Windows to Russia

When I first came to Russia I was leery of a dessert in that was not cooked. It is called the “potato!”  The potato is found in most stores that sell food in Moscow and or in the refrigerator of a babushka. Just look for the tortes section and or get to know a babushka and you will find the potato and eclairs that will make your taste buds dance…

After finding out what was in the dessert I realized that it lacked any ingredients that would make it a problem if not cooked. So I created my own recipe and I removed the cognac or brandy that most other recipes call for because I really dislike the taste of the potato when it is included…

Russian dessert cake called “Potato“.  Adding any nuts and raisin will make “The Potato” taste even better. These cakes are usually rolled in breadcrumbs but many times not rolled in anything at all. The result is amazing. You will surely appreciate the taste and flavor of these cakes…

Ingredients for Russian Potato:

* 1 1/4 lbs (600 g) Use any cookie, for that matter, even chocolate chips cookies work. Butter cookies are great. Just use a cheap store bought cookie and make life easier…
* 3 tablespoons cocoa
* 50 grams raisins (or dried prunes)
* 100 grams almond (or other nut)
* 1/2 cup (150 g) butter
* 1 can condensed milk

Cooking Instructions:

1. Grind cookies, raisins and almond nuts using a meat grinder, crush in a food processor or chop in a blender…

2. In a large bowl mix and combine butter, cocoa and condensed milk…

3. Then add ground up mixture of nuts, cookies and raisins. Mix everything well. It will produce a very thick almost clay like substance. That is exactly what you want…

4. Form little bars then you may or may not roll them in crumbled bread. I do not. I do sometimes roll them in more of the ground shortening cookies though and even in cinnamon…

5. Place in a fridge for half an hour and then serve. If stored for over night cover loosely in the fridge…

Yummy!

Post by Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia…

PS: Yes you may add cognac or brandy to enhance these for your taste. A shot will do it, but maybe you need to add an extra cookie of two… 😉

These are very rich and perfect with a cup of hot tea and or coffee…

Yesterday, I was thinking to myself, “Self, I have eaten all the fruit and berries in the yard!”

Then an hour later, across the road, Nikolai comes with a huge bowl of fresh ripe yellow plums. The purple plums did not produce this year, but the yellow plums, which did not produce last year, are abundant…

I guess he heard me thinking about buying fruit and said to himself, “Self, we can not have him do that!” and over he came… 😉

Now that is a friend and, “Oh My!” They are good…

* * * * * * * * * *

Then this morning Boza and I woke up to this…

This is at 4:30 a.m. and I just love it when the valley looks like this in the morning, for Boza and I like to walk into the fog. Who knows what evil lurks in such a fog… 🙂

Have a nice day…

Post by Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia…

Half of yesterday and all night, plus still trying to gather all the comments associated with Windows to Russia this morning. Over the many years that I have been blogging, WTR has had close to half a million plus comments. Most were lost during several DDoS attacks several years ago, staged by the land of the free and home of the brave. I made and filed official complaints and word came back to me years ago, “Tough @#$%!”

So I made myself learn how to counteract such attacks by the powers to be…

Thus when this last attack happened, I only lost a small percent of my data and in fact I may have reincorporated some new data back into the system. Last look at the poor gatherer of past comments, has netted me 31, 256 comments back online in the database. Now while that is a far cry from the 500,000 plus missing comments, that is a far cry better than 5000 comments that I had built up since the first of 2015. You see, over the years I have used various 3rd party comment systems and today at this moment, I am importing comments from everything I ever used. Therefore, while still a drop in the bucket, it is at least wetting the bucket bottom now…

WTR lives under a continual attack. The second I think everything is cool and they do not care anymore. Boom, WTR is smacked around, just to show that the USA government still loves me and wants me to feel that love…

So every time I read about how Russia hacked this and China attacked that on the cyber world of lies. I have to chuckle to myself and think about the hundred times that my government has tried to shut down WTR. From Blogger Blogspot and being banned, from lawsuits against certain posts and even having my American based hosting shut me down. I have learned and accepted the crap, because no one cares and no one will do anything about it…

You can think what you want, but there is a reason that they try relentlessly to shut WTR down. I know more than you accept and understand and what I talk about is hard hitting against the American way of control and submission…

If I post how wonderful Russia is I am attacked, for the fact that an American is living in a Russian Village and is happy, able to embrace the natives, goes against all the hate coming from the US government about Russia. If I tell the truth about America and tell you from what I know, then I am a terrorist and my site has to be attacked. For when someone who has seen what I have seen and done what I did for the land of the free and the home of the killers. They dislike that even more than talking good about Russia…

It would not matter what I talk about and what country I favored, They do not want me writing, for what I write is what I see and what I experience and what I have experienced. They do not like it for I am not controlled and not confined, as I bought my way out of America many years ago. That cost me an arm and a leg, to speak furtively, but truthfully, I would have given an arm and leg to get out of that prison country…

Does anyone stop and think why they attack WTR?

