Squashbusters

I didn't have a lot of time to blog today. The weather improved and it is now 35F (2C). I had a good time doing some volunteer work at the Squashbusters. This is an outreach program to teach kids to play squash. The program focus also on guiding them on their school work, etc. It's one of these things that just makes you fell good for doing it. The kids are great and really dedicated. I think I may do this again, possibly every Friday from 12 to 2pm.

Squash with a team member

Just finished playing some squash with a member of the team here at NEU. And I've won 9x1, 9x1 :) Great success!! Also my card for the gym is working. I don't think I'll have more problems with this. I hope :)

Pho and I again

Just came back from my lunch/dinner. Went again to the Pho and I. Had a Pad Thai and it was very good. Again above average. I think I found a new "Thai Kitchen" for me here in Boston.

Hulu is awesome!!

The end of the TV is near! Have you seen hulu.com. Wow! Very nice. You can watch any program you want with very very limited commercial interruption and it is free. The only thing you need now a browser and you can get rid of your cable subscription. The image quality is not HD but it is very nice. I watched an episode of the Office this morning (my first TV session since I got here). Hulu has the office, daily show, fringe, etc. I like it!!! Hi five!!!! :)

First mistake at the T

Yesterday I've made my first mistake using the T. I was on the orange line and had to get out at the downtown crossing station. I was so into the Carl Segan book that when I've looked I was two stations after. The problem was that it was 11:50pm and at that time that aren't many trains. The result is that I for home around 12:30am.

Talking about the T. The service in the last few days has become worse by the day: trains stopping in the middle of the tunnels, trains being discontinued forcing us to get out and take another, slow trains, infrequent trains, etc. To make matters worse the T website isn't useful as it never tells the time of the next train correctly. The train always arrive up to 10 minutes before or after. Since there are supposed to be trains every about 15 minutes we never know when is the next.

I'm in the T and just on this journey the train had to stop 3 times. Right now we're not moving. Terrible.

Sport facilities

I've played my first game of squash just now. I beat a guy there from Spain 15x4, 15x2, 15x3. My knee seems to be okay. 

However I found the first problem here in this university: the incompetence of the people at the sport facilities. Not only they are incompetent they seem to make every single effort to appear stupid. I had all those problems trying to join. Well, I've joined but almost got denied access today because my card still doesn't work. The worse is when I speak to these people (students) here they all have that attitude of superiority as if they are full of "cow manure". Funny is that if they were really all they thing they are they would be students in the other universities here right? Not even sports they play well. From the squash team for instance I can probably beat 80% of them and I'm a 39 years old guy walking on one leg. Anyway, tomorrow I'll solve this problem once and for all. They either give me full access to the facility with my card or I will request my money back. With that money I can join a local squash club here if necessary.

Bill Frisell's concert yesterday

As I said in the previous post, the concert was really good. But Bill Frisell is for me one of the top jazz musicians alive. He is simply amazing and a very strange person as well particularly due to his shyness. I was very close to the stage but unfortunately a bit behind him so I could not see the guitar "action" a lot. Here are some pictures of the concern and a picture of a cuddly toy that belongs to Bill. I know it belongs to him because I asked his manager afterwards. 

Meeting was okay...

The meeting at a local company could have been better. It was okay but the problem is that companies loose track of the research side of things and focus solely on "if this makes money". Or maybe I'm the one loosing track of industry...

Visiting local company

I'm at a local company (can't mention the name) to talk to a colleague who works in the same field of research as me. The idea is to see if I can foster some collaboration with them.

Melbourne vs. Boston

I've been thinking about this comparison for a while but I think I have substance to actually write about it now. Since I've moved here I've been thinking about the differences between Melbourne and Boston. So here it goes (to be continued).

weather

Melbourne: nice all the time

Boston:nice for 8 months

cultural life

Melbourne: Disney
Boston: where do I start?

universities

Melbourne: Florida Tech
Boston: MIT, Harvard, NEU, Boston University, etc.

people

Melbourne: rednecks (except our group of friends :-) )
Boston: a lot of intelligent people. I'm still to me one redneck here.

friends

Melbourne: quite a few
Boston: not so many but my post can convince all you guys to move here :)

bars

Melbourne: mainstreet, chilies.
Boston: again, where do I start?

