Georgian Parliament Building in Tbilisi

7 December, 2019 | Tourism objects | 72 seen

The Parliament of Georgia Building is located in Tbilisi on Rustaveli Avenue, close to the foothills of Mount Mtatsminda.

The building complex was constructed as the House of Government of Georgian SSR on the site of the demolished 19th-century Alexander Nevsky Cathedral.

For those of you interested in Soviet Architecture, here you go another cool object of interest in Tbilisi. See: Brutal Tours - Explore Soviet Georgian Architecture in Tbilisi

The complex consists of two buildings; the "upper" building was designed by Viktor Kokorin and Giorgi Lezhava and built from 1933 to 1938. The "lower" building, along Rustaveli Avenue, was constructed by the same architects with input from Vladimer Nasaridze from 1946 to 1953. The two buildings are connected with a courtyard, with staircases and fountains. The design of both buildings heavily uses elements of traditional Georgian architecture.

Georgian Parliament Building in Tbilisi

The exterior facing the avenue is dominated by a monumental arcade, with massive eaves and "arch" pediment. The buildings are built of lightweight reinforced concrete, with exterior cladding of tufa rock, granite, and other materials.

The complex was severely damaged during the December 1991–January 1992 military coup, during which the beleaguered President Zviad Gamsakhurdia was entrenched in the underground bunker under the government premises. The building was subsequently restored, refurbished, and used as the seat of the Parliament of Georgia from 1997 to 2012, when the legislature moved to the newly constructed office in Kutaisi, Georgia's second most important city. See: Georgian Parliament Building (Kutaisi)

In 2014 holding of parliament committee meetings was allowed in the parliament premises of Tbilisi, while the regular sessions continued to be held in Kutaisi. The constitutional amendment passed in 2017 entered into force in December 2018, containing no reference to Kutaisi as the seat of the Parliament, meaning that the Parliament fully returned to the capital in January 2019.

How To Enable Google Adsense ads.txt file for Drupal on Nginx

6 December, 2019 | Servers | 56 seen

Around early September 2019, in my Google AdSense dashboard, I noticed a warning informing me to create a separate ads.txt file. 

I followed the on-screen instruction and did what was asked.

After two months (at the start of November) I noticed my earnings from Google AdSense have dipped more than half and the warning was still there. 

Earnings at risk - You need to fix some ads.txt file issues to avoid severe impact to your revenue.

Authorized Digital Sellers, or ads.txt is an IAB initiative that helps ensure that your digital ad inventory is only sold through sellers (such as AdSense) who you've identified as authorized. Creating your own ads.txt file gives you more control over who's allowed to sell ads on your site and helps prevent counterfeit inventory from being presented to advertisers.

We strongly recommend that you use an ads.txt file. It can help buyers identify counterfeit inventory and help you receive more advertiser spend that might have otherwise gone toward that counterfeit inventory.

I decided to check and huge was my surprise when trying to visit ads.txt file I got the following warning:

403 forbidden ads.txt file

To solve it I changed the server file and added the following lines

Problem solved

Tavada Restaurant in Baku

5 December, 2019 | Restaurant reviews | 13 seen

Tavada restaurant is another fine example fo great Azerbaijani cuisine and service. Located on Mardanov Brothers street this place serves fine Azerbaijani and European cuisine.

Discovered in early August 2019, during a weekend trip to Baku.

Kid friendly - got a baby chair for our 13-month old daughter + asked to make mashed potatoes for her

Mashed potatoes especially for babies

Lovely

Dolma with a yogurt sauce

If there is a reason to visit Azerbaijan, then it' s because of Dolma

Chicken and veal kebabs at Tavada restaurant in Baku

November 2019 Dividend Income Report - $260.41

4 December, 2019 | Investments | 18 seen

Welcome to the thirty-first (#31) dividend income report, covering earnings I've made from dividend-paying stocks and peer to peer lending in November 2019.

Last November we spent a week in Italy and Switzerland. Traveling with a 16-month old might be complicated but we did it actually quite nice - Lake Como in Italy, Lugano in Switzerland. Quite a tranquil trip. Highly recommend.

Lugano, Switzerland

The last November was better than expected in terms of dividend income but was a total catastrophe for my options trades.

