The Presidential Inauguration

So America has a new president! I stayed on in Rocklin and went with Janet to watch the inauguration at Bayside church. They had arranged for the ceremony to be shown on the three massive projection screens in the church, followed by a short time of prayer for Obama and his government, which I thought was a very good way for the church to mark the occasion. (And, it was good to be indoors on another rather beautiful, sunny, relatively warm Californian winter's day, rather than braving the below-freezing temperatures and windy weather in Washington!) The ceremony was fairly brief, and I thought Obama's speech was good (acknowledging the hard work that has to be done to address some of the problems the US faces, although he was rather more critical of Bush's presidency than I thought was necessary or appropriate for the occasion).

A number of people have asked what it is like being here at this time (undoubtedly historic, whatever you think of the politics and politicians in the US). My response has been that there are very high expectations of change and, quite frankly, miracles (particularly with regard to addressing the current economic challenges). My pragmatic nature suggests that there is likely to be very little change (for all their brave speeches, politicians typically have less power to effect the sweeping changes that they promise their electorate during an election than they claim, or perhaps even think). Still, if Obama's challenge to look further than one's own situation and serve the needs of others and of the country is taken up it can only be a good thing for the country.

In this regard, on Sunday evening I watched a talk by Dr. Del Tackett of Focus on the Family, which dealt with the founding of America and the Biblical foundations of this nation. It was quite striking how, without exception, the "founding fathers" spoke about the importance of building the nation on a strong moral foundation, itself built on their Christian faith. In many ways, I think the US has lost touch with its foundations and that has had a deep impact on their society. It will be interesting to see what happens in the next few years.

Quick Update

Someone asked recently if the lack of blog activity was due to busyness, or a lack of news to report on. I'm happy to report that it is the latter!

One thing I haven't really touched on in my blogging is my research (feel free to tune out now, if that sounds really boring!). The research has been going very well, and the time here has already been far more productive that I had imagined or hoped for. The last month or two (with the interruption of Christmas and New Year) has been a slight digression from my main research programme to look at some interesting aspects of how the Java programming language is used on the modern multicore computer chips that are becoming increasingly common. That was a particularly interesting detour for me as it took me back to relook at some of the work I did for my MSc research a few ;-) years ago now. The results of the digression are quite good, and I have also spent a week or two writing them up as a paper for possible presentation at a conference in Las Vegas just before I am due to return to SA in July.

Speaking of conferences, there are two coming up in March that I am hoping to attend while I am in the USA. The first is the SIGCSE (Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education) annual conference, being held in Chattanooga, Tennessee (made famous for its "choo choo" by Glen Miller!). That is the leading international conference on teaching and learning in Computer Science (and Information Systems, for that matter). I have often enjoyed and benefited from reading papers from the conference in the past, so it would be great to attend in person.

The second is the 24th Annual ACM Symposium on Applied Computing, being held at Waikiki Beach in Honolulu, Hawaii. Before anyone leaps to any unjustified conclusions, the venue has no bearing on my interest (well, OK, maybe a little!). One of the streams at this conference is on "Coordination Models, Languages and Applications", which is the area that my research has focused on for the past 14 (or more) years. I was part of the programme committee that reviewed the papers for the conference, so I would really like to go (and if I have to endure the organisers' choice of venue, I guess I can force myself to do so!).

Even being here, the budget for travel, conference fees, etc. is quite hectic (particularly with the R:$ exchange rate at 10:1), so I still need to do my sums to make sure I can do the travelling and still eat for the next few months!

Skiing

What better way to spend New Year's Day than doing something completely new, like skiing! We set off fairly early yesterday morning and arrived in the Tahoe area nice and early — around 8:30am. Our first stop was at the Sugar Bowl ski resort where we dropped off Bryn and Jared with a friend of theirs (they had discount coupons for Sugar Bowl). The rest of us then went to the Donner Ski Ranch just over the road. Donner Ski Ranch is (a) somewhat cheaper and (b) has some easier runs for beginners than Sugar Bowl. The Tahoe area is beautiful in the snow. I have been there in the summer previously, which is also very beautiful but very different.

The day did not get off to a particularly auspicious start. The official "bunny slope" for beginners was short, but steep and ended at the ski lodge where there were a lot of people milling around. When one's ability to control direction and stopping is severely limited, that's a little scary. And trying to get back up after falling over is really interesting when you're wearing heavy, clumsy boots and long skis which try to head downhill at the slightest provocation! Both Janet and I had a rather bad initial experience and took a time out to get our breath back, feeling a little despondent, while Colin and Erin enjoyed themselves on the slopes.

They came back and reported that they had found a very nice run, a little higher up the mountain, but relatively unpopulated and very gentle. It took a little persuasion to get me up there (not least because the ski lift was that much more scary!), but I was very glad that I did, because the run was perfect. It started off with a very gentle slope away from the ski lift, then a gentle bend and a slightly steeper section before levelling out again, going into a couple of slightly sharper bends before levelling out completely before a gentle drop back to the main run down to the base of the ski lift.

I spent the rest of the day (with a short break) on that run, slowly mastering some of the basic skills. By the end of the day, I was staying upright reasonably consistently and managing to steer fairly well. Stopping at the bottom of the run proved to be a challenge, but the butt brakes work quite well! (I thought it was very rude of Colin to take a photo of me in this state!). I'm not sure I'll ever be a great skier, but it was a fun day of learning new skills in a stunningly beautiful setting.

Janet also had a much better time on the longer run and was doing very well by the end of the day. At about 3:30 we packed up and headed for home after collecting the boys who had had a great time snowboarding at Sugar Bowl.

While I am rather stiff today, it's not as bad as I expected/feared it might be.

Happy New Year!

[This was started on New Year's Eve!] As we reach the end of 2008, it is hard to believe that my sabbatical leave is half-way over already. It has been going very well and I have made some great progress on my research programme, which has been far more productive than I had expected. It has also been great to experience living in the USA, even through the elections and economic problems (at least the Rand is looking a little stronger at the moment).

Anyway, I just wanted to wish you all a very happy New Year. May 2009 be a happy, successful and fulfilling year for you and your loved ones.

Happy New Year!

As we reach the end of 2009, it is hard to believe that my sabbatical leave is half-way over already. It has been going and I have made some great progress on my research programme, which has been far more productive than I had expected. It has also been great to experience living in the USA, even through the elections and economic problems (at least the Rand is looking a little stronger at the moment).