tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846141797645736912024-02-06T19:24:17.782-08:00BLOGISFACTORYIf I could organize my thoughts, this is not what it would look like. Some dude stuck in the Midwesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00852056495927941030noreply@blogger.comBlogger423125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-784614179764573691.post-26763940579718122672017-03-13T12:25:00.002-07:002017-03-13T12:25:56.135-07:00"I would love some under informed opinions about things you don't understand" - Dilbert.Again, I haven't written in a while. The reason is part laziness and part not having a topic worth writing about.<br />
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Some recent policy changes at the office have put an idea for a rant in my head. It's something I've been stewing about and I guess until I vent or rant it won't leave my poor brain alone. I don't like being upset about things for a long time, as it affects my generally happy demeanor and digestive system.<br />
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This Dilbert is not aimed at anybody really. I know folks who are leaders in the best meaning of this word and I do not belittle their accomplishments as leaders in any way. Maybe this image will make more sense.<br />
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Again, a little extreme, but you should guess the gist of what I am trying to say.<br />
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There is this strange notion in the world, it's several years old, that engineers need to collaborate. A notion that they need to be close to each other or talk to each other and stay in the same room. A notion that they need watch over each other's shoulders until a "kumbaya" descends from the heaven and brings the project to an end before the deadline and below the budget.<br />
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I can only speak to my own profession and experience as a software engineer, commonly known as "the programmer", of course, but nothing can be farther from the truth. I think this somehow came to live as art influencing real life. Try to remember all the movies and commercials where happy, young hipster looking designers and hackers sit in the stylish lofts and open offices with sunlight streaming through the windows apple computer on every desk and an air of camaraderie is what it is "all about". Everything will go only right in an environment like that, right?! Because those images make us happy and productive and "reasons". Now try to imagine a huge factory like room where only fluorescent light bulbs provides real light and rows upon rows of aluminum cubicles separate human beings and only occasional balding head can be seen along the sea of inspirational wall posters. Yeah, nothing good can come out of this boring place.<br />
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Hence, the eternal quest of the management to create happy collaborative environments, where productivity should increase just because of environment. But this is where problem lies, the common misconception about the nature of work and people who work it. There is a reason people to choose to be software engineers.<br />
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I have posted this image before. I will say this, not all of us a social outcasts, or lack social graces, or even introverts. I will even say that we are as diverse group as any, but for some reason we prefer a company of a computer screen for our work more than the company of other human beings. It may have to do with fact that everyday we create snippets of software, or describing it been a little differently - small, encapsulated, semi-autonomous little worlds. Going a little further with the crazy, we create and destroy those worlds at will, literally giving us the power over energy and sometimes over matter at our fingertips. Here comes the big rub, <b>given all of that why would anybody in their right mind give up or share that power by collaborating?</b> At most we would be willing to discuss and agree how we can connect our worlds together, without giving up too much control over our domains. The man must remain the master of domain. Otherwise we prefer to be left alone to allow us to create our little fiefdoms.<br />
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To end this silliness, if you are in management stop inventing new ways to interfere and torture poor engineers. We do not want to discuss and share our methods of world domination, or collaborate how to accomplish it better.<br />
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We know how to do our job, and we are perfectly aware that there many way to skin the proverbial cat. We are also aware that most of those ways are equally lethal to the poor animal and do not require collaboration or discussions or extra meetings or *gasp* agile or waterfall methodologies. In the end the cat is going to be dead and whoever was the sick bastard that wanted the skin will get it.<br />
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<br />Some dude stuck in the Midwesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00852056495927941030noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-784614179764573691.post-60798331782228269922016-04-26T10:16:00.001-07:002016-04-26T10:16:19.272-07:00Best trip ever: Bruges and beyond - part .... Is anybody reading this?Doesn't really matter. I have hit a small roadblock in my work today, so I decided to take a break and keep on writing about our trip.<br />
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Bruges - what a wonderful little town. The center of it, where we stayed, is chuck-full of little streets and restaurants on the corner and churches and historical buildings, and everything else you can possible image a historical European town should be.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Burg and surroundings</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">behind Church of our lady of Bruges </td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFSt6Y-S4y5YZzTsxcWWnT9viyhIHGVJEKeIdnvd4oh-VjfQD2P1ouA6KR_v6hqfUJeUtU6mz5MKcrt2AYzO3iqyQC2F25oeVC4Scwo_lSF9JG6mc_xxlXnNajESl7kOVzRGNUFlnQl65X/s1600/26152775065_9f7d038cb1_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFSt6Y-S4y5YZzTsxcWWnT9viyhIHGVJEKeIdnvd4oh-VjfQD2P1ouA6KR_v6hqfUJeUtU6mz5MKcrt2AYzO3iqyQC2F25oeVC4Scwo_lSF9JG6mc_xxlXnNajESl7kOVzRGNUFlnQl65X/s640/26152775065_9f7d038cb1_o.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Who cares, it's pretty.</td></tr>
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Bruges considers itself to be a chocolate capital of the world, so there is a chocolates and sweets store every 20-30 feet or so, especially around more touristy spots. Every and each one of them claims to sell the best Belgian chocolate there is. We of course tried a few, and then a few more, and actually ended up in Chocolate History Museum, curated by on the major chocolate producer in Belgium. Because they are not paying me for it, and truth to be told I don't remember, I will not endorse their name here. The chocolates were really good, though.<br /><br />
Bruges has several museum and churches available to visit, but truth be told I enjoyed more just walking around and absorbing the atmosphere of it. We tried our best to avoid more crowded areas, which was not entirely possible, for it's smallness Bruges is still a big tourist attraction.<br />
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We took a free tour, organized by local historical society and activists, and the guide showed us a bunch of places we could have possibly missed. We didn't do a lot of research coming into the Bruges, and there are some sights that are worthy a check mark. If you, the reader, ever visit, take a walk around the canals, visit the cloister and the surrounding areas, take side street to the smaller marketplace, and if you get lucky visit the flea market there.<br />
