Burlaki [back] on the Hudson

A few determined individuals who have been following this blog since its humble beginnings would recognize this diagram.
 

 
This used to be the picture greeting visitors on the original front page of this website, when it was not blog-centric yet. It charted the major places we resided at in our life. Which aren’t that many, obviously.

My good friend Sergey suggested back then that the picture would be more intriguing if it had an additional arrow into the unknown (represented by a symbolic question mark), suggesting to the viewer that future holds more moves to exciting locales. I did not go for that, mainly of account of just having moved to London. I did not want to think about future moves.

As anyone can now surmise, Sergey was right on the “future holds additional moves” count, but he was overly optimistic on the “exciting” part.

I caught up with the idea that a static front page was not a good approach to website-building within a couple of months of starting the website. The “old front page” was relegated to a curiosity link on my blog’s menu bar. When I recently moved the site to a new host provider, I completely discarded that page among the few cosmetic changes.

But when I did that, I figured that the old picture diagram needed updating.

So, here we go.
 

 
This is a very precise diagram, by the way, since for all senses and purposes we live in the same area that we left for London. If you imagine yourself looking southward, this diagram well approximates the distance we moved from our previous house.

It is also a bit confusing. Do we now keep going back and forth between London and New Jersey? I don’t think so.

Anyway.

Apropos of

The kid and Mom go for a first swim together.
 

Chronicles, Pictures

My employer has this incredible 12-week paternity leave benefit.

Yes, you read it right, paternity with a “p”. As in, the father of a newborn child can get 12 weeks off work with full pay.

I know plenty of people who take advantage of that. In fact, I know one guy who seemingly takes advantage of that every other year or so.

Did I go on paternity leave when Emily was born?

Um… no.

For reasons that I will surely regret eventually, I decided that my complete absence for 3 months would place in jeopardy various projects that “need” me. Instead, I agreed with my management hierarchy that I will work entirely from home for the foreseeable future, take time to help Natasha with the new baby, but make myself generally available for all and any tasks in progress.

The result? Instead of bonding with my new daughter and letting Natasha rest when she is not nursing, I sit in my basement office for nine-hour workdays.

Ok, saving over three hours of commute time every day is definitely helpful. I do take breaks throughout the day to give Natasha a breather here or there, I relieve her of chauffeuring-the-kids-around responsibilities, and on some days I do manage reasonable enough windows to keep pretense of being home for the sake of child-rearing.

Most of the days, though, it feels as though I plop down in front of my laptop at 8 in the morning, and stagger up the basement stairs with a headache at 6pm.

Nothing to complain about, really. Considering that I can jump into pool immediately following that…

Chronicles

On a nowadays rare workday spent in Manhattan, I had a chance to stroll through Bryant Park in New York Midtown. Around lunchtime, it held a City Library-sponsored book reading in one corner and a musical performance in another. Some people played ping-pong, while others idly lounged around.

In yet another corner, there was an impromptu juggling center. One guy juggled tennis balls, two more guys practiced juggling clubs, but the center was taken up by a group of four people who toss-juggled clubs in a square-and-diagonals pattern. They weren’t exceptionally good, but they kept trying over and over again.

I had a hard time catching them in a nice shot, and did not really succeed. But one detail can be rather clearly seen in this shot. Two of the four were dressed in an office attire, marking them as office-dwellers who came out to play during lunch. I found the concept of going for a juggling exercise during lunch fascinating.
 

New York City & Environs, Pictures

Apparently, if you type “London Bridge” into Google Images search, the very first picture of nine millions that come up is that of London’s Tower Bridge from my fairly old public service announcement, marking it as not the London Bridge. As a result, that particular post has been receiving a huge number of visitors over the last few weeks.

Welcome to all new visitors! I hope you find something useful in my old ramblings. At the very least, you’ll never mistake one bridge for another in the future

Blogging

Perusing my long-neglected blog aggregator, I came across Brian’s attempt to analyze his writing style via an online gadget (which, I believe, other people tried as well). I was, for a short moment, idle, so I figured I should try that.

The results?

Unlike Brian (who was consistently pegged to the same author with every sample of his writing), I ended up as either a vary talented pretender or someone with abject absence of any discernible style.

Consider.

My short visiting Prague essay apparently resembles David Foster Wallace.
 

I write like
David Foster Wallace

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

 
My latest drive-by movie roundup pegs me to H. P. Lovecraft.
 

I write like
H. P. Lovecraft

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

 
My reflection on new parenthood most closely aligns with Stephen King. (What!?!?)
 

