lox.Journal

lox.Stuff

Bloody tired [Thursday 25th September 2008] Well there isn't much to say. I am working my ass off, and I have to say that I quite like it. It's a feeling that in the past 2 years arrived only when I started working for Signoria or Mitsubishi, but it subsided once things started to become impossible to manage. But the past is past, the new job is challenging and there is a lot to learn. As usual I cannot seem to be able to do "just" what I should do (i.e. Export Manager), but I am taking care about other things as well, like Visual Merchandising and Marketing... I like that aspect of the job a lot, and secretly I think that it's a very good way to improve results. All of this translates in a terrible wave of fatigue striking me at night. I think that together with the mental strain there is a strong part played by the fact that I have to commute for 2 hours every day, driving through Florence and then on the motorway. The car that we have has been bought entirely by Chiara and I am the one using it, that makes me feel a bit awkward, because I feel I should contribute. I think that the plan there will be to buy a new scooter for her. But (as usual there is a but), I'd also like to have a different kind of car, because the one that we have was really meant for the city (a Suzuki Swift), while I'd like something more comfortable, since I spend so much time in the car. Chiara doesn't seem to want to change her car, but we cannot afford three vehicles at the moment, so for the moment things look pretty stuck. All things considered it has been only 3 weeks since I started the new job so maybe it's early to make changes to the present set of things, although sooner or later we will have to. In the meantime we started looking for a new house, in the attempt to buy a place and maybe move closer to the highway so that I do not have to waste 30 minutes every day to cross Florence... It looks like a long search, but we had to start somewhere! [No comments] Memory Mac [Monday 15th September 2008] Third week at work, many things to follow up, and to look after, slowly gathering pace at work and efficiency in dealing with things. It has been almost one week since I decided that my Mac needed a memory upgrade, probably quite unnecessary, but after installing Leopard things happened a lot slower on the computer, probably due to the fact that the new Mac OS is a bit heavier on processes... The memory upgrade was totally done by myself and I am pleased to say that it worked at the first shot! Incidentally the MacBook is now faster, but I am 100% sure that it's just my imagination.... :P Going from good to bad, Chiara had a terrible day at work and she wasn't all that chirpy and happy, actually quite the contrary, and I also received a visit from Tiscali technicians because my ADSL is behaving funnily (AGAIN!!). Well even if they checked all the cables the final response is that the problem is something to do with the cables going from the house to the central, therefore is not their competence and it will never get repaired. While last time we settled for an half speed ADSL (4MB instead of 8MB that I pay for), this time the technician told me that I was probably going to be downgraded to a 640K... I will let a couple of days pass and then I will unleash my hate on the call centre, at least to get the 4MB deal that I had before... Oh well, last point of the day is the first session of RPG mastered by Francesco, it has been a long time since I played in an adventured mastered by him, so I quite look forward to it.. The first session was quite boring though!! :D [No comments] Weekend in Florence [13th-14th September 2008] Nothing special to report, went out on Saturday with Chiara and Gianfranco to do some shopping near Florence, at a designer shopping mall called (surprise surprise) "The Mall". The place itself is quite small, but there is a very good selection of designer shops. Of course having worked for many years in the fashion world, I know the kind of crap that is sold there, but that's part of the game I guess, and sometimes you can find very good occasions, if you look hard enough. This time I looked hard enough because I came out with a pair of shoes that I was looking for. In the evening we went to see Hankock, the latest Will Smith movie. I guess it was allright, a different view on a super hero movie, but it was a bit predictable... Kung Fu Panda was much better even though they are different movies. Sunday was a bit of turn-down, I did not sleep well, and the whole of Sunday was spoiled by a terrible headache and the fact that Fiorentina lost a match that they deserved to win against Naples (oh well...). In the evening we had a nice dinner out with Chiara, and then back home for some sleep... Nothing special really... [No comments] Certainties Crumbling [Thursday 11th September 2008] On the sad anniversary of the attacks on the twin towers, and close to the experiment that almost blown up the entire earth, I have to report that the wireless capabilities of my MacBook have been working quite strangely recently... It seems that the actual adaptor inside the laptop is not working well, because the other clients in the house are doing extremely well. This poses my undisputed faith in Apple products to a very hard trial. I have to say that the computer has been doing remarkably well for more than 1 year, then recently when I installed Leopard, things started to get worse... The fact that I had to hard reboot (by pressing the power up button for 5 seconds) 3 times in the last month to me is quite a rare. This happening made me think that it has been more than 1 and half year since I have been using a Windows system seriously at home, and I do not really miss it. My PC is a sort of game box at the moment, while Macs handle all the rest, from torrents to image editing, music and so on. Still the recent problems are casting some shadows over my already black MacBook, and that's why I have decided that I need some sort of backup system to help me keep all the important files that I have. On that story, Matteo, one of my best friends, will help me out with the setting up of the actual software to run backups... Oh well, that's it really nothing more to tell, quite boring post I know! :D [7 comments] First Week at Work [Monday 1st - Saturday 6th September 2008] Well, well. After the experience that I had to endure at the past company, this past Monday I have started the new job for one of the major Crystal and Crystal-Glass producers in Italy (and one of the major players in the world as well). So far the first week has been rather positive, the colleagues seem quite helpful (there are not mixed tasks as it happened in the previous company, therefore no jealousies or backstabbing attempts), the directors have shown (so far) some trust in the choice that they made by employing me and want to get me rolling as quickly as possible, and the industry, albeit new, seem quite interesting and it will sure be an interesting challenge to learn this new market as well. Of course it is early stages to say anything, after all in the previous company I only started to understand what was going on behind the scenes after 3/4 months (read: affairs between colleagues, non signed deals and general business malpractices, extremely bad attitude and inability to understand numbers etc etc...). So I am not crying my eyes out of joy, but rather I'll give my best shot at this new venture in order to make it work from the beginning. At least I am recovering that fighting spirit that was suppressed by all the nastiness that was targeted at me in the past company. Sometimes envy is a bad beast, but it lurks everywhere and you can't leave your guard down... [2 comments]

Lox, Lorenzo... ME!! A little introduction about the author and the blog itself. Plus contacts and CVs... You never know! Pictures A Selection of the best pictures that I have taken all over the world during the years, all nicely indexed by year and geographical area. Jolly good! History of this Blog A collection of all the articles that I have wrote so far, divided by month/year. I have had the bad idea of writing my e-mail address on the board before, so this time I'll try to prevent some spam to get to me by putting this little image.. Let's hope it does the trick! [--------------------] A reminder to Myself Left and right Like day and night That's what makes the world go round In and out Thin and stout That's what makes the world go round For every up there is a down For every square there is a round For every high there is a low For every to there is a fro To and fro Stop and go That's what makes the world go round You must set your sights upon the heights Don't be a mediocrity Don't just wait and trust to fate And say, that's how it's meant to be It's up to you how far you go If you don't try you'll never know And so my lad as I've explained Nothing ventured, nothing gained You see my boy it's nature's way Upon the weak the strong ones prey The human life it's also true The strong will try to conquer you That is what you must expect Unless you use your intellect Brains and brawn, weak and strong That's what makes the world go round [------------------------------]