I believe in tempered optimism — life can be wonderful, when taken with a grain of salt.

My name is Raoul Pop. It’s my real name. I couldn’t have picked a better one if I’d tried, though I might have said differently while in school…

I am Romanian by birth and American by upbringing. I emigrated to the United States with my family in 1991 and grew up in America. Having spent half my life in Romania and half in the US, this makes me somewhat of a mongrel. These days, my wife and I share our time between the US and Romania, spending most of the year in Romania.

I am the sole author of this website. I’ve been writing and self-publishing online since 2001. I’ve had a website since 1995, and the first time I went online was in 1994.

Why this website exists

I love to write. I do it for two reasons:

• To celebrate what’s good and beautiful
• To call for change when something isn’t right

I discovered my love for writing in college, where I majored in English and Creative Writing. The best outlet I’ve found for my passion has been this website, and here is where I intend to keep writing for a long time to come.

I also love to take photographs. I adore the beauty, majesty and peace of nature. I am most at peace when in nature. I preserve glimpses, beautiful moments from my experiences, in my photographs. You are welcome to browse my photography catalog. I license my photos for commercial and personal uses, and also sell prints in various sizes and finishes to suit your needs and taste.

Lately, I’ve also discovered the beauty (and pain) of filmmaking. You can see my efforts at my YouTube Channel, where I am a Partner. You can also use this site’s menu to browse my videos by shows and playlists (see “Shows and Videos” above).

What you’ll find here

I publish original content here about 3-4 times per week. Sometimes I publish links or collections of links to interesting articles, though I usually reserve that for my Twitter stream. If there’s a lull in my posts, that means I’m either busy with projects, or I’m traveling.

My interests are varied, and my writing reflects that. I like photography (naturally), old movies, old cartoons, old and new music, new information, new computers and new technology, especially new DSLR cameras. I’ve also got a thing for a well-made espresso, and I write about some of the espressos I’ve had from time to time.

Here’s a list of the main topics of my articles:

• Filmmaking: I direct and produce my wife’s two current video shows, Ligia’s Kitchen and Quilling: the Art of Paper Filigree, and I created my own show, called Romania Through Their Eyes, which I also direct and produce.
• Technology: I am naturally interested in everything that has to do with computers and various other technologies that make our life better or worse.
• Photography: I post my own photography, gathered from my numerous outings and trips. All of the photographs that I post here or on my portfolio site are available for license or for sale as prints if they are marked with my name. I also do reviews of cameras and lenses or write about advances in the field.
• Travel: I visit all sorts of interesting places, and when I do, I take photos, and post them alongside my reflections, here on my blog.
• Movies and Cartoons: I love old movies and cartoons (silent, classic, black and white, color, you name it), and I write about them. I also write about current movies and cartoons that interest me.
• Products: New and innovative products get me really excited. I love good design, and I admire products where design, function, durability and reliability are tightly integrated. I review cameras, computers and other technology-related products on my site.
• Books: I do book reviews from time to time.
• News and discoveries: I love to find out what’s new in the world, and to share that information right here on my blog.
• Ideas: I post my own ideas here, because I want to do what I can to contribute to our overall well-being.
• Life: I write about various things in my life, or life in general, with all its quirks, pleasures, frustrations and yes, sorrows.

Experience

I’ve got knowledge and experience in the following fields:

• Writing
• Photography and videography
• Filming, directing and producing videos
• Blogs, podcasts, vlogs
• Web design and development
• Product reviews and product improvement
• Information/knowledge systems management (i.e. EMR/LMS/CMS implementation & management)
• Server and desktop virtualization, administration and management
• Database design and administration
• Healthcare administration (I have a Master’s degree in this)

You’ll notice that I write a lot about technology, and you may wonder what gives me the authority to do so. I have been an IT professional for 15 years, and have served in various capacities, including tech support, programmer, webmaster, manager and director. I now work as a consultant. I have implemented and developed electronic medical records systems and online learning systems and content management systems. I have written IT policies and have hired and fired employees. I assembled server rooms and servers and desktop computers and made IT purchases big and small. In short, I’ve worked a LOT in IT. It’s a field that I know and like.

My wife

Ligia, my wife, is an accomplished raw chef, artist, piano teacher, and writer. She is also the host of our cooking show, Ligia’s Kitchen, which is internationally renowned and is one of the winners of the YouTube Next Chef Program. Ligia likes old movies, old cartoons and old music, like me.

She published her first book, entitled “Pasi in Lumea Muzicii” (Steps in the World of Music), in 2008. The book is an innovative and approachable method for teaching children piano, and was published in the Romanian language. The first edition sold out in less than a year, and we’re now planning a second edition. She published her second book, entitled “Retete Vegane Fara Foc” (Raw Vegan Recipes), the first book of its kind in Romania, in 2010. The first edition sold out in a few months, so we had to print a second edition and then a third edition. She published her third book, entitled “Germeni si Vlastari: Surse de Sanatate si Energie” in 2011. That first edition has now sold out. We published her fourth book, a collection of incredible desserts for the whole family, entitled “Deserturi pentru Parinti si Copii Sanatosi” in 2011, and that first edition is on its way to selling out as well.

Website background

After several years of writing articles for my other sites (I started writing online in 2000) and several months of blogging in late 2005 and early 2006, I decided to consolidate my content into a single website.

When you see posts from 2001 as you look through the archive, those are articles originally published at Amalgamy and Lupuspernix. For the first few years, I wrote them in HTML and published them as individual web pages, then I re-coded a precursor of what today would be called a blogging engine, and which I called an online publishing system, into a simple blogging system, and used that for a while.

I had actually written that system in 2000, and used it extensively at Dignoscentia, another of my sites. It was pretty much a full featured publishing system written in ASP, running off an Access DB, and it included a control panel where you could add, edit and publish articles, with images, using an online HTML editor. Now I wish I had open-sourced it instead of mothballing it.

In April 2006, I took my published articles from Amalgamy (a site where I wrote about various subjects) and a smaller selection from Lupuspernix (a site where I wrote about web development) plus my posts from Blogger (where I started blogging on a commercial platform), and combined them into a single site, which I called ComeAcross (comeacross.info).

In December 2007, I moved all my content here (raoulpop.com). And in January 2010, I moved to WP.com from a self-hosted install of WP.org, because I wanted to stop worrying about server issues and focus on publishing.

Other websites

• My Google Profile
• My YouTube Channel
• Raoul Pop Photography
• Dignoscentia (my faith blog)
• Exprimare (my consulting website)
• Photografr (a great photography blog, I’m a co-author there)

Feedback is welcome

Your ideas and suggestions about anything that pertains to the site and its content are welcome. If you know of an interesting piece of news or some tidbit of knowledge, let me know.

Thank you for visiting my site, and I hope you stick around!