Andrew’s Blog

No, this is nothing to do with James Bond. We’re now two and a half hours into 2008, and so it’s time to look back ponderously at 2007 — just like we looked back at 2006 last year…

January

Last year I struggled to remember anything from the first couple of months of the year. I put this partly down to it being fairly uneventful (I couldn’t remember much) and also not having a blog for that period (I didn’t start properly until September 2006).

This year, I’m struggling to remember much about the first couple of months of the year too. And guess what? — I have a blog. Guess what I wrote in it? Hardly anything. Looks like we’ve got a great couple of months to look forward to then if the last couple of years are anything to go by. Although with all the stuff that’s ‘about’ to happen, I have a feeling it won’t be true this year.

My main memory of last January is of Mike Stannett discovering the Internet. Most people would have discovered it before 2007, but not Mike. He got a new computer and developed a sudden fascination with all things net, insisting that we all get webcams and microphones so we could talk to him at home. I still don’t understand why, and fortunately by the time the next semester had started this obsession had somewhat subsided. I think it had a lot to do with wanting to stay at home to be honest.

In my 06 year blog, I mentioned Shaukat joining earlier in the year. At the end of January last year, he left. We made our first VT expedition to Jumbo’s as a goodbye meal. Going back to the beginning of the month, for some reason the first few days stick in my head because I didn’t go back on the 2nd, having an optician’s appointment, but Ramsay did with him and Mahmood ending up in a fire alarm practice outside in the cold. Weird how I remember that.

February

The first week of February saw Mike Stannett’s birthday, and we trooped down to see him the week before to give him a present. The other big event of the month, for me at least, was my trip to Brussels and FOSDEM. I remember planning to leave rather late because I thought me and Henry had to actually attend Siobh´a;n’s lectures for her module as well as do the marking. But it turns out we didn’t, so that, coupled with a late plane arrival and trying to find everything, made me get there a lot later than I would have ideally hoped to. I’ll be going again this year so hopefully the travel and stuff will be better. The event itself was great and I expect this year’s to be even better too.

March

There still doesn’t appear to have been much happening even in March, given that I resorted to using my blog to write dramas. But at least I wasn’t alone in blogging then because Mike was actually doing so at the time (although checking that link just now shows he has posted again for the first time in six months). Looking back at mine brings back a few interesting memories. And to blatantly re-use that format, that was the month that:

• Simon bought a RISC PC which has since mainly festered in the corner of the lab.
• Simon bought a GP2X which has seen more use.
• Ramsay acquired a SGI box from Kirill which has since mainly festered in the corner of the lab (spot a theme here…?)
• Zubair was mad enough to install Vista — oh how we laughed.
• Scarily, that was the first time I talked about DynamiTE — has it really been that long?
• Ibby passed his transfer report at long last on the 13th; unlucky for some but not for him.

But mainly one of just being in the lab I guess. I know there was a lot of demonstrating going on. Me and Henry taking packed COM162 classes with Sanaz, Ben and Swampi. Lots of the aforementioned marking. COM2030 tutorials for Georg. And the Turnitin stuff started to kick off as well, not to mention Crossover as always so that probably explains why not much else went on.

April

April always seems to be where things start to kick off, with May becoming a veritable tornado of activity. In 2006, it was the month we spent gallivanting around the country (BCTCS, MGS, Types, TFP and all that jazz) and April 07 was similarly pretty busy. Although my blog again shows my whimsical musings, it also clearly demonstrates a busy month. I suppose the most memorable bit is that bloody CONCUR paper. I spent two entire evenings in the lab with Mike while we cranked it out and while I spoke lyrically of it back then, the response to it clearly showed it didn’t smell of roses.

Speaking of MGS, Simon went off there again and this time Henry, Ibby and Peter went too. Memorably, Ibby travelled there and back every day, was less than diligent in claiming back the expenses for this, got lost, most enjoyed looking in the pond rather than at the lectures, made a racist slur, set the department in a bad light and phoned me every day. Not bad for a week’s work.

This was also the time of my eponymous blog about the Information commons. From what I’ve seen, it still all holds. In fact, in all accounts everything I’ve heard since has merely darkened my opinion, notably including its effect on the opening hours of St George’s and the name of the Main Library as well as its ridiculous mandated 24-hour policy. There’s no money to helpfully open St George’s for a few extra hours of an evening which students actually want, but keeping the Information Commons opening at 2am and during the Christmas break is a must.

It’s all been departures this year, and sadly April saw the unhappy story of Ravie leaving, as he lost funding to continue in Sheffield. He was given the option of continuing back home in Malaysia instead and took it. These changes have had quite an effect on the lab, and its makeup today is quite different than it was this time last year.

May

What a heady month May was! It even kicked off quite dramatically, when we did the final rearrangement of the VT lab to what it is today. I’m quite pleased with how it is at the moment, to be honest, although judging by what Mike Holcombe told Mesude it’s not that clear that we now have some space in there, and, thinking about it, the current space is pretty akin to the space that was there before the last shuffle. Interesting.

May was also the start of the Emily odysseys. I remember running in to her in the kitchen (not literally) at some point, Henry had past history of seeing her in the disgrace that is Embrace/Mingdom, and it all kicked off there, with us arranging a night out. That ended up being the same day that Alice left. Quite strange really, because I’d only recently got to know her through the whole Turnitin debacle. Both her and Em joined us on what was the first of several VT07 nights out that culminated in a trip to the Leadmill. It was a Thursday and I still think the best night we’ve had. Everyone made it to the end for one thing. It was also the only one Ibby attended (partially) — certainly the only time he came out clubbing and as a result lost his phone. I’m surprised, as I thought it was surgically attached. Strangely enough, only myself and Henry have been on all our many adventures last year.

It was also the month of the GRADSchool trip, which I moaned and whined about beforehand, but which turned out to be quite brilliant. I chronicled it all pretty fully at the time, in probably my most epic blog to date. But suffice to say, I made some good friends on the trip, maybe even learnt a little and had a good break from the usual hussle and bussle of the DCS. It even seemed to have a positive effect on Simon — well, for a few days anyway until he reverted. We’ve still got to have a reunion, which I hope will happen sometime this year.

