Places

First snow on the Transalpina Road

Transalpina is the highest road in Romania. It’s also quite possibly its most picturesque; it certainly offers the most beautiful sights I’ve seen in Romania so far. It connects Transilvania to Oltenia, and the official length of the entire road is 148 km from Novaci to Sebes, although only a stretch of 30-40 km travels atop the Parang Mountains (part of the Carpathians), reaching an altitude of 2145 meters at its highest point.

The road was built by the Romans, as they traveled north toward Sarmisegetusa and then used by them as they carted off thousands of tons of gold and silver from Dacia’s rich mines. (You might want to read through this post for the background info.)

According to this website, the road was paved with rocks by King Carol I in the 1930s, maintained by the Nazis during WWII, then forgotten. Work to repave its entire length began in 2009 and it still goes on, though large portions of the road, including its most beautiful sections, are now ready to be used.

We visited Transalpina twice this year, most recently during this past weekend, and we were awestruck by the beauty of the vistas you can see as you travel along its length. We had the good fortune to drive through right after first snow had fallen on the peaks, draping them in a light blanket of pure white snow. Moreover, we were blessed with a gorgeous sunset that colored everything in sight in a golden orange hue. It was heavenly.

We’d have loved to spend more time atop the mountains but night was falling quickly, the temperature was dropping, and we had hundreds of “miles to go” before we could sleep, to paraphrase Robert Frost.

We drove on, descending into the valley below and into thick fog, then wound our way through the mountains toward Sibiu, passing through such interesting places as Jina and Poiana Sibiului.

I’ll leave you with a few more photos from the trip.

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Events

Twelve years of writing and publishing online

➡ 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!

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Thoughts

Meet Costache

This bright-eyed pup showed up on my grandmother’s doorstep in Maramures this past Sunday morning. Although happy to get my attention, he was clearly suffering: he looked as if he hadn’t had a decent meal in weeks, as his ribs were showing through the fur, and he was full of fleas. He had the outline of a collar around his neck, so from the looks of things, he’d escaped from a situation where he was abused. (The photos you see here were taken a couple of days after he’d been in our care, so they don’t show his initial state. The collar you see in these photos is a new one we bought him.)

I fed him and he practically vacuumed up anything I gave him. I started to pet him, and he had no idea how to voice happiness. He would begin screeching and yowling as if he was in pain, yet his face clearly showed he was happy. This was a dog that had been ignored, beaten and malnourished. That’s when I decided we’d keep him. He was happy to stay. After his meal, he fell asleep next to the house, in the sun.

Throughout that day and the next, he ate enormous amounts of food and he began to look better. At night, he slept on our doorstep. Although he could leave whenever he wanted, he stayed. (We don’t like to tie up our dogs.) The third evening, he disappeared, and he showed up the next morning a little bloody. Then, later that day, he disappeared again for a few hours. That’s when we decided to make inquiries. It was clear to us that he belonged to somebody and he still had ties to that place, in spite of the abuse and lack of food.

It didn’t take long to find the house of his former master; everyone knows each other in my grandmother’s village. Let’s just say that it wasn’t the kind of arrangement one would want, so I made the owner an offer: I told him we love the dog and we’d like to adopt him, and I’ll either pay for the dog or I’ll find him another. Happily, he chose the money. I paid him (there were witnesses), and took Costache to his proper home.

Costache is a funny name in Romanian, but everyone that knows him says it suits him perfectly. He’s very friendly and quite adorable with those floppy ears and bright eyes of his. He’s now almost flea-free and on his way to being fully de-wormed, and he has what the ASPCA likes to call a “forever home”. He’s still not tied up and never will be. He can leave whenever he wants, but we hope he’ll like his new home so much that he’ll stay. We’re bringing a companion for him, an adopted female dog named Tesa, and they’ll both have a nice, warm doghouse to sleep in this winter.

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Places

Downtown Baia Mare, still stuck in the 80s

We walked through downtown Baia Mare recently, where I took these photos. As I wrote before, I have a few gripes with the lack of urban planning and renovation going on in that area.

Look at the photos, try to imagine the foreign-made cars aren’t there, and you’ll have to admit to yourself that the sights you’re seeing are from a city still stuck under a communist regime. I felt like I was back under Ceausescu in the 80s when I walked there.

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Thoughts

The Hubble Ultra Deep Field in 3D

Tony Darnell at Deep Astronomy has put together this wonderful video showing the Hubble Ultra Deep Field in 3D. It’s an amazing view of an incomprehensibly large universe, which helps put us in perspective. We are so insignificant, toiling away on this puny little planet we call Earth, a lot of us involved in nefarious or corrupt activities, trying to accumulate needless wealth at the expense of others, all while our impossibly short lives run out much too quickly.

Here’s my advice. Watch the video, then go outside and take a walk in nature. Enjoy its beauty. Think about family and dear friends. Then go through your house and clean all the stuff you don’t really need. Let’s all of us (the ones who are touched by this big picture) try to live our lives in a simpler, healthier way.

Cheers!

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