Comédie Française

Desney managed to get us all tickets to the Comédie Française to see the (classic) Cyrano de Bergerac.

Desney went directly from work to the theatre. The kids and I got ready and left home after work and school. We were going to grab a sandwich before going but we found out that all of our local bakeries don't do sandwiches in the evening. It turned out to be a good thing as the girls weren't ready until 18:45 even without eating. With eating we would definitely have arrived for the intermission. We left at 18:45 and spent a little over an hour in mindboggingly frustrating traffic. With a combination of my trusty Tom Tom Go and a little bit of Parisian knowhow we were able to at least move forward and we arrived in front of the theatre at 20:00 on the dot. I circled around a few times and parked in the parking lot. I got out of the car, ran up 3 flights of stairs and desperately started looking for a public toilet. After running a couple of blocks, with my teeth swimming, I decided I'd go at the theatre. Desney and the kids were waiting in front of the theatre for me with a sandwich which I didn't have time to eat and a bottle of water. I (stupidly) just can't seem to remember to always leave the car with a bottle of water. We got in to the theatre and I found the toilet before getting to our seats... whew!

For Jessica and I the performance was wonderful. I found the set quite amazing and later learned that it was designed by the actor playing Christian. The costumes were all by Christian Lacroix and were (obviously) excellent. Our seats were wonderful as well. We were in the "Presidential box"... centre... one level up. The acting was above average. But in this type of huge audience situation one can really tell the difference between those with a properly trained voice and those without. One of the small bit parts, for example, was easily heard much more so than the actor playing Cyrano's confidente who I couldn't hear throughout. The "cadre" itself, of course, is always impressive. It's about as close as going to the Opera as I can think of. The walls, the statutes, the stairs... history and class all the way.

At the intermission I ate half of my sandwich out on the balcony overlooking a pretty amazing fountain. I'm sure that the "old" me would have finished the whole sandwich in less than 10 minutes. But the "new" me could only manage a half in the alloted 30 minutes and that required copious amounts of water to wash it all down.

Unfortunately Alexandra found the whole experience quite boring. As we all know Cyrano is a five-act play and can go on a bit. It finished just after midnight and Alex was definitely tired. She also had to get up for school the next morning. Traffic going home was wonderful and I think we got there in less than 20 minutes.

A wonderful night out....

Nabaztag

I read about this thing in one of my technical magazines and soon realised I just had to get one.

I hadn't realised that it's actually a French product (Cocoricco!).

Basically it's a medium-sized white plastic rabbit which sits nicely on a desk or a shelf or a table or something like that. It plugs in to the electricity and that's it. It then automatically connects via WiFi to the Internet. You have to have a broadband WiFi Internet connection somewhere nearby of course. Then the fun starts.

You "register" the rabbit on the Nabaztag Web Site with the MAC address. I registered mine as "DerekErb", which is incredibly boring but I plead ignorance, and I am already trying to find out how to change its name. Once that's up and running you can set it up to do all sorts of things such as:

• It's a talking clock and tells the time every hour on the hour


• I have it do random exercises every now and then whereby it moves its ears around a bit and flashes different coloured lights


• It tells me the Air Quality in Paris at 10:45


• It gives me the current weather in Paris at 10:30 and tomorrow's forecast at 15:10.


• It tells me the traffic situation in Paris at the Porte of my choice at 11:40


• Particularly fun: It reads me the news headlines from
  
  
  
  • The New York Times at 09:30
  
  
  • BBC News at 10:30
  
  
  • People at 15:10
  
  
  • Slashdot at 16:20
  
  
  • Any other RSS feed I want at whatever time I want
  
  
  
  

But of course the most interesting part is the interactivity part. If you send an e-mail to derekerb@nabaztag.com my bunny will read me the Subject of the message right away. The system then automatically creates a free account for the sender who can then go to the Nabaztag Web Site at any time and send my rabbit full-length messages in different voices, MP3 files, pre-recorded messages and such along with a unique music and lights combination so I know who it's from.


Is it an indispensable professional productivity tool? Probably not.

Is it an adorably cute robot-like and addictively fun Internet-based office toy? Definitely!

Oral Cancer Foundation

I was going through the messages on the Throat Cancer Support eGroup and I found a quick mention of a site that looked particularly interesting and had just opened up.

The Oral Cancer Foundation appears to have either just opened or just redesigned their web site. It's very nicely, and tastefully, done. From a technical point of view I quite like the moving menu on the left-hand side (JavaScript). But the most important aspect is that it is just plain chock full of valuable information presented in a reasonably layman-like language about so many aspects of this specific type of cancer. It is really the type of site I was looking for, and would have loved to have found, when I was first diagnosed and going through treatments. It certainly ain't over yet and the followup information is greatly appreciated.

I obviously checked out the People section and the Arts & Entertainment page to see what other famous people have either survived through or died of throat cancer. I'm in very good company!

I then checked out their multimedia page and found some excellent television spots they are apparently running in the States these days. The spots are very well done and get the point accross very quickly. Blythe Danner talking about losing her husband, Bruce Paltrow (Gwyneth's dad), to the disease was painful to watch.


Jack Klugman, who I've always liked, talking about how he survived was obviously much more of a pleaseure to watch. In the second clip I noticed he was constantly holding on to a bottle of water, just like I do now, throughout his presentation. The quote that "1 out of 2 throat cancer victims don't survive the first five years" was obviously not exactly what I wanted to hear. But I believe the figure is 1 out of 3 here in France. Not that it's an incredible difference in the odds if it turns out you are the "one". I personally count on figuring on the other side of the equation just like Klugman.

I plan on being one of the survivors this site talks about and one day my story will be on their survivor's page... you'll see...

Workout

For the first time in over a year I actually used our gym at home and did a bit of a workout.

Desney had completely redid the gym over the past several months and it's quite a setup.

I was able to use the running machine for a good 20 minutes (6 kmh) and felt good and exhausted afterwards as well as worked up a good sweat. It's been a long time. The biggest problem, as always, was keeping myself hydrated. This was already a necessity when running or rollerblading. But it isn't more necessary now and requires more attention. I was practically running with the water bottle in my hand a lot of the time.

I had originally planned to use the computer I have set up just above the running machine. But I soon realised that, althgough the computer actually works, I had not finished actually setting it up for my use (music playlists, video selections, ...). I therefore plugged my new iPod Nano in and ran with my rollerblading playlist. I soon got real annoyed with my wired headphones but I had not charged my wireless Bluetooth headphones as I had not actually planned on doing this. Next time I'll hopefully use the computer...

After running I lifted some weights and did some pushups. I realised just after doing my pushups that it probably wasn't the best of ideas. I still have my port-a-catheter (PAC) in my upper-right chest. The pushups stretched my pectoral muscles and really pulled on the two sides of the PAC and pushed it up towards my skin as well. I don't know how Lance Armstrong coped with this sort of situation. Myself, not being an athlete already, I did not find it "comfortable" at all.

It was a very very good feeling to be able to exercise a bit and I'm sure I've overdone it as always.

Towel Day

I know it's been a really very long time since I've written. Lot's happened...

I'm in the middle of the second part of a two-part consecutive business trip (Monaco and then London) before preparing for a third business trip next week (Scotland).

But I just had to add this as it struck home:

http://www.towelday.kojv.net/

HAPPY TOWEL DAY TO ALL YOU HOOPY FROODS!

X-Men 3: The Last Stand

For the first time in over 20 years I went out to the cinema in London.

X-Men 3 opened yesterday in France and it opened today in the UK. I know perfectly well that Desney and Alex went to see it together last night and Jessica went to see it with her friends as well. I therefore had to see it myself or I would be completely out of communication with the rest of my family.

It was quite interesting to go to the cinema in London. I ordered my tickets online from the Odeon theatre. After work I dropped everything off at the hotel and I walked to Marble Arch to the cinema. It was actually the first time I've gone left of Park Street on Oxford Street and the neighbourhood is amazingly different from that point forward: junk food shop after junk food shop. The cinema itself was absolutely enormous. The place where one gets popcorn and soda and such is actually an enormous store not too unlike a supermarket. The theatre itself was huge with lots of leg room and a place to put your soda on one side of the seat and your popcorn on the other. I remembered from when Alex and I went to the cinema that I can no longer eat popcorn so I thought I'd try M&Ms. Better... but not there yet.

The one thing I didn't know was that the cinema seats were numbered and your assigned seat was on one's ticket. I showed up a good half hour early and found a great seat in the center of the third row. I sat there throughout the previews and about 5 minutes before the film started a couple showed up, very upset, and announced that I was sitting in their seats. I didn't understand but I got up anyway as the film was about to start. I looked at my ticket and found that I "should" be in seat K1. That's the far right corner of the 11th row. I sadly moped to my seat and in the process the entire row K had to get up to let me through.

