Year: 2014

Internet has been a interesting concept in the Russian Village, we have tried just literally every way to get connection and in the last few years we had 2G and it worked extremely slow but steady. Then Sveta found a coverage map for our area and we came upon the realization that 3G was about 100 meters down the hill from us and when they say, “The dark green area is 3G and it ends at the lake edge!” Then they are serious, it ended at the lake edge and 2G extended all the way into the deep dark woods behind us, for kilometers…

What to do? How to go from a snails crawl to a Jackalopes stride? Answer…

A Yagi external antennae and mount it on the outside of the building as high as you can reach, aim it at the local cell tower (somewhere in Siberia) and couple it to a internal mobile modem inside the home, with shielded low loss coaxial data cable and walla walla bing bang; steady three bar 3G Jackalope internet. For the less adventurous and idiots like me, just buy a special kit with everything included from the cell providers office…

Disclaimer; This is not in anyway a guarantee that it will work in another situation and in any location on earth. This is only tested by me and I can attest to the fact that it is able to pull a signal from as far away as Siberia, Russia (6000 to 7000 non-verified kilometers) to my cabin in the little village called Sunrise to Freedom. So your mileage may vary and in fact you may get no mileage at all as it is designed in a country that uses the metric system and kilometers would most likely be the best way to look at mileage…

Now a good question was, “How did you realize, that that you could do this simple act of magic to bring a signal in and have Siberian cell signal available?” And another good question is, “How did you aim the direction Yagi to such perfection?”

Simple, I studied the Cell Phone Payphone that they (government of Russia) installed in all the villages and they use a Yagi in our village to help the phone get reception. Then as the years went by I noticed that in the big villages, with good cell phone reception, they did not have these Yagi magic devices attached to the payphones. Then in a moment of clarity; It struck me that we can use an antennae also. For the payphone is 200 meters from the line of sudden cell phone death…

Then I looked at the payphone and determined the direction that they pointed the signal gathering device and when I realized it was approximately pointing at the planet Venus in the sky, I then had my coordinates and therefore, a signal to have internet with…

(I also had to try various positions until I found a happy spot and I found that spot after about 45 mosquitoes had drained my blood!)

It worked and for almost two days we have been playing with high speed internet and last night Sveta was a happy camper as she was able to get to her English learners and approve their applications…

I had just temporarily install the device to see if it would work and told Sveta, “I need to move it and we can make it better!” The look of horror on Sveta’s face, gave me the answer, she is happy and if I move it, she may be unhappy, for it works and works good enough to make my Sweetie very happy…

Now isn’t that what life is really about, “A Happy Sweetie!”

Post by Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia…

Last night I did my laundry and hung it up to dry. This morning, early, I am scrambling to gather that still slightly wet laundry and get it inside, the rain is pouring and my almost dry laundry is getting soaked. That is the state of affairs in my part of the world, how is yours…

Once again Sveta is the sleepy bug and Boza who is always following me (normally) like a little lost puppy, stays put under her side of the bed, until she gets up for the day. I find that interesting, that Boza changes his habits when Sveta is around…

When it is just him and I, if I get up at 5 am he will get up and be ready to chase the world. If Sveta comes into town, he ignores me, as I get up at 5 am. Oh he does not ignore me as per say, he just simply waits until Sveta wakes from her sleep of the dead, he watches me from his den under the bed and looks at me like I am crazy or something. I always wonder why I do not get that look, when she is gone?

Man’s best friend? I would say Woman’s best friend and fallback to man…

Therefore I sit sipping a coffee and writing this post after I scanned some news items and other tidbits of sad interesting information, items of happenings all over the world. One thing stood out to me and one thing told me the state of affairs in the USA…

Bodyguard™ blanket was specifically designed for two functions: (Link)
(1.) …as a bullet resistant body cover to protect against school incursions, and the weapons assailants commonly use.
(2.) …as a protective body cover to be used during tornadoes and damaging weather.

The link presented above is actually scary and if you stop to study the website, you should be worried about the state of affairs in the USA. Alarm bells that should wake people up from their slumber all over America. The simple fact that we would even have to conceive the idea that we need something to protect our children in a school against murderers, with guns, is beyond any comprehension on my part. If this is the case, then we are truly a lost society in the great US of A…

Band aids are not able to fix situations like above, what does fix the above is to get the moral structure back on track and quit allowing what we know is really wrong to rule from the sidelines of life…

In America a land where once I could carry a rifle in the back window of my pickup anywhere I would drive, big city or not, has become a country that feels it needs to have bullet proof blankets, backpacks, clothes and yes I have seen them; bullet proof book covers, to protect the children in school…

