• Italian

I’ve always been a proponent of the quote Knowledge not shared is lost forever but since a few month I’m wondering if it is right to explain things to others or help them to learn. On the job I see more and more frequently people do things I asked about without explain me how I could do it; maybe it is the crisis that frightens some people (“if you know how to do my own things, I could be fired”), forgetting a sad but great truth: with very few exceptions, all are useful, but none is needed. In the event that I have to explain things, I notice a growing disinterest… something like “make this thing works without boring me!”. It makes sense to explain? It makes sense to figure things out?

• Italian

Today I cooked my first rye wholemeal bread; it was good: just a little crispy near the border, but I’m happy with it, ’cause I was forced to use a shape for spinach pies.

Memo: buy a shape for bread

• Italian

I provide myself (sigh!): massage and Kinesio Tape.

• Italian

After many bikes, 2 scooters and 6 motorbikes, today I bought my first car. I made this choice ’cause I’m doin’ about 16500 Km/year (10000 miles/year) that is very expensive for a motorbike and for my safety especially during winter (I was forced to left my motorbike at the university two times this year because of the snow and the graupel). I am feeling old.

• Italian

This is a story I learned when I was a child startin’ to play judo; it is about the creation of the ju-jitsu. But it is more than that.

It happen that, one day, during a heavy snowfall, Shireobei Akiyama observed that the weight of the snow had broken the branches of the most robust trees and that they had been left bare. His eyes then fell on a tree that had remained intact. It was a willow tree with flexible branches. Every time the snow threatened to break them, these branches flexed, letting the snow fall and returning to their original position.

• Italian

There are people that we are disliked at first sight and some other people we are fascinated just after 5 seconds of dialogue. In the past month I had the possibility (I would say luck) to get to know one of these people; a working relationship and nothing else and the difficulty for me to express what I wanted to say or ask in a language that I don’t mastered very well (for which I have to think “how do I say this word?”). Today we casually met and he told me that tomorrow he will came back home; he thanked me for the support that I provided.

Thank-you Jay, even if I know you are not reading this: in just a couple of minutes you learned me so much things.

• Italian

For several months I tried to start a new way of life, perhaps more fatalistic, perhaps less frenetic (certainly changing work from the metropolis to a small city influenced this choice, but it is a path that I started long ago) but I think is giving me a lot of benefit. It all started with this book (which I’m also slowly re-reading) and continued with this other that it was a real godsend. When I get
something that bothers me, my first thought is: “that is really worth pissed about this? “. Okay outburst immediate, but never ruminate or think “going on now and if this thing, then there may be that other “and so on as if life would be a big game of chess. No, life is a thing which should rightly have rules, that tests us, but that should not be seen as a prison camp. But let’s get back to us: ok, I’m angry. And now? In 99% of cases, you don’t care about my anger. You can’t solve a problem just being pissed. Ergo, it is not worth angry. Sure, there are those 10 seconds in which
we need to stop and reflect. Seconds during which I do deep breathing: a breathing means that it gives me nuisance. Two breaths indicate that I do not have angry, even if it makes me angry. Three breaths are the highest achieved: I’m trying not to send you to hell (or not to scream). This “job” is not that complicated: just be aware of your limits and your own capacity, more than anything else is an internal process that requires us to sort ourselves out (we can also lie to everyone, but we can hardly lie to ourselves) and with the awareness that we are just a grain of sand on a beach.

• Italian

199 athletes were eliminated from the final classification of the Florence Marathon for misconduct tackling the competition. It was possible to identify these players unfair with Timing Data Service, a company that provides management services for enrollment and tracking orders arrival with a chip active and passive systems that have carried out checks along the route.
The staff of the Florence Marathon explains: “The marathon is a test that requires passion, commitment and effort, a challenge themselves with before with others, deal with honesty and fairness. For us it is a duty identify those athletes who reach the result “cheating”, perhaps by cutting the path to save miles, and for that, every year, we implement extremely rigid controls on the course. We convinced that it is also a sign of deep respect to the thousands of competitors who finish
regular 42 kilometers and 195 meters”.
Of the 199 athletes removed from the order of arrival, after being passed the finish line, 12 didn’t start, or not being on the route, 96 are withdrawn not have completed the race and the 91 disqualified, for which irregularities journey to inconsistencies of time in fractions controlled.
The most singular, was also highlighted through audits visual, was that of an athlete passed on a bicycle. Following the inspection results are regularly classified 8170 athletes and 25 disabled.

(via Adrenaline Channel)

• Italian

Last Minute Marathon Tips: shot with Nikon D90 from Mike Kobal on Vimeo.

• Italian

- this morning I wake-up at 4 AM ’cause the dog of our neighbours was howling and yelping. No sign of the neighbours (I even call ‘em at the phone but… no way). At 4:30 AM I realized I’ll never get back to sleep so I went out for a run.
- the weather was very humid, so I found difficult to ran 12 Km with a total pace of 5.41 min/Km
- I tried to take the train before than usual and it was cancelled
- the Italian Railways stopped a train coming from Bologna, but it was full, so I did the half of the trip standing.
- I must redo a “Ghost” image, ’cause someone formatted the external USB disk with NTFS (remember: if you have an external USB disk and you use it not just with Windows, do not format it with NTFS but use FAT32)
… and now it’s just 10:30 AM…