Archives mensuelles : février 2005

Before FOSDEM

Just some words to say that Slavka and I are at my father’s place. And that means too dealing with this damn dialup connection. I hate dialup :'(
Tomorrow we will visit my mother and eat with her. Then we certainly will go to Montpellier for some shopping tour…..ahhh girlz 😉
See you later.

Week-end in Angers

Just came back from Angers.
Slavka and I were in Angers this week-end to visit her best friend who is in France for studying.
We left Rodez saturday in the morning around 10:45 and arrived there at around 18:00, with a pause of 20 or 30 min after having passed Limoges. We even got a kind of blizzard on the road, but everything went fine and we found the place we were searching rather immediately.
Vani, Slavka’s friend, is currently studying PR at IRCOM in Angers. She welcomed us warmly and installed us in our room.
She drove us for a little tour in Angers by night.
The travel to go there was a bit tiring so I finally let Slavka and Vani discuss alone and went to bed.
This morning we went for another tour in town, for some blue chocolate, the speciality from there, and some more photographies.
Les chocolats bleus au nougat, sp?cialit? d'Angers
We left at around 16:15 and arrived here at 22:45. Happy to be at last arrived.
I was however surprized to not see much more snow here remembering how strong it was snowing when we left Rodez.
It was a nice week-end. We visited a nice town. I wil post pictures in my gallery tomorrow when I will have uploaded them to the laptop and made some triage.

Rhaaaaa…je suis vert/I am green..

As said in the title « je suis vert ». After having seen Canon bring out the Canon EOS 20D, a bit before XMas, they are now bringing out a 300D evolution , the 350D.
I was looking at he oportunity to sell my 300D to buy the 20D when this one came out, but finally decided to get trained with the 300D enough to really reach its limits before buying a new camera.
The thing i am reproaching the most to the 300D is the latency at startup or when it goes to sleep. Thing that was corrected in the 20D, but now i see that they equip the 350D with new DigicII which improves that too and the speed on CF writing and, and, and, and….BOUHOUHOUHOU :'(
Not fair.

Buffet…

FOSDEM
Asked Damien about the buffet. He told me there was still entrance left, but that he will put me on the list, in charge for me to bring the cash as soon as possible on FOSDEM’s opening (which is normal). Thanks Damien !! 🙂

Got a call from my uncle whose son , my cousin so 😉 , is working in Netherlands and lives in Anvers, this morning. He was telling that my cousin proposed to meet us on friday’s evening and even could host us for the night.
I already booked the hotel from thursday to monday morning, so I think we won’t stay there in the evening. Moreover Damien already planned that we could go to the pizzeria the friday’s evening with all present Gnomemeeting’s people, afaik dominance, Gianthome and johnny should be there, in more of damien and jonita, of course. 😉
But the idea of the visit of Anvers on friday make is way in my mind. I have to propose it to Harald if it happens we’ll meet on friday, and as my uncle told me Anvers wasn’t more than 20 min from Brussels by train.

Travel(s)’ preparations

Okay, and hurrah!!!
GnomeMeeting

This morning I booked the hotel for FOSDEM. I finally decided to go to the FOSDEM’s hotel, the Novotel. Perhaps a bit expansive but it will be more easy for us for the saturday evening’s party (except for now I still haven’t send the money for the buffet, and I have to ask Damien if it is still safe. I hope so).
Moreover Slavka got a mail from Harald saying that he will be there one day before, as us, and he gave her his cell number for us to get in touch with him when we will be arrived. 🙂
Impatient to meet him and discuss photography with him, among other things.

Guadec6

On another topic, I talked a bit with Dave Neary (aka bolsh) as i wanted to ask him about a thing on Gimp. He gave me the answer for the thing I was asking for, (how to draw a square or rectangle shape in red in a pic to isolate an icon for example, for a documentation I am writing at work for an application people use here), and then we talked a bit about Guadec 6. He told me he will certainly go there by car, sharing the cost with other three people (4 people in a car including him). And he proposed to me to be the fourth in case someone else wouldn’t want to go with them. It seems interesting. Though I would still have to go to Lyon on my own and join them there. And then that means going to the same hotel than them, though it’s certainly not too hard to support. 😉
However I took a look at the offers from Air France to go there by plane. I first looked from Lyon to Stuttgart, as I saw by browsing from guadec’s site, that they have direct line to Stuttgart. And I found a 317? ticket.
But then I searched for a flight from Montpellier and found a ticket for 293?, via Paris CDG, which would be more practical as I wouldn’t have to go to Lyon, then let the car there, and then for the return to come back to Montpellier and then Rodez. no waste of time.
Still to investigate.

Guadec 6 ?

While having some time at work, I took a look at Guadec 6 site. In fact, I started looking at this site after having evoked vacations time with my chief. She was asking me about scheduled vacations I wanted to take and I remembered my will to go to Guadec this year as it takes place in Germany in Stuttgart, and that I am really sorry to have successively missed the one in Sevilla, then more in Ireland, and last year in Norway. 🙁
I started to llok at flights to go there. I guess that going directly from Rodez where I live won’t be doable.
If some french gnomers already planned to go there, let me know how you’ll go.
Among all the possibilities, one would be to go directly from Lyon by plane. Another one would be to take the plane in Montpellier to Paris CDG, like when I went to Sofia last summer, and then a correspondance to Stuttgart.
I will have to check the train too, but i fear it takes too much time in travel; 🙁

Some Pictures of Slavka

I took some pictures of Slavka today. We took some, a week or two ago, that Slavka sent to Harald Welte. It seems he appreciated them, and found them rather nice. 🙂
I don’t know why but it seems that those from today are rather out-of-focus. 🙁
I realy should buy a lens with better aperture I guess.
UPDATE
Not that buying better lens will make me take better shots, but the reason for the pics to be out-of-focus was that I was holding the cam instead of using a tripod, and with the light conditions we had the exposure time was always a bit too long for what I could hold the cam steady. 🙁
So I think that by buying a lens with a better aperture in this case the pics would have been better.