Mark's Blog

April 22, 2006

Hedge clipping time

Twice a year I clip the hedges. If you let it go longer, you end up having to get the hand saw and cut individual branches.

This year I've noticed many leaves with holes or brown spots. Mom said it looks like a fungus. It's also on other leaves, like the ivy Nath has out back. Hope it doesn't eat up the nice plants.

Posted by Mark at 04:02 PM | TrackBack

April 18, 2006

First cut

Dana helped me finish the first cut of the grass this season. Between us I believe we spent just over 3 hours.

He said our grass is nevertheless easier to cut is some ways than many lawns. At least with ours the growth is fairly even in the spring. You don't have parts where the mower gets clogged alongside other parts where you cannot yet see you've already cut a row.

If anybody around Barraux needs grass clippings, let me know.

Posted by Mark at 08:27 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

April 15, 2006

Magnolia

The magnolia has blossomed. The rain will no doubt carry off the petals soon.

Posted by Mark at 06:07 PM | TrackBack

April 13, 2006

Toy soldiers

This is our living room floor since yesterday morning at 11:00 am. A battleground.

Posted by Mark at 10:04 PM | TrackBack

Dinner theater

We had theater after dinner tonight. In fact when I arrived home on my bike, Emma and Tim were on the front porch with Mom, telling me I had to hurry up. Their show was starting right away.

It turned out that we had to eat almost right away, immediately after I took a shower. So we had to wait for the show after all. I missed the show on roller skates.

After dinner, though, we were all more or less forced to watch the impromptu singing and dancing. Emma did a silent dance around the living room, while I physically held Tim back. (He was mad because she got to go first.) Then Tim sang, and Emma sang again. Even Diane got into the act.

Posted by Mark at 09:47 PM | TrackBack

April 11, 2006

Mass protests

Mass protests... but not in France. BBC News online has an article covering mass protests in the US, in favor of rights for immigrants including people who don't have legal permission.

On Friday, the US Senate failed to reach agreement on a compromise deal that would allow an estimated 11.5 million illegal immigrants apply for US citizenship.

President George W Bush backs the guest-worker scheme but faces stiff opposition within his Republican party.

As a long-term guest in another country, I was ready to find myself biased off the scale on yet another issue here. Yet my actual position is perhaps close to moderate. I agree superficially with the President, at least insofar as this article reflects his position on the question.

Folks who go that far out of their way to make their lives in the US should have the opportunity to apply for citizenship.

One of the concerns current US citizens may have about this is more people arriving to compete for a limited number of jobs. (Not as big a deal in the US job market as in France or Germany, but nonetheless a real point.) There I'm virtually certain of having off-the-scale opinions. However I believe a reasonable argument can be made to say that those willingly leaving their home country to make a better life elsewhere are unlikely to add to the general level of slack in an economy. On the contrary they're likely to come with a lot of energy, appetite, and willingness to pitch in.

In the US where nearly everyone is descendant from immigrants, it seems fair that we'd lower barriers of entry. Not without serious discussion, of course. But the country should welcome those who honestly want to be there for most of the same reasons the folks already there want to stay.

Posted by Mark at 09:33 PM | TrackBack

April 09, 2006

Overtired

Last night by 8 pm I was tired enough to want to go to bed. Probably should have. Diane woke us up this morning, 5:18 am. Couldn't get back to sleep.

All I managed to do this morning was take all the now tires off the cars and put the summer tires on. Very bad temper. Neck still hurts from being angry. Paranoid thoughts.

Tried to sleep this afternoon. Slept maybe half an hour and woke up feeling worse than before. Then the girls came to jump on the bed.

Not sure what to do. It's like being sick.

Posted by Mark at 04:04 PM | TrackBack

April 03, 2006

Fatigue

Diane didn't wake up for whatever reasons she normally does. During the night this time it was a cough.

When I finally gave up and got out of bed at 5:45 am, I realized although I was exhausted Friday, I'm even more tired now. Nath seems to feel that way too. She was trying to go back to sleep.

Posted by Mark at 07:00 AM | TrackBack

March 30, 2006

Rain, rain, rain

This morning I got soaked on the way down to the train, riding into work, running, and riding back to catch the train. Maybe that's why I'm so tired at this point. No energy to go down in the basement and clean up my bike.

Rain is a primary drawback of commuting by bicycle. It's a no win situation as far as I can tell. The folks who suit up with rainproof gear sweat heavily inside their wetsuits. The rest of us shiver with cold only minutes into the ride. The bicycle chains are liable to rust. The grit goes everywhere. The only way to clean up completely after riding in a downpour, especially if you take the trails as I do, would be to take the bike apart and wash each component separately.

It's still marginally better than being stuck in traffic.

Posted by Mark at 08:16 PM | TrackBack

March 27, 2006

Particularly bad night

Diane has been waking up at night. This has gone on for a couple of weeks.

We tried not listening to her cry and complain at night, but she goes on and gets louder. We wanted the other ones to continue sleeping from 2 am to 4:30 am while she was carrying on.

Nathalie didn't fall asleep until 6 am. I probably fell asleep a bit after 5 am. We're not sure when Diane finally fell asleep, but she cried through school today and was very tired.

Nath's taking her to see the chiropractor Wednesday. Someone at school recommended that. She's also trying to get an appointment with the regular doctor. We wonder if Diane hasn't developed the same trouble as Emma.

Posted by Mark at 04:24 PM | TrackBack

March 26, 2006

Small potatoes

As mentioned in this morning's entry about the race, we have nice weather today.

Nath had some potatoes that had started to grow down in the basement, so Emma had me plant them with her. We hope to harvest more than we planted this time.

Two things are missing from Nath's photos today. She didn't get a frontal shot of my old LLBean aviator sunglasses, which Emma laughed at loudly and thoroughly, saying I'm unrecoverably behind the times. Nor did she get a shot of Tim taking a spin around the soccer field on Eddy's miniature motorcycle.

I have decided not to post the pictures of Diane running around in her underwear, sticking her tongue out at the camera.

Posted by Mark at 05:44 PM | TrackBack

March 25, 2006

Early spring photos

This is the first day we've had truly warm weekend weather.

We even have a few violet flowers among the grass (and weeds).

At first the children wanted to fly kites, but there's not much breeze. Instead they've started to put the lawn chairs out in the front yard, and to take their summer shoes out of the cupboard.

Posted by Mark at 03:33 PM | TrackBack

March 23, 2006

Cops & Robbers

If we had Canal+, we'd get 6 TV channels. And this evening we'd have 3 out of 6 prime time TV programs being cops & robbers shows.

No wonder Tim wants to work for the police. Sarkozy's got the right job if he wants the TV watchers to follow him.

Posted by Mark at 09:37 PM | TrackBack

March 22, 2006

Green

Now that spring has arrived, I noticed with dismay that the not only are the days getting longer, but so also is the grass. Grass has started growing again in my yard, though some leaves from the fall are still lying there. The yellow forsythia buds are almost ready to bloom.

Warmer weather makes life easier. Today I had no leftovers, so walked with Matt over to the sandwich stand to get something to eat. Went out in my t-shirt, which was just right.

Then by the time I had to get on the bike to catch the train, spring rain was pouring down. My bike shoes are still soaked inside. My chain has probably rusted.

Posted by Mark at 07:48 PM | TrackBack

March 21, 2006

Share the DRM

In France the legislature is voting on digital rights management related issues. BBC News online has an article covering the legal measure to push open, cross-platform formats for downloadable music. It also says:

The draft copyright law also introduces fines of between 38 and 150 euros (£26-£104) for people pirating music or movies at home.

Fabio and Jean-Luc told me the measures concerning "pirating," measures the article ignores, should prevent people from ripping their own CDs, or backing up downloaded music. The guys told me that Vivendi Universal rushed this stuff in the back door in an effort to prop up their flagging music business. Maybe it's just a rumor.

Posted by Mark at 09:31 PM | TrackBack

March 19, 2006

Bumble bee bodies

Nath has been painting bumble bee bodies for Diane's class. I'm not sure what they're going to do exactly. Our table has been full of demi tasses with yellow styrofoam eggs for the past week.

She's doing a total of 90 bumble bee bodies.

Posted by Mark at 02:16 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

March 15, 2006

Exhaustion

This morning at 5:45 am Diane started waking us. That's not so early, but I was already tired. Later she whined more. I finally went into her bed to calm her down.

She fell asleep again, but I could see why she was having trouble staying there. The light now streams in through her blinds quite early, and passing cars and trucks make lots of noise. I almost fell asleep at dinner.

Posted by Mark at 09:04 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

March 14, 2006

Electric trains

Andy sent me a link to an article on Yahoo! that says the SNCF is going to be putting electric lines between Gières and Brignoud.

That means they can stop running with diesel engines through that section of track. If they can also run the trains at 160 kph (about 100 mph), the trip will potentially take slightly less time.

What I'd like is more time sitting on the train reading however and less time riding the bike. I can read while walking, but have not yet tried to read while riding.

Posted by Mark at 08:41 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

March 04, 2006

160 kph is half speed

North of Macon a man came on the TGV intercom to announce that due to heavy snowfall we'd be travelling at the reduced speed of 160 kph (~100 mph) towards Paris, and so would arrive 45 minutes late.

I continue to look forward to the run tomorrow.

Posted by Mark at 12:04 PM | TrackBack

March 03, 2006

Packed up

I've packed up to get ready to go up to Paris. Metcheck.com's weather for Paris now says we'll have -5 C on Sunday morning with mild winds.

Maybe there'll still be snow on the ground. Apparently the snow and rain tonight is supposed to be "Torrential". Not exactly fired up for this run.

Posted by Mark at 10:31 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

March 01, 2006

Winter's not over yet

Here's a shot of the yard next door.

That should disappear this afternoon, however.

Posted by Mark at 08:48 AM | TrackBack

February 28, 2006

Down below the fog

The fog and a few flakes of snow came down off the mountains as I rode up through Chapareillan, Myans, then back to Montmelian and Pontcharra. Even on a chilly, windy Tuesday afternoon there were quite a few riders out. I met perhaps 15 in just over an hour, counting a couple of groups of 4-5.

Hope Nath, the children, and her parents are not freezing up their in mountain fog like we encountered last Friday. Most of the mountain tops I noticed even down this far were shrouded in mist.

Posted by Mark at 04:16 PM | TrackBack

February 24, 2006

Collet d'Allevard in the fog

Nath started joking with Colette at lunch that I was going to miss out skiing with them next week, and that I'd be jealous. I don't care too much. My skiing technique is too lousy to take the interesting trails or go off piste. I'd rather run or go biking.

But Nath sounded like she wanted to go, so I asked Colette if she minded watching the kids. She didn't mind. We ended up getting there shortly before 3 pm, so bought passes for the end of the day. They've gone to magnetic cards that let you through the turnstiles. Seems to work all right.

Conditions were less than perfect. As 5 o'clock approached, the fog got thicker and thicker. In the end we could no longer see more than about 15-20 feet ahead of us. It was getting hard to stay on the trails because we couldn't see from one baton to the next. Down at the bottom most of the snow had worn away as well. The last few hundred meters were crusty ice with a light dusting of fake snow here and there.

But we did have fun for the first 90 minutes. We could get above the worst of the fog by taking the ski lift up to Super Collet, where the snow was thicker and we even saw the sun through the thickening cloud cover.

On the first descent, when we could still see, I stopped to wait when we got back down to the lift. Nathalie took a while to catch up with me and she was breathing heavily. I go slowly, but she had to stop along the way to rest her legs now and then. That's the difference between running after the little ones every day, and running around outside 6 days a week.

Posted by Mark at 06:29 PM | TrackBack

February 19, 2006

Tim takes to the trees

The horror film forgotten, Tim's once again wanting to take to the trees. He's installed what he calls a pulley system in one of the evergreens in the back yard, and has been hounding me to find some boards so he can build a fort up there.

This morning we talked over the plans, which involve walls, windows, and a roof, plus a stairway. He graciously suggested that to save wood, we could potentially leave the vertical backs of the steps unfinished, relying only on the railings and actual steps themselves. He's probably given up on carpeting, at least in the stairwell.

After he'd talked most of it out of his system, he was willing to discuss the more mundane points of construction. The problem was that we cannot go to the town dump today to look for old boards. It's not open. He wanted to start on the roof right away instead. He ceded the point however that it would make sense to start with the floor before deciding on the roof. He also admitted that he'd need to pick a pine tree with branches roughly at the same level all around if we want to have boards nailed to more than one branch.

Now he wants me out there so we can clean the selected tree and prepare it for boards as soon as we get them. I was really hoping he'd go back to the horror film script, but a tree fort is no doubt more useful to an 8 year old boy.

Posted by Mark at 03:18 PM | TrackBack

Once again without instruments

Lately it's been warm, though mainly rainy. Today the rain had dried for the most part, yet it is still warm enough to ride. Although I wore my winter clothes, it was primarily to be comfortable. My hands and feet fared lots better than last Sunday.

Didn't take anything to measure my progress, but just rode up over the hills to Chambery and back. I've been out for at least a little real exercise every day since February 6, though some days I've been taking it easy. Still I don't want to work too hard on these off days.

Posted by Mark at 03:10 PM | TrackBack

February 15, 2006

Diane sick again

Yet another bad night. Diane had antibiotics for an ear infection only weeks ago, and now seems to have another infection in the same ear. Same symptoms. We're hoping spring will come soon and put an end to her illnesses. In between the ear infections she was coughing during the night. I think Colette ended up sleeping with Diane in her little bed most of Sunday night.

Nath called to say she has a doctor's appointment at 11 this morning.

Posted by Mark at 08:56 AM | TrackBack

February 14, 2006

Happy Valentine's Day

I didn't forget. Didn't get Nathalie flowers, either, but instead a bottle of Bailey's Irish Cream.

Posted by Mark at 08:02 PM | TrackBack

February 12, 2006

Through the frozen vineyards

This morning the sky was as clear as yesterday. We had heavy white frost on the yard and the cars. Last night I was so exhausted I feel asleep reading on top of the covers shortly after 9 pm. Then I woke up in the middle of the night and finally got up from 2:45 to about 5:30 before going back to bed and to sleep for 1:30. Since the other adults were sleeping, I took the 7-9 am shift with the four older children. Diane had also gotten up in the middle of the night and switched to her grandparents' bed, after wanting to turn on the light and play.

Nathalie slept in a little, but I brought her coffee at 9. I went to for a bike ride from about quarter past nine to quarter past ten. Though I met several cyclists, it was almost too cold to ride. My hands and feet hurt from the cold. They still tingle.

The scenery was a winter postcard, but without snow in the valley. A breeze blew the polution off to the south a couple of days ago, and so you can now see each edge of each ridge on the Chartreuse, especially in the cold morning. In the frozen vineyards, the wires that bare the grape vines glinted in the sunlight, giving the impression from far off of being powdered with shiny ice.

Posted by Mark at 11:09 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

February 11, 2006

Flu coming perhaps

When I went to see Rantz a while ago, he was expecting lots of people with the flu this month. Some folks at work have said their kids got it this past week.

