Marseille

Its official. I now live in Marseille. I will eat Bouillabaisse, I will say "Je crains dégun", I will at some point be fed up of the Mistral blowing in my face. I will ride my bike as hard as I can in these curves and I will work my ass off and enjoy Provence like a mad man.

I currently live in a surreal apartment on a little mountain with private park, 2 minutes walk from the sea, lets just say it eases the pain of moving.

My appartment in Marseille on a rainy day, on my first day

persevere and succeed

If your in search of motivation, just take a look as these to inspirational footage's.



Life = Risk

Dégustation de vino au Fouquet's

Hier avait lieu une dégustation professionnelle de Vins du Monde, organisé par l´ « Amateur de Bordeaux » au restaurant Le Fouquet´s. J'avais la chance d'y être invité par une copine qui représente la société ADE INTERNACIONAL EXCAL de la région de Castilla y León avec leurs merveilleux vins del ribeira del duero.

En plus de déguster les vins de Castilla y León, j'en ai profité pour discuter avec Cristina Forner, propriétaire de la prestigieuse Bodegas Marqués de Cáceres de la région de Rioja qui m'a fait goûter ses vins grandes réserves!

Je suis sorti de la dégustation dans un état des plus joyeux, il va falloir apprendre a ne pas tout boire le vin et le cracher comme les pros.

Liste des vins présentés par ADE INTERNACIONAL EXCAL.

SpringSource and VMware teaming up to take over the APaaS market

August 10th was a very exiting day.

An open source company which products have been the center of my work for the past 3 years, has been purchased by the Virtualization monster VMWare for 420 million$. Who said fully open source models couldn't work?

So this Spring java framework giant, that nobody heard about outside the java community, overnight becomes a huge player in the next big hype of the information technology world. Paas (Platform as a Service), competing with Oracle/Sun, Microsoft Azure and Google App Engine.

Gartner goes beyond calling it a application-platform-as-a-service (APaaS) technology portfolio. ( see the Gartner analysis )

You also need to read Java Guru and SpringSource CEO Rod Johnson's letter to the Spring community explaining the agreement with VMWare

Computer World also has a good review on the association

Cambodia roadtrip after Pinna's Wedding in Saigon

Yeshiva

We can't run from who we are. Our destiny chooses us.
-- Rounders

Les 3 règles

Quelles sont les 3 règles ?
1. Toujours regarder les gens dans les yeux, c’est comme ça qu’on se fait respecter
2. Ne jamais avoir peur de demander quelque chose, voler ne sert à rien
3. Ne jamais respecter quelqu’un qui ne te respecte pas.
-Sinik

deadmau5 @ Sonar Sabado el 20 deJunio

I'm headed towards Barca for the week-end where the Barcelona’s International Festival of Advanced Music and Multimedia Art is taking place :)

I'll be able to see canadian DJ/producer Deadmau5 .... and many others!

deadmau5 & Kaskade - I Remember (extended version

Cœur de pirate / Béatrice Martin

Wow, découverte musicale du jour. Dommage que je serai au Vietnam pendant ces concerts a Paris.... elle sera de retour!




Coeur de Pirate || Comme des enfants from Dare To Care Records on Vimeo.

Cherokee Wisdom

One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people.
He said, "My son, the battle is between two "wolves" inside us all.
One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance,
self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.
The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness,
benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith."
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather:
"Which wolf wins?" The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."

Pablo Neruda

La risa es el lenguaje del alma.
--Laughter is the language of the soul

Sandrine Pinna

A year ago, one of my best buddies JR Pinna contacted his little sister for the first time. I'll always remember that day, getting to work and seeing him with shinning eyes and a tear dropping from his eye. Now the little sister is making big brother proud, rising star in Taiwan, she was nominated for the Best Actress award at the prestigious Golden Horse Film Awards for her performance in the movie Miao Miao.

Le Greg a Canal+

Petit vidéo du Greg, fidèle a lui même, lors de son parcours vers la victoire du Grand Central Station Tournament of Champions a NYC a il y a quelques semaines et de son ascension vers le 1er rang mondial. Intérieur Sport Canal+ 22 Février Gregory Gaultier
C'est l'année du Greg...

CalDAV RFC 4791 helps sync all your calendars (ical and gcal)

Back in the Oracle days, my boss was very active in the collaboration RFC business. ICalendar, VCard revisions to later become co-author of the CalDAV Request For Comment. Working on the Oracle Calendar SDK and server, I became quite familiar with those protocols and can appreciate the complexity involved in making this happen. I think I had(was kindly asked ;) to read and give feedback on the CalDAV RFC Drafts 1000 times, while Bern was writing it. One could not imagine the amount of work and perfectionism involved in writing an internet protocol.

