PAUL Depuis 1889 Bakery & Restaurant in Tbilisi
I'm glad seeing more good dinning places and restaurants popping up in Tbilisi, there is huge demand for a good place, and worldwide known French Paul bakery & restaurant brand seems have made a good decision opening a branch in Tbilisi on Abashidze street.At Paul bakery you could get freshly baked bread and other French pastry goodies,in this article I'll stick with restaurant review. I love Paul because of salads and desserts. I've tried other things, like burgers here, though they are decent, there are better places to order burgers. Once at Paul stick with what they are best - pastry and damn good salads and entrees.An appetizer plateSmoked salmon, duck breast.. really good choice…
The Empire State Building & Observation Deck Tour
OK, this finally is off from my bucket list. Here is the tip I would give to myself - buy "skip the lines" tickets to avoid long hours waiting in the lanes. it started to remind me my dear Georgia after the second hour of waiting in the lanes and hugging with Italian family to sing Bella Ciao. Amazing. Paid a visit to the Empire State Building, January 5, 2017The Empire State Building is a 102-story skyscraper located on Fifth Avenue between West 33rd and 34th Streets in Midtown, Manhattan, New York City. It has a roof height of 1,250 feet (381 m), and with its antenna included, it stands a total of 1,454 feet…
Khinklis Sakhli / Khinkali House on Moscow Avenue, Tbilisi
I usually don't hang out in this area of Tbilisi, just recently we returned by marshrutka from Hiking Route in Georgia - Norio Village - Martkopi Monastery and were really starving, and agreed to leave the minivan as soon we will notice some restaurant, that's how we ended up here in Moscow avenue (somewhere between Samgori and Isani metro stations) and found this interesting Khinkali house.Now, I must admit I had a feeling I've traveled back in the time to the early 90-ties, a disco scene, music from late 80-ties and fish aquariums. Though the food here, and especially khinkali was delicious.Interior at Khinkali house on Moscow avenue, TbilisiIt is a really spacious hall with…
How To Insert Node Reference in Content Using Views
I this article I'll cover some details on how to programmatically reference nodes in content using Drupal views.
Such behavior I've already implemented in this blog, see for example 83 reasons to Visit Georgia This year article to see it in action. Today I was working on one of my side projects - a laptop buying guide - laptop500.com and decided to implement a new feature - best selling items of the month, by programmatically referencing laptops (nodes) from archive.
Here is how - at start you will need to download and install references module, then visit Content type you would like to add such behavior and under manage fields (admin/structure/types/manage/article/fields)…
Hiking Route in Georgia - Norio Village - Martkopi Monastery
Hiking from Norio village to Martkopi monastery is about 10km long distance (forth and back), best done in Spring, Summer, or early Autumn. The route is pretty steep, though covered with asphalt, there are parts of the damaged surface and some agility is needed. Update: We originally did this hiking path back in 2017. in 2020 there is a new asphalt road built reaching the monastery complexThe route offers a kind of Wilderness in Georgia views, with ruined bridges, tumble asphalt, and livestock with a really nice Martkopi monastery at the end of the route.Tip: You could get to the Norio village just for 1.5 GEL in about 30 minutes from Samgori metro station in…
How To Remove HTML Elements From Drupal 7 Feed
In this article you will learn how to style RSS feed in Drupal 7 (not sure, but most bellow written should apply to Drupal 8 as well)
I'm using RSS feeds to power up e-mail newsletters, see How To Sync Drupal RSS Feed to Mailchimp, and everything would be fine, except I had to stop automated email marketing because of amazon affiliate links included in feeds, which is against Amazon Associates TOS.
