Category Archives: about me

The Twitter Diaries: 2009-02-08

  • @divinacucina yummy! especially with anchovy dressing in reply to divinacucina #
  • Divorcing Italy went to my mailing list this am, one unsubscribe request already. Folks cherishing a dream prefer to hear the nice stuff. #
  • @divinacucina ooo, must try those. There are times when I have a deep, visceral craving for anchovies. in reply to divinacucina #
  • @italylogue looking forward to it. +ing you to the RSS feed of stuff I share on Current Events in Italy (Google thinks I’m the world expert) in reply to italylogue #
  • @italylogue me the world expert? Italy should be frightened! in reply to italylogue #
  • @KathySierra wd be interesting for a company to try sponsoring a LACK of ads, say on a public space. Good PR value? in reply to KathySierra #
  • come to think of it, I never see Sun advertising in any traditional sense #
  • @jowyang my impression is that the Davos types are mostly interested in interacting with each other in reply to jowyang #
  • excited that we’ll get live streams from TED at Sun campuses next week – I’ve always wanted to attend #
  • @pizzocalabro thanks. Sadly, the paying market is in the romanticized fluff, e.g. Under the Tuscan Sun. “Italy porn”, I guess. in reply to pizzocalabro #
  • what is the big deal if Phelps smokes dope? So have several presidents. #
  • hmm. How on earth did I get a page hit from Jeff Jarvis’ site? Not that I mind… #
  • @jowyang you can get a courtesy snort, the usual reaction to puns in reply to jowyang #
  • I’ll be in SFO week of Feb 22-Mar 1. Who else? #
  • @pizzocalabro my boss in Milan smoked truly nauseating Toscani cigars IN THE OFFICE in reply to pizzocalabro #
  • can’t stay still too long: just arranged to go to Las Vegas NM to visit friends and teach high schoolers about blogging, or something #
  • @jowyang it’s amazing how efficient Italian law can be when prosecuting the wrong things. Meanwhile, a multiply-indicted prime minister… in reply to jowyang #
  • @jowyang http://tinyurl.com/conkyk “The judges could decide that YT/Goog = a newspaper or TV editor, and can be held responsible for…” in reply to jowyang #
  • @jowyang “…whatever is transmitted…. This trial is important, relevant to our [Italy’s] future – not Google’s.” in reply to jowyang #
  • non capisco la storia Google. Dicono di aver rimosso il video entro 24 ore dalla richiesta, ma qui: http://tinyurl.com/c64wyd – 2 mesi? #
  • @deirdresm hmm, maybe we can meet for lunch? in reply to deirdresm #
  • @storagebod at least no one can accuse you of sandbagging your personal goals. ; ) in reply to storagebod #
  • NYC in Legos: http://tinyurl.com/b49qqo #
  • @frank_dobner e’ una di quelle parole per cui non esiste una traduzione adeguata in italiano. Il che sarebbe un bel tema per un articolo… in reply to frank_dobner #
  • We have subtitled video! Yay! http://tinyurl.com/b2vwk4 #
  • @frank_dobner pensavo piuttosto al fatto che il concetto sembra non esistere in Italiano in reply to frank_dobner #
  • do our banks not have anybody with a single brain cell working in PR? Expensive furniture and Las Vegas junkets right NOW?? #
  • @frank_dobner non ho mai provato, potrebbe dipendere piu’ dalla tastiera in reply to frank_dobner #
  • @deirdresm great! I’ll probably be at Sun’s MPK offices Tuesday and Friday in reply to deirdresm #
  • the doctor took a piece out of my left forearm today to biopsy, probably just a funny-looking mole #
  • this is only the 3rd time I’ve had stitches. Post-shower, should I put on a new bandaid? more Vaseline? looks clean, a bit sore & itchy #
  • @darios attenzione, c’e’ ne sono due di Chris Anderson nelle news questa settimana! in reply to darios #
  • ow, stitches catching on bathrobe. Bandaid it is. #
  • @frank_dobner skin cancer screening (long overdue given my childhood in the tropics) turned up a suspicious mole, now removed for biopsy in reply to frank_dobner #
  • @om I wonder how much people get out of conferences who spend so much attention blogging them. Great svc to those who can’t attend, but… in reply to om #
  • @gaspart il governo italiano dovrebbe farmi un’offerta simile. ; ) in reply to gaspart #
  • @seancarlos got any suggestions on good liveblogging apps? in reply to seancarlos #
  • <grumble> the author of “Eat, Pray, Love” gets to speak at TED. I named my website “Countries Beginning with I” before her book came out. #
  • @italylogue I refuse to read it. I avoid all that “finding yourself under a foreign sun” stuff. Have lived too long overseas myself. in reply to italylogue #
  • @emmabird the more I hear, the more I think reading it would give me an ulcer in reply to emmabird #
  • @italylogue a friend has suggested I self publish material from my site, but that seems like too much work right now in reply to italylogue #
  • hmm. There are gaping holes in the Web 2.0 schedule, but my talk was turned down. Because I’m not a regular on the speaker circuit? #
  • I can see how Anderson went from mish kid to TED, via Woodstock school. That’s MY tribe #
  • Yann arthus bertrand’s new film will be distributed free. #
  • Dancing geeks seems to be a theme in my life lately. Great minds #
  • @mmcallen not sure what to make of her. Reminds me of Leonard Cohen somehow #
  • some1 I barely know emails me to pray for some1 I don’t know at all. Should I tell her that, as an atheist, this makes me uncomfortable? #
  • it was very cool to watch TED streamed live at Sun’s Broomfield office. Would have been infinitely cooler to be there, of course. TED envy. #
  • @missbhavens courage, sister. If your biological family is dysfunctional, build a new one. in reply to missbhavens #
  • awake too early, too much on my mind #
  • why are stitches black? it looks like an insect is partially embedded in my arm (no, I don’t like this image, either) #

