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.

Harambasa, Ljubljana, Slovenia

Harambasa (Harambaša) - one of several Bosnian cuisine places in Ljubljana.


Ćevapi - welcome to Sarajevo.


Well thought off interior.


No frills menu. Take it or leave it. Sudžukice.


Marko Angelski - a.k.a. Lesath, consulting on and helping set up and maintain IT environments for SMB companies. Born and raised in Lubljana. His father Risto is Macedonian and famous cardiologists - come to think of it, you don't really want to know him. His grandfather is a journalist/correspondent for Nova Makedonija in Ljubljana. Despite all that, Marko has never been to Macedonia, yet :) Hi finished FE study in nine years - in line with new nine-year elementary school program :) He plays in Double Bass (a.k.a. Contrabass) in The Poušters band. His company is called Fiduro - Fidus being faithful and trustworthy. He also danced in France Marolt Folk Dance Group and he has a motorbike. Latest book devoured was Peter Mayle's A Good Year. There's also a movie based on that novel. Getting rid of time/money limitation, he would make the story from "Some like it hot" his reality.

Gostilna Jelen, Ljubljana, Slovenia

Alan Gregorec - engaged in continuous search for diverse investment ideas and their realization with a group of like-minded partners and friends. He was born in Cakovec to Croatian mother and Slovenian father, moved to Ljubljana at age of 7 and lived there since. EF graduate, during study worked as tourist guide (mostly for CMT) and later in marketing departments at Playboy and Podravka, before he decided to leave the comfort of corporate cubicle to pursue his vision on "trnova pot". When younger he tried boxing and played tennis. Today he is engaged in improving his Golf handicap. Cars were also one of his passions: Swift GTI, Civic VTI ... His latest book were Women by Charles Bukowski and he is happily attached like PDF. Without limitations, he would run his own hotel chain and help to eliminate domestic violence.


Food was very good. Thumbs up!


Gostilna Jelen ... a recommendation.

Gallo, Zagreb, Croatia

Gallo. A very nice restaurant with good food, wine and service. Let yourself be seduced by recommendations and enjoy.


Peter Jopling - establishing and maintaining a good working relationship with big IBM Alliance partners in Tivoli Security space. He was born and raised in North Yorkshire and lives in Winchester now. He's been working in IT security related jobs for 20 years now, among companies were: GEC, Axent (acquired by Symantec), Platinum (Acquired by CA) and now IBM Tivoli. He used to play rugby and nowadays a lot of his free time is devoted to horses - his wife is pretty good in treating horses in "The Horse Whisperer" way. There are two rugby leagues in UK: NRL and RFU Gieves&Hawkes are makers of very nice shirts among others. Saville Row, what else :) Peter will buy himself an Aston Martin and maybe some more horses and bigger estate for them to run on.


Martin Borrett - specialist and consultant in Tivoli Security portfolio with Federated Identity Management being his most recent expertise. He can effectively show you the value in corporate IT identity management. He grew up in Croydon part of London and later moved to Southampton, mostly due to sailing reasons. He used to work for a smaller computer company in Luton before he joined IBM where he also worked on OS/2. His by far most most favourite free time occupation is sailing, sailing and sailing. He is a proud owner of BMW M3 and with truckload of money, he would do even more sailing and have his own Formula 1 racing team.


In Gallo they don't have one, but two pianos. Imagine that.
The only thing missing was a piano player. Or two :)


S&T InfoSecWeek evening event in Zagreb.

Falafel (Trubarjeva), Ljubljana, Slovenia

Falafel. Arab fast food place on Trubarjeva street.


Served with love (e.g. plastic plates): Kubbe, Fatayer and royal highness Falafel themselves.


Katja Kogovsek (Kogovšek) - helping to create and maintain positive (and honest) image of IBM in Slovenia. Born and raised in Maribor, recently moved to Ljubljana and her family also have a weekend house in Gornja Radgona, right next to where Marko Coklin was born. Who is Marko Coklin? Soon to be found out ... Graduated at Faculty of Social Sciences - majoring in Marketing Communications - now engaged in postgraduate study with the topic being Second Life. She worked for a lot of organizations during her study (mostly in marketing and PR), among them Studentska Arena, Studentska trznica, RTV (assitant to Jani Virk), SOU and now IBM. She was part of the team awarded at SOF in 2006 for Blisk project. She likes to travel. A lot. Alone if possible. She cruised through big part of Australia and this year she's going to California. She spends considerable amount of time also in Second Life - also due to SL being the subject of her study. Avid badminton player, salsa dancer and swimmer. Oil painting, too. Given a lot of financial resources and extra time, she would most probably travel a lot more, meet new people and paint. She would take a group of her best friends with her and move from country to country without anything ... resembles a hippie movement :)

Oliva, Ljubljana, Slovenia

Rainy early May day in Ljubljana. Oliva is located across the street from Hermes Softlab, one of the biggest IT shops in Slovenia. Jaka's girlfriend works for Hermes in Banking customers support team.


Jaka Stermenszky - in charge of sales at his family business Čuri Muri - making sure that Slovenia has enough supplies of China imports - a lucrative business in these days. He was born and raised in Ljubljana. Stermenszky is not a very common surname in Slovenia - the origin is probably from Austro-Hungarian times. He just returned from China where he was visiting their suppliers - and yes he can confirm it, too - China is booming and changing its face year to year. Jaka is an avid Scuba diver. That really is a big part of his life. He also did quite a lot of Sky diving. There is something about Jaka and "diving", I believe. His latest book was Da Vinci Code. One day he will buy a small submarine, which will be parked at his very own Scuba resort on a nice beach. Some day :)

Pizzeria Napoli, Ljubljana, Slovenia

Samo Kraker - working for Adecco in Slovenia, thus knowing and recommending competent IT people to companies in Slovenia that are facing skills gap in IT area. He was born in Ljubljana and raised in Dol pri Ljubljani. He finished EF and worked for Mikrostar during study and later at ITS Intertrade (which was in 2004 bought by S&T). After serving his time in Slovenian Army (he enjoyed it) he worked for Intertrade Computers, today known as Alterna Intertrade. In between he also worked for Icon which was acquired by Dialogic. He has a 5 years old son and he used to shoot pool and para glide. When he was younger he was singing in choir Glasbena Matica and was several years ago also running candidate for mayor of his hometown Dol. One of his recent books was Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy - and that was while ago :) At the moment he is fully engaged with finishing his house. Later, when he will have loads of money and all the time in the world, he will master piano playing and have his own jazz bar. Thumbs up.


Pizzeria Napoli - one of the top 5 in Ljubljana.

Divaka, Sofia, Bulgaria

Elena Georgieva - doing her best at NDB to build and maintain positive and fruitful relationships with IBM Software business partners on one side and IBM constituencies on the other. She was born and raised in Sofia. In famous yellow pavement district. She studied Electronics at Technical University of Sofia. She was teaching English during study and after graduation she worked for Tornado Sistems and NET IS SAT where she had a very good time with her colleagues, especially when they had some sort of interesting promotion with Danzka vodka :) She likes gymnastics and skiing and her latest book was an Indian love story about Tadj Mahal and how and why it was build.
She recently got infected with a serious motorbiking virus and there's no cure for it. She will ride heavy bikes in the future - that's her destiny.


Lubomir Todorov - at Tamplier successfully selling hot Bulgarian properties at even hotter Bulgarian real estate market. He was born and raised in Sofia. Another Todorov is also a famous wine producer in Bulgaria, but has nothing to do with Lubo, though. He studied Computer Science at Technical University of Sofia. He was a bartender during study and after graduation he worked for IBM Bulgaria before joining Tamplier. Recently he is crazy about off-road 4x4 driving with Kom-Emine Trophy being one of the most famous routes in Bulgaria. One of his recent books was about Templars and Lucifer. He likes playing table tennis and one day he will have his own off-road club, cars and route.


Pink tram in Sofia.


Divaka or "Savage" - a very nice and popular place in Sofia.


Troyanska Slivova spirit - from town Troyan.


Pepper "bjurek" with feta cheese. There were also some other dishes and all of them were very good! Bulgarian cuisine in general is very good. I love it.

Elita, Ljubljana, Slovenia

One of his latest and favourite books was by Janez Suhadolc. Janez Suhadolc makes pretty cool chairs.


Some people don't like to have any digital footprint whatsoever. The person I had lunch with in Elita wants it to remain that way. Therefore no name mentioned here. His name is very common though: "Name Surname" returns 813 pages on Google. And there are so many of his exact namesakes.
He works at KPMG as an auditor. He likes his Aprilia Pegaso.


Not much effort and love in those menus. Low cost, low value. Elita hardly being the appropriate name.


Elita is right next to HQ of Mobitel, the biggest mobile operator in Slovenia. Mobitel has 72% market share. I guess the cars on the picture are not from Mobitel employees :)

Since iTunes music purchasing is not available in Slovenia, we use Dime-for-a-tune: Street Edition 1.0 instead :)

Merlin, Budapest, Hungary

Budapest by night.


Bar menu projected on the wall with a beamer. Club Merlin in Budapest is pretty innovative.


Names of Hungarian models and their order of appearance at the fashion show.

Marek Swierad - successfully growing VMware software business in Eastern Europe through developing competent and committed channel. Marek was born in southern Polish city Tarnow, moved to Australia when he was six and stayed there with his family for five years. After Australia they moved to Edmonton in Alberta, Canada. In the year 2000 he moved to Vienna, where he is living and working today. He started with Math study at University of Alberta and then switched to Finance which he finished in Vienna at Wirtschaftsuni. He worked for Informix, which was bought by IBM and later moved to VMware. He likes rugby, mountain biking and Chico, his chiuaua. He did a lot of partying when he was younger and still does some today. He also travels a lot. Given a short time to answer, he has no idea what he would really do with a lot of time and money. Maybe create newspaper for Vienna ex-pats, or high quality food delivery service in Vienna. Who knows?

Black rubber pigeons. Neat.

Budapest by (sunny) day.

Doing a sawing machine rim job in Budapest. One of a kind.

Paparoti, Jarše, Slovenia

Davorin Gabrovec - CEO and co-owner of Intera. Born and raised in Ptuj. His University education is still an open chapter: EPF and FS finish lines are in sight. Have been for a while, though :) He worked for several web development companies (Amadej, Hal, Mikropis, ...) before he founded Intera some other colleagues. He used to be very active in kick-box, but now he is mostly busy with golf and badminton.One of his biggest passions lately is also FOREX. With a lot more money and time, he would probably again create a company, create something new, exciting, from scratch. One of the best ways of forward thinking. After a long golf game at Arboretum there was not much time to pay attention to Pizzeria Paparoti. Maybe next time.