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

When I was a kid in Grade School, I received a crystal radio set for Christmas.  It was kinda funny looking now that I think about it, but it gave me hours of enlightenment.

It had a plastic box that resembled a radio with a copper coil inside and a small germanium diode attached to it.  The headphone had one ear piece.  The radio had a wire hanging out to attach an antenna to it and that was pretty much it.  All in all, a very simple setup.

I would run the antenna up to my window and attach it to the outside window screen.  Listening to it while laying in bed at night, the radio would only pick up two local stations, KGRO and KPDN in the Texas Panhandle.  Most of the times they overlapped.  Not much of a selection, but the amazing thing about the radio, was there was no power source, and the reception was absolutely perfect.  Crystal clear, and no batteries or power plug.

A few years later, I acquired an old radio from my Aunt.  Many of you may remember those types that had the vacuum tubes in the back that glowed and gave off heat with the dusty smell.  There was the hum that was often heard in the speaker.  The back of the radio was always opened and had a place to connect a ground wire and an antenna.  Back then, we referred to them as short-wave radios.

I spent a great many hours sitting patiently, slowly fine-tuning stations from the other side of the world.  It was always best to be in the dark, so you could watch the unusual “tuning eye” that many radios had to show when a signal was coming in strong.  The green luminescent eye would close as it became stronger.

One of the characteristics of short-wave is its ability to bounce off the ionosphere enabling it to curve around to the other side of the earth.  And I found by increasing the antenna length, I could pick up stations further away.  So one day I rode my bike to Radio Shack and bought some copper antenna cable.  Crawled up in the attic and strung it from one end to the other and lead it down to my bedroom through a little hole in my closet.

I picked up places in the world that I never knew existed.  Radio Quito in Ecuador was a religious station with a very strong signal.  It was found several places on the frequency bands.  Another good clear station was Radio Nederlands.  One of the most intriguing stations to a young boy was Radio Havana down in Cuba.  This was during the Vietnam War, and would broadcast English language newscasts to America with propaganda, telling how many American Capitalist planes were shot down that day.  It was always in the hundreds.  They referred to President Nixon as the “Number One War Criminal”.

But the one I found most fascinating was Radio Moscow.  I would get the big thick world atlas out and open it to the USSR page, and look at the city of Moscow with all its roads traveling in and out.  I remember thinking; there are people that actually live there.  Probably a million or more.  What are the houses like?  … the roads, the cars.  I wonder how cold it really is.  Does it ever get warm there?  Are the people really standing in line to get bread in the mornings?

Then there was the BBC World Service and the Voice of America (VOA).  Years later I would realize the VOA is operated by the CIA to provide news to countries that repress outside information to its people.

A station located in Fort Collins, Colorado, WWV, was used as a time standard throughout the communications and the aeronautical industries.  It had an ominous click ever second and gave the official Greenwich Mean Time at every minute.  You could set your clocks to that time, which I did often.  It is now referred to as Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).  Whether it’s still located on the short-wave bands, I do not know.

Over the years, I picked up a few more short-wave radios here and there.  But the World has moved on and now they sit in a storage unit, quiet and dark.  No warm dusty smell.  No steady hum.  No green luminescent eye.  I really do think of those machines at times wishing I was a young kid again, listening in the dark room to a radio station that is 7,000 miles away.  It now pales in comparison to home satellite systems, computers and me being able to call my mother every week using the Internet, from over 7,000 miles away.

The World indeed moves on.

It’s been a crazy past few weeks.  Our personal vehicle finally arrived and we are now mobile.  Then all of our household effects showed up at one time, so the three bedroom apartment looks like a storage unit exploded.  It will be weeks before everything is either in its place or thrown away.

And last week, I had to make an emergency trip up to Istanbul while fighting a hellacious head cold.  Airplanes and head colds do not mix well.  As I scurried around the Consulate doing some repairs, I had to stuff tissues up my nose to function.  Hopefully no one noticed.

But the trip was a success and the apartment will eventually resemble a home.  We bought a small pretend Christmas tree at IKEA, so we are now in some sort of festive mood … and we are now officially over the hump of Winter, so very slowly the days will get longer and the nights shorter.

Speaking of Christmas, it baffles us to see all the Christmas decorations throughout a country that is 99.8% Muslim.  I was just as surprised to see they also celebrated Halloween like they did.

We find the people amazing, just like we did in Ethiopia.  Just different.  They are very sociable and giving.  I recently gave several classes to our Local Guard Force on the operation of a piece of equipment, and after each class I had to sit with the Guard Supervisor and have çay (tea) with him.  In the period we will be here, we will drink more tea here than anywhere else we live.  After every meal, hot çay is served in small curved glasses.  Most people put a cube of sugar or two in it.

I have so much to write about, but my head is still trying to recover from the cold I picked up.  Working in single digit weather will take a grown man down.  As I told Terese many times, I paid my dues in the cold, let the young guys do that work now.  Only problem, they want to sit and play video games instead.

I’ll get back to you soon.  If I don’t before Christmas then:

To my Liberal friends:                    Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all. I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2014, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great.  Not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other countries nor the only “America” in the Western Hemisphere.  Also, this wish is made without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishes.

To My Conservative Friends:      Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

–          (not my words but I wish they were)       D.

… yes, I know.  You don’t give a rat’s butt about that.

