From CNN - 

Wednesday, Feb. 24, is Steve Jobs' birthday.

He turns 55.

As we did last year, we'd like to celebrate this personal milestone by re-posting what may be the most personal public speech this intensely private man has ever made: his commencement address to the Stanford University class of 2005.

If you haven't seen it — or haven't heard it recently — we give you Apple's (AAPL) CEO on life, death and calligraphy.

“Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That’s it. No big deal. Just three stories…”

I found this particularly inspiring. And not just because I'm a Mac addict from way back. Worth watching all the way through and I don't usually like commencement speeches...

Italian

We bought Pimsleur's Italian and are working on learning at least a few phrases... I can now say that I do not understand Italian or that I understand very little... think that will get me through?

Plans for Italy

All set is the timeframe - leaving March 19th, returning April 10th. I have a free flight - a little payoff for having Bill gone on trips so much. We are paying for his because he gets triple miles.

This is the first big trip we've taken in many years so I am very excited to be planning it - I love planning trips except the decisions are so hard - there are so many wonderful sounding things to do....

Included in our plans are Lake Como area - Varenna, Cinque Terre area - Manarola, Florence, Venice, Padua, Assisi, Montecatini, Lucca, Rome (for Easter), Naples and Amalfi Coast area.  Anyone have suggestions? I have already made reservations for the first two areas and for Venice. Part of the time we will be joining the Burnsville HS band trip with my niece, brother and sister-in-law and will be attending some Burnsville HS band concerts in a couple of cities. I'm very excited to be spending that time with them. I've made some requests for help getting tickets to the papal events in Rome/Vatican for Easter and also hope to visit a couple of Siberian Cat breeders around Venice and Naples too!

In the planning, it looks like we'll be staying two nights in every place, I hate one night stays...
With help from Rick Steves tour books and TripAdvisor.com I'm starting to get the hotels booked and noting suggestions for restaurants and activities.

Very glad to know our daughter will stay here with our pets and run our business in our absence!

More details coming....