Oddly, once of its most notably effects in the short term was the consequent rise (and later, demise) of Facebook. I’d actually become a member back in November of the year before, when invited to it by Fran. Me, him and Zubair conversed on there a bit but there wasn’t really much point. We were all seeing each other day in, day out anyway. It took off when I then used it to keep in contact with the members of Team S, my new-found friends from GRADSchool, but the straw that broke the camel’s back was Emily finding out. I don’t know how many times we messaged each other over the first few days but it became quite bonkers to be honest. Thankfully, things slowly calmed down until it was basically dead by late summer.

June

The 1st of June was marked quite notably by the inaugural VT lab party, which celebrated the start of summer, the leaving of the undergraduates and the successful completion of transfer reports for everyone from the 05-06 bunch. Yes, we actually had a party that wasn’t a VT Christmas party, nor just a few drinks and a chat in the retreat. This was a full blown thing with music, food, drink and even non-VTers (Emily, Sanaz, Ben, Swampi, Daniella, Julia and James all put in an appearance as far as I remember). And it didn’t stop there; we went out afterwards too, ending up in the Leadmill with a severly inebreated Mike Stannett (who me and Em had to roll in to a taxi) and Henry (T to his friends) who proceeded to fall over people and had to be delicately manouevered home by Julia.

On the way to the Leadmill, Henry instead decided to try Gatecrasher One. They didn’t let us in. It burnt down a week later. I swear there is no relationship between those two events, though no-one has yet been able to prove either way. Yes, June was certainly packed with events. We were invited to Alice’s party, but that somehow went awry. I organised two seminars, one being the return of Gerald and the other my final Theory SIG with Nick Bezhanishvili. That’s probably significant because of Emmanuel’s track record in inviting speakers in the first half of 2006, although we didn’t do that much better even with me in charge.

Also in that month, Peter Höfner left us to return to Germany, following some sausages and potato salad in the DCS quadrangle. Henry celebrated his birthday with a night out at Nando’s and Havana, proceeded by a rather pointless postgraduate research day hosted by the University. Finally, Sheffield was submerged by floods in the final week of June (usually one of the hottest times of the year) and we really needed our umbrella-ella-ellas (ay ay ay). What a rollercoaster that was!

July

Things started to dry out a bit in July. I remember taking a trip around the ghost town that Meadowhall had become, post-flood before returning to the university for the postgraduate barbeque. The most memorable event was of course the departmental picnic which was preceded by my move to VT Lab 3 and an afternoon spent with Mike and some old cassette tapes preparing the music quiz. That was the first time we didn’t make it to the end with Emily (the last three times we got a taxi back home together) and we haven’t managed it any time since either.

August

In August, we had a yearly visit from Barry, this time without his sidekick Monika. Memorably this marked the beginning of the collapse of party planning which didn’t really recover until November. Having had four successes fairly close together (the kick off in May, the June lab party, Henry’s birthday and the departmental picnic), we were trying to get something together for the day of Barry’s visit but this was scuppered by Simon’s Theory SIG arrangements and a general lack of interest.

The following week we did go out for the August birthday celebrations, but things went quite differently to our past events. To start with, Emily missed this one (she was on holiday as I recall). It was much more a VT affair. The usual triage of Henry, Emmanuel and Abraham were there, along with Stannett who was also becoming something of a regular. However, initially we also had Simon and Ramsay, and Mahmood also came along, being keen to finally try a nightclub.

My most vivid memories of that night are of us eating lunch outside at the University arms and then heading to the Harley for seemingly endless games of pool, with Mahmood being something of a dark horse. We’d lost both Simon and Ramsay by the time we moved over to RSVP, where Stannett was showing severe signs of intoxication and Mahmood finally gave up and went home, after being exposed to the volume of the music there.

Now a quintet, we ended up in hell, also known as Embrace, where I first took the position that popular venues are like popular music i.e. generally rubbish. The events I’ve been to since have been an order of magnitude better, and going off on my own to organise things has been one of the best things I’ve done since. Not that I don’t still enjoy our nights out — just as long as we end up at somewhere vaguely decent like the Leadmill and not a preposturously overhyped place such as Embrace. It really is no different from what Kingdom was and I knew that well enough by reputation before. The departmental holiday afterwards was so much better.

September

The first week in September was notable for my trip to Lisbon. The main thing I can remember is the heat which was all too much for me. I think I’d prefer future conferences to be in Antartica or something. Well maybe not, but at least somewhere where the temperature isn’t overbearing. On my return, I acquired access to the University CMS after jumping through the appropriate hoops, and Liang left us after completing his MPhil panel successfully. His desk was quickly taken by Csaba, who’s visiting John for six months. It was also the last month that Ibby was with us, as far as I recall. At the beginning of the month, he was organising gym sessions with me, but by mid-September he’d decided to take a year out. We’ve yet to see if he will actually return.

I’m reminded of him also because he was originally going to go to Gatecrasher’s 14th birthday party at Magna with me. In the end, he gave it up due to Ramadan, and I ended up going with Henry instead. It was a fantastic night, and something I’ve since experienced again with the Boxing Day event. I’m now looking forward to the Resurrection on the 22nd of March and the eventual return of Gatecrasher One around September (if I’m still around by then).

October

October was a month of quite a few nights out, but none of them involved the VT crew. On the 2nd, I visited the Tuesday Club for the first time and was treated to a brilliant show by DJ Yoda. The week after, it was the Octagon for Oakenfold (along with Ben Gold and Riley & Durrant who been at all three Crasher events so far). The month culminated with a return to the Tuesday Club on the 30th to see Skream and High Contrast. That was also my first experience of a D&B crowd though (or rather a student D&B crowd), which wasn’t pleasant. Let’s not dance, let’s just push each other about… what fun.

