drew

You’ll have to bear with me on the pictures of Paris. I’ve been asked many times already and I have 1100 pictures to sort through. I’m guessing less than 10% are post worthy. I won’t bore you with blurred shots or uninteresting things and as of right now I’m thinking max 30 pictures to represent one day is enough.

Paris wasn’t on my list of places to visit because 1) it’s far, 2) it’s expensive, and 3) I can’t speak a word of French. However, with the opportunity I had, I couldn’t pass it up. Day 1 started off with getting off the airport at 4:30. Following the crowd and getting through customs wasn’t a big deal, just go with the flow. Leaving the airport is where it got tricky. Paris’s subway system, Metro, is similar to New York City’s including graffiti. Take your time to navigate, check the map 3 times and just to verify, ask a friendly Parisian. I don’t think I’ll ever get over this, but I’ll only harp on it once to reduce being repetitive. Paris streets are so random direction-wise. Understandably so the city was probably built before the invention of the compass, but combine that with small streets (getting map that shows small streets is a huge plus) and poorly marked streets makes navigating Paris on foot a huge headache. The last day was a little better, but I still had problems navigating and yes, headache persisted. My instructions were to find the hotel, drop bags off and head to the city hall to purchase a Museum Pass for the duration of my stay. For the amount of museums on the itinerary, it’s worth it and I wouldn’t have to stand in line.

Forum des Halles
If I ever get trapped in another non-English speaking country, don’t trust my instincts. Halles sounded like hall in say city hall, so naturally I headed in that direction. Come to find out it was an underground mall.

Saint-Eustache
Still lost I notice a cathedral next to the mall, so I decided to walk in. The last time a visited a cathedral of this grandeur was in New York City. Architecture noticed, stain glass windows in a floral form noticed, on to the next stop.

Notre Dame
It’s one of the most popular cathedrals, a must see. It was another cathedral, but more fancy. We stopped by there again at night and some of the best night shots were taken. Yes, I’m a nerd; I carried my tripod with me. It was an added 5 lbs and it was decided to leave the tripod in the hotel until nighttime if needed.

Hotel de Ville
In between watching the street performers I capture this beautiful picture of the real city hall off one of Paris’s many bridges. During that time the rugby match was on and the French set up an outdoor viewing of the rugby match against Ireland in front of city hall. France won and it was a mess getting out of there. Parisians are passionate about their rugby. There was so many people, it was impossible to see the screen in full.

Day 1 ended in being tired from the walking and I was asleep immediately from the jet lag. All these pictures are straight from the camera. I’m too lazy to post process these due to the amount of pictures posted. Print-worthy pictures will be processed later.

The inevitable has happened.  It was only rumored, but now it’s a fact, Apple has updated the firmware on the iPhone to 1.1.1 as of yesterday.  Initially I thought it was in Apple’s best interest to sell as many phones as possible locked or unlocked.  Evidently Apple gets a cut from AT&T’s subscribers.  The new update blocked the software hack and prevented 3rd party applications from working.  Here are the other minor features of the new firmware:

• iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store
• Louder speakerphone and receiver volume
• Home Button double-click shortcut to phone favorites or music controls
• Space bar double-tap shortcut to intelligently insert period and space
• Mail attachments are viewable in portrait and landscape
• Stocks and cities in Stocks and Weather can be re-ordered
• Apple Bluetooth Headset battery status in the Status Bar
• Support for TV Out
• Preference to turn off EDGE/GPRS when roaming internationally
• New Passcode lock time intervals
• Adjustable alert volume

If it’s been hacked once, I believe it’ll be hacked again.  Look at Sony’s attempt to fix people from hacking the PSP.  Every time a new firmware comes out, the PSP gets hacked again.  Apple’s probably fighting a losing battle on this one.

I got this from a friend and I thought it was cool because I can relate.  There are 3 clips to tell one story.

Link1

Link2

Link3

At this moment I made it back from Paris safely.  I’m dead tired, my feet still ache from walking and I badly need some rest.  One word that describes Paris is, amazing.  More on Paris later…..

zzzZZzzzz

I will be out of the office starting tomorrow until next week.  In my absence no one will update my blog.  It was a failed attempt to add writers.  On a side note, ricefarm v2 is one year old to this day.  The same time last year the hard drive failed and most of my original blog was lost.  The server end now has scheduled backups.  The user end now has scheduled weekly database backups sent to my email.  We would be foolish if we didn’t learn from our mistakes.