Summertime

It’s been a busy summer so far. That’s good. It keeps my mind away from haunting ghosts.

We’re painting the house, Little Boy and I. The most time-consuming part is the scraping of old loose paint. When we get as far as the actual painting, we’re almost done. We have a tall house, and I don’t like climbing high. I send Little Boy to the top of the scaffold to take care of  the uppermost part. Sometimes kids are useful. 

In Russia the FIFA World Cup is taking place, with great football games on TV every day. We watch all the games, of course. It’s the only "TV show" I watch.  The semifinals start today. Then there’s only three games left. Very sad. It always feels like drug withdrawal when the World Cup is over.

So far we see some clear trends. The European teams dominate. No South American teams, no African teams, no Asian teams made it to the semifinals.

Surprisingly, Germany was out after the group matches. The Netherlands, Italy and USA didn't even qualify.

Shia is better than Sunni, at least when it comes to football. Out of five Muslim countries, the followers of Ali, Iran, was the only one among the final 16. 

Jesus did better than Muhammad. Egypt, with superstar striker Mohammad Salah were eliminated in the group matches. Brazil and their forward Gabriel Jesus made it to the quarter finals. 

Tonight we watched the first semifinal: France  vs. Belgium 1-0. Both teams had a majority of black and brown players, ghetto boys from the suburbs of Paris and Brussels. Almost all the supporters in the stand were white. They can afford to travel to Russia to watch the World Cup live.

Tomorrow is the second seimfinal: England vs. Croatia. I hope England will win. Football's coming home. I would like to go.

(Picture taken a couple of weeks ago, when we worked on the painting the first two walls)

Winter games

I have heard there are some Olympic Winter Games going on. But I haven’t seen it. Apparently, nobody have. The Koreans who are hosting the games aren’t interested, except in short-track speed skating.  In Europe most of the competitions are at inconvenient hours due to the time difference.

So, I’m either sleeping or at work when the ski competitions take place. This week I’m in the mountains for winter vacation. I'm out skiing myself, rather than watching TV. Today was such a great day; sunny and no wind, a perfect day for the outdoors.

Whatever, the Olympics are not that important. The most important sports events are later this year; the Soccer World Cup in June, and the Chess World Championship in November.

In the mean time I have my own winter games. I enjoy the skiing and the great weather in the mountains, and tonight it's Champions League on TV.

There's  not much to complain about, really.  Just missing my best friend.

(I took this picture of myself today. Maybe it's the best part of me, the part which is free, or maybe it's just the shadow of the man I should have been)

East Berlin

I just came back from a long-weekend in Germany. Little boy and I went to Berlin to visit older boy, who is in Berlin for an internship this fall. We didn’t visit any of the conventional tourist attractions, except the Reichstag building, the parliament, from where Germany (and Greece) are being ruled. Most of the time we spent in East Berlin, the former Soviet sector.

We went to a suburb east of the city center to watch a football (soccer of course) game with FC Union in 2. Bundesliga. The game wasn’t too good, but it was really cool to be on the packed stand with 20.000 crazy people. The red shirts of FC Union bear a witness of the working-class background of the club. The supporters called their team Eisern Union (Iron Union). We were surrounded by factory workers who enjoyed their free weekend, and unemployed craftsmen who lost their jobs to the Polish and Lithuanians who do their work for a lower price. Citizens of the European Union.

Near the tram station in Warschauer Strasse (Warsaw Street), we passed a homeless young man sitting on the side walk with his sleeping bag and a filthy dog. In front of him, he had three cups labeled “food”, “weed” and “BMW”. In the “food” cup there were some coins, the other two were almost empty. I dropped 2 Euro in the “weed” cup and 3 Euro in his “BMW” cup. Homeless people have dreams for the future too. And in the meantime some weed may be good for the comport, in the brutal capitalist world.

At night we went to concerts in small obscure clubs in old East German industry buildings, to enjoy Berlin’s underground music scene. The beer was good, and people were nice and friendly. Some bands were good, some not so good. The lead guitar player in one of the garage-rock bands was a 48 yo professor at Humboldt University. He performed under a stage-name/pseudonym to avoid mixing business and pleasure. I immediately felt a connection with him; a guy with a PhD and some obscure and secret cultural interests on the side.

It was good to get away for a while. Nobody yelling at me. Nobody asking me difficult questions. Nobody interrogating me about scary thoughts in the darkest corners of my soul. It was a true feeling of freedom, for a while >:)

(Some pictures taken in Berlin, RAW Gelande, former train repair station and now subcultural center (top), football game with FC Union (2nd), East Berlin's famous Ampfelmann (3rd), and garage rock concert (bottom). The Humboldt professor is the guitar player to the right. Fortunately, the picture is to unfocused to see his face.)

