Life in Kyiv, Ukraine

Quote form Steve Jobs speech

I am very impressed by Steve Jobs Stanford Commencement Speech 2005.

Especially by :

"If you live each day as it is your last  some day you most certainly be right. It made an impression on me. And since then for past 33 years I'd look up in the mirror every morning  and ask myself  if today was the last day of my life. IF I want to do, what I am about to do today. Whenever the answer was no for a few days in row I knew it was time to change"

"Have a courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow know what you really want. Everything else is secondary"

To see the whole speech go to YouTube

My fifth speech: Living in the dark

The idea of the speech is based on the true story and I believe it was a creative one.
So I decided to share it. You may see it here

Basic words in 4 languages

Nostalgia about traveling and meeting people I feel, so
Let me recollect it:
French -  from the American waitress in the restaurant where I have worked as dishwasher
Download French.doc
Turkish  - from the Turkish owner of the house I have stayed in USA
Download Turkish.doc
Czech - from a girl, but I can't say for sure how I was related to her
Download Czech.doc
Spanish - not from the native speaker, actually I have visited languages courses
Download Spanish.doc

And I used to know this amazing poem by heart:
Frederico Garcia Lorca
La luna a soma

Cuando sale la luna
Se pierden las campanus
Y aparacen las sendas
Impene trables

Cuando sale la luna
El mar cubre la tiera
Y el corazon se siente
I’sla en el infinito

Nadie come naranjas
Bajo la luna llena

El preciso comer
Fruta verde y helada

Cuando sale la luna
De cien caras iguales
La moneda de plata
Solloza en un bolsillo

Kyiv-Yaremche-Kyiv

Kyiv-Yeremche-Kyiv is 3 day trip to run away from dusty hot city to fresh clean air  of Ukrainian Carpathians. 

Day 1
I watch hard traffic at Shevchenko blvd at 3:50 a.m and wonder why people are not asleep. Exactly at 4 a.m my friends pick me up by car and we start our 10-hour  trip to Yeremche.

Traveling by car is really beneficial in terms of discovering the country. During the trip we all agree that Ukraine is a normal country and it worth living here. We all like  WOG gas stations, they just like any other gas station in USA or Europe. However the roads in Ternopil and Ivano-Frankivsk need to be improved.

Our hotel impresses with two things : wonderful location just near the river  and 510 UAH  per night per 3-person room. The rest of the day is dedicated to breathing Carpathians clean air, eating, walking, buying souvenirs (gift for my stryina in Chicago and nice cowboy hat for myself) and seeing deer and wild pigs.

The strangest thing for me was to discover in menu one page with detailed pricelist for broken dishes. I suggest you may chouse what to brake? The other strange thing is how many people can fit into the car ?

Day 2
Trip to Goverla is the essence of Day 2 and my first time at Ukrainian highest mountain.

I just say Fantastic ! Nothing to add. Key success gactors :
- wonderful weather
- positive friends
- enjoyable air to breath
The beauty of mountains can not be expressed by words, just see the pictures!

Statistics:
up – 2:25 minutes,
down – 2:15 due to challenging route we have chosen.

When I get to the car after Goverla trip my legs’ muscles  I understand the meaning of “deep relax”. After evening sauna with the cool pool followed by 3 cups mint tea I could only quote out hotel’s guide : “Here you would feel the meaning of word Relax”

Sleep like a child.

Day 3
We cancel  Dovbush Peaks due to the heavy ray. Goodbye fresh air and hello back trip to Kyiv.
One stop in Kremenets to see beautiful views from  Zamkova gora. Beside that it was ordinary car trip with swearing because of crazy drivers, meeting Zarvanytsia piligrims and passing by small towns and villages, rivers and fields of our beautiful country !
Home sweet home.

Humour about consulting

My favorites from Kellogg consulting club (follow the link to read have even more)

Signs You Work in Consulting
You get all excited it's Saturday so you can wear casual clothes to work

Ways to Know You've Got the Consulting Bug
Constant urge to give advice on subjects you know nothing about

Things a Consultant Shouldn't Tell a Client
I could just tell you the answer, but we're committed to a three month Project

Things You'll Never Hear from a Consultant
I don't know enough to speak intelligently about that.

Wonderful story about consultants
A consultant died and went to heaven. There were thousands of people ahead of him in line to see St. Peter. To his surprise, St. Peter left his desk at the gate and came down the long line to where the consultant was, and greeted him warmly. St. Peter took the consultant up to the front of the line, and into a comfortable chair by his desk. The consultant said, "I like all this attention, but what makes me so special?"
St. Peter replied, "Well, I've added up all the hours for which you billed your clients, and by my calculation you're 193 years old!"

