[Haiko de Poel, Jr.]

http://conti-b.hypermart.net/alexbet.jpg

View Archives here (http://www.abestweb.com/cgi-bin/ikonboard/ikonboard/topic.cgi?forum=12&topic=7)

OK, I've taken out the Herman BS so now you can check out my "Bet" family, i.e. The Betinski Family. You might have to refresh - F5.

[Haiko de Poel, Jr.]

Alex,

What a lovely family! Thank you for sharing that with us!

I see why you did the black box b4 /infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

I'll post a pic of the Haikster family as soon as we get a group photo /infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

All the best my friend,

Haiko

[AlexBet]

Thanks Haiko. Looking forward to see your family. /infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>I'll post a pic of the Haikster family as soon as we get a group photo <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Go for a vacation Haiko, you'll get a group photo that way. /infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif

[SWAT]

A sweet american dream family!
Man, I'll be married soon too! /infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif When finsh my study! /infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif /infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif /infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif /infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif /infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif

[AlexBet]

LOL! I am not an American SWAT, remember? I am from Macedonia (Hell Hole at the moment). /infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

[SWAT]

I remember that. It was just a comparison! /infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif /infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif /infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

Hell Hole? No! The war is over! I saw it in Late News show. :confused:

By the way: where are you learn russian?

[AlexBet]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>By the way: where are you learn russian?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Where did you get the idea that I speak Russian? Macedonian is very similar to Russian but NOT the same. We also use the Cyrilic alphabet. The Cyrilic alphabet was invented by two Macedonians - Cyril and Methodious from Ohrid-Macedonia. We had the option to learn Russian in elementary school, but I never took it, I took English. See why I speak good English!?

[Dynamoo]

Whereabouts in Macedonia are you? I only really know about Skopje.

Didn't Saint Cyril invent the alphabet because he didn't like Roman intellectuals or something?

[AlexBet]

You are right Dynamoo, I am in Skopje. You don't know the other cities because they are villages in comparison to other European cities. Skopje has about 700.000 people and is the capital of Macedonia. Hey, we only have 2 milion people living in Macedonia.

Regarding St. Cyril, I don't know if this is true, but I think that the cyrilic alphabet is older then the roman alphabet. You know that the numbers that we use today like 1,2,3 etc., are Arabic don't you!?

[TimeTraveller]

Auch! The Cyrillic alphabet is definitely not older than the Roman alphabet. For that matter, it was not invented by St. Cyril (and certainly not by his brother St. Methodius), it was named after St. Cyril.

The two brothers were from Salonika (aka Thessaloniki). Their names were Constantine and Methodius. When Rastislav, the king of Great Moravia (today's Slovakia) asked the Pope for missionaries who could speak the language that was the acestor of modern Slovak, the Pope did not have any. Rastislav then turned to Michael, the Emperror of Byzantium who sent the two brothers back to Rastislav. The brothers were Macedonians, and there language was very similar to the Paleoslavic (i.e. ancient Slovak) language.

When they arrived, Constantine, who was a scholar and philosopher, saw the people in that country had no written language. He designed a very complex alphabet based on letters from the Greek alphabet with some help of the Hebrew alphabet (since Slavic languages have the "sh" sound like Hebrew and unlike Greek). This alphabet is known as glagolitic and is no longer used by any living language.

The hierarchy of the Frank Empire did not care for Constantine and Methodius because they wanted the Slovaks/Moravians under their own control. They accused the brothers of heresy. They had to travel to Rome, but defended themselves so well that the Pope appointed Methodius archbishop and actually put the Franks under his control.

Methodius returned to Slovakia, but Constantine decided to stay in Rome as a monk. He joined a monastery and changed his name to Cyril. He died in Rome and is buried in Basilica of St. Clement (who was one of the early Popes, not to be confused with St. Clement of Ohrid).

After the death of the brothers and of King Rastislav, the Franks managed to have the chief disciples of the brothers expelled. They were stripped naked and let run in cold Danube winds (or so the chronicles say). They went to Macedonia, specifically to Ohrid. The most famous one of them was St. Clement (of Ohrid). Based on the glagolitic alphabet, Clement created a much simpler alphabet, which he named Cyrillic to honor his teacher. That alphabet is used by several languages to this day. All of this happened in the 9th Century, so the Cyrillic alphabet is not as long as the Roman alphabet (however, both Greek and Hebrew alphabets are older than the Roman alphabet, so one might say that the roots of the Cyrillic alphabet predate the Roman alphabet.

By the way, Ohrid is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen!

[Tgo]

Alex - Thats a lovely family you have,
A good looking wife, a charming daughter...and a man in short pants /infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif :eek:

What a fantastic combination /infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

Regards
TGO

[AlexBet]

@ Time Traveller

WOW! :eek:

That was a good history lesson. Did you copy that from a book, or you really know all that stuff?

I am very suprised that you even knew about St. Clement of Ohrid. :eek: http://www.abestweb.com/ubb/icons/icon14.gif

BRAVO!

@ TGO

Thanks! Yes, I do wear short pants in summer. /infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

[TimeTraveller]

I wrote it from memory. Why are you surprised I know about St. Clement? I went to Ohrid for the 1966 celebration of the 1050th anniversary of his death. I went there to accompany my father who happened to be one the of the world's topmost experts in Cyrillo-Methodian studies.

My last memory of Macedonia is me sitting inside a train waiting to depart from Skopje and hearing a paper boy yelling: "Evo utreshna Nova Makedonia!" /infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

By the way, aside from having been hit by a major earthquake, it was definitely not a hell hole back then. A beautiful country, wonderful people, that's how I remember it.

[AlexBet]

Time Traveller,

I don't know where you come from, but you sure know much about Macedonia. <BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>I went to Ohrid for the 1966 celebration of the 1050th anniversary of his death.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> That was before I was born. :rolleyes: /infopop/emoticons/icon_frown.gif
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>By the way, aside from having been hit by a major earthquake, it was definitely not a hell hole back then. A beautiful country, wonderful people, that's how I remember it.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Yep, it is still a beautiful country. It is just that in 2001 we had this little(6 month) war. Nothing happened in the major cities, but it was still scary to hear all of those explosions in the mountains near Skopje. It's OK now though, it's over.

And yes, we got like 15 earthquakes this past week, 3-5 a day. :eek: GOD, I hate earthquakes. No damage done though. After the earthquake in 1963, all the buildings are well built and can take very big earthquakes. /infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

[TimeTraveller]

Yes, wars are bad. I am glad to hear your major cities were not hit directly.

I am from Slovakia (Bratislava), but I have lived in the US for about 20 years now.