I write like
Stephen King

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

 
My DIY adventure is in the style of Cory Doctorow.
 

I write like
Cory Doctorow

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

 
I stopped at four attempts. I have a feeling that I might have been able to drain the analyzer of all of its choices rather quickly.

While I am familiar with all of these writers’ names, I can’t say that I ever knowingly read anything by them, so there is no way for me to intelligently assess the validity of this analysis.

I always thought my writing was Kurt Vonnegut-ish…

Idle Amusements

A few shots of the little lady (including one of The Three Sisters) for my no doubt starving audience.
 

Pictures

There is something decidedly strange in getting excited about receiving the social security card.

But when it comes to a newborn, and the card signifies the very first official document that the little person has, it definitely passes for another milestone.

Chronicles

We have been back in the States from England for exactly a year, and Natasha made a fairly sad observation the other day: For the first time in over a decade, she spent an entire length of a year without venturing abroad. Not even to Dominican Republic or Canada…

Not having been pregnant for most of that time, I did manage one overseas trip (and Becky managed two!). But I feel tons of empathy. This is something that is definitely missing from our lives nowadays.

We do have our hands full with the baby, of course…

Apropos of

Heh! The whole thing took me less than half a day to turn around, and a couple of hours were idly spent on waiting for DNS changes to propagate.

I have one strange artifact in the Travelog, which I will have to look into at some later time. I also do not yet see the mail server resolved to the new platform. But other than that, burlaki.com is now residing at a new host. And I actually managed to get the cost down to one-fourth of what I was paying before. It’s not that great deal of money, but it makes me happy nonetheless.

If you catch any strange behavior with the website, please let me know. Cheers!

Website Bulletins

… but there will likely be an intermittent downtime at burlaki.com in the next couple of weeks.

The reason for that is that I am moving the domain to a cheaper hosting platform.

When I started the website about four years ago, I was not expecting that the main blog would become practically the only regularly used feature. I did know that I wanted to host the picture gallery within the site, I suspected that I might need more than one blog running, I had plans for other “fun” sections, I even considered eventually building an online store to parallel Natasha’s eBay activities.

So I went for dedicated hosting, with enough room to grow in my hosting plan. At $9.95/month, it did not feel like a tremendous expenditure.

As time went by, all the site grew into was three different blogs and a picture gallery. Quite a while ago, I concluded that it will not grow into anything else. With such limited needs, paying ten bucks a month for hosting was definitely a waste.

Since both blogs and galleries can be well hosted for free on a variety of specialized platforms, I considered moving wholesale to WordPress and one of the photo sites, supplemented by a set of index pages on some free hosting platform for purposes of re-direction. This worked for Becky’s blog (which she has not been updating for months) and for Picture Gallery, both of which are now hosted externally to the main site. But the main blog and Travelog section both make heavy use of WordPress plugins, which are not available at wordpress.com. I am loath to lose some of the older posts that rely on those plugins.

I also thought of moving to a no-fee domain hosting platform, but researching that I realized it was an obvious case of “you get what you pay for”. I’d rather spend a little money but be able to rely on prompt assistance and not run into regular “this option is only available for premium accounts” responses.

Without boring you any further, I will be moving the remaining two pieces of this site, the main blog and the Travelog, to a host that will provide me with everything I need to run two blogs within one site but charge me one-third of what I am paying for hosting today. The downtime may occur during the time I switch DNS routing from old host to the new one, and also if, for some reason, the newly configured site does not work as needed right off the bat. You should not notice any design differences, though; I am transferring the entire configuration without changing anything.

If you use RSS to subscribe to my blog, and you experience longer-than-usual interval of silence from me, you may have to re-subscribe. While the URLs of the two blogs will remain unchanged, I am not sure if RSS will catch up with different DNS routing by itself.

Website Bulletins

A little house problem: The dryer suddenly starts leaving clothes damp after a full cycle. What do I know about dryers? Nothing. I’m only aware of the fact that this is a ten year old unit, that we did not want to extend “service plan” for it last year, and that a flat-rate service call costs $150 before any replacement part costs and additional labor.

I look through available trouble-shooting documentation. It tells me to check the exhaust pipe for blockage. I am useful enough with the tools to be able to do that. No luck, though. There is no blockage in the pipe or at the vent.

What’s the information-age guy to do when he needs DIY repairs? Use internet, of course. I go to the manufacturer site in search of additional documentation. Fail. I google the exact model of the dryer. There are dozens of links to sales of newer models, and one or two forum links discussing various issues, but nothing I can use for my specific case. Finally, I start typing more generic queries into Google, hoping to hit upon a general repair advice.

