NANO ZEN

The mistral in France might be mistaken by the foreigner to be some archaic reference for a minstrel or bard, but in fact refers to a strong cool wind. In winter it is can be cold and harsh, while in summer it’s refreshing, blowing away the humid heat for a time, leaving clear blue and sunny skies.

Views from the top of Cannes following a mistral are beautifully clear and sharp. There is a vantage point from the Voie Julia that looks out over Cannes south to the sea, west towards the Estérèl range, and north towards Grasse and the start of the Alpes. Wonderful place to sit and watch sunsets.

With the arrival of summer I try to rise early to walk Baka, run while it is still cool enough to be comfortable, and generally enjoy the dawn before the rest of the world takes notice of the daylight outside. However, no matter how early I try to rise from my slumber and energise my body, there always seems to be a variety of birds that feel the need to publicize the fact the sun is coming around (again) at the very first glimmer of light, like it was a religious epiphany or monumental orgasm.

When it’s just the sparrows and pigeons, that’s not so bad and kind of melodic when they get a good rhythm going, but when the seagulls join in I just wish that my super hero power was the ability to rob them all of their voice, along with people who talk at the theatre.

I’ve been silent for the past several days. Essentially my left brain is sulking about the current state of my life, while the right side just wants to ignore the world and overdose on DVD replays of TV shows. I’ve been procrastinating about finding a new apartment and it’s coming down to the wire when my landlord would like me to leave. He’s a nice guy and we’ve become friends over the years, so I don’t begrudge him wanting to sell the place, but the timing has not been ideal for me.

I didn’t think much of this place when I moved in back in 2001 and I never really did anything to fix it up. What was meant to be temporary, turned into a seven year stay. Now I’ve come to enjoy this neighbourhood. Close to supermarket, baker, doctor, pharmacy, yet quiet residential, with plenty of greenery, and some nice running routes. So staying in the area would be nice and I thought I would luck out when I was told about an apartment on the 4th floor for rent, little smaller and same rent. Unfortunately, the French are rather anal when it comes to renting to people. My official status as a “micro enterprise” (think self-employed), despite making slightly better income than when I had a regular salary, have been at it officially for two years, and made my French tax declarations without issue isn’t good enough apparently.

So I’m stressing out big time. Had some skin irritation on my arm for about a month and a half, before the itching drove me to the doctor’s to do something about it. He thought it might have been stress related or that it didn’t go away because of stress. Oh hum. Next.

Even now, writing this blog, is just yet another distraction from what must be done. My worry of course is that no one will rent to a self-employed software developer, especially those that are managed by real estate & property management agencies, since they have more anal requirements. France can be a nice place to live, other times I wonder why I stay.

Charles Cooper of CNET wrote Monday an article A commenter’s Bill of Rights? Let’s think first concerning whether or not comments made on a blog belong to the blog owner or the commenter and/or whether a commenter has any rights with respect to their ability to manage what they’ve said.

There is an old Internet saying my server, my rules or more precisely with respect to the topic at hand my blog, my rules. If I own, operate, and pay for the hosting of a web site or blog, then any content generated on that web site belongs me, thus comments left on my blog would belong to me, with proper attribution to the commenter of course (otherwise why bother having comments at all). If someone wants to save and/or protect their comments, then they should use their own blog and link back to the source article or comment to form the thread of discussion for readers.

My blog, my rules is a question of simplicity and easy of management of content. To do otherwise would be chaos. Read more