Alan's Italy Show # 10 - Starring Cinque Terre and Luca Rolloni

This show had many wonderful moments for me starting with my phone call to my dear friend in Italy, Luca Rolloni. I wasn't at all sure it could work. After all first I had to use the phone, which Ellen, pointed out to me when I tried to use it that I need to dial "9" first. I had never used the studio phone, so that was at first an issue. Then I had to go through the machinations of calling Europe, using the access number, then my pin, then the number remembering that the number must be preceded by 011, then the 39 country code, and then the city code. Then hopefully Luca's voice would come through the broadcast and finally, on the other end would Luca be home, after all it was after 11 PM on a Friday night. Of course Luca and I set up the whole thing a few days ago. And all this LIVE ! Everything worked perfectly except for one glitch. I put a wonderful photo of Luca that was taken a few years ago within the slide show for that evening, and Ellen expertly presented his picture next to mine throughout the conversation, usually with my picture larger than his: two boxes appeared on the screen as she does quite often using the tricaster. I even had a text box under his picture, so that people would always be aware that the strange face on the screen was indeed my friend Luca from his hometown. The problem was that I spelled the name of his town incorrectly. Instead of "Figline" I spelled it "Filigne". I actually caught this mistake a few hours earlier. I had the show fully prepared by the preceding Wednesday, which is the way I do things, so that I never have that on my mind as the day of the show gets close. When I was in college, I never studied for a test at the last minute, never the night before the exam; I always needed to settle down and relax before a big test and in this case a big show (they are ALL big to me !!!). But a few hours before I left the house at 4:30 PM, so say at about 3, I made a change which required resetting the slideshow mode. I noticed at that moment that I spelled the name of Luca's town incorrectly, and "vowed" that when I finished what I was doing, I would make that simple change, but being a little tense about making last minute changes, I simply forgot, and the result was that when viewers saw Luca's picture on the screen, they also were looking at the name of his town, misspelled !!! Thus one of the great drawbacks of doing a show live; but, hey that's all part of the package, so that's the way has to be. My sincere apologies to Luca and everyone who lives in Figline, which truly is a lovely town and very close to my heart, and to all my viewers. I mentioned on the show about my other Italian friend, Lidia's mom being ill and send my love and desire for her speedy recovery. Then I showed some stunning photos of Cinque Terre, and followed with those horrifying photos of the destruction created by the storm in October 2011. I had to do that to complete the story, even though it put a small damper on an otherwise beautiful presentation. And the coup de grace was to indicate that the prognosis by the inhabitants of Cinque Terre was that they are rapidly putting at least the tourist areas back together, even though my friend who was staying in La Spezia, told me by phone that morning that the residential areas were progressing more slowly, for obvious reasons unfortunately. The other fly in the ointment was that the videos I showed apparently don't play well in slideshow mode, which I started using with Show # 9 the previous week. Ellen told me this after the show, and I realized it when I got home and viewed the DVD of that night's show. So I now I have to find a solution for that problem. This show has become a real challenge, and all of this is quite time consuming, but I am quite driven by the whole Alan's Italy thing. I even signed on this week to do courses for two adult continuing education programs around here for the Fall 2012 semester, one at Lifespring Saugerties and one for the New Paltz Lifetime Learning Program. The former will involve 6 sessions and the latter, 8 sessions, all on Alan's Italy. That should not be too difficult, because I have most of those topics already prepared from the weekly shows on TV. There will have to be some modifications, however to conform to the two programs. I will basically do what I do, that is to take people on a visual tour of Italy in segments. The former will be a two week "tour" and the latter a three week "tour". Anyway, thanks for taking the time to read all this, and I apologize that this is so long, but so much is going on with this. It started so small, just an idea by my handyman in my bedroom one afternoon as he was fixing our window shades. Oh, so long ago it now seems....