Category: Where’s Dabacon?

Well I’m back from a one week trip to Italy to teach at “GII Scuola di Dottoratio in Ingegneria Informatica” held at the University of Siena.
We arrived into Rome on Saturday after spending a good portion of our time on the Detriot/Rome flight playing the inflight trivia game. Nothing like a slow trivia game to pass the hours. In Rome we stayed in the Hotel Forum, which is very centerally located, just a stones throw from these ruins

and a hop skip and a jump to a certain, very famous, fountain:

On Sunday we made our way to Florence, where we did the requisite looking at some cathedrals

Unfortunately we didn’t get the chance to see it, but apparently Galileo’s embalmed finger is in Florence. I wonder which finger it was? Actually I also would have liked to see if the church where Galileo sat timing the period of the swings of the chandeleers allowed h
After Florence, we headed to Siena. Siena is a very beautiful medieval town on a hill. It is filled with tourists. We were there just after Siena’s famous Palio horse race. In the Palio di Siena, the seventeen different neighborhoods (contrades) of Siena compete against each other for grand bragging rights and a whole lot of pride. While we missed the actual race, the team that won this years race had not won in over forty years. Needless to say, this meant that they were still celebrated when we arrived, and, we were told, would continue to celebrate for as many days as years since they had last won the Palio! Part of this celebration involves things like going into enemy contrades late at night and pounding drums and singing songs taunting the enemy.
While in Siena, I taught here

Well, actually the venue where I taught was the school of Economis at the University of Siena, whose entrance is just to the right of this large church. I taught twelve hours of lectures to computer science and engineering graduate students on quantum computing. The lectures went well, I think, and they really treated us very nicely in Siena.
Before leaving on Saturday, I got a chance to do some siteseeing. I felt right at home…here are some Popes

Before the twenty four hour trip back home, I bought myself a nice big book of Sudoko. If you haven’t tried Sudoko, please take it from me and avoid Sudoko at all costs! This little logical number game is very addictive. I must have spent twelve hours on the trip home working on these puzzles.

Goodbye Santa Fe.
Tomorrow I head for the hills. Well actually I go around the hills at first and then over some hills and then over some more hills, and, well you get the picture.
I will miss green chiles, the “speculation” section at Borders, crystals with magical magical powers, the high mountain air, the aspin groves in fall, the good scientists at the Santa Fe Institute, tea time at the Institute, the convenient and terrific skiing, and the beautiful vistas of New Mexico.
I will not miss the running of red lights, the roads, crystals with magical magical powers, the hour long drive to 7a.m. flights in Albuquerque, and most of all, the fact that every metalic object I touch in this state gives me a nasty shock.

Last weekend I went to a wedding in Redondo Beach for my friends Mel and West who I’ve known since my days back at Caltech. As you can guess, the maturity level of a group of Techers is very high:

Here we see my friend Lon and I playing with our food. Note that I grabbed an orange, while Lon grabbed a lemon. Poor Lon.
Here is a picture of my rental car being towed because I lost the key to the car.

Note that during that Bachelor party for this wedding I lost my cell phone and my drivers license.
If you decide to stop reading this blog because of the above damning information, I don’t blame you.

At the end of next week, I’m driving from Santa Fe to Seattle. Today I googled a map of the trip.

Ouch.