Back in the DCS, we gained two new PhD students, Andrea (who I’d already met in April when she came for an interview) and Mesude (who Mike told there was no room in the lab…). Both have proved really enthusiastic so far, and it makes a nice change to actually have some people who are willing to get involved, do things and be sociable. On the subject of social events, the last weeks of October also saw us kick off our postgraduate meetings (which Mike had mentioned to me back in July at the picnic) with free pizza and a second postgraduate meal (this time for new students) at K Pasa, having moved from Wokmania and its rather dodgy food (health inspectors anyone). Saying that, K Pasa has gone somewhat downhill since, and after numerous trips over the past six months or so, me and Mahmood pretty much say goodbye to it in December.

The postgraduate meetings were something of a trial to get going. The first one was attended by just me, Maslita and Mahmood and resulted in an e-mail and associated discussions which meant that the next meeting had only three people missing. Since then, things have settled down to just over half of the VT postgraduates attending. It will be interesting to see if this continues in the new year. Also in October, I acquired the role of Sun campus ambassador. It’s still yet to really kick off but things are looking promising (unlike with the Google debacle).

November

November saw our clubbing trips re-established after a few false starts and me going it alone for a bit. The first of two took place on the 2nd, where Emily rejoined me, Henry and Abraham. Csaba also joined us and we briefly had the company of Mesude, before she had to rush off for her Design Patterns meeting. Csaba made it as far as Reflex before he also decided to head for home, and we finished the night in the Leadmill again. Memorably, Emily went off home early, because her feet were aching and both Henry and Abraham headed off not long after. I finished the last hour or so off on my own before heading home when the club closed. It was quite empty given it was still middle of semester, and even more so by closing time, with the taxi driver also commenting on this on the way home.

The week after I returned to the Tuesday club for the big birthday bash and Pendulum. I was already a bit doubtful of it, after last time’s experience with the D&B folks, and was also feeling a bit tired. However, it ended up turning into a fiasco when the fire alarm went off not once but twice and we all ended up outside in the cold. We ended up seeing probably about an hour of Pendulum and went in the other room for about half an hour after they’d gone off to make up for it and also avoid the cloakroom queue.

On the 21st (a date chosen especially for this reason), we celebrated Emily’s 21st (actually on the 19th) with another trip out. The socials list proved its worth when Dave came along and it was one of our best nights out in my opinion. We kicked off in the Cavendish as usual, before going to the Varsity. However, we didn’t stay there when we discovered that they’d decided to show some football match that night. Instead, we headed for the Forum which was blissfully free of such torrid entertainment and we had a nice chat there going briefly to the Frog and Parrot (where we parted company with Csaba) and then the Leadmill. We were a little early, so we ended up having to wait to get in. Emily’s birthday tickets paid off when we all got a free drink, discounted entry and they enjoyed a bottle of champagne.

It had to be one of the weirdest nights though, given they had some bucking cow thing that people were riding on and they were playing all sorts of classic pop tunes such as the Spice Girls, PJ and Duncan and S Club 7. What I’ve said about popularity obviously rings true because it was packed to the rafters for this. I was soon pretty fed up of it and I think this was also felt by the others. Emily left early again and, in hindsight, I probably should have gone with her, as we left not fifteen minutes later.

December

December was indisputably the party month, though I feel only me and Emmanuel were really feeling the vibe. We had two VT lab parties, the first being a postgraduate one but this was nowhere near as successful as the one in the summer. Only the usual VT suspects turned up, and we reined it in by about 7pm and went home. It was however a good chance to try out the new speakers and amplifier before the Christmas bash the week after.

The VT party was really quiet to begin with and I don’t think it ever really took off for the academics. At 12pm, you’d not have thought there was a party imminent, and it must have took until at least 2pm before there was a sizeable amount of people there. They seemed to come in dribs and drabs and it was quite late on before the VT choir (myself, Henry, Mesude, Abraham, Emmanuel and Tony Simons) gave our rendition of ‘VT The World’. Fortunately, we were spared another slideshow from Tony, and the party took on a life of its own when it was left to just the postgraduates for the last few hours.

There was quite a final ring to all this, as this is likely to be the last Christmas we’ll all spend together. As a result, it’s a good job all three parties (these and the departmental one) were good fun, if not anything spectacular. It will be interesting to see what 2008 now brings and how VT continues to change…

I arrived back from a very tiring and exhausting trip to Lisbon yesterday evening. It seems the whole thing was fraught with chaos pretty much, but there were lots of interesting talks and it was great to meet people working with JikesRVM for their research. In retrospect, I should have planned things earlier and better, but you learn from experience. I’m still a little shocked at how fast I suddenly had a paper accepted there (if only in the workshop) and was heading off to Portugal.

I left last Monday morning, after only about three hours sleep. I ended up finishing the presentation the Sunday before, after various things took me off track earlier that weekend. Taking three attempts to get my camera being just one of them… I did have a nice trip to the gym with Ibby on the Saturday but getting up early then too really didn’t help. I think there’s only the Sundays in the last two weeks that I haven’t been up at 6am.

The only direct flight I could find was via Air Portugal down at London Heathrow so I got a coach down there on Monday. That itself took nearly five hours. It makes me glad I have an iPod, so at least I can while away the time listening to good tunes (should take it to Embrace if I ever have to go again). There was a lot less waiting time for flights this time round, unlike when I went to Belgium (four hours in the airport IIRC). It did however mean that I was worried about making it in time all the way down to Heathrow, and then things all got messed up on the way back. Next time I need to go to the continent, I’m taking a train.

I took advantage of a chance to avoid Gordon Brown while in the airport, and got a tax-free copy of the new Gatecrasher Immortal CD which will help prepare for the big night out in a couple of weeks. After a bit of food and drink, I boarded the plane. I’d booked the outward flight business class (as that was all that was left, and it was about the same price) and got treated to a nice three course meal before landing in Lisbon where it was noticeably hotter!

Once there, I took the advice given in the conference travel notes and bought a taxi ticket at the airport for about 15 euros. It was a bit more expensive, but better than risking the taxi driver charging what they wanted. Another conference delegate got charged about 45 euros to get from the hotel to the conference site! The hotel was okay, if not that grandiose. I don’t reckon it was as good as the one I went to for either Gradschool, MGS or my various IBM visits, but it was better than the campus accommodation I stayed in for Types and BCTCS obviously (and much better than that for RelMiCS this time last year, where you had to walk out of the room to the shower). It completely confused me (and had to go and ask at the desk) that you had to put your room key in a slot to get any electricity! I tried to get in the Zurique instead, but it was booked up by the time I registered. Again, should have got my act together quicker.

