World Cup: France 1 - Brazil 0

I know most people who read this BLOG have absolutely no idea what is so great about soccer - much less the World Cup - but 3 billion people can't be wrong.

In the quarter final match between Brazil and France, Brazil was definitely the big favorite going in. Amazingly France won with almost the same players that had won the World Cup 8 years ago (hence why they were the underdogs).

The mayhem that ensued after the game (we watched it at Murphy's Irish Pub) was something to see. It seemed like everyone from Strasbourg and the surrounding area massed in Place Kleber and caused a bit of a raucous.

France will face Portugal (who had just beat the UK) in the semi-finals, where France is the favorite.

Temporary Entry: Changes to old entries

As some of you may have figured out already - I don't always post in chronological order. So if you're reading the blog in sections, you may find new entries further down. Normally, I don't care (you'll find them eventually), but this time I did add two videos to the Egypt section from the beginning of May, so you might want to check them out.

There are videos of us diving in the Red Sea, and all the wildlife we saw.

Joe rumbles

Joe had a bit of a situation where he ended up going to the emergency room and some stiches for a one inch laceration over his right eyebrow. The official story is that he had a rumble with some Italian World Cup Soccer Fans, and he came out looking way better than the three Italians . . .

The unofficial story is that he ran into a fence (the non-moving kind).

Please pick which story you think is more accurate.

Lilly closes Basingstoke

Unfortunately while Patrick was in Basingstoke training for power users, they announced in the middle of the week that Lilly would close Basingstoke as a manufacturing plant. The most likely scenario is that the land will be sold, and all the global teams that are currently in offices there will be relocated.

Although we know a lot of people who work in Basingstoke, fortuantely we do not have very many who were directly impacted by the closing. Patrick said that training continued despite the fact that his trainees received such bad news, which was encouraging.

Here's a copy of the newspaper announcing the closing (and yes, they did not spell the company's name right...ooops).

Verdun: Pennsylvania Memorial

This was kind of interesting . . . we were done driving around Verdun and we took a turn out in the middle of nowhere to go back to Strasbourg - where we just happen to pass by the US memorial to the soldiers who died at Verdun . . . for PENNSYLVANIA ! Needless to say Pennsylvanian native, Patrick, was a bit surprised.

What was also interesting was how huge and well done the memorial was relative to some of the other memorials in the area that were more critical to the war.

Verdun: Disturbing as always

Verdun is about halfway between Champagne and Alsace, so when we came back from Reims we stopped there. I had been to Verdun before when I was in school in Luxembourg, but we did not have the chance to see everything.

The Battle of Verdun is still has the regrettable distinction of having the highest mortality of any battle in recorded history - more than 1 million soldiers (mostly french, english, and german) were killed. More importantly the youth of the three most powerful countries of the time essentially lost their youth at Verdun.

On the particular day that we visited, Jacques Chirac had decided to visit Verdun (no idea why, since it didn't coincide with any holiday or anniversary), so that meant that no one else could. Fortunately Verdun is a huge area, and only part of it (granted, the most important part) was closed. We spent most of our time on the west side of the river, where we saw various key strategic areas that were fought over (they're basically hills with still unexploded bombs now).

In this particular image the inscription reads. 'Ils n'ont pas passe' - which means 'They didn't pass'. This is a reference to Petain's infamous saying during the start of the battle, when he said that the Germans would be stopped here.

Honestly...the place reminded me to the cost of stubborness.

Champagne: Gardener turns Champagne Producer

While running around the foothills of champagne, we were having some difficulty in finding champagne places that were actually open. So we finally stopped, and I ran up to a guy that was watering some geraniums to ask if he knew of any places that were open.

Turns out he owns a place a few meters away, so after he finished up his watering (no hurry), we went inside and tasted some champagne. The blancs de blancs was awesome, and the dark chocolate with the eau de champagne was killer. Granted it ended up on my shirt, because I didn't expect liquid inside - but it was awesome. The Eau de Champagne - think, 80 proof alcohol distilled from champagne - wasn't too bad either.