You know it is time to get out of consulting when...
You give constructive feedback to your dog

English humour

I selected my favourites from PETER KAY

1)When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bike. Then I realised that The Lord doesn't work that way, so I stole one and asked him to forgive me.

2) S*x is like playing bridge: If you don't have a good partner, you better have a good hand.

3) If we aren't supposed to eat animals, then why are they made out of meat?

4) Why is it that when someone tells you that there are over a billion stars in the universe, you believe them, but if they tell you there is wet paint somewhere, you have to touch it to make sure.

Good joke about Big4

One politician, One thief & One BIG 4 employee died & went straight to
hell.
Politician said "I miss my country. I want to call my country and see
how everybody is doing there." She called and talked for about 5 minutes,
and then she asked "Well, devil how much I need to pay for the call????

The devil says "Five million dollars".
The Politician wrote him a cheque and went to sit back on her chair.

Thief was so jealous, he starts screaming, "My turn! I wanna call the my
group members, I want to see how everybody is doing there too"
He called and talked for about 2 minutes, and then he asked "Well,
devil, how much do I need to pay for the call????
The devil says "Ten million dollars".

With a smug look on his face, he made a cheque and went to sit back on
his chair.BIG 4 employee was even more jealous & starts screaming, "I want to call
my office friends, managers and partners ",He called other BIG 4 employees and he talked for twenty hours about his audit files and jobs what are the new clients, he talked & talked & talked,
then he asked "Well, devil how much do I need to pay for the call????

The devil says "Twenty dollars".
BIG 4 employer is stunned & says "Twenty dollars??? Only??"
Devil says: - Calling from Hell to Hell is considered Local Call

3 types of people

At the last Toastmasters meeting the Toastmaster of the evening started  with a quote I really liked:
There are three types of people:
First – they make things happen
Second – they watch things happen
Third – they wonder what is happening

Toastmasters go to Dnipropetrovsk'

Target of visit:
To help in opening first Toastmaster club in Dnipropetrovs’k. We wanted to demonstrate the usual Toastmasters meeting
Additional personal target: If feels good to be a volunteer. And I do like meeting new interesting people.

Impressions about city:
Dnipropetrovs’k is becoming my favorite destination. Two trips as elections observer, 4 audit trips and now volunteer. Since my audit trips more modern buildings arose. The American – style architecture neighbors 10 kop soda machine, rich and poor, like it always felt in this city.

                                    

            

This trip I discovered the Dnipro river is really beautiful here, perhaps even better than Kyiv.

Impressions about Toastmasters club opening: we met dedicated to self-development members of large software company. We had  marvelous speakers who demonstrated direction to grow. We all were enthusiastic about starting something new.
However, in my opinion, club our opening crew lacked “client tailored approach”. In my consulting job it would be disaster to take formal model and introduce it to a client as perfect solution.  Any good model needs to be tailored to client needs. In other words jokes and stories about software-developers and computers, I think we missed that.  But hopefully those people will be fine, now it all depends solely on their commitment to personal growth.

Basically that is about trip. Still,  do you know the best thing about being a volunteer ? You act among like-minded people and met new ones.

Listening to Last.fm

I discovered Last.fm for myself !
Here was the start:
“ Type your favorite artist name”

Turned to be a really hard question. First I thought about Fatboyslim, Moby, 3 Doors Down, Enya, Okean Elzy… Stop. I figure out I would start with Cranberries as it represents a type of music I like.

So I typed Cranberries and got “Pretty” - love it.
Than it suggested me Avril Lavigne “Complicated” – listen to it sometimes, like a vocal of Avril and lyrics of the song
White Stripes “I am Lonely” – ok song, a little bit slow, good lyrics

Than I figure out I’d choose a tag “Alternative rock’
Fun Lovin' Criminals – King of Newyork – funky, no lyrics
The Presidents of the United States of America – Boll Weevil – too alternative for me

Let’s try tag  Female Vocalists : Enya Angeles – adore Enya.

Nice song was not that good, so let’s narrow preferences and choose the best – tag Celtic Irish
Celtic Irish’s – no enough music to play this radio.
Ok, please give - Celtic Irish’s Top Listeners. That works.
Vanessa Carlton – A thousand miles – I have heard this song before. Good one.
The Real McKenzies – Bugger off. Hm, not exactly, but let’s stay here for a little while.
Ok I switch to Moby – it is most intellectual music for me, I need it to finish my report about trip to Dnipropetrovsk.

Conclusion: Last Fm is fun. Since I can not install plug-in to my corporate computer, I will buy own one in September.

P.S 100 Mb of traffic in 40 minutes. I don't care, I can afford it.