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Greetings from Scotland! Over the past week, we've been making the most of the school break by travelling to this beautiful part of the world. We've explored Edinburgh…
As of October 16, 2026, our options-selling-powered dividend stock portfolio stood at $13,456, marking a weekly decline of 1.37% compared with the previous week.This…
As of October 9, 2026, our options-selling-powered dividend stock portfolio stood at $13,643, showing a decent weekly increase of +0.72% compared with the previous week.…
Tbilisi has many cool tourist attraction sites, but there is one, which is rarely mentioned in official guides or Tbilisi reviews - meet the hidden pearl of nations capital - Tbilisi Zoo.On the other hand worldwide coverage Tbilisi Zoo got after Tbilisi floods on 14 June 2015, leaving many animals dead or on the loose. See: Zoo animals on the loose and deaths feared after Georgia floodsTbilisi Zoo is located in the Vere valley just next to the Heroes square. There is a symbolic 2 GEL entrance fee in Zoo's territory. In park there some additional attractions for kids, like Ferris wheel and other carrousels. There is a terrarium with separate 1GEL ticket for…
Searching for a budget friendly car rental in Italy? Look no more - I can highly suggest FireFly car rental. We used Firefly during our recent week long trip in Italy, prior to that I have used FireFly Spain (see: My Spain and Andorra Travel guide).
We booked our economy Volkswagen Polo car online and picked it up at Milan-Malpensa airport (you must call to FireFly office upon arrival, after then they will send a shuttle bus to pick you up and will take you to the office, our case it was located in town of Case Nuovo).
Unfortunately we hadn't roaming enabled, so our phones were useless at this stage. After some 10 minutes wandering at the Terminal 1 exit in Milan-…
Kiwi is a vegan non-profit community cafe located on Vertskli street 41, in Tbilisi Old Town. It is stated that all of their proceedings are donated to good causes related to animal rights. Kiwi provides a free social meeting space for organizations who are working for important change in the society, events can be arranged.Kiwi vegan cafe is the second socially responsible cafe I have found so far in Tbilisi (I don't search for them specially, they just pops in front of me). See Art Cafe Kamara - a social enterprise art cafe which employs rehabilitated persons from different addictsThat was on sunny February afternoon, I decided to head to the…
It was an early morning of August, back in 2015, I was still sleeping, tired of yesterday's hard work of unloading few tones of sand from our rural house's loft, probably still dreaming to finish anytime soon roofing works, when my better part took DSLR camera and went out shooting - look - what a beautiful mist she captured today:Morning mist Mist in our backyard territoryMist in apple orchardmist over pine coppice
For a minute it seemed that all major removal, junk unloading and demolishing works are over, but then I realized we still have that soil coving floor in loft. And I'm speaking of some 25 cm thick layer of soil, for some reason covered there.Few weeks ago I was still naive I hoped to remove that soil/sand from the loft without any help but myself. Yup, that was quite a naive. Now, when finally last shingles were removed it was time for another pushup - get rid of that soil. I had a two workers helping me around, and it took us about twelve hours to unload and transport soil to the construction pit.All we needed here: shovels, wheelbarrow and a lot of strength and patience doing such a…
Karabak is very cool Turkish restaurant located on the busy Queen Tamar Aveneu (Tamar Mephe) in Tbilisi not very far from Tbilisi Railway station.When I first noticed a huge restaurant opening here on Tamar Mepe avenue, I got confused about its name - Karabak. My first thought was they are naming restaurant after Nagorno-Karabakh unrecognized Republic. Turns out (as I was told) it's not related to disputed land between Armenia and Azerbaijan, but it is actually the restaurant's owner surname)It was on Valentine's day after two interesting photo journalism wanderings in Tbilisi (see: How Valentine's day was celebrated in Tbilisi and Reconstruction works on…
