LvivLovers

All the gangsters and such moved to Atlanta and Houston after Katrina and they never came back.

I can confirm this!

Add me to those that say don't talk about previous relationships! Even if she asks! Just tell her you don't want to dwell on the past, but focus on the present. I know you are an honest guy with nothing to hide so you have no problem talking about the facts of your past. I was the same way. Trust me though, nothing good can come of it. Talking about such things is just a turn off. Talking about being worried about scams I think can also be a turn off. So I would say it's best to keep any worries you may have to yourself.

I read your story a long time back. Sorry you had such a bad experience! I was happy to see you found your way over to the RUB forum and hope you will soon be another "satisfied customer" lol. They truly are some of the best women in the world, but like any other group of women, there are some snakes, so you gotta be careful too. My best advice is just be realistic in what you look for.

Hope you have a fantastic trip and finally meet the woman of your dreams!

P.S. For the record, I went to meet my wife after about 2 months of correspondence and phone conversations. I, also, just wanted to meet her to see if we had the same chemistry in real life that we had on the phone...I didn't want either of us to waste our time. Anyway, just wanted to meet...had no intentions of marriage or anything like that. Short story...I was engaged a week later and married a month after that. Best relationship I have ever been in....like 100x better than I ever imagined. Hope the same happens for you, bud!

Wedding ceremonies are very scripted.....you should be able to obtain (discuss with the priest/minister/official/judge) what is going to be said and have that translated prior. Then no live translator to "interfere with the moment" is needed.

That reminds me. At the church where we got married they had never had an American spouse before so it was a bit of an issue. Luckily there was a visiting priest that spoke some English and he agreed to officiate. He had to translate the official vows. Long story short the first time I saw the translation was during the wedding ceremony when they were handed to me. To be honest, I didn't know any of what was in store for me that day although everything was well planned out by my wife and MIL. They just told me what I needed to know as it happened and I followed along! lol It was a good thing because they are both very much into traditions and there were TONS of them...I never could have remembered it all. Also, I didn't have anything to be nervous about since I hadn't thought about screwing up or anything ahead of time. It was just an amazing day seeing all of what they had planned and all the traditions.

Just to clarify, our interpretor stood with my family during the ceremony to translate any Ukrainian and help them understand what was going on as well as toured the city with them prior to the wedding. At the reception we had a microphone and he translated both ways after each person spoke. It was a good thing all the way around. My father loves to tell jokes and broke the ice a lot. Many of them had never met an American before so they were interested to see what we were really like. It was pretty funny seeing my father dancing with some of the more frisky babushkas! Everybody had a blast. They were still partying when my wife and I called it quits around 3 AM.

I'm happy. Enough said!

We actually did hire and interpreter for my family when they came to our wedding in Ukraine. Parts of our wedding were in English and Ukrainian (for example my vows were in English). We had the interpreter for a few days because I wanted my family to feel comfortable touring the city....he did more than just interpret I guess, providing just useful information to them about Lviv/Ukraine/customs and so on. At the wedding he translated toasts my family made so the Ukranian guests could understand and translated what they were saying so my family could understand. I forget the exact cost, but it wasn't much...1-2 hundred per day. We were very pleased with him...it was well worth it for us.

The waiting drove us crazy as well. After about 4 months we met in the Dominican Republic and spent some time together and that helped quite a bit. But another 3 months went by after that and we really started to go crazy. There's no feedback in the process...just waiting and more waiting. My wife was asking me more and more frequently to come move to Ukraine so we could finally be together. I was starting to really consider it. You just feel like it's never going to be done. That day finally does come though. Once you get the interview date, that panic ends and the time passes much more quickly.

As far as getting through it, we relied mostly on Skype, talking for a few hours every day. By the time my wife was here we really felt like we knew each other well. We're still both a little bit bitter thinking about all the time the USCIS stole from us. Life is short enough as it is and shouldn't be wasted waiting on the mercy of any government.

Is he the father of one of his ex's children? That's what it sounds like and might explain some of his weird behavior.

Same here. I just pretend it doesn't happen. "Yeah, that's my crazy wife. Leave her alone, she'll be alright in a little bit."

Over the years I've learned when she gets in those moods to just do my own thing - alone! "I'll be out in the garage."

That's the one downside to my wife. When she DOES get in that mood and the switch is flipped...there is NO escape!!! Attempting to leave to allow her to cool down is NOT an option and only brings more hornets out of the nest! hahaha It's like her total opposite evil twin suddenly appears...she IS a Gemini so I guess that makes sense.

Good luck, Johnny! You'll soon be one of the "enlightened" ones! =) Just remember to think with the right head! Like any country, there's good and there's bad and you have to use your judgement to tell the difference. Hope you have a blast and are pleasantly surprised with Ukraine!

LOL That's on a whole other scale to what I'm thinking.

