Italy: La Dolce Vita - The Series

Below is the consolidated and complete series re-capping the Italy portion of our European Trip in the summer of 2011. For the full report on the Romania portion of the trip, go HERE.


Italy: La Dolce Vita - The Series
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• Venice - seeing the sights, great places to eat and the beauty of Venetian canals
• Florence - our afternoon and one evening in this beautiful city
• Photo Feature - a set of photos I took while in Italy
• Tuscany - we drive south of Florence and spend a few days soaking up rural Tuscany
• Rome - The Eternal City hits and highlights

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Also, for those interested, you can read other stories of our travels in a number of series that I've written. For example, check these out...

Excursion To Egypt

Visiting the U.S. South

The China Reports

W Writes a Book

I read today that George W. Bush is writing a book about key decision points in his life and presidency.

Story here.

There are a lot of cynical, snide and snarky things one could say about the rich irony of this given how bad W's presidency was and how clearly he has shown that his intellect and critical thinking skills are poor.

But I won't.

No, I think Bush's project is all about trying to soften the heavy blow history will deal him in assessing his presidency and his character. See here for a short list of why I think he'll be judged the worst U.S. president in the nation's history.

Unlike Bill Clinton who literally needed money to pay off debts after his tenure as president ended, Bush has been spectacularly wealthy since the moment he was born. So, no, this isn't about money.

Rather, I think it's Bush's attempt to use hindsight and spin to try and justify the litany of decisions he's made.

We'll see what the book ends up doing, but I dare say that for all of Bush's self-satisfying explanations there are a lot of people whose lives have been ended, ruined or seriously set back around the world specifically because of the "decision points" Bush faced and the choices he made at those times. Those people won't be buying that book - literally and figuratively.

Comic Books - More Than Super Heroes

There are a lot of creative people out there, masking their talent during the day in Corporate America cube land only to unleash their inner Picasso, Hemingway or Spielberg at night and on weekends.

I'm lucky to know some of them, and I'd like to feature more on this blog. Earlier I introduced you to my friend Paul's Session 37 video productions.

Now, on a totally different wave length, lets talk about comic books. My buddy Ed at my company writes comic books. His specialty is putting a comic's storyline into words. To me, this is also a unique type of storytelling that demands a lot of creativity in how to communicate ideas in a fast, short, concise and compelling manner.

Info on Ed's work here. Examples of his narratives joined with illustrations from artist Ed Traquino here and here.

Comic books have enjoyed a couple different identities in my opinion. One is the mainstream merchandising of super heroes and other characters. For sure some fine work done there, but more a pure entertainment and marketing channel than anything else.

The other is the more sexy and interesting identity as underground communication...colorful dispatches that narrate and illustrate more radical or less talked about ideas. Harvey Pecar and Robert Crumb are great examples. With technology today, creating and distributing this type of comic book communication is easier than ever. For example - Guild Works Productions.

It is this latter type of comic book communication that I'm interested in - especially in today's infotainment "news" and "reality TV" environment. So, support your local comic book writers and artists.