Over the past two weeks, I’ve flown to California, visited my friend Arvin, attended ASPLOS 2006, flown home, spent some quality time with my lovely wife, eaten lots of barbecued meats, and attended the BeerAdvocate Belgian Beer Fest. A quick rundown:
- California/Arvin. Flew out Friday evening and arrived in San Jose around 8 pm. Had a tasty sushi dinner with Arvin and his girlfriend Melissa. The sushi rolls were more “out there” then what you typically see here in Boston. I enjoyed it.
Saturday we did go-karts at GoKart Racer, which is a “real” karting place with two serious tracks and timing and lots of stats. They even put your times up on the web. We did a practice session, then qualifying and a 15-minute race. My practice times were pretty terrible and varied wildly, but my race times were remarkably consistent. Both Arvin and Melissa beat me, but I didn’t embarrass myself for never having done it before. I thought this was awesome, and I would love to do it again. There’s a similar place in Boston called F1 Boston, maybe we’ll go for my birthday (hint, hint 
).
Later Saturday we played poker with some of Arvin’s friends. Ran into Sophia there, which was a pleasant surprise. Haven’t seen her in maybe 2 years. Hung out with these people the rest of the day, played Set, had Korean food for dinner, then watched a kung-fu movie while the girls played Sudoku.
Sunday, Arvin and I went to this bar called Toronado in San Francisco. BeerAdvocate says this is the best beer bar in SF, so I wanted to go and try some West Coast brews. I was not disappointed. It’s pretty divey, in the Haight district, but they had great beers and very good prices (~$4 for a reasonably large serving). I had a Pizza Port Hop Suey (double IPA) and a Full Sail Vesuvius (Belgian-style tripel), and I picked an English Ales Black Prince Porter on cask for Arvin. All were very tasty, but I was most impressed by the cask porter. Delicious!
- California/ASPLOS. Sunday evening, I went to the San Jose Hilton for the welcome reception for ASPLOS. Met up with Sam right at the sign-in table, then went in to schmooze. Met lots of cool people. Actually, that pretty much sums up my conference experience. I met lots of cool people who are doing interesting things, and I got lots of ideas from listening to the talks and talking to people. It was especially fun to meet the people from UT-Austin with whom Sam had done his graduate work. Also, it’s cool to meet people whose papers you’ve read or whose textbook you own. You get to put a face with the name, and their research goes from something intangible to the product of an actual person’s effort and intellect.
- Quality time with the wife/barbecued meets. Yes, these go together. When I got back, I talked Catherine into going to the Midwest Grill for dinner on Thursday night. This is one of those Brazilian BBQ places where the waiters walk around with giant hunks of meat on swords, and you call them over and they cut off a piece for you. All you can eat meat, heavenly. Catherine is not a big fan, but I love it. I’m just glad that she humors me and comes with me.
- Beer fest. Saturday night, Cath and I went to the Belgian Beer Fest with her father and a couple of family friends. I made an effort to try beers that I haven’t seen or wouldn’t normally buy, so that meant avoiding the local Belgian-style stuff (which is usually excellent, don’t get me wrong), and going for the authentic Belgian beers. I tried a couple of traditional lambics, and I liked them, in particular the Boon Geuze and the Cantillion Geuze. Also enjoyed the Urthel Hop It and Quadrium. Frankly, my palate was too tired for me to pick my favorites; I couldn’t judge subtlety and would tend to just pick the most outlandish beers. But I can’t say I had a bad beer the whole time. I always have a great time at these fests, and this one was no exception.
