Planet Tus Bowling, Celje, Slovenia

Planet Tus (Tuš) - shopping and entertaining complex built by Tus in Celje. Bowling area - if you are really, really good, you can drive home with a new motorbike. Would be pretty freezing though.

Samo Ursej (Uršej) - SAP specialist at Prevent company based in Slovenj Gradec. He studied in Maribor and Vienna and has recently read Stock Exchange Psychology by Andre Kostolany.

Branko Schweitzer - until recently working as court executor in Slovenj Gradec, now focusing more on the investment side of the money game. Andre Kostolany presumably already fore casted single EU currency years ago, before serious talks started.

Miha Glavic (Glavič) - Account Manager at SRC.SI. Born in Maribor, served Jugoslav Army (JNA) conscription in Kosovo. Studied chemistry and worked in several different fields from sports trade, insurance to IT.


Predrag Maksimovic (Maksimović) - used to work for Hofer in Vienna and decided to drop salary-based-rat-race to pursue active investment life type of style. His roots are from Brcko district in Bosnia, but he lives in Maribor, where he also finished economics at EPF.

We had no luck with supposedly free WLAN access in Planet Tus. None of the codes they gave us actually worked. Not good.

Pipca, Domzale, Slovenia

Pizzeria Pipca - according to poslovni-bazar.si it was one of the first pizzerias on the territory of former Yugoslavia using a wood fired pizza oven. It is in operation since 1984 and serves as a pizzeria standard in Domzale and surroundings. If you are near, it is a strong recommendation.

Iztok Senicar (Seničar) - co-founder of AS Geo Plan, a small Slovenian company specialized in geodesy. Born in Novo Mesto, raised in Domzale and now lives in Menges. FGG graduate, worked at Geodetski Zavod, before he joined forces with his friend and started AS Geo Plan. As they are growing they need to hire more students and full time employees and at that point it comes painfully obvious that while 60% effort is enough to pass a class at the University in real business more often than not 110% effort is required to get and retain a satisfied customer. Izo, as friends call him, is a proud father of a year and a half old Žan, likes to play tennis and badminton and one day he will buy Geodetski Zavod - just for fun :)

(Uroš) Uros Accetto - the other founding father of AS Geo Plan, the geodesy company. Native from Domzale, his surname might be a hint that his roots are somewhere near Venice. Accetto does not mean vinegar though - that would be Aceto. FGG graduate also worked for Geodetski Zavod before launching AS Geo Plan. Recently he joined sports club SKD Celesnk, which will not allow him to read so many crime story books anymore, as he will have to run after some sort of ball with friends. One day he will create a charity foundation - maybe something in line with Kiva.org or Krilca.si. That's good. Very good.

This post is the first one done with my new Nokia E90 Communicator. I immensely enjoy being a fresh proud owner with a wide smile on my face ... :)

Rezka, Ljubljana, Slovenia

I was not having Blog lunch with 50 cent nor with the chef next to him, but Rezka restaurant where I did have Blog lunch, provided catering for 50 cent party in Rollbar while he was visiting Ljubljana. And that's where above photo was taken.


Considering that Rezka is a sort of a canteen serving employees in and around Gradis building, it is actually a very nice place. Good food and good view - not to mention that they can count 50 cent among their (happy) customers :) If you are already somewhere near, it is a recommendation.

Jaka Bizjak - in-house counsel (lawyer) at Avtotehna Group, working primarily for Avtera. Native from Preddvor, graduated at Faculty of Law, worked for a notary office and IUS Software, before joining Avtotehna. Very much into IT as shown also through his Blog and can be found also on Linkedin. Avid snowboarder, prior to his trip to Brazil during carnival time (Salvador), he is learning Portuguese Pimsleur style. Anybody keen on kite surfing should try it in Egypt. One day he will have his own hotel on the beach with adjacent kiting and surfing club ... sounds familiar. Surf's up!


Miserable weather, yet still good overview of BTC shopping center in Ljubljana. Christmas heat building up ...

Ambient, Ljubljana, Slovenia

Ambient - a very nice, loungy type of bar/restaurant. Well worth an extended peep inside. Strong recommendation.

