3 Quarters of the way

Colts 22 Bears 17

A strange score but Colts still look (I mean sound) good. A little more of a lead would be nice. Come on offensive! A little more!

Halftime

See Payton took my advice and is playing better, but these turnovers are going to give me a heart attack! Boomer is killing me with his commentary.

Colts 16 Bears 14

Go Colts!!!

Piano, Piano

That would be my advice after the end of the first quarter!!! What are the commercials like?

Uggh!

Listening to the Super Bowl on the internet and the worst start possible!! UGHHHH!!!! GO COLTS!!!

Paying the Bills

Being who I am, means I like numbers so on this post I’m putting lots of numbers. Wahooo! With the end of 2006 I look back on the bills I paid. I’ve been plotting the my utilities for 3 years now. I’m trying to see where I spend my money and how things are going….UP! The big bills are gas and electricity so that’s what I’ll bore you with here.

GasNow the most interesting jump was from 2004 to 2005 when my gas bill doubled in the year-end total! I attribute this to the fact that I spent most of January and December in the States that year. Also I probably felt the weather was nice and didn’t use the heat much at all when I was here. Now my skin is thin and I seem to turn on the heat when it’s really not needed for a hearty Midwesterner. Now from 2005 to 2006 (both relatively normal years) my gas bill went up 12% for the year. Most of the year is identical except for the July thru September bill. This is strange as gas would only be used for hot water and cooking in that season. I don’t think there was anything different in my habits or visitors then. Maybe there was a spike in gas prices; I wish I had kept the receipts that show how much I used. Then in the winter of 2006 my bill went down 8% from the winter of 2005, which we all know is due to the warm weather we had up until a week or two ago.

Electricity is not so interesting but steadily going up. It went up 14% from 2004 to 2005 and 18% from 2005 to 2006. I can’t really see why it would go up except I bought that new big TV in June 2006 for the World Cup and I think I see a jump in the bill related to that, but then December of 2006 was actually lower than December 2005 so maybe the TV isn’t the cause. I could also blame Lori and Kent, because they were here in June and July during the spike in the bill, but after they left the bill didn’t drop until December. I like how much my electric bill goes down in February and March every year, no matter what. I don’t think the weather changes that much and then why does it go up in April and May? Those are the months I’m probably outside the most, no air conditioning, the days are getting longer so I need lights less, but still the bill goes up. That seems to go against a seasonal difference.

You might notice that the amounts don’t change every month that’s because the electric bill comes every two months and the gas every three. I averaged out the cost total cost over the number of months (so a 129 euro bill for 3 months of gas is 43 euro for each month). So in the end there are too many factors to try to make decent conclusions, I have visitors that come and go, times I’m not here, seasonal differences, pricing changes, and large billing periods. I’m going to try to cut back and reduce costs. After all I’m not the only one paying for this, so is our mother Earth. Also I wonder how my bills compare to others....

Paolo Fresu Devil Quartet and the Nuovo Verdi Teatro

Last night I went to a concert in theNuovo Verdi Teatro . It was interesting night in 3 unique ways. First and most important were the people that I was there with, second was seeing the new theater and third was the concert itself.
First, I went there with my neighbor and her sister and then we met up with friends at the theater. My neighbor’s sister is in a wheelchair and navigating this old town from our apartment to the theater can be a hassle and I was also interested to see people’s reactions or stares as we made our way through the passeggiata. Italians are very interested in “la bella figura” so anything different is worthy of conversation or stares in this small town. The problem is everyone is used to seeing them (as they are usually together) but now they are wondering who that guy is with them. So in whatever group I travel, I’m still the odd one. If I hear “Di dove sei?”one more time!! I would think by now everyone in this town knows where I’m from!!
Then there was the theater; oh man, of course, it’s a heck of a story. In the 1960s they thought that Brindisi should have a new great theater, one of the biggest in the south of Italy. The old theater (built 1893) was bombed in WWII but continued to operate until 1960 when it was finally demolished as being unsafe. The new theater was fighting an uphill battle all the way and had a problem common in Italy. Where they wanted to build it was also where the town had just found ruins from the Roman era. They found streets and foundations of buildings from Brindisi’s heyday as THE port to the east during the Roman Empire. So what did they do? They built the entire theater on concert stilts over the ruins. I love this idea. The theater stays in a very central and convenient location without destroying the past. I have to get a picture of this. Last night was the first time you could see “under” the theater. From the street you can literally see all the way to other street on opposite side of the theater with just a steel fence keeping you from falling into the ruins, which are about 6 feet below street level. They are still working the archeological site and uncovering new items while the theater is working overhead. So they solved the biggest problem but they created another. The theater itself is just plain ugly from the outside, in my opinion. Inside it’s very nice and the acoustics are great but outside it looks completely wrong. You have wonderful stone buildings here but this monster is covered in sheet metal as you can see in the photo. I try to rationalize it with my engineering logic and I think they had to do this to keep the weight down (because it is after all suspended about 15 feet over the ruins). So I’m giving them a little benefit of a doubt. Work began on the theater in 1971 and didn’t go well but I won’t bore you with the story of that except to tell you that the first concert was held in the Nuovo Verdi Teatro in December 2006!!!! Yes, it took 35 years! The Jazz concert I went to last night for the Paolo Fresu Devil Quartet is one of the first concerts in a theater that’s basically as old as I am. I look at the bright side as finally Brindisi is using this concert hall. The place was almost completely full (about 1200 people) so I hope this is the start of needed boost in Brindisi. All the time I lived here I thought it was open I just didn’t know what was going on. I have to believe that this theater finally having shows will do nothing but help Brindisi. It will help preserve that style of life where everything is going on in town, “in centro”.
And I’ll close with a review of the show. The Paolo Fresu Devil Quartet consisted of trumpet (Paolo), guitar, contabasso, and drums. It could be broken down into two shows to me. They started out with some New Age stuff that I just plain didn’t like. I thought the concert was going to be very long. Too many guitar solos that I just didn’t “get”(I remember thinking “this is Paolo’s band, why is the guy on guitar doing another solo?”). But then the show seemed to change and they went into style I like to call smooth and mellow jazz. This part caught my attention and had me toe tapping and feeling the music. Almost everything was original! No jazz standards and I didn’t mind. I think normally you like to hear something a little familiar but his style was a good mix of slow and fast, highs and lows that keep me interested. He only stopped once to tell a very long story of the inspiration for the next piece to be played. It went back to a trip to New Caledonia for a jazz festival and how they stayed in horrible hotel with a horrible breakfast and they wanted to create something inspired by this experience but the music came out horrible!! They started their trip back to Italy and in Australia they stopped long enough to rework the music and it came out great so they called it “Stanley Music” in honor of that horrible hotel in New Caledonia. They jumped into the piece and it was the best part of the show. They did a couple of short encores and we left happy and content. The second part of the show definitely won me over and the first part probably impressed the true jazz aficionados. Something for everyone.

