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.

Smoke in the T

Now I'm in the T and the train stopped. The problem is that there is a lot of smoke in the car. Well not a LOT but some. The people here are getting uneasy with the situation but they announced everything is fine. At least some excitment. I was complaining of boredom. LOL

It's getting kind of boring

The work is nice and I've read and studied a lot of cool stuff but life in general here is a bit boring and obviously lonely. I've met a few people in the lab but nothing that makes me start enjoying the life. I miss my kids, my wife, my house, the shower in my house!!! Everything actually. I guess it's a question of time an I'll get used to it. At least I have started new activities not related to work such as this blog. But tomorrow everything will be the same. If at least the secretary in the lab could prepare my letter, I could then join the gym. Tomorrow I'll have to lie and say that due to medical (knee) I have to exercise every day. Let's see if it works.

This is going to be hard...

... but I like it!!!

Just finished reading the first paper Prof. B gave me. Wow!!! This is going to be hard. The paper has more information in 3 pages (paper from Nature) that most of my papers have in 15. It's dense... really dense! I'll read a related one now but first I need some coffee. I think I'll have to read this same paper another couple of times today. 

More lab photos

I've managed to get the photos from iPhone without loading iTunes. I didn't want to loose the music I have in the iPhone. My iTunes library is in the HD at home. 

But anyway, here are some more pictures from the lab. The first two photos are from the conference area while they last is from the entrance of the lab. Note that the entrance contains pictures of the cover of the Nature and Science journals with works from people here in the lab. 

At Cambridge Common

I forgot to talk about what happened at Cambridge Common, this nice bar I went on Friday. I went with an Italian friend and after a couple of beers I had one that had "with hint of Licorice". I confess that I heard about Licorice a few times but I really didn't know (I still don't) what it is and what it looks like. Anyway, I've asked the girl serving what licorice was and she and the italian didn't believe that I didn't know what it was. I've asked them what it taste/smell like and the whole thing began. 

She said it smelled like "Sambuca" which is a italian spirit that I know and I've had in the past. Luigi (the Italian) almost when nuts saying that licorice has nothing to do with Sambuca and that he knew very well since his region of Italy produces Sambuca and also licorice. It was funny because the girl was very upset with the Luigi because she thought he was a bit rude and that he was shouting... but Italian do shout, this is what they do best right? The discussion didn't end there because the girls almost went on the entire bar asking everyone else, doing a poll or something, if Sambuca smelled like licorice. To simplify things, Luigi asked for a Sambuca so that I could see (or smell) it. For me, Sambuca smells like anise which meant that Luigi was happy and the girl serving us not. Eventually she agreed that it was anise but told me to buy some twizzlers to which I said I would. However, I don't like candy so it is unlikely I will but next time Kalil or Adele have a twizzlers I'll make sure I'll smell it. 

For now, I still don't know what licorice actually is.... I'll check Wikipedia.