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If you want to sit down and enjoy people gawking I would suggest avoid the tourist trap of the main market place and go eat some mussels at Poules Moules on Stevinplein. The mussels there are really really good, and the place is not a super "tourist trap".<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9zZoZx5XbJLiAVABhnPJi90k__DWkbDu5NRsvWxAnL-J_oO4OCOdgYcmeSJXALwnOtnmewVcIQABRR8dNTmrzWhkx98th0k20aDuKamPmjxok4ESgiOr5pjVxsp50zwZdGcCeDwWoQ1AA/s1600/25534105564_05f6726541_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9zZoZx5XbJLiAVABhnPJi90k__DWkbDu5NRsvWxAnL-J_oO4OCOdgYcmeSJXALwnOtnmewVcIQABRR8dNTmrzWhkx98th0k20aDuKamPmjxok4ESgiOr5pjVxsp50zwZdGcCeDwWoQ1AA/s400/25534105564_05f6726541_o.jpg" width="226" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">mussels at Poules Moules</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIAKtpiFMeiMlHmL9iDzy-YI6NJoXjpybhb68Fev3Fg2d8irnfXyflAEJ9h4HiiQ67NtAO9vExxU47N1Ng8sTEpGUlM0lVbuQ4J4sM0G2-0r4RPvu0LaQ9ODDUfhc1reFhZ-3G_FB5LXeC/s1600/25885598250_2ae2dd1176_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIAKtpiFMeiMlHmL9iDzy-YI6NJoXjpybhb68Fev3Fg2d8irnfXyflAEJ9h4HiiQ67NtAO9vExxU47N1Ng8sTEpGUlM0lVbuQ4J4sM0G2-0r4RPvu0LaQ9ODDUfhc1reFhZ-3G_FB5LXeC/s400/25885598250_2ae2dd1176_o.jpg" width="226" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Maya, pretending to be royalty at Historium Bruges</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgBeWi8kWUo8NAZkBCZD5O3Rs05B9-F7q5dR2y3kwMZkIYraVXsEN5jANiM8q9fjOJ4YZ4u93UTivDSVOjxof0l4VWs07PKTxPC02JSvX46BpbKA9vGDArPnIclWZFdGwmlniNabpMWoLb/s1600/26066039292_ee493f5420_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="362" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgBeWi8kWUo8NAZkBCZD5O3Rs05B9-F7q5dR2y3kwMZkIYraVXsEN5jANiM8q9fjOJ4YZ4u93UTivDSVOjxof0l4VWs07PKTxPC02JSvX46BpbKA9vGDArPnIclWZFdGwmlniNabpMWoLb/s640/26066039292_ee493f5420_o.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Inside the cloister</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXg64_tRA9ISYWPaHn74uj39btRxIYbKG6KdLlbzjM5mYOa5ac4uPj6ZrqXQ7pvFyaV9zT7Ddu9Ih4bkELjk8U4ikILRa4EUr6bDAYaTe2GKKKCZoe3UYrpubXHxze25O43JIMFY6OUq9N/s1600/26218710522_e4ef5c5866_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXg64_tRA9ISYWPaHn74uj39btRxIYbKG6KdLlbzjM5mYOa5ac4uPj6ZrqXQ7pvFyaV9zT7Ddu9Ih4bkELjk8U4ikILRa4EUr6bDAYaTe2GKKKCZoe3UYrpubXHxze25O43JIMFY6OUq9N/s640/26218710522_e4ef5c5866_o.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is behind our Lady of Bruges church.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWcOdFjjxYO2hizRqzEDqBFuzNFL9hzUwWWkU-CtoN9ZOhWSRZhyphenhyphenQ0Wfi-zaB37U6XWBwTVT9yX-hC_dXTVs7psPIz_AemeCLc3Xep02Bivw7pEzPSOYtqznCg2DaboWaoIK5mRw5eMEmj/s1600/26285180946_1ebb4a6bcc_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWcOdFjjxYO2hizRqzEDqBFuzNFL9hzUwWWkU-CtoN9ZOhWSRZhyphenhyphenQ0Wfi-zaB37U6XWBwTVT9yX-hC_dXTVs7psPIz_AemeCLc3Xep02Bivw7pEzPSOYtqznCg2DaboWaoIK5mRw5eMEmj/s640/26285180946_1ebb4a6bcc_o.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The ancient owner of this mansion was one of the Society of Golden Fleece membership holders</td></tr>
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The next and the last chapter we'll visit Paris - our final destination.<br />
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<br />Some dude stuck in the Midwesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00852056495927941030noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-784614179764573691.post-6869721663595421872016-04-18T11:45:00.004-07:002016-04-18T11:46:09.998-07:00South of Netherlands and beyond, part vier!It's getting harder to recall some of the things, so I have to keep on writing. It just happens to be a slower work day today than usual.<br />
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Delft was a one night stop over for us. The town itself could be perfectly described by words "quaint" and "little". There are a couple of churches, like most of ones we've visited they are devoid of decorations and sport high beam beautiful ceilings. There is a big central square with restaurants and souvenir shops around it. It fun to peruse those for a little bit, but most of them try to sell the famous blue Delft glaze in one form or the other. The square gets some traffic, so ignoring "tourist trap" vibe of most restaurants, you get a good "people watching" experience. The locals seem to eat and drink there as well. so it's not a bad sign. Being a "student town", as we were told by our wonderful B&B owner, the town is mostly quiet and dead in the mornings. After spending an evening and having leisurely stroll around the square and near about, we've decided to head for Bruges. Given that it was one of our main destinations for the trip, we've headed out from Delft around noon, hoping to spend a little more time in Belgium. Overall we've spend an evening and couple of hours in the morning in Delft, and I personally think it was enough to enjoy all it had to offer.<br />
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Drive to Bruges is a little longer, so while driving we were looking for spots to make a quick stopover and either see something, or at least have meal. One of the things we failed to realized is that there is no such thing a quick stopover in Europe. First of all, a lot of places offer something interesting to see. Second of all, driving through fast in Europe is near impossible, unless you keep yourself on the highway.<br />
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Take for example the city of Antwerp - the stopover that we've decided on. The streets in the center are narrow and one-way. We have actually ended up going the wrong way once and ending up on the street forbidding motorized traffic. With assistance of a nice fellow we managed to back down the street about half a mile, and turn into the right one, without causing a major problem for ourselves or pedestrians around us. Antwerp center is very nice, we've planted ourselves in the first cafe on the main square and ate our first Belgian Waffles, which were quite excellent by the way. Spending around an hour just sipping coffee, eating a waffle and watching (later strolling about) a flea market unfold right in the main square was one of the pure European experiences we try to do. Still, it added about two and a half, rather pleasant overall, hours to the trip. I'll reiterate: no such thing as a quick stop, and we kind of went with the flow with the idea.<br />
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Onto the Bruges in the next part. I think Bruges deserves a post of it's own.Some dude stuck in the Midwesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00852056495927941030noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-784614179764573691.post-46352521214763466092016-04-13T07:39:00.004-07:002016-04-13T07:46:36.903-07:00Amsterdam.. part twee punt vijf.. or some thoughts on Anne Franks houseMy <a href="http://burlaki.com/">brother </a>has asked me to search deep within and give an opinion of Anne Frank's House museum in Amsterdam. I think in my previous post the only thing I mentioned was that the lines were huge.<br />
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I only know the gist of The Diary, having never read the book in its fullest. Going into the museum I had very little expectation of what I would see and what would be presented. By the way photography is strictly forbidden inside, so I can't share to many pictures.<br />
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The museum is small, by design actually. It really does reside inside the house where the families lived for couple of years during the Nazy invasion of Holland. The point of the museum is to show how cramped, dangerous, and harsh the living conditions were for those hiding. The exhibition rooms are devoid of any furniture, since that would hinder the movement of visitors. The walls are a restoration with paintings, old photographs and writings that Anne herself used to brighten their existence.<br />
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One of the interesting touches is that rooms are set with TVs showing interviews of those who survived about Frank family. And at the very end a nice movie of TV and movie stars reading from the book and giving their thoughts of what it means to them. It is a nice and moving touch to round out the museum experience.<br />