As I was running around Pontcharra this morning, I saw on two occasions boys throwing up on the side of the road. Diane's been coughing the last two nights, and she's still coughing a bit, but nothing more than that so far. Hope we don't get unlucky.

Posted by Mark at 02:21 PM | TrackBack

February 09, 2006

To send the photos

Nathalie got a new digital camera for Christmas. The photos are at 5 megapixel resolution, so the JPEGs weigh 2.4 MB each.

She wanted to send 7 or 8 of these to her brother. We have asymmetric DSL, so uploading is only 1/4 the speed of downloading. Even at max. speed, each photo would take about 3 minutes to upload.

One of the techniques I showed her with the Gimp is that you can easily scale photos. When you make them 400x300 pixels, instead of their original size, the JPEGs weigh on the order of 40 KB, taking 3 seconds instead of 3 minutes each to upload.

Another technique, probably even more useful, is cropping photos. Why send all that space around the edges when you can just crop around the subject instead? Especially if you're going to shrink the photo, too. I've been trying to convince her to zoom in on her subjects, but in the meantime cropping is a partial fix.

In any case, it sure is easier than waiting for the paper photos.

Posted by Mark at 08:33 PM | TrackBack

February 07, 2006

Some disagreement over unemployment

We're at that point in every big project where it's on the mind. It's not entirely clear whether it's just my paranoia, or whether it's good intuition, but I worry about getting forcefully added to the ranks of the unemployed.

So in this frame of mind I noticed with amusement the BBC News article about French protests against the Prime Minister's CPE (contrat premier emploi) idea. The plan is to enact a law prolonging the trial period for young employees to two years, meaning essentially that instead of a 1-3 month trial period during which the employer can get rid of the employee without justification, the employer can get rid of the employee any time in the first 24 months without justification.

Since work contracts are entered into freely by both parties and neither party has an advantage in the negotiations, especially in France where unemployment of young people runs about 20%, employers welcome the proposition as a great way to combat unemployment.

According to a report I heard on the radio here, 52% of French voters surveyed think the law is not a good idea. That didn't show up in the BBC News article. Instead the BBC says this, which is total horseshit:

French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin has made it a priority to cut unemployment among young people.

Politicians, like managers and other people in favorable positions, prefer to be judged by their intentions, rather than their actions. Wouldn't you? Isn't that a damn good reason to turn the sound off and judge them purely by what they in fact accomplish, the part that could never be attributed to brownian motion, business cycles, or accident?

By the way, unlike the Fed, the European Central Bank is not legally concerned with limiting unemployment. According to the Federal Reserve Act, the Fed's monetary policy objectives are set up "to promote effectively the goals of maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates." (Emphasis added.)

Posted by Mark at 09:08 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

February 05, 2006

Very bad night

Boy, was I glad to remove this thing and turn the power off at 7:13 am this morning.

Last night we ate with Catherine and Andy and their friends Doug and Lorraine. Andy and Doug are both from Scotland. As a sort of ceremony, they wore their kilts. We ate haggis, potatoes, rutabaga, plus red wine and whisky.

Doug adressed the haggis with an impressive if mostly incomprehensible poem from Robert Burns, stabbing it with the ceremonial knife. I'd never eaten haggis before. Reminded me somehow of boudin noir.

When I finally got to bed after 1 am, I got to "sleep" in 40 minute intervals before the blood pressure machine would wake me up. Finally went to the couch in a daze after 4 am, when life had become so uncomfortable in my bed I could no longer keep from moving.

Nathalie was snoring when I left. I tried to read, nodding off now and then to be awakened by the infernal machine. I wondered if the stress I was feeling would show up in the blood pressure readings, and that made it even worse.

My wedding band seemed to be choking my ring finger, although it's usually nearly falling off in winter. The snug fit of the armband must've been preventing the veins from doing their job normally. Hope the children go easy on us today.

Posted by Mark at 10:02 AM | TrackBack

February 04, 2006

Chat perdu, part II

The cat who tried to move in at our house last weekend is now gone.

Nathalie took her (her, it turned out) to a shelter in Le Versoud where the woman in charge felt optimistic that someone would take her. At the shelter they have antibiotics for the cat's cold as well, and can keep their animals indoors. So apparently the cat was happy to end up there for the time being.

Posted by Mark at 04:58 PM | TrackBack

February 02, 2006

Should give in to check up, part IV

Other than my blood being fairly dilute, the tests didn't show anything odd. None of the measurements show readings outside the normal range. I write "dilute" because red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets are all present in low-end-of-normal concentrations. Cholesterol and triglyceride readings are well below the risk thresholds. Creatinine clearance looks normal, as does the blood sugar level.

Posted by Mark at 07:39 PM | TrackBack

Should give in to check up, part III

Joanne told me yesterday I'm like her husband, Martin. If we could, we'd plan to take vacation to die.

This morning after I put out breakfast for the children I went in to get blood tests. Dr. Rantz told me to go see the cardiologist with the results of the blood tests so it would be easier to diagnose my blood pressure readings.

Later I called the cardiologist's office. The woman who answered the phone asked me if it was urgent. I told her it wasn't urgent, but that I'd prefer not to wait too long. She gave me an appointment for Saturday morning at 7:15 am.

Only after that did I notice the children don't go to school this Saturday. Yet Nath has to teach as usual on Saturday mornings. So we're going to have a babysitter come for the children. I wonder what sort of tests I should be prepared for Saturday.

Posted by Mark at 01:03 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

January 31, 2006

Should give in to check up

Went to see Dr. Handtschoewercker, my chiropractor, today, who sent me home without treating me. He told me to go see my regular doctor, telling me anything he'd do would be like fixing the alignment of a car that may have a few key parts missing.

Work piles up quietly, like heavy snow. That's nothing new.

I've dropped caffeinated beverages. Coincidentally I'm dead tired all the time. It's not clear whether that a cause-effect relationship or a chance correlation. Today on the DRS list, I noticed mention of the results of a study showing caffeine before exercise seriously decreases blood flow to the heart.

That leaves salt. I'm trying to avoid extra salt. If it's not salt, it's potentially something more ominous. After seeing Dr. Handtschoewercker, I've decided to go see my doctor even if the wait is long.

Posted by Mark at 09:29 PM | TrackBack

January 29, 2006

Chat perdu

Ce weekend un petit chat noir, malade et qui ronfle en respirant, se trouve a la porte de notre maison. En voici une photo un peu floue :

S'il est a vous, ou que vous voulez vous en occuper, laissez votre email en commentaire.

(We all feel horribly callous. If we take him in, however, we'll have to keep him and take him to the vet and so forth.)

Posted by Mark at 12:06 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

January 25, 2006

DSL down

Couldn't start working from home this morning. The DSL connection is down. The message flashed on the modem indicates according to the doc that the modem cannot authenticate with our DSL provider because of something in the DSLAM.

I tried the first suggestion, which is a hard reboot. After doing that three times, I tried the next suggestion that applied, which is to call France Telecom and ask if the line had been substituted. I'm not sure what that means techncially speaking, but seems like it would be some sort of hardware or software reroute of our normal telephone line that made it unavailable to our DSL provider.

France Telecom is of course fighting deregulation like IBM fighting to extend software patents to Europe. When you call the number they're required to provide to subscribers to get in touch with someone who can tell you whether they've done something that affects your contact trough their multiplexer to a competing DSL provider, something you'd only ever do in reality if they'd inadvertently or intentionally shaken up the connection between you and the DSL provider, who therefore is almost certainly your ISP, all their operators are "busy," but of course you can get in touch with them via the web...

Of course, it could be something Free, our DSL provider did, too. For some reason I cannot even bring up Free's website at work. France Telecom's site crashed Firefox last time I went there. BTW, when you go to France Telecom's website with the intent to find where to get help, you're going to spend a long time on RTC trying to get through. They conveniently put up a bunch of animated GIFs, and all the obvious links are for people who want to buy something.

Posted by Mark at 10:28 AM | TrackBack

January 24, 2006

Another short night, part II

Got up at 4:45 am, having had a hard time going to sleep though exhausted at 11:15 pm. Cannot figure out how I'm going to lower my blood pressure readings, since they seem to have risen as I ate healthier, lost weight, and increased my physical activity.

Posted by Mark at 08:42 AM | TrackBack

January 20, 2006

Another short night

Woke up before 5 am again today, although I tried not to fall asleep until almost 11 pm. Today Diane was crying out about something. Nath went to see her. Yesterday it was probably just me. Completely exhausted is a bad condition in which to start another busy day.

Posted by Mark at 06:44 AM | TrackBack

January 15, 2006

Station de Granier, part II

Here's a cobbled together picture of most of it. It's not a big place, but there was plenty of snow, and it's cheaper and closer than the bigger ski resorts.

Notice how we didn't have lots of clouds today. I don't think we spotted a single cloud the whole time we were in the Chartreuse.

Posted by Mark at 05:14 PM | TrackBack

January 13, 2006

Rough

Some blog, or maybe it was an RSS feed from a news service, had a link yesterday or the day before to an article on researchers finding that the moment some people get out of bed, their reaction times are worse than when they are somewhat drunk.

I usually get out of bed feeling ready to go, but sure felt awful this morning. After going to bed late having failed to figure out why installing new hardware would break my Xorg setup, already exhausted from the cold yesterday morning and the day before, Diane got me up repeatedly after 4 am. First time she had the covers off. Subsequent times it was nightmares or whatever. Fell asleep for a while. At 7:12 Emma came upstairs to the bedroom to ask if she could go downstairs.

Got up to get Emma's breakfast and Nath's coffee. Could hardly walk straight. I drove in to work this morning, but only after breakfast, coffee, shower and shave. I fear spending too much time in bitter cold while being exhausted might lead to a cold.

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

January 12, 2006

Wireless access at home

The wireless router box was delivered today. It's fun to configure.

Ludo said the latency would increase, but I haven't noticed that yet here on the portable. The download speed right now on the Free.fr DSL line is 568.81 kbit/s down, 139.68 kbit/s up, so higher on both ends than the theoretical max. Don't see anything there about latency.

Posted by Mark at 08:44 PM | TrackBack

January 06, 2006

Two guitars

Both my classical guitars are cheap student guitars. I bought new strings for them from Woodwind & Brasswind, who seem now to have a store in Paris. They also have a store in South Bend, Indiana.

The first classical guitar is an Epiphone. It sounds like they added three layers of polyurethane too many. It's also missing a knob off the screw to wind the G string, so I tune that one with a pair of pliers.

The second guitar doesn't seem to have a name. It's frets are tiny little wires. It has a fairly bright sound, but unfortunately this is because they skimped on wood. The neck is bowed now such that the D string buzzes at the 12th fret. I got a sturdy case with it that's worth as much as the guitar.

Classical guitars sound nice when the strings are new. Even with a cheap guitar like one of mine you can hear nuances in the strings that don't come out in the same way with steel stringed acoustics or electrics. Not as impressive as a piano, but pleasing nonetheless. Once I manage to get the guitar to hold a tune, I could sit there all night and just make enjoyable (to me) noises.

Posted by Mark at 08:11 PM | TrackBack

January 03, 2006

Dispute over natural gas

As winter continues, the Russians and Ukranians are having difficulty agreeing on the price of Russian gas through the Ukraine. It's on the news in France, because this country depends on Russian natural gas in part. Forbes.com also has a writeup.

Putin reportedly set the terms for a new Ukraine contract--three months of gas at last year's prices, then an increase to market rates. Ukraine had been paying about $50 per thousand cubic meters of gas; Russia was looking for $230 before the talks broke down Sunday.

Slight difference in views on the price there. Russians claim Ukranians are siphoning off gas, which Ukranians deny. I wonder why they don't both gang up on the western European countries to loosen the purse strings. No doubt the Ukrainians are asking for lower prices so they don't die of hypothermia, not because they'd rather buy 1G iPods with the money instead. I would expect them to take a clue from civil suit lawyers in the US and go after the deep pockets, wherever those pockets happen to be.

Right after the above quote by the way was the quote from the WTO rep:

"These countries should pay today's market prices for their energy to improve the efficiency of their economies," Pascal Lamy, director general of the World Trade Organization, was quoted by AFX as saying of former Soviet satellite states.

I agree. Let's also charge people the oil prices cited in Critical Path, the ones with the externalities figured in, to improve the energy efficiency of our economies.

Posted by Mark at 07:09 AM | TrackBack

Outage, part III

More power failures during the night. When I woke up this morning the clocks were all flashing.

Nath said I was exaggerating to say we get one power cut per month on average. She may be right if we count each group of outages in 24 hours as one cut. Often when we get one, though, we get several. For example, yesterday evening we had at least a half dozen. If you count them individually, I'm fairly certain we get one a month on average.

Our electicity does not provide five 9s of availability. In software and computer hardware, when you want high availability you use redundancy to prevent a single point of failure from causing a service to disappear. Maybe there's not a good way of doing that on the part of the electric grid that reaches Barraux.

Posted by Mark at 06:50 AM | TrackBack

January 02, 2006

Outage, part II

What do Barraux, St. Petersburg, Menlo Park have in common?

Regular power outages. We just had another couple. EDF, the French electricity company, is being privatized. They took some of the cash they got selling stock and put it in home appliance and electrical equipment manufacturers. Now they have to get people to buy a bunch of new fridges, washing machines, TVs, DVD readers, PCs, etc. So they're power cycling in out of the way places to cause extra equipment failures.

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Outage

Tim was upset. The power went out here in Barraux only 10 minutes after I got the PlayStation set up for him.

Nath got him a PAL PlayStation. She wasn't sure how to hook the thing up. In fact it was simply a setting on the TV to take input not from the antenna but from the other line.

When the power came back on, Nath played three games of SSX, which is a game Joanne recommended. You snowboard down some fairly hairy slopes, racing with computer players, listening to what is supposed to be snowboard music. I guess you could also race against another player on the same PlayStation. Maybe Tim and Emma will try it together.

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January 01, 2006

Happy New Year

None of our trains were late today, so we managed to make it from Desvres to Barraux in only about 6 hours.

Last night Tim managed to stay up almost as late as I did. I was tired from running so went to bed at about 1:30 am. Nathalie came to bed probably about 2.

The trip today was exhausting. Emma and Diane are still too young not to get rambunctious after only the first hour of riding. Then you have wiggle worms for several more hours.

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December 17, 2005

How much for Christmas

The Gmail RSS feed led to an article on Ask Yahoo! about how much people in the US spend on average on holiday gifts.

Can't wait? Answer: $835 on average. "As Myvesta.org points out, many spend 'out of proportion' to their income."

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December 12, 2005

Snow

Metcheck.com has predicted more for this week. But it should only be like Indianapolis and Ann Arbor up in the mountains. Matt and Dad had huge quantities of powder to sweep away.

Here Kevin LeMay told me he went skiiing this weekend. Once you get above the clouds apparently it's beautiful blue with lots of fresh snow.

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December 11, 2005

Christmas pageant

I now know how Vettier got on the inside track as mayor: His brother is none other than Santa Claus himself.

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December 10, 2005

Broken trunk

A picture of the broken trunk door.

You cannot see this well but it's resting on a propane bottle. The guy doing the repairs found a dark metallic green replacement. Just in time for Christmas.