Champagne: Pommery Chateau

Since it had been awhile since we made it to Champagne - Patrick and I went with a whole bunch of people. We drove out with Mindy and Julie, and then Joe, Andrea, and Tim arrived a little later in the day. Here we are at Pommery Champagne House that Patrick and I had visited before. Froze my butt off.

One of the more interesting parts of the trip was meeting Nigel, Mindy's GPS. Much easier to use than the handheld one that we have, and it comes with a British voice. Originally it was setup in a french female voice, but the french was basically lost on Mindy - so we switched it.

Champagne: Don Perignon

Believe me, it's all marketing when it comes to champagne. It's just like Alsatian cremant, the only difference is that they have the name and big champagne house. We did have a chance this time around to visit more in Epernay which is kind of in the heart of the champagne region. There is a street that has most of the champagne houses - including Moet-Chandon, which makes Dom Perignon. Always fascinating to see a bottle of champagne selling for 100's of euros, when you can go down the street to a private seller and pay a small percentage of that.

T-Shirt Contest Entry #1

There seems to be a new trend in France now about wearing T-Shirts that are in english. I don't want to come off sounding like a prude, but let's just say the majority of these T-shirts cannot be worn in the US, much less at work. There is a certain advantage obviously of wearing a shirt in the non-native language. We've seen so many good ones lately that we decided to start posting them to see which one was the favorite.

Since I don't always have my camera handy, I have had to go to one of the websites to get an example of the T-Shirt - but let me assure you that these have been worn at work.

Gay Pride

Yep, they have it over here in France too. This was actually my first Gay Pride parade ever - much less in France (I'm warming up for a full fledged general strike that I know will come in the Fall).

Not sure about the exact numbers of all who attended, but the parade was pretty long. I was a little tired of the techno music by the end of the day, but all in all it was good. In true fashion for these things, even though the drag queens represented 1% of the total participants, they got 90% of the attention - I hate competition. Of course, me in my navy blue short sleeved shirt and jeans looked positiviely Republican.

World Cup: Italy 1 - US 1

Italy actually scored both points, it was just the last one went in the Italian goal by mistake - thanks Italy. Anyway, the US did play extremely well against an extremely good team. They will now need to beat Ghana in order to get into the quarterfinals.

Growing Stuff

Even though I have absolutely no space for a garden that doesn't mean that I can't grow some things this summer. I'm doing pots of basil, thyme, parsley, chives, and rosemary. And LiAnn picked me up two tomato plants - cherry and big boy, which I have on my deck outside.

Now the only thing I need to remember is to water the tomatoes.

Mark is in town

I'm sure I'm missing people who are around and about these last couple of weeks, but here's another one. Mark Griffith is supporting Intercompany for testing, and he's here for the duration. He has to put up with Joe's dramas, so we all have a certain amount of respect (and compassion) for him.

Um, Mark is the one on the left.

Gaby's Mom is back

She's probably going to kill me for putting in this picture of her, but I couldn't resist . . . after a short absence of a few months in Mexico, Irma (affectionately known as Mama Seetah (how do you spell that, anyway) is back. Yeah !!!

Lucia's Niece is in town

Tons of visitors these last couple of weeks - and we add one more . . . Lucia's niece, Daniela, is visiting from Mexico for awhile. I think she's visiting some friends in Germany for awhile, but she'll be back in Lucia's 5 square meter apartment.

That same aprtment by the way that we still have not seen, Lucia (hint).

Patrick Green in town

Pat Green was also in town for formal testing. We ran around to couple of restaurants, made fun of him for asking annoying defect questions, and in general visited Strasbourg, Baden-Baden, and the surrounding area. Unfortunately, we didn't have enough time to go someplace a little farther out like Bourgogne or Champagne - maybe next time.

There was abit of an incident with a clock - but that will need to wait for a later post.

