It's so nice of you to be interested in me. Hope you won't be disappointed; I always try to give more than I receive. And I keep my promises, no matter what. Except when I forget things - this is the part of my brain I would like most to enhance. By natural means, of course.
Currently, I'm associate professor at the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, Department of Automation. And I love it! Well, let's be realistic and decrease this ethusiasm to 95%, but it is still a great percentage. The remaining 5 I always keep as a reserve, being an engineer and having that need-to-touch-in-order-to-believe thing. No wonder I got shocked by the mains voltage a few times. Hope my boss, prof. Liviu Miclea, PhD. won't get mad about those 5%. Please don't tell him.
My interests? I used to be an electronics/computers hardware fan, then I turned to software, simply because it was cheaper and easier to implement. And faster, too. Lately, I realized how cool it is to control hardware with software, so I started connecting the two. Wish I had more time for this hobby of mine, but it's also nice to show some of it to the students at the classes, too. Lately, I bought a Visor Deluxe, which is a Personal Digital Assistant or PDA; it runs PalmOS, and I use it mainly as an agenda and for all sorts of hacking.
Hobbies: Tai Chi (ancient Chinese martial art/health exercise/motion meditation) on a quiet, sunny morning on the grass; taking walks in a forest on a spring day; mountain biking; swimming; erotology; drinking tea and exchanging good and tasteful jokes at a campfire, or watching a romantic movie at the fireplace. With someone. And tea. I don't drink alcohol (nor tobacco or drugs - the perfect would-be husband...did I mention I'm single?). I also used to write short poems and prose (really funny ones!), but they never got published. Who knows why? It seems neither O'Reilly, Microsoft or Sams Publishing care about art. So hard to be an artist these days... Maybe I'll upload some of it here. If the demand is high enough, that is.
I'm ethnically Hungarian, which is a Romanian minority. But I have both Hungarian and Romanian friends, and not only we respect each other, but we are friends, so I'm ok with it. Until one of us proves the contrary, but I strongly hope it will never happen.
Check my resume for more detailed and more serious information. This is what made the University hire me (I had no idea, really?) and this is what I give to my lawyers, all 666 of them (like I had one).
I was in Torino, Italy, in June of 2002. Made friends, took pictures. I brought the pictures, and I even tried to get some of the guys come here...they said they'll try.
We (my parents and myself) are building a small house
in Szentlászló (Sãvãdisla). It is a village about
20 km from the city, Kolozsvár (Cluj-Napoca). My father was born in Szentlászló.
He retired a few years ago and we have been building since.
I keep telling everyone that it will have nine floors and will be rotating on
a goose's leg, but nobody believes it. Actually, it is almost ready, but has
no floors, and I couldn't mount a goose's leg. We have some chicken, though.
Wonder if it should rotate clockwise or the other way.
Anyway, the place is generally a construction site. We mostly built it with
our own hands (and still building). The photos are kinda personal, so the access is password protected.. Thanks to my friend Berki László for the digital camera
(used for the summer 2003 shots).
In May of 2002, I was at the European Test Workshop (ETW'03), in Maastricht,
the Netherlands. I spent one day in Bruxelles (had to, in order to take a Saturday
flight, which is cheaper). Here
are the Bruxelles photos. Please bear with me, I have a good-for-nothing cheap
camera (my good old camera broke, and I'm drooling at a Fujifilm
S7000 and a Sony
Dark Angel digicam...yummy).
In Maastricht, I spent about three days. It was nice and clean. The photos are
here.
In November of 2005, we (my boss Miclea and I) went to a conference (ITC) in Austin, Texas. Seen a lot, taken pictures, made movies. On the way back, we also stopped in Washington. Seen a lot, taken pictures, made movies...including two Smithsonian Museums - the Air and Space and the Natural History ones.
In October 2006, I was awarded the "Gerald W. Gordon Award for Student Volunteer Services" for my work on the AQTR conference series and helping the IEEE. The award consisted in the IEEE-TTTC paying my participation at the ITC 2006 conference, two tutorials and a workshop, complimentary hotel room and transportation expenses reimbursement up to 750$. They gave me a room in the Hyatt Regency (the best, five-star hotel of the three official conference hotels). The staff and the room was nice, but there was no free breakfast. Also, the town of Santa Clara made a good impression. The conference was great, but the air conditioning in the conference rooms and in the buses gave me the worst cold I ever had. Here are some photos from this trip (opens in a new window).
2006 was a good year. In November-December, two colleagues and I went visiting and relation-making with some other European universities, notably in Paris, Rouen, Barcelona and Terrassa. It was a success, we signed a few cooperation agreements, made new friends, saw the world and the universities - well, the photos are here. My colleague, Paula Raica, was my guide in both places.