7.6 KiB
title, date
| title | date |
|---|---|
| Week 9, Friday: FRnOG'40 in Paris | 2024-09-27T21:55:00+02:00 |
{{< image frame="true" width="17em" float="right" src="/img/headline/talyshum.png" alt="Credit: Taly Shum, YouTube" >}}
I got in quite late yesterday and found my way to the WS Opera on Rue Duphot in the smack middle of the city. In my nano-scale apartment, I slept like a baby, until about 06:45 when the street noise was switched to the On position. Large containers of broken glass seem to have been emptied out ~ in front of this place, and the clanking of a few billion large metal pipes, as they were being dropped from great hights onto a container truck which was going to move them elsewhere. Good morning!
It's time to pray. I brush my teeth and exit my femto-apartment and take a good look around. The first building I see, literally at the beginning of Rue Duphot, is the Church of Madeleine, after the titular neighborhood I'm in. It looks a bit more like a roman government or perhaps a courthouse, but it's legit a place of worship.
My plan is to walk around until about noon, when I meet Jérôme for lunch. About ten years ago, I was in Paris for a Google Maps Streetview Special Collect, of the inside of Grand Palais. The mission back then was to make an aerial collection of the inside of this massive building, in one of the few days (in the decade!) that the building was empty and between exhibitions. Google took a car, a set of backpacks and me with a hexacopter armed with nine cameras that would create a set of photospheric pictures every ten meters or so in the building. Together with the Cultural Institute, I spent two days in the building making this collection. Thinking back over the last eighteen years, the Cantellio project was one of the most fun projects I worked on. We called it Cantellio as a quirky play on our project lead who was an Italian guy with a thick accent, our project was a secret, so we "Can't Tell You". Get it? For the Grand Palais collect, take a look at this exclusive behind the scenes [gallery]. By the way, I also flew this thing in the Guggenheim Museum in New York, would you believe it? [Gallery], but I digress.
Back to Paris after that fun trip down Memory Lane, it is a Parisian law that foreigners MUST take a selfie at the Eifel Tower, so I go and do that because I wouldn't dream of breaking the law. I then go around to a few other buildings, such as the national assembly, the chancellery of the legion of honor, and the Louvre, where I counted roughly sixty trillion people. At this point, my rented transportation (a Dott bike), runs out of battery and it decides to abandon me near the FRnOG venue, so I park it and continue on foot. In case you were wondering how I visit do so many sights in only two or three hours: now you know!
At noon, I hang out for a little bit at Le Zinc d'Honoré, and Jérôme quickly finds me. We talk about Google, Cisco, Meraki and its use of VPP, my projects and his, and overal have a lovely time while enjoying a meal together. I feel so blessed having been able to meet the brilliant Cisco minds that tend to the VPP project (Andrew in Brussels, Ole in Oslo and now Jérôme in Paris). After lunch, we walk over to the Intercontinental where FRnOG starts at 14:00.
I meet and greet a few of the four hundred plus people who are here - Philippe Bourcier organizes the event, and I know him as MrRip from Undernet, more than 25 years ago we maintained the proxy scanner (which he wrote and I operated), and it was fun to reconnect. Maxime from Cisco is also here, and I chat with him about his current project. Clement of course is here, and I'll see more of him tomorrow as I am visiting the Hivane 20y ASniversary celebratory dinner. I briefly bump into Vincent who is jetlagged from returning from the DPDK summit in Montreal, Canada. My buddy Blake from Zayo is present, and he introduces me to a few new folks. I have a chat with Delphine of 1299 and quiz her on the Meta/DTAG issue. Her thoughts are insightful and respectful at the same time, which I really appreciated.
The talks are, eh, en français which is très difficiles à suivre pour moi, but I totally understand the choice of language. My talk is the only one in English, but Philippe introduces me en anglais and I crack a little joke of being Dutch, which solicits a few chuckles. I think my delivery was actually pretty good, and I'm looking forward to the recording. There were many talks in this absolutely stunning venue (a five star hotel Intercontinental in the middle of Paris). See the [FRnOG website] for details and publications. I take my audience-selfie -- c'est obligatoire -- and bounce at 1900. I am not going to participate in the drinks and afterparty (although thanks, Ielo, for organizing it!), and instead retire early.
I have a quick sushi dinner, and end up in bed at 22:30 watching a few episodes of Lilyhammer.
Pictures of the Day
{{< gallery-category >}} {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-09-27/IMG_1605.JPG" caption="Church of Madeleine, in Paris, France. I like the Roman column style" >}} {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-09-27/IMG_1608.JPG" caption="One of the entrances of Grand Palais in Paris, France" >}} {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-09-27/grandpalais.png" caption="A 2014 picture of my Mercedes ML350 inside of Grand Palais in Paris, France" >}} {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-09-27/IMG_1611.JPG" caption="Obligatory selfie at the Eifel Tower, aka the French Noodlescooze" >}} {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-09-27/IMG_1613.JPG" caption="A picture of Grand Palais with the beautiful Pont Alexandre III bridge over river Seine in the foreground" >}} {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-09-27/streetview.png" caption="A 2014 picture of me and the hexacopter photography aircraft I used at Grand Palais in Paris, France" >}} {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-09-27/IMG_1614.JPG" caption="The national assembly called Palais Bourbon, in Paris, France" >}} {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-09-27/IMG_1617.JPG" caption="A street view of the, wait for it: Great Chancellery of the Order of the Legion of Honor" >}} {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-09-27/IMG_1622.JPG" caption="The pyramid at the Louvre museum in Paris, France" >}} {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-09-27/IMG_1623.JPG" caption="I rented a Dott bike and rode its battery entirely empty quick-sight-seeing." >}} {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-09-27/IMG_1624.JPG" caption="Lunch with Jerome - I had a Bavette Frites, and it was superb." >}} {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-09-27/IMG_1625.JPG" caption="A street view of the Church of Saint-Roch in Paris, France" >}} {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-09-27/IMG_1627.JPG" caption="Selfie of Jerome Tollet and I in Paris, France. He walked me to the venue of FRnOG!" >}} {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-09-27/IMG_1645.JPG" caption="My badge at FRnOG'40." >}} {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-09-27/IMG_1631.JPG" caption="The Intercontinental is a five star hotel in Paris - super fancy venue, the FRnOG organizers have a pretty classy outfit here" >}} {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-09-27/IMG_1633.JPG" caption="I took a customary selfie while presenting my VPP story at FRnOG'40 in Paris." >}} {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-09-27/IMG_1640.JPG" caption="Even the mall is super-duper-fancy. This is looking up into the dome of Galeries Lafayette Haussmann in Paris." >}} {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-09-27/IMG_1643.JPG" caption="One of the street-facing arches of Palais Garnier, an italian opera house in Paris, France." >}} {{< /gallery-category >}}
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