Flower of the Week

Peonies are big this time of year at the market, so I picked up some. The pic doesn't do them justice, since most of them opened up over the course of the week.

What to do when Patrick's out of town

Don't know what it was this time around with Patrick out of town. Didn't really sleep well for two weeks. That's kind of unheard of for me, since I've been known to sleep through entire car drives through countries.

But I did get a lot done in the wee hours of the morning. I made the list of french cheeses, organized the bookshelves in the office, catalogued our entire DVD collection (we have about 150), catalogued all the books we have in Strasbourg so people can borrow them (have about 50 of those). I did my ironing for a week one night, and I toyed with the idea of rearranging the apartment, but it's so small, there's not much I can do there.

World Cup Begins

As you already know, the World Cup is being hosted by Germany this time around, so many of the games are extremely close to Strasbourg. Believe it or not the chance to get tickets for less than 500 euros is next to impossible (they really take this sport seriously over here), so we went Saturday night to Offenburg, where they had a big screen TV setup in the main square to watch the Italian vs. US team.

There were a surprisingly large number of Italians in Offenburg, and they were pretty rowdy . . . at the beginning. Even though the game ended in a 1-1 tie, and the Italians basically scored the point for the US; all agreed that the US played really well.

New Baby: Matisse

Congratulations to Philippe and Suzanna Faubert on the birth of their second child (and first son), Matisse (yep, like the artist). They told me the weight and size, but it was in metrics, so it really didn't make much sense to me.

I'm sure french law allows Faubert to take a couple of years off for family leave, so we may be without a fearless leader in the not too distant future - but we'll work through that.

New Goal: Eat all the french cheeses

Being unable to sleep well (Patty was in the UK too long), I decided to make a list of all the French cheeses. I'm not sure I have them all, but right now I have 203 cheese families - of which I have only had 8%.

I've decided to focus efforts on the AOC (Appelation d'Origine Controlee) cheeses. If you remember the story of champagne . . . even though there are lots of sparkling wine, only the bottles made in the Champagne region of France can be called 'Champagne'. Similar to the cheeses . . . only the cheese made in a specific region of France in a specific way can be called Roquefort cheese. It's a bit snobby, I know - but at least this way, I know what I'm eating a little better.

I'll keep you posted on progress

Orchid Bloomed Again

Not sure what it is about the skylight, but the orchid plants are loving it. This is a pic of an orchid that I got at IKEA when I first arrived in Strasbourg, and now it has bloomed again. Have absolutely no idea why since I don't regularly fertilize or water it.

Patrick's Travels: He's gone again :(

Well, he's gone again - off to Basingstoke to do CAPA training. First trip is two weeks, the second trip (after a week layover in Strasbourg) is for another week. Small apartment seems too big when he's gone :(

Patrick's Travels: London

No bad, huh? Picture of Big Ben in London, when Patrick was running around. I just threw it in because I thought it was cool.

Patrick's Travels: Living the Hard Life

Yes, that's his hotel. That little twit. As I'm dying of dehydration because our non-air conditioning apartment is baking us at a cool 98 degrees fahrenheit, he's watching horse statues and deer frohlick across a cool green meadow.

Patrick's Travels: Tower Bridge (London)

Not a bad shot, huh. Here's a pic of Tower Bridge in London at night. Not sure how he was able to get the shot in focus, but he managed somehow. Some people mistakenly think that this is London Bridge, but that's actually further down the Thames.

Patrick's Travels: Spooky Dancing (UK)

OK, forget the name of this kind of dancing, but it goes back to medievil times. One thing that Patrick did comment on was the British were extremely good hosts - they took them everywhere and had something planned practically every night.

Patrick's Travels: Westminster Abbey (UK)

While Patrick was in London, he stopped by Westminster Abbey - basically every King and Queen of England who had a coronation had it done here. If you remember the story of Scotland getting the Stone of Scone back from England, this is where it was for almost 700 years - until the Queen returned it to Scotland.

OK, history lesson over.