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NTP for biological clocks?

Nodded off at about 10 pm last night. Woke up before 4 am this morning and couldn't go back to sleep. My mind and throat were bothering me. I need NTP for my biological clock.

Last night when I arrived, thankfully dry, at the station in Gières I experienced a moment of passing stupidity. In contrast to most moments (hours?, weeks?) of transiently low IQ, this one was particularly strange. I stood fumbling with my backpack, having great difficulty putting my gloves in there and taking my helmet off. Yet some part of me was also there calmly watching from the outside, noticing helplessly my diminishing mental faculties. That part of me got the other part of me to open Will Self's book and try to read as an experiment. The experiment confirmed my inability to read.

I'd been taking no drugs or medication. Just freezing my backside in the icy water for the last couple of days. The episode ended in the train and I was able to read again.

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December 06, 2005

When you've been in France too long

Nathalie spent all evening online, shopping for beads. That's why I'm on here after my bedtime.

I know I've been in France too long now. They're running Le Père Noöl est une ordure for the 25th time on television. I caught myself laughing out loud. Pretty soon they'll find me sitting there with Michel happily guffawing away at Louis de Funès.

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And speaking of animals

Now I know why I'm not very observant. Overwrought with tension from reading too many novels lately, I made the mistake of people watching this morning while waiting for the late train. There were the usual folks I recognize. One very neat, proper looking man with small round glasses was cursing the SNCF because the train was late, although the station attendant had explained the lateness was due to une intervention de la police in Montmélian. (That had me wondering if I'd correctly signed my weekly ticket.) The man's companion was standing near him. It was unclear whether she'd decided she should look worried because the train was late, or because her friend (husband?) was obviously going to suffer the consequences of his rage, perhaps getting high blood pressure or perspiring in his scrupulously clean shirt.

A couple of women in their late forties or early fifties looked more composed, even amused. They could've been thinking about Christmas shopping. It could even have been my ridiculous looking super hero riding costume covered with mud droplets from the descent to Pontcharra.

Or it could've been what happened when another, younger female cyclist showed up on her bike. First one guy who looked a few years older than me looked her up and down from behind. But that was rather subtle, compared to the adolescent boy who stood maybe two yards a way from her, checking her out, mesmerized.

I'd swore off lecherous staring for the new year if I didn't already have a resolution in mind. Instead I got out my book, shooting a few glances askance to see if there was a rock we gentlemen could crawl under temporarily.

Halfway to work from the station in Gières, I saw a puppy looking at a hen to chase. I swear the dog had the same stare as the boy.

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Mouse in the house

We have an univited guest. I chased it around the bedroom yesterday, but halfheartedly. Couldn't figure out how to catch the tiny animal to put it outside.

Nathalie and Emma were mortified. For a moment I thought Nath was going to crawl up on my shoulders. I wonder if she'll buy a mousetrap.

There's certainly enough crumbs for a mouse to last the winter if not. In fact, there's probably enough food in Diane's booster chair for a mouse to last the winter.

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December 04, 2005

Christmas decorations

While I was out running around Pontcharra, Nathalie was putting up the Christmas tree and other Christmas decorations this morning with the help of her three little elves. Apparently the short Norman Christmas tree we bought this year did not lose its needles already, as did some of the others. Some people opened their trees to find them brown and needleless.

The Christmas tree does look more like a bush to me than a tree, however. It's as wide as it is tall, and a little lopsided. I guess if it were a bush it would be thicker. We didn't want to get a really tall one because they take up so much space. Nathalie was strongly against my idea of buying a small, pre-decorated tree in a box, though. If I were a kid I'd probably want a real tree, too.

Janetta told me Friday that in New Zealand where she grew up, they play tennis on Christmas afternoon. They also used to eat the same food as people were eating in England. Things like Christmas pudding. Imagine having Christmas pudding at your barbecue in July.

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Rough night, part II

Diane was coughing again. We had her in our bed for a while. Nathalie and I were sitting with her as she slept so she wouldn't choke while we waited for cough syrup to take effect. Nathalie also got us up a 3:30 am to give Diane another dose of cough syrup, even though the humidifier was working in Diane's room.

Anyway, when Emma came up at 6:58 am making scratching feet sounds on the carpet, she woke me from a strange dream. Nathalie had become manager of one of the writing groups, and she reported to my manager's manager. So she learned I was going to be laid off, officially for economic reasons. My position was being cut, and my manager was going to have to do my work.

In fact I found out soon thereafter when a woman from HR who I'd never seen before took me down a long corridor to the small room where the exit interview was to take place that Sun had to let me go on request from American Embassy in Paris. They were taking me to one of those CIA camps in Eastern Europe "for observation," because I'd voted wrong in the last US presidential election.

Nathalie looked embarrassed to see me go. The kids were enthusiastic, however. We'd told them I was off on a business trip. They'd come to wave goodbye. As I climbed abord the freight train full of other men, I noticed I was wearing one of those orange pyjama outfits with leg irons.

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December 03, 2005

Over the edge

It seems Dad told me about this before, but I was amused reading this blog entry about not being able to buy Sudafed, because you can use it to make methamphetamines. Somebody replied that you can no longer buy Red Devil Lye because it also contains a key ingredient in making methamphetamines. Next is baking soda because that's used to make crack cocaine.

Apparently methamphetamines are the latest big drug problem. It's now on the sensationalist TV news in France. (So it must be a couple of years out of date in the US.) Over lunch at work my colleagues were discussing some TV program they'd seen. It sounded like it was designed to scare parents about ice, which is a smokable methamphetamine, much more addictive than heroine, cocaine, etc., would turn you from a normal healthy person into a monster almost instantly and so forth.

This morning Diane turned on the TV. We saw a pile of nail scissors that had been confiscated at some US airport. I guess the reasoning was that terrorists might get into the cockpit and threaten to manicure the pilot to death. You cannot be too careful.

There's a danger in going over the edge like this. Because somebody of limited experience and judgement might accidentally sneak a nail scissors on a plane, or take some illegal drug once, or smoke, or drive after drinking alcohol. And they might then conclude that the horror stories are lies. It's not nearly that bad. In fact, statistically speaking, it can be bad, and you can find cases in a large enough sample where it was that bad. Yet the end result is that you have someone comparing their actual findings with what was presented by the authorities... and concluding that the authorities are full of bunk, or worse.

Banning OTC sinus medication because some people either with too much greed or too little good judgement or both make methamphetamines out of one of the ingredients is like never letting your child go outside because he might get kidnapped. The side effects of the treatment are worse than the disease.

Posted by Mark at 08:36 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

November 30, 2005

Illness, part II

Curiously the headache I had this afternoon closely resembled those from earlier this year around the time of the Lyon marathon, headaches relieved by Dr. Handtschoewercker when he clamped down on the back of my skull and then released his grip to push through whatever obstruction was preventing proper flow of blood.

I wonder if that's related to my sinuses and ears. My sinuses and ears have been troublesome for so long it seems normal to have a stuffed up feeling.

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Illness

This is the second time I've been ill on a day off. It's as though it were planned. Don't recall the last time I called in sick, although I did leave early one afternoon last year or the year before last when coming down with stomach flu.

Woke up this morning feeling like I couldn't quite catch my breath, and I still feel like that. Weak. Decided I couldn't go running this morning, and don't think I'll go this afternoon. Slept after lunch but woke up feeling just as tired.

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November 27, 2005

Bitter blue

We're halfway around the world from the sunrises in Kauai. There's nothing I have to tone down in these photos. The colors are clear and cold this time of year.

Bitter blue dawn this morning, and the sky remains nearly cloudless. All the heat seems to have radiated away into the sky. On the porch we'd left some crumbs for the birds. They must be looking for somewhere to warm up.

Yesterday the garage door was ajar. When Tim went down to get his boots and sled gear, he left the door to the garage open, and a bird managed to fly inside the house. It went to Emma's room where the morning sun comes in through the window. Nathalie says that already happened this week, and the bird crapped all over Emma's room. Maybe it was the same little bird, which must've been a male. He had some brightly colored yellow and blue feathers.

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November 26, 2005

First snow, part II

Nath hadn't taken any still pictures of the snow. This is a quick one out the window upstairs.

Diane helped to put together a snowman this morning at school. He wasn't very high, but plenty round. Tim's now off to Florent's. He took his sled. We had trouble keeping him inside long enough to eat some lunch.

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November 25, 2005

First snow

The kids were delighted. 6 inches of snow this morning at our house in Barraux. I hadn't put the snow tires on Nathalie's car. Didn't even clean out the driveway. So they got to stay home from school and are probably out right now building snowmen.

My time to the train station from our house was 15 minutes. Luckily the train was late. I left 10 minutes early, but that wasn't enough. When the roads are clear it takes me under 4 minutes to get to the station.

From the station in Gières the ride was about 40 minutes. As long is it would take to run the same distance. I made fairly good progress along the Isère in fresh snow, but once I got to the road and the ruts created by cars, progress slowed severly.

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November 24, 2005

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to people celebrating in the US.

Tim said he wanted pumpkin pie. I might try to make some this weekend. Not sure I want to go to the trouble just to have him turn up his nose at the finished product.

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November 22, 2005

Tired and cold

Although I slept from before 10 pm to 7 am this morning, I'm still lethargic. Maybe it's some sort of bug.

This is the first week it's been freezing cold since probably last winter. Maybe it's a question of adjusting to the season.

Posted by Mark at 02:18 PM | TrackBack

November 19, 2005

Minister Azouz Begag asks for data on race

The French Minister of Equal Opportunities, Azouz Begag, is asking legislators to overturn a ban on collecting data about race and religion, according to a BBC News article. Dad was asking about race and how people see it here.

Opinions are all over the spectrum, I guess, as they are in the US. But there's an interesting bit in the article I didn't know:

At present not a single member of parliament from mainland France is of African or Arab origin - although an estimated 10% of people are.

That's one of those telling little coincidences, like the fact that far fewer than 50% of elected representatives are women. How you change that is another question entirely.

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November 18, 2005

About 100 km

This week I rode back and forth to the train, so about 100 km. My mountain bike doesn't have a bike computer attached at this point, so I don't have any stats. I agreed to accompany the kids tomorrow on their mountain bikes as well, so I'm getting in a fair amount of biking this week.

Posted by Mark at 08:31 PM | TrackBack

November 14, 2005

Surfing the anti-empire wave

French people took flak for a while after Jacques and a few others surfed the anti-US empire wave to unjustifyably high popularity by disagreeing with the Bush over the urgency of going to war in Iraq. For me, the goofiest part of that whole episode was "freedom fries." Didn't hear anything about "freedom toast," or a "freedom kiss," but then maybe I wasn't paying close enough attention.

Imagine the flak Venezuelans would be taking right about now for Chavez's rift with Fox over the Summit of the Americas. Check this out:

"How sad that the president of a people like the Mexicans lets himself become the puppy dog of the empire", he told an audience of supporters and businessmen in the Venezuelan capital Caracas.

(Source: BBC News, "Chavez and Fox recall ambassadors")

Did you notice that, grammatically speaking, Chavez supporters cannot be businessmen?

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November 13, 2005

Back on the train

My intention is to start commuting by bike again, starting tomorrow. Nobody's torched my car, yet. (Though according to Roger L. Simon's blog -- thanks, Andy, for the recommendation -- some of the leaders were planning to crash the Champs Elysées, so maybe they'll eventually burn my car and my insurance will get me a newer one.) I just need the exercise, and need to avoid getting into an automobile to go to work.

I now have town and trail tires, rather than nubbly offroad ones. And I have new lights, plus one of those flourescent vests that Nathalie convinced me to buy. What worries me more is sweating in my biking clothes, then having to ride home in the dark cold with sopping wet vest and tights.

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November 07, 2005

Tired

The long traffic jam, coupled with a bad run this noon, and followed by another day at work doing more stuff that seems like a waste of time ruined my mostly neutral mood of this morning. Dana suggested running can, "Take the edge off the sadness." I don't oscillate between happiness and sadness, though. The motion is more like earthquakes, but tripolar, occasionally sliding around between anger, depression, and mania.

What helps is to relax and think about the message of Dawkins's books. Basically you, I, and everything else that could be considered a living thing are disposable wrappers around the longer term content, which is information. If I were limber enough, I'm sure I'd find the "Best if used before: <date>" label.

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November 05, 2005

Nathalie's day off

Nathalie worked this morning, teaching English. This afternoon, she's in Crolles at her lace class. So in a way it's her day off. Yesterday afternoon, she was able to leave Diane at school and go to her framing class for a couple of hours. She's making frames for pictures and lace pieces.

Luckily for me, Tim's got mountain biking this afternoon, so I have only the two girls for a couple of hours. Tim got a CD from his mom this morning, so Nathalie said I should take the girls to the store and get them magazines or coloring books. I figured Diane would take a coloring book, but instead she had her eye on a sticker book about princesses that came with 5 play rings. Emma got a thicker magazine of Barbie related coloring, stickers, and stories.

Now Emma and Diane are trading rings. It sounds pretty heated. I may not get to use the computer for long after all.

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November 04, 2005

Why torch your neighbor's car?

The BBC News is running an article on the week of violence in towns in the outskirts of Paris. The media here in France have been carrying the story of course.

This morning I was flipping through radio channels on the way to work. Somebody from France Inter was interviewing somebody from the police. Earlier an announcer read a blurb about a talk radio program that was going to cover the banlieux. It came across in the same tone they reserve for talking about Corsica, which is to say it's some mostly foreign place they visit with a shiver, glad they don't have to inhabit.

My question is what does your outlook on life have to be before you decide to torch your neighbor's car? Imagine you feel so generally hopeful that you decide the thing to do is chuck a bottle full of burning gas through the closed window of a car that belongs to some guy who lives down the hall from you.

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November 01, 2005

Day off, part IX

Today's a day off in France, All Saints' Day. You're supposed to go put flowers on the tombs of your ancestors, but we don't know anybody dead nearby.

Instead, Diane's still in her pyjamas although it's late afternoon. Emma and Tim are watching TV. Nathalie's working on some needlepoint. I've been fiddling with a new version of my LDAP schema repository, making a cleaner library of backend objects than I made before, starting from the top down this time.

Until lunch, I was having intermittent cramps. I haven't taken time to Google for what causes leg cramps and what can end them. The only thing I remember from Noakes was that studies showed runner who stretch irregularly are more likely to suffer from cramps than either runners who stretch regularly, or runners who don't stretch.

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October 31, 2005

Woke up too early

The time change bothered me less yesterday. I woke up too early this morning and couldn't fall asleep again. The thought of running at night didn't bother me before, but now seems like a real drag. At least the weather forecast is mild. Maybe I'll take a nap on the floor of my office at some point.

As I checked out three books for three weeks from the bibliothèque anglophone in le Touvet and didn't do enough reading last week, I'm trying to catch up. I'm not going to make it. But I've started both books that are left.

The first is Pigs in Heaven from Barbara Kingsolver. She's so good at telling a story, but I'm too fidgety to listen right now. Maybe I can renew the book.

