A new site design went live yesterday. If you haven’t checked my site in a while, click through to see it, it’s worth it.
The new header image is a panoramic photograph taken atop the Parang Mountains, on the Transalpina Road, which I just wrote about. The header also celebrates the 10-year anniversary of my website and indicates my presence on various social networking sites.
There’s also a surprise re-design for my iPad readers. I’ll let you see it for yourselves.
➡ Updated 7/3/12: My website turns 12 on August 7th!
➡ Updated 1/16/12: I’ve checked the age of my domain name (raoulpop.com) and I purchased it on the 7th of August, 2000, so technically, my website is 11 years old, not 10. It will turn 12 this August. While I published my first article in August of 2001, the website was up and running in 2000, so I’ve updated the post and the site header to reflect this.
My writing efforts reached an important milestone back in August. Ligia and I were so busy with work on her new book that I didn’t even notice.
I published my first article on August 3, 2001. It was called “How to keep your exercise goals“. Back then, I wrote it in HTML, using one of the first versions of Dreamweaver, and published it to a domain I’m no longer using (amalgamy.com). As I upgraded to better publishing platforms and new domains over the years, I moved my growing collection of articles and posts along, keeping their original publish dates, so that I’d have a proper archive.
So here we are today… It’s October 9th, 2011, and I’ve been writing and publishing online for over ten years. It’s been an interesting time, during which many, many things have happened in my life.
My articles have had a surprising amount of influence — particularly my reviews. I’d often find, privately, that CEOs and senior executives were reading them. When I needed help, they’d step in and help, in spite of the critiques I leveled at their products. Even now I cringe at some of stronger language I used in my reviews, so I’d like to apologize for all those instances when I let my frustration get the better of me, instead of looking at the situation more objectively. I’d also like to thank all the people who’ve helped me after they got to know me through my website. Thank you!
Another thing that took me by surprise is the tail traffic, which is impossible (for me) to predict, but which provides a steady stream of traffic (and comments) on articles that are fairly old.
If you’ve been a long-time subscriber, you might have been frustrated at times by the diverse number of subjects you find here. You might have wished for a more focused list of topics. I’ve even been told that my website could have been a lot more popular if I could choose one or two subjects and only write about them. I’m interested in a lot of things, and I like to write about anything that catches my attention. Sure, there are some things I keep coming back to, like tech or photos and videos, but even there, I tend not to write about specific things. So I’d like to thank you for sticking around (if you have indeed been sticking around)! 🙂
The one thing I regret is not writing more. I get so many ideas, but there’s so little time. With better time management skills, I could have written and published more, so that’s something I need to work on.
That’s about it for now.
Cheers!
My parents just got back from a big, worldwide conference in Buenos Aires, Argentina — the 15th World Congress of Psychiatry. My dad, who is a devoted psychiatrist, went there to learn new things, like most doctors who go to conferences.
Unfortunately, all but five of the entire group of Romanian doctors (150 in total) who registered for the conference decided to play hooky. This was after their travel, hotel stay and meals were paid for by European pharmaceutical companies, who flew them out there so they could stay up to date on the latest research.
One of the event staff confided to my father that the Romanian doctors couldn’t be bothered to even pick up their badges, which is something that only takes a few minutes. Instead, they all went on a sightseeing trip through Patagonia and were absent for the entire duration of the conference.
In case you’re not sure why this matters, you may want to read through my review of the Romanian healthcare system.
Photo of Willow courtesy of Popular Science
The Pop Sci blog has published a story on Willow, a very lucky calico kitty who went missing in Colorado and was found, five years later, on the streets of Manhattan. When taken to a shelter, she was ID’d thanks to an embedded microchip and reunited with her owners. If only Willow could talk, what a yarn that would be!
This gives me hope that our own missing tomcat, our beloved Felix, will come back home someday. He disappeared in November of last year, during one of his mating trips. We were accustomed to his going MIA from time to time, but he always came back. We keep hoping against hope that he hasn’t died. The chances are slim, but Willow’s case is encouraging.