This morning I was pretty satisfied when I installed this neat calaboration google app to import my google calendar in macbook pro calendar(iCal) to create a meeting in iCal, modify it in Google and see all this 2 seconds later in iCal on my macbook, iCal on my iPhone and my Google calendar. Now the real strength and objective of CalDAV is to collaborate between 3rd party collaboration applications, lets see how that goes..

Jim Rogers: Abolish The IMF & World Bank

This is a copy of a lecture I had from a McGill finance teacher in 2002, damn I new he was right but I thought I could ride the wave and get out in time, instead I got stuck in the tsunami ...

Chamonix January 09

Me and Max left Paris with lots of ambush for Chamonix for 6 days @ St-Gervais Les Bains to meet Romain and his crew. The Chile nos and the guys from Antibes decided not to come at the last minute because of the lack of snow and work. Then Milot and Captain Blain met us down there for the week-end. We had unbelievable sunny days but weren't satisfied. The week-end after, we had planed to go to Portugal with Bobby visiting Europe but changed our mind with the 140 cm of snow coming down and rented a van to head back there with Bobby, Mag and J + we got to meet Cyn and her man down there. First 2 days the mountains were closed because of the Avalanche warning, they were provoking avalanches everywhere so that we could have one of the best riding experiences on Sunday. We had too much Champagne on Saturday but the Sunday ride will still be carved in our memories forever.

Chamonix 6 days and then 1 week-end for a meter of Snow

Forum Arena

Going into a humongous week in Austria and Italy I needed something stronger to hold my feet.
Here it is

NFL Film Wired for Sound du Super Bowl XLIII

You have to watch this 20 minutes film

Marcel a trouvé un long Python

Tyrolean Alps Tour de de force 2009

It's finally all booked, in a month or so, I'll be again this year experiencing the Austrian Snowboarding extravaganza. Can't wait +++

March 14th: : fly to Munich - meet Benny and the E boys flying in from Montreal - pick up the SUV - drive straight to Mayrhofen Austria, small party town close to TUX.
March 15th : :Ride - Hintertux / sleep Mayrhofen
March 16th : : Ride - Hintertux / sleep Mayrhofen
March 17th : : Ride - Hintertux / sleep Mayrhofen
March 18th : : Drive to Cortina d`Ampezzo Italy, magnificent and world famous ski town.
March 19th : : Ride - Cortina d`Ampezzo
March 20th : : Ride - Cortina d`Ampezzo
March 21th : : Drive back to Munich - night out in town - crash at the Benny's apartment for the night
March 22th : : fly back to Paris, sniff, sniff

Quel abruti ce Sarko

Le nabot Sarkosy avec ces commentaires gratuits et désobligeants face a la situation du souverainisme Québécois a fait couler beaucoup d'encre cette semaine. Je ne l'ai jamais affectionné, mais la c'est la goutte qui fait déborder le vase. Les chef québécois lui ont fait l'honneur d'une belle lettre...

Lettre à Nicolas Sarkozy

Montréal, le 4 février 2009 —

Monsieur le Président,

Nous voulons réagir de deux façons aux propos que vous avez récemment tenus à l’Élysée au sujet du Québec. D’abord, vous nous voyez ravis de constater que vous trouvez trop timide la politique française antérieure qui parlait de « non indifférence » pour qualifier l’intensité des rapports entre nos deux peuples. Vous préférez, dites-vous, parler « d’amour » entre des nations frères faisant partie d’une même famille. Dans la même veine, et cela vous surprendra peut-être de la part de deux leaders indépendantistes, nous vous félicitons pour l’énergie que vous avez mise, et que vous mettez encore, à assurer le succès de dossiers franco-québécois que nous appuyons vivement : la reconnaissance réciproque des diplômes entre Français et Québécois, qui permettra à nos professionnels d’œuvrer et de voyager plus facilement de part et d’autre, et le projet de libre-échange Canada-Union Européenne, dont le Québec est le principal promoteur et serait, de ce côté-ci de l’Atlantique, le principal bénéficiaire.

....

La lettre en integrale

Shootouts are good

Sabou shining in a perfect appearance vs Philly even wrestling Hartnell after the winning save....

Careers are often like roller coasters, you'll be back there my friend.

Superbowl XLIII Commercials

If you haven't seen them during the game, check them out

Explication de la crise

Bonobo BatoFar Paris February 09

Chamonix Mont-Blanc

Last week I left Paris for a 5 day trip with Max to meet friends in their cottage in St-Gervais / Mont-Blanc. So on wednesday night we met Romain and Mag from Antibes to their Cottage in the Mountain.

