Author: billkralovec

We said goodbye again to Owen as he returned to the USA for his final semester at Northern Michigan University. It was so nice to have him back with us for a few weeks and we are looking forward to attending his graduation ceremony in May. Nadia and I went shopping in the morning and as dutiful parents, stuffed his suitcase with stuff we thought he would need. He spent the night in Istanbul and will fly to Chicago this morning. He made the Dean’s List for the Fall Semester and wish him luck to finish is Bachelor’s degree strongly. He is considering his post-graduation life options. All of it is exciting at that age. Nadia and I of course were heartbroken to see him walk through immigration and to his gate. Everytime he comes back, he is a bit more independent, which is what he is supposed to be. Nadia and I are both trying to let go and allow him to forge his own path in life.

A highlight for me was walking with my middle son Oliver and taking our dog Obi out for a walk. Obi loves running around the school and it was cool to watch Oliver kick the soccer ball around again, like old times. We have two more weeks with him because St. Norbert College doesn’t start again until the last week in January. I am sharing a few more photos from our photoshoot with Alex on Friday.

Today is our last day of Winter Break and Nadia, Ocean and I are gearing up for a busy second semester of school.

We had a great day yesterday as a family. In the morning I was busy working but in the afternoon, I took time out to enjoy our final full day with Owen. Owen and I had a tennis training session with Coach Igor. Owen worked on his serve and ground strokes, I focused on my backhand. After the training, friends purchased a family photography session for us with local photographer, Alexandr Yugay. It was a late afternoon, sunny winter day in Anhor Park. Alex was kind and creative and we hope the photos turn out well. Nadia and I had a special moment together watching the kids as they were being photographed. It is amazing and wonderful that we created three lives and having the opportunity to share in their journey to adulthood. I am so fortunate to be a husband and father in a beautiful family.

After the photo shoot we took the kids clothes shopping and had a nice dinner at Kaspikya restaurant. We hung out at home afterwards and had a few laughs. We are going to struggle to get back to our regular sleeping timetable when they go. I post tennis videos for Owen and I to analyze and learn from. We are all looking forward to the start of the first Grand Slam of the year, the Australian Open.

We played a spirited 2 hours of tennis yesterday at the Yunnusobod National Tennis Club. In the first doubles set, Owen and Nadia defeated Oliver and me 6-4. We then moved to rotating singles sets of three for the remaining time. Owen has surpassed all of us! Oliver was a bit rusty but is such a better player due to playing more. Both of them are good athletes. Nadia and I love tennis and spending time together with the boys was so rewarding.

We are looking forward to following the first Grand Slam Tournament of the season, the Australian Open. I read 1.1 million people attended last year’s AO over the two-week tournament. I usually do a post previewing the ATP season and this year is no exception. My favorite player, Novak Djokovic ended the 2024 season ranked #7. He is the last of the “Big Three” left and his defeating Carlos Alcaraz in last summer’s Olympics to earn his first Gold Medal was the highlight of the season. It was the one goal that he wanted to reach before retiring. He is 37 years old and is established as the greatest player of all time. Older players are always at risk of an injury ending their career, so I am hoping he can stay healthy and have a chance of getting another Grand Slam title. It is all gravy at this point in his career.

The top players, Jannick Sinner (#1 – 73 wins – 6 losses in 2024), Carlos Alcaraz (#3 54-13) and Daniel Medvedev (#5 46-21) are better than Nole at this point in his career. He will need some luck in the draws to get him a Grand Slam this season. I hope he gets one! There are several Americans who have stepped up, including Taylor Fritz (#4 53-23) and Tommy Paul (#12 45-19). I really would like an American to win a Grand Slam. It has been 22 years (2003) since Andre Agassi (Australian Open) and Andy Roddick (US Open) since an American won a Grand Slam. Fritz lost in the US Open final to Sinner last year. Can he or Tommy Paul get to the top? I also see Americans Frances Tiafoe (#18) Ben Shelton (#21) and Sebastian Korda (#22) sitting a couple of tiers below the top group. Other stories to watch is will Alex Zverev (#2 69-21) finally win a Grand Slam. He is the most successful player who never won a Grand Slam. Jannick Sinner is clearly the best player in the world and won 8 titles last season. I listened to a fascinating interview with John McEnroe on Andy Roddick’s podcast, Served. He pointed out the evolution of the game to bigger, taller players dominating play. Alcaraz will have to fight through that being only 6 feet tall, against Sinner, Zverev, Fritz, Medvedev, all over 6-4.

ohn Valiant reports on the May 2016 forest fire that burned the northern Alberta city of Fort McMurray. The remote north Canadian town is located near the Athabasca oil sands. The town serves the petroleum industry. The wildfire destroyed 2,500 homes and buildings and 88,000 needed to evacuate. The fire burned forest the size of Delaware and it took four years for fire fighters to put it out. Valiant tells the story of the history of northern Alberta and the development of the town. I lived in Venezuela for six years and understand the petroleum industry well. It is a typical oil town, going through periodic booms and busts, depending on the cost of a barrel of oil. Fort McMurray petroleum however is different from most areas due to the difficulty and high cost of extracting usable petroleum products from basically sandy bitumen, or as Americans call it, asphalt.

