Christian Nasulea: Le Blog

Sleep, Alarms and Shock Therapy

Fri, 28 May 2010 08:57:42 -0500

I've experienced a particularly busy period lately, which was reflected in my blog update frequency as well. I'm not out of the woods yet but I thought this was something particularly worth publishing.

So, you work continuously for days and nights without ending. You maybe get the opportunity to sleep for a few hours every now and again. The temptation to seize this opportunity is great but when you're severely sleep deprived there's always the risk that if you do choose to go to sleep you will wake up in 3 days. But, there's more urgent work waiting and you need to make sure that 2 hours of sleep don't become 30.

The solution lies in a really good alarm clock. Below three proposed solutions:

		The Shocking Alarm Clock Pretty basic stuff. It's essentially an alarm clock that delivers an electric shock to your fingers when you try to press the cursed snooze button. Available at Deviltronics

		The Flying Alarm Clock Besides the normal sound alert this alarm clock deploys a flying plastic mosquitolike creature that makes a really annoying sound. The beautiful part of it all, the only way to stop the alarm is to catch the mosquito and put it back on its base. A simplified version is available from ThinkGeek

		The Sonic Bomb The alarm siren on this thing is capable of 113 DB, louder than the noise on a construction site. There's also a vibrating accessory that you can fit under your bed mattress that hooks up to the alarm clock. Also available from ThinkGeek

Picture this! Your alarm goes off in the morning... silently. There is no noise but your bed shaking as if a major earthquake was in progress.
You don't bother wake up.
The sound alarm goes off at 85 DB.
Your eyes open.
You realize you have 60 seconds to find the key to the alarm or flee the premises before the alarm goes off again at 105 DB and your ears start to bleed!
You're wide awake and probably running for the door!

Houses, Pets and Tenants

Tue, 04 May 2010 01:51:48 -0500

I was raised a certain way, perhaps very differently from the way most people are raised, although I doubt it was that different.

You will probably identify with some of what I am about to describe. I remember being repeatedly told off as a child for being untidy. Phrases like "clean up your room", "you can't go play outside unless you put your toys away" or "go to your room and arrange your toothpicks" will likely bring back memories for many people. OK, not the last one, that was a joke (if you do remember the last one let me know and I'll give you the name of a good shrink for your folks).

I also remember looking at my room at the dorm or at the apartment I rent out in Bucharest and thinking "wow, this place is a mess". There's even the distinct memory in my mind of Grandma paying me a visit in Bucharest and making me scrub the stove clean (I never use the stove, it was all Costi's fault). I deem myself a disorganized person.

As the May 1st weekend drew to a close for most people, I went to Constanta to check on the new tenants occupying my Mother's house since late last year. After a long chain of bad experiences we were very hopeful.

...

Let's just say some people must have very different values, besides their being brought up differently... probably on another planet. Those same "some people" have very different principles with regards to the part animals should play in a household and the spaces they should occupy. Also, I was surprised to discover revolutionary new ideas about waste management, especially animal waste.

I always used to regard houses as a means of sheltering humans from the elements. The past couple of days helped me realize my mistake as I now understand that we can rid ourselves of such ridiculous ideas and be one with nature once more. All it takes is dismantling a few (exterior) doors to make it easier for the restless hordes of household pets to roam free and pee everywhere.

That place means a lot to me and being there still takes me back to many fond memories of long summers from a carefree past that almost seems to belong to a dream or another life. In a time when most of us seem to be in the business of "making ends meet" renting out a big chunk of a house you only use for a couple of weeks every year seems only natural. Still, in light of recent events I cannot help but wonder: is it worth it?

A thank you to the many people who expressed their concern with regards to my status message yesterday.
My apologies for the feeble attempts at humour in this post.

No Pictures

Tue, 27 Apr 2010 12:19:18 -0500

I had slept for about 50km in the back seat of Stelian's car on Sunday when he pulled into a petrol station. After my initial "no, Mummy, I don't want to go to school today" reaction I managed to drag myself out of the car and set course for the automatic doors of the shop. When I fell asleep my DSLR was hanging around my neck, which probably means I slept on it, and unsurprisingly it was still hanging there as I was entering the shop.

The shop doors open and a voice behind me stops me saying "You can't take pictures here". I turn to him with the coarse car seat texture still imprinted in my face and mumble "I'm not taking any pictures". I then notice the huge DSLR camera hanging around my neck. The guy comes back with a surprising "yes, but you can't take pictures here" at which point I yell "I'M NOT TAKING ANY PICTURES", just in case his ears malfunctioned the first time, and turn away.

The event itself was unimportant but it did remind me I was in one of the most photophobic countries in Europe, perhaps even in the World. You probably did not know this but:
you're not allowed to take pictures anywhere in Romanian airports. Everywhere else the only nophoto areas in airports are passport and luggage control areas.
you're not allowed to take pictures at Gara de Nord in Bucharest. Other train stations would probably apply the same policy were it easier to enforce.
you're not allowed to take pictures in shopping malls or hypermarkets.
you're not allowed to take pictures inside the Bucharest subway.

Basically, anywhere there's a big guy in a uniform who didn't manage to graduate the 4th grade you're not allowed to take pictures.

I'm not bothered only by the infringement of my legal rights when I'm told not to take pictures in places which are clearly public. I'm very bothered (although "amazed" might be a better word to describe the feeling) by the fact that owners of shopping centers apparently decided to forbid photography in order to "safeguard commercial secrets". These are private entrepreneurs who should seek to promote their commerce by any means possible.

There are many places (in Romanian) on the Internet discussing legal implications in more detail. Just to name a few:
fotografierea interzisa on AvocatNet
baze legale pentru fotografiatul interzis on Bad or Good

Image credits go to: the depth of the Internet

Where was I?

Sun, 25 Apr 2010 03:27:03 -0500

I know, it's been over two weeks since my last confession... by that I mean post on this blog.

To avoid situations the likes of this I will clarify a few things:

The workshop I was mentioning in the previous post took a big chunk of my time, as lending a helping hand, like all things, should be done right if you decide to do it.
I had a few big software design projects hit their deadlines and go through their launch phases in the past weeks.
The eruption of Eyjafjallaj�kull in Iceland changed parts of my schedule and made things harder to complete.
I spent enormous amounts of time working on the final report for my PhD thesis.
It's 6:15 am and I just got back from a great wedding party in Slatina.

Those who know me better or follow me regularly know that I am usually available through loads of communication channels. Well, when the going gets as tough as it did I tend to shut down some of them. Blog and messenger are usually the first to fall.

Also, people following my updates through Facebook, Picasa or DeviantArt will have noticed that I did continue to post some updates.

Applied Behavioural Analysis Workshop

Wed, 07 Apr 2010 08:43:13 -0500

This week, Thursday through Saturday, I'll be taking part in a series of workshops on Applied Behavioural Analysis and PECS. I'm taking part on the organizing side of the event not on the "just attending and absorbing knowledge" side.

The talks will be given mostly by three UK based speakers, with some interventions from Romanian professionals. I think it's perhaps inappropriate to call them "talks" as they will actually be very practical both as approach and as content.

The workshops will take place in Ploiesti and will be hosted by the school inspectorate. Besides various institutions from the public school system, many people and organizations pooled their resources together to make the upcoming knowledge transfer process possible. They are too many to mention here.

The event is designed for and will be attended predominantly by practicing professionals who already have firsthand experience in working with children with autism.

First Digital Picture

Tue, 06 Apr 2010 18:56:29 -0500

What was the first photo you ever took?

The question popped into my mind while I was working "early" last night. While the first picture ever would have been pretty hard to find, moments after the question arose I brought up the console to the document archive and quickly found the first digital picture I ever took.

At an unbelievable 0.3 megapixels, the picture of some flowers from my Comarnic bedroom's balcony was taken on the 20th of October 2001. Granted the white balance is a bit off and the picture clarity leaves a lot to be desired but it's not bad considering it comes from a device which was actually a webcam digital camera crossover.

Nasulea & Co - Genealogy

Tue, 06 Apr 2010 02:04:47 -0500

Mother got a call from somebody in Timisoara today who was trying to trace some connections up the old family tree. This reminded me that research isn't worth much if it's not published (sort of like the good old "publish or perish" principle but not quite).

It also reminded me that I've done a lot of research into our family's history at one point and never really got around to share the information with anyone but those who helped me with the research.

So, here it is at last, the good old genealogy website, built in 2007, yet rarely visited by anyone other than Google:

http://genealogie.nasulea.com

Home for Easter

Sun, 04 Apr 2010 09:52:12 -0500

Reading Aura's blog yesterday and compelled by my own philosophical interior debate I decided that although pictures may be worth thousands of words I'd better write a couple of explanatory notes as well.

Friday morning (very, very early, like 6:30 am early) when I arrived in Comarnic I started taking these photos of the simple things around, of recurring elements that define Easter from my point of view every year. I posted these primarily to the Home for Easter album on Facebook. I knew there would be Easter cake, like every year, we'd go to the cemetery on Friday afternoon to remember our dead, like every year, there would be painted eggs, like every year, and so I kept adding these photos to the album as things happened.

The one thing you will notice in my pictures is the complete lack of pictures from the Saturday night "resurrection" service in church. That's not because I believed it was inappropriate to take pictures in church. It's simply because I wasn't there. My family would probably be best characterized as "spiritual but not religious". We keep to our traditions, because we believe in their importance, but we're usually not involved in religious activities as such.

So why bother with all the Easter stuff, then?

Because they are an important part of my cultural identity...
Because remembering the dead is not necessarily a religious act but an important spiritual component of life...
Because religious holidays, observed or not, are a good reason to get together with friends, strengthen or mend friendships, take a physical and mental break, look back introspectively...

I could elaborate endlessly on all the possible reasons but that's not the point.

FINAL NOTES:
To all those who deemed my words heresy, we also paint our eggs on Saturday afternoon instead of Thursday and the only times I go to church are weddings and baptisms (or tourist visits where I take thousands of pictures). Plus, half your religious rituals, which you observe so blindly and rigorously are preChristian or have pagan roots. So, shut it! Leave my beliefs alone and I might leave you in peace. Religious freedom to all!

If you hate Facebook or prefer browsing pictures differently and in better resolution the same Home for Easter album is also available on Picasa.

Speedlite Di622

Thu, 01 Apr 2010 01:16:44 -0500

I've received a number of complaints about my failure to present reviews of my latest technology acquisitions on this blog. I will try to make amends for this and to avoid such failures in the future.

Today I acquired a Nissin Digital Speedlite Di622 flash. I've played with all its functions and I've read the manual but I haven't done any testing yet. Based solely on its feature list it seems to be really good value for money.

I've also bought a photo sensor shoe to hook up to my previous, old, antiquated, vintage flash in order to turn it into a slave flash.

I'm really looking forward to put everything to the test.

The Right Attitude

Wed, 31 Mar 2010 12:16:34 -0500

For a while now, I'm talking in the range of a couple of years, things haven't been as easy as they used to. What with the world financial crisis, all of us becoming busier and time shrinking to the point of disappearance it seems like the level of stress we're subjected to on a day to day basis sometimes climbs off the meter and straight through the roof.

It's very important in these instances to work with people who know how to behave in stressful situations and who understand how stress influences others as well. I work with a very large number of people. You sometimes just can't choose not to work with people who have poor people skills.

However, this post is not about me pointing fingers and bitching about those who lack "savoiretre" (French for "knowing how to be"). Instead, I just want to take the opportunity to thank those trying to make it easy on this "busier of the busiest weeks of the year".

Thank you!

Photography Graduate

Mon, 29 Mar 2010 07:46:46 -0500

To all those concerned,

Please be advised that I have passed my Photography I (one) exam last week. Upon raising the question of "what this makes us" neither I nor my colleagues from the photography course have been able to come up with a satisfactory answer.

If a photographer scale did exist graduating this course probably puts you on the scale somewhere in between Japanese tourist and Indian wedding photographer.

You can see my portfolio of works submitted for the exam here. The entire second part is a very good example of how you can put together half a project with nothing more than things found around the house.

Trying To Kill Us

Mon, 22 Mar 2010 23:02:58 -0500

As I returned from Austria a few days ago I found my car had developed a strange noise in its right wheel. Upon closer inspection it came to be that many of the components in the right wheel (bearing, brake pads, brake disc and other things I cannot name) had to be replaced. Also the brake system on the left wheel and the rear axle brake system had to be replaced. The whole carfixing fiesta had a ridiculously high price but that is not where I'm going with this.

When Bogdan brought back my car, after fixing it, he explained that the right wheel was in fact running the danger of falling off. The whole problem had been at least partly due to the state of the roads I have to drive on (e.g. DN1 = National Road 1) and the many craterlike pot holes they've developed this winter.

I would now like to argue that the government is trying to kill me, probably not just me, by maintaining a poor road infrastructure, by refusing to expand a proper highway system, where it is badly needed, and by providing us with very low quality roads altogether.

To this end, besides my recent car trouble, I will briefly bring up 3 cases that were on the news today:

Two people on a motorbike died after hitting a pot hole (link).
A man on a bicycle died after hitting a pot hole (link).
An 86 year old woman was incinerated alive when her house burned down because the firemen could not get to her in time. Why? Old fire engines and bad roads (link).

Final notes:
Those of you reading my post through Facebook or other news aggregators will probably need to click "View Original Post" or something similar for the links to work.
A big thank you to Bogdan for sorting out my car while I was away!

Nicht Nein Verboten

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 02:28:54 -0600

Being in Austria and passing through Germany, where there is discipline and all things are tidy and organized, I got this thought about a very discrete cultural difference that might actually have a very big impact on life, people and all that goes along with them.

Here, but also in other countries, Romania included, smoking is forbidden as in "rauchen verboten", "fumatul interzis", "vietato fumare". In England it's simply "NO smoking". Whereas in most places you can't smoke because someone simply decided you were not allowed to do so, in England there is simply "NO smoking!". There's nobody to stop you, it just doesn't happen.

I'll leave you with the subtleties of this little thought.

Toe Drag

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 07:09:43 -0600

Sometime around 1pm today I arrived at the top of the Schmittenhohe in Zell am See for a bit of snowboarding fun. I had my freshly repaired brand new board (long story) and decided to take it out for a good test run down "black 6".

I had set my bindings a long time ago but obviously never got around to test the settings. I didn't realize my toe drag was around 5 cm, so on my first hard brake right my board lost contact with the slope, I fell flat on my face and started to slide uncontrollably towards the bottom of the valley and the edge of the slope (not necessarily in this order).

Many seconds and many meters passed before a miracle from God in the form of a large mound enabled me to finally sink the edge of my board into some snow and stop my descent.

For all those who didn't understand anything and for those who understood and desperately want to know how to avoid their lives flashing before their eyes in a similarly silly incident there's a tutorial.

Key things to remember are:
never let the tips of your boots hang out too much over the edge of the board (same thing goes for your heels)
adjust your binding base plate so that it increases the distance between your boot and the snow as much as possible without losing maneuvrability.

Seventy Three

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 23:10:00 -0600

Grandma, "Mamaie" to most people, turned 73 yesterday. Happy Birthday, Grandma! Caught in the frey of events I perhaps missed most of the festive feel of the day.

My thoughts went out mostly to Roxana and Cristi, though I did not dare call and still don't dare call either of them. I acknowledge again that I have a lot to be thankful for. Things could always go much better but they could also... I have a lot to be thankful for!

Grandma received a lot of congratulatory phonecalls today. As I was around for part of the day I got to play secretary so I can confirm they were indeed MANY. Had I posted this earlier there would probably have been even more. I might have purposely postponed posting this in order to avoid the flooding.

Once again Happy Birthday, Grandma! or the more meaningful Romanian "La Multi Ani!"

Mensa Slovenia Skiing Weekend

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 18:09:24 -0600

Early in December Mensa Romania received an invitation from Mensa Slovenia for the "Mensa International Skiing Weekend" to be held at the Vogel Ski Hotel in Bohinj in the second half of January. Upon hearing the word skiing I became immediately interested.

Fast forwarding through the events that actually lead to my taking part in the adventures to come, Thursday morning, the 21st of January, saw myself and fellow mensan Radu leaving Bucharest, heading for Slovenia. Radu drove through Romania, I drove through Hungary and 18 hours later, around 1 am, we arrived in Ljubljana. We experienced a bit of the night life, slept for a couple of hours and visited Ljubljana by day on Friday.

We got to the Vogel Ski Hotel on top of the mountain well within the cable car closing deadline, we got cleaned up, rested for a while and went on to interact with the other mensans. The discussions were engaging and culturally enriching, there were games to be played and fun to be had.

We skied for most of the day on Saturday. The weather was as beautiful as you can ask for on a skiing day, the sun shining bright on a clear blue sky, highlighting the cold and the clouds below us. Just after mid day the Mensa International Grand Slalom Open was held, with three categories: women's skiing, men's skiing and snowboarding. It was all in good fun and everybody seemed to enjoy the competition, the weather and the company quite thoroughly. I won first place in the snowboarding section and, although there were only four of us competing against each other altogether, I am still very proud of the achievement.

More fun and games were to come during the evening as well as a presentation of a study by Serbian mensan Goran Tomin about the link between intelligence and depression. After the presentation an award ceremony for the Grand Slalom was held. On Sunday we woke up, packed our bags and skied some more. In the afternoon every mensan left for home or other destinations.

Besides the fact that the entire adventure was very enjoyable it also helped me understand a lot more about Mensa and what it is really about. When I decided to take the test and signed up for membership I did it only because I was looking for another badge of honour, another decoration, I wanted to add another little line on an already extensive resume. As I approach the end of my first year as a member of the organization I now believe that I got more value from membership than just the shining Mensa badge.

Mensa is meant to bring people together based on a very simple criterium, that of IQ. It's meant to provide members with contacts of other people with minds to match. It's not meant to be an ivory tower where bright minds can lock themselves away and shun the rest of the world nor is it an organization focused solely on the intelligence of its members. Rather, it's a means of bringing people together to find new ways and new purpose to put all that intelligence to use. It is a way for people to interact, work, learn and have fun.

I left Slovenia with one question in mind: what should Mensa Romania's first international get together be about?

There are a couple of albums on Picasa worth seeing:
Ljubljana and Beyond
Bohinj Skiing Weekend

If you don't know what Mensa is give www.mensaromania.ro a try for some answers.
If you're interested in becoming part of Mensa the next test will take place on April 11th in Bucharest.

Your Farm, Your Fish, Your Mafia and Your Park

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 15:54:30 -0600

All those of you who have been fortunate enough to escape the charms of that notworking tool that is Facebook (until now) might find it a bit hard to understand what I am talking about. However, even if you don't have a Facebook account (yet) I will try to write this in such a way that you may be able to understand.

A couple of days ago a few people in my Facebook friend list became fans of this "club" called "I dont care about your farm, or your fish, or your park, or your mafia!!!". I clicked on the appropriate button and became a fan too. Unlike many of the other 4.5 million fans of this club (that's roughly how many there were when I became a fan, there are over 4.8 million now) I know that being in this club doesn't help much, at all actually. If you really don't want to hear anything more about Mafia Wars, Happy Aquarium, FarmVille and the rest of the extremely popular social network games played on Facebook all you have to do is hit the Hide button at the top right of a gamerelated post and "pouf" you'll never hear from that game again! That's not why I'm writing this post though.

As an employer and manager of people who work with computers and Internet I've often felt the urge to smack somebody over the head when I "caught" them playing Mafia Wars while they were supposed to be working on something. However, being a strong believer in human creativity and all things that converge to it I will say "let them have their fish, their mafia and their farm". As long as the job gets done and I keep being surprised by the people I work with when they take the initiative to come up with new solutions to old problems I will believe this is the way to go.

Plus, working in new media we can't content ourselves with simply working with the Internet anymore. The Internet is not new anymore. New media now means social networks and social networking games and if money is to be made from new media we will need people who know the media so we can harness their power.

And on this note I will leave you with Sir Ken Robinson discussing education and creativity (via Facebook).

P.S.: @G. when I said "new solutions to old problems" I didn't mean new excuses for issues with already overdue deadlines. :))

Vatra Dornei Skiing

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 16:11:56 -0600

We devoted 4 hours on Sunday to the big slope of Vatra Dornei. We had done a bit of prior research to understand what it is actually about but as usual seeing is believing and trying it out gets you the full picture.

The slope is long and smooth. The ski lift has an intermediary station. It doesn't slow down but you can get off after the first 20 minutes if you're really bored or if you badly want to avoid the windexposed part towards the top. If you do decide to get off you won't actually miss much as the remaining altitude difference you gain over the last 5 minutes is insignificant.

There are two 30 second black slopes starting at the top station. To get back to the top after the 30 seconds you get to ride on two consecutive baby ski lifts. I'd never been on one before. It's interesting but also quite unpleasant.

Getting back to the main slope, the skiing is nice and it's a good place to learn because it's never very steep. It's a kind of scenic skiing, if you will, as you actually ski between trees and wooden houses. There are fences on the sides of the slope in places and it all gives a feel of "Grandma's village", not my grandma but you get the picture.

There are pictures on Picasa in the Vatra Dornei Skiing album.

These 3 altitude profiles should give you a good idea of the possibilities of the slope. They show a full circle (the same full circle), going up on the ski lift and coming down as fast as we could. The speed is obviously not taken into account in the first graph.

The slope was steep enough to allow a top speed of about 55 km/h. On the lower part there were many jump opportunities. 23 meter long jumps were easily done, even by beginners not looking where they were skiing :)

Skiing in Bucovina

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 15:02:36 -0600

After what might be the longest chain of changes of plan in history we ended up making our way to the northern lands of Bucovina for the Vatra Dornei Snow Festival. All that's left of "we" at the moment are me and Cipri but we're counting on our numbers increasing slightly over the next 2 days.

We tried out the new Gura Humorului slope today. It's about 1.5 km long but sadly it's one of the worst planned slopes I've ever seen. With a looong flat part right in the middle and two extremely steep parts towards the end it's only fit for advanced skiers and ends up being annoying even to them because of all the armwork needed.

The ski lift takes 1214 minutes to get to the top and is horribly boring. For some inexplicable reason they went for a Leitner ropeway with the chairs permanently attached to the cable which means the chairs move at constant speed both for loading and unloading and for the actual travel.

You can check out some photos from the slope on Picasa in the Gura Humorului album. The photos are geotagged so you can see exactly where the slope is in relation to Gura Humorului.

Also, this altitude profile generated out of one of our descents should give you a pretty accurate idea of what the slope is like.

We plan to spend Saturday and Sunday skiing in Vatra Dornei.

Head Peak

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 09:10:31 -0600

Saturday night Cipri and I each bought a pair of brand new Head Peak SG skis. Hervis has a big sale now retailing this particular model complete with bindings at 500 lei (roughly 120 EUR).

I took the new skis out for a bit of snow testing on Monday and Tuesday. My expectations weren't too high, probably very influenced by the price, but I can now declare myself quite impressed.

Their performance both when carving on ice and floating through deep powder snow was exceptional. Turning at high speeds is very easy thanks mostly to the shapes of the tails and their wide surface helps a lot when you need to stay afloat in deep snow. They didn't do too well on the few jumps I tried. Although they're very light I guess they're a little too flexible.

Tuesday also gave me the chance to do a first GPS speed measurement, setting a personal best. I skied down the 775m of the main Valea Dorului ski slope in 1 minute and 14 seconds.

Average speed: 37.7 km/h
Top speed: 64 km/h
Distance: 775 m
Altitude difference: 253.6 m (from 2051 m to 1798 m)
Maximum slope: 26.4 �

In fact, this descent was fast enough for the ski lift at the base of the slope to deny me access due to attempted "double use".

Tuesday was also a spectacular skiing day weatherwise. Pictures to tell the story in the Head Peak 13 Picasa album.

Elevation

Speed

Slope

The Look Good Principle

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 00:50:44 -0600

2 am just got home after a fairly long and insightful debate with a lot of people about ethics, morality, statistics and the application thereof.

I arrange my jacket and the rest of the things I need tomorrow (in case the need should arise for a quick escape). I turn on my laptop and put my phones to charge.

I realize everything is different (tidier) and I look at the changes around the room. After a brief moment of panic I realize my guitars are still here just in a different corner. It's good to have Cristina back with us.

I pour myself a (soft) drink in the kitchen and go to my room to slip into something more comfortable.

I've got two pairs of training trousers on my bed, one black, one khaki and comfier. Black tshirt, black socks, black everything else all make the choice really simple. The LG principle simply states "one must look good even when dead".

Seems like a sound principle and a sound idea. So, does writing this post.
Maybe it's not. Perhaps it's just the time of day!

Little Paris Overlooked

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 19:00:33 -0600

Bucharest got featured on the Where I've Been Blog. Scroll down the page and read the mistyped/misspelled description at number 5:

Five Overlooked European Cities

I'd like to note that once more some nonRomanians have a good idea about how Romania could be promoted better abroad. It only seems natural that the Twilight craze would be well exploited in homeland Transylvania.

I still haven't seen any of the movies!

The Rroma Beauty Pageant

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 09:25:25 -0600

Last year, as our concert going habits were proliferating, one of us (not me but I'm not saying who) came up with the idea that we should also go to a concert where we could explore that alltoopresent music genre called manele.

The principle states that no matter what you do you should try to do a good job doing it so we found out there are two big manele concerts throughout the year. We had to attend one of them. The months passed, we missed the one in autumn (Toamna Manelelor), so when the posters started showing up for the worldfamous "Miss Piranda" we had to make good on our plan.

The amazing thing is that besides myself, Bogdan and Cipri we managed to talk 5 other people into joining us for the show. I'd like to congratulate everyone for their courage, endurance, stamina and resolve.

Getting back to the show, Miss Piranda, as you might guess, is a beauty pageant which doubles as a twoday concert bringing together the biggest names of the musical genre. We enjoyed the music of artists such as Babi Minune, Florinel Pustiul, Jean de la Craiova and Florin Salam. The experience was quite traumatic so I will be brief and I will limit myself to only a few notes about the show.

The venue, Sala Polivalenta, was not heated. It usually is so I can only assume that heating is an option the organizers of an event can choose to pay for or not.

The sound system was very poor quality and it seemed the only objective of the "sound engineer" was to make everything loud (and distorted).

There were no lighting technicians. There were no projectors following the people on stage. Practically the dominant light that shined on the artists' faces came from two floor level projectors mounted on the front of the stage. These made everybody's noses cast shadows on the ceiling and made the general atmosphere resemble that of a "bodega de la gara" (EN: slum bar by the train station).

We witnessed the worst playback performance in history when Romeo Fantasticul (manelistu' porno) started talking to somebody offstage while his vocal track was still playing. Even when he was trying to follow the song his actual voice didn't match the one on the CD.

I think some of the artists like Jean de la Craiova and Florin Salam are actually talented singers but I cannot say for sure as the sound system was too bad.

To put the appraisal of the concert part to rest, I've been to kindergarten Christmas parties that were better organised.