I then went out for a look round and managed to go all over the place but where I wanted to go. I didn’t exactly get lost (I always knew where I was) but I never found where I wanted to go. The most annoying thing is I started heading in the right direction, and then decided it wasn’t somehow, and went back the other way — duh! I did get a few good pictures though, but no restaurant I went back and had something in the hotel bar instead.

Even more fun ensued on the Tuesday when I tried to find the university for the Java PT event. I asked at the reception and the guy there kindly told me what train to get. The train was quite cheap (only 3.2 euros both ways) and very efficient (arriving exactly on time on every occasion), but when I got there it turned out not to be as close as I thought. Again, I started going in the right direction, and then changed again! Grrrr! I got there eventually but an hour into the event (when I started out an hour before). They had my name badge all ready for me though.

The talks were very interesting (those that I could understand anyway — one was entirely in Portuguese, but looked boring anyway — all about UML and stuff). Dinner was a bit odd — it just seemed to be a buffet of rabbit food and chocolate sauce. Lots of drinks though, which was what I needed more. It was 24 degrees at 8:30 the night before, and over 30 degrees in the daytime! Next time I want a conference somewhere cold, preferably Iceland or something. We had talks on JavaFX, GlassFish and NetBeans. I managed to miss the one on open sourcing Java, but given the number of faux paus made later, I’m glad I did. As Tom Marble said before I left, they wouldn’t be able to tell me much new about that anyway. The most interesting was the Sun SPOT demo (I believe Gordon is going to use some of these) and I have a nice bit of video of this, with robots and Project Looking Glass.

For some reason, we got an umbrella for finishing the conference. It wasn’t raining, and I think they just want to have the joke of giving us a Sun umbrella (get it?). Heading back was quite a trek, but at least I knew where I was going this time. I got an Iced Tea (ha ha) at the railway station. They seem to be keen on this there instead of real tea. I had some peach Ice Tea in the bar the night before too. Not much negro cha though…

Back at the ranch, I had a shower (after all that heat) and then went out again, hoping to be more successful this time. Indeed, I did make it to Barrio Alto on this occasion, which Fran had recommended, and had some of the local cod fish at a restaurant there. Very nice but also very boney. Again, it was a bit of a distance to go though, so I decided to stay closer to home in future, and was quite happy that I wouldn’t have to think of my own plans until the Friday evening…

The next morning I again got the train and did the walk to the conference, but later realised that I could have got a coach! The e-mail didn’t mention the 5th! Anyway, I made it, registered and finally got my talk out of the way! I felt much better after that. Not sure how much of it just went straight over their heads, but at least I tried.

There was also an interesting talk by IBM on their VM (which GCs they use and such like) and on using Java together with Petri Nets. The conference (PPPJ 07) started proper in the afternoon, with the first session on how people had used Java. There were some very interesting talks, one on a FOSS web teaching system (both FOSS and GNU/Linux seemed very much in vogue, although they were using Windows Vista to present which caused the usual problems) and one on a scripting language for programming on a phone. One of the four talks was postponed, as the speaker was stuck in a Parisian airport, so we ended up having it the day after. Some very nice practical talks which makes a change…

Things really started properly after that with the conference cocktail party. It was at this point that I met up with Jeremy Singer who I saw in Manchester the year before. Both he and Matthias Hauswirth had seen my post to the JikesRVM list before I left but not had chance to reply! Matthias told me about some problems they’d had running tests with Eclipse 3.2+JikesRVM, which I’ve just started to try and chase up. I had a good chat with Jeremy about all sorts of stuff related to JikesRVM and Classpath during the cocktail party. It was in these lovely botanical gardens with a beautiful view of the skyline — see my photos on Facebook. The waiters seemed very keen on shovelling food down us, even going so far as to replace the cocktail stick in my hand with another at one point!

The next day was dominated by more talks and a nice trip round the area. We went to a convent (actually inhabited by monks, as the word merely describes the size of the place there), a castle and a winery. Again, see the photos. We ended up at Hotel da Mar, with a nice view of the beach and sea (obviously) where we had a four course meal again including codfish! The final day was purely talks and some very interesting ones. I especially enjoyed Jeremy’s, where he demonstrated generational garbage collecting using socks — reminded me of Piero. I felt sorry for some of the speakers as they were obviously having trouble with giving a talk in English (especially the French).

Arriving back at the hotel after the conference had ended, I packed up as much as possible while deciding whether to venture out again. Eventually I did, deciding I’d be too hungry otherwise. I went to a restaurant I’d remembered fairly near by (after getting there much too late on Monday) and ordered some grilled pork (which initially was nearly a coke — the Portuguese seem to struggle with English and can be very abrupt). My stomach full, I went back to the hotel to bed.

Saturday was spent almost entirely in travel. I left the hotel after breakfast at about quarter to eight, getting a taxi to the airport. I had to check the umbrella specially into oversized luggage to get it home. The plane was then late taking off by an hour (we were sat there all strapped in for ages) and I missed my connecting coach. Luckily, I could amend the ticket for 3 pounds so didn’t have to pay again although it wasn’t fun waiting an hour and a half just to get the coach. I finally got back to Sheffield at about 8:30 and fortunately the 123 turned up and I was home by about ten past nine. It was quite an experience, but I’m glad to be back in the UK where I can at least survive outside in the daytime and get people to understand what I’m saying …. most of the time…

It’s been a funny old week. It’s sort of like Sheffield has been on an attention seeking rampage. First, Gatecrasher One went up in flames the other week and now we see the worst flooding for more than a century. I’ve been considerably lucky to live in an area unaffected by this, and the few inconveniences I’ve had to suffer have been nothing compared to those who’ve lost their homes, their most valuable possessions and in some cases their lives.