The ecology of the boreal forest depends on naturally occurring wildfires to renew life in the vast forests. The boreal forest in North America ranges from Alaska, through Canada down to my region of the upper Great Lakes in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan. Trees like Black Spruce have combustible resin and fire occurs every 60 to 150 years, the fires clear thick understory of mosses, lichens, and shrubs. They usually occur in the spring and summer. Seed cones of the spruce trees need fire for germination and 5-10 years after a fire, a new generation of spruce seedlings rise up. The problem is climate change due to increased levels of CO2 in the atmosphere are causing longer and dryer summers. The intensity of wildfires is increasing. I remember two summers ago the skies of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan were hazy when we arrived in June due to Canadian wildfires.

The Fort McMurray Fire of 2016 was particularly intense and as Valiant points out, we should expect to see more of them in the coming decades. Humans don’t think about the cost of convenient fossil fuels transporting us around the globe and around town, hot showers, air conditioning, etc. We are not slowing down our rate of burning fossil fuels and the increasing CO2 content of the atmosphere is greatly altering our planet’s weather. Valiant gives a good history of climate change science. We have known that more CO2 and other byproducts of burning petroleum products causes temperatures to rise since the 19th century and the first oil wells. Humans have a hard time seeing gradual processeses impacting our long-term future. Fire management officials of the province underestimated the intensity and speed of the fire, much in part of not taking into account global warming. The ultra-dry forest bed, high winds, and low humidity were the perfect conditions for a mega wildfire. Incredibly everyone escaped (barely) but millions of dollars of property were lost. This is amazing as Valiant described bumper to bumper traffic going through flames and smoke on both sides of the only road out of town. I am sure the insurance companies will think twice about covering homes in the region in the future. .

Other things I took away from the book:

• I sympathize with the government official who has to decide to evacuate a city. He must have been under intense pressure, especially considering the impact on the petroleum industry where millions of dollars are lost daily if they need to shut down. I feel this a bit when deciding if we should close school when it is snowing. It is a much less intense level, but people’s lives are altered greatly if the kids need to stay home. I have to go with my best judgment with the data I have at the time to act in the best interest of the students. People may complain and it is easy to when you are not the person in the role of making the decision. It was a reminder to me not to bow to pressure.
  
• Lucretius Problem – This concept applies to risk management. When assessing risk, people look to the past for worst-case scenarios to predict future scenarios. It is natural to think that it is good to use past events to predict future events. What could be the worst thing that can happen? The “problem” is that disaster or “worst case” in the past, surpassed a previous “worst case” event. That means in the future, another more serious event could surpass anything that has happened previously. The idea is named after the Roman poetic philosopher Lucretius who wrote “a fool believes the tallest mountain in the world is the tallest mountain he has seen.” In other words, often we are limited by our own personal experience when assessing risk. Officials in Fort McMurray never experienced a wildfire as fierce as the one they encountered in May of 2016, hence they didn’t expect it to rip through the town.
  
• I come back to the “WUI” (rhymes with phooey) the Wild-Urban Interface. Modern sensibilities love this idea of having a house in the woods. “Hiking trails out the back door” and in the past 30 years, a third of American and half of Canadian homes are right in the WUI. Early settlers to America understood the safety of clearing forest around dwellings. I wonder if climate change will reverse this trend and more people moving back into towns and cities instead of having their 1-2 acres of forest around their house. I value connection with others over privacy and think more North Americans would be happier to be closer to neighbors and having a stronger sense of community.

As I finish this book, I am watching scenes of the wildfires in Los Angeles county. With hotter, drier conditions, more intense wildfires will take place. Besides the boreal forests, Australia, California, Spain, Italy, and many other locales around the world experience periodic wildfires.These will be more common in the coming years.

