click for
full size |
 |
OK, I cheated. I played with the clock: I registered just after midnight GMT +1. I had never been superstitious, until I was exposed to this thing about the number 17. It's the bad luck number in Italy, in particular in the south. Ever since, the "sfiga" seems statistically correct; thus if I can avoid it, I will! |
 |
 |
The coming day... The schedule is usually conditioned by Arianna and Aubert. Unfortunately, Aubert is not with us in Milan; I left him with his grandparents who live by the sea. Kindergarden started, but - as is custom in this country of pampered employees - they insert only 5 kids per week, notwithstanding he went to nursery for two years. He will start only in October.
|
 |
 |
Arianna is asleep. The phone cannot ring much. Time to get some things off the 2do list.
|
 |
|
Work on improvements to a project that pleases me immensely. pescecolorato ('coloured fish') is a groups of architects, designers and artists who have pooled their services for children. The suite of Manila sites includes an e-zine, illustrations of their services, calendars of events and an in-house store... The editors are getting their materials together and starting to insert them. Then we'll port most sections to an English version (translators welcome).
|
 |
|
Checking a new feature for my principal activity. iWant2go2.com is my baby. The site is now operational. We are loading UK hotels into the system (most are still in demo mode, thus do not expect to find many rooms). Tomorrow we should have confirmation of our bank's conditions for Euro accounts; France & Italy will be the next markets developped.
|
| |
|
Putting the box to sleep. Keeping a bit of the Olympics on in the background. Fade out...
|
 |
|
Rise 'n try to shine. No choice, Arianna is up.
Given that we still have a dial-up connection and that rates are lower between 20h00 and 8h00, I tend to scan news sites for the unpluggedportal weblog in that time frame.
|
 |
 |
On the way to the bakery for fresh bread, one has to suffer advertising pollution. Disturbing: Berlusconi campaigning, notwithstanding elections are not scheduled. He - the richest man in Italy - controls half the TV media, piles of newspapers and a near-monopoly on advertising placement: surely he is not paying full rates for these billboards. Truly unacceptable.
FootImage: a seicento(600).
|
 |
|
The panetteria (store where bread is baked & sold). One of life's pleasures - buying non-industrial fresh bread - is for all intents and purposes forgotten in North America...
|
 |
|
Arianna picks amongst a choice of breakfast. Italian breakfast culture is practically non-existent or, at best, based on cookies or cake. Thankfully she has a more French attitude and favours bread as a basis.
|
 |
|
Mom has the archetypical Italian breakfast: un caffé (a cup of coffee). Full stop.
|
 |
|
I, on the other hand, require changes to the lyrics of a Drake/Oakland song popularized by the Manhattan Transfer : 'I like the Java jive, but it don't like me...' Today? Let's go for Russian Black Tea.
|
 |
|
Mad dash out of the house. Grab the motorino (a 100cc motorcycle); Arianna is off to school (it is not kindergarden for her) and Silvana to work. Climate allowing (almost year-round), there is no better way to get around town; Milanese are very attached to their cars, but it is getting like Florence & Rome where motorini swarm around like bees!
|
 |
|
The office. A full 2 square meters for a LAN comprising one PC, 2 powerbooks and a souped-up 8500. And two mobile phones. A bit tight you say?
|
 |
|
Hey, European dimensions: the place has 65 sq meters of usable floor space (one square meter is about 11 sq. feet) for two adults, two kids, an office and, at one point in time, a dog (now with the grandparents by the seashore where he's much better off). In Montreal, I never had a place with less than 1000 sq. feet; these tighter quarters got getting used to.
|
 |
|
The team Epee finals. I used to fence - sabre was my choice of arms. This is worth my attention span. One advantage of being in Europe is that the French & Italian media follow the sport pretty well; thus we get coverage during the Olympics. This final could easily last an hour; it's all live with no commercials The French are favorite as World Champs, while the Italians defend their Atlanta gold. Prêts? Allez!
|
 |
|
Srecki - now a legend in Epee - did it all for France, including brilliant clock tactics robbing three touches at the buzzer. He is the difference in the match. One French fencer did not do well: di Martino. Still, France deserves the gold.