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Maya absolutely loved going to the museum. She said she learned a lot and had a renewed interest in the book. She forced us to by her a copy at the museum and re-read it 3 or four times during the trip. Lena said it was worth it as well, she read the book before and seeing the house brought the reality of horror a little closer. Plus, you have to consider that Anne Frank is a Dutch national Hero, so the museum, although small, carries a lot of importance to the Dutch and is a major landmark.<br />
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I don't think I feel the same way. The museum is about a person and a book, which moves Holocaust to the background. The reality of it seems to be muted. To me it was as if I would be visiting 221b Baker Street.<br />
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To be perfectly honest, if I was travelling alone I would have skipped it. There are museums in the world, Berlin's Jewish history and holocaust museum for instance, that tell the horrifying story much better and with more overall impact.<br />
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If you are travelling with kids, make sure they read the book first and ask them if they want to go. If they do buy the tickets in advance for timed entry.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Line to the museum entrance, which is actually behind my POV</td></tr>
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Some dude stuck in the Midwesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00852056495927941030noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-784614179764573691.post-72663467683246907202016-04-12T12:15:00.000-07:002016-04-12T12:15:46.431-07:00The best trip ever, part drie.<br />
It was suggested by my lovely wife that I should post more pictures of the trip with the blog posting. While I would rather have words, I think it can help the narration. But fear not! I am not giving up creative control.<br />
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Before we move on from Amsterdam, let me share several more wonderful and weird sights we saw.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fish on a tree</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rembrand's Night Watch sculpture</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A crab biting fox's tail</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">View from Westerkirk</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Me holding my crap together while climbing up Westerkirk</td></tr>
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We had this bright idea of driving from Amsterdam to the rest of our destinations. There were couple of small roadblocks along the way to that. First off, it is unusually hard to find a car with automatic transmission in Europe and it costs more, with me learning how to drive in US, I have no clue how to drive manual, nor do I wish to learn at this stage of my life. Another is, that renting a car in one country and returning car in another will more or less double you rent price. This didn't stop us of course, and neither did the fact, that the only thing I knew about driving in our destinations is that they drive on the right side of the road, literally and figuratively.<br />
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Our first planned stop was Keukenhof tulip gardens - a huge botanical park devoted exclusively to tulip growing. We worried that with cold weather there wouldn't be much to see, but a lot of plants were already started to bloom, and the enclosed galleries have always something beautiful growing. We did not spend too much time in there, walking a looking around a leisurely pace took us maybe two an a half hours total.<br />
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This day, for some reason, we've decided to push ourselves. We kind of wanted to see Mauritshuis and the Escher's museums at the Hague, but wanted to also spend a little more time in Delft - our next stop over. As we left tulip gardens, and looked at our table we've decided to skip all of them and instead entertain the short-attention ones in the group (Maya and yours truly) and go to Madurodam on the outskirts of Hague.<br />
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Madurodam is a small park that hosts miniaturized versions of almost all of notable structures in Holland. It's not really a big place, but i has plenty hands on activities for kids, moving airplanes and trains and cars, and just a fun quick place to see. It is expensive though, so beware.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lena trying to control herself and not stomp out civilization</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">birds attacking miniature people and trains</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This weird human body museum we passed on the way to Hague</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">model of the Maritime museum in Amsterdam</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I will continue on the Delft and Bruges in the next post. </span></div>
Some dude stuck in the Midwesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00852056495927941030noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-784614179764573691.post-79323645795416554072016-04-11T08:04:00.004-07:002016-04-11T08:04:52.568-07:00The best trip ever, part twee!I better take off my lazy shoes and keep on writing, the memories seem to dull with time and start forgetting things.<br />
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Amsterdam - our first stop. My first impression? Cold and windy, unfortunately. The weather did not favor us the first couple of days, with intermittent rain and fairly windy conditions. Admitting to too much wind is really something for somebody from the plains of Midwest.<br />
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This trip we did not stay in any hotels, but decided to go with renting apartment space. This leads to my second impression of Amsterdam.<br />
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These are the stairs that we had to drag our luggage up, and then down. We've climbed so many stairs during our stay in Amsterdam, that we've decided to avoid it for the most part for the duration of the trip.<br />
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One of the things that we do when arriving to a new city is search up if SANDEMANs free tours are available, We always have a lot of fun on those and get information of the place, also occasionally good advice from the tour guides. Amsterdam tours did not let us down. The guide was a very lively Scottish fellow, who was put in the somewhat awkward position of having a child on the tour. We went through the Red Light district fairly quickly, and he definitely avoided retelling some of the saucier stories.<br />
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My next impression of Amsterdam is that it absolutely reeks of weed. "Coffeeshops" are on each corner, and it is very hard to distinguish them from actual Cafes that could serve you a coffee. Also, because space is very limited in the city, very few restaurants offer you an opportunity to sit outside and gawk at the crowds.<br />
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In Amsterdam everything is within walking distance. A lot time it is much easier to just hop on the tram and get to your destination through public transport. Do not drive in the inner city if you can help it. Amsterdam is also full of tourists, and it feels like that because the city is cramped. However, it's very easy to step away from the crowds and go inside less crowded areas, like Jordaan, which is very quiet. You can find quaint little streets like this.<br />