Today, January 7, is the Russian Orthodox Christmas and so I stopped in at the Cathedral of the Assumption of the Virgin here in Tashkent. It was built in 1871 and has been remodeled and improved over the years. I went around 12:00 noon and there was a steady flow of people coming in to light candles and pray. There was no service taking place when I went. People were coming and going, and sales of cakes, bread, honey, and religious icons were brisk outside of the cathedral. I noticed that many Russian women cover their heads when entering the church. Orthodox churches are beautiful and designed to be awe-inspiring and the cathedral here in Tashkent is no exception. It is a beautiful place, with a main hall and two side halls that can also be used for a service. 12% of Christians worldwide are Orthodox and they use the Julian calendar which is 13 days behind the Gregorian Calendar. The Julian Calendar (named after Julius Ceasar) was the main world calendar from 45 BC to 1582 AD. The Julian calendar gains 3 days every 400 years. The Gregorian calendar promulgated by Pope Gregory is more accurate and takes away this drift. The Orthodox Church still uses the Julian Calendar, probably because the Catholics adopted it right away. It is only a religious calendar and the Russians here use the Gregorian calendar for civil purposes.

I went for a bike ride yesterday, the first time in a long time! It was a short ride along the Anhor Canal, but it was good to get out in the fresh air. I rode around sunset and had to stop to take the photo above of the recently opened Crowne Royal Hotel. It was a perfect reflection on the canal. It was nice to feel the sun yesterday after a week of gloomy weather. The high temperature will be 9C (48 F). January is the month with the most overcast weather in Tashkent, with almost 40% of the days being gray. The average high temperature is 6C (43F) and average low temperature is -2C (28F).

In the evening we took the kids to the Tashkent Food Mall. They have inexpensive meals from a variety of restaurants in a Food Court-style setting. There is a nice bar and the place has a good vibe due to Westminster University being nearby. Lots of college kids including a “cyber lounge” which is kind of a club for young people with a bunch of computers. I noticed a group playing the same game Oliver and his friends do, I think it is called DMZ.

My nephew Beau Kralovec made the local news as his ice hockey team, the Wisconsin Windigo defeated an Alaskan team. He is seen in the video giving a hard shove near the goal. The Windigo play in the North American Hockey League and Beau has played in 27 games so far this season. He takes after his dad, my brother, who was a stud athlete and former Division II American football scholarship player at Northern Michigan University.

I ran across an interesting article in the local news this morning. Many Uzbeks go to Russia to earn higher salaries than they can get here. Remittances from Uzbek dispora are a big part of the economy. A guy from Andijon, a city in the far east of Uzbekistan, was working as a butcher in Moscow. While there he was approached by an official or unofficial representative of the Russian military. They offered him $5,000 / month to go fight in Ukraine. He agreed and completed a 2-month training before being deployed.

In late July 2023, he was sent to Shakhtyorsk and Bakhmut in Ukraine, where he met Tajiks and other foreigners. During the fighting until November 2023, the defendant, by his own admission, killed more than 10 Ukrainian servicemen.

For his activity on the battlefield, he was transferred to a reconnaissance unit of the Russian troops. Then, for five months, he participated in hostilities in Lugansk. – Gazeta.uz (January 4, 2025)

He only received a portion of his monthly salary and when on leave back in Moscow in December 2023, decided not to re-up his enlistment and returned to Uzbekistan. He turned himself in and received 4 years of probation. The judge took into account he came to officials and showed remorse and sentenced him to four years strict probation. He is only allowed to leave his home for work and study. He could have received 5-10 years of prison.

I had a nice day on Friday, starting a new yoga routine and going for a long walk in the evening with Obi. Our family played Nintendo’s Mario racing game together and I took out Oliver and his girlfriend Gianna for ice cream and cinnamon rolls. In the afternoon, I worked at school and completed several projects.

I took Obi for a long walk on the canal near the “Museum of Victims of Repressions” (the building with two blue domes). The goal of the museum is to commemorate the victims of political oppression by the Soviet Union. Over 10,000 people were arrested in 1937, over a third were executed and the rest were sent to labor camps. This was the period of the “Great Terror” and Stalin’s purges. He ordered the arrest of over 1.5 million people and 700,000 eventually were executed. I can just imagine the dread of hearing NKVD (People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs) agents at your door in the middle of the night. The Soviets not only arrested the head of the household but also the wife and children. Stalin was a complete monster and was one of the worst mass murderers in world history. I can see why the Uzbeks want in many ways to rid of all reminders of the Soviet era from their country. I would like to read more about the Great Terror and visit the museum.

The park that surrounds the museum is pleasant and on this cold and dreary day, it was mostly empty with a few people fishing on the banks. I crossed Amir Temur Avenue and did a large loop around the Japanese Garden and Exposition Center before returning to my car. Temperatures remain cold with a high of 2C forecasted today and cloudy all weekend. At least the rain stopped!

