Not happy.

Another young cousin is very happy now, after graduating from high-school. She just received her acceptance letter to Clemson University, where she applied. Congratulations to her. She is a fine gymnast, and I'm sure she will be a great addition to their team.

Back at home, Joan's hygienist gave us another late call, cancelling her visit today. It made me a little angry because I had two things I had to take care of outside the house, and it would have been easier to do it by myself. Instead, I had to change Joan into warmer clothing, and take her with me. The problem was both tasks were on the second or third floor of buildings without an elevator. Consequently, Joan had to wait in the parked car each time I went in. Oh, well, such is our life now.

Revolut.

 I sold some small stocks we had in Revolut and wanted the money transferred to my bank. It has been several months since I did that, and I couldn't make the transfer on my cell. I tried a few different approaches, but they didn't work. I gave up and called my friend, the IT specialist.

I explained my problem, and he said to come over. He lives on the opposite side of the city. I didn't see any need to take my laptop.

After a half-hour drive, I reached his flat. He tried for 30 minutes to transfer the money with no success. The password would not be accepted. He asked me if I remembered it. I laughed and told him there are so many passwords for each different app that I didn't. He said we need to go to my laptop.

Half an hour later we were at my laptop. He checked my password, successfully made the transfer. He looked at my cell, and now it was accepting the same password. Go figure,

Half an hour passed as I returned him to his flat.

That is how I spent my 3-hour break today. 

The guitar.

Feels like Saturday. But then, everyday does when you're retired. I would have said Sunday, but during a life, Sunday was the day before you had to go back to school, or back to work. Neither were something I looked forward to, except for university.

Attending the School of Music at DePaul University in Chicago was something I looked forward to each weekday. The only thing about it, I didn't like was getting up early to take a train to Chicago and lugging 2 guitars, one classical, and one jazz guitar. The classical was light enough, the electric one not.

That was mainly because I had a gem of a jazz guitar. It was a yellow, 1936 Gibson wide-bodied guitar that I, miraculously, came across and bought.

It happened because I was working in a small music store that sold guitar and also had lessons there.

One evening, an elderly woman came into the store with her granddaughter, who, I guess, was about 10 years old. She wanted to buy a guitar for her. I told the lady, for the girl's age, I would recommend a nylon-string guitar because it would be easier on her fingers just starting out. I showed her two models and the girl made the decision.

The grandmother said she had an old guitar in her closet that her husband had bought that year. A few years later he went to WWII and never returned. I asked her if she knew the brand name of it, and she said it started with a G. My heart leaped, and I asked if it was Gibson. She said yes.

I told her my story of music school and how much I loved playing guitar. Before she left, I asked her if she would bring it for me to see, and she did the next day.

As soon as she walked through the door and I saw the metal case it was in, I knew it was old.

The case was not the standard colors for the present year. Instead, it was yellow with two orange wide-stripes across the top of the case. I picked it up, it was heavy, and placed it on top of a table to open.

Inside, this beautiful antique guitar still rested in it's allotted space of deep-red velvet. None of the other velvet had a mark on it. The strings were a little rusty, as well as the tuning keys. I played a short tune on it after I tuned the strings and holding the strings down, even rusty, were like putting your fingers down through a soft stick of butter. I was in love.

I told the lady to call Gibson, give them the visible serial number inside the sound hole, and they could estimate the value. Not only that, but I said it would be much, much more than she paid yesterday.

Then, I reiterated my love of guitar, music school, and said I would love owning that beautiful instrument. However, I only had $150 in my bank and couldn't afford the real value of it.

She shocked me when she said I could have it for$100 and to keep the $50 in the bank. I asked her why she would sell it for that little money when it was worth so much more. She said she would rather know that someone loved it as much as her husband did, and she knew I would.

The next day I called Gibson, gave them the serial number, and they told me it was a 1936 ES-150, hollow-body guitar, And it was mine! 

 

 

Missing guitarist.

Many years ago, I made the acquaintance of another guitar player, Robert Savage. At that time, we both had girlfriends who were very close. It was only natural that, at some point in time, we would meet. From time to time, we would meet and talk about the usual thing, music.

Eventually, our lives drew us apart, and we lost track of each other. Several months ago, for the heck of it, I did a Facebook search and found him. Ialso found some videos of him playing on YouTube. Of course, I sent him several messages to which he didn't respond.

Last week, I was surprised when I finally got a response. We set up a time to video-chat this past Saturday, and we did. It was great, like those past years just disappeared. Naturally, we both explained what had happened to us during those missing years, and we agreed to keep in video touch more often. It was a good night.

