So... this seems to be the game of this New Year (not really sure when it started, though)... Doug tagged me, so I'm now supposed to tell you 5 things you don't know about me... here we are:

  1. I come from a completely different background: I studied Organ and Composition at the conservatory of Parma; do you know the "Ham of Parma", or the "Parmigiano Reggiano" cheese, the "Parmalat" (sadly known for a huge financial disaster 3-4 years ago, as the "Italian Enron") or Giuseppe Verdi? Well... I come from that land (an by the way, the native house and village of Verdi is just 5 minutes from the house where I grown up and lived for about 28 years... maybe that is what influenced my choice). Speaking of my favorite music, I'm an ancient guy (meaning I most like the Renaissance, Baroque and Classic eras, from W.A.Mozart backward), but of course I also don't dislike some melodic "modern" songs... for sure I don't like Heavy Metal and Techno Music (the latter can be really called "music"? C'mon... that's just noise!)
  2. Computers where one of my other passions (together with painting, photograph, reading, movies and studying foreign languages), so towards the end of the '90's when I had the opportunity to join an IT Company giving consulting services for a big banking group (big at least in Italy), I've been happy to take the opportunity and I started this journey. But I had a clear idea since the beginning: I wanted to be a developer. Writing software is a bit like composing a song or writing a novel: developers can create, something the IT folks can't do (well... they simply put together bits created by someone else... is a bit like build a puzzle... it's not the same in my opinion)
  3. I like to play billiards, and we're lucky enough to have a billiard table at the office (in our recreative room), so almost every day after lunch we usually play goriziana and, well... with not so bad results...
  4. I grow up in the country, with lots of animals, but my favorite puppy if an Alaskan Malamute brought up named Jorg; well... "puppy" maybe it's not the most appropriate word for a 50 kilograms (110 Lbs) snow dog used for heavy work...
  5. I mentioned that I like reading (quite common hobby, I think), but I also like to write my own stories (thrillers and horrors in particular, my favorite writers are Stephen King, John Grisham, Michael Chrichton, Jeffery Deaver...). I won a few small writing contests some years ago, but I've never really tried to change this "hobby" in something more serious... but who knows, maybe in the near future...

I think that's it, now it's my turn to tag 5 people, so here they are: Mark, Andreas, Todd, Jerry and David; now it's your turn!

 

Cheers
Carlo