Posts from Temka Vegtamchik'a

by the way, do you play the flute by sheet music? how did you learn so fast?

You're really off-key when you whistle.

Different notes require very different airflows. Especially for notes in different octaves.

By the way, you play the whistle by reading sheet music, right? How did you learn so quickly?

I started learning them with the guitar.

Continuing the Journey

Perhaps you thought that everything ended in Finland. But no. I finally returned home and found a free day to do all sorts of trivial things, including this.
The Norwegian Air Shuttle flight from Helsinki arrived in Stockholm. It's a short distance, only 40 minutes of flight. I spent the next four days in Sweden.

The first day was uneventful. Arrival, checking into the hotel, and so on. What I remember: a pizza named after the goddess of death, Ishtar. I met a Russian German who has lived in Germany for seventeen years and told me many interesting things.

The second day was about immersing myself in history. I walked through the narrow streets of the old town. I visited the royal palace and saw the solemn changing of the guard. I took a boat trip around Stockholm on a river tram. The most interesting thing was towards the end of the day - the Vasa Museum and Skansen.

The Vasa is one of the few surviving sailing ships. On August 10, 1628, it sank during its maiden voyage, having traveled about a mile. The reasons were poor stability and the shipbuilders' obsession with decoration - the ship was intended to be the flagship and carried seven hundred various sculptures and ornaments. In 1961, the ship was raised from the seabed, and in 1990, a museum was opened where you can see the ship itself and some of its fragments - parts of sails, masts, decorations, cannons; there you can also see skeletons of sailors and additional exhibits dedicated to the construction of the ship, life in the seventeenth century, and the stages of raising the ship and building the museum.

The Skansen open-air museum is the first ethnographic museum of its kind in the world. It covers an area of almost half a square kilometer. Many buildings from all over the country, built over the past three hundred years, have been moved there. You can go into an old bakery and buy pastries, into a grocery store from a century ago with corresponding goods, into a telephone booth from the 1930s... no, the phone didn't work. I walked through the park, touched real runestones, tried walking on stilts, and listened to a half-hour mini-concert of national music. Unfortunately, the folk dances were late, and I couldn't make it.

The third day was in Uppsala, the ancient capital of Sweden. Today, it is a small administrative center, rich in museums and attractions: the largest cathedral in Sweden, the first university in Sweden, the Carl Linnaeus Museum-Garden, where Linnaeus lived in Uppsala; ethnographic and historical museums - all this is located in a city with a population of 200,000.

The fourth day was in modern Stockholm. Walking through the streets and squares in the city center, you can see many wonderful performances: wherever you go, you will meet people who are eager to entertain you for a few coins that you throw into their hat or box. Here and there you come across mimes who will gladly take a picture with you. Ethnic shows are often found: descendants of Native Americans in feathers play wind instruments, people from the African continent beat drums and dance. In one of the alleys, two guys were playing on paint buckets, but they were hardly noticed until a ridiculously dressed transgender person with a tambourine joined them: together for ten minutes, they gathered a much larger audience.

Again, a plane, again a bus, again St. Petersburg.

For the next week in the city on the Neva, we, excuse the pun, rested from our vacation. In particular, I read books and practiced playing the newly acquired instruments. Another book and a board game were purchased. I visited "Divo-Ostrov" and rode the legendary "Catapult," considered one of the most exciting attractions in the world. For those who have never heard of it, the best illustration is this video:



And also, for the first time in my life, I walked a dog, the feelings were mixed. The object of the walk is a kind-hearted Labrador named Teddy, the first dog I befriended, considering my dislike of dogs. By the way, when he was still a puppy, two years ago, Teddy climbed the Gorely volcano with us and his owners.

On August 8, after a day of travel (plane to Moscow, transit, flight delay, plane to Petropavlovsk), I finally arrived home. All this week was a typical Vegtamovo summer: board games, basketball, relaxing in nature. And today, I finally got around to publishing this post.

By the way, I've updated the Finnish post a bit.

Hehe, Labradors are so cute ^^
You're having fun, huh.
Just give me a three-minute clip from the Epic concert)) By the way, can you hear anything there? When I was recording on my phone at concerts, I couldn't hear anything afterwards.

Added 5 minutes later
It's not entirely clear from the video where they are catapulted to and how.

