Vince Kramer
I changed my portrait from my lastest picture from Tokyo where I saw ZED by Cirque du Soleil and even go to meet ZED.vkramer515
Summer has pasted and now it is winter here in cold dark (short days with little sunshine) Russia. For those that did not hear, I signed on for another year so I will be living here in Obninsk until January 2009.
It is finally summer here in Russian so thought I would change the picture. Enjoy the stories, adventures, blunders, etc. as I live and work in Russia.
I do not want to loose any of my emails and stories, so I am just going to add to this existing one. I am chaning the picture since those who know me at work know I can be all too serious and through multiple processes, I have learned to laugh more at work; but I still get excited so do not think I have changed that much...lol. As most of you know, things are going pretty well for me here so I extended my contract until January 2008. Living in Russia took a little getting use to, but I am starting to feel more like home so I decided to stay on until the end of January. Thank you to all of my old friends as well as all of my new friends for your continued emails and support! It is because of friends like you that I could do something like this and I am proud to have each of you in my life!
Original posting: Hello to all of my friends and family. Thank you for supporting me in this adventure to Russia. I know it is going to be an exciting time, but also a sad time as I leave many of you. This will be a great opportunity and a very rewarding adventurl. It is July 9, 2007 and I have my "list" (for those of you that know me well...lol) of things to do before I go. After a recommendation from a good friend in San Diego, I thought this would be an excellent way to share my stories and adventures, both good and bad so stay tuned, plenty more to come!
Vince
I just extended my contract so I will be in Russia for another
Travel Blog Posts
March 21st 2010
This ended up being an awesome trip/time with Dad. To break up my time zones from flying all the way to China, I stopped in Hawaii with Dad for part of his trip. No, it probably was not a good use of time in that I could have seen more of China, but it ended up being a great trip. It was so fun seeing my dad just enjoy himself and being a kid. Not that he was a childish, but just "letting his hair down" and we had a lot of fun as you can see by the attached pictures. For my readers, enjoy and for my Dad, THANK YOU! It was well worth every minute to make this stop and enjoy our time together on the island. (Dad, I know I said I would ... read more
March 20th 2010
I know I said I was not going to keep the blog open, but I find this is an excellent way to share the photos so I am attaching the pictures from China for you to view. China, or at least the Beijing area, was an amazing country and far exceeded my expectations. Yes there was smog, but it was a clean city, well organized and modernized. I expected more third world, but it was a very modern city. English was not spoken by everyone and they were not as helpful as those in Japan, but helpful nonetheless. Again, I was very impressed with Beijing! Enjoy the photos!... read more
May 24th 2009
I guess it is finally time to enter this last blog. I purposely delayed writing this last entry because my time in Russia was a significant and historical part of my life. Each of you taught me so much about the Russian people and culture, but just as importantly, you taught me to know myself and the US people and our culture. It is hard to explain in words; but at times, I felt more at home than I do in my own country while at the same time so alone and far from home. These were the times I reached inside and grew the most and also the times that you made a life long positive impact on me and a time that I never want to forget. I made some awesome and lasting friends ... read more
Pictures from New Home
Published: May 3rd 2009North America » United States » Tennessee » Chattanooga
May 3rd 2009
I know some of you wanted to see a lot more pictures from my new home here in Chattanooga. Part of the problem was staying home long enough to make it look like a home so I did not want to take any pictures until I got the pictures on the wall to make my house feel like a home. The other problem was staying home long enough to get this done. I am doing a lot more than 50% travel; I am pretty close to 90 - 95% but it is due to problems at our different facilities which should improve shortly. Nonetheless, here are some pictures.... read more
Stats, Might Be Interesting
Published: March 15th 2009North America » United States » Minnesota » WinonaMarch 15th 2009
I promise, I am going to write a closing post when I ever get settled down for a few hours. I was just going back to remember some good times while I am stuck here in Winona, MN where it was 0oF and now 45oF just a day later...crazy weather. I will also have to tell you about my Russian sauna experience while here in the US, but until then, I thought some of you might be interested in seeing the number of hits the different posts received since I started the blog. (That did not work well to cut and paste, but you can get the idea as they are in ranking order from most hits to least hits.) Enjoy and know I miss you all! ID Title Words Photos Date Published Last Viewed Views ... read more
If You Had Not Heard
Published: December 21st 2008North America » United States » Tennessee » Chattanooga
December 21st 2008
I am sure many of you that know me well, could tell by the past few postings; but it is official as I am not renewing my contract for next year. There were many factors that played into the biggest one is that we were many years away from ever going to a fully cooking facility, which is my passion so in the Fall I started looking for some new opportunities. I was pleasantly surprised to find several positions of interest; but of all of them, I found Farley's & Sathers to be the most exciting with the greatest opportunity. So I leave for the States for the Holidays on Tuesday (12/23) with a stop over in Germany to visit Jetta, Piage and Liam. I will spend the night with the Kaune's in Frankfurt then fly ... read more
International Friendship around the World
Published: December 14th 2008Europe » Russia » Centre » Obninsk
December 7th 2008
For as large as this world is, it really is pretty small and it is amazing how we can all be brought to gether by the smallest of ways. I thought of this last night while at Oleg and Zhana's flat warming party. Oleg's toast was actually to me and how I was the reason for most people at the table knowing each other. I had a similar toast to Freddie at my going away party that it was because of his hello in English that we really met and became friends and of course from there, I met Leo, Egor, Andrey and the rest of the friends there in Obninsk and then Egor would not have met Margaret who was the one that strongly recommended I keep a blog of my time in Russia, which ... read more
November 16th 2008
So now for the real reason I went to Tokyo - Cirque du Soleil and their new show ZED being held at Disney Resort. I am not sure when this was, but many months ago, I was searching Yahoo Groups and I found this one called CirqueCon (www.cirquecon.com). When I joined, I really thought it was just a group of friends that were big Cirque fans, but I decided what the heck and applied for membership. I really had not kept up with the discussions, but got an email one day that they were forming a group to go see the opening of ZED at Disney in Tokyo. I had never been to Asia and thought this might be a fun and different trip and even if I did not like the group, I could go ... read more
November 16th 2008
I have been back a week but I have not slowed down a minute since landing so I decided I had better take some time this weekend and post my travel blog about Tokyo. In one sentence, I must say it was one of the cleanest city with these nicest people! Wow, it was a great trip. I started from Moscow and headed to Frankfurt. When I first started planning my trip, Aeroflot did not run non-stop flights between Moscow and Tokyo. One of the better connections was on Lufthansa through Frankfurt, which would also make for a great short visit to see Jetta, Piage and Liam (sister, niece and nephew). Well, by the time I actually booked the tickets, Aeroflot had direct flights and to mix and match Aeroflot and Lufthansa got to be very ... read more
October 11th 2008
We had frost a few mornings, but no snow; but that did not stop us from going downhill skiing on Friday! Yes, there is an INDOOR downhill ski rink here in Moscow (www.snej.com Russian only). Freddie recommended we try it out and we had tried once before but never made it so yesterday (Friday) we took a half day from work and headed to Moscow. We made a few stops along the way but go to the rink (I guess that is what you call it) around 5 PM yesterday. I really did not know what to expect and as best as I could read from the website, it looked like a huge complex; but I really did not have high expectations. After we got there, I was pleasantly surprised by it and had a good ... read more
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