Montana clem

Paris Clem!

2008-04-18T07:14:00.000-07:00

http://parisclem.blogspot.com/ That's where to go to get some news Clem stuff. Madness almost guarantied!

The end

2008-03-08T01:09:00.001-08:00

Yes! A blog that ends, it must be the first time that someone actually does this officially. Usually blogs just get given up or abandoned, this is not happening to Montana Clem! No sir, I'm ending that blog, it's terminated. Why? Simply because I've moved back to France so this blog has no reason to be "opened".

It's probably high time to do some kind of a summary or a conclusion. So I went to Montana for pretty much one reason. I had a cute girl friend there (Sarah) and well I wanted to give a chance to our couple. Some thought I was nuts (I guess they were partly right but that's love) to fly away from the fatherland, all my friends and family to get lost in the ass of the world: Bozeman Montana.

I was tempted to do a chronological story but I thought it would be boring and maybe it would lead me into talking about things that didn't really matter after all. After a year in and out of Montana, all that really matters is that I had a lot of good times, I have learned a lot about myself and the others, made some great friends, visited beautiful places, worked with a buch of truely nice people, bought the coolest guitar and managed I don't know how to stay good friends with Sarah.

It's been a rich experience, I felt happy, I felt sad, but in the end I think I'll mostly remember the good moments, because why bother remembering the bad ones? I lived and learned in Montana, I definitely made some mistakes, from which I've learned, so I can keep this experience and use it for the best :)

I would like to thank all of my readers, it's been a pleasure to write for you guys, I hope it was fun or interesting or amazing (yeah!) to read. There has been the blog about Finland, the blog about Montana, I guess it's time I open a blog about France! So pretty soon I'll give you a link to a new blog about my tremendous adventures in Paris (well France in general) this time it will be written in French. I know it's quite unfair for my dear internationnal readers. Well if there is enough demand for a change of language I'll do it. The readers are kings!

Thanks a lot!

-Clément

Concert

2008-01-30T21:16:00.000-08:00

Tonight I went to a concert of the Blue Man Group at the Basket ball stadium of MSU. Ernie's wife Abby gave me a ticket that her brother wasn't going to use and that was really cool! I had an awesome time, these blue guys definitely have the sense of rhythm! It was a pretty show too with plenty of visuals and some pretty funny jokes. That's quite different from my usual metal concerts but that was refreshing. If you guys have the opportunity to go to one of their shows I would definitely recommend it, good times!

Thanks for reading Montana Clem.

-Clément

brrrrrrrr

2008-01-20T20:12:00.000-08:00

As I'm writing this post, I just came back from outside, this crazy horrendous place and it's -3°F which is approximately -20°C. Do you know how I realized that we reached that kind of temperatures? Well I just suddenly experienced something I didn't feel since Finland, two years ago (Already !!! Damn this is going way too freaking fast, seriously) and this feeling is: the humidity in my nose freezing. I tell you, that is a good indicator for -20. At -40 there is another level, when your eyelids freeze together when you close your eyes and that's a troubling experience.

So what's new with me? Well since the beginning of this year I've been pretty busy. Busy with work, writing my internship report (a god forgotten task that ruins your hopes and crushes you like you're a nothing until you start hallucinating great ancient life forms dominating parallel universes and coming in your dreams to force you to worship it wearing a hello kitty hat. That is pretty disturbing. I tell you) and traveling around. Yep traveling! So I've been to Glacier with Sarah, we rented a cottage there. It was a lot of fun, we've been x-country skiing under some kind of snow storm that covered our tracks so we could have a greater chance to get lost and die frozen in a middle of one of the prettiest US state parks. Also that would keep us in a good state of conservation so that the human things that will crawl over the surface of the planet in 120 000 years could fin us and expose our bodies in a freak-show-2nd-millennium museum.
By chance (thanks to my tremendous orientation skills) we made it safe back to the car and brought back some lovely skiing pictures.
Last week end I went to visit my good old pal Hunter in Fredericksburg Virginia! And man I had a blast!! Since Hunter studied history in College he was able to describe me the civil war battles and how the south was fighting a pretty unfair war (the odds were for the north who had the majority of the population). I say, that's bravery. But anyway, I love history and such, I always find it fascinating and instructing. I believe our leaders often make the mistake to look down on history thus making over and over the same stupid mistakes. We visited Williamsburg which had a pretty neat college. Jamestown, the fist British settlement. Yorktown, where the French and Americans battled together to kick the ass of Brits, unfortunately they surrendered before the battle started. Good for us, that one battle we didn't have to surrender. Vive la France!
Finally we went to Washington DC, which look very different form what I remember back in 1998. Now it's some kind of business/administration bunker with military fences, patrols and alien motherships.

