Blog Archive: November 2020
How to See Messages Sent From The Contact Form Drupal 9
| Drupal Development | 28 seen
Recently working on my latest Drupal l9 project - BalticInvestors.com I faced a strange issue - after enabling the core default contact form, it seemed that data is not stored anywhere after actually filling out and submitting the webform.
Turns out there is a little helper module, which solves it - Contact Storage
Contact Storage module will provide storage for Contact messages which are fully-fledged entities in Drupal 8 and Drupal 9. This plus core contact module aims to provide functionality equivalent to the base-features of Webform or Entity Form.
Contact storage in Drupal 9
Apriķi Lutheran Church
| Churches and Monasteries | 12 seen
Apriķi church is located in the Apriķi village, Laža parish, Aizpute district in the Western part of Latvia (Courland).
Apriķi church is considered to be the pearl of Courland sacral art because the glory of its indoor interior is remembered by every visitor.
Apriķi Lutheran Church
The stone church is built on Apriķi manor house land as Osten-Sakenu private church in the beginning of 17th century. The church got its glorious blue-white and golden coloured interior in the middle of the 18th century. The main influence in the interior is rococo, but specific elements share distinct baroque characteristics.
The pulpit, organ gallery, organ, altar, confessional make up a unified ensemble – decorative wood-carving masterpiece. The interior of the church is made even more luxurious by its ceiling, where there is a depiction of the sky and allegoric beings (truth, caution, hope etc.) and over the organ gallery there is a whole orchestra of angels depicted.
Enzo’s Ezo Italian Restaurant in Kakheti
| Restaurant reviews | 10 seen
Discover chef Enzo’s Italian yard with a positive vibe and happy atmosphere in the center of Chateau Mere hotel, close to Telavi
It's said that the place serves home-made simple rustic Italian food and 36 hours of rising dough pizza.
We had a chance to dine here at the start of October 2020, ordered some quattro formaggi pizza, salads, pasta carbonara, some drinks. Food was good, bill was about GEL 100
Overall - nice place.
Golden hour at Northern Forts / Liepāja
| | 20 seen
Northern forts of Liepāja are really cool military history tourism site - Built by Imperial Russia at the end of the 19th century and at the beginning of 20th century to provide the protection of Liepāja’s naval base in case of enemy attack.
It was at the start of November 2020, I was equiped with DJI Mavic Air 2 drone and wanted to make some cool drone footage. Decided to test with bracketing to post process in Adobe Lightroom later and make some nice looking HDR's.
Here is what I got:
Northern forts of Liepāja
According to history - In November of 1908, Tsar Nicholas II approved a decision to shut down the sea fortress in Liepāja. It has been now over 100 years since these fortification walls don't function anymore and just recently they have been placed on tourist maps.
Golden hour at Northern forts of Liepāja
There was an attempt to blow up the gun batteries, the underground structures, and the gunpowder depots but this did not prove effective. So nowadays we can still see the remains of the newest and the most up-to-date fortress of the Tsar’s Russia.
Northern forts of …
Top 10 Gaming Desktop PC's with Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Graphics Card
| Laptop Reviews | 43 seen
Long been the days since I built my first crypto mining rig, these were the days I was following up on the latest trends for GPU cards.
Now, in today's article, I've listed the top 10 Gaming Desktop PCs with NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3800 graphics cards.
The GeForce RTX 3080 delivers the ultra-performance that gamers crave, powered by Ampere—NVIDIA’s 2nd gen RTX architecture. It’s built with enhanced RT Cores and Tensor Cores, new streaming multiprocessors, and superfast G6X memory for an amazing gaming experience.
A quick note: This article contains affiliate links to Amazon.com, by clicking on links on this page, and by making a purchase on the Amazon site, I will earn an affiliate income at no cost to you. Prices for desktops listed on this page are retrieved using Amazon Product Advertising API and is updated daily. For actual prices please refer to the product page on Amazon.
