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Can I get my A into G? (And some pictures)

March 7, 2022

by plutoman 0 Comments

Not a bad day. It started with two Skype chats with people in New Zealand (my cousin and her husband in Wellington, then a friend in Auckland). After almost being hermetically sealed from Covid for most of the pandemic, they’ve most definitely got it now. But apart from a precious few muppets, some of whom spent three weeks in Wellington intimidating and obstructing, they damn well got vaccinated. In a month’s time, they should have just about weathered the storm.

After lunch, the English guy picked me up and we went for a walk by the Timiș river, just past Giroc. It felt good to be out and about again, and to spend time with somebody I feel comfortable with. We passed sheep farms (it’s lambing season) and plenty of bird life including something I’ve just identified as an African goose, which doesn’t come from Africa. A beach had been created on the bank of the river, which would be an attractive proposition on a 35-degree day. People were hooning along on motorbikes, and you could hire quad bikes – after rolling one and getting my leg trapped under it in 2004, these give me nightmares. Mostly though, it was nice and quiet there. On the way back to the car, we had a coffee at a newly-built café called Sasha’s Pub, which was great with the exception of the muzak. Play the real version of Right Down the Line by Gerry Rafferty, will you, not the lift version.

I looked at a whole slew of flats on Friday, one of which was owned by a bloke with a Rottweiler. I tried to give the agent the “I don’t want a conversation” look, because I really didn’t want one, but he started one anyway. Yeah, there were some OK-ish places, but it was the same story. If only it wasn’t this or that, and can I really be bothered? I’ve been dangerously unmotivated of late, even before the business with the stones started, and that just sent my motivation levels through the floor. I’ve got to somehow get my butt into gear.

In tonight’s lesson with the guy on the outskirts of London, we went through Joe Bennett’s recent piece about wanting to banish the internet from existence (I wouldn’t go that far, but I’d love to get rid of social media), and then an article about Shane Warne, bane of England’s cricket team over many Ashes Series, who passed away on Friday. He was only ten years older than me.

On a similar theme to Joe Bennett’s article, I’ve been reading Stephen King’s Cell, in which anyone who makes or receives a cell phone call is infected with a “pulse” that makes them go crazy. I first picked it up when it came out in 2006, when mobile phones were still primarily used to make calls, at least in the US where texting was yet to take off. The book starts off fantastically well – in Boston, which I loved when I visited the city in 2015 – but now I’m over half-way through and it isn’t quite the page-turner it started out as. I’ll persevere, though.

The war in Ukraine has shifted from something immediately shocking to dreadful drumbeat in the background. I’m no longer glued to the TV.

Photos - Poker - Travel: Romania

Some Romanian ruins

January 26, 2022

by plutoman 0 Comments

I’ve just been alerted of Romania’s huge virus numbers today. Ambulance numbers are on the rise too. If only the country hadn’t failed its vaccine IQ test quite so spectacularly, we wouldn’t be facing another month of utter carnage.

On Saturday Mark, the English guy, asked me if I wanted to join him on a trip to Arad the next morning, where we’d look at some churches and stuff. Sure, sounds good. I cycled to his place, where I expected his girlfriend to come too. She stayed at home, but he brought their dog along. It was an icy morning, and the flat expanse – bleak but beautiful – stretched out to the horizon. I’d imagined we’d explore the city and maybe grab a coffee somewhere, but Mark had other ideas. He wanted to visit two ruined fortresses. Great. But then I realised I’d need to climb icy hills and I didn’t exactly have the right footwear. Neither did he. Going up wasn’t easy, but coming down was even dicier, and we had no choice in a couple of spots but to slide down on our arses. For the dog it was dead easy. The first fortress, at Șoimoș by the Mureș river, was built in the 13th century, and seemed to be on the way to disappearing entirely. That’s how Romania treats its history. It was probably possible to get to the top – someone had stuck a flag up there – but we didn’t dare try. From there we drove to another ruin at Șiria. This was a longer but easier (less icy) climb than the first. On the hill near the fortress was a cross and a Hollywood-style sign that lit up at night.

It was a quiet, still day, as Sundays in Romania so often are. The terrain in this part of the country is pancake flat for miles on end, but then hills soar out of nowhere. There was plenty of bird life, as usual, and we met a herd of goats on the way. It was great to get all that exercise, even if I wasn’t prepared for it, including the bike rides to Dumbrăvița and back.

Monday, which was a public holiday, was a far less energetic day. I could feel my exertions of the day before. I played six poker tournaments, grabbing a satisfying win and two smaller cashes. I’ve had a good run since mid-November, with numerous first and second places. I made $62 on the day; my bankroll is now $1625.

Here are some pictures from Sunday:

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My brother and typical Timișoara

December 20, 2021

by plutoman 0 Comments

I called my brother on Friday night. As usual, I found it easier to talk to his wife than him. He’s never really liked talking on the phone, and we live very different lives so it’s like he doesn’t know what questions to ask me about my life, or perhaps he just isn’t interested. Come to think of it, I don’t remember him ever asking me about the food I eat, or the people (big and small) that I teach, or how I communicate, or whether the city has trams or buses, or what the local beer is like and how much it costs, or how to pronounce the name of city, or anything. So even before Covid arrived, I never pressed him to come and see me here. I have an inkling that if he were to come here, he’d ask me what the hell I was doing in this shithole, and strongly suggest that I move to St Ives. My sister-in-law would probably like it, though. I shouldn’t be too hard on my brother. He probably thinks I don’t show much interest in his life either, because when it comes to his working life, I really don’t know what to ask. (With my sister-in-law it’s easier. She sorts people’s feet out.) My brother had been stuck in the Brecon Beacons – the same place as he did his SAS selection seven or eight years ago – so it was good to see them both at home.

I played four poker tournaments last night. After bombing out of the first, I had thumping big stacks – simultaneously – in all the next three. The session was shaping up to be something big, but I ran into some choppy waters, and in the end I only doubled my total buy-ins of $15, taking my bankroll to $1277. (My best run came in Omaha hi-lo where I finished 14th out of nearly 700 entries.) It was a long session, and I couldn’t face playing again today as I’d planned, so I went off to Flavia market for the first time in ages. Half a decade ago I went there a lot; it was a good place to pick up some much-needed winter clothes. Then I always took the tram, but this time I cycled. It was a few degrees warmer than in that harsh first winter. Today I didn’t buy anything except a pack of Hungarian playing cards (I’ve no idea how to play with them) and two langoși, which are also Hungarian imports. Langoș is deep-fried flatbread. I bought mine at a stall where they were rolled, fried and served by three women; I had one with cheese and the other with jam. There was quite a queue for them. As I ate them, a man relieved himself in the open. There was a loo nearby, but I guess he wanted to avoid the one-leu charge. The market, just like the one in Mehala, is a fascinating microcosm of Romania. The mici, the beer, the langoși, the second-hand (and fake designer) clothes, the bits of machinery, the people shouting. And today, even a goat. I don’t know why they call it a goat because it doesn’t look anything like one, but it’s a Christmas tradition of grown men dressed in a colourful costume, dancing and drumming and whistling. It isn’t music, it’s a din, but they still expect money.

The inside of a place I looked at last week

If I owned this car, I’d call it Delilah

Anti-communism signs on the 32nd anniversary of the end of communism in Romania

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Rise and fall (with some photos)

October 22, 2021

by plutoman 0 Comments

What a lovely autumn day it’s been today. I managed to cycle along by the river in between my lessons. It’s the last day of balmy weather we’re getting.

Vaccination numbers are stepping up in Romania, but it’s all way too late for this wave of the pandemic. (I read that at the current rate, Romania will hit 70% vaccinated in May 2024. First or second dose wasn’t clear.) In this morning’s lesson, my student said that the case numbers had been kept artificially low until all the political shenanigans (that I don’t even understand) had been completed on Monday, then a big dump of cases were reported on Tuesday. Seriously mate, you’re an intelligent bloke, and the first thing you do is reach for the conspiracy option. Why? There was a spike in cases on Tuesday because it was a Tuesday. Sunday and Monday’s numbers are always low, thanks to the limited reporting and testing over the weekend, then there’s a catch-up on Tuesday. Happens every week, like clockwork.

Talking of case numbers, New Zealand has recorded a three-figure daily tally for the first time. I’m surprised it took so long. South Islanders are dreading the inevitable appearance of the virus on the mainland.

I spoke to my brother and his wife last night. She’s been going through a tough time and has taken time off work due to stress. She’s one of many recent victims of burnout in the NHS. I just hope she’ll be OK.

In the last few days I’ve listened to Tubular Bells several times. It’s that good. Mike Oldfield wrote the album when he was still a teenager.

In poker, I had a third-place finish in a small buy-in pot-limit badugi tournament yesterday, but didn’t get a single bounty. My bankroll is $998.

Autumn is always beautiful here as the leaves change colour. This weekend we’ll have the ritual of sweeping the courts of leaves before we can play. Here are some pictures that I’ve taken in the last week. A Romanian-style bike, the Bega bathed in autumn sunshine, the park under the full moon, and ultra-modern and not-so-modern architecture.

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Simplifying life

February 8, 2021

by plutoman 0 Comments

We’ve had a mild – spring-like – start to February. I think back to a Saturday in late October, the city enveloped in thick fog, ambulances wailing incessantly, and the very real possibility of Donald Trump’s re-election looming darkly. In spite of two deadly hospital fires in Romania since then, things do seem much less awful now. People are being vaccinated. In the UK, more than eleven million people have now had their first jab, including my aunt and sister-in-law.

I hadn’t used FaceTime video for a while until last Tuesday. Mum, what’s happened to you? She looked shattered and had four cold sores on her lips. (She’s long been prone to them. Stress seems to bring them out.) The 40-degree day had taken it out of her, I think. That, plus all the house-related stuff. They now want to move, maybe as soon as next month. This, and a realisation that they should simplify their lives, has all happened quickly. They’re about to put in a “deadline sale” offer on a place in Geraldine. I’m all for the change. They don’t need the hassle of owning and maintaining multiple properties. I was relieved when they called me from Hampden on Thursday that Mum was back to her usual self.

I FaceTimed my parents again this morning. Dad asked me if I get tired after a big day of lessons. Yes I do! But the tiredness is nothing compared to the feeling I got from working in insurance. This week, during some spare time, I used an Excel macro to try and model a limit poker tournament. In my insurance work I had to use macros and Access and (occasionally) fancier tools to model or analyse this or that, and I kept running into the same problem, that I didn’t care about what I was modelling or analysing, which anyway was only a tiny piece. Where, or indeed if, that piece fitted into the whole picture was mostly unclear to me. If I’d been modelling poker tournaments or tennis tie-breaks or coronavirus cases or elections or flood forecasting (I did that in a job once), things might have been different. (Some people get an almost euphoric high from just using the tool. In fact some practically whack off when they hear those processors whirring away. I’m not one of those people.)

Three poker tournaments yesterday. I cashed in one, finishing fourth of 90 or so, but again (this is a theme) I was hurt by it being a bounty tournament. Though I came back well from being almost dead and buried early on, my short stack meant I couldn’t amass many bounties. I felt I made good decisions throughout all three tournaments, and on all of my bust-out hands I got my money in with the best of it. My bankroll is $163.

Tomorrow morning it’s back to ANAF. Here are some pictures:

This well in Piața 700 is out there, man

Well, well, well. This one on Strada Alba Iulia has four taps and is covered in first names

Someone filling up his *bidoane* (big bottles) outside the church in Iosefin

“Don’t stop to read this. Stay healthy.”

This was once where people learnt to bake bread

An old street sign. Strada Iosif Rangheț. The small writing says “militant of the communist front”.

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Keeping the heat in

January 20, 2021

by plutoman 0 Comments

It’s cold. Last night I put the central heating on for the first time this winter. Amazing, really. These great hulking blocks of concrete that were put up during communism are almost unbearably ugly on the outside, but they sure keep the heat in. We also have communal pipes that travel down all eight storeys – there must be a giant boiler somewhere, and one day every year in late October or early November you can hear the water gurgle. My student in Maramureș has taken a break – I hope it’s only a break – and that meant I could visit the supermarket yesterday as it opened at eight. The temperature at that time was minus six. It’s a great time to go because it’s almost empty. The lady at the checkout even had time to compliment me on my choice of spuds (“they’re so good for mashing, but you have to eat the mashed potatoes as soon as you make them”). It’s hard to know what to say (in Romanian!) in reply to something unexpected like that.

Yesterday was a funny day. I managed to get in three poker tournaments. The first was no-limit single draw (just like good old five-card draw, but the worst hand wins). I’d forgotten what a good tournament game that is. With only two rounds of betting, it’s very fast-paced. I finished in fifth place out of 93 runners after 3¼ hours, but only made $10 in profit. That’s because it was a bounty tournament, which means you get rewarded for knocking people out, and your reward is bigger if your victims have previously knocked people out themselves. None of my four scalps had eliminated anybody, so I only received small bounties. In these tournaments there’s a premium on building up a nice big stack, which I almost never had (relative to the field). My badugi tournament was over in a flash, and then I had a go at a turbo no-limit hold ’em tournament with a massive field. The buy-in for that was $22, but for some reason I got it as a freebie. I chipped up fairly well, but made an atrocious play (I think) with pocket jacks and I was soon out the door. My bankroll is now sitting at $220.

At the weekend my cousin showed her disdain for the way corners are being cut (as she saw it) with the vaccine roll-out in the UK. She thinks that delaying the second dose, so twice as many people can get their first dose, compromises the whole thing. Well, news flash, more than a thousand people are dying from Covid there every day. It’s an emergency. Sometimes you really do need to compromise. (Update: 1610 more Covid deaths have been recorded today. It’s Tuesday, which always gives the highest numbers, but still.) I sent her a link to one of John Campbell’s latest videos but I doubt she’ll watch it. I’ve just taken a delivery of six months’ worth of capsules containing zinc and magnesium.

We’ve got Dolly Parton on Musicorama right now.

This is what it looked like outside my window an hour ago:

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Winter scenes

January 18, 2021

by plutoman 0 Comments

I spoke to my cousin in Wellington this morning. They’d been down in the South Island and dropped in on my parents. I had a total brain fart when I asked them if they’d been skiing. In January. In New Zealand. Normally that’s why they’d be passing through Geraldine. Their eldest boy is about to fly the nest – next month he’ll be off to Canterbury to study engineering. My parents remarked that he’d developed a distinctly non-Kiwi – almost British – accent, and yes, he picked that up within weeks of starting his expensive school. It was amazing, and a little unsettling, to hear such a sudden change just because he’d started a new school.

Maybe I asked about skiing because I had snow on the brain. We got chunky flakes of the stuff most days last week, only for it to melt away. Now we’ve got a blanket. Walking through fresh snow – crrrunch – is one of life’s pleasures, and one I missed out on in all those years in Auckland and Wellington.

I made $57 in a badugi tournament yesterday, finishing third. It’s the seventh time I’ve cashed in eleven attempts, including three appearances in the top five. (I doubt that sort of strike rate is sustainable.) There were one or two things I might have done differently in hindsight, but I thought I had a pretty good tournament overall. I’m making a lot more player notes than I used to – the same players show up time after time, so knowing what you’re up against is so valuable. After my wander into the endlessly fascinating Iosefin area of Timișoara this afternoon, I gave back a few dollars at the cash tables (a very profitable game on average, but I couldn’t hit a damn thing). My bankroll is currently $214.

Two days left of Trump, we hope.

Here are a few pictures from Iosefin, pre- and mid-snow:

This shop used to sell seeds. There is a seed shop (still doing business) next door.

These two pigeons have found a warm spot. Here is one of many notices warning of falling bits and pieces.

Family - Language teaching - Life :) - Photos - Poker

A few pics (and a spot of poker)

December 30, 2020

by plutoman 0 Comments

It’s currently a ridiculous 12 degrees on the penultimate day of a crazy year, and the fourth anniversary of the day I moved into this flat. I remember that day well. All I had was a suitcase, a backpack, and a view. It was like a dream. I could have ended up anywhere but I’m slap-bang in the middle of this beautiful city. That’s mad. And then the next day the square was absolutely heaving. New Year is (under normal circumstances) a big deal here.

I’ve had a big last quarter of 2020 on the work front. A third of my hours this year have come since 1st October. To put that another way, my daily volume over the last three months has been 50% higher, on average, than in the first nine months. Yesterday I had five sessions (8½ hours) and felt I could have done better. I’d run out of things to do; I was winging it. Since I moved exclusively online, where there are fewer tools at my disposal, winging it has been a more prominent feature. One of my sessions was with the ex-professional poker player; he pointed me towards a database you can use to scout out fish in PokerStars hold ’em games.

Yes, poker. On Monday night I made $24 from a badugi tournament. I came fifth out of more than 100 players, surviving for 3¾ hours. It’s funny getting back into that again. The adrenalin rush of hitting a big hand or calling a big bluff. People made more moves than I remember a decade ago, or maybe they did then too and I just didn’t notice. I’m a better watcher of the game than back in the old days. My demise, or almost, came when I was dealt the 41st best hand in the game (which is better than it sounds), but my opponent made the 39th. That left me almost chipless, and two hands later I was out. After a couple of other cashes (and some non-cashes, of course), my bankroll is $97, which gives me just enough of a buffer to play the cash games. My goal isn’t really to make money (though that would be nice), but to enjoy the game and play a whole lot less robotically than I feel I used to.

When I called my parents last night, Dad had gone to Temuka to get his blood checked, so I was able to have a good chat with Mum. As long as we avoid all talk of Dad’s health, we get on extremely well. It will be a long time before I hug her again.

Here are some pictures of Timișoara (where else?):

This is Serbian. “Who is the fastest in the city?”

Gearing up for the “Romania without masks” protest.

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A lot to zinc about (plus some pictures)

October 19, 2020

by plutoman 0 Comments

This morning I got hold of some zinc to go with my vitamin D. The wintriest-ever winter is on its way, and if I can boost my immune system inexpensively and harmlessly, I should absolutely be doing so.

Last week was quite a big one on the work front. Three new students. One of them is a friend of another student of mine – a Romanian who has lived just outside Birmingham (which is where I studied) for the last three years. I spoke first with her husband whose English was mindblowingly good – practically fluent, with a Brummie accent to boot. Then I had my two sessions with her on Skype – she’s one of the warmest people I’ve ever met. The other new people are Lucian, a bloke of about my age who works for a courier firm, and an 18-year-old guy (I had a rare in-person lesson with him) who wants to study in Amsterdam and needs an IELTS certificate. I’m trying to discourage face-to-face meetings. I had my work cut out with the ten-year-old boy in Bucharest – with no games or fun physical activities at my disposal, 90 minutes is an aeon.

Talking of Birmingham, I’ve been in touch with my university friend who lives in the centre of the city. I mentioned that tri-generational families are quite common in Romania, and there’s generally a fair bit of mixing between different age groups, to the point where the elderly are in danger of catching Covid from their children or grandchildren. He said that (of course) that isn’t the case in the UK outside Asian communities, and when I saw a heat-map chart that showed just how age-sorted Britain now is, I thought, isn’t that sad? (I talk to my parents two or three times a week, and I’m in regular contact with people aged between 10 and 85.) And it’s not just age groups where people are increasingly sorting themselves. Race, income, level of education, how they voted in the EU referendum, you name it. When I saw that chart, I thought it’s no wonder that UK is so fractured right now.

What a contrast between Britain and New Zealand. The UK’s response to Covid has been shambolic, and I can hardly blame Scotland and Wales and Manchester and maybe one or two others for giving central government the middle finger. I couldn’t follow the NZ election because I was working, but shock horror, you properly handle the biggest crisis facing your country in 75 years, you bring in the best scientists, your messaging is clear, you show compassion, and guess what, you’re rewarded in the polls. It’s not that complicated. Labour won the first majority under proportional representation, in the ninth election to be held under that system. Although it was a decisive result, there was a nice balance, with the Greens (climate crisis, hello?) and a resurgent ACT picking up ten seats apiece. It’s great they have a system that allows such balance unlike the US or UK.

I did catch up with my brother. He’d just got back from northern Scotland. He likes long drives, which is just as well. His phone has just about had it, so we struggled to communicate. What? Wh-what? I couldn’t hear a damn thing on the other end. He doesn’t want to spend the money on a replacement phone. His attitude to money has taken a complete one-eighty in recent years; in his twenties he got through more phones than I did hot dinners. Now he’s all into mortgage interest rates and stamp duty and whatnot. I found out that he had a dramatic time up in Scotland – he helped rescue an American destroyer, however the hell you do that.

I had an email reply from my friend from St Ives. She and her husband came to visit me in Romania in 2017. We hired a car and had a wonderful time. She was relieved that I’d finally been in touch for the first time in months, thinking perhaps I’d entered (Covid-induced?) depression. But no, it was a combination of forgetting and lack of news. In truth I haven’t had depression in Romania. Sometimes I’ve felt a bit down, but that pointlessness, that neverending desert, weeks, months, years of it, seems to be in the past.

After work yesterday I went for a longish walk through the parts of town I frequented when I moved here. It was quite nostalgic, which might seem a silly word but I’ve now spent 10% of my life in Timișoara.

No tennis this weekend. Some of the group have been unwell, and I might have given it a miss anyway after what happened with my knee last weekend. One of the guys brings his small dog along; here are some pictures from the tennis court, which isn’t in perfect nick as you can see, as well as a bunch of snaps from yesterday’s walk.

Opposite the old abattoir, just along by the guest house I stayed in, is a park. It’s pretty rough, as is the area as a whole, but I still remember being in this park on my second evening in Timișoara and seeing it packed with all the ping-pong tables being used.

This was a building site four years ago. There are 108 flats in this block, plus Guban, a locally-produced brand of shoes.

Above was once a bakery. You can just about make out the pre-1993 spelling pîine (bread, now spelt pâine).

The slogan above says “A Romania without theft”. We recently had the local elections, and we’ll soon be having parliamentary elections too. This new party, USR (literally the Save Romania Union), is on the rise.

This stone commemorates those who died during the 1989 Revolution.

Above is the Millennium Catholic church, completed in 1901.

This is where renowned writer Petru Sfetca lived.

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Scary times

August 23, 2020

by plutoman 0 Comments

As case numbers have flattened, and perhaps started to trend downwards, I’ve been thinking back to March and how scary things were back then. During the second week of March, when both the Cheltenham Festival and Champions League football were allowed to take place in front of packed crowds, it was like watching a tsunami. By this stage it was already total mayhem in northern Italy, with hundreds dying every day. That weekend I went away to the mountains and I felt sheer panic, which was made worse by everybody around me carrying on regardless. As we drove there you could see queues forming outside supermarkets. Would there be food on the shelves when we got back? It was beautiful there but I could never relax. I disconnected from the news, but one of the others got a message that a state of emergency had been declared. What does that mean? On the way back I read about Italians singing traditional songs from balconies as a way of boosting morale amid the carnage, and I thought, in two weeks, or maybe three, that will be us. It was one heck of a relief to get back. Then the next morning I just about camped outside the supermarket before it opened.

We never reached anything like the level of transmission seen in northern Italy or New York. Our lockdown, which came in the nick of time, probably saved many thousands of lives. And luckily we don’t have the density of population or amount of travel that parts of the US or western Europe have. Things aren’t exactly great in Romania now, with more than 1000 new cases a day, and because we weren’t hit very hard initially, there isn’t much immunity in the population. About 98% are still susceptible. But at least we know much more now about how the virus spreads. In my last post I neglected to mention that a reason for Africa’s lower rate of severe Covid disease must be people’s exposure to other bugs and viruses.

I didn’t have a great start to yesterday. I had a no-show from my Skype student, who (in his messages) didn’t get that a no-show might be a slight problem for me. It’s clear that he thinks I’m a tap that he can turn on and off when he feels like it. I sent him a couple of what you might call passive-aggressive texts in reply, immediately regretting that, and wondering if I’d lose him completely, but he now says he wants to meet today, so that’s a relief. In a similar vein, I never saw the woman with whom I had the car-crash lesson last Boxing Day. Until last week, when she dropped by to pick up a book. She told me she’d changed her job, moving to a competitor coffee-machine-making company after being in the same place for 17 years.

I might buy a new bike later today, and I’ll post some pictures if I do. But until then, here are some pictures of Timișoara (where else, right now?):