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Pictures: [Sunday 29th November 2008]

The trip is long gone now, but I took a very long time to process all the pictures. I am sure that you all will forgive me and enjoy them, I was quite inspired during this trip and I really hope that you will like them...

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Newcomer and Weekly roundup: [Monday 17th-24th November 2008]

The previous week has been quite eventful, I was back at work again and of course I had to catch up with three weeks of gossips, happening and so on. The weather turned bitterly cold last Thursday, I don't like cold weather all that much but is seems that this year we are in for a cold winter (last winter was rather mild in my opinion).

Work situation is not easy, the company is suffering the global crisis, and even though this is quite common for all the other players and industries, it is not something that we alleviates the pain. I think that this recession is going to reap a lot of victims, and the only hope is that we are not going to be among them.

In Italy the situation is fine under the banking point of view, but it's terrible under the political side, and the general economy is crap thanks to our enlightened political class. The feeling that we have is that we are completely powerless, it's a great shame because we deserve so much better. But that's the problem with Italians, the "not in my backyard" policy is too extreme, people cannot care less UNLESS it touches their interests.
Only then people go in the streets, start protesting and so on.

Anyways since I am not activist, I think that I should not venture further, in the end I see my country with a little different mind due to the years spent abroad, and although I never liked what I saw, I stopped trying to change people around me. It's just impossible.

Going back to the week, I have to report the new technological arrival at home. My very own backup server!! An Ubuntu micro server, fanless, 2 500GB HD for parallel backups, all components bought to save as much energy as possible (the whole system consumes around 40W with 90W peaks at startup and maximum usage). Finally I have backed up seriously all my pictures and mp3 and now I can proceed with the re-installation of Leopard on my Mac (Leopard is not that great as I thought, it gave my macbook several problems and kernel-panic attacks).

Of course the new computer forces me to learn at least the basics of Linux, which is good of course, so it will take a little time before it is properly configured (cronjobs and the likes), but I am confident that I can do it. The ideal will be that it switches on when computers linked to it go online, then it should rsync whatever he needs to, and then if computers are not online and it has been idle for some time it should power off by itself, making sure that it rsynced all files to the other HD. It can be done I think..

As for the rest nothing much to say, Christmas is approaching and we are already working on the presents list.

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400.000 Euro: [Monday 10th November 2008]

Travelling is a good thing. You meet really interesting people for sure!

So let me ask you.... What is the most expensive item that you have ever held in your hands (save from "family jewels" and the like...)?

Today I have gone to the office of the owner of our distributor, he is into the watches business and as I said in the previous post he's into the expensive sort of watches.

Today I have had the chance to actually hold his personal, unique watch...

A 400.000 Euro is not something that you normally hold in your hand, and I feel quite privileged to have had the chance to see their products, something that normal people do not even dream of seeing (until 2 days ago I didn't even think it existed)...

The whole watch is made in white gold, with a storm of diamonds cast on it, it must have been more than 20 carats for sure, with a total weight that was quite high considering the precious materials that it's made of!
The whole thing is a masterpiece of mechanical engineering and of jewellery, they supply people like the King of Thailand, and several middle eastern Emirs.

Apparently they have customers that carry even 40/50 of these watches (the "cheaper" 50.000 Euro ones)...

Well I guess that there are people out there with an incredible amount of cash, for them 50K euro is like 50 euros for me...

Oh well, an interesting experience!

Incredible!

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Singaporean Watches: [Sunday 9th November 2008]

I am tired. I need rest.

I have been working continuously for the past three weeks travelling on Saturdays and Sundays to save time form the normal week when we need to see the clients.

I arrived yesterday night at 23:00 in Singapore after a working day in Taipei, and I dropped dead on the bed.

Today working Sunday around the shops, and I even found some time to buy a mobile phone as my personal one has one lost in Hong Kong at the beginning of the trip. I have to say that I know very little about mobile phones and infact I managed to buy a phone that in Italy I could have get for a cheaper price... Italy apparently is very competitive on that sort of technology. This even left me a bit bitter as I always think that Asia is cheaper on everything, but apparently it is not true on everything... (I checked on the internet the price after I got it...).

In the evening we had a very nice Teppayaki dinner with the owner of the distributor that we have here, his main business are watches from Switzerland, and once again I thought that he was dealing in the cheap ranges.