Meanwhile, here in Poland, I did the weekly food shopping. Total cost $48.50. Dinners will be Potato & Bacon Soup, Avocado, Tomato & Blue Cheese Pasta Salad, Skillet Lemon Chicken with Potatoes & Spinach, Hungarian Chili, Pizza, and Roasted Chicken Thighs, Potatoes, and Greek Salad. The soup is for 2 days. Joan made the menu, and I did the shopping.

Tonight we watched a good video about Hungary on YouTube. We've been there twice, but there is still so much more to see. I hope we will be able to.

Crucial-end.

After realizing that my crucial external drives had to be sent to Hungary instead of the United States, I went back to the post office and asked them if they were sending packages to Hungary. Actually, I didn't ask them because I had written all of my questions into a translator and had them before me in Polish. I showed it to the lady, and she smiled as she read the translation. It was probably because the translation was understandable, but not in proper Polish.

She told me that yes, they were sending packages to Hungary. My second question was, "Do you have a bubble pack mailer that I can buy?" She opened a drawer and produced it.

My final question was, "How much does it cost to mail it? She replied that it depended on whether or not I wanted to receive proof of delivery. I told her that yes, I did, and she said take the mailer and the form you need to fill out, and bring it back when you are done.

Because my handwriting is so bad, when I got home, I asked Karolina, who was here, to please fill out this form for me. She did it, and now on Monday, I will take it and mail it to Hungary. I won't know the cost until I do that. Nevertheless, I'm pleased that I've accomplished this much due to my persistence.

Meanwhile, Ukraine.

Since early January, Ukrainian drone and artillery forces have attacked regional energy generation and public heating infrastructure in the western Russian region of Belgorod in a month-long bombardment campaign that has forced local authorities to call for mass evacuations.

The raids mixing domestically developed kamikaze aircraft with NATO state-manufactured long-range artillery – rockets or missiles have hit Belgorod targets at least six times with complex attacks. Most of the region’s major power and heating facilities have been struck repeatedly.

Belgorod governor Vyacheslav Gladkov, in Wednesday’s public comments, called the state of power and heating deliveries in the region home to some 1.4 million people “extremely difficult, critical, and prolonged.” In public announcements, Gladkov over the weekend called the situation with power and heating in Belgorod “almost catastrophic.”

Crucial problem still.

 Following up on my story about my external drive problem, I contacted FedEx to see what it would cost to send my Crucial Drive back to them as required. It was to be sent back to Hungary, and once they received it, they would send me a new Drive.

I've already mentioned that the Polish post office cannot send packages to the United States. I assumed that was the case also for Hungary, but I'm not sure.

Anyway, there were four different prices to send a packet by FedEx to hungry ranging from 1,700 to 81 PLN. The economy one was the cheapest, and that's the one I wanted. It didn't matter that it would take a week or two for them to return the new product to me.

So, today I went to the nearest FedEx office to send the drive to Hungary. The people were very helpful, and they filled out the required documents that I needed. When it was all done, I asked what the cost was going to be. The clerk said he didn't know, and I wouldn't know until I looked at my own account and saw what the payment was.

Back at home, I checked my account, and there was nothing written in. I then spoke to someone on chat to find out the cost. After 10 or 15 minutes, the person came back and said the cost was 671 PLN. I told her that was outrageous, and that I could buy a new Drive for much less money. Of course, I didn't find that out until I was home. I told her I refused to pay that cost and wanted to cancel my shipment. Naturally, she gave me another website to go to to do that, but it was unable to tell me. Finally, after three tries, I asked to speak to a human being. I had to do that three times before someone actually spoke. I told her what had happened and that I wanted to cancel my order. Unfortunately, she could not understand much of what I said.

My next step was to call Gabriela and ask her to call the FedEx office, explain what I told her, and tell them to cancel the order. Gabriella did that and said she was waiting now for an email to be sent to her with the cancellation information.

So, tomorrow I have to go back to FedEx and get the defective CD. This whole process took about 3 hours. It was a total waste of time.

Ukraine & shopping

 Gabriela returned today after two weeks to sit with Joan while I did the weekly food shopping. I take advantage of that and go at 11:00 instead of 06:30. I stay up way to late at night, and sometimes I only get 3-5 hours of sleep. That's not good for my health.

It only takes me 45 minutes to do the complete shopping, and then I stop for a cup of coffee. I don't really like coffee like some people, but it gives me a chance to just sit and observe my surroundings, and the people.

The total cost for this week's food was $46. That covers dinners of Paprikas, Lemon Garlic Chicken Thighs and Vegetables, Slow Cooker Chicken Breasts, Potatoes and Salad, Scalloped Potatoes with Ham and Salad, Garlic Soup with Egg and Croutons, and Pizza. That's the menu for this week.

 Meanwhile, Ukraine.

A  new "white list" from SpaceX is shutting off Russia's illicit access to Starlink's satellite internet across the front line.

Shortly before 3:00 a.m. Kyiv time on Feb. 5, Elon Musk retweeted a new guide from Ukraine's Digital Transformation Ministry for registering a Starlink terminal within Ukraine.

Subsequently, a series of alarmed Russian social media posts indicate that Starlink terminals were disconnecting en masse along the front.

Three Ukrainian commanders, speaking to the Kyiv Independent on the condition of anonymity, reported intercepting messages from Russian forces complaining about Starlink terminals failing in large numbers.

Serhiy "Flash" Beskrestnov, a longtime commentator on electronic warfare more recently appointed as advisor to Defense Minister Mykhaylo Fedorov, said the "enemy at the front doesn't have a problem, the enemy has a catastrophe." 

Russian milbloggers reacted in despair to the news. "This will hit harder than anywhere at our front line assault groups, for example, in Kupiansk," a popular Russian propaganda channel wrote. "They will be deprived of any chance of connection with the wider world, alas."

"They have been cut off completely. Potentially, it will mean their activity will drop while they find alternative means of communication." Petro, a drone commander in the 128th Mountain Assault Brigade fighting near Zaporizhzhia, told the Kyiv Independent.-Source-Kyiv Independent

Backups.

A few years ago, after a computer crash, I began backing up all my data on USB drives or external hard drives. Now I have two Crucial X9 Pro drives, each with 2 terabytes of storage, so I have two places to save everything. My IT friend told me it would be good if I started putting my important data in the Cloud. For the last year, I've been saving data to the Proton Cloud, but I also want to have a hard copy in my hand of the data. Maybe that's just paranoia. Because my friend tells me this cloud has many servers all over the world, and my data is stored on all of them. That way, if one server goes down, there are plenty of others that still hold my data.

Last week, my second Crucial drive was no longer functioning. It was still under warranty, so I wrote to Crucial, and told them about my problem. They said the best thing to do was to send it back to them with my proof of purchase.

I looked through all of my files for that proof of purchase, but I couldn't find it anywhere.

I wrote back to them, after looking through my bank statement from 2024, and found out I purchased it  on March 8th, 2024. The lady I spoke with said that without any proof of purchase  it might be a big problem to replace it. She said she would do what she could and talk to her supervisor.

I told her that they should have a record of it since it is a large corporation. 

Later that same day, she wrote back to me and said she did find the purchase and said it wouldn't be a problem to replace it. However, they no longer manufacture the X9, so they will be sending me the newest drive. Now, it's just waiting until it arrives.

Czarzasty remarks.

Yesterday evening while still out on diplomatic travels, the Polish PM, Donald Tusk, took to social media to speak to the U.S. ambassador to Poland, Tom Rose, after he had chosen this medium to announce breaking off contact with Włodzimierz Czarzasty, the Speaker of Parliament.
 

The reason given was receiving Speaker's explanation of why he will not support the second campaign for the Nobel Peace Prize for Donald Trump, despite U.S. soliciting it along with Israel, as "insults" towards the American president "who's done so much for the Polish nation," as Mr. Rose had written. He'd also suggested that Speaker Czarzasty is "a serious impediment" to positive relations between the countries.
 

"Mr. Ambassador Rose, allies should respect, not lecture, each other," Prime Minister Donald Tusk wrote on X, formerly Twitter. "At least this is how we, here in Poland, understand partnership," he added.
 

Speaker Czarzasty himself responded via social media since, saying that "in keeping with his values, he had defended Polish soldiers on foreign missions and opposed Trump’s Nobel nomination," alluding to Trump's disparaging comments on America's allies' sacrifices. Source-Radio Poland
 

He added that he held "constant respect for the United States as a key partner for Poland," but, though he regretted Rose’s statement, he would not change his position "on issues fundament

2 changes

I told a cousin of mine in Michigan, that I would put together a pen drive out of the research I have done and send it to her. I just wanted someone else in my extended family to have a copy of it for the future. So, I put it in a nice little box, wrapped it up very nicely, and took it to our local post office to mail it out. That was when I received a surprise. The postal Clerk behind the class wall in for me that they were no longer able to send packages to the United States.

