About www.GeorgeRizov.com
Welcome to my website!  This site is about me, my family and my friends.  It also has information about my many interests and hobbies, which include aeroplanes, the beach, boats, Chicago, cars, cliff diving, computers, concerts, cruise ships, Daily Motion, facebook, the Internet, languages, mermaids, movies, music, parasailing, photography, scuba diving, snow skiing, Sylvie Vartan, traveling, windsurfing, You Tube, and women (not necessarily in this order!).

Fun!
Above all, this website is meant to be a fun site.  Although there are a few web pages on this site that are sad, I have made it a point to keep these to a minimum and have concentrated on making viewing this site a fun and pleasant experience.  The majority of the pictures on this website are with happy people smiling and having fun (warning:  this may be contagious) and hopefully, this will inspire you to do the same!

Lots of Great Pictures!
This website is an autobiography of sorts as well as a photo album.  It includes hundreds of cool photographs of me, my friends and relatives, as well as other items of interest.  I believe that “a picture is worth a thousand words” and this is exactly why I have so many of them on this website.  Each picture is also accompanied by a story and in many cases, you will probably be able to figure out the story without reading the text below the picture.  I have posted photographs of me starting from when I was a baby in Bulgaria, as well as when I was a boy growing up in France and Spain, and of my teenage years in Florida  all the way up to more recent pictures of me in the United States, where I have lived for many years.  I also have lots of excellent pictures from my many vacations from places like Club Med in Martinique, Mexico and Colorado, and the SuperClubs in Jamaica, as well as my trips to various parts of Europe.  I have posted photographs of me on the job working with computers and lots of gig pictures while playing music with various bands.  Although I am currently single and unattached, I have quite a few romantic photos that will certainly get your attention!

Flags, Locations and Dates
This website has cool photographs that were taken in the many places I have been to.  In order to make it more obvious as to where a picture was taken, the flag of the country is displayed on the left, just below the black title bar.  For pictures taken in the United States, the flag of the state appears on the right.  These flags are actually hyperlinks and if you click on them, another picture from this particular country (or state) will be displayed and picked at random from the many others in that category, unless there is only one, in which case it will simply redraw the same page.  The location and dates are also displayed below the actual picture.  These dates are usually quite accurate but occasionally, I have had to put an approximate date.  For most of the newer pictures, the time when the picture was taken is also displayed, since most new digital cameras record this information anyway.  OK, I must admit that I am a little bit too detailed, but at least, I left out the seconds!  All the photos on this website are sorted in chronological order with the oldest ones first and the newest ones last.

Hundreds of Categories
The pictures and various sections of this website are grouped by categories.  This way, if you are looking for a particluar subject, you can easily select it from one of over 300 categories from the dropdown menu that’s near the bottom of each web page, just above the hit counter.  You can also get a complete listing of all the categories that are available by going to the Site Map, which has descriptions for each category.  You can also select a category from the Site Map, although getting to it will take considerably longer than using the “Select Category” dropdown menu.  All of the photographs in this website belong to several categories, so chances are that you will eventually see some of the same pictures even if you select different categories.  When you select a category for the first time, the software that I developed will pick a picture at random from the particular category that you selected unless there is only one picture that belongs to it, although most categories usually have several pictures assigned to them.  If you would like to see all the pictures on this website, then by all means click on All Pictures.  However, I must warn you that it will probably take you several days to view and read all of them!  There is also another category that’s called Best Pictures, which as the name implies will display the best pictures from this site.  One requirement for this category is that it must  include me in the picture, not to say that any of the pictures without me are not good, but since this website is primarily about me, I felt it would be appropriate to set it up this way.  If you would like to see all the best pictures (over 600 of them), this will still keep you occupied for many long hours!  If you click on the name of the category that’s inside the black horizontal title bar near the top, the computer will pick a new picture from this category at random.

Where’s the Home Page?
Unlike most websites that have a home page which is predictable and which always looks about the same, this website will greet you with a different web page and a different picture each time you go to it.  Because I have so many great pictures, it was way too difficult for me to choose one specific photograph to go on the so-called “home page” so I decided for the computer to pick one for me at random from all the great pictures on this website.  And besides, it makes it far more interesting this way:  In essence, each time you return to my site, you will be greeted by a different picture of me.

Site Navigation
Most of the content of this website is made up of pictures that are accompanied by text.  After you select the desired category from the dropdown menu (it’s near the bottom of each web page), you can easily navigate from one picture to the next within the selected category by clicking on First, Previous, Next and Last.  You can think of the pictures section of this website as a “slide show”.  There are a few other web pages on this site that are unique and work differently including About George, About Website (this page), Contact, Groueff Memorial, Links, My Other Websites, Quotes and Site Map.  These are usually single pages that are self-explanatory.

Lots of Neat Sound Effects and Background Music!
In the early days of the Internet, most websites were made up of [boring] text.  Later on, people decided to add photos and graphics to them, which certainly made it more interesting (as the proverb goes, a picture is worth a thousand words).  Nowadays, almost all computers come with sound cards and the latest versions of the top web browsers do support both audio and video.  What’s really strange is that not many websites take advantage of the multimedia capabilities that computers offer.  It’s like watching silent movies of Charlie Chaplin!  The last time I checked, I think we were still in the 21st century and in the age of the Internet.  Anyway, I wanted for my website to be exciting and lively so I included sound effects and/or background music on each page.  OK, I know, I get carried away sometimes:  I must admit that some of my sound bytes may be a bit silly (particularly the ones from cartoons) and even annoying at times!  However, I really wanted this site to be fun and entertaining, so I included lots of wild and crazy sound effects (and music, too) that are hopefully appropriate with the picture and story that they go with.  Some of the tunes that I have selected (such as the Theme from Cousins or the Cousins Waltz that go with the pictures of many of my cousins) may be somewhat obscure only because of the lack of better material.  Any suggestions for something more interesting or more appropriate would certainly be appreciated.  Each individual web page on this site has up to 16 sound effects and/or music clips associated with it.  This means that if you visit the same web page more than once (or if you refresh the page), chances are that you will hear something different each time until the rotation is completed.  I designed this website like that intentionally in order to make it more interesting and less repetitive.  Some of the songs that I selected are in French.  This is because I have been fascinated by the French culture and their music ever since I was a kid after living in Paris for four years when I was little.  I have also picked a few Bulgarian selections for background music being that I am originally from Bulgaria.

Copyright Notice
Some of the sound effects and songs that you will hear on this website may be copyrighted material.  However, because most of them are very short, they fall under the doctrine of the United States copyright law called fair use, which allows limited use of copyrighted material without requiring permission from the copyright holders.  In order to make sure that I am compliant with copyright laws, I also have a licensing agreement with BMI that I acquired through Galaxy Orchestras (my band) and it allows me to legally include music on my websites.

Tons of Hyperlinks!
Since I started this website, I have always gone out of my way to link almost anything that’s even remotely related to the text that’s hyperlinked.  This way, everything is cross-linked and you can easily get to other web pages that have related subjects.  Many of the hyperlinks are internal and point to other categories within this website while others are external and will launch a new web browser when they link to another website.  This site also includes a Links page that includes hyperlinks to websites of interest that I recommend.

System Requirements
This website works best with a fast connection such as DSL or cable.  However, it will also work with slower dial-up connections, as long as you have enough patience!  This site is optimized to work with a screen resolution of at least 1024 x 768 (or higher).  It will work with lower resolution settings (such as 800 x 600) but this will require a lot more scrolling and many of the pictures will appear as if they are too big if you use a resolution lower than 1,024 x 768 (XGA).  If you are still using a screen resolution of 800 x 600 or lower, do yourself a favor:  Switch to 1,024 x 768 or higher (as long as your hardware supports it), and you will be able to see a lot more on screen.  This may take some getting used to because everything will look smaller but the advantages are well worth it.

Picture Size
Many of the first photographs that I posted on this website are smaller than the newer ones.  This is because a few years ago, connection speeds on the Internet were slow and it took longer for images to download.  Because connection speeds are now so much faster, I have decided to post large pictures because they look a lot sharper this way.  Most of the latest ones even have a high-resolution version available (an indication will appear right below the picture if it is) and these can by displayed simply by clicking on the picture.  I plan on eventually enlarging some of the older photos so that the sizes are more consistent throughout this website.

Suggestion Box and More…
I am open to suggestions for this website and feel free to e-mail me comments and/or constructive criticism.  I also enjoy meeting new friends online and will do my best to respond to e-mails from people who are friendly and sincere.