We had recently lost our cat “The Boss”, and had plenty of cat food left over. So my wife started feeding one of the cats that was bold enough to stop and “chat” with us while passing by.
He came back again for more and we took his picture. Comparing that to an older picture we had of “the boss” conversing with another cat from behind closed windows we knew that was not the first time this particular cat was at our door (and windows). We had thought it was a female previously. And “the boss” was bold enough to chase away other cats that ventured near his balcony, so we never saw that cat again while he was with us.
Soon after, my wife was leaving food for “Garfield the red” on the balcony every night, and we always found the bowl empty in the morning. Garo (for short), was also visiting during the day, and screaming for attention (and food) whenever he saw us. But we suspected he wasn’t the only one eating our food.
One day, we saw the one I always called “hag” passing by. But instead of taking the trail down the wall facing the office and to the street, she went straight to the balcony and to the bowl of food! Yeap, Garo had competition.
And it was real competition for our affections, as Giselle was so cuddly and human-friendly you wouldn’t believe it was a feral cat. She spent her time rubbing against my wife’s feet. When Pia sat down she would come and sleep in her lap. And she was never too hungry or preoccupied to let us pet her and check her for flees.
It was mating season, so we heard plenty of screams night and day. That was normal. Then one day, Garo came with a huge cut on his forehead, next to his right ear. He allowed me to put some betadine on the wound. We were worried, but he’s doing fine now except for a bald spot where the wound used to be. We also treated both cats with tick repellant.
Giselle was now spending most of her time on our balcony, leaving only for a few hours every day. On one night, we heard her calling out in her small voice (as opposed to Garo’s howling cries) to someone we couldn’t see outside. We came out to see another female of the same size, coming in from the outside. This one we called Xena after a few days because she always annouces her entrance with the same war cry that Xena the warrior pricess used when attacking enemies!
Xena and Giselle were now inseparable. They even defended “their” place against all other intruding cats. Even Garo was sent crying when he tried to come in for a bite.
The story continues, with lots of interaction and new cats coming in from the wild daily. Giselle went out one day and did not come back, we’re not sure where she is. Garo is sleeping on the balcony now. Him and Xena tolerate each other. The stealthy Gerard and his black and white side-kick are venturing nearer now, but Xena still slaps them silly when they try to trespass!
I’m posting just a few pics, let me know if you like them.

It’s all in the broth really. I saved some of the wonderful chicken broth my wife made and decided to use it to make a soup since it was raining!

Here’s my recipe:

Bring a liter of water to a boil. Add 100g of macaroni and some salt, and leave it cook for about 8 minutes. Meanwhile, slice an onion and a clove of garlic thinly and sweat them down with a splash of olive oil and a teaspoon of butter. Add the sliced mushrooms to the pan and stir. I added a pinch of ginger powder. Add the chicken broth, and let it simmer. Then add the whole thing to the boiling macaronis.
Let it all reduce just a little bit while all the flavors infuse.
I topped the plate with a pinch of tarragon

Here’s a pic I took in a haste

I’m not saying the bank managers are stupid, I’m not saying the person (committee?) who wrote the code is stupid. I’m saying the whole annoying experience is stupid. First, the only added security in that setup is forcing the customer to use the mouse instead of the keyboard therefore circumventing possible any keyloggers that may be installed on the PC.
However, by adding that “feature” they forced people to use a slower method to enter their password which (imho) introduced at least 2 vulnerabilities:

1. The password will be visible to anyone overlooking the user entering the password
2. The shifting keyboard is very annoying, so users will inevitably pick easier to enter/remember passwords
3. The second “pin code” screen is also annoying, and will force most users to write down their pin code on a piece of paper, adding to the risk!

Again IMHO, the risks introduced seem to outweigh the benefits.

I only access my accounts from a couple of secure machines. So I wrote a greasemonkey userscript to bypass the virtual keyboard annoyance. It’s a few lines of javascript code but it saves a whole lot of clicking!

PS. I will not post it here, but feel free to email me if you need it.

I found a good deal on a “Bosch” impact drill with a bunch of spare drills and other “accessories”.

I also got some shelves from the mall: those turned up nicely as a makeshift closet while we’re waiting for the IKEA closet to arrive by ground delivery from KSA (thanks Juliano for taking the trouble to send us those!)

Later, I got some hooks and setup a clothesline with some wires. That looked really good

After that, I setup some door stoppers, a plastic net so “the boss” (our cat) can go out to the balcony without venturing “outside” to the garden.

Next on my list is setting up a metal closet/racks in the office room. Also for the office, I’m getting a large white-board and a black foam board. Plenty to do and it’s lots of fun (so far).

Going back to my day job now!

Well, when you see the picture of the “thing” that my friend Simone brought over yesterday afternoon, an exclamation is in order! He had a paper bag in his hand. He said it was a gift from his mother. Nothing I knew about mushroom prepared me for the sight.

Here it is in a pic taken earlier by Pia:

Later that night we prepared the huge mushroom to Simone’s mother’s recipe (thanks!) with some garlic, olive oil, salt and a squeeze of lemon, oh and a steak! DELICIOUS!

Anyone who’s ever worked from home will tell you it’s hard to stay focused with too many distractions all around. Having no children, the only distractions at home for me would be the cat. But we have both learned to respect each other’s space and daily habits, so there’s no problem for me there.

Now, I thought this would change once we came to Italy. I had a goal to work in public places at least once a week since we came here. I have managed to do that a couple of times so far.

The key was being well prepared. I have a couple of extra batteries for the netbook I use (Acer Aspire One). The larger one (12cell chinese made) will stay up for about 7 hours without wifi. With the UMTS/broadband USB key however, I found it will stay up for about 4 hours. The other batteries keep me up for the rest of my 8 hours work day, so I’m covered there.

The other thing to look for is a good place to sit and be comfortable while trying to concentrate on troubleshooting server problems
I tried doing that at the pitti palace gardens (boboli gardens) last month, but it was too hot to bare. I had to go find another place to work as mosquitoes and other annoying things were eating me up in the heat. The solution then was a nice busy restaurant with good air-conditioning and friendly staff.

The best time I had so far working in public places was at the Piazza della Signoria. The main attraction for tourists in Florence. It’s where you find the free open-air meuseum, the Palazo Vecchio (with the fake David up front) and right around the corner from the Uffizi Gallery.

I found a nice spot under one of the historical statues (not the one with the warrior holding high the severed head of an ennemy). There was a street musician playing guitar (same tunes over and over). And there was a nice cool breeze all day. I completely phased out of my surroundings as I started to work, up until the time when Pia came back from her self-made tour at the Bargello.

I hope I can do that again sometime. Maybe with the nicer weather I could find other interesting places to work at. It’s so nice to work from home, but troubleshooting Linux server issues at a museum is a dream come true!

I like to learn more about how people eat, and what they love to eat in a certain place. In Italy, it seems every area has its own food heritage. Tuscany is known for the great wines and meat-stuff they make. But for some reason we haven’t been able to enjoy this type of food much since we got here.

We did go to Zaza a couple of times (4). But that’s about the best we’ve done so far. At Zaza, I should say, we had some wonderful food: spaghetti with mussels, pizza with truffle sauce and other less interesting toppings (but good nonetheless), beef steak (also with truffle sauce), and of course la Bisteccha a la Fiorentina.
Now, there should be a whole post about that I know, but it should be mentioned. It’s a beautifully piece of steak 10cm thick and very juicy, grilled on charcoal fire. I want to taste it somewhere else before I say if I really like it or not though

We’re also trying another Gelateria every other day. So far so good. I’m loving the panna-cotta, but trying to try something else every time.

The other day we were near piitti palace, it was too hot and we were looking for a place to eat. So we find “La Mangiatoia”, a place we almost missed or dismissed as a macelleria (butcher’s). But I took another look and there was a menu, and a bar where one could stand and have lunch. It looked good enough, and the meat looked delicious. We walked in to find they had a couple of rooms in the back. And the place was filled with Italians having lunch. The food was good, Pia and I shared a primi and secondi and stopped before eating too much to get dessert. Dessert was a panna-cotta and tiramisu that looked small, but was just the right size to enjoy. It was truly lovely. We tried to go there another time yesterday night, but it was closed!

Now most people would be waiting for the mention of pizza. I’m not too fond of pizza really. We had a few good pizzi, but nothing to write home about. Yesterday, we arrived home tired and hungry, so we ordered one large pizza from the pizzeria right around the corner (salsiccia and stracchini). I should say it was very close to what Pia would make at home, so pretty good

We just had a large serving of gnocchi with pomodoro sauce. Pia made that in about 15 minutes, using ready made fresh gnocchi from the COOP. Very tasty indeed. I wonder if I’ll ever like anything better than my wife’s cooking …

It’s really amazing how different the sky looks in Italy. It’s huge, vast, enormous… amazingly beautiful!
Lebanon is surrounded by the Mediterranean from the west, a series of mountains from the east… so the sky is always bound no matter where you look. Here it’s different, wide spaces with mountains in the far horizon and plains extending as if forever. Maybe that’s why the sky looks larger (to me at least)!

Here are some photos with beautiful Italian skies.
I should take a few more to show you what I mean.

The original post and the pictures an be found on blog.scrum2.us

Italians are friendly. I guess it’s in their nature. And everyone wants to help out if they can. For example, the other day we were looking for the bus stop for the Ikea shuttle near S.M.N. Stazione in Firenze. I started by asking the guy in the ATAF (bus company) booth where the shuttle stop is, and got the right answer. Being paranoid, and learning from earlier bad experiences, I wanted to ask someone else, just to make sure. The second guy I asked, also an ATAF driver, told me the stop is on the other side of the street, about 20m away. Humm, now that’s a bit confusing!

I went ahead and asked yet another driver, and got a totally different answer: “go to where the Taxis are parked and ask there. It’ll be near …”. I thought he might be mistaken, so I asked a street salesman who pointed me in yet another direction! All in all, I had 7 different answers  from 7 different people on the same street.

At that, we decided to go look for another way to Ikea (Busses no. 29 and 30 go there). Pia’s “positive” reaction about the whole experience: “Italians are so helpful, they don’t want to turn you away, so they would tell you anything they think might help ”

Oh well, and they say “Io parla Arabo”!

[10:50:59 AM] Ghassan Deeb: I am not Ghassan!
[10:52:45 AM] Ghassan Deeb: By the way I’m Mr.X, I run the www.example.com on your server.
[10:53:09 AM] Ghassan Deeb: I need to xxx?
[11:51:04 AM] Ghassan Deeb: Please answer me

[DURING THIS TIME I WAS OUT OF THE OFFICE]

[12:34:18 PM] Abdallah Deeb: hello Mr.X, please log out of my brother’s skype. Thanks.
[12:37:13 PM] Ghassan Deeb: I didn’t touch anything I just have to work on this computer, and you didn’t even answer me, quite rude you are.
[12:38:18 PM] Abdallah Deeb: indeed.
please log out of skype immediately. as for your question: …

Am I rude? I like to think I’m nice and accommodating. The kids in my congregation seem to have no trouble coming to me for anything, even to start an odd conversation about the latest animated movie, or their favorite console game!

But here’s someone who’s never seen me or spoken to me accusing me of being rude because I asked them politely (I think!) not to use my brother’s skype account as it has some private conversations recorded there!

I did use “Please” and “Thanks”. I was short and concise, that may have been the trouble! Or maybe I did not answer the question my “brother” asked immediately, making me the rude one. The “brother” did not consider that I was offline or AFK at that time.  Just because he said “Please answer me” and I didn’t makes me the bad guy.

I answer about 30-50 emails/day as part of my job. It’s easy to be mistaken for rude while trying to keep  a conversation friendly online. One of my colleagues uses emoticons like or even to keep the conversation friendly. He confessed to me one day that he hated that, and that it’s not professional to do so in an email. But he keeps doing it anyway to keep the conversation lite and friendly.

I learned to do that myself, but I may have missed this time. I’ll go call up Mr.X right now and apologize to him for my “rudeness”. We have to keep the peace

(Romans 12:18) If possible, as far as it depends upon YOU, be peaceable with all men.