I love my wife. I do. I love her so much that it only makes sense that I recognize her problem with real estate. :) She has been looking for "the perfect house" since we met 13 years ago. I give her all the credit on every house we have ever lived in. She has hand picked the houses that we've lived in over the years. From the renovated garage in the back of an alley, to the german cottage style house by a trailer park. From our dead-end dream home in town, to our country home out here in the sticks. All of the credit goes to her, and she knows that I know that because I tell her all the time. I don't know where I'd be living without her knack for quality living.
So I guess the real question is: What makes a perfect house?
This answer would be different for almost everybody that you ask. Some might say "open floor plan", while others might say "nice view" or "central air" or "downtown". To me however, it has nothing to do with the location, structure, or subtle amenities inside. The perfect house is the one I'm in right now, at any point in time. As they say: "Home is where the heart is". I understand that now that I'm older and have children. I believe that I would be just as happy in a 1 room hut down by the river with a dirt floor and no mortgage; as long as I had my Jennifer and our girls along with their simple child-like innocence to keep us company all day.
So again: What makes a perfect house? You do. The only reason I know this is because I grew up in the perfect house. My parents are strong-willed and family-valued people. There were times when my parents had to choose to downsize and move my sister out of our current school district and away from our friends, or stay and fight to keep what was theirs. In hind-sight the actual house had nothing to do our happiness. Sure it helped, but the happiness was derived from the fact that we were all together.
While I feel like we are raising our family in the perfect house, my wife is convinced that there is another place out there that is screaming our name. If she feels this way, then by golly I'm gonna follow her because she is my home. A new house with different surroundings won't change that. Her latest find is about 5 miles up the road and is about 50% more expensive than this place. I love my wife. I do. :)
Showing posts with label home. Show all posts
Showing posts with label home. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 04, 2009
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
A Birthday to Remember
Yup, I turned 31 today. :) Here’s a quick and silly recap of all the good things that happened in this too short of a day:
The girls came in and told me happy birthday before they got on the bus, and that started me off with a smile. Then Jen let me sleep in til 10:30. When I did wake up, I smelled my favorite breakfast cooking in the kitchen (eggs, sausage, ham, & toast with fresh coffee). I gorged and was able to fulfill a very productive work day in the basement (sometimes rare). When the girls got home from school, they were so excited that it was my birthday, and that was so cute! They were genuinely giddy for me.
Jen had been cooking a pot roast all day in the kitchen for my birthday dinner, and the house has smelled amazing all day. My mom came and ate with us and we all had a great time. After dinner, Jen surprised me with a DQ ice cream cake (my absolute FAVORITE).
Then to top off the best birthday ever, all my girls drew up personalized birthday cards for me. They all had drawings of me and my drum-set with lots of balloons and little notes everywhere. Daizi’s was mostly scribbles, but I loved it just the same. They each got a huge hug and kiss for their awesome gifts. :)
Jennifer totally outdid herself this year with all the homemade yummies today, and then, to finish off her day of (complete) surprises, she got me the Pearl Jam box set that I wanted so badly!! I feel like that grungy teenage kid all over again! She swore she didn’t see my post, so this makes it that much more awesomer (?). We’re going to be watching the Unplugged DVD tonight after the girls go to bed; though I haven’t told her yet…
I feel like like one lucky dude today. LIFE IS GOOD!! I thought birthdays were supposed to be more boring the older you get…? I had to post something because tomorrow will be back to reality and I may need to reread just how lucky I really am with all these girls around me.
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
Changing Jobs
Yup, you read it right. Today was my last day at Data Dynamics. Leaving DD was a tough decision. Especially after the company has done so much for me and my family. DD was, is, and always will be an amazing company. They took a chance on me and they helped shape who I am today. For the sake of good blogging, let me tell you what I mean by "they took a chance on me". Don't worry it's just a recap of the first year or two at the company... :)
The Mooch
Back in 2000, Jennifer and I got married in June and I was a student at CSCC looking for a job doing Assembler Language, COBOL, or AS400 programming. I was working 2 piddly jobs making a total of about $100 a week and completely mooching off of my new wife. At the time, I was a COBOL whiz kid and breezed through all of my programming classes. CSCC didn't offer very good courses at the time for Visual Basic, but I really wanted to know how to create windows applications using that fancy GUI stuff. I had done some small database projects for some friends here and there just so I could self teach myself VB5.
The Interview
Fall was quickly approaching that year and I had been through countless dead-end tech interviews. Everybody wanted someone with "experience". However, how was I supposed to get experience if I didn't have a JOB!? I had to start somewhere... So sometime around September 2000 (exactly 8 years ago this month), I got called in from some head hunter telling me to show up in Columbus for an interview at some company called Data Dynamics.
Lucky for them, I had just cut my long hippie hair and bought some new clothes. This picture was actually taken the morning of my interview. Jennifer took the picture before we hopped in the car and headed to DD headquarters (I can't believe I found this pic!). So anyway, I walked in the door and was pummeled with a ferocious roar of a miniature pincher named Zeus. This really added insult to injury at that point; I was nervous, looked like a dork, and now everybody in the office knew that the potential "prospect" had arrived. Aside from the ferocious beast, this looked like a hip place to work. They had a pool table with tie-dye pool balls... I mean, it doesn't get much cooler than that! Right?
Immediately, the boss at the front desk (aka: Tim) starts yelling at this dog and comes out and shakes my hand. By this point, I didn't know what to think; I had a cloudy fish tank to my right, a really cool pool table in front of me, a snarling miniature pincher at my feet, and I'm shaking the owners hand. He told me to have a seat, so I did. About 2 minutes later I see this scruffy looking dude (aka: Scott) come out of one of the offices near the back and he tells me to come on back. He looked like Jesus, so I listened.
The interview was absolutely painful! Scott had a wrinkled up t-shirt, cut off shorts, long scruffy hair, a go-T, and he was sportin' Jesus-sandals. Tim looked like an owner (whatever that means), but I couldn't help but notice that he was drinking coffee from a VBITS '99 mug. I had heard about that conference (VBITS, now VSLive) from my Visual Basic Programmers Journal magazine (now Visual Studio Magazine) subscription. I thought it was so cool that this company exhibited their products at that show! This is what I wanted to do! This is the job that I want! I answered the questions as best as I could, but the one thing that sticks out for me (and always will) was when Scott asked me where I wanted to be in 5 years... I froze. Who knew this would be a question at an interview. I stuttered for a minute and thew up my index finger so that they knew I was onto something. Right then, I pulled out my Palm III out of my jacket pocket so that I could remember exactly where I wanted to be in 5 years... Lucky for me, I took notes before the interview and had this information readily available. I told them that I wanted to be a developer and that I wanted to be a drummer in a successful rock band. We talked a bit more, and then I shook their hands figuring it would be the last time I'd ever see them...
The Call
The whole ride home, I was pissed! I told Jennifer that there was no way they were going to hire me. I barely knew Visual Basic and this was a cutting edge company that was writing ActiveX components specifically for Visual Basic. We laughed about my interviewing skills for a while and talked about how cool it would have been if I could have worked there... But, I was going to keep interviewing until something else came up, since I tanked this interview.
The rest of the day just played out, and we had friends over that night for some cards and beer. I had just come back from the store or something and when I walked in the back door, all our friends at the table were looking at me with big smiles and Jennifer was grinning ear to ear... "What's going on?", I asked... "You got the job!"... "WHAT!?"... "YOU GOT THE JOB!!" Talk about a life changing sentence. I couldn't believe it. I had pretty much written them off since I was nowhere near qualified for the job. I remember how exciting it was to know that we were gonna be making some real scratch now. Jennifer and I had lived on pennies for way too long, and the starting salary at this job was waaay more than I could even fathom at that point. We all got drunk.
The Rookie
My very first role at Data Dynamics was DynamiCube 2.0 support. I would be in charge of assisting other programmers about how to use this product in their applications. Not only did I know very little about Visual Basic, but I knew NOTHING about pivot tables and analyzing numbers in a cross tab. I felt like I was in way over my head right out of the gun. Scott was my mentor for the first few months on the job and rather than helping me by answering my immediate question, he helped me teach myself how to learn. Rather than bugging him with insanely stupid questions day in and day out, I would basically spin my wheels for hours on this component trying to figure out how it worked and why anybody would even want to buy it. At times I felt like I was on my own trying to support these users while at the same time trying to learn this epic product. Looking back now, I wouldn't have wanted it any other way. Thanks Scott! :)
In no time, I was traveling all over the place. My first trip was to head out west to San Jose (aka: Silicon Valley!). It's safe to say that I felt like I had "made it" in my career by this point. I had never been past Indiana before that trip, so going out to California to learn some new technology was huge for me. After Silicon Valley, I was pretty much on the move all the time after that (or so it seemed). I was going to places (some regularly) like Orlando, San Fransisco, Boston, Los Angeles, Denver, Pittsburg, Las Vegas, Seattle, Tulsa, Russia!, Grand Rapids, Ann Arbor (puke), Tulsa, and of course various cities around Ohio. Since the day I started, I've supported and some what mastered :) DynamiCube, ActiveBar, SharpGrid, ActiveCube, ActiveSizer, ActiveReports, SharpUI, SharpGraph, and Data Dynamics Analysis. The company has let me develop my speaking skills, my PM skills, all kinds of stuff!
Conclusion
Well crap... I had a whole huge post written up that was going over everything that I had learned and experienced while I was at Data Dynamics. I wanted to give credit where credit was due, but once I got towards the end of the post, I realized that it started to look more like a resume. Rather than post a list of "look what I can do now", I just deleted it all and decided to stick to the point of the post. The purpose for this post is really to just say that I'm very happy to have had the chance to work for such a cool company. They took a chance on me, and really helped me "be all I could be" for many years.
The Data Dynamics motto is deliver reporting and analysis tools to developers, and that is exactly what they are still doing today. It's amazing how the vision hasn't changed in my 8 years there. They are constantly striving to deliver stellar products at a fair price. There is some intense competition right now in the component market, but I know that Data Dynamics has some tricks up it's sleeve... some of the upcoming products are sure to take the component and BI market by surprise.
I'll forever be a customer and proud alumni if Data Dynamics. I'm going to miss everybody! Tim, Ferhat, Issam, Scott, and everybody else... Thank You!
What's Next for Me?
Without going into too much detail right now, my new gig is this: I will be working from home, writing code out of my basement full time for a small software company out of Chicago. This is a dream come true for both me and my family. I've always wanted to be able to stay home and write code to "bring home the bacon" and that's exactly what I'll be doing now. It's for that reason that I decided to change jobs...
