Meteora
Today we went to Kalampaka to visit the monasteries of Meteora.
It took us quite a bit of time to get there. On the way we also stopped to see the Spring of Aphrodite and the Monastery of Saint Parascheva (RO: Paraschiva). Actually, it seems there was more than one affliction-healing, miracle-performing Saint Parascheva related to this monastery.
Our next important stop was at an icon workshop where we were given a quick demo of how the classical, wooden, gold-plated Greek icons are actually made. Pretty interesting, the technique being very similar, in fact, to the way I learned to paint and prepare wooden icons in my years of painting classes.
The rocks of Meteora and the monasteries we visited were impressive. We ended up visiting only the Monastery of the Great Meteoron and the much smaller Monastery of Roussanou as the Monastery of Saint Stephen was closed (like it is on all Mondays). It was enough however to get a good feel of the place, landscape, history and all.
Just trying to conceive the fact that people built monasteries on top of these stone needles, some 600 meters tall, is enough to put the imagination to work.
We got back to Paralia Katerini around 6:00 pm, just in time for a swim out into the open sea before dinner.
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| Christian Nasulea - 11.08.2008 | |
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Olympic Bay Scuba Diving
Today I went scuba diving in Olympic Bay, some 30 km south of Katerini, with Mount Olympus dominating the view in the distance.
The
dive master said I did really well, and I actually helped him continue
the dive by sticking to protocol when my diving partner started having
panic attacks and was resurfacing every 30 seconds.
Because
other divers were late I had a lot of time at my disposal to talk to
Alex, the diving instructor, and get a lot more theory than the normal
introductory lesson. I learned a lot of new things about pressure,
depth sickness and the way the human body behaves during a dive.
The
dive itself wasn't very impressive. First of all, we couldn't go out
too far because of the aforementioned panic attacks people were having.
Second, I've confirmed what I saw while snorkeling yesterday, the sea
life isn't very impressive around these parts. That is, except for the
big blue jellyfish you can see in the enclosed picture.
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| Christian Nasulea - 10.08.2008 | |
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Paralia Katerini
We arrived in Paralia Katerini around 10 am and we went straight to the beach. It's a quite little town. The water is excellent, warm, fairly clean, but boring from a snorkeling point of view.
We've already booked sightseeing trips for every day of next week, so it's going to be as busy as any normal working week, perhaps even busier. In fact, we've even managed to arrive at the performance of having two nearly consecutive full-day trips as we get back from one around 10 pm on Wednesday and leave on the next one at midnight. Talk about relaxing seaside vacations!
I'm off to rest as tomorrow is scuba diving morning.
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| Christian Nasulea - 09.08.2008 | |
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To Greece
I'm off to Greece. We left Bucharest about 30 minutes ago and we're due in Thessaloniki around 7 am. I'll try to keep everyone posted.
LATER EDIT: We visited the St. Dimitrios Cathedral in Thessaloniki. I was sleepy and so pretty unimpressed. This just goes to show once more that research prior to any trip is very important. Had I read the history and the presentation beforehand I would have known what to look out for in the cathedral and it would probably have seemed much more interesting even at such an early hour of the morning.
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| Christian Nasulea - 08.08.2008 | |
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Malware Infestation - Antivirus XP 2008
Today, on one of the busiest days of the year, I managed to mess up my laptop with a nice little bit of malware.
Antivirus XP 2008 is the name of this infamous plague. Not just a simple piece of software, but rather a cocktail of malware, trojan, downloader applications complementing each other, this scourge of the Internet managed to produce quite a bit of mayhem on my computer.
The story in short: You go to a website and you see one of those brightly coloured ads saying "Your computer might be infected with spyware. Click here to bla, bla, bla". You click. It installs. You're screwed.
You're probably thinking: "Are you really dumb enough to click on one of those banners?". Well, it seems the devil's tool has now found other forms of deployment as well. For instance, you might get it bundled in the installation kit of legitimate software, downloaded from an unofficial mirror, like I did. Beware!
Five hours later, allow me to share my newfound wisdom and knowledge by giving you the quick fix to getting rid of the whole damned thing.
Follow this tutorial first, then double-check with this list of files to make sure you removed all traces of the malware infestation.
