5/8/2007 : French people pronounce it Can. Get used to it.

Checked out of the hotel and made my first costly mistake of the trip. I didn't give them back the key so I arrived at the train station and had to take a round-trip cab ride to drop it off. Booo. Anyways, the train ride down to Cannes was about 5 hours long and was absolutely breathtaking.

I tried to get pictures but they all came out blurry because the train tops out at 186mph. Anyways, the hotel is a block away from the train station and the room is excellent. That's all for today. We went to a great restaurant and I had escargot in a garlic cream sauce. Delicious!

5/9/2007 : The fun begins...

Had very little to do until the boxes arrived so we went shopping for things people forgot to pack and I got a grand tour of the area. Forgot to bring my camera so you'll have to make do with these crappy pictures of buildings instead of ocean.

Boxes arrived at around 5 or so so I started setting up the office. This is a humongous effort and I wasn't even remotely close to finishing by the time I went to bed. Since I missed it yesterday, here's a picture of said bed.

5/10/2007 : Hitting a stride?

Took the entire rest of the day to set up the office. All the stations are wired for power and network. All the computers are set up at the desks and I'm ready for the two people who are going to be arriving. I'll put pictures of the office up later. Had another fantastic dinner.

5/11/2007 : Sleeping in.

Woke up a liiiitle late for today. Everything was running smoothly in the office so no one needed to call. Worked pretty much 9 hours straight. Today it was less critical issues. Getting FTP configured and tested with additional accounts. Finally got around to pulling the pictures off the camera. Here are the pictures of the office and the bar area we'll use at the hotel.

The trip to dinner was strange. It's 8:30 and completely light out.

And here are some pictures of tonight's dinner. This was the salad course. Fantastic.

5/12/2007 : The system is down.

Power blew when someone tried to plug in another converter. FTP server decides to walk off the job. Damn unions. Had to image the PDF server and transfer it over to the FTP server and restart from scratch. Armen helped and was still working on it by the time I went to bed at 3am. One hell of a busy day. Dinner was wonderful again. This time we went to a restaurant called La Brouette de Grand'mere or Grandma's Wheelbarrow. Highlight of the meal was the Cheesypotatoes which remained the talk of the office since last year. We all had an excellent time and I actually joined in the shot before one of the appetizers because it was a particularly impressive type of vodka. Even better than Grey Goose.

5/13/2007 : The Oasis... Island... Trip.

Got up early to test the FTP server and everything worked magnificently. So, with my pride intact, almost all of us headed out to lunch on Ile St Honorat. This is an island off the coast of Cannes accessible by a delightful 20 minute boat ride.

The main attraction of the island is the ancient monastery and the newly renovated one that houses actual monks.

They make wine, of course... it's France.

I broke off from the group and ran to the other side of the island with this relic of a monastery. Mostly to take pictures, but also because I hadn't gotten any exercise yet and it felt really good to be outside.

The regulars know the man who runs the restaurant on the island and we were treated to probably the best meal I've had yet. Not fancy, but good lord the barbecue was amazing.

Went back to the office and I attempted to contact people on their day off. Not too much came of it, but it's the least I can do to call them every hour so they know how important this is. Also had time to take pictures of the office now that more people are here.

Looks like a real office. Loads of fun. Dinner was nothing special. La Pizza isn't quite a 5 star establishment, however tasty.