brian's blog

More photos of Paris. The photos tell the story of where we've been the past few days.

Back in the cafe for another round of highlights:

• The Eurostar chunnel train was a big disappointment. I think it's my fault. After hearing about the chunnel marvel for so many years, I expected flashing lights, giant flashy signs, and cancan dancers to accompany our approach and disco lights flashing from within while we rode through. But no. It's just a long tunnel.
• Yesterday, visited the Louvre, then walked along Place de la Concorde & the Champs Elysse and climbed the Arc. Today we've visted the Centre Pompidou and will do a historic walk of old Paris this afternoon.
• They've moved the Mona Lisa to another room at the Louvre. Now it looks even more diminutive against a massive, otherwise bare wall.
• It's frustrating when people I speak to in French switch to English during the conversation. C'mon, my French isn't that bad, is it? Maybe I'm out of practice.
• There are subway posters very graphically (and gruesomely) equating a) the act of leaving a lamp on unnecessarily with b) killing dolphins, and running a) a wash cycle half empty with b) killing leopards. I'll try to get a photo. I'm a treehugger but the connection between the two escapes me.
• I have a new arch-nemesis. On our first day in Paris we stopped off at a no-name cafe to order lunch. The aloof waiter seemed very amused by my efforts to speak French and was certainly making fun of me after we completed a moderately spartan order. I hope to settle the score someday if I ever see him in North America, struggling to figure out directions to his hotel. I'll purposefully get him so lost.

Oops; spent too much time uploading photos and now the internet cafe is about to close. So, the short, short version:

• Posted photos from London and Paris (some didn't finish; will do so later)
• Went to the Tate Modern and British Museum on Friday
• Saw The Producers on Friday night. One-word verdict: Kick-ass.
• Still way too tired. Had to wake up at 5:00am to catch a Chunnel train to Paris this morning.
• Today we saw Sacre Couer, Montmartre, and will see the Eiffel Tower tonight.
• More later!

We made it to London, and we're dead tired. We didn't get any sleep at all before we left at 4:00am for the airport, hoping that we'd be so tired we'd be able to sleep a full night on the "overnight" plane that arrived in London 6:30am the next day. I secretly knew it was a plan based on sheer hubris, thus destined to fail, and fail miserably.

Sure enough, even though we hadn't slept the previous night, it was too difficult to properly fall asleep on the plane, and we're compounding the problem at this very moment by trying to make it through a full day in London before finally sleeping on our new clock's nighttime. I know there's a punchline here somewhere; I'm just too tired to find it.

I am proud that we managed to have four breakfasts in one day, though. One in Seattle, one in Vancouver, one on the plane 8 hours later (it was 9pm our time, but 4am London time, so I guess it made sense), and then another again upon arriving in London. I think I'm ready to move onto lunch in this super-long day.

So far in London, we've stumbled through Westminster Abbey, did a little bit of shopping at Harrod's, and saw Star Wars in Leicester Square. Yes, that's right. We flew halfway around the world to see Star Wars. We were tired, and weren't up for much else. (And no, I wasn't really convinced by Anakin's turn to the dark side, either. Satisfying movie, though.)

What's that? Why, yes, sleep does sound like a good idea now.

Hey, maybe you want to watch some music videos?

(Note: Requires IE. And won't work in ol' Canada. Sorry...)

I leave in less than six hours and I haven't even started packing. Oi.

I've got a confession to make. The University of Waterloo doesn't really exist.

After I made tentative reservations with STA Travel (cleverly pretending to still be a student), I called back the next day to book the reservations and pay for the tickets. The person on the phone sounded confused as he looked over my info. "There's some fake school in here," he said. "It's called the University of Waterloo."

Sorry to have mislead you all for so long.

So, I should probably mention that starting this Wednesday, Heather and I will be in Europe for 3 weeks. Here's our tentative schedule:

Wednesday, May 25th: Depart Seattle at 6:00am, arrive in London at 6:25am the next day (with a 6 hour stopover in Vancouver).
Saturday, May 28th: Depart London at 6:34am, arrive in Paris at 10:23am via the Eurostar train (through the Chunnel)
Tuesday, May 31st: Depart Paris at 9:56pm, arrive in Barcelona the next morning (sleeping compartment in a night train)
June 1st - June 15th: Spend 2 weeks with a rail pass travelling through Spain, southern France, and Italy -- no set agenda.
Wednesday, June 15th: Depart Rome at 11:05, arrive in London at 12:45 (via inexplicably dirt cheap Ryanair)
Thursday, June 16th: Depart London at 8:20am, arrive in Toronto at 11:15am (coming back home for convocation)
Monday, June 20th: Depart Toronto at 5:45pm, arrive in Seattle at 7:50pm

I'm very excited to be doing the Europe thing again, though sadly for not quite as long as last time. I've been brushing up on my French (and very, very limited Italian) in preparation, bought some guidebooks, and have completely neglected to start packing. I have a foolish "I know what I'm doing" attitude due to my last trip that's made me think I don't need to plan ahead.

Of course, I'll post entries and photos as I hit up 'net cafes as often as I can.

On Saturday this past weekend, Leo, Heather and I participated in the Seattle Works Day, whereby we volunteered with EarthCorps and hundreds of others to pull out invasive ivy and other non-native plants from an urban forest.

Walking into the forest, we admired the green scenery and were very careful not to step on anything. That was before we received our instructions and started ripping out half the foliage around us. Invasive ivy grows everywhere. Those suckers overrun forest floors and climb up trees, overwhelming and killing everything in its path. These aren't your well-behaved building-climbing academia ivy.

Thanks, EarthCorps! You've taught me how to hate plants.

You know that beautiful mountain off in the distance, near Seattle? Well, apparently, it's actually a volcano -- and the third most dangerous one in the U.S., at that.

I'm also a fan of the many earthquakes that rumble in this area every week. (For reference, here's Toronto.)

Speaking of the local scene, from the Seattle Times, Welcome to Fremont, center of the party universe:

It's like a frat party for post-graduates, 23- to 26-year-olds being brash and loud and obnoxious. "Fremont is a residential community," says a hopeful sign outside the Ballroom. "Please be quiet for the neighbors."

Yeah, right. It might as well say, "Thank you for not breathing."

Maybe I saw it on a quiet night.

(Yes, I'm just amazed to be living in a neighborhood where stuff actually happens. I'll cut it out now.)

Had a fairly relaxing and productive weekend. Did some exploring around the neighborhood on Friday night. Went clothes shopping & bought a much-needed couch at Southcenter on Saturday. Then, on Saturday night, Heather and I headed out with Leo and one of his friends to check out the local bar scene.

We stopped by the Red Door, Triangle Lounge, and finally Nectar, which will probably become my favorite club due to its a) heavy focus on live music and b) non-smoking policy (which unfortunately isn't a law in Seattle yet).

Conclusion: Fremont is an amazing place to party at night. It's packed with youngish people hopping from one bar to another, and most don't seem to have the in-your-face 'tude you'd find elsewhere.

Sunday was devoted to a late brunch, sampling from the tasty Seattle Cheese Festival, and taking it easy.

Earlier this week was my three month milestone at work. General thoughts about work + life in Seattle?

• I feel somewhat more comfortable in my job now and enjoy it quite a bit, but the feeling of being dramatically less talented than those around me is hard to shake. Apparently this is normal for new PMs.
• The most important part of being a PM is working effectively with many people. If you can nail this, you're practically set.
• Microsoft treats their employees very well (working environment, benefits, management support, culture, etc).
• Working full-time is often much more stressful than working as a co-op
• The product space I get to work in is challenging and very interesting. At the same time, it's disappointing to realize that the number of cool technology plays we don't make (or aren't yet making) due to limited cost, time, resources, and/or business reasons.
• I really enjoy being able to bike partway to work every day. Exercise helps my meager concentration level.
• Not owning a car has turned out to be far less of a pain than I thought. There are almost always easy alternatives when I think I need one.
• I don't do much outside of work. I need to change this, such as by taking classes, meeting people, pursuing outdoor activities, etc.
• I also need to get much better about keeping in touch with friends.

Overall, it's going well.

Curse you, Apple!

You've taken one of my favourite new songs and, only weeks after I discovered it, turned it into your latest iPod ad.

On one hand, I greatly admire your ability to pick catchy new songs. On the other, now you've gone and guaranteed that it'll be played to death. Thanks a lot.

I did something stupid at work today. During a department mini-party, someone mentioned in conversation that it's impossible to eat a spoonful of cinnamon. Someone else, naturally, took this as a challenge, and swallowed a spoonful around a hushed crowd. He appeared to be in immediate and intense pain, with facial muscles twitching and tears welling up in his eyes. After several minutes of suffering and a few shots of water, though, he managed to get it down. Everyone congratulated him.

Then, a few moments later when I thought no one else was looking, I went over to the cinnamon and tried a small dash of the stuff. Big mistake. Others noticed me, and decided I was up next for a spoonful. I had no choice but to give it a shot.

The verdict? Tastes like burning. It hurt. A lot. I had a similar amount of suffering, pain, and amusing facial expressions. And I can still taste it, many hours later. I really don't feel too good.