Most of the contestants in the beauty pageant were not of rroma origin.

A few of the girls were absolutely stunning.

Contestant number 9 weighed as much as any 3 other contestants put together. The announcers explained that she was there because she had been the girlfriend of one of the big stars. I guess we could give the event a few extra points based on the fact that they're not promoting extreme stereotypes of anorexic girls as role models. On the other hand the waves rippling through her body during the belly dancing trial were probably one of the things that traumatized us most.

The only criterium that seemed to be used to determine which of the girls got eliminated after a specific trial was the opinion of a guy in a striped sweater with a big belly, I'm guessing the organiser.

To my huge disappointment many of the people who bought tickets to attend the show were caucasian.

We only lasted about 3 hours. However, let none say we never gave a chance to exploring the culture of our coinhabiting nationalities.

Snow Driving 101

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 10:00:47 -0600

Thanks to the recent weather covering most of Eastern Europe with snow I've had quite an adventurous trip driving from the mountains to Bucharest this morning. I'm probably in for an even bigger adventure as I head out on a 2500 km drive to Slovenia and back this weekend.

In light of all this I thought it might be a good idea to write down a few pointers about driving in the snow and on snowcovered roads.

The Basics

The first thing one needs to bear in mind when driving through ice and snow is that the main force acting upon a car is inertia. Think of your car as a big brick. You can use your acceleration to apply an impulse that can change the brick's movement vector slightly in a particular direction. Your breaks serve to slightly increase the amount of friction between the brick and the road.

One needs to always consider the movement vector of the brick and the total amount of friction that can be applied in order to shorten the movement vector. You can also consider the movement vectors of all the other bricks on the road when planning your own movements but this is more complicated and would probably be better left for Snow Driving 102 or 201.

Principles and Pointers

Plan ahead.

You should base your calculations primarily on the natural deceleration rate of your car, rather than assumptions related to your breaking capacity.

Lines created in the snow on the road by other cars passing before you will often have a bigger influence on your heading than your desire to steer the car in a particular direction.

Thick banks of snow on the side of the road can wreak havoc if you stray onto them.

Use straight bits of road with light traffic to gently apply the breaks from time to time. This causes your break discs to heat up and melt the snow that gradually builds up on them. If you don't do this your breaks will become useless after a while. Some smarter cars do this automatically.

Plan ahead!

Massive amounts of snow will gather behind your wheels, sometimes forming solid blocks of ice, and will negatively affect your steering. The same ice blocks will often be responsible for your car being unable to get back on the road if you don't choose your parking spot well enough. Stop and clean from time to time.

Always carry snow chains and use them when it gets too tough.

Carry a shovel with you at all times. I prefer the fullsized ones rather than twopiece car models. They'll save your back.

Did I mention "PLAN AHEAD!"?

After making you read all this stuff I should mention that I'm in no way an expert driver and I've had no formal training to do this. I've just done a lot of notsoclever things over the years and learned a lot from my mistakes.

If anyone wishes to add to the list of pointers please use the comments below.

Slope Value for Money

Tue, 19 Jan 2010 21:18:51 -0600

Today I went snowboarding in Busteni for a couple of hours. I initially went to Azuga filled with hope for good snowboarding conditions on really steep slopes but the gondola was undergoing maintenance for the day.

Getting back to Busteni, I have to note that again the slope was far better than the one in Predeal. I don't know what they do but they do it well. If only it wouldn't cost so damn much.

Which brings me to the point of this post. Here's the economist in me having a field day.

I spent 80 lei on ski trips today and 85 lei yesterday. This means that Predeal was only 6.25% more expensive, while the total travelled distance was 3.81 times bigger. So, for only 6.25% more money I was able to ski 14 times in Predeal in lieu of 6 in Busteni for twice as much time and nearly 4 times the distance.

Photos here.

Map and altitude profile below.

You can compare the altitude profile to the one in my previous post.

Ski lift costs based on Busteni 5+1 pass and Predeal 1/2 day offseason pass.

Ski Day 8

Mon, 18 Jan 2010 21:11:04 -0600

After an early working start this morning (5:30 am) I decided to call it a day around noon and go skiing in Predeal. Due to springlike weather conditions I had a two week break from skiing which made today all the more exciting as it was like a big dose of a highly addictive drug that was long overdue.

There wasn't a lot of snow but there weren't a lot of people either. In a few hours on a halfday ski pass I managed to go up and down the mountain 14 times for a total of 56 km.

Besides practicing my carving style I spent most of the time tinkering with all the new toys attached to my new helmet.

You can see a few snapshots taken with my HTC in the Ski Day 8 Picasa album.

The map and altitude profile of today's many ups and downs might also be interesting to look at.

I've called this entry "ski day 8" because this is the 8th day since the beginning of winter, including the days spent in Bulgaria, that I've managed to get out on the slopes.

New AV Helmet

Sun, 17 Jan 2010 13:08:09 -0600

This week I finally put together the components for my new, increased security, snowboarding helmet. I spent more than an hour in customs on Tuesday morning clearing the forms for the import of the Giro Remedy helmet that is the base of it all.

The point of a helmet in sports these days isn't just to save your life, although I was recently reminded quite violently of this aspect, but also to make the whole sporting experience more enjoyable.

As a result, my new helmet now has an embedded bluetooth audio system that links up to my mobile phone. This means I can answer a phone call and talk to someone without taking off my helmet and without using my hands. It also means that I can have my phone act as an MP3 player and listen to some 8 gigs of music while I'm snowboarding or skiing. On the audio side the BT system also supports a secondary hardwired audio connection that could be used for instance for a twoway radio attached to the top of the shoulder armour.

I've been using an Action Camera attached to my helmet to film things for a while now. Unfortunately, after several bigger incidents, although the Oregon Scientific ATC3K itself survived many of its attachment components were irreparably damaged or simply destroyed. This meant that I had to attach the much simpler no name action camera I got from Maplin's to this helmet instead. Let's just hope it will be able to handle the pain.

See you on the slopes!

Flat Mate

Thu, 14 Jan 2010 09:23:37 -0600

I would like to argue that the word flatmate should be taken off the politically correct, socially acceptable word list.

What's the deal with this concept anyway? Is flatmate the opposite of bumpy mate or tilted mate or sharp mate or variable mate?

If it's the opposite of bumpy mate are we supposed to use it to distinguish between our male and female colleagues, or what? Where do we draw the line and, actually, aren't all classifications based on racksize discriminatory and unacceptable?

If it turns out to be the opposite of sharp mate it's even worse. Without the "benefit" of genderbased differences it's simply offensive to everybody.

Weekend Life

Sun, 10 Jan 2010 22:38:16 -0600

Life as it gets captured by bloglike media has many interesting faces to it. Take this second weekend of the year 2010 for instance.

Saturday morning 6:03 am: answering the annoying wake up call of my alarm I dropped out of my bed in Bucharest to pack my bags for a long and interesting day.

Saturday evening 7:44 pm: after several changes of plan throughout the day I rushed out of the house, in costume, and headed to Sinaia for the long party to come.

Sunday 2:35 pm: I noticed the 5 early snowdrops freshly picked from our garden sitting in a tiny vase on a kitchen shelf and realized just how messed up the world weather is.

Sunday 10:22 pm: After giving the petrol station attendant my best wishes for the new year and engaging in energy drink related small talk I realized how blessed I must be to be able to enjoy life in a small town at least for a couple of days every week.

Flowers and Claws

Fri, 08 Jan 2010 00:36:08 -0600

It's very nice to be in the presence of a pure, beautiful, young flower, to bathe in the light it shines and feed upon its relentless warmth, only to then suddenly, out of the clear blue sky, be faced with a row of long, sharp claws, talons and fangs.

Then I realized that flowers, like all living things, develop and adapt to circumstances in their environment. Looking back it struck me that those talons and fangs had grown as a response to nothing more than my being an ass many moons ago.

I was surprised and perhaps I should have been sorry but I was glad. For the prettiest of flowers would do well to have the claws it needs to keep wouldbe aggressors at bay.

Celebrating the New Year in Bansko

Mon, 04 Jan 2010 23:44:38 -0600

There would be many, many things to say about Bulgaria in general, about the New Year and about the activity of skiing as it can be performed in Bulgaria. I will fall far short of giving a detailed account of what it was like but I will try to touch a few of the more interesting points.

(+) The fabled Bansko skiing resort is allegedly created and managed by/with the help of some Austrians. The ski slopes are many and so are the ski lifts. There are many snow canons.

( ) Sadly, it doesn't take much in the way of bad weather to knock out most of those ski lifts.
( ) The 7 km long gondola taking skiers from the town to the Banderishka starting area is a big fat bottleneck. Call me strange but queuing for 2 hours to get on a ski lift is a big turn off. There were also too many Ukrainians who failed to understand queuing.

(+) Food is cheap! It's also very good!
( ) Not all shopkeepers understand manners. I am mostly talking about the guy selling the hats who didn't want to let us take pictures.

(+) Lodging is cheap. Our apartments were really nice.
( ) Everybody finishes skiing around 5 pm and goes straight into the showers. The result is there is either no water at all or no hot water for most of the evening.

Granted, many of the shortcomings I listed above might not have been so true if we'd gone to Bansko even slightly offseason. Going skiing for the New Year is usually a bad idea anywhere.

I was glad to discover that rumours of cartheftrelated issues in Bulgaria were indeed greatly exagerated. I also had one close encounter with the Bulgarian police and I was basically asked for money in exchange for my documents on account of a debatable traffic violation. So, that part is true.

The conclusion is that we will likely never go to Bansko again, which is what you should actually gather the most feedback from.

You can see pictures of the trip to Bansko, of us on the ski slopes or a decent selection from the New Year celebrations.

If anyone is really interested I've also prepared a general expense report.

Chasing the Sunset

Sat, 26 Dec 2009 19:32:04 -0600

After smashing my UV filter to bits during last night's impromptu Christmas dinner party photo shoot I took the EOS on a little photo trip where the UV filter would have been priceless. As there is little snow left anywhere after the recent heat wave my weekend skiing plans had to be replaced by something else. So, I decided to code a little HDR bracketing CHDK script and take the camera kit out for a test run.

As the coding took a while and the sun had already set on my house at the bottom of the Prahova valley I had to jump in the car and chase the sunset. As I was driving up the winding mountain road I could see the sunset slowly rewinding itself. By the time I got to the top of the hill I still had about half an hour of sunset to enjoy and shoot.

After dumping the car on the side of the road I started running up the hill to get to a good vantage point. About 1 hour had passed by the time I shot 180 photos resulting in 5 reasonable quality HDR images and a couple of standard sunset shots.

You can see the results in the Chasing the Sunset album.

Notes:
never look through the eyepiece as you shoot the setting sun with a DSLR, it will burn your eyes.
use a tripod to ensure proper alignment of the HDR components.
no matter how warm the weather is the top of a mountain will be very windy in at sunset in December.

To show how much running was required for this very small set of pictures you can have a look at my GPS logger's altitude profile:

Christmas Traditions

Fri, 25 Dec 2009 01:47:37 -0600

As the Earth spins faster and faster I'm very thankful to have been able to keep to our timehonoured holiday season traditions for another year. We roamed the town for 10 hours yesterday, meeting people, sharing stories and singing Christmas carols.

While we were at my place talking to my family, singing and joking we had the good fortune to cross paths with the kids from our Zestrea Carpatilor (EN: Carpathian Legacy) folk group, dressed in their traditional costumes.

See enclosed picture and Facebook photo gallery.

The Good Slope

Sun, 20 Dec 2009 19:01:10 -0600

Today, I managed to squeeze two hours of snowboarding in Busteni in between the rest of my schedule. Unlike Predeal the snow was good, there were no stones and today's 2 degrees made the whole experience quite enjoyable.

On the down side, the slope is only 1300m long and there are no day ski passes available. A trip on the ski lift costs 16 lei but you do have the option a ski pass for the entire season... for 2700 lei, almost 700 EUR... for a single ski slope...

Winter's First

Sun, 20 Dec 2009 17:44:27 -0600

Yesterday in Bucharest I struggled to deice and defrost my car twice in a single day during a three hour interval. That's how bad it was snowing. Surely enough, with all the snowfall the slopes were bound to be perfect. WRONG!!!

When we got to Predeal we were extatic at the prospect of spending a full day on the slopes. After months of waiting we finally got the chance to start the skiing season ... on 10cm deep snow.

It was dreadful. Stones were abundant, tall grass seemed to grow right out of the snow on large parts of the Sub Teleferic slope. Parts of the Clabucet Sosire slope, which had been exposed to snow canons, were covered by dense fields of ice boulders. To add to the beauty of the day the temperatures were around 8 degrees Celsius. As Tamara put it, there seems to be a lot of good quality snow in Romania blocking the roads and causing mischief, but little of it seems to have settled on the ski slopes.

There were good things about today as well, namely the sunny scenery at the top of the mountain and the fresh powder on the side of the Cocos slope.

I will end by directing your attention towards the enclosed picture of the surface conditions on the Cocosul slope.

Cold Richess

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 07:08:20 -0600

It finally started to snow about 24 hours ago and the temperatures dropped a few more degrees.

The following is an analysis of the relation between climate and wealth. If you're a hard core scientist please be advised that I'm going to be throwing around allegations without providing any grounds for them and I'm going to push the boundaries of logic and I will even resort to sophism if it serves my purpose. We're not pulling any punches. The only point of the entire exercise is to launch an idea so that I might get feedback on its various aspects regardless of how unlikely or debatable some things may be.

My thesis is that countries with colder climates tend to be richer than countries with warmer climates and people who live in cold environments tend to be richer themselves than those coming from warm environments.

