The Office Lounge is a restaurant and night club in Predeal, Romania. Its location is amazing. It sits on top of a mountain peak which overlooks an idyllic meadow and valley. Other mountain peaks frame the view all around.
The restaurant has indoor space, but it also has a beautiful terrace where you can truly enjoy the view.
The espresso is good. It could even be called great, but let’s not get carried away… It has a well-balanced taste: not too bitter, not too watery, not too chocolatey. It’s good. And when you sit on the terrace and look at that gorgeous view, it somehow tastes even better.
We also had some very tasty “clatite” — a Romanian dessert that’s similar to French crepes and to British (not American) pancakes, according to one of my readers.
The place is a nightclub — and we’re not much into nightclubs. We went there during the day, to enjoy the beautiful view. If you’re interested in going there for a morning coffee, don’t — they open around 11 am or noon, because they close in the early hours of the morning.
This is an article continued from Part 1, containing photos from the Henry Morrison Flagler Museum in West Palm Beach, Florida. Part 1 featured photos from the exterior, the Grand Hall, the Drawing Room, the West Room, the Courtyard and the hallways. Now let’s go inside the rooms, to see how the New York firm of Pottier & Stymus did things in there.
Here’s the Dining Room, with its richly ornamented walls and ceiling. It’s a place that looks as if you won’t get up hungry from the table. Indeed, it looks as if you’ll be getting several courses every time you sit down.
On a sliver of land across Lake Worth, between Florida and the Atlantic Ocean, sits one of America’s most famous historic homes and Florida’s first museum: Whitehall — Henry M. Flagler’s Florida home, and a gift to his wife, Mary Lily Kenan Flagler.
In December of 2005, I wrote an article on wet shaving. Back then, there wasn’t a lot of shaving advice on the internet — at least none I could find. So I wrote the article with the sincere desire to help others like me, who were having a tough time with disposable razors and electric razors, and with constantly irritated faces and necks. For me, it got so bad at times that my whole face and neck would just bleed from every pore, every time I took a razor to my face. It was crazy.
What worked for me then was using a Gillette Mach 3 Razor, because I didn’t know better. I would use a safety razor from time to time, just to troubleshoot where my shaving techniques needed improving. Since then, I graduated to using the safety razor all the time. What helped me improve my shaving technique was watching mantic59‘s videos on YouTube about three years ago. I was really glad to find him again today so I could link to his videos. I haven’t seen them since, and I wasn’t sure if he was still around.
Now that it’s been more than a few years since I wrote the original article, I thought I’d update it with a how-to video on wet shaving with a safety razor, where I show how a typical shave goes for me. I shot the video in 720p HD, with the wonderful Olympus PEN E-P2. My wife acted as my trusty camera-woman.
Shaving is an art, and it has to be learned. It doesn’t come naturally to us. One’s shaving form must by necessity differ, depending on the type of shaving utensil used: straight blade, safety razor, disposable razor, electric razor, etc. For me, a safety razor is the perfect balance between sustainability and shave quality, and that’s what I’m going to talk about here and in the video.
A straight blade is too scary for me. There’s that potential of slitting one’s throat. A safety razor still gives you the benefit of shaving with a sharp blade, but this time it’s contained within an apparatus that won’t let it cut your throat. A disposable razor, whether it has one, two, three, four or five (who cares!) blades, doesn’t offer as good a shave, because it’s less maneuverable, it’s made to be even safer — or in this case, useless — and creates non-recyclable waste, thus polluting the environment.
Just think how many blades and handles you use every year — all of those end up in a landfill. They can’t be recycled, because the plastic can’t be separated from the steel. It’s waste that can be easily avoided. On the other hand, all you throw away from a safety razor is a thin steel blade, which is perfectly recyclable. The razor itself lasts practically forever, which is why the companies that make shaving products would rather you get the disposable stuff. I say consequences have to trump profits sometimes, even in a capitalist society.
And, as Cary Grant says in “Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House”, I like a safety razor because “I prefer the clean sweep of tempered steel as it glides across my face.” Yes indeed, Cary, yes indeed.
I hope you enjoy the video and come away from it with a better appreciation for the art of shaving, and with a few tips that will help you get a better shave!
I’m relieved to see that airlines are finally taking action against smelly passengers — by deplaning them. Jazz Air, a Canada Air subsidiary, did just that on 2/6, after wasting 15-20 minutes searching for the source of a sorely offending odor, then finding it to be a filthy man. I applaud them for having the courage to throw the bum off the plane, and suggest all airlines adopt similar policies.
I wrote about this very thing on 2/15, just over a week ago, after returning from a trip where we had to put up with an explosive trifecta of body odor, gas, and lack of manners. Enough is enough.
I don’t think I need to explain why smells such as body odor or gas shouldn’t be tolerated on airplanes — anyone who’s flown knows how cramped and stuffy things can get without any “additional input” from rude people.
Raoul Pop 