Earning money by telling my travel stories

Current popular trend is monetizing your blog. Traditionally people blog about the things they are passionate about or they keep blogs as personal diaries. Nowadays because of monetizing opportunities, many blogs are turning more into advertisment web-pages trying to sell something. Sometimes it is even disturbing to see this. Yet, once placed correctly, you could earn some money for blogging about what you are passionate. In my case, I have been thinking how to earn few bucks while sharing with others my travel stories and photos, and anything related to travels.

The boom started with Google Adsense when world realized that people like Shoemoney earned more than 130000$ in a month only with Google Ads! Nowadays you can see many blogs talking about how to make money with your blog, and everyday many new techniques are being developed. Once having a modest sidebar, now I added some Ad banners and affiliate links and even promoting the items from Amazon there. Currently I am still experimenting with latest online affiliate and advertising gadgets developed for bloggers to earn money.

One of my experiments is PayPerPost. As the name says, bloggers have the chance to get paid for their posts. It brings together the bloggers and advertisers under the one platform and builds the practical environment for them to create opportunities for each other.
How it works for bloggers;
- You sign up and submit your blog for approval
- Some guys from PayPerPost review your blog and if it is not that valueless, then they approve it
- Next you will have access for opportunity pool (here, opportunity means advertisers looking for bloggers to blog about some topic/product/service, etc. ). Opportunities are listed together with descriptions and prices. The important point here is that there are certain pre-conditions set by advertisers; PageRank, Alexa Rank, links and keywords to be used, # of words, etc.
- If you meet the pre-conditions, then you can apply for this opportunity, OR even try to bid over the price.
- Alternatively, advertisers can approach you with an opportunity, and you may accept or reject it. (Again it all depends on your blog's theme and traffic!)
- Once both agreed, you write a post and submit for reviewal. If accepted by advertiser, then you get paid! :) Of course, you get paid through PayPal!

Now, the opportunities can be priced at as high as 235$ per post. These usually require that your blog should have PageRank equal to or more than 6. Otherwise, for those with low PageRanks, there are available opportunities priced up to 20$ per post.

I can see from my Dashboard here that Top Earners have earned as much as $18,165.74 alltime, and close to 2000$ a month. I'd say it's another easy way of monetizing your blog without placing banner ads or TextLinks around.

Well, and my personal experience was that my first paid post opportunity was offered by an advertiser who offered me 20$ to blog about smth. :) This was indeed simple and fast, and you just need to be lazy not to do that! I am planning to apply for more available opportunities once I have more time to get back to my blogging habit. Yet my suggestion is that you should agree for posts that fit into the theme and topic of your blog.

Good Luck!

Berlin and the Wall

Berlin - the city that was long separated by a wall. Today remains of the wall is the main attraction in Berlin.

Speaking of the physical walls, recently I watched the documentary about North Korea, and there it mentions about the wall built by South Koreans along the border. It could be seen with a binocular from North Korea side, but S.Koreans have been declining these rumors (I'll write more about traveling in North Korea in next posts). Similarly, another wall is built along Israel-Palestine border.

Another city that was also divided and ruled by two different empires was Budapest. For many years Buda side of the city was ruled by Ottomans, and Pest belonged to Habsburgs dynasty.

I will spend my whole next week in Berlin on my first business trip. Looking forward to meet this city. My grandfather came till Berlin fighting against Nazis.


Pictures taken from;
travel-rants.com
k2.csail.mit.edu
national-army-museum.ac.uk
erasmuspc.com
helenbucknall.com

Don't forget your travel medical insurance!

Already planned your trip?! Already made the list of places to visit, restaurants to go, people to meet? It's good to be positively prepared for the trip. But one thing that many travelers, especially unexperienced ones, forget to check if their medical insurance is valid in the destination countries and/or if it covers everything including emergency medical evacuation. If you are not sure, then wise approach would be just to buy a travel medical insurance policy for as little as $1 a day and concentrate on more fun part of trip planning.

If you already thinking of any possible insurance companies, then you could check at MNUI for international medical insurance solutions.

