NYE

My first new years eve at a party in many years, I think. I met up with Terry and Ben at their friends place jun Oakland, not too far from where Zoe used to go to day care. Their friends had an amazing bar setup in the basement of their house and were making an impressive array of mixed drinks. They also had several really nice beers on tap and fancy aperos. Oh yeah, and one of them had built his own custom bike frame. Cool company.

Mt Diablo

Somehow in my entire time living in the bay area I never made it up to Mt. Diablo. Today I rode the Ritchey up it with Dominic, and it's a pretty fantastic climb. Not especially steep, but with good views and a lot of elevation.

The Codornices, Rose garden

My mom and I took Zoe to the Rose Garden and the Big Slide at Cordonices. We brought cardboard with us and Zoe loved it, as predicted

Nest

Some of you might have heard about the Nest smart thermostat. I had been looking at these and if not for the bungled software when used outside of the US, I would have found a way to replace our thermostat chez nous with one of these fancy things (the other technical problem is that the Nest is a low voltage device, and thermostats in Euroland run on the full 220V). As it happened, my parents' fifty year old thermostat was not regulating temperature anymore, so I told them about the Nest. My mom accepted the idea with some trepidation, we went to Best Buy to get one, and I pulled off the old thermostat. The old thermostat was quite a simple device, with a HUGE glob of mercury jostling around inside an ampoule

Nest make it pretty easy to do the install, but they cannot help you if the wires are fifty years old, are fabric insulated and have no markings whatsoever on them. The good news is that there were only two wires, and I happened to guess correctly regarding where they should go and we were quickly up and running. There were some hijinx with the Nest account, but that turned out to be on the Nest server side. I suspected my parents older router but that happily turned out not to be the case. I downloaded the Nest app to mom's iPad (and my iPhone -- hee hee!) and set up here account. It worked pretty much instantly and I'm really impressed. At first I thought that it was kind of a lot to pay for a thermostat but having actually installed and used it I think it is well worth the money. If they ever get their act together for a Euro version I will probably get one. The only Nest "competitor" is the Tado (http://blogs.wsj.com/tech-europe/2012/11/15/will-europe-warm-to-the-tado-smart-thermostat/), which seems to have gotten every part of it wrong. Annual subscription, smartphone dependent, generic white box… what's the opposite of a home run?

Anyway, my parents are officially high tech now.

Sauls

With the parents and Zoe


Meanwhile, Chloe and Alex are off to Arizona and Utah… sniff!

Kirala

This trip has been a bit of a culinary extravaganza for us. The food is of course wonderful in France, but it lacks some of the diversity of the Bay Area. A few things in particular are dearly missed: Thai food, Mexican food, Chinese food, decent Hamburgers (I know, sometimes it's the simple things), and Japanese food. (dorothy voice)I miss YOU most of all, Japanese food(/dorothy voice). So tonight we got to go to Kirala, and it was wonderful … and everything I had built it up to be. The kids loved it all too, except the wasabi. They also spurned the usually kid friendly tekka-maki. Zoe was a big fan of the tempura ice cream



Bliss!!

Pinhurst

Rode Pinehurst withe Vera! pretty cold today

Enjoying the grandparents place

LHOS

Went to Lawrence Hall of Science with Big and Little John, Evie, Amy, Chloe and the kids. We started off upstairs

Then wandered to the magnetic shavings in liquid

then to the ping pong ball whirlpool

Where two parents thought it was hilarious that their kids were crawling under the display to stop the balls from exiting the funnel.
Then to the fluid flow display


Then outside to some of the seismic installations


and then downstairs to handle animals!

(note the look of awe on the face of the kid to the left)

And then Zoe graciously shared her French Fries

Bibimbap with Keith at Bowl'd! The Mung bean pancakes were awesome.

Xmas eve

Briefly met up with the gang at Inspiration Point after I rode 3 Bears

Crappy weather be damned!

Alex and I went up to one of my childhood haunts: the Tilden steam trains! I don't think Alex had been up there before. The weather continued to be very unCalifornian, but we are tough dudes, so we went anyway. The first bad sign was the light drizzle accumulating on our windshield. The second bad sign was the fact that on a Saturday we were one of three families up there. Anyway, Alex and I thought that the view would be better from one of the uncovered cars, which in retrospect was maybe not the best idea. Soon the rain began in earnest and then the hail started. Happily, it was not golf ball sized hail, but little mini hail balls. Regardless, alex was not very happy

Tree decoration

Bike ride

Got to ride (with the new bike!) some of Ian's previously local roads around Stanford, including Old La Honda. ~43 miles round trip. There is some pretty nice riding out there.

