Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Posted on May 24, 2010 - by admin

Inflation

Inflation is when you pay $15 for the $10 haircut you used to get for $5 when you had hair. – Sam Ewing.

Posted on May 2, 2010 - by admin

The Arabs get the oil?

Posted on May 1, 2010 - by admin

Castles in Romania

Since I just did a castle post (see post just below this one) I thought I should put this up.  I did not write it, it came from a news source.  I have been to all of these except the last one.  But, these are not the kind of castles owned by Christian organizations that put on conferences.  They are used as tourist destinations.

——–article begins here——–

There are a number of beautiful castles in Romania. A short list about the most beautiful and most visited castles in Romania:

Peles Castle in Sinaia, the summer residence of the kings of Romania, was built at the wish of King Carol I of Romania (1866 – 1914), by Johannes Schultz and architect Karel Liman, and was decorated by famous decorators JD Heymann Hamburg, August Bembi in Mainz and Berhard Ludwig in Vienna. Peles Castle may be considered the most important historic edifice in Romania, with unique character and historic and artistic value.

Stained Peles Castle was purchased and installed between 1883 and in 1914, most were brought from Switzerland and Germany, parts dating from the XV and XVII. In addition, Castle has seven terraces decorated with stone statues, fountains and ornamental vases of Carrara marble.

Peles Castle is situated in Sinaia, Prahova Valley (44 km from Brasov and 122 km from Bucharest), the European road E60 (DN1). Numerous rail trains bound for Ploiesti and Brasov Sinaia.

Visitors enjoy an extended tour of the premises on the ground floor and first floor, with guides in five languages.

Bran Castle is an historic and architectural monument, located in Step Rucar Bran, 30 km from Brasov. Bran Castle is built on a rock in a key strategic point of view. It currently houses the Museum of Bran, the museum covers four floors of the castle. Museum collections are displayed in ceramic, furniture, weapons and armor, and the castle’s museum is a small village with traditional houses in the region Rucar-Bran.

Pelisor is a small castle built between 1899 and 1902 by Czech architect Karel Liman and decorated by the Viennese artist Bernhardt Ludwig Pelisor become, since 1903, the summer residence of princes heirs, the castle was built in the desire of King Charles I.

There are several chambers, working cabinets, a chapel, and “the golden room”. Queen Marie herself, an accomplished artist, made many of the artistic decisions about the design of the palace, and participated in its decoration, including as a painter. Queen Marie considered Art Nouveau a weapon against sterile historicism, creating a personal style combining Art-Nouveau elements with Byzantine and Celtic elements. The hall of honor is very simple with the walls covered with oak-timber and a glass ceiling.

The Hunyad Castle (Romanian: Castelul Huniazilor or Castelul Corvinestilor) is a castle in Transylvanian Hunedoara, present-day Romania. Until 1541 it was part of the Kingdom of Hungary, and after the Principality of Transylvania.

It was built mainly in Gothic style, but has Renaissance architectural elements. It features tall and strong defense towers, an interior yard and a drawbridge. Built over the site of an older fortification and on a rock above the small river Zlasti, the castle is a large and imposing building with tall and diversely colored roofs, towers and myriad windows and balconies adorned with stone carvings.

In the castle yard, near the chapel built also during Vlad The Third’s ruling, is a well 30 meters deep. The legend says that this fountain was dug by twelve Turkish prisoners to whom liberty was promised if they reached water. After 15 years they completed the well, but their captors did not keep their promise. It is said that the inscription on a wall of the well means “you have water, but not soul”.

The Iulia Hasdeu Castle is a folly house built in the form of small castle by historian and politician Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu in the city of Câmpina, Romania. Work on it began in 1893, after Hasdeu’s daughter, Iulia Hasdeu, died at the age of 19, an event that dramatically shook and changed Hasdeu’s life.

He claimed that his belated daughter provided the plans for building the castle during sessions of spiritism (which took much of Hasdeu’s imagination and time after Iulia’s death). The building was completed in 1896.

Since 1994 the Iulia Hasdeu Castle has been housing the “B.P.Hasdeu” Memorial Museum which displays furniture, personal belongings of Hasdeu family, photos and original documents, manuscripts, Hasdeu’s reviews, many pictures made by Nicolae Grigorescu and Sava Hentia.

Copyright © 2008 – 2010 Factoidz.com

Posted on April 30, 2010 - by admin

Castle Conference

For the past 4 years, as long as we’ve been living in Romania, I’ve been hearing these incredible stories about people visiting amazing castles for Christian retreats and conferences.  I don’t know how it happened, outside of a miracle, but it seems like Christian organizations have snatched up castles all over Europe and are now using them as Bible colleges, retreat centers, conferences centers, youth camps, etc.  For 4 years I’ve been somewhat jealous of my friends and colleagues who have been able to visit them with good excuses.

Whenever someone tells me they are going to this or that castle in Germany or Hungary or Austria for a week long retreat, I usually grit my teeth and say, “Oh how nice…may the Lord abundantly bless your time there“.   What I really want to say is, “Sucker fool, you already been on 3 of those shindigs and I ain’t got to go within 100 km of a castle the whole time I’ve been here…I’m gonna steal your name tag and go in your place!“  But, then, I look at my wrist, and I see the WWJD bracelet, and I am reminded; yes, What Would Jerry (Seinfeld) Do?.

