Ooh La La

If you were wondering why posting is light this week, its because I'm in Paris for a work-related conference. Not Paris, Texas but Paris, France.

Now before you start thinking "wow, what a lucky guy" let me tell you that my opinion of Paris is "meh!" I can take it or leave it, mostly trending toward leaving it. Yes, there are some nice things about Paris, but I have a hard time holding in high regard a city that so casually disregards crime. I simply cannot be brought to think a place where working girls so frequently and blatantly hang out in business hotels as being an exemplar of societal sophistication. Nor can I be convinced that a land where pick-pocketting as a respected family business is a model to be followed or adored, much less just simply tolerated.

In our hotel, which is a fairly prestigious business enterprise, the maids have stolen money and jewelry from the rooms of many of the conference goers. And so far the hotel's response has been, "It didn't happen." The first person to have money taken is a friend, and he told me the hotel strongly discouraged him from filing a report with the police and intimated that he was making the whole thing up so as to commit insurance fraud.

So yes, while there is not a bad meal to be had in the city of Paris that does not settle my mind that I must strictly guard my wallet while walking about and worrying that my belongings have gone missing when I return to my room.

All that being said, our sister European organization treated us last night to a true French, 3-star meal costing over 300 euros per head. Yeah, it was f'ing good!