I have my own bitter experience with this issue. I caught dengue fever from mosquito bite during my trip to Malaysia. And when I was back in Singapore, after few days I suddenly fell very sick for 2 days. Doctors only realized that it was dengue virus after my condition got really critical, and I needed to be immediately hospitalized. And then it became clear that I didn't actually have medical insurance, thus I was rejected by the hospital (it was private hospital, and it had agreement with my company that its employees could get discounted health care services there). Ironically, the doctor from the same hospital was calling my phone and urging me to get the treatment before it is too late and I was already diagnosed as seriously ill. It was the matter of minutes and hours. Well, my bosses were very kind to immediately react and paying for all those fees (I didn't have enough money to pay for such expensive private hospitals, indeed it was expensive!). What happened then? My immune system and the treatment I got helped me to overcome virus and recover from the dengue fever.

expressing the traveler's feelings

I came through these quotes at thinkexist.com. It truly shares the feelings of a person who has been on the road for a long time. If you have spent some time traveling and being away from home, you would agree with me.

• “A man travels the world in search of what he needs and returns home to find it” George Moore
• 
  
• “Experience, travel - these are as education in themselves” Euripides
• 
  
• “The traveler sees what he sees, the tourist sees what he has come to see” G. K. Chesterton
• 
  
• “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes” Marcel Proust
• 
  
• “The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page” Saint Augustine
• 
  
• “Only he that has traveled the road knows where the holes are deep” Chinese Proverbs
• 
  
• “We must go beyond textbooks, go out into the bypaths and untrodden depths of the wilderness and travel and explore and tell the world the glories of our journey” John Hope Franklin
• 
  
• “Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends” Maya Angelou
• 
  
• “All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware” Martin Buber
• 
  
• “I see my path, but I don't know where it leads. Not knowing where I'm going is what inspires me to travel it” Rosalia de Castro
• 
  
• “Never go on trips with anyone you do not love” Ernest Hemingway
• 
  
• “We may run, walk, stumble, drive, or fly, but let us never lost sight of the reason for the journey, or miss a chance to see a rainbow on the way”
  
• 
  
• “My travels led me to where I am today. Sometimes these steps have felt painful, difficult, but led me to greater happiness and opportunities” Diana Ross
• 
  
• “The man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready” Henry David Thoreau
• 
  
• “Journeys end in lovers meeting” William Shakespeare

It'd be interesting to know other traveler's feeling as well. How do you feel?

How many foreigners does Czech Republic host?

Foreigners in Prague (those with Czech Residence Permit);

Nationality - Total Number
--------------------------
Kyrgyz - 466
Americans - 4631
British - 3572
Azerbaijani - 249
Brasilians - 165
Chinese - 4069
Indians - 813
Italians - 2289
Japanese - 1386
Canadians - 636 (Blanka, can you see it now?!)
Kazakhs - 2993
Koreans - 604
Mexicans - 156
Kiwis - 89
Polish - 20287
Russians - 22091
Singaporeans - 21
Slovaks - 65729
Taiwanese - 190
Turkish - 911
Ukrainians - 122778
Uzbeks - 844
Vietnamese - 47131
...
---------------------
Total - 376210

full list

stop the bullet!

What is your PageRank? 10 important SEO tools

MyPageRank.Net provided with new SEO tools that is must-have on everyone's blog or web-site. What are they?

1. Google PageRank, wohoo! finally I found a site that tells it;
(mine is 4/10, still long way to go)

2. Learn when GoogleBot accessed your site last time, it is a web-crawler that access your site regularly and updates Google indexes;


3. Learn when GoogleBot's competitor Yahoo bot accessed your site last time;


4. SEO Stats;


GIP & GBL - Google stats
YIP & YBL - Yahoo stats
MIP - MSN stats
ALR & ABL - Alexa stats
TUV - Today Unique Visitors
TPV - Today Page Views
YUV - Yesterday Unique Visitors
YPV - Yesterday Page Views
AUV - Average Daily Unique Visitors
APV - Average Daily Page Views
Current # users online

I don't agree with some stats like Unique Visitors and Pageviews, at the moment it is showing much different than StatCounter and Feedjit. I just installed it, in following days I expect it to be accurate.

5. You can submit your site to many other search engines (only after sign-up)

6. You can find how many links your domain has on the most common search engines (only after sign-up)

7. You can create Google Sitemaps, Yahoo Sitemaps, and ROR Sitemaps (only after sign-up);
Can someone explain me the real benefits of the sitemaps? It says it helps Google to crawl your website better.

8. Bulk PageRank checker (only after sign-up);
You can check PageRank of any web-site(s)

9. Ping Service (only after sign-up);
How it helps? I'll update once I find out the answer.

10. Find out how Spider bots view your website. This includes most major search bots including Google, MSN and Yahoo!
How could I evaluate and use this information?

11. Meta Tag Analysis;
Great tool! I found out that I don't use Meta tags at all!!! Start with updating your meta tag titles, descriptions and keywords in order to get higher pagerank.

12. Links Check;
You can see the list of the links from your site to other sites. See whose PageRank are you increasing? :)

13. Star Ratings;
It was always on my wish list! Let the readers rate your content!

14. Social Bookmark Tool;
All in one. Add links to all bookmark tools (del.icio.us, digg, stumbleUpon!, etc.) with one piece of code. I didn't like the buttons, they are too small.

...and some more tools. Check MyPageRank.Net - great job!

Full list of low-cost airlines (Europe)

Please show the reference to my blog in any kind of usage (including copy+paste) of the below low-cost airlines list. List was compiled from various sources, and it contains only the currently operating low-cost airlines in Europe. (Please suggest if I missed any!) Low cost airlines for Americas and Asia will follow.

Hope this list will be useful for you to find cheap flight tickets!
Cheers!
----------------------------
skyeurope.com - Bratislava based (main HQ) low-cost airline. (I personally check it first before checking any other options).
From Prague to Amsterdam, Athens, Barcelona, Birmingham, Bratislava, Brussels, Bucharest, Burgas, Catania, Copenhagen, Dubrovnik, kosice, Lisbon, London, Manchester, Milan, Naples, Paris, Rome, Rimini, Thessaloniki, Split, Torino, Venice, Vienna.

easyjet.com - England based low-cost airline.
From Prague to Basel, Belfast, Bristol, Dortmund, East Midlands, Geneva, London, Milan, Newcastle.

EasyJet Switzerland (easyjet.com) - Geneva based low-cost airline. It operates scheduled services as an easyJet franchise from Geneva and Basel. Many destinations from Switzerland including Turkey and Prague.

smartwings.com - Czech Republic based low-cost airline.
From Prague to Barcelona, Budapest, Chania, Dubai(!), Heraklion, Larnaca, Las Palmas, Madrid, Mallorca, Paris, Rodes, Rome, Tenerife

clickair.com - Barcelona based low-cost airline.
From Prague only to Barcelona.

bmibaby.com - the UK’s fastest growing low-cost airline, operating services within the UK and Europe.
From Prague to UK (Birmingham, Manchester, East Midlands) only

click4sky.com - Czech Republic based new type of low-stable-cost airline which offers tickets to many destinations in Europe for 1990 CZK only! (1 Euro ~ 28 CZK) I heard that CZE is selling out its unsold tickets this way. Smart approach.

Ryanair.com - Dublin based low-cost airline.
From Prague to Dublin, daily flights.

tuifly.com - Hannover based low-cost airline.
No flights to Prague.

airberlin.com - Berlin based low-cost airline (early bookers could book everything for 29 euros). Flights to major cities in Europe plus some destinations in the Mediterranean, on the Canary Islands and in North Africa.
No flights to Prague.

condor.com - Germany based low-cost airline. Offers the especially inexpensive City Flights service from Munich to the most beautiful cities in Europe. Condor City Flights start as low as €29 one way including all surcharges.

ltu.de - Düsseldorf based low-cost airline. Main bases are Düsseldorf, Munich and Berlin Tegel airports. Cheap flights to USA and Canada. Flights to all the continents. From October 2007 flights from Berlin-Tegel to Bangkok, Melbourne, Punta Cana and Varadero.
From Prague to Toronto, Fort Myers, Miami, New York.

flymonarch.com - UK based low-cost flights from bases at London Gatwick, London Luton, Manchester and Birmingham airports. Flights to many destinations in Portugal, Spain, Canary Islands and Cyprus.
No flights from/to Prague.

firstchoice.co.uk - Uk based low-cost airline with world-wide destinations.
No flights from/to Prague.

airfinland.fi - Finland based low cost airline. Flights from Helsinki to Alicante and Malaga only.
No flights from/to Prague.