The bike

The plan was simple: buy an old crappy bike so that I could enjoy some riding in CA, and then leave it there. While I was shopping for one, however I found a used steel travel frame (Ritchey BreakAway) on the 'Bay for a great price, so I bid on it and got it. From there I bought every component, one by one used off the'Bay as well and had them delivered to Berkeley (sorry, mom!) and arranged for it to be built up at Mike's bikes. The build went fine, and here is my new to me travel bike!

The guy building it said that it built up as light as a low full carbon rig he had just done at 18.2 pounds (8.25kg). Not too shabby for a steel travel bike.

The long trip to CA

It was an early wakeup for us (there aren't a lot of connections through Lyon, so you usually end up on an early flight) at four in the morning, then drove to the airport, dropped everyone+luggage off at the terminal, parked, took a picture of the parking space, met up with everyone at the terminal and found the check in. A dog was being checked in in a carrier, and the very worried looking owner was contemplating a large puddle of dog pee on the terminal floor. I'm guessing it was doggie-sedative related. The check in people seemed to be completely at a loss for what to do however and it was at least twenty minutes before we could get our luggage through. The security check in was a nightmare with complete jerk attendants -- it reminded me of the TSA! The trip was fairly uneventful, but looooong. It is unspeakably daunting to look at the "flight progress" monitor, see that you are halfway there (YAY!) and then realize that that is another six hours (BOOOO!). We were met at SFO by a very excited nana. I love to see her reunited with the kids






it's a long trip. Happily, we were prepared with lots of gifts, the iPad loaded up with movies and games and a lot of snacks.

YES!

Neuro fuzzy rice cooker house warming gift!!! Thank you mom and dad!

Wine bar

I went to the excellent Doisneau exhibit at the le Musée de l’Ancien Évêché with Franck and Chantal after work. Snow and sleet along the way, but preferable to being mired in traffic in a car. I felt a little like a garbage man walking into the museum though -- pulling off layers of waterproofs clothes, including shoe covers and helmet. The museum closed at 6 pm, so we did not have a lot of time to peruse the show, but it was a very nice collection. We all agreed that we wanted to come back. Anyway, there are some real gems in the collection. From there, I followed Franck en velo past our old place on Place Jean Achard, and on to a restaurant called La Verre a Soi, which I LOVED. You pay for a card with a certain amount of money on it, and then can serve yourself from a bank of three wine preserver/dispensers. For someone like me, who appreciates wine, but is not a wine expert, it was a wonderful way to experience the contrast between different wines. Being scientists, Franck and I had some doubts about the precision of the dispensation -- the actual volume dispensed from a 20 mL pour seemed to vary inversely with the value of the bottle. More likely, our expectations were elevated when we switched to something that we knew that we liked like the Meursault. I looked up the company that makes the wine dispensers, which is called Enomatic, and they appear to be all over the place. I encourage you to try one out, as it's pretty fun experience. In my search for more information about them, I was really surprised to find a lot of posts from people that hate them. This quote: "Do you really want to put an Enomatic machine in your restaurant? You know, that romance-killing stainless steel wine cage that spits out three-ounce pours with grace of a soap dispenser?" made me laugh, because I noticed it as well, and that's a fair point! It's worth pointing out that the criticisms she makes are from the perspective of a restaurant manager/owner rather than a customer, but I feel that some of her points seem a bit elitist. We can't all afford to have a pro sommelier expertly pouring perfect glasses of whatever wine we want. And furthermore, the enomatic allows people like me to sample a far greater range of wines at a reasonable price at one time than would otherwise be possible. I have never been to a restaurant that made more than a handful of wines available by the glass, and certainly not at the minimum volume that the enomatic allows (with associated low cost). I'll keep in mind that there is the possibility that the machine is not preserving wines as well as advertised, but this is France! I bet even those 300 euro bottles of Petrus (at 10 euro or so per "soap" squirt) don't take very long to drain.

Anyway, I loved it, and will certainly be going back. The big discovery for me was the Croix de Beaucaillou, 2009. I've never really "grokked" Bordeauxs -- my favorites have always been the Bourgogne, but this one was something really special. I'd love to find a bottle somewhere to bring back to the states. We ended with an award winning Crozes, which was like getting smacked in the face with a board after all the subtlety of the previous wines.

Au revoir, les antipodes

Went to Simon and Vanessa + kids going away party just down the street. So sad to see them go, and here's hoping they miss France hugely and move back (and that we will manage to get more permanent jobs and will still be here)!!

Toy Store

Zoe had a birthday party to go to today, so I took Alex and Zoe to the toy store to find a gift. With foresight, I can say that going to a toy store less than a month before Xmas is not a good idea. Most kids were barely keeping it together, while others had fully succumbed to Santa Claus fever and were literally being carried out kicking and screaming. It was a bad scene man, and I suspect that Chloe was throwing me under the bus when she casually suggested that I take the kids there, but I can't prove it. Our kids, however were in a rare good mood and were actually pointed out by one particularly unlucky set of parents as an example of well behaved kids.

internet back again (finally)

The internet has been a running joke for us: many weeks to get a connection, and we have twice been without it for a week now. Nice job, Bouygues.

