Derek's Blog: A Geek's life with, and now without, Cancer

This Blog Has Moved

2009-10-20T15:38:00.002+02:00

As of right now this blog has moved to it's own new web site and server on Squarespace.

You can find me here from now on:

http://www.cancergeek.me

Cancer free... maybe... probably...

2009-09-30T14:40:00.002+02:00

Back in July I had my latest PET scan. Here in France they send the results to your doctor(s). As he hadn't contacted me I've called my ORL a couple of times in the past weeks to try and get the results. No reply.

I know he will tell me, like he did last time, that "if there were any problems we would have contacted you immediately and reacted". But, he just doesn't understand that, I actually need the reassurance. He has no idea how we cancer survivors eagerly await those simple words "there's nothing" just to let us know the damn things haven't come back somewhere else in our body.

I think quite a lot of cancer victims/survivors feel a bit out of touch with their body. They don't know how these things got in there and once they've gotten them out (hopefully) they definitely do not, under any circumstance, want them back. That's why we go through these tests. That's why we go through these scans. It's not just because the doctors tell us to.

It's because we want someone in the medical profession to simply look at a test and/or a scan and then say "There's no cancer in you".

It doesn't matter if they add the "right now" modifier afterwards. It's a wonderful feeling, every now and then, to know that at any given moment there is no cancer in me.

Waiting for my doctor to return my calls...

In the mean time keep following me on Twitter to keep up with the day-to-day trials and tribulations of my life: @dcefrance.

New F*©k Cancer T-Shirts

2009-09-30T14:38:00.002+02:00

Some of you may remember the F*©k cancer shirts I found back in June 2008. As you may remember I thought it was a great idea and I ordered a bunch of the shirts. A year and a bit later and quite a few e-mails back and forth and I still never received the T-shirts I ordered and paid for.

Recently I saw a whole new batch of T-shirts with cancer-related phrases on them. I decided to make my own. The Internet is truly wonderful when we live in a time when you can design your own T-shirt (text, fonts, size, placement, images, ...), pay for it online and have it delivered to your home in a couple of days.

This is my first try and I am so pleased with it I am probably going to make some more real soon. As you can see the front says "CHEMO GRAD 2005" in a font which reminds me a bit of both the military and high-school. It fits how I was feeling when I made the shirt. I am also obviously proud to have survived chemotherapy and the year is a healthy reminder.

It is really difficult to take a picture of the back of a T-shirt. You have to set the webcam on timer and try and sit, or crouch, right. It ain't easy. The back says "F*©K CANCER" in the same font and precisely where I wanted it (a bit high on the shoulder, right between the blades). Just in case people didn't understand the front of the shirt they'll definitely get the back... if they or I turn around.

I promise I'll take photos of any other T-shirts I decide to make. This is too much fun!

Scarface.... 4 years later

2009-09-30T14:22:00.004+02:00

Here's a picture of me and my scar 4 years after the surgery. The goal is still to show the evolution of the scar which may be of interest to others who may, unfortunately, have to go through the same type of procedure:

September, 2009

The photo below shows my scar last year which was, of course, 3 years after surgery. It comes from my blog entry of December 19th, 2008. It doesn't look, to me, like anything has changed in a year. Even my office looks the same. The scar may be a bit browner but it's hard to tell as last year's picture looks so red. It's perhaps faded a tiny bit more. I still get the same brief spasms of pain and blockage when I sit in the wrong position. But I get over it pretty quickly as I'm more used to it now.

December, 2008

The photo below shows my scar the previous year which was, of course, 2 years after surgery. It comes from my blog entry of October 2007. Not a lot had changed since the previous year. The scar is perhaps a slight bit faded and a bit more brown and less red.

October, 2007

I think there was much more evolution and change between years 1 and 2 than between the later years. But it gets better all the time...

I didn't take any photos the first year. But below is the photo from right after the bandages were taken off. It comes from my blog entry of September 26th, 2005.

September, 2005

Still (throat) cancer free!

2009-03-24T23:45:00.000+01:00

I wish I could find the time to update this thing properly.

I remind you if you want to keep up with me then follow me on Twitter:

http://www.twitter.com/dcefrance/

I took the afternoon off today as I knew I had my semi-annual appointment with my ENT (ORL in French) doctor. I took my Xanax an hour beforehand, as usual, and was ready for my appointment at 17:30. I took the métro as I knew I would be drowsy afterwards.

The appointment went very well in all aspects of the term. Even though he numbs my nostrils with some sort of local anesthesia the procedure is still rather horrific as he shoves a camera tube up each nostril and down my throat. But it's actually worse when he does his manual checks in my mouth and throat by shoving his gloved finger down my throat and pulling on my tongue. All of this actually went better than usual and I only gagged a couple of times. I still don't look at the images of the inside of my throat which he projects on a big screen. But it was all definitely easier.

He is very happy with the insides of my throat, my mouth, my tongue, my chest and so forth. Obviously the happier he is the happier I am. Everything's healed quite well and there is nothing to worry about.

He checked out my blood test results and everything was normal there as well.

We talked a bit about my intermitten neck pain and he recommended swimming and stretching, again, and this time gave me a prescription to see a kiné for some massage sessions. I'm probably more likely to see the kiné than I am to actually take the time to swim.

As he was so pleased with all my exam results the rest of the news was all good. My next semi-annual visit (in 6 months) will be my last semi-annual visit. After that I will see him one year later which will mark the 5 year anniversary of my surgery and treatment. I will be going for a PET scan within the next couple of months and he and I will both get the results. If all goes well then my 5-year anniversary visit should actually be my last internal throat checkup. This gives me something to hope for and work towards. No more throat checkup visits? I couldn't hope for more!

For those of you who may be interested here are my previous visits up to now:

July 2008

January 2008

July 2007

March 2007

November 2006

July 2006

April 2006

January 2006

Some things just don't change

2009-01-05T12:30:00.003+01:00

I don't know why... but I wanted to read where I was at this time last year. I thought I might write something inspirational for 2009. It turns out I hadn't written anything at the beginning of last year (200) and so I went back a year to my first entry for 2007:

http://derekparis.blogspot.com/2007/02/im-still-here.html

I became very depressed reading this entry. Nothing has changed. I don't seem to have learned anything or advanced at all in two years. I'm still relatively healthy and I'm still relatively happy. But I still have absolutely all of the same problems, weaknesses and self-destructive habits I had 2 years ago.

I still have a lot to learn and it's time I changed something...

Scarface ... 3 years later

2008-12-19T10:27:00.008+01:00

I should have done this back in September or October but I forgot...

Here's a picture of me and my scar 3 years after the surgery. The goal is still to show the evolution of the scar which may be of interest to others who may, unfortunately, have to go through the same type of procedure:

December 2008

The photo below shows my scar last year which was, of course, 2 years after surgery. It comes from my blog entry of October 2007. Not a lot has changed since last year. The scar is perhaps a slight bit faded and a bit more brown and less red. It certainly still hurts every now and then and if I sit in the wrong position it could spasm me in to a very strangle looking posture as I struggle to stretch it back...

October 2007

I think there was much more evolution and change between years 1 and 2 than between last year and this. But it gets better all the time...

I didn't take any photos the first year. But below is the photo from right after the bandages were taken off. It comes from my blog entry of September 26th, 2005.

September 2005

It's rare that someone actually asks me about the scar. The vast majority, outside of the medical profession, assume it was some sort of an accident and every now and then I get someone who thinks I was in a gang fight or I was mugged and I so want to invent some amazing story of saving my wife and children from a violent criminal and sacrificing my beautiful neck in the process. Unfortunately I always tell the truth about my scar. If it's a very young child who asks I explain I was very sick and the doctors needed to open me up and take the bad stuff out as quickly as possible. Anyone else gets the quick response of "throat cancer" with perhaps a mention of 2 surgeries, radiation therapy and then chemotherapy "la totale, quoi" (in French) or perhaps "the whole nine yards" (in American). Unfortunately some people, who don't yet know how much I can talk, will ask for more information or details and find themself in a biographical lecture which can last several drinks and sometimes a whole meal! I can sometimes be the guy you see people walking away from at a party...

Now that I've got the scar, and it ain't going anywhere anytime soon, there's so much I can do with it. Give me an eye patch and I can make Johnny Depp look effiminate!

PS: Just for the hell of it here's a straight-on photo of me today:

Today

;-)

It's gone... and I don't miss it.

2008-12-17T22:30:00.001+01:00

Today’s the day I’ve been waiting for for months… actually years. When they put this thingin my chest back in October 2005they said it would probably be removed 2 or 3 months after the end of treatment. It’s three years later and they’re finally removing it.

I had my special shower last night with the special red liquid soap (Betadine) and again this morning. I get out of the shower smelling like a hospital and the shower itself smells like an operating room for a couple of hours. I had a normal breakfast as instructed and puttered around the house for an hour killing time. I took the taxi to the clinic, went through the front doors and it hit me.

I hadn’t been back to the Clinique Hartmann since the end of my treatment. There was never a good reason I could come up with for returning. Now I had a good reason to be there and I didn’t want to go in. I had to go down to the chemotherapy department to fill out my file. As soon as I hit that down-sloping ramp (to allow wheelchairs and stretchers down) to chemo I started feeling nauseous. The smell of the chemo chemicals hit me and the atmosphere was like a stab to my chest. I was actually feeling sick and wanted nothing more than to get the hell out of there. I looked at all the other patients in the waiting room. I tried to remember what it was like. I had, and have, completely forgotten the experience. I didn’t want to remember. I didn’t want to realise that three years ago I was one of them: sitting in that uncomfortable chair waiting for my name to be called so they could do to me whatever they wanted. I, like almost everyone else there, would let them do anything and everything it took to get the cancer out of my body. I was in “fight mode” and “survivor mode” focused on one and only one thing in my life. Now it seemed like it had seemed before I had cancer: the sort of thing that happens to someone else.

I luckily was out of there pretty quickly and on my way to the 4th floor for the pre-op preparations. I know the routine: take all your clothes off, put on the ridiculous blue gown which never closes properly, add a silly looking white shower cap and to complete the clownish images add a couple of paper slippers on your bare feet. As we’re in December this time they threw in a blanket which I got to wrap around my shoulders in back which, in addition to providing a bit of warmth, provided a bit of cover as I knew I was going to be paraded through the waiting room and a few hallways before hitting the operating room on the fifth floor. While waiting in the wheelchair and on the stretcher I had a lot of time by myself to think. I had almost completely forgotten all that I had been through and it was coming back in memory flashes like someone suffering from post traumatic stress nightmares. I talked about it with Desney much later and explained that I thought it was like childbirth. You forget what it was like because you need to. You need to forget in order to move forward. I imagine that if women really remembered every detail of childbirth there would a lot of families out there with only one child. I had wiped out practically all of the memories of treatment, fears and side effects in order to move on to the next phase of my life. I needed to forget in order to imagine life after cancer and forget life with cancer. If I couldn’t completely envision life after cancer then I could not make it real. Now that I feel as though I am actually living life after cancer I can safely remember. I actually went through quite a lot. Looking around at all the others in the waiting rooms hurt. I know all too well what they are going through and what they are going to go through. It sucks. Many, unfortunately most, of them are probably not going to be as lucky as I am. Although looking around made me remember what it was like I feel good that it felt completely foreign to me. This was no longer part of my life. It was part of my past. But lying there and looking up at the ceilings I kept trying to tell myself that I have got to start appreciating what I’ve got and not taking it all for granted as I did before cancer and as I certainly have been doing recently. Easier said (to myself) than done.

I was finally wheeled in to the operating room and I had a pretty good idea what I was in for. The bright white lights above me, the surgical tools all around me and the nurse with the mask across her face. This wasn’t going to be like removing a splinter from my foot with a pair of tweezers. I started trying to remember everything I had ever learned about sophrological breathing. Not that it helped any. But it was at least something to work towards. The surgeon was actually quite a nice guy. He joked around a bit with the nurse as they debated whether or not to shave my chest around the area. He felt it would be easier for removing the bandages afterwards. She felt he was doing it because he was jealous as I have some hair on my chest and he, apparently, doesn’t have any. Luckily I had a nurse who likes a bit of hair on her men’s chest and they didn’t shave me. They bantered amongst each other, as they swabbed the area around where they were going to cut, about men who have themselves completely shaved and waxed and such these days. Definitely not the nurse’s type of man. I liked her more and more. The doctor said he was going to do all that he could to make this hurt as little as possible. I started to like him as well. But, as he said, there is no easy way to get the local anaesthesia in to the body. The injection of the anaesthesia itself is “uncomfortable”. I learned, already many years ago, that the French medical profession’s use of the word “uncomfortable” is such an incredible understatement that it would be like referring to a heart attack as a hiccough. As he kept talking I wanted to yell, scream and strangle him. Instead I just lay there looking away with tears swelling in my eyes. Then it was over. He had actually used the stuff correctly throughout to such an extent that when he did something to me and asked if I felt it I could honestly reply “Non”. He said that no matter what I should let me let him know if anything hurt at all during the whole procedure. I was in love with this man. He said he was going to open the same original scar so as not to create a second one and to make things easier. He had already cut it open and I didn’t feel anything. He then started working on the “chamber” part of the thing to be removed. He was having difficulty getting it to leave my body as my body had firmly attached itself to it. He asked how long it had been in there. At this point I didn’t think what I thought later: didn’t he look at my file before starting to open me? Wasn’t this sort of thing mentioned somewhere on all those sheets of paper. I said “il y a 3 ans” (3 years ago). He was surprised. He said it’s rare that they are left in so long as it’s usually a matter of months. My immediate reflex was to sit upright, look him straight in the eye and say “Yeah. I know. Right?” Instead I just lay there as he and the nurse worked on getting the thing out of me. It took much longer than he thought it would. The nurse said it was obviously quite happy in my chest. I mentioned that the feeling was not mutual and she giggled. I wanted to take the 2 of them out for drinks and hug them close. Just to add a bit of suspense to what is obviously a very routine procedure to them the doctor mentioned that with a chamber that’s been in so long he had to be careful to get the tube out with the chamber. Sometimes the chamber comes off leaving the tube still in my chest. Then they would have to knock me out, open me up completely and go find the tube which goes right to my heart. I shuttered at the thought. The thought passed as he grabbed the tube at the same time and said everything was fine. Next thing I knew he was talking about stitches as he started his sewing. He had to redo one of the stitches as he had pulled on one of my chest hairs instead of the thread at one point. A few stitches later he pasted on the bandage explaining what would happen afterwards and he was saying his goodbyes. I thanked him over and over again. “Merci” just seems such an insignificant term in situations like this. The nurse started cleaning me up and then I was jumping in to the wheelchair and on my way out. I thanked the nurse over and over again while being wheeled out.
I got downstairs where I was allowed to redress myself. No medication this time. No surprise injections in the stomach, or anywhere else for that matter, this time. When they said I could go home on my own I was overjoyed.

I got back to the reception, an area I still know so well, and called a cab. I got home relatively easily and put myself to bed. I slept for about 3 or 4 hours later and got up to see how I was feeling. I wasn’t doing bad. I spent the rest of the afternoon/evening laying on the couch, propped up on one side, watching television with Alexandra. I can’t possibly imagine how she could be watching this movie (Bratz) for a third time. But I was still pretty groggy so it didn’t really matter.

I was able to eat dinner without any problems and I was actually hungry. I rented a relatively silly tax-shelter movie (Flight of the Phoenix) on the Apple TV and then off to bed.

The bandages are pretty cool as I can shower with them and I can take them off myself in 8 days. My calculations put Christmas Day as the day I take the bandages off. The stitches are self-dissolving and should disappear by themselves. He said if there are any left after 2 weeks I can pull them out myself with a tweezer.
My whole upper right side is sore and hurts. But I just keep saying to myself this I nothing in comparison to what I’ve been through and pain is relative. This ain’t even a 4 on a scale of 1 to 10. I keep telling myself: “I’ve been through chemo. I know what 10 feels like”.

For once a medical procedure was actually easier and less painful than I had expected. If only they could all be like this!

I will soon be getting used to the fact that I no longer have anything implanted in my chest. Yet another lingering factor of cancer has been removed. Time for me to move on and live my life without cancer. I will probably forget all over again. But it’s wonderful that I can forget!

PS: It's my mom's 69th birthday today. How many men my age have a mom who's got a video on You Tube? Check it out. She makes me proud every day.

Out damn spot!

2008-11-24T12:11:00.002+01:00

I am all excited! Once upon a time (10/10/2005) they surgically inserted a catheter in my chest in order to inject me with chemo chemicals. It probably depends on the chemicals they use. I had Cisplatin and Fluoro Uracil. The catheter stays in one's chest permanently during treatment and for some time after. I have been asking when they will remove it every six months for 3 years now. My general practitioner and my ORL finally agreed that now is the time.

I just called and booked the surgery (17/12/08) and I am so excited. The reason they haven't removed it before is that there is always a risk that the cancer will come back, either in the same place or elsewhere, and after all of the radiation theapy I had I would not be able to go through that again which leaves just chemotherapy. They obviously don't want to remove the thing and then have to put it back in sometime later. The fact that they now say I can have it removed means that somewhere along the line they don't think the cancer's coming back any time soon.

I'm not looking forward to surgery, as minor as this may be in relation to all I've been through, and I am certainly not looking forward to going back to the Clinique Hartmann (where my original treatment was carried out). But I am really looking forward to finally getting rid of this thing.

Microblogging

2008-09-23T10:59:00.003+02:00

As most of you have seen I go through long periods during which I either don't have the time or the interest to update my blog. This is yet another one of those periods.

It is even less likely that I update my full blog as I continue to update my microblogs quite regularly. The ability to upload very short updates to Twitter and photos to Flickr either through my computer or through my iPhone means I update those services much more often and regularly than my full blog here.

To follow my life on a moment to moment basic check out my Twitter page at:

http://www.twitter.com/dcefrance/

If you use Twitter yourself obviously you can follow me as well by adding me from there.

Twitter allows for photo links and location links now which works quite well with the new GPS and localisation functions on the iPhone.

I tend to upload my photos on Flickr as they happen and you can therefore find my photo updates regularly on Flickr here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dcefrance/

PS: For those of you who may read my latest Twitter tweats for the first time please rest assured: I was released from the hospital after 24 hours in intensive care and I am doing fine now. I may have to learn how to relax a bit better in my day-to-day life and I probably either need to exercise more or relax more... I'm not sure which at the moment.

I have to admit that the cornorary stuff was probably the second most frightening medical experience in my life which puts it pretty high up in the fear meter. But in comparison to cancer this was all relatively simple and endurable.

;-)

I'm bald! But I asked for it!

2008-07-31T18:54:00.000+02:00

It looks a bit shocking... but that was, in part, the goal. Those of you who know me well will remember about 5 years ago when I had my hair dyed platinum blonde over the summer. I quite enjoyed the effect. However my family, especially Desney, didn't like it at all and made me promise never to do it again.

The next thing I could think of was shaving all my hair off and I was contemplating that in the summer of 2005. Then it looked like the decision was going to be made for me. As you all know I was diagnosed with cancer at the end of August 2005, operated on twice in September and started treatment in November. It was one surprise after another and one, of the many, was that I was going to be having full cycles of chemotherapy. I expected to lose my hair at that time. I had psychologically prepared myself for it. I had planned that as soon as I would notice it starting to fall out I would just shave all of it off rather than going through it in stages. For whatever reason I never lost my hair. The rest of the side-effects of chemo were enough without that as well so I was not overly disappointed. However I remained curious.

It's been 3 years now and I dediced I finally wanted to see what it would look like. I'm now healthy, not too pale and currently overweight. I thought it would look different now than when I was sick and going through treatments. But there's only one real way to see what it would look like, and what my head looks like, and that's to do it. So I decided that this time I would have all my hair shaved off, I would go bald and it would be on MY terms.

I'd say it's about 99% shaved off. My hairdresser found a bunch of brown spots along my hairline at the bottom above my right ear and she didn't want to go any further. I now have to get those looked at which allows me to go through some more paranoia worrying whether I'm now to go from the pleasures of throat cancer to the joys of skin cancer or something similar.

In the mean time my head if much cooler in this hot weather than it was before and it takes me seconds to dry my head in the morning.

Like everything else... this too shall pass.... and sooner than I think my hair will be growing in enough for me to no longer be considered a skinhead and just somebody with stylishly short hair.

CANCER FREE!!! Still...

2008-07-18T22:30:00.000+02:00

It's become almost routine. After treatment finished it was every 3 months at first, then it was every 4 months and now it's every 6 months. The less often it is the more confident "they" are that the cancer isn't going to recur too quickly in a state which requires urgent treatment. As I've been through it so many times now, and with the extra help of Xanax, it's become much easier than it first was.

Today was therefore my twice-yearly visit to my ORL for my throat, thorax and chest area exam. For the gory details of the exam read one of my previous posts... this time it went relatively well. I felt fine after the exam with simply a sort throat, sore nose and the absolute need to sleep. I drove home in a state which some may have considered to be too drowsy and slept for a couple of hours...

No matter how grueling the exam may be it always feels worth it when we sit down at his desk afterwards and he says "Tout va bien" and that he hasn't found anything. That was what the entire experience was all about and that made it worth it!

We talked a bit about the pains I get when I turn my neck to far to the right or sometimes if I am sitting in a sort of angled position for too long. He checked out my scar and found a few hard bits which he explained are due to the radiation on top of the scar tissue and are normal. He recommended massaging it more often and to do "soft" sports (swimming in particular) and stretching (yoga, ...) which would work the neck area gently. He was also a bit curious about my thyroid, without any real explanation, and asked me to get a blood test before we meet again.

My next appointment with him will be in 6 months. He's also now moved the PET scan to every 18 months rather than annually. I assume that's good news and means that he's optimistic. That means my next PET scan would be in February or March next year a bit after our next appointment.

For the moment I know that my entire throat area and upper-chest area are completely free of cancer and everything is evolving as it should. I can sleep a bit better than usual tonight.

F*@K CANCER indeed!

Dr. Horrible

2008-07-16T23:30:00.002+02:00

I've been waiting for this for a while now. I first found Felicia Day by accident when I found The Guild webisodes by accident. Following her on Twitter I found out about...

Dr. Horrible which I have been reading about for weeks. Now it's finally gone live. Act I is available now, Act II on the 17th and the final act on the 19th... and then... it'll be gone!

So watch now as this, and The Guild, are good strong signs of one of the future major directions in how we obtain entertainment in the future.

Graduation Day

2008-07-04T23:37:00.003+02:00

Today was a stressful and emotional day and ended as probably one of the proudest moment of my life.

Today was Jessica's graduation day. Her last day at Lycée. In our rather peculiar and unique situation we have created an artificial graduation day where the OIB (Option Internationale du Baccalauréat) students get a fake diploma while they wait until October to receive their official French diploma. The teachers deliver the diplomas at the same time as they deliver the file with the students' detailed Baccalauréat results.

A discussion as to how the whole French Baccalauréat system works could take days. For those of you interested in how the whole OIB process works and how the French Baccalauréat works I recommend reading through the OIB Handbook published by ASIBA. The grading process is ridiculously tough and made up of a 20 point system. Most subjects are obligatory and each subject has a weighted value (coefficient) used to calculate the overall Bac grade. French for example can be worth 4 points for the Scientific Bac (S), 4 points for the Social and Economic Sciences (ES) Bac and 9 points for the Literary Bac while math is worth 7 points for the Bac S, 5 points for the Bac ES and 2 points for the Bac L. However French, Math, Science (Physics, Chemistry and Earth Science), Philosophy, History/Geography and, of course, English are all obligatory as well as a second foreign language. It's rough and long... they spend 2 to 3 weeks with a few days a week of exams which last 4 to 5 hours each.

The grading system is equally grueling and probably incomparable internationally. Although grades are given based on 20 a 20, or a perfect grade, is extremely rarely given as well as grades in the 18 to 20 range. The Bac grades are then broken down in to simply passing one's Bac (obtaining the Bac is all most French students require to go to university in France) with a grade of 10 to 11.99, a "good enough" (assez bien) note of 12 to 13.99, a "good" (bien) note of 14 to 15.99 or a "very good" (très bien) note of 16 and up. These mentions are very important for students applying to foreign universities as well as those applying to universities requiring a detailed application. To somehow provide an idea as to how difficult these mentions are only the top 25% of the country obtains a mention assez bien, only the top 8% of the country obtains a mention bien and only the top 2% of the country obtains a mention très bien. I don't believe that the UK university admissions officers really understand this... yet.

As you may remember when you read through our adventures in the month of March this year we visited the 3 universities which Jessica had received an offer from. She had applied to 5 but York replied with an offer which required a mention bien (top 8% in the country), Warwick replied (late) with an offer which required a mention bien including a minimum of 13 in math (one of Jessica's worse subjects and in which she had never gotten over 10) and Sheffield required a mention assez bien (top 25% of the country). We therefore knew that Jessica not only had to get her diploma but she also had to get at least a mention assez bien to be able to go to university in the UK at all next year.

To summarise: If she got assez bien she could go to Sheffield, if she got bien she could go to York or Sheffield and if she got bien including at least 13 in math she could go to Warwick or York or Sheffield.

Ever since Jessica went through the awful exam process of 3 weeks we've all spent about 2 weeks of stressful worrying, during which time we could not do anything, waiting for her results.

Today was the big day. I had been to the OIB ceremony many times over the years as the President of the British Parents' Association. But this was the first time I was there as the parent of a graduating student. It was a stressful, emotional and wonderful experience. They read off the students names in order by mention. They read all of the très bien first. There were 5 très bien in our class this year was revolutionarily wonderful (a first). There were 8 bien in our class this year and I shouted "woo hoo!" when they read the name Jessica Erb to come get her diploma with mention bien. She sat back down and looked over her diploma and then started looking over her grades. She made signs to Desney and I, who were sitting with the parents, that she had 13 in math!

To summarise: Jessica graduated with her Baccalauréat, with her OIB, with a mention bien (placing her in the top 8% of the country) and with a 13 in math!!! She also happened to get a perfect grade (20 out of 20) in her English orals which only one other child in the school had achieved. It is now completely up to her as to which university she wants to go to. She can choose, without negotiation, where she wants for whatever reason she wants. Desney and I were overjoyed and I spent the entire evening so overwhelmingly proud I didn't know how to express it.

The four of us went out to an absolutely wonderful Italian restaurant in Clichy (La Romantica), to celebrate, and Jessica was rewarded with graduation presents including the 32 GB iPod Touch I had promised her if she got mention bien. I had purchased it weeks ago as I am an eternal optimist and positive thinker. The meal was wonderful, the evening was wonderful and life is good. Jessica went off to (well-deserved) party with her friends afterwards...

Jazzman

2008-06-17T18:20:00.003+02:00

Once upon a time, about 10 years ago in 1997, Jazzman magazine interviewed me to talk about my then web site Jazz in France. It was one of the prouder and happier moments of my professional life. I have treasured my copy ever since and I have a framed copy on my wall.

I was trying out this wonderful new picture service (PicLens) and I searched my own name. I then accidentaly found out that Jazzman magazine now has its own web site: http://www.jazzman.fr. They have an archives section and in there I found the issue with my interview back in '97.

Just a bit of fun and discovery on the Internet....

F*©k cancer!

2008-06-03T22:57:00.003+02:00

What a brilliant idea!!! I absolutely love it!

I came across this by accident, like so many other things on the net, and what a discovery. Check out the link for the full story. These folks make T-shirts which say f*©k cancer on the front and with two types of backs: either a Survivor back with a Cancer Free Calendar countup of numbers to display the numbers of years one is cancer free or a Supporter back to honour or remember someone special.

I've ordered myself a bunch of survivor t-shirts and I can't wait until they arrive and I can proudly wear the exact thought which goes through my mind several times a day, generally when I cough or have to drink water yet again, expressed in precisely the correct two words. I promise to put up a photo of myself proudly wearing my shirt when it arrives!

Yet another minute, or two, of fame!

2008-06-03T01:02:00.003+02:00

Our listener's group on Facebook for my favourite Tech radio programme (Digital Planet) is getting more and more publicity. This time it's from another radio programme on BBC World Service called Over to You.

They interviewed the presenter of the radio programme, the producer of the programme and some strange American in France who claims he started this listener's group.

If you hurry, as I don't think the show stays online for more than a few days, you can hear the programme here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/programmes/over_to_you.shtml

TO OTHER THROAT CANCER SURVIVORS: I am trying to be humble here... but honestly... check out that Yank's voice... really not that bad two and a half years after months of radiation therapy and 2 full cycles of chemo! Even if I do say so myself... then again... if I don't say it who else would???

;-)))))

Twitter

2008-05-22T14:06:00.001+02:00

As many of you may have noticed I find it difficult to find the time to update this blog regularly.

However I microblog quite often using Twitter. I tweat from my computer using their web site or, more often, Twhirl. I tweat from my iPod Touch using Hahlo 3 and from my HTC Windows Mobile phone using their web site. Although I have a lot of fun posting up microblog entries (tweats) every now and then I actually enjoy more reading the Twitterers I'm following:

iJusine: probably the first Twitterer I started following as I believe I found out about the service on her blog.

My favourite Tech podcasters: Cali Lewis, Veronica Belmont and Leo Laporte

My Favourite Tech podcaster!!! Gareth Mitchell of BBC's Digital Planet.

Recently discovered webcaster Felicia Day of The Guild

My personal friend, David Barber who doesn't post nearly enough!

But... my favourite twitterer has got to be my latest addition: Diablo Cody. I recently saw Juno when I was in New York. I loved it! I then bought and read her book, Candy Girl which was an incredibly easy read and had the same dialogue I had grown to love from Juno. I love her voice and she writes the best tweats ever... I actually look forward to them.

If you're a twitterer and you're interested in following me you can always find me here:
http://twitter.com/DCEFrance

Updates

2008-05-20T15:17:00.004+02:00

It's been a really long time since I updated my blog... so I thought I'd try and put up a quick summary of some of the various minor happenings since my birthday...

Massage Café
Desney had given me an intriguing present: a full 90-minute massage at the Massage Café in Paris. It was probably one of the most pleasurable non-sexual experiences of my life. I left there feeling completely relaxed and calm. I can't wait to do it again!

Word for Word
Word for Word came and did a performance for my girls' school. It was their best ever! In addition to the play there was a live, and completely improvised, jazz concert by Marcus Shelby. While I was "manning" the bar I had a chat with the 3 French musicians (keyboards, drum and sax) he had found to perform. I love the story: Marcus went online to MySpace, listened to the works of a bunch of French jazz musicians, found one or two he liked and contacted them. One of the pianists, who had never heard of Marcus before, went on to My Space to check out Marcus' worked, loved it and replied and said he could play and could help find a sax player and a drummer. They all listened to each other's music online, realised they had similar styles and tastes and were ready to play. They never met each other. The 3 French jazz musicians showed up about an hour before the play. They didn't rehearse. They didn't do a sound check. After the play was over Marcus did his presentation and they just played. None of us in the audience were aware that they had never played together before. It was just plain wonderful.

New York
I went to New York, on business, on April 18th. I was supposed to stay 2 weeks. I spent the first 10 days or so with my mother (Arlene) in Brooklyn. We had a great time. It was much easier on the weekends as this was a business trip and I had a lot to get done. Arlene being Arlene she had already planned and organised several outings and events. In the 2 weeks we went to a broadway musical (Spring Awakening), a New York Yankees (baseball) game (against the Detroit Tigers), Ron Carter and Russell Malone at the Blue Note, the movies twice (21 at Times Square and Iron Man on the upper west side), a modern dance performance downtown at the Joyce Theatre, numerous meals and drinks out and I'm sure I'm forgetting other events as it all becomes a blur after a while. The major change for me this trip was the dollar. The dollar was worth so little in comparison to the Euro that I was a king! I was able to easily pick up the tab at meals all over town. More importantly I spent a lot of time and money just plain shopping. I picked up 5 pairs of jeans (Calvin Klein, Nautica, Levis and Guess) for the price of what I would pay for 1 pair. I picked up 3 Ralph Lauren polo shirts for what I pay for 1. I picked up 5 pairs of Calvin Klein knickers for what I would pay for 2. I lost count of how many books and DVDs I picked up. I do know that I left with 2 suitcases and came home with 3. It literally took me 2 and a half hours to pack and get my suitcases to close the night before I came back home. The trip was very productive but there was lots and lots to do. It therefore got extended, practically day-by-day, from a 2 week trip to a 3 week trip. More time for more shopping! The hotel was great just around the corner from the office I was working at, with full Internet access and reasonable room service. But I have to admit that after 3 weeks without my family I was very very happy to get home. I don't know if I missed my wife more than my kids or vice-versa... I don't care. I just know I missed them dearly. I was very happy to come home to France, to our house and to my family. As soon as the plane touched ground I felt stronger. I felt reassured. I felt content and satisfied. I was home.

I must have picked up 3 kilos in 3 weeks in New York. Whenever I go to New York, which is not that often (3 or 4 times in 25 years), I only know how to eat like when I left. The problem is I left New York when I was 14 years old and although I love eating like that (huge burgers, unbelievably enormous deli sandwiches, milk shakes, malteds, egg creams, cream soda, ridiculously over-priced mediocre Starbucks coffee (when in Rome), hot dogs on every street corner and the list goes on) I am no longer 14 and food doesn't just burn through me before hitting my digestive system as it did back then.

I posted a couple of photos in my Flickr photo set.

Since I've gotten home? I have spent days and days going through the junk in my office, organising and filing. I am finally getting through it all and starting to get that good feeling of getting on top of everything.

Health?
Aside from the additional weight I now have to actively work off as I didn't leave home light already, I am in the absolutely blissful situation where literally hours can go by, and sometime seemingly days can go by, when I completely forget that I am a cancer survivor and was a cancer victim. Sure I still have the saliva handicap which annoyingly reminds me more often that I'd like. Sure I still have the rather flagrant scar which flashes as a reminder or announcement to those who see me. But I feel absolutely normal and healthy. Sometimes I forget to appreciate each swallow and each bite. Sometimes I forget how difficult it was to taste or worst of all how wine was undrinkable. But then, every now and then, I sip a glass of wine or bite in to a big piece of food, breathe in, eventually swallow and it hits me. I don't mention it and I don't try and show it. But every now and then I truly appreciate each swallow whether it be solid or liquid and most definitely each tiny little taste.

I know I'm tempting the gods somewhere out there... but I have to admit it... I feel great!

Every now and then when I really want to impress the hell out of myself I fill up a big glass with luke warm water and I down the entire glass in several consecutive gulps: glug, glug, glug, glug, glug, glug. I put the glass down and I try and hide the huge smile on my face. I don't say anything. But inside I'm actually jumping up and down, shaking my first in the air and feeling like a damn super hero!

Life is good.

Happy Birthday to me!

2008-04-02T23:55:00.000+02:00

I turned 45 years old today. According to friends that means I am no longer in my early forties and am now to be considered in my "late forties" and by many way past middle-aged.

Personally I'm just so glad to have made it this far and be able to enjoy every minute of it.

Although it was a regular work day we still managed to have a huge party with live music, a DJ, dancing and drinks galore. This time I was able to catch it on video:

Video of my birthday party

Enjoy!

Universities

2008-03-09T18:43:00.002+01:00

We drove all day yesterday and got home last night in time for dinner in front of the television and Jessica rushing off to spend the night with her friends and, probably more importantly, away from her parents.

After this trip we are now capable of doing a bit of comparison as regards the 3 universities and what to do next.

My opinion is basically meaningless... as it is entirely up to Jessica what she does and where she goes... but I can't resist a bit of generalisations on my own blog.

York A beautiful, small and traditional university with an excellent reputation and seemingly excellent academic offers. The town itself is also quite small and traditional and touristy. It reminded Desney quite a lot of Stratford and me a bit of the areas of Disneyland which try to look like olde England. This would be my first choice if I was going to do what Jessica is doing now... but at my age and current lifestyle.

Sheffield An enormous and very modern university with an excellent repuation and seemingly excellent academic offers. All of what I saw was much better, respectable, organised and enjoyable than I had expected. This had originally been Jessica's last choice and "insurance option" and I had considered it at the bottom of the list of universities she had applied to. After my visit I feel quite the opposite and could even understand if, for whatever reasons, she made this her first and only choice. There is a combination of aspects here that I feel would fit Jessica quite well. The main thing, for me personally and egocentrically, is that I feel reassured and quite pleased with Sheffield as a possible choice.

Warwick Very much the "in between" option in comparison to York and Sheffield. It has an amazing reputation which will no doubt continue to improve as it has over the recent years. It is relatively exclusive. It is neither very modern nor overly traditional and it is neither enormous nor quaint. There are some very strong family ties between this university and Desney's family and, of course, the family itself is near by and omnipresent. I had thought that I was going to be overwhelmed by Warwick. I was not. I can certainly understand if this was Jessica's first choice if she receives an offer and I would be overjoyed if she got in and went here.

No matter which university she gets in to and/or chooses I will always be a bit curious, in the back of my mind, as to what her life would have been life if she had gone to either of the either two.

Above and beyond the question of choosing the specific university and the various attributes I have come home with a general feeling of excitement about my eldest going away to university. In many ways I'm jealous. But in all ways I am proud. It looks to me like she is going to have a pretty amazing experience over the next 3 to 5 years. I eagerly await the next steps and I am actually looking forward to the future...

Warwick

2008-03-07T18:32:00.000+01:00

I spent yesterday at "home" in Leamington while the girls went out shopping most of the day. I hadn't worked much in the past 3 days and my clients needed me. It should, of course, be a good feeling that I am needed. But there are times, many actually, when I would really like to be able to truly enjoy some other aspect of my life without feeling pulled in by my professional life and all of my clients' problems... I spent the entire day in front of my in-laws' computer...

Even though Jessica has not yet received an offer from Warwick University we decided to visit anyway as it is so close by and so prestigious. Warwick has one of the top politics departments in the country and the university itself is also in the top 5 ratings overall. Hoping that Jessica receives an offer eventually we headed off to Warwick so she would have an idea what it was like and determine whether she would want to come back for an Open Day if she received an offer.

It was a very strange visit. It was different from the other two in that we were completely on our own. We did not have a tour guide nor a visit with a professor nor was it an Open Day and we had Alexandra with us this time as we had left her in Leamington while we visited York and Sheffield. In comparison York was pretty much exactly as I expected it to be. Sheffield, however, was a very pleasant surpise as I my expectations and preconceived notions were basically wrong and uninformed. Warwick University was, to be brutally honest, quite a disappointment. The buildings and ambiance itself felt like we were in a hospital complex or within the administrative centre of a government. It was neither modern nor old neither traditional nor seemingly student-oriented. It just felt uncomfortable. We got a tour map from the welcome centre and we walked around quite a bit and visited the politics department itself. Eventually we had seen enough and we headed back home...

Sheffield

2008-03-05T18:13:00.000+01:00

The drive from York took longer than planned, again, as there was actually quite a lot of traffic and an accident on the M1 motorway. We eventually arrived at the Etruria House B&B we had booked. What a stark disappointment this was in comparison to our B&B in York. Old and dilapidated are the first words that come to mind. We got our bedroom, on the ground floor, and Jessica was led to her room on the first floor. We immediately discovered that they had built a shower/toilet area directly in to an existing bedroom in what was basically a closet. The door wouldn't shut properly. But most of all the room was absolutely freezing! There were 2 radiators in the room but the windows were single-glazed and all of the heat must have been escaping. We spent most of our time under the sheets... Jessica's room was much warmer but rather tiny. The toilet/shower area, on the landing, was disgustingly dirty and she didn't dare use it. She would came in to our room or we all used a cleaner toilet downstairs.

Eventually we walked in to Sheffield town centre. It was quite a nice, albeit cold and brisk, walk from the B&B to town and we were struck by both the cold and the hills... everywhere. Sheffield is basically a town built upon huge and roaming hills. You have to be in really good shape to get around this place. The city is actually quit big and spread out, with a pedestrian area, a touristy area and a huge area which is obviously devoted to the university students. This took up about half of the town. When we later learned how many students there were the reasoning became obvious. There are at least 20,000 undergrads at Sheffield University and there is another university in Sheffield (Sheffield Hallam) with at least another 20,000 undergrads. There are therefore about 50,000 university students (under- and post-grads) roaming around this place regularly.

We ended up eating in a pretty awful all-you-can-eat Chinese restaurant. But we got a pretty good feel for the university student life here in Sheffield. It can all be summed up by: Partying and drinking... everywhere!

On Wednesday we left the B&B, thankfully, and headed to the university which was holding its special open day for politics students who had already received an offer. Actually York was also holding their politics students' open day on exactly the same day and we had had to choose one or the other before coming. The Open Day was quite impressive with a tour all over the campus, a visit to some actual student accomodations (which Jessica loved) and finally some presentations by the politics department which were quite informative. Overall I think we all enjoyed it.

I have to admit that Sheffield was the one I was worried about. I had some pre-conceived notions that it was going to be a pretty rough and dirty city with a lower-than-average university campus. I was wonderfully reassured and proven wrong. The city is certainly quite dirty and some of the coal-coloured dirt on the front of many of the buildings looks centuries old. But the overall organisation of the city is quite impressive. The university itself is absolutely enormous, spread out over a huge campus and is entirely new and modern. Just about every building looks like it's been built in the last 6 or 7 years and most of them have been. They have put a lot of money and effort in to this place and it shows.

There were lots of presentations and demonstrations going on throughout the school and on campus which gave it a very lively and diverse feel. There were student union elections going on, campaigning in the university centre, charity bake sales, people in costumes and such...

We left Sheffield and headed back to Leamington and in the car tried to come up with the advantages and disadvantages of both universities (York and Sheffield) and realised it was almost impossible. They were very very different...

York

2008-03-04T18:00:00.000+01:00

We drove from Leamington to York which took a bit longer than originally planned. We arrived at the Midway House B&B we had reserved and settled in a bit. The B&B was a pleasant surprise: clean, well-equipped, warm and cozy rooms of a very good size and the couple running the house were great. We headed out to visit York itself for a bit and ended up coming back to the B&B and went to a local pub for a York meal. The visit around York was actually quicker than we had originally planned as the city centre itself is actually quite small. It's all pedestrian, whcih is wonderful, and very touristy with lots of the standard franchise shops all over. We got a relatively good feel for the main part of town and then headed back to the B&B and went to a local pub for a York meal.

The next morning we went right to the university where we met a student who is in his 2nd year and who graduated from the same school and section as Jessica (Lycée Collège International Honoré de Balzac) and is also reading Politics at York. Our tour guide therefore knows precisely where Jessica is coming from as well as knowing the university quite well. He has a sister who is still in Jessica's school and I know his mother quite well. He was an excellent guide! He spent all morning with us and showed us around each building, each hall, the library, the accomodation areas, the lakes, ... all the time telling us about the university itself, the Politics department in particular and answering absolutely all of our questions. It was a great introduction to English university life in general, and York specifically, as this is the first we have visited. We found the university to be relatively small, although spread out, and quite traditional with many buildings centuries old.

At noon we met with the head of the Politics department for a bit. It was good to have a one-on-one meeting with an actual professor and we learned a lot about how the school operates, how the Politics department functions and a bit about the admissions criteria...

Once we were done with our meeting Jessica had had enough of York and meeting people and such and we were back on the road...

A daughter in university?

2008-03-02T23:30:00.000+01:00

Father of a daughter old enough to be going to university in September and in another country?

Me?!?!?! No way!

Reality settles in: I am really THAT old and am soon to be that much lonelier.

Jessica sent off her application to 5 UK universities last December. The university application process in the UK is nationalised and all done on their online web site. Each applicant can choose up to 5 universities to apply to. Jessica, who is looking to read a dual-major of Politics and Sociology chose : Bristol, Warwick, York, Manchester and Sheffield. All of these are in the top 10 for politics in the UK which certainly did not make her job any easier. She has received replies from 4 of them, 2 refusals (Bristol and Manchester) which she was obviously quite upset about and 2 conditional offers (York and Sheffield) which are asking for some pretty tough conditions (relatively high grades in her Baccalauréat). We are therefore going to England to visit the universities for which she has conditional offers to help her choose and to help us better understand where she may be going next year.

We left relatively early in the morning and drove to Calais, got on the Shuttle, and arrived in England. We drove up through England and eventually stopped off at a garden centre in Bicester where we looked at possible water features for our garden for quite some time. We arrived in Royal Leamington Spa, hugged our family and barely unpacked as we knew we would be leaving tomorrow for the first part of our trip...

Roller Paradise

2008-02-24T18:30:00.001+01:00

Give me a new pair of rollers on my feet, MY music blaring in my ears, a sunny warm day outside and the streets of Paris and I am in paradise!!!

The happiest moments of my life are when I'm on rollers. Now even more so than before. I get the speed, danger and power all at once. I've always felt, somehow, that rollers (skates or inlines) were an extension of my feet and my body and that I am completely in control. In comparison I've always felt less in control with skateboards, bicycles and cars as there's always some other piece of equipment "outside" of me. Either way it is always a wonderful feeling for me to be on rollers and feel completely in control of myself and my body and just plain having fun.

After this summer I realised that I was going to have to get new rollers. My old ones were about 4 years old, had done literally hundreds of kilometres and they were starting to give me a rash above my ankles each time I wore them. Today is really one of the first days when I knew it was going to be nice out all day. I therefore headed out to Nomades to buy some new rollers and then try out the Sunday Roller Randonnée. Nomades normally has one of the largest selections of rollers in the Paris area. I was actually disappointed that all of the new "top of the range" rollers are made for 90 mm wheels. The larger wheels are great for speed and make going uphill easier. But the wheels stick out of the front and back of the skate. This makes slaloms and most tricks impossible. I like both speed and tricks. Those skates will not do. I therefore hit the mid-range skates with 80 mm to 84 mm wheels. I've always been a big fan of Salomon rollers as were all of the salesmen at Nomades. Unfortunately I just learned that Salomon no longer makes rollers. They are concentrating their business only on skis. I therefore had to look elsewhere. The Rollerblade rollers looked good and they had a very modern system of lacing up (mechanical pull laces made out of metal). But they were quite uncomfortable, difficult to get in and out of and my feet moved around in them too much. After trying 3 pairs I finally opted for a pair of K2 "Moto" rollers with 2 straps across the top for extra support.