I'm following my dream. :)
The Mooch
Back in 2000, Jennifer and I got married in June and I was a student at CSCC looking for a job doing Assembler Language, COBOL, or AS400 programming. I was working 2 piddly jobs making a total of about $100 a week and completely mooching off of my new wife. At the time, I was a COBOL whiz kid and breezed through all of my programming classes. CSCC didn't offer very good courses at the time for Visual Basic, but I really wanted to know how to create windows applications using that fancy GUI stuff. I had done some small database projects for some friends here and there just so I could self teach myself VB5.The Interview
Fall was quickly approaching that year and I had been through countless dead-end tech interviews. Everybody wanted someone with "experience". However, how was I supposed to get experience if I didn't have a JOB!? I had to start somewhere... So sometime around September 2000 (exactly 8 years ago this month), I got called in from some head hunter telling me to show up in Columbus for an interview at some company called Data Dynamics.
Lucky for them, I had just cut my long hippie hair and bought some new clothes. This picture was actually taken the morning of my interview. Jennifer took the picture before we hopped in the car and headed to DD headquarters (I can't believe I found this pic!). So anyway, I walked in the door and was pummeled with a ferocious roar of a miniature pincher named Zeus. This really added insult to injury at that point; I was nervous, looked like a dork, and now everybody in the office knew that the potential "prospect" had arrived. Aside from the ferocious beast, this looked like a hip place to work. They had a pool table with tie-dye pool balls... I mean, it doesn't get much cooler than that! Right?Immediately, the boss at the front desk (aka: Tim) starts yelling at this dog and comes out and shakes my hand. By this point, I didn't know what to think; I had a cloudy fish tank to my right, a really cool pool table in front of me, a snarling miniature pincher at my feet, and I'm shaking the owners hand. He told me to have a seat, so I did. About 2 minutes later I see this scruffy looking dude (aka: Scott) come out of one of the offices near the back and he tells me to come on back. He looked like Jesus, so I listened.
The interview was absolutely painful! Scott had a wrinkled up t-shirt, cut off shorts, long scruffy hair, a go-T, and he was sportin' Jesus-sandals. Tim looked like an owner (whatever that means), but I couldn't help but notice that he was drinking coffee from a VBITS '99 mug. I had heard about that conference (VBITS, now VSLive) from my Visual Basic Programmers Journal magazine (now Visual Studio Magazine) subscription. I thought it was so cool that this company exhibited their products at that show! This is what I wanted to do! This is the job that I want! I answered the questions as best as I could, but the one thing that sticks out for me (and always will) was when Scott asked me where I wanted to be in 5 years... I froze. Who knew this would be a question at an interview. I stuttered for a minute and thew up my index finger so that they knew I was onto something. Right then, I pulled out my Palm III out of my jacket pocket so that I could remember exactly where I wanted to be in 5 years... Lucky for me, I took notes before the interview and had this information readily available. I told them that I wanted to be a developer and that I wanted to be a drummer in a successful rock band. We talked a bit more, and then I shook their hands figuring it would be the last time I'd ever see them...
The Call
The whole ride home, I was pissed! I told Jennifer that there was no way they were going to hire me. I barely knew Visual Basic and this was a cutting edge company that was writing ActiveX components specifically for Visual Basic. We laughed about my interviewing skills for a while and talked about how cool it would have been if I could have worked there... But, I was going to keep interviewing until something else came up, since I tanked this interview.
The rest of the day just played out, and we had friends over that night for some cards and beer. I had just come back from the store or something and when I walked in the back door, all our friends at the table were looking at me with big smiles and Jennifer was grinning ear to ear... "What's going on?", I asked... "You got the job!"... "WHAT!?"... "YOU GOT THE JOB!!" Talk about a life changing sentence. I couldn't believe it. I had pretty much written them off since I was nowhere near qualified for the job. I remember how exciting it was to know that we were gonna be making some real scratch now. Jennifer and I had lived on pennies for way too long, and the starting salary at this job was waaay more than I could even fathom at that point. We all got drunk.
The Rookie
My very first role at Data Dynamics was DynamiCube 2.0 support. I would be in charge of assisting other programmers about how to use this product in their applications. Not only did I know very little about Visual Basic, but I knew NOTHING about pivot tables and analyzing numbers in a cross tab. I felt like I was in way over my head right out of the gun. Scott was my mentor for the first few months on the job and rather than helping me by answering my immediate question, he helped me teach myself how to learn. Rather than bugging him with insanely stupid questions day in and day out, I would basically spin my wheels for hours on this component trying to figure out how it worked and why anybody would even want to buy it. At times I felt like I was on my own trying to support these users while at the same time trying to learn this epic product. Looking back now, I wouldn't have wanted it any other way. Thanks Scott! :)
In no time, I was traveling all over the place. My first trip was to head out west to San Jose (aka: Silicon Valley!). It's safe to say that I felt like I had "made it" in my career by this point. I had never been past Indiana before that trip, so going out to California to learn some new technology was huge for me. After Silicon Valley, I was pretty much on the move all the time after that (or so it seemed). I was going to places (some regularly) like Orlando, San Fransisco, Boston, Los Angeles, Denver, Pittsburg, Las Vegas, Seattle, Tulsa, Russia!, Grand Rapids, Ann Arbor (puke), Tulsa, and of course various cities around Ohio. Since the day I started, I've supported and some what mastered :) DynamiCube, ActiveBar, SharpGrid, ActiveCube, ActiveSizer, ActiveReports, SharpUI, SharpGraph, and Data Dynamics Analysis. The company has let me develop my speaking skills, my PM skills, all kinds of stuff!Conclusion
Well crap... I had a whole huge post written up that was going over everything that I had learned and experienced while I was at Data Dynamics. I wanted to give credit where credit was due, but once I got towards the end of the post, I realized that it started to look more like a resume. Rather than post a list of "look what I can do now", I just deleted it all and decided to stick to the point of the post. The purpose for this post is really to just say that I'm very happy to have had the chance to work for such a cool company. They took a chance on me, and really helped me "be all I could be" for many years.
The Data Dynamics motto is deliver reporting and analysis tools to developers, and that is exactly what they are still doing today. It's amazing how the vision hasn't changed in my 8 years there. They are constantly striving to deliver stellar products at a fair price. There is some intense competition right now in the component market, but I know that Data Dynamics has some tricks up it's sleeve... some of the upcoming products are sure to take the component and BI market by surprise.
I'll forever be a customer and proud alumni if Data Dynamics. I'm going to miss everybody! Tim, Ferhat, Issam, Scott, and everybody else... Thank You!
What's Next for Me?
Without going into too much detail right now, my new gig is this: I will be working from home, writing code out of my basement full time for a small software company out of Chicago. This is a dream come true for both me and my family. I've always wanted to be able to stay home and write code to "bring home the bacon" and that's exactly what I'll be doing now. It's for that reason that I decided to change jobs...I'm following my dream. :)
Saturday, March 08, 2008
Blackhand Gorge
I was uploading my Garmin maps into Google Earth and clicked on "Blackhand Rock" on the map and did a search. Surprisingly, I found a bunch of YouTube videos on Blackhand Gorge. One was titled "Haunted Blackhand Gorge"!? I don't believe a lick of this, but it's pretty well done:
I run here all the time and the only red eyes I see in the woods are from possums, deer, groundhogs, or bigfoot; no ghosts though! I do have to admit that it is pretty creepy at night time due to the dense woods and noisy animals. But honestly, there's nothing to be afraid of.
To get a sense of just how beautiful this place really is, here is video that somebody took while standing on one of the overlooks that is about 1/2 mile into the path, just off to the right:
There are many overlooks and one of the most beautiful overlooks is on Quarry Rim Trail that overlooks one of the natural rock quarry's. If you've never been to Blackhand Gorge, hopefully that last video will entice you to visit it. If you are more in the scary stuff, that's fine too; I know where the old Lock 15 is as well as the "spooky" tunnel. :) However, I've taken my girls through that tunnel numerous times and there's nothing scary about it...
Blackhand Gorge is the most BEAUTIFUL state nature preserve in the state IMO. Best of all, it's running distance from my house! I know because I run there all the time; like last Wednesday. It's (hands down) my favorite place to run. Here is a quick map of the entire nature preserve. All the dotted lines are the nature paths (aka: trails) that I run:
They are all cool in their own way, but Marie Hickey is my favorite and you can usually find me there on Tuesdays and Thursdays running through the woods. I typically do the entire "Blackhand Trail" on my Sunday long runs and throw in trails here and there to get in the desired mileage when needed. :) If you've never been to Blackhand Gorge, you need to visit it... FYI: Spring is coming and the leaves are going to be blooming soon. ;)
I run here all the time and the only red eyes I see in the woods are from possums, deer, groundhogs, or bigfoot; no ghosts though! I do have to admit that it is pretty creepy at night time due to the dense woods and noisy animals. But honestly, there's nothing to be afraid of.
To get a sense of just how beautiful this place really is, here is video that somebody took while standing on one of the overlooks that is about 1/2 mile into the path, just off to the right:
There are many overlooks and one of the most beautiful overlooks is on Quarry Rim Trail that overlooks one of the natural rock quarry's. If you've never been to Blackhand Gorge, hopefully that last video will entice you to visit it. If you are more in the scary stuff, that's fine too; I know where the old Lock 15 is as well as the "spooky" tunnel. :) However, I've taken my girls through that tunnel numerous times and there's nothing scary about it...
Blackhand Gorge is the most BEAUTIFUL state nature preserve in the state IMO. Best of all, it's running distance from my house! I know because I run there all the time; like last Wednesday. It's (hands down) my favorite place to run. Here is a quick map of the entire nature preserve. All the dotted lines are the nature paths (aka: trails) that I run:
They are all cool in their own way, but Marie Hickey is my favorite and you can usually find me there on Tuesdays and Thursdays running through the woods. I typically do the entire "Blackhand Trail" on my Sunday long runs and throw in trails here and there to get in the desired mileage when needed. :) If you've never been to Blackhand Gorge, you need to visit it... FYI: Spring is coming and the leaves are going to be blooming soon. ;)
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Back on the Farm
I made it home safe and sound around 5:30pm last night. The flight from Novosibirsk to Moscow was very easy and I maybe got 1 total hour of sleep on it. My time in Moscow was MUCH easier than my first visit through there. I wasn't able to find the free shuttle from terminal 1 to terminal 2, but I was able to take the public bus instead. This time I knew my destination and I knew enough Russian to get me where I needed to go (ie. "Sherametyevo d'vah!?") and it paid off. At one point, I was on the wrong mashrutka and the driver had to put it in park and let me out (refunding my rubles of course). I'm happy I spoke up, otherwise, I would have probably ended up in downtown Moscow with all my luggage and a pocket full of rubles.
Needless to say I made it to the second terminal and had about 7 hour to kill. I literally dozed in and out of consciousness in a seated position with my head on my luggage sitting beside me. It was not a fun night, but I made it. I was able able to board the plane to Munich around 5:30 am and I got about 2 hours of (decent) sleep on there before we landed. There was only a 2 hour layover in Munich and I basically just kept myself awake figuring I'd get all the sleep I needed on my long flight to Chicago. Yeah right.
