Mark's Blog

April 24, 2006

Rats

Nath's watching a made-for-TV movie in which the rats attack Paris. She's been enjoying the shivers.

They just blew up a building with thousands of rats standing by, ready to eat whole animals and people in a sudden frenzy. A guy got stuck in the explosion. He was going back for his white rat.

Now he's coming out of the building with a few smudges. (That's it, the people who've been trying to get me to wear my helmet and my seatbelt are lying. If he can survive that explosion, the least I can do is survive a head on collision on the autoroute or falling off my bike and having a truck run over my head.)

Aha! They're panning out to show a few rat survivors, starting a litter in a bale of hay atop some apartment downtown. The scary music is playing...

Posted by Mark at 10:25 PM | TrackBack

April 23, 2006

Hike above Montfort

We went for a hike up to the ruined castle in Montfort, next to Lumbin.

Unfortunately, the castle was such a ruin that we couldn't get close.

Things went fine until Diane fell over and skinned her hand. After that I had to carry her on my shoulders.

Still, they all enjoyed it a lot. Spring is definitely here.

Posted by Mark at 08:40 PM | TrackBack

Emma's glasses

Emma got her glasses yesterday afternoon. She's happy about them.

She still had trouble reading the menu last night at the restaurant, but it didn't seem related to vision.

Posted by Mark at 11:08 AM | TrackBack

April 20, 2006

Grasshoppers

Since we took Tim down to the manmade lake near Pontcharra yesterday, where he saw a couple of tiny frogs, his brain's been hopping. Yesterday Mom had to sew plastic bags onto wire loops at the end of bamboo poles. One for each child, though Diane's not yet returned from up north.

Today at lunch, Tim explained to his grandmother he needed her to gather 50 fat grasshoppers per child. (We have not yet prayed for a plague of locusts, and are not sure where we're going to get 150 fat grasshoppers this time of year.) He's planning to use sewing thread to tie a grasshopper at a time to each pole. The frogs will go after the fat grasshoppers, and as they do, the children will be able to scoop them into the plastic bags.

Next they'll transfer the frogs to three plastic pop bottles Tim has clipped for the occasion. He says the bottles will be too tall for the frogs to jump out, but that I'll nevertheless have to take a large bucket with a lid to hold the overflow as the bottles are filled with frogs.

Emma hadn't gone to the lake. She asked me what size the frogs were. She'd been talking to Tim, and had gotten the impression each frog was about the size of a basketball.

Both were convinced I should prepare by buying a large aquarium and filling it with the sort of things frogs would like to have around. Sticks and water and lilypads and so forth. They'll be angry and suspect me of stalling when they get home for their snack.

Posted by Mark at 02:58 PM | TrackBack

Emma's eyes

Emma and I went to see an eye doctor this morning. Her regular doctor had seen a huge fall off in her vision at the last checkup.

Today the verdict was that she does in fact need glasses for the classroom and for reading, but that she's only a bit nearsighted with slight astigmatism. Nothing that would force her to wear glasses all the time.

On the way back from the appointment, she was happy to know she wouldn't have to wear her glasses all the time, but she was already sulking. I asked her why. She said she'd looked at the prescription and was going to have to have round glasses, because the drawing on the prescription sheet was round. Her idea was that the eye doctor would prescribe the particular pair of glasses Emma needed. (The guy we saw was no doubt inadequately fashion conscious in Emma's eyes.)

I explained to my incredulous daughter that all the eye doctor was doing in his office was determining how the lenses needed to be ground so as to improve her vision and make it easier for her to read and see things far away. She was sure she wouldn't be able to get the square glasses she wanted. I'm not sure she believed me.

She also didn't believe me when I agreed to discuss with her mom whether she can get blond highlights next time she goes to the hairdresser. The world's a rough place when you're 7 years old.

Posted by Mark at 02:36 PM | TrackBack

April 19, 2006

Big plans

Tim's first question this morning when he got up was whether I could buy him a color photocopier. My answer was that color photocopiers are not cheap. I did not elaborate to say that several hundred or a thousand euros (color laser printer) seemed like a lot to print reams of Star Wars and shark JPEGs that would be ripped up and thrown away shortly after being printed.

Tim's next question was what career should he choose to make lots of money. He'd consulted with his buddies and found that baker probably doesn't pay very well, and is hard work, so he'd changed his mind about that. He's sticking with the idea of being a biologist. I suggested that if he wants to make lots of money, he should see whether he might like sales and running a business.

He shook his head at the idea of sales. He didn't mind the idea of running a business, as long as he doesn't have to do any of the work. He did get the idea that he'd need money to start a business. I explained the idea of venture capitalists, and how they require that you come with a good idea and a well thoughtout plan of how you'll manage to bring them return on their investment.

Tim found it hard to get his head around that, but he had the right idea. If you cannot do something yourself, delegate. So he says it's up to me to come up with the idea and the business plan.

He's not very good at employee motivation yet, however. Right after he left me with the problem of figuring out how to raise funds and figure out what his business would do, he told me about working conditions at his biology laboratory (where the product they'll make is nature films of sharks). Apparently the biologists will all buy their own equipment, and they'll work shoulder to shoulder "24 hours a day, 7 days a week" basically for no pay. Tim didn't think he'd have enough money left over to pay workers. He also asked where he could get a manager to take care of the day-to-day activities while he travelled through the Amazon jungle in search of interesting animals to examine.

Posted by Mark at 08:42 AM | TrackBack

April 18, 2006

Up north, part II

We had Nath and Diane on the phone towards the end of dinner. Their first train was very late, but they had enough of a layover in Lyon to be on time for the TGV.

Nath says Diane's not having fun. Maui, Nicholas and Jenny's baby, still sleeps a lot. Diane said she thought his eyes hurt. Nath says Diane misses Tim and Emma. She has no one her age to play with until tomorrow. I heard her say she was ready to come home.

Nath sounded fine. Hope she can get some sleep even with Diane in her bed.

Posted by Mark at 08:33 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

April 17, 2006

Up north

Nath and Diane are taking the train tomorrow morning at 8:05. They're going to see Nicholas and his family.

Nath was packing during Diane's bath, so Diane wanted to get into the act. After she got out of the bath, she packed a huge pack of equipment for her babies. She could barely haul it over her shoulder. When we told her she was going to have to sleep here tonight -- that the pyjamas she had on were specifically for that occasion -- she was inconsolable until the next interesting idea crossed her mind.

Nath is expecting nice weather up north for once. She's looking forward to a few days away from Tim and Emma's constant bickering. Unfortunately she'll have to share her bed with Diane.

Posted by Mark at 08:55 PM | TrackBack

Later than normal

Nath had me go with her last night to a combination birthday party and anniversary of one of her friends. I was born too old for this stuff, and so left my watch here. We were there with many of her friends and acquantainces from Barraux.

We got down to La Gache just after 7:30 pm, and finally came back up the hill sometime around 2:30 am. Was tired by the time we got to the table.

One thing I still find curious about France is how you always have to dance the La chenille before dessert. What's the cultural equivalent of that in the US?

In the end I got about 4 1/2 hours sleep last night. Nath let me take a nap this afternoon, though.

Posted by Mark at 08:33 PM | TrackBack

April 16, 2006

Happy Easter

Some people consider Easter the ultimate Christian holiday. Other people get up at 6:58 am worried about whether their brother got a head start looking for chocolate.

It rained too much last night to have an Easter egg hunt in the yard. The Easter Bunny left them all right next to the house, under the eaves.

Posted by Mark at 05:05 PM | TrackBack

April 13, 2006

Meat eater

Of the three children, Diane is the one who likes red meat the most. Nath bought a big steak to put on the grill. Diane kept wanting more. Finally we gave her the bone to gnaw.

Posted by Mark at 09:57 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

April 12, 2006

Arrival

Mom and Dana arrived today with their luggage no less. Their flights had been on time all along the way.

Mom said not too many people seem to be flying here in mid April. The plane from Amsterday Dana said seemed about only 1/3 full.

The children were delighted to find that the suitcase full of presents had made it through and arrived at the same time as the grandparents who brought it. Tim in particular got just what he ordered, which was small, green plastic soldiers. Mom brought a whole box full of them.

She was then obliged to play with Tim. Setting up the soldiers. Sorting them by color, size, and weapon. Standing by as Tim made gun and explosion sound effects. He was having a great time.

Mom also helped Emma to get started with a stylist's drawing kit to draw clothes for Barbie and other girls. Mom and Emma spent quite a while working on a sand drawing, where you stick colored sand to a board having color-by-numbers stickers that you peel off to reveal adhesive underneath. The sand is supposed to glow in the dark, but Emma hasn't tried it out yet.

Dana, Emma, Diane, and I managed to play a game of children's Monopoly, a simplified version of the real thing. Trouble is, Emma didn't win. Papy Dana won. At least Diane and Dad lost, too.

Diane got Papy Dana to read to her for a while. She had a great time playing along with the other various games and activities. Mom also found some time to play with Diane, who has a set of flat colored foam pieces that she can stick to paper in the form of animals.

In the end, Dana had to take a nap this afternoon. Mom was almost asleep in the couch before dinner. And that's just round 1. Good thing the children are going to school while the grandparents recover from their jet lag.

Posted by Mark at 08:35 PM | TrackBack

April 11, 2006

La grippe à bière

Diane's noticed some of the children in her class have been absent. She's explained to Nath for the last three days that they're out with la grippe à bière (beer flu).

The world's definitely going downhill if alcoholism is rampant among three-year-old Barrolin children.

Posted by Mark at 08:02 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

April 06, 2006

Liars

Nath was telling me a few minutes ago that she's catching the children lying sometimes. Diane's still too young to do that, but Emma and Tim are old enough.

They don't lie about the same things. Emma apparently lies about how much homework she has. Nath says Emma isn't very good at lying. It's so obvious, Nath can tell from her expression when Emma's not telling the truth. Emma doesn't go so far as to fail to note the homework she has in her assignment notebook, so all one has to do is look at that to check.

Nath has a harder time with Tim. He doesn't lie about homework. (He does sometimes forget very quickly.) Timothee lies about personal hygiene. It used to be he'd "take a shower" so fast the water wouldn't even have had time to drop from the faucet to the bathtub, yet he'd already be finished. Now he actually runs the water. Just not on his body. The funny part is that although he doesn't want to take a shower, he's extremely apprehensive about touching his dirty socks or underwear.

That reminds me of how Matt and I used to "brush our teeth," which consisted of waiting for adults to be elsewhere and then thorougly wetting the toothbrush.

Posted by Mark at 09:24 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

April 02, 2006

Portrait of a birthday girl

Diane wanted to look through old photos on the computer. We found a portrait of Emma that Diane liked.

Click the image for a full size shot (779 KB).

Posted by Mark at 06:03 PM | TrackBack

Vacuum cleaner

One of Emma's presents today was a big surprise.

Her grandparents got her a vacuum cleaner. She tried it out immediately in her room. (Should've lent it to her brother, too.)

Emma was proud of the seven candles on her chocolate cake.

Posted by Mark at 05:30 PM | TrackBack

Washboard stomach coming up

Since he got back from his friend's birthday party yesterday, Tim's been exercising to develop a washboard stomach.

He figures that if he does 1000 abdominal exercises a day, in three days he'll look like a guy from an underwear ad. Every few repetitions he stops to examine his progress. He claims to see a lot of progress already. The first thing he said when he woke up this morning was that he could see it was going well.

Situps are too tiring, so most of the exercises are twists, whereby you stand upright and rotate your shoulders.

He was going to work on his pectoral muscles as well, but pushups are too difficult.

Posted by Mark at 10:26 AM | TrackBack

April 01, 2006

First birthday

Emma has the first birthday of the year. Tomorrow is the day.

We had the birthday party today, since Saturday is easier for most people than Sunday. As it was raining outside, the children ran riot in the house.

After two and a half or three hours, we were all tired.

Posted by Mark at 07:36 PM | TrackBack

March 30, 2006

Worms

One doctor suggested Diane was waking up at night because of worms. It turns out, Nath learned today, that Diane does in fact have worms. Now we all have to take anti-worm medicine. It's nowhere near as objectionable as having worms.

In retrospect the presence of worms also explains Diane's appetite lately. She's been eating quite a bit for someone her size. Today Nath baked a chocolate cake for Emma to take to school. When she left the cake in the kitchen to cool, Diane ate a big trench out of the middle.

Posted by Mark at 07:31 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

March 28, 2006

Going nearsighted

Emma had a checkup yesterday. Although her eyes were fine last September, her vision has significantly deteriorated since then. She'll almost certainly have to wear glasses. Her doctor said to Nath that sort of change usually means nearsightedness.

The earliest appointment Nath could get with the eye doctor is in the second half of April. In the meantime she's asked Emma's teacher to move Emma to the front of the class. Emma's teacher didn't want to at first. She said, "But Emma's so tall!" Nath insisted though.

She told me Emma was very nervous when the doctor gave her the eye test. At home Emma was having lots of trouble reading and even making out letters any distance away. We suspected the problem last month.

Posted by Mark at 12:51 PM | TrackBack

March 24, 2006

Short haircuts

Emma and Diane went in Thursday, but Nathalie didn't have time to take pictures until today.

Posted by Mark at 08:30 PM | TrackBack

March 22, 2006

Director's chair (& desk)

Immediately as I walked in the door this evening, Tim took me to his room to show me how he'd rearranged his desk.

On the front is a colorful sign:

The desk is turned so a visitor to Tim's office can sit on a stool in front, while he reclines in the other chair behind the desk, looking out over the top of the old laptop at his guest.

The yellow thing above the word scientifique is a corpse under an emergency blanket.

Posted by Mark at 07:55 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

March 19, 2006

Poses

Emma has been trying some more portrait photography.

She doesn't want to be left out herself, however.

Posted by Mark at 02:23 PM | TrackBack

Collet d'Allevard again

Nath said earlier she wanted to take Tim and Emma skiing if the weather was nice. But Nath wasn't feeling up to it this morning.

My legs are sore, but Tim wasn't ready to do anything very tough, so it worked out fine. Emma didn't want to come along this morning.

You can almost make out Mont Blanc in the very upper left corner of this photo.

Posted by Mark at 02:10 PM | TrackBack

March 17, 2006

Remodeling

My mom and stepfather are remodeling the basement of their new home. (My boss is off making home improvements as well, but I don't have pictures of his place.)

When they finish, they'll have about as much indoor space per person as we share among the five of us. Times have changed and so have expectations. I recall stories of people sleeping together in the same bed, not just the same room, and not only people who are married or otherwise doing so out of choice, only a couple of generations ago.

Posted by Mark at 07:39 AM | TrackBack

March 14, 2006

Photographer

Emma's been taking lots of photos with her digital camera from uncle Matt.

