2006

An other splendid day for me. Weather was perfect. Beach was perfect. The low tide made it particularly sexy.So, this morning I went surfing with Kerry, his wife Yukiko (aka Yamamoto) and the little Hannah. Waves were really frustrating, lot of whitewash and a lot flat waves, impossible to ride ... but we really had a good time. We ended up speaking about environment and politics more than surfing. I didn't catch any wave. Kerry caught three. Yamamoto preferred to stay on the beach and play with the little Hannah. This is a picture that Yamamoto took. She told me she wants to print it and put it on the fridge, to convince Kerry that he needs to get into a serious diet program ... poor Kerry ... :D In the afternoon I went running with Yamamoto & Oliver and now I am trying to figure out what I will do tonight. But today is also December 31st. It is the last day of the year. So I guess it is also time to look back to the last 365 days of my life and figure out what they meant to me. So this is my conclusion ... I have been extremely lucky and blessed ... I had what I like the most ... health, friends, travel ... and I feel like the life, in this very moment, is kissing my *ss ... and I am glad of it ... I am enjoying it ... and I am Xing my fingers that it will continue also in 2007 and 2008 and 2009 and 2010 and 2011 and 2012 and 2013 ... and more and more ... let's say until 2100 ... I know ... I don't think I will ever get there alive ... but you can't never know ... X your fingers as well ... please ... :o

RESTROOM DESIGN

I guess that sometimes I find myself to like, appreciate and enjoy forms of design that are not really conventionals. An example are these two pictures that I took today in a restaurant in LA ...

7PM PST

I look at the clock on the microwave oven in my kitchen. It is 7PM here in Los Angeles, California. I make a fast calculation. It is 6AM in Baghdad, Iraq. I open Windows Explorer. I check the breaking news on Internet. Apparently in this very moment Saddam Hussein is going to be executed by hanging. In this same very moment I am also installing Photoshop on my laptop. I can only think that it will take me more to install Photoshop on my laptop, than to other people to kill a man.

How a LETTER saved a LIFE

So ... the story goes like this. Today I wrote some letters to some friend and one to my brother. I love to write postcards and letters. And I am lucky enough to have time to do it. When it was time to put the stamps on them ... I realized that I didn't have enough of them. I decided to go to the post office to buy some of them. I go to my room to get some money and the key of the house. The house key is in a little key chain with the garage door. I find the money, but of course I can't find the key chain. Not a big surprise, lately my room is such a mess. Everything is on the floor. So I start cleaning the floor. Nothing. I check in the pockets of the pants in the dirty laundry. Nothing. In the kitchen. Nothing. In my backpack. Nothing. Back to the room. Nothing again. I feel really stupid. This would be my 3rd house keys lost in the last month. I start thinking that there is something wrong with me. I calm down. I try to think when is the last time I used it. It was probably on Xmas day afternoon, when I moved some stuff to the garage. Come on, it can't be there since then. It is now 3 days. I decide to look again in the house. Nothing. At that point I decide to go to the post office and leave the house door open. I get my money, my yellow envelopes and even if I don't think the key can be in the garage lock ... I decide to ride my bicycle in the alley on the back of the house in front of the garage ... I look for it ... and theeeeeeeeeeeere it is! Hurrah! I stop. The garage door is closed. But I am curious to check if anybody did open it and stole something. I don't think so, but it is also true that the key has been there for 3 days. The garage has an electric motor to open the door. I turn the key. The garage door slowly opens. And a cat jumps out of the garage! I can't believe this! That poor cat has been there for 3 days ... with no water and no food. Probably it did enter on Xmas day and it was asleep when I closed the door. Poor cat. I am glad that I did open that door. I think how all this did happen and why I did look for the key chain. I look at the yellow envelops that I have in my hands ... and I smile ... they really saved that poor cat life ... :o

A JOURNEY with the WIND

Treat me like a grain of this sand ... give me some of your energy ... make me fly ... carry me away ... away ... don't leave me here ... I want to come with you ... free to travel ... everywhere ... make me visit every city ... enter every single road ... touch every single person ... let me carry away the smell of every single food ... make me cross the oceans ... cross every border ... with no passport ... no VISA ... and at the end of this journey ... help me to cover with all the other grains of sand every single tank and weapon of this crazy planet ... OK ... I am not completely nut ... or maybe yes ... :o ... this was just what I thought today at sunset while I was on the beach taking pictures of the mighty wind that hit Hermosa Beach ...

... the pictures are not really good enough to make you understand ... how wonderful it was ... sorry for that ... :o

BECOME the HERO of your OWN LIFE

For a strange coincidence a couple of months ago I was reading the original (i.e. Greek) definition of the word hero. It is pretty interesting. Hero is a mythological character not a God and not necessarily related with Gods. A hero is a human able to do things which seem impossible to other people. Doing so the person becomes a hero and a symbol for the rest of the people. While I was reading that definition I thought that in order to be realy happy I should become the hero of my own life ... the quote that came out was ... "Become the hero of your own life" ... a quote that I did like and since then I repeated to myself every time I had to take an important decision, like when I had to decide to take a sabbatical. For an other strange coincidence today I did search with Google that exact quote. Of course I found that someone way before me came out with the same exact quote. And I found a wonderful speech by Doris "Granny D" Haddock. She is 96. I didn't know her before today, but I already love her. This is the speech. Reading it made me almost cry. I hope you have 5 minutes to read it. If I know you I bet these will be the best 5 minutes of your day.
________________________

Be Open to Your Own Genius
September 5, 2002
Speaking to students at Franklin Pierce College, New Hampshire

