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/