Sheeeee's Back!

After 5 weeks in America and, more importantly, away from home... she's back!

I went to the airport and picked up Jessica. She had flown from New York City to London and had actually made the transfer in London to her Paris flight and arrived safe and sound.

She came home with just about exactly twice as much luggage as when she left. But everything arrived in one piece.

She was pleasantly surprised with the new furniture in the living room and news of our holiday plans (August 13th through August 27th)...

But she's a very difficult lady to impress...

Either way... we're truly glad to have her back!

Blackberry

More and more of my clients have one of these things. I also see more and more people using them when I'm travelling (train, plane, coach, ...). Although I still adore my beloved Palm TX I had to finally go out and get myself a Blackberry 8700.

It took most of the day to get the damn thing to work. This had nothing to do with the Blackberry itself but rather the amazing level of imcompetence of Orange (the mobile phone company which is a direct affiliate of France Télécom which is our national phone company. All of the employees of both companies are therefore civil servants. The level of service, or lack thereof, can be quite amazing.

I had ordered a Blackberry with the Blackberry data plan (15 MB per month automatically adjusted) to be used in addition to my mobile phone. My mobile phone is still my voice line and my Blackberry is to be used almost solely as a mobile Internet terminal.

Funny enough I had just spent yesterday installing a Blackberry 8700f (Orange) for a client and had exactly the same sort of problems there. They had not activated the Blackberry option and had only activated the voice option. Yesterday it took me about 2 phone calls and an hour to get it all sorted out. Today it took at least 8 to 10 phone calls and several hours. Finally I got everything working and was able to start playing with the handset.

I of course immediately started searching the web for additional software and options. I was actually quite underwhelmed by what I found... especially in comparison to the hundreds, if not thousands, of software I find for Palms.

But I can definitely see the attraction. The thing does what it's supposed to do and it can certainly become addictive. Always being able to get one's e-mail and being able to answer and being able to (relatively) quickly access the Internet for info and such is a great feeling of power. But it's still just like a mobile phone: the first thing to learn is how to turn the damn thing off!

I will be testing software and various options to see if I can get the thing to work with our secure e-mail services, with digital certificates and such, and whether it will be a valid option for our mobile users.

I now am a very well-equipped travelling geek. I'm easy to spot. I'm sitting on the Eurostar with a Nokia N70 mobile phone, a Blackberry 8700, a Palm TX, an iPod Nano and my big Dell Inspiron 9400 laptop.

Quarterly Checkup

Yesterday I got up out of bed after not sleeping well. The heat at night is not making it easy to sleep. Add on to that my general apprehension of today's appointment and it makes for a rough night.

I basically live my live 3 months at a time. After my exams I live happily for about a week and then I spend the next eleven weeks worrying about my next exam. My basic problem is that I never saw this coming in the first place and I therefore don't think I would have any idea if it started to come back. Thus I live in constant fear that it's going to come back sometime between these quarterly visits and I will not know about it until after the visit.

I tried to get some work done in the morning as I knew the rest of the day would be useless and the next day was going to be at a client's. I then took Alexandra out to lunch to her favourite lunchtime restaurant Le Cercle down by the train station. I had a good lunch as I knew I wouldn't eat again.

I dropped Alexanda off at home, took my pre-medication (Xanax) to calm me down and relax my muscles. [I just read the entry in Wikipedia "panic and anxiety" that's definitely me... "borderline personality disorder" is probably the way others describe me] I think it's the heat but the effects of the Xanax seemed to be stronger this time than others as I took the métro to the doctor's and seemingly drunkenly staggered down the road to his office.

My ENT specialist, Dr. Hagège, started with the standard questions about how I was doing. He said my voice sounds much better than it did last time. As usual I only tend to notice that it doesn't sound as good as it did pre-cancer than the fact that it has greatly improved over the last 3 months. I also realised that my cough is gone. It has come back over the past 10 days or so. But not with coughing fits like before and it seems to be purely due to the heat and my throat drying out more often as I stupidly forget to drink while working.

We then went through the exam I had been dreading or more correctly trying not to think about. The camera up each nostril and down the throat, the image of my insides projected about 2 metres by 1 metre on a huge screen while I desperately try and relax and think of other things... strolling through a green forest with the sun just piercing through a high mist and the leaves crumbling under my feet holding my wife's hand and just walking forward... Finally that part was over and it was time for my favourite when he pulls on my tongue with one hand while "palping" the inside of my throat with the rubber-gloved finger of his other hand. I still can't understand why he's always surprised when I gag. That went as well as the last time in that I didn't throw up on him and he was able to get a quick probe at what he wanted to.