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If you have kids go to Maritime Museum to climb all over old Dutch galleon. One of the best views of the city is from the cafeteria in the Oba - Amsterdam central public library. It was extremely windy on the day when we went there, to the point of being extremely uncomfortable. If you like paintings, the best places to go are the Rijksmuseum, with Rembrandt's The Night Watch, and the Van Gogh Museum. For kids specifically, Rijksmuseum offers cardboard maps of the famous paintings full of cool information and Easter eggs hidden by the masters. Van Gogh Museum, on selected nights (one of which we caught), turns into a pretty happening place, with musical performances and happy hour drinks.<br />
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On of the best things we did in Amsterdam is taking a canal boat tour. Do some research before going on one. By that I mean don't read about them on the internet, information is scarce, but go talk to the companies and pick the one you like most. If the weather is nice take an open boat tour, the views are excellent enough that you don't want glass standing between you and the city. The one we took was right behind Anne Frank's house, and we enjoyed it (don't try to get the best priced or the best deal one, the natives know what they are doing and are not above exaggerating things).<br />
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Speaking of Anne Frank's house. Maya really really wanted to go. Thanks to Lena and her ceaseless tracking of ticket sales we were able to get them ahead with a preset time. Lines are huge to this museum, bigger to any museum in Amsterdam. Sometimes the wait can be up to 2-3 hours long. With Museumkaart (get it if you plan to hit at least 3-4 museums, that savings are great for adults) we were able to enter without standing in the line.<br />
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A curious happening occurred when we took our tour. At the Anne Frank's museum (lots and lots of people by the way) we were accosted by a woman, who looked perfectly sane by the way. The interesting twist to her rant was not the usual anti-Jew, anti-Israli fair, but that somehow the existence of the museum was promoting anti-Semitism and anti-Isralali feelings and rhetoric, instead of supporting the state of Israel. I was not ready for this and missed part of it, since I was trying to figure out the ways of protecting my own, if the shit was going to be hitting the proverbial fan.<br />
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If you dare, climb up the Westerkirk. It's only six flights up but at some point stairs turns into ladders, for almost vertical climb. I don't do well in the high and open spaces, but the view is breathtaking, and you get a guide to actually tell you about the place and things you can see from up top.<br />
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Food is average in Amsterdam. Nothing really stood out for for me with the exception of this.<br />
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A herring sandwich.Nothing really special, but I enjoyed the novelty of the thing, and the Dutch herring is really good, if you into that sort of thing. Very few places, in the touristy areas, offer authentic Dutch cuisine. By the admission of the tour guide, Amsterdam is really a melting pot, so it is sometimes hard to understand what authentic Dutch cuisine is. Instead the city is full of Chinese, Indonesian, and the strange overabundance of "Argentinian" steakhouses.<br />
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That is about it about Amsterdam, next post will cover all the little stops we did while travelling to Bruges.Some dude stuck in the Midwesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00852056495927941030noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-784614179764573691.post-62700310350011959452016-04-07T13:47:00.005-07:002016-04-07T13:47:55.700-07:00The best trip ever, Part Een!<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHKAavCUtXc4B1UIy5vqPUl_oSGhuaQKe19F8F7uVyP59CyZYUo5DkV-niJdgXTnc1YS62x9H6dM62JLk66x4jcqJGWuMhnXKHzRNRkqZcV-YMrLbmp0JLbhjZQiHaUw1uYRir_ra1nQUS/s1600/25757972330_86132e18fe_k.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="83" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHKAavCUtXc4B1UIy5vqPUl_oSGhuaQKe19F8F7uVyP59CyZYUo5DkV-niJdgXTnc1YS62x9H6dM62JLk66x4jcqJGWuMhnXKHzRNRkqZcV-YMrLbmp0JLbhjZQiHaUw1uYRir_ra1nQUS/s400/25757972330_86132e18fe_k.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dam panoramic view, Amsterdam NL</td></tr>
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Oh, what a trip! We've hit so many places during the twelve days in Europe that sometime's everything is a blur. There are many memories, however, that are sharp and will stay with me for a very long time.<br /><br />
I am not going to list all of the places we've been to and all of the locations we've seen. This is not the point of this post. I will rather focus on specific details, and small stories that are interesting to me. I may also ask Lena and Maya to contribute to the narrative, maybe they'll offer a point that I either missed or re-interpreted differently.<br />
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We've build our original list of destinations based on the simple fact of where we could fly on miles, what we haven't seen yet, and the availability of non-stop flights. The starting point of the trip was to be Amsterdam and the final destination before going home was Brussels. Because of the tragic events in Brussels several weeks before, at almost the last moment we switched to Paris. We also decided to drive on our trip, which was the result of several notable stories to share.<br />
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I will take a moment to thank my brother and his excellent website <a href="http://burlaki.com/">burlaki.com</a> for help in deciding which sights to see and general advice.<br />
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Maya! We've decided to take her with us. We told her several months in advance, and she was ecstatic. She literally counted days left before we go on the trip, weeks in advance. Because of her, some of our itinerary had to include items that she would be interested to see. However, if you know my child she is interested in only one thing - food. Her itinerary included Netherlands' cheese and Belgium's chocolates and waffles. She knew what kind of waffles existed and wanted to taste all of them. I won't even mention cheese and chocolates. When we told her about going to France, I think she may have lost it for a while, as I've told her stories of our past visit to Paris and the abundance of all sorts of bakeries and restaurants.<br />
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She did plan for us to go Anne Frank Museum in Amsterdam, for which, thanks to Lena, we were able to acquire tickets in advance (do it if you can, avoid the line that is always there). Upon getting to Paris, she also really really wanted to go up the Eiffel tower. That concluded her list of things to see.<br />
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We planned extensively. It could even be said that we over planned. The plan was to go to Amsterdam, and then drive to Bruges with quick stops at Keukenhof gardens, and Hague to see couple of museums, before stopping over for a night at Delft. during our two-night stay in Bruges we planned to go over to Ghent, before finishing up at our final stop with no more stopovers.<br />
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The resulting trip had us going the way of Amsterdam to Keukenhof gardens (couple of hours) to Madurodam's mini-Holland park (couple of hours) to Delft. The Delft to Bruges portion was a little longer, so we had an unplanned stop at Antwerp (which lasted a little longer then we planned). From Bruges the drive was much longer, and we decided not to go to Ghent, but did a small detour and a stop at the beautiful village and castle Chateau de Pierrefonds about 100 kms away from Paris.<br />
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Overall a bunch of places to see and enjoy.<br />
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I will break up this narration into several posts. I have to collect my thoughts on each destination and site separately. Hopefully you will stick with it.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Girls on one of the bridges by Anne Frank's House museum</td></tr>
