The Empire State Building & Observation Deck Tour

27 April, 2017 | Tourism objects | 37 seen

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, 2017

The 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 (443.2 m) tall. Its name is derived from the nickname for New York, the Empire State.

It stood as the world's tallest building for nearly 40 years, from its completion in early 1931 until the topping out of the original World Trade Center's North Tower in late 1970. Following the September 11 attacks in 2001, the Empire State Building was again the tallest building in New York, until …

Khinklis Sakhli / Khinkali House on Moscow Avenue, Tbilisi

26 April, 2017 | Restaurant reviews | 74 seen

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, Tbilisi

It is a really spacious hall with separated seats,pretty surreal but cool

Georgian khinkali

Now, I love khinkali and here they were just delicious. I've decided to prepare khinkali at home, could be a cool experiment for food blog series.

Grilled meat

Now this is one of the rare places in Tbilisi you can order whole tenderloin steak

Q1 2017 Online Income Report - $5,886.46

25 April, 2017 | Blogging | 9 seen

First quarter of 2017 has been very interesting, tried and applied some new ideas, launched two separate websites and started to generate first real passive income from peer to peer lending. 

As there have been a lot of changes in the past three months, this year's online income reports will be different from previous quarter reports, they will cover not only earnings from this blog, but will include earnings from other websites and earnings from investments.

In short first quarter of 2017 (January, February and March) earned $6,335.20 what is an awesome more than double growth if compared to the first quarter of year before (see: Q1 2016 Blog Traffic and Online Income - 136,784 Users / $2,467.48), though if compared to previous quarter that's a little decrease (see: Q4 2016 Blog Traffic & Income Report - 197,850 Users / $6,921.16) 

Now, I've already mentioned that in the past 3 months I've started two new websites, I decided to include all of them in this report.

Main blog, the one you are currently reading - First quarter of the…

How To Insert Node Reference in Content Using Views

24 April, 2017 | Drupal Development | 11 seen

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) add a new Node Reference field

Node Reference field

I will set widget to Auto complete text field as later it will be much easier to enter just first letters of title to find and reference nodes.

In the next window (Field Settings) select Content types that can be referenced, articles for example

In the next window, under REFERENCED…

Average Salary in European Union 2017

23 April, 2017 | Macroeconomics | 254 seen

For the fourth year in a row, I'm publishing my humble observations on average salary changes in the European Union. In this article, I've decided to compare average salary in 2017 with 2014. 

Update: Average Salary in European Union 2018

For previous archives see: Average salary in EU: 2016, 2015, 2014

I wouldn't call bellow written a scientific research, as most of the data in this article are taken from Wikipedia's article List of European countries by average wage. To make it more interesting I've added the year of 2014  as a reference and made some simple calculations in Google Sheets. Data provided below might not be 100% accurate but they should give an overall insight on average salary levels across European Union member countries.

If compared to 2014, average median salary has increased by about 2.02% during the past three years. The average salary in EU as of 2017 stands at EUR 1,520 monthly what is up from EUR 1489 in 2014

Now, there is a new leader with the …

12 Dividend Stocks to Invest to Get Payments Every Month

22 April, 2017 | Investments | 19 seen

The other morning I read an article on Kiplinger - Great Stocks to Get Dividends Every Month, and I decided to make some calculations and speculations, as right now I'm looking to invest some money in dividend paying stocks and idea of getting dividends every month seems a very good option to make a living.

My goal for 2017 is to invest $8,561 throughout the year, not mandatory all money should be invested in stocks, in fact I have already invested about a quarter of that money in Latvian peer to peer lending marketplace - Mintos. See: Review of Mintos Peer to Peer Lending After One Month of Investing

Another, again about a quarter of my money, goal  for 2017, I'm planing to invest in dividend paying stock in Baltic NASDAQ Market, see: Dividend Paying Stocks In Nasdaq Baltic Market By Yield.

And right now, an option to invest in the US dividend stocks, though with much lower yields than Baltic market, seems a good way to diversify my investment portfolio in 2017.

Hiking Route in Georgia - Norio Village - Martkopi Monastery

21 April, 2017 | Outdoor Activities | 180 seen

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 complex

The 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 Tbilisi

We decided to take this hiking route at the end of February 2017, here are a few shots from our route

At the start of route in Norio Village

It was a nice and sunny Saturday in February 2017. With help of Google Maps we started our route just after left marshrutka

First obstacles - mud puddle 

It was a good test for my Aldo leather shoes I bought in NYC few month before.

It also reminded…

Investment Opportunity in Georgia - Fish Farming & Agro Tourism

20 April, 2017 | Doing Business | 23 seen

The other morning I was contacted by acquaintance informing about interesting investment opportunity in Georgia. Investment opportunity involves fish farming and possible agro tourism.

As this investment asks more than $300,000 and is out of my knowledge, I decided to "list" it on blog as blog is getting a lot of eyeballs regarding invest in Georgia.

