Thailand 2018

Just realized that I haven't used this blog since 2011. Seven long years that have gone by at the speed of light. Keep telling myself that I will write down what happened since but with the speed I'm losing laptops, memory sticks and simple files, it'll be awhile, I'm afraid...

Blogger Pictures

Leelawadee

I totally forgot about this old blog. Many moons have passed since I last wrote anything here. Miss the tranquility of blogging as opposed to the crowd on Facebook and things are better organized here. Kind of like a diary, which it is. There are dramatic changes in my life since I last was here and would be nice to put those events in some kind of order. The most important should start with the photo here down below. There's a new love in town that took me by storm and surprise proven that old dogs can learn new tricks. Leelawadee Lili was born on the 28th of February 2011, in the London Hospital, Kuwait.

Moving on and keep on going

Wherever you are
(Thoughts on the very same day when found out that I might never be living in the house I recently purchased. Instead of feeling sorry for oneself and thinking of the loss and times wasted, one must get ready to move on to another stage of life to fulfill the purpose that I believe we were all put on this earth for. Doesn’t matter if I am right or wrong the final goal is to achieve inner peace before time is running out.)

The word “home” has a wide variety of connotations. To some, home is merely a place where basic needs are addressed. To others, home is the foundation from which they draw their strength and tranquility. Still, others view home as a place inexorably linked to family. Yet all these definitions of home imply somewhere we can be ourselves and are totally accepted. There, we feel safe enough to let down our guard, peaceful enough to really relax, and loved enough to want to return day after day. However, these qualities need not be linked to a single space or any space at all. Home is where the heart is and can be the locale you live in, a community you once lived in, or the country where you plan to live someday. Or home can be a feeling you carry inside yourself, wherever you are.

The process of evolution can require you to undergo transformations that uproot you. Moving from place to place can seem to literally divide you from the foundations you have come to depend on. Since your home is so intimately tied to the memories that define you, you may feel that you are losing a vital part of yourself when you leave behind your previous house, city, state, or country. And as it may take some time before you fashion new memories, you may feel homeless even after settling into your new abode. To carry your home with you, you need only become your own foundation. Doing so is merely a matter of staying grounded and centered, and recognizing that the pleasures you enjoyed in one place will still touch your heart in another if you allow them.

Your home can be any space or state of being that fulfills you, provided you are at peace with yourself and your surroundings. A person can feel like home to you, as can seasons and activities. If you feel disconnected from what you once thought of as home, your detachment may be a signal that you are ready to move one.
Simply put, you will know you have found your home when both your physical environment and energetic surroundings are in harmony with the individual you are within.

Moving again

A final decision was born this morning about our future at PWC - they will close us up in a heartbeat. The future is uncertain though one thing is for sure: I will move away from the sea. Again. No more walks on the beach in the morning, no more swimming in the water, no more blues and no more greens. And there will be sand… Lots of sand.

Index

Bögöy válasz | megnéz | könyvjelző 2006.10.03 00:01:25 (35271)
Yo, yo, jo esteeet!

Égensétáló Lukács válasz | megnéz | könyvjelző 2006.10.03 00:46:23 (35274)
neked is yoyo :-)

mud válasz | megnéz | könyvjelző 2006.10.03 00:52:10 (35275)
Yoyo ma.

Égensétáló Lukács válasz | megnéz | könyvjelző 2006.10.03 00:54:11 (35276)
igen nekem is megfordult a fejemben :-)

mud válasz | megnéz | könyvjelző 2006.10.03 01:00:30 (35277)
Too easy...:)

mud válasz | megnéz | könyvjelző 2006.10.03 01:06:21 (35278)
Errol mindig az a sztori jut eszembe, mikor leanyom kozolte velem, hogy azert akar csellozni tanulni, mert volt az anyjanak ket Yo Yo Ma lemeze. A helyzet az, hogy a szoban forgo 2 cd-t nekem kuldte nehai japan baratnem Kanazawabol 1991-ben es en felejtettem naluk 96-ban, mikor kozel 10 ev szunet utan eloszor lattam ujra a kiscsajt. Keso van, marhasagokon jar az agyam...

