Apartment sought, apartment found

Following about six weeks of searching and four visits, we've found a new apartment! It's the first time that we've gone through this process and from what everyone tells us, we got off easy. That said, the quantity of documentation required to rent an apartment in France is worthy of its own post (to be written shortly).

The new apartment is about 50% bigger than our current place, is in a better situated neighborhood and, most importantly, has a balcony along its entire length. The entire process went extremely quickly, with Esther calling in response to an ad on Thursday morning, her visiting Thursday afternoon, me visiting Thursday evening, the owner choosing our dossier on Friday afternoon, and us signing for it on Monday evening.

It's entirely empty (except some cabinets in the kitchen and the bathroom) so we're very quickly going to be in full furnishing mode, doing our best to avoid IKEA and to bring some character into the house. Given that it's a typical 1980's construction, "charming" doesn't come to mind when viewing the building from the outside, but it's well laid out inside and has wonderful views on the Haussmannian buildings across the wide, tree-lined boulevard. We will have plenty of space inside to organize it intelligently, it's just going to take some time to fill it all in.

Naturally, pictures will follow as soon as I have the chance to take some!

A New Job! (February 2010 Edition)

I'm very hopeful that this is the last time that I'll be posting that title for a long time. After about 8 months, my time with UNESCO has come to an end and I'll be starting a new position tomorrow as an environmental consultant at BIO Intelligence Service. Very briefly, BIO helps public and private sector clients make  well-informed decisions about new products, services and policies by analyzing the relevant, environmental factors. As a consultant with them, I'll be doing research, writing reports, and generally geeking out on all things environment. Needless to say, I'm excited.

In all, my time with UNESCO was a very positive experience, though it certainly had its ups and downs. The United Nations System certainly needs competent, motivated (and young) people to fill its ranks, but there are a lot of barriers which prevent it from being an attractive option. That would be too much to get into now, but suffice it to say that I take my current professional transition as a positive career step.

Time to choose my socks for the big first day tomorrow...

Catching Up

The bad news is that it's been a few months since I last posted anything here. The good news is that ti's been a pretty busy period meaning that I've taken plenty of photos. Let's do this chronologically:


Thanksgiving in Michigan

Thanksgiving in Michigan 2009

Esther and I went back to Michigan for Thanksgiving and enjoyed not only ten (more or less) relaxing days but also several gustatory delights including Thanksgiving dinner (of course) as well as Lazybones Smokehouse BBQ. Hands-down, the best BBQ I've ever had. It's enough to turn a vegetarian.

Christmas in Paris

Chistmas Breakfast 2009

Normandy - December 2009

It was a quiet Christmas in Paris this year. Esther and I enjoyed a delicious brunch at our house (first album) before heading out to Normandy for a few nights. In the larger town (Deauville) near the village (Villerville), there was something of an inexplicable parade. It had to do with the 150th anniversary of Deauville, but I have no idea why there was a guy riding a giant carousel horse. It made for interesting pictures though.

Day Trip to Strasbourg

Travels - Strasbourg 2009

While I had the week between Christmas and New Year's off from work, Esther did not so I had to keep myself busy. One way of doing so was to enjoy two of my favorite things about France, the high-speed trains and the diverse regional cultures. I booked a round trip ticket to Strasbourg (on the border with Germany) leaving early in the morning and returning late in the evening. The two-hour train ride was blissfully uneventful and much quicker than the four-hour drive (and with my young person's reduction card, a wash in terms of cost). I really enjoyed the city and the photos are all fully captioned, telling the whole story.

Into 2010
The new year has started without much change though it has been the occassion to think about my mid-term plans. As those develop, certain aspects will certainly be shared here. I'll do my best to keep this updated more often and wish everyone a very Happy New Year.

Old

I got old, and I noticed the moment when it happened. It's when, all of a sudden, there is a practice which is common among the youth of the day, that you find completely incomprehensible.

Here's what happened:

Reading a NY Times article a few weeks ago about teens and Twitter (by the way, do you all know that I tweet?), they mentioned the case of Kristen Nagy, 18, to illustrate the case of a teen who sends a lot of text messages, but doesn't use Twitter. How much does she text? Let me tell you. She sends 500 text messages per day!

What???

