Engineers and the city

Last post...here

2007-08-25T02:14:00.000+01:00

Everything that has a beginning has an end. This is true for this blog. It was started as an attempt to share experiences and thoughts with 3 other friends (hence the s in engineers). Unfortunately, it hasn't happened so I decided to start a more personal blog that I boldly called All about me...and other stuff. Yes, I know, it sounds like I have some ego issues I need to work on but truth be told I think it reflects the content of my posts: things happening in my not-so-interesting life and random thoughts about random topics.

Dinner with my flatmates

2007-08-15T23:45:00.001+01:00

This is the second week in a row that I get dinner with my flatmates. They all moved in about 5 months ago and because our schedules/lifestyles haven't allowed it we've never really spent time all together so it's really nice to have a chance to sit down and have some nice food and a few drinks together once in a while. Last week we made some galettes (a typical dish from Brittany/France) and today we had some fajitas. Next week we should get an Italian dinner. It's all good stuff.

Toronto / New York

2007-08-11T21:11:00.000+01:00

These are my next travel destinations. My girlfriend is starting university in Toronto early next month. She's in her family in Vancouver at the moment. I'll go and see her the second week of September and we'll spend the first weekend in New York. I'm exited! We booked a very nice hotel and we'll go and catch a show on Broadway while we're there, after some shopping on 5th Avenue that is :). The rest of the week I guess I'll go around Toronto and maybe we'll have a chance to stretch to the Niagara Falls before I fly back to London. I'm looking forward to the trip.

Investing

2007-08-11T20:49:00.000+01:00

Although I work for a company which provide financial services I have to admit my understanding of the laws of the financial world is rather limited.
Also, there is a lot of activity on the market places throughout the world these days. It follows the collapse of the sub-prime market in the US. And because we live in a global economy other countries are affected too. This is all quite fascinating really.
That's the reason why I went down to the book store on Friday to pick up a book on that topic. Ignoring all the books with "millionaire" or "rich" in the title I selected a book published by FT. It seems to be what I was looking for so far.

Catch-up post

2007-08-08T00:29:00.001+01:00

I haven't had the chance to post much in the last couple of weeks so here's a catch-up:

I was in France this weekend and enjoyed it. However it always takes me some time to adjust to speaking French again, and being in the house I grew up in, where there are a lot of memories (some painful). It feels like time-travel.
Some dude told me I speak French with a slight English accent. Arrrrrg, that really annoyed me!
I finished the book I was reading and my first impressions were confirmed. A very interesting read indeed.
I just realised that I've been working in software for over 5 years now. It's been great so far. I hope I'll be able to say the same in another 5 years.
I'm starting to plan my trip to Toronto to see my girlfriend next month. We're hoping we can spend a weekend in New York and maybe a day in the Niagara Falls. I'm exited!
I'm a bit uninspired at work at the moment. The bright side is that I have more time to do my own things.
I got an encyclopaedia of wine for my birthday so I've got some reading to do.

Time for bed now!

Cobertura for J2ME 1.1.0 RC2 released

2007-07-24T09:00:00.000+01:00

Last night I got a chance to get some work done on Cobertura for J2ME. And after a couple of months I managed to release 1.1.0 RC2. Give it a try!

Football Injury

2007-07-19T21:26:00.000+01:00

Last Tuesday evening I went down to Regents Park with a few of my colleagues for a footie. We try to do that every week. I had to skip the last 2 weeks because I was too busy with work but not this week. 10 minutes into the game I felt a sudden pain in my left calf, as if I was hit by something. That unfortunately marked the end of the game for me. The trip back home was quite difficult as I couldn't walk much. I hoped I'll feel better next morning but of course, it wasn't the case. So I went to get it checked and it turned out I pulled a muscle and slightly torn it. So now I have to work at home the rest of the week and take it easy for a couple of weeks. On the bright side, I get to work lying down all day long on my sofa. It's actually good to be away from the office once in a while.

Managing Humans

2007-07-10T23:55:00.000+01:00

I'm currently reading a book written by a software engineer turned manager about his experience as a manager. It is an interesting read. I am just starting but the style of writing is enjoyable: humurous and witty. Besides, I can definitely relate to what he writes, having worked as a software engineer for a few years now. Check out the slide show introducing the book, it's quite funny.

New Seven Wonders of the World

2007-07-08T14:58:00.000+01:00

The new seven wonders of the world have been voted over the internet and text messages by about 100 million people. Here's the list http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/6281540.stm

Team building event

2007-06-24T22:41:00.001+01:00

Following the end of the financial year, most of my team went for dinner at Meza, a classy bar restaurant in the heart of Soho on Friday evening. Although I really needed to sleep, I went along and it turned out to be quite nice. I liked the atmosphere and I had some very interesting conversations with some of my colleagues. After the dinner, we headed to Madame JoJo's, a club not far from the restaurant. I am ashamed to admit that I don't have a very clear memory of this place. The combination of alcohol and lack of sleep didn't suit me well. At some point I said stop and started making my way home. It proved to take a bit longer than expected. Somehow I managed to walk back to Waterloo and there hopped into my bus. The problem was that I completely fell asleep there and didn't wake up until the driver had finished his shift and wanted to go home. I ended up somewhere I didn't know in the middle of the night. Luckily, a cab happened to pass by just at that time. So I finally got home and headed straight for my bed.

Welcome to the new generation

2007-06-24T22:08:00.000+01:00

I am admittedly a big cinephile. I own an extensive film collection on DVD. Ever since I acquired an HD-ready TV I've been lurking on the new HD formats. Well, yesterday I stepped into the new generation. I treated myself with one of these sweet Playstation3s. Besides being able to play games, the PS3 also plays blue-ray discs. And it does a very good job at it. I watched Casino Royale and I have to say the picture is gorgeous. The colours are remarkable. It makes for a much more pleasant experience. And while I'm not watching films, I can play games. I wonder if I'll find time to sleep now.

Sleepless in London

2007-06-22T08:51:00.000+01:00

As of recently it seems that sleepless nights have become a bit of a bad habit of mine. It's not that I have difficulties sleeping but more than 24 hours are sometimes not enough in a day. Yesterday, I worked quite late so I got home around 22:30. I had a few house keeping things to take care of. After that I decided to spend some time on the open source project I'm developing: http://www.cobertura4j2me.org. When reached the 1am barrier I knew that I either had to go to bed right now or I would stay up all night. I chose the latter. So I guess today I won't be as sharp as usual at work. The problem is that I'm supposed to go out tonight! That should be inter....zzzzzzzzzzz!

OpenID

2007-06-21T14:11:00.000+01:00

It's something I've been talking about for a long time. But at last there's a good initiative towards universal user-centric identity space; Meet OpenID:

"OpenID is an open, decentralized, free framework for user-centric digital identity."

Basically, OpenID is a foundation which provides a set of specifications (not technology) for providing a unique way to identify people by a URL. I think not being vendor-specific or own by any single one company is definitely the right way to go. Also it seems to be gathering quite of lot of interest and a few open-source projects such as the Heraldy project are providing the technologies to implement this specification. I guess the main factor to the success of this initiative will be the adoption of key players in the web area.

End of financial year

2007-06-19T23:17:00.000+01:00

Our financial year closed on 31th May. It's been a quite successful year and I have enjoyed being part of it. End of financial year also means appraisal, bonus and salary raise. I always find this period a bit strange. I welcome it with mix feelings. On the one hand, you get a chance to seat down with your manager and analyse the work you've accomplished throughout year. It's good to know what others think. On the other hand, it seems to be all about money. I mean I'm happy to get a good bonus or salary raise but it's all very material. People make a big deal out of it and I can't help but feel it isn't. That said now I have to decide what new toys I'm going to get ;)

Recruiting

2007-06-19T01:47:00.000+01:00

I've been recruiting for the last few weeks. It proved to be a very interesting for me, very interesting indeed. However it also proved to be quite frustrating. Mainly because dealing with agents is always a pain in the **s. I spent a lot of time with them on the phone. But thankfully all this is over - for a while at least - because we made an offer to a candidate and today - err yesterday - he accepted. He came across very well during the interviews and seems like a bright person. Good stuff!

