Bonne Année!

Bonne Année y'all!

Here's wishing you a very healthy, happy and prosperous 2009. Personally I'm determined to make 2009 my "best year ever", and I mean that with all sincerity. Teri will tell you that's what I've been calling the coming year for several months now and I only hope 2009 can live up to the billing I've given it. And my fondest wish is that 2009 is your best year ever too!

Have you got your New Year's resolutions in place? Teri and I got a jump on the New Year and have already commenced a serious diet program. We figured out not too long ago that any group picture of us taken this summer will not only be in seen our house, but will also quite likely be on display in your homes too for many years to come.

Melanie and Cathleen have already come to the same conclusion about trip photos being forever. Since the last time we were together, Cathleen has dropped something close to 30 pounds and Melanie is down over 40. I've seen both of them in the last few weeks and all I can say is ooh la la. Way to go ladies!

Once again Happy New Year! I love you all.

Logo Runoff Election

In our BYSAPC logo election we had 10 votes cast (out of an 11 person voting pool, so that's pretty good participation)and two of the logos tied for first place--each getting four votes.

Those two logos were the ones labled Tower Take 2 and Flag Take 1 (see pictures above). The two logos you preferred were the two I liked best myself, so I congratulate you on your good taste. The only other logo to get any votes was the one labled Variety, which received a respectable two votes.

So it's a runoff between the tower and the flag. The gadget is up and you've got a week to make your decison. May the best logo win.

Joyeux Noel!

The Polls Are Open

The presidential election may or may not have gone your way, but here's an election where nobody loses. Okay guys, all the logos are posted,and it's time to pick one. I think we owe a huge round of thanks and adoration to Cathleen and Teri--didn't they do an amazing job in coming up with these?

The voting gadget has been created, and the polls are officially open. You've got a little over a week to go to the Marjorie website and cast your ballot for your favorite logo.

Here are the election rules:

1. The winner must have a majority of the ballots cast (50%+1 vote). For example, if either six or seven total ballots are cast, the winner must have at least four votes.

2. In the event that there is no clear winner in this "primary", there will be a runoff election involving the top two vote getters.

3. Only votes cast using the voting gadget on the right hand side of the screen on the Marjorie site will be counted. No "ballots" e-mailed to me or added to the comments section of any post will be allowed. Kathy, show Beau where the little ballot thingie is on the website.

4. If you really feel strongly about a candidate, you'll notice that it's easily possible to cheat and stuff the ballot box by voting multiple times. This is a "Chicago rules" election so we'll allow the dead to vote if they are so inclined.

5. Feel free to lobby for the candidate of your choice by posting comments or sending what we used to call in New Orleans "walking around money" to encourage votes to go your way.

Logo Candidate #6--Variety

Logo Candidate #5--Cruise

Logo Candidate #4--Flag Take 2

Logo Candidate #3--Flag Take 1

Logo Candidate #2--Tower Take 2

Logo Candidate #1--Tower Take 1

Designing Women

Our design team of Cathleen and Teri has been hard at work and has come up with some ideas for the Bonjour Y'all Social Aid and Pleasure Club logo.

I've seen Teri's two offerings and I'll bet you are pleased with them. Cathleen says that "great minds think alike" and that the logos she has produced are very similar to Teri's.

Our logo will be used on letterhead, luggage tags, shirts, this web site and all other officially licensed BYSAPC merchandise, so choosing it is not a decision to be taken lightly.

Over the next several days starting tomorrow, I'll be posting the logos one at a time (oh can't you just feel the anticipation in the air?). Once you've had a chance to consider each of them, we'll have a vote on the website. The logo with the most votes will win.

If anyone else out there wants to submit a logo for consideration by the group, go for it, but if you're going to get creative, get creative in the next few days.

SIX MONTHS OUT!!!

Just wanted to note that we are now six months out from our departure date (give or take a day or two). My, how the time has flown so far. Seems like just a few weeks ago when we gathered at the Henley's to discuss the trip. I don't know about the rest of the girls, but I do spend some time pondering my wardrobe. Guess we'll be getting more serious about that really soon, and I'm sure there will have to be a pre-trip shopping excursion :)

Little Differences #2

I'm not sure what compels me to want to have my picture taken in front of major touristic "sights". No matter how much I travel, I can't seem to stop this compulsion. On our trip to North Carolina last summer, Teri and I had to have our picture taken in front of the Biltmore. There wasn't a question or a moment of doubt, we had to have that picture.

Eiffel Tower, check, Notre Dame, check, Leaning Tower of Pisa, check. Parthenon, check, Forbidden City, check--check, check, check. If it's a famous place and we've been there, there's invariably a picture of Teri and me standing in front of it

Why is that? It's not like we don't know we were there, and it's not like anyone else cares to know what we look like standing in the Piazza San Marco.

Sometimes I think that it would be far more interesting to take more pictures of things that are different from back home but are more mundane. You know, strange street signs, train stations--stuff like that. For instance I took a couple of pictures of us outside of a Wal-Mart in China, but I didn't think to take pictures of the inside--and that Wal-Mart was way interesting. So why do I insist on having my picture taken outside the Colosseum in Rome--we've all seen pictures of that before--and not pictures of Italians pushing and shoving their way to the front of the counter for gelato on a hot summer night?

Which brings me to the subject of plumbing.

One of the "little differences" you'll discover on our journey is that not all porcelain is created equal. I thought I'd write a few amusing words about potties around the world and especially in France, and I Googled a few key terms in hopes of finding a picture or two that I could use (start with the terms "french toilet" and "squat toilet" to commence your own trip down this rabbit hole).

Well I was stunned to find out just how fascinated the denizens of the world wide web are with all things flushable. There is so much more out there than you could ever possibly digest. There are also gazillions of pictures of people in (but not on) toilets around the world. One hilarious short video clip shows a young American woman hunting in vain for the toilet inside her Paris hotel bathroom click here to see it.

I'm so glad that while I was getting my picture taken in front of the Louvre, these people were busy capturing the "real" France.

So here's what you need to know about toilets in France:

Somewhere along the line you may encounter the dreaded squat toilet (aka squattie pottie or squatteria as my dear spouse likes to refer to them). I've included a picture of one here. These are common in Asia and there are still quite a few in southern Europe, but I bet they're mostly gone from France by now. However if you do happen to encounter one of these, I wish you good luck ladies.

Sometimes you'll have to puzzle out how to make your toilet work. There are lots of different kinds of toilets in use in France, and some seem to date back to the age of Charlemagne. Figuring out what to pull, push or step on to achieve a flush is half the fun.


Modern toilets everywhere except in the US often have two buttons on top. One button is for number one and the other button is for number two. I've never figured out which is which and often have to push both buttons repeatedly to get the darn things to achieve their intended aim.

At some point along the way, you'll end up using one of the space age self-sanitizing toilets found in most major cities in France (see picture). That'll be a cultural experience for you.

WC is code for toilet everywhere except in the US. WC stands for water closet. Phonetically in French you would ask "ooo ay le doobla vay say" if you're searching for the facilities.

When you've found the toilets, don't be surprised if there's a little old lady there to take up a little coinage in return for renting you a spot and handing you a few sheets of potty paper. It's a bargain as these toilets are invariably very clean.

Also don't be surprised if the toilet in your cafe is more or less co-ed. Ladies you may have to walk past gentlemen standing at the urinals on your way to the stalls.

There's more, much more, but I have to leave some things for you to discover on your own.