The film was as to be expected. It was basically like the first two... but it wasn't. A new director, Brett Ratner, had replaced Bryan Singer and it showed. The film was fun but not as fun as the others and the plot was just an excuse for the effects and the action. There was much too little of the story of the mutants and the difficulty of being "different" from others and such. The man who brought us the Rush Hour films was basically bringing us more of the same.

A shame in that one felt it could have been so much more... But a lot of fun just the same.

A day out of the city

One of the things Sharon absolutely wants to see while she's here is the Chartres Labyrinth which is on the floor of the Chartres Cathedral.

One of the things we wanted to show them is the Loire Valley Castles. If you recall from our family web page we had a great family trip to the Loire back in 2000.

We decided to offer to try and mix the two in to one day and they accepted...

Alexandra took the day off to join us and we were in front of their hotel at 09:00 ready to head off and out of Paris. We drove straight to Chartres and made pretty good time. We got there at about 10:30. We hit the tourist office first to ask the basic questions and get any maps or brochures they may have. They gave us the worst news they could have short of announcing that the cathedral itself was closed. Apparently the labyrinth, as it is on the floor of the cathedral, is always covered by chairs. The only day of the week that they remove the chairs is Friday. There are quite a few web sites which discuss the labyrinth and I don't recall seeing this rather vital piece of information on any of the sites. But there wasn't much we could do at this point. We visited the cathedral, which is breathtakingly beautiful and enormous, and contemplated the labyrinth on the floor through the chairs. However we couldn't actually walk the labyrinth which was quite frustrating.

After that relatively short visit, and many photos later, we visited a couple of gift shops and headed off for the Loire Valley.

As it was already quickly approaching the lunch time hour I decided we couldn't wait to eat until getting to the Loire Valley so we stopped off at Orleans. We got there at about 13:00 and, as I was quite hungry, I sped through town indvertently driving along the tramway tracks until I could get off them. We had a pleasant lunch at a café outside under a bunch of trees which kept shedding their flowers providing us with a bit of extra vegetables in our meals.

We got back in the car and headed off to the Loire. The castle I wanted to see this time was Château Chambord as this was probably the biggest one I hadn't seen yet. We got there at about 15:00 and walked around the grounds for quite some time, taking photos, before actually entering the castle. We then spent a couple of hours touring the insides of the castle. I was amazed at how well Alexandra participated without complaining too much especially after all the walking we had been doing. I personally particularly liked the dual spiral staircase, which was apparently designed by da Vinci, and which has the very fun effect of being able to look across at those who are on the parallel staircase.

After climbing up and down and all over the castle we stopped for a bit of ice cream before getting back in to the car. We drove straight back to Paris, without hitting too much traffic, and the Hartmans were in their room by 20:30. Alexandra and I headed home. Alexandra had a quick microwave meal, and I filled in an excuse in her cahier de correspondance as to why she had missed school. I felt we had an educational and historical excuse so I didn't feel too guilty. But she had to head off to bed as she does have school tomorrow.

I picked up a very quick pizza up the street and settled down to watch The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I have tried to watch this on Friday nights and the rest of the family just never agrees. I was going to wait until father's day to oblige them but realised it might be a disappointment for everyone involved. As predicted it was certainly a disappointment for me. I had read all FIVE of the books in the totally incorrectly termed trilogy several times. I had also read the radio scripts and Douglas Adams' other books such as the Dirk Gently series. I have the BBC Radio Series on cassette and I have Douglas Adams reading the books on my iPod. I have the original TV series on VHS (and soon on DVD). I have read, listened to and watched all of these repeatedly. I believe I can refer to myself as a fan.

As was to be expected I was utterly disappointed in the movie. They had cut out several characters, several bits from the other scripts and radically changed many characters. How Ford Prefect, one of the two or four central characters, can go from being an incredibly English character (book, radio and TV series) to suddently being portray as a black American is left mysteriously unexplained. Actually quite a few of the parts suddenly were portrayed by Americans, including Arthur Dent's love interest Trillian. It was just too commercial, too trite, too commercial and utterly unlike the original concept formed, developed and evolved by Dougals Adams. I'm hoping they don't do a sequel.

A family dinner

I woke up early in case the Hartmans did as well and would be coming 'round.

But I definitely paid the price for my excesses (non-stop talking and then hours of shouting). My throat felt about the worst it's felt since the end of the treatments. I knew there was one simple solution which was rest, water and not talking. I couldn't do much about the rest part. I filled myself with water and kept it coming which helped. I did my best to not talk. But, as most people on this planet are aware, I am a lifelong sufferer of verbal diarrhea and just have great difficulty turning off my vocal chords.

We finally heard from the Hartmans a bit after noon. They had slept in and had a relaxing breakfast at the hotel. Both was good news. They were heading out to get lost in the city, which they did quite well {g}, and we would see them in the evening for dinner.

I went round and picked them up at about 18:00 and we drove home going through the Champs-Elysées so they could see the Arc de Triomphe and other tourist sites.

It was still yet another nice day out so we had dinner out on the terrasse. Desney had prepared some foie gras for starters which went down well with a Château le Fagé 1998 (Monbazillac). The foie gras wasn't Desney's own as it wasn't the season. But it appears to have went down well all the same. I personally found that the bread gets in the way for me. Jerry doesn't drink wine, which I knew, and Sharon wasn't having wine this evening so there was a lot more for the rest of us!

Desney had prepared a raclette which was delicious. It was the first time we had ever done this outside and it worked very well. Often when we do this in the kitchen it gets too hot too quickly and a bit smokey from the cooking cheese and frying meats. Outside it was great. This too went down well with an Ehrhart Riesling Grand Cru 2001. The GC Riesling, more than slightly sweet and biting, cuts through the cheese very well and makes digestion much easier. After two potatoes I realised that I was going to have to experience raclette without the potatoes from now on. It's much lighter which means I can eat more. But I just can't eat more than a couple of potatoes without them sponging up just about all the saliva and fluids I may have in my mouth making it difficult to eat, speak and even breath.

It started getting a bit chilly so we retired to the kitchen for salad, continuing with the Riesling, and then on to dessert. Desney had made her apple crumble which we accompanied with more of the Château le Fagé which we had not finished with the foie gras. The crumble went down well but I can eat much more of the apples and the ice cream than the crumble itself which quickly gets dry as well.

Over coffee we offered Jerry and Sharon a bit of an excursion for tomorrow...

They accepted!

I drove them home where they could get some sleep in order to be ready for a relatively early start tomorrow...

Jessica's first prom

I got home from the hotel and started getting ready for the big dance.

I got Jessica's printer from upstairs, my new photo printer from my office, my laptop computer, a whole bunch of extension cords, USB cables, multiplugs and other sundry wires and loaded everything in to the car. I then went up to the ground floor and got the coat hangers and tons of food which Desney had prepared and put that in the car. Finally I got dressed.

This year I did not wear a tie. I haven't worn a closed neck shirt since my operations and I still don't feel ready to do so yet. My ORL (ENT) doctor said I should be able to after the one-year mark (September) but that it's up to me. The longer I leave it the better.

I got to the school at about 18:00 ready to get started setting up all of my equipment (computer, two printers, note pads, ...). The salle des fêtes was in a pandemonious uproar as usual. Nothing was quite ready yet. The girls who were painting a beautiful venetian backdrop for the photos hadn't even finished painting it yet let alone hung it up. People running around lost not know what to do next. This lasted at least another hour and it wasn't until around 19:00 that I was able to get started setting up my part of the stand. It also wasn't until about that time (18:45) that Jessica was able to leave to go home and get ready for the dance.

I spent the next half-hour rapidly preparing the stand and testing what I could. Of course the inevitable had to happen. Something had to go wrong. I had brought two printers this year, a new photo printer to replace the one that got broken at the last end-of-the-year market, and Jessica's Deskjet printer from her bedroom in order to hopefully increase the time it takes to print the photos. I had bought and brought extra ink cartridges for both printers, extra cables, extra camera card readers and lots of extra photo paper. I printed fine on the new photo printer which I had tested at home. However Jessica's printer was bust. The top cover which closes on to the rest would not stay closed. This stopped it from printing. I don't know if the printer was already bust and Jessica hadn't mentioned it to me or if it got bust in the move and preparations. I'll never know. However I now found myself in the same old position of having one printer to print all of the photos at the end.

We all had agreed that we would stop taking photos at 22:30 and I would print from then until midnight. I would also print, whenever possible, in between transferring photos and getting the students' choices, up till then.

