I had to make a quick trip to Adana, the week before last.  When our crew makes that trip, we always try to stop in Pozanti to eat at the Tunnel Restaurant.  It is positioned right next to a tunnel where trains pass through.  Every now and then, the building shakes when that happens.

I took a few pictures when we stopped there, and thought you would like to see them.  Just a couple.  Next time I will post some pics that Terese took when she was in Istanbul before going to Ethiopia.

The last one was from my hotel window in Adana looking over the city at sunrise.

More later.  D.

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Strike up the band!  Bring out the dancing poodles and kill the fatted calf!  The damn cat has arrived in Ankara!

Terese left for Africa several weeks ago to retrieve her and has returned with the little heathen yesterday.  I commented to Terese that the animal looks smaller than I remember, and she said the Professor, who was gracious enough to house the critter, ran out of cat food and the little one was too picky to eat people food.  So, she would just lick and nibble enough to call it eating.

She was born in Moscow and a co-worker at the time asked Terese to hold her while she loaded personal items into the vehicle.  Terese looked into the little blue eyes and turned to me and casually commented that this cat was now hers.

In the years that followed she traveled from Russia, to the States with us to live in Virginia, then to Ethiopia and now to Turkey.  Even though the animal was free for the taking, she has racked up a monetary tally far beyond I would have ever thought possible for a household pet.

In Ethiopia she made friends with the monkeys.  They both have the same color of fur, but the monkeys have tails that are far more useful.  She also befriended a small mouse she happened across.  Terese caught her making strange noise and found her nose to nose with the rodent.  Under normal conditions, we would not have had to feed her for several days after an encounter with a mouse, but she is not normal.  I bet she even took some of her food to share with the little friend.

While living with the Professor, we had some concern about her being around his chickens thinking she might kill one or two, or they kill her.  Instead, she befriended them and intermingled among them.  Both species lived in harmony.

Being here in Ankara will be a bit different for her as there will be no outdoors to explore and no monkeys, mice or chickens to befriend.  We do, however have pigeons.  When warmer weather returns, we will have doors and windows open and she will be able to create a bond with the birds.  Perhaps one day she will grace us with dinner in the form of a deceased winged critter laying on the living room floor.  But I doubt it.  Most likely we will find her and a bird or two eating at her food trough.

When we first got her in Moscow, she would follow me up the steps in the mornings to make coffee.  The first few weeks I would make it to the kitchen before she did and I would start the coffee.  When she joined me, I would not know it until I stepped on her with my bare feet,  So I had to pick her up and place her on my shoulder so I could use both hands and not hurt her.

Over the years as she enlarged in size, she still expected to be picked up when I made coffee and placed on my shoulder.  Only now, I have to use one hand to hold up her dead butt.  You would think after all these years, she would be able to make coffee and bring it to us in bed.  But, no.  Hasn’t happened and probably won’t.  Terese says it may be that she has no opposable thumbs.  Maybe so, but she does have a tail.

But in a way, I’m glad she is here because it gives me another one to blame strange happenings on.  There are times there may be a case of the vapors and she is just the one to blame it on.  And now the noises in the night will now just be ignored since it can be assumed to be the damn cat.

I guess I really can’t complain too much, as she only eats a pittance and scratches on her scratching pole.  Plus she keeps Terese company when I’m away.  Could be worse.  Could be a monkey or a chicken.  Guess I’ll settle for a cat.

Keep scratching.  D.

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The past three weeks have been continuous.

Terese flew to Addis Ababa a few weeks ago to get the damn cat and shortly afterwards, I had to make a quick run down to Adana for an sudden bit of work.  Then this past week we’ve had extra people here to help finish some on-going and critical projects, so I have not had time to put any words on the screen.

Just wanted to let you know I have not been kidnapped and sold into slavery yet.  Also, Terese and the damn cat arrived so now she (cat) has a new place to explore.  Maybe she will sit long enough to share some of her wisdom.

Kick butt and I will post more soon.    D.

