louisworld.ca

Wow, I’ve been swamped. My last entry is more than a month old. So here’s what’s been going in my life. My university classes have restarted, so one evening is gone, plus all the work at home for that class. The activities of the local chapter of my profesionnal association have also restarted. There goes a few evenings a month as well. My workbench project is also started. Currently the base is almost complete and I’ll tackle the top soon. And more importantly I’ve changed jobs. Yep, after staying 7 years, I’ve moved to a different company.  That about sums it up.

I’ve got some new turning I need to photograph, wait for it.

Vous connaissez? C’est la suite d’une rencontre entre une orteil et une planche de bois, placé au sol. Ma femme me dit de ne pas la mettre là afin qu’on ne se cogne pas les orteils dessus. Devinez qui a cogné son orteil sur la planche? Moi, évidemement… Au moment où je vous parle, l’orteil voisine du petit orteil, est tout mauve et très sensible au toucher. Sûrement cassé mais il n’y a rien à faire autre que la laisser reprendre seul. Bobo.

I’m still alive and haven’t abandoned this blog. I was on vacation for the past two weeks. I had a good time, I’ll post more about my vacation soon.

Samedi le 14 juillet dernier à eu lieu une rencontre de certains tourneurs. Les participants de ce premier évènement furent Zako, Trécarré, Ruban et moi, tous membres du forum La Mortaise. Trécarré et Ruban nous avaient invité à leur demeure, située à Baie-du-Febvre. Tel un preux chevalier, je chevauchai donc ma moto le samedi matin à 7:30 fin prêt à affronter les 360 KM nous séparant. Pas chaud chaud, mais il faisait beau… le matin. J’arrive donc vers 11:15 chez Trécarré où je fais la première rencontre avec Zako, Trécarré et Ruban. Un p’tit café, quelques beignes accompagne le p’tit brin de jasette.Une fois les introductions faites, nous nous dirigeâmes vers l’atelier où nous attendait « Le Grand Bleu », le tour de 8 pieds de Trécarré. Le plan était de faire un « totem » de l’Amitié sur lequel chacun de nous tournerait une section. Zako avait apporté un croquis pour le design du totem, un design pas très simple!

Pour moi, cette journée était une opportunité incroyable d’apprendre de nouvelles techniques et de voir travailler d’autres tourneurs. Pendant que mes trois comparses s’affairaient à dégrossir la bûche sur « Le Grand Bleu » et les différents items du totem, je me suis attaqué à un morceau d’érable du Manitoba pou y faire mon premier creusage. Résultat : ma première coupe. Je me suis servi d’un outil de creusage que Trécarré a fabriqué lui-même (il travaille autant le métal que le bois, un gars plein de talent).

Notre totem progressait pendant ce temps et Ruban tournait les petits morceaux se fixant sur le mât. Je me suis occupé d’en faire deux autres pendant que Trécarré et Zako firent une coupe, presque un bol servant de couronne à notre totem.

Ce fût une journée très agréable. Nous n’avons pas jasé tant que ça car Trécarré et Ruban possèdent 4 tours donc nous étions toujours occupé sur l’un deux. Trécarré, Ruban et Zako sont très sympathiques et m’ont tous donné de bons conseils et trucs.

Mon retour se fît sous la pluie, pas très agréable 4 heures de moto sous la pluie, c’est beaucoup plus fatiguant aussi.

* English to follow *

J’ai finalement créé une page temporaire pour mon site SignéLouis en attendant la création d’un site plus officiel. Je ne sais pas encore quel outil je vais choisir mais ce sera possiblement tout simplement sous le format blogue et l’utilisation de mots-clés pour faciliter la recherche de produits. Si vous voulez partager des liens, faites-moi signe.

I finally made a couple temporary pages for my SignéLouis website. I say temporary pages because I haven’t decided yet which software tool I’ll be using to drive the backend but I’m leaning towards just a blog type interface with keyword tags to facilitate searching. If you are interested in sharing links, let me know.

I was off last week for 3 days for a conference and meetings.

I left Wednesday morning, placed my clothes and business suit in a small luggage and strapped that to the passenger seat of my bike. I placed my rain gear, a bottle of water and my helmet visor cleaner in my tank bag.

The weather was great the trip was uneventful. I arrived at the hotel a quarter to Noon and they had a room already cleaned for me which was great as I didn’t have to find a place to place my stuff.

The first meeting was rough. That’s all I’ll say. But afterwards we went to a great Italian restaurant, where the food was good and the waitresses divine .

The next day was booked with conferences. I went to 1st one and to the lunch but skipped the afternoon conference to walk around downtown. The evening was the annual gala which we left around 10:30PM to have some drink downtown. The 1st hour was nice and we chatted but a few of us got restless and went to a real dance bar where I didn’t stop dancing from Midnight until 3AM. I was not too impressed with my alarm clock when it rang at 6:30AM… I had to prepare, have breakfast and be on a bus by 8:00AM in order to visit a nuclear power plant. Very impressive, and so is the security!

The visit went well… until the screw holding my right lense let go and my lens to hit the ground, of course on the concrete floor of the power plant. [INSERT GLASS SHATTERING SOUND HERE /]. Yup, it wasn’t good. I finished the visit with only one eye. My prescription is fairly important, no way I could drive 3 and a half hour like that, let alone ride my bike!!

When we arrived to the hotel (I didn’t pay much attention to the rest of the visit), I had to find an optician who could help me because I hadn’t brought a 2nd pair of glasses with me (guess what will be with on my next trip…). Finally ended up to find a branch of my optician and they gave me contacts. I had worn contacts before but that was 11 years ago. Since my eyes weren’t accustomed to contacts, I could only keep them 3 to 4 hours. Well, that’s how long my ride was so I couldn’t stay for the Annual General Meeting… I explained myself to my colleagues and packed and go.

8:38 AM: Today marks my first train trip. I’m going to Montréal for an OIQ meeting and I’m traveling first class. This means that I have access to the tran station first class lounge where I’m currently wrinting these lines from via a wireless access. I must that I’m impressed with the nice appearance of the lounge and level of comfort. Getting my tickets was a breeze as the confirmation email contains a bar code and upon arrival at the station, you simply scan this bar code at a self-service station and out comes your tickets. I’ll be writing more entries from the train along the day.

9:54 AM: I’m on the train right now and just finished breakfast. Breakfast was nice, we had a mushroom omelet served with sausage and ham, a small fruit dish, juice and coffee. We boarded the train around 8:45AM before the rest of the passengers since I was in first class. I admit I’m surprised at how many people were taking the train! There is a lot of leg room for sure although it was pretty tight we eating. I’m also surprised at how much shaking there is. It’s not too bad but it seems worse than a regular bus ride. The wagon itself is pretty quiet although we do here easily the horn when crossing roads (which happens very often).

10:45 AM: Just reached Montréal’s train station. More later!

5:20 PM: I’m back at the Montréal train station. I should be be boarding in about 20 minutes. I see someone I know, more later.

Next day: I couldn’t connect in the train itself for an unknown reason so that’s why I couldn’t provide additional updates.

Guten Tag!

Yesterday I had my first german class (see my previous post on this Cours d’allemand). We are 16 people in the class with the male/female ratio being very close to 1:1. Yesterday we did basic introduction covering stuff like “My name is …”, “Are you …?”, the alphabet and numbers from 0 to 20 plus some other vocabulary. This class is going to be fun!

My friend Alex is also covering this topic on his blog over at Fortrel.net