Thank You,
I know you all are grateful to be on campus and finally, safely away from all your grandparents and aunts and uncles who have been asking you what you will major in, what career you have chosen, and where you plan to retire and be buried. Older people are stuck in a view of the world that is quite rigid. You go to school --according to this view-- learn a trade or profession, get married, get a house, raise kids to take your place, have a well-attended funeral, and then do your part to increase New England's insufficient topsoil.
The institutions of great New England schools like Franklin Pierce are so reliably longstanding that they create a mirage of constancy, when in fact the world is changing rapidly and the plannable world of your parents and your aunts and uncles is being swept away.
For you, college will be a lifelong affair. You cannot learn enough here in four years to get you through your entire life. Your life will be about constant learning and growing through a number of related or unrelated careers, and that is a dramatic improvement in the condition of human beings --if life is about maximizing our potential, which it indeed is.
You will have a number of personal relationships in your life. I am glad to have had one marriage to one husband, but your life may well be quite different. While I recommend loyalty, I know the statistics today.
The bright side of this difficult emotional terrain is that you will have the opportunity to experience enriching pain and you will have the advantage of essentially living several lives, to my one.
Of all the shifting sands your tents will be pitched upon, perhaps the condition of the earth's ecosystem and its democracies will present you with the greatest changes and challenges. If the great present division persists between the world's poor and rich, I assure you that you will live in a violent world, and that the tragedy of September 11 will be remembered as the beginning of such things in your experience.
If the great exploitation of the earth's resources persists at the expense of sustainability, you will experience the flooding of Venice and other great seacoast cities and treasured beaches, and you will curse the generation before you that let it happen without trying harder to end the corruption and the selfish misuse of resources. But you will learn to adapt and to fight for the planet's survival. Your career and your life will be about this struggle, one way or the other.
Yours may be the most privileged generation to ever have lived upon earth. I don't mean that you have soft advantages, but that you find yourself in a time when your individual contribution will have a heroic importance to the world. This may sound overblown. It may make no sense to you for an old woman to stand here and tell you that you, personally, are the hero or heroine whose actions will decide things for a troubled world. But I think that may indeed be the case. Our lives are more beautifully linked than you can imagine, and the genius of one life can affect all the others in unimaginable ways.
You must become the hero of your own life in any case, and that is enough for your happiness, regardless of your degree of extension into the world.
Finding your genius is sometimes a hard trick. Sometimes it is easily spotted, embraced and nurtured. But some of you will not find it until you are old and gray. Some of you will never find it, though it was always there for you to find, I assure you. Sometimes we see it and do not want to find it quite where it pops up. "Well, yes, I happen to be very good at that, but, Dear Lord, I don't want to be that for life."
Indeed, you may turn away from your own genius many times before it comes knocking with a baseball bat on some dark night of the soul.
Be open to your own genius. Fearlessly try everything in life. See what gives you energy instead of taking your energy away. Discover the things that keep you joyfully up until 6 a.m. Sex, of course, doesn't count, because we are all geniuses at thinking about that. It's a given.
If you can't get excited about anything in the way of a first career, don't despair. Keep exploring. You are on a Grail quest, and your quest will be rewarded if you keep combing through life, looking for the thing that sparkles for you. It is there, believe me. It is your soul. It is your life's work.
Finding your soul is a great project. But it is not the only happiness to be enjoyed in your life --especially in these glory days of your youth. Take time each day to look at the beautiful lives around you. Look with love from above at these lives, and be a force for good in them. My, we all need each other very much. There is no better way to find your own heart than to look with kindness to the needs of others. We cannot find ourselves except though friendship and love and serious respect for the lives around us.
I spoke at a graduation here two years ago. When the student newspaper of Dartmouth heard about that, they kidded that Dartmouth was trying to keep up by getting the old "where's the beef" lady for their own commencement. But you are staying far ahead of Dartmouth in this game by seeing their "where's the beef" lady and raising them another Haddock. And I will, if you like, meet their old woman in a fair fight and I shall have her on the ropes because I know where the beef is. I know the answer to the big question. The big question is "what are we to do with our lives?" And the beefy answer is this: we are to look at this life with eyes of love and find for our hands those things that bring us the most joy and curious interest. That is a simple prescription for a happy life and a happy college career, and I challenge Dartmouth to see if their old woman can do any better for them than I have done for you.
Thank you.

A JOLLY SURFING XMAS

I need to be honest ... for this Xmas ... in the imaginary letter that I sent to Santa ... I asked a couple of things ... have a sunny Xmas day with nice glassy waves ... and an other more personal request ... but I guess that is too personal for the blog ... but again if you know me ... it is pretty easy to find out what it was ... :o And I have to admit that Santa made be really happy this year ... so after a boogie nite ... I woke up and even if completely sleepy I recognize that ... I was in the moooooooooost perfect Xmas day I ever had ... at 9AM we had already 68F degrees (i.e. 19C), the sky was blue, and no wind ... and high tide ... so the waves were perfectly glassy. But as usual the unexpected is always the best ... and today the unexpected was Bryan, who never dressed a wetsuit before, and put it backwards ... so Justin and I had to convince him that in the wetsuit the zipper is in the back and not in the front ... really funny! And of course we didn't miss to take a picture ... so here we were ... Justin, Bryan and myself in my porch ready to walk down to the beach and go surfing ...... unfortunately ... I forgot to ask to Santa to made me a master in surfing at least during the Xmas day ... so I caught my waves ... but nothing impressive ... but again ... my fault ... I didn't ask to Santa ... I will have to remember for next year ... hopefully I will still be here for an other incredible Jolly Surfing Xmas ... :D

