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Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Introducing: The Russo-Travelo-Meter

What is the "Russo-Travelo-Meter" all about? I will explain.

I have been planning to visit Russian from quite a while ago. I have tried visiting Moscow last year for a friend's wedding. But, little did I know about the extra-freaking-long procedure that I must follow to obtain a travel visa (by personal invitation) to my beloved Россия. Very unsuspectingly, I talked to the Russian embassy last year to obtain a visa, and thought it would be a breeze, just like the way I got my Canadian visa. Or, like my planned travel to France. The procedure for French visa? Umm, take the metro downtown, go to the French embassy, and GET THE FREAKING VISA. That's it ! But with Russia? Uh-huh, no so fast!

First, they advised me to send all my papers to Russia to my friend, who in turn will go to the "Ministry of internal affairs" or something like that. She will then get her invitation letter signed, attested, worshiped, and idolized before sending it to me here in the USA. Then, I have to go to India (that's right, I must travel half the way across the globe to just get a visa to visit Russia!) and then apply there. After all this, if the visa is approved, I can travel to Russia. Pretty simple, eh? Yeah, I think so too!

Since any story related to Russia is of good interest to me, I thought I should keep you posted of this "bureaucratic adventure" for obtaining just a single-entry visa! So, here I created the Russo-Travelo-Meter to keep you guys posted of the status. It currently stands at 20% (the day of this posting) and my papers have reached Russia via some of my friends in Canada. Each time the progress bar moves forward, I will post a new entry to update what's new is going on. So, enjoy this thrill-ride with me! I can not wait to visit Russia and that should be another whole new experience. Until then, keep watching the bar and watch out for the updates on this pre-travel pastime!

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Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Tiny Tidbit of Info on "LatLong"

I was browsing through Google blogs the other day, and I came across a tiny little tidbit of info. Do you know what the Google Earth team named their blog? LatLong! Yup, that's true! They chose the same name as I did! Pretty cool, huh?

Now here is the kicker...

Google owns blogspot (this blogging service website). So, naturally, various Google teams use blogspot for their own blogging. For example, ad-sense (adsense.blogspot.com) and analytics (analytics.blogspot.com) register their blog names on blogspot.

Now for the Google Earth blog, the name should be latlong.blogspot.com (my blog's name), but wait a minute, I already took it! Since latlong.blogspot.com is already taken (by me!), poor Google had to go for google-latlong.blogspot.com! It is good that the nice folks at Google didn't kick me out to claim the prized URL of my blog!

Go LatLong! And oh, check out Google's Latlong too!

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Monday, May 21, 2007

NASA Meeting

These photos are from the Public Service Recognition Week, held in Washington DC. We were invited to speak about the NASA project I'm working on. It was a great event - many federal agencies (DOT, NASA, Forest Service, Highway Administration, FAA, etc, etc, etc, and, etc) participated. Lots of goodies too though! I loved NASA's exhibits! T'was good. Enjoyable.








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Thursday, May 17, 2007

Mess-ups!

Have you ever messed up? Big time? Have you ever made a mistake EXACTLY when you did not want to? It is the very concept of Murphy's law, it seems. Do I have any examples? Sure. Many! Like the times when I'm ready coding a new software project module, I test it before I demo to my bosses. It works fine, except when the boss is looking at it!

Or, the other times when you write an email, and mess it up, and realize it just after you hit the "send" button. I wish there were a "recall email" functionality whereby you can get back the email you sent out before being seen by the recipients. Mess ups are even harder when you write in a foreign language. For example, yesterday I was sending an e-card out in Russian, and I *COMPLETELY* messed up the heading line in the card. I originally typed something, changed it, undid it, redid it, changed the case/tense, and at which point I was half-asleep (it was 2 AM in the morning). When I read the sent copy of card, I realized I messed it up.

Hey, if you are the person who received my e-card yesterday, this is how my header should have read "Просто хотел поздравить тебя ... ля-ля-ля-ля-ля". It was my bad - I'm very embarrassed : O )

Accept my apologies and congratulations!

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Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Русская версия моего сайта

Посмотрите мой ( профессиональный ) сайт на русском языке.

Вот эта ссылка ...


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Monday, May 14, 2007

День Победы

May 9th is a big holiday in Russia. Called "День Победы" 0r Victory Day, it commemorates Red Army's victory over the Germans. Anyway, here are some of the pictures from our "celebration" with my Russian club here in Washington




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Tuesday, May 08, 2007

San Francisco "Street Opera". Pretty Cool!

Hey! Remember, I went to San Francisco a couple of weeks ago? I saw these cool Opera singers performing in the middle of the street! I think they have an awesome talent, and they are pretty good. Obviously, I'm not familiar with very many technicalities of Opera singing, but these guys sound pretty decent. Check it out...









Whaddya think?

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Monday, May 07, 2007

Check this out...

So, here's something interesting. Remember, a few weeks ago, I posted some photos and videos from Slavic Fest here in Washington DC? I also posted the videos on YouTube and I got a bunch of hits.

Anyway, two of my posted videos were from this dance ensemble called "Barynya". They are from New York. Apparently, the owner of the ensemble, Mikhail, saw the videos and he liked 'em. He wrote to me and asked me if he could have a copy of the videos. The gentleman I am, I gave him the videos and also, I gave him some pictures I took. He posted them to his website, and their Google group.

Check out the link ... http://groups.google.com/group/Russian-folk-dance/web/01 and ahem, my name's on it : - )

Here's Baryna's homepage... http://www.barynya.com/barynya/index.htm and if you saw the Slavic Fest photos on this blog, you would recognize that the photos on that website under the heading "March 2007. George Washington University" are mine! Wink-Wink!

I thought it was pretty cool that my photography skills have been appreciated! Feels good!

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