May loves soft fabric, and for her, there is nothing softer than Quechua socks sold by Decathlon. Everytime we go to France, a trip to the nearest outlet is like a ritual, a pilgrimage, which always ends with May buying a dozen pairs, half of which she gives to friends. So next time you visit us coming from France, don’t look any further for a gift. For information, May’s feet are 7 1/2.
A couple of years ago, a friend of mine made me discover The Postal Service, an indie band whose first LP quickly became May’s all time favorite. I liked it at first, but after the fiftieth listening or so, I kinda grew tired of it. I might have listened to the same Stereolab albums five hundred times, but The Postal Service is no match to the groop, so it was with great relief that I welcomed The Shins‘ Chute Too Narrow as May’s newest favorite. No mail today!
May’s brother works for We, a Swedish fashion & apparel brand. May is going nuts for them, wearing all kinds of colorful sweaters and funky jackets. Playing the role of brand evangelist, she is getting her friends into it as well. I got a brown cardigan that makes me look like a distinguished old man. I almost wish I was smoking again, because adding a pipe to the picture would make it perfect.
Tonight is Chinese new year’s eve. Welcome into the year of the dog! Congratulations to everybody born in 1910, 1922, 1934, 1946, 1958, 1970, 1982, 1994 and 2006. I am wondering if anyone born in 1898 is still alive today, but if you are, congratulations to you as well.
We watched The Constant Gardener by Fernando Meirelles yesterday night. The movie is based on a novel by John le Carré and denounces drug testing practiced by some pharmaceutical companies in Africa. The story is riveting, the acting by Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz (About a Boy) engaging, and the photography sublime. The story is so sad that May did not sleep so well last night.
Google Image Search on Tiananmen vs. Google China Image Search on Tiananmen.
No comments, beside thanks to Jeff for the heads up.
Author’s note: after reading an article published in the January 28th 2006 issue of The Economist, I changed my mind and believe that Google actually took the high road and demonstrated a great sense of fortitude in their decision to work with the Chinese Government. The sad day for China and all of us was on June 4, 1989, when the violent suppression of the Tienanmen Square demonstrations took place. What follows is a slow yet inevitable democratization process that is encouraged by a healthy dose of capitalism and started as early as 1977, when Deng Xiao Ping said that “getting rich is glorious”.
Seven years ago, a friend and I had a disagreement and parted ways. Back then, I knew that I could have done things differently, but I failed to do my part in trying to fix the relationship. Seven years later, he and I cleared our outstanding issues. I might have gotten a friend back. It sure feels good.
Technically, it was yesterday, but May was attending her French class at the Alliance Française and could not make it for dinner on time, so we decided to celebrate tonight instead. We’ve been married for six months now, but it seems that the wedding was yesterday, or the day before maybe. Last week, we sent our greeting cards for the new year—I know, we were kinda late—many of them to friends and family who attended the celebration. It brought back fond memories of the event. Tonight, I got flowers for May. I hope she’ll like them.
May wants us to save some money by eating at home more often. Il Fornaio was my personal cafeteria when she was gone on her trips, and it certainly was not cheap. Now that she is back home, she is trying every trick known to man—or shall I say, women—to keep me from eating out in the evening. Last in date: unpacking some of our wedding gifts, like a fondue set or a panini maker. When I came back home tonight, a ready-to-cook panino was waiting for me in the fridge, adorned with a stickie note explaining how to use our new cooking apparatus. Five minute later, I was eating a delicious sandwich with ham, red pepper and cheese, baked to perfection. I’m loving it!
On a cool Sunday afternoon, I enjoyed nothing more than listening to Erik Satie, especially when played by Anne Queffelec. Recently though, Solo Piano from Gonzales has been providing a more contemporary interpretation of the same musical ideas. Many thanks to Nicolas for introducing us to this artist!
Even though the skiing season in Tahoe usually starts before Christmas, today was our first day on the slopes. May was on skis and I was on a board. The snow in Kirkwood was awesome, and the weather almost perfect. At the end of each lift, I would resume the playing of Sound-Dust by Stereolab on my iPod. Cumbersome, but May’s extremely short attention span calls for constant attention in between rides, especially on those constant-speed lifts. Mary suggested that I get one of these Audex jackets with integrated controls for portable music players and cellphones. I saw someone wearing their new helmet with integrated headset today. Pretty neat stuff. Thanks a lot for the tip Mary! We made it back home early enough to be the firsts in the jacuzzi. Tonight, happiness is drinking a beer with friends at 10,000 feet with the stars for only roof.
Alongside my training as a private pilot, I have been learning how to fly model helicopters. I started with a model airplane, but it was crashed by a flight instructor during its maiden flight. The connector for the left aileron disconnected in flight and the guy just stopped flying the plane. I can land a real airplane without ailerons, by just using rudder and trim, so I figure that he should have been able to do the same with a model one. Anyway, after this bad first experience, I decided that model airplanes were not for me and got a model helicopter instead. I built an Align T-REX 450XL with collective pitch and spent about 25 hours learning on the simulator. The helicopter is now complete and I expect to take it to the field sometime in February. Hopefully this one won’t crash, or at least not during the first flight.
For our parents, the problem with technology was that it took them a long time to get used to new tools, such as video cassette recorders, computers, or cellphones. I think that our generation will have the reverse problem: we will adopt new technologies too fast and become highly dependent to them, too fast. Today, I got lost on highway 101 going to a meeting. Because one of our two cars has a GPS on board, I did not print any directions. Unfortunately, I was driving the other car… I guess I will have to be more prepared next time, or buy a TomTom. The car with the GPS also has an ultrasound proximity detector that tells you how far you are from obstacles when backing up. When I drive the other car, I tend to forget that it’s not equipped with the same technology, and as a result came close to crashing into other poles or cars as of late. Again, I got used to the new technology and the comfort that comes with it a little too fast. Is it time for less gadgets in our lives?
Tonight, we watched High Fidelity from Stephen Frears with John Cusack. We both had seen the movie several times before, but the soundtrack is so good and Jack Black is so funny that the replay experience remains engaging. The soundtrack features Lo Boob Oscillator from Stereolab, which is the tune we played at the end of our wedding ceremony. La, la lune est libre je crois, qui rayonne au-dessus, rayonne au-d’sus des toits, la lune est libre…
Anyone who knows me well enough knows that for me, chicken is the best invention ever known to mankind. In pretty much any form or fashion, chicken will provide a tasty and nutritious meal that nothing can match. Well, if you are like me and have an unconditional love for this feathered animal, you owe it to yourself to try the roasted jerk chicken at the 21st Amendment brewery, restaurant and bar. I had lunch there today with my friend Rod and must say that the way they manage to roast the above-mentioned animal comes pretty close to what my mom can produce back home. Yummy!
Today, Jacques-Alexandre and I were discussing about how the reading of a single book or article can expand one’s views in major ways. Last year, one such book for me was Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel. This book written by one of America’s most eminent evolutionary biologists is an attempt at explaining why some human societies prevailed, while others did not. Interestingly enough, the French translation is titled “De l’inégalité parmi les sociétés”, which indeed brings a very French perspective to the study of mankind’s history. The author recently published a follow-up to this book—Collapse, which tries to explain how societies choose to fail or succeed. I just got a copy and will provide a review as soon as I’m done reading it.
Among the great books I read last year, On Intelligence from Jeff Hawkins and Sandra Blakeslee was one of the best. Jeff Hawkins was the founder of Palm Computing and Handspring, but later started the Redwood Center for Theoretical Neuroscience to work on his lifelong passion for the mysteries of the brain, and among them how the neocortex performs complex pattern matching analysis in order to support most human activities. The writing is simple enough for non-scientists to get most out of the book, while anyone even remotely familiar with Artificial Intelligence will find there a lot of food for thoughts. What I found particularly interesting with Jeff’s approach is that it reminded me of Stephen Worlfram’s attempt at reducing the world to a set of primitive algorithms with his principle of computational equivalence exposed in A New Kind of Science. There seems to be a common theme here, and I will try to find other authors who share the same approach. Many thanks to Tom for giving me a copy of this book.
Evvia Estiatorio is one of the best restaurants in Palo Alto. We had dinner there tonight with Earl and Suzette and truly enjoyed this hellenic cuisine. The mosharisia brizola—a grilled aged rib eye steak with spicy greens & olive oil roasted potatoes, was even bigger than the one we had yesterday at Maverick, the arnisia paidakia—rib-cut, mesquite-grilled lamb chops, were cooked to perfection, and the Moussaka—a baked casserole with eggplant, lamb ragout, potatoes & yogurt béchamel, was one of the best May ever tasted. Evvia Estiatorio is the sister restaurant to acclaimed Kokkari in San Francisco, and this one definitely made it to my list of places to try in the city.
Tonight, we had dinner at Maverick in San Francisco. May and Ellen randomly picked the restaurant on OpenTable, and it was a great pick. This American Eatery & Wine Bar serves chicken wings that actually are frog legs. The French half in me loved it! We also got pork tenderloin with delicious Boston baked beans, Hudson Valley duck leg with red wine braised cabbage—May loved it, and Creekstone Farms grilled ribeye steak. The steak was so big it was borderline ridiculous. If you go there, make sure to take a look at the wine list, for the somelier pouring sips of wine in all glasses before serving is really fun to watch. I just wish they had some beer on tap, because according to the aforementioned somelier, it’s what would go best with the chicken-of-the-pond wings.
We’ve been living in Palo Alto for a year and a half now, but never really settled into our place. No living room to speak of, no pictures on the wall, lots of gear and tools everywhere. In other words, a pretty cool geek pad, but not the place where you’d like to invite friends for dinner. Well, we’ve recently decided to change that, bought a second lounge chair, picked a dining table, and found some good speakers to watch movies, or at least listen to their soundtrack. And guess what? We might even get a sofa and some chairs to go with the dining table… Back to a normal life, sort of…
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