That new car smell

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

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

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

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??!?!?!

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...

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

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

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

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

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!

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!

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

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!

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!

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...

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}!

Another test... another exam... I PASSED!

I had difficulty sleeping last night... yet another exam today that I can't study for...

I tried to get some work done in the morning but my head just wasn't in to it...

Back to see Dr. Hagège again for my quarterly checkup.

We went through my PET scan results first which we both knew were good.

Then on to the exam. I had taken a Xanax an hour and a half before to prepare. But he brought out a new "toy". In addition to the cameras which go up my nostrils and then down the back of my throat he now has a bigger one which goes right in the mouth and down the throat. I'm afraid that didn't work and we both knew it wasn't going to. He therefore shot the anesthesia up my nostrils and talked to me a bit while waiting for it to kick in. He asked me some questions about his old Mac computer which was acting up and I gave him a few tips as best I could with cotton shoved up my nose.

Finally he went in for the kill and I believe my innards were broadcast on an enormous screen he has on his wall. I say "I believe" as I keep my eyes closed throughout these things. I tend to be crying during and after so I wouldn't see anything anyway. He knows me well enough to give me tissues even before we get started. He was apparently pleased with what he saw. He tried to get the new camera down my throat again but my body just wasn't having it. One hand holding the tip of my tongue and pulling it towards him and the other hand trying to shove, excuse me "slide", this camera tube down my throat. My throat still considers that nothing should go back there that can not be chewed first or squeezed in to nothingness by my throat muscles. In other words "solid objects are forbidden". He saw what he wanted to see and had me do my "eeeee" and "uuuuuuu" and "ohohohoh" sounds while he checked out my vocal chords on the big screen.

Finally it was over. It must have lasted just a few minutes... maybe 10 or 20 all together... but for me it always feels like an eternity.

We sat down at his desk and went over the status and the future. He was pleased to announce that my entire throat area and upper chest are clear of cancer and have been for a while. He then came out with the first bit of really good news: as it's been more than a year now since the surgery he feels we can now see each other every 4 months rather than every 3 months. Most of you reading this are probably thinking: "big deal... one more month". But that means I will see him 3 times a year rather than 4 and that makes a big difference to me!

As we talked it was obvious that there are aspects, as I've always known, that I'm just "going to have to live with": the eternal lack of saliva (hyposalivation) and the "champignons" on the back of my tongue.

We plan on my next appointment for March 2007. I'm not holding my breath!

I went home and went to bed and slept with the comfort that, at least for today, I am (still) cancer free!

MSIE 7 and Vista

I've been "playing around" with Vista more and more on my Tablet PC and I have to admit I really like what I see. Microsoft have "been inspired" by some of the best functionality of the other OSes out there (Mac and LINUX especially) and have implemented some pretty nice new functions. A lot of the most interesting functions are actually "under the bonnet" motor type function (such as being able to go back to previous versions of files, offline document synchronising, ...). But the interface is a definite major change and going to require getting used to. I see training money coming in for many IT companies out there.

MSIE 7 is definitely a pleasure and I have a lot of trouble going back and forth between MSIE 6 on all of my other computers ans MSIE 7 on my Vista Tablet. Tabbing, "inspired" directly from Firefox, is probably the most noticeable improvement and definitely the one I use most. They got this one right and I now have difficulty remembering how to work without it. Their management of Favourites is also greatly improved and again I have difficulty going back to MSIE 6 and finding my Favourites through the "old" procedures.

I will not go in to Office 2007 at the moment... I am basically lost in the new interface. I am sure new users will find this much more "friendly". But I am losing lots of time trying to find how to do the same simple things I used to do within the new "ribbons" and "tabs"... This too is going to require major training around the world. IT companies should be raking it in next year (2007). Thank you Microsoft!

Rate Your Music or MusicThing

My loyal readers will remember I mentioned Library Thing a while ago for online cataloguing of our book collection.

I asked several times on their forums and such if they were planning anything similar for music which I referred to as "Music Thing". It appears that they are working hard on new functions for Library Thing and, although Music Thing is a thought in the back of a few developers' minds, they do not have time to work on such a product. However someone on the forum recommend I check out Rate Your Music.

