Finally. Living in the process is better than achieving the end of the process, you know. I lived in the process of buying and refurbishing my next apartment for about 5 years. 2 years for finding the most proper one from those available on the market, and about 3 years for making it appropriate for family living.



In Riga, there's quite a small number of new apartments available, and mostly they all come for Miami prices. About 85% of the real properties are flats built in USSR houses, coming from 1960-1980s of the previous century. Latvia is about that. For about 25 years of independence, I've got the idea that I couldn't live in a medium-to-good level apartment if I didn't stole something. It's not possible to earn for such a living without shagging people. Not possible to get such a quart with just miniBB-related works. That's why I just preferred to buy some room, which gives me a normal temperatures in the winter, some coolness in the summer, which is preferably located in the green zone and not far from the Daugava river (so I could take walks each day and breathe so/so fresh air to re-install my brains). Finally, I've found one in 2011, and in November 2014, I've moved to there, bringing all of my old things shit from the previous apartment.

Here you could watch some exclusive pictures of how it was and how it became.

WC was about this:



It became about that:



The living room was about this:



It became about that:



The corridor was about this:



It became about that:



It's very difficult to describe in one paragraph what does it mean to refurbish the old USSR flat and how to collect all the certain professionals about it. I was up to go through many journeys of discovering lots of engineering details, which made me stunned and delighted me at once; met truly dumb and no doubts genius people. I've learnt what does it mean to deal with many engineering tools - drills, saws, screwdrivers, jointers... I've built a list of all components necessary for bathroom, WC, corridor, kitchen, living rooms... electricity, water pipes, plasterboards, concrete fixes, windows, doors, floor, cables, balcony... it looked there are about 1000 positions for all of this damn crap. Good but very expensive learning.

Now I know.



The most problem about the new living were... fucking neighbors. They turned me out of the working schedule for about a month. I rather didn't share these details with my customers, so they mostly experienced, unfortunately, no active jobs from my end and delayed tasks. But still, some of the them got informed why I'm thrilling.

I've shared this short comment to one of them, explaining why I'm numb:

And here's what I've got in reply:

Barking dogs! Oh... I hate them!!! Luckily, there were no big dogs around of me in this place (so far). Except, well... I've heard a little dog yapping somewhere below... but it was a rare sound, comparing to the FOUR dogs living in the neighborhood of my older apartment. Some people are crazy holding few of dogs in two-rooms flats. There's a lot of such lard-heads around all this country, actually.




And here's another message I've sent explaining my status:

What I've got in reply:

Oh well. I truly eaten this stuff! And I like it:



BTW, you must have the natural eggs from the naturally grown chicken to feel the real taste of this. What you buy in the shop under the "Eggs" title, are actually the sub-product of the chemically grown parrot-and-pheasant's hybrid. What you see on the picture, are truly natural eggs. One of the benefits of my new living place is that I know people and places where to buy such eggs in a 5 minutes walking distance.


Also, here was my post to another miniBB friend:

Here's the answer:

I always supposed renting an apartment is much more quicker than building your own. But in result, there's lost a possibility of learning new things. I've travelled lots of countries; actually I'd like to see something like this if I escape my room and walk for about 5-10 minutes:






Actually, from the "personal" point of view, there's no big difference between the "rented" and the "private" apartment. The only difference is about someone who could take this apartment away from you. In the first case, it could be somebody like you, i.e. a human being. In the second case, it could be a government and the state you're currently living in. Both things may change in a quite short time.

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All in all, considering all of the cons and pros, I've considered I've made a good choice for a moving; but anyway, I've lost some of my powers and got a virus, or flu, or I just flew - out. This lasted for the whole month spending in a bed.

This, however, resulted in having fun via Internet, or watching some good movies. What else could you do lying in bed? Reading books?.. Phoning friends?.. There's a 21th Century Fox upstairs.

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November 18th is the Independence Day in Latvia. Basically, just a few elements of celebrations take place each year; the same was about 2014:

- the country major officials were laying flowers near the Freedom Monument, which always produces a feeling of funerals:




- in the Esplanade square, everyone was welcomed to eat a piece of the giant cake, dedicated to Latvia, about 38 sq.m. wide:




- More than 500,000 people visited the Staro Riga festival, which is about lighting many down town buildings in unusual colors, that way bringing a fresh lighting for the Capital of Latvia:








- the traditional Torchlight procession took place with thousands of Lettish participants:




- finally, the 11th November Embankment in Riga became filled with crowd because of the Grand Fireworks:





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This month is also truly the "wake month" in this country: on November 21th, 2013 there happened the most tragic event in the new Latvia: the Zolitude shopping center collapsed at 17:41 local time, resulting in the deaths of 54 people, including three rescue workers, and injuries to another 41 people.




Since one year passed this collapse, nothing was changed in terms finding the guilty and helping the injured. I suppose, this case will be forgotten in just a few next years, and nobody will be responsible for the low quality building works...

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Earlier, I wrote about the story around the official Riga Entrance sign on the border of Riga. The story continued in November: Nils Ushakovs, the mayor of Riga, married for the 3rd time, this time choosing his office head, Iveta Strautinya, as his next wife. One of the "new family" pictures explained, what the claimed heart above the sign was created for:



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One of the most discussed events in November in the country was about the New Wave festival leaving Jurmala and moving to Russia... possibly forever. You would wander, what the "New Wave" festival is about... and what is "Jurmala"... Here's a quick story: Jurmala was the most well-known and prestigious Baltic resort in USSR times; in 25 years of Latvian independence, it became the shit-hole of nothing, mostly... Except, "New Wave" was a pop-festival, rich in pop-artists from Russia and upcoming pop-singers, it was based 14 years ago and took place in Jurmala all these years, being translated over primary Russian TV, and bringing abnormally good profits to Jurmala. This year, this month, the Latvian Minister of Foreign Affairs mr.Edgar Rinkevich made a sensational coming-out, proposing him as a gay, but past year nobody known about it, when he issued a note forbidding visiting the festival for certain singers from Russia. I suppose, now Jurmala will not ever have a "summer season of three weeks" even in its best times.