Also, I can safely conclude that it is surely impossible to eat a spoonful of cinnamon without the help of a liquid. Your mouth and throat will simply say "No. Are you insane?"

Update: It occurs to me that I shouldn't be recounting this story in a public space. It might reflect very badly upon my employer that they actually hire people as stupid as me. So let me just say that I am not a representative employee, nor a particularly good role model.

From The Seattle Times, Microsoft again supports gay rights legislation:

Microsoft will formally support efforts to pass gay rights legislation in Washington state, Chief Executive Steve Ballmer told employees today in an e-mail addressing a flap over the company's earlier decision to take a neutral stance on the issue in Olympia this year.

And from the sounds of it, the bill will come up again for a vote as soon as next year. It won't be soon enough -- it stuns me to realize that, in Washington State, anyone can be discriminated against for housing, employment, etc. on the basis of sexual orientation.

From The Mac Observer, Apple Exec: Shuffle Grabs 58% of Flash Player Market; What Cell Phone Threat?

"(Apple) management argued that iPod will remain the best way to manage and listen to music with MP3 capability in handsets more complementary than a replacement," Mr. Milunovich wrote. "The negatives of music on a handset include a worse user interface and limited battery life," he said he was told.

I'm not convinced Apple shouldn't be worried by the cell phone market. The iPod line will always be a better way to listen to digital music compared to a cell, but once all cell phones become "adequate" as a digital music device (and some already are), won't they provide a significant deterrent against purchasing and lugging around a second music player?

Of course, Apple can reduce the impact if they can get iTunes / iPod software on cells.

Or if they make a iPod phone. That'd be cool.

So pretty much all the Waterloo kids back home have their marks and know they've graduated. Way to go. Now the healing can begin.

For many, this means time off relaxing. For others, it's a trip home. But for one friend of mine, it's a flight to Florida turned somewhat terrifying. And it didn't show up in the news at all, so consider this a brianblog.com exclusive! I am now an accredited news source.

Since I'm a lazy reporter, though, I'm just going to copy/paste the entire account he sent me:

• On Sunday, April 24th, CanJet flight 824 was supposed to leave Toronto for Sarasota FL at 10:30am
• Got a phone call at 7:00am saying the flight was delayed until 1:55pm
• A lot of people mumbled about not getting the call, because they had already left for Pearson. Their day would get a lot longer than they thought!
• During the wait at the gate (Gate 15B in terminal 3) the time changed to 2:40pm
• They announced on the plane that the plane had flown through a thunderstorm the day before going to Sarasota, so they had to perform a full maintenance check. It flew back in the morning, instead of last night, hence the wait.
• About five minutes after takeoff, a funny smell spread through the plane and some people claimed to see white smoke coming out of the front bathroom
• Fire alarms started ringing
• The flight attendants should never play poker. Their faces told the story, full of concern and white. I guess that's what happens when a fucking fire alarm goes off on an airplane.
• We turned around, landed safely, and were greeted on the ground by about 15 firetrucks/rescue cars. I counted 3 or 4 firetrucks on my side and some rescue vehicles. Who knows about the other side.
• Funny thing is that for an emergency, they didn't stop the plane and kick the doors down. They went back to the gate and we got off in an orderly fashion, and took our sweet time. It took about 10 minutes to get everyone off the plane.
• Anarchy in the lounge. People could not get a refund, they could only get a "credit" for a future plane ride with CanJet, which I had now dubbed CRAPJET. [Ed: Maybe "Can'tJet?"]
• They eventually quieted us down by giving us an $8 meal ticket.
• A sandwich at "the toast of Toronto" cost me $9.11 and one Powerade bottle cost me $3.90
• Thanks for the $8 ticket; it covered 2/3 of my meal
• Later, they announced that they were checking the plane. That was about an hour into the wait. Maybe around 4:00pm.
• About 6:00pm, two hours later, they announced the pilots were taking the plane up in the air to test it out. Noticed the attendants were NOT on!
• At 7:00pm, they announced the plane was not safe, but LUCKILY, they had a plane in from New York.
• I noticed that there was one poor man (middle-aged with his wife) in a wheelchair for the entire day, one old lady in a wheelchair with nobody to help her, and an old dude beside me who was talking to his wife on a cell phone about kidney dialysis. My back pains didn't seem to matter anymore; they had a tough day.
• Passengers from the NY plane got off, they transferred out luggage and we waited some more.
• Boarded the plane finally at about 9:00pm
• Free peanuts and a soda on the flight. ETA 2 hours 32 minutes.
• Landed and left the Sarasota airport at about 11:40pm

It sounds like he's more upset that he didn't get a bigger meal voucher than the fact that his plane seemed to be on fire.