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!

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...