Inky revisited

Inspired by my post on Inky's birthday, my mother sifted through the family photo archives and found this photo of a very young and svelte Inky, circa 1964 I would guess (he was a little more Garfield sized in later years). Nice work, Mum!

Toughing it out in Cannes

Duty called, and I answered. The assignment was to attend a conference in Cannes, on the Cote d'Azur, in mid-December. Reluctantly I agreed to tear myself away from the Boston winter to stay at the splendid Hotel Majestic (above, not to be confused with the majestic Hotel Splendid down the street) for a few days.



The first highlight was to stumble on "La Cave", pictured above, for dinner on the first night. It was a perfect place to have a jetlagged solo dinner, and my entertainment for the evening was provided by the staff in the open kitchen.
The food was outstanding and although I had been cautioned not to expect too much from Provencal wine, I was pretty happy with the local product.

The obvious running option in Cannes is along the beachfront, and I ended up running there each day. It's about 5 miles to the next town, and there is an uninterrupted footpath all the way along the road beside the beach. In summer it might be a bit crowded but in December there wasn't much problem dodging the occasional pedestrian. The beach itself was a bit soft to run on for long, and in places the ocean came all the way to the seawall anyway, but one could jog on the sand for some variety (and I did.)

Pachyderms in Cambridge

This post is both a little late and slightly off topic, but it loosely relates to the ongoing Architecture in Cambridge series, to which I hope to return the next time the sun comes out (i.e. March). The above photo was taken at the start of October when the Ringling Brothers Circus came to Boston. It turns out the the circus travels by train, and there is a handy rail yard next to MIT, right behind Simmons Hall. To get from the rail yard to the circus location in downtown Boston, the elephants walk through Cambridge - that's the MIT dome in the background above.





While the walk to the circus takes place in daylight and with the elephants decked out in their regalia, the return trip was at night. I camped out next to the Stata Center and was able to capture these shots. I was particularly impressed by the way the elephants are trained to link trunk to tail.



My friend Cat, who works at MIT and was the source of all the inside info that got us to the right place at the right time, snapped the best photo (above) of the elephants passing the Stata center with her cellphone. (I mean, she used her cellphone's camera to take the photo - elephants can't use the buttons on a cellphone).



Crossing the railway line - almost back to their sleeping compartments.



It was all over too quickly, with just a few steaming piles of pachyderm poo on Massachusetts Avenue to indicate that the elephants had ever been there. As one of the policemen escorting the herd said, "Welcome to Cambridge".

Inky's birthday (observed)

December 1st was the day my family used to consider the birthday of our cat Inky (1963-1979). I can't seem to find any photos of him lying around, so here is one of my current cat Paula (named in honor of Paula Radcliffe).