I remember a few years ago I was looking on craigslist and came across a govt. building giving away an old rack mounted server they had. Guy said first come, first serve. 10 minutes and 3 red light runs later, it was mine. He asked me where I parked, I said a couple of blocks away. "It's 150 lbs, buddy"... So here I am, bear hugging this freaking thing out the building with a sh!t eating grin on my face. I think half the people thought I stole it.

Anyway, long story short, it was LOUD. It turned into a 150# center piece to my old home office. Couldn't just pass up free stuff though.

Nice! Sounds similar to my situation. My brother got them almost free from the Dayton daily news...they were moving locations or something like that. I can't imagine you pushing one a couple blocks! Those things are HEAVY! That must have looked pretty darn funny. The ones I got had huge UPS in them...easily over hundred lbs. alone...had to take those out and move them separately. I'm going to use them on some programming projects at some point, but right now I just have some shelves mounted in them to hold other computer #######.

Looks like this thread has been successfully hijacked. Too early to switch to guns and pie?

We spend a fair amount of time in Odessa, and the prices do seem to be catching up, although there are lots of empty tables at peak times now, with the economic troubles. In Kherson though, we can usually have a great meal for $25.

We both love the atmosphere in Lviv/Lvov. I remember the pensioners gathered together singing in the central square on Sunday, and hearing that as a backdrop to the scenery. Pretty cool.

I've never gotten to tour Ukraine properly. All my time has been in the winter and in Lviv with just a couple days in Kyiv when we were doing visa stuff. Would love to go back and see Odessa and some of the other cities.

We got married just a couple blocks from that central square..Oleksandra's apartment where she lived her whole life is very nearby as well. Lviv's mayor is really pushing to make the city a tourist haven. My wife said there were huge changes in that regard in just a few years...constant festivals going on every week and lots of souvenir/tourist shops now. They also don't allow traffic into many of the areas now. One of these days I'm going to get to go back when it's warm!

Could always make one. I would do it again if I didn't feel like having another computer taking up space.

You'd need a computer case and associated innards. Some RAID PCI/E cards and you might have to chop up the internal rack to accommodate all your hard drives. A PSU powerfull enough to run them all. Remote desktop software. Not sure how teckie you are, but it's not all that hard. It'd be even easier to do it if you have an old computer lying around.

... just talking about this makes me want to dig through all my computer ####### and make one, but I'm sure my laziness will prevail.

I'm hardcore techie, so those are all things I've been thinking about. I've actually already got a couple full size cabinets (the big 7 foot tall ones) that I got super cheap and have been thinking of getting full-blown rack server hardware to put in it. It's a pretty big project though...I guess it's basically what I'm wanting but a little more work/money than I'd like...my laziness is a big factor here too. I'd probably bite the bullet and do it if not for worries about whether or not I can contain the noise! Doesn't sound like they are exactly designed for residential use! It's getting more and more tempting though...it would look so much nicer than having a bunch of externals laying around.

I've heard a little bit about Vuze and just checked it out, it looks interesting and I might give it a try. I did a little more reading and found it used to be calle Azureus. I used Azureus years ago before switching to Utorrent, maybe I'll switch back now.

I have 3 external drives right now and I'd like to switch all of my storage to a NAS enclosure (network attached storage, Slim) Hide the box somewhere and forget about it.

I'd like to do the same, but seems like they are just too expensive. I don't want to pay more than like $20 extra per drive. I'm dreaming of a day when there's something cheap (maybe rack-mounted) that I can just plug every hard drive I've ever owned into and just keep adding to when I need more storage...something with like 50 drive bays would be ideal! No one has quite stepped up to the plate yet. I did see something the other day that was kind of cool (although I don't know if it's really necessary). It was a DVD player that would hold like 100 discs or something like that and it had a computer interface so that an attached computer could rip any of the DVDs when needed. I just need something to hold ALL my media (including my now large Ukrainian/Russian PAL collection) and make it available for streaming!

She shared one of those 3 arguments with us, as I recall.

That is correct! And it was a doozie! hahaha Quickest 10 pages of posts ever I think!

I remember one of the rookie mistakes people always used to make...not sure if it's still this way today or not. They'd call the USCIS to check on their case and then get all excited because they got a touch a day or two later. Then they'd call back and check again to see what the touch was about and get another one. Some people never do realize that their case gets touched as a result of them calling and asking questions about their case.

We were having a nice conversation about Xtina being hot and you had to take it here? Thanks a bunch, Gary. That's like when you click on a link for "hot and steamy threesome" and it's three dudes.

Hey, Slim? Want to see a hot redhead?

"Never gonna give you up. Never gonna..." Ah, the Rick-roll.

At least you aren't Samuel L. Jackson.

lmao

30 TBs? lol I thought I was sitting pretty with 10...

I didn't know the Tivo was so versatile. When we purchased our TV (50" Panny plasma) we also got an LG BD570 Blu-Ray player. I did my homework on it to make sure it could do what I wanted. It'll stream movies through the network off of my computer's hard drives. It'll cover just about any movie format I've thrown at it and so far I have no complaints. And if worse comes to worse and the LG won't read a file, I also ran a 20' HDMI cable between the TV and computer and I can go that route. And playing a few computer games on the big screen is pretty neat as well.