Skytech Blaze 3.0 Gaming PC Desktop - AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 3.6GHz, RTX 3080 10GB, 16GB DDR4, 1TB Gen4 SSD, 120mm AIO Liquid Cool, B550 Motherboard, Black- AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 8-Core 8-Thread 3.6 GHz…
Cīrava manor from a birds flight during golden hour
| | 13 seen
Cīrava Palace is located in the village of Cīrava, Aizpute municipality, Latvia.
The palace / manor t was built in 1752 as a hunting palace for the German Baltic baron family von Manteuffel-Szoeges.
Cīrava manor in Latvia
We love to come and visit Cīrava if we have a chance, so did happen last time at the start of November 2020, I was equipped with a DJI Mavic AIr 2 drone and wanted to make some awesome golden hour HDR photography
Abandoned Manor Complex in Cirava (Latvia)
Cīrava manor from a drone flight
The palace is surrounded by a nineteenth-century landscape park. There is also a decorative pond with two islands and a big collection of trees and bushes in the park. G. Kuffalt, the main gardener of Riga, took part in the creation of the Cīrava Palace park.
Cirava Lutheran church
Weekend trip to Borjomi and Akhaltsikhe
| Tourism objects | 5 seen
Weekend trips to Borjomi and Akhaltsikhe are quite possible and easily doable.
I just love to visit Borjomi an area during the fall season, the scenery can turn very spectacular, leaves are turning yellow, orange.. see Autumn in Borjomi
So did happen at the of September 2020, we decided to for an easy weekend trip to Borjomi, booked a nice family-run hotel in Borjomi - hotel Rustaveli
Once arrived on site, it turned out we are the only guests, got complimentary wine from the hotel owner David, who latter recommended us to visit Sapara monastery near Akhaltsikhe the next day.
The next morning we headed to the famous mineral water park in Borjomi, as it was raining we decided to get back to the car and drive up to the women's monastery.
Next, our road took us to Akhaltsikhe, during our ride, we discovered a pretty awesome Atskuri monastery. Next, stop at Rabati complex, but before that ordered some grilled meat for takeaway at Sergos Duqani.
About an hour at the monastery complex and we wanted already to return back to Tbilisi, but as our grilled meat was not yet ready yet, took some short…
St Nicholas Naval Cathedral, Karosta / Liepāja
| Churches and Monasteries | 31 seen
The St Nicholas Naval Cathedral is a Russian Orthodox cathedral church located in Karosta in the north of Liepāja, Latvia.
I have visited this cathedral just a couple of times, but always have been impressed by the glory of the place.
It was at the start of November 2020, I got my new DJI Mavic Air 2 drone and I wanted to make some nice aerography, as we happened to be in the area, it was agreed to film and photograph this cathedral
St Nicholas Naval Cathedral in Liepāja
The cathedral was built on the style of 17th century traditional Russian churches with a central dome representing Christ with 4 smaller domes representing the four evangelists on designs made by V. Kosyakov. It was built to serve as the cathedral church of the Russian navy stationed in Karosta. The cornerstone was laid in the presence of a number of dignitaries including Tsar Nicholas II of Russia. The cathedral was completed two years later in 1903 and was formally consecrated and dedicated to the patron saint of seafarers in the presence of the Tsar himself.
St Nicholas Naval Cathedral in Karosta…
BalticInvestors.com - Your gateway to investments in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania
| Drupal Development | 15 seen
After a long time of thinking, on the late-night of November 8, 2020, I finally launched my latest brainchild - BalticInvestors.com - a website dedicated to investment opportunities in the region of Baltics (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania).
At this website, we are going to cover investments in stock, real estate, and alternative investments, like peer to peer lending. Also agricultural land and forestry.
BalticInvestors.com website
Those of you who follow my personal blog for a longer time - already now I'm a keen investor in the Baltic stock market and have some good background with peer to peer lending platforms. Despite I personally prefer larger markets, like the US stock market, I still feel very interested in Baltic investment opportunities.
