Life may be just a meaningless moment of agony between the suffocating stench of the womb and the foul decay of the grave ...

... (paraphrasing David Brooks), but in the meantime I am heading to Paris!, which should serve the dullen some of the pain

That's right. Tomorrow morning I hop on the TGV (Train à Grande Vitesse). It's 3.5 hours and would be alot faster except that the route kinda takes us through a 'L' bend going through Lyon first. I took a few of these bullet trains in Japan a few years ago and was amazed with how well they worked. You'd be sitting there on the platform holding a ticket that say 12:07 and entrance C - and at 12:06 you are standing at entrance C thinking that the train was late... but ahhh... at 12:06:30 you here it coming .... and the moment the clock on the platform clicks to 12:07 the train stops within an inch of the line where it is supposed to. Amazing. Dunno if the Euros have it worked out as well as the Japanese.

I'll be visiting a friend whom I know from my Stanford years that has been living there since '99. Should be a great weekend. Geneva is fantastic, but it does feel a little small sometimes and the trip should be a good little break from the above. I think Andrew is here in Euro Disney for good. Just like some English explorer living with pygmies, he's gone full native - plunging right in with a fat civil sector job, French girlfriend, and cozy flat on the the Rude du .... If he is wearing a scarf around his neck when he picks me up at the Gare de Lyon tomorrow there will have to be an intervention.