It's Cold Outside!

NOW, It’s cold. I spent the whole weekend whining about the cold so I guess I should continue on Monday too. This weekend was the first true weekend of winter. No, it didn’t snow or even get down to 0C but, but, oh, never mind. It’s not that bad.

Anyway there’s some good news from this weekend. Valerio and Erika have set a date for their wedding. Wahoo! I’m invited to real Italian wedding. Now, this is nothing against all the other Italian weddings that I have been too. Let’s face it all the weddings of “the O’s” were pretty Italian. I still remember doing the Tarantella at Marco’s wedding. I’m pretty sure the DJ remembers that night too because he changed the music too early and Marco ran over to the booth to explain that we weren’t finished dancing. I hadn’t seen Marco move that fast since our days playing soccer in 6th grade. Then in my own family we’ve had some very Godfather looking scenes. But this wedding is going to be 100% Southern Italian. I expect to fast for two days before it so that I’m ready.

This event reminds me of another foreign wedding that kind of “kick started” my adventure in Italy. Back in Indianapolis, it’s hard to explain exactly how or why, but I hung out with an international crowd. I played soccer with just about every European and South American nationality. I can remember one time when we had an Ecuadorian, Bolivian, Argentine, Irish, English, and French guy on the same team. So it was no surprise when Amelie who was Canadian/American married a guy that was French/Spanish (I had a hard time picking out which nationality to list first, so no offense if they’re reading this, but they’re in Madrid right now with a new baby so they might be too busy). They had a quiet little civil ceremony in Indy and then a huge knock down all day and night celebration in France. I was unsure about traveling to France so I came up with all sorts of stupid reasons at the time. I finally couldn’t say no to them and I didn’t want to miss out on something that was so unique. It was an amazing trip that I should write about one day. Eating and drinking all night under a big tent in small town in France reminded me that if I didn’t get out and see the world when I had the chance that I would regret it someday. Also it was my first real experience at being “a fish out of water” as they say. I still remember Martin’s family and friends performing skits at the reception. It was an amazing, elaborate affair that could not be conveyed in pictures.

The same stupid doubts and thoughts ran through my head when I saw this job opening in Italy. All I had to do was remember how much I enjoyed the wedding and that unique opportunity and I sent in my resume. Both the wedding and job could be boiled down the old classic line, “if I don’t do this now, then when will I?”

Stormy Weather!

So, as promised, I stayed home with the kids last night. What a good night to stay home. The wind picked up something fierce. The windows and doors were rattling, there were trash tornadoes on the streets, and I had no reason to go out, so I didn’t. The rain threatened all day but didn’t deliver until about midnight. Then we got everything lightening, thunder, even stronger winds and buckets of rain. Reminded me a little of the good ol’ Midwest in the spring!
So what did the kids and I do? Mara has taken up Nello’s old job of watching me eat but as you can see from the photo she’s not quite tall enough yet and Nello has taken up laying on anything that he can’t normally lay on during the day. It's a good thing my laptop isn't in there. Nello's getting big.Honestly, Nello is so hairy in the winter that he doesn’t need something soft to lay on! This spring and summer is going to bad when they both start shedding all that extra hair. Also I pulled some old CDs and put them on while I did some cleaning. Look at that nice clean bathroom!

