My Car Has Hit Six Digits...Ah, They Grow Up So Fast

There it is...100,000 miles on my car. But she doesn't look a day over 90,000!

Braggart or Hybrid Evangelist?

I saw this in a parking lot today. Check out the license plate.

Living in Peace Side by Side

This is the scene just outside my office building, a FedEx drop box and a UPS drop box. Mortal enemies they be, yet in peace do they sit side by side.

Pray tell, then, why can't we humans do the same? Why must we always be in disharmony?

Perhaps the secret is in the timing. The FedEx rep comes at 6:30 pm according to the box while the UPS rep comes at 7:00 pm. Sometimes to keep the peace, messengers must be kept separated.

A Lunch With Friends

My dear friend Sabine (left) had her sister Antje (right) visiting from Germany for two weeks. Yesterday was her last day here before going home and Sabine wanted me to meet her sister so we went to my favorite Indian restaurant near my home, Banjara (highly recommended). So there we were, an Italian-American and two Germans eating in an Indian restaurant in Virginia. We spoke English and German while people around us were speaking Hindi (I assume).

We had a ral nice time, lots of laughs, and we enjoyed watching Antje eating Indian food for the first time in her life! She's very nice and I join Sabine in hoping she'll return for another visit soon!

My son camped out in front of Best Buy at the moment to get Halo 3

My son started waiting last night with some of his buddies, a couple of tents, a vidcam and a few other items as you can see. They will wait a total of 36 hours to be the first to get their hands on Halo 3! The doors at this Best Buy won't open until tomorrow morning at 10 am and they've been there since last night. Yowsers! That's dedication!

Update: Once they found out that Best Buy wasn't selling until 10 am, they checked around and found that Dulles Town Center Mall was going to start selling at midnight. Off they went, laptop and vidcam in hand! Matteo got home around 1 am. Today? Sleep and Halo.

Murderers, Thieves and Jaywalkers...Beware!

Joe is on the job! I've been summoned to appear in court Oct. 15 to pass judgment on a ne'er-do-well. Who will appear before me? Will it be a vicious murderer? Will it be a pot-smoking, foul-mouthed poker-cheating TV addict? Ah, we'll know in about a month!

I've been called to jury dirty only once before...can you believe it? Furthermore, I never did serve because they settled out of court!

But maybe...just maybe...this time I will find a man or woman innocent or guilty! Of what? Only time will tell!

I Can Drive in Malta Now!

I went to AAA (American Automobile Association) with two passport photos, my US driver's license and fifteen bucks. Ten minutes later, I had my International Drivers Permit!

Back in 1999, we spent a month driving around Italy. At the time, all I needed was my US driver's license. Nowadays, though, most countries require an International Driving Permit (IDP). In some cases, you can still rent a car without an IDP, but if you get stopped for a traffic violation, you will pay a lot higher fine without an IDP.

This was in the Travel Section of the Washington Post on Sept. 2, 2007:

COMING AND GOING

Disaster Watch

Sunday, September 2, 2007; Page P01

DRIVE TIME

---

Taking License With the Law

---

Steve Lertora of Fort Washington had no problem renting a car in Spain using just his Maryland driver's license . He drove 1,400 miles without trouble. But while trying to return his vehicle to Euro Car, he got confused by signs around a construction site and turned the wrong way onto a one-way street.

The traffic officer who pulled him over said that without an International Driving Permit, required for foreign drivers in Spain and many other countries, Lertora couldn't drive another inch. The car was towed to an impound lot . Lertora was left standing on the street.

He called Euro Car and was told he was on his own, then dragged his luggage for six blocks before finding a taxi. He'll find out the cost for towing and retrieving the car from the impound lot when his credit card charge arrives.

It's natural but not safe to assume that a car rental company would inform you of such a critical rule. Check rules at http://www.travel.state.gov before leaving home. The site reveals licensing requirements and other important laws. For instance, the site warns that the fine in Spain for talking on a hand-held cellphone while driving is more than $400 .

