the-shrike.net

I’ve had my Shiraz wine as an aperitif.
I’ve had my Carlsberg to go with the sausages and the salad.
I’ve got my Earl Grey for the rest of the evening.
I’ve got Deep Purple.

I’m fine. Well, I’m better than I was a couple of days ago.
The dinner has been a nice one, easy and fast to cook, but so enjoyable and nice that it is sure helping me feeling better (and full :p) right now, but what I think it’s really making the difference, is that I know that tommorrow I’ll take service again, after about 10 days at home (between OFFs and STANDBYs).
It’s quite strange to realize (in fact) once again how much I’m addicted to the job I do, and how much this is part of my nature now. When I am stuck on the ground, for whatever reason it is, I kind of suffer, it’s just uncomfortable for me not to fly. The point is most of the time I don’t see what I do as a job, I simply do it because I like to do it, which I think is kind of lucky situation to be in, when doing something that you like is actually earning you money to buy your food and pay for the roof you’ve over your head :p
The point is: I’ve a lot of addiction, really a lot. A large number of them are not exactly listable here [;)] but sure their common trait is that they make me spend money, not earning anything in return in the form of currency. Yes, they give me satisfaction and good pleasure, sometimes, but having my actualy real job listed among them is a kind of big luck. That’s why, probably, I’ve not thought too much about moving from Italy to UK to continue being a Cabin Crew, being what I like to be.

I don’t know exactly why I’m writing it here, actually this is probably the most personal post I’ve ever made here on the-shrike.net, but tonight I felt like doing it, and here it is.
I’ll be flying to Paris tomorrow afternoon, so enjoy your week-end in this side of Europe (and the world) while I’ll be flying over Siberia to Tokyo at 38000 feet… and semi & improperly quoting one of the character from one of my most favourite series ever:

I’m Federico, and I am almost happy…

A quick consideration before leaving to take a flight (off-duty) to Mombasa to be repositioned in order to operate the inbound flight from there to Milan on Wednesday. Actually: my first time on a long-haul intercontinental route as a passenger. And the first time on a B767 too! I’m excited.

Back to the consideration. Indeed, there are actually two of them.
Last 10 days I’ve been in Maldives for work, on a long shift, and like it’s my common habit there, I literally devoured 3 books (from start to finish).
Two of them are definitely worth a quick note each.

[Putin's Russia by Anna Politkovskaya]
I loved it. Well, not in the common sense of the term. It’s a sad book, especially for someone like me that is so fond and so fascinated by the fate of Russia.
Very revealing and reading it while following on SKYNews TV the poisoning spy-game that was going on in the UK (and in Italy too) has been a little strange adding more and more thoughts on the “whole” status of the Russian life/system now.
I am usually not very “fond” of the all against books or movies, always a little suspicion about they telling the actual truth, but even taking in mind a little “dramatization” due to hate towards the person (President Putin in this case, take President Bush for Moore and it’s the same…), the stories narrated there are more than just scary, are definitely tremedously scaring!
Looking forward to read also A Dirty War: A Russian Reporter in Chechnya as soon as possible, I suggest Putin’s Russia as a must read to anyone who would like to take a look in the present of Russia.
It’s probably not the whole story, but a lot of it for sure, and well written too.

[The Cathedral and the Bazaar by Eric S. Raymond]
Shame on me! Shame on me!
Still, up until 10 days ago, I haven’t read what could be considered one of the many pages of a possible bible of the Open Source community. In my defence I can say I had in the past already read the on-line version of The Cathedral and the Bazaar, so what I was really missing was the other essayes published with it by O’Reilly.
I know have filled that missing in my Open Source history culture, and I’m feeling better :p
Right now quite outdated in its examples (due to publishing date) but a must read for everyone interested in the subject!

…what I could have never thought was that this blog would have seen so much almost-book-reviews like it’s doing. Oh well, maybe it’s just because I love reading.
Now I go back to pack things, to play with my new Samsung SGH-Z560 and to get ready to leave.

It has been a long time since my last post, but these have been quite busy days for me.

What started like being a “I will be flying not too much” month, ended in a crazy long series of flights that is going to end by bringing me to Ibiza for the second Saturday evening in a row (the week also included: greek island and Egypt).
Of course I’m not complaining, with each flight I love this job more and more, but the drawback of a planning like this is very simple: always taking off early-morning or late-evening means no sleep! Or at least: not as much as I would like to have ;)

Apart from the sleepless working nights, everything is going pretty fine and life is proceeding even to well to be believed true: I expect the worst to be waiting for me just around the next corner. I’m just not optimistic enough to believe good things to last long.

