Hey it still works!!!

Technical troubles over at Jeff in Italy so I thought I would check out my old site and see if it still works. And aftera few tries at the password I'm in. So if I can't get Jeff in Italy hosted somewhere I could come back to this nice familar blog location. That's good to know.

I'm back after doing it!

Well there’s some news from this weekend. I was excited to see that Greenpeace “attacked” our local power station. Attacked is strong word (used by one newspaper) but what they did do is hang huge banners on the plant. The biggest (20m by 25m) said “1st Climate Killer In Italy”. This is to signify that the coal-fired power plant at Cerano was the biggest polluter of CO2 for 2006 in Italy. They also say that the 2nd place plant is in Taranto. Finally we beat Taranto! First of all, it’s a little scary that about a dozen Greenpeace activists could break into the plant and hang banners all over the place. I mean it's not easy to sneak in carrying huge banners. We all know the security at tourist sites is tight but not at the big power plant! It was done this weekend because the UN is meeting in Bali to talk about climate change. Greenpeace wanted to remind people the problem is right here in Europe, not just someone else’s fault. I also will go on record that I had nothing to do with this protest but I applaud their efforts. I hope Enel does something to improve this plant. In related news Enel is talking about merging with EDF an energy giant in France. The funny thing about this is that France is big in nuclear power and Italy is against nuclear power BUT Italy buys power from nuclear plants in France. This new merger would probably only increase the amount of nuclear energy in Italy.
I bought something electronic this weekend that I’ve been dreaming about. A Wii, or maybe an Xbox360? No, for me it was an external hard drive. I was giddy driving home with it (yes I’m that much of geek). This little baby is USB powered so it’s incredibly portable and it’s 160 GB! Now these days that’s not a lot but it’s more than all the other hard drives I own, together. My ancient laptop has a 30 GB hard drive. My iPod was the best of the time but only 40 GB and my work laptop is 60 GB. So I can save more stuff on this little new thing then all my old things together. I love it because now I’ll have all my music and photos with me when I travel back to the USA. If my sister wants a Francesco Renga song that I have then, BAM, we copy it over to their computer. If my Keith and Pam like one of the photos I took of Kyle then, BAM, we copy it to their computer. You get the point. I don’t need to carry my computer because everyone I know and everywhere I go, somebody has one. The really strange thing is that I tried to buy one of these hard drives in the US when I was there in October but nobody had them. I went to Best Buy, Circuit City and etc… they all “carried” them but didn’t have any in stock. I went to an electronics store here on a whim and they had several sizes and three different brands! I ended up getting a Packard Bell model because the physical size of the device was smaller than the Toshiba. I can’t help but wonder why in the world I couldn’t get this in the USA but I could here. It’s not just this as there are Wii shortages in the UK but plenty here. Are the businesses that bad and getting stock to right places or is there something else going on?

Day 9 OHHH THE PAIN!!!

If you’re squeamish then close your eyes when you read this one. It all started on Sunday night after my mom called. I get second call from someone I haven’t talked to in a while and it caught me completely off guard. The conversation was something like.

Me: “PPrrrroonto” (in a happy tone)
Him: “Hi Jeff. It’s Martin. How are you doing?”
Me: “I’m doing ok. How are things in Martina Franca?” (Slightly cautious now)
Him: “Ok. Listen. It’s been over 6 months since you were here last.”
Me: “OH really. (@#$%!#%$#^%$#^#$^#!*) It’s been that long. You don’t say…” (Trying not to show fear or anxiety)