At the end of the month, I have collected $260.41 from dividend stocks and Mintos peer to peer lending platform.  Compared to the previous November in 2018, that is a growth of 133.34% (+$148.81). The growth is just awesome.

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links to mintos.com peer to peer lending and deribit.com options trading websites, by clicking on links on this page and by making investment mintos.com or derbit.com, I might earn affiliate income at no cost to you. Also, I'm not a financial advisor and I don't give you any advice, I'm just sharing my own experience. Investments in stocks, funds, bonds or cryptos are risk investments and you could lose some or all of your money. Do your due diligence before investing in any kind of asset. 

With options trading, November was the first month when I took loses. -$1,428.33 was lost with options trading. As options trading is not a passive form of making money while you are sleeping it wouldn't be fair to include them in dividend income reports. 

Last but not least, last October I traded options on cryptocurrencies using Deribit platform, which resulted in an additional $208.86

When counted all together (dividends + options + crypto options), it seems I have lost  -$959.06 last month. Not the best income month, but I will take it and will take my lesson from trading options.

Now. let's focus on dividend income

Interest income in November 2019

From the stocks and peer to peer lending  I got following income last month:

Ticker

Income

BGLF

€48.00

Mintos

€39.63

ET

€34.82

FGB

€31.09

NHCBHFFT

€16.20

EDF

€13.81

EDI

€11.59

RA

€9.16

PBCT

€8.02

T

€7.83

CLM

€5.52

NCV

€3.83

AWP

€3.07

Total: EUR 233.34 / USD 260.41

In total there were 13 great companies paying us dividends in November 2019, that's 5 companies more than in November 2018. 

Mintos has slipped to second place in terms of interest income generated

Mintos.com Review After 24 Month of Investing in Peer to Peer Lending

Monthly Income

I've been tracking my journey towards million dollars in a savings account since January 2017. The result, so far, looks quite good. Dividends are growing. 

Monthly dividend Income chart as of November 2019

The cumulative earnings for 2019 now are $2,355.01 which is already 115.16% from my goal of 2019 ($2,045). 

2018 in Review and Financial Goals for 2019

Goals for November 2020

This is my favorite part of the reports - trying to forecast/set goals for the next year. But before setting a goal for 2020, let's see what I forecasted/said a year ago (November 2018)

When setting goal/forecast for November 2019 I have a $180 goal for the next year. Again, from today's perspective, hard but doable.

For November 2020, I will set a $320 goal. It should be easy.

My First Iron Condor Trade - Lessons Learned

3 December, 2019 | Investments | 32 seen

This article has been in the blog's draft section for a couple of months and as it still bears some useful information I decided to publish as it is with little comments at the end.

On August 13, 2019 I made my first Iron Condor trade - I sold following IC SPY AUG 14'19 294 / 284 / 293 / 283.5 @ 0.51

This trade was with a 1 day to expiration (DTE), I collected 51 USD from this trade, and paid in fees 9.6 USD (Interactive Broker charges each direction, and Iron Condor consists from 4 legs - 2 puts and 2 calls)

Opening Iron Condor trade Interactive Brokers

Everything seemed good, except market quickly moved against me and SPY reached 293 just some 15 minutes after I entered this trade, and here I started to make mistakes - I decided to open one more Iron condor trade for August 16.

In parallel, my 13-month-old baby asked for attention, and I made a serious mistake - I entered second trade without double-checking the numbers, instead of opening second iron condor with 3 DTE - I closed some positions from the first one and at the end, I was left with something like two calls for August 14 and two puts for August 16 - a complete mess. Strange but for the second trade I collected some USD 70 in premium (before commissions)

I was freaking out. Though nobody in the family noticed that, I stayed poker-faced. 

I decided to close all positions (with loss)  - but after closing some two positions (with loss)  broker was informing me, in case I will proceed with one more trade - Pattern day trader rule will apply on me. I learned something new - Pattern day trader:

Pattern day trader is a FINRA designation for a stock market trader who executes four or more day trades in five business days in a margin account, provided the number of day trades are more than six percent of the customer's total trading activity for that same five-day period.

A FINRA (formerly National Association of Securities Dealers, Inc. or NASD) rule applies to any customer who buys and sells a particular security in the same trading day (day trades), and does this four or more times in any five consecutive business day period; the rule applies to margin accounts, but not to cash accounts. A pattern day trader is subject to special rules. The main rule is that in order to engage in pattern day trading you must maintain an equity balance of at least $25,000 in a margin account. The required minimum equity must be in the account prior to any daytrading activities. Three months must pass without a day trade for a person so classified to lose the restrictions imposed on them. Pursuant to NYSE 432, brokerage firms must maintain a daily record of required margin.

As I didn't have an equity balance of at least $25,000 I was left with no options as to wait for the second day and see can I close positions tomorrow or should I wait till the end of expiration and hope for the best.

At the end I closed these trades with loss of about $200, and decided to stay away from Iron Condors for at least next 6 month, as I understood I should learn more this topic. 

Soon though (in next couple weeks) I started selling vertical spreads and was back in trading, though avoiding Iron Condors. 

Now looking on this trade I wouldn't probably repeat it with SPY (American style), but instead with SPX (European style), and I would most probably construct wings much wider ($25-$40) range.

Nergiz Restaurant in Baku

28 November, 2019 | Restaurant reviews | 21 seen

Nergiz restaurant is located on Fountain Square in Baku, this places serves typical Azerbaijani cuisine and let me name it as of the best Baku restaurants. 

Discovered in early August, during my birthday trip to Baku. 

Just like another excellent Baku restaurant Dolma, Nergiz also is located in a basement. 

Dolma at Nergiz restaurant

If there is a reason to visit Azerbaijan, then it's because of Dolma. The best Dolma I've tried so far. And I love Dolma.

Kebab at restaurant Nergiz

Delicious. We spent here good time ordering traditional pilaf, dolma, sweets and homemade lemonades (compot)

Traditional Azerbaijani sweets

Orio al Serio (Bergamo) International Airport

23 November, 2019 | Airports | 14 seen

Orio al Serio International Airport (IATA: BGY, ICAO: LIME), officially also known as Il Caravaggio International Airport, is the third busiest international airport in Italy.

The airport is located in the municipal territory of Orio al Serio, 3.7 km (2.3 mi) southeast of Bergamo in Italy. The airport is 45 km (28 mi) north-east of Milan, where it operates alongside Malpensa Airport and Linate Airport, the city's other two primary airports.

In 2018, airport served almost 13 million passengers

The airport is a hub for the low-cost Ryanair Avio carrier, and that's how we got here actually -  I had a chance to travel to the Bergamo airport in November 2019 flying with Ryanair from Tbilisi (Georgia)

The airport is called Milan-Bergamo by several airlines and it is managed by SACBO, a company partially owned by SEA – Aeroporti di Milano, the operator of Linate and Malpensa airports. SEA, the company that runs the latter two airports, also holds a 31% stake in SACBO. It is named "Il Caravaggio" after the Baroque painter Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, who lived as a child at Caravaggio in the Province of Bergamo

There are several public transportation links to and from downtown Milan, including express coaches. There are further connections to/from Bergamo city center, Arezzo, Bologna, Brescia, Monza, Turin, Malpensa Airport, and Milan Trade Exhibition Center, Parma, Torino, Verona.

Taxi to Milan city cost ~ 90 EUR. Unfortunately, as we arrived after midnight there were no buses, shuttle or even taxi willing to take us to the Bergamo city to the hotel.

That's my recommendation if you are traveling to Bergamo airport, plan to stay in Bergamo city and you arrive after midnight - arrange a shuttle service from the hotel to the airport. We were lucky to catch Giacomo a local driver for Mercure and GHP hotels. He took us to the GHP hotel in Bergamo for EUR 26.

Gino Paradise Water Park in Tbilisi

16 November, 2019 | Tourism objects | 91 seen

Gino Paradise is a multifunctional water park located in Tbilisi near Tbilisi sea. At the complex, there is located a grand aqua park and unique relaxation wellness center, fitness hall and catering objects.

Gino Paradise is one of the most recommended places to visit with kids.

Tbilisi for kids (17 Places to Visit)

First discovered already a couple of years ago, while cycling to Tbilisi sea, but visited for the first time at the end of September 2019 together with our little baby girl.