Anyway, this morning another “good” thing happened: after Lenovo started to recall for batteries of its laptops all around the world, I checked the serial number of the main (and right now only) battery of my brand new X60s. Well it appears it is not on the bad ones list, and should be therefore 100% safe.
That’s definitely a relief!
Speaking about belial I ended up installing a Gentoo 2006.1 on it instead of a Debian etch as previously planned. It happened more out of curiosity rather than as a conseguence of a reasoned choice: I tried the Gentoo LiveCD, I liked it, everything worked almost out of the box, and that’s all for now.
There’s still a lot of work that has to be done on the system but with the Wi-Fi card already up and running, it is something that could be done in any moment and everywhere around the house. I’ll take my time to do everything smooth and nice as soon as I will not be flying around the world each day (which my actual October planning translate as: the first 15 days of the month). We’ll see…

After an evening (yesterday evening in particular) spent messing around with screen (gladly helped in my first steps by this wiki page) I’m still in the right mood for some informatic revolution here at home.
The battle of the laptop is definitely over: I’ve decided to go for a Thinkpad X60s. As previously decided, on the new baby I’ll install a Debian system, just to stick with the previously mentioned spirit of revolution.
I’m not going deep in the reasons that will lead me leaving my beloved Slackware (a 10.1 on my laptop and also on my gateway/firewall/fileserver etc machine), at least not in this post, but I’m quite excited by the news coming under the form of new opensource to play with… for now, let’s say I’ve been conquered by the amazing Debian community, or at least by how amazing it seems from the outside.
It is something interesting enough to give it a good try!

Anyway, in the next days (a lot of days I predict) I’ll go 100% Debian, 100% wireless for the home LAN and Thinkpadded: quite enough for a good geek August!
I’m quite sure I’ll be blogging about all this in the next future.

What about the rest?
Oh well, I’m not flying as much as I’d like to be doing but after all not every monthly planning can be the best (and busiest) of the world, so I’ll go like with this for this month.
Tomorrow morning I’ll be leaving for La Romana in Dominican Republic for a minimum rest, planning to be back by Thursday afternoon just in time to order the X60s.
I’m really loving this job even if it’s quite weird how I go into crisis when I happen to be off a plane for more than 3 days in a row: I have already become a flying-addict… not that I don’t like this, but sometimes it is just a little strange ;)

Hello here, I’m back from my second flight (that went smooth and nice. I already love this job)!
I am quite sure some of you were hoping not to see me for longer, but what can I say: world is a very unfair place. I’m back from Maldives where I spent 8 days hanging around white sand beaches and beach-volley matches (which we won against the locals, *yay* for Livingston crew!!! ^_^)
Wonderful places and a very nice island but trust me: what a boredom!
I mean, it’s good to stay there when someone (…the airline in my case) is paying it for you, but either you’re going there with your “special one” to have some time for you two alone, or you’re really going to be bored and spending a lot for nothing exciting. Being stuck on a 1km long island you can see totally in less than 5 minutes, and walk around in 10, is not something so incredible.

Anyway, I took some pictures, and here they comes… enjoy them all. Continue reading…

Dream Theater’s latest live CD and DVD “SCORE” is currently scheduled for release on Aug 29th 2006 on Rhino Records. (date may vary slightly in different countries)
[..]
(source: DreamTheater.net)

O M G! Now, tell me how am I supposed to resist until 29th of August to get them?

…that’s what I call a torture!
Wow, I really can’t wait to put my hands on these 3-CD and 2-DVD sets, that’s going to destroy my August salary, but it’s something I was looking for since the coming out of their last work: Octavarium. I don’t think I’ll ever stop thrilling about new DT’s work. They’re just the greatest!
A news that made my day!

Note: I’ll leave tomorrow for Male (Maldives) for my second work-flight. First one went smooth and even if I wasn’t able to blog from Cancun to report it directly, it was a fantastic experience all around.
Don’t tell anyone (:p) but I’m planning to realize a trip_report-project about all my working shifts around the world. I’m quite lazy and inconstant, but there are people around me asking for them and so I’ll do my best!
Stay tuned :p

Things are changing here, and are changing fast.

No, I’m not speaking of the next Italian elections (even though I really hope they’ll bring some changes for this country… but this is another story, isn’t it?) but I’m speaking about my life, which is about to undergo a complete restyling and to take a big turn away from the usual roads it used to follow in the recently years.

On next Monday I will begin the training to become Flight Assistant for a local airline.
A dream coming true, faster than I ever imagined it would, but that’s fine. Changes work better when they come fast! In these cases, my mind doesn’t have the time to “think” about being worried and that’s exaclty what I want.

So, wish me luck, and look forward (in about 1 month and half… if all goes well) for a lot of posts written from all around the world… or at least so I hope!

“And so it begins…“