Americans near Paris

It's the boys' fall break (vacances de Toussaint) this week and the first part of next week. With mom coming Friday and Betsy running big meetings this week, we weren't going away, so the boys and I are filling our week with meanderings. Yesterday we rented a car and went to a farm near Versailles, the Gally Farm. Just behind (in fact adjacent to) the grounds of the palace, the farm has a u-pick as well as a "pedagogical farm" with lots of ways to learn about farming activities and a farm & garden store. We partook of all, and here's the evidence.



Today we took it easy but tomorrow we're off to the Chateau de Vincennes. More later!

Falling into Halloween

Hiya everybody ... is this thing on?

It's definitely fall now in Paris - leaves are brown and down, and the weather is very mercurial. This weekend was temperate, highs around 60 and dry, but tomorrow it changes with rain followed by highs closer to 45-50 for the rest of the week (until Mom arrives Friday ... sorry!). But it's also the boys' fall vacation, all week plus through Wednesday next week. That's right, 12 glorious days of no-school fun! We'll go to a farm in near Versailles tomorrow to get pumpkins for carving and maybe pick some apples, then play tourist over the rest of the week around Carter's fencing lessons and a couple other things.

Because Friday was the last day of school until November, they celebrated Halloween then. The American Library had their party Saturday. We'll go to one at the American Cathedral Friday (with Mom) before Betsy and I head out of town for a couple of blissful kid-free days. Here are a few early Halloween scenes ...

School pics

The slideshow includes last year's school photos as well as the new ones.  Enjoy!

Don't vote

Vonage down

Hey folks, looks like our vonage modem got fried in a power outage last night.  I leave tomorrow morning for a few days in Toulouse with Mike, so no way I'll be able to get it fixed before then.  In the meantime, you can call us on our french phones at +33.1.5658.1477  or Betsy's cell +33.6.7305.8873.  We can still call you without marginal cost though, so if you want to reach us call and Betsy can call you back.

This American (financial) Life

Betsy wrote this, but I strongly agree with her recommendation. Listening to this hour makes interpreting important articles like this possible for us layfolks:

The Fed said it was creating a new entity to buy three-month unsecured and asset-backed commercial paper directly from eligible companies. It hopes to have the program running soon.

The market for that kind of debt has all but shut down in the last week, with many major corporations unable to borrow for longer than a day at a time, as banks become more fearful of giving out cash. The volume of such debt totaled about $1.6 trillion as of Oct. 1, down 11 percent from three weeks earlier.

Anyway, here's Betsy's note:

This is one of the more cogent explanations I have found (although I think I’ll still need to listen to it a few times to really understand). See the front page at This American Life. Look for last week’s episode, “Another frightening show about the economy” (cvf note: here). As they say, “Regale dinner parties with your take on credit default swaps! Amaze your friends!” You can download it (for free, if you do it in the next couple days) or listen to the full episode for free on streaming audio. I also recommend their earlier show on “The Giant Pool of Money,” which explained the subprime mortgage market. If you scroll down the page to the 29 Sept post, there are also links to other shows that discuss the financial crisis, including a free daily podcast that interprets the most recent events and breaking news.

"Enjoy!" (Right.)

The wayback machine

Thanks to the miracle of Google and their tenth-anniversary Jan01 web index, I was reminded today of the proto-blog we set up with Jonathan's help just before Carter was born. It grew over a couple of years to include news and pictures of both boys, and it turns out it's still on ShadeTree's servers. Check it out!

Carter's homepage
Old photo page
Photo album

Oh, and this is still funny as hell!