sitting on top of the world

Well, here's an impression from my flight back to UK on Thursday. As its also my birthday today, I though I should find something inspiring. The flight had a fairly clear sky and so the view of the French and Swiss Alps was pretty good until we got to Grenoble and the clouds started to bump the edges. In the distance, for quite a long part of the flight, I could see Matterhorn towering over the lesser peaks. It took me a while to find my camera to take a photo, however. And what was interesting was the number of other 'seasoned travellers' who were also taking in the view.

NaNoWriSlow

I was a trifle late out of the gates for the NaNoWriMo musings this year. The idea is to write a 50,000 word novel between 1st and 3oth November. I did this last year and by around this point I was at 16,000 words. This time I'm at 5,500. I reckon by Sunday I need to be at around 16,000 to be anywhere near on track. That is quite a lot of writing. Hmmm. And it looks as if this weekend will be sunny...

UPDATE: Well now its Friday evening and I've decided to write some more to try to catch up. It may not be top quality, but I managed to get the Apache helicopter into the first scene. When it gets made into a big budget movie it will need a good opening sequence before the titles.

Casino Royale

After yesterday's party, I feel as if I've just come back from Casino Royale, and so am pleased to see I will be able to re-live the experience in a few days when the film arrives.

In the meantime, I will have to make do with the strategy game which allows us to search for James Bond like artifacts and meet all kinds of villains.

I'm also pleased to see that 007 has reverted to a proper Aston Martin, from which to perform his various adventures.

croissant on the croisette

Departing Cannes this afternoon, via Nice and then back to London. This morning I enjoyed petit dejeuner looking to the sea, before starting some work. Yesterday night was a bit of a party and today the calm makes a great contrast. Cafe au lait and croissant (but no Gitane).

Rums felled

So Rumsfeld is out. Its claimed that Bush had already decided a few days ago that a "fresh perspective" was needed at the Pentagon. With the level of criticism of Iraq, Bush pulled one of the instigators, but strangely he waited until after the mid terms and the Democrats made big gains.

Bushman ex short term CIA director Bob Gates takes over from Donny, though Republican chadman James Baker(he of the Florida re-count) is going to run the study about what to do next in Iraq, allegedly reporting by Christmas.

But now America has Democrats running the House of Representatives and maybe the Senate, it will be interesting to see whether theres the start of hearings related to US foreign policy.

Rumsfeld is purported to have said "We know they have weapons of mass destruction, we don't need any debate about it." But this uber-confidence overwhelmed him in the end. The Rummy way of describing "known unknowns" reinforced his view that Iraq was a little understood and unfamiliar war, complex for people to understand.

You bet.

OTA: Wordless Wednesday

cannes, by phone

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Tag: Wordless Wednesday

6

Here's a few 6 word novels wot I rote tonight...

WAR: government seductress; seditious downfall; army state.

LOVE: electric eyes; softly taken; eternal embrace

DEVASTATION: Do not press the big red...

SPIRAL: lonely glue high crushed car flames

KIDS : flopsy bunny shows giraffe skipping trick

and I tag:

Si, Debra, Struggling Author, Maximus Bobulos, Jo, roger of the plog and ANYONE from BlogAllStars. Please a) do it and b) tag it on...

excuse my lack of proper links: I'm on wet string linked thinkpad at the moment - I'll patch the links when I get some bandwidth.

Bon soir.

canned

Tonight I will make up for some sleep deficit over the last few days. Since last Thursday, I've had around five hours of sleep because of my rather compressed schedule.

I flew into Nice this morning after starting from home at 06:30 and have been in various scheduled events all day - it doesn't feel at all like a Sunday, which I believe is supposed to be lazy.

Tonight I was sitting with a small group in a pleasant hotel room where we decided to order from room service instead of hitting the town. We had some super food, in my case a 'make it yourself' spaghetti carbonara under the watchful eye of my Italian friend who said she would rate the final production.

By the time we finished it was very late and I then wandered back through the Mediterranean air to my own hotel.

Guy Fawkes in Battersea

Today consisted of a tiny amount of sleep before helping with an apartment move to Chelsea - which went very much to plan!

Afterwards, the group of us decided to grab a bite to eat and found an excellent Italian restaurant in Lower Sloane Street. Tonight happens to be one of the main Guy Fawkes Night party evenings so the streets in the area were filled with people on their way to the big fireworks party in Battersea Park.

We crossed the twinkling Chelsea bridge on the Thames and noticed many fireworks in the sky.

Much later, as we left the restaurant, the air was laden with the smell of gunpowder.

Remember, Remember the Fifth of November...

JFK-LHR

I drove us back to JFK this afternoon along the I95. This, along with the Queensboro Bridge and the van Wyke Expressway were mercifully uncongested so we had a speedy journey through the brilliant fall leaves of Connecticut, New York State and Long Island. Jennifer used to live around the White Plains area but is so Californian now that the route and even the shopping malls of of the area were probably better known to me.

On the journey, Jennifer was talking about this weekend when she'll be acting as a volunteer to a Los Angeles high school group who help give urban teenagers from less well-off homes a chance to develop positive self esteem. She's a member of the board of the charity and also a counsellor. This week she is taking her assigned pupil and they are going to another charity to volunteer for some other work. Characteristically, Jennifer has also persuaded her gym coach to give the same girl some free sessions to develop good health and eating awareness.

After dropping Jennifer at Jetblue at Terminal Six it was back to the Hertz lot and then airtrain back to Terminal Seven for my BA flight. Amazingly short lines to get airside and I decided to take refuge in the Terraces lounge, which was also quite empty and chilled. Thats where I'm sitting right now, with a gin and tonic with too much gin, waiting for the call for the flight.

Around me sit a few zeks but by now most of them have hung up their bluetooths for the weekend and instead are reading English newspapers, a book about Ceasar and I can count about a dozen stretched out on the loungers, flopped until the plane is called.

I also know tomorrow will be mad for me, helping a move into a new central London apartment and then prepping myself for a week in France.

c'est la vie!

connected in connecticut

Tonight we were in a Thai restaurant in South Norwalk. We sat down to eat at an almost European 8pm, rather than the often 6.30pm type American times (see I'm using am and pm instead of twenty four hour clock, too). The fire rice was pretty hot and I can still taste it on my tongue.

I have had a fair few European meetings this week as well as my American ones. This means that I've been having phone conferences at 0530 in the morning and indeed today had to figure out how to get showered and ready to leave the hotel whilst still being on a phone call. I made it to the lobby for 0700 successfully, but didn't managed to get any breakfast, although once I was in meetings a steady supply of food and drink ensued.

Tomorrow I start at a slightly more civilised 0645 with a meeting in the hotel and then a day which ends quite early before I drive with Jennifer back to JFK. I go to London and she will return to West Hollywood.

weather to go or together

Oops, I forgot to notice that today is the first day of NaNoWriMo. I fully intend to do this, but as I'm travelling at the moment, its rather difficult, what with day and evening meetings. However, I have a long flight on Friday night, so maybe that will give me a chance to get stuck in.

Needless to say, I havn't got a plot, characters or anything else yet. I suppose there will have to be a lot of weather in the first chapter. Chris Baty from NaNoWriMo says "Surge early" to be on par for the month, knowing the daily average needs to be 1667 words. Oh dear. He adds that 70,000 people have registered this year, so I suppose I won't be alone. And Chris makes a third point to embrace the fear. Hey, I've only just got over Halloween.

The sky cracked with more orange lightning, gods were past debating and fighting with chairs now as they decided whether to let rain fall across the sparsely featured plain. It was supposed to be daytime, but there was a purple darkness across the landscape as Jed sheltered behind the broken wall. He'd done something very bad... (55 words)

Nah.