Ishtar – the goddess of death?

Is Ishtar the goddess of death?

Here, it's important to remember that mythology is a complex thing. Gods didn't really have a narrow specialization – you can't say that deity N only controls air/fire/war/fertility. Ishtar was generally revered over a large area and during different periods, so she is attributed with love, fertility, war, and death.

Volchik, here's a quote:

vertical ascent to 75 meters in just 4 seconds

And the images:


And now?

baaaaaaa, now I want it too ^^

vertical ascent to 75 meters in just 4 seconds

Hmm, 4g overload, not bad, but still a long way to go before becoming a cosmonaut.

My first attempt, a gift for Volchik.

Primitive and clumsy, but I can still forgive myself due to inexperience.

Loyal, ancient Gaut,
Glorious ash of the sword,
He came to the shore
Of the land of ships,
Took golden nets,
Took silver nets,
Took iron nets
And cast them into the waves.

Once he pulls the nets -
He only gathers silt.
The second time he pulls -
He pulls out seaweed.
The third time he pulls.
His catch is meager -
Only one fish
He extracts from the nets.

That fish is not beautiful -
It does not shine with scales,
It tastes unpleasant,
It is not suitable for soup.
But the fish has a gift,
A wondrous ability -
It emits
A human voice.

And the fish said:
You, ancient Gaut,
Glorious ash of the sword,
Who caught me.
Listen to the little fish,
Hear the daughter of the sea,
The one who is called
The Fish of Heroes.

Your old friend,
Imaris, howled at the moon,
He arranged a great
Feast in the forests.
He called the animals of the land,
He called the birds from the wind,
He called the fish of the oceans,
He called you too.

Ancient Gaut
Released the fish back
Into the edge of the island,
Sat in thought
On a coastal stone.
He thought - he shouldn't
Go to the feast,
Without a gift.

He thought for a long time,
He pondered for a long time.
Finally, he stood up,
And went down the road.
Whether it was long or short,
Ancient Gaut walked,
And the path led him
To a crossroads.

He chose the first path,
Leading to the mountains.
One day passes, two days pass,
He comes to a castle.
He knows the castle:
His father's daughter,
The granddaughter of his grandfather,
His sister lives here.

The glorious ash of the sword
Asks for help,
He is looking for a gift,
Worthy of a friend.
His sister went into the castle,
And soon returned,
Holding in her hands
A golden tray.

On the tray lies
A wondrous marvel,
A magical stone,
Burning with fire.
Runes are inscribed
On the jewel,
The sun of homes
Is emitted by the mountain.

He chose the second path,
Leading to the forests.
One day passes, two days pass,
He comes to a house.
He knows the house:
A wonderful master,
A wizard of trees
Lives in this house.

The glorious ash of the sword
Asks for help,
He is looking for a gift,
Worthy of a friend.
The master went into the house,
And soon returned,
Holding in his hands
A silver tray.

On the tray lies
A wondrous marvel,
A wooden totem,
Possessing a voice.
Runes are inscribed
On the base,
Suttung's honey
Delights the ear.

Now the third path,
Leading to the valleys.
One day passes, two days pass,
He comes to a hut.
A familiar hut:
A simple Bond,
A guardian of plants
Lives here.

The glorious ash of the sword
Asks for help,
He is looking for a gift,
Worthy of a friend.
Bond went into the house,
He returned not soon,
He brought only threads,
That his wife was spinning.

The ash of the sword
Took Bond's threads,
Said a word,
And waved his hand.
Those threads became
A wondrous necklace,
Promising protection
To its owner.

He took the jewel,
He took the totem,
He took the necklace
And went to the feast
To the ancient forests,
Where his friend is waiting,
An old friend,
Imaris, howled at the moon.

The feast was glorious.
His ancient forest
Will never forget,
How they feasted,
How they rejoiced,
How much they drank,
How many speeches they made,
At the feast of the moon howler.

But now the wonderful
Feast is over.
Ancient Gaut
Went into the open field,
Found a large stone,
And carved runes on it,
The ones you read,
Chance traveler.
____________________
Explanations:
Ancient Gaut - "...Odin rose, ancient Gaut..."; "...Odin said: "My name is Vegtam, I am Valta's son..." - excerpts from the song "The Dreams of Baldr", the Elder Edda.
Kennings and heiti:
Ash of the sword - warrior
Land of ships - sea
Howled - wolf
Sun of homes - fire
Suttung's honey - poetry

Reading books.

