I spent part of the day in the basement of the State Capitol with Suzie’s group, where I was treated to a free and fast wireless connection to the internet. Flash forward to 4 p.m. After checking in at the Hyatt, I pop my computer out to check work emails, only to discover that I have to pay for wireless access. That didn’t particularly phase me; it was expected, if […]
On April 29, 2009, I attended a Giants game at AT&T Park and took this picture and posted it on the photo site Flickr: The picture sat out there in the cloud somewhere, largely unviewed, until the day before yesterday, when I checked my Flickr stats and noticed that it had been viewed by 79 people. This has happened before with several of my pictures, when someone has used them […]
We bought Suzie a new computer last weekend, which meant that the one she was using (which was running painfully slowly under Windows XP, for reasons I could never figure out, notwithstanding a lot of effort and, in the end, a complete new install) was now available to me to more or less do with as I wished. What I wished was to see if it would run any better […]
J’etais en train de regarder cette photo quand je me suis rendu compte que j’ai commis une grande faute d’orthographe pendant cinq années. Le nom de la ville où nous sommes restés en France n’est pas “Levellois” mais “Levallois.” Avec un “a.” Plus précisément, le nom est “Levallois-Perret” (bien que il semble que on utilize “Perret” de moins en moins). Donc j’ai modifié l’orthographe dans tous les posts et toutes […]
We’re back in Sonoma County after a long, stressful, long, hard, long, hectic, hard day of travel, which started when I woke at 4:30 a.m. in Paris and ended 25 1/2 hours later when I finally climbed into bed in Santa Rosa. In between, it was a combination of stress, boredom, irritation, and anger … anger like I haven’t felt in a long, long while, at the rude, smug, arrogant, […]
If only for the sense of completion, voilà the last two days in Paris: On Sunday Suzie had arranged to see her French conversation partner and some of his friends for lunch. As the boys were off on their own, this left me with a free afternoon all to myself. I decided to go to the Louvre again, because I love it and still feel after 4 or 5 visits […]
Several times during previous trips to France, we got caught up in horrible traffic while returning to Paris. About the only good that had come from those experiences is that we learned the two French words bouchon (literally, a cork) and embouteillage (something bottled up), both used to describe congested traffic. Suzie had timed our trip to Normandy to avoid a repeat experience. Unfortunately, as we were having breakfast our […]
Yesterday we visited several of the sites associated with the American invasion of Normandy in June 1944. We didn’t know what to expect; we supposed that they would be touristy and crowded with Americans. Much to our surprise (and delight), it was nothing like that at all. We began by driving to Omaha Beach, below the small village of St-Laurent-sur-Mer. What we found was a long, curving, peaceful expanse of […]
I’m drinking coffee in advance of our second day in Normandy. We had an uneventful trip from Paris, in a great rental car (a brand new Renault Kangoo, which had 4 km on it when I picked it up, and which uses diesel fuel which is not only more energy per km but also less expensive and, best of all, is spacious enough for the four of us). We’re staying […]
Nobody is exactly normal, everyone has their oddities and their quirks. Still, for any particular quality, the normal distribution curve, that familiar bell shape, does exist, and by definition most folks are happily camped out under the comfort of the big dome, while a few stragglers are destined to live their lives under the thin remains of the long tail, far to one side or the other. And the long […]