stitches

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The Twitter Diaries: January 2009, Pt 1: Italy, Ireland, UK, France

back from New Year’s celebration with friends in Piemonte, back to work (in Dublin and Grenoble) next week. Not ready for vac to be over!

“Apologizing” for Fascism

@robinbloor thanks for the tip- Stanza looks like an app I’ll use!

hmph. Dublin hotel booking form requires me to be a Mr., Mrs., or Miss. None of the three is correct.

@deirdresm since I retained my own surname on marriage, Mrs. is simply dead wrong; there is no Mr. Straughan in our family

@deirdresm I need a crash course in Irish – how to pronounce Saoirse? thx for the Far Side re-enactments – brilliant!

must… face… the wardrobe. If nothing fits, the sales start in Milan tomorrow. Not that I can buy much in Italy. Wrong body shape.

Ross on her re-entry to small-town Italy: “I didn’t know so many Italians are racist.”

…and her friend’s 23YO ex boyfriend just died of a drug overdose. No, Italy is not quite the paradise Americans fondly imagine

@mmcallen I have [had Amazon ads on my site] for years, to VERY small returns. Classic, I think.

couldn’t be happier that Terry Pratchett got a knighthood, unless they also found a cure for his Alzheimer’s

@deirdresm don’t know anything; in spite of my name (which has nothing to do with my ancestry), this will be my 1st visit to Ireland

had a day in which Italy did its best to remind me of all the things I do NOT love about it

@deirdresm thanks, but doubt I’ll have time this trip. Just there Monday afternoon to Wednesday morning – this time

what I miss about Italy

@Roam2Rome Mexico will be a lot cheaper. Italian dentistry is so expensive people leave the country for treatment

the Vatican reaffirms its medical ignorance

@tara_kelly yup, according to the Vatican’s chief of medicine, the birth control pill causes male sterility.

Ross’ way of making up with me after a fight: “You can take this makeup of mine to use on your trip if you want. Just don’t lose it.”