Maybe I am saying something that is just plain truth!

I say things like, “The world is a wonderful place, it is full of caring and beautiful people. These people just want to live and let live, but many and I mean hundreds of millions of these caring people are threatened with their lives everyday, by a country that spouts democracy, freedom and liberty as its calling insignia. We Americans/Westerns, be us from Canada, USA, Australia, Britain and a dozen other countries, are indifferent to the death and destruction that we support, either by our inaction or lack of empathy toward our fellow citizens on this planet. There is enough resources for everyone on this planet to live comfortable and healthily, but a we sit in our ivory towers and look out over the vast empire of death, sprawling like an octopus encompassing the globe. We eat our croissant and drink our Starbucks and express our wishes for the next conquest, be it terrorism, war on drugs, brown people, black people and our evil empires; such as Russia and China. Yet, all that we (west) expound on against the world, is nothing but a coverup for our own indiscretions against the planet we call Earth…” – kKEETON at WTR…

Want to hear something that makes no sense?

I will be attacked for stating the obvious to the world, but it is not obvious to Americans. I use to do it also, “They hate us for our freedoms! We are number ONE! Rock on Democracy! Make the world a better place!”

No! Sorry, they hate us because we try to steal their freedoms, liberties and democracies and replace them with a canned version of the USA, in a store bought dictatorship from Washington, DC…

Just look at Ukraine!

Post by Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia…

Comments came under a huge attack from a site based in Washington DC!

Cool, because it gave me an excuse to shut down the old and install a third party system and now it is on automatic. I have much better things to do than to spend hours trying to hold off attacks by zealous USA governmental issues…

I saved almost 5000 comments and they are importing into the new system as I wrote this…

Have a nice day…

Post by Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia…

I talked about how Sveta a month or more ago, wanted to learn to ride horses. Well she found a place nearby our home in Moscow and she rode for the first time since a little girl on a horse. She loves horses and I see a future in the village of raising and breeding horses…

I encourage Sveta to do anything and everything she desires…

Yes that is my girl on that huge horse and she is one happy girl…

Post by Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia…

About a week ago, Vova went on a date! With a woman! Yes an actual date…

It was set up by his friends and family. Vova had no idea they were doing such a thing, but I saw it coming and Vova was invited into a bigger village, where some of his family lives and since he thought that he was going to drink and party with family, he took the bus. Remember do not drink and drive…

I found Vova the next morning as I was going to the Big Village to do some shopping, staggering up the hill to his home. He was drunk, but happy…

So happy that he tried to tell me what happened, but he was slurring his words too much from being inebriated. But I got the jest and Vova was in love. Now I will not explain all that he said, but lets just say, she likes to kiss and he is happy with her curves and she is rich…

I let him go home to sleep it off and later after he sobered up, he came down and we sat and talked. Or I should say, Vova talked and I listened. An hour later he went home to sleep some more, but he had to tell someone about his girl and that he did many times and I was so happy to listen to him and see the smiles on his face…

With my poor command of the Russian language, everyone including Sveta sometimes wonder how I am able to communicate with Vova (Vova has a rough form of Russian to understand. Deep and guttural at times!) I told Sveta what was happening with Vova and she believes me, but is not positive that I understand all that is happening. Well Vova talked to Sveta and she found out that I know what Vova is saying. Vova and I have a connection and even in the most difficult issues of language, we can communicate and understand what is going on. We are guys and understand each other…

Sveta said that I was right, Vova is in love and wants to get married!

I said, “Vova slow down!”