Oh, while I was rushing off to catch up with the randonnée, which had left 5 minutes before, I briefly encountered David the roller instructor from Club Med Vittel. He was heading back in to the Nomades shop, where apparently he now works, and we had a lightening quick conversation. He left Club Med a year ago, is working full time at the shop, has some projects he's trying to "mount"... I will try and have lunch with him sometime in the near future to catch up.

Normally once you've done the Friday night roller randonnée you can't possibly go back to the Sunday Afternoon one. The lack of speed, the constant and very long breaks, the vast quantity and omnipresence of beginners makes all for a very frustrating experience. However it's been a long time since I've done the Friday night roller, I've gained a lot of weight, I'm not in great shape and I'm going to be wearing brand new rollers. I therefore reckoned this would be a good place to start. Were the constant and very long breaks frustrating? Damn straight! However they were also embarrassingly quite necessary. I needed to get my breath back as I would push myself pretty hard in between breaks, dancing and boogieing down the streets with my music in my ears. I was an absolute ball of sweat by the time we had the half-way break at Montparnasse. I have to admit that I am not ready to try the Friday night rando yet. I have desperately got to roller more and more often. I barely made it to the end. This wasn't because of exhaustion although that did make it difficult. I have come stupidly ill-prepared. I was wearing old thin socks. This was idiotic when buying new rollers. They were rubbing like crazy on the inside of my feet and, within about 45 minutes, I ended up with one huge blister, just underneath the inside ankle, on each foot which made movement quite painful. To top it off I had not quite gotten used to the lacing up methods and tightening methods on these new rollers. My feet were swelling up something awful and the balls of my feet were getting painful as well. I was sooo glad to take my rollers off at the break. At the end of the run, at Place Bastille, I took my rollers off, slide my sneakers back on (painfully) and tottered off to the métro to head home. I was literally having difficulty walking what with the combination of blisters and swollen soles. I made it home, rested with my feet up for a bit, had a shower and started dinner. Although exhausted and in relative pain in my feet I haven't felt this great in months!!!

I shouldn't forget... I am lucky...

2008-02-04T18:11:00.001+01:00

Every now and then when I update my blog I click on to some of the other throat cancer or tonsil cancer links I have on the blog to see what's changed.

I found a very interesting article on Raph's Tonsil Cancer blog which I read through. If you have a chance please look at the article...

The Raph Stipic they refer to on page 61 is the creator of the blog described above. Raph's blog was the only one I found when I was diagnosed and he was an inspiration for me. Being able to read about his treatment, his pulling through, his trials and tribulations and most importantly the fact that he had made it back to a relatively normal life gave me a goal. I knew that if someone else out there could do it I could damn well make it myself. I only hope that my blog can be that helpful or inspirational for others some day.

The statistics on page 60 are particularly interesting. That's the first time I've ever noticed France as being the country with the largest population of oral and pharyngeal cancer victims.

The cisplatin they mention for chemotherapy is the same chemical I had for my injections. But instead of Erbitux I had 5-Fluorouracil in overnight pumps. I am learning more and more about the long-term effects of the chemo mixed with the radiation therapy and most of it ain't that positive.

But the main feeling I came away with after reading the article is the basic fact that I am lucky. Sure I've got a big scar on my neck. But that is literally nothing in comparison to many of the scars people diagnosed with the same type of cancer as mine have had to live with. Sure I have difficulty swallowing, tasting, screaming, singing and such. But that is a minor discomfort in comparison to many other similar cancer victims' handicaps. It is so easy to focus on what is not as it should boe or what is annoying. But the fact is all of it is relative and minor... I am a healthy, obsessive workaholic, healthy, relatively happy, healthy middle-aged man and very lucky to be here writing about it.

Super Bowl Monday

2008-02-04T16:23:00.000+01:00

Slowly but surely recuperating from Super Bowl Sunday otherwise known as our annual Guys' Night Out. For more info as to what that entails check out last year's blog Entry or the year before's blog entry.

This year I was actually really rooting for a team as New York had made it to the Super Bowl. The New York Giants were clearly the underdogs facing the undefeated (18 wins and no losses in the entire season!) New England Patriots and I was actively rooting for New York...

We had a great time, and that's without the game, but we're starting to think of changing it up a bit for next year and doing things differently...

We arrived at American Dream at about 21:00 and the guys were all on time (again) this year. We first had to pay to go upstairs for dinner and the strippers. There are 3 fixed-price dinner/show menus (39 € for 2 courses (appetizer and main or main and dessert), 49 € for 3 course (appetizer, main and dessert) and 69 € for 3 courses plus an apéritif --- the choices of dishes are different for each menu as well). We were upset again as to how expensive this all was for what we knew was going to be worse than mediocre food and even less of a choice. We used to have a choice of the full American Dream menu and most of what we like isn't on these "show" menus. I miss my Philly Steak or Pastrami sandwich for example. We got upstairs, started with our first overpriced beers (7 € for 25 cl of beer is just plain silly... especially when you're going to be drinking for 7 hours!), and realised we were practically alone. One of the female strippers was up on the bar working her stuff in front of about 4 guys and the rest of the place was empty. She was wiping the poles and cleaning up more than anything else. We had our first 2 courses at the table and tried to cheer on the strippers who were pretty far away from us and up on the bar. Being the only ones cheering in the place made it strange for us and probably really boring and depressing for the strippers themselves. We can only imagine how the guy stripper must have felt each time he had to come out. Eventually we had dessert up at the bar to be closer to the "action" and it became more enjoyable as a few more guys came in towards the end. Both female strippers were completely "blown up" from their breasts to their lips to God only knows what else and known of my crowd of guy friends is attracted to that sort of thing. We all like our fantasies natural...

We were already, all 4 of us, talking about what we could do differently as of next year. Maybe have dinner beforehand, maybe go to a proper strip joint with a bit of excitement and class like Stringfellows, Hustler Club or Pink Paradise. Basically it's time to move up or move on or just plain change...

My best friend in the whole wide world, Robbie, actually left before the game. It was already great that he was able to tear himself away from home to come out and see us guys for a while. Robbie actually found a woman who finds him more than bearable {vbg}. He was therefore much more interested in getting home to his newfound female company than hanging out with the bunch of us middle-aged guys he sees every year...

After a relatively calm "show" we headed down to the basement to watch the match. The only places left were on the mezzanine, as usual for the past couple of years, and that meant having a horizontal bar from the fence pole directly in front of us throughout. It gets quite annoying after a while... Then in the 3rd quarter they shut down the basement and we all had to scramble upstairs to the ground floor and try and grab seats in front of the screen there. I was able to get a really good seat myself, albeit all on its own and I had to hold on to a vertical pole to look around, but the rest of the guys were spread around elsewhere which certainly took a lot away from the comraderie of the experience.

The game itself was an incredibly sharp contrast. The first half was one of the most boring Super Bowls in quite some time. The teams are very closely matched and it was more a defensive game than anything else. The very low score at the end of the first half was a good indicator: 3 points for New York and 7 points for New England. Half time was Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers which was a bit of a letdown. I would have preferred the pre-game show entertainer: Alicia Keys. But then came the second half. The third quarter definitely started getting interesting and we were particularly upset in having to move locations in the middle of the quarter which was certainly starting to heat up. The 4th quarter, and end of the game, was one of the most thrilling, suspenseful and exciting football game endings ever... let alone the fact that it was the Super Bowl! The last 3 minutes of play are going to become legendary... less than 3 minutes left to play and New York can now only win by getting a touchdown... they've been trying all night and have only gotten one in the whole game up till then... with less than a minute left to play New York scores an amazing touchdown!!! The bar/crowd goes wild!!! New England now have about 35 seconds to score a field goal to tie. New York turns up the heat with their defense and the game plays right down to 1 second left and New York holds their own and become Super Bowl champs!

I was jumping up and down and screaming to the best of my ability during that last touchdown along with just about every play leading up to it and following it. This was probably my first moment of frustration of the evening... I just can't scream any more... and when I try it sounds like a high-pitched wheezy smoker rather than the low-pitched rather masculine roar that I used to have. I miss my scream. But I still love trying!!! Everyone was excited at the bar and we were all talking about how amazing a game it was as we all poured out of the bar at 04:30 in the morning to head home.

Jean-Philippe was kind enough, yet again, to give me a lift home and we were talking in the car about other possibilities. Robbie had proposed that we watch the game next year at his house. This would obviously be more comfortable than the setup we've been through the past few years with American Dream.... But... above and beyonds our worries that we may keep Robbie's neighbours awake I have to admit that the ambiance and the energy of a bunch of us fans screaming together and excited together is an even more important and vital part of the game than the images on the screen(s) themselves. I'm not sure I'm willing to give up the audience-energy for the comforts of a home screening...

Right now my goal is to just make it through the day, which didn't start until after noon, and back to sleep to be recuperated, recharged and ready to work again tomorrow.

Until next year... Thank you New York Giants... Super Bowl Champions 2008!!!

Still young and cancer free!!!

2008-01-21T22:55:00.000+01:00

Yet another exam...

I organised myself properly this time. I made the appointment towards the end of the day (around 16:00) so I was able to do some work in the morning and early afternoon. Brushed my teeth and popped my Xanax at 15:00 and was even a little early for my appointment so as not to be stressed out by parking and timing. I started relaxing myself as much as possible from 15:00 on...

He was a bit late, as usual, but it went well. The same exam as always. Now that I know what's coming and in what order it's sometimes easier and sometimes more difficult as I know what's next and I don't necessarily like it. As when I made it through the camera up through the left nostril and down the throat I knew that no matter what I was going to have to live through the right nostril as well. A few coughs and gags but overall it went well. The worst part is still when he holds my tongue with one hand, has me pant like a dog and then shoves his finger down my throat with the other hand. I still don't understand how I could ever possible do this one without gagging. But we got through it. He was actually pleased that it was "easier" than usual. Yeah... right... easier for him maybe.

The important part was afterwards. This was the first time I found myself able to look at the enormous video on the scrren of the insides of my throat. He explained that he was very pleased at the evolution and how few long-term bruises or scars I had internally. I was even more pleased than he to hear this. We then discussed my tongue which still has this fungus which comes and goes along the back of my tongue. He made sure it had not reached my digestive tract and we discussed various treatments. The difficulty is that it goes away and then, about a month later, it comes back. It never seems to go away permanently. He gave me some new treatments and we'll see.

The most important part of the whole process for me, aside from the wonderful declaration that as of this moment I am entirely cancer-free, is that we have now changed the frequency of these sadistic/masochistic visits. The first year it was every 3 months, the second year it was every 4 months and now that we're in the third year it's every 6 months and I don't have to see him again until July. I told him that it's not that it's not a pleasure to see him.. but... it's really not a pleasure to see him. He understood.

I came home and went to sleep for a few hours and felt groggy for the rest of the evening. A couple of episodes of West Wing and off to bed.

Yet another minute of fame

2007-11-20T16:30:00.001+01:00

This actually happened a few days ago but the show was broadcast today. As many of you may already know I am a big fan of Tech Podcasts in general and Digital Planet in particular. I generally download this to my iPod and listen to it in the car when travelling back and forth to clients'. When I started playing around with Facebook, about a year ago, I noticed they had a system for creating discussion groups and there weren't any dedicated to my favourite show. I therefore created the Digital Planet Listeners' Group on Facebook. This was mostly an experiment to see how these groups worked on Facebook in comparison to electronic groups I already work with and managed on Yahoo and Google. It actually turned out to be quite fun and caught on quite quickly.

One of the really fun aspects of this group is that the presenter of the programme,
Gareth Mitchell, joined and even uploaded his photo. It was actually quite a strange experience to finally see what he looked like. I had been listening to his programme regularly for about a year by then and had developed a blurry idea in my head as to what he looks like. Of course he looks nothing like my idea. This was driven home even more strongly when his co-presenter, Bill Thomson joined the group and put his photo up as well. He looks nothing like I imagined!

Just last week, all of a sudden and from out of nowhere, I get an e-mail from Gareth Mitchell. They're doing a story on the programme which he thinks is relevant to our Facebook group and he wants to interview me for the programme. Luckily it was an e-mail and not a phone conversation as I probably would have fainted. I was a bit leary remembering my last experience with BBC radio and how my replies were taken completely out of context and with new voiceovers. But I felt almost as though I know Gareth and could trust him. We wrote back and forth for a while and finally set up the interview using Skype. I was first impressed with the quality of the sound over Skype and then realised just how strange it was to hear Gareth Mitchell's voice coming through my telephone. It's like listening to the radio in the telephone. It was very strange. The interview itself was absolutely perfect and went very well. I then had to wait several days for the programme to be broadcast and then uploaded as a podcast.

Finally it was released and there was a mention on their web site. I immediately downloaded the Podcast, listened through and was actually quite pleased. He used our interview exactly as it happened. No extra comments, no out of context mixing, no superfluous editing. It sounded just like our conversation. Agree or don't agree with what I have to say... that's not important. Let me express myself frankly and honestly without modification is. I played around with the MP3 file and came up with a smaller (1 minute) version you can download.

The Rack

2007-11-17T17:59:00.000+01:00

Several weeks ago I bought a new computer rack (off of eBay for only 50 Euros!) to reorganise all my equipment in the computer room / laundry room. As I was going to be taking all of the equipment out to put the rack in, and then filling the rack, Desney decided that the room had to be redone (cracks filled; frames cemented; floor, walls and ceiling painted, ...). For weeks now Desney's been working evenings, holidays, weekends and even taking some time off work to finish the room. It's finished and it looks great!

Last weekend we were finally ready to put the rack in the room. The end result was quite painful!. I've been paying the price in pain ever since.

The last part of the installation was to rewire all of the Ethernet cables for the new placement of all of the equipment in the rack. Everything fits in nicely now and I'm very pleased with, and actually quite proud of, the end result.

For those of you who are interested in this sort of thing here's the inventory from the top shelf down:

16-socket Cat6 RJ45 wiring frame

16-socket Cat6 RJ45 wiring frame

NetGear GS724T 24-port Gigabit managed switch

NetGear GS724T 24-port Gigabit managed switch

Cable modems for cable Internet connection and cable telephone connection

Buffalo Terastation II Pro
1 terabyte network disk
All of our music is on this disk and accessed through our Sonos players throughout the house

Iomega NetDisk
250 gigabyte network disk
The onsite backup of our server is on this disk

Dell PowerEdge 400SC
Our home file server
(getting old --- to be replaced sometime soon)

Seagate 500 GB external disk
This is connected to the music server and holds the other copy of our music collection

Dell OptiPlex GX520
This is our music server and distributes music to the Squeezeboxes in the girls' bedrooms

APC BackUPS ES 700 & APC BackUPS ES 500
Uninterruptible Power Supplies
These protect our peripherals from power cuts

APC SmartUPS 1500 RM
Uninterruptible Power Supply
This is connected to the file server, the Terastation and the Switches to keep everything running during a power cut and with remote management

Hidden on the top of the rack is the Siemens wireless phone which distributes the cable phone to the other 5 telephone handsets around the house and a NetGear DG834N wireless router which distributes the cable Internet connection to the network (the ADSL Internet connection is distributed via the router in my office).

What can I say? A Geek's paradise!!!

A pain in the back...

2007-11-13T16:40:00.000+01:00

Desney's been working on the laundry/computer room for weeks. She's been repairing walls, floors, filling-in holes and painting days and nights for weeks to get it up and running and ready.

All this because I got a new computer rack, off of eBay, and I took all of the computer equipment out of the room to put the rack in. I got the rack several weeks ago. Photos and info later once it's fully up and running.

Desney finally finished the room on Saturday night and I knew Sunday morning we were finally going to be able to put the rack in and I was going to be able to start putting all of my equipment back in to one place. During the waiting period I had purchased a new rack-mounted Smart Gigabit switch and a new rack-mounted UPS both of which I have been dying to put in to place.

Desney helped me get the rack down the outside stairs and we relatively soon realised that even though it fit between the walls it wasn't going to fit down the stairs with the angles it had to go through. We then tried taking it upstairs, through the front door and down the back kitchen stairs. We had the same problem. It got stuck about half way down the stairs. I then had to accept that I was going to have to take it apart, take it downstairs in pieces and put it back together again in the computer room.

Sometime during all of this process my back started hurting. During one of these upstairs, downstairs, downstairs, upstairs manouvers I had pulled something in my lower back and it was getting worse and worse as time went by. But I had disconnected all of the network in the house and I knew I had to at least get everything plugged back in even if it was only temporary. I spent a few hours building the rack again as there were no directions and the pieces all got mixed up. I finally got it back together and it was time to start putting the equipment in it. By this time I couldn't even bend down let alone pick things up. I get Alexandra to come and help and I was able to get everything connected and up and running... I spent the rest of the evening in agony as I could no longer straighten up. I could only lift my back to a position whereby my back was parallel to the floor... no higher.

After a very uncomfortable evening of restless sleep I crawled out of bed, screaming in pain all by myself, and had a huddled-over shower and breakfast and headed down to my office. I knew that if I could just get in to my chair, and in front of my screens, I would be able to work. I couldn't go anywhere as we were expecting a delivery of a compost bin for the garden and I had to be here to receive it. The delivery arrived relatively early and I crawled up the stairs, let the man drop it off in the front yard and crawled back to my office.

I desperately called my chiropractor and was lucky to get an appointment for 16:30. I worked in my office, without moving, for the rest of the afternoon and took a taxi to the chiropractor's. He was more shocked by my new moustache and goatee than by my position. He can still remember seeing my like this years ago. We went through the symptoms and I was glad to learn that it wasn't my sciatica come back to haunt me. It was "only" a pulled ligament and classic lumbago. I couldn't move without yelping in pain so he gave me an injection of anti-inflammatories so he could at least do some placement work. He put everything back in place and I could miraculously stand up and walk. I was still hurting and sore. But I was upright again. I felt as though Ernest Angley had miraculously smacked my forehead and I was healed. He put a back belt on me, the same as I have at home but couldn't get on in the morning as I couldn't move, which held me in place. He prescribed a bunch of anti-inflammatories, muscle relaxants and pain killers and sent me home. He warned me that this wasn't over. I would need to wear the belt for a fortnight no matter how good I felt and I was going to feel worse before I felt better again. I have to avoid all "brusk" movements, can't lift anything, should stay horizontal or immobile as often as possible and on and on. The painful aspects are no alcohol for while I'm taking the anti-inflammatories and muscle (about 10 days) and no sex for about 5 days. Boring...

When I walked through the door I was in pain again. This was mostly due to sitting in bump and go traffic, in a taxi, for about an hour. I lied down, with a pillow between my legs, and was "ok" for dinner.

Today has been OK as I haven't had to move much... It's going to a long couple of weeks...

It ain't cancer but it's certainly a pain!

Our Alexandra the Journalist

2007-11-02T11:05:00.000+01:00

Back in April Alexandra wrote to a magazine that she reads all the time, Geo Ado, to let them know that she is bilingual and would be interested in interviewing for their magazine. The magazine runs a monthly interview carried out by an adolescent. Of course who she really wanted to interview was Tokio Hotel. But apparently they had already been interviewed. Alexandra received an e-mail from the magazine at the end of the month and it was a bit of a shock for all of us. Apparently filming was on for a new movie with an adolescent lead and the journalist wanted Alexandra to come with her to Romania for a couple of days for the filming of The Seeker: The Dark is Rising. Needless to say Desney and I needed to check a few things out first. We met with the journalist personally at the magazine office and saw that everything was well organised and this was going to be an amazing opportunity for Alex. We ran out and got her the book, first in a series of 5 books, for her to read on the trip and off she went.

This was the first few days of May. I was in New York while she was away. When I got back I got to hear all of her wonderful stories about her adventure. We then started our months of waiting for the magazine to come out with her interview. On November 1st, yesterday, the magazine hit the newstands.

The magazine had already sent us an electronic copy of Alex' pages, so as to see exactly what her pages look like in the magazine, a couple of weeks ago and we had to keep quiet about it. It's a 2 megabyte Acrobat file but it shows everything.

Then we received our subscriber's copy of the magazine last Thursday and Alex was able to bring it to school to show everyone on Friday just before the holidays started. Now it's on the streets!

As of yesterday, and until the end of the month, the Geo Ado web site has the interview, and Alex' photo, right on the home page. As the site will only last a month I've captured everything to an Acrobat file for permanent storage.

As you can imagine we'll be buying a few copies of the magazine today and we'll all be gloating and kvelling around the world for quite some time.

Bravo Alexandra!!!

Still cancer free after all these years!

2007-10-27T13:08:00.000+02:00

As my loyal readers may remember I went in for my second annual PET Scan on October 2nd.

Here in France the results take about 10 days and they send them directly to the doctor who prescribed the scan. Therefore the results should have been sent to my ENT (ORL in French) specialist around October 14th. I therefore start getting nervous around October 16th.

The way things work in the doctors' minds is radically different than how it works in us cancer patients' minds. In the doctor's mind he will call the patient if the results show a problem which needs immediate treatment or verifying as something needs to be done. However if the results show everything's clear well... then... there's no need calling the patient right? On the other side the cancer patient, me, is sitting here nervously waiting confirmation and reassurance that the cancer has not come back somewhere else in my body. The doctor has no idea how important that tiny bit of reassurance is. He has no idea that, as a survivor, I live with the constant, not quite omnipresent but regular, abject fear that the cancer is going to come back. It was such a surprise in the first place that I am constantly suspicious that it will come back and I will not know about it. Probably the most debilitating handicap cancer survivors have to live with is psychological and emotional: we live with the eternal fear that it may come back.

After quite a few days of waiting and getting more and more anxious I finally called his office two days ago (25/10) and left a message asking if he had received the results. He has a new assistant so I had to explain what a PET scan was, that it involved cancer, and how important it was that I get a reply. I then called again yesterday (26/10) and left a message. I hoped that my annoying persistence would get through to the receptionist that this was important to me. I sent an e-mail to my (wonderful) general practitioner last night.

At 20:30 last night my ENT called me and faintly apologised with the standard explanation that if there was any problem he would have called me immediately. He told me all of the results were negative. Just like last year I had that momentary heart skip of negative... that's not positive... that's not good. Then I asked for confirmation and he reassured me that they found nothing and everything is fine. He offered to fax me the results. I explained I don't need to see the medical information, this time, I simply needed those simple words: "there is no cancer anywhere in your body at this time".

TOUT va bien. I can relax a bit with the reassurance that my body is cancer free and I can make some plans longer than a couple of weeks ahead with the notion that I will not be stopping everything to start long and obligatory cancer treatments again any time real soon.

WHEW!

Life is good.

Kiva

2007-10-12T14:12:00.000+02:00

KIVA

THIS is what the Internet should be about: one-to-one assistance.

Kiva is microfinancing and microloaning. An entrepreneur or tiny business in need of money, generally in an underdeveloped country, requests a loan. We lenders each loan a portion of that amount directly. Once the necessary amount is raised the loan is sent to the recipient who uses it to develop their business or activity and they pay it back in installments to Kiva. Kiva then distributes the money back to the lenders.

