Luggages

Today I have just changed my luggages: SAS had to pay them because when I received them back, 2 out of 4 were in a bad shape. I ordered new ones, but it took some time to get them.
Pretty happy about the choice, now I can leave Milan for Berlin, at least for a week-end.

Sorry that I haven't started my new website, it will be great, but I was working for Milan's election: Penati won it.

Nestle Is Likely to Hold On To Perrier for the Time Being

Nestlé SA is likely to keep its unprofitable Perrier mineral-water operations for the time being, despite the company's statement this year that it could sell the brand amid a fight with labor unions.

But selling Perrier to a buyer in the industry wouldn't be easy, analysts say. Nestlé's French rival, Groupe Danone, is a large producer of mineral water and would face regulatory issues. A sale to Coca-Cola Co. or PepsiCo Inc. of the U.S., or to private French beverages company Castel Group looks more likely, but their appetite is probably small given Perrier's unprofitability.

Staying home - Big Heat On Its Way, Temperatures Will Rise to 38 Degrees

I like sometimes staying home. "But it's not so bad this year". That's a phrase that will no longer be true from tomorrow, according to the Geophysical Observatory of the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, forecasting the second big heatwave of the summer of 2004.
There will be a rapid build-up of the subtropical anticyclone, which will interrupt the unusual meteorological and climatic normality. In other words, torrid heat is on its way, along with moderate humidity.

Ulrich Inderbinen died on June 14th, aged 103

Mr Inderbinen was the world's oldest mountain guide.

I want to learn German

I need to learn German, I have to, I want, I should.
I started with this German for travelers site, it is great but I am sure other sites are also available.

is it true?

Starting in July, Hotmail will increase the amount of inbox storage space for its free accounts to 250 megabytes.

More Millionaires in Italy - Now There Are 188,000

There are now 188,000 people in Italy who have at least a million dollars (820,000 euros) in disposable financial wealth. That means one resident in three hundred. According to the Merrill Lynch-Cap Gemini 2004 report on world wealth, as many as 22,000 of them have joined the "gold list" in the last year alone, which is a rise of 13.25%. If all Italy's millionaires were brought together in one small town, the community would have a total financial wealth of 415 billion dollars (343 billion euros), up from 2002's 366 billion dollars (300 billion euros). The average balance in the current accounts of this hypothetical town's prosperous bank would be more than 1.8 million euros (just under 1.5 million dollars).

However for Gianluca Bussolati, Merrill Lynch's head of private clients in Italy, what is driving this sudden increase is probably the impact of the "fiscal shield", which enabled wealth held abroad to be repatriated. The growth might therefore be more apparent than real.

What does this exhibit tell you?

In August last year, Toyota sold more cars than Chrysler in America. This year, it overtook Ford as the world’s second-biggest carmaker, behind GM. Its stockmarket value already exceeds that of the big three combined. Can it be too much longer before, in terms of units sold, Toyota also has GM in its rear-view mirror?

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2-2

The game was really, but I do not like to have rules where in a game where there are incentives to cheat. It is too bad for Soccer.

Out

I had stopped writing my blog because I was really focused on my National team. We are out, no excuses...

Pictures

I finally found the answer to the top Blogger question: how do I post pictures?

from Blogger's FAQ:
"Blogger does not directly provide image hosting, although you are welcome to include any images in your blog if you have them stored online elsewhere. Windows users can also use the Hello BloggerBot to post pictures directly to their blogs.

Once you have an image online, you can include it in either your template or in a specific post by typing in the following tag: . Just replace the URL here with the actual URL of your image."


It is nice to know that....

Not sure

I did not have time to install Linux on my laptop. I had a great time yesterday, with my friends. I missed the soccer match between Holland and C.R. yesterday. It was good.... Today I cannot miss Spain vs. Portugal.

How come?

Italy played so well yesterday, plobably the best game up to now in the Euro championship.
The Azzurri squad was vastly improved from the one that sleepwalked through its 0-0 opener against Denmark.
Pirlo did a great job but it was not enough.

If they can reproduce this form in the group finale on Tuesday, they should beat the hapless Bulgarians, 2-0 losers to Denmark yesterday. And, given that, if Sweden can beat the Danes — or vice-versa — Italy would advance at the expense of the loser of that match.
I am sure we can qualify, but if Denmark and Sweden ties 2-2, we are out.....

17 million watch England victory in UK

More than three-quarters of the available male TV audience tuned in to watch England's 3-0 win over Switzerland. The crucial match in Portugal attracted 17 million viewers at its peak. ITV1 said 78.1% of the available male audience tuned in to see England triumph with two goals from teenage sensation Wayne Rooney and a Steven Gerrard strike.
The match averaged 14.2 million viewers with a 68.5% share - almost five times the average - peaking at 71.1% for the final 10 minutes.
On Sunday more than 20 million viewers watched England's last-gasp defeat by France - one of the biggest football audiences ever.

British played quite well, they deserved to win and to attend the Quarter Finals. However, it won't be so easy to win in the next match with Croatia. The team is not as good as in 1998, but they have Dado Prso, a great striker, which will join Rangers in a three year deal from Champions League finalists Monaco at the end of the season.

Linux

I will install a Linux server during the week-end, with and start the new site as soon as I do so.
I am really excited about it.

Big Day

Italy is playing tonight without Totti but with Pirlo.

I am sure they are going to win, I am not sure it will be easy. We have a great team this year......

