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No Memory, Must Work, No Time to Think


2012
05.25

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Computer Tips Related Correspondence | No Comments »

Computer Tips Related Correspondence

don’t need a lengthy response, as I know you’re always busy, but if I can just ask quickly… Have been getting more into video editing but realising that my little old notebook is not made for such heavy processor use. Recently I researched on the net about a laptop operating in very cold temperatures, and the only thing apparently to worry about is not to turn it on from deep cold after you bring it inside, for worry of condensation. Anyway, it occurred to me today, if I was editing a video and then wanted to export it (the most demanding on the processor), what do you think about the crazy idea about putting the laptop into a cold fridge (just have to worry about condensation, so slow temperature change or something) and then press GO for a conversion which may take several hours at full processor speed. My guess is that it will not harm anything as long as the temperature is kept down. I gather there would be no moving parts in a processor to wear down but its just a bunch of electrons flowing through wires etc. Am I right?

On another note, just landed inAthensand soon ready to launch a month’s tour ofGreece. Next stop is the mountains in Bulgaria where one friend offered me work to help him reconstruct his house, but I don’t think I’ll have time to help him much cause I’m getting a lot of translation work, which pays a lot more. But it will be nice to hang with some folks and drink beer with some friends. Or to have his job as a backup in case my own work dries out. It has been nice to find a Czech translation agency who appreciates my quality and is not intimidated by the fact that I work while I’m traveling. Put up an online database for Keta, which is now supposed to be the best lumber database in the world, so I hope that through that I’ll be able to get more of such intelligent work. Translations are good to pay the rent but I’m so sick of it. I feel like a factory worker doing the same repetitive and stupid work every day: unscrewing some complicated and bureaucratic Czech sentence to rescrew it into some nice flowing English sentence. I feel like, with every sentence, I am struggling againt the bureaucratic Czech mentality and I’m really rather tired and uninterested in it. But I guess it’s nice to be doing important translations for the EU, and that my customer’s level of English is so good that she recognises and values my quality, as opposed to the other bozos who might point to a word and complain that I left it out.

How’s business going with you?

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If your cooler has the usual temp between 5 and 10 degC, having the comp run in it cannot do any harm. It may actually help if its warm outside, such as 30 degC or higher. But I definitively would not cool the notebook in operation below +5 degC. Special computers such as automotive are designed for a wide range of operating temperatures, but typical notebook specs may be +5 to +45 degC. They recommend to let a notebook temper before turning it on, after being brought in from subzero cold, in order to reach operating temperature and let any condensation evaporate. I read somewhere that large companies are forcing translators to lower costs by using special software that remembers translated sentences, so if say an updated Czech manual is submitted for retranslation, the unchanged parts are copied automatically and not translated repeatedly. The finance business is tough as you can imagine: sale of our last remaining investment in the old portfolio has stalled due to industrial conditions, and closing a successor fund (for which we combined with another team) has been slow due to uncertainties in investment banks. Good luck, looks like you have a good plan in the circumstances. Dad

Thanks for your prefect and conscientious response as usual!

Yes, I know about the translation software and am almost a little bit of an expert with it. I believe I have the best software available and it’s pretty expensive, and I use it regularly. Many customers might not know about it and if I use it on repeating text I can translate quite quickly and make a lot of money in a short time. I’d like to use it if I were farming out a lot of translations. Talked about this to Jens a few years back that, if I had a lot of work in different languages, I could build up a lot of memory, eventually put it online, and create a sort of wiki translation site where customers could use the translation memory and pay 1 cent a word, while translators could contribute memory and get credit to use other translators’ memory. Rather complicated to set up but the way of the future. I think some major sites are starting to dabble in the concept only now. As usual, got some good ideas but haven’t been able to put them into practice.

Maybe my computer is getting clogged again and needs to be taken apart and cleaned with q-tips and alcohol (I do that once in a while). Think the sea salt air gets into it. Anyway, without my handy fan underneath the comp it seems to quickly rise to around 70C and turns on its own internal fan. With my fan I can usually keep it around 40. At full processor and in the fridge I think it would still be running at around 40, but I’ll experiment with it if I ever have a big video project, and a handy fridge!

