The good, the bad, and the ugly of Android

Android is about to start taking off. Motorola, Google, Verizon and others have started unleashing their marketing budgets, so you're going to see a lot of buzz around Android in the coming weeks. Having worked on Android for the past year, I thought I'd throw out a few opinions of my own as a tease.

Each of the phones in my possession has interesting user experiences different from each other. All of these items have an impact on the developer and the way their application is perceived.

The Good

• Side-loading apps - By God, I want to install my favorite Sudoku (or contacts) app and there's nothing anyone can do to stop me. Well, there will be attempts to lock down the handset, but there will be an escalation of cracks and root exploits. Just another chapter in the never-ending war between the Geeks and the Suits.
  
• New screen sizes - Oh, and how wonderful they look. You knew this was coming--there's been plenty of warning and the hints have not been subtle. Developers, if you've been using absolute layouts and assuming that 480x320 was the only screen size, you were wrong and you will be punished with bad reviews and plummeting sales the moment the Eclair devices start hitting the shelves. Several of my favorite apps fall into this category and I wish I could tell the authors that their apps don't work on upcoming phones, but I can't. If you've been testing your app on the same AVD for months, you'd better try some of the other sizes in the 1.6 SDK. You've been warned.
  
• Approaching the chasm. We're still in the early adopter phase, but consumers are going to start having Android as a choice this year. There's still plenty of time to get into the Android ecosystem and make a splash.
  

The Bad

• The Market is a mess for the consumer. Have you tried to find an app that wasn't featured by browsing on the device? The sheer volume of apps in the few categories is too much and every category is full of crapware with 4 1/2 stars. The cyrket index is useful, but every month it gets a little slower as more people discover it. Why can't Google bring this functionality into their web interface?
• Crapware. As a developer, you should not be prevented from reaching your audience. However, if you're going to flood the Market with any or all of the following products, then you need your own special sandbox to play in...
  • Stewie Griffin Soundboard
  • Peter Griffin Soundboard
  • Bryan Griffin Soundboard
  • Bart Soundboard
  • Lisa Simpson Soundboard
  • Homer Simpson Soundboard
  • Maggie Simpson Soundboard
  • John Madden Soundboard
  • Frank Caliendo doing impressions of John Madden Soundboard
  • Stewie Griffin imitating Frank Caliendo doing impressions of John Madden Soundboard
  • ad infinitum, ad nauseum
  Don't talk to me about the power of voting down, because these guys can create accounts and vote up faster than the rest of us can vote them down. The $25 market signup fee was clearly not a high-enough barrier to entry.
  The Market needs a Benevolent Dictator or an Enlightened Troika who isn't/aren't under the influence of the carriers, Google, or any manufacturer. This non-Jobsian Star Chamber need not approve every app before it can be included in the Market--just have the authority to punish developers who are gaming the system to the detriment of the users.
  I'm just guessing here, but I doubt the creator of those apps actually bothered to license the audio, so having them available for sale in the US is probably a violation of some statute that the RIAA or MPAA has rammed down our throats. I'm curious if these apps are what they seem to be (annoyances) or actually the vectors for the first wave of Android malware.
  
• 3G Coverage. Yes, I'm on AT&T. Sadly, so is the SIM that I test with. When I do get into a 3G zone, the bandwidth is bad. It's amazing to look back at a post I made only a year ago about how cool the Moto Q is as a 3G modem. The iPhone is only the canary in the coal mine for the carriers--they'd better get their networks built out. I wonder if the Verizon "there's a map for that" commercial is all Marketing fluff. Probably. Living in the Sticks and working in a barn does have a downside...
  
• Locking out Dev Phone users. I really hate this "feature". As a developer with many unlocked phones, I'm specifically prevented from installing paid apps via the Google Market. To date, I've paid for exactly 1 app and I have it installed on the only production phone I own--the Google ION.
  Developers, if you want a complete solution, find other ways to reach your potential users. Look at alternative markets. Allow me to pay you and tie the app to my IMEI #. Something, anything.
  

The Ugly

• Sadly, the virtual keyboard on Android sucks as much as the one on the iPhone/iTouch. Fortunately, there are add-on virtual keyboards that I can download and enable for free. Or, I just use the real keyboard on my Motorola phones. Is it too late to get Graffiti into the platform?
  
• Backup software. I reflash each of my developer phones every week or two. Every time I do this, I lose all my apps. I know this is an edge case, but I'd really like a good reliable solution that I can use on 6 phones at once. MOTOBLUR is a solution for the consumer, but I'm working on phones that are configured in so many ways and since my phones are all dev phones, I need something that isn't tied to the market as a paid app.

All of this, of course, is strictly my opinion and in no way reflects the opinions of my employer.

By the way, if you are in the ChicagoLand area, I will be speaking at the Chicago Androids User Group on October 29. Hope to see you there.

What blogs are for

Now that Twitter has rendered blogs effectively unnecessary, it's a wonder that Google doesn't shut down Blogspot. You don't see people Tweeting "I'm sorry I haven't Tweeted in a while", but every now and then, there's actually a use for these archaic forms of communication from a world where people used complete sentences and checked spelling.

For example, clarifying what one meant by the Tweet they sent the night before...

---

Doug Schaefer is the lead of the Eclipse CDT project and someone with whom I have a lot of conversations. He's also one of the people I search out during conferences to have a beer and talk about the way the (Eclipse) world works. He's as much a mensch as anyone I know.

In his non-work time, Doug is toying with Android development. Not only is he selfishly working on his own apps, he's managed to make the Android NDK (i.e. the C/C++ part) work with Eclipse. Which is something that Google hadn't bothered to do.

So, last night, Doug Tweeted "It's official. The Google Eclipse plug-ins for Android suck." Being a bit of a smart-ass, I replied "MOTODEV Studio for Android sucks less". In my inbox this morning was an email from SWMBO asking for an explanation. Why would a product manager insult his own product in such a way?

There's a bit of a back story (there always is).

---

It begins with this shirt...

A comment at the Cult of Mac site tells the story better than I can (about 3/4 of the way down).

... when System 7.5 was wrapping up, one of the senior engineers, known for his cranky, abrasive nature, came up with the “Sucks Less” slogan. Being a brash Apple engineer, he called a local T shirt place, and was wearing a shirt in a day or two, and passing out copies to the other engineers he thought were most deserving — people who really did make the Mac OS “suck less.”

... naturally, this shirt went over VERY poorly with the marketing team, who were aghast that the engineers of the company would not thing that System 7.5 was “Insanely Great” or something like that.

... The interesting thing is that the slogan always went over well with the True Believers at MacWorld Expo, who all seemed to assume that we were referring to Windows, and in that respect, it was quite an understatement.

As a Mac developer who attended that MacWorld Expo, I was drinking the MacOS Koolaid as fast as it was being made. I probably have the "Sucks Less" shirt somewhere in a storage bin that I traded for one of our CodeWarrior "Kicking Butt and Writing Code" shirts.

Suffice it to say, "Sucks Less" has stuck with me all these years.

---

It's not really that the Google plugins suck, it's just that Google really isn't that interested in growing the developer ecosystem. They have a "if we build it, they will come" mentality, referring to the SDK tools. They see that command line works just fine for their engineers, so it should be fine for application developers. The Eclipse plugins were created as an afterthought and the people who work on them are stretched many different ways providing other tool support, SDK builds, etc.

My teams' product, on the other hand, was conceived and built entirely with the application developer in mind. Even though I don't get to code any longer, I walk through the product daily to understand the workflows and whether they make sense to application developers. Granted, there are a few hiccups that confuse people (e.g. different ways to launch an app, different signing tools), but the rationale is that if we have an easier path to the goal, the developer will fight less with the tools and get onto the business of writing insanely great apps.

So, my comment isn't derogatory at all. It's an admission that software development is an imperfect science. We start somewhere and we continually improve. I will never strive to create the perfect 1.0 release--I don't work on space shuttles or MRI machines, so I don't have to. The "sucks less" comment is just an acknowledgment that we still have room to improve. And improve, we shall.

Hello 1.0......

The best joke I've read this week

I haven't posted in weeks and I'm clearly failing in my duty to get these slides done. So, I'll waste a little more time by reciting the best joke I've seen this week...

---

A shepherd was herding his flock in a remote pasture when a brand new BMW pulled up. The driver, a young man in a suit, Ray Ban sunglasses and a power tie leaned out the window and asked the shepherd, "If I tell you exactly how many sheep you have in your flock, will you give me one?"

The shepherd looked at the man, then looked at his flock and calmly answered "Sure."

The young man parked his car, whipped out his notebook with a 3G modem. Then he surfed to a web page on the Internet where he called up a satellite system. He scanned the area, opened up a database and an Excel spreadsheet with complex formulas. He sent an Email on his iPhone and after a few minutes received a response. Finally, he printed out a 150-page report as a PDF on his Kindle. Then he turned to the shepherd and said, "You have exactly 1586 sheep."

"That's correct, take one of the sheep," said the shepherd. He watched the young man select one of the animals and bundle it into his car.

Then the shepherd said, "If I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you return my property?"

"OK, why not," answered the young man.

"Clearly you are a Six Sigma Black Belt," said the shepherd.

"That's correct," said the black belt, "but how did you guess that?"