Slacking

2007-06-17T15:24:00.000+01:00

I've been a bit of a slacker recently on this blog. I guess my girlfriend being in London for a few weeks has something to do with it :). So here's what I've been up to since my last post:

1. As I mentioned my girlfriend is in town so we spent a lot of time together. That's really nice to have her around.

2. Working, working, working, ...

3. Last night Connie and I hosted a party at my place. It was funny because we ended up being almost entirely old flatmates (either Connie's or mine). We were expecting a bit more people but of course there are always the last minute cancellations. It was good: chatted a lot, drunk too much, neighbour complained about the noise and went to bed late. In other words a good party.

4. Last weekend I went to Budapest for a friend's stag do. One of us was a native from Budapest so we had a place to stay and a guide to show us around. The trip didn't start well as the flight was delayed by 5 hours. But it wasn't so bad because we just had a few beers and started playing hacky sack in the terminal. We finally made it and got a bit of sleep. The next day we went water skiing. That was a lot of fun even if very tiring. The evening we went to the restaurant and then partying in some open-air club. It was such great fun. We made the future groom ware a bright yellow "life guard" tee-shirt and carry an inflatable shark which turned out to be a huge success on the dance floor. We went back home in the very early hours of the morning to get a bit of sleep. Sunday we went around the city (very nice by the way) and finished with a couple of hours in the spa. Once again it was just great. The flight back to London was more of the same than the flight in. I finally touched base around 5.30 on Monday morning. That was a bit tough to work but well worth it.

Eclipse Europa Release

2007-06-05T08:37:00.002+01:00

For those of you who don't know eclipse, it's "an open source community whose projects are focused on building an open development platform comprised of extensible frameworks, tools and runtimes for building, deploying and managing software across the lifecycle". But it is best known for it's Java IDE.
My first experience with eclipse was at university as a Java IDE. Then I had the chance to work during a coop-term on IBM Websphere Studio Device Developer. This is where I developed my first plug-in for eclipse.
A few years and plug-ins later I still like eclipe as a Java IDE but I am mostly impressed with it's ecosystem. This month will be the stage of one of the biggest release the open-source community has ever witnessed : the simultaneous release of 21 eclipse projects (including the platform itself). Very exiting!!

BP Summer Big Sreens

2007-05-30T23:47:00.000+01:00

The Royal Opera House is hosting a series of operas and ballet shown on big screens all over the UK during the summer. The first one, Swan Lake, is tomorrow in Trafalgar Square and Canada Square. I have to admit I am a novice when it comes to ballets or operas. I've actually never been to one. But these events sound very interesting. And best of all it's FREE!

Dead Poets Society

2007-05-29T23:51:00.000+01:00

The other day I was browsing the DVD section at HVM and stumbled across the Dead Poets Society. I hadn't seen that movie for a very long time. I watched it yesterday and it reminded me how excellent it is. A sort of classic. I love the atmosphere and the truthfulness of the different feelings transpiring throughout the film. It is very well directed and the performances by the young actors are inspiring. If you haven't seen it before I highly recommend that you do so, and even if you have it is still a great movie to watch again and again...

Sweet

2007-05-29T23:13:00.000+01:00

I few months ago I went a bit - read a lot - off-budget on a dazzling Sony media centre and then an even more dazzling new TV. Today I finally managed to hook up our Sky box to it and now we can record sky programs. Sweet! Not that it was very difficult to do but I wasn't sure how, until a colleague of mine mentioned it. So I decided to give it a try and voilà! It's all working fine.

Cobertur for J2ME 1.1.0 RC1 Released

2007-05-17T02:27:00.000+01:00

It took me a long while but at last I managed to release the first Cobertura for J2ME 1.1.0 release candidate. This version is easier to use than the previous one and provides a few new features. It also includes a Sample application which hopefully will provide a good starting point for new comers.

A free vector graphics editor: inkspace

2007-05-15T01:36:00.000+01:00

On a lighter note than my previous post, I've started playing with an open-source vector graphics editor called inscape. I don't have much experience with such tools but I have to say I'm quite impressed with the quality of the interface it offers. I was drawn into this tool when I was looking into designing some nice icon. It seems that most professional icon designers use vector graphics as their master and then generate the fixed-size icon from it. Now I just need to find the hidden artist in me and design some shiny icon.

Thinking about the future

2007-05-15T00:40:00.000+01:00

My girlfriend made the courageous decision to quit her job and go back to school in September. Recently she mentioned her need to prepare herself mentally for her new endeavour and what's coming after that. It makes me realise how little time I take to seriously think about the future. I could blame it on my job or London's busy life but in truth I think I'm just avoiding it. You see, a few years back I wasn't so happy with my life. It went on for some time, until a point where I made up my mind to simply be happy. I know it sounds kind of strange but basically what it meant was to try to ignore the things that could make me unhappy. And in that respect it worked quite well. To this day I still try not to think too much about certain topics and just get on with my life. Now I'm starting to realise it is just another form of "fuite en avant" (sorry, I cannot find a suitable expression in English). With this philosophy I could wake up several years from now wondering where I am and how I got there. I suppose it is important to take enough time to know what you want to do with your life, even if it means dealing with issues you let dry in the hope they will go away.

Crackberry

2007-05-15T00:14:00.000+01:00

For the non-initiated, crackberry is the nickname for Blackberry devices. It was coined because these little devices are very addictive. At work we're about to go live on our BlackBerry support. We're just fixing the last bugs and as of Friday we, at last, will support some blackberry devices, namely the 8100, 8707 and 8800. It's been a long and chaotic road to reach this point. I'll spare you all the technical details. The important thing here is that it will be a big win for us. I'm quite exited and hope that everything will go smoothly. I just need a few more efforts and bob's you uncle!

Busy, busy, busy

2007-05-10T08:56:00.000+01:00

Lately I've been swamped with work so I haven't had time to blog much. Among other things, I'm working on a "Google Suggest"-like feature for one of our web site. It should be quite cool once completed. To achieve this I'm using Lucene, an information-retrieval library in Java. It's a great library: simple API, yet very powerful. I've developed the core of the feature. Now I need to complete the integration to our middleware and get some nice front-end for it.

My first job interview...

2007-04-24T22:51:00.000+01:00

Today was my first job interview on the other side of the desk. I've had my fair share of job interviews as a candidate but it is a rather different experience to be the interviewer. It is a bit difficult to gauge a person in a few minutes but I guess you get better with experience.

The end of a long week

2007-04-20T23:12:00.000+01:00

Well, it's been quite a long week. I worked quite hard and didn't get much sleep. My usual self my girlfriend would tell you. And she would be right. I'm not very reasonable sometimes.
I don't have much plan for the weekend and that's good. I just want to relax and I need to take care of a few things, maybe catch a movie or work on my Java Developer certification assignment, and yeah...get some sleep!

Another toy

2007-04-20T01:02:00.000+01:00

I just ordered this new gadget:
It's got a 1,000 DPI optical tracker, four-way touch-sensitive scroll, a bundled recharge cradle with wireless transmitter. But most importantly, it's very very sexy!

Back in London

2007-04-11T06:04:00.000+01:00

It is such a strange feeling to be back in London, and more so back to work. Yesterday I had a big headache at the end of the day because of looking at my screen for 9 hours. I suppose a few more days and things will fall back into place the way they were before I left. Also, all my flatmates moved out just around the same time I left for Asia so I came back to a flat full of strangers, nice people but strangers nevertheless. All these things make me feel a bit lost, like being in vaguely familiar places. I suppose it's normal after being away for a month in a very different part of the world.

Champagne

2007-04-11T05:56:00.000+01:00

Yesterday we received some champagne at work. This has become a kind of tradition in my company when we get very good results. And yesterday our share price reached the level which makes us a billion pound company. Cool stuff. Now I need to find some excuse to crack open my bottles...

