howdy and such

-Trude and I are on the train. The train seems a bit safer just now. We're on our way to Kyiv. Two weeks ago, we were on our way to Kyiv Fri pm, too. It was snowing (surprise!), the wind was blowing- sometimes fiercely. It would gust so bad that visibility went from (whatever) to zero and 1 second. Our bus driver (I was watching him so I know) was yakking on the phone and send text messages the whole time. We detoured around 1 accident (a jack-knifed semi involving a car- semi was from oncoming traffic, across the median but landed in our lane; the car was from our side of the road). There were a few more really bad gusts but that didn't slow our driver down, Oh No. He was Mr. Indestructible. Then we wiggled right through a 4 car crash. Thankfully, 2 of the cars ended up in the left hand lane and the other 2 were to our right so there was room to wiggle through. This was so scary that it actually smartened up our driver. Thankfully. We saw 2 more bad accidents and then a 5th on the outskirts of Kyiv. So, since it's been snowy and melty and snowy and icy since then and since the roads are even worse than they were then- we're on the train (and it's NOT snowing- Surprise!).
-And one thing you can do on the train with mobile electronic stuff is check your news feeds and such. And see this: Russia has decided that beer is alcohol. This is really good news. One could hope that the folks down here will pick this up. Part of the alcoholism problem is that they only count the hard stuff (vodka, gorilka- maybe like whiskey- I'm not sure) as alcohol. The article at the link says that many Russians think of beer as a soft drink. I've heard people here talk about So-and-So being a recover(ed/ing) alcoholic and therefore only drinking beer. Stuff like that makes you want to bang your head on the wall. Drinking beer won't help a recovering alcoholic.

-I made an interesting discovery today. People are different. Truly. My T friend and I are good buddies but we're very different. I knew that already, of course... but was made more aware of it again today. We dream differently. Yup. Yest am, I was recounting a funny dream- it involved a co-worker who wasn't supposed to get away so I sat on him to make him stay. He was telling me all his woes and I was in horror because all his teeth were rotten and broken off and his gums were all puffy and infected and painful looking. I was terribly worried I'd get it, too, just by being that close.
This am, T retold her funny dream- which was all about an electrical storm on the moon which was so major that there were lightening bolts in zig-zags shooting off of it that illuminated another planet nearby and showed unusual activity on that planet which glowed (because of the storm on the moon). She was on the bus and hollering (in Ukrn) Look at the moon, everybody, Look at the moon!
See- I don't even have the brain cells to dream cool stuff like that. Even in her sleep, she's wired. Completely.

-Back to the smartphone debate. I've been (sort of) sucked in. Going home soon, you know. Will need some kind of phone there (likely). Someone has an old Blackberry, a veteran of some combat already (I'm thinking). They're giving it away. It seemed a good way to test drive some sort of smartphone to see if my brain cells can handle it. And to see if I like it. We Shall See.