trinacriabob

The Miragewe're talking Vegas hotels, right?

I'm off the airport just to pick up the ticket because it has to be a PAPER ticket. I'll let you know when I have it in my hands and can believe it.

Can I borrow YOUR legs?

I think the reservations folks must get a kick out of me. I have hub and spoke maps of airline routes in my head, so I suggest what the routing options might be when availability is tight. Another creative and very multi-segmented trip from Florence IT to Portland OR has been put together for me, but I am leaving in a day and a half. It will be nice to be home.

vitamin

Of course, this guy I used to work with was an avid metal fan...he was 2 years younger than me. He thought he was really cool but he was really sort of a geek. Sometimes while we were working, I would wale out that weird refrain from "The Immigrant Song" just to piss him off. People a LOT earlier than "grandpa status" are avid jazz fans. I probably transitioned to jazz several years after The Cure or thereabouts. Basically, I find jazz to be disciplined, sophisticated and tightly constructed, for lack of a better description. So what am I listening to? An Italian stock market report on the news waiting for dinner to be served over here.

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No, you did good. Who are we trying to kid...French is a beautiful language.

potatoes

preppy

You all make me feel like a hopeless nerd. I haven't a clue as to most of the performers you refer to. About 10 years ago, I switched over to jazz and never looked back.

So true...so true...I know this chick who went to Berkeley (odd, granola and Italian...started in linguistics and is now a medical doctor, so, odd...yes) who told me they have conducted studies ad nauseum that bear out the fact that bilingual children who go back and forth between English, for example, and the native tongue of their ancestors (Spanish, Italian, etc.) can pick up new languages like sponges. For those who did not have that exposure, it's nowhere near as easy.

subcutaneous

Cocoa and tan work great in two-tone schemes. As do 2 versions of slate. IMO.

I like the link. I will have to "bask in it" a little more, as it has a lot of meat on its bones and good factual stuff for me to latch onto.One of my Mom's first cousins who lives on the East Coast married an unquestionably Sicilian woman with a Spanish surname ending in 'ez'. There is no bigger bitch-on-wheels to be found anywhere (yeah, he is a wimp, of course), yet her sister, who is probably now in her 70s and remains in the Motherland, is very mild-mannered and nice. Some other Spanish surnames, such as Serges, were quite well represented in my parents' general area. I am also wondering if there is a Portuguese link to "the island". The grammatical structure of Sicilian is shockingly similar to that of Portuguese, particularly in prepositional phrases. Example - "the lady is from Portugal" Portuguese: A senhora e do Portugal Italian: La signora e del Portogallo (gn = nh) Sicilian: A signora e do Portogallo (gn = nh) Why I never at least minored in languages I'll never know, because I would have been a pig in $h!.

Please...don't encourage him. He needs little encouragement.

Dude, there is a lot of validity to what you say and a lot of Europeans feel the same way as there are no "programs" for them. They jump in the water and swim. I learned Spanish only because (1) I had to take another language when I got to college, (2) it is helpful while traveling in Spain and Argentina from where, if people were to come to the states, they would get on board real quick, (3) I had Cuban friends and such, that Americanized as quickly as I did, yet we use Espanol to talk behind people's backs in fun. We worked with this neurotic Jewish chick while in high school who had a funky looking mouth and my best friend Fernando nicknamed her "El Cocodrilo" which means "The Crocodile" and this one angry lesbian at my last job became known as "La Comedora (de Alfombra)" among a handful of us which means "The Carpet Eater," so a lot of my Espanol is for its comic value with friends, though we speak English at all other times.

Happy birthday, Cadillac Fan...I remember how much I liked that sig where the Cadillac emblem periodically reflected/sparkled. Now, ocnblu and P-C-S, you can't have ME "minding the fort" on this topic as far away as I am? :AH-HA_wink: Seriously, CF, any plans or pranks?

