Reagan & Gorbachev. Do you remember when President Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev met in, I think, Geneva for the SALT treaty talks? They were on opposite sides of what I imagine was a grand table and they were talking or rather negotiating through translators and negotiators.
…More on MyGenX Travel (scroll down to Reagan & Gorbachev)
Rise and Shine. It’s 6:30 AM. We stumble from the Pizza house to the kitchen in the main house. We eat biscotti (more like cheap cookies), toast with butter and jelly, and yogurt. Delicious yogurt in Italy! Ellie says as we walk into the kitchen, “We go on old time today for work.” And she walks out to the grove to continue picking where we stopped the day before.
More available on MyGenX Travel
New post about our trip on http://mygenx.wordpress.com/mygenx-travel/ (scroll down to “New Olive Pickers are Slow”)
Excerpt: New Olive Pickers are Slow: Racogliere is the Italian word which means to pick.
“Today we pick,” says the Sicilian sprite all business like. Libby and I step in line from the breakfast table and follow Eleanora “Ellie” to the olive grove. The Di Salvo farm is a small to mid-size olive farm for Sicily—3600 trees. This is our first day. Lib and I pick ten trees. The rest of the crew consisting of Laura, Ellie’s sister (28), Christopher (a Brit), Matt from Brooklyn and Ellie, who seems to have a fever and it is for picking more olives faster!
New post on GenX Travel page. (scroll down on the page to see the latest travel journal entry)
The Italian or Sicilian siesta is a serious thing! Read more at the mygenx travel page.
Check out Dave Sohigian’s post! It is an excellent summary of an article that has been passed around the web recently. I believe it is very accurate, as I am seeing this at my company, and I think Dave does a great job of driving it home. Generation X: Lost Once Again | The Gen X Files.
I just created a travel page on My Generation X. I am now starting to post pictures and writings from my Sicily travel journal.
Day-to-day I think my life is pretty ordinary. But there are times in one’s life that are indeed extraordinary–like the birth of children, a job promotion, the passing of a loved one, and adventures in world travel. It is the latter that I like to write about the most. It is adventure and time away from the mundane that gives me perspective and reflection on my life’s joys. I hope you too will enjoy my adventures.
We’re back! What an amazing experience. I will be posting more soon from my travel journal as well as some good Gen X/Italian/Sicilian observations that I made while in country. Stay tuned. I’m just about caught up on job stuff and other projects from being pleasantly detached from them for two and a half weeks.
Pics from my adventure: http://mygenx.wordpress.com/mygenx-travel/
I will be in Sicily for a couple of weeks so I may not have a post for a while, though I have some good one’s planned. My wife and I are going al la minimalist (shout out to mnmlist.com). We will be staying on an organic family farm and we will be harvesting olives during the day in exchange for room and board. I am an organic CSA farmer myself and Italy has always been a fascination. So this will be a less expensive way to go, especially since the Euro is stronger than the US Dollar.
The laptop must stay home. There’s not internet access at the farm anyway. Pencil and notebook/travel journal will be my media. I’ll try to do a post or two from my Blackberry while I am away if it is not too difficult–which would be a technology first for me.
WWOOF stands for (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms).
Utensils were laid out, the drop cloth on the floor,
The subject on the table had been prepped for surgery
Zombie Pumpkin Head
My students anxious to watch their first cranial opening
Incision lines already marked on the head by these talented young residents
With rote familiarity and a forceful hand, I inserted the blade and slid it out, inserted and slid it out, inserted and pulled it out again, cutting around the crown
Rudimentary? Even barbaric? Perhaps…Well, yes, even for a great surgeon of my long experience
After all, my first performed procedure was in my tenth year
But no worries—he was dead already— his preserved head long since plucked from his viny form
I pried the skull cap and it slowly rose with a sound of vacuum sealed suction and there was bated breath hovering over my shoulders
I removed it and without regard for life that once was, I plopped it in the pan
My interns crowded around and filled the subject’s void with their curiosity and awe over this man’s once alive orange matter
“Go ahead,” I said. “Reach in and feel what “brains” feel like! Grab a handful and squeeeeeze. That’s it, let the goo squish through your fingers! Now pull it out and slap those noodles and brain seeds on the table.”
“Gross!!” They shouted.
“Isn’t this fun?” I rhetorically asked, consumed by my own knife wielding, macabre pumpkin lust
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