Blog Archive: January 2018
Remote and Abandoned Hipster Party Place with Great views of Tbilisi (Hiking near Turtle Lake)
| Living in Georgia | 10 seen
It was on a hazy Saturday morning in early January of 2018, we decided to go and visit our favorite hiking trails in Tbilisi, those ones located near Turtle Lake.
Arriving at the lake with Taxi, see How to Get around in Tbilisi by Taxify (Taxi Mobile Application), noticing our favorite Intelligentsia Coffee Bar is still closed (we arrived before 10 AM) we made a lap of honor around the lake and started to hike towards the Vake Park
Hiking in Tbilisi
Soon we discovered some interesting, seems completely abandoned and pretty remote place, the best I could thought about naming this place - Remote and Abandoned Hipster Party Place with Great views of Tbilisi
Cool construction
Apparently in Summer months covered and used as a central tent. We found here a lot of wooden constructions - kind of stuff hipsters love - furniture elements from pallets. Interesting there were a few fridges, seems there is even an electricity cable (still wonder how electricity is calculated and paid then?)
Table with a view
We made a lovely picnic here from the…
December 2017 Dividend Income Report - $173.64
| Investments | 17 seen
Welcome to the eighth (#8) dividend income report, covering earnings I've made from dividend-paying stocks, peer to peer lending (both fiat and cryptocurrencies) in December 2017.
As it was expected, already since the middle of the year, December was the record breaker and generated a dividend income in total of $173.64
See a complete list of things going on behind the scenes and my investment plans for 2018: 2017 in Review and Financial Goals for 2018
As usual, I was doing nothing much, just investing in great companies, playing a little bit with cryptocurrencies and lending out money via peer to peer marketplace. Most of the December was on autopilot, just at the start of the month I deposited some chunk of money to Mintos.com peer to peer lending marketplace, and at the end of the month - purchased additional shares of Talina kaubamaya group on Nasdaq Baltics.
I spent some time in December learning to mine cryptocurrencies, and actually even set up a custom ethereum mining rig, also I started to explore options for investments in cloud…
Dwarpool.com Review 2018 - Mining Ethereum at 28MH/s
| Servers | 15 seen
I've been mining ether since December 16, 2017, the total hash power currently is about 28MH/s. That's about 1/5 from the planned hash power in 2018.
It all started with a single GPU installed at one of the free office computers, later it has been extended to custom-built GPU mining rig and some optimization done. Past couple of weeks have been a nice learning curve, I have created many articles on mining with GPU, and they are among the most popular in 2018. Without doubts - crypto mining is a hot topic in 2018.
See the complete list of articles for the past developments:
- Building a 12 GPU Ethereum Mining Rig From Scratch - Part 1: Ordering Details
- Learning Crypto Currency Mining The Hard Way
- I'm Making $0.98 Per Day By Mining Ethereum and Siacoin, and I want MORE!
- I'm Making $2.44 Per Day By Dual Mining Ethereum and Siacoin, and I'm NOT HAPPY YET!
- Simple GPU Overclocking Boosts Ethereum Mining Profitability by 20.65% - Now Making $2.66 Daily
I opted to use Simple Mining OS, to handle my mining rig and enabled most of the default settings there. Out of the box settings at…
My Experience with Wirex Visa Card (Virtual/Plastic) Convert BTC/Altcoins to USD/EUR or GBP
| Crypto | 64 seen
I first heard about bitcoin Visa cards back in the Summer of 2017, when opted into crypto craze (strong buy and hold here). Back then I discovered Bitpay VISA card and decided to order one at the start of 2018.
Now, as January approached and my existing crypto holdings have grown more by 320%, I decided to take another quick look at Bitcoin Visa card offer before ordering Bitpay card.
Soon I found an interesting article on Steemit: Best Bitcoin Debit Cards! Bitpay vs Wirex vs CryptoPay
As the author of the article concluded that Wirex seems a great option for EU/UK I decided to give it a try.
From Wirex promo materials:
- Immediately after registration, you will have instant access to your first virtual debit card
- Get it in less than five minutes. After you apply for the Wirex virtual Visa card online, it will be issued and delivered to your email inbox instantly
- The Wirex virtual Visa card does not require a verification process before being issued. All we need is your name, date of birth and address
- For just a few cents, you can transfer…
Filenia Cretan Restaurant near Triopetra
| Restaurant reviews | 29 seen
Filenia restaurant was a really nice discovery after we checked in at Triopetra Notos Hotel - traditional Cretan lamb (and not only) dishes.
We were just driving around the area after caught a very beautiful sunset at the Libyan sea, see: Catching Sunset Photography at The Libyan See (Crete, Greece)
Another lovely roadside restaurant in Crete
Traditional Cretan lamb with pasta
Specialty of house - honey filled pies
Catching Sunset Photography at The Libyan See (Crete, Greece)
| | 14 seen
The Libyan Sea is the portion of the Mediterranean Sea north of the African coast of ancient Libya, i.e. Cyrenaica, and Marmarica (the coast of what is now eastern Libya and western Egypt, between Tobruk and Alexandria).This designation was used by ancient geographers describing the southern Mediterranean, but the term is also used by modern travel writers and cartographers.