My explanation is simple. If you come from a land of cold, you learn very early in life that working keeps you warm. Also, in such a land of everwinter as we might imagine, if you don't work you die, usually by freezing to death. As work usually generates wealth I will infer that cold produces wealth.

On the contrary, if you are born and raised under the scorching sun of the tropics you know that working under the midday sun is very unpleasant, hard to bear and even deadly. You're more likely to survive and live a comfortable life if you avoid working under the sun and generally put things off till later. So, not working doesn't produce anything but at least it doesn't kill you.

By savagely generalizing things we can say that cold environments make people culturally inclined to work and produce wealth while warm environments generally end up deterring them.

I hope I haven't offended too many people and my explanation was clear enough. Now, your thoughts?

Jet Lag

Sun, 13 Dec 2009 05:46:10 -0600

The sunworshiping ancient Egyptians had the right idea about the Sun being important to us. However I doubt they could imagine some of the implications of our relation to the Sun and how it influences our lives.

Because my schedule is always a huge mess I believed that adapting to the local conditions in Boston after traveling 8000 km west and crossing 7 meridians would be a breeze. After all, if you have a very irregular sleeping schedule, adjusting to a new sleeping schedule should not be a problem. I never experienced any kind of jet lag traveling to England! There should be no jet lag traveling to the US either! WRONG!!!

Five days ago, I was fighting my body's urge to shut down after being intensely sleep deprived for at least 3 days. The scene taking place at 9pm (4am Romanian time) in Harvard's Cafe Algiers saw me ranting deliriously as I was hallucinating about the waitress speaking Russian. It was baaad!

In the following days I finally adjusted ... just in time to come back.

Now I have to go through the whole thing again. Looking at my sleeping patterns in the past 72 hours, including the 17 hours of nearlycontinuous sleep I had after I got back, it looks like I'm on the time zone for Samoa or the Cook Islands.

The Digital Rebel

Sun, 13 Dec 2009 04:46:50 -0600

Sunday, the 6th of December, 2009 I went and fulfilled a longlasting yearning for a Canon EOS DSLR in the form of the Canon EOS Digital Rebel T1i or as it is known on the old continent the EOS 500D.

I got myself the camera with its standard 1855mm lens, the 55250mm lens, an 8GB SD card and a bag to hold it all in. I'm happy with myself though I do realize this can only bring additional spending on photo equipment upon myself and my shortterm budget.

The first photo I took with the camera was of the Sata Center at MIT, hopefully an omen of artistic, outsidethebox things to come in its future use.

The enclosed picture is a selfportrait taken between a pair of identical mirrors, facing each other in the window sill of a 38th story Boston living room.

Travel Plans

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 20:01:12 -0600

As usual, to ease potential interactions I'd like to let everyone know that I will be:

in Alba Iulia on the 30th of November and the 1st of December for the celebrations of Romania's national holiday
in Boston, USA between the 3rd of December and the 7th of December
in New York between the 8th and the 10th of December

These dates are subject to change without notice. If you intend to meet me for whatever reason in any of these places please let me know by email a couple of days in advance.

Journey to Shiloh

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 00:33:15 -0600

I just finished following this movie in the background while working on some reports. The movie was the 1968 Journey to Shiloh. The movie was pretty good, well the topic was anyway, but that's not very important now.

It really got my attention when the end credits were scrolling up the screen. James Caan played the lead role aaand... Harrison Ford played a relatively unimportant secondary part. In fact this was one of Harrison Ford's earliest movies.

It's always interesting to see how great success stories are born.

Natural Selection

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 01:15:20 -0600

I've been in England for about a week now. Even more than last year I've noticed the amount of care that's being taken to ensure that everything in the environment is ... SAFE!

Well, England, if you're done padding every sharp corner, marking every edge, signaling every step, to put it quite simply making yourself absolutely IDIOTPROOF I'd like to express a simple thought.

Maybe some of the more obvious perils of day to day life (see enclosed picture) aren't supposed to be marked so evidently. I mean, if you're not going to be able to figure out that you need to duck to avoid the branches your place on Earth might require some consideration. I mean, we've known this is how things work for a very long time. It's called natural selection.

Tower of London Ice Skating

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 00:25:10 -0600

I've crossed off a new city on the "skate in all the world's capitals" list. As I was marching past the Tower of London tonight I came across this banner advertising the Tower of London Ice Rink. Can you imagine the chance? An ice rink AND an astonishing historical location at the same time!

It was really good. I learned a couple of new tricks too, from Saul, one of the local Ice Rink marshalls.

You can see the Ice Rink official website for more details.

Measureless Dictionary Fun

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:53:44 -0600

It will sometimes arrive to me to come up with a morecomplicatedthannecessary way to say something. It might be a strange word lineup or simply an odd or rare word in the middle of a simple sentence.

When and if I realize what I'm doing I might try to explain things by resorting to the use of a dictionary definition. Unfortunately definitions for complicated words tend to contain more complicated words. Just to give a simple example:

inexorable not capable of being persuaded by entreaty; relentless
entreaty an earnest request or petition; supplication; plea
earnest marked by or showing deep sincerity or seriousness

Then if you need to make things really clear there might be simpler words in need of clarification as well:

relentless unyielding in severity or strictness; unrelenting
unrelenting having or exhibiting uncompromising determination; unyielding
supplication to ask for humbly or earnestly, as by praying

Some of these simple words then leading on to absolute monuments of advanced vocabulary:

unyielding not giving way to pressure or persuasion; obdurate
obdurate hardened in wrongdoing or wickedness; stubbornly impenitent
...

I'll stop now although the game could easily go on. All definitions above extracted from various sections of The Free Dictionary.

On Development, Romania and Romania's Level of Development

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 17:43:13 -0600

Funny, how just last week on Wednesday, around this time, I was teaching about development levels and dividing the world into this and that. I was met by a wall of skepticism and discontent when I asked my students to give marks to Romania's economy and tell me where it fit in the grand order of things.

Well, here's a piece on the subject (in Romanian) that I enjoyed thoroughly:
Romania = la acelasi nivel cu occidentul

Thanks, Silviu, for pointing it out!

Wispington Geocaching

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 17:33:21 -0600

Yesterday I used my lunch break to go for a short bike ride 2 miles up the road to the village of Wispington. There, among the endless fields I found a cairn commemorating the 1984 World Ploughing Competition and accross the road from it my first nonRomanian geocache. That would be the first geocache I've ever found outside of Romania's borders.

Facebook Photo Gallery
Geocaching.com Cache Details

Media Convergence

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 01:44:13 -0600

It's late night in the wolds, the sky is clear for a change letting the stars shine through to reveal the subtle accents of the fields around William's Spinney. I'm researching things on the Internet as I come accross this:

Thank you, Nilly!

The Dyslexic, Agnostic, Insomniac

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 01:06:03 -0600

Do you know the joke about the dyslexic, agnostic, insomniac?
He just lay awake at night wondering if there really was a dog!

The Best Road in the World

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 23:42:51 -0600

I've had a pretty busy day today. Yet the leitmotif of every encounter seemed to be yesterday's Top Gear episode wherein Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May drove an Aston Martin, a Ferrari and a Lamborghini through the windy curves of the Transfagarasan in Romania.

This is the You Tube bootleg version:

The thought that crossed my mind with pride seeing the footage was "I've been there. I've raced around those corners too! ... A Lamborghini would be nice..."

They also drove the cars through the underground parking lot of the Romanian parliament, Casa Poporului. You can find that on the Internet too but the funnier thing I'd like to show you is a transcript of the meeting in which they approved the filming of the show inside the parliament. You can find it in italics under Point 10 on the Top Gear Romania website.

Psycho Geek Humour

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 20:50:27 -0600

So, I'm in England. It's been an interesting start to the trip. I've got a lot to do and yet I find myself deciding that the best thing to write about is my sudden outburst of laughter, just 5 minutes ago, as I was reading this web comic:

Donald Knuth

Enjoy!

Off to Lincolnshire

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 19:29:53 -0600

It's that time of the year again (and not a moment too soon) when I pack my life in a couple of suitcases and head out to far away lands I have and have not visited in the past.

This time I'll start with a week in Lincolnshire. I'm heading off Saturday morning and I'm very much looking forward to seeing everyone again. The trip won't stop there but I'll be making a few stops to refuel (some even back in RO) and I might give everyone a heads up on my next port of call when I do, if I feel like it.

Godspeed!

On Death and Friendship

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 18:55:01 -0600

Somebody I didn't even know died today and the news of their untimely death made me unbelievably sad.

Perhaps I was so sad because she was so young and the young and innocent never deserve to die. Perhaps it was because she was so important to a very good friend of mine. After all, friendship is all about sharing... the good AND the bad.

Business Man's Halloween

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 19:55:51 -0600

I'd never taken the time to attend any Bucharest Halloween parties before. After all, it is an imported holiday based on a religious tradition without much of anything to do with Romanian culture, traditions or religions.

Friday morning I got a call from Madalina, who suggested we should attend a Halloween party later that night. With little time to plan, and a full extended work day ahead, my party outfit would have to be the result of imagination rather than the result of an extreme shopping spree.

As I was working on a revolutionary technology that would forever change the face of technology and mankind it struck me. I would dress up as a "business owner in times of financial crisis". The content of the outfit would be a dirty, ragged old yellowish white shirt, a dirty vest, livid corpselike skin, dark marks under my eyes, a noose around my neck and red ink around my slashed wrists.

Some of you will have probably already seen the pictures posted on Facebook on Saturday but the description above should provide you with the necessary clarification on the philosophical meaning of the costume.

Saturday night I became a repeat offender by attending the "End of the World Halloween Party 2".

Squire Deluxe Jazz Bass

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 12:22:31 -0600

After months of research and deliberation I finally went out and bought myself a bass electric guitar in the form of the Squire Deluxe Jazz Bass. There were so many things that needed considering, not least of which the significant aspect of price of a good bass guitar.

It finally took under two hours to tour the Bucharest music gear shops and it was in the end a decision simply based on brand and number of buttons. One has to admit that the buttons method is significantly better than the traditional choice model, reliant exclusively on colour.

Sound reasoning I'd say!

It's likely that Ibanez lost the battle to Squire also thanks to the MC Music shop assistant's presumptuous, disdainful, condescending and downright arrogant attitude towards the client (ME). Not that I'm one to get pissed off or hold a grudge over that kind of thing. :)

In a brief Sunday morning philosophical moment I realized the coolness of the Squire brand name. Squire being Fender's costeffective little brother, the medieval sense of squire as "a young nobleman attendant upon a knight and ranked next below a knight in feudal hierarchy" (source: TheFreeDictionary) puts it all under an even more customersatisfying light.

Here's to me and my new bass! May we pass many enjoyable moments together!

Susai Spa

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 23:43:33 -0500

As a final cherry on top of the long list of presents, that I received for my birthday this year, I got to spend 2 days at the Spa in Predeal, on the spot which was once (until recently) known as the Susai challet.

The changes which converted the old, little challet into a modern highclass spa center, in the space of 3 or 4 years were incredible. Imagine a swimming pool with a view towards the mountains on 3 sides built in such a way as to give you a warm comforting feeling as you take a swim while the rain outside turns the mountains into unbelievable scenery. All this next to the dry sauna, the wet sauna, the jacuzzi, the game room and the fitness room.

To make the experience even more unbelievable we had it all to ourselves. Talk about peace and quiet and relaxation!

To put a very personal touch on the trip amidst all this relaxation we took a 3 hour break to go mountain biking. It was a short 25 km ride to Azuga and back enjoying the landscape and burning the necessary 23000 kcal for the week.

I've added the map of the bike ride and the altitude profile to the appropriate page.

Also a short set of pictures from the spa is available on Facebook to give you an idea of the place. I almost managed to abstain from being in any of the photos. Just two got through.

Biking in the Night

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 21:09:38 -0500

As the sun was setting over our beautiful Prahova Valley we set off for a short mountain bike descent down an untried trail in the HTG. By the time we got to the starting point at Crucea Secariei the remains of the day were few and light was very scarce. As we left the main road and hit the trail the surrounding trees made everything seem darker still.

Unfortunately after the recent rains, the trail was more like a river than like a dirt road so we had a bit of trouble getting through the first part. Mud everywhere, water sent flying in all directions by our wheels and the last crumbs of daylight quickly vanishing over the horizon to make room for the inevitable night were the defining points of our 6 km trip.

The night had settled firmly in place by the time we got to the meeting point accross the street from the Club.

You can have a look at the map and altitude profile of the trail.

The Bucharest City Marathon

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 15:36:31 -0500

Sunday together with Ina, Cornel and Tudor I ran the relay race at the Bucharest City Marathon, as I said we would a while ago. We each ran one 10.548 km lap through the centre of Bucharest, more or less along the Dambovita river and around the House of the People.

Our goal was to finish the marathon in under 4 hours, which we did. In fact much to everyone's surprise, us included, we completed the race in 3:28:13. I was really astonished at my personal performance of 53:23, which was at least 5 minutes faster than any of my training session results.

The whole experience was a lot of fun. From the seniors race to the 7 Kenyans occupying all the first places we learned a lot about taking part in a marathon.

You can see more about the marathon and the results or you can have a look at the official results of the relay race or you can see some pictures posted to FaceBook.

The Authorized Service Center

Sat, 17 Oct 2009 05:57:03 -0500

I was initially planning to make this a well documented account of the facts to prove the malicious intent behind the events presented. Considering my limited availability of time I'm going to skip the documentation and cut to the chase.

