First Week in Paris

On the picture, the white monument @ the end of l'Avenue de la Grande Armée is la Grande Arche de la Fraternité. This shot is taken from l'Arc de Triomphe. La Grande Arche is located in the business district of La Defence west of Paris. I work in one of the towers beside the Arche. A cool thing about my workplace is that it has 2 squash courts :)

So here goes my first 2 weeks in Paris. There was allot of work and going through my task list. I had to open a bank account, shop for my cell phone, shop for Internet, find an apartment which will be in the 3rd district until I find something better, in between Le Centre Pompidou and Le Louvre ...

Currently my hotel is in Neuilly, a rich neighbourhood of Paris really close to where I work. I guess I wouldn't mind staying @ the hotel more than the 2 weeks planned. Since I've been here, We've been working hard, the project we our working on was kind of doomed and we are trying to save it, but let's say french politics are quite different and we've been having a hard time to have a good chain of commands. Plus we are outsourcing part of the programming to Vietnam which has not proven a successful partnership up to now.

After all the hard work we go out for diner or for a drink with a bunch of Alex's(Alex is the guy that brought me here) friends, he knows so many people. Last Saturday, after I learned that I couldn't go to the Vitalic concert because it was sold out, I went for a chill night by myself to a cool little restaurant playing house music beside my hotel. It's called Epices Riz - Tapas y Pasta and it's a mixture of Italian/Spanish food. I ended up meeting a bunch of people staying @ the restaurant with the staff and friends and drinking their private collection of wine and champagne. A couple of "Someliers" Mathieu and Charlotte invited me to stop by the store to taste a few more wines when I'll have time. Since then, Ive been eating to that restaurant every night I can, Alex loved it also.

On the week-end I went running twice in les Bois de Boulogne located right beside the Hotel.
I also went for a walk/shop @ l'Arc de Triomphe and Les champs Élysées.

Last night we went to a Pierre Lapointe concert @ La Cigale with a bunch of Quebecois, it was a good show and we had a great time goofing around @ the concert and @ the bar after that. Going in to work this morning was a different thing though. Every Thursday night there is le Pot Québecois, a gathering of Québekers going for drinks somewhere in Paris. We should be looking that out tonight.

Pirates of Silicon Valley

Great movie online on the recent history of the software industry big players Pirates of Silicon Valley (1 hour & 1/2).
Steve Jobs is tha man, apple is tha shit!!

Friday The 13th was a scary night. it was my Goodbye diner in Montreal, I had a few drinks with a bunch of friends @ Maa and later we had diner @ Taro were a few dj's had us grooving for a great night out. The evening was simply amazing, I couldn't imagine a better way to miss this beautiful city. Thanks to everyone that showed up.

I got in Paris on Monday morning, went to work in the afternoon and slept for 13 hours straight after that. The arrival is great, almost everything feels just right. Went to visit my miniature apartment last night, randomly met my buddy Alex going to catch my train and I later met a dude Faycal that was working @ Oracle a while back in the subway. Small world. I am now writing these lines in a nice little cafe. Keep it real ya'll.

My last concert in Montreal, Placebo @ Metropolis

Last night, Dave invited me to the Placebo soldout concert. So I joined the 4 Delierre brohers for the evening. We pre-drank @ Mars & Venus watching the habs fighting the leafs for a playoff spot. People were nuts in that place, when the habs scored 4 goals in 10 minutes, we just felt like we were right there @ Bell Center.

We left in the middle of the third to catch Placebo playing their first song. Great concert, great crowd, great times. Placebo is a British alternative band with a great voice. The song from the video is one of their best ones and it really rocked last night. Thanks Dave for the invite.

Paris, France

Aight, here it goes. Last Monday, my buddy Alex wrote me on msn, that IBM was looking for java developers in Paris for next Monday, joking I said "I'm in". The next day, I had a phone call from Phil, a guy working for Acti, a company that specializes in sending expatriates from Montreal to France and England. That means I get to work in France while not paying taxes in Canada nor in France.

I had one day to make the move. On one side I had to leave a great job at Oracle, with the best group of people you can find to work with, great conditions and a great project. I had to decide to leave far away from my family and friends, from Marie-Claude, from the best sport club in the world, from a great apartment. But there was no way I was going to let that stop me from the adventure of moving to another continent, to face new personal and professional challenges. From the time I got the official phone call from Phil, I had 36 hours to give my final decision. That was a hell of a 36 hours. But here I am now, moving to Paris in 12 days .... for a 12 month renewable contract. Hope you can come to the old continent to visit!

For you Parisians reading this I'll be looking for an apartment in Paris, preferably furnished.
For people in Montreal, I haven't officially subleased my apartment, fully furnished, so you might still have a shot.

My goodbye party should be on Friday April 13th so keep this free in your agenda.

Andrea Lindsay and Erik Mongrain

Tonight I had a call from Kyla, an old friend from Kitco, asking me to assist to the show of an artist I adore, Andrea Lindsay also a former Kitco employee. She is anglophone and she sings in french, it's quite something, find it for yourself looking @ her latest clip, "Le dernier cosmonautes".

The show was taking place @ Patro VYS a cosy crowded little bar on Mont-Royal and was as intimate as it can get.

Opening the evening was another impressive underground artist, Erik Mongrain. Look up his guitar skills in this clip called "Air Tap"

Google apps: Picassa

Google just keep on releasing state of the art applications. What's more, all these applications are linked together. Google is taking over Web 2.0.

The latest candy I tried was the Picassa photo sharing application. What is so impressive about it, is not necessarily the quick web slide shows, nor the lagging time almost nonexistent, nor the 1Gb free memory space, but the pluggins they make for thick native clients. I just installed the pluggin for iPhoto, my photo viewer application on Mac, and it just works beautifully. I go on my computer, look in my albums for my latest trip, select a bunch of photos and tell iPhoto to send all these photos in a new picassa album on the web that I can share with my friends.

I haven't checked if other big players like yahoo and Microsoft have done the same but they better do it fast because Google will eat em up, Google seams to do everything right, I am starting to think even highly critisized youTube 3Billion$ acquisition might lead to greatness!
Picassa
Download picassa pluggin and uploader for Mac

Vancouver visit with stops @ Whistler/Blackomb

Link to album Vancouver visit @ the Sabourins 007

So I left the warm and sunny Mexico for the rainy and chilly Vancouver with a 3 hour stop in Phoenix Arizona. Dany picked me up @ the airport and we went for a snack!

Vancouver is just such a beautiful city when its not raining. The Canucks had 3 home games during that week so I spent a fair amount of time @ the arena for practices and games. I was even asked for an autograph :) For games it was great, the spouses and friends of the players have a little lounge with free food, wine & beer where they go in between periods and some spend the whole game in there. Watching a game with Coco, Dany and Cindy's 1 yr old daughter can be very entertaining. So they lost against the Wild on Tuesday. After practice Wednesday I was in the dressing room with Sabou and Burrows and he had this funny interview on the canucks website where I tried to get him saying his teammates made fun of his pelican but it didn't work out. That day was a beautiful sunny day so we decided to walk in Stanley park before I left for Whistler at the end of the afternoon.

That next day @ Blackomb, I had the best snowboard run of my life. We got @ the mountain around 8:30 and that 1 run finished like 3 hours later. We went to the highest point of Blackomb ending that with a t-bar, it had been a while... and a 1hr hike in the back country. The scenery was magnificent, the sun was out, it is not often you have a good view like that on that mountain, we were very lucky. Getting up there was a challenge, when went up on Disease Ridge I was exhausted. We had to get around the ridge walking on snow that could just not hold, my hearth was pounding. I never thought getting my leg up in the air, letting go some safe anchor to go forward and find another one, could generate so much adrenaline.
Then we got to the end of the ridge Dede went first were he thought he could find a good line. The great thing about this is the little prick had never been there before, finally we found an amazing chute with incredible powder and more and more. Then we had like 5 smaller runs before we called it a day. I had to be back in Vancouver for the Game against St-Louis @ 7pm, very boring game that the Canucks won in overtime.

