Oh well, who thought that a move could actually be dangerous?
Well, first, this is the first move in my life where I had to throw away most of my things. Well, we could have taken them to Switzerland but I thought they’re not quite valuable enough to justify the transport costs (~$8000). The only problem in this equation is that my employer would have paid the move but I will now pay for the new acquisitions. Oh well, I guess I’m just nice!
I disposed two full industry-grade (apartment) trashcans like this:
A lot of good stuff :-(. But most of this stuff was still from my student time, so time to get new things!
The apartment was so clean after the move that our landlord even gave us $5 more than our deposit with the comment “that is the first apartment I don’t have to clean” :-).
Everything else was packed into a bunch of suitcases (will be fun to check them all). So a lot of nice luggage:
But before leaving the US, I had to go to the Blue Waters Extreme Scaling Workshop and the MPI Forum. Meaning to haul the luggage around a couple of times … but also life-threatening danger.
So the scaling workshop (where I’m at right now) is held in the northwest suburbs (Des Plaines). At the evening of the first day, we decided to walk a bit around to catch some fresh air. It was 9pm-ish. Well, we shouldn’t have gone into that sided road where a group of about 10-15 people were walking on the sidewalk. Obviously some kind of hispanic gang (like in the movies, seriously). So while we discussed how we avoid them (there was no other street side), a black SUV drove by, and suddenly (without apparent reason), the gang started to throw stones and other things at the car. Seriously!? Right in front of us (10 meters away). Since they were running after the car (on the street), it solved our problem of avoiding them :-). But still, that was a $4000 damage right there. And if this wasn’t enough, the car was coming back (!?) and got another round of stones (don’t ask) and the gang was running in our direction before they dispersed. I guess we were right in the middle of a gang fight. No shots fired, yet. The car stopped in front of us and we decided to go back (the stone-throwers were gone).
Police was at the scene seconds later … on the way back to the hotel, we heard a shot and a bullet deflection sounds (most likely metal) on the same street. Oh man, don’t go for a walk in the suburbs.
More to come … off to the MPI Forum tomorrow.