Well, I’ve been to Washington more than once, but I finally found the time to actually check out the city (the flight arrived Sunday noon and the first thing on the agenda was Sunday evening :-)). It’s a very nice city. It’s very nice for walking around and well connected by subway. I did miss the Pentagon though (well, next time :-)). Here are some pictures:

The workshop was at the FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Agency). That was somewhat strange … it didn’t quite look like a hotel but it has an attached hotel (in the large building) and meeting rooms. Kind of cool and highly guarded (one has to check in with security first ;-)).

The white house — it looks much larger in the news. It’s actually really tiny in reality.

The strange guy talking (insulting) trash in front of the house is of course not missing. The Secret Service was also around and didn’t remove him … weird.

They were just standing there.

And of course, the snipers on top of the house ;-). I was expecting that they are hidden better … well.

Heavily armed cars :-).

This is clearly stolen from Berlin (Siegessaeule)!

The Washington monument. That looks actually much much smaller on TV. It’s really huge in reality. One can go up for free … if one stands in a lint at 8:30 am :-(. How stupid …

Of course, the flags are not missing … the thing in the back is the Lincoln memorial. Quite a bit of a walk.

The WWII memorial, Indiana and Illinois.

The infamous Lincoln.

Korean war memorial, this is really well done.

The capitol on the other side of the Washington memorial.

Nice city!

When I was travelling to Washington today, I had a fun experience at the Indianapolis airport. Well, the first real fun thing is that this stupid CLEAR thing is dead (this was where you could buy yourself into a priority lane at the security checkpoint). Well, the second nice thing was that preferred (status) customers can now use the retired CLEAR lane (yeah, I was at the top of the line ;-)).

However, the TSA officer directed me to a line that lead to a Backscatter X-Ray scanner. So first, I don’t really mind the scanner too much … well, kinda … it takes nice pictures of your girlfriend.

However, there was a huge sign “We respect your privacy and the use of the scanner is optional”. Well, so I decided to not follow the 300 lb guy in front of me (I am wondering if the officers checking the scans get extra pay). The “normal” metal detector right next to it was empty anyway. So what I did was just walk by the officer at the scanner and said that I’ll just use the metal detector instead. Wow, what followed was really unexpected. She shouted “code 5” at me (as if I knew what that meant) while I proceeded through the metal detector. This apparently meant that I had to go through a manual search … because I refused to use the backscatter x-ray … so much about “optional” and “respect privacy”.

The manual search was really funny. The guy apologized for every single time he touched “sensitive areas” and explained that he would use the back of his hand *lol*. Of course, I kept complaining and eventually talked to the boss of the checkpoint (without much success). He even mentioned that backscatter will not be optional after the testing period. I’ll check Chicago next week but I haven’t seen them there yet.

Update: Btw., Europe is *not* better. Well, at least when you travel to the US. I was going back from Italy through Amsterdam where they had the same things at the gate! Yes, at the gate. Because apparently there are some silly US rules that they have to have a higher security. Refusing to go through was even funnier. So I had a family in front of me and they made the grown-ups go through the scanner while the children were just led through the metal detector (which was closed and they had to turn on for every single use). Well, ok. So I told them that I have concerns about my privacy and health and didn’t want to go through (remember, it’s Europe and there should be some laws … I hope). So they started discussing and showed me the screen of the thing. Well, how could I know what happens to the pictures that were *not* on the screen??? Then they started to explain me that this scanner would work with sonic waves … however, the label clearly said “backscatter” so I didn’t quite trust them. Then I asked why children don’t go through that thing and the answer of the “checkpoint lead” was *very funny*: they’re too small and the scanner can’t reach them. The next thing was that they wanted to deny boarding … fine. I demanded to talk to an airline representative what to do about it and suddenly I got my manual search. They said something in Dutch that I didn’t get … but the search was very thorough. I also had to take my shoes off while everybody else who walked through the scanner that “can’t scan children because they’re too small” did not take their shoes off. Well ,I started arguing again but all I got was “that’s a US regulation”. Very funny. So small terrorists, it’s not rocket science how to game those rules ;-).

Update2: I had four more of those “refusing to go through backscatter” at different US airports … and I have to say that I never went through one. However, I got a private search every single time I refused. And I heard that they’ll be mandatory soon … they also reached Germany (Hamburg) :-(. Well, well, there goes our freedom due to our fears.

Update3: My server is suffering from the fefe effect, so I apologize for any waiting time :-).

Update4: The picture above is apparently a fake — never trust BILD! Sorry, only in German. (Thanks Hanno)

Well, I had another crazy trip last week. I attended two meetings, one in Washington and another one in Poughkeepsie (yeah, I bet you don’t know where that is, it’s an IBM research lab close to Fishkill and about 1:30hrs north of New York City). So I flew to Washington and attended the first meeting (I learned that some subway stations close at 9pm without announcement). Then I flew back to IND because I already had this flight booked and it was cheaper to fly from IND to LGA (through DCA) than from DCA to LGA directly. Doesn’t make any sense but I could sit three hours in lovely airplanes before I arrived back at exactly the same terminal where I left in Washington. Anyway, I made it to LGA, La Guardia New York at 11pm in horrible rain. I got my car, got lost in the Bronx for 30 minutes and then made my way towards Poughkeepsie. The drive was horrible, I saw 30 cm of snow falling in just one hour (amazing) and I barely made it to the hotel before getting stuck.

Well, the meeting was great but I’m not supposed to report on this one (publicly).

Then, on Friday, I had another appointment at IBM TJ Watson, about 45 minutes away. But it kept snowing and Poughkeepsie lost power (they had candles in the hotel :-)). I left two hours early for IBM and barely made it on time, just to learn that TJ Watson was closed and our meeting was one hour late.

The blizzard was strong, all public transit stopped working, all schools and public institutions were closed and most companies too. The roads were barely passable, many freeways were closed — and I didn’t know where to go (I only had the rental car map which was kind of useless, however, my N810 really rescued me there!). Here are some impressions from the drive:

My rental car – I got a nice VW Beetle. Very powerful and the traction control was really worth it (I was the fastest on snowy streets).

The main streets (Highway 9) in the morning. All trucks were stranded.

The freeway entrance (I-84) – wow!

I-84 so far. Looks kind of free, isn’t it? Well, besides all those stranded trucks.

Well, that’s the end ot I-84: a cop who told me that the freeway was closed :-(. Going back one mile in reverse is no fun (especially when you got cars coming from behind and the danger of getting stuck).

Here is a stuck and abandoned (and snowed in) car 🙂

Man, and those local people really don’t know how to drive. Most of them went with 20 mph. I was going 40-50 :-). Passing was kind of dangerous though :-/.

Simply beautiful. Notw how much snow was on the trees and how far they bent over.

Well, and many of them were just lying on the streets. This was rather dangerous too ;-).

This was on freeway 232 – the tree was on two of the three lanes!! I nearly crashed into it.

Another big one on two lanes.

That’s how virtually all street signs looked like – really annoying if you don’t know where you are?

The entrance to IBM TJ Watson.

Well, this whole drive reminded me of GTA IV (thanks again to Microsoft for the xbox 360). Especially the Whitestone bridge in the Bronx … like GTA, but it was $5.50 toll instead of $5 ;-).

A departure monitor in the La Guardia airport — 90% of all flights canceled.

Another one. That was bad.

But I heard the announcement that a plane that was delayed from the day before was leaving in five minutes to Indianapolis. I took my chance, ran to the gate agent and asked to be put on standby for this one. He told me the flight was full and I would have to hope that somebody didn’t show up. Well, and there were about a dozen people on standby waiting for their name to be called (I came last). So one guy wasn’t there — and they called my name (I was the one with highest status in line ;-)) and I got on the flight. 1.5 hours before my scheduled departure (this flight was canceled though). And I made it home, still one hour before my scheduled arrival :-).

Some of my colleagues who chose to fly out of the closer but much smaller Westchester Airport were delayed by two days.

Yes, now it’s official, I’m moving to Urbana-Champaign to work at the University of Illinois (UI). It’s somewhat a funny change not only because of the IU to UI thing but also with regards to many other things. I’ll be working as a Research Associate at NCSA, or better in the Blue Waters’ Directorate. I’ll work for Bill Kramer and with Marc Snir and Bill Gropp as my scientific advisors.

It was a very tough move because I must say that IU is the best place that I worked at so far and Andrew is by far the best boss I had and it seems hard to imagine a better one :-). Well, but I couldn’t stay forever at IU after I graduated more than a year ago :-(. And it will be a big honor for me to work at UI on Blue Waters, the fastest, or at least most useful/powerful supercomputer that was ever built.

We’ve even managed to find a very nice apartment in Champaign in a single day yesterday (the rush was necessary because I came back on Thursday from the MPI Forum and will travel to Oak Ridge on Monday through Wednesday and I will start at UI on Feb. 1st). The housing market in the U-C area is fortunately open. We made it and that’s most important! We’re planning to move next Friday/Saturday! I’ve already my first meetings and travels scheduled :-).