Book: Douglas Rushkoff's "Survival Of The Richest"

After reading two fantasy books involving magic and sorcery, I decided to take a break by reading a book about the fantasies of billionaire techbros.  Douglas Rushkoff's "Survival of the Richest", about the fantastical views of some billionaires in the tech industry, is less entertaining and more frightening.

Rushkoff starts with an anecdote meeting some tech entrepreneurs whose main concern was how to maintain the loyalty of their security people after society collapses.  This was the first WTF moment in the book and they keep coming throughout.

By the end of this book I was really worried about how much power these deluded oligarchs have in their twisted hands.

I gave this book four stars out of five on Goodreads.  After reading this book I am worried and you should be too.

Books: Robert Jordan's The Wheel Of Time Books 1 And 2: "The Eye Of The World" And "The Great Hunt"

I have been remiss in keeping up with my book postings.  Since I read the first two books of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series back to back, I will post about them together.

Book 1 of the series, "The Wheel of Time", is a very typical fantasy quest book.  A young man/woman with a modest farming/shepherding background is discovered by a wise mage/sorceress, and they go on a quest to defeat evil in some form or other, while collecting members of their adventuring party.  I have read/watched several examples of this type of story, "The Lord of the Rings" and the "Belgariad" would be such examples.  They are a well worn story, but reading these types of books is like slipping on your favorite fuzzy socks.

I generally liked the first book.  I'm not sure about some of the naming used in the book – Darkfriends? really?  Sounds like the super friends of something – but you learn to accept a lot of cheesy/corny stuff when you read fantasy.  I like the world that is being built and the history that has been revealed.  The story is pretty good if not a little formulaic.

Book 2 of the series, "The Great Hunt",  continues the quest moving along at a good pace.  The action and the story progresses, introducing new characters, and tightens the storyline as we approach the ultimate showdown, that will come further along in the series.

There are a few characters that are a bit infuriating.  Their behavior seems a bit off.  Would Perrin keep his abilities secret or would they have been shared with his close friends?  These can be overlooked but it does bug me at times.

In the end, I gave both books four stars out of five on Goodreads.  There are fourteen books in the series and I expect I will eventually finish it ... unless some grievous writing sin is committed.

2025 Balkan Travels - Greece Part Two

Ioannina and the Holy Monastery of Great Meteora

We crossed the border from Albania into Greece, one of our rare land border crossing, the others being Kenya into Tanzania and Brazil into Argentina at Iguazu falls.  Our first stop of the day was the city of Ioannina located on the shores of lake Pamvotis.

The Aslan Pasha Mosque built in 1612 CE.

In Ioannina we joined a local guide who took us on a walking tour of the old town founded by Justinian.  The tour ended at a high point where we visited the oldest Byzantine fortress in Greece.  We took in the church and mosque in the fortress and enjoyed the panoramic views of the lake and city.  After the tour we had lunch in a nice restaurant not far from the lake.

Lake Pamvotis from the fortress.

This would be a long day of driving.  Most of the afternoon was seeing the Greek countryside.

We arrived at the city of Kalambaka where we visited, with another local guide, the Holy Monastery of Great Meteora perched on a column of rock.  This and other monasteries, built here in the 1400's, are magnificent works of architecture and were the highlight of the trip.  There were originally twenty-four of these monasteries but only six remain.  The Holy Monastery of Great Meteora is the oldest, and largest of these marvels.

The Holy Monastery of Great Meteora, situated on its column of rock.

In the evening we ate dinner at a nice restaurant.

Holy Trinity Monastery and Florina

In the morning we rejoined with our local guide and visited the Holy Trinity Monastery.  The monastery is accessed by a long set of stairs and a bridge.  From the monastery you have magnificent views of several other monasteries including a couple that are no longer inhabited.  We'd arrived early and we practically had the Holy Trinity Monastery to ourselves thanks to the local guide.

The Holy Monastery of Varlaam, this photo taken from the Holy Trinity Monastery.

After the monastery we headed to the town of Florina for lunch at a family's farm-to-table restaurant.  

To Another Border

After lunch we headed to the Greek - Northern Macedonia border.  The rest of this long travel day will continue in the next post.

Pictures can be found in my 2025-10 Greece Google Photos album.

Weekly Ephemera #161

The defacing speaks volumes about the hate in people's hearts.

• The highlight of the week was a visit of the Wife's best friend on Thursday and Friday.  The wife and her had a great couple of days going out and watching a movie.  I stayed home and enjoyed the quiet of the house.
• I walked three times this week for a total of 21.2 miles (34.1 km).  This was a little shorter than last week but any week over twenty miles is a good week to me.  The picture above was seen on one of my walks.
  
