yay!

My Fujis were finally received by Fuji Repair in NJ, and the estimate is less than half the french price for ONE camera. Another victory for the global marketplace!

Fete de la Musique

Tonight was fete de la musique: a France wide music celebration in which the streets are filled with bands of widely varying skills. Chloe was still tired from a long conference in Heidelberg, so I went out with some friends. I get a little claustrophobic when I'm packed in shoulder to shoulder with throngs of people, but it was still fun. We sat outside at a bar and watched a band with one of our colleagues play marilyn manson (sp?) covers. I ran into a lot of people who I hadn't seen for a while, including our climbing friend Jerome, and my ex-collaborator Maxim. He was there with his wife and a friend, and they all were pulling deeply from matching 40oz bottles of cheap beer. As I looked nervously at his his 40, he asked me
"YOU LAIKE MARILEEN MANSEN TOO?" in his cool Dracula voice. I'm actually not a huge fan, but they were psyched and doing a good job. The only problem was that the electronic drum set sounded tinny and not very drum like at all.

We headed back towards Gambetta in search of ice cream, but the chocolatier which sells ice cream looked like it had closed up shop at 11:00 or so. Along the way, we passed an up-with-people type of band, which was strangely enough greeted with a lot of enthusiasm by the crowd.

Nice moon

Took this shot of the moonrise over the Belledonne yesterday (looking south from Grenoble). Apparently the full moon is at its lowest in eighteen years

comboire

I went to "Comboire", a climbing area near Claix today and almost melted. The rock cooked our hands and feet, and we were forced to retreat after a few hours.

expat moment

As I was emailing my service bureau with my new address, I suddenly realized how many of my "things" are on planes and warehouses throughout the world right now. I have a set of prints that people have ordered which are being loaded onto a van bound for the airport as I write this. The do it yourself speaker kit which I ordered is en route (probably on a truck) from germany. My amplifier control vacuum tubes will be shipped tomorrow from Hong Kong. My workhorse Fuji medium format cameras are still being delivered by the idiots at chronopost, and are in a warehouse somewhere in JFK. And the reasons?

There aren't any service bureaus in france with the kind of printer I need (and even if there was I couldn't afford it). So I do business with a company I trust in California.

Speakers and anything else electronic (like 1920s era vacuum tubes) cost about 2 times more than the already overinflated stereo prices charged in the US, so I buy from Germany and Hong Kong.

Fuji france wants the price of the camera to repair my 8 year old GA645i, so I have to ship my cameras to the Fuji repair center in Edison NJ. This makes sense in a way because I bought them in the states, but still!

The punchline is that the French are taxing themselves out of many markets. As an example, many professional French photographers end up saving money by flying to Hong Kong and New York for their gear purchases, compared to buying in France. And yes, that includes the plane fare.

Lyon Food Posters

Chloe and I went to Lyon today to spend a lot of money at Au Vieux Campeur, look for ECC81 tubes for my new amplifier and most importanty: go to Caro de Lyon in celebration of my first photo show and selling my first print. After buying a new rope and shoes, we started walking towards the presqu'isle. Along the way, we saw that the Prefecture (local governmental installation) seemed to be wreathed in pictures of delicious things!

Upon closer examination, we discovered that there was a large "installation" celebrating Lyons status as the culinary capital of France. Chloe and I wandered around, mesmerized by the beautiful color photos. Not surprisingly, since it was so close to dinner time, we noticed many other people stumbling along in dream like stupors, hypnotized by the deliciousness. I'm pretty sure we looked at every single one, and I took pictures of most of them. Here they are (all images are clickable to see the larger version with more legible text)




















We rested our feet in a small park near the prefecture, surveyed our au-Vieux-Campeur booty, including chloes
"P-mates"(for when we are on multi pitch alpine routes, I HOPE)
,
then set off towards Le Caro de Lyon. Along the way we saw a boat which had been converted into a garden


and then we commenced with the eating. We both got the Menu de degustation (is it any wonder after looking at the prefecture photos?!). Although we both ordered the menu (76 euro), they gave us different plates for everything except the olive soup and the dessert (you can choose the dessert).

Soupe d'olives vertes, salade de pain et tomates au basilic, langoustines roties.
Fantastic. We had this at our last meal. The cool olive soup goes perfectly with the grilled crayfish.


Terrine de pigeon roti aux figues et amandes torrefiees, feuilles demaches aux poires et celeri
Roasted squab with figs and grilled almonds, pears and celery mache salad. Very nice, but pigeon?


Croustillant de fois gras au pain d'epices, calisson d'aubergines, saveurs pistache et melon
Crispy foie gras with 5 spices bread and eggplant caviar calisson from Aix en Provence flavoured pistachio and melon.
This was fantastic. The top was a delicate creme brulee


Tartare de thon rouge en croustillant de tofu, framboisine de tomate en effeuillee de salade japonaise
Tuna tartar, crispy to-fu, tomatoes rasberries coulis with japanese herbs salad
Excellent again... but not what I would call a Japanese flavor at all.


I'm not sure what this was exactly, but it was the only dish that really fell flat on its face: It tasted like a bad imitation of "asian" cooking.