Best Western Modena District hotel was our last hotel in Italy during our week long travels across the country. This Best Western hotel is a 5-minute drive from the Campogalliano exit of the A22 Motorway, 10 km from Modena. The property offers a gym, and free outdoor parking.At check in I asked can they give us a smokers room, the receptionist lady told they have a lovely, large smokers room, which is designed for disabled persons, we didn't mind, after seeing our room - we concluded, they just love disabled persons here in Italy - super spacious room, double soft king-size bed and a very spacious bathroom. Best they had Russian TV channels (which was rare in Italy, most probably a lot…
Looking for free toursit attraction sites in Italian town of Modena? You might visit Modena Town Hall. Facing the Piazza Grande (a UNESCO World Heritage Site), the Town Hall of Modena was put together in the 17th and 18th centuries from several pre-existing edifices built from 1046 as municipal offices.Modena Town Hall, ItalyIt is characterized by a Clock Tower (Torre dell'Orologio, late 15th century), once paired with another tower (Torre Civica) demolished after an earthquake in 1671. In the interior, noteworthy is the Sala del Fuoco ("Fire Hall"), with a painted frieze by Niccolò dell'Abbate (1546) portraying famous characters from Ancient Rome against a…
Tartine Brasserie is one of the rare places in Tbilisi where brunch is served in weekends. I have been in research for perfect breakfast restaurant in Tbilisi for past couple of weeks already, last week I tried so called breakfast menu at Barbarestan - Wine Shop and Restaurant in Tbilisi it didn't worked well. So another Saturday morning - another Tbilisi restaurant.Located in the heart of Tbilisi Old Town, this place have been on my radar for a very long time already (some few years ago I actually tried some time here, but back then I didn't had ultimate list of Tbilisi restaurant reviews). In fact - we were looking for a brunch at this place some month ago already, but again, we…
There is a very convenient way of getting around in Tbilisi by taxi using mobile application Taxify.
I probably first heard of this company at the end of 2014 by visiting Georgian Startup challenge organized by GITA.
For my travels around Tbilisi I mostly use taxi either by calling to the central or just by catching taxi on the street (I prefer second over first still). Taxis are cheap in Tbilisi, but you never know about cars technical condition, the cabin cleanliness and so on. There have been cases I would rather call my taxi a tank instead of a car - broken handles, battered windshields, unbalanced seats and so on. Should I mention - smoky salon? As a…
Gmap custom markers are cool way to enhance your Drupal site. My blog heavily really on Drupal Views + Gmap + Location module. Most of the articles listed in Restaurant reviews, tourist attractions or hotel reviews are nicely displayed on map and pinned with custom created markers.
Recently, when updating Gmap module to the latest stable version all my markers disappeared so I had to re-upload markers. That' s how I decided to write a simple tutorial on how to add custom markers in Drupal using Gmap module.
Custom markers using Gmap module
All markers in Gmap module are stored in markers folder, we will create a new folder inside it and will upload…
One of my biggest challenges last summer was unstoppable fight with grass (see: Lawn Mowing), not to mention larger scale works on roof replacement. But there was another major issue we faced - overgrown bushes and totally deprived landscape. When dealing with trees and shrubs it's not only about landscape, but also about their health. You want healthy landscape right? Now, we had a really deprival and unhealthy landscape in our backyard territory.Overgrown bushesIn the middle somewhere there are cherry trees, plum trees and apple trees. Barely can notice anyone yet.I was tired from yesterday's roof removal works, and instead of myself trimming and chain sawing here I asked our worker…
Think roof works are cool? In fact - roofing is one of the hardest works in construction and if you have decided by your own to replace your old roofing - think again! Anyway - let me show - how once again (See: Replacing Roof - Part 1: Removing old roofing) we removed old wooden shingles from our rural house back in Summer of 2015. This time I hired two workers to help me out with demolishing works and ...things moved quickly. We were able to completely remove old roofing from the second roof plane and collect the construction waste and transport to nearby meadow (to later burn it). Since the construction waste consisted just from the old wooden shingles…