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<br />Some dude stuck in the Midwesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00852056495927941030noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-784614179764573691.post-80606235314009250242015-09-01T07:28:00.002-07:002015-09-01T07:32:06.690-07:00How to keep a geek happyI have, some time ago, noticed that my Lego collection has outgrown the space I allocated for it. It has also outgrown my desire to spend significant amounts of money of them, therefore I have decided to take a break from purchasing anything big and exciting(Still dreaming about the Death Star though).<br />
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Then, on our family's trip to Michigan, I've noticed a bunch of models that are made out of pressed and engraved tin. I grabbed an X-Wing right away, but then noticed something I wanted for a long time. In my collection of geeky/nerdy shit I don't have a single representative of Star Trek verse.<br />
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The model itself looks OK, given the material being used to assemble it. There was a lot of frustrating moments in assembly, where alignment could not be achieved. The latching system is so small, that there were instances where I seriously considered a magnifying glass. The end result is also a bit front heavy, making the model topple forward, that is why there is a pen holding it down.<br />
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Here are the picture of pre-assembled and the final piece. I may take another picture.<br />
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There are plenty of models available by this company. I have seen they have original Enterprise, Vor'cha and A Bird of Prey.<br />
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Some dude stuck in the Midwesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00852056495927941030noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-784614179764573691.post-74493449491613292852015-02-26T09:47:00.000-08:002015-02-26T09:47:14.615-08:00A new reading habitI feel that recently I haven't been that interested in science as I used to be. But at the same time I would like to pass on my love of science to my kids. They are assaulted every day with games, videos, and reading that don't give them any clue that the universe is wondrous, and won't wake any kind of curiosity in them. Well, I think, it should start with me.<br />
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I have decided to forgo reading fiction for now. I have set a goal of going through a bunch of modern science books. Hopefully, after reading all these books, I can talk to my kids about the things I've learned from books, and peak their interest a little bit.<br />
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It's a slow go, since I don't have a lot of time to read, but any time I can pick up a book it will be a work of non-fiction, and written by a contemporary scientist.<br />
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So far I have read "A Brief History of Time" by Stephen Hawking. I did it last year actually, this is what spurned me to read more books of this kind. I have also recently finished "End of Faith" by Sam Harris,and "God is not Great" by Chris Hitchens. Not a scientific book, really, but an interesting entry into the field of Atheism. I won't make any promises, but may write a brief review or my thoughts on the book later on.<br />
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At the moment I am reading Richard Dawkins' "A God Delusion" (yes, i realize there is a theme here). I have watched a bunch of conferences with Mr. Dawkins and fellow scientists, and his debates with religious leaders, and find that he is really a brilliant man, with a quick and studied mind and gentlemanly manner.<br />
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The book is written with the intelligent and open minded reader in mind (pat on the back), however I am only couple of chapters deep. The jury is still out.<br />
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I am also planning to read in the future the works of Carl Sagan, Jay Gould, Chris Hitchens, Laurense Krauss, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and maybe even Bill Nye.<br />
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<br />Some dude stuck in the Midwesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00852056495927941030noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-784614179764573691.post-10115515119226063722015-02-13T08:21:00.000-08:002015-02-13T08:21:20.930-08:00I really should start paying more attention to lyrics. - To Tame a LandI've listened to this song a bunch of times before, but only recently (yesterday) I forced myself to pay attention to the lyrics and realized that it's about Dune. The books easily rank themselves among top 10 for me, and weirdly I liked David Lynch's version every time I watched it.<br />
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Here is the song interposed over some of the movie.<br />
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<br />Some dude stuck in the Midwesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00852056495927941030noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-784614179764573691.post-13336320363501666602014-10-21T09:34:00.001-07:002014-10-21T09:35:30.691-07:00On Human ProgressProgress is moved by basic human desire to achieve maximum comfort while lounging on the couch.<br />
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The latest achievement was spurned by our decision to forgo cable or satellite and enjoy internet streaming services sometime ago, which are more than adequate for our TV viewing purposes. It came with a small caveat, my basic need to watch NFL games on Sundays, or Mondays. or Thursdays.<br />
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We have a roof antenna which I was unable to make use of, for different reasons. Therefore we relied on two indoor UHV/VHF numbers. They worked fairly well, however the selection of channels was limited. Again, we didn't care that much, 90-95% of what we watch is streamed, either through Hulu or Netflix. I was getting excellent reception of FOX, NBC or ABC, for Sunday or Monday Night games.<br />
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Until push came to shove. Last weekend's, disappointing i may add, game was translated on CBS. I could not get CBS to work on those in-doors, and I've had enough.<br />
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Several months ago, during the routine roof inspection, I've asked the roofer guy to tell me where the antenna cable goes into the house. He told me it was one of the vents. So, up i went. After several unsuccessful attempts of finding a right cable ( there is a web of RCA cables in the attic) and a splitter, I found the right one!<br />
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My over-the-air count has grown up to 70 (most of them HD) by the way. With a little more effort, I may even setup a DVR through over the air, but that will come later.<br />
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One long climb for a man, free TV for the family. Progress!Some dude stuck in the Midwesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00852056495927941030noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-784614179764573691.post-69309738787193395282013-05-05T17:28:00.000-07:002013-05-05T17:28:08.765-07:00The "Treasures" we keepAnd by that I mean garbage.<br />
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Hello loyal reader. I haven't written since January, but recently I have come upon the idea. We are in the initial pains of a big move. Yes, the Burlak family is moving exactly 8 miles north to a new house. As we are going through the crap, we've accumulated quite a bit over 8 years at our current residence, I have discovered a treasure trove of old things. This that used to interest me, things I used to collect, some of the things I actually remember bringing over with me from New York and haven't seeing them since.<br />
