Road Trip

I caught up with Jone over the weekend who filled me in a bit more on his adventures driving a firetruck in a convoy that met outside Oslo to donate in Ukraine (Icons passim).

"You understand units of measurements, don't you?" he said and when I confirmed that I did showed me a spec sheet. He has persuaded someone to contribute a generator. It weighs 3,718 kg and puts out 320 kW. 

"Bloody hell!" says I, "You could run a hospital with that!"

"Yes, yes you could," he replied, then, as it this was a bagatelle, "All I need now is someone to donate a crane truck, I have got a few irons in the fire."

Wouldn't it be great to go with him in the cab. One last adventure before old age and breakfast wine bring the curtain down.

Last time he went over the border at the Hrebenne-Rava-Ruska: road, cargo, passenger - and rail passenger crossing; on the next trip he is hoping to get as far as Lviv.

All that said, the longer this goes on the more pessimistic I get about Ukraine's prospects. I find the gloomy John Mearsheimer and Col Doug MacGregor* more convincing than the boosters. I wouldn't be at all surprised if Russia pushes on all the way to Odessa, leaving Ukraine land-locked, as well establishing the Dnipro river as the new border between the countries.

*I heard MacGregor say the other day that there are 40,000 US troops in Poland. Can that be right? It seems extraordinary.