Medlin Law Firm February 2019

Medlin Law Firm February 2019

The Medl in News

FEBRUARY 2019

(though perhaps less exciting) trip getting to know the capital city and the surrounding countryside. If it had not been for this second trip, I may have never met the woman who became my wife. On the night before I flew back to the states, I ate dinner at the restaurant across the street frommy hotel and really hit it off with another patron, a young and prettywoman who had stopped in for a cup of tea before going to work. She had degrees in Biology and Education, and between her grasp of English and my smattering of Ukrainian and Russian, we had a great conversation. We ended up exchanging phone numbers that night — her name was Yuliya. Plenty of skype dates and more visits to Kiev followed. Then, one year, I bought a ring through customs and got down on one knee in a Japanese food restaurant. Not realizing the bench we’d been sitting on was nailed to the floor, “popping the question” left me wedged between our seat and the wall. We both had a good laugh, and then she made me the happiest man on earth by saying yes. While there are cultural differences between this Fort Worth boy and a girl raised in the Soviet Union, we’ve always had more in common than these surface level distinctions. We share a deep passion for learning and adventure, and we were both raised to understand the value of family. Upon coming to the U.S., Yuliya enrolled in an accounting program and added another degree to her belt, graduating top of her class. Now she works with us here at the firm and has even acted as a translator for one of our Russian- speaking clients. Together we’ve shared the joy of raising our daughter, Nadia, whose name means “hope” in Ukrainian. When I left for my second trip to Ukraine all those years

FINDING LOVE

With Valentine’s Day on the horizon, I hope you get a chance to spend some time with that special someone in your life. Whether you like to go out for a fancy meal or just have a low-key evening together, it’s nice to have a day to simply appreciate each other’s company. If you don’t have a valentine this year, don’t despair. If I’ve learned one thing from meeting my wife, Yuliya, it’s that you find love when you least expect it. To understand how my wife and I met, I first have to explain how I wound up in a Ukrainian detention cell. It’s not nearly as bad as it sounds, I promise. I’ve always loved to travel, and I used to tour Europe whenever I could. One year I picked up a book written by the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine and became fascinated by the country. Not only does it have a rich history, but at the time, it had just emerged from the Orange Revolution and was trending more toward the West. I wanted to see this nation in transition for myself. This book claimed that the country had become so pro-American you could show up with a U.S. passport and get your travel visa right there at the customs office. This turned out to not be the case. I flew into Kiev the following summer, only to stun the officer looking over my paperwork. She said “neit” a lot, and before I knew it, I was spending the night in an airport holding room. They had me on a plane back stateside the very next morning — ironically, the country stopped requiring travel visas from U.S. citizens shortly after. Normally I don’t like to travel to the same place twice in a short time period, but my night spent “locked up abroad” made me that much more determined to see Ukraine. The following year, I arrived with all my paperwork in order and had a wonderful How a Chance Trip Introduced Me to My Wife

ago, I never imagined I’d be starting such a happy chapter of my life. It just goes to show that you can find love in the most unexpected places.

Happy Valentine’s Day,

– Gary L. Medlin, Esq.

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BREAKING THROUGH THE TV TERMINOLOGY

Standard high-definition TVs (1080p) have a vertical resolution of 1,080 pixels and a horizontal resolution of 1,920. Here’s where it gets weird. 4K TVs have a vertical resolution of 2,160 pixels with a horizontal resolution of 3,840. Marketers decided to swap the vertical resolution as their reference point with the horizontal resolution, because higher numbers are more impressive, right? But 4K TVs seem to fall short of the moniker. Regardless, these TVs have improved color and image quality over standard HD, but you have to have devices — such as the PlayStation 4 Pro or a Blu-ray player — or services that output in 4K to take advantage of the boost in pixels. HDR High Dynamic Range, or HDR, is a type of image processing. When an image is processed, HDR is used to increase or decrease the luminosity of the image. It means bright whites, deeper blacks, and improved colors overall. It’s been used in photography for decades and in video since the 1990s. Most 4K TVs have built-in HDR processing, resulting in better color quality, which translates to better image quality overall. OLED Short for organic light-emitting diode, OLED TVs feature a microscopically thin layer of an organic compound that emits light when an electric current is introduced. Typical LED TVs rely on a backlight in order to produce a lit, visible image. These backlights take up space, resulting in a thicker TV. The major advantage of OLED TVs is they are incredibly thin and light, and they produce deeper blacks for an improved color and image quality.

When you shop for a new TV these days, you’re greeted with a bevy of acronyms and numbers — marketing terms you can’t make sense of. These are terms like 4K, HDR, and OLED, just to name a few. TV makers leave it up to you to figure out what these terms mean. Well, look no further. We’re going to cut through the marketing speak and get to the point. Here’s what today’s popular TV marketing terms really mean. 4K The TV buzzword “4K” has replaced “HDTV” and “1080p” as the go-to marketing term. In short, it’s a reference to the number of pixels on the screen.

TRUCK ACCIDENTS

What You Need to Know

In the spring of 2018, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) published a disturbing statistic. For the 10th year in a row, Texas led the nation in fatal trucking accidents. In 2016, the latest year this >Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4

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