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Anyway, my next several posts will have pictures and hopefully memories of some of the things. I know they are worthless, but I don't have the heart to throw it out.<br />
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Talk to you later.Some dude stuck in the Midwesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00852056495927941030noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-784614179764573691.post-29021693180674038272013-01-09T08:45:00.000-08:002013-01-09T08:45:23.256-08:00New year un-resolvedThere has been a lot of posts about apparent writer's block. People moan back and forth about how they promised themselves to write more, and failed to do so. Well, I am not one of them. I've never promised to write more. My writing seems to be in decline for a while now partially due to work-load partially due to general laziness. I stopped caring if I put a post out even once a month.<br />
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Now I've joined my blogging friends in complaining by writing a whole paragraph about it, I think I might actually have something to say. Not a lot though.<br />
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New Year came and went. We've had a whole bunch of celebrations. By the way, Cards Against Humanity game is dirty, disgusting and a whole lot of fun, if you are in to the low brow humor.<br />
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My 37th birthday also came and went. I would like to thank,again, all of those who congratulated me on achieving basically nothing but getting a year closer to retirement. Still it was very nice. Thank you one and all!<br />
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I got some very nice presents. My Awesome Wife has given me a 50mm camera lens which, while a little harder to use, makes absolutely wonderful pictures and portraits. I will be putting it to heavy use in the coming days. I also got a Lego to further my TIE fighter models. I think the only one I am missing is a TIE bomber.<br />
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HUGE thanks to my parents for coming over to share my Birthday with me.<br />
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That's it folks for now, more to come.<br />
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<br />Some dude stuck in the Midwesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00852056495927941030noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-784614179764573691.post-43269942049736191032012-11-28T12:29:00.000-08:002012-11-28T12:29:03.647-08:00Vacation reportYes, we had one of those. A rare and welcome thing. Me and The Awesome Wife have been working our asses off last couple of months and it was beginning to show. Three days before we left for vacation I had to go back to Atlanta and spent two days working stopping only to take a piss and munch on a bags of chips. Drugs were not provided by the company.<br />
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We went to our regular destination in Cancun Mexico, changing only the venue where we stopped. The resort was smaller than the last one we visited, but I think it made it nicer. The ocean was calm for the most part and warm too. We spent a lot of time on the beach, much more than we usually do. I think the water in the pool was actually colder than the ocean, plus the pool itself was pretty boring.<br />
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The evenings were filled with all sorts of variety shows. Some of them were pretty lame, and yes I can be a snob when being tried to entertain. The inexperience of some of the acts was clearly showing through, still my usual approach to it beings with the question: "Do the kids enjoy it?"<br />
<br />The food was plentiful, although I got food poisoning once and so did one of the kids. I still don't understand why there is such a limited amount of seafood available at the Caribbean resort. The answer has been escaping me for w while now.<br />
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The rest was well needed by all. I have achieved my goal of spending approximately 80% of the time spent on vacation horizontally and enjoying a book. I've actually read a book from start to finish, I've been reading so much.<br />
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And that's a bout it. Rested, and tired already by some other crap going on. Holiday shopping is rearing its ugly head already. It's not even trying to hide, it's there looming ominously and dangerously close.<br />
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Here are a couple of shots for your viewing.<br />
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<br />Some dude stuck in the Midwesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00852056495927941030noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-784614179764573691.post-61385397650272574432012-10-31T11:51:00.004-07:002012-10-31T11:52:35.309-07:00Crawl by movie reviewI have been remiss about posting, again. I also have a lot of things going on with my life, with the the renewed interest in all sorts of sport activities. I may do a separate post on it too.<br />
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This post is about 3 major movies that I have managed to see in the last couple of weeks.<br />
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<b>Avengers. </b>Everyone have been touting it as THE MARVEL movie to see. Personally, I have little personal investment in the heroes of the movie. For some strange reason X-MEN are my Marvel heroes of choice. That being said, I am more than familiar with Hulk and Iron Man lore. Less so with Thor (always preferring the Old Norse version to Marvel's) and close to none familiarity with Black Widow or Hawkeye. I must admit I really enjoyed the movie. The movie had lots of big action sequences, some of them lasting more than 3 seconds before camera jerk. I think the subdued but mischievous performance by Mark Ruffalo as Dr. Banner was the best of them all (I'll come back to that later). Iron Man had the easiest job of all, since we've already gotten used to R. Downey's portrayal of playboy millionaire. Both Black Widow and Hawkeye, had really very little to contribute I guess, and I would have loved to see more of Scarlet Johansson acting. Chris Evena's Captain America was better in the Captain America movie. I did not get the impression of a hero trying to be normal out of place and out of time. I guess between the five superheroes and a main villain they had do the best they could in the limited time they were give. Samuel Jackson was his usual self, I wondered if Stan Lee or jack Kirby were prophetic in the creation of Nick Fury character and knew that Samuel Jackson will be playing the role someday. I also liked Loki and the way he was portrayed. Here was a villain who elicited more than one emotion, thanks to Tom Hiddleston. I actually hoped several times for Loki to get a chance at redemption. I haven't mentioned Thor yet, and I won't. I liked the Thor movie well enough, but in my opinions Thor as a character should display less smirking and more high, mighty, haughty, demi-god type of attitude, possibly even holier-than-thou above reproach.<br />
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So after picking apart performances by actors I got nothing more to say except that it was an enjoyable flick to watch. I won't go into probabilities of this or that happening. The move was moving fast enough and was interesting enough that I did not have time to stop and ponder: "Why doesn't he just kill him?" Action sequences were good, and meaningful in way that they moved the story along, not just becoming random acts of violence. Was it a great movie? It definitely was a good one. Was it the best Marvel Comic movie to date? <b>I believe so!</b><br />
