Mulhuddart happenings

I have been really busy with work and travel. Sometimes I get into these phases where I work on one thing day and night because it is very interesting and I want to know how it will turn out. For the last few weeks I have been in this mode; hence no traveling and taking pictures and nothing happening worth mentioning in the blog. Sorry.
There have been weekends where I stay home on Friday and Monday to get work done, and for four days in a row I get up, eat, write code, try to make sense of results, go to bed at two or three, and repeat. No clue whether it's cold or warm outside. I enjoy doing that once in a while and really dig into a problem. I'm learning a bunch of stuff; or at least it feels like it ;-)
But then once in a while that mode of operation needs to be broken. For the last two weekends I promised myself that I would go out and do something, but then I didn't. (I haven't exercised in weeks!) This weekend I will go into town. I have to; I'm running out of Nespresso capsules. Can't work without fuel!

The other day I diverged from my shortest route to work and back, and detoured through "downtown" Mulhuddart to return yet another letter to the previous renters of this apartment. This one looked important: Something from the health department addressed to the parents of the girl who must have lived here. Probably a reminder to have her come in to be vacinated or something.
Across from the post office I noticed a new store had opened that promised international food. Anything international and different from the three chain store brands we have here can only be good. And within walking distance no less!
The couple who opened the store is from Albania and they do have interesting looking things on the shelves. Most of them I have no clue what they are. When they say international, they mean it. The other stores have international food too, but it is all made by Nestle, Kraft, or Dr. Oetker and the labels are still in English. Not in this store. I bought some items that seemed safe and that I would have a chance to actually eat or prepare, like the two items in the picture above, but I need to investigate this some more. It's not just Eastern European either. Lots of Asian stuff as well with the same trend: on many of them not a single word in English or roman alphabet letters.

Busy

Sunset on Santorini.

Hello everyone, sorry for not posting in the last few weeks. I have been really busy with work and travel. Even though I got to swing through Switzerland on my way to and from Santorini, and even had time for a small hike there, I spent most of my day and night time working on an IPDPS paper. Unfortunately I was too slow to get enough data and explain it appropriately to make the deadline. But we made good progress and have a good paper soon.

Hiking in the Twannbachschlucht in Switzerland.

EuroMPI in Santorini was fun and interesting; the first time attending since I switched jobs. The conference is usually set in some nice European town in September. Fall is a nice time of year because most of the tourists have left, but it is still nice and comfortably warm. It just seems that at many of them I end up spending a lot of time in my hotel working on a paper for the October deadlines.

Conference dinner was in Oia.

I did make a point to be out at sunset every day to get some pictures within walking distance of the hotel. According to Ken Rockwell's advice (a photographer's pages I sometimes read), sunset and sunrise are the only times you need to be out anyway, since that is the only time of day when the light is perfect. I usually can't make sunrises, since I'm in bed. But sunset in Santorini is easy: do that first, then have dinner at 9 with the early dinner crowd.

View from the table at the conference dinner.

I stayed in a cheap hotel that I had booked through the conference registration page. It was fine, but clearly not oriented towards the business traveler. I think they expect people to go out and do things in Santorini, instead of sitting in their room working. The WiFi was free, but didn't really reach my room. My laptop could see the signal, but never log in. So I spent time downstairs in the breakfast area where the base station was. Unfortunately that was accros from the reception desk where the daughter of the owners spent a lot of her time watching TV on her laptop. This was a small hotel with the family of three running most of the operation. I would go back there for vacation, but probably not business.

Evening in Thira, where the conference center was.

I got some good pictures even with the short time I allocated for it. You can see all of them here, but that is easy on Santorini. Aim your camera anywhere and shoot. It's bound to be interesting and capturing.

At a fancier hotel than mine.

People of Santorini make a point to show off their island.