On first glance I figured that he had not understood what I was looking for: online management of my CD collection. It looked as though this was just a site for everyone to put up their ratings (up to 5 stars) and personal reviews of music (CDs, vinyl, tapes, ...). Although that looked like fun, and a vital part of Library Thing, it was not what I was looking for.

Luckily the account creation was free and I gave it a try. I quickly found out that you can "also" include your own music and declare that you "own" the music and in what form it is owned. This is even better than I had hoped for. I can actually note which CDs I have as CDs, which vinyls and, most importantly, which music I have "only" as MP3 files. This allows me to have all of my music collection in one piece of software and online... and it's free!

Windows Media Player, or iTunes, allow me to catalogue and manage my MP3 files. But they do not include music which I have not put in to the computer. Some other software such as Music Collection Pro allow me to manage my CDs, vinyls and tapes and such but not my MP3 files. This is the first program I have found which nicely manages both in one place.

The functions similar to Library Thing such as tags and "compatability lists" are a lot of fun. I found someone else out there who has almost exactly the same jazz CDs I have. The statistics part is really fun as well.

I have entered about 150 of my CDs at the moment and will continue to do so as time permits. That's probably about one tenth of my total collection. I hope to finish cataloguing everything sometime before I die... then everyone else can have fun looking at what's I "had" and start fighting over who gets what!

I've added a link to my music collection in the Links section in the menu over there on the right.

The Mushroom Hunt

Asleep at 2:30 and up early in the morning to get ready for the annual APESA Mushroom Hunt. I was really pleased someone else was organising this...

Alexandra and I jumped in the car and headed out to the forest of Saint Nom la Bretèche where we met everyone else who had come in by train. A little over an hour strolling through the forest ending with a picnic with hot chocolate for the kids and hot mulled wine for the rest of us. As I spent my entire time talking I didn't get to drink much. As I strolled through the forest I had my small bottle of water which I (unfortunately) always have to keep with me so as to keep my mouth and throat lubricated (replacing the saliva I no longer produce). A lot of the kids got thirsty throughout the walk and no one else seemed to have thought of bringing water. The kids therefore kept asking if they could have some of mine and I kept refusing. I didn't want to go in to a long explanation but water for me is more than just a nice drink to enjoy it's the vital ingredient that keeps me swallowing and talking...

We had a great time outside and I was just as overjoyed to get home... ah the wonders of the afternoon nap.

Ron Carter... Live!

Yesterday was yet another long day to end a week of long days...

I had to get up extra early to drive out to Normandy for a meeting which was only supposed to last a couple of hours. A 3-hour drive one way, a 2-hour meeting and a 3-hour drive home was really something to look forward to... no? The meeting, as I should have guessed, lasted longer than expected and I was not going to have time to go home before going back out again for the meeting.

On the drive home I was so exhausted from this week of long days that I literally had to pull over and try and take a nap for about a half an hour or so. My phone hadn't rung at all during the morning or my meeting. But, of course, it rang 6 times while I was trying to take a nap. Realising that this just wasn't going to work I drove off heading back to Paris.

I called Robbie while on the road to let him know of the change of plans. I figured I would pick him up at his place rather than meeting him at the club. I was coming towards Paris and there was no point going home and then going to the club. That made things easier.

About an hour later it was obvious that I wasn't going to be able to get to Robbie's and then to the club in time. The traffic just outside of Paris meant that I was going to have to head directly for the club and meet him there.

Many weeks earlier, while surfing the web, I came across the JVC Jazz Festival Paris listing. I used to publish this programme on my, now defunct, Jazz in France web site. But I never went... not once. As many of you are aware I am spending the rest of my life, whatever's left of it, avoiding that sort of phrase "I always wanted to do that... I just never got around to it or I just never had the time". I saw who was playing and where and decided to contact Robbie and see if I could get some company as I knew there was one concert I just had to see.