This Lufthansa flight had individual touch-screen television systems on the back of each seat. It goes without saying that I did not sleep for the entire flight. If I wasn't watching a movie, I was watching the live tracking system of the flight details. Before we landed, I had watched The Bourne Ultimatum (a must see), Across the Universe (really good), The Last Legion (ehh...) and a 1 hour movie about the New York Marathon (just killing time). By the time we were getting ready to land, we had to actually do a few loops around Chicago because the weather or something and I was in some major pain. My legs were cramping so bad and I could not sit still. It felt like we were flying around Chicago for 30 minutes and I was ready to scream. Of course, it didn't help that I had the flight information screen up and saw us getting closer, then further, then closer, then further... it was killing me. When we finally landed in Chicago, I was so happy. I avoided all escalators and automatic walk ways and refused to sit anywhere.
The worst part of all this flying and crappy sleep is that I was literally keeping up with the sun since Moscow. It was basically the same time for me as I kept moving further west. I took off in Moscow at 6 am, and landed in Munich at ~7 am (4 hours later). I took of in Munich @ 9 am and landed in Chicago at ~11am (9 hours later). This has basically turned into one huge day for me and I needed to let the sun catch up with me for an hour or two.
After flying half away around the world and back, I avoided delays through some pretty bad weather, all flights seemed to be right on schedule. Of course, I was one stop away from home and my luck had ended. The flight that I was supposed to take was delayed by 1 hour and it was the longest, most annoying 1 hour I'd experienced in a long time. The weather wasn't even that bad! I just came from a blizzard (by Americans terms) in Siberia and the plane was on time and no problems. In Chicago, it was just a slight snow and the whole terminal was backed up, canceled flights, late flights, etc... I couldn't believe it. After 45 minutes of waiting with no good news, I was pretty upset. I had called Jennifer and told her that my flight was ontime and that I'd see her in Columbus in a little over an hour... of course, this was a little over an hour ago. By the time we actually took off, I should have already been reunited with my family in Columbus.
When we landed I basically ran to the security check point to see them! When I saw Lizzie she lit up like a light bulb and they all came running to me. I put my things down and squeezed them all like crazy. Mommy got some extra strengthy hugs of course. Daizi just stared at me for the longest time, she didn't know what to think. I was away for almost a month and then now all the sudden I'm back..? She wasn't too sure what was going on. It took a while, then she came around. Lizzie and Jazzy and Mommy were very excited. They couldn't wait to get home so that they could all see what I got them. This is what I missed; all the little things. :)
We all went to Red Robin and I had a good 'ol American greeseburger. :) It was awesome, though my stomach is a little confused by all this. Today we all slept in and Mommy treated us all to an egg breakfast. I spent most of today catching up on my rather large honey-do list. I got the truck running, got a load of hay, fixed some light bulbs, shoveled the walk, etc... Lucky for me, Lizzie had school canceled today, so I got to hang out with her and Jazzy all day. We all played in the snow and I taught them how to make a snow wall to hide behind for snow ball fights (city boy stuff). Basically, my life is back to normal and I'm very happy for that.
Needless to say I made it to the second terminal and had about 7 hour to kill. I literally dozed in and out of consciousness in a seated position with my head on my luggage sitting beside me. It was not a fun night, but I made it. I was able able to board the plane to Munich around 5:30 am and I got about 2 hours of (decent) sleep on there before we landed. There was only a 2 hour layover in Munich and I basically just kept myself awake figuring I'd get all the sleep I needed on my long flight to Chicago. Yeah right.
This Lufthansa flight had individual touch-screen television systems on the back of each seat. It goes without saying that I did not sleep for the entire flight. If I wasn't watching a movie, I was watching the live tracking system of the flight details. Before we landed, I had watched The Bourne Ultimatum (a must see), Across the Universe (really good), The Last Legion (ehh...) and a 1 hour movie about the New York Marathon (just killing time). By the time we were getting ready to land, we had to actually do a few loops around Chicago because the weather or something and I was in some major pain. My legs were cramping so bad and I could not sit still. It felt like we were flying around Chicago for 30 minutes and I was ready to scream. Of course, it didn't help that I had the flight information screen up and saw us getting closer, then further, then closer, then further... it was killing me. When we finally landed in Chicago, I was so happy. I avoided all escalators and automatic walk ways and refused to sit anywhere.
The worst part of all this flying and crappy sleep is that I was literally keeping up with the sun since Moscow. It was basically the same time for me as I kept moving further west. I took off in Moscow at 6 am, and landed in Munich at ~7 am (4 hours later). I took of in Munich @ 9 am and landed in Chicago at ~11am (9 hours later). This has basically turned into one huge day for me and I needed to let the sun catch up with me for an hour or two.
After flying half away around the world and back, I avoided delays through some pretty bad weather, all flights seemed to be right on schedule. Of course, I was one stop away from home and my luck had ended. The flight that I was supposed to take was delayed by 1 hour and it was the longest, most annoying 1 hour I'd experienced in a long time. The weather wasn't even that bad! I just came from a blizzard (by Americans terms) in Siberia and the plane was on time and no problems. In Chicago, it was just a slight snow and the whole terminal was backed up, canceled flights, late flights, etc... I couldn't believe it. After 45 minutes of waiting with no good news, I was pretty upset. I had called Jennifer and told her that my flight was ontime and that I'd see her in Columbus in a little over an hour... of course, this was a little over an hour ago. By the time we actually took off, I should have already been reunited with my family in Columbus.
When we landed I basically ran to the security check point to see them! When I saw Lizzie she lit up like a light bulb and they all came running to me. I put my things down and squeezed them all like crazy. Mommy got some extra strengthy hugs of course. Daizi just stared at me for the longest time, she didn't know what to think. I was away for almost a month and then now all the sudden I'm back..? She wasn't too sure what was going on. It took a while, then she came around. Lizzie and Jazzy and Mommy were very excited. They couldn't wait to get home so that they could all see what I got them. This is what I missed; all the little things. :)
We all went to Red Robin and I had a good 'ol American greeseburger. :) It was awesome, though my stomach is a little confused by all this. Today we all slept in and Mommy treated us all to an egg breakfast. I spent most of today catching up on my rather large honey-do list. I got the truck running, got a load of hay, fixed some light bulbs, shoveled the walk, etc... Lucky for me, Lizzie had school canceled today, so I got to hang out with her and Jazzy all day. We all played in the snow and I taught them how to make a snow wall to hide behind for snow ball fights (city boy stuff). Basically, my life is back to normal and I'm very happy for that.
Thursday, February 07, 2008
Novosibirsk - Day 16
Today was a great day. I woke up @ 9am and worked from home (aka: my flat). Nothing too exciting really... I was able to get some clothes washed and picked up a little, but mostly sat at my desk and worked. I drank water for breakfast and an afternoon snack. I was totally out of food and was anxious to head out the door for our trip to the pub / ballet, even if only to grab a bite to eat in route.
Around 3pm, Scott called and said he and Lena were at New York Pizza (aka: NYP - pronounced "neep"), which is literally right outside my flat. I met them there and ordered 2 slices of pepperoni pizza and a sprite. Lena asked me if I would like some help ordering my pizza, and this was very nice. I thought about it for a second and said... "no thanks, I think I got this." And headed toward the counter. Scott was excited to see me fail miserably at ordering my food, and I knew it. :) As I walked up to the counter, I held up two fingers and said "two. pepperoni. pizza.", because I knew that "pepperoni" and "pizza" were the same in Russian and (of course) my two fingers indicated that I needed two of these things. The guy said, "Ok, would you like anything to drink?". I said "Yeah!". :) I know that I lucked out. (Luc - 1 point, Scott - 0). Honestly, not many people in Akademgorodok speak English, but I happened to find one that did. He spoke very good English actually.
From the NYP, we headed to the Irish Pub in downtown Novosibirsk via Taxi. We got dropped off somewhere near the pub and went into a Levi's store. I was blown away at how much Levi's cost over here. There was a sign on the one stack that said "-80%" and I thought, "cool! sale!". I got over to them and saw that they had a 1,080 ruble price tag which is just over $40! You do the math for the actual price... Ok, relax... I'll do it, it would have cost 5,400 rubles or ~$220!!? We left.
The Irish Pub was pretty cool. It was laid out a bit like an old Irish pub, but not as cool as Claddagh's in Polaris (if you live near Columbus, go there sometime!). I (of course) ordered a pint of Guiness, mostly because that's the only thing you are supposed to order at an Irish pub (at least, that's how I was raised). Needless to say, it was very refreshing. From there, we went downstairs to another pub. This pub was an old Soviet Union pub with old remnants of maps and other pieces of Soviet history from the communist era. It's so unfortunate that I know nothing about "old school" Russia. Since my trip over here, I've really taken an interest in in though and would like to learn more about the history of this place ("this place" being Russia). I took a lot of picture and was very happy that we had ventured downstairs.
Ok, we were running late and had to chug our 2nd beer. We said our "spasibo's" and headed out the door. We got to the Ballet just in time. We literally checked out coats, and sat down and then the lights went dim. Perfect timing! Unfortunately I wasn't able to take my camera in this place. It was a beautiful opera house! Just like you see in old pictures from the "days of old". I really enjoyed the ballet; more so than I thought I would.
The show was called "Gissel" and was about a poor girl falling in love with a boy that lived near. But later she finds out that he was actually very wealthy and was engaged to the princess. When she found out, she died from a weak heart and then the second half was a bit confusing to me... Basically she danced around as a ghost near her grave site with the rich boy and then the curtains closed. I do not mean to do it any injustice by my description, but that is all I could really make of the second half. :)
Again, it was very entertaining and after this ballet, I can't wait to take my girls to a ballet. I can only imagine how much they would enjoy seeing "princesses" (aka: anybody wearing a pretty dress) and dancing around on stage. The whole time I was watching the ballet, I was thinking about how they would accept such a show, and it made me that much more excited to take them to one. The best part about it for me was the choreography and music. It was amazing to think about how much work goes into one of these things: the dancers have to know their parts, the stage crew has to setup all the props, the orchestra has to know exactly when to get loud, everything.
After the show, we got on a bus back to Akademgorodok and got off near Bellisimo's, which is an Italian restaurant squeezed between a Russian restaurant and a cafe. I spoke about this place on Day 10, but unfortunately it was closed... Moving on, we went to the Jelly Belly instead (I spoke about this place on Day 2 and Day 3). We drank Chai (aka: tea) and basically just relaxed. After we ate, I headed to the grocery and got some necessities (you know, more no-hassle yogurt, water, tissues, Tide (yes, I'm still fighting with this thing), and mandarin oranges).
