Bear Peak photos

Yesterday I went hiking with Zeb. We did Bear Peak here in Boulder which turned out to be more fun than I expected. I finally managed to take some pictures so I posted them on my new flickr accout:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dragos

How to make PDF's for free

I finally found a sweet program that will make PDF files from scans or any other file format for free: Pdf995

Bible meets Real World

Last night I went to the International Film Series and saw The Real Old Testament. The director and producer is a former CU student and the whole thing reminded me of how South Park started. He's going to treat more subjects with the same Real World idea: Lewis and Clark, Trojan Wars, The New Testament. Apparently God has also a video blog at www. realgodvlog.com . At the end fo the film God himself made an appearance in the Muenzinger auditorium and we had the chance to ask him a lot of funny questions. Although the movie itself has only my B, I have to admit that the whole idea has incredible potential.

My delicious links

Last year I signed up for the del.icio.us link aggregator website and this is what I have gathered so far.

Fear of Girls

No comment.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7521044027821122670

The Detroit Project

Arianna Online has on her first page three ads for "The Detroit Project", which is a campaign about reducing the fuel consumption of the average american car. I know so many smart conscious people that say: "Well, I am used to driving sitting up high and I like to be safe. I will always drive an SUV". That logic works until somebody is driving a bigger car, and then you have to upgrade yourself. And that's the way we end up consuming a ridiculous percent of world's oil reserve. There, I feel like such a Boulderite now!

Excellent live music online

The Boulder non-clearchannel radio station is quite excellent. KBCO has such a great reputation that every artist that comes to play in Boulder stops by their studio and plays live for the whole town. KBCO records the live shows and makes a CD that comes out every year around Christmas. Lines are formed early in the morning at the few local electronics stores supported by KBCO and the thousands of CD's are sold within minutes. Recently KBCO created a new online radio station, KBCO2 The Studio C Channel, that plays non-stop all the KBCO live performances. If you ask me it's the best online radio I've listened to. Sometimes I love this community driven town so much!

Home sweet home

I missed Boulder a lot. Looking at these Flatirons every morning when going to school does something to you. Which reminds me: school started, teaching continues and homework and craziness will soon take control. Such is life.

Hey, fishy fishy ...

We use our new fishtank as a TV set. Is far more relaxing.

gypsy beats

"The Balkan Beat Box" is the name of a jewish band that combines hard-rock, and techno with eastern european traditional music. I found out about them via a recent NPR story. They are so energetic and catchy that they might have a chance here in the US.

We, the Romanian people ...

While I was home for the holidays I met Gabby a Peace Corps Volunteer in my town, Piatra Neamt. We talked a lot about Romania and the way we feel about solving the problems the country faces. Recently she asked me to write a short piece about my image of Romania after five years of living in the States. In case anybody else is interested, this is what came out. Again, thanks Gabby for doing what you're doing. I know not very many Romanians see the importance of you being there, but I hope you will be able to open many minds.

Making fun of yourself is an important survival skill, and the main reason why Romanians have been around for thousands of years. One of my favorite jokes about Romania goes like this: In the third day of Genesis God created Earth and went around distributing the natural wealth and riches. At the end of the day Hungary and Bulgaria came up to God and said with an angry voice: “God, you are so unfair. Why did you give so much wealth to Romania? They have oil, natural gas, three feet deep of the blackest soil, beautiful beaches, tall mountains, and hills filled with gold. We don’t even have a tenth of the stuff that they do. Why God, why?” With his well known fatherly grave voice God replied: “My dear sons Hungary and Bulgaria, just wait until you see the Romanian people”.

Although I am a Romanian, I love this joke and I never felt offended by it. It is a paradox that all the Romanians criticize their own country and people. “Romanians are this”, “Romanians are that”, but nobody really mentions that they are themselves Romanian. And, if I may be excused for my honesty, this is the exact kind of hypocrisy I will use in this letter.

When I think about the joke I obviously realize that there must be something bad about these “Romanian people”. The first thing that comes to mind is: they must be stupid. They must have an average intelligence below that of their fellow neighbors. They are probably intellectually incapable of managing all those natural riches that God gave them for free. But when I think a little bit more I understand that stupidity can’t be the real reason. I was born, raised and educated in Romania and my family, friends, and teachers were some of the smartest people I’ve known in my life. Each year Romanian high school students top the charts at math, physics and chemistry international Olympiads. From personal experience I know that Romanian researchers and professors are well respected in the US academia. In my recent visit home I met with some of my old friends from high school and I was impressed with their knowledge of American geography and politics: “So, it’s going to be Condi vs. Hillary in 3 years. That’s something, huh?” or “So you’re in Colorado now. That’s actually a few degrees latitude lower than Romania, isn’t it? And a little more deserty, no?” It is clear now. Romanians are definitely not stupid, but rather smarter than other people in the world.

If they’re not dumb, then maybe they’re lazy. They don’t like to work and hence can’t use all those beautiful things God gave them. They probably just loaf around all day, doing the minimum to get by and not caring about being rich or poor. Some might partially agree with this, but I found out when I was in Romania for the holidays that this reason doesn’t stand either. Recently there has been an exodus of Romanians to Spain, Italy and France in search for jobs. They are going there to pick strawberries, tend for retired people and build roads and houses for a minimum wage. These are all hard jobs and you can’t be lazy to do them. Even the Americans agree with me. The coordinator of a work exchange program that takes skilled Eastern European teenagers to work in restaurants, camps and nursing homes in the US recently declared that the most sought after workforce are the Romanians. The American employers find the Romanians industrious, responsible and motivated. Ok, ok, I get it. Romanians are not lazy, they’re actually harder workers than the other eastern Europeans, according to these accounts.

