Computer Failure, Wonderful People, Stunning Scenes

After shooting the breeze with Ellen for quite some time, as I arrived to the studio early, Ellen suddenly realized that she could not get the TriCaster to work. In the past they has usually meant an inferior quality of photos, but I just looked at the video of the show, and the photos came out pretty good, so in line with my limited knowledge of the whole technical aspect of the production, I have no idea what's going on. That's why Ellen is there ! She gave it a while to figure the whole thing out, and eventually decided to use what she refers to as "the Focus" (again from my point of view, no clue !) At first I was disturbed, but then settled into a really wonderful show. The show highlighted one of the great hill towns of Central Italy, Southern Umbria, Orvieto, where Laura and I had a marvelous time back in May of this year. We were treated very well, had interviews with several residents, dined at great restaurants, and showcased the whole experience over two shows, #'s 29 and 30. Show 29 was tonight and centered around Franco Sala, my friend who lives in Orvieto, but whom we met in Civita at his restaurant Antica Forno. His is charming, talkative, funny, and a great friend who showed us around the town, stopping to talk to many people. Going out to dinner with him requires leaving a half hour early, because he will stop 10 times to converse with just about everyone going in and out of shops and restaurants. We call him Orvieto's Unofficial Mayor. He was one reason for our visit to Orvieto and visiting with two of our best friends who live in Lanesville up here, Sharon and Ric, so we hope visiting Orvieto will become a regular part of our Italian experience from now on. I can't talk too much about the actual broadcast, there by now that has become more routine. I never thought I would get to say that, but even when there are minor difficulties, as the night of the show, we continue relatively unfazed ! Very happy to have reached that place. I can say that putting together the show, a process which takes me basically all week, was fairly straight forward once I decided that it would be over the two weeks. That certainly relieves a lot of pressure to get everything in. In a more relaxed manner, I can really settle down and take my time. Incidentally when I say the show takes all week, I don't mean working continuously; I actually work for an hour or so, and then leave it for another time. Different times and days always gives me different perspectives, and usually things change over the course of the week. For example,  it became obvious to both of me that, because I had the 3 short videos of the Etruscan Necropolis, I didn't need so many still images, and I removed many of them. Unfortunately I forgot to remove many from the ending segment, so there are just too many of those. That will be corrected during the next show. The best part of the show was the weaving in and out of the video interviews with first Franco twice, one back in 2009 and the other during our last trip in May 2012, and the interview of Gianni, the owner of Hotel Duomo. I must do more of those in the future. I mean I have many more to show, but personally I love the interviews. It makes everything more personal (as if the show is not my personal statement !). Everyone always asks me why I travel to Italy so much, and I never quite know what to say, but when you see these interviews with some of the people we have met over the years, it is clear that my passion centers around being treated as if we were family by the residents. I suppose that is the real reason for my absolute love for Italy. The people are just so charming, down to earth, and pleasant. On a related matter, here is an update on my second book (the first one has been edited by Xlibris and awaits my final approval). I have changed the theme for the 87th time !! I just keep changing, honing a narrative that presents my unique perspective. There have been so many books written about Italy, that it is hard to find a different perspective, so I have settled on the theme of people. Each part of the book will be titled by the people who have had the most influence on my life of Italian Travel, namely Lidia, Luca, Laura, Franco, and Ric and Sharon, and of course my engineer, Ellen. Then the chapters will focus on the actual experience that took place, because of these people. So forward I can now go with the different direction for which I have been searching and I hope and pray I can finally finish something after 15 years of trying to put these thoughts down on paper. Thank you for patiently reading these blogs, and have a great week. Buon giorno e buona fortuna !