By the time I got home, I was pretty well spent, but I was able to talk to my girls for a while before going to bed. Daizi was being a little pistol; Jennifer said that she's grown a molar in the back of her mouth, so she's been real cranky lately. I don't blame her! I would be cranky too. Lizzie has actually stayed home from school a couple of days because she's sick too. Of course Jazzy is sick as well, so Jennifer has been dealing with a house full of miserable kids. It probably doesn't make it any better when I tell her about all the cool places I've been and all the fun I'm having over here. Needless-to-say, I'm missing them all very badly, so I'm not totally disconnected from them.
The worst part for me is night time. It's so quiet in here (aside from my neighbors upstairs) and I'm not able to tuck my girls in, nor am I able to sleep next to my wife which is really eating at me. She's gonna have to pry me off of her with a crowbar when I get home. I was able to talk to them for about 45 minutes and tell them about the ballet. They showed me how small the "Daddy Chains" are getting, and we're all pretty excited that I'm coming home next week. We've agreed to have a nice "family dinner" when they pick me up on Tuesday... Man, I can't wait!!
Around 3pm, Scott called and said he and Lena were at New York Pizza (aka: NYP - pronounced "neep"), which is literally right outside my flat. I met them there and ordered 2 slices of pepperoni pizza and a sprite. Lena asked me if I would like some help ordering my pizza, and this was very nice. I thought about it for a second and said... "no thanks, I think I got this." And headed toward the counter. Scott was excited to see me fail miserably at ordering my food, and I knew it. :) As I walked up to the counter, I held up two fingers and said "two. pepperoni. pizza.", because I knew that "pepperoni" and "pizza" were the same in Russian and (of course) my two fingers indicated that I needed two of these things. The guy said, "Ok, would you like anything to drink?". I said "Yeah!". :) I know that I lucked out. (Luc - 1 point, Scott - 0). Honestly, not many people in Akademgorodok speak English, but I happened to find one that did. He spoke very good English actually.
From the NYP, we headed to the Irish Pub in downtown Novosibirsk via Taxi. We got dropped off somewhere near the pub and went into a Levi's store. I was blown away at how much Levi's cost over here. There was a sign on the one stack that said "-80%" and I thought, "cool! sale!". I got over to them and saw that they had a 1,080 ruble price tag which is just over $40! You do the math for the actual price... Ok, relax... I'll do it, it would have cost 5,400 rubles or ~$220!!? We left.
The Irish Pub was pretty cool. It was laid out a bit like an old Irish pub, but not as cool as Claddagh's in Polaris (if you live near Columbus, go there sometime!). I (of course) ordered a pint of Guiness, mostly because that's the only thing you are supposed to order at an Irish pub (at least, that's how I was raised). Needless to say, it was very refreshing. From there, we went downstairs to another pub. This pub was an old Soviet Union pub with old remnants of maps and other pieces of Soviet history from the communist era. It's so unfortunate that I know nothing about "old school" Russia. Since my trip over here, I've really taken an interest in in though and would like to learn more about the history of this place ("this place" being Russia). I took a lot of picture and was very happy that we had ventured downstairs.
Ok, we were running late and had to chug our 2nd beer. We said our "spasibo's" and headed out the door. We got to the Ballet just in time. We literally checked out coats, and sat down and then the lights went dim. Perfect timing! Unfortunately I wasn't able to take my camera in this place. It was a beautiful opera house! Just like you see in old pictures from the "days of old". I really enjoyed the ballet; more so than I thought I would.
The show was called "Gissel" and was about a poor girl falling in love with a boy that lived near. But later she finds out that he was actually very wealthy and was engaged to the princess. When she found out, she died from a weak heart and then the second half was a bit confusing to me... Basically she danced around as a ghost near her grave site with the rich boy and then the curtains closed. I do not mean to do it any injustice by my description, but that is all I could really make of the second half. :)
Again, it was very entertaining and after this ballet, I can't wait to take my girls to a ballet. I can only imagine how much they would enjoy seeing "princesses" (aka: anybody wearing a pretty dress) and dancing around on stage. The whole time I was watching the ballet, I was thinking about how they would accept such a show, and it made me that much more excited to take them to one. The best part about it for me was the choreography and music. It was amazing to think about how much work goes into one of these things: the dancers have to know their parts, the stage crew has to setup all the props, the orchestra has to know exactly when to get loud, everything.
After the show, we got on a bus back to Akademgorodok and got off near Bellisimo's, which is an Italian restaurant squeezed between a Russian restaurant and a cafe. I spoke about this place on Day 10, but unfortunately it was closed... Moving on, we went to the Jelly Belly instead (I spoke about this place on Day 2 and Day 3). We drank Chai (aka: tea) and basically just relaxed. After we ate, I headed to the grocery and got some necessities (you know, more no-hassle yogurt, water, tissues, Tide (yes, I'm still fighting with this thing), and mandarin oranges).
By the time I got home, I was pretty well spent, but I was able to talk to my girls for a while before going to bed. Daizi was being a little pistol; Jennifer said that she's grown a molar in the back of her mouth, so she's been real cranky lately. I don't blame her! I would be cranky too. Lizzie has actually stayed home from school a couple of days because she's sick too. Of course Jazzy is sick as well, so Jennifer has been dealing with a house full of miserable kids. It probably doesn't make it any better when I tell her about all the cool places I've been and all the fun I'm having over here. Needless-to-say, I'm missing them all very badly, so I'm not totally disconnected from them.
The worst part for me is night time. It's so quiet in here (aside from my neighbors upstairs) and I'm not able to tuck my girls in, nor am I able to sleep next to my wife which is really eating at me. She's gonna have to pry me off of her with a crowbar when I get home. I was able to talk to them for about 45 minutes and tell them about the ballet. They showed me how small the "Daddy Chains" are getting, and we're all pretty excited that I'm coming home next week. We've agreed to have a nice "family dinner" when they pick me up on Tuesday... Man, I can't wait!!
Saturday, February 02, 2008
Novosibirsk - Day 11
Today kicked butt!! I woke up at 8am and posted yesterdays journal entry. While I was doing this Jennifer hit me on Skype and I was able to talk with her a bit. Matt was over and we were able to show him how we've been communicating while I'm over here and he was pretty amazed at the quality. He's right too; I'm half way around the world and there is very little delay when I talk with Jennifer and the girls. I guess, I've just come to accept it as "the norm", but agree that it's pretty amazing. :) We discussed a few things about how her Friday had gone, and I briefed her on how my Saturday will be going, and then we all went about our separate ways.I then proceeded to the Trade Center and had some breakfast. I was able to work out enough Russian to order myself the "Chef's Special" omelet and a Frencheski Press coffee. I think the waitresses got a kick out of me because I spoke in very short words and smiled a lot. :D They were very giggly and spoke back and forth while I ordered. I kept smiling. :D Maybe I had something in my teeth...:B I don't know... I still smiled. :D Luckily the one waitress knew a bit of English and was able to tell me how much my breakfast cost. That was helpful because I couldn't see the display from where I was standing, and don't understand spoken numbers yet... keyword "yet".
After I had my solo-breakfast, I headed to the grocery section of the Trade Center to get some tissues. As it turned out, I got a lot more than just tissues. I ended up walking around the grocery with a bunch of ad-hoc items stacked up on a ad-hoc frozen pizza box. In hind sight, I should have gotten a basket, but that makes too much sense and I only needed tissues. I eventually managed to balance my items to the checkout and situate them on the counter. The girl that rang me up tried to talk to me at one point and I just looked at her with that "I just ran over your cat" look, put my hand on my chest, and said "Nyet Ruskie. Americahn." She smiled and continued to ring me up. She was probably saying "Doing your own shopping, huh?", cause I had all "man" items (1 frozen pizza, a pack of plastic cups, a carton of orange juice, 2 packs of travel tissues, some no-hassle dannon yogurts, and a tub of some Russian ice cream). I felt silly not knowing what she was trying to say to me, but (again) kept smiling. :D When I was done, I did impress her with a smiling "spah-see-bah", for she dipped her head to the side, smiled real big and said "pa-jou-loosta" very slowly and clearly for me. :D
By the time I got back to the flat, it was almost time for Maxim to come and pick me up, for we were going to downtown Novosibirsk today. I was able to put some of my things away, fill out a few last minute post cards and then he arrived. We were on the road and heading to Novosibirsk by 12:30pm, and I was pretty excited to see this city that everybody has been talking so highly about. :) The drive was very interesting. There are no lines on the roads. Cars just weave in and out of one another and have this "sixth-sense" about what the other driver is going to do. I actually felt very comfortable the entire time and didn't think to much about it (until we got to intersections).
Our first stop was the ice city. This place was AMAZING! It is literally a stationary, mini carnival made out of ice. When it snows in the fall, the city builds these ice structures and the people are able to enjoy it all winter long (~9 months). I took tons of pictures of this place and will post them to my online photo album once I get home and can organize them. Until then, you'll just have to see the few that I post on my blog.The best part of this entire palace was the ice slide. Check this thing out:
It was amazing to see kids as young as 4 and 5 go down this thing with no assistance. My kids would have been absolutely petrified! Here is what it looked like from the top of the slide:
It looked like some of the kids may have actually been regulars, for I saw one kid getting off of the bus outside the ice city with one of the butt plates (for lack of better term) and he was running toward the ice city ready to do some major sliding today it looked like. I must say that if I lived near here, I too would come here with a butt plate. It was some major fun!I actually busted my butt today. As we were making our way up the steps to this this slide, there was a very slick area and I went running up to it and slid and really dinged up my butt. So much so that the back of my hamstring hurts too. I think I bruised the muscle all the way down my leg. Between my feet, my left knee, and now my right butt cheek, I'm ready to go home. :) I thought about changing my blog title to "Luc's Online Pity Party"... Anyway, it's now my newest pain and it hurts worse than my knee right now (which still hurts).
After visiting the Ice City, we went into the city and had a nice lunch at a little "whole in the wall" restaurant that was tucked in little plaza area. The place was kind of rustic looking and reminded me of an old rustic Scottish/Irish pub that you see in the movies. It was fully equipped with a wood burning oven and had a very soft atmosphere. It is the exact place that Jennifer and I might look for if we were to go looking for a new place to eat. We all ordered pizza and the chef baked it right in front of us in the wood burning oven. We had lots of pizza and lots of fun. Scott re-introduced me to the word "dweeb"... something about an ant farm. :)From there, we went to the "Opera and Ballet Theatre" and ordered some tickets for a ballet show on Thursday. As crazy as this may sound (me and ballet), I'm actually very excited to see this. I've never seen a real live show like this outside of high school (+10 years ago). I'm sure the whole time I'm watching it, I'll be thinking about the pez dispenser. :) I'll try to contain myself!
