Room with a view

I can't think of any situation in which this would arise, but if someone were to do a tour of women's restrooms with amazing views, I would have to insist they include the restrooms at the Aerie restaurant in Snowbird, Utah, and at the Signature Lounge in the Hancock tower in Chicago.

How to be a conferee

I think I've finally learnt what it is to properly participate in a conference, and that is to not actually attend any talks, but spend the whole time talking to people. I suppose this should be obvious, but I'd never really quite got to that stage before. Only now, when I have both past and future employers as well as current collaborators to talk to, I end up spending the whole day talking maths and drinking coffee. And so now, at the end of day two, I find that both my brain and my bladder are full. Emptying one is easy...

Stickshifts and safetybelts

Last night I had my first experience of "Dillo Day", the Northwestern equivalent of the day when undergraduates get sickeningly drunk because it's the start of the summer. I didn't really pay attention to most of the days entertainment possibilities, except for the one involving many sweaty undergraduates in an un-ventilated gym, the craziest hippiest front man a band could possibly have, and free Cake.

Bad light stopped play

A little belatedly, but a couple of photos from my recent trip back to England:

Old English things:


Not so old english things:

The gas woman cometh

I was slightly disappointed to hear from Nicor that they had to come and read my gas meter, and that I had to be in at the time because they couldn't magically get into the basement, and that they would come sometime in a four hour window. Sigh... I'm going to be waiting till the end. But no, they came slap in the middle of 7:30am - 11:30am at the very convenient time of 9:30am. The only downside is that now I have no excuse not to go to work...

Stupid east

Flying east really sucks. I have terrible jetlag. After managing to make it through the first day after arrival back in England without dozing off, I went to bed (and pleasingly, sleep) at 10pm local time thinking I'd make it through the night. But alas, I woke up at 1am, dinner time in Chicago, needing food and unable to get back to sleep.

I hate jetlag.

Smegheads

The softball season has started in a glorious fashion - our team has won both of it's first two matches. The first was a routing at 16-4, last night's a little tamer 7-2. Next week someone will remember to bring a camera and I'll have some photos to show you. And if all goes to plan, maybe even a website with far too many statistics...