Last stop: Hong Kong

2007-04-03T15:22:00.000+01:00

We just arrived in Hong Kong, 13 hours after leaving Shanghai. It could have been worse, had we taken the train all the way for an uninspiring 24-hour ride. Although more expensive, we decided to fly to Guangzhou first (only 1h30) and then take the train to Hong Kong (2 hours). Anyhow, we made it there, only to be welcomed with a storm just breaking out over our sorry heads while walking to Connie's grandparents'. Not the best start but it still seems like a very exiting city.
In 5 days, I'll be flying back home with mixed feelings. On the one hand it's been a great experience and we both had a great time in Japan and China. Plus, Connie will be staying here so I won't see her for about 2 month. Thus making me feel a bit sad to get back to my London life. On the other hand, it's been a bit challenging to be China. Things can be very chaoting around there. Besides, it is a bit tiring to be different and your every moves watched by the local people. Also, London seems so peaceful compare to Beijing or Shanghai. Even Oxford Circus is nothing compare to what we've seen. So in that sense, I'm quite cheerful about getting back to my daily routines. But first, I'll enjoy the end of our trip a bit more in HK.

Few pics from Beijing

2007-03-27T15:55:00.000+01:00

Tian'amen Square

Wangfujing commercial street

The forbidden City

The forbidden city 2

The temple of Heaven

Hiking on the Great Wall of China

2007-03-27T15:19:00.000+01:00

On Sunday we joined a tour for a 10K walk on the Great Wall. After an unending bus ride we finally got to this amazing but most paranoid human undertaking that is the 6500 Km long Great Wall of China. It's construction - in the span of 2 centuries - claimed nearly 200 000 lives.

The day before yesterday it was very foggy and a bit raining. We've been told it has been like this for a week so you can imagine our delight at watching the sun shining on a blue sky this Sunday morning. The walk started in Jingshanling, a not too touristique portion of the Wall. If not for the dozen of local people chasing after us to try to sell all sorts of things the altmosphere would have been very peaceful. The view was simply breathtaking.

Some parts of the walk were a bit difficult as it was very steep. Plus, the Simatai area of the Wall hasn't been restorated yet. It then made the walk a bit physical but very much enjoyable. Check out the photos below:

Meeting an old friend

2007-03-24T02:03:00.000Z

I graduated university almost 4 years ago and since then people in my year have all spread around the world. Of course, many are still in France, but others - myself included - have settled abroad. Last night we had dinner with one of them. He now has been living in Beijing for more than a year. It was quite strange to meet him after so much time, not to mention on this side of the world. It didn't stop us having a good time though. We went to the restaurant and had a roast duck. The restaurant was really nice, the duck as well. I would have liked to go for a drink after but Connie and I both felt quite tired so we said goodbye and went back to our hostel for a quiter night than the previous one.

En route to China

2007-03-23T10:12:00.000Z

We arrived this morning in Beijing nearly 36 hours after leaving Kyoto. Quite a mad journey. Let me tell you: we left Kyoto around 8pm on Wednesday on a night train to Shimonoseki. At first I was a bit worried that the night will be a bit tough on the train but I was pleasantly surprised to see the quality of the reclining seats in Japan. All electric with plenty of room leg. The only issue was that we arrived at 4.30 in the morning but our ferry was only leaving at 13.00. Plus, there was no heating in the station. We frose our .... off for 3 hours before getting some breakfast and embarking on our ferry to China.
The ferry was not great to say the least. I think it's quite an old boat that would need serious refurbishment inside. But nevertheless we manage to have a nice time there, mostly sleeping.
After about 28 hours on the boat we finally arrived in China, in Qingdao. The first impression of China is that it's quite dirty and very messy. No comparison with Japan. The funny thing there is that people were staring at me a lot. I guess not many foreigner come around this place. I read in my guide book that Chinese people are very curious and that's why they stare a lot. It was quite strange at first but then it made me laugh.
The last bit of the trip was really the worst. We took a night train from Qingdao to Beijing. The problem was that they had no beds left so we had get simple seats, not even reclining. Boy, that was really a nightmare. There was no space to get confortable and way too many people. It really made me think of a train to carry cows rather than people. And this for close to 10 hours.

But we're there now and decided to have fun!

On the challenges of traveling together

2007-03-19T09:46:00.000Z

Connie and I have been together almost one and a half year now. Before she left London, we used to spend a lot of time together. However, we never stayed more than a few days constantly together like we do now. So, of course, it can be a bit challenging at times:
I have to admit, I didn't plan many thing for this trip, leaving a lot to Connie. I thought that since she already knows the area she was better suited for it. A lame excuse, I know. The truth is this trip doesn't mean the same to her than it does to me.
On the one hand, my knowledge of Asia before I met Connie was slim to none. Now, I'm learning...slowly. Besides, my idea of this trip was that it would be quite relaxing. So, when Connie ask me what to see next, it usually goes something like:

- Connie: "What do you want to do now?"
- Ludovic: "Euh...not sure. Where are we by the way?"
- Connie (fuming): "We're at the Ginkaku temple."
- Ludovic: "Oh yeah...what's there to see?"

-> Connie kicking Ludovic

On the other hand, Connie can relate to most of the places we go to. She lived in Japan for a few months. So, sometimes she gets frustrated at my lack of decision-making and my ignorance of the places we visit. As for me, I get sometimes frustrated at my inability to get as exited as her at what we see.
But hey, I guess traveling is as much about discovering new places as it is about learning about yourself and the person you travel with.

A few picts from Tokyo

2007-03-17T14:35:00.000Z

Yokohama

Tokyo at night

Shinjuku

Me and my new friends

A temple near by our hostel

Shibuya at night

A night at the temple

2007-03-17T14:06:00.000Z

Even before arriving at Takayama I was already quite surprised. Although I knew it was up in the mountains I somehow thought the weather will be nice and worm. Silly me! There was still some snow and it was really cold. Once out of the station, we went directly to the tourist information center - only 10 meters away - to find out about accomodation. We picked one among the cheapest. It was an old temple now inhabited by a family. We thought: cool, it's a good experience of traditional Japan. And at first we weren't disappointed. The temple was really rustique, a very surreal atmosphere. However, we soon realised that it was really - and I mean REALLY - cold inside. And it got worse when we tried to take a shower: the bathroom had no heating and no hot water either. Our only option was then to go to bed with our cloth on to keep us warm. So I guess the lesson here is don't stay in temples during the winter!
On a brighter note, Takayama is a very nice city with a lot of character, some beautiful old streets and a few old-style house that you can visite. Plus, the journey in the mountains is worthwile.

Goodbye Tokyo, Hello Takayama

2007-03-15T09:32:00.000Z

Peering through the window of our train at Mont Fuji, we are heading towards our next destination: Takayama. There, we will stay only for one day before heading further west to Kyoto.
After wandering around the streets of Tokyo for almost five days it is with a bit of sadness that I say goodbye to the city. I really enjoyed the atmosphere of the place: the energy of Shibuya, the activity of Shinjuku, the peacefulness of smaller quarters such as Higashi-Mitsubara - Connie lived there for a few month -. Moreover, I really appreciated how clean everything was. It actually is very impressive. I think it gives a good insight into the Japanese mindset. Everything they do is executed as close to perfection as it can be. It is very interesting to witness.
Now with Takayama and Kyoto next on our travel agenda, we will have a closer look at the traditional Japan.

PS: I unfortunately have not found a place to upload our pictues yet.

Lost in Translation

2007-03-14T16:03:00.000Z

New York bar, Park Hyatt hotel, Tokyo. Connie and I are sipping a fine coctail while listening to live jazz music. This is hardly the lifestyle we were expecting when we embarqued on our backpacking voyage around East Asia. This morning we woke up in our small hostel room in Kuramae - north east of Tokyo -.　Needless to say it had nothing in common with the 5 star hotel we are seating in as I write these few lines down my notebook.

Connie and I really like the movie Lost in Translation so we decided to go and see the hotel that served as the primary location for the shooting: the Park Hyatt hotel - in the Shinjuku area -. After searching for it for a few minutes we located the hotel and decided to have a drink in the bar featured in the movie. At first, we both felt a bit out of place - in our backpacking cloth - in this environment but after a few sips of my New York and Connie`s Cotton Club we eased in our seats and started to enjoy the live music...