One time visit for adult cost GEL 40, and it includes pretty much great stuff, a multi-pass is also available.

Gino Paradise Water Park in Tbilisi

The best of all - Gino Paradise is four seasons resort! GINO Paradise is one of the large scaled water centers with many attractions in the Eastern Europe, and the only one in South Caucasus, 31 meters toboggan and closed and open pools GINO Paradise also includes Tbilisi Sea coastal zone and offers full comfort to the customers. Coastal zone is equipped with chaise longue, umbrellas, different attractions, dressing room and showers.

GINO Spa Center offers you relaxation, aroma and health improving procedures, and also unique saunas and hydrotherapy rooms or equipments. Fitness center offers newest cardio and strengthening simulators, aerobic hall and many landers which are used for different complex exercises.

Weekend trip to Dedoplis Tskaro and nearby vicinity

9 November, 2019 | Travel guides | 13 seen

This is a round-up post from a very easy weekend trip to Dedoplis Tskaro and the nearby vicinity. We did this trip the end of June 2019, traveling by car.

It was actually Summer Solstice if other years we had a large fire and amazing sunset photography, or at least a grill on Tbilisi apartments balcony, then this year it was completely different.

Originally it was planned to visit only lavender fields at Nukriani lavender, but then we extended this route to Dedoplis Tskaro, from here on we decided to find some local lake to take a swim while searching for one, the car malfunctioned and it was a question will we be able to get even back to Tbilisi this night. After having an unexpected stop at an interesting picnic area near the highway we booked a 5-star hotel and had a lovely morning swim there.

October 2019 Dividend Income Report - $201.36

6 November, 2019 | Investments | 18 seen

Welcome to the thirty (#30) dividend income report, covering earnings I've made from dividend-paying stocks and peer to peer lending in October 2019.

Wow, thirty income reports so far, that's a quite impressive track of the record, covering more than 2 years of dividend income.

Last October, just like September, we spent in Georgia, some relatives visited us and we made a nice day trip to the Kazbegi in Georgia at the start of October

Gergeti church in Georgia

The last October was quite OK in terms of passive income. At the end of the month, I have collected $201.36 from dividend stocks and Mintos peer to peer lending platform.  Compared to the previous October in 2018, that is a growth of 19.09% (+$32.09). The growth could be better, but as long as there is a growth on a yearly basis I will take it

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links to mintos.com peer to peer lending and deribit.com options trading websites, by clicking on links on this page and by making investment mintos.com or derbit.com, I might earn affiliate income at no cost to you. Also, I'm not a financial advisor and I don't give you any advice, I'm just sharing my own experience. Investments in stocks, funds, bonds or cryptos are risk investments and you could lose some or all of your money. Do your due diligence before investing in any kind of asset. 

An additional $2,777.23 was made from options trading (mostly vertical spreads on SPX, GC, AEX and ES, but also a few regular puts and calls on stocks I own or would like to have). As options trading is not a passive form of making money while you are sleeping it wouldn't be fair to include them in dividend income reports. 

Last but not least, last October I traded options on cryptocurrencies using Deribit platform, which resulted in an additional $227.30

When counted all together (dividends + options + crypto options), it seems I have made $3,294.29 in total last month. That's absolutely the best income month from the financial markets so far.

Effective income yield last October was 9.29%  That's about 111.48% annually.  Holy smokes! 

Interest income in October 2019

From the stocks and peer to peer lending  I got following income last month:

Ticker

Earnings

NRZ

€48.74

Mintos

€46.32

PNNT

€21.41

LNR1L

€15.40

EDF

€13.81

EDI

€11.59

RA

€9.16

CODI

€6.69

CLM

€5.52

NCV

€3.83

AWP

€3.07

Total: EUR 184.99 / USD 201.36

In total there were 11 great companies paying us dividends in October 2019, that's 2 companies less than in October 2018. 

Mintos has slipped to second place in terms of interest income generated

Mintos.com Review After 24 Month of Investing in Peer to Peer Lending

The YoY growth rate for my dividend income in October 2019 was + 19.09% or  $32.09 more than a year ago in October 2018. Could be better (I aim to at least $70 growth YoY) but as long there is a growth I'm a happy hippo.

