Tag Archives: photos

Photos taken by Raoul Pop

Places

Crossing the Danube at night

Selected photos taken at the Galati ferryboat crossing over the Danube River, in Romania. The atmosphere, the lights, the machinery, it all makes it look and feel like an otherworldly experience — a sensation which is all the more pressing if you’ve just been driving all day and you are exhausted.

While it’s interesting to ride on ferryboats every once in a while, it’s not fun to arrive at the crossing point and to find out they’ve closed for the night, or to pay ever-increasing fees so you can cross. This is not a comment on the Galati ferryboat crossing in particular, but a general observation on the nature of the ferryboat business. If you want reliable travel, you need a bridge, period. You may not be able to stop and take in the sights and sounds of the river, but you’ll get home on time.

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Places

Taxidermy at the American Museum of Natural History, NYC

One of the most impressive exhibits at the American Museum of Natural History in NYC are the stuffed animals. The technical term is taxidermy, and if done right, it’s art. The pity is that it’s going extinct.

Of all the taxidermists listed on the AMNH website, only two are potentially living, and none of them work there anymore.

The last full-time taxidermist at the Smithsonian retired this year, which is a nice way of saying he was let go because there wasn’t work for him anymore. Did I mention his father and his grandfather were also taxidermists and also worked for the Smithsonian?

Perhaps most telling is that all of the taxidermists in the US can be listed on a single web page at Taxidermy Net. Now this is just a guess, but I bet most of them stick to fish and birds — you know, the kind of schmaltz you stick over the fireplace after you catch “the big one” — and they aren’t up to par with museum standards.

I suppose in the future, we’ll be dazzled with 3D computer renditions of animals when we go to museums. We’ll be able to pet them (or rather the air or the screen where they’re rendered), and they’ll react, but it’ll be a sad substitute. There’s nothing like seeing an animal in the flesh (in the skin, anyway). It stops you dead in your tracks to see the eyes, the texture of the skin or fur, the paws, the claws, the sheer brutality and mass of a beast that could tear you apart if it were alive. No computer will ever be able to replicate that.

Take your kids to see real taxidermy while it’s still around. It may not be around for their kids.

These last few photos aren’t examples of taxidermy, but they’re neat things to see at the AMNH.

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Thoughts

The kittens at play

âť— Free kitten alert! âť—

We’re getting ready to say goodbye to our kittens. We’re going to give them away for adoption in the next week or two. If you’re in Romania and you’d like one, let us know. Otherwise, we’ll take them to a pet store in Sibiu or Tg. Mures, where eager children will surely squeal in delight and tug at their parents’ sleeves, wanting one.

We have four little tomcats and two kitties: two black males with white socks, two grey-brown striped males with white socks, one brown-beige striped kitten and one beige-orange striped kitten. They’ve been lovingly cared for since birth by our two cats, Mitzi and Trixie, who’ve shared responsibilities in grooming and feeding them. They have already visited the vet, have their health cards, have been treated for internal and external parasites, are weaned, eating solid food, and they’re ready to be welcomed into someone’s family.

Here are photos and a couple of videos of them. The first video shows them playing inside, and the other shows them playing and suckling outside, in our yard.

The photos were taken while they were playing and suckling inside one evening.

This last photo shows the two striped tomcats sleeping next to each other.

Just so there’s no confusion, let me make it clear that they’re free. If you want one, as long as you can come and pick it up, it’s yours.

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Exercise

After six weeks on the RPM System

I’m overdue to give my six week re-assessment of the RPM System — two weeks late to be precise, since I started on May 18th. I’ve had good reasons: travel, and some heavy-duty work to get my wife’s raw food recipe book ready for the printers. (I handled the photography, the layout and the design.)

I also haven’t (and I’m ashamed to admit this) worked out for the past two weeks, for the very same reasons. So the photos and measurements you’ll see below really are taken after a two week “break” from the workouts, which involved prolonged sitting at my computer and at the wheel of our car.

In spite of the circumstances that came together to sabotage my workouts, progress was made. I’m happy about that.

Here’s what I look like now. Compare the difference between these photos and the initial ones (taken after a week on the system).

Here are my re-assessment results (power score and measurements). Compare them with the initial ones.

I was pleased to see a marked improvement in my power score, which is now 76, up from the initial 64. My guess is these are beginner gains, and subsequent power score improvements will be harder to achieve. Still, I’m happy and willing to put in the extra work.