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| Christian Nasulea - 07.08.2008 | |
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iPhone and IM
With the iPhone enabling me to use the Internet almost anywhere it was high time I selected an appropriate instant messaging solution for it as well.
After extensive analysis two criteria proved to be essential in selecting the right tools and services. One was for the iPhone application to support large numbers of contacts (300+ in my case) and the other was for the chat messages to be saved automatically in an online archive for later reference.
The winning app is called Agile Messenger (www.agilemobile.com). It can connect to several instant messaging services, including Yahoo, MSN, ICQ, and it's well adapted for use with the iPhone.
The winning service is Google Talk. In fact the only thing still missing from Google Talk is interconnectivity with the other major services. So, while they're probably working on this at Google as we speak ask me for my GTalk ID so that we may stay in contact wherever my iPhone gets Internet coverage.
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| Christian Nasulea - 06.08.2008 | |
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Girls and Hardware Infrastructure Upgrade
I just had a couple of girls, who normally have nothing to do with IT, replace and rewire a wireless router.
They were fast, efficient, effective and the end result was also pretty.
I'll call any stereotype related to females and technology unfounded and unfair. Go girls!
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| Christian Nasulea - 02.08.2008 | |
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Funny Organized Crime
So I was filling in these many forms for ePayment services today when I ran accross the following statement:
"Misuse and fraud will be prosecuted! Please note that under UK
anti-money laundering legislation ANY kind of payment fraud is
considered potential money laundering. We are legally obliged to report
any fraud to The Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA)."
So, I'm guessing there's also a Funny/Silly/Unreliable Organized Crime Agency?
What can I say, organized crime used to be more serious about their work, now they're simply unreliable.
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| Christian Nasulea - 01.08.2008 | |
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The Heritage Singers in the Arena
Last night while many people went to the Lenny Kravitz concert we went
to a Gospel concert at the Roman Arenas. The Heritage Singers are a musical group that's
been around since 1971 and they are a very big deal, although I knew
nothing of them until a couple of days ago.
Getting back to present times, the concert was spectacular. The
music had something I'd call "much needed peacefulness" about it, while
at the same time never lacking the indispensable beat, funk and jive.
Plus, the Heritage Singers' performance as a music group was
extraordinary. They're true professionals and the 37 or so years of
experience are hard to miss.
I was really impressed by David Bell, the
bass of the group. In my limited experience I've never heard a better
bass. He's supposedly the best in gospel music in the US. No argument
from me. Oh, and on top of everything he also works as an Associate
Professor of Information Systems (www.davidbell.com).
You can get a broad idea of what I'm talking about by
listening to "Set me on the rock, Joshua" which I've included below.
He's the one on the right.
Tim Calhoun (big black guy in the center)
also made a big impression on me, not just for the voice.
I have to mention Max Mace, the "father" of the group,
for that very classic American music voice and I'd probably have
something to say about each and every one of the members of the group,
guitarist, drummer, sound engineers and all. So, I'll stop.
A very nice thing about the Heritage Singers was that
when they introduced themselves we understood that most of them are
related in various ways so they created a nice family image for
themselves.
A big boo to Mihai Gadea (TV host
and presenter for the concert) for his translation of what the Heritage
was saying on stage. Actually, not that big, he was pretty fun...
hilarious even. He was sort of like the stand up comedy interlude of
the show.
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| Christian Nasulea - 27.07.2008 | |
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Red's Boomerang Fish
We sometimes get so caught up in our daily activities, deadlines, must-dos and chores that we lose sight of why we go to all the trouble of doing what we do in the first place.
The way I see it a person's objective in life is to do the things that he likes. In order to secure the resources needed to do the things that he likes he sometimes has to do things that he doesn't like (so much). To simplify things let's just call things he likes "play" and things he doesn't "work". So, we work now in order to play (a bit) later.
Red gave me a small drawing of a boomerang fish yesterday while confessing that she hadn't had the time to draw in months.
Since this is a story with a moral and I don't want to turn it into a sermon I'll cut it short. Don't lose track of your objectives and never forget (to make time) to PLAY!!!
As for myself, the, now nicely framed, drawing of the boomerang fish will serve as a constant reminder on my desk of why I do things. Thank you, Red!
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| Christian Nasulea - 26.07.2008 | |
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