Loredana Valenzano's BLOG

Something about me, my daily life, science, music, news, curiosities and so on...

Thursday, June 22, 2006

Czech Rep.-Italy 0-2

Good match of the Italian companion against Czech Republic. After not a brilliant start, Italy menaged to score with Marco Materazzi (Inter) just in to substitute Alessandro Nesta (AC Milan) after being injured. In the second half another reserved player, Pippo Inzaghi (AC Milan) brought Italy to the definitive victory and the occasion to go on in this Championship. Great match of the Italian goalkeeper Gigi Buffon (Juventus FC), probably the best on the green field!

Next match Monday, 26th June at 17:00 in Kaiserslautern. Possible opposites: either Croatia or Australia (according to tonight's results in Round F).

Countdown: going faster!!!

All right... it looks like the countdown is going faster than expected! The last night I had the first unequivocal sign that time is up. According to the doctor, within a range of time of 1-3 days, the labour will start! I must say I hope it will happen within a day: I am curious to feel these famous "labour pain", not to mention the anxiety to meet Emanuele for the first time!!! At this stage, we can't really wait anymore!!!

I told you...

...I have been eaten a watermelon!!!!

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Countdown: -12 days!!!

All right, all right... I admit it... I have been eaten a full watermelon tonight...

Getting ready for Emanuele

New look for Maurizio with short hair... cut with love (and fear!!!) by his lovely wife...

Where are...

...my feet?!?!?!?

Sunday, June 18, 2006

Umberto at lunch

Today our friend Umberto came for lunch at our place. In the first picture I am preparing pomodoro & mozzarella, as the best Italian summer tradition suggests. In the second one, I am trying to be sure that the melon we bought yesterday is good enough for our guest... In the last one, table is ready and we are waiting to start :) Menu of the day: pomodoro & mozzarella, prosciutto (cotto!) & melone, uova sode ripiene, crostini di salmone, insalata di riso, gelato al tiramisu (affogato nel caffe'). A light summer menu that we made heavy because we finished everything!!! Umberto is always a good company :)

Italy-USA 1-1

Disappointing match of the Italian team yesterday evening at the World Cup Championship. Alberto Gilardino (AC Milan) scored at the 22nd minute of the first half but after only 5 minutes Cristian Zaccardo (Palermo) scored in Gigi Buffon's goal bringing the American team to the drawing.
3 players were sent off by the referee; among them the Italian Daniele de Rossi (AC Roma).


A good occasion for Alessandro del Piero (FC Juventus) in the second half could bring Italy to the victory.

Next (and last!) occasion to pass through: Czech Rep.-Italy, Hamburg, 22 of June at 16:00.

Saturday, June 17, 2006

Countdown: -16 days!!!

The day is closer and closer!
False labour contractions at the bottom of the belly, started a few nights ago (see Maurizio's BLOG for details: post of the 14th of June). They might go on for two weeks so we have to wait and see what will happen in the next days... In the meantime, I am starting feeling more and more tired. Likely temperature is not so hot!

Friday, June 16, 2006

Emanuele's shopping

Maurizio's thought

Maurizio has posted a thought in his website at http://www.maninblack.eu/thoughts/cell_phones.htm . It is very interesting, funny and close to reality I must say! Enjoy it!

Training Course: sixth lesson

Two days ago we had the sixth lesson of the delivery training course at Sant'Anna Hospital. Arguments: woman's health after the delivery and respiration during the labour. The first argument mainly concerned the description of the physical consequences of delivery a baby and how to take care of the body in the proper way. A concerns respiration, we learned that in normal condition, women breath with the upper part of the body while men breath with the belly. A pregnant woman change this situation by breathing with the belly. For this reason, during the delivery, we have to force ourselves to breath as we usually would do and then pushing the air in the belly and push. In this way, if pushing is done properly in 3-4 steps the baby will be out. Hope I can remember in those moments, all the tricks I am learning in this course... my memory starts to be a bit saturated... I will soon need a reboot...

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Working from home

Trying to be useful for the CRYSTAL group also from home. Thanks to all my bosses, I can work from home without pressure menaging to organize work and personal needs as I wish, in this last month of pregnancy.

Walking Break

Walking is always a good habit, especially during pregnancy.
With the hot weather coming, it is also good to avoid the hottest hour of the day.
Right before dinner time and having the change to be home for the maternity leaving, it is easier to organize some walking breaks with Maurizio.

My point of view...

Motherhood Training

After the ironing, the sewing.
Motherhood training and miracles (!!!) are going on!!!

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

Italy-Ghana 2-0

A terrific shot by Andrea Pirlo (A.C. Milan) allowed Italy to start in the proper way the World Cup 2006, in Hannover.
Second goal, in the second half, by Vincenzo Iaquinta (Udinese).

Next match: Italy-USA, Kaiserslautern, Saturday 17th June 21:00

Monday, June 12, 2006

Curiosity: an orange sea

Lipsia.
An impressive mass of Dutch, supporting their team at the World Cup 2006.

Curiosity: world cup hotel

A guest room decorated with soccer accessories at a hotel in Neumuenster about 60 km north of Hamburg.

Curiosity: super bike

From The Netherlands (of course!!!) it is called Conference Bike: it has 7 seats and it can be bought online for 11,000 dollars. It is already a success in New York, Berlin and Barcellona. Soon also in Italy.

Sunday, June 11, 2006

World Cup 2006: the high-tech ball

Named +Teamgeist, German for "team spirit," the soccer ball features a radical new design that sports just 14 panels—the first departure from the iconic 32-panel ball that's been used in the World Cup for the past 36 years.
Adidas, the new ball's designer, touts it as the most technologically advanced—and roundest—soccer ball ever made.
Tournament officials say the ball will lead to more goals, providing extra excitement for the World Cup's billions of spectators.
Some star players have endorsed the new design, including England's captain, David Beckham, known for his trademark swerving shots when shooting a goal. "It goes where you want it to go, and that's important," the Adidas-sponsored player said in a press release. But some players and sports scientists aren't so sure about how the new ball is going to perform. Critics say the ball is too light and aerodynamic, and it may behave unpredictably and create problems for goalkeepers.

The most common soccer ball design—originated by an Adidas model called Telstar—was introduced at the 1970 World Cup in Mexico. It is made up of 20 white hexagons and 12 black pentagons stitched together into a sphere. As well as using fewer panels, Adidas dispensed with any stitching for +Teamgeist, instead using a heating and gluing process to create a watertight seal. The manufacturer says this new feature gives the ball the same feel whatever the playing conditions, rain or shine.
[...]
Speaking at a news conference on Tuesday, an England goalkeeper, Paul Robinson, said, "There's a lot of difference—it's very goalkeeper unfriendly. It's very light and moves a lot in the air."
He might have a point.
Ken Bray of the Sport and Exercise Science Group at the University of Bath in England is the author of How to Score: Science and the Beautiful Game. He says there may be occasions when the new ball behaves unpredictably. "Every World Cup we get goalkeepers who say this particular ball moves in a peculiar way," he said. "This year, however, I think there might be something in what they're saying, because we've got a very different ball compared to the standard hexagon-pattern ball." Bray says the reduced number of panels and seams on the +Teamgeist ball could potentially cause problems. "Surprisingly, it's the seams between the panels that gives [a soccer ball] aerodynamic stability," he said.
[...]

James Owen for National Geographic News

Saturday, June 10, 2006

Getting bigger...

Now I understand why I cannot find anymore a good position for sleeping properly...

Curiosity #2

Photo of German company Volsing presenting a funeral urn in the form of a soccer ball at an international trade show for funeral arts in Le Bourget near Paris November 10, 2005.

REUTERS/ Regis Duvignau

Curiosity #1

New Jersey (U.S.A.).

Bear scared by a cat.

Friday, June 09, 2006

Our employee Prodi...

Yesterday at Palazzo Chigi (Rome) Beppe Grillo presented to Romano Prodi some proposals discussed on his blog concerning energy, health, information, and economy. They have been called: “Citizen Primaries”.

In the picture on the left, the letter from Prodi's employeer (i.e. the Italians) that declares the intention of a possible discharge, if he and his cabinet ministers will not be able to achieve what they promised... tick tack tick tack...