Monthly income

I've been tracking my journey towards million dollars in a savings account since January 2017. The result, so far, looks quite good. Dividends are growing. 

Monthly dividend Income chart as of October 2019

The cumulative earnings for 2019 now are $2,093.43 which is exactly 102.37% from my goal of 2019 ($2,045). As it happened in last year's October I've reached my yearly goal 2 months ahead of the schedule. Now, the next two months are like a bonus.

2018 in Review and Financial Goals for 2019

Goals for October 2020

This is my favorite part of the reports - trying to forecast/set goals for the next year. But before setting a goal for 2020, let's see what I forecasted/said a year ago (October 2018)

When setting goal/forecast for October 2019 I will forecast $230 goal for next year. It should be easy!

In the end, it wasn't so easy after all, and I didn't reach that $230 goal this year. I should take that in the account and when setting goals for October 2020, be more humble, that's why I will set a quite doable $300 goal for next year.  I hope to get there with more US monthly and quarterly stocks

Ambassadori Kachreti Golf Resort

2 November, 2019 | Hotel reviews | 12 seen

Located in Kachreti village, some 75 km from nations capital Tbilisi this 5-star hotel offers a tennis court and air-conditioned rooms with a flat-screen TV.

We booked a night here, returning from Dedoplis Tskaro at the end of June 2019. We paid just $80 for a night here, the fee included free pool visits, which was awesome and our baby girl enjoyed a lot.

Ambassadori Kachreti Golf Resort 

Guests of the hotel can relax beside the outdoor swimming pool, or work out in the fitness centre. Table tennis, billiards and a tennis court can also be found on site.

Hotel room

Each room at Hotel Ambasadori in Kachreti includes a classic-style interior and a minibar. Slippers are provided in the bathrooms.

Cottage houses at Ambassadori Kachreti Golf Resort

Not sure are they part of the hotel complex or are sold separately.

Free Wi-Fi and a private winery are featured at this hotel

The Ambasadori’s restaurant with exposed wooden beams and stone decorations serves Georgian cuisine. Local wines and international drinks are offered at the on-site bar. 

How To Count Duplicates in Google Spreadsheets (COUNTIF)

1 November, 2019 | Servers | 54 seen

I've been using Google Spreadsheets literally for everything that can be counted or measured (dividend income, stock trades, body weight and so on). 

And so did when I decided to build an option trading journal I built it using Google Spreadsheets.

Everything good here, except I decided to count how many trades there have been, how many are open, how many are closed, how many are winning, how many are losing and based on that make a simple calculation to figure out what is my winning rate

Here is the final result:

Win ratio calculation using Google Spreadsheets

COUNT DUPLICATES WITH COUNTIF

COUNTIF is a relatively basic Google Sheets function that counts cells that include numbers or text based on a specified condition. The syntax is simple; you only need to provide a cell range and criterion for which cells to count. You can enter the COUNTIF function in the fx bar with the syntax: `=COUNTIF(range, criterion)`. Source: How To Count Duplicates in Google Sheets

Spreadsheet setup

• Column L - Trade status (open/closed)
• Column M - Winner / Loser

Now to make count for open trade status:

=COUNTIF(L:L, "open")

closed:

=COUNTIF(L:L, "closed")

winning trades:

=COUNTIF(M:M, "winner")

losing trades:

=COUNTIF(M:M, "loser")

Works like a charm. 

Baku Old City

31 October, 2019 | Tourism objects | 36 seen

Old City or Inner City is the historic core of Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan.

The Old City is the most ancient part of Baku, which is surrounded by walls which were easily defended. The Old City of Baku, including the Palace of the Shirvanshahs and Maiden Tower, became the first location in Azerbaijan to be classified as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.

We visited Baku in early August 2019 to discover Baku Old city and many other goodies of Azerbaijan.

Maiden Tower in Baku

The Maiden Tower is a 12th-century monument in the Old City, Baku, Azerbaijan.

Along with the Shirvanshahs' Palace, dated to the 15th century, it forms a group of historic monuments listed in 2001 under the UNESCO World Heritage List of Historical Monuments as cultural property, Category III. It is one of Azerbaijan's most distinctive national emblems, and is thus featured on Azeri currency notes and official letterheads.