Drunk Man Game

2007-03-09T14:41:00.000Z

I came across this game again today: http://www.wagenschenke.ch/site/index.htm. My best score is 94 :)

Less than 3 days to go

2007-03-07T22:36:00.000Z

The last few days have been quite strange. I am not exactly sure why but I haven't been in a great mood lately. I know I should feel very exited about my coming trip, and in a sense I am. However, when I go home in the evening after my day of work I don't feel so good. All I want is close my eyes for a second and when I reopen them it's Saturday morning and I'm on the plane flying away from London. I like London, I really do but sometimes you really need to get some fresh air some place else. Plus, I miss having my girlfriend around. I didn't realise how important all our small talks were to me. It is important to have someone you can share all the insignificant details of you life with. I guess that's what makes me a bit sad.
To pass the time, I watch a lot Scrubs (see picture). It's really a cool series. It makes me laugh a lot. But now I can feel that the wait is almost over. Two more nights after this one and I'm out of here. YES!

Almost there

2007-02-27T00:22:00.000Z

In less than 2 weeks I will be heading to Tokyo for an amazing trip across East-Asia. It now feels so close. My girlfriend and I started talking about such a trip probably over a year ago. Now that it is almost upon us I am very exiting. I don't know about you but over the years I've had so many projects and ideas that crossed my mind but which never really materialised that it already feels like we accomplished something. And I need to give a lot of credits to my girlfriend because she did a lot of research to plan this trip.

Now let's the fun begin...well, very soon :)

The Gang of Four

2007-02-22T23:31:00.000Z

The Gang of Four was originally coined after a group of Communist Party of China leaders. More recently it was the name given to 4 people involved with writing a book on Software Design Patterns which became a sort of classic in software design. But to me it makes me think of three of my friends and I. We met a few years back while working in the same place and got on very well straight away. Nowadays we all have moved on but always manage to get together fairly regularly. I just went out for dinner with them tonight and as usual it was nice to catch up a bit.

Javascript

2007-02-20T22:32:00.000Z

These days I am working on a javascript library and I'd like to share my pain. Javascript is pretty powerful - just look at all the ajax sites such as netvibes - and the barrier to entry is fairly low but boy it's a pain to develop. And when I mean develop, I mean get something to a production-ready state and maintain. This scripting language - that by the way has nothing to do with Java - is so flexible that your code always behaves in ways you wouldn't expect. To be honest, I definitely prefer strongly-typed languages. It may seem a bit more overwhelming at first but it is much easier in the long run.

Rubin "Hurricane" Carter

2007-02-20T01:18:00.000Z

Tonight I decided to watch again Hurricane Carter. Although I quite like the movie, I'm not going to discuss it here. What I found very interesting was that when I checked online about this guy's "real" story I found out is that it's not as clear cut as what the movie depicts. Not very surprising I hear you say, it's Hollywood. I know but I was quite surprised to see that some people truly believe he's guilty: see here and here.
It always amazes me to see how many different interpretations can be given to a set of events. To some, he is somebody who never really achieved anything and has been lying all along about the events that took place in the 1966 murders. To others (as depicted in the movie), he is an innocent man who was never offered a fair trial. Well, in any case this is not very good for the justice system as it either released a triple murderer or convicted an innocent man.

Match Point

2007-02-16T00:11:00.001Z

This is not really the kind of movie I usually watch. I'm not sure why but most of the stories about people having an affair or the likes don't interest me so much. Nevertheless I decided to give this one a try. To be honest, I didn't really know the story when I bought it :p. Upon starting the movie I was pleasantly surprised to find out that it was directed by Woody Allen. The bulk of the story evolves around the somewhat overlooked importance of luck in one's life. I quite agree with that statement. I too think chance plays a big part in life, at least in mine. Although the main plot - lust that is - has been explored over and over, the casting gives it quite a fresh look. And the last part of the movie is very interesting. I found myself very tense. Don't worry, I won't spoil the surprise. I recommend you see it for yourself.
And while we're at it, I also suggest once in a while you pick a movie whose story you don't know. Who knows, you could be lucky!

Manage your bookmarks

2007-02-15T17:02:00.000Z

If, like me, you are using firefox on more than one machine you might want to check out foxmarks. They provide an add-on for synchronizing your bookmarks with a server. You need to install to add-on (on all machines), create an account and upload your bookmarks to the server and you're good to go. I've been using it for a few days and found it very useful.

Rocky Balboa

2007-02-13T00:46:00.000Z

I just finished watching Rocky Balboa and to be honest it's not as bad as I anticipated. Mind you, it's not the film of the year either. For starter, there's only one fight (the final sequence). That's quite a relief because I didn't fancy looking at Stallone on a ring for 2 hours - no offence but he's a bit too old for that now. Then, the story is more focused on the characters than the boxing (a bit more depth in the story doesn't hurt). However, it has a kind of hard-to-beleive feeling to it. I can't really pin-point the exact reasons but it just sounds a bit off. The final fight is not bad though.
Not sure I'll recommend it but it wasn't so bad for a Monday evening movie.

Frustrating day

2007-02-13T00:32:00.000Z

Today has been quite frustrating at work. We're working on an update of our application servers and trying to get our apps running on the new version. We've already spent a considerable amount of time on it but there's one remaining issue that we can't seem able to tackle. I spent the entire day on this issue and haven't made any progress whatsoever. Very frustrating indeed.
But hey, that's life! So I just went home and watched a movie - as usual my girlfirend would tell you :p -.

PS:for the record, that's not me on the picture

Life without her

2007-02-09T00:39:00.000Z

Well, it's been almost a week since my girlfriend left the country and I can now fully appreciate the importance she has in my life. Not that I didn't know it before but it just highlights what our relationship means to me. I can talk on the phone with her a lot but it's not the same as holding her hand or lying back next to her. And waking up next to her in the morning is a great pleasure of mine. Another one is laughing with her, which I'm happy to say happens a lot.
My way of dealing with her absence it to keep myself busy with work or watching 24 (a really cool series by the way) so I don't think about it. But I agree that's not very good. I guess I need time to adapt to the situation and maybe things will be a little easier. I know it's quite difficult for her too. I'm now really looking forward to travelling next month so I can be with her.

New flatmates

2007-02-09T00:28:00.000Z

Yesterday my flatmates announced me that they are all leaving the flat I'm sharing with them. One of them is moving with her boyfriend while the others bought a place not too far from here. Tonight we had people coming to visit the place and we already picked somebody to replace the girl leaving. It's just amazingly fast. I guess the flat is quite nice and the location is good too but we got something like 15 or 20 calls and the ad was only put a few hours ago. That is quite remarkable. And to make the matter a little bit more interesting I'll be away when the new flatmates will move in. It's going to be quite interesting to come back to London after 4 weeks in Asia to a house full of strangers. The beauty of London I guess.

Blogging in the night

2007-02-02T00:36:00.000Z

It's quite funny that I always add posts to my blog late at night. One reason could be that I'm always quite busy during the day at work so I get only free time in the evening. But even during the week-end I don't blog much during the day. It could also be that the evening, just before going to bed is naturally a time for reflection. It is for me at least. I guess it's a period when you can take the time to think...hmm... (<- this is me thinking :)

Changes at work

2007-02-01T23:59:00.000Z

Up to now I've been kind of a one-man team working on mobile-related technologies with also some server-side involvements. It is not to say that I've been working alone. I need to interact a lot with people. It has been quite nice to be honest, a real feeling of ownership of my work. Plus, I always had a chance to work on my own stuff. I guess from a management viewpoint it could look like a loss of productivity but in effect the things I was doing for myself were always somehow related to my work. And besides, I believe that looking at what is happening in the industry helps me being a well-rounded engineer. I am lucky enough to have a manager who recognizes that fact.
Now, because of business requirements the mobile-related projects are quite low priority. Other areas need more attentions so I'll be much more involved on the middleware front. This is quite exiting an opportunity for me to learn technologies I am not too familiar with. Furthermore, maybe from a career angle, it is also beneficial to complement my kills set with these new technologies. Anyways, changes are always welcome!

The end is near

2007-02-01T23:40:00.000Z

My girlfriend is about to leave the country and don't think I realize how different life is going to be without her around. You see, Connie and I live quite close to each other so we spend a lot of our free time together. Moreover, she has resigned from her job a few weeks ago so we got to spend almost all of our free time - mine at least - together. But this is all going to stop on Saturday when flies to Hong Kong. I'm very happy for her to have a chance to change her life and career but the first few weeks are going to be quite difficult I'm afraid. The bright side (there's always one, no?) is that I will be traveling to Asia with her next month. So we'll be apart for about a month, then together for another month. After that, who knows. We'll try and figure out something. Let's be positive :)

My TV rocks!

