Road To Forge

Tag: Romania

  • How I Stay Fit Driving a Truck Ten Hours a Day

    By Bogdan — RoadToForge

    I spend most of my working day sitting behind a steering wheel. Ten hour shifts. Long stretches of motorway. Not exactly a gym environment.

    But I have found a way to stay reasonably fit without extreme diets or exhausting routines. And it is simpler than most fitness advice you will read online.

    I used to be genuinely fit.

    When I was boxing competitively I was training around six times a week. I was shredded. Competition fit. That kind of dedication takes time and energy that my life now — three kids, long shifts, and building a content creation project on the side — simply does not allow for anymore.

    So I had to find a different approach. Not compete with my past self. Just stay healthy with the time and energy I actually have.

    The diet change that made the biggest difference.

    I used to snack constantly. Throughout the day. Late at night after getting home from a late shift. Midnight snacks were normal for me. I was always munching on something.

    Then I came across a video that made me think differently about it. I stopped snacking almost completely. Three proper meals a day. Nothing in between except maybe a coffee or a tea. If I really feel like munching on something during a long shift I chew gum instead. It sounds simple but it genuinely helps. If I do have a snack occasionally I keep it to fruit — a banana, an apple, some grapes. Something natural rather than processed.

    And crucially — once dinner is done that is it. No matter what time I get home. Dinner finished. Then only water. Nothing else until morning.

    The effect was noticeable within weeks. The weight around my belly started dropping just from that one change alone. No extreme diet. No cutting out food groups. Just stopping the constant snacking.

    The thing about sugar and snacking is that it genuinely behaves like a drug. The more you eat it the more you want it. But once you cut it out consistently your body adjusts. After a while you simply stop thinking about it. If someone offers you chocolate you genuinely do not want it. The craving just disappears completely. You do not even notice it is gone.

    The workouts are short and consistent.

    Fifteen to twenty minutes maximum. Three times a week. That is it.

    I always start with a minute or two of shadow boxing to warm up. Then sprints — I start with five and add one or two more each session. Walk back between each one. Never exhausting myself. Just building slowly over time.

    After the sprints I come back next to the cab where I do the rest of my workout. Each session I pick two exercises from my rotation — push ups, bicep curls, tricep exercises, walking lunges, or calf raises. I cover most of the main muscle groups across the week. Three sets of each exercise. That is it.

    The walking lunges are a good example of how I approach everything. I walk continuously from one end of the truck park to the other and back — counting as I go. First session maybe forty or fifty. Next time sixty. Then seventy. Building slowly until I reach around a hundred. No rushing. No forcing it.

    I keep a dumbbell with discs in the cab for the arm work. Nothing fancy. Just enough to get the job done.

    After every session I do a short stretch. Just a few minutes to cool down and keep the muscles loose. Worth doing every time.

    It looks nothing like a gym session. But done consistently three times a week it is enough to stay in good shape.

    The key is not burning out.

    I am forty years old. I am not training for a competition anymore. I am not trying to impress anyone. I just want to feel good and stay healthy for my family.

    Short workouts done consistently beat long workouts done occasionally every time. Three times a week for twenty minutes is one hour of exercise per week. That is genuinely enough when your diet is under control.

    Work smarter not harder. It applies to fitness too.

    — Bogdan

  • Two Months Is a Newborn Baby

    By Bogdan — RoadToForge

    There is something I have noticed about the way people approach new things.

    They start. They work hard for a few weeks. And then — when the results do not come immediately — they stop. They tell themselves it is not working. That they are not cut out for it. That maybe it was a bad idea after all.

    What they do not realise is that two months in — you are a newborn baby.

    Think about your job for a moment.

    When you started any job you have ever had — did you walk in on day one expecting to be exceptional? Did you give yourself two months and then quit because you were not yet the best person in the building?

    Of course not.

    You went there to learn. To earn. To grow slowly over time. You gave it years without even thinking about it. You showed up every day and you got better gradually without putting a deadline on it.

    But when we start something creative — a YouTube channel, a business, a new skill — suddenly we expect results in weeks. One month in and we are checking the numbers obsessively. Two months in and we are questioning everything. Three months in and if we have not seen dramatic results we are already thinking about giving up.

    Why do we do that?

    We would never quit a job after two months because we were not yet the best employee. But we quit creative projects constantly for exactly that reason.

    The gym is a perfect example.

    Two months of training and you feel better. You are sleeping better. Your energy is higher. But you look in the mirror and the dramatic change is not yet visible. Most people stop at exactly this point.

    But the people who stay — one year, two years, three years — they become unrecognisable from where they started. Not because they had special talent. Because they refused to quit before the results had time to arrive.

    The milestones.

    I think about progress in milestones. Real ones. Honest ones. Not the ones social media would have you believe in.

    The two month milestone — you are a newborn baby. You can barely lift your head. Everything is new and overwhelming. Results? None visible yet. But the foundation is being laid whether you can see it or not. Nobody looks at a two month old baby and says — why is it not walking yet? Why is it not talking? This is clearly not working. And yet we say exactly that about everything else we start.

    The six month milestone — the first real step. You are starting to sit up. Starting to recognise what works and what does not. The first signs that something is genuinely developing. This is the first big hurdle. Most people never reach it. The ones who do start to feel something shift.

    The one year milestone — first steps. Wobbly. Uncertain. But moving forward independently now. You have made enough mistakes to start avoiding the obvious ones. You can feel yourself improving even when the numbers do not yet show it.

    The two year milestone — running. Not perfectly. Still falling sometimes. But genuinely moving with confidence now. Real visible improvement. People who knew you at the start can see the difference clearly.

    The three year milestone — this is where it becomes real. This is where the gap opens permanently between you and everyone who quit at month two. You are talking in full sentences now. Communicating clearly. People can see who you are becoming.

    Every single thing I have ever learned in my life has followed this exact pattern.

    When I started boxing I barely knew how to hold my hands up for the first few months. Raw. Awkward. Getting it wrong constantly. Even at the six month milestone I was still a baby. I had just barely started to grasp the basics. A very raw understanding of how things worked. Nothing more.

    Judo was the same.

    And truck driving. I have been a truck driver for eleven years now. Eleven years. But I remember clearly what the six month milestone felt like. Driving a large truck through Central London. Tight streets. Busy junctions. Heart racing. Genuinely nervous. Still making mistakes. Still shaky in difficult situations.

    Now I drive through Central London without even thinking about it. The decisions happen automatically. The instincts are built in. What once felt impossible now feels completely natural.

    But it took eleven years to get here. And at two months I was a complete newborn.

    In trucking most companies require three years of experience before they trust you with their vehicles. Not six months. Not one year. Three years. Because they know that under three years you are still making expensive mistakes. Insurance costs more for drivers under three years for exactly this reason.

    After the three year milestone something fundamental changes. The experience is in your hands. In your instincts. In how you read situations before they become problems.

    I am building a children’s educational cartoon channel right now.

    I started a few months ago with no experience. No technical background. No team. Just a phone and a determination not to watch another opportunity pass me by.

    I am around two months in now.

    And already — even as I write this — my brain plays tricks on me some days. Maybe this is pointless. Maybe I am wasting my time. I am improving but I am not seeing the results I hoped for yet.

    And I catch myself doing what most people do at this stage — blaming outside things. The algorithm. The platform. The timing. Anything external. When the honest truth is simply that I have not been in the game long enough yet. I have not put in enough time. I am still a newborn.

    So let me be honest with you. As much as I am writing this for you — I am writing it for myself.

    We all go through this. Every single person who has ever started something new has had those days where the brain whispers that it might be pointless. That the results should have come by now.

    They should not have come by now. It has been around two months. You are still a newborn.

