Memoirs of a CPUNERD

Shakeh and I got a little adventurous and decided to try our hands at some pumpkin dishes. We didn’t use a fresh pumpkin, we just used the pumpkin purée that one can buy from Safeway, and lots of sugar. Seriously, who would think that pumpkin bread and (well, this one was obvious) pie would have so much freaking sugar? Anyways, the stuff turned out great. The bread was really good, and not too sweet (despite the mound of sugar). The pie was superb, but Shakeh complained about the bottom crust being somewhat moist (it’s a freaking pie!). Maybe we should have a bake sale.

No, I didn’t actually lick the spoon. Raw eggs and pumpkin purée, not exactly an appealing option.

The “apron” was not my idea…

WTF?! How did that picture get in here?

P.S. Shakeh wished not to be portrayed here. I, like the good boyfriend I am, granted her request. Then she goes and gets a picture of me with the whip cream. Seem fair?

If anyone was in Davis this past Spring, you know that Baskin Robbin’s started charging $1.50 for their $1 scoop night (you could get a half-sized, kid’s scoop for $1 still). Shakeh and I both said that within a month, their $1 scoop night would come to a screeching halt. Behold, six months later, $1 scoop night is back to normal. I asked what happened, the worker there said that within a month they had lost 90% of their business on $1 scoop night. F*&^ing told you, bitches!

http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,1737,133176-252199,00.html

I was paranoid that the pie might not come out right. I was wrong. It came out perfect! And it was so good, Shakeh and I both loved it. Of course, one major problem, the thing had something like four-thousand calories in it (that’s a lot). I’m sad now that I waited basically a full year to start cooking again. Damn you Google and your bestowement of complacency with never cooking.

Something that was not easier than it seems: Saying goodbye to people again. This was my last week in Davis before Google, and thus my last chance to say goodbye to most of the international students. It was different from last year because there wasn’t one huge going-away party (due to the clique-ish nature of the groups this year). Instead I was saying goodbye to everyone, a few people at a time. It was also a bit easier this time as I knew I would be seeing most of them at the end of the Summer when I was sleeping on their couch.

(More photos are here:  http://jeff.bleugris.com/photos/thumbnails.php?album=91)

Yes, you heard me.  And if you know anything about Chicago, you’re probably saying “Jeff, that joke is so old on lame.” There’s a street near the natural history museum called Lake Shore Drive, LSD for short. The Natural History Museum has a T-Rex fossil set on display. So see? It makes sense now.

But getting a bad joke from a tour director wasn’t the only thing I did in Chicago.  Actually, I flew into Midway (Southwest does not fly into O’Hare) and then proceeded to try a polish dog from the largest Polishly-populated city oustide of Poland. Final verdict: I suck, I just like Costco’s more.

Oh, I forgot to mention that because all of the computers at the rental car place were down, I got a free upgrade from a Cobalt to an Azera (Luxury Hyundai, quite nice). Still no manual though. Weak sauce. I was actually looking forward to the Cobalt as Andrew drove one over the summer and it was nice. The turbo in the Azera quickly did away with any feelings of regret though.

After the good-but-not-great polish dog, I drove for two hours and checked in to the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign (UIUC). The hotel is actually part of the student of the student union. The place was very, very nice. Much more classy than the student unions at Reno and Davis. Also, the campus was really pretty. It probably had something to do with the fact that the area gets a ton of water and therefore the grass stays really green and the buildings are all this lovely kind of brick or well-shaped metal. The quad was probably one of the nicest I’ve seen, next to UW’s when it’s in bloom.

Once I was all finished admiring the buildings, I wandered over and gave my presentation. The people there really liked what I was doing. They offered some good tips, and told me what things should go in the paper that weren’t, and vice versa. I went to get a smoothie with two of the students from there (one of which was the developer for MCUDA), then trudged back through the pouring rain to my car and took off to Argonne.

I didn’t see any restaurants real close by, so I ordered some deep-dish pizza from Giorgiano’s (I think that was the name…). Oh man, now that was definitely good. But it was also soooo greasy and full of bad things. Luckily I had my senses and didn’t eat too too (yes, I know that’s in there twice) much.

I had a bunch of leftovers, but being as I had no microwave and I was going to Argonne the next morning, I just ate a few slices cold, then bought some soda and water and headed to Argonne for the day. I had a really large crowd there, and virtually all of these people were MPI experts. They left me feeling good about the work, but doubtful about the paper getting in. They asked a lot of questions that made me realize that I failed to add (what they saw as important) details.

The guys at Argonne took me out to lunch afterwards, and then I met with a few groups. One was the MPICH group, who shed a lot of light on MPI and a few other topics.The most memorable meeting was actually my last one. It was with a physicist there who just wanted to chat, he wasn’t necessarily into MPI or GPUs. He was interested in what I did and how he might use it. He told me about one of his current research projects and we talked for awhile about how DCGN could benefit him. Then we just started talking about random physics problems and about how he has this really cool idea for improving LCDs.

That night I got in to Chicago. My hotel was right on Michigan Ave., but it cost a lot of money because something like twenty nearby universities were having their graduation ceremonies that weekend. Woops… Anyways, I got to see so many cool things. Obviously, the best parts of Chicago from a tourist’s point of view are the architecture, the sports, definitely the jazz, and the parks. I got to see a little bit of everything. I took a tour on Saturday that showed off the entire North Side and South Side. I got to see where Muhammed Ali used to live, and where Barack Obama’s house is. I learned that there are over five-thousand non-chain restaurants in the Lincoln Park area (an exaggeration by the tour directory perhaps, but still, I gotta check it out when I go back), that there is both a Chinatown and a Big “Little Mexico.” I also got to see Harpo (spell it backwards) Studios and a few pieces of “Modern Art” within the city.

After the tour, I walked along Michigan Avenue, went to the large park there, and then took a few busses around as I explored some of the areas. By the way, the “El” is cool, but it doesn’t go to a ton of places. It’s also really freaking loud if you’re on the streets.

Before I left Sunday, I took a walk to the Natural History Museum, the Aquarium, and the Navy Pier. I guess Chicago likes Armenia (or at least the country’s flag colors). The Pier reminded me too much of Pier 39 in San Francisco, a tourist trap with no real character from the city. Once I finished there, I went to the Hancock Observatory. Ninety-Four stories, and one-thousand feet (~300 meters) high. This was right by the Magnificent Mile, so I took some time and checked out all the overpriced goods. I packed my stuff up and headed to the airport at that point. I got there two hours early, but I figured oh well. Turns out I was stupid, as my flight was delayed three hours. Le Sigh.

So… I’m never taking a red eye flight again if I can manage it. After sleeping a broken two hours on a five hour flight, we landed in the International Airport at Dulles (IAD) at 0600 Eastern Time. Bleary eyed as hell, but with a decent drive and a long day ahead of us. Forture favored us, as when we got to the Iranian desk at the Pakistani Embassy, there was only one person in line, so we were able to drop the stuff off and then galavant about for a bit.

Oh, before I forget, pictures of the DC trip are up on Facebook and http://jeff.bleugris.com/photos. To kill time, we checked out Arlington National Cemetary, finding the place and parking was a bit rough, but we managed. Don’t ask me how, but the sleep was staying away, probably because we were up walking around and not sitting down in a comfortable chair somewhere. As for the cemetary, if you haven’t been, it’s truly an experience. Tourist maps are provided, and there’s at least twenty different significant sites to see. My favorite was probably the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, though not the changing of the guard (it just didn’t touch me like everyone said it would…). The entire cemetary was amazing to view, and it really took one’s breath away (not in a good way necessarily) to see countless thousands of graves.

After the cemetary, that’s when things got interesting. We went back to the Iranian desk, and I waited in the car. Apparently Shakeh got the break of her life. She went in there, and there were at least one-hundred people ahead of her. She went up to take a number. There was an old woman in front of her, complaining to the man that the line was too long and she was in a hurry. He apparently told her in a gruff manner that there was nothing he could and she needed to wait. Shakeh’s heart sank at this. She went to ask for a number, and the guy told her with a smile “Just so I don’t have to pronounce your name again, (her name is Armenian) give me your stuff and you can go.” That made us both feel better.

While she was in the Embassy, I was looking up restaurants, and I found a Lebanese place. The food was great, but right after I finished (I finished before Shakeh), I apparently fell asleep sitting up in my chair. Shakeh had to wake me up several times, and so finally we paid the bill and went back to the hotel to recover. What was supposed to be a half hour nap at the hotel turned into three hours.

We had dinner near Dupont Circle, apparently the local gay area. The place felt quite safe, especially for a big city in the US. We went to a place called James Hoban’s and had some Shepherd’s Pie and Lamb Stew. We then split a rhubarb crumble and bread pudding, and Shakeh had an Irish Coffee while I had a Guinness. After that, we took the stroll back to the hotel, it was a bit more creepy at night. But nothing happened obviously.

And apparently jet lag doesn’t work quite the way I wanted it to. We woke up way late, and thus got a late start to the day. Luckly we brought umbrellas, because shortly after we got off the subway at the National Mall, it started pouring rain. We walked through a few of the Smithsonian buildings, then headed over to the Capital Building. We would’ve had to wait in line for two hours in the rain, so we decided to skip that and instead head to get a quick bite for lunch.

After lunch, we went to the Library of Congress (more art there than some art museums!). It was especially beautiful, and I’m sure it cost a ton of money. The complexity of the art was great. There were, in some cases, works composed of up to nine separate pieces. If you’ve never been to the library, I suggest you go. To get in, you have to have a purpose. Once you show that, you get a desk for a basically infinite amount of time, unless someone with more priority needs it. You then get full access to the library, though you can’t take anything home. Supposedly one of the largest collections in the world sits right there.

Once we were done at the library, we walked to the Supreme Court and took a self-guided tour. I was again astounded at the architecture. By the time we got out, the rain had subsided and we made our way to the East Wing National Gallery. Most of it was modern art, so it wasn’t too exciting for us. We visited the West Wing next, and met up with Shane and his friend there. The West Wing was awesome, there was so much renaissance and gothic art, it was just amazing.

Two or three hours later, we headed to the WWII, Lincoln, Vietnam, and Women’s memorials. The WWII memorial was arranged somewhat randomly, though it was of course marvelous to behold. The Reflecting Pool was really nice as well, since it was finally clear and not windy, you could see the Washington Monument reflected perfectly. The Lincoln Memorial was the last we saw for the day, and it was as big as I had come to assume. The number of people taking pictures there was a bit frustrating, but I got over it (Seriously, do you need a picture of every letter written on the memorial? Can’t you just look that up online).

After freshening up from the rain, Shane and his girlfriend met us downstairs at our hotel and we went to a “Southern” place for dinner. I use quotes because we were expecting Soul Food, and we got gourmet southern food, which happened to cost about $50/person. It was good, don’t get me wrong, but not what we were expecting.

Saturday morning, we got up and set out on our plan to spite Sean. We drove an hour to go to the Waffle House in Richmond. After sending Sean several MMSes, we finished our greasy food and drove back to the Capital. We visited the Jefferson and FDR memorial, then the Anderson House (oldest house in DC),  and then finished with a trip to the National Cathedral. We were trying to go to the Spy Museum, but we couldn’t find parking for at least ten blocks. Luckily we decided not to go, because we got to the airport basically just in time to catch a bite to eat and fly home.