She’s Leaving Home

July 27, 2007 Deirdre Straughan 10 Comments

What with all the preparations, end of the school year, and various family medical traumas, I have barely had time to dwell on the fact that our daughter is about to leave home.

It’s just as well that I haven’t had that time.

Ross will be away for a full ten months (yes, I will visit). During winter vacation, the SAGE (exchange) program kids go on a one-month tour all over India, and, although it’s optional, Ross won’t want to pass that up. She will finish up at Woodstock next May 30th, presumably with enough course credits to graduate with a Woodstock diploma (equivalent to a US high school diploma).

She could theoretically then return to Italy for her fifth and final year of liceo, do the maturitÃ (Italian school leaving exam), and go on to university in Italy – which has the advantage that it’s essentially free (we have paid for it already through our taxes). However, for reasons that I don’t feel like going into right now (because I’m so angry with the Italian school system), that is looking unlikely at present. So there’s a good chance that Ross will go straight on to college in the US, with only a vacation stopover back home in Lecco. Enrico and I are staring into the abyss of an empty nest.

Not that we thought she’d live with her parents til age 30, as so many Italian young people do – the girls do tend to get away earlier, and Ross just isn’t the type to stay home. There’s a big, wide world out there, and she can’t wait to go see it all.

Ross is also turning 18, just a few days after her school year at Woodstock begins. The 18th birthday is a big deal in Italy: it’s the voting age, the age of legal adulthood, and the age at which you can drive a car (drinking age? that was a while ago). Many kids, at least in Ross’ circles, celebrate 18 in a big way. Ross didn’t quite get her act together for a big party, but had a dinner out with a gang of friends. And we’re going to see a show in London, and will be having a few other treats along the way. Anything to keep me distracted from that moment when I have to wave goodbye to her at the airport.

Comments and shoulders to cry on welcome!

Italy travel

Cartoceto: A Geometric Town in Le Marche

July 24, 2007 Deirdre Straughan Leave a comment

After the phenomenal dinner at Symposium, Susan and I shared a room at the Villa Cartoceto B&B. Though it’s a lovely place and I probably would have enjoyed it in other circumstances, I conclude that the old village houses in this part of Italy are built to withstand cold (or maybe invaders) rather than heat: our room was an oven, and by the time we got back after dinner (2 am) it was far too late to ask our hosts for a fan. We left both windows open, but there was hardly any breeze. I woke up at 5:30 am and sought relief on the rooftop terrace. If there’d only been something to lie on, they’d have found me still out there when they came to serve breakfast.

The view (above) did make up for quite a lot.

After breakfast we had some hours to kill, so we went to have a look at the village (which proved to be almost entirely stone and brick), on a day of record heat. It’s no wonder that we had the place practically to ourselves.

^ This goddess sort of person sits atop a map of the town and one of its churches. Very mysterious.

I love the geometry of Cartoceto. There’s a lot of very tasteful (and very expensive) reconstruction going on – I wonder who’s behind that, and why. There is really not much to look at in the immediate town, no particular monuments (we couldn’t look inside the churches because we were not appropriately dressed).

Many of the houses were being beautifully restored, though few seemed to be inhabited that day.

To give you an idea of the verticals, the photos above and below show the same man. He didn’t move for at least an hour. Not that I blame him: in that heat it was wiser to sit still.

full photo gallery here

Italian food

San Lorenzo Dinner at the Symposium Quattro Stagioni: Arrival

July 23, 2007 Deirdre Straughan 1 Comment

I was one of a lucky group of people to win a dinner offered by San-Lorenzo.com as part of its marketing initiative Il Vino Lo Portiamo Noi (“we’ll bring the wine”). So what if the dinner took place halfway across Italy in le Marche? The Symposium Quattro Stagioni is one of Italy’s top restaurants, and the company at table seemed likely to be as enjoyable as the food.

My friend Susan was one of the group, so we travelled down together in the train from Milan Friday afternoon. Our friend Sara Piperita, the event organizer, was on a train that was supposed to leave earlier, but ended up leaving later. This did not bode well, as we were supposed to meet her in Fano to catch a ride to Cartoceto, the village where the restaurant is located.