@trine you have to go through horrible teenage tantrums before you get that kind of treatment… sometimes

in Dublin, about to film Michael Pryc on IPS package manager GUI. Any particular requests for what he should cover?

the menu of Sun’s employee canteen in Dublin includes a “potatoes” course. And steak & Guinness casserole for lunch. Yum!

@deirdresm it was good, though they gave me way too many potatoes (if such a thing is possible)

I wish cut & paste from OpenOffice to Roller worked the same on the Mac as it does on Windows

good day of filming in Sun’s Dublin office yesterday, followed by a nice dinner, then total collapse. No time to see sights, unfortunately

I hate multilingual websites that assume that my country is also my preferred language

in a hotel in Grenoble with a very shaky wifi connection. Argh.

Italian train graffiti

Words of Wisdom from Irish Taxi Drivers

at Sun’s Grenoble engineering center, can’t yet see the towering Alps that everyone assures me surround us. Better weather this weekend?

filming over for the day. Got some great stuff on Amber Road aka Sun Storage 7000, OpenSolaris desktop, Java RTS, and more

I love the location of this Ibis hotel in downtown Grenoble, but the wifi sucks royally

time to hit the icy streets of Grenoble in search of breakfast. Wish I could find some fruit, but the hotel buffet is sad.

wrapped the second day of filming in Grenoble with an interview with a campus ambassador, in both English and French

hubby not going skiing, so we plan a day of sightseeing and shopping in Grenoble. Ate amazing foie gras last night, with Burgundy

best purchase this trip: album from The High Kings (at Dublin airport) http://www.thehighkings.com/

humor: The Italian Adam

have packed a much smaller bag for tomorrow’s UK trip. Hate lugging stuff.

@davest 1-1 in a coffee house – I like!

@italylogue [who provided a playlist of Italian songs, with links to my translations for some] get I should get cracking on translating the rest, eh? ; )

@plasticbagUK thanks for the LOL! It’ll be interesting to see what kinds of ads you get instead, though.

just used Final Cut Express semi-seriously for the first time, not quite as hard as I’d feared. Now to figure out the compression

@lbridenne76 thanks, was using Roxio VideoWave before!

at Sun’s Guillemont Park office, which reminds me of a very nice shopping mall. Lots of bright open spaces.

@tara_kelly nope, in the UK this week, back to Italy for the weekend, back to Colorado on the 21st

a foggy day in London town

filming at Sun’s Customer Briefing Center just over London Bridge

…and next door to this [the London Monument, below]

last day in England, for which I am thankful. This damp cold gets into my very bones. Unfortunately, Italy may not be much better

@lbridenne76 In my book, that’s a no-brainer: customer service/experience IS marketing, and the most important part of it

pensiamo di andare ad Abano Terme (o altre terme) questo weekend (20mo anniversario). Qualche suggerimento?

is the horrible hold music almost over? and can we all learn how to use “momentarily” correctly?

@Hellyski hope to make it Saturday [to a social/new media podcamp in Boulder] if not dead with jet lag

woke up at 3:30 am to get to my 6:30 am flight in Luton. Which turned out to be too early.

started a new blog to aggregate and tag Sun video (at least the portion of it that I have anything to do with): http://blogs.sun.com/video/

The Twitter Diaries: December, 2008, part 2

@plasticbagUK when I saw vertigo I thought ” oh look, san francisco with parking!”

@Zadi ships passing in the night : just arrived ago heading for a rental car and pali alto

Looking forward to the luxe bathtub at the 4 seasons

Sun’s cafeteria serving Indian food and playing music to match.

Day of filming (for a Jan release) complete, way too much time to kill at SFO. Bought Cosmo at my BIL‘s request – he’s cited in it.

useful to know if you ever fly into Denver: Freedom cab charges $1.80/mile as opposed to Yellow’s $2.25

they’re not wrong…

@michellefabio Italians have very short memories of their own history as mass migrants

I’m sure there are a million things I’m supposed to be doing, but my brain is molasses right now and I can’t remember what they are

final uploads, downloads, etc. then some errands before our flight to Heathrow tonight.

heading back to Europe for a month after my longest stay in the US in 18 years (5+ months). Wondering what it will feel like.