I wish him the best, but I worry he will get hurt, for it has been a long time since a woman has looked at him as being worthy of glancing at. He is just a small village boy, with very little money… 😐

Vova is in love and this is how you can tell; Vova went fishing last night, he is catching fresh fish for his new love. He is going to take it to her today and present fresh caught fish, by a mighty warrior, named Vova…

I hope she does not hurt Vova, for he is a good guy and my buddy. He has been hurt in the past by women and he told me, never again. Well until the next one comes along. We will wait and see, for he lives with his heart on his sleeve…

Vova dreams of a better world for all and right now his world is perfect. That makes it all good…

Vova was serious last night, before he went fishing. First he said, he had collected 14 liters of honey from his beehives and 12 liters from a wild bee hive! 26 liters of honey in all, now that is some serious money honey. Second he said, that I was his bestes buddy and never worry about a woman getting in the way of him and I! 😉

If he had said only not to worry and nothing else, I would ignore him, but when he used it in conjunction with something as important to Russians as honey is. Then I knew he was serious, for Russians take honey serious, I mean serious…

But Vova is in love and we shall see what comes and goes…

Post by Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia…

I have been busy the last few days and now it is time to rest. The temperature is getting hot for a few days and nothing better than resting when it is too warm to work hard. I have been painting the trim on the house and all my buddies have given their opinion and thumbs up on the way the place is looking. I also have painted anything that can rust and one thing I painted is my two wheeler and the wheelbarrow has been painted also. The ladder was made by Sveta’s Father in-law many many years ago. I strengthened it and use it all the time. It is a great ladder. I also could not resist taking a snap shot of the swallows all over our power lines. They also filled our trees up and had a regular pow wow before they started their day to catch bugs…

They are good birds… 🙂

Post by Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia…

This morning as I sip a cup of coffee, we have not walked yet. It is not my fault that it is 6:30 a.m. and we still have not walked. Boza does not like the rain and he refuses to go out, well actually I gave him a choice and he politely ran back under the bed. He stuck his nose out the door and looked at me and I said yes or no? He said no…

But nature calls and after this post, we will go and walk in the rain…

Boza and I walked with the camera yesterday and gathered a few images. I decided to post a few here and you can see what Boza and I saw…

Boza found a friend first thing as we walked up the hill, whereas Boza was happy, happy, happy, his friend was hiss, hiss, hiss, so they did not party and hug each other. But as you see in the next Boza image, Boza was happy…

Everywhere are the Mountain Ash trees. The forests are full of them and the Russians do not use them for anything. They grow wild and are considered bad. I realize that there are several types of these trees, so I use the judgment of the locals and leave them alone. These seem to be extra poisonous, but back home in the Ozarks, we made jellies and jams from them…

A grumble issue of mine is the fact that we only have two working cisterns and I have found five total available in the village. One is legend to be poisoned by a disputing family/locals issue, another is buried deep in no mans land, the one shown is not working and that leaves two that still are able to be filled, most of the time…

The cisterns are a source of issues many times, as city people steal water from ours to wash their cars and many other such stupid things, as filling their kids inflatable swimming pools. 🙁 They emptied theirs up top the hill and then steal our water. I wash my car at the river, so can they and their kids can swim in the river or the lake for that matter… (I am just a grouchy bear!)

They are digging out the walls of the monastery, or at least the walls that they can still find. The wall use to go all the way around the whole monastery…

I snapped a image of a small bee that would not leave me alone. He sat on my camera as I took pictures, then flew hovering right in front of my lens. I finally snapped an image and then he left. Just like that, he left after I took his picture, “What a Ham!”

The as Boza and I walked down the hill from the tower, we saw Sasha wandering around and Olga, coming up the hill to help with an injured man at his home. She is an old lady and her daughter is way up the hill waiting and yelling at her! Some people are clueless about life. More power to Olga…

The last image is a place that I want to play. I would have when little and this image holds many memories of what I ran around as a little tyke. Everyone should have a small work barn to play around. Young or old, my grandpa and I had one…

Well that is it for today. Boza has to walk and I have to walk, even if it is raining…

Have a nice day…

Post by Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia…

Yesterday after a long walk with Boza, I came home and found a cute little window open on my computer, it gave me words of wisdom about how Windows 10 was already downloaded and ready to install???

3 gigs of my precious data used up without my permission. Interesting, who said Windows could do this?

My computer did…

The laptop that I bought last year was a version of Russian laptop that had no OS installed when I bought it. It had a version of Windows 8.1 that was not official. To keep that version, I had to buy it. Well I installed my Windows 7 and was happy about what I had to work with. Then yesterday, Microsoft decided to install Windows 10 and it was perfectly legal because my computer has a special spot in the boot sector that tells MS to go ahead…

It said, “Hey this guy needs a free OS and MS is the one to do it!”