Well, as you can read, I'm trying to have the best of the time I have left in the US. Putting behind the old stories, building some good new fresh memories.

With this I tell you thanks for reading Montana Clem. Giving news from the cold front.

-Clément.

EDIT: This morning the temperatures are -20F which is ... -28°C

Happy new year !

2008-01-01T15:47:00.000-08:00

Happy new year everyone! I wish you all a very successful 2008 with loads of fun. Last night we went to one of Bozeman's pubs the 317 (st patrick's day) had a beer, blew some whistles and shouted at midnight. That was fun! We walked from my apartment to main street which took a good 35 minutes so we didn't use the car. That wouldn't be fun to start the year with a DUI... Rochelle and Zack her boyfriend joined the party just on time, like 15 minutes to midnight. We had a good time, goofing with the Party hat and the whistles. Then Zack drove us back to my flat.
That's about it :)

Happy new year !

Ready to rock baby !

2007-12-05T20:59:00.001-08:00

Here it is. This time all the band agreed on the logo, it looks more "in your face" and it's more readable.

So yep here it is, prepare to adore The Acolyts!
It's some good old fashioned thrash metal, using the elder's recipes for a nice warm and yummy music. No preservatives or additives, it's 100% organic metal. No testing is done on animals.

We have a motto: Insanity Darkness & Metal. It might be the name of our first EP but we are more going towards "The Fury Of The Acolyts". Kind of a first burst of killing riffs pushed by a megalomaniac level of decibels.

This motto is about how we want to keep in a certain path and to never surrender to music commercialism while keeping large enough boundaries to be able to have variations of style as long as it is Metal, dark and somehow insane.

long live The Acolyts !

Ready to party

2007-11-20T19:25:00.000-08:00

I don't know if it's gonna be a "Party" but I'm invited at a family get together for thanksgiving at Sarah's uncle's place in North Dakota, pretty near form Fargo. I'll be out of Bozeman for about 4 days.
It's true Ruben that I didn't write much on the blog these days, it has been almost a month!!

Well let's try to summarise a month worth of craziness, I've spent a week-end in Helena MT, the capital city of Montana. Sarah had a conference there and I jumped on the occasion to visit another city. It's a little bigger that Bozeman (around 50 thousand) and it was strangely empty of people. That might be because it was a Friday in fact. Anyway it looked like a nice city with more history than Bozeman.

I've been to work, where I got done some good old coding. I'm thinking about changing my methodology so I would have more to say in my report that I'm planning to start writing next week.

It's been snowing here almost non-stop for the past couple of days. I tell you it's brrrrrrrrr!! The snow melts and creates some nice ice rings on the streets. I've seen some cars missing their turns right from my window. They didn't seem to get hurt, just out of the road.

I've been playing a lot with my new guitar! Let me introduce my new baby, a Gibson SG faded brown. 6 strings, two nice humbekers with a very nice warm sound. The neck is a real pleasure to play, it's really fast. Specially to get the 20th and plus frets, there is no wood obstructing the left hand! This is a nice improvement compared to my old pal, the Epiphone Explorer Goth which design, even if really cool and hardcore, makes it a little harder to play.

With the Acolyts we start being pretty serious about composing an album, I have recorded a few riffs, we are writing lyrics, designing a cool logo for the band and also working on the band itself, its orientation, its philosophical meaning ;) Today, thanks to Justin (Acolyt n°2) we have a pretty near perfect logo that just needs a couple improvements to rock even more! The compositions are for now at early stages but I can tell you it sounds like wicked mix between Megadeth, Judas Priest and Pink Floyd (what ??). Well that's what we would like to do. We are still looking for a drummer who would become Acolyt n°4.

The other day we went hiking and we took some nice pictures form Spanish Creek. So here are the pictures, for the ones who prefer to look than to read!

I'd like to send more but blogger seems to be bugging...

Thanks for reading Montana Clem !!
Scenic & disastrous writing.

Pumpkin Carvin'

2007-10-28T21:35:00.000-07:00

Pumpkin lord
envoyé par dellamowica

Scary stuff! First time I carve a pumpkin in my entire life. Yes Halloween is not celebrated in france, well it wasn't until a few years ago (like 3 or 4) when some companies realized it could make some profit. Anyway, this week-end we bought some pumpkins at wallmart (shame) for 2 bucks each. I didn't knew pumpkins were so hollow, there is nothing in there. Some strings and seeds. So first I had to make a hole on the top and with a spoon I got rid of the stuff inside. Then I drew the face of the pumpkin with a marker, and finally used a big knife to cut an evil face out of it. Lot's of fun! The best is when you put a candle in there and the flame flickers. Looks like this veggie is possessed!
Here you can see my flat, with the evil pumpkin claiming the table. It's still there, proud landlord of the table.

Thanks for reading Montana Clem, more and more images, less and less text!

-Clément

Gross

2007-10-24T18:02:00.001-07:00

Huuummmm yummy !!

Oh yeah, looking at that picture makes me gag right now. Especially after my half hour run. (Yeah I'm all sweaty!) But seriously it was so tasty! What did I put in there...

2 slices of whole wheat bread, toasted
2 slices of salami with black pepper
2 slices of medium sharp cheddar
2 slices of turkey bacon (65% less fat than normal bacon. Still way too much)
2 sunny side up eggs! (That was such a good idea, thanks to that Spanglish movie I watched yesterday.)
3 White mushrooms that I quickly cooked on the stove.
Microwaved 15 seconds to have the cheeze melt just a little....

Let it snow, let it snow

2007-10-07T09:14:00.000-07:00

As the sky is black, the temperature falls down and enormous clouds hide the stars. While the children and the good people sleep, one of the most magical nature's tricks begins. As beautiful as deadly it swings in the air, slowly, almost nonchalantly it lands on the ground like a white feather blown by a little kid. Billions of water crystals, perfect shaped, creates a delicious sugar frosting on Bozeman.
The following morning, we hear the laugh of the Bozeman-lings discovering this year's first snow, running around, throwing snow balls, building ice-mans, tasting the ice or just observing this sudden feel of purity over their homes, their country. The warm autumn colors of the trees adds beauty to the painting. Leaves make a soft colorful tapestry and contrast with snow's detail-less whiteness.
It's been my duty as your friendly bloggin' Bozemanite to walk around the streets and take pictures of this unfortunately (or not?) temporary enchantment.

Please pardon my attempt of lyricism today. I admit this snow must have froze some part of my brain and here is the awful result. But anyway, I hope it made you smile or even laugh (who knows?) and that you'll have a great time looking at the pictures and maybe a great day !

Thanks for reading Montana Clem. A fairly quite not regularly updated blog.

Pimp my ride !

2007-09-19T20:25:00.000-07:00

I admit.

It's just to attract Ruben's attention, but really it's not about bringing my car to a gang of cool guys so that they make it a space wagon. No this post is dedicated to my "new" beloved Mountain Bike! This blue an black beauty I bought mid august. It proved a very good investment. At the end of august there was a BBQ week-end organized for RightNow developers at one of Hyalite Canyon's camping spots, just next to the reservoir. So we biked there (Sarah & I) form my apartment. It was a 17 miles uphill trip. Pretty exhausting! The way back was pure pleasure, 17 miles downhill... Two weeks ago we went to the college M trail, and took a picture of me with one of the forest department officers as you can see on the right. He didn't look really at ease. I think he could use a good razor, anyway, that was a nice ride. Everyday (almost) I bike to work, it's refreshing and wakes me up the hard way. We recently started to get in a running habit, about 15 minutes everyday. Man, that's super hard, I'm not a runner but I'll improve!

I still like doing some cooking, it's super nice after some exercise. Good, tasty and as healthy as possible. This time it was Salmon grilled with a lemon sauce and some mashed potatoes. Not so bad!

Montana clem, quite a visual experience.

PS: The last picture is from Bozeman at night, but when I took it I was moving and it was well pretty dark of course, so the result is weird but kinda artistic in a way...

Fancy trip to the fairy lake

2007-09-01T20:11:00.000-07:00

fairy lake clean water

Clean water for a change, no trans-fat, not in a bottle. Today we've been to the "fairy lake", a very pretty spot, 30 minutes from Bozeman. It's located in the Bridgers mountains, the ones that has the college M, but on the other side. Well anyway, that was one good occasion to take my camera out. Unfortunately I discovered when I arrived at the lake that I forgot the 1Gb SD-Card in my computer's slot. I've been taking some pics lately of my brand new bike !! (but I'll talk about it in another post) and stuff around Bozeman. Today let's focus on the Fairy Lake, it's a little heaven out of the city, at about 6000 feet.

We've been driving there with Sarah's Oldsmobile Intrigue, It's a pretty cool car she has but definitely a city ride. So that was great until we arrived on the fairy lake trail, 7 miles of off-road pleasure. Quite bumpy, but definitely fun (except that sometimes we were a bit worried about breaking the car, but oh well what's a car after all), there were some cows around in the forest, which was pretty weird. I guess the rancher who owns them must be pretty confident that they will find their way back! As we were gaining altitude we had a great view on the valley and the Bridger canyon.

Finally we arrived at the Fairy lake. Seriously if I could buy a little cabin, I would put it right there. The scenery is truly beautiful, on one side impressive mountains (Bridgers) on the other side there are a few trees and a big valley.

There is a small trail around the lake, and when the sun reflects on the water it makes thousands of shiny sparkles, thousands of fairies dancing upon the water, mystique whirling little lights, inspiring fantasy and day dreaming.

Thanks for reading montana clem. More poetry to come (maybe) and crazy stories (for sure). We appreciate your business.

Correct me if I'm wrong

2007-08-28T11:50:00.000-07:00

I just grabbed a bottle of mineral water. For some weird reason I suddenly became interested in a bottle of water ingredients. Here is what I found.
Ingredients : Purified water, Potassium bicarbonate, Sodium Bicarbonate, Calcium chloride, Sodium chloride and Magnesium chloride. Not a significant source of Potassium, Sodium, Magnesium, Calcium or Trans-fat.

I don't know about you guys but when I grab a bottle of water, I don't expect trans-fat in there. Water isn't just my first source of trans-fat.

Back in the Bozone

2007-08-17T19:45:00.001-07:00

Hello everyone ! I'm back in Montana. Here is a picture of what you can see from my window tonight.

I have just finished my first week of work, wooohoooo!! After 6 months bumming around, I finally enjoy developing some cool widgets for RightNow new prototype. It's quite confusing I must say, especially during the first 3 days, I was quite lost. But now I start to get how the things work and it's pretty exiting, I'm working with a real cool team, it's very motivating!
I'm in the middle of a start of the art project and I feel like I can contribute for a great achievement!

Alright, these last few days have been quite smoky around here. Montana is on fire! Plus Bozeman is located in a valley which make it difficult to evacuate the smoke. Oh well, it's almost gone, I can see the mountains again and seriously they kick ass!

Today I got a cell phone SIM card so I got a Montana phone number, oh yeah ! I have applied for my social security number, and I'm looking for a second hand bike.
Yep, the idea is to go to work biking, because it's nice enough out there and that's good for the shape. Also it's not very convenient for Sarah and I to share her car.

It's nice to be back in Bozeman again, there are plenty of thing I got to tell you! There is that rodeo thing I went to when I was in Marshall, that was hilarious. I have to find a way to post a video that I made with Sarah's camera. If you guys know how to post a video on a blog, please tell me!!

Okay, this is enough for today.

Thanks for (still) reading Montana Clem and no I haven't forgot about the horrible invasion of prairie dogs but it needs more time to collect the informations.

-Thanks, the management.

The invasion has begun.

2007-04-12T14:38:00.000-07:00

Reuters: Bozeman, Thursday April 12, 3:40PM 2007

Fear those little rodents

The office of National Forests and the US department of health and human services, released an astonishing report this morning in Washington (7:45 AM GMT-5). In front of the congress and US Military officials, Dr. Trudman head of the Genetic Contamination Committee (GCC) made terrible revelations.

On the 2^nd of March 2003 in Idaho Falls (ID, USA), the Foundation for Animal Research and Trans-genetics lost a couple of Cynomys parvidens strikeanus from the laboratory 106-2B.
The scientific in charge of the "Animal Optimization" department, Dr McMourning, reports on these events.

Dr McMourning : "I was really wasted that night, I had a gallon of Moose Drool beer and half a bottle of tequila with Fernando my assistant. Actually it was quite a regular evening, we researchers are having fun torturing animals and getting trashed. Obviously I was working on a couple of these new Cynomys parvidens strikeanus guys and I forgot to lock them in their cage. Really these spirits company are to blame. It isn't written on their bottles that it makes you do a shitty job. However when I saw these little fuckers escaping I grabbed the lab's emergency shotgun. I missed them, but I eventually killed Fernando. I'll have another bottle of that damn good stuff in his loving memory."

While the democrats ask for the return of the prohibition, scientists are deeply concerned by the impact of this brand new flavor of prairie dogs to the environment. This for several reasons.

First: The new prairie dogs have 7 rut cycles per year and a female can bear up to 10 which means during these four years, the first female have probably already had around 250 babies. A CPS (Cynomys parvidens strikeanus) arrives to sexual maturity at only 3 month old. You understand the growth of this new specie is exponential, uncountable and probably already near the million individuals.

Second: The babies, even if they are very cute (Dr McMourning's team says), have a very bad energy consumption ratio. They need to be fed about 5 times their own weight every day, and they eat any kind of grass. They are responsible for an incredible ecologic devastation in US western plains.

These pictures shows from right to left, a satellite view of the USA in february 2003, today and on the left the expected result of uncontrolled breed in 2010.

Third (and the worse): Sometimes these creatures are "confused" about where is their natural habitat.
(the end of the article tomorrow)

Edit (June 6th): I promised the end of that article a month and a half ago, but since then I've been escaping a prairie dog state conspiracy and I can't find time yet to write the end.

Thanks for reading Montana Clem, not supported by ads, getting the news first.

-Clem

Cook with Clément !

2007-04-04T20:53:00.000-07:00

Yep, every person that knows me, even a little, knows I like good food! Well, I think the best way to get some quality meals, it's to cook them yourself. Tonight I've been preparing some great stuff and I'd like to share with you my kitchen secrets...

Cooking with Clément ! For cheap and tasty meals.
Tonight, the "Potée à la dinde et son riz pourpre" as I call it or "Turkey casserole and it's purple rice".

Cooking time : Around two hours. But you need to be around cooking only about 20 minutes (depending on how blazing fast you are!).
For that particular meal you have think ahead a little bit.
You will need for the casserole:

some turkey left overs (could surely be replaced by some chicken breasts).
2 carrots
1/2 Onion (the big white ones, if it's a small one, then I guess all of it)
1 garlic clove (une gousse d'ail)
1 sweet potato

For the rice:

33cl of rice
10cl of red wine (yeah!)
one teaspoon of olive oil
one teaspoon of salt
one tablespoon of soy sauce
1/4 of an onion

Cooking instructions

The casserole:
Start by cutting the carrots in slices (not thin, about 1cm long), rince and peel your sweet potato and cut it in slices too.
Now cut your onion in half. If you don't feel like crying, there are several techniques, more or less efficient. You can manage to cut the onion next to a window so that the air blows away the nasty onion's gas, you can also cut it underwater, and there is one thing that I noticed, it's better to use a sharp knife to cut it gently. Yeah, it's horrible when you cut these guys with a knife with teeth, it messes the pulp and creates more emanations. Nasty stuff !
So cut that god damn bulb into thin slices and then cut those in half. You can do it. Now that you've been weeping like a young girl because you didn't care about my safety advices, you can put all of that stuff you chopped into a saucepan. Then fill the pan with water until the vegetables are almost completely covered. Add some turkey pieces in the pan. Cut the garlic clover into small chunks and add them. Add one teaspoon (cuillère à café, 5cm³) of salt and one of olive oil. Let it cook slowly on low heat for two hours. Normally when it's done the vegetables and the meat are very tender... Pretty good.
Ok that looks like vomit, but it's good !!

While the casserole is slowly cooking on its own, you can have a fresh carrot raw, if you are starved. Plenty of good vitamins.
You can start preparing the rice 1 hour and a half after.

The rice:
Start by cutting some onions, then pour the rice into a pan, just like on the picture on the left. Add one teaspoon of olive oil, the onions and heat. Be careful not to burn the rice, it's pretty smoky.
I know, that sounds crazy, but do as I say... Wait for the rice to become golden, or brown and then pour your 10cl of red wine in the pan, right on the super warm rice !! Yeah, be careful, it might be spectacular depending on how hot the pan is. Your rice turns purple... Original look, plus it adds a little frenchy touch to the taste. Now that you have a "Sauté" of purple rice, you want to cook it, so, pour 1.5 times the amount of rice in water in the pan (normally 33cl of rice is contained in a regular glass, so add one glass and a half of water into the pan, yeah I'm a math genius). Cover the pan and let it cook on full heat during 10 minutes.
It's ready ! Let it cool off and serve, I recommend having some regular water with that dish, yeah, not too much fantasy. Plus it's better for you.

Thanks for reading "Montana Clem" and I hope you enjoy your meal !
Just like we did :

-Clément

New look

2007-03-25T15:21:00.000-07:00

Well, it isn't a big change, but I changed "Montana Clem"'s banner with a picture I took yesterday during a hike in the Sourdough mountains, here you can see Bozeman's city center on the right, the mountains far in the back are the Bridgers. Some of you guys may see the famous M !

The picture was taken with Sarah's camera that has a very nice Panoramic feature!
Thanks for reading "Montana Clem" and it's new look !!

-Clément

For Ruben

2007-03-20T15:56:00.000-07:00

Hi there, after a long time searching how to do it... I finally found how to show the last comments! Look at the right of the screen (not next to your monitor, on the screen, right bar).
Enjoy !

Thanks for reading "Montana Clem", a blog full of posts. Almost.

For those who doubt !

2007-03-08T13:11:00.000-08:00

The snow has melted a bit these days, so now I can confirm that there is a freakishly giant "M" on the mountain I see from my window !
Gna !
Ok the red stuff is a bit too much.

Thanks for reading "Montana Clem" anyway, and in "Clem we trust!", understood ?

-Clément

Welcome to America : Part One

2007-03-07T09:50:00.000-08:00

Hi there, children and grownups ! Today we're gonna speak about stuff. To be more precise, products. In America you can find all kind of crazy goods. I want to deliver their picture to you. We'll see some surprising ones (for a Frenchie), some classics and some interesting ones, depending on your fields of interest.

Today we speak about FOOD. Oh yeah, most of the Europeans think that Americans, in general, are crazy overweight. But clearly, from what I can see in Montana, this is just a minority, not more than in France. The phenomenon must be observed in big cities... I don't know. Well, if you like peanut butter, here is a good (bad) reason to get fat as a whale. This peanut butter package is simply huge. If you don't believe me, let's compare it to some other products. Products that have a known size. As you can see on the left, we compare the size of the peanut butter to the size of a wine bottle (Menage a trois, Californian, quite disgusting wine. Impossible to drink it, so now I use it to prepare some sauces) and the size of a soy sauce pretty well know to you guys, I know you love sushis ! (You might have realized that the dispenser is GREEN !! Well in fact this is the "less sodium" version of the soy sauce, I've never seen that one in France).
Isn't that peanut stuff great ? well I like peanut butter but I don't eat it that often, so it's gonna take me a while to finish that guy !

