on the move in 1995

  • new orleans, january '95
  • boca raton, february '95
  • boston, april '95
  • sarasota, april '95
  • vancouver, june '95
  • new york, july '95
  • harbor springs, august '95
  • boston, august '95
  • morristown, october '95
  • berkeley, november '95
  • copper mountain, december '95
  • england, december '95

    new orleans, january '95, winter usenix technical conference

  • i was the program chair for this conference, so i had to spend six days in new orleans in the middle of winter. on the other hand, i got to wear the crown .
  • here is all the stuff i took to new orleans, spread out on the kitchen table, and packed into carry-on bags.
  • i got a vip (corner) suite at the hotel. here are views out my window of the crescent and the french quarter .
  • a usenix board of directors meeting. that's margo seltzer (summer '94 program chair), steve johnson (president of the usenix association), and bob gray (winter '96 program chair).
  • i played tourist as much as possible in new orleans , and bought a bunch of cheap trash for my kids.
  • a most memorable evening was spent at the cafe istanbul with numerous usenix friends, cheering on poet john sinclair. check out his cd sometime.

    boca raton, february '95

    i attended my nephew jonah's bar mitzvah. there are some pictures on my family page.

    boston, april '95, ieee infocom

    laptop.jpg

    sarasota, april '95, spring break

    spring training

    my children and my parents at the beach

    maggie, sheila's father, and our niece grace

    sheila's parents and their grandchildren

    vancouver, june '95, ieee second international workshop on services in distributed and networked environments

  • i was on the program committee for sdne '95 and had a paper there as well. i traveled with masud khandker, my co-author on the paper.
  • masud and i had a little time to explore granville island, near downtown vancouver. later, i found a pleasant jazz club called the glass slipper , where i enjoyed the music of monk, ellington, and mingus .
  • the workshop took place in whistler, british columbia, at the chateau whistler resort . masud and i felt kind of out of place there.

    new york, july '95, usenix workshop on electronic commerce

  • i was on the organizing committee for this first-of-its-kind workshop and assembled a digest of the proceedings.
  • the workshop took place at the sheraton new york which is just across the street from the famous stage deli and carnegie deli .
  • the mingus big band plays every thursday at the fez . they are terrific! i also enjoyed the ellington big band at the blue note . i spent one night looking for music, atmosphere, and drinks, but could only find two out of the three. i found a seedy place that served but it was rather dingy, and the proprietor kept insisting that i be seated. to be honest, the music wasn't that great there either. smalls had good music (harold mabern), and good cheer, but served only lemonade (!). the village vanguard was just emptying out when i got there, and was awash in "afterglow." i had a drink, but no music.
  • the odeon was chic when i lived out east, for example, i once saw scorcese eat there, but seems now to have fallen on hard times. smashing a giant water bug in the run down basement got me very agitated. but the steak frites are still excellent.

    harbor springs, august '95, summer vacation

    cambridge, august '95, acm workshop on middleware

    the organizers of this workshop ignored the things that interest me most, like file systems or rpc-based systems, preferring to discuss low-level operating systems or network issues, especially multicast, the new panacea, which left me frustrated. but my friend murray mazer was there , so the trip wasn't a total loss.
  • morristown, october '95, bellcore

    i visited my friends avi rubin and mark segal.

    berkeley, november '95, acm 1st international conference on mobile computing and networking

    copper mountain, december '95, acm 15th symposium on operating systems principles

    york, december '95, ukuug conference on location independent computing

    i delivered the keynote address at this meeting of the british unix users group.
  • my flight was via gatwick. i used 40,000 frequent flier miles to travel in business class.
  • on arrival at gatwick, i was immediately played for a sucker by the money exchange folks, who charged an effective 4% fee for changing USD 100. then i was taken by a con artist who sold me a used train ticket from gatwick to victoria station. fortunately, i didn't get caught, and wised up in a hurry. my travel agent had booked me at a hotel very conveniently located next to victoria station. i crashed immediately. when i awoke, it was dark. having been warned about english "food" i sought out a grocery and dined on bread, cheese, and bottled water. london has the most complicated subway system in the world, but i was able to figure it out. well, sort of.
  • the next day, a sunday, i reflected on how expensive london is: i had already spent the USD 100 that i changed. this time, though, i took the money from my visa card. i then took the subway from victoria station to euston station, where i caught a train to lancaster. british rail reminds me of the commuter rail service in new jersey. i checked in to a hotel next to lancaster university and had an interesting meal with friends nigel davies and adrian friday.
  • on monday, i crossed a field to visit nigel at his office in the computer science department of lancaster university. i met with several of his students, presented the talk i was to deliver the next day as the ukuug keynote, and hooked my laptop to the internet for an email fix. i bought my son a "lancaster university" tee shirt.
  • on tuesday, i followed the blood-soaked trail from lancaster to york (the wars of the roses). another long, dull train ride. the english countryside is pleasant, in a muted sort of way. i slept. in york, i gave my keynote address and enjoyed the remainder of the presentations. dinner was "a taste of yorkshire" but, strangely, there was no yorkshire pudding.
  • the conference concluded on wednesday. i was unable to spend any time sight-seeing, and only caught a glimpse of the walled city of york, as the conference was held at york university, several miles from town. i picked up some books for the kids (and one for myself) and grabbed a ride toward london with andrew macpherson and jane morrison, who help run ukuug. they dropped me off in a place called stevenage, where i caught a train to king's cross station. after wandering around a bit, i returned to the hotel i had stayed at before, but this time it was considerably more expensive.
  • i had the whole next day, a thursday, to wander around london and buy stuff, so i checked out of the hotel and dropped my bags off at victoria station. first, i checked my mail at cafe internet . i bought some kitsch socks for the girls , some food for myself , inexpensive or hard-to-find records for myself, sheila, vicki, and warren , some medication that you can't get over the counter in the us , and trinkets for the kids xmas stockings . i saw lots of authentic british things . after dark, i recovered my bags and found my way to bruce howard's flat. bruce and yumi fed me, introduced me to their friends, provided a place to sleep, and generally helped me attain a positive outlook on life.
  • at last, i was able to head back to gatwick and fly home. last updated 20 november 96