Mar25,2004

Mar25,2004 Mar20,2004 Mar19,2004 Mar16,2004 Mar13,2004 Mar12,2004 Mar11,2004 Mar10,2004 Mar6,2004 Mar2,2004 Mar1,2004

Just back from Tampa and the IEEE High Assurance Software Engineering Symposium (HASE). Funding for this one fell through so I had to do it out my own pocket. Sure, I'll get back in tax but I have to carry the cash flow. Sigh.

Strange to say, I can report that it was well worth the $2K for the trip. Its a nice conference- lots of European and Japanese there. Very small, even smaller than SEKE last year. Still, despite its size, it hummed along. I didn't get around all the folks I wanted to see. Mental stimulation++.

Katerina sold me on Markov chains for LURCH. Realized that LURCH doesn't exist- its just a way to sample transition functions.

And some of Mats' students were there talking about test case generation. Veeeery interesting

Mar20,2004

Mar25,2004 Mar20,2004 Mar19,2004 Mar16,2004 Mar13,2004 Mar12,2004 Mar11,2004 Mar10,2004 Mar6,2004 Mar2,2004 Mar1,2004

For years Helen's been telling me this story of being driven round beautiful Portland avenues with a canopy of trees. Today, she showed me.

Just south of Hawthorne and 20th is the the Ladd Addition : a set of gardens with posh house with wide streets. We walked around and around. Officially, we were looking for a place to rent. Unofficially, we were just taking in the sights.

This is graceful- kind of like a Platonic suburb. Little dogs and kittens and Jerry Garcia-lookalikes pedaling round on bicycles.

Dead set, compared to round here, Vancouver is such a dump. Strip mall city! Memo to self- must move to this town!

Which places us outside this really cool cinema- My Neighbor Totoro was playing which is a film I've never heard of and I don't know why. It was wonderful! So happy! And the audience- lots of happy hippies with young kids all singing along with the film. Real nice.

Mar19,2004

Mar25,2004 Mar20,2004 Mar19,2004 Mar16,2004 Mar13,2004 Mar12,2004 Mar11,2004 Mar10,2004 Mar6,2004 Mar2,2004 Mar1,2004

Good news today- paper accepted to the AI Review journal- an old Menzies/Hu paper about TAR2.

And, in other news, tis the season for the blossoms all over this town. Cherry and white and cherry and white and cherry and white... just everywhere!

Like everywhere.

Mar16,2004

Mar25,2004 Mar20,2004 Mar19,2004 Mar16,2004 Mar13,2004 Mar12,2004 Mar11,2004 Mar10,2004 Mar6,2004 Mar2,2004 Mar1,2004

Went walkies today. Found a small bit of the old Vancouver- the one that was here before the strip malls.

A little stream worthy of a Kenneth Graham book. Mole and the Rat due here any second. Sort of thing we used to muck around in as kids. Ahhh... mud.

Mar13,2004

Mar25,2004 Mar20,2004 Mar19,2004 Mar16,2004 Mar13,2004 Mar12,2004 Mar11,2004 Mar10,2004 Mar6,2004 Mar2,2004 Mar1,2004

Day 3 of the pilgrimage to Pullman

Today, great drive back from Pullman. Much nicer than Thursday's drive to Pullman.

All day long lazy cruise through farmland.

Light clouds over the wheat fields.

After all day in the car, we treated ourselves to a fantastic Indian dinner at the Bombay Cricket Club. Seriously yummy. This place is booked out all the time- we took a chance and found two can sneak in at 5:30 of a Saturday.

Afterwards, just on sunset, we meandered round beautiful tree lined streets in Portland's south east.

Then home to a night of television and blogging. Bliss.

Mar12,2004

Mar25,2004 Mar20,2004 Mar19,2004 Mar16,2004 Mar13,2004 Mar12,2004 Mar11,2004 Mar10,2004 Mar6,2004 Mar2,2004 Mar1,2004

Day 2 of the pilgrimage to Pullman

Today I camped in a hotel room working on a paper.

No distractions. Lots of typing.

My kind of heaven!

Which meant I didn't do much sight seeing. Shame really, Pullman is right next door to Idaho. And Idaho has potatoes.

That's too nasty. Pullman's got lots of sweet old wooden houses. And, if the truth be told, some hideous new flats- kind of like the bland one we live in at Vancouver!

Football is HUGE here. Every home game, the airport is choked with alumni flying in to watch the show. These alumni so are devoted to their old team that students can't get in to see the game!

At different times of the year, the air is full of dust from the surrounding farms or its yellow from all the wheat.

Nearby Moscow is an interesting place- it seemed to have more of a sense of community than Pullman. Moscow was more like a real local town that might actually exist without the university.

WSU has a fantastic ice cream shop call Ferdinand's. Its named after a kids' story about a big musclely bull that wouldn't fight in the ring- he just wanted to sit round all day and smell the flowers. What does it all mean? It was written in 1936, at a time when Europe was marching to war. Most of the stuff on the web says the the story is about peace and harmony; e.g. The Story of Ferdinand taught me to be self-assured and to be content with simple things.

I loved the story as a kid- a wonderfully simple yarn about resisting peer pressure. In retrospect, it could also be an astrological pun about cliched behavior of Tauruses. Or, if we focus on the musclely hero sitting round all day smelling flowers, it could be read as a touch gay.

This photo is for all you Australian and New Zealanders out there. Dear Washington State University, do you know what daggy means?

Well then.

Mar11,2004

Mar25,2004 Mar20,2004 Mar19,2004 Mar16,2004 Mar13,2004 Mar12,2004 Mar11,2004 Mar10,2004 Mar6,2004 Mar2,2004 Mar1,2004

Day 1 of the pilgrimage to Pullman

Spent the day driving to Pullman.

Helen had to see some English types at WSU's main campus.

I had to see Helen.

So, off we went.

Traveled the slow way there. Here's the view from highway 14, north of the Columbia River.

Mar10,2004

Mar25,2004 Mar20,2004 Mar19,2004 Mar16,2004 Mar13,2004 Mar12,2004 Mar11,2004 Mar10,2004 Mar6,2004 Mar2,2004 Mar1,2004

Last data mining class this week. They all did good on their assignments- much good awking.

Somehow I generated three ICSE workshop papers The paper with Kentucky was interested- it emerged out of mid-air after hanging round like a cloud for days and days.

Lots of stuff with Dave Owen. Many happy graphs. LURCH kicking some computational ass.

Much strangeness on the timetable of quarterly reviews. Some confusion with the schedule. Problems with the phones. I think I got to about 50% of them.

Been interviewing graduate students. Found two gems: Tom and Ryan. Gonna have a great April. Dave Owen and Tom and Ryan and maybe even John Powell up for a few days all LURCHing around Portland.

Lots of data mining with the business gang. Here's Siri-on and David Raffo.

Mar6,2004

Mar25,2004 Mar20,2004 Mar19,2004 Mar16,2004 Mar13,2004 Mar12,2004 Mar11,2004 Mar10,2004 Mar6,2004 Mar2,2004 Mar1,2004

Saturday night was spent at the Kennedy school. I wish I had gone to a school like this. Bars in the honors room, smokers in the detention hall.

All over the halls, old photos of the days when this was a real school.

Mar2,2004

Mar25,2004 Mar20,2004 Mar19,2004 Mar16,2004 Mar13,2004 Mar12,2004 Mar11,2004 Mar10,2004 Mar6,2004 Mar2,2004 Mar1,2004

Up and back to JPL today. Someone phoned for me while I was away. Helen said "He's not here- he's down at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory". There was a pause and a reply "well, that sounds impressive."

First, a gratuitous scary picture.

Easy, easy, easy flight. 2/3rds empty. Good sleep and sleeping was useful++ since I had to wake at 4:30am to get the flight.

LA was clean (gasp, not cough). Two days of rain and now crisp air and distant views.

JPL was cool. If E.T. phoned home, he'd call here. From these daggy 1960s buildings come satellites that travel to Pluto. Go figure.

That day, JPL announced they had proof of water on Mars. Film crews everywhere. Me watching history being filmed and broadcast to the rest of the world. For one day, in the center of things.

John Powell hosted me. We visited Martin, Leila, Allen, and Gyrus Hein- a man that runs COCOMO on JPL examples. And they work! Gasp!

Much talk on grants and many plans.

Late flight back. Home at 11:30, too tired sleep. Tossed and turned. Woke up PING the next morning, first thing. Guess JPL is kind of stimulating!

Mar1,2004

Mar25,2004 Mar20,2004 Mar19,2004 Mar16,2004 Mar13,2004 Mar12,2004 Mar11,2004 Mar10,2004 Mar6,2004 Mar2,2004 Mar1,2004

Went house hunting this evening. Saw a total DUMP in the SW. Helen reeled away saying "that's 10 minutes of my life I'll never get back".

Afterwards we had this ultra-cruisy evening hanging out, eating at a sensational vietnamese place, home to blob.