Well, I was sadly mistaken, he does VERY expensive watches, some ranges are worth 700.000 EUROS!!! The watches are obviously full of diamonds and every expensive things, the top engineer is a guy from Italy that is an expert of nano technologies!!

Oh well, you meet very interesting people going around the world, that is sure!

Singapore is a place where I guess I could live quite happily. It's very European, but the mix of three ethnic groups (Malay, Chinese and Indian) make this place very interesting and various.

Tomorrow another full day here and then off to Kuala Lumpur for the last part of the trip, then finally on Tuesday night I will be packing to go back home, I really look forward to it, as you can imagine...
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Airports for people not taking planes...: [Saturday 8th November 2008]

"Hotels are like airports, people come and go, minding his/her own business and of you go...". This is a quote from my boss, ho's travelled all around the world in more than 80 countries (almost half of the countries that we have on earth)...

I find this thought quite illuminating when it comes to hotels like the ones where I normally go.. I step on a plane to find myself cast into another airport where you are not there to catch a flight, but normally a taxi to the client's place...

I have stopped in Taipei 1 night, I have a beautiful room that it's almost half of my house in Florence, but I couldn't really enjoy anything of it because I stayed for such a short time.

Today, quick visit to the marketplace, then on a plane again to go to Singapore where I am meant to be until Tuesday morning when I will make a new experience, travelling to Malaysia.

Ipod back to normality (fortunately), though I expect yet more troubles from the battery, maybe he overheard that I want to buy a new Ipod Touch and started to act strangely in retaliation for its early retire. (I am sure that computers understand what we say, write etc etc... They are just playing dumb... It could be a nice script for a new Pixar movie along the lines of Toy Story...)!!
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I woke up in Taipei: [Friday 7th November 2008]

..... and I woke up in Taipei!

Yes I left Japan very early this morning, at 5 o'clock I was already dressing up to go down south to yet another island in Asia.

Taiwan must be a nice island, shame that I only saw Taipei, a classic busy and terribly crowded city, pretty much like other cities on this side of the world.

Nothing much to say, apart from the early morning call, the first appointment with a client by myself, the lovely dinner at a Xiao Bao place (dumplings), and now the well deserved rest in the hotel.

One negative note is that my Ipod is looking dodgy... The battery completely empty even if I hardly used it in the last two weeks (and recharged it once already), it started rebooting at the apple sign coming up on the screen. Fortunately after leaving so SOME HOURS to recharge eventually it decided to boot and now looks fine, but I suspect that the battery pack might be in need of a refresh, and for what I see on the net it's not an easy task... :(

Tomorrow check of the market and at 15:00 other 4 hours of trip to Singapore!

I feel the trip coming to an end, and I must say that I really look forward to my bed in Florence next week on Thursday...
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Lucky or Insane?: [Tuesday 4th November 2008]

Both probably. I was both lucky and insane when I started working seriously with Japan, almost 8 years ago.

Now I see things in a different way, I feel things in a different way, and incidentally I am doing new experiences.

One of them has been the situation that I found myself cast into this afternoon. It was me, our agent and my supervisor at the shop of a client of ours. Since I have just started the new job it's quite hard for me to have a clear idea of the new business, the numbers, the orders, the clients themselves.

Well my boss today completely overturned the rules to which I aided for a long time in dealing business here. He got upset at a request of this client that is clearly a minor player for us (but in my head he's still A client)... In the end we walked out of the door, possibly not to return anymore. No rude words or screaming took place, but the tension was clearly going around the place, and in the end we had to play fireman on the flames of anger to quench the whole thing in a decent manner.

So far, even in front to stupid claims (though this time I think that the client had grounds to complain), we have always tried to accommodate the requests of the client with the position of the company. After all future business is always something that you need and I am not really keen in throwing it away. In Japan it takes a lot of time and explanations to get the quality issue working, sometimes I even discussed about quality matters for months.
In this case it all ended up with a dry "no" and we left.

In a way it's good that he had such a strong position, because I am offloaded of all responsibilities, and maybe we can salvage the relationship. On the other side the whole thing was a bit "weird" and me and the agent felt quite uneasy about the whole story. Maybe I am behaving too much "Japanese", my strength becomes my weakness?

In the evening another client told us that that guy is loosing support from a lot of distributors because he's too strict with quality issues, so in a way he corroborated my boss's action. But still I feel something is wrong underneath, and I cannot stop thinking that maybe there are deeper feelings to what he did (he doesn't like Japan very much).

