Derby Bar Restaurant, Bucharest, Romania

Marius Dogaru - dreaded by big fish in Romania.


Indeed.


Tip not big enough? :)


Restaurant and Bar Derby - nice terrace, nice atmosphere.


Marius Dogaru - software salesperson, currently specialized in IBM Lotus. Born and raised in Bucharest. His father was born in family of 5 children, his mother in family of 7 children, yet he is the only child in their marriage. He started in Army faculty, switched to electronics study and switched again to Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies. He worked for Wrigley, Xerox and now IBM. Fishing is his biggest passion. Recently he's just caught 18kg fish in the lake near Bucharest, but the picture of the fish is too big to fit on this blog :) (will be posted later when it will shrink a little). With a lot of money he would live the life of Rex Hunt and he would buy Russia. Yes, the whole Russian Federation. Imagine that.


Oskar Laufer - managing IBM Lotus partner sales&relationship in CEMAAS region. His hometown is Eerbeek in Netherlands and he also lived in Amsterdam for quite a while. His grandfather was from Austro-Hungarian (today Slovakia) town Malacky and a lot of his family lived in Vienna, where he also moved recently - drawn by his recently broken heart :). And yes he smoked pot when he was younger - to answer all Americans when they get to know a person from Amsterdam. He visits Amsterdam regularly - especially for Queensday. He graduated at VU University of Amsterdam. He worked as tour guide in the National concert hall, he had internship at Baan (now owned by Infor and was founded by two very religious protestant brothers Jan and Paul Bann) and later joined IBM in Amsterdam. He enjoys night life&clubbing, eating (gourmet), taking photos with his new Nikon D200 and traveling also beside his job related travelling. With extra money and time he would do even more travelling, enjoy a lot and also give back a lot. To society.

Closing relationship is akin to closing a Siebel opportunity in stage 10 - "Customer did not pursue" or "Functionality did not meet specification". SOA (the big IT buzzword of today) in Netherlands means STD (Sexually Transmitted Disease)


Manfred Stadler - managing IBM Lotus software sales in CEMAAS region. Born and raised in Vienna. In his youth he's spent a lot of time there near Nickelsdorf where also Nova rock festival is taking place. Stadler is a very common name in Austria. Sopron - shopping area bordering with Hungary, now also a lot of Hungarian dentists are luring Austrian customers. His sister lives in California, where they now have (ex-Austrian) governor Schwarzenegger - seems she could not escape the grasp of Austria :) He graduated at TU Wien, founded a Video rental company Happy Family Video - and lived through the clashes of standards: video2000, beta, super8, VHS. He then joined IBM where he had several positions - SE, Account Rep, Manager of SAMs, EMEA Portal Manager. He has three kids and a Yamaha 1100 cruiser.

Adrian Aldea - technical specialist in Tivoli software, working for IBM Romania and SEA region. He was born and raised in Bucharest and there is no famous Aldea, but himself :) He graduated at UPB, worked for AT&T, had a pause and now works for IBM. He's a chain smoker, he plays tennis (doid a lot more when younger). In job and in private life computers are a very big thing. He has seven of them at home. Geekish. He also likes old movies and jazz music(vinyl, mp3, Bakelite plates). He plays piano, but himself thinks that not particularly well.

La Tana di Noantri, Trastevere, Rome, Italy

Bustling, humid streets of late night Rome in June. Livin'it up.


La Tana di Noantri - where you can sit outside and taste the wonderful atmosphere of Trastevere, a little more peaceful and less known west bank.


Kresimir Barbarosa (Krešimir Barbaroša) - currently working for Marmis, where he is distributing storage and systems management software knowledge and skills in Slovenia and neighbouring countries. Born in Zagreb, raised in Zadar, later moved to Brezice and now lives in Ljubljana. There was a famous Holy Roman Emperor named Frederick I Barbarossa. Graduated at FS, works for Marmis and might change in the near future. His family has an estate in Sv.Filip i Jakov where they have 478 olive trees and he helps take care of them. He used to be an active athletic runner (400m/5km), skydiver. He still plays basketball and snowboarding. Latest book he read was by Ante Tomic - Sto je muskarac bez brkova. His son Tristan is 1 year old. One day he will be taking care of even more olive trees, producing olive oil and wine, do some sub aquatic fishing and walking dogs. And do only that.

It's not a circle. It's not a triangle. It's a square. By night. In Rome.

Grazie a Dio e Venerdi & Libreria, Rome, Italy

Libreria - a nicely packed place. With books, music and wine.


David Baugh - a British fella, responsible for IBM Tivoli partners in a big part of Europe. Born in Chester which is one of the best-preserved walled cities in the United Kingdom - no wonder, since it was the first Roman fort in that part of Europe, called Deva (AD 79). The Baugh's like Italy. His parents apparently have an apartment in Rome - just across the street of the pizzeria featured in this post. After securing his degree at LSE, he worked for Krell (hi- end hi-fi), switched to Arthur Anderson (working on IBM Mainframe SW) and then joined IBM, where he is since. Some of his passions are Hi-Fi, Sci-Fi and sailing. One of the latest books he's read was by Eric Blair a.k.a. George Orwell - 1984. With extra whateverweallwant he would be living it up. What else. On Forbidden Planet Krell is not hi-fi, but long-extinct natives that experimented with Id. Morish on positive purgatory.


Celeste Soto - lately engaged in relationship building between IBM partners worldwide and IBM Tivoli software team. Born and raised in Austin, far away from Mississippi river that the other Soto discovered - namely explorer Hernando de Soto. Her mother has a music band and is lesbian. Graduated at University of Texas (Economics and LatAm studies - not boring at all), used to be a teacher and helped with education in lower income districts. In USA they have different taxing districts for different income levels. Later she joined IBM troops. She's horrible at telling jokes, likes to play&watch soccer and College American football. She is a proud mother of Jaden, her son. Recently read A long way gone:Memoirs of a boy soldier. Extra time and money would buy her foreign languages study, give her even more chances to meet new and interesting people, working for non-profit orgs (e.g. Kabula.org) and do a lot of cooking. She's also a pro - limoncellowise.

Interesting intereior ...

... and attention grabber. Oldest block in Rome and not only that???

Wide open and inviting. Grazie a Dio e Venerdi is Italian version of T.G.I. Friday's (Thank God it's Friday). Only by name that is. There's also a movie from 1978 bearing the same name.

Toilets to the left ...

Luka Gourmet Cafe Evropa, Ljubljana, Slovenia

Luka Gourmet. A brand and a very stylish place ...


... with very stylish interior.


Anton Golob - at Bank of Slovenia making sure that critical technical security systems are up and running the way they are supposed to. He was born in Celje, spent his childhood in Vransko and now lives in Ljubljana. After FE graduation he worked for Iskra, TV Slovenia and Bank of Slovenia.
He was avid football player, skiing instructor and still plays tennis. He is also very much into astronomy and is a member of local Astronomy Club. Like many others, if soddenly confronted with never expiring pile of money, he would make effort and support the challenged - one way effective being scholarships. Kiva.org is an innovative site that links micro lenders and borrowers with business ideas.