2011

Well, this seems to be becoming a Tradition! No blogging for the year then an end-of-year/Christmas newsletter (or should that be "newsblog"?!).

It's been another busy, full and generally good year. It got off to a hectic start with a long stretch of lecturing the second-year class. Unusually, I wasn't able to get away for the Easter short vacation - the first time in many years that I have missed spending this in Pretoria.

I was very blessed to be able to get away in June/July for a mid-winter break to Ramsgate with Theo and Brenda and Theo's family (the photo is of me and Jemma making footprints in the sand!). As was the case last year, we had some excellent weather and were able to enjoy the beaches, sea, cycling, geocaching, etc. We took our time over the trip down and overnighted in the Natal Midlands.

In August/September, I travelled overseas for a conference in Denmark (just North of Copenhagen). The photo here is of a military fort/barracks in Copenhagen (not too far from the famous mermaid sculpture). That was a great experience, and I was able to fit in some sightseeing, before taking a train and an overnight ferry up to Oslo in Norway on the recommendation of some good friends. Oslo was stunning, and my only regret is that my time there was so short. Coincidentally, Jacob Zuma (President of South Africa) was on a state visit at the same time, so they had bedecked central Oslo in South African flags in honour of my visit! I really felt at home. If you squint carefully at the flag poles in the image below you can just make out the SA flag bunting in front of the Royal Palace in Oslo.

From Oslo I flew to the UK and spent a week or so with Liz, and then a rather frenetic few days in the UK catching up with various friends (as many as I could pack into the few days available). The highlight of that was the (completely coincidental) opportunity to be there for my godson Alistair's baptism. While with Liz, I managed to do some geocaching on the Isle of Man (the photo below is of me at Liz' local train station after finding a cache there), and we went out for a first-class meal at one of the island's top restaurants. The local museum also had a display of sporting highlights including a lot of cycling-related displays (a lot of them focused on the career of Mark Cavendish). While in the UK I was able to visit Oxford (for the first time), and also Bletchley Park (home of the WW2 German Enigma code-breaking effort).

I got back home from that trip just in time to dive into another busy stretch of lecturing.

The rest of the year seems to have flown by in something of a blur, and it's very hard to believe that the year is almost over. A recent highlight was a dinner to celebrate 25 years of service to the University by myself and two colleagues (Dave Sewry and Richard Foss). In some ways it seems like just the other day that I was a very young graduate starting out as a Junior Lecturer!

2012 promises a number of changes, challenges and excitements. After nine years (i.e. three successive three-year terms) as Head of the Department of Computer Science, I will be handing over that role to a colleague. I am really looking forward to having more time to spend on my research programme. One of the perks of being Head of Department is some extra sabbatical leave, so I will also be taking a few months off in 2012. In March, I plan to ride the Cape Argus cycle race in Cape Town, a world-famous event which attracts 35000 participants each year. That has been on my "bucket list" for some time, but I am almost always lecturing in March and have never been able to get to it previously. My good friend Theo will be joining me for that adventure, which will be a great bonus. Then in September I am organising a conference in Grahamstown (the next edition of the conference that has taken me to Austria and Denmark in the past two years).

And that's about all the news for 2011 and forth-coming attractions for 2012. I hope 2012 is a good year, filled with health and happiness for you.

2010

Better late than never! Embarrassed by all my friends who managed to get out 2010 newsletters before Christmas, I thought I should try to write up a brief overview of the past year (and make up for the woeful lack of blogging in 2010!).

It's been a fairly busy year. One of the main highlights was a lovely holiday in Ramsgate in July with Theo and Brenda and several other mutual friends (some from Grahamstown, and some from Pretoria). We rented out two large houses next to each other, on the sea: only 50m of grass between the houses and the rocks — the photo is the view from the verandah of one of the houses. That was stunning and the Natal winter was very kind to us — even I managed to swim almost every day! Besides enjoying the beaches and the sea, Theo and I managed to fit in some riding, and we also did some geocaching.

Then in September, I went to the conference in Vienna, with a week or so in the U.K. before that to catch up with various friends: Kevin and Caryl, Steve, Jody and Gina, Nig, Ang, Alistair and Kieran, and Ant, Giskin, Zara and Neal. I also fitted in a couple of days at the "castle" in England (near Hereford on the Welsh border), which Liz was managing at the time. It is a very impressive building   used for weddings and conferences, etc. rather than as a "proper" hotel. Her involvement there ended towards the end of the year, and she is now back on the Isle of Man full-time. We had a great time in Vienna   it's a beautiful city, and managed to pack quite a bit into a few days, including various castles and churches, a boat trip on the Danube, a couple of concerts, and some very good food! The photo here is of the Schönbrunn palace — we had walked up the hill from where this was taken after looking around the interior of the palace.