Tanja Bivic - nowadays mostly a TV person. Intensive debate made me forget to take her photo in Ambient, so instead I posted one from her TV shows on national RTV Slovenija. She is co-creating a set of shows called Sobotno Popoldne and is fully in charge of Labirint. Born in Murska Sobota, has lived in Zadar, Trbovlje and now in Ljubljana. Studied at FSD, worked for Allied Domecq, Jupiter and also for Teater Cizamo. One day her mother heard a radio add for TV audition and now she cannot travel very much anymore as she has a TV show to prepare every week. Besides being a bookworm - lately several cookbooks and Labyrinth - she also indulges in drawing, sailing and diving. One day she will have her own beach hotel while producing independent movies.

Norwegian Eggs - a delicious meal that you have to try while visiting Ambient. You will not find recipe for this variation of Eggs Benedict in Robert Rodriguez' Ten Minute Cooking School.

Ambient is also recommended by Rough Guides - the biggest Lonely Planet contender.

Triglav, Ljubljana, Slovenia

Restaurant & Club Triglav - nice, simple, somewhat innovative place. Student friendly and a lot more attractive in the summer with nice terrace. In any season a recommendation. Bears the name of Slovenia's highest peak Triglav.

Suzana Obradovic (Obradović) - working for IBM in Austria in Software Sales Operations. Born and raised in Bijelo Polje, a city in northern Montenegro - with mayor called Tarzan. She studied Landscape Architecture in Belgrade, escaped the bombs in 1999 and went to Budapest on her journey to Canada which never fully realized. In Hungary she has had an interesting experience with a Buddhist group, started working for IBM and then moved to Vienna. Touch Rugby and Scuba Diving - preferably in Red Sea - constitute her favourite free time curriculum, along with going out with her friends all over the world. Suzana is probably one of the most intensive fan of The Little Prince story you will ever have a chance to meet. She has over 30 Little Prince books, almost all of them in different language and tied to a specific person and/or event. Given lots of investment money and unlimited options, she would first think about it for a long time and then probably decide for one way or another, how to gradually increase Human Development Index (HDI) all over the world, starting with countries on the bottom of the HDI list.


The most popular Serbian female singer Ceca in concert in Ljubljana. It has absolutely nothing to do with Suzana - apart from the chicken. Tears "falling" upwards ...

Bachus, Ljubljana, Slovenia

Bachus - very popular restaurant, lounge bar and night club in downtown Ljubljana. Good location, good food and good atmosphere. A strong recommendation.

Dusan Zaric (Dušan Zarić) - working for Actual IT as SAP consultant. Native from Ptuj, he now lives in Maribor where he finished FERI before he attended Faculty of Management in Koper. His father left Serbian blood in his veins and now lives retired in Vrnacka Banja. Part of his relatives are also in Sweden and Switzerland. He had some good time in France through Socrates Erasmus student exchange and then started working for SRC.SI as business analytics specialist and later developed interest in SAP and switched to Actual IT. Avid chess player is lately reading mostly SAP related books, but would have good things to say about Kiyosaki's Cashflow Quadrant.

Most of capitals get festive clothing in December, but Ljubljana is really beautiful in this time of year. Come and see it for your own ...

Restavracija Grm, Ljubljana, Slovenia

Restavracija Grm is a higher class place, not well known but well worth a visit. A bit pricey, but very good food, wine and very friendly staff. You'll get great fish and game dishes any day you please. There are good Bushes after all ... (Grm = Bush in Slovenian)

Sergej Zlahtic (Žlahtič), student of SAE Institute in Ljubljana. Raised in Pijava Gorica with his Zlahtic surname supposedly tracing his family back to Hungary and Czech. After finishing Pre-school Education high school he tried NTF and later switched to SAE. You can easily find Sergej on the Adriatic sea, where he spends a lot of time sailing as a skipper. On the ground he plays basketball and watches Family Guy cartoons as he is waiting for his girlfriend to come back from Gandia in Spain. Recently he read Charming Group Suicide book by Arto Paasilinna and Orwell's Animal Farm. Among the projects he was/is involved are Taxi Alaksi and design062. If given a real choice, he would be involved in research of different kind of space-time travel. It is possible, we just did not think about it hard enough. Or did we? Spacetimetravel.org

City restavracija, BTC, Ljubljana, Slovenia

City building in BTC City. These 13 floors are Slovenian HQ to some prominent global brands such as Microsoft and Nike. Besides the restaurant on the top floor and restaurant Pri Stricku, employees working in this building don't really have much choice to go for a decent lunch in the near vicinity.

Miha Modic is working in IT department at NLB, biggest bank in Slovenia. After successful switch to EUR currency, he took a well deserved longer break in Brazil and upon return got himself neck deep involved in Temenos Globus project. He lived 10 years in Germany where he studied at Mannheim University, worked as a freelance programmer and also for Ciao.de and Deutsche Boerse, before coming back to his homeland. Wikinomics and Good to Great were the latest books he's read and with extra time and money he would set up the best cooking portal on the planet. It's easy to guess that he is an avid cook - practicing most of the time making lunches and dinners to his Brazilian wife and young daughter as well as to his many friends. IT an cooking go well hand in hand. According to Miha, Genius Bar in Apple Retail Stores is a severe overstatement. What's really so Genius about it?

From the restaurant there's fascinating view over Ljubljana toward Kamnik Alps. And you are not allowed to take photos. Where did this one came from then ...

Kitajska Šmartinska, Ljubljana, Slovenia

Chinese restaurant near BTC in Ljubljana. You cannot find anything about it on the web, but if you insist, this is where you can find it on Najdi.si map. No name. No marketing. Yet, still surviving.

Matej Lavric (Lavrič) - experienced Java developer turned IT architect and project manager at SRC.SI. Born and raised in Postojna, lives in Pivka, graduated at FRI and worked also at Parsek. Avid tennis and golf player, this year he ran his first 10km at Ljubljanski maraton, while sport motorbikes remain his biggest passion - currently he rides with his wife on Honda CBR 600F. As sailing is getting more and more in the picture, his latest book was Learn to Sail by Dennis Conner, the famous American yahtsman. Batagel(j) from Postojna is considered famous by Slovenian measures and he is definitely moving his own cheese. Good service deserves la mancia.

Red. Green. Round. Chinese. Do they really look all the same?

Gregori, Ljubljana, Slovenia

Stegne is part of Ljubljana with commercial connotation, crowded with companies and cars with parking problem being the common denominator to all of them.

Gregori is a small restaurant catering to employees of nearby companies. No trail of it on the net whatsoever. If you don't find yourself there already, you have no special reason to go there.

Kristjan Golob, CEO of Medistar. Managing growth and expansion of this predominantly neurophysiology oriented company into other adjacent areas. Born, raised and living in Menges, graduated at EF, climbed his way through Medis and KonicaMinolta to his first general management position where the view is nicer and reaches further. Two year old son, AirSoft, Mountain Biking and reading books such as Clinical Neurophysiology are filling up his seriously limited free time now. Money limitations out of sight, he would still stay in business management and growth business. On a bigger scale and more game like. Among other roles he is also my brother.

Another sighting of Cvicek. Affordable for masses.

Pizzerija Botana, Cerklje, Slovenia

Botana is a popular pizzeria, frequently visited by skiers returning from Krvavec. This time it was visited on our way to Airport Brnik, recently renamed to Airport Joze Pucnik, after one of the founding fathers of democracy in new Slovenia.

Krzysztof Kluszczynski, regional sales manager for IBM's telco service performance&quality management software solutions, that IBM acquired with company Vallent. Kluszczynski is a common Polish name and it is also the name of a Polish publishing company. Kris was born, raised and lives in Skierniewice - half way between Warsaw and Lodz. He held several jobs in telco solution provider space, the latest ones being ComArch and IBM. His current reading remains faithful to his surname - historical books published by Kluszczynski publishing house. Tomasz Gollob is a famous Polish zuzel (speedway) driver and when he wins you can hear Polish national anthem, that has almost the same melody as did former Yugoslavia - Hey Slavs. Poland is still situated between Germany and Russia. Historia magistra vitae est.

Pri Stricku, Ljubljana, Slovenia

Pri Stricku (Stričku) - very good and popular, hence crowded restaurant in Ljubljana, near BTC shopping city.


Rok Zaloznik (Založnik), Technical Service director at Simobil, Slovenia's second biggest mobile operator. Born and raised in Ljubljana, graduated at FRI where he used very open-source-like nickname Xfree, before joining very not-open-source-like Microsoft business. IT director position at Sparkasse was his first taste of being on the other side of the vendor-customer equation. Wife, two daughters and a lot of sports. An injury lets him do less running, but more biking and swimming - also as a member of 3K Sport. Someday his own Scuba diving center in Maldives will fill up his agenda. Stumbling on Happiness.


Cvicek (Cviček) - genuine Slovenian red wine. Not for everybody. Some would even argue calling it wine. But there are good Cvicek wines to be found. This one was good and it was accompanied by Janković water = tap water. Zoran Janković is present mayor of Ljubljana, hence the water in Ljubljana pipes is jokingly called Janković water. Fits right in the age of bottling and labeling all sorts of water.

