Category: Fourre-tout

On Easter Eve, La Boule d’Or, the San Francisco pétanque club hosted a party to honor Jacques Biscay, one of the founders of that club.

But this long-planned celebration almost didn’t happen. Around 3:00 am that morning, I was awakened by a very hard rain slamming my roof and I thought that our little party was a goner.

But Ubiquitous Ann had previously declared that “rain or shine, we will have that party” and absolutely nobody dared to interfere with the newly minted president of La Boule d’Or.

Around 9:00 am the rain had cleared, and a little later we drove to the city. We arrived at the pétanque field around 10:15 am to find a bunch of volunteers actively preparing snacks and drinks. By 11:00 am a sizable crowd (too numerous to mention all names) had assembled, and the small parking lot adjacent to the pétanque court was packed to the gills with cars.

Close to 11:30 am Jacques and Leonie Biscay materialized and were welcomed by Ann and her guests like Hollywood major leaguers. Recording devices of all kinds clicked madly everywhere and scores of photos were taken to immortalize this event.

Ann, who was firmly in charge of this affair, welcomed the guests who were also warmly greeted by their own children (Roger and Patricia) and their respective families.

In a little speech praising Jacques and Leonie, Ann also recognized old-timers (like Louis Toulon and Charles Davantes) for their own contributions to the sport of pétanque. Unfortunately, our own Charlie was indisposed and could not make it, but he called me this morning to tell me that he was back on his feet and ready to take on the world again.

A group photo was taken before lunch by various shutterbugs that included Bradshaw Frazer and me.

Lunch and drinks were offered, and everybody helped themselves to a variety of dishes.

After lunch, it was pétanque time and most of the guests gathered on the still moist field to enjoy a few games. Due to a still sore back, I chose to abstain and instead photograph the action around me.

Let’s not forget to thank Dynamo Ann for her extraordinary effort to promote this celebration and the success it deserved.

Atta girl Ann.

Alain

PS: I posted 2 photo albums today. One is called “Jacques Biscay morning” and the other one is called “Jacques Biscay afternoon”. Enjoy!

What do I remember best about yesterday’s event?
The wind my friends, the cold blasted wind. In the morning we didn’t feel it too much, but in the afternoon, it started to blow. We experienced very strong gusts that seriously disrupted our games. And it got cold, very cold. According to the weather bureau, around 5:00 pm the wind speed reached 23 mph (enough speed as we say, to dehorn a bull) and it got cold enough to cool to incite everybody to cover up.

But let’s start from the beginning. In the absence of Christine Cragg, Mike O’Leary assumed the management of the tournament and assisted by Shama and Sandra ran the show. And an excellent job they did! Kudos to them all and especially to Mike who stayed with us until the end to give away prizes.

Forty people registered to play, and by around 9:30 am things got underway. Three 45 minutes games before lunch, and elimination games in the afternoon.

Originally, I didn’t intend to play, but Francois Moser enticed me with his siren’s song, and I agreed to assist him. Yesterday, the second thing I remember best was the caliber of some of the women we encountered. On our first game, we met Brigitte Moran and Liv Kraft. I was absolutely amazed by Brigitte’s shooting skills. I would estimate her batting average to be around 90%. A really great competitor.

Later on, we met Caitlin and Albert Woodbury. Caitlin also proved to be a mean shooter (I already knew that) and gave us a really bad time. But the ultimate woman gunslinger was Suzie Lee.

We faced her and Sandra Shirkey in the Consolante’s finals and she annihilated us. She didn’t miss a single shot. I had not played against her for a while and I kind of forgot how well she performed. Now, after a crushing defeat, I will remember her for a long time. She is an amazing shooter and totally deserved to win. We lost the finals with an appalling score of 1/13.

Yesterday nothing went according to plan. As usual, I intended (after being booted out of the tournament) to take a bunch of pictures in the afternoon, but the gods of pétanque didn’t see it that way. They let us win more games than planned and almost totally prevented me from doing my job as a photographer.

I managed to take some shots between games, but I had to wait until around 4:00 pm to seriously get to work.

The last game I managed to cover was the Concour’s finals pitting Kue Lee and Tim Peppel against Tom Lee and Mark Shirkey. If I was a betting man, I would have put my money on Tom and Mark… and I would have lost. I forgot how good unconventional shooter Kue Lee was. Sure, he was greatly helped by Tim Peppel, but it was he who nailed the coffin of the other team.

In the end, both teams stood at 12/12. Both Tom Lee and Mark Shirkey missed some critical shots and Kue gave them “le coup de grâce”. The final score was 13/12 in favor of Kue and Tim. Great game. Congratulations guys!

Concours
1^st place: Kue Lee & Tim Peppel                  $84.00/ea   
2^nd place: Tom Lee & Mark Shirkey.         $60.00/ea
3^rd place: Paulo Custred & J-C Etallaz      $36.00/ea

Consolante
1st place: Suzie Lee & Sandra Shirkey.      $36.00/ea
2^nd place: F. Moser & Alain Efron               $24.00/ea

And that’s the way I saw it

Alain

 PS: Please take a few minutes to look at my pictures. Play in “full screen” for best results. Avoid watching on your iPhone. Thank you.

Today, unless you are a hermit, you own a smartphone. The apparent purpose of this device is to facilitate messaging between people. But the problem is that many individuals use different frequencies trying to do this. We kind of live in a Tower of Babel environment, where everybody tries to communicate in a different language.

Let’s suppose that you want to quickly share something with a friend. You grab your phone, open the WhatsApp application, and send a message to your buddy. But this person usually passes information with Messages and pays scant attention to anything else. He/she will probably never get the message.

And to make matters worse, the “notification” of a new message is often a single, discreet (way too discreet for me) tone that is easy to overlook, especially in a busy environment.

We all are creatures of habit. The minute we become acquainted with a particular application, we generally stick with it. If you usually use e-mail to communicate with your friends or associates, you will continue to do so, regardless of what the others are doing. You feel comfortable with it, so why would you switch to another convoluted app?

The obvious problem is that we now have an embarrassment of choice when it comes to messaging, and this leaves everybody a little bewildered. It seems that nobody is looking at the same partition at the same time anymore.

So, what is one to do? You probably will have to adapt and start using a different app because “If you don’t change with the times, the times are going to change you.”

If you want to stay in the loop, yes, you will have to learn how to use new applications.

For kids, it is natural; the newer the stuff, the cooler it is. Their little thumbs fly effortlessly on the phone display (yes they all have a phone) but for older folks, it is highly disturbing. It means that they will have to beg their grandchildren to teach them how to cope with this new infernal app. That’s probably what grandchildren are for; to teach their outdated grandparents how to deal with a smartphone.

To paraphrase John Green, breaking a habit “is like a good book in that it is very, very hard to stop once you start.” 

To survive, you probably will have to improvise a system to call various people. Maybe entering a specific emoji after a name on your contacts list to identify the right application to use…

The main thing is to have a method to put everybody in synch and prevent future recriminations.

Hoping that the above will be of help (especially Tamalous).

Alain