I hadn't prepared a sign. I was going to do that on Jessica's printer actually at the school. With that bust I had forgotten. For the first hour or hour and a half practically no one came to get their photos done. Richard, who is a professional photographer in real life and was taking the actual photos, made a hand-written sign "Photos 2 €" and next thing you knew there were crowds. Richard, being a professional, took way too many shots per group and it would take quite some time to go through them. But he took really great looking shots, with no red eye whatsoever, and the final result was worth whatever it took to get there. I had difficulty getting him to stop taking photos at 22:30 and at 22:45 it was obvious I was never going to be able to print everything in time as has happened so many times before. I printed like a maniac right up until after midnight but at least half of the photos hadn't been printed. We quickly worked out an arrangement where the students could come collect the photos at the same time as we would be selling the yearbook in about 10 days.

The dance itself appeared to go well. It took quite a long time to get started. Perhaps it was just too nice a day outside as the students seemed to spend most of the beginning hours outside... minging and schmoozing. Finally everyone started dancing and it was going full blown when, of course, the music system blew. Yet again they had not actually hired a professional DJ but someone who plugged in to the school's antiquated sound system. The cables never fit, the amps never adjust, and it always fails us eventually. There was no music for a good 45 minutes! Finally it came back on but they were very careful what they played afterwards. A group of students did a 2-song rap performance that was quite enjoyable and during the music blowout one of the kids played a piano solo for a while which was more than enjoyable.

The students looked amazing this year as every year. I have quite a lot of fun checking out the who's wearing what as quite a lot of these kids I've seen growing up for the past 3-5 years. For some it was their third and final prom and I can still remember taking their photo at their first prom two years ago. Some of the outfits were pretty incredible while many were just plain beautiful. They all looked great!

At the end of a long night of pretty loud music, bright lights, screaming over the music so the people picking their photos could hear me, dozens of dancing adolescents and such it was time to pack up and crawl out of there. I got home at about a quarter to one and passed out in bed. Unfortunately I could already feel that my throat was going to pay the price for this long day of non-stop talking throughout the morning and screaming for at least 2 or 3 hours at the dance...

Uncle Jerry is in da house!

Their plane was supposed to arrive at 07:45. I therefore sent a car to pick them up from the airport as there was no way I was going to be there in mind, body or spirit at that time.

We checked on the Internet and the plane was late to land. We kept checking every 5 minutes or so and then we saw that the plane had landed at 08:12. We therefore nervously paced around the house waiting.

At about 09:00 (Uncle) Jerry calls me from the airport. There was no car waiting for him; his mobile phone doesn't work in Europe; his credit card wouldn't work in the pay phone and finally a nice information desk person let him call us. After getting rather upset about the car I told gave him our address and verified my phone number with him and had he and Aunt Sharon get in a taxi and we'll take care of it when they get here.

I then called the taxi company and gave them a right bollicking (excuse my French). The taxi driver had waited the regulation 30 minutes and then had left. No one called me to check first or to inform me. I had given my home and mobile numbers to the company the night before when I reserved the car. Either the man who took the reservation didn't note them or the taxi driver didn't. But in the end my aunt and uncle arrived in France, for their first trip ever to Europe, and were stranded. I went ballistic on the phone...

They arrived not that much later and they spent the next 20 minutes taking the tour of the house. They had been sitting down for so long and were tired that we felt we needed to keep them moving for a while, to get the blood flowing, or we were gonna lose 'em.

They spent the next few hours on our couch listening to me chatter, chatter and chatter to keep them awake and (hopefully) interested. They were absolutely shattered from the trip and their main thoughts were basically upon sleep. They got to meet Alexandra who got home from school a little after 11:30 and finally we left at about 13:00 and I took them to the hotel. The hotel was actually quite nice and is right next to La Madeleine. I left them there to get some sleep and to get on with my preparations for tonight... they were in good hands.

Friday night at home

Although it was a short week technically, as Monday was a holiday here in France, it actually turned out to be quite a long week for most of us and we were glad it was Friday. We were mostly glad that it was the end of the week and tomorrow would be a very special day for several reasons.

We didn't get to dinner until late and ordered out from the Japanese. I had rented a couple of movies from DVD Fly and they were thrown in to the pile for selection for this evening's showing. Unfortunately the kids one and they chose The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement. We had already seen the original The Princess Diaries and Jessica has read quite a few of the Meg Cabot books including the 1-800-Where-R-You series.

The film was so bad it was laughable at times. We had fun, giggled a bit and were all glad when it was over...

Celebrations...

I had a parents' association meeting which went on till late on Tuesday and then I had another, but different, parents' association meeting last night which went on even later. We haven't been able to properly celebrate Alexandra's achievement.

Today I just had a meeting in town so I was back in time for dinner. It just so happened it was a beautiful day out so we were able to have dinner outside. We sat out on the terrasse, opened our favourite bottle of bubbley, and toasted Alexandra and her major achievement. Our thoughts are now to the future...

Alexandra's Great News!

Another long day of programming and such. I was nervous and anxious most of the afternoon which actually helped me with a boost of energy to finish another release on my database project.

Today was the day of the results. At 17:00 the admissions results for the Lycée Collège International Honoré de Balzac were to be posted in front of the school. We were obviously eagerly awaiting these results to see if Alexandra was admitted.

Jessica finished school at 17:00 and she hung around the front of the school in the rain, along with a large group of prospective parents and other siblings, waiting for the results to be posted. Poor Jessica was bombarded with phone calls, mostly from me, to find out what the results were. At 17:30 when the results still were not posted I called the school's international office. They weren't answering the phone. I therefore got a bit sneaky and (ab)used the headmistress' number, which I have as a parents' association President, to find out what was going on. Her secretary informed me that the international secretary, Mme Poitevineau, was still working on finalising the results and she would post them outside as soon as possible but she did not know when. As Jessica was part of an organisational chain I called her back and told her to come home.

In the mean time Alexandra had come home, at about 16:45, and was also desperately awaiting the results. Jessica left the school at about 17:45. She headed home where she was to go next door to baby sit. She is babysitting for Maija who is the secretary of our parents' association as we have our monthly meeting tonight. I was giving Maija a ride to the meeting so I had to wait until Jessica got to Maija's place and Maija got to our place before being able to leave.

At 18:35 Maija arrived at our place completely, and blissfully, ignorant of what was going on as regards the results notification. We jumped in the car and headed for the school. Although we were going to be late for our own meeting I had to stop by the school beforehand.Prioritiesies. I would have loved to have sped through the streets and have arrived in 10 minutes. But it was rush hour and we had to sit through traffic. When we got to the school I looked through to the front entrance and saw a few parents in front of the outside bulletin board. I assumed the results were posted and there was no way I was going to cruise around looking for parking. I did a U-turn in the middle of the boulevard, ran over the bus lane barrier, and pulled up in front of the school thereby blocking the bus lane. I ran out of the car to the board to see the list. I quickly scanned down the list of surnames for 6ème and there she was: Alexandra is admitted!!! I jumped up and shouted "Yessssss!" and looked back at the car. The bus wasn't approaching and I didn't seem to be blocking anyone. I therefore went back to the list to see if some of the others who took the exam the same time as Alexandra were admitted. Just about all of the kids we sat with at the café were admitted which was very good news for everyone involved.

Maija and I jumped back in to the car ready to go to the meeting. Unfortunately while we were looking at the results a police car had pulled in front of my car and was waiting for me. They had only just arrived so I was hoping I would be able to pull out before they got out of their car. My timing was off by just a few seconds. After a long and guilt-ridden discussion with the police officer who explained how my blocking the bus lane could mean blocking 50 people sitting in a bus and who were trying to get home. He explained that the normal fine was 90 euros and that I should think of others next time. I drove away feeling as though I had just cheated fate. I felt I deserved to cheat fate every now and then as I certainly feel that fate has cheated me more than once lately.

What the officer couldn't know was that all I wanted to do was to get the hell out of there and call home, and everyone else, to tell them the good news. We drove away and I called home. Of course now was the time that the damn cable phone decided to act up and not receive any calls. Maija was kind enough to call Jessica at her house. I spoke to Jess and gave her the news. She was obviously overjoyed and she called home, using the old phone number, to tell Desney. I kept trying to get Desney, of course, and eventually got through to her. Alexandra was in the shower but truly "chuffed".

We then headed off to our meeting. It was so unfortunate that I couldn't be home celebrating with my family this momentous occasion. Although we have always felt Alexandra would get in there has always remained that ominous doubt. We also truly had no other option planned. There is another international school we would have probably sent her to which would have cost us a fortune, which we don't have, but we didn't really think about it too much. All we knew was there was no way she was going to the local school. I would have loved to have been home to open the Champagne and share the moment with the rest of the family. Desney had gotten snails and a chocolate éclair for Alex, her favourites, to at least start the celebration.