2007-01-25T14:04:00.000Z

I received my TV on Tuesday and all I have to say is WOW! 40'' is really massive and the image quality is impressive, although I don't have much HD material to really judge. The other cool thing is that I set up my mediacenter PC to output full HD to the TV so I can browse the internet on big screen from my sofa. Now that rates very high on my coolometer! And since I work at home from time to time it's going to be really useful: half the screen for working, half for...euh...well, you get the idea :).

The Role of Models in Software Development

2007-01-16T22:08:00.000Z

It makes for an interesting reading: Programming with Models - Modeling with Code. I can relate to this article as I tend to design software by defining the rough interfaces of the main components and refine them as I go along. I know it's not the way we are taught at school but I find this approach very natural. Mind you, I usually work on small-to-medium size designs so I can't tell whether it is adequate to large scale projects. With nowadays IDEs, refactoring is not as costly as it used to be, therefore it is fairly easy to change your mind in the course of the project without adding too much overhead. The design grows organically over time and I am often surprised with the end result because I didn't envisioned the system that way. Anyways, what I'm trying to say here is that this design style really suits my personality. But, I'm in no way implying that it's the best approach.

Awaiting stock

2007-01-16T21:50:00.000Z

That's my new TV, cool eh! Except that I received an email today saying that they're awaiting stock :(. I ordered it last weekend and it already takes 7 days to get delivered so that's not good news. I can't wait! I wasn't planning on getting a TV anytime soon but I bought a media center 2 weeks ago believing I'll have no problem plugging it to the CRT TV in my flat. Foolish me! So I had either the option to not use my media center or buy a TV. I made the latter decision :). Now I just need to be more patient...

I hate Swing

2007-01-15T01:56:00.000Z

As I mentioned in my previous post. I am working on a certification assignment (Sun Java 2 Developer Certification). I am required to develop a - same old - client/server software stack providing a customer service infrastructure to some broker firm. The idea is to test you on your ability to design software and follow requirements. It's nothing very exiting in itself but I get a change to use RMI which I am not too familiar with and the oh so great Swing API. You see, I'm more of a SWT guy - mostly because I use Eclipse RCP when I need to develop an application -, but boy this API is so bloated. I know it's powerful and all but it's a pain to use. You have to create so many objects. And not to mention the ugly look. Maybe I'll feel better after using it more. At least I hope. Otherwise, I think my assignment is going well. There is still a lot of work to be done but it's coming along nicely. I'm also trying to write the report as I implement so I have everything in memory. My plan is to be done by end of next month so I can travel in peace.

First post of the year

2007-01-15T01:28:00.000Z

I've been a bit quiet since the beginning the year. A lot of things are happening at the moment: my girlfriend is about to leave the country :) so I helped her moving out of her flat, I have a lot of work - as usual -, I started to work on a certification exam - an assignment - which takes me quite a lot of time, I'm still planning my trip to Asia, I've been spending way too much money on some hi-fi equipment (here and here), I'm still waiting on my LCD TV but it should arrive soon...woohoo :), I've also been out quite a lot in the last few days meeting up with some friends, and it's almost 2am and I still can't sleep. It's funny that my new year's resolution - I can hear you laugh - was to sleep more and eat better...well, not very successful so far but I still have hopes.

Christmas shopping

2006-12-17T18:02:00.000Z

Yesterday I was out shopping for Christmas, specifically for my nephew. He's 2 years old. I thought I'll buy him some cloth - I guess it's more a gift for the parents than for him -. Connie and I went to Regent Street to get some cloth from Petit Bateau and Gap Kids. We bought some cute stuff :). But on the way we stopped by Hamleys. Man, that shop is just insane. There are so many people! We ended up in the Lego section and we came out with a nice Lego Mindstorm NXT kit. But no this is not for my nephew but for a much older kid...me :) It's actually really cool. I already started to build a robot, well a car but one that can go around and avoid obstacles. It's probably not the most original choice but I thought it would be a good one to start with. I'll post some picts when I'm done.

Skype conference

2006-12-12T22:56:00.000Z

Last Monday I went to this month Mobile Monday conference. After Google, it was this time hosted by Skype. The theme was mobile social networking. It's a topic that interests me at the moment. A few of the speakers drew comparisons between the web and the mobile world. A few claims were maid that online communities should really suit the mobile world but that it is mainly due to the data charges that it doesn't really take off. There was a guy from 3Uk talking about SeeMe TV, an online video sharing service. The difference there is that once you publish a video you get paid every time somebody watches your clip. That also means that it will cost you money (10p) to watch a video. Probably not my type of community but I can see why people can be interested. There also was a demo by the people from Pitch, an ad-funded mobile networking service. Looks quite interested but again not so much my type of thing. And the last and most interesting demo was from SoonR (I'll talk about it in my next entry so watch this space).
It was an interesting evening, not to mention a good opportunity to meet up with the boys - and girl - from my previous company.

Travel to Asia - follow up

2006-12-12T22:49:00.000Z

Well, things haven't changed much since my last post. I'm still waiting on a final confirmation from my company that I can take the 4 weeks I need off and then I'll buy my tickets. I've already started to buy the necessary equipment though. Still need to get a large bag pack and some good walking shoes and I'll be good to go. Feeling quite exited

Java 6 is out!

2006-12-12T22:44:00.000Z

It's not going to make the world a better place but developing software in Java myself it's a welcome news!

http://java.sun.com/javase/6/features.jsp

Dzień dobry

2006-12-06T21:08:00.000Z

Last weekend Connie and I went to Poland; Warsaw and Krakow to be more specific. To be honest, Poland has never been at the top of my travel list but we were invited by Connie's flatmate (Agnieszka) to her birthday party so we just took the opportunity and went. We flew Saturday morning to Warsaw. We spent the afternoon going round the old town. I found it to be an interesting place given that it was almost entirely destroyed during WWII. It is not a pretty city as such but I found it has some charm. And besides, we were accompanied by Mariusz, a very good friend of Agnieszka. He knows a lot about the city's history.
Later that day, it was time to celebrate Agnieszka's birthday. We went to a bar in the city center and after a few shot of the national drink - Vodka that is - we spent the evening dancing. I usually don't go out like this very often but once in a while it feels good...except the next morning. I had a very good time :)
Next day we went to the spa to relax. It was a really cool place. We tried sonas of different temperatures, steamed or not. One very strange thing was the ice room, you know the place where they usually stock dead meet. Well, the same but with still living meat :).
After this relaxing day, we took the train to Krakow. It feels somewhat a more modern city than Warsaw. The weather wasn't so great but I still enjoyed going around the city center.
At the end of the afternoon we started to make our way towards the airport to catch our flight back to London. We had a very good time there and met some nice people. I wouldn't mind going back there again.

Travel to Asia

2006-11-22T00:50:00.000Z

Our travel plans to Asia next year are getting clearer. We settled for March. I managed to get the month off from work. That was the first step. Now, we're looking into which places to go to. The plan as it stands is to start with about 10 days in Japan (Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka) - since I watched Lost in Translation I really want to go to Tokyo -. We would then take the boat to Shanghai and stay around the city a few days. Followed by some trekking on the Yellow Mountain. Beijing would be next on the list with about 5 days there - I happen to have a friend from university living in Beijing -. To conclude the journey we would then spend a week in Hong Kong so I can meet my girlfriend's family and see where she grew up. This is all very exiting and I can't wait to go. I think it will an amazing trip. My first in Asia!

Christmas is all around

2006-11-17T00:40:00.000Z

I can't believe Christmas is just around the corner. It makes me wonder what I've done with my time this year. Well, first I worked, and a lot - not sure that's a good thing: you see, I like my job most of the time but I find it quite demanding. That means I don't have much time for my own activities.
Otherwise I of course spent a lot of time with my girlfriend - no complains here :). We don't go out too much but we always try to go and see an expo or catch a movie.
We also traveled a bit: France - a few times -, Vancouver - meeting the in-laws -, Rome, Istanbul and in two weeks Poland. That will do for this year. Next will be China (more on that in a coming post).
I also met with my friends. Not as often as I would like but always nice.
I addition, it was my first year in London. So what do I think you might ask. Well, it's been great so far. I enjoy leaving and working here. Although from time to time I need to get out of the city, I'm quite happy to work in central London and leave quite close to it. It makes things very accessible.