Yup, another hipster style article about actual prices for consumer goods at local Tbilisi market (Bazroba).It has been a while since I decided to measure how lari/dolar exchange rates influence actual prices, if you, just like me are an expat living in Georgia - you most probably have faced the consequences of weak lari against US dollar. Thus - I don't believe that foreign currency should affect local economy. National currency of Georgia is lari and lari we are spending in markets, metro or marshurtkas - even for rent we are paying in lari (well, adjusted to current exchange rates to US dollar)Back at the October 1st 2016 GEL/USD/EUR exchange rates were…
A major and very much needed reconstruction works recently (February 2016) have begun on one of the major Tbilisi streets - David Agmanashebeli avenue. Funded by Tbilisi Development Fund (which is pretty much financed from city budget + private investor capital) promises a completely renovated street by the Autumn 2016.It was mid February and we decided to explore how construction works were held on this street. Another reason I find these construction works very exciting - a few years ago we lived in this neighborhood on Rome street, back then we could only fantasy that one day city will take care of this city part as well and some day it will look here like in these Postcards from…
Chops by the River restaurant and grill is now among my favorite Tskenti restaurants, and allow me to say among Tbilisi restaurants as well. Located in village of Tskneti this restaurant offers single priced grill menus and very pleasant atmosphere.I have heard of this place by some friend before, but the circumstances that made us actually to visit this restaurant was a little bit strange. As an active outdoor lovers we were off to hiking trip from Tskenti to Turtle lake, unfortunately this route is not anymore accessible, because of landslides near Tskenti. Read more: Failed attempt to complete Tskneti - Turtle lake hiking routeAfter hiking some 2km in the nowhere…
It has been about a year, since I noticed IMCE upload is damn slow when uploading images for my photo stories or just any other articles. For a very long time I was convinced that it's some cdn or JavaScript incompatibility (because sometimes, just sometimes IMCE upload worked just fine)
It was until today, when it started to take more than one minute to properly load that modal window of IMCE upload.
IMCE upload window
I quickly realized, IMCE folder was using about 1GB of memory (default upload folder -/sites/default/files) which stored more than 7,000 images - each time IMCE had to do a check up on all those files. I decided to look on IMCE settings,…
Modena is a little charming town in the middle of Italy. Known as the birthplace of Worlds famous Ferrari car.We spent a few days in vicinity of Modena (during our recent trip to Italy), enjoyed a colorful facades of houses, narrow streets, a lot of prosciutto and of course great Italian coffee.Back at the time - I was tired of photography and made just a few random shots here:Colored residential buildings and window shutters in ModenaAn ancient town, and seat of an archbishop, it is now known as "the capital of engines", since the factories of the famous Italian sports car makers Ferrari, De Tomaso, Lamborghini, Pagani and Maserati are…
As testified by the coat of arms on the internal arch-way of the court-yard, this house belonged to the “Dal Cappello” or “Cappelletti”. The building, dating back to the 13th and renovated in the last century, features the balcony where Romeo promised his beloved Juliet eternal love in Shakespeare’s famous tragedy.I had a chance to visit World famous Juliet's balcony on January 2nd, 2016 - it was a very rainy and cold day In VeronaJuliet's Balcony in VeronaWell - balcony as balcony right? But:Young couples are still very moved by the right of this house and unmarried people touch Juliet’s statue (a kind of good-luck ritual) in the hope of finding the love of their life. How many hopes and…
It was about a month ago - when I successfully installed secure https pages for my blog, I opted for using free certificate provided by Let's Encrypt certificate authority. I first heard Let's Encrypt certificate authority from KeyCDN.
It was super easy and fast to create SSL certificates for my Linode powered Nginx box. Unfortunately - just a few days later I noticed a deadly screen - Your connection is not private
Your connection is not private Google Chrome screen
I was using Windows XP machine with Google Chrome. I panicked, stressed - then I opened my blog on my default laptop (Windows 8) - everything was fine - green bar was visible, not any problems with connection. I went back…
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