  My blood pressure has also been in a more normal range for the last week or so so the walking appears to be helping.
• This coming week I have a blood draw to see if my diabetes medication is working or not.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed but I am also feeling a bit nervous that it isn't doing as well as I hope.
• Despite feeling a little nervous I have to admit that the past week or so have felt ... bright to me.  I have felt happier in general and content.  Not sure what changed, but it might have to do with me avoiding the news like the plague.  My tranquility may also be helping my blood pressure as much as the exercise.

2025 Balkan Travels - Albania

Travel Day:

We flew into Tirana, Albania and were picked up by our guide.  For the next ten days or so we would be on a tour with nine other guests, a tour guide, and a driver.  Like in Athens we got to the hotel early so we went looking for an ATM to get cash, had some drinks, and found an open air market to explore to kill time.  At one cafe we talked to a couple who had lived in the US for a while before returning to the Wife's native Albania.  They were very very complimentary of Albania and the people.

We checked into our room early and settled into our room.  The mayor of New York, Adams, was staying at the hotel ... or at least we assumed he was.  This was possibly one of the nicest and newer hotels in Tirana.

One of the views out of hotel windows (This is zoomed in, it was not this crowded).

In the evening our guide picked us up along with the other guests and we walked a couple blocks to a nice restaurant for our welcome dinner.  The dinner was a preview of what was to come.  Course after course of delicious food.  Half way through everyone was stuffed and the courses kept coming.  By the end of the evening I was sure they were trying to kill us by sheer volume of food.

The other guests – three couples, two sisters, and a single woman – were all pleasant and fun to talk to.  There would be only minor friction here and there throughout the ten-day tour.

Shkodra, Rozafa Castle, and Lezhë:

We got on our comfy bus and we headed to northern Albania.  The first stop was a factory where they make Venetian masks.  The company has been supplying the masks to Venice and other carnival locations since the late nineties.  The owner took us on a tour of the factory where the masks are made by hand in an assembly line fashion.  The masks were amazing, intricate, and beautiful.  We then went through the gallery which is an explosion of color.  I bought a small mask for my small collection of masks.

Venetian Masks made in Albania.

Next we went to the Rozafa Castle overlooking historic Shkodër.  The castle was interesting and the views of the two rivers and the city were incredible.

Our next stop was lunch at an organic farm-to-table restaurant in the countryside near Lezhë.  Again, they continued to try to kill us with abundance.  The multiple courses of food were fresh, plentiful, and delicious.  We commented about the quantity of food and I think our guide toned it down for the rest of the tour – we were grateful.

Part of Rozafa Castle in Shkodra and the Albanian flag.

We went out for dinner that night for yet another incredible meal.  Our tour company usually only supplies some special meals but this tour provided three meals a day and, frankly, this reduced the stress of having to find food on your own.

Krujë and Tirana:

We got on our trusty bus and we drove south to the city of Krujë.  Here we visited  Dervish monastery.  The guide translated as guests asked the caretaker questions about the monastery and religion.  The caretaker and our guide were surprised by the number and quality of our questions.  Yay us.

We visited a restored two hundred year old Ottoman era home where our very funny, and punny, local guide gave us an interesting tour bringing the home alive with culture and history.

A painting in the Ottoman house.

We had lunch not far from the monastery at another incredible restaurant.  The head chef, a stern woman, chewed out the staff often while we ate our excellent meal.  I'm sure this was just part of the kitchen's normal banter.

After our meal we had time to do some shopping in the town's bazaar.  We ended up with some stuff including an Albanian futball jersey for me. The Wife and I got a little lost in the bazaar but we managed to find the bus and the rest of the group.

A pillbox bunker.

We returned to Tirana and had a short walking tour of the city seeing the pillbox bunkers that were built by the paranoid former communist government.  We passed the local NATO offices and visited various historical parks and buildings of the communist era and the modern Tirana.

We took the bus to a restaurant for dinner and we walked back to the hotel after a very satisfying dinner.

Durrës, Ardenica Monastery, and Apollonia:

Ardenica Monastery.

After using Tirana as our base for the last few days, we checked out and took our bus to Durrës, a bustling port city where we visited an excavated Roman amphitheater.

From there we headed inland and visited the Ardenica Monastery with its thirteenth century frescoes and the beautiful views from its hilltop location.

After the monastery we had a very short drive to another farm/vineyard/restaurant for lunch.  From the veranda of the restaurant, where we ate,  you could see the Adriatic.

The next stop was the ruins of Apollonia.  The head archeologist of the site gave us the tour.  He was knowledgeable and funny as we toured the ruins.  The tour ended at another monastery and museum which we explored on our own.

The government building in Apollonia.

The day ended in our boutique hotel in the city of Gjirokastra.

Gjirokastra:

Gjirokastra Fortress.

