Bike Lane

The only mildy dicey part of my commute is the roundabout near the autoroute. It's really not an issue normally, as cars are polite and will stop for you when they see you in the bike lane, but you never know. I always assume that they are trying to kill me, and have not had any even vaguely dangerous moments (really, mom!). Anyway, there must be a prefab cement staircase company nearby, because on many mornings I see flatbed trucks hauling them away -- usually in the opposite direction to Lyon. I know this because I give them a wide birth and sometimes stop if I think they might be cutting me off to get onto the ramp for Lyon. Anyway, this morning I was confronted with this amazing spectacle:



It looked like it had fallen off into the roundabout and then been pushed onto the "shoulder" (i.e. the bike lane). I've seen a lot of things in the bike lane that don't belong, but seeing a cement spiral staircase was definitely a first.

I've been making FIMO animals for Zoe

here is the latest

Alex!

Perouges

We took a short trip to Perouges today. It is just about an hour drive away, and actually quite close to Lyon St. Exupery, if you ever find yourself stuck there. After circling the lot once (tip: drive into the town for the free parking rather than pay to use the lots that are far away from the center). As far as the town goes: what can I say? Perouges is yet another beautiful fortified medieval town with a rich history. I'm not sure how effective the fortifications were against the Archbishop of Lyon, but I can unequivocally state that the cobbles shut down the hordes of invading toddlers today. Zoe gave up on trying to walk on the streets after twenty feet. I saw another kid fall victim to the ruthless cobbles: he was happily walking along before tripping on one of the larger egg shaped rocks and went down with a surprised look on his face, and of course subsequently burst into tears. The stroller was equally thwarted and was basically impossible to push along the streets. So yeah, quite effective against the short of legged! Some photos:



Hanging corn to dry:


We also bought and happily devoured a local specialty cake: Galettes de Perouges. They are like little sugary butter saturated pizza slices. mmmmmm.

Boarding @7 laux

I got a chloe pass to go to 7 laux for the morning. It was an absolutely epic day of knee deep powder and no one else on the slopes. Fantastic!

A shameless bit of self promotion at work today reminded me of the time in grad school when a few of my lab mates published in Nature. Over the course of the next two weeks following the print release, that issue would mysteriously find it's way onto the break room table. Even more mysterious: it was always open to the author page! No matter how many times you put it away or flipped to a new article, it would magically re-appear in a prominant place, open to the author list. Also, all the other journals would get stacked on a chair. Who says scientists lack in subtlety?

morning at Lans with CZ

Zoe

stealing Alex's milk bottle and drinking it all

zoe painting

with a spoon

7 laux

wheee! decent off piste today.

chloe boarding

chloe went to the 7 laux to go boarding today while I watched the kids. Very jealous of the the powder

the wire

possible sign you have been watching too much of The Wire: when you start referring to getting a new box of diapers as "the re-up"

oof

Chloe away on business, so it's just me and the little ones. Day one and I'm still among the living. ZZ is asleep, but Alex is bellowing at his mobile.

Saint Antoine l'Abbeye

We went to Saint Antoine l'Abbeye today, which is one of the officially classified "Plus Beaux Villages de France". It's a beautiful small town with a giant Gothic Church and picturesque cobbled streets and alleys.

A few of the buildings had very fancy roofs:


Some more pictures:

Tour de Sens

Chloe and I had a wonderful meal at le Tour de Sens. As usual, all I had was an iphone to take pictures:




Highlights were the langoustines, scallops, cheese selection from Les Alpages, and the mega dessert plate. Overall, I think the most memorable dish was the pain perdue (French toast): absolutely fantastic, and the best I have ever had. I thought Thomas Keller had it perfected at Bouchon, but this was miles better. It was less pudding like, and somehow more delicate than the Bouchon version.

pont en royans

We took a drive to Pont-en-Royans today. Along the way, we tried to stop at several historic sites, but were thwarted by the signage. Official signs would lead us most of the way to a chapel, for example, and then all of a sudden the signs would disappear. We did eventually make it to the chateau de la Sone, but it turned out to be closed. The caretaker informed us that we could not even walk on the grounds until it was open in the summer. Nice. It does look very pretty though, so I'm sure we will be back at some point. In googling the castle, I found out that it is a hotel, too! Next, it was on to Pont-en-Royans -- one of our old haunts, and the gateway to lots of excellent Vercors climbing.




We walked around town, and while the park by the river is very pretty, it is apparently the Vercors capital for people to take their dogs to. This wouldn't be a problem if they didn't have the charming habit of letting their dogs shit everywhere and then walk away without cleaning it. As a result, it's a bit of a fetid minefield down there. Perhaps best viewed from afar? Since we had promised Zoe a hot chocolate earlier, we went to a cafe:

then back to Grenoble

Mangosteens!

We tasted fresh Mangosteens for the first times in our lives, and they are deliciious

Diamond

we went to Diamond light source to check out some of their beamlines and the MPL. Many exciting things going on there.

Afterward, it was back to Oxford, then on the bus to Heathrow where my flight was delayed an hour. Thankfully I was in the fabulous new Terminal 5, in which you can entertain yourself for hours with the shopping and restaurants. I had dinner at my favorite fast food place: Pret a Manger in the UK (maybe anywhere?), but kicked myself after seeing that there was a Gordon Ramsay restaurant. Oh well. I wandered around Harrods for a while, where I discovered that I had been a little naive about the prices of handbags. I did not know that it was possible to spend a thousand dollars on one. Also, no free wifi in the terminal as far as I could see. I also got a close look at an Audi R8 and a Lambo:


When I finally got to the lab car in the LYS parking lot, I discovered that the battery for the remote appeared to have died. I spent the next twenty minutes or so getting into the car and figuring out how to operate the ridiculous parking brake. I eventually made it home though, and before midnight.

More Oxford

more interesting talks today. I caught up with an old friend from my Salk years who is in the Biophysics Department there. After the talks I headed to the covered marketplace to buy cheese and find some things for Chloe.

Having done a little more walking around today, I can say that Oxford is incredibly beautiful. It's not like there are two or three historical and impressive buildings: there are miles of them! In my four AM stupor, I of course managed to forget to bring the camera, though. As a result, all I have are my iPhone crap pictures


The science buildings seem very well equipped, too.

Anyway, we went to the King's Arms pub to meet up with former EMBL folk, then to an Indian restaurant.

Oxford

I was up at 4AM this morning to get to LYS for a flight to Heathrow. The roads were pretty bad and the plows were driving down the autoroute in pairs. Our flight took off on time, and landed with only one circle into Heathrow, but it was all a little dicey. I don't think I've ever seen an airport in that condition continue to operate (and I spend four years of flying through Chicago six times a year).

Ugly! The bus from Heathrow to Oxford got mired in traffic and ended up taking three hours instead of 1.5 Thankfully, it had free wifi on board! We made it into Oxford in time to check into the Royal Oxford (highly recommended) and have lunch at the conference/workshop. After a few talks, the traveling caught up to me though, and I started going through cycles of nodding off for a second followed by jerking awake. Thankfully, there was a coffee break where I loaded up on caffeine. The view from the new conference center is quite nice:

After the talks, Andrew and I headed to the Lamb and Flag for pints. At one point I looked up and saw a framed passage from 'Jude the Obscure' which mentions the pub! Dinner was very good back at the conference, but I was only semi-conscious.

our little girl!

Zoe was just flipping through a climbing magazine when she pointed to a picture and exclaimed "ROCK.. CLIMBING!"

also

so much snow today that we picked Zoe up from her nanny in a sled! Also, I was viciously attacked by Christine and Choe with snowballs packed around ice blocks.

damn

We had planned a trip to meet up with our old firend Gauthier and his wife and daughter in Montpelier today, but the snowstorm and our lack of snow tires has made us reschedule.

We did make it into Grenoble for 'les soldes' though.