Baku Old town

In the background the famous Flame Towers of Baku. There is actually located a 5-star hotel by Fairmount in which we stayed during our trip to Baku, see my review here: Fairmont Baku hotel at Flame Towers

Baku old city

It is widely accepted that the Old City, including its Maiden Tower, date at least to the 12th century, with some researchers contending that construction dates as far back as the 7th century. The question has not been completely settled.

During this medieval period of Baku, such monuments as the Synyg Gala Minaret (11th century), the fortress walls and towers (11th–12th centuries), the Maiden Tower, the Multani Caravanserai and Hajji Gayyib bathhouse(15th century), the Palace of the Shirvanshahs (15th–16th centuries), the Bukhara Caravanserai and Gasimbey bathhouse (16th century) were built.

Painted wall in Baku's Old City

For a long period of time, an explicit symbol of the Old City was a mulberry tree located behind the Djuma Mosque. It was believed that the tree was several hundred years old. The tree made its way into many sayings and songs popular in the Old City, and became a local landmark. The place where that tree was located was referred to as Mulberry Tree Square. However, in the 1970s the mulberry tree was cut down, because of the nearby construction works.

Another popular landmark of the Old City is the local bookstore that sells mostly second-hand, but also new books. Situated amongst the Bukhara and the Multani Caravanserais, the Maiden Tower, and Hajinski's Palace (otherwise known as Charles de Gaulle House, because he stayed there during World War II), it is a popular destination of Bakuvian students and bibliophiles, mostly because of its low prices.

The old city of Baku is depicted on the obverse of the Azerbaijani 10 manat banknote issued since 2006

Picnic Area - Vashlovani National Park 32 km

26 October, 2019 | Tourism objects | 9 seen

This picnic area is located on the crossroads before Chalaubani  - the Tsnori - Dedoplitskaro-Kvemi Kedi​ road.

We made here a stop after our car malfunctioned while offroad driving trying to reach Patara Tba near Dedoplis Tskaro and it happened so, that at this crossroad car just stopped - now we let it cool for a couple of hours and tried to enjoy our time here (wish we had some barbecue with us back then)

As we have been in constant searches for good picnic areas in Georgia, I'm listing it here

Picnic area near the road

The place is well maintained, benches, chairs and tables are available. 

Next time will take some charcoal, grill and of course meat to grill when heading this part of Georgia.

Maiden Tower in Baku

24 October, 2019 | Tourism objects | 17 seen

The Maiden Tower is a 12th-century monument in the Old City, Baku, Azerbaijan.

Along with the Shirvanshahs' Palace, dated to the 15th century, it forms a group of historic monuments listed in 2001 under the UNESCO World Heritage List of Historical Monuments as cultural property, Category III. It is one of Azerbaijan's most distinctive national emblems, and is thus featured on Azeri currency notes and official letterheads.

We visited Baku in early August 2019 to discover Maidan tower at the start of the Old Town near the Boulevard. 

Maidan tower in Baku

The Maiden Tower houses a museum, which presents the story of historic evolution of the Baku city. It also has a gift shop. The view from the roof takes in the alleys and minarets of the Old City, the Baku Boulevard, the De Gaulle house and a wide vista of the Baku Bay. In recent years, the brazier on the top has been lit during the nights of the Novruz festival.

Baku's Maiden Tower is a legendary place and world-famous landmark in Baku, Republic of Azerbaijan. The Tower is covered by cloud of mysteries and legends which are rooted to the History of Azerbaijan and national Culture of Azerbaijan. The pool of tower's epics and legends is a part of Azerbaijan's culture and national heritage. Indeed, Some epics became a subject for scenario for ballets and theatre's plays. The Maiden Tower (ballet) is a world class Azerbaijani ballet created by Afrasiyab Badalbeyli in 1940 and ballet's remake was performed in 1999.

Consequent to the receding of the sea shore line of the Caspian Sea, a strip of land emerged. This land was developed between the 9th and 15th centuries, when the walls of the old city, the palace including the huge bastion of the Maiden Tower were built.