Trust your instincts?

So, all week I had been thinking of something to write about, and now I've finally found something. As a few of you know, I've had more than a few drunken adventures. By adventure I mean stumbling around aimlessly and ending up in the middle of nowhere, and having to walk for hours and hours. The all time record is a 5 hour walk, which includes a small 20 minute sleep in a park.

Well, now I have a new record, but not for time, definitely distance. Last night, because Yann and I are so damn intelligent, we went straight to the bar after work and drank until midnight straight. No dinner, nothing. Just pure hammered. Well, I was anyways. So, thanks to Yann's friend Pablo, I could rent a Velib bike in record time so that I could continue my journey home for a falafel and pass out. "It'll only take you 30 minutes, no problem, right?" Yeah, no problem. So I'm on the roundabout at Place D'Italie, which is about a medium sized one for Paris. Going home in the right direction, it was perfect. But being drunk, I get seemingly good ideas. So right when I was supposed to turn left, I turned right. Why you may ask? Because it felt like it was the right direction. Serious. So I started climbing this monster hill on my bike, all dressed in nice clothes, and I figured, well I'll see the Seine sooner or later and then just follow it home. Easy as pie. Fast forward to 45 minutes later, I haven't seen the Seine yet, just continuing on my little path...in the opposite direction. I finally found the Seine, and a road going parallel. I can only judge now that I must have been following it in the wrong direction, because it certainly didn't lead me home. The scenery was getting less and less busy, and more and more like suburbia. Yet, I still had confidence in my abilities. This is about an hour and a half into my 30 minute bike ride. Then because of all the bike riding, the soberness started to kick in. "Hey, I have absolutely no idea where the hell I am. But there is a sign pointing to Hotel De Ville, that's close to my house." What I seemed to forget was that each of the suburbs surrounding Paris has a Hotel De Ville. I finally get to it, and the signs start saying "Vitry Centre". Plug in "Vitry-sur-Seine station, France" into Google Maps, and then plug in St. Paul, Paris, France, then you can see how far away I had gotten from my original station.

This is now panic time, I have no idea where the hell I am, it's 2am, and I just have the clothes on my back and a this damn Velib which is constantly squeeking. I figure this is when I should find a map, but all the bus stops in Vitry have their maps stolen or just no map at all. Beautiful. Also, to find the street names in suburbia is next to impossible, there is just posts at intersections pointing in the direction of various landmarks. None of them say Paris. I managed to find a bus stop with a map of the route of the bus. It shows that I'm fucking far from Paris, but not much else, so I start to follow the bus route, stopping at every bus stop to ensure that I am still on the correct route. Eventually, I get back to Paris, and where do I end up? Place D'Italie. Goddamit. It's 2:40, and I figure I can get it right this time. I did manage this, and ended up back at home at exactly 3am. Beautiful.

This morning I have skipped my boxe francaise, I figure I got my workout last night. I don't want to leave the Marais again this weekend.
Here is me in front of the impressive sculpture by Rodin, the gates of hell.

I hope all is well with everyone, I'm still alive and kickin.

Hey good looking, whatcha got there cooking? Somethin for me?

Dammit, these damn laptop keyboards. Seriously, I was halfway through this post, and I lost it all. Grrrrr.

So it was my first French strike today, woohoo! So if you don't know (shame on you, two times) there is a large debate between the new president of France, Nicolas Sarkozy and the train unions. Mainly this is due to their very, very good retirement packages. In the early 20th century, if you worked in trains, you shoveled coal, got lung cancer and died at 50. Thus, they let you retire at 45, enjoy your 5 years of pain, and kick the bucket. Technology being the wonderful thing that it is, train work has turned mostly into pushing buttons and moving levers...with the same retirement package. Fair? I don't think so. So Sarkozy wants to change it, being the smart guy that he is, and the unions want to keep it the same, them being whiny French people. What does that mean for me? A day of drinking wine, eating cheese and generally being a cool guy.

This has been my first day to sit in my boxers and do nothing for quite sometime. There is nothing quite like just being completely unproductive, I love it.

So, I've been reading this interesting book about great historical military blunders. The commonality I see between it all is that it came down to the generals and that they had too much pride. I compare this with a book I read a few years ago by C.S. Lewis who stated that the greatest sin and root of all other sin (he was a big Christian) was that of pride. So what is pride? Well for me, it is by far and away the most tempting of all sins. It is one of knowledge, for me to say "Yes, I know this. Let me tell YOU about this, because I KNOW it." is so damn tempting. To claim that you are a master of an area of knowledge, especially when you aren't, and get away with it feels so damn good.

Vanity is also a fun sin. Seriously, who doesn't like to look good? Maybe it's not society's definition of looking good, but if you can look in the mirror and say "Hey, I know that handsome guy/beautiful girl!" you automatically feel good.

I realize what I love is to play unspoken mental debates, which are a decent part of business. What do you all reveal? What cards are you going to play? How do you react to new situations? It's such a great mental game, I love it. It's also like picking up a girl, which admittedly I haven't done it quite sometime. Judging the conversation, deciding your position on various subjects (you know, it's never completely truthful, no matter what I say :P), planning the next action, and deciding when to leave it all and go drink with the boys.

What's also fun? Talking in French. I really enjoy it, even though mine is far from perfect. You can be such a cocky bastard, and it's perfectly acceptable. I also like the fact that I have had real conversations recently, and it's not just "how are you? I'm fine."

So, in a half drunken dinner of a cheeseburger (which admittedly sucked) tonight, I have started to plan the future. If all goes according to plan, it's going to be an interesting 2 years. In my opinion, it's best to think about these sort of things, because it's when you are the most honest with yourself. Nonetheless, you should also think about it the next day and review it, but it can give you some good ideas.

Wow, this is an incredibly rambling post. I'm surprised if you've read it all, so good on you. I'll probably write some more this weekend. Party on brothers and sisters.
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Now playing: T.I. - What You Know

Be Careful What You Wish For

Seriously. Be careful. I have the fortunate luck of usually getting what I hope for, but it's now a matter of hoping for the right thing. It's like that damn monkey's paw tale, it always comes back to bite you in the ass. Hopefully not literally, although...

From the fiery gates of hell

Aloha faithful (I hope!) readers!

Recently has been an extremely busy time in my life. I've had friends, now parents, visiting Paris which leads to, obviously, copious amounts of drinking and little free time for myself. On top of this, as many of you may know, has been a relative shit show at my work. So my poor neglected blog has got no loving from me.

So I have nothing really new or interesting to report. Work work work, play play, train. That's about the gist of it.

My recent thoughts?

I love a girl with a good handshake. Seriously, give a good grip ladies; any real guy will appreciate it. It shows confidence and a sense of intrigue.

French people are great. When we go out drinking (often) and make fools of ourselves (very often), I rarely hear about it the next time. It's merely, "Boy, weren't we drunk last time? Let's do it again!" I really appreciate this attitude, as it encourages the positive aspects of the social experience.

Reading is awesome. All day long my mind is racing with thoughts of computers and geophysics. But when I get on that train and open up a good book, it's like time stands still and I forget all the troubles of my day. It is one of the finer things I appreciate in life.

Duck is good. But is sucks in Canada.

I'm digging rugby right now. The French team is so great, it's truly an instantiation of the culture. They were losing to New Zealand, but when they brought out Chabal, it was a miraculous change. Like an army bringing out it's hero, the teams disposition changed and they pulled it together for the win. What a great game.

Wearing shinguards when doing kickboxing is necessary. Trust me.

Computers are both great and terrible. They will take all the verbal abuse that I spew at them all day long, but still fuck up.

I hope everybody is doing wonderfully. I want to do a real proper post soon, now that I have my computer back. Stick around, good things to come.