The other is The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins. He's lucky there are creationists around, since they act naturally to select for survival only those Darwinist ideas that withstand motivated criticism. I enjoy his book, but if he's trying to convince me to convert to atheism, well... I'm not convinced. The longer I live, the more I write, the less convinced I am, period.

None of that shakes my belief in God. I mean, I check myself, "Do I believe in God?" The answer comes back, "Yes." Strange that belief in God doesn't get cut away by Occam's razor.

I also believe there are other people who just as naturally come to the opposite conclusion. They check, "Do I believe in God?" The answer comes back, "No." Still other people must get the answer, "I'm not sure."

It seems that one could apply rigorous scientific method here with secret balloting and double blinds and the whole nine yards, and the statisically significant sample would come back with some believers, some non-believers, and some sitting on the fence. So I'm looking for Dawkins to give up arguing with people over whether there's a God who created everything and instead try to explain how belief in God evolved. But this morning all he wanted to tell me about was eyes and evolutionary convergence on isolated continents.

Posted by Mark at 08:12 AM | TrackBack

October 30, 2005

6:09 am

6:09 am is the time Emma turned on the light in the hall and came into our bedroom this morning. The kids didn't understand that time changed this morning. All of them were awake by 6:28 am. Could be a long day.

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October 27, 2005

Halloween haircuts

The three children went in for haircuts this afternoon. Emma was proud of the result. Emma wasn't supposed to get her hair cut, but once she was there she talked the hairdresser and her mom into it.

Tim didn't seem to care much one way or the other. I guess he's given up on long hair like the Jedis.

Their mom didn't notice she had the "Nightshot Plus" feature of the camera on. It gives a sort of Halloween glow to the pictures.

This makes it obvious that I'm not a web page designer, doesn't it?

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October 23, 2005

Unplugging the Gateway 2000 P100

Nathalie and I finally removed the old Gateway 2000 P100 from Tim's room. I bought the computer in early 1996 while I was studying in Strasbourg.

It was a state-of-the-art system at the time, with a Pentium 100MHz chip, 8 MB RAM, a 4x CD-ROM, and a 1 GB disk. It cost probably five times the price of the PC on which I'm typing this entry, although this PC has as much RAM as that PC originally had disk space.

The PC in the photo looks very much like the system I bought, although it's a P200 from Japan and has a tape drive.

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October 22, 2005

House for sale, part II

It sounds like Mom and Dana are going to move soon. The accepted an offer on their house after only a couple of weeks.

This'll be the first time in a long time that Mom or Dana has lived in a house in which neither Matt nor I have lived at some time in the past.

Posted by Mark at 08:12 PM | TrackBack

October 16, 2005

Bibliothèque anglophone

Late this afternoon we went to the bibliothèque anglophone in Le Touvet. They just started in January, but have people coming from around the area to borrow English language books. Lots of bicultural families.

I borrowed three books. My night table is overflowing. But not as much as Timothee's. He read his 4 books before going to sleep tonight. Emma and Diane had me read a story about Albert Le Blanc, a white teddy bear from France who looks sad, but in fact is not sad. They both had me translate as I read, but didn't mind hearing it in English. Emma understood more than she thought she would.

Posted by Mark at 09:55 PM | TrackBack

Tired

I slept all right last night, and have been sleeping more than usual lately. But I'm tired early, and sometimes still tired in the morning. Maybe the fall's doing this. Nathalie and the children seem tired as well.

Posted by Mark at 09:53 PM | TrackBack

Tennis

Timothee and I hit the tennis ball around for half an hour this morning. The court we used in Barraux has suffered from erosion, but it was good enough for us. Tim has more control than last time we played. There was less time spent chasing the ball. On a few occasions we even managed to get a short volley going.

Nathalie showed up with the girls after stopping by the bakery. Emma and Diane were wearing their long skirts, but still wanted to try. Emma's not quite to the point where she can hit the ball. She did manage to hit it over the net a couple of times. Diane's not quite to the point where she can figure out what she's trying to do.

Nathalie tried a few volleys with Tim. He has been practicing in the garage. It's not clear whether his serve has gotten as much attention as his imagination. He sees himself standing way back, slamming an ace past you as you struggle to keep up. The frustrating part of sports is how it makes so little sense to apply great force until you have great control.

Posted by Mark at 11:41 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

October 15, 2005

Jedi

Mom sewed Tim a Jedi costume. Here he is showing it off:

Posted by Mark at 10:23 PM | TrackBack

October 10, 2005

First flat on the new bike, part II

Not sure whether this is advancement of the last few years, or whether it was already true before, but I don't seem to have to use tire irons with either bicycle bought since 2004. You change the tire and the tube with bare hands, and so are less likely to puncture the new tube before you even get the tire inflated.

I could find the little hole in the inner tube, a very small hole indeed. Maybe the puncture was a pinch, as there appeared to be a little crease in the tube with a half moon shape around the tiny puncture. I cannot tell for sure, and could find nothing sharp anywhere inside the tire or the rim. Right now I simply hope the flat doesn't come back in the new inner tube.

Next, the chain has been rubbing since at least this morning on the outside of the front derailleur when I use the small sprockets in back. So I used the screw adjustment on the front derailleur cable holder next to the levers to pull that more taut and push the derailleur out. This only partly resolved the problem of rubbing. The front derailleur is well centered when the chain's on the little chain ring in front. I'm not so sure about centering on the other two.

Dad and Matt suggested I might want a stand. It sure would've come in handy tonight. Adjusting the derailleurs and having to hold the bike at the same time is a pain. The same's true for adjusting the wheels that have disc brakes when you put them back on. The disc brakes themselves are fine, but the tolerance is tiny. You have less than a milimeter to play with on either side of the disk.

Derailleur and brake adjustments remind me of tuning a guitar with a floating bridge. For someone with no patience and no dexterity, both are a sure fire way to raise the blood pressure.

Speaking of bike related things that would raise my blood pressure, my brother Matt apparently built a bike himself from components. Bravo, Matt!

Posted by Mark at 09:26 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

October 09, 2005

Books in la Buissière

The village of la Buissière had a sort of book festival this morning, complete with a room full of local authors. It feels strangely uncomfortable to thumb through someone's work right in front of the author. I didn't end up buying anything in French.

But I did turn up three Philip K. Dick paperbacks for a total of 1 euro 50, which Nathalie ponied up since I almost never have any cash. (I'm waiting for my biometrics to take over from coins.) He always had terrible titles and these are no better: The Penultimate Truth, Counter-Clock World, Our Friends from Frolix 8. But his science fiction is usually pretty good, sometimes almost unbelievably so.

Posted by Mark at 08:49 PM | TrackBack

Fall colors returning

The fall colors are coming down from the mountain tops now.

We've also seen snow on the peaks since last week.

Posted by Mark at 07:04 PM | TrackBack

October 06, 2005

House for sale

Mom and Dana are selling their house, getting ready to move. The picture shows the one on the market.

You can read the details and check for further pictures as well if you like. Mom and Dana have the place looking great on the inside, too.

Nathalie says she thinks the price is right. I'd move back in if we could take a few mountains home.

Posted by Mark at 08:49 PM | TrackBack

October 02, 2005

Connection

Looking at the details for the ADSL line here at home, we're 5252 m from the switch in Pontcharra. So it's not the last mile, but the last 3 miles. The loss is up to 59 dB. The best any DSL provider wants to guarantee is 512 kb/s.

Looks like France Telecom is still the cheapest right here as well.

Posted by Mark at 10:49 PM | TrackBack

Mud

This morning I went out to get some fresh air. I managed to use Pierre's suggestion to get up the rocky trail leading to the plateau at the southwest tip of Fort Barraux. Then I went over to La Cuiller and came back around the front of Fort Barraux.

The mud on the access trail in front of Fort Barraux was clay mixed with a bit of dry grass and small gravel. My theory is that the ancient civilizations got the idea for bricks by riding their mountain bikes through just this type of stuff in light rain, after which the sun came out.

At one point I was in my lowest gear pedalling hard to go downhill. I didn't want to take my feet out of the pedals and get my shoes dirty, yet the huge clods of mud caught between my fork and tire in front, and my wheel and frame in back were compromising all forward progress.

Afterwards I hosed the whole thing down, but couldn't get the mud out of the chain, so I brushed it as clean as I could and dried it with rags before greasing each link. There was still some grit. Hope it doesn't rust. It's now clear why Decathlon specifically says these bikes are not built to be cleaned with high-pressure water jets. It's the first thing that comes to mind with that sort of mud.

Posted by Mark at 08:39 PM | TrackBack

September 19, 2005

Fall, part II

Nathalie turned the heat on in the house today. I zapped my watch by pulling a polar fleece top off too fast.

On the way home I got rained on. Cold knees. This is definitely fall weather. Nathalie told me the weather report said there might even be frost in some spots.

Posted by Mark at 08:43 PM | TrackBack

Fall

Sunup at 7:33 am, 10 C (50 F) when I set out to take the train, gray morning under clouds and mist. Had to wear tights instead of shorts. Early fall seems to have arrived.

Posted by Mark at 10:15 AM | TrackBack

September 18, 2005

Street sale in Barraux

Nathalie's working at the street sale. Has been there this morning since 4:00 am when Michel and I went with her to set up tables and chairs.

Later we took Colette and the children. Emma bought a mechanical braiding machine. Tim bought a small pinball machine and Star Wars trading cards. Diane got three very large books. Michel was reading from Sleeping Beauty. Diane's sleeping herself now.

I'm exhausted, so Nathalie must feel even more so. I'm supposed to record the reruns of E/R if she's too tired to think about that this evening.

Posted by Mark at 02:54 PM | TrackBack

September 17, 2005

Another flat, part III

Road bike tires are usually built to weigh little and translate as much of your pedaling power into forward motion as possible. They're susceptible to cuts.

My rear tire has 3 of these kinds of cuts. Underneath is a layer of Kevlar. Yet I decided to change the tire today in case the recent flat was due in part to gravel, sand, or glass getting inside one of the cuts.

(Yes, I do bite my fingernails.)

Posted by Mark at 08:28 PM | TrackBack

September 16, 2005

Anonymous

On Darren Barefoot's blog was a link to a long article about how to disappear from your old life in the US.

Why is it interesting? Why does that cross the mind every now and then? We already live more anonymously than most people on the planet. I guess we feel overly watched. That and living mainly in situations where you feel you're only in charge to the extent that people higher up have forgotten about you, it all leads to a fascination with hiding out.

At work our CEO once was quoted as saying, "You've got no privacy. Get over it." To some extent, I have. But then I'm in a relatively anonymous situation, although I leave so many traces all over the place that anybody with an Internet connection can find me instantly. The key is being in plain sight but completely uninteresting to anyone who doesn't either live or work with me.

The best way to vanish is not to appear in the first place.

Posted by Mark at 10:07 PM | TrackBack

Picnic breakfast

This is what Nathalie woke up to. Emma had decided they should picnic in the living room for breakfast.

Posted by Mark at 08:52 PM | TrackBack

September 11, 2005

Four years ago

Nathalie reminded me that it's 9/11 today. Four years ago I was sitting in training. Like most people my first reaction to the news was, "Now that's not a very tasteful joke." It's a real shame it wasn't just a joke.

Posted by Mark at 03:41 PM

Bizutage

It's that time of year again.

I was half asleep after watching a video -- The Final Cut; I couldn't stay awake -- with Nathalie. Rain was pouring down outside as I drove back from returning the video. A teenage girl comes up to my car:

Can you tell me the way to Saint Marcel d'en Bas?

No, sorry.

It takes me a long time to remember the names of places. Later Nathalie said the kid I talked to wasn't joking. Saint Marcel d'en Bas is up the hill. Not ideally located with respect to the station in Pontcharra, given that it was getting quite late, the rain was getting stronger, and none of the bizuts down there seemed to have a clue or a car.

The bizutage tradition is something I avoided in the US, since I wasn't a fraternity type of guy. I avoided it in France because I went to University. There wasn't enough esprit de corps to abuse each other gratuitously. It's too unscientific and episodic to cause real brainwashing, right? Not nearly as effective as putting people through boot camp, or having them work for a living.

By the time I got home I'd awakened enough to worry that those kids were going to get sick or worse out there. Nathalie said never mind, they'll get out their mobile phones and call someone if it gets too bad, or they'll sleep at a bus stop. And I guess we've all done worse than that voluntarily at one time or another.

Posted by Mark at 10:16 AM

September 06, 2005

Too broke to split

Fred Clark blogged about an article at DelawareOnline.com suggesting:

People living in the path of Hurricane Katrina's worst devastation were twice as likely as most Americans to be poor and without a car -- factors that may help explain why so many failed to evacuate as the storm approached.

....

Two in 10 households in the disaster area had no car, compared with 1 in 10 in nationwide.

Technically that still leaves 8 in 10 with cars, probably an average of enough seats to evacuate not only the people, but also the pets. Imagine evacuating by carpool.

Posted by Mark at 09:14 PM

September 05, 2005

Yelp

Woke this morning with a yelp at about 5 am. Nathalie woke up too. I couldn't explain anything so I didn't try.

As I turned over to go back to sleep, I tried to understand myself. The yelp had come when I turned around in the bathroom where I was standing and saw at least one, possibly several, human bodies hanging in the shower. They'd been deboned, or perhaps deveined.

In any case, the blood had been completely drained from the bodies, and they were opened as if someone intended to use the skins as rugs.

Before I wandered into the bathroom, I'd been at some sort of debauched aristocratic party. They were trying to convince us to drink a sort of highly alcoholic, Eastern European sparkling ice wine. It's not clear whether I was there as a guest or as one of the servants. Some of the guys were definitely gangster types, wearing royal blue robes, very blue eyes.

It seemed they were vampires. My logic said they wanted people to get drunk because although they couldn't drink wine themselves, they could get drunk if the blood they drank had enough alcohol in it.

Posted by Mark at 12:23 PM

September 04, 2005

Practice

I'm reminded this afternoon why I did so much of my studying at night when working towards the degree in computer science.

Today I got the electric guitar out of its case. The electric guitar doesn't make much noise when you don't plug it in, or so I hoped.

It would be nice to practice 15 min/day with the Leavitt books. I have one of studies and the other on sight reading for beginners. I used to be able to read, though not very well, for trombone. On guitar, I'm at the See Spot Run level. Aural culture won't get me much further than 12-bar blues and imitations.

Soon after I started plunking around, all three of them were lined up in my room. Timothee was telling me how to play. He wanted me to hand over the guitar. Diane was next in line. Emma, who'd been a little late arriving, was screaming that Tim was going to play too long when his turn came around.

In the time that I wrote this, they've lost interest of course. If I dare start playing again, they'll be back.

Posted by Mark at 05:13 PM

September 01, 2005

First 100 days

A well tanned Dominique de Villepin was on the news this evening to report on his first 100 days as French Prime Minister. (Now there's a hot news item for the political segment. Can you tell the French political class has been on vacation?) We'd just about finished eating, and the kids were each carrying on separate conversations.

For that reason the only part I caught was that he seems to use hair spray now, and that the unemployed really should get off their butts and get jobs already.

That makes sense. After all, official unemployment recently dropped from 10% to 9.9% while Villepin and the rest of the political class were improving their tans. Good jobs are plentiful now that structural employment issues have been resolved.

