Windows to Russia

Above: Putin Travels Russia...

Oh one thing that I really think you need to think about. Here is a huge difference between Russia and America on safety. I have  told you many times that traveling and walking around Russia is much much safer than doing the same in America…

If you remember that Putin traveled and drove many of the kilometers himself all over Russia. He drove not in a bullet proof armored car but a regular LADA that he was given to test drive. It was nothing special and not altered in anyway for his trip. Putin drove 1300 miles at least that trip and did it in a regular car. The trip was not a secrete that came out after the fact. Contrary it was a trip that was planned and was mediated constantly from beginning to end. We all knew what he did and where he would be the next day and nothing was hidden…

Could you imagine Obama driving 1300 miles across America in a car that was not armored and bullet proof? Much less a car equivalent to a LADA. Or could you imagine Obama driving the car at all? Could you imagine Obama filling the gas tank and paying for the gas himself? Could you imagine Obama on a vacation and we all knew every step of the way what he did and it was in a normal car? Not in America, I cant imagine that happening with the president of America. Maybe in the old days, you know, the wild west days when they traveled by train and talked to the people as they ran for president and such. You know those wild west days that were very unsafe, but it seems to me now that they were safer than the modern age…

Above: Obama Bus to travel America...

In fact Obama travels in the “Beast” most of the time on the ground and also now he has a bus: If the Obama Bus is similar to The Beast, it will have tank-like armor and cutting edge technology. For example, The Beast has 8-inch thick armor-plated sides, special bulletproof glass, and Kevlar-reinforced tires. The tires are mounted on specially designed rims that can continue to drive even if the tires are missing. Like The Beast, the bus is probably airtight, and likely has an advanced fire suppression system, oxygen tanks, and is built to withstand a chemical attack. In case of a medical emergency, bags of Obama’s blood are likely carried on-board just as they are in The Beast.

From what I understand is that they even take the “Beast” along with the bus in case an issue comes up that the bus is disabled…

I have thought about the difference in the two countries and this really makes me wonder what has happened to America. Is it that terrible that we have to guard our president with such means and measures? Is it that bad that we have to guard against chemical attacks and 8inch armor against what? Missiles!

The day that our president can not take a trip across the country with out fearing for his life tells me that something is incorrect and has gone haywire in America. But that is just me and you all know that I am just a blogger who has a screw loose…

Yes Putin has body guards and yes they make sure all is cool before he does certain things. That is normal and expected for the president of any country in the world…

What is not normal is when even the president of a country can not travel as a human and fill his own gas tank. What is not normal is that America is a land where we have to fear so bad that we build vehicles that are like a tank to transport our president around the country to meet his people that he works for…

I see Putin and Medvedev all the time in Russian media and life and they enjoy freedoms just like I do. They drive their own cars when they feel like it and they do not cower behind inches of high tech steel armor at the fear of their own people as they move about Russia…

That should make you think as you bad mouth Russia all the time. Russia is a lot safer than you understand and America is a lot less safe than you know…

I understand that you may not want to get the point that I am making and you want to tell me that apples and oranges are not the same as apples to apples. Well in my mind this is apples to apples and if Putin can traipse around Russia with very little fear, surely Obama could also traipse around America with very little fear! Or can he?

Oh yes! Maybe Russia has a bad area that Putin would not want to go! Maybe the Russia’s North Caucasus region, but Sveta and I have been there and I really think he would do just fine. Admittedly I am not in power in Russia so I am not a target, but it was a fantastic region and the people were simply sweet and wonderful. So it seems that other than a few factions that cause issues, the area is safe…

But with the armored vehicles that our American president has to travel in, to transverse the American countryside, you would think that all of America is like Russia’s North Caucasus region…

Makes you think…

Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia!

