Aleksandr Jackson's Blog, page 2

Who are Grace and Tony?

I'll get to that later. Those who know me know I'm partial to bands of the electronic/industrial persuasion, ranging from to New Order to Hybrid to best of the best: Rammstein. I listen to music whenever I'm not in meetings; if I'm lucky, I can get in four hours or more in a day. Since I am very picky about what I listen to, I am pretty harsh when it comes to anything new that doesn't quite fit the bill. If something strange pops up in Pandora, I am skipping that song faster than you can say...

Investing in the Wild East

Those who know my writing know that I follow the world of finance quite closely, and that I take a special interest in it. On top of this, investing in Russia is a particular delicious favorite, with my debut novel LIONS featuring a few adventures of this sort.

When I first started in the mutual fund world, I had to take a course at the New England College of Finance and wrote a paper about Russia's investment climate in the 90s. In the course of my research, I couldn't believe my eyes about...

I Had a Dream

Yesterday, a friend had shared a videoof a ridiculous crew race, something so chaotic I couldn’t help but cry while leaving my lungs almost totally devoid of air. ‘How could people screw something up that bad?’ I thought.

I was still chuckling about it last night while I was cleaning the kitchen. When I was done, I had a sudden flash of insight and microwaved a Nestle crunch bar over some granola cereal with peanut butter and scarfed it down. Normally I don’t eat after dinner, and last night...

Nine months

Today I’m happy to report that the first draft of Twenty Mysteries is done. Lions, my first book, took nine years to complete. This first draft has taken exactly nine months. Hopefully it won’t be much longer until I can get it into your hands.

Ho hum, just another invasion

It looks like the guy who wrote this articlefive months ago wasn’t so crazy after all…read on to see what happenedin the last few days while everyone else’s attention was focused elsewhere.

Somewhat current events, cont’d: Is this man right?

Perhaps someone read my last post…read more about the Finnish/Russian borderland’s history here.

(Somewhat) current events

I’ve been neglecting my blog lately, so I’m importing a few items of note I recently posted on Facebook:

Please take a few minutes to educate yourself today. If Russia does this to the Ukraine with absolutely no pushback, what will China do to Taiwan? This can be a two-way street, though: maybe Finland wants Karelia back, and maybe Germany will take Kaliningrad again. Peace for our time!

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Okay, after seeing these picturesI think I understand now. Someone needs to hook Russia up with cable....

What is Going On?

I finally got around to watching Red Dawn today (the recent remake, not the original): the images of North Korean humvees occupying Spokane, while jarring, were also entertainingly improbable. But as I read the weekend news from Venezuela, I couldn’t help but think that most of those poor souls are facing almost the same thing in their cities and neighborhoods. Check it out.

Peace for our time.

Peace for our time! In light of the recent ‘deal’, let’s revisit the words of Neville Chamberlain:

"My good friends, for the second time in our history, a British Prime Minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Go home and get a nice quiet sleep."

A Russian Take on The Eagles

When Boris from my novel LIONS is introduced, faint stirrings of balalaikas are playing in the background. Most people I know don’t know what that sounds like, so I wanted to share this clip of a Russian Take on The Eagles. What I don’t get is the guy on the right: either he has a really strong left arm, or his instrument is rigged to his belt or something. It’s entertaining either way.