500 texts per day? Over the 16 waking-hours of a day, that's a little more than one text every two minutes. For 16-hours straight! If it takes you 15 seconds to send one text, that's more than two hours spent sending 15-second text messages, not including the time it takes to read the messages you receive.

Trying to understand this, I compared this to my experience. Esther and I have unlimited texting included in our plans to go along with our text-friendly phones. Sometimes, when we get really crazy, we might send 15 texts per day. But 500? That's simply incomprehensible. I can't even imagine why someone would ever want to do that. It's stupid. It doesn't make sense. It makes me a little mad. I just don't understand.

And that's it, now I'm old. Kids are doing something and I, despite all my blogs, Twitter feeds, RSS subscriptions and social networks, simply can't wrap my head around it. Does not compute.

I think it's only going to get worse from here.

Never in America, or, The French and Taxes

As part of the economic stimulus package that the French government has put in place in the wake of the global recession, part of it was the reduction of the VAT (a sales tax, almost) from 19.6% to 5.5% for restaurants.

Naturally, most restaurateurs were ecstatic and went to the trouble of printing up new menus with the "Before" and "After" price. Not bad marketing all things considered, consumers like to know how much they're saving.

One evening while sharing a bottle of wine with a friend at a bar in the Marais called Les Philosophes, however, I noticed something curious. They had indeed printed up new menus, or at least a new front page, but it wasn't what I was expecting. The title read, "Restaurant contre la baisse de la TVA", or, "Restaurant against the lowering of the VAT."

What followed was a full page diatribe (Garamond, 10pt. type) on why they thought the lowering of taxes was a bad idea. I was already a bit too far into the bottle of red to be bothered to read the entire thing, but it really struck me as uniquely French: the government lowers the taxes and the citizens refuse.

Just like home, right?

A New Job!

That's it! I've signed my contract, received my badge and should be getting my email address tomorrow: I've started working at UNESCO!

UNESCO is the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. It's headquartered in Paris and works on those above-mentioned subjects; in general promoting science and education, protecting the environment, and preserving culture.

I am part of the Natrual Sciences Sector, in the Basic and Engineering Sciences Division, and part of the Renewable Energy Programme. My title is "Consultant" which is the do-all, limited-term contract that they give to someone with my level of education and experience. I'll be supporting all aspects of the Programme's work which mainly focuses on using renewable energy technologies to build capacities in developping countries. A big part of it is training the technicians to take care of the systems that we and other organizations install (which fits nicely with the 'Education' part of UNESCO's mandate).

I haven't been working there for very long so I can't give any deep impressions, but so far it's fascinating. I'm meeting a lot of interesting people, I spend my days reading about energy in general and renewable energy in particular (which sounds far more boring than it is for me), and it's now a lot easier to explain what I do when people ask.

All in all, I couldn't be happier with it. To new adventures!

It's About Time

What, dear reader, is this shockingly sub-par photo a representation of? Indeed, it is a train ticket for the French TGV. You see at the top that it starts at "Paris Mont 1" (that would be the Paris Montparnasse 1 station) and ends in two little words, indicated by the red arrow. What nice words indeed.

Yes boys and girls, it's time. It's been nearly three years that I've been in France and I've not yet made to the mecca of French motorsports events. It is time to rectify this rather serious oversight. Next weekend, two friends and I are off to Le Mans, to enjoy all of the insanity that a 24-hour auto race has to hold.

Thankfully, I'm going with a seasoned veteran who will be able to lead us around. I'm anticipating something like the Daytona 500 crossed with the Paris Metro during rush hour: pure insanity, so it will be good to have a guide. I will take plenty of pictures and, undoubtedly, bring back plenty of stories.

And yes, I do recognize the tension between my passions for renewable energy and for cars which get 6 mpg. It's just the way I is.

Because One isn't Enough

Poor blog, how I’ve let you fall to the wayside these past few months. And, to make matters worse, I have to confirm your worst fear: it’s because there’s another. That’s right, I wasn’t satisfied with one blog in my life so I went out and created another. I customized the template, I designed the logo, I even went so far as to register a domain. It’s called E&US, and you can find it at www.eandus.com.