My wife, being an adopted little one has no information on her ancestry.  Back in November, I saw where you can have your DNA analyzed to find out your heritage and a bit more.  So, we purchased a kit and since they gave a 20% discount on a second one, I opted to have mine done also.

I received my results back shortly after Christmas and found my heritage was mostly European; which I already knew, since both of my parent’s ancestry came from Europe at one place or another.  But the information also revealed a great deal of health and human trait info.  Just a sampling of mine:

• Male (absolutely correct)
• Likely brown eyes (close enough)
• Straighter hair than average (correct)
• Decreased odds of male pattern baldness (my wife says I have a blonde spot)
• Not Malaria resistant (damn!)
• Likely O type blood (correct)
• Greater tendency to overeat (no argument)
• And I am much less efficient at learning to avoid erors (surely not!)

It also lists information on how susceptible I am to various hereditary diseases, medications and bad habits.  No need to go into that here.  Suffice to say I need to watch for things that may crop up in life.

Shortly after sending in our spit samples, the all-knowing FDA, with its common sense reasoning, decided companies like the one we purchased our kit from, should not be giving us our health information.  So anyone purchasing a kit after that time would only receive their ancestry and not the health info.  We were in the grandfathered section sort of speak, so we got the whole nine yards.    …  Déjà vu?

from Wikipedia

As I scan through all the information, ancestry, health issues, traits and nuances; I realize the information given is well above my IQ grade.  There are words I’ve never heard.  Ever hear the word: genome? Or haplogroup? Genotype?  Promethease, pyrimidines or purines?  Don’t bother looking them up in Wikipedia.  It just gets more complicated.  I found out my mother came from haplogroup K, circa 500 years ago, before the era of intercontinental travel.  And Pop came from haplogroup R1b1b2.  … Yeah, thank goodness for “cut & paste”.

I talked my mother into doing her DNA also and had a kit sent to her house.  She commented she didn’t know if she could spit into the little tube or not.  I had to question her on that, as she is almost 95 years old and doesn’t know how to spit?  I learned to do that when I was a little boy in parochial school with a big sister.

We are used to seeing shows where they send DNA to the crime lab to bring the killer to justice.  Simple as fingerprints I thought.  After all, we have seen the little miniature spiral that represents our DNA, and how much info could that microscopic thing have?

Well, I downloaded my raw data to store away in case I decided to dig deeper into it, and was astonished to find it was 960 thousand lines of text!  Got that?  960,614 lines of text, just under a million.  From a microscopic spiral!

You know, at times like this I think the Creator knows a bit more than we do, and I am reminded of the words:   For what seems to be God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom …

I bow to Him.

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We have been very busy lately.  Was told we are the busiest Embassy in the World right now with all we have going on, and at the same time I’m trying my best to stay healthy to get through the winter.  They say warmer weather will be here after March.  Not a month too soon.

With all our household belongings in the apartment, I spend the weekends getting my office set up the way I want.  I have several boxes of computer and electronic parts on the floor, and about a dozen boxes of books waiting on me to get a bookshelf set up.

Throughout my life, I have collected many electronic parts which I feel is a crime to discard.  When someone came up to me and said, “Hey Dwaine, do you have a …”  “I sure do!” was my reply.  But back in 2007, we sold our house in Texas and moved to Moscow to work.  I told myself it was time to grow up and part with the majority of my precious toys.

I remember well the day I backed my truck up to the landfill and tossed out my valued treasures, fighting back the tears.  Didn’t matter whether they worked or not, because you never knew when one might need the flyback transformer from a 12” monochrome CRT.  Or an IBM motherboard with a full 640k memory on it.  There was a box of capacitors taken from old radios that I salvaged.  Many years ago, I dismantled an old mainframe computer for the wonderful parts.  Coils and solenoids, motors and fans.  Wire harnesses and terminal blocks and lights galore!  It was wonderful!  On top of that, I had a brother that would send me old parts from commercial mainframes that had gone bad.  And all those … were tossed too.

There was a flat box with about a hundred compartments, that I had separated my scrapped electronic components into groups so I could find them quicker.  I could not get myself to just toss it out like a farmer feeding the hogs, so I gently laid it on a pile of garbage like I was putting a child to sleep.