It was pretty cool walking through the underground tunnels to get from one side of the road to the other. The road was HUGE and would have been impossible to cross otherwise. Once we did some souvenir shopping, we all decided to just pack it in for the day and go back to our flats. The zoo is very inactive this time of year and it was pretty cold today. As for the Metro's, we really had nowhere to go and we agreed to ride them on Thursday when we come for the ballet.
When I got home, I dove nose first in these post cards. I'd put off finishing them for long enough.
As it stands now, people won't even get them until after I get back anyway. Regardless, I needed to just finish them and be done. I spent about 2 hours finishing them and then as I was getting on line to find a few addresses and post this journal entry, Jennifer pinged me again. I told her about my day and was able to see Lizzie and Jazzy for a few minutes. Daizi was still sleeping and Lizzie has a fever. :( Jazzy was just being Crazy Jazzy! :)Tomorrow is another big day, so be sure to check it out too...
Russian Lesson of the Day
I usually do a segment on what is different. However today's segment is short and is something that both countries share in their beliefs: Don't eat yellow snow... in Russia or America. Good night!
Friday, February 01, 2008
Novosibirsk - Day 10
Today was a great day. I got to sleep in a bit this morning, and it felt pretty good. I woke up at 10:30am and got ready for my long walk to work. While checking my email before heading out the door, Jennifer pinged me and I was able to chat with her and the girls for a while.
my flat
Honestly, there isn't a whole lot of cool stuff that happened today. I did a lot of work related items most all day. I did ask the guys if they wanted to go get pizza for lunch today. And they all agreed that we would do this. So about 3 o'clock we all went to a local pizza place called "Belissimo's". I got to meet Ivan's wife and they looked very "tough" together. :) I really wanted to make conversation with her, but I didn't want to be rude and expect her to speak English to me, so I just smiled a lot, like this :D.
This place was a real Italian diner that was joined together with a coffee shop and a Russian restaurant. It had free wifi and an old school phone booth like in Superman. I ordered a slice of pepperoni pizza, a slice of Hawaiian pizza (yes, it's even called 'Hawaiian' pizza over here), and a beer. I had a heck of a time figuring out what I ordered when the food came. Apparently I was eating somebody else's quesadillas, but nobody stopped me. :) I honestly thought it was my pizza, and I was totally confused as to why everybody else around me had "normal" looking pizza's while I had these folded "tortilla pizzas". I figured I just screwed up when I told the cashier what I wanted, so I just kept eating figuring that it was just what I ordered. Eventually it was brought to my attention that I was eating somebody else's food. :) We had a good time to say the least, more confusion was sparked when the waitress brought more food than we ordered. It was a huge guessing game at this point. :D
After this (rather fun) excursion, we all headed back to the office and worked until about 7:30pm - 8pm. I got a ride home from Maxim tonight because it was pretty dark and I simply didn't feel like walking home in the cold tonight.
When I got home, I immediately opened the computer and spent the rest of the night finishing up my work related items. I told you it wasn't a very exciting day. :) I chatted with my girls for a good while tonight while I was working and told them all about my plans for the weekend. Lizzie told me about her wedding day with "Q" and "U" (apparently the wedding was on Thursday... who get's married on Thursday anyway?). Good thing too because Lizzie didn't have school today (Friday) because of the weather. Apparently there was ice everywhere and Newark isn't prepared for such weather like Novosibirsk is. I wonder how many "snow days" the kids over here get...?
Jennifer is doing something pretty cool at home while I'm away. She and the girls have made a "Daddy Chain".
Basically it's just a chain of paper hoops that they made the day I left (Lizzie and Jazzy both made one) and with each passing day they take a ring off of this chain. As the chain gets shorter, I am that much closer to coming home. This is pretty cool! The girls tell me how many rings I have left each day so that I know exactly how many more days until I come home. Today they informed me that there are only 13 rings left. :) That means I'm almost there! Boy, that Mommy, she's pretty innovative! They don't really understand "3 weeks" or "2 weeks" yet, so this was a great way for the girls to really "see" how long I was going to be gone and keep track of when I'll be coming back home.
Ok, so the big news for this weekend is as follows. Tomorrow (today actually), I'm going to the city with Scott, Oksana, Maxim, and Lena. We will be doing all of the "touristy" things that tourists do. I'm taking my camera and I'll be sure to take lots of pictures. We are going to try and go to the zoo too. Even when I was in the states, (I think) my mom did some research of Novosibirsk and said that I had to visit the zoo because it was known for having some rare animals. That should be fun.
Then on Sunday, I'm having a little party in my flat. I'm not sure what to expect. I'll probably buy some cards and beer and just wing it. I don't really have a whole lot of things to do in here, but I'm really going to enjoy everybody's company. It stays so quiet in here and it will be nice to liven it up a bit. I invited everybody's family to come too so that it was just a "sweat shop" (American term for 'all guys'). So if you live in Novosibirsk, work at DataWorks, and have nothing to do on Sunday, please join us for some American jokes. Ivan said that he and the others may explain why there are so many locks on the door. :) I said, I would love to know the reason and I'll be sure to wait until we get some beers in us before having that conversation. :D
Russian Cashiers
Another thing that has been different about Russia is the way that you pay for things. In America, you either swipe your card into a small little computer, or you just hand the cashier your cash and then they hand you back your change. Well over here it is a bit different and I'm still getting used to it. Basically every cashier (supermarket, restaurant, ma-n-pa shops, etc..) have this tray on the counter that is specifically used to transfer money back and forth. When I pay for something, I'm supposed to put my money into this tray and then the cashier will then take my money from this tray, make change and put it in the tray for me to pick up. Luckily most places around here are pretty leaneant with me once they see that I'm not from around here. Like I said, I'm still getting used to it, but it's definitely different. :)
my flatThis place was a real Italian diner that was joined together with a coffee shop and a Russian restaurant. It had free wifi and an old school phone booth like in Superman. I ordered a slice of pepperoni pizza, a slice of Hawaiian pizza (yes, it's even called 'Hawaiian' pizza over here), and a beer. I had a heck of a time figuring out what I ordered when the food came. Apparently I was eating somebody else's quesadillas, but nobody stopped me. :) I honestly thought it was my pizza, and I was totally confused as to why everybody else around me had "normal" looking pizza's while I had these folded "tortilla pizzas". I figured I just screwed up when I told the cashier what I wanted, so I just kept eating figuring that it was just what I ordered. Eventually it was brought to my attention that I was eating somebody else's food. :) We had a good time to say the least, more confusion was sparked when the waitress brought more food than we ordered. It was a huge guessing game at this point. :D
After this (rather fun) excursion, we all headed back to the office and worked until about 7:30pm - 8pm. I got a ride home from Maxim tonight because it was pretty dark and I simply didn't feel like walking home in the cold tonight.
When I got home, I immediately opened the computer and spent the rest of the night finishing up my work related items. I told you it wasn't a very exciting day. :) I chatted with my girls for a good while tonight while I was working and told them all about my plans for the weekend. Lizzie told me about her wedding day with "Q" and "U" (apparently the wedding was on Thursday... who get's married on Thursday anyway?). Good thing too because Lizzie didn't have school today (Friday) because of the weather. Apparently there was ice everywhere and Newark isn't prepared for such weather like Novosibirsk is. I wonder how many "snow days" the kids over here get...?Jennifer is doing something pretty cool at home while I'm away. She and the girls have made a "Daddy Chain".
Basically it's just a chain of paper hoops that they made the day I left (Lizzie and Jazzy both made one) and with each passing day they take a ring off of this chain. As the chain gets shorter, I am that much closer to coming home. This is pretty cool! The girls tell me how many rings I have left each day so that I know exactly how many more days until I come home. Today they informed me that there are only 13 rings left. :) That means I'm almost there! Boy, that Mommy, she's pretty innovative! They don't really understand "3 weeks" or "2 weeks" yet, so this was a great way for the girls to really "see" how long I was going to be gone and keep track of when I'll be coming back home.Ok, so the big news for this weekend is as follows. Tomorrow (today actually), I'm going to the city with Scott, Oksana, Maxim, and Lena. We will be doing all of the "touristy" things that tourists do. I'm taking my camera and I'll be sure to take lots of pictures. We are going to try and go to the zoo too. Even when I was in the states, (I think) my mom did some research of Novosibirsk and said that I had to visit the zoo because it was known for having some rare animals. That should be fun.
Then on Sunday, I'm having a little party in my flat. I'm not sure what to expect. I'll probably buy some cards and beer and just wing it. I don't really have a whole lot of things to do in here, but I'm really going to enjoy everybody's company. It stays so quiet in here and it will be nice to liven it up a bit. I invited everybody's family to come too so that it was just a "sweat shop" (American term for 'all guys'). So if you live in Novosibirsk, work at DataWorks, and have nothing to do on Sunday, please join us for some American jokes. Ivan said that he and the others may explain why there are so many locks on the door. :) I said, I would love to know the reason and I'll be sure to wait until we get some beers in us before having that conversation. :D
Russian Cashiers
Another thing that has been different about Russia is the way that you pay for things. In America, you either swipe your card into a small little computer, or you just hand the cashier your cash and then they hand you back your change. Well over here it is a bit different and I'm still getting used to it. Basically every cashier (supermarket, restaurant, ma-n-pa shops, etc..) have this tray on the counter that is specifically used to transfer money back and forth. When I pay for something, I'm supposed to put my money into this tray and then the cashier will then take my money from this tray, make change and put it in the tray for me to pick up. Luckily most places around here are pretty leaneant with me once they see that I'm not from around here. Like I said, I'm still getting used to it, but it's definitely different. :)
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Novosibirsk - Day 9
Today was a pretty long day. I went to bed pretty late last night (~2:30 am), and my internal alarm went off about 3 minutes before my Tungsten T|X alarm (B'DEEEE) went off @ around 7:30 am. I laid in bed for a while debating on whether or not I should try to get another 30 minutes of sleep, but eventually opted against it and got up.
I was pretty much ready to leave the flat around 8:15, but I had already agreed to meet Semyon at the Gorodok @ 9:30 am. I decided to catch up on my blog role a bit while I let the clock tick away. Semyon and I eventually met at the Gorodok and had some good conversation, then decided to walk to the office. He was a bit reluctant to walk with me, but eventually agreed to join me. We actually power walked there because he was a bit late for his daily sprint meeting (btw: it is not my fault he was late). :)
By the time I got to work, my left foot was in some pretty nasty pain between my big toe and the one next to it. I'm not sure if I pulled something during my power-walk with Semyon, or if I screwed it up on Saturday when I was skiing with Konstantin and Alex. I remember that this area was in some pain as I was making my way up some of the hills with my ski's on... Basically, I was hyper extending my feet around the ski's so I could put my ski shoes on the snow and not slide backwards. It was causing pain in my big toe's because my toes were locked into place and my foot was twisting around the foot plate (not recommended). After about 1 hour of this hyper-extended noob move, they started to shriek in pain here and there. I had forgotten about that whole situation until I got to the office and sat down. I very well could have (yet another) stress fracture, for that is what it kinda feels like. This sucks! My feet have been getting on my nerves lately; either I'm being to hard on them, or if they are just being sissies. :) I've been very good about not running for the last 3+ weeks due to the other minor stress fracture in my right foot. It's been killing me not to run, but I keep reminding myself that if it will pay off come "race season". I'd better cool it and let them heal now during my "down time". However, after todays' walk, I'm getting a little frustrated and I'm about to just gonna say screw it and get back into my weekly mileage.