Finally it was all over and I wiped the tears from my eyes and the sweat from my brow and we sat at his desk. First he went over my chest x-ray and my liver sonogram which I had gone through, as per his request, just recently. They were both perfectly fine. He didn't understand one of the terms used on the liver sonogram, which I'll check with my beloved general practitioner, but everything looked perfectly fine. He then gave me the good news / bad news routine. I almost had a heart attack. At least he was kind enough to start with the good news: there is no trace of cancer anywhere he's looked. From my nose, down through my throat, my lungs and down to my liver there are no "lesions" or tumours. This was obviously a great relief. But made me more curious. The bad news is that I have a couple of infections which have been caused by the long-term side-effects of the treatment rather than by the cancer itself. These are definitely minor and the good news / bad news approach was actually extremely exaggerated for this sort of thing and probably should have been presented differently.

There's a fungus among us
That's something my mother used to say... I can't remember why. I have a fungus on the back of my tongue. This is mostly a long-term reaction to the chemotherapy and in some ways preferable to the mouth sores I had before. My tongue gets almost completely black and there are hard flaky things built up on it sometimes. I didn't mention the fact that this phenomenon is accentuated when I drink a particularly tannic wine. He prescribed a tablet I'm going to have to take for a couple of weeks and I have to brush my tongue with an anti-fugicide.

I also have a minor infection at the top of my right nostril near the sinus. This too is due to side-effects of my treatment. I now have to sniff some nose medicine twice a day for a week. He thinks I've got these infections because I haven't been resting enough. Although my white cell count may be near normal my anti-bodies are probably still not as strong as they should be. Rest, fruit and veg, relaxation and a bit of exercise should help. We talked about my weight and he was pleased to learn that I had gained a kilo and half (from 73.5 to 75 kg). He said I should now start exercising as I don't have to worry about burning off more weight than I'm putting on. But he said I should be careful as to not break anything as my bones are probably not as strong as they used to be. I told him that I could do a bit of running, stretching and weight lifting. But what I really want to get back to is rollerblading. He was slightly shocked. I told him that I was actually quite a regular rollerblader before and this wasn't something new. He said it would be good exercise as long as I don't have an accident which could be worse for me than it would be normally. I told him that I fall down more on my feet than on wheels and he laughed.

We then discussed my next exam which will be a full PET Scan. He said I should reserve it now for the month of September or October and I will then see him, with the results, for my next quarterly visit. This will be considered my first annual visit after the extraction surgery.

I made my way home, slowly, and slept through the rest of the afternoon until early evening. I didn't have any dinner, which was expected, by I did have my beloved ice cream at the end of the evening. Ice cream is my saviour these days and has been for quite some time now. I can't begin to thank Haagen Dazs enough for the absolutely perfect relief. I don't know what the secret is in the recipe. I don't even care particularly as long as they keep it up. Their ice cream just loving coats the inside of my throat and lingers long enough to provide actual relief from both pain and heat. It should be considered proper medication and be reimbursed by the social security.

Alex is back!

I went to the airport this afternoon to pick up Alexandra coming back from her two weeks at Cross Keys camp in England. If you look real close you can see her in of the photos in week 1.

Her airplane left a bit late from London and she arrived even later on our end. She arrived looking tan and tired from the long trip. She regaled me all the way home, in the car, with stories of camp. When we got home she told Desney all of the same stories while I took a nap. She was impressed by the new furniture in the living room. But she completely forgot about us when she found her new computer in her bedroom with The Sims 2 pre-installed.

It is definitely hot here and I appreciate the coolness of the shady back garden.

Still clean after all these...

Back to the old Clinique Hartmann today for my quarterly tests.  Today was a full chest x-ray and a liver ultrasound sonogram.  The chest x-ray went fine with the classic cold chest plate as usual.  I had never had a liver ultrasound before.  I felt like a pregnant woman as normally I’m on the other side watching when they did this sort of thing to Desney.  The doctor looked very pleased and said that there was absolutely nothing.  She said my liver was easy to see and there was absolutely nothing abnormal.  I then went out to the waiting room and got the rest of my results.  As soon as I got home I had a look at the chest x-ray comments:  nothing to report.  Chest x-ray all clear and the “port à catheter” is still correctly in place and in the vein as it should be.