But the nerves of France's silver medalist of the individual contest, Hughes Obry, break down: he loses a two-point lead in regulation time, and is touched in sudden-death overtime. You can 'feel' for Obry just right now... Italy gets an unexpected gold! Superb!
|
 |
|
The post-medal ceremony is a wonderful image of Olympic spirit. (The ever-strong Cubans complete the lot)
|
 |
|
Settling today's items for unpluggedportal. As a weblog, it is not meant as a chronicle, but as a reflexion of what is behind the news, as a bridge between between items. Thus being first on the news is not key, the thinking is.
|
 |
|
Giovanni called with some doubts about the templates. That's OK, we can adjust things quickly with Frontier's WebEdit.
|
| |
|
Lunch is usually at this hour in Northern Italy. It suits me. Eating out or in? In today. No, no images of me preparing, nor eating... sorry.
|
 |
|
Oh yeah... there's another weblog. A friend (and neighbour) & I put our enthusiasm for the Italian bid for the America's Cup 2000 into building a site luna-rossa.com.
A parenthesis... to the glory of serendipity. Interestingly, we met 5 years ago on a Milan-Napoli train & realized, somewhere between Firenze & Roma, that we were neighbours. Small world indeed...
|
 |
|
As Prada decided to be the Challenger of record for the 2003 edition, we have decided to keep the site active. We scan for news developments, while almost all other sites dedicated to the America's Cup have tuned out. We are also going to examine and compare the rules of the Y2K and 2003 edition and try to dymystify matters. Given the Olympics, we expect little news. The surprise is the coverage gained by the 'classic yacht' event I brought my kids to this weekend (Aubert 'loves' boats).
|
 |
|
iWant2go2.com is a multinational thing. Offices in the UK, me here and Emmanuel programming from Montreal. At this hour, he's already operational.
Just enough time to solve a few things before I go pick up Arianna (and, normally, her brother). The only work I allow myself for the next 4 hours is lugging the two mobile phones around. I am fortunate to see my kids grow up.
|
 |
|
On the way to her school, I pass in front of the II-century colonne San Lorenzo, which is one of the two icons of Milan (after the Duomo & its Madonnina). We live in the oldest part of town, being a stone's throw away from this vestige of Milan being a second capital of the Roman Empire. Another stone's throw away is the Roman arena which has to be dug out; they've worked on it about 5 days over the past 2 years - I wonder if I'll ever see that!
|
 |
|
At school, Lorenza and Arianna are like two fingers of the same hand.
|
 |
|
These two change the plans. Arianna decided to go to her friend's house. That's fine, I will not have any difficulty in finding things to do. The phones are pretty busy anyways.
|
 |
|
Did some thinking about how to present the gallery. Swack. Darned, we're three days away from fall and we still have mosquitoes irritating us...
|
 |
|
Picking up Arianna at Lorenza's house. They have just had dinner.
|
 |
|
On the way back, Arianna always recalls the wedding of her teacher in Sant'Ambrogio church (I must admit, a ceremony with 25 4-year olds is truly memorable!). This is one of the few monuments worth visiting in Milan; it is named in honour of Milan's patron saint.
|
 |
|
At home, Arianna relaxes by reading a bit. It is nice to know that she is not addicted to the tube.
|
 |
|
Mom's home. Quick dinner for Mom & Dad.
|
 |
|
Cannot end the day without dental hygiene.
|
 |
|
Mmmmhhh... What will tonight's bedtime story be?
|
| |
|
In the end, I tuned out at the end of the story, just about as fast as Arianna! Cannot get to sleep right away, so might as well do some maintenance. Like trying to understand some browser bugs, courtesy of Netscape.
|
 |
|
Suddenly, my curiosity is peaked - I had only recently set Frontier to log http requests. Let's see... The 24Hours page is generating traffic... Then, my socks are knocked off. Really. Six months after the end of the America's Cup, we still get new visitors through search engines. What really takes the cake is the fact that we rank #2 on Google (for 'America Cup 2003') and 4 or 5 on Netscape.com. Wheee! And we did not even try with those search engines. Cool, cool way to end this calendar day!
|