Kalevala (Karelian-Finnish epic).
A poetic epic consisting of five dozen medieval runes, compiled a century and a half ago by Elias Lönnrot. The runes resemble Scandinavian visur — they are similarly unrhymed songs, rich in alliteration in the original (which, alas, cannot be preserved in translation), and the style is reminiscent of the "Poetic Edda." This is an ancient fairy tale, whose main characters are the sons of the wondrous land of Kalevala: the singer Väinämöinen, the smith Ilmarinen, and the warrior Lemminkäinen. The central theme is the struggle between the good land of Kaleva and the evil, cold Pohjola. Additionally, the runes include tales of the creation of the world and the origin of iron.

The Minds of Billy Milligan (Daniel Keyes)
A book that faithfully conveys real events, telling the story of a unique case in the history of psychiatry — about a man who possessed twenty-four personalities. Within one body coexisted a Yugoslav revolutionary, a lesbian, a deaf-mute boy, a swindler, a British aristocrat, and other personalities, each with their own quirks, traits, behaviors, talents, and speech accents. It leaves an indelible impression.

The Martian Chronicles (Ray Bradbury)
A science fiction novel, consisting of a series of short story-episodes about the exploration, conquest, colonization, and fate of the red planet. Once again, I am convinced that Bradbury is one of the best science fiction writers.

Several novellas from the "Labyrinths of Echo" series, from "The Debut in Echo" to "The Shadow of Gugimagon" inclusive (Max Frei)
Short fantasy novellas about a detective living in another world. It brings to mind similarities to Hašek or Pratchett — just as easy to read, just as uplifting.

Mort (Terry Pratchett)
The 6th book I've read about Discworld. Needs no comment.

Seeing dreams.

There were many dreams, as there were many impressions. Alas, I didn't remember some things immediately, and forgot others later, but I'll still try to share at least what remains.

1
During Tuska, I had many dreams in one night... but I forgot almost everything within the first minute of being awake. Annoying.

2
In Sweden. I've never seen so many different episodes in one night.
First dream. That's where it all began; I remember it better than the rest. Me and some number of people I know around me (I think from HeroesWorld there was Lizard and someone else). We are walking along an asphalt road winding across a huge asphalt area, with forests and cottages along its edges.
It was absolutely necessary for us to summon Cthulhu. We began chanting a mantra... and, after a while, there was a strong underground tremor. And I found myself in Cthulhu's body, although my own body continued walking with the crowd. I (as Cthulhu) was not far from that square, a few kilometers away, where the forest turned into a swamp. It turned out that I-Cthulhu remembered nothing. I swam across a marshy lake in some direction and came across a house standing on an island in the middle of the lake. The house greeted me, and, despite my surprise, I returned the greeting. The house asked if I was surprised to see a talking house, and upon receiving an affirmative answer, stated that there was nothing surprising about it. Then the house told me that I was the ancient god Cthulhu, and that I had so little memory because only one of those who summoned me had read Lovecraft, and only he knew the correct pronunciation of the name Cthulhu. And I-Cthulhu began to remember... and woke up.

The mantra was very similar to the composition by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society - Oh Cthulhu; for a better understanding of the dream, it's recommended to listen to it, it's on VK. By the way, it uses one of the pronunciations of the deity's name close to the correct one.