Absolutely everyone wins in this situation: tiny businesses and individuals who would generally not be able to obtain this sort of loan from a "normal" financial institution get the money they need and they pay back in reasonable installments; lenders participate in helping individuals and businesses around the world AND lenders get their money back over time; Kiva, who do not take a cut or a percentage on the actual loan, receive donations from the lenders throughout the process.

Microloans and microfinancing: A win-win way of doing business and feeling good about business at the same time.

Big banks beware!

MY LENDER'S PAGE

Cancer Vixen

2007-10-11T12:28:00.001+02:00

I was watching LCI this morning while having breakfast and they were interviewing Marisa Acocella Marchetto for her book Cancer Vixen which was translated to "Cancer in the City" as I'm sure the French had difficulty with the word vixen. The story behind the book and the author herself was quite interesting and I went Googling through the Net to find out more. A successful New York fashion victim cartoon artist, about to get married for the first time at the age of 43, is diagnosed with breast cancer. Her outtake and outlook on the entire experience is excellent and I can relate.

I ordered the book immediately from Amazon. But I was amazed to find what I believe to be a large part of the book, if not all of the book itself, published on the web on the The First Post site. I'm not sure why but one can read a large portion of the book directly on the site with all of the artwork and such. For whatever reason I appreciate it and it's wonderful!

I highly recommend what I've read so far to just about anyone. I particularly appreciate the comments on her web site where she mentions her next book which is, as she says "thankfully", NOT about cancer. We all move on...

Sell A Band

2007-10-10T13:02:00.000+02:00

equation - Chilly in Paris'- on SellaBand

I found this one while listening to one of my regular podcasts of Digital Planet: What a brilliant idea! Yet another excellent use of the Internet and microfunding. Musicians and performers (Artists) present their stuff on the site (songs and sometimes videos) in the hope of earning $50,000 to go in to the studio and record. Once they're reached the magic amount they are provided with an A&R person and a producer and a recording studio and they make their CD. Afterwards the CD is sold online, 3 songs are available for free downloads and the rest of the individual songs are also sold as downloadable files. The profits for the sales of the CDs and the sales of the song downloads are split amongst the Artists, SellABand and the Believers.

Believers (you and I) purchase "parts" of the $50,000 fund for an artists at a rate of $10 per part (therefore 5,000 parts). In return the believer will receive a limited edition copy of the CD, a portion of the sales profits based on their number of parts and, most importantly, participates in the development, marketing and discovery of new artists. In most cases the Artists actually send some form of existing CD or demo CD to their believers as soon as they buy some parts so the believer doesn't have to wait until the Artist reaches the magic amount.

Sell A Band provides all sorts of tools for promoting the artists on believers' web sites, e-mails and such.

I became a believer right away and you can find my believer's page. After spending some time listening to various artists on the site, which I must say was both a lot of fun and quite enlightening, I became a believer of the group Equation which I quite enjoy. I then went to their web site and downloaded lots of their live music as MP3 files. I uploaded those music files on to our home music server and have been listening to them over and over again for quite some time know. Hypnotic. They then sent me a demo CD with a few live tracks and even a few videos of their live performances which I have also uploaded on to our server so we can watch them on the living room television and on the other computers in the house. I have become a big fan.

I must say it's a wonderful and unique opportunity to be able to communicate directly with the musicians themselves about their music, their performances, their goals, their message, their dreams and to feel like an active part in the experience. In some ways it's similar to the Salon des Vignerons Indépendants, which we attend regularly and loyally, where one gets to communicate directly with the winemaker bypassing all of the various levels of the distribution process.

There are some wondefully positive things the Internet can provide to the world and this is one of them!

Second Viddler video

2007-10-09T11:20:00.001+02:00

This is my second Viddler video and certainly last for the day. I really should be working...

This one was recorded through my MacBook Pro just for testing and playing around with a bit of tech.

Does anyone know what the verb is for video blogging? Vlogging? Vidogging? V-Blogging?

Viddler

2007-10-09T10:55:00.000+02:00

I found the Viddler site through my following iJustine in my regular visits through Twitter. I actually visit both Twitter and Facebook several times throughout the day as well as updating them both through the web or through my phone.

Viddler looks like fun and it was incredibly easy to start using. Below is my first Viddler video and I'm going to now try and record another one from my Mac to test out how it works on another platform.

Do I really have time for this? No way. Is it fun? Definitely. Should I be doing this right now? That's debatable. But technological exploration is my life!

Does this have anything whatsoever to do with Cancer? No.

Is there more to life than Cancer? Damn straight!

Viddler

2007-10-09T10:50:00.001+02:00

My first Viddler video. We'll see if, and how, this thing works....

Scarface - 2 years later

2007-10-08T13:35:00.000+02:00

I had scheduled myself to do this on September 26th, 2006... but I had computer problems and then network problems and then my webcam broke and ...

This shot is to show off my scar 2 years after the surgery. The goal is to show the evolution of the scar which is especially of interest to others who may, unfortunately, have to go through the same type of procedure.

This photo shows my scar on my neck as of today (October 8th, 2006).

This photo, on the right, shows my scar from 2 years ago just after taking the bandages off. It comes from my blog entry of September 26th, 2005. Quite a few things have changed since that photo not least of which is that I have aged 2 years; I have changed webcams which shows a noticeable difference in quality (I now have a Logitech QuickCam Ultra Vision which I am quite pleased with); I have changed spectacles which is not quite as noticeable although the news ones have progressive lens thanks to a combination of age and (mostly) the effects of high neck radiation thereapy on the back of the eyes... add to all of this the fact that I need a haircut and a shave and you can still analyse the difference between the 2 photos and the 2 periods.

I am quite pleased to see that the scar has significantly faded since the beginning and the colouring has changed from a rather noticeable brownish red to a hopefully more subtle redish brown. It's certainly still noticeable but I feel it is a lot less "in your face". The other difference I notice, both visually and physically, is that the scar has receded in to my throat/neck over time and it pulls on the skin surrounding the scar as I move. This causes a sort of pull every now and then, and extremely rarely a slight spasm of pain, but it rarely bothers me and throat pain has become quite relative to me in the past 2 years.

It's interesting to follow the evolution of the scar as this is certainly the most noticeable aspect of my cancer. I like to think that if the scar wasn't up on my throat and ears that most people would not even know that there was anything different about me in comparison to most people... disregarding my other personal excenticitries and unique quirks of fashion and expression.

;-)

My Second Annual PET Scan

2007-10-02T16:39:00.000+02:00

Having scheduled it several weeks ago I knew that today was going to be my second annual PET scan. I can still remember my first PET Scan quite well.

I woke up late as I knew I wasn't going to be able in the morning. But I made this appointment much earlier than the previous one (09:45 this time) so that I could basically get up, shower and go.

I plugged the address in Sarcelles in to my GPS and headed off. Last year I left myself an hour to get there and it only took 20 minutes. This year I left myself a half an hour and there was, of course, an accident on the autoroute and then road construction on the side streets. I arrived about 15 minutes late having been stuck for about 10 minutes only 400 metres away from the centre.

The rest was now ordinary: a bit of paperwork, a 5-minute visit with a doctor who this time only asked if anything had changed since last time, sit in the waiting room for about a half an hour and then off for the procedure. As I walked in to the examining room I realised how much I do not miss these medical centres which I now only have to go to rarely in comparison to going daily just a couple of years ago. The nurse was very kind to remind me to go to the toilet beforehand, which made me feel like a 6-year old boy, as I would be lying down for over an hour and a half without moving. She then took some blood from my finger and put in the intravenous distributor in my elbow.

I was then put in a bed to lie down. The nurse comes back in, this time with a lead protection jacket on, and injects the "product" in to me while saying "this won't hurt or feel hot" and such niceties and I'm saying to myself "If this is so inocuous why are you wearing a lead protection jacket and I'm half naked being shot up with whatever it is you're being protected from?". I'm then told to remain horizontal for at least an hour. Things started going a bit downhill for the centre from this point forward. For me it was easy as I basically drifted off in to sleep as I had only slept about 4 or 5 hours the night before. But I could still hear the discussions around me. One woman was just plain being difficult and then started crying about how no one cares about her and on and on. I could relate but didn't really want to hear about it when we were all trying to relax and prepare for our turn. Then it turns out that they were having problems with the scanner itself. They stopped injecting new patients. But those of us who had already been injected were going to have to wait. Each scan normally takes about 20 minutes but they were now taking about an hour. I lay there just waiting.

Finally it was my turn. Off with the watch, eyeglasses, trousers and earring. I was then placed in the, now all to familiar, scan tunnel and had my arms put in to position (above my head) and my neck and hip placed. I was then told to not move during the procedure which "should normally" last 20 minutes. I asked "normally?" and the nurse explained they were having issues with the equipment this morning and that it may take longer. Laying in one position without moving at all for over 20 minutes is not fun. As I was slowly rolled out from the tunnel I was told I was one of the lucky ones as my scan "only" took 30 minutes. I thought to myself: "you should lie down in there without moving for 'only' 30 minutes and see how 'lucky' you feel!"

For an exam that was supposed to cut out about 3 or 4 hours of my day I didn't get out of there until well past 3 and headed home to eat and drink a bit.

Now comes the hard part... they send the results to my doctor in about 10 days and I spend the interim period waiting, waiting and waiting...

Incandescent vs CFL vs LED lights

2007-09-13T15:53:00.000+02:00

I haven't written in a while... but this is just a little something that struck me today:

a comparison between incandescent, CFL and LED light bulbs.

Although the LED bulbs use 94% less electricity than the incandescent bulb they also give off 93% less light. But those CFL bulbs look pretty amazing in these tests. I'm willing to give up 5% to 6% of light (800 lumens instead of 850) to use 78% less electricity (13.94 watts instead of 62.87)!

We hope to start testing the CFL bulbs around our house sometime soon... I'm sure I'll mention it here...

Yet another medical exam

2007-08-01T17:00:00.000+02:00

The morning I left for Switzerland (last Wednesday) I went in for blood and urine tests. I had also booked my appointment for today's "echography" (sonography?) of my bladder and prostate. As I mentioned in my entry as regards my doctor's appointment I lately have moments when I have to go pee right away and can't hold it in very well. Dr. Girard therefore sent me off for "la totale" of tests to see if it was a chemical problem, an organ problem or, God forbid, the cancer coming back somewhere else. As he said we will always have to be on the look out for that. I therefore have spent the days since our appointment with yet another worry...

The blood and urine results looked good so it's not a chemical problem. Unfortunately, in my medically ignorant mind, that made me believe it was more likely a problem with the actual organs and more likely the dreaded cancer coming back.

I loved the conflict of the exam... I was having this exam because I have difficulty holding my water. When I made the appointment for the exam they knew this and their response was that I need to not urinate for an hour before the exam. At all. I explained how difficult that was going to be... anyway I made it...

The bladder echography was easy and he let me pee right afterwards. He said everything was fine with my bladder from what he could see. So now I'm extra worried I've got prostate cancer or something. To top it off he puts on the rubber gloves and hits me with "Mr. Erb you were informed that the prostate echography is done internally n'est-ce pas ?" Um... for some reason no one had mentioned that to me. So now I go from having cameras shoved up my nose and down my throat to having a camera, within a rod which looked to me like a male homosexual's large vibrator, shoved up my ass. Oh well...

In the end, and this is truly the moment to use that term, the results were perfectly fine. My prostate's fine as well.

Basically the problem, at the moment, appears to be that I just drink too much water and too regularly. I wonder if other throat cancer survivors have the same problem. It's a standard cause and effect relationship: drink lots of liquids and you're gonna pee alot and often.

I guess that it was all good news...

Now it's back to the doctor to see if there's anything to do knowing that it isn't a major problem...

Harry Potter VII

2007-07-21T11:16:00.000+02:00

Got up relatively early for me on a Saturday and I was out of the house by about 9:45 and off to La Défense.

I got there at 10:05 just after the opening of the stores...

I was heading for FNAC as I knew they would have what I had come looking for. However when I got to the top of the escalator out of the parking lot right in front of me was Virgin Megastore and their entire entrance was devoted to the new release...

I ran in and took 3 copies of the shelves (1 for me, 1 for Alexandra and 1 for Jessica) and then got sucked in to the store... it's absolutely enormous! I strolled around for a while. I had the books in my hands so I had nothing to worry about. I ended up buying a whole bunch of magazines (digital stuff, computer stuff, stereo and audiofile sutff, ...) and by the time I got to the cash registers there were queues everywhere.

But it was really funny to see so many people with the book in their hands... some adults were literally trying to hide the book while they were in the queue hoping no one would notice what they were buying...

I left the stored with 3 copies, got to the car and back home by 11:00.

At 11:15 I started reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (aka Harry Potter VII). Please leave me alone for a few days as it's going to take me a while to get through over 600 pages...

Another doctor's appointment

2007-07-20T23:00:00.000+02:00

This evening we went for a family doctor appointment. All four of us went back to our old neighbourhood (Paris XVth) to see Dr. Girard who we've known for years.

Jessica went first as she was then heading off to Brittany for a bit of holiday with a friend. Alexandra followed, then Desney and then me. I take the longest...

Most of his comments were how pleased he was that I had regained my original weight and I was looking healthy. We started by going over the results of my last visits with Dr. Hagège and he was pleased. We went over how the visits should be twice-yearly as of next year, rather than quarterly, depending on my CAT scans and then perhaps annually after 5 years. I had mentioned that my goal was to reach the magic figure of 5 years when I would be considered "clean". He smiled and then got very serious. "We used to consider that after 5 years the cancer had been eliminated. We no longer make that declaration. It could come back in 7 years, in 10 years, in 15 years or at any point. Every year you go without cancer the less likely it is to come back. But it is always a possibility and we will have to be extremely careful and vigilant for the rest of your life however long that may be."

Well that host my hopes down and was pretty much an emotional shot to my optimism...

I then brought up what has been bothering me and which I did/do not know is related to the cancer or not. Often, not every time but often, when I need to pee I have to go then and there. I can't wait long. I will not go in to too many details but it's a definite urgency. He went in to great details in his question (flow rates, in the night or not?, timing before and after, ...). I had always thought that it was just because I drink so much water and so constantly now. He is now sending me off for sonographies of that whole area (bladder and prostate), blood tests, urine tests... the works. I'm really looking forward to it... not!

He then examined me fully... when he looked in my throat he immediately said my tongue was still very "hairy". I told him that it basically always has been since the treatment. He said we had to continue to treating it so as to avoid fungus (mushrooms), infection and such. As my mouth is dry, and lacks saliva, it is much more susceptible to infection and problems. He now is going to have me gargling with bicarbonate of soda after every meal and then brushing my tongue with Fungizone twice a day. Something else to look forward to...

I then asked him when we could remove the catheter port in my chest. He said that normally they would think of removing it 2 years after the end of treatment. For me that would be December 9th, 2007. He also said that often people just leave it in for the rest of their lives. *IF* the cancer ever comes back it's one less intervention to not have to put the catheter port back in. I told him I would prefer to have it out as it bothers me both psychologically and physcially to have it there. He said we'll go over the possibility again after my next PET scan results (October) and before the Christmas holiday period.

I explained that my allergies had come back and he gave me a new prescription for the same old tablets.

Next step is to go through all of the various tests (sonographies, blood and urine tests, ...) and to go back to see him to go over the results. There is always a risk of prostate cancer or bladder cancer... but I should't worry...

Yeah... right... me worry?

;-(

Nothing but good news

2007-07-14T13:00:00.000+02:00

Very busy day today. An installation and a meeting in the morning where I showed up ready to install 2 or 3 things and there were 3 more things waiting for me. I was quite impressed with myself that when I left, on time, everything worked. I was impressed not just because of my usual technological prowess but because I was able to keep my mind on what I was doing. Off to a second meeting, without lunch, where just about everything went wrong. This is for the installation of a new telephone system (IP-based) which I'm overseeing. The telephone company delivered the wrong rack (too big); the telephone installer had just left on holiday; the telephone company (France Télécom) were supposed to be there between 14:00 and 15:00 did not show; the telephone company claimed that they would not have some of the parts in time and on and on.

No matter what at 15:00 I took my Xanax, brushed my teeth and started to prepare myself for the event of the day which my mind kept wandering back to. At 15:20 I left and headed off for my quarterly checkup with Dr. Hagège.

I was just reading my Blog Entry for my last visit in March. The experience was basically exactly the same. All of the same comments apply and even the same subjects of discussion.

The important point for me was that throughout the grueling exam he kept saying "parfaitement normal" or "très bien" or "souple et sans odème" all the sorts of things I wanted to hear. Of course my eyes were closed so I could not see on the huge screen whatever he was referring too and tears tend to run down my face during the exam which blurs my vision as well. But it was still a psychologically great feeling to hear an endless flow of positive statements while he was doing these things to me.

In the end when we sat down for our discussion his first words were "rien que des bonnes nouvelles" (nothing but good news). He then summarised with the same things he had said in March:

A PET scan in October

Quarterly exam with him in October with the results

If the PET scan results are good then I will start seeing him every 6 months rather than every 4 months

Visit with my general practitioner in October, if the PET scan results are good, to discuss removing the catheter from my chest and the rest of the evolution of my situation

I left there feeing physically awful as usual but psychologically quite uplifted. Another four months have gone by and I still do not have any cancer they can find and my throat is healing fine and my vocal chords are still intact and functioning.

I went home and put myself to bed as usual. I got up around 19:45. My nose and throat felt pretty bad. We ordered out Japanese (easy to swallow) and sat back and watched a movie.

After the movie was over I took the girls out to the Seine for the Asnières fireworks and July 14th party. The fireworks themselves were pretty unimpressive and disappointing in comparison to previous years. The dance scene was fun and we danced in the heat with hundreds of other Asnièrois for a while. The music wasn't that great and we finally headed home about half past midnight.

Home and to sleep... dreams of a healthy body, my future PET scan, getting the catheter ripped out of my chest, the day when I no longer have to go through these exams, the doctor saying "rien que des bonnes nouvelles" over and over in my head...

And... preparing myself with childish excitement for the arrival of the 7th, and final, Harry Potter book next Saturday!

I am going to be around, and healthy, to read and thoroughly enjoy it!

iTunes Plus = Same old rubbish in new package

2007-06-09T12:14:00.000+02:00

When I heard about iTunes Plus I was all excited. As I mentioned in a previous blog entry I had spent quite a lot of time and money on iTunes songs for my iPods over the years only to come to the sad realisation that my songs were being held hostage by Apple and their DRM rules. At the same time I had ripped all of my CDs, about 10,000 songs, to completely DRM-free and industry-standard high-quality (320 kbps) MP3 files which could be used on iPods, any other MP3 player and (of course) on our digital music library systems such as Squeezebox and Sonos. I had stopped buying and downloading songs from the iTunes stores long ago after experiencing the sour aftertaste of being ripped off.

I was all excited to learn that Apple was now going to be offering DRM-free higher-quality (256 kbps instead of their usual 128 kbps) music for sale. I was even willing to pay the higher price for what I feel I should have been sold in the first place. Although 256 kbps is still a little lower than my 320 kbps MP3 files it was certainly a quality level I was willing to live with for permanent places in our digital libraries.

I finally got around to trying it out. I went to the iTunes Plus portion of the store and I purchased the Corinne Bailey Rae album in the new iTunes Plus format. I eagerly stared at iTunes while it downloaded the files. As soon as it was done I closed iTunes and went looking for the files in my iTunes folders on the server. I naively was looking for MP3 files. Don't ask why I made this naive and, with hindsight, rather silly assumption. But I had actually assumed, for a short period of time, that I was going to be buying DRM-free higher-quality MP3 files. I found the files. They were not what I expected. They are selling what they now refer to as "Purchased AAC files" instead of the previous "Protected AAC files". Although the files are supposedly DRM-free they are in a proprietary format which is not usable by most MP3 players (portable or distributed).

Before in order to be able to properly use the files I bought from the iTunes store I would have to burn the files to an audio CD and then rip the audio CD, as I would any other audio CD, to create MP3 files. Although I would rip them at 320 kbps I was obviously not getting any better quality than my original files (128 kbps). I still had to go through a 2-stage process, as well as the cost of a blank CD, just to get the MP3 files I could use of the music I had legally purchased. The revolution of the iTunes Plus system? I still have to burn the files to an audio CD and I still have to rip that audio CD to create the MP3 files to be able to properly use them universally. I end up with a better quality file in the end (256 kbps). But this is still not as good, nor as easy, as when I rip directly from an audio CD I purchase or borrow. Again I feel as though I, the paying client, am being unjustly handicapped and I still get a better digital experience by ripping directly from audio CDs. Purchasing an audio CD and ripping it to MP3 files is supposedly illegal. Borrowing a CD and ripping it to MP3 files is certainly illegal. However, yet again, the music companies themselves have created and maintained a system whereby piracy still produces the better quality musical experience with a greater ease no matter how much the client is willing to spend to purchase music online.

Lesson learned: I have now stopped buying from iTunes again...

The Shoes From Hell

2007-06-08T09:35:00.000+02:00

Some of you may remember my entry as regards my new shoes: Daddy Needs A New Pair of Shoes. A loyal reader of this blog, who I see every now and then, mentioned them the last time I saw her and how she would like to see what they looked like. I then realised I hadn't ever tried them on and it would be a good time to try them out. I had a 16:00 meeting yesterday and then a parents' association meeting in the evening and reckoned now would be a good time. I slipped in to them just before driving to my meeting in Paris. By the time I got to the parking lot near the meeting it had become obvious that the shoes were at least a half a size too small. They are 8 and a half D which is precisely my American shoe size right down to the D width. But, from this manufacturer, that size just is too small. By the time I left my client meeting and was driving to my parents' association meeting I was literally screaming in pain in the car. No one could hear me as I was still driving around with The Who at absolutely blaring volume with the sun roof open. People who turned their head and stared at the obnoxiously loud car going by all thought I was singing at the top of my lungs. In actual fact I was bellowing my pain to the world. I pulled in to the parking lot and wondered if I was going to be able to walk to my meeting. I got there and spent the rest of the evening downing red wine to try and numb my feet. I knew perfectly well that if I ever I took these shoes off I was never going to put them on again. I finally took them off in the parking lot and drove home in my stocking feet. I woke up this morning with two enormous blisters on my heels and my toes feeling crunched in to one big toe. Now I get a bit of a feeling of what women who wear tiny pointed-toe shoes must feel like.

I've never had any problems buying my saddle shoes on the web and I stupidly did not even try this on in America before leaving. They will now spend the rest of their shoe life in my wardrobe...

The Who - (a)Live!

2007-06-07T10:00:00.000+02:00

Through a wonderful set of circumstances I ended up with tickets to last night's concert of The Who!!!

Basically it sort of worked out like this. I'm on the phone with my favourite client on Tuesday and we're discussing plans for the rest of the week:

I don't know if we can see each other on Wednesday... I don't know if you heard but I'm going to The Who concert.

"I heard... and I want you to know I'm really jealous. I hope you have a great time... I know you're going to have a great time. Enjoy it!"

Oh yeah? Well I've got 2 extra tickets you want to come?

A certain amount of ums and ahs on my part as I'm trying to imagine Desney at a Who concert: "I'll have to check with my wife... but no matter what have a great time. You deserve it. Enjoy it!"