Petanque Peniston Style

As you can see from the picture, the Peniston Athletic Club has added a new sport. Colleen is clearly getting an early jump on her Petanque skills. The soft sand surface, however, is better for their beach volleyball tournaments than Petanque. We'll see if her practice pays off when we have our tournament in France.

The Little Differences

Today I want to introduce a concept I'll develop in the next post. You'll soon see where I'm "going" with this, but for now I want to start with a little dialogue (language edited for our audience) from the Quentin Tarentino movie Pulp Fiction.

In this scene, Vincent, a mobster played brilliantly by John Travolta, is just back from a "business" trip and he's sharing his impressions of Europe to colleague Jules (played equally brilliantly by Samuel L. Jackson).

VINCENT: But you know what the funniest thing about Europe is?
JULES: What?
VINCENT: It's the little differences. A lotta the same stuff we got here, they got there, but there they're a little different.
JULES: Example?
VINCENT: Alright, when you go into a movie theatre in Amsterdam, you can buy beer.
And I don't mean in a paper cup either. They give you a glass of beer. And in Paris, you can buy beer at MacDonald's. And you know what they call a Quarter Pounder with Cheese in Paris?
JULES: They don't call it a Quarter Pounder with Cheese?
VINCENT: No, they got the metric system there, they wouldn't have a clue what a Quarter Pounder is.
JULES: What'd they call it?
VINCENT: They call it Royale with Cheese.
JULES: Royale with Cheese. What'd they call a Big Mac?
VINCENT: Big Mac's a Big Mac, but they call it Le Big Mac.
JULES: Le big Mac ! Ahh, what do they call a Whopper?
VINCENT: I dunno, I didn't go into a Burger King.

You can see the whole 1:41 minute clip in all its glory by clicking here, but be forewarned that the language is pretty raw.

Anyway mobster Vinnie Vega gets it exactly right in his commentary. In some ways European cities are more familiar than they are dissimilar from our home towns in the States. But those "little differences" truly do make all the difference.

Until next time.

The Dollar Keeps Rocking!

Hey our 401(k)s may have lost something like 40% of its value in the last year (at least mine has) and we may be heading for the worst recession of our lifetimes, but there's one little bright spot in this bleak economic picture.

The US Dollar continues to gain ground vs. the Euro, effectively dropping the price of everything we will buy in France. Early this summer, it would cost you about $1.60 to buy one Euro. As I write this, the Euro is selling for just under $1.25. That's a huge difference gang. I wrote about this about two weeks ago and the price of a Euro has dropped another 10 cents just since then. That's a dramatic change and it's in our favor.

As the investment disclaimers are wont to say, "prior performance is no guarantee of future results," so this could all fall apart tomorrow. But business people also like to say "the trend is our friend," and the trend is very friendly indeed right now.

Of course the only time this will really matter is the day we land in Paris and there's no way of knowing what will happen between now and then.

Just be thankful we're going to Paris and not Tokyo. When Teri and I had a layover in Tokyo in June 07, one Dollar bought about 120 Japanese Yen, and I didn't think things were as expensive as I had heard they would be in Japan. Today the Dollar will buy only about 92 Yen. Look for Honda and Toyota prices to go up in the near future.

Peniston Beach Volleyball Tournament

How can I resist posting this picture of Colleen in action? As you can see, there's some long overdue sewer and street work being done on Peniston Street. And in New Orleans, when the going gets tough, the tough turn their street into a beach volleyball court. Let's hope that the work goes quickly and there isn't a second annual Peniston Street Beach Volleyball Tournament.

Mystery Unveiled

Congratulations to Jen for being the first to identify Colleen's alter ego as Nurse Ratched from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

This is from the Wikipedia entry on Nurse Ratched:

A cold, sadistic tyrant, Nurse Ratched has become the stereotype of the nurse as a "battleaxe." She has also become a popular metaphor for the corrupting influence of power and authority in bureaucracies such as the mental institution in which the novel is set.

Nurse Mildred Ratched is the head administrative nurse at the Salem, Oregon State (Mental) Hospital, where she exercises near-absolute power over the patients' access to medications, privileges, and basic necessities such as food and toiletries. She capriciously revokes these privileges whenever a patient displeases her. Her superiors turn blind eyes because she maintains order, keeping the patients from acting out, either through antipsychotic and anticonvulsant drugs or her own brand of "therapy", which consists mostly of humiliating patients into doing her bidding.

Here's a clip of Nurse Ratched in action. There is some strong vocabulary in this clip, so those with delicate sensibilities shouldn't click through.

Who is This Person?

Tonight I accidentally figured out who it is that Colleen selected to represent herself in the picture that accompanies her profile (its the picture that shows up along with her incisive comments on this blog), and when I did figure this out I laughed for about five minutes. Am I the only one who didn't get the joke?

If you know who this person is, post a comment, reveal the mystery for all and win five points.

At the same time I learned that Cathleen selected someone named Heidi Klum as her alter ego. At least that's who I think that is. I hate to admit that I don't really know who Ms. Klum is, but I think she may be an actress. The depth of my cultural illiteracy is amazing.

A Picture I Found Looking For Something Else

Free Guided Tour Anyone?

If you saw the Birmingham News this morning (and why would you have?), the Travel section featured two articles about Paris. One was a pretty lame article about how to save money in Paris (sample useless tip: time your visit to include the first Sunday of the month when the Louvre has free admission).

Much more interesting was an article by the same author, Gaelle Faure, about a relatively new initiative called Paris Greeters. This is a volunteer organization that recruits Parisians to take people on a two or three hour visit to their favorite parts of Paris. The volunteers can take up to six people at a time and the best part is that they don't charge a single centime for the service. In fact they aren't even allowed to accept tips.

Here's a link to the English language version of the paris greeters website.

Here's a link to the story that ran in the paper today.

This sounds kind of fun to me, but bear in mind that this is not the same thing as taking a tour with a professional tour guide. The last time Teri and I took a free walking tour we were in York, England. Our guide on that rainy day was a sweet little old lady who was as boring as she was enthusiastic about her town.

So, what do you think? Who would like to try this out on one of our days in the City of Lights? If you think you'd like to do this, post a comment or pop me an e-mail, and I'll try to set it up for the folks who are interested.

What's in Your Wallet?

One more quick post about money, while I'm thinking about it.

Just like in the US, your Visa or MasterCard is going to be accepted just about anywhere in France (other than a flea market or street market). So does it make any difference which card you use at that charming little French cafe or when you're buying that lovely new frock in Paris? Well it turns out that it does.

Most credit card companies charge a "currency conversion fee" of one or two percent for every purchase you make in a foreign country. This is basically a fee for nothing, and is one of the many reasons I'm not feeling too sorry for the greedy banks and the misery they are now going through.

But there is one (and only one) major credit card issuer that doesn't charge this fee at all and that issuer is CapitalOne. This is subject to change at any time, and I'm not suggesting you run out and get a CapitalOne card to save the two percent on your credit card purchases in France, but if you already have a CapitalOne card, that's definitely the one you should use on the trip.

I have one of their cards and it's the only one I use when traveling in a foreign country. It doesn't save a ton of money, but every little bit helps.

Don't forget to call your credit card companies a few days before we leave to tell them that you'll be in France. That phone call should prevent the security department of your credit card company from denying your purchases after you get there. The last time I did this, the companies had automated the process, so that I didn't speak to a human at all, but instead kept pushing buttons from the computerized menu you get when you call the 800 number.

As for getting cash out of the ATM machines, I think the best strategy is to use your debit card or ATM card from your bank. Don't use it too often or get only a few Euros at a time since you'll be paying the ATM fees every time you get cash from the machines. And make sure you've left enough in the checking account at home before you leave to cover any withdrawls you'll have to make.

Whenever I travel abroad, I try to get some of the "local" cash before I go (but check your bank's exchange rate first to make sure you're not getting robbed). Your home town bank should be able to supply you with Euros without any problem, but you may need to call ahead if you are getting cash from a small local branch of your bank.

Whatever you do, don't get your Euros from the ripoff currency exchange booths at the airport--you'll be way overcharged for that maneuver. There's a big spread between their buy and sell rates and they usually throw in a flat fee on top of that.

I always carry too much cash on trips (at least I start with too much--I don't end with much very often). I've never had a problem, but my rule of thumb would be not to carry more cash than you'd feel comfortable losing or being stolen along the way.

One Bit of Good Financial News

I don't know about you guys, but I've been watching the unfolding financial crisis in horror and anger. Declining home values combined with a crashing stock market have made us a whole lot poorer on paper than we were just a few months ago.

I won't get into the politics of it except to say that we're caught in a real dilemma with this mess. If we let the greedy and the stupid suffer the fates they deserve, they'll take the rest of us down with them.

Let's pray that our economy is a whole lot more resilient than it appears right now and that we get through this downturn quickly.

But there is one tiny bit of very good financial news in all of this--for us anyway.

The US Dollar is absolutely rocking against the Euro right now. Take a look at the chart above. Just three months ago it would have cost you $1.58 to buy one Euro. Today you can buy a Euro for $1.35. This means that the price of everything in France is a whole lot cheaper than it was three months ago. That doesn't mean that France will be cheap, but this is big difference.

Nobody can predict the future, but it would be really nice if this trend continues at least until next June.

From the Sick Bay

Here's an update from Colleen, our Médecin examinateur En chef (Chief Medical Officer). She posted this as a comment to another post, but some of y'all may have missed this, so I thought I'd pass it along here.

I'm not positive about this, but I believe that pharmacists in France can sell antibiotics and a number of other drugs without a doctor's prescription, should it become necessary for any of us along the way.

-----------------------------------

I have consulted with the CDC recommendations for vaccinations prior to our trip, and they recommend that we all have up to date Tetanus(within 10 years), 2 doses of MMR (measles, mumps rubella), yearly influenza, and pneumococcal vaccines. Hepatitis A is recommended in case of a random outbreak.

I have a First aid kit, and some over the counter medications that may come in handy.
Everyone should have their own prescribed medications in the original bottles, and bring them in your carry on luggage.

We all know how our bodies react to out of the ordinary routines, rich food and excess alcohol. I encourage you to bring laxatives, Tylenol/Motrin, and antacids if you usually benefit from these!!

Praticienne d'infirmière

The Latest in Paris Fashion, Part Deux

Wouldn't it be cool if we saw people on the streets of Paris actually wearing this? This outfit is from famed French fashion designer Pierre Cardin and was revealed Monday during the presentation of his entire Spring-Summer 2009 and Autumn-Winter 2009 collections at his villa in Theoule sur Mer, southern France. Link here if you want to see more of Cardin's designs for 2009.

The Latest in Paris Fashion--Really!

This dress was unveiled in a French fashion show in Paris last week for one designer's Spring ready to wear collection. Ladies, I think you'll want to compare notes while we're on our trip so that you don't all end up wearing this outfit on the same day.

How the French View Sarah

Here's another post from Charles Bremner's Times Online blog brilliantly explaining to the Brits how the French view America. This time he weighs in on how the French view Sarah Palin.
Enjoy . .

This might be an exercise in what the French call "shooting at the ambulance", or kicking someone when they are down. But here's a look at the French reaction to Sarah Palin.

Like the Gallic adoration of Barack Obama, the French view of John McCain's vice-presidential choice has been simplified by the cultural filter. The personnage of Palin and the initial enthusiasm she generated were puzzling for a country that disdains displays of faith and moral certainty. Her convention joke about hockey moms being pitbulls with lipstick took a lot of explanation.

In le Monde, the elegant Dominique Dhombres explained that Palin was an elemental type from l'Amérique profonde. "She is a go-getter, almost an assault tank. A virago ? That's for you to decide... She believes in God, America, the family and firearms. She defines herself as 'une maman hockey'."

On France-Inter, the main state-run radio station, a commentator this morning described Palin as une sacrée bigote -- a really sanctimonious woman (literally 'a holy bigot', though the words are softer in French).

French feminists have had the biggest trouble with Palin. They have come round to the conclusion that she is a dangerous agent of anti-feminism. "The exhibition of this fundamentalist version of femininity and maternity in the American presidential election concerns all of us," wrote Julia Kristeva in Libération. "Whether she represents the banality of evil or tragic caricature, can this strangling of women's emancipation... be reversed?"

Elle, the thinking Parisienne's fashion weekly, denounced Palin on Monday as "the incarnation of a new femininism, as dangerous as the 'Islamic feminism', which has recently been invented by the Muslim fundamentalists." Marie-Françoise Colombani, Elle's editorial columnist, concluded that Palin was proof that the "worst enemy of woman is often a woman."

Palin's self-undoing with her inept interviews has been greeted with relief and a little gloating. Headlines today called her "Sarah la gaffeuse" and McCain's Achilles Heel. Libération had fun filling a page with her confused answers to questions from Katie Couric and others. Her words about Vladimir Putin "raising his head" and flying over Alaska and her incoherent views on the Wall Street bail-out have been prompting widespread mirth.

The cartoon is from le Nouvel Observateur. McCain says: "There's only one solution left." Palin replies: "Bomb Wall Street".

Interim Reports Anyone?

I'm just wondering how our various BYSAPC subcommittees are performing.

Melanie, are you getting lots of cool info on the rural part of our adventure?

Mike, have you started to unravel the puzzle that is dining in Paris?

Teri, are you and your design minions hard at work on the graphic design and fashionwear parts of the plan?

Our videographer Steve assures me that he is busily putting the finishing touches on the script what will no doubt be a masterpiece of cinema. Project X is still in pre-production but his early plans involve having us reproduce the invasion of Normandy using the Marjorie II as our landing craft. That and something involving the macarena. It gives me chills just thinking about what else our own personal Federico Fellini will come up with.

Jen, how are those French lessons coming? Are you ready for your translation duties?

I think we need to make Colleen our official Geographer. She tells me she has run through our entire trip in great detail on Google Earth. So cool!

Strange Interview

As Teri will testify, Rick Steves is my favorite travel writer. Ever. On our first trips to Europe we followed Rick's intineraries from his travel books fairly closely. Teri got tired of hearing "Rick says to see this" or "Rick says to go there" as we traveled to France, Italy and the UK.

And Teri can further testify that David Sedaris (see picture) is one of my favorite humorists. In fact right now I'm reading his latest book, When You Are Engulfed In Flames.

For several years Sedaris has been living in Paris, Normandy and London and his latest book largely revolves around his adventures in Paris.

Rick Steves has a public radio program on travel, which I download on I-Tunes. So imagine my delight when I discovered this week that my all-time favorite travel writer was interviewing another one of my favorite writers about living in Paris.

The result is just hilarious, although not always intentionally so. Actually, I thought the interview was pretty disastrous. The Paris of David Sedaris has very little in common with the Paris that Rick Steves writes about. For example, having lived in Paris for years, Sedaris still has never set foot inside the Louvre. Rick has written a big chunk of a book about European museums dedicated to the Louvre and the art in it.

Sedaris does discuss his favorite fast food joints, to Rick's bafflement.

It was uncomfortable at times listening to Rick struggle to find common ground with Sedaris and failing pretty miserably. In all fairness there are some moments in the interview that are both genuinely funny and enlightening about France and the French.

If you want to hear it for yourself, here's the link:

Rick Steves interview with David Sedaris

266 days and counting

It was exciting to me to see today that we are 266 days out from the trip. My goodness, how the first 100 days have flown by this year (June to June).

In order to prepare yourself

Here's something else that crossed my transom. I'm on the mailing list for a travel agency newsletter. Occasionally it contains something interesting. The topic this week is a rant about the Charles de Gaulle airport.

Teri and I have flown out of CDG and even connected flights there a few times. Personally, I'd rather fly through CDG than Houston any day. IAH is one of my least favorite airports anywhere. We'll be doubly blessed on this trip since we'll be flying through both of these airports on this trip.

At least we won't be connecting at CDG. Anyway here's the newsletter article. Enjoy . . .

In this newsletter, I'd like to talk about one of the most frightening things in travel today--a tight connection at Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport (CDG).

I know better than to try, but on my recent trip home from Venice to Houston, I tried anyway.

The only other connection would have required my family to wake up at 3:30am, leave our cruise ship for the airport at 4:30am and lay over for five hours at CDG. I decided to live on the edge.

I took the connection offered by the airlines when I booked my tickets--one hour and 10 minutes. By the time my flight from Venice arrived in Paris, my flight to Houston had already departed.

All travelers know that sooner or later your number comes up and something goes awry, but attempting a short connection at CDG, Europe's most-delayed airport, is like playing Russian roulette with no empty chambers in the gun.

CDG is France's own Bermuda Triangle, where people and their luggage go quietly missing in huge quantities on a daily basis, only to emerge later, unable to explain what happened or where they have been.

At any given time, there are enough people lost or stranded in CDG to line the entire course of the Tour de France, elbow to elbow. In fact, if you took all these travelers and stacked them on top of each other...well, that's probably not a good idea.

We queued up at Air France's service desk, and when I reached the front of the line, the agent confirmed what I already knew, that there was no other flight that could get us to Houston that day and we'd be spending the night.

I asked about our luggage, and she seemed surprised to hear that people traveling from Venice to Houston might check bags.

"Ohhh," she winced, shaking her head as if a grave mistake had been made. "You will need to go to baggage services to retrieve your bags."

Where is that?

"Take a left and walk 10 minutes."

I learned long ago that most people who work at CDG have given up on providing complete directions to anything that is not already within sight. They seek merely to move you along. I had been given the standard directions to anything and everything at CDG.

Eventually, in baggage services, it was explained that bags "in transit" cannot be retrieved. Why? It's simple:

"If these bags could be retrieved, they would no longer be in transit, and these bags are in transit, making retrieval impossible."

So rather than disturb our bags, presumably still enjoying some forward momentum, we were each given a small box with one white T-shirt, a toothbrush, a razor, an impenetrable pouch of shaving cream and laundry detergent--in case we decided to wash the clothes we were wearing in the sink in our hotel room.

We stepped outside and joined all the other misconnected people waiting for hotel shuttles. As vehicles of all sizes pulled up, we heard the song of the frustrated over and over again.

"Is this the bus...?"

"No."

"Is this the place...?"

"No."

"Do you know where...?"

"No."

To be clear, I don't blame the people who work on the airplanes or the people who work in the airport for the way the airport operates. These are problems that cannot be solved at the individual level, and possibly not at the country or planet level. This is inefficiency of galactic proportions, and a galactic solution may be required.

And please don't get me wrong--I like France and the country's new, no-nonsense, pro-American president, Nicolas Sarkozy. He has pledged to clean up the inefficiencies and out-of-control bureaucracies that stifle the French economy.

I even like Air France, mostly. I have enjoyed good crews and clean, modern planes with this airline. I believe they are hampered by the sad reality that most of their flights begin or end at CDG, Europe's most illogical airport.

For example, what are the airlines at CDG hiding from? There seems to be no signage outside or inside the terminals that lists airline ticketing/check-in locations.

Security checkpoints could also use some attention. Earlier in our vacation, standing in a very long security line for a flight to Barcelona, I couldn't help noticing that each conveyor belt was allocated TWO trays, which meant that only one person at a time could go through the laborious process of emptying their pockets and removing their metallic objects.

Maybe it's a job creation project since it results in lines that move at about 1/5 the theoretical rate and thus requires 5x as many conveyor belts--and operators.

Then there's Terminal 2, a series of loosely connected buildings identified as 2A to 2F. They all sound so close, but that's just one of the inside jokes CDG plays on travelers.

Terminal 2 covers an area roughly the size of Belgium. Strike out walking from 2A to 2F and your passport will likely expire en route.

My advice: Always allow extra time for connections at CDG if you can. Never take the last flight of the day to connect to a cruise or tour departure--where the penalty for a missed connection or cancelled flight is so steep. If you want to live dangerously, do it on the way home.

So, President Sarkozy--and I really am pulling for you--where should you begin such a massive undertaking as making CDG consumer-friendly?

I'd go straight to the airport and ask disoriented travelers what they're looking for and how long they've been at it. I'd try to find out why so many jetways sit vacant while so many planes park in the hinterlands and bus their passengers to the terminal.

I'd watch what's happening at Air France's self-check-in kiosks, which time out after two seconds of inactivity and force everyone into an "exceptions" line manned by a single agent.

I'd talk to the shuttle drivers and service managers that aid the helpless and hopeless and finally, to that guy that works in the information booth--as soon as his break is over.

"How can we improve this system," I would ask, and I can almost hear his suggestion:

"Take a left and walk 10 minutes."

A Suggestion for our Producteur Exécutif

I don't know if you've ever seen or heard of the Where The Hell is Matt? video. If you've never seen it, it's just a series of short clips of this young guy doing a very silly dance in spots all over the world (including Paris). Sometimes he's by himself and sometimes he's dancing with others. A gum company sponsored his travels and the video. The whole thing is just a couple of minutes long. It's one of the weirdest and most beautiful things I've ever seen.

So, if you've never seen it, why don't you check it out. click here to see Matt

I told you it was cool.

Okay, so I'm wondering if we could do something similar on our trip. At a few of the more visual stops along the way we could do "something" together. Maybe dancing, maybe something else. Then our producteur/directeur could put a couple of minutes of video to music. What do you think Steve? And the rest of you, are you in? Get those creative juices flowing--I smell Oscar!

In France Our Election Would Be A Landslide!

Today's topic is the presidential race my friends and specifically how the French feel about it. It should give you some insight into how the French think about us.

Below are a few paragraphs I stole from Charles Bremner, the Paris correspondent for the Times of London. A recent poll shows the French want us to elect Obama in the upcoming election by a 10 to 1 margin. Wow! I'll get out of the way and let Charles tell us what's going on.

If anyone needed proof of France's love for Barack Obama, le Figaro offered it today with an opinion poll. This finds that 80 percent of the French want the Democrat candidate to win the US presidency while only eight percent favour John McCain.

The poll was carried out by TNS Sofres on September 2 and 3, before McCain benefited from the Sarah Palin bounce but it gives an idea of the overwhelming wish in France to see a President Obama take office. Eighty-six percent have a good opinion of him compared with only 35 percent for McCain. The strong support cuts across social class and the political spectrum.

The BBC found pro-Obama feeling to be strong worldwide in a poll this week, but the passion seems to run higher in France than anywhere.

There are reasons for this.

France has an idealised and schizophrenic view of the United States that dates back to 1776 when King Louis XVI helped the colonial insurgents fight Britain's peace-keeping force. France feels that it has a founding share in the nation which bestowed jazz, GIs, cocktails, JFK and Clint Eastwood on Europe. It dislikes what it sees as the more primary, messianic and intolerant America that is represented by Republicans and personified by George W Bush.

Given the demonisation of Bush, it is surprising that the Figaro poll found that as many as 18 percent of the French hold a favourable opinion of him.

French misunderstanding of the USA has been glaring in the coverage of Sarah Palin. TV reporters have been at a loss to explain hockey moms and the excitement over a woman whose pitch is patriotism, religion and family values. France prefers American frontier heroes of the fictional kind, courtesy of John Ford or Sergio Leone. Few have noticed that Palin invented a French name for the company which she registered earlier in her career -- Rouge Cou. "It’s a classy way of saying redneck," she told The Anchorage Daily. "It’s a French word, rouge is red, cou is neck. It’s for marketing and consulting, in case I wanted to go that route" (No doubt she has been told that it should be Cou Rouge).

Parlez Vous Fromage?

This post is more for La Reine de vin et de fromage (Teri) and her lady in waiting (Cathleen) than anyone else.

Somehow I have been made a charter member of "Club Fromage" by the Cheeses of France Marketing Council. They have a fairly extensive website devoted to all things French and cheesey. I'm not sure how I ended up on the list, but there's a lot of good research material for anyone who wants to get a little more basic knowledge about the French cheeses we'll be consuming. Of course the best way to research French cheeses is to taste them.

Here's the link to that Cheeses of France website.

I'm sure you've all heard this story, but it bears retelling here. Teri's very first "real" communication in French in France revolved around cheese. She was served a bit of cheese at a cafe. It was love at first bite and she was determined to find out what it was. "Quelle nom du fromage?" she asked the waiter in her incredibly American accent. I think we were all surprised that the waiter understood what she wanted to know.

Turns out the cheese in question was cantel, still a favorite in the Henley house when we can get it and the budget allows for it.

Bargain Bin

As you no doubt know, New Orleans mostly dodged a bullet this week. As I write this, Colleen is still hunkered down at the hospital safe and sound and our friend Laurie is lodging at Chez Henley, awaiting the all clear so she can head back home. Talk about answered prayers!

And I have more good news for you tonight. I'm not sure if you've been following the currency markets lately, but the dollar has had quite a rally against the Euro over the last several months. You can read the story from the Wall Street Journal below, but here's the bottom line: everything in France is now 10 percent cheaper for us than it was just seven months ago.

That means every meal, beverage and souvenir in France is 10 percent off. Right now the whole country is on sale. Of course there's no telling where the Dollar will be vs. the Euro. nine months from now, but the trend is our friend.

Go Yankee Dollar!

NEW YORK -- Plunging oil prices bounced the dollar to a seven-month high against the euro Tuesday and a nearly two-and-a-half year high against the U.K. pound.

Crude futures closed below $110 a barrel Tuesday as it became clear Hurricane Gustav would not inflict anywhere near the damage seen three years ago, when Katrina smacked into New Orleans and oil infrastructure in the Gulf of Mexico, putting a serious dent in the overall U.S. economy.

The surprisingly good news on the storm front, and the dollar's subsequent gains, helped convince even the most skeptical currency observers that the greenback's big gains since mid-July constitute a true reversal in its long downtrend.

The euro fell as low as $1.4466 Tuesday, its lowest since early February and more than 15 U.S. cents down from a record high of $1.6040 on July 15. The pound dropped to $1.7784, a level unseen since April 2006.

Winds of change

This is not Marjorie related, but right now Gustav is shaping up to be a really nasty storm and New Orleans and one of our Marjoriacs are in the way of its current projected path.

It's way early and this storm could fizzle or change direction between now and Labor Day, when it is expected to make landfall.

Fay was bad enough. We got a lot of much needed rain here in Alabama, but it caused a big ole tree to fall on Mike's house in Hoover. It's the one he's trying to sell. No major damage, but he's going to have to get some gutters replaced and a little other work done. I know that is a pain since he's an absentee owner and they've already completed the move to Lynchburg.

Pray for Colleen and all our other friends in the Crescent City.

Let's do the time warp again!

Colleen asked a question on the comments section and I know a number of you only read the blog entries as they're e-mailed to you, so I thought I'd answer it here too because it's one of those cool questions that lead us to the scholarly realms of geography, physics, psychology, human physiology and philosopy.

Basically Colleen wanted to know how long the flight is between Houston and Paris.

Well it's either 16 hours and 40 minutes or it's 10 hours and 35 minutes or it's 9 hours and 40 minutes or its 3 hours and 35 minutes. It all depends on how you look at it.

On the outbound leg (Houston/Paris), we'll leave at 6:40 p.m. and arrive at 11:05 a.m. the next day. That's 16 hours and 40 minutes, but it's only 9 hours and 40 minutes in real time because of the time zone changes (it's seven hours later in Paris than it is in Birmingham or Houston).

So, when we get there, our bodies will think we're landing in Paris at 4:05 a.m. We'll be really tired, somewhat disoriented and the predominant language we'll hear will be French. That's the real reason why it takes a day or so to get over the jet lag.

There are lots of different theories about combatting jet lag. Some say you should hit the ground running and go to bed at an early, but reasonable, hour. Others say a power nap as soon as you get to your hotel will help. Still others suggest knocking yourself out on the flight with alcohol and/or sleeping pills and trying to get some sleep. But nothing really works for me and I'm never able to really sleep on a long flight. I'm always too cramped in the plane and too excited about the trip ahead.

But after that first good night's sleep, I always wake up feeling great and ready to conquer the world.

On the return leg we'll leave Paris at 12:55 p.m. and arrive in Houston at 4:30 p.m. the same day. You'll be tired when you get to Houston, because it will be well past midnight Paris time by the time you clear customs. And most of us have the flight to Birmingham facing us after that.

Our "real" flying time is actually almost a full hour longer on the return because we'll be flying into the jetstream on the way back and that will slow our speed quite a bit. The airlines factor that into their schedules.

Okay, so long flights really can make you feel like you're in a time warp. Kind of like a very young Susan Sarandon does in this classic bit of cinema.


Enjoy!

Your seating assignment

You're not going to believe this.

I'm trying to fix our seats and I'm on hold again . . . With Ms. Fishman!!!! I almost hung up when she answered, but I can hear the hum of hundreds of other voices in the Continental call center, so I know it must be a karmic backlash for some bad deed I've committed in this or another life to get this sweet,addled woman for a second day in a row.

After a whole lot of explaining, I managed to convey to her that we'd prefer to at least have husbands and wives sitting together rather than have window seats throughout the entire aircraft, but we'd really like to all be in the same general vicinity of the aircraft so that we can annoy the rest of the passengers on board.

After asking me about last night's concert she proceeded to make some even crazier seat assignments.

After I explained why those seats didn't work, a little chat about Obama's VP selection and some more time on hold, I think we've got it covered. She just sent me the seat manifest and, while she doesn't have us seated with our siginificant others, I like the bloc of seats we've got.

On Continental, the 777-200 series in coach is configured 9 across in three clumps of three seats with two aisles.

Here's a link to a seat map so of this aircraft you can get a better idea of where we'll be sitting:

http://www.seatguru.com/airlines/Continental_Airlines/Continental_Airlines_Boeing_777-200.php

On the outbound we have A,B,C in Row 35 (the driver's side window is A and the aisle is C) and seats B,C in rows 38, 39, 40 & 41. Teri said you guys would much rather have aisle seats so you won't have to climb over a sleeping stranger in the middle of the night to go pee. It'll be dark for most of the flight, so there won't be a whole lot to see out the window except at takeoff and landing.

On the return, we have A,B,C, in Row 34 and B,C in Rows 35, 38, 39 & 40

Okay, since I'm the one who battled Ms. Fishman for two straight days, I get to decide how it's going to go. Since the seats are pretty well randomly assigned, I'm claiming Teri (spouse) and Colleen (skinny) in Row 35 going out and Row 34 coming home. Colleen, you get to choose the window or aisle seat, whichever makes you happy. The seat manifest has Mike, Teri and me sitting together in those rows, but that ain't happening. The other 8 of you can decide amongst yourselves who is sitting together and in what rows.

If anyone wants to see our e-ticket itinerary for their records or have a copy of the the flight manifest, just let me know and I'll be happy to forward that to you via e-mail.

So, in sum . . .

Our flights are now booked and confirmed!

Our Paris hotel is booked and confirmed!

Our week on the barge is booked and confirmed!

Our transportation to the airport from the barge is set.

We're pretty much done with the basics.

The next agenda items are to work out the whole Paris dining thing and arrange transportation from CDG to our hotel (and Kathy pretty much has that worked out). We also have to decide what we want to see and do while in Paris.

Oh and there's still the Petanque tournament to organize. I haven't forgotten about that.

Just Plane Crazy!

Please read at least the next couple of sentences of this blog entry. You can bail out after that if you like.

Do you have a Continental Airlines frequent flyer number? If so, can you pass that on to me so that I can get you set up to receive your airline miles?

Amazingly, Ms. Fishman actually got most of the ticketing right. She has our names correct and has us flying to the right cities on the right days. The thing she didn't get right is the seating assignments. For some reason she gave all of us "A" seats on both transcontinental flights (except for Melanie, who got a K seat. That means we have 1o window seats scattered throughout the "driver's" side of the plane and Melanie has a window seat two rows across on this big jet. Not to worry, I'll fix it.

I don't know if you saw this in the news this week, but United Airlines has just announced that, beginning in October, they will begin charging for meals on transcontinental flights. They won't be handing out so much as a peanut or a pretzel for free on flights to Europe.

That's just crazy and verging on evil. By the time we fly to Paris, either all the airlines will have adopted that policy, or United will have given up on this really, really dumb idea.

It wasn't that many years ago that the alcohol flowed freely and for free on your transcontinental flight and you actually ate pretty well. On our first flight to France, Teri and I had the pleasure of flying Air France. There were multiple meal services with pretty good food and after coming through the cabin several times pouring beverages, the staff set up a self-service wine and cognac cart in back.

Flying has gotten progressively less fun over the years.

I still remember my first flight. Mike remembers stuff better than I do, so he might have corrections or additions to this. It was probably 1968 and I was 8 or 9 years old. My brother and I were flying alone. After spending some time with our grandparents in California, we were flying from San Francisco to Chicago (I think) to be picked up by our parents.

Flying was so cool in those days! First of all, taking a flight was a big deal for anyone and people dressed up for the flight. The stewardess doted on the two youngsters flying by themselves which was an unusual sight back then in the pre-latchkey kid days when mom and dad stayed married. Oh, and she was a stewardess, not a flight attendant. That politically correct term didn't exist back then.

Mike and I both got gold wings which we thought was special. The young and cute stews (they all were young and cute back then) treated us like princes.

And I distinctly remember this about my first flight: Inside every seat pouch was a little sample box containing five cigarettes and matches. I'm pretty sure they were Winstons (I remember that because they were Dad's brand back then). I thought it was strange that cigarettes could come in any form other than the same size packs that Dad smoked. I didn't think it at all strange that these sample packs were in every seat pouch on the plane. That's right, not only was smoking allowed on board, there wasn't even a no-smoking section. Smoke 'em if you got 'em. Okay, so maybe that part has improved.

If you want a little taste of what flying was like back then, try to get on a mostly empty flight from Tokyo to Hanoi on Nippon Airlines. Teri and I had that pleasure not too long ago and it brought back many happy memories of what it used to be like to be treated as a valued customer and to actually be attended to by a flight "attendant".

And don't get me started on the TSA and the joy they have brought to all of our lives.

If there's one thing I'm pretty much an expert on, it's why air travel sucks and how airlines could make our lives better if they weren't such evil bastards. I could write volumes on the subject and, trust me, I've got a lifetime of stories. But I just realized I don't have the energy or inclination to vent on any further on this subject. Airline travel, instead of being an event and part of the experience, is now just a necessary evil to be endured as you attempt to get from point A to point B.

Can't we just swim over there?

As I'm typing this blog entry, I'm on eternal hold with the airline as they try to compute the taxes and fees on our plane tickets so I can pay for them. Ms. Fishman on the other end of the phone sounds about 80 years old and it's her first day on the Continental group desk. Bless her heart--it took her about a half hour just to enter our eleven names into her computer (and I didn't even give her our middle names or passport info). She's clearly got a manager hovering over her shoulder as she flounders around and it's still not going very well.


The last guy I spoke with had the personality of tap water and the person before that had a really heavy hispanic accent. And, trust me, Delta was worse than that.

I have also been through every possible itinerary over the phone and e-mail over the last few days with several airlines and one travel agent. In short, this has been a less than fun part of the trip planning.

I'll get back to you again with an update and a general rant about airlines after I'm done with Ms. Fishman.

Oh, wait, she just came back and asked me for my reservation number. Again. This is after an hour of data entry and holding and managers stage whispering in the background. Are we going to have to start all over again? It's beginning to sound like it.

Oops, she's gone again. Why do I feel like it's close to Ms. Fishman's nap time?.

Hey, she's back again. Now she wants the name of the group leader and his or her phone number. "Um, that would be me, Ms. Fishman." Argh! We've covered that ground already. Oh, and what's the name of your hotel in Paris? And their phone number? How is that possibly going to help us? I gave her all of that information and now she's gone again. Is anyone else doubting that our tickets are going to be remotely correct?

I don't know how long I've been on hold now, but I've heard the on-hold commercials about a zillion times. I know about checking in on-line, that you can pay with cash using Western Union, bidding for travel, etc. and all I want to do is give these people money and get on with my life.

Right now I'm hating myself, Ms. Dishman and all of you for this special form of torture, but most of all I'm hating Continental Airlines and the airlines in general.

Make it stop . . . MAKE IT STOP! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, MAKE IT STOP!

Ms. Fishman just came back. I asked her if we were close to done and told her I needed to get off the phone and go to a concert Ms. Fishman said "no, not done" and then asked me who I was going to see. I told her, she said "oh" and put me back on hold. I swear that was the entire transaction.

After five minutes of holding, she's back again and guess what? Our rate information just went "kaflooey". Not sure what that means, but I can't ask because she's gone again. If she ever comes back, I'm going to ask for the manager.

Teri here sitting in on hold for our captain while he goes and does who knows what.

Teri's gone and Ms. Fishman is back. She gave me an amount, but it was only for 9 tickets "they're still working on the other two" but she didn't know if that amount included the $300 per ticket deposit I've already paid. She's gone again and I never got the chance to ask. Maybe Steve and Melanie aren't going after all.

Oh wait, she's back and . . .

. . . finally! I've given her my credit card about three times now and it looks like we might be almost done.

Ms. Fishman and I just had a lovely discussion about Barack Obama's running mate (she wants it to be Hillary) while waiting for the transaction to process and. . . and. . . wait for it . . . ah, finished!

Hey, we're done. Now let's see what the e-mail confirmation looks like when it comes through. Show of hands . . . who thinks I won't be calling the group desk again tomorrow to fix the errors? Anyone? Anyone?

A question from the concierge (Mike)

Hi Marjoriacs,

Our Concierge à Paris (Mike) has requested that I put up a poll question for you, so for those of you who don't ever actually look at the blog (Beau, that means you), please make an exception and spend 1 second answering this one question poll any time over the next few days. You'll find it towards the top of the page on the right hand side of the blog.

As you may or may not recall, our concierge is charged with putting together a special group dinner (purely voluntary--you don't have to go) for one of our nights in Paris.

He's been doing his research and he's determined that the fancy schmancy restaurants in Paris are really expensive (well, I'll be--who could have guessed?). We're talking taking a second mortgage expensive.

If I heard him correctly, Mike claims that his preliminary research shows there are ultra fancy restaurants in Paris that might cost up to $300 per person. Ouch! I have a feeling that $300 apiece might be a bit more than some of us are willing to spend for a month of groceries, much less a single meal.

I'm trying to picture my parsimonious brother willingly parting with $600 for dinner for two, and that vision is just not coming to me.

On the other hand, some of us might think that $300 isn't too much to spend for one of the best meals of your life and a once in a lifetime experience.

So here's the question. If we have a special night out together, how much would you be willing to fork out for dinner? The poll gives you a range of price options. Our concierge will tally the poll results and take that into consideration as he plans and reserves our dinner.

Merci pour votre participation.

Finally, congratulations to Cathleen for running away with the shopaholic poll.

Oh, one other thing

As we learned from our little experience with the hotel, don't count on the flight arrangements being final quite yet.

I'm holding these reservations with Continental, but I'm not married to them for a few days yet. I've asked a travel agent to put in a bid for us. If she comes in at a significantly lower per ticket cost or comes in with better flight times, I'll change it all around. The BYSAPC budget is pretty well all used up thanks to higher oil prices/airfares putting the last nail in my budgetary coffin and if I can save a buck or two along the way I will.

There's actually a tiny bit of good news on the budget front. Has anyone else noticed that the Yankee Dollar has had a nice little rally vs. the Euro in the last five weeks or so. On July 14th, it took $1.59 to buy 1 Euro. Today you can buy a Euro for $1.48. That's an absolutely huge improvment and means that everything in France is 6% cheaper than it was a month ago. Hooray!

So if I make changes to our flights, unlike the hotel experience, I'll only do it once.

Important!!!! Flight information

Okay guys, I've got flight information for the Bonjour Y'all Social Aid and Pleasure Club.

Here's the skinny:

Everyone except for Melanie and Steve will be flying on Continental from Birmingham on Wednesday June 10, 2009. We will fly from BHM at 3:05 p.m. and arrive at Houston Intercontinental at 4:59 p.m.

In Houston, Steve and Melanie will join our happy band. Strangely, the direct flight from Houston/Paris and back cost $6 more per ticket than the Birmingham/Houston/Paris route, so effectively the airline is paying nine of us $6 apiece to fly from Birmingham to Houston.

At 6:40 p.m. we depart Houston and arrive at Paris Charles DeGaulle at 11:05 a.m. on Thursday, June 11th.

Here's the scoop on the return flight:

We depart Paris CDG at 12:55 p.m. on Saturday, June 20th. We arrive in Houston at 4:30 p.m. where, after clearing customs, we say goodbye to Steve and Mel and send them on their way. The rest of us will fly to BHM at 7:25 p.m. and get in at 9:14 p.m. (still on Saturday the 20th).

For those of you who don't live in Birmingham or Houston, you're on your own to get here no later than 1:30 p.m. on June the 10th. Anyone planning to come in a day early is welcome to spend the night with us. We've got plenty of time to work out the arrangements for getting to the airport in Birmingham, but I bet we can all pile into a couple of cars for the trip and save a bundle on parking.

If anyone has any objections to these travel plans, please speak up now or forever hold your peace. Mike and Jen, if you'd rather fly yourselves to Houston and meet up with us there rather than coming to Birmingham and flying with the rest of the group, let me know right away and I'll see if I can work that out.

Finally, if there's any chance you're going to back out for any reason other than your own death, you still have a chance, but I need to know right now.

Le Capitaine

I'm home and away again

Hi Marjoriacs,

This is an entirely personal and not at all Marjorie related blog entry.

I got home from Belize last night. I'll give you a few words on Belize and a few other random updates before disappearing again to my sales meeting in Florida early a.m. tomorrow.

Belize is one wacky place and should be the subject of one of those TV programs set in a place where everyone is insane in a charming way (think Northern Exposure gone tropical). At the same time the poverty of the place is completely oppressive and heartbreaking.

I spent most of my week in a slum in Belize City. The neighborhood is known as either the "Burial Grounds" because of its proximity to the city's largest cemetary or "London Bridges" because it is a swamp where squatters build shacks and little bridges to get to them. The residents of the Burial Grounds dump all manner of trash to fill the swamp in an attempt to create land. It's a real toxic soup.

I was mostly working on a school building that will be opening this fall. I don't see how--it's nowhere near ready. It was hot and dirty work. Belize City is a crime riddled and very dangerous place. There were four murders here on the day I arrived and three on the day I left (and that's in a city of only 80,000 people). A couple of days we were wiring this building. There was a guy staying in the building overnight, but Rudolfo must have gone off for a while because while he was away, thieves came in and stole most of the wires we had spent two days installing. It's just a really frustrating place to be.

The food was beans and rice or rice with beans (and a little chicken) for most lunches and dinners. Breakfast was beans and some sort of bread. Pretty basic fare.

It wasn't all "suffering for Jesus". On Sunday drove across the country to visit some nearly deserted Mayan ruins on the Guatemalan border and jump off a waterfall in the jungle nearby. On my last day I got sent off to hop a boat for a four hour ride to an island in the north of the country to help deliver a bunch of new computers to a school. I slept on the boat and hopped an "air taxi" back to Belize City the next day and headed for home.

Here is just one picture showing a few of the "London Bridges" shanties taken from the roof of the school building. I've got other very cool pictures that show more of the beauty of the place, but that will wait until I can bore you with them later.

Mike and Jen and their kids are on the road to their new Lynchburg home as I write this. We'll sure miss having them around here.

Okay this blog will return to Marjorie-related business soon. Speaking of which, did you notice that Cathleen thrashed her competition in the now closed "shopaholic" poll?

I Do Know How To Spell

I thought I was editing my poorly spelled post, but instead I was posting it. So high tech!

SO HERE HANK'S EMAIL.. IHAVE NO IDEA WHY IT DIDN'T POST ON THE LAST TRY. I'M NEW ATY THIS ND JUST TRYING TO KEEP THINGS GOING WHILE HANK IS GONE....

FROM BELIZE....

Okay, how do I put this. Let's just say that when the first thing you do when you land in a Third World nation is to visit its only prison and deal with customs agents there, it makes your initial impression pretty powerful.

So, after going through customs I stepped out into the world. A random, very sketchy looking guy asked me "are you Hank". This was Kenny, my chauffeur. He and a strange little white guy named Carl led me to a field behind what appeared to be a derelict hotel where a couple of abandoned pickup truck sat. Over the course of the next little while it dawned on me that one of those abandoned vehicles was to be my limo.

We were met there by Tim Tam (so help me, that's his name), the head of the missionary organization and by a middle aged American ex-pat named Judy, who turned out to be a Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader in another life--believe me, you'd never guess that in a million years. Then the discussion ensued in the parking lot, for about an hour and it was ultimately was determined that Tim would take me to the hotel while Carl and Kenny took the other rolling junker somewhere else. Tim and I spent an hour getting gas at a full service gas station (where we were the only customers the entire time--literally nothing happens fast in this country).

Then we went into the boonies to the prison--the home of 1,347 prisoners (men, women and children)--(only 40 of whom are women--I'm not sure how many are kids). This is the only prison in the country. Let's just say that I think I could engineer an escape for all 1,347 inmates and that nobody would notice for a while. We were there for a couple of hours hanging with one of the top prison officials and waited for a customs guy to show up so they could break the seal on a container of medical and school supplies that had been donated to the mission. Why they were being stored at the prison was never quite clear to me.

Then it was off to downtown Belize City to pick up Carl and Kenny. Okay then we finally ended up at the hotel, I ended up buying the guys dinner at the hotel restaurant (not cheap, not expensive, but also not good). At that point (probably close to midnight your time), I literally fell on the bed and crashed into a deep sleep.

Woke up this morning too late to scuba. Tried chartering a half day of fishing and they wanted $300 US for it, so, POOL DAY!

Hank's First message from Belize

I thought you might be interested in Hank's first email from the mission trip in Belize.  I talked with him for about three minutes tonight at a gazillion dollars a minute and he was doing great.  I figured in his absence I should blog something, so here is his message to me at 10 this morning:

Teri Makes a Surprise Trip to Paris!

A couple of quick items

Today the Helena Henleys gathered with the Hoover Henleys along with a bunch of their friends for a kind of official farewell party as they complete their move to Lynchburg. We cooked a bunch of hot dogs and hamburgers while the kids swam and the adults mostly shared laughs and memories. It was a good time--very bittersweet. As I write this, Mike is flying back to Lynchburg so he can get to work bright and early tomorrow. Later tonight he'll be sleeping in their new Virginia home (on a blow up mattress since the movers won't come for a couple of weeks). Jen and the kids will head up there in a couple of weeks after the move is finalized.

Mike also has a suggestion for our next poll based on his preliminary research of the Paris dining scene. I'll launch that poll and tell you more about that after we wrap up the current poll on shopaholism.

Okay, so Teri is just back from a surprise scouting trip to Paris last week. She reports that Paris was a little hotter than she expected and that fashions in the vicinity of Paris have taken a turn for the worse.

Don't believe me? Well, I've got proof. Here are a couple of pictures of Teri in front of the Arc de Triumphe and the Eiffel Tower. They're a little blurry because they were taken with her cell phone, but I promise they're genuine.

Okay, okay. It's not that Paris. Teri was actually in Las Vegas for a couple of days for a gathering of advertising professors and had these pictures taken in front of the Paris Casino. It was 107 degrees while Teri was in Vegas last week, so it couldn't have felt much like the real Paris, and Teri says that the fashion sensiblilities of Vegas are also pretty much incompatible with those of the fashion obsessed French.

Petanque Anyone?

Before I get to today's topic, a few odds and ends.

Have you been to the blog site and voted on this week's poll yet? It looks to be a runaway election, but you still have time to exercise your franchise

Teri visited Paris yesterday on a scouting trip for our upcoming adventure. I may have proof for you in a few days (if we can figure out how to get a picture from her cell phone to my computer).

Unless one or more of my co-authors write some guest posts in my absence, the blog is going to be pretty quiet over the next few weeks. On Thursday I fly to Belize for a one week church mission trip. Wish me luck. I'll be painting a church building and playing "Uncle Zeke" in a series of VBS skits among other things. We'll also be visiting a prison, going to a couple of Belizian church services and who knows what all. My understanding is that we'll be working in a pretty slummy part of Belize City, which should be interesting

After I get back, I'll be home for all of one day before flying to Florida for a five day sales meeting (Steve will also be there for that one), so Teri isn't going to see much of me for a couple of weeks and I won't be very blogarific for a while.

Okay, on to today's subject.

The game of Pentanque (also known as Boules), is sort of a French national pastime. Go to any park in any French city on a nice day and you'll find a bunch of older French men (and French folks of all ages) playing the game. You'll see--this game really is a kind of national pastime, particularly for the aforementioned older men. Boules is similar to the Italian game Bocci and is played with metal balls.

It's kind of like a cross between bowling, marbles and horseshoes. I don't know the rules, but it's apparently a really simple game to learn and a very difficult game to master.

So I propose the following:

On our trip I'll try to acquire a Pentanque set (shouldn't be much of a challenge). And then one afternoon, lets find a park in whatever town we're parked in that day and hold a BYSAPC Pentanque Tournament. It should be hilarious and if my plan unfolds the way I imagine, we should draw a crowd of very amused native "coaches" to laugh at us and show us the proper way to play.

Here's a website that has a nice basic explanation of the game.

http://www.petanque.net.nz/Learning_to_play.html

So how about it. Who's up for a game of Petanque?

How Different Are the French?

Here's how different . . .

Imagine, if you will, Laura Bush putting out a music album this week with lyrics like these . . . "You are my drug, more deadly than Afghan heroin, more dangerous than Colombian white."

Imagine if Laura Bush used to date Eric Clapton and Mick Jagger before marrying George.

Imagine (I dare you) that prior to becoming First Lady, Laura Bush had a modeling career and posed nude for a photo shoot. Imagine also that Christie's recently auctioned one of those photos for $91,000.

Finally, imagine Laura Bush being totally hot.

Well, that's exactly the situation in France, where all of this and more is true of the French First Lady, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, wife of President Nicolas Sarkozy.

And, other than critics trashing her new album (after it's gotten over half a million listens on her website), the French seem pretty cool with most of this.

Here's a link to that infamous photo of the French First Lady with the naughty bits covered by digital duct tape and a link to the uncovered version if you like your art fig leaf free.

http://www.digitalalchemy.tv/2008/03/carla-bruni-sarkozy-nude-photo.html

When former French President Francois Mitterand died in 1996, he left behind both a widow (to whom he had been married 50 years) and a long-time mistress and illegitimate daughter (age 21 at the time of his death). Both the mistress and daughter were seated prominently with the rest of the family at Mitterand's funeral and nobody was shocked.

I ask once again, gentle reader, are the French different? Oh yeah, you bet they are. Vivre la difference!

SO, in closing, here are a couple more of Carla's album covers. I'm including these only so that you'll be able to so that you'll be able to recognize her if we run into her while we're in France and for no other reason. Click on either of the covers and they'll expand on your screen for your viewing pleasure.