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 Motto: I am, therefore I think 

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I was born in 1949 in communist Hungary. My father, a forest ranger, was already 46 years

 old at that time. My mother, 14 years younger than my father, had always been “just” a mother

and housewife. My 2 brothers were born 9 and 12 years before me. Both my grandfathers had
lived in the USA for a while after 1900. 

My father did not like the communist regime so he joined the revolution of 1956.
After Russian tanks crushed the revolt, he was not allowed to continue working in his
profession. He had to accept the only job offered to him at the power plant nearby, operating
turbines in a chamber full of dust. The salary he earned was barely enough for our family to
survive. Since my father’s “crime” was added to my record as well, I had no future in Hungary.
When I first attempted to escape to the West with a classmate of mine at age 17, we were
caught at the border and put in jail. As this also showed on my record, it was obvious that
I was drafted to serve in a labor camp instead of regular military service. I consider it the
greatest miracle of my life that only a couple of years later, in 1973, I was able to break
free from the communist bloc. Of course, when I reached the Italian shore, swimming from
Yugoslavia on that August night, my quest for freedom was just beginning. 

The corrupt, so-called communist system I grew up in left its marks on my mentality. It had taken 
a long time until I learned how to discard the leftover blemishes that negatively effected my 
personality, my character. 
[In the process I realized that corrupt power consciously corrupts the individual and then forces 
him to be on the defensive, blackmails him for being corrupt. A way to control and exploit.]

While learning the language of my new country after I landed in New York in 1974, I did all kinds
 of odd jobs. I worked in a factory, painted houses, served as a doorman, drove a taxi cab, and
 sold ice cream from a "Good Humor" truck. When I got my first new car, a Datsun B210, in 1978,
 I immediately packed my luggage and drove 5 days to arrive in Los Angeles, California. There,
 I spent the first night in my car. Next day, I found a furnished studio apartment in Hollywood
 (for $195 a month!), and another day later I convinced the Manager of the Beverly Hills branch
 of Great Western Savings and Loan that he should employ me as a teller. In 1980, I moved
to Ventura, about an hour drive north of LA, where I got "lucky". I applied for and got the job
 I never even knew existed: I became a copier salesman. The company, Savin Corporation,
provided full training. I worked very hard and managed to keep my job in this high turn-over 
business. Working in sales helped my English improve rapidly. Of course, I had to use the full
capacity of my brain to perform as expected by management... and in a couple of years, I was
totally burned out. It was again time for me to "escape". Since I missed Europe, I booked a flight
 and landed in Zurich, Switzerland. I found some chess player friends at the Lugano International
 Master Tournament who advised me to move to Basel and try to find work there at one of the
 3 pharmaceutical companies, as my degree from Hungary was in Chemistry. In Basel, I rented a
 small furnished apartment and worked illegally for a few months with a moving company. 
Eventually, I was able to obtain a work permit and started teaching English at the Orsini
 Sprachschule (Orsini Language School). In 1984, I was back at Savin Corporation in California.
 Before returning to Orsini in 1987, I spent almost a full year in Germany, teaching English
at the Idioma Sprachschule in Karlsruhe. In 1989, I returned to the USA again, back to selling
 copiers in California. Of course, every change I made brought new adventures. In my desperate
 search, I made some irresponsible and risky steps that could have resulted in disasters... but,
 miraculously, I always survived. I must conclude that Higher Powers watched over me.

My first attempt at writing was influenced by science fiction movies I had seen. My curiosity
and my imagination have always made me wonder about the unknown, and my urge to create my
own story grew stronger. Finally, in 2000, I was able to make the time to write "Reign of the Chroms" in which I indirectly speculate about the hick-ups of human evolution. Another 10 years later, after much encouragement by friends who knew about my adventures, I sat down to write the story of my escapes from the Soviet bloc. Escapes, indeed, as in 1976, believing that the amnesty the Hungarian government issued was credible, I returned to my homeland. How I managed to free myself again and survive the torture I had to endure when caught on the Yugoslav-Italian border in the fall of 1977 is also described in my second book, Escapes from behind the Iron Curtain.
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   Click Books to find Escapes from behind the Iron Curtain
Click Books to find Reign of the Chroms
Click Games to find "the game for the 21st century mind" 
  Click Games for the combination of Gle'x & conventional Chess​
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Personal files:
//arckonyv.gportal.hu/
https://www.facebook.com/glexchess

Teaching English online:
http://www.englishtutoronline.mysite.com  

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Some of my favorites:

From Star Trek: The Next Generation
(The Professor Moriarty episode)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cINiXEmIZlQ

Ancient Knowledge, Part 3:
(Energy Grids of Earth)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtBU3ABeiiM

TV report about Crop Circles:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WggwLwkP4Og&NR=1

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My You Tube channel:
http://www.youtube.com/user/ztb49

My LinkedIn page: 
http://hu.linkedin.com/pub/zoltan-bartok/59/173/356

                                         __________________________________________________________________________________                                            
 Webmaster: 

Zoltan Bartok

zbartok@gmail.com