Quite A Nice Day

Well, today was quite interesting. I won't subject you to all the details, but I will run-down the highlight's. First, I got a good workout in this morning.

Afterwards, Dan, Julie and I made a run to Panera. Once there, I ordered the usual -- the Chicken Caesar Salad and Chicken Noodle Soup half-and-half. This time, however, was more sweet: they actually gave me the salad instead of calling an audible and giving me a Chicken Caesar Salad SANDWICH. Also, I got some coffee. At first I tried some sort of flavored coffee. Along with the splenda (the best type of sugar), the taste left something to be desired.

Once lunch was over, it was time for the main event: Vint Cerf's talk. I was slightly disappointed by two things:
1. No one in the CS department was alerted to his talk. I think that for someone as influential to the Computer Science world, the Computer Science department would have been notified. Not so much.
2. I cannot believe that Vint Cerf's name is not as well known as, say, Knuth. Obviously Cerf did not offer any sort of theoretical advance in Computer Science (in terms of Algorithms, computational complexity, software design principles), but he did perform an incredible engineering feat. This was no normal accomplishment: it is something that has changed the society forever. I'd say that's enough to get name recognition! :-)
Anyways, pressing forward. For someone who actually did great work more than 30 years ago, he is incredibly sharp and very clever. He told a very heartwarming story about how his wife actually was deaf for many years until she received a special implant that simulated the nerves around her ears helping her regain her hearing. How cool is that? During the hour and a half talk, he covered many topics: IP theft, peer-to-peer, IPv6, software engineering principles, software/OS/network security and interplanetary network communications. I should tell you that Interplanetary network communication protocols are really, really cool. If you want to know more about his talk, just email me. I will be happy to talk about it. However, the bottom line is this: He's a really engaging and entertaining speaker and I am very glad that I was able to attend.

Finally, in the third piece of big news: I have actually given up IM. Effective at 11:40 tonight, willatfurman and sandbaggerfour have signed off permanently. I have heard the naysayers tell me that it won't last a week. Its going to take a while to get used to. I think the hardest part will be the fact that I get very lonely at night time when I am in the house by myself. I guess that we'll just have to communicate via the blog! I know that won't bother people like Dan who have been trying to get me to write more. Here's to you DanO!

In the future, if you find yourself wanting to IM me, you'll just have to take the 1980s method and email. Either that, or you can hit me up on the cell. What a technological society.