ICML'06: pretty good time

I’m so used to doing conferences via flying. Jet lag and tedious waits in nameless airports. Herded into tiny tubes in cattle class. Dehydration. Sensory deprivation torture (its called “in-flight movies”).

ICML was different. It was at Pittsburgh so I could drove there. On the way up, it rained a