We’ll always have Paris

Jon Trowbridge and I went up to Sacré-Coeur on Thursday night to sit on the steps, drink some wine and enjoy the view. There was the playing of guitars, the singing of young voices, and the swigging directly from the bottle of cheap vodka (not just an American activity, it turns out).

It was a nice moment. Until some dirty hooligans stole my camera from its resting place next to my knee. I knew as soon as they’d lifted it and sprang up to give chase, but they had a motorcycle waiting and so there was no hope.

I just wanted to look them in the eye, you know?

So you won’t be getting any photos from Paris.

The sad thing is, this was my second Canon 20D; the first one I left in a taxi a few months ago, and had to replace. The day I replaced it, I remember, I left the replacement in a taxi as well, and had to run down the street after it. “Stop!” I yelled. “You have my camera!”

On this trip I also lost four badmitton rackets, two books, a frisbee and four airline upgrade certificates.

Mom was right. I really wasn’t meant to have nice things.

On the positive side, I had some delicious breakfasts at Le Pain Quotidien, did a lot of nice walking around Paris, Miguel and I ran into Jon Trowbridge in Les Tuileries, and it was nice to meet Jean-Baptiste, the author of Cecil.

I am going to be in New York on Monday for a customer visit and I’m supposed to go to San Francisco on Wednesday for the Mozilla TAG meeting but my level of enthusiasm for time spent in airplanes is pretty low right now.