Ok let's continue my food oddities with that couscous ! "Toasted Pine Nut" one of the three flavors I bought. The others were "Mediterranean curry" and I don't remember the last one. It's pretty good stuff, you boil some water, add the sauce bag content to it. Then you put the couscous grains into your saucepan, take it off the burner and let it sit, covered, during 5 minutes. Ready to eat !! The flavor isn't that great unfortunately, but I guess if you cook some other dishes to accompany it, well, that couscous could be great.

Thanks for reading "Montana Clem", and don't forget to wash your belly buttons !
See ya guys later.

-Clément

Bozeman, Exotic !

2007-03-02T14:26:00.000-08:00

Tropical heat, sandy beaches, the sent of sun screen cream. Yes, Bozeman has it all, except all of the above. Today's a sunny day, quite warm, -1°C. I guess in those conditions Bozeman qualifies to be an Exotic place compared to Paris or the good old Fréjus ! Here the snow covers almost everything, it falls gently every other day to keep a good thick layer on the grass and clean walkways.
It's time for me to share, with you guys, a view of what you can see from my current apartment windows !

On the left, next to the text, the view from my "office", the room where my computer is... You can see here some other student housing buildings, the park in between is covered with snow, yep, no kidding. On the horizon you see the mountains, they are all over Bozeman. The city is located in a valley, the Gallatin Valley.
It's easy to see it but there is a big M on the mountain, on the right, just upon the building. Not very visible because of the snow... I'll take another picture when we can see it better, from nearer. This M of course means Montana, and it's facing the MSU (Montana State University)
The picture on top is form my living room's window.
The one on the top-left is form my bedroom.

That's all for now, hep don't be too demanding ! See ya later :)
Thank you for reading "Montana Clem". We thank you for your patronage.

Las Vegas Part 2

2007-02-18T22:17:00.000-08:00

Gambling, that's the word. The word that's probably the most used in Las Vegas and only in Las Vegas. You are surely wondering why I took so much time to write the follow up to my last post. No it isn't because I was searching for my words to describe how I lost all my money, clothe and physical integrity. It didn't happened, I'm sorry to fail in fulfilling your kinky dreams.
The only excuse is just laziness !

So what happened in Vegas ? I admit, I tried a slot machine... I don't remember if it was in Ceasar's palace or in the Bellagio (Picture on the right). Las Vegas 1 - Clement 0. That's the final gambling result, yes I put on dollar in that damned machine, pulled the stick... The cylinders rotated... ...Nothing.
Not fun at all ! So after that hard loss of one dollar I decided that my gambling days were over. Finished the excitement of loosing money, the thrill of the bankrupt, the shameful sin of pointless investment. That was the first dollar I played and the last one.

Now you are probably wondering, "So what have you been doing in Vegas ??". Yeah that seems weird, the city is more or less only known for it's casinos. Well in fact you can do a lot of stuff in Vegas besides gambling. Each casinos/hotel has its nightly shows, it's shopping areas, restaurants of any kind (We had a pretty good Sushi !), clubs and bars. The city is constantly pulsing with a crazy party life. There are lots of show running around, there was even Celine Dion in town ! I don't know why we missed her show... There are also some events happening in the streets for free, the Bellagio has a giant water show, shooting some water very very high, believe me quite impressive. There is a full pirate battle in front of the Treasure Island everyday.

As the trip was organized by ITE in a study purpose, we spent most of our day time visiting civil engineering companies based in LV. The companies kindly paid for our lunches and some of our dinners.We visited also the Hoover Dam, built in the 30's, which is a really impressive construction built to calm down the waters of the Colorado river. In the middle of the bridge you could cross the state border between Arizona and Nevada (where Las Vegas is, remember).

Here is a picture of a part of the Las Vegas trip group. Heading to the Hoover dam.
The last night we bought a cheap 10$ suit to go boozing in the casinos. It's a kind of traditional thing here, you can't go to Vegas and leave without your cheap second hand costume, not really your size, and pants not really matching the vest.

Note the sign in the picture "More than you bargained for!", pretty funny, I just noticed it.

That night we went out to the "Coyote Ugly" bar (from the movie, yeah guys !!) in the New York - New York Casino. Pretty cool ambiance with women dancing on the tables getting free shooters. But the drinks otherwise were ridiculously expensive and the music way too loud. Heh that's not good for the ears !

Allright that's all I can think of right now, maybe I'll come with some other stuff from Vegas but later.
Thanks for reading "Montana Clem"

See ya later !

Las Vegas trippin'

2007-02-12T11:36:00.000-08:00

Hi There! I'm back from Las Vegas, the crazy city of gambling, cheap drunken marriage and prostitution. Sounds good, doesn't it?
Thanks to Sarah I was able to join her student chapter (ITE) educational trip to Vegas. Student chapters seems to be a bit like our student clubs in France (remember iWeek?) but with only students from the same study background and with the purpose to make contact easier between today's students and former ones, that have interesting positions in companies. Well that's what I understood, I may be wrong, maybe they usually play golf together. ITE, I don't know exactly what it stands for but it's a student chapter for Transportation Engineering folks, cool guys that I've been hanging around with for almost a week.

We departed from Bozeman last Wednesday (7th of February 2007) at about 6am with two vans containing about 10 persons each. We had a long car ride, as you can see on the maps underneath, we've been in Idaho, Utah, Arizona and finally Nevada.

Pretty long trip eh ? Yes it was about a 14 hours drive with the pit stops, the Burger Kings and other junk food, but it's so good when you're hungry enough!
There was snow about everywhere in the Rocky mountains until we reached the desert of Nevada and it's 20 degrees Celsius (Quite warm for the beginning of February!) . The mountains are truly beautiful, they reminded me a bit of the Alps, less High but still impressive.

We arrived in Las Vegas by night, from miles away we could see the light of the city, illuminating the sky with an orange glow and lasers piercing the clouds randomly like in a kind of epic SF battle. The first casinos started to appear with their flashy signs, golden windows and their skyscrapers hostels, temples built to sacrifice your money to the $Dollar God$. Soon we were absorbed in the city, it's busy groove, limousines, rich looking women warped in their fur coats, huge men in black guarding entrances and fat tony smocking his Havana premium cigar. Humm well, that wasn't that much cliché, but you could feel the Vegas spirit that we see in the movies. The what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, the feeling that you could step in some trouble if you're fooling too much, the money spent foolishly, the artificial oasis in the middle of the desert, all of that really makes a weird impression.

Stay connected to the blog, tomorrow the Vegas story continues !
Thanks for reading. We appreciate your business :)

Welcome to Montana !

2007-02-05T14:33:00.000-08:00

Yeah let me introduce myself, I'm Clement Della Monica, brand new Bozemanite ! In this blog I will regularly keep you guys, up to date with delicious tales from Montana. Yes the blog is in English, sorry French fellows but you'll have to answer in English too.

Let's see... So on Saturday, February the 3rd I got up in this good old Frejus, France, at 4am. I got done with some last errands, eat breakfast, cleaned up and took the highway to Nice where my flight departed at 7am. Then it's been a very very long journey, I had to wait 5 hours in Frankfurt for my flight to Denver. This flight lasted 10 long hours, I've been served two meals and two movies were shown. "A good year" and "The magician", pretty good ones, too bad I had to concentrate that much to hear the dialogs because the plane was full of Germans speaking really loud. That's strange that's the second time it happens. I didn't knew that about Germans. When I arrived in Denver I had a nice interview with an immigration officer because the last time I left USA I forgot to notice that I was leaving by giving back the little peace of green paper the had put in my passport. Well nobody asked for it when I got in the plane to go back to France. How was I supposed to guess? Anyway that went OK, but really freaked me on the moment. Then followed 7 long hours to wait for my Bozeman plane, delayed two hours, nobody knows why. I had to keep awake because I didn't want to miss the connection. After a two hours flight I finally landed in Bozeman BZM airport which is located at Belgrade (USA) 20 minutes far from Bozeman by road. There Sarah was waiting for me. How wonderful it is to finally see a friendly face and especially her, of course !

More about Sarah and I in Bozeman pretty soon !
Keep connected.

Yours, Clement.