finland. That was heaven compared to LA. All in all, it has made me love living in Finland even more.

So there you have it... a demented webmistress who does more work with gay galleries than anything else. Have a lovely day out there, and stay sane.

[fufffywings]

hello pagan welcome here. thanks for sharing Finland Just curious, any double thoughts of being a sex phone operator?

[Pagan]

Second thoughts? Nope. At that time (over 20 years ago), I needed a job I could work odd hours because I was in school. When I moved to a different state, it went with me. I had a lot of fun with it and only turned away from it when I landed full time employment and could not really handle being up all night on the phone and working full time during the day. It's a different world now, but I would still probably do it in a similar situation.

[nickbaer]

My Grandmother lived to 101. She said she was Swedish. She was born in the US, but her parents emigrated from Sweden around 1890.

Genealogy DNA now says she was Finn!

In the early 1800s, as Russian peasants were moving into Finland, the Finns moved to Sweden. Who had already moved to the USA.

I've joined DNA groups online. Many of my new "Cousin" matches are from Finland.

I'm excited! And happy!

[Pagan]

How awesome, Nick. Sweden ruled Finland for a long time - before the Russians tried to. Up in the north, there were a good number of Finns that settled in Sweden and Norway. Along the entire west coast of Finland, there are pockets of Finns who speak Swedish, and consider themselves to be Swedish first. Depending on where your grandmother's family came from, we might also be cousins.

Nice to meet you!

[nickbaer]

Have you done one of the Genealogy DNA tests? And joined the cousins matching project?

Ancestry points me to Filipstad and Karlstad, south central Sweden.
One Google search said those had been traditionally Finnish immigrants.

The name my Gr Grandfather went by in the US was Peterson. On his Marriage cert, he spelled it with two-'T's, Petterson. His wife Johnson, might have been Johanson.

I want to go to Filipstad and Karlstad, but I can't get any response from the local genealogy groups, and it is a dreadfully long trip from the airport cities Stockholm or Gothenburg, in case none of those is relevant!

With the DNA matching project, I have a dozen or so suggestions from Finland. Might be on next year's plans.