A while ago we took one of our cars, the Ford Focus, to the Ford service center in Ploiesti for its periodical checkup. The car was found to have a problem with its steering that made it unreliable at speeds in excess of 100 km/h. We were told the entire steering needed to be replaced for an estimated cost of parts and labour around 8000 9000 lei (about 2000 EUR). Considering the car cost 7000 EUR to begin with this seemed a bit much.

Being the responsible individuals that we are we decided to ignore the issue until it became truly inconvenient. After all the car was ok at speeds under 100 km/h. As the car is due to make several long distance journies it was finally time to resolve things. Before doing so we decided to get a second opinion about the problem at the garage in Banesti where we resolve our more generic carrelated issues. They took a close look and gave us a very different diagnosis, involving bearings and a couple of other wheel components, giving us an estimate of 1200 1400 lei. The diagnosis was correct, the estimate was precise, the car is fixed, there are no more problems.

Taking this story to a few other Ford owners from Ploiesti and surrounding areas I was met by an avalanche of similar stories all related specifically to the Ford official dealer and service center in Ploiesti, Proleasing Motors. The imaginative ways in which the dedicated professionals at PLM find unnecessary, expensive repairs that absolutely need to be conducted on their clients' cars seem to be a frequently used tool in the company's business development toolkit.

Autism and Special Needs

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 18:37:28 -0500

One way or another this is something that has had an involvement in my life for the better part of the past 20 years. I honestly don't know why I never wrote about this before.

This week I was in Ploiesti for the EnglishRomanian seminar on "The importance of early intervention for the recovery of children with special needs". A large number of organizations came together to make the event possible and as always the main coordinator of the seminar was my mother. She's been involved in countless projects aimed at helping children with disabilities or in projects that have in one way or another contributed to the improvement of social services in Prahova county. I'm not going to go into more details about what could easily translate into a 10 000 page saga covering the past 17 years.

The important part in my opinion is that this week's seminar was a resounding success. The speakers from The Hesley Group in the UK did a great job in presenting ideas and procedures. Feedback we already have from social workers, specialists and parents of children with special needs is exceptional.

Although I only contributed to the organizational side of the event I'm very happy to have been involved.

The Bragger and the Story Teller

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 09:30:29 -0500

I was passively watching a majorly crappy movie on HBO at a very early hour of the morning, let's call it 5am. There was this character in the movie, a doctor who was a Harvard graduate, used to be in the military, worked as a male underwear model from time to time, went rock climbing, had an acrobatic flight license and went to Africa every summer as a volunteer for an organization looking after sick kids.

I'm going to mimic modesty and only imply the next part of my thoughts. As I was watching the movie I remembered something a good friend of mine told me recently:

"You know, in our 1st or 2nd year in university you used to tell stories all the time, just like you do now actually, and I always thought: this guy is unbelievable, how much can one person brag about himself?! Now after so many years I understand."

Just like those annoying people who insist on showing you their holiday photos, from their one month Scandinavian summer getaway, my stories about the many things I do must annoy people too. Actually, I'm also one of those annoying people who insist on showing their holiday photos. The truth is I don't do it just to show off "how cool I am compared to someone else". I do it because I find things I do very interesting and I feel compelled to share interesting things, knowledge and experience. Plus I REALLY do a LOT of things!

I've long noticed that some people ask me to tell stories and explain things on their own, others feel the need to respond with stories of similar interest (as if it were a contest) never actually listening to my stories except to evaluate their interestingness score and counterattack, and others just cut my stories short from the very beginning by expressing their lack of interest outright. I obviously love the first, prefer the latter and dislike the second approach.

To cut things short I guess my big question is: How annoying am I really?

Seaside Run

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 09:57:24 -0500

Taking advantage of a blitz business trip to Constanta, yesterday at lunch I took the time to do a bit of running. I ran the 10.66 km from the entrance into Mamaia to the end of the beach in Navodari in a little over one hour.

Running barefoot with the breeze in my face made the experience quite exceptional. Although most other people were wearing thick jackets and warm clothes the weather was just right for my running gear. I'm sure running the same track in the summer, through the overcrowded beaches and under the scorching sun would have been much less enjoyable.

You can see some photos of the run here and you can see the training report diagrams below.

Night of the AdEaters

Sat, 10 Oct 2009 03:37:49 -0500

We just finished going through some 6 hours of commercials at the Night of the AdEaters which happened again at Sala Polivalenta. It was fun.

I most enjoyed the Cadbury Goo commercials. You can see the top one, also the series finale, below:

To see all the Cadbury Goo ads you can go to their dedicated website at CremeEgg.com

IRIS is Back

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 10:03:45 -0500

Romanian legendary band IRIS came out for a performance last night after many months of absence. Doubts related to Cristi Minculescu, the band's signature vocalist's survival after this spring's operation and then doubts related to his recovery made this concert seem very unlikely for a very long time.

But, they're back. The concert surpassed all expectations. Take their longstanding appeal to the Romanian public and their 2 year absence and you've got the perfect mix for a resounding success.

For myself, being there brought back many fond memories. While I'm really not one of their most dedicated fans I do realize they're a significant part of my upbringing and they're coincidentally related to many important events of my high school years. I really enjoyed being there. Thanks for the initiative!

Shadows of Grey

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 20:35:27 -0500

We are taught that although "barba non facit philosophum" (roughly translated from Latin as "a beard does not make one a philosopher") grey hair is a sign of wisdom.

We live in an interesting time, one in which I see myself and my close, dynamic, industrious friends flooded with problems. I look in the mirror and I look at my friends and I see the hairs on our heads turning to grey little by little. With every obstacle that faces us, with every problem we surpass we become greyer and greyer. Yes, the more we do, the more we learn, the wiser we become!

I still call it stress not wisdom and I wonder. I wonder, is the stress that makes us grey really necessary on the path to wisdom? Is there no other way to make us wise?

10.5 Kilometers per Hour

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 15:09:42 -0500

Last night I ran the 10.5 km I'm due for the Bucharest City Marathon together with my two current teammates for the first time. It was extraordinary! Just as the GPS tracker was telling us an hour had passed we crossed the 10.52 km marker.

I can't stress the fact that running isn't really my sport enough times. I am very proud of my performance, although I realized I am indeed the weakest link. However there's always the bright side of things, which in this case is that I didn't die after running 10 km.

Thank you, Cornel, for pacing yourself to encourage me!

All that remains is to keep training and training and training!

On Your Marks, Get Set, RUN!

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 16:02:41 -0500

Last night I officially started training for the Bucharest City Marathon. It would normally be a bit late to start but fortunately me and my team mates will be competing in the relay marathon, running a mere 10 km each.

As running really isn't my sport I've been doing a bit of reading. Yesterday I also bought myself two identical pairs of proper running shoes. I plan to rotate these two pairs until the day of the marathon in order to get myself well accustomed to them and them to me.

My first training involved a 4.5 km run to and through Herastrau park which went very encouragingly.

Parov Stelar

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 00:25:35 -0500

Around 1am I was dragged out of the house by a dear good friend of mine to Kristal Club for the Parov Stelar Band concert. I had listened to the samples Cipri sent me the day before but I was only moderately impressed.

The truth is this is another one of those bands which are really worth seeing in a live performance. It was really good and I'm back to work at 3am. Thanks for the break, Cipri!

Grateful to Bucharest

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 21:25:08 -0500

Many moons ago, eons even, I was perhaps about 14 years old, I remember coming to Bucharest once with the main purpose of rollerskating in Herastrau park.

Now, 25.9 years old, after a long day's work, following a long night's party, I have the benefit of being able to clear my head at 11pm on a Friday evening with 15 km of Herastrau rollerskating.

Now, I realize full well that had I been in Vienna this would be impossible as the parks are closed at night. Had I been in Rome the parks would probably be quite unsafe. Had I been in many other places it would certainly be far less enjoyable.

Here's to Bucharest!

Omu - Valea Cerbului

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 23:54:24 -0500

Today we took the flag to the 2507 meter tall Omu peak in the Bucegi Massif (EN: Omu = The Man). Instead of climbing for 4 hours to reach the plateau we took the cable car at 9 am. It was then only one hour and a half to reach the summit and take the flag to the very top of the rock which is the Omu summit. It then took us 5 hours to make our way down through Valea Cerbului, cut through the woods towards the alpine refuge and finally reach Busteni.

There was a yellow code weather alert announcing heavy rains for the day. Fortunately, the weather was beautifully sunny while we were atop the plateau and throughout our descent through the spectacular glacial valley under the summit. Once in the woods at the foot of the mountain the weather forecast made true on its promise. It rained and then it poured.

My equipment for the day included my new hunting knife, acquired in Litochoro at the foot of Mount Olympus after last month's climb. I also had the new Vodafone Mobile Broadband Hotspot with me, which I carried to the top of the mountain in order to test the network's data connectivity speed. I also had the usual smartphone and a couple of other techie gadgets, but those first two items in particular earned me the nickname of "RamboGates", "R.G." for my friends :).

Photos of the trip can be seen in my Omu, Valea Cerbului September 2009 album on Facebook.

Bathroom Archery

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 21:49:41 -0500

It was a beautiful weekday morning, like any of the other 260 weekdays of the year, and in the house everything was peaceful and silent. So, I decided to put my newly acquired archery target to good use and put an end to the peace and the silence. The video should be more than enough of an explanation of what followed.

This video has been running on FaceBook for a couple of days now and has already raised a great deal of controversy.You can read up on the many comments on the FaceBook Bathroom Archery thread (might require signing up) or ask any questions here.

Madonna's Gipsies

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 18:55:16 -0500

We went to the Madonna concert in Bucharest on Wednesday evening. The show was quite spectacular, as was to be expected of her, unfortunately there were many things about the organization of the event that were off and were very detrimental to the overall quality of the concert.

But that's not what I want to talk about. The buzz of the hour is the fact that Madonna decided to stop her concert midway to bring to our attention the fact that "there is a lot of discrimination against rroma gipsies in eastern Europe". The statement was met by an uproar of boos and whistling from much of the 70000strong crowd.

You can read pro and con comments on many websites across the Internet. I will give you one link to The Hollywood Gossip which provides some examples of these comments.

Now, my opinion on the matter is probably not as extreme as that of some of my fellow nationals. Yes, Madonna had no business advising us on an issue she doesn't have enough information about. Madonna's gipsies are probably not the same gipsies we know over here in Romania. On the other hand there is a gipsy problem, a problem with gipsies, a problem of gipsies, and bringing this to the attention of the public is better done by a very well known public figure.

LATER EDIT (01.09.2009): The selfproclaimed king of all gipsies has announced that he plans to send Madonna a "diploma of excellency" in thanks for her statement in support of his fellow nationals. I think this should do, no more bad things need to be said about her by anyone :)

Two Spark Plug Sightseeing

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 07:31:48 -0500

When it comes to this weekend I should be talking about discovering a beautiful beach at Rusalka in Bulgaria, or revisiting the ancient city of Kalyakra, or about the "Cozonac" cocktail I was introduced to in Vama Veche, or the Class 1 Romanian Power Boat Grand Prix.

Instead, as fate will have it, I will have to talk about my car breaking down. As I was moving base camp from Vama Veche to my home in Constanta a little light came up on the dashboard letting me know I was having engine problems. I recognized the symptoms and realized one of three spark plugs in my Fabia's little 1.2 engine wasn't working anymore. It was Sunday. What followed was a lot of effort trying to put together the necessary tools to change a spark plug... on a Sunday evening.

Early Monday morning I changed the spark plug only to realize it was not the spark plug but probably something in the electronics connected to it. Thus, half of Monday went by with me trying to get a spot for my car in the Skoda service que in Constanta... to no avail. I then decided I would drive the 320 km from Constanta to Comarnic with 2/3 of the engine working in order to take it to its usual garage. The car was practically working like a Trabant. Bogdan and Costin who assisted me throughout the entire process kept making jokes about removing another spark plug so that it would work like a "drujba" (EN: chainsaw).

I got home after about 9 hours, including two very long breaks. Most of the time I drove at about 80 kph keeping the engine at 2500 rpm. The top speed the car was still able to develop was about 110 kph. Essentially the only problem was that accelerating from 0 to 100 took about 1 minute. Overtaking was rarely an option.

Driving slowly and calmly did give me the opportunity to admire the scenery. I've driven down that road hundreds of times but never as calmly.

Mount Olympus - Climbing Mitikas

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 17:05:13 -0500

My story should begin with "Mitikas, the highest peak on Mount Olympus, was first conquered on August 3rd, 1913...". Hold on! 1913? What, they were busy doing something else and didn't have time before that? Read on and find out why.

After hastily securing resources for the climb locally on Saturday, 7:15am Sunday morning found me in Prionia (1100m) at the end of the road leading into the Mount Olympus national park. As I was alone I was determined to find climbing partners locally as the Mount Olympus path is reputed to be a very busy one. Its reputation came through. As soon as I started (around 7:30am) I teamed up with Ilias and Angelo, two Greek guys from Larissa planning to go much the same way as I did.

3.5 hours later we were arriving at Spilios Agapitos Refuge A (2100m). We talked to the people who were already there, Lithuanians, Estonians, Ukranians, Israelians, New Zeelanders, many of whom had attempted the climb the day before, to get updated information on the weather and on recommended routes. Weather conditions were less than perfect, the top was shrouded by heavy fog and it had rained till 5:00am, so there was nothing to do but wait. We had lunch and we slept for about an hour in the mess hall of the refuge.

A couple of notes on what a refuge means on Mount Olympus: Refuge A was actually a fully equiped challet, with kitchen, reception desk and souvenir shop. Had we been there 24 hours earlier spending the night would have been impossible without a reservation.