Okan Buruk joins Besiktas -- from Inter.it

July 17th. "MILAN - F.C. Internazionale communicates that an agreement has been reached for the transfer of Okan Buruk to Besiktas. The Turkish midfielder has cut short his contract with Inter by mutual consent, by signing a document (registered at the Lega Calcio offices in Milan this morning) in which he renounces his salary for the 2004/05 season, therefore permitting the club to make a significant saving."

I am just wondering how much the team saved (1 Million Euro? More???), but I guess it will be hard to know.

Tomorrow

Tomorrow is going to be a great day. Mr.Robertson III, the famous Californian sculptor is going to visit me in Milan. At the same time, Italy is playing with Sweden.

I want to invite him for a dinner in a good restaurant, Tarantola, in Appiano Gentile (place where my soccer team is training).

However, how can I miss the soccer match?

Totti

Italy is waiting for UEFA's decision about Totti, the talented Italian player. UEFA has to decide over 'spitting'. As ESPN mentioned, "Soccer players regard spitting as one of the most disrespectful actions possible by an opposing player." If this claim is true, what is the rationale for spitting?

By the way, he got 3-match ban......

wedding?

Last Saturday I went to a friend's wedding (not mine!).
At the restaurant, during the lunch, I had a great idea.
I thought I have to build an optimization model in Excel (technically a MILP) in order to identify the optimal layout among tables.

Think about it: John hates Peter, Peter likes Stephanie, Marc(o) does not speak English, Stephen enjoys politics, Carl detests it, friends do not want to be too far from the newlyweds, Anya is vegetarian, Anna wants to talk with the lowest number of persons, grandmother Maria cannot walk too much, etc.

I suddenly realized that it is pretty impossible to introduce many constraints by hand, if you have more than 100 persons. Would it be nice to find an automatic way to do so.

If you have any ideas, I would really appreciate your help: which criteria should I use for finding the optimal layout

Mancini, Inter, business and other

Do you really believe it?

Inter Milan have sensationally named Roberto Mancini as new manager. After leaving Lazio, Mancini replaces Alberto Zaccheroni, who resigned on the same day. Mancini had been Lazio's coach for two seasons. He started his coaching career at the Rome club as aide to Sven-Goran Eriksson, now England's coach. The former Sampdoria striker is Inter's 11th coach since oil industrialist Massimo Moratti took over the team a decade ago. Inter president Giacinto Facchetti said: "It's useless to try and understand what the problems with Zaccheroni were, but he has preferred to resign and so we have changed direction. "With Mancini, who is one of the best young coaches around, negotiations are under way but no agreement has yet been concluded. I say this to underline the fact that he hasn't already been here for a while, which is what some people have been saying."

I am not sure about it, but I guess there is something wrong with Inter's management. But I am still unable to figure out what is wrong.

Latvia

I did not have the chance to see all first 8 games at the EURO 2004 Soccer tournament, but from what I have heard and seen, England is offering the best game. I was not impressed by many teams, I am sure games are going to be better in the next weeks. Spain is going to play with Greece tonight: it could be an interesting game because both teams won the first round. Spanish coach Inaki Saez already told the press he plans to replace a large part of those guys who played the first game: sounds promising... I was impressed by Latvian players: they won in Sweden in the qualification games, they beat Turkey, and they played quite well in the first game last night. A large part of them plays for Skonto Riga, but there are many (especially the forwards), playing abroad (Germany, UK, Ukraine, Israel, etc). They unfortunately lose, but they could potentially create nightmares to Holland and Germany.

Belarus soccer player will play in Italy (Serie A)

Great news: Mr. Vitalii Kutuzov, 24 years old from Borisov, is going to play with Sampdoria next year. Kutuzov has already played for 4 years in Belarus with Bate Borisov. He moved to AC Milan, where he played few games in First division. He progressed to Sporting Lisbona and came back to Italy with Avellino (second division), where he scored 15 goals without penalties. He was trained by Zenek Zeman, a soccer guru, who is moving to Lecce next season.

7 days without Blog

It is not that I am busy or lazy, but I do not have too much to say. I plan to buy soon a pair of Rossetti shoes: I am still wondering whether is costs more in London, Milan, Hong Kong or New York. However, I cannot hedge anymore..

My sites, on average, got around 30 visits per week. I could have done a better job, but I am happy for the moment about this great result.

Euro Under21

Euro U21 is playing today. I don't have much to say right now about my life. I am trying to watch this final (Italy-Serbia Montenegro), to have a feeling about soccer.

Italy U21

I did not have the chance to spend my saturday shopping or watching TV today. After my 6 hour test, I went eating a real Italian Pizza (I was really missing one......).

Italy Under 21 qualified for the Soccer U21 competition in Germany. Thanks Gilardino....

Italyyyyyyyyyyy

I am finally back after a long, long trip. I stopped by Manchester airport for a few hours. It was a chaos today in the UK: National Air Traffic Services, the company that controls U.K. airspace, said the Flight Data Processing System at the West Drayton control center crashed after overnight testing. As a result, information about flights entering controlled airspace had to be hand-entered into the rest of the control system, resulting in a drastic reduction of capacity and a temporary ban on flight departures.

Packing, Inter and leaving

I spent $247 for sending books to my home town in Italy. It is probably too much for my current salary, but books worth more than $2000.

Inter, my team, officially announced it bought Favalli, from Lazio great player, but older than me...

Tomorrow: JFK. It will be a long day

Packing

I am packing all my stuffs. I plan to send my books through USPS this morning. I have 5 cases, I cannot imagine how much I am going to spend.
Moreover, on Saturday, I have to take the CFA exam, level 1: I am really prepared, I have studied three times the Schweser books: I have to pass with flying colors.