Leroy Merlin

Chloe was dropped off Zoe at a birthday party today (which we were both worried about because she is so shy) and taking Alex to go hang out with a former work friend. In the mean time I decided that i would take care of a few house things that had just not been getting done. This involved a bike ride to Leroy Merlin, the French equivalent of Home Depot (or Loews, I guess). The big difference is that Leroy Merlin has people that actually know what they are talking about. unfortunately, the "huge endless maze of products" is the same. First stop: lighting. I was hoping to get a light fixture or two, but as I was staring at the wall full of pictures, I noticed the light getting brighter and brighter. Soon, people were shielding their eyes and turning away. I guess some enterprising Leroy Manager had decided that it was important for us to see what the fixtures looked like at various light levels. However, the wall of light looked like a rock concert and furthermore, the levels were changing far faster than human eyes could adjust. Anyway, I found a nice stainless steel fixture, but then realised.. I was on my bike! There really is no way to get something like that into a backpack. Next stop: fasteners. I got lost in here for a while, and it took me forever to find the padlocks. It turns out that padlocks are kept several aisles away from the padlock clasps. Who knows why. There was an almost constant whine from a high speed circular saw while I was wandering around. I had assumed that they were doing work somewhere, but it turned out to be a Leroy staff member with a vacant look on his face absent mindedly sawing small bits off of a 2x4 (or whatever the metric equivalent is) at a demo station. I guess he was showing off a saw that was on sale. It seemed like a lot of noise and dust for nothing though! I made it out of Leroy Merlon eventually, and with several new masonry bits for my drill. The thing about buildings in Grenoble is that every wall tends to be made out of rick or cement. Therefore, even simple things like putting in a toilet paper holder require a hammer drill, masonry bit and expansion sleeves! I like the solidity of the walls, but the whole "drilling holes in cement" thing gets old pretty fast.

A ride in the Trieves

The Trieves is a beautiful region south of Grenoble that we have not explored very much. It contains the Mont Aiguille and a string of picturesque small towns, all on rolling hills ringed by mountains. My first ride with Hank more than a year ago was in the Trieves, and I wanted to go back. There was one col in particular which I had seen recently called the Col du Noyer. After a few terse emails between us it was on. We parked at Pellafol, suited up, discussed the impressively cold temperatures (at least for a Bay Area wuss like myself) and we were off. We headed down the D217b into a sharp sided ravine. A few turns still had frost on them and the grass was still white in the shadows. Over the bridge, up the steepish road and the legs were finally beginning to warm up. Then it was descent time again. After a left handed turn in the road I noticed my front wheel move a bit, and then I heard the sickening clatter of road bike against pavement. It's such a distinctive sound, and one that always makes me queasy. I glance backwards and I don't see Hank anymore, but there was a sliding sound. I remember actually saying "uh oh" and then my front wheel
was out and my bike was on the ground too. We had come across a huge sheet of totally black ice. Usually there is some kind of clue: tire marks, frost at the edge of the road.. something! This time there was nothing, even off the bike and standing still it looked no different from tarmac. I've only seen that a few times in my life actually. Anyway, We dust ourselves off: shifter and RD missing some varnish, half of my cleat broken off. Hank makes his way down the road on foot: an impressive bloody gash on his palm but somehow he's still smiling. He tells me that it was lucky there was so much ice to cushion his fall. I think I'll start calling him "Jens". Somehow, with half a cleat I was still able to clip in, albeit with a lot more float than usual.

Onwards on small roads. We end up at an intersection and opt for the smaller road, which after a pretty decent climb confronts us with a "Road Closed" sign. We press on. There is a foot path over an impressive drop to the valley floor. Velotel shoulders his bike and charges down the rocky footpath. I follow, branches pinging off my wheels. Next it's rolling hills, past broken castles and farms, and then to the base of the Col du Noyer. It kicked up immediately into a respectable grade, then through some hamlets and then into the business of the climb. It's stunning scenery and the top looks a bit like Izoard to me. Neither of us could believe how beautiful and wild it was up there, and how unexpected. It looked so out of place somehow. Then over the col, and a ginger descent over potentially icy roads, but happily no more close encounters of the road kind. Down a hill and I can see a huge white dog amidst a flock of sheep notice Hank and take off towards him. I actually thought it was a sheep at first because it was the same size as one, but whiter. Another mishap about to happen? No, the dog hits a small section of orange fencing and gives up. From here, it's all downhill and back to the car. 64km, 1400m gain and a stunning loop. a must do, and in the direction we did it IMO. Video and photos below: