Palfrey's life

Hey everyone. It's been a while since I've written an entry, and a fair amount has happened. Since the last entry, I managed to get out of Baltimore and then the USA (despite the best efforts of the TSA to grope me into not leaving), returned back to Delft, and *somehow* lived through the hell that is USA->Europe jetlag. The other way around isn't that bad. Photos of all of that are now up in the usual place. I'm going to talk a little here about what happened between then and coming back again to the USA, and then a number of other entries re: what I've done since.

I managed to screw up my desktop machine (fun and games with upgrading), so I've been operating off of this laptop for a while. I'm glad it's not one of those midgy little things with a crappy keyboard, or I'd be even closer to RSI than I already am. I've spent a lot of time in Linux, mostly messing around with NetworkManager (I've been writing bits and pieces of code for this particular little project). I'm not even slightly caught up with Livejournal entries. I haven't been on LJ since the beginning of November. I'll probably go through and catch up on what some people are doing once I get back, but for the most part I can't be arsed digging through what must be several thousand entries by now. If my hack to my Opiumleaf software to provide an RSS->IMAP gateway comes to fruit, then that might happen if I get bored enough, but otherwise no. Sorry about that.

I've come again to the US for a conference, this time the Globecom 2004 conference at which I've been presenting some of my work. I should realised something was a bit wrong with this place when as the flight came into Dallas I saw a large sign labelled "Don't trust the liberal media". Yup, I'm in fuck-your-sister country. Dallas, despite being variously famous, is a remarkably boring city. I got in here on Saturday 27th, and so had the Sunday to explore. As one Russian delegate put it later, it's a bit like Chenobyl. Especially on a Sunday. I.e., there doesn't appear to be a living soul for miles. There's a lot of parking lots and skyscrapers, but not a lot of people. Photos are probably up on my site as we speak of all of that. There's a couple of good art museums, but that's about it. Uptown area had a good noodle bar called "TomTom" and there's a cool free (because it's ancient and supposedly restored) tram system. Spent a little while talking to a cute Starbucks barista, and picked up the first book of the Deathstalker series in a Borders. Photos of things are now up.

Fast forward to the Monday, and the Wireless and Ad-hoc Networks workshop. Apparently the 25 papers that are on the listed program are from an original set of 120 submission, so that's pretty good. Downside/upside (depending on which papers, and whether your brain is numb from several hours of talks) was that a number of the people didn't turn up. Somehow it still ended up being the most heavily attended workshop, with somewhere in the 40 people range in the audience. I did my presentation in the afternoon, and it worked out pretty well. Got a couple of references to other papers/people from some of the attendees, and managed to ask a few questions myself here and there. In the evening we have the welcome reception. Misnamed for me, beause I've done everything I was at this conference for, and so it's more of a goodbye thing for me. Spoke to a variety of interesting people, all of whom I always think are a lot older than me, and then turn out to be 2nd/3rd year PhD students, and I end up feeling a lot less out of place. Exited relatively early, as I think the jetlag was still hitting me + needed to get up early today.

Why am I in New Jersey may you ask? Well, it's reasonably close (but not as close as I previously thought) to New York, and it's a shit load cheaper to stay at. I've been continuing my little American tour, with a visit to Washington D.C. for a few days, and now New York.

Washington was fun, if a bit exhausting wandering all over the place. Saw the Lincoln memorial, the White House, the Washington monument, etc, etc. Lots of things, lots of photos, now all posted. The National Air and Space Museum was a lot of fun (lunar landers rule, as does the IMAX theatre) as did the Zoo (free-roaming monkeys, gotta love 'em...).

Am somewhat exhausted at this point. Getting up stupidly early (3am) for the cheap flight yesterday didn't help, plus the blasted PATH train being a) a bugger to find and b) taking a hour to turn up, isn't the best of things. Plus, I've been on 6 planes in the last week and that does leave you a little travel-weary. I'm not sure how many miles I've travelled in the last month, but I'm fairly sure its >10,000, and may exceed 20,000 by Monday. However, despite my aching legs and feet, I intend on wandering back out into the depths on New York in a bit better light, and see if it's still as impressive when there's a few less bright lights. I've got about 24 hours left, and I intend to use them well.