Ron Carter is one of those jazz legends I have sworn to see live before either he or I die. I still will never forgive myself for not having seen my hero Joe Pass before he died. Ron Carter is probably the jazz bassist I have listened to most in my life and probably the one I remember most. There's a much younger jazz bassist I adore as well but we'll discuss him sometime later {g}. It's rare that I would play a bass album over and over again. But my copies of his "Pastels" and "Piccolo" albums would have been long since worn out by now if they were vinyl.



The New Morning is probably one of the biggest and most famous jazz clubs in Paris. Again I used to publish the programme of this club on my Jazz in France web site and always longed to go there. I had never been before. I ordered tickets for this concert many weeks earlier to make sure we had them and it was a good thing. I picked Robbie up on the corner at about 18:45 and we looked forever for a parking space. We finally parked a reasonable distance from the club. As we finally reached the club on foot I let loose one of those classic smack on the forehead moments. I had left the tickets in the car. Walk back to the car, find me a toilet, walk back to the club and we were standing in the queue at 19:30. The concert was supposed to start at 21:00 and the joint was already packed. We were able to get some "reasonable" seats and purchase some overpriced beer at the bar. The concert was just plain wonderful. A perfectly relaxing evening to end a very rushed week. The adjectives are easy and they are all synonyms of "smooth" or "mellow" or "laid back" or... you get the idea. Just plain pleasure. The man was surrounded by people who loved him and were just dying to hear him play and he delivered. He had brought with him a guitar player I had also been dying to hear/see play live: Russell Malone. I have to admit to not having been an enormous fan of his own albums. But I have loved his work on Diana Krall's early trio and quartet albums. The concert was referred to as "Ron Carter's Golden Striker Trio" and it was an interesting concept: the trio without a drum. A bass, a guitar and a piano [Stephen Scott who I wish would shut up while he's playing]. Although the entire concert was just plain wonderful, and few can beat Ron Carter for rhythym, I definitely was missing the drums within a half-hour in to the first set. At the end of the second set I definitely wished they had brought a drummer along... but it was still one of the better jazz concerts I've been to in a very long time. You may want to put this in to perspective: I have not been to a jazz concert in a very very long time.

Afterwards we went out to get a bite to eat. Not a lot was open... We wound up at a FLO Brasserie in the neighbourhood, had an excellent 3-course meal with a wonderful bottle of wine, and I didn't get home until about 2 in the morning. A great night with a great friend and great music. What more can one ask for?

And now to sleep... aye perchance to dream...

Another long day

After getting in late last night I had to get up on time in the morning to get as much work done as possible after 3 days of being away. I also needed to go through my last-minute preparations for the evening.

In the evening was our parents' association Board meeting and we had an awful lot to get through. This turned out to be one of the most productive Board meetings we've ever had as we actually created our budget from A to Z in one night.

I got home absolutely exhausted...

NetGear Skype WiFi Phone

I have been waiting for this thing for so long I had almost forgotten about it. The NetGear Skype phone which works without a computer and which is completely WiFi. It can work all over my home, which has WiFi on each floor (of course), and anywhere else I can find a WiFi connection including many of my clients' offices. It connects to the nearest WiFi network almost automatically and it automatically has all of my Skype contacts built-in. This means I can call anyone on Skype for free without having to be near my computer and anyone else in the world at the low SkypeOut phone rates.

It arrived while I was working in London and I had it redelivered this morning. It arrived in what has become of my busier days. But it was already charged and I had it up and running in less than 10 minutes.

Lots of fun!

Another long trip

Three days in London (again)...

Very long days, early travel on Monday morning and late nights every other night...

But probably one of the more productive business trips I've had recently. Lots of medium-term and long-term plans were put in to place and I felt good on the long train ride home...

It was particularly nice to find my car waiting for me in the parking lot when I arrived. Not having to queue up for a taxi or fight with the taxi company over why the taxi I ordered to wait for me was not there and all of those nerve-racking experiences made the entire trip much more pleasurable. I generally remember the last part of the trip more than the rest. Therefore if that last journey is enjoyable everything else appears more enjoyable too.

iFit

We have this absolutely amazing gym downstairs in the basement which Desney rebuilt and designed. She fixed the walls, sealed the leaks in the cement floors, repainted everything and set everything up.

