Here’s PDN video postcard three from Perpignan:

Another quick-turnaround video I made for work:
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Quick video I made for work today:
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I’m here in a Paris train station waiting for my train to Perpignan. Time for a very quick post.

Yesterday, Normandy. Took a tour of the D-Day historic sites, including the big museum in Caen. I saw Omaha and Utah beaches as well as the American cemetery at Omaha. Needless to say a powerful sense of history remains in this part of France. I learned a lot about this dark time in Europe and the heroics of D-Day.

I also met four other Americans who were on the tour, two from Georgia and two from the Boston area. I helped them figure out how to use the Metro.

Sorry no photos yet, I haven’t had time to download them from the camera. Onward to Perpignan.

Day 1 in Paris. Flew in overnight/this morning on an Air India 747, the Greyhound Bus of airlines.

Though the company is paying for me to be in France to cover photo festival, the first part of this trip is on the cheap, since it’s personal time. I’m staying in a zero-frills hotel… on the 5th floor of a walk-up building (which by U.S. measurements is the 6th floor). It’s a basic, functional room, but missing things you’d normally expect, like power outlets. (There is one, for the TV, the remote to which is inert, as someone has stolen the batteries.) The place is called the Luna Park Hotel, and I selected it for three reasons. First price, second it’s a name that’s easy for me to remember, and third it’s in a great location in the midst of things near Plaza Republique. I’ve been riding around all afternoon on the Velib bikes, which you can rent for EUR1 from automated stations around the city. I’ll have a future post with more thoughts on this program, which I loved when it was new last year but which has lost some of its lustre.

Tomorrow (Tuesday) off to Caen, for a Normandy D-Day history tour.

I’m leaving tonight on a week-long trip that will take me to Paris, Caen, Perpignan and Lyon. The bulk of the trip will be me attending a photo festival in Perpignan for work; the rest will be sightseeing. On this trip I’ll be in reasonably frequent contact with the Internet. I’ll try to post a couple of things in this space while I’m traveling.

This is surely one of the best commercials of United’s long-running “Rhapsody in Blue” campaign:

Do you feel better about United than you did sixty seconds ago?

Just uploaded here. Enjoy!

I’m back in New York, and am heading to work this morning for the first time in a week. I had a nice vacation in California and will post pictures soon.

I’ve determined that it’s a poor idea to fly into any New York airport on a Sunday. Yesterday afternoon my otherwise on-time Virgin America flight was on the approach to JFK when the pilot announced we would be circling the sky over Pennsylvania for a while. (Cause: “Weather.”) After an hour or so the plane began to run low on fuel. The pilot put us down at the Lehigh Valley airport in Allentown. We sat there for an hour or so and then flew on to JFK, touching down about three hours late. But we didn’t have it that bad — a Delta flight scheduled to leave JFK yesterday morning sat on the tarmac for seven hours before the flight was finally canceled.

Recall that last month I got stuck in Charlotte trying to fly into New York on Sunday.

Hello from San Francisco. I’m flying back to New York tomorrow after some time out west. I spent five nights camping in the Sierra Nevadas and Yosemite National Park with my friend Doug, and some time here in the Bay Area with my friend Millie. Photos and more stories to be posted soon.