Too bad about your work. Didn’t even consider “the crunch” when I asked you how it was going. For me I seem to be immune to economic swings. With globalisation the translation industry has been increasing about 20% a year I think (although, yes, moving towards software at the same time), I got customers all over, people will always need translations (especially the ever so bureaucratic monster EU). I came to the conclusion that I lost a lot of work because I let myself get arrogant (although the customers truly were total idiots and tried my patience beyond my abilities), and because Czechs can be idiots without imagination and were simply afraid that I am not capable of translating from a beach or somehow I lose my Czech because I am not Czech anymore. Other new clients don’t send me work because they like to phone their translators and find out immediately if they can take a job. I never communicate that way with my own translators. Many are online practically all the time, or receive an sms from their email account, so are capable of responding immediately, every time. But this is something that these bozos cannot understand. Anyway, often its nicer to find more intelligent customers, because then the cooperation is usually more pleasant and much less frustrating. In any case, I’ll try to keep my mouth shut with potential new clients and not explain my situation. With my new one I let the news seep out and she doesn’t seem to have an issue with it at all.

Take careo and hope the business picks up. k

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in response to your suggestion to buy a BlackBerry, even had one purchased but perhaps I’m lucky cause these Greek boneheads said they didn’t have their system set up for this device. I think it was possible, but anyway decided to trade it in for an HTC diamond. Trust Windows more cause I know how to hack into that and get lots of free programs, and generally better support. Serves as a 3G modem for my computer as well, but lacks the fancy physical keyboard, boohoo. Oh well, can’t have everything. Found that the BB needed some exchange server and generally more restricted. Windows is open guts and I can always find a solution to that. Its different inEuropewith every piddly country having their own quirks. But I’m getting used to the phone and its not so bad. Seems my Turkish cheapo 3G modem is locked, contrary to what they told me, but in time I hope to hack into it and unblock it. latero

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Still not rolling in the dough but the last few months were fairly good and it has given me the opportunity to chip away at some debts. If it keeps up like this, which it may, I will hope to have paid back all my debts within about 7 months. Concerning your communication script (CS), a friend of mine gave me an idea that I should offer it to other translation companies, which I think I will try. Charge a small fee per every word translated through the system but not actually sell the software itself. For this I’ll need to set up special administration rights that can do pretty well everything the administrator can except erase projects and only have access to the projects they set up. I thought I’d try this myself, because I still do not have enough cash, but it may become an interesting revenue stream. Anyway, I was wondering if you had any quick pointers. Such as a quick tip which files I should be working on, how to get mysql working on my computer so that I can test it, and anything else you can think of.

Glad to hear from you. About MySQL: you can setup “Denwer” – http://www.denwer.ru/ – sorry, it’s only in Russian. It’s package of Apache+MySQL+PHP. May be very easy installed on local computer. It starts virtual web-server. And with denwer I created all sites local. About files: honestly, I don’t remember. I tried to name files with sense. For examle: notify.php, login.php, delm.php (delete message). “u_” – as I remember – functions for users. “c_” – general functions.

sounds like we are doing similar things. I decided recently that I wanted to try the approach of Mr. Google and Mr. Facebook, meaning to make a living from some web project and not really have a boss. Even a customer is like a boss and can be tedious to deal with. But by setting up projects I am applying my creative mind in different ways and I don’t really have to deal with anyone, if I don’t want to. Or just respond to emails. I find the variety quite interesting. Once I find the time I think the project with your script could be quite interesting and looking forward to learning how you did it and working on it.

thanks for the tips. Already been looking at your scripts and things seem to be named pretty logically. Before when you or my Perl programmer would send me scripts I would enjoy skimming through them and following the logic. Now I download scripts from the net, study them in much greater detail, and enjoy learning even more. So it will be an interesting challenge! Think I may have found a “portable mysql”. I would suggest to you sqlite, as I remember you couldn’t set up the mysql database for me. sqlite is real easy and works well with php. I have a really small portable program that can work off a memory stick or CD, for portable presentation. I can send you that as well if you like.

Thanks for suggestions. Now all my projects I test at my hosting. Otherwise I have no many projects for programming – only my own. I try to create own sites carefully. One site had about 7000 visitors a day. 🙂 Almost all my time I spend on SEO. It’s more interesting for me. So I don’t use different local servers any more.  best regards, Yuri. P.S. I? you will have any questions about my scripts – I’ll try to remember the code and help.

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just read your email that you don’t know how to add users. Quite important info. You don’t store this or what? You know it’s a really easy and quick process to copy/paste such info into a Word file and organise it (certainly a lot less painful and time consuming than spending half an hour perusing through a kzillion emails). I wonder how you can run your business if managing everything from your memory. Anyway, just to torture you, because that is more fun and deserving, heh heh, I’d suggest you go to your ftp account on my server and look at the folders and file names and figure it out that way. And if you forgot your username and password, I think I’ll shit in my pants, scoop it out with a spoon, put it in a paper bag, send it to you by post, but make sure to stuff it first with a hand scribbled note with your login details! (heh heh)

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Hey bumblehead,

well, the problem is that the amount of time it takes me to dig up the information, cause I’m organised, is about the same as if you actually stored it yourself somewhere (even a simple bookmark for God’s sake), which is even less time than your beautiful groveling below. It’s not really fair for other people. I feel I spent quite a lot of extra time repeating myself in long emails, and it certainly didn’t seem to emblazen in your memory. Anyway, this was a small favour but at least I’ll know how to deal with customers in the future.

For example, with my Firefox I can export all my bookmarks into an html file, which I then put up on my server as a backup. After my harddrive crashed and I lost so much valuable information, I try to backup absolutely everything. This is an easy way to backup, and when I log into my protected folder, I can go to that exported html file and browse it, going to all my important links if I’m away from my computer etc. Or generally I’ve gotten into the habit of carefully storing tidbits of information somewhere because, in the past, it happened a few times that I was rushing, didn’t really know where to put something, so I just threw it somewhere and figured I’d find it when I need it. But six months down the road I found myself spending up to four hours looking for some stupid piece of paper I really needed, and cursed myself for not taking a bloody minute and think of some logical place to put it. Learned my lesson dattaway. k

Yes I am a bumblehead. Yes I work from memory. Yes I should have instructions, except that I know HOW to do it. I haven’t added anyone for so long (boo hoo) that the address fell out of my history. The Keta bumblehead way of operating in the big scary universe is to, once in a while, go through cumbersome and embarrassing questions such as this to whoever the magnificent, all-knowing genius that knows (in this case yourself). Its amazing how it gets emblazoned into my memory for all time after that!! I tried the looking at docs in the ftp yesterday (except I was using mine instead of yours). Just did it know, and you may call me a super-bumblehead but I went to http://translationstop.com/dbase/signup.php there’s also a http://translationstop.com/dbase/signup2.php which seems to me what I want but am getting a “file not found”. I know it’s probably something retarded like the www. needs to be there (that didn’t work) or it has to say ftp. instead of http:// (which I also tried and doesn’t work) so I need your masterful reply as soon as you guy so I can sign this guy up. he is anxious to start work. As I said, you have sufficiently shamed me so that this tidbit will never, ever again fall out of my head, haha. Luckily I get to avoid your shit-scooping bag with hand-scribbled note. But not because i remember the password, my ftp client does! oh me oh my I am an incompetent boob. that’s right I said boob.

My Computer Tips page

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People are good I think, time is money.