Of course, I asked her why, and she explained that it was due to the changes Trump had made in border security, which meant we could no longer send packages to the United States. The only thing we can send our documents. Naturally, it pissed me off that he has had such a negative effect on many countries, not only Poland. My only alternative is to see if FedEx or UPS is still shipping packages to the United States. I'd rather doubt it.

Okay, that took up the first hour of my 2-hour break today.

In the second hour, I had to get a scan made of our voter registration in the United States and send it back to the clerk at the county where we are registered. I went back to the shop where I always go only to find out it was no longer a shoe repair shop that also gets scanning, but now it was a key production place, and all they did was make keys. That presented a problem for me, because I had a limited amount of time to search for a new place, a new copy shop, or as they call it in Poland, Kesero.

Using my cell phone, I was able to locate one very close to where we live, so I immediately drove there. It's in a little shop on Main Street called Dabrowskiego. From the ground level, you have to walk down five steps, and that's where the shop is. I had to have two papers scanned, the total cost was about one and a half cents. Very affordable and close to the house, so that was a plus.

Another cold day

Yes, it was another cold day. Not quite as cold as yesterday, because we did have some sunshine, but still too cold to take Joan outside. So, we spent the day inside with Joan watching old TV series, while I caught up on my family archives.

I'm at the end of my family research that I started over 20 years ago. It's hard to believe it's been that long, but nevertheless, it is. I'm very satisfied with everything I've found out, and I hope it will someday be useful to one of my younger relatives if they should be interested in their family history. I have it documented back to 17 80. I haven't been able to go further back because, before that time, very few records were kept of what they called the peasants. Usually, if someone was working for a noble in his Palace, only his name was in a record and not much else.

Unfortunately, now I'm caught up with this struggle in the United States and the idiot they currently have for a president. I work, via the Internet, with a few groups back there who are trying to curtail some of the damage he is inflicting on the country I was born in. I know most of it doesn't have a real effect on me, or Joan, but it does have an effect on the adult children, and probably even more in the future on grandchildren. That is why I am so involved. It just makes me Furious.

Other News

 The Divided States isn't the only country with problems with its government.

A mass rally in support of Czech President Petr Pavel took place in Prague, drawing tens of thousands of people to the city’s central square. According to estimates, attendance reached up to 90,000 participants.

The demonstration was sparked by an escalating conflict between the president and the government led by Prime Minister Andrej Babiš.

President Pavel has consistently called for active support of Ukraine and backing its integration into the European Union.

In contrast, Prime Minister Babiš, leader of the ANO party, argues for halting weapons and aircraft supplies to Kyiv and prioritizing domestic issues.

The dispute also extends to disagreements over ministerial appointments and the country’s broader security strategy.

Meanwhile:

Elon Musk called Poland’s Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski a “drooling imbecile” on Wednesday after Sikorski shared a report from the US-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW) showing that Russian forces are increasingly using Starlink satellites to guide drone attacks on Ukraine.

According to ISW, Russian forces are equipping drones – including BM-35, Shahed, and Molniya models – with Starlink systems to extend their range and accuracy.

Starlink-equipped drones can strike most of Ukraine and reach parts of Moldova, Poland, Romania, and Lithuania when launched from Russian-controlled territory.

After reposting the report, Sikorski tweeted: “Hey, big man, @elonmusk, why don’t you stop the Russians from using Starlinks to target Ukrainian cities? Making money on war crimes may damage your brand.”Source-Kyiv  Post

A majority of Ukrainians oppose handing over the eastern Donbas territory to Russia in exchange for promises of peace, and the number of Ukrainians ready to fight the Kremlin “as long as is necessary” is increasing, a major public opinion published on Monday found.

Slightly more than half – 52 percent – of respondents “categorically reject” the idea of transferring title to Ukraine’s Donbas region to Russia in exchange for security guarantees, while 40 percent are willing to consider it, according to findings published by the Ukrainian political research group Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS).

The prevailing view across Ukrainian society that the country would not be made safer by meeting Russian demands to give the Kremlin Ukraine’s Luhansk and Donetsk regions – approximately 20 percent of Ukraine’s territory and population – where the front is stable and has not changed for months, KIIS Executive Director Anton Hrushetsky said in a statement.

Sadness.

 We can't imagine what this poor little girl is going through. Her eyes look like they have no future to see.

I can't believe the world has let this go on for four years. Talk, talk, talk. Meet, meet, meet. But never any real action to stop this insane murdering of men, women, and especially.................children. It makes me ashamed to be a human being. God made a mistake puting humans on this planet.