Oh well, today I have learnt that I can be an asshole with a client and get away with it! Interesting...
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Once upon a time...: [Monday 3rd November 2008]

Life is strange. Coming back to Japan always makes me feel at home from one side and quite alone on the other. Especially when I meet new people there is much talks on the whys and hows of my Japanese language.

I cannot hide a lot of pride in telling what I have done, on the other side remembering those years is also quite painful because they were rather magnificent and they went away.

On the other side I am in a new job, new company, new colleagues and new problems to face. I look at the challenges that are ahead with a bit more experience, and I can see that unless the company is willing to invest heavily in this market there will be little chances to make things better.

But in a moment like this, who sane of mind will risk a lot of money in a strange market like Japan? A place where companies ask for custom made products, a level of quality that is virtually impossible, low prices and more than anything small quantities?

It used to be a similar problem in the previous experiences, I start thinking that all other sectors of business in Japan are the same!

Well, I should not bash the Japanese system all that much, China and other places have their own peculiarities too. But here I feel that I have to make a difference, and I am a bit puzzled on what can I do to get better figures. Pressure from expectations? Probably. I am not the cocky guy that thinks that can do it all. Not the usual salesman, uh?

I still remember that when I was around 15 I started developing this thing that I was sure that whatever life had planned for me I would never travel by myself.

Look at me now. I mean the EXACT CONTRARY!! Not just plain "different", from black to white! This teaches that whatever you want to do or plan to is completely useless because the path that we walk is too unpredictable to plan it ahead.

Do I like the job? Yes, it has a lot of positive sides, I am not denying it. I probably would miss my nights at the Century Hyatt in Tokyo (now Regency Hyatt after a huge refurbishment), but I also miss Florence and a normal life, less by myself and more together with the people I want.

And then I think that when I am there I feel bored, so in a way I am never happy! It's really a shit feeling this one, I wonder if it's just me or if it's society that thought us about that you DESERVE "better, faster, more" in any given situation...

And so I think back when life was simpler indeed, when my Japanese mum was taking me out for groceries shopping and the problem was to understand what she meant by "rinjin" when she asked me to pick things for her (by the way it's "carrots"), or when the Kanji test was about to arrive and I didn't know any of those! Or when a girl refused you, or when you had to think where to take the one that accepted your date...
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China and Korea: [Wednesday 22nd October - Sunday 2nd November 2008]

The first leg of this quite long business trip saw me respectively in Hong Kong, Zhongshen, Guangzhou, Shangai, Beinjing and Seoul.

China was the most interesting part so far, mostly because the last time I was there was 3 years ago and of course it has much changed, although some parts are still the same.

Zhonshen is a "small" city of "only" 1 million people, mostly build around the factories that surround it. When we arrived it was already night, after a short boat ride from Hong Kong, and it looked extremely deserted. Watching people driving mopeds and bikes, almost no cars visible, but with streets that have five or six lanes for each direction, gave me a bit of a desolate feeling. We stopped just one day to see a client there, so there is little to tell about it.

Guangzhoug on the contrary is the third city in China, and it's HUGE. We did not stop in the city as we had to go to the airport, we just went to the fair there, a place that is twice as big as the biggest fair hall that I have ever seen in Paris (Parc des Espositions). China has a scale that we cannot really imagine, and even when you are thrown it in your face it seems incredible!

Shangai and Beijing could be like Tokyo and New York. There isn't a lot of difference. I managed to spend some time by myself roaming through little streets, and it was quite great because outside from the sparkling centre of the city you get the feeling of what China is really like, or at least what it used to be.
There was a point where we were in the taxi and the street was crowded with people, bikes, kids... It's like I imagine China must have been a long time ago... Marvellous!
It makes me want to discover this great nation even more.

Korea is still Korea, I am not too fond of Seoul, too crowded and with far too many cars. It's really out of God's grace to drive 30 minutes to make 4 kilometers! Apart from that food is great as usual, and Korean people are very nice to foreigners, and they do their best to be as welcoming as possible. Here we went for a traditional Korean sauna, which was a great experience, and an Italian restaurant, which was quite the opposite in terms of experiences...(not to say CRAP).

Then Japan. I am writing from Shinjuku, the hotel that saw me for the past 8 years coming to this marvellous place that I dearly love. But that deserves another post...