All in all a pretty good year so far. Let's hope it will end the same way it started.

Google conference

2006-11-08T23:55:00.000Z

I'm regularly going to these mobile monday conferences all over London. The basic idea of this community is to bring together anybody interested in the mobile industry. From developers to CEO of mobile startups, to marketing manager there is a good mix of people. Each month, on the first Monday - hence the Monday in the name -, a conference is organised around a different theme / facet of the industry - hence the Mobile in the name (it all makes sense!). And it is hosted by a different company each time. I quite like the idea because it makes you meet a very eclectic crowd and allow you to visit all the big companies around London. This month it was at Google. Their UK headquarter is in Victoria. Besides getting a free t-shirt and some nice drinks & food, the conference was quite interesting. The theme was mobile trends. There were a few presentations on what people use their phone for and where business opportunities are. I also met with people from my previous job so we could catch up on things. A nice evening indeed.

What's happening at work

2006-11-08T23:41:00.000Z

Besides us getting a new fancy coffee machine that actually doesn't make good coffee, we finally released our new mobile dealing application last week. It is a complete UI redesign of the previous version. I've been working hard to get it out and although the release didn't go as smoothly as I hoped it's a good feeling to see our clients using it. We're also preping a marketing push to get more people to deal on their mobile phones so the coming months should be quite exiting, providing that my server does not blow up with the load. That's actually my next project. I've titled it : Project "server never dies...please!".

A great trip

2006-11-01T20:07:00.000Z

We are back from our trip to Istanbul. That was something. First we had to wake up very early on Friday morning to catch a bus, then a coach to Luton airport to get our flight at 6.15 am - budget airlines are cheat but usual flying times are just stupid. We got a bit of sleep during the 4-hour flight to some small airport near Istanbul. Once landed and our visas sorted - actually being French I didn't need one :) - we had to take another coach - not again! - to reach the city center. It was in fact quite pleasant as we got a nice view of the city on the way.

Right, so here we are we thought. Job done! Well, not quite as we could not find a taxi driver who would understand the address of the hotel. Never mind, we decided to give the hotel a call to get directions. They told us to get this elusive 4T bus that we never found. So we ended up asking for help in another near-by hotel. The very nice person at the reception desk helped us finding a bus going to the area our hotel was located. After probably another 2 hours we finally made it to the hotel. WOOHOO!

We went to bed early that day so we could get up early the next. We started the next day with a visit of the Sultanahmet and the Haya Sofia (see picture above). These mosques are very pretty. We then decided to make our way towards to new city center (Taksim area) but stopped for a very nice meal on the way. Istanbul is really a huge city (more than twenty million people). We visited the Galata Tower and then went to the less historic and more lively areas near Taksim. There's a massive shopping street that leads to Taksim square with also lots of nice restaurants in the adjacent streets. We had a nice dinner there before deciding to go back to the hotel (now we knew which bus to take :).

Our last full day in Istanbul arrived so quickly with still so much to see and do. We started with a rather short visit to the Grand Bazaar. A very interesting place I would say. I like the atmosphere of all these people packed on these little streets. We then took a boat trip on the Bosphorus. It was OK but not as great as we expected it to be. With a few hours ahead of us we made our way back to the hotel area when we saw the entrance to this nargile / coffee shop. We went inside and had a smoke and a tea there while chatting with the brothers owning the place. A very relaxing experience. We then tried the Turkish bath. At first I wasn't too exited about the idea of having a big half-naked guy washing me but my girlfriend convinced me to try so we went. It was quite nice actually, I felt very clean afterwards :)

That concluded quite well our trip to Istanbul. Well, almost because we still had to go back to the airport and head back home. That proved a bit more challenging than expected. We actually didn't take the right coach and ended up at the wrong airport :( After panicking a little bit we found somebody who spoke English to help us and arranged a taxi for us. After some crazy driving from our taxi driver - or pilot I should say - we finally arrived at the correct airport and even on time for our plane. Phew!!
Now we're back in London with our memories and wishes to go back to this great city.

Just a few thoughts on online communities...

2006-10-26T00:58:00.000+01:00

I am always amazed by the number or size of communities on the internet. Blogs are bursting to life at an unbelievable rate: I've read somewhere that a new blog is created every 2 seconds. Myspace.com with its millions of users is another fine example. This site allows you to create your own profile and share thoughts, photos, etc. I am personally using Linked-in to publish my professional profile, keep in touch with my old colleagues or find new opportunities.

It is interesting to notice this need for people to belong and to have an identity on the web. I was reading an article on Le Monde (in French only) about this phenomenon. The author was pointing out that a few decades ago people tended to stay close to the place they grew up in, thus living in their own community. However, nowadays it has become common for people to live in different cities and even different countries - just look at how many foreigners are living in London - that this close-range connection is lost. But the web is there to remove the physical boundaries and allow people to virtually connect and stay in touch with each other.

Given the cheer number if these online communities you can always find the right one for you but although one could ponder whether this new form of social interaction is really a progress, I am more concerned about the difficulty to keep up and the lack of centralized repository of information or lack of interoperability between these profiles. If your friend John is on myspace but your other friend Paul uses friendster then you need to create an account on both sites and maintain your profiles up-to-date. I guess - read hope - soon we'll see more cooperations between all these services.

In a next blog I will discuss a bit about web semantic as it could be solution to the problem I just mentioned.

Beautiful Istanbul

2006-10-21T14:26:00.000+01:00

So it seems, and I'm about to find out. My girlfriend and I are going to Istanbul next weekend. I'm very exited about it. We wanted to go for a long weekend somewhere. We first thought about Barcelona or maybe somewhere in Italy but I somehow felt that I wanted to see something a bit different. Mind you I love Italy and Barcelona seems to be a great city but it's all a bit too...how to say...not exotic enough. Being French I can easily relate to Italian or Spanish culture but not to Turkish. So we opted for Istanbul.

I'll post some pictures and a video (thanks to my new toy) there.

Cobertura 4 J2ME

2006-10-21T14:02:00.000+01:00

A while back in my previous job I worked on a code coverage tool for J2ME. I used an existing J2SE/J2EE code coverage tool called Cobertura that I modified to work on J2ME. After I left the company I decided to set up this project as open source. This is how Cobertura for J2ME started. It now enjoys a bit a popularity because it seems to be the only tool of its kind for Java 2 MicroEdition. It's always a nice feeling to see something you do being used by others. So I'm keeping busy with the coming 1.1 release. I'm hoping to have out by mid-Novermber. Watch this space for more on that...

Children of Men

2006-10-08T17:46:00.000+01:00

WOW, what a movie! It's one of the most gripping movie I've ever seen.

This is the story of Theo (Clive Owen), an ex-activist now bureaucrat who's fed up with his life. It's the year 2027 and the last baby born on earth was more than 18 years ago. The world has become a totalitarian, over-polluted place where people have no hopes of future, where refugees are treated like criminals. When Julian (Julianne Moore), Theo's ex-lover reappears in his life, a thread of events takes Theo on a journey to save Kee (Claire-Hope Ashitey), a refugee who also happen to be the first pregnant woman in almost 20 years. Some of the action scenes are anthology! Cuaron excels in putting you right in the middle of the scenes. You're on the edge of your seat for the most part of the movie. But where it gets very interesting is in the content that the movie deals with. It tries to explore a very plausible view of the future of our society and how we would react if women became infertile. It makes you wander about the world we leave in today and sends warnings of what it could become if we don't pay attention. It is also packed with some witty quotes and Owen gives a great performance. This is the perfect example that movies can be thought-provoking and yet entertaining.

It's one of the best movie I've seen in years. It gets a 10/10 on my filmographic scale!

My new toy

2006-10-05T01:28:00.000+01:00

A few weeks ago I bought myself an expensive new toy:

It is a very nice camcorder that lets you take very good quality video. Then all you need is a proper video editing tool and off you go. I'm also looking into putting all my videos into a dvd with nice menus and all. All I need is to find the time to do it!

I'm back....not quite!

