We went by the market in St. Egreve this morning; very nice!




Franck had bought croissants and other delicious things early in the morning, so we did not violate te first rule of the French Market: never shop while hungry! With Franck's help, we moved to our new temporary digs which is on the border of a somewhat scary (but nothing like East Oakland Scary) neighborhood. The apartment is great, though. On the car ride to the new place, Zoe pointed out the window at the Neron (A large outcrop of rock visible from most of Grenoble) and said "BIG.. ock!". I'm hoping that is an indication that she will be drawn to the magic of limestone. Ock=Rock, by the way -- she has trouble with leading consonants. Her first french word appears to be "Merci", but she doesn't quite know how to use it yet.

Carrefour

We accidentally slept sixteen hours today, waking up at the break of noon. After a quick walk


down to an unfortunately closed boulangerie, we had some lunch and then headed to Carrefour for some provisions. The first thing you see when you enter the store is the pitiful wine section:

pathetic!
The next thing we did was check out the TVs and then o to the cheese section, which Zoe greeted with shrieks of "CHEESE" and pointing at the cheese.

I managed a quick ride up past Proveysieux, which was kind of painful, and felt slow. I didn't realize it packed that much elevation in such a short distance. If trainingpeaks is right, its more than 2k feet in 3.5 or so miles, for an average grade of 11%. I was pinned the whole time, but barely moving.

I descended via the Route de Claix, which has a few scary turns on it. I saw a dude in a bandana channelling Pantani cranking his way up the bottom section.

Dinner was excellent as always at Franck's. He even cracked open a 1999 Pomerol!

Zoe at Franck's

Arrived in Grrrrrenoble!

Franck very kindly picked us up -- It would have been two trips without his help, I think. The plane flight was kind of painful, with Zoe in full mommy-cling mode. None of us got any sleep, there were no LCDs in the seat backs, and I dropped a cup of tomato juice on the ground, which fired an impressive spatter of juice all over my pants. As the cabin got brighter in the sunlight, I kept noticing new areas where the tomato juice had reached, including all the way up to the little air nozzley things! Impressive range on that juice.

Leaving SFO was very sad -- we'll all miss the parents a lot.

Setting off for france today

Last minute packing, etc etc!

ride with Howard

Rode up tunnel and grizzly with Howard and his new Pinarello Dogma DI2. I had good legs at the end, so I rode up Marin (had to put a foot down after almost falling over on one of the steep sections).

Here are power, cadence and speed for the Marin section

bike packing

I found aTeam Bike case on craigslist; here is my attempt to pack my beloved Merckx into it in a manner that will prevent the throwers from destroying it.

cow poo candy?

last sushi for a while

@kirala!

Last day at work

I can't believe we're moving to France!! Are we crazy?

today's ride

felt ok, but got passed by all manner of people -- even an old guy with down tube shifters.

breakfast

with my AM work buddies at the cable car cafe in south san. You always discover the cool places when you're about to leave!

Zoe's Last Day in Day Care

I had been dreading this day for a while, because Zoe loves her day care, and she has been so well cared for. I picked her up for the last time, emptying out her little cubby and saying goodbye to the teachers. It's embarrassing, but I got a little teary. I guess it was hard knowing that she had no understanding of the finality of what was going on, and that she wouldn't be feeding the fish or pounding her fists on the table for more food tomorrow.

Mac Factory in the news

Today we went to our old home: the Mac Factory in East Oakland. We were there to help unload some trash from Kenji's truck. On the way in, I noticed that the security gate had been destroyed, and several cars in the lot had been smashed into each other. It looked like something big or fast had done it, as the cars had obviously been parked, and you could see the tire skid marks for six feet on one of the cars. My mom called the supe to ask him what hd happened, and it turns out that early in the morning a big rig had somehow made it into the Mac Factory lot and crashed into someones car. The details that follow are unclear, but it looks like the guy whose car had been damaged called the police, the truck driver then went berserk and destroyed five other cars, some electrical wiring conduit and the gate before fleeing onto 880. A little later, hew was pulled over by the CHP and he opened fire on one of the officers with a shotgun. Here's the sfgate report:

>

Big rig driver arrested in Oakland police shooting case

Henry K. Lee, Chronicle Staff Writer

Sunday, August 30, 2009

(08-30) 17:49 PDT OAKLAND -- The driver of a big rig truck was arrested today after he shot and wounded an Oakland police officer on Interstate 880, fled the scene and then crashed, police said.

The suspect, a 41-year-old Alameda man whose name wasn't released, had been pulled over by two officers about 3:45 a.m. on northbound Interstate 880 near the 66th Avenue off-ramp because he appeared to be driving erratically, said Officer Jeff Thomason, Oakland police spokesman.

The driver came out of the truck and opened fire with a shotgun, injuring one of the officers in the foot, Thomason said. The officer, whose name wasn't disclosed, was treated and released.

Police returned fire, but the man got back into the truck and continued north on I-880 before crashing and flipping over between High Street and 29th Avenue, Thomason said. He ran from the truck but was arrested near 35th Avenue and East 9th Street at 11:25 a.m.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/08/30/BAR919G46A.DTL#ixzz0PivxbS9P

Subie Sold

There is not an adequately large unhappy face icon for how I feel about this. The Outback XT has been such a fantastic car, and there is no way we will be able to afford a car like it in France (cars are way more expensive there). I would put together a nostalgic photo montage if I had any time

going away party

icies!

Zoe's new favorite food

stuff

Our container is checked into the port of Oakland, due in France in late september! ~7500 pounds of stuff!

Alta .. for the last time in a while?

We drove up to Alta with Christa today, stopping at Awful Annie's as usual. A Ferrari Testarossa was in the lot, which a waiter was admiring. He told me that the cobra that we saw a few weeks ago belonged to the same guy and that the Testarossa only had 30k miles on it.

packing

Eve of shipping

getting all the stuff together. Hoping nothing critical ends up on a boat for 6-8 weeks.

Visa

got it today! Also tried on the Oakley Jawbones ... amazing optics, even if they make you look like a bit of a geek

got my visa!

after a loooong morning at the consulate.

Monday evening ride

Guh?

decent wheels, ultegra components, carbon fork and ... platform pedals?

Tesla

With clean air stickers!

Aston Martin

with a GT-R thrown in as a bonus. Will I miss seeing all the exotics? Maybe a little.

prius turbo

We made a very quick trip up to Alta to get our sleeping bags for the big move. Tons of traffic on the way back, and we were behind this:

A prius with shiny aftermarket exhaust tips! hilarious!

Zoe Hangboard workout

Zoe's first ice cream cone

She has gotten bites of parental ice cream cones before (including a chocolate chip cone which sent her into a caffeine fueled rampage for hours), but this was her first "Zoe-only" cone.

Alta

We went up to Alta with Christine and Terry, with a stop at Awful Annies (slooooooooow service) and the American River. The American river felt like a hot tub in comparison to the liquid nitrogen cooled waters of the Bear River, so we all (zoe included) floated around the river. I was happy that I remembered our Five Ten river tennies, which kept my feet dent and gash free.


After taking a few minutes to rest, I extended the deck railing and added a small triangular deck section in anticipation of one day finishing the railing for real.

Meanwhile, the ladies went off in search of blackberries.

After grilling some chicken and corn, we fired up the rotenburo.

Zoe put up her usual fuss about the tent, but was much better than previous attempts. Here she is, full of energy the next morning

head sweat

I just discovered that the TOP of my head sweats when I eat hot food. What the hell?

A new toy for zoe

Thanks Claude!

Softball

Today we played (and beat) the dreaded Invitrogen team in our IM softball league. We were doing some aggressive bas running, and during my dash for home, I hooked my thumb into my pocket tby accident and heard a soft ripping sound. It turned out that my thumb had split my shorts down the seam, and I spent the next inning looking for someone with duct tape.

Kenji's 80th Birthday Party

Was at his studio:

with grandma:

and grandpa:

Grandpa is 45.7 times older than Zoe.
Kenji and Gail:

Kenji as always had brought a bizarre Japanese snack food, which looks like... well let's face it, it looks like cat poo

But Zoe didn't seem to mind the appearance:

Smart's crossing

Kenji and I built an anti-Zoe railing, followed by a trip down to the river. Christina spotted a rattlesnake on the path! Here's Zoe enjoying the water


Zoe and the corn

Shelby Cobra

replica? who really cares.