I am afraid it is going to be text only for a while.

Last night, just as I was finishing yesterday's entry, the power cord died. I have borrowed a Mac Book Pro from Rodger Smith, courtesy of CMD or IDEE or DEOP or WXYZ or whatever the acronym is. Anyway, they let me bring a nice laptop with Final Cut Pro so we could edit the class project. After 8 days, the power cord crapped out. I went online and found Mac USA sells it for $79. Mac Italia sells it for 89 Euros, or about $125. Unfortunately trying to order it from the US, the shipping and import tax would jack it up significantly, not to mention the delay in time. So, Filiberto generously lent me his OLD IBM ThinkPad. It's awfully convenient to have in the apt., and I really appreciate it, but I would be back in the US before a 10 second video clip would upload. In addition I am not quite sure where some of the keys can be found. I'm cutting and pasting from a webpage to inset the "at" symbol.

Mac Users - I have a question for you: why the heck do you put up with it? When I looked on the Apple website, the power adapters had a 1 1/2 stars out of a possible 5. People were extremely critical saying they melted or burned up, and Mac was unresponsive. One guy said he replaced 4 or 5. And yet, because they are the exclusive licensee of their product, they keep anybody else from manufacturing parts or accessories. You brainwashed Mac users who claim the product is better: Beta was superior to VHS, too, but it died because Sony wouldn't license anyone else. Oh well, what do I know? I know I wouldn't pay double for a Mac and have only one choice of where to buy the product, that's what I know. But, as Dennis Miller used to say, I could be wrong.

In any event, today was busy. Kim and I hit the market in the Macerata streets. Bought produce. At one of the stands where we stopped, one of the guys asked me if we had been here "a couple of years" ago. I told him it was 2002. He went into his truck and pulled from his visor a Ball State lapel pin I had given him 5 1/2 years ago. I was amazed. Looked at a bunch of other stuff but didn't buy anything (Kim didn't bring a working watch). Grabbed a slice of pizza and then I headed for the office. Copied some stuff for class, which is now down from 17 to 13. I guess I did intimidate some. Actually, the 4 guys who dropped are all from Rider U and do everything together. I assume if one dropped, the others had to. I took a break to meet up for coffee with a prof here who teaches Philosophy of Language. She looks in her early 30s, has very good English, and even spent time in Iowa City, my PhD alma mater. It was a nice chat, and she will try to connect me with some other professors, especially more closely related to my subject area.

DUHH...... Just figured out how to switch the keyboard from Italian to North American!

Tonight, Kim, Jackie (one of the Ball State students) and I walked down the hill to a Macerata men's volleyball game. Macerata Lube (pronounced LOO-bay) was the national championship team in 2006. They won in 3 straight tonight, but between the two teams there must've been about 40 serve errors. There were probably about 3,000 in attendance in an arena that seats about 4,000 on three sides. I can't wait to upload video - the rowdies were amazing. They had drums and bullhorns and were wonderfully obnoxious. The Nest at BSU could learn a lot from these guys.

The game was great fun; the walk down the hill was OK. The walk back up, however, was difficult. We almost called for a cab, but it was only 10 p.m. when we got out, and we knew it didn't matter if it took a while, so we just went ahead and did it (no, we weren't wearing Nikes).

One final thing before I turn in for the night: there are many more immigrants/foreigners here now than there were in 2002. Italy has become a haven for people from eastern Europe and northern Africa. The country would be experiencing zero population growth were it not for the number of immigrants. It would be an interesting study for a sociologist, and I imagine it's being studied quite a bit. I'm too tired to explore the similarities/differences between Italy 2007 and USA 1897, or to consider the future impact on Italian culture, economy or cuisine - all of which we know were influenced in the past by the influx of others.

Basta