Category: Fourre-tout

A little bit of everything

2013 LPM annual meeting

Last Sunday La Pétanque Marinière held its annual meeting/dinner.
It took place at the Chalet Basque restaurant in San Rafael.

It is an event that I have long championed and I found it a little disappointing to encounter so few guests, thirty-three to be precise.
A pity because during this meeting our president (Christine Cragg) is supposed to deliver our club’s State of the Union address.
The president is expected to tell the membership how our club is faring.
According to Christine, despite a reasonable bank account, our club is limping.

It is limping because most of our Board Members have resigned or are missing in action.
I think that our problem is mainly due to age and battle fatigue. I will venture to say that the average age of our members is around 68 and when reaching that age people are less frisky than younger folks.
Basically we need new blood. We need to recruit a younger crowd or our club is bound for oblivion.

IMG_0708 - Version 2At the end of the year, Claudie Chourré, our beloved, indefatigable worker is retiring from the Board and she is going to leave a big void in our organization.

As Christine mentioned it, we need four (4) new Board Members for the coming year and I don’t see many people rushing to fill the vacuum.
It is good to remember that the Board Members are an essential part of our organization and without them few decisions can be made.

In her brief allocution, Christine thanked the actual Board Members for their contributions, and also acknowledged the services of Jean-Claude Etallaz, Alain Marchand and Jean and Emily Etcheverry.
They all indeed deserve a big round of applause.

Otherwise the evening went well.
The food, although not extraordinary, was acceptable and the service was good.

I tried to take some pictures to commemorate this event, but it didn’t go very well.
In the dimly lit dining room my small Canon PowerShot camera was too slow to capture the action and my iPhone didn’t perform well either.
That’s why I had to dump most of the pictures that I took during this evening and keep just a few.
Sorry about this mishap. I will be better prepared next time.

Last Sunday many people renewed their membership, and so should you.
Do not procrastinate, mail your check today and keep the club alive!

See you soon on the courts!

Alain

To look at photos of this event and listen to accompanying background music, turn the sound on, and click on the link “My Photos” located on the right side of this page.

Status quo

One should never be satisfied with a status quo and always be willing to challenge the existing state of affairs.
Regardless of who you are or what you do, there is always a better way of doing things, especially in our fast changing world.
What was adequate yesterday is probably obsolete today and in need of being updated or upgraded.

Be it your way of playing pétanque (merci monsieur Foyot), your method of managing your health or your love life, there is always room for improvement.
But to be successful, you need to keep an open mind and be willing to embrace changes. And above all you need to be curious.

Screen-shot-2012-08-17-at-3.26.50-PMI am an avid reader and I get most of my ideas from news clips and magazines.
I subscribe to a few periodicals but I also peruse the Internet daily to keep abreast of what’s happening.
Most of what I read is quickly forgotten (or put in a virtual bin called “later”) but once in a while I come across an interesting bit of information and I have no rest until I am able to try it out.

As you know, I run a small blog (what you are presently reading) and I am constantly on the lookout to improve its appeal.
Since standing still means losing ground, I periodically evaluate the content, the look, the functionality of the site and strive to improve its overall attractiveness.

Through reading I often become aware of new widgets, small applications that can easily be installed to increase a site’s functionality.
When learning of a particular app, I download it and try it. If I am satisfied by the results I keep it. Otherwise I deep-six it.
But the main thing is that I am never satisfied with the status quo and I am willing to get out of the rut to try new things.
I am glad to say that this particular site has substantially evolved since its initial launch, and I hope that you noticed it.

Today, most everybody is using a computer or a smartphone but we use only a very small number of the device’s resources. We are too busy or too lazy to dig and figure out its (often hidden) possibilities.

This is wrong.
Apathy, indifference to changes is harmful to your well-being.
Regardless of age, one needs to remain curious and show a willingness to evolve.

Lack of evolution paves the way to extinction.

Alain

The Puny Wars

Watch out! Batten down the hatches! The holidays are coming!
The shopping wars are about to erupt again!
The summer truce will end on Halloween, and the first shots of the new conflict will likely be fired shortly after Sunday, November 3, when Daylight Savings Time ends.

The Holiday Season (or as I call it the “the Puny Wars”) runs from late November to early January, but commercial skirmishes are likely to start in early November.
That’s when we will start being inundated by urgent messages urging us to get off the couch and head for a store. Any store, real or virtual.
The gist of these messages is simple: during the Holiday Season it is un-American to be a miser.

But first of all, what are we really celebrating?
Thanksgiving of course, and Christmas, two Christian holidays.
I almost forgot Hanukkah, a famed Jewish holiday having something to do with an oil shortage (undoubtedly generated by the oil cartel), if I recall.

Thanksgiving is a national American holiday commemorating the Plymouth Feast first celebrated by the Pilgrims and the Puritans in 1621.
It was originally meant to give thanks to God for a good harvest and a lot has been written about it.

But Thanksgiving has a long convoluted history that most Americans ignore (and which I will not bother to explain). For most people it is simply Turkey Day. The day when you absolutely, unreservedly MUST chomp on turkey!
Never mind the Pilgrims and their cockamamie stories!
On Thanksgiving you must go the store and buy that bird or FEAR EXCOMMUNICATION (shudder) from the American economy!

Thanksgiving by the way is gaining worldwide acceptance, and regardless where you live, it is now cool to observe this American holiday.

IMG_0594And then there is Christmas, one of the most celebrated (and most fabricated) Christian holidays.
Christmas marks supposedly the commemoration of the birth of Jesus Christ, but the exact month and day of his birth are really unknown.
Scholars believe that December 25 may have been chosen by the Catholic Church to correspond with the winter solstice and ancient polytheistic festivals that traditionally occurred at that time.

The Winter Solstice has always been an important event, observed by many people and cultures

It was notorious among the Greeks and Romans alike.
In ancient Rome the winter solstice was celebrated with a festival honoring Bacchus. It was held for a month and ended December 25.
During that period there was a lot of drinking and rather lewd behavior that the nascent Catholic Church didn’t appreciate.

Instead of rocking the boat and depriving its followers from having fun, the Church neatly appropriated the festival and rechristened it.
Stop venerating Bacchus, that drunken old lecher, and adore innocent Baby Jesus instead people were told.
Why not?

One of the greatest sleight of hand in history.

But regardless of their origins, these holidays have been sanitized (scrubbed from most religious connotations) to appeal to a maximum of potential customers.
We don’t care who you are or what you believe… Come and celebrate with us… and incidentally, don’t forget to bring your wallet with you.

I don’t want to be a party-pooper, but at Christmas don’t feel obligated to spend a fortune to buy the affection of neighbors or relatives.
True love cannot be bought, and no amount of money will ever change that.

So, during the Puny Wars, be merry and party hearty but don’t let money be the overriding factor of that temporary insanity known as the Holiday Season.

Alain La Foudre