Nov 04

30 percented

By Kevin Hagel Bulgaria, Texas 1 Comment »

Yesterday morning I checked the local weather forecast on the weather underground website, it said 30 percent chance of rain during the evening.  Ok, I can deal with that.

So yesterday evening it started raining, and raining, and raining, in fact it’s still raining this morning – it “30 percented” all over us, all night long.

Shortly after midnight the power went out.  I suppose I should be used to that kind of thing, in a way – I spent June and July in east Texas where those big thunderstorms booming through often caused the power to go out, sometimes for hours.

But I still don’t like it :-(   And it shut down my web server too (whine), and even worse – I could not make espresso!
I don’t know what time the power came back on, I finally fell asleep waiting for it.

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Jul 23

Longview Texas Bicycling

By Kevin Hagel Texas No Comments »

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Jun 10

Texas

By Kevin Hagel Texas No Comments »

Yes, I’m back in Texas.  Longview to be exact.  My Bulgarian adventure continues from the US this time.

I’ll be traveling to Washington D.C. this Sunday afternooon, arriving 12:30 am in the morning.  I’ll spend the next day or two pushing my paperwork through the Bulgarian embassy, about a 15 minute walk from the condo my friends own.  They have been nice enough to allow me to stay there for a couple of days (thanks Jeff, Don, and Dave).

In the meantime, I bought a new Canon PowerShot SX10 IS. I already own the PowerShot S5 IS (I think that’s the model) and I’ve always been quite happy with the colors you can get, especially daytime colors on the Foliage setting.  But one thing I didn’t like was the inability to get really good closeups, with really sharp focus.

Photos.

I took some experimental closeups of the flowers and bugs in my parent’s yard.

Here’s a closeup of my cat, Tonka, after I woke him from still another nap on the front porch.

And here’s a closeup of a dragonfly


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Oct 05

Longview

By kevin Bulgaria, Texas, Travel No Comments »

Well, the Romania idea is long dead.  As best I can tell, a new law or set of laws were passed in Bulgaria on Sept 4 regarding how long a foreigner can stay without a visa, how visas are obtained, how registering a company in Bulgaria works … and all that.

Basically, I can only stay in Bulgaria without a visa for 90 days in any 6 month period.  July 4th to October 2nd … so the idea that I could just leave the country for a day and come back in (the trip to Romania) no longer would do what I needed to be done.

Second, to apply for the visa-D business visa, I must return to my home country and apply at the Bulgarian consulate there, waiting 30-40 days for the vias.  Thus, my trip to Washington D.C.

On Wed October 2nd we went to a travel agency and purchased a flight to Washington D.C., and that night we drove across country once again to Sofia, where at 6:15 a.m. I got on my flight.  First to Brussels, Belgium, a 4 hour stay there, then an 8 and a half hour flight to Washington D.C.

I spent the night with my friends Don Mackay and David Jones, living near the corner of N and 22nd street.  I arrived there in D.C. about 3 pm local time, Dave picked me up, we met Don and headed for an Outback Steakhouse – I haven’t eaten steak in 3 months you know.

On friday oct 3rd at 10:30 am I showed up at the Bulgarian consulate on the corner of R and 22nd streets and applied for my visa.  The woman I talked to seemed to be saying to me that my situation should not give me problems, that I could have a visa D in 30-40 days.

So after that, Dave and Don gave me a ride to Dulles airport, and I flew down here to Longview Texas to wait out the time for my visa.  I’m staying with my parents for the next 6 weeks it looks like.

I really did not want to have to return to the US for this, it’s had a significant impact on my work … I can continue working from here on the MacBook, but it’s not my favorite development platform.

Anyway, that’s the current story.  There is a chance I might be flying up to Madison WI again to see about a possible new remote contract with a friend’s company … we’ll see.  I really don’t want to be in Texas, I really don’t want to be in the states right now.

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