January 1st

I think I forgot one of the relevant resolutions – blog posts. I also intend to be far more nourishing to my blog with more regular entries.

Some musical meanderings:

• Them Crooked Vultures: not bad but starts sounding too much like Queens of the Stone Age after the 3rd song…
• The Raconteurs: I need to get that first album and re-listen to Consolers of the Lonely some more because
• The Dead Weather: I need to get this CD as well as the last White Stripes one

OK so off with the kids to another merry-go-round. Ciao for now…

Happy New Year for 2010!

In other news, I wanted to wish my readers an excellent 2010. Some of my plans and resolutions:

• be an excellent dad to my two kids and a loving, caring husband to my dear wife
• succeed in the transition professionally coming this April
• receive my CDs from Waterloo Records – I wanna hear that Vol 17 KGSR Broadcasts CD!!
• produce a new video of Archie’s 2nd and 3rd years and the arrival of Camille
• finish Visions of Jazz by Giddins and purchase the accompanying CD
• finish tagging and categorizing my 12k photos in iPhoto
• reconnect with a maximum of old friends and colleagues
• run the Paris Marathon in 3:45:00
• get back into climbing and hit the 6B/C/7A level by 2011
• redo the kitchen and kid’s room of my Parisian flat and perhaps buy a secondary residence…

So it will hopefully be a good and fruitful year for me and I hope also for you!

Best Wishes,
Fino

The unburying of memory – a trip to Haïti more than 20 years ago…

Recently I met the brother of a friend of mine that spent the last six months or so in Burkina Faso doing some charitable work in a small village. It immediately reminded me of back in high school when I went on a similar mission of two weeks in Haïti. I was invited by a guy named Charles from another church than mine (yes I was religious once and by the way Charles, if you are reading this sometime – can I get my copy of Grey’s Anatomy (the book not the DVDs) back?) and his youth group to go on a tour there with the ultimate goal of building a school for children on the island of La Gonave. I have scant memories of the trip:
- the one cheapo camera I had was stolen out of my bag in the cacaphonic hall that called itself the Arrivals area of Porte de Prince Airport. This of course meant that all my memories would need to be guarded preciously in my head because I have no other physical trace (other than a passport stamp) of this voyage
- the small of charcoal was almost ubiquitous. As there was no running water, no electricity, etc, etc in all the bidonvilles around the various towns, people burned wood and charcoal for cooking and heating. It permeated everything that smell and I am still able to recall it almost a quarter century later

- languishing poverty and omnipresent smiles. Haïti was (and still is) the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere by a longshot. I don’t think that I will ever see anything like it again. It was far worse than anything I saw in Brazil, India or China…or even some parts of Paris. However, despite the crushing circumstances, the people I crossed were among the friendliest and happiest I have ever met.  In particular, I recall one scene where we were across the street from Baby Doc (he was still in power) had his palace and the $5M memorial to his dear old dad Papa Doc and across the street was a ramshackle church that was overflowing with homeless folks that would pray or pretend to just to have a roof over their heads. Or the open sewers and mountains of refuse at the entrances of each of the bidonvilles. And yet, I always felt in security, was never scared and was surrounded by the most enthusiastic smiles all the time.

- bus travel. We actually covered almost the whole crescent of the country from Les Cayes in the south with its huge seaport (and associated bidonville which sprawled to incalculable dimensions) to Cap-Haïtien in the north with the Citadelle Laferrière of Henri Christophe in the north (a UNESCO World Heritage site) and on to La Gonâve with its coffee plantations and the school we’d eventually paint. I recall there was a problem with water for the locals because the younger kids spent a good part of their days lugging impossibly huge water buckets and plastic cans back and forth laden with water. Not for us of course, we counted on the “Cooligan man” because of the risk of infection and disease. Rough times indeed. I recall the bus ride in the jungle where the driver was gunning it around hairpin turns with no guardrail and about a 1mm space between him and on-coming transportation or cargo trucks coming the other way. Crazier than a bike-taxi in Bangalore I assure you!