International Driving Permits are issued at AAA locations and through the National Automobile Club ( http://www.nationalautoclub.com/nonmember_services.htm) . They are accepted in more than 150 countries when accompanied by your state-issued license, cost $15 and are good for one year. Those international driver's licenses sold on the Web? Forget about 'em.

Another Interesting Chinese Fortune Cookie

Now we're getting cute advertisements inside our fortune cookies!

Doggy Wakes Up Mommy

Our dog likes to wake us up with sweet kisses behind the ear. Mommy is obviously fast asleep in the first picture (she always smiles while sleeping - she dreams of me) and in the second photo our dog wakes her up.

What a nice way to wake up in the morning!

The Olive Garden...Real Italian Food?

My wife and I do not eat at the Olive Garden, though sometimes I have been dragged along to a lunch with colleagues. When I do end up there, I only eat the salad because everything else I tried just doesn't cut it to my Italian taste buds! Sorry, Olive Garden lovers, but try going to Italy and eating real Italian food and you'll never be able to go into Olive Garden again (except for maybe the salad).

Take a look at this video on YouTube, taken originally from MadTV! It's funny, though I don't know too many Italians under the age of 60 that have racist views anymore. Focus on the Italian food comments...funny stuff!

Dulles Day and Plane Pull

This past Saturday, Sept. 8, was the annual Dulles Day & Plane Pull. In the past ten years that I've lived near the airport, I was always out of town or occupied and couldn't attend. This year I wasn't letting anything stop me. I love planes and wanted to see what the fuss was all about.

So it was fun to see all the little planes lined up and to watch the different teams pulling the FedEx plane (see the video). To see the plane engines and cockpits up close was kind of cool. We stayed about an hour and then we took off...on a shuttle bus back to our car! It was a pretty hot day so the air conditioning on the bus felt very good!

Click the photos to enlarge them!

Our latest Italian Meetup!

Our latest Italian Ex-Pat meetup was held at Fiore di Luna restaurant in Great Falls, Virginia, not far from us. It is a great restaurant! I didn't even know it was there and I've driven past it a few times. Look at the yummy food below. Click each one to see it nice and big, but don't do this if you're hungry! Do it on a full stomach!

Nine of us showed up and we all had a great time I think. Lots of conversation! Thank you to Paolo Nascimbeni, who is originally from Rome, who came for the first time. Thank you too to Igor, who you see in the bottom photo, who came with his wife Gina. They are both from the Ukraine and Gina speaks Italian pretty well, having spent several summers in Italy as a child. We're happy that they have volunteered their lovely home for our next meetup!

Oops! I didn't get a photo of me or of Paolo! I promise we were both there, though!

Movies I Can Watch Over and Over

These are movies that I really like and in some cases love. I own these movies because I know that anytime I need a pick-me-up, one of these movies will do it for me. That's not to say I just watch these movies over and over; in fact, some of these I haven't seen in a while. Still, this is the first batch of movies I would recommend to anyone who needs a break from the real world. Most of you will already have seen these movies so I'm not going to give you a plot summary on each. Just go out and rent them if you haven't seen them yet!

What's strange about Groundhog Day is that watching it one time feels as if I've watched it 10 times already because of the plot mechanism. But I've always been a sucker for those parallel universe stories, and even though this movie doesn't call it that, it's essentially what it is. It's charming, funny, and has a lesson about love. Of course, [spoiler alert] I thought it a bit funny that Phil (played by Murray), who is the only one who knows that he's repeating the same day over and over, is trying to get Rita (played by McDowell) into bed, and he manages to break the repetitive spell only when he succeeds. I don't think the message was supposed to be, get a girl to go to bed with you if you want to have an epiphany, it was supposed to be about being selfless and loving. Oh, well...I still like the movie!

