Visto, Vail e jamon iberico

What day is today? I need to settle down a bit! I think it is the 29th of March and I am in Vail. Yesterday, with some trepidation I opened the package from Chicago and examined the passport therein. All the reams of paperwork I provided for the consulate had disappeared, but in exchange, I now have a visto (visa) for Italy good until March 2009! Now, I get to go to the Questura in Ascoli and get a Permit of Stay which will allow me to license the car, get a driver's license, etc. I am excited, legal for only the 2nd time in Italy.
I am renting cars over here and I must say, if I lived here, I would get satellite radio. What a concept! Just pick the genre you prefer and listen only to music. In Colorado, i am in a cadillac (for the 1st time since high school and only 16 dollars a day) and while I am not a cadillac guy, it is a blast to drive in the mountains.
Here is my post from the other day when I didn't have internet.

March 28, 2008
Well, after a wonderful trip to my old stomping ground, Kansas City, I am off again
this time to Denver, where I will discover the fate of my passport. The package has arrived from the Italian consulate of Chicago. Is there or is there not a visa inside my passport?
I was really fortunate, for once, with the timing of my KC visit as I was able to attend the great prosciutto battle sponsored by the local convivium of Slow Food. Once again, I must urge everyone to join this worthwhile organization wherever you live, but you are truly blessed if you live in the KC area as the dynamic leadership team really keeps this club humming with the best artisanal and local specialty food products offered at various events throughout the year. Kudos to Jasper, Mike, Marianne, Lonnie and all the rest! This convivium puts ours back in Italy to shame. On to the tasting which was held at The Cellar Rat, a trendy enoteca in downtown KC, which was recently written up in Food and Wine magazine. Ryan, our host, despite delivery snafus, set a table with Italian and Spanish wines and 4 types of hams-3crudo or uncooked and 1 smoked (Speck)
The aged prosciuttos (the italian word for ham) were Parma (IT), Serano (SP), and the mythical and just legalized in america, Jamon Iberico (SP). The 1st two are industrial products with production numbers in the tens of millions per year, while the jamon iberico is really a special artisanal product with longer aging, free range animals and melt in your mouth texture.
My friends and hosts Kevin and Erika then accompanied me to Jasper’s restaurant where we were treated to a wonderful meal of onion soup, papardelle fresh pasta with a pork sauce (Wow!), and a wonderfully cheesey, creamy polenta topped with a shank of pork, and veggies, all washed down with a fine Ripasso from Allegrini. Grazie mille, amico, come sempre, tutto buonissimo!! And a big thanks for my slow food souvenirs from the KC chapter. I will wear them proudly in the Marche!
And now, I am off to check out my little house in the mountains, before skiing a couple of days and trying to work off this new belly I obtained while dining and drinking in Kansas City with my wonderful friends there.
Ciao also to John and Cindy, George, Chad, Len and Ginny, Neil and Mike, Katherine, and Rene’.
I hope to see all of you in Italy!
Also, I must thank my old office staff who gently reminded me when I lamented I would be hoeing 12 acres by hand all summer, “Well, you could be lancing a perirectal abscess”. I will smile and remember that every time I am cursing the Zappa!

OK, that is the latest. I am busy marketing in Vail now. Got to write this trip off as my govt. still asks me to pay taxes and those pesky expenses and losses in Italy don't count here against my income.
Wish me luck skiing, it is snowing right now a bit, but I hear the conditions are icy or "dust on crust" which is another way to say Dwight on butt.
dds