As mentioned previously, Fritz’ full name is Fritz the Wonder Bunny from Brazil. We named him that on a whim, because it sounded cute, but he proved it true. So how did he earn it? I’ll tell you how.
Fritz, being a curious bunny and also a silly one, as young bunnies tend to be, found a spot inside the engine of our car where he liked to sleep undisturbed. He’d disappear for hours on end and we figured he’d made a burrow somewhere in the garden or he found a comfy and shady spot under one of our rhubarb bushes.
During one such afternoon when Fritz was nowhere to be found, I needed to run an errand that involved using the car. I looked under to make sure no one was sleeping there, opened the gate, got in and left. I drove for a couple of kilometers, parked the car on a street, then came back to it after a half hour or so, got in and drove back home. So far, so good.
Instead of parking the car inside our courtyard, as I usually do, I left it outside, on the street, because I knew I’d use it again later that same day.
Back inside our yard, Ligia and I started looking for Fritz. He was still nowhere to be found. He’d been gone for a few hours and we started to get worried. Where could he be, the silly bunny?
After we looked everywhere, we gave up. We figured he either found a great hiding spot or he decided to up and go. After all, our pets are all free to go if they so desire. They’re free and we wouldn’t have it any other way. Our cats can climb over the fences any time they wish, and we also have a cat-sized hole in our gate, if they want to explore our street and socialize with other cats.
A few more hours passed by, and we started to get really worried. We’d only had the little guy for a few weeks, but we’d gotten attached to him. The thought of losing him saddened us deeply. We started thinking about scenarios.
What if Fritz had been eaten by a hawk? But we saw no hawks hanging about that day. What if Fritz might have climbed into the engine? That happened to us before, when two of our cats had kittens — but we thought the possibility so remote and the chance of his survival so slim if he did so, especially after I drove the car through town, that we put it out of our minds. We also didn’t have the heart to look inside the engine and see Fritz splattered all over, in case that was what had happened.
The time came for me to run out for another errand, and I left with a heavy heart, by this time realizing that we’d probably lost Fritz for good. I walked out of the house, opened the gate and to my astonishment, who do you think I found nibbling the grass next to my car but Fritz himself!
The little fur ball was covered in oil and dust and was quite scared. I called Ligia to my side and we caught him and put him back in the yard, where, in spite of his clearly harrowing experience, he dug right into a fresh red beet root while glancing about with his big eyes and twitching his soft bunny nose.
So what had happened? Short story, he climbed into the engine bay. That much we know for sure. I still don’t know what spot he chose, but it’s obviously a very good one, and that was his saving grace. He was inside the engine when I started the car and he stayed inside the engine the whole time, while I drove through the town and while the car stayed parked on a public street, kilometers away from our home. Did I mention the day was particularly hot, with temperatures above 30 degrees Celsius?
He continued to stay inside the engine as I drove the car back home and he stayed either inside the engine or under the car as the car stood parked on the street outside our home for more than four hours. We assume he continued to stay with the car all that time because it was the only familiar thing in unfamiliar surroundings.
I don’t know what went through his tiny little bunny mind during all that time. It must have been a terrible experience, being caught up in a big metal monster that made a lot of noise and a lot of heat, moving about with all sorts of unfamiliar smells and somehow avoiding being crushed by all the belts and fans in the engine bay. Then, when the car stopped for good, he climbed out of the engine, his fur full of oil and dust from the car’s innards and he found himself in yet another strange place with all sorts of unfamiliar smells. He must have figured that if he waited there long enough, something would happen that would make things right again and sure enough, it did!
Now do you see why he is rightfully called Fritz the Wonder Bunny? It’s a wonder he’s still around! As far as we’re concerned, he’s a Super Bunny!
We’re hoping he won’t have to take a trip to Brazil in order to prove the last part of his name, but you never know. The future will reveal all! 🙂
Raoul Pop 