The final push to launch a separate website for covering investments in the Baltic, come after I bought a flat at online auction, see: Today I bought my first flat on online auction site
For the next year, it's planned to write bi-weekly in-depths articles, on topics like - top dividend stocks in Baltics, Investing with mutual…
Rudbārži Palace
| Tourism objects | 21 seen
Rudbārži Palace is a palace in Rudbārži parish in Skrunda municipality in the historical region of Courland, in western Latvia.
The estate was, from 16th century to 1661, owned by the family of Eberhard von Goes and from 1778 till 1920 by the von Fircks noble family. Schloss Rudbahren was originally built (within the Courland Governorate) in 1835 for Baroness Thea von Fircks and was remodeled in 1882–1883. The structure was severely damaged by a fire set by revolutionaries in 1905 but rebuilding began in 1908.
Rudbarzi palace
During the Latvian independence struggle of 1919, Rudbārži Palace was a base for the Oskars Kalpaks Battalion (the 1st Latvian Independent Battalion). The bodies of Kalpaks himself and other officers who fell in the actions of March 1919 against the Bolsheviks were brought from the place of skirmish to lie in the Hall. In 1937 a rest home for Latvian soldiers was established there,[4] and a commemorative plaque was unveiled on the building. Following further destruction in 1938, there was a second reconstruction. During…
Rabati Fortress complex from a drone flight
| | 5 seen
Rabati Castle is a medieval fortress built in the 9th century under the name "Lomisa Castle" in the city of Akhaltsikhe in southern Georgia, recently globally reconstructed. One of the main attractions of the Samtskhe-Javakheti region along with Vardzia caves
We have been visiting Rabati occasionally here and then, so did happen at the end of September 2020, we were on a day trip to the Borjomi, when decided to come here, luckily I was equipped with my DJI Mavic mini drone and made a few nice drone photos.
Rabati fortress complex
In May 2011, the reconstruction of the Rabati fortress began, which was accompanied by the restoration and completion of many buildings that were destroyed in time immemorial. For this purpose, the Government of Georgia allocated 34 million lari from the state budget. As part of the project, the Akhmediye Mosque, the mosque minaret, the madrasah, the Jakeli castle, baths, the citadel, the walls of the fortress and the Orthodox Church were updated on the territory of the fortress. The tunnel leading to the Potskhovi River was also restored.…
October 2020 Dividend Income Report - $89.35
| Investments | 13 seen
Welcome to the forty-second (#42) dividend income report, covering earnings I've made from dividend-paying stocks and peer to peer lending in October 2020.
Last October we managed to get out of Georgia and come to Latvia, seems we have will stuck here for some time.
Also, another, bigger and better, drone is now in my arsenal (DJI Mavic Air 2)
Golden Autumn in Latvia / Forest house in Ķemeri
From the perspective of dividend income - we keep struggling and last October was pretty bad if compared to the previous years, we keep suffering from trimmed dividends, and by the end of the month, we barely took $89. Relying on dividends these days is very hard.
Compared to the previous October in 2019, when we took $200 in dividend income, our monthly dividend has decreased by -55.63% (-$112.01). A year ago we did set a goal to take at least $300 this month, now this didn't happen.
Luckily, an additional $548.24 was made from options trading.
As options trading is not a passive form…
Kazdanga Mill lake (Dzirnezers) from a drone flight
| | 4 seen
Kazdanga Mill lake (Dzirnezers, Dzirnavu ezers in Latvian) is located centrally located in Kazdanga, Latvia.
First discovered back in 2015, I have been returning here quite often, so did happen last time at the end of October 2020 I come here with a DJI Mavic Mini drone
Kazdanga mill lake
Located in a very close distance to the impressive Kazdanga manor Kazdanga Mill Lake and its surroundings is a must-have attraction while you are in Kazdanga.
Kazdanga mill lake
There is a nice pontoon footbridge built across the lake, see: Pontoon Footbridge Over Mill Lake In Kazdanga