She takes some pictures of people, more than her brother. At one point she decided she wanted to take pictures of the television. We must have 40 or 50 from an episode of Dora the Explorer.

Posted by Mark at 09:22 PM | TrackBack

Tim discovers information reuse

Tim's preparing a presentation on sharks for his class. He's been using Google to find images. The Google results for requin seem to be safe for children.

He was having more trouble finding information. I pointed him to the French Wikipedia home page.

A few minutes later Tim said he'd finished his report, sending me the whole thing as email so I could print it on the computer upstairs. (I haven't shared the printer over the network because I don't want Tim and Emma to be the ones deciding how fast we go through paper and toner. The printer is mainly for Nath.)

As I gave him the page, I explained why we cite our sources, saying who did the work not just so other people know it's not ours, but also so that we ourselves know it's not our work and that we didn't make it up ourselves. I was more or less talking to myself. Tim had found some paragraphs that he could much more easily copy and paste than write himself. It was like the reaction I'd have if I suddenly found a cheap lawn mower that would do the job quickly while I sat down and read a book.

Wikipedia by the way is copylefted, meaning that if you reuse the work, you also have to share your content with the next user. Tim was interested in three sections on from the article on sharks: reproduction, danger to people, and vision.

Gmail curiously turned up a news feed hit next to Tim's mail about sharks, Is Your Manager Earning His Keep? over at Business Week online. The manager in question is your mutual fund manager.

Posted by Mark at 08:52 PM | TrackBack

March 12, 2006

Wiggle worms

We did get them out of the house this afternoon, but the wind was blowing too hard to stay outside.

They played together for most of the afternoon. It ended in a pillow fight, and rolling around on the floor, looking silly for the camera.

Posted by Mark at 08:32 PM | TrackBack

March 09, 2006

Out riding

Nath accompanied a group of children, including ours, to ride the donkeys and eat a snack at La Fontaine aux anes Wednesday. Emma enjoyed it a lot.

Posted by Mark at 10:15 PM | TrackBack

March 07, 2006

All dressed up

The children in Barraux had a sort of late Mardi Gras celebration today with costumes and cake.

Posted by Mark at 09:34 PM | TrackBack

March 06, 2006

Snow in the mountains

Nath copied the photos from her camera to disk this evening. She had taken fewer photos in a week than I took in 36 hours on my trip to Paris this weekend. They had snow almost all week long. No pineapples growing up there above Beaufort.

Posted by Mark at 09:03 PM | TrackBack

Sillyness with webcam

Tim discovered the webcam this evening. He spent a long time, perhaps as long as 20 minutes, just making faces.

Then he found out that I could take snapshots of his antics, and started to look for crazy things to do on camera. He had the Darth Vador mask out before this. He tried to get Diane to strike odd poses, but she moved around too much.

The trouble children have with the webcam is that they move around too much. A webcam does not take 24 exposures per minute. It seems to average less than 10. The picture starts looking blurred or just weird if you move much.

Posted by Mark at 08:54 PM | TrackBack

March 03, 2006

Just one more star

Timothee got his second star today, passing the skiing test. He was so impressed with himself he stopped watching TV for about 8 seconds to come tell me about it on the phone.

Emma apparently did not get her first star. Nathalie said only 5 of the 12 in Emma's group got their stars.

They've been having rough weather up in the mountains. Nathalie said there are about 70 cm (more than 2 ft) of snow on the car since last Saturday afternoon. She's worried about coming back down the hill. They hope the road will be cleared off for the Saturday traffic.

Diane has not gone back to day care. She kept feigning aches, pains, and mental anguish at the thought of not being able to get 1-on-1 babysitting from one of the adults.

Posted by Mark at 10:33 PM | TrackBack

March 01, 2006

News from the mountains

Nath says that for the last two days Diane hasn't wanted to go with the other children to kindergarten. Too bad she paid in advance. Maybe she'll be able to convince Diane to go if the weather's nicer tomorrow.

Today they had lots of new snow, which prevented Colette from enjoying the skiing this morning. Nath says Diane loves rolling around in the snow and making snowmen, however.

Emma and Tim are doing well. Tim's ski instructor taking them on the red slopes, and Tim's able to go longer and faster on the red slopes than Nath after his lessons.

Emma's ski instructor says she's still snowplowing sometimes, but Nath says that disappears in the afternoon, when Emma can go with the family. And Emma's made some girlfriends with her class, and so is relatively happy to go.

Posted by Mark at 07:16 PM | TrackBack

February 25, 2006

Ski vacation

Everyone piled in the car a little while ago. They're headed up to the mountains to ski.

They were trying to figure out how to get up there without going into the thickest part of the traffic. Of course Saturday afternoon during school vacation is a bad time to drive up to the mountains, but everyone goes then.

They all looked excited. I don't think anyone realizes what it's going to be like for three adults and three children to spend a week in a 290 sq. ft. apartment.

Posted by Mark at 03:30 PM | TrackBack

Puppet show

Nathalie had this photo in her camera. Tim did his puppet show a week or two ago.

He's the one standing behind the green puppet on the right. Most of the photos turned out too dark.

Posted by Mark at 09:23 AM | TrackBack

February 18, 2006

Diane's handwriting

Nathalie was surprised Friday to see Diane rush to her seat at the beginning of the school day. She wanted to write something down.

We have no idea what it means. She's doing a good job getting the letters right however for someone not quite four years old who's never been shown specifically how to write.

Posted by Mark at 03:53 PM | TrackBack

February 12, 2006

Magic and makeup

Chloe and Matthieu have been visiting on the way home from skiing in Areches.

Although the boys spent some time with the PlayStation, the children have most fun with the costumes, of which there are two laundry baskets full. Matthieu pulled out Tim's magicians gear and showed us his tricks. The tough part is having to ask the audience how to perform the trick before you do it. Only spoils it for people over 8 years old, though.

The girls have applied lots of makeup in the last 24 hours. We had company for the aperitif this morning, Emma's former babysitter, Nathalie. From across the room Nathalie thought Emma and Diane had chapped and bleeding lips. They've both gotten the idea of which general part of the face to apply the lipstick, but haven't quite narrowed down the boundaries, yet.

Now we have three snowboarding on the PlayStation. They've come home from running around the lake near Les Marches in order to have a snack, and because the cold mist is coming back.

Posted by Mark at 04:58 PM | TrackBack

Soon to be a major motion picture

Tim's latest idée fixe is the horror film he's planning with buddies. So far the script is still unfinished, though he's been working on the story since last Tuesday:

UN Martien Nomme Phenix s'appreta a aterir sur terre. Il alla prisonnier le president du s.a.s. carmen et son cousin parte

He's already prepared the box to hold the DVD however, with space for a bonus disc including previews of the sequel.

Posted by Mark at 04:52 PM | TrackBack

February 11, 2006

Skiing in Areches, part II

Matthieu and Chloe are back from Areches. Both have earned their first snowflakes, having learned to ski this week. Both tell me it was too easy, no problem at all.

Posted by Mark at 06:53 PM | TrackBack

February 08, 2006

Skiing in Areches

Nath took the three children to the ski station in Areches-Beaufort, where Colette and Michel are skiing this week with Chloe and Matthieu. I don't see any of them on the webcam.

The girls were very tired when they came back, although they'd slept in the car. Now they're having trouble going to sleep.

Tim was in better shape, and even agreed to help me set the table. Nath says she's exhausted.

Posted by Mark at 09:10 PM | TrackBack

February 06, 2006

Ran out of Kaplas

Tim reminded me that I'd not posted the photo of his Kapla tower. He managed to use all 200 blocks in this one without making it too high and rickety. Tim's still a long way from the world record 51' tower, but the people doing that probably do not have to contend with Diane.

The idea to get these for Christmas came from watching the kids play with the blocks over at Ludo's. It really was a good gift idea, on the same order as Legos used to be. He seems to play with these more than he watches his Star Wars DVDs or plays with his PlayStation.

His latest idea is that, since he's able to build a tower that uses up the entire box of 200 blocks, he needs a whole lot more. Nath and I don't want that. When he gets all of what he asks for, he's no longer interested soon thereafter.

Posted by Mark at 09:45 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

February 05, 2006

Overnight

Michel, Colette, Matthieu, and Chloe left mid morning today. They're driving up the mountain to the ski resort where both children are going to take lessons starting this afternoon.

The boys were together at the PlayStation first thing last night, and again this morning, though they took a few moments to get into Jedi disguise.

Diane was showing off her Sith frown, though the pink pyjamas kind of ruin the effect.

Emma and Chloe decided instead to get a little exercise before dinner. I'm sure Emma will be showing off her washboard stomach soon.

Posted by Mark at 10:51 AM | TrackBack

February 04, 2006

Heavy traffic

Michel, Colette, Matthieu, and Chloe are coming down to the Alps to ski. This is the first week of school vacation for the Paris zone.

We tried to convince them to make the trip Friday afternoon rather than Saturday, but they didn't agree and expected to be able to make good time. It turns out our estimates were better than theirs. By 3:30 pm, they'd only made it to Beaune, and were getting something to eat.

At present they're in between Bugey and Chambery, however. The thickest of the traffic must now be in the valley between Chambery and the Alps. Nathalie's telling them to get off the autoroute and onto the national road, but if I understand correctly they already did that.

Posted by Mark at 05:02 PM | TrackBack

February 02, 2006

Video games

Tim's off school today. His teacher is striking. I took the day off work. Nathalie has to work this afternoon, and somebody needs to stay with Tim.

Nath gave in to Tim's request to go have a look at used video games. So the three of us went to the store together this morning. The used video games are generally much, much cheaper than the new ones.

Nath didn't want Tim to get anything scary or violent. That's a tall order, it seems. Most games are either scary, or violent, or both. In the end Tim got one that's a little bit scary and violent, one released as part of the Lord of the Rings trilogy marketing campaign. He's playing that now. It comes with clips from the movie to help situate the butchery in some sort of story, and plenty of dramatic music.

Tim also got one of the Gran Tourismo series. That's as close as you can get to not scary and not violent, plus he can play with his sisters. Trouble is none of them know how to drive. I tried to explain that you're not supposed to accelerate into a turn, but maybe they need their uncles to give them a clue.

Posted by Mark at 12:49 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

January 25, 2006

Another short night, part III

Diane's ill, rash and earache. Horrible, short night. Nathalie's taking Diane to the doctor this morning.

Posted by Mark at 10:11 AM | TrackBack

January 22, 2006

Pyjama princesses

Nath took pictures of Emma and Diane wearing the wedding veil that Mom made for Emma's wedding costume.

Emma has become more discrete with her makeup... sometimes. The pyjamas don't really go with the rest of the costume, however.

Diane wouldn't let her go until she handed over the veil. Neither one of them wants to be the groom, and Tim definitely isn't interested.

Posted by Mark at 01:27 PM | TrackBack

January 21, 2006

Bringing them up right

Nathalie's bringing them up right. As we were cleaning up this morning, I had to stop Tim and Emma from fighting over who got to push the vacuum cleaner around.

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January 16, 2006

Mount Pisgah

Mom and Dana walked some of the way to Mount Pisgah. They couldn't take the road all the way in to the parking lot, and ended up having too far a hike therefore to do the whole thing on the spur of the moment.

Mom noticed a bunch of big rhododendrons growing out of the rock next to the road along the way. Mom says they're going to try the hike today with water and a picnic lunch, weather permitting. Dana tells me that the weather's often permitting during the day where they now live, or at least has been the last few weeks. It's up into the 60s (F) during the day. But they get big temperature swings, sometimes 35-40 degrees between nighttime lows and daytime highs.

Posted by Mark at 06:51 AM | TrackBack

January 15, 2006

Station de Granier

Today Nath decided we should go to the Station de Granier, which is only a few kilometers away as the bird flies, behind the ridge that ends in Mont Granier. This may have been the first time Diane went skiing instead of sledding. She probably skied a total of 40 minutes, but enjoyed it plenty. She told the woman renting skis that it was, "Too super!" They have a flat, short "baby" slope where it was easy to have her ski between our legs.

Another nice feature of the baby slope is that we could let Emma go unassisted, which built her confidence. Nath says Emma has forgotten how to ski in parallel. So she was trying to snowplow down a fairly steep blue slope, and had to do the last bit on her bottom. She wasn't phased however and enjoyed the whole time we were there.

Tim of course reckons he could've done a lot more impressive skiing if he hadn't had to wait sometimes for his middle sister and his mom.

He enjoyed the steep blue slope, but also the shorter green slope and the baby slope while he was waiting to go higher.

Posted by Mark at 04:52 PM | TrackBack

January 11, 2006

And now for something completely different..., part II

This was the photo of the only two guys not watching Mr Bean that day.

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January 09, 2006

Aunt Arlecia et al.

Since Mom moved to North Carolina, she's a lot closer than she used to be. She went to visit Aunt Arlecia, who I don't know yet, and who lives in Greenwood, South Carolina. They watched home movies. Mom's also planning to visit her cousin Gordon sometime, now that she lives only 120 miles away. I'd heard we had family down there but never really realized it. In the US you can end up having lots of family you never see.

Posted by Mark at 08:40 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

January 08, 2006

And now for something completely different...

We took so many pictures with Nath's new camera between Christmas and New Year's.

This one is at the opposite end of the spectrum from concerns of central planning vs. subsidiarity. It's the whole family watching Mr Bean together.

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January 06, 2006

Another digital camera

Nathalie got an inexpensive digital camera for Christmas. It is more sophisticated than Emma's, with zoom and various different kinds of functionality. It also takes 5 Mpixel snapshots.

Those lead to 2.4 MB JPEG photos. No wonder it takes a second for them to get written to the flash memory chip. It took me several minutes to download a copy of her photos, but then I noticed 118 photos take up 277 MB of disk.

The downside is that the camera doesn't do a pre-flash, so you get red eye. That can be fixed using the Gimp, as I did inexpertly with the photo in this entry (reduced 10:1).

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January 04, 2006

PlayStation all day

Tim apparently played a lot of SSX, the snowboarding game, today. After dinner he played with his sister, then his mom. He was about 25% faster than yesterday evening.

Must keep your priorities in life straight, you know.

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January 03, 2006

The magnificient seven

Here are the seven who were together most of last week at Mamie and Papy's.

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January 01, 2006

Pictures from Christmas vacation

Haven't downloaded pictures from Nathalie's camera yet, but here are four from Emma's camera.

Diane's eating mussels for Christmas dinner. Emma's posing in front of her grandparents' microwave. Timothee's on the TGV coming home today. The girls are at the dinner table in Desvres with their aunt Jeanne and uncles Fred and Mike.

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December 30, 2005

Maximum density

Today there are only 15 of us in the house, with 7 under the age of 9 years. The moments when you can hear yourself think are few, far between, and fleeting.

Since French is not my native language, I can almost pretend not to understand. Nathalie says I close my ears. If you don't understand what is said, it resembles a bunch of birds chirping.

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Colette's birthday

Yesterday 18 of us celebrated Colette's 60th at a nearby restaurant she'd chosen with Michel. Only about 4 h 15 m at the table, but the children had taken activities with them, and the folks at the restaurant put us in a special room where the noise wouldn't bother the other patrons. A great time was had by all, as they say.

The temperature was just right for a snowball fight afterwards, and there was plenty of clean snow next to the road, so nearly everyone climbed back into the cars with wet hair and cold hands.

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December 29, 2005

Many pictures, slow connection

Nathalie's new digital camera has many photos we'd like to show, but the connection's just too slow to upload them. Maybe soon.

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December 26, 2005

Star Wars on DVD

Tim's watching Attack of the Clones for the third time since yesterday morning. He says it's his favorite, except for the latest one. He doesn't have that DVD yet.

Of the others, he's watched Phantom Menace once and the (almost) original film once. They seem to have edited it. I walked in at one point and saw Jabba the Hut, who I'm sure wasn't in the first one before. Mom says they fixed some parts to make them jibe with the new trilogy.

Tim's conversation has taken a decidedly Star Warsian turn over the last two days. I also noticed his lips moving in sync with the actors for some of the dialogs.

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December 25, 2005

Two princesses

Here are the two princesses in their new dresses.

Emma and Diane are both wearing lipstick from Emma's new vanity case full of adult makeup. They're also wearing a bit of lip gloss on their eyelids. Emma's still working out which makeup goes on which parts of the face. Yet she was truly happy to get more makeup, especially since this set is not for little girls. It's the real thing.

You cannot see them here, but both princesses have high-heeled shoes as well that go click-click-click as they walk along the floor downstairs.

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Merry Christmas

Nathalie forced them to wait until 7:30 to go into the living room with the Christmas tree and presents. They were all assembled upstairs talking and waiting expectantly at 7:15.

By 7:45 it was all over. All the presents had been opened. I was hooking up the PlayStation for Tim, which turned out to be a complete disaster. I'd not noticed that Sony segmented their markets NTSC vs. PAL, so not only doesn't the PlayStation work with our television sets over here, none of the games you buy in Europe work with a PlayStation you bought in the US. My Christmas wish for marketing folks across the known universe is somewhat less than Christian.

The engineers skirted around their marketers with DVDs, however, so Tim's watching Star Wars. He laughed right away at the dubbing, which was done by different actors than the European French version. But the DVDs play all right now that the player is dezoned.

Emma and Diane are getting made up and trying on their dresses. Time to take more pictures.

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December 24, 2005

Emma's shopping list

Look carefully at this scan of Emma's shopping list. Can you tell what we're supposed to buy?

It's not clear whether Emma thought it would just be easier to draw her Pez dispenser with two ("2") sticks of Pez candies rather than writing "2 paquets de bonbons Pez," or whether she feared I would somehow misunderstand and perhaps come back with something she didn't want, like 2 packages of Ramen noodles.

Or a couple of transparent space mummies with a cat named Samedi who came along on the mother ship from Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

She's handing off PostIt notes now, trying to convince her dad to build a replica of Devil's Mountain in our living room. They're coming from outer space to take us away.

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December 19, 2005

Flying back home

Took Mom to the airport in Lyon this morning. We left after she was able to say goodbye to everyone. She flew out and should be most of the way back into the US by now. Hope it goes well.

The children were sad to see her go, but happy to be on vacation today. They went to the Christmas market in Chambery where they found a Mongolian display from the sound of it. Timothee was wondering what it would be like to live in a yurt. Emma figured it would be cold.

Diane had understood the idea that Mamie Teena was going home. She's been asking when we're going to see her other grandmother, Mamie Colette. She's convinced for some reason that we'll have lots of candy on the train trip.

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December 18, 2005

Model bowling alley

Tim's been building a model bowling alley, though we don't think he's ever actually gone bowling.

He made pins out of that plastic modelling dough you fire by heating it for half an our in a warm oven.

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Video capture, part XXI

Mom finished the last of source cassette number 11 today. I'm now transferring the digital video to disk.

It seems Kino now has three point editing. Maybe it had it before. There won't be time to do more than process the raw content to MPEG and burn it onto SVCD for Mom. A few more years of progress in cheap storage and I'll be able to transfer the raw content onto something that's random access for video editing whenever I have time.

Trouble is, video editing, at least for me, is not something I can do while regularly interrupted. Not enough of a science. Instead it's like trying to imagine a sort of story based on the footage you have, then sculpting the story together, but without enough technique to do a part then set it aside. If set aside, it just gets forgotten. A shame that the first time in your life you have videos to edit -- when you have small children -- is the time of your life when you're almost constantly debilitated by interruptions.

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Tim wanted me to tell you

Tim wanted me to tell you something he found out about Christmas parties at work, and the corresponding uptick in copier repair calls to replace the scanner plate. Did he read this at The Register?

We understand that Canon has recently increased its glass plate thickness from 4 to 5mm, and accordingly expects a reduction in arse-induced failure. No, that is not an invitation for drunken pressure testing. Behave yourselves.

I don't think we have this sort of Christmas party at most workplaces in France.

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December 16, 2005

Television incapacitates

Mom said the first day full she was here, the kids were ready to go to school 7 or 8 minutes ahead of time. Tim reasoned, "I guess it's because we didn't watch television this morning."

When Emma got up today at 7:08 am, she turned on the tube. Tim got up and fell on the couch almost without noticing I was there. It wasn't an evil program, just Sesame Street in translation. It was hard getting them to the table to eat their toast and drink their juice and milk, mainly because it's tough to pry their attention away from the television set.

When I took Diane a bottle of warm milk, and Nathalie her wake up cup of hot coffee, I left Tim and Emma in front of their toast. Five minutes later, Emma had managed to butter one square inch of toast. Tim had managed nothing. His toast was untouched. They had been almost completely incapacitated by television.

Watch out. It could be happening to you. You won't notice it either.

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December 12, 2005

Snatched

Nathalie called me this afternoon. Her purse had been snatched while she was shopping.

Whoever did it got about 10 euros in cash, but, because she was carrying my car papers, which I carry next to my tickets restaurant, the thief also got about 27 x 8 euros in tickets. He might not be able to buy drugs with them, but at least he'll be in good shape if he gets the munchies.

The worst part of this is that given the amount of stuff Nathalie had in her purse, it's going to be a huge chore to replace IDs, credit cards, discount cards, passport, address book, agenda, etc.

She was out when this happened of course, so I called school to tell them she might be late picking up the kids. The teacher I mentioned it to announced what I'd said to her, approximately verbatim, to both Tim's and Emma's classes. So when Nathalie did make it back in time to pick up the kids, everyone in Barraux asked her about it, was she all right, and so forth.

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December 11, 2005

Old four eyes

(By special request from Tim)

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December 10, 2005

Symmetric Emmas

(Click to enlarge)

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Symmetric Tims

From an idea Mom got out of a book...

(Click to enlarge)

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December 07, 2005

Just visiting

Mom arrived a while ago, safe and sound, but without luggage. When she and Nathalie opened the trunk to get some stuff out, one of the trunk hinges broke. As they struggled with the trunk door, the other hinge broke, so in the end the whole trunk door broke off the Xantia and is now sitting in the garage. I don't have any pictures yet.

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December 03, 2005

Rough night

A note of caution for those of you considering having (more) kids. Even though Diane's three, Emma's six, and Tim's eight, we still had a rough night last night.

It started with Tim having an early nightmare, one of those where he's only slightly awake, terrified, and forgets it completely later. (He told me this morning that he'd slept really well, better than ever.) We were awake perhaps only half an hour around midnight, but it wasn't at a convenient point in the sleep cycle.

Next, 2:12 am, Diane's coughing got to the point where it sounded like she was going to retch. My initial thought was that she'd finally choked on the tiny pieces of plastic bitten off the end of her ragged pacifier. Then Nathalie asked me if I could go get the cough syrup, and she would bring up the humidifier from Tim's room. By quarter to three we were no doubt sleeping again.

Until Emma's air raid like cry at 6:23 am. She started crying downstairs and came up to our bedroom so she could whine about the problem. It seems Diane, who'd gone downstairs at probably 6:15 to wake her sister, had already stolen Emma's piece of chocolate for Dec. 3 from the advent calendar, stolen it from Emma's sleepy hand and put it in her mouth before Emma could do anything about it.

They don't go to school this morning. Nathalie's going first to work, then has some shopping to do. Then she's going to her lace class this afternoon. I'm sure it'll be lots of fun.

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Pictures from Mom's

Mom and Dana have moved in, and they sent some pictures. Nathalie especially likes their fireplace.

I like the picture of the footbridge between the trees.

Click the pictures to see them full size.

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November 27, 2005

Balloon ascent

Mom and Dana have moved into their new home. Mom shot a picture through the trees outside her window of this balloon lifting off. Diane thinks it looks good.

She also thinks she weighs "100 kilometers," which she claims is a lot. She's now riding her mom's exercise bike to get that weight down to 99 or 98 km.

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November 20, 2005

On the move

Mom and Dana have been out of contact for the last couple of days. They're moving to their new home, and are probably at Evelyn's. We no doubt have Evelyn's telephone number somewhere, but I haven't called. Hope their move is going all right.

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November 19, 2005

Mountain biking with Tim

After lunch I accompanied Tim to his mountain biking club. Pierre suggested last night on the phone that I'd go with the bigger kids to keep them in line. They were getting a ride uphill to a parking area on the way to the Granier pass from Chapareillan. But another guy Pierre expected to show up didn't, and so I tagged along with him and the four younger boys, including Tim.

Probably just as well. I'm a timorous downhill mountain biker, and don't see the point of going only downhill. We stayed mostly on the flats down by the quarry in Pontcharra. Around the lakes were they excavate the gravel are bumpy trails the boys enjoy. Then we came back up the hill behind La Gache, the one to the north rather than up the road in front of our house. That trail brings you out on the other side of Fort Barraux.

That trail is quite steep and rocky. The boys ended up pushing their bikes before we even left the street. The road there looks to me like an excellent short, straight climb for intense hill repeats or intervals. But when you're under 10 you don't see it that way.

Emma's been at a birthday party, and Diane's been painting. Diane was calm enough that Nathalie could finish one of her frames around a photo of a little girl looking in a mirror. Time to pick Emma up soon.

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November 15, 2005

Quick bath

When I rolled home from work at about 7 pm, Emma was in her bath and Tim was watching a game show on television. By the time I'd shed my cycling clothes and set down my things, Emma was done. It was Tim's turn.

He used a variation on same ruse Matt and I used to resort to when told to brush our teeth. Basically, things can very easily be wet.

I said to Tim that he'd better take a quick bath, because I still had to take a shower before dinner. When I came into the bathroom, he had on his shirt and undershorts, and was making faces in the mirror. I went to the toilet, heard a big splash in the tub, and came back into the bathroom.

Tim was claiming he'd taken a bath. He was indeed dripping on the bathroom floor. Took him all of 15 seconds.

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November 12, 2005

To Crest and back

Debra and my brother Matt left today to spend the last couple of days vacation with Debra's friends near Crest, which is south of Valence. Tim and Emma rode over there with us. It ended up taking all afternoon by the time we stopped for a snack and then in Grenoble to get smoother tires for my mountain bike and arrows for Tim's arc.

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November 11, 2005

Paragliders

After lunch we went to see the paragliders jumping off the cliff up at St. Hilaire du Touvet.

Diane was ready to go with them. She saw them running down to the edge and wanted to go, too.

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More pictures

This morning we tried to take a few pictures. Nathalie wanted to have one of the whole family, but the children didn't want to stand still. Diane was running off on her bike. Tim wanted to have his scooter. We finally got them to stand still for a moment.

Emma also was taking pictures. I don't think this last one is one of hers, but is instead Matt not keeping his camera still as he snaps a picture of himself and Debra.

Time to head off to St. Hilaire for a walk. Must go.

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November 09, 2005

Afternoon activities

Tim ended up playing tennis with Debra, rather than with Matt. Matt and I went for a short bike ride from the soccer field in Barraux, where we left Tim with Nathalie, Debra, and the girls, over to the lac St. André by Les Marches, then circling back around to Barraux. We only had 37 minutes to ride. 23 minutes of the hour we'd expected to ride was taken up by preparations, including getting the kids' bikes ready.

While I rode my mountain bike after my brother on my road bike, the kids rode around the stade and burned off some excess energy at the playground. After that, Tim had ping pong in Pontcharra, so we had to hurry back and get him ready. Emma had her dance class. We walked around Pontcharra, window shopping. House prices sure seem high right now.

There was gridlock in the parking lot as we left the gymnasium next to the junior high school in Pontcharra. I guess it happens every Wednesday at 5 pm, but I've been missing it since I'm usually at work. They're still going strong downstairs. Emma's ecstatic to have people who'll sit and play cards with her. Tim's juggling the piezoelectric plastic balls Matt and Debra brought, which are labelled ExperienceColumbus.com. Diane's eating all the saucisson we put on the table.

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Visitors, part II

It was tough for the three children this morning. Aunt Debra and Uncle Matt were tired, and slept in until almost 9. Emma, Tim, and even Diane were asking when they were going to get up.

Tim and Emma both have activities today. Tim says before his table tennis club, Uncle Matt should take him up to the tennis courts in Barraux. Right after eating a couple of full plates of couscous for lunch. Looks like we might take a walk instead.

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November 08, 2005

Visitors

Matt and Debra arrived at the train station in Grenoble a bit before I did, just before 5 pm.

They brought gifts for the children. Emma got the digital camera to take these pictures.

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November 06, 2005

Eyeshadow

This one I missed a couple of days ago when downloading photos from the camcorder.

I thought Emma was just taking random pictures and got Tim with his eyes closed. But if you look closely it turns out that his sisters had been making up his eyes with violet eyeshadow.

This afternoon I had the two of them trying to do my hair, first Diane, then Emma, then both. They didn't manage much, since my last hair cut was only a couple of weeks ago. But Emma still managed to put one of her pink elastic bands around a few hairs at the top of my head.

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November 05, 2005

Bubble bath

Emma and Diane get along pretty well when their brother isn't nearby to pit one against the other.

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November 01, 2005

Lizard daydreaming

Nathalie didn't take pictures of all the children in their Halloween costumes, but you've already seen TIm dressed up as a Jedi knight.

Diane apparently swallowed 7 or 8 large pieces of gum. Tim wolfed nougat. Emma was apparently the most reasonable of the three. Their Jack o' Lanterns must be full of water by now from last night's downpour.