THE BEST XMAS GIFT EVER

... an other Xmas somewhere else ... this time in LA ... an other Xmas far away from my parents ... and even if they love to travel as much as I do and they love to know that I am enjoying my travels ... they would like to spend the Xmas all together. I think this was the 8th Xmas that I spend far away ... but I think this year we figured out a way to make the distance smaller ... and of course it was with Skype ... ADSL connection ... a webcam ... and here they are ... these are my parents and my brother back in Italy ... celebrating Xmas ... there was Xmas eve ... here was the 24th at 3PM ...... and we had also my granny ... on Skype ... really really nice to see them ... and spend more than 1 hour speaking and looking to each other ... really nice ... my parents told me that was the best Xmas gift I ever gave them ... the same was for me ... :D

JUSTIN is in the SURF CLUB

Today the surf was up. A pity that I got busted by the beer last nite so I couldn't really wake up to catch the best waves. But more important today has been also the day of the official induction of Justin into the 244 Monterey Blvd Surf Club. Not sure why but we waited for so long to have Justin into the club. Probably just laziness. The ceremony was as usual very short but of course he had to wear the origina Hawaiian lei ... swear to believe in our motto ... Peace & Love ... which is not difficult for such a nice guy like Justin ... recognize Nelson Mandela as our mentor ... and there you go ... Justin is finally in the club ... and this is the new official Surf Club board ... in 2006 we had 4 new entries ... Jason, Jason, Oliver and Justin ... and of course ... we are ready to release the 2007 version of the 244 Monterey Blvd Surf Club TShirt. All sizes fom S to XXL are available ... :o ... I know everybody are already thrilled by such announcement ... ehehehe ... so here some rumors for you ... looks like the style will be very similar to the 2006 model ... here it is ...

... but of course suggestions are more than welcome ... :D

EXACTLY ONE YEAR AGO

Exactly one year ago I was backpacking in Mexico ... and I was in a wonderful place ... I was in the Magic Hostel in San Cristobal de Las Casas, Chiapas ... but ... I was sick ... food poisoning ... or something close enough to that ... they call it Montezuma revenge ... what a luck ... I thought ... it is almost Xmas, I don't know anybody here and I am sick ... I was planning to leave San Cristobal de Las Casas the very same day that I woke up with fever and stomachache ... I had to change all my plans ... but at the end it turned out to be one of of my best Xmas ever ... thanks to some good antibiotic I recovered in 2 days ... and I spent the Xmas nite with my new friends in the hostel ... we all cooked together ... of course I cooked some pasta ... and we had a very nice time ... I just put all the pictures of that nite on the blog ... with the date of December 25th 2005 ... if you want to have a look click here ... OK ... this is one of my favorite pictures of the day ...... it was taken at the local market where some of us went to buy food for the dinner. And this is an other one that I really like ... myself and my friend Celine preparing the pasta sauce .... pretty funny picture ...I am not sure what I will do for Xmas this year ... what I know is that last year was really something special and unique. Sometimes in life you need also to thank you a food poisoning ... at least I have to ... :D

SABBATICAL DREAM

We were seating in front of a couple of tea mugs in a coffee shop here in Hermosa, and of course we were daydreaming about traveling, backpacking, a world without injustices ... and of course we spoke about our plans to take a sabbatical. And of course I was excited about my plan to take a sabbatical in 2009. At a certain point ... So tell me again, Andrea, what do you want to do during your sabbatical? Mmmm ... I have a lot of plans actually. For example? First of all, I don't want to backpack for 1 year. But you want to travel, right? I don't see you resting on your couch for 1 year. Of course, of course! So here are some of my plans. Open my B&B. Work in a kind "peace corp" in a war / postwar zone. Chase whales around the globe. Chase girls around the globe. Try to become a photo reporter. Live in a Tibetan monastery. Become really proficient in massage. Learn a new language, like Chinese. Live in a mission in Africa ... mmm ... the last one ... Surf 24x7 in some isolated pacific island. Hey Andrea. You are serious right about this sabbatical, right? Of course I am. So do you realize that you can do only one of these things? Right, I know. May be a couple, if I am lucky. So what is your dream? Her question hit my heart like a dart. My eyes were open but I couldn't see anymore my friend. I saw myself at the end of my life looking back to what I did for the people around me who really were in need of help and I understood I could to only one thing out of my sabbatical. I saw a couple of imagines. Houses completely destroyed in a war zone ...... and kids living in the same city, still able to smile after countless days of violence ... and still dreaming of a better future ... a peaceful future ...... that word "dream" made me decide in that very moment that my sabbatical could be spend only in one way. You are right ... I would like to work in a kind "peace corp" in a war / postwar zone. Yes, this is my dream. In that very moment I knew that I took a decision. And now a small note. The two pictures in this post are not mine but were taken by friends who were living and working in a pacifist group called Operation Dove in the Palestinian Occupied Territories, when I was working and living in Tel Aviv, Israel. I met them in Jerusalem, through a common friend and I immediately loved what they were doing. I believe these pictures are from the Gaza strip. And this is exactly where I would like to spend my sabbatical. Not necessarily in the Palestinian occupied territories, but in an area where there is the worst human invention ... this horrible thing called WAR ... there is where, I want to be because I think I can really help people. I am not sure if will be possible to work this these friends, especially for logistic reasons and training reasons probably I will need to go with a US based organization. But there it is. This is my dream for my sabbatical in 2009.