We joined a local guide in Gjirokastra who took us on a walking tour of a poet's home and a restored private home.  We toured the house followed by the house's resident cats, they liked to jump on our lap every time you sat down.  The private home was amazing and we met the current owners of the house, who talked about the experience of people before, during, and after the communist era in Albania.  It was very interesting.

We took taxis up to the fortress that overlooked Gjirokastra.  From there our local guide took us through the military museum and prison.  Outside our guide sang us a folk song.  She had an amazing voice.

That night we had dinner at a restaurant perched on the ridge overlooking Gjirokastra.  As we ate we were serenaded by men in native costume singing Iso Polifonia.  The food was good and the singing was interesting and unique.  We decided the band name should be the Pom Pom Funcles (they had little pom poms on their shoes and they all looked like someones fun uncle – the link goes to a video the Wife took).

At this point we pointed out that our last three meals had been chicken.  The meals on this tour all had set menus.  Our guide apologized at the oversight.  This was the only issue I had with the guide except maybe for his dependency on ChatGPT for some historical information.

To The Border:

We left Gjirokastra on the first of two long driving days.  We reached the border with Greece.  The remainder of the day will be documented in the next post as we re-enter Greece and visit the monasteries of Meteora.

Pictures can be found in my 2025-10 Albania Google Photos album.

Weekly Ephemera #160

• On Tuesday the Wife power washed the deck.  This is usually my job but she insisted on doing it.  She did a better job than I've done in the past, which may explain why she wanted to do it.
• We finally, after over five years, buried Iago's ashes in the garden next to Homer.
• I washed my car for the first time in forever.  It still looks dirty.  I think I just washed off the first two layers of dirt and left two or three on the car.
• I walked three times this week totalling 22.6 miles (36.4 km).  I am happy with this distance and my blood pressure, which has been high since we returned from our travels, is back down to my 'normal' range.

2025 Balkan Travels - Greece Part One

Travel Day:

The view from our Athens hotel.

It is a long flight from Omaha to Athens, Greece.  We arrived late morning and took a taxi to our hotel.  The hotel was a few blocks from the acropolis, a near ideal location.  It was located near the acropolis, the acropolis museum, and a shopping area.  We were too early to check in so we left our bags at the hotel and went walking around the area.  We avoided the acropolis and its Museum since we would be visiting them the next day.  We checked out a small Orthodox church, some souvenir shops, and we found a cafe where we ordered some gyros for lunch.

We returned to our hotel and we'd only killed an hour so we had some drinks at the bar and, literally, fell asleep on the lobby chairs waiting for our room to be ready.  We got in a couple hours earlier than expected and we finished our naps in our room.  We finished the day with bar food.  

The view from our hotel balcony, as you can see, was pretty magnificent.

Athens City Tour:

The next day we'd booked a half day tour of the acropolis and Athens.  We met our guide after breakfast and we went to the Acropolis to see the Parthenon.  Our guide was knowledgeable but had a bit of 'college student' feel to him.  He gave us a nice tour of the amphitheater, Parthenon, and other government and religious buildings built on the acropolis.  I have to say, while the Parthenon was impressive, it didn't quite meet my expectations, though I think it may have been the crane and scaffolding, part of a renovation, that knocked it down a notch in my book.

The Parthenon on top of the Acropolis.

We next got in a van and we had a driving tour of Athens passing important buildings and historical monuments.  The tour ended at a viewpoint of the city.  Athens is a nice enough city, but compared to a few others we have visited, it is kind of middle of the road.  I was expecting the city to have an older feel, like Rome, but it didn't.

The Caryatids, female sculpted pillars, are part of the Erechtheion temple.

Our guide dropped us not far from the Acropolis museum.  We ate lunch at the museum before walking through the exhibits.  I wish we'd had a guide besides the audio guide.  It was ok but we are not museum people and the audio guides were a bit too wordy for me.

Delphi Tour:

The second full day in Greece was a tour of the Delphi Oracle temple.  We had a new guide and she was awesome.  She was obviously a history nerd.  She knew her names, places, and dates backward and forward.  Her one quirk was her extremely dirty glasses ... I couldn't tell how she could see through the smudges.

A lion attacking a gladiator at the Delphi Museum.

The drive to Delphi is about two hours with a snack, drink, and toilet break. Our guide pointed out historical places along the way telling stories and mythology connected to each.  We arrived at Delphi and we started with the museum.  Despite the Wife and I not being museum people, we have found when you have a guide it makes all the difference.  This museum was small but very interesting with the help of our guide.

After the museum we did a walking tour up a path that took us through the structures where the female oracles, high/drunk on natural gases that seeped up from the ground would give cryptic predictions that were 'interpreted' by male priests.  The one thing this place needed is a coin operated Oracle that could spit out people's fortunes.  It would be a big money maker, for sure.  The walking tour ended at the highest point at the hippodrome.