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October 23, 2005

Bandage

Diane has a way of leaving her hands in door and drawers, especially when Tim's around. He rarely looks out for her, and the other day slammed her fingertip in the drawer, cutting it badly.

Diane got over it quickly, however. In this slightly overexposed picture, you can see her big bandage.

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Produits des terroirs

We went to Chapareillan over Emma and Diane's objections. In the end neither girl wanted to leave. Not because of the gymnasium full of cheese, cured meats, candy, mushrooms, wine, beer, baked goods, etc. from various places nearby and far away, but because they both wanted us to wait in the makeup line, where all the little girls were having butterflies painted around their eyes. It was a long line indeed.

Nathalie took the children on the petit train. The same guy from La Rochette hooks it up to his decorated tractor and tows the kids around for every village fair around here. Even Diane can see it coming from far away. If she noticed that Santa Claus was wearing overalls and a flannel shirt today, she didn't let on.

Both sisters watched their brother try his hand at archery. The local archery club had brought out bows, arrows, and a big target over styrofoam. Tim's first shot almost hit the bullseye. Then he got excited and less accurate.

Nathalie bought 12 bottles of bière du Chardon, the brewery Ludo introduced us to. I haven't been drinking much beer lately, but she wanted to try it. Also we're sure Michel and Dana and maybe my brother Matt will enjoy it when they visit.

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October 15, 2005

Mackenzie II

We took the kids to the restaurant in La Rochette this evening for dinner. Emma and Tim love choosing from the menu.

Emma ate everything on her plate, and a little bit off her brother's plate. Diane and Tim shared mussels. Diane ate three times as much as her brother. But then he had a chocolate fondue with fruit for dessert, eating more than any of the rest of us.

They seem to be sleeping now. Diane almost didn't last until the end of the meal.

Posted by Mark at 10:12 PM | TrackBack

October 13, 2005

Got a job

Nathalie called me at work in the early afternoon to say she'd gotten her first job, which is tutoring English to a girl in La Rochette. She's going to work 1:30 each Saturday, probably in the mornings.

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October 09, 2005

Smiles

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More conservative investing

On May 11, 1999, Granddad sent me a letter. It must've been soon after I told him we were moving to Lumbin, near Grenoble. Clinton was in the White House, and Granddad wasn't too impressed with him. He wrote:

And I can't understand the stock market either. Maybe it's because I don't understand companies like AOL and Yahoo. Yahoo sounds like you are whistling at a street walker.

When I first bought stocks in 1956 I went to the broker's and studied financial records of several companies for a couple of days. Then I bought fractional lots of IBM, GM, AT&T and a couple of others. I added to them as I had money. I also bought a fund but sold it a few years later when I noticed the fund's stocks were not as good as I picked.

My aim was to have dividend income equal to the difference between retired pay and what I made on duty. And when a stock didn't pay dividends I sold it.

A while later other investors were deciding they didn't understand why AOL and Yahoo had such stratospheric prices, either. I had a bit of SUNW I'd bought with part of my salary, with the end result that somebody else got most of that part of my salary. Hope they spent it well.

Posted by Mark at 03:25 PM | TrackBack

October 02, 2005

Homework & the boob tube

Tim and Emma are doing their homework this morning. It's tough. Diane's watching television nearby, because she doesn't have any homework. Television turns normal children into catatonic consumers, fully incapable of thinking, much less doing any homework.

It was strange to see that Tim couldn't say his multiplication tables with the television going in the other room. No idea what 3x8 could be. All it took to get that capacity back was to leave the room with the television in it.

Emma was having the same difficulty understanding what she had to do. As soon as the television goes off, suddenly she understands.

We have involuntary labelling on cigarettes. We ought to have it on television sets as well: "Turning on this television reduces your IQ by half. Watching it reduces your IQ even further."

This point seems doubly important to account for when you think you're learning something by watching a news program, for example. My guess is that instant messaging has a similar effect.

Posted by Mark at 09:54 AM | TrackBack

October 01, 2005

Biking around Barraux

A couple of mountain bikers in town have organized fortnightly rides to teach the local children a bit about all-terrain riding. The first ride this fall was from 2-4 this afternoon. Tim wanted me to come along, so I did. There were groups according to the kids' experience, so Tim and I went with the beginner group, led by a guy named Pierre. Pierre later told me he'd worked as a mountain guide. He's a few years older than I am, but thinner and probably about as fit.

We started out by riding around cones, first relatively quickly, then as slowly as possible. After that we worked on standing up on the pedals, sitting down again, etc. Then we rode down some short hills. I asked Pierre how to ride back up those little hills. He showed me you need to stand up just a bit, keeping your butt on the point of the seat. That worked for me, but I'm still not smooth enough to do that on a long hill.

You cannot see the dirt on our bikes at this resolution, so you'll have to take my word for it.

It rained from about 3-3:15 pm, when we were at the foot of the hill around Fort Barraux. Nobody seemed to mind much. The kids were a little scared of going straight down the hill on their bicycles, however. Tim fell over once and decided to walk his down. After that we rode up the hill behind La Cuiller. Tim was getting hungry. In the end, he had a great time. When we came back home, he ate 4 big cookies and drank a large bowl of milk with protein powder that I keep for days when I run long. According to Tim, his muscles'll be ready for the Tour de France soon.

One clothing-related note: Don't wear tights with a long crotch. It'll get stuck in your seat at inconvenient times.

Posted by Mark at 04:53 PM | TrackBack

September 28, 2005

New home

Mom and Dana's offer on the house they were looking at was accepted. So they're planning to move. They've lots of work ahead getting the house ready for sale, then moving all their stuff. But I guess the biggest decision has already been made.

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September 25, 2005

Craig & Son (& Daughter) lawn care

It was supposed to rain here this afternoon. So far it has not.

At 9 am this morning I was out mowing the lawn. When I made it to the back yard, I had one helper, then two. First Tim came out. He's getting handy with the mower, and can do a whole row by himself. I have the video to prove it.

When Emma saw her brother mowing, she decided she couldn't be outdone. In the end, she did more rows than her brother. She also overcame her fear of the loud mower, although she found it a little bit harder to stay on the row. There were a few rows where the cutting of the grass itself took a back seat in the overall effort to keep the mower moving across the yard. She's proud of what she did, though.

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September 17, 2005

Dark lord, no chocolate sandwich

He's gone over to the dark side but we had to take several photos to avoid seeing unbrushed hair sticking out from behind the mask.

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September 16, 2005

Dark lord with chocolate sandwich

He's headed over to the dark side of the force, but not until he drinks his milk.

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September 11, 2005

Robin Hood

Nathalie bought the children some used Disney cassettes a few weeks ago. One of those was Robin Hood. Diane still watches a bit of that one every day.

I'm not sure whether Tim's interest in archery came from that, but he finally got his wish yesterday. He got himself a bow and arrow set from Decathlon for 20 euros.

We made a target out of an extra bit of styrofoam insulation and some leftover wallpaper. He's been playing Robin Hood.

What's difficult for him to grasp is that although it's okay to shoot arrows at the target, it's not okay to let them fly over the house, nor is it okay to shoot at birds either in the yard or in the trees. He's been able to hit the target several times in a row from a few steps away. So he decided we ought to go hunting this afternoon in the Chartreuse.

Posted by Mark at 10:10 AM

September 04, 2005

Gift

Gift in German translates to poison in English and French.

Somebody gave Tim a gift like that. It's a book of prints on cardboard that you cut out, fold in spots, and then theoretically glue together to make a fortress. The poison's not for him. He thinks it's great.

Unfortunately he cannot get it off his mind, and he can barely do any of the assembly himself. So if you do "help" him, you get to try to assemble the maddinging small pieces of cardboard yourself while Tim interferes with good intentions, and Emma and Diane try to prevent you from playing with Tim.

Tim's now up here with another piece under my nose as I type.

Posted by Mark at 05:33 PM

September 03, 2005

Back to school, part III

When I came back from running this morning, I expected to have Diane with me. Nope.

She decided this morning that she would rather go to school than stay home. We wonder how long the enthusiasm will last.

Posted by Mark at 10:49 AM

September 02, 2005

Back to school, part II

Nathalie took some pictures of the children going back to school this morning:

I think she also took better portrait photos with the old chemical camera.

Posted by Mark at 08:36 PM

Back to school

Today the children are going back to school. Diane's going for the first time.

I got them started and fed, letting Tim and Emma pick their own clothes. When Nathalie got up she made it clear I'd made a mistake. Guess you have to be dressed snapily for the first day of school.

No pictures, yet. I left for work before she could get their hair combed.

Posted by Mark at 08:37 AM

September 01, 2005

Lining up

Dad sent me mail about getting gas in Indianapolis, Indiana. He went to a place where he could buy gasoline for just under $2.70/gal. There was a line of 50 cars ahead of him when he arrived.

At another gas station, he saw gas advertised at about $3.20/gal ($0.85/liter, which is bit over half what it costs here in France at the current dollar/euro exchange rate). The place selling gas for $3.20/gal didn't have lines.

Since I've been taking the (diesel) train and my bike to get to work nearly all the time for the last few weeks, I haven't bought gas for my car since July. My train ticket for going to work expired last night, however, and I took the car this morning.

Even at 7:00 am we had to line up, going through a section where the folks cutting grass had blocked a lane to bring their machines through. For the rest of the autoroute section, I kept my speed down around 110-115 kph (68-71 mph) max. The limit is 130 kph (81 mph), partly to conserve gas, partly because I've been driving more slowly in the last couple of years. Incidentally, France is considering implementing a 115 kph limit on the autoroute to reduce fuel consumption.

Posted by Mark at 07:36 AM

August 30, 2005

Another useless meeting

Nathalie had another unhelpfully depressing meeting with someone at the ANPE (French National Agency For Employment). This half day appears to have been an obligatory session for working on your resume and cover letters.

The guy running it seems to have been trying to convince Nathalie not to look for a job at all, even before she starts. What he said about her draft resume was in direct contrast to what another colleague of his at the ANPE recommended she do. He also counselled her not to bother looking in the area she expressly decided to consider on suggestion from other employment counsellors.

Nathalie said some people were helped there today, although lots dropped out. The people who were helped all knew precisely what they were looking for and either had just left school having trained to go into that specific line of work, or had been doing the same thing for 15 years, etc.

It's not clear to me why someone in that position would want to spend a whole Tuesday morning in a room probably without an Internet connection or telephone to mull over their resume and cover letter. My guess is that when you don't do much writing, you get rusty at it. Writing anything then seems so hard you need a huge amount of time to get started.

The same is probably true in getting back into the working (for money) world. Once out of it, you quickly forget most of us work at occupations:

• We would have no idea how to do had we not learned on the job for at least the first few months or years
• Could be done by just about anyone if they'd also had the time to learn on the job
• Involve very, very little in any way related to particular things we learned in school

Of course, if somebody found that out, not only would we all suddenly have job security problems, but also a bunch of other naked imperial flesh would become visible and they'd have to send people around to beat us up.

Posted by Mark at 12:57 PM | Comments (2)

August 25, 2005

Haircuts

Nathalie took them in for the back to school haircuts today.

Tim decided he doesn't have the patience to look like Anakin Skywalker before he started wearing that Vader suit.

Posted by Mark at 09:50 PM

August 20, 2005

Afternoon at the movies

This afternoon it's been dark, windy, and sprinking, and both Tim and Emma wanted to go see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which I didn't realize was a Tim Burton film until we sat down and it all started. That made it more worthwhile.

Both Tim and Emma enjoyed it, and so did I. Emma was just old enough to get scared and want to hold someone's hand at the parts where the pushy and gluttonous kids get theirs. There were lots of kids there at the 4 pm showing.

Most of them were eating candy and gum through the whole thing.

Posted by Mark at 06:20 PM

Swimming pool, part II

Emma's taking swimming lessons. Although it rained this morning from about 6:00 am to 8:00 am, she still went for her lesson at 9:30 am. The air temperature was about 22 C (72 F), and the water temperature was 26 C (79 F).

She seemed to enjoy it, and said she did when she got out. Emma looked proud to have an audience, since we were all there. When I got done running I walked over to the pool and watched her.

She was with another girl about her age, but smaller and a somewhat better swimmer. When I arrived they were diving to get plastic rings from the bottom of the pool. Then they worked kicking both on their stomachs and on their backs. Finally they actually did swim without flotation devices, and even went over to the deeper pool. Both girls swam better in the deep pool, as they couldn't put their feet down and stopped. Looked like more work, though.

Posted by Mark at 11:16 AM

August 19, 2005

Over 3000 miles

Dana's ridden over 3000 miles on his Gold-Rush recumbent bicycle, which looks something like this, although his has a hard seat back, not mesh, and no faring yet:

He got the bike last summer, so did all this distance in about a year. He says he never rides less than 20 miles at a time.

When I rode with him using his old Trek bicycle, I noticed how true it is that recumbent riders have an advantage on the downhills. Surely that advantage would be even greater on a long tour, since you wouldn't end up pinching nerves in your hands or wearing out your rear.

Posted by Mark at 07:57 AM

August 14, 2005

Artists

Pictures Mom sent of some artists in the family:

These pics were all taken at Mom's this summer.

Posted by Mark at 11:46 PM

In the trees

After the yardwork was finished, Tim and Emma got to go to the place at at the col de Marcieu where you can do aerial trekking, going from tree to tree hooked to a cable.

They loved it.

Diane's a year too young for aerial trekking, so she trekked around underneath, chucking stones and handling sticks. She says she loved it, too.

Posted by Mark at 08:51 PM

August 13, 2005

Funny faces

Andy sent a link to Stephen Kroniger's site for the kids a while ago. They finally got around to looking at it. They loved the funny faces. Didn't want to stop and go to bed.

Posted by Mark at 09:03 PM

Vacation pics

The girls had a good time at the beach up north, even if it was not warm in Dunkerque.

Tim had a good time, too. He just didn't pose for the camera as much.

Posted by Mark at 04:31 PM

August 02, 2005

Ann Arbor

Debra sent us some pictures. Here's one:

My brother's better looking than I am, but so far my genes are ahead of his. Of course for years I was taller than he was, too.

Posted by Mark at 09:42 PM

August 01, 2005

Coincidence

Only days after I post a picture including a guy I've not seen in years, my mother stops by the public library and finds a new book by his dad. Hmm. This is the third in a clump of improbable pairs, the second being Gilles having two 2 flats on his bike after a relatively short interval, including one where the tire was punctured by some sort of thorn. I cannot recall the first pair.

Posted by Mark at 04:01 PM | Comments (4)

July 29, 2005

Vacation, part II

Some people engaged in more amusing vacation activities than others.

