Laaas Vegas

Chloe, Christa , Stephanie and the kids and parents had breakfast together in the hotel



The parents and I decided to rent a car and drive out to the Valley of Fire, which was quite beautiful, even in the poor light. I was gently introducing myself to shooting raw and just generally shooting digital landscapes on the K-5. I had brought along my uncles ancient Japanese tripod which was not significantly better than shooting hand held with shake reduction on.

Despite the abundant beauty of France, I miss scenery like this sometimes. We started by looking at the ancient petroglyphs high on a red sandstone buttress (Atlatl Rock)

and then stopped at the extremely underwhelming natural arch. I didn't take a picture, but imagine a small scale model of what you can find in Arches. After taking a few pictures *without* the arch

we drove to the visitor center, and I took a few more photos


and then off to White Domes


and then on the dirt track to Silica Dome. We were in a rental car, and that (in my opinion) obliges you to treat your car like a rally car and get it sideways, but the parents were definitely not on board with that idea.

At this point, we were starting to get hungry, but did not have any food with us. Nor was there any kind of concession stand or even snack machine for miles. We continued along Lake Mead until we eventually found a place with snacks, and we dined on a sumptuous meal of beef jerky, chips and peanuts. The color of the lake is a spooky turquoise color

We continued on and saw some dramatic skies to the north, so I stopped and shot with different combinations of ISO and f stop. I am still trying to figure out good compromises between ISO, dynamic range and noise. I'm happy with this shot, though.

For dinner, we went to Wolfgang Pucks. We walked along the skyways and passed by the opulent shop displays that just seem normal when you are in Las Vegas. One shop had at least several million dollars worth of watches on display, like this three hundred thousand dollar Breguet double Tourbillion:








After some pizza and calamari, it was time to go back to the hotel. Unbeknownst to us, Zoe had surreptitiously removed her shoes during the dinner, and walked all the way back to our hotel along the strip with no shoes on





The socks that we tossed in the trash



mom on the strip:

Flight to Las Vegas

We flew to LAS fom OAK today. TSA was, for once, efficient. And I have to say that the Soutwest terminal at Oakland is pretty nice. As I mentioned, TSA is efficiently organized (even if most of what they do is "security theatre", to borrow a term), and they actually have an abundance of electrical outlets! How many times have you been in an airport where you find people with laptops huddled near columns because of the dearth of outlets? My answer to this would be: MANY. Next big thumbs up: free wifi. No ridiculuous day passes or memberships that are only good at one or two airports -- free. The final thumbs up: wall USB ports to recharge your phones/ipods etc! Excellent.

Once arrived in Las Vegas, we took the annoying shuttle to the strip, where we were staying in.... Paris Las Vegas! The elevators were piping in some familiar sounding music, and it took chloe and I a little while to figure out that it was one of the excellent Putumayo French CDs that we used to play for Zoe quite often.

We had dinner in the hotel, which was excellent, and met up with Stephanie. Jon and Christa would arrive later in the evening.

Oakland Museum, Kirala

After a lethargic morning





The parents and I took Zoe to the Oakland Museum, where they had a special Pixar exhibit. Since Zoe's favorite movie right now is "Finding Nemo", it was a must see. She didn't have much patience for the hand drawn pictures of characters from various movies. However, they had created a beautiful Zoetrope of characters from Toy Story, which was amazing. The large (2 meter?) platter would start spinning up slowly, and then the strobe would turn on, and all of a sudden there were jumping, lassoing and galloping Pixar characters everywhere!

We had a quick snack in the museum cafeteria, where Zoe marveled at the giant koi in the moat

and then we all went upstairs to see some of the permanent collection

There were paintings by a lot of my parents friends there, including Kenji's old friend Charles Farr. A very youthful Charles:

Seeing the self portrait brought back many memories of my dad taking me to Charles' place on Potrero Hill. Charles had a large studio that extended into his yard, and although I was very young, was aware of how quickly he seemed to age. So many good friends of Kenji and Gail were a part of my childhood, that I came to take their presence for granted. It was a shock when they started dying, and I realised that they would not always be there. I think Charles was the first of these. On that cheery note, we looked at a lovely display of the famous association of photographers known as Group f64. They happened to have on display one of my favorite photographic portraits of all time (of Charis Wilson by Ed Weston). As well as some view cameras, and a Zeiss SLR from 1910!



They also had an excellent Diebenkorn section

From the museum, we went home for a quick break before heading to Kirala for Robata and sushi

Codornices

After a jet lag driven early morning wake up, Zoe and I drove up to Codornices park this morning for some swing and jungle gym time. It was a little cold and damp, but she descended several slides, went on two swing sets, and climbed the play structures.