PS: I remember that Putin said that the LADA was a great car and he would buy one. In fact he has personally bought a LADA Niva a 4X4…

Vladimir Putin will pay his first foreign visit as Russian President to the Belarus President on May 31, the Kremlin said on Wednesday the may 16th, 2012, followed to a visit to China soon after…

The first visit by a president of a country with as much power as Russia has, is very important to watch and it lays a path for the future of the mainline of the Russian president that has just taken over…

I put a lot of weight in who the president of any country or countries that they visit first, when they take over presidency of that country. A president has two ways to go…

1. They can make the visit a political play and game…

or

2. They can make the visit to a country that matters and needs help…

Belarus is a country that needs that help and connections as they are being strangled and crushed by the West as the West plays games as it always does with certain countries that do not kowtow at their feet…

I have always said that Putin is an inside man and he has little love for the Western world and her antics. While the West does things for political ploy and show 90% of the time, Putin does things because they are needed to be done and he tries to respect the people at the same time…

So Putin shows by his first two country’s to visit by how he is going to run the presidency. Belarus to help and China to grow respect…

Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia!

I remember when I opened my first savings account! It was at a little savings and loan (Remember those?) in a little tiny town and all transactions were done in a little pass book that everything was hand written in. I could deposit a dollar one day and the next day go pull it out to buy candy or a book to read. I remember well  that I put every penny that I could into this account and I remember that I spent it as time went by on things that had importance to me. It all made sense to me as I used that little savings and loan as my piggy bank and every time once a month like clock work they would add my interest, that was just pennies, but was very important to me. Those pennies was my hard stick candy money and back in my days, you could buy at least 10 pieces (sometimes more) of stick candy for a nickle. There was a hundred varieties of stick candy and I remember that root beer (sarsaparilla) was my favorite. I also remember that the ladies who worked in the savings and loan were always the most wonderful people in the world and I felt good by supporting a business in my home town…

Now why am I thinking about the good ole days? Well while drinking that cup of delicious over priced coffee this morning, I was reading about how much debt the world has and how over leveraged the banks are. Debt exceeds world actual money by an ungodly amount and we have literally made a sweet little time bomb that when it explodes the world will never be the same for a long time…

Now lets go back to me as a little kid and his savings and loan book. I was under the assumption that every dollar that I put into my account allowed the bank to loan that dollar back out. So in my head it seemed a fair issue. I put a hundred dollars into my account and the bank has a hundred dollars to loan. The back gets interest on that hundred dollars that they loaned and out of that interest I received my part, for keeping my money in the bank. That all made sense and I accepted this as okay. Other words if a bank has a million dollars in money in deposits then that bank can loan a million dollars and make interest on a million dollars. I know it is simplified, but a kid will look at it that way. I assumed that a bank only loans out no more than it has in deposits and that seemed to me a high risk, because if everyone wanted all their deposits. Then the bank did not have the money to pay back even that million in deposits. That is what I considered as a kid as gambling and that was an adult thing to do…

Now as a kid I mean that I am 7 or 8 years old and opened up my own account at the savings and loan. I also had an account at the local and only main street bank. I worked hard for my money, even at that early age and the fast that I put my extra money in the bank, the less that I would spend. Money burns a hole in your pocket as it sits there…

Now imagine my surprise when I discovered many years later that banks and such leverage their money not just 1 to 1 but as high as: “Many of the big investment banks were leveraged for between 30:1 and 50:1. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were very close to 100:1… <<< Read More”  Now that kind of leverage should make everyone go and yank their money out of a bank right now and do not hesitate. Collapse will happen and it will not be kind at all…

But enough of that, back to being a kid and banks: I considered that a bank leveraging money 1 to 1 was a risk. This is from a 8 year old and the desire to see his money available to him at all times if he needed it, you know for books and candy. If I had known that my money was being loaned out 30 times (Lets say for ease of working with it!) and that my dollar was good for 30 dollars. I would have expanded my horizons way back as a little guy and loaned the money out myself and kept all the interest. Someone as I found out later in life will always borrow money and pay high interest on it. You just have to be able to collect and then the understanding of mafia made its way into my life… 🙂

