Category Archives: Blogs' Archive

I guess we’ll get to the hot springs tomorrow. We spent the day today hiking around in the mountains, we saw a couple of beautiful lakes, clear enough you could see the rocks at the bottom and the fish swimming around among them, living creatures in an entirely alien environment, some lovely swift running streams, a gray squirrel who ignored us until we got too close and scampered up a tree.
It was, for the most part, a very nice day, but breakfast was a bit off. The food wasn’t horrible, it was crepes, and nobody else in the family thought it was a big deal and they were actually quite embarrassed that I snapped at the waitress, but I don’t feel I was wrong. Of course, the fault was with the restaurant, the system, but she’s a part of that.
Sam got served first, and he was half done before Helena’s crepe arrived, and they were both almost finished before mine arrived, and I was almost finished and Sam and Helena’s plates had been cleared away before Isabel got served.
I hadn’t meant to get snippy. Just a gesture, indicating that we still hadn’t been served, but I guess it could have been seen as hostile. When we were finished, she sent a different waitress out with the check and an apology. “We’ve only got one griddle.”
Well, fuck that for a lame excuse. It was a crepe restaurant, that was the only thing they were serving and, even if you cook them one at a time, it doesn’t take that long. I remember in Thailand, the people serving banana pancakes from street carts only had one griddle. They would pour out the batter, flip it, chop in half a banana, fold the ends in, sprinkle some powdered sugar and pour out a bit of chocolate on top, and collect the money with their other hand, keeping up a steady banter with the customers in line, and the whole operation took about 30 seconds. Because they weren’t fucking around.

Anyway, that was between the first lake, which was beautiful, and the second lake, which was beautiful, and really a minor moment in the day.
But, if you’re ever in Štrbske Pleso, Slovakia, skip the crepe restaurant.

I’m going to give you two examples of bad teachers, one of which was me, and I imagine you’ll see before the conclusion how this relates to recent events in Portland.
The first incident happened when I was a student, back at good old East Des Moines High. After swimming class, we found ourselves locked out of the locker room. So, Mr. Vavra, who I always called coach Vavra because I was on the swimming team (btw, did not realize it was a Czech name until I moved here), was called to come open the door. Well, as he was unlocking the door, one kid said “If it’s Thompson, (I don’t remember the names, so Thompson will do) can I punch him?” Coach Vavra said “Yeah, sure” and you can guess the rest. The door opened and Kapow! So, I always considered that an example of bad teaching.
Fast forward about 35-40 years, and I’m teaching a particularly rowdy group of 4th graders. Honza was the problem child in the class. All the kids picked on him. After a while I began to realize why. He meant well, he really did, but he tried so hard to be liked, and so inappropriately, that he was hated. Even got on my nerves after a while. Well, one day I was arguing with him and this cute, little girl, who was smart and a very good student said “Can I hit him with my bag?” and I said “Yeah, sure.” Now, two things I hadn’t realized. This innocent looking little girl was far stronger, and meaner than I’d thought, and her bag was filled with books. Honza started crying immediately and I spent the rest of the class apologizing to him like crazy and hoping I wouldn’t lose my job.
In this analogy, Trump is obviously the violent child, but Obama is the bad teacher. He signed the NDAA, which gave Trump the legal fig leaf, the pretext he needed, to send in his goons and start arresting innocent people and beating the hell out of them for no particular reason. He signed it, and this was not some spur of the moment thing in the classroom. He may not have thought somebody like Trump would use it, like most people he probably never thought Donald Trump would ever be elected, but he did sign it, and it had led to horrible abuses.
And that should always be remembered as an example of bad presidenting.

I’m kind of torn as to whether to write a vacation blog, just about what we did today, which I’ve found that most readers prefer, or a political blog, because there’s an issue I really want to comment on, so I’m going to do both.
The vacation blog comes first. We spent the day at the lake, and it was lovely. The first place we went to was a private beach, a yacht club or something, and we couldn’t get in. We left the car parked there and walked through the woods until we got to the lake, and the kids were not impressed. It was not much of a beach, mostly rocks, and although I thought it was perfect (and free), family harmony is more important than what beach I like and besides, I was outvoted 3-1, so we went back to the car and drove another couple of kilometers till we came to the public beach.

