Categories: "Daily adventures"

California, here I come!

Okay, this time there's no turning back! I have booked my Flight! I'm off to San Francisco on October 4th! B)

Wow! It's actually been 12 years since I left Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania. And I've not been to the US once ever since. Despite my constant and renewed interest for the American culture. How could I let it slip away for so long?

This time it will be California for 3 weeks.

It's been pretty hard to decide for how long I would stay. I originally wanted to get an open ticket and stay until it got bored (or my VISA ended, or I ran out of cash, or I got homesick...:P) but it turns out that any open ticket costs 5 to 10 times the price of a fixed date round trip.

I settled for Air France which would conveniently fly me non stop from Paris to SF and back from Los Angeles to Paris, non stop again. 699 €, pretty hard to beat. (and yes, I chose to come back through LA on purpose! ;))

Now, of course I'm very busy evaluating the housing situation! A hotel inside the city costs somwehere between $70 and way too much. Of course, when reading the online reviews for the $70 hotels, I rapidly began to think that the $200/night offers were worth the price. :-/

I also checked Craig's list but I got bored really fast. Looks like there is no way to do any flavor of advanced search on this site! And if I have to browse through all the offers one by one, I'll never find until too late. That site may be extremely popular, I don't get it...

One of the most useful resources I have found is Orbitz. It is incredibly useful for targetting a specific area of the city. It also allows to narrow down on hotels with WiFi access.

Ironically, $70 hotels near the airport tend to get better reviews than $150 hotels downtown!

So I figured it would be cheaper to get a hotel out of town and rent a car than to try to get accomodation inside of the city. Actually I think, I'll stay downtown for a few days, and then get a car to explore the rest of the Bay Area. At that time, lodging off town might be more convenient anyway.

Haven't decided yet when and how I would get down to L.A. though...

Happy birthday to me!

Oh boy, last time I remember I was 28... and today I'm turning 33! :/

What has happened to the last 5 years?

Well, thinking back, I can list a lot of places where I've been and a lot of people I've met. Even a lot of people I've talked to online. But on the other hand, it still doesn't feel like 5 years have passed...

I wonder if this is just because I'm getting old(er) or if it's because a lot of my world has virtualized in the meantime...

Hum... gotta roll anyway! ;)

Paris skyscrapers

Paris skyscrapers

I was looking for a picture of the Paris skyline when looking to the west… the ideal one would be a view of the Eiffel tower from the Montparnasse tower… that way you should see the Defense skyscrapers in the background… of course I’m looking for some particular lighting also ;) Anyone got that kind of stuff from his trip to the city of lights? Then please make my day! :))

Anyway, while looking I stumbled across this site: Paris skyscrapers - le site des gratte-ciel parisiens [broken link], which – while not having the best pictures – definitely has some incredible documentation!

But the funniest thing here is that I’m realizing I’ve got this fascination for skyscrapers… and if I recall correctly, this goes back to my childhood… For some time I just thought I fancied working and/or living in those “high places". Well I’ve done this before: I’ve been living on the 24th floor (in Philadelphia) and I’ve had my office on the 33rd (in Paris La Défense).

Yet, the fascination remains… ;)

Or maybe it’s just temporary because of this incredible girl I met on the 56th last week? :D

away...

When you have just spent one year between the sea and the mountains in Montpellier, can you still find some place you'd like to go on vacation?

Yes you can!

Bavaria

Sure you could probably find an even smaller village in the middle of nowhere, but this one is where part of my family lives, lost in the Bavarian forest! (Quick note for the international reader: Bavaria is in the south-east of Germany ;) )

I definitely could not live there for a year, especially after the Montpellier experiment (and also because they have no DSL!), but my week there felt like the most brain relaxing experience I ever had. I instantly forgot about the loads of stuff I have to do over here...

Of course, the downside is that coming back is even harder now! Btw, thanx for the 400 (not including spam) emails guys! Please expect a little delay before you get an answer...

Addiction

I've been addicted to quite a few things in my life, including caffeine, sugar, sex, motorriding and fun things like that.

At some point I thought I was healed.

However, lately... it's actually been getting worse!

There was the email addiction, feeling the need for checking my email constantly.

There was the RSS addiction, feeling emptiness when my aggregator was out of fresh news.

There was the blogging addiction, feeling the urge to shout out anything I had on my mind.

There was the hitlog addiction, insanely rewieving all hits on my site.

There was the Google fame addiction, wanting to rank up on searches on "francois".

Today I realized I'm now addicted to OO programming! Didn't get my fix today and I'm all grumpy about it.

I wonder what the next one will be in a few months... UML modeling might be a good (nerdy) candidate!

A few years ago I would have told myself to get a life! Yep... but frankly, what's "a life"? And I'm actually willing to bet no one lives without a couple of his own addictions anyways... Even monks... you could argue they're addicted to prayer! (or meditation, depending on the religion ;)