The extent of it all was lost on me on Monday. I got soaked coming in that morning, but thought little more about it until it was time to go home. I knew it had caused some flooding at the station (Zubair couldn’t get a train down south), but didn’t realise the effect would be anything like it was. Going out to get the bus at 5pm proved a forlorn hope. The entire left-hand side heading towards Crookes and Walkley was packed solid and nothing was coming back down on our side.

I was lucky enough not to be on my own, being with Monika and another lady (Margaret) who works for the university, as we all usually catch the 123 together. Monika luckily had the foresight to get one of the few buses that did come down (a 30) and, in hindsight, we all should have. I’d pretty much given up on the 123 (as it tends to be a bit errant anyway), but we expected to see at least one 52. As it was, we waited until it was nearly six before we gave up, having seen only a few 120s go down and the odd First bus.

Walking down West Street we saw a couple of 123s going up towards Walkley (at last), but it seemed doubtful that they’d be coming back down again, at least anytime soon. On Leopold Street, one of the First drivers stopped to let us know what we’d already begun to guess; that they were stopping all the buses and taking them out of service. It did however seem a bit dumb that they didn’t at least take passengers as far as the depot, given that they had to drive the buses there anyway.

In the end, we went to the taxi rank at Barker’s Pool and joined the waiting queue of anxious people waiting to get home. A lady came past to tell us what was going on, and that they were providing food, drink and shelter in the Winter Gardens. That’s when we knew how extreme things were I guess. Quite a few people waiting couldn’t even get a taxi to take them home, as the routes were flooded, so I guess that’s where they were headed. As our route was just a case of heading up the parkway towards Woodhouse, it was easy enough to get a willing taxi driver to take us there and by half past seven I finally got home.

Listening to the radio on Tuesday morning made me skeptical as to whether I’d be able to get back in again, and I was contemplating not bothering at all. I only did in the end because it would be my last day for a while and there were quite a few things I needed to get sorted. As it turned out, there were no problems getting in, the bus was actually early and I spent a really nice day with Henry, Emmanuel, Abraham and Ibby.

Myself and Ibby had a rather extravagant final lunch at Nando’s where Ibby complained about the cost even though he wasn’t paying… It was really nice and worth the money, I thought. On the way home, I went through the Wicker on the 52, and it was a real mess following the flooding. Most of it looked more like a building site.

There were still problems on Wednesday. I had to get to Leeds for my enhancement operation, but the Sheffield bit of the M1 was closed. We ended up having to take a tour through the windy backroads, going out towards the Pennines and Manchester before following Mortimer Road up to Milhopestones and driving along the A626 to eventually get back to the M1. In all, a journey which took about an hour for a distance which should have taken about 15 minutes.

We also had to make the same trip on both Thursday and Sunday, as Meadowhall (where I’d usually have followup appointments) was flooded and has only just reopened today. Fortunately, the M1 was open again and so the journey only took about 40 minutes each way.

I tried to chillout for most of the remainder of the week, in order to allow myself to recover, but it’s not actually as easy as it seems. Last weekend I’d have preferred to do nothing. The end of last week I found it really difficult to do nothing. It also meant being out of contact with people (although Ibby rang twice which was really nice) and having lots of time to think; which can be both a good thing and a bad thing.

Still not sure how well this is going to work out, and still having to pump myself full of drugs. I’m taking going back in slowly, partly for this reason, and also because I couldn’t actually think of many reasons to be in the department at the moment. I’m actually happier here right now, which is strange. And actually finding it easier to get things done — although so far it’s mainly been emails and such like that I’ve had to follow up on from last week.

Sounds like Mike has also had a fair old time of it too, from reading his blog. He texted me on Monday asking for the CICS number to get online which I gathered meant he had no broadband connection due to the weather. There’s a postgraduate meal coming up this week, organised by Amanda, which I hope will work out well. I’ll be going in for that at least.

Fingers crossed all works out well. I’ve had too much stress by far over the last nine months from this…

This Week’s Tune: Gossip — Standing In The Way Of Control [Soulwax Nite Version]

So this week has mainly been about getting the Turnitin system up and running. Our inaugural use will be for the 3rd year projects which have to be handed in two weeks today (Wednesday the 2nd) at 11am. We’ve already had to make the decision to have an additional handin deadline of the Friday as well, to allow Turnitin time to generate re-submission reports. Basically, two printed copies will be handed in as usual, but they also now have to handin their plagiarism report. As a side-effect, this also gives us an electronic submission of the writeup. The mail to students went out yesterday, and it looks like some have already started to play around with the system. They’ve been directed to Anna in the first instance, as UG secretary, but any technical issues I’ll have to deal with.

The next stage will be the MSc dissertations, the initial part of which has a deadline of the week after. For that, the plan is for me to write a guide on how to setup the system, rather than doing so myself, and then to get Alice, as MSc secretary, to actually set it up. Should be fun…

We’re missing a few folks from the lab this week, but it’s not that much different because the majority were also missing last week too… Henry, Ibby and Simon are enjoying the delights of MGS at Nottingham with exciting lectures on operational semantics, category theory, stone throwing and other such shenanigans. Tonight, they get to enjoy dinner at an Indian restaurant which prides itself on its decor… or rather, Ibby won’t, as he has decided to commute every day. Yesterday morning, he managed to end up on the way to Derby instead, and missed the lambda calculus lecture while being kindly directed by some ladies who, apparently, enjoyed getting to talk to a nice Yorkshire lad. I do think he’s missed out on the best bit, which is the social side; 175 pounds plus travel expenses for lectures he could have had here is a bit of a con. Interestingly, we heard nothing from him last week, even when I texted him on Anna’s behalf about the open day, yet this week he has phoned me about four times so far…

Back in the lab, Emmanuel is stuck in a bit of a rut while he waits for Tony Cowling to read his transfer report. I think he was a little displeased to find out that he hadn’t got round to it yet yesterday. Here’s wishing him all the best with it, and hopefully we can a celebration when he completes, as that will be all our 05-06 students. At the same time, this year’s students are getting ready for their six month reports. Mohammed is certainly putting a lot of work in to it to please Siobhán and Barry Eaglestone, while I think Ramsay’s current research direction may be more suited to the graphics group… Poor Mahmood is struggling with a mountain of marking from Phil, and Zubair has had to stay away from the lab due to catching a Vista virus, but did find time to visit the new Information Commons briefly. A proper trip there is planned soon…

So it’s the beginning of the new year, and an appropriate time to wrap up 2006 and move on to new and better things in 2007. It concluded rather quietly; most of the last week was spent with family over Christmas, although we did have one VT crew outing to Zubair’s house. Lord Ibby provided us with a Monopoly board, and Zubair ended up rolling in it, just about bankrupting the both of us. Turns out the expensive ones aren’t the best ones… trust Wikipedia next time. We unfortunately failed in our task of organising something for New Year’s Eve. Not many of us were left though; with Fran having returned home, Zubair going down to London and Ibby working, it left only me and Ramsay and I failed to find a way to motivate him out of his crypt.

