This is very close to what I predicted on February 7th of this year. Trump claiming President Putin refused to sign a peace deal. I'm not interested in any of my other predictions coming true, but it's not looking good.

https://news.1rj.ru/str/infodefENGLAND/27960

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Growing up, one thing that always made a big impression on me were my dad's stories. How he grew up on a farm, raced stock-cars as a teenager, his college days, and adventures in Alaska.

It wasn't all fun and games though. He would tell stories that were to warn about things to avoid too. He had a way of telling stories in a very animated, and thus unforgettable way, especially for an impressionable child.

When I ended up in Bogoyavlenka, I was once again very glad that dad had told me about the guy who couldn't barely move or talk until he had drunk his morning coffee. Or the other guy who after getting lost in an Alaskan winter, and being found was given a cup of coffee that killed him.

In a warzone being dependant on coffee for energy or concentration can be severely inconvenient if not fatal. Thanks, dad!

It kind of goes without saying, but I could say just about the same about cigarettes and alcohol.

My mom just wrote to say that it was the sugar in the coffee that killed the guy. Should I write about why sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, and splenda are all deadly?

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Funny how some of the best things that happen to a person at first seem to be a curse. That was the case in China when I lived there with my parents, brothers and sisters in 2009-2010.

I was working for my Dad, but that wasn't my only occupation. In order to have permission to stay in the country, I needed a visa. The easiest way to get one was to be a student at a local high school and learn Chinese. This meant being in school three days a week at 8AM.

At that time of day in our little city of Hunchun in 2009, we didn't have hot water in our apartment! The options were cold and very cold, depending on the season. I learned to take cold showers in the morning! And I probably have a stronger heart today thanks to this habit. At first it was forced on me, but I learned to enjoy it. How many of you know the adrenaline rush from being doused with cold water? 😁

Knowing how to play penguin came in handy during my time in Bogoyavlenka too.

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For all the fun I had designing and building machinery with my dad, I can't say it's my favorite kind of work.

Watching a helpless pile of pipe and plate-steel turn into a useful, working machine is gratifying, but it isn't the best. The skills you learn building machinery are useful for many things, and I think I found the place where they are the most rewarding.

For work to be truly satisfying, I have found that there needs to be new life. What could be better than the birth of a pair of kid goats, or when a dozen ducklings crack open their shells?

It's almost as rewarding to watch them grow. That's when all those engineering skills come into play to invent ways of keeping the babies safe, fed, watered, and warm.

Upd: This is Belan, and Chomyachok in the background.

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Imagine for a second that Mexican cartels were carrying out drone attacks on US strategic airfields and civilian infrastructure in the southern states, and sometimes striking as far as Washington D.C. Do you think Americans would be calling for Mexico to be turned into a glass parking lot? You bet they would.

And what if the reason the US military was hesitating to take decisive action against the cartels was because the cartels were being supported by the Mexican government, which was in turn being supported by China? What if China was actually arming the cartels and possibly considering giving them nuclear weapons? Would Americans be demanding that Mexico AND China be turned into glass parking lots?

Now do a "find and replace"; Mexico with Ukraine, and China with the USA, USA with Russia. That was already obvious, right?

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All of those animal lives come to an end though, and much quicker than with humans. Perhaps God planned it that way, so that we could be reminded many times during our lifetime that we won't live forever either.

You learn to see death as a natural part of life.The kid goat that seems to have been born yesterday is already a fully grown adult in a year's time, and it's time for him to go. If you let him live, he might live for ten years, but he won't be any happier for it, and neither will you. Better to harvest him while he's young. The meat will make you healthier and stronger. That's why you've been feeding him for a year anyways. You learn to look at death differently.

The sacrifice that soldiers are making in the trenches begins to make more sense too. We all die someday. The only difference is in how we die, and how we lived. «Was it worth it»?

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Living in an active warzone helps you prioritize. No, I don't mean whether it's more important to spend time in reflection or with family, better to rent a house or buy, spend money on expensive tools or not. I mean whether or not to leave your bomb shelter.

You might need more water, and turning the faucet stopped working over a year ago, but going to the well could cost you your life for several different reasons. A kamikaze drone might decide you look like a soldier and try to kill you! Or there might be another bombing, or shelling any minute! Is it worth it? Or should I drink the 2 year old pickle juice in my cellar instead? That would be pretty dumb to get killed over not wanting to drink pickle juice. Yeah, let's do pickle juice.