Yes Martin is my evil dentist. Sorry, I’ve associated “evil” with “dentist” for a long time and for the sake of this blog I’ll try to refrain from saying evil dentist. I think I’ve made it clear that as a kid I liked the sweets and some things you never outgrow. My visits to the dentist were never fun. So the rest of the call is a blur. Me agreeing he’s right I need to get in there for a visit and me also thinking “How do I put this off for the maximum time possible?” In the end the appointment was made for Thursday night. I would have to go to Martin the English Dentist in Martina Franca unless a meteorite hit me, but that didn’t happen.
Just to make this visit more interesting he changed the location of his office. He gave me directions over the phone but I was so upset about my lack of excuses that I didn’t take very good notes. I had basically written down. “By the orange tower of the Citroen dealership. On the left. Ground floor.” Looking at the paper Wednesday night I thought, “I have no idea where I’m going.” I did a search for the Citroen dealership on Pagine Gialle (the Italian Yellow Pages online). I highly recommend this site. Holy crap they are good. It’s like Mapquest and the Yellow Pages together. So I find the Citroen dealership in Pagine Gialle and it looks easy enough. At least I could get there and then call him to guide me in from there. That’s exactly how it went too.
Now this visit was supposed to be a cleaning so why does my jaw ache this morning? I’ll tell you why, because I’m paying twice for my love of sweets. The fillings that I got some 20 odd years ago are wearing out and last night he (the evil dentist) had to drill one out and put a new one in. So let this be a lesson to all you kids out there. Brush your dam teeth! And listen to your mother about sweets! Still poor “Ozzies” by my elementary school might have gone out of business if it wasn’t for a few hundred sugar hungry kids and me….
The photo below is, yes, in my mouth!! The silver thing you see is the next to go. Next…. Wednesday…. AAAAHHHHH…. I HAVE TO GO BACK. The tooth right in front of it is one he did last night. At least now my teeth look better.

Day 7 How to get a job in Italy

From now on when someone asks “How did I end up here?” I’ll point them to this post

It’s quite simple. It starts back when I was born in the quiet suburbs of Cincinnati. Ok, maybe that’s going back too far. The short version is I’ve always loved airplanes and anything that flies. So to me it was obvious that in college I would study Aerospace Engineering (by the way I don’t recommend this, study Mechanical Engineering instead, trust me on this!). After university I got very lucky and found a job in the aerospace industry almost right away. Most of my classmates didn’t even try to go into the workforce because the job market was so bad back then. I took a contract job at a jet engine manufacturer in Indianapolis that turned into a direct job. Then I quietly spent almost 10 years designing jet engines in Indianapolis. I liked it but I wanted to play with the whole engine and see the world. In the design department you need to specialize in one area of the engine to be able to handle everything but only in “your area”. I was tired and worried about being too specialized, so I decided to get out and see engines in the wild. The Italian Government at the same time was deciding that they were going to buy some new aircraft for their Air Force with new engines, IF (that’s a big if) they were allowed to repair the engines in Italy. So my company said, “Ok, we’ll let you repair your engines in Italy, IF (that’s a big if) you agree to have someone from our company there to help you learn this engine.” The deal was made and a job created. I saw the advertisement for the job in our company newsletter and put in for it because it was exactly the combination of things I wanted, a new adventure at work and home. After a tough round of interviews they picked me. It was an easy choice for them because the engine that the Italians bought is one of the engine models that I worked on for most of the 10 years in design. So you see that’s how I was able to legally live and work in Italy. I had experience with a jet engine that was designed and built in the USA so there was no EU citizen that could do the job I was contracted to do. Not easy but I got in. I do recommend working for a big international company that has offices or businesses around the world if you are seeking a position in another country. That is your good way of getting a job in the country of your choice. By the way the company I work for and the Italian company are not part of the military but they both work a lot with the military.

A couple of interesting side notes to my story.
I had never visited Italy before I accepted the job in Brindisi. I did have a pre-work visit but at that point I was committed to coming and would have looked bad if I refused. I reasoned that with the Italian side of my family I already knew what it was like to live in Italy. I think that was true…to a small extent.
The day I was offered the job was also the same day that I had a first date with a woman I had known for a while in Indianapolis. In my excitement we went to an Italian restaurant called Amici. I announced how excited I was to be moving to Italy and that was our one and only date. Did I mention that I’m not good at maintaining a relationship?
My original contract was for 3 years and I’ve just finished 4 years. My contract runs out in September of 2008 but NOTHING has gone to schedule in Italy. All good things must come to end. I’m also not sure what comes next. That’s the subject of a post by itself, someday, when it’s clearer.
The job requirements should have included, “must at least like soccer, preferable to have playing experience and a desire to play in situations that are as serious as life and death.” If I didn’t play soccer then the working life here would have been much tougher. When I would go into new area of the Italian company there would be somebody there that was in the company league and therefore I was not a complete stranger or outsider.