Égensétáló Lukács válasz | megnéz | könyvjelző 2006.10.03 01:14:55 (35279)
vannak ilyenek. Nekem az új barátnőnek szokott tetszeni a régi által vett és itthagyott cucc. Amíg meg nem tudja honnan van...

mud válasz | megnéz | könyvjelző 2006.10.03 01:17:42 (35280)
Na ja. Ha belegondolok, hogy egesz eletem maskepp alakul, ha akkor Florida helyett nyugat-Japanba megyek... Fakkk, ez olyan, mint a nagyanyám pöcse szindróma. Ez van és kész!

Égensétáló Lukács válasz | megnéz | könyvjelző 2006.10.03 01:25:27 (35282)
Ilyen mindig van. Én is gondoltam már ilyenre pedig csak 25 éves vagyok. Ha a felvételim előtt nyűvöm a teszteket és nem ragadok le Danténél. Ha bejárok szolfézsórákra és nem kell kottaolvasási problémákkal küzdeni ahelyett h a hangszerrel foglalkoztam volna. Ha... De vala,i oka csak van hogy az életünk fordul valamerre. Cél nélkül semmi sem történik.

mud válasz | megnéz | könyvjelző 2006.10.03 01:31:13 (35284)
En ilyet csak akkor szoktam mondani, mikor a Lada dobbant egyet valami nagyobb kavicson es esteben fennakad az utmenti olajfán, de biztos van benne valami...
Előzmény: Égensétáló Lukács (35282)

mud válasz | megnéz | könyvjelző 2006.10.03 01:22:05 (35281)
Ha mar nosztalgia, eszembe jut az a foto, amin harom ex-baratosnem koccint a 30. szuletesnapomon, mikozben legjobb baratnem - ki halala utan anyosomma avanzsalt - mondja, hogy szerinte ez eletem eddigi legnagyobb achievementje. Sajnos, ahogy igy visszanezek, ez meg mindig helytallo:(((

Bögöy válasz | megnéz | könyvjelző 2006.10.03 01:29:50 (35283)
Na mivan, ma hány millió magzatot mentettél meg? :-)

mud válasz | megnéz | könyvjelző 2006.10.03 01:33:08 (35285)
A lényeg itten az, hogy a Dzsokié legalább nem vész kárba, mert Kapóka szerint már a sperma is életjogosult emberi lény...
Előzmény: Bögöy (35283)

Égensétáló Lukács válasz | megnéz | könyvjelző 2006.10.03 01:46:23 (35286)
kifejezetten szórakoztat valakit úgy lehülyézni hogy az illető észre sem veszi, hogy hülyézik :-)

mud válasz | megnéz | könyvjelző 2006.10.03 01:52:46 (35287)
The small pleasures of life...:)

The Beekeeper's Daughter

“In burrows narrow as a finger, solitary bees
Keep house among the grasses. Kneeling down
I set my eyes to a hole-mouth and meet an eye
Round, green, disconsolate as a tear.
Father, bridegroom, in this Easter egg
Under the coronal of sugar roses

The queen bee marries the winter of your year.”



“I am nude as a chicken neck, does nobody love me?
Yes, here is the secretary of bees with her white shop smock,
Buttoning the cuffs at my wrists and the slit from my neck to my knees.
Now I am milkweed silk, the bees will not notice.
They will not smell my fear, my fear, my fear…

…I cannot run, I am rooted, and the gorse hurts me
With its yellow purses, its spiky armory.
I could not run without having to run forever.
The white hive is snug as a virgin,
Sealing off her brood cells, her honey, and quietly humming”

(Sylvia Plath)

Dragonfly

The dragonfly is very much a creature of the air and of the sun. Although it has legs, which are spine-bordered and bunched forward, so it can cling and climb, it never walks. But in the air, a dragonfly is as graceful as a ballet dancer, while it swoops, turns, and zooms about at will. It can dive like a small plane, or hover like a helicopter, as long as the sun is shining. The dragonfly has eyes that contain as many lenses as the eyes of several thousand men. Its head is attached to the slender body in a way that the dragonfly can turn its head almost completely around, so it can see below as well as above him. The wings, which are veined and transparent, can move as much as twenty-eight times a second, carrying it through the air at speeds of about sixty miles an hour.
The nymphs of the dragonfly, which usually live in water, are carnivores, even devouring each other and destroying newly emerged adults before their wings had a chance to harden and fly off into the sun. Most smaller dragonfly nymphs spend a year in the water, the larger varieties can be there for as long as two to three years. The transformation from underwater nymph to dragonfly is amazing. Usually it happens in the heat of the day, with a few exceptions. The wet dragonfly climbs from the water and clings to the bank, or a stick, or weed. As it does so, the suit of chitin armor splits and the damp, crumpled wings unfold. Then, as the glistening coat hardens in the bright sunshine, the dragonfly darts into the air, leaving behind a brown translucent shell. As much a miracle of Nature, as the transformation of a butterfly. The adult dragonfly has a short life span. It lives just long enough to mature and mate. Usually the first cold of fall kills them off. Only the nymphs remain in their underwater home, carrying on the chain of life, just as they had in the long ago past. For a dragonfly, life and death are simple and direct, and the glittering wings cease beating in the numbing of autumn cold. But through the miracle of Nature, the nymphs will again shed their armor, and take to wing in the sunshine, and we will once again reap the benefit of their voracious appetites.
Yesterday morning I witnessed the slow death of a dragonfly and – while taking these photos - I felt an uncomfortable amount of guilt.