At 1:30pm, better news on the weather at the top was starting to come in so, we decided to have a go at it. Our chosen route would take us to the Skala summit (2866m) and then through Kakoskala (the bad ladder) to Mitikas (2918m). Along the way to Skala Ilias started to feel increasingly tired so I left my two Greek colleagues behind in order to save my own strength. I arrived at the top of Skala just before 4:00pm and waited for Ilias and Angelo to catch up for about an hour. When they arrived at Skala Ilias did not have the physical strength needed to continue so we decided he would head back to Refuge A and Angelo and I would continue. 20 minutes later the difficulty of the terrain broke Angelo's resolve, as he remained stuck on a ledge, so he decided to head back as well. I decided I was too far gone not to finish what I started so I carried on by myself.

I swiftly crossed the Kakoskala and was at the top of Mitikas at precisely 5:30pm. It was very late so I was most likely the last person to make it to the top on Sunday. 10 hours had passed since I left Prionia, of which about 3.5 hours were breaks.

Crossing the Kakoskala gave me the opportunity to experience some of the most impressive sights I have ever seen and strong eerie feelings, created by a combination of the extreme heights and the fog surrounding everything and dancing around me. As you climb up and down the narrow path and the stairlike rocks of the Kakoskala the wall to the left opens up in several spots onto a straight 500 metre drop towards Kazania, a giant caldera said to be the home of the God Hephaistos in ancient Greek mythology. The path is marked by very dense yellow and red markings but following it is still less than obvious in a few places. It just seems to end in thin air and you only understand where you need to go if you lean out and look around the rock and into the next seemingly unsurpasable void. They didn't conquer this peak until 1913 because it was DIFFICULT!

At the top I signed the log book and took pictures for 30 minutes. I was planning to descend from the top via the alternate path named Louki but as I did not find the start of the path and it was marked as being even more difficult than Kakoskala I had to double back.

My aim was to arrive at the Giosos Apostolidis Refuge SEO (2700m) before sunset. Knowing the route through Louki to the refuge was estimated at 3 hours, and knowing I was taking the longer way down I had to find ways to cut down on my hiking time. I found a shortcut leading from the Kakoskala onto the Zonaria path and followed the Zonaria around another huge caldera to the SEO refuge. It proved to be an excellent choice as my total travelling time from Mitikas to SEO refuge was less than 2 hours.

I enjoyed the sunset resting my feet on the porch of the SEO refuge and looking out towards the Mouson Plateau and the Christos Kakalos Refuge C, less than 1/2km away. There were only 6 guests and 2 staff spending the night at the refuge. I had dinner, tried the local wine, followed a conversation in Greek between the rest of the guests about first aid techniques and went to bed. Best sleep I've had this year.

I woke up at 7:50am on Monday morning without the alarm. I started the day by climbing to the little stone church at Prophitis Ilias (2803m).

At 9:25am I started on the 18km path leading from Refuge SEO (2700m) to Gortsia (900m) were I was planning to be picked up. As I was crossing the Mouson plateau I ran into a large group of mountain goats, who posed for me for a few brief moments. The top of the mountain was foggy for most of the time. Without the fog I expect the sharp edge at Lemos provides some pretty extreme scenery.

Just as I was approaching the top of the Pyrgos peak (2485m) I crossed paths with the mule caravan taking supplies up to refuge C and refuge SEO. I encountered an unattended herd of sheep, dogs, birds and lizards. At 1:30pm, after only 4 hours I arrived at Gortsia where I was greeted by my very happy Mother.

We spent the rest of the day visiting Agios Dyonisios, Litochoro, Panteleimonas, Platamonas...

LATER EDIT: You can see over 80 pictures from the climb here

A few words of advice for wouldbe future climbers:

Greek people don't know a lot about hiking, many don't even know you can hike up to Mitikas. If you ask for information they will try to be helpful by telling you something, anything.

All the information you need to hike can be found on the Website of the Management Agency of Olympus National Park.

You should have a map with you. You can buy a 1:25000 map in Litochoro for 8 EUR but the one on the National Park website is better. You can download it straight from them by clicking here.

If your balls are really so big they don't fit in any of your pants anymore and you have to use Louki as an access route to Mitikas you should go up Louki and down Kakoskala.

There is almost no phone signal on the entire mountain. I had maybe 30 minutes of weak phone reception on the entire trip on the Cosmote network. It was barely enough to send a few SMSes.

Should anyone actually want to hike up Mitikas after reading this you should contact me either by email or through the Contact page. I might be able to help.

Drinkable Water

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 09:58:22 -0500

I remember reading reports when I was younger about organizations that were digging wells in Africa. I always imagined that those wells were necessary because people didn't have water at all or it was very hard to come by. They were emphasizing the wells as being a vital project for Africa, which considering my understanding of the issue seemed obvious: you have no water you die.

While still being far from the actual places that those reports were referring to, North Africa did a good job at teaching me that the situation is slightly more complicated. It's not that there wasn't any water at all but rather that the quality of the existing water sources left a lot to be desired. After all, had there been no water at all people in those regions of Africa would have died long before some international organization got around to getting the idea that they needed to dig wells.

A couple of days ago I trustfully drank water out of a bottle that had been tampered with. Nothing much in the way of tampering, the content had been simply replaced or mixed with tap water. The results were incredibly unpleasant. I understood that the huge problem in Africa is not the lack of water resulting in death but rather the existence of bad water sources resulting in sickness which then in turn result in drastically reduced life expectancy across the board.

Un dia y media en Madrid

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 09:58:40 -0500

After a reasonably enjoyable flying experience from Bucharest Otopeni to Madrid Barajas I took the metro and checked in only to find my room to be better and closer to the attractions of the city than I could have ever hoped for.

In the 6 hours that followed, thanks to Oana, who will surely make an extraordinary tourist guide one day, I was able to see everything. It felt like everything, anyway. Madrid is only a short walk from one end of the historical center to the other. We went from Plaza d'Espana to the Temple of Debod and then onward through the city passing Plaza del Sol, Plaza Mayor, various churches and cathedrals, the Chamber of Deputies, the Casa de Americas, the National Bank of Spain and then into the Parque del Retiro.

After finishing my daytime tour and letting Oana return to her business I went back to roaming the streets of the city under the stars in order to take some long exposure photos of some of the historical buildings. It was very interesting to observe the Romanians working the streets of Madrid, doing various jobs I don't much care to go into details about as they're not really the kind to make you proud of being Romanian. I met and talked to a variety of people from all walks of life and very many, different countries. More notably Anita from Uruguay who joined me for part of my nocturnal sightseeing tour.

Day 2 saw me waking up incredibly early to take care of some overdue emails. I then visited the Prado museum with its medieval and renaissance art, the Reina Sofia with its much more modern Picasso and Dali and, just as they were preparing to close for the day, the royal palace of king Juan Carlos and its ceremonial halls. These three little things took all day. They were some of the most impressive museums I've ever seen.

Meeting up with Oana again at 8 pm I received an introduction to local food and the meaning of a Museum de Jamon (EN: "Museum of Ham" or something along those lines). I tried the local wine, I tried the sangria... and I saw that they are good.

To sum it all up Madrid was an interesting experience, one for which my 40 hours were enough. Peoplewise Madrid is very nice as it is very easy to interact with complete strangers anywhere. Spanish people don't speak much English but fortunately I do understand plenty of Spanish. The meaning of "internet access" leaves a bit to be desired both where I stayed and in the city's restaurants in general.

There's plenty left to see on a potential future visit. Also, setting up base in Madrid and taking tours to other cities around it (i.e. Toledo, Aranjuez) looks like a very enticing idea.

The Storyteller's House (Day 1)

Sat, 11 Jul 2009 21:37:30 -0500

Day one of my 2009 GrandParent RoadTrip began with a 300 km drive from Comarnic to Piatra Neamt. There we had lunch at the Colibele Haiducilor restaurant (EN: �Hoods' Huts�) and took the local �gondola� to the top of the local hill. More notably we managed to get Grandma on the gondola as well.

Driving further up north we arrived in the area of Targu Neamt where most of our objectives for the day were located. First stop was the house of Romanian children's tales writer Ion Creanga, hence the name of the post. I was very happy to finally visit those places that contributed to creating some of the best stories I'd read and heard as a child. I was also pleased to find that everything was in very good condition and to meet an enthusiastic guide who helped us with very many details concerning the remainder of our objectives.

Based on the guide's indications we took a slight detour to visit Cetatea Neamtului, recently restored and full of history. This was our first unplanned bonus achievement of the trip. It was indeed great to see one of the most important medieval Moldavian fortresses shining in the sun reminding us of its glory of old.

We had three monasteries in our plan, Agapia, Varatec and Neamt. We visited all of them in close succession and we were duely rewarded for our effort with amazing sights and historyfilled places. A short walk away from the Varatec Monastery, in the yard of the village church, we visited the grave of Veronica Micle (famous lover of Romanian national poet Mihai Eminescu). Another bonus objective that we just narrowly missed was the Bogdan Voda zoo, very close to the Neamt Monastery, which hosts some of the remaining ancient inhabitants of these Moldavian lands, the buffalolike �zimbri�. It closes at 6 pm.

Nightfall caught us en route to Suceava where we stopped to spend the night at an amazing B&B called Brandusa. Great sleep, great food, exceptional people.

Day one totals:

1 gondola trip

1 memorial house

1 medieval fortress

3 monasteries

2 restaurants

570 km

Romanian Monasteries

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 21:43:54 -0500

If you were wondering why I've disappeared off my blog over the past 10 days know that I was simply very, very busy. At a time when many people leave the office to go on holiday or wind down their activity due to the summer heat I was busy, busy, busy working to set everything in order before setting off for the yearly roadtrip with the grandparents.

This year, we're targeting the monasteries in Bucovina. We have a map, a list and 4 days to go through it all. The map is in the enclosed picture. The list includes some of those all time favourites we've all heard of in school like Agapia, Putna or Voronet. Plans C & D will take us into Maramures if we make good time in Bucovina to see more traditional Romanian architecture.

Day 4 will be reserved to pure road tripping through some of Romania's most beautiful scenery, in the mountains between Moldavia and Transylvania, from Vatra Dornei to Bicaz, through Cheile Bicazului and back down towards Miercurea Ciuc and the sources of the Mures river.

I'm looking forward to the trip and its 1400 km drive. I'll keep you posted as things move along.

I Like Movies

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 21:21:01 -0500

I was watching TVR2 one of these early mornings. Yes, somebody does watch that TV channel. Yes, I am their 0.01 rating points.

Anyway, there was a very short piece on Atlas about Akira Kurosawa. This suddenly reminded me I still owe Tarkovsky 3 hours of my time to finish watching Solaris. Just in case I would forget again the 10 o'clock movie on PRO Cinema today was "Seven Samurais", not the Kurosawa one but a modern copy.

Berfore this turns into another James Joyce blog post I will get to the point, or closer to it. I am often asked why I go to the cinema so often, while at the same time I watch very little TV.

I like good stories. Movies are just one form of manifestation of these stories. I especially like it when stories are told well, so I favour good movies with good stories over poor movies with equally good stories.

To better understand I will give you a list of directors for recommended watching:

Akira Kurosawa
Andrei Tarkovsky
Ingmar Bergman
Federico Fellini
Bernardo Bertolucci
Steven Spielberg
George Lucas

Watch anything from these guys, not just the famous ones.

The enclosed picture is of Akira Kurosawa since he started all this chain of thought.

A Time for Showers

Sun, 28 Jun 2009 08:52:38 -0500

My day began at 6 am with a nice refreshing shower to wash off the dirt from yesterday's biking.

We then went on to do our little biking run through the mountains where it rained and rained and rained and there was mud and mud and mud. Obviously, upon our return I took another shower to bring myself back to usable condition. So, that's two showers, or twenty showers if you want to count the many rain showers on the mountain top as well.

I was expecting the rest of the day to be fairly slow and I was very happy with my clean new self. Then, a phone call came and 7 pm saw us leaving for an early evening onroad downhill run. Nothing complicated, they're usually no sweat and don't involve much dirt. Everything was going according to plan until my front discbreak failed in a curve on the second descent. I fell flat on the tarmac and slid over the side of the road. Now, my bike armour saved me again, but some parts just weren't covered so they got a bit cut and bruised. I also had the misfortune to encounter a little glass shard that cut through my glove. Naturally, I got a bit dirty... and bloody.

When I got back home it was time to have me patched up so the first order of business was to clean my wounds. As they were fairly many and widely distributed on my body it took another shower to fix the problem.

Now, battered, bruised, washed up and disinfected I'm preparing to go out clubbing and we all know what needs to be done after a night out.

I lost count.

Mozart Rocks!

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 05:58:23 -0500

Gosh, I don't think I've given anything a bad review in centuries. My policy generally states that if something is bad it's probably not worth bothering to write about it anyway. I'm probably writing this because it wasn't all bad and perhaps some constructive feedback might help future repetitions of the event. Here goes:

Last night we went to a concert called "Mozart Rocks". The whole idea of this concert was to put together a symphonic orchestra with one or two electric guitars and prove rock music and symphony can coexist peacefully. Now, we already knew this to be true thanks to an "obscure" little band called Metallica and their equally obscure album, "S & M" (a.k.a. Symphony and Metallica).

Firstly, the concert should have actually been called "Mozart Rocks and so do many other composers". While they could have probably gotten away with passing Bach and Beethoven for Mozart, Vivaldi's Concerto No. 1 in E major, Op. 8, a.k.a. "Spring from the Four Seasons", was bound to give them away. Yes, yes, I know they needed a catchy title and "Mozart Rocks!" was that catchy title.

