Nascar make-up artist (for) rocks

Death Valley 2012

Somebody told me that Vegas will be full this weekend because it will be a Nascar race. And indeed, my short visit to Walmart confirmed it. What was the most promoted product (btw, a brilliant piece of punctual sales initiative)? No, not beer. It was cooler boxes! All kind, big small, colorful, lady bags! foam boxes. I bought a small cooler backpack. Obviously not because Nascar, I could not care less, cause I was going to see my own racetrack.

Racetrack Playa is one amazing place in Death Valley California. It's a place where big rocks are sliding leaving racetrack marks behind them. Nobody actually have seen one moving, but they are! If curious see here and how and why is it happening. For my photographic eye this was supposed to be a bliss. And so it was, as picture above confirms it. However, I was not totally lucky to see the full of it because of the weather. The flatbed sand was too dry and marks were little visible. I have spend a couple of hours wandering across the white plain, found many rocks but very few tracks behind them. Or some visible tracks without any rock!

Then I remembered that photography does not always means snapshot, in some cases means art direction. So I simply took one rock and put it at the end of a visible track. I had my pictures and then left it there for the tourists wandering around.

On the way back I had picked up some poor Wisconsin tourists which had the unhappy idea to rent a Wrangler from a local guy, in order to face the "rough" road I was flying on with my Dodge Durango (an SUV). The Wrangler lost it's electrical system in the middle of nowhere. So I picked them up and drove them to the car dealer. On the way back I asked them if they liked the Racetrack Playa. They said yes, too bad there were not too many visible tracks with rocks. 

I guess the guys I have left on the racetrack should have a different opinion.

Bulgarian Full Moon

Do you remember my little story about the Ms. Croatian taxi driver? We'll you just can top the stories of Vegas taxi drivers. Taxi drives are short here in between hotels or convention centers but taxi drivers are so bored, or maybe just trying to slip under your skin for further business, especially if you are traveling as single man ;), that they are looking to make conversation with you.

So, first was Mansour, a Lebanese which call himself Bill here. Funny guy, as any lebanese he had visited Bucharest and has friends there. He ofered me to show around some hot places, "although I saw you are a married man, I am sorry". He also told me he's in great trouble at night when all the fauna is mounting his cab half drunk and half naked. "And how do you stand?", "Well, every time I see this in my cab I call my wife and say: Nadia dear, take a shower, I am coming home". He has 4 kids and a happy family, as he mentioned to me earlier. And a happy wife I guess.

Then it was a white beard old man looking like a priest, some cheerful black American natives, an Englishman looking like a teacher, bored and superior, a black lady weighting 200 kilos ...

But today I had a guy who won a visa waiver 4 years ago and settled to Vegas to celebrate his luck. The guy is so happy here and from all the taxi drivers I could have met, his a Bulgarian (my "adoptive" country if only for the single year I worked with the RD people there) taxi driver, living in American Southwest, in Vegas, in love with photography. You know how I love this place and how many efforts I make to keep coming and shoot here. Well, the guy was in paradise. My photo paradise. 

He dropped me to the outlets. When I left it was a dark night and so was the taxi driver. He drove silently as we would see the biggest full moon ever raising above The Strip. довиждане my friends.

Leaving Las Vegas

It would be too simple to say that I am jet lagging and did not catch more than 2 hours of sleep in the last 36 hours (even though, to my real shame, I felt asleep at Le Reve by Cirque du Soleil)

It would be too simple to say that Puparo mood did not showed up, nor my gambling luck.

I guess what is really going on is that Vegas is loosing relevance to me and, despite all the glamour and room upgrades I purchased amazingly cheap, this city, Sin City, is not talking to me anymore. 

Of course, they do great conferences in this US city and landscapes and deserts around are calling me constantly, so I might be returning again here someday. But for now, 12 hours after I arrived here, is like I feel I have left Vegas already

Happy Birthday Honey Mommy

Que reste-t-il, de nos amours?

Casis, 2004

Surprise! Ça serait mon premier poste en français. Même si ce n’est pas que seulement grâce au spectacle d’aujourd’hui soir. Et quel spectacle ! Paris, mon amour, chez le Théâtre National D’ Opérette. J’en suis sur que nos clients et collaborateurs ont été aussi enchantes que Runa, Cami et moi. Mais, au delà de toutes les chansons, danses and moments magiques, j’ai eu une révélation. Que la langue française a joué un rôle essentiale dans ma vie.

Et voilà, pourquoi maintenant, je vais essayer honorer cet rôle. Pour tous mes lecteurs, meilleurs a s’exprimer en français que moi, je vous demande pitié. Ça fait plus de 10 ans depuis quand j’ai n'ai pas écrit un texte en français. J’ai lu pourtant. Quoi ? Peut être les Fleurs du Mal ? Peut être mes collections de douze ans, mois après mois de la revue Géo ? Chasseur d’ Images, Photo ? Je l’ai parle pourtant, le français ? A Disneyland avec mes enfants deux fois, à Paris plusieurs fois, a l’inoubliable Provence ?

Alors, pourquoi mon amour pour cette langue, qu'est ce qu’il fait aussi important ? Et comment fait-il que j’oublie tous ça jusqu'à maintenant ? Peut être parce que :

Dans la deuxième classe j’ai tombe amoureux de la langue française et de la professeure de française aussi ?  Parce que mon père, lui le parlait très bien, et ma mère, amoureuse de Dumas ? Parce que je me souviens aussi bien la chambre en fond chez ma grande mère ou je passais les chaudes vacances d’été en lire les écrivains historique et d’aventure français ?

Ou peut être parce que c’était la langue j’ai parlait quand je suis allé pour la premier fois en étranger après Décembre 1989 (mille neuf cent quatre vingt dix-neuf :)) avec mon oncle en Allemagne et Belgique ? Où peut être parce que je savais le parler aussi bien que j’ai été capable de convaincre la commission Tempus de me donner une bourse en Grenoble même si il n’existait pas dans le programme ?

La langue française : Mon premier service dans la publicité, Mr. Radu Florescu, American cosmopolite, marié avec une française, très fier, m’a teste en français ! Et j’avais été employée avec Loredana  à Saatchi & Saatchi en 1997. Deux persones parmi 200 CV’s. Ma bourse de 6 mois en Frances avec milliers des souvenirs et aventures je n’ose pas à raconter ici. L’incontournable goût du vin de Bandol parfumé a lavande! Les menus au restaurants écrits en minimum 15 mots chacune. Les plus mauvais Nouvel An que j’ai passe seul en voiture autour Trocadéro en cherchant une place pour la voiture pendent que Runa et Cami ont essayer de voir les feu d’artifice au dessus de Tour Effel. Il n’est jamais venu! L’inoubliable présentation nous avons fait, en français, pour le pitch Carrefour chez Zenith Media. Le leçons je fais dans la 5-eme classe avec ma grande fille Runa? Le Rêve avec Cirque du Soleil je vais voir in Vegas in quelques jours? Céline Dion, avec sa chanson J’ai compris tous le mots, coup de foudre en France ? La même Céline Dion live en Vegas avec Cami, quelle voix !?!

Tout est lie a la française. Même sur cet blog, le premier poste s’appel Les Egout de Paris !?! Mais, au dessous des tous les souvenirs, il existe un suprême raison pour lequel je serai toujours amoureux de français. Parce que, in 1997 après un grande chute dans ma vie professionnelle, le simple fait que je le parlerai, m’a apporté un job chez Mesagerie Micul Paris. Et dans ma courte carrière la bas, j’ai connu Camelia, mon épouse. Ma vie a changé depuis et nous sommes arrivé, quinze ans plus tard, ici, aujourd’hui.

Alors, que reste-t-il des nos amours ? Encore d’amour !

The Killer inside me

@ imdb.com

They say we kill everything we love. Well, maybe them. I do the other way around, I kill everything which is stopping me from loving. Despite my epicurian nature, I always keep my compass in my pocket and eyes open. And every time I see a hurdle which will deviate me from the choices I made in life, I kill it.

So, my friends, make your choices, grab the compass and choose you weapons. Life is so hectic and full of surprises,one needs to stay alert in order to be true to himself.

P.S. The movie has nothing to do with me but Casey Affleck was brilliant in this very  hard-to-digest character.

Start wearing red

My dressing room, 2012

Everybody knows those stupid interviews questions (sorry to all my HR related friends :)) "Please name your biggest weak points?", "Which is your biggest quality?" Fore some reasons I keep hearing around me about situations in which people are asked or told to answer or prove those things.

And, to my amazing surprise, very very few of them have a straight answer. And is not about being unprepared to an interview or a selection. It's about knowing yourself. Being truthful with yourself regardless if good or bad.

My friends, stop trying to be someone else. Stop trying to impress. Be honest with yourselves. It will bring some much quality, happiness and stability in your life. And courage. And if this will eventually mean that you will get the guts to wear your red shoes, why not?. Do it if it makes you happy.

Mr. Nothing

Utah, 2010

A simple exercise. Go in front of a mirror and say: "I am ....".  If you said only attributes like: fat, slim, old, beautiful, then try it again.

Done?

Now go back again and strip you of your jeweleries. Hide your business cards. Put a bit farther your family photos.

Who are you after all? Are you what you have become? Are you what you have achieved? Are you what you have bought?

Can we be everything? Can we be nothing? Can we ever know?

My dessert is calling me. Like a million particles of dust, everyone of them being something and nothing in the same time. There anybody can be Mr. Nothing.

DESELECT & REPLACE

X100, Self portrait

Last Xmas I spoiled myself with a fancy, outstandingly good, old fashion new camera. I enjoyed using  it over the winter holiday and then I lost it in Prague. Together with some outstanding pictures taken in the rainy and then sunny Prague. I have left it in the taxi which took me to the airport, tribute to my ever agitated state and, maybe, to the 3 beers I had before with my good friends Florin and Marketa. It was a loss very hard to swallow.

Obviously, after assimilating the frustration of the loss, I took this as an opportunity and look for replacement. Starting to make all kind of analysis about which camera, which systems, what features, budget, where to purchase from and so on. It was all about REPLACEMENT. Or, at least, I thought so. I was just not able to agree with myself on any solution and kept agitating myself to a state of increased entropy for more than 2 weeks.

And somehow, raising above the inner noise, I remembered a thought marked on a corner of my mind by the MIT entrepreneurial skills training course. DESELECT. Good and focused entrepreneurs and managers are able to deselect the amount of things they are tempted to do and try.

Should this be the solution in our private life also? Are you able to Deselect out of the countless things you are doing and focus on the most important? Are you able to stream among the countless thoughts and wishes and impulses and focus on the ones which are feeding your spirit and happiness?

The answer it is obviously a personal one. No universal solution. But I feel I should DESELECT more and REPLACE less.

Breakfree Anniversary

Precisely one year ago, I was starting this blog. I was looking for a way and a place to clear my thoughts and lay out my concerns about me, world, life and other spiritual matters. And share some of my pictures ;) And break free from my inner ghosts. I called this perfect or not as a reminder that perfection does not exists but can be aspired to.

Sometimes, we need one round number to achieve our goals. One might need a year, one might need a month. Another one might need one hundred of experiences and still circle around. But, here comes a day when everything becomes clear and easy.

Happy Breakfree my friends !