Posted by Mark at 09:55 PM | Comments (2)

July 26, 2005

Old vacation

Here's an old photo from 1976 that Dana scanned. Matt finally did get those muscles after his undergraduate years when he went to work doing carpentry, carpeting, and so forth.

No, that's not our third brother and black sheep of the family we don't talk about any more. It's just Gully, who we haven't seen in many years.

Posted by Mark at 02:34 PM

July 25, 2005

Portrait photographer, part IV

Tim took this one of his sisters, looks like the Pinhook bog parking area:

I had to crop out the porta-pot he caught in its entirety.

Posted by Mark at 12:48 AM

Swimming pool

Donna, Mom's neighbor, let us use their swimming pool. The kids were having a blast.

Tim seems to have forgotten most of what he learned, however. He needs to swim more regularly.

Posted by Mark at 12:40 AM

July 24, 2005

Family and country

Debra and Matt were here but took off before we got the camera out. This one of the grandparents and grandchildren shows you Dana's American flag.

One of the first things I noticed when we came to Michigan City from the airport was the huge American flag being flown by an ice cream place off the highway. Their flag is truly large, apparently about the size of a house.

People in the US have always flown flags more than people in Europe it seems. But only since 9/11 have I noticed as many flags, banners, and stickers.

Posted by Mark at 05:20 PM | Comments (2)

July 23, 2005

Beads

Tim, Emma, and even Diane have been making beads over the last few days with Mom:

Tim's getting pretty good. As you see he's even able to make fruit.

Posted by Mark at 09:14 PM

July 21, 2005

Dinner

This shot of dinner Wednesday evening is just to show that Paul and Evelyn were here. They both seem to be doing well.

Posted by Mark at 09:31 PM

July 20, 2005

Chicago, part II

We had plenty of visibility from the Sears Tower. It was also relatively cool in downtown Chicago with a light breeze.

Unfortunately we took Tim's camera and the photos seem to have become corrupted. Mom and Dana's computer cannot download anything from the device.

Also unfortunately we walked all the way to Gino's Pizza, only to find something on the door about the place being closed. It looks like they've been shut down by the health department or something. I think I had the wrong one, over on Rush.

At least Water Tower Place is close by there so we found somewhere to eat before Emma starved to death. After walking all the way up there from the Sears Tower -- must've been two miles in addition to the approx. mile we walked over to the Sears Tower from the Millenium Park garage -- she was famished and complaining. Her disappointment vanished however as soon as she had food and realized she'd be shopping right after lunch.

Nathalie bought her some clothes. Tim and I stood outside in the mall and looked bored. Nathalie tried to look for some clothes of her own, but then Emma got involved. The only shopping they could agree on was clothes for Emma.

Tim and I stood outside and looked bored some more. Tim finally found a small TV in the back of one of the stores, so he watched that.

When we got out of Chicago at 3:30 pm, the traffic was already getting bad. So we took the Skyway back to Indiana. Made it home by about 4:30 pm. Mom said Diane had eaten 6 times today.

Posted by Mark at 12:10 AM

July 19, 2005

Chicago

We're now trying to get the bigger children ready to ride into Chicago. Nathalie wants them to see the Sears Tower and downtown Chicago because it's something they won't see in France. Diane's staying with her Grandmother because we don't feel like carrying her all over Chicago.

I'd rather finishing reading at least one of the books I've started. Yet I know that if we stayed home it would not be possible to do that. The children wouldn't want to read their books.

Tim wants to go see Revenge of the Sith again. He's still completely absorbed by the Star Wars saga. We saw the movie together a couple of nights ago. He didn't even mind going to see it in English. The important thing was to see how Anakin went over to the Dark Side and became Darth Vader.

He only understood part of it. What he understood was that Anakin went over to the Dark Side because he loved Padmé so much. On the way home in the car he told me he'd never have a girlfriend because attachment would interfere with his Jedi training.

Posted by Mark at 03:31 PM

July 17, 2005

Fire

Matt has an outdoor fireplace contraption that he used last night on his back porch:

The weather was far too warm for a fire, but the children were happy to stay up past their bedtimes.

Posted by Mark at 11:53 PM

Debra & Matt's

The children were glad to see everyone today here at Debra & Matt's in Ann Arbor. They especially like the two cats.

We also saw Tam, Taletha, Julie, Jim, and Loraine. They'll be back tomorrow for more family get together time.

Posted by Mark at 02:24 AM

July 15, 2005

10th anniversary

Nathalie and I were married 10 years ago today in Desvres, France. Guess I should go find a nice restaurant for dinner.

Posted by Mark at 12:37 AM

July 13, 2005

Otter creek

Lake Michigan was warm enough the fish were languidly and unguardedly sunbathing, too. Tim caught a minnow with his bare hands:

The weather and water were nice enough in the morning that Tim and Emma weren't even disagreeable with each other:

Mom and Nathalie were a little overheaded, though:

They ended up taking it easy while waiting for the children to burn off excess energy.

Posted by Mark at 01:02 AM

Dunes

Here are a couple of shots looking north at Sleeping Bear:

We took these from one of the lookouts off the Pierce Stocking scenic drive.

Posted by Mark at 12:50 AM

July 10, 2005

Pinhook bog

Mom signed us up for the 1-hour tour this morning at Pinhook bog. Here are some carnivorous flowers that trap insects by getting them to stick to the tips.

The bog is a clay bowl left by the last ice age 14,000 years ago. It's been filling up for the last 4 thousand years, and currently has enough moss on top that even oak trees manage to grow in the middle. What the children liked best however was the blueberries that grew all along the trail where we walked.

Posted by Mark at 06:51 PM

July 09, 2005

DVD regions and languages

The children are watching a Scooby Doo DVD from the La Porte County Public Library... in French. Tim wants to buy Star Wars DVDs here, since they also have French soundtracks. The trouble is the DVD regions. I guess we're not in the same region as the US, and so theoretically our player won't be able to read DVDs we buy here.

It's too bad. Two of the Star Wars DVDs in question look about twice as expensive in France.

Posted by Mark at 05:11 PM

July 08, 2005

Kayaking

Mom took us to Pine Lake this noon. The kids went swimming and tried out her kayak. Tim was actually able to paddle around. Emma and Diane needed towing, but enjoyed it a lot.

I finally had to bribe them to get them out of the water. Told them we'd go get ice cream. We went to Dairy Queen, where all the desert sizes were too big for small French children. So Emma finished hers, but Tim and Diane couldn't manage.

Posted by Mark at 11:02 PM

July 04, 2005

Lost keys

We're expecting thunderstorms today, so I didn't ride into work.

Instead I spent 45 minutes this morning looking for my car keys. Nathalie helped for the last 15, so that's a total of an hour.

They keys it turns out were underneath a Barbie doll in the Barbie car in Emma's room. Diane apparently decided to put them there yesterday.

Posted by Mark at 08:53 AM

July 02, 2005

Mischief and regression

While I was web surfing, Diane went to use the toilet. First she peed on the seat, though. Never said a thing.

After using the toilet, she decided to add an entire roll of toilet paper. That wasn't dissolving fast enough, so she started mixing it with her hands. This only took a couple of minutes.

Emma and I didn't realize what was going on until she slipped on a wad of toilet paper, fell on the floor, and started whining. Is it true that at 3, you're not old enough to know better than to play in the pot where you pissed?

Tim's been doing a lot of childish things as well, as if he were uncomfortable with his age, feeding his sister plastic beads and so forth. Diane's regressed to talking like a baby.

Posted by Mark at 02:21 PM

Summer vacation

The children are now on summer vacation as of this noon. Nathalie already has a headache, although it may not yet be related to their vacation.

Emma was so enthusiastic she actually wanted to get up and go to school this morning for the last day. Timothee's tadpole died, and he was sad about that when he returned from school. Now he's planning how he's going to spend his money this summer.

Posted by Mark at 01:06 PM

July 01, 2005

Tadpole

Tim's growing a tadpole. He started out with 4-5, but the others died. He now has one left, swimming in a tupperware container on his desk.

In the past couple of days, it has grown legs and seems to be breathing by pushing it's mouth above the surface. We're going to have to let it out soon.

Posted by Mark at 08:49 PM

June 18, 2005

Jeux

After my birthday, Nath got me one of these:

Karine later lent me a book that suggests crunches are the wrong way to build stomach muscles. The squeezes tend to make the muscles pooch out instead of stay flat and hold things in, which is what they're there for.

But the girls really enjoy playing with it. That and the exercise bike. One of Diane's favorite games is to climb up on the exercise bike and take a bite out of the foam handlebar covers.

Posted by Mark at 10:50 AM

June 09, 2005

Pageant in English

Last night Tim and Emma did a end-of-the-year spectacle with their "English is Fun" club.

Most of the time I could puzzle out what the kids were saying. French accents you could cut with a knife.

Posted by Mark at 08:54 PM

June 05, 2005

Wild orchid

Nathalie says this flower the children found and picked is a species of wild orchid.

Apparently people go far into the mountains to get these. It's true that our yard sometimes resembles and alpine meadow.

Posted by Mark at 07:53 PM

June 04, 2005

Portrait

Tim drew a portrait of his father.

A little too much Star Wars for him.

Posted by Mark at 04:47 PM | Comments (2)

Pool

Nathalie bought another pool. Maybe this time we won't have to buy a new one next year, since this one is fairly permanent.

The water was cold, but the children enjoyed it anyway. It's gradually warming up. Diane was proud to wear her underwear like a hat.

Posted by Mark at 04:35 PM

May 30, 2005

Birthday season, part V

It's the last one in our household for 2005. Today is Nathalie's birthday.

I've taken the day off to chauffeur the children to and from school, make lunch, etc. Diane's still managing to get on Nathalie's nerves. Diane's at that age where you could work full time just cleaning up after her as she roves through the house and yard.

Posted by Mark at 11:02 AM

May 29, 2005

Happy Mother's Day

Today is Mother's Day in France. The children had made gifts for Nathalie. Tim had a poem to recite. Emma had a song.

They couldn't wait until Nathalie got out of bed, so we brought her coffee. Nathalie didn't want me to take pictures until she's had a chance to brush her hair.

Posted by Mark at 07:57 AM

May 28, 2005

Star Wars

Since the latest Star Wars episode appeared in cinemas, it's become a big deal to Tim. Must be a hot topic at school. He's disappointed not to have gotten a light saber for his birthday.

Now he's watching a recording of the original film. I didn't recall how cheesy the special effects were. And the guy dubbing Darth Vador's voice in French just doesn't cut it at all.

I'm less interested than Tim at this point, but whatever the story says, it's clear the real fall of the Empire was due to criminal incompetence of all instructors at the Imperial Stormtrooper School of Marksmanship.

Posted by Mark at 02:30 PM

May 16, 2005

Days off

Michel and Colette have agreed to take care of the children this week. Nathalie and I are going on vacation without them.

Tim and Emma seemed okay with that. Diane doesn't seem to understand fully, yet.

Posted by Mark at 08:59 AM | Comments (1)

May 15, 2005

Party, part III

Tim had his other presents today. With Dad's participation, we bought him a mini stereo. He's listening to it now. He and his sisters were dancing and singing along.

We'd rather have him listening to music in his room than playing video games on a console attached to the television.

Posted by Mark at 02:07 PM

May 14, 2005

Restaurants on the brain

I don't know who's been pestering me more, Tim with his mania about building a cabin out in the yard or Emma with her relentless desire to get the whole family to a restaurant for dinner.

Emma's come upstairs to tell me that Mom and Grandma want to go as long as I pay. When I told her someone needs to call for a reservation, I overheard her asking her mother about it. It was obvious from the rejection she got that she'd not yet brought up the subject. So she came crying to me for finances to get her grandfather to take her out this week. No big deal, but she's been trying stuff like this every day since she knew her grandparents were coming to visit.

Posted by Mark at 06:39 PM

Birthday season, part IV

We're almost at the end of birthday season at our house. Tomorrow's birthday boy:

After that Nathalie's the only one left before next year.

Posted by Mark at 06:27 PM

Party, part II

Tim only ended up having 4 friends, one who was a friend of Emma's, at his birthday party this afternoon.

With only seven children we managed to stay inside without going crazy. Michel had set up a pig as the target in the garage and even made darts out of thin wood and cardboard. They enjoyed Nathalie's game of panning for gold down there as well.

This was the first time we've actually seen them all eat their cake. Not only did we have less candy to start with and wait until almost quarter til 5 to bring out the birthday cake, but it was also a few degrees cooler than when we have birthday parties in the yard.

Posted by Mark at 06:15 PM

Haircut, part II

Both girls had already slept on their hair by the time I took these:

Posted by Mark at 06:00 PM

Rain, part VII

Tim invited a few friends over today to celebrate his birthday, which is tomorrow. Nathalie's figured out what to do with a group of excited 8&9-year-olds. A treasure hunt, panning for gold (sifting through couscous for buried M&Ms), bake your own bread, the inevitable piñata, the birthday cake nobody eats because they had too much candy already, etc.

It would be good to get them outside for most of the party, but the weather doesn't look like it will cooperate. If Metcheck.com is right, even if it does stop raining in the afternoon the ground will be soggy.

Tim would rather build a cabin in our yard. When he talks about it, I see he's thinking about a concrete shed in which he could spend the night. A shame he won't settle for a tent.

Posted by Mark at 06:20 AM

Wedding

If everything went according to plan, Matt and Debra got married in Kaua'i while we were asleep over here.

We're waiting to compare the photos with Andy and Sonja's. They're certain to look less formal than Nathalie and I getting married in Desvres.

Posted by Mark at 06:09 AM

May 07, 2005

Sticky fingers

Small children with slimy hands are drawn to clean glass by an almost magnetic force.

Notice the difference in transparency halfway up the door.

Posted by Mark at 04:13 PM

May 05, 2005

Two architects

Matthieu and Tim have been excited for the last couple of days about the "cabin" they've planned and had built next to the cherry tree.

According to Tim this morning they were planning to have me connect pipes from their place to the sewer so they could put in toilets and a bathtub he and Matthieu are going to carve from solid oak. They're not going to put in a shower stall, however. Not enough space.

Matthieu expects to pour concrete walls around the twigs and vines, and Tim will put insulation under the roof. They don't expect to have a concrete roof, since that might be too heavy.

So far, they've gotten Michael to lash together a ladder of apple branches which I sawed to size. Michael roped it to the cherry tree and pull out some branches I've not yet been able to take to the dump. He arranged the branches to give the impression of an inside and an outside.

As far as Tim's concerned, they're almost done. Matthieu was up in the tree with the spy glass, peering at the house.

Posted by Mark at 04:15 PM

May 03, 2005

Diane's third birthday

Mick and Jeanne finally arrived with Matthieu and Alexis yesterday in the early evening after spending 9 hours in the car. The boys were glad to get out and run around.