So anyway, I decided to work in the conference room today and not with my team upstairs. The entire team that I work with are all on the 5th floor, but the heating system is pretty intense up there and it stays pretty warm. That along with my sub zero wardrobe makes me pretty hot for the most part. Today I kicked it down stairs with Scott and stayed fairly comfortable for the most part. Tomorrow I may dress down a bit so that I can go back upstairs and zone out. There are some distractions of the conference room (especially with that Wii staring at me all day). Plus, I really do enjoy being in the same room with my team... I can almost feel the synergy up there. :)
I didn't do anything cool today or go anywhere exotic for lunch. I didn't even do any Wii-ing. I just sat at the conference table and worked until 5ish. Around that time I packed up and headed out the door for my long trek back home. I wanted to get home in time to see Lizzie and Jazzy before Lizzie went to school, then I wanted to do a couple of laps around the "Scientist Loop" with my reflective clothing and head lamp (yes I brought it) before it got too late. Well, about 50 meters from the office, I took a NASTY fall on the ice. I had my hands in my pocket, so I wasn't able to catch myself on the way down... It happened so fast... but essentially my feet slid out from under me and I fell knee first with all of my weight on my left knee bone. OUCH!!! I knew it was a nasty one as soon as I landed on it. I hunkered over for a few seconds trying to just let the pain come full force and get it over with. Then I got up and began my walk home. Clearly I'm a noob with all this ice... Note to self: take hands out of pockets when walking on ice. I'm sure I could have offset some of the impact had my hands been out of my pockets.
When I got back to the flat it was about that time for the girls to be ringing so I got setup and they called me almost as soon as I got my pc linked up. Of course, Jazzy woke up about 2 minutes into the call. It's funny, because Jazzy gets up with Lizzie every morning to eat breakfast and then goes back to bed with Jennifer. Nobody wakes her up, she just wakes up. As much as I'd like to think she does it for moral support, I honestly think she just doesn't want to miss anything. :) Regardless, it's nice to talk with them both on Skype while they eat their breakfast and yawn and stretch.
After the Skype meeting, my feet and my knee were both begging me not to run, so I obliged. Instead I did some dishes and picked up around the flat a bit. I am sooooo bacheloring it over here! I have dirty clothes laying in like 4 piles. I have clean clothes folded and laying in a 5th pile. My bed isn't made. My fridge consists of thawed out butter, 2 huge jugs of water, and 2 bottles of beer. My table has a tray of wafers and a basket of mandarin oranges. Best of all... my toilet seat is permanently UP! I actually had to force myself to do that, because I'm so trained to just put it down. This is really the only time I could even try to enjoy such a luxury, so I de-trained myself for these few weeks. :)
Once the flat was put back together, I sat down on the couch and caught up on a few things for work before calling it a night. It is now... 11pm and I'm ready for bed. Depending on how my lower body feels tomorrow morning, I may force myself out of the flat and put in some miles. I'm really itching to get out and run... yes even in Siberia. :)
Siberian Hot Water
Today's fast fact is about the hot water situation in my flat. When I got here, I noticed that there was a large tank above my shower and I had no idea what it was for. I assumed it was reservoir for water to fill up and then I had to pull a lever or something to let water trickle onto me. I'd never seen this before and failed to ask Oleg or Scott what it was for. Honestly I still don't know what it's for, but I've come to accept it's place in the bathroom. :) I'm sure somebody will tell me tomorrow once this post makes it into everybody's feed readers... If so, I'll update the Comments section. :)
HOWEVER (all of that is beside the point), when I took my first show, I quickly found out that they do not screw around over here with their hot water. There is cold water or there is scorching hot water. If you need warm water, you basically just tap the faucet 1 mm at a time until you get a (fairly hot) warm water mixture. There is only about 1 cm of play between "melt your skin" hot and "that's kinda cold" cold. I really notice it when I have to wash my hands or brush my teeth (I brush my teeth with hot water... that's "Ohio" hot water, not "Novosibirsk" hot water). :)
Speaking of brushing my teeth, the faucet in the bathroom is a bit... different. For example, when I brush my teeth I'm constantly turning it on and on and on. Basically, I turn on the water and it releases clear magma into the sink, and then it slowly comes to a stop. I then turn it some more and more clear magma comes out... then it subsides again. I'm not sure if this has anything to do with my mystery tank above the shower or not, but I'm learning to accept it as well. I just keep turning it on, then when I'm done melting my teeth, I crank the spicket all the way back to the "off" position.
Just to give you an idea of how hot this water really is (or maybe a glimpse into how lazy I really am) I'm basically just using one glass out of the cupboard. When I need to clean it from any germs or anything, I just put it in the kitchen sink and turn on the hot water. Surely, no germ can withstand that temperature. However, I almost need an oven mit to retrieve my cup from the sink, because it feels like a hot coal that right out of a wood burning stove. I'm totally serious too. :)
Tune in tomorrow, for I'm really gonna try and push that "Q" and "U" wedding idea at the office. :) Just kidding. But I do plan to finally get in another run and maybe go shopping for some souvenirs at the Trade Center. I just didn't feel like it tonight... and I'm aloud to say that... At least for a few more days anyway. :)
I was pretty much ready to leave the flat around 8:15, but I had already agreed to meet Semyon at the Gorodok @ 9:30 am. I decided to catch up on my blog role a bit while I let the clock tick away. Semyon and I eventually met at the Gorodok and had some good conversation, then decided to walk to the office. He was a bit reluctant to walk with me, but eventually agreed to join me. We actually power walked there because he was a bit late for his daily sprint meeting (btw: it is not my fault he was late). :)By the time I got to work, my left foot was in some pretty nasty pain between my big toe and the one next to it. I'm not sure if I pulled something during my power-walk with Semyon, or if I screwed it up on Saturday when I was skiing with Konstantin and Alex. I remember that this area was in some pain as I was making my way up some of the hills with my ski's on... Basically, I was hyper extending my feet around the ski's so I could put my ski shoes on the snow and not slide backwards. It was causing pain in my big toe's because my toes were locked into place and my foot was twisting around the foot plate (not recommended). After about 1 hour of this hyper-extended noob move, they started to shriek in pain here and there. I had forgotten about that whole situation until I got to the office and sat down. I very well could have (yet another) stress fracture, for that is what it kinda feels like. This sucks! My feet have been getting on my nerves lately; either I'm being to hard on them, or if they are just being sissies. :) I've been very good about not running for the last 3+ weeks due to the other minor stress fracture in my right foot. It's been killing me not to run, but I keep reminding myself that if it will pay off come "race season". I'd better cool it and let them heal now during my "down time". However, after todays' walk, I'm getting a little frustrated and I'm about to just gonna say screw it and get back into my weekly mileage.
So anyway, I decided to work in the conference room today and not with my team upstairs. The entire team that I work with are all on the 5th floor, but the heating system is pretty intense up there and it stays pretty warm. That along with my sub zero wardrobe makes me pretty hot for the most part. Today I kicked it down stairs with Scott and stayed fairly comfortable for the most part. Tomorrow I may dress down a bit so that I can go back upstairs and zone out. There are some distractions of the conference room (especially with that Wii staring at me all day). Plus, I really do enjoy being in the same room with my team... I can almost feel the synergy up there. :)
I didn't do anything cool today or go anywhere exotic for lunch. I didn't even do any Wii-ing. I just sat at the conference table and worked until 5ish. Around that time I packed up and headed out the door for my long trek back home. I wanted to get home in time to see Lizzie and Jazzy before Lizzie went to school, then I wanted to do a couple of laps around the "Scientist Loop" with my reflective clothing and head lamp (yes I brought it) before it got too late. Well, about 50 meters from the office, I took a NASTY fall on the ice. I had my hands in my pocket, so I wasn't able to catch myself on the way down... It happened so fast... but essentially my feet slid out from under me and I fell knee first with all of my weight on my left knee bone. OUCH!!! I knew it was a nasty one as soon as I landed on it. I hunkered over for a few seconds trying to just let the pain come full force and get it over with. Then I got up and began my walk home. Clearly I'm a noob with all this ice... Note to self: take hands out of pockets when walking on ice. I'm sure I could have offset some of the impact had my hands been out of my pockets.
When I got back to the flat it was about that time for the girls to be ringing so I got setup and they called me almost as soon as I got my pc linked up. Of course, Jazzy woke up about 2 minutes into the call. It's funny, because Jazzy gets up with Lizzie every morning to eat breakfast and then goes back to bed with Jennifer. Nobody wakes her up, she just wakes up. As much as I'd like to think she does it for moral support, I honestly think she just doesn't want to miss anything. :) Regardless, it's nice to talk with them both on Skype while they eat their breakfast and yawn and stretch.After the Skype meeting, my feet and my knee were both begging me not to run, so I obliged. Instead I did some dishes and picked up around the flat a bit. I am sooooo bacheloring it over here! I have dirty clothes laying in like 4 piles. I have clean clothes folded and laying in a 5th pile. My bed isn't made. My fridge consists of thawed out butter, 2 huge jugs of water, and 2 bottles of beer. My table has a tray of wafers and a basket of mandarin oranges. Best of all... my toilet seat is permanently UP! I actually had to force myself to do that, because I'm so trained to just put it down. This is really the only time I could even try to enjoy such a luxury, so I de-trained myself for these few weeks. :)
Once the flat was put back together, I sat down on the couch and caught up on a few things for work before calling it a night. It is now... 11pm and I'm ready for bed. Depending on how my lower body feels tomorrow morning, I may force myself out of the flat and put in some miles. I'm really itching to get out and run... yes even in Siberia. :)
Siberian Hot Water
Today's fast fact is about the hot water situation in my flat. When I got here, I noticed that there was a large tank above my shower and I had no idea what it was for. I assumed it was reservoir for water to fill up and then I had to pull a lever or something to let water trickle onto me. I'd never seen this before and failed to ask Oleg or Scott what it was for. Honestly I still don't know what it's for, but I've come to accept it's place in the bathroom. :) I'm sure somebody will tell me tomorrow once this post makes it into everybody's feed readers... If so, I'll update the Comments section. :)
HOWEVER (all of that is beside the point), when I took my first show, I quickly found out that they do not screw around over here with their hot water. There is cold water or there is scorching hot water. If you need warm water, you basically just tap the faucet 1 mm at a time until you get a (fairly hot) warm water mixture. There is only about 1 cm of play between "melt your skin" hot and "that's kinda cold" cold. I really notice it when I have to wash my hands or brush my teeth (I brush my teeth with hot water... that's "Ohio" hot water, not "Novosibirsk" hot water). :)
Speaking of brushing my teeth, the faucet in the bathroom is a bit... different. For example, when I brush my teeth I'm constantly turning it on and on and on. Basically, I turn on the water and it releases clear magma into the sink, and then it slowly comes to a stop. I then turn it some more and more clear magma comes out... then it subsides again. I'm not sure if this has anything to do with my mystery tank above the shower or not, but I'm learning to accept it as well. I just keep turning it on, then when I'm done melting my teeth, I crank the spicket all the way back to the "off" position.