I see something; I see a world that as technology advances, society regresses and becomes morbid, sick and very strange. This has happened before in the history of the world and it is nothing new, so don’t worry, it will all start over again, when it reaches the crescendo…

Hence, I find that worrying about my laundry is what life is suppose to be about, but worrying about whether your kid(s) is (are) safe in school is what we have created life to be about, through our own repercussions of our lackadaisically attitudes, as we live our lives…

To be honest with you; The “Seven Deadly Sins” do matter, for those sins cover all the sins you can imagine, then some to boot…

Post by Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia…

We needed it, the plants needed it, the animals needed it, the dirt needed it and life needed it. What was so important? Rain, that is what we needed and yesterday we got it! Rain and rain and rain. Inches of beautiful ground watering, rain…

Before the rain came rolling in, in the form of a thunderstorm, it got hot and muggy. Sveta and I had just come back from town and while we drove, Sveta felt rain. I looked and the sky was almost cloudless as I realized that the humidity was screaming upwards from what had been the only saving grace at 25% or so. It was now approaching 100% and moisture was dropping out of the sky as it went upwards. This made a period of time of what I call, misery and it got bad for a very long time. Then in the distance, the rumbles of thunder wafted across the valley…

The clouds were so far away, that I just knew that they would pass us by, as they have done many times on this hillside. Then they billowed and grew as fast as you could just stare and watch. For if you looked away, they had tripled in size in a blink. With them came, “The rain…”

It clashed, it banged, it rumbled, it flashed, it shook, it blew, it broke things and it vibrated, but the most of all, it rained and rained and rained…

It filled our buckets, it filled the rivers, it filled the ponds and most of all it filled the earth around us. The animals can drink, the plants rejoiced and we found relief in the heat, as the rain passed through…

I laid down on the bed, as the rain fell and bounced off the tin roof of the village home across the road. It is a new roof and is metal, for most are not and they do not sound the same in the rain. Sveta laid down next to me and Boza was hiding under the bed. Then as the coolness and the sounds entered as pleasant thinking’s, we fell asleep…

So as I sit here this morning and still reap the benefits of yesterdays rain, I checked the next 10 days forecast and it will be much cooler, with chance of rain everyday…

When I was little, my grandfather taught me a different saying…

Rain, Rain, Come and Stay; For I will play another day…

Going to be a good day and I plan on BBQ’ing today…

Post by Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia…

It was, that now shan’t!

That sums up an America that had the sparrow by its tail and instead of doing good, it produced nothing but resentment for its very existence on this planet…

The coffee is really good this morning and as Sveta sleeps and dreams her village dreams, I sip a cup of coffee and write my thinking’s, this wonderful morning in the Russian village…

We do indeed live in a strange world. I look around me and see people that just want to survive and just want to get along. I see people all over the world that just need enough to fill their belly everyday and they ask for no more. The new joke on the block is, “Oh hey did you hear that America gave “Egypt” (Insert country of your choice in quotations) 4 billion dollars?” Answer, “Yes, but China had to cosign on the loan and the Statue of Liberty was given as collateral!”

What is now laughed at by a huge percent of the world, should be a very “No laughing matter!” by Americans…

It is no “conspiracy theory” when literally all things bad happening in the world lead directly back to the shores of the North American continent. It is no trite fullness when the populace of the world looks askance at the intermingling of a devious U.S. in world affairs, that are none of its business. What is even more awry is the basic fact that Americans show the world their, “Duh! What? Who? (shrug shoulders about now)” face, over news that the whole situation in Ukraine was started by the USA and that it is even compounded deeper and sadder, when you realize that Iraq, Libya, Syria, Vietnam and many others are just simulates, repeated and failed manifestations of a deluded administration of a overwrought country of hasbeens…

Therefore, it is no fault but of its (US) own accord, when a country (Russia) that in the past is so blinded against Americans shenanigans,  from the gold and star dust in her eyes , that she even turns on America and looks away!

