Through it you can follow my journey that i call »My Way To The Top«. Browsing the page you will find out more about me, my sport and the way of achieving my goals.
I hope you enjoy the site!
JZR
Tuesday 18 November 2008
'Vertovec' trail
On Sunday me and some friends took part on an organized hike in the upper Vipava valley. It was a perfect sunny day for such a hike. It was a 5 hour round hike over a very nice karstic terrain, with lots of autumn color vineyards, woods and pictorescue old villages. In between we also went to the 'Ostri vrh' hill (422m). Nice weather, beautyfull colors, riped kakis on the lafeless Persimmon trees and over 4000 participants made a nice Sunday!
Posted by Jernej on Tuesday 18 November 2008 - 20:08:10 |
Friday 14 November 2008
Tomo Križnar and Darfur
On Tuesday i went to see the film Darfur – war for water. It was filmed by Tomo Križnar and produced by Maja Weiss. An interview folowed with Križnar and Suleiman Jammous, the humanitarian coordinator of Minawi Sudan liberation Army.
Križnar has been visiting Darfur (esteren part o Sudan) for a number of years now. In the past he has already shot the film 'Nubas – clean people'. While the material for the film 'Darfur – war for water' was shot in 2005 and 2006 when Križnar was a 'special advisor of the Slovenian president for Sudan'.
The humanitarian catastrophy in Darfur started in 1956 when the leaving British goverment handed ower the power to 3 Arabic tribes in Sudan. Since then, most of the goverment and power is in arabian hands. The old indigenous black tribes are their victims since then. Darfur has rich oil reserves on the south of the region. China, Russia and USA are trying to get to it and therefor the Sudanese goverment is trying to erradicate the native popultaion of Darfur. On top of it, due to climate changes the Sahara is growing south for 7 kilometers per year and so the acces to drinking water in Sudan is becoming a huge problem. The Jebel Marra mountains in central and north Darfur have a lot of drinking water. When Sudanese goverment trys to kill or at least push the Darfur inhabitants over the border into Chad, the black Darfur tribes are retreating into these mountains. The mountains and the water there are their last chance of surrvival. The violence on the people of Darfur is a genocide. The goverment is attacking them with the Djanjavit tribe, with moderen guns and often bombing them with modern combat airplanes, they sistematically kill and rape the women and children.
Križnar and Jamous say that there are 2 best ways to help people in Darfur. The first is to donate money over Tomo Križnar's home page. With this money Križnar will buy sets of photo camera+video camera+laptop+sattelite phone. This way people of Darfur will be able to send daily information about the situation to the world via internet. The offical channels of humanitarian help normally don't reach the target population. The second way is to encourage people to push the Europena politicians to actively involve in the Darfur crisis. Because Russia, China and USA have big interests in the region, noone expects from them to take action about the genocide and overall humanitarian catastrophy
Posted by Jernej on Friday 14 November 2008 - 21:06:03 |
Monday 03 November 2008
Olives
Yesterday i went for olives. In my region and in the whole Mediterranean olive trees have a special meaning. They are the base of the so called 'mediterranean diet' and from the old Greeks and Egyptians on a symbol of abundance, glory and peace. Some of these trees can grow up to 2000 years old. The ones we were collecting from were much younger. It was my first time and i was quite happy to learn how is it all done. When we started in the morning i was really wondering if by dark we would manage to collect enough olives for one family's year consumption. We were around 10 and untill sunset we managed to clear around 70 trees and collected just under a ton of olives. You can cold press over 200 liters of precious oil from a ton of olives! That's a lot of oil and a lot of fun for an autumn's Sunday!
On the photo: i am the left one of the 2 people on the olive tree
Posted by Jernej on Monday 03 November 2008 - 14:01:35 |
Wednesday 29 October 2008
Army walk
We have just had a meet of the Sports unit of the Slovenian army. We did a social hike from the village of Rovte to the hilltop called 'Sveti tri kralji' and back. After that we had a pleasent lunch and were introduced to archery in the Center of war veterans in Logatec. The view from the 'Sveti tri kralji' top was amazing and we had a good chance to meet other athletes of our unit. By puting me on their pay roll, Slovenian armed forces are my main sponsor.
Posted by Jernej on Wednesday 29 October 2008 - 21:00:02 |
Thursday 09 October 2008
High school class reunion
Yesterday i had the 10 (!!!) year reunion since the maturity exams. When i first read the ivitation, i thought there was a mistake! But there was no mistake. 10 years have really passed since when we were sweating with the school mates to pass the last exams. In the last few days i was thinking quite a lot how fast the 10 years have flown by and got a bit anxsious. But the feeling changed when i steped in the building of our old grammar school. All the mates were almost the same as they were when i've last seen them. The school looked the same. Even most of our teachers were still all there. Nothing really changed so much except that we got a bit wiser. I also noticed something else during the official part and the party that followed. I felt when talking to my school mates that through sport in these 10 years i got just as much life experiences as my mates that are by now all working in real serious jobs, some are married and a few are even parents.
Posted by Jernej on Thursday 09 October 2008 - 13:58:00 |
Thursday 02 October 2008
Weddings and partyes
End of September was the time for me and Lina to attend a whole lot of partyes. We went to two weddings and two baptisms in the same week. Lina was the happy godmother of the little girl Sofia on the first baptism. I was worryed all these ceremonyes and the partyes that inevitably follow will look like the 'Four weddings and a funeral' or 'My big fat greek wedding' movies. But they ended up being much more than that. It was a really long week, a great experience and enjoyed it a lot.
The plot goes like this: In Athens we first baptised the doughter of a Serbian father and Canadian mother, followed by a baptism of a Canadian and an American. Then the Canadian lady married the Serbian man and the American man married a Serbian lady. The two Serbians were from Athens, the American was from Miami and the Canadian from Toronto. The priest was performing the marriage in 3 languages in order that the two newly weds and the guests would all understand everything. On top of that there were American, Canadian, Serbian and Greek familyes attending and making the situation an ultimate mix of people, cultures and custums.
I never was religious and even find myself reppeled from the westeren religions. But this time i was amazed to say at least. The incredible energy and motivation of the priests was captivating. Some moments during the ceremonyes and even later on on the party were amazing. It seemd that in a situation where 3 familyes from 3 different parts of the world will mix and spread around the globe, religion will be the only force to keep some tradition alive. I would prefer that in a moderen society traditions would be taken care of in other ways. With education inside the family, at school, in the clubs...but the way we live, it seems there is never time for this.
On the photo: me on one of the partyes with K4 200m world champion Bora Šibinkić
Posted by Jernej on Thursday 02 October 2008 - 07:57:21 |
Sunday 14 September 2008
...one more holyday diary
This week was all about the scientists switching on the LHC machine at the CERN. By smashing particles together at speeds 99.99% the speed of light, scientists were hoping to answer some of the greatest mysteries in particle physics. What is mass, what is dark matter , why is there no antimatter , are extra dimensions and parallel universes science fact rather than science fiction....? I tried to follow a bit the action but got totally lost on the way. I guess that's half the point of it! So with Lina we rather opted for a relaxing afternoon at the the beach with some more friends. Nice waves, sun heat, a good fappe or any other Greek-made coffee also give you some answers! Next week is going to be interesting from an other perspective, with quite some partyes sheduled and an interesting work opportunity opening up...
Posted by Jernej on Sunday 14 September 2008 - 16:01:39 |
Thursday 11 September 2008
Timberman
What i also enjoy on vacation is some good honest work in the woods. The other day i had to fight against the nature from growing over our family house on lake Bled. The forest is closing in on the lown around the house and i got 3 blisters while cutting those trees and bushes! Still not done with the job, but it is going to be an ethernal battle.
Posted by Jernej on Thursday 11 September 2008 - 18:55:00 |
Saturday 06 September 2008
Vacation
After the national champs it was finally time for some real holydays. With Lina we went to lake Bled, the place i love in and out of season, in any time of the year and in any weather. It is during such momentns that i immensely enjoy taking photos. A singel photo has the ability to catch the atmosphere of a particular moment...but one has to learn the art of photography first.
Posted by Jernej on Saturday 06 September 2008 - 15:53:00 |
Tuesday 02 September 2008
National Championships
This weekend we raced for national titles on the Ptuj lake. There's a canoeing center slowly growing on this artificial lake on the Drava river. They built a proper canoeing course so far, the motorbaots are allowed here (on the Bled and Bohinj lake it is not the case) and there are some peacefull surroundings all around the lake. Maybe the coming generations will be able to find here a perfect training spot. I raced K1 and K2 on all the distances. The level of competition was again low and sadly i didn't have a hard time wining. But the level of competition in the junior and youth category has definitely grown. I hope the clubs will manage to keep this trend. It was also nice to see how quite some slalom and wild water paddlers took the chance and came to race us. Every time they join us we learn something from each other and have a good time together. In the younger categories it would be good, i think, to make all the kids learn all the three disciplines. They would for sure benefit from a broad athletic base later in the sporting career. On the photo it is me taking a photo with individual and team wild water world champion 2008 Lovro Leban!
Posted by Jernej on Tuesday 02 September 2008 - 17:52:00 |