Pictures have been made by the bucketloads, especially in China, so I will post them when I go back (or earlier if I get the time), some of them are really great, this time I am focusing on "people in Asia" and I went through difficult ways to steal shots of real life without upsetting the people! :D
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Back in Business (Class): [Tuesday 21st - Saturday 25th October 2008]

I think that some time ago I had a go at the business lounges in international airports... Well after 2 years of Economy purgatory (or shall we say hell), crammed like a beast carried in those trucks that we see on the highway, finally I make my way back to the business class and enter the new season of travels with the new company in a completely different way. I missed it after all, and I think that whomever works as an employee and is required to travel long distances like I do, should at least fly business on the way in and out of the trip...

First leg of the trip was the mandatory Frankfurt, and then Hong Kong. We stopped a couple of days there, and then moved to Zhongshen. Zhongshen is a new entry for me, an industrial city that here is classified as "second tier city", although it nets a staggering 1 million residents... The place left me a sense of desolation, huge streets (9 lanes sometimes) with no cars, lots of factories, and the usual Chiese madness (like 3 people riding improbable bikes, mopeds and strange means of transportation).

Then it was the day of Guanzhoug, another new entry, the third city in China. Here we went to the exhibition center, absolutely the biggest that I have ever seen in my life. Apparently due to my "being handsome" a lot of Chinese ladies that were taking care registration asked me to take a picture with them... Oh well...

After we moved to Shangai... the city has changed so much after I saw it 3 years ago, it's now like New York or Tokyo, traffic, people, pollution and a crappy weather are not making the first day very nice, but I quite like it. We managed to visit the usual fake goods market, a very interesting CD and DVD shop (all copies) and some restaurants and general shops.

All in all the trip has been very demanding so far, we had so many appointments and at night I get to work until 3 AM to reply to all the mails coming from all the other countries that I am following... This trip is going to be a whopper, in terms of physical and mental strain, but it's necessary because I need to be introduced to all the clients.

My boss is with me, he's a great person (for a change, my other bosses were all quite bad if you remember), and I feel that I am learning a lot from him, which is good of course...

I wanted to post pictures, but I really haven't taken any interesting shots so far.

In Hong Kong I also lost my mobile phone, it was my personal one. So now I have lost also ALL bloody numbers and contacts. This is quite a pain in the arse and will teach me to backup those numbers when I get the chance... :P

Oh well it was old so it's just the inconvenience of having to get a new card and re-establish the numbers directory... But still if I hadn't lost it would have been better... :P
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Preparations to a big Trip: [Saturday 18th October 2008]

The first business trip at the new company is about to get underway. I will be traveling with my direct superior for a massive introduction of all the clients that we have in Asia, part of the trip will be done by myself, but I am not too concerned about it. I think I got to the point where these sorts of trips cannot bear any serious novelty, ok the product that I sell is different but the "system" is always the same.

Recently I have concentrated much of my action towards the setup and opening of a store in Beijing, the creation of some tools that should help me presenting the goods that we have in stock and that we want to sell out, and of course trying to understand as much as possible what is going on in my markets. It is going to be an interesting trip that should give me more insight about the new job, so I am looking forward to it.

I will also be visiting some new places such as Canton in China and Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. Apart from that it will be a 3 weeks trip (extremely tough trust me) that will see me going to (in the order):

Hong Kong, Canton, Shanghai, Beijing, Seoul, Tokyo, Taipei, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur...

And still there are some places that I should have gone but that is phisically impossible for me to do... An even longer trip would be really devastating...

So in the next few weeks I hope to post pictures from all over Asia!!!

The rest of life is ok I guess. I am happy abut the job, so far, and we have told our landlady that we want to leave the house. Of course she said that we have to pay for all the notice period (6 months), so technically we are not in a rush to change house, I can see that happening next March, more or less...
My knee is still playing funny, I just hope that I can get down with this surgery story quickly and painlessly, but I have to organize this thing with the people at work too, so I think I have to wait at least until I go back.

That's it really, let's hope that the trip ahead is not too hard and is positive under the job point of view! :P
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Weekend in Rome: Friday 10th October - Sunday 12th October 2008]

It must have been at least 4 years since I last set my foot in Rome, on that occasion there was my favourite cousin's wedding, this time it was for a "normal" weekend off. We organized the whole thing quickly, and the plan was to stop at Cristina and Federico's house, and then see one of my best friends ever, Tito.