I have watched it first hand and believe me, if Russia does not trust America anymore, then there is no one left in the world to trust America and the paid lackeys, such as Britain, do not count…

I have watched as the U.S. has destroyed the relationship with Russia, a relationship that survived the horrors of a U.S. intervention in the past with Yeltsin and Gorbachov. A relationship that has always been one of wow and well wished on the Russian side. I have watched that relationship crumble and become a serious issue that did not need anyone on the Russian side to instigate. For Russia just had to stop ignoring the truth about America and that was the extra rope that has helped hang America in Russian eyes…

The rose colored glasses just fell off and broke…

Post by Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia…

This morning I got up at 4:30 am and it was so wonderfully cool and refreshing. The inside of the village home was still warm and stuffy and Boza plus I, decided a walk was in order, then get water from the well, then eat and then I stared at the clock that I have tried to fix three times before. I decided to try one more time, the forth time is not normally known as the charm, but I tried anyway…

I am on my third cup of coffee and for two hours now, I have been listening to the tick / tock of a weight driven clock from the Soviet Era…

I will not celebrate yet, for things have a tendency to stop after I praise myself for a good job done, so I do not bestow praise, I bestow the opposite. I predict that the clock will fall from the wall and smash into a thousand pieces. Then as I cry crocodile tears over the lose of a wonderful treasure as you see in the photo, I will realize that I should never attempt to repair anything again. So break a leg clock…

Now that should cover the attempt by the spiritual gremlins to ruin my early morning work. So far it is working, for the clock is ticking away and keeping great time by the way…

It was not easy to get back together and since I did not have any parts left over, I figure something had to go right…

I know that the reason it stopped working, was because it was dropped many years ago, since then it has hung on the wall and simply looked pretty or at least as pretty as a clock with a strange design of a face and a bushy curled haired girl on the swing arm…

It is going to another hot day and tomorrow will be hot also. Then according to the weather forecast, all next week will be ten degrees cooler everyday and hopefully rain at some point in the week. I do not hope for too much, so if the cooler weather will happen, then I will carry water and feed the plants myself…

Also Sveta is coming today or I should say tonight at 9:30 pm. That means that this will be a wonderful day, for my sweetie will be here tonight for about a week…

Break a leg clock…

Post by Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia…

Actually I heard it in her voice and suspected it, but it still is a pleasant surprise when Sveta said that she had to change her plans due to the upcoming holiday (Russia Day) and she had to either come early or late and since coming later than like after the holidays, would not be an option for her, nor I. She chose early and worked it out to come this Saturday, like in tomorrow, to show up and stay about a week at the village…

Therefore yesterday I received several items of tidbit; One – was that Sveta would show up this Saturday Night and Two – was that Sveta’s son Misha is getting married to his girlfriend. So then there is a wedding coming up and it should be a doozy, for the girls mom is into this, getting her daughter married thingy. Married before she is a spinster thingy. Her mom is also into this thing called, “Grandchildren!” Like not as in singular, but as in multiples…

I already had predicted the marriage situation and I will also go on record that soon the announcement of a bouncing baby will be forthwith. I can see Sveta’s face as she reads this part and she is thinking that she will be a babushka… 🙂 hee hee

My advice to Misha, “Run Misha! Run! Run while you can!” But I know it is too late and he already has that deer in the head lights look…

I am glad that the train was filled for the day she wanted to come and glad that the train was filled for all the days around that particular day and I am very glad that she will come much earlier. The holidays in Russia starts the 12th of June and since people travel by trains in Russia more than by cars, the trains are full up for the holiday times…

Oh me – oh my! If I could have been able to get a photo in the dark, I would have last night. The lake area and fields around it where full of millions of fireflies. I was stunned and it was simply incredible. It was like waves of flashing lights and many times they seemed to be in a form of orchestral. The lights would flash from one side of the lake to the other, as if they flashed to a song only they could hear. Then I heard music and maybe that was their motivation, the sound of a million frogs wafted up to me and it seemed that for awhile, that nature was conducting music on a grand scale…

Nature and the earth really are splendid and we do need to stop and smell the roses more than one time a year…

Photo above is a Windows to Russia, just look deeply…

Post by Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia…

That is what I will attempt today, the title tells it all. Yesterday I over did it and now I am paying big time for all that I did yesterday. It got too hot and I was stupid, as I worked until the heat almost brought me down. It snuck up on me and before I knew it, I was pretty sick and had to lay down. It scared me a little bit and that is sometimes necessary, for having had six heart attacks is enough reason to be careful. I guess I need reminders once in awhile, for I seem to be too stupid and ignoring of the signs. I am use to Sveta being around and telling me to slow down and such…

Therefore, I have four mouse holes to fill and keep the little darlings from having freeway access to the village home. Then when that is done, I am going to write thru the heat today, on one of my books. I have taken a break from all the writing and it is time to get back to what I was doing and finish at least one book…

I have other things that are just part of a normal day, but I will take it easy today, for I got seriously sick yesterday…

On another note; I took around 500 pictures yesterday and I realized that for years I have been taking images of this village. I have about 5000 to 6000 images of this place. I am sure that I have the largest archive of images of this village on earth and they show huge changes as time has gone by. Even as short of a time as it is…