It was with great regret and not a few lasting memories that I left Haïti back in 1985 or 86 (can’t remember which summer it was exactly) and I lost contact with all my co-travelers rather quickly. I believe the church was Grenada Presbyterian or something there on Bird Road in the Gables if anyone out there is reading this…

Backups and other life-changing events

One of my mantras is too many backups is never enough. I am a huge fan of Leopard and Snow Leopard due to their inclusion of Time Machine right in the O/S. However, one always risks getting caught out in the cold. It just so happens that I spent several hours the last week or so massaging and cleaning my 400+ GB iTunes Library on an external 500 GB Storeva USB drive. Last night I was playing xmas music for my son thru iTunes off my disk and a thought crossed my head that it had been some time since I backed-up my disk. Well, famous last thoughts. This morning I get to work, plug in the USB disk and SL asks me whether I want to Initialize/Ignore/or Eject my disk because my MBP couldn’t do anything with it

Amazing how something like that can really ruin your day. To be honest, I think I have about 99% of the music backed-up somewhere but the 1% will take me months to find digging through 400+ GB / 35k files…that and losing all the cleanup actions. ARGH!

I am gonna be a Dad again this Christmas. Can’t wait but jeez is it hard to find a name for a girl that works both in French and English. I am open to suggestions but with less that 3 weeks until the due date…

Meanwhile, my pace in running has increased to 12 km/hr. That is faster than I drive in rush hour in Paris :p I am a bit concerned of my friend’s marathon performance over the weekend – he is very fit (finished 6th in a triathlon a few months back) but hit the Wall big time at 35km and almost crawled for 36-38km. He finished in 5h15. Scary because I was hoping to do the Paris marathon in 3h45 next April and he was the one advising me on interval training for preparing the big run. Oh boy, what to do now?

Otherwise, I discovered thanks to a thoughtful b-day gift, Raymond Chandler and really like Philip Marlowe as a real private dick in the LA under-side. Great writing too. I finished the Big Sleep and am working my way through Farewell, My Lovely.

Well, more later.

Titian and Cesaria

A quick post since that’s all I seem to have time for these days…

Last weekend, my wife and I visited the Titian, Veronese, Tintoret show at the Louvre (http://tinyurl.com/y94p5pf) and it was fantastic. About 50 paintings or so, all well documented with intelligent themes and generally good lighting. There was a large crowd but there is enough space in the Louvre temporary exposition space for folks not to feel to claustrophobic. The choice of paintings in excellent and the catalog (41€) is hard-cover and with lots more background and reproductions. We both thoroughly enjoyed the show and encourage those reading the blog to see it if possible. Didn’t use the audio guide this time so can’t comment on that this time…

Of course, if you go, you’ll pass in front of the new meccah of Paris – the Apple Store in the Carrousel du Louvre. A beautiful store (as usual) that I only saw through the plate glass windows because I was there on J-1 before the opening last Saturday.

Last night, we saw Cesaria Evora (http://tinyurl.com/7ks44) in concert at the Grand Rex. An exceptional tenor female voice accompanied by a band of 8 including 2 percussionists, a pianist, a sax player, a violinist, an accordionist, two guitarists and a bassist. Special guest stars included two Algerians on traditional instruments. We were treated to about 1 1/2 hours of music including most of her most popular songs. At 68, she still can sing but did look tired and needed a cigarette break in the middle of the show during which a blind backup singer blew us away on yet another tune. That and the fact that the Rex is such a fabulous place to see concerts made for an enchanting evening.

Until next time…

Quitting coffee…

Mirror mirror on the wall
Who’s the lamest blogger of them all…
I have been really busy lately and neglected you my little blog. I am really sorry. But here’s what I have been up to if it is of any comfort:
1/ Running, running and running: I am running about 40km per week (3-4 runs) and ran the 20k of Paris in 1:44:46 (my goal was 1:45:00) and now preparing for next years Semi- and Marathon of Paris on 7 March and 11 April respectively. I never really believe folks when they mentioned the addictive qualities of running. But in fact, they were right! Once you get over the “oh fuck this is hard and boring” phase which lasts two or three runs over 30 minutes I found, and you progress towards 45m to 1h per run minimum, somehow the body gets used to the effort level of something and if you don’t run for more than 48h, you really miss it. Strange but reflects my experience in any case.

My equipment: old New Balance 992’s and a spanking new pair of 1063s that I am dying to break in tomorrow! I also have an InCase armband for my iPhone. I broke (!!) my Sony headphones so looking for (and accepting suggestions for as well) new running phones…

I was hoping that running would be a valve for stress. It has been to an extent but not enough really.  So I figured there was something else

2/ Quitting coffee. I stopped drinking coffee 10 days ago. Some folks like my dad started smoking at 13 and have had multiple attempts at quitting but always went back to their trusty Marlboro Lights after some period of time. I only smoked from when I was 31 – 39 (with a 18 month hiatus in the middle) and found it relatively easy to definitively quit on 14 July 2008. So coming back to my subject, I figured that having started drinking coffee at about 13, I should try to quit coffee – at least for a time. My stress level has been rising of late (coming baby in December, our second, issues at work (to be discussed later), etc) and figured that if I continued drinking 5-10 coffees per day, I’d end up slugging someone. Anyway, I quit on Monday morning (after a pot of morning coffee alas) and had a splitting headache for 3 days. My masseur told me that it was due to the thinning out of my blood (the acidity of coffee thickens the blood apparently). Perhaps, but in any case, it was bloody painful. How I have passed 10 days and not sure what to do actually. Should I definitively quit or reduce my intake to just one decent (not machine, not pure Arabica, etc) cup or expresso per day? I guess since coffee (since Bach’s Coffee Cantata anyhow) is considered a pretty banal drug, I am having a hard time knowing whether quitting will do me good or just make me more grumpy than usual.

I suppose I’ll figure it out eventually…but in the meantime, I think I am sleeping better and taking a less emotional tack to dealing with stress. At least that’s what it feels like so far…

3/ PLM Titanic. For those following the PLM market, last Monday 26 October, IBM announced it was selling its PLM business to Dassault Systèmes for $600M. Yes, I am one of the 700 folks that will be part of DS starting 1 April, 2010. No, I am not thrilled about it but I am learning to live with it. It could be a good thing, it could be a lame thing. Only time can tell so I just have to wait it out. I am just disappointed that I didn’t have any choice to stay with IBM somehow but that’s all water under the bridge now. Gotta roll with the changes as R.E.O. Speedwagon would say.

So there you go. I’ll try to write more often oh blog of mine.

Cheers,

Fino

Marina di Ragusa, Porto Vecchio and Back to Work

I have been quite remiss in not making any posts since – OMG! – June. We spend two weeks in southern Siciliy in a beach community called Marina di Ragusa which is about 1 1/2 to 2 hours south of Catania. It is a fantastic little town with an excellent (and clean!) beach, lots of fresh fish and fruits and veggies, an excellent bakery, and loads of amazing Sicilian gelato. Oh and they have great pizza too!

Thanks to my good friend Daniel (thanks!!), we had a small apartment here:

map of marina pointing to our flat

The view down to the beach looked like this:

view down to beach and ocean

My favorite place for gelato was definitely the Caffe delle Rose – the guy was SOOO friendly. Actually, everyone in Marina di Ragusa was!

My favorite shop for fresh fish:

The tattoo on the leg of one of the fishmongers – mystery…

and the origin of the photo. Now, I liked my grand-dad a lot too, but a tattoo branded on my leg?

The beach got a bit crowded on the weekends

But during the week it was calm. We were able to swim everyday and average of twice a day. Oh do I miss that!!

My son Archie never quite got used to swimming (that came later in Corsica) but he did LOVE digging holes in the sand!

The little apartment has a few cactuses one of which bloomed one morning and then went back to being a boring cactus again – but what a nice bloom!

