End of an Era

As we face down our return to Colorado from Ukraine I find myself already getting a bit nostalgic for our time here.  Not to say that I'm not excited to be back at home but I'll miss Kerch.  I was looking through some recent pictures and ventured upon a few older ones that I don't think I ever got around to posting.  Here's a few....

I found this Soviet-era painting in the back of a storage last year and was told to throw it out/burn it.  It was probably about 7 feet tall by about 10 feet long so I cut the canvass off the frame so that it might be stored somewhere less vulnerable.  It was done with the best intentions but we eventually used the back side to make a huge sign.

There was a time when it was not uncommon for me to work security - even the all-night shift.  Really nights were a better fit for me because it involved less need to talk to visitors.  One night Sergey stayed with me and he took this picture.  It's nowhere close to this light in reality (as shown by how our feeble lighting system look like spotlights) but I like the effect.

It kind of captures the way your head feels about 4 am on a winter morning before the dawn comes.  Also somewhat post-apocalyptic.


Here's some of our recent visit to the 300 year old Turkish fortress of Yenikale with Judith.  She took all of these pictures.

She stitched this one together and I like that it shows a lot more of this side than any of the pictures I've taken.

This was us walking back after a more staged photo op sitting on the arch but it worked better as a casual shot.

I think this may be my favorite.  As we walked the top the fortress wall into a massive headwind, Cam felt like a bird on my shoulders - closing his eyes and flapping away like he was heading to Russia.

Yeah, that'll help the economy....

I just caught on NPR (if your a blogger you should either read or listen to NPR cause it makes you seem so erudite when you quote it) that the FCC is proposing to impose 'Net Neutrality' upon service providers.  ISP's wouldn't be able to restrict high bandwidth uses such as streaming TV shows in favor of other (read, more productive) uses.  The rationale is that large telecom companies might have a vested interest in restricting content that they provide through other sources (ie. cable TV) - which I am perfectly ok with.

So in this time when the economy needs a boost, the FCC feels that this is the point to intrude upon publicly traded, successful, large scale employers, forcing them to act against their own self-interests so that the 10% of the nation which is unemployed can stream "The Bachelor" from their couch.  Nothing motivates folks like unlimited viewing of mind-rotting television.

Best and worst ideas of the day - Dan Carlin and Blog2Print

This began as a 100% positive post, extolling the virtues of a newly discovered addiction but just came across a product on the other side of the spectrum. First the addiction...

Some of you know or have gathered from early posts that I am an avid listener to podcasts. I used to listen to political talk radio all day long until I discovered World Soccer Daily, a 2-hour daily satellite radio show that I subscribed on iTunes (thanks Slick). This and other footy podcasts were fantastic for making menial jobs or long drives go by quickly. Recently WSD went off the air and I was stuck with lots of time and nothing to podcast. Then I stumbled upon a show by a guy named Dan Carlin called Hardcore History.

I love history. I have a degree in history and was turned off to continued study not by the difficulty of further degrees but by the idiotic simplicity of the BA that I received. I have often been told that I explain historical events in a way that makes it interesting and understandable for people who previously had no interest in the topic. If I am 1/10 as interesting to other people as Dan Carlin is to me, I may have to reconsider going into teaching. This guy is fascinating.

I downloaded my first of his podcasts (1st in a series about the eastern front in WWII) on Thursday at lunch and I have already finished that series and another about the Punic Wars. That's over 7 hours of content consumed in less than 36 hours of life. My appetite for footy news was never that voracious. If you sometimes hear something on the news and wonder "What's the back-story to that?" or just feel embarrassed that you don't know much about the world, go to Hardcore History on iTunes and pick a show that looks interesting.


Now the bad...


On Blogger they have a site called Blogger Buzz that talks about new features and related content. Recently they talked about a service called Blog2Print which may the worst use of technological creativity I have ever come across. Basically it gives you the ability to take your blog and turn it into a printed, bound book. How pompous is that?!? If your skills are up to it write an actual manuscript and get published. If not, just keep it online (everyone is trying to go paperless anyway, right?).


It's not that I can't see a possible value to the service (ie. printing the daily entries during the process of having a child or some other important on-going event) but when I catch this update after having perused my blog and others which are equally silly and amateurish, I can't help but laugh.



Update: I found a new bad that's worse than Blog2Print. With Safari, the new Blogger publisher doesn't allow you to paste content into the pop-up windows. That means that you need to manual enter those huge URLs or HTML codes into this blank. Not gonna happen. This post has links but you must view the actual blog page (not aggregator) in order to see them. Sorry.

Rejection will come

Today we had a visitor to camp named Artem.  He's 5 years old but roughly the same size as Cam.  Since he came expecting to have a playmate here, we decided to let Cam skip his nap (something he didn't seem likely to do anyway) and play with Artem this afternoon.

They appeared to enjoy it for a while but eventually they came to an impasse.  Cam wanted to play with cars; Artem wanted to ride bikes.  We advised Cam to invite his new friend (who he still only knew as 'Kid') into the house to play with his cars and tracks.  Unfortunately, he either couldn't convey this invitation or Artem wasn't interested because we soon heard Cam's furtive cries from outside.  He had been rejected...

Sarry and I debated whether he is mature enough to yet feel that rejection or if he was just tired and angry that he didn't get his way.  Whichever it is, his dirty, tear streaked face gave a preview of the day when he will be rejected and will unquestionably understand that someone doesn't want him, value him, love him....

I'm dreading that day but for now all we can do is impress upon him in no uncertain terms that he is wanted, valued and loved - regardless of what this fallen world and its inhabitants tell him.

The waiting game... The Champions League and ACORN

As far as I can tell sometime in the next hour or two (I'm still not so good with working with differences in time zones that aren't CO, the UK or here) 2 interesting things are going down.

At 9:45pm (my time) the first set of Champion's League group stage games kicks off.  I was offered a chance to go with Jenya to the Dynamo Kiev v. Rubin Kazan game tomorrow night in Kiev but our financial situation means that the trip would have been pretty irresponsible.

Secondly, reports are flying around the web that sometime soon there will be yet another ACORN video released that is even more damning than the 3 hooker/pimp/underage brothel videos that have hit this week. I can't say that I place as much importance on the ACORN troubles as many other political folks, but holy Moses (Cam's watching Prince of Egypt right now and I couldn't resist the reference) it's a awfully weird story to follow.

To be honest, I am much more excited about the CL but they probably won't be televised so I gotta entertain myself where I can.