Plane being inspected after it got hit by lightning. More delay, if we fly at all tonight.

We weren’t on the plane when it was hit apparently damage was severe. Overnight at a hotel then fly tomorrow

just talked to BA. So far looks like we’re on track to leave today and get to Milan Saturday morning.

at least we have a voucher for a taxi this time, so don’t have to take SuperShuttle and be there hours early

getting ready for our second attempt to leave the country

Waiting to drop our bags again. At least ba are handling this act of god pretty well so far

@wisequeen trying to!

@wisequeen holiday only

doesn’t happen to me often, but that was a fairly hellish trip. Finally arrived home 24+ hours later than expected

have no idea what I did with the charger for my Italian cellphone

@jeffreytaylor unfortunately, Northern California is a relatively small and unrepresentative part of the overall American reality

@IgorMinar where do you find Bosnian and Serbian pickles? and what are they like?

whoa. looks like we tiptoed out between potential (but not quite) disasters at Denver airport.

@davest maybe someone’s trying to remind you what it was like to live in Colorado. ; )

home in Lecco. bought 100 euros’ worth of chocolate at the factory outlet http://www.beginningwithi.c…

major jet lag, up talking with Ross til 4:30 am. Interesting cultural reflections upon being back in Italy after 5 months in the US

trying to remember where my turtlenecks are in the Lecco house

did my old 2-hr commute to visit former colleagues in Milan. There is nothing I miss about that.

in Italy, executives are being laid off

I wish [American] [men] would clue in to how excluding sports analogies are. Red Sox vs. Yankees means nothing to me, or most of the world.

@ThinGuy in which part of the world and by whom?

@pizzocalabro a specific instance, but email.

@ThinGuy mostly a guy thing, and of course it’s very culture-specific, so perforce it leaves people out. Not good for biz communications

@plasticbagUK there’s worse company than House

the family ambigram

argh. almost 5 am and I’m still awake (did sleep from ~10:30-1:30)

@caseymckinnon Jon Stewart and I were born EXACTLY the same day, and are both left handed

@italylogue I hope you have better luck than we did getting out of Denver. Where are you going?

torchlight procession to the top of the mountain opposite; my friend Lisa is in there somewhere

@fakejonathan hair smelling like truffles would be really, really gross

back online after 3.5 days without Internet (the horror!)

@medgno got back just in time. ; )

figured out how to add a tag cloud to my blog. Feeling quite chuffed about it, since I am not in any sense a programmer

taking a long time to get over jet lag. Maybe because of the trip from hell plus subsequent road travel in Italy.

had to speak to my bank to verify a wire transfer. The “security” questions are all facts that anyone could figure out about me in <5 mins

…and to change the “password” I would have to snail-mail a request on paper. No wonder identity theft is so easy.

kid: didn’t wake up in time to wash her clothes (no dryer here!), now wants to borrow my new cashmere. Tough luck.

maybe I just have a monstrous sleep deficit

@Roam2Rome somehow docs like that turn out about 30% shorter when translated into decent English

@Roam2Rome no need for guilt – you have to wade through all those superfluous source words to figure out the content, it’s a lot of work

@pippawilson io ho preso 4 [voli] in 6 giorni, a novembre

@moroplace perche sei in ufficio? Non siamo in vacanza, o e’ solo per gli Americani?

Cartoceto photo gallery: memories of a different place, and a much warmer day!

waiting for the potatoes to boil so we can eat them with bollito (boiled meats) and yummy sauces

…while cleaning out thousands of duplicates in my iTunes library. Needs an automatic function for this

traffic to my site fell off sharply Christmas day and hasn’t regained. Does this mean everyone has a life outside the Internet?

argh! get these @#@$# Scientologists off my website!

the weird thing is, the Scientologists are advertising on my Funny Signs posts

Milan, Christmas 2008

@ceri I’ve wiped out my inbox several times thanks to system reinstalls, change of computer/OS. I’ve never been sure it was accidental.

