Coming home in San Francisco

Hi there,

A little late but anyway, here is a report of my trip to Seattle! As Marie-Catherine told you I went to a conference in Seattle last week: the 57th annual meeting of the American Physical Society, Division of Fluid Dynamics. It's a big conference with over 1000 attendees, there are 14 simultaneous sessions (focused on a particular topic of fluid dynamics) during three days and all talks must take no longer than 10 minutes plus 2 minutes for question and one minute for the next speaker to get ready! Actually, it's too big to really "learn" something, but it is a very good place to get an idea of what other people are doing in your field and then discuss it during the breaks or read an article about their work after the conference. The conference reception was held at the Museum of Flight which is located on the fields of the Boeing company.

We didn't have much time to visit Seattle, but on Monday night I went to a restaurant with Jonathan (also known as Peli, it's a friend who also did his PhD at UCL). It was nice to see him: he just arrived in Seattle about two months ago to work within Microsoft's research group!

Then on Tuesday evening it was time to go back. I think I slept almost during the whole flight... I woke up when we where just about to land: it was a pretty strange feeling knowing I was coming "home" while seeing the Golden Gate, the Bay Bridge and San Francisco's lights beneath.

Goeric

PS: we will post some pictures of our ski trip to Lake Tahoe this WE as soon as possible... The little movie of Yole's stay here is also almost ready ;-)

Half Moon Bay

Hello,

Goeric is in Seattle for a conference. I am alone until Tuesday evening :-(
I dropped Go Saturday at the airport, then Gaetanelle and I went for a walk along Half Moon Bay beach. The weather was very nice!

Today I worked. Maureen came for the supper as she is also left alone...
Tomorrow evening I have my flamenco class which I really enjoy! The teacher is great, and I learn a lot.

More next time,

Marie-Catherine

Yole's pictures online :-)

Just to tell you Yole also uploaded her pictures (as well as a few pictures MC and I took with our digital camera): have a look!

Goeric

Week-end with Yolande

Hi everyone,

As you already know Yolande was with us this week-end, so we tried to maximize it.

On Thursday the weather was really bad, but it didn't really matter as we all had to work. We took the car and all went to the campus in the morning. In the afternoon, Yolande went back to Mountain View where Google offices are and she had a very good discussion with someone from the communication department. For dinner, we went to a restaurant (The Cheese Cake Factory) in Palo Alto.

We can't say the sun shines all the time here but at least the bad weather doesn't last: on Friday the sun was already shining again. This time we all went to Stanford by bike. Yole walk around on the campus while MC had class... After that they both went to the Stanford shopping center while I(Go) had a seminar. On the way back we stopped to rent a DVD.

On Saturday we went to San Francisco. We first did some sight seeing on our way to "the city" (as they would say here): we drove through the foothills to Half Moon bay and then along the coast... In San Francisco we parked the car and walked around: Nob Hill, Russian Hill (where the famous, very steep, Lombard Street with all the turns is -- a little bit disappointing though, we thought it would be even steeper ;-) ), the Coit Tower (nice view of San Francisco from up there). We also took the well-known cable car! As the sun goes down at 5:30 pm, we had plenty of time to go right under the Golden Gate Bridge and take some pictures of it "by night" ;-) We ended up the day in a sushi restaurant: delicious!

Sunday we drove down to Santa Cruz which lies at the Ocean. We saw sea lions under the pier. After lunch, we biked along the sea to reach a mountain bike trail inside the Wilder Ranch park. The trail was not so easy for Yolande and me(MC), but we had a lot of fun!

After having some good pastas for dinner at the apartment, it was time for Yolande to take the plane and go back to Boston: that was the sad part of the story ... :-( ... but we all keep a bright souvenir of this week-end :-)

And of course, as usual here are some pictures (some more will come later, and even a movie when we get some time to "edit" it)!

Marie-Catherine & Goeric

Yole in California

Hi !

A short message to tell you Yole just arrived in California ! Right after her class this morning, she flew from Boston to San Francisco and we picked her up at the airport this evening. Tomorrow we'll all go to work: MC has two classes (and certainly some code to debug), Go has a paper to finish :-S ... and Yole has an appointment with somebody at Google's communication department. As she is doing a work on Google's communication strategy, she seized the opportunity of being next door to go and check it out by herself.

We don't know exactly what else we'll do this WE, but we were thinking of ... going on a whale watching boat trip ... mountain-biking ... visiting San Francisco ... so we'll see (also depending on the weather which isn't great these days). We'll tell you ;-)

See you,

Go

Election day

Hi!

We suppose you want to know how people feel here after the election... We just cannot believe it.

On the election day (11/02), Goeric did not forget his duty and voted! Heinz Pitch, one of the professors at Goeric's department, had organized a party at his house with the whole team (and spouses). They had all bet on the election issue, so the idea was to be together watching the results on TV. We put together a little movie showing the ambiance at the party... The evening started good, but as the issue was not the one we all expected, the party became slowly a "defeat party" as the day ended :-(

Enjoy the "movie" (640x480 - 42MB or 320x240 - 11MB)!

MC & Go

250 Del Medio Ave #316

Here are finally some pictures of our apartment! It is located in a 3-story high U-shaped building with about 80 apartment units. In the middle of the building there is a garden with some nice birch trees and... a swimming pool! But we never went swimming and now it's getting a little cold. Our unit is on the third floor just behind one of the big trees: which is really nice because we barely see the other side of the building. As you can see on the pictures we have a small but well equipped kitchen and a little dining place next to it. The living room is pretty large and we bought a big sofa bed from a garage sale. Next to the sleeping room there's a balcony where we store our bikes.

So, that's about it... If you want more details, you'll have to come and see it yourself ;-)

Goeric

Marin County & San Francisco

Hello!

Two weeks ago (Saturday 10/16) we went biking near San Francisco in the Marin County (more precisly in the Golden Gate National recreational area). From there you have a great view on the Golden Gate Bridge and right behind it, San Francisco.

After one hour and half of MTB, we drove back to the "City". We parked near the "Fishermans Warf" and bicycled in San Francisco. We went to Nob Hill, then through China Town to the Financial District and we came back along the coast.

While the weather wasn't perfect that day, it was a really nice trip but we were pretty tired at the end: we found out that even with a mountain bike with your smallest gear it is still hard to "climb" up some of San Francisco's steepest streets!

See you,

Goeric

(Also check out some new color pictures in the Yosemite album!)

Another Californian experience

Hi everyone,

For the second time, I have been stopped by the police... It 's getting a habit ;-)

The first time, Go was driving and we missed a red light. Luckily Go didn't show his American passport and we have just received a warning. Ohterwise it would probably have been a 260$ ticket.

This time I was on my bike coming back from my office at 7 pm. I was still biking on the campus. I didn't stop at a stop sign: big mistake... I wish I had seen the two police officers standing on the sidewalk. In fact they stopped me for two reasons: 1) I didn't stop at the stop sign and 2) I don't have a front light on my bike. They told me they would be kind this time: no ticket because of the stop sign, but I have to come to the police station to show that my bike is properly equipped, otherwise I could be arrested and put in jail :-S (at least that's what they told me). Half an hour later, they had finished all the paper work and they let me go.

I hope this is the last time, but we use to say "jamais deux, sans trois" so you never know!

MC