Sandre du Rhone, chutney de betterave et coeur de sucrine, fricassee d'escargots aux noisettes, creme de laitue
Pan pike perch and snails fricassee, chutney of beet and lettuce cream.
I'm not sure that this description is of the dish below, but it was almost perfect. The fish was just a tiny tiny bit too oily, but was still wonderful


Turbot en filet, mariniere d'asperges blanches au parfum du Bearn, emulsion a l'ail des ours
Filet of turbot, white asperagus, cold Bearnaise and honey garlic emulsion.
Perfect.


Carre d'agneau roti aux mangues, fenouil braise et mijote de tomates, salade de jeunes pousses d'epinard
Rack of lamb with mangos braised fennels and tomatoes, baby spinach salad
This was another welcome re-run from the Springtime menu that we had last time.


Lobe de foie gras poele, figue farcie et pomme ecrasee au gingembre, sirop de fruits a la cardamone
Pan foie gras, stuffed figs and crushed potatoes with ginger, sirop of red fruits flavoured with cardamon.
If I hadn't had the other foie gras plate I think I would have enjoyed this more. But it was still very tasty. The stuffed fig was pretty interesting and complemented the foie grassyness well.


next, St. Marcellin and Fromage Blanc (no need to take pictures of these!)

And finally,
Fondant de chocolat "Ivoire", marmelade d'agrumes et son sorbet
Melting white chocolate cake with citrus fruits marmelade and sorbet
no words for this one.. too good.

more E-commerce frustration

I've been trying to track down my several thousand dollars worth of cameras which I sent to Fuji USA for repair, but they appear to be held up in customs. I learned a valuable lesson, however, which is never to send anything by "Chronopost"(The french version of FedEx). Their web site is useless, as are their service reps. And it costs money to even call the service reps! I just assumed that after spending more than $140 on shipping that a) I could get some support and b)it would get there in less than three days... but as usual I aimed too high. I also found out yesterday that Amazon.fr offers about half of the products available at Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com! I'm trying to figure out why.

Francks

Franck (who very generously has helped me a lot with my photo show) had Carlos, Chloe and I over to dinner and to listen to his Cabasse Jersey speakers. I played some Lali Puna, Guv'ner, Adam Green, Dealership, etc etc. The speakers are very cool, and I'd really like to hear them on my soon to arrive Joplin 2A3 tube amp. Frank lives right under the Neron in a lovely stone house, with access to a large private garden which goes right up against the treeline of the Neron. It's on the road to Provisyeux (sp?) and is really a fantastic place. Dinner was very good, and Franck used his culinary school skills to make us meringues crepes and other nice things for dessert. Carlos brought a bottle of excellent Spanish wine called Pata Negra.

NMR

Last week my boss told me about something pretty surprising, even for the Japanese. In structural biology, there are two dominant methods for determining the structures of proteins: X-ray crystallography and NMR. NMR uses large, expensive instruments which most universities and research institutes will have only three or four of. The higher field instruments ("magnets") are able to provide more data, but also cost a lot more. A typical setup would be a few smaller field magnets like 500 and 600 mhzs and one super expensive high field instrument like an 800 or 900 mhz. Anyway, it turns out that theres a structural biology instutute in Yokohama where they've made a FARM of NMR magnets:

The central buildings each hold 5 mid field magnets, and the outer pods each house one of these bizarre looking high field magnets:

which means 10 mid field and 10 high field= a lot of money! Then there's the other building

which holds another 24 magnets. The budget (spread out over 7 institutes) is ~ 778 millions dollars.

kenji big head

I sent off my two beloved and damaged Fuji GA645s to Fuji USA for repair today.

Also, my parents (and our!) friends Katy and Jon Casida were in Grenoble and we had dinner at our favorite Lebanese restaurant, the Liban Vert. We had the mezzes with a bourgogne and afterwards headed to Gonzalez for ice cream

Having been smacked down by my adventurous palate last time, I opted for the violet and peanut ice creams, both of which were excellent. On the menu, you might be able to see some of their unusual flavors:
Garlic
Ginger
Mustard
Pear
Vinegar
Creole
Cumin
Cardamon
Bean
Peanut
Curry
Tarragon
Carrot


Later on, my parents called, and Kenji told me a story about his giant head. It turns out that he had the second largest head in his middle school. How did he know it was the second largest? During the war, he and his school mates were required to wear military caps and uniforms. On the day of their being issued, my dad had worked himself into a panic. His anxiety stemmed from the fact that he knew he had a rather large head. He began imagining what was going to happen when he couldn't fit any of the variously sized caps on his head. They would probably call him something terrible like "Daruma"

As it happens, one of his classmates, Sakamoto-san saved my father from the ignominy. Sakamoto was having trouble finding an approriately sized hat, when the headmaster saw him and remarked, "My Sakamoto-kun, you have a big head!". And my dad breathed a sigh of relief, because it was Sakamoto and not him who would be called Daruma for the next five years.

Bad Dinner

Our friend Laurent is in town for a few days, so I took him through my photo show and then we met some other friends for drinks at place Notre Dame. It took a long time to get the whole group agreed upon and motivated to go eat, so by the time we finally pulled back the chairs, it was 9:30, and I Chloe and I were starving. We ended up going to a restaurant called "Le Tonneau de Diogène". It wasn't our choice, and I immediately knew that we were in for a winner when we passed a special contraption which they had rigged to dispose of all the uneaten scraps of food from peoples plates. There was a sickening spatter of meat and grey vegetables along the rim of it, and it was about 5 feet behind our heads. Somewhat perplexingly, it wasn't in the kitchen, but in the dining hall. The room itself was cave like, and in fact was probabley a wine or storage cave at one point, and the ambiance was accordingly somber. When you added the staccato whacking of food detritus into the prehistoric insinkerator behind us to the over salted and swimming in sauce food... well I think you can understand that Chloe and I didn't want to stay there for too long. The last straw was when the rest of the cave filled up with people, whoc simultaneously pulled out cigarettes and filled the little cave with smoke.

Le Tonneau de Diogène
6 pl Notre Dame
38000 GRENOBLE
04 76 42 38 40
no stars
oversalted mountain fare par excellence
limp vegetables and overcooked meat
no reservations necessary
public food disposal

Mustard Ice cream

I was introduced to an ice cream place which makes and sells some pretty unusual flavors tonight. Thinking that something that sounds so foul must be good, I tried the mustard and thyme ice creams. They both turned out to be pretty wretched. However, I am undeterred and will perhaps try the tomato ice cream next time.

Show opening/vernissage

The opening tonight was a big succes, with a lot of my firends and colleagues showing up. I had set the show up last night and during lunch today



Before the show, Chloe and I picked up the 40 euro cheese plate (even if you could get something like this in the states, it wouldn't be at that price!) from Les Alpages(page down to "Eat").

People from the IBS, EMBL, ESRF and other places showed up. I even had some crazy people come in from the street to "look at the photos" while eating the cheese and drinking the fancy champagne that chloe bought. One of them asked my why I put glass in the frames.

It was all really nice and very exciting. My first show! Oh, and I sold a print and have some interest in some others.

Pont De Barret

I'm still trying to finish all the kalymnos entries. I should be done this week, if preparations for my photo show don't get out of hand.

Anyway, this weekend we went to Pont-De-Barret in the Drome for my birthday. It was at a gite that I had found earlier for chloes birthday, but we had been unable to go because she got sick. I had originally been told of Pont de Barret because a guy I know in our climbing gym had told us that there was a new secret area near the town. So on saturday afternoon we set out for the Drome. We managed to get a little lost, and had lunch by the side of a small river

and continued throught Saou

and some ruins near Soyans

The climbing area is visible from the road, and is above another (maybe the same) small river.

After a 30 minute walk, you get to the base of the cliff

Because our topo was very incomplete, it was kind of a disasterous day of getting on the wrong routes. We warmed up on a .12a that we had thought was a 10b, then, on a .11b I ended up crossing onto a .12d, ran out of draws near the chain, and had the wind invert my chalkbag and dump out all my chalk!

We walked back down the hill, waded through the river, packed the car and headed for thi gite. It was easy to find, and we were both impressed with the buildings and stone driveway as soon as we pulled up. However, we didn't really have time to explore because we had dinner reservations at "l'Oiseau sur sa branche" in Saou. We quickly showered and sped off down the road through the wheat fields

to Saou

And had a very nice meal. The amuse bouche was some kind of crazy sausage which was baked in a loaf of bread. I had seen these before, but never tried it before, and it was fine, but about what I expected. I ordered the asparagus (they are in season, and along with picodon and garlic, are a well known product of the region) in a light garlic butter sauce and the volaille. Chloe had the volaille as well and a unqiue potato-snail dish which I had never even seen before. It was excellent, but I found the chewy snail texture a little strange juxtaposed with the soft potato cubes. The volaille was... volaille. Dessert was a chocolate moelleaux which had been cooked in a cute little mini cake mould. It came with creme anglaise and an apricot sorbet on the side. We had a generic Crozes Hermitage with the meal. All in all it was a great value in a very nice atmosphere.

We got extremely lost on the way back to pont de barret, but eventually made it. We also saw a GIANT wild boar waddling off the road about 100 feet from the gite.

The next morning (Sunday) we had a chance to talk to Yves about the gite. It was the usual stilted french conversation, but he understood us and I understood most of what he said. I started off by asking, "So, when you got here, this was all..." and he finished the sentence simple with "in ruins". That was twenty years ago, during which time he has turned the gite into a truly stunning place. The property, which he has re-assembled (It is called "The Bastard" and the original plot had been subdivided among all the children, and childrens children) by purchasing them in a piecemeal fashion, was overrun with bushes, had no water, a single light socket and all the stone buildings were essentially piles of rubble. He is from paris, and when he arrived, had no idea about fundamental things like how to operate a tractor, install plumbing etc. When you hear him talk about it, and you look out over the perfect laws, stone walkways and immaculate houses, you realize what a huge task it must have been. The gite and environs:








We did some great moderate climbs today, and I took a beating on some harder ones, then drove home just as it started raining.