This romantic comedy starring Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore is a bit like Groundhog Day in reverse. Drew plays Lucy, who, because of a car accident, forgets everything that happened the previous day, in essence frozen in time the day of her accident. Adam plays Henry, who falls for Lucy. This movie is sweet and interesting and moves along nicely.

When we have guests who want to see a comedy and they haven't seen Rat Race, we'll usually pop it in. It's a crowd pleaser, very funny and very silly, an updated version of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad World (but not the same story). Most of the actors are well known as in Mad, and there are some real laugh out loud moments.

An instant classic, Airplane is very silly too and very funny. I love word plays and this movie has plenty, along with the sight gags, the absurd situations, and the fact that it's a parody of all those airliner crisis movies of the 70s. The sequel was not as good (as sequels often aren't). I haven't seen this one in a while but I will have to watch it a again soon - I remember it fondly.

Blast from the Past is not as well known but is a real charmer. It has Brendan Fraser, Alicia Silverstone, Christopher Walken and Sissy Spacek (the latter two as Brendan's parents). Christopher plays a genius who back in 1960 prepared for the worst and built a huge bomb shelter that would last 35 years (or so). After all that time, the locks finally come undone and they can venture out into the world. Brendan's character was not even born when his parents went into the shelter, and this fish out of water story is a real charmer. It's very funny and touching.

The Big Hit too is not one that's well known but it too is very funny. Only slightly violent, it just made me laugh out loud so many times that I knew I was hooked and would be able to watch this movie over and over. Mark Wahlberg leads an all-star cast and it has romantic elements but it's mostly about the intrigue of mob relations. Again, it's really funny - believe me!

Broken Arrow is not a comedy. It's drama and suspense and revenge and intrigue and ... well, you get it. Still, it's not heavy-handed and it's just a very enjoyable to watch, even after you've seen it once and know how it's going to end.



This is a real classic and almost everyone has seen it. Great acting, great adventure, great humor, great romance. it's just a great movie. We saw this originally in the theater and we've watched it several times since.

Hot Saturday Morning...Out and About

This morning we left the house, only to find that my minivan had a flat tire in the garage. Sigh.

Ivana and I borrowed Michael's car and went to Starbucks (first time in history! Yeah, right!). We then bought some banana bread to support the local girls soccer team (The Rage - watch out!) and went to hit some yard sales.

Yard sales are funny things but I've picked up some nice bargains at these makeshift roadside stores. Your junk may be my treasure and my junk may be your treasure. Of course, your junk which becomes my treasure may become my junk one day and then I'll sell it to you because it's your treasure now. Confused? Let's just call it recycling!

Bundle loves to come along. This morning outside of Starbucks he met a little black and white dog. I asked the owner what the dog's name was and she said Latte. Now THAT's a Starbucks fan! He loves meeting new people and, like me, likes to put a smile on their faces.

Ivana found a nice bench, the kind you put in the house, not the kind for outside. You can kind of see it in the pictures, covered up with stuff. She thought it would be perfect for inside our entrance. The seat folds up and you can put shoes or other stuff in there. Unfortunately, the bench is too wide to fit where we needed it to go, so now we're trying it out in the kitchen. We'll see how we feel about it in a while.

Italian Ex-Pat Meetup Tonight

(Click each photo to enlarge it.)
Tonight's Italian Ex-Pat meetup was very enjoyable! We had several newcomers. In the first photo, you can see, from left, Tom and his mother-in-law Luisa and wife Roberta, all new-comers. Next are myself and Ivana and Gina, a young lady from the Ukraine. Roberta also brought first-timers John and Armanda and then are Yvette (Italian), Norman and Luise (Brazilian). This was Luise's last Italian ex-pat meetup because she returns to Brazil Sept. 5. We will miss her sweetness and smile and wish this young lady a wonderful life (we WILL stay in touch!). Luisa, Roberta's mom, returns to Italy tomorrow after her month-long visit. We wish her safe travels and the very best as well.