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.

christine arrives!

sans baggage, though.

col e de porte

We all went to col de porte for sledding today. Zoe was too tired to sled at first, but was not too tired for hot chocolate (through a straw).

zoe and the push trike

yay for chloe!

I went SNOWBOARDING today for a half day thanks to chloe's extreme generosity and awesomeness. lots of powder and not too many people. My legs actually felt decent after their four year snowboardingatrophy, except when the chairlift whacked them.

happy xmas!

We drove up to Chambery to wander around in the old town with the two mini-mes and an american guy from work who is doing an internship for the year. It was a little cold, but I love that town. Now, if only the synchrotron could be moved up there.

Also, I found my sharpening stones and started sharpening my kitchen knives. Next step: utility knives and Franck's knives!

beer

Budweiser costs almost $2.50 a bottle here! Thank goodness it's so bad that I wouldn't even consider it at that price for a six pack

unimog!

This is what you need for the true offroad experience


Of course, if you're going far, you probably want the half million dollar RV version

zoe sledding

very jealous.. am home sick and the oe's are out sledding!



also, the town of Le Fontanil was offering horse drawn cart rides and Santa time!





but Zoe was terrified of Pere Noel.

this is all second hand because I was too sick to leave the house.

Snowing!

and some local franco-chavs were pelting our windows with snowballs in the middle of the night. Why?

Lyon

This morning we went to the dermatologist to figure out what is wrong with Alex's face. The hypothesis is that it is a reaction to some mom-hormones which subsequently got infected. We now have corticosteroid creme, super fancy moisturizer and antibiotics for him. Even without the treatment, things are already looking better, much to our relief. It's so hard being vaguely repulsed by the way your son looks! Not to mention the guilt.

Anyway, last week we had arranged to go to the US consulate in Lyon to apply for a US birth certificate, passport and SSN for him, so we drove into Lyon without any major hijinx thanks to the marvels of GPS technology. Finding parking was a bit difficult, but with a little help from Chloe, I got into this ridiculous spot without even hitting the cars in front or in back of me!

skills!

The US consulate is in a nice building right on the quay, with big windows looking out over ... other buildings. We had an appointment at 11:00, but got stuck behind a scumbag businessman and his wife who were going on and on about the number of pages in the passport book, how they reside in Dubai but have property in France and the US, blah blah blah. Once they were dispatched, the embassy staff were quite efficient and we were out the door in no time. They even gave us a recommendation for a restaurant for lunch: La Manille. We walked there and were greeted by cooing (the yucky part of Alex's face was hidden under his snugglesuit) of the Maitre d', which always puts us in a good mood. We ate upstairs, and everything was wonderful. Chloe had some kind of fish special, but I was too engrossed in my perfectly cooked steak to pay much attention to it. Since Alex was being so good and sleeping the entire time, we even got dessert! I had a tarte au citron and chloe had a chocolate cake with creme anglais, with two espressos. Also, halfway through the meal we saw the security guard from the embassy, who clearly poached the resto recommendation from the attachee who gave us the name.




Driving back in the snow was a little sketchy.

bourgogne + jura + comte wine tasting

Franck invited me to a wine tasting at Alp'Expo today. It was wines of the Jura and Bourgogne, so how could I say no?

I brought Zoe with me to indoctrinate her on the joys of wine early, and it turned out to suit her just fine, since there was an impressive display of different Comtes:





which Zoe enjoyed thoroughly "TWO CHEESE!" (one for each hand). We tasted several Comte's, and all were quite amazing. I think that the chances of experiencing Comte like this outside of Europe are probably pretty small, even with Fedex Cheese via fromages.com. After all, some of these cheeses were of very limited availability even in france. I settled on the valempouliere from april 08, with the charles arnaud extra indeuillers a close second. All of them were fantastic though.


Next, I gave Franck a few expert tips on wine tasting:

(obviously it was the other way around)
We tasted many expensive wines, and the perfect pairing of Comte and Vin Jaune. Thankfully, the pours were not super deep, or I would not have been able to drive home. As it was, I had to wait a little while before leaving. Zoe was very happy throughout the experience, throwing the stopper to her apple sauce packets and making me sheepishly chase them down. The whole experience was great: Francks friends bought a big chunk of Comte and some bread, which we all indulged in as we tasted wines and talked. There seemed to be at least three categories of people in attendance: The first were the wine lovers who were there to enjoy the opportunity to try the best of the Bourgogne and Jura and maybe bring home a few bottles. The second were the get-down-to business people who arrived with large empty dollies and left quickly with large full dollies. The last seemed to be the frugal drinkers in search of a cheap and convenient buzz. To their credit, the younger ones did an admirable job pretending that they were enjoying the taste. The last category was not restricted to underage drinkers, however. The older drinkers were throwing the wine back with less pretense though. I saw one guy actually tipping his head horizontal to get the last drops out before immediately demanding more (no pause to reflect on the taste!).

damn it!

Zoe found a highlighter and decided to ink around her eyes