The greed that I saw in the system as a young kid was not even comprehensible to me as being as bad as it really is and as an adult we are mislead so bad and working so hard that we do not have time to even stop and contemplate what is happening around us. So my thinking’s went on hold for many years as I killed more people in the name of the USA around the world, then you even want to know about and then worked 16 hour days, 7 days a week until I had 6 heart attacks at 45 years old. Then it has not been until years of being in Russia and starting to read again, starting to think again and starting to enjoy freedoms of expressions again, that I realized how bad things really are. How corrupt things are, how non free things are, how terrible things are, how controlled things are and how greed is the center of everything that we do…

So basically for every dollar out there in the world be it dollars or rubles or yen or what ever. It is leveraged. The physical money in the world is far under the owed money in the world. We have created a monster that is incomprehensible to everyone on the plant and that includes the ones who created it and drive it everyday. It is a monster called greed that will take the world down and we will all be starting over from scratch. I have done that several times in my life and it looks like I will do it again and again before I pass away…

So as a kid I could just accept the thought of 1:1 leverage on my deposit, but anything more is just plain wrong and greedy…

Greed sucks and that is what makes the world go around: Greed…

Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia!

The second largest investor in the Nabucco gas pipeline, German energy giant RWE, could withdraw from the project.

The aim of the Nabucco project was deliver Caspian gas to Europe.

Now the German company says that it is going to reassess whether it makes business sense for it to remain involved in the project.

Earlier, a similar decision was announced by Hungarian company MOL.

The skepticism of these two companies is shared by many experts, who add that the less popular Nabucco becomes, the more attractive becomes its alternative suggested by Russia, “The South Stream”.

According to RWE, since the project’s conception, its cost has increased from the original € 8 bln to € 15 bln. However, the project doesn’t even have a proper legal grounding so far. It is assumed that the main suppliers of gas will be Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan – but no contracts with either of these countries have yet been signed.

“Small wonder that RWE doubts the potential benefits this project could derive,” President of the Russian Union of Oil and Gas Producers Gennady Shmal says.

“The very decision to build this pipeline was dictated more by political than by economic considerations,” Mr. Shmal continues. “But the project isn’t even backed by appropriate resources. The hopes of Nabucco’s initiators that Azerbaijan would be prepared to supply its gas to Europe have not come true so far.”

“Another country on which the project’s authors pinned their hopes was Turkmenistan – but the latter doesn’t seem to be eager to take part in it either. Talks between European countries, on one side, and Turkmenistan, on the other, have been going on for a rather long time, but they still haven’t bore fruit. In the meantime, Turkmenistan has built two pipelines to deliver its gas to China, while a third pipeline is currently under construction.”

“Germans have always had a reputation for being pragmatic, and RWE is simply being pragmatic. The company just cannot afford investing in a project of such dubious feasibility. And, even if it is implemented, it will most likely be much less profitable than the Russian South Stream.”

Nabucco was conceived as one of the main components of the so-called European South Gas Corridor. It was intended to make Europe less dependent on Russian gas. However, by the end of 2011, this project already had very few supporters. The Azeri company SOCAR and the Turkish BOTAS still remain Nabucco’s shareholders, but now they plan to build a pipeline of their own. This pipeline will be called TANAP and will deliver Caspian gas to Turkey’s borders with Europe. According to a new decision adopted by the shareholders, this is where the Nabucco pipeline is intended to link up with TANAP, carrying the gas across the border to Europe.

Thus, the Nabucco pipeline has turned from a pan-European project into a local one. This has even become reflected in its name – now it is called “Nabucco West”. Besides, it will now carry smaller amounts of gas than what was initially announced (if this project is ever implemented at all).

