Paris

I guess I need to add one more step to my instructions on how to comment on my blog. I will update the instructions I posted earlier but after you type in the letters in the space marked "word verification", blogger wants you to identify yourself. There is a header that says, "choose an identity". Since I have a gmail account this field is always filled in for me so I never even realized it was there. You have four choices, each choice has a radio button and you need to select one of them. 1) google/blogger use this if you have a gmail account or if you have your own blog; 2) open ID, use this choice if you have an account on another popular internet group like AIM or WordPress; 3) name/URL use this if you want to simply write your name in but you don't want to sign up for anything (like a gmail account); 4) anonymous, use this if you don't want anyone to know who you are. Personally, I'd really like it if you used your name but if you want to stay anonymous that is better than nothing. So there you go. I hope that is clear enough for you. Of course what Dixie said is always true, you shouldn't leave a comment if you don't want the whole world to see it. I have an open blog and that means anyone can see it. I've been contacted by some unexpected people, but that is part of the fun. If you want to comment privately just send me an email.

Yesterday I received a late birthday present from Kira, the present was good but I LOVED the card. At the beginning of this blog is a video clip of me opening the card.

Dixie and Mark, tell me more about our future VP, I was hoping for Mitt Romney but I'm kind of excited about this Sarah Palin. Anyone who hunts Moose and has six kids can't be all that bad.

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The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is a group of countries surrounding the Northern part of the Atlantic ocean that have formed a treaty that they will protect each other. I don't know who all they include but the major countries are Canada, USA, England, France, Holland and the Scandinavian countries. One of the things that NATO does is control the export of sensitive information to non-NATO countries. This function is controlled by the Co-ordinating committee (COCOM). While I worked at Global, thermoelectric alloys were on the COCOM list as a controlled material. COCOM restricted the export of any thermoelectric alloy with a figure of merit above 0.75, our alloys had a figure of merit of 1.3. Before I started at Global no one really knew what our figure of merit was so every year when they renewed their export license they just signed the form that said we met this requirement. Once I started with Global they brought me the form to sign and I told them that we violated this clause. They were quite upset and told me to just sign it anyway. I refused to lie so I think they had someone else lie and then we went to work to get the restriction relaxed. Eventually I had to go to a COCOM meeting in Paris to argue that the requirement was outdated and that the Russians already had thermoelectric alloys with a figure of merit above 0.75. Of course, going to Paris would not be all that exciting without my wife so we made arrangements to have Lisa come with me. This was right after Alycia was born so I had to talk her into leaving her baby behind and that was real tough for her to do. She was torn because she really wanted to go to Paris but her baby was only a couple of months old. She finally decided to leave the baby with Don and Carol Gibb and the rest of the kids with Pat and Gary Norton. The day we left we dropped the kids off and as we're heading out on the freeway Lisa started getting all weepy and sad about leaving the kids and I had these visions of her being this way during the whole trip. I told her that she needed to decide right there if she was OK with this because I didn't want her being miserable the whole trip. She decided to get on board and we had a great time. We flew into Amsterdam and we got bumped up to first class. That was pretty cool. I then rented a car and drove through Holland, Belgium and France. I took the opportunity to stop and visit with a lot of people that I knew when I lived in Belgium. It was very cool. I saw the D'Hondt's (they named one of their kids Frederick, how about that?), Van Laere's, and three other familes that I can't think of right now.

I met up with a fellow from the Canadian External Affairs office. I acted as his "technical adviser". This was also right after the Libya bombing of that airplane that crashed in Scotland so there were a lot of talks going on about chemical warfare. There was a woman who traveled to the same meetings who was going to talk about chemical warfare. The meetings were right out of the "Get Smart" shows. We stayed in a hotel a few blocks off the Champs Elysees and we walked to our meetings. I remember we were walking down this narrow street and I was thinking, "where are we going?". There were high walls on either side of the street with very few doors. We came to this one door and on the wall was a keypad. There were no signs at all. My companion typed in a code and the door opened and we walked down a narrow tunnel and came out into a small courtyard. On one side of the courtyard was a glass wall and a glass door. We walked in the door and then it looked like we were in a government building. We had to be searched and go through a metal detector. When I went into the meeting I thought I was in a different world. It was just like in the movies. There was a very long and narrow table and all around the table were little signs from the different countries. Every chair had a little microphone. I really didn't want to talk into the dumb mic but I got through it. During one of the breaks I made a point of looking up the representative from Holland. He was quite thrilled to learn that I could speak Dutch and amazed that I had chosen to learn it even though I had no relatives who spoke Dutch. I voted in favor of our proposal. In the end the US were the stubborn ones and I could tell that they were not going to change the regulations without getting approval from someone back home. I later made a second trip where the rules were not only relaxed (as I had proposed) but were eliminated.

Meanwhile, while I was in daily meetings Lisa was taking tours all over the countryside. I was only able to see the Eiffel tower, the Notre Dame and the Louvre. They were pretty darn cool. I was also lucky enough to drive a car all over the city. That is pretty scary. I can say that I drove around the traffic circle with the arc de triomph. I have since been back a couple of times when I was able to see more things. One night Lisa and I decided to go out and have dinner with my government buddy and the chemical lady. She was a French Canadian and she kept going on and on about how wonderful it was that she could speak the language and she had a list of all these cool places that she should go see. One of the cool places was a quaint little restaurant and that is where we decided to go. We were walking on this narrow side walk and I was talking to the government guy and Lisa and the girl were behind us. I could here Lisa talking and she was telling this woman that we had four kids. The woman stopped and in a very loud voice said, "Four kids, are you nuts?". Lisa and I were a bit stunned but the guy leans over to me and in a low voice says, "and she's a diplomat". It was very funny. We get to the restaurant and it was very beautiful. There only about four tables in the place and it had these huge windows that opened out onto the street so it was essentially outdoor sitting. The guy explains the menu to Lisa and I and he places our orders. He was an east Indian so French was like his fourth language. He had never learned French but only picked up enough to get by on his many trips there. The woman then goes to place her order and the waitress couldn't understand her. The waitress then looks to the guy to translate for her and she then got all mad and yells, "I can place my own order thank you!". It took a while but she did finally get her order in. It was funny anyway but it was especially funny because we had been listening to her go on for days about how she could speak the language.

After a wonderful two weeks in France we finally headed home to our babies. The Gibbs had really bonded to Alycia and they didn't want to give her back. They seemed to have a special bond to her the whole time we lived there and I'll bet they would love to talk to her now. She has grown to be such a wonderful young woman.