"No guessing required," answered the shepherd. "You turned up here although nobody called you. You want to get paid for an answer that I already knew, to a question I never asked, and you don't know crap about my business. NOW, give back my dog."

---

Have a great weekend!

-E

The end of a dream

I awoke last night about 3 a.m.

I wasn't wakened by thunder or the barking of the neighbors' dog. It wasn't the kids slamming the bathroom door in the middle of the night nor the sudden, jolting awareness that sometimes sits me bolt upright wondering if someone is breaking into the house.

This was something entirely different and I'm not sure I've ever experienced this.

I was dreaming a dream that seems to have gone on for years. The actual scenes are lost to the night, but this was one of those dreams where we're struggling against all odds to get somewhere we can be safe. Jagged mountains, dark tunnels, and hideous creatures beset us from all sides. The type of dream I'm sure every adult with kids, a mortgage, and a conscience has. It doesn't take a psychiatrist to figure out what the imagery means.

And then, it changed.

We came upon a place where there was plenty of water, a place to build a home, safe from the perilous world and the travails of the journey. We sat on the edge of a boulder, watching the sun set over the distant lake, knowing that we had found our peaceful valley.

And that's when I woke up. Unlike most mornings, where the smell of coffee permeates the air and the kids are already starting a days worth of arguments, this was so different. I just woke up. Not bolt upright, but awareness with stunning clarity. It was like having watched your favorite TV show for years, for the final episode to be where everything worked out in the end the way you wanted it to, with no ironic twists.

I stayed awake for another 30 minutes, trying to figure out what it meant. When I woke up this morning, I remembered everything. So what does it mean? I'm afraid I can't draw any parallels to our lives, as if we finally are at a place where nothing can go wrong. We still have a mortgage, my job could go away at any moment, and health problems are always an issue. Life is full of turmoil.

But there is always hope...

Word of the Day - 2 August 2009

Ethics

Many of the most fervent moralists behave in the most unethical manner. It would be easy to call them hypocrites, but I believe they are just lazy in their beliefs.

Word of the Day - 1 August 2009

Yellow Journalism

Normally associated with William Randolph Hearst, but the term can be certainly be applied to the modern media. Cowards and charlatans, the lot of them.

Pay it back

Back in 1998 or so, Jackie and I were driving separate cars through Ft. Worth, in the middle of summer. We came upon the inevitable delay as we neared downtown and inched through traffic, just wanting to get where we were going.

Finally the temperature got to my Jeep. Steam started rising from the hood and I could smell anti-freeze. I managed to limp the Jeep off I-35 and down the next ramp, where I pulled over under a tree. I got out and popped the hood to see what the problem was. It turned out to be a radiator hose that burst.

So here we were, in a broke down Jeep with a 18 month old baby, in the heat of the day in a rough neighborhood in a city that we didn't know. As we were talking about what to do next, a man a few years older than me walked up and said "You all need a hand?" I showed him what was wrong and he said, "well, there's a parts store 2 blocks down on the right so you can get a new hose. You got tools?" I told him I didn't have much, so he said, "That's my brother-in-law's tire shop," he said, pointing at the run-down building across the street, "I'll grab some tools if you'll go get the hose."

Jackie drove down to the parts store while I sat with Elijah under the tree. The man came back with tools and we talked while we waited on the hose. He told me his name, but the years have pushed it to the back of my brain. He could tell I was tense and he said "You don't need to worry. Ain't nobody going to rob you 'round here. We'll get you patched up and on your way." Jackie got back with the hose. We got it put on the Jeep with his tools and filled up with water from the tire store. I shook the man's hand, thanked him for the help and we headed on our way.

The man was so matter of fact, it dawned on me later that they probably got a lot of stranded motorists, just like us. Most of them, just like us, probably felt uncomfortable because it looks like a dangerous place.

That event left an impression on me. The man's generosity toward a couple of complete strangers, who were scared of being in his neighborhood, made me rethink the way I view others. I also vowed to repay his generosity whenever I could.

Today, Beau and I were driving down back from the next town over, when I saw an old pickup broke down on the side of Interstate 40. As we pulled alongside, I could tell the driver was an old man. Looking at his tags and his appearance, it was pretty obvious that he "ain't from around here". Looking further, I could see he had crutches and there's no way he could've walked to either town.

"You need a hand?"

Wrap-up - What worked, what didn't

18 July 2009

The final verdict on the trip was that it was a great time. Aside from pissing my wife off at the most inopportune moment, we enjoyed every minute of our stay and saw a lot of things that convinced us that we want to return.