Russian analyst Grigory Birg says:

“Initially, it was planned that the pipeline would carry 31 bln cubic meters of gas a year. Now, there are plans to decrease this capacity more than two-fold. Of course, this will change the project’s cost-effectivenes. Now, the construction costs of one kilometer of Nabucco will be nearly the same as one kilometer of The South Stream, while the latter has a greater capacity and could solve Europe’s energy problems for longer than Nabucco.”

“Besides, Turkey, which is also involved in the Nabucco project, has given Russia permission to construct The South Stream across Turkey’s part of the Black Sea.”

“Summing it all up, I’ve come to the conclusion that at present, the Nabucco project has very few chances to be successfully implemented,” Mr. Birg says.

And here is what Russian businessman Grigory Shmal adds:

“I believe we can already say for curtain that the Nabucco project is effectively dead. The project’s shareholders will probably make some attempts to revive it – mainly by using political means. But this would be unlikely to help. Another gas-producing country in the Caspian region is Iran. However, given the West’s current attitude towards Iran, there are few chances that the EU would want to invite Iran into this project or that Iran itself would want to get involved in it.”

As mentioned above, the first European company that publicly expressed doubts about Nabucco’s success was Hungarian energy group MOL. Moreover, the Hungarian authorities have also said that they are interested in joining the Russian South Stream.

Initially, Nabucco was intended as an alternative to the Russian project. Now, there is every reason to believe that Nabucco can no longer be called a serious competitor to The South Stream. Recently, Russia’s new President Vladimir Putin ordered to start the construction of The South Stream as early as this year, ahead of the original schedule. Mr. Putin wants the Russian pipeline to start operating in 2015, not in 2017 as it was initially planned. The initiators of the Nabucco project do not expect their pipeline to come into operation until 2018.

Source: http://english.ruvr.ru/2012_05_16/74920749/

Windows to Russia

Ouch again: Not long ago I posted that Hungary said adios to the Nabucco pipeline! A pipeline that was invented to try to hurt Russia, by a very vindictive cold war Europe! Well guess what? When it rains, it pours…

Germany’s RWE energy company has confirmed a report in Der Spiegel that it is withdrawing from the Nabucco project to pump Caspian natural gas to Europe across Turkey. It cited the doubling of cost estimates to $15bn and the uncertainty over gas supply contracts with Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan.

A few weeks ago, Hungary said it was withdrawing from Nabucco.

The Nabucco pipe was designed as a competitor to Russia’s South Stream.

ITARTASS

Well I decided to sit down and write a coffee thinking’s article today for Windows to Russia! In fact, I was going to even not write at all and ignore Windows to Russia today. But alas that is not going to happen as there just is too much stupidity in the world at this moment and I just have to say something. Even if you hate what I say…

I had to laugh my head off at a photo that is being circulated by the Western press and now is being picked up by the Eastern press. It is a photo that is suppose to be a blast chamber for Nuclear testing by Iran. I saw the photo first and started to read an article because I wanted to see what advances that Iran is making in milk…

Yes you got me correct: The photo is a picture of a milk plant and I have seen the equivalent many times in America. Then I realized that they had a drawing also and then I realized that the photo was wrong (intentionally) and then I realized that nothing was what it seemed. Then I threw my hands in the air and realized that propaganda was at work again and the West has thrown another lie into the wind and hopes it catches in the tree limbs and festers…

Well that may have started my day off wrong as crappy propaganda always starts my day off wrong, but then I discover this little gem of a statement from the Media…

Security at airports in the U.S., Europe and the Middle East has been stepped up amid fears terrorists with surgically implanted bombs are planning to strike on the eve of Osama bin Laden’s death. Body scanners would not be able to detect if explosive compounds were planted inside a person sparking fears the bombers could evade airport security and bring down an aircraft.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2143695/Hunt-doctors-training-Al-Qaeda-plant-explosives-inside-suicide-bombers.html#ixzz1upblDRd8

That statement just iced the cake so to say! Now if that is not propaganda then I do not know what is and this type of scare tactics just removes more freedoms as you travel. Guess what world? Get ready to drop your pants and have them do body cavity searches. The days are numbered until it happens. Why I can’t wait until they try to give everyone a complete MRI of the body every time they fly. Do you realize how stupid all this is? Why if someone desires to blow the hell out of a bunch of people then why would they wait to get on an airliner? They could blow them selves up in the massive line we have created while we get checked for bombs and such. In fact from what I see at most Western airports, is that they have created the perfect situation to instigate a mass killing, if a so called terrorist group decided to mass kill. When you stop the flow of people to check if they are carrying contraband of any type then that is the point of massive backup and possible destruction, be it inside a building or outside a building. I have seen airports use the snake effect as it does in Israel, where the people are weaved back and forth in 5 to 10 rows and we pack like sardines by the hundreds. Someone in the middle of that snake effect is sure to wipe a few people off the earth and we only care about getting on the jet. Who cares about the jet? The Moscow metro bombings are a prime example that jets are not the endangered issues anymore. Anywhere you have a mass gathering of people, be it at a bus stop or grocery store, you have more potential for terrorists activities than in an airliner…

Nuff said about the stupidity of why we are all so scared to travel the world, without accepting the fact that we seem to be stupid enough to want someone to abuse us and molest us before we travel. You stand more danger by the fact that you stand in a massive line, waiting to be molested than if you just get your ass moving and get on board the airline. One day, you watch, big issue will develop because of the lines at all the public transportation areas. Then what are we going to do?

Gotta live life and quit being scared…

Now I have to say something about my favorite country other than Russia! Ukraine is getting a raw deal over this Yulia issue and that is that. Yulia is a conniving thief and that is that also. She should have gone quietly as did the last president and she should have taken her billions that she stole and left dodge. Yulia is a Western kiss ass and she does not deserve special treatment. She had more than a few chances to shut up and live a good life. Why even Russia would have let her come and stay…

Why is it that the West always makes a big deal out of the scum people and politicians of the ex Soviet Union countries? Now Europe condemns Ukraine and threatens Ukraine with lots of games and issues. Now this is from a Europe that is following the footsteps of America and is sinking like the Titanic…

I say ship Yulia to Europe and let her be a posted child for European morals and capriciousness. She would fit right in. Better yet send her to America…

I always think of Rod Blagojevich in America, why isn’t Europe coming to his aid. Telling America that they should do this and this and this. What is the difference people? Nothing and or not a damn thing. Both guilty within the judicial system of the respective country and no other country needs to interfere. This is from someone who thinks Blagojevich was railroaded by the system…

Two last mentions that are in my thinking’s but I am still thinking about them… 🙂

First the Russian Sukhoi Superjet that crashed! Something strange happened in this incident and I am watching closely to see what the black boxes say. As they say, “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark!”

Then about our nice Occupy Kremlin or what ever you want to call it! It is a real party time and way over half the people showing up are sightseers that have nothing else to do. What you see in the photos is far from the norm in Moscow and Russia. These people driving this issue are the outcasts and this game is going on while everyone is having dacha trips and such that is the norm in Russia. Just like we were at the village this last week, so was millions and millions of others as the roads were jam packed with people traveling. What is happening in Moscow as a sit in is a political circus party that represents a tiny fraction of the people. Everyone else is going about everyday life and doing their normal for the president was elected by the majority. Normal people are planting their gardens and working on their dachas. I had to put in the photo of milking the cow at the sit in. Now that sums Russia up in a nutshell…

Raw Milk: Now that is Freedom…

Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia!

Remember a few decades ago when defection from communist countries to the west was common? Those in the west understood why. Of course they’d want to defect, they’d say. They’re all but slaves in the Soviet Union… or Cuba… or China. Pick your communist paradise.

How things change. Now Russia and China are some of the great new bastions of capitalism. Sure, they’ve still got a dictatorial, oppressive government, but so does the US. And now the Fasco-Communist Police State of the US is home to all the worst forms of government all wrapped into one.

And the defections from the US and the rest of the submerging western economies has begun.

Read More: The Great Defection From the West by Jeff Berwick.

It began with all of this: In a packed courtroom including former high flyers in the United Nations, lawyers appointed to defend the Bush regime in their absence face an uphill task.

Abbas Abid a father from Fallujah, appeared in a scarf fearing reprisals. He enacted how US troops subjected him to electric shocks, beatings and sexual abuse over a number of months. High ranking former UN officials here are expressing frustration.

An avalanche of information emerging after the launch of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars has provided the strongest proof yet that America and her ally the UK are involved in practices that their leaders publicly deplore.

Mozzam Begg, British, former Guantanemo Bay detainee, who has received compensation from the British Government, described to a shocked court, how his torment began the moment he was handed over to American troops by the Pakistani authorities.

Meanwhile, Malaysia’s former Prime Minister and founder of the Foundation to Criminalize War remains determined to bring Bush and his cohorts to justice.

There’s pride here too that Tony Blair has already been convicted of war crimes by the tribunal in 2011. If Bush and Cheney are similarly found guilty at the end of this week. The question will arise which us organization will have the nerve and the power to try the same thing.

Now they have actually done it:

In a unanimous vote on Saturday the symbolic Malaysian war crimes tribunal, part of an initiative by former Malaysian premier Mahathir Mohamad, found the former US President guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Seven of his former political associates, including former Vice President Dick Cheney and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, were also found guilty of war crimes and torture.

Press TV has reported the court heard evidence from former detainees in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay of torture methods used by US soldiers in prisons run by the American forces.

One former inmate described how he had been subjected to electric shocks, beatings and sexual abuse over a number of months.

A high ranking former UN official, former UN Assistant Secretary General, Denis Halliday, who also attended the trial, later told Press TV that the UN had been too weak during the Bush administration to enforce the Geneva Conventions.

He said: “The UN is a weak body, corrupted by member states, who use the Security Council for their own interests. They don’t respect the charter. They don’t respect the international law. They don’t respect the Geneva Conventions…A redundant, possibly a dangerous, and certainly corrupted organization.”

Following the hearing, former Malaysian premier Mahatir said of Bush and others: “These are basically murderers and they kill on large scale.”

It was the second so-called war crimes tribunal in Malaysia.

The token court was first held in November 2011 during which Bush and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair were found guilty of committing “crimes against peace” during the Iraq war.

Now will America do what is correct?

Windows to Russia!

Being that we use two types of fuel to travel Russia, it is interesting to me to watch fuel prices and see what we save by using one fuel over the other…

We have had many articles on the virtues of Sammy our Volga! One of the best virtues is dual fuel capacity. Now cheap parts and easy to fix are other very important virtues but the dual fuel issue is the icing on the cake…

When Sveta and I travel we use Propane and or Benzine. This last trip we just made and travel over 1000 kilometers, we paid a low of 13.9 rubles per liter for propane and a low of 23.9 rubles per liter for Benzine. They could be bought more expensive, but really why should you?

Now lets translate these rubles into dollars: 13,90 rubles = .46 dollars and 23.9 rubles is .79 dollars at the rate as of today (5/12/2012). Now lets turn liters into gallons…

1 US gallon = 3.78541178 liters so lets take 3.79 as a good round figure! 3.79 X 13.9 = 52.681 rubles and 3.79 X 23.9 = 90.581 ruble. Now we have 52.68 rubles for propane per gallon and 90.58 rubles per gallon of gasoline. Lets relate that to dollars…

52.68 = $1.74 a gallon for propane in Russia!
90.58 = $3.00 a gallon for gasoline in Russia!

Now lets carry this farther yet. We get 8.5 km per liter on propane. We get 10.2 km per liter on gasoline or benzine. So lets say we traveled 100 kilometers…

100 kilometers takes 11.76 liters on propane! Cost is 163.47 rubles or $5.41 to travel a 100 km…
100 kilometers takes 9.8 liters of gasoline! Cost is 234.22 rubles or $7.75 to travel a 100 km…

Now of course a hundred kilometers is not very far, about 62 miles. So a long trip means we save a bunch of fuel costs as we travel. We traveled over a thousand kilometers this trip and that means that we saved around, $23.40 in total fuel costs by just burning propane. That is a two good meals or a night in a Russian hotel, while you are out traveling, per 1000 km… (Actually in many towns in Russia that would be two nights stay, as we stay in peoples homes many times!)

Now that makes Sveta and I happy with our Volga. She is part of the family and when Boza, Sveta and I are in her, she seems to smile as we travel down the road. Being a station wagon she can hold tons of stuff and we can keep it dry as we travel. I have some plans for her and I am going to beef up the back springs and front springs. I am going to try to get a little more ground clearance to help us with the back roads in Russia. I figure a lift kit for the back leaf springs will do the trick and I just want to find some coil spring spacers for the front. A few inches will do the trick.

This trip I saw something that I really would like to have in Russia, a small travel trailer! It was perfect and would sleep us all as snug as a bug in a rug. Then we could stop and camp anywhere and in Russia you really can stop and camp anywhere. It is that great…

Trailers are very rare in Russia and we have only seen a very few of them, but I know that they are available and I would like to have one to travel Russia with Sveta and Boza…

But that is off the subject and fuel was the name of the game. So we travel Russia on two fuels and that my friend makes for a great time of traveling Russia. Just look in search for propane and or look up Sammy the Volga. That will take you to our articles on propane and Sammy…

Propane Search Link >>>

Sammy the Volga Search Link >>>

Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia!

Oh that goats milk is so wonderful. Goats milk has got to be the best milk on earth and it is really good for you! That is one of the many thinking’s that I was having as I consumed my cup of coffee/chicory this morning…

Oh the pictures above: First: That is our car that we travel all those wonderful kilometers of beautiful byways in. It is a true Russian Volga made in 1999 and it has propane/benzine duel fuel setup, which allows us to travel cheaply wherever we go. Second: That is my sweetie and she is giving me one of those huge Russian smiles that is reserved for someone you love. I am a lucky guy! Third: The village house, so beautiful. Forth: The lilacs are in full bloom and the yard smell heavenly day and night. Just had to watch out for the bees, bees, bees, bees and did I say bees? 🙂

I fell down on my job this trip and did not get done what I needed to get done. As I put in the post that I did while in the village, I burned myself and burned myself badly. I poured hot oil on my belly and I mean hot. Serious burns are nothing to laugh at. All the years that I worked in kitchens and no accidents, I end up severely burning myself for the first time. I mean that I did a number on myself and I burned my leg also. If I was not suppose to be tough and a man, I would have cried crocodile tears, because it really hurt…

Most likely I should have gone to the hospital, but I am stubborn and don’t like hospitals that much. So I self medicated and my sweetie helped. Hydrogen peroxide and antibiotic cream is the answer. Ouch…

So I am gonna quit kicking myself and get ready for the next village trip. I have to get a post hole digger and set a bunch of fence posts along the back of the yard. I would say 20 posts will do what is needed and finish fencing the yard. The fence that we put up last year is in great shape and held the goats back from destroying our yard. Yippy… (Goats in a Russian village is a normal issue as are cows…)

But everyone likes to give us goats milk as a peace offering when we come down to the village. 1. They know I love the milk and 2. They try to pay off the damage done by their goats to our fence. So since I love goats milk, I can be bought off pretty easily by that…

As I take a sip of coffee and think about, down in the village where I drank just coffee and goats milk. That brings a smile to my face almost as big as my sweetie can smile, when she smiles at me in the morning… 🙂

Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia!