Galchenko.com - Vova's Blog http://www.galchenko.com/blog/vova/ This is Vova Galchenko's Blog en Copyright 2007 Tue, 20 Mar 2007 21:12:34 -0800 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/?v=3.2 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Stupid Americans? People around the world generally seem to think that most Americans are stupid. Moreover, it seems like even Americans consider most Americans (sometimes even including themselves) to be stupid. For decades the greatest scientists from all over the world have been flocking to America, and Americans are stupid? What's going on here?

]]> http://www.galchenko.com/blog/vova/2007/03/stupid_americans.html http://www.galchenko.com/blog/vova/2007/03/stupid_americans.html Tue, 20 Mar 2007 21:12:34 -0800 Immigration After years and years of struggle with many battles won, and even more lost, my legal immigration war ended in my favor about a week ago. I am now officially a permanent US resident. Among my rights are the right to reside and work in the US and the right to leave and re-enter the US freely as I please. The coolest of all is that I'm going to have this status permanently, so I'm not going to have to renew it to keep my rights (except for when I apply for my citizenship in 5 years).

]]> http://www.galchenko.com/blog/vova/2007/02/immigration_1.html http://www.galchenko.com/blog/vova/2007/02/immigration_1.html Sat, 10 Feb 2007 16:20:47 -0800 Kristina and Vova 2 Hey everyone. My dad taped Kristina and me pass yesterday. That's almost exactly a month since we made Kristina and Vova 1 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABD1hFJHJiY). So, check out our progress:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74KaCwdPrBs

]]> http://www.galchenko.com/blog/vova/2007/01/kristina_and_vova_2.html http://www.galchenko.com/blog/vova/2007/01/kristina_and_vova_2.html Thu, 18 Jan 2007 02:30:02 -0800 Happy Holidays! Here's a video of me and Lindsay playing the piano and my parents singing for you:

http://www.galchenko.com/vova/videos/WH1.mov

]]> http://www.galchenko.com/blog/vova/2006/12/happy_holidays.html http://www.galchenko.com/blog/vova/2006/12/happy_holidays.html Personal Sun, 24 Dec 2006 13:11:39 -0800 Long-term plans Humans make plans. Plans to have a family, walk the dog, get a job, play piano... all kinds of plans. Making plans helps us get things done in a thought out, organized manner. In addition to making short-term plans, some humans make long-term plans. Some humans make 5 and even 10 year plans. I don’t believe anyone actually sticks to long-term plans they make. Life is so unpredictable that it is impossible to make plans that are going to stay relevant for as long as 5 or 10 years. Hopefully people’s plans change as they acquire new data and circumstances change. 5 years ago I could not even think of ever getting to where I am now, as I had no idea I was going to be fortunate enough to meet people I met who helped me and guided me along. I adjusted my plans accordingly.

]]> http://www.galchenko.com/blog/vova/2006/12/longterm_plans.html http://www.galchenko.com/blog/vova/2006/12/longterm_plans.html Personal Thu, 14 Dec 2006 08:30:55 -0800 Random Juggling Footage My dad's been occasionally going to my practices and taping some stuff. He's gathered a bunch of footage from that. I've also had some older footage laying around. So I put together some of that footage that hasn't been put out yet. Here it is, hope you like it:

http://www.galchenko.com/vova/videos/RandomFootage.mov

]]> http://www.galchenko.com/blog/vova/2006/12/random_juggling_footage.html http://www.galchenko.com/blog/vova/2006/12/random_juggling_footage.html Juggling Sun, 10 Dec 2006 12:56:13 -0800 "Self of steam" This blog entry was inspired by my experiences with spoiled American teenagers who think their life is so very hard and complicated. There are surprisingly few American teenagers who actually act content with their lives. So few that it almost seems that the easier people's lives are the more unhappy they are. You hardly ever hear about a kid from Africa bitching on and on about social pressures.

]]> http://www.galchenko.com/blog/vova/2006/12/self_of_steam.html http://www.galchenko.com/blog/vova/2006/12/self_of_steam.html Sun, 03 Dec 2006 01:44:23 -0800 Can't think of a good title for this In this post I'm going to let you know what I've been up to lately and also share my very personal essay with you all. Hope you enjoy it.

]]> http://www.galchenko.com/blog/vova/2006/11/cant_think_of_a_good_title_for.html http://www.galchenko.com/blog/vova/2006/11/cant_think_of_a_good_title_for.html Sun, 26 Nov 2006 08:27:04 -0800 Back to juggling! Hey everyone!

Life's been good here in Russia. It looks like my arm's pretty close to healing at this point. I restarted practicing again 2 days ago. It's been interesting. I've only been juggling for 2 days after a 2 week break and it looks like my juggling's already almost back to where it'd been before the accident. My club and ball juggling skills still aren't 100% back, but my ring juggling is (probably because it was at such a low level that there wasn't that much to recover).

Anyway, I made a video of the recovery of my juggling skills after the accident. I didn't feel like spending that much time editing it, but it's got some cool, in my biased opinion, juggling. Enjoy.

]]> http://www.galchenko.com/blog/vova/2006/11/back_to_juggling.html http://www.galchenko.com/blog/vova/2006/11/back_to_juggling.html Thu, 09 Nov 2006 02:17:30 -0800 GPA golfer gig, going-away party, Lindsay, car accident I’ve gotten behind on my blogging – quite a few interesting things happened lately and I’m going to go ahead and try to catch up.

Firstly, there’s the GPA golfer, Jesper Parnevik gig. That was on Monday (October 16th) near West Palm Beach, and it was a lot of fun. Jesper had a sponsorship party and contacted me on Saturday (October 15th) about doing a 20 minute show at the party. Mark arranged a deal with him and that Monday at 3 am I was in the car driving to the airport to fly to West Palm Beach. Exhausted from getting up early I got to the party at around 7 pm. That was my first ever corporate gig and I’d never done a 20 minute show all by myself, so I was a little nervous about it. I ended up doing real well, in front of some rich and influential people that were there. They seemed to have liked me a lot, and the coolest part (for me) was that I did 20 catches of 7 clubs on the first try in the show eventhough the ceiling was so low that I had to crouch a little bit and juggle lower to do it. Due to some misunderstandings I didn’t get to the hotel until about 1 am and I had to wake up at about 4:30 or so to catch the flight. So eventhough the gig was fun and it went well, it started the theme of not getting enough sleep that week with the average of like 3 hours a night.

]]> http://www.galchenko.com/blog/vova/2006/10/gpa_golfer_gig_goingaway_party.html http://www.galchenko.com/blog/vova/2006/10/gpa_golfer_gig_goingaway_party.html Personal Wed, 25 Oct 2006 23:59:39 -0800 Philadelphia/New Jersey pictures I got back from my Philadelphia/New Jersey trip last night. I stayed with Lindsay (AKA pinkpanties, sweet bazoongas) and ended up spending most of my time with her. We did go to the juggling convention and I did 20-25 minutes closing the first and second halves of the show. It went pretty well, considering the ceiling height and the amount of time I used to prepare for it (none). I ended up doing 3 clean runs of 7 clubs of about 20 catches on different occasions during the show. That was cool. Lindsay took a whole bunch of pictures and videos of us hanging out and of me in the show. Here are some decent ones:

Lindsay and I

Lindsay and I at Target

Lindsay and I at Target 2

Lindsay, her sister Jen, and I

Lindsay, her sister Jen, and I 2

Lindsay and I 2

Me in the show

Me in the show 2

Me in the show 3

Me in the show 4

Lindsay and I passing

]]> http://www.galchenko.com/blog/vova/2006/10/philadelphianew_jersey_picture.html http://www.galchenko.com/blog/vova/2006/10/philadelphianew_jersey_picture.html Personal Wed, 11 Oct 2006 22:54:47 -0800 Philadelphia Juggling Convention I'm going to Philadelphia/New Jersey for the Philadelphia Juggling Convention this week. I haven't been to a regional juggling convention in a while, and never been to this one in particular. Anyone on here ever been there? Tell me about it.

]]> http://www.galchenko.com/blog/vova/2006/10/philadelphia_juggling_conventi.html http://www.galchenko.com/blog/vova/2006/10/philadelphia_juggling_conventi.html Juggling Mon, 02 Oct 2006 07:29:23 -0800 Sweaty Underwear Tonight I'd like to talk about one of the more annoying things about practicing juggling - sweaty underwear. I sweat a lot when I juggle. During my practice I develop some strange sweat patterns on my shirt ranging from smiley faces to playboy bunnies. I don't particularly enjoy the shirt getting wet, but it's not horrible. I simply change shirts. I can live with that.

]]> http://www.galchenko.com/blog/vova/2006/09/sweaty_underwear.html http://www.galchenko.com/blog/vova/2006/09/sweaty_underwear.html Juggling Thu, 28 Sep 2006 22:15:28 -0800 Confidence and juggling A while ago Peter Bone wrote about confidence as a major factor in juggling progress. Here's what he wrote:

"...It comes down to confidence. If you believe you can do something then eventually you'll be able to do it - given enough practice time. Anthony Gatto is as good as he is because he's insanely confident to the point where he actually thinks he's superhuman or something (seriously, he once said he sees things in slow motion). Some people never learn a trick despite practicing it a lot more than someone else who learnt it much quicker because at some level they don't think they can do it."

]]> http://www.galchenko.com/blog/vova/2006/09/confidence_and_juggling.html http://www.galchenko.com/blog/vova/2006/09/confidence_and_juggling.html Practice Wed, 27 Sep 2006 22:09:20 -0800 Irreducible complexity Irreducible complexity is one of the ideas I've heard used to attempt to dispute the theory of evolution many times. Someone's even brought it up here. Here's how the argument goes. Suppose a biological system consists of multiple parts and the only way the system is benefitial to the organism is if all the parts of the system are present and none of the parts are benefitial to the organism unless all are present. The creationist's argument is that such a biological system is not able to have evolved from a simpler predecessor, and thus must have been created by an "intelligent designer" AKA god.

]]> http://www.galchenko.com/blog/vova/2006/09/irreducible_complexity.html http://www.galchenko.com/blog/vova/2006/09/irreducible_complexity.html Atheism Tue, 26 Sep 2006 19:12:04 -0800