Sunday, December 30, 2007

Software

We did have Christmas here. And I did get a picture of our Christmas visitor. And I did intend to post it. But I failed some part of the photography task by not activating the red eye reduction in the flash settings. I therefore ended up with a sub-standard photo. Then it took me a bunch of days (until just now) to figure out which of the software tools already installed on the hard drive here would edit out the too much red. It was that collage from Picasa that got me started. I have photos posted to the Picasa webphoto hosting service so I thought maybe the editor would work. Maybe it would but it looked to me like a download and I decided I didn't want to download the rest of the program. But today I opened the scanner program which is already resident on the HD and looked around in there. Sure enough, I found an editor.

So here is our tree, our presents, and our shining star.

Joyeuses fêtes.

Saturday, December 22, 2007

W. Wonderland

I read on Wikipedia that the winter solstice only lasts for an instant. However, the day when the solstice occurs is also commonly called winter solstice. I am going to rule that either usage is acceptable.

I was up for a few minutes during the middle of the night, probably quite close to the time when the solstice occurred (shortly after midnight local time) and discovered that it was raining outside. I went to the window and watched for a bit. My thought was that the melting effect of the rain could combine with the possibility that the streets might dry and produce a day on which a bicycle ride might be possible. Alas, the temperatures continued to decline throughout the darkness, as they usually do, and by the time I got up this morning the rain had turned to snow.It is a very heavy snow but fortunately most of the weight fell as the rain and we don't have much snow. What we do have has assumed picturesque poses in our backyard (above) and in our neighbor's (below). The weight that fell as rainfall does not have to be shoveled and also does not bow the branches of the trees the way heavy snow would. The trees are spared.Apparently it is also winter in France (who knew?) and four games from round 19 of Ligue 2 have been postponed due to poor field conditions. This from the FC Nantes website: "En raison des conditions climatiques délicates, quatre rencontres de la 19ème journées ont été remises à une date ultérieure." The postponed games were all scheduled for yesterday in cities in the northern part of France and included the Le Havre home game against third place Clermont Foot.

Nantes and Guingamp were scheduled for today and a slight rise in temperature meant that the field was not frozen and the game went on.

Interviewed on the Nantes website earlier in the week, manager Michel Der Zakarian commented on the nearly complete first half. "Même si ce n'est qu'un titre honorifique, j'ai envie d'être champion d'automne,", even though it is only an honorary title, I still want to be the champion of autumn.

Nantes may have done enough against Guingamp to earn the autumn champion label as the Canaries earned a point away from home by drawing 0-0. The result leaves Nantes on 39 points for the first half of the season, one short of their goal of 40. The result also leaves the door open for Le Havre to spoil the other goal as a victory by Le Havre in the make up against Clermont would put Le Havre on 39 with a superior goal differential and therefore the "champion d'automne".

Nonetheless, Nantes is on a path which clearly leads back to Ligue 1 as they lead the fourth place team by 9. Last year 70 points earned the third promotion slot.

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Curling obituary

Legendary sports broadcaster Don Chevrier passes away

Don Chevrier, a popular sports announcer best known in Canada as the original television voice of the Toronto Blue Jays, died at home on Monday. He was 69.

Chevrier also provided television network coverage of the Olympic Games for North American audiences since 1972, working for the CBC, the American Broadcasting Company (ABC), and the CTV Television Network before moving on to NBC. More recently, he covered events at the 2004 Summer Olympics, including badminton, table tennis, and synchronized swimming for NBC.

Chevrier is perhaps best known in places in the USA where curling is contested as the voice of curling on TV. If you have ever seen curling on TV it is probable that the distinctive voices that you heard were Chevrier and his longtime partner, Don Duguid. "The Two Dons" called curling at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City and in the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin for NBC. Chevrier did the play by play, Duguid provided commentary.

Chevrier, who was born in Toronto but lived in Palm Harbor, Florida, suffered from a blood disorder and was recently admitted to hospital before being released a few days later.

Monday, December 17, 2007

Luck of the draw

Gérard Houllier, Directeur Technique National (DTN), et Nathalie Dechy, joueuse de tennis française professionnelle, ont procédé lundi midi à Lille au tirage au sort des 32èmes de finale de la Coupe de France.La Fédération Française de Football rolled out a celebrity on Monday in Lille to participate in the draw for the next round of la Coupe de France. Nathalie Dechy (with Andy Ram the 2007 French Open mixed doubles champion and two time US Open women's doubles champion, with Dinara Safina in 2007, and with Vera Zvonareva in 2006) helped out and the draw was again favorable for FC Nantes.

Nantes has drawn another away match, this time at ÉDS Montluçon. Montluçon is a town of about 32,000 located in central France. The team plays in the Championnat France Amateur, the 4th level of French football, in Groupe D. This is an interesting bit as Groupe D also includes the FC Nantes reserve side. Montluçon is currently 14th in the 18 team league, the Nantes reserve team is 17th. Les Sables d'Olonne is currently 18th.

Also interesting is that Orleans plays in this group, currently fifth. That means that it is likely that the Nantes reserve side has played previously this year in the stadium in Orleans. The five Nantes reservists who played for the senior side against Saran last Saturday in the Orleans stadium may have had the advantage of already having played a game there.

The draw is spiced by two draws of a Ligue 1 team versus another Ligue 1 team (Auxerre against Saint-Etienne and Lorient against Valenciennes). This means that no more than 18 Ligue 1 teams will survive to the round of 32.

At least 6 teams from below Ligue 2 will survive. There are two CFA v. CFA draws (Ligue 4 v. Ligue 4), one CFA2 v. CFA (5 against 4), one CFA2 v. DH (5 v. 6), one National v. DH (3 v. 6), and one CFA v. National (4 v. 3). At least 4 teams from the fourth league or lower will survive, one of which will be at least league five or lower.

All of this leaves room for 8 from Ligue 2 to advance to the next round, assuming no upsets. FC Nantes will be the favorite to be one of those 8 but, of course, there are always upsets, that's why they actually play the games.

Paris FC received an unfavorable draw, having drawn Ligue 1 Toulouse at Toulouse.

Saturday, December 15, 2007

Canary youth movement

USM Saran 0, FC Nantes 3.

Saran is a suburb of Orleans and as was the case when Vertou hosted Nantes, the suburban team felt that their regular home ground would not have sufficient seating capacity for this game against a storied opponent. The game was moved to the big stadium in the city proper. Approximately 5,000 were in attendance for the game at the home ground of the Orleans club.

Earlier in the week team manager Michel Der Zakarian had been quoted as saying that Nantes had to use their speed to destabilize the lower league side and obviously Nantes was successful in doing so. Nantes was missing many players due to injury and suspension and Der Zakarian had to call on the youth of the organization. Five of the Nantes eleven were call ups from the Nantes reserves, including both forwards and the keeper. The reserves are mostly young players who usually are being groomed for future service with the senior team. Given this early opportunity and exposure the youth were sensational. Reserve team striker Ima Faneva Andriatsima found the back of the net in the 20th minute to stake Nantes to a half time lead of 0-1. The two young forwards produced many opportunities and eventually scored again as the third Nantes goal was scored by teenage sensation Youcef Sekour. The 19 year old Sekour again proved his mettle with his third goal in two games since joining the senior side.

Elsewhere in Coupe de France action, Paris FC also advanced to the round of 64. The teams of Ligue 1 enter the draw at this stage which means that the possibility exists, although remote, that Paris FC could draw as its opponent in this round the current Ligue 1 relegation zone habitant, Paris Saint Germain.

The draw for the next round is to be held Monday.

Monday, December 10, 2007

Surrender

Here is what you find in my basement in the winter time: furnace, hot water heater, my bicycle.The season is over, the bicycle is in the basement.

Scheduled winter maintenance: a new chain, maybe a new cog on the cassette, and a complete cleaning.

Last Monday in the southern French city of Montpellier, the Montpellier Herault Sport Club held FC Nantes to a 0-0 tie, dropping Nantes from first to second place in the Ligue 2 table for the first time since very early in the season. This evening in Le Havre Montpellier again took the field against the first place team in the league, this time Le Havre, and again played to a 0-0 tie, and again dropped the opponent into second place in the league. With the 18th round of league play now complete, Nantes holds first place by 2 points with a single game remaining until the half way mark in the season schedule. Nantes is on 38 points while fourth place, the first team outside the promotion zone, is on 29.

Thanks to Wireless for providing a translation of the description on the Nantes website of the Friday night yellow card offense of the Nantes player and two goal scorer Youcek Sekour. Also thanks to her for noticing that he is only 19. All additional mentions of young Sekour for the rest of this season will reference him as the "teenage sensation, Youcek Sekour."

Allez Nantes!

Friday, December 7, 2007

Blogger fix

I haven't posted many pictures lately so maybe I should just let it go. But the Blogger picture fix turns out not to be a retrofit. Pictures being uploaded now are behaving correctly, or at least they are on other sites, but the ones which were producing a download box instead of a full size photo on this site were still broken. I went through my old posts and found that there were only three such photos so I went ahead and performed the work around for all three, editing the code to make them behave properly. It probably isn't a big deal to anyone else, but it makes me happy.

On the subject of photos I notice that the Legend has posted a photo of a friend at a Superfund site standing in front of what appears to be a tree with what I take to be a non-tree color patch of bark very visible. Hmmm.

Nantes returned to Ligue 2 action this evening at their home ground. Amiens led 1-0 at the half as a result of a 21st minute own goal scored by Nantes defender Jean-Jacques Pierre on an errant header off an Amiens corner.

In the 51st minute Nantes again scored on a header off a corner kick, but this time defender Yoann Poulard directed the ball into the Amiens net to draw Nantes even at 1-1. Youcek Sekour then scored twice, in the 60th and 77th minutes to secure the 3-1 victory. Sekour received a yellow card after his second goal and I appeal to French speakers for an explanation as the website states, "Youcef Sekour est sanctionné par Mr. Turpin pour une semelle trop appuyée." Mr. Clement Turpin is the "Arbitre", the referee. Is this another excessive celebration yellow card?

The crowd was below average for Nantes, only 18,646 were in attendance. It was the last game for this calendar year at Stade de la Beaujoire. Les Canaris reprennent la tête au général devant Le Havre qui évoluera lundi soir face à Montpellier. The Canaries retake first place in the general classification ahead of Le Havre which plays Monday night against Montpellier.

Tuesday, December 4, 2007

Not a fit night out for man or beast

It didn't snow as much today as it snowed on Saturday. The difference was, obviously, it snowed while we were all at work.

It took me an hour and 15 minutes to get home from work. Each and every time I approached a traffic light I had to wait through a minimum of two cycles before I could proceed.

It was not a fit night out for man or beast.

Monday, December 3, 2007

Known issues for the new Blogger

I noticed a problem and found the following information at "Help".

Clicking on image uploaded through the post editor will show a file download box instead of showing the full-size image in the browser. We are currently working to fix this issue. In the meantime, a workaround is to make two changes to the first URL in the image tag:

1. Replace "-R" with "-h".
2. Replace the image location folder (preceeding something like "s1600-R") with the folder in the second URL.

They then give examples of the old code and the new code as an illustration. I tried to copy and paste it here but it is of course code and tries to do what code does making itself invisible to the non-code eye.

Find the full explanation here:

They are working on it.

Montpellier 0, Nantes 0. Nantes returns to even on points with Le Havre. Le Havre retains first place on goal differential.

Nantes returns to action Friday at home against Amiens. Amiens is currently 18th in the table, mired in the relegation zone. Nantes closes out the first half of the season on December 22 against Guingamp. Guingamp is currently 17th in the table. I found an article on one of the websites about the Nantes goal to complete the first half of the season with 40 points. They are on 35 after today and would therefore need wins in both of the remaining games to reach 41. As the games are against bottom dwellers of the table the goal still seems reachable.

Le Havre finishes the first half at home to Montpellier, currently 8th, and at home to Clermont Foot, currently 6th. Le Havre has much stronger opposition but will have the advantage of both games at home. Both Nantes and Le Havre play in la Coupe de France in the period between the first of these two games and the second.

Saturday, December 1, 2007

Winter arrives

It is here now.

I don't know if we have had the predicted 6 inches yet. It started this morning and snowed hard for a spell. But we got out and went to the hockey game without a huge amount of difficulty. The street seemed plenty fine on the way back to the garage and I stayed out and shoveled half of the driveway. It was only 3 or 4 inches but as I shoveled it resumed snowing pretty hard. By morning I am sure winter will be unmistakable. I will be bringing my good bike inside.

This photo was taken around 10am this morning only about 45 minutes after the snow began. This is through the glass door out into our back yard. The neighbor's cats are getting old and can no longer hunt as efficiently as they did when younger. The bunnies return.I just can't seem to help myself, I love this French football. Here is a headline from the English language website where I get Ligue 1 news:

Monaco v. Nice Riviera clash ends 1-1.

It had not previously occurred to me but of course, Monaco and Nice, the Cote d'Azur, the beautiful people, I wonder if Prince Albert is a fan.

And then this, also from today:

"A nightmare season continued in the French capital as a terrible defensive error from Ceara gifted Caen victory at the Parc des Princes and left PSG mired in the relegation zone after yet another shocking result."

Paris FC also played today and was held to a draw. Paris FC remains 3 points outside the promotion zone in Ligue 3 keeping alive the possibility of Paris-Saint Germain and Paris Football Club both in Ligue 2 next year.

And finally I suppose that every Daily Photo blogger in the Twin Cities area has a version of this shot on bridge theme day. I have used it before but repeat it for today's theme.Welcome to winter
In Minnesota.
Here is your fuel bill.
Ha ha ha ha ha.