Riding Day 1 Beautiful and Sunny day @ GRANDS MONTETS
Riding Day 2 Beautiful and less Sunny day Megeve and St-Gervais

On Friday we met Milot and Captain Blain in Chamonix where we discovered a great little restaurant Le Bivouac

Riding Day 3 Nice day in Brevent Chamonix

We left with the snowfall on Sunday, so we decided to go back tomorrow with 80cm of the fresh white stuff. Can't wait to float in that powda, with, max, bobby, j and maggy may.

Dany Sabourin on Waivers

Sunday on the train I got a text message saying Sabou was traded to the Oilers for Mathieu Garon and I found it a little fishy. With more info from the news and Saby, the Oilers already have their 2 starting goalies, they wanted to get rid of Garon 1million $ salary and were forced to take him in the trade. Now the Islanders are a good prospect to pick him up on waivers today with DiPietro and MacDonald sidelined Dany Sabourin au ballottage. NYC wouldn't be too shabby.... definitely a better city to live in.

Thats it, thats all

"What is snowboarding to me? It's when I feel passion. That is if passion is a combination of utter joy, frustration and rage. It's my life"

Coming back from a frustrating Snowboarding trip(powder wise, because the scenery, friends and experience was awesome) to the Chamonix region, I saw this amazing film. There expecting 80cm of snow this week, I should head down there again next week-end to ride the real thing.

British humor, too funny

The Art of War by Sun Tzu

Thought Audio Dot Com gives you The Art of War narrated free on mp3 so you can listen to it on your iPod, perfect for those metro rides where you are squeezed and can't read. This is the bible on warfare, its more than 2000 years old, check it out.

Cern Supercollider, the quest for the Higgs boson

It's almost ready, experiments are to start this year, here is a nice talk by Brian Cox on the beast.

Wingsuit evolution

Now this is adrenaline, I'm glad I haven't taken parachuting yet, cause this is the shit.



wingsuit base jumping from Ali on Vimeo.

Dakine Sequence Camera pack

This bag is just all you need to Ride and shoot. Got to put my hand on one.

Lapierre

How sweet it is to see a guy like Max Lapierre who's been grinding his way up there score a hat trick last night still grinding in a game over stealing a puck from that fat McCabe fuck(can feel the old T.O. rivalry here ;) to score in an open net. Gave me goosebumps.

New apartment Paris 11e

It all started with JR craziness of the moment to tear his place down to make a loft and to show a beautiful rock wall that was hiding out there. Then he decided he was moving to Vietnam so has we became like brothers he offered me his place. So now I live in this nice little apartment which I contributed to, feels good to live somewhere you helped building up a little. So much went on in here, its a little weird at first but I will get use to it. My landlords are now his parents, they helped me move here and are just too cool with me. That ancient antique wardrobe you can see is like 150 years old and belonged to JR parents great grand-parents. Took us 3 ours to put it back together. Plus, I use my 2 first months of rent to buy furniture(1600Euros), can't wait to put the place together... thanks buddy, good work! Enjoy yourself in Nam.

Ripple Effect

There is a man. He lives in a village. He has one stallion. He uses it for work. One day the horse runs away. Everyone in the village comes to him and says “Oh, we are so sorry for you. Now you are so poor”. And the man says ”Maybe. Maybe not”.

The next day the horse returns and brings 20 mares with it. All the people in the village say ”Praise God. You are the richest man in the village. You must be so happy”. And the man says ”Maybe. Maybe not”.

The next day his son rides the stallion, and he falls from it. He is paralyzed. And all people in the village come and say ”We are so so sorry. You are the poorest man now. It’s a horrible thing that happened to your son”. And the man says ”Maybe. Maybe not”.

The next day a war breaks out, and all children from the village are called to go to war. But his son stays behind because he is paralyzed. People in the village say ” You must be so happy. You got to keep your son, and all our sons had to go to war”. And the man says ”Maybe. Maybe not”.

Life is guiding us to something...

Automakers Bailout

Coping with a Genetically Engineered Environment : "The Future of Food" Documentary

You've all heard about Monsanto genetically engineered seed and its unethical patent infringement lawsuits against farmers that happen to have their crop contaminated with the unwanted and intrusive GE seeds. It's pathetic to see how the economical greed of Mega Corporations can have catastrophic biological consequences, which some fear, might even become a treat to existence of life by eliminating diversity.

What is so scary is that mankind doesn't fully understand the consequences of these genetic modifications yet. The scientific community is currently very concerned by the genetic engineering technique consisting of inserting an antibiotic marker gene in the insertion package to then be able to test if that same insertion package was successfully attached. The medical community is terrified at the concept of loosing that antibiotic because it is suspected that the antibiotic gene markers might lead to an increase of the numbers of bacteria that are resistant to the antibiotic.

As Ignacio Chapela said in the documentary, "This is probably the largest biological experiment humanity has ever entered into" and we are not testing on rats but on earth's population.

I recommend everyone to take the time to view this documentary to be able to put what you eat in perspective. See the entire documentary on youtube with the following playlist, it consists of 9 parts of 10 minutes

Slideshare and Twitter

Calendrier du Pinna

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own.

I started to use 2 new free online information sharing applications last week and both are pretty good in what they do.

Slideshare. To view and post and keep track of slide shows.

Twitter. After all the hype around it, I decided to give it a try my account. I think if your friends start using it it can be very convenient instead of all these instant messages and emails to huge lists of people... lets see.

Finally going to Mont Blanc

The first week of riding for this season is now booked for January 13th in Saint-Gervais-les-Bains / Mont Blanc We'll have a big house for the week with the Sophia-Antipolis crew, the Chilenos and Max, should be a good one.

Then I'll probably have a week with Max and Benny Blanco in Max's friends apartment in Chambéry in February.

To top that, we are in the process of booking the second week of march in Austria/Switzerland with mates from Montreal, Germany and France.

Can't wait to wax the board and hit the POWDA....

Who throws his shoe, honestly?

Théatre "Elle t'attend finale" -- Leatitia Casta

Last week, Benny Blanco sent a mail saying there was this play with his friend Magali, opening the link of the play the main character was Leatitia Casta, famous Corsican model considered by many and myself like the most beautiful model/women in the world in the 90's. So I said I would join the crew, we had tickets in the front balcony 2 meters from the stage with a surreal view. Since it was the last representation, there was a nice champagne soirée with the actors, that followed witch was easy to enjoy. Good Paris night out tonight that I'll remember for a long time....

ICON A5 Sport plane

This plane is insane, for 140K you get this toy instead of a Mazaratti. Once you get your hands on one you just need to get your new FAA sport liscence (FAA's Sport Pilot Certificate / Light Sport Aircraft Category - LSA) and your ready to go. The first planes will be ready in 2010.

Check out the Amphibious model flying tests and ICON's website

Money As Debt - How banks create money

Simple informative video describing the power of the banking system, the incoherence of its fundamentals in creating money that does not exist and the impacts it has on society.

"Banking was conceived in iniquity and was born in sin. The Bankers own the earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create deposits, and with the flick of the pen they will create enough deposits to buy it back again. However, take it away from them, and all the great fortunes like mine will disappear and they ought to disappear, for this would be a happier and better world to live in.

But, if you wish to remain the slaves of Bankers and pay the cost of your own slavery, let them continue to create deposits." -- Sir Josiah Stamp

Bruno Blanchet made my day

Bruno Blanchet - Le pauvre petit Bonhomme pas de cou

This video is monstrous, those will be my moves for the next night out.

3 must see Movies

Mulholland Drive
Is a David Linch masterpiece you probably all know of. A mistery film exhibiting some film noir and surrealism perspectives, a twisting venture beyond dreams and reality, that will leave you out of words and with no certainty on whats going on.

Ripple Effect
Is a good LA movie with a spiritual awakening plot, the way it was shot is great and the message is one I believe in.

RedBelt
Is a Indie Jujitsu movie I saw on the plane coming back from Montreal and is a good picture, shows good attitude, lots of deceptions and how to prevail. I love Jujitsu.

Moving Paris 11e arrondissement

A few months ago my buddy JR decided to take all the walls of his apartment down to make a loft of it, lots of work and now the loft is taking place. JR also decided to move to Vietnam next month on a venture to expand his business, which leads to me moving in the loft when its ready, should be exciting.

I have been living for almost 2 years in a beautiful 27m2 apartment rue Francois Miron in Paris 4e arrondissement. The location is perfect and I am a little sad to move out, losing all my little St-Paul shops and restaurant just beside my door but I'm doubling in size and I have a good decoration budget. Let's do it...

Neige et Ski sur la Cote d'azur ce week-end?

jipp: t'es la ce we?
max: je vais skier!
jipp: what the fuck? tu va en suede ou quoi?
Max: Nice baby!
Y'avait 10 cm de neige dans les rues d'Antibes lundi soir.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/27272993@N06/sets/72157610012416146/
Je dois aller a Sophia pour une reunion vendredi. Je ramene le char pourri d'Adrien dimanche et je ski samedi.

C'est zarebi de voir le vieux port d'Antibes sous la neige!

Sabourin NHL #1 GAA

How surreal to open the NHL.com stats page and see one of your long time best mates line up there in the #1 spot. He's been having the the best goal against average and save percentage for a little while but before yesterday's game, hadn't played enough games to be in the leader position. Good job buddy, and good pic, look like a bad ass!

Sequoia capital on startups and the economic downturn Presentation

Not a good time to be working for startups these days...

http://www.slideshare.net/eldon/sequoia-capital-on-startups-and-the-economic-downturn-presentation?type=powerpoint

Ideal, Scandinavie, Quebec, Video

Petit video envoye par une pot Quebecoise qui habite a Stockhom que j'ai croise lors de ma derniere visite la bas dans un port...

L'Idéal
envoyé par muvmedia

Greece 2008

Greece October 2008

Sweet 6 day getaway with the Thibault cousins in Athens and the Islands. Slept 2 nights in Spetses where we were the only tourists! Beautiful sunny weather, the sea was not too cold, the retsina very good ... not too shabby!

Les Justiciers masqués, Think big...

"Le piège des Justiciers masqués tendu à Sarah Palin a obtenu 30% de plus de volume de couverture dans le monde que les élections canadienne" Article cyberpresse
Truc de fou! Bravo! When same!
Pour ceux qui n'aurait pas entendu le desormais celebre prank, suivez ce lien.

Mac OS X 10.5.5 Combo Updater - DAVKit.framework issue

MBP Core Duo running 10.5.4 using the Mac OS X 10.5.5 Combo Updater.
After that the Finder kept crashing and generating CrashReporter errors about DavKit.framework.
Thank to this apple forum post, a simple replacement of the DAVKit.framwork System library I was able to save my leopard :)

Radar automatiques Paris: Changements, attention motos!!

Certains radars automatiques de Paris qui étaient de face ont récemment changer de sens pour être de derrière. Je me suis presque fait prendre à celui Porte de Passy Mardi soir, merci au motard qui roulait devant moi de m'avoir rallenti devant le radar :) Voir le site radars-auto

First game in 08-09

As unhappy I was Sabou didn't get the start on the Sunday night game in Stockholm, so amazing was it to watch him rock monday night on his season debut when I came back from Athens. Late night it is to watch hockey in Paris though ....
Sabou what up with the hair? Feels good to have no more, maybe I should use the clipper also :) Giddy up!

Greece meteo for the next few days ....

How happy am I today to hop on that plane for 6 days in Greece, especially when its sad and rainy in Paris :)

Volatility / Opportunity

Friday, I started looking on buying back back my stocks that had the hardest beat up but didn't get a chance to buy them before the bell. Nortel at 1,25$ and Bombardier at 3,50$ (which I sold at 6$ a few weeks back) looked pretty attractive and 2 indexes from ishares iShares CDN S&P/TSX Energy Sector Index and (poundered 60 % down in the bear run last month) and the iShares CDN S&P/TSX 60 Index Fund.

When learning about the 1700 Billion bailout plan from the Euro Zone I was really pissed I didn't step in on Friday but still tought there would be some opportunity on tuesday morning when TSX opens up after 3 days of non trading, but I was left a little perplex when I saw the bids before the opening. I guess I'll wait a little for the speculation craziness to settle down before I get in. These days I just wish I could trade all day. I want to get in the energy iShare index before the end of the day if it falls bellow 15.

Afghanistan

A cousin of mine just got sent to Afghanistan for the Canadian army to fight a war that isn't ours. Looks like he's enjoying the experience and wish him all the best. Got in touch with him on Facebook and got to see some pretty cool pictures. Keep safe little man .... feels like you were just a boy last time I saw you.

Stockholm NHL Hockey Premiere

Stockholm hockey Premiere

October 4th and 5th, the Pittsburgh Penguins were playing the Ottawa Senators for NHL season opener in Stockholm Sweden. Living in France, hockey is definitely one of those things that makes you miss home, so I was not going to miss the opportunity to visit Stockholm and to meet-up with my best childhood buddy Dany Sabourin who plays for Pittsburgh. Last time we saw was last month at my cottage in Val d'Or where we had the best fishing I had in years and we found it pretty cool to say "hey mate, see you in Stockholm!" for pics of the fishing results, follow this link

3 weeks ago Sabou confirmed he had 4 tickets for me for both game and we(J, Milot, TBo) booked flights + 2 rooms at Sheraton where the Pens were sleeping.

Highlights:
- Stockholm is an incredible city, its beautiful, people or so so cool, kind and helpful(after an hour of hard work I was able to recover my bran new 800Euros SLR camera that I had forgotten in a cab:)
- 2 great hockey games with the best seats in the arena just a few meters from Mario Lemieux
- seeing Sabou and being able to spend some time with him in Stockholm
- partying up in a private party with the players and pounding 6 bottles of Pommery
- Falling face to face with Mario Lemieux and the players all week-end and having a chat with Lemieux after a morning coffee.
- Travelling there from Paris with some of my best buddies

Ah man, hard to be back in Paris and go to work ..... thanks Bou for the ticks

The Beehive I once belonged too

	''Oracle Beehive delivers the only complete and open platform for secure communications and integrated collaboration. Oracle Beehive provides a complete range of collaboration services including conferencing, instant messaging, email, calendar, and team workspaces that can be deployed either on premise or through Oracle On Demand. Its cross-platform, open standards based architecture supports familiar clients like Microsoft Outlook and can coexist with Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Notes. Oracle Beehive delivers the next generation of collaboration through an integrated user experience and unified administration that leverages the enterprise capabilities built into Oracle Fusion Middleware, Oracle Database, and Oracle Applications.''

Before I came down to France I spent 3 and 1/2 years at Oracle and most of it working on an R&D project called Beehive. My surroundings during that experience were truly some of the best professionals there are. An amazing little Time management company from Montreal called Steltor founded by Montreal locals and former McGill graduates Peter Egyed and Andre Courtemanche that was later bought by Oracle. That little family environment from Steltor survived inside that huge Oracle Corporation and part of the Beehive project. I had to leave the team to pursue some personal objectives I had set for myself and it was really the hardest and awkwardness professional move I had to do. Today I look at this product that I work hard developing and feel nostalgic I couldn't stick till the end but I am very proud to have been part of it. Having experienced Lotus Notes 8 for the past year I must tell I truly believe Beehive can get down there and get some good market share from IBM and Microsoft Exchange. Being open to protocols such as CaldaV co-authored by my manager :) it has a huge advantage on competitors. Looking at my Oracle stocks today I'm not missing the stock options I had to forgo as much as I used too ... I wish Success to Beehive and Oracle.

You can look at the demo here

The currency factor

During my first employment experience in Montreal back in the days, I worked for the world leading website for precious metals information and trading Kitco.com. With Alex, we developed a pretty sophisticated chart generation framework which is used to generate the thousands of charts you can consult on the site in real time.

Especially these days, I use these charts every day to analyze investment trends. Its cool to see some real life usage of what we work for.

The coolest feature of the framework is the ability to compare the price of commodities in different currencies. On the chart bellow you can see that on 60 trialling spot the price of gold has increased in Euro and decreased in US dollars.

Greg against Borja in Finals of Les Internationnaux de France de Squash

If your in Paris this week-end and want to discover an amazing sport, come down to Paris Univesite Club on Saturday night. Greg Gauthier, the 2nd ranked squash player in the world, Frenchmen and good friend will be battling for the title of the French Squash Open with Borja Golan the Spanish revelation of the tourney who brought his A game to Paris this week and caused 2 major upsets in two breathtaking matches. Greg has been on top of his game not loosing any game since the beginning of the tourney. Everything points to a clean win tomorrow but the Spanish fighter will be there playing every ball like it's for his life. You can look up site squash for more info.

The investment banking business responsability

Fetes de bayonne 2008

Last of this summer get-away was the week-end of my BDAY in Biaritz for les Fetes de Bayonne. We drove there during the night for the biggest traffic nightmare of the year in France. We thought we were wise driving by night but it dind't make a difference. The 7 hours drive ended up being 12 hours long in traffic jams. Getting there was all worth it thought finishing up with a chill day surfing some nice waves in Anglet.

Fetes de Bayonne 2008

Long week-end on the Cote d'Azur

Last week-end was on long week-end. On the Wednesday before, me and Alex decided we weren't going to stay in Paris and booked a flight for Nice to meet up with max and the Antibes crew. Here are Alex pics on Flick

So Max picked us up at the airport on Thursday, we went for diner on the beach in Juan Les Pins and payed 130 Euros for a bottle of wine, thanks to Alex for fucking that one up ;) Then we had Pisco at Claudios and finished the evening at MILK for a late nighter.
On friday we drove to Hyères close to Toulon where there was a little fiesta in a house on the sea for Sandrine boyfriend anniversary. Nice and windy day on the Sea side. Saturday we played tennis on clay, went for a boat ride to finish up with unbelievable duck with giroles sauce and foie gras at Maria-Jose and Claudio's place. Better than the one at Brulot one of my favorite restaurants in Antibes We finished again at MILK to take the plane at 6am back to Paris. Great times.

I.O.U.S.A.

America trying to wake up, the Oracle of Omaha himself is urging for action and supporting the documentary.

Hockey night in .... Stockholm

I wasn't able to attend the Stanley Cup Finals in Pittsburg last year but Sabou and the Penguins are coming to Sweden on October 4th and 5th to play the Sen's and you can be sure I'll be over there for some well diserved hockey time.



On some other hockey topic, I was looking at the habs roster this morning and the next year will be exiting. If Sundin can decide to play on the best offence line of the league with Kovy and Tanguay ..... BOUYAA

Freddy in Pekin going for gold

Yesterday Fred pulled out of his single match in the middle of the second while he was winning against the 68th ranked player RDS article. Sound decision when your double's partner is Daniel Nestor who won the gold medal during the Sydney Olympics. Giddy up Freddy and bring that medal home ....

Praha with Pico Tours

3rd week-end of July I flew to Prague to meet Vasco Pico, a good friend of mine that was borned in Czech Republic and know lives in Toronto. On Tuesday night before I called Jon a friend I knew from the days back in Montreal that just moved to Paris a few weeks ago and told him "Do you want to hit Prague on the week-end?", him to reply "Wich part of town is that club at?" I guess its unusual to get that kind of invitation when you just moved here.

Praha

So we had an amazing week-end staying at beautiful Hotel Kampa in the old Prague just beside Charles Bridge. Alot of walking and Pilsner drinking.

Apple Expo Paris September 2008

Carlito's Way

Carlito's way trailer
"NEVER GIVE UP YOUR OWN FRIENDS"
Watching over this classic, thought I'd post the ending/generic down here cause that movie is simply amazing. Pacino at his best, Penn, directed by De Palma, wow. Love that Joe Cocker song 'you are so beautiful' in the you tube video down here.

Corsica / Paradise

2 weeks ago I went to one of the most astonishing places I've ever been to with Z team consisting of Benny Blanco, Maximo el grande Torso, Vasco Pico and Maggy May. The people, the chill attitude, the food, the authenticity, the sun, the mountains, the sea, the nature preserved by not selling land to strangers. You see all these little paradises in the world that have been destroyed by all the money and people flowing in, but Corsica is one of those places that fought during all its history to keep it together, to keep it natural, to keep it good, to keep it theirs.

Ile Rousse International Squash Open 2008

Day 0/1
Ride from Paris to Lyon late. After a 4 hour siesta in Lyon, we jump back in the car at 7am to make it to the ferry in Nice for a beautiful ride direction Bastia Corsica. Then we drove to l’Ile Rousse where we picked up Pico and took possession of our amazing apartment by the port and the beach. We ended the night with the guys from PUC @ La Bodega where we had mojitos every night.

Day 2
We went to swim to Les Rochers, nice rocky spot to access the sea between Ile Rousse and Calvi. We all had a few bad cuts to the feet, good way to start the tourney. Had my first squash match in the evening, luckily enough I was able to end it in 3 sets. Then it was the opening night diner in San Ambrosio Miles Sabbords restaurant with all the squash crew. Mojitos to celebrate.

Day 3
Boat in Saint Florant to the beach of Lodo for a little 1 hour trek in the desert of Agriates to reach the magnificiant beach of Saleccia. Then we walked back on the sea shore to Lodo. Squash match in the evening, hurt my back again so the rest of the tourney was a pain. Mojitos to fix the pain .

Day 4
Went on the beach to Losa where there was a little bar on the beach. We went for diner with a few Corsican friends to La Vieille Cave in Acajola, to eat the baby lamb specialty. Mojitos to digest.

Day 5
Day @ the squash club, I lost, then a big match between Benny Blanco and Max with a lot of trash talking going into it, apero avec Bruno with some wine from his wineries in Burgundy.Tourney de petancle ending with Mojitos @ la bodega. Late night.

Day 6
We rented a boat to visit the UNESCO protected reserve of Scandola with Pacal from Squash that was kind enough to bring us around. So we left @ 8 in the morning, we saw dolphins, we caught some Urchins and ate them, we swam with the medusas, jumped cliffs, the sea was perfect for the boat ride that ended in Girolata. We then ate diner at the Villa the guys from Antibes rent every year, with all the Corse, great evening with many good wines and cheese …. We finished that crazy day in the club Acapulco close to Calvi.

Day 7
Chilling day, Pico departure back to Barcelona, and recovering the lack of sleep from the last few days, didn’t play my match in the morning to give a break to my craped back. Then I went on the beach at l’Ile Rousse since I hadn’t seen it and met the boys from le PUC to play ball on the beach. Then it was the squash finals and goodbye party @ the club to finish with Champagne and hitting Acapulco again.

Day 8
Packing, driving to Calvi for a litlle visit and catch the ferry back to Nice. Dinner with Charlotes family in sweet little house in the Nice backcountry before heading back to Paris in the night.

Polaris - Poker bot beats human champs

There's been a big hype on Polaris beating a few good poker players over a set of 4 X 500 hands of limit Texas Hold'em poker last week. They don't stress much the fact that its a limit game, which takes a he'll of a dimension away from the real game of Poker. Nothing against that amazing Artificial Intelligence piece of code these kids have programmed, but how will this Polaris Bot learn where to get balls to call an All-IN.

"An unflinching, uncaring silicon machine beat several top poker champions during “Man versus Machine” match at the Rio Hotel in Las Vegas. The Polaris program developed by University of Alberta researchers was beaten last year, but managed to best the players this year with a 2 win, loss and 1 draw record. And don’t think the machine had it easy, three of the human competitors had more than $1 million in lifetime winnings each."

Full article

JULY 14th, France National Holiday

JULY 14th 1789, the day the Bastille prison was stormed, has an iconic hold on the French imagination. Schoolchildren are taught that it is the republic’s founding moment. It is France’s national day and a public holiday. A military parade is held on the Champs Elysées, and fighter jets waking me up flying over my apartment, blazing a trail of red, white and blue, screech low over Paris.

600,000 people gathered on les champs de mars to celebrate, watch a very disappointing concert, top it with a magnificent firework show. The first few minutes of the fireworks were even dedicated to the 400 years of our beautiful City of Quebec. The fireworks were presented with a great opera which made us feel as we were in Star Wars. This picture was taken by Milot on top of Tour MontParnasse while I was down there on les champs with the Descoteaux broters and a few friends for a picnic before the show.



©Mathieu Milot
http://www.moonerboy.com/photoblog/

Istanbul

The last trip of a series in the month of may with Mc. We flew from Paris down to Istanbul for a few days. We staid in the old Istanbul between the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sofia. We had a great little terasse with view on the Bosphore for breakfast. Then visited the palaces, the mosques, the orient express train station, a cruise on the Bosphore, shoped at the markets and then on the last day went to Asia crossing the Marmara sea to Yelova. Trip with amazing historic and cultural acquired knowledge.

Istanbul

Ari Gold baby

Saw this little montage of Ari's amazing quotes and rage from Entourage.

"Let's Hug it out bitch"

Basque Country

When Mc got to France a month ago, we left for a little road trip to les Pyrénées-Atlantiques. We booked a sweet little hotel in Bayonne while Ben crashed at a friend of his, owner of la Bogetta Chez Gilles.

So we met many of Ben's entourage back in the day's when he was spending summers and holidays opening oysters in Biarritz. We visited Biarritz, Bayonne, Anglet, St-Jean-de-Luz on the France side and Handaye and San Sebastian on the Spanish side. We surfed in Anglet and climbed la Rhune with a great view on the Spain/France border. Great week-end that ended with dinner in Tour in the Loire department.

Basque Country

Hectic times since the end of march

Haven't been home in Paris much lately and when I was, I had some visitors, so I haven't found the time to post much. Quick stop in Montreal and to the tour de force in Tremblant, then a week-end in Bourges for ''les prinptemps de Bourges', followed by a road trip to the beach in Normandy, a week-end surfing to les Pyrenees Atlantique in France and Spain, a squash tourney in Antibes on la Cote D'Azur to then move on for a 5 day trip to Istanbul mixed with work and party, I haven't slept much lately but now I'll have a little time to chill and write a few posts.

I'll start here with a link to pictures taken during my road trip in Normandy with my Mom and our guide Mr. Pinna, the first warm and sunny week-end in April 2008 here in the North of France.

Road Trip Normandie

A day with GSP

Sweet little video of a day training with GSP a great national ambassador for Quebec, keep it up boy

Blind kid skating with Tony Hawk

Bodega chez Gilles Bayonne

If you are looking for a good address to eat in Bayonne you should look out http://www.bodegachezgilles.com/

Crest Of Honor @ Metropolis April 29th

El cousin Sébas will perform @ good old Metropolis. Would of been sweet to attend, but I cant make it back to Montreal for a few months. Link to Crest Of Honor MySpace

La Plagne - WE Blue Connection

Small 3 day trip in the Alpes after a good week of snow, sweeet ...

La Plagne - IBM Blue Connection

Tout est Parfait

J'avais découvert Guillaume Vigneault avec ces 2 premiers livres que j'ai adoré.

• Carnets de naufrage
  
• Chercher le vent
  

Il a dernièrement écrit le scénario de Tout est Parfait, film que j'ai pu voir a Montréal traitant du suicide et des personnes qui doivent vivre avec les conséquences de cet acte. Excellent film fort en émotion, coeur sensibles s'abstenir.

Cat Power - Maybe Not

De la trame sonore de Tout est parfait par Guillaume Vigneault

pou rocks