It was a nice beach, a big grassy lawn, and the water was not too cold, but that was just the start of what they had there. It was the starting point for boat tours around the lake, and also you could rent jet skis, paddle boats, paddle boards, and all sorts of other stuff. We swam for a while, laid around and did nothing for a while, went for lunch at the restaurant there (there was also a smaller snack bar), and then rented a paddle boat, which didn’t work very well. It was very hard to steer and mostly just went around in circles.
Then we stopped and toured the town of Liptovsky Mikulaš, which was tiny, but had a lovely pedestrian zone in the center. The fountain was an artificial brook that ran for about three blocks and there were plenty of children playing in it, and there was outdoor dining pretty much the whole length of it.
We had ice cream, then went grocery shopping, and now we’re ‘home’ and just had dinner in. I’m going to go out for a walk before it gets dark because there’s one photo I want to get, a sign I thought was quite humorous, but the sightseeing part of the day is done.
Tomorrow, hot springs.

Here we are at our little hideaway for the week in a village near Lake Liptovska Mara. We are satisfied with the accommodations, and had a lovely dinner of Halušky and Brindza cheese, which was more than filling. I could feel myself getting fatter as I ate.
A couple of observations on the trip so far:

When we went to change money yesterday, we had a thousand dollars U.S. on us, and I suggested we change it all into Euros. Helena said no, we’ll mostly be using the card, just change 500. So that’s what we did. We’ve only been in Slovakia a few hours, and it’s almost gone. To be fair, most of it went to pay for the week’s accommodation, and we’ll still be able to change money, so not a problem, but damn…the cash just falls through your fingers like sand, sometimes.
The D1, which Czech people complain about all the time, would actually be a very pleasant, scenic drive except for the constant construction and traffic jams. Also, you don’t notice it until you are in a jam like that, there really are a shitload of trucks on the roads. We were a bit overwhelmed in our little car, like a monkey walking among the elephants.
Now, this last observation is going to make me sound like a crotchety old man not up with the times, and I get that. It’s a new world. But, when your waitress is dressed in Slovakian folkloric costume, i.e. big, poofy red skirt with a white floral pattern, that huge tattoo above the ankle really is a bit jarring. No way around it, though, I guess. Everybody’s got them, nowadays.

Esther Salas is a judge, her husband Marc Anderl a defense attorney, and their son Daniel Anderl was just a college student. The alleged murderer, who was found dead of a gunshot wound in his car, was a lunatic men’s rights activist.
Now, I’m not saying that because he killed somebody (allegedly, of course), I’m saying that because people who talk about men’s rights are always misogynistic weirdos. There is no right on this Earth that men don’t have. They are being totally paranoid.
Now, there are a lot of questions about this case. First up, who was the target? It could have been either Esther (who was not at home) or her husband, they’re in the same field and both could have enemies. Nobody thinks the son was the target, and yet he’s the one who is dead. That is tragic.
I’ve seen some sources say that Esther Salas is working on the Jeffrey Epstein case, but that is not currently possible, of course, because Jeffrey Epstein is dead. However, it’s true that she’s involved in a case between Deutsche Bank and their shareholders, and among the shareholders complaints is the Deutsche Bank shouldn’t have been doing business with so many sketchy characters, of whom Epstein was an example.
Still, anywhere close to that case and suspicions and conspiracy theories abound.
Police seem to think the murderer (alleged, but deceased, whose name was Roy Den Hollander) was after Judge Salas because of his weird men’s rights obsession. I must admit, even if this was a huge conspiracy dealing with Epstein and the currently imprisoned Ghislaine Maxwell, that’d be a great cover story.
I’m sure we’ll get more information in the coming days. And more speculation.