MY FIRST CREPE

I was told they are really simple to cook if you have a good pan and the right spatula ... and it is true, it is very simple to cook a crepe ... but of course things can always go wrong ... so I was really glad when the first one came out in a decent shape, thickness and it wasn't even burned ... and apparently Jill was happy as well ...... I can't remember if she smiled also after she eat it ... :O ... yes the one in the picture is my first crepe ever ... and tonight was a kind of tasty dry run ... for the Xmas lunch I am planning to prepare. If you haven't never prepared them ... try it. It is really simple and it is a lot of fun ... and you can fill them with whatever you want. I really liked the one with vegetables and feta cheese. But of course nothing is beating the Nutella one ... :D

UBUNTU

... dirty dishes ... and pots and glasses and silverware ... lots of them ... yes ... this is pretty much what you have after a dinner at your place ... when you invite 10 people like I did last nite ...... or at least this is what you see with your eyes ... but there is something that you can't see ... and just feel inside you. It is something much more powerful. It is the happiness to cook for your friends, and share with them something unique ... or at least this is the way I feel ... and reminds me of strange African word ... that I discover few months ago. Since then it is a kind of compass for me. The word is ubuntu, and it is difficult to translate. More than a word is almost an ideology. It can be translated in something like "A person 'becomes human' through other persons" and I guess means that we really need other people around us in order to be really what we are supposed to be. It is a very strong concept in a selfish society like the one where we are used to live everyday. If you are interested here a couple of links to an old BBC NEWS and to WIKIPEDIA. You know what? We don't have a dish washer in our place but I don't really care. I prefer to wash dishes forever, but know that I have friends who shared the meal with me ... but of course if you will be my guests and you will like to wash them you will be more then welcome to do it ... :D

GETTING INTO CHARACTER

... did you ever have this strange schizophrenic feeling ... before start doing something new ... that you don't really want to do it ... but at the same time ... you feel that you really want to do it? This is exactly what happens to me every time I need to decide if I want to go to run or not ... it is always difficult to leave the comfortable couch ... and go to run for whatever it is ... half hour ... 1 hour ... 2 hours ... and there ... something happens in my head .... what really helps me ... is to think about the cloths I will wear ... my comfortable socks ... my silver sneakers ... my light running shorts with the small pocket for the house key ... my black ad warm shirt ... my stopwatch ... is what I call ... getting into character ... so tonight ... after my 3/4 hour run ... and before taking the shower ... I liked the light in my room and ... I decided to take a self portrait ... and here it is ... and I really liked it ... because ... it makes me feel like I am really a runner ... which is ... in a way ... confirming a funny theory that I rad on a book ... the author was basically saying that you do better the job you do ... if you get the right cloths. He was saying ... that even if you are working from home ... you should dress up like if you go to the office, or if you meet your customer ... I am not sure if it true ... but I guess it is ... at least for me it works ... when I am doing sports ... but I don't think I will wear my slacks tomorrow while I will be working from home ... :D

WE BELIEVE IN XMAS

... Hey Dustin welcome! What's up!? ... What's up!? ... let me ask you this ... do you guys believe in Xmas? ... mmm ... I guess so ... why? ... Why? What do you mean why!? ... because your place is the only one in the Blvd without any decoration ... Really!? .... Yes ... dude ... the only one! ... You guys have to do something ... otherwise people will start thinking that you are weirdo ... mmm ... probably you right ... lemme check ... I should have some lights ... Better you have them dude ... and after some minutes ... I found them! ... Ehehe! ... OK ... let me work on this ... and ... after a mighty ordeal against impossible knots ... here they are ... the Xmas lights also in our place ...... and now ... I can proudly say ... that we believe in Xmas ... mmm .... sometimes ... I really think ... conventions are stronger than believes ... such a pity ... is what our society is all about nowadays!?

PALM READING in a RAINY DAY

... rainy days are always a drama here in Southern California ... everybody get in a bad mood ... with a kind of end of world feeling ... nobody can drive anymore ... and because flip flop don't really have a good grip under the rain ... people stay home ... checking every five minutes weather channel ... and sometimes the window too ... and this is exactly what did happen today ... Saturday ... after a smooth and dry landing in LA ... flying over the so much hated 405 ... finally empty ...... it did start to rain and rain ... so ... I found myself ... kind of lost ... with my flip flop ... and I did something I never did before ...probably influenced by a conversation I had a couple of weeks ago with a friend ... I went on Google to check how to read my palm ...... and of course I found a website ... where ... thru images ... you can easily read your palm ... and ... this is my palm reading ...

"First let's take a look at your Life Line. You have the best kind of Life Line, long and clearly marked. This shows that you will possess good health, vitality and a very nice life expectancy. The cramped nature of your Life Line would also seem to indicate a cautious life style, and perhaps a limited love life. The little lines you see extending downward from your Life Line are indicators of your tendency to waste your energy. The island in your Life Line could indicate a period of hospitalization or some other kind of recuperation. Now let's see what your Head Line had to say. Your Head Line is deep, long and straight, stretching across the palm. This indicates a logical and direct way of thinking. The straighter the line, the more realistic the thinking, and the deeper the line, the better the memory. Having your Head Line and Heart Line separated shows a love for adventure and an enthusiasm for life. The last line we'll look at is your Heart Line. A slight disregard to the true meaning of love and its responsibilities are indicated by a Heart Line like yours that starts between the middle and index finger. You tend to easily give your heart away. The small lines you may see extending upward from your Heart Line are a good sign, as they illustrate happiness in love. You have a spade-shaped hand. This is the hand of an inventor. You are probably very good with all things mechanical. Often those who've forged new paths in science and engineering have a spade-shaped hand."