If you are sending out RSS feeds via email and you are not concerned breaching some rules with links included, this article is not for you, but if you are on Drupal, using Amazon Associates for product reviews and sending out e-mail newsletters powered by RSS, keep reading.…
Review of Mintos Peer to Peer Lending After One Month of Investing
End of the February 2017, marked one full month since I've been investing to Mintos peer to peer lending platform. In this article I'll share some of my findings.The idea to invest in Mintos Marketplace first arise at the start of 2016, when I was looking for a passive investment opportunities in Georgia (country). Back in these days a newly built platform popped up on my radar, see: Invest in Georgia - Peer-to-Peer (P2P) lending - Mintos.comBoth individuals and entities can invest through Mintos. Individual investors must be at least 18 years old, have a bank account in the European Union or third countries currently considered to have AML/CFT systems equivalent to the EU, and…
Martkopi monastery
Martkopi monastery complex is located some 30km from Tbilisi, Georgia. This place is best reached by car, but some could get here by hiking too, see: Hiking Route in Georgia - Norio Village - Martkopi MonasteryWe first discovered it the end of February 2017 with one goal - to make stunning photography, as I've seen some really nice shots from this place, the truth turned out to be a little bit complicated, it took us about 5km hiking (each way) from Norio village, and once on site, I did find it hard to make that stunning photography. But here is what I think could work - there is another tower atop of Martkopi monastery, take that extra mile and you could produce nice aerial…
The Chronicle of Georgia, Monument Near Tbilisi Sea
The Chronicle of Georgia, also called History Memorial of Georgia is one of the hidden gems of Tbilisi.Not at all a popular tourist spot, but definitely one of the impressive sites I have discovered lately. Located near the Tbilisi sea (it's a water reservoir actually) this place not only tells history of Georgia, but gives really spectacular views to surrounding vicinity. And impresses of it's size.On a lovely Sunday's afternoon I packed my camera and tripod, ordered a taxi using Taxify app and asked to take me to this place and back (with waiting time for about 30 minutes). I paid 20 GEL, and by now I can say, made one of the best day trips in Georgia during my almost 6 years…
Norio Village
Norio village is located in Gardabani district some 50 km from Gardabani and 25 km from nations capital Tbilisi.My travels took me to Norio village at the end of February 2017, when we decided to make a lovely hiking trip to Martkopi monastery, we decided to travel here by public transport, in our case it was a marshrutka service leaving from Tbilisi (Samgori metro station).Marshrutka final stop at Norio village in GeorgiaRide is marshrutka cost 1.5 GEL (as of February 2017) and took no longer than 30 minutes.Marshrutka is a fun and very cheap way to explore Georgia, in past I've done a lot marshurtka trips across the country, though lately I prefer car private…
Hee Korean BBQ Grill in Chelsea, New York Review
Our latest trip to the United States was accompanied a lot by visiting local Asian cuisines, a Japanese Sushi place in Financial district (Zen Ramen and Sushi House, New York City) or Chinese noodle house in Philadelphia (Spice C - Hand Drawn Noodles in Philadelphia). Now it was time for Korean cuisine.Hee Korean BBQ Grill is located on the corner of 6th Avenue and 27th street, which was just a few blocks away from our hotel room and INNSIDE NoMad hotel.Frankly speaking, I do believe this was the first time for me visiting a Korean restaurant, and my first impressions were really good - unfortunetly I don't remember much from the names of the dishes we ordered, but they were great.Menu…
How To Order Goodies From US to Georgia - Usa2Georgia.com
For those of you looking to ship goodies, like electronics, clothing, perfume e.t.c. from online stores located in the United States to Georgia, there is a simple, easy and affordable service - usa2georgia.com
I've been using usa2georgia.com for years, ordering items like hinges for my laptop (see: New hinges added to my HP Compaq 6510b), a laptop, equipment for DSLR camera, kitchen tools, even some food, clothing, perfume and more.
There is a small catch still, basically all of the items received in the US before been shipped to Georgia must be declared for customs, for items which price is more than GEL 300 a custom tax must be paid. Items worth less than 300 GEL are…
INNSIDE New York NoMad Hotel Review
From the footsteps of mount Kazbegi in Rooms Hotel (Georgia) to the footsteps of the Empire State Building in New York city - that's how I could describe in short our hotel choice during the holiday season of 2016/2017We booked Hotel Innside by Melia in New York city after our return from Philadelphia, for a 4 day sat and paid about USD 600.This sophisticated hotel in the NoMad neighborhood of Manhattan features on-site luxury dining and contemporary accommodations. Madison Square Garden, Penn Station and the Empire State building are within 20 minutes' walk of INNSIDE New York NoMad.Queen size bedThough we booked a king size bed, we got a smaller queen size bed, us our room was…
Speed Up Drupal site by 76% Using Image Lazyloader
In this article you will learn how I managed to increase load times for a Drupal powered site (the one you are currently reading) by more than 76%.