Before coming to Ankara, we spent two beautiful warm years in Ethiopia; warm to hot summers and cool wet winters.  I could live there the remainder of my life.  Too many times in my life, I worked out in cold weather as well as oppressive heat, but now my tired old body says, enough.

Just got back from Adana in time to see the snow move into the city of Ankara.  Terese and I sat at one of the large windows in the apartment and watched the drivers imitating the Keystone Cops.  For those few youngsters who read this blog, click here:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keystone_Cops

As with any city in Europe, you find people who think they are experienced Formula One drivers.  These are the idiots who try to pass on a slippery hill and end up losing control.  We have yet to witness a wipeout, but I think it’s just a matter of time.  The Turks are not good drivers and deadly on snow and ice.  There is a steep hill I have to traverse to get to and from work.  I am told the dangerous part is not driving on it, but dealing with the Turks who drive on it.

In the States, when you speed past a police officer, you get pulled over or worse.  Creep through a stop sign and you will get a ticket.  Throwing trash out the window will yield a hefty fine, especially in Texas.  But in most European countries, speeding or running a stop sign is usually ignored, because there is no compensation for the officer to chase you down and stop you.  It’s not uncommon to drive down the wrong direction of a one-way street.  We see it all the time.  Trash goes flying out the window with no recourse.  From our apartment window, we see vehicles below, stop along the street next to a row of trees, open the doors and toss out all the trash like it’s a landfill.  Several times, we have seen a vehicle stop, and actually set a sack of garbage on the sidewalk and drive off!  Seriously!

We will get our vehicle this week and I will be a bit nervous driving at first, especially with all the Turks driving on snow and ice.  We survived Ethiopia with just a smashed mirror, and that was my doing.  We will see what happens in Turkey.

Konya, Turkey is the origin of a Sufi sect of Islam, which worships God with a practice of whirling as a form of dhikr (remembrance of God).  These guys are commonly known as the Whirling Dervishes.  The order was started by the followers of Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Balkhi-Rumi, a 13th-century Persian poet, Islamic jurist, and theologian, according to Wikipedia.

Saturday, Terese and I went on a tour to Konya to eat good food, do some shopping, and then attend a performance of the ceremony.  We took many pictures, but we were not allowed to use flash.  Altho others ignored the request, we didn’t, so many of the pics were out of focus.  But we did get enough to show.

Once we arrived in Konya, the guides took us to a restaurant to eat.  As in any meal I’ve had in Turkey, the food was excellent.  Usually with lamb or chicken, and always with yogurt, peppers, onions and greens that looks like weeds to me.

Below it starts with the little bowls of stuff, some of it not be eaten by those with a soft stomach.   Then came the “Mozambique” soup, followed by lamb on bread.  The dessert we determined was a chestnut paste mixed with butter.  Everything is meant to be eaten with bread. Afterwards we went to an outdoor Mevlana Museum with the history of the Mevlevi Order.  The museum contains many sarcophagi – (plural of sarcophagus) holding the remains of the early Rumi families. Here’s some pics Terese took in the museum. As we walked around in the sub-freezing sunshine, two little school girls stopped Terese and asked to interview her.  Turns out to be their school homework.  They spoke very good English, whereas it’s not common in Turkey to learn our language.  As soon as they finished, two more girls stopped to interview her.  That’s when I pulled my phone out and took these pics. Terese always gets cute girls to visit with her, while all I get are old women who want me to help them cross a street.  Below are a few pics I took of the surrounding area. As we walked around waiting for time to go to the performance and do a bit of shopping, I was more concerned on finding a place to warm up, and did not take any pictures of the inside of the shops.  Luckily Terese took some. The gentleman on the left is the proprietor.

We eventually attended the performance (Sama).  It starts out with a very slow procession of the sheikh and 28 dervishes.  The lighting changed color occasionally, so the best pics are the ones I got with the full lighting. Once they all came in, with a lot of chanting and bowing between movements, they removed their black cloaks showing the white garments. Taken from Wikipedia:    The Sama was practiced in the samahane (ritual hall) according to a precisely prescribed symbolic ritual with the dervishes whirling in a circle around their sheikh, who is the only one whirling around his axis. The Sema is performed by spinning on the Left foot. The dervishes wear a white gown (tennure) (symbol of death), a wide black cloak (hırka) (symbol of the grave) and a tall brown hat (kûlah or sikke), symbol of the tombstone. Then there is a very slow, step-by-step walk (even slower than a wedding march) of several of them, in a circle with the sheikh.  The sheikh is the one with the green cloth on his hat. Then they all slowly move past him and started their whirling.They did four separate whirling sessions with a lot of bowing between them, each lasting about 10 minutes or so.  Not once did I see any of them barf, nor show any signs of vertigo.  I told Terese to keep her purse handy in case I got sick watching them.

I figured the guy walking among them was controlling the movement of the circle.  He would move in and out allowing the dervishes to fill in gaps and to help some of them know when to move.  As I understand, they are suppose to be in a trance of sort.

The Sama is concluded with a recitation from the Qu’ran and a prayer by the sheikh. I saw a much smaller Sama years ago in Istanbul and was interested in seeing this larger show.  I think Terese enjoyed it more than I did.  She being an old dancer from decades past could relate to it better than me. … and no, I didn’t get sick.       D.