Troy Angrignon - Adventure Capitalist

Day 7 - Winging my way back to North America

Troy Angrignon — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 08:20:05 -0800

Not sure what to say. Too many conflicting emotions as I sit in Heathrow waiting for my flight back to Vancouver. Maye I will later.

I'll be listening to this all the way home. I got it from a very dear friend who means a great deal to me.

"Breathe Me" by Sia (the soundtrack to the final six minutes of Six Feet Under shown here below.)

Day 5 in Paris - a run around Ile Saint-Louis

Troy Angrignon — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 05:21:44 -0800

I decided to get out for a run in the cold sunny weather today and ran around Ile Saint-Louis:

It was a crisp beautiful autumn day. I was the only runner in shorts, and one of the only runners out at ALL. There don't appear to be many runners in Paris. Maybe I'm looking in the wrong places.

On the way back home, I ran through a back alley and found this great cathedral.

And a few blocks from home there is a little shop with this sign. I liked the sign and thought that it was worth taking a photo.

There are a lot of tiny little shops near our place that have art in them. Wait what on earth is that in the window??

It's a bust of Michael Keaton's Batman. Creepy.

Day 3 in Paris - Bikram's yoga and a successful shopping trip

Troy Angrignon — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 06:50:01 -0800

Aujourd'hui était le jour 3 ici à Paris. Olivier et moi réellement avons obtenu de prendre le petit déjeuner ensemble, alors il se dirige pour travailler, et je suis allé au loin au yoga de Bikram. Il y a un petit studio impressionnant juste près de notre endroit, droite autour du coin d'un magasin de Apple.

(photos courtesy of www.yogabikramparis.com)

Alors je suis allé de nouveau au au braver les bas-côtés de BHV pour trouver un fusible pour le transformateur que j'ai fait sauter, et pour acheter quelques dishtowels. Je suis parvenu à diriger ma voie par ces essais et tout le personnel était très utile aussi longtemps que j'ai souri. Beaucoup. C'est un fait que des humains sont câblés pour sourire sur la commande pour long car vous les rayonnez un sourire et puis leur demandez de vous aider à parler meilleur français, ils semblent répondre bien.

Maintenant de nouveau au travail sur mon timezone américain du nord !

Oh yes, a little promotion for Vonage. I brought my Vonage adapter here to Paris so that I could have all of my North American phone numbers ring here. And it's working perfectly. So my SF and Vancouver numbers all ring my phone here and I can call out just like when I'm at home in Vancouver. It's a bit surreal actually how well it works. When did VoIP actually start to work?? It used to be a nightmare.

Technorati Tags: paris, bikramyoga, puppy, travel

Day 2 in Paris - A Hole in the Wall and a Noisy Alley

Troy Angrignon — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 06:47:28 -0800

Today was my first weekday in the city. Unfortunately, there are no Crossfit gyms here in Paris. Seems like a business opportunity to me. There are about 30 gyms in downtown Paris, 22 of which are one chain.

The first gym I found was actually a combination gay sauna, bar, and weight room. All in one. Not quite what I was looking for. On to the local mega corporate chain Club Med - owned by...Club Med. Lots of neon, a lot of space, a ton of machines and almost no free weights in site. And it was also $36/day! Next, I went looking for the local Univers Gym. I never did find it. But while I was looking for that gym, I found this building facing a back alley. It looked like something from the future - possibly a set for Gattaca or Minority Report:

And then right across the street was an entry way that took me from the future all the way back to the past:

Inside a massive park was this man sitting with his feathered friends:

After wandering in the park here for a bit, I headed back to the other side of town to try to find Body Gym.

On the way, I passed through the Place de Bastille, a very large roundabout with this in the center:

It was ever more impressive zoomed in:

Eventually I found the gym. I almost didn't go in. The front entrance was all graffitied (graffited?) over. But once inside, the owners were friendly, the gym had real people working out hard, and they had free weights, a somewhat old change room, and the whole place looked like it needed to be...closed....or renovated. Perfect! And the price was right too. Managed 10 sets of "Cindy" (5 pullups, 10 pushups, 15 squats) in 20 minutes. That was about all I could do today between my minor jetlag and my bum cramps from the flights over.

Once the workout was over, I wandered home feeling like I was going to be sick. I'm sure that was the workout and not the jetlag which is gone by now.

As night fell, the neighbourhood seemed to get LOUDER as people came home from work. This is the view out of the window. It's pretty funny to watch. It eventually settles down though by bedtime.

Technorati Tags: crossfit, paris, gym, travel

Day 1 in Paris!

Troy Angrignon — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 00:19:18 -0800

Hi all,

Here are some pictures from Day 1 in Paris. I'll be working and living here for the next two weeks. My blogging application is acting a bit weird so the images are all really small. I'll try to fix it for the next posts.

Here is Olivier at the Eiffel Tower. He was disappointed that I didn't think more of it.