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<b>The Incredible Hulk.</b> I watched the movie just to get a sense of the character. There seemed to be another one in 2005, but the badness of it has been all over the Internet. I am not going to go into deep detail. The movie was OK. No more than that. Did I like the portrayal of Banner by Ed Norton? It was OK. I couldn't get involved with it, too much suffering and too much love story. Stepping back and comparing I will say that Mark Raffulo in The avengers did a better job of showing what Hulk/Dr. banner would be going through. Knowing the genius and the brain power and the awful violent secret behind it. The Hulk story is your basic Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde thing. And there should be haunting-ness in the performance. While Ed Norton is good, there was little genius and weariness, and more love sick puppy performance, which left me wanting.<br />
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<b>Prometheus</b>. This is a movie that I asked about, whether it was worth seeing. Alien was my first American Horror/Sci-Fi flick that I've seen. And as all things seen as a kid it left a lasting impression on me. I judge a lot of movies based on this single picture. It was ok, the movie moved along fine and there are a lot of things in the Engineers ship that left me thinking, ooh I wonder what that means or how it would work. But a lot of things seemed rushed or not thought through to me. A lot of times I've asked myself: "Now why in the world would that happen?" That also shows the flaw in the movie, it gave me time to pause and think about plausibility of what is happening on the screen. A lot of people told me over the years: "It's just a movie. Somebody's imagination at play. Let it go." I can't if you put me in front of you work, don't be surprised if I say that something doesn't make sense. I consider myself a smart person, I can follow logic or stop baffled by the lack of it. It was an Ok movie.<br />
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Let me give you an example from this movie (spoiler alert). There is a scene of the first killing (or the second one) when the cobra like proto-facehugger strike one of the scientists constricts him like boa, and then proceeds by killing him by a fairly gruesome way of entering his mouth. All right fine, fun way to kill a human also make a homage to Alien's face huggers and also play on all homophobic fears. That's besides the point. The intelligent nitpicker in me thinks. Engineers (the superhuman race, that supposedly genetically engineered all humanoid life, including earth) are supposed to be super-smart. Why in the world would they design such an inefficient killing method? First of all non-intelligent animals(even genetically engineered ones) don't kill for pleasure (again super smart probably benevolent super alien race remember?), procreation, hunger or defense are the only reason to kill. Second of all there are more than a thousand way to kill a human being on alien planet, that would make more sense and be also not very pleasant. So by putting this kind of scene in the movie, the writers and director make me question their commitment to the story and take away my belief and enjoyment of it. There are a lot of head scratching moments in the story. BTW if you see two people running away from something big falling on them, you know somebody is going to get squashed. That was also very unsatisfactory, as I didn't feel the person deserved to die in such fashion, up commence not earned.<br />
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Overall, again the movie was OK on a little side of cold.Some dude stuck in the Midwesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00852056495927941030noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-784614179764573691.post-49725483104161167912012-09-09T14:09:00.001-07:002012-09-09T14:09:49.802-07:00Just because I write about it every year in SeptemberSports are back on the TV for me. NFL season has started with a big win from Bears. Granted they were playing Colts, a team in rebuilding after Peyton Manning's leave. But, there was a scary moment with Jay Cutler's pick six mistake at the start of the game. For us who watched Bears go through Jay's interception riddled season couple of years ago it was a gasp moment.<br />
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Overall, after this small mistake the team looked good. There is a certain connection between Jay Cutler and freshly acquired Brandon Marshall. Matt Forte looked leaner and ran very very well.<br />
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We'll see how the season develops, but at the moment I am a very happy fan!<br />
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Some dude stuck in the Midwesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00852056495927941030noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-784614179764573691.post-21878670728066575432012-09-06T20:14:00.000-07:002012-09-06T20:15:45.496-07:00Another annoying music video<span class="userContent">The best way to get rid of the annoying song in your head, is make everyone else listen to it. This way I know I'm not the only one being annoyed and it will calm me. I also haven't a clue why my brain picked it out from random noise. Try not to enjoy too much.</span><br />
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<span class="userContent">I actually never liked this song, but the chorus is catchy. A true trademark of an excellent pop tune.</span><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/119J9ON2HBA" width="420"></iframe><br />
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Enjoy.Some dude stuck in the Midwesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00852056495927941030noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-784614179764573691.post-79621195131095416322012-08-27T13:03:00.001-07:002012-08-27T18:07:00.732-07:00Somebody is turning 8I am not a religious person. Far from it, but heaven help me. She is turning 8 today. I only have couple of years before the crazy sets in for teenage years. I should start stocking up on ammo.<br />
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Happy borthday Monkey!<br />
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I love the look of bewilderment as she is coming out of the tank.Some dude stuck in the Midwesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00852056495927941030noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-784614179764573691.post-38820728595013566922012-08-26T11:14:00.001-07:002012-09-09T14:10:21.074-07:00Brief service interruptionI am turning off commenting for while. There is a chap who thinks it's fun to post all sorts of crap in my blog. <br />
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Either I'll resolve it, or move to a different platform, or keep it off forever.<br />
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If you have something nice to say to me, do so through facebok :)Some dude stuck in the Midwesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00852056495927941030noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-784614179764573691.post-18293281569479359942012-08-17T08:09:00.001-07:002012-09-09T14:10:36.384-07:00Body is a marvelous thingLet me explain what I mean and I will take the long winded approach. I was never a big kid. I was never a very strong kid. The fact is i was usually barely scraping by on all of the required phis-ed activities, mostly thanks to my Mom (from what I hear, the storms she used to raise in school were legendary). However, I always loved sports. I tried a lot of things when I was in school: tennis, ping-pong, volleyball(weird for kid of my non-existent height), team handball, soccer, you name it I tried it. My preference were two things, the first one was hitting small round object with some sort of accessory, be it a tennis racquet ping pong paddle, or a hockey stick (yes we did not always had a puck growing up). The other came from watching all of those Hong Kong movies, we got access to in the mid 90s. Yes I admin it, I used to be the martial arts junkie.<br />