I’ll be 100% certain once I see my specialist again.  But it’s all good news for the moment!

 

And the streets of France go silent...

Before the big match began Desney and I took Alexandra to the airport to send her off to England to camp. She was very upset about going to camp on the day of the final and to miss the match. After the airport Desney and I visited Ikea to make some changes to our living room. If it wasn’t for us, over the many years, Ikea would have gone out of business in France. On the drive home we saw people outside having fun, playing football in the parks, and generally in a great mood. I put together the new furniture just in time and Desney made us dinner to eat in front of the television for the match.

You couldn’t hear a pin drop outside. No one was in the parks any more, no cars drove along our normally reasonably busy street, no people strolled the pavement. The match started and it didn’t take long for Zidane to get the chance to shoot a penalty and give France its first goal. About 7 minutes in to the match. Another 12 minutes later and it was Italy who scored their first goal to even the score. From a score point of view that was it. No one else scored on either team. The end of the match after 90 minutes; another 30 minutes of overtime and that was it. But time truly stopped just a few minutes before the end of the match. Zidane got overly upset for a reason we’ll never know and actually head butted the chest of an Italian player knocking him to the ground. Zidane got the infamous red card and was ejected from the match and football forever. His last game ever. He didn’t sit on the side with everyone else. He went right to the locker room and hasn’t been seen since. Barthez was captain now and they finished the game 10 players to Italy’s 11. Then came the eternally dreaded penalty kicks.

David Trezeguet will never forget the moment he missed his penalty kick against Italy hitting the top bar and missing the goal completely. In the end Italy scored all 5 of their penalties and Barthez didn’t knock one out.

I’m sure throughout Italy the streets roared. Partying and exhilaration everywhere. Here in France: silence reigned. Still no movement in the streets. No sound from the windows. Nothing. France had lost the final of the World Cup and had also lost some of its best and most historic players forever.

If we won I probably would not be sitting here typing… I’d be in front of the television watching the celebrations and participating to my best ability in front of our house. Instead I try and think of other things…

And the streets of France go wild!!!

We finished our dinner as normal... eating outside on the terrace and myself enjoying a very cold beer. I finished the remnants of the dishes (Desney rinses off the vast majority and fills the dishwasher) just 2 minutes before the start of the match.

At 21:00 the streets of France went silent. The match started and time stopped. I don't recall hearing cars go by our house, for once, and the pavements were empty. It didn't take long. About half way in to the first half Thierry Henry got fouled. They chose the old Zinédine Zidane to shoot the penalty against Portugal's goal. A brilliant direct shot to the left. The goalie dove for it. But it was too strong and too direct. France scores it's first goal and I let out what little of a hoarse scream I can. We can hear the screams coming in from the front windows from the rest of the neighbourhood. We live in a neighbourhood with a relatively large portion of Portuguese descendants. I didn't expect that much support from the surroundings.

The rest of the game was pure suspense. Every time Cristiano Ronaldo got the ball, even for a few seconds, the entire stadium would boo, hiss and whistle. This was due to his unsportsmanlike behaviour in the previous England v. Portugal match. It was amazing to hear everyone keep up the harassment right up to the end of the game. However this time he deserved it. That and the Academy Award. He simulated two of the most ridiculous fouls which were so blatantly obvious on the video replays that it was downright embarrassing. Luckily neither of them was transformed in to a goal for Portugal. No one scored for the rest of the match. The last 30 seconds were incredibly suspenseful especially as the last play could have been disastrous. Then it was announced...

France has won the semi-finals!

France will play in the finals of the World Cup 2006!!!

We (Desney, Alexandra and I) all gave a shout and jumped up and down a bit. But the streets went wild. There were screams and shouts and car horns honking and flags waving and just plain noise everywhere. I walked out on to the front terrace and let out the best and longest scream I could. I certainly miss being able to bellow out. But whatever it sounded like, and however feeble, it felt great. I walked around to the back window and listened to the screams and shouts some more. The arabs were doing that shout they do with their tongue which stutters and which I couldn't possible reproduce in writing. The rest were shouting up and down. Chants were streaming from the windows « On est en finale, on est en finale, on est, on est, on est en Finale! » (We are in the finals...). « On est les champions, on est les champions, on est, on est, on est les champions ! » (We are the champions...).