Then it was Vancouver tourism and hockey game against Detroit where the Canucks kicked ass. Sunday my last day was spent in Whistler where we caught a really normal day but Dede brought us in a good spot in the back country where we built a nice little kicker with his chica Amelie. Then I headed back to Vancou for my ride home to Montreal with westjet, they rock by the way.

Thanks to the Sabourin's hospitality and Dede's guidance through some fine snowboarding.

Link to album Whistler/Blackomb

Mexico 007

Link to Album Mexico 007

This journey's starting point was just a nightmare. Big storm was pounding on the North East, my flight left 4 hours late for Chicago and I missed my connection to LA. Freaking American Airlines where just a bitch. In Montreal they gave me a reservation for a new route through San Jose Los Cabos(international airport beside Baja California) in case I didn't make it to my LA connection but the suckers didn't take care of rerouting my luggage's and give me a new boarding pass when I got to Chicago. Result: slept for 1hour on an army bed in the secured zone @ the airport and wake up @ 4am to get out of the zone, reroute my luggage's and get a new boarding pass before clearing customs again. I finally got to Mazatlan Mexico 12 hours late. Screw AA, never fly with them.

Although it didn't start quite right, the rest of the trip deserves 5 stars. Simon picked me up @ the airport with Mc, we went to the house, the McCrory's have an amazing setup out there. Diane cooked us some very good wally that were caught in Cosala and we went for a beer at Joe's with Simon with an exclusive Mexican crowd. The following 2 days were spent, on the beach, surfing @ Bruja, visiting el Centro de Mazatlan and driving around town with the newly rented Wrangler Jeep.

On Tuesday, Mc's birthday, we left along highway 13 for a great open air drive south towards the coastal village of San Blas. There we got a beautiful hotel room on sea side and the only other traveller staying there was a guy from Ottawa that runs a Bar in Puerto Vallarta. We went for a ride on the beach and got stuck in the sand. The 4X4 wasn't working very well so we needed a few locals to push this heavy peace of shit out of the sand, it was quite allot fun. Mc tried offering a few pesos to the locals but they didn't want to take it :) The following morning we went to do the highlight of that little town which is to have a boat ride on La Tobara where you can see a few crocodiles, birds, lizards, turtles...

We left that same afternoon because there were too much sand flies and we were bitten like crazy. We drove another hour south on the coast on a beautiful road to get to Sayulita, a little surf town 15 minutes away from PV where we staid for 2 nights. There I rented a long board for a few hours and caught some small waves.

Then we headed back to Mazatlan for a 6 hour drive in the sun which helped to catch a few sunburns. On Saturday I went surfing again but the wave was breaking flat @ bruja so I looked around for another spot and had a hell of a jeep ride in the Nuevo Mazatlan road. I found a spot but I saw a few fins at large which was a little creapy. Later Tom said they were probably just Sting Rays swimming sideways. On Sunday we went on a catamaran to visit the Island and have a walk on top of the mountain where we got beautiful sights of the city and the ocean.

So it was a great little escapade, great food, great beaches, good company and great hosting by the McCrory family. Then was time to head down to Vancouver to see the Sabourin's which will be covered in my following post.

2 weeks of Surf and Snowboard confirmed

Mexico
I bought my plane tickets this morning. Im leaving next friday march 2nd to meetup with Mc on a red-eye to Mazatlan Mexico where I'll base my Mexico stay @ my good mate McCrory's home. The sad part about this is that he'll be here in Quebec, very bad timing indeed but this just happened too fast, got my vacation approval only 2 days ago.

Vancouver
Then 11 days later, I'll be flying out of Mazatlan to Vancouver BC to visit Sabou & the little familly and catch 3 Canucks home game. If I'm real lucky he'll be between pipes for one of those. I'll be carying my Snowboard gear to get 2 days of powder in the Whistler area with my friend Dede. Helidrop plans are in the air :)

I should be back home in Montreal on the 18th if I don't decide to just live the life and travel the world. Cheers ya'll!

"Your work is to discover your world and then

with all of your heart give yourself to it."

- Buddha

W #1

February 19 was huge. Listening to the Canucks hockey game on my laptop in my living room while finishing stuff for work. 38 Saves on 40 shots against none other than the best team in the NHL at the moment, Sabby met expectations tonight with his first NHL win, fuck yeah Sabouuuuuuuuuuuuuu my man!!

"The popular guy they call Sabby waited 11 games for another crack and Tuesday night in Anaheim the Canucks players in front of him busted their humps to help the Roberto Luongo stand-in earn his first ever NHL victory with a 3-2 overtime win over the Ducks."

Célébration

Samedi le 27 Janvier fut une soiree belle petite soirée. On célèbrait le départ de notre ami Biggy pour ca nouvelle terre d'acceuil la Gaspésie en banlieu de Montréal, c'est pas loin Big c'est juste a côté, ainsi que le 25ieme anniversaire de naissance de mademoiselle Cathou!

Tout ce beau monde se donnait rendez-vous Resto Dans La Bouche ou nous attendions Cath avec un "SURPRISE". Specialités du resto sont les tapas, a ce que je puisse me rapeller les escargots sur champignons et le brie fondant a l'orange et bleuet étaient phenomenals. Le tout fut un souper bien amusant et bien arrosé, faut dire que le nectare des dieux est a moitié prix avant 9 hrs dans ce lieu bucal, alors 2 bouteilles de Liberty School plutot qu'une furent de mises.

Après un festival de photos et une aventure de taxi entremêlé de cris genre "Ma te skinner la raie sti" le tout c'est poursuivi sur la rue Laurier au Bar Baldwin. Ouch les "ptites bouteilles" comme on les apelles poursuivirent le travail ammorcé par el vino tinto. Après avoir renversé plusieurs verres, taché plusieurs pantalons et tombé par terre, nos joyeux aventuriers decidèrent d'aller de l'avant et terminer la soirée dans ma demeure.

Aille Yaille Yaille, les boutch d'en bas en ont eu a coeur joie. Merci a Marie-Andree et Kevin de s'être soucier du bonheur des dites voisines mais ma réponse ressemblait a "Faites plus de bruit, Charrues!". Alors tournoi de babyfoot et royal rumble justqu'a 6hrs du mat alors que la buveries c'est poursuivie(en fait je m'en rapelle plus trop mais sur les photos ...).


Pour conclure sur le départ d'Etienne, il quittait aujourd'hui pour la Gaspesie et hier nous sommes allés avec morin et gagnon voir la partie du canadien au centre bell contre M.Crosby. Le tout c'est poursuivi a la cage au sport pour écouter le SuperBowl et boire l'alcool gratuit gagné par le frère d'Etienne. Belle petite journée, on lui souhaite bonne chance a Gaspé. En passant, si vous trouvez une caméra digitale sur la rue, apellez Etienne il a égaré la sienne hier avec les 200 photos de la journée ;)

How to make it to the big game?

"First she held an auction to see if she could be someones date to the game. Then Axe body spray gave her 4 tickets. She's bringing two of her girlfriends, and she has one extra. To give away to a lucky dude! So basically you get a free Super Bowl ticket and you have three dates to go with."

This story is just hilarious and that girl is a hottie so I thought it was worth the read. Why not give it a shot boys @ myspace.com/superbowldate. Go Bears! Manning is going to choke!

link to the story

Terje's First Descent

This is a name I hadn't seen or heard in a little while. Mr. Haakonsen AKA Mr. Snowboard himself shows here why he's been the best snowboarder in the world for such a long time. Let's put it this way, NO FEAR! I can almost feel the adrenaline just looking at him lunch up there. Check it out in bigger version

"For almost seven years now, we have been hard at work on the Music Genome Project. It's the most comprehensive analysis of music ever undertaken. Together our team of fifty musician-analysts have been listening to music, one song at a time, studying and collecting literally hundreds of musical details on every song. It takes 20-30 minutes per song to capture all of the little details that give each recording its magical sound - melody, harmony, instrumentation, rhythm, vocals, lyrics ... and more."

Stop looking for Pandora's box, it's right here. Pretty cool, enter an artist or a song and it will play music that have related characteristics, great way to discover music!

Soul Flyers (SkyDiving gone very, very extreme)

Is it a plane? Is it a bird? No it's superman! I saw this video on a promo dvd from salomon a few years ago and its just unbelievable how much adrenaline this dude must get when he flies by the 2 skiers! He almost touches the ground. That's playing with your life and I love it.

2nd Star

Great game for M. Sabourin in Buffalo yesterday. He showed everyone he could pull it off with the big boys. The first W will have to wait till he plays Colombus @ the end of the month. There are great comments on his performance on the canucks website. You can also check the highlights here, the save against Briere in the shootout is unreal.

Tip Tom went to Bufallo to watch the game and he called me with Derek Roy's girlfriend(Pretty hot he said) cell so I could hear the shootout live, I so wanted to be there but I had a great night @ rouge to compensate. Good job Sabou.

35 Sabourin in town for a few days

This week the Canucks were in Montreal to play the Habs on Tuesday. What was really sharp about it was that they play in town once every 3 years and they happened to have 2 days off here, so it gave me a chance to catch up with my man Sabou and Tip Tom who I hadn't seen in a while.

Saturday they played in T. and won an easy game. Then they flew in Montreal and Burrows had booked the vip lounge @ Times supperclub where a few bottle of Grey Goosse where waiting for us. I was surprised to see the whole team coming along and partying. It had been a while since I had been to Times and again I wasn't disappointed. It was a good and wild night and I'll spare you the juicy details since Im sure nobody's interested in those. Wish I had took my camera along for a few souvenirs.
My hungover wake-up call on Sunday was from Dan to tell me practice was at 12 so I showed up @ Bell Center to watch that, then I took him to Shwartz. I went to every other practice so I guess I deserve the title of Vancouver fan #1. On Monday, Luongo got hit in the throat by a wrist shot from one of he Sedin's. I usually don't wish bad luck to anyone, but I was pretty content and excited after that. Especially when we were eating at Shed cafe that night and the coach of the goalies called Sabou to tell him not to drink too much beers(he had already ordered a glass of water), that he'd probably get the start against the Habs since Luongo had to sleep in the hospital.

Let's say that seeing Luongo between pipes at the morning skate on Tuesday was a huge disappointment. Sabou's first win in Montreal will have to wait, but he'll get a shot tonight in Buffalo to show everyone what he can do.

Quote of the week: "Heille le gros, tu sais que je me suis pas brosse les dents!"

Thanks to Sabou for the hockey tickets and thanks to Burrows for a new warrior hockey shaft.

iPhone

You can find the keynotes of macworld 2007 with a breathtaking demo of the iPhone and great pictures of MacWorld 2007 on engaget and you can find additional information with the specs of the iPhone on apple's website.
Can't believe the law to own your personal phone number will pass only this fall in Canada, our lawmakers are just retarded. I don't think I'll be able to wait till then to purchase this iPhone greatness, I guess I'll have to give up the JIPP phone number to change to a gsm carrier ....
ohhh looks like the phone will be proprietary to Cingular for a few months, maybe I'll have to get it from Hong Hong. I guess you all wished you bought Apple stocks this morning and shorted RIM the canadian makers of the obsolete blackberry.

Nostradamus is in the house

Au mois d'Aout 2004, alors qu'il etait sous contrat avec les flames de Calgary, nous avions déniché un superbe costume vintage des Canucks a notre grand BouBou pour ensuite aller lui rendre un aspect un peu + approprié pour l'événement. Je suis certain qu'il garde des souvenirs memorables de ce roccambolesque stag party pour les moins biscornues. Maintenant 2 années plus tard il se retrouve pour l'équipe dont il portait l'uniforme lorque nous l'avions d'éplumé. Que de bons souvenirs Sabou .... a venir un post sur comment preparer un bon bachelor party.