In France, there are two main government-approved times for sales (I know, it seems a little weird to the permasale-habituated North American), and we are in one of the sale periods. Chloe picked up some very fancy boots, and I finally broke down and bought a jacket that is not made of advanced synthetic fabrics. I guess we all have to grow up eventually. We also made a stop at my favorite wine/spirit store in Grenoble: L'Echanson. They even had my old frequent buyer card information from four years ago in their computer! I gazed longingly at Whisky that I cannot afford:

and bought a bottle of 15 year old Calvados:

The appelation means that it is made in an old school copper pot still rather than a reflux still. I have had Calvados before, but it was of the moonshine variety, and was not very good. I don't think they trashed the beginning or ends of the distillate ("heads" and "tails"). After reading a few articles about it, however, I wanted to give it a second chance. I realized that my old approach to trying new kinds of alcohol was logically flawed: I would generally buy from the bottom shelf in order to avoid wasting money. Of course, it's much more likely that you will get something horrible that way. So this time I got the nice stuff: 15 years old. After a few tastes, it gets a big tipsy thumbs up, followed by a drunken fall into a snowbank. This stuff is pretty strong, but delicious. Christine bought a bottle of Caol Ila which had been double casked (once in Bourbon casks, once in something else -- sherry casks?).

Tons of snow on the road on the way back. I hope my snow tires get here soon! (I ordered them online)

Chloe and apples

A farmer came buy today selling his harvest. Chloe might have misunderstood that the minimum order was in fact quite large:


On the one hand, the apples and potatoes are *fantastic*, but on the other hand, I can't help but feeling that there is always someone there ready to take advantage of the expats (not restricted to France of course!).

congrats to my parents on their new car!!

snowboarding at night

Christine and I did an expedition up the snowy track across the street. She was in snowshoes, and I was on my split board. I had fashioned a mount for my mega headlamp. Unfortunately, the snow coverage was quite thin and I got smacked around by a rock. I ended up a little bruised and bleeding, but that just makes my snowboarding pants look that much cooler (big blood stain on the kneecap now).



notice the manly "oof" at the end.

Alex weight

6.35 kg now!

Sledding at the col de porte

watches

I enjoy looking at mechanical watches -- particularly those that expose the movement of the watch in some way or another. If you have never seen a full "skeleton" watch (a watch in which the faceplate has been removed), they are worth seeking out, as they are truly amazing. Even partial skeletons or transparent backs are beautiful. Here are some things about high end watches that the unacquainted might find interesting:



The Tourbillon: In addition to complications (moon phase, alternative time zone, moon phase etc.), watches can contain single or multi axis "tourbillon". Tourbillon are essentially mechanical cages that rotate on single or multiple axes to counteract the effects of gravity. Like anything else cool in the realm of the high end watch, the down side is the cost. A multi axis Jaeger gyrotourbillon will set you back $3-400,000!

Jewels: Anyone with a passing familiarity with watches has seen the term "jewels" associated with watches. These are rubies or sapphires that are used as a very hard, low friction component for various gears and mechanical elements. Interestingly, they are a crystalline form of Al2O3 (aluminum oxide -- the same stuff as is formed when you anodize aluminum!). Also interesting is that abuse of the advertising of how many jewels in a movement (e.g. useless jewels) led to an actual ISO standard for what could be considered a jewel.

A very interesting watchmaker: Phillipe Dufour
. Mr Dufour has worked for Jaeger and Audemars among others and has been making his own watches since 1989. His watches are stunning, elegant and it seems like some watch aficionados think that they are superior to Patek et al. Having seen some photos comparing the calibers, I am inclined to agree! This guy (who seems to be from Grenoble!) has some nice pictures of his visit to pick up his watch.

High end watches are *expensive*. I think that most people think of Rolex as the quintessential "ridiculously expensive watch", but at several thousand dollars for the non marquee models, they are at the very low end of the ridiculous. One thing that I think people are not aware of, is that the servicing of these watches alone (every 5 years or so) can themselves cost several thousand dollars


Seiko makes a quartz regulated mechanical watch that they sell for $145,000. It is meant to showcase their skills.