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Once upon this year, in August, in Ferguson, a white police man shoot a black guy. And the police man was acquitted by court later. This month, the little "revolution" happened because of that, resulted in protests and riots on the streets. But since USA are kings of democracy, the Ferguson council have used a tear gas as a basic argument in suppressing the massive dissatisfaction. The National Guard was invited as the very final power to make all crowds calm. It seemed like USA are on the edge of experiencing a revolution like in Ukraine. But it was just a rumor. USA are kings of democracy.



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November 12th 2014 was the historical day for the European Space Agency: the cosmic module "Fila" successfully landed on the surface of the nucleus of comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko, for the first time in the history of space research. Unfortunately, shortly after that the comet run in the area out of the sun light, so the batteries of "Fila" ended up soon; but the news on their own truly made my day. What? Really?.. The human kind gained so much progress that it could land remotely on a quickly moving comet? Amazing.




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While the President of Ukraine, mr.Poroshenko, is known as the most rich person in his country, owning chocolate producing companies, - in Russia, there appeared chocolates of mr.Putin name; despite of it, mr.Putin doesn't own them. Chocolate "President Series" describe mr.Putin as "mild" and "kind", which is visible on the covers, based on the works of pop-art artist Alexey Sergienko.



BTW, this month I've also read that chocolate producers expect chocolate prices equal to caviar prices in about 20 years. Not sure if there will be more caviar produced, or less chocolate... so sadly, chocolate is not as good investment as wine...

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In August, the subject of the YouTube audience attention became the Spider Dog prank, which I wrote earlier about. It seems people love to transform their dogs to another animals. This month, I've seen the new viral video about it: The Teddy Bear Dog.



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But here's something about viral cats: the "Grumpy Cat's Worst Christmas" movie trailer appeared the worst movie could be ever made about such a funny being:



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If we take movies, sometimes I have a good mood to watch documentaries. Besides the rocket-scientific "Zeitgeist" series, in the past years, there were appearing quite a lot of astonishing documentaries, which deserve both attention and Oscar. Here's my top of them I've built in November:



5. "The Pixar Story" (2007). Even watching some of the earlier 20-years-old Pixar animations these days, I'm wondering about the quality and the deep attention to details even in the "poor computer graphics" era; especially I'd like to mention their very early "Gas Planet", which is one of my favorites after "Ratatouille", "WALL-E" and "Inside Out". "The Pixar Story" is about the inner world of this most remarkable animation studio of all times. The main discovery for me was, that the well-known Steve Jobs took a main role in this company's success.



4. "The Salt of the Earth" (2014). This movie, definitely put under the Sony Classics label, in some way continues the idea of photographing, but here it's truly about photographer's life. Sebastião Salgado combined human motion and planet's views during 40 years of his notable career, which is fixed by the legendary director Wim Wenders. It may sound boring from the beginning, if you're introduced just to watch static pictures on the screen. But when I saw this movie, I've thought my brains could explode because of what I just saw. It's definitely worth the Academy Award, one of the best documentaries I ever watched.



3. Leonardo DiCaprio appears the most talented and undervalued actor in Hollywood by now, I mostly like every movie where he plays - and especially, I liked the documentary named "The 11th Hour" (2007), which is produced and narrated by DiCaprio. I guess, everyone heard about the global warming, but after seeing this movie, you will be surprised to know the global warming is not the only problem the "people Earth" has now. The movie gave a perfect view on how the human being processed in its development, and exploded quite a lot of chains I didn't even imagine before; the best moment of it is that it ends on a positive note, proposing the way of change.



2. "Home" (2009). This is one of the rare yet expensive movies, which could be watched for free on YouTube, and despite it was filmed 5 years ago, it appeared a never-ending classics for me. Produced by Denis Carot and more famous Luc Besson, and directed by a French photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand, this movie shows the planet Earth from above, and especially all traces the human being leaves behind. The big picture is most visible from a distance. This world-wide journey from a bird's is unforgettable.



1. I'll share the top positions of the documentaries I ever watched, to the movie called "Searching for a Sugar Man" (2012). If you're reading about it for the first time, you could be a winner to yourself. Don't read plots and descriptions of this film in advance before you watch it. As for me, before I never heard about the person, which this movie is created for. And after the first-half I wasn't even sure, if I'm watching a real story, or if it's a poor fake. It's not just the story about music; it's more about how people living on Earth, but located in the different districts of it, consider the world's and music history, and how the information field could affect our perception of things. After-all, the soundtrack to the movie is more great than real, despite it's about both. Amazing and sensational story.

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"As more shiny November is, as more delightful is the next year for farmers". That's about the November part in Jamie's calendar, and it's not about my country and place. Here's how the Riga looked in the end of November:




November is always quite a dirty and nasty here. May be that's why the agriculture is very limited in Latvia - in shops, you could buy potatoes from Egypt and Spain, but not from local farmers. Despite of it, Latvia is the country that can be proud, specially because in the next year, it will be take the leading role in the EU Presidency.