Tito deserves a special note. It must have been more than 10 years since I last met him, we spent so much time together when we were younger, during the summer holidays in Alghero. The holidays back when we were students were quite long, and Alghero is a very busy place in the summer, but I didn't have anyone to hang around with. I think that with Tito everything started in a great way from the beginning, we had the same interests and problems. We soon built up a great friendship, that has not decreased ever since. Even after not hearing from each other in a long time, seeing him again was like if we never really parted.

Anyways the weekend saw us arriving quite late in Rome, driving through the streets of the city is quite difficult if you don't know where you are going and both me and Chiara did not think about bringing some maps with us. Eventually we arrived to Cristina's palce and we had a lovely dinner, after which we went to bed quite quickly.

The morning after, we arrived in the centre of Rome, truly beautiful city, for lunch. After meeting Tito we stopped at a place that he knows, where the owners are from Sardinia (the island where Alghero is set). Tito seems to know all the "useful" Sardinians in Rome, the meal was quite great as a matter of fact!

After the meal we moved to Tito's mother home, a beautiful place right in the nice part of the city! Some drinks, some rest and then once again we were strolling around the squares and historic buildings that I haven't seen in ages. The last time I went there was probably something line 20 years ago!!!

The evening finished at Cristina's place, where my other cousin Riccardo, joined us for a great barbecue and some more drinking, pool tournament and of course mandatory chatting!

I think that we called it a night around 3 AM, when Riccardo and Tito went back home.

The day after saw a marvellous meal at my aunt's place with Cristina, Federico and Riccardo. We used to go to that house every New Year's Eve, me and my family together, so it's a place that holds quite a lot of memories!

All in all a great weekend, seeing people that I really care for and that I'd love to have closer to me. But I guess that this is the destiny of a family that lives all around the Italian peninsula, probably if we were living all together in a place we would be arguing or something. And as for Tito, I really hope to see more of him, now that we hooked up again...

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Camilla's Birthday: [Saturday 4th October 2008]

The whole day was quite uneventful, also because I had a splitting headache and slept most of the afternoon. In the morning we went to see a house that Chiara branded as "simply perfect" but that in reality had a couple of major issues that were too much for us to tackle. The fact that it overlooked Florence from the most important hill that surrounds the city did make an impact, but not a major one as I am much more pragmatic and the scenario didn't make me sway. The search continues....

In the evening it was time to go and see Camilla and Fabio as it was Camilla's 33rd birthday and I think that Chiara and Fabio tried to plan some sort of surprise party. I said tried, because it seems that Camilla understood (or maybe even knew) about it because I couldn't hear or see much surprise when walking in the restaurant she saw 14 people waiting for her.

Anyways the dinner was held at "Cantina Barbagianni" a very good restaurant where I will certainly go again in the future, and it was very nice.

We finished quite late after the second round of "grappa"s and "amaro"s (both liqueurs that we normally drink after the meal as digestives), the weather has turned quite cold these days and we soon went back home.

I even lost a glove (that we use to drive the scooter), which is a bit of bummer!
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Sparks: [Saturday 4th October 2008]

September went by at ludicrous speed, I feel as if it even did not exist this year. Wow, the new job is really keeping me busy by the looks of things!

In the meantime the world as we know it is crumbling a little, economic downturns are getting quite serious, but I am not surprised at all.

The system that it's in place is clearly faulted. It will collapse massively sooner of later, it's a matter of time. It's based on incremental growth, on consuming more and more, it's selfish and doesn't give a shit at what's around us.

In Italy we have had a massive decrease in bees population, something around 40%. It's because of the pesticides and electric pollution (as in too many waves flying around). Einstein predicted the end of the world in 5 years if bees were to die altogether...

Going back on track, all the efforts that I am putting into the new job are preventing me from writing, it seems as I have lost my "spark", although probably it's just lack of time and general tiredness..

Oh well, I hope I will get back writing soon! Surely at the end of the month an epic tale on the first business trip for the new company will begin... 9 Asian cities in 3 weeks, with the new addition of Malaysia in the list of countries that I have set my foot onto... :D
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Bloody tired: [Thursday 25th September 2008]

Well there isn't much to say. I am working my ass off, and I have to say that I quite like it. It's a feeling that in the past 2 years arrived only when I started working for Signoria or Mitsubishi, but it subsided once things started to become impossible to manage. But the past is past, the new job is challenging and there is a lot to learn. As usual I cannot seem to be able to do "just" what I should do (i.e. Export Manager), but I am taking care about other things as well, like Visual Merchandising and Marketing... I like that aspect of the job a lot, and secretly I think that it's a very good way to improve results.