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Because I was small, I was an easier target bullies. Now, I hate to play to stereotypes, but being a smart Jewish kid I had my ways of dealing with them. This is not important. What important is that I was mesmerized by the likes of Jackie Chan and Jet Li and when the Soviet Union eased up on the cracking down of MA schools I joined as a little kid. My first experience was a Judo class at our school. The coach was a cranky cross-eyed bastard who we absolutely loved. He taught us a mix of Judo and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sambo_(martial_art)">Sambo</a>, which was an official Russian MA invention. Again I was small, and close combat was not really my thing. After couple of years, and a spat with the coach (he had very strict rules on fighting, but one day I just had to protect myself) I switched over to an eclectic mix of kung-fu, karate and god knows what else. But hey, we were kids and we loved the stuff.<br />
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Many years passed. I've never even considered taking up MA when moving to the States. Too expensive, no time, laziness - all the usual reasons. In the last 8 years or so, I really got out of shape. I have been playing tennis on occasion but not enough to constitute any significant work-out effort (tennis is also something I always loved, more than any other sport). In the last couple of years, I've made all sorts of attempts to exercise, run, walk to loose weight and be in some sort of form. All of it slowly failed as I got bored too fast (short attention span another one my problems). I got back into tennis this year by signing up for an adult league. It will keep me coming back to play at regular intervals with good amateurs.<br />
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The other thing is that I am considering returning to MA. At my age it could seem silly, what does a 36 year old doing by donning a kimono and wildly flailing arms and legs. We signed up our 8-year-Old for Tae-kwon-do classes back in November and she loves it. She already passed for orange belt. Every time I take her to the classes I feel this itch to try it again myself. I think I am past caring about what others think about an overweight dude trying to do a ninja.<br />
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So, here is a point I was trying to make about body being a marvelous thing. I am talking about muscle memory. I haven't played tennis on any sort of regular basis since I was about 15-16. My body responds on it's own. While never playing at pro-levels, I achieved a instinctive response to the game to some degree. If I want to make a line-drive my arms and body in general remember how to do that. I don't need to retrain myself to make all the small needed adjustments for volleys or cross-courts or even a good first serve. The same seems to be case with MA. I took one try-out class with my kids TKD master. The body still seems to remember how to position myself for a good roundhouse kick, or how to pull up a mid-block. I accidentally managed to impress the master and couple of adults taking that class. Now if only i could loose that extra 20 pounds so I could live through the exercises. After first 10 minutes I was dripping with sweat, and could hardly breath.<br />
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Anyway, the body is a marvelous thing when something that haven't been used for years or learned as a kid needs to be remembered. It's way more difficult with brain and memory as a lot of things that haven't been used (like trigonometry) must be re-learned a new.<br />
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<br />Some dude stuck in the Midwesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00852056495927941030noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-784614179764573691.post-20617801867381042772012-07-30T10:21:00.000-07:002012-09-09T14:11:01.264-07:00Another year - another Birthday.My Awesome Wife has finally caught up with me, age wise. In everything else that matters, she surpassed me a long time ago. All I want to say is that I love you and that I am proud of you.Some dude stuck in the Midwesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00852056495927941030noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-784614179764573691.post-61179488273920044322012-07-25T11:53:00.000-07:002012-09-09T14:11:18.679-07:00Damn you commentsIt seems that one of the gadgets that I was using got rewritten or hacked or something. The blog was redirecting to a tracking site. I apologize. The gadget has been removed. We will continue with a customery lack of new and interesting programming.Some dude stuck in the Midwesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00852056495927941030noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-784614179764573691.post-90856737699570678682012-07-09T13:17:00.001-07:002012-09-09T14:11:38.127-07:00Goodness gracious...This weekend, me and the Awesome Wife have managed to steal away and go to The Theater. I don't know if it was The Theater or a theater but we managed to go and see a show instead of spending the only weekend day we have free from kids running around the stores.<br />
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The show we went to see was The Million Dollar Quartet. As the bill promised the show is about a jam session that happened in the 50s with Johnny Cash, Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins. At the least the basis of the show and fact that the jam session happend. The song selection was pretty obvious to show all the different hits that these great rock-fathers sang and wrote. It was really good to hear them being sang by such high level prefessionals. <br />
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Elvis was Elvis impersonator in real life, with moves voice and attitude to support it. I never was a fan of Johnny Cash or his style and songs, not in a criticizing way but in a "never made it there. I have never listened to Carl Perkins as well, and I think I should catch up on it, him being the father of rockabilly. As far as Jerry Lee Lewis my attention was on him alll the time, being very jittery spazstic and overall not-a-care-in-a-world attitude.<br />
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One thing I did not like was the performance of Fever. It just was not saltry enough for me. <br />
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Overall I very much liked the show, the songs and the singing were awesome but I was left after with a little sadness. The reason for it I think is after seeing impersonators the sense I can never to see the true legends live.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/nEh4tk8xP7U?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />Some dude stuck in the Midwesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00852056495927941030noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-784614179764573691.post-61323098641190132042012-06-26T08:23:00.002-07:002012-06-26T08:25:29.211-07:00This is a happy postThe reason for my overall Happyness is this little monkey.<br />
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<tr><td><a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/EEF15mGxBL09DO7pu0oF8awBV_NSoPON40SulcHex34?feat=embedwebsite"><img height="144" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5LQEqNg-QKAv9277gZxaj9trNCO1SISO5PXp3HoTVnnYj7A76_jf1SpLnvDBeaYufkQwz3Dz5k38huVNx6qH2xmlx46Z1rrjZXRmqp8mvsSzwehiwpJ7upq7zzF7mQwmBaYvSUQ0Ybxpy/s144/DSC_0006.jpg" width="96" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: right;">From <a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/106739302865055080269/DropBox?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCM-yuPuRoKqpcg&feat=embedwebsite">Drop Box</a></td></tr>
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Isabelle is turning three today. A lot of kids seem to be sulky or unsure of themselves and their place in the world at this age. Not Bella. I have never seen a friendlier kid in my life. Anybody who sees her gets a happy "Hi!" and a friendly wave. We also have a little diva on our hands, with wants, needs, noes, "I love you Daddy"s, and "Mommy, Mommy, Mommy!"s. None of that matters though, she's small, she's super cute, and probably one of the happiest and most outgoing kids I've ever met. <br />
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HAPPY BIRTHDAY BELLA!Some dude stuck in the Midwesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00852056495927941030noreply@blogger.com1