... unfortunately no chance to understand where I have to bet the money for tomorrow football games ... :o ... and because life is a matter of coincidences ... while I was reading a book today ... I found out one of my favorite characters ... Corto Maltese (i.e. a fictional character, a sailor-adventurer created by the Italian comic book creator Hugo Pratt) ... when was 10 ... ask to a gypsy to read his palm and when the gypsy told him ... that his hand didn't have the Luck Line ... he went home and with a razor ... he made a cut deep and precise in his left palm ... the Luck Line ... of course ... :o ... that is attitude ... that is what I love in Corto Maltese ... and now the rain is over ... gonna run ... and I guess for today I won't look for the Luck Line ...

DRINKING XMAS

... even if most of the time I drink because otherwise I feel stupid and lost looking my friends drinking ... I have to admit that I enjoy drinking alcohol ... and I want to believe that I don't have an addiction to it ... yet ... at least according to the US standard ... where you need to drink 5+ drinks per day to have an addiction ... :D ... anyways ... during Friday's party I had the chance to check ... how funny can get a dude really drunk ... this is what Martin did ... when we run out of wood for the fire place ... I tried to burn the restroom door ...... not sure if someone stop him on time ... or if he wasn't that wasted to really think that the door could fit in the fire place ... I guess ... kinda disappointed ... he managed to leave his personal signature in the Native Scene ... and that ... wasn't the restroom door ... fortunately ...... eheheh ... I love drunk dudes ... most of the time ... they have the guts to do things that sober people only dream about ... I think everybody should get a little bit tipsy time to time ...

FRIENDS

... I guess ... that one of the qualities that I love the most in people is ... honesty ... you know ... this strange quality of being always able to tell the truth ... even when it is not convenient ... and of course ... I expect it from my friends ... mmm ... probably the right word is not even expect ... it should be ... demand ... at the same time ... sometimes it hurts ... :o... and in the last couple of days ... it did hurt a little my small ego ... ehehe ... after I broke my surfboard I got the feeling ... I really have good and honest friends ... mmm ... too much ... so ... the other day I got an email from a friend ... that was saying ... quoting her email ... I am sorry for your board but if you cannot surf just do not do it :-) ... and today I got this wonderful gift ... ehehe ... yep ... there is nothing like good and honest friends ... I love them ... BTW ... I left my surfing passion in a corner for few days ... I pulled out my sneakers ... my running socks ... and now instead of getting wet in the ocean ... I am getting sweat ... while I am running ... :D

TONIGHT

... tonight... the night between December 12th and 13th ... is the night ... or at least ... it was the night ... it was used to be the most important night of the year when I was a kid ... it was when Santa Lucia (i.e. Saint Lucy) was used to bring to all the kids of my Bergamo, my town back in Italy, gift and goodies. I guess most of you don't know what I am speaking about ... but basically ... when I was a kid ... we were not used to have Santa Claus carrying gift and goodies ... to us ... but we has Santa Lucia ... so ... we had to clean our room ... fix as much as possible the old presents ... and go to sleep way early ... because according to the tradition ... if Santa Lucia was going to find us awake ... was going to throw ashes in our eyes and of course leave the house without leaving gifts and goodies ... the reason of the ashes in the eyes comes from the fact that Santa Lucia was a Christian martyr ... made blind by the Romans ... a kind of complicated story ... anyways ... I have to admit that one of the biggest disillusions of my life has been when I found out that wasn't actually Santa Lucia to carry the presents but were actually my parents ... I still remember that when I was told by my friends that I couldn't believe it ... :O ... but I have a kind of accepted it ... so ... this evening I bought a gift for myself ... but still ... I am gonna sleep early ... you can't never know ... :D

THE BEST & THE WORST

... the phone is ringing ... Jason? ... why is Jason calling me ... it is noon ... mmm ... probably something strange did happen ... Jason, what's up? ... Come on man, get your wetsuit on ... I am coming home ... Wetsuit? Coming home? But it is noon ... half day today? ... No man, we are going surfing ... did you see the waves? ... mmmm ... no ... actually no ... you should have ... they are just perfect ... big and glassy ... you should see them ... I am coming back home to surf for the lunch break ... Really!? ... yes ... really ... they are so nice ... man ... they are just perfect ... I will be there in 2 ... get your wetsuit and let's go ... mmm ... I check my watch ... it is noon ... mmm ... and I think ... why not? ... it is my lunch break ... I can do it ... OK ... let me send a couple of emails ... put my contacts ... and I am ready ... Jason gets home ... and in 2 minutes we are ready ... we go down ... in 2nd street ... and yes ... he was right ... they are just perfect ... 2 minutes of stretching ... and we are in the water ... not even too cold ... Jason gets a great right ... I go after him ... I take a left ... a backdoor ... a tube ... I see the end but I can't get out ... the waves closes before I am out ... but it is just great ... I paddle out again ... we chit chat a little ... we realize how lucky we are ... new sets of waves are coming ... Jason gets an other couple of good one ... I get mine ... an other left ... an other tube ... 1 ... 2 ... 3 ... 4 ... 5 seconds into it ... but again ... it closes ... I didn't manage to make all the way out of the tube ... but those 4 -5 seconds ... that I spent in the barrel ... covered by the tube of water ... were just perfect ... THE BEST ... so here I am in the water ... waiting for some other wave ... thinking to an other tube ... checking the watch to go home ... and continue to work ... I want to catch the last one ... I am waiting for a small one ... and a big wave comes ... cr*p ... I am too close to the shore ... I am paddling out ... yes ... I can make it ... but I am tired ... come on Andrea ... paddle paddle paddle ... I don't want that piece of sh*t ... to suck me in ... I paddle harder ... but I am tired ... I can do it ... no I can't ... sh*t ... the wave breaks just on me ... it sucks me in ... I am underwater ... but I manage to get out .... the board ... gets into the pipe of the wave as well ... and bang ... when it comes out ... THE WORST ... it is cracked in the middle ...... yep ... my beloved surfboard ... is gone ... is dead ... it is not worth to fix it ... the damage is too big ... it is just good for the trash bin ... such a pity ... and it will cost me also some serious money to get a new one now ... I am upset ... but not too much ... these things happen ... I am glad ... anyways that I went out ... I don't want to live regretting ... the things that I could have done ... and that I never did ... an I am thinking also tha ... what is really strange is that ... the best and the worst of the things sometimes are so close ... almost ... indissoluble ... inseparable ... like two sides of the same coin ... I am not sure why ... but it is like this most of the time ... to get something ... you need to risk something ... and you can't win all the time ... but again ... it is also true that life is not what happens around you ... but it is rather what you see that happens around you ... and ... I want to believe that today ... even the worst ... hasn't been that bad ... and ... I got still the best out of my life ...