We have rubber gym flooring we laid down; she has a step she uses for exercising.

I, of course, put in a computer and a big 19" screen on an arm out of the wall. Desney uses it for watching exercise DVDs for her workout. I also put in some speakers so we can listen to sound coming from the computer and, more importantly for me, music coming out of our iPods.

We've got a big weight bench we've had for almost as long as we've been married (it used to be in our bedroom) and a reasonable collection of free weights.

And we've got a treadmill which I run on every now and then. More then than now. I used it relatively often when I first bought it and I used it for a bit when I was getting better after treatments and such. I now rarely have the time and I get bored after a while... even with some great tunes blaring away.

Desney on the other hand is practically obsessive in how she treats her workout routines. She's already up early in the morning and now she's up even earlier enough in order to work out almost every morning of the week!

I thought I had a really simple idea: find a some stock footage type videos to watch while running so as to give me the feeling I'm moving. It seemed so simple and logical I figured there would be tons out there.

I couldn't find any.

The closest I found was iTrain which has these MP3 audio workouts you can buy and download and listen to while you work out. I bought one for a treadmill workout. I found the voice incredibly annoying, the music rather bland and elevator-like and the workout just plain boring. I gave up on that one after just one workout.

I then found something which I had actually looked at when I first bought the treadmill: iFit. This site is actually normally linked to the equipment itself. With iFit-compatible equipment the site workout literally controls the exercise machine and runs the workout for you. However you can also use their workouts without actually connecting something to your equipment. This is useful because my treadmill is not iFit-compatible.

I tried my first "video workout" today and did a half-hour run through the coast of Hawaii. It was certainly a lot more fun than any other treadmill workout I had done before and I was pushed more than I would normally have run. That's saying something because I tend to push myself too far in general. But their use of the term "video" was a bit exagerated. It's more like still shots with the camera moving around the shot (sort of like a slideshow) and the workout training talking over the shots. It's quite interesting in that I can choose between a male or a female voice and I can choose the style of music I want to exercise to. I chose Rock by accident as I wanted to choose Dance which is what I normally workout to. But it came out fine and I enjoyed it all the same. Looking at the choice of styles however I can't possibly imagine doing a half-hour (or longer) workout to Country! Talk aobut torture!!

At the end of the workout the workout "history" is recorded on the web site and I can keep track of my exercising online.

So far so good... we'll see how long this lasts!

A rough throat day

I spent basically the entire day on the telephone. I would hang up the phone and it would ring again. It just didn't stop. I didn't get anything I had planned on doing done. But I still worked non-stop.

When I get busy like this I generally feel as though I'm a prisoner in my office chair. Eventually I get up for some reason, to look up something or such, and suddenly realise that I haven't been to the toilet in quite some time. This time it was worse. The sudden realisation that I have not urinated in hours is quite a (negative) rush when I've been drinking water all day. But the sudden realisation that I have not drank any water in over an hour and I haven't stopped talking during that period is actually quite a shock. I had a minor coughing fit and basically felt incredibly stupid. It took me quite a lot of water to get everything lubricated again.

And then the phone rang...

[My first blog entry written entirely in handwriting on my Tablet PC]

A Day at the Arc

What a wonderful day!!!

Jessica and I were invited to the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe horse race day at Longchamp racecourse in Paris. I've been going for almost 15 years now and have only missed one (last year - for obvious reasons).

We got there in time for the first race having parked somewhere in the middle of the race track kilometres away. Jessica looked beautiful, as usual, and her gorgeous cream heels were sinking in to the turf as we walked. We found our gracious host who welcomed us warmly and gave us our tickets. Off to the exclusive and private owners' section for a glass of Champagne and the day was off to a nice start. Beautiful weather, people all in their best attire and not necessarily best behaviour everywhere and just plain fun.

Our day started off wonderfully as Jess and I picked a winner in the 2nd race who was 24 to one. I had bet a nice sum, as this was my first bet of the day, and reaped in some great winnings! This was the first time when Jessica could bet by herself as no one believed she was under 18. Her first bet by herself and she wins 24 to one! Even betting 2 euros that is a great way to start.