The town of Arachova.

We tried to stop at Arachova, a bustling ski resort of a town, for lunch but it was packed.  One place we tried to get in had angus steaks from Omaha on the menu.  Here we were thousands of miles away in Greece and we had meat from home.  We chuckled about that.  We ended up eating in a nice place out of the town away from the crowds.  We both dozed a bit on the way back to our hotel.

Corinth Tour:

On our third day, our Delphi guide became our Corinth guide.  The weather, which had cooperated for the past few days, was a bit drizzly today, but it didn't slow us down at all.  The drive to Corinth is short, about an hour.  On the way, we visited the Corinth canal.  The canal was dug to bypass the 430 mile (700 km) trip around the peloponnesian peninsula.  The idea started in the seventh century BC but wasn't actually completed until 1893.  Before its completion, ships were often carried overland to shorten the journey.

The Corinth canal.  No boats were going through it when we visited it.

We next went to the ruins in Corinth.  Our guide expertly explained the history and the importance of Corinth in ancient history.  She walked us through the ruins and the museum, again giving expert explanations of all the structures and exhibits.

The Corinth ruins.

One thing that was funny was, both the Wife and I were wondering about 'rich Corinthian leather', a selling point for car interiors back in the '70s.  We were both afraid to ask our guide so I googled it.  Turns out 'rich Corinthian leather' was actually manufactured in New Jersey and was a creation of an ad agency.  We both got a laugh at that and were thankful that we didn't ask our guide.

We stopped at a local street food place on the way back to get a quick and portable lunch on the way back to Athens.  We enjoyed Souvlaki in a pita wrap.  Very yummy.

Back in Athens, we went walking around the pedestrian street near the acropolis and completed our souvenir shopping for Athens.

The first four days in and near Athens were pretty good.  I know some of this post seems to make it feel like I didn't like it, but everywhere you go there is always a mix of good and bad experiences and, in Athens' case, the good outweighed the bad.

The Next day we would be going to leave Greece and fly to our next destination, Tirana, Albania.

Pictures can be found in my 2025-10 Greece Google Photos album.

Weekly Ephemera #159

• We were going to have a visit of the Niece's family but sick kids changed those plans so, for Saturday I managed to get back to my routine.  I'm looking forward to the Niece's family to reschedule when everyone is feeling better.
• We've spent the week catching up with "Survivor" and "The Amazing Race"
• My blood pressure has been a little bit high since I got back from our travels so I decided to restart my walking.  I walked twice this week for a total of 13 miles (21 km).  The walks felt pretty good so I look forward to ramping up the distance again.
• The first of the travel posts should come out tomorrow or Tuesday.

Weekly Ephemera #158

We've been traveling for the last three weeks.  We got home on Thursday night and both of us are a bit out of sync with the world around us.  I'm guessing it will take a few days for our sleep/wake cycles to return to normal.

Because of this, not much happened at home this week.  I did bring in the patio furniture and spread winterizer on the lawn in preparation for winter, but both things nearly wiped me out for the whole day.

Hopefully there will be more to write about next weekend.

P.S.  I will write about our travels over the next few weeks.  The trip was great and we saw some cool stuff.

Weekly Ephemera #156

• This week's highlights were visits from family and friends.  On Tuesday the MoH and BM dropped by on the way to their vacation.  We spent the evening digesting the superb steak dinner the Wife prepared while engaging in spirited conversation.  It is fair to say that none of the world's problems were solved.  Our guests treated us to breakfast the next day before they traveled on.
  
  Today, the Wife's best friend since high school is visiting.  Craziness will ensue.
• The HVAC guy came by this week and checked out our furnace.  Except for a dirty temperature sensor, everything is in good order.  We are now ready for the winter, though the weather for the next ten days or so is more summer-like than fall-like.
• This week I will be turning off our sprinkler system.  They will be blowing out the system in a week or so while we are traveling.  Potted plants and patio furniture will be brought in and the deck will be power washed.  Everything will be ready for winter when we leave.
• I did not walk this week and I will not walk next week.  I'm taking a break from walking until we return from our travels.
• I haven't really watched anything good on television.  But, I did watch some "Alfred Hitchcock Presents".  It's some easy background noise and it's fun seeing some of the old actors when they were young and new.  The writing is a bit hit and miss but my favorite part is Hitchcock introducing commercial and station identification breaks.  It is obvious he is not fond of the breaks interrupting his storytelling.  (For those who do not know, Station identification breaks allowed stations to let you know what station you were watching.  You don't see them much today because of the invention of the station's logo bug in the corner of the screen.)
• We are both getting ready for our trip.  We will be leaving on Thursday.  I hope the tropical storms off the coast of Georgia are gone by then, since our flight to Athens is through Atlanta.