Patagoniacs

The German-French entente cordiale : Strikes, strikes, strikes !

Moscow-Frankfurt-Wiesbaden-Paris : 4 cities, so different, but finally same elements :
- People arriving in Moscow often mention that the organization is quite bad for the passport control zone. And they are right. You need to wait for long minutes, before you finally reach the place to show your picture in front of a nice window, behind which you see a nice welcoming soldier from the immigration services.
- But, never, ever tell me that it's better in other countries. See below why.
Arrived Wednesday in Frankfurt, from Moscow. Everything's ok. I managed to catch a train, for 3.55 euros, to go to Wiesbaden. Good. The hotel is rather nice. Despite a lot of work, I managed to spend one hour in the nice Kaiser Friedrich Therme.
Then, time to go back to Paris.
Railway station : Strike ! No train to go to the airport in the next 1 or 2 hours. Ok, let's jump into a taxi (40 euros instead of the 3.55 euros with the train).
Arriving at the airport. Flight is canceled due to the strike of Air France stewards who want more ... They offered me a place on a Lufthansa flight (not a partner for the miles of Skyteam !!!) 2 hours later. 
Ok, take your bags, and go to terminal 1.
Wait another hour to check-in. Negotiate to keep your small bag and computer with you, then go to the check of bags. And now, never ever tell me that the German organization is the best in the world ! A mess !!! Exactly the same than the ones I saw in Moscow, London, Paris, etc etc.
Whatever the country is, airports are definitely international places, where the anti-organization is a normal state !
Ok, finally, get into the flight, after fighting, running, to explain to the guys in front of you that your plane is about to leave while their planes is to leave in one hour ("oh yes, but I will not have enough time to go shopping in the duty free" answered me a nice woman, whose hair color I won't mention :-))).
Plane is taking off. Only five to 10 minutes late.
Go to the railway station take a train to Paris and ... WAIT !!! for approx another 45 minutes. Technical problems, strikes, ... I didn't even wanted to know about it. I was just upset I finished this book so quickly, My Ipod was running out of battery and so my computer. I have read my Surfers journal 10 times in the past hours.

Believe, murphy's law is something universal, and especially striking in the airports and railway station. I will definitely stop my work, to study this damned "murphy's law" :-))

Have a nice day, and remember that your surf, your running shoes, climbing shoes, will not go on strike :-)

Peace and go wild

A week with Lynn Hill on the Cleanestline

While trying to motivate me doing some exercises this morning, I read some posts of the Cleanest line. And I noticed a sentence from Lynn Hill :

"The most important muscles in the body, besides the brain of course, are our abs – the center or core of the body"

Damned ! I hate doing exercise for the abs. But if Lynn says so, then I guess I should take care of that.
Here it is, I found my motivation for this morning !

Finally, it came

You may remember this post about surf forecast. Well, you will see the results of the swell here.
A very good illustration of the "wrong time, wrong place", just because I finally did not managed to go surfing this week-end, and so, I missed all these beautiful waves ...
And it's raining in Moscow :-), I'll go get a skimboard to have fun in the streets ...

Une belle brochette !

From thecleanestline : Lance Armstrong, Kelly Slater, Laird Hamilton, etc etc.
A full page of exceptional people, in several domains.
Lynn Hill cannot stop climbing everywhere, even on a chair :-)
Kelly has lost his sponsor, so he's looking for a new one able to offer him a pair of shoes and a shirt/
Lairs Hamilton is not that tall finally :-)

Milky milky way

Drink milk, eat milk, milk, milk milk ...
Funny. A lot of TV ads in France about the milk, and the dairy products. And in the news, a piece of info, mentioning that Danone, Lactalis will increase their prices due to the higher costs of production ...

Do you know that milk is not that good for our health ? You want to loose weight, begin to reduce eating/drinking milk, dairy products and you'll see results, for sure.
I'm just fed up by these bullshits from big companies, lobbies, for money, without taking into account our health.
Go have a look at http://nomilk.com/ for interesting links.

And believe it or not, but a friend of mine lost 7 kgs without changing anything in his life, but reducing milk in his everyday food, and in 2 months.

Getting old, surfers have their own VW Van ...

Reading the Leroy Grannis book with pictures of surfers in the 60's, I was dreaming about a simple life of beach boy. Reading stories of the first Californian and Hawaiian surfers, I was dreaming about going fishing, diving, shaping boards to get enough money to go surfing my favorite sports.
Reading stories about globe surfers, I was dreaming of buying an old VW van, taking 2 to 3 boards and friends and going surfing Europe, Africa, in a simple life.
But, it looks like having such a life today in our crazy world is rather hard. I think Micky Dora showed us how hard it is to stand apart from the system, but still engaged in surfing.
Reading Surf Session, I see a lot about competitions, challenges, sponsors, brands, training. Searching for a Van to buy, I see the new VW Van (see picture), far too expensive for a surfer (not all surfers are poor, but I've never seen any Van like this one on the parking of a surf spot), looking more like the Rolls Royce for surfers than a real invitation to a trip.
Old Surfers are getting old and they are not ready any longer to sleep 4 months on a piece of wood somewhere in a jungle near a surf spot. They want huge boats paid by sponsors to be sure they will not loose 1 minute of surf, they want surf camp at 100 USD per day, to be sure they will get their waves. It's like people who want to have an insurance for Sun and Snow when going in the Alps. Some tour operators used to have this argument : Snow and Sun guarantee, or you get your money back ...
What bothered me is that they will probably raise their kids this way, and despite the good engagement of many surfers for enviro actions, I am not sure the surf world is going the right way for our planet, our spots.

Look what's coming : surf forecasts !

You see these big blue things ? Waves coming, not far away from France.
Will it be for this week end ?
High pressure on France till this week-end or not  ?

Hum hum ... That's the good thing with surf. You can try to make things scientifically, you'll never reach the 100% success in your forecasts and this is exactly what makes your heart beat fast just when you discover your favorite spot !

Surf is life, ... rest is detail.

Back to basics

It's been a long time since I haven't been doing interval training. Today, back to basics.
7 times 30'' at less than 3'30'' per km.
5 time 1' at less than 3'30'' per km.
Hard to get back to the feelings I had 3 years ago for my last 10 km in a desert somewhere.
But it's good to come back to small personal challenges. Do not have time to go surfing this week (and believe me, it really sucks !!), so will try to free my spirit with these runs.

Patagonia Environmental grants

Patagonia gave in 2007 USD 2.7 millions for 400 NGOs.
Not bad !
Want to help these NGOs check the list here and contact them to give them something.

Act now !

1% for the planet : more than 100 companies in Europe

I'm quite sure you all know the 1% for the planet.
"Every time I've done the right thing for the environment, I've made a profit."        
        Yvon Chouinard                 Founder & Owner, Patagonia       
        Member #1

Patagonia told me that there are more than 100 companies in Europe now who signed with the 1% for the planet.

35 companies in France, 46 in UK.

Well done France !!!

The press release from Patagonia to be downloaded here

Pierre Herme in Moscow at Galleria.

Dinning friday evening in the Galleria restaurant in Moscow, I had the surprise (good) to see nice pictures of Pierre Herme macaroons.
News about it here.

Considered the world's greatest pastry chef, Pierre Herme, who was awarded the French Legion of Honor by Jacques Chirac earlier this year, is in town to demonstrate his culinary art (pictured) at Galereya from Oct. 2 to 22. Herme is to present his Fetish collection of desserts. Macaroons are featured, with such exotic flavors as black truffle (500 rubles), foie-gras and chocolate (200 rubles) and chestnut and green tea (120 rubles). Other sweet-tooth tempters include the Surprise Mosaic, a sphere with crispy meringue, cherry compote, pistachio mousse cream and cardamom crumble (350 rubles).

27 Ul. Petrovka, 937-4544, M. Chekhovskaya.

Picture : Ispahan, from the Dessert First blog.

Surfaid International

Reading the last Surfer's journal (french version), I saw an article about Surfaid.
Exactly the kind of NGO I like to hear about. Away from the surf business, but with the surf business (for the money), a good way to help the poor countries so rich in waves.
Nice pictures here.
Want to donate, click here.

Longskates and elephants

Like these elephants.
I think the skates are tough enough to support an elephant family while riding the long slopes around your home.
Go there and order a custom board !

Support your local skateboard shaper !!!

L'étreinte fraternelle du samouraï

Sorry for the non French speaking readers, but I couldn't resist this morning to mention this : "l'étreinte fraternelle du samouraï"

If you want to understand why I wanted to mention this, then read the last book of Amelie Nothomb : "Ni d'Eve, ni d'Adam".

Easy and quick to read, and nice.

For the crazy impatient people who do not want to read the book and want to directly read the part I am speaking about, go there. But honestly, you'd better read the beok.