Ukraine Update

Its been a while since I wrote - its strange, it seems like a lot has happened, if FEELS like a lot has happened, but since the 24th, nothing really has happened.

So here I am in lovely Kiev - a shame its December, clearly I'm not capturing this city in its full glory. I feel like a midget here, everyone is SO TALL. They gave me a nice one bedroom apartment with really high ceilings (very tall people used to live there?). I'm not used to winding, twisting streets in a former Soviet Capital, I'm used to the perfect grid of Almaty. I will be getting lost once I start trying.

Its a much busier place than Almaty, and a much more European place. What does it mean when I say European? I don't really know, but it feels that way.

I've been now to lots of cities in lots of countries, and I can safely say that I can tell how much I like a city within a few days of arriving. Each city has a rhythym to it. Never mind the monuments, history, or architecture - its the way that the people move through the city that makes it interesting for me. I don't think, though, that its fair to try to understand the rhythym of a northern city in December.

I'm going back home on the 19th (Gaithersburg MD) for one month and maybe longer. I am REALLY looking forward to it - be prepared for the blog which I rant about how disappointed I am. I really want to go home and build a house - but I really am not enthusiastic about living in the USA. The country just seems - well - foreign to me.

What I do

I'm a consultant. In even more fundamental terms, I'm a salesperson. I sell ideas (that's all a consultant does). Fortunately I have an opportunity to create some of those ideas, so the process is a little bit more than selling.

My technical field is economic development with a specialty in reducing the bureaucracy that governments impose on business. I've been doing this for 7 years and I've had the opportunity to do it in 4 continents and 15 countries around the world.

Getting a government official to change his attitude towards a business person is definately a sales pitch. Most of the time, these officials ride a dirty bus into their office and watch the same people they must regulate pass them in a late model BMW.

When I was young

I have a hard time cracking down on my 17 year old son's efforts in school. I was a terrible student. I did the least possible homework to get through school and get into the University that I aimed for (NYU).

Instead of school work, I was interested in other things (no, not girls). In my teens, I was a magician - I did birthday parties and one stage act in front of a school. What a rush to get those ooohs and aaahs.

I also used to deal baseball cards. For international friends who don't know what those are, I'll do my best to explain, but it still doesn't make much sense. Baseball cards are rectangular pieces of cardboard with pictures of professional athletes. Each year they are released with different pictures, and there are many people who attach considerable value to them, particularly the older ones.

So I used to go to "conventions", (the equivalent of a market inside a hotel) to sell the cards that I bought. I tried to buy them cheap and resell them.

Is there a point to this? No.

First Post

Today I live in Almaty, Kazakhstan. Its in Central Asia (most people say Where????), just due south of Russia. Its actually the 9th largest country in the world in terms of land mass.