It’s focus is different, though, it’s a blog about energy in general and renewable energy specifically. I’ve been reading so much about the subject lately and having so many thoughts that I wanted to share that it seemed a shame to not put it up in a public forum. The truth is, I see my future in renewable energy and I just can’t keep myself away from it.

That doesn’t mean that I’ve forgotten about you, blog (or your readers). It’s just been really busy lately and I haven’t had the time to make the updates. What’s more, I’ve wanted to take some time to discuss a professional change, and it seemed that it was just better to stay away. But don’t worry, there are plenty of subjects that I want to write about, plenty of pictures to post, plenty of stories to share. All in due time.

The Future is Now

I can't get over how often I feel like I'm living in the future. There are two major components: portable computing and public transportation. Let me explain.

I'm currently sitting on a platform waiting for a suburban train to take me back to Paris from an English lesson in the suburbs. (Now I'm on the train.) I had to wait ten minutes, and how the entire trip (train, metro, a bit of walking) back to the house in Paris will take about 45 minutes more. If I had a car, I probably could have done the entire trip in 25 minute.

At first glance, it sounds like a car might be a better deal, but we have to consider the costs. I'd have to pay not only for the gas that I'd use during the trip but also the assurance and any interest on a car loan that I would pay regardless of my use of the vehicle. That starts to get expensive. Then we can add in the external costs which include environmental degradation, contribution to global warming, noise pollution along the streets, ect... It starts to look like less of a good deal.

Now we add in the game changer: mobile computing. I'm typing on my Dell Mini 12, a lightweigt, relatively low-powered notebook that you can get for about $400. Before I started typing this post, I was reading and responding to my email, consulting my calendar, and reading my favorite news sites and blogs. All of this without any connection to the internet thanks to the offline features that Google has added to Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Reader. Since I can turn off my wireless radios battery capacity isn't a problem, even with the lightweight 3-cell battery.

The result of this combination is that, although the trip with the clean (environmentally that is, there is a nasty stain on the floor at my feet) and efficient public transportation takes longer, I come out ahead time-wise because only about 15 minutes (when I'm walking) is true down time when I can't work (though I am getting a bit of exercise).

Now, there are certainly some caveats. A lot of people live in places without public transit, rendering this plan impossible. You could contact your elected officials and campaign for better transit systems, but many areas simply lack the necessary density to make the systems workable. Also, it's not as if I could do this every time I take the metro or the train. On some lines at some times of the day, it's simply too crowded to sit and I'm not about to be that guy balancing his laptop on one hand, navigating with the other (though I apparently have no qualms about being that guy with the computer on his lap in the metro).

But, given the right conditions and the right material, pretty nifty things can be done with existing technology. Don't wait for the future, live it now!

Life Update

Just a quick post to let everyone know that things are going well here, despite the lack of posts recently. There have been several projects that have been keeping me busy recently and which have distracted me from my bloggerly duties.

For one, my faithful ThinkPad finally died on me. You'll remember it from the screen replacement post in October, unfortunately I didn't get the life out of the screen that I was hoping for. It's final undoing was some undiagnosed hardware problem, if you moved the computer it would just shut down. Given its age, this doesn't come as much of a surprise. I've only just now replaced it with a relatively powerful desktop and a light and highly portable laptop. It's a good combination (even if my attempt to install Xubuntu Linux on the laptop failed, apparently it has one of the few unsupported Intel graphics cards) and I'm quite happy with the result (not to mention that the total price was far less than my ThinkPad was four years ago). I've got Lightroom installed on the desktop with all of my photos transferred over so you should see some pictures soon.

There have been some other projects that I'm not quite at liberty to talk about yet, but you'll be hearing about them in the coming weeks.

Hope all is well for all of you, wherever you may be.

Suzy's Surprise 60th

On February 1st, we hosted a surprise 60th birthday party for Suzy. In short, it worked:









A great time was had by all. I made some lentil soup and chocolate chip cookies that were quite a big success. I'll be posting those recipes (in English and French) shortly.

L'anniversaire de Suzy (Surprise!)

Thanksgiving in Paris

Even over here, thanks to Greg, we got in on the holiday cheer. Greg invited Esther and I to a party at his house with a bunch of his UNESCO coworkers. The verdict: Delicious. I even had a bit of turkey. You know, for old times' sake. Still though, nothing will compare with being back in Michigan for Christmas. See you all soon!