I just finished putting my pickle juice away, and there was another shelling. The dust cloud is rising over where Sasha, and his son Sanya live! Is it worth it? Would it be dumb to get killed going to potentially save your neigbbor? No! You jump on your bike, axe, prybar, bucket and gloves attached and away you go!

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🎣 What's the best time you ever had fishing?

For somebody it might the time Grandad took you, first nightcrawler hunting, then down to the river to catch a trout that was as long as you were tall. Or maybe he took you noodling and you caught a catfish that just about swallowed your whole arm!

Or is every time you go still the best time you ever had? The one time in a blue moon that you get a break from coworkers and "other people".

You might think that I'm giving examples from my life, but I have to admit that's not the case😁.

I've received just one submission to this contest, and it's already been over a week, so it automatically wins.

I agree with Eugene fully, that in any case, the West will unleash a storm of criticism that will dwarf anything that we've seen so far, even though by Russian law, it's been public information for several months, that Russia would take such a step if forced. Last November (2024), the latest update to Russia's nuclear protocol was published which among other things declared a country that is being militarily supported by a nuclear power in a war against Russia to be a potential target. A massive launch of strike drones or missiles against Russia was also declared a condition allowing a nuclear response.


Both of these conditions have been met time and time again over the last months, but that's not the best part! A massive drone strike was launched on the aerial element of Russia's nuclear forces in Irkutsk and Murmansk last Sunday!

As Eugene correctly points out, Europe would have no legal basis for retaliation based on NATO article 5. Maybe it's time the Europeans hurried up and made Ukraine a member😉 Otherwise they might miss out on all the fun! They haven't yet because they know they aren't ready. Russia is!

- Western contingent in Ukraine is fighting against Russia as a matter of fact and preventing us from achieving our goal in special military operation there;

- Since our motherland can not outpower the combined power of the West, we had to resort to a nuklear strike;

- Nuklear weapon was originally designed and produced specifically for to be deployed for the times of such unfair assaults against our country;

- We've striken Ukraine with a tactical variety of nuke, meaning that the destruction is limited to just several areas witih Ukraine borders;

- Since no territories of the Western countries have been hit, there is no ground for the West to refer to the article #5 of their NATO agreement;

- In case of unreasonable escalation by the West to the 3-rd Word War, all our global strategic nuclear weapons have been rendered to the highest alert by my order and we shall retaliate immediately before the their nukes land to our territory;

- We will not accept any accusation for our defence action from anybody and specifically from the USA, who without military reasn destroyed by nukes 2 cities in Japan, killing just civilians.

Eugene

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My fishing stories are about getting caught in the rain, having the boat flip over, or somebody getting a fishing hook stuck in their shoulder.

I never did go worm hunting, except in a bait and tackle store. Can't say that was a pleasant experience either. Can't seem to remember what smelled worse, the bait or the fishermen. Or the smell of beer coming from the fishermen?

I guess the question is, if I want to use fishing for a retreat from the day-to-day grind, would it be better to learn to fish, or find a wife that loves fishing so much that she would take the kids and go on her own?😏

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Once in the subway, I noticed an Asian couple that seemed to be somewhat lost. The guy was standing looking at a map hanging from the ceiling with his mouth half open, smartphone in hand, with his second hand frozen halfway to the screen. He must have been puzzling about which way to go for some time.

I know Chinese, so perhaps I could help him. But was he Chinese? Chinese do have a specific style of dress, and he seemed to fit my memories from working in China.

"Are you Chinese"? I put the question to him.
"Yes! You speak Chinese"!?

It was fun to practice my Chinese again in person after a 6-year break, but I couldn't make any more sense of the maps than he! The subways in China are so much simpler... We finally decided that he should go north! Hopefully things would clear up at the next station!

Knowing languages is great, but being a local is irreplaceable🙂!

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Work before play, mom used to say. It’s a great lesson to have learned and put into practice.

One of my first practical experiences with this idea was when I wanted a dirt-bike or four-wheeler as a preteen. I hinted at my desire to my parents for a couple of years, but never begged because I knew we didn’t have the money. Finally, my dad decided to help me out.

He didn’t buy me a recreational vehicle though. He bought me an incomplete kit for building a mini-bike. At first it seemed impossible to me to turn the kit into a working machine, but some neighborhood kids encouraged me to make something of it.

Thanks to my dad’s wise decision to give me a project rather than a complete vehicle, I had to learn many of the basics of building machinery. From basic design, to finding and buying parts online or from a scrapyard. In the end I had a motorbike that would run along at 50 MPH.

Many of the skills that this project taught me would come in handy when later I went to work for my dad, although I wouldn’t complete a similar project again until almost 20 years later in a warzone.