The new numbers are:

  • 33 pushups
  • 50 band standing reverse flyes
  • 70 seconds for the modified abdominal plank
  • 180 seconds for the wall sit

There were some surprises when it came to the measurements:

  • Weight: 159.8 lbs, up by about 1½ pounds; my guess is the extra weight is from muscle mass, since I lost fat, as you’ll see below
  • Shoulders: 47.5″, up by ½ inch
  • Chest: 39″, up by 1 inch
  • Arms: 12″, down by 1 inch; this was an unpleasant surprise, but my guess is I had extra fat in the triceps area, which went away.
  • Abdomen: 32″, down by 1 inch
  • Hips: 36.25″, down by 1Âľ inches, which was definitely a surprise.
  • Thighs: 19.5″, up by ½ inch

I guess all that sitting on a chair not only atrophied my muscles, but put extra fat on my arms, around my abdomen (which I already knew of) and my hips, which I didn’t know about.

I’ve got another couple of confessions to make:

  • I missed about a week’s worth of workouts during the 6 weeks, again due to travel. I asked the folks at RPM what to do, and they advised me to do one extra workout per week until I caught back up. That’s excellent advice, so if you’re in the same boat, do that, it’s going to be worth it.
  • I haven’t done my aerobic workouts at all. I’ve been too busy. You know how they say you should do three of their workouts per week, and on your off days, do half an hour of your favorite aerobic activity? Well, I skipped out on that entirely. Shame on me.

Still, in spite of cutting all those corners and missing out on plenty of workouts, look at the progress I made! Can you imagine how much more dramatic my progress would have been if I had followed their recipe?

I think this is really good proof of the program’s potential. I missed workouts, played catch-up, took a two week break, and still I made out really nicely.

Don’t take that to mean I fudged on the actual workouts though! Every time I worked out, I did every exercise and every rep indicated. On some exercises, I even did extra reps. The way I see it, if I didn’t give 100% with every workout, I’d have cheated myself.

If you have any doubts about the RPM System and whether it can work for you, I don’t think you need to worry any more. Try it out, you’ve got nothing to lose. It’s only $10/month, and you get two weeks free with this code: 553677456.

I intend to keep going, and will post future updates about my progress.

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Places

Castelul Grofului din Pribilesti (Boyar’s Castle)

In the village of Pribilesti, province of Maramures, in Romania, there’s a beautiful little castle called simply “Castelul Grofului”, or, roughly translated, The Boyar’s Castle (see definition of a boyar).

As the story goes, when the Austro-Hungarian empire invaded Romania and took over most of its lands, a ruler was set over that region. The Hungarian boyar built two castles, one in Pribilesti, and another, a larger one, in the mountains. At the time, his castle was the only structure around. He was surrounded by tens of square kilometers of open fields, which were tended by the peasants from the surrounding villages.

Nowadays, houses have sprung up around the castle, and the boyar’s land has been divided and subdivided, sold, and resold,  so much so that there’s no land around the castle anymore. It’s surrounded by the villagers’ houses, all around. It’s an odd sight — a castle with no land around it, but it is what it is.

During Romania’s Communist regime, the castle was taken over by the local farm cooperative, and it was used as a barn for animals. The upper floors were used as offices for the cooperative’s leaders — the members of the Communist Party. The castle’s extensive library was (naturally) burned, the paintings stolen, and everything else of value looted.

Don’t feel too bad for the boyar though. It turns out he was one mean s.o.b. He used to yoke the peasants like cattle and force them to till his land, because he thought they weren’t obedient enough.

After the Communist regime fell in 1989, the boyar’s family got the castle back, but the details are fuzzy. I spoke to a few villagers, and it sounds like either the family’s still got it, or some other foreigner’s got it, but they’re not doing anything with it, and they’re not putting money into renovating the place either. It’s falling apart. It has a new roof courtesy of the Romanian government, who paid for it. Hens and local urchin climb through it every day. Drunks pee on it and inside it. Nobody knows how much longer it’ll stand.

It’s a beautiful place, but what are you going to do? A castle with no land around it isn’t worth much these days. You’d have to sink at least 500,000 Euros into renovating the place, then a few hundred thousand more into buying back some of the land around it, so you’d have a bit of space to breathe.

I do hope someone renovates it. If I had that kind of money, I’d do it. It would be a pity to lose it.

I’ve got more photos from Castelul Grofului in my photo catalog.

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