Posted by Mark at 09:36 PM

August 30, 2005

Crafts

Nathalie has a meeting this morning. I'm staying home with the children. The main event this morning is crafts. Tim's made a box to hold crayons, pencils, and other things on his desk. Emma's made a picture from salt dough.

Diane's only involved now since they went outside to blow bubbles. Before that she wanted to watch Robin Hood, the Disney animated movie with animals playing all the roles. We've had that video maybe a month, and she's probably watched it 25 times.

Whatever I do, I need to remain ready for interruptions, often more than one interruption at a time. It's like a busy day at work, except I don't have any meetings scheduled.

Not as relaxing as when Nathalie's also here, however.

Posted by Mark at 10:59 AM

August 24, 2005

Not a dam, part III

BBC News is running an article on the floods here in Europe. "Mudslides have blocked roads and railway tracks." Yup

They don't seem to mention France. If you've been following the French news, you know this is a drought year here. Maybe that's why they cannot tell us about the floods, yet.

Posted by Mark at 10:24 PM

Not a dam, part II

On the Belledonne side of the valley, things are apparently still quite a mess. Vincent told me this morning that 300 firefighters are coming in to help clean up some of the streets and railways, and to channel the water away from people's homes and businesses.

The SNCF didn't have any information posted about this. My train was late, then stopped at the station in Tencin, where busses waited to take people further. I guess either they don't have much more information than anybody else, or the people with information are already doing what they can dealing with the situation and don't have time to let anybody not directly involved know.

Vincent says the information in his town has been filtering orally through the mayor, who has held a couple of town meetings. Guess I won't try to take the train tonight or ride on that side of the valley.

Posted by Mark at 08:35 AM

August 23, 2005

Not a dam

It turns out that all that water was from reservoirs simply overflowing. Nothing really broke.

Nathalie says they got the trains running again late this afternoon.

Posted by Mark at 09:30 PM

Broken dam, part II

Didier had some photos of the water today around noon. It was still flowing. The station was still under water:

xv doesn't seem to resize as nicely as The Gimp, but you get the idea.

Posted by Mark at 03:35 PM | Comments (2)

August 21, 2005

Slow Sunday

For some reason the day's already almost over, yet I've done so little. Managed to clean my bike, do some calisthenics, organize some papers, did some email, and read. That's most of it.

This morning Emma went swimming again. She spent the whole time in the deeper pool. The instructor says she doesn't need to go in the kid's pool any more, and she's convinced. She did go in for a few minutes after her lesson, however, to show me how she could swim underwater and do handstands and so forth. Very proud.

In the afternoon I tried to get Diane to take a nap. After an hour, I threw in the towel. Diane was triumphant.

Tim's watching Star Wars again. I think I saw him mouthing the lines. Nathalie's been working on a quilt. She bought the fabric when we were visiting Mom.

Posted by Mark at 06:19 PM

August 15, 2005

Yardwork, part IV

Trimmed evergreen shrubs and weeping willow branches, then dug up armfuls of weeds in the rose bed as I turned over the soil. That completes the obligatory yardwork for this long weekend.

Posted by Mark at 02:29 PM

August 14, 2005

Yardwork, part III

From just before 8 am until about 4 pm with a couple of breaks including lunch and two phone conversations, I worked in the yard. Finished trimming the big laurel bush, weeding 2/3 of the rose beds, mowed the lawn. It always surprises me how long that sort of work takes and how tired it leaves you.

Posted by Mark at 08:48 PM

August 07, 2005

Hedges, part II

Ouf.

Today I spent about 6 hours clipping and another half hour sweeping up leaves and short branches. Many of the branches I left sitting on the hedge along the side of the yard.

My back feels sore. By the very end I was getting cramps in a muscle in the middle of my back. The only part I didn't manage is the big ball of laurel next to the front steps.

Then I cleaned house. I'm exhausted, but at least I didn't have three little people displacing things as I straightened, scrubbed, and mopped. Looking forward to relaxing at work tomorrow.

Posted by Mark at 10:20 PM

August 06, 2005

Hedges

We're getting close to hedge clipping season, so I started already. Clipping hedges is not so bad, though it's a drag when you try to do so much of it at a time. It's even more of a drag when it's raining and soggy, so a cool sunny day such as today is probably the best I can do.

I'm working with the manual shears. Manual shears do not rip the leaves and branches as the electric shears do.

The toughest part can be cleanup. But if you clip often enough, not only do you run into fewer thick branches, you can also sweep up the debris in a matter of minutes.

Posted by Mark at 02:12 PM

August 02, 2005

Lyon detours

Took Nath and the children to the train station in Lyon this morning, then proceeded to have an inordinately difficult time extracting myself from Lyon.

The difficulty was not that Lyon has a funny layout, but that there are lots of one-way streets, and that the map I have appears to label streets one-way randomly, without regard to how the streets actually run. You get the impression someone ran out of time labelling one-way streets, or was simply doing it as a draft check to see whether the labelling looked good in the finished copy, but then failed to go through a final edit. Didn't get into work until just after 11 am.

Posted by Mark at 11:44 AM

July 29, 2005

Terminal 2F

When we came back from Indiana, we spent about 3 hours in Terminal 2F:

This one apparently is not going to collapse from the stresses of heating and air conditioning.

Posted by Mark at 09:36 PM

July 27, 2005

Back in Barraux

We rolled into Barraux at about 4:30 pm this afternoon, having had a long layover in Paris but no traffic at all at the tunnel de l'Epine.

Didn't sleep much on the plane. Children significantly under adult size do need a different seat, one with which their legs would touch the ground. I find it difficult to sleep while sitting up in a chair. When I also have someone fidgeting in my lap it's even harder. Dead tired now.

Posted by Mark at 07:55 PM

July 25, 2005

Walk

It was warm this afternoon. No strenuous exercise today, but after Dad left for Indianapolis, I went out for a 3 mi walk.

Although I'd been in the air conditioned house for hours, I started sweating quite noticeably after about a mile. By 2.4 mi, I was very sweaty. Tim came out and slowed me down for a very easy last lap, but it was still too hot to cool down.

Posted by Mark at 12:35 AM

Flowers, part II

From my mother's garden:

Some of the flowers are burning up with 95 F (35 C) weather. The humidity is such that the dew point is 75 F (24 C). Dana says that makes the temperature feel higher 100 F (38 C).

Posted by Mark at 12:28 AM

July 23, 2005

Mini triathlon, part II

The first leg of today's mini triathlon was this morning's run.

After lunch, I went for a ride around Michigan City. Although scattered thundershowers and high temperatures were predicted for today, I missed the rain and had only a few breezes with which to contend. Some spots in the road were awful, however, the worst being the mile of Meer Road between 800 N and 900 N. I took a little detour, not identified on my route map, to ride past 209 Southwood where we lived from 1981-1984 before Mom and Dana moved us out here. There's still a basketball goal on the garage.

The final event was croquet, which Tim set up. I beat Mom, Matt, Emma, Dad, and Tim on Tim's not very regulation course. He's still out there with Matt. I guess he's trying to learn to juggle.

Posted by Mark at 11:51 PM

Mount Baldy

Mom, Dad, Nath, and I took Tim, Emma, and Diane to Mount Baldy (satellite picture from Google maps) this afternoon.

The weather was nice, breezy and about 75 F (24 C), with the water roughly that same temperature. We flew kites for a little while, then the bigger kids spent a whole hour standing in the waves, waiting for the big ones to wash over them.

After that we flew kites a while longer before coming home. Never had to carry Diane at all. She was having such a good time.

Posted by Mark at 03:04 AM

July 21, 2005

Michigan City zoo

After we decided an 80% chance of thundershowers and a predicted high of 91 F (33 C) with over 80% humidity ruled out going to Lake Shafer tomorrow, we went to the lakefront at Washington Park, then the zoo.

The kids favorite part was when the monkey showed us his hind end as a sort of greeting, but I only caught that on tape, not as a digital photo.

Posted by Mark at 09:33 PM

July 20, 2005

Circus

With Mom's help, Tim and Emma are preparing for the circus downstairs:

I've been told I'll have a job as a juggler.

Posted by Mark at 05:36 PM

July 18, 2005

Overdressed

Diane and the other children went to a junk store and found some old clothes.

A little overdressed for age 3 if you ask me. You should see her walk in the high heels.

Posted by Mark at 12:10 AM

July 11, 2005

Restful yard

Mom's yard looked restful at 5 am this morning.

Unfortunately the photos from our camcorder don't do it justice. All you can see is the dominant greens and browns, not the small areas of color that make those seem even deeper.

Posted by Mark at 03:14 PM

American style

After eating a bunch of grease-laden food at Redamak's, home of The "Hamburger" that made New Buffalo, MI Famous! and other mistakenly used double quotes, Nath and Emma settled in to life in the rec room, American style:

They're now watching a DIY program called Sell this House!

Posted by Mark at 12:39 AM | Comments (2)

July 10, 2005

Multiple birthdays

Mom and Dana had an enormous box of presents for everyone.

The kids had a whale of a time opening them up and playing.

Posted by Mark at 01:34 AM

July 03, 2005

Video capture, part XX

We now have 15 SVCD images on our home disk, spanning a little over a year of home video. We have 9 source tapes of digital video and one of analog. Most of our analog tapes were sent to the US, where Dad kindly paid to have them moved to VHS. He'd also bought the analog camera, and had given me a gift of a video capture card for the mid 90s, Pentium 100 based PC Tim now has in his room. He did that on my suggestion. I feel bad about squandering his money that way. The mistake was that 10 years ago PCs just weren't powerful enough to handle video. Today they are almost powerful enough.

Only one SVCD was carefully edited. The compressed SVCD video takes up 8.3 GB. The DV format volume was so enormous we don't have space to store it except on tape. The difficulty with editing is that it takes large blocks of time. Part of that is because you have to watch everything in real time. Another part is because I don't know what I'm doing and have to watch sequences multiple times. But a big part of it is that the volumes of data and calculations outstrip what PCs today can easily do.

And I still find it too hard to split audio and video to handle them separately. Or at least I haven't found the right software.

Posted by Mark at 09:29 AM

July 02, 2005

Vegetables, part II

The picture is not of hops, but of lettuce. We had too many heads of it at once and three got away.

Posted by Mark at 08:34 PM

Sizing

Tim's beetle wasn't quite as big as the image I posted a while ago. It was more like this:

Speaking of sizes, I bought some shorts this morning, and now fit into size 42 French pants pretty well, which is usually size 32 US. Last time I was this thin was probably 10 years ago, when Nathalie and I were getting married.

Since my wife is not running and cycling like me, I bet her I could wear her pants. They fit, although the hips were snug. Emma and Diane took advantage of the situation to try on my shorts. Together.

Posted by Mark at 08:28 PM

June 29, 2005

Sleepless

Terrible fatigue. Finally got out of bed at 4 am, having gone to bed at 11 pm, but unable to do anything anymore but toss and turn. Today feels like another bad day already.

Posted by Mark at 07:06 AM

June 27, 2005

Heat, part III

It's been too hot for too long. Where we live even the natural cooling at night has slowed. I'm starting to feel like the hours I sleep are not equivalent to normal hours of rest.

Meteo France predicts rain by this Wednesday, however, with a high of only 30 C (86 F) instead of 35 C (95 F). Looking forward to that, even if I do have to clean my bicycle chain again.

Posted by Mark at 08:19 PM

June 25, 2005

Star Wars, part II

Tim's forcing everyone to watch the second film in the second Star Wars trilogy, the one called Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones. This is a copy of the DVD, which is probably illegal, because the copy is terrible, as though they'd put some anti-piracy coding in there. One thing Tim really wants is the DVDs for all six films, but that's an expensive present for an 8 year old.

In this one, Anakin Skywalker and Padmé Amidala fall in love. I identify with this guy who becomes Darth Vader. By that I don't mean I'm good looking, technically competent, an ace with a light saber, or any of that. It's more his feelings, frustrations, sense that you start out an idealist and eventually cave in to the dark side.

There's one scene where he goes to rescue his mom, who has been taken captive by some desert dwelling nomads. She dies in his arms. He loses his temper and kills the whole village. Then he's back in his stepdad's garage, fixing something. He makes this statement about fixing things, how it's soothing and makes life simple where he can fix everything. (And pointless, like the red polyhedron in THX1138.) He's talking about power, enough power to provide immortality. Then, right after that commentary on modern man's approach to reality, Padmé gets him to say what's wrong. He admits he killed them all, women, children. This she more or less ignores, instead pitying him, saying something like, "To hate is normal."

This probably goes right by Tim and Emma, but it surprised the heck out of me. I thought the last three were mostly devoid of humor and intelligent commentary, but in fact it's all there, dry irony. It's like reading the Das Glasperlenspiel through Noam Chomsky's glasses.

Posted by Mark at 08:12 PM

June 24, 2005

Heat, part II

Last night Nathalie and I went out to an evening at the Château Mollard in Le Touvet sponsored by our comité d'entreprise at Sun. It was a nice setting to take the social equivalent of a four-hour coffee break around folks from the office who are fun to hang out with. Still we left earlier than most... to come home and relieve our babysitter. She's studying for exams.

Despite not getting to bed until just after midnight, I had a hard time sleeping. It's the heat, unusual for France. Today will be a good day for a morning run.

Incidentally, yesterday at the shoe store I learned about a track only 4.5 km (2.8 mi) from work where we can run intervals. It belongs to a junior high school, and lies just off the bike path leading behind the place in Meylan where Stu and I used to play squash. It's a little too far to be convenient, but maybe on days when I'm really going to run hard I can ride or drive over there, or at least part way.

Posted by Mark at 05:35 AM | Comments (2)

June 20, 2005

Heat

When I was standing in the corridor of the train this morning, I realized today would be a hot one. At 8:00 am I could already feel the sweat dripping as I stood there in the breeze coming through the window.

This afternoon it was downright hot when I jumped on the bike at just after 6 pm to catch the train back home. The nice thing about biking is that you always have a breeze blowing in your face. The faster you go, the better the breeze. Of course the better the breeze, the harder you have to work. Had a hard time cooling down when I got to the train station.

Posted by Mark at 08:08 PM

June 19, 2005

Made up

Yesterday afternoon we had the fête des écoles in Barraux. The girls got their faces made up.

Timothee won enough points for four squirt guns, three of which seem to be broken already. Didn't last long.

Posted by Mark at 09:08 PM

Warm

Cutting the grass today was tougher than last time. France is having hot weather. The thermometer in the shade says 33 C (91 F). Most of the grass is in the sun.

We have another passion flower and many buds on the vine. The pool Nathalie has been filtering each evening with the pump was a big success this morning. Nobody was shivering this time.

I ought to be out there clipping the hedges and weeding, but cutting the grass is already a fairly large job. Took me almost 3 hours.

Posted by Mark at 03:00 PM

June 17, 2005

Beetle

Tim found a beetle in the yard, something similar to but only half as big as this:

He kept it in his bug observation apparatus overnight, then took it into school. We were relieved to hear it didn't die, but was instead let loose in the woods.

