This weekend was definitely within the whirlwind classification. Between two airplane flights, two countries, a boatload of photos, and capped at either end with two evenings out in Paris – it was destined to be crazy busy.
1) So much to do, so little time
Friday around 1:15PM the Direto trainer arrived from Elite. Why do I mention the time? Well I found it funny that DHL had marked the unit as ‘delivered’ in their system at 11:37AM, to ensure they met the 12PM delivery cut-off. Of course, reality was different.
Sadly, I’m just happy I got the trainer at all. Most the time the delivery folks here in Paris simply mark me or the office as not home and skip delivery entirely (even when I’m standing at the window), as they don’t want to deal with lugging it anywhere.
That then sets off a fiasco for me to pick it up somewhere, usually outside of Paris. This time though they did deliver it (to home on this day), and thus I ferried it back to the Studio with a Velib.
Regular readers know I use the Velib’s for transporting everything. Like our Christmas tree each year, as well as even moving massive kitchen mixers between bakery locations (and small mixers). I even picked up the kitchen sink one day with it across town when we were building out the Studio space. In case you were wondering how we moved that massive mixer, we balanced it on the seat of the Velib like a dead body. It took three dudes to walk the whole thing carefully the kilometer or so. Somewhere on my iPhone I have a photo. In any case…
After the Dorito Chip arrived, I had only till 5PM to get everything done for my preview post at 6AM on Monday, since I was gone basically the whole weekend. This included two rides, all the photos, and all the video and audio I’d need for my YouTube video on it. But, I got to pull out my sweet new slider I bought while in San Diego in May for the video’s intro:
I’m actually impressed with my timing on this post. In between a million other things, I had the majority of the video done by Friday evening, the text done by Saturday evening. The accuracy charts and section done at the airport on the way home. The photos edited on the plane, and the final video edit largely done in the Uber from the airport to home. I had a little bit of finishing touches for editing for titles I did around 5AM on Monday before posting at 6AM. Thankfully the completed 8GB 4K video file only took 6 minutes to upload to YouTube. It then took 28 minutes for YouTube to process. Doh.
$30 a month (including TV and unlimited long distance phone) French internet speeds for the win!
2) Oh Canada!
We kicked off the weekend with a trip to the Canadian Embassy for Canada Day. Technically it’s on the 1st of July, and this was the evening of the 30th of June, but that’s nothing that a few more beers by the DJ booth can’t fix.
Speaking of beer – they had beer you could purchase, all Canadian of course:
And they were serving up poutine as well. Because…Canada.
Somehow The Girl managed to win a raffle: Three bottles of Canadian wine. It’s a good thing she won and not me. Would have been awkward for the American to show up at the Canadian embassy and win their raffle.
I didn’t even know Canada made wine, but sure enough, they do – and we now have three bottles of it. Woot!
We did not win, nor saw, any maple syrup. But we did definitely consume Canadian beer, so basically that’s a kind of maple syrup.
3) An early morning flight to Germany
Up just before 5AM and I was soon on the way to the airport. I was departing from CDG Terminal 2G. Of course, as any aviation person knows, CDG often holds the honorary title of worlds worst massive airport. And largely for good reason – it’s a nightmare, primarily for connections or any other sort of logic-inducing activity you wish to execute there. Though, I will say I have a soft-spot for CDG Terminal 1, despite how stupid looking it is. It’s small, easy to navigate, yes kinda dumb looking, but kinda workable at the same time. Plus, it has a Starbucks right behind the check-in desks, and some of the workers there even know me.
Meanwhile, there’s a special spot in hell for Terminal 2G. It’s basically what happens when the airport forgot to build a terminal and sticks a collection of portables together on the perimeter of the airport away from anywhere. It’s here that the regional jets depart to destinations deemed lesser by Air France. It’s such an annoying place that I thought I took a picture but didn’t. So instead, I give you the other end of this equation – Dusseldorf.
Though, I always smile a little bit when I board my IHOP plane.
I know, it’s actually HOP. But all I think of is IHOP.
And to be fair, they do give you free croissants on the flight. Though, I wouldn’t know for certain this time as I fell asleep from taxi to landing. Thus, moving onto the next part of our story.
4) Hello Tour de France
After arriving I made my way a quick 10 minutes from Dusseldorf Airport to the Tour starting area. Seriously, how convenient is that?
I liked how the city (or The Tour) had volunteers with stacks upon stacks of boxes of various TdF signs for fans.
Kinda neat. And a photo I just discovered I never quite tweeted out.
To see all the behind the scenes goodness from Saturday, check out this post here. Sunday’s post will be up tomorrow. And of course, don’t forget the TdF gadget post here.
Basically, taking craptons of photos was my entire weekend. Oh – and saying Hi to many DCR readers! Thank you!!! If you grabbed a selfie – definitely drop a note below with it attached!
5) Happy Anniversary!
Yesterday marked our 6th wedding anniversary. Wow!
What a crazy adventure it’s been thus far together! The Girl is awesome and helps make everything I do here possible. There’s so much behind the scenes goodness she takes care of, it’s mind-boggling. And of course she’s an amazing Mom to boot! Plus, she looks stunning. :)
We headed out Sunday night after I got back from Le Tour to enjoy a nice dinner together out on the town. Which was exactly the plan last year this night when The Peanut decided to interrupt that day and make herself be known a wee bit early. Though technically she arrived the next day by just a couple minutes. Phew! Thus making it the family sweep of: July 1st – Canada Day (The Girl is Canadian), July 2nd – Anniversary, July 3rd – Peanut Day, July 4th – US Independence Day (I’m American).
It’s basically just a week of partying around these parts. It’s astounding anything gets done.
In any case – have a great week ahead everyone!
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That’s a lot to celebrate in just a few days. Congratulations for all :)
Congratulations
1) Delivery folks play those same games in NYC too. I’ve lost count of the number of times that I’ve been at home (usually having rushed out of work to beat the delivery) and had the tracking status switch suddenly to “recipient not home.” I don’t know if it’s comforting or frustrating that those things happen other places in the world…
2) Canada has fairly excellent wine, especially in Ontario. It has similar varietals to those found in the Finger Lakes region of NY.
3) Congrats!
DHL has done that to me before. It was to the point where I told the seller that I’d pay more (not a lot, but some more) for another shipper because I was sick of chasing after DHL.
Wow…I thought I was busy a couple of weeks ago with twin birthday 6/13), spousal birthday 6/16, and Father’s Day (French and American!) on 6/18. You win…
Happy belated Canada Day. Happy belated Anniversary. Happy Birthday to the Peanut. Happy Independence Day.
My favorite delivery stories are always the United States Postal Service (USPS). More time than I can count, they were supposed to deliver an Amazon package on Saturday or Sunday. Marked it as delivered, but it would not actually appear until Monday or Tuesday. Frustrating.
Congrats on the Anniversary/Birthday – many many more happy and healthy ones for the 3 of you
Congrats to all. My baby boy turned 18 today (July 3). I didn’t know he shared with Peanut. ;-)
Great to see you at the TDF. I made myself laugh when I spontaneously told you about how I bought the Garmin 820 due to your review and you asked me how it worked out. I had literally the previous day sent it back as a warranty claim due to the item not charging. Never sit next to me at a wedding!
You do nothing by halves ;-) Congratulations on the anniversaries!
“So much to do, so little time” – You must be getting lazy, you used to do all this and hold down a full time job that sent you all over the globe ;). Although I guess with the addition of the new staff (er, Peanut) and all those anniversaries you have a pretty good excuse. Congratulations on them all.
I find 2G quite nice – small and extremly manageable with shorter cues – unline the rest of terminal 2 of CDG.
Of course, its a pain to get there (if you arrive on normal T2 or by train), taxi to the terminal usually takes longer. Oh. And AF business lounge there is laughable…
In any case… congratz on the anniversary :-)
Didn’t you race Ironman Canada when it was in Penticton? The Okanagan is the other major wine region (Ontario/Niagara being the other) in Canada and you would have been in and rode through the heart of it. ;)
Happy Anniversary and have a awesome week!
TheGirl, “Winner”, well, because Canadian, beer substitute for maple syrup. Not sure it will pass the grammar police, but it’s all good fun like a roller coaster ride!
Delivery people saying that they have attempted delivery without ever actually coming to my door is the main reason I got a nest cam on my front door – it makes me feel better when I phone up to shout at someone and can say that I’ve checked the footage and made sure that no one came… :rage:
Happy anniversary, Ray!
And by the way, it is possible to rent or get delivery service on a Holland type cargo bikes. Problem solved…
Ha, your wedding anniversary is the same day as ours. Congratulations
Congrats on another anniversary! Here’s to many, many more!
Happy Anniversary
The flywheel of the slider looks very nice
I love that you use the Velib to transport such large things! Not sure how you managed to balance the trainer on there?! I think you should do a compilation of unusual items you have transported :)