07.17.2008
Toulouse Part 2
Day Three: Back to Centre Ville

Today started off rather cloudy and humid, and even though it’s fairly overcast, its still fairly warm outside which means about 29-30C (84F-86F). It was such a departure form yesterday it’s hard to believe that I didn’t change cities in the middle of the week.

Regardless of the sticky weather, I was able to get some work done today. My Moog French buddy Daniel and I are getting fairly close with the slides for next week, but still have a ways to go. We are going to have a review late in the day with the Moog East Coast guys to get our stories straight. Working with the guys on the East Coast has been a struggle from the beginning of the program, and it continues to be a problem. They like to do things their way and if you aren’t doing it their way, it’s wrong. It is very frustrating to work this way, and they continually ignore the Torrance group, almost regardless seniority or manager status.

Since they have frustrated us so much, we made up an org chart showing how things work at Moog. So, this first picture shows you how many people try to tell me what to do on this design. How is this possible? Everyone of these people/group has a different opinion on what the design should look like, how much it costs, how much it weighs…..etc. WTF!!!!

This picture is how the org chart should work. There should be one guy interfacing with the leads and then he tells me what to do. Very simple. I don’t know why it can’t work like this. Sigh

Ok…so enough with that crap. On to more important things like what did I eat today. Haha….breakfast was the same, but I didn’t eat as much this time. For lunch, it was back to Fifteen again. It’s really cheap, so we figured why not. The plat de jour (lunch/plate of the day) for today was sauted beef with mushrooms and rice. I sucked it up and got it anyways, even though I HATE mushrooms, and it wasn’t too bad. I think I had it the last time I was here. The dessert was good which was some kind of apple tart? I dunno what classifies it as a tart or a small pie or whatever, but it was good nontheless.

I took a picture of the menu here so you can see what the prices and ordering is like. It’s basically a lunch spot with 3 things, the ‘plat de jour’, a salad, or a sandwich. They only have these three combos or everything a la carte. I would explain the menu, but you guys can read, I mean French isn’t that much different, so ya. It’s all pretty pricey though: 9EU ($15) for the plat de jour, 7EU ($11) for the menu sandwich, and 6EU ($9.50) for the salad. Yikes.

On the way home from Airbus back to the hotel the police had closed off one of the streets I need to get home. It was a temporary block off, and look what was coming by.

Go figure. When was the last time you saw pieces of an airplane going down the
405? Ya, I didn’t think so. The first two pieces look to be the food trays up in the front of the plane near where you enter were the drinks and food are stored. The second piece that rolled by looks to be the first and second stories of the new A380 business class section. Pretty neat.

Also, I stopped on the smallest street in Toulouse again and I was behind this super old Renault that made me feel like I was back in the 50s. Not that I was alive then, so technically it’s not back in the 50s for me, but you know what I mean. Lol.

French lesson for today. Sortie = Exit.

I finally made it into the city tonight for dinner. It was nice to be back in the city again. I ended up driving down there again to try to familiarize myself with the area again before the weekend. I am not really sure what I want to do this weekend, but that moment I will probably explore more of Toulouse on Saturday and then make a drive up to Albi or some other surrounding city on Sunday.

So I walked back through Le Capitole on the way to dinner. I had no particular place I wanted to go, so I was just wandering around. It was kind of nice, the weather was very nice, by this time of night it had cooled off considerably already, so jeans and a tshirt was perfect. It almost reminded me of LA, except for all of the people sitting outside on the sidewalk and all of the crappy cars.

I really want to live like this, in the middle of a city above some stores in a place like Toulouse, SF, San Diego, Seattle….etc. I wish LA’s downtown was more affordable and more developed. Oh well.

I walked through the park at Place Wilson and the Merry-go-round was still there and it was in full effect, however without really anyone on it.

So I stopped to eat at a restaurant on the outer ring of the park of Place Wilson. I ate outside next to this group of people from Boeing Seattle. Somehow, I got seated next to the only other Americans in the restaurant. Since its fairly crowded outside, I was like 1 foot away from the person next to me and they were speaking English the whole time. I was tempted to talk to them, but I was such a chicken I didn’t say anything. I didn’t ease drop really, but it was totally awkward. Lol. I think they thought I was totally weird but oh well.

Either way, I had my first duck of the trip and it was nowhere near as good as the one from last time. I am going to have to go back and find that place again, it was so good. Maybe I can con the Program Manager to take us out there again. We shall see.

So that was it for today. I know it was a pretty mundane day, but it’s a Thursday, so hopefully I’ll have more to report on over the weekend.

Aurevoir!