All of this translates in a terrible wave of fatigue striking me at night. I think that together with the mental strain there is a strong part played by the fact that I have to commute for 2 hours every day, driving through Florence and then on the motorway.

The car that we have has been bought entirely by Chiara and I am the one using it, that makes me feel a bit awkward, because I feel I should contribute. I think that the plan there will be to buy a new scooter for her.
But (as usual there is a but), I'd also like to have a different kind of car, because the one that we have was really meant for the city (a Suzuki Swift), while I'd like something more comfortable, since I spend so much time in the car.
Chiara doesn't seem to want to change her car, but we cannot afford three vehicles at the moment, so for the moment things look pretty stuck.

All things considered it has been only 3 weeks since I started the new job so maybe it's early to make changes to the present set of things, although sooner or later we will have to.

In the meantime we started looking for a new house, in the attempt to buy a place and maybe move closer to the highway so that I do not have to waste 30 minutes every day to cross Florence... It looks like a long search, but we had to start somewhere!
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Memory Mac: [Monday 15th September 2008]

Third week at work, many things to follow up, and to look after, slowly gathering pace at work and efficiency in dealing with things.

It has been almost one week since I decided that my Mac needed a memory upgrade, probably quite unnecessary, but after installing Leopard things happened a lot slower on the computer, probably due to the fact that the new Mac OS is a bit heavier on processes...

The memory upgrade was totally done by myself and I am pleased to say that it worked at the first shot! Incidentally the MacBook is now faster, but I am 100% sure that it's just my imagination.... :P

Going from good to bad, Chiara had a terrible day at work and she wasn't all that chirpy and happy, actually quite the contrary, and I also received a visit from Tiscali technicians because my ADSL is behaving funnily (AGAIN!!). Well even if they checked all the cables the final response is that the problem is something to do with the cables going from the house to the central, therefore is not their competence and it will never get repaired.

While last time we settled for an half speed ADSL (4MB instead of 8MB that I pay for), this time the technician told me that I was probably going to be downgraded to a 640K... I will let a couple of days pass and then I will unleash my hate on the call centre, at least to get the 4MB deal that I had before...

Oh well, last point of the day is the first session of RPG mastered by Francesco, it has been a long time since I played in an adventured mastered by him, so I quite look forward to it.. The first session was quite boring though!! :D
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Weekend in Florence: [13th-14th September 2008]

Nothing special to report, went out on Saturday with Chiara and Gianfranco to do some shopping near Florence, at a designer shopping mall called (surprise surprise) "The Mall". The place itself is quite small, but there is a very good selection of designer shops.

Of course having worked for many years in the fashion world, I know the kind of crap that is sold there, but that's part of the game I guess, and sometimes you can find very good occasions, if you look hard enough.

This time I looked hard enough because I came out with a pair of shoes that I was looking for.

In the evening we went to see Hankock, the latest Will Smith movie. I guess it was allright, a different view on a super hero movie, but it was a bit predictable... Kung Fu Panda was much better even though they are different movies.

Sunday was a bit of turn-down, I did not sleep well, and the whole of Sunday was spoiled by a terrible headache and the fact that Fiorentina lost a match that they deserved to win against Naples (oh well...).

In the evening we had a nice dinner out with Chiara, and then back home for some sleep...

Nothing special really...
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Certainties Crumbling: [Thursday 11th September 2008]

On the sad anniversary of the attacks on the twin towers, and close to the experiment that almost blown up the entire earth, I have to report that the wireless capabilities of my MacBook have been working quite strangely recently...

It seems that the actual adaptor inside the laptop is not working well, because the other clients in the house are doing extremely well.

This poses my undisputed faith in Apple products to a very hard trial.

I have to say that the computer has been doing remarkably well for more than 1 year, then recently when I installed Leopard, things started to get worse... The fact that I had to hard reboot (by pressing the power up button for 5 seconds) 3 times in the last month to me is quite a rare.

This happening made me think that it has been more than 1 and half year since I have been using a Windows system seriously at home, and I do not really miss it. My PC is a sort of game box at the moment, while Macs handle all the rest, from torrents to image editing, music and so on.

