Monday, May 4, 2009

Выходные

Sleepy Shublya greets us every time we get home.

Выходные у нас прошло очень хорошо, по-семейному. В субботу Данины родители пригласили в гости знакомых (две пары), с которыми когда-то познакомились во время тура по Латинской Америке, а в воскресенье в гости приходил Арсен с подругой, мамой и сыном. Посидели хорошо и в субботу, и в воскресенье.

Знакомые Даниных родителей оказались очень приятными людьми со здоровым чувством юмора — мне было интерсно в их компании. Арсена я видела уже не первый раз, и пообщаться было тоже интерестно. Мы взяли с собой в гости Шублика — жалко было оставлять малявку одну дома — и, к нашему удивлению, мы увидели как наш кот шипит. Сначала он с интересом зашёл в квартиру и начал всё обнюхивать. Потом, когда он увидел Рысю, ситуация резко изменилась — шерсть на Шублике встала дыбом, он изогнулся, наклонился к полу под странным углом, и начал шипеть и рычать. Рыся тоже на него зашипела. Вобщем, Рысю он пока боиться, и старается держаться от неё подальше. В субботу он побыл в гостях всего час.

В воскресенье он побыл в гостях часов 6, и за это время успел нашипеть на всех гостей и членов семьи (за исключением нас, конечно). Думаю, стресс и страх послужили причиной такому поведению. Большую часть трапезы Шублик пролежал в столе; часть времени он провёл у меня на коленях. Мы угостили Шублика тушёным мясом, которое он заглотил с завидной скоростью (так же в ход пошла картошка).

Вообще мне всегда очень нравится общаться с Даниными родителями. Семья — это семья! Эх, жалко что Люда и мама так далеко…

In: Life In General Tags: Family, Shublik, weekend
Time: 00:23 Comments: 6 Comments Post a Comment

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Nasal Irrigation

A little less than a month ago I read an article in NY Times on the topic of so called nasal irrigation. The article stated the following:

Studies suggest that nasal irrigation can reduce sinus and allergy symptoms.

Oh, really?

Since I’ve been suffering from running/stuffed nose for over 4 weeks by that time and already had a nice Neti Pot presented to me by Maruks a number of years ago (which I never used before to be honest) — I had really nothing to lose, but everything to gain from testing out nasal irrigation.

I washed my nose with the saline solution twice a day for about 10 days. After just 2 days I felt a definite improvement, and in about a week I was as good as new. Here is a pretty good demonstration video of this procedure.

So… Yeah, really!

In: Life In General Tags: article, nasal, neti pot
Time: 20:46 Comments: 2 Comments Post a Comment

Saturday, May 9, 2009

Star Trek

Last night we went to see Star Trek, which premiered in the theaters the day before (May 7th). We picked a small movie theater on Staten Island in hopes that it will be less crowded than the one close to our house. After a light dinner in Chinese buffet, we entered a theater 1 hour before the show. Theater personnel looked funnily at us and suggested to come 35 minutes later, reassuring us that we will be able to pick any seat in the house. And right they were. We were the first people who showed up for the screening. To our relief around 30 more people showed up later on. I really hope that this movie will do great and collect lots and lots of money, because this would stimulate the production of new Star Treks!

I REALLY enjoyed the movie. I think it is very well done, and both trekkies and people not familiar with the whole Star Trek Universe would like it. I think that the cast was excellent, the plot was interesting, and there was a lot of humor involved.

This Star Trek is the second star trek movie produced since Danya and I met each other. I remember that on our 7th date we went to watch Star Trek: Nemesis in some Manhattan movie theater. To be honest, I was not particularly impressed with the movie, since the ingredient of familiarity was missing. Little did I know that star trek will become part of my life! Danya and I watched all the TV shows that were produced, excluding thought the original series (we tried watching those, but could not endure more than a couple of episodes). It would be so awesome if this Star Trek movie grows into a TV show!

In: Life In General Tags: movie, Star Trek
Time: 13:59 Comments: 2 Comments Post a Comment

«Star Trek»

After watching the newest Star Trek movie this Trekkie is very happy. Everything was great — character development, acting, special effects, story and humor. J.J. Abrams took it into a new direction without ruining or destroying what was or will be. I would love to see this turn into a series with the same cast. (3)

Sunday, May 10, 2009

Manti

Yesterday mama agreed to make manti again. Usually Linka helps her out with making them, but she was gone this weekend. So in order to make this happen Alena and I helped. Mama was making the dough, Alena was loading it with meat and I am proud to say that I made all of them, but 1 — around 70 pieces.

My favorite meal of all time — manti (манты).

Because I took such an important part in the process they came out especially good yesterday. Manti probably still is my favorite meal.

Shublik meets Rysya. Major hissing ensues.

Also we took Shublik with us yesterday again. They got really close to each other with Rysya at one point and then had a starring and hissing competition for quite a while. It seems that Shublik has won since Rysya left first. Doesn’t seem like they want to be friends.

In: Food & Dining, Life In General Tags: manti, Shublik
Time: 13:08 Comments: 2 Comments Post a Comment

«X-Men Origins: Wolverine»

What a disappointment of a movie. I’m going to think twice before going to see the next X-Men movie and you should skip this one if you have a chance. Very simplistic linear plot with absolutely nothing to save the movie on top of it. (4)

I don’t know about you, but my morning usually starts with futile attempts to keep Shublik off my face while he is in his purring fury. Some people say that cats are mostly concerned with food in the morning. This is SO not true! Today Shublik did not even touch his food before I dedicated 10 minutes of my time petting him and telling him what a cute and funny creature he is.

What does your morning start with? 9

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Home Infrastructure Updates

Office desk — Windows XP, Mac OS X 10.5, Ubuntu 9.04.

I haven’t done anything with our home network infrastructure in quite some time. Yesterday I decided to improve and utilize some of the resources.

Namely I updated our Linksys WRT54G router with new 3rd party firmware — Tomato to be exact. A vast improvement over the factory firmware — support for static DHCP, automatics dynamic DNS updates are among the new things.

I also installed Ubuntu 9.04 onto our old WoW box that hasn’t been turned on in over a year. Nice to finally have a local Linux box again after all these years.

I also plan to do something about internet line redundancy in a near future and setup some security equipment around the house, but I’m guessing I will not going be posting about that.

In: Software Tags: Linux, router, Ubuntu
Time: 18:24 Comments: 2 Comments Post a Comment

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Дама с Собачкой

Shublya with his favorite set of feathers.

А я люблю прогуляться по квартире со своей собачкой. Такой маленькой, ушастой, зубастой, рыжей и пушистой собачкой.

Shublya walking around the apartment with Alena.

Кто кого выгуливает — это, конечно, вопрос спорный…

In: Life In General Tags: kitten, Shublik
Time: 19:26 Comments: 2 Comments Post a Comment

I want to apologize for our current pace of updates. It’s just that nothing is happening except for the daily routine and minor upsets, such as us getting sick with flu among other things. Hopefully things will change for the better in the near future. 0