2012
05.25

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Private Memoirs of Bimbus | No Comments »

From the Private Memoirs of Bimbus.

great to see how excited you are. hope all will be good. I have to think how to respond so I would not sound overworried which I am. Far too many drunks and shady characters around you, punching, fighting, drinking, so I have to let it sit in my mind for a day or so and then have my comments. Stay safe and healthy and stay in touch. xxxxxxxoooooooomamamama

don’t forget that potentially I’m the town’s third alcoholic!!! But I’ve managed to control myself. Although it is true that I did have an “adjustment period” with the local home brewed Rakia (will kill ya). Will put it up on the web later. Now I know just to sip, and generally stay away from the stuff. Workin hard. k

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One morning one. 🙂 If U R so desperate visit www.amateri.cz … lots of pretty amateur Czech chicks … my favourite site. :-)))

yuck, just checked it out. Have a friend who’s been on there for a while, got his wife to join him in threesomes and everything, but that was not enough for him and she eventually caught him screwing some chick by himself, so the show was over. I’m not into porno but looking for a nice and wholesome relationship chick. So far only satisfied with lide, although the responses are pretty meagre. Figure i need to earn enough cash to hire a girl to move in with me. Otherwise can’t see how it would work.

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I am more than happy in your reply for in my mail, how is your day today i hope all is well and fine with you including your health and job. My name is Miss Rosy Dorin kassala and i am 24 years, single and never been married, i am from PostSudan,Sudanin Africa and presently residing in the missionary here inSenegalwhere i ran for refuge due to the political civil war in my country. I am in sufferings and pains here in this missionary and i really need help from a man by encouraging me and good advice in life and to help me to come out from this situation, and again to help me get my money, because my late father deposited some amount of money for me in the Bank and he used my name as the next of kin. My late father Dr. David Ellison Kassala, who was CEO of (E T I C PLC), inPort SudaninSudan. During the war, the rebel loyal to one of the greedy business associate of my late father attacked our house one early morning and killed my mother and father in a cold blood. It is only me that is alive now and i managed to make my way to this country Senegal by the help of UN army where i am living now in the missionary, headed by a Reverend Father, i used his office computer to send you this email and i only enter his office when he is less busy in his office I would like to know more about you, your likes dislikes and your hobbies and what you are doing presently, i like to meet understanding, loyal, sincere, truthfully, kindly and friendly and more to that, a man of vision and truth. I will tell you more about myself in my next mail. Attached here is my picture, i will be hoping to hear from you again. I remain yours Rosy

Hi Rosy,

I once bought a book for a hundred bucks for this organisation which is supporting the people of Darfur and Sudan, written by some guy who escaped from slavery by a family in the north. Was a horrible story and generally what is going on in Africa is sad. I am trying to help in my small way by starting a certain project which I thought could be useful:

http://africa-charity-project.org/

From that page you can go to my travel pages and learn more about me if you like.

I’ve also written a lot on my christ.kenax.cz pages.

Nice talking to you, but hope your motivation for writing to me is not associated with one of those Nigerian etc. scams which talks about 25 million dollars in some fund etc etc and need help getting that money. I get those emails all the time. Presently I’m in a financially poor situation, but when I have money I have a shelter for children in Nairobi where I like to send a little bit of money, when I have it. Take care, Karel

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hey babyflower, so I’m proud to say I finally set up my google calendar and quite happy with it. Just part of my process of putting everything online, since I just don’t trust electronics anymore (used to save such data on my mobile phone). So if you would like to be my first personal entry, just tell me when is your exact birthday! Another fun project I’m working on is completing certain webpages such that I can approach and write an email to certain translators online only, in case for some reason a project comes in and I cannot gain access to my laptop etc. That will be a fun project and something I’ve been meditating on for almost a decade. latergateronie

Well, it is an honor to be the first one in you calendar! Ok, my birthday is on January 26th and if you must know I will be reaching the Christ age next year, as they say.

I like that year, cause I like to say that is when we all have our ressurection and start from zero. Hence you will be newly born and I am only 11 years old!

> How are you and where are you now?