We had zero problems with the allegedly rude French. We tried to start every conversation with a new person in French to varying degrees of success and we almost always got a reply in English or else very slowly spoken French. There were a few places where the waiters were less capable than others, but that's not necessarily rudeness--just incompetence. It's interesting to note that this week the Mayor of Paris is sending out "smile ambassadors" to help repair the reputation of the city. I don't think it needs to be repaired--any time you have a large population condensed into a small space the residents will learn certain coping mechanisms. I mean, you wouldn't want the world to think that we're all like New Yorkers, would we?

Stuff that worked well

• The Asus EEE PC netbook worked like a charm. At all of 2 pounds, it did exactly what we needed it to do and it took up so little space in the luggage.
  
• Camera Gear-Jackie's new Canon G10 took great photos and some video. I'm really thinking about "borrowing" it the next time that I go on the road and leave the SLR and lenses at home. My Pentax K10D plus the DA* lenses did exactly what I needed them to do and I took almost 1000 photos. The Provencal sun was so intense that I'm glad I packed a couple of ND4 and polarizing filters.
  
• The Eagle Creek clothing folders helped us condense our clothing into a smaller space, but they also forced us to mentally rationalize every piece of clothing we added to the pile. As it was, I still packed one full day of clothing too much and could've saved a pound and a half by leaving it at home.
  
• The REI Cargo Duffel was great because it also has backpack straps. We got all of Jackie's clothes and a most of the trinkets and gifts we bought in the duffel, without having to pull out our emergency duffel bag. We checked the duffel and my wheelie bag on our return trip, but we didn't really have many problems with our luggage.
  
• A Paris Metro day pass. We bought day passes one day and rode the Metro 4 times. Turned out to be a pretty good investment. Once we figured out the lines, we had no problems getting around.
  
• I wore one pair of shoes the entire time and they worked great. I've been wearing Clarks shoes for about 6 years now and I cannot recommend them highly enough. The pair I wore are no longer sold, but the Charles model is pretty close if they were in black. Jackie wore her Merrells, which served her very well, but she did get a blister on the last day.
  
• The Garmin Nuvi 370 worked like a charm, other than one little incident where it really wanted to send us along some country lanes around Avignon rather than the main highways. When I bought the Nuvi last fall, I specifically got it because it had European and US maps and the European maps were more up-to-date than I had for my Vista. My co-workers joke about my mishaps with GPS, but honestly I can get where I'm going fast with the GPS if the data is good and the roads in Europe change a lot less often than roads in the US.
  

Stuff that worked so-so

• I bought a PacSafe 85 baggage protection device prior to our departure. The PacSafe itself worked fine, albeit a bit clumsily, but the need for it was way overstated by the guidebooks. Every guidebook we had talked about cars being broken into and things being pilfered from hotels. It had me nearly convinced that every person in France was a thief ready to pounce on my camera gear. I'm sure there is this type of crime, but we saw no evidence of it and the people I talked to said they have little experience with it.
  
• Speaking of guidebooks, we had 4 with us--the omnipresent Rick Steves' Europe through the Back Door, Rick Steves' France 2009, Lonely Planet France, and Fodor's Provence and the Cote d'Azur. We pored through them the weeks before the trip and then ignored them most of the time once we were in France. We could've saved 3 pounds by just leaving them at home. Of the 4, I'd say I got the least amount of valuable info from the Lonely Planet guide. I know some people have a love affair with Rick Steves books--I thought they were funny but I took them with a grain of salt at times. We saw a lot of people with his books though.
  
• Geneva, Switzerland. I'm going to hold out judgment on Geneva. It was a positively clean city and the airport is small enough that it's easy to navigate. But, the Swiss are just a little too efficient and only as friendly as they need to be to get the job done. True, we didn't spend much time there, but first impressions are lasting impressions.
  

Stuff that didn't work

• Camera gear -- I packed too much. I really wanted to take a traditional tripod and I ended up using it exactly once for about 5 shots. I also packed the Joby GorillaPod SLR Zoom and I should've just stuck with it, left the big tripod at home, and saved 3 pounds in our luggage. I also packed my big flash, which should've just stayed at home.
  
• I'm going to declare the OpenTour bus a bust. We rode it a total of 3 times, which comes out to about $15 per ride. I'm just a little miffed that we bought the tickets and nobody said a word about the Montparnasse tour being suspended for a day because of the Gay Pride parade. To be honest, we saw no evidence of a parade while we were walking around Montparnasse, other than some guys dressed for the occasion walking along the sidewalks. They could've ran that route. Plus, the jacks where you listen to the tour were always corroded and it was difficult to follow along with the narrative.
  
• United Economy Plus on a Boeing 767. Didn't sleep a wink coming or going, even with a xanax. I've slept going over on a 777, but the seats in the 767 just aren't comfortable.
  
• The US Dollar to Euro exchange rate. I know it's better than it was in October 2008, but it would be nice if we could get closer to parity. We had a blast on this trip, but we could've had a lot more fun if we could've afforded a few more restaurants or a bigger hotel in Paris. I didn't want to stay in the George V or the Crillon, but something more than a shoebox with a twin bed would've made Paris a lot more fun.
  

So there you have it. It was a fun trip and it's been fun writing these entries. Thanks for following along.

Bonsoir!

Day 9 - TGV, Geneva, heading home

28 June 2009

After 7 days of non-stop fun, now we're into the final throes. I didn't take any more photos after the Eiffel Tower because I was completely pooped. The last two days just seem like one blur, so I'm going to combine them on this blog entry.

We woke and packed most of our things before heading out for coffee and some orange juice. I didn't much care for the local version of OJ, but the coffee was still very good.

We finished going through our room and checked out of the hotel. All in all, it was a pretty decent hotel, just tiny. Compared to the lovely place we had in Provence, it wasn't much. But, compared with other hotels in large European cities that I've been in, it was about the same. It's all about the location and this one was pretty good with a Metro stop within a block, the Louvre within 2 blocks, and plenty of cafes nearby. The desk people were friendly and the rooms were clean. Not a lot to complain about.

We got through the turnstiles at the Metro station and onto the train. There were 5 stops to Paris Gare Lyon, where the TGV would take us to Geneva. At the first stop, a drunken derelict about 30 years old got on the train and sat down next to where Jackie was standing. He immediately started talking to the man sitting next to me, who was wearing a suit. The man next to me ignored him and kept reading his magazine, which only made the drunk talk to him more. The next stop, the man in the suit got off the train and the drunk got up as if to leave also. I sat down where the man in the suit was and the drunk sat back down next to Jackie. A man, woman, and 4 year old girl got on the train then and the girl kept staring at the drunk. Her mama tried to turn her away, but the drunk saw her and started talking to her. Next stop. The father said something to the drunk, who then turned away for awhile and mumbled to himself. Then he stood up and addressed everyone on the train and sat back down again. Next stop. The drunk spies me and starts talking to me. I ignore him but he keeps talking. Then, he changes his tone, speaking every word slowly, with distaste. I didn't know what he was saying, but I knew how he was saying it. I sat up straight and locked eyes with him. For about a minute, we just stared at each other, then he grinned and laughed out loud, showing his missing teeth. As the train stopped, he got up and staggered down the platform, shouting obscenities at the world. What a strange way to end our days in Paris.

At the Gare, we had a small lunch at the Train Bleu restaurant, which is mentioned in our guidebooks. We weren't really hungry, but we knew we needed something to eat before we got on the train. We split a salad and some sorbet, both of which were quite tasty.

The train to Geneva went by, like trains do. I slept a little along the way. When we got into Geneva, we caught a train out to the airport, where we waited for the hotel shuttle. We stayed at the Geneva Crowne Plaza, which is a five-star hotel a mile from the airport. After the minimal experience of Paris, this hotel seemed positively decadent. We plopped into our room and just relaxed, watching documentaries on strange animals on the BBC. Jackie found that she had raised a blister from all the walking she did around Paris.

About 9 pm, we ventured over to the outdoor hotel restaurant and had a meal of mezze. I called home for the first time and learned that the kids would be staying with their Aunt Tina the next day.

We woke at a reasonable hour and checked out of the hotel. I paid for the hotel room with reward points, which is the only way we could've afforded such a place. Even though it was nice, it was utterly sterile as only a business hotel can be. The Swiss people we encountered in Geneva were exactly as nice as they needed to be and no more. I didn't feel a lot of warmth in Geneva, but we weren't there long enough to experience it properly.

The airport was a blur. After we made it through security, exit immigration, and the extra screening for US departures, we ended up being "randomly selected" for further inspection. The young woman who processed us was from the UK and she was perfectly pleasant about it, asking us all sorts of questions about our trip and commenting on the things she found in our bags ("did you like that book", "oh, what a lovely tablecloth", "is this your vibrator", etc.)

The flight to the US went fine as best I can tell. Once again, I didn't sleep at all. Jackie slept a bit. I watched The Watchmen and Monsters vs. Aliens, both of which I liked. I can understand why some people hated The Watchmen, though.

At Dulles, we had a bit of time so I sat in a bar and started scribbling in my journal while Jackie explored the airport. The guy who sat next to me at the bar was one of those nervous types who doesn't fly enough to get over the fear. "So, keeping a journal are you? Where you been?" So, I put up my pen and spent the next 30 minutes finishing my beer and chatting with my neighbor. "Oh, will you look at the time...."

The flight to OKC was easy. General Colin Powell was on our flight, in first class. He got a special escort out to the plane via an airport car, but he still had to fly in that bumpy little CRJ like the rest of us. Turns out he was speaking at a motivational conference, where he was second fiddle to Bob Stoops (the OU football coach). Shows where Okies priorities are located.

Picked the kids up at Tina's, where they didn't want to leave because Tina has a pool. Made it home and forced ourselves to stay awake to 10 pm. Since we fitted the bed with new sheets before we left, we both collapsed into our clean, comfy bed with a contented "ahhhhhh".

Thanks for reading along. Hope you enjoyed it.

Tomorrow: what worked, what didn't. If you want to skip all the talk and see the pics, just browse over to my SmugMug site.

Day 8 - Musee d'Orsay, Musee de L'Orangerie, the Metro, Eiffel Tower

27 June 2009

We woke at 8:30 am. The beds in our hotel room just aren't comfortable, but we need the rest from being out to 11 pm and midnight every night. We grabbed cafe creme and toast at Cafe Ruc, where we had our evening meal the night before. We had toast because they were out of croissants! I think that's something close to a crime in Paris. A young man sat at the table next to us and rolled a cigarette. I never smelled it, even though he was less than 4 feet from me. I don't know what tobacco he was using, but if more American cigarettes put out so little smoke, I wouldn't complain about them so much.

We crossed the Pont Royal to the Orsay Museum. This museum is more to my liking than the Louvre, with it's collection of Impressionist paintings. We saw plenty of Dagas, Reniors, Cezannes, Gaugins, and of course Van Gogh.

From the Orsay, we went to the Orangerie, which is only a couple hundred yards away on the north side of the River Seine. We crossed a pedestrian bridge where dozens of young men were selling bottled water and trinkets. All the young men appeared to be Algerian, but I'm not sure about that. Crossing the bridge, we saw dozens of padlocks on the bridge. A little research shows that it's a popular activity of young lovers to write their names on a lock and attach it to a fence in a public place. Toward the Orangerie, underneath the bridge, was yet another sax player. I'm not so sure it wasn't the same guy from the Louvre 2 days ago.

As we approached the museum, a young woman walked toward us and as we passed her, she reached down and said "Excuse me". We turned around and she said "I think you dropped this", showing us a small locket. I had read that this is a classic scam and that after we say it's not ours, she says "I am a jewelry student and I know this is solid gold. Would you like to buy it." When you get home, you find out that your solid gold is gold plated.

The Orangerie is where Monet's Water Lilies are located. I've seen these paintings online and in books, but I was not aware of just how large they actually are. There are two very large rooms in the Museum, at least 80 feet long, where the paintings are housed, 4 to a room. The paintings are at least 8 feet tall and some of them are 50 or 60 feet long. The rest of the Orangerie was interesting, but we didn't really see anything else that was famous.

We had our lunch at a place called Angelinas. Angelinas was recommended by my boss, who is a chocoholic. The meals were good, but the desserts were what brought us there. We had their signature dessert, called the Choc Afrikan. On top of a cup of Chaud Chocolat Blanche, it was absolutely sinful.

At this point, we got on the Metro and headed to the south of the City. A request from Jackie's aunt Cheri led us to the only Harley shop in Paris. We watched a man make a puppet show to 50's rock and roll on the Metro train as most of the people ignored him. We bought a couple of Harley shirts for her and went looking for the Gray Line tour bus to take us back to the Eiffel Tower. We waited at the bus stop for a while. And waited. And waited. After about 30 minutes of waiting, I called the Gray Line number on our tickets and asked where their bus was. The other folks at the bus stop started watching me. The woman asked where we were and I told her. She replied "Oh, that line is closed today for the Gay Pride parade." D'oh.

So, we got back on the Metro and rode it back to the Champs Elysees so that Jackie could do some shopping at the Disney store. I sat in a nearby backstreet pub and enjoyed a pastis. Jackie joined me and we enjoyed the time, just resting our feet. Then, back on the Metro toward the Eiffel Tower.

While waiting for the train at the Concorde station, we had some fun. Another Sax player was doing a good job down in the cool tunnels. There were lots of people on the platform waiting on the train, some listening to him play and others lost in their own thoughts. A group of 6 to 8 black girls showed up, having a great time. They started clapping to the sax players beat and then started singing. The sax player picked up their beat and suddenly we were in the midst of a concert. I had no reservations tossing him a couple of €2 coins for his efforts.

We disembarked the Metro across the Seine from the Eiffel Tower and walked across Pont Bir Hakiem. After waiting on a group of Chinese women to take dozens of silly photos of them holding up the tower, we got our opportunity from the north side of the Isle of Swans.

At this point, Jackie wanted to go to the south end of the island to take a picture of the small Statue of Liberty. My feet were tired and I managed to make her mad. An argument ensued--the less said the better.

Over to the Eiffel Tower as the sun was setting. We had a really mediocre meal at a nearby cafe. As it got dark, we went to the park near the tower, where thousands of people were congregated. They were playing drums, hackysack, and just hanging out on the grass. Around 10:30 PM, the tower lit up and everyone went crazy. We took some photos and Jackie got some funny videos on her camera. At one point, a group of firemen showed up, parked in the street and everyone bailed out. They took a group photo in front of the tower and then headed on down the road.

Back on the Metro, with a connection at the Arc d'Triumphe and into our hotel after midnight.

Tomorrow - TGV, Geneva, heading homeIf you want to skip all the talk and see the pics, just browse over to my SmugMug site.

Day 7 - Notre Dame, Montparnasse, Louvre

26 June 2009

We both woke late, around 9:30 a.m. After all the movement this week, we needed some time to just slow down and collect ourselves. After a shower and a couple of Advil, we were ready to face the day.

We caught breakfast late in the morning at one of the little cafes on Rue Rivoli near our hotel. This one was not one of the better cafe's, but it was open. We walked down Rue Rivoli to the Tourism Office, where Jackie bought us a couple of tickets to the "Open Tour" bus and a Museum Pass.

We got on the bus and rode it around a bit. We got off the bus at Notre Dame cathedral. We took some shots of the front of the cathedral and watched the hundreds of people milling around the area and a group of elementary school girls chasing pigeons.

Eventually, we went inside the cathedral. Here was my first complaint about Paris and it's not about Parisians. Despite many signs around the cathedral, including large ones at the door, people continued to take photographs with their flashes turned on. It's interesting to note that every beautiful artifact in the cathedral also had a collection box in front of it for "donations". Jackie made her donations and got a couple of "get out of Hell free" tokens. I'm hoping she will let me have one of them.

We had a late lunch at a cafe near the cathedral and then got back on the Open Tour bus. This was where my previously mentioned incident occurred, as we headed for the Montparnasse Cemetery.

The Montparnasse Cemetery is a quiet and peaceful place. If it weren't for all the marble and granite place, it would be easy to mistake the place for a public park. Locals walked the quiet lanes through the cemetery, tourists rubbed the graves and took photos, and there appeared to be a Jewish burial going on. We found graves of Jean Paul Sartre and Porfirio Diaz among the hundreds of priests, nuns, and patriots. Jackie had thought about making some rubbings, but we didn't bring any tracing paper with us. From Montparnasse, we got back on the Open Tour bus and rode it back to the Louvre.

Got into the Louvre in the late afternoon. We headed into the hall with the Italian Renaissance painters. Found the Mona Lisa with about 50 people standing in front of it, taking flash photos!!! What the hell is wrong with people? Can't they read signs. I suppose part of the fault lies with the museum staff--there were 3 guards directly in front of the painting yet they never chastised anyone for taking flash photos. From the hall with the Italian paintings, we found the Egyptian artifacts, which I know my son would love to see. We also found the Mesopotamian artifacts of King Sargon, the Code of Hammurabi, and a bunch of very cool sculptures.

We left the Louvre and had a drink at one of the nearby cafes. In this cafe, I ordered a Picon beer, which was a medium brown dark beer that tasted strongly of pecans. After we got home, I learned that Picon is a syrup in France that is added to Pilsner to make the drink that I got. Now, I'm going to have to find the stuff next time I'm in a civilized part of the country (not Oklahoma).

We had our dinner meal at the Cafe Ruc, which is not far from the Louvre. The meal was OK, but this was the first time that we've had a waiter in France hover over us like he was ready for us to leave his table so someone else could use it. What the hell? Are we in Chili's? We took our time anyway and I refrained from adding a few Euro on our way out the door.

A quick grab of my twitter feed on while in the cafe, we learned that Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson had died. One was expected, the other was not. Neither was a surprise.

Culture Shocker: I've been in France twice before, including Paris. Both times previously, I always managed to step in dog crap. I've watched the French with their dogs and I noticed that they don't curb them. This trip, however, not only did I not step in crap, I didn't really see that much laying around on the sidewalks. I wonder if there's been a deliberate effort to clean that crap up.

Tomorrow - Musee d'Orsay, Musee L'Orangerie, riding the Metro, Eiffel TowerIf you want to skip all the talk and see the pics, just browse over to my SmugMug site.

Day 6 - St. Remy, TGV, Paris

25 June 2009

I awoke at 8:00 AM to the sounds of Jackie packing bags. We took our time getting around and talked with Avern, our hostess, about life in Provence and politics "back home". As an ex-pat California, Avern is more interested in what goes on in the US than most people in France, but it seems a bit far away to her. She did say that the impressions of the people she knows about the US and Americans has greatly improved with Obama getting in office.

We drove into the city center for a pastry and coffee. When we were getting coffee on Monday morning, we saw a pastry shop that had a "grosse meringue", which appeared to be the meringue topping off a pie. So she ordered one and I had a croissant. 30 minutes later, both of us buzzing from the sugar high, we spent some time exploring the Roman ruins at Glanum, just south of town.

I pulled into an Esso station in Avignon, not far from the train station. Our Peugeot was a diesel engine, so I pulled up to the green pump and started to fill it. A truck driver in the next lane saw me and told me to stop. In broken English, he explained that I was putting Petrol (gasoline) in my diesel tank. Ooops--in the US diesel pumps are green. I don't think I put more than about a quart in the tank--I hope it doesn't hurt things too badly.

Getting to the TGV train station was easy enough, but finding the secret road that led to the rental car lot took 2 or 3 mistakes to get right. Once we were inside the station, I had a beer and cooled off, because there really isn't any A/C in public places in France. Our train was late, so we had plenty of opportunities to listen to the SNCF TGV jingle. By the time the week was over, we decided we liked the tune, so I found a version of the song put to a synth beat, edited it and now use it as a ringtone.

The train to Paris took a little more than 3 hours. If we were on an airplane, it would've taken 30 minutes, but we would've wasted a lot of time getting to and from the airport with a lot of stress. The train is a much more civilized way to travel. We spent our time looking at our photos, eating the remaining cherries and tapanade and watching the scenery go by. The car was a bit warm, so we also dozed a bit.

Inside the Paris train station, once again it took us a while to get our bearings. We finally found the Metro (subway). I wasn't completely sure which train to take, so we stood in line at an information booth and hoped that the attendant spoke some English. The attendant had a full uniform and looked like a caricature of a French train attendant than the real thing. I began with a very polite "Parlez vous anglais, sil vous plait?" He looked at me sorta funny, then looked a Jackie, and started talking to her. She said we needed to get to the Louvre. He suggested that I pay for the tickets and the two of them could go to the Louvre and I could run the ticket office. Ah, the French humor. Welcome to Paris.

The ride on the Metro was pretty packed, as it was about 4:30 pm and people were starting to go home. We managed to get to the Louvre station easily enough. We took a wrong turn or two, but we finally made it to our hotel, just a few blocks away. We unpacked our clothes and then headed out into the streets of Paris. The rain was starting to fall.

Hungry and thirsty, we sat down at a cafe near the Louvre called Cafe Le Nemours, underneath the canopy. The rain came down harder and several lightning strikes hit nearby as the thunder was deafening. We enjoyed our beer and spent an hour just people-watching. We ordered food from the menu and for run-of-the-mill cafe food, it was awesome. I don't know if we were exhausted or just excited to be in Paris, but everything tasted great.

After our meal, we walked around the gardens of the Palais Royale. We watched men of various ages tossing petanque (bocce) and several groups of well-dressed young professionals having an impromptu picnic. I think this is a common occurrence to show up at a place with a loaf of bread, some wine, some cheese, and spend a few hours talking. From the Palais Royale, we walked up the Avenue de la Opera, toward the Opera House (where the Phantom lives).

From the Opera House, we made it down Rue Madeleine to Place de la Concorde and started walking up the Champs Elysees. By this time, the sun is about to set, but it is plenty bright. Being so far north right during the time of the summer solstice means that the days are long, the nights are short, and twilight makes it easy to see your way around.

The Champs Elysees is a shoppers paradise and there were tens of thousands of people taking advantage of the annual sales. We did some window shopping, but didn't try to buy anything. We finally made our way "up" to the Arc d' Triumphe as the last blues of the night were fading away. We spent some time taking photos and we traded shots with a couple of young American girls who seemed so excited to be in Paris on their own.

Faced with the prospect of walking 3 miles back to our hotel or trying out the Metro again, we opted for the Metro. It took us 2-3 tries to get the right train, but we were getting better at reading the maps. Back at the Louvre, we walked around a bit. We listened to a man playing his saxophone for spare change, while we looked in one of the public galleries in the Louvre. We walked out into the big open courtyard and took some photos of ourselves by the big glass pyramids.

We finished the evening at a cafe around the corner from our hotel. With a cold glass of pastis and an Orangina, we watched well-dressed late night revelers going to and fro. We collapsed in our bed after midnight, exhausted and happy.

Tomorrow - Notre Dame cathedral, Montparnasse cemetery, The LouvreIf you want to skip all the talk and see the pics, just browse over to my SmugMug site.