And as I drove off with my nose running from the tears, or maybe the stench and dust, I looked in the rear view mirror just in time to see the monster compacting machine rolling over all my belongings, smashing the crap out of everything.  I think I saw an evil grin on the driver’s face.  To this day, I feel it was Satan.

Well, as nature would have it, I am still collecting electronic junk, only now, I haul it from country to country.  And it is all setting on the floor not far from me as I type this.  During the past decade, I have upgraded from desktop computers to laptops, and gone to more powerful operating systems.  What I have ended up with, are three old laptops that I didn’t know what to do with.  Throw them out, you say?  Ah, no.  I don’t think I can handle the tears again.

Then about a month ago, I saw an article on the Web about using old computers to work on scientific projects from your home.  So, I did some checking and found an amazing site that you can set up your computer to work in conjunction with literally thousands of other personal computers around the world.  The idea was to use your computer when it was idling, like when you go get more coffee, or watch another episode of Wedding Chapel Blues, or Bait Shop Hussy or whatever they have these days.

So, I sat the three machines up and tied them to the Internet and got them all updated.  Downloaded a program called BOINC which is a part of the University of California at Berkley, and chose three different projects and assigned one to each of my little machines.

One is running a program called Rosetta, which helps determine the 3-dimensional shape of proteins as part of research that may ultimately contribute to cures for major human diseases such as AIDS / HIV, Malaria, Cancer, and Alzheimer’s.

Another is running Docking, which is a project that aims to further knowledge of the atomic details of protein-ligand interactions and, by doing so, to facilitate the discovery of novel pharmaceuticals.

And the third is running a program called eOn Client, which works on a common problem in theoretical chemistry, condensed matter physics and materials science is the calculation of the time evolution of an atomic scale system where, for example, chemical reactions and/or diffusion occur.

As you may have guessed, I had to cut and paste all that as most of it went over my head like a bird in a windstorm.  But look!  These machines are proof that you should never discard things of beauty!

At night as I lay in bed, I can hear these computers running in the other room with their fans working hard to keep them cool.  Sometimes in the middle of the night, if I get up to pee and get a drink of water, I will wonder into the office and check up on them like a mother checking her babies.  Satisfied, I go back to bed dreaming of the success of hording electronic junk.

Keep kicking.  D.

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A co-worker took us to a shopping quarter in Ankara called Ulus.  From what I understand, it is the center of the original Ankara city.  It now encompasses some of the best shopping in Turkey with many shops, restaurants and hotels.

I had been there about three years ago and found it quite an experience.  After being there today with more time to explore, I see it is a treasure to behold, like an emerald in the sand.

My co-worker had been telling me about this particular place that sells old doors and sections of woodwork from old houses.  I am in the process of building a unique crystal radio and wanted an unusual box to place it in.  This was the place.  Those who come to visit will be enamored as we are of this rare find of treasures.

We first had lunch at a museum that had a very nice restaurant in it.  Then headed down the steep hill to wonder in and out of the shops.

You will find many various shops.  Coppersmiths who rattle away on copper sheeting producing intricate artwork.  Rug dealers selling some of the rarest carpets with the richest colors and designs.  Brass goods which reflect the sun throughout the shelving.  Shops with an assortment of furniture from the previous two centuries.  Textile shops with mounds of fiber stuffed into baskets outside their doorways.  A great many shops selling a variety of nuts and spices, sitting outside tempting those passing by with a taste.

Every shop we stopped in, we were asked “Would you like some çay?  (tea)”

“Oh, no thank you.”  Five minutes later, a small saucer with a curved glass of hot tea was brought out and handed me.

“Teşekkür,” (thank you)  I replied.  It was always sweetened with lemon in it.

Three years ago, I took several pictures of the area, and with what we took today, some are below.

Inside the restaurant at the museum.

And the last is a picture of some of the local inhabitants taking an afternoon nap.

Ulus.  Those who come to visit us will be charmed as we are of this unique place.

– Keep kicking.  Dwaine