The sun shone for a few minutes but otherwise it was a slightly chilly fall day. The grounds were not too busy.

Yes these are Citroen 2CVs. You can rent them. The renters all seemed to have bought berets for the occasion. Or perhaps they provide them with the cars?

I loved the way this guy parked his Smart Car. It was almost like he was trying to hide it behind the parking meter - "You can't SEE me!"

"Here lived Antoine de Saint-Exupery from 1934 to 1940". Home of the author of "The Little Prince".

Napoleon is interred here:

Sorry about the rotation. My darned iPhoto upgrade keeps rotating the photos the wrong way and it won't fix them. Here is Rodin's The Thinker from three sides. I didn't realize how buff Rodin's models were! They were either all gym rats or else he made them larger than life.

Looking out the rear of the Musee de Rodin at the gardens.

The backside of The Triplets.

Technorati Tags: paris

I have joined Hinchcliffe and Company! (out of the corporate world and back into startup chaos)

Troy Angrignon — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 16:24:21 -0700

My time at Business Objects has finally come to a close. It was an awesome two years, with a lot of learning. I met a lot of extremely talented people there and through my association with the company. I was feeling the entrepreneurial urge again so i decided to throw myself back out of the perceived safety of the corporate life and back into the chaotic startup world. I have been out for two weeks so far and couldn't be happier. I feel like I'm "home".

Now that I'm out, I'm taking on a few different projects. I'm working with a group called Hinchcliffe and Company. They are a leading Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 consulting, training, advisory, and media firm headed by Dion Hinchcliffe. I am joined by a top-tier team that is seeding the company and it our goal to ramp up this company very quickly. I will predominantly work in the corporate training, enterprise consulting, and startup advisory area - helping startups with their business planning, go-to-market planning, technology strategy, and/or sustainability practices.

You can see some of our sites here:

Main site: http://www.hinchcliffeandco.com
Training: http://web20university.com
Media: http://enterprise2tvshow.com

This will also give me the time and flexibility to work on some other business, technology, and sustainability related projects that I have been wanting to work on for a while as well as to build out my speaking engagements and writing and blogging.

Some people ask me how I tie this all together? I explain it like this. I have come to the conclusion that it is my mission to use business and technology to create a better world. That includes Web 2.0 (bringing a social aspect to computing and to business) or Sustainability (bringing a social and ecological aspect to business).

In my new role(s), I will be doing all of that - sustainability, web 2.0, business building. I have the best "job" in the world! Because I get to work with entrepreneurs, BE an entrepreneur, and work with people who want to change the world for the better.

It's going to be a crazy and fun year - I can sense it already!

My new contact information is: troy at hinchcliffeandco dot com. My cell hasn't changed: 604-551-8275 (Vancouver). Drop me a note if we haven't spoken in a while and we'll catch up!

Have a great 2007 everybody!

My new (other) blog: Team Sport Goofy

Troy Angrignon — Sun, 04 Mar 2007 17:20:03 -0800

I am signed up to race with a friend of mine for this year's BC Bike Race, a 450-500km, 7 day stage race on mountain bikes that goes from Victoria to Whistler from July 1st to July 7th. We put together a blog so that people can follow along if they want as we train. Our team name (and blog name) is Team Sport Goofy. Come and join us for the ride!

Snowshoe Blitz 3: Blue, Michael and I run up Seymour to the second peak to enjoy the sun!

Troy Angrignon — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 00:28:28 -0800

Boy, you have to do a lot of work to escape the cloud and get near the sun when you live in Vancouver! But it was worth it.

My friend Michael and I met at Seymour Mountain at 10am on Sunday morning. Even from the parking lot, we could see a thick white cloud cover blanketing Vancouver and Burnaby. We headed up the mountain, stripping layers as we went and it didn't take long before we were down to our single layer shirts.

There were lots of people up there skiing, boarding, snowshoeing, and enjoying the sun. We had lunch on top of second peak, lay in the sun for a while, and then ran, slid, and fell down the mountain as fast as we could. Note to self: wear pants with a stronger material on the bum...

Thanks for a great day you two!

My snowshoe run up and down Cypress Mountain with Ean Jackson and Blue the Wonder Dog, January 14, 2007

Troy Angrignon — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 10:03:56 -0800

Here is a little video I threw together about our epic snowshoe running day on Cypress Mountain yesterday. Remember to get out and enjoy winter while it's here! Thanks Ean and Blue for a GREAT day. Hope to have many more of these before the snow leaves us again.

This film was made entirely with my pocket-sized Olympus Stylus 750 camera and iMovie.

Soundtrack: "Running Two" from "Run Lola Run" available at Amazon.com here. To watch the large version of the film, click on the YouTube logo in the lower right hand corner, and then when you land on the video on YouTube, click the icon in the lower right hand corner of THAT. (It's two steps from here is what I'm saying.) Otherwise, just click on the middle of this video and enjoy it right here on the blog.