I could go on like this for pages. Every negative attribute that I can think of is immediately neutralized by a strong counterexample. The Romanian wine makers are just at passionate and careful as the French, the cheese makers just as skilled and traditional as the Swiss, the writers, poets, and journalists just as witty and funny as Bill Maher, and the politicians as wicked and conniving as Carl Rove. However, the joke stands true like a prophecy. Romania has one of the lowest standards of living in Europe and the Romanians are officially the unhappiest people in the world. How is this possible? After living five years in the States I can bet that if one would transplant all the Romanian people in America, the vast majority of them would integrate quickly and become soon examples of the American dream. The solution is now very clear: we should move all the Romanians in the US and bring back 22 million of Americans. All the Romanian resources will be put to good use and America will benefit from all the wonderful qualities of the Romanian people.

On a more serious note, I think that two are the main reasons why this joke is unfortunately true. First reason is an acute lack of organization and planning. The leadership is lacking accountability and is generally incompetent. Romania is like a salt solution. The individual ions are very potent, charged, and reactive. But in solution, the positive and negative ions rearrange spontaneously so that the overall result is a neutral boring Saline nasal spray. I find it therefore essential to have people like the Peace Corps Volunteers to come in and bring a sense of organization to Romania.

The other reason is the existence of this joke itself. Many times I am confronted by my friends: “Don’t you have anything positive to say about Romania?” The truth is I tend to be such a Debbie Downer about my motherland not because there are not enough positive things to say about it, but because I am myself deep inside a negative Romanian. A tiny bit of self esteem and a more positive look on life would go a long way for us Romanians. That’s why I encourage any American in Romania to do what they know best: smile. One day it might rub off.

Cousin

Madalina is my super cool cousin and she has a super cool website: www.madalinaseghete.com .

Romeo, oh Romeo ...

Breaking news!! Juliet has a new partner after last year's tragedy when an uneducated coyote, a brute, had Romeo for supper. The new lover will soon be baptised, so I have to come up with a kewl name.

Flickr

I created a Flickr Pro account for my family. They needed a place to post their digital photos and I found Flickr to be the user-friendliest. Will see if I made the right decision.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/famseghete

snow and flavors

This picture is gorgeous but quite misleading. Not much snow here in Romania, not even that cold. The world just turned crazy. I haven't done anything for three weeks and I feel great. I had the most amazing meals, and I was spoiled by my family by being left alone to do a lot of nothing. That's what I call true love.

New Phone

(0114) 074 192 2479

This is my new cell phone number while here in Romania. Call me if you want to meet up. I am planning to go ski in Vatra Dornei after New Years, but I will be at home for most of the other time. I am leaving on Jan 12th, and I would love to meet some old buddies from middle school or highschool. Just call.

Romania, the land of ...

• ... change, because I just got back from the gym. A pretty nice facility, with weights, treadmills, big ass pool, tanning and massage. 16 visits for a little less than $20. Life is sweet.
• Dr. Pepper. YES, they have the infamous Dr. Pepper, who sits in my fridge right now. I will come with a pic to prove it pretty soon. Alas it's 30 cents a can, it's still DP, in Romania!!!
• supermarkets. Since last year they have opened a gazillion little super markets / grocery stores. They probably have the variety on the shelves of K-mart displayed on a tenth of shelf space. Sometimes I don't want to get something because I destroy the beautiful merchandise symmetry.
  
• cops. Radar detectors are legal, but cops know how to outsmart them. They hide the popo car in the bushes and turn the radar gun on for a few seconds just for those that look like they're speeding. The sad part of the story is that they did just that when me and my dad were driving from the airport, and now my dad is driver-licenseless. Yes, he was driving 70mph on a stretch of the road that looked exactly like any other highway, except that it had five houses on the side, hence a speed limit of 30mph. For three months he will experiment with the train system, I guess.
  

the end is near

This was outside of the chemistry building about a month ago. Now it's cold, windy and quite desolate. Finals are coming up, grading abounds and the times are just crazy. I can't wait for all this to end and to go home to Romania and hang out with my parents for a while.


More campus pictures that I don't have time to post somewhere else.

betty

Betty is my car of course, and she just passed the age of 100,000 miles. I hope she has about twice as much to go, as she is japanese breed and very healthy. Actually, I had to fix some things this week after my 2000 mile trip to Arkansas and back.

The Aristocrats

If you were never offended by a dirty joke then it's time to see the Aristocrats. The documentary is named after an improv joke that's been circling the comedy scene since the 1900's. The idea is simple: you have to say the most offensive, vial, disgusting, wrong, and downright sick things that can ever pass through your mind. Here's a version of the Aristocrats by Eric Cartman of South Park, CO. WARNING! - if you are underage or easily offended by foul language just get the fudge out.

Apparently this joke is never performed in front of the audience and it is rather used as a skill meter by comedians. In the documentary more than 100 entertainment figures put a spin on this joke. What's amazing is not the sheer number of versions of the joke but how different they are and the fact that you can see the creative juices flow right in front of your eyes. Leave your kids at home and head out to the independent film theater near you. Or, if you can wait till January when the DVD comes out, pull out your slippers, make a cup of earl grey tea, adjust your spectacles, cross your legs on the couch, turn the movie on, and be an aristocrat.