BLOGISFACTORY

Let 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. Because I was small, I was an easier target bullies. Now, I hate to play to stereotypes, but being a smart Jewish...

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.

First things first. This is my 400th post. An average of 100 posts per year, as I have started blogging in 2008. I wanted to make this post about my business trip to Raleigh, NC, but I can't find the pictures at the moment, so this is going to be a post about crap that I have accumulated over the years. To start off these instructions. We don't even own a pool table anymore. But we used to have one before the kids were born. The table stayed at our old condo. It was too big to take out of the basement, and we gifted it to the new owners. When I had a lot of free money (I did live with my parents while working and going to college) I was an early adapter. I have one of the first miniCD players somewhere, but this thing I loved. The Palm Pilot III. I still have the cradle somewhere. I have the VCR, granted it's not yet old crap. I have plenty of VHS tapes that I hoped to transfer to PC at some point. That will probably never happen, but we have some old tap...

Neither me nor The Awesome wife are dedicated wine drinkers. She can't hold her alcohol much and I prefer beer most of the time. I like myself a good crafted ale or an amber. Of course, if I let myself develop a habit of drinking good beer every night I will stop fitting through doors pretty fast. That is why me and The Awesome wife decided, that it wouldn't hurt us if we could enjoy a glass of wine every now and then. For health purposes of course. As I said before we are not into wine too much. I drink wine when the occasion calls for it, a dinner with friends who are more or less educated, or a good Italian place. I would always drink something dry, and my wife prefers a lighter and sweeter fare of white wines. But we are always at the mercy of strangers when it comes to wines. Several months ago we purchased a GroupOn that allowed us to go and enjoy one hour of wine tasting at WineStyles. We actually have two or three in our suburb and the suburbs nearby. After careful pl...

There is this memo going around. And people putting up their versions all over the place. This is my version of what I do. Thank you to Nathan , for giving me the courage.

I'll be the first one to admit it that I have a problem when it comes to toys. When I was a kid I loved toy guns, later it became video games, now most of my toys come from the expensive electronic variety. Sometimes however, I can't resist the 7 year old in me and I buy myself a Lego. It's been worse a year or two ago, as I was buying more of them. At the moment however, I don't have a place to put them so I am very picky about the ones that I get. There are two criteria that I use. They have to be from the original Star Wars of course (there is one exception from the prequels and one from the Clone Wars), and they have to be of a complicated sort. I do enjoy immensely putting them together, and this kind of semi-mindless hands-on work rests my brain. This year, for my birthday I've acquired one that I've been look at for a time now. I have a smaller version of it, and the full blown version even I am not crazy enough to spend money on, it costs approximately ...

Do I want to be this post bittersweet? No not really. I stopped looking at my birthdays as a step closer to being old a long time. Right now my MO is treating my birthdays as a day when I let people to tell me how much more they love me ;)(that would be a wink), and graciously accept the praises. That is why I always look towards my Birthdays, I love them and never feel depressed about getting older. It just means that I got to spend another year surrounded by people I love, why would anybody find that depressing is beyond my understanding. Let me give praises to The Awesome Wife one more time, for thinking that it is much better to spend the day zipping about the downtown of Chicago on segways, than going to work. Thank You Honey, that really made my Birthday special and gave me something to remember for a long time. I won't give you the archetectural tour of Chicago, although I must say, I learned a lot of new things from our tour guide. There is also a photo of me, the tour star...

I am a lazy bastard. Not in a direct sense, the pile of work at the office seems to get bigger, or me getting smaller. I've had so many ideas for postings I just can't bring myself to do it right now. Maybe it's the holidays, and the upcoming week of well deserved rest and running around the city with kids like crazy. I will come back with some intersting bits, I promise. Right now, please take your remote and turn the channel that interests you most. I suggeest something along the lines of Spongebob, just to take our mind off things. I think I have beaten the record of posts concerning the amount of work I have a complaining about it.

Only about a week ago I realized that it's been twenty years since my family an I disembarked from a Boeing 747 (maybe it wasn't a 747) at the JFK Airport in New York to start our lives in the United States. It happened on Nov 26th, 2001. Until then, the only time I have been outside of Russian borders was during the two hour layover in Frankfurt, Germany on the flight from Moscow. I don't remember much about these times, and first couple of months in the states. I was fourteen and all of the excitement of a new place and sights and sounds of Manhatten have been already replaced in my head by other things. People who are bit older than I am, with personality and adult life already set, like my brother or my parents can remember these times better. They were better equipped with dealing with kind of changes immigration requires of a person. Me, I was a kid, what did I know. I had two best friends back in the old country. I tried to keep contact for a while but that dissapea...

I haven't written in a while, again. It's tough for me to write these days, I am swamped with work and life and can't find neither will nor strength to share the boring parts with the audience. A month or so ago, the Awesome Wife accidentaly came across dirt cheap tickets to Boston, so we planned to take a trip down to the East Coast at the end of September. We stayed near Copley Square right across the Prudential building. We didn't, however, go to the top of it to the observation deck. While it would be nice to view the city from above, the cost of $15 per person just didn't made it attractive enough to visit. We prefer to experience cities on foot and absorb the atmosphere. So, we spent four full days in Boston on our feet. I haven't walked so much in ages, damn you Boston for being so easily walkable. We've made up a loose plan of things to see and visit, as well as eat a lot of lobsta rolls and clam chowder. And we didn't deliver, I ate a single cla...

I haven't written anything in a while, cause frankly I was busy. Busy with work busy with life, these things tend to catch up to you. The last thing I wrote was trying to figure out whether to buy a van or not. We didn't. I just couldn't picture myself in a van. So we purchased a Mazda. My very first Mazda, blue... a CX-9 model. I think we are pretty happy with the vehicle. It is going to serve the role of our family car, with thre rows of seating and a large trunk. What else has been happening. The summer is almost over, it's unbelievable how fast it goes by. The Almost 7 Year Old is enjoying the hell out of the Summer Camp. The little one has started day care on part-time basis and is doing well. The storms has brought in a lot of excitement with power being out a least three times this July, but at least we didn't get flooded or suffered any long-term damage to the house. Nothing else is going on, summer is about taking it easy and we are managing that to the be...

There are four things on my list a father should be able to do on this day. I'll add another pre-father day thing just to feel proud of myself. On Friday The-Soon-To-Be-7-Year-Old had her annual ballet performance. I will post the video as soon as I can. There are only two dances, ballet and tap, with her that night, but I taped them using my DV camera. It takes a bit of time to take the videos off the DV. Now, on to the father's day. 1. Go see some awesome cars. CHECK! I think the upload was interrupted, there should be more pics there 2. Watch Star Wars. Contrary to my facebook update it wasn't on USA but on Spike. I was able to see a good portion of A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back. CHECK! 3. Grill to the heart's content. Did some hot dogs, portobellas, and bratwursts. CHECK! 4. Finish off the day with a bowl of Ice Cream at Oberweis. CHECK! An overall success.

Everytime i lie to myself that I am going to New York. Most of the time of course I am going to the state of New Jersey to visit family. This time we were able to make our way to Brooklyn to visit my Uncle. Brooklyn doesn't change, and I think that's why I love it. Anyway, it was a very nice trip. Lots of fun with family and friends, and the kids played their hearts out with their cousins. Thanks to Mom and Dad and many thanks to my Brother and Awesome Natasha for spending their time every night entertaining us. Very enjoyable if a bit tiring trip. Have you ever tried to fly with a Two Year Old who decides that the Awesomest time to take a leasurely stroll about the plane is the exact time they put on Buckle-Your-Seat-Belt lights. There is of course another cousin, but teenagers.... sheesh! For those unfamiliar with the mischpokhe , mine are the middle one who's holding the little one, and the little one being held by the big one.

Time difference is awesome. Yesterday, as I wrote in the blog post, the iPad was in Ankorage. Today in the morning I had it delivered to my front door.

I have decided to try out the iPad and see how it fits in my everyday digital life, which is very involved mind you. I called the stores for approximately a week, but nobody had a simple WiFi 16G version in stock. They were bought out sooner than they managed to arrive to the stores. So, I have decided to order online, which I did about two weeks ago. The wait hipment was approximately 2 weeks with a week promised delivery. I recieved an email couple of days ago that the table was on it's merry way. Tracking it yielded the following info. Anchorage, AK, United States 05/26/2011 9:56 A.M. Arrival Scan Chek Lap Kok, Hong Kong 05/26/2011 4:15 P.M. Departure Scan Chengdu, China 05/25/2011 8:06 P.M. Departure Scan EPZ, China 05/24/2011 5:04 P.M. Departure Scan 05/24/2011 3:52 A.M. Origin Scan China 05/24/2011 1:15 A.M. Order Processed: Ready for UPS I got a freshly minted one, right form the assembly linein China. I feel somehow special, although I know maybe I shouldn't.

My parents came over last week. The weather was really really nice and we've decided to go to the city. It's been a while since we've last been to the Art Institute Museum. We also wanted to try to impress the art onto the 6 Year Old again, since our last trip, when she was about 4, ended we her whining all the way. This time she actually enjoyed a lot of things in the museum, including, for some reason, Chinese and Japanese art. The Museum has opened up a new modern art wing, but we didn't make it over. Instead we took a nice stroll out on the new skywalk that connects the new wing with the Millenium park. We've also visited Russian Tea Time, which is while a bit on the expensive side is a great place to enjoy a bit of old russian culture and good food.

My work laptop is slowing dying. I have ordered a new one with a bunch of other stuff. First came the monitor. Then came the headphones and a mouse. After that I recieved the docking port. (All yesterday) Today came the new keyboard and the additional battery. The new laptop is still not here.

Weird week. Refrigirator died on Sunday morning, on Monday morning a service person came and told us pretty much that the fridge was un-servicable. it was only 4 years old. Damn you Maytag! On Monday evening we bought a new one and on Tuesday morning it was already installed, and merrily chilling away. Post worthy? probably not, but I like the fast turnaround. ---------------------------------------------------------- About a month ago we participated in a school funraiser, offering anybody in the office a nice box of Fannie May chocolates for a donation. Unfotrunately only one person signed up, but the story is not about that. Yesterday the chocolates were given to the 6 Year Old in school. She wasn't told, or didn't realize that the chocolates weren't for her. After a ten minute struggle with herself, as she said, she gave up, and opened up the box. She ate one of the chocolates. Which resulted in us having to buy a new box. Poor kid was really upset that nobody told her ...

I Love You! A lot! I mean it. I Love You Very Much!

I was recently thinking about my presense on the internet. I have several online accounts. I write the blog, of course, facebook, twitter, odnoklassniki.ru (Russian site for classmates), and somewhere lost in time myspace account. It seems that some of the accounts have gone into the blackhole of internet. I only think I have myspace account. I don't tweet anymore because the 140 character limit is not enough for me. I visit the classmates sites only once or month or so to check if somebody I know has registered or left me a message, the email notoficiation system is all I need for that. I also find myself at a loss for finding topics to write about in the blog. Sure, sometimes things strike my fancy, and I have more than a general grunt of displeasure or satisfaction in my head, so I write them down (like now). There is also the topic of kids and the funny and great things they do; the topic at which I fail miserably, since my attention span equals to that of a ten year old. Recen...