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Steve Jobs’s Obituary, As Run By Bloomberg

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It was a long three weeks living in our new home without window coverings but on Sunday Gus Giancos from Oasis Custom Window Coverings arrived to provide us some much needed privacy, and darkness for sleeping.

He installed 5% weave roller blinds throughout our house and the change is incredible. They really complete the look of the house, and kill all of the heat generated by the sun. And although 5% doesn’t sound like much getting through the house is still bright, and we can still see out!

And not to sound too much like a commercial, but if you’re looking for new window coverings, Gus can be reached at (416) 977-8887. (And thinking about it now I should’ve asked for a discount in exchange for this free plug!)

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Other highlights from France (no warts here - they’ve already been covered):
1. Watching endless sunflower fields pass by the window
2. Spending the final day of the Tour in Pizza Pino trying to remember our French with the “belle soeurs”
3. Smelling the incredible mountain air
4. Poking around the cobblestone streets (very steep streets I might add) of the highest town in Europe - Briançon
5. Being close enough to the Tour riders to actually see the effort they put into each turn of the crank
6. Feeling the whoosh of the passing peleton
7. Drinking “Chateau Les Amoureuses” on our first anniversay
8. Picnicking on wild strawberries, fresh bread and black pepper-coated goat’s cheese in a park in Vichy (oh, and successfully navigating the covered market to buy all the picnic goodies!)
9. Hearing Chris’ stories of the ride to and up Alpe D’Huez - the best part was the Dutch guys singing “Oh Canada” to him
10. Tasting the warm chocolate goodness of crêpes with Nutella at the final time trial
11. Building a tent out of our coats to keep from burning on Alpe D’Huez, and then watching episodes of “How I Met Your Mother” under the tent waiting for the riders to get to the mountain
12. Hearing “allez, allez, allez” from thousands of international fans as they cheered on each cyclist- lead riders or groupetto, home team or visitors, just cheering out of love for the sport.

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Now that we’ve had a chance to settle in to our new home, I figured it’s about time to post a review of our trip - from start to finish, warts and all!

Our trip was the Alps To Paris Quality Package from Graham Baxter’s Sports Tours International.

The tour did not get off to a very good start; according to the pick-up details we were to meet the tour guide & bus at door 20 on the lower level of the terminal… however there are no numbered doors on the lower level (they meant the ground floor) and door 20 (along with many other doors) are blocked off as the are under long term renovations. This left us wandering around the terminal for far too long looking for any sign of our tour group. The simple step of having a rep standing at the door nearest to 20 with a sign would have made a world of difference.

My next beef was that we were given very specific pick-up instructions and that the bus would be leaving exactly at noon and that if we missed it we would have to wait for the next one at 3pm. Strangely we waited for nearly an hour for another guest who had made it to the airport but had not retrieved their luggage, nor made it to the correct terminal by noon.

Once we got on the road I would have appreciated a “welcome to the Tour, here’s what’s going to happen” but the team from Graham Baxter left us to sort things out for ourselves.

Arriving at the hotel in Paris - Hotel Campanile Porte D’Italie - our disappointment continued. The hotel is basic at best. And the terrible paint scheme of white and bright green makes it seem even worse. This was where we learned of our next disappointment - there is only one guide on our tour, contrary to the details in the sales literature and on the Sports Tours website.

The second day of the trip was a bus trek from Paris to Chantemerle. It took nearly all of the day - but was broken up by regular stops at highway rest stops. The final trek through the mountains was incredible, but after more than six hours on a bus, most of us were too weary to enjoy it.

Once we arrived at the Hotel Plein Sudin Chantemerle things turned around dramatically - solely because of the employees of the hotel. Lynne and her team (Emma, Kim, Jo, Roger, Matt and the rest of the behind the scenes players) do an unbelievable job of making guests feel welcome and comfortable. Throw into the mix wonderful food and a relaxing setting and you’ve got a recipe for success.

The daily trips to go and watch the Tour were well planned, but because of the traffic rules it meant the non-cyclists had to wait around for many hours. We would get dropped off at 10am and the Tour would pass us five or six hours later.

The options for riders from our base in Chantemerle were numerous and varied: classic mountain climbs, valley routes, lunch in Italy (!), etc, etc.

Each night at dinner our guide would present the options for the next day and let everyone choose their own adventure. The group rides were fun, however the wide variety of skill levels and interests made for some uncomfortable rides - riding the route that the group wanted instead of riding foreign roads on my own, at my own risk.

After five days in Chantemerle we were ready to move on, but at the same time content to stay forever…

The departure from Chantemerle started with a short trip to the start of that days Stage, followed by an arduous ride to Vichy.