I sent Jessica an SMS in America to fill her in... she's missing out on the excitement as ever since America was eliminated from the World Cup, quite some time ago, they've all but forgotten the game.

Here the entire country was uplifted by this relatively minor event. An additional, and much needed, boost to morale has shot across the country.

We will live in suspense until Sunday night when France goes against Italy for the finals of the World Cup 2006.

Havin' a heat wave...

It’s really very hot these days.  Yesterday it hit 31 degrees (88 F) and today it’s supposed to get up to 33 degrees (92 F).  We have a bit more breeze out here in the ‘burbs than we did back in the 15^th (Paris).  But it’s still certainly stuffy, hot and heavy.

My doctors all told me, more than once, that I have to avoid the sun for a year.  I can actually understand why (this time).  Every time I get out in the sun my skin around my neck, especially where it was radiated, feels like it’s crinkling up.  It tightens and pulls from the sides towards the centre and literally fells like someone’s stretching it.  It’s not enjoyable.  I will not even begin to describe the pleasures of direct sunlight shining upon my scar.  I tend to run and find shade when that happens or walk around with my hand over my scar.  Even without the sun however the simple increase in temperature makes my scar heat up and lately it fells like it’s burning.  It’s like a Y-shaped iron in my neck.  The other apparent side-effect of the heat is that my saliva, or the very tiny amount of that which is left, seems to get thicker.  It sometimes accumulates in to a ball in my throat which makes me cough like back in the old days of post-treatment trauma.

As you can see I am truly enjoying the heat and the beginnings of summer.  I dream of dark, grey, wintery days of hiding underneath my bedcovers…

Summer this year, for me, is just yet another stage to get through…

 

Allez les bleus !!!

Alexandra, Desney and I piled in to the car and headed off to our friends Minh & Serge’s for dinner in Chatou.

As we were driving along we kept seeing Portugese flags every now and then and heard people screaming in the streets.  We all knew that today was the England v. Portugal match.  But we had forgotten what time.  The match was going on just while we were driving.  Luckily we arrived at Minh & Serge’s before the match ended.

We had a great time at dinner and I was able to eat most things served.  I had to miss out on the stuff I can no longer handle like potatoes, bread, cheese and that sort of thing.  We had some delicious foie gras as a starter served in some pretty hefty chunks.  I can’t remember ever eating foie gras without bread or a biscuit of some sort.  It’s certainly not the same experience and something is lacking.  However I certainly am not complaining as it was delicious all the same and the perfectly chilled and served Sauternes certainly made me forget the lack of bread pretty quickly.  I was able to taste most of the wine.   But I know I’m definitely missing something as my nose tastes so much more than my mouth does.

It became apparent during the apéritif that we were not the only football fans at the soirée and they amazingly adapted the entire meal so that we could all eat in the salon watching the match on the television while we talked.  They literally moved all of the plates and silverware from the big table to the salon table nonchalantly and we continued as though this was what was planned in the first place.  Serge did an amazing job on the barbecue.  The meat was still juicy and flavourful which I do not tend to achieve on my barbecue.  I’m going to have to start thinking about getting a Weber barbecue like his someday…  Thankfully there was a lot of undercooked available for me which tends to be the only way I can eat meat without it taking an hour for me to chew.  It was delicious.  The red which accompanied the meat was outstanding:  a Chassagne-Montrachet 1èr Cru 1995!  Actually there were 3 bottles of this which we all went through and they were each unique.  They were all excellent… each person had a particular preference for a particular bottle.  I know I missed out on at least 20 to 25% of the experience… but the 75% I could taste was amazing.

Throughout the meal we watched the game off and on while talking and eating.  As the entire world knows by now France won one to nothing against Brazil.  We were all quite pleased not least of all myself as I had gotten pretty good odds on the match on BetFair not that long ago and had picked up enough to pay for petrol getting out to Chatou and back {vbg}.

We left there at about half past midnight and suddenly found ourselves in the middle of a celebratory nightmare.  It appears as though every person of Portuguese or French origin, and there are quite a lot of both of these throughout the Ile de France region, had come out of their homes brandishing full country flags on their poles and had jumped in their cars to populate the roads and honk their horns throughout.  As we tried to drive to the autoroute, at an average speed of about 5 kilometres per hour, we were in the midst of what was practically a parade with French and Portuguese fans all along the sides of the road screaming and shouting and waving their flags.  I of course joined in on the honking as well as I don’t actually need too much of an excuse to honk my car’s horn.  It took us forever to get to the autoroute and we didn’t get home until about 1:15.  Alexandra passed out as soon as we got home, Desney and I had our classic driving experience argument and we all piled in to our beds exhausted after a wonderful night out and we proceeded to sweat in our hot beds throughout the night…

Now we eagerly await the semi-final (France v. Portugal) on July 5^th!

