Updates

• US citizens ellected a professor instead of a military guy to run the country. Maybe there is hope after all.
  
  
• I am on the FOCS'09 PC, which basically means that the remaining 2 weeks until the STOC deadline will be crazy.
  
  
• As of this Monday, I finally started at IBM Almaden. (I had been stuck waiting for my work authorization for several months.) You can deterministically find me at IBM on Mondays, and probabilistically on other days. Finding me in space might be a bit difficult, since I greatly prefer the hills over my office.
  
  
• I am now physically at Berkeley, where I will be visiting each Wednesday and on other random days. I have a desk in Soda 645.
  
  
• The day before FOCS, I moved into an 18th floor apartment at the intersection of Market and 10th in San Francisco. The location is a compromise between many constraints...
  
  
• My commute plan (to IBM) is:
  
  1. use this to get to the train station (the English word is apparently "scooter", so I call it Vespa 1.0)
  2. take the Caltrain "baby bullet" (so called, because it travels slightly faster than the slowest trains in Europe, and decidedly faster than muels)
  3. ride a motorcycle (to be bought) for the remaining 12 miles to IBM.
     
     
• While you may hear me complain about IBM's location, I must admit that the benefit of a location up on a hill several miles from civilisation is that I share an office with 2 other people, and have a great view of the next wing of the building.
  
  
• My way to FOCS involved BART, Caltrain to San Jose, bus to SJC, flight to Santa Barbara, flight to LA, flight to New Ark, NJ transit to Trenton, and SEPTA to Philly. It all took a reasonable 16 hours, and cost under 200 (which is amazing given that I bought the tickets 2 days before, and important because unemployed people can't get their conference travel reimbursed.)