Good ol' Times

The first quarter of year after the R&D site where I work passed in the hands of another company has gone. After the Christmas break people are quickly getting back to work and with them many news and voices. Months ago, soon after the official "announcement", I though that nothing would have changed in the short term. I regret to admit that this is not true. There's been a time, a couple of years ago, when we used to sit all together, late in the afternoon, after a long day of whiteboard planning, technical discussions and coding and stare at the simulation waveforms projected on a monitor as it was our fireplace. It's no longer like that. We look at our waveforms on our own, no one sitting at our side.

Looking for Ettore

Ettore Roesler Franz (see also the reacher Italian Wikipedia page) was an Italian watercolors painter of German origin, who lived in Rome in the second half of the XIX century. He had a special relation with Tivoli, both the town (and its people) and the breathtaking surrounding countryside. His works (Wiki Gallery) are among the most impressive realist watercolors ever made, depicting Italy on the verge of the second industrial revolution, just after the unification years. Having in mind his works, a walk in the citadel is like a walk back in time on the same places were he used to sit, stare at the people and paint. People are much different today. Streets are only used for moving from one place to another. I can consider myself lucky: this year no cars nor scooters were on the way, between myself and the ghost of Ettore.

Life in the Dried Up Reef

This year the "tall town", on my canonical Christmas Eve walk, was looking more like a coral bank, with strange floaters everywhere inviting people to raise their sight to the sky.

An upside down living guardian of the alley

A welcoming Medusa

A patrolling expert inspectioning every passer-by

When the Levee Breaks

Yet another story

Staring at the waterfront

I'm digging into my hard disk to fetch some of those "Hey! This could be a good shot after all ..." pictures I took last summer on Elba island. These are from Enfola bay.

People Wisdom

... but the real problem is that people are only able to write it on walls, whereas they'd better saying these words to those who deserve it.

The real recognizes the real.

A look through the glass

On my way back to Milan, last week, I had to my surprise an almost unique opportunity to lay alone, for the whole night, in a compartment of the sleeping coach of the train coming from Vienna. The coach controller must have felt some pity for me, when he saw me jumping on the train and, instead of cramming me with three more people of uncertain origin, offered me an empty compartment, saying: "Lock the door from inside and have a good sleep. What do you prefer for breakfast: coffee or tea?"

Sleeping on a train is not that easy. You are shaken all the time, loud noises surround you, people pass by your room while talking out loud. There's nothing that lets you deeply surrender to the natural instinct to rest and detach from the world. After spending the whole night turning around myself on a hard "bed", I eventually opened the blinds and discovered that my train had been somehow "hijacked", due to the bad weather conditions that caused more than a riven to overflow and break the levees.

It didn't take me a lot to understand that it had been switched on an old single line railway, crossing the flatland of Pianura Padana. So, while waiting for my tea to be served, I took my cellcam out and started taking pictures of the landscape passing by.

A day far from here

One day in Villach (AUT), not far from the border with Italy. A working day, few people in the streets, very little to notice an italian wandering about in the afternoon under a soft drizzle, taking pictures with his cellcam.

On my second lap in the old town I was even able to find something that made me feel at home for a while. So I turned the street corner and went in. But it wasn't actually the same ... 

On the road again

My backpack is filled with all my necessary, so is my trolley. It's time for a short stay abroad again. I'm not going far, a train will suffice. So I opted for not taking a camera with me: "I won't have time for ...", I thought. How could I be so stupid, I say. To my support, once again, the crankiest of the cameras working on this world: my mobile.

Milano, Stazione Centrale