I arrived home shortly after that. It was time to have dinner and then cake for Diane's birthday.

The dinner went well, even with 5 children at the table. But when Nathalie brought Diane's cake, the battery on the camera ran out, and I hadn't charged the spare. So I'm not sure we have photos or video. Also, when Diane saw the cake, she started screaming, got in my arms, and buried her face in my shoulder.

Getting 50% older all at once is hard to take. Maybe her brother had been telling her that when she made it to three years old, she'd have to move out of the house.

Posted by Mark at 02:36 PM | Comments (2)

April 27, 2005

Early birthday

I don't actually have any still pictures of Diane blowing out the candle on her birthday cake. Colette and Michel wanted to get her a cake early because they couldn't make it until after her birthday.

But there is one of the cake, and another of Diane opening one of her little presents.

Posted by Mark at 08:22 PM

April 26, 2005

Flowers

Two flowers from Colette's garden in Monclar.

Posted by Mark at 10:39 PM

April 25, 2005

Uno

At Emma's behest five of us played a long game of Uno today. The children loved it, laughed, and laughed.

It's a shame we didn't have tomorrow's predicted weather today. The yard's been damp to muck-filled since we arrived last week.

Posted by Mark at 07:19 PM

April 24, 2005

Party

Dad called Friday. He was going up to Ann Arbor this weekend where Debra and Matt are having a party before they fly to Hawaii to get married.

Nath and I were going to go to the wedding. When we discussed it, I learned how upset she was that we don't spend enough time vacationing as a family with the children. So we're not going to Hawaii to my brother's wedding. But we'll see Matt and Debra this summer in the US when we go with the children.

It's better than going to a party. I could sit on the beach yesterday and read Martin Luther's biography with one eye, the other eye on small people going to close to the surf.

Posted by Mark at 10:15 AM

Rock star

Timothee is writing lyrics. He wrote a first song called "Le Rock" about stars in the sky that made him sing. Actually they're making him scream like a poor imitation of Johnny Halliday.

He's now singing along with the soundtrack from Les Choristes. So is Emma. Both of them are slightly out of tune on the long notes, each in his own way.

Posted by Mark at 10:12 AM

On the beach

Yesterday afternoon we escaped the rain in the Gers by crossing the Landes, driving by pine groves and vast corn fields, to go to the beach in Mimizan, which is on the Atlantic. The tide was coming in, so the waves were rolling further and further up the shore.

Timothee looked for shells. Emma fell in promptly as a wave knocked her feet out from under her. Diane dug in the sand and made castles.

Almost nobody at the beach went swimming. The air was comfortable at 21 C. The water, however, is quite cold. One guy was surfing, but he had a full wetsuit.

As we drove back, we caught up with the stormclouds. At Notre Dame des Cyclistes, it was raining so hard we had to brake. Emma searched for rainbows.

Posted by Mark at 09:57 AM

April 20, 2005

Monclar d'Armagnac

A chilly morning compared to theg other times I've been here. Probably 6-7 C outside. Emma's stirring but staying in her bed. The other children appear to be sleeping, as are the other adults.

Posted by Mark at 07:03 AM

April 19, 2005

Long drive

We spent the day from 9h10 to 17h45 driving to Monclar d'Armagnac from Barraux. The kids weren't the only ones happy to arrive.

Posted by Mark at 06:46 PM

April 15, 2005

Getting fat, part IV

Nathalie checked a book out of the library for me, Guide nutritionnel des sports d'endurance. According to the back cover, it's:

dotée de tests permettant à chacun de déterminer précisément son statut nutritionnel

Gee, I wonder if Denis Riché, the author, is going to remind me that I should eat less dark chocolate and more whole grains.

Posted by Mark at 08:30 PM | Comments (2)

April 13, 2005

Diane's show

Diane was putting on a show, singing for Nathalie and the camera today.

She put the costume together from an old princess costume of Emma's, and an vinyl aligator hat of Tim's.

Posted by Mark at 09:26 PM

April 10, 2005

Video capture, part XVIII

Two more SVCDs from the latest video cassette. Timothee wants me off the computer so he can watch the clips.

Posted by Mark at 10:25 AM

April 09, 2005

Lace

Nath's getting ready for her afternoon lace class today. It's a shame the weather's not good. Need to keep the three children occupied inside the house.

Posted by Mark at 10:50 AM

April 08, 2005

Video capture, part XVII

Speaking of winter...

...a lot of the video is from back when there was still snow on the ground.

Posted by Mark at 08:33 PM

Video capture, part XVI

We almost finished another video cassette at Emma's birthday party. But there were a few minutes left.

Timothee told me after dinner that he was going to be a film star. So I took him at his word, filming him as he sang histrionically and made up a couple of stories for the camera. We ran out of film only seconds after he ran out of gas.

Posted by Mark at 08:22 PM

April 06, 2005

Passport renewal

Today I took the day off. We went to Lyon, all of us, to apply for a new passport for Emma. The American Presence Post there is very discrete. When we showed up we were at the right place, but couldn't really tell. Nathalie wondered why. I figured they're not trying to avoid determined terrorists, but rather opportunistic teenagers with spray paint and bad taste.

The Consul needed both Nathalie and I to sign in her presence. Though I can get my passport renewed by mail, a child's passport renewal requires that both parents show up. Another family was there at the same time. They came from Briançon, which is even further away than Barraux.

Our current Consul at the American Presence Post in Lyon has been here a little over a year and a half. She took more time than either of the two guys that preceded her. She explained to us at length what we'd need to do and how to keep track of the kids' time in the US if they want to be able to pass their US citizenship along to their own children.

Right now that wouldn't make sense to me. They're only American in the legal sense. But if they were to live in the US for several years, transmitting their citizenship might be something they'd want to be able to do. At that point, they'd have to be able to prove presence in the US for at least 5 years in order to be able to pass along citizenship, unless they were to marry US citizens or dual nationals like themselves.

She also suggested I register myself and the three children with the Presence Post, or the Embassy, whomever actually has the records. I figured they'd already have that, since the IRS knows I live here and they have my social security number. Maybe they only keep people they're really worried about on file. Maybe we'll eventually be able to sell some Identity Management software to the federal government.

Posted by Mark at 09:19 PM

April 05, 2005

Degeneracy

My brother got hold of one of those pages of stupid jokes in French that get sent around occasionally in email. They're mildly funny if you're bored.

Matt ran it through machine translation. If you speak both English and French well, you might find it adds a whole new dimension of absurdity:

- Pourquoi les blondes utilisent-elles du dentifrice pour laver les pulls ?
- Parce qu'on leur a dit que le dentifrice rafraîchit la laine et renforce les mailles.

Becomes:

- Why the blondes use do toothpaste to wash the sweaters?
- Because it was said to them that the toothpaste refreshes wool and reinforces the meshs.

Posted by Mark at 09:17 PM

April 03, 2005

Emma's birthday

Some photos of Emma's birthday celebration. The green thing with ribbons is the piñata post whacking:

The children had a great time. We weren't able to squeeze all the games into the 3-hour slot. We did manage to keep them outside for the entire party.

Posted by Mark at 10:17 AM

April 02, 2005

Busy Saturday

Spent half the morning getting things ready for Emma's birthday party this afternoon. Nath had said she was setting the limit at 8 kids. We had 14 or 15, cannot remember exactly.

Now we're trying to get them bathed before we go to a concert Nath wanted to go to in Grenoble. Will put the photos up tomorrow.

Posted by Mark at 04:50 PM | Comments (1)

April 01, 2005

Birthday season, part III

Tomorrow is Emma's birthday.

This time the piñata didn't get a flat.

Posted by Mark at 07:44 PM

March 30, 2005

1ère étoile, part II

Tim got the star today with a little card the ski instructor signed.

Or maybe that's his flocon. Anyway he was proud.

Diane meanwhile had tried to feed some grass to a horse and got her hand pinched. She was upset, but seems okay.

Posted by Mark at 08:45 PM

March 27, 2005

Easter egg hunt

The Easter Bunny almost got rained out this year. I left the garage door ajar so he could put some inside.

The rest he left around the perimeter of the house.

Posted by Mark at 08:36 AM

Crafts

Mom sent the children a packet for making woven postcards.

Emma kept pestering us until we let her make some cards. Her brother got involved, too.

Posted by Mark at 08:33 AM

March 24, 2005

Piano

Someone has learned to record noises on the keyboard.

Posted by Mark at 09:59 PM

March 20, 2005

Weaving

Emma had me thread her loom this morning. She was try to get the hang of weaving.





The tough part was going all the way across with the shuttle before getting bored. Several times she stopped in the middle. We had to clip the yarn often.

Posted by Mark at 02:47 PM

March 16, 2005

1ère étoile

Tim earned his 1ère étoile skiing today.

That means he can keep his skis somewhat parallel and turn around obstacles. He is quite proud of this, so proud he forgot to bring his ski boots home.

Posted by Mark at 08:22 PM

March 09, 2005

Emma's favorite site

Tim gets the photo credits.

Posted by Mark at 10:04 PM

March 08, 2005

International Women's Day

Tim asked why today is International Women's Day. We told him it was because the other 364 days this year are for men.

Couldn't find much news coverage on the web in the US, except for a press release from CARE's president, who is a guy.

Instead of the news, I read part of Emma Goldman's Tragedy of Woman's Emancipation. Emma Goldman was an idealist to say the least, and her idealism comes across in that essay. She lost her citizenship and spent time in jail, including time for protesting the draft for WW I.

Posted by Mark at 06:35 AM

March 06, 2005

Ski season, part VII

Nathalie and Tim left this morning about 15 minutes ago to go skiing. They're taking the bus with a group of people from Barraux up to Les Saisies for the day. Should be plenty of new snow, but here the cloud cover remains dense.

Posted by Mark at 07:29 AM

February 27, 2005

Portrait photographer, part III

A few of Tim's close ups:

Posted by Mark at 05:24 PM

February 24, 2005

Portrait photographer, part II

Above are Tim's favorites of the photos he took yesterday.

Posted by Mark at 01:42 PM

February 23, 2005

Portrait photographer

Timothee's trying his hand at portrait (and more abstract) photography again.

Good thing we don't have to develop them with chemicals and paper. The success rate is about 5%.

Posted by Mark at 02:13 PM | Comments (2)

February 19, 2005

Ski season, part VI

Tim and Emma went skiing again yesterday with Nathalie and Colette. Nathalie was exhausted. Emma never did complain about her legs hurting. Colette did.

Posted by Mark at 09:06 AM

Spoons

Diane's latest game involves taking fistfuls of spoons from the silverware drawer away from the silverware drawer. This originated in imitation of a parent going to the silverware drawer after the meal to get spoons for yoghurt. Then it sort of got generalized. Now we turn up these piles of spoons around the house every once in a while.

Posted by Mark at 09:00 AM

Out to eat

Yesterday all seven of us went out to dinner. It was mainly Emma's idea. She said she wanted to go to a restaurant where they give you a menu with all the choices written on it. This was in disagreement with her sister, who had been repeating that she was going to Mc Do.

We went to a place in La Rochette. Tim and Emma were happy to share a mussels and fries. Diane just ordered fries, and all the adults ordered pizzas. Diane ended up eating from everyone's plates.

The big deal for Emma was getting the second menu to choose her dessert, even though she had to have her grandfather's help to finish it.

Posted by Mark at 08:40 AM

February 17, 2005

Ski season, part V

No pictures, but Emma decided to ski today near St. Hilaire du Touvet, where the trails are flat. She did the easy trail for about 2 hours, then was proud to go with the others. Only fell twice. She was proud enough to call me at work about it.

Tim apparently did three loops around the top of the téléski because he got hung up and was too light to weigh the contraption down. But he said he had a great time.

Posted by Mark at 08:46 PM

February 16, 2005

Chocolicious

Intense Nutella appreciation

Posted by Mark at 08:39 PM | Comments (2)

February 14, 2005

Video capture, part XV

Another couple of SVCDs burned. 42 minutes of video comes to over 800 MB of mpeg, so I'm breaking it into two CDs worth. As I burn this last CD, the computer can only handle one keystroke per second. Almost impossible to type.

Posted by Mark at 08:32 PM

February 13, 2005

Video capture, part XIV

Part of what I was capturing goes back to 2004.

Can you make out the presence of both champagne and ketchup?

Posted by Mark at 08:27 PM

February 10, 2005

Visitors

Michel and Colette arrived this evening on the train. The kids were quite excited, but nevertheless managed to go to sleep more or less on time.

Posted by Mark at 09:46 PM

February 08, 2005

Embroidery

Emma working on her Snow White portrait

Posted by Mark at 08:38 PM

Carnaval

Mardi gras, it's almost time for lent. Today the children are dressing up to march around Barraux. It has them too excited to sleep. Tim was the first at 6:08 am. Then Emma, at 6:27. Finally Diane at 6:43. It's going to be a long day.

Posted by Mark at 06:53 AM

February 05, 2005

Haircuts

Three people got their hair cut at about the same time.

Posted by Mark at 09:09 AM

February 03, 2005

Ella Tuenge

My mom's mom, Ella Tuenge, died this morning at 11:47 local time where I used to live in Indiana. Grandma had a bad fall recently, and she was already having a rough time with congestive heart failure, low blood sugar, and other difficulties.

Here's a picture from happier times.

Grandma I remember as patient, stoic, and generally a whole lot of fun, especially when we were little kids and got a kick out of having someone share in our silliness and even encourage it. Grandma generously spoiled us with more attention and treats than we deserved.

She had some quirks, too. Used to get our names mixed up. Not just the human beings in the family, but also the cats and dogs. It got so you didn't even think to correct her when she looked you in the eyes and called you by the name of her youngest dog.

Despite the extent she went to spoiling us rotten, Grandma also could exhibit an old-style, depression-era approach to waste, combined with a humble duty to eat life's burnt toast. A pizza she once served us with leftover green beans was the funny side of that.

Later in life, when she got tired, this developed into campaign contributions for socially conservative candidates. Some of the mail she got from those folks was hilarious. But the impulse to help came from honest living, and the sense that people need more honest living. You don't throw away perfectly good green beans just because you'd rather have mushrooms on your pizza. You do your best to accept the situation God gives you and make do with what you have.

I admire that, but didn't inherit it. Must've been a recessive gene.

Posted by Mark at 09:32 PM | Comments (1)

February 01, 2005

Star

Michel Polnareff's granddaughter, except with red glasses.

Posted by Mark at 08:47 AM

January 28, 2005

Stomach flu, part III

Diane appears to be doing better. She still won't eat much and has an awful rash, but seems to have more energy than yesterday. Nathalie also had enough energy to go into Grenoble after dinner for a crafts fair.