XL.com - UK based low cost airline. European and Middle Eastern leisure destinations from its three bases of London Gatwick, Manchester and Glasgow.

fr.xl.com - France based airline within the group use the XL Airways branding

de.xl.com - Germany based airline within the group use the XL Airways branding

ie.xl.com - Ireland based airline within the group use the XL Airways branding

mytravellite.com - UK based low-cost airline. Flights to many destinations including Kenya.

transavia.com - Holland based low-cost airline with flights to many European cities plus Turkey and North Afirca.
No flights from/to Prague.

blue1.com - Helsinki based low-cost airline. Flights to many European cities, plus connecting flights with SAS to different destinations.
No flights from/to Prague.

airbaltic.com - Baltics based low cost airline with many destinations including Tashkent (Uzbekistan).From Prague to Kaliningrad, Vilnius, and Riga.

centralwings.com - Poland based low cost airline. Good offers for flights to Poland.
No flights from/to Prague.

germanwings.com - Cologne-Bonn based low-cost airline with flights to major cities including cities in Russia, Turkey and Scandinavia.
From Prague to Cologne-Bonn, Berlin, Zurich, London (and many other via Cologne-Bonn).

brusselsairlines.com - Brussels based airline that offers b-light low cost tickets. World-wide destinations.
From Prague to Brussels (and many other via Brussels).

vueling.com - Barcelona based low-cost airline. many destinations in Europe and the western Mediterranean. Bases are in Barcelona, Valencia, Madrid, Paris and Lisbon.
No flights from/to Prague.

norwegian.no - Oslo based low cost airline. Many destinations in Europe including Tallinn, Russian and Turkish cities.
From Prague to Oslo, Bergen, Bodo, Stavanger, Tromso, Trondheim.

Jet2.com - Leeds based low-cost airline. Offers charter services as well. Great number of European destinations from UK.
From Prague to Belfast, Manchester, Leeds, and Edinburgh.



sterling.dk - Denmark based low-cost airline.
From Prague to Copenhagen and Stockholm.

wizzair.com - Poland based low-cost airline, also operates from bases in Katowice, Warsaw, Gdansk in Poland, Budapest, Sofia and Bucharest.
No flights from/to Prague.

flybaboo.com - Geneva based low-cost airline.
No flights from/to Prague.

helvetic.com - Zurich based low-cost airline.
No flights from/to Prague.

flyglobespan.com - Scotland based low-cost airline. Flights to European destinations plus US, Canada, Egypt and Cyprus.
From Prague to Glasgow and Edinburgh.

intersky.biz - Austria based low-cost airline.
No flights from/to Prague.

spanair.com - Palma de Mallorca based low-cost airline company, and a subsidiary of Scandinavian Airlines. Main base is Son Sant Joan Airport (PMI), with hubs at Madrid and Barcelona. Flights to Algier and Casablanca.
No flights from/to Prague.

flybe.com - UK based low-cost airline. 70% domestic UK, 20% European business and 10% European leisure destinations.
No flights from/to Prague.

meridiana.it - Olbia, Italy based low-cost airline.
From Prague to Florence and Catania.

flynordic.com - Stockholm based low-cost airline. Flights to Nordic countries (incl. Estonia) and few other European destinations.
No flights from/to Prague.

malmoaviation.se - Sweden-based low-cost airline that operates only to France, Belgium and Sweden cities.
No flights from/to Prague.

volawindjet.it - Italy based low-cost airline. Operates to Russia, Spain, Romania, Greece and other Italian cities.
No flights from/to Prague.

alpieagles.com - Italy based low-cost airline. Flights to Italian cities plus Athens, Barcelona, Bucharest, Cluj Napoca, Kiev, Moscow, Nice, Odessa, Prague, Pristina, Timisoara, Tirana and Valencia.
From Prague to Barcelona, Bari, Bologna, Napoli, Palermo, Venezia.

aerarann.com - Dublin based low-cost airline. UK, France and Ireland cities are the destinations.
No flights from/to Prague.