Things couldn't be bad after that. I probably consistently lost afterwards, to a certain extent, but didn't get anywhere near to touching my winnings from the first race. We just had a great time going back and forth between the horse parading and our seats up in the Tribunes just overlooking the finish line.

My client (our team) had a runner in the fifth race and we were all excited to be part of it. The horse didn't win or place. But we were all still in great spirits.

Finally it was the big race of the day: The Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe. The Japanese were present in amazingly full force as for the first time a Japanese horse was favourite to win. They were everywhere! Even the announcements throughout the day were in French and Japanese. Jessica bet on a not-so-likely stallion who was 25 to one. I bet (win and place) on the very unlikely only filly in the race up against seven stallions. Jessica bet the same filly to place. Jessica's horse won and the filly we chose to place came in second!!! The Japanese horse (Deep Impact) came in third.

We were both overjoyed. I was extra proud and pleased with Jessica's win. What a great end to a great day! We both went home with more money than when we came. If we had broken even, after having had such a great time, it would have been just a day. But having a wonderful day and going home a winner was just a great feeling.

[I am obviously running out of adjectives other than great, wonderful and amazing. I am writing this on Monday morning and not feeling too creative]

After battling traffic (less so than if we lived in Paris) we got home at a pretty reasonable hour. I turned off the mobile phone and relaxed for a while. We opened up a bottle of our favourite Crémant which we sipped upon while Desney and I prepared a very simple, but hearty, dinner of pasta and veg. A lovely bottle of Château Tour Haut-Caussan (2001) and a good dinner made for a great end of a great day.

Unfortunately dinner broke out in to arguments, yelling and screaming over child management, education, holidays, orientation and such and did not end well. Jessica had probably forgotten what a wonderful day it was by the time she went to bed.

I kicked back and watched another couple of episodes of E.R. (in French!) which is still my way of turning on to some completely mindless pleasure and tune out on the rest of the week in preparation for the week to come!

Tablet PC, Windows Vista and Office 2007

While I was in London I picked up a new Fujitsu Siemens Stylistic ST5032 Tablet PC (http://www.fujitsu-siemens.com/products/mobile/tablet_pcs/stylistic_st502x.html). It's a pretty powerful piece of kit with 1.5 GB of RAM, 60 GB of disk a 1.2GHz Pentium M, WiFi (802.11abg), Gigabit Ethernet, Bluetooth, a fingerprint reader and of course the stylus. I also got a docking station which comes with a DVD burner drive. In addition to my already overbusy evenings I played around with this most nights during my London trip. It's really quite a fun piece of equipment. I can already see lots and lots of different, and quite unique, uses for a truly portable computer with no wires at all and no keyboard or mouse necessary.

But one of the major reasons I got this, in addition to testing the Tablet PC concept, is that I have fully signed up to beta test Windows Vista and Office 2007. After getting home from my long trip, and getting a good night's sleep, I spent a good portion of the day installing all of this software on my new tablet to see what it looks like and how it works. For the moment I am both pleased, impressed and underimpressed. Although it looks pretty and more graphical my first gut reactions are "cluttered" and unorganised. But we'll see as I work with it... I have to start preparing as I'll be working pretty intensively with all of this next year and I need to be ready...

A long week

Woke up early Monday morning and headed off to the Eurostar for what was the beginning of a very long week at the London office.

Evenings (after a day at the office) were spent trying to catch up with the e-mails and problems of the day; early mornings (before going to the office) were spent trying to fix clients' problems in France before the London office hours. Working solid from about 07:30 to midnight every day...

Finally got on the Eurostar to come home Friday night, reached Gare du Nord and queued up for a half an hour to get a taxi. I got home about 23:30 to find the entire household already in bed.

A long and good night's sleep in MY bed next to my wife was worth it all...

The results are in!

Desney and I started up our dance classes again. We had missed out on last year's classes for reasons which should be obvious to anyone who reads this blog.

The class went very well and I didn't feel as though we were behind the others at all even after a year. It was a great hour of fun. It was really hot in the class room... I just wish I could sweat a bit less! More than slightly embarassing. I was a ball of sweat by the end. I didn't want to touch me so I can only fear what it would have been like for the women who had to dance with me...