2006-10-05T01:04:00.000+01:00

A few month ago I blogged about me being back at blogging more frequently. I even mentioned one entry a week. The result is ....suspense.... 2 entries in 4 months. I can see you say "WOW, that's a lot. Where does he find all this energy?!!!". Yes I know, not quite what I said. So this time no statement of that sort. I'll just try and add things more regurarly here. A little help from my fellow writers Aaron, Luci and Raffi wouldn't hurt ;). Am I the only engineer in the city?

The power of Ajax -> Netvibes

2006-06-01T21:53:00.000+01:00

I've been using netvibes as my homepage for a month now and it really rocks! It is highly customisable and allow you to create your own modules. Plus it has a very nice feed reader.

If you don't know it I suggest you go and check it out. You can use the link below to subscribe to this feed on netvibes.

Long time, no see

2006-05-28T13:26:00.000+01:00

A friend of mine from uni came to visite me this week. We both studied computer science at the same school. Last time I saw him was two and a half years ago when he came to visite me (again) for new year's eve with 4 other people from uni. It was good. We stayed at the twins place in Farnborough. Thanks again for that Ladies!

This time he came with his girlfriend. They arrived on Wednesday and visited central London Thursday and Friday while I was working :(. Saturday, the four of us - my girlfriend joined us too - went to Portobello market in the morning. Although the weather was quite bad, it was nice. I really like this area of London, very picturesque. Then, change of style with Camdem Town. It's always nice to go to Camdem. You know you'll meet original people. We spent an hour or two there browsing the shops. Then again another change of style with...Harrods. My friends wanted to go and have a look. While they were going around, Connie and I went to the 4th floor so she could play a bit piano.

Once all done with shopping we made our way to Tottenham Court Road where we were supposed to meet with Connie's friends for dinner in a Korean restaurant. It was good food and not too expensive. To complete the evening we went to Soho for a drink (see picture). All in all it was a very good day and I think my friends enjoyed their time here!

I'm back

2006-05-28T13:18:00.000+01:00

It's been ages since I - or anyone else for that matter - wrote anything here and it's too bad! But I decided to make more efforts and try and write an entry every week so watch this space...

My first Chinese New Year

2006-01-29T23:20:00.000Z

Being European, there's a lot of things I don't know and don't understand about Chinese culture. So when my girlfriend – born in Hong-Kong – ask me to join her and her friends for their New Year's celebration I was a bit anxious at first. To start with, it was the first time she introduced me to her friends (I think she was slightly worried that I wouldn't feel comfortable among Chinese people). Then, there was the food. I'm not usually too difficult when it comes to food but chicken feet does not sound very appealing to me. It's probably very good but I could not bring myself to trying – I guess I'm not that adventurous. Also, I wasn't too sure about how to behave. I had this idea that Chinese people are very respectful of traditions and thus they would get upset if I was doing or saying something inappropriate. Well, it either didn't happen or they didn't say anything.

Overall it was a very pleasant experience. Her friends seem to be interesting enough people. Nice too. And, event though I can't tell you what I ate, the food turned out to be quite good.

Being with a person of different origin can have its drawbacks, but it is very exiting to discover new horizons.

Christmas warm-up

2005-12-21T22:58:00.000Z

Date, December, 21, location, Richmond (the twins' place), agenda, christmas warm-up.

Pasta, beer, table football... (always a challenge when the table slopes downhill)... Or maybe that was just the players...

and it seems someone already got his very special Christmas present... Ludovic :)

who can't stop playing with his Sony Ericsson...

oh, football (they told me footble is not correct) table, ...NICE...

it's two years we met all the four in the same office... amazing how we still apart are together

Good friends, good food...a good way to end the year 2005!

Have a great christmas
John, Lucia, Connie, Aaron, $$Raffaella$$ and Ludovic

I know what you did last night

2005-11-10T05:57:00.000Z

Hum…it’s 5:57am and instead of sleeping I’m writing this. Why? You might wonder. Well, I’m about to tell you.

It all started last evening. I was invited for a dinner at some friends place. Their house is really close to my office so I went there directly from work. We ate tartiflette (man that was good!). At about 11:30 people went home. I ended up having a nice chat with two people. And that until 4am! How did we keep talking that long? I don’t know.
Anyways, I decided to go home. I thought I’ll take the night bus. 20 meters from the bus stop I saw the damn bus passing by. I waved at the driver. He either didn’t see me or chose to ignore me. Either way, I was stuck another half hour at this bus stop. So I decided to walk to the next bus stop. And before realizing it I was walking home…yes, walking! I know that sounds a bit stupid and it actually is quite silly but nevertheless I was on my way. It took me the most of 1½ hour but I made it.
At that point I thought about throwing myself directly into bed but decided against it. I looked around to find some food in the drawer. I made myself some eggs and toasts and of course coffee. Now, I’m watching TV and in about an hour I’ll be going to work. It’s going to be a very long day...

Moving on

2005-10-13T18:52:00.000+01:00

I arrived in this country 2 years ago. It is quite a long time but when I think about it, time just went by. Anyways, I thought it was time for a change. I was getting a bit tired of my current job and wanted to try something a bit different …and that’s just what I did! Starting next month, I am going to work for a financial company doing software development. This, actually, is quite a challenge as I join a business I’m not familiar with and with more responsibilities. But it is very exiting. I am really looking forward to showing what I am capable of.

Since I am going to work in London, I will also move away from this beautiful suburb I live in, and that’s the best part of it! I found a flat share in Canada Water. It’s really nice and just by the Thames. A very relaxing place...so it seems.

This is quite a strange feeling to change both job and home at the same time. To be honest, I cannot wait to be settled in my new routine because it is too much change at once.

Open Street Urban Party: Notting Hill Carnival 2005

2005-08-31T23:27:00.000+01:00

This was my first time to the Notting Hill carnival, and I have been a Londoner for 7 years now. Me, Kuniyo and Ludo drove to Westbourne Park and later met Cem, and Rina in front of the big ugly grey building visible from anywhere in Westbourne Park.
We started to drink Bacardi and Coke and later on stopped to eat carribean food like Jerk Chicken and bamboo. Westbourne park was densily packed with people, even in what was supposed to be one of the most "quite" areas around the real carneval's heart.
We first went to a park where various DJs were playing music on a stage. Next we walked to an extremely croweded area were all these funky-house-music street parties were. We pass through the first party at a junction off Kensel Rd, very much house music with a tall stage and a huge inflatable beer bottle floating around clubbers' heads. There were so many people that there were long queues in front of adjecient tens of public toiliets. After struggling in the crowd we managed to reach "event 11", at the edge of the carnival, and apparently the "coolest" funky street party. Now, I am not particularly enthusiatic about clubbing, but I must say that this experience has changed my mind. It was very cool to see those streets converging in a small square being all converted into one huge street party. The DJ was standing on a small stage at the center of the square and many hundreds of people looking at him while dancing like crazy. We all joined in because everybody was doining and it was very fun. What stroke me was the really good atmosphere. You could feel people sharing the common purpuse of having fun, despite being surrounded by strangers. Quite the opposite of the "tube feeling" were people are silent and ignore each other.

Shall we camp?

2005-08-31T09:18:00.000+01:00

Last weekend we decided to go camping. We left early Saturday morning and headed towards Oxford. The camping was situated right next to the White Horse Hill - some 30 miles outside Oxford. We got a bit lost on the way but eventually reached it. It was quite rudimentary - farm land - but exactly what we wanted.

Then came the moment to assemble the tent - a big 9 person tent :-) -. We, of course, didn't even think about looking at the explanations, no, not for us! So obviously we didn't assemble it correctly the first time, or the second. With all our brainpower combined - a lot of it, I'm telling you :-) - we finally managed to have our tent erected...VICTORY!

It was almost dinnertime, so we started to prepare the bbq. We had a proper bbq as well as a real fire, that was really cool. We ate some good food and drunk a bit - read a lot - around the fire, listening to the music. The evening went on just like that. Some of us went to bed while the others just stayed by the fire....

The next day, the weather was just gorgeous. We woke up quite early and went for a walk on this White Horse Hill. This was really nice, very relaxing. Unfortunately it was already time to pack. We dismantled the tent in no time - that's much easier that way - and packed everything in the car, it was about 2pm. We headed back to London and stopped for a couple of hours in Oxford. We ate and went to a park, enjoying the weather.

