Sai

My sister visited me in Belgrade last week. And, of course, I tried to give her the best tour of the country: we visited Novi Sad, Vršac, and Pančevo, observed a lot of architecture, and had many walks around the city. Since the last visit of my relatives (my mom), we have bought a car, so we can travel more freely. And I felt that I didn't travel Serbia as it deserves. Like, for example, hot springs — we've only been to Vrnjačka Banja and to no other places. And Kablar. And Đerdap. We haven't been to Tara. I have wanted to go on a bicycle trip to Smederevo for so long! Now I feel I have gotten over my dynamic with Serbia caused by culture shock, and I want to travel more; I want to build relationships with Serbian people, and I want to improve my Serbian. I want to fall in love with the place, if it's not too late.

Recently, I obtained two new ways to enjoy coffee: an Aeropress and a Moka pot. The trickier of the two is the Moka, and I found that out the hard way. I didn't know that you can't just put an aluminum Moka pot and aluminum utensils into the dishwasher. This was a huge mistake since aluminum oxidizes after this kind of treatment. Very aggressive chemicals and hot water cause the surface to get covered with dark gray dust, and I had to clean it with an ultrasonic toothbrush afterward.  Moreover, a Moka pot shouldn't be washed with soap at all since its surface is protected by a tiny film of coffee oil. Now I know, and I haven't regretted for a single minute buying a cheap Chinese replica instead of the original Bialetti Moka. Now that I know all these things, I'm finally ready to buy the original one.

There are very beautiful sunsets in Barcelona, especially if you observe them from the seafront. The city itself is colorful. There are entire areas filled with the best architectural objects from different eras. Garbage collection is complicated—you can’t just throw organic waste into the brown bin. The bin is basically locked. Places where we found good food: Japanese food bar Shokudo. There is a Swedish table rule: you pay for entry and can order any food. For beverages, you should pay additionally. For lunch, there is a special offer: four dishes, a beverage, and dessert. Local cuisine—any of them, I believe. Khinkali and plov are ordinary. You can find something better even in Belgrade. They don’t even have a pepper mill. Problem with NFC on Apple smartphones—you can use it to validate your rides, but the phone should be activated within the EU. My wife’s iPhone didn’t work. The rent is high, but the food and wine are cheap. Magnificent fruits! Papaya is even better than in Cyprus...

Just returned from Cyprus. It was... how many times have I been to Cyprus? Like 100 times? Wow! It feels like visiting grandma (or grandpa in the case of Valera) at her village house. And it is still wonderful. I can see how the city is changing - new cozy places, new bus routes. This year there has been plenty of rain on the island. So I'm glad for the Cypriot people. Finally, it is legal to wash a car. Surprisingly, it was colder there than in Serbia last week. Unfortunately, I couldn't try my new snorkeling mask and swimming fins—the water was too cold for that. It is worth visiting Cyprus in the fall. Nice place. A lot of tasty food and cheap, good beer. Evenings with Valera in the living room with pizza and a mug of beer. I miss it already. But the best time in Serbia has started. It's time to be delighted by the Balkan summer.

Спасибо любимой жене, закрыл гештальт по поездке в Прагу. Ещё одна (четвёртая) пивная столица Европы - checked!  Первая была Берлин, вторая - Брюссель, третья - Вена. Кто-то может спросит, чем же Вена заслужила этот статус? Отвечу: вообще-то, Жигулёвское пиво до коммунизации было Венское! А дать начало национальному брэнду СССР, это, я считаю, заслуга, достойная быть отмеченой. Да, пивная культура в Вене не так коммерциализированна, как в Берлине, Брюсселе и Праге. А всё же.  Так вот, Прага! Ради нее я отступил от своего пути по сокращению потребления алкоголя и отдался во власть Старопрамена! Ну и прочих марок и сортов.  В первый же вечер мы узнали про чешские "градусы" - 10, 11, 12. В последствии добавилось ещё 8. Это не содержимое алкоголя, а экстрактивность(плотность) начального сусла. Традиционная крепость соотносится так:  8 = 3 объемным долями;  10 = 4; 11= 4,3-4,5 12 = 5. То есть на экспорт идёт в основном 12. Хотя я предпочел бы в моем возрасте 10 или 8...

Самая дорогая покупка: машина. Вообще я начал проще относиться к деньгам, купил Насте новый макбук эйр в максимальной комплектации, новый айфон (правда, по её просьбе, 16e), себе купил Samsung S24 Ultra. Не то чтобы моя тревожность в отношении денег окончательно отступила, но теперь это не так меня заботит.  Самая дорогая поездка: Барселона. Купил билеты по скидке в ВизЭйре, но не посмотрел цены на жилье перед этим. В итоге снимали задрипанную холодную хату с муравьями за 1000 евро. Но поездка нам понравилась. Долгожданный переезд. Не смотря на то, что я был разочарован прибавкой зп - 10% вместо 20, - я решил, что теперь мы можем позволить себе переехать в квартиру получше в более спокойном и тихом районе. Квартира и правда получше, но район не такой тихий. Прямо под окнами оживленная улица с тупыми утырками на громких рыдванах. Теперь я сплю исключительно в берушах. Кстати, теперь я стараюсь сделать мой сон лучше. Как? Эксперименты с бокалом вина, с температурой в комнате. Думаю, ...

The first thing I want to mention is my travel experience: we visited Austria, Italy, Spain, Hungary, Cyprus, and Bulgaria. I spent almost three months abroad in Serbia, and three years abroad in Russia. My second accomplishment is our move from Vukov Spomenik, one of the central districts, to the periphery—Filmski Grad. Here, the view and the winter air are better, and we are now living near a huge park. The flat itself is warmer and better equipped than the previous one. Now we have a dishwasher and a dryer, as well as a better fridge, a kitchen stove, and so on. And the third one is that I started going to the gym. It was a very long road to this decision. It was necessary to change my mindset first. Now I have a program, a schedule, and a goal: to reach 80kg without overeating.

Corrected: Summer in Serbia starts on the 20th of June and ends on the 20th of September. That’s why today it is +31 degrees Celsius (+87.8 Fahrenheit). Real heat, but it still feels like something already floats in the air. Something depressing. I probably hate the cold, dark, nasty, and gray winter here in Serbia, with all of this polluted air. This summer was good but also depressing. We visited Vienna, visited Budapest twice, visited friends, and bought a car. I believe I found a new friend. We also spent so much money on the car, on maintaining the car, and on traveling. My beloved sort of coffee, Yirgacheffe, suddenly appeared in Gradska Pržionica. I started bodybuilding here in our new basement. I like the results so far. I’ve found better sleep here. Rarely did the sleep estimation drop below 80 points (out of 100). Almost like in Cyprus. I am attracted to Cyprus. No, seriously! I have fallen in love with the island, mostly because of the weather and warmth, but also because o...

Achivment of the year: I became a scram-master in my team.  My team lead David offered my an apportunity to establish scram ceremonies in our project and I sucessfully implemented this. For this porpes I completed two courses on Udemy.  Also I got an A1 level in Serbian. And I lost weight from 76 to 70.  Continue of the year:  I continued to reduse consumption of coffe, salt and alchohol.  I'm continue to study English. For this poupose I bought an app from polyglot. Whole year I had been doing HIIT and taking cold (and sometimes chill) shower.  Surprise of the year: taxes for vesting. It was sudden and totally unpredictable for me and my collegues - some of them wanted to cell some shares but not me - I personally don't want to cell shares since I have enough money from my salary. Now we all need to cell something to pay taxes for vesting.  Trip of the year: It was Austria. I literally started to look forward to the opportunity to move to Aust...

  Today, I encountered an issue after updating Rancher Desktop from version 1.12.x to 1.15.0 on my Apple Silicon M1 (Sonoma 14.5). The error message was as follows: Error:  /Applications/Rancher Desktop.app/Contents/Resources/resources/darwin/lima/bin/limactl.ventura exited with code 1 Logs:  stdout: '', stderr: '/usr/bin/scp: write remote "/tmp/rd-lima-guestagent-cLKIYBm6wcHE.lima-guestagent": Failure\r\n' + '/usr/bin/scp: failed to upload file /var/folders/rj/_3qwsv5d27z8q18mx7w711yh0000gn/T/rd-lima-guestagent-cLKIYBm6wcHE/lima-guestagent to /tmp/rd-lima-guestagent-cLKIYBm6wcHE.lima-guestagent\r\n', code: 1, [Symbol(child-process.command)]: '/Applications/Rancher Desktop.app/Contents/Resources/resources/darwin/lima/bin/limactl.ventura copy /var/folders/rj/_3qwsv5d27z8q18mx7w711yh0000gn/T/rd-lima-guestagent-cLKIYBm6wcHE/lima-guestagent 0:/tmp/rd-lima-guestagent-cLKIYBm6wcHE.lima-guestagent' } 2024-08-07T15:18:09.229Z: > /Applications/Ra...

 Last weekend we've visited new place - gradska opshtina Sokobanja. It's a small lovely town placed between the mountains on the south of Serbia. There have a lot of wonderfull view points on the nearest mountains, ruins of the ancient fortress and termal springs. Presumably with radon in the water.  We spent an hour and a half at Soko Spa.Well, the water was warm enought but a bit colder than in Budapesht. The same smell of the sweat and unwashed feet.  If we had more time, we would have climbed Mount Rtan. Height 1560 meters. The mountain is part of the Rhodope Mountains. Proteklog vikenda posetili smo novo mesto – opštinu Sokobanja. Ovo je mali prelep grad koji se nalazi između planina na jugu Srbije. Na obližnjim planinama nalaze se mnoge prelepe vidikovce, ruševine drevne tvrđave i termalni izvori. Verovatno sa radonom u vodi. U Soko Banu smo proveli sat i po. Pa, voda je bila dovoljno topla, ali malo hladnija nego u Budimpešti. Isti miris znoja i neopranih nogu. Da ...