We got to the meeting late as our detour meant that we didn't even leave the school area until about 18:55 and then we had to find parking. We arrived at the meeting at about 19:35 which was supposed to start at 19:00. I was wondering if everyone had left as they couldn't really start without the chairman and the secretary. They were all there sitting on the sofas and cosy chairs around the table eating and drinking and partly ignorant of our absence. I so prefer meetings in France than the stuffy pompous meetings I participate in elsewhere.

The meeting went reasonably well and my voice held out. There were only a few moments when I could feel myself raising my voice and my voice not following me. There are many times when I feel I sound like a teenager who's voice is changing. However in reality, as my mother likes to repeat often, my voice changed sometime while I was still in diapers (nappies). The meeting was actually quite heated and vociferous and the discussions sometimes became argumentative. I was amazed at how much I had underestimated the impact of certain subjects which I thought were "no-brainers" and not even worth discussing. However we got through the agenda by 22:20 and I still had a voice. I had my trusty bottles of water under my feet throughout and pushed myself often to drink in between phrases. I have enough trouble trying to stop talking in order to eat. Trying to stop in order to drink seems to be just about as difficult. I forget my "situation" often and don't realise until it's too late and my mouth is as dry as cotton and my throat is starting to hurt. Luckily a bit of water solves the problem immediately. We got out of there late and got home late. I dropped Maija off at her place and picked up Jessica and took her home. Jess was obviously ecstatic that Alex had got in to the school and that the two of them would be in the same school. I hadn't expected that positive a reaction. It was quite heartwarming. I got home to find Desney in bed waiting and was able to quickly share in the wondrous moment of pride and pleasure that both of our girls had gotten in to the international school and would be getting the education we had dreamed of for them. But then to sleep... aye perchance to dream.

Saturday at the mall

We slept in a bit today where possible. Desney was up first, as always, and was off at the hairdresser's and then shopping. I went through my morning routine very slowly and finally headed off to the local market to get fish and food and such for dinner. The queues were amazing and it took quite some time. But that's my own fault for going so late. All in all though I quite enjoyed the experience as the aromas and colours are wonderful.

When I got home I did a bit of programming work, not much, and then Desney, Alexandra and I piled in to the car and headed off to the new shopping centre in Gennevilliers (Chanteraines). We spent the rest of the day basically strolling from store to store to see what they had.

Water: In the first store I had forgotten to take my bottle of water with me from the car. I just can't get used to having to carry this thing with me all the time. I tend to get the feeling that it's like being connected to an oxygen tank or something similar. By the time I got out of the store I couldn't speak and surreptitiously went back to the car and got my bottle. By the end of the second store the inevitable cause and effect relationship meant that I desperately had to find a toilet. Luckily this store had one, albeit normally for handicapped clients which I was starting to feel more and more similar to, and I was able to avail myself of their services. A few hours later and we actually hadn't purchased much at all. We finally got home a bit before 18:00 and sat down for a well-deserved rest.

I got to work on dinner which we ate at a little after eight accompanied by much complaints from the kids. I am certainly no longer a tasting expert and could not really contribute but it certainly appears as though this is the last time I will ever prepare this particular recipe (fish soup with saffron and cream) as it was totally lacking in flavour and consistency. Luckily Desney had prepared a wonderful Tarte Tatin for dessert. However I could only eat about half of the delicious dessert for as soon as I ran out of ice cream topping I couldn't eat any more as the rest was just too dry...

Once Alexandra had gone to bed, and Desney was off gardening and puttering around the house, Jessica and I decided to watch a movie which Alexandra couldn't watch. Jessica has only ever seen the first half of this particular movie so we decided to watch the whole thing this time. It's probably about the fourth time I've seen Pulp Fiction and I was truly pleasantly surprised to find that I still quite enjoy it even though I know quite a few scenes by heart.

In bed after midnight...

Friday night hustle

A long day of programming and going through e-mails. One of my clients is really getting on my nerves... but I suppose that's just part of the game...

Friday Night and no school for Alexandra tomorrow morning. We therefore could start late and not have to worry about time too much.

We ordered pizza from Pizza Hut and Jessica, Alexandra and I chose a DVD from the large pile of those waiting to be watch. In the end we chose Kung Fu Hustle which I had rented from DVD Fly. It was a lot of fun. I found it hilarious but I also noticed that quite often I was the only one laughing. The making of was particularly interesting as was a rather bizarre interview with the Director/Producer/Writer/Star Stephen Chow (aka Sing-Chi Chau).

Pizza: Another depressing discovery is that I can no longer eat my favourite sort of pizza. I have always been a deep pan man when it comes to pizza. The extra thick crust and bready bottom makes for a much sturdier pizza and comes in quite handy when eating slices. However, as with popcorn and potatoes, there's just too much starch for me and without enough saliva it's very difficult to eat and much less enjoyable. I am going to be stuck eating the more "classic" style pizza from now on...

Alex' Big Day

We all got up early this morning (Desney at 06:00 and Alex and I at 06:30). I took Alexandra to Honoré de Balzac for her written exam at 08:15. This was the beginning of the entrance exams our whole family has been dreading for months if not years. I was there as a nervous prospective 6ème parent like any other. However I had stupidly forgotten that I was also the President of the Anglophone Section Parents' Association who everyone had seen at the Open House. I was certainly not there with my President's hat on but rather the hat of any other prospective parent. I was obviously bombarded with questions about how the whole thing runs. Once the kids were in the exam, which lasts an hour for collège and about 90 minutes for lycée, we went to the café to wait. There I spent my time with the other parents, like any other prospective parent, but ended up passing the time answering questions and explaining how things work in more detail.

I was there outside the door when the collège children got out of the exam and Alex came running to my arms to tell me how easy the exam was. I was very pleased. They used Stig of the Dump as their literature choice which us old parents know from when Jessica was in 6ème. Apparently the exam went very well and Alex was able to give even more information than was requested.

After the exam we met Jessica quickly who was on her way to her 10:00 class and grabbed a quick coffee. Alex and I then hung out at the café to wait for her oral exam which was at 11:10.

At about 11:00 we headed up to the International Library in the collège for her oral exam. They were only running about 10 minutes late, which was a good sign, and Alex was in and out of there in about 5 minutes which was another good sign. This too apparently went very well.

Now that she had gone through all of the hard work we got in to the car and left. She was very happy and very pleased that it all went so well. Now is the time for the endless waiting to find out whether she was accepted or not...

To celebrate a bit we headed off to La Défense to go to the movies. We found the cinema, bought our tickets for the 15:15 showing and called Desney to see if she could have lunch with us. She works up in one of the towers and she came down and we had a very nice, long lunch at a brasserie-style restaurant. Alex rather enjoyed the ice cream sundae at the end more than the meal itself...

Desney headed back to work and Alex and I headed off to the cinema. We went to see Mission Impossible: III in the new cinema at La Défense. It just opened today in France and it was the classic enormous action film, with a ridiculously unbelievable and flimsy script, which ran like a very long episode of the Alias television series. This was probably due to the fact that the director of the film was also the creator of that series.

Popcorn: I made the rather depressing discovery that I can't eat popcorn any more. Those who know me are aware that I find it almost impossible to watch a film without copious quantities of salted and buttered popcorn. There are certain fattening American childhood habits which die hard. We bought a big tub of salted popcorn to share. I had about half a dozen and realised that even with litres of water there was no way I was going to be able to eat this. First it just tasted like rolled up pieces of paper. Then the popcorn shells made me cough. I gave up not much longer after that and was amazed to discover, at the end of the film, that Alexandra had actually finished the tub by herself.

It was a long movie and we headed home afterwards rather exhausted. Today was an absolutely beautiful day outside and so we had dinner outside. We had carpaccio and salads and opened a bottle of Crémant d'Alsace from our favourite winemaker which we tend to prefer over Champagne.

It was a very long and very eventful day and the culmination of many months of preparation and many years of discussion of Alexandra going to this school like her big sister. She did an excellent job today and now it is purely the very difficult job of waiting for the school's decision...

Friends over for dinner

Having friends over for dinner. It sounds like such a banal phrase.

But Desney had recently realised that we actually haven't had friends over for dinner for over a year. There were obviously mitigating circumstances for a large portion of that year. But it's been a long time. The last time we had friends over was David and Sasha back in May 2005.

We invited a couple of friends over along with their two children. These are parents of one of Jessica's classmates. Jessica spends an enormous amount of time at their house after school on a regular basis and the mother works at the same Organisation as Desney.