OK so I’ll stop with the pictures. Leave it to say that it was a wonderful trip and that I have nothing to be ashamed of in terms of having Sicilian ancestry – those folks know how to live and how to cook as well I highly recommend the area around Ragusa for its beautiful towns (Ragusa Ibla (ICE CREAM!), Modica (CHOCOLATE!), and Noto (more Baroque beauty), Scicli, Siracusa (amazing Greek theatre and Oryigia is sooo amazing!)…you can’t go wrong as a couple or as a family I assure you!

Homeside, July and August were heavy remodeling times for our Parisian flat – and even now as I write in September, things are not quite done yet. We did manage to get over to see friends near Porto Vecchio in Corsica and there Archie because a BIG fan of both swimming and jumping in both the river and at the beach. On the disappointing side, the beaches and the river were quite polluted due to lack of ran and human negligence. Sad but true. Sniff.

Anyway, I am back at work and trying to keep up with everything. I’ll try to be a bit better and consistent with my blogging now that summer is over.

Oh yeah, and grab a copy of The Beatles Remastered in Stereo when it is reprinted in September!!

One more thing: Inglorious Basterds was pretty good. Can’t wait to see District 9 in about 10 days or so with some buddies.

Les Vignes Buissonières at Pic Saint Loup

Intro

After several years of attempts, I finally got tickets for Les Vignes Buissonières en Pic Saint Loup this year.  This event is a 6 km walking tour through vineyards under the Hortus cliffs while drinking sumptuous wine from Pic Saint Loup and eating amazing gourmet food. A taste of paradise complete with the requisite ambrosia. This was the 9th Edition and the first for which I was able to secure tickets. The event now lasts over a 2-day weekend with over 1500 participants and this year 1200 were turned away due to high demand. Once one has participated in one, it is quite obvious why folks are flocking to Valflaunès! My friend François and I headed to this miniature paradise and here is what we saw, ate and – most importantly – drank.

Here’s a typical view of Hortus and the vineyards:

For the record, the catering was provided by Laurent Faure of Le Délice des Princes (22, ave Charles de Gaulle 34690 Fabregues – delicedesprinces@wanadoo.fr – +33 4 67 85 02 82) and was outstanding.

The Path

We started out with a short walk from the parking lot, through an oak grove, across a first vineyard to the welcome tent where we received our “chapeau de paille” (straw hat), our forks and knives, our wine glass, and our guidebook for the day. It was 13h15 and the temperature was at least 35 or 36. A real scorcher! In any case, we set out thirstily for our “mise en bouche” and first wine selection.

A link on Trailguru to the track we followed: Caveat – the iPhone couldn’t deal with our excessive drinking and ran out of juice in the middle of the trail…http://www.trailguru.com/wiki/index.php/Track:71FN. Below is a photocopy of the page out of my tasting booklet showing the hike.

Mise en bouche – Appetizer
Sur un mirroir d’estragon, petits gris des vignes et petits pieds d’agneau en promenade, mousse de fenouil et fougasse à l’anis

Here we had a small plastic cup of snails and lamb with a fennel creme and anis-flavored loaf. It is delicate and delicious. I forgot to take a photo but I do remember the wines we tried with this one. We tried 6 out of 8…

• Château Valcyre Benezech – 2008 Pic Saint Loup rosé. This was my favorite rosé of the day actually. Its color was particularly remarkable. Delicate to the palate and a raspberry or strawberry flavors with a background of oak casks (18 month aging process). 3/5
• Les Vignerons du Pic – 2008 Château d’Assas blanc. A dry, fruity white with a hint of vionnier grapes. 2/5
• Domaine Saint Daumary – 2007 Boca Loca blanc. I really enjoyed this more rounded white with hints of thyme and lots of sunshine. 3/5
• Les Coteaux du Pic – 2008 Sélection rosé. Unremarkable rosé. A bit acidic. 1/5
• Château de l’Euziere – 2008 Mon ami Pierrot rosé. Tasty and refreshing. 2/5
• Domaine Desvabres – 2007 Tradition rouge. A bit too tannic. 1/5

Entrée froide – Cold Starter
Une ligne de sardines marinées au banyuls, canapé de tomates au cerfeuil

A delicious bed of tomatoes and bread covered with sardines marinated in a banyuls wine sauce. Photo below.

