OK, I'm in Paris. I'm sorry. I wanted to go. The ticket wasn't impossibly expensive. I went. I'll be back home in a week. I hope the goldfish live.
The good news, the _great_ news is, that I met Christian, who I've always known as cmagic.
He's a hardware engineer, working on some deep parallel computing project I don't understand, but he also plays the accordion. I understand that because I tried for years to play the concertina. I never got past "Mary Had a Little Lamb". He can play all the French favorites. His mother made him practice.
We met at Café Luxembourg, outside the Luxembourg Garden, on Blvd. St. Michel, not too far from the Sorbonne. The Seine curves around the place, so we had a nice discussion about which direction it was. Christian pointed behind me. I pointed behind him. The woman beside us pointed another direction. When we pulled out the map, we were all right.
After the first beer, we waited around 10 minutes and then when nobody came, we moved around the corner to the Café Rostand, where we found beer again.
Christian signed my backup copy of "Round Ireland with a Fridge" and it is now almost on its way to Zevele.
It could arrive in Israel on the same day as the first copy, I suppose.
If Zevele and Christian could be in Minneapolis in a week or so, they could be lucky enough to have a glass of champagne with the Media Jukebox team, for whom Christian, aka cmagic, has kindly provided two bottles of the best French Champagne.
Thanks very much, Christian. We are deeply grateful.
Je vous remercie, Christian. Nous sommes tres reconnaissants.