So let’s try and review 2006… not that I can actually remember much of it that clearly. I know it more or less started and ended with Fran. He arrived in February (along with Luca and Dario), and left us just the other week. He was pretty central to most events of 2006, and it will be a different world in 2007 without him. Hopefully, we will get out to see him in Sevilla… Emotions are still pretty raw on this subject, so I’ll not dwell on it for too long.

Early 2006 also saw the completion of the VT crew for 05-06, with Zubair, Emmanuel and Shaukat all arriving and our vain attempts to squeeze them into our overcrowded lab. It looked quite different back then. Things rolled on quite quietly; plenty of VT and Theory SIG seminars going on, and the odd bit of demonstrating. It was quite a busy program of events at the time, with Graham Birtwistle, Georg Struth and Gerald Luettgen all giving talks to the SIG. Marian’s unfortunately underwent a number of false starts though…

Easter saw myself, Mike and Simon take to the road, embarking on a UK tour, which had us giving a talk at BCTCS (to which Graham also tagged along, managing to end up falling down Mike’s stairs and spending most of it hobbling) and attending MGS (sans Mike) and Types. I recall WSDL being the main focus of Simon’s attention (according to Mike anyway) and a conversation at Types gave birth to TNT.

World Cup fever was soon in full flow on our return (and the plants were dead). This was probably the year I paid the most attention to it. It’s somehow more poignant when there are actually people around you from the various countries. Our visitors, Fran, Luca and Dario certainly got in to the spirit, with an additional dose of friendly rivalry. This was the time we also saw the return of Ibby to our flock; we hadn’t seen much of him after his plans for organising DCS spending went awry at Christmas and he missed out on MGS. He made the most of supporting our (as usual) pathetic team, and gloating over Spain’s loss to Fran.

Summer was certainly very busy. In early June, we sparked off a series of lunches, to increase the social activity of the group, the last such social having been way back in the autumn of 2005. We made a few visits to the Swim (where we also took Conor McBride during his visit) and the Cavendish (to which I first went at the invitation of Fran, Luca and Dario back in May). There was also an abortive attempt at visiting the Varsity, which demonstrated the excellent loyalty of our fellow VTers.

Research wise (I suppose I should mention that at some point), things were dominated by Ibby’s panic attack following his six-month panel and the Concurrency Reading Group, which ground itself in to a rut with a discussion on flocking. Lots of whiteboards were filled, lots of pictures taken and erm… lots of music was heard…

Speaking of research, we also had the Research Away day, for which me and Simon spent considerable time hacking away at posters and where the idea of postgraduate reps was first launched. I was later crowned as VT’s rep, but we are still lacking a full set.

Mike is responsible for what must have been the most significant part of the summer. On the last day of June, the Theory SIG embarked on a picnic and managed to gain most of the VT and CompBio groups as members. It was a fantastic day, with some fabulous sunshine (rare — this is Britain), strawberries and socialising. It ran in much the same way as the VT christmas bash, with everyone bringing some food, and seemed to go pretty well.

Simon unfortunately missed out on this, as it took place during his sojourn in Milton Keynes. The poor guy was harshly pulled back to reality by GSC6100 and its bizarre idea of literature reviews… never again. A second picnic was attempted (The Revenge of the Strawberries) but didn’t seem as successful. Quite a few people were away by this point.

August was a big month of change. It began with Fran’s birthday party, and ended with the beginning of the VT lab renovations. Myself, Zubair and Mahmood stayed until 10pm one evening and created the nucleus, celebrating its completion with a kebab. We ended the summer with a little party in the retreat, involving music, food and much laughter. The final Friday was an interesting departmental holiday, and I then spent the next week (bringing us in to September) at RelMiCS in Manchester, the most memorable part of which was the outing which went on from 12pm to 2am.

September was quite a momentous month. Most notable was the arrival of Ramsay, who slid in to the VT crew with a surprising synergy. We soon had him out and about, visiting a noodle bar (East One) that Fran suggested. The meal was also something of a turning point, as Simon left on his holidays straight after, and Fran went to China a couple of days later.

Earlier that week was Mike’s hypercomputation workshop. Myself and Simon ended up helping out, and Mike got quite stressed (and managed to piss off Gillian). Best moment was the meal at Las Iguanas — some nice food and free (for me) to boot. Of course, the week finished with the Mexican Independence party with both Ramsay and Ibby dancing the light fantastic.

The end of the month saw the climax of the lab reshuffle, with just about everyone turning up to pitch in and help. We kicked it off with lunch in the Cavendish and then proceeded to throughly revitalise the place. Soon after, Shaukat, Mahmood and Sarah also moved out in to VT Lab 3, which gave us a fair bit more space, but also seems to have had a notable effect on the ambience.

Ramadan kicked in towards the end of the month, which had an effect on our partying, as most of the crew were fasting. We had another research retreat party, this time with Fran (freshly returned from China and jetlagged) and Ramsay, but it was let down by Ibby and Mahmood being unable to eat. The same week also saw us bid farewell to Carlos who returned to Mexico, and not bid farewell to Fran, who decided to return after his visit to Spain over the next two weeks.

