MPJ

It doesn't happen often that after reading a book you can compare most of the places and some of the portrayed characters with real sites and buildings along with real protagonists from the historical story. Actually, this never happened to me before and after I've reached the last cover of 'Beneath a Scarlet Sky', a novel written by Mark Sullivan, published in 2017 I saw the rare opportunity of visiting the city where it all happened and where all the sites still stand today. Not much later and after my entire family read the novel or at least got familiar with the story, we packed our backpacks and hit the road. In the aftermath, the result is this blog post along with embedded video story as a documentary of the half a day walking tour of Milan in Italy where everything happened more than 70 years ago. In the spirit of a fair warning I advise you to read the book first before watching the video since it might spoil the reading for you or to wait for upcoming series o...

Let me ask you a hypothetical question. What would you first type into time machine if you had one? Would it be some date in the past or in distant future? Would you go to meet neanderthals or perhaps to take a photo of a T-Rex family from the distance? Or perhaps you'd go to see some historically relevant times to meet famous people from the past? Well, there is no doubt for me - one of my first time travels would definitely be 33AD, April 1st. The time of Christ and his last days, the time of the last supper, his death and resurrection. I have no idea how would I be able to hide my Nikon and smartphone but I am sure I would find a way. Every tourist trip requires a camera, doesn't it? However there would be other challenges, and in this case, even if I would try to dress accordingly and mingled into crowd, understanding old Aramaic which was spoken by most of Jesus followers or old Hebrew, Latin or Greek used officially among Jewish people or within Roman administration and a...

There is a debate about origin of the famous "heaven and hell" quote dating way back in 19th century and after little research maybe republican Benjamin Wade formulated it best: "I think, from all I can learn, that heaven has the better climate, but hell has the better company." There are similar sayings by others like Mark Twain and Peter Pan's father, James M. Barrie but if you research it deeper all the credits actually belong to Niccoló Machiavelli who said on the topic exactly this: "I desire to go to Hell, not to Heaven. In Hell I shall enjoy the company of popes, kings and princes, but in Heaven are only beggars, monks, hermits and apostles". Maybe to understand better roman catholic church and its influence in dark ages where both Niccoló Machiavelli and Leonardo da Vinci shared one of the best place to live for free thinkers in 15th century Republic of Florence, the best is to start watching the great TV show called "Da Vinci's Demon...

If you were reading my blog in the past you probably noticed that on several occasions I mentioned inner fight in all human beings between rational and emotional mind. More or less we all 'suffer' from this conflict and this post is, again, going to be tailed by it. Okay, now, you read the title and already hinted about the content, so let's get to the story. But before diving into topic, let me start with a revelation and for the first time since I started this blog I think this very title finally would allow me to go more personal than usual. Actually, I decided to reveal everything about me in this post and finally you are about to learn who I am to the bone. Are you ready to read further? Okay, I am ready. Here you go ... I am ... Wait ... I hate these second thoughts ... Darn it, I can't take it back now, can I ... Okay, here it is ... ... I am Scorpio. There you go. I said it. Phew. What a relief. Now you know everything about me. Who I am, why ...