Just as our class started Dr. Hagège, my specialist, called me. He had the results of my PET scan in front of him. Everything was negative. That always sounds bad to me and for a moment my heart flutters. But for those in the medical profession negative is good. It means that the scan did not find anything. This is actually quite positive for me. It means that there is no other cancer somewhere else in my body at the moment. That is nothing but good news.

I will see him again at the end of October, beginning of November, for another one of his wonderful exams [tongue planted firmly in cheek]

My 3 minutes 24 seconds of fame...

I am certainly not known for making long stories short and am infamous for quite the opposite. However I really do not have a lot of time recently for anything...

I was at a client's yesterday when I received a phone call from a friend who I've known for years. She had been recently interviewed by BBC World Service for some lexicographical information. Apparently the producer of the BBC World Service Europe Today program had called her looking to speak to Americans as regards September 11th and the evolution of how Americans have been treated in France. She gave him my contact information and he called me. When I was done with my client I had a long talk with him outside and basicaly did a phone pre-interview.

I found the subject quite interesting and was able to throw in quite a few mentions of our school and even our parents' association. I got the feeling during the interview however that I was not necessarily the ideal candidate he was looking for and I also felt that the direction I was going in as regards the treatment of Americans in France was not necessarily what he was looking to portray. I naively thought that this is the news and therefore it didn't matter. After our discussion he asked me to go to the BBC World Service Paris studios to record an interview. It was very close to where I was, it would take 15 minutes and I was just heading home anyway. Hell I get stuck in traffic for longer than that.

I walked to the BBC World Service Paris office which was a tiny little thing with 3 "journalists" working at computers and a small, but impressive, recording studio. I was sat down with an 8-track sound board in front of me. My eyes lit up and I was immediately reminded not to touch anything. That was a good thing as my first reflex was to play...

The producer came over the headphones, from London, and briefly went over our original discussion and then finally the interviewer. He asked me the questions for the "real interview" and it was very obvious we were going in two different directions. It was obvious that everything I had said about the school was no longer of interest. It was also obvious that I was not the proud American citizen in France they were looking for. They were not that interested in my positive comments as regards the general treatment of Americans in France and they took some of my comments as regards treatment of foreigners in general and applied them to the Americans. And this was just within the interview itself! The interview ended on a sour note as I was not able to give them the sound bite they were looking for. He wanted to end the interview with the question "So Derek are you proud to be an American and in France?" I replied "I'm afraid I can't say that I am." He then came back with "Can you say you are proud to be an American?" and I replied "I certainly could not go on the record with that remark... all I can say is I am pleased and proud to be in France." After the mike was supposedly shut down he thanked me for the interview and I apologised for not being the ideal American interviewee.

In the evening I listened to the end result on the Europe Today web page. If you hurry to that page you can hear the entire show online... until they upload the next show to replace it. I realised just how naive I was. Through some rather brilliant editing they had actually made it sound like I felt that Americans were treated poorly in France for a time. They even took one of the things I just generally mentioned and threw in a question before it, which they had never actually asked me during the interviews, so it sounds like my remark was in reply to the question. My remark as to speaking French so as not to be recognised as an American was not in relation to anything as regards snide remarks. It was in relation to a separet discussion about the fact that I am not proud to be an American and am pleased to be an expatriot.

The entire experience just goes to enforce my skeptical and cynical beliefs as regards the bias of the news media around the world. The more I am personally involved with events which are newsworthy and then see how they are portrayed in the news the more I realise just how far reality is from the news.

I obviously recorded my part of the interview for prosperity. I have stored it all in one MP3 File which is 1.6 Megabytes in size. I stand behind very little of what it appears as though I actually said.

My first PET scan

I woke up late as I knew I wasn't going to be able to eat all morning. There was no need to prolong the uncomfortability. The girls had already left for school and Desney was doing her, now daily, workout in the gym. I therefore was left to putter around trying to find some way to keep my mind occupied and off of food without starting work which I would not be able to stop in time to leave for my appointment. Eventually I went off to Darty to pick up the new electric toothbrush my dentist had prescribed for me. It took me quite some time to choose between the two he had recommended and eventually I chose the Oral B Professional Care 8500. I personally found 100 € quite a lot of money for this sort of everyday tool. But with all I've been spending on my health over the past year this is a grain of sand on the endless beach.

I finally drove off to Sarcelles to find the special clinic for my scan. I had calculated an hour with traffic and gave myself a few extra minutes as well. Of course it only took 20 minutes and I spent over a half an hour just strolling through the suburb of Sarcelles. This is one of those amazingly ugly suburbs with concrete block tower flats all over the place. I walked around the area where my scan was going to take place and felt like I was in the cancer capital of the world. Next to my PET scan hangar was an IRM scan speciality building, and then a clinic providing radiotherapy and chemotherapy and then a private hospital with specialist cancer wards and surgery and then an ambulance building and last, but certainly not least from an impact point of view, was a funeral house. I obviously turned away from this area and headed to the centre of town.

What I was amazed to find was that this was probably the biggest Jewish neighbourhood I've been to in France next to the rue des Rosiers. The radioactive hangar which housed my scan laboratory was behind what is the biggest synagogue I've seen in France. Absolutely every single restaurant was Beth Din kosher, as was every butcher and even the greengrocers and bakeries. 90% of the males walking around had yarmulkes on and the vast majority of women and little girls were wearing very old-fashioned dresses. It was quite an interesting walk around. Unfortunately for me however the bagel shops and felafel restaurants were making me very hungry. I headed back to the car, which was parked in the blazing sun in the parking lot in front of the scan centre, took out my bag with all of my x-ray and scan results and my small bottle of water and headed off for my scan.

I arrived about 10 minutes early which, as usual, was a good idea due to all of the necessary paperwork. The PET scan itself doesn't cost me anything. However I had to fill out and sign the papers which go to the social security for them to pay directly so I know that normally it would cost about 1,250 €. I can understand why they don't want many of us having this sort of thing too often. I had a visit with a doctor which lasted all of 5 minutes. He looked at the results of my scans and x-rays and noted that there was nothing to note. He asked me about my cancer, my surgery, my treatment dates and any allergies. He then told me what they were going to do to me and to sit in the waiting room. This 5-minute consultation cost me 89.00 € (which will be entirely reimbursed).

I sat in the waiting room with all of the other cancer victims or survivors. This was a much easier situation than sitting in the normal treatment clinic waiting room as everyone here had finished their treatments at least 3 months ago and generaly longer. One can not have a PET Scan earlier than that. This was therefore the "Survivor's Room" and I was damn glad, and actually quite proud, to be one of them. Looking around I realised, yet again, how lucky I really should start feeling some time soon. The long-term effects of my cancer and treatments could have been so much worse than the annoying little discomforts I have to live with. I don't have a sack hanging out of my body for my waste, I have all my hair, I still have all of my organs (except for my appendix which is a different, unrelated and ridiculously trivial matter), I can still speak and taste (to a certain extent), my legs and arms still function perfectly and so on and so forth. None of us said a word to each other. But we all knew why we were there and we all had a pretty good idea as to what the other had been through to get there. There is a sort of mutual respect and admiration amongst cancer survivors. We don't need to describe things to each other for we know what we're talking about without even talking. This is the exact opposite of trying to explain chemotherapy to someone who's never been through it. It's like explaining sex to a virgin. There is just too much which is beyond intellectual explanation. That said I would certainly prefer telling a virgin "Don't worry about it you'll know someday" than even faintly wishing chemotherapy, and the various other cancer treatments, upon even my worst enemy. We all sat there in silence, reading our books and magazines, waiting for our turn.