In Vichy we stayed at the Best Western Aletti Palace which was a nice enough place, but left something to be desired. For a town of just 30,000 people it seemed to have a disproportionate amount of large buildings, sporting facilities, etc, etc. The first night we wandered around the town and enjoyed an open air market, live music, patio nightlife, and more!

After a couple days in Vichy we returned to Paris to see the finish of Le Tour. As a result of miscommunication, a changing of minds, or poor planning, we had to stay a couple more nights at the Hotel Campanile Porte D’Italie. To make up for this change from our itinerary the tour company gave us all a dinner cruise along the Seine after the conclusion of the race - which turned into a real highlight of our trip. Dinner, cheesy lounge singing, and dancing - under the stars and the lights of Paris.

After being home for a few weeks I realize that an organized tour is the way to go, but the folks at Graham Baxter might not be the ones to lead it. I’m looking forward to a return to France - but not to follow Le Tour. I love watching the event on TV and loved our time in France, however you don’t get to see much of the race, and it’s near impossible to watch a stage in its entirety.

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To say that I’ve wanted a KitchenAid stand mixer for a while is an understatment. I’ve pined away (silently and vocally) for years, just waiting for the day when my kitchen could accomodate the ultimate baking tool. But no more pining for this girl - my darlin’ clementine KitchenAid mixer took a place of honour on our kitchen counter last week. Chris found the mixer buried on Williams-Sonoma’s sale table. Lucky me that the very kitchen gadget I’d been after for years was just sitting there, waiting for a new home - and in the same colour as the blender we already had at home. Who knew that we’d have two appliances that glem with pale orange perfect

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ITALY’S Agriculture Ministry announced this month that some wines that receive the government’s quality assurance label may now be sold in boxes. That’s right, Italian wine is going green, and for some connoisseurs, the sky might as well be falling.

But the sky isn’t falling. Wine in a box makes sense environmentally and economically. Indeed, vintners in the United States would be wise to embrace the trend that is slowly gaining acceptance worldwide.

Wine in a box has been around for more than 30 years — though with varying quality. The Australians were among the first to popularize it. And hardly a fridge in the south of France, especially this time of year, is complete without a box of rosé. Here in America, by contrast, boxed wine has had trouble escaping a down-market image. But now that wine producers are talking about reducing their carbon footprint — that is, the amount of carbon dioxide emitted in the transportation of wine — selling the beverage in alternative, lighter packaging instead of heavier glass seems like the right thing to do.

More than 90 percent of American wine production occurs on the West Coast, but because the majority of consumers live east of the Mississippi, a large part of carbon-dioxide emissions associated with wine comes from simply trucking it from the vineyard to tables on the East Coast. A standard wine bottle holds 750 milliliters of wine and generates about 5.2 pounds of carbon-dioxide emissions when it travels from a vineyard in California to a store in New York. A 3-liter box generates about half the emissions per 750 milliliters. Switching to wine in a box for the 97 percent of wines that are made to be consumed within a year would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by about two million tons, or the equivalent of retiring 400,000 cars.

But here’s another reason to sell wine in a box. America will soon become the largest wine market in the world. In recent years, we overtook Italy, and France is now in our sights. (This is total consumption, not per person; we are still well behind by the latter measure.) As Americans drink more wine, we will be drinking it not only on special occasions like dates and weddings, but also on Monday nights with pizza. That’s a lot of wine — and potentially a big carbon footprint.

Although some sommeliers may scoff at wine from a plastic spigot, boxes are perfect for table wines that don’t need to age, which is to say, all but a relative handful of the top wines from around the world. What’s more, boxed wine is superior to glass bottle storage in resolving that age-old problem of not being able to finish a bottle in one sitting. Once open, a box preserves wine for about four weeks compared with only a day or two for a bottle. Boxed wine may be short on charm, but it is long on practicality.

Which leads to a final reason for boxed wine: it’s so much more economical. Having an affordable glass of wine may be the best way to keep our 15-year bull market for wine consumption running. It also would help keep per-glass prices of wine from rising as the dollar falls.

The main obstacle to a smaller carbon footprint for wine is the frequently abysmal quality of wine put in boxes. But that’s an easy fix: raise the quality.

In the past few years, the boxed wine sold in America has shown some signs of improvement. There’s been wine in a stylish cardboard tube made by a top winemaker in Burgundy. There’s a good, old-vine grenache from the Pyrenees sold in a box. A succulent unoaked malbec from organically grown grapes in Argentina is now available in the United States thanks to the 1-liter TetraPak, which is also being used by three renegade Californians who have a line of wines that are sold in 250-milliliter packages — about the size of juice boxes, but without straws. And then, of course, there’s the news from Italy.

Producers everywhere need to deliver better wine in a box — and make it snappy. Perhaps they will if consumers start to demand that everyday wines that don’t need to age in a bottle be sold in a box. If you’re sorry about the change, squeeze off another well-preserved, affordable, low-carbon serving of boxed wine and mull it over.

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Take care of your customers.

I own a small business and if I don’t take care of my customers, they don’t stay customers… which is why I’m amazed that customers/consumers continue to accept crap service and products. With our recent move into a new home I’ve become much more familiar with the layout of Home Depot than I thought possible. But as a former employee of Canadian Tire, and a proud “Support Canadian companies” kinda guy you’d think that I’d be spending my time and money there; but I’m not. Our local HD and CTC are only geographically separated by a kilometre, but they are light years apart in their approach to customer service.

It takes me longer to find a staff member at Canadian Tire than it does for me to go to Home Depot, park, find my item, pay and get back to the car.

There are staff around every corner in Home Depot and they all are willing to take you to what you are looking for. At CTC if you are lucky enough to find a staffer, they simply tell you, “Oh that’s in aisle 84.”

Is Canadian Tire still riding high on it’s Canadiana image? Or do we just happen to live near the best Home Depot and the worst Canadian Tire?

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In February Leah and I purchased a new home. At our purchase date the foundation of the house was all that existed, which provided an opportunity for us to add some custom features at a lower cost than adding them after the house was complete. Chief among these features was the wiring of speakers to our patio, some internet cabling, repositioning of cable outlets, and some home security components. We contacted the builder to see if they could recommend a subcontractor to do the work for us.

CHSI was suggested as the one for the job, and accordingly I contacted Katherine and detailed the work we wanted done. She was hard to reach via cell, and rarely returned my emails. But when she did she confirmed all of the details of what we wanted, we agreed on the costs, and I gave her approval to proceed with the installation.

Over the course of the next four months CHSI did not complete any of the work the committed to doing, contrary to what Katherine was telling me every time we spoke.

As our closing date was fast approaching I contacted the builder and coincidentally Katherine from CHSI called in at the same time. The builder conferenced her in to our call and put her on the spot about our unit, and the planned installs. At that time Katherine committed to having all our work complete on July 30.

On July 31 we completed our Pre-Delivery Inspection of our new home and to our surprise (not really) CHSI had not completed any of the work requested.

Again I called the builder who in turn contacted CHSI. Katherine called me and told me that everything was done, I just couldn’t see it because it was all in the walls… Ha! This company is useless. Take heed of my words and find another custom installer.

I’m at fault for not finding another contractor when I thought that this was getting off the rails, but as none of the add ons are critical to our happiness I let it slide. But I have no idea how this company stays in business based on our experience.

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Today I took a break from riding and spent the day exploring the Serre Chevalier region with Leah. We took the bus into Briançon and hiked up to the old city.

This charming part of the town - the highest city in Europe at 1350m - is a walled city at the top of a hill (in Toronto it would be a mountain, but not here). We wandered the tiny streets and stopped for lunch at a café where we watched some of the Tour.

Briançon is close to Italy - so close that the menus were bilingual, Italian and French.

After lunch we headed back to where the bus dropped us off only to find that it wasn’t a bus stop! A bit of panic set in as we we had to catch the next bus or we’d be stuck in Brainçon for the next few hours. We found a marked bus stop and waited for a bus. When I attempted to board the bus the driver told me that his bus was just for packages - and looking down the aisle, every seat had a box on it.

So we went to a nearby hotel and asked the reception desk attendant for help. She called the bus line and then told us that we were at the right stop, just the wrong bus. In her thick French accent she told us to go back “where you were” before starting to giggle at how funny she sounded. For emphasis she repeated the phrase a few more times…

We eventually found the right bus and made our way back to Chantemerle in time for our wedding anniversary dinner.

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As a rest day for the Tour riders we took the opportunity to check out Alpe d’Huez. The bus took the riders to the top of the Col du Lauteret, and the non-riders right to the top in the village of Huez.

The descent down Lauteret was 40 of the fastest downhill kilometres I’ve ever ridden! Coasting downhill at blazing speeds for the better part of the hour is quite a thrill… but nothing compared to the climb up Alpe d’Huez. (When I get home I’ll post pictures and video.)

The Tour passes through in two days but already the route is packed with caravans and fans… all who were in full support mode - cheering all of us as we made the ascent. After noticing my CANADA jersey, a trio of Dutchmen even sang the opening line of “O Canada” to me as encouragement.

It was a complete thrill that will stay with me forever!

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