Thursday, June 08, 2006

Nature's News: Hawaii

A photographer draws near a group of rare Hawaiian monk seals on Disappearing Island, one of the islands and atolls that make up the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.
New research suggests that by 2100 up to 65 percent of some islands there could be submerged by rising sea levels due to global warming.

From National Geographic

Trying to make order



Emanuele's first bed

Wednesday, June 07, 2006

Smoke on the centre

What's going on in the city centre?

Explaining extinction

A 300-mile-wide crater has been found in the Wilkes Land region of East Antarctica, south of Australia. Based on the satellite measurements of gravity fluctuations that led to its discovery, the crater is thought to be around 250 million years old, coinciding with the biggest mass extinction in Earth's history. The Permian-Triassic extinction wiped out 90 percent of life on Earth. Scientists believed a meteor impact could have caused such devastation, but an impact crater of the right age and size had not yet been found. According to the discovery team, the Wilkes Land crater is a good candidate: the meteor that caused it would have been up to 30 miles in diameter--four or five times as big as the Chicxulub meteor thought to have killed the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Above, a combination of radar and satellite imagery highlights the rim of the crater in red and blue. The team presented its preliminary results at the recent American Geophysical Union Joint Assembly meeting in Baltimore.

From Scientific American

Training Course: fifth lesson

This morning we had the fifth lesson of the training course for the delivery. Argument: breast feeding. First of all, we have been instructed on how to let the baby find the breast as soon as he will be born. Instinctively he will move towards the breast, pushed by an innate sense for surviving. Like a newborn animal, once he will lay on me after the delivery, he will move towards the breast to feed himself! Within the first hour a newborn has a strong attitude to suck that has to be satisfied. This event will also help the uterus of the mother to come back easier and faster to its “normal configuration”. Not to mention the fact that the breast has to be trained to feed the baby: the more it is used, the more the milk will come. There are also other very important reasons to breastfeed: give to the baby more antibodies, feed him in the right way according to his real necessities, encourage the relationship between mother and baby and of course… mother’s milk is for free!!!
This was the main topic of the lesson, we also saw a 30 minutes movie about breast feeding in the Scandinavian country (“Breast is best”) where children usually receive milk from their mothers until two years old, at least. It is common here in Italy to suggest the mother to breastfeed the baby until six months. And only after this term, to start with other supplies and weaning. Still the mother, who probably has also come back to work full time, can extract the milk and leave it in the fridge for 24 hours or in the freezer for months.

Sunday, June 04, 2006

Starting the 9th month

And here we are at the beginning of the last month of pregnancy, that started a few days ago.

These last weeks will be dedicated to welcome Emanuele who will need not only our love, but also some practical attention (see previous post, for example). All our love is ready... technical care... well... we need to learn a lot about that, I suppose...

Time is almost up!!!!
At Last :))))

Saturday, June 03, 2006

Getting ready for Emanuele


Only Emanuele could make me use the iron...

Interesting Metal Releases

From Germany
Axel Rudi Pell - Mystica [CD]
Official Website






From Sweden
Therion - Celebrators Of Becoming [DVD+CD]
Official Website

Disc I [Live In Mexico City]
Disc II [Tour Report 2004-2005]
Disc III [Various Stuff]
Disc IV [Historical Journey - 1989-2001 version]
Discs V + VI: Audio From The Mexico City show




From Finland
Nightwish - End Of An Era [DVD]
Official Website








From Sweden
Bathory (R.I.P.) - In Memory Of Quorthon [3 Disks Boxset]
Official Website






From Norway
Arcturus - Shipwrecked On Oslo [DVD]
Official Website








From Finland
Apocalyptica - The Life Burns Tour [DVD]
Official Website








From Finland
Apocalyptica - Amplified: A Decade Of Reinventing The Cello
[2 Disks Compilation]
Official Website





From Sweden
Amon Amarth - Wrath of the Norsemen [DVD]
Official Website

Disc I [Live In Cologne (Germany) - August 16, 2005]
Disc II [Live At Summer Breeze festival - August 18, 2005]
Disc III [Live In Ludwigsburg (Germany) 2004]

Friday, June 02, 2006

Maurizio's BLOG

Maurizio is working in these days on his new website.
His BLOG is already online: enjoy it at www.maninblack.eu/blog_enter.htm