Hualing Tbilisi Sea Plaza
Tbilisi Sea Plaza trading center is located in the eastern suburbs of Tbilisi City, near the Tbilisi Sea.I first heard about this "project" back in 2013 or something, and actually tried to visit it already in 2015, without luck. Turns out this place has been opened for the public just since the end of 2016. Despite been opened for public for a while already this place is not close as popular as Tbilisi Mall or East Point shopping malls located in the suburbs of Tbilisi. I believe the reason is the missing anchor tenant, some large food storeIt was at the end of December 2018, we were wandering around Tbilisi in our new Volkswagen Tuareg car, and decided to locate this place finally.And…
Cafe "Kāpenieki" in Aizpute
Cafe Kāpenieki has been one of my best finds in the Aizpute town in Western Latvia. Tasty, traditional Latvian cuisine for a very decent price. The fun fact, at this place in May 2018 I opened my first online brokerage account and soon started to acquire European and the US stocks. Also, they sell tasty Kvass, which is manufactured by a company listed on Nasdaq Baltics (Gubernija). lolTraditional Latvian Cold soupThe main course at cafe Kāpenieki in AizputeToo big to fail, too large to eat in the first attempt. Damn tasty though.Located inside the old and neglected, but renovated Soviet-era building, Cafe Kāpenieki attracts locals and visitors from nearby towns and…
January 2019 Dividend Income Report - $174.71
Welcome to the twenty-first (#21) dividend income report, covering earnings I've made from dividend-paying stocks, peer to peer lending (both fiat and cryptocurrencies) in January 2019. Wow, times flies, the last January disappeared like a flicker, little miss Fischer baby girl turned already 6-month old. This January also marked a small 2 years anniversary since In originally set my goal to have in savings account 1 million dollars by 2045. In general, January was great for most of the investors (except probably just crypto investments) as in January most markets recovered after the sluggish year end of 2018. From the point of dividends, last…
Chinese Restaurant Ensemble (Hotels & Preference Hualing Tbilisi)
Chinese Restaurant Ensemble is located in a 5-star hotel "Hotels & Preference Hualing Tbilisi" near the Tbilisi Sea in the so-called - Tbilisi Sea New City. I got a recommendation to visit this restaurant from some other Tbilisi expats. So some Saturday afternoon in a company of the same expats we visited this place and I had a chance to try really authentic Chinese cuisine. Hotels & Preference Hualing Tbilisi buildingHere is what it's all about:For pure gourmets, the hotel offers an authentic Chinese Restaurant - ENSEMBLE with a masterful blend of ingredients and spices. Enjoy authentic Chinese dishes from various regions and provinces…
Day trip to Bolnisi and nearby vicinity
Day trips to Bolnisi and region of Kvemo Kartli are quite possible and easy done from Tbilisi.
In the mid-December, we bought an SUV VW Touareg car and it was just the right time to put it on the test, so we decided to make a day trip to some easy and close place from Tbilisi.
As we were traveling with our 5-month-old daughter it was important to return home the same day, though there are some great hotels available in Bolnisi. Bolnisi is located just some 70 km from Tbilisi and it might take about 1 hour and 30 minutes to get there.
Bolnisi is located in the Kvemo Kartli region, Georgia. It has an estimated 13,800 inhabitants.
In 1818 the…
Bird Watching Tower on Sloka Lake
Bird watching tower on Sloka lake actually is a floating platform which is a very popular tourist attraction among the locals and bird watchers.Discovered in the early May 2018, during our "living in Jūrmala" series. Bird watching tower on Sloka LakeThe bird watching tower actually is just one point from Sloka lake walking trail:The trail winds through diverse forest settings along the coastline of the lake populated by numerous waterfowl. It starts and ends next to Sloka Lake, where there is a car parking lot a picnic site and a 7 m high floating overhead platform for sightseers. Hiking on the trail takes you to a number of interesting sites: the swamp forests of…
Saint Peter and Paul Monastery Complex of Bolnisi
Saint Peter and Paul Monastery Complex of Bolnisi was built in 2012 and is located on Mount Elia close to the Bolnisi town in Georgia.First discovered and kind of visited in mid-December 2018, during a day trip to Bolnisi region. Originally I thought that at this place is located Bolnisi Sioni, and once we let our Tbilisi apt I just entered Bolnisi church in Google navigation. Huge was my surprise arriving at the real Bolnisi Sioni Cathedral instead of this place.From Bolnisi Sioni we continued our explorations in the area of Bolnisi, and reached another very interesting church (again I thought this is it) - Tsughrughasheni Church. We already started…
Mangaļsala Pier
The Mangalsala Dam or the Eastern Mole has been built between 1850 and 1861 and rumor has the Russian Empire's Tsar actively followed the developments (back in those days there were two tsars ruling the Empire, Nicholas I and Alexander II). Mangalsala is the first part of the Riga city which is crossed by all ships entering the Daugava river.The length of the mole is 2240 meters. The sea part of the eastern mole was formed by pile constructions, which were later laid out and covered with stones. The base of the dam is made of heavy fascines and stones. The dam of Mangaļsala serves as a strengthening of the right bank of the Daugava river.For me, the Mangaļsala pier has always…
Mintos.com Review After 24 Month of Investing in Peer to Peer Lending
I've been investing in Mintos.com peer to peer lending marketplace since the beginning of 2017, or it has been already 24 months or two years since I've been exposing my funds to this Latvian fintech platform. In the past 24 months I've made a nice revenue of EUR 902.57 (before tax) and in today's article, I decided to share a quick overview for the past two years and also make a quick glimpse for my plans for 2019Both individuals and entities can invest through Mintos. Individual investors must be at least 18 years old, have a bank account in the European Union or third countries currently considered to have AML/CFT systems equivalent to the EU, and have their identity…
HP ProBook 450 G5 (2RS04EA) Laptop Review
At the end of 2018 I got a new laptop - HP ProBook 450 G5 - in today's gadget review article series I will write down my humble observations. In short - gosh it feels so good owning a ProBook from HP.I bought this laptop at local ALTA OK store in Tbilisi, Georgia, just shortly before Christmas shopping craze in December 2018. Paid about USD 750 for this model. The sales price for Intel Core i5 8GB HP ProBook 450 G5 on Amazon is about $770. This laptop will retire my older Asus X552M Laptop. That said, after about a 3-year pause, while using ASUS manufactured laptop, I'm returning back to HP laptops. For about 8 years I was using the HP Compaq 6510b model, I loved that…
2018 Blog Income & Traffic Review - Goals For 2019
2018 has just passed, and now it is the right time to take a look back on the previous year of blogging, and of course doubts - take a quick glimpse of 2019.
In today's article, I will reveal data behind the blog scenes - both traffic and income for the whole year of 2018. But before we dig into the numbers, here is the brief background - blog now is more than five years old, and for the last five years it has gone a very long way,
Make sure to check out my previous yearly blogging reviews:
2017 - 2017 Blog Income & Traffic Review - Goals For 2018 / $24,920.47
2016 - Blog Traffic and Income Report 2016 - 635,048 Users / $18,…
Top 20 Gaming Laptops with NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB Graphics card
Gaming laptops with an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6 GB graphics card are one of the most optimal gaming laptops user choice - here budget meets performance. In contrast to PC's where you can extend your computer with a GPU, when choosing a laptop your options are more limited. See: Mining Ethereum With EVGA GeForce GTX 1060 (Single Fan), 6GB GDDR5 Review
Most of the best selling Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 laptops are powered with the latest 8th generation Intel Core i7 8750H processors, though there are a few Intel Core i5 models available as well.
In today's article, I've listed top 20 gaming laptops with NVIDIA GeForce GTRX 1060 6 GB graphics card available for…
Mosque in Kvemo Bolnisi
There is not much information available online about Kvemo Bolnisi mosque in Georgia, except that the construction of the Mosque in Kvemo Bolnisi village started in 2005 and ended in 2007. The Mosque started functioning the same year. It was in the mid-December 2018, we were on a day trip to the Bolnisi (and surrounding area), after making stops at Bolnisi Sioni and Tsughrughasheni Church we discovered a green roof mosque. Unfortunately this time we didn't visit the mosque, instead, I took just a very long distance photo. Mosque in Kvemo Bolnisi, GeorgiaAbout 60% of the population in Bolnisi are Muslims There are two major…
Borjomi Likani Hotel, SPA and Health Centre
Luxury 5 star Hotel Borjomi Likani is located 177 km away from Tbilisi (the capital of Georgia) in the middle of the coniferous park in Borjomi city, famous of its naturally carbonated mineral water from springs in the Borjomi Gorge of central Georgia.Hotel Borjomi Likani is located on the former territory of once popular Sanatorium of 4th department in Likani.Guests from all over the USSR used to gather here to spend time with family and friends and receive the benefits of the Health procedures offered, due to the curative effect of the Borjomi water.We stayed at Hotel Borjomi Likani during the Christmas 2018 and paid EUR 112 /GEL 341 for one night stay at this hotelDisclosure:…
How to block visitors from country NGINX + GeoIP Module
There are a couple of reasons why website administrators consider blocking visitors from particular countries or regions accessing websites, the most common reason probably is hacking/hacking attempts.
One really nasty way how website hackers act are, they inject malicious code into vulnerable websites and redirect legit audience to shady affiliate or black SEO websites. This method is also known as cloaking.
By investigating NGINX access.log file we can determine 404 pages (hacking attempts) and with a simple manipulations filter our bad/spammy IP's
See this great guide from EasyEngine about Parsing access.log and error.logs using linux…
2019 Old New Year's Firework From Tbilisi
Here at Piece of Life and ReinisFischer.com we just love fireworks photography. It's one of the photo techniques I wanted to master first when learned secrets of successful photography.My first experience with fireworks photography was a couple of years ago when I had a chance to visit St. Marks square in Venice during New Year's night. The result? It was a very crowded event, but still, I managed to get at least something. After we returned from Venice back to Tbilisi I made a kind of lovely Old New Year's firework photography from our balcony. You can see the result here: Old New Year's fireworks in TbilisiI made one of my best fireworks photography a year ago from Tamar…
Tsughrughasheni Church
Tsughrughasheni is a Georgian Orthodox church in the Bolnisi District, Georgia. It is situated approximately 2 kilometers from Bolnisi Sioni basilica, on the right bank of the Bolnisistsqali River.The church was built in 1212–1222 supposedly by King George IV Lasha of the Bagrationi Dynasty.Tsughrughasheni church in GeorgiaI first discovered and visited Tsughrughasheni church and monastery in mid-December during a day trip to Bolnisi. It was a bit hard actually to get here physically, as there was some road construction works still going on (there is a newly paved road build straight to the monastery complex). Luckily…
December 2018 Dividend Income Report - $160.57
Welcome to the twentieth (#20) dividend income report, covering earnings I've made from dividend-paying stocks, peer to peer lending (both fiat and cryptocurrencies) in December 2018. In case you are wondering why I'm sharing online my earnings - the answer is pretty simple - back in January 2017, I set a goal to reach one million dollars in my bank account by the time I will turn 60 26 years still to go). I believe in transparency and sharing dividend income reports every month helps me to observe my personal progress or bounces. Hopefully, those reports can give some inspiration to you as well. (If…
Hotel Baltvilla in Baltezers
Baltvilla is a 4-star hotel located some 15 km from the city center of Riga, on the shore of a lake with a private beach area and on the Via Baltica highway (E67).Baltvilla is located 4 km from Latvian Ethnographic Open-Air Museum. Free WiFi is provided throughout the hotel and wide private parking is available for guests free of charge.We opted for Baltvilla hotel during our latest trip to Latvia at the end of 2018 (pre-New Year) - surprisingly but we paid less than EUR 40 for a stay here. I believe this has been the cheapest 4-star hotel I have stayed so far, thus the service was excellent. Breakfast was just amazing. Salmon in the breakfast, sure come to Latvia.Hotel room at…
How To Upgrade Drupal 7 to 8 (With Multilingual Support)
Here comes another article, which has been in the blog's draft section since the start of 2017. In this article, I will share my notes on performing a major Drupal upgrade from 7 to 8 with multilingual support.
As a Drupal developer, I've been pretty conservative and don't rush for upgrades just because of upgrades, but here I was working with a website which was almost 8 years old (built from scratch on Drupal 7 in 2011)
What I don't like when upgrading from Drupal 7 to 8, is that the upgrade requires a fresh install of Drupal 8 site. Unfortunately, there are no still the magical one-click upgrade button (It's 2019 and not 2007, right)
In this Drupal tutorial, I will use the…