My wedding day and Social Media

chiarabolognini — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 23:15:35 +0000

I am developing an extensive social media life versus a social life and it is not as bad as many people think. Actually I am sharing knowledge with a lot of people I have never met and transferring knowledge to the same people + my friends. I enjoy it, I cannot withhold it.

Well, I am going to organise my wedding day and I am thinking how nice would be to send my wedding invitation through Blomap to my geek friends and even to mid or low geek people.
On the other hand I’ve got a big gap: the location on the earth.

I live in Basel but I am Italian. My family and friends lives in different regions and I have considered that the cost of the flight to Basel is quite high.
Actually I lived in Rome for many years and I have always thought that I could never organise my wedding day in Rome because of the chaos that city lives with. On the contrary I had to reconsider Rome as the best location for many reasons and mainly for its position.

Rome is undoubtedly a centre of interest, well connected with many other cities for ages.
An Italian motto says: all roads lead you to Rome.
In fact, as social media does, Rome connects all people in one place. Well, I think that the traffic you get in Rome is bad for a city but so good to have in a social media website.

The problem is how to connect people, that’s it. Let’s give ourselves the possibility of working more from home and decentralise the work, then the green side together with the organisational side of social media will come up in a breeze. Social media gives us the tools to aggregate in a sociable way and move to anywhere and to anyone through few clicks.

Why do many countries not work this way nowadays? This is an open question.

However, let´s see what I decide about my wedding day as a start and see how much social media I can do within it…
I will keep you posted.

The worst week of the year

chiarabolognini — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 23:12:10 +0000

Last week we moved Blomap to a VPS solution. What a nightmare, the set up of the platform Blomap is based on and the update of the database have been extremely complicated and the website went up and down continuously.

Well, my good hours were the hours when Blomap was up obviously and the terrible hours were when it was down.
It has been like seeing 2 years of my work and money and time investments collapsing into an infinite abyss.

Actually, the lesson I have learnt is: a disruptive technology can be a source of stress for whoever decides to run it So I need to practice sport to be fit and make my heart work well. In fact, I thought I could have a heart attack soon, but I did not, fortunately.

It has been my choice, it is what I want to do, what I need everyday. Not my food and drink, but my drive.
Social media are the future, I am in there and in the present as well.

How I became a wasps´serial killer

chiarabolognini — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 14:06:28 +0000

How to get rid of them?!?

Having been a real proud coward for ages, fleeing away as soon as a gentle zzzzzzz came into any perception of sound or any unidentified flying object crossed any side sight, I was wondering if I could really overcome a wasp’s invasion in my own beloved apartment.
I was persuaded that this honestly pudding hearth behavior would have saved me from many distresses like stings, bites, pricks and associated side effects. I could have not figured out so far any other possible rational reactions to such attacks and harassments than a plain outrush.

Do you know what?

I could not even have killed a fly and let alone crush a worm before today. Nevertheless I have never been invaded by a bunch of insects’ or lived in any green area in my life.

Let me tell you something more about how this story began.

Though at first I was scared about living much closer to the countryside than to the city, it was already November and the autumn was going to delight me with falling leaves and no flowers and spring had sprung around.
It happened soon, even before autumn was able to turn into winter, snow had been falling on our green area for weeks changing it in a white area. It was such a high volume of snow that the only things I could see flying around were pure and white snowflakes, though the biggest ones ever seen. I could never have believed that I could have hated the snow as much as at the time, actually I had no equipment to go through all that cold and ice and I felt like a prisoner in my own house.

All of that was over and not soon, only in the late April/early May.
Such a long winter made me wish I could throw open the windows and any possible green hints were most welcomed. I could not have been disappointed, in fact a greenest avalanche of trees and bushes and colorful flowers sprawled in a few weeks and covered every little corner and edge as well as wide areas, regions which came into my sight from my neighborhood on.

Well, it brought along all sorts of insects whose shape I could have never imagined by myself and to which I could have never dared be so close. It should come easily into your mind that I received all kinds of unexpected flying guests and that I was not delighted by such a crowded cohabitation.

My hero!

My Hero

Despite his will my boyfriend was often requested to be involved in many aerial fights equipped with newspaper, vacuum cleaner and long arms weapons. So well did he succeed that I started to observe his war techniques from a safe corner instead of running out of the room shutting the door and waiting for him to come out victoriously.

More than an interest, it was a need: I could not count on him all day and night long since he works at a company and travels for business very often.

The opportunity to start my new insects’ serial killer life came during summer: a wasps´ cluster invaded my bedroom shutters.
At first it happened from time to time that a wasp came in to the room letting us wonder how it came in since the window was closed.
My first approach was the only one I knew: leaving the room immediately as it was burning out and waiting for my boyfriend to come back home.

Anyway a much more substantial event changed our mind regarding this issue that was considered just temporary. After some holidays we went back home and found 14 dead wasps in our bedroom.
We did not waste time in any burials and mourning and found the courage to go on and to think of global wasps´ extermination. However it was late evening and we wanted to go bed without feeling guilty because of ecological principles to be respected, so we just ignored the invasion and slept on it.

Neither dreams nor our sleeping will put this problem on hold, in fact 3 wasps woke us up early in the morning celebrating our new life together. Newspaper weapons worked well in this respect and we went back to sleep.

Nevertheless many other wasps were outside and looking forward to living with us. They adventurously passed through the shutter despite any possible harm and found a passage to our beloved house.

No way. They must be out.

My boyfriend plugged any entry connected to the shutter and it helped a lot. But how could we overcome the summer warmth with the windows constantly closed?
We must open them and let wasps come in again.

Wasps invasion

Living with wasps became a habit since I liked the room so much that I used to work there during the day and the wasps just sat on the window glass and buzzed bearably.
Until when would this peaceful cohabitation have to go on?
That was the question and it was quickly answered.

The summer was early over and windy rainstorms were becoming the steady everyday weather, though windows were still half opened. Are you wondering where wasps spend their winter? I was wondering the same before going to bed on a rainy night when 3 wasps came in to my kitchen and 2 into my bedroom.

I took a look at the bunch of magazines lying on shelves for months and I quickly chose one of them which I was so not interested in. I grasped it strongly in my hand, I took aim measuring the collocation of the wasp on the closet wall and mashed it!
Yes, I did it and I did it well and again.

Soon I discovered the pleasure of killing them and that I could not stop it. I became addicted to that, I had to find wasps and kill them more and more. I was definitely getting into my new personality: the wasps´ serial killer.

This confession could be criticised by ecological organizations without any understanding of what my life with wasps was like and how I really tried to live with them in peace. Borders could be crossed, that is fine, but they did not meet the requirements to get any residential permit and what can I say? I am grievously pleased with that, a contradictory feeling I must live with.

Chiara Bolognini » Life Stories

My wedding day and Social Media

The worst week of the year

How I became a wasps´serial killer