Posted by Mark at 10:57 PM

June 05, 2005

Yardwork, part II

My intention this morning was to do much more than mow the lawn. All I ended up doing besides the lawn, however, was to prune the forsythia bushes and tear out a bunch of vines and weeds around the trees and the shrubs next to the stairs.

The hedges are light green with new growth. All the new leaves came this season. It wouldn't have made sense to cut the hedges this spring.

The laryngitis has turned into something that stuffs up my head and causes shortness of breath, the occasional cough. Inhaling clouds of dust and grass clippings probably didn't help. At least we don't have poison ivy over here. The worst I do in the yard is nettles and sunburn on my shoulders and neck if I stay out there long enough.

Posted by Mark at 07:45 PM

Laryngitis, part II

My voice has disappeared to the point that I almost have to whisper. My vocal cords feel sore.

Posted by Mark at 07:43 PM

June 04, 2005

Passion flower

Nathalie's growing these on a vine that climbs up the fence we have behind the wall in back.

Nice flowers. Wonder what will happen this winter.

Posted by Mark at 04:39 PM | Comments (1)

Wildlife

This small lizard became trapped in the watering can.

Tim tried to let him out, but we agreed in the end that flinging the watering can around was only going to scare the beast.

Posted by Mark at 04:31 PM

Tantrums

There are lots of tantrums at our house.

Mom, Dana, my brother Matt took my Myers-Briggs and got classified respectively as ENTP, INTP, and INTP. They're thinkers with a tendency to hold judgement until they've uncovered the full story.

I can pretend to be calm like that, but it's fundamentally against my nature. I don't naturally think at all, ever, but instead react on feeling, and quickly. As INFJ I'm instantly incredibly sure, convinced to the marrow, see the realization as something fundamental about reality itself. Until I change my mind.

Anyway, Mom or Dana, not sure, sent a link to an article written by Thomas L. Friedman, who works as a columnist for the NY Times. A Race to the Top says:

Voters in "old Europe" - France, Germany, the Netherlands and Italy - seem to be saying to their leaders: stop the world, we want to get off; while voters in India have been telling their leaders: stop the world and build us a stepstool, we want to get on.

You can probably imagine the rest of it. The underlying theme reminds me of his book, The Lexus and the Olive Tree.

The article is interesting. You can almost pull the entire US model out of the implications between the lines. Last night I was exhausted, though. It just brought out a tantrum.

Having INFJ tendencies can be incredibly frustrating.

Posted by Mark at 11:49 AM

June 03, 2005

Laryngitis

My voice has pretty much gone. It started as an itchy feeling yesterday and caught up with me today. Felt okay until late afternoon. Now I'm exhausted, short of breath.

Posted by Mark at 10:18 PM

June 02, 2005

EU constitution, part V

The Dutch, like the French, decided against the proposed EU consitution. Forbes posted a short write up of some statements by European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso, who made a good point:

'I think the major debate that is needed in Europe is bigger than the one about the constitution itself. It's a question about what path to follow,' Barroso said.

Seems to me it would be hard to get hundreds of millions of people to agree on any path whose basic specifications run to 265 A4 pages. Maybe that's why the nations opening the question up to all voters are finding it tough to garner agreement.

Posted by Mark at 08:46 PM

June 01, 2005

Tiredness

A bit more than 48 hours after I saw the chiropractor, exhaustion is still upon me, but I'm afraid to go to bed. I'll be up before 5 am, unable to return to sleep.

Felt listless and depressed most of the day. Just sitting there was a struggle. Continuing to hope whatever he did will work.

Posted by Mark at 09:27 PM

May 31, 2005

Sluggish

Despite feeling exhausted last night, I slept only until 5:30. My head hurts a little, but mostly I have no energy. Hope this works.

Posted by Mark at 09:34 AM

May 30, 2005

EU constitution, part IV

It seems the French voters disagreed yesterday with the proposed EU constitution. 70% of those eligible turned out, and nearly 55% of them voted no.

Nathalie, and then Dad, wondered what this means for France in Europe. That's a good question. Maybe the French political class will agree with Jacques Delors, who suggested a second referendum in the event of a "no" result.

Posted by Mark at 10:58 AM

May 29, 2005

Thunder and rain

It has started to rain already. Metcheck.com and Yahoo Weather weren't expecting rain here until tomorrow afternoon. Only a few drops. It's already over, less than 10 minutes after it started. But maybe it'll take the temperature down a couple of degrees. We hope.

Posted by Mark at 09:16 PM

Mother's Day flowers

A few shots from around the garden.

In the last couple of weeks we seem to have moved out of spring and into summer, even if officially three weeks remain before the solstice.

Posted by Mark at 08:26 AM

Cheese & smoke

At this point it is not clear whether to ascribe this morning's stuffyheadedness to cheese on pizza or to smoke. I'm convinced however that the feeling of having had my intestines filled with expansive foam comes from the cheese. Felt too bloated to run this morning, which I might otherwise have done despite the aches in my back.

Yesterday we spent late afternoon with Nathalie and Eric down in La Gache. Nathalie used to babysit Emma a couple of times a week at her house. Eric's had a pool put in since then. The children were dying to go in. It's an aboveground pool of roughly uniform depth, so would be too deep for Diane and probably Emma. Tim has swimming lessons and even a certificate to prove he learned. He went in and paddled around. At that point Diane and Emma were so adamant we had to hold them over the edges and dip them in the water. Diane screamed when we eventually had to leave.

Eric's a smoker. I realized yesterday how long it's been since I've been exposed to more than a whiff of tobacco smoke. Maybe I've inherited Dad's allergy to tobacco smoke, because even before leaving their house I had a scratchy throat. But it was nice to see them. They seem to be doing okay.

We left at almost 7 pm, so Nathalie phoned in an order for take out pizzas. I've been avoiding milk products since the chiropractor and then Matt said all they'll do is make it harder for my body to recover from training, and they may cause me allergies as the liver and body systems typically occupied with allergens have to finish digesting the lactate and the components of cow's milk the intestines cannot handle. Last night I was hungry and wanted to know if eating cheese would really make a difference, or if the guys I heard it from had been taken in by New Age nutritional nonsense.

On the one hand, I only have one good data point so far. On the other hand, it firmly backs up their shared theory. No more large doses of dairy products the night before a morning run.

Posted by Mark at 08:04 AM

May 24, 2005

EU constitution, part III

This weekend the French have a referendum on the proposed EU constitution. Although of course I don't have a vote to cast, I decided to start reading the thing since the state sent Nathalie a paper copy.

It's not exactly an exciting read, but I found an interesting section in there before falling asleep. Article 46, which is entitled in the English version, "The principle of participatory democracy." For a moment I thought they were going to propose direct legislative capabilities, as does the National Initiative for Democracy in the US.

Not so, however. Basically Article 46 says the EU has to keep people informed, let the discuss, and listen to what they say if at least a million of them are in agreement. They can "invite the Commission to submit any appropriate proposal on matters where citizens consider that a legal act of the Union is required for the purpose of implementing the Constitution."

Posted by Mark at 10:25 PM

May 21, 2005

Awning

Helped Michel put up the awning Nathalie wanted behind the house. It's a big yellow thing, 4 x 3 m. She wants to be able to sit out on the back porch in the afternoon with the children without getting burnt up in the hot sun.

Before that I cut the grass in the back yard. Michel had cut the front yard this week. One of those cuts where you empty the bag many, many times, and breathe in lungfulls of chopped dust. Can feel the tension in my neck, but my head's okay. Might run tomorrow.

Posted by Mark at 05:20 PM

May 15, 2005

Home improvements, part II

Nathalie's finishing up the wallpaper in our room.

It's clearer in there than with the carpet on the walls. Hope she finds it closer to what she wanted.

Posted by Mark at 02:15 PM

May 13, 2005

Haircut

Since I've been taking the train and bike to work, I end up washing my hair up to three times per day. It was relatively short but unkempt, so I went to our hairdresser in Barraux, Chez Yvonne.

I told Yvonne's sister to cut it relatively short. That turned into what Nathalie describes as a military-looking cut. You can see the scalp on the sides and back. Admittedly it looks funny, making me uglier than usual. But I can probably wash it as much as I want. Don't even need a comb.

Michel and Colette are here. Michel was in charge of making dinner, since Nathalie and Colette went to Aix-les-Bains to the spa for mud baths, massages, and that sort of thing. Both girls went with me to Yvonne's. They got their hair braided, and look a lot less silly than their dad.

Posted by Mark at 08:35 PM | Comments (1)

May 09, 2005

Headache, part XI

This is the first day in a week that I haven't felt the need to take painkillers in the evening, despite having spent about 2 hours exercising all told.

Posted by Mark at 08:17 PM

May 08, 2005

Home improvements

Nathalie couldn't take it anymore. The carpet on the walls of our bedroom makes it too gloomy in there, and she's convinced it's all full of dust.

This morning she's taking off the molding so we can tear off the strips of carpet. We're going to replace the light blue carpet with off white wallpaper.

Posted by Mark at 11:23 AM

May 03, 2005

Hailstones

Karine left work at about 5:30 to pick up her husband David at work in Eybens. She said he'd called her because their other car got smashed up with 4-cm (almost 2-in) hailstones.

We had some hail at work, tiny little chips. I was glad it let up, though. Half an hour later I had to ride 20 minutes to get the train in Gières.

Metcheck.com says things should clear up tomorrow morning, but it should be chilly when I ride downhill to catch the train. Right now we're still having thunderstorms.

Posted by Mark at 09:49 PM

May 01, 2005

May day

While I was running one boy tried on two successive laps to sell me some muguet.

Not only didn't I have 2 euros in my running shorts, but Nathalie already had plenty at home.

Posted by Mark at 10:38 AM

April 30, 2005

About three hours

Our lawn had started to look like a combination between an alpine meadow and a farm for dandelion greens. So late this morning and early afternoon I cut it.

Had to empty the hamper many, many more times than average. In many spots I had to run over the same spots twice to get everything clipped. All that dust, shredded plant matter, and warm sun gave me a headache.

Posted by Mark at 06:06 PM

April 28, 2005

Almost summer in Barraux

It was warm enough today for the kids to wear swimsuits outside.

Not warm enough to fill their inflatable pool, however.

Posted by Mark at 08:51 PM

April 26, 2005

Long drive, part II

Arrived home at about 18h50 after leaving Monclar this morning at 9h35. We were held up by road construction. What a day. Lovely sun and blue sky after a week of rain, but it was too warm to be comfortable in the car.

Posted by Mark at 10:35 PM

April 17, 2005

Snow, part IX

While I was out running, then jogging, Nathalie and the kids had about 6 hours without electricity, and thus also without heat (gas heater, but electric ignition system). Nathalie went out twice today to shake the snow off the fruit trees. We had two trees with fairly thick broken branches.

The children went crazy, too. Emma decided for example to make mud pies on her night table with chocolate and water. Diane attacked a cake, scooping handfuls out and stuffing herself. Cannot recall now what Tim was doing, but he wouldn't let his sister take a nap.

They're pretty much back to normal now, and the electricity and heating came back before I arrived. What a day.

Posted by Mark at 05:33 PM

April 16, 2005

Cold rain, snow, and some wind, part IV

Stu and I took Diane over to Lyon today. We had to pick up our packets and numbers. Mine is 1067.

The fun part was driving there. In between here and Lyon a lot of snow fell last night and today. This morning they had to close the autoroute. One lane was open when we crawled through.

Metcheck.com still predicts 2 C and rain with snow. I've been taking homeopathic medecine and throat lozenges, decided to break down and take ibuprofen for my headache after dinner.

Finishing will not be a problem. I've had worse. Not sure to muster the motivation to run it in less than 3 hours, however.

There's one nice thing about being a novice. As long as I finish, I'll be setting a PR tomorrow for both time and distance.

Posted by Mark at 08:32 PM

Cold rain, snow, and some wind, part III

The snow this morning sticks to the Velux skylight window above my desk here. The thermometer on Tim's window sill registers 3 C. The snow should not stick long.

My throat itches less than yesterday morning. I drank tea and juice instead of coffee this morning. Found some chewable vitamins of Tim's in the medicine cabinet that he stopped taking a while ago. They're full of vitamin C, so I ate two of those. Still crossing my fingers.

In addition to practicing drinking a little every 4-5 km, I should've practiced peeling off layers of excess clothing during the long runs. Usually after you've sweated through a couple of layers, you have to overheat indeed to want to expose the undermost, dripping wet t-shirt and shorts to the cold. At minimum, I'll pack a throwaway fleece top, gloves, and hat.

Posted by Mark at 07:28 AM

April 13, 2005

Getting fat, part III

Back down to 82.6 kg (182 lb) this morning when I got up. Not sure why my weight varies so much, and I'm not sure what the right weight is. I'm doing my best to hold back this week of low mileage and not eat all the chocolate in the house.

One site suggested I'd be in the right range at about 79 kg, so that would put me only a few kilos overweight. That ought to be possible for Sept. with a little bit of willpower and slightly higher mileage. Another formula Dana once suggested for marathoners -- 1 kg/inch, or about 74.5 kg for me -- would mean I have another 8 kg (almost 18 lb) to lose. That would take a bit more willpower than I can muster at this point.

Posted by Mark at 09:30 PM

April 11, 2005

Day off, part VI

Today was supposed to be a day of rest. I was off work and didn't run or ride.

It was a busy day, however. This morning Nathalie found the wallpaper she wanted, and also bought some clothes for her and for Emma. Diane wanted to ride around on my shoulders. She calls it riding around on my head. Then we went to the eye appointment, where the doctor dilated Nathalie's pupils, so I had to drive.

All afternoon I went back and forth to the dump in Pontcharra, finally getting rid of all the branches I'd pruned from the fruit trees. At least the weather was okay, no rain today.

The grass has grown so much in some spots already I could've cut it again. Dandelions are starting to take over parts of the yard. But I ran out of time to do anything about that today.

Posted by Mark at 07:44 PM

April 08, 2005

Winter's revenge

Most ski stations are getting ready to shut down, but the temperatures are dropping and so is the precipitation. Both Metcheck.com and Yahoo Weather predict near-freezing cold, snow, and rain.

Metcheck.com also claims there'll be 31 mph (50 kph) winds Sunday. Guess I'll stay off the bike and bundle up for one last Wintery weekend run.

Posted by Mark at 08:27 PM

April 06, 2005

Headache, part II

My daily headache doesn't start until late morning. Then it gradually gets worse until the evening, when it has me wanting to lie down.

When I got to the doctor's office, it was 18h25. He had people in the waiting room, but had locked the door. I walked over to the pharmacy.

The pharmacist sold me some headache medicine with paracetamol, caffeine, and codeine. It has relieved the symptoms.

Maybe I'll manage to catch Dr. Rantz Saturday morning. If it's an infection, I'd rather take the medication sooner than later. Afraid it might affect my ability to run comfortably in Lyon. For short distances, my headache seems to recede while I run, but I don't think the same will hold for long distances.

Posted by Mark at 09:50 PM

April 01, 2005

Magnolia

It's blooming.

A little lopsided from being trimmed at the same time as the willow.

Posted by Mark at 07:41 PM

March 30, 2005

Birthday season, part II

Last night the balloon I used for the piñata had a slow leak.