Amsterdam

Blogging while traveling seems to be my new schedule. Now I'm sitting in a bar in central Amsterdam. Fortunately they have lots if TVs because the match between Germany and Portugal is starting very soon.

(I took the picture around noon today in a street crossing in Amsterdam. I have no idea who the girl is. I just thaught she had a cool hair)

Destiny of a ski dad

It's summer and it's vacation. We could have been on the beach. We could have been down south in the warm sun.

But we have our habits. Guess what we do. We go to the snow. Same procedure as every year. In the first week of the school's summer vacation, we go skiing on a glacier in the mountains. We've done this for eight years in row now. No training camp and no races. Just vacation, and skiing for fun.

Yesterday was foggy and white-out, but good skiing. Today we had a nice sunny day with four inches of fresh powder and great skiing. Tomorrow we get who-knows-what; probably the oposite of what the weather forecast says. The high mountains and glaciers are unpredictable. Anyway, I hope night temperatures go below freezing.

Then skiing will be good. After a day of skiing, we go back to camping down in the valley. We barbeque, skateboard and play football (soccer), and we watch the Euro2012 games in TV.

Yesterday there was no TV-football, so we went for a historic walk around the camping. We visited the 12-century stave church, and passed by a farm from medieval times. Finally, we stopped by the house (more like a log cabin) of the author Tor Jonsson, who ended his life at the age of 35 yo.

Something for the body in the morning, something for the brain in the evening. That's a nice combo.



We've got six months of snow and winter. Why do we spend the short summer in the snow? Because the kids want it like this.

I could think of better ways to spend my summer vacation, no doubt.

America has soccer moms, and Canada has hockey moms. Winterland has ski dads, and I'm one of them. I enjoy skiing a lot, and I gave the kids the chance to get hooked on it. So here I am, stuck in the snow. It's my own fault.

It's the destiny of a ski dad >:)

(I took the top picture at the glacier today. It's the best day we've had so far. The 2nd and 3rd picture are from yesterday's historic walk near the camping.)

Two kings and a queen behind bars

For the next couple of weeks, I’m spending most of my free time in front of the TV. It’s Euro2012, the European football (soccer of course) championship finals going on right now. The event is almost as big as the World Cup, and better quality. Different from the World Cup, all the teams are very good.

The championship is hosted by Poland and Ukraine. Poland is a country in good progress, a young but stable democracy with steady economic growth. Ukraine is a parody on democracy, ruled by a corrupt president. Nobody understand why Ukraine was chosen to host the football event.
 
 However, five years ago when UEFA made the decision, the situation was different. The orange crowds had won the election. Ukraine was making progress. The queen of the Orange Revolution, Yulia Tymoshenko, was prime minister in Ukraine.

In 2010 she lost the presidental election to the oligarch Viktor Yanukovych, after election-fraud. Yulia Timoshenko was charged for abuse of power and sentenced to 8 years in jail. Yanukovych wants keep his poitical rival imprisoned till after the next election. Yulia Timoshenko is considered a political prisoner by USA, EU and Amnesty.

Yesterday Ukraine played their first match in the championship finals, and Yulia Timoshenko probably watched it on TV in her prison cell. Ukraine vs. Sweden, with two football kings on the field, captains of their respective teams; Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Andrey Shevchenko. 

Zlatan, the Swedish football genius, scored once.

Shevchenko, the former AC Milan and Chelsea superstar, scored twice. Ukraine won 2-1. Ukraine’s biggest hero, uniting the country across political divides, at least for one night.

There’s nothing like football >:)

(Pictures borrowed from the Internet. The prisoner (top), the loser (center, and the winner (bottom).)

The evil dentist

At the place where I grew up, there was a mean and evil dentist. His office was in the school building, right by the football field (football=soccer). When the ball hit his window, he got furious. He ran out and grabbed the poor boy that kicked the ball by the ear, and pulled him into the dentist’s chair. He picked the nicest and whitest tooth in the boy’s mouth. With an evil grin on his face, he drilled out a wide and deep cavity, while the boy cried and screamed in pain. Finally he filled the cavity with dark and ugly amalgam.

Don’t you believe it?

I used to tell this story to my little boys. They believed it, and even counted on my teeth the number of times I had kicked the ball at the dentist’s window >:)))