 Last weekend my collegues and I had a trip to Divchibare - a small resort town in mountains near Mount Golubac. They love hiking and I started to enjoy it too. I even bought trekking poles this time. But still have no special hiking boots. I took over thirty steps on the first day and about twenty the next day. On the second day we also visited a cave with a small lake inside and beutiful tiny bats. As a result, many photos of the mountains, nature, me and even stars were taken with my phone. Prošlog vikenda sa kolegama smo bili na Divčibaru - malom letovalištu u planinama u blizini Golupca. Oni vole planinarenje i ja sam takođe počeo da uživam u tome. Ovog puta sam čak kupio štapove za treking. Ali još uvek nema posebnih planinarskih čizama. Prvi dan sam prešao tridesetak koraka, a sutradan dvadesetak. Drugog dana smo posetili i pećinu sa malim jezercem unutra i prelepim sićušnim slepim miševima. Kao rezultat toga, mnoge fotografije planina, prirode, mene, pa čak i zvezda ...

Yesterday I finally found out my blood type - 0 pozitive. Well, it's literraly most common type. Most sreaded. If enythig happen to me, we will found a donor quickly.  I've had blood tests done before, but I can't remember being told what my blood type was. So I can write it on my sleeve. But now I can.  Juče sam prvi put saznao svoju krvnu grupu - Prva pozitivna. Pa, to jest, najobičnija grupa. Najčešći. Ako se nešto desi, neću morati dugo da tražim donatora. Davao sam krv i ranije. ali ne sećam se da mi je ikada rečeno koja je moja krvna grupa da bi to moglo da bude napisano na mom rukavu. Ali sada ja možem.

I just finished playing Final Fantasy X. This video game I have wanted to complete for almost twenty years. But all this time I postopnded the game for various reasons. And you know what? I will never play it again! There are boring characters, boring plot, exausting gameplay, terrible UI, poor combat system and stupid leveling system. But visual desighn - this is something! It bought me.

Last weekend we had a trip to Bosnia and Herzegovina's capital - Sarajevo. It's a beautiful city. Like you can take a photo from any turn and print it as a postcard. There was an Olympic Games in 1984. Winter Olympic Games I mean. And they still have all constructions made for the games like bobsled tracks and funicular. This funicular offers breathtaking views of the city. I strongly recommend visiting the point of view of the city which is situated on the top of the mountain. 

Today I thought that we need to accept - our plenty life is about to end soon. We, our little family should start to build new life in another country. Russia as we know it come to an end. I will continue to study English, but we need to leave this country for good. Because next time I might not be so lucky to avoid mobilization.

I got married last week. Finally I have a stamp in my passport. We decided to make it legal because it will helps us to relocate and get resident cards. I want to assure my beloved Nastya that I will not abandon her. Our relatives was so happy about this. 

Today I continued to take a bath with sea salt. This thing or something else relieved my back hurt. So I want to continue this kind of procedures. What else happened? Natera keep silence about my interview. They wanted to see other candidates, as HR said.  Nastya offered to relocate to Georgia. We will have a year without a vise there.  Also she bought tickets to Bryansk for us. For the Last October weekend. 

       Это был самый насыщенный на путешествия год. Трижды я побывал за границей - сначала в Турции, потом Армении и под конец года в Молдове. И это если не считать городов России - слетал во Владикавказ, Махачкалу, Астрахань, Краснодар, Калининград, Ижевск, Челны, Санкт Петербург, на поезде добрался до Калуги, Твери, Брянска.      Это был самый прибыльный год - зарплата выросла до уровня, когда я уже перестал переживать, что денег не хватит до следующего раза.       Это был самый учтённый год - я вёл бухглатерию каждый месяц и не пропустил ни дня (я надеюсь).      Это был самый запасливый год - я отложил более 10% от заработанных денег.      Это был самый инвестиционный год - я открыл брокерский счёт и ИИС, регулярно их поплнял, доход составил около 10%.      Это был самый здоровый год - я проверил своё здоровье по нескольким параметрам и не без удоволетворения выяснил, что с коленками и...

Наша стиральная машинка - гордое и свободолюбивое существо. Тихо строя планы побега целыми днями, она буквально срывается с места, стоит только загрузить белье и нажать кнопку "Пуск". Со стороны может показаться, что ее усилия не стоят того, ведь сдвинуться за один цикл стирки она способна не более чем на пару сантиметров, но разве можно остаться равнодушным к ее упорству и непреодолимой тяге вырваться из тесноты санузла? В те места, где ее предки вольно паслись на бескрайних просторах прерий, стирали тогда и то, что хотели и не подчинялись этим дурацким программам и таймерам.  Я болею за нее, но все равно подвигаю назад к стенке. Потому что в душе гнусный сатрап и чистые рубашки ценю выше, чем права бытовой техники на самоопределение. Скайнет несомненно не простит и отправит меня в лагерь смерти одним из первых. И малышка будет отомщена. Не сегодня. Но обязательно. Ведь должна же на этой земле быть хоть какая-то справедливость.