I was more than happy when my wife started telling me how she wanted me to buy her hard drives! Every now and then on newegg.com or Tiger Direct they have ridiculously good deals. I got a bunch of 2 TB external drives for like $100 each and connect 7 of them at a time to a USB hub. It's not the best set up for everything, but for streaming movies in-house, it's hard to beat the price.

In English, please!

Yeah...what he said! You can download just about every movie ever made off the net and make it available for watching on a TIVO, IPad, IPod, IPhone, PS3, etc. The application I've been using most recently is Vuze...I highly recommend it...it does pretty much everything right out of the box with very little set up. Search for the movie you want, select from the list and it starts transferring. Want to watch it on TIVO or some other device on your network? Drag it over to it, and it transcodes for that device (basically just converting it to a format the device can use). It's a lot like Netflix streaming except there's unlimited selection...only downside is you have to fliter out the ####### sometimes...usually pretty easy to do that though.

My wife could barely carry all of our documentation! Seriously! It was a stack about a foot tall...they even sent someone out to take it from her rather than trying to have her pass it through the window. I left nothing to chance...it the "shock and awe" approach. Oleksandra said there were all these people there at the embassy holding 2-3 sheets of paper and looking at her stack with eyes wide. A few asked what kind of visa she was applying for. In my defense, we never got an RFE and they have never even bothered to ask her any questions at any interview!

My wife has become Americanized in a few ways which has been surprising to me. The air conditioner which used to "cause colds, swollen tonsels, ear pain, etc." is now an essential...she loves the room cold just like I do. The bigger shocker...she now puts ice in her drinks and drinks diet coke and other sodas! As to the shoe thing...she was never obsessive on that. She wears slippers herself most of the time and offers to take my shoes off if my feet are hot. As far as temper...she's the easiest person to get along with that I've ever known...we've had a total of 3 arguments (including minor things) in the last 4 years. That said...when she goes off, she really goes off and I know every single thing I have ever done wrong (or that she is worried I will do wrong in the future)! lol

As far as the OT goes, one thing I was surprised about was how affordable taxis were in Lviv. Not only that, but if my wife told them we would be back, they would sit and wait like 30 mins without charging extra, stop after stop, even when we hadn't paid them yet! So basically we'd have a taxi at our service all day on the cheap. I do recall once though where the guy said he was starting to get nervous whether or not we were actually coming back after we had been to 4 or 5 stops.

The Lviv Opera house was surprising on how affordable it was. My wife is an opera fanatic so we saw about everything available.

I had the same experience with apartments....my wife rented a high end one for us to stay at when we were getting married. I lugged our suitcases up 3 flights of ancient dusty cement stairs...it reminded me of some sort of slum. Then once the door opened, my jaw dropped...ultra modern apartment, fully furnished, jacuzzi tub, big flatscreen tv, several nice bathrooms and bedrooms. It was nicer than most condos I've stayed at on vacation.

My wife took me out for milkshakes. It was literally like frothed up milk...definately not like back in the States! My wife freaked out when she had a real shake here.

At the time when I was there, I thought all of the food was extremely cheap. We would order huge meals for like $20. Sounds like that has changed a lot though since then with prices going up all over the place.

I was really impressed with the architecture in Lviv. Pretty much every building had something special about it...statues, etc. That reminds me...anyone else seen the travel ads for Ukraine on TV lately? First time I've ever seen them.

You could say the same thing about Rosanne Barr. Scary thought.

What has been seen can not be unseen!!!!! Where's that barf icon?

We watch a ton of movies. We've got a TIVO connected to a 55" LED TV.

The TIVO is really cool because it can record 2 programs while you're watching something else...the only problem is we can easily fill it up (2 TB) in about a month...it's usually recording on both tuners about 80% of the time. We've got about 30 TB of storage on our home network that we can transfer to/from the TIVO. Mof the time, we just download torrents onto one of the servers and then stream it over to the TIVO...it'll transcode it on the fly at the same time it's downloading, so you don't have to wait. The TIVO also has Netflix streaming, Amazon, YouTube, etc. built in so it's pretty convenient for watching just about anything. My wife is also a fanatic about Russian/Ukrainian music videos so we use a program to batch download all the stuff she's interested in from YouTube so she's got access to those as well.

Yeah...they told me wife at the time they only had like 50 sheets left for the entire oblast and weren't expecting any more for several months. lol

Xtina should have forced a wardrobe malfunction. No one would have noticed anything else!

My wife is the same way...she doesn't like flowers and wants only live plants. After buying quite a few during the first few years she declared she has enough for now. She loves Christmas trees though...somehow we ended up with 2 of them this year and she still has them up only a few feet apart. Just planning to go to her favorite restaurant and buy some things she has been wanting for Valentine's.