We decided to go a little easier on the wine at this stop so that we didn’t tank too early. Tried 3 out of 12 wines.

• La Gravette – 2007 Gravette Vieilles Vignes blanc. Full-bodied and sweet white wine with a nice clear yellow color. 3/5
• Château Valcyre Gaffinel – 2008 Coup de soleil rosé. A nice if unexceptional rosé. 2/5
• Domaine Haut-Lirou – 2007 rosé. Ditto from the Coup de soleil – nice but unexceptional. 2/5

Entrée chaude – Hot Starter
La baudroie en bourride étagée, beurre rôti au lard et à la sauge

Here we were treated to lotte with a rich, scrumptuous creamy sauce with butter roasted with sage and bacon. Photo below. Tried 3 out of 12 wines.

Unfortunately, this is the last photo because the iPhone gave out at this particular point. Once again for the wine, we took it a little easy in anticipation of the onslaught of reds at the next step.

• Domaine Haut-Lirou – 2007 Mas des Costes rouge. An excellent red for grilled steaks and ribs. 4/5
• Château de Lascours – 2007 Charme blanc. My favorite white from the day – accolades from the folks that we shared out table with. Fruity and round with hints of herbes. 4/5
• Château Lascaux – 2005 Pierre d’argent blanc. Not particularly distinguished and a bit dry – probably in the shadow of the Lascours unfortunately for this wine. 2/5

Plat principal – Main course
Le pavé de quasi de veau, jus de citron confit, huile de basilic, tian d’aubergines au pélardon et basilic

Here we had a delicious slide of veal with stuffed lemon dressing, olive oil with basil and a purée of eggplant with basil. I don’t think I could begin to explain how delicious this was with the pinenuts. Yum yum! Tried 5 of the wines – there were 18 different ones!!

• Domaine Mirabel – 2007 Les éclats rouge. My favorite red (I had already visited this vineyard last year so I am perhaps not too objective here) of the day. Delicious if heady with lots of fruit flavor, full-body and an excellent continuity. 5/5
• Clos des Augustins – 2003 Les 2 Rogers rouge. Very curious unfiltered wine with the color of raspberry juice. Special and different. 3/5
• Mas de l’Oncle – 2006 Cuvée Jules rouge. Fruity with oak hints reminding me of some California Zinfandels. 3/5
• Château de Valflaunès – 2006 Tem Tem rouge. Nice, well-rounded red. 3/5
• Château Lascaux – 2005 Nobles Pierre rouge. If I hadn’t already a weakness for Mirabel’s amazing reds, this one would have been my favorite. Very round, complete and fruity wine. 4/5

Admittedly, getting more detail on each wine at this point became harder and harder, but we pressed on.

Fromage – Cheese
Pérail et tome de brebis

The cheese was two sheep cheeses – a soft one (pérail) and a hard one (tome) and was perhaps the least amazing of the six courses. Tried 1/2 of the wines:

• Domaine Devois du Claus – 2006 Pic Saint Loup rouge. Nice and rounded. 3/5
• Domaine de l’Hortus – 2006 Grand cuvée. Almost the perfect red – typical and delicious. 5/5
• Château de Lascours – 2005 L’Ambroise rouge. Not particularly remarkable but quite tasty. 3/5
• Château Vallon – 2006 Pic Saint Loup rouge. What was interesting here is that it was a young lady that runs this 2-year old vineyard. A great start. 3/5
• Mas Gourdou – 2006 Joseph Onésime rouge. Nice color and fruity, bold taste. 3/5
• Château de Cazeneuve – 2007 Coteaux du Languedoc blanc. Very, very heavy white – almost a desert wine at 14%. 3/5