Druga pomoc, Ljubljana, Slovenia

Druga Pomoc (Pomoč) is a popular bar near Ljubljana Medical Center. The name of the place is a word game: Druga pomoc = Second Aid as opposed to First Aid. They are sponsoring Futsal team. Futsal is indoor version of football. IKEA chairs.

Igor Borojevic (Borojević), native Croatian, raised in Zapresic and recently moved from Zagreb to Ljubljana where he works at IBM as IT Architect. There was a famous general Svetozar Borojevic from Banija region, as was Igor's father. His intensive involvement in BEST brought him for a while also to Stockholm and a Swedish girlfriend to him. For a while. Graduated at FER.hr, worked for Nove Tehnologije, Combis and IBM. You will mostly see him mountain climbing, sailing, swimming and playing badminton in his off time. Nase malo misto by Miljenko Smoje. According to Igor well worth watching and reading. Not to mention The Economist itself. If I would mention Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA at this point it would not make much sense, but it is a city with very high density of bright and highly educated people, thanks mainly to Harvard and MIT. When will there be Toastmasters in Ljubljana? One of the earlier members of Zagreb Toastmasters might know the anwser. Keep the ball of favours rolling ...

Sofra, Ljubljana, Slovenia

Sofra is a well known Bosnian Sarajevo style restaurant in Ljubljana. Well worth a visit.

Alenka Planinc - being her own boss and managing her own company Planinca - active in the area of workshop facilitating, mentoring, coaching and market research consulting. Born and raised in Kozje, has lived in Ljubljana, Smartno pri Litiji, Menges and is now settled in Zdusa (Zduša), a small group of houses near Kamnik - population of 94. Among other things Zdusa is known for the fact that some people drive their cars in garage through the roof. After graduation at FDV she worked for Kanal A (helping roll out first Television Audience Measurement systems from AGB Lab), for Allied Domecq (market, brand and trends research and analysis), ADD and iGEA, before deciding to go on her own. She is CPF = Certifed Facilitator by IAF and she can break bottom-right glass of your Johari window. She likes biking but only if she doesn't ride the same path twice in a single trip. She also developed slight addiction for Catan & Citadels board games and cooking. Her latest books were High Performance People and Wikinomics. One day her focus might change more into helping (coaching, mentoring, ...) marginal groups, such as invalids - influenced by her brother that had an accident. She might also go traveling around the world with her brother and observe (possibly change) the conditions for traveling of hindered people.

Distinct Sarajevo atmosphere ...


... and superbly served Turkish coffee. Thumbs up!

City restavracija, BTC, Ljubljana, Slovenia

Bar and restaurant City on top of BTC City high-rise. Small, functional, great view and kind waitress.

Matej Caf - software engineer and IT architect at SRC.SI where he is continuing to accumulate already rich set of IT experiences, that he acquired among others while studying and working at FERI, on LabVIEW development for National Instruments and many involvements in projects in the area of J2EE, Enterprise Java in government and banking, distributed, real-time, mobile technologies and network management. Besides his passion for IT in parallel he also developed passion for stock market, golf and sailing. His all time favourite book would be Victory by Brian Tracy. Some day he will own at least one golf course and help good business ideas flourish.

Igor Rendulic (Rendulič) - software developer at SRC.SI with lots of skills in security and "ethical" hacking area. FERI graduate, he managed to break into several systems and wouldn't mind too much being labeled as a hardcore computer geek, whilst year 2007 is marked as his enter into bright golfing career. Trading stocks and options is also something you would be able to talk about with him for quie a while.

River House, Ljubljana, Slovenia

River House is a relatively new place on the bank of Ljubljanica river in Stara Ljubljana. And a fine place it is. A definite recommendation.

Kamenko Kesar - a long time successful Microsoft PR-marketing-mash-up person turned into founder of his own corporate-communication-in-a-broader-sense agency called Adrema. Maribor native, moderator of Blogres - recent bloggers' gathering in Ljubljana - has significant online presence, also due to his Ideja blog. Although he is already consistently beating Filo at tennis, with loads of time and money he would still get himself world's top instructors for tennis, guitar, golf and many other activities where he would go beyond his limits. His last book was The Art of Rhetoric and his all time favourite is Gladwell's The Tipping Point - both of them most probably bought at Amazon UK. All of you time-strapped out there can always get the taste of these books at getAbstract dot com.

Very stylish toilet. For the rest of the interior you are "kindly urged" to come and see the place yourself in person.