Have a great time? Forget that... I'll see you tomorrow!

At that point she hung up the phone and I knew I was going. I spoke to her assistant and the tickets had already been arranged.

I knew there was no way I could convince Desney to go to a Who concert. But I asked anyway just in case. Desney's reply was obvious. I next thought of my neighbour who is also a big Who fan. But I did not think her husband would appreciate my taking his wife out to a Who concert... it would also be sort of difficult to explain to "the gang" at the concert when I showed up with a beautiful woman who was not my wife. Next choice was Jessica. Jess is certainly not a Who fan by any means. But she likes lots of different types of music and she loves going to concerts. She ever so reluctantly agreed. I got her listening to The Who tracks on our music system between then and the concert. I have just about everything The Who recorded so she had a good foundation by the time we left.

I had not bought tickets myself for this particular tour as I have to admit I was a bit worried as to what a Who concert would be like with only half of The Who. Would it be half a concert? The last time I had seen The Who, which was also my first time, was in 1981 or 1982 at The Rose Bowl Stadium in Pasadena, California. This was the very end of what was supposed to be their "farewell" tour. I was so psyched to finally be seeing The Who live and as well to be one of the last to see them perform live. At the time Keith Moon had already been dead for a few years and he had been replaced by Kenny Jones. But that still left the Power Trio of Roger Daltrey, Pete Townshend (one of rock's greatest guitarists ever and probably it's greatest power guitarist) and John Entwistle who I believe to be rock's all-time greatest bassist. That concert started with an opening performance by a little-known UK band called The Clash. Needless to say they absolutely blew the stadium wide open and we were all primed and ready for The Who. The Who's concert was absolutely amazing, one I have never forgotten, and just seemed to last forever. I was extremely pleased to have kept my various natural chemical mixtures to a minimum that night and I remember just about everything of the experience!

Well I needn't have worried. Yes... The opening band was rather mediocre and uninspiring, everyone was certainly there for The Who and no one else, relatively few people got up out of their seats and they had replaced the faussé with seats. But the concert was amazing from the second they started. Daltrey and Townshend came out first to roaring applause and it went on from there. I spent forever screaming, shouting, screaming all the words to all the old songs as they played. They did quite a lot of the old songs from all of their earlier periods as well as from their latest album. I didn't know the words to any of the latest album songs but I was amazed I still new absolutely all the words from all of the older songs. There were a few obvious points when I just bounded out of my seat, screamed along and generally bounced along. After the first 2 or 3 notes of "Who Are You" I knew what was coming and I was up. After two notes of "Baba O'Reilly" I was ready. After two notes of "Won't Get Fooled Again" I was already in a frenzy. When "Who Are You" started I was up and dancing. Unfortunately we were in a seated area and I fear I kneed the face of the guy sitting in front of me... rather fiercely I might add. I apologised and kept going... all the time trying to avoid his head throughout the rest of the performance. These "old" guys were just downright amazing. I was worried that Townshend's partial deafness might impede upon his playing. He was tremendous. Still rocking the house and with power chords which shook the walls. Daltrey's voice is amazingly still as powerful and yet smooth as ever. It's all still there. But the real discovery for me this evening was The Who now have the best drummer they've ever had since Keith Moon. His name is Zak Starkey and he is just plain wonderful. Playing drums for The Who has got to be one of the toughest drum jobs in rock. The drums are such an integral part of so many of their songs. Starkey is the first to maintain Keith Moon's participation, without actually copying him, and especially the energy level. He made the night. He is unfortunately more known by the older crowd as Ringo Starr's son. He should just be known as Zak Starkey: Excellent rock drummer! When he's not playing with The Who you can find him playing drums for Oasis. The concert just seemed to go on forever! They played and played and I was lost in a sincerely severe case of nostalgic pleasure. I felt exactly like I was 22 years old again. It was a truly energizing experience. In the end they did 3 encores and finished with a beautiful duo with just Daltrey singing his guts out and Townshend showing how powerful an accoustic guitar can be. They had performed non-stop for two and a half hours and left the stage as champions and heros.

It turns out Jessica quite enjoyed the concert. She appeared to have a great time. We bought our obligatory T-shirts and stopped off at a brasserie across the street for a drink before heading home. I had no voice left and my throat was absolutely scorched and burning with pain. But I barely noticed it. This was an entirely new, and somewhat reminiscent, type of throat pain that did not bother me. I was actually rather pleased to have gotten to that level of experience. This pain was purely and simply from screaming, supposedly singing, my lungs out in pure happiness and pleasure for over 2 hours. This pain I could live with. I also knew that a nice cold beer or two would help soothe the immediate symptoms and in a day or two I would be back to my normal level of pain and dryness.

I discovered an interesting phenomenon at the brasserie when having our after-concert drink. We kept hearing bits of the concert popping up around us. One after the other people all around us were looking at their cell phones and watching the small videos they had recorded during the concert. It wasn't just one or two or three. We were sitting at a table on the outside terrasse. Practically every single table had at least one cell phone checking out a tiny video clip they had just recorded. Even Jessica had her 30 seconds of souvenir in her pocket. I felt extremely disappointed with my, oh so business-oriented, Blackberry, and even quite jealous that others would be going home with a few seconds of the concert in their pocket. I also quite enjoyed the feeling of somehow extending the concert up feeling for a few minutes more by sitting in a café and watching a few seconds of the experience we had all just shared.

In prepartion for the concert I had spent Tuesday night and most of the day yesterday listening to The Who blaring through my music system. I had also gone around to the various Who web sites. On The Who Tour web site they had some press interviews with Daltrey and Townshend announcing the tour. I watched a couple of these. In one of them they mentioned how they were fighting back against bootlegged copies of their concerts. They were recording and producing their own bootleg CDs and DVDs of every one of their concert tour performances and selling them on their bootleg concert web site. All profits from these sales go to charities chosen by Daltrey and Townshend. It also means that all of us can get CDs and DVDs of the concerts. I went their this morning and ordered my copy of last night's performance. I can't wait to relive the moments with Jessica at home on the TV and music system.

A night I will not forget for quite some time... I rarely feel my age... But I actually felt well and truly young again for a few hours and that is just simply priceless!

Cirque du Soleil - Alegría

2007-05-31T23:30:00.000+02:00

Today was my birthday present. Desney had bought us tickets for Cirque du Soleil for all of the family for my birthday. Tonight was the night.

We had all gone to see Saltimbanco a few years ago, also for my birthday I believe, and we all found it to be one of the greatest theatrical experiences of our lives. The circus aspect is, of course, breathtaking. But the lighting, the costumes, the makeup, the characters, the language and the simple level of quality throughout were all remarkable. We loved it.

I was a bit worried that tonight's performance of Alegría wasn't going to live up to our rather high expectations. Memories of a good show tend to make that show seem even better in hindsight and I was worried tonight would be a disappointment. Needlessly so. Tonight's show was just as breathtaking, just as amazingly perfect and just as impressive. We all left feeling like we had just lived through something special and I got a wonderful evening out sharing a special experience with my family. What better birthday present could there be?

Daddy needs a new pair of shoes

2007-05-10T18:18:00.000+02:00

Most people who know me personally have seen me walking around in my saddle shoes. These are my favourite shoes and the ones I wear most often. They're not easy to find and I have to keep ordering more and more to replace them as they wear out. They don't reshine that well so as they get really dirty they get replaced. I think they last me about 6 months or so. I order them from a specialty store which specialises in saddle shoes: Muffy's. I get them shipped to my mother in Brooklyn who then either ships them to me or brings them on her next visit to France.

For a long time now I have been looking for two-toned wing tips. I wish I can say it was entirely my idea, although it is to a certain extent, it actually comes from seeing Johnny Depp wearing them at some event. I tend to quite like the guy's style. I couldn't find them anywhere in Europe and finally I found some of them online in the States. But I was not willing to pay hundreds of dollars for a pair of shoes. I just am not that much of a fashion victim.

While I was here in America I thought I'd check out Amazon, amongst others, to see if I needed anything that I could have delivered here and take back with me. There they were on the Amazon site and on sale. I had to get 'em! I ordered the shoes last week and had them shipped to my mother with the faint hope that they might be delivered before I left. If not I would have to wait until she could ship them or come back to France. I got the phone call today. Arlene called me to tell me the shoes had arrived. Although I had obviously been planning on somehow seeing her this evening that synched it. We had to have dinner! I am now the proud owner of a pair of two-toned wing tips which I will be wearing in France. This, as usual, will be to the great embarassment of my wife and kids.

Michel Camilo Live at the Blue Note

2007-05-09T04:37:00.000+02:00

Just got back from my first night at a jazz club in New York for over 20 years...

My mother and her friend, Hilary, got tickets for the Michel Camilo trio at the Blue Note downtown in the West Village.

The concert was just plain amazing. The kind of night when you come out of the club feeling uplifted. Just plain excellent. The combination of latin jazz, classic foundations and origins, an amazing rhythm section and a pianist that just doesn't stop made for an incredible evening.

The strangest aspect of the evening was there was absolutely no smoking in the club. I have never been in a jazz club without smoke. It was actually quite strange. The lighting was just all wrong and everything was just all too clean. It doesn't go along with jazz...

But it was a wonderful night of great music and great company and an enthralling performance. I left with a Blue Note t-shirt, a Blue Note torch (flashlight) and Michel Camilo's latest disc: Spirit of the Moment.

3D Printer

2007-05-08T13:48:00.000+02:00

I was reading on of my favourite blogs (Life of Dave) and found an entry about the 3D Printer.

This is something I have dreamed about for over 30 years and had even started designing the possibilities of such a device back in the mid-80s (along with the PostScript Sewing Machine --- I think someone actually created that one). It's a tad bit science-fiction and to see it actually work is one of those paradigm leaping moments I so love about technology.

In this article from The New York Times they describe the machine which can create three-dimensional physical objects via the computer. The article focuses mostly on the price aspect and the concept that this will one day be affordable to families and homes. I personally am just amazed that the thing exists and works. I especially like the concept that you can replace that little bit of your machine (coffee, toaster, skateboard, ...) by downloading the print output for it and the 3D printer creates an exact replica in plastic.

I so want one!!!

Another double feature

2007-05-06T01:01:00.000+02:00

We have so many movies to watch and only one night left so tonight became a double feature.

We started with The Last King of Scotland which is probably one of the best acted movies I have seen in a very long time. Excellent!

We then topped that off with 21 Grams which was directed by the same guy (Alejandro González Iñárritu) who directed Babel which we had seen and loved the other night. This was an earlier film of his and it's easy to see how he evolved and made his flashback, present, flashback style much smoother in Babel than in this film. This was another actor's movie but again with beautiful cinematography.

Not exactly an "upbeat" evening but excellent movies.

I ended the evening by finally hooking up my mother's DVD Recorder in the kitchen. I only did the cabling part, as it was already about 1 AM, before heading off to bed. I'm sure everything will work tomorrow...

Shop till you drop!

2007-05-05T18:15:00.000+02:00

I knew today was going to be my only real shopping day. After a very leisure morning I took the subway in to 34th Street and started at Macy's. This major department store on a Saturday when the weather is nice was obviously going to be a mad house and it certainly was. It took me hours to get jeans, polo shirts, knickers and belts. At one point I had to wait 40 minutes to try on a pair of jeans and 20 minutes to try on one polo shirt. I finally gave up after the belts and got out of there.

I decided to head uptown to see if I could find somewhere I could get the necessary cables for my mother's DVD Recorder. Her TV is HD but is old enough to not have an HDMI input so I needed component cables.

I walked from 34th and 6th up and around to 45th and Broadway and back again. I had forgotten how touristy the neighbourhood was and how many "attractions" there were around. 34th Street is full of 'em: Madison Square Garden, Penn Station and, of course, The Empire State Building. Heading uptown was, of course, Times Square and the Broadway Theatre District which felt very much like home. I stopped off and had a Sabrett's hot dog at a stand and about 10 minutes later stopped at another Sabrett's stand for another hot dog (mustard and sauerkraut as always). Although I found hundreds of stores open, and crowds in the stores and on the streets, I could not find a store which sold televisions and audio equipment and such. Eventually, when I had just about given up, I found the Manhattan Mall and in there I found a Radio Shack where I could get my cables.

I practically crawled back to the Subway to take the Q back to Brooklyn where I could finally lie down...

DVD extravaganza

2007-04-30T23:23:00.000+02:00

After getting home from the park Arlene started with the DVDs... she'd prepared an entire day's worth!

First was The Departed... which was absolutely excellent... a bit depressing and violent...

Next was Little Miss Sunshine which was a bit quirky...

Finally was Babel which was simply the best movie I've seen this year and probably for quite some time. The story was brilliant; the photography simply breathtaking while still maintaining the over-the-shoulder documentary look-and-feel; the acting was impeccable (underplayed and repertory without any stars); the style independant and just plain wonderful. I'm sure I'll be remembering and thinking about this one for a while...

Sunday in Prospect Park

2007-04-29T12:12:00.000+02:00

We spent most of the morning just puttering around and having breakfast...

It was an absolutely beautiful day outside so we went for a stroll in Prospect Park.

I think we were actually both pleasantly surprised with the park. It went on forever and ever with great paths, big lakes, museums, zoo, botanic gardens, meadows and even a special performance of the Universoul Circus (the first all-black circus). We didn't actually go to the circus but it was certainly interesting to walk around it.

Eventually we strolled back to the flat...

Safely arrived in Brooklyn

2007-04-29T08:08:00.000+02:00

The trip was wonderful...

I got to travel Business class. I already decided sometime after cancer that life is too short to travel economy for anything over 4 hours. However I am obviously a Business class virgin. I got to the airport and went through the "normal" queue for about 45 minutes to get to checkin. When I got to the counter the woman said to me "You're travelling Business" (in French obviously) and I proudly replied "Yes". She then told me that Business class has a totally separate queue, or lack thereof, at gate 3 instead of gate 5 and I could have avoided all of what I just went through. I laughed and asked if I could still check in here. She giggled and said she'd see what she could do. Off to the Air France Salon where I could get some water for before and during the trip putting some in bag "just in case". The Salon was very relaxing and comfortable.

The extra water was completely unnecessary as the service was excellent. Wonderful seat which reclines fully, 10.4" screen running 6 movies over and over again, good wine (very light Champagne starter and a nice and creamy Burgundy white for the rest), a good meal (foie gras starter; chicken in fennel cream sauce and finally a lovely orange iced sherbert) and sunshine the whole way. It was strange travelling for 8 hours, having left at a little before 16:00 and never seeing the sun go down at all during the flight. I watched La Mome (French movie about Edith Piaf) and a bit of The Holiday (a movie which looks like it was made for TV but made me cry a couple of times which is not a difficult feat these days).

When I got to the airport there was the car waiting for me and off we drove to Brooklyn. I'm sure the driver was a bit surprised as regards the neighbourhood we drove through and to. Mom's neighbourhood in Brooklyn is pretty similar to our neighbourhood in Asnières. We both have a tendency to live where the foreigners live...

As usual mom had food waiting practically when I arrived. Smoked (Scottish) salmon, tomato and mozzarella salad, tortellini with peas and cream sauce... almost enough to make me forget I'm in America.

We sat around watching American television (over 600 or 700 channels!!!) for a while. She's got some amazing televisions (big HD flat screen in the living room and smaller HD flat screen in the kitchen)...

I had purposely not slept on the plane and I actually stayed up until about 23:30 here (05:30 my time) and slept like a baby.

Leavin' on a jet plane

2007-04-28T13:13:00.000+02:00

Sunday morning... sleep in a bit... long breakfast...

Then packing and last minute preparations...

Taxi arrived on time at 13:00 and off I go to Roissy Charles de Gaulle Airport... next stop New York City!

Back to dance class

2007-04-25T22:22:00.000+02:00

Tonight was our first Bebop dance class in many weeks. There was the two weeks of school holidays during which there weren't any classes and then there were at least 2 classes before that which we missed either because I was working or absent or because we had things to do on the house or whatever. I used to miss a class a month due to my monthly London business trip. Now we seem to miss one or two a month for other reasons...

I felt like a complete beginner for about the first 15 minutes trying to remember the steps and everything. Then it started coming back and we progressed nicely. Desney on the other hand appeared to not only have remembered the steps but is rapidly improving upon them developing her own very stylish footwork and legwork. Normally I would be jealous and competitively work twice as hard to dance better than her. But for the moment I just look on in awe and silent appreciation. Tonight's routine involved several new moves we hadn't learned yet but which the others seemed to already know. We picked them up relatively quickly and were running smooth through the routine by the end of class. It was a hot night and we had all worked up a pretty good sweat by the end of the class.

I notice that more and more I desperately need my water bottle around me when making any sort of physical effort. In addition to sweating, which is nothing new for me, my mouth appears to dry out very quickly and completely right down my throat. The coughing gets a bit emabarassing at times.

It was good to be back dancing again and great to be going out just the two of us again. I'm very disappointed we're going to have to miss next week's class as I will not be in the country [work, work, work...]

Technorati

2007-04-25T11:23:00.000+02:00

I don't even remember how I found this one. I was clicking on someone's blog and there was this widget in the right-hand bar with a "search this blog" function. I thought to myself: "that's exactly what I want for MY blog". I clicked through and got started.

I created my account, entered my blog config info, created my widget, updated my blog template, tested it out and Voilà!

You'll find Technorati as a widget in the lower right-hand bar in my Blog. I don't fully understand all of the other functions yet. But I like the ability to be able to search my blog directly as well as for others to be able to search and find entries in my blog from elsewhere.

With all of the latest widget editions you may find my blog taking longer and longer to load... my apologies... technology requires patience but I certainly feel my blog is worth waiting for!

Twitter

2007-04-24T17:17:00.000+02:00

I was standing at the café bar (Le Madrigal) having my late lunch (sandwich, a couple of panachés and a coffee). I almost always end up eating late, around 13:30 or 14:00, as I have great difficulty tearing myself away from my desk and finishing things up in time for lunch. I inevitably end up going out late and I often go to the bakery around the café to buy the bread for my sandwich, which I bring with me, as they are often out of bread by the time I arrive.

When there aren't any horse races on the television while I'm eating, and even sometimes when there are (especially obstacles or sand races) I tend to read on my Blackberry and eventually play poker on my Blackberry when I run out of the news. My first stop in the morning and then again at lunch is always Engadget which ahs a great mobile edition which I've been reading loyally for over a year now. After I've flipped through the headlines and articles there I head over to my true loyalty stop: Palm 24/7. I've been reading Palm 24/7 daily for years now from back in the days when it was a site dedicated to Sony Cliés. I wish I can say what one element it is that has me coming back so regularly but I can't. I don't even own a Palm any more having replaced it with my Blackberry over 6 months ago. I obviously still work with Palms as my clients use them and I am still a big Palm fan having owned a Palm, and almost every model at one time or another, since the original Palm Pilot. After I've gone through all of the Palm 24/7 articles, who also have an excellent Mobile edition as well, I head over to the International Herald Tribune. I normally am not a big fan of the newspaper itself as it is basically the equivalent of reading the American news elsewhere. I travelled thousands of miles to get away from the American news and the American opinions and I'll be damned if I'm going to pay to read it. However they have a really good mobile edition which reads well on my Blackberry and a pretty reasonable Technology section. Once I've been through that it's generally coffee time and I play a bit of Texas Hold 'Em poker on the Blackberry before leaving.

It was actually while browsing through the IHT Tech section that I found an article on Twitter which looked quite interesting. Anything with technology and "to an extreme" in its title certainly peaks my interest. I flagged this and made note to look it up when I got back to the office. I then spent quite some time in the afternoon setting up my Twitter account to be able to send/receive Tweets through the web, through IM using my GTalk account via Meebo and through texting (SMS) on my mobile phone (Blackberry). It was actually quite fun. Then I spent the rest of the afternoon Tweeting every now and than and adding what I was doing... I agree that it gets quite addictive.

Now, in addition to Stumble Upon which already takes up too much of my online time, I have a new time-eating addiction: Twitter. By the end of the afternoon I had added a Twitter widget to the bottom right of my Blog so that everyone reading my blog can watch me waste my time elsewhere as well as read whatever Twitterer I am following. As that's the next interest of Twitter. Following other Twitterers as they tweet throughout the day. I hit unpon their Public Timeline section and watched the tweets go by and hit upon Justine's visit to the Apple Store (where I hope to go to soon) and clicked through her profile to her blog which I found even more interesting and added her as my first followee. Now in addition to wasting my time tweeting I am following Justine which I have to admit makes me feel more like a stalker than a follower. Oh... I also have to admit the obvious: her photo was not too difficult to look at in the list of public timeline entries either.

Rollerblading in the sunshine

2007-04-22T18:18:00.000+02:00

An absolutely beautiful day yet again...

This afternoon I put Jessica's old rollerblades on to Alexandra's feet and off we went to Parc des Chanteraines. It took us forever to park as, obviously, we were not the only ones to come up with the idea of going out to the park on a day like today.

We rollered around for about an hour and a half, including getting lost for half an hour; stopped and had an ice-cream and then headed back home. It was a great break for the day...

I still have my cycler's water bottle system in my backpack which I use(d) for the Friday Night Roller Rando. Although I haven't done the Friday night since I was sick the water system definitely came in handy. Obviously my mouth dries up much faster than before and outside in the hot sunshine is definitely the maximum my mouth and throat can take and requires constant irrigation. The system works wonderfully and I look oh so cool sucking away at the blue tube as I roller by.

Back home and time to prepare for this evening's barbecue out on the terrasse...

Erik Truffaz - Yuri's Choice

2007-04-21T13:57:00.001+02:00

This is a pretty good example of the style of last night's concert...

Erik Truffaz - Live at the Salle Pleyel

2007-04-21T00:45:00.000+02:00

A night out listening to jazz with a couple of friends... something I've been looking forward to for a long time... Desney even scheduled our holidays so as to allow me to be back in time to go to the concert. Was it worth it? Difficult to say.

The Salle Pleyel is an absolutely beautiful concert hall. It is generally used for classical concerts and it has recently been completely renovated. The décor is quite nice with a certain Art Nouveau feel to it with some very modern touches. However, unfortunately, the seating feels like it has been redesigned by the same people who do the seating on cheap airlines. Where we were seated, although quite well-placed visually (2nd balcony - front row - looking directly over the stage), there was enough leg room for Billy Barty. It was really quite unbearable by the end of the 2-hour performance. The acoustics were surprisingly bad for a concert hall meant for... well... concerts.

The Erik Truffaz Quartet was pretty much as I expected. I have 4 or 5 of his discs and I've listened to them often. I knew what I was in for. The music can probably be referred to as "Space Jazz" although many would call it "Noo Jazz" or "New Jazz". It's a mixture of a lot of different styles, involves a reasonable amount of elecontrica and sampling and mixes jazz backgrounds with hip-hop and pop vocals. I thought I would be asleep by the end of the second song. Fortunately it got a bit better from there on...