@timfoster a very old fave of mine [The Princess Bride]. The movie was great but the book (which I read years before) is even better.

spending my vacation digitizing more of my life (CDs that didn’t make it into iTunes last year)

@tgardner someone who is better left out of the gene pool anyway

wow. We actually have CDs that have never been entered into Gracenote

@MarketingProfs re. consumerism: One shock-but-not-surprise in moving back to the US has been just how much sheer crap people buy.

pesto pizza and salad for dinner. Replaced the calories from the 1-hour walk around the lake in the freezing cold earlier

@koolinus very simple and yummy: Buitoni pizza base with mozzarella, pesto slathered on top, this time I added potato slices.

@missbhavens funny, I’ve just been moving the pages to do with my garden onto WordPress

moving > 2000 pages from static html to WordPress is…a lot of work

@seancarlos fixing the links will be round two – right now I’m just redirecting, page by page

@koolinus I first ate pesto pizza in a restaurant in Milan; if anything, blame the Milanesi!

@seancarlos nice, thanks. I was going to use Google Webmaster tools for this, is LinkSleuth better?

The Twitter Diaries: December, 2008, part 1

all this and I’m supposed to do Christmas shopping, too? Amazon to the rescue!

night before my last day in St B. Hasn’t been totally a vacation (worked every day), but I do feel refreshed, ready to plunge back in. Sorta

“Many posts are in … countries where various discomforts exist and American-style amenities and e-mail are unavailable. ” FSOT guide

@zephoria re copy editors, yes, even the Economist seems to have lost some, to my shock and horror

@davest depending where you are, e.g. United checkin area, it may be quicker to walk.

2 things re. this article : 1. the headline puns are passe’ 2. spot the Freudian slip!

doing some very tedious stat work, half listening to some amazing live music

In Manhattan most of Wednesday. Who wants to meet up?

last morning in St B after a very late night. I was going to sleep later, but there was a goat bleating outside my window

On my way to jfk to fly to Austin, collect a suitcase, and on to Denver tomorrow. Mpk again sometime before we go to Italy for Xmas dec 18

@ItalyArtTravel home in lecco on lake comp plus abruzzo where my mil lives

In spite of actually having worked every day of it, the “vacation” was refreshing. I’m Coming back loaded for bear, so watch out!

@jeffreytaylor did that building complex [capitol in Dhaka, Bangladesh] finally get finished? when we were there in 1976 it was a deserted construction site

back in Austin, briefly

10 minutes of Christmas shopping on Amazon

about to leave for the airport for the last leg of this very long trip. The next one may be as soon as next week, but will be much shorter

I want a “never tell me this again” check box for airport announcements.

Shuttle driver [taking me home, finally] returning to terminal for 1 more. My generous spirit wars w/ knowing this will make the trip even longer

@missbhavens thank you for your constant ability to make me laugh, often when I really, really need it

back in the office after a month on the road, wading through expense reports and producing video

Hey friends in Italy I’ll be back on the 19th. Let’s make plans to meet!

Enjoying the Colorado sunshine while my friend raids Borders. Sometimes I actually manage to sit still for a whole ten minutes

leaving those blue, blue waters behind

came home sick with a sinus infection. Feel like my head is going to explode

ooh, here comes the snow!

watching the temperature plunge at http://tinyurl.com/6o8lgz

not returnable

@anildash “woah” is how Tin Tin’s dog Snowy barks (in English). I always wondered how that was supposed to be pronounced.

for the 2nd time, email from a Harker School student asking permission to use a photo from my site. That school is teaching great netiquette

@jeffreytaylor you’ll always be welcome to come enjoy the view from our place on Lake Como

@jeffreytaylor glad to hear it. The view’s not bad here in Colorado, either!

sometimes, to survive, you need a change of environment

Chelsea Bluegrass

editing video and running stats. As so often

@webmink examples?

for anyone who’s really, really into storage (and video)

magician at work: http://tinyurl.com/5ppojd

@lbridenne76 @smaragdis Might be a good idea but I want easy, comprehensive, aggregated stats. I spend too much time running numbers

@trine I hope that is less serious than it sounds

trying to get into the <shudder> holiday spirit.

I am all out of cope

@missbhavens tell you what, I’m just gonna come live with you!

an enlightened reader writes me: “get that Obama crap off this Italian website!” Obviously not reading too closely

@jowyang I used to “follow” people on the Usenet, with mostly positive reactions: http://www.beginningwithi.c…

@jowyang I think it would depend largely on how it’s being used. e.g., Amazon deals is exactly what I expect, so it’s not spam

mathematician Serge Lang used to make the world’s best eggnog for Yale Xmas parties. He used Courvoisier. That sounds perfect for tonight

yet another crisis tamed, at least for the moment. Home with eggnog.

really, really glad I have a weekend of nothing much to do. Physically and emotionally exhausted.

@jeffreytaylor [a friend who had just left Paris to move back to the US] best to concentrate on the upsides right now. 24 hour groceries, for example.

@divinacucina I call that an epic tourist fail

need to do a bit more Christmas shopping (SIL and MIL), video editing, pack for next week’s travels

@tara_kelly . You’re providing info they need, if that also happens to be self-serving, that doesn’t make you evil.

@lskrocki weird. The US medical system never ceases to amaze me.

the anti-Obama guy emailed me again, accusing me of being neither Italian (never said I was) nor American (which I am). WTF?

Overheard in the mall: “yeah, she’s not gonna have a big butt forever”

survived a day of shopping. I don’t usually have the stamina for this most American of sports

@anildash You’ve been reading Terry Pratchett, I take it.

learn in Italian in Song: Acqua Azzurra, Acqua Chiara

@markingegno hai bisogno di sostegno morale?

@anildash start with “Hogfather”, which is seasonal and makes exactly the parallel you did: grim reaper = Santa Claus. Wildly funny, too.

providing Momly reassurances to the kid. Could use some of the same myself.

@jscusc on a Saturday night, no less. Why ARE you working?

@ThinGuy bring them out to Colorado. the 1-2 inches predicted looks like 4 to me already

@stephenfry So glad to see you & Hugh are still friends. Hear there’s a lot of snark about him in the UK.

@ThinGuy Five?!? wow. In my book, just /having/ more than one is incredibly brave.

don’t know why the neighbors are shoveling/snowblowing their sidewalks and driveways. Snow still coming down hard.

@Halcyon thanks, eggnography.com was fun!

Pandigital photo frame for mother-in-law’s Xmas present looks pretty snazzy. Whole family will contribute photos.

@glynnfoster depending, might still be better than no project at all. Here’s hoping for us warm ‘n fuzzy community types.

@glynnfoster having a job I can be passionate about is why I left Italy. Here’s hoping I get to keep it!

@glynnfoster Happy to say it has been.

@glynnfoster er, has been noticed.

Mom’s tech support, at your service

it’s 1 F here, – something with wind chill. And the neighborhood kids are going sledding. Don’t think I’m cut out for Colorado

transferring old posts about Christmas in Italy to my new WP site.

last night’s SNL was so bad even Hugh Laurie couldn’t save it. Do they not have writers anymore?

@macsun heading there tomorrow myself. Forecast is warmer, but also wetter

two concalls then a shuttle to the airport. Guess I better hurry up and eat some lunch

“Homei Chinese food $1 a scoop” sounds absolutely alarming

“The most typical case is when a number of residents group together to complain about the aroma of Asian cooking” http://tinyurl.com/5c74dm