Tigran's corner

After an extensive break from blogging, looks like I am back again, this time to post links to photos I took on my recent trips to Czech Republic and Switzerland.
You can find them by following a link below -
http://picasaweb.google.com/konekgor

I am really enjoying the spring over here. The weather is just excellent, it is overcast occassionally, but most of the time the sun is in full force.

Also I think I am developing an appreciation of English countryside. Rolling hills, grass fields, flowers... Awesome!

Last weekend I spent on the Atlantic coast in Sussex county. Photos are here:
http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/konekgor/SussexCoast

And this weekend I was in Cambridge. Liked it a lot - lots of open spaces, parks, people having wonderful time! Follow this link:
http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/konekgor/Cambridge

Too bad tomorrow is Monday! :-)

For a performance by Canada's national ice-skating champion:

Follow this link

Who is up for a trip to Spain? I have been checking the weather on the southern coast, and it's just marvelous, +18 C and sunny! I am certainly putting this on my to-do list for the nearest future!

It's pretty quiet at work these days, just business as usual. Hence I am free to come up with ideas! :-)

Btw, check out the photos I took during my visit to Oxford, I found it to be a very nice little town.
http://public.fotki.com/tigranh/oxford/

A tornado!
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/12/07/uk.tornado/index.html

And I thought that as long as I was far away from Texas, I would be safe from this kind of natural disaster...

This weekend was somehow very relaxed, and I managed to hang out in various parts of London. Starting with Portobello market in Notting Hill which I visited on Saturday afternoon. Lots and lots of people were out there, walking in the streets, browsing whatever the street vendors were selling, and there was a generally quite nice atmosphere. I found a nice coffee shop a little off the main beaten path to have some brunch.
Also I have visited a nice area called Angel that I believe I have blogged about before. It's an area that has this informal feel about it, a bit similar to Seattle's Fremont neighborhood.
I spent some time thinking where I want to go on my next holiday break. There are some many possibilities, so it's hard to decide! But tentatively I am thinking of Barcelona, Spain! They have quite good weather down there +16 to +18 C, and I am envious!
Finally, let me share some links to daily photo sites of various cities around the world. I am sure some of you will find them interesting!
http://berncity.blogspot.com/
http://saopaulodailyphoto.blogspot.com/
http://edinburghdailyphoto.blogspot.com/
http://rheingaudailyphoto.blogspot.com/

I had a wonderful time in Prague! It was very nice to walk the streets, the bridges, to hang out in kavarnas and restaurants!
And having a nice tour guide wasn't bad at all! :-) For people who don't know, we have a Seattle envoy who is currently resident in Prague, and she goes by Aleks581 nickname. :-)
The highlight of my stay was a visit to Prague Opera, we attended "Rusalka" by Dvorak. The rest of the time was spent checking out various parts of the city. The area I liked the most is called "Vinohrady", it is a district that is not as touristy as the "Old Town", but instead it gives you an understanding of how the locals live.
So to make the story short, I am looking forward to visiting Prague again sometime soon!

After thinking somewhat about which country to visit on my vacation, I picked Czech Republic! Ok, I admit - it was an easy decision to make! I booked my flight for November 7, and am really looking forward to visiting Prague!
In other news, it looks like I am moving to a new place! Found a flat with a garden in the back, and it's quite close to central London. Now my journey to work will entail riding two stops on the underground, this should be much more convenient than using British rail!

I decided to make a posting on the value of nutrition, which also can serve as a accessible online source for some of my friends who are too busy to consider a healthy diet. :-)

What are antioxidants and why are they needed? A little bit of digression is in order! As we all know oxygen is basis of all plant and animal life. At the same time, oxygen is chemically reactive and highly dangerous: in normal biochemical reactions oxygen can become unstable and can 'oxidize' neighboring molecules. This can lead to cellular damage which triggers cancer, inflammation, arterial damage and aging. Known as free oxidizing radicals, this bodily waste must be disarmed. Chemicals capable of this are called antioxidants. Note that free radicals can also come from outside the body: smoking, exhaust fumes, radiation, frying or barbecuing food.

The balance between exposure to free radicals and our intake of antioxidants is literally balance between life and death. Research has found that the most common 20th century diseases are associated with a shortage of antioxidant nutrients. The following is an incomplete list of such diseases:

- Alzheimer's
- Cancer
- Cardiovascular disease
- Diabetes
- Hypertension
- Rheumatoid arthritis

So what can we do? We can tip the scales by changing our diets and by antioxidant supplementation.

Over a 100 antioxidant nutrients are known currently. The main players are vitamin A, C and E and the pre-cursor to vitamin A, beta-carotene. All these can be obtained from diets rich in vegetables and fruits.

The following is the list of foods rich in the above-mentioned vitamins:

Vitamin A (all of the following contain over 3000ius):
- carrots (top choice)
- sweet potatoes (runner-up)
- squash
- melon
- mango
- cabbage

Vitamin C (all of the following contain over 60mg)
- broccoli (top choice)
- peppers (runner-up)
- kiwi
- lemon
- cauliflower
- strawberries
- oranges
- tomatoes

Vitamin E (all of the following contain over 6mg):
- unrefined corn oils (top choice)
- sunflower seeds (runner-up)
- sesame seeds
- peanuts
- beans
- tuna fish

More posting may follow! :-)

Since some of you may not know this, I now work on a different project (already for more than 1 month), and incidentally it's in central London. It was a welcome change, since flying back and forth every week is after all not that great. However, the team environment up in Scotland was excellent, and I will probably miss that.

On the upside, I can kind of get settled in London, find the things I like to do, the places I like to spend some time in, and so on. Of course it's was nice for a while to live without a car, but I am starting to think that perhaps having a car on weekends would not be a bad idea. For a daily commute mopeds (like Vespa) are a good choice, it's funny seeing people riding mopeds wearing business suits in the mornings (and not only men, but women too).

In October I am planning to take a week off, and probably will visit some country in Eastern Europe. Have not made up my mind yet about where I will go.

It may come as a surprise to some of you to find out that I actually work in Scotland now. It's a pretty nice place, a city called Aberdeen, very quiet town and home to many oil companies. Every week I fly up here, and go back to spend weekend in London. So far the job is quite interesting, so I am really enjoying myself.

I made a decision and joined a consulting company. Currently I am already working on a project, so my updates for the journal will be lagging by several days.

On Friday I decided to invite one of my newly found friends to watch a performance by Royal Opera on a grass lawn outside One Canada Square (Canary Wharf). BBC has set up a huge screen, and people gathered to watch "Turandot", broadcast live from Royal Opera House in Covent Garden.
Of course, I have made preparations: we had a nice bottle of wine - and mind you I was not the only one who thought that Opera and alcohol go really well together! :-)
It was an interesting experience, watching opera under an open sky, with hundreds of other people sharing the lawn with you. I think I definitely need to check out the upcoming schedule! :-)

In case people are not aware, I thought I should mention that Wimbledon tournament is now in progress!
People tired of the football-mania now have a different sport to follow on television.
This year the prize money is divided equally between men's and women's winners. So the big question is: will Sharapova be able to win the tournament like she did 2 years ago?

After a busy week I finally had some time to relax on the weekend. The end result is that I have four job offers, and I now have the difficult time of deciding on which one to take. All of companies are quite interesting, and so mostly it's a matter of choosing which direction to take next.
Just to give you an idea, one company that I really liked is developing software for financial risk management, and as such is heavily using statistics methods. The company is not that big, so it should be a lot of fun working in this kind of environment.
On the other hand, there is the possibility of going into consulting - this is something I have not done before, but could be an experience that will broaden my knowledge and also involve much more interaction with clients.

As for spending the weekend, it all went pretty fast. There was a celebration of "Canada Day" in Trafalgar Square, lots of people were in attendance, and there was a rock concert marathon. I also decided to visit Hampstead Heath again, and this time I took some photos. They would appear on my Fotki site within a day.

Continuing with a tradition started by David, I am posting a photo of me in business attire. :-)

I have 3 more interviews to attend this week. Possibly this will be the end. However there is a prospect of another one early next week.

Anyways, I need to do the due diligence and really exhaust all possibilities, before making a decision in which direction to go. :-)

Today was a day I was free from recruiters and other job search activities, so I decided to visit Camden Town. I was supposed to meet a friend there for some coffee. Camden is a suburb slightly north of central London, and overall it turned out to be a pretty lively place, with hordes of young people descending on it. It can be compared to Fremont area in Seattle, only it covers much bigger area, with lots of small shops and small eateries serving food ranging from Lebanese to Thai. Its popularity this afternoon can be explained by the very busy street market operating on weekends. I now regret that I did not take my camera with me, to get some snapshots of the bustling action going on!
Anyways, after spending some time in the area, I decided to check out another attraction nearby: Hampstead Heath - only 3 tube stations away. This turned out to be a really big park with lots of trails inside, 6 very nice ponds some of which were covered with something green and a few that had clear water and basically serving as natural swimming pools! Also there were lots of people enjoying a picnic outdoors. I should mention that the neighborhood around the park is very nice to walk through as well. It's possible to have a relatively quiet afternoon here, there are some outdoor cafes which are not overly crowded. So this area is probably going to become my favorite place to spend some quality time on weekends, away from the huge crowds of central London! :-)
Folks reading my journal: you have been very quiet lately! What's going on? What's happening? Leave some mention of you! :-)
P.S. I hope you are going to watch the Argentina - Mexico game, starting in 1 minute!

Today there was a royal parade in honor of the Queen. I caught it on television, but if I knew this in advance, I could have been present in person.

It was very colorful, as if it was presented by Disney Co. The most impressive part was a military band on horses (they play at the same time with riding). You should have seen the drummer! :-)

The whole thing lasted about 2 hours. And it was a great show! The Queen and her husband were delivered by a carriage, followed by cavalry. In fact, when the Queen was young, she usually attended the parade riding a horse by herself!

Anyways, the parade happens every year, so those people planning to visit England should make a note of this and make plans for mid-June! :-)

You can read about it on Yahoo:
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/17062006/325/cheers-queen-mark-80th-birthday.html

So just as the football championship is advancing day by day, so is my job search. So far it's been pretty smooth sailing, although it is going at a slow pace. This week I had a lot of telephone conversations, and had some preliminary interviews onsite with a couple of companies.

Next week is shaping up to be more productive. I could potentially start getting job offers. It's all for the better! :-)

In the meantime, who do you think will win the World Cup?

Here are the favorites (in alphabetical order):

- Argentina
- Brazil
- England
- France
- Germany
- Italy
- Mexico
- Netherlands
- Spain

What's your take?

An interesting thing one can do when talking to recruiters in London is...

count the number of clear HR violations during the telephone conversations!!!

Just imagine, after so many years of living in USA and being exposed to anti-discrimination laws, it's like you find yourself on a different planet!

Recruiters are apparenly free to ask you questions like what's your living arrangement, what's your age, whether you are single or married, what nationality you are, etcetera, etcetera... :-)

All this under the pretext that they are trying to get the best picture of you as a candidate, so they can place you better. I mean, if we were in U.S. each incident like this would be a cause for a major lawsuit. But not in England!

Isn't this amazing?