Still in bg, near to where I was working with Roger. In a pension with warm wood fire stove paying 5 Euro a night until Archie gets back from China shortly after the new year. Then I guess I go there and hang out for a while, and cruise up the Black Sea coast once it’s warm enough. Today I just bought a year’s contract for internet through my mobile, so I plan to stay here I guess until fall next year. If going up the bg coast will be getting close to you, so maybe we could hookup! Roger taking me out to dinner tomorrow night. Hope we can resolve everything.

WE went for a short hike in Sinaia last weekend and it was just superb. Except that it got really cold and we were not very well equipped. Plus all these poor stray animals everywhere. And train was 2 hours delayed, yep. The hike was great thought and people are nice. Tomorrow i am going to a charity mixer so i hope i will find some contacts there… i’ d like to volunteer in animals welfare somehow here. You wouldnt believe this, i was trying to contact few of them via email and even calling them but no response…i am not sure what i do wrong.. well, i shall see tomorrow.

You might find better success at the charity mixer and let me. For years I practically killed myself trying to offer my charity volunteer services but there just isn’t a culture for that in eastern Europe, which is a shame. Must have wrote to a hundred people and perhaps only one responded, and then they made me jump through hoops and loops and go to interviews, get police records, and by the time that was all done it was almost time to move into my truck, so it was too late!

> Good luck with your project and keep me updated! have a great day.

> kisses,

> kveta

u2 flowerpower!

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Too bad Marketa is so difficult. I guess it is just a woman’s thing. Don’t want to put you two in Ilona’s ballpark, but I came to the conclusion that women are often very envious creatures. Guys beat the shit out of each other, go for a beer and then are friends again, but girls hold venomous anger within them forever, and its rather silly. I told Keta several times that she will regret it one day when you are gone (heaven forbid), but she keeps going on and on about how you made her scrape the baseboards with a toothbrush and clean up the house like a slave. We’ve talked about it extensively and she said I must have lived out my childhood in a dream state. Sure, there were some negative things, but with the help of Jesus I’ve learned to overcome all that. Like the bible says: forgiveness heals. It is a simple concept, and wise, but many people do not see it. If you do not forgive you keep the chip on your shoulder and you walk around for the rest of your life with hangups. It holds you back. Anyway, it seems evident to me that Keta wants to hold onto these silly childhood hangups and simply not forgive you and make you suffer for all the “horrible” cleaning you made her do when a little baby. So, after years of talking with her about this, I suggest you simply fit into her schedule and be pleasant with her. I cannot think of anything else. Except perhaps try not to be “irritating”. She complains a lot about that. I personally have no problems with you but I think that, considering her sensitivity and not wanting to forgive you and want to punish you and make you suffer, she is more irritated by little things. I agree that it is rather childish, but I guess just a woman thing. So I guess the best you can do is just be nice and not try to irritate her. For example by telling her what to do and keep getting into her hair or something like that. I know you like to meddle, but I’ve learned to deal with it. You’ve also toned down substantially over the years. I was surprised that I was able to live with you and Vlad for an entire month inPrague. But I’ve also learned to exercise my tolerance, and you guys have toned down substantially from the past. But I guess Keta is just holding onto these hangups and remains sensitive. I think she is hurting herself and will feel great regret when you’re gone (heaven forbid – just sent a big round of postcards to Jana, by the way), but I guess that will just have to be her problem, unfortunately.