HEART ATTACK

... when the old man looked into my eyes and asked me ... so ... tell me ... if really you are a man ... with a heart ... how can you kill an other person only because he has a different idea from yours? ... my mind got completely blind ... my eyes got wet ... I almost cried ... I looked at his eyes ... and in that moment I was sure ... that he knew people who were killed by them ... by the ... death squads ... that the Pinochet regime created after the 1973 coup ... I didn't have the heart to ask him if my feeling was right ... I didn't want to see that old man cry. That was the first time that I found a Chilean willing to speak about the Pinochet era ... I didn't know if I had to be glad that I had finally the chance to speak about this topic with a person who lived it ... or feel guilty because in some way I forced him to remember such painful moment. One week later ... I wasn't able to stop those tears ... and I cried ... I cried hard ... so hard that I wasn't able to speak for several minutes ... it did happen ... after I finish to watch with a friend ... the movie Machuca (the story of two Chilean youngsters who are living the 1973 Pinochet coup) ... and I tried to explain her what I knew about the coup and the horrible crimes of the Pinochet era ... so ... I explain her ... what I knew about the desaparecidos ... and I tried to give her examples ... telling her ... what I read ... that for example ... has been proven that ... when the death squads arrested communist ... if they among them ... they had pregnant women close to deliver ... they were basically ... making them deliver and after that ... before killing the mom ... they were telling to the mom that the kid was going to be given to a family ... with the right anticommunist values ... so that kid was going to grow up in a family that was going to teach him / her ... that a good communist is only a dead communist ... and believe me ... even now ... picturing such a situation in my head ... almost makes me cry again. And when I went to Santiago, Chile and I saw La Moneda ... the presidential palace ...... that was half destroyed by the bombs dropped by the airplanes during the 1973 coup ... and where the elected president Salvador Allende found his death ... I finally ... understood ... you can't do these things if you have a soul and a heart. So today ... when I read that Pinochet died ... because of a heart attack ... I didn't open any bottle of Champagne ... but I thought that is was a paradox ... that a person without a soul could die ... and that a person without a heart could die because of a heart attack ... yep ... today ... December 10th 2006 ... a man without heart ... died for a heart attack ...

CALIFORNIA SURFING SAFARI

... so ... it was supposed to be a surfing safari ... a California Surfing Safari ... 2 days of surfing and camping in San Onofre, CA ... at the end it went in a slightly different way ... but still it has been a great day ... so ... starting from the begin ... the main characters of this strange winter surfing safari are Oliver and Andrea (myself) ... who ... tired of the mini waves that Hermosa gave them lately ... thought to go south ... in the San Diego county ... more precisely in the San Onofre State Beach ... and with very little planning ... but with the car full of wood for the fire ... food ... alcohol ... surfboards, wax and wetsuits ... managed to wake up at 6.30AM and leave Hermosa Beach few minutes after 7AM ... ... but we were not the only one with such an idea ... so in San Onofre ... we found lot of surfers ready to ride some waves of the first winter swell ... finally good waves for everybody ...... and it was really worthwhile ... the waves were just perfect ... from 3 to 6 feet ... with a nice shape ... and it was fun ... even if ... we found really a lot of dudes out there ... :o ... in case you can't see them ... the dudes are the strange black dots in the water ... thanks G-D ... they weren't bad ... because San Onofre is really in the middle on nowhere ... mmm ... actually there is a Nuclear Reactor ... just 500 meters from the beach ... which makes the water a little bit warmer I guess ... :O ... anyways ... :O ... is really in the middle of nowhere ... so there is no local people ... who doesn't like strangers and is giving them a bad time in the water ...... so ... checked the waves ... got the surfboards off the car ... under an incredible and wonderful blue sky ... we were almost ready to go ...... but ... before going into the water ... or quoting Pulp Fiction ... before "getting into character" ... I had to take my usual ... self portrait ... you know ... in case I was bitten by a shark ... or sacked into a wave ... my mom had an updated picture to put on my tombstone ... ehehehe ... not the best ... but better than nothing ...... so ... we spent all day surfing ... with a couple of breaks to get some food ... and honestly ... I thought we did bring too much food ... but in reality was not that much ... after you spend 6 hours in the cold water ... you are really hungry. The only thing that didn't work in our loose plan ... was that we didn't manage to spend there the entire weekend ... we planned to camp there ... but ... this year they decided to close the campground in winter ... so we took a shower ... we finish the food that was left ... and still excited for the wonderful day surfing ... we packed our surfing safari ... with a nice picture ...... and we left ... direction north ... destination Los Angeles ... and I guess we were lucky ... because after we left ... some serious shower came ... and I am not sure if I my old tent is still waterproof ... :O ... and I guess ... it is never a good moment to find out ... that your tent isn't waterproof anymore ... :) ... but we have decided to repeat these surfing trips also in the next weeks ...