Well, my patience finally paid off because Dr. David and I were recently invited to attend a Christian Medical/Dental Conference in Austria…at a castle.  It was a short, but extremely good conference, and we were able to reconnect with many of the Austrian friends we have there who are helping with the project here in Romania.  Above, you can see some photos I took of the place we stayed.  Very nice…no shoes allowed inside, built in the middle ages, added onto in the 16th century, and restored in the 1800’s.  If you click on the first picture, it will open up a wide angle shot I took of the valley below from our window.

Posted on April 20, 2010 - by admin

Romania has a beautiful Countryside.

As promised, I will now spend a week or two hi-lighting the GREAT things about Romania, starting with the beautiful nature.  I must provide one disclaimer here (besides the fact that I did not take these photos).  The disclaimer is this.  Romania tends to have a lot of trash around.  People tend to dump stuff everywhere and anywhere.  Therefore, they tend to leave all their trash with them when they visit nature.  It’s not uncommon to be hiking in the woods and come alongside empty bags of chips or 2-liter bottles.  Sometimes you will come upon construction garbage (like 25 old wooden windows complete with glass dumped in the forest…in the middle of nowhere.  But, once you get deep enough the trace of human droppings disappears.  And, there are villages where the people have the un-written internal code to care for their areas.  I will let the photos do all the talking here.  Click on them to enlarge them and open up a viewing slideshow pane.

Posted on April 12, 2010 - by admin

The Drama of the Balkins

I am re-posting this very short article below…interesting perspective, especially the summary in bold at the beginning.  This part of the world is truly a land of confusing contrasts; where some people will spend $90,000 on their car, and only $50,000 on an apartment; where the country-side is breathtaking, and the cities are suffocating.

Nowhere in the world one is to find a spirit similar to the one in the Balkans. Lots of words, debates, useless pride, wasted time, poor finance, celebrations, optimism in the morning, depression in the evening, melancholy by sunrise, drinks, good food, great cars but poor housing, huge love for offspring, ignorance for others’, high standards of living for few, mediocrity for most, great natural landscapes, ugly cities…

These are the Balkans, more or less. In such a region it comes as no surprise to find out that Greece is approaching bankruptcy. Others also feel bad. We find out that Bulgaria admitted it reported fake data regarding its budget deficit. PM Boiko Borissov announced Sofia lied to its European partners and the real budget deficit is amounting to 3.7 per cent of the GDP instead of 1.9 per cent as reported before. As a consequence, Bulgaria is giving up the request to join ERM II.

Various analysts wonder who is next to come with bad news. Romania, Hungary, Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia? Any other suggestions? None of these countries is very sound from the financial point of view and the current international crisis has increased deficits and imbalances.

As far as Romania is concerned, I am concerned. I really do not trust the current power, they seem to lie every three or four words. Maybe it’s just an impression. I hope so. In the meantime, after an approx. 8 per cent drop in GDP last year, some dream of having a positive growth this year. The first months of 2010 are encouraging on one hand, disappointing on the other hand.

————-end of article—————

Posted on April 3, 2010 - by admin

Church Bells for Easter

Filmed this around midnight on Saturday.  The beginning of the Easter celebrations at the Church across the street from our house.  They usually conduct services late at night, and often ring the bells throughout the night.  The video quality is not so good, partially because the window kept closing on me and hitting me in the back!

Posted on March 23, 2010 - by admin

My other website

I haven’t really promoted the fact that I have another website.  I should blame it on my brother-in-law Ryan…he encouraged me.  But, I thought it appropriate to point the mass of humanity that follow this blog, to my other blog because of a recent post.  Before I tell you what the “other” web address is, let me tell you the purpose of that site.  It’s pretty simple, you see, I am so uptight that I write book reports for every book I read.  Yes, like we did in 4th grade….but I’m still doing it; hopefully at a higher level than I did back then.  I write these reports (they are summaries really) because I don’t every want to have to read the same book twice.  There are too many good ones out there.  So, if I ever need that info again, I can read my 4,or 6, or 12 page summary that contains only the good stuff…no fluff, rather than search through the 274 pages of the original document.  Plus, since my version is electronic, I can search for key words, etc.  It has many advantages….especially since the purpose of the new website is to post and collect them so that others can download and use them too.

99% of the books I read are ministry, business, or family related.  So if you are looking for a book report/summary of the latest Left Behind book, sorry.  No novels.  Just boring practical stuff.  But, now I am back to where I started, which is my motivation for sharing the site here.  The latest summary I posted is of a book called, The 3 Big Questions for the Frantic Family.  It’s written by a business author who applied his practices to his family.  Check it out if you are interested.   Find my other blog, and the book summary here.

Ciao.

Posted on March 10, 2010 - by admin

Warning! Intoxicated citizens!

The sign above reads “Intoxicated Citizens!”  Below is a brief article on the sign

—————————————————-

Mayor Petru Antal ordered the signs be put up after the road traffic accident rate involving drunk pedestrians rocketed in the town of Pecica, Romania.  The mayor was keen to defend locals who seem to enjoy their nights out on the town to the full:

“We are a border town and have lots of cars thundering through here all the time,” he explained. “But we also have a very vibrant nightlife and the two don’t mix. We have to target the drivers because by the time the pedestrians get into this state they are beyond caring,” he added.

————————————————

I have not seen this sign personally, but Wow!

Posted on March 8, 2010 - by admin

Snow Day

Some photos we took Saturday, about 5 miles up the hill from where we live.  It snowed some more last night and we thought we’d take the kids on a Saturday morning sled trip.

The view from up there is pretty amazing…especially in the spring.