Posted by Mark at 09:11 PM

January 27, 2005

Stomach flu, part II

Diane still has stomach flu. Nathalie's exhausted. I took Tim and Emma to school, and then had to come home to pick them up before continuing work from here. Nathalie took Diane to the doctor in Chambery who agreed Diane looks ill. Hope she's well soon.

So far nobody else caught the full force of Diane's flu, although I seem to have a low fever and perturbed digestion. Tim says he has a sore throat, but he didn't say anything about it until we told him to stop reading and turn out his light. Emma thinks she ought to stay home from school to sleep in. This morning she woke up at 6:50.

Posted by Mark at 09:06 PM | Comments (1)

January 26, 2005

Stomach flu

Diane's caught stomach flu. It started Monday, and now has her tired and whining. I'm hoping the rest of it won't catch it from her, especially Nathalie.

Diane'll drink a little. All she'll eat is sweets. Just threw up her chocolate-coated cookies in bed.

Posted by Mark at 09:34 PM

January 25, 2005

Ski season, part IV

TIm's supposed to go skiing tomorrow with the Chapareillan ski club. They're predicting good weather, but -9 C (16 F) at 1350 m (4430') and -15 C (5 F) at 2400 m (7870'). Nathalie's trying to figure out how to keep him warm enough. At least they're also predicting some sunshine.

Posted by Mark at 08:58 PM

January 24, 2005

Ski season, part III

Today Nathalie had me take the day off work to ski with her. We didn't pick good weather. Here's a webcam photo, similar to what we saw during our last descent:

We've seen better photos of Titan's surface.

Skiing was fun, though, especially when we had a break in the clouds. We couldn't go all the way up to the top of the ski area. We heard them dynamiting to prevent accidental avalanches due to the new snow.

At the bottom and at the top they were making artificial snow, despite the snowfall last night and this morning. Apparently it was so warm so high up the last couple of days the snow was wearing thin in heavy traffic areas. Too bad they cannot channel the avalanches right where they need them.

We skied for 2:48:19, during which time my average pulse was 88 bpm. I only spent 4:17 of that in my 65-85% zone. Overall downhill skiing is about as much exercise as going for a walk with Tim, part of that no doubt the result of time spent relaxing in the chairlift.

Nathalie enjoyed herself, but her legs got tired. She thinks she'll have sore muscles tomorrow. She also got a phone message at 1:30 saying Diane was coming down with diarrhea at the day care center, so we stopped and drove back to get Diane.

Posted by Mark at 05:31 PM

January 23, 2005

58:24/81

Tim and I went out in the rain this morning to walk uphill behind Barraux. When the going gets tough, the 7-year-olds slow down. I could get more exercise doing the dishes.

He was happy to go out, however. We saw lots of rivulets, including those at the base of our driveway. The rain has been washing the stones away again for the third time since last summer. Looks like we need to pave that small area.

In the woods behind town, you can catch trails that take you up to the ridge. Tim found a walking stick, and kept going. I carried a small bottle with his boisson energique, the mixture I drink when riding or running long and not wanting to deplete muscle glycogen. It has primarily a psychological effect on him, but since we were going to be gone an hour, I didn't want him to deplete his store of motivation.

Posted by Mark at 02:20 PM

January 17, 2005

Sleepover

It may be the first time during the week. I cannot remember.

Emma's spending the night with one of her friends from school. She was excited about it this morning, and woke up before 7 ready to go. With any luck she's already in bed, too tired to make a fuss.

Posted by Mark at 08:36 PM

January 16, 2005

More photos

Emma and Tim took over the camcorder this afternoon to take some art photos, landscapes, and portraits.

Those things that look like rat droppings are actually chocolates they made last week.

Posted by Mark at 08:13 PM

January 15, 2005

Ski season, part II

Nathalie's planning to take Tim skiing this morning. The sky is clear and cold. Tim had a great time yesterday with his class cross-country skiiing.

Emma doesn't want to go. Nathalie offered to get her a private lesson, but Emma doesn't feel ready for that. We're not going to push her for fear that she develops a mental block over it. Nathalie also doesn't want to wear herself out trying to handle both Tim and Emma who are at significantly different levels.

Emma's riding the exercise bike instead, asking me how much she'll have to do to get a flat stomach. She rode for 5 seconds and said it seemed like a lot.

Posted by Mark at 07:52 AM

January 14, 2005

Headdress

Last Sunday Emma's former babysitter Nathalie came with her boys to have coffee and galette. I've had these pictures on the memory stick all week.

Emma doesn't want to show the baby's face in case randy pedophiles are reading this blog.

Posted by Mark at 10:00 PM

December 31, 2004

Concert

Yesterday we had a free concert in our bedroom.

No matter what noises Tim made, Diane would dance to them.

Emma played all the instruments, too.

Posted by Mark at 03:58 PM

December 30, 2004

Ski season

Nathalie was happy with the new skis she got for Christmas. We left this morning at 9 am to spend a few hours at Collet d'Allevard. Too bad I didn't have another arm to hold the camera.

A lot of snow has fallen recently, but last night was clear and cold. The result at Super Collet was lots of powdery snow and bright sunshine, but little snow on the roads leading up to the station. Nathalie and Tim skied the green slopes from 10-12, taking Emma with them for the last half hour. We ate lunch together after that, partly because the kids were hungry but mostly to warm up. After lunch Tim and Nathalie went for another 45 minutes, until Emma accidentally filled her boot with snow and I decided to flag her mom and brother down.

Diane and Emma went sledding for a while. I ended up nevertheless spending plenty of time holding Diane on my lap. Luckily Emma showed more independence. She couldn't convince her sister to get on the sled with her, but she did manage some fast runs down the slope by the children's ski school area.

Nathalie could take the bus at Allevard and spend the whole day skiing with Timothee. We're more than a year away from being able to do that with the girls.

Posted by Mark at 06:02 PM

December 25, 2004

Merry Christmas

Christmas in Barraux...

...you cannot even tell Diane kept us up all night.

Posted by Mark at 03:52 PM | Comments (1)

December 23, 2004

Visions of sugarplums

Almost time for Santa to arrive...

Only a matter of two dodos now.

Posted by Mark at 09:07 PM

December 21, 2004

Two more

Tim swimming in a very small indoor pool

Diane at the children's Christmas show Sunday

Posted by Mark at 09:15 PM

Princess, part II

Emma on the couch after having her top front teeth pulled

Posted by Mark at 08:55 PM

Princess

Emma in disguise at Lea's birthday party

Posted by Mark at 09:06 AM

Snow, part III

More pictures from La Porte county.

They were snowed in so well Sunday, Mom was able to go cross-country skiing across the neighborhood.

Posted by Mark at 07:55 AM | Comments (2)

December 20, 2004

Snow, part II

Mom sent me pictures of the heavy snowfall in La Porte county, Indiana.

The kids would love to have that in our backyard.

Dana's lucky to have a snowblower. I have a shovel and gravel driveway, and therefore prefer this sort of stuff stay up in the mountains.

Posted by Mark at 02:36 PM

December 19, 2004

Baby tooth

Emma lost her first tooth moments ago. It was her lower left front tooth. She was afraid to see her own blood.

Posted by Mark at 06:21 PM

Video capture, part XII

Kino is capturing video from the fifth source cassette as I write this, including footage from today's Christmas show. We were there for three hours. It was quite a production, complete with Hungarian folk songs, disco lights, and a thin Savoy Santa.

Not sure I got Santa on video. Nathalie bought cassettes that are not Hi-8. Although they're advertised to last 60 minutes, they run out in 42 on our camcorder. Nathalie shot each class doing their show. We only have 6 classes, but had some special dancing and encores thrown in. I was regretting not having brought a book after the first hour.

Posted by Mark at 05:50 PM | Comments (1)

Christmas show

This afternoon, Tim and Emma are putting on a show at Fort Barraux. They're going to sing and dance, the same way they do at the end of the school year.

Emma has to be there at 1:45 pm to get dressed for a 2:30 pm show. We'll probably take everyone at the same time, although Diane really ought to sleep. She finally went to bed the same time I did last night, 10:30 pm.

Posted by Mark at 10:43 AM

December 07, 2004

cocolicious.us, part II

My brother Matt has his web server running at cocolicious.us. Evidence:

The cats seem to like to pose for the camera.

Posted by Mark at 08:32 AM

December 05, 2004

Marché de Noël

This afternoon we went to the Christmas market in Chambery.

It didn't hold a candle to Strasbourg. The children enjoyed it however. They even had a chance to sit on Santa's lap. Santa in this case was fat with a snap on white beard, but probably only 25 years old. Timothee recognized he was a fake.

Posted by Mark at 08:06 PM

December 03, 2004

Video capture, part VIII

Last summer, getting ready to rockclimb.

Posted by Mark at 10:06 PM

Ski season soon

Tim went over to Chapareillan to sign up for the ski club this winter. Nath and Tim came back late (about 8:30 pm) with Tim claiming he wasn't tired at all. He's enthusiastic about earning his first star this season.

Posted by Mark at 09:02 PM

November 30, 2004

Afternoon snack

They only act like this for the camera, of course.

Posted by Mark at 08:21 PM

November 28, 2004

Video capture, part II

Maybe all that running around is making me stupid.

The capture problem cause is what we term user error in the trade. I failed to understand Kino's relatively simple user interface, and started rolling the playback before clicking the Capture button.

Posted by Mark at 03:32 PM

Video capture

Right after the initial video capture buzz wore off, I lamented my lack of video literacy. There seemed to be no hope for me as a home cineaste. Mom later replied in email not to worry about editing the content, just capture the video, burn it onto CDs, and send it along.

Now I see why. There's an Elvis-fanlike audience for this stuff.

As I capture the raw footage from our last tape, Timothee has his eyeballs inches from the screen, eagerly contemplating willow tree branches blowing in the wind, laughing every time he or his siblings appear, generally wanting me to move away and let him sit in the editor's chair.

PS The worst part is that since I reinstalled my home system, I broke something in Kino's configuration or in how the video devices are set up. Kino now no longer manages to save anything I capture! Spent an hour with Tim slobbering away at my elbow and nothing to show for it.

Posted by Mark at 03:11 PM

November 25, 2004

Thanksgiving

Today is Thanksgiving in the US. We didn't cook a whole turkey here, just a turkey breast, about 80% of which is left over.

The children enjoyed it. They got to stay up late and make a fancy dessert.

I called back home, where eveyone had gathered at Mom's for Thanksgiving dinner. Yesterday they got 5-7" of snow and the power went out from just before 4 in the afternoon to 9 in the evening. First snow of the season. Tam said everyone was on the roads this morning because they couldn't get out last night.

Posted by Mark at 09:18 PM

November 22, 2004

Broadband

Mom and Dana decided to get a cable broadband connection. It now seems to be working fine. Their new mail server also no longer bounces my mail from work, which is a nice side effect.

At the end of the bubble, perhaps there was a temporary bandwidth glut. People didn't want to pay as much as the providers were asking. Yet fast Internet access is something you start out wanting, then end up needing. A shame it's so expensive.

Posted by Mark at 08:29 PM

November 21, 2004

Arts, crafts, and TV

Tim and Emma are getting crafty today.

Two out of three ain't bad.

Posted by Mark at 04:18 PM

November 02, 2004

Admirer

Last week, Tim got a note from one of his girlfriends. She's apparently in love with him.

He went over to her house this afternoon to play, since they're on vacation.

That sort of thing never happens to me. Maybe my son's better looking and more romantic than I am. Maybe girls older than 8 just don't write those kinds of notes anymore. Maybe it's a combination of both.

Posted by Mark at 08:59 PM

November 01, 2004

Games

Emma and I played a board game this evening. It was just like playing all her other games, since she makes up the rules as she goes along. Tim by contrast is proud not to do that.

It seems that somewhere between age 5 and age 7, you start to want to play board games and card games by the rules. Maybe it's tied to the ability to read.

Posted by Mark at 10:12 PM

October 31, 2004

Scary monsters

We had monsters at our house for Halloween today.

Their grandmother made their costumes this morning.

Posted by Mark at 08:10 PM

October 29, 2004

Last weekend

Some of the pictures from last weekend.

Timothee took good care of his girls.

Posted by Mark at 07:27 PM

October 23, 2004

Long ride

Th drive to Fléville-devant-Nancy took us 5 1/4 hours, with a 10-minute stop after Bourg-en-Bresse. Far too much time after lunch with three not sleeping in the back.

Posted by Mark at 07:22 PM

October 21, 2004

Baptism

Dana brought a CD with some photos from his last visit.

Here's a nice one of the E terminal at Charles De Gaulle, shortly before it collapsed.

Posted by Mark at 09:52 PM

Outstanding

My mother must've had extra space in her suitcase. She brought awards I received in high school and junior high school. Maybe she couldn't bear to throw them out, but didn't really want to dust them any more.

The best one is a gold-colored medal encased in a huge cube of plexiglas. The medal reads, "Kentucky-Indiana Academic Challenge Race For Excellence." I cannot remember what that was. In any case, it's been downhill from there ;-)

Posted by Mark at 09:48 PM

October 20, 2004

On-time arrival

Mom and Dana arrived on time today. No delays, although they had a close shave in Paris, whereby one bag didn't make it on the same flight, and they very nearly got pushed to take the next plane.

Posted by Mark at 05:10 PM

October 17, 2004

Rain, part IV

An hour after writing that we couldn't go out, the rain had cleared enough for me to get Tim out of the house. We rode to Chapareillan. He used that as an excuse to have a second snack when we got back home.

He rode fairly quickly towards Chapareillan. On the way back, he was tired. I hardly had to pedal. One unfair aspect is that I can coast downhill much faster than Tim; another is that I can downshift without my dad's help. At least I didn't have to take a shower.

Tim needs to take a shower, however. He hit every puddle he could, and of course has no fenders on his bike.

Posted by Mark at 06:04 PM

Rain, part III

Nobody can play outside here today. It's just too muddy.

For a while, they stopped screaming. Tim was building pyramids and Emma was making a puzzle.

Posted by Mark at 03:57 PM

October 10, 2004

Subdivision

Today we went to visit one of Nathalie's friends, who lives with her husband and two boys on the other side of Lyon.

Their house stands in an almost US-style subdivision. For several years, apparently, they even had a restriction on growing hedges in between the houses to avoid cutting each yard into a separate parcel.

Stéphane said he bought the house there with his boys in mind. It's definitely good for them now, with very few, slow moving cars, lots of friends nearby, horseback riding, tennis, even a swimming pool, all within walking distance. Maybe a few years from now it will seem small, lacking in privacy. Maybe people just don't feel that way if they grow up in a suburb of Lyon.

Posted by Mark at 08:53 PM

October 09, 2004

No training wheels

Emma managed to ride her bicycle today not only with no training wheels, but also with no one standing by to rescue her from falling. She still has some trouble mounting and dismounting, but rode all over the soccer field in Barraux. Pretty soon she'll be able to ride to Chapareillan with us.