We had a great time, great conversations, great food and large quantities of wine. Champagne and hors d'oeuvre; vintage Champagne (1995 Pierre Moncuit) along with Desney's amazing goat's cheese soufflées; a 1999 Morgon with duck shishkebabs; a 1998 Châteauneuf du Pape with cheese and finally a 1997 Gewürztraminer Vendanges Tardives (late harvest) from our favourite Alsatian winemaker to accompany Desney's apple crumble with vanilla ice cream.

All in all a great evening... now we remember why we used to have friends over for dinner!

Glug, glug, glug, glug, glug, glug, glug, glug

Tonight I was rushing off to go to a parents' meeting for Jessica's class and rushing through dinner.

It was not respectful of Desney's meal as she had prepared some duck and carrots which were quite delicious. But I picked up my water glass and quickly drank it while rushing. I put the glass down with a start and realised. I had just drank the entire glass in one action with a glug, glug, glug, glug, glug, glug, glug, glug. That's eight consecutive glugs. My previous record was four. I suddenly realised what had just happened. I filled the glass up again and pointed at Desney for her to watch. I picked up the glass and again drank it down in 8 glugs. I put it down and explained to her what had just happened. Obviously this is of minute importance to anyone but myself. It's an extremely tiny step forward in the scheme of things.

But damn it felt good!

Flashbacks

Sunday morning and I'm here in front of the computer again...

Every now and then I get these flashbacks of my treatment days and it hurts. Something will remind me of those times and my stomach will lurch for a second or longer.

Desney had bought me three really big, and cheap, polo shirts to wear during the 3 days of chemotherapy when I would have to have the pump safetypinned to the inside of my shirt for 24 hours including while I slept. Whenever I open my wardrobe now and look through my polo shirts for one to wear today, as it's warm enough, and I come upon those 3 shirts my stomach gets nauseous for a few seconds...

To try and help during the chemo sessions I had bought, ripped and listened to some relaxation music. It's basically electronic, techno, trance stuff. Now whenever I hear that sort of music my mind flashes back to sitting in that white room with the needle in my chest and feeling awful and I get nauseous all over again...

I had bought myself a tiny iPod shuffle to listen to music and comedy and such during my chemo sessions... now I can't even look at the thing any more. It sits on a shelf in the living room and when I see it I get a brief flash of those days...

Sensual memory can many times be wonderful... remembering how wonderful things felt once upon a time... but sometimes they can also be nightmares...

Dinner out

It's an amazingly beautiful day out today...

It's also my (rare) turn to make dinner. I decided to make pasta which is not a great surprise to those who know me. Pasta can sometimes be difficult for me to eat now like potatoes. But I find that if there's a lot of sauce, and I drink a lot of liquid with it, it can still be enjoyable. I decided to make spaghetti with Mexican shrimp sauce which is quite easy to prepare. It's so easy to prepare that I was able to enjoy a few glasses of a very nice Australian Shiraz that some friends had bought for me before I got sick. The very strong fruit and faint wood made this the perfect sort of wine for my throat and taste buds at the moment. I wasn't missing out on much as the aspects of the wine that I ususually can't taste were not that prevalent in this wine. Quite nice...

While I was making dinner the girls were preparing the terrace which Desney had spent most of the afternoon cleaning. When dinner was ready we took everything upstairs and to the terrace for our first meal of the year outside. It was wonderful to sit outside and eat. However I must admit that, this early in the year, it does start getting very cold very quickly. I didn't mind that much for myself. But it also means that one's food gets quite cold quite quickly. As I don't eat quickly at the best of times, and much slower nowadays, my pasta was icy cold before I could finish it.

But it was a great feeling to eat outside again and a delightful taste of evenings to come which will be even warmer and sunnier...

Log Me In

Work, work, work...

Friday night I was hit with a programming emergency (yes... that does exist) and I've got a lot of work to do. I therefore spent all of this beautiful day in front of my computer. I'm staring outside my window, just to the left of my screen, at big red, yellow and orange tulips (thanks to Desney's amazing gardening) and a bright sunny day. Alex is hanging out outside and Desney is "Karchering" the terrace. I'm working in front of my computer... All day.

One of the things I'm working on is a change in a very important tool I use in my everyday business. I have been using Go To My PC for about 2 years now to connect to my clients' computers and work on them when need be. Prior to using Go To My PC I used PC Anywhere to connect to computers. But that was very clumsy, required the user to establish the connection each time and was even more expensive than Go To My PC. Go To My PC, which works across Firewalls and without the user being logged in, has been revolutionary to the way I work and allowed me to work on computers regardless of where they are in the world.

Remote control, or telemaintenance, has made my professional life much easier. I can be anywhere in the world on the Internet and my client(s) can be anywhere in the world on the Internet and I can work on their computer(s) as though I was there in the room with the computer. This is vital to my work. However it has greatly reduced my revenue. It used to be that I would go to a client's for a half-day or a day or longer to carry out installations and I would bill them for my time spent (half-day, day, days, ...). This is easy for everyone to comprehend as I am physically present and working. Now I don't have to go to the clients' location to work on the computers and the intervention does not have to be planned and pre-ordered. This is great from the clients' point of view. However I'm still having difficulty getting the clients to be billed for time spent (an hour here, a half-hour there, a couple of hours here) when I'm not actually physically present. I am therefore actually working the same, if not more due to the ease, and earning less. I am an amazing technician, if I do say so myself, but not the world's greatest business man...

While on my last trip to London I was watching The Gadget Show, nerdy geek that I am, and they did a report on a programme called Log Me In. They were, of course, reporting on the free version which was quite interesting. The free version allows you to control another computer, presumably your own or a contact's, and work on the computer remotely. The free version doesn't allow transferring file, or remote printing or file sharing or some of the other neat functions of the pro version. But for basic telemaintenance you can't beat the price. Highly recommended...

I went to the Log Me In web site to check out the Pro version just out of professional curiosity. What I found amazed me. The Pro version provides the same functionality as Go To My PC at a much lower price. Go To My PC starts at about US$15 per month per computer and Log Me In Pro starts at about $13 per month per computer. I have 65 computers with Go To My PC and my price was therefore reduced to about US$ 12 per month per computer. The equivalent with Log Me In Pro is an amazing US$ 3.60 per month per computer. But the difference is not just price.

With Log Me In Pro I can see all of the computers available on one screen and organise them in to groups, etc. But for the same price they have another product range called Log Me In IT Reach. This is where they just make Go To My PC eat their dust. With IT Reach I can see all of the computers, I can create "secondary users" to whom I can give access to specific computers without them seeing the other computers. With this I can give my assistant in London access to the London computers without having to give him access to my other clients' computers. I can also give clients themselves access to their own computers, where necessary, without giving them access to others. With IT Reach I can also see every time someone's connected to a computer, how long it's been turned on and connected and all sorts of other information stored in logs. With IT Reach I can even work on the insides of the computer without disturbing the user. I can work with the command prompt, the registry editor, the services, etc. without opening Remote Control. I can see the disk space usage, the memory usage, the error logs, the event viewer, etc. without having to interrupt the user. It's like being able to look under the bonnet while the car is still moving. With IT Reach I can even set up alerts and messages so that the computer can send me e-mail messages when it's got a problem... it's a pretty amazing product.

I spent a few hours, while at the same time programming away, setting up quite a few computers with the different versions: I set up all of the home computers with the free version, as I can transfer files via our internal network, and many of my clients' computers with the IT Reach version. I played around with them for a while and had a great time. Geeky Power Control Freak Heaven! I'm afraid Go To My PC is about to lose (another) client.

La marche de l'empereur

A very looong working day. Got off the phone at the end at about 20:00 just in time for dinner.

Desney had prepared lots of finger food for dinner while we kicked back and watched La marche de l'empereur.

I had heard so many good things about this movie. Awards, good reviews, recommendations, ...

A beautifully filmed move...

However, in my personal opinion, probably one of the most boring films I've seen. I watched the "making of" afterwards... almsot equally as boring.

Maybe I was just tired...

Rize

Normally I fear the "morning after" I've had a throat exam. This morning actually went quite well and I only had to drink a bunch of water to get everything working again. Serious dry mouth overnight. But that's probably partly due to the fact that I stupidly slept with my mouth open for quite some time. There are many times when I simply have difficulty remembering that I'm not like I used to be. Subconsciously I sometimes think nothing's changed. It happens a lot when I'm looking at food... I think "that looks great!" and it takes me a long time, sometimes too long, to remember that it's something I probably wouldn't enjoy any more. Pizza, simple pasta without sauce, mashed potatotes, BAGUETTES, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, ... These are all things that look great but are practically impossible for me to eat... I forget too often...

