A day or two later

Preparing for New Year's Eve here: vacuuming rugs (again) and washing floors. We just did this for Christmas!

As far as my learning-about-computers streak, I learned a little bit more about numpy (just basics) and learned about APIs. In particular, I learned how to download info about all the Harry Potter movie reviews in the New York Times. Not deep, but interesting! There are a lot of projects on the web that use APIs to get data about many things. One favorite is Storyark, which lets you "see" the arc of a story. It's not yet phenomenal, as I looked up "mathematics" and got lots of stories about religious nuts and theater.

Back in MN... for a bit...

Back in Minnesota for a month. Priorities: socialize! and see people I only see in MN; write some things about quantum cohomology; play with data science. Heading for New York state in January...

Leaving Berkeley

Ok, I've been a bad blogger. Lots has happened but other than travel it's mostly been in my head, so I have not put it up on the blog. I guess I have to decide what kind of blogger to be!

I'm leaving Berkeley for MN in just four days. Spent some time packing today. Should find a scale to make sure my luggage is not overweight. At this point, it looks like it might all fit in the bags it came in (!). Even though I bought books and so acquired some stuff, I did try to bring summer clothes back to MN as summer ended here in California. The problem is that books are heavier than summer clothes, and overweight baggage fees are more expensive than book rate shipping.

Up to MSRI again -- last four visits to my office...

September begins

I've been in Berkeley two whole weeks now. The conferences at MSRI have been going on since I arrived, just about -- since August 22. That's a lot of lectures, tea-time conversations, dinners with mathematicians, and mingling. Good ideas and good experiences, but I am glad for a rest this Labor Day weekend! I am staying home to cook and do work and try not to get the illness that is making the rounds at the conference.

Almost every work day I have hiked up to MSRI and I thought I'd share some pictures from my walk. These are from sunny days:

Above is MSRI, where I work.

The second-to-last part of my walk there involves this trail.

If I turn around on that trail I can see this view on a clear day: the Bay Bridge to San Francisco.

We had a number of cloudy days earlier in the week. When cloudy, you can't see anything except cloud from where I live. I'll try to take a picture of that later.

Pluses for Berkeley: You can buy salmon at the farmer's market from a company that buys them from local fishers. You can buy avocados from local farms! You can eat fresh figs -- I really don't know much about fresh figs but they are really tasty. I am trying to eat out less and cook more this week -- I could go out to dinner every night with visiting mathematicians, but am trying not to do that all the time. It is good to cook and what you cook.

(Of course, I am missing the State Fair in MN and all the good apples available right now there... Tonight, though, I went out to dinner with my friend Greg and had a pretty good chicken liver on a stick, which will be as close as I get to the fair. It was at a very nice Japanese restaurant so I can't really compare it to the fair!)

Less than five weeks!

A late evening; time for bed soon.

Since the last post I and spouse did take Amtrak from Nebraska to Emeryville, California. We got a sleeping car and enjoyed the view and the meals. Train food is a good order of magnitude or better than plane food, I must say, and although it took a bit of energy to make small talk with random people we were seated with for three meals a day it was also interesting and I enjoyed it. I got to learn about Sacramento, Germany, Australia, and geology and history from our meal companions. I took some pretty poor photos from the train windows -- really you've got to make the trip to believe it.

The Amtrak employees were all really nice and interesting people. Our train was late (4 hours?) but the blame really must be put on Union Pacific; one of their repair trucks tipped over on the tracks right outside of Chicago, delaying the train immediately after departure. Here insert requisite comments on the tragedy of American transportation and the fact that passenger rail does not have dedicated lines and freight takes precedence and etc. I need to go to bed so won't include such a discussion tonight.

The geology and nature visible was really amazing. Spouse was reading a history of the transcontinental railroad on the trip and told me lots of stories about Theodore Judah, who sounds like a brilliant man, and the construction of the American Gorge piece of the railroad. 

I've just finished up my first week in Berkeley, attending the Connections for Women conference/workshop. Great speakers. Very busy. Great math. I learned a lot of connections in mathematics, many from women and many from men: more about cluster algebras and the Deodhar stratification and mirror symmetry for Grassmannians and Plucker coordinates and all sorts of things. This math is really beautiful -- I would like to try an expository post on the ideas of cluster algebras soon! We'll see what happens! The Joint Introductory Workshop for the semester starts Monday :)

Every five weeks...

Well, let's try another post. I went to Japan for two weeks, spending a lot of time in the library of Osaka City University. It was a great conference: the Mathematical Society of Japan's Seasonal Institute on Schubert Calculus. The summer school speakers gave interesting and appropriate lectures; the conference portion was varied and lively; there were attendees from all over the world and many areas of math -- but everyone cared about Schubert calculus for different reasons! Mathematically it was a great way to get up to speed on what people are working on these days.

I also enjoyed the food and the culture of Osaka and Kyoto. I got to go to a rock concert, see the floats of Gion-Matsuri in Kyoto, eat okonomiyaki, see Osaka Castle, fan myself furiously, eat udon and ramen, wear a yukata, and navigate the subways and trains. I'll see if I can publish some photos (having some computer trouble today).

Once back from Japan I went to MathFest 2012 in Madison, Wisconsin, and ran the MathFest 5k in 32:30 or so. Then I went to the Boundary Waters and canoed from Saganaga through Red Rock and Alpine Lakes to Seagull, where we'd left the car. Now I'm back in St Paul for two days, spending time with family and summer research students :) while packing for the move. Heading to Berkeley on Wednesday via the Rocky Mountains....

I have a blog?!

I forgot that I had this started. I think I will try to renew it since I will be traveling a lot over the next year. Last week, Finland; in two weeks, Japan; in five weeks, Berkeley for the next semester. Then to Cornell in Ithaca, NY for the spring semester. Pretty crazy!

I took a vacation in Finland this year, overall -- some mathematics and computer programming but mostly yardwork and lounging. It was a rather tiring spring semester between the job search, actual work, and various projects, so a break and mental reset was good. Americans ought to take more vacation.

We will see what develops here, if anything: is this for family? friends? colleagues? the paparazzi? To be determined. In the meantime I need to beat the Minnesota heat: time for some iced tea.