Just to give you an idea of how hot this water really is (or maybe a glimpse into how lazy I really am) I'm basically just using one glass out of the cupboard. When I need to clean it from any germs or anything, I just put it in the kitchen sink and turn on the hot water. Surely, no germ can withstand that temperature. However, I almost need an oven mit to retrieve my cup from the sink, because it feels like a hot coal that right out of a wood burning stove. I'm totally serious too. :)
Tune in tomorrow, for I'm really gonna try and push that "Q" and "U" wedding idea at the office. :) Just kidding. But I do plan to finally get in another run and maybe go shopping for some souvenirs at the Trade Center. I just didn't feel like it tonight... and I'm aloud to say that... At least for a few more days anyway. :)
Monday, January 28, 2008
Novosibirsk - Day 6
Today was a very good day! I woke up at 7am and got ready to meet Semyon at the Gorodok for breakfast before going to work. We had a hard time ordering what we wanted; apparently they don't have many options at 9:30am. I got eggs, tomatoes, beans, and ham... very tasty! We talked about farm living in America and some of the differences between Russian city-living vs. American city-living. All in all, we had a very enjoyable breakfast and talked about lots of stuff.
We got to work at 10:30 and we all had our scrum meetings. Every other Monday is very busy at both Data Dynamics and DataWorks. Our teams are setup into 2 week sprints and it allows us to get together and discuss the progress of last sprint and plan what will be accomplished next sprint. It is a very nice way of getting things accomplished in a reasonable amount of time; everybody seems to like it.Around 2pm, the team (Maxim, Konstantin, Oleg, Ivan, Julia, and myself) went to "East and West" restaurant in the Trade Center for lunch. There are two "East and West" restaurants; one on the top floor of the Trade Center and one on the bottom floor. The one on the bottom floor is the "Cafe" portion of it and it is where Scott and I "shot the shit" and where I was unable to eat the breakfast that Konstantin bought me before our skiing trip. Today we ate at the one upstairs (the restaurant portion), and I ordered spaghetti (pronounced the same in Russian), chicken soup (no where near the same pronunciation), and a Coke (of course this sounds the same everywhere). The spaghetti actually had noodles, shreds of cheese and ketchup of all things in the middle of the noodles... no marinara sauce.(?) It was actually quite good. We had a good time at the restaurant and I taught them all what "sissy" meant; they claimed that they will say "good morning sissy's" from now on when they arrive at work. I'm anxious to try this tomorrow morning. :)
After lunch, we went back to the office and worked some more. Did I mention already that it is so great to be in the same room with these guys. We all collaborated on various things and was able to use the white board to explain things clearly. It allows me to ask questions, because many times I'm not exactly sure how things work until I see them in boxes and lines organized on a drawing surface. Even if you ask my coworkers in the states, this is how I see things in my head, so it's much easier (maybe "quicker") for me to see them this way physically in the first place. Anyway, we decided to make a needed change on the project we are working on and it was nice for me to see it in all it's glory in dry-erase marker before any code was written.
After work, Konstantin gave me a ride home and I was able to meet up with my girls on Skype. Jennifer was taking Daizi to the doctor today because she has a very high fever and she hasn't been able to break it for the last couple of days. I was able to see that she didn't feel so good. She used to get so excited to see me on the webcam, but tonight she didn't want to have anything to do with me and she looked very pale. It was nice to see Lizzie and Jazzy though. I talked to them while they ate their breakfast and told them about some of the cool things I saw today. Toward the end of the conversation, Jennifer's mom came over and I was able to talk to her on Skype for a bit. She is very non-techie, so Jen thought she might like to see me on the computer just to blow her mind. I think it worked. :)After meeting with my family, I got some chores done around the flat and made myself a sandwich... boy was this adventurous. I had a lot of food sitting around that I needed to get rid of. I had a full loaf of bread that was starting to grow green fuzzies and a block of cheese that was getting old and forming various hard spots from exposure to the air. I had to something with them before pitching them, so I decided to try and make a grilled cheese sandwich. It was not like making a grilled cheese sandwich in America. I had to cut the bread into slices with a steak knife (avoiding patches of fuzz), then I had to cut slivers of frozen butter using the same steak knife and strategically place it on the bread and dice it up into tiny blocks before trying to smash it into the bread. I'm not sure why the butter is frozen...(?) It's just how you buy it over here I guess. Once I got the butter blotched onto these two pieces of fuzzy bread, I used the same knife and cut of little slivers of cheese and placed them aside so that I could put them on the bread once in the pan.
Now that I was prepped, I got the burners hot and threw my bread (butter side down) on the skillet and it let out an evil hiss that probably woke the neighbors. The skillet immediately filled up with liquid... apparently I used waaaaay too much frozen butter. No problem, I'll just sop my bread around and let it soak in. I threw the slivers of cheese onto the bread and decided it might be cool to have some ham in there too, so I got some ham and threw on top of the cheese, then topped it off with the other piece of "butter logged bread". I waited for about a minute and flipped it. Another roaring hiss shrieked throughout the forest of Novosibirsk while all the townspeople knew that the crazy American was concocting something delicious. A few more flips and turns and I was done. I looked at my masterpiece and was pretty excited to try it out. It looked pretty good!I took a bite and my eyes almost popped out of my head... Damn, that's a lot of butter! I force-fed my self 2 or three more bites and threw it in the trash. At this point, I was done being adventurous, so I grabbed a banana, some wafers, and a glass of orange juice and considered myself fed. The flat was still in a haze of smoke from the burning butter residue all over the skillet. My eyes were stinging for almost an hour afterwards and my nose was constantly reminded of my grilled cheese disaster.
Before going to bed, I was able to get a few things done on the computer and went to bed rather early; around 10pm.
Russian Facts
- There are many Institutes around here, but they are not part of a "school" per se. They are ran by the local government and professors are paid by the government (if I remember correctly).
- Gorodok is actually short for Academia Gorodok. People use Gorodok as the shortened name. I compared this to how we say OSU Buckeyes and Buckeyes. Maybe that's totally not the same though... I don't know? O! H! _? _?
- Not many planes fly over head here. Scott pointed out a plane in the sky the other day and stated that it's not very often that you see this since Novosibirsk is so remote. In America, you can look up and see up to n planes in the sky at any time of the day.
- You buy frozen butter and must go to school to figure out how to use it apparently. Just kidding, I'm currently thawing it out in the refrigerator and I'll try to use it again before giving up so easily.
- Some people claim that Russia is not a safe place. However, I see so many children (ages 5 - 10 even) at the Trade Center running around with no parents. The people around here look after these kids, and take care of them. You wouldn't see this in America; parents don't let their children run around anywhere by themselves at this age for fear that someone would hurt them. Which country is really safer? Think about it...
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Novosibirsk - Day 5
Well, another great day! As you may have already read, I crashed last night around 5pm and slept through the night for the most part. I woke up here and there, only to roll over on one side and go back to sleep. My stomach was still acting up a bit, but nothing like it was yesterday morning. After talking with some people about my problems, they all feel that it's probably from the change in food & drinks that I've been consuming. I agree, for that is really what it feels like (unwelcome foods).
Anyway, I woke up at 7am and worked on the laptop for a bit, checking off some emails and posting yesterdays' events.
Around 8am, I found my girls online and we chatted for a while. Daizi was sleeping, because I guess Jennifer took them all out shopping at the mall and she was pretty sick (high fever, etc..). I enjoyed seeing my other 3 girls though. :) They all got really cool hats at the mall and they modeled them for me. Jennifer actually bought her own ushanka so that we can match when I get home. :) Very cute!
I kicked it around the flat for a while until Scott showed up and then he and I took a 3.5 mile run to the Botanical Gardens which was a bit past the Scientist Area. It was a beautiful area, but of course it was completely covered in snow, so i couldn't really see it in all it's glory. From what everybody tells me though, it's very beautiful in the summer months. I can only take their word for it right now, but believe that this whole place probably looks completely beautiful in the summer months. I am honestly located in the middle of a huge forest. See for yourself:
View Larger Map
It is very pretty in the winter time, so I can only imagine how pretty it is in the summer time. Anyway, we had a great run. Click on my running links to see the actual route that we took. We went through the forest on these very narrow and packed down snow paths, ran down a big hill and up a big hill before reaching the Botanical Gardens, only to turn around and run back. We were both spent by the time we got back to my flat. It was a great run!
When we got back I was able to see a little bit of Ace Ventura Pet Detective, in Russian. :) It was hilarious, even without the words. :) Once we were able to get our bearings back and warmed up a bit, we headed to the Trade Center (close to the ice slides, and the Jelly Belly restaurant).
I was able to buy some groceries and then we grabbed a quick bite to eat at the same restaurant that Konstantin took me to yesterday (which I didn't eat). Scott and I "shot the shit" for a while then proceeded to go grocery shopping for some items I've been needing. I have totally been living like a bachelor the last four days. I've had nothing in my refrigerator but some foreign beer and some cheese. Today I got hooked up with all kinds of goodies (snacks, bananas, oranges, mass amounts of bottled water, hand soap, juices, etc...). I'm good to go now!
After Scott left, I blogged for a while and forced myself not to go back to sleep. I was able to get my washing machine working, I did my dishes, watered the plants, organized the flat and so on. This bachelor crap is for the birds. :) Jennifer, I appreciate you! :) Believe it or not, I'm still a bit thrown off on this whole time change. I thought I'd be adjusted by now, but for some reason I just can't shake these "seepies" (kid talk for tired). My stomach has been acting up a bit today still, so that may have something to do with it. Honestly, I have never been one to require much sleep; I hardly ever take naps during the day unless I pull an "all nighter" the night before; I can go for days upon days with only 4 hours of sleep each night with no problem... Yes, I know Mom... it's not good for me, but it's true. :) However, over here, I can't seem to get enough sleep. (?)
So around 6:45, Konstantin and Irrene picked me up and we headed to a very nice Mexican restaurant not so far from here to meet up with Scott and Oksana for dinner. When I got in the car, Konstantin and Irrene said that they read my blog and mentioned that they saw where I stated they were a "cute couple". Needless to say, that in and of itself was cute. :) It's like a recursive method that just never ends here... :) I noticed also that they were playing some O' Sweet Static on their CD player.