goldenair.se - Trollhättan, Sweden based low-cost airline that operates only to cities in Sweden and Finland.
No flights from/to Prague.

jetx.is - Iceland based low-cost airline. No booking or other pages in English.

travelservice.aero - Czech Rep based airline that provides mainly charter flights.
From Prague to Tel Aviv, Stockholm, Paris, Marseille, Budapest, Milano, Roma, Madrid, London, Dublin, Alicante, Malaga, Valencia, Bilbao, Barcelona, Las Palmas, Tenerife, Hurgada, Sharm El Sheik, Faro, Funjal, Paphos, Larnaca, Agadir, Istanbul, Antalya, Tunis, Monastir, Palma de Mallorca, Athens, Thessaloniki, Heraklion, Rhodos, Korfu, Zakinthos, Preveza, Fuerteventura, Lanzarote, Catania, Burgas, Varna, Olbia, Cagliari, Nantes, Nice, Toulouse, Lyon, Keflavik, Split, Tivat, Bangkok, Fortaleza, Mombasa, Zanzibar.


(Sources used while compiling this list; wikipedia.org, jvdz.net)

Turkey: No visas for citizens of Turkic republics

Despite the pressure from EU, Turkey will not require visa from other Turkic republics (Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan). President A.Gul said that there shouldn't be such barriers between brother countries in order to build our own commonwealth like the the commonwealth of english speaking countries.
One of the ex-presidents of Turkey, Turgut Ozal, was trying to initiate to build such a commonwealth and was doing great in building strong relationship with Turkic countries in the early 90ies. He died (some say he was poisoned) before he could achieve it. I am glad to see the similar vision from the current Turkish government. Central Asian countries possess one of the biggest reserves of natural resources, have big youth population, and thus if Turkey takes the leadership to build such a strong dream commonwealth, then all these countries would benefit greatly from it and Turkey would need to join EU as well.

It's really hard to understand Turkey politics. Forget about outside forces, they already have many extremely different inside forces, thus many inside clashes between political parties and their followers, between religious and non-religious groups, between Turks and many other minorities, etc. It is hardly likely that EU will accept Turkey (considering that Turkey will never give up Northern Cyprus and never accept Armenian genocide, and other matters), thus opening up to Central Asia is a possible plan B for Turkey. That's why it is good to keep some doors open.

Yet would Russia, US and China allow such a commonwealth?!......
--------------------------------------
(Фергана.Ру) Несмотря на критику со стороны ЕС, Турция выступает за отмену виз для всех тюркоязычных стран
Несмотря на недовольство Европейского Союза, Турция намерена открыть границы для граждан всех тюркоязычных страны. Глава Турецкой Республики отправляется в Туркменистан и Казахстан, затем в Узбекистан и Кыргызстан, чтобы лично возглавить процесс объединения «братьев по крови». 8 ноября Евросоюз опубликовал ежегодный отчет о продвижении ситуации в Турции в отношении возможности членства в Европейском Союзе. В нем дается оценка деятельности правительства Турции по изменению законодательства страны и положения дел в других сферах. Как и ожидалось, кандидат на вступление в ЕС подвергся критике, в частности, за одностороннюю отмену виз для тюркоязычных стран. Напомним, соответствующее решение правительства Турции вступило в силу 30 июля сего года. В отчете ЕС отмечается, что отмена виз в отношении тюркоязычных стран (некоторые из них, по мнению ЕС, являются «неблагонадежными») является большой проблемой и несоответствием европейским достижениям. Тем временем, президент Турции Абдулла Гюль, накануне посетивший с официальным визитом Азербайджан, заявил, что его страна принципиально выступает за отмену визового режима между тюркоязычными странами вообще. Президент указал, что между братскими странами не должно существовать никаких препятствий для того, чтобы построить свое содружество вроде Содружества англоязычных стран. На следующей неделе Абдулла Гюль собирается посетить Туркменистан и Казахстан. В Узбекистан и Кыргызстан он также намерен поехать уже в этом году. «С тюркоязычными странами, с которыми в начале 1990-х годов мы имели романтические отношения, мы должны начать строить отношения, основанные на экономике», заявил президент Турции.

