PlaNinata SPA Hotel, Ribaritsa, Bulgaria

PlaNinata SPA Hotel is a great place in Ribaritsa near Teteven, Bulgaria. Check more photos on their website, where also this one was taken. Kudos to Nina.

Ivo Penev - Software Architect at IBM Bulgaria. Used to work for Latona and Prepay Services. Finishing his MBA at City University of Seattle in Sofia. Swimmer, used to do a lot of programming (also in competition), has 2 year old son. Ivo, not Ivaylo.

Colorful program at PlaNinata. Young singer leading the group.

Barbakan, Warsaw, Poland

Barbakan restaurant in Warsaw. Barbakan is actually barbican which is "a semicircular fortified outpost" in Warsaw. Good food, great beer, excellent company. And an appalling picture - rushing to get back inside.

Randolph Moorer - Newly assigned WebSphere Manager for CEEMEA region at IBM. His father was in navy, so he was growing up all over the world. Atlanta college, living in Florida now, not golfer anymore (What free time?), Used to work for CSX and then 25 years of IBM. He's in the Canon side of digital photographers divide with his 40D, travels a lot with his family (14 years old son) and were recently in Peru. Does running and will one day fly to space as a tourist like Dennis Tito, while building orphanages on back on the earth. Quite a vertical span.

Daily servings of Sushi, delivered fresh to IBM Warsaw office. 20 zloti for cold fish delight.

Žabec, Ljubljana, Slovenia

Žabec - (= male frog), a quick business lunch place, well hidden in the cellar of Bežigrajski Dvor. Yes, I did not make this photo(s) - I borrowed it from their web site.

Urška Škraba - Undersecretary at Ministry of the Environment and Spatial Planning. Vodice offspring, Ljubljana raised, Gorenjska-Dolenjska mix. M.A in Social Science/Ethnic studies at FDV, used to teach English in elementary school, before she learned really well to navigate through EU presidency and EU bureaucracy organized chaos. Reading Dan Brown's Lost Symbol, excellent amateur bowler (5 strikes in a row - beat that) and has 12 years of serious dancing behind her. One day she will have a tutoring company, private kinder garden and care service for elderly. Care-o-rama.

Some companies have on-site massage places. IBM in Poland is one of them. Meeting rooms meets Thai pressure pleasures.

Klub Preserne Zdravljice, Ljubljana, Slovenia

Klub Prešerne Zdravljice. Odd ambient, weird name, great food. Home-hom-om-nom-nom.

Gregor Rome - Advisor of director at Eco Fund. Ljubljana bred, worked for ACH, IBM, Electrolux and S&T, innovative carnival mask maker-wearer, avid urban cyclist, blogger, sifting through Vale Novak Montignac book, getting second child in June, works with bikes, pimping them up (see below), learning proper jazz guitar, has recording studio and manga drawing experience.

Pre-pimp-up hot rod as-is.

Post-pimp-up hot rod to-be. Photoshop concept.

Tukan, Sofia, Bulgaria

Tukan. The pizza place. According to Alexander, the best pizza in Bulgaria. Aha. Peshterska is not very recommended. Go for Burgas 63. TheRakiaSite.com agrees. :)

Nedko Petar Kolev - WebSphere sales specialist at IBM in Bulgaria. Sofia native, roots in Haskovo where they make Astika beer, Bocconi graduate and IBMer since. Known as joke dispenser, is reading a book about Bulgarian diplomats eating ducks from Hyde Park in London, is getting info from bg-mamma.com - like millions of Bulgarians. Will have lots of kids, travel and produce movies.

Alexander Madzhirov a.k.a. Sasho - WebSphere BPM Tech Specialist for IBM CEE region. Plovdiv origin, one of the founders of perfumery and cosmetics association in BG, worked also for Center for Democracy studies, Applied research and Communication fund, IDS Scheer and was director of Masters program at New Bulgaria University. Knows the author of the book that Nedko is reading, collects instruments, many sourced from muzikant.org, has 1 year old malek Sashko, shoots rabbits and squirrels with Stoeger X50 air gun, reads Bulgarian chronicles by Tsanev. He will add more fishing, more university and more selective consulting, while watching series like Desperate housewives and movies like Lie to Me. Amen.

Why the long face, Carlos? Hefty.