One of the search results is a link to a site called Just Answer. Clicking on the URL, I get a comparatively simple page with a promising subtitle of “Ask an Appliance Question, Get an Answer ASAP!”, a form asking me to type in my question, and a button that says “Get an Answer”.

It would be too easy if that was all it took to figure out my problem, of course. There is no free lunch to be had – in order to get a qualified help, I have to pay. A follow-up question asks me to identify how much an answer to the question is worth to me; the cheapest option is $14. I have to stop for a while to figure out how the site works.

It turns out that the concept is quite simple. I make a good-faith deposit via PayPal to an “escrow” account, get to ask my question and receive assistance from one of the registered experts (nearly a dozen of them are supposedly online, so the answer should really be expected nearly instantaneously). I then have an option to follow-up with additional questions on the same subject. If I am satisfied with the assistance, I can “accept” the answer, which will result in the escrow money being transferred to the expert. If I am not satisfied for any reason, the FAQ says my deposit is fully refundable.

The terms sounds reasonable to me. I obviously do not want to pay up front for something of unproven-to-me quality. On the other hand, $14 do not sound like a tremendous amount of money to part with if I can get a useful advice. Not in a general sense of things, but in comparison with the aforementioned service call fee.

So, I type in the detailed question, mentioning the already performed exhaust pipe check. My question is picked by someone with a nickname of “Dr Appliance” who comes back in literally two minutes with the following advice: It is possible that the blockage exists somewhere within the vent system, so I should try to run a cycle in the dryer with a disconnected exhaust pipe; lint will fly around the laundry room, but if the clothes come out dry, then the problem is isolated, and the service call will be not to the appliance repair but to a chimneys and vents contractor.

As I read the response, a light bulb goes in my head. Dryer vent comes right out on the patio directly from the laundry. I walk outside, and take out the outer grill from the vent. It is completely covered in tightly pressed lint. It takes me sixty seconds to clean it and put it back. In about an hour, as the dryer cycle finishes, the clothes come out of it as dry as they can be.

Something I could have easily figured out myself. But I didn’t. Whoever that Dr Appliance was, he steered me to the correct action. As far as I’m concerned, he earned his fourteen bucks. I “accepted” his response, and officially paid some stranger for an advice. The website allows for “bonuses” to be added on top of the fee, but I didn’t feel like further validating my general ineptitude with extra donations.

I have to say I see future use of this website for myself. Especially since it is not only specializing in appliances. I could get advice on computer programming. Or parenting…

Chronicles, Found On The Web

Umbilical cord fell off.

First trip in the royal carriage around the neighborhood.

Other than that, standard fare: eating, pooping, not letting parents sleep at night.
 

Chronicles

Admit it, all of my one-post-a-week schedule aside, you keep coming back to this blog because you expect pearls of wisdom from me that you cannot get anywhere else.

I’ll give you one: This whole thing called parenthood is awfully hard.

There she is, just a few days old, lying on a blanket and moving both of her feet and arms according to some inner beat that I cannot hear. She eats, she poops, she sleeps. She is quiet most of the time, but starts crying for no apparent reason at random points in time. Is she hungry? No, she just finished eating not long ago. Does she need to be changed? No, I just changed her diapers a few minutes ago and the new one still looks and smells pristine. Is she uncomfortable? Is she in pain? What does she want? I’ll do anything, just tell me what it is that I need to do.

She can’t tell me.

I’ll pick her up, rock her for a while, make silly sounds at her or try to reason with her as if she could understand my words, drive myself crazy for a while without making any visible impact on the little person’s disposition, and then suddenly whatever bothered her is gone and she falls asleep. Or her mother decides that it’s been long enough since the last feeding.

I only lost a few billion of my nerve cells in the meantime.

I don’t do well to the extreme when one of my children is in any sort of physical discomfort. I feel helpless. I hate feeling helpless. Especially when I don’t know what is going on. And she won’t be able to tell me for a while.

Of course, now is one of the easiest parts. Caring for a newborn is, after all, fairly straightforward and has little variation. Wait till she starts walking [tripping, slipping, falling]. I should know, I already have well-developed examples of my own…

When parenthood first happened to me nearly sixteen years ago, I half-jokingly told everybody who asked that I did not feel ready to be a father. I have a nagging suspicion that I did not manage to get ready in the intervening years. Emotionally, at least.

Somebody is awake. Gotta go.

Children & Schooling

My meat-space friends have been aware of the fact that Natasha and I embarked on a serious new project roughly nine months ago. Now it’s time to announce the results.

Emily Sofia Burlak was born in the early morning hours of this fine Wednesday. She weighed in at 7 lbs 1 ounce and measured 20 inches. Both the mother and the child are doing very well.

Here is our perfect little princess.
 

 
Celebrate with us!!

Cheers!

Chronicles

With my continuing meager creative output, I figured I could for once fall back on an almost-forgotten recurring feature. After all, we did decide a couple of months ago to trade in cable movie channels – which, in the States, seem to never have the movies I want to watch on the channels that I happen to have – for a Netflix subscription (especially, seeing how Netflix now streams to Wii – although the selection of movies available for streaming leaves a lot… let me repeat that – a lot!… to be desired).

It would appear that I should have watched more than 17 movies since the beginning of the year, but that’s the whole tally. Usual drive-by impressions are below the fold.

Airport	1970
Alice in Wonderland	2010
Amélie	2001
Body of Lies	2008
Book of Eli	2010
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull	2008
Inglorious Basterds	2009
Iron Man	2008
Nowhere Boy	2009
Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief	2010
Public Enemies	2009
State of Play	2009
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button	2008
The Dark Knight	2008
The Hurt Locker	2009
The Lovely Bones	2010
The Men Who Stare at Goats	2009

Read more…

Books & Movies

After my latest photobook review, in which I proclaimed Adoramapix my new favorite among the several services, the folks at Picaboo, which was my “winner” of an earlier review, got into action. I was contacted by a nice lady from Picaboo, who informed me of some of the new features of the Picaboo X product, including availability of lay-flat book style, which I so happily used at Adoramapix. After a brief email exchange, I elicited an offer of a free tryout book. Obviously, I then had to try and see how the two services compared.

Read more…

Technology & Gadgets

This is the tomato that we have grown in our own back garden. I personally had nothing to do with it, which may explain why Kimmy thought that it was the tastiest tomato she ever had.
 

 
Photography by Kimmy.

Chronicles

Reading up on the details of the McChrystal debacle and its implications to the Afghan war in The Economist, I had an often-recurring thought.

I did not reach the draft age until after the Soviet troops had exited Afghanistan in the 80′s. Despite that, I can count the generation of boys from all corners of the old USSR who served – and died – in Afghanistan during that cursed decade as my generation. It might be because of that that a movie such as 9th Company hits me and people from my generation harder than others.

I emigrated to America and eventually it became embroiled in its own unwinnable conflict in Afghanistan. I cannot that easily identify with American soldiers who are nowadays losing their lives in those same mountain passes, but I cannot help but think that, again, kids from my homeland are getting killed in Afghanistan.

Almost twenty years – that’s half of my life – have been colored by an Afghan war…

On Current Events

More than a week between posts is quickly becoming the norm, rather than exception, for me.

During this last week, I could have written about a number of subjects.

I could continue to opine on the World Cup – disallowed goals, inanity of soccer being the only sport where the referee is both allowed to “interpret” the rules and to avoid any accountability to the public for his bad decisions, unwarranted yellow cards that ruin the games, disappointing performances, maddening leave-it-until-late tendencies of the US team, the domination of South America, the comprehensive dud showing by African teams… But I recognize that most of my audience does not give a rat’s posterior about soccer – and an even-sided analysis would take too much effort to write up, in any case.

I could express my delight at learning that when Russian TV project called “National Treasure” (I once mentioned it here) concluded, the winning song was one that I would most likely call my personal top favorite. I long ago started to think that Russia and I have nothing in common anymore except the ability to converse in the language. Turns out, there is that small little bit where I can say Russia and I see eye-to-eye… But I already posted that song in the past (if you are interested, look for the last video in this post), and I did not want to go into a long rumination on why this song seems to appeal to people of diverging generations and walks of life.

I could reflect on the fact that my eldest child is now of an age where we not only let her travel to foreign destinations for holidays, but we even allow her to get on the plane all by herself (she was picked up immediately upon arrival by the lead of her study program, so in fact, she was only on her own between the time she boarded the plane and exited through the customs on the other end)… But that brings me too close to reflecting on my advancing age, and I am lately becoming a bit too sensitive about it, for reasons I cannot explain.

I could also express how it warms my heart that my children are keen on studying foreign cultures and languages, but I am pretty sure I already discussed that ad nauseam in years past.

I could even profess my envy that Becky is spending two weeks at my favorite place on Earth, but that would border on unseemly.

I could…

But I didn’t.

Doesn’t sound like you missed anything, anyway.

Chronicles