about Reverse Funnel System

Few days ago I came through this web-site where the guy was telling about a so-called "Reverse Funnel System" and The Inner Circle of people managing this system. So the whole web-site is shouting out about the "fantastic" latest automated all-win web marketing strategy that guarantees huge incomes in a very short time. And guess what?! Big red fonts saying that this proven system puts 5000$-10000$ into your pocket every week and the main attraction is the photo of the guy called Ty Coughlin sitting in his beach shorts with his drink and laptop at his home garden in Hawaii and saying "I am absolutely convinced that my proven System, will create massive wealth for virtually anyone regardless of your background, education, or even your current level of income... I'm going to Prove it!" Note that he's got the sunglasses on! He also added the audio message. (www.thereversefunnelsystem.com)

Once you enter your email address for some reports, you'll be redirected to more detailed site. Then there are links to some success stories where the guys talking about how they made fortune using this system. You'll see their photos taken besides their expensive cars (wohoo!). I noticed that here they are also wearing sunglasses or standing far from the camera so that their face is not really distinguishable (besides only one with eBay T-shirt). Are they trying to hide their faces or what? That question popped up to my mind. And I am not talking about the content and design of the page; buttons with dollar icons, some sort of satisfaction guarantee badges/stamps, big promises in huge red fonts, bla bla bla. And what he requires you is to pay initial 50$ and he will give you instructions and directions how to start earning money (if not satisfied he promises to return threefold 150 $), and then you pay monthly 299$ for the web-site that he will provide. And you will be given some ads to be placed on certain places(?!!!) No knowledge or education is required, buisness for everyone, that's what he claims. Nothing else is explained. It was not clear. (Later on I read somewhere, link provided below, that it will also ask you to buy membership that costs 2000$ plus as well. And what you need to do is to register (or recruit) other new members through YOUR web-site so that you earn commission from that) The only reason I kept reading is that it was linked from one IT buisness blog that I'm subscribed to, and as well as many other blogs and some YouTube videos were there explaining the benefits and facts/figures about the system (seems they know a bit how to convince people).

Although I was 99% sure that this "too-good-to-be-true-deal" was either some sort of scam to get your money on some sort of subscriptions or some system where usually the owner benefits, I was curious how this system was working. Once I read more about it, it turned out to be "pyramid style network marketing" in internet! And I already had some experience with them. One was with Herbalife and its weight-losing product, and another was in Singapore (I don't remember the product). Well, usually you'll be invited by someone to join their enterpreunership seminar/meeting (it turns out that actually that person is trying to recruit you! Why? Because the more people he recruits, thus the more products he sells, he will go one ladder up in the pyramid and his income will increase even more. He will earn from his recruit's sales and from his recruit's recruit's sale, and so on.)

As I said, in order to join the network, you buy the product yourself first, and then you have to start recruiting others and selling them both this marketing/enterpreunership strategy and the product. As you see, this system earns more money for those on upper ladders in pyramid, and the top guy getting the most (basicly he benefits from all the sales). In case of Reverse Funnel System, the top guy is Ty Coughlin. And the network is The Inner Circle. I will not go to deeper analysis of his system, it was already done here. I recommend to read it.

Also, I noticed this guy called Jonathan commenting on all blogs mentioning about this system, and counter argumenting the posts if they are more critical about the system. (I won't be surprised if he comments here as well!) Probably he is one of those in the upper ladders of the pyramid. Also, they even took a video "proving" that this system is not a scam, but real. And indeed, system is real and it does generates huge incomes. And the 10-point question here is who really gets these huge incomes? Who benefits the most?

Short summary and opinion about this latest "easy money" enterpreunership/marketing strategy. I thought it could be useful.

re-shape your resume/CV

Alright, I don't want to sound like a copy cat of Monster Newsletter, but here's a presentation about how you could reshape your resume/CV if you want to apply for new job.
It gives you few interesting points.
Also, you can look at other articles there about career development and related if you have time. Just follow the links under Resources section.

Me - night owl!