We were back in London early evening, quite tired but all happy, at least I think :-)

IPod-like j2me mp3 player

2005-08-08T13:19:00.000+01:00

I would love it if someone would create a j2me mp3 player with an IPod-like UI that can read music files from a memory card . All I would need is buying a new and capable java mobile with a large 1Gb SD card, and that's it: I've got my "IPod" inside my mobile. Of course, what is needed is someone with a passion for j2me, and willingness to develop flashy java apps...hum...that would be a silent statement like: my j2me app is as cool as an IPod...
I wonder if people reading this blog are listeinging...(eh, eh...).

The beginning of the end

2005-07-26T10:52:00.000+01:00

Yes, from today I am not considered a young person anymore. I'm turning 26. Ok, it's not that old but it's a corner stone of life.
I think it's a good time to seat down and look back at what my life has been so far:

I was born on the 26th of July 1979, a great day for humanity! Or so I believe :-)
Anyways, I was a quiet baby, always smiling - so I've been told. I grew up in the North of France in a small town. It was really nice because there was the forest and for a kid it's a great playground.

Then we moved to Brittany (North West). I was 11 years old. It was on the coast, really beautiful. As a teenager, I was still really calm. Well, shy would describe me better. Very lonesome to be honest. I went through adolescent like this. Nothing exiting happening. Overall not much to relate.

On the 23rd of March 2002, my life took an unexpected turn. It was a big slap in the face. The kind that makes you reconsider a lot of things.

Since then I've been trying enjoy my life. Not sure I've been successful. Today, I have good friends, a nice family, a job that is ok most of the time. I'm in good health. So I guess you cannot ask for much more than that.

I don't know what tomorrow will bring but I can at least say that: so far, so good!

Picts from Sicily

2005-07-21T12:28:00.000+01:00

I thought I'll share some pictures from my recent trip to Sicily

First, the gang or I should say "The Family":

From left to right and top to bottom: Idris, Cem, Roger, Tiziano, Giovany, Aaron and myself.

Then, the view from our terrace:

Great to weak up with this kind of view.

This one's taken on top (or nearly) of the Etna:

This is one of my favorites

Happy Bastille Day

2005-07-14T10:26:00.000+01:00

Today is the French national holiday so I thought I'll give some info about it:

Bastille Day commemorates the storming of the Bastille, which took place on 14 July 1789 and marked the beginning of the French Revolution. The Bastille was a prison and a symbol of the absolute and arbitrary power of Louis the 16th's Ancient Regime. By capturing this symbol, the people signaled that the king's power was no longer absolute: power should be based on the Nation and be limited by a separation of powers.

08/07/2005: The Day After

2005-07-13T13:24:00.000+01:00

Many lines have been written by Londoners and not about the 7th of July events.

Waking up the day after, the clouds and the rain of the day before were gone.
The sky was blue, and the sun was shining.
I get my bike to cycle to work, and the city was quiet. It looked to be somewhere else. Not too much traffic, not too much noise. Just that kind of quietness that tacitly was speaking about yesterday and tomorrow. The events of yesterday and the questions of tomorrow.
It was great to cycle beside the river, with the warmth spread by the sun. The river was there to remind you that "Panta Rei" ("everything flows") - or in this age philosophy "Business as Usual”. The surrounding was there to remind you that "I was, I am and I will be there". I was surprised not by the fact to meet less people, but by their attitude. There was a quiet and gentle exchange of smiles.

Life is (was) beautiful

2005-07-11T11:14:00.000+01:00

Yes, life was beautiful, up to Saturday evening. This is when we landed in London, back from holidays in Sicily.

But let's forget about that and concentrate on the good stuff:

First of all it's beautiful. We rode by train along the north coast for 3 hours between Palermo and Gioisa Marea. It was a very good way to get a taste of the Sicilian landscape. From our so-called "villa" - just a flat in reality - we had a breathtaking view of the surrounding. This is the first thing you get to see when you wake up in the morning....well.....almost. The first thing I got to see was the two other people I was sharing the bed with. Yep, not quite the same :-)

The people. Well, no doubt we are in Italy. When you ask a question you get the information you were seeking and more...much more. Italians love to talk. And quite frankly, this is very enjoyable. The second thing we noticed is how people are hospitable....and business wise at the same time. We were living up the hill so every time we were going to the beach we had to walk down and of course up on our way back. Many times we found charitable souls to give us a lift. It turned out that these friendly people were also local business owners and were trying to attract us to their restaurants or shops. In the end, it's fair enough: they were helping us and we were doing the same by contributing to the local businesses. One day, we even got a restaurant open just for the seven of us at 23h00. We ate too much for a very reasonable price. It was really nice.

The food. Although the restaurant's menus weren't extensive, it was of very good quality. As you would guess, a lot of pasta and pizzas. One thing though: the red wine. They drink the red wine chilly. It's sacrilege for a Frenchman!! Anyways, we ate and drunk a lot :-)

The weather: sunny, hot, and a bit humid. It was great, all I needed. It's good to wake in the morning already knowing that it's going to be a nice day. Something you don't get much on this side of the British Channel.

And of course, my good friends: Aaron, Idris, Cem, Roger, Giovani and Tiziano. We had a lot of fun :-)

Overall, it was a great trip. Very relaxing. So guys, what's next?

I love England

2005-06-20T10:57:00.000+01:00

Blue sky, sun shine, 30 degrees...in England? No way.
Well, that was the weather last weekend. Just perfect. It was a beautifull time to be in London my friends. Just perfect. But let's start from the beginning

We are Friday evening. I'm meeting with my holiday comrades to sort out the last details for our trip to Sicily next week (YES!!!!). We meet up in a pub in Sheperd's Bush , the Gold Hawk. After a few drinks we decide to go to a club nearby. After another round of drinks, my head starts spinning around. The atmosphere is good, the music exhilarating. That's really cool....Cem is happy, smiling generously. Everything is good. Later that night, Idris disappears to go to the toilets but does not come back. What's happening? Where is he? In fact, he has collapsed on a sofa nearby. It wasn't his finest hour to say the least. At 1:00 am the club closes so we have to go home. The trouble is that Idris was supposed to give me a lift back but wasn't able to do so. We improvise and all go at Cem's place. It is a long way! Somehow we finally reach his place that will be our final destination for the night. Imagine, 4 people sharing one bed! The worst was that it was very hot in there. Before we sleep we speak of various topics including death, anger, and some others I can't recall. We end up sleeping 2-3 hours before we get off bed. Too hot to sleep. The weather is very nice, sunny as hell! Perfect for a day resting in the shade of a tree, and that's what we are going to do.

After a good breakfast, we gather our stuff and head to a park close by. It's around 10am and we are all tired. Idris is still "resting" at Cem's place, not feeling like doing anything else than sleep. When we arrive at the park we find a nice spot and collapse on the grass. What a nice feeling. The sun is shining. For once, the sun is really the star of the day. We stay there all day. Aaron joines us for lunch and brings along all the necessary for a nice picnic. Well done Aaron! The hours passing by, it's now time to say goodbye to each other. It was a fine but tiring night out.

Weekend in Paris

2005-06-13T17:20:00.000+01:00

Last weekend I was in Paris to visit two old buddies from school in St Brieuc (France). We had a very good time.

On Saturday we went skating. The weather was gorgeous. Fred is a beginner, as am I, but he thinks that the brake is for little girls. Surprisingly, he didn't fall as much as you'd expect but he eventually came to agree that the brake was indeed usefull! Anthony is the most experienced of us. So no falls head first in grass .... try to make an effort next time... As for me, countless times I was extremely close to humiliate myself but somehow managed to stay on my feet.

In the evening we went out to the Buddha Bar in the 8th district (http://www.worldsbestbars.com/city/paris/buddha-bar-paris.htm). It's a very nice place, unusual atmosphere but very pricey and too packed. After one drink, we decided to leave and wander around in Paris: Champs Elysées, Tour Eiffel, ... I forgot how beautifull it was.

On Sunday, we didn't do much: woke up at 12:00 and play game the rest of the day. We got hooked up to http://www.yetisports.org. It's a couple of great flash games. Check it out!

Then came the time to say goodbye and head back to England. Not the best part of the journey to say the least. Anyway I had a good time and I look forward to our next meeting guys.