The Salle Pleyel has got to be one of the worst placed for a jazz quartet, electronic or accoustic, to perform. The sound was just plain unbalanced and annoying and from where we were the musicians were dots on a blue stage. This turned out to be probably one of the more boring jazz concerts I've been to in a while. But it was still enjoyable. Truffaz mimics Miles' later days in many ways including his stance (head bowed low when playing) and his balladic playing. His breathiness reminds me of Ben Webster. But it doesn't play as well on the trumpet as it did on the sax. When he played he was nice to listen to; nothing overly impressive and his solos didn't get much applause; nice but seemingly lacking for the headliner. The worst part of the evening, for me personally, was the new English singer he's hooked up with, Ed Harcourt, who every time he performed really brought the mood down to a bizarre combination of sleepiness and annoyance. Unfortunately he performed on a quite a few songs. It was great to finally see Nya perform live. I've heard him on several of Truffaz' discs and it was fun to see him performing. He's wonderfully smooth and passionate.

But the real discovery of the evening for me, and what made the whole concert worthwhile (in addition to the company), was the drummer: Marc Erbetta. He was absolutely excellent: kept the night moving; varied his rhythms and styles wonderfully; had solos which didn't sound like drum solos and were not intrusive; just simply a pleasure!

...

However the real purpose of the evening, for me, was to actually go out and listen to some live jazz with a couple who actually enjoy this sort of thing. Desney stayed home as she would have been beyond bored at the sort of music and instead of just falling asleep would probably have gotten up and left so as to spare herself such pain. It's been a really long time since I've met a couple who enjoy jazz and music and it was just simply a great feeling to go out and be with people who enjoyed the same experience as me. They appeared to have enjoyed it even more than I did so it made it even better! I hope they didn't find me too annoying aftewards, as we all know how long my post-event conversation can be after anything let alone music, and that we can repeat the experience some time soon!

...

A bit of after-concert sushi and a a lot of talking (mostly me as usual) made for an excellent dessert of the evening...

Our first barbecue of the year

2007-04-15T23:23:00.000+02:00

The weather was amazingly beautiful today and nice and hot. We therefore had our first barbecue of the year up on the terrasse.

I think we're starting at least a couple of weeks earlier than last year. Yet another sign of global warming?

The Wii is in da house!

2007-04-15T20:20:00.000+02:00

After sleeping in a bit, having a leisurely long breakfast and getting used to being back home I got to work. I realised I had to install the Wii before I turned on any computers or I would be lost in my computer universe as always.

I took the Wii out of the box, in all it's various pieces, and started plugging in. Within about 15 minutes I was up and running and it looked great on the big flat screen in the living room. The graphics are certainly ridiculously cartoon-like in comparison to an XBox 360 or PS3. But the revolution is in the hands. I played with all the settings, created a Mii for each member of the family, set my firewall to allow the Wii to connect to the Internet, checked out the news, the weather forecasts and the Internet channel (Opera browser) before finally breaking open the Wii Sports game and starting to play. I tweaked the Wiimote so as to be properly recognised by the set and started playing. This was one of those "Wow" moments I so look forward to in what's left of my life. I've played with joysticks for many years (embarassingly too long to specify) and love 'em. I especially remember the release of the Microsoft Sidewinder joystick which vibrated as I ran the cars and trucks off the road or crashed (constantly) my planes in Flight Simulator. But the revolution here is for the first time I found myself getting out of my seat to play in front of a screen.

I played tennis first. There I was leaning left and right and swinging fully at the ball. Wow! Next came bowling. A bit of a let down as it required more precision than I was ready to come up with at that moment. But it still had me leaning down and bowling each time. Next came baseball. This has turned out to be my favourite. There I am in my proper batting stand, which for some odd reason I still remember from my early childhood, and I'm swinging that bat (Wiimote in my hand) for all it's worth. I hit several home runs and the crowd went wild... I almost did as well. Wow!! Finally I tried boxing. This involved using the additional Nunchuck which comes with the Wii and allows one to play with both hands. There I was bobbing and weaving, jabbing and punching with both hands and blocking where I could. I actually worked up quite a sweat! This was just plain physical fun and I felt like a boy again (not that the juvenile feeling is particularly foreign to me {g}) going out to play after school. Wow!!!

I had bought an additional Wiimote and an additional Nunchuck so I could play with at least one of the kids at the same time. I plugged in and set up the second one and I had it working in less than 5 minutes. After playing around with the other Internet options, downloading stuff from the Wii Shopping Channel (including a couple of very old Nintendo games) I eventually decided to play with Alexandra. Alex had already played a Wii elsewhere so she had a bit of an advantage on me. She kicked my ass in boxing and the two of us were hot and sweaty by the time Desney yelled the classic "A table!" which is probably the only phrase known to man which can get me away from a screen at any time.

A great time was had by all!

Home again

2007-04-14T22:58:00.000+02:00

We have decided we’ve had enough of English meals, English food, English prices and have accepted the fact that there isn’t really anywhere we particularly want to see or anything we particular want to do here. We therefore drove off for Dover to take the Shuttle home. It was an absolutely beautiful day out and we found a lovely village pub and had what was probably my favourite meal of the entire trip.

Back in France we stopped off at a services stop on the autoroute and had what has got to have been the worst meal of the entire trip. We were very pleased to get home!

Oxford to Brighton

2007-04-13T23:12:00.000+02:00

Although the hotel was supposed to have WiFi Internet access in the rooms themselves their entire Internet access system was not working. I had to go for a long walk last night, to a cyber café, to connect to the Internet. Luckily I can carry just about everything I need on my USB key.

Today we walked around Oxford and Jessica decided that she didn’t want to go to Oxford or Cambridge either… too posh, too classical and too traditional. Again it was worth the trip even if only to eliminate!

We had decided in the morning where we were going next and had booked a hotel through laterooms.com at the Internet café. We therefore took a relatively long drive down to Brighton. We stopped off along the way at has to be one of the most amazing garden centres we’ve ever seen (Shoots). It was at least four to eight times bigger than anything of the same type in France! We spent quite some time browsing around and then back on the road. It turns out the hotel wasn’t in Brighton itself but rather a 45-minute walk away. We strolled down the Brighton boardwalk (or cement walk as the case should be) and walked through what has to be the most touristy town I’ve seen in the UK. We had a rather mediocre, but still over-priced, meal at a fish restaurant and visited the Brighton pier simply to be able to say “Been there… done that.”

Loughborough

2007-04-12T22:22:00.000+02:00

We headed off to Loughborough University for our first ever visit to a university as parents. Jessica is interested in reading International Relations at a university in the UK. Although she doesn’t have to apply until next year we thought we’d take advantage of the fact that we were in England to start the looking process. Loughborough is a very highly-rated university and with a big international relations department. It’s in a relatively small town but the campus is quite big. We met with the head of the department and had a great meeting. We learned quite a lot about the international relations course structure in their university as well as what it’s like in many of the other universities. The entire trip was worth it even if only to determine that this is probably not the university that Jessica wants to go for. The relatively isolated small-town location didn’t help. But the fact that their international relations department is very European-oriented rather than global or truly foreign made it much less interesting to Jessica. She'll be looking at international relations and politics and possibly African studies... elsewhere in the UK.

We left there with no idea where we were headed. Eventually we decided, in the car and on the road, to head for Oxford. We got to Oxford, got a hotel room through the tourist office, and headed in to town to walk around. Of course the girls went shopping in the various women’s departments of the many shops. I tagged along…

We eventually had a very early but yet another over-priced and rather mediocre meal in an Italian restaurant.

Shopping... again...

2007-04-11T17:05:00.000+02:00

Shopping again today. This time in (Royal) Leamington (Spa). Just for the hell of it I also asked in shop after shop to see if they had a Wii… same story everywhere. Sold out! I felt so pleased with the Wii which was waiting for me in the bedroom…

We finished the evening with what was one of the best meals I've had in England. All of us went out to a lovely little Italian restaurant in Leamington itself. The food was delicious. The service was a bit slow, even for French standards, but the meal was worth it.

In search of the Wii

2007-04-10T17:45:00.000+02:00

We went shopping in Coventry. My 3 ladies were doing girlie shopping so I was left to my own. I went searching for a Wii console. I had already tried to buy one in France and couldn’t find anyone in stock anywhere. I was told they were simply sold out for the whole country and would not be available again until May. I therefore was determined to get on in England. I soon heard the same story there as well. I went from store to store: game console specialty shops, electronics shops, megastores and such and they all had the same response. None in stock. After my 13th store I had basically given up and was on my way back to meet the girls when I found yet another game console store aptly named Game. I went in my 14th store as it was on my way back and there they were… there were 3 consoles behind the counter! I jumped on the queue at the register assuming that the people in front of me had to be buying something else. Otherwise I would have done the French thing and just cut the queue. I saw one of the three be sold. There were 2 consoles left and one person in front of me. He couldn’t possibly be buying a Wii console as well. This place sells XBox 360s, PS2s and they even had the new PS3s in stock. He asked for the Wii console… he actually asked for two of them! I interrupted and asked if he would be kind enough to allow me to purchase one of them and pumped him with my long sob story (over from France, impossible to find, been through 14 stores already, family desperate and counting on me, …). Nothing worked. Finally the clerk behind the counter very kindly interjected “We have a very limited supply. Limit to one per family.”. I eventually walked out with the Wii in the bag and literally skipped up the street!

Accents

2007-04-10T12:00:00.000+02:00

We went to see my brother in-law today. His family seems to get bigger each time we go and he works like a mad man to keep them all fed, housed and dressed. When we left his place I remembered how I’ve always found it interesting how different the accents are of Desney and her siblings. Her brother’s accent, and his wife’s accent, are completely different than hers. Her sister’s accent, although somewhat similar to her brother’s, is completely different than hers. Their father’s and mother’s accent are completely different from each other, which is normal as they come from two different countries, and completely different from those of their children.

Easter Monday?

2007-04-09T23:59:00.000+02:00

Although I got up late I actually spent most of the day in front of my computer and on the phone. I had brought a long Ethernet cable with me so I could plug in from the dining room. Not as restful an Easter Monday as I would have hoped for as it’s not a holiday Monday in the States amongst other places where my clients and suppliers lurk.

Jolly ole England

2007-04-08T23:59:00.000+02:00

We spent Easter Sunday travelling… We left reasonably late and were on the road by about noon. We stopped for lunch along the way, our last French meal for a while, and then Calais, put the car on the Shuttle, under the Chunnel and off to England. When we got to Calais we had practically no petrol left, the light on the dashboard was blinking and we were actually at the beeping stage when we got to the Shuttle ticket booth. We had two surprises: there was no where to get petrol once at the ticket booth until the other side of the channel and the ticket price was much more expensive than it was when pre-purchased on the Internet. We had no choice in both matters and just crossed our fingers…

We got petrol on the other side and drove up, around London and up towards Leamington. We stopped off at the first services wee could but that was hours from Ashford. We finally arrived at the family home in Whitnash at around 23:00. Long trip…

Happy Birthday to Me

2007-04-02T09:27:00.000+02:00

Happy Birthday to me,
Happy Birthday to me,
Happy Birthday dear me,
Happy Birthday to me

and many more!

I've made it this far! WHEN I make it to my next birthday (45) I will be well past the "2 years after treatment" hurdle and will have already beaten a good portion of the odds. Of course when I turn 48 I'll be well past the "5 years after treatment" hurdle and many of the medical profession will consider me cured.

Another year gone by... onwards and upwards!

Tonsil Cancer Support eGroup

2007-03-26T10:09:00.000+02:00

A few days ago I received an invitation to join yet another eGroup. As usual I put this on hold. But I was very pleasantly surprised when I came back to it a couple of days later...

When I was going through the beginnings of my cancer experience (diagnosis, surgery and then treatments) I was starving for information as regards others who had already been through what I was about to go through or was going through. At that time the best site I found was Raph's Tonsil Cancer Page. Raph had been diagnosed with tonsil cancer in August 2003 and had already gone through most of what I was going through. His page was presented like a blog, with some photos and such, and was a great reassurance for me.

The invitation I received a few days ago was from this very same Raph and I knew I had to join. He, and his wife Lee, had created the first Tonsil Cancer Support eGroup. I joined the eGroup, read a few of the stories or others who have been through the same type of experience as I have, or are going through it now, or know others who have/wiil go(ne) through it. It was a wonderful experience. Although I now consider myself a cancer survivor I also know it ain't over yet (or until the proverbial fat lady sings). As you all know I am still going through my regular checkups, tests and scans and I often think what would I do if it came back. I'm therefore still part of the cancer survival experience. I am just now starting to realise that my story is rapidly becoming the sort of good news factual experience I was looking for when I was first diagnosed. I am becoming living proof that there is light at the end of the tunnel. I do not know how long that light will stay lit or how brightly but I'm in the light somehow. When I read others stories it confirms much of what I had said during the beginning of my treatment: every single cancer is different and unique; every single cancer treatment is differenta nd unique; every single cancer victim/survivor is different and unique. When I read of others experiences, and when I go back and look at my blog entries of only a year or so ago, I realise how lucky I am. I eat very well (with slight limitations), I drink well, I taste reasonably well, I speak well (and too much), I swallow well, I suffer from the lack of saliva but not as bad as many and I am generally a happy, heallthy and optimistic survivor. I am still obsessed with such morbid figures as survival rate charts and I smugly place myself in those minority positions on the lower right-hand side of these charts in the "post 2-year survival" positions and I am looking forward to being a proud member of the tiny lower right-hand side of these charts in the "post 5-year survival" positions... I'm counting on it so much you can write my name in the list already.

The eGroup is a very interesting experience for me. It is the first discussion forum which I have foudn which is so specifically related to my experiences. I have found various oral cancer sites, groups and forums. But never anything this specific. It is a bizarre "team" to be a member of. Nonetheless I feel that I am a vital part of this type of group and there is an important exchange in that I feel I have something to share with the group and I know that I enjoy reading from the others in the group. Although I now try to spend the vast majority of my day-to-day life forgetting cancer and trying to make that part of my life an unforgettable and painful "souvenir" or memory it is this type of group that reminds me that cancer will always be part of me and I will always be part of the cancer survivors.

BBC Prime is back!

2007-03-25T21:30:00.000+02:00

I was zapping through the television this afternoon, a bit groggy after a few days or relatively little sleep, and for some reason I stopped on the channel which used to be BBC Prime on our cable stations. Lo and behold it worked!

BBC Prime used to be about 80% of our television viewing and when it disappeared at the beginning of this year we mourned for quite some time. Now it is magically back and a jolt of happiness and joy has passed through our television hearts.

Another discovery, while zapping amongst the myriad of channels, which could take up an awful lot of my time: The Poker Channel!

Talk, talk, talk

2007-03-25T14:00:00.000+02:00

In the past 3 nights I've talked more than in the past 3 months!

This to the great dismay of the rest of my family...

We have had friends visiting from the States: the infamous (Life of Dave) David and his lovely wife Sasha. They arrived on Thursday afternoon and I haven't shutup since. I don't really know why but I feel incredibly comfortable with these 2 people, and we have a lot of similar references in our cultural backgrounds which eliminates the need for a lot of explanations often, and I truly enjoy talking with them. I obviously spend too much time alone in front of a computer and these moments of comradery and communication become an explosion of verbal diarrhea as my friends have referred to my condition before. But with the slight memory of so many months where talking was difficult I guess I appreciate it even more.

They would go out and play tourist during the day and the rest of the family would get on with their lives. I say "play tourist" as they used to live here so it's not exactly their first trip to the area. In the evenings we would eat, drink, talk, drink and talk some more. Well... everyone would eat and drink and I would eat, drink and talk, talk, talk...

We would go to sleep relatively late (about 1:30) ending each night with long discussions in the living room while the rest of the family slept or tried to. It was one of the most enjoyable 3 nights I've had in a very long time and I was very sad to let them go this morning...

Back to reality...

VoD and Regenesis

2007-03-21T12:01:00.000+01:00

I started using Video On Demand (VoD) rather accidentally several months ago. I watched the first episode of a Canadian television series on Arte in VoST (version originale – sous-titrée (in the original language with subtitles in comparison to being dubbed in French like the vast majority of programming)). Unfortunately, for whatever reason, I missed the airing of the second episode. But I found the show itself interesting and intriguing (more on that below) and I went to Arte’s web site to find out more about the show. There before me was the Holy Grail.

I had been reading about VoD for quite some time now. But I always thought this was yet another example of modern technology available in the Anglophone countries (America, UK, …) and not (yet) available here in France due to our various isolationist policies and our reluctance to import anything Anglophone and, God forbid, popular. However Arte has its own VoD site where one can download and watch documentaries and certain television shows they air. This series was the first they were offering on VoD and I was certainly going to be one of the first to test it out and show them that there is an interested public.

We have a computer hooked up to the (big) television in the living room. We have a wireless keyboard and mouse which we use from the couch. This is the first step towards a Media Centre and provides a certain amount of functionality which I personally greatly appreciate. As you can imagine I love being able to access the Internet from the living room without having to go to my office or my Blackberry. But we also have replaced the separate DVD player with the computer and run all of our DVDs through the computer. This also gives us the mouse to control the DVD features rather than yet another remote control. We also have a TV tuner card in the computer (Hauppage WinTV-HVR1300) which allows us to watch TV on the computer. But more importantly it allows us to record from the television to the computer. This allows us to record as much television as we want, to watch it over and over again without any notion of wear and tear on the medium (video cassette, DVD, …) and to be able to copy or back it up to other media as often as we wish. Unfortunately I am having a bit of difficulty getting the scheduling feature to work. This is yet another case of the cobbler’s barefoot children as I do not have a lot of time to work on the living room computer as I am spending all my time working on my clients’ computers. Nevertheless we can, and do, manually record television shows and they work wonderfully. When recording from the television, however, the quality of the recording can only be as good as the quality of the broadcast. This depends on the channel we are recording from more than anything else. I have personally always hated the idea that I have to plan recording from television, even in these days of wonderfully automated electronic programming guides (EPGs), one had to pre-plan and pre-think so much so as to choose what one wants to record and when that often much excellent programming gets lost in the mass of media.

One of the fun aspects has been to download and collect various video clips on the computer we can watch whenever we want. These include video clips from enhanced CDs, movie trailers, fun Flash/Shockwave animations and even bits and pieces from our home movies. This has obviously been improved upon, and almost revolutionised, by having You Tube available on our living room television.

But for me personally the Holy Grail, the epitome of the home entertainment experience, has been the notion of the online electronic entertainment library. I have been talking about this in my computing classes for a few years now as my vision of the future of entertainment and we are getting there bit by bit. In my mind the ability to watch what I want when I want, even at a price, is exactly what the convergence of the entertainment system and the Internet should be. I should be able to sit down in my living room, check out a library of programming and movies, pick out what I want to watch, download it and watch it (sometimes simultaneously). I shouldn’t have to have shelves and shelves of DVDs like I have. I shouldn’t have to pre-plan my week finding out what programming is available, scheduling the recording and then finding time to watch what I’ve recorded afterwards. I shouldn’t have to be told when to watch the screen and have to plan it. To repeat: I should be able to sit down when I want and watch what I want.

I guess our digital music system is really spoiling me. With all of our CDs inside of a music server we can all listen to what we want without having to find the specific CD or the song on a CD. With a combination of Sonos and Squeezebox players throughout the house we have the entire music collection everywhere. The Sonos system even plays the Podcasts I download so I don’t have to listen to them on my computer or download them to my iPod first. Nevertheless now that my iPod connects to the car stereo I also no longer have to burn my Podcasts to CDs to be able to listen to them in the car either. The only remaining limitation, and it’s a huge one, is that the current Music on Demand (MoD?) system, whether it be via iTunes or any other online music store, is handicapped by Digital Rights Management (DRM) and crippled quality.

Here on Arte’s VoD site I found I could watch every episode of this television series whenever I wanted. I pick the episode I want, I pay for it (2.49 € per episode) and I download and watch it. I had to try this out. To my great surprise it worked the first time and perfectly. Not only was I able to watch the show immediately, in full-screen looking exactly like a film rather than a computer file, but it was also of a better quality than when I watched the show via cable broadcast. Excellent! This is revolutionary for me. I don’t have to remember to schedule a recording, or find out when the show is on, or make sure no one else is watching something at the same time, or plan on when I will watch it after I record it. I just sit down, decide I feel like watching the next episode and in 7 minutes it’s on and I’m watching it. I watched episode 11, out of 13, last night!

I obviously realised that VoD could be more than just television series. About 95% of Arte’s offerings actually are documentaries many of which are excellent. I then started to look around, without much hope, as I dreamed of being able to have VoD cinema in France like I’ve read about elsewhere. It’s happening slowly but surely. Of course even when I do find French VoD sites the first great limitation is VoST. Most French sites only offer French films or films dubbed in to French. Very few offer films in VoST and when they do the selection is very limited. But it does exist and recently we’ve expanded our family arguments about what to watch on a Friday night to include the VoD offers as well. We’ve watched several movies now from the VoD sites and have been quite pleased with what we’ve seen. I am under whelmed by the selection and choice at the moment. But I hope that will evolve and improve with time. Some of the sites we use:

Canal Play: Canal Plus’ VoD site with a reasonable selection of films in VoST and the ability to search/filter for just those --- television series (dubbed), most films are for rental and a (relatively small) selection of films for purchase

Virgin Mega VoD: A very good selection of films, some in VoST but no way to search for those separately, some documentaries --- most programming is for rental with a very small selection of films for purchase

TF1 Vision: No films in VoST --- most films are for rental and a very small selection of films for purchase

Imineo: Huge selection, very few in VoST, all films available for purchase and not rental

M6 Video: Lots of television series, a few movies, everything in French or dubbed with nothing in VoST --- all for rental only

Vodeo: Exclusively documentaries, almost exclusively in French or dubbed --- all programming available for rental or purchase.

Digital Rights Management (DRM)
DRM is what has killed commercial music downloading for me as well as commercial eBooks. DRM may even kill electronic media distribution completely if it continues to evolve in the direction it is going at the moment. We, the consumers, need to revolt against DRM.

I purchased hundreds of songs from iTunes over the years. Then I got my digital music systems and realised I can’t play my iTunes songs. Then Desney got an MP3 player which is not an iPod and I realised I can’t give her any of these songs either. I want to buy music online. I want to be able to get the music I want immediately and I want to pay the artists, not necessarily the music labels but that’s a different story, for the music I listen to. But I expect to get the same, if not an actually better, experience from this purchase as I would if I had gone to a store and purchased a CD. The fact that I can not use the iTunes songs I purchased nearly as easily, flexibly and on various media as I can with songs I rip myself from my CDs has completely removed me as a customer of DRM-protected musical content. I even went so far as to burn all of my iTunes songs on to CDs and then rip them in to MP3 files so as to add them to my digital music collection. But never again.

In addition the best I can purchase and download (192 kbps) is almost half the quality of what I get when I rip the songs myself from a CD (320 kbps). With digital music at least I have another option: I can always procure a CD and rip the music as I wish. I have to admit that I am now a rather regular customer at our local libraries’ mediathèques where I borrow 7 CDs at a time and rip them to our digital music library.