Well, it’s Saturday and I plan to stay in all day today. Kind of tired of the internet café scene. Every day going there and the village interbreeding morons looking at my shorts in this cold. I switched to pants for survival, because my local English speaking representative and fellow alcoholic kept badgering me about it. Village people can be real nice, but many of them are just conservative morons. Long discussion and requires many pages. So I retire to my room like a hermit and live in my internet world. I have a few friends here and get out once in a while. Lots of pretty girls here too causeBulgaria’s biggest music school is in this village. Have been trying to round up some musicians and organize a jam session in the local restaurant, so perhaps through those means I will meet a pretty girl. I think the best solution is to make enough money to be able to offer some bohemian chick a job, so I can sustain her. I will probably never be interested in supporting a girl who is happy to loaf around on her growing fat ass and do nothing, and whine that she is bored and wants to go for another long walk with me. That was the only candidate I could find before I leftPrague, and it would irritate me too much to support a lazy person like this. Once I am earning enough I can put out advertisements and “interview” candidates. Without that it’s practically impossible to hook up with someone. Obviously it will require a lot of interviewing to find a girl that I like, meets my standards, is bohemian and adventurous like me, doesn’t have great aspirations to settle down in some stupid house somewhere forever (which I’m sure I’ll never want to do, although I’ve already thought it could be interesting and possible to start a family in a truck – possibly a larger one), AND be good on the computer. A very tall order to fill. Until then though I don’t feel desperate without a female. I enjoy my work and my lifestyle, but I do realize that having a girl around will make things more interesting, and enable me to interact better with locals. My social scene has always improved substantially when I was with a girl, but my “social scene” is not my priority. My greater aspiration is to accomplish something good while on this planet, so having a girl around is just an added benefit, not a necessity.

Anyway, guess I’ve blabbed on enough. Will skim over your email again once downloaded if I’ve missed anything. Heard a big hurricane was headed your way! toodloo

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> Great to talk to you again! I love it!o)

Heh heh, me too. Can I assume you are unemployed or something? So perhaps you are like me and end up sitting in front of the computer a lot, and writing letters and stuff. In any case, you are one of my top penpals! (next to my mom, sister, and occasionally Misha – otherwise most people just can be bothered it seems).

Hey, we are hearing more and more that Romanian coast is not worth it a least bit. On the contrary the Bulgarian is supposed to be much nicer and cheaper. I still would like to go to check it out anyway, probably not staying there at the sea side resort but i would like to visit Constansa which happens to be at the coast. Anyway, meeting at the Black sea inBulgariasounds very good. And I know it is a pain to travel here as the road infrastructure is pretty bad but there are trains here as well…i am basically trying to invite you to Bucharest:o) You will see, it would be fun!

Right now my plan is to survive the next week or something, after which money should start rolling in from work I’ve done at the end of last month. Losing Roger’s job because of that arsehole foreman was a shock for me because it was immediately after payday and when I paid a bunch of debts, so I didn’t have much cash in my pocket and had to scramble for new work etc. But within a week or two I should be getting about 700 Euro from various sources, and then I should be good to survive several months in this wonderfully cheap country.

Then around the beginning of the month go to Archie, then once it warms up start cruising up the Bulgarian coast. A visit to you will certainly be possible, otherwise if you guys visit me that would be cool. You can either “rough” it and crash in the truck, perhaps I could be a great gentleman and sleep in my tent and give you the palace to yourselve, or I could find some perfect little place and a cheap pension for ya. Pick you up from the train station or whatever and drive you to your perfect retreat. That might be the best option, as I assume Juan is making gzillions and you two would prefer the comfort. You could set a price range and comfort zone, I could send pics of the place, or you could just trust me. I’m really looking forward to the Black Sea (BS) in the summer and cruising freely around Bulgaria with my new internet contract. Heard there are a lot of nice places to see and looking forward to discovering bg.

The mixer! I have a very good feeling about it. I met a really nice Canadian lady who actually “export” stray pups toAustriaandGermanyfor adoption. The dogs travels straight to their new homes. Local people do not really give a damn about them. It is sad. and i cant fully process that such nice people here can be so careless. It is not that they would be careless but they have completely wrong approach/attitude to this issue, well from my point of view.

Well, in the west they have organisation which put them into kennles or put them to sleep (basically kill them). Basically just get them off the street. Castrate them etc and find homes for them. This costs money and these countries simply do not have it. In Turkish Cyprus there were dogs everywhere, but in Greek Cyprus it was cats. In Greece dogs were everywhere, here too, and I guess the people just consider them like wild animals, a part of nature, and who have to fend for themselves. In this village I hear a poor dog howling in pain. It must be hungry, and it howles as it gets cold. What can I do? I certainly do not want to invite it into my room. Anyway, when I was in Cyprus, even though I was dirt poor I would still scrape some cash and feed a couple of dogs. Actually turned out to be good security, although it was irritating when the little yapper would bark while I was working inside. Tried to train it, but it was cute how the two dogs would faithfully walk with me every day while I jogged along the beach to the grocery store for my daily food and two beers. But most of the locals find the dogs a nuicance. I think they set traps for them and maybe ate them. Not sure, but heard the dogs barking and howling a few times and saw some being dragged off in a cage. So I understand their mentality that the dogs or cats are just wild, eat out of the garbage bins, and they throw rocks and sticks at them. Other people are compassionate like us and give them some food, or shelter. I found an old rug on the beach and put it under my truck, so “my” dogs had a nice little shelter. I just had to be careful when driving away every day!!

There is another American and Dutch lady who are also in their free time helping so I think/hope I will get involved soon. … It is interesting how people criticize American or the Westeners a lot of times for what they do or not do but they barely realize how much in charity work they do in countries like this and they wouldnt have to care, yet they do… do i make sense to you?! I am having hard time to express myself sometimes.

That was an interesting stream of thought and funny English. I do the same often, but I understand you. I think people in America can be very charitable, with their Christian beliefs too, but the government and that arsehole Bush has done so much damage that I understand why many in the world can be hostile against Americans or people in the west. But it’s cool what you are doing and I have been trying to get involved myself for years. Did I tell you about my latest project?

http://africa-charity-project.org/

Perhaps during your networking you could find some contacts or something. I think its a great idea and I’d love to develop it. I already have a contact in Nairobi Kenya where I try to send money once in a while – a shelter for children. Have a dream of ferrying my truck around Somalia etc. on day and the driving around Kenya setting up villages, eventually to spread out to other countries once things and sponsors etc. pick up. Dreams are what make life juicy, and I love watching them unravel, even though it may take time.

Anyway, it looks like a beautiful day today so I will go to check out some markets. I like these little bity shops with local production…i.e. fruits and vegetables. It is a pity that country with such a agricultural potential doesnt produce their own BIO stuff. So i buy cranberry juice fromSwitzerland(ok, cranberry is not a good example, they do not grow everywhere but come on I grow them in my garden!!!), milk from Germany(!), jam or cereal fromAustria… Really pity.

Yah, these things are generally expensive and the people are too poor to afford such a market. But as in Prague and Czech I think things will improve. Just look at all the health food shops which have practically exploded over time. It takes time for people to start making western money, then to be educated at the various possibilities. It will happen over time. Under communisim there certainly was no “market” for such things. By you being able to afford it and buy it, technically you could be proud that you are helping the situation, because the more you buy, the more the shops will replace the empty shelf, the more others will see it, and the more it will help to drive down the prices and increase supply. Good going you missionary!

Hey, I have now my own little herb garden on my kitchen window sill … so far only rosemary, thyme, parsley, sage and chives. I cant find mint nor basil or oregano here… maybe i’ll grow from seeds. I just am not patient enough for that;o/

Hmm, maybe I’ll try something at Arch’s, although I’ll probably split for the coast as soon as it gets warm enough. Maybe by then I’ll get some more flower pots and try my garden again, and could have something interesting by the time we hook up!

Last weekend Juan and I went for a short hike to Sinaia and it was wonderful, it was cold especially when we reached cote 2000m but it was worth it. Hey, enjoy your time inBulgariaand say hi to Roger from me when you talk to him. I need to send him an email as well, want to ask him something about Paxos.

Drank with him last night, said hi from you, and he was happy to hear it.

Oh, also Juan and I are thinking about promoting one of the local shelters here we got in touch with but there is a language barrier so Juan is

Think I already responded to this, right? Sure, love getting involved with various charities.

> Ok, have a good day and take care. hi to Roger.

>

> love,k

luvyababy!