Stubbornella

It is hard to remember not to make any mention of pants, even if I know what it means in British English. Beyond telling Murray Rowen that I liked his underwear in front of a crowd of people, I recently went to London to speak at the Front-end Summit being held there. I gave two talks. The first was High Performance Websites in particular the impact of choices made by front-end engineers. The second talk was about Architecting High Performance CSS.

Today was my first day at Yahoo. I spent most of the day in orientation but I am already impressed with the culture. People seem genuinely happy and able to make working hard a part of living well. And damn they’re smart! Fabulous well-rounded geeks. I know, I know, it sounds like I’ve been drinking the kool-aide.

I’ve wanted to try one for years, and i finally got the opportunity today. It rocked every bit as much as I thought it might. Hugo noticed that the “turtle” speed was indicated. I found that it was pretty zippy, which makes me wonder what it would be like on the normal setting.

I’ve been offered a chance to manage my team during a transition, so I am heading back to Paris temporarily. Having previously been principally a project manager rather than team manager I’m excited for both the new challenge and, of course, the chance to reconnect with my excellent team.

And in honor of that I have added a new category “An American in California”, though I go back and forth about how much Parisian is in there after four years of proving Darwin was wrong about me. I leave there knowing how to speak French, push in the subway, dance salsa, build enormous [...]

Youssef promised that if I tried salsa dancing for one month twice a week by the end of the month I would be able to dance more or less. And he was right. Who would have thought? I’m so maladroit I don’t think I really believed him, but its so much fun [...]

Hier soir, je suis allee a la Coupole pour faire deux cours du salsa avec Seve et Mouaze. Le premier etait un vrai cours debutant. Nous avons passes une heure entier sur les pates base. A la dernier minute il a rajoute un tourne super simple s’appelle la “Dile que no !“, [...]

I tried salsa dancing for the first time last sunday at L’Atelier.

I finally got my results from the slightly broken (only test 6 and the results section) BBC brain sexID test. It turns out I am 50% male, 50% female. Not that much of a surprise, I may be a carpenter, but I still love pink.

I’m soaked, the bathroom is soaked, several towels are soaked. Yes, my bichon has had a bath. I’ve learned to wash him without wearing any pants because I end up so wet that my clothes are unsalvageable.
He is a bichon fortement type. Which means he really looks like a bichon frise. [...]

Some very funny poetry set to an even more entertaining flash movie. Well worth a look. Dance, Monkeys, Dance

Update: I discovered that, the very funny spoken word artist featured in this animation, has a website, with even more recordings of his performances. His name is Ernest Cline. He is excellent, check it out.

Generally, Paris voted to ratify the Constitution, but not my neighborhood. Pinched between a university and low income housing towers, my neighborhood is comprised of exactly the demographic that pushed the Non to a 10% victory.

The dog park perspective

They are elated. They are throwing parties, and ostracizing friends who voted Oui. I am a bit sad, though I don’t say, because I would like a strong Europe to provide some kind of balance between the ambitions of China and the arrogance of the United States.

I don’t speak my mind because I find the no holds barred cage match style of French political discussions are not to my taste. But that has given me the chance to listen a lot.

Around five in the afternoon we met at the Ryokan Yuhara. We took our time settling in, and then went to explore. We walked along the Takase Canal and Kamo River. The canal is bordered by tiny streets and traditional architecture. The river by restaurants with decks which offer al fresco dining. We made it to the more Tokyo-like section of kyoto at nightfall and Hugo took a photo (password required, email me if you’d like one) that I’m very jealous of.