With eBooks unfortunately there is no other choice. Either I purchase DRM-protected commercial eBooks or I purchase the paper version (hardcover or paperback). There are a certain number of DRM-free eBooks. But these tend to be older (public domain) publications or textbooks. As an avid Palm user I purchased over 70 eBooks over the years. I adored reading them on my Palm and especially being able to carry a dozen books or more with me wherever I may be. Then I got a Blackberry. The same would be true if I got a Windows Mobile device instead which I will more than likely be doing in the relatively near future. I found out that I could not transfer the eBooks I had purchased for my Palm on to my Blackberry. I then realised there were very few places I could transfer my DRM-protected eBooks at all. There are some I can’t even read on my Tablet PC! That decided it for me. eBooks could have been the electronic revolution to get people like me reading again by providing the “always available” convenience of having books with me wherever my handheld device was. The other great advantage for me personally was being able to buy English language books as soon as they came out rather than having to wait a very long time, sometimes years, for them to come out in France if ever. But I will no longer purchase a DRM-protected eBook.

As regards VoD there are 2 choices: either we can rent a film which we can watch for a limited time (generally 48 to 72 hours after the first viewing or in some cases up to 7 days) or we can purchase the film. In my opinion the rental prices should be the same as, or actually cheaper than, renting videos in a video rental store. This is especially true as there is no media production price nor the need for handling back and forth. However VoD rentals are actually a bit more expensive than normal video rentals. Most films run around 5 € for a VoD rental. Generally you can rent the DVD for about 3 or 4 € for a day or two and you can buy the DVD for about 20 €. Purchasing a move via VoD, on the other hand, does tend to be cheaper than buying the DVD: about 12 or 14 € in comparison to 20 to 25 €. Where it falls apart for me is the aspect that I find the most interesting: individual television episodes. I pay 2.49 € per episode to watch my favourite series. I can watch each episode for 48 hours after that my file is no longer valid. At the end of a 13-episode season rented this way I will have paid 32.37 € and can not watch the episodes again. But I can generally buy an entire season of a given series on DVD, which I can watch as often as I want and as long as it lasts, for about 25 €. Even though this isn’t going to be stop me, as I am currently willing to pay the price for this type of freedom and flexibility, this is the type of thing that needs to evolve and change.

The PC as a game console
One of the other reasons I had hooked up a computer to our computer, aside from professional reasons which were appropriate at the time, was to prove that the PC could be a better game console than a Playstation (now PS3), a GameCube or even an Xbox 360 who's graphics I find unbeatable. I went out and got 2 wireless gamepads (Logitech Cordless Rumblepads), spent a weekend trying to get them to work simultaneously and tried out a few PC games. Every now and then, hopefully more then than now, I have to admit it: I was wrong. The PC, at the moment, just does not live up to the game consoles for the gaming experience. It should. It's got better graphics, better connectivity and better processing power. But it just has not been oriented towards games (yet). The games look great on the screen and, in my opinion, better than on most consoles. The XBox 360 comes close. But it's practically impossible to play with more than one person at a time and almost all of the games appear to be designed for one person sitting in front of a screen with a mouse and a keyboard in front of them. It just doesn't work as a living room game experience.

I have been reading about Nintendo's Wii for quite some time now and finally got the chance to actually play with one in a store. Having spoken to many people who have used it I was intellectually prepared for the experience. But the feeling itself is just plain wonderful. The revolution is the gamepads, or remote controls, which completely immerse the player in the game and (finally) get the player off of his/her ass to play. This is not the couch potato's game console. I had seen the advert. When you play golf you get up and swing the club; when you play baseball you stand and swing the bat; when you bowl you... well... bowl. But without the heavy ball. This is what the game playing experience should be like. You'll find one in our living room sometime soon...

Regenesis
All of this started because I watched the first episode of a Canadian series called Regenesis. My children recognised immediately that this was going to be my kind of show. In their minds it’s all about a bunch of scientists who work with modern technology and talk gibberish. The show is about a bunch of bioscientists (geeks), who are workaholics obsessed with their jobs, experts in their field and who work solving problems under stress every day of their lives. I admit it. I can relate. But the major enjoyment for me is that these are geeks with lives. There is one stereotypical geek who is unable to properly live and communicate in the real world with people and is much more comfortable in the science lab. But there is only one of those! The lead character is an internationally-renowned bioscientific expert (Ubergeek) who, in addition to finding viruses and cures and genetic advances, actually is quite cool: he curses like a truck driver, drinks regularly, smokes grass and has sex with most of the sexiest females who appear in the episodes (scientists, victims, intelligence agents, …). That is what a geek should be like and that is what *I* watch the show for! These people may work with biotechnology rather than computers and converged tech but I can definitely relate. The dialogue tends to be quite intelligent, sometimes a bit too scientific or technical for most people’s tastes I can assume, and it is a real pleasure for me to watch. Their web site ain’t bad either and I’ve just started listening to their Podcast. I’m a fan.

My eyes are older than I am

2007-03-20T13:23:00.000+01:00

I went to the eye doctor today... just a checkup... I knew my eyeglasses needed replacing... it's been a long time...

The last time I went, about 2 years ago, I was getting contact lenses. Unfortunately not too longer after getting the contact lenses I got sick and stopped wearing them. I therefore went back to my old eyeglasses. However it's been obvious lately, for several months now, that I have to take my eyeglasses off when I want to see something close and if something's too far away it gets even more blurry than usual.

Because she askedm I explained to the doctor what I had been through since I had last seen her. She was rather compassionate about everything, gentle and kind. She said that because of the combination of radiation therapy and chemotherapy my eyes were going to be too dry for contacts for at least another 3 years. She also had a look at the back of my eyes, with some special drops which sting like hell, and said that my left eye will now always age quicker than my right eye. She could see scars from the radiation therapy behind my left eye as they went right up to behind my ear both surgically and with the radiation.

Apparently my eyes are about 47 to 50 years old now... so I need "progressive lenses". I think the closest translation would probably be bifocals. I'm going to be getting new eyeglasses as soon as possible... I will probably go with something bright-coloured and cheery to take attention away from the rest of my face and to more than likely embarass my children...

I'll post pix here with my new look...

Life WITHOUT cancer goes on...

2007-03-13T22:08:00.000+01:00

Today was my horrific quarterly checkup. Same old, Same old.

Anesthesia in the nostrils and throat; cameras up the nose and down the throat; stick out my tongue and let him shove his rubber-gloved finger down my throat without gagging, ... the routine.

Even with the Xanax beforehand and all the relaxation techniques I could think of it still is ridiculously torturous.

But it is (almost) worth it when it ends in good news. This is what I wait 4 months for. This is what I worry about at least several times a week which is already an improvement over daily. This is the only reassurance, albeit temporary, I can get.

He found nothing suspicious in me at all. No cancer there!

He was very pleased with everything he saw which means I was even more pleased. He nonchalantly gave me the rest of the schedule in his mind:

Quarterly checkup in July;
CAT scan in September;
Quarterly checkup in November

If the CAT scan results look good in November then I get to reduce my checkup to twice a year rather than three times a year which is nothing but good news.

After my CAT scan results I can also go back to my beloved general practitioner and start talking about getting them to remove the catheter port from my chest. Another hope...

I also spoke to him about sun as we are starting to have beautiful days here. Unfortunately I still have to avoid the sun as much as possible and he was unable/not willing to tell me for how long. I will have to wear a total screen cream on my scar and my irradiated neck skin, cover it with Biafine in the evening and drink twice as much water when exposed to the sun. There had to be some not so good news along with the rest.

I got out of there feeling physically awful as always but with a big stupid grin on my face. Back home to sleep of the anesthesia for a while. Unfortunately as the anesthesia starts to wear off my nostrils start to remind me that they just had a camera pumped through them and they're not happy. But I really don't care and pain is nothing if not relative...

Today is March 13th, 2007 and I do not have cancer!

Power tools are for the young

2007-03-10T18:55:00.000+01:00

As many of you are aware Desney is redoing our garden(s). I obviously should be helping about a thousand times more than I do. But today was just one of those manly events I could not miss out on.

We are replacing our old brick terrace in the back garden. We are still deciding what we are replacing it with. But we are certain that it is going. It was a beautiful morning so I had no excuse. I went off to Kiloutou and rented a Jackhammer to start some serious destruction. This was the first time I ever used one of these and probably the last. This power tool is basically every boy's dream: a powerful machine which allows me to break things, make a big mess, crush and shatter, make a lot of noise and show man's absolute power over naturally big and hard things such as rocks and stone. I have to admit it was a great feeling breaking up the stone in to little bits.

Feeling as healthy as I do lately, in sharp comparison to how I felt a year ago, I forget that I am not Superman or even just a man about 20 years younger than I actually am. About 10 minutes after starting I knew I had made a mistake. However I had rented this thing for the day, the job needed doing no matter what and I was damned if I was going to give up. Sheer stubborness has got to be the cause of the greatest number of accidents and physical ailments. The jackhammer itself weighed a ton (actually about 18 kg but it felt like a ton). Lifting the thing, holding it in place precisely where one needed and then angling it to displace the pieces and such while the shuttering operation was basically slowly destroying my lower back was just plain painful. I went upstairs and got my "back belt" and I would break up rock for 10 minutes, bend over and pick out the pieces from the rubble and pile them up, sit down for 5 minutes in lower back agony leaning up against the wall, and repeat the process over and over again. Sheer stubborness won over and the job was done. I'm sure a younger man, or one if reasonable physical shape and not a physically lazy office worker such as myself, would have finished the job in an hour and a half, gone off and had a couple of beers and then gone off and tackled another rock quarry somewhere else. I, on the other hand, finished the job, took a shower and immediately took a couple of pain relievers and lied down. I knew perfectly well who I would be calling first thing Monday morning: my beloved chiropractor.

I will be seeing my chiropractor as quickly as possible as of Monday morning. I haven't seen him since I was sick so he's in for a bit of a shock and a story. But I am really hoping he's going to put me back in shape quickly. However I've learned a bit more about just how bad chimotherapy was. Up until cancer treatment the worst pain I had ever felt was my various episodes with sciatica and my herniated disc in my lower vertebrae. Not being able to stand up straight, not being able to walk without a crutch sometimes, painfuly in the slightest movement. That was really some of the worst pain I had felt. Some of my back episodes were worse than what I recall of appendicitis. Severe back pain was just plain deblitating and crippling. This is the first time I've had it again since my cancer treatments. Although it is extremely painful, and probably just as much as before, it has made me realise how bad chemo was because this is nothing in comparison. Everything in life has become even more relative than before, even pain and maybe pain more than anything else, as I know for certain... this too shall pass.

That new car smell

2007-03-05T18:55:00.000+01:00

As many of you loyal readers are aware I lease my car through my company. The lease ends at the end of 2 years and the car then gets replaced with a new leased car for another 2 years and so on and so forth.

Today was the exchange of cars. I was very impressed with the service as this time they actually came to our home, delivered the new car and drove off with the "old" one. I had been negotiating the various aspects of the new car for about 3 months now so I had a good idea what to expect. I had signed the contract at least 6 weeks ago. But it's always a pleasant surprise when a new car drives in to your garage and you know it's yours.

I took exactly the same model as before (Renault Mégane). The only major differences are that this one has one more horsepower (7 instead of 6) than the previous one and it's black instead of royal blue. I appear to be in the minority in my family as regards the choice of colour and they'll probably never forgive me for it.

As a loyal customer I was able to negotiate a few options while maintaining the same monthly price as I was paying before. One was just for fun: a sun roof. I haven't had a car with a sun roof since California and it was a lot of fun to sit in the garage, open it up and stare up at... uh... the ceiling. I'm sure it will be a lot more fun to look up at the stars or the sun whenever I finally get the nerve to pull this beautiful thing out of the garage and in to the frighteningly dangerous "real world".

The other option which I felt particularly strong about was a box to allow me to connect my iPod, or any other digital audio player). When I take long drives, to Normandy for example, I tend to download specific Podcasts and then I have to burn them to CDs to be able to listen to them in the car. There is even one which I particularly enjoy, the Engadget Podcast, which I can't even get to fit on CDs and therefore can't listen to it in the car. As many of you are aware I have a reasonably impressive digital music collection with currently over 1,000 albums or 18,000 songs. It seems ridiculous to me, in the 21st century, to have to burn my songs to CDs every time I want to listen to them in the car. As you can see the iPod connection was one of the most eagerly anticipated aspects of the new car. To summarise: it didn't work.

I found the box in the glove compartment, which the dealer had proudly showed to me but had never tested, and the 3 different cables for the 3 different types of connections. I plugged in the iPod and I could see that it recognized the connection. The Renault logo appeared on the screen of the iPod. But no sound came out. This was one of those rare cases where I actually cracked open the manual. I realise there are several readers who have known me for years who find this act completely unbelievable. But exceptional circumstances require exceptional measures. I followed exactly what it said in the manual, as well as a few bright (or not so bright) ideas of my own, and still no sound came out. I called the leasing company. They sent me off to the neared Renault dealership as it turns out this is the first time they have installed one of these new ultra-modern devices in one of their cars and they were unaware of the specific and complex functions. I was personally unaware that the concept of playing music from an iPod through a box which was supposedly designed specifically for that purpose was exceptional.

I found the nearest Renault dealership, in Asnières, and showed up with my iPod Nano, my iPod Shuffle and a USB Key with some MP3 files on them. After about a half-hour of talking to 3 different "technicians" they sent me to a bigger Renault dealership in Courbevoie. They were unhappy that I was coming to them with a problem with a system which they had not installed. They sent me to a total of 5 different departments (ateliers) before I finally just gave up and came home.

Once at home, in the pleasurably dry situation of my garage as it was raining outside, I started plugging in the various equipment to be able to report what I had tried and did not work.

I plugged in the Nano and this did not work. I knew this already

I plugged in the Shuffle, through the headphone jack, and... it worked!!!

I plugged in the USB key, expecting it to work as the Shuffle had, and it did not work

I felt as though I had made a landmark discovery and should be congratulated by the entire Renault organisation throughout the world and immediately. However the iPod still did not work and I was not going to driving around with this amazing new contraption and only able to listen to the sounds stored on a Shuffle.

Looking through the manual they described, in several different languages, how there is a sort of priority system: if the headphone jack is plugged in to a device it works and the others don't; if the USB key is plugged in to a device then that works and the iPod does not; if the iPod is plugged in and nothing else is plugged in then it shoudl work. But this is what I had been doing. Each time I had only plugged in one device to its cable. A lightbulb lit above my head in my comic book universe...

I unplugged all 3 cables in the glove compartment and rolled them up neatly. I plugged in the Shuffle to the headphone jack cable and plugged it in to the box and it worked. This was a step sideways as this already worked. I unplugged that cable. I plugged the USB key to the USB cable and plugged it in to the box and it worked. A major step forward. I unplugged that cable. I plugged the iPod Nano to the iPod cable and with a hand shaking with excitement plugged it in to the box. Eureka! Sounds!!

The box works with only one cable plugged in at a time. Duh!

I left the Nano plugged in, neatly rolled up the 2 other cables for future use, pumped up the volume and bopped my head up and down in sheer audial pleasure for as long as I could stand it.

As you can see from this rather long explanation: For me a car needs to get me from A to B as easily and reliably as possible. Therefore I don't care that much about the motor, the innards, the mechanics and the various practical elements of the machine. It's the accessories that makes my car... mine!

GeMUN

2007-03-04T23:59:00.000+01:00

I obviously should have written this as the event was happening as there are several days of wonderful experiences to write about and they are simply going to be forgotten. I am writing this a week later...

I accompanied 6 students from Jessica's school, including Jessica herself, to the Genoa Model United Nations (GeMUN) in Genoa, Italy. Through a various combination of political changes in our country and a personal need to get away for a while I ended up accompanying our student delegates rather than one of the school teachers. The event was happening during our school holidays.

It took us a half a day to get there (drive out to Beauvais airport, catch an incredibly cheap Ryan Air flight to Milan and take a minibus taxi from Milan to Genoa). We were greeted by the families who would be hosting the students and I was taken to register our school at the event. I was then left to wander around Genoa for the rest of the afternoon and that's exactly what I did. I walked and walked and walked for over 4 hours all over town. It was wonderful. The weather was nice and dry and neither too cold nor too hot... just right.

I listened to people talking while I ate my ice cream or coffee wherever I stopped and I tried to reply in my best pigeon Italian whenever possible. As always hand and body language is such a vital part of Italian communication, and everyone knows I have that down pact, that I could get my point across long before I ever opened my mouth. As everyone knows if you want to shut Derek up hit him with a serious dose of throat cancer, radiotherapy and chemotherapy. As you can see it takes weapons of mass destruction to shut me up. But, amazingly and wonderfully, even that is only temporary. If you really want to shut Derek up for the moment, and at any moment, just get him to put his hands in his pockets. Due to a wonderful combination of Italian and Eastern European Jewish ancestry the man is practically completely incapable of communication without his hands. In the evening I went out for dinner at a local pizzeria and just watched everyone else talking. The hands flying about the tables, with miraculously nothing being knocked over, and the wonderfully exaggerated facial expressions as everyone looks each other directly in the face as they speak. It was like my last trip to Israel... it just felt like home.

I spent whatever moments I wasn't at the event walking and walking and walking. I spent evenings eating wonderful food... I took breaks in the afternoon for amazing cups of coffee (cappucino generally) and I had ice cream as often as I could. I discovered that Italian ice cream is even better than Haagen Daaz for my throat as it seems to coat the inside of my throat thicker and for a longer time than Haagen Daaz. If I lived there I would get a doctor to prescribe a couple of scoops twice daily.

We spent the next 3 days with our students, including and especially the jewel in my crown in my obviuosly compltely unbiased opinion {vbg}, doing an absolutely brilliant job in the conferences of the model United Nations. There were private schools from around the world participating (Lebannon, Cyprus, Egypt, Portugal, Poland, Russia, Korea, Turkey and of course Italy) and our girls were just plain outstanding. In any given conference there are maybe 20% of the delegates who truly participate: standing up and defending their clauses, debatting the others' clauses and getting their resolutions through using all of the very realistic political methodology. In each of the 3 conferences our students participated in absolutely all of our 6 students were in that 20% and I was proud of them all at the end of every day and I'm not even their teacher. It was a particular pleasure to watch Jessica get up, quite regularly and sometimes annoyingly regularly {g}, and absolutely eloquently present her arguments with her wonderful English accent with bizarre American overtones every now and then.

At the end of the event, out of the several hundreds of delegates, 6 delegates are awarded Best Delegate for their specific conference. One of our students won a Best Delegate award!

The organisation of just about every aspect of the event was deplorably, ridiculously bad. But I will not go in to that... it's just not worth it and in the end we all managed to have a great time and nothing was penalised.

The event ended with a disco event for the kids which was ridiculous as these European adults weren't allowed alcohol and were thrown in to a tiny room to dance. They all ended up leaving and going elsewhere to drink and dance their Saturday night away. I then spent most of Sunday afternoon trying to find them around town and get them assembled together to prepare our departure.

After a quick visit to the Genoa Aquarium we made the reverse trip home on what was the hottest and most beautiful day of our trip. I don't believe anyone really wanted to go home including myself. Worst of all, for the students, was the knowledge that tomorrow morning was the first day back in school after a fortnight of holiday.

We got home a little after midnight and went to bed dreaming a bit about the days we had just passed and a bit about the future...

Greg Patillo

2007-02-26T18:21:00.000+01:00

This guy is just plain amazing! Last week I went on to You Tube looking for something specific. I can't remember what it was. But there on the front page, in their most popular videos section, was this "beatbox flute player". The concept was certainly intriguing. I couldn't imagine how one person could do both: beatbox and flute. Then again I felt the same way about a lot of wind instruments before I first heard Rahsaan Roland Kirk. It turns out this guy has studied Kirk as well.

The video starts out pretty normally: he's adjusting his shirt, his trousers and his shirt again and then he's playing the theme song to Inspector Gadget. This is not exactly high-brow entertainment. Then, about 30 seconds in, everything changes. My head started bobbing and I knew I was in love.

I proceeded to find everything I could that this guy's done... first on You Tube:

Inspector Gadget

Sesame Street

Super Mario

Peter and the Wolf

I then realised I somehow had to add these tunes to my music collection. I would gladly buy and download these if I could. I looked all over and could not find him anywhere on iTunes, MP3.com, Napster or anywhere else for that matter. I listened to the tunes a few times and realised I had to do something. I Googled and found a system for converting You Tube videos to MP3 files: Vixy. They also convert the videos to video files (AVI (DivX) or MPEG4). But that's not what I was interested in. I can't play videos in my car for example. I converted all 4 of his Youtubes to MP3 and added them to our music server and I've listened to them over and over and over since.

I wrote to him to find out if there's anywhere one could find his music either electronically or commercially. I didn't mention that the quality of the You Tube video converted to MP3 is pretty lousy. Unfortunately I haven't heard back from him yet. Looking at how popular and famous he has become on You Tube it's unlikely I ever will hear back from him.

I then went looking for more. His My Space page has a couple of more tunes which are also quite good. But I can't figure out how to download them...

Googling his name again and getting past all of the You Tube references I found what felt like a gold mine: Aoka. This is a group he performs with and they've got 5 tunes on their web site which I quite enjoy as well. Haunting I guess is the first adjective which comes to mind. Again I can't figure out how to get the music from the site and on to my computer...

I wrote Aoka professing my love and adoration of their music and begging for some way of getting their music... I haven't heard back yet but I'm more hopeful...

These are exactly the sort of discoveries that I've always felt the Internet was developed for!

Stumble Upon

2007-02-26T11:19:00.000+01:00

I was using Meebo the other day to talk to my kids. The only way to get through to my daughters is through IM and Meebo is a totally online solution which works with just about all of the IM clients (MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, AIM, ...). I used to use Trillian but that requires software running on the computer itself which I like to avoid.

All of this to say that within Meebo they had a link to an article about the 25 Startups to Watch. Obviously the article was linked from Meebo because Meebo was one of those 25: number 4 to be precise. But I also checked out the others. Number one was a site called Stumble Upon which I have to admit looked interesting. I checked out the web site, signed up for my free account, installed their toolbar (talk about confidence! I never do that!!) and started playing around. Within about 10 minutes I was hooked. I did my part by going to all of my favourite sites which I visit regularly and giving my "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" where appropriate. This was fun and a bit ego-boosting. The Roman emperor gives his opinion which will change the world {vbg}.

But this actually became quite interesting, and actually useful, when I started clicking on the Stumble! button on the toolbar. I would choose one of my favourite topics and then it would stumble upon a site which fit that topic or tag. I wound up finding quite a few very interesting sites which I probably would not have found otherwise as well as hopefully steering others away from some I found and didn't like.

I find the concept quite interesting and because they have made it so easy to use I think it can work for the masses.

This does not replace search engines but it certainly compliments them in a way I had not anticipated.

Highly recommended!

Wha'd I eat??!?!?!

2007-02-16T12:36:00.000+01:00

At about 5:30 in the morning I woke up in a sweat and feeling nauseous. I knew what that meant and I think the psychological dread was more painful than the physical pain. I went to the downstairs toilet, so as to make the least amount of noise while everyone else was sleeping, and spent the next couple of hours. First one end and then the other. As my family, and especially my wife, chide me for I am extremely loud when I throw up. We're sure that the entire neighbourhood was aware. The kids 2 stories above, through several closed doors, were aware. Finally I finished and crawled back in to bed. I don't have a fever or anything else so I don't think it's a gastro. I think I just ate something I should not have and my body said "Everybody out! All exits! Immediately! No stopping to prepare or grab your belongings! Everybody out!!!"