I end this post with a photo of an old Lada car with a huge amount of plastic tied to the top of the car. Uzbekistan like many countries, has challenges of recycling waste. I notice a lot of plastic does get recycled here, unlike most countries since the Chinese have stopped taking plastics from other countries. You see cars and trucks like below with big bundles of plastic being transported to recycling plants. I don’t think they get much for the plastic as it is mostly Luli (Roma) or extremely poor people collecting plastic.

The sun finally came out for a brief time yesterday afternoon! I went for a 9-kilometer run along the Anhor Canal while Nadia was swimming. I love walking and running through the city of Tashkent. I took a few photos from my exploration yesterday. I am a big fan of preserving the Soviet Modernist Architectural Buildings and noticed the old Tashkent Television Center facade, designed by E. Ablin. I hope to go inside and get some nice photos with better light, but as with many government buildings in the city, access is restricted. I think it is cool that an architect and construction company would go to the extra efforts to adding an artistic touch to a facade instead of saving money and going with functionality over art. There is a movement here to preserve these architectural gems. The city is rapidly developing and I hope leaders preserve this legacy of their history. It differentiates Tashkent from other cities through the world and it will always be one of the attractions or charms of the city for future generations. I am afraid that the character of the city will be lost with all of these huge building projects being built.

Another example of Soviet Brutalism/Modernist Architecture is the Summer Concert Hall of the Turkestan Palace of Arts.

A typical example of brutalism in Tashkent is the summer concert hall of the Turkeston Palace of Arts, whose architectural feature is a futuristic canopy with lighting equipment placed directly above the auditorium. The arena, designed by architects V. and Y. Hakobjanyan, opened next to the Palace of Arts in 1993 and was originally designed for 1600 seats. However, in the final project the auditorium was expanded to 3200 seats. The boxes wrap around the wide stage on its circumference.

A technical structure overhanging part of the stands and the stage is designed to house spotlights and other lighting equipment. The structure is supported in the air by four metal columns. During the summer season, the arena hosts dozens of productions, concerts and festivals.

I listened to the latest episode of the Sam Harris podcast while running. It was his New Year’s message and he said two things that resonated with me. His New Year’s resolution was to live 2025 like it was his last year on earth and he gave the example of NOT watching a bad movie, but watching a bad movie with his children was OK. That is how I am feeling as well as I am entering the last third of my life. I don’t want to spend time doing things that are not meaningful or pleasurable and I will not sweat the small stuff. I will focus what is important to me and what brings me satisfaction. I feel so fortunate to have a beautiful family and a rewarding career. Last night we watched the 1989 movie, Dead Poets Society together. It gave our family a good discussion. Nadia cooked a delicious cauliflower pasta. A beautiful night with my family!

The cold and wet weather continues, as it rained pretty much the entire day yesterday. Temperatures hovered around 3C all day, which is a bummer because a few degrees colder, and it would be a winter wonderland. Instead, it is a grey and depressive environment. We stayed up late for New Year’s Eve, and we all got off to a slow start on January 1, 2025. I walked around the Tashkent Botanical Gardens and pushed through a light rain to get a refreshing workout.

Nadia and I have completed watching the NetFlix spy thriller Black Doves. The six episodes were entertaining, although there were several holes in the plot. There were plenty of action scenes, enough character development, and enough relationships between characters to keep you cheering on them as they faced difficulties throughout the show. Ben Whishaw’s performance was especially endearing as a “triggerman.” His voice and acting are captivating to me. I remember his performance as Q in the James Bond films, but reading his biography, he starred in many other films. Keira Knightley co-starred and she has aged well. I haven’t seen her since she was a teenager in Love Actually. The Black Doves are a for-hire spy agency that sells information to the highest bidder. The plot includes the UK government, MI5, and, Chinese spies and diplomats, the CIA and the US embassy in London. All of which are in my wheelhouse of television viewing.

We kicked off the New Year by going to the rooftop bar at the Hyatt Regency here in Tashkent. It was the perfect spot because it was not crowded, but had enough people to make it feel like a party. It was not expensive either and we didn’t need to buy an expensive dinner and entertainment package that many of the places we looked into were offering. We arrived about 9:30 PM and had a great time with the kids. It is awesome that we can now go out with our adult-ish children. We laughed and danced a lot. Nadia was the driving force getting us out and together. I am so thankful to be able to start 2025 with our family! If it was up to me, we would have stayed home, but that is the advantage of marrying a younger woman, she keeps me young! The rooftop bar afforded us views of the fireworks and gatherings around the city, including right below the Hyatt.

My eldest son Owen was not feeling well, so we took the party home, played Mario Brothers, watched Michigan defeat Alabama in the Citrus Bowl, and did some more dancing with him. I feel blessed to have such a beautiful, healthy family that likes to spend time together. These moments of all of us together are getting rarer as the kids grow up and forge their own paths in life.