    My first episode was rough. Really rough. But I posted it anyway. And I kept going. The gap between episode one and episode eleven is already significant. And I am still only at the two month milestone. If the quality has improved this much in two months — just imagine what three years looks like.

    Something is starting to click.

    If you are at the two month milestone of something new — something you genuinely believe in — stay.

    Think about it honestly. You would not quit a job after two months. You would not leave the gym after six weeks because the mirror has not changed yet.

    So why are you expecting this to be different?

    Reach the six month milestone first. Then aim for one year. Then two. Then three.

    The people who reach the three year milestone are simply the ones who refused to quit at two months.

    Nobody becomes exceptional quickly. They just stay longer than everyone else.

    Two months is a newborn baby.

    Give it time.

    — Bogdan

  • What AI Actually Feels Like From the Inside

    By Bogdan — RoadToForge

    It Started With a Baby and a Cartoon

    It was not a business plan. It was not a strategy. It started with a photo of my baby daughter.

    I was just playing around with an AI image tool one evening — the kind of thing you do when you have ten minutes and a curious mind. I had never done anything like it before. I just wanted to see what would happen. I took a photo of myself holding my daughter and typed something like — make this a cartoon.

    When I saw the result I just sat there looking at it.

    We looked like characters from a children’s show. Bright colours. Big smiles. Something warm and alive about it. And a thought appeared that I could not shake — what if I actually made something with this?

    But then another thought arrived almost immediately. Wait. Can I actually make a video out of this? Is that even possible?

    I had no idea. I genuinely did not know if AI could generate video at all. I just started looking into it. And slowly I discovered that yes — it could. And that discovery opened a door I have not closed since.

    Building the Character

    My first idea was a family cartoon show. All of us — me, my wife, the kids — animated characters having adventures together. Then reality arrived quickly. Too many characters. Too difficult to keep consistent. Too complicated for someone starting completely from scratch.

    So I simplified. Why not just make a presenter? My kids were always watching creators like Blippi and Miss Rachel — friendly faces, bright colours, simple educational content. I could do something like that but as a cartoon character instead of a real person.

    I asked an AI tool for advice. What makes a character child friendly? What colours work? What should he look like?

    Bigger eyes. Brighter colours. Warm and approachable. Bold tones that catch a young child’s attention.

    I built the character around those ideas — someone who looked a little like me but with a bigger smile and larger eyes. More expressive. More child friendly. I gave him an English sounding name — something similar to my own name but different enough to protect my privacy. And I gave him an American accent. Because the creators who succeed most in children’s educational content are American. The accent carries familiarity and trust with young audiences worldwide.

    Over time something interesting happened. The character stopped being me. He became his own thing. His own identity. His own personality. I still see traces of myself in him — but he has grown beyond that now. He is his own character. And I am just the person who built him.

    Then Reality Hit

    I had no idea what I was doing. None at all.

    My first attempt at making a video was almost comical in hindsight. I went into an AI video tool and wrote one enormous prompt — all the scenes of my first episode in one single block of text. Every scene. Every line of dialogue. All of it in one go. I genuinely thought that was how it worked. I thought AI would just read everything and produce a finished episode. Easy. Done.

    I pressed generate and waited.

    What came back was about ten seconds of something moving very fast that I could not really understand. Boom boom boom and it was over.

    I sat there confused. What was this? Where was my episode?

    Then slowly I understood. You cannot create an entire episode in one prompt. You create individual clips — eight seconds or ten seconds at a time — and then edit them together separately. Audio separately. Visuals separately. Then bring everything together in an editing tool.

    I did not know any of this. I had to figure it out piece by piece.

    When I realised how hard it actually was — I did not feel discouraged. I felt something closer to relief. If this is genuinely difficult — if it takes real time and real effort — then most people will not bother. Easy things get crowded immediately. Hard things stay open longer for the people willing to push through. That thought kept me going.

    After about five or six days I looked at everything I had created and noticed that every single clip had a different background. Different setting. Different colours. Different atmosphere. My character looked different in every scene. The vehicle I was supposed to be showcasing changed colour and shape from clip to clip.

    Ten days of work. And it looked like ten different episodes stitched together.

    Then I discovered something. If I used a screenshot from the previous clip as a reference image in the next prompt — the AI kept things more consistent. The background held. The style carried over. I had stumbled onto something important without anyone telling me. Using Claude as a creative partner later helped me develop this approach much further — learning how to write better prompts, how to maintain consistency, how to guide the AI toward what I actually wanted.

    But the vehicle in that first episode — never looked the same twice. Different shape. Different colour. Different proportions every single clip.

    At some point I had enough. Close it. Post it. Move on.

    That turned out to be exactly the right decision.

    What Nobody Tells You

    Everyone talks about AI as though it is magic. Press a button. Get a result. Done.

    It is not like that.

    Working with AI tools is more like working with a very talented but slightly unpredictable colleague. One who is extraordinarily capable, occasionally brilliant, and sometimes completely misses the point in ways that make you want to laugh.

    It is a skill. And like any skill it takes time to develop. The first few weeks I was mostly frustrated. Then I started to understand the patterns. What worked. What never worked no matter how many times I tried. What to leave out. When to use one tool versus another.

    Now — a few months in — I can produce a full episode in roughly one day. Working from my phone. Between deliveries. Sometimes in the cab of my truck at a service station with ten minutes to spare.

    And here is the thing that still gets me. There are scenes I look at and think — I made that. On my phone. In a truck.

    But AI cannot replace genuine knowledge. My most viewed content — a video about trucks and trailers — performed better than everything else I have made. Not because the AI was better that day. But because I actually drive trucks. I know what matters. I know the details that feel authentic because they are authentic.

    AI amplifies what you already know. It does not replace it.

    The Part That Concerns Me

    I want to be honest about something that sits uncomfortably with me. Even as someone who uses these tools every day and genuinely believes in what they make possible.

    I have noticed that I talk to AI a lot now. Not just about work. Not just about episodes and projects and ideas. Sometimes about personal things too. Thoughts I would once have shared with a friend or kept to myself. And I can see — clearly — that this is a slippery slope. The AI is always available. Always patient. Always responding without judgment. And that availability is precisely what makes it dangerous for people who are not paying attention to themselves.

    I have noticed that I talk to people a little less than I used to. I was never someone who talked endlessly. But now I am so busy building things and thinking through ideas with an AI that genuine human conversation has taken a smaller share of my time.

    I am self aware enough to recognise this. And self aware enough to know I will put a stop to it when it goes too far. This is a tool and an experiment — not a replacement for real life.

    But I am genuinely concerned about what this means for people who are less self aware. For children growing up in a world where AI is simply always there. Social media already did real damage to human connection. AI could accelerate all of that. A generation that grows up talking more to machines than to each other. People who are lonely or vulnerable finding it easier to open up to an AI than to another human being.

    That is not progress. That is something worth being worried about.

    I love this technology. I am genuinely excited about what it makes possible — the scientific discoveries, the creative potential, the doors it opens for ordinary people like me. But excitement and concern can exist in the same place at the same time. And anyone who tells you there is nothing to be concerned about is not paying close enough attention.

    Where I Think This Is Going

    The future is coming whether we are ready for it or not. That much is certain.

    I cannot stop it. You cannot stop it. No single person can. The technology will develop. It will become more capable. More present. More woven into ordinary life. The question is never really whether it comes — it is how we meet it when it arrives.

    And I think the answer — for adults and for the children we are raising — is self awareness. Knowing what you are using. Why you are using it. Where the line is between a useful tool and a crutch. Between a creative partner and a substitute for real human connection.

    The concerns I have are genuine. But so is the opportunity. The world will figure this out. It always does eventually. New technology always brings new problems and new possibilities in equal measure. The printing press. The telephone. The internet. Each one brought fears that turned out to be partly right and partly wrong.

    AI will be the same. Partly frightening. Partly extraordinary.

    I am a truck driver who builds cartoon characters on his phone. I am not trying to be anything more than that right now. But I am building. And I am learning. And I am not watching this one pass me by.

    That feels like enough for today.

    — Bogdan

  • The World I Grew Up In No Longer Exists

    By Bogdan — RoadToForge
    I want to be clear from the start — what follows is my personal vision. The dreams of someone who has watched the world transform beyond recognition in one lifetime and cannot help but wonder what comes next. I am not Nostradamus. But I have lived through enough change to know that what seems impossible today has a habit of becoming ordinary tomorrow.
    Take it as dreaming. That is what it is.
    What I Grew Up With
    I was born in 1986 in Romania. We had a black and white television. We had a telephone that connected through a human operator who physically plugged wires together to connect your call. We had no internet, no mobile phones, no personal computers.
    When I was young, the most exciting technology in my world was an Atari games console. Then came the early PlayStations. Then the first Windows computers — clunky, slow, revolutionary. I remember sitting in internet cafes in Romania playing Counter-Strike, talking to strangers on MSN Messenger and Yahoo Chat, feeling like the future had arrived.
    It had barely started.
    Then came the first mobile phones — brick-sized, one bar of signal if you were lucky, a tiny screen with green text. Everyone thought they were extraordinary. Then smartphones arrived and made those bricks look like something from ancient history.
    I think about that a lot. How quickly the extraordinary becomes ordinary. And then obsolete.
    The phone I am speaking into right now — the one I use to build AI-generated cartoon characters and write blog articles while driving a truck — would have seemed like pure science fiction to the ten year old version of me watching Atari pixels on a screen in Romania.
    And here is the thought that stays with me: the technology I am using today will one day look just as ancient to someone else.
    What I Envision Coming
    This is my personal vision. I could be wrong about some of it. But this is genuinely what I see when I look forward.
    Within ten years I can see the beginning of the end of the smartphone as we know it. Not because phones stop working but because something better replaces them. Glasses or some kind of wearable that overlays information onto the real world. You will walk down the street and see directions, messages, information — all visible without looking down at a screen. You will speak naturally and AI will respond, search, translate, assist. Hands mostly free. Eyes mostly up.
    Within that same period I can see VR and shared virtual spaces becoming genuinely social. Not the clunky headsets of today but something lighter, more natural. You will be able to meet a friend in a virtual version of your favourite place — a pub, a park, a beach — while physically sitting in your own home. The line between physical and digital presence will blur in ways that are both exciting and difficult to fully imagine right now.
    Further out — twenty, thirty years — I envision humanoid robots with genuine AI intelligence existing in meaningful numbers. Not science fiction robots. Real machines that can navigate the world, perform physical tasks, respond to situations with something that resembles judgment. I watched a television series called Raised by Wolves that explored what a world with autonomous AI humanoids might look like. It stayed with me. Because it did not feel entirely impossible.
    And space. I can see bases being established on nearby planets within my children’s lifetime — outposts, research stations, the beginning of something. Humanoid robots powered by AI will likely travel further than any human body could survive, exploring and preparing places we may one day follow.
    All of this would happen so much faster if countries worked together instead of fighting each other. Not because countries are the problem — I actually love countries. I love the culture, the traditions, the languages, the things that make each place on Earth unique. That richness is worth protecting.
    The problem is the egotistical leaders who cannot be satisfied with what they have. The imperialists who would rather take a piece of someone else’s land than use their energy and resources on what actually matters. Imagine if that same energy went toward nuclear fusion — unlimited clean energy for everyone. Toward curing cancer. Toward space travel that goes beyond anything we currently dream of.
    These things are not impossible. They are just waiting for us to stop wasting ourselves on petty conflicts and start working together on what actually matters for humanity.
    I believe we will get there eventually. I just wish it did not have to take so long.
    The Thing That Actually Strikes Me
    When I think about all of this, the thing that genuinely stays with me is not the technology itself. It is the speed.
    From a black and white television with valve lamps inside to AI-generated video on a smartphone in one lifetime. From a human telephone operator plugging wires together to instant global communication in one lifetime. From Atari pixels to virtual reality in one lifetime.
    Whatever is coming next will arrive faster than we expect. And the generation growing up today — my children included — will look back at our current technology the way I look back at those brick-sized phones and think: how did they manage with that?
    The answer, of course, is that we thought it was extraordinary. Because it was. At the time.
    These are my thoughts. My personal vision of what might come. What do you envision? I would genuinely like to know.
    — Bogdan

  • The Day I Stopped Waiting and Started Building

    By Bogdan — RoadToForge

    “It is easy to write verses when you have nothing to say, stringing together empty words that only rhyme at the end.”
    — Mihai Eminescu, Romania’s greatest poet

    This quote came to mind when I sat down to think about what to write next. I wanted to make sure I had something real to say — something worth your time. So I decided to share what I am currently doing, and the thoughts behind it. Because looking back at my life, I realise there is a pattern worth talking about. A pattern I am only now beginning to break.

    Here we go.

    I’ve been watching the world change my whole life. And doing nothing about it.

    I remember the first internet cafes in Romania — Counter-Strike with friends, long evenings, no responsibilities. Then a platform called Metacafe, before YouTube existed, where people shared short videos online. Around 2006 and 2007, the first Ronaldinho skill videos were circulating everywhere. Everyone was watching them. YouTube was just finding its feet, and something in me stirred. I thought — I could make something. I could put something out there.

    I didn’t.

    Then Bitcoin arrived. People I knew were talking about it early, and I understood what it was. I could see the direction it was heading. I told myself I would look into it properly. I never did.

    Podcasting was next. Nobody in Romania was doing it when Joe Rogan was still building his audience. I had stories. I had opinions. I had a voice. The barrier to entry was almost nothing — just a phone and the courage to press record.

    I never pressed record.

    Looking back, the pattern is painfully clear. Every time an opportunity arrived, I would think seriously about it, then slowly, quietly, talk myself out of it. Too late. Wrong time. Not ready. Not equipped.

    Fear dressed up as practicality. That is all it ever was.

    Here is something I have kept to myself until now.

    When I was about ten years old, my teacher asked us to write a composition. I wrote about my life — my mother passing away when I was very small, growing up with my father and siblings in a small mining community in Romania.

    The teacher loved it. She published it in the school newspaper. Ten out of ten, with a star. Best in the school.

    I always had a talent for writing. I just never did anything with it.

    I had heard of blogs over the years but always assumed they were for someone else — a trend from the early internet that had come and gone. It never occurred to me that ordinary people with real stories and genuine things to say could build something meaningful through writing.

    Then I realised blogs never really died. People still read honest writing. You can build something real and lasting from words alone. And I thought — not again. I am not watching this one pass me by too.

    So I made a decision. And for once in my life, I acted on it.

    So I started moving.

    When AI arrived, I felt something I had not felt in years — that quiet recognition that something important was happening, and that this time I was not going to stand on the sidelines and watch.

    I started building an AI generated educational project for young children. From my phone. While driving a truck. With three kids at home, no budget, no team, and no guarantee it would work.

    And I started writing. This blog. These articles. With the same talent that earned a star in a Romanian classroom when I was ten years old.

    Is any of it working? Honestly, I do not know yet. It is too early to say. But it exists. I built it. And that is the difference between now and every time before.

    For years, the gap between having an idea and acting on it was where everything died. My brain was very good at finding reasons — sensible, reasonable sounding reasons — and I was very good at listening to them.

    Not anymore.

    Maybe I am too late with all of this. Maybe not. But for the first time in a long time, I am finally building instead of watching.

    And if any of this sounds familiar, if you have ever talked yourself out of something you knew was worth trying, then maybe you are ready to start building too.

    The road is moving. And so am I.

    See you in the next one.

    — Bogdan