See also:
My email: vlad@@izvne.com , Skype: vladekk, Facebook: vladekk
Disclaimer:
For almost a year now, I've been chronically ill with some hellish thing that makes the entire surface of my skin and body hurt. Sometimes it's unbearable, and other times I feel almost normal. Hence the blog title. Everything below refers to the period of my life when I was still healthy.
I am the author of the project https://radar.lv
I love fitness, swimming, yoga, hiking, biking, orienteering, paragliding, kayaking, and other active pastimes. I'm a member of the "Snowdrop" hiking club
My cycling and hiking tracks on gpsies: https://www.gpsies.com/mapUser.do?username=Vladekk
My photo gallery is currently on https://foto.izvne.com, but usually I insert pics into my blog posts
Whenever possible, I contribute to the OpenStreetMap project
I participate in the https://couchsurfing.org and https://warmshowers.org projects
The music I listen to on my computer (excluding my portable player, etc.) is on last.fm:
https://web.archive.org/web/20080210024353/https://www.last.fm/user/Vladekk/
I know my way around a lot of tech stuff and computers, but largely on a superficial level.
I used to know this stuff: Object Pascal (Delphi), C++, C++ STL, Assembler , but I forgot it all.
But now I work as a C#/ASP.NET programmer and so I know them more or less okay, slightly worse - Javascript, HTML, and CSS
I once set up networks on Linux Mandrake/Debian, edited video in Pinnacle Studio 9, and encoded it with Canopus ProCoder, but that was a long time ago.
I really love music in many of its manifestations, and therefore know a thing or two about bands, styles, and genres, and absolutely nothing about music theory. Out of all music, the only things I dislike are Russian pop, Russian criminal songs, Russian bard songs, and everything similar to them.
I've listened to about 10,000 albums, which isn't a whole lot, but still pretty decent. I usually don't listen to things I find uninteresting, but sometimes I do just to understand what's currently trending among advanced music lovers.
I write and speak Russian normally (read: more or less correctly), read normally and speak poorly in English, speak and read poorly in Latvian, and learned French in school for nothing, since I've forgotten it all.
I am a skeptic (in the scientific sense), a materialist, and an atheist, and therefore I don't believe in the existence of things like: god(s), devil(s), aliens, torsion fields, bioenergetics, healing, ESP, esotericism, mysticism. I love science, though I'm not particularly well-versed in it.
I sympathize with the Buddhist movement and partly share its concepts, but I'm not entirely convinced.
I don't watch movies very often. Usually I like films that are a bit more clever than action movies, but not arthouse.
Sometimes I watch anime.
I don't like the word "plebs". I don't like snobs and snobbery, though I'm not without sin myself.
Political leanings are liberal, with the state keeping the rampant liberalism in check. In some respects leftist and green — I try to protect nature, I don't like megacorporations and the unbridled triumph of capitalism. Social liberalism, yeah.
I don't smoke and practically don't drink alcohol, with rare exceptions in the form of red wine, mulled wine, or vermouth. I'm chill about the use of other substances, as long as it doesn't harm the person or those around them.
Ethnically I am:
25% Russian
6.25% German
25% Armenian
43.75% Polish
I practically don't know Polish, and don't really consider myself Polish. Nor do I consider myself "Russian", whatever that might mean. I was born and live in Latvia, and consider it my homeland, though considering myself Latvian in my case is silly.
I have plenty of relatives in Belarus, Russia, Latvia, and Poland. So I can be considered a half-breed, a cosmopolitan, and a non-Russian, and nationalists of all stripes have every right to hate me.
I return the favor, because I'm suspicious of fanatics of any kind, including vegans and the "fiercely green", anti-globalists and globalists, ultra-liberals and ultra-patriots, audiophiles and Linux geeks, punks and anarchists.
According to reports from the concerned public, I have no taste. Since I don't believe in the existence of such a substance as absolute taste, this pleases me rather than upsets me, because it lifts the restrictions on the artistic output I'm allowed to consume.
By the way, I hate the word "consume", especially in relation to Art. [Here follows an ecstatic sigh]
I'm fine with gays. They don't bother or annoy me. I'm indifferent about the legalization of marijuana, but rather for it, because
I am overly trusting and naive, and I have a hard time understanding how people react to this or that. I have a specific, wicked sense of humor, and sarcasm just oozes out of me.
On the Internet, I prefer being on a first-name basis. If our social status and age are close, in real life too.
I have a relaxed attitude towards the USSR and understand that there was a lot of good in it. But things are still better now.
I like neurobiology and psychopharmacology, I know a little about the structure of the brain and the workings of consciousness, and I try to learn more.
I periodically attend electronic music festivals, psytrance and other open-airs, like alternative lifestyle ones, such as Yaga Gathering