We arrived at the Mexican restaurant a little after 7. I think the name of this place was "Amigo". It was very tasty! I had sizzling chicken fajitas and a dark lager (makes you wonder about my stomach, huh?). It was great to just hang out and talk with everybody. We talked about everything. The whole time I was wondering if it was odd for Oksana, Konstantin, and Irrene to be speaking in English? Regardless, I appreciated it, for I didn't feel like I was staring off into space while they talked. :)
After we ate and enjoyed some tea and desert, we got up to play some billiards... It was pretty interesting at first to see the differences in pool over here. We had to schedule a time to play pool because apparently it is in high demand over here to play "American Pool". There is a very similar game called "Billiards" that is played on a table twice the size, where the balls are all white and much bigger, while the pockets are actually much smaller. It looked pretty difficult, so I was happy that Scott and Oksana reserved our "American Pool" table. The guy that was in charge of the pool room actually racked the balls for us on our first game, and then we were off and playing pool for the remainder of the night. I was able to sit and learn some Russian words while the others played pool, and I must say that I'm getting better at understanding the characters. I'm kind of forcing myself to learn this so that I can speak the written words.
When I got home last night, I was able to see my girls again. :) It is true, I can't get enough of them! This time it was a very quick Skype call, we just caught up for a bit since it was fairly uneventful on both sides since our last talk. Jennifer was getting ready to get all of the kids dressed to go outside and play, I was getting ready to catch up on some computer work before tomorrow's (rather big) day. We had some good laughs, while Daizi tried to speak a bit of baby-English, to Jennifer. She would look Jennifer in the face and (very seriously and softly) say "boo ja b'day soo sha dee" or something to that effect, and then point like she knew what she was trying to say. :) It was way to cute! We wrapped up the call, then went about our days. I stayed up 'til about 2:30am preparing some stuff for tomorrow, then went to sleep. My stomach is still in a bit of a conundrum, but I'm hoping tomorrow will be better.
Here is some Russian that I learned yesterday and today:
Anyway, I woke up at 7am and worked on the laptop for a bit, checking off some emails and posting yesterdays' events.
Around 8am, I found my girls online and we chatted for a while. Daizi was sleeping, because I guess Jennifer took them all out shopping at the mall and she was pretty sick (high fever, etc..). I enjoyed seeing my other 3 girls though. :) They all got really cool hats at the mall and they modeled them for me. Jennifer actually bought her own ushanka so that we can match when I get home. :) Very cute!I kicked it around the flat for a while until Scott showed up and then he and I took a 3.5 mile run to the Botanical Gardens which was a bit past the Scientist Area. It was a beautiful area, but of course it was completely covered in snow, so i couldn't really see it in all it's glory. From what everybody tells me though, it's very beautiful in the summer months. I can only take their word for it right now, but believe that this whole place probably looks completely beautiful in the summer months. I am honestly located in the middle of a huge forest. See for yourself:
View Larger Map
It is very pretty in the winter time, so I can only imagine how pretty it is in the summer time. Anyway, we had a great run. Click on my running links to see the actual route that we took. We went through the forest on these very narrow and packed down snow paths, ran down a big hill and up a big hill before reaching the Botanical Gardens, only to turn around and run back. We were both spent by the time we got back to my flat. It was a great run!
When we got back I was able to see a little bit of Ace Ventura Pet Detective, in Russian. :) It was hilarious, even without the words. :) Once we were able to get our bearings back and warmed up a bit, we headed to the Trade Center (close to the ice slides, and the Jelly Belly restaurant).
I was able to buy some groceries and then we grabbed a quick bite to eat at the same restaurant that Konstantin took me to yesterday (which I didn't eat). Scott and I "shot the shit" for a while then proceeded to go grocery shopping for some items I've been needing. I have totally been living like a bachelor the last four days. I've had nothing in my refrigerator but some foreign beer and some cheese. Today I got hooked up with all kinds of goodies (snacks, bananas, oranges, mass amounts of bottled water, hand soap, juices, etc...). I'm good to go now!After Scott left, I blogged for a while and forced myself not to go back to sleep. I was able to get my washing machine working, I did my dishes, watered the plants, organized the flat and so on. This bachelor crap is for the birds. :) Jennifer, I appreciate you! :) Believe it or not, I'm still a bit thrown off on this whole time change. I thought I'd be adjusted by now, but for some reason I just can't shake these "seepies" (kid talk for tired). My stomach has been acting up a bit today still, so that may have something to do with it. Honestly, I have never been one to require much sleep; I hardly ever take naps during the day unless I pull an "all nighter" the night before; I can go for days upon days with only 4 hours of sleep each night with no problem... Yes, I know Mom... it's not good for me, but it's true. :) However, over here, I can't seem to get enough sleep. (?)
So around 6:45, Konstantin and Irrene picked me up and we headed to a very nice Mexican restaurant not so far from here to meet up with Scott and Oksana for dinner. When I got in the car, Konstantin and Irrene said that they read my blog and mentioned that they saw where I stated they were a "cute couple". Needless to say, that in and of itself was cute. :) It's like a recursive method that just never ends here... :) I noticed also that they were playing some O' Sweet Static on their CD player.We arrived at the Mexican restaurant a little after 7. I think the name of this place was "Amigo". It was very tasty! I had sizzling chicken fajitas and a dark lager (makes you wonder about my stomach, huh?). It was great to just hang out and talk with everybody. We talked about everything. The whole time I was wondering if it was odd for Oksana, Konstantin, and Irrene to be speaking in English? Regardless, I appreciated it, for I didn't feel like I was staring off into space while they talked. :)
After we ate and enjoyed some tea and desert, we got up to play some billiards... It was pretty interesting at first to see the differences in pool over here. We had to schedule a time to play pool because apparently it is in high demand over here to play "American Pool". There is a very similar game called "Billiards" that is played on a table twice the size, where the balls are all white and much bigger, while the pockets are actually much smaller. It looked pretty difficult, so I was happy that Scott and Oksana reserved our "American Pool" table. The guy that was in charge of the pool room actually racked the balls for us on our first game, and then we were off and playing pool for the remainder of the night. I was able to sit and learn some Russian words while the others played pool, and I must say that I'm getting better at understanding the characters. I'm kind of forcing myself to learn this so that I can speak the written words.
When I got home last night, I was able to see my girls again. :) It is true, I can't get enough of them! This time it was a very quick Skype call, we just caught up for a bit since it was fairly uneventful on both sides since our last talk. Jennifer was getting ready to get all of the kids dressed to go outside and play, I was getting ready to catch up on some computer work before tomorrow's (rather big) day. We had some good laughs, while Daizi tried to speak a bit of baby-English, to Jennifer. She would look Jennifer in the face and (very seriously and softly) say "boo ja b'day soo sha dee" or something to that effect, and then point like she knew what she was trying to say. :) It was way to cute! We wrapped up the call, then went about our days. I stayed up 'til about 2:30am preparing some stuff for tomorrow, then went to sleep. My stomach is still in a bit of a conundrum, but I'm hoping tomorrow will be better.Here is some Russian that I learned yesterday and today:
- ah-low = Hello
- skol-ka = How much?
- dah-vadj = Go ahead!
- kah-zli-kah = Goat (this is actually an insult... don't use it)
- svo-kar = Father in law
- svi-krof = Mother in law
- oosy = Mustache
- mno-gah = A lot
- pir-chah-tach-na-ye at-di-lye-ni-ye = Glove compartment (they don't have these in all cars)... Probably because it is so hard to say. :)
- prik-rah-ti = Knock it off!
- Mah-kah-roe-nee = Macaroni :)
- pach-ti = Almost
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
My Desktop Backgound
I am using the following image as my desktop background image:
Just last week I was in a meeting at work and someone made mention of how cool of a picture it was. I actually took this picture on my hill the day after our bonfire. That next morning was beautiful and Jennifer and I had a mini picnic with the girls.
Check out some of the other photo's that were taken that day from my online photo album: http://picasaweb.google.com/lucas.hardbarger/HardbargerHill2007
For instance, this one is pretty cool too showing the girls playing on the wood pile:
Just last week I was in a meeting at work and someone made mention of how cool of a picture it was. I actually took this picture on my hill the day after our bonfire. That next morning was beautiful and Jennifer and I had a mini picnic with the girls.
Check out some of the other photo's that were taken that day from my online photo album: http://picasaweb.google.com/lucas.hardbarger/HardbargerHill2007
For instance, this one is pretty cool too showing the girls playing on the wood pile:
Anyway, I got lots of pictures in my album and so far, my current desktop background is the most professional looking one yet from my collection. :) The others are just "fun".
Friday, November 16, 2007
...For Pilgrim
Country boy can survive!
My dad built a custom "trucker radio" from a $20 Wal-mart toolbox using spare material. The overall idea is to allow him to carry a CB radio with him anywhere he goes and it has come in handy many times out here at our house (working on the tractor, camping in the middle of nowhere, our bonfire, etc...). It's basically just two used speakers, a CB, some bungy cords, crazy wiring, and a detatchable clamp welded to a huge antenna for hanging it on the truck mirrors. The box comes equipped with 3-4 car lighters, (handy for charging your phone, or actually heating up a... car lighter). He uses one of them to run his XM radio. It weighs about 30 lbs, but has a handle for carrying, and a wooden base for placing it anywhere you want... like on an uneven engine of a pick-up truck when hot-wiring it to a 12 volt battery. :)
Scott Hanselman the Realtor
Wow! I was listening to episode 105 of Hanselminutes and Scott got me excited about planning my upcoming house projects. He discusses using Paint.net along with Sketchup and Google Earth along with VirtualEarth to model a house that he and his wife are building. The best part is that he walks you through exactly what he did to make it work.
This could keep me up all night in the near future. :) Jennifer and I want to make a walk out basement, finish our basement, and build a deck on the front of our house that would connect the front of our house to the back of our house. After listening to Scott's podcast, I can see great value in modeling my house projects and landscape first in SketchUp... then getting the hammer and nails.
If any of this sounds cool to you too, then listen to Scott talk about it: Planning, Placing and Building a House Google Earth and Sketchup. He makes it sound much cooler! If he does decide to get into real-estate, I definitely want him as my Realtor!
This could keep me up all night in the near future. :) Jennifer and I want to make a walk out basement, finish our basement, and build a deck on the front of our house that would connect the front of our house to the back of our house. After listening to Scott's podcast, I can see great value in modeling my house projects and landscape first in SketchUp... then getting the hammer and nails.
If any of this sounds cool to you too, then listen to Scott talk about it: Planning, Placing and Building a House Google Earth and Sketchup. He makes it sound much cooler! If he does decide to get into real-estate, I definitely want him as my Realtor!
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