Still the recent problems are casting some shadows over my already black MacBook, and that's why I have decided that I need some sort of backup system to help me keep all the important files that I have. On that story, Matteo, one of my best friends, will help me out with the setting up of the actual software to run backups...

Oh well, that's it really nothing more to tell, quite boring post I know! :D
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First Week at Work: [Monday 1st - Saturday 6th September 2008]

Well, well.

After the experience that I had to endure at the past company, this past Monday I have started the new job for one of the major Crystal and Crystal-Glass producers in Italy (and one of the major players in the world as well).

So far the first week has been rather positive, the colleagues seem quite helpful (there are not mixed tasks as it happened in the previous company, therefore no jealousies or backstabbing attempts), the directors have shown (so far) some trust in the choice that they made by employing me and want to get me rolling as quickly as possible, and the industry, albeit new, seem quite interesting and it will sure be an interesting challenge to learn this new market as well.

Of course it is early stages to say anything, after all in the previous company I only started to understand what was going on behind the scenes after 3/4 months (read: affairs between colleagues, non signed deals and general business malpractices, extremely bad attitude and inability to understand numbers etc etc...).

So I am not crying my eyes out of joy, but rather I'll give my best shot at this new venture in order to make it work from the beginning. At least I am recovering that fighting spirit that was suppressed by all the nastiness that was targeted at me in the past company.

Sometimes envy is a bad beast, but it lurks everywhere and you can't leave your guard down...
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Holidays in France: [Saturday 9th August 2008 - Saturday 23rd August 2008]

Here we are with the promised account of the holidays spent in France this summer.

I will try to be as brief as possible because I'd like you readers to concentrate more on the pictures rather than on my report.

The holiday company was composed by four individuals, namely, me, Chiara, Silvio and Gianfranco. We drove more than 4000 kilometres at the end of the tour, and we have been jumping through a lot of places in order to make the most of the time that we were given, but certainly increasing tiredness and stress from the trip.

In brief:

1st stop - Carcassonne - Lovely fortified city that I was meant to visit many years before during another holiday but didn't quite get to it...

2nd stop - Saint Emilion - Here we actually stopped for three nights. The city itself is quite great, with a very beautiful underground church, unique! Then we spent some time in the Sauternes region to sample the wines and visit some Chateaux, we went to see the biggest sand dune in Europe at Arcachon and the centre of Bordeaux.

3rd stop - Rocamadour, Sarlat and Cahors - On the way we stopped at Bergerac and at a Fois Gras farm (this visit was quite great). The names belong to three cities that are worth a visit in a lifetime. Especially the first one, Rocamadour, is quite stunning and very beautiful.

4th stop - Peche Merle, Millau - The first place is a cave where prehistoric drawings have been found. Very nice place, even if the drawings weren't there the cave is worth a visit, it's truly beautiful. Millau was a stop to see the longest viaduct in Europe (2km long, 400mts tall) and to visit the caves of the famous Roquefort cheese.

5th stop - Provence - Here we spent three days visiting Arles (where we had our hotel, a beautiful country house), Avignon, Baux en Provence, Pont du Garde and one full day spent cycling in Camargue (where we managed to see the pink flamingoes). I wish we had more time because Provence is quite beautiful, but it was a very nice stop.

6th stop - Cote d'Azur - This was the last stop, four days, where we mostly rested by the pool or the sea, but we also managed to see Grasse, Port du Vence, Saint Tropez, and Port Grimaud. Grasse is quite beautiful, the visit at the Fragonard perfumery was great and the place itself is nice. Saint Tropez is a must see, but I wouldn't spend there more than the evening that we stopped to see it.

All in all a great trip, we had fun and ate a lot of marvellous things. The wine and food was probably one of the best part, we managed to sample a lot of typical dishes from the various regions that we crossed and we also manage to see the actual producers of France's most famous culinary products (such as Bordeaux wine, Sauternes, Roquefort and Fois Gras)!

Mission accomplished!
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Lox, Lorenzo... ME!!: A little introduction about the author and the blog itself. Plus contacts and CVs... You never know!
Pictures: A Selection of the best pictures that I have taken all over the world during the years, all nicely indexed by year and geographical area. Jolly good!
History of this Blog: A collection of all the articles that I have wrote so far, divided by month/year.