Some claim the vowel opening/closure as one way to tell.For me, it's the cadence....all the way. When I am in Sicily and a local is speaking standard Italian to me, one just listens to the underlying flow and it is Sicilian to the bone, though the Italian being delivered is grammatically correct. Then, I come back to the north of Italy to my cousins, with whom we are clustered within a 5 year age group or so, and it's nonstop making fun of the Sicilians and our relatives who still live down there (in a nice way for the Sicilians and in a bad way for the relatives). As for the Espanol, try pretending you are another person altogether (just like Sybil did, but without trying )

nuclear

And that's cool. Smart and discerning people know how to use this vehicle correctly and can accomplish results. Some people may be smart in money or books or career related issues, but not so smart when it comes to judging people and knowing who may be a powder keg waiting to go off. I was a dumb$h! when it came to judging people. That ended by about the time I finished college. My Dad had WAAAAY too many street smarts (having lived in Australia, an Italian colony in Africa and ultimately the U.S.) for the street smarts and "quick study" ability to not rub off.

With a graduate business degree and your underlying experience, you certainly would have mobility. Heck, keep in mind that even the brightest of MBAs make a lot of switches early on to find their niche and the company that's right for them. Sorry to hear about your foster mom. Thanks for sharing this. What are your origins? It appears to you have a handle on some languages. All the better for your marketability. I learned to hate management pop books, except for those that are RAW and tell it like it is. I had to read "Good to Great" by Collins, this granolafied ex-Stanford prof now living in Boulder CO - why does this not surprise me. It was the Academy Awards of the corporate world. He painted a stellar picture of his hand picked companies -- spare me Dr. Collins and please admit that the same politics and bull$h! that are elsewhere are found in these companies as well. One of the ones I like is called "The Fifth Discipline" which talks about a lot of organizational problems as being cultural and systemic and, trust me, this dude is spot on. See, I am a geek. I like my numbers (and my languages ). My BSBA was in Accounting and I found that, on a stand alone basis, one doesn't understand the environment in which it operates. About three kick-ass finance courses (Corp. Finance, Short Term Finance and Investments) and suddenly you're a better bean-counter for it.

You know I usually agree with you on many things. But I differ a bit on this one. I switched careers after staying in my first one for a handful of years. The second career (architecture) was something people told me I was given a talent for that I was wasting ....and I wondered every day if that's what I should have done. I am now going back to my first career because it is (a) easier - no apologies, (b) earns the same amount of money, or more, and © is more stable. Sitting in a grad program for architecture in a part of the country I would never considered making home meant no relationships, plus I was about 5 years older than most of my classmates which, in your 20s, is a big deal...stupid, I know. I watched virtually all of my friends pair up with their equals...in education, looks, age, ethnicity, religion, etc. I think that is NORMAL. I am conservative as for my own needs and fairly liberal about what others do, though it wouldn't work for me. The package of EQUALITY after people make the big first cut during or immediately after college or university is not easily found...trust me, I've looked. If people want to view me as a snob or as sexually maladjusted (as one person on this site alludes to repeatedly, given his years of worldliness), then go to it. One of my friends in Portland says I am a little bitter about this and am now "holding court," as he puts it, delighting in snubbing women who have kids, who do not have careers and who are not educated. He's probably right. But I am sure there is a fix or a match somewhere. I am just having fun pursuing my intellectual interests and not worrying about it, though I probably should.

underwater

Many say this, including the language guides. And one can tell this as he or she listens to Brazilian jazz with some vocals in it. I found it easier to understand the Brazilians, but would NOT vacation there though Rio is the most stunning city in the world, bar none. I would rather go to quaint Portugal over and over....and struggle with the language a bit. I don't know the details, but I have one theory. The Portuguese (and Portugal) like their tranquility. Some transplanted Brazilians and colonials coming in have brought their more lawless ways with them. For example, one Lisboeta told me how pissed he was about the "parking assistants" -- losers, mostly from Brazil, who have a monopoly on a neighborhood where you would just normally pull over and park your car...at no cost. You have to tip them to "watch your car" or they might do something to it in retaliation. The same is true in Naples, where I have cousins. In the North of Europe, this would not fly. I told my cousins that some big redneck boys back in the States would delight in beating the living f@#k out of such scum. I mean, could you imagine, on a Sunday in downtown Toronto, wanting to park your car on Danforth or College when it might be free and you would have to "tip" somebody $1 or so? Is this your partner who has the December 13th birthday? Does he make lists for everything and is he super-organized?