Going to Delft

Sorry loyal readers it has been a long arduous reprieve from my writing duties but things are not all candy canes and lolly pops in the Old Country right now. Whereas this time last year the fearless protagonists of grenoblewmd were constantly cycling in the mountainous regions of ecto-Grenoble, basking in the warm springtime sunshine of the French Riviera, and photographing their food, this year the weather is cold and rainy, the principals are now injured and defeated, and the battery in my camera is so dead that it can't even hold a charge (the rise of Instagram also ruined the lost art of gastronomic photography). Plus things also really haven't been the same since DFW's death in 08... But then the WWW conference also said again that they didn't want my garbage contribution and so I couldn't go to Rio in May but then my officemate's workshop paper did get accepted but it seems they might not even let him go because there's some sort of travel freeze all of a sudden because we had to pay the leaving CTO a 500 billion dollar severance package for forcing him to resign after 6 months on the job for trying to have sex with his secretary (probably closer to the truth than not). At least I didn't have to think YES!!! I'm going to Brazil suckers!!! Then a few days later find out NO!!! You're not going to Brazil sucker!!! But instead I do get to go here:

Which isn't quite as exciting as Rio but Delft looks rather quaint wouldn't you say? I'll hopefully be able to do some early morning running along the water:

But unfortunately both of us are injured!! Injured, really.. can you believe it? Both of our egos wrote cheques that our bodies couldn't cash. How about that? I am having some major knee and foot problems... KNEE and FOOT problems! And Sandra is living with some nightmarish douleurs related to the leg of some sort. What a horror. But who knows... maybe 8 hours on the train this afternoon/evening will do me good and I'll be right back at er (and hopefully Sandra too will be better soon too).

For the BIG trip to Delft we (me and a work colleague) take the train from here to Paris at 13h and then from Paris to Rotterdam and then from Rotterdam to Delft. It will be a long time on the train! But I have my computer and a book (I know you were worried for me until I wrote that... so don't worry any longer). When we get to Paris we arrive at Gare de Lyon and then have approximately 40 minutes (depending on the lateness of the train) to get to Gare du Nord which is where our train to Rotterdam leaves from. This could prove to be difficult and/or problematic and/or disastrous. BUT, hopefully things will work out fine and we can get on to the next train for more relaxing hours of reading and/or computering.

Oh ya, we went snowshoeing in the Vercors a few weeks ago. Here is a view and some of us: