Track 2 - Vince at ISCA



Day 0 - 16 June 2006 - Friday

--- Starting in Ithaca, New York

On Friday I worked until late trying to get things prepared for my absence. Kristina dropped Susie the guinea pig off to stay with Pete (a co-worker of mine) and his family. Kristina's family got in a bit late, and I tried mightily to fix her sister's computer, but she forgot to bring the A/C adapter so just as things were getting better it ran our of battery power!

Day 1 - 17 June 2006 - Saturday

I woke up at some incredibly early hour, around 5:30 AM or so. I was catching a ride to Boston with some other grad students. They had a talk to be at by 1pm, and since it is at least a 6 hour drive, we had to leave early. I was waiting for them at the agreed to 5:45AM, but they didn't show until 6:30! I was a bit annoyed by that.

We drove out taking I-88, not realizing that in only a week's time torrential rain would wash out one of the bridges and close the highway. Speaking of rain, it rained pretty hard our entire time in New York.

--- Entering Massachusetts

We made it to Boston in good time, and found the hotel with minimal problems. Everyone else went to talks; I had to wait until 3pm before I could check in to our rooms. Luckily there was wireless internet so I could do something useful while waiting.

Here is the view out of my window:
View from Park Plaza

We were staying at the Park Plaza hotel. It was a very fancy hotel, but in our opinion not really worth how expensive it was.

I walked around the neighborhood a bit, the hotel is right near Boston Commons and the Public Garden. Here are the famous Swan Boats:
Swan Boats

The park also had some neat purple flowers, here they are in front of a statue of George Washington:
Purple Flowers



Day 2 - 18 June 2006 - Sunday

On Sunday I attended workshops. The conference I was at was ISCA-33 (the 33rd International Symposium on Computer Architecture. It is considered the top conference in my field. Cornell had submitted a lot of papers, but unfortunately none got in. Despite this, the location was convenient this year so a lot of us went anyway.

I attended two workshops, they were both well done. Oddly they had pipecleaners and play-doh out, presumably for us to play with during the presentations.

During a break I went for another walk.

Only a block away from the hotel is the beginning of US highway 20:


Remember this for later, in a few days you'll see the other end of this highway in Oregon.



Day 3 - 19 June 2006 - Monday

Monday was the first day of the actual conference, a full day of talks. It was generally agreed that these talks were not very strong. For dessert at lunch they served us Boston Creme pie, appropriately enough.

My hotel room was on the 7th floor, I eventually figured out how the stair system worked because the elevators were always chronically full.

During the afternoon break they served us snacks, which included Ice Cream Sandwiches, Corn Dogs, hot pretzels, and popcorn. I wasn't expecting such a canival-like meal.

Day 4 - 20 June 2006 - Tuesday

Tuesday was the second day of talks. Happily, the talks were a lot better than those on the first day.

I bought some postcards at the hotel gift shop... they were the most expensive ones I think I've ever bought in my life. I got to mail them from an upper-floor hallway down a mail-chute, just like in old books.

In the evening they had a cruise of Boston harbor planned. We all piled on the busses, and ended up there an hour early. (No surprise, as the harbor was only 10 blocks away).

We walked around the harbor a bit while waiting. Here was some public art that looks like 20-foot high laptop computers. We weren't sure what it was supposed to be:
Giant Laptops

We also walked by the New England Aquarium and saw a harbor seal:
Harbor Seal

Eventually it was time to leave, and we boarded the ship. There were a lot of things to do there. I liked riding out on the top deck the best. They had a really good magician there who was doing card tricks. They had two live bands... unfortunately the conference was at least 90% male computer professionals, so not much dancing happened.

Kristina had taken our good camera overland to California, so my picture of the beautiful Boston skyline at night didn't really turn out that well:


Also on the ship they had gambling with fake money. The top 3 winners of the evening won prizes. I lost all of the fake money they had issued to me, but my fellow grad student Chris managed to make 4 straight 8:1 bets on Roulette and won $65,000 (starting with $2500). So here he is winning second prize for the evening:




21 June 2006 - Wednesday - Day 5

I woke up early on Wednesday: time to head for California! I woke at 7:15, trusted my roommate could handle checking out and getting my excess luggage back to Ithaca, and off I went!

I walked to the South Station train station, and caught the T commuter train to Providence.

--- Entering Rhode Island

In case you are wondering, here is what Providence looks like from near the train station:
Providence

I then walked to the bus station. There was a park nearby that had a statue of Ambrose Burnside from whom the term sideburns comes from. He indeed had big sideburns, but you can't see them in my picture:
Ambrose Burnside

I took the bus to the Providence airport, and I met up with Kristina's dad who had come there directly from the Cape.

From there I flew Southwest airlines to Phoenix Arizona. I had a window seat, and for a while was having trouble figuring out from the scenery where I was. And then, suddenly, I recognized where I was... I was flying over my own hometown!

Here you can see extreme southern Harford County:
Harford County

I know it's nearly impossible to make out anything from that picture, so I cleaned it up a bit and highlighted some key features:
Joppatowne from above

--- Entering Arizona

We eventually got to Phoenix, where it was 107 degrees. Luckily I didn't have to go outside. I wandered the terminal a bit... they have really cool carpet there, it has airplanes and radar lines on it:
Phoenix Carpet

I Connected to the flight to Oakland, and made it there uneventfully.

--- Entering California

Happily Kristina was there waiting! We eventually managed to find the rest of her family with the car, and then we grabbed some food and then went to the motel to sleep and get ready for the second phase of our trip...
See what Kristina was up to the first 5 days
or
On to Day 6...