We ended up waiting two hours outside the station in Fano, as Antonio Tombolini, head of web marketing for San Lorenzo, got stuck in traffic coming to get us. Travelling in Italy in summer can be absolutely miserable, no matter what means of transport you choose.

We reached the village with just enough time to check into our B&B and take showers, and change before we caught a ride to the restaurant with Roberto and Ludovica. The establishment proved to include lodgings, and a pool with a marvellous view.

As we waited for the group to assemble (18 people in all), chef/owner Lucio Pompili led tours of the wine cellar.

He explained that the bottles are wrapped in plastic to preserve the labels: a 1000-euro bottle of wine can lose 30% of its value if the label is ruined, and still more if it has suffered evaporation loss. (If the wine was 1000 euros good to begin with, I personally would not give a damn about the label.)

Sara’s husband Patrice, who recently qualified as a sommelier (in addition to his day job as a chemist), was in his element.

usability

Forgot My Password: Austin American-Statesman

July 23, 2007 Deirdre Straughan Leave a comment

Another in the ongoing series â€œone million ways to screw up a password reminder page.â€ This oneâ€™s from the Austin American-Statesman, a site I only registered on because a friend forwarded an article I might enjoy, and this is one of those (extremely annoying) sites where you can only read an article if youâ€™re signed in.

Iâ€™ve read maybe one or two articles over the lifetime of this relationship, and now that I want to STOP receiving emails about real estate I will never buy, the American-Statesman is making it as difficult as possible for me to tell them so.

Iâ€™ve started using password-management software in the last year or so, but before I never bothered: I can always get the site to remind me, right? Wellâ€¦

Plus point of this form: your login is your email address, and they tell you so right there on the form.

However, since Iâ€™ve forgotten the password and cannot sign in, there is no apparent reason for me to fill in that box. What I want is the â€œForgot your password?â€ link, and I go straight for that.

When I click it, however, I get an error message as shown below:

Hmm. You donâ€™t see many sites where you must fill in a field in order to click a link. Thatâ€™s confusing.

As instructed, I fill in the email address, THEN click â€œForgot your password?â€

Result: I find myself at a page which is blank except for the American-Statesmanâ€™s top navigation. It does not tell me whether anything happened as a result of my filling in the email address and clicking the link. Did it work? Was there a silent error?

I go back and do it again. Same result. At this point I assume that maybe it worked but no oneâ€™s bothering to tell me.

Later on, in my mailbox, I find that it has worked â€“ in fact the login info has been sent to me twice.

Solutions:

If a field must be filled in to permit a click, use a Submit button rather than a link.

And give your user some !@#$@ feedback on whether the operation was a success!

Italian food

San Lorenzo Dinner at the Symposium Quattro Stagioni – After

July 23, 2007 Deirdre Straughan Leave a comment

We sat around for a while and drank more wine (Alessandro, Enrica, and Ernesto shown above), and played with a new gadget that my boss Fabrizio invented (Carlo came up with the wine glass trick).

I had brought along prototypes to give everybody, as a market test to see how they liked it.

They loved it. Pity I didn’t think to use it myself – my photos would have come out a lot less blurry. You’ll be hearing more about this from me soon – in the meantime, head over to Alessio’s site to check out the contest!

Eventually we moved outside to sit by the pool, where Lucio brought glasses of shaved ice over which he poured grappa. Cooling and warming at the same time!

And, can you believe, there was still more food?!?

We actually did not manage to finish all these, although they were delicious.

Countries Beginning with I

She’s Leaving Home

Cartoceto: A Geometric Town in Le Marche

San Lorenzo Dinner at the Symposium Quattro Stagioni: Arrival

Forgot My Password: Austin American-Statesman

San Lorenzo Dinner at the Symposium Quattro Stagioni – After

Deirdré Straughan on Italy, India, the Internet, the world, and now Australia

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Deirdré Straughan on Italy, India, the Internet, the world, and now Australia