I was going to take more pictures today, but I will rest. I hope the monks rest also, for there was two monks, who spent all day, weed eating the monastery grounds. Through the heat and all, they had on their monk robes, a monk hat and they have beards. I know they had to be hot…

Another thought is the picture below. It is the new electric meter that was installed on the bell tower a few days ago. I find it interesting to see a new fangled device stuck on such an old structure. By the way this structure (bell tower) was built in 1910. A few years after the church was finished around 1907…

The picture at the top of the post, is a photo of the last section of the original wall that surrounded the monastery in the old days and I wish they would rebuild that wall. This original wall had to have been at least a kilometer long and a meter thick. Now that would take a lot of bricks…

Post by Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia…

A Bergdahl is another distraction, another disassociation, another attempt to install blinders by media, another dissuasion, another lie, another game, another coverup, another drum beating, another Snowden syndrome, another gay pride, another false flag, another dance, another yelling match, another pointing fingers, another beat your chest, another trial by media, another impeachable offense, another immigration and global warming issue and most of all it is simple a sign of a very very sick country called USA…

The one thing for sure, positively for sure is that, a Bergdahl is nothing but a lie and a cover up for the real truth and that truth is happening as we stare weary eyed at the onslaught of one crises after another, crossing the news like a ticker tape on the stock market. It is more than chaos, it is intentional self-destruction of the truth, so that the crap that runs our country can get richer and gain more power…

It really is that simple…

Post by Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia…

The photo above was taken at 4 am this morning. No flash, I just love peonies…

Last night at 11:30 pm, I could have read a book outside still. It was dim but not black dark. The stars were showing, the moon is gone and the sky is light all night long in the distance. So light in fact that it turns our night into a permanent dusk or dawn at night. I got up at 3 am this morning and went out to water the blackcurrant, so that we will have plenty of good fruit to eat and it was just as light out, in fact more light out at 3 am, than 11 pm…

This is what I am thinking as I sip a cup of coffee this morning and ignore the stupidity called the western world. Sorry but the report that I read about “The Russian Aggression Act!”

http://beta.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/senate-bill/2277

It makes by blood boil and reaffirms my thinking’s about how stupid our government is. How terrible of a system that we have in place to run America and it reaffirms the fact that I know we need to install a new governmental system after kicking out the old to the garbage dump. This includes from president on down, for they all stink to high heaven and in the past these scoundrels would be tar and feathered…

Okay, enough of that and back to good thoughts; I do know that the days are getting longer and that the sun comes up before 5 am and it sets after 10 pm everyday. The days are definitely getting longer and I am going to study about how long they will get. I know that we at least have nights and the farther North you go, you lose even those nights and become eternal days, just as in the Winter, we have eternal nights. Pretty cool if you ask me…

I know that toward the end of June is the longest day of the year. At that point I suspect that we will be able to read a book at midnight and most likely all night for that fact. We will see, for I will most likely be here watching the sky… 🙂

My system has adjusted to only three to four hours of sleep at night due to no darkness and I sleep now three to four hours, when the heat is at it worse. It is what many around here do and it just makes sense. As Sveta says, “Do like the Spanish do! Siesta in the daytime…”

Moscow is easier to block out the real world, because here you live right smack in the middle of nature and it is the world and nothing but the world. 🙂 I just get overwhelmed in Moscow by the sheer humanity and here there is virtually no humanity to deal with…

What a wonderful place the Russian village is…

Post by Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia…

I am not writing much today. Busy day in the village, I will check on the thirty cars that have gone into the monastery and see what they are up to. I have a trip to make into the big village today is pizza day at the magazine (store) and I do not want to miss that. 🙂 I have a table to build and another corner of the room to tear apart and clean. I know it will be hot today and Boza and I have several walks to make to see the countryside and take pictures…

Big Fat Fly is on the window again this morning and since I do not try to kill him, it stays at one fly in the room at all times. Strange, kill it and a new one comes, but leave him alone and it stays at one fly. A Coo Coo Bird is outside the window today and he is singing his Coo Coo song like crazy. Normally they do not come this close, but I guess that I am becoming a normal character around here and the Coo Coo knows that. The Coo Coos are thick as thieves around here and they sing early morning and late at night. Never in between…

Well I better get going, more cars are coming and now strangers are filling buckets of water from our well, that they are carrying with them, as they walk up the hill and that water is our life blood. Sometimes we do not get a refill on water for days. I worry that the sign on the highway talks of a Holy Water Well, and I wonder if the people think that our well is the Holy Water? Yup…

The only thing holy about our well water is the fact that many frogs live in it and you wonder why I am a Grouchy Bear at times…

Have a nice day and I will talk to everyone later…

Post by Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia…