Credit Crisis, Election, Mexico

The US sure has become an “lively” place to live recently.  We’re very close to the election and everyone seems to be really loud about their opinions.  People at work are forming factions.  There was a big argument in the corridor when Sarah Palin was chosen for vice as immediate supporters were jumping with joy.  I’m pretty sure that few of them even knew who she was before her nomination, but there is a definite mentality that likes that kind of thing.  They liked it in George Bush too.  There are many people who don’t really worry about what the politician thinks, just that they make themselves look like “one of the guys”.  I find it horrifying.  These people should not be “one of the guys” if they want to govern one of the most important countries in the world.  They should be professionals, interested in governing and have a sense that they are representing the nation, not taking part in the day to day idiocyncracies of SOME of the nations people.  The “gun-totin” house-wife who’s foreign policy is based on the ability to almost sea Russia from the shore of her state is really an appeal to the “lowest common denominator”.  The Americans use this term to describe when a politican appeals to the basic and base qualities that are present in most human beings.  Although many individuals and voters would never act politically on these base qualities (i.e. vote), they can’t deny that they have them and are slowly influenced over the two year campaign process.

That’s another thing. American election campaigns run for two years, beginning with the competition to enter the game and then the various stages of selection.  That’s a huge amount of money that makes only people at the top of the food chain have a chance to win.  This is not good. It’s not even democratic.  Living and working here has been really “interesting” for me. They get so involved in the election drama, as if it were a television show. Again, lowest common denominator.  It has also brought out the sense that even really intelligent people here have very little idea what it is like to live in a foreign country and so to see the world from a different point of view.  You may say, ok – Americans must see the world with an American point of view – but they often see the world as wanting to share their point of view closely, and that is simply not true.  The “exporting democracy” fallacy was one example of this.

I think Obama will win.  He’s been accused of being “elitist” and “distant” from “the people”, but this can only be a good thing. It is about time somebody set a better example.  He’s ahead now because the economy is doing so badly. McCain really doesn’t look like he knows what he’s talking about when it comes to salvaging financial and housing markets and getting people to feel confident economically.  The Democrats have always been better at that.  The one good thing that may come out of the credit crisis in this country.  This too has been the topic of debate at work – loudly and with anger.  I must say, this job is not like the last one! In Wisconsin, people were quite reserved about expressing their opinions, so they listened quite alot to each other as they built up their statements to arrive at what they wanted to say.  At first I found it a very slow way to interact, but then I really liked the amount of time it gave me to appreciate and understand what the other person was saying.  Here, the opinions fly like kites.  They are very, uhm “expressive” and tell you immediately what they think.  This leads to almost constant arguments in the office.  The guys I work with don’t even talk to each other much since three of them support McCain/Palin and the other 5 support Obama/Biden.  Of course they don’t hate each other, but they don’t get along anymore – not since Palin.  It will be nice when this is over.  I try not to take sides, since that would involve some arguments too.

The credit crisis is also interesting over here.  We’re beginning to see unemployment rise, with people nervous that it will be like the stock market crash of 1929.  I saw a man on the street in a jacket and tie with a sign that explained his skills and the type of jobs he was looking for – in a jacket and tie!  Credit was never that easy to get in Italy, so I hope we’ll be fine over there. Janine thinks we should both move back, but I think she only sees Italy as an “exotic” place to visit. I’m not sure how we’d do it. Anyway, we’ve both been working constantly.

Last weekend, however, we did get away to MEXICO! This was fantastic! We went down the Baja peninsula – all the way to Bahìa de los Angeles. It was a long drive, and we wanted to go fishing but none of the boats were going out because of hurricane Norbert.  It was well worth it though.  We stayed in a little hotel – the Hotel Villa Vitta -arriving late Friday night and at fish all day on Saturday! The people were incredibly friendly! We stayed mostly inside because of the weather, and played cards with the guys working there. It was very “rustic”, but a very nice change from southern California or So Cal as it’s called.  People seemed very genuine and honest.  The food was outstanding, everything fresh, all the time.  It was also nice to not be the only foreigner! Janine loved it. We hope to go back there to go deep-sea fishing sometime when the weather is better.  It was a long drive down and a long drive back to play some cards, but I’d do it again in a second!

Janine’s got a job!

Janine has found a job! Life couldn’t be better! It’s not perfect, but it is certainly a great thing! She’s working in a marketing consultancy agency that specialises in IT. It seems that there are so many IT companies in California (that makes sense) that there is a sub-industry in IT marketing consulting. Anyway – she’s a junior marketing manager in an agency not too far away from here, so commuting isn’t too bad. She got the phone call on Friday afternoon – which meant (heh heh) we celebrated on the weekend! Now, once again, we’re both exhausted on Monday morning! She’s so excited that I don’t think she’s feeling any tiredness. WE LIKE CALIFORNIA.

So, how to celebrate in Carlsbad? We went for a balloon ride in Temecula (between Carlsbad and Palm Springs)! I almost died! I was so scared. Janine loved it. Actually, the company was fantastic – and very understanding of my, uhm, not-so-macho fear! I almost lost it at one point, while we were ascending. After about 15 minutes – once I came to terms with the fact that we weren’t going down again until the flight was over – I calmed down and it was really beautiful! We went over the California wine country. Spectacular! Amazing! And it was really interesting to get an overview of the geography of our area. We could see so many places. At the end we got a certificate for taking our “first flight” and we had sparkling wine and a picnic offered by the company. It was such a great experience. Like John. F. Kennedy said – “we have nothing to fear but fear itself”! I might believe that one day, and am a little closer now that I’ve been up in a baloon. Let me tell you, doing things like that is GREAT for a relationship!!! We had so much fun on Saturday. The weather was a bit foggy in the morning, so we thought we might not go, but it was clearing up by noon and quite nice in the afternoon. Anyway – what a fantastic weekend.

We found the company over internet (of course!). Their link is

http://www.greatamericanballon.com

Now we’re both at work. Let’s see how relaxing weekends are! It’s September and people are all very busy. The families around all have children back in school and there’s a “hectic” feel to the town. Actually, I suppose its hectic compared to the summer, or compared to Madison, but not compared to Italy! I like seeing the American school busses. It’s like the movies.

The next big thing we talked about this weekend was, now that Janine is working, we should probably buy a car. Any suggestions? I would like a FIAT Panda – I love the new Pandas – but I don’t think that’s going to happen here. Maybe a SMART? A lot depends on price. I do miss Europe for our cars. Anyway – we’ll investigate the possibilities. Any suggestions?

So – fantastic week-end. Really fantastic. I can’t wait to see Janine this evening to see how her first day went. She won’t dare put Skype on today – she’ll be too busy. I suppose it’s better – they hate it in my office when people (me) put on Skype. Heh heh… we all do though.

I’ve got to get to work.

The expression of the day is “to be stoked”. (have I used that one before?) It means to feel really excited about something. “To stoke” is technically when you add wood and air to a fire to make it burn hotter – which means giving off more energy. It’s kind of a great term for having a lot of enthusiasm for something. A lot of people use it here, particularly people over the age of 35 or so. So – I’m really stoked about Janine’s job!

The pot-luck at Frank’s

I went to a party at Frank’s on the weekend, a system they call “pot-luck” where everyone brings something. Frank coordinated the whole thing, asking some people to bring vegetables, some pasta and rice and bread, some salads, some meat dishes and some deserts, and BYOB (Bring Your Own Booze!) It was really cool! There were lots of different types of food, and people. The guy from Alabama brought cornbread – which is almost like a cake made out of corn-meal. It was really good. He had it in a baking pan the shape of the state of Alabama! Fantastic! I’ll admit that I didn’t cook anything – I went to an Italian deli and got pre-prepared lasagne, which was alright. Anyway – they all liked it. I ate a lot of food made by a couple from Pakistan – spicy lamb over rice! Wow – it was reeeeeeeaaaaly good! Janine made a dish with red-cabbage, walnuts, onions and lots of vinegar – which she called “Bavarian cabbage”. She says her family is of German origin and that they always have this dish at parties and family get-togethers (interesting word, huh – “get-together” – I learned it at the pot-luck. New thing every day!). It was pretty good too, with an almost sweet taste cut by the vinegar and the nuts. Interesting. Anyway – I ate too much. It was interesting too, because everyone ate wherever they found themselves while they were talking. It was really relaxed. A few people sat at the table, but really the table was used for laying out all the food (and there was tonnes!) – so sitting down at it would have been too crowded. I really liked the format. You could talk to whomever you wanted and just do what you wanted all evening. Frank throws a nice party! Lot’s of ‘60’s and ‘70’s rock, like David Bowie, the Stones, the Grateful Dead – etc. I was one of the last to leave – must have been about 2 am! It was a good chance to talk informally with so many people. Actually, Frank also gave me some good advice – to talk to a friend of his about what to do after my time in Madison finishes. This guy (person) runs a company in California that does software development and will be in Madison for a week. Frank said he’ll see if the man has time to talk to me.

One of the hot topics of discussion was the up-coming company BBQ. It’s usually at Mr. Lundgren’s house (which I have never seen – but apparently is really big) because he has a really big yard (yard is the grassy area around the house) which goes all the way down to the lake. Frank was telling me that these things are really big events, and everybody from the company – and their families go – so there can be a few hundred people there. The company pays for everything and they have caterers to do the food. I understand they usually do what’s called “surf and turf” which means meat and seafood at the same time. Everything on one plate – right!?! First, they have to wait for the weather to improve, though! They also have a live band and dancing. Anyway – that should be fun!

Today’s expression is: “to look forward to something” – it means to think about something that is going to happen in the future and really want it to happen. (that’s a hard one to explain)

Happy Holidays!!!

Happy Holidays everybody! Just a quick note today to wish everyone all the best for the holiday season (Frank taught me that it’s better to wish people “happy holidays” since not all people who get a break this time of year are Christian! I never really thought about it – but it sure makes sense.)

I’m in Chicago with my family, staying in a nice hotel and enjoying the company, the pool, and the blues bars in the evening. We stayed in Madison for a few days after they arrived and then rented a car and came down here. It really is nice to get out a bit – and RELAX!!! Mum keeps comparing everything to Canada – which is a bit annoying sometimes, so I’ve made her watch South Park whenever it comes on! Hah hah!!! Tonight we’ll go to nice restaurant and probably go to the movies or something. It’s a different type of Christmas, but it is fun. I do miss all my family back in Italy, grandparents, cousins etc., particularly because this is one of the few times we all get together (at my grandmother’s house) and eat like maniacs and enjoy each other’s company. My grandfather plays the accordion – which takes some getting used to – but he’s really good. Anyway – it’s different, but Chicago sure is beautiful at Christmas!

So – Happy Holidays to everybody at work, at home, in the Urbino on-line course, Kate (of whom I see too little!), Marco in Ecuador, Prof. Bogliolo, the Ducato newspaper, and everybody else who has particpated in this blog!

And Happy New Year!

Bob

Telecommunications Etiquette

Fantastic! I’ve been vindicated! On page 15 of this week’s Economist there is an article about SPAM and SPIM and communications etiquette. It’s interesting as they cite the historian Matthew Sweet who notes that the telegram was initially seen as an intrusion, as well as the phone. He gives a funny example of a woman in 1903 who received a phone call while she was dressing and then, after, reflecting on the experience realised that she had just had a conversation with a man as if they had met on the street – except she was totally naked! Hah hah! It makes me think of all the times I’ve answered the phone while on the toilette! Watch out blackberry! Anyway – I thought it was interesting.

Office comm upgrades!

Aaaggh! I wrote and published this and I just saw that it didn’t load! Grrrr. Oh well, once again!

I had a great time Monday and Tuesday going to Kenosha – about 150 km from Madison toward Chicago. Frank and I went down to see the sub-contractors and “cross the t’s and dot the i’s” on the work that we all have have done and have to do. It was great to get out of town for a couple of days. We ate Bratwurst and Miller beer. Frank’s been great. He gave me a blackberry the other day – which was a mixed blessing. Actually it’s been good. I’m learning a lot. Frank has made it clear that with a team of fewer than 10 people in the office we all have to cover each other – so any problems I may have on the TELEPHONE had better disappear quickly! In fact, he makes me answer the phone all the time. “If you don’t screw up, you don’t learn!”, he says. And he’s right. I have an easy time writing, no problem, and speaking too, but understanding the million and a half accents and idiomatic expressions in this country is really hard! For example: I learned about “pancakes” – while some people call them “flapjacks” or “griddle cakes”. Who knows! What’s a flapjack? Who’s Jack?
Anyway – Kenosha was great. Frank gave me a blackberry, actually, he gave us all blackberries – so no matter where we are, we are always in contact. This is great. It means that my favorite phone sentence “I’ll get right back to you!” won’t come with the delay of having to find information back at the office. I can carry the weeks work, or at least the notes, with me all the time. Frank is petitioning to get a document controller, as we are beginning to develop a real document flow. Anyway – the blackberry is great, although it ties you to the office 24 hours a day. I suppose my laptop does too, but the laptop gets turned off, the blackberry NEVER!!! So – office teamwork efficiency is at maximum. If we get a document controller, all the better.
Kenosha was pretty nice. It’s on the coast of Lake Michigan.
My “folks” are coming this week! That will be great! I get the week and two weekends off! I think we’ll go to Chicago! I haven’t been there yet! It should be great. As well, I’ve got so many things to show my parents. They haven’t been here before. I think they’ll love it. It’s cold, but it’s cold at home too. I hear they had snow last weekend – and the mountains are all white. There aren’t any mountains around here, but the snow storms have been massive – and it’s been really cold! Hah – Mum used to make listen to a song by Randy Bachman and Neil Young called “Portage and Main” – about the winter in Winnepeg, Canada. The lyrics were “Portage and Main – 15 below – stay inside and rock ‘n’ roll”. Anyway – we should have a good time. I can’t wait to see them.

Anyhoo – if you don’t check in until after the holidays – HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!!!!!!

The expression of the day is “snug as a bug in a rug” – it means staying warm and cozy!

All the best to everybody!

Halloween!!

Wow! It’s been busy here. I’m looking forward to tonight. Some friends of Frank’s are having a halloween party and have asked me to come too. We’re all supposed to dress up, but I haven’t had time to think about it. We were talking about it last Sunday at “brunch” (I’ll really miss brunch when I go back to Italy!!!) and I was thinking about dressing up as a pirate or bandit or something, but then I thought that I should be something funnier – so I’m going to dress up as an alien. I’ve got some attenae that I made from a coat-hanger, and make-up is no problem, but I’ve got only a couple of hours this evening to find the rest of my costume!

Work is really busy. The pace is very fast here. I’ve got to give a presentation next week about our progress. I must say, I’m really nervous. It’s one thing to work on this and have successes and failures in our office, by now I know everybody pretty well. Next week, on the other hand, there will be various office and department directors. Frank said that I should give the progress report because the other directors will probably be nicer to me than they would to him! I told him that I would play a Halloween trick on him if he made me do it, but he is making me do it anyway. I suppose it will be good for me.

I’ve never really spent much time doing presentations like this. I suppose the most public thing I’ve done is this blog. I’m supposed to use power-point too. Anybody have any suggestions? Anyway – tonight is Halloween, so I’ll worry about this tomorrow.

It’s nice here, there really is the tradition that all the little kids dress up and go “trick or treating”. They go to all the houses dressed in costume and carry little bags or plastic pumpkins that the people at the houses put candy in. It must keep the dentists busy!!! Actually, Frank was saying that some people get carried away or get violent etc. at halloween, so parents are sometimes scared to send their kids to strangers’ houses. He said that when he was a kid it was a lot nicer and calmer. Anyway – it still seems like fun to me. Is anybody out there going to do anything for Halloween? It reminds me of Carneval back home, but the costumes are really more “creepy” (that means scary but in a way that makes you a bit nervous and suspicious).

The technical side of work, on the other hand, is progressing. I really can’t keep my mind off it!

The expression of the day is: “to be wound up” (pronounced “waound” up) – it means to be nervous and excited about something. I’m wound up about this presentation.

What a week!

Whew! Busy week! I started my job on September 4th – as the 3rd was labour day. Labour day is the workers holiday in the United States, but I don’t think it has the same connotation in the US that is has in Italy. Here’s what I found about it on Wikipedia:

Labor Day has been celebrated on the first Monday in September in the United States since the 1880s. The form that the observance and celebration of Labor Day should take were outlined in the first proposal of the holiday — a street parade to exhibit to the public “the strength and esprit de corps of the trade and labor organizations” of the community, followed by a festival for the recreation and amusement of the workers and their families. This became the pattern for the celebrations of Labor Day. Speeches by prominent men and women were introduced later, as more emphasis was placed upon the economic and civic significance of the holiday. Still later, by a resolution of the American Federation of Labor convention of 1909, the Sunday preceding Labor Day was adopted as Labor Sunday and dedicated to the spiritual and educational aspects of the labor movement.

Today Labor Day is often regarded simply as a day of rest and, compared to the May 1 Labor Day celebrations in most countries, parades, speeches or political demonstrations are more low-key, although especially in election years, events held by labor organizations often feature political themes and appearances by candidates for office. Forms of celebration include picnics, barbecues, fireworks displays, water sports, and public art events. Families with school-age children take it as the last chance to travel before the end of summer. Some teenagers and young adults view it as the last weekend for parties before returning to school. However, of late, schools have begun well before Labor Day, as early as the 24th of July in many urban districts, including Nashville and Atlanta. In addition, Labor Day marks the beginning of the season for the National Football League and NCAA College Football. The NCAA usually plays their first games the weekend of Labor day, with the NFL playing their first game the Thursday following Labor Day.

I didn’t do much of anything myself, but I did go back down to the lake again which was nice. I saw on Dane101 that there’s a place called Salmo pond that is great for swimming, so sometime I’d like to get out there, but it’s a bit far.

Saturday, however, I went to the High Noon Saloon on the corner of East Washington street and S. Blount St. (not too far from where I live) to listen to live music. There was a band called Numbers, and some other bands. Not a bad show. Numbers was kind of like a cross between the B-52’s and punk. Fun. They complemented one of the other bands pretty well too – Thieves on Holiday – again – punk alternative garage type stuff with a decent female singer.

Here’s a couple of pictures of the place:

On Saturday at 9:30 they have a CD release party for a band called Flameshark – I looked at their website, and they seem pretty good. I’ll probably go. It’s important to establish your pub – right!?

Also, and much fun, I met Kate! She reached me through Facebook and we met at Mother Fools for coffee. This is a music/coffee shop – big coffee! Kate – it was great to finally meet you! It’s nice to put a face to the name! The coffee was good too. I probably babbled too much about computer stuff and the on-line course in Urbino that my blog is being used for. Anybody want to register for Computer Science on-line at Urbino? There will be a heavy Madison Wisconsin content!!!! The link is: e-learning.sti.uniurb.it .

Registration closes October 5th.

Well, that’s enough for now – I’ll write about my first week at work later. I had a nice interview with my department director – nice guy. People seem very friendly here, if a bit reserved.

Today’s expression is: “he’s not playing with a full deck” – it means that a person does not have all of their mental faculties. The word deck refers to a deck of playing cards – like for 3-7 or scopa – but they use the English cards (2-10 JQKA).

Later taters (I heard that at the High Noon – it means bye! Taters are potatoes)

WaveCamp

Tomorrow the 3-day WaveCamp hosted by the Italia Wave Love Festival starts in Sesto Fiorentino.

Sesto Fiorentino is not too far from Gualdo and I expect the WaveCamp to be present alot of ideas and learning opportunities in the field of web radio. So I decided to go for the weekend.

I knew that people from the UWiC lab would have been there as well, but only a few hours ago, when the preliminary program has been published, I learned that Alessandro Bogliolo (UWiC) and Stefano Vitta (FON) will announce a cooperation agreement between the University of Urbino and FON (the largest wireless community worldwide) to study the relationships between open wireless access networks and Web 2.0. That’s great!

The presentation by Bogliolo and Vitta is scheduled for Saturday morning. I’ll take notes and prepare a post for the blog!

Offline with friends and books

I’ve been offline for almost 2 weeks!

I took 10 days to do nothing in a house in the countryside near Monterchi  (mountains behind Arezzo).  Aaaah! No internet, no TV, and no newspapers.  We shopped for groceries only twice, avoiding town like the plague.  I ate more vegetables in those 10 days than in the rest of the year. Vegetables – heh heh. When I got back – it was mixed grill night with my family!!! If anyone comes to Umbria – we like meat and mushrooms and red wine! 

The weather was great!!!!!  Cool evenings and absolutely NOT the torrid summer that the meteorologists said. 

I read everything I could find to read in the twon – including two best sellers by Dan Brown: Deception Point (Le verità del ghiaccio) and Digital Fortress (Crypto).

I was surprised by the richness of the technological details and the astute observations of some of his findings, but the second book was a delusion – some really banal technological explainations and other really absurd ones.

I wonder if my different opinions of these books is tied to my different level of familiarity with these two disciplines (glaciology, paleontology, and weaponry on one hand, cryptography on the other) or Mr. Brown’s different level of competence in them.

If I’d read them in the reverse order, I would never have read the second one…

Anyway – the trip was fantastic.  I love being up in the higher Appenines.  Not too far from home we have Monte Cucco – which, for sporty types, offers hang gliding and delta wing championships.  I go in the early spring for mushrooms with my family. The mountaineering club has a website that shows the area pretty well: www.caigualdotadino.it.

Anyway – I ask myself – are there mountains in Wisconsin? I’ve heard from an American teacher in Urbino that there are alot of lakes – but he’s from Minnessota (sp?). On the map it looks like it should be flat. I can’t wait to see!