Could Be In the Dark

The power has been out at my house and for much of this area all day long and there's no sign that it will come back on any time soon. It's been extremely windy here and there are trees down all over the place. I'm really appreciating my generator right now. After having endured literal weeks without power after hurricane Fran and the ice storm a few years back, I don't think I'll be taking it for granted for a while.

At lunchtime CIT had a fun brown bag celebration where we played games the whole time. HC, SE, SM and I played SET, which was challenging and fun. You can play on-line, but it's probably more fun playing in person. The same company also makes Quiddler, which I'd played before and didn't like as much. I was, however, in the mood to play hearts at the time. Before I joined CIT, they used to have game lunches about once a month, so I was happy to finally participate in one.

After work, I went to an ACM talk given by Ted Hung. He was a computer science major, who graduated just two years after I did. It was great to see him again and learn about what life is like as a game programmer. Going to an ACM meeting again was fun. It was definitely a mixture of nostalgia combined with the pleasure of not having to preside over the meetings anymore.

Boing Boinger and the Bamboo Garden

Last night I met up with a bunch of my former fellow IBMers at Inchin's Bamboo Garden, in Morrisville. We had a good crowd: CL, JL, PS, KC, GA, and TH. It was particularly fun, because we sat at four tables pushed together into a square, so we always had one group-wide conversation going. The restaurant is owned by a very close friend of PS, so we had lots of inside information about the dishes and PS went into the kitchen a couple of times. It is a small chain and wil soon have six restaurants across the country. They make everything fresh, so it's on the slow side, but that's perfect if you're catching up with friends. They have good selection of Indo-Chinese dishes, both vegetarian and non-vegetarian. I noticed that they do not serve pork. I had a bowl of sweet corn soup with shrimp, which was very good. For my entree, I had vegetable "coins" with manchurian sauce. They reminded me of disc shaped vegetable pakoras more than anything else. I enjoyed it.

This morning I went to the latest in the series of talks put on by the Duke Web Communicators Group. It was a question and answer session given by Cory Doctorow, co-editor of BoingBoing, who is also a science fiction writer and activist, among other things. I thought he was very impressive, funny and adeptly imparted a great deal of information in rapid fire fashion on DRM, collaboration, the logistics of running BoingBoing, etc. He also was actually wearing what I believe was an iPod inside his shirt, with earbuds dangling around his collar the whole time. His shirt snapped instead of buttoned, which made the player more accessible.

This evening, I went to a second talk, also given by Doctorow, to a much wider audience. This more formal talk focused on a variety of issues, including, but certainly not limited to, privacy, the ramifications of inneffective legislation, the risks of RFID and surveilance cameras.

A Very Short Vacation

This morning, I took a half-day off from work, to see RP's talk. She is interviewing for a faculty position at the computer science department at Duke.

I had set my alarm for 8am, which was delightful, because I really needed the extra sleep. When I arrived at the Levine Science Research Center visitor lot, the parking spaces with the area to the right marked off were all taken. My lift is on the right side of my van, so that makes a big difference. I decided to back into a space. I swear it was one of my best parking efforts so far. I even made my dad come out to look at it, before I had to leave. It was the first time I'd ever backed into a space, by myself, without someone watching (or mocking) me.

RP did an excellent job. She did a great job at explaining her research in a clear and coherent manner. I was pleased, because, despite the fact that there were no database courses available when I was at Duke, I felt as if I more or less understood most of what she talked about. Either I've learned a lot while I've been at IBM, RP is highly proficient at explaining concepts or I'm deluding myself. I'm willing to bet it's all three. Oh, I'm not being complimentary just because she's one of the few regular readers of my blog, outside my immediate family. I was truly impressed.

It was really hot at the office this afternoon and evening. It actually reached 85 F. I heard that there is yet another part, on order, that's needed before the air conditioner will be fixed. Unfortunately, I had to stay quite late again.

Right now I'm watching the World Figure Skating Championships. Brian Joubert , of France, just finished his performance and it was quite amazing.