I went back to sleep; this time there were episodes transitioning into one another.
I, along with my fiancée (o_O), arrived at her parents' place; in the dream, I was older than I am now. Four people lived in the house: her parents and two sisters, but when we arrived, no one was home yet. They came when we were unpacking our suitcases and headed to another part of the house, where their family kept a store. Seeing me, the father frowned and suggested we take a ride. We drove around the city in his truck. He spent a long time telling me "the facts of life"; I just nodded and agreed. His last phrase was "A dream is the engine of life." Then he dropped me off on a street far from the house in an unfamiliar city. In my thoughts, I replied to him, "A dream can destroy a life."
After a while, I was walking with two guys; one was silent the whole way, and the other talked to me, constantly adding "Bro." Along the way, we bought a whole bag of amphetamines by weight from a street dealer. Ahead was a building under construction, cordoned off by the military, and right around the cordoned-off area sat drug addicts using marijuana and cocaine in plain view of the soldiers, who didn't react at all. My companion said, "This country is rotten to the core, bro. They won't even check what we're carrying." He handed the bag to one of the soldiers, asking him to pass it to the other side. Then both of my companions took handfuls of "snow" to their faces and ran to the right, along the fence. I ran after them but tripped and fell. From fear, I couldn't get up but just lay there, curled into a ball. SWAT guys were running after us, but they fell in the same spot I did. Soon I discovered the reason for their fall: it turned out I had crawled under a wooden plank, and my leg was barely protruding. I heard muffled curses... *blackout* I came to. The pre-sunset time that had dragged on through all previous episodes had given way to twilight, and the partly cloudy weather had been replaced by rain. The plank above me was lifted, and I was still lying there — I was very scared and cold. Some person, apparently a doctor, shone a flashlight in my eyes, examined me, and announced that I hadn't taken any drugs, it was just fright... *blackout again* I came to. Suddenly I realized I was trapped in the body of a seven-year-old boy. I'm in a five-story private house, on the top floor. Panic seizes me; I run around the floors for a couple of minutes, not watching where I'm going. A couple of floors below, I meet a robot vacuum cleaner; it addresses me in English, and I suddenly realize I don't know the language at all. And I wake up again.

I go to sleep for the third time. And again I see dreams; this time the episodes are barely connected to each other.
In the first episode, my father and I are inspecting our new nightclub, which will open its doors to its first visitors that day. I only remember it in broad strokes.
Then I was playing some computer game: graphics from Warcraft III, view like in an RPG from behind the character, controlling one character at first. Several other people were playing with me, they were on my side, we could communicate by voice: either Teamspeak, or we were in the same room. We were killing mobs that left bonuses in the form of strawberries (this is already from arcade games). The first wave was successfully repelled; I went off somewhere far away, where I nearly died. I had to urgently return to base. Then I was told that at the base I could hire troops, and was advised to take archers (exactly like the archers from Heroes of Might and Magic V), since I was an archer myself, and they would be more effective under my command.
A narrow, ancient street. On both sides stand steam locomotives, but in a stricter design, in blue and white. People are sitting inside them. In front of the locomotives sit a girl and stand a guy: the girl is playing a tam-tam and singing, and the guy is playing a green electric guitar. The song was completely gone from my head upon waking.
In the fourth episode, I myself was playing an electric guitar, which had two dozen strings arranged vertically, in place of the frets. Nevertheless, the guitar played no worse than an ordinary one.
The fifth episode returned me to the nightclub, but this time during the first party. My old friend and I are standing in a corner talking. The music playing is terrible, by the way. Then we go out to the people; at the bar counter stands a group of young people watching us. We approach them. I already know the guys; I shake their hands. Then my friend introduces me to the girls one by one. The last girl turns out to be very short (only a little later did I realize she was sitting on the floor). I introduce myself to her, we hug. And then she suggests I, sorry, kiss her anus. I'm bewildered, and those around me look at me expectantly. At this point, I finally wake up and remember everything I saw. I rush to write it down.

3
I dreamed of another drawing. So, I already owe myself four drawings from dreams. Fortunately, they are very well etched in my memory, too psychedelic.

4
At home, the day before going to sleep, I played the board game Shogun and the computer game Shogun 2: Total War, which influenced the theme of the dream.
I found myself in a spacious room where, besides me, there were two other people — my mentor, and a student like me. They stood five meters away from me, exchanged a few phrases, and the student left. I approached the mentor (who looked like David Carradine, the actor who played Bill in Tarantino's films); he smiled at me. During meditation, he taught me to turn into a butterfly and, in that form, sent me to the imperial palace for a coronation. I flew there and landed on a windowsill, next to other butterflies, among which were several other students. Together we watched the coronation, and towards the end, it was time for an ancient custom — one of the butterflies that had flown to the coronation had to die and be placed under glass. The mentor, who was present at the ceremony in human form, insisted very much that I should be the one dried, but another butterfly, an orange-green one, was chosen.
The mentor took me from the window, restored my human form, and we went down together to the palace basement. There we entered some room where there was a lot of clothing, changed, and went out into the catacombs beneath the palace. We wandered through them for a while and met another student who was waiting for us. He was dressed like a ninja. The mentor turned on a machine that threw shurikens, and the student began to dodge them, standing still five meters from the machine. One of the shurikens slightly grazed his neck. Gradually, he began to move from side to side, and then completely ran away... and the machine started shooting at me. I ran after him, the machine chased us; we ran from it for a long time... and I woke up.