Lucky for me it did not install, but just downloaded. Now with all that data wasted, I decided to install it and see what the hoopla is all about. But first, I backed everything up and saved all files to my external hard drive, then I burned a ISO of my original OS so that when everything crashes and dies, I still have my photos and such and I can reinstall back to original and be happy. Plus as the holy grail of protection, I have a flash drive with Windows 7 to start fresh if need be…

I did some more reading about the Windows 10, which I have been reading about for many months. For you see I am a developer with the Windows programs and have been for many years, but I never saw the collaboration at this level between a Russian/Chinese made laptop and a future MS OS release before and just now, I am seeing issues about this. Sneaky little crappolas if you ask me…

Nevertheless, I am game for any and all comeuppance and I jumped on the bandwagon, with keyboard in one hand and mouse in the other…

* * * * * * * * * *

Hours later: I had tamed Windows 10 and changed everything to suit my needs. I turned off all the obvious privacy issues and all the hidden privacy issues that I know about, due to Insider Developer status. But obvious after what happened earlier, we in the Insider Program are not told everything!

Therefore, I am reasonably happy with what I see;  anyone who worked with the beta versions of Windows 10, are seeing some changes with the final issuance of the OS. The one complaint that I had was the color white and no options to get rid of 95% white screen, on everything, white, white and more white, or light grey at times. Going blind white… (It can be changed, to black, but that is beyond most peoples realm. I changed mine…)

I was ready for this ignored suggestion of mine (give us some color) and I have a hacked theme that overrides the original themes and tells Windows 10 to become purple borders and other whatnot’s, with a flare of the basic Aero design…

Then I hacked the start menu and told it to be good and get rid of all the Metro crap. I brought back the Windows 7 menu and became happy at that point. Not ecstatic, but happy…

* * * * * * * * * *

I am on my second cup of coffee as I think about Windows 10. As you see I am functioning and everything is working good. I still have a few things to work the bugs out of, such as the Windows 10 Explorer File manager. The new one just sucks. I will have the old one in its original format back and I had to hack the calculator to even get a link to use it. Now that is sad when the simple wonderful, used everyday calculator is removed and a trashy piece of huge junk Metro Style is implemented in place of it… Uggggrrrr!

MS gives us 30 days to think about how much we love Windows 10, if we fall out of love within 30 days of installation, there is a simple click button to revert. After 30 days, Sorry Charley…

* * * * * * * * * *

Will I keep it?

Most likely, since I already spent many hours working with a virtual version of the same OS. I like it, but it has to be tamed. It will tell on you, it will invade your privacy and it will try to do everything for you. Now that part I do not like, but, 95% of people installing this new Windows 10 will love it to death till they part. It is taking the work out of computing and allowing the humans to go brain dead, as everything is being set up to make decisions based on your past excursions on the web and within your own computer system. Soon you will just become a data blip in the masses who are online. No thinking and no imagination. You will be told what to do and you will do it…

Now that is the serious issue at hand…

Post by Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia…

PS: I told Sveta not to install it! I told her to leave updates turned off at home. What works works and at home she is happy. If this is allowed to install at our home in Moscow, Sveta will be a grouchy girl…

That I do not want…

Sveta is going to be grouchy with me over this, but we do what we have to do and that I will do…

I told no one and fought it with no one! That is the only way to break addictions for me and sometimes, it gets lonely when you break them. For if you do not do it for yourself, then you will never break the addiction…

For 12 years I have taken beta-blockers for my heart. It has caused weight gain, sluggishness and many other issues. Including dizziness, tiredness, blurred vision, cold hands and feet, slow heartbeat, diarrhea and nausea and that is not all the effects…

I took them and never complained, I took them, then I kept reading about them and I read about what is now being said and found out about the beta-blockers. I broke them and walked away; regardless of right and wrong…

The village helped me in all this. The village I live in is a healing village and I am going to take full advantage of that fact…

I can attest for withdrawal symptoms, such as sweating, shaking and mood alteration. I also found a peaking of anxiety and it even entered dreams at night. Such as dreams of death and dying. I will tell you that with my past, dreams of death are common, but not of your own death and that is what I dealt with for weeks…

I was taking two pills a day and I went to one pill a day at night. That alleviated the dreams and most symptoms during the first week. Then after one week of one pill, I dropped them completely and spent two weeks struggling. The fourth week I am in now, is going good and I am done…

I kicked beta-blockers out of my life and the side effects are gone…

Have a nice day…

Post by Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia…