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3 thoughts about social media - i.e. why blog, facebook, or twitter

first- my apologies to those of you that use twitter.  its not my intention to insult you or your need to keep other informed . . about what you're doing . . every . . . minute.  you may want to skip this post.  

second- i'm a blogger.  i do it mainly for my family and also for those interested in the foreign service life.  i write when i think something is interesting and stay away from posts that are no more than "wow, i woke up and had cold cereal today!" or "i'm watching t.v. and laughing at this craziness!".  ok, i have a facebook account. you caught me.  but i'm not a big fan of facebook either.  i rarely look at it, usually once a month or less.  

third- twitter. not a fan. it reminds me of the mid-nineties, when the internet forums and bulletin boards were the big news place for exchanging thoughts and ramblings.  only twitter brings that same flow of info at a faster, mind numbing rate.  if you look up the definition for the word twitter, it says "a short burst of inconsequential information."  I'll concede it's a viable form of communication if it could find a place in the world where it could be used to add something of value or content.  but after reviewing a slew of tweets on the twitter website, it seems like nothing more than comments that are either incorrect, out of date, or just nonsensical.  twitter even says, many people drop off using the site after a month or so. i expected adopters of this site would fall in the 11 to 17 yr range but they say that age group only accounts for 10% of their users.  so maybe i'm in the minority and the majority of users are people that want to keep tabs on what their friends are doing. but that's ok with me. i'm content with filtering what i do in my daily life down to only the moments i want to share.  it's the same with talking to someone face to face.  obviously they know what you're doing at that moment, but each of you talk about something that may be of interest to the other.  well, most of us do that.  some people talk regards who the audience is, and can say the same thing a day, hour or minute later.  but i'm getting off topic.  i'll close with a bit of satire from supernews!, who said, twitter is an addiction to "self-affirmation" and tweets are "shouts into the darkness hoping someone is listening". well said.  now i'm off to go do something you really don't care or need to know.

lucia is almost fully recovered from the poisoning. after 3 days of shots and 5 days of home medicating she's now eating soft food and able to run around again. i've never send so many shots given at one time before. it was hard for me to imagine how a 50 lb dog could absorb 8 syringes full of meds. but they did the job i guess. now the only thing left is to find some other place to go for dog walks.

don't eat the snow

 

 

after coming back from moscow on saturday, i took lucia out for a walk that afternoon.  our happy little reunion quickly turned into me looking after a sick dog.  she began vomiting and suffering from diarrhea by dinner time.  i didn't know if it was something she ate during the walk but suspected it was a bit of garbage she snuck away with without me noticing. after a sleep free night of watching her and trying to make her comfortable, my girlfriend and i took her to the dog clinic.  after a several questions, the doc said she suspected lucia ate some snow/ice chemical concoction that one of the homeowners had spread out on their driveway to melt the ice.  there's no limitations on what people can use to treat their property so if anyone gets infected by it, they are out of luck and look forward to a few days of misery in bed.  in lucia's case, she probably drank or ate something that basically gave her a case of food poisoning.

the doc gave her several shots of anti-inflammatory drugs along with vitamin shots and anti-biotics.  she gave me instructions on how to care for her with some throat medicine to reduce the inflammation over the next couple days.  although she was still weak, she started showing more signs of life by the time we got to my car.  by the time we got home she was able to move on her own and walked into the house.  she's still weak and moving slow but at least she on the road to recovery. 

it sucks when you encounter problems even during something as simple as a dog walk.  i promised her the next posting would involve a place that actually has somewhere to walk where road-side trash and anti-freeze mickeys are not the norm.

trip to moscow

 

st basil's cathedral in red square

i just returned back from a quick trip to moscow.  i didn't have a chance to do much sightseeing, so i made sure i got up early one morning just so i could walk down to red square.  the marriott wasn't too far away from the square but the temps were cold enough to freeze me to the bone by the time i got there.  after navigating through several underground metro stops, i finally ended up on the square.  it was around 600am and the darkness still held a shadowy grip over all the buildings.  even though the square had several of the buildings lit, i could still barely see other pedestrians walking along.  

i joined some other americans for dinner at a local synagogue one night.  one of my colleagues was going by himself, so i offered to join him. i think this influenced another coworker to check it out also.  so map in hand, we took off down tverskaya st. and found chabad bolshaya bronnaya synagogue off one of the side streets.  the kosher menu was full of traditional russian entrees.  i had a delicious soup with pork, tomatoes, and vegetables along with turkish chicken kebabs.

i had a chance to meet a russian work associate of my girlfriend.  we only had a short time to visit, but he offered to show me more around moscow if i would be there in the future.  i hope to get back again by summer and spend more time getting to know the city.

 

merry christmas, welcome 2010

keeping my head warm . .

 

  

. . with my spiffy new winter hat 

 

yesterday i looked back on how we celebrated all the holidays in vlad.  here's my recap:

• spent xmas eve with my girlfriend.
• spent xmas day at neighbor's house with my girlfriend, my american colleagues and some visiting american students.  our consular affairs officer cooks the greatest meals.
• day after xmas, entertained friends with dinner and a movie.  another chance to use my home theater/projector.  
• new years eve, my house for dinner. spent it with my girlfriend, a friend of hers and our consul affairs officer and his wife/consulate medical nurse.
• new years day, recovering with girlfriend
• day after new years day, my girlfriend, another friend Natasha, and Natasha's boyfriend Аrtom. we had a late dinner together and also celebrated the new year with fireworks they brought.
• sunday after new years, my girlfriend, her god daughter and i went to vlad motor inn for breakfast.

the russian holidays continue over the first week of january.  so i'm enjoying the time off, and like most russians, recovering after all the celebrating.

snow covered city

vladivostok gets another blanket of snow.   

  

 

 

 

 

 
 
 
 
 

russian cursing

what do you do when you hear someone swearing in a foreign language?

i haven't gone out of my way to learn how to articulate cussing in russian, but after a couple years you can't help but pick up some of the more colorful adult vernacular.  

today i was sitting at someone's desk, fixing a problem when a nearby co-worker said "блин!".  which is actually the polite way of saying what they really meant to say which was "блядь".    in this case, the english version of sh--t or he-double hockey sticks.  

i played dumb but took notice the person was upset with his computer.  this was quickly verified as i was called over shortly thereafter to fix said problem.  after fixing it, i was tempted to say "see? it's only a computer not a блядь".  but right now it more fun to eavesdrop when no one thinks i'm listening. 

2 years in vladivostok

my anniversary came and went on oct 19th.  two years have passed by and it still seems like i just unpacked.  the benefits of staying at a post longer than two years for me are being the mr. know-it guy when it comes to the consulate's recent history.  other new americans can ask me why something or when something was done.  one example is our landlord, he's kind of a slippery character.  before i arrived, he proposed splitting our residences in half, to double the available occupancy.  i.e. be able to charge more for less space.  that idea was shot down since we don't have that many americans here anyway and there was no need.  well, fast forward 2 years later and he brings the idea up again with all new american staff.  except i was in the room and remember the old snake oil pitch from before.  the idea was kibosh'd again before anyone seriously thought about it.

now let's go to Brick for the weather..

1st snow of the season arrived during early morning hours in vladivostok.  it stopped around 5pm but the high winds kept the city subdued for the rest of the night.  traffic was close to non-existant and those that did travel reported multiple cars stuck in snow drifts and low visibility.  i stayed inside, stocked up on groceries and waited it out till morning.

my girlfriend and i ventured out sunday for lunch and to see what kind of damage the snowfall had done.  the cleaning crews still had their work cut out for them as even the main roads were still covered in wet stuff.  i'm happy to report only one close call as another driver didn't like how slow everyone was going and decided to start cutting people off, me included.  sad to see even bad weather doesn't keep the stupid drivers at home.

halloween

 

it's that time of year again.  treats for the kids, costume parties, the changing of the seasons.  i have a tradition of playing some of my favorite horror movies before halloween.  not the traditional classics, like the exorcist or the shining, nope.  they have to be zombie related. 

here's the playlist typically

• evil dead trilogy
• night of the living dead - original
• any living dead sequel
• shaun of the dead
• resident evil and any of its sequels

halloween is a recent addition to russia.  many enjoy it here and like the aspects of dressing up in costume.  there's a large party at the vlad motor inn, for parents and children.  each year, the total number of guests have increased dramatically.  on of my co-workers said she almost didn't make it this year since it's become so popular and the tickets were close to being sold out.    

i just realized, i don't have any russian horror movies.  something to check out.  in australia, i watched "wolf creek" and the saw movies (the first saw movie - created by aussies).  

parting advice in case you run into a zombie.  "beat em or burn em, they go up pretty easy." sheriff mcclelland - notld