The photo is the miniature radio controlled helicopter I bought myself for my birthday. It's soo frickin' cool but the cats better stop looking at it with a gleam in their eyes.

Frigo part 2

So R2R wants to know what’s in the fridge. That’s a little scary when you mention that it’s a window into your soul so let’s see what I have in my soul….(quite fitting this close to Halloween and All Saints Day).
The top shelf is a bottle of white wine chilling nicely, Fanta, and coffee. I’ll admit it, that’s not Illy coffee in that can. I’m just using the nice can the Illy people give you. It’s really Moka, the cheap stuff. I swear the middle shelf was like that before the photo and I’m not sure why I didn’t put this fruit in the fruit drawer. I’m usually kinda of anal about that. It has a special drawer for fruit, dammit. I have a peroche (cross of peach and something else), 1 pear, 2 Chinese oranges (think that’s what they are called), and 2 mandarins. In the cheese drawer just below them, you can’t see it, but there is grated Parmesan. The next shelf down we have: a half empty jar of Old El Paso Salsa Mejecan, half empty jar of Barilla sauce (Tuna flavor, hey I didn’t feel like cooking after the gym yesterday), beer, and leftover Pizza. In my drawers you have one potato and one onion in the vegetable side and 1 lemon and grapes on the fruit side. The meat drawer below is currently empty except for garlic. A little old lady told me that’s the best place to keep garlic and it does seem to keep well down there. On the door we have 6 eggs, some butter, 3 bottles of Aperol soda (which I hate so they will be there adding color to my fridge until someone else drinks them) and some orange juice.
That’s exactly how my fridge was when I got home yesterday. I thought about shopping to make it look better and more interesting but I have a more interesting shot of my frigo back here… That was in May of last year. Amazing the difference. Si?
I'm not going to tag anyone for reasons I've mentioned in the past. I love doing these but not tagging people. However, I would love to see what Lori and Kent have. I'm sure it's full of crazy stuff!

How was your weekend?

Really, so how was your weekend? While you think about it...
Mine was pretty boring except for a few things. The most exciting thing is that the Big Ben opened Friday night, which according to Erika it means, “It’s winter!!!” I think she’s going overboard but IT IS the non-summer hang out. The Big Ben is always trying to be a better pub and they have succeeded secondo me (according to me). They have added a “magic Guinness” to their beers. Let me explain. They pour a Guinness from a can into a glass. They put the glass in a little machine and puff… the carbonation and cascading of a Guinness happens right before your eyes. It’s like a Guinness from “alla spina a Dublino”. The magic is cool but most importantly, it’s pretty tasty and probably the best Guinness I’ve had since the days of the Henry Gratten in Broadripple. I wonder if Austin reads my blog? How could I find out? I know I remember how much I love visiting the country of Great Britain, but I don’t understand why they use the euro in Ireland and the pound in London. That should generate an email or two unless the company email filter picks up Irish curse words….
Then Saturday night I had a huge dinner with coworkers (there was about 40 to 50 including family members!). A group that size needs a whole masseria, which is what we had but it was outside. That’s a problem because it’s a little cold to be eating outside so you could tell that by the end the night that no one would be hanging around after dessert and an amaro. To my surprise there was entertainment included in this dinner. I’ll put it nicely and say I was amazed and frightened by coworkers’ ability to sing. You see it was Karaoke night, which is not my favorite night, anywhere. Of course they kept trying to get me up to sing, “qualcosa in inglese”. I believe my choices were mainly Frank Sinatra songs. I’m sorry guys, but I REALLY can’t sing and I KNOW I can’t. Yes, yes, I know we’re all friends and as a friend I wouldn’t want to subject you to me singing “My Way”. I’m being a friend by NOT singing.
Daniele and family. One of my caffe` dependents. Notice the Karaoke microphone close by.
Claudio and family and part of the appetizer


