Author Archives: David

A Long Weekend in London

Posted on by
Reply

Last weekend was my long time friend Rav (Saravjit)’s wedding in London. And since he had finally decided to marry MC, his long time French sweetheart, I could not anything but be there to watch a Brits give up his freedom to a Frenchie :-p.

Rav and I met while working at Intalio in 2000 or 2001. He joined our little football games soon after he joined the company and our little group of mostly Frenchies adopted him even though he insisted on sporting that tacky white jersey and making bad British jokes ( excuse the pleonasm).

Rav and David

Over the years, we have kept in touch through emails but we also had the opportunity to meet several times in California or when I visited London first in 2003 and then in 2006.

To sum up the long festivities, the wedding was a resounding success and I think everybody had a great time. We had events on Thursday night, Friday night and all day on Saturday. I wish I had seen MC and Rav a bit more but with so many guests and family, they surely did not have much time to spend with anybody really.

British National Library

Of course, I had plenty of time to go back to my favorite London location: The British Museum and its wonderful collections. As usual, I spent most of the time in the Enlightenment gallery and did a tour of the ancient civilisation galleries. I also got the opportunity to visit the new British National Library that has a great collection of precious books and documents including one of the copies of the Magna Carta. I really liked the new building. Definitely better looking than the French National Library… I have become fond of national libraries lately. I guess books and the knowledge they represent just make me happy!

The Library had also a small exposition on Darwin. That was definitely the highlight of the visit and got me very interested in reading more about the personage himself as well as some of his biggest supporters like Thomas Henry Huxley.

All in all, a nice trip and a great wedding.

And best wishes to the newlywed couple!

An Epicurean Day Trip to Point Reyes

Posted on by
Reply

Beach at Point Reyes

Alicia and I went for a day trip to Point Reyes today. Point Reyes is located North of San Francisco in Marin County. Marin County is very beautiful and home to the Point Reyes National Seashore, a great park with never ending empty beaches.

We arrived a bit late so we could not go for a long hike. We still went for a 3 mile roundtrip to the beach. Pretty nice.

Before that, there was a local mushroom presentation at the Bear Valley Visitor Center. I would have loved to go on the Ranger guided mushroom hunt yesterday but sadly, we could not make it then. Another time :). The presentation was on the small size. They had collected some nice specimens though. I thought we had taken some pictures but I don’t have them… maybe Alicia does.

After the hike, we went on a hunt for local food around Point Reyes Station. I had read about two places I wanted to try and Alicia was more than happy to indulge :).

creamery2

The first one is the Cowgirl Creamery. They make local European style cheeses. The shop in Point Reyes Station reminded me of the little creameries my Mom used to go when I was a kid in France. Their cheeses are very tasty. Our favorite is definitely the Red Hawk. This is a tasty washed-rind rendition of one of my all time favorite: Epoisses.

marin_sun_farm_logo

The second place is the Marin Sun Farms butcher shop. It is not a very nice looking shop. I mean, butcher shops in France are way nicer than that with good lighting and welcoming presentation. The shop is nothing like that. Still, the meat was just looking gorgeous. We bought a nice steak that we just ate later on. Yummy!

It is pretty rare to find a creamery or a butcher shop in the Bay Area, or any artisan shops for that matter. You best bet to find tasty cheeses and meat are the big specialty stores. It was very refreshing to go to those stores. Of course, I would not go everyday because those good things are not inexpensive. They are completely worth the price. But then, it is so much better when they are enjoyed for a special occasion.

Anyway, today was a great day. A hike, yummy food, and most import of all, great company!

Big Basin

Posted on by
1

Tall trees

Big Basin is a great little park in the Santa Cruz Mountain close to home. Alicia and I went for a hike there on Saturday. Great company, deep conversation, nice weather, pretty waterfalls, tall trees and a gorgeous view of the Ocean once you have reached the top.

View of the Ocean from the top

We did a 6 hour hike and ended up walking in the dark for the last mile or so. When we reached the parking lot, my car was the last one left ;).

Waterfall

2008: A Great Vintage

Posted on by
Reply

2008 ended yesterday on a great final note thanks to an awesome party organized by my friend Cyril at his place in San Francisco.

Cyril and David

I have many reasons to be grateful for this past year:

  • I finally set my mind on what I wanted to achieve and do going forward and things have aligned nicely so far to make it happen. The support of many of you through my wanderings and indecision definitely helped make that a better experience.
  • I started working in December for a great company that is aligned with my principles and that offers me great opportunities to grow and contribute. It has been going really well so far.
  • I got the opportunity to visit my family and friends in France for a very extensive 3 month stay during the summer.
  • I got many opportunities to learn new things and relearn old things, read great books, listen and learn from great people, think, grow and move along on the path to mastery.
  • I went on a 1 month ski road trip with my ski buddy Arnaud. We skied in California, Utah, Wyoming and Colorado. Our stay in Jackson Hole at the last Ski bum hostel right at the bottom of the slopes was the definitive highlight.
  • I ran 2 marathons and 1 1/2 marathon achieving most of my race goals. Even better, I had a great time training for those.
  • I had a great time visiting Virginia’s landmarks. Especially, Jamestown and Williamsburg. The trip was made even better by the wonderful welcome of my friends Alpana and Bhavesh that hosted us while we were in the DC area. Washington DC is awesome in April. The Cherry Blossom 10 Mile run, while wet, was a great start to my running season.
  • I visited Italy for the first time with my longtime friend Mathieu. It was just awesome to see cities like Pompeii and Rome.
  • I am independent financially and mentally.
  • I have no health issues.
  • And last but not least, I have a great group of friends that supported me all along this year :).

The best thing about that is that I am looking for an even better year 2009 :).

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

Miscellaneous Updates

Posted on by
Reply

I have been working for CDD for over 3 weeks now. Things have been going great and I have been very busy (I plan on posting more about my experience so far later).

On Monday, we moved to a new office 2 blocks away from the previous office so commute will not change. It is a very nice place and a great upgrade. The office is 50% larger than the previous one so it will give us some room to move around and optionally grow in the future. Some perks are that we now have a balcony and a kitchen corner with sink.

In the last days, we have been wiring it up and getting some additional free desks through Craigslist.

Anyhow, today is Christmas, hope everybody got their share of good food and good company. I am actively working on that.

Merry Christmas for now.

Warriors

Posted on by
Reply

In order to celebrate my first 2 weeks at work, the company decided to organize a trip to a basket ball game (*).

So, yesterday night, we all met in a pub in San Francisco for a pre-game warmup and then took the Bart to the Oakland arena where the Golden State Warriors were playing against the Houston Rockets. I will not comment on the game since I am not a basket ball expert but the Warriors did not do well.

It was still a great evening and a nice opportunity to get to know better my new coworkers and their families. I like the spirit of the CDD team and I think we will do good stuff together :).

(*) Just kidding. It was a planned company event that happened to coincide with my 2 week anniversary ;).

Massage!

Posted on by
Reply

Nothing like a massage the day after a marathon. And luckily, today was massage day at the office! What a perfect timing for it.

Thing is it is chair massage so no leg massage for me. Still, shoulder and back massage was great. And since my company had booked the masseur for 4h expecting everybody to get a 20 minutes massage, but only half the people were in the office, I got the opportunity to go twice :). That is what I am talking about :).

And the great thing is that we are planning to have the masseur in the office every 2 weeks :). A little perk like this goes a very long way to make people happy at work.

Need For Speed

Posted on by
Reply

This morning, I ran the Sacramento California International marathon. This was my second marathon after the Rock’n roll marathon I ran in San Diego in June earlier this year.

The official results are up and I did it in 3:29:35 (my watch said 3:29:39 but then, it also said I ran 26.44 miles). That is 6 minutes 24 seconds faster than San Diego :).

Race conditions were pretty good except maybe for the weather. 38F at the start and never more than 46F with a heavy layer of… pollution?. I wore long sleeves, a cap and gloves for the whole race and I was still cold at time. It did not prevent some other people to run shirt-less. Go figure!

My race went well. I had a good tempo that I managed to maintain for the whole race. I ran the first 1/2 of the race in 1:45 and the second part in 1:44:39. I had decided to run with the 3:30 pace group so that helped a bit but the truth is that 2 pit stops (at mile 4 and 15) made me loose the group twice. If you add the fact that I could not get close to the pace leader at the start, I had to catch-up with the group three times. I managed to do it twice, but the third time, I never saw the group again.

The last 5 miles were hard as expected. Good thing is that I did not hit the wall this time. I managed to maintain my pace through and did not walk. It was a huge mental fight. I managed to push myself by dedicating these miles to people that are important to me and saying I was running hard for them.

A lot of great things come out of this race. I managed my pace well, I did not walk, I had adequate clothes, I ran in less than 3:30. One thing I still have to work on is nutrition and liquid intake. Having to stop twice to the bathroom is not good.

This was also my 4th and last race this year. In addition to these 2 marathons, I also ran the 10 Mile Cherry Blossom in Washington DC in April and the San Jose Rock’n roll 1/2 marathon in October. I will take it easy on the running for the rest of the month. All in all, I think I have run over 1000 miles this year. At an average of 8 minutes a mile, that represents over 133 hours on the road :).

Looking forward, my main running goal is still to qualify for Boston. And to do that, I need to complete a certified marathon in less than 3:10:59. I am still far but I think I can make it. My current thought is to concentrate on 1/2 marathons for the first half of next year with the idea of running one in 1:30 or less. I still have to plan things out so we will see what I decide on doing at the end.

20 Months Later

Posted on by
1

Tomorrow is my first day working for my new company: Collaborative Drug Discovery (CDD). I am really excited by what the company is doing and its mission resonates deeply with me.

A new chapter in my life starts. If you are interested, here is a resume of the last 2 episodes ;).

Fumbling through and self-introspection

I quit my last job 20 months ago. I was not committed to the company anymore and it did not seem fair to continue showing to work everyday in these conditions. The company ended up closing doors less than one month after so if I had waited a little longer, I could have got laid-off and claimed unemployement benefits but it did not look like the right thing to do either.

I first interviewed with some companies with the help of head hunters I worked with in the past but it did not work out as I was not clear with what I wanted to do and was not very committed to the idea of taking another job yet.

Then, a friend of a friend (foaf) introduced me to a couple of entrepreneurs that needed a technical person to join the founding team of a travel oriented website. I liked the idea as I am myself an avid traveler and they have great ideas to make travel planning more manageable. This did not work out either at the end as we all felt it was not a fit and I did not feel like it was the right thing to do.

I then decided I should first find what I wanted to do before committing myself again. Additionally, I had enough money to live for a long while without any revenues so it did not seem like moonlighting on a random job was right either. That decision has not always been easy to explain as I might not have been clear about what I was doing all of the time, some people felt threatened by my actions (or in-actions!), and I had internal fights between my fears and desires.

Along the way, I got also a bit distracted ;). I upped my yoga practice to five or six times a week, started training for long distance running religiously and completed several half marathons and one marathon, read a lot, picked up drawing, hiked and climbed some mountains, read a lot, invested and lost some money, traveled a bit, bummed like never before on a one month ski road trip, read a lot, stayed with my family and friends for several months, and read a lot more.

Still, all of those gave me a new outlook and helped me define how I want to live my life from now on. Of course, it took a lot of thinking, soul searching, more reading, and a lot of discussions with my closest friends and some other people to get to a clear vision.

Very basically, learning and contributing are core to my life and anything I do has to resonate with those. This gives me a strong foundation to go forward and allow me to make clearer decisions.

Finding the right opportunity

With this new outlook, I started looking for opportunities to contribute in the software engineering field once I came from France a couple months ago.

I first looked at Kiva.org, a company I really like and that I have been marketing to all my friends and anybody that will listen to me for a couple years. They had a job opening for a software engineer position. And while I did not know some of the technologies they use, I still took my chance and applied. It was a long shot as I did not have any connection to anybody there and my work background is very different than what they are doing. Still, my cover email interested them enough that their director of engineering contacted me and even brought me in for a round of on-site interviews. I thought it went well but sadly, they finally decided to pass on me. I will never know why but my lack of experience with the technologies they use might not have helped, or it might just be for any other reason not related to me :). Still, check them out and if you have some money to spare, make a loan!

While talking with Kiva, I made the mistake of not looking for other opportunities and when they decided not to bring me in, I was back at square one. It was more than time to widen my search. I looked if other companies I liked were hiring and looked for job offers on Craigslist.org and LinkedIn. I identified a roster of eight companies that matched my criteria. Some in line with my previous experience, some very far from it :). Still, I applied with them and hoped for the best.

The market being in the state it is right now, I did not think I would hear from many of them but I eventually got an answer from five of them! Two, LinkedIn and CDD, contacted me on the same day and eventually took me through the whole interview process. Their processes are different in many respect.

LinkedIn was very prompt to act, I went through the interview process very fast. Ending with a grueling very technical 6 hour round of on-site interviews. They liked me and went ahead with the reference checks and told me they wanted to make me an offer. But then, it took them a very long time to extend the offer.

CDD took a bit longer. It started with a phone interview. Then I programed a small application for them so they could see an example of my development skills. Finally, I went to their office for a 7 hour on-site interview. Still less intense than at LinkedIn. By the end of the day, they made me an offer!

And the day after, LinkedIn finally made me an offer!

So here I was with two great opportunities. A great place to be. But a very difficult decision to make. Being myself, I started analysing the pros and cons of both jobs and pestering my friends with my undecision.

I am a big fan of LinkedIn and all the people I met are very smart. Aditionally, it is a successful company and they have very interesting software challenges to solve. The project I was to work on is very visible and important and has a big impact on the users and company. I know it would be great to work at LinkedIn.

I like CDD’s vision and mission. I really liked the people I met. The company is in a field that is new to me and they use processes and technology I want to experience. It is also positioned to contribute to the research on neglected diseases. It just resonates a bit more with me and it is why I went with it.

Of course, there is no way to know how things will turn out but I am very hopeful and am sure it will be a great experience. I am super excited and cannot wait to start contributing :).