My Blog is moving...

Though I have only blog randomly over the last year or so, usually associated with some form of travel, I wanted to let everyone know that my future blog entries will be moving to my personal web space. If you would like to follow along with my occasional random thoughts, please join me at http://home.two-michaels.com and click on the link on the left-hand side to "Ben's Blog". Take care...I hope to see you all at my new web home.

A 5-hour tour....a 5-hour tour....

Each year during this event, Alcatel-Lucent plans a grand dinner party to entertain and impress the North American contingent. My first time in Paris, this dinner was held on the Eiffel Tower, which honestly I never thought could topped because, let's be honest, when looking at things on a grand scale, few are grander than the Eiffel Tower. This year our dinner was a 5-hour Yacht cruise on the river through the heart of the city. I must say this was a magnificent event. The food was excellent; the company was very enjoyable; and the views were beyond outstanding. My pictures certainly do not do the voyage justice, but I tried my best to capture a few of the spectacular moments. The highlight of the evening came as the captain of the ship rushed us back to the Eiffel Tower just in time to see its 11pm light show. I had never witnessed this show in person or from such an amazing perspective. From the river, the tower shined directly above us, its lights glimmering across the water. If nothing else, this view was worth all the effort of traveling to France.


My dinner party, minus Ando, who was behind the camera...


A view from the river...


Eiffel prior to the lights...


Eiffel in all her glory...


This pic is for Mom...see what a good influence you are....

Down to work in Paris...

OK...I have been in Paris for several days and I have been to a few business dinners and events, but yesterday was the first real focused event for Alcatel-Lucent Forum. John and I attended what can best described as the highly produced and very dramatic opening Keynote for the Forum itself. The Chairman of Alcatel-Lucent spoke as well as Peter Sondergaard, the Senior VP of Research for Gartner. Both focused on the new environment in technological advancement in light of the current global economic crisis. The general focus of the entire presentation was the value of research and development of intellectual property when financial resources are limited by economic concerns. Tom Burns, President of Alcatel's Enterprise division also spoke, and from his and the other presentations, several thoughts were born. I found myself taking several pages of notes as I related open issues at KVAT to the content presented. It was a very valuable session and should bear fruit for the company.

The show floor opened immediately after the Keynote and I lost several hours searching booths and exploring several new Alcatel and partner products. All in all, this has been a good educational experience beyond just the influence of Alcatel-Lucent and its product line.


Just a fun shot from the night before exploring the city...


The Convention Center itself...Palais des Congres


Just the beginning of the presentation...that massive screen soon tripled in size!!

Strangeness arrives from a familiar device...

I had such a strange experience this morning I decided it was worthy of its own small entry in the blog process for this trip. I do not consider myself an isolationist and I certainly understand that their are significant differences from country to country and culture to culture. Needless to say, I understand that the United States does not represent the only perspective on how to do things. Have a meal; order a coffee; take a cab anywhere outside of the US and you will soon realize there are numerous other ways to do things in this world; some better and some worse. I like to think I found an example today of the wrong way to do things. Selfishly I believe the US has it right.

In the interest of time and money, I decided not to renew my internet connection in the room this morning. It is 25 Euro per 24 hours, and i wanted to allow myself some overlap tonight and tomorrow so I decided to avoid the charge this morning and go up to the public business center to check my email via web browser and surf for a few things. The hotel has a few very nice Sony Vaio PCs running MS Vista, so I assumed it would be an easy task to jump online, check a few things, and take off for the morning. As I sat down and began to type, I quickly realized something was very, very wrong. It took me a few minutes to change the browser to support English, and that was to be expected. What I didn't expect was to find the keyboard a jumbled mess of letters and characters I didn't recognize or understand. I don't know why I didn't know that France, and I am in turn assuming other parts of Europe and the world, have different, non-QWERTY versions of computer keyboards. This particular keyboard had all the normal english letters and numbers I was accustomed to see, but they weren't where they were supposed to be. As I typed normally, M's became N's and the Q was a row down, taking the place of the A. The numbers across the top were not the primary keys. There were 3 characters per key and two different function keys to use them. It honestly took me 5 minutes to figure out how to type an @ symbol. I never did find a DELETE key. Frustration quickly ensued and I suffered through long enough to look at my email, realize there was nothing I had to act on immediately, and then turn and leave as quickly as possible.

I have worked with and around computers for nearly 20 years and never have I felt so inept and lost as I did this morning attempting to type on that computer. I think the only saving grace was that the mouse worked the same way. I suppose despite my self-perceived enlightened attitude, I am still an ignorant American, working under the assumption we are far superior in every way, at least when it comes to typing.


The evil keyboard in question....

A Day Exploring...

Today John and I experienced the city of Paris the way I have always wanted to experience a great city. We simply picked a direction and started walking. We explored the length of the Champs Ellesse. We shopped through the heart of their retail district, going from Cartier to Louis Vuitton to Hugo Boss to Peugout. We took in the architecture and photographed anything that struck our fancy. We made our way along the river and came back up through the heart of the art district, tracing a portion of the Tour de France route. We stumbling onto a nice little Italian restaurant and had some phenomenal artisan pizza. We watched a French elementary school let its kids out for the day and we explored a little corner grocery store, picking up some of my beloved Red Bull. All in all, we got to see much of Paris from a Parisian perspective. The entire day was very un-tourist and quite pleasant.

I could get quite philospohical about the whole day, but I am going to skip all of that for now and simply share a few photographs and a few captions. Have fun.


Walking toward the Arch down the Champs...


The Arch de Triumph in the near Spring glory of the day...


The Arch and me...


John and the Arch....before the ascent...


The art of a truly monumental structure...


There are a few stairs to the top of the Arch...


The view from above the City....


Sacred Heart in the distance...


Eiffel in all her glory...


John and Eiffel in pose....


The heart of a new Paris in the distance....


The National Gallery...Paris has a lot of art...


More of the National Gallery campus....


Some very impressive portions of the Bridge...


More bridge column illuminated by the hand of God...


Me crossing the river...


I honestly have no idea what this is other than a beautiful woman and a golden sword...


Looking back against the Parisian skyline...


The Obellusk...you know I was going to share this...lol


Looking down the Champs Ellesse....


A beautiful portion of a random park in the heart of the city....

Post Breakfast - Pre Shopping in Paris...

I thought I would get a quick entry into the blog before I set out for the day to do a little sight seeing and a little shopping. It is post breakfast time here in Paris. John and I grabbed a quick bite downstairs and went across the street to the Conference center and mall. I have learned thanks to the lovely lady at the Currency Exchange window that I am only 76% the consumer here in Paris as I am in the US. Though a little stronger than I expected, the US Dollar is still quite pathetic compared to the mighty Euro.

I am not quite sure what today will bring. All museums are closed in Paris on Monday so the Louvre is out. I am thinking it might be a good day to experience Notre Dame again and perhaps make the hike up the hillside to visit Sacre Heart. Of course there will also be some shopping. I personally want to find my way to the Shakespeare Bookstore and explore a few racks. John has promised his grandson that he will bring back a fire truck, a police car, and an ambulance, so I am sure I will visit a few toys stores along the way. This, of course, is good news for Michael David as well. I also have to consider the needs of the women in my life today. My sister and mother were quite specific in their needs and wants; others were much less specific. I might even look for a snow globe or two.

No pictures this morning in this entry, but the sun is currently out and the skies are blue, so hopefully I will have a few things to share later tonight. Talk to you all very soon.

I see London...I see France...I have seen way too many airports lately...

OK...this is the danger of letting me travel abroad. Here I am with lots of free time, a camera, and a new journal to tote around. The result you might ask? Ben's random thoughts about everything including this trip. Let's start out with the bad. I honestly thought about heading home from Atlanta before even making the jump across the Atlantic after everything imaginable went wrong with my flight. After nearly 24 hours and 3 international airports, I finally arrived in my hotel in Paris. Now granted, this arrival came after visiting my friends the British for a a couple of hours and a long, heated discussion with the folks at Air France and Delta about my travel plans. Regardless, I am here. A couple of quick points...1st, apparently the British are a short people. I came to this conclusion after noticing every ceiling and sign in the majority of the airport was only about 6'6" off the ground. While I ran from Concourse to Concourse, I felt as if I was in a constant state of "duck". 2nd, I came to a serious conclusion about life as we know it, a few specific things in my own life, and this trip as the general inspiration. Though you often hate the process, never give up on the result. I sat in the airport in Atlanta hating the process, wanting to go home and crawl in my warm and cozy bed and forget the rest of the traveling world. Now I am in Paris, my mind swirling, my stomach full, and my heart ready to give this city another chance. Though I still think the person who coined the thought "Half the fun is getting there" is a blooming idiot, I now know I need to be willing to suffer through the rough parts to get to the great parts in the end. This can certainly apply to a ton of different scenarios in one's life. I know I wrote extensively about it in my journal. I can think of at least one or two situations I deal with each and every week where I need to cherish the end results, whatever they may be, instead of stressing the process and the unknowns that cause so much anguish. Ponder that and see if it works for you too.

I think I mentioned my stomach being full earlier. If I haven't mentioned it before, this is a city full of phenomenal food, so much so that John and I literally walked around for more than an hour debating where to have dinner. We stumbled across some other friends and settled in at a cozy little bistro as a boysterous party of 15. What ensued was 3 + hours of great food and great conversation. I am bursting at the seams from smoked salmon, beef filet, and molten chocolate perfiterals (I am sure I am slaughtering the spelling there, but you get the idea). Add on perfectly aged Champagne and red wine and you have a night to remember.

Now, let me be honest for a few seconds more. As I mentioned before, I have been traveling a long time the last couple of days. At last count I have been going for 36 hours with very little sleep. This entry will therefore be short...and probably a little incoherent. Please forgive. I am attaching a few photos from the room and tonight. Many more to come I hope...