That would never do. So I tried again this evening, hoping this balloon remains intact until tomorrow.

PS for Tilly: I'm getting more and more practice -- now three birthdays per year -- also making them thinner than before. Pretty soon I'll be able to make one for your birthday ;-)

A couple of years ago, probably for Tim's 6th birthday, I used plaster instead of flour and water to hold the piñata together. Of course no 6-year-old could smash it, especially not a blindfolded 6-year-old. After he hit me a couple of times, I took the stick... and broke it getting the piñata open.

Posted by Mark at 08:42 PM | Comments (1)

March 29, 2005

Birthday season

It's birthday season again. Time for the inevitable birthday piñata. Total ecstasy for small children.

The aim this year is to make it thin enough to break easily.

Posted by Mark at 10:02 PM | Comments (1)

March 28, 2005

Visitor

Someone's pheasant wandered over into our yard yesterday.

We already had a leg of lamb, and we don't have a shotgun, so he left after tramping around on a pile of sticks.

Posted by Mark at 08:06 AM

March 27, 2005

Spring in Barraux

The flowers and buds are starting to appear.

Soon the magnolia will bloom.

Posted by Mark at 08:29 AM

March 25, 2005

Green

This morning I noticed the grass was more green than yellow. Soon it will be time again for olympic grass cutting season. I wonder if the bees have reclaimed their residence in the middle of the yard.

Posted by Mark at 11:13 AM

March 20, 2005

Last day of winter

Today is the last day before spring.

The temperature outside is probably almost 20 C (68 F), warmer in the sunshine.

Posted by Mark at 01:52 PM

March 18, 2005

Forecast

Metcheck.com forecasts good running weather for tomorrow morning. 8 C (46 F) at 7 am, heating up to 14 C (57 F) at 10 am. No light rain however, just sunshine.

Posted by Mark at 09:13 PM

March 13, 2005

Watching

Heightened powers of concentration

Posted by Mark at 08:15 AM

March 06, 2005

Snow, part VIII

Last night after the temperature dropped definitively below freezing the snow started sticking to everything.

Metcheck.com says there's more where that came from. Yahoo Weather says at least until Wednesday. The extended forecast at Weather.com says there might be warmer temperatures for a long run next weekend, potentially as high as 7 C (45 F).

Posted by Mark at 07:32 AM

March 04, 2005

Snow, part VII

Emma and Nath took some pictures of the snow this morning in Barraux.

Winter's not quite finished yet, but spring'll soon be on the way.

Posted by Mark at 09:04 PM

When to run

I'm going to be cutting it close tomorrow morning. Metcheck.com shows the weather in Chambéry tomorrow morning -4 C (25 F) with 1 mph winds out of the east at 7 am, but -2 C (28 F), 9 mph winds out of the northeast, and snow at 10 am.

The run tomorrow is 19.5 km (12 mi), but I cannot do it at 7 and have it over with before 9. I have to take Tim to school at 8:30. I can almost already feel the chill of the wind as I round the first turn of my laps in Pontcharra.

Posted by Mark at 08:53 PM

February 27, 2005

Winter ride, part IV

When I looked at the thermometer outside Tim's window a few minutes ago, it registered -1.5 C (29 F), significantly warmer than expected. It is also light enough at 7 am to read, and to see that it doesn't look like snow. Perhaps I can go for a short ride this morning after all.

Posted by Mark at 08:02 AM

February 23, 2005

Snow, part VI

Winter is still with us. Nathalie and the two big ones are thinking of skiing again tomorrow.

Posted by Mark at 02:20 PM

February 21, 2005

No heat, part II

Although it's only down to about -5 C (23 F) out there, it's cold in our house this morning. Our radiators were all cold, too. It seemed like the heater had turned itself off again.

But that was not the case. I had hot water to wash my face, and the heater also warms the water that comes out of the faucets. The heater has a timer attached to it, one of those circular, mechanical timers with the plastic sections you slide toward or away from the center to set hours of operation. The timer covers 7 days. It is set to scale everything back each night.

The thermostat gets its data from a probe on the north face of the house above the garage, and from a thermometer built into the control unit in the hall near the door to the basement stairs. The system functions well when the flow of air through the house is mostly uninterrupted. But we've been closing the doors to the living room this week. The interior thermometer must've been in a stagnant temperature pocket as temperature in the exterior rooms dropped but their air didn't circulate.

Since we cannot read the thermometer inside, I don't know what the real temperature was. I'd guess about 16 C (61 F). The heaters are probably working now, and the kids are probably already up, fighting over which cartoon to watch.

Posted by Mark at 07:42 AM

February 19, 2005

No heat

Michel installed a sink for Nathalie down in the utility room. He had to rewire the outlet behind our heater which does both heat and hot water.

After he did that work, our heater went out.

We couldn't figure that out. Spent several hours trying to understand from the doc and get in touch with someone who could fix it.

Finally we got a guy who diagnosed it over the phone. Michel had put two wires in backwards, which didn't matter for the lights over the sink but caused the heater to shut itself down. Now it's gradually getting warmer again.

Posted by Mark at 07:33 PM

February 15, 2005

Expecting snow, part II

During the night we actually got some of the snow we were expecting.

It was perfect for making snowballs and sledding in the back yard, too.

Posted by Mark at 07:04 PM

February 13, 2005

Expecting snow

According to Metcheck.com and Yahoo Weather, we should expect snow for the next three days. It's been raining for the last three.

The driveway has become spongy where we park the cars, full of water. Tonight the sponge is going to freeze. This afternoon we've seen the freezing line come down the mountains behind Barraux and across the valley, with the mountains becoming white as it descends.

Posted by Mark at 05:47 PM

February 08, 2005

Carnaval, part II

Pictures from the parade today in Barraux

Posted by Mark at 08:44 PM

February 01, 2005

Stomach flu, part VI

Looks like we've perhaps reached the end of it.

Tim was healthy enough to want to go sledding on the snow today. (But he just woke up after having a nightmare.) Not healthy enough to want to go to school. (So he didn't get to sled.) Nathalie's tired and has a sore back, but managed to eat dinner. I ate dinner with less stomach rumbling than after lunch. Diane ate like a horse all day. Emma seems fine, too.

Other folks at work are still coming down with flu symptoms. Maybe it won't come around again.

Posted by Mark at 10:21 PM

January 31, 2005

Stomach flu, part V

This morning I'm doing better than yesterday. I'm still a little dizzy and weak, but seem to have managed to get enough sugars and protein to keep my legs from getting sore.

Now Timothee and Nathalie are starting to have upset stomachs. We may have a tough week ahead.

Posted by Mark at 08:40 AM

January 30, 2005

Stomach flu, part IV

Well, Diane finally gave it to me. Luckily I don't have it too bad. A bit of diarrhea, bouts of fever, and soreness. Nothing like last Thanksgiving night.

Went to bed last night with a fever, but woke up this morning feeling only tired, somewhat sore, and woozy, not feverish.

Nathalie, Tim, and Emma have so far escaped from the flu.

Posted by Mark at 02:37 PM

January 28, 2005

Cold run?

Although Brittany's supposed to get rain and 7 C (almost 45 F) weather Sunday morning when I go out for a 12-mile run, Metcheck.com says it'll drop to -9 C (almost 16 F) here.

I'd considered avoiding eating beforehand to go for glycogen depletion, but with this forecast, I'll have sugar for breakfast instead... and think of Phil. Phil told me Thursday he's planning to spend a big chunk of Sunday cross-country skiing through the Chartreuse, a 50 km race. Hope they have hot soup at the sag stations.

Posted by Mark at 09:40 PM

January 27, 2005

Pruning, part II

The other three trees are done. A second willow, the cherry tree, and a birch.

Tim and Emma wanted to take pictures, too.

Posted by Mark at 09:24 PM

January 24, 2005

Clear skies

Looks right now like tomorrow would've been the right day to go skiing. The moon's almost full and the sky has cleared directly above.

According to Metcheck.com, tonight is partly cloudy and tomorrow we have snow in both Chambéry and Grenoble.

Posted by Mark at 08:34 PM

Aristochats out my ears

Rented the Aristocats DVD for the kids this past week as the weather made it hard to send them outside. They must've watched the French version 10 times since last Wednesday.

Diane has watched it 5 times since Saturday. Timothee's singing the songs and repeating the dialogs, like Matt used to do with Monty Python sketches.

Posted by Mark at 06:14 PM

Pruning

The guys came to prune our trees today. They started with the willow in front and the cherry in back. Two pictures of the willow before and after the trim:

The cherry's about like that as well.

Posted by Mark at 05:58 PM

Focus, part II

Tim's taking pictures of his fish, Focus:

Posted by Mark at 05:50 PM

January 19, 2005

Late

All the other people with whom I was training to run a marathon had already gone out for a 3-hour endurance training session where the coach was serving refreshments along the way. They'd enjoyed it.

I had been stuck on a bus with two guys selling some real estate. Didn't get home until the clock on the microwave oven said 13:12. The answering machine had filled up and the synthesized women's voice was telling me I had to take the incoming calls to make room for more.

All the other runners were stretching quads, face down in my living room on foam mats, grinning from ear to ear. To top it off, I had left all my clothes wherever we sold the property so I could stand to ride the sweltering bus whose windows we never managed to open. I couldn't tell whether they were grinning because I was naked or whether they just felt good to have done such a great run.

It was about time to start fumbling around for my shoes when I woke up and saw the real time was 5:23.

Posted by Mark at 07:09 AM

January 17, 2005

Focus

Tim has a new purple tropical fish he named Focus. You pronounce the S. When Diane says it, it comes out as a homonym of faux-cul (hypocrite).

Posted by Mark at 08:43 PM

January 16, 2005

Frost

Although the frost looks thicker in real life than in photos, you can see from the cars that it piled on during the night.

It turns out I washed the AX yesterday afternoon to remove the crust of salt, and also rented a DVD. When I took the DVD back at 11 pm, the two front doors were frozen shut. I had to climb in and out the back. When I got to the DVD rental store, the left back door was frozen as well. For a moment I thought I was going to have to climb out through a back window. Then I couldn't get the right side back door shut. I managed to keep it closed by holding it shut with one hand and locking it with the other.

Posted by Mark at 11:12 AM

January 14, 2005

Out of sync

This morning I woke up at 4:50 am and didn't fall back asleep. I've been out of sync to some extent all day. If I were a kid I'd be whiny and irritable by now.

Nathalie had me taking anti-stress formula vitamins (C, B*) with magnesium. Earlier this week I got to the end of the bottle. Could that have anything to do with it?

Posted by Mark at 09:45 PM

January 09, 2005

Voyage

Nathalie and I went out to eat last night, hiring a 17-year old babysitter to watch the children. It's a real relief to eat without three small people disrupting you regularly throughout the meal, even at a restaurant without much intimacy and with a few people smoking while you're in the middle of your food.

Our children are still so young we can answer every sensible question they ask. That's not true of a 17-year old. Our babysitter is preparing a year abroad in Australia. In many ways she seems quite ready to go. She appears to have thought about it considerably more than I thought about going abroad before I left for Germany. In listening to her speak, however, I got the distinct impression that she doesn't fully appreciate what she's signing herself up for: A whole year in a foreign land without seeing her family, friends, and familiar faces, 3-4 host family changes, the inevitable first-year roller coaster of culture shock. On the one hand, our youthful naivete can lead to dangerously stupid stunts like 4 adolescent boys out driving around trying to crush empty beer cans under the rear wheels with the car rolling. On the other hand, it makes us psychologically limber enough to take a year-abroad plunge. Audacity has a hard time shining through a 30-year-old build up of doubt and cynicism.

Nathalie said her natural reaction as a mother would be apprehension. As a father, I'd feel apprehension, but the stronger feelings are of hope and of mortality. The older and more humble you get, the better you see the need for the foolhardiness that lets us embark on new adventures. You also see challenges beyond the personal, like fixing a broken world in which success comes to those implementing Machiavelli or Sun Tzu. Yet you know the chances of doing anything both worthwhile and large before you die are tiny.

Posted by Mark at 06:37 AM

January 07, 2005

Sunset hues

Snow on the Mont Blanc at sunset. The view of the Belledonne this afternoon at work was spectacular, but I had no camera.

Posted by Mark at 08:49 PM

January 01, 2005

New year

We didn't stay awake until midnight last night. Diane managed to sleep round the clock, however, and Nathalie slept in until 9:40. Everyone's starting a relaxed new year.

Posted by Mark at 12:16 PM

December 31, 2004

Snow, part V

Some people were happy we had snow this week.

Posted by Mark at 03:55 PM

December 28, 2004

Snow, part IV

Good thing I didn't plan to ride after lunch.

Snow started coming down about 3:30 pm, when I took these pictures. At 5 I had to go pick up Emma at Olivia's house on foot. We didn't have too much snow, but cars were slipping and sliding. The plows didn't arrive until almost 6.

Posted by Mark at 06:14 PM | Comments (1)

December 27, 2004

Freezing line

Our guess is that snow melts where the temperature is above freezing. If that's true, you can see the freezing line in the valley clearly along the foothills of the mountains.

Posted by Mark at 02:07 PM

Wet

The weather's too wet and chilly to go cycling. The 48-hour forcast for Chambery at Metcheck.com shows a break in the precipitation tomorrow morning, but also says it may be -3 degrees (about 27 Fahrenheit). Not sure trying out the new bike computer is worth braving sub-freezing cold.

People are slipping and falling, too. Mom said Grandma slipped and fell, breaking her right knee and raising a big bump on her head. Hope they can make her comfortable while she recovers. Tim and I went to the track yesterday after lunch. He needed to get outside and burn off some energy. We were fine until he decided to climb up the side of a sheet metal ramp for skateboarding. He got too confident, stood up, and prompty fell. No physical harm done, but he slid into the puddle at the bottom of the ramp and came up soaked. Luckily the car was only 2 minutes away.

Posted by Mark at 07:55 AM

December 18, 2004

Late fall

The days are short. The kids cannot wait for Christmas.

I get to rake quince leaves. Don't have a picture of all the broken boughs Tim and Florent dragged in a straight line across the yard this afternoon.

Posted by Mark at 05:28 PM

Snow

Too bad I didn't have the camera when grocery shopping this morning. Great views from the parking lot.

The Chartreuse range has new snow sticking to it. The cliffs seemed to glow around the snow with morning sun shining on them. The Belledonne side remains shrouded in storm clouds.

Maybe all the folks coming here from Paris next week will be able to ski after all.

Posted by Mark at 11:22 AM

December 05, 2004

Video capture, part XI

Four cassettes turned into seven SVCDs.

It's probably too late to get them home for Christmas. Not sure that 7 CDs of video is really a Christmas present anyway. It seems more like a long-term viewing project.

The video from the analog source is of considerably lower quality than that from the digital. Rubin had said that in his book, but you have to see it to believe it. Digital home video is clearly a technological jump forward.

Posted by Mark at 09:36 AM | Comments (2)

December 04, 2004

Video capture, part X

We have 5 source cassettes that I'm willing to bother with. These span the period from April to November 2004, starting with Emma's birthday, and ending with Timothee climbing a pine by the light of his bicycle lamp.

Since for the middle cassette I edited a VCD already, I'm not capturing that video for this round. Of the other four, I've captured three onto 5 SVCDs with about 350 MB of MPEG left. The last one, a 60 min. analog cassette I think we didn't finish, I'm capturing now. In the end, I'll have 7-8 SVCDs, or about one per calendar month.

Posted by Mark at 04:59 PM

Video capture, part IX

As mentioned before, SVCD is the output format I'm using for raw video right now. I threw away the master version of my first effort at editing something.

At this point, I'm not culling at all. I'm not even actually watching all of the stuff I'm capturing. When I capture with Kino, there's no sound, and it doesn't update the display unless you drop focus and put it on the window again. So I'd have to watch all the output separately. Instead, I've just been checking the results with mplayer.

The longest step is the transfer from DV AVI format to MPEG2 for SVCD. The transcoder has to recalculate each frame.

Posted by Mark at 12:43 PM

December 03, 2004

Video capture, part VII

Michael Rubin is right, you shouldn't save up cassettes such that you have to capture and handle 60 minutes of video at a time. I couldn't get myself to capture a cassette in the evenings this week, so the next cassette had to wait until now.

The same is true of writing. Revising a mountain of work, looking for diamonds in the dirt, is enough to prevent most of us from ever writing anything worth reading.

Posted by Mark at 09:00 PM

November 27, 2004

Thanksgiving, part III

Getting sick the way I did caused me to lose about 2.5 kg (5 pounds) in only about 24 hours, although I drank plenty of water and a little juice. Only 3 more days of illness like that, and I'd be at my theoretical marathoner's ideal weight. The trade off with that weight loss method is that you feel incapable of walking very far, let alone running.

I still feel a little too weak to run hard today, but maybe can take a gentle ride on the bike. The weather's okay so far.

Posted by Mark at 09:07 AM

November 26, 2004

Thanksgiving, part II

After celebrating Thanksgiving by cooking a big meal for everyone, I fell ill. From 11 pm to 4 am, I was vomiting and had diarrhea. Today I'm quite weak and get dizzy when I stand up. Maybe the illness was coming on when I went running at noon yesterday. I'd had a cramp running up to Rochasson and felt weak.

Luckily or unluckily, depending on how you look at it, I'd taken the day off today but had only to take care of Diane while Nathalie went to Grenoble for an appointment. Tim and Emma went to the school cafeteria for lunch. So far, I'm the only sick one. Diane seemed to have something Wednesday, but hasn't had problems since then.

Nathalie went to Grenoble for an appointment with a woman who is helping her explore what jobs to consider if she goes back to work. Diane will soon be in school. Nathalie's looking forward to getting back to work, but is apprehensive about looking for a job.

Posted by Mark at 05:21 PM | Comments (2)

November 21, 2004

Remodeling, part IV

All we really did was paint the top of the walls and ceiling white.

Nathalie also had Michel replace the old, rotting, white cabinets with some newer, not yet rotting, offwhite and tan cabinets we had from our old kitchen.

I put in a couple of new pyjama and towel racks.

Posted by Mark at 04:14 PM

October 30, 2004

Remodeling, part III

After having so much trouble painting the ceiling in the bathroom, we finally got around to papering with fiberglass paper that I'll try to paint starting tomorrow.

The fiberglass paper sticks with glue like a thick version of Elmer's that I remember from school. I guess once you put it on -- especially after you paint it -- you never take it off.

Posted by Mark at 09:15 PM

October 27, 2004

Hedges

It's been days since I've checked my email at work. Going out of town and then having lots to do on my vacation have kept me away from the computer.

In the spring that I managed to clip the whole hedge in about 1 day's worth of work. It may take a little longer this time. This summer the laurel bushes grew much more than last. They still look full, even after having been clipped.

Posted by Mark at 06:37 PM

October 26, 2004

Rain, part V

Lightning hit the Fort Barraux early this morning. The rolling thunder apparently rattled windows in the next town. The charge appears to have blown one of our fuses upstairs.

Posted by Mark at 09:48 PM

October 18, 2004

Progress

Nathalie bought herself an exercise bike today at Decathlon, where twice a year they help people sell their old sports equipment. The bike runs with adjustable magnetic resistance, and counts the calories as you burn them.

Timothee and Emma have been taking turns. Tim burned 10 calories and came down to tell us about it. Emma burned 2.2 calories over a period of about 5 minutes. The seat was much too high for her to sit down.

My memories of exercise bikes are of Granddad and Grandmother riding an old bike with mechanical resistance. We had to speak loudly over the noise. This one is nearly silent. My computer's fan makes more noise.

Nathalie's not yet an endurance sports enthusiast. She's been pedalling for almost 5 minutes and is complaining about getting too warm.

Posted by Mark at 08:10 PM

October 17, 2004

Remodeling, part II

I got tired this morning of sanding the ceiling and tried to apply a coat of primer before having removed all the paint. I'd encouraged myself by sanding down to the plaster in a number of spots, removing plenty of paint flakes and looking, according to Nathalie, like an extra from the Night of the Living Dead.

Unfortunately, when I started rolling primer onto the places I hadn't yet tried to apply paint, even more, larger flakes broke off.

While sanding, I noticed some of what I was removing appeared to be traces of wallpaper. Maybe the reason the ceiling looked so bad before is that whoever painted it before me had to remove wallpaper and didn't perhaps adequately get all that cleaned off. That might explain not only my troubles, but also why the existing paint was so ugly.

As cleaning everything away down to the plaster looks like an all-day sanding job, we've decided to look into papering the ceiling, then painting that.

Posted by Mark at 03:52 PM

October 16, 2004

Remodeling

Nathalie's given herself the project of fixing up the bathroom downstairs to the extent that she can do so without changing the furniture or the tiles. She cannot paint the ceiling. Too exhausting she says. So I started by sanding it down this morning.

Trouble is, the paint flakes off when you try to put new paint on. This may turn out to be exhausting indeed. I think I may need to take all the existing paint off the ceiling.

Posted by Mark at 08:06 PM

October 02, 2004

Fashion, offroad biking

Emma had a big day today. This morning, her mom took her to buy new clothes. Then they ate together at Mc Donald's... and her brother didn't get to come along! Finally she spent the afternoon at her friend's house. She looks exhausted now.

Diane got her first bottle of perfume -- smells like candy -- and a skirt for winter. She's proud of both.

Tim went for the first 2-hour round of mountain biking club. They rode around Fort Barraux, off the beaten path. He only fell off 3 times, and seems to have enjoyed it immensely. The low point for him today was afterward when he realized Emma had been to Mc Donald's without him. He must've cried for 15 minutes.

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

September 26, 2004

Bloom

Weather in September has caused the flowers to bloom again. Some slightly overexposed specimens follow.

Posted by Mark at 08:28 PM

September 13, 2004

All quiet until 7:15

In addition to picking quince this weekend, we got Tim a new bed and put Diane in his old bed. Tim also got Nathalie's desk, which she hardly used. A great occasion to move everything around in four rooms, and to transfer all of the stuff Nathalie had amassed on her desk to a new chest of drawers she had me assemble.

Nathalie said at one point she felt it was almost as bad as moving. By Sunday evening, however, everything was done except for the curtain Emma's going to have around the head of her bed.

All three slept in this morning. Diane hasn't yet discovered that she can get out of her bed by herself. As soon as she does, we'll probably start seeing her at 6 am.

Posted by Mark at 08:27 AM

September 05, 2004

Mortality

Yesterday evening I had about 8 minutes to rent a DVD. I ended up leaving the rental place with Lost in Translation.

The critics claim it's one of the best pictures of 2003. At one point, I looked over at Nathalie. She had her head back and her eyes closed.

Lost in Translation has long silences, lots of implicitness. The last song in the film part, Just Like Honey -- was it part of the Hollywood ending or preceding it? -- came out when I was 15. I remember the guitar as much more wildly distorted, melting down than the mix in the film, but maybe I'm confused. The quality of the guitar with the guy singing so softly in the foreground seemed to be the main attraction of that song, but who knows? Even I'm getting older.

Then I went to return the DVD. On the short trip back, I turned on the radio. France Inter was playing some early 60s Miles Davis. Right as I pulled up to the house, the program segued to a song from the early 80s, Be In My Video that Frank Zappa recorded for Them Or Us.

Last time I heard Zappa on the radio must've been Valley Girl 20 years ago. A couple more times and I'll be ready for Life Story Net.com like Granddad.

Posted by Mark at 08:48 AM

August 29, 2004

44:35:57

No, this has nothing to do with aerobic sports. It's the elapsed time to do a week's grocery shopping, from the moment I stop the car engine to the moment I start it again.

About 30 minutes of that is spent in the aisles putting groceries in the cart. The rest is waiting in line and getting myself and groceries to and from the car.

This time includes neither the drive to and from the supermarket, nor the time to compile the list. Add those, and the time definitely doubles. Some weeks it may take longer to make the list than to get the groceries.

Posted by Mark at 06:52 AM

August 20, 2004

View from Diane's window

On a clear day you can see the Mont Blanc.

Posted by Mark at 10:23 PM

August 02, 2004

Too warm

Another 35 degree (Centigrade) day. It's still about 28-29 upstairs at the house at 10:32 pm.

At Crolles the speed limit on the Autoroute was down to 70 km/h due to another spike in air pollution.

We need someone to pray for a storm around here.

Posted by Mark at 10:32 PM

July 19, 2004

Almost done

I've reinstalled everything at home. Seems to work. Couldn't recopy .gnome stuff over the top of what was already there, so next time I should work as root before copying everything. Hope there's not a next time too soon.

I tried installing JDS. Once again, I got stuck when installer loaded some module or other for USB and my mouse and keyboard stopped working. In a way, I wasn't sure I could get everything properly installed and configured with JDS without a lot more work that what I already did. Funny that it works so well on the laptop, but so disappointingly on my desktop PC.

This time I have just Red Hat 9 with a 2.4.21 kernel. I'll try 2.6 again later, but don't have the energy today.

Nor do I have the energy to install the VPN module. Hope to fix that tomorrow evening.

Posted by Mark at 11:44 PM

July 18, 2004

Cultivating boredom and dullness

While cleaning up the bookcase and an adjacent box of assorted junk, I realized:

1. Well over half the books I own were intended as non-fiction.
2. I've written only one work intended as fiction, Who Shot RR?.
3. More than 12 tapes survive from the days when I used to record music with Dave, Daryll, and Brian.

I listened to one of those tapes, 8 songs Daryll and I recorded in the summer of 1993. After that, it felt like time to move away permanently, which I appear to have done since September of that year.

For one reason or another, Dave wasn't recording with us. I cannot recall why. The recording sounds like it's bubbling up through a film of old dishwater. Neither of us could mixdown like Dave.

In retrospect, all Daryll's songwriting from that summer strikes me as the sound of his marriage falling apart. My clueless guitar playing doesn't help. We should've called our recording Clowns at the Funeral. It takes all the wind from your sails and yet leaves your ears hot with embarrassment, an long, objective, critical look in the mirror. You could've said it was cute, but we were twentysomething going on early retirement. At least Daryll could sing.

Posted by Mark at 02:23 PM

July 10, 2004

Home with the kids

Nath wanted to go into town for the sales today. I stayed at home with Diane and Tim. We tried out the new playground equipment up by the gravel soccer field in Barraux. For a two-year old, Diane does a good job of climbing around.

Later Tim managed to capture a lizard in his bug examination apparatus.

This lizard wandered in just before Tim walked by. Perhaps it was looking for bugs.

Lucky we had the camera. Tim wanted to hang on to the lizard until his mom came back, so he could show her what he found. But he agreed a picture would be enough, so we took a few shots and let the lizard go.

Posted by Mark at 09:16 PM

July 02, 2004

Stormy weather

When you wake up at 5:30 am, sometimes the sky is wonderful. A 240x180 pixel image doesn't quite do it justice.

Here you see the sky above Barraux a couple of mornings ago, after I deleted /usr/bin trying to get libpopt.so.1.

Posted by Mark at 10:25 PM

June 30, 2004

(Attempting to) Work from W2K

It's been a long time since I booted this system, W2K. Almost immediately, something has gone wrong and I cannot cut and paste. A virus? A Service Pack? Who knows? Who cares?

I did manage to find a way to get around the NTFS read-only problem by coming in this way and using explore2fs. Thank you, John Newbigin. At least I can now safely use this partition for something.

Posted by Mark at 09:46 PM

June 20, 2004

Home town indoctrination

The collection of interviews on the Propaganda Model in Understanding Power helped me get into the fears of reporters trapped by the confines the model predicts.

When I think abstractly about professional reporters avoiding stories that upset advertisers, I can easily label them as cowards more concerned with preservation of their advantages than with doing good work. When I think concretely about how I'd report on Jean Vettier here in Barraux spending the money on a new mairie instead of a new school, I start to see what seem like their point of view.

When all that was going still news, I went to get my hair cut at Yvonne's. Our top local hairdresser was worried about her taxes increasing by 25% if the new school went through. She seems quite pro-Vettier, probably voting like many of the local folks who've lived in Barraux or nearby for a long time. I didn't ask her how buying the new mairie would affect her taxes or what she thought of that. But if I don't even ask the hairdresser tough questions, out of a mix of something like politeness and indoctrination, would I ever be willing to cover something like Vettier's failure to keep electoral promises. Especially when he could easily rezone the land between our house and the fort up the hill to put some buildings in, very simply knocking down the value of the house, for which my banker has me over a barrel.

Vettier also owns the strip of land directly south of the house. He could decide to store his garbage there. He may own the strip on the north side as well, though that one has no frontage.

Weird how coercion goes hand in hand with scarcity, n'est-ce pas ?

Posted by Mark at 08:53 AM

June 19, 2004

Almost time for the dance

Last night was the end of the school year bash. Emma and Tim came home at 10 with assorted junk they'd won at the fair. I filmed a lot, but not sure if any of it is worth using.

Today, the house is calm.

Tonight Emma has her end of the year dance show. Nathalie's repairing her top hat. No picture of that, yet.

Posted by Mark at 05:17 PM

June 12, 2004

Monster trucks coming soon

Diane and I were returning from an errand when I glimpsed the posters that reminded me of Tim's hot wheels puzzle. Airbrushed, gleaming, flying trucks.

I'm not making this up. Somebody has decided to bring monster trucks over here this summer. Salvador Dali stepping out of a car full of cherries seems tame by comparison.

Posted by Mark at 09:01 PM

May 13, 2004

Looking for a virtual house

Some people enjoy working around the house. My father-in-law, for example, spends most of his time looking around the house, even our house, for things to fix or improve.

He seems to enjoy the kind of concrete, as a opposed to symbolic, problem solving that working around the house represents. Mom says she enjoys having something to show for each project she finishes, too, so she weaves fabrics and makes clothing. She also brings a suitcase full of crafts for the children every time she visits.

I dislike working around the house more than I dislike other work. I get little satisfaction from finished handiwork. Physical things not attracting my attention fade from my sphere of awareness. My ideal home would exist for me unnoticed, a natural fit for focusing the mind on thoughts.

Posted by Mark at 08:46 PM