CONCENTRATION

... even if this doesn't really look like an office desk ... this was my office desk ... at lunch time today ... laptop WiFi connected to Internet ... notebook .. cell phone ... coffee mug ... and pizza for lunch ...... yep ... I cooked it ... I mean ... I pulled out from the freezer ... added some onion ... and put it in my kitchen oven ... and of course this is my kitchen table ... yep ... lately I have been working a lot from my home ... they call it remote work ... and for me it is almost a choice ... and I have to say that it is pretty nice ... but it is also pretty frustrating ... it is not easy to work far away from my colleagues ... and most of them are in New Jersey and in Dallas, Texas ... trying to keep in contact with email ... IM (i.e. Instant Message) ... phone ... and SKYPE calls ... and the hardest part ... is to keep concentrated ... the first days that I was working from home ... I had the desk facing the window ... but I decided to turn my shoulder to it ... too easy to get distracted .... yep ... I guess concentration is one of my biggest weaknesses ... I am not sure if it happens to you as well ... but sometimes I find myself ... daydreaming ... thinking about my things ... :o ... I guess it is not that bad ... it helps creativity ... but not all the time ... and I feel guilty ... so ... I want to believe this is a challenge for me ... but ... if you know any good hint to keep concentration ... let me know ... I really need it ... :o

10cents

... when I started this blog ... I named it ... walk the earth ... because it was supposed to record all my experiences in my ... hopefully ... endless trip around our wonderful blue planet ... while I am trying to know it ... understand it ... and enjoy it ... but more I am writing into it ... more I realize ... a couple of things ... first is that ... this blog is really a trip into myself ... in the sense that ... I really describe ... the way I bite ... chew and ... digest ... the world out there ... and second ... that sometimes I don't really need to leave my place to experience really what is out there ... this is exactly ... what did happen yesterday ... so ... it is ... 8.30AM ... and like every Wednesday morning ... I am putting out the trash bins ... on the curb in front of our place ... enjoying the warm winter California sun ... and the bright light ... that makes me happy to wake up every single day ...... I come back ... I close the door ... I am in the kitchen brewing my coffee ... and I hear a noise coming from the front yard ... strange ... Leif and Jason have left more than half hour ago ... mmm ... I am curious ... I am going to check ... there is a person ... a man ... and a bag almost bigger than him ... there ... where the trash bins are ... the man is looking into the trash bin ... the blue one ... the one where we put the recyclable stuff ... mmm ... what is he doing ... he is pulling out all the beer cans ... if you return them in the collection center ... every can makes 10cents .... it takes him less than 15 seconds ... he is done with our bins ... he pulls his huge bag ... and he puts it on his shoulders ... the bag looks bigger than the man ... the man doesn't make any noise ... but the bag makes a strange noise ... metallic ... I can't keep my eyes open ... I close them ... and I want to imagine that today is Xmas and ... what I am hearing ... is the noise of the Santa Claus bag carrying gifts ... but that's a lie ... I open my eyes ... and I see the man with his bag full of 10cents cans ... he is moving ... next house ... he doesn't look to our house ... his eyes are looking to the next blue bin ... I am wondering what he is thinking ... and I find myself to think ... I am here in my living room ... alone ... I have in my hands a warm mug of fresh brewed Starbucks coffee ... I brewed it ... but I could have gone to the Starbucks shop ... at the pier ... to buy it ... it would have cost me $3 ... today I didn't do it ... just because I was in a rush to start working ... so ... here I am ... looking a man looking into my trash ... every beer can makes 10cents ... he will need to collect 30 empty beer cans ... to go to Starbucks to buy a fresh brewed coffee ... but probably he won't do it ... he will have to feed his family ... I can't think about it ... I think something is wrong in our wonderful blue planet ... and I feel guilty ... but I don't really know what to do ... the only thing that ... I have decided to start doing ... from yesterday ... is to squeeze all the beer cans and put them in a separate bag ... hopefully ... I will help him to save time and space in the bag ... I know it is sad ... I know ...

HIDING SOMETHING?

... OK ... this post is dedicated to the 3 people ... and embarrassing enough ... one of them is my mom ... who asked ... to have a decent picture of me ... with the beard ... so ... here it is ... this is my new look ... with my new beard ... and thanks to Jill for taking this picture ... finally I have a decent picture of me ... :) ... this look is a kind of new for me ... last time that I had the beard ... it was back in 1997 ... and it was during my master thesis ... and I guess I grew it because I wanted to change the way I looked ... but it didn't last that long ... this time ... I was basically forced to grow it ... because during my trip to Chile & Argentina ... after the sprain ankle ... the 2 days of fever ... a couple of car accidents ... I had also ... a pretty nasty cold sore on my lip ... and ... I decided not to shave for few days ... and because the cold sore was really nasty ... and it took almost 4 weeks to heal ... I basically found myself ... bearded ... and I realized that I kind of liked it ... so ... I decided to take care of it and keep it ... but every morning when I wake up I look at myself in the mirror and I remember what ... a very good colleague and friend of mine was used to say ... that bearded men have something to hide ... :O ... so now that I have grown a beard I am wondering ... what am I hiding? Honestly ... I don' know ... :O

IRAN & GREEN CARD

... I guess it is difficult in these days to find employees willing to go to work in Iran ... so when I heard that my company was looking for people willing to go there for a project ... I showed some interest in it ... and I wrote about it ... to one of my senior colleagues ... he replied me back with a single word email ... and this word was ... insanity ... :) ... an other colleague ... was a little more elaborated ... but ... equally effective ... and he replied me back something like ... I didn't know the California beaches were that bad ... and an other one ... who already lives and works in Iran ... wrote me ... that he is really enjoying living in a country where ... globalization is just one of the useless words on the dictionary ... an Iranian colleague who is working here in US ... told me that with my interests ... I will enjoy for sure the historical beauties of Iran ... so here I am ... confused ... in a way I am really tempted to do a working experience in a country which is really unique ... and continue my ... walk the earth ... at the same time I feel like I need to stay here in US ... especially ... because I am in the process of requesting a green card ... and would be really really stupid to blow up everything now ... a green card is basically a permanent resident status in US ... and basically it would put me in the situation to continue to work here in US without any new working VISA ... and that is something really great ... but believe me ... I feel I am betraying what I like the most about my life ... walk the earth. So I promised to myself ... that if after I will get the Green Card ... there will be some opening for Iran ... I will go there for 6 months - 1 year ... I am pretty sure ... that I won't be able to live there for a longer period ... because ... I really believe that freedom and respect of the human rights ... are of the most precious values we have in the Western World ... and I don't want to give them up ... and ... unfortunately ... I don't think that Iran ... at the moment ... is a forerunner in freedom and human rights ...

iPod

... I love it ... I love it ... and I love it again ... it is the MUSIC ... I simply love it ... and ... I truly believe that ... it is one of the most incredible things the human kind has ever invented ... it can change my mood like the the sun in a gloomy day ... and it is so great to share it with other people ... like in a concert ... mmmm ... I still have the secret dream to become a rock star like Bono Vox ... but I guess that with my voice ... it is just one of the dreams ... that will never happen ... in the meantime ... I have done something that will help me to put all the music that I love in the pocket of my jeans ... and ... carry it always with me ... I have copied all my 300+ CD on my iPod ... it has been a monumental work ...... but now I am really happy ... not sure why I have waited for so long to upload it ... I have the iPod since May ... when one of my best friends ever gave it to me as birthday gift ... mmm ... probably it is my laziness to do new things ... to change ... sometimes I find myself waiting forever to do something ... that I badly need ... just because I am terribly lazy ... anyways ... I guess that I need to add it to the list of funny things that I do and that one day I will show to my counsellor ... anyways ... now it is over ... and I have all my music in the iPod ... and I was thinking that ... in a way it is amazing that I can carry all my music with me ... in an other way ... it is disturbing ... the possibility to isolate myself from everybody around me ... during the last trip to Patagonia ... I tried to use it as less as possible when I was in a bus or I had around other people ... I preferred to try to know my neighbours ... rather than isolate myself ... mmmm ... I guess ... sometimes ... when you love too much something or someone ... you put ... your headset on ... you just listen to it or her ... and ... you tend to forget ... that there is the entire world out there ... I guess ... that is the message also in the name iPod ... the I ... really stands for I ... I listed to my music ... the iPod is really ... a tool to isolate our self from the world out there ... a pity ... I guess we need inventions that will make people get closer rather than isolate them self ... anyways ... it is just great to have all my music with me ...

BEACHVOLLEY & GLOBAL WARMING

... when you play all day beachvolley ... with sunglasses ... without TShirt ... like I did today ... I guess ... the first thought ... that you can have is ... how lucky I am ... and this is what I thought ... but when this happens in December ... you really feel lucky ... even more lucky ... unless ... two simple words will pop into your mind ... the two words are are global and warming ... and of course together make ... global warming ... at that point ... you realize that ... probably ... there is something wrong ... of course today I enjoyed play with Yann, Rian, Michael, Matt and Kelly ... I enjoyed very much ...

... OK ... the style wasn't the best ever seen in the Southern California beachvolley arena ... but ... we didn't care much ... :) ... but really I felt happy in a way ... and sorry in an other ... I don't know if it makes sense ... I hope so ... the same ... at the end of the day ... at sunset ... when I went swimming without wetsuit ... and I realized that the water was not that cold ... and again... I thought it was December ... I thought again that there is wrong going on ... probably I am influenced by the Al Gore movie ... "The Inconvenient Truth" ... but again ... that is all scientific data ... which is only confirming ... what everybody can see every single day ... with the CO2 ... we are warming up our planet ... to a point where we are really risking to melt down the big packs of ice ... of the North Pole and Antarctica ... and that is not gonna be nice ... yep ... at that point ... I think Hermosa Beach ... will be well below the sea level ... and not only that ... mmm ... if you haven't seen the movie ... give it a shot ... it is really interesting ...

In the SKYPE WORLD

... few months ago ... when I did install SKYPE on my laptop ... and I did look for some of my friends ... out there ... in the SKYPE world ... I found tons of them ... and I had the feeling that I have wasted so much time ... until then ... everybody were already there. So ... this weekend ... when I finally got a webcam ... and I made video calls with friends ... and family ... back in Italy ... I had the same feeling ... so far I wasted my time ... call ... and videocall ... is just so easy and so cool ... and it is free ... and it gives you so much freedom ... for me it is just perfect ... I am the one who is always ... somewhere else ... and now for free I can call and see all my friends ... in this weekend I had a lot of fun ... with the webcam and WiFi going around and showing my place to my friends ... and with the webcam I really express myself ... mmmm ... sometimes a little bit too much ... ehehehe ... this is a picture that today my brother ... back in Italy took ... during our call ...... ehehe ... so ... if you want a suggestion ... don't waste your time ... install skype ... it takes 1 minute ... and ... most likely .. all your friends are already out there ... and if you want to call me ... my userid is ... abonanom ... and promised ... I will keep the webcam off if you like ... ehehehe ...