Thanksgiving in Paris 2008

Adventures in Luxury

After a successful defense in Paris against the Undead Invasion last night, Esther and I are off to the Pavillion Henri IV to finally use a gift certificate that we received over a year ago at our wedding.

The site is famous for being the birthplace of both King Louis XIV of France and Beranaise sauce. I hope they have the latter on tap.

Naturally, you can expect pictures of our brief escapade into luxury to be posted soon.

Welcome to the Year 5769!

Both Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur fell in the last month so, quite naturally, that meant lots of dinners at Esther's parents' house. I took a few pictures and will let them (and their captions) speak for themselves:

Les Fêtes 5769

Mazel tov!

Inside the Belly of the Beast

A while ago the screen on my trusty laptop, an IBM T42 that has served me well for the past four years, started to go pink. Research showed that it was the result of argon gas depletion (or some other inert gas that I can't quite recall right now) in the compact fluorescent bulb that serves as a backlight for the LCD screen. That bulb costs about $15 but requires soldering and opening tape that says "DO NOT OPEN!!!!" Instead, given the scratches and general abuse that the screen has taken over the years, I decided to replace the entire LCD. That would cost about $100 from a Malaysian guy on eBay, but would require me to totally dismantle the computer, including opening the screen housing itself. I had never been that far inside of my computer so I decided that it would be a good educational experience. And if anything really went wrong, there could only be one result, new computer!

I printed about 40 pages out of the T42 service manual, borrowed a set of small (but not small enough) screwdrivers from Ilan, and got to work. All in all it took about five hours to complete with only relatively minor frustrations along the way. Those frustrations were surprisingly similar to those that you run into when fixing a car (stripped screw heads, real life situations that don't match the manual, a manufacturer that loved thread locker a little too much, etc...)

The end result is that I now have a fully functioning, perfectly clear screen. And, this is the important part, the pride of having gone into the belly of the beast and made it out the other side.

Here are some gory pictures:

Feats of Strength!

Buzzfeed brought my attention to this program, One Hundred Push Ups, which is a program to be able to do just that, one hundred push ups, after six weeks of training. Esther and I decided that it would be a good thing to do.

We just started Week 3 and it just got a lot harder all of a sudden. For the first time we haven't been able to advance to the next day. The results, however, are already visible. Perhaps it's just the low baseline that we're coming from, I know that creating adventures actually involves a lot of sitting behind a computer all day which does not, in general, promote muscle definition.

So far things are going well and I hope that we'll be able to do the hundred sometime in December. Having the external program telling you exactly what you need to do every day makes it a lot simpler, so far we've stuck to the regimen without exception. Since making this effort public helps to keep me motivated, check back in the future for further updates.

(By the way, this is nothing compared to Chris competing in a triathlon. Congratulations Chris, awesome job!)

Return to Working Life

Briefly, my apologies for the dearth of posting recently. Coming back from the tirp to Israel both Esther and I have had inodinate amounts of work to do. There have been some positive developments, notably Esther commiting to a new job and Ravenchase having quite a few private and corporate contracts.

I've sorted almost all of the pictures from Israel (there were 1,700 in total) and most are up on my PicasaWeb page. I'll be posting the albums and some reflections on the locations as soon as possible. To borrow a term from when electronics were made with vacuum tubes and crystals, "Stay tuned!"

Holy Land Blogging

We're off to Israel for two and a half weeks, whenever I have a chance I'll post pictures and wry commentary.

Order of Operations

I'd imgaine that there is a much lower incidence of bank cards being left in ATMs in France. One simple reason: they return your card before your cash. Leave the ATM without collecting your card, maybe. Leave without taking your cash? Very unlikely.

Weekend Update

It was a nice weekend in Paris which included the annual Fête de la Musique on Saturday night. Every 21st of June, all sorts of musicians play in the streets of Paris and throughout France. Since the 21st fell on a Saturday this year, things were a bit more raucous than usual.

A few favorite pictures from the evening:






Today, Esther found the opportunity to do some traditional dancing before we went to her parent's house to have some belated cake for my birthday. Again, some more favorites:









And, of course, the full albums:

Fete de la Musique

Esther Dances

Kurt's Birthday Cake

Happy Birthday to Oma and Pete!