greatdiversions.com

Lazarus in a Speedo

Shawn — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 23:08:45 +0000

No promises folks, but maybe I’ll start blogging again soon. Ukraine kind of ground me down in to a fine powder and destroyed my desire to blog for a while. Perhaps Nassau (and my current short stint in DC) will revitalize my blogging bone.

Looking to the Future

Shawn — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 08:23:16 +0000

Currently in Kyiv, Ukraine:

0°F
Fog
Feels Like
-12°F

Currently in Nassau, Bahamas:

73°F
Fair
Feels Like
73°F

No, Mr. Bond…

Shawn — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 12:06:01 +0000

Don’t even get the Communists started on Rambo…

Kurylenko Under Fire By Communists31 October 2008

Ukranian actress Olga Kurylenko has been slammed by Russia’s Communist Party for “betraying” her cultural roots by starring in the new James Bond movie Quantum Of Solace.

The star plays Daniel Craig’s sidekick in the action thriller – but she has come under fire from Marxist ideologists who claim she has offended her ancestors by assisting the fictional Bond, “a man who worked for decades under the orders of (Margaret) Thatcher and (Ronald) Reagan to destroy the Ussr”.

In a direct appeal to Kurylenko via their website, the Communists of St Petersburg say: “The Soviet Union educated you, cared for you and brought you up for free but no one suspected that you would commit this act of intellectual and moral betrayal.”

Countdown

Shawn — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 09:00:47 +0000

Only 177.5 days to go. Not that anyone is keeping track…

Promoting Revolution in Ukraine

Shawn — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 12:02:35 +0000

Today I went to a local high school and spoke about the American Revolution. Schools and organizations in Kyiv regularly reach out to the embassy for guest speakers and this is one I volunteered for as I have an interest in American history.

I’d have to say it went quite well and I was impressed by the questions the students asked. They were 16 and 17 year olds and are studying American history this year. (I don’t seem to recall studying a year of Ukrainian history in high school.) The presentation was in English and I didn’t sense any real communication barriers and judging by their questions they seemed to understand me. Of course, they did have prepared questions and one student asked me what caused the Revolution…which was pretty much my entire presentation. Apart from that, others asked about the Minutemen (the ones during the Revolution…not the ones building a fence in Arizona), the role of the French and the Spanish, Lafayette, modern day memorials, and other good questions. I was only thrown by one question about John Salem. Wikipedia now tells me he was a freed slave who fought in the war. Now I know.

After the presentation, the teacher gave me a nice little tour of the school and gave me tea along with another teacher. Everything here either starts or ends with tea and cookies. The school was nice and not radically different than a school in the States apart from being cold and dark (they kept the lights turned off and the heat is controlled by the city and not turned on until November.)

All in all, a good time apart from the one hour and forty minute ride back home thanks to Kyiv traffic (the school was about 3 miles away.)

We Are! Dynamo!!*

Shawn — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 11:25:53 +0000

We went to our first professional ~~soccer~~ football match last night. It was Dynamo Kyiv versus Arsenal all the way from jolly ol’ England. Although I enjoy football, we were mostly going to check out the crazy atmosphere and we weren’t disappointed.

The stadium were the match was held was actually fairly small with a capacity of around 18,000, but when you add in all the people standing around the edges of the stadium plus the fact they seemed to have one police officer for about every four fans, it seemed like a lot of people. We bought the cheap tickets (which were still over $20 each) and ended up sitting near one end of the stadium next to the hardcore fan block.

Most of the game it was hard to figure out whether to focus on the game or the 1,000 vocal Ukrainians chanting, jumping, waving scarves, lighting flares, jumping over the fence, banging drums, and generally being football fanatics. We had watched the film Green Street Hooligans just a few weeks ago so we were pretty much expecting the Dynamo and Arsenal fans to meet in the middle of the pitch and start swinging chains at each other, but that didn’t happen. The police had plenty of menacing German Shepherds standing by just in case. (Not as menacing as our dog, but no one is perfect.)

The game didn’t start until 9:45pm and it was a wet, cold night so we didn’t plan on staying for the whole thing, but it was enough fun to keep us in our seats. Not to mention the fact no one else left their seats so it would have been hard to get out. The only exception was a group in our area determined to get a kick ass wave going around the stadium. They spent all night trying and suffering the jeers of other fans who just wanted them to go home (which was shouted a lot in Russian behind us.)

It was more fun than I really expected so who knows, maybe we’ll go again.

*This was an actual chant during the game. In English. At least we think. It was hard to tell.

VEEP VIP

Shawn — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 16:43:11 +0000

I’m just now getting around to mentioning it, but we had another VIP visit last week. Actually, we had several, but I was only involved with the big one. VP Dick Cheney was in town (along with the missus) to illustrate America’s support for Ukraine and to indicate Russia should back the hell off already. Well, I don’t know if Cheney actually said that…but I think it was implied.

Overall, this visit was a much more laid back affair than the President and Secretary of State’s visit last April. I was a site officer at the airport, but since I was primarily an assistant site officer, I didn’t have a whole lot to do except stand on the tarmac for hours at a time. I did get a decent sunburn on my face though so it was totally worth it.

I don’t really have a whole lot to say about the visit. Cheney came. He didn’t want to meet with any embassy staff. He left and went to Lake Como for some vital international reason or something.

Here he is getting off his plane.

VP Cheney leaving Air Force 2

Peema’s Birthday

Shawn — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 12:57:31 +0000

Today is our grumpy cat’s 9th birthday. To be fair, she used to be less grumpy in the pre-Doberman puppy days. For a present (since she doesn’t like any toys or food treats), I made her a custom comic strip using a fun new site I found called Strip Generator. This is probably only funny to Jennifer and myself.

http://stripgenerator.com/strip/165496/

Peema's Birthday