Next. It is my belief that putting 8 solo rock guitarists on the same stage all at once is a recipe for disaster. Call me crazy.

Symphonic concerts usually benefit from highly skilled, well trained sound engineers. Various parts of this concert benefited from an incessant buzzing, hissing or other type of lovely background noise. I can still hear the buzzing.

It is commonly believed that "guitarists are hotheaded punks who can't stick to the program if their lives depend on it". This seemed true for at least one of the guitarists. I don't know if he was sticking to the actual arrangement and the arrangement was bad or if it was a mild case of ADD that prevented him from playing WITH the orchestra but it didn't come out to good. If you were there I'm talking about the 3rd guy to come on stage, the one dressed like a waiter. I'm not going to name names.

Enough being mean.

I really enjoyed some of the bits and all hats really do come off to Cezar Popescu, Calin Grigoriu and Horea Crisovan, the latter featured in this video:

Altogether it was a commendable effort. You sort out my list of requests, especially the sound problem, and I just might be there again next year.

Prototype Colour Code Conversion

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 06:50:09 -0500

Based on a question from a client I took on the simple task of creating a little application that would convert RGB colour codes to HEX and viceversa. While the complexity or the glamour of the project weren't much it makes a very good javascript learning starting point.

You can see the end result and some explanations here:

http://www.christian.nasulea.ro/colourconverter/

Let none say I don't like to share the knowledge.

Romanian Sounds Funny

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 07:14:15 -0500

I recently read this little piece in a Romanian online newspaper about a BBC TV Show in the UK making fun of a couple of words in Romanian that were coming out of a Sat Nav. This is an extract from the TV show in question:

To me it's perhaps not as funny as it is for some of you English speaking folk, but the laughter is quite contagious nevertheless.

In response to that all I can say is:

Dictionary.com word of the day June 23rd, 2009

pule: to whimper; to whine.

How I Did It!

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 08:20:12 -0500

My recent past is dotted with strange, complex conditions which have lead to my needing to go to the doctoral school macroeconomics exam more than once. Whether it was due to acts of God, strong emotional trauma, chains of workforce incompetence or decisions to crash production on critical projects that could not be postponed, every time it meant I did not stand a chance to pass.

I had previously tried to pass the exam through a few of the classic methods like "ignoring it in hopes it would go away" or "relying on nothing but luck". This time around I decided to do things differently.

I got help from an exam passing specialist.
I studied.

Then, on the day before the exam, fed up with everything I had to put up with (study), I decided to give up on the rest of my exam preparation habits as well.

In the evening I went to the Gogol Bordello concert in Herastrau Park. There I listened to this song and had my revelation.

I now knew exactly what I had to do.

By the end of the day I had ingested about 2l of Cola and 0.5l of Red Bull. Around midnight I had a bite to eat at McD's (after a long chain of KFC, Burger King and other similar stuff all week). I then went on to stay up for the rest of the night and look at a couple more macro models.

Around 6 am I took a shower and put on a purple shirt, jeans and heelys instead of the usual suit and tie.

It all worked out perfectly!

Some of you might have missed the subtleties of my exam passing methods and will be asking yourselves "what exactly worked". In this case there's probably no point reading the post again as I believe the lesson to be drawn from this comes less from my words and more from within.

Plaiul Foii

Sun, 21 Jun 2009 23:04:20 -0500

On Friday, based on Claudia's invitation to join an already established group and enjoy a good time in the mountains, I changed plans (and mountains) and talked my crew into going to Plaiul Foii and Piatra Craiului instead of Comarnic and Baiu.

We arrived there, dead tired, fairly early on Saturday morning and started hiking soon after. We were heading towards the La Om peak (2238m), hoping we would be able to reach the summit in good time, in order to be able to make it back well before nightfall and in time for the barbecue.

Despite the perfect day and perfect weather we eventually had to abort because the trail was unfit for the aggregate skill level of our group. Following the teachings of that sane, old principle which says "we start together, we come back together" we made our way back to home base very, very early. We aborted just above the place called "La Zaplaz" around 1700m, our home base at 7 Crai being just above 860 m high.

Another time, perhaps...

Overall our weekend was exceptional. Saturday night we had a good game of charades, good barbecue, good wine and great company.

The TTS for this weekend was without a doubt Gogol Bordello Imigrant Punk

Sunday morning came too early, as usual. Before heading off I had enough time to play a bit of guitar while the others were playing cards, and chill in the sun in the process.

Although I did not take my bikes with me this time, I still managed to come back with 3 bikes on my roof rack as I offered to bring Laura, Alex and Silviu's "steeds" back to Bucharest in order to cut down on their travel time.

Some photos of the hike can be seen on Facebook.

Gogol Bordello

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 23:49:05 -0500

When it comes to doing things right it's tremendously important who you rely on in order to get results. I believe this is true in every field. I also believe there are people who are so good at doing what they do that they deliver every time, anytime, no matter the circumstances.

Let's take my concertgoing buddies for example. They said: "let's go see Gogol Bordello". I am now firmly convinced that, while being much more sapient with regards to music than I am, they were still very far from knowing exactly what we were getting into. They probably just had the "hunch" that told them this was a must see. And see we did...

The video is from a performance by Gogol Bordello on the David Letterman show in 2007. It's very far from doing them justice. I don't even think this is a story that can be told in words. You just had to be there to witness the Clejani Taraf performing together with Gogol Bordello in the second encore to understand.

Forced Labour, Penitentiaries and GCs

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 02:02:56 -0500

We went Geocaching on the outskirts of Bucharest today. After a bit of offroad driving in a field near the Mihailesti lake we found the first cache within 5 minutes of arriving on the scene.

Minutes later, somebody in our group (I'm not saying who) slipped into a sewage canal... in a very spectacular manner. The event just brightened everyone's day. Jokes and stories WILL be told for years to come.

We weren't as lucky with our second geocache attempt. We took the instructions to the letter and searched the railway near the Jilava penitentiary for over an hour. It didn't seem worth looking elsewhere as the area was full of trash.

Looking for this cache I think I understood a bit about what forced labour must have been like for those imprisoned politically in communist times. Standing bottom up in the afternoon sun, plus the disappointment of not finding the cache, made up a pretty clear cut image of a life lesson. I don't know if that was actually the point of the exercise.

Your Car and Your Wife

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 02:07:03 -0500

It seems to be a particularly slow season for blog posts. To show I'm not dead, just busy, I will let one slip from the private archives.

As a kid I remember hearing grown ups say stuff like "you never lend your car and your wife to anyone". Please allow me to call "bullcrap" to that! I mean the first part about the car, not the second part about the wife.

You mean to say that I should not give my car to a friend who needs to use it, even if I don't need to use it myself at that particular time? To make things more clear, we are talking perhaps about one of those friends I recurrently entrust my life to as we are hiking up some perilous ravine on a God forsaken mountain side. So what, they're good enough to hold the line that separates my life from death but not good enough to drive my car?

Yes, you might say, but what if they don't care for it as much as you do and do something stupid when driving and crash it? Most unfortunate indeed, I will say, hoping that no matter the state of the car, my friend will be ok. For a car is just metal and plastic and glass, and can be fixed or replaced, but a friend is meat and blood and feelings for you, difficult to fix and unlikely to be found again.

I guess, this is a good example of the kind of ideological divide that separates some people from some other people. On one hand we have older generations, for which a car was a valuable possession and status symbol which took years of work to achieve, and on the other hand we have my generation, for which a car is a consumable you change every couple of years.

Generation gap aside, there's also that breed of man who puts his wife and his car on the same level of value, whom I think this proverb should originally be credited to. I've just remembered a couple of people I've heard using the quote, and I shan't mention any of them as I realize not all have their age as an excuse.

Just another ranting, of debatable utility, from the periphery of my brain, on a late night drive through the carfilled streets of Bucharest.

Babele - Cuibu Dorului Mountain Biking

Sun, 07 Jun 2009 05:37:31 -0500

I had been meaning to go mountain biking on the Bucegi plateau for a long time but I never imagined it could be this much fun. Because I am really short on time I will just give you a log of Saturday's events.

7:53 am bikes and equipment loaded on car ready to go
8:27 am arrival at base cable car station in Busteni
9:00 am ready for departure on top of the plateau at 2170 m altitude
10:17 am fell off my bike, headfirst, into a ditch. Thank you, 661!
10:30 am found my 14th geocache 7.7 km south of Babele at 1665 m altitude
11:55 am begining descent from the Bolboci crossroad.
12:21 pm Ionut popped both tyres on the last run before Cuibu Dorului
12:32 pm continuing on my own on the road towards Sinaia
1:02 pm short break in the park in Sinaia
1:23 pm found a place to leave my bike while I go to Busteni to recover my car
1:56 pm back in the car, heading back to recover my bike and Ionut
2:31 pm found Ionut in Sinaia almost done fixing the tyres
2:56 pm bikes and equipment loaded on car
3:19 pm back home

The round trip was about 42 km in total. Of these I did about 30 on my bike, 4 by cable car and the rest by car from Sinaia to Busteni to recover my car. I did not count the morning trip to Busteni or the trip back from Busteni to Sinaia after recovering the car. You can see exactly what's included by looking at the map of the trip.

The altitude difference was 1391 m, between 2170 m and 779 m. The whole trip was mostly downhill as you can see on the altitude profile of the trip.

Some photos can be seen in the Babele Mountain Bike Portfolio photo album although they aren't necessarily very relevant to the trip itself.

Geocaching Sunday

Mon, 01 Jun 2009 12:41:56 -0500

We had planned to hike up to the Bucegi plateau on Sunday but, after 2 days of heavy rains in our area and 30 fresh centimeters of snow on the mountain top, yesterday morning found us looking at plan B, C, D... and so on. We finally decided on an activity that would keep us below 1400 m altitude. If you look at this news report you will see we were probably wise where others were not.

So, we set off to do some Geocaching in the area, looking for those moderately accessible caches that we would have probably ignored on any other day.

With a good mix of hikers, meaning myself, Dea, Hapa and Quicksilver (I have to get myself a callsign, all the cool kids have them), we found the first one within the 1st hour or so. Having turned the new guys into believers, who now knew geocaches DO exist, we turned our attention to the next one. It was all very good fun, despite the tons of mud left over after two days of rain.

We already felt pretty successfull as we'd found two geocaches fairly quickly so we decided there was still time for another one. To make things more interesting we decided to hike for 34 km up to the 3rd one instead of taking advantage of the fact that it was car accessible via forest dirt road. All was good and well as we entered the clearing where the cache was hidden. The GPS read 412 m to target as its battery died. We had nothing but an aproximate heading and a very big distance so despite our efforts to make use of maps, compasses and traditional means of orientation, the search for our 3rd geocache proved fruitless.

Despite our failure to find the last cache we were feeling quite happy with all the cardio workout we got and with everything we'd seen. We spent a few more minutes in the clearing, taking another hundred pictures and we made our way back to the car we had left in town near the Sinaia monastery.

A great day all in all, one that I look forward to repeat.

Photos from the day via Facebook can be seen in my Geocaching Sunday album.

The picture associated with this post is an HDR generated photo of the Caraiman cross taken from Poiana Stanii.

New Boots

Thu, 28 May 2009 01:32:39 -0500

Now, from my point of view, these aren't just shoes, they are tools, very specific tools for a very specific job.

One of my extreme sports, I'm not saying which one, requires some serious ankle reinforcement to keep the old moving apparatus in working condition.

One of my good friends, I'm not saying which one, got me a pair of these highly specialized boots. Developed for something pretty different from what I have in mind for them they're sort of complicated to come by in day to day life.

While I don't want to bother anyone with scores of exulting praises to the exceptional characteristics of my new boots, I'm enthusiastic enough to write this post thus thanking, my friend and all those who made my having them possible, once again.

Sweet Day

Thu, 28 May 2009 00:28:11 -0500

Let's examine my menu for yesterday, just for fun's sake.

7:30 am Breakfast Frosted Shreddies... with milk
1:00 pm Lunch Double sized Snickers
5:30 pm Tea Half a Snickers
7:00 pm Dinner Rice pudding
9:00 pm Dinner 2 Papanasi
2:00 am Milk and cake (Cozonac)

So, in addition to my healthy sleeping habits (NOT) and my addiction to taurine I've now had an entire day of the most balanced diet you can imagine... sweets only.

The Prince of Japan in Comarnic

Wed, 27 May 2009 23:43:13 -0500

There was a rumour in town last Saturday that some Japanese officials visited a sheep farm in Comarnic, that we routinely pass by on our biking trips. It turns out the rumour was true. The Japanese official turns out to be the prince of Japan and his wife.

Video of the news report about the visit:

REALITATEA.NET Prinţul Japoniei şi soţia sa au vizitat o st�nă din Comarnic

Thank you, Roxana, for sending me the link to the video.

Angels and Demons

Thu, 21 May 2009 00:43:19 -0500

Tonight we saw Angels and Demons. It was a very nice puzzlebased conspiracy theory type movie bringing together a Dan Brown book as the basis, Ron Howard's direction and Tom Hanks' acting.

The most notable quote related to this movie does not belong to either Dan Brown or Ron Howard or whomever wrote the screenplay. In fact it belongs to Madalina. As Cardinal Strauss was telling Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) "When you write about us, and you will write about us...." Madalina promptly completed the sentence by saying "remember that's Baggia with 2 g's". The original quote was "When you write about us, and you will, do so gently".

I know it's one of those things where you had to be there but to us it was so hilarious it turned yet another "serious" movie into a comedy fest.

