Cyrus Farivar

Veljo and Ivo are moving up their weekly pool night at Bamba so we can celebrate (commemorate?) my last night in Tallinn. Also, this afternoon I opened up an Estonian bank account at Hansapank. I tried to open one at SEB, but they said that they won’t open to non-resident Americans for some reason. If I was Canadian, it would have been no problem. So now I have a European bank account with 100 EEK ($8.82) in it! Woot!

Mohsin Hamid, The Washington Post, July 22 2007: The residue of U.S. foreign policy coats much of the world. It is the other part of the answer to the question, “Why do they hate us?” Simply because America has — often for what seemed good reasons at the time — intervened to shape the destinies of other countries and then, as a nation, walked away. There is so much about the United States that I admire. So when I speak…

I just read that there was an earthquake about two hours ago in Oakland. I assume that everyone is ok?

Today: Tallinn Saturday-Sunday: Ida-Viru County to attend a mini Haamer family reunion. Veljo, his son Kris, and Veljo’s brother Hanno and I are heading east to visit Veljo’s Dad, who lives on a farm somewhere out near Lake Peipsi. Monday: Quick morning trip to Tartu, back in Tallinn by the early afternoon. Tuesday: Two interviews in the morning, fly to Berlin in the afternoon Wednesday: Berlin Thursday: Early morning flight to Amsterdam, day trip to Rotterdam for a story, fly…

Glenn Strachan, April 30 2006: I can’t help but feel childish as my mind moves almost immediately from wondering what it would be like to live here to I can live here to I want to live here all in the space of a millisecond. It would be an illicit love affair because we really aren’t made for each other – I crave the warmth of long sunny days. Neither of those exists for nearly 6 months of the year.…

So I’m not really sure how many readers I have in Oregon, nor within driving distance of Bend, but here goes: I was contacted recently by a promoter for The Fray, who is giving away two tickets to readers of this blog for the band’s July 25 (6:30 pm) show at the Les Schwab Theater in Bend, courtesy of NoWhat.com. Given that this is my first time giving away tickets on the site, we’re going to make this really simple.…

Wednesday: Linnar Viik‘s Skype van: turns out, he also loves windsurfing, and apparently needed a vehicle big enough to carry his and his buddies’ gear to reach the best spots. So what did he do? He bought a big, fuck-off SWEDISH MILITARY TRANSPORT vehicle at auction, from a colleague who bought it at auction. (Thanks to Siim Teller from Skype for setting me straight!) Oh, and it has on-board CDMA/WiFi, and power outlets, naturally. Wednesday: There’s this neighborhood on the…

FP Passport, via David J. Kilcullen, a senior advisor to Gen. David Petraeus in Iraq: “At present, the U.S. defense budget accounts for approximately half of total global defense spending, while the U.S. armed forces employ about 1.68 million uniformed members. By comparison, the State Department employs about 6,000 foreign service officers, while the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has about 2,000. In other words, the Department of Defense is about 210 times larger than USAID and State combined—there…

CIA: Population of Estonia: 1,315,912 Mobile Telephones in Estonia: 1,445,000 Industries: engineering, electronics, wood and wood products, textile; information technology, telecommunications Or, as my friend, the astute Aaron Azlant quipped in an IM conversation: “haha one of these things is not like the other. specialties: web 2.0, cell tech, cedar”