Interesting article about the nature of our working habits. What seems to be related to our nature rather than laziness or smth. One thing I am pretty sure is that I am not a lazy person, I was never one, yet I've realized long-time ago that I am simply less efficient in the mornings. At university I missed lots of morning courses (damn morning Calculus lessons!) or I was a bit slower to digest what was being discussed in morning courses. At work I've spent my morning by reading news or blogs with my coffee or just pretend to be working because I didn't feel like working or couldn't do much even if I tried. And I always preferred to sleep well in the morning, have nice breakfast and then go to work. Thanks to flexible work hours here, I benefit a lot. I'd named it as "morning laziness".

VS

Yet I have been very efficient in the afternoon and in the evenings, thus I've always preferred to stay couple of hours more after work in the evening to "compensate" my morning laziness and benefit from my efficient time. At university I studied well in the evenings or late nights. And I've been going late to bed (after midnight around 1-2 am, I'd call it too early to go to bed before midnight). Alhtough I've been trying to switch to regular early-sleep-early-wakeup schedule to fit general work schedules, yet not have been fully successfull. I actually do whenever I don't have my computer with me. That's my nature.


(Monster Career Advice) Early birds and night owls don't choose to be the way they are and shouldn't blame themselves for their bodies' quirks. "It's a physiological characteristic that's genetically predetermined, like being tall or blond,"...
..."Try not to feel guilty or apologize all the time for the way you are," says Schur, who notes that up to 40 percent of the population may have early-bird or night-owl predispositions...
<full read here>

The article also suggests using email or voice mail with time and date stamps that document when you completed your early-morning or late-night work and other ways to make it evident when you were at the office. That's what I do sometimes as well, I send out email to my team-mates and boss after completing certain tasks and letting them know of the current status both to inform them and to show that I've stayed till late hours in the office. Once it happens regularly, they will recognize your working habits. You need to use such visual tools like emails for different kind of communication and always keep them in your archive. It may be of crucial use in future to protect yourself from all kind of office politics and false blamings. This was a good advice given by one good friend of mine few years ago.

want to have latest music albums in your collection?!

I am using LiveDown.Org (though it seems like an illegal site).

You can see the info about the latest music album releases here. As well as Top Charts list. Then you have an option to buy it online OR download it for free using several file sharing web-site services like Rapidshare or Megaupload, etc.
Nevertheless, I recommend free music lovers to subscribe for their RSS feeds and get latest album download links to you. Unless your conscience tortures you. ;)

busy times

Trainings
Within past few weeks I had 2 trainings related to UML at Unicorn Education. And I have 2 more few-day-trainings within following few weeks. Our company is offering many trainings (both computer based and classroom trainings) to choose from, so it is good opportunity to take as much as possible while there's opportunity. Not all the companies give or even care about that.

Fancy glass-walled Unicorn Education building

Projects
Nowadays I am working on two projects, thus getting really busy. This is part of my "next 6-month high proactivity" plan. To put it simple; full concentration on work/trainings and learning few key skills that my position requires in the market and not even to think about new job or position somewhere else. Evaluation will be done after 6 months. Thus it quickly put me into "Busy" mode. So I've been terrible in replying to emails from friends, and even meeting up with the ones here in Prague. Some people were thinking that I even left Prague! Also, I haven't been posting here as well. Still pending stories from Vienna/Budapest, Karlstejn and Cesky Krumlov trips.
Well, after work I am staying at home in front of my computer; reading a lot of blogs, digging around different web-services, thinking of how to shape Jamboola (my experimental tech blog), and when my brain stopped functioning properly I've been watching the film series (finished Prison Break Season 1, currently watching new chinese-mongolian series "Chenghiz Khan"), or Facebooking.

Squash
We had DHL squash tournament last weekend. I asked Kamilya to come with me as well, so we had preparation game on Saturday, and we joined the tournament whole Sunday along. I never tried this game before, so it was fun to try and spend Sunday more actively. Could be an option for winter sports activity in winter when no football.

Halloween
Actually I am not excited about such things anymore, I guess everything has its own period in our life. Thus I didn't go to any of those costumes parties, and I was also very tired and sleepless recently. Yet The Park management amused us with their Halloween decoration by installing gravestones in front of our building and around The Park, baloons and Halloween booths.
We had expats Haloween Party yesterday, some of friends attended it with their costumes. I liked Jenny's costume; Facebook page (later I'll share the photo of me writing on her "Wall").

Here are just few shots taken during the lunch break.