Here is the proposal:

This package is to find interested investors for 350,000 USD for a 49% share in the project. The entire farm and project is as of today on a fire-sale of sorts for about 200 000 USD for 100% ownership of 41 Ha (the original purchase price of the land in 2012) near to Sagarejo, Georgia plus all the information, research, data and project planning we as developers has or ever had.

The land was evaluated by Pro Credit bank at 400 000 USD and the entire project much more. As can be seen from the projections it is very profitable, the current owner and investors just don’t have money to do it. Some of the information is not relevant anymore but the land and the project is still valid.

There are 2 main possible project directions - “…

How To Remove HTML Elements From Drupal 7 Feed

20 April, 2017 | Drupal Development | 12 seen

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.

Visit your content type, under Manage Display scroll down to Custom Display settings and enable RSS feed

Custom Display Settings for Drupal 7 Content types

Next under RSS display settings manage fields you would like to keep, and set body to plain text (or some other predefined text format)…

How & Why To Hire a Virtual Assistant / Freelancer - UpWork.com

19 April, 2017 | Blogging | 30 seen

2017 have come with some fresh ideas and changes for me how to continue successfully grew my personal blog (the one you are currently reading).

It was back in December when I was intensively brainstorming  ideas on how could I keep my 365 days blogging challenge (an article per day) meanwhile rising the quality of content.

Another reason I was looking for a Virtual Assistant / Freelancer - I was looking for ways of doing less by myself and getting more free time on other, let's say organizing issues. 

This blog covers many different topics, which might not been related at the first glance, I write about my travels, restaurant reviews, also I write about my adventures in home remodeling, meanwhile I keep writing about gadgets, investments and more on. Let's say I have a lifestyle blog with fintech touch, In the past I've eliminated some of the topics in past, and  keep focusing 90% on things that really matters to me. 

There is a pretty popular section - All about Georgia, where I keep putting my notes on my discoveries in Georgia as I've been living here as an expat…

Review of Mintos Peer to Peer Lending After One Month of Investing

18 April, 2017 | Peer to Peer Lending | 15 seen

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.com

Both 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 have their identity successfully verified by Mintos. At the moment, US citizens or taxpayers cannot register as investors at Mintos.

Affiliate link here: Signup to Mintos.com here. By using this affiliate link for registration both you and I will receive — 1% of our average daily balance which should be paid in 3 installments for the first 90 days.

Now I was slow on actually starting to invest there for about 8 months, when…

Dividend Paying Stocks In Nasdaq Baltic Market By Yield

17 April, 2017 | Investments | 62 seen

After couple of years of pause in investments I have decided to return to investing.

It probably all starts with my New Year's resolution to save in my "retirement" fund a million dollars before I will turn 60. See: Road To Million Dollars in Saving Account

My goal for 2017 is to put aside, or more precisely to invest $8,561 throughout the year, not mandatory all money should be invested in stocks, in fact I have already invested a little bit more than $1,000 in peer to peer lending, in another Baltic "start up" - Mintos. See: My Start at Investing on Mintos Peer to Peer Lending Platform: Depositing Funds

I like Mintos because of one reason - they offer to invest in Georgian loans, as I have been living in Georgia for about 6 years, I always look on perspective ways to invest in Georgia. Invest in Georgia - Peer-to-Peer (P2P) lending - Mintos.com

Now, my experience on investing in Baltic stock market starte in 2001 or 2002,when I first bought stocks of Latvijas Kuģniecība using privatization certificates. Which latter in 2005 I sold for about 500 or 600 Latvian lats and bought a Canon camcorder. In 2007 I…

Martkopi monastery

16 April, 2017 | Churches and Monasteries | 25 seen

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 Monastery

We 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 photography or use a drone.

Update: We returned here again in 2020 and this I was equipped with a DJI Mavic mini drone, and I managed to take some cool photography and video

During our latest trip to the monastery, we met priest Dato, with whom we are now friends on Facebook. We have been told that the place shelters about 100 people, disabled persons, and homeless people. Now, that's the true spirit of a church.

Martkopi monastery…

The Chronicle of Georgia, Monument Near Tbilisi Sea

15 April, 2017 | Tourism objects | 380 seen

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 presence here. See: All About Georgia

If you feel indie travel just like me, take you options get there using taxi, marshrutka or maybe walking, or see how can I save you time and money by helping to plan your itinerary to Georgia, see organized tours in Georgia.

The Chronicle of Georgia

Now I would love to put this place in one shelf together with Sameba cathedral, Yerevan cascade and Garni Temple in Armenia. Really impressive sites…

Norio Village

14 April, 2017 | Railway / Bus / Ferry | 33 seen

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 Georgia

Ride 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 transfers

Concrete blocks in Norio village

Our route (about 5km) to Martkopi monastery started here.

I believe there is something interesting to see in Norio village itself, though in this case I'm listing it as public transport end stop. If you love indie travel and have decided to get to Martkopi monastery on your own, Norio village is a good reference point in fact.

Norio