DynamoS'olidaire Downhill

Wed, 20 May 2009 14:11:01 -0500

Yesterday, after going through the meetings of the day and a bit of R&R to recover from Sunday's adventure, we decided to show our French crosscontinent biking friends what we do for fun with our bicycles. So we took Tanguy and Sylvain for a little onroad downhill ride.

Costin drove us and our bikes to the top of 3 hills and we just let go of our brakes and zoomed down the winding mountain roads.

Top speed was about 70 km/h. We all wore our helmets so I guess you can just call it "nice clean fun" on a Monday afternoon.

LATER EDIT: "we just let go of our brakes" should be read "at times I was braking so hard I nearly set the brake discs on fire" as I was still scared $#!tless after a near miss fall on the same road 3 weeks ago. Oh... and besides the helmet I was also in full body armour... as usual.

Just felt the need to come clean. :)

Facebook Photo Gallery of DynamoS'olidaire Downhill

DynamoS'olidaire Hiking

Tue, 19 May 2009 12:31:57 -0500

At the begining of April 3 guys left France, on their bikes, intent on reaching India by way of Russia and Mongolia. Their path through Europe lead them through Romania and the Prahova Valley. I got word of their itinerary and linked up with Tanguy, Sylvain and Loic a week ago while they were still in Timisoara. After the guys had a rock climbing day on Saturday at Tamina we met up with them at 9 o'clock on Sunday morning in Busteni to take them hiking.

So on we went, 3 French (listed above), 1 Serbian (Dea) and 1 Romanian (Me), up the Jepii Mici to the Caraiman chalet and then up to the top of the Bucegi plateau to see Babele and the Sphinx. The weather changed so much and so fast it made us all change more outfits than a Godmother at a Moldavian wedding. It was hot, it was cold, it was sunny and it rained, it was clear, it was foggy. When we got to the top, in some of the thickest fog I've ever seen, we decided it was time to do some bouldering, since some of the rocks in the area provided great conditions for the sport. It was fun. When we were done playing we headed out towards Piatra Arsa and then down the Jepii Mari.

We met and talked to many people. We took 11 hours for the whole tour as we also took ample breaks. The total altitude difference was of about 1350m. It was a great day and I think we all had a lot of fun. I'm very proud to have been their local contact and mountain guide for one day, therefore becoming part of their story.

To read more about the guys and to follow their progress you can check out their website DynamoS'olidaire.
You can see the photos I've selected or their photo album from this part of the trip.

Thank you, guys, and take care on the long road ahead of you!

My Heelys

Sat, 16 May 2009 17:42:59 -0500

Today, I took a few hours off to do some light shopping. You know, a few presents for some friends, a couple of new types of yoghurt, a new tie, some computer parts, the usual list to take care of the good old shopping addiction.

Since I was in present buying mode I thought I'd pick out something for myself as well. I was passively looking when fate brought me right in front of my longsought object of desire... Heelys... in European size 42... my size!!! For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, Heelys are a brand of roller shoes, shoes that have a wheel embedded in each heel. Since their appearance sometime in 2000 the Heelys brand has started to be identified with the item itself.

Without a moment of hesitation, except maybe to pick a colour, I got them.

Medrano Circus

Wed, 13 May 2009 06:43:12 -0500

Last night we went to the circus, not the Romanian Globus Circus but the visiting Italian Medrano Circus, camping out in Drumul Taberei. I hadn't been to the circus since I was about 13 or 14 years old.

It's funny how things evolve. Back then, I think, I was most impressed by lions and tigers and other animals trained to do stuff, now it seems it's things like motor bikes racing inside a sphere that appeal more to my entertainmentthirsty mind. I also came back with a newfound understanding of what clowns are actually there to do in a circus and, provided I get 5 spare minutes, I'm going to watch some of the footage from the International Circus Festival in Monte Carlo that's already waiting on my computer.

Are we out of bullets?

Sun, 10 May 2009 10:48:00 -0500

I'm in the middle of writing a huge research report for my PhD, but I simply couldn't help myself and had to stop for a few minutes to publicly ask a question that I have been asking myself for a while now.

I remember the time when we would have exams at 7:30 in the morning and we would meet at 11:00pm the night before to start learning for those exams.
I remember doing my homework and taking care of other people's homeworks too just "because".
I remember project deadlines only 24 hours away, by the time of which we'd pull through some kind of miracle to save those projects everyone else had abandoned.
I remember working 3 jobs and going to university at the same time, acing exams and reeling in good results on the job accross the board.

At that time it seemed we were kings of the world and nothing could stop us. Every attempt was followed by a success, every project was bound to become another notch on a very thick and seemingly indestructible belt. We always said it couldn't last forever, we were just hoping the end would take its time to come.

I don't think I can do it anymore. Whether it's a matter of luck running out, overextending towards much more labourintensive activities, or simply old age taking its toll on my capacity to stay up for a week and just take care of everything, the fact remains "I am 25 and I can't do it anymore". I'm not entirely out of bullets but it seems I'm running low. I badly need someone to teach me how to make more bullets or kill 5 birds with one shot.

IECS 2009

Sat, 09 May 2009 13:08:45 -0500

I have just returned from the International Economics Conference in Sibiu where I presented two articles together with some of my fellow PhD colleagues. I am very happy with the outcome of the conference and I have to say that the organizers did a good job putting everything together.

For me one of the highlights of the trip was the fact that I managed to escape the conference programme for 2 hours in order to attend a concert of the Sibiu Philharmonic Orchestra. I had been struggling to see Claudia and Florin in concert for ages and now I can finally say I have, although I wish I'd seen more of them. A big thank you to Florin for making Beethoven's number 4 not just enjoyable but also "fun".

A real find this time around in Sibiu was the Bohemian Flow club where we saw a live band performance on Thursday night. Both club and band were enjoyable and impressive.

May 1st Holiday - Vama Veche

Sun, 03 May 2009 21:55:49 -0500

I spent "labour day" and the ensuing weekend in Vama Veche again this year. I had a VERY good time, for which I thank all those involved.

To sum it all up and to remind everyone "What happens in Vama Veche stays in Vama Veche".

For further details read Cipri.

Photo: HDR Field near Medgidia, Dobrogea.

Mountain Biking Lunch Break

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 14:21:28 -0500

Because I have been way too busy lately and because I've received many requests to clarify what "throwing myself off a mountain" refers to, I will have you know that today my weapon of choice was my bike.

After a very busy morning and yet another quasisleepless night, with tired eyes, I took a 45 minute break and went on a downhill offroad bike ride. I strongly believe all companies that can do so should build their offices away from big cities and closer to the great outdoors.

I would like to thank Adriana for the assistance in choosing my new shin guards. They fit, they're comfy, I haven't crash tested them yet (Thank God!).

Vrnjacka Banja

Sat, 18 Apr 2009 23:16:58 -0500

Over the past 4 days I attended a conference in Serbia in the mountain resort of Vrnjacka Banja. I was pretty surprised to find that the conference was both in English and Serbian, which meant ours was the only paper presented entirely in English. I guess the important thing is our article was well received.

Looking further at the plus side of things I guess I should also appreciate the opportunity to improve on my Serbian. I did learn about eTrgovina (English: eCommerce) and a few other words that have a certain resonance making them similar to Romanian.

The attached picture features Marija presenting her paper on Online Learning which was probably the one I understood the most of without translation as the topic was right in my back yard.

Bad Luck Band

Sat, 18 Apr 2009 22:42:03 -0500

Last night we saw Andrei perform with his Bad Luck Band in Big Mamou.

I've debated last night's concert in detail with a few people. Now I just want to let it be known to all that I had a really good time, and as this declaration enters the public domain, it should prove I did not just say it out of sympathy, although I probably am slightly subjective.

Anyway, the concert atmosphere was great. I'm looking forward to the next performance and I will be sure to have a couple of drumsticks with me next time :)

Big Rock and the 7 Ladders

Sat, 18 Apr 2009 22:19:03 -0500

Without initially intending to make any Snow White references, the truth is the numbers fit together quite nicely.

Since my November trip with Chris and Charlie to the Lake District I have been looking for an opportunity to return the favour and show Chris around my native hiking grounds. Although I was hoping for a higher turnout, in the end, the valiant team was made up of Chris (not me, the English Chris), Elena and Myself. So, we were 2 Chrises and 1 Elena for a grand total of 3.

We set off at 10 am sharp from the beginning of the forest road at Cioplea in Predeal down into the Timisul Sec valley and up towards the Piatra Mare peak (English: Big Rock). It took us nearly 4 hours to get to the top, with plenty of stops for food and photos. It was a pretty normal hiking trip until this point, with plenty of workout getting through the 900 m altitude difference, amazing scenery all around us and perfect hiking weather. While we were still in the forest we encountered two groups of deer. Unfortunately they sensed us way before we spotted them so the 56 seconds they were in our sights before they vanished weren't enough to draw our cameras.

I'd say the trip started to get interesting right after we started our descent from the peak (1844m). Although we were on a westfacing slope, just as I was laughing at the others for struggling to get through the knee deep snow I fell straight through over a meter of snow right into a ditch. This event would be representative for the following 3 hours of our hike.

As we stopped for another round of sandwiches I had a look at the map and realized we were slightly offtrail. After asking the others if they wanted to doubleback a few hundred meters to get back on track we all agreed it was an opportunity to make it more interesting and keep going (actually, we were probably just lazy).

Because our next objective was the 7 Ladders Canyon it meant we had to head east maintaining our altitude until we reached one of the valleys leading down into the canyon. That mountain isn't called "big rock" for nothing. There was no trail and we had to keep avoiding various rock formations by either going over or below them. We eventually stumbled upon the footprints of a bear (it was probably midsized, weighing under 300 kg) and we figured wherever the bear could pass we'd have a good chance of passing as well. They lead us into a valley we used to lose a couple hundred meters in altitude. Despite the fact we had no gators, we all had summer walking boots, Chris only had shorts on and the valley was facing north and thus still full of snow it proved to be a pretty good choice. That is, until it lead us right to the top of a dry waterfall with a perfectly vertical 10 meter drop.

We found our way around the drop and got onto what looked like a path that lead us into the next valley. Soon after that we were crossing the stream back onto the proper hiking trail we should have headed to a couple of hours earlier. The map, compass and GPS altimeter proved very useful, although the GPS in itself was useless without a GPS map of the mountain. It was actually pretty surprising I had so much gear on me, as we normally go hiking with nothing but our skills and common sense for orientation.

I forgot to mention that seen how it was Vinerea Mare (English: Big Friday the Friday before Easter) Elena was fasting. This meant she'd eaten something at 5:00 am before getting on the train in Bucharest and had only eaten nonanimal products since. You'd think "oh, that's ok then" and you'd be right if only the concept of nonanimal products didn't refer to a single 300g bag of jellow. After 6 hours of intense phisical effort and after getting visibly dizzy she was convinced to eat the two proteinrich, meatfilled sandwiches I had provisioned for her. Fasting might have been a bit silly but I have to congratulate her on the feat of phisical endurance.

We were very happy to realize we hit the trail right before the top entrance to the 7 Ladders Canyon (Romanian: 7 Scari). We crossed the canyon pretty quickly, taking lots of pictures. I remember going through the 7 Ladders some 10 years ago after the canyon ladders and ramps had been seriously damaged by winter torrents and rock falls. Everything was in such disrepair it took us a long time to cross as we had to check each piece of metal or wood to make sure it would hold the weight and even look for alternative routes in some places. The canyon was still as impressive as I remembered it, just without the safety risks.

45 minutes after coming out of the canyon and almost 8 hours after starting the hike we met up with Frank and Dad who were waiting to pick us up in Dambu Morii. It was great for the 1st hike of the year and I can only hope for more hiking opportunities, more good weather and more hiking companions as daring as Chris and Elena.

Click for the Piatra Mare 7 Scari photo gallery album.

Piatra Mare High Dynamic Range (HDR)

Sat, 18 Apr 2009 20:25:40 -0500

I've written about HDR (High Dynamic Range) Photography before but Friday's hike gave me the opportunity to take pictures of some proper HDR subjects.

I ran a few tests and these are the results. The one on the left is a normal picture and the one on the right is a HDR generated picture using Tone Mapping.

5 pictures exposesd at 1/1600, 1/1000, 1/500, 1/60 and 1/30 were used to produce the HDR photo. Click for a bigger version of the result.

My Summer Residence

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 20:56:12 -0500

The following is quoted from a very recent Yahoo! Messenger conversation with a good friend of mine who probably sees through me quite well despite the prefix of her age being somewhat smaller than mine.

MYSELF: send me the song
Simona: I'm sure you know it
Simona: and you've probably already read its entire history on a site
MYSELF: com'on
MYSELF: I don't live on Google
Simona: but it is your summer residence!

I'm going to update my Facebook, my LinkedIn and my WAYN profiles to let eeeeverybody know where I'm from. :)

Heavy Duty Concert Going

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 20:57:06 -0500

I remember filling in more than my fair share of those silly Internet audience surveys where they ask you how much money you spend shopping online. Well, I've just beaten all the records in personal online shopping and I definitely wore my credit card thin after purchasing concert tickets to Best Fest and Bucharest Rock Arena for myself and a couple of my concertgoing mates.

I'd like to take this opportunity to make it publicly known that I will be there for AC/DC, Guns and Roses and the rest of the show on the 2 days of Bucharest Rock Arena and for Santana, The Killers, Motorhead, Manowar and the rest of that bunch on the 5 days of B'EstFest.

Worry not, my friends, I'm not planning on missing any weddings happening around that time either.

I know they weren't part of my New Year's resolution but that's already bordering on 30 or so concerts in the first half of 2009.