Today is therefore probably going to be a write off. I can't bring myself to eat and I have just about zero energy. The worst is of course my throat which most definitely did not appreciate the constant flow of stomach acids going the wrong way. My throat feels like I have just gone through 3 x-ray radiation treatments in one day.

Everything's relative... I've been through a hell of a lot worse... this is just a time and energy waster...

This too shall pass...

It was supposed to be a surprise...

2007-02-14T18:03:00.000+01:00

The best laid plans...

Last week I decided I would try and do something a bit different for Valentine's Day this year. I rarely do anything special because it's only 3 days before Desney's birthday and it gets overly complicated and such...

So this year I thought that instead of the annual bouquet of flowers, which is always incredibly difficult to get properly delivered, I would take my wife out for lunch. I thought it would nice to surprise her with some time for just the two of us and break up her busy and stressful day.

I started looking around for restaurants near where she works (La Défense) last week and had difficult determining if any of them were a fancy restaurant or a simple café or anything in between. Finally I decided to ask for some secret help and I spoke to people I know who work in the same building as her and asked them to recommend a really nice place which was really close. After quite a lot of suggestions I decided to go with La Safranée which is a very fancy-looking place specialising in sea food. Desney mentions that we don't have fish that often so I thought this would go well. I gave them a call and reserved lunch for the two of us for Valentine's day at 12:30.

Then Monday night, over dinner, Desney just happens to mention that she's having lunch with a friend of hers on Wednesday. "Wednesday?" I reply. "Valentine's Day???" I add trying not to seem overly interested. However it's obvious that she's made plans and that she's not going to be available. I decide the only way to get out of this is to blow the surprise and just go for whatever it takes to get the same final result: a lunch for just the two of us on Valentine's day. After a bit of discussion she says she'll let me know if she can reschedule. Finally last night she confirmed that she has rescheduled her lunch with her friend and she's available.

Of course the photos of the place look beautiful, the terrasse looks peaceful and green and everything is just inviting. In reality the restaurant may be lovely... but the day itself is just plain grey, wet, cold, wet, windy, wet, cloudy, wet and just plain wet. Luckily our table was indoors.

We had a very nice lunch and it was a great moment to sit around eating and talking as just of the two of us adults without having to be hosts, or polite friends or parents.

A Valentine's moment which I'm sure you'll see in a Hallmark advert some day...

PS: I apologise for the overuse and abuse of the word "nice" in this post but I was simply not inspired...

Cabaret

2007-02-11T23:53:00.000+01:00

Jessica wanted to watch a classic film that she hadn't seen yet. There are so many "references" that she hears about that she knows I've seen and that we have on DVD and that she hasn't seen (yet). Often this is because there are quite a lot of films that we have, that I watch, that will not work for a family Friday night film. Either they're too violent for Alexandra or there isn't enough action or one-liners in them for Desney. Films made from plays, for example, are generally considered to be way too boring and romantic comedies rarely make it to our Friday night cinema productions.

Jessica wanted to watch Apocalypse Now as that is definitely a film we would have to watch just the two of us as it's too violent for both Alexandra and Desney. However it is just too long to be starting on a Sunday night after dinner.

After perusing our rather large DVD catalogue of movies on the shelves Jessica decided upon Cabaret which we watched until rather late as it turned out to be not that short either.

I hadn't seen the movie in years. I remembered that it's probably one of the best, if not the best, things Liza's ever done in her life. I remembered that Michael York was wonderful. But I had forgotten just how much of a classic Bob Fosse masterpiece this was. Absolutely all of the dance numbers are just typical Fosse style down to being almost stereotypical. It was a real pleasure to watch.

They just don't make musicals any more...

Yo ho, Yo ho, A pirate's life for me

2007-02-09T23:58:00.000+01:00

All week I knew what we were going to be watching on Friday night. I had pre-ordered Pirates of the Caribbean 2 - Dead Men's Chest long before it was released here in France and it arrived on Tuesday morning.

I had seen it in the movies, on my own, in London when it had first come out. Jessica had seen it in America, before the rest of us, last July. Alexandra had seen it in the movies and Desney had never seen it.

I must say that, although I always love Johnny Depp in everything he does, this was a very disappointing second showing. I think it's because we all remembered how wonderful the first episode was back when neither we nor they knew that it was going to become a trilogy. This episode was fun... but nothing more than that and very very very long.

After the film was over, and the kids had gone to bed, I watched the bloopers and the making of. Both of these where much better than the film itself.

Regardless of the film it was wonderfully relaxing to kick back in the living room, just the four of us, with some Chinese takeaway and watch a movie and laugh.

T.G.I.F.

Dance Class

2007-02-08T14:33:00.000+01:00

There are basically two things I look forward to every week: Friday nights when the family and I just kick back, watch a movie and eat takeaway and Wednesday night when Desney and I go to our bebop dance class... just the two of us.

Now that I will no longer be going to London every month for 3 days we should no longer be missing one Wednesday a month and hopefully I can remember the routines better. No matter what it's still the most fun I have in the week and precious moments out with my lady. Sometimes we do really well and sometimes we make a fool of ourselves... as I'm leading however the foolishness tend to be very one-sided... nothing new.

;-)

Chemobrain
Ever since I started feeling better, which is for quite some time now, I've been learning to deal with the tiny handicaps which I've been left with and which may be temporary or permanent... only time will tell:

Hyposalivation is obviously the most annoying as it prevents me from enjoying eating as I used to.

The constant fungus on the rear of my tongue which persists.

The soreness and tightness of my neck around my scar as well as the occasional weakness of the left-hand side of my body

and the last handicap which I am only barely starting to accept and admit I have symptoms of: chemobrain.

Chemobrain is apparently a generic term for the basic symptoms as regards memory problems following chemotherapy. The descriptions can get quite technical and long and I have only starting looking for information on the subject. But it's actually quite reassuring to see that there is at least a good reason for it. For a while now I've been having difficulty, every now and then, remembering things I know I should be able to. I was thinking it was just part of the aging process, as I'm certainly in the second half of my life if not the final portions, especially since I know that this sort of thing runs in my family... even if some family members tends to forget this every now and then (pun intended). The symptomatic situation is actually almost more frustrating than the hyposalivation problem as it doesn't happen all the time. I can remember things very well very often and then all of a sudden there's just this grey hole in my thoughts and that moment is just gone... like it never happened. Luckily this does not seem to happen to me as regards technical work (yet?) as my memory and thought chains appear to still function wonderfully in those areas. But it definitely happens in my non-professional life which is both annoying and sad. All of this to try and blame the simple fact that I am having difficulty remembering our dance routines from one week to the next on chemobrain and not my own mismanagement of my thoughts and priorities.

This too shall pass...

Super Bowl Monday

2007-02-05T18:06:00.000+01:00

Last night was Super Bowl Sunday and for me and the guys it was our annual guy's night out. I will not go in to too much of an explanation as I already wrote this all down last year. Go to last February's archive and scroll down to Super Bowl XL and you'll see what I mean.

This year was an improvement in so many ways that I should just be overjoyed!

First of all the guys all arrived on time so I didn't spend. Then we got excellent seats upstairs right at the bar directly where the strippers pass. Then we got really good, and even comfortable, seats downstairs in front of the giant screen for the game itself. The place was not as packed as last year so this may explain that.

One thing that was really enjoyable for the game itself was this year they ran it on NASN (North American Sports Network) which means it was all in English and no one was trying to translate the game. Unfortunately they can't show the American adverts and we got really sick and tired of seeing the same cut-ins over and over again and the station's jingle really got on our nerves after a couple of hours.

The game was a bit of a disappointment both in the quality of the game itself and the fact that the team I was rooting for did not win. But then again they truly did not deserve to even come close to winning. Their quarterback was just ridiculously bad. It made for a very long game.

It's always good for me to read entries from a year ago to try and appreciate how things have improved. I could anything and everything, except for the chips/fries of course which I'll probably never be able to get back to, and I could drink glug glug glug glug as I wished. Everything tastes great! And I could almost scream every now and then. I certainly tried quite often and by the end of the night, and today, I have very little voice left. No pain... just no voice. Actually quite a good feeling when I think about it.

No matter what a night out with Robbie and Jean-Philippe is definitely one of the most precious moments for me and I am learning to appreciate it more and more. I had just a great time and forgot about just about everything else for a while...

Smoking
As I mentioned last year this used to be my one night of smoking per year. Many people found that an extremely strange habit. But then again many people find a lot of things I do and say to be strange so that never really bothers me. There is no way I will ever be able to smoke anything ever again obviously. But I have to admit that somewhere around 2 o'clock in the morning after a few beers there were these ever so slight pangs of desire... Luckily, for some strange reason, people smoking around me still doesn't bother me or my throat to a great extent. But if I stupidly inhale too much when someone's smoking near me I obviously start to choke and the pain that burns down the inner walls of my throat obviously turns me off the idea of puffing anything. The reason all of this is interesting is that this is probably the last year that this will even be a discussion. Now that France has, slowly but surely, started to catch up with most other European countries and started to ban smoking in all public places this is probably the last year that there will be any smoking at the game at all. France has, in it's infinite wisdom and standard exception française, granted bars, clubs, restaurants and such an additional year before imposing the final absolute ban. Therefore although one can not smoke in public places any more one could still smoke at the club last night. But next year, probably just in time for the Super Bowl, this will no longer be possible. I can't possibly imagine sitting at a stripper bar with a beer in front of me, girls dancing on the poles on the bar and no smoke in the air. It will be an interesting and noteworthy experience and yet something else to make me look forward to next year!

I'm still here!

2007-02-05T17:39:00.000+01:00

I know it's been a really long time... but I've been very busy.

I have gone from living each day with the idea that it might be one of my last to trying to live life as though nothing ever happened. I'm not sure it's the "right" approach or even the "best" approach for me. But I have definitely fallen back in to my workaholic ways for better or for worse.

Actually, after falling back in to these habits, I've been going through a bit of depressing times for a while. It's not that I haven't learned anything from my experiences. I still consider everything after September 2005 as Life version 2.0. But it's that the old habits I've gone back to are not that great and tend to show me that I hadn't really gotten life down that well in the first place.

Money
I had some serious problems with my banking accounts for a while which I am only just now pulling out of. It's not the bank's fault. But I do have an awful tendency to spend money that's coming long before it arrives. Then by the time it arrives it's already spent and it only goes to fill a cash-flow hole rather than actually producing something productive. I'm hoping that the concept that the bank doesn't want me to be overdrawn again will force me to learn how to keep my professional and personal bank accounts in the black rather than always in the red. Only time will tell if I've figured out how to change my lifestyle to allow for this.

Every now and then (actually daily) I briefly contemplate what I would do if the disease came back in some other form one day. The fact is that if it does and my cash flow is negative I'm not going to be able to survive financially through the battle and I'll be fighting two battles simultaneously which will only make things more difficult. If I can get my act together and keep my cash flow positive rather than in debt than it should reduce the battles I might have to fight in the future. Sounds great when I read what I'm writing...

Time
Imagine me standing in front of a room of bored and tired men and women like me. I start with "Good evening. My name is Derek and I am a workaholic." and I believe everyone replies with "Hi Derek" or some other such nonsense.

The fact is I am a workaholic and probably always have been from very early childhood. Again Life v2.0 should be different. I should have learned something from all of this. But here I am back in the same old routine of working most waking hours of the day and not much else. I should be spending more time with friends and family... especially my family. I would love to sit around with my wife and kids in the evening and talk or whatever it is that families do in the evening. But there I am back down in the office in front of my screen trying to get yet something else done for the next morning as the entire world will collapse if I do not.

I still haven't got this one figured out and I'm not really sure I can. I love my work, and always have, and I love my friends and family. I just can't seem to get my priorities straight. I think part of it comes from no longer being an employee and the feeling that I just have to constantly give that extra bit to keep my clients for if I lose my clients I lose everything. Every now and then I also realise that working all alone in my little office in my home is not always the healthiest of options either psychologically or physically. Every now and then I miss the days when I had other geeks working with or for me. At least I had someone to talk to, show off to and who understood...

Money and Time
This is where I've really just gotten everything all wrong. Although I have a very bad habit of spending money I don't (yet) have, which doesn't help, I certainly don't manage my business as I should. I am a genius technician, and ever so slightly self-confident in that area, but I am probably a lousy businessman. It's tough having to be both the salesman and the technical expert especially when the only thing I sell is my technical expertise. With the amount of hours I work and the complexity of what I do I should be a bloody millionaire by now or I should be earning a hell of a lot more money per annum than I do... several times as much. I work probably twice as many hours as most employees (70 instead of 35 per week) and yet I earn less money than most employees and certainly less regularly. This is mostly due to bad management on my part as I don't have actual contracts with any of my clients. There are no guarantees and there is no set down rules as to how they should be billed for my time. It's a tough call as I always want my clients coming back for more but I also don't want them worried to call upon me as they would a lawyer or another type of consultant even though my function is almost exactly the same.

Result
I guess like everyone else in the world, spoiled as I am or not, I just wish I had more time and more money. There were a lot of bugs in Life version 1.x and a lot of them are reappearing in Life version 2.0. I need to start thinking about Service Pack 1 to create an entirely new and improved Version 2.1 especially if life itself forces me to have to work towards a Version 3.0 some day.

;-(

I will not try and write about all that has happened since my last entry as I just don't have the time, or the memory, necessary.

I'll just start with today and move forward whenever I can.

iFit Sucks!

2006-12-04T09:18:00.000+01:00

I went to go for a run on my treadmill on Sunday morning. I powered up the computer in our gym and went to iFit to do my workout (basic running with a pretty streaming video of the mountains or the Hawaiian surfside along with a nasally American female trainer voice pushing me along). I should say I tried to go to iFit. For the third time in a row their server was not available. It appears as though they do regular server maintenance and they carry it out at what they must assume are American off hours (i.e. European morning times). This makes the service useless to me, and probably quite a lot of other Europeans, and I have now cancelled my subscription.

Instead I powered up my iPod Nano, plugged it in to the gym speakers, selected my "Running" playlist and cranked up the volume. On the computer I put on a movie with subtitles without the sound (Star Wreck a great Star Trek parody movie made in Finland specifically) and ran until I could no more...

A great business idea: I've looked all over the net for this. A site where one can download videos of walking or jogging through beautiful scenery (forests, beaches, mountains, cities even...) from the point of view of the walker/jogger. I have found one or two sites with VHS or DVD versions but you have to buy a whole film and pay for shipping and handling before you find out whether it is worth it or not. The ability to download a quick short version of each film, allowing the client to get an idea as to the quality of the film and the choice of scenery, would be a must but not a big deal to put in place. What we need is a good athletic filmmaker with a Steadicam willing to run around some beautiful locations around the world for the benefit of all of us bored sedentary geeks everywhere!

Online Poker

2006-11-30T13:24:00.000+01:00

I've been spending more and more of my free time playing poker online... I love it! At the moment I play in spurts of anywhere from 5 to 20 minutes and soon as I win a bit I leave the table. That means that at the end of any session I always go away ahead. A tiny bit each day...

A particularly wonderful combination is playing on my Tablet PC while hanging out on the couch in the living room. No wires, no keyboard, no mouse... just a stylus in one hand and the Tablet across my lap.

I've tried quite a few sites and I keep coming back to the same one which happened to be where I started.

I've tried the infamous Party Poker and even opened an account and made a deposit. That was silly. I should have tried the software first. I was overimpressed by the reputation of this site which is, as it declares, "The World's Largest Poker Room" and it also sponsors most of the poker tournaments or shows I see on television. Unfortunately it offers what has to be the worst software available for online poker. An extremely dull and dated interface. More importantly it lacks some of the functions I love such as remembering folded cards, and it doesn't show the chips and pot increasing until the end of each round. A boring interface just makes the game more boring. However they do have one very interesting, and dangerously enticing, Party Poker Anywhere feature which allows you to play poker with them without installing software. This means you can play on just about any computer. But it's still the same boring interface.

The other extreme is PKR which is almost like playing poker inside of Second Life or The Sims. Fully 3D avatars, full animation and sound, the ability to control the avatar's actions (swirl chips, thumbs up, ...) and facial expressions (sad, angry, happy, ...) with mouse clicks is pretty amazing. Although I enjoy playing with this one with "play money" I find the overly gamelike interface actually gets too much in the way of seroius gameplaying.

Along the same line is Full Tilt Poker which also has overly cute avatars and spacelike table settings. But again I find it really gets in the way of my playing when the guy across from the table is a shark and I'm sitting next to a monkey. Cute... but just not my idea of the poker experience.

The next one for me to try, maybe, is Poker Stars. But I doubt I will. I'm just too happy with my first choice that I'm no longer that interested in looking elsewhere. It's not an accident that the first place I looked for online poker was Betfair as that's where I do all the rest of my online gambling (horses mostly and a bit of big sports events (Super Bowl (of course), World Cup, ...)). What is pleasantly surprising is that Betfair Poker has turned out to be my favourite interface. It has all the features I want, including the aforementioned "remembering folded cards" which I had not even thought of as a possibility until I saw it there, and a great choice of tournaments and tables covering an extremely wide range of budgets which I definitely appreciate. For fun, and most of the time, you'll find me at the relatively cheap Texas Hold 'em No Limit Tables with a tiny average pot of about $5 or $7. I sit down, play a bit, win $5 or $10 and then leave and get back to whatever else was going on in the living. A bit of adrenaline rush with a few "all in" calls and I'm satisfied. The first time i played one of their tournaments I actually kicked ass and was in 6th place, out of about 90 players, before I finally just had to give up and go to bed. It was almost 2 o'clock in the morning (weekend night). I obviously need to try tournaments earlier in the day. But even going to bed I woke up $30 ahead. A lot of fun!

In addition to playing online every now and then I use CardPlayer.com's excellent site and their Poker Analyst for keeping track of my playing sessions. I'm slowly but surely recuperating the losses I incurred in one bad night back in September... I should break even in a week or so and maybe start making money again before Christmas. But that's almost irrelevant for the relatively small amounts of money I'm playing with. It's the overall sensation, excitement, risk and powerplay pleasure that keeps me coming back.

You know where to find me: Betfair Poker.

Christian McBride Band... Live!

2006-11-26T23:59:00.000+01:00

Yet another bass player I have always wanted to see perform live!

I battled through Sunday evening traffic and was late when I met Robbie at the Gare de l'Est. We found parking relatively near by and I ran from the car to the New Morning. This was partially because I was excited to get to the concert and try and get some good seats but honestly it was mostly because I desperately needed their toilet more than anything else. The quantity of water, or other liquids, I drink constantly to keep my throat lubricated has the negative effect of requiring me to always know where the nearest toilet is as when I need it, which is often, the need is immediate.

Robbie and I got our seats, which were slightly better than those for the Ron Carter concert. We put our coats down and started on our first overpriced, but delicious, beer. About an hour later it was time...

What an incredible quartet this turned out to be! Terreon Gully on drums; Geoffrey Keezer on piano; Ron Blake on saxes (tenor and soprano) and flute and, of course, the one and only Christian McBride on bass and bass guitar. The concert was unusual in that it was one long set... no intermission. It moved from a smooth start with Christian's obvious classic jazz beginnings and just built and built in energy. It's incredible how modern Christian can make an upright bass sound. He also switches from plucking to bowing at unexpected places as the mood hits him. In addition to his obvious expertise (this man's got bass chops that most can bearly fathom!) he's a great showman. He's obviously having a great time and wants us to too. The show just kept getting hotter and hotter in mood and all the time without getting overly esotheric or just plain weird. The were whipping us slowly and surely in to a frenzy right up to their rendition of Joe Zawinul and Weather Report's "Boogie Woogie Waltz" which just brought the house down. It went on forever and we just kept wanting more. Finally it ended and we all caught our breath, yelled, screamed, applauded and begged for more. They finished up with Ron Blake's "Sonic Tonic" which actually got us all even more excited. We all applauded and it was over. We obviously begged for an encore. They came back, all with a glass of red wine in their hands, and gave us a quickie as they wanted to hurry to get "prepared for the after show" {vbg}.

Thanks to the wonders of the Internet you can actually download a video of the band performing "Boogie Woogie Waltz" HERE. It's a relatively big file (30 MB) and appears to be shot by a filmaker with a bit of a foot fetish. Believe it or not this is a relatively tame and short version of the performance in comparison to what we saw. We were blessed! I recommend checking it out though as it gives a general feel for the end of the concert. It starts off slow so you have to stick with it...

We left the club feeling rejuvenated and full of energy and a bit of awe at what we had just saw. We went looking for food and wound up at an Indian restaurant where we finished the evening with a bit of curry. I drove Robbie home and headed back to my place for sleep and preparation... back to work tomorrow!

Salon du Vin ... What a difference a year makes!

2006-11-23T22:23:00.000+01:00

Today was the day I've been waiting for throughout the past few months: The Salon du Vin des Vignerons Independants de France. Our cellar is running empty and it desperately needs filling. Jess now drinks wine often with a meal, and I can enjoy more and more, so we are up to a bottle and a half during family meals which makes it disappear quicker.

Today was the opening. I got there as quick as I could but still spent over an hour parking. For those of you who don't remember here is the ARTICLE I wrote once upon a time about the Salon. It was a great day and Desney and I truly enjoyed seeing our old friends. Many of them were very kind and said how great I looked. Wanna get me to buy more of your wine? Stroke my ego a bit? Does it work? Wel... it certainly can't hurt {g}. I was especially pleased at how much I could taste and enjoy. My taste buds and tongue certainly aren't 100% restored. But I believe they're up around 80% which is way beyond acceptable. We went back to our classic suppliers (Moreau Naudet - Chablis; Ehrhart & Fils - Alsace; Domaine de Fleurie - Beaujolais Cru; Le Fagé - Bergerac; Granoupiac - Languedoc-Roussillon and Michelas - Crozes-Hermitage/Cornas) and spent way too much money refilling the cellar. But we had a great time. The biggest challenge, as always, was getting everything to the car. We were home relatively early and ready for dinner...

Later in the evening I started contemplating Last Year's Salon du Vin which was towards the end of my treatments and the first time my mother had been. Eternally morbid as I am I went back to my blog entry for November 2005 and checked out what life was like a year ago. The first, slightly anecdotal, point I noticed was that the Salon started on Thanksgiving last year just like this year. The rest was slightly depressing and painful to remember. But the end result was the same: I've come a long way baby!!! Looking back I realise now that my present condition is actually far better than I ever thought it would be back then...

I can't wait to look back at this year's entry... next year!

Another break in...

2006-11-22T23:03:00.000+01:00

I get home late night from another long 3-day business trip to London and I go down to pick up my car in the Gare du Nord parking lot... unpleasant surprise...

They broke the read driver-side window (again) and broke in to the car (again). Unfortunately for them there wasn't anything to steal this time. I now take my Tom Tom 910 with me when I travel and I had coincidentally just emptied out the music CDs the night before leaving. They must have been pissed off! Unfortunately for me however it's going to be another waste of time as I'll have to go get the window replaced tomorrow...

My next car (coming soon hopefully) will have an alarm {duh}!