"This is not a hotel room... it's a vagina"

I watched this movie yesterday and am wondering why most people hate it so much? Is it because Al Pacino is everything but glamorous in playing a drug addict New Yorker Jew on his way to hell with no way out or simply because most people are just too cozy with the mainstream Hollywood trash – it is hard to tell. Despite its obvious faults I loved this film and recommend it to anyone who values Al Pacino over Ryan O’Neal or Téa Leoni over Kim Basinger for that matter. By the way, she was great in this movie as well. What can I say – I am a sick puppy…


(When Al Pacino wanted to film a scene in my mom's bathroom, she welcomed him with open arms - Suzanne Brouillard)
“The offer came in a "Dear Resident" letter slid under the door of my mom's Greenwich Village apartment. The letter said a movie company was looking for a hallway leading straight into a bathroom with the original 1950s fixtures intact. My mom, Mildred, a retired schoolteacher who taught in the South Bronx for 30 years, responded quicker than the cops in "Serpico."
What woman is going to tell Pacino - who still looks dashing at 60 - that she doesn't want him to take a shower in her bathroom? Plus, Mom would get a nice location fee. …Then it was quiet on the set. His shirt-tail out and hair tousled, Pacino arrived, speaking in the Southern drawl of his character. A method actor par excellence, Pacino reportedly had been using this accent for months on and off the set.
"Take One and roll." The sound of tinkling, moaning, and an occasional swear word could be heard for 40 seconds. Pacino zipped up and staggered down the hallway before turning into the kitchen.
"Cut," said director Dan Algrant.
"I had to pee like an elephant," said Pacino.
"You forgot to flush," somebody said.
"Make it a shorter experience," said Algrant. "And ... action."
They filmed the scene again, taking 35 seconds of toilet time. Pacino, dubbed "Al Cappuccino" for his love of caffeine, was wired. But how many doubles had he gulped? On the next take, we learned Pacino's secret: He had a hot water bottle filled with cranberry juice in his pants because he was supposed to be urinating blood. We knew because he forgot to shut off the valve and the juice dribbled all over mom's oriental rug.
Pacino shook his head sadly. "Why do I have the feeling that the woman who owns this apartment is gonna sue me?" he asked.
"Oh, no, she's not," said my sister, Sandy, a lawyer, as the crew laughed.
"Well, you're one of only a very few then," said Pacino.”

New knife

I felt naked without my S&W so bought another knife. I wanted to get a Gator but when I saw this one there was no question about it. I would’ve been happier if it's slightly smaller but it’ll do just fine. Huge and heavy but the blade is nice. The knife is 26cm long, the blade is a straight 12 cm. A real beauty.

More Greek Olive Oil

Robert’s olive oil finally got delivered to me. Thanks to him I am using the most exotic – and probably the most expensive – olive oils available. He went island hopping with Michelle, Crete, Santorini, Paros, Mykonos, Athens, Korfu. One lucky bastard. I am the one who placed the bug in his ears about Greece maybe a year ago and he’s been going there every time he gets the chance to do so. He brings me one or two bottles of olive oil as a token of appreciation. May God make this habit stick for a few more years…
This last one is from Paros and the kalamata from Messinia.
Organic extra virgin, of course...

"Don't mess with nature"

Marine explorer Jean-Michel Cousteau said Tuesday that while he mourns the recent death of "The Crocodile Hunter," Steve Irwin, he disagrees with Irwin's hands-on approach to nature television.
While promoting his new two-part TV special, "Jean-Michel Cousteau: Ocean Adventures _ America's Underwater Treasures," Cousteau called Irwin's death "very, very unfortunate."

