10/15/05

News May 2005

Hi all. No news for a long time I know, sorry! What can I say 2004 was a difficult and busy year with many ups and downs and updating the web site was always a “c” priority. Now however I find myself in, mmmmmmmmm how shall I put this, a “different” employment situation and I now have slightly more time. More about that later, first some general news. 

Well I am afraid there will just have to be a black hole for some of the Brizzi Family news from 2004 as I cannot remember all that happened. No not because I was in some drug and alcohol induced haze but rather I am getting on a bit and my memory is not what it used to be :-) My folks were out here again over the summer. They are in good shape for their cumulative 145 years and it was nice to see them again. My folks being here meant that I could take Cindy with me to the USA in July; we spent some time in Chicago, Dallas and Boston. It was great and though I was working most of the time we did manage one great weekend in Chicago and one in Boston. In Chicago we went to see the Blue Man group, excellent if you haven’t seen them, and then just went sightseeing, ate cheesecake (the portion sizes were like eating a whole cheesecake anywhere else in the world - if they halved the portion sizes in the USA they would have halve the obesity problem they have and we could solve world hunger) and listened to Blues. In Boston we rented a Car and drove up the coast, had a great day and whilst sitting on a remote beach at a place called Marble Head even bumped into some South Africans - how lucky can you get.

Most of the rest of the summer I worked and we just hung around Monza and the pool at the club. I was working at Nokia and so was spending a lot of time in Helsinki. Working hard during the day and trying to work out how to draw the curtains in my hotel room at night so that I could get some sleep. With only about 4 hours of so called darkness it is tough to get a decent nights sleep. Of course that all changes in the winter when you only have 4 hours of daylight (which is an overstatement - it is 4 hours of light gray as opposed to the 20 hours of dark black) Cindy joined me for a weekend there as well. In November Cindy and I went to London to watch the Springboks get a hiding, apart from that we had a great weekend there on our own, just chilling.

The Kids are all great. Nix is 19 and first year at Bocconi doing a Business Economics degree. She is doing really well. She spent August in Sardinia baby sitting. She has settled down well in Italy and I am so happy to have all my children with me. Calvin shot up this year and is becoming a young man. He does drive me insane with his constant clashing with Mom but he does well when he applies himself and is now in his second year of High School. Catrina is also growing fast and is in her last year of elementary school, in September she starts her middle school. She is at home with me right now with tonsillitis, all part of growing up.

As always our house has been full of other people, my folks were here, Jade, Nicci’s ex boyfriend, stayed with us until January. So the Brizzi household is still always like a train station of people coming and going. Cindy will no doubt be up for Sainthood at some stage for the marvelous way she handles the situation. It is always easier for me as soon as things get tough I just hop on a plane and disappear of to some other part of the world. Although lately that has not been an option.

In December we took our house in the mountains again and had a great Christmas with Karin and Ray and all the family. As per tradition someone in the Brizzi family has to hurt themselves each year and this year was Anna, my sisters, turn. She strained the ligaments in her right knee when some woman crashed into her. The snow this year has been very dodgy, never had much to start with and the few snowfalls we had over the holidays were just enough to tempt us off-piste and just too little to cover most of the jagged rocks. So whilst we had some fun powder days the equipment took a battering and many hours were spent filling the holes on the bottom of our boards. We have seen a lot of snow in Monza though which is strange, obviously this global warming lark - Alpine resorts have no snow, Monza more than usual and the resorts in the south of Italy have meters of the stuff. So my plans of spending my unemployed time skiing every day were scuppered. I went out twice with a fellow unemployed friend, Jeff, once to Madesimo, where we did the famous Canalone, a several km long gully, it is not too hard when there is a lot of snow but due to the poor snow fall we had a 1m to 3m wide strip full of rocks to go down - rather than say I skied it it would be more accurate to say survived it. We also went to Andermatt once, which was great - challenging resort which would be no fun for beginner or intermediates, but plenty of black and off piste mogul runs. Basically has one Gondola so I can imagine the queues get quite hectic. Being there on a weekday meant that we never waited more than 15 or 20 minutes.

Cindy has started up two small businesses. Not quite enough for me to retire yet but they keep her really busy. One is making Jewellery (see the photos) and she did a roaring trade over Christmas, the other is called Computer Tutors (see www.computertutorsonline.com) and is a sort of Computer training at home for ladies business. So Cindy and two other ladies basically teach people how to use their PC’s and the internet etc. They have branched out a bit helping people with things like buying a PC's and lecturing at the local school on Internet Safety. I am hoping all of these ventures take off so I can sit on my butt and count the money as it rolls in - but I am not holding my breath just yet. Cindy is still walking a lot and her other big project is organizing a 16km walk in the Monza park as part of the Bicentenary celebrations of the park. The Walk known as the Benvenuto Club walk for women's health will take place on the 28th of May. Not sure what Cindy will do when I get a job and stop being the house husband! Check out the site http://www.benvenutomonza.com/walk_womens_health.htm

Now to my saga, which I really cannot talk about much due to the restrictions of my settlement. Suffice to say that from the 31/12 I am no longer an employee of Capgemini Italy. Due to some decisions made at board level in Capgemini, which I was totally against, I had to make some decisions about my future – Capgemini made making those decisions easier by offering me a princely sum as a severance package, which I accepted, and so left the group. Strangely enough though I was back subcontracting back to them for a few months – so whilst I did not work for Capgemini any more, I did for a while longer if you know what I mean. Now I am in the process of job hunting - things do not look so bad and I have some things I am following up on so we are holding thumbs that soon I will be back at work (not that I am all that keen). The contract I signed to get my package precludes me from saying anything nasty about the Capgemini management, though seeing the share price drop from €365/share to €25/share in 4 years says more than I ever would be able to har har har. Had to get at least one little dig in. In the mean time I have been doing some subcontracting and have been enjoying my time at home. A little secret guys, you know how the women who stay at home complain all the time how terrible it is and how they wish they could have a stimulating job like our? It is all bullshit! They just don't want us to know how great it is to be at home. I have loved it! Taking the kids to school (took them a few months to stop calling me uncle Riccardo now that I wasn't traveling anymore) - going grocery shopping - wow it is so relaxing and fantastic - rarely do I have to be anywhere or deliver anything to anyone and I have no clients making unreasonable demands on me. Of course the kids try and make unreasonable demands, but I just tell them to sod off!

Well that is all for now. Hopefully I will hear in the next few weeks if I am gainfully employed again. I will keep you all updated.