Now the following tip will apply for Drupal sites heavily loaded with images. My website, which is now more than 3 years old, features about 80% of photo stories, over the time, I have tried to limit my picture articles to 3 or less images, posting online the best of my work, but yes, there are articles with even 136 pictures, see Keukenhof tulips gardens in the Netherlands.
For each of the posts I'm using a head photo, done by using image fields from Drupal core, to make stories more Open Graph friendly. See: How to add Open…
Spice C - Hand Drawn Noodles in Philadelphia
I first discovered Spice C noodle house in Philadelphia back in 2013, and mentioned it on my article about streets of Philadelphia.Now about 3 years later, re-discovered this place again, after arrived to Philly from NYC and stayed at a lovely Chinatown hotel - Sleep Inn, it turned out that Spice C Noodle House is just about a block away from our hotel.Spice C Noodle house in PhiladelphiaOne of the things visitors will enjoy at this place, you can actually see how your noodles are preparedHand drawn noodlesIt's allowed to photograph inside, but not allowed to make a video.Shrimp noodle soup at Spice CMmm, yummy
Seagate Backup Plus Slim 1TB Portable External Hard Drive Review
I bought Seagate Backup Plus Slim 1TB Portable External Hard Drive at the Best Buy store in Manhattan, New York City at the start of 2017 for about USD 69. Now I could probably get a better price if opted to ship it online from Amazon store, see: Seagate Backup Plus Slim 1TB Portable External Hard Drive with Mobile Device Backup USB 3.0, Black (STDR1000100)Back at the end of 2015, I bought a brand new Asus laptop with 500GB internal disk storage, the main goal for this laptop was to post-process photos taken by my Canon EOS Rebel T5 DSLR camera, after switching from JPEG to the RAW format, laptop started to run out of memory in about a year. To free up…
How To Shoot Indoor Photograpy
Indoor photography covers a huge range of situations – from kids’ birthdays to high-end interior shootings. Basically, everything that is shot indoors.
Assuming that you don’t own studio lighting gear, all you’re left with is a light that’s already in your space. Because of that, indoor photography is often not-so-easy to shoot. Why? Because most of the time, the light in indoor spaces is poor and you need to learn to set your camera for low light situations.
Here, we’ll focus on some basic principles to follow while shooting indoors.
Problems disappear if there is a plenty of natural light
Manual Mode: Try to Avoid Built-In Flash
The indoor photography is a real test on how much do…
How I Lost 4.4 Pounds In 5 days In The Gym
With this article I'm starting new blog series on blog - fitness, my first article, kind of warm up article for beginners,will cover details on how I lost my first 4.4 lbs (2 kg) in the gym after first five days of training.
For a prelude, I have been overweight for years, not obese, just overweight. My body weight have been in the range 210 - 242 lbs (95-110kg) for the past 10 years. My ideal body weight as I believe should be under 200 (90kg).
I live medium healthy lifestyle, with the biggest treat to health being smoking, which I want to get rid in the foreseen future. Though I eat pretty healthy and live medium active lifestyle including cycling and hiking in my weekly routine.…
How To Build a Drupal List Page With All Users
In today's Drupal tutorial series I'm going to show a simple way how to build an authors page listing all users with their profile information + some other neat features.
A few years ago I was working on a Drupal project for large media organization and I was required to build an extended user profile system on Drupal. Recently I hired few freelance writers for my own blog / website and idea of having a nice author overview page sounded a must have.
The further written can be applied to some micro social websites powered by Drupal, but for the ease of this tutorial I will stick with an user / author overview page for multi user blogs or media organizations.
Here is the…
House of Madatovi - Tbilisi Restaurant
House of Madatovi is a really lovely Georgian style cuisine restaurant, located on the recently renovated part of David Aghameshabeli avenue.See: New Life for Agmashenebeli avenue, TbilisiMadatovi restaurant features not only authentic Georgian cuisine with amazing serving, it's crafted of lovely details, like chandlers with paper house shades, wine bottles, shelves, more shelves. Tastefully.Interior at House of MadatoviStylish places with rustic elements are popping a lot lately in Tbilisi. The interior seen here reminded a little bit something from Restaurant BarberastanChandlers with paper house shadesNow, this is something nice, not seen before. I really like that and I might use…