Then I Sunday I decided I wanted to try my digital Rebel out in Lecce. I realized that I might be able to get all of Santa Croce in one shot. Guess what, even with a lens that goes down to 18mm you can’t get the whole church in. For crying out loud, why did they build that church on such a narrow street?! I also wanted to get a picture of the column we discussed last week. The latest on that fight is that it seems the mayor of Cursi (in the province of Lecce) is offering Brindisi a perfect replica of our column made out Lecce stone. Nice try buddy. That Lecce stone column would be more at home IN LECCE! As I was heading back to Brindisi I had the brilliant idea to get a picture of the wind farm they built near Lecce. It looks sooo close to the Autostrada but then I tried to get “there” and oh what fun.

The column that's not in it's rightful place.


Does this look like the right road to the wind farm? There's no one to ask for directions, not that I would.

The wind farm! These babies are huge. Puglia is one of the leaders in wind power in Italy. Brindisi is working on a 11 MW photovoltaic site near where I work.

Sins, who me?

So Judith tagged me about writing this post but I’m not sure I’m doing it right. The way I understand I need to explain how the 7 Deadly Sins apply to me personally. That way you crazy people reading this will know me better. Here it goes.

Lust
This is as human as it gets right? Let’s see. Well I don’t watch "Striscia La Notizia" for the news...but that’s like most of the males in Italy. I miss Michelle Hunziker. I’m a guy and I’ll leave it at that. I was trying to think of something sly and intelligent. I’m just glad it’s ok to stare in this country because there are so many women strolling around in short skirts and low cut blouses. I always thought staring was wrong but I’m slowly coming around to another way of thinking, or looking I should say.

Gluttony
For me this comes in the form of straight up, unadulterated sugar. My mom, to this day, has to warn me about “eating all those sweets”, especially around Christmas or Easter or come to think of it any other holiday. There is nothing else that I do in excess as eat sweets, at times. I still remember eating Spree, Sweet tarts, and Starburst until my stomach hurt as a kid. I’m getting a little better in my old age but I still can’t help but eat all of whatever I have sweet in the house.

Greed
I don’t know that I’m very greedy. It seems I should be, because there is always something that I would like to buy like a new iPod or digital camera all the way up to vacation villa or boat. In reality I save all that I can because I say that it’s for a “rainy day”. My thoughts go like this, “What if I lost my job and couldn’t find another? How long could I live off of what I have saved? Right, I better save some more money just in case.” In the past, as soon as I had extra money it went to paying off my mortgage, so I ended up paying off a 15-year mortgage in 5 years. I own the house back in the States so all I need is money to pay taxes, utilities, and food if worse came to worse. The funny thing is that I save and save but I really don’t make my money “work” for me. Nothing is in risky, high yielding stocks. Yeah, if I were greedy I would have a lot more money by now. Then I could buy that boat or….

Sloth
I’m pretty lazy. I have some many things that I’ve started and never finished and things I’ve never started. Things around the apartment like where Nello and Mara have destroyed the screen door by climbing it trying to get at flies. Now the flies can get into the apartment if they find the holes. Every summer the people sailing around the Mediterranean stop in to Brindisi and I think about how cool it would be to know how to sail and rent a boat. I have yet to get on a sailboat.

Wrath
I would think is another one like greed where I really feel in control. There are very few times I feel really angry. They seemed to connect to being without sleep or food for too long. Although Mara brought out my wrath when she refused to let me cut her nails the other day. But in that case I have to face the facts; it’s a two-person operation.

Envy
I’m envious of everyone. I think this is one of my major faults. I think everyone has it better than me. Your cell phone has a better ring tone than mine you lucky bastard.

Pride
I have pride but in things that no one gives a rats ass about. There are very few people impressed with the fact that I can throw a Frisbee a very long distance. You know I used to come in second place to Scott Stokely at competitions and he held the World Record at the time. Yeah, nobody cares. Yep, most of the things I’m proud of don’t account for squat with the rest of you. But I’m still proud!!

So that’s the 7 deadly sins as they apply to me. I won’t tag some other blogger to do this because I think there is enough tagging going on and because I’m lazy.