Atlanta Sundays

Never cease to charm me.

Early morning tennis with Giuseppe. (And yes, my arm still hurts).

Second breakfast.

The game at Fado's with a lively crowd, friends coming and going, singing and dancing.

Cocktails with friends.

Pool with friends.

Cookout by the pool.

Evening on the porch, hookah and samba music.

And life is good.

Balotelli

Da quando, a 16 anni, Mario Balotelli é diventato un calciatore professionista, é sempre stato la stessa persona. Immaturo, orgoglioso... un bravo calciatore e anche un rischio in campo.

Quando fa gol contro l'Inghilterra, contro la Germania, é il nostro campione ed abbiamo una bellissima nazionale.

Quando l'Italia perde, é tutta colpa sua.

E allora mi ritrovo d'accordo con Galliani (non pensavo fosse possibile): la nostra nazionale ha un solo giocatore ed é lui.

Insomma, Balotelli non ha da vergognarsi, é l'Italia che si deve vergognare. E' Buffon che, in quanto capitano che insulta i compagni di squadra, si deve vergognare. Sono le persone che pregiano 23 giocatori e ne criticano solo uno, che si devono vergognare.

Vogliamo prendercela con qualcuno? Prendiamocela con Prandelli, che ha costruito tutta una squadra attorno ad un giocatore di cui nemmeno lui si poteva fidare.

Ma continuiamo a volere bene alla nostra squadra: TUTTA la nostra squadra. Il calcio é un gioco, ricordiamocelo. Chi mette la maglia azzurra lo fa con orgoglio e rappresenta noi con orgoglio. Per tutti gli errori commessi - da Cassano, da Paletta, da Insigne, da Balotelli - non li tifo meno domani, continueró a tifare la maglia azzurra, non importa chi la indossi.

Balotelli deve essere giudicato agli stessi livelli degli altri giocatori, e io ho tanto l'impressione che non lo é mai stato.

Mario: quando fai errori in campo, mi arrabbio. Quando finisci nella stampa per l'ultima cretinata da adolescente rimbambito, alzo gli occhi al cielo. Ma quando metti la maglia azzurra, sei uno dei nostri. Tu la volevi, questa vittoria, tanto quanto gli altri giocatori.
Non per niente riesco a tifare persino i Juverntini, quando hanno la maglia azzurra, quindi figuriamoci ;-)

Spamalot

Was fun.

You might as well smile, this is really happening.

Follow up

In case you are wondering how Friday ended:

Italy lost sadly
Switzerland lost badly
And I grated my finger along with my parmesan

Dysfunctional morning

It is 7:10 in the morning.  Tally of the day so far:

I actually got my hair in knots and pulled my scalp. If you know the length of my hair you will know how unlikely this is.

Watered down my coffee by mistake.

Stabbed my hand with the shampoo bottle (!).

Dropped my contacts in the sink. Both eyes.

And I'm about to get into the car to drive to a meeting. Should be fun.

Detox

Just saw an article about how to detox without juicing.

Easier than living on juice, perhaps? Let's  find out. 

No alcohol.

Ok.

No caffeine. 

Expected that.

No processed sugar.

Easier said than done but makes sense.

No wheat.

No meat.

At which point I stopped reading. There were more things you can not eat which I am guessing will ultimately leave you with juices only. 

The weekend's games

First of all, welcome Italy of course. 

YAY

In other news and moving past weekend even well done Netherlands. While Spain has been impressive in the last years, we are all ready to see somebody win. The tricky thing if you don't want Spain to lose as much as somebody else to win. The Netherlands did that.

Costa Rica caused an upset with Uruguay. 

Switzerland turned out to be one of the big revelations of the weekend. They tend to play quite slowly, they hold the ball back in generally seem quite neutral about who should win the game. Sunday about halfway through the  woke up and started pushing towards goal. And it paid off. Then won and they won well.

I couldn't watch France vs Honduras of course, which France won, of course. And Argentina versus Bosnia gave us some good moments as well. You can't help but cheer internally for the Bosnian side, first time in the world.

Today already seen Germany shame Portugal, and I'm looking forward to the USA-Ghana this evening, even just the first half that I will be able to watch. 

Airport

I am on my way to a conference where I am exhibiting in a trade show. Monday I was all on schedule and ready to go. In the last 48 hours it has resulted that I have no monitor for display, which doesn't matter since I have no wifi, and all my marketing materials are held at customs. Last night I slept almost not at all, and today am not in peak travel condition.

Arrived at the airport I printed out my boarding pass (no data where I am going, back to paper), and saw something magical: TSA PRE-CHECK. It was beautiful. Everything will be alright.

The saddest sentence you will read this week (BSBTE)

Re-posting form Rebecca’s personal blog:

“Prison was the first time in her life she had experienced reasonably consistent and decent treatment”

From the article Some to Misery Are Born.

from Bringing Sexy Back to Economics http://ift.tt/SyWnS6

via IFTTT

Chocolate chip espresso ice cream

People helping people (BSBTE)

Paraphrasing Penn Teller: “When somebody tells me 1 out of every 5 people lives in poverty, I think that poor person has a whole 4 people to help him out. That’s good.”

from Bringing Sexy Back to Economics http://ift.tt/1uerdx5

via IFTTT

Angel Oak

A few weeks ago we went back to Charleston to house sit.

We went to see Angel Oak Tree.

It looks like this:

Sic transit gloria mundi

Blogging shall resume soon (I have, as always, so much to say).

For today, I leave you with selected loud whispers of Emily Dickinson reflecting upon her education.

A coward will remain, Sir,

Until the fight is done;

But an immortal hero

Will take his hat, and run!