Photos from SLC trip

Salt Lake City Day 5 and 6

I did not have anything to see in the morning. Just attended David's (James' friend from UNCS) talk. Then we (James, David, Arash, and me) headed out for lunch at a mall. After that James had to go talk to someone at the exhibit. I also wanted to attend NVIDIA's show about CUDA 5 and Kepler's new features. David was also interested in NVIDIA as well. I did not know where Arash went because he splited from us when we went to Rite Aid (James needed a toothbrush).

NVIDIA's new technologies were so interested that kept me engaged for the whole hour. (I had not focused on something that long for a long time.) The galaxies colliding simulation was awesome!


After the show, David and I did not know where to go because the exhibit was closing. Everyone was packing up. Then we decided to attended some talks that we were not even interested although we ended up hanging outside the room, checking email and whatever. But my computer could not get the connection again. Moreover, it could not even see any hotspot. I thought the hardware was broken, or it was the driver issue. So David let me use his tablet to check email.

At the end of the day, Franc Mueller (These guys' advisor) invited his students to have beers. James invited me as well. We went to Squatter's pub again. I did not call my hotel's shutter tonight because I wanted to walk. And it was not too far to walk as well.

The next day was the last day in Salt Lake City. I packed up and checked out at 11am. Then headed to the airport. James showed up at the airport about an hour later. So we had lunch together, talked a little bit. Then splited because I had to get on board.

Salt Lake City Day 4

Today's highlight was Student Job Fair. I was there, talking to people from many national laboratories, like Firmilab, Sandia, LLNL, etc. I told them about my research in GPU cluster resiliency and performance modeling. They seemed to be interested and asked for sample papers, or apply for postdoc/research positions. They seemed to be impressed my resume as well.

I also had an opportunity to talk to a guy from Argonne National Lab and followed up my postdoc application. The only thing I can do now is waiting for the final decision. And I am waiting for a "Yes".

In the evening I met Dr. Putchong at the exhibit. We had a chitchat about academic situation in Thailand. It was good to know those politic things.

I did not have an issue with my shuttle today because I called them to pick me up around 6:30 which was way ahead of their leaving time.

Salt Lake City Day 3

The internet in the hotel was still not working in the morning. Anyway I had to go to the convention center early to attend the Keynote. The speaker was a famous theory physicist, Dr. Michio Kaku. He had appeared on many medias including news, documentaries, etc. The talk was, of course, very good!

The internet at the conference was also lame. I could not get the connection until sometime later in the afternoon, and lost it quickly afterwards.

I attended poster sessions in the evening. Most of the works were about exascale (huge dataset). I did not pay much attention on the posters. James and I were there to wait for his adviser, Dr. Frank Mueller and his group. We went out for dinner together.

At 10pm, we (James, his two friends, and me) walked back to Shilo hotel where James stayed. I called my hotel asking for a shuttle, but the lady at the front desk said that no more shuttle going to the convention center anymore because the driver had to go pick up people at many places and by that time it would be the time she left her duty. So James talked to her and argued with her on the phone, but there was no use. Good thing was a guy at the front desk at Shilo hotel offered me a ride since James was a guest at the hotel. I ended up paying him $10 for it. That Econo Lodge's shuttle and front desk did it again!

Salt Lake City Day 2

It should be day 1, but since I got some rest, about 3 hours, I would consider it Day 2.

The technical program had not started yet. So I did not have access to any available sessions. Still I hung around the convention center, figured out which talk I would attend until an alarm burst out. Everyone in the convention center slowly evacuated from the building. Most of us were just confused and wondered what was going on. I met James and Clayton during that time. So we went out for lunch afterwards.

I went back to the convention center, tried to check email, but could not get access. The signal was strong but for some reasons, I could not go anywhere. Then I thought that there was no point to be there anymore. So I came back to the hotel and took a nap for an hour, and went to an art building which was right next to the convention center to attend NVIDIA's talk about new technology, K20.

Then I hung around with James at the Opening Gala event. Clayton did not join us. He had been invited to somewhere else. We did not hunt for free stuff like the very first times we had come to SC.

After the gala, I tried to call the hotel's front desk to ask for a shuttle bus back to the hotel. I had waited for so long before a lady and the front desk finally picked up. Also when I reached the hotel, the internet did not work. I still could not check my email. And those were the second and third unimpressions about this hotel.

Salt Lake City Day 1

First, my flight from Monroe to Dallas was one and a half hours delayed. Second, the flight from Dallas to SLC was about 2 hours delayed. I was supposed to reach SLC by 10:30pm, but the flight arrived at around 12:30am. I missed the shuttle to the hotel. So I had to take a cab. Fortunately a girl that I had talked to at Dallas airport while waiting for the fight was in the line, too. So I asked her if we could share the cab. I was gladly wanted to share. Then we rode together. I reached the hotel eventually, and saved $10.

I went to bed around 2:10am and woke up at 5:30am this morning. How on earch! It would be because of the time difference. =(