A wasted day...

I woke up a bit late and spent the rest of the day working on the car (directly and indirectly).  I should have been working on my computer as after being relatively offline for a couple of days I literally have 100s of e-mails to deal with and projects to finish.

I went to the same place that had replaced my front windshield a year ago.  They very kindly Hoovered out all of the broken glass from the back seat and everywhere else in the car.  It is amazing how much broken glass there was all over the place.  They then put up a plastic sheet over the hole where the window was and we arranged to see each other again on Monday.

I then headed in to town to the FNAC to get a new GPS.  I had forgotten how stupid it would be to drive in to Paris on the first Saturday in July especially when it’s an amazingly beautiful day outside (30 degrees Celsius).  It felt like hours before I finally arrived.  I got the GPS I wanted practically immediately (TomTom GO 910) and also bought a proper Suburban map to give Desney something to read and verify the GPS information while I drive.  I feel that one of the vital roles of the husband in the driving relationship is to provide the wife with something to do during the trip {vbg}.

I was amazed that I had found the window place, the FNAC and home all by myself without a GPS.  It’s been a very long time since I’ve had to drive without it and it was a whole new experience.  I can’t remember why I ever drove without one in the first place…

I got it home and spent the next couple of hours setting it up and getting everything to work as I want it to and then I was ready to leave.

An unwelcome return home

I arrived at Gare du Nord last night at about 22:30 after a very long week of travelling and working.

London is always long days and nights as after doing a full day of work at the office there’s always at least a half-day of work waiting for me when I get back to the hotel.

To make things worse on Wednesday night I had to turn off Norton while I was programming as it was interfering with my database server connection.  I stupidly turned it off forgetting that I was working on a hotel Internet connection and not my safe home/office network.  Within a half-hour my computer had two pretty nasty viruses (spyware) and within an hour it was a nightmare.  I lost hours and hours of time trying to get Norton re-installed (never succeeded), trying to work with a different anti-virus software package (AVG which did work) and trying to get my computer to be able to do at least a minimum of productive work.  I couldn’t print, I couldn’t send and receive e-mails, I couldn’t program, I was useless.  It was very frustrating.

I made the best out of the situation by trying to work on everyone else’s computers in the office while I was there.  There was an awful lot to do in the London office during this trip and therefore I was never without work and my personal computer problems didn’t impede that work.  However it meant that I couldn’t help other clients or work on other projects or even properly communicate and it was truly a nightmare.

To top everything off I arrive at Gare du Nord last night at about 22:30 and I go to pick up my car from the Gare du Nord parking lot.  There’s the car… always a tiny sigh of relief in comparison to that scary feeling when I can’t find the car and I don’t know if it’s because I stupidly lost it or it’s gone.  I had noted the emplacement on the parking ticket so the first scenario was eliminated.  However I get to the car and notice there’s broken glass all across the back seat.  My heart sank.  They had broken the small window in the rear right-hand side and had broken in to the car.  They were kind enough to leave the car papers and the car insurance in the car, on the front seat, but they emptied out the glove compartment stealing at least a half-dozen of empty CD jackets as all the CDs are in the CD changer in the car.  Of course they stole my TomTom Go 510 which meant I was going to have to find my way home all by myself.

I made a declaration at the parking lot office and finally headed home at about 23:00 and got home at about 23:30.  My wife proceeded to blame it on me, of course, and the fact that I left the car in the parking lot.  I thought to myself… I was on the fifth floor of this seven floor parking lot.  When I arrived it was almost completely full.  There must have been at least 5,000 cars parked in that lot.  Of course ALL of them, unlike myself, were aware of the fact that their cars were going to be broken in to, as must happen in all parking lots apparently, but I was stupidly ignorant of this obvious fact and was therefore entirely at fault.  Crime victims are entirely at fault in the eyes of their spouses.

I have hundreds of e-mail messages to go through.  I have projects that have to be completed this weekend (before Monday) and which should have been done yesterday.  We have to go out to a friends’ place for dinner this evening.  I therefore have to spend this afternoon, in thirty-one degree (Celsius) heat, to get the back seat cleaned up, the window space boarded up (they don’t have the window in stock at the moment) and replace the GPS so I can tell where I’m going.

Bad karma?

Just not enough time in the day, weekend, week...

In case anyone's interested... I'm fine.

I'm just working like crazy trying to keep up... Trying to work as much professionally as possible as I definitely need the money... Also trying to keep up with the administration... have sent a lot of time at the French tax office recently as they try and suck out every last drop from me wherever possible. I've worked out a payment plan with them but it's a lot per month and for quite some time to come now... ;-(

Since our anniversary:

I spent an entire morning at the American embassy with the girls getting their American passports renewed. Jessica's was easy as she's over 14 now and can sign most papers herself. Jessica's was the urgent one as she'll need it next Saturday. Alexandra's was more difficult as Desney has to sign an approval, which she did, and that approval has to be notarised! I went through every other aspect of the procedures (childrens' interviews "Have you committed any expatriating act since your passport expired?", ..., all of the forms and the payment (US$ 80 per passport)). I just have to get the form notarised, send it to them and they'll send us Alexandra's passport.

I spent a looong day back in Normandy trying to get my client's home/office up and running before this week. The Internet had been cut off, the satellite dish had been blocked by a hedge which had overgrown, the WiFi access wasn't working, the printer wouldn't connect properly, there was traffic on the road all over, no one to have lunch with, a mad house! I left there quite late, around 20:30 and then the 3 hour drive home. I'll be back soon as it ain't over yet!

The next morning was my meeting with the French tax office at Asnières. Frustrating, depressing, amazingly incomprehensible how one office does not talk to the other office on the same floor or in the building next door, and quite expensive...

Friday night however was a wonderful trip down memory lane. I hope I'll have time to write more about this later. We had a couple of friends over from the OECD who I literally haven't seen for over 10 years if not 15. Neither of them have changed!!! It was a lot of fun!

The next morning was the Annual General Meeting of the parents' associations at Jessica's school. I was elected President again... 5 years in a row...

But now I go in to overdrive...

Tonight's the Fête de la Musique

Tomorrow morning I'm back in Normandy for two days... everything has to work perfectly by Friday afternoon... time for the magician to pull some rabbits out of the hats...

Back here for late Friday night and then Saturday is Alexandra's end-of-the-year school party. I've (sillily [sic]) volunteered to help set up in the morning as well as running a stand during the day...

Sunday I have to get Jessica to the airport as she's going to the States for the first time in her life, and she's going on her own, and she's going for five weeks!!!

Then I have to get back in time to see Alexandra's end-of-the-year dance class performance.

Monday morning I think I'll probably be heading back to Normandy to finish off anything that needed changing since Friday... although I'm really hoping I don't have to.

Tuesday morning it's off to London for a 4-day trip with lots of new installations and training to do...

Friday night I get back late...

Saturday morning I sleep as much as possible and then Saturday night it's off to a friend's place for dinner...

Sunday I pass out...

And they said it wouldn't last!

Today is our 18th wedding anniversary! We've been through hell and heaven together over the years (a lot more hell recently) and we're still together. I love this woman more and more each year and she still continues to surprise and amaze me.

Unfortunately this is definitely our most uneventful anniversary yet. Desney has an awful lot of work on at the moment and is struggling against deadlines. She's brought proofreading work home for several days now and has been at it all weekend. We didn't go out tonight as we didn't know if she'd be finished.

We're havin' a heat wave! It's incredibly hot here at the moment. It's 31C (81F for the Americans in the audience) today and the sun is shining non-stop. It's supposed to be 33C (91F) tomorrow. We had a very simple dinner of several different salads, and a couple of chilled half-bottles of Beaujolais (Moulin-Vent and Fleurie), out on the terrasse.

The vampire (aka Jessica) got home from her sleepover party just after noon and got out of bed late in the afternoon. She was tired and cranky for the rest of the day. Alexandra had dance rehearsal in the afternoon and she too was tired and cranky in the evening. The heat didn't help either.

After dinner, once the kids were in their bedrooms and Desney was proofreading in her room, I went down to the cellar. I cranked up the sound system, set the genre to Blues, and played myself a few games of pool. The cellar is probably one of the coolest places in the house at the moment and it's a hot night. Ah the simple pleasures...

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.