The end of the year in the Department marked Pat Terry's official retirement. It was weird dealing with that — if you had told me in my first-year that one day I would be a professor in the Department and responsible for saying farewell to "Professor Terry", I would have told you you were crazy! Pat's not retiring completely — we're keeping him on to do his third year compiler course, and the University is also keeping him around to help with some of the timetabling and administrative work that he is so good at.

The end of the year also brought the good news that I had received an NRF (National Research Foundation) "rating" — essentially a national recognition of my research track record. That's a very pleasing career development, so I was rather chuffed when the good news came through.

Liz managed to come out to Grahamstown for Christmas again this year — we've been blessed to have her here for two years in a row. Our parents had visited her in July/August, and then I saw her in September, so we've had a relatively good year of family contact. She was pleased to escape the cold and snow in the U.K. over Christmas, but a little miffed that her three weeks here were very wet — she counted only three days of sunshine. As the Eastern Cape is in the midst of severe drought we weren't complaining about the wet Christmas.

She left on 5 January, and I joined her on the flight up to Jo'burg to spend some time with Theo, Brenda and Caleb. That's almost over as I have to be back in G'town on Monday for a meeting, so fly back tomorrow afternoon.

The year ahead is starting off busy. We're starting the year with a vacant post, due to a colleague emigrating to Australia. I am due to step down from my role as Head of Department when my current term comes to an end in the middle of this year. My attempts at at succession planning keep being frustrated, there may be some light at the end of that tunnel — I certainly hope so: after eight years, I am more than ready to hand over the reins to someone else!

The Inaugural Lecture

Part of becoming a full professor is a rite of passage known as the Inaugural Lecture. This is essentially a public lecture at which the new professor gets to speak about some topic of general interest, usually related to their research. My turn came on 23 September!

The lecture was entitled It's the End of the World as We Know It: A View of the Future of Computing, and focused on the changes that have happened in the world of processor hardware in recent years (particularly, the move to "multicore" chips), why this has happened, what the implications are, and what future developments in software will be needed to take full advantage of the changing hardware platforms. It was a lot of fun preparing the talk, as it brought together a lot of threads from my teaching and research. Finding the right level at which to pitch the talk was difficult, as the audience ranged from people who might occasionally play Solitaire through to colleagues who have many years of experience in distributed and parallel programming. The feedback from members of the audience suggest that I found the right level reasonably well.

One of the highlights of the whole process was being able to share the evening with family and friends. I was particularly blessed that my good friend Theo was able to come down from Pretoria for the occasion (unfortunately, Brenda and Caleb were not able to come with him).

Traditionally, an inaugural lecture is used to acknowledge the support, encouragement and help of the people who have been involved in the new professor's life and the process of becoming a professor. It was wonderful to have a public platform on which to acknowledge the many friends, family members, colleagues, teachers, mentors and role models who have contributed so much to my life.

The lecture was held in the early evening, and involved a certain amount of ceremony, with a procession of academic staff in full academic dress and an introductory speech by the Vice Chancellor before I was allowed to take the floor. Afterwards there was a chance to mingle with the members of the audience over some drinks and snacks, before going on to a formal dinner hosted by the Vice Chancellor and his wife, to which I had been able to invite a few particularly close friends and colleagues, and my parents.

Getting up at 3:15am the next day to take Theo down to the airport was a bit less fun, but at least it was a public holiday, and I was able to relax and come back down to earth slowly!

My last weekend...

I got back from Las Vegas on Thursday night, and on Friday we went to Lake Camanche for one last camping/boating trip. That was absolutely awesome with hot sunny days and warm water to swim and tube (and even to ski and wake-board for the more energetic!). We went with some friends of Colin and Janet's who I have also got to know quite well and had a great time relaxing, eating good food and enjoying the lake.

One of Colin's favourite pursuits is to try to dislodge riders from the tube. Here you can see an action shot as Bryn went flying, and I am about to follow! Lexi is hanging on for her life (the middle is usually the safest place to be, but even there I managed to fall off by doing a somersault over the front of the tube as it slowed rapidly when someone else had just fallen off and Colin had throttled back the boat suddenly!).

Somehow it seems fitting that my last photo of the U.S. should be of a stunning sunset during a weekend of excellent memories with wonderful friends.

Viva Las Vegas!

The trip to Vegas was very interesting. I have been there for conferences several times (in fact, most of them for the conference that me there this time too). What was noticeable this time though was just how much more confident I felt about getting around, etc. — I guess living in the U.S.A. for a year has had an effect on me!

The conference was good (actually, it is a little too big to be really good: 2000+ delegates is a massive crowd). My paper went well on Wednesday afternoon, and there was some nice discussion and questions about it afterwards.

One of the main highlights of the trip was the chance to do some geocaching and to add Nevada to my list of states that I have cached in. Many of the caches along "The Strip" are virtual caches (i.e. there is no physical cache container, you simply visit the spot and answer some question(s) to validate that you were there), due to the crowds of people that are ever-present. However, I did also get to visit my first Webcam cache. This requires some assistance from a friend. Essentially, the geocache coordinates take you to a spot where there is a pubic webcam. When you reach the spot, you phone someone (in my case Jared was very helpful) who can then go to the webcam's site and take a "photo" of you to prove that you were there. I'm not sure that the quality of the photo here proves much, but that really is me standing on the steps!

The other HUGE highlight was attending a performance of The Lion King on Wednesday night. That was absolutely breath-taking — it is amazing how well they create the animals with puppets and actors. However, it did make me a little home-sick (I never thought I would get misty-eyed when hearing "Moloweni" as a greeting!). Maybe it's a good thing I'm going back within a week!

Leaving Davis

I was back in Davis on Monday for my final small group/Bible study meeting. That was actually a potluck/bring-and-share supper (some delicious barbecued/braaied chicken with various salads, etc.), and was my "farewell" to the group. The small group had got me a book about the Davis area and had all signed a card, which was very nice of them. It's great how one has a Christian family all over the world.

Colin and Janet had lent me their Dodge Durango SUV for the trip to Davis on Monday. Packing my stuff into the SUV and cleaning up in Davis was relatively unstressful and I was back in Rocklin by 3:00pm on Tuesday. It was nice to have the big vehicle as it swallowed a chest of drawers and a small desk easily with stacks of space to spare for the two suitcases, as well as numerous bags of junk, bedding, etc. which need to be returned to their owners or donated. I'm ignoring the challenge of fitting everything I want to bring back to SA into two suitcases for the moment!

I need to get back to Davis sometime to collect the bed and the bicycle, which will need a trailer — the plan is to do that on Saturday.

Next week I will be in Las Vegas for the 2009 International Conference on Parallel and Distributed Processing Techniques and Applications (PDPTA'09), part of the 2009 World Congress in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, and Applied Computing (WORLDCOMP'09). That's a huge conference that I have attended several times before. I'll be presenting a paper on some of the work that I did here late last year.

Then there is one last camping/boating trip planned before I fly back to SA.

It's hard to believe I leave here in only two weeks now. The time seems to be flying by rather fast!

A Geocaching Milestone

While most geocachers are adamant that "it's not about the numbers", keeping track of the number of caches found and celebrating significant milestones is a very common habit!

A while back I had realised that I was fairly close to reaching 200 caches found, and that I could reach this in the USA by finding about three caches a week. I took advantage of the end of my formal commitments at UC Davis to go out on a country ride last week and managed to tick off quite a few, bringing me up to a total of 193. I then considered trying to reach the 200 mark while in Yosemite over the weekend, but that would have meant pushing the geocaching rather hard (and would not have been all that considerate to the others on that trip). Still, the caching on our hike in Yosemite did bring the total tantalisingly close: to 197!

With today as my last day in Davis I had to do something about this and went out for a quick ride to get three fairly close-by caches, deliberately aiming for a specific one for the milestone. My quest was successful and I hit the target, just hours before leaving Davis!

The ride was actually very pleasant, mostly on a bike path that follows the original Lincoln Highway route into Davis, parallel to the current highway. The highway is particularly spectacular at the moment with masses of blooming oleanders in all sorts of colours down the median.

The geocache that I found for the milestone is an interesting one. Called "Losing Yamar's Marbles" it was placed by a cacher called Yamar, and the cache container is full of marbles. The idea is to take a marble and then drop it off anywhere you care to, noting the location on a website he has set up (he describes it as a study in Brownian motion!). I had noticed this cache some time ago as it is quite close to where I was living in Davis (just a little difficult to get to, as it is on the other side of the railway tracks). More importantly, no marbles have been dropped in Africa yet — an omission that had to be rectified!

So, I reached my goal of 200 caches, on my last day in Davis, and will be able to drop the two marbles I took when I get back to South Africa.

All in all, a very satisfying day of geocaching!