Decisions, decisions

After hours and days of research, reading an endless number of reviews and comparison charts, that explained things I have no clue about, I have chosen my new camera: the Canon Powershot SX20 IS. It was a very close call between that and the Panasonic Lumix DMC FZ35, but I had to make a choice and I went with the Canon, probably just to keep my head from exploding and because I have had a Canon Powershot for the last 6 years.  This new one can take HD videos. Youtube, here I come!

So what do the photos on this page have to do with anything? Well, the other matter I have been obsessing about off and on for at least the past year, maybe much longer, is "where do I want to live?" Aside from a few detours in my mind to unknown lands, the pendulum has swung between southern Italy and the Pacific Northwest, specifically Ceglie Messapica (BR) and Seattle. I have family ties and friends in both places, have spent a lot of time in both, and could theoretically live in either. However, after recent conversations with my brother, who lives in Seattle, I now am hatching a new plan. A small house or a yurt on a few acres of land near Portland or Eugene, or somewhere in the vicinity of one of them.

That still doesn't explain the photos. OK, I'll explain the connection.

In the photo above I am with my very tall American paternal grandfather, Clyde, his dog Tippy, and my very tiny Italian mother, Maria Pia, on the steps of my grandparents' home in Portland.

In the one below, taken a couple of years later, I am in Eugene. I'm the little tot looking up at my mother, who seems to have had a thing for stripes in those days.

So there, it makes all the sense in the world for me to want to move near Portland or Eugene. Don't you think?