The Finals, Finalemente!

It was a dark and windy night on the hollowed grounds of the local calcio field. Two gladiators were getting ready to go toe to toe one last time for all the glory in the company soccer tournament, the finals, finally. We took to the field and noticed one thing quickly, that the other team wasn’t there yet. It seems that they thought the game was 7:00 instead of 6:30. This of course means we started around 7:30 PM, a little “icing” the nerves of our team? When the game started it was slow as each team tried to feel out the other team. Now we had beaten this team twice in the regular season so you would think we would be a little more confident but the opposing team in the final wasn’t EXACTLY the same team we had already played twice. I had been warned about this so I wasn’t surprised to see the new players. Usually the other teams we played would have at least one player where we had the clear advantage. We don’t have the greatest players in the company but ALL our players are pretty good so there was no clear way to attack us. And if they commit too many on offense then our speed on the counterattack was deadly and that was how we won many games. We took special joy in catching the other team with too many forward. This adversary was too disciplined to let that happen.
Finally the other team got on the board first. The player they call simply “bomber” was left alone long enough for him to trap the ball, size up the shot, and easily put it past me (I’m the goalie if I haven’t mentioned this before). That’s all the bomber did all season. He doesn’t go far from the goal and just waits for the right pass and shoots (There’s no offsides in our calcetto, 6 vs 6). My team should know not to leave bomber alone like that! We struck back and tied it at 1-1 with some perfect passing when Davide entered the game for the first time. The enemies of all that is good then got another chance from close range to make in 2-1. Just before half we strike back to make it 2-2 with our counter attack. Finally we caught them forward and had space to pass and score.
At halftime I wasn’t too worried. Almost every game we would be close in the first half but we would wear the other team down and the second half would be the time we pull away. Also in the second half we would be shooting at the “good goal”. It’s hard to explain but the way the field is set up it’s much easier to shoot at one goal verses the other. So I thought things were still favoring us even though it was obvious the other team had picked up some good players.
The second half went on back and forth and it wasn’t until Piero fouled the other team in our box that the score changed. Then had a penalty kick that would be simple for the “bomber”. I didn’t have a chance unless I could some how get him to send it wide. To my surprise he let one of their new guys take this very important kick and he buried it in the upper right corner of the net. A very good shot for going into the “bad” goal. Now I was mad. How could we be behind at this point? Our team stepped up the pace and fired back, 3-3. Now I’m a little more comfortable but still we just weren’t getting good shots and this is usually our time of the game. Then I cleared out a cross with a punch of the ball that went high in the air and the same big guy that scored the penalty kick, kicked the crap out of it straight on the fly from long range and right into the same corner of the goal. We were down 4-3 with very little time left. They wouldn’t have another decent attack the rest of the game. They just hung back in defense managed to weather our storm. The whistle blew and it was still 4-3 for them. I can say that I was a very upset last night but it was a really good and evenly matched game, probably the lowest scoring game of the whole season and tournament. We had played so well all season only to come up a little short, but it was a really good game there’s always next season.

Eating out all weekend!

I don’t usually like to be in my blog but this is the only photo I have from this weekend. The weather was incredibly nice but in the photo you don’t seem to get a sense for just how warm the sun felt, maybe too much “fill” flash. So lets do a rundown of the weekend. It involved eating out most of the weekend.
Friday night I had dinner again with Isreale and Beth the “other Americans in Brindisi”. We tried a new restaurant in town and it’s pretty good but a little expensive. I had a primi (pasta dish) that was very good. I noticed that the seafood taste didn’t dominate the sauce. I felt like it was a very well balanced taste so maybe it was worth the price after all. After that we each had our own whole fish. I’m getting better at cleaning a whole fish and I really should bring a camera so I can keep a better record of what fish I had and where. Maybe we could start reviewing all the restaurants in town? After that it was off to Goblins to see what live music was on tap. It was a nice Jazz quartet that is probably the best jazz band in Brindisi. Jazz isn’t that popular in Brindisi so the place was pretty desserted.
Saturday I did a little shopping but not much because I knew I didn’t need to make dinner for myself. Saturday night I went over a friend’s house for dinner. It was very good homemade cooking but I felt bad because I didn’t bring anything. I thought we were just going to order some pizzas and beer. No, it was a real sit down dinner that was carefully planned and well made and for no special reason. It wasn’t somebody’s birthday or a new job, nothing, except a dinner with friends. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Then on Sunday I went to a coworker’s house where he was out to impress me with big steaks on the grill, hence the photo. It was the most meat I’ve had in a while and they were the best steaks I’ve had in Italy. They really seemed to melt in your mouth. It’s hard to get a good steak here, but they make up for it with ALL the other food. So there I was with a big steak grilling away, while I’m hanging out in a t-shirt and teaching more Italians how to throw a Frisbee. What more could I ask for? All this in January no less, but we are being told that winter will arrive here today or tomorrow. Looking outside right now it’s cloudy and so we may finally have some needed rain. I don’t mind as I could use a night in to clean up the apartment. Also I’m sure the cats feel neglected, at least Nello does.