I spent the day working, working, working. I'm still playing "catch up" with correspondance and billing while also having to do some work on computers in America while they're asleep and get it finished before they get to the office... it makes for a rushful morning and then the afternoon is spent doing both what I would have done in the afternoon along with what I didn't do in the morning...

Ended the day by opening my Amazon delivery. I had ordered yet some more DVDs as they have had some really good deals lately. One of them is a movie Jess had seen in the cinema and has been dying to watch again.

Rize is a documentary about the evolution of the dance movement in South Central Los Angeles (read the ghetto) to offer an alternative to gangs. The subject was interesting. But I don't think it really filled the amount of time dedicated to it.

The director (David Lachapelle) obviously had his own slant on what he wanted to show. Every review I've seen seems to bring up how much he glossed over the oriental and white dance groups in his film.

There were some interesting "characters" such as Tommy the Clown who appears to have started everything and Miss Prissy who appears to be the one with enough grace and character to move on out some day.

Jessica loves the dancing. I was impressed with the Krumping at the beginning. But the lack of rhythm and musicality in the dance got on my nerves after a while. Good ole break dancing at least looked like the music was relevant to what they were doing. This looked great and athletic but the music just seemed to be incidental and having grown up with music and dance I personally found it just not to be my cuppa tea.

I'll probably watch the making of some day, with Jess, just out of curiosity. But my interest will probably stop there...

* Throat Cancer Free *

Today was my quarterly visit with my ENT (ORL) doctor. I had been preparing myself psychologically for quite some time now. We were up late last night so I didn't get up until around 08:30, had breakfast and tried to get at least a couple of hours of work done before preparing to leave. I spent at least 2 hours just going through e-mails and bookkeeping and filing. It's amazing how it all piles up after spending just one (entire) day away from the computer.

At 14:00 I took a Xanax as per my doctor's instructions, to try and start calming me down, especially my reflexes, before his examination. I took the bus, and then the métro, to the doctor's office. I didn't want to drive as I didn't know what condition I would be in afterwards.

He was actually reasonably on time (15 minutes late) and we started by discussing the evolution in my situation since we last saw each other. I had to admit there wasn't a lot of change. My voice is still not working properly albeit slightly better than the last time. My swallowing is much better. But my mouth is still as dry as ever without any saliva. My taste buds are still not great, although they're reasonably better than the last time, and I can drink beer and wine. He immediately reminded me not to "abuse" the wine and beer.

I then sat in the dreaded examination chair. He checked out my ears and started in on my nose. I thought he was going to clamp my nose open or something with the weird thing he shoved up there. Finally he sprayed the anaesthesia up my nose and down my throat. I had to gargle with the anaesthesia for 30 seconds before swallowing it. He then had to wait a bit for it to take effect so he made a phone call while I sat staring at a mirror worrying about what was coming next. He now has a huge flat screen on the wall with the video setup so you can't avoid it. I closed my eyes the whole time so as not to have to watch the inside of my throat in amazing technicolor and the size of the wall. The exam went much better than last time and I didn't cough or gag half as much. He shoved the camera up each nostril and down the throat and looked around and made me make noises with my throat (ehhh, eeeee, ehehehe) and count. He would make comments as he was looking around and was actually silly enough to ask me a question of two. If you think it's bad enough when a dentist asks you something while your mouth is full of cotton or such you can imagine how ridiculous the situation is when you've got a video camera twirling around down the inside of your throat. He had to wait for an answer. Finally came the part I was dreading: I stuck out my tongue, he wrapped a Kleenex around the tip and held on to it while he stuck his finger down my throat and felt around inside. I only gagged two or three times and didn't actually spit up this time. He did the other hand as well and then it was over.

We sat down to "talk" about the status. He used a new anaesthesia which is apparently stronger and I could not speak for about an hour afterwards. The rest of our conversation took place with him speaking and me writing on paper. Apparently I still have bruises and burns in the back of my throat and just behind my vocal chords. The bruises are from the surgery and the burns are from the radiotherapy and they have been aggravated by the chemotherapy. My vocal chords appear to be in good condition. But they don't approach each other when I speak. He is sending me to an "orthophonist" for some vocal re-education work so that I use my "new" throat correctly when speaking. The bruises themselves are from a combination of the surgery, the radiotherapy and the chemotherapy. They will be absorbed over time. But, as usual, he can't say how much time.

We also spoke about the skin and the muscles. I mentioned the difficulties I have in the morning moving my left arm and shoulder and such as well as the pains I get during the day over the scar area and along the shoulder. He is sending me to a physiotherapist for some massages and heat treatments.

He palped all around my throat and neck. He explained that the solid bits were scar tissue which had been hardened by both the surgery and the radiotherapy. He said that, although massaging twice a day was good, I need to be massaging longer to break it down more.

Finally we spoke about the cancer surveillance aspect. He gave me the good news first that from everything he had just checked in my throat is completely cancer free. I will be seeing him again at the end of July. Two weeks before seeing him again, in mid-July, I will go back to the Clinique Hartmann for a full chest x-ray and an ultrasound exam of everything from my thorax down to my genitals. Then after his examination in July we'll book me for a complete PET scan for September prior to seeing him again in October. September will be one year from the beginning of treatment (surgery). Apparently there are not that many PET scan machines in the Paris area and I'll be going to Sarcelles for mine.

We discussed the evolution I could expect in the future. He used quite often the phrase "it's the ransom to pay for cancer" in that most of what we discussed he said would never be 100% again. My swallowing will continue to improve and, once the bruising and burns have been reduced, should eventually reach a normal level. My voice will never be 100% again. But, with re-education, should get much much better than it is now. The depressing prediction was that my taste buds will never be 100% again. They will get better and better, very slowly and over several years, but they will never achieve the level of fine tasting they had before. The chemotherapy has permanently destroyed too many of the buds themselves. Eventually I will probably look in to alternatives for this situation as I refuse to believe that I can't get my taste buds back. The dry mouth and lack of saliva will always be a problem. This I knew even prior to the treatment as they had explained this to me at the clinic. This too will continue to improve but it will never be 100% again and I'll be spending the rest of my life with a bottle of water next to me. The tasting situation and the swallowing situation are directly linked to the lack of saliva. I will be looking to alternatives for this evolution as well.

I left feeling pleased. Pleased that the examination itself had gone much better than last time. It certainly was still extremely painful and uncomfortable. But it was better. Pleased as well that my throat is completely cancer free and anything which I may have felt along my throat is not a problem.

I got home, wrote down on paper to Desney that everything was fine, crawled in to bed for about 3 hours, and I have just finished eating dinner (fish and rice( without any difficulty.

Onward and upwards...

Eurodisney

We all got up reasonably early and after a quick breakfast and a lot of yelling and screaming we were in the car and on our way by 09:15. At 10:00 we had parked the car at EuroDisney and were heading towards the gates, which had just opened, with the hoards of other visitors.

A beautiful sunny day during the Easter holidays. Why were we surprised to find that we were not the only ones with the idea to go to Disney today?

Our first stop was the Star Tours ride, which is my favourite, where we grabbed a couple of Fast Passes to come back and go straight on. In the mean time we played Air Hockey (Alex and Jess against me) and strolled around a bit. Finally we got on the ride (Jess, Alex and I) and, of course, it had not changed. A few minutes later and we were back outside and heading off for Honey, I shrunk the audience. We only had to wait about 10 or 15 minutes and then all four of us were inside the theatre with our 3D glasses on and enjoying the show which we had already seen at least once before. Afterwards we strolled past Space Mountain 2, watching it shoot off every now and then, and decided we'd go for a Fast Pass in the afternoon. We strolled over to It's A Small World and, after a bit of strategic queue management, we were all on the ride in about 10 or 15 minutes. That was probably the longest we've ever queued up for It's A Small World before. Then off to Pirates of the Caribbean which is another of the rare rides that all 4 of us go on together. I believe the wait was about 45 minutes which was just starting to get long.

Afterwards we headed off to The Lucky Nugget for lunch. The "show" we paid 30 € each for was basically a 4-piece band and the classic Disney characters coming 'round to bother us while we ate (all you can eat buffet).

After lunch we headed off to Big Thunder Mountain to grab a Fast Pass. But they weren't doing Fast Passes any more. Instead there was a 75 minute wait. That's right... an hour and a quarter of queuing up through endlessly winding roped-off lanes. Alex, Jess and I enjoyed the ride. But it certainly wasn't worth that long a wait.

All four of us headed off to Phantom Manor where the wait was "only" about 20 minutes. It was bit of fun but nothing extraordinary.

