Danny's Travel Blog

Departure - Philadelphia, PA

2008-08-12T07:31:00.000-07:00

I had a full day in Philly, which I spent checking out some of the sights and shopping for souvineers.

As with Baltimore I didnt really have time to check it out properly, so I'll hold my tongue and just pony up the photos instead...

Another trip over for now!

Workshop, Drinking, Sight-seeing - Washington, DC

2008-08-12T07:22:00.000-07:00

Thursday and Friday was the IWCF workshop, which was interesting. I saw papers on everything from improving the accuracy of finger print identification to modelling disasters in 3D. Our paper was quite well received and I think we may aim for this venue in future years.

On Thursday evening I had yummy tapas at La Tasca courtesy of the conference organisers, but Friday night was my own. I decided to hit ‘The Black Cat Club’, which according to my guide book had live music and lots of veggie food. I never got around to either the food or the music, but there was some good comedy on upstairs and I met some nice locals who I went bar hopping with. One of these swore he was the rightful heir to the Heinz fortune and another had ‘a tab’ at the bar we went to, so I got free drinks -- not bad!

The following day has beautiful weather and so I decided to check out the usual cheesy sights… some of which you can see below. Washington was a great town. I hope to come back some time!

Moment of Zen - New York, NY

2008-08-07T09:18:00.002-07:00

After checking out of my hotel on the upper west side and stowing my cases, I embarked on a half-day sight-seeing tour of the city. I started a the Cathedral of St. John the Devine, (which I still find creepy) and then wandered downtown through central park, (which I still love).

After that I finally visited the NYC Met Museum, which was pretty awesome, except for the fact that I kept getting lost. The special exhibit of superheroes wasn’t that good. There is so much truly great comic art which I hoped to see, but a lot was instead devoted to movie costumes and fashion. I enjoyed seeing the 15th century enamels from Limousin (near my parents house in France), the Greek and Roman statues and best of all the Van Gough paintings and particularly the landscapes. My favourite ‘Starry Night’ wasn’t on display, but there was lots of other good stuff. Perhaps Van Gough is the world’s most celebrated ginger?

After the Met, my time was growing short, so I headed down to Union square to eat and shop. I was chuffed to find Vinyl copies of both ‘The Flobots’ and ‘Me First and the Gimme Gimme’s’ latest albums in the Virgin Megastore.

I did even better in the Strand where, after a lot of searching, I was able to find Sam Seder’s “FUBAR”, Jon Stewart’s “Naked Pictures of Famous People” and Calvin Trillan’s “Obliviously on He Sails” (I had the sequel signed during my last trip). The last of these necessitated perching precariously on a tall step ladder to reach the top of the stacks… and it was here I found my moment of Zen. There’s no city I’ve visited that is such a feast of every kind of cultural material. No matter what you like you will find it here in the city. I will of course be back. Meanwhile, look at my goodies:

Rituals - New York, NY

2008-08-07T09:18:00.001-07:00

Returning to New York almost felt like coming home, even though I’ve only visited once before for a week in 2005. A quick change at Penn station and I was chugging uptown towards my hotel on the Upper West Side.

It was after 8PM when I arrived, which made it too late for sight-seeing, but there was a more important task – recreating the perfect NY junk food meal I discovered on my last trip:

1. A cheese slice from Sal & Carmines
2. A Dunkin Donuts donut.
3. Sam Adams Cherry Wheat Beer

This mission accomplished, I finished off the Sam Adams while watching a Family Guy marathon and spent the remainder of my evening slowly wandering down Broadway to Times Square and sampling a few bars along the way.

USGS, Rebellion, Beaver - Baltimore, MD

2008-08-07T09:13:00.000-07:00

Mine was a flying visit to Baltimore to give a lunch seminar at the U.S. Geological Survey’s water science offices attached to the UMBC campus. As I was only in Baltimore for a short time, I won’t pontificate about my impressions of it. Suffice to say that while it looks a bit rough around the edges, I enjoyed my stay.

Cool things I saw include: America’s first Cathedral, a suburban beaver and rebellion on the stairs (see below). Next I’m off to New York City for another flying visit.

Arrival - Baltimore, MD

2008-08-04T17:26:00.001-07:00

After just two nights in Lancaster since returning from Finland, I flew out to the east coast of the US. I'm here primarily for the 2008 International Workshop on Computational Forensics (IWCF) in Washington D.C. where I will be representing the Isis Project. I'll also be meeting with the US Geological Survey's water monitoring experts tomorrow to present a seminar on our wireless sensor network based flood monitoring.

Dont worry though... I will also find time to do some stupid things in NYC and Washington :-) Anyway, I better get some sleep or my seminar wont make any sense!