Monday started out as such a nice day with the weather clear but crisp. After Gustavo came over to help fix a few of the household problems at Malibu, we decided to go shopping for a new camera for Paul.
The Etnapolis Shopping Mall
This is the largest shopping mall in the Catania area to the best of my knowledge and is owned by the U.S. based Warner Brothers Corporation. Of course Mt. Etna has to overlook it's namesake mall.
We found a very nice Olympus 10 mega-pixel camera at a reasonable price at the Media World store. An added bonus is that you can take pictures with it underwater down to a depth of 30 meters. This is a good feature whether Paul goes snorkeling or drops it off a pier.
Is Joe Mollica now a Pharmacist?
Then a funny thing happened on this very nice day...
The mail started to arrive in Davide's office at an alarming rate with bad news. It appears that the Sicilian judicial system moves very slowly but effectively none the less. Life was beautiful until today's news that I am now facing at least 200 years in dark, damp Sicilian prison in Caltanisetta if I don't pay a series of parking tickets I unknowingly got last year.
Now, one of my major faults is honesty and a belief that I am responsible for the logical outcome of my actions. As it turns out, our car received the four or perhaps five parking tickets that we never found on our windshield the day we got them, thus we were clueless to our parking faux pas.
The Parking Infractions are:
March 9 in Taormina = 36 Euros
April 18 in Taormina = 36 Euros
May 22 in Giardini-Naxos = 85 Euros
June 16 in Cefalu = 54 Euros
July 4 in Catania = 74 Euros
Total of the Fines = 285 Euros which equals $365 USD
The great thing about this situation is that we are just finding out about this now, as you can see, we are only 14 days shy of the one year anniversary of the first ticket which was not on our windshield that day and now we are finding out about it!
Of course my blog can be used against me in a court of law to trace my whereabouts on the days in question. In the first three instances I had co-conspirators, the fourth one is all mine and in the case of the Fourth of July there is some question as to whose new rental car the ticket belongs.
Bottom line, pay the fine or getting ready to start dating some guy named Guido in the Caltanisetta Provincial Prison. Maybe this can become the plot for the Coen Brothers new movie "O Brother, Where Art Thou - Part II"?
Two vs. Three Pass Drill
We had a very good practice tonight, although a few more players in attendance would always be nice. Luke is looking better passing every time we get together and the timing between him and the receiver corps is improving steadily. Taber LeMarr, our new American receiver, looks very good and is doing a nice job helping to coach the other receivers.
Offensive Line Coach Denver Wade
Denver will be a Senior offensive lineman at, you guessed it, Wabash College next Fall. He is here on a semester Abroad Study Program through Duke University. Tonight we stopped at Jonathan's Pannini Stand for a post-practice staff meeting. He is seen here with one of Jonathan's famous Cipollata pannini.
Paul flatly refuses to let his offensive counterpart out eat him so he ordered TWO!
Not really, he is holding mine so that I can take the picture. A sausage pannini for Paul and Cipollata pannini for me.
3 comments:
Note for future reference: Negotiate legal expenses into your coaching contract. Or get a policeman or two on the team.
Oh no! Your life is really starting to sound like a sitcom for NBC or something George!
I think I need at least two bodyguards from now on to keep me out of harms way.
I could then be like the anti-Mafia judge who lives about a mile away and has a police car with two of Sicily's finest on duty at the entrance to his apartment complex 24/7!
And yes, Vanessa, Sicily IS a sitcom much of the time!!!
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