Mastering the whistle.

At this point, I can more or less play four tunes. Also, I figured out a short excerpt from one famous song by notes. Recording attached; the first to guess gets +10 to BD. No one has guessed yet.

Volchik, I won't give any more BD, as there's a daily limit.

already +7! it was +5. let's wait and see for another month or two, then I'll take all 35 at once ^^

Books

I started reading the "A Song of Ice and Fire" series. The first book is "A Game of Thrones." The setting is a pseudo-medieval fantasy universe that isn't much different from the canonical one. The main theme is the struggle for power between the Great Houses, which only begins in the first book. Events are presented from the perspectives of several characters, mainly members of House Stark; therefore, some important events are shown only from one possible point of view. On the other hand, correcting this small flaw would disrupt the narrative sequence and further increase the already voluminous book. Overall, it leaves pleasant impressions after reading. The characters are very well developed. I felt like buying a board game based on the series.

Movies

"The Truman Show." An excellent drama-dystopia with Jim Carrey in the lead role. Before watching it, I already knew the approximate plot and ending, but this did not diminish my enjoyment of the film.

"Final Destination 5." A typical gorefest masquerading as horror, but it doesn't qualify as such; it rather evokes disgust. There is no way I will ever go to movies of this genre again. Not even for friends. Not even if the fate of humanity depends on it. Especially in 3D.

Photos

Two photos that I wanted to share.

In Finland, it is recommended to be careful so as not to fall victim to scammers.

Lohi is, of course, salmon .

The day before yesterday, from the airport.

Lordi, what do you think about Kamchatka?

Musical Instruments

My father returned from another business trip and unexpectedly brought me a new instrument as a gift. An ocarina – a clay wind instrument. The principle of sound production is the same as with a whistle flute. There are many varieties of the instrument; I couldn’t find fingerings for mine, so I had to download a tuner program and look for sheet music. The results were surprising - due to the special shape of my copy, holes of different sizes are interchangeable, regardless of their location - there is only a few cents difference, which is small, especially for wind instruments. It produces twelve notes - from E and F sharp in half-tone steps up to E of the next octave. A picture of its appearance is attached; I could not record the sound because the microphone suddenly broke.

Why do you say scammers? I don't understand. Was the fish of poor quality? I didn't buy fish in Finland myself; we caught it ourselves. But the meat and meat products there are excellent.

I'm writing here because I want to share something again. This time, it's about my studies. Today, I had the first two classes for one of my core subjects – structural geology. These two classes were great because the professor is very engaging and presents the material with explanations and examples. The topic of these two classes was the basics of structural geology and its importance. I want to share one of the examples he gave. The Soviet Union, Kazakhstan, 1930s. A geologist found a copper outcrop in the steppe. A team of geologists and drillers was sent to drill wells. A schematic view of the drilling results is shown in the attached image 1. At the top is a four-meter layer of loose sedimentary rock, and the copper ore is indicated by hatching. Based on these drillings, a diagram of the deposit was created, and an approximate view is shown in image 2. Such conclusions seem obvious, don't they? The deposit was considered very rich and easy to develop. They brought in young communists, built a plant, and started mining and smelting. But then it turned out that the ore reserves were three to four times less than predicted. What happened? The problem was that this geologist was probably not very familiar with structural geology. Therefore, he did not invite a team of geophysicists to verify his assumptions about the deposit, and he didn't even dig test pits in the upper layer to look for other outcrops. In reality, the deposit in cross-section was approximately as shown in image 3. The consequences for the geologists and drillers were quite sad. By the way, if anyone is interested in geology and geophysics, and if you want to expand your knowledge in these areas, I will be happy to publish similar interesting materials in the future.

Interesting, yes. But it should be noted that the geologist from Kazakhstan accurately predicted that he should excavate in those three specific locations where the depth of the deposits is the same.

Next to each image link, I emphasized that this is a very approximate diagram. There were more than three wells, and they were not arranged in a single line, of course.