Year: 2005

Rethinking ‘Picture of the day’

This has been on my mind for some time now, so I decided to finally do it. My ‘Picture of the day’ project is going well. In fact, it grew out of the original idea. These days I am blogging a lot and many pictures that I post to the ‘Picture of the day’ can be instead used to annotate my other posts. So, instead of creating two posts – one POTD submission and another a regular story without a picture – I will do one.

Here is how it will work. If I have a picture and the story, then I will write a single post with text and image. If I have just a picture, I will post just a picture in the relevant category. And only if I have a picture with some photographic value, I will create a post in the Photography category, with the picture and the description of the value, lighting conditions, and stuff like that. I might leave it as just a picture too, but I will try to avoid the laziness like that.

All these single pictures will still remain in the POTD directory in my photo albums.

Pediatrician check

Max was on his weekly check with pediatrician today. Everything looks good. He (Maxim, not pediatrician) is growing as he should. He gained about 300 grams during the last week and now weights 4160 grams. He also gained about 2 centimeters to his size and he now measures 55 centimeters. Something else that I was always forgetting to mention – the diameter of his head. He is growing his head about 1 centimeter per week. Now it has a diameter of 38 centimeters.

Maxim has no troubles focusing on the face of the person and following its movement for a few seconds. He also can move his hands and legs just fine. Dr.Simos suggested that we start doing some gymnastics with Maxim. He showed us a couple of exercises that Maxim should do daily.

Another interesting thing that we’ve learned is about names. Dr.Simos said that there are a lot of Maxims getting born. He alone has 5 (!!!) patience with this name. These are good news. Having a unique name is usually hard upon the child and its the last thing we wanted for him. Certainly, though, we didn’t expect it to be so popular.

Million Dollar Baby

I know it is hard to believe, but I actually had time to watch a movie today. “Million Dollar Baby” is one of the freshest items on my wishlist. It doesn’t mean though that I wanted to see it any less than any other movie on that list. And I am really glad I did. I even consider it to be one of the Top 10 movies that I have seen during the last 5 years or so.

IMDB rating: 8.3
My rating: 9.8
Celebrity highlights: directorship and production of Clint Eastwood. He also delivers an excellent performance as one of the lead roles in the film, where he starrs together with Morgan Freeman and Hilary Swank.

Continue reading Million Dollar Baby

I love China

I have realized something today. I love China. I never thought I do. Actually, I never thought on the subject. Neither about China, nor about any other country. (Well, maybe Cyprus, but that doesn’t count since I am living in this country).

Before you start looking for a different blog to read, let me tell you that I have never been to China. Nor have I read any books about China. I have met a few Chinese people, but I haven’t been really close with anyone of them. At this point you might be wondering how did I arrive to the conclusion.

Well, I was sitting there doing nothing when this Chinese girl popped up in my ICQ. Her English was good enough for us to talk so we did. She asked me if I ever visited her country or if I knew anything about it. I started thinking. And here is what came to my mind.

I am one of the greatest fans of Chinese martial arts movies. There is a special place in my heart for all of them collectively and few of them individually.
I really enjoy Chinese cuisine. Of course, all those places that I have tried might have nothing in common with the real meal in China, but as far as I went and as far as my imagination can take me, I really like Chinese food.
I like Chinese art. Especially paintings, but anything works. Some of the best decorations that I have seen were embroideries on Chinese silk. And, of course, the china porcelain dishes. Those are really cool, though I haven’t seen many of them. But I liked those that I have seen.
I like Chinese dragons. Dragons have a special place in Chinese culture and I totally dig them. Dragon dances, pictures, fairy tales and all the other dragonware – I like it.
I like Chinese architecture. I haven’t seen any in real life, but those that come on pictures and in the movies look really cool. If you can’t think of any, I’ll remind you of Imperial palaces, Great Wall of China, and monasteries.
I like Chinese people. I met a few. I didn’t get very close to any of them, as I have already mentioned above. But all of them seemed like decent people. What I liked about them was that they knew how to have some real fun without crossing too many of cultural borders. This is a rare quality, if you ask me.

I was surprised by myself. First of all, I never knew that I knew so much about China. Secondly, I couldn’t believe that with all these positive emtions towards China I never thought about the country or culture separately. Strange. I am really glad I discovered all those feelings. Now that I’ve done that, I put a visit to China on my todo list. It is one of the first things to do after I fix my financial situation.

Imperial size bed

Everyone knows what a King size bed is. Today I’ve learned that there is a bigger option – Imperial size. Imperial size bed is a standard King size bed given out completely to a one month old baby. It is so big you can practically play hide-and-seek in it.

My mother and I left for a while today and left Olga alone with Maxim. She fed him, but he didn’t want to sleep in his bed and she didn’t have enough patience and strength (yet) to play him into oblivion. So she just left him in our bed alone. You had to see this. Among numerous pillows rugs, sheets and blankets there was this tiny little lost face. And it was sleeping. I could almost see the angel wings sticking from under the blanket.