The exam was not a big deal. It was just very long. First they take some blood and then put in an IV unit. I then have to lie down while they run through some liquids to dilute me and protect me from the tiny quantities of radioactive stuff they put through afterwards. This involves me lying down for about an hour and a half with liquids running through me and a nurse coming around to change the IV bags every now and then. This reminded me way too much of my chemotherapy treatment periods. Eventually I am then taken to the scan room where I take off my shoes, trousers, earring, eyeglasses and watch. I was then told to lie down on the scan bed and placed in a position with my hands above my head, my chin in a specific position and my hips in a specific position. I was then told not to move for a little over 20 minutes. I was not strapped in our physically held in any way. Twenty minutes may seem like a very short amount of time in the scheme of things. But remaining perfectly immobile for that long can become excruciatingly long. At the same time the scan tunnel is passing up and down my body. My eyes are closed of course and I am trying to think of other things... I make all sorts of plans during these moments and create long lists of things to do in my head. They are almost all completely forgotten about 5 minutes after the procedure.

Once the scan was finished I was told to sit in the waiting room and was allowed to eat. I was not that hungry so the fact that I hadn't brought anything with me was not a problem. About 15 minutes later I was allowed to leave. They explained that the results of the scan would be sent directly to my doctor who should have them in about 10 days.

I am assuming that if the results show any bad news then my doctor would contact me directly. If it's good news it will probably wait until I see him again sometime in October.

Books Online

I know there are a whole lot of entries I should be adding here before this... But I've been spending (wasting) quite a lot of time on this stuff recently and thought I'd mention it.



I've been using Book Collector Pro for many years now to organise my library of books. The program works wonderfully well and the fact that it gets all of its information online makes entry very easy. However, by definition, it's a private program which runs on my computers. In order to share the information I have to publish it on one of my web sites somewhere. I will probably continue to use Book Collector for quite some time to come as there is a lot of information in their database which I can't (yet) store somewhere else.

Library Thing is a completely online library collection service where one can store one's book collection online where it is always available. There are a few big advantages to this. One is what they refer to as "tags". With this notion you can add any sort of tagged information to books to find them, group them or sort them later. Even more interesting is that you can see other people's libraries with the same tags and browse. I find the tag cloud and the author cloud functions quite fun and the statistics function can be quite interesting.

But one of the functions I found to be the most interesting and practical for me is the PDA version of the site. This allows me to access my library, or anyone else's for that matter, directly on my Blackberry or my Palm via the Internet. This can be invaluable as it allows me to see if I already have a book when I'm looking for books in stores or talking to people.

Adding books from Book Collector was really easy as Library Thing works almost entirely with ISBNs. I exported the list of ISBNs from Book Collector, imported them in to Library Thing, waited a few hours while it compared the ISBNs with books in Amazon and elsewhere and when I awoke the next morning I had about 500 books in my online library.

I have since been spending way too much time fine tuning my library entries and browsing around through my library and other people's libraries...

You'll find a couple of new references to Library Thing down on the bottom of the right tool bar...

Book Crossing
Wihle browsing through Library Thing I got sidetracked over to Book Crossing. It looks like another very interesting web concept. We have a whole bunch of books we're about to ged rid of, as the kids have grown out of them, and this looks like a really great way to do so. I immediately set up an account, ordered a bunch of stickers and will start registering books when I get some time. Looks like an interesting project along the same lines as Freecycle while throwing in a lot of literary aspects and references.

Now you know why I've been too busy to update my blog!

Pirates of the Caribbean 2

Alexandra has been dying to see this one! The second installment of Pirates of the Caribbean opened in the States and in the UK almost a month ago. Jessica went to see it in the States and reported back to us which Alex even more jealous. Today was the opening in France. I bought tickets online to be entirely certain we had places and swooped Alex up and in the car and off to La Défense at lunch time. We got there a half-hour before the start of the séance and there were already about a dozen people queued up even with their tickets. We obviously arrived at the right time as about 10 minutes later the queue was literally 100 metres long.

We sat through the séance of previews and adverts as usual. Alex is now dying to see the new Alex Rider movie, whenever it comes out here, and she has even said she'd like to read the books!

Finally the movie started and two and a half hours later it ended. It was definitely long and a lot could have been edited out. Alex had a great time which was the goal. I thoroughly enjoyed Johnny Depp as always and had fun. It was a cheap ending leading up to the third movie which I believe has currently finished filming.

I was actually able to eat a bit of popcorn this time, washed down with a reasonable amount of coke, which made me feel like it was an achievement!