expensive planters

I noticed that a house up the street has used lithograph stones (which were expensive at some point!) to line their flowerbeds

MTB

I went for a very short mountain bike ride yesterday, up behind the rocher de Cornillon. It was quite nice, but it had been such a long time since I had done anything technical off road that I forgot one key thing: you need to be careful braking when descending muddy hills. As a result, I had a few close calls, got a little sideways on the turns, and got uncomfortably close to a blackberry bush. Other than that, it was great to get outside and do something after being a little sick for most of the week. Hopefully I'll get a col in before we head down to Annot on Friday.

amy charlie and mark here!

Ombleze

Chloe and I took the day off today, and after dropping the kids off at day care, drove to one of our favorite "local" (ok, 1.5 hours away) climbing areas: Ombleze. We got a little lost on the way there, but reacted with equanimity and without any anxiousness about getting routes in before having to drive back to Grenoble. Once we got there, it was rude awakening time: routes that used to be relatively easy for us shut us down badly! My feet would get so tired from the vertical technical climbing that I would have to shake them out to regain blood flow and feeling. I also managed to take a big fall and got cheese grated against a particularly sharp feature in the rock that is caused by water droplets etching out little tiny upwards facing daggers in the rock. It might be time to get outside more often if we want to have any hope at all at doing some long routes this summer. In any case, it was a beautiful sunny day in the Vercors, and we got to pull down on immaculate (but sharp) limestone.

First ride of the spring: Proveysieux

I took my road bike out for the first time this year. It is quite amazing how different of an experience it is from my commuter bike: it stops well, handles really well and generally does exactly what you ask it to, regardless of how misguided or stupid that may be. For that reason, I imagine making the switch is a little like driving all winter in a Yugo and then getting into an M3: if you're not very careful you're going to end up picking limestone pebbles out of your chin at the bottom of a ravine. However, the handling part of it didn't really come into it until later. My first concern was that my back was aching on the climb up. As expected, my easiest gear really did not feel adequately easy, either. I rode up past Proveysieux and thought about descending via Quaix, but remembered how pebbly and steep it is and nixed the idea. I think next time I'll ride up via Quaix, as the descent through Proveysieux is really a lot nicer. And speaking of descents: it was totally harrowing. 34 mph felt like I was at warp speed and VERY twitchy. My hands were cramping from riding the brakes and sweat was streaming into my eyes from the climb. I didn't have an altimeter, but according to mapmyride, it is something like 450 or so meters of climbing from my house. I had the power meter on to motivate me to get back in cycling shape:



A word about this ride: while hardly a blip by local standards, I find it quite hard: longish sections of >10% gradients, with some 13% sections and ~1500 feet of elevation gain.

bike trailer, espace montagne, local color

Our daycare situation is a little complicated: Alex and Zoe go to two different nannies in different towns, and on wednesday, Alex goes to the local state run day care here in town (which is totally awesome). The problem is that Chloe and I want to be able to bike to work; it's such a nice ride and an easy way to guarantee a little physical activity on those days when you are stuck in front of the computer all day. The problem is that it takes a lot of time to do the kid shuttling in a car, and by the time you have done the drop offs, it doesn't make a lot of sense to drive home and hop on your bike. Enter the bike trailer. Before I left, I had been trying to buy a Chariot Cougar 2, but never found one in the Bay area because EVERYONE wants one. Here in france, they cost upwards of $1000, which is just silly. It's not like we're going to be going on bike camping tours! So yesterday, we tried out a Croozer which we both liked a lot: very light, metal wheels and folds down. Oh yeah, and it converts to a double jogging stroller. So after a little deliberation and Zoe testing, we ordered the double trailer from our local shop, as well as the infant hammock for Alex. We shall see if this all works out as planned. I think I'm going to need to change the gearing of my single speed though!

We also stopped at the new Espace Montagne: pretty damn awesome. They even have a little mini climbing wall for kids to play on.

Remember when REI had those too? Before the lawyers? I bought a new pair of climbing shoes for the spring (YES!) and was looking around ro see if they had any Valandre jackets. If you haven't heard of Valandre, they make some of the best and lightest weight down sleeping bags in the world. They are a French company located in the Pyrenees and I think some of their stuff is less expensive here (but still ridiculous). Anyway, I'm in the market for a new down jacket after my trusty old North Face has lost a lot of it's loft. I have heard that Valandre gets its down from the foie gras industry, but not sure about that one.

Finally, on the way home, I had one of those "laugh-at-local-drivers-and-point-in-incredulity" moments when I saw a guy on a motor scooter with a toddler wedged between himself and the steering column. He was passing me in the bike lane, of course. Anyway, I thought it was going to be like every other absurd and dangerous traffic infraction that you see in these parts, and laughed even more when they passed a police car without any apparent response. However, it turned out that eyebrows WERE raised and a cop jumped out of the car and chased him down. So yes, there is apparently some limit to what you can do on the roads here! And that limit is using a toddler as an airbag.

Don't Spork up your life!

Marketplace

We bought Zoe a push bike yesterday and she now refuses to go anywhere without it. We picked up the usual things, but my big find was a new (to me) kind of gruyere from the Savoie. Also, Zoe got many compliments on her sunglasses -- Thanks, Nana!




I was feeling very lazy today and barely left the house. I did, however, manage to move the bookcase and do a little cleaning. I know, I know you thought that I couldn't top my post about shopping for pants, but here I am surpassing myself again with a magical tale of doing nothing.

Mr Carnival: special guest entry by Chloe

The customs of a new country can be delightful, startling, or disturbing, and sometimes all at the same time. Last week Zoe took part in Carnival, a festival where all the children in the town dress up in costumes, follow Monsieur Carnival through the town, and then eat snacks- or at least that's how I understood it. There was one aspect I hadn't quite grasped. The evening after Carnival when I was picking Zoe up from her nanny's house, I asked about Carnival. Zoe was a little scared apparently because there were so many children and it was too noisy, but overall she enjoyed the parade through town following Monsieur Carnival, the arrival at the square, the subsequent BURNING OF M. CARNIVAL, and then the snacks. I repeated this back to the nanny, thinking that with my limited french I had misunderstood the Carnival customs, but no, M. Carnival gets burnt at the end (and then everyone gets snacks). Somehow I had missed the part about burning M. Carnival a la the Wicker Man in the description of the Carnival events in the town newsletter. Zoe didn't seem too traumatized-I think the presence of enough papillote (little candies is foil paper), brioches, and assorted bon-bons made up for the potential trauma of human sacrifice.

It will be mine

oh yes it will be mine

biking with Zoe

I got ZZ out of chloe's hair for a little while and plopped her (Zoe) into the kid seat for a bike ride up to Proveysieux. It was quite slow going, but we made it. Along the way, Zoe patted me on the ass and said "Daddy butt ... big!"


Lots of rocks and other crap on the road. Anyone on a race bike would be smart to slow waaaay down on the descent.

Typical of the mutant fitness levels of the Grenoblois: I saw a guy casually roller blading up the hill at high speed during our descent. crazy.

Behold

The Alfa 147 GTA.


Way too much power driving those front wheels. The kicker: there's a child seat in there!

amplifier rewiring

One consequence of constantly moving is the accumulation of many little plug converters, the occasional actual voltage converter, and sometimes the rolling up of sleeves and rewiring of high current devices. I finally had a chance to rewire my tube amplifier today. It was delivered to me in France more than five years ago, wired for 220V. I then rewired it for 110 when we moved back, and I just re-re-wired it for 240V. Happily, I ran into an electronics guy here just as I was getting ready to wire 220, and he informed me that France has been slowly ramping up to 240 from 220, so 240 was a much better choice. Here are some amplifier guts:

It all worked great and no explosions as of yet.

Carnival day!

lab ski day!

at Alpe d'huez




it was quite icy, but decent (and better than the alternative!)

more snow!

also, on call all weekend... sucks.

Touring with mom

Today we set out for the mountains. My plan was to show her either St. Christope en Oisans -- a quaint mountain village steeped in the lore and history of mountaineering, or perhaps La Berarde, with it's steel corrugated roofs and proximity to many of my beloved peaks. Unfortunately, we didn't get very far at all because the road was blocked. Undaunted, we continued on along the mountain roads up past les Deux Alpes and Lac du Chambon

and finally to La Grave. La Grave also has a pretty significant place in the history of climbing and mountaineering, but nowadays it is the home of world renowned skiing , and a very pretty town to boot. We'll be vacationing past la Grave in Monetier this summer -- bike riding the famous cols, and crushing limestone with our gym honed kung-fu grips. Anyway, it was a bit of a whiteout up there, with wind swirling through the middle of town and slamming shutters against sills.

We stopped at an overpriced, but cool cheese and ham place and bought some local sheeps cheese, appenzal and local speck. After getting buffetted for a while, we retreated to a cafe for espressos,

and then headed back to Grenoble. After a brief stop at the mysterious and exceptionally French store that the locals call 'Ikea', mom and I hit the town for lunch (unfortunately my favorite Lebanese place was closed) and antiquing. Amazingly, we ended up in the same antique store that Chloe and I had started out Quest for Armoires in more than five years earlier! OK, so not very amazing in itself, except she had the exact same two armoires/hommes debouts!! The price was about the same as well, and I thought she was saying "vendu" again! I was very sad not to see the great grand mother there, and I did not want to ask the grandmother if she was still with us.
Afterwards we stopped by Pignol

to buy some macarons, tartes, and other delicious things. The macarons are *fabulous*, but I can' help but think that they are an extremely high profit margin item: a box of 15 costs 17 euro!