He had "a lot of respect" for Irwin, who he didn't know personally, and his "environmental message," Cousteau said.

But, he added, Irwin would "interfere with nature, jump on animals, grab them, hold them, and have this very, very spectacular, dramatic way of presenting things. Of course, it goes very well on television. It sells, it appeals to a lot people, but I think it's very misleading. You don't touch nature, you just look at it. And that's why I'm still alive. I've been diving over 61 years _ a lot many more years that he's been alive _ and I don't mess with nature."

Finally, somebody had the nerve to say it out loud...

Bahrain

I took this photo about a year ago while staying at the Radisson in Bahrain but didn't pay much attention to it. I just realized that the innocent snapshot of the bridge has some nice qualities to it corresponding with the heron's neck and the architecture. I like the overall composition so here it is...

Epidaurus

The theatre of the Asklepieion of Epidaurus 2

I am tired of creating new posts for the same subject because the server screws up the load...

The theatre of The Sanctuary of Asklepios at Epidaurus

We left Poros early and headed to Epidauros. Orlando seemed to be in a good mood and we were both looking forward to this trip. Virginia supplied us with all the reading material which I gratefully accepted because telling her that we want to buy the same books for ourselves seemed pointless. The new road on the shore was supposed to be open but later we had to find out that it was not.



The theatre of the Asklepieion of Epidaurus is the ideal specimen of the achievements and experience of the ancient Greeks on theatre construction. It was already praised in antiquity by Pausanias for its symmetry and beauty.
It has the typical Hellenistic structure with the three basic parts: the cavea, the orchestra and the stage-building (skene). The longest radius of the cavea is 58 m while the diameter of the orchestra is about 20 m. The lower of the two diazomata (sections) is divided with 13 stairways into 12 cunei (with 34 rows of benches) and the upper with 23 stairways into 22 cunei (with 21 rows of benches).
The stage-building included a main room with four pillars along the central axis, and one square room at each end. The proskenium had a facade with 14 half-columns against pillars. Two ramps on either side led to the stage while monumental double gates stood at the two entrances.
The theatre was built in two stages. During the first, at the end of the 4th century B.C., the orchestra, the lower diazoma and the stage-building (in its "pre-hellenistic" phase) were constructed. During the second, at the middle of the 2nd century B.C., the cavea was enlarged at the top, and the stage building was given its "late-hellenistic" shape. The theatre was used for musical and poetical contests and theatrical performances.
For centuries the monument remained covered by thick layers of earth. Systematic excavations started in 1881 under the direction of P. Kavvadias. The cavea was brought to light quite well preserved apart from the tiers at the edges and the retaining walls. On the contrary, the stage was found in ruins levelled to the ground.
At the beginning of the 20th century the gate of the western entrance and the contiguous retaining-wall were restored. Large-scale works were undertaken from 1954 to 1963 for the reconstruction of the destroyed sections and partial restoration of the monument.

Mykenae 2

The Acropolis of Mykenae

Mykenae

Gold mask of Agamemnon, 1580 - 1500 BC

Six miles north-east of Argos, on a hill, lay the "rich in gold" ancient city of Mykenae (Mycenae). Founded by the hero Perseus and becoming favorite residence of Pelops and his descendants, it became the most important city of Greece at the times of the king Agamemnon.
Master seafarers, they traded in the whole eastern Mediterranean sea, until the 12th century.
In 1375 BC, they invaded Crete and conquered the Minoans, who had influenced them in the art, from as early as the 16th century BC. The Mykenaean people build cyclopean structures, but at the same time they created the finest works of art.
These were the heroic and adventurous people of the Iliad, the romantic poet warriors, the purest and best of Hellenes.

The Lions Gate at Mykenae.
It was the main entrance to the Acropolis and
its opening was closed by a double door with sheets of bronze.
The relief consists of two confronting lions, their heads made from different
material. The structure is dated to 1250 BC.


The Acropolis of Mykenae

The Miracle of Life

Most of us begin our days with a continuous list of things we need to do to keep our lives running smoothly, but we rarely take time to note all the things we don't need to do. For example, we don't need to figure out how to breathe. We don't need to find a way to make sure the earth continues to revolve around the sun. We don't need to concentrate to ensure that our heart beats and our cells regenerate. All of these things, and many more, take care of themselves without our having to think or do anything at all. This is the miracle of life on earth.

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