school system

Melbourne: okay if you pick the right school
Boston: almost the same except kids have a better chance of feeding into a better university.

politics

Melbourne: very very red.
Boston: very very blue.

housing

Melbourne: very nice.
Boston: not as nice, but okay.

public transportation

Melbourne: what?
Boston: anything you want

what people read

Melbourne: the bible
Boston: Fermat proof, Gödel theorem, IEEE transactions, novels,  everything really!!

chance that you'll meet someone very intelligent

Melbourne: that's it. you guys are my 1% chance
Boston: just pick one

people that know other languages

Melbourne: they are possessed because they are speaking in tongues.
Boston: They are people. Most people.

I could go forever so what I want to hear from you when we get together at the brown's is "what the hell are we doing in Melbourne. I'm open to ideas :)

Sorry for the rumblings. Good night.

The actual show

The concert on itself was quite good. Tomorrow I'll update this post and place some pictures. Bill played mostly known songs. He played for about 1:15. This is the 3rd time I come to one of his concerts and every time he surprises me. As a Jazz lover I'm starting to wonder if there is anything in guitar jazz that can match this guy. His artistry and is unmatched an most importantly he always seems to be having a lot of fun on stage. If you haven't listened to him you're missing out. Start with the CD "Good Dog, Happy Man". You won't regret.

What do I say?

I have so many things to blog about that I don't even know how to start. I just finished watching Bill Frisell and it was amazing. I got to catch the T but for now I'll just repeat what Bill said when he started: happy day! How often does this mean so much?

1st Research Meeting

I had my first research meeting today. It was very useful and we found a possible of 3 avenues of research that could be followed. All of the involving complex networks and spread of information. Thursday I'll have a second meeting with a postdoc. 

Obama!!!

Here in the lab we put the Obama inauguration. It is a very nice feeling to know that Bush is gone and we now start a new era. The speech was excellent and powerful as expected. I loved the fact that he mentioned that Science will go back to the forefront of USA policies. That was about time. It was amazing to see history in the making. We even had a toast with sparking shiraz. Yes, sparking red wine. A first for me. Very good though.

Squash was okay but the shower... Wow!!

I practice squash for about 1 hour but the best was the shower! Wow!! I forgotten how good a shower can be. The shower in my house here is a piece of junk. I found nirvana and will be having most, if not all, my showers here in the gym. Tonight, I'd probably go do some exercise on the elliptical machine just to enjoy a nice shower before I go home.  

Tomorrow squash again at 9am :-) 

On my way to squash

I'm on my way to practice squash. I hope everything goes well
including my knee.

Pho and I

Today I had some proper dinner (fried lice lol) on a nice Vietnamese restaurant: Pho and I. The price is good for Boston and the food is excellent. I had some spicy fried rice  which was one of the best I've had in many months. 

Squash tomorrow!!!!

Hurray!!! I got my membership for the gym!!! I'm happy! Tomorrow I'll be practicing a bit in the morning and I already arranged a game for Saturday. I will probably use the gym tomorrow as well. Here is the picture of the place where I'll be playing squash. :)

Very nice day

We had quite a lot of snow overnight but this morning we have a nice blue sky. You can see two picture of last night and this morning. The temperature is a good  28F (-2C) but without wind. I got up at around 8:30, had a bagel and came here to work where I had my latte. 

Today is holiday here so the secretary is not here to write my letter :(  I'll try to use the time available to work on some research related to blogs. Since I'm not interested in these blogs I could maybe try to do something on complex networks and blogs. I'll have to talk to L.B. (Prof. B) to see if he things this is a good idea. I can't tell the idea here though :).

Here is another picture from this morning. This is the house I live. My room is on the top floor and I took the picture this morning as I started to walk to come here. My room is the one on the left hand side of the picture (top). The front window on the same floor as mine is the kitchen.

Safe...

Got home. It took a while but I got here about 1 hour ago. The T had a problem. Although they kept saying everything was okay it wasn't. After we moved we had to leave the train and wait for another one. So the smoke may not have been "nothing" as they said. Who knows.... The fact is that it took me twice longer to get here.

The snow continues to fall. This is the longest snowing period I've seen in my life. It's been more than 24 hours now... and there is no sigh of stopping. It will be interesting to get out of here to go to work tomorrow morning.