We walked through the tunnel that I used to run and yell through as a child (We did a little stomping of our own, of course), and into the Rose Garden. Although there were not many roses in bloom at this time of year, Zoe seemed to enjoy it, but was more focused on picking the tiny leaves of shrubs and collecting them into piles than looking at roses. When I inquired why she would do such a thing, she replied that it was for the cats and dogs to eat (in French). From there, we drove up to the Botanic Gardens in Tilden. Here, Zoe gathered some fallen sycamore leaves for various family members

before insisting on being carried on "Daddy shoulders", which I can never resist.

Later on, we picked the sole passion fruit from the vine that I planted next to the parental house


In other news, a few months ago our Macbook Air broke -- a hinge cracked in half, separating the display from the CPU, and severing a wire. Of course, like most IT departments, work refused to buy any kind of Mac, and instead offered a piece of garbage Dell. Having used both Dells and Macs extensively, I can say that the higher end Dells make fine Linux workstations, but as far as a productivity tool for science, the Dells (running windows, at least) are a poor substitute. Anyway, I gave up on the idea of actual support from our IT department, and just on a whim brought the Macbook into the Apple store in Emeryville. Despite the computer being way out of warranty, they happily accepted the computer and repaired it at no cost. I also got to fondle some iPads, which I initially thought were useless, but now covet. Yes!

Flight to SFO

When we used to live in France, I used to think that the annual flights to the states were hell. I might have even cursed people who traveled with children. I can, however assure you that no matter how bad it gets for you, it is *much*, *much* worse to be actually traveling *with* the kids. Neither of them slept for more than thirty minutes, and Chloe and I were complete wrecks by the time we arrived at SFO. My mom reserved comment on our sallow and weary faces, but I could see from her eyes that we were in bad shape. Even so, I was very excited to go through those last doors that usher you into the glorious Bay Area. Of course, as soon as we got out of the airport, we were mired in a traffic jam. Chloe and I decided that the first priority had to be a taco run, so we stopped by Picante on the way home.

On our flight from LYS to Zurich, a guy sat down next to me with a very high end Bell cycling helmet, so I started talked to him about cycling. It turned out that he was a pro rider for a major continental team based in Holland! He had ridden the Tour de France last year, so it was exceptionally interesting talking to him. Indeed, I passed a very enjoyable hour and a half talking to him about cycling and the iPad, while taking care of Zoe, who was exceptionally good for the entire flight. I was at this point blissfully unaware of what the twelve hour flight to SFO would be like.

Market, Brocante, Museum

Today was market day, as it is every Sunday. Zoe picked out eggs, and we bought other staples. Zoe found the hot chocolate vendor:


Wild boar salami!!



Someone had brought this tiny bike to market:

Next, we drove into town and experienced a mega traffic jam, which was centered around the Brocante (antique market) along the Pt. St. Laurent side of the river. They were just packing up when we arrived, unfortunately.


Next stop: The museum Café for more hot chocolate, a tarte tatin, and a little museuming

Cross de L'hopital

Today, after an intense regime of training (i.e. no training at all), I ran in the 19th Cross de l'hopital. Franck had run it last year, and this year tried in earnest to organize other people from work to go. As a result, we were quite well represented. I had planned on training for it, but only succeeded in running once, a few weeks ago. Since it was only 7 km, I was not very worried, and even less so given that it was a benefit race that no one in our section would be taking too seriously! While we were milling around the start line, I heard the name "Bernard Thévenet" several times, and finally realized that it was because he was announcing the race. I did not actually know who that was, but it turns out that he is a Tour de France winner from the mid seventies.

It was a beautiful, but cold day, and the pace was quite easy. Franck was wearing a fantastic set of gigantic red glasses with blue lenses, and a red mohawk, so it was very amusing running with him. Peoples faces would light up as he would pass by, and you would see photographers along the course scanning aimlessly through the crowd, see Franck, and then start madly snapping pictures. I'm sure he will be well represented on Flickr.

I rode my bike to and from the race. At 26 km, getting there was much longer than the race itself, but it was a nice day to be cruising along the side of the Isére.

A clown show

Every year, a children's "Spectacle" is offered through work. Zoe was too small to go last year (or I missed the sign up!), but this year I took Zoe. She had started the day with a visit to the doctor's office with Christine and Chloe, and lunch in town, so she was already a little worn out when she was handed off to me. For the spectacle, everyone meets at work with their kids, where they have arranged for buses to take us to the venue. It was a little strange (normally anyone under 18 years old is forbidden from entering the campus), but kind of cute to see so many kids running around. After getting some differing opinions about which bus to board, we got onto number six and waited for a while until it was finally time to go. We took a somewhat bizarre and circuitous route, but eventually made it there, disembarked, and then ... milled around again for a while before we were allowed to walk in and take our seats. Zoe and I were in the nosebleed seats, but we could still see well enough, and Zoe enjoyed the show. One of the clowns was named "Babu", which also happens to be Zoe's name for her most treasured blanket, so she was at first a little confused by all the yelling about Babu.

After the clown show was over, Père Noël appeared, whom Zoe recognized, and a kid riot commenced. Zoe is still quite shy around other kids, so I eventually had to step in to get her to make some progress towards the man with the treats.

Père Noël delivered a book and a bag full of chocolates


Afterwards, it was back to the work cafeteria for snacks and drinks. Chloe and Christine were waiting for us, much to Zoe's delight. It had been a long day, and she was ready to go home

New Camera

We bought a new camera (largely for kid pictures), after many months of looking at lens MTF charts, reviews, sample images etc etc. I was getting a little fed up with it all, mostly because I could not seem to find anything that met our needs. I was leaning towards the big sensor compacts, but very few of them seem to produce decent images. Recently, though, our friend Mark recommended that I look at the Pentax SLRs, and I was very happy to see that the new K-5 has a lot going for it: relatively small body, not ultra-heavy, excellent dynamic range, excellent low light performance, and best of all, super sharp SMALL prime lenses that were designed specifically for an APS-C sensor. I was beginning to give up hope on APS-C sensors, because I was worried about range, but the sensor tests at DXO reveal that this sensor is one of the best that they have tested, and in their tests even outperforms (in dynamic range) some full frame sensors.

Christine here!!

poo storm

I just had one of those moments that most parents have probably experienced: the terrible moment when you realize that your child has pulled a Trail of Poo on you. For those of you without kids, or for whom the Trail of Poo is a distant memory, it goes a little like this: You pick your child up and notice that he or she smells bad. This is nothing out of the ordinary: we have long ago come to terms with the reality of wiping excrement off the butt of another human being. You are a pro. You heave the child up to your chest, bring him/her to the changing table, and strip off the pants. It looks like a big one, but again: you're a pro, right? Then you see that the poo has escaped the diaper (mounting alarm). Shortly afterwards, you see that it has escaped into the onesy (flustered searching for a second box of wipes). Next, things happen in rapid succession, and you're not a pro anymore, you're a first-day-home -from-the-hospital newbie again. There is crap on the OUTSIDE of the onesy. There is crap on the outside of the shirt. You look down: there is a big dab of poo on the front of your shirt. And look! There's some on your arm. The next steps are hardly worth discussing except to note that it involves shrieking, a bath, lots of wipes, a laundry session, and industrial cleaning solutions.

Sledding

after being cooped up for three days with various sicknesses, I felt well enough to take Zoe down the street for a little sledding

Ooof

Well, in addition to the weakness sickness, an intestinal disorder of some kind attacked at four in the morning last night. Excellent. Alex happened to be up too, so I could at least take care of him. Meanwhile, the stack of things that I need to do at work is reaching a critical level. Today, my office has been the bathroom, and it has taken all my energy to foce down some bread and brew countless cups of tea.

It started snowing quite hard again:





Someone call Monsieur Plow!

Snow

It's snowed quite heavily over night; we had a six inch thick mattress of snow on the car this morning! Zoe was of course delighted, and started scooping up snow to throw at me as soon as we stepped outside. Unfortunately, her second handful was about two inches away from some yellow snow. I managed to grab her before she got to the urine snow though. Both Chloe and I managed to get the cold that has been going around, and feel terrible.

Williams

Chloe and I continued our training regime in the climbing gym today, and in the changing room I noticed that a man was wearing a "Williamstown, MA" sweatshirtt. It's rare to hear English, let alone American English being spoken in the gym, so I quickly got the back story: His dad was a math professor at Williams, and he is a professional translator in Grenoble. The Williams connection is everywhere!

Thanksgiving

We went to have Thanksgiving dinner/lunch at Mary-Jane's today. We all had a very nice time, with Zoe playing with the other kids, Legos, and a big, fluffy dog. Alex also accosted the dog, demanded to be held, and played with Legos. I realized afterwards that it had been two years since our last Thanksgiving meal! Of course, last year Chloe and I made grand plans to make a big meal this year.. but you know how that goes. Recently we have been in survival mode, just trying to keep up with work and the kids. Maybe next year.

le Sappey

On the first major snow of the season, we loaded the kids up and drove to Le Sappey to do some sledding. Zoe was in heaven (PLUS VITE!! (faster!)), but the wind and cold did not exactly agree with poor Alex, and we had to abort "Mission: Luge" after fifteen minutes. I'm sure there will be plenty of other opportunities


We though Alex might enjoy riding the sled WITH Zoe, but he expressed a slight preference to instead go back to the warm car.

Oysters!

We bought oysters from Utah Beach today from the fish guy, and they were *fantastic*

market

ZZ, as usual, chose the eggs for us

Then we went into town, walked up to the middle of the Bastille


and then went to the Bookworm cafe for scones and espresso. yes!

on call

another wasted weekend!