Posted by Mark at 08:06 PM

October 08, 2004

Not enough sleep

For the last three nights, Diane's been waking up at 11 pm, ready to go. We then cannot get her back to sleep. Last night, I finally rocked her to sleep at 2 am.

For a while, we put her light on. She ended up getting out of her bed, going downstairs in the dark, and climbing into Emma's bed, which woke Emma up. Nathalie got upset when Emma arrived in our room, and we'd been trying to sleep for hours. She only found out this morning that it had in fact been Diane who'd gotten Emma up in the middle of the night.

Posted by Mark at 08:25 PM

September 19, 2004

Vide grenier

This morning we went to Barraux for the street sale.

More than 100 people had come to unload their extra stuff. Emma bought dolls. Tim bought books, trading cards, and marbles. Diane bought a few books.

And I forgot the camcorder once again.

Posted by Mark at 01:54 PM

Coupe Icare

Yesterday afternoon Nathalie and I took the children to the 22nd Coupe Icare in Lumbin. The Coupe Icare has added so many attractions and you have to park so far away that it almost doesn't make sense to go.

We did see a few hanggliders and paragliders with smoke pots strapped behind them, looping and zooming down from St. Hilaire. We also saw the biplane doing loops and climbs and barrel rolls.

The kids got some stale, overpriced candy, but didn't get to go on any of the rides.

Too bad we forgot to take the camcorder.

Posted by Mark at 07:24 AM

September 08, 2004

Children and IQ

The Register ran an article today about an article in the Sun summarizing alleged Kinsey Institute research that says having children lowers your IQ.

The Kinsey Institute calls the scoop "a hoax... we have no reason to believe that IQ changes after childbirth." But you hardly need a research grant to double check the conclusion.

If you don't have kids, you can approximate lab conditions. Get some obnoxious people to live with you, invite them to interrupt you constantly and especially when you're trying to think, then follow you around to soil the place every time you clean up. Make sure you reproduce said conditions 24x7 for several years between IQ tests. For best results, ensure the conditions persist during the IQ test.

Posted by Mark at 09:18 PM

Looking for work, part II

I stayed off line most of last night. Nathalie was using the connection to look for work.

Some of what she found led to laughter, then to darker thoughts later at night. Service-public.fr has links to the official announcements for jobs you can get without competitive examination.

For example, if you want to be one of several thousand ouvriers d'entretien et d’accueil déconcentrés -- seems to translate to janitors and greeters with attention deficit disorder -- working for the French school system, read the job offer that starts:

En application de l’article 1er du décret n° 2002-121 du 31 janvier 2002 relatif au recrutement sans concours dans certains corps de fonctionnaires de catégorie C de la fonction publique de l’État, pris en application de la loi n° 2001-2 du 3 janvier 2001 relative à la résorption de l’emploi précaire et à la modernisation du recrutement dans la fonction publique ainsi qu’au temps de travail dans la fonction publique territoriale, des recrutements sans concours, par listes classées par ordre d’aptitude d’ouvrier d’entretien et d’accueil des établissements d’enseignement du ministère de l’éducation nationale auront lieu au titre de l’année 2004 dans les académies ou les vice-rectorats sous la responsabilité du recteur ou du vice-recteur.

So as long as you've got a few years of law school under your belt, you should be all set to apply for work as a bewildered broom-pusher.

Posted by Mark at 08:52 AM

September 07, 2004

Looking for work

Nathalie concluded last night that when Diane turns 3, it'll be time to start looking for work. She's apprehensive.

Maybe she has the same feeling we all had when we were looking for work right out of school. You're not sure what's out there. You're even less sure what you want. Even little things, like writing a letter to an employer, can be a big deal.

In a way, Nathalie ought to go right into management. If people had their heads screwed on correctly, she could walk into the interview, mention that she's spent 7 years with no break, dealing with up to 3 or more tiny children screaming for attention and even screaming during the night, handling things like diapers and vomit, and never did she commit murder or even get arrested. They'd sign her up on the spot.

Trouble is, most guys hiring see it as a weakness that you ever got caught out in that position...

Posted by Mark at 06:35 PM

September 05, 2004

Long time, no video

It's not that we haven't been shooting any video. It's that I haven't been editing any video.

I like editing video, but it's hard to do it with someone tugging at your leg. Or asking you question after question.

In addition, it's about time to match the backup battery Mom gave us with a backup hard drive. I still haven't taken the time to figure out how to put the edited video back on a master tape. (Surely must not be that hard. Yet, again, problem solving is something hard for me to do either when I have people competing for attention, or when I'm tired in the evening.)

Posted by Mark at 10:01 PM

September 03, 2004

Cirque de St. Même

The day before Dad left, they went to the Cirque de St. Même in the Chartreuse.

The girls may not have made it all the way, but they had a good day.

Posted by Mark at 08:44 PM

September 02, 2004

Miolans

When Dad was here, we visited Miolans castle.

A good one for the children. Nice herb garden.

Posted by Mark at 09:54 PM

August 27, 2004

L'Alpe d'Huez

Dad wanted to see l'Alpe d'Huez, site of one of the time trials for the Tour de France. We drove there this morning. The summit's about 95 minutes from here in the car.

Lots of cyclists were climbing the 1100 m over 13 km. We saw everything from a guy who looked about 70 on a recumbent bike to women on regular upright town bicycles to a couple of guys who looked lean and mean enough to have been in the Tour, standing up and cranking away.

When my leg heals, I'd kind of like to go out there and run the 13 km. As Dad said, I wouldn't be able to claim my diplôme, however, which you apparently can get if you go to the mairie or the tourist office or wherever it was after riding all the way to the finish line.

One nice thing about that ride: no potholes. It's like they came through before the Tour and had someone from Hollywood repave the road. Ready for prime time.

Posted by Mark at 10:22 PM

August 26, 2004

Curdling

Dad wanted to visit a cheese dairy. Nathalie found a place in St. Marie du Mont where they let you strain the fromage blanc yourself.

The dairy belongs to a farm where 28 residents with mental disabilities and illnesses live and work. They have a few cows, some pigs, donkeys, a horse. 35 staff members help them handle the place and themselves. Looks more therapeutic than sitting in a hospital watching TV, though I prefer my own wage slavery situation for now.

The children ladled fromage blanc into clear plastic molds, then we went to see the animals. Diane tried screeching like a rooster. The pigs screeched and sneezed for their dinner, which according to the staff is mainly whey.

A couple of the more extraverted residents sat with us while we had a snack of fromage blanc, cream, and granulated sugar.

The folks who came to sit with us had me wondering where writer Will Self found raw material for Ward 9. One could tell the staff from the patients at 15 meters. I think. Those of us on the outside conform to some rules about physical and social presentation with which the other folks appear to have gotten out of sync.

But you don't have to sit there too long to start wondering how close you stand from the edge. As you drive up to the farm you can see the edge of the road. On the other side lies a beautiful, sheer cliff. The bearded guy (doctor, patient?) who showed us the cows and answered Dad's questions about volumes of milk and whether they had their own bull said you got used to the drive up. He's probably used to the other edges as well.

Posted by Mark at 06:07 PM

August 21, 2004

Mischevious picture

The last of the reasonable poses before someone started getting silly.

All those of Emma ended up too underexposed.

Posted by Mark at 08:48 PM

August 20, 2004

Touching picture, part II

If you like baby pictures, here's a better one.

The pacifier is a nice touch... when you're 2 years old.

Posted by Mark at 10:17 PM

Touching picture

Just to prove I'm not totally hardhearted but only irrepressibly narcissistic, here's a photo of me with my grandfather, John Craig.

I'll yet you guess which one is me and which one is Granddad.

Posted by Mark at 10:11 PM

Mushroom

Mom and Dana have an enormous mushroom growing in their yard.

Looks like it's 9 inches in diameter and growing.

Posted by Mark at 09:21 AM

August 12, 2004

Prospectus supplement

AIM investments, under investigation by the SEC for market timing, sent Tim a prospectus update that arrrived today. The current Chairman and the current CEO claim, "we are working diligently to resolve all these issues," which no doubt they are. The issues themselves seem to revolve around the former CEO and Senior Vice President of their interlocking directorate, who appears to have taken the hit with the SEC complaint that the "independent directors ... had entered into certain arrangements permitting market timing" of the funds they were directing. Get the full, correct version of the story at http://www.aiminvestments.com/litigationsummary.pdf.

Good grief! Don't these fat cats do well enough already in a system organized entirely for their benefit? Why do they also need to cheat so egregiously that even the administration in charge of keeping their party going full steam finds itself obligated to investigate them?

Posted by Mark at 08:08 PM

August 10, 2004

John Edward Craig

My paternal grandfather, John Edward Craig, passed away yesterday evening. Dad said Granddad had been unusually tired, napping in mid morning at the end of last week.

Granddad at my age was in the US Army. He, my grandmother and my dad moved often, living in places like the Philippines and also in Germany. He and Grandmother used to tell stories about those days, stories like inside jokes where the context never seemed rich enough for anyone to remember except those who'd been there. We inherited our storytelling abilities from them.

Although Granddad fit the definition of curmudgeon especially as he got older but before Grandmother died, Granddad also seemed like one of the last of the people I knew who had real faith in his way of life, his country, a sort of outlook maybe disappearing from our family with his generation.

Sounds like Granddad died in his sleep, relatively peacefully. As Dad says, if you must go, that's probably the way to do it. The funeral is set for 1 pm on Friday.

Posted by Mark at 10:01 PM | Comments (1)

August 01, 2004

Vacation

They had good weather up north this year, going to the beach, visiting an outdoor museum, watching the floats go by.

Posted by Mark at 10:17 PM

July 09, 2004

Le cirque

Tim finished a week of summertime circus class today with maybe 15 other children. The younger ones did gymnastics and some basic juggling. The older ones did more advanced juggling and learned to walk on a meter-high rubber ball, or ride a unicycle around the Salle des pieds nus.

In the end, they showed off what they learned. Diane loved the spectacle.

It was pretty exciting. Tim still has some blue around his eyes and cannot get to sleep.

Posted by Mark at 09:19 PM

June 27, 2004

Climbers unleashed

Yesterday afternoon we went for a picnic and some of us went for a climb up next to the Dent de Crolles. This marked the last get together of the year for Tim's climbing club. You might like the view we had of the Belledonne from the Chartreuse side climbing site.

The climbers had all practiced inside at L'Espace vertical in St. Martin d'Heres, but many of them had not yet tried any real climbing outside. So they stood in line to get their harnesses and helmets checked.

Of course they felt like experts with ropes and carabiners once their gear was in place. So they all rushed up to the wall.

It looked like so much fun, we had a few observers who decided to get involved.

An exhausting afternoon for people who had to skip their nap...

...but a fun one for everybody.

Posted by Mark at 06:17 AM

June 26, 2004

Memory stick photos

Mom sent the 128 MB memory stick for the camcorder that I asked her to buy from Amazon (1/2 price compared to retail here). The following are some of the 200 photos I shot this morning. (The stick can hold 790 640x480 images, which I've scaled down to 240x180 here.)

Nathalie of course didn't want me taking her picture before 10 in the morning...

Posted by Mark at 10:36 AM

June 19, 2004

Two hours of dancing

Emma danced three numbers with the other girls in her group. There are I guess four different dance groups, so we hung on through two hours of dancing counting the intermission.

I filmed until the battery went dead, but missed some of the best moments, when Diane was clapping her hands. Still need to make room on my disk to capture and edit all that, but I haven't yet figured out just how to transcode the existing NTSC footage to PAL, and so don't want to wipe off what I have.

Posted by Mark at 11:08 PM

June 11, 2004

Haircuts

Last night, I failed again to notice that Nathalie got her hair cut.

Married guys should notice their wives haircuts before they notice anything about the appearance of their female colleagues. Yet another primate taboo?

Posted by Mark at 03:25 PM

May 30, 2004

Month of birthdays drawing to a close

Today is Nathalie's birthday, the last birthday in our house until Emma's next year. We had a quiet day, except for several phone calls.

Tuesday is my first day back at work in a while. Nathalie says it'll be hard for her and the children to adjust to that, probably as hard as it was to adjust to my vacation.

Posted by Mark at 09:03 PM

May 23, 2004

Back home

It turned out to take a little over 7 hours rather than 9. I had miscalculated entirely, thank goodness. 7 with 3 little ones in the back seat is enough, however.

The visit felt like sitting on the porch must have felt to people of our socioeconomic status a hundred years ago, just sitting there gabbing, maybe eating and drinking, occasionally going for a walk. Even in this day and age, the most we do outside formal work consists of do-it-yourself home improvements, car repairs, etc. No art, no real writing. We remain stuck at homo faber, unable to evolve to something more thoughtful.

Posted by Mark at 08:02 PM

May 19, 2004

Going off the air

Today we're driving to Paris to see my wife's family. At least nine hours in the car with three children who don't want to be there. Then three full days with 7 children ages 2-7. Then we come back in the car.

My enthusiasm knows no bounds. I'd almost rather do phone support.

Posted by Mark at 06:14 AM

May 06, 2004

Video Editing

Oof. Well, I'm now able to do some minimal video editing under Red Hat 9. It's taken hours just to get everything set up. (Yes, Americans will go to great and expensive lengths just to avoid paying for something.) My very first and huge movie includes 6 1/3 seconds of Emma happy to be getting ready to dance.

This was created with the raw1394 module for capture from a Sony DCR-TRV460 NTSC camcorder, then using Kino for editing, and finally mjpegtools to export to .mpeg. A monster file (3.5 MB) for such a short movie.

Let me know if you manage to watch it.

Posted by Mark at 11:36 PM

Project planning and life

My job has me planning almost any task that takes more than a few minutes. My natural reaction to groups of half-day tasks has become to want to plan it. I have come to resent long and late interruptions.

Nathalie did not react as I would have this morning. I've a long list of things to do for this vacation. She has a lot of things she'd like to do, and that she wants me to do, or condition what I do, but she has no list, no plan. She told me when I suggested we plan it that she didn't want to get stressed out about it. I said that we get stressed out when we don't plan and cannot finish everything we have to do.

We seem to be having this same debate at work. Those against planning correctly observe that we'll continue to have interruptions to handle, but then conclude from that there's little point in putting together much of a plan. Instead, they say we should find ways of working that don't involve planning. Others also start by observing that we'll continue to have interruptions to handle, and that the way to avoid being submerged by interruptions lies in fitting as many activities as possible to a plan.

Perhaps neither side really has the rhetorical upper hand. If we disagree permanently on this, how should we live with that? Must I plan spontaneity? Must I give up planning?

Posted by Mark at 11:34 PM