Patrick's Travels: Brussels

You know you're in Brussels, Belgium, when you see a picture of a statue of a boy peeing. Famous statue in Belgium - not sure why - but it's funny. Hopefully, Patrick will bring back some Belgium chocolate - no pressure.

Struthof

Went this weekend to the only concentration camp found in France - Natzweiler-Struthof, which is about 40 kilometers south of Strasbourg in the mountains of the Vosges. It was not an extermination camp (like Birkenau), as much as it was a political prisoner camp like Dachau. Basically the Germans used this camp to eliminate the french resistance, various political prisoners, etc. Like all ironies in life, this place used to be a famous ski resort.

The french have opened a new museum on the grounds, and for someone who has been to the major concentration camps (Auschwitz, Dachau, etc.), this was probably the best I have seen. Very complete and informative.

The camp itself was burned down by Neo-Nazis a few years ago, but they have rebuilt some of the barracks to give visitors an idea of what the camp was like. Of course, that is truly impossible to understand what an hour (much less a day) would have been like; but you do get an understanding how so many people went along with the Nazi regime. Basically not agreeing to join the Hitler Youth movement had you sent to this camp for a year. And nothing reminded you to tow the line better than when someone actually came back home from this place.

Party at Gaby's House

Friday night we all went over to Gaby's in order to welcome Gaby's Mom (Irma) back from Mexico. I decided to pick the more tame picture of some of us sitting outside on Gaby's Terrace (yes, she has one, and I do not) - the others were worse.

Joe brought a nasty bottle of honey vodka from Russia, and there were a couple bottles of Tequila floating around. Needless to say a good time was had by all, and when Patrick called from the UK the next morning - I'm not sure I was really sober yet. Ooops.

Etang

One of the perks of working at Lilly in France is that you can get access to their private cabin. It's about 10 kilometers from the plant, and it has it's own little lake, etc.

So since we had everyone in town for formal testing, we decided to rent the place out Thursday night (I think it was 35 euros). Basically we did a pitch-in and grilled outside - great fun. There was some initial confusion on what exactly was a pitch-in (the french like to have their meals planned more) - but they eventually got the idea.

Here's the text of the email I sent in order to hopefully clear up the confusion (it didn't have the intended effect, since many still asked me what to bring after I sent it) - oh well.

Some answers (...that matter) on the L'étang Pitch-In . . . .

1. WHAT SHOULD I BRING?
A dish to share (e.g. dessert, salad, cheese, freshly picked cherries, half a cow) and something to drink (e.g. water, wine, beer, or all of the above)

2. YES, BUT WHAT IF EVERYONE BRINGS A CHOCOLATE DESSERT?
The chances that everyone brings a chocolate dessert is about 1,328,234 to 1.

But . . .if everyone brings a chocolate dessert several things will happen:

a. Like a french omelette, french cheese, or french wine, those 125 chocolate desserts will all be significanly different from one another (one will most likely resemble a Japanese fan.)
b. I will be able to get in a heated discussion with Philippe Faubert on what is the best chocolate dessert - soon to be joined by Anne-Catherine and Albert. By the end of the evening, we would have logged five high/high defects on the issue and put FIT at risk of completing on time.
c. There will be 125 chocolate desserts -

3. YES, BUT WHAT IF WE DON'T GET A GOOD DISTRIBUTION OF DISHES (Too many desserts or too much cheese) ?
We were originally going to have APO do the planning for this pitch-in, but we ran into issues. The heuristic was too complicated, and Marc Kientz came up with too many additional requirements. But the idea was finally killed, when Cory refused to create a new global material for tarte a l'oignon..

So we are going with the CHAOS THEORY. That means creative individuals will not agree on the best dish for a pitch-in, so they will all bring something different. Believe me, my countrymen have been throwing pitch-ins for at least 200 years (that's a really long time for us); and we have NEVER had a problem with bad food distribution.
Besides, how is it possible to have 'too many desserts' or 'too much cheese' ?

4. YES, BUT CAN YOU JUST TELL ME WHAT TO BRING ?
Ha, ha, ha.... you're kidding, right?

5. SHOULD I BRING SOMETHING FOR THE BARBEQUE GRILL ?
Yes, you can - but that would be like a low/low test script defect - you can still "Go Live" without it. This is not Wade, the vegetarian, saying this . . .

Joe and Andrea are taking care of bring hamburgers, buns, condiments (ketchup, mustard) . . . and charcoal. So if you want to bring something to cook on the grill, you are more than welcomed to. Again, hearing what some people are thinking to bring, we will have enough food.

6. DO YOU HAVE DIRECTIONS?
Yep, out on the server: \\yf2svr05\Projects\GBIP r13\Exhibit\Map to Etang.doc

7. WHAT ELSE SHOULD I KNOW?
a. Parking is limited, so don't be like a typical American and drive by yourself - try to carpool.

b. The phrase "I think we brought too much wine" makes absolutely no sense

c. Jill Hagan is stealing my testers to complete her own PP test scripts, so her metrics will look better than mine (she's so competitive).

Hope that helps,

W-

Hagan's Get Car Backseat Stolen

Sounds like an article from the Onion podcast, but it's a true story.

Last weekend when Jill and Chris were in Lyon, they parked the car on the street overnight (the hotel said that had secure parking, but that's another story). Come the morning, the back seat was gone. Oddly enough, the expensive wine glasses were still intact. First personal property loss for Jill - still trying to figure out why someone would want the backseat of a car - are they doing some sort of retro living room look?

Riding around the wine route

Bikes aren't just for going back and forth to work. Chris and Jill went out one weekend around the Alsatian Wine Route, so the next weekend - we went out with them to do the same. Basically there are more bike trails than there are roads, so it's pretty easy to get around. The only problem is that some of the hills were pretty steep.

Cool door

While riding through Alsace, we came across this small village and ran into this door - I thought it was cool. Made of just some simple material and crown molding - thought might be a cool project someday.

Drinks at the Weber's

First week of FIT, we all ran over to the Weber's Thursday night. Pretty much all the AE's were there with a few visitors from Indy. Did the pizza thing from Domino's - yep, they have that here.

Tried to decide whether we should walk or take the tram to Weber's (it's about a 15min walk) - until we realized we could actually take our bikes. Obviously still trying to understand that bikes can actually be used for convenient transportation instead of just exercise or riding through the Vosges.

Resorting test script is finished !!!

Even though we've been back from Indianapolis for several weeks, we officially officially finished testing with the passing of the last test script - resorting. Won't go into the technical details, but this test script was a pain. Hopefully passing it in FIT won't be nearly as painful.

FIT Begins

Thinking that informal testing had just been completed, now it's time to start formal testing. We'll have 4 weeks to run scripts, one week to clean up, and one more week to complete stability testing.

It shouldn't be too bad, since the same testers that we had in IIT are going to test pretty much the same scripts. We'll see how it goes.

Prabhu arrives

With the start FIT means the arrival of various individuals from Indy. Prabhu Palanisami and I are on the same team, so as always it's good that he's here. Should be here for about three weeks.

He was here during model office back in October, so he already knows his way around.

Patrick leaves for England

C'est dommage. Patrick left for Basingstoke for two weeks :( He'll have a week back in Strasbourg, and then he's going back to finish up training.

Riding the bike to work

Believe it or not, I've been riding my bike to work. The GPS says that it's about 9 miles one way, and after doing it now for three weeks - I'm averaging about 3 days a week (sometimes I just have to drive into work for various things).

Most of the way is on a bike path, and Patrick made me get a helmet (I have a tendency for head injuries). However, there are some times when I have slammed on the brakes to avoid a car making a turn in front of my lane.

When I first started I got a little lost, and I was out of shape (still am); but now instead of 45 minutes one way, I've got it down to 30 minutes. When you consider it takes that long to get to work (or longer with traffic), it's not a bad deal.