We headed back to Discoveryland where Jessica and I were going on Space Mountain 2. As we approached we noticed that it wasn't running. We went to ask why and were informed that there were "technical difficulties" and the ride had been stopped for 15 minutes. They didn't know when it would be running again. As the queues were so long on each ride and we didn't know quite what to do next we headed over to the new Buzz Lightyear Laser Blast ride. The queue was 75 minutes! With nothing better to do all 4 of us got on the queue. As we wound through the endless lanes Jess and I watched Space Mountain 2 to see if it reopened. An hour and a half later we were in our Buzz Lightyear cars, with our laser pistols, and Space Mountain 2 still had not reopened. The ride was a lot of fun and we all compared our scores as we left. But we also all agreed it wasn't worth that long a wait. Then again few rides would be.

As we got out of Buzz Lightyear we noticed that Space Mountain 2 had opened again. Jessica and I ran for the queue where we spent the next 60 minutes with the suspense and fear building up as we heard each rocket shoot to the sky. Jessica is the first of her friends to try Space Mountain 2 so she didn't know what it would be like. We both knew it would be faster than Space Mountain 1 which we had gone on together years ago. While we were queuing up Desney and Alex went on rides in Fantasyland, but most of them were closing by now, and ended up at It's A Small World again. Jessican and I survived Space Mountain 2 and got off the ride a bit wobbly-legged and dazed. We ran for the toilets as we needed to go before we got on the queue but didn't want to risk it back then. We then headed over to It's a small world to find Desney and Alex. There were no queues whatsoever so we ran on and went on the ride ourselves once before meeting Alex and Desney afterwards.

It was 20:00 by this time. We had spent 10 hours at Disney and gone on a total of 8 rides. It was a completely ridiculous experience. I fear today will be our last trip to Eurodisney... at least until we come back with our grandchildren!

We got home, ordered pizza and kicked back to watch Be Cool on DVD.

Easter

Ah! What a pleasure to sleep in my own bed, in my own bedroom next to my own wife. We all slept in this morning at our own rhythms. This means Desney was up at 8, I was up at 9:30, Alex at 10:30 and I don't even know when Jess crawled out of bed but I assume it was after noon. Desney had laid out chocolate eggs for the kids on the breakfast table. I made myself some scrambled eggs and a cup of my own coffee. It felt good to be home!

I have been spending most of the day just catching up... opening snail mail... installing new versions of software on my computers and getting the computer ready for the gym...

Hacker Cracker

On the Eurostar I finished reading Hacker Cracker on my Palm. I enjoyed it. But I certainly do not consider it above average in any way. A hacker very full of himself who wrote about his childhood, his rough neighbourhood, a bit about his hacking and cracking experiences, his kung-fu and martial arts exploits and championships and finally his personal experiences on September 11th. I was only interested in about 1/10th of what he had to say and if ever I wanted to read the book again I would use the very helpful chapters and bookmarks functions of eReader to get to just the hacking bits.

If anyone out there is interested in anything similar to this but with more technical details then they should find Cliff Stoll's classic real-life hacker tracking experiences in The Cuckoo's Egg. Interested in hacking gangs then Masters of Deception would be much more interesting than this...

The long and winding road home

Up (relatively) early, a cup of coffee and off to the Leamington train station for the 08:29 train to London. I got to Marylebone at a little after 10:00 and grabbed a taxi directly for Waterloo station. Alexandra arrived right on time at 11:00 with the rest of her friends from Camp Beaumont. She looked great... albeit exhausted! I signed the papers releasing my daughter back to me and we waited around until 11:30 for them to open the gates for our Eurostar. At 11:31 we checked through and in to the Eurostar Lounge where we hung out for the next couple of hours. Luckily we were actually able to find a new pair of earphones for Alex so that, along with the y-connector in my computer bag, we could watch a DVD together on the train. We grabbed lunch at Bagel Factory. But mostly Alex spent her time playing on the Internet computers in the Salon and I did the same through the WiFi connection on my laptop. The Eurostar journey went fine and we watched Be Cool which I had rented. It finished a bit early so Alex watched the beginning of Timeline again. We also had a meal on the train so we were feeling a bit stuffed when we got to Paris. Our taxi was waiting there ready to whisk us off to home. Unfortunately it didn't work out that way as we spent quite some traffic and didn't get home until one hour and 35 euros later. Desney and Jessica were waiting for us in open arms and I was just glad to sit down on my own sofa in my own living room and relax.

A wonderful evening!

For my birthday present, ever so slightly belated, my in-laws took me out for an evening of dinner and theatre. We drove to Stratford-upon-Avon for an early meal at the restaurant in the theatre. Quarto's is the restaurant actually in the theatre. We had wonderful seats directly overlooking the Avon and it was an absolutely beautiful day. The sun was shining, the willow trees and all were in full bloom, there were a few swans in the river, tourists gently rowing in their rented rowboats and us looking over everything.

The entire experience was actually amazing. It turned out to be one of the best meals I've ever had in England. The food was excellent. I had a roast duck with cranberry sauce and some lightly steamed vegetables followed by a crème brulée for dessert which is only surpassed by my wife's crème brulée. Bill and I shared an excellent Chianti Russina red wine with the meal and the coffee afterwards was perfect.

After the meal all we had to do was walk downstairs to enter the theatre and our seats. The placement was amazing. We were close to the front while enough rows away to be able to see the entire stage (about 8 rows back) and right in the centre. The Royal Shakespeare Company is performing the entire works of Shakespeare over the next few months. Actually there are quite a lot of companies performing many of the shows as well at the RSC theatre. Tonight was Romeo and Juliet. I can safely say this was one of the strangest performances of Romeo and Juliet I have ever seen. However it was also one of the most enjoyable versions I have seen yet. It was rather timeless in the choice of period. The costumes looked like late 19th century. It also appeared as though the Capulets were gypsies. But that was just because of the music. Whenever the characters would fight they would actually dance. Instead of fighting each other they would dance against each other. It was all very precisely choreographed and mostly tap. They all had huge sticks (batons) that they used as weapons instead of swords. It was quite an novel way of presenting the fights. But I must say I missed the good ole fashioned sword fights more than once. This was particularly apparent during the scene when Mercutio is dying and speaks of being pierced and the blood. There was neither piercing nor blood to be seen. It was also a bit of a raunchy production with particular concentration being done to emphasise much of the built-in double-entendre and sexual innuendoes which Shakespeare had delicately sprinkled throughout the script. All-in-all it was a very strong production and one left the theatre exhausted.

At the end of the meal the waitress took our drink orders for the intermission and our same table and seats were there waiting for us. It was wonderful sitting over the river, now with nighttime offering a completely different scene, and slowly sipping red wine (Rioja) knowing we only had to stroll back downstairs to get to our seats. At the end of the performance Bill was there to drive us home. A cuppa tea later and I was in bed before midnight, packed and ready to leave the next morning.

Good Friday

I actually didn't sleep as well as I had hoped. Obviously I was in a strange bed. Although I have slept in this particular bed and this particular room so many times over the many years I believe this was the first time I was in the room alone. The room still feels to me like it's Desney's room and it is very strange sleeping in her room without her. I have been missing her a bit more and more the past few days and even the past few trips. But I truly missed her last night. It's just her simple presence that makes me somehow feel reassured and whole. Without her presence, after a while, I start feeling as though part of me is missing. It turns out that part of me is actually quite important to me and difficult to be without. I slept until about 07:00 and then stared at the ceiling until about 09:00.

My mother-in-law, Hazel, prepared for me a wonderful homemade English breakfast of perfectly scrambled eggs, bacon and sausage. I wasn't able to eat it all. But what I did eat was delicious. A bit of coffee and the ridiculous tabloid (Daily Mail) made it a relaxing experience.

After lunch I plugged my laptop in to their cable broadband connection. I was just going to check out my e-mail and surf the Internet a bit. However I noticed they now have a scanner. They had had problems with their printer, once upon a time, and they replaced it with an Epson all-in-one. I have been dreaming of coming over with my scanner one year to scan in the family photos they have preserved in boxes and albums as they are priceless additions to the family tree. I downloaded the drivers, installed, configured and connected the scanner to my laptop. I then found myself spending the rest of the day scanning in a little over 50 photos. I didn't even scratch the surface! I'm going to have to do this again and again... But I'm going to be going home with some very precious images which will no longer fade and which the rest of the family are going to love...

The end of a long week

I left the London office at about 17:30 and took a taxi to Marylebone station. I hung around Marylebone station until about 19:15 as that's when my phone call to Alex at camp was scheduled for. Desney had booked the call for me. You have to call in the morning to schedule a call for the same night or the next night. I called Alex and spoke to her for a while. She was having a great time. I was a bit disappointed that there were apparently quite a lot more French kids at the camp this time and she was spending time translating. We paid a fortune for her to go to this camp in England for her to be with English kids and speak English. I doubt we'll be sending her there again. I was not impressed with the kids, and their families, when we had waited to go on Saturday either. But she's enjoying herself and everything's going well.

I got on the next train for Royal Leamington Spa (19:30), which was packed, and arrived at Leamington station at a little after 21:00. My father-in-law, Bill, picked me up at the station and it wasn't long before I was lounging in front of the television with a can of Guinness bitter beside me. You can't beat family hospitality!

I was actually quite exhausted. It has been an extremely productive week and I am both proud and pleased about that. But it has also been long with several long days. Installing and training during the day, programming in the evening and doing a bit of telemaintenance in the evenings and mornings as clients in New York and in France needed work done on their computers. It added up to a very long week and I'm looking in to not having to wake up for anything tomorrow morning.

Spoiled

One of the department's of my client's office (horse racing) took me out to lunch today. I was literally declared the "Guest of Honour". I don't think that's ever happened to me before. They brought us all out to an absolutely fabulous little Italian restaurant near the office. We ate and drank like kings and queens. I had some fresh steamed asparagus with a simple garlic butter sauce to start, then some beef-filled ravioli with tomato sauce for my main course and finally a wonderful cappuccino to end it all off. All of this was accompanied by an absolutely wonderful Chianti Classico Riserva. The fine Chiantis have certainly moved up in quality over the past few years and this was right up there with the full-bodied fine Tuscans. It filled my mouth completely and I was able to taste most of it. The wine was so smooth and soft, while still being full-bodied, that it didn't sting me or harm me in the slightest. Just delicious pleasure going down.

I truly felt spoiled and appreciated. Just like last month... I had very little desire to go back to the office.

But back to the office to finish a very important day...

Gone

I'm still here...

I've just finished reading Jonathan Kellerman's Gone. It was quite enjoyable as always. I've been reading the Alex Delaware novels for 20 years now. I must say that they've become extremely "formulaic". This can greatly reduce the excitement. But it also feels quite comfortable... like an old blanket. It always nice to have a new Kellerman on my Palm...

It's been a few long days and late nights here in London. I've basically come to the conlusion that I no longer sleep well in hotels. I certainly used to be able to sleep anywhere. Now, whether it's due to stress or worries or comfort or whatever, I just don't get to sleep until quite late and I wake up several times in the evening. I can't wait until Friday morning to be able to sleep a bit.

I had a beer on Monday lunchtime and it went down wonderfully. I had a glass of red wine at an Italian restaurant for lunch yesterday and it just didn't. I was able to drink it but it was not really enjoyable. Much too acidic and burning on my throat. This could be due to the fact that the bottle had been kept open for quite some time, which was apparent from the nose, or simply the wine itself. But it may also just be me (again). I've been eating as fast as I can at lunch to try and keep up to what one would consider a normal speed. But starches like potatoes and bread just don't go down well at all... I tend to leave them on the plate...

Skype

For those of you who are interested I've been using Skype more and more and am actually quite impressed.

I originally started using Skype after installing it for a client for whom Skype is a revolutionary and fantastic solution. This client has offices around the world as far flung as islands on the other side of the planet. The Skype solution of free Internet phone calling is just too logical an option. I set him up with a Linksys CIT200 Wireless Skype Phone and oen in his Assistant's office. The system worked so well that I bought myself one the next day.

I set myself up with a SkypeOut account to be able to call regular phones and a SkypeIn account so people could call me on the Skype phone from regular phones and the voicemail so that I didn't have to always answer the damn thing. Most people know that I consider the telephone to be the most intrusive, aggressive and obnoxious invention known to man when misused. It is also, quite obviously, one of the most practical, invaluable and wonderful inventions known to man when used properly.

After a few weeks of regular usage I actually cancelled my normal office phone line and now use Skype exclusively as my business phone.

This trip has been particularly interesting as it's the first time I've been using Skype while travelling. I bought myself a VoIP Voice V Traveller portable Skype phone before leaving and it fits nicely in my computer bag. It's wired, rather than wireless, but when I'm travelling that's not a big deal. What is a big deal is that I can now call home, and elsewhere, via the Internet rather than the ridiculously overpriced hotel phone charges or even the less ridiculous but still overpriced international mobile phone rates. It works wonderfully.

A rude awakening

I was hoping to sleep in this morning. A few long days in a row, a relatively nice hotel, no work and no reason to wake up.

At 08:11 in the morning a friend of mine calls me on my mobile phone which wakes me up. I didn't actually answer the phone but rather turned it off and tried to go back to sleep. Later when I did get up I listened to the message. This asshole actually called me at 08:11 in the morning on a Sunday to ask me what my Skype account name was. For those of you who use Skype try this incredibly difficult task: Use the search contact feature; enter Derek as the first name and France as the country. See if you can figure out which is me out of the thousands of entries which appear. Hint: it's the first one!

Unfortunately I couldn't really get back to sleep. I got up at a little after 09:00, showered and headed off to something I had been looking forward to: a full English breakfast. The food here ain't great, in comparison to many other hotels I've been to, but breakfast was what I had expected. I literally had bacon, sausage, tomato, mushrooms... There's no point mentioning fried next to any of those words as an English breakfast is 100% fried. I had scrambled eggs which I have not had for quite some time. They went down very well. They were actually easier to eat and more enjoyable than the poached eggs I've been making myself recently. I have to remember that. The salty sausages and bacon also went down very well and I could taste all of it. The coffee was just plain awful... but then again that was entirely expected. The English make some of the best tea in the world. But they don't know from coffee. Unless of course you're willing to sell your car for the right to purchase a cup of espresso which is better than any other coffee one can drink in England but still about the level of mediocre cup of coffee in France. Breakfast was excellent.

I checked out not long after that and schlepped my bags down Park Street to Grosvenor Square and to the Marriott. I got there at 11:30 expecting to just leave my bags and head back out. My room was ready!!! I was therefore able to get up in to my room, completely unpack, lie down for a bit and get the computer up and running. I am now sitting here typing this on the, in my personal opinion, overpriced WiFi connection in my room (£20.00 per day) which was entirely free at the other hotel.

I will be heading out for a bit of shopping soon...

A late night

Unfortunately the food here is actually even worse than at the Marriott Hotel which is worse than what was at the Millenium Hotel. But all of these compare as junk food in comparison to the Capital Hotel.

Room service food was really quite disappointing. When the food looks and smells disappointing before my, seriously impaired, taste buds even attempt to start it's not an enjoyable experience.

It's nights like these that I miss the Capital Hotel. The Capital was probably one of my all-time favourite hotels. The rooms were beautiful. The service impeccable. The food just plain wonderful. Absolutely High-Class all the way. The only problem was it's just not practical as a business hotel for my particular needs. It's too far from my client's office and requires a taxi which is not always easy to acquire first thing in the morning. Sometimes it literally took 45 minutes to get a taxi in the morning. It also has NO INTERNET ACCESS in the rooms. The only possibility is nose-hemmorhage slow and old-fashioned telephone access (56k) at outrageous per-minute charges. It's obvious that the Capital will most likely never be my business hotel location again... but there are definitely moments like these that I miss it.

After a really long day, following a couple of sequentially long days, I just can't get to sleep.

The first time I've taken a nap in the afternoon in a while?

Too much coffee in the afternoon?

Nerves, stress and anxiety?

English-language television on almost every channel of the television?

French is more than my second language. But it'll never be my first language. English will always be more subconscious than French. French is somewhere in between a second language and my first language: my 1.5 language? Although I watch French-language quite often English-language entertainment still feels more natural and easy. Therefore when I'm in a country where there is so much English-language entertainment available I tend to overindulge.

Whatever the reason... it's 1:30 in the morning, I'm exhausted and still awake.

But tomorrow's Sunday morning... time for a bit of a lie-in after 3 long days.

Bison futé

Road traffic and slow transportation is so important to us here in France that we treat it much the same ways that the Americans treat National Defense.

In America there are the DefCon conditions which pass from 5 through 1 and, more appropriately, the Homeland Security advisories which pass from green through blue, yellow and orange to red.

In France we have our road traffic conditions which pass from green days through orange days and red days through to black days and nights. These are all dictated and predicted by the national organisation known as Bison Futé (sharpened buffalo).

This morning was declared Orange. Therfore, after having spent an hour getting in to Paris in the morning for that past two mornings running, I was quite worried that Alex and I were going to have to leave home at 06:30 in the morning to get to the Gare du Nord on time for a 10:19 Eurostar.

Yet again... things were no where near as bad as the national organisations had predicted.

Anyone remember the Y2K Scare?