October was relatively quiet and subdued, partially due to Ramadan and partially due to Ibby hacking furiously on his transfer report. I went mad and rushed mine through for the end of September, but it took until Christmas to see the back of Ibby’s (at least we hope that’s the back of it…) This was also the month I had laser surgery. Looking back over my earlier blogs (a use for them!) it seems we also had another little party in the retreat (the last — it’s not the best venue) and it was that month that me and Ramsay discovered the library basement. Things were dominated by the VT postgraduate seminars, and of course, I finished the month by visiting Google in Little London Village.

November was characterised by outings a plenty. We kicked off with the anticipated postgraduate meal, in which I had more input than last year, being a rep. following the research away day. VT lab wise, we had a cinema visit to see ‘Borat’ (with me, Fran and Ramsay also going to see ‘Children of Men’) and of course Bonfire Night.
The week after we went bowling, and the following week saw an extended trip to the Interval, my visit to Gerald in York and Fran’s Spanish night. A very busy three weeks…

We had another cinema visit to see Bond the week after, but things kind of went wayward after that with a fair bit of fragmentation occurring. Me and Ibby managed a wide range of lunches, but most of the time it was only us (although Ramsay came a few times). Ramsay and Fran similarly had a few nights out on their own. Of course there was also mine and Ibby’s disastrous attempt to find CompBio… least said the better… and my attendance at my first departmental board.

We did managed to get a fair number of Christmas decorations, and we had Mike as our honorary guest to perform the switch on. Me and Ibby somehow managed to wind up spending an entire afternoon at Meadowhell, and our attempt to get people out to the pub for lunch left just me and Ramsay going. The VT party was also pretty low-key this year.

Things came together in the final week. Monday saw Ibby, me, Fran, Ramsay and Simon all visiting Summer Street, as guests of Mahmood and Zubair, for some of their cooking. It was a nice evening, with me, Fran and Ramsay not leaving until about 10 (and Ramsay feeling oddly sober).
Of course the departmental party and Fran’s departure followed over a very eventful couple of days. On the Thursday, it was just me and Ibby in the lab — or rather out of the lab, as we spent most of the day out for lunch. What time we did spend there was spent reminiscing a little, just as I have in creating this blog.

And so, we arrive back where we started, with Ibby cajoling me into writing an account of 2006. Truth is always stranger than fiction. Hope you all enjoyed 2006, feel free to leave comments on your own memories of the year and let’s make 2007 even better!

Memorable Quotes

• These stairs look a bit steep…
• Craaaayyy–zy!
• We’ll go to the Interval for a quick coffee and home by eight
• What would happen if carbon suddenly left the Earth?
• Ramsay is defo right and me wrong
• Ah-hah!
• Zoo-bar
• How about a picnic?
• paz amor respecto
• Daytime bad

So I was meant to be writing this presentation over Tuesday and Wednesday. It didn’t transpire. I got lots out of the way early Tuesday morning in preparation, but then the lab filled up after Crossover and that was it. I at least got a structure out and about the first half of the slides before we left on Wednesday. Ramsay, Fran, Abraham and I went to the Interval for what was originally going to be ‘a quick coffee and home by eight’, according to Fran. Only Abraham left after the first drink. The rest of us stayed for another, and then went on to Bar One. Unfortunately, I had to leave the guys at about quarter to eleven so I could be ready for the presentation the next day, but they were still going strong after five pints. I didn’t see them come in the next morning, but I imagine I missed a treat.

I was in Thursday morning, where I was surprised to find they did actually come back and set the alarm. Good guys. I left about quarter to ten and caught the train to York. I did the presentation, and then had a good chat with Gerald for a few hours, which provided me with a lot of good feedback on where I need to go next. It’s good to get to chat to someone who actually works in this area. We arranged for him to do another talk at Sheffield in March, so we need a Theory SIG again by then…

Friday felt a bit like undergraduate whipping day. I started with the CCS remedials at nine, where surprisingly a good number did turn up and wanted the course again from the beginning. I later did another database tutorial for Siobhán, which was easy this week as we’re on to the practical SQL stuff. I was annoyed to find Emmanuel had dropped the seminar this week. There are too few slots as it is, and he doesn’t seem to be arranging things enough in advance. I gave another copy of the list to Henry to pass on to him.

After this and lunch, there was very little day left. So we finished with fiddling about with DOSBox and a game of Civilization IV. Another week over, and only four left…

Woah! It’s been such a long time since I last wrote… It’ll soon be November, dark nights are here and it’s bloody cold. It’s so long ago that last time I blogged I was still wearing glasses, yet now I’m over three weeks post-surgery. Still touch and go, but it feels great!

So what’s been happening back at the ranch? Well, the week after I last blogged was very quiet. I had the op on the Saturday, and decided to take the Monday off to recover. I only did bits of days for most of that week, being drugged up with antibiotics and steroids… what fun! I was unimpressed with how few people noticed (or, at least, didn’t have the balls to say anything). Oh dear, some of these folks can let you down sometimes… I had to go in for the demonstrating anyway, but I also realised over the weekend that I would drive myself crazy if I stayed at home and did nothing anyway. Better to go to the lab and do nothing with the crew instead…

The only problem with blogging so late is I’m now struggling to remember some of the real old stuff so this might get even more random than normal. Main thing I remember about the first two weeks is things being very quiet, not many people about and lots of VTers not being able to eat… I do remember that Fran blew back in on the second Thursday (the 19th) like a breath of fresh air, and he noticed straight away — knew I could rely on him! Turns out that people in España actually get told their perscriptions while we Brits don’t… obviously we’re too stupid or something. We had a fair range of VT talks — Henry, Abraham, Liang and Zubair all bit the bullet in those two weeks, with Zubair accidentally swearing during his…

Also during the second week, myself and Ramsay discovered the real library. Hidden away underground where only crazy postgrads can go are shelves and shelves of books, lit only by little lightbulbs and surrounded by a gorgeous atmosphere of eerie silence and knowledge. It was fun! I also went down there with Fran later in the week, when we were searching for some biology books for him (which we put on my ucard because of the crazy way he’s registered here). Turns out that was the older edition we didn’t want, but it was worth it just to see the caged books on level 2.

Also had a cool meeting with Mike in week 2, where we pretty much just chilled out with a cuppa before Simon’s transfer panel. He passed, so his death sentence is increased by two years. Last week was important, because that was my panel. After waiting _forever_ for Mike to read the draft, I found out the week before that the problem was that he thought that was the finished copy and was waiting for the party to start! So we quickly arranged the tea party for the week after, he scanned through the draft at light-speed and we had a crazy hour on the Monday whence I passed.

Concurrency Reading Group restarted, but I didn’t have time to read the flipping paper, and, after doing so today, I still don’t understand all this stuff about lettuces and cabbages and what-have-you. Surely there should be a simpler version for normal peeps? I was knocked out a bit by Mike turning up even though he said he wasn’t going to. Ibby also shocked us all by actually going to his first ever distributed systems session and getting served with an exam paper by Salim.

By this time of course, a party was long overdue (Ramsay’s booze supplies were running down for one thing), so we chilled out in the retreat on Thursday evening with some tunes and a passionate discussion on universities. Simon attended for the first time, but seemed very disinterested, preferring to pour over a book on someat or other.

Talking of food, we should backtrack here a bit because, of course, by this time, Ibby and co. were back on the wagon. That Monday was really scared because it was Eid and there was no-one there at all. I had three fucking hours in that lab with no-one!!! How bloody depressing. Fran arrived to save me around 11, and it was just us two until Ramsay rolled in at 12. It was so quiet that we all managed to go for lunch about the same time, and I locked Fran out because I didn’t realise he’d be back so soon. Whoops! That made me feel bad…

It’s getting busier again now. For one, Emmanuel is about a lot more after quitting his job. Certainly, there were plenty of folks about today. In fact, today was weird because everyone decided to get up early for some reason. Ibby was online about 8:20 or something stupid, and Ramsay appeared at 8:30. Way to knock my brain out of gear, folks! Anyway, to further aid the completely non-chronological order of this blog, let’s go back a bit again. The party was the end of my week last week, because I toddled off to little London village on Friday to see Google, coming away with some goodies and an idea of what our lab should be! I also found out more about our pizza and I’m awaiting my ‘I’m feeling hungry’ shirt now and, more importantly, the money. You can find out more specifics on my other blog. I kept in contact with the lab folks though; both Fran and Ramsay texted me while I was doing a little sightseeing tour, and it was nice to hear from them. Seems they did a good job of sorting out the seminar too; looks like I missed some fun in Ibby and Mahmood’s session, but Google was worth it.

Monday morning was kinda scary this week, because I walked in and the door handle fell off on me. Seems the folks have left it like that on Friday to trap me! Then my flipping spoon broke too when I made some tea. What’s going on? Main events of the day were a trip to the library with Fran to finally get a copy of the same book that didn’t need renewing every five seconds, sorting out the end-of-the-week events (more later) and a meeting with Mike that went on for about three hours, but finally saw him contributing to Totally Nasty Teddybears or whatever were calling it now!

Anyway, there’s been a lot going on, suffice to say, and I’ve probably missed truck loads. Hopefully I can cajole Ibby in to doing a blog that will fill in some more from his unique point of view. No doubt he will tell more about his new master, Ramsay, and how the UK is the capital of the world (an idea he raised to much derision at the lunch we had last Wednesday). Up and coming, we have a cinema trip on Thursday and a bonfire on Sunday which should be fun. Quite a few people interested; things are warming up again after a real depressing start to October with a really quiet lab (the establishment of VT Lab 3 is partly to blame, I think). We need something to contrast the weather which is getting fucking freezing. We should definitely move VT lab to its own customised ship and sail the world, attending conferences and catching up on our tans (and that’s just from the servers on board…) We also need to get set up for Christmas soon… the lab needs some decorations this year and Fran is leading the call for that.

Anyways, catch you on the other side!

Just got back from Manchester and the 9th International Conference on Relational Methods in Computer Science (RelMiCS) / 4th International Workshop on Applications of Kleene Algebra (AKA) yesterday. I left on the afternoon of Bank Holiday Monday, so I’ve been away from Sheffield for a while.

If one thing has been consistent over the week, it’s the weather. I went to have a look around after arriving on the Monday, it chucked it down and that was pretty much how it was for the rest of the week. Fortunately, it was really nice on the Friday, which, by sheer luck, was also the day of the excursion to Quarry Bank Mill and the conference dinner. But I’m sure the weather has proved a lot of the foreign delegates assumptions about UK weather correct…

I used the rest of the first evening to hack on my transfer report. I must say it feels much better now I’ve made a start and have at least a plan of what’s going in it. I also made a few last minutes touch to my presentation, which I then gave on the Tuesday. It seemed to go okay, although as I suspected it was rather out of place. Glad to get it over and done with more than anything.

The tutorial sessions in Tuesday’s PhD workshop were good, although, despite an introduction from Peter Jipsen, I’m still no expert on relational and Kleene algebras. It was kind of weird having John there, and hearing his refinement talk for the third time. Although I think I get a lot more of it now… It was nice to hear that he was in a similar position to me as regards to this stuff.

The PhD workshop was nice, and it was good to have others there at a similar stage. We also tended to sort of group together, having more in common, especially at the dinner where our table was just about all PhD students.

We had a reception in the fossil gallery of the Manchester Museum on Tuesday evening — not sure if that was supposed to be ironic in some way. Basically just a few nibbles and some drinks. I used the rest of that evening to do a little more of the report.

On Wednesday, I took my laptop with me and got a connection to the outside world. This gave me a chance to touch base, and say hi to some of the Sheffield gang, as well as doing yet more on this report.

That was the last of it though. On Thursday, the talks seemed more interesting and a group of us (myself, Stephanie, Benoît and Joel) went out for an Indian in the evening. Friday was the excursion to Quarry Bank Mill in the afternoon, and this was followed by a nice meal in the Stanneylands Hotel. Afterwards, I went out again with David, Kamal, Stephanie and Benoît first to a pub, and then to a club where some of David’s mates were. It probably wasn’t a good idea to go out until 2am prior to talks at 9:30 the next morning, but somehow we all managed it. All in all, it was a good trip.