Dessert
Domino de cerises, crémeux chocolat, sorbet griottes

We did (finally) get to the end – and survived – of the day with some nice deserts: a cherry cake, creamy chocolat pastry and a fantastic cherry sorbet. Since it was the last stop, I insisted on trying each of the wines this time…

• Château de Cazeneuve – 2006 Les Calcaires rouge. Fruity but no follow-through. 2/5
• Château Valcyre Benezech – 2007 Tradition rouge. A little dry. 2/5
• Les Grandes Costes – 2008 Musardises rosé. Round and fruity. 3/5
• Bergerie du Capucin – 2008 Dame Jeanne rouge. Acidic and sec. 2/5
• Les Coteaux du Pic – 2007 Sélection rouge. Flat. 1/5
• Domaine Chazalon – 2007 Altitude 658 rouge. 70% syrah. Not bad but quite young. 2/5
• Mas de Fournel – 2008 Rosée du matin rosé. OK but unexceptional rosé. 2/5
• Mas de Jon – 2008 Pic Saint Loup rosé. Good for a walk back to the car (no I wasn’t driving!). 2/5

All in all, from what I remember of it (thank goodness I took notes!), it was an incredible experience – hopefully to be repeated! Now I can proudly wear my chapeau de paille proudly in the rainy Parisian streets thinking of sun and vines in the beautiful countryside in Pic Saint Loup.

Gratuitous pitch

Suggested bed and breakfast: Mas Julien, Braggassargues (about 5 km N of Quissac, 1h from Montpellier, 30 min from Nîmes). Ask for Daniel at +33 (4) 66 77 30 01. http://www.gites-chambres-gard.fr/mas-jul.html

SciFi Film Reviews – Star Trek XI and Terminator Renaissance

Last month, we inaugurated a group called “Nerd SciFi CinéClub De Paris” NSFCCDF among a few friends and despite being a little late, here are some quick reviews of the two films we’ve seen so far:

Star Trek XI – Personally, I didn’t like Chris Pine’s Kirk very much but the others and particularly Zach Quinto-alias-Skylar who was excellent. OK, so it is pretty Hollywood and american but incredibly entertaining. There were 4 guys and 1 girl in our group and all had a great time. Comment from the girl in the group: costumes were very 60’s and very fun. The guys: Uhuru was really sexy (hotter than the 60’s version). All were impressed with the special effects and especially appreciated was the technique used to re-introduce the classic characters – we loved Bones and Scotty! Definitely worthy of the Trek legacy in our collective opinion. Live long and prosper!

Terminator Renaissance – Thumbs down all around This time there were four guys and we all felt that the writing was sub-par, the acting almost abominable, and the editing haphazard and often unintelligible. As expected, the special effects were excellent but there were so many gaps in the story, too many sappy “love” scenes (without any gratuitous nudity except a little cleavage) and a stupid, non-sensical appearance of a naked Schwatzy (was it really him or a fake one? hard to tell ‘cos it looked so plastic and fake). I think they took themselves and their story too seriously at one point. Or perhaps, they should have simply stopped at T3…In any case, the NSFCCDP was not impressed and left the cinema very disappointed…

Next up: Transformers II!!

Van Halen…where have all the good times gone?

I have been listening to Van Halen in the car for a few days – almost every album except Fair Warning, OU812 and Van Halen III. It has been interesting comparing Sammy and Diamond Dave. I think I am still preferential to Dave for the antics in his singing and the constant tongue-in-cheek attitude. The early VH is hard to beat from a pure sex-drugs-rock-n-roll point of view. Sometimes, Van Hagar sounds really good (5150 in particular), but they tended towards love pop ballads (Why Can’t This Be Love, etc ad naseum) which is where I get irritated with them. I haven’t listened to the VH III with the guy from Extreme but reviews on the web are fairly negative.

Overall, fun to remember – I still recall when 1984 came out that I almost wore the grooves off my LP! – and definitely requires amps that go to 11.