I love bicycling. And I hate to admit it, but I’m also a bike geek. While the latest and greatest bike technology is always interesting, I mostly ride older, used bicycles. I especially like mid-1980s vintage bicycles. (But I’d still like a new 2008 Trek Madone 5.2).
You can see my line-up of bicycles in the static pages, along with a detailed write-up about my 1983 Schwinn Voyageur SP
I’m just back from the 2007 Richard Tapia: Celebration of Diversity in Computing Conference. I had a good time, and the weather in Orlando cooperated nicely. I met a lot of great people, found out about a bunch of post-graduate positions, and enjoyed several excellent presentations.
Part of the conference included a backstage tour of Disney IT operations. Their presentations weren’t particularly technical, but it was nice seeing behind the veil. I was somewhat put off by the uniformly pro-mouse nature of the people, but I suppose they wouldn’t work there if they didn’t like it.
I also managed to see La Nouba — Cirque du Soleil is always fun.
You can now find me on Facebook.
I had the great opportunity to ride in the 2007 Seagull Century. I completed the 100-mile ride in just about 10 hours. A few comments:
If you like bicycling and live in the area, you should seriously consider riding the Seagull.
I arrived back in the US thursday night after 22 hours of travel. I’ve managed to contract the flu, and I’m pretty useless at the moment. I’m going to be filling one or two more posts about the trip (appropriately back-dated) in the next 24-48 hours.
So one of the reasons for (the particular timing of) my trip to Europe was to present a poster at ESEC/FSE 2007; which took place in Cavtat, Croatia. Situated close to Dubrovnik on the Adriatic Sea, Cavtat is a picturesque little seaside town; and our hotel — Hotel Croatia — might have the nicest views of the surrounding areas.
Sadly, I made poor use of my time in Croatia, mostly working on a paper submission for SIGCSE that I didn’t even get finished in time. I snapped the images for this panorama from the terrace of the hotel; we pretty much had this backdrop for the entire conference. I wasn’t always as focussed on the technical content as I might have been…
When I started on this vacation I didn’t have any specific plans, but when Ollie reminded me that Berlin was less than an hour from the Autostadt, I simply had to stop by. For those who don’t know, the Autostadt is Volkswagen’s “Auto-town”, an automobile theme-site focused on VW-group auto brands. There are pavilions for: VW, Audi, Lamborghini, Seat, Skoda, and Bentley; as well as a automotive museum and car delivery center.
The dominant architectural landmark of the Autostadt are the car storage towers. Each is 50m tall and houses up to 400 cars. Cars enter the towers via a direct delivery system from the factory, and are moved into the tower via a robotic carrier. When the new owners are ready to pick up their VW, the robot delivers the car to an underground tunnel where it is conveyed to the delivery center. The result is the ability to pick up your individualized VW with 0 miles on the odometer.
The automotive museum is one of the major attractions of the Autostadt. Containing over 100 vintage automobiles from a variety of makes, the ZeitHaus is a car lover’s dream. Not only are all landmark VWs on display, but examples of the first gas powered car, the Model-T, and other historic vehicles are on display. I discovered what might be the only Cadillac I’d ever willing own in the collection: the 1932 Cadillac V16.
I had wanted to take the “Driving Safety” course–a driving evaluation and tutorial in provided cars. Unfortunately, a scheduling mix-up meant that I missed the english language course (and couldn’t even switch to the “off-road” course). I did manage to take the VW factory tour, which was clearly the high-point of my visit (since I didn’t get to do either of the driving courses). The amazing logistical orchestration and robotic ballet that delivers VW’s to the world was a surprising and entertaining sight.
At the end of a full day of sampling the attractions at the Autostadt, I realized I should have planned at least two days to take it all in. Anyone who loves cars, and is in the region is encouraged to spend an a day or two…
So far in Germany I’ve managed to:
…and I’m not even vaguely keeping up with the drinking. I’ve been pretty bad, I really haven’t done anything in the cities I’ve visited. The last few weeks have been catching up with me, and I’ve been pretty wrecked.
I suppose today Soeren and I will attempt to do something that isn’t drinking beer. Which isn’t to say that drinking beer won’t be a large part of whatever happens today. But maybe — just maybe — we’ll manage something else.
I’m on vacation.
Well, I’m on as much of a vacation as I’ve managed the last 10 years or so. I’ve been bouncing around a bit for the last week, and I’ll be at it a couple more.
Three days in New York City for a conference, very little in the way of relaxation, but I did manage to meet up with Peter for dinner.
Two days back home, decompressing from a long week of releasing a tiny bit of software, and I had what will probably be the last chance to hang out with Aram in a very long time.
Two days in Iceland, mostly sleeping due to continued stress relief from the previous week, jet lag, and the on set of some kind of illness. No pictures, which is a shame really, the people and landscapes were both beautiful and strangley exotic.
Just landed in Frankfurt and now on the ICE to Dusseldorf.
The interesting thing is that a week ago I was on the “high-speed express” to New York City–Amtrak’s Acela Express. And the difference is night and day. Here I sit in second class, in seats that are as nice, in a cabin that is nicer than the business class on board the American train. But the real difference in the ride itself: quieter, smoother, and faster than it’s American counterpart, this European train makes the entire process of moving between cities painless and easy. We appear to be traveling almost twice as fast, through more rolling terrain, and you begin to wonder where we went wrong in the U.S.
I had been waiting until I could shoot some reasonable pictures of my new motorcycle to post about it. But let’s face it, a post is better than none. So here is a stock photo of my new bike, a 2002 Ducati Monster 620ie Dark.
I bought it off Ebay with 5889 miles on it, and it’s a blast to ride. I’m having a great time tooling around town on it. If you live in the area, and I haven’t seen me on it, just give me a bit of time. I’ll come around on it as soon as possible. 🙂