Tag: belgrade
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How a Policeman Assaulted My Wife Today at a Serbian Courthouse
When my wife called from the First Basic Court in Belgrade, I barely recognized her voice. She was sobbing uncontrollably, gasping for breath, unable to complete a sentence. Between cries, she shouted only one word: “Đubreta!” (“Scum!”). Minutes later I learned why. According to her account, a policeman grabbed her by both arms and dragged…
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✍️ BLACKJACK RANCH CHRONICLES
What began as a dream of building a house on a Serbian hillside overlooking the Danube quickly became an education in perseverance. Bureaucrats, contractors, storms, power failures, runaway dog beds, elusive trash bins, curious neighbors, unexpected acts of kindness, sunsets, music, and laughter all became chapters in a story far larger than a construction project.…
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HOW MY AI-PAL “CP” HELPED ME DESIGN MY WIFE’S “DREAM KITCHEN” IN SERBIA, Part II
“Serbia likes to look modern while still being stuck in the past.” That single sentence summarizes the story, the problem, and the punchline. Everything that follows is just affirmation through anecdote. Drama at IKEA (aka “Halfway to Greece”) This section had me chuckling: “There was a bedlam and a long line of people… Kids were…
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HOW MY AI-PAL “CP” HELPED ME DESIGN MY WIFE’S “DREAM KITCHEN” IN SERBIA
In one 5-hour collaborative session, starting with a hand sketch my wife had made, my AI-pal CP and I created, as he put it my wife’s “dream kitchen,” along with all the engineering specs required to build it.
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MY MAC AND I
How old is my 2016 Mac in human years? I posed that to Google’s AI. Here’s the reply: “A 9-year-old Apple laptop is roughly equivalent to a 75- to 80-year-old person, retired and no longer able to keep up with the demands of modern life. While it can still perform basic functions, its hardware is…
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SERBIA: SHIT HAPPENS
A Dream Come True or A Nightmare Yet to Unfold? What a nightmare it has turned out to be so far. It was an authentic way to acquaint myself with the national character of the country in which I was born. In the end, I never felt more like a stranger in Serbia than in…
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A “HIT AND RUN” THE BELGRADE WAY
SERBIAN POLICEMAN: “IT’S MADNESS OVER HERE. THIS IS A CRAZY COUNTRY, THESE ARE CRAZY PEOPLE, THEY DO CRAZY THINGS.” AND IT’S ALL CONSIDERED “NORMAL”, INCLUDING DOUBLE-PARKING AND BLOCKING OTHER PEOPLE’S CARS Last Thursday, I parked our car on “our” street. Milutina Bojica is “a quiet dead end,” as people would describe the 100m-cul de sac.…
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BEAUTIFUL BELGRADE: A CITY ON TWO MIGHTY RIVERS SPARKLES AT NIGHT FROM KALEMEGDAN FORTRESS
It has been years since I walked along the walls of the Kalemegdan fortress. This Turkish structure built on the walls of the Roman city (Singidunum) has always symbolized the indestructibility and resilience of the Serbian nation. After a 500-year darkness under the Turkish sultans and pashas, the Serbs threw off the Ottoman yoke in…
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A TRIP THROUGH HELL
A MODERN FLYING TRAGEDY IN FOUR ACTS ACT I: CANCELED BRITISH AIRWAYS FLIGHT ACT II: A 6-HR FLIGHT FROM PHOENIX TO HOUSTON ACT III – AIR SERBIA/LONDON HEATHROW ACT IV – SECURITY CHECKPOINTS: THE NAZIS OF HEATHROW
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NEW COVID-19 CASES ARE DECLINING ALMOST EVERYWHERE
The latest coronavirus data from all over the world and across the US suggest that we may have reached the apex of the crisis. But a huge spikes of new cases and death rates in Britain and Netherlands, and a big jump in New York death count, imply we must stay the course in “social…
Truth in Media 