The southern coastline of Crete which borders the Libyan Sea includes the Asterousia Mountains and Mesara Plain; this area is the locus of considerable ancient Bronze Age settlement including the sites of Kommos, Hagia Triada and Phaistos.
It was in mid-June 2017, we were on about a month long road trip across the island of Crete and were just checked in at Triopetra Notos Hotel, as there were still plenty of time until the super, we decided to explore nearby vicinity driving our rental Opel car.
Car parked for sunset photography
I just adore evenings like this - see other adventures from Catching the sunset…
Triopetra Notos Hotel Review in Crete, Greece
| Hotel reviews | 14 seen
Triopetra in Crete is among the most abandoned places I've traveled lately, if they wouldn't have a sea and a lovely beach, I would compare this place to the remote and almost abandoned desert village in Georgia, Udabno.
During our about one-month road trip around the island of Crete, we stayed at Triopetra Notos hotel for one night on June 11, 2017 and spend about EUR 50 for a hotel room. According to Booking.com website, there are not many hotels located in Triopetra, but during our short visit here, I did found a few new construction sites in the area, which might mean - Triopetra could gain some popularity in the future.
See: Top Hotels and Apartments in Triopetra, Crete
It's said that this property is a 1-minute walk from the beach, in fact, I doubt some could actually reach the sea just walking. Situated 1 km away from Triopetra Beach, Triopetra Notos Hotel offers tastefully furnished rooms and studios with views of the Libyan Sea.
Surrounding views at Triopetra Notos Hotel
In the background, you can see the Libyan sea
Featuring a furnished balcony, rooms and studios at…
2017 Blog Income & Traffic Review - Goals For 2018
| Blogging | 4 seen
Another year has just passed, and it's time to take a look back on previous 2017 year of blogging, and no doubts - take a quick glimpse at 2018.
In today's article, I will reveal some data behind the blog scenes - both traffic and income for the whole year of 2017. But before we dig into the numbers, here is the brief background - blog now is more than four years old, and for the last four years it has gone a very long way,
Make sure to check out my previous yearly blogging reviews:
- 2016 - Blog Traffic and Income Report 2016 - 635,048 Users / $18,586.41
- 2015 - Blog Traffic and Income Report for 2015 - 347,035 users / $9,819.71
- 2014 - Blog Income Report 2014 - $3,334.20
- In total blog have reached 1,049,975 (that's more than a million) users in 2017
- On average it is 87,497 monthly users or
- 2,876 daily visitors
2017 was kind of steady in terms of traffic, there was a growth, but it seems to starts slowing down (if compared to the previous years). It was…
2017 in Review and Financial Goals for 2018
| Investments | 16 seen
I'm 32 now and I have a goal to save one million dollars by the time I will turn 60. That's 28 years to go.
In today's article, I will review the past year and take a quick glimpse at the New Year.
For me, 2017 was a year of peer to peer lending, dividend-paying stocks and starting with the second part of the year - cryptocurrencies.
Investment Portfolio 2017
At the start of 2017, I planned to invest about 31% of my annual net income, the planned amount for 2017 was $8,561, I made it up to $12,057.41 at the end of the year. Isn't that Awesome? In 2017 I was investing at the pace of about $1,000/mo.
You know what's even more awesome than that? I ended 2017 with a 33.34% value growth, putting the net value of my investment portfolio at $16,077.05. I should mention that most of the value growth happened in December and because of cryptocurrencies. Soaring prices for bitcoin, litcoin, ripple, and ethereum being the main driven force behind.
Here is what I said a year before:
Now, I…
Happy New Year! Fireworks Photography from Tbilisi 2018
| | 6 seen
We wish you a very great and prosperous 2018!
Here at Piece of Life photo series we canceled our planned trip to Sri Lanka and stayed in Tbilisi to capture following firework photography from Tamar Mephe bridge (ahh we have made dozens of great photos from this place).
Just before the midnight left our apartment with a tripod and few spare batteries
Tbilisi just a few minutes before New Year 2018
Fireworks have always been an interesting object for me to photograph, I remember how I prepared for great firework photography 2 years ago in St. Marks Square (Venice, Italy) in 2015/2016 but missed great images because of buildings covering the objective. I got my first successful firework photos the same year from our balcony in Tbilisi, see: Old New Year's fireworks in Tbilisi
As a lot of time has passed, it was hard to recall how to make a proper fireworks photography tonight
2018 Tbilisi fireworks
Tonight I made about 90 long exposure night photographs, just a few survived final editorial review (you can see them in this article)
Happy New Year - Tbilisi 2018…