Potpourri

Miscellaneous Thoughts:

-Can you imagine that I've survived the year without a cell phone (in French: "un portable") ?! I've decided it didn't make much sense since I don't know that many people in France and I work in the same general location as my wife. The cell phone industry has done a very good job of making the cell phone an everday device rather than a luxury. Who doesn't have one? The word for "ring tone" in French is "une sonnerie", and they are just as potentially annoying as they are in the U.S.

-Death to the Bureaucrats. We just found out that Claire's green card application is going to be harder than initially advertised, as a result of something called The AdamWalsh Child Protection Act of 2006. Apparently, they have to do a background check on my wife to make sure she is not a convicted pedophile/child molestor, and since the law has determined that overseas embassy officials are not licensed to do the aforementioned background check, we must apply for her green card back in the 'States. Or at least I think that's the deal. So far I've heard about 3 different versions of what we are supposed to do depending on who I talk to...

-3rd party candidates: François Bayrou, the candidate who represents a "middle of the road" between Socialist candidate Segolene Royal and the leader on the right, Nicolas Sarkozy, is gaining ground. We saw him answering questions on the television today. Election's in April.


-Thank you to Mom & Dad for buying me a sweet Gary Fisher mountain bike. Can't wait to try it out when I get back home. I recently learned that Gary Fisher is credited as one of the inventors of the mountain bike as well as the man who first coined the term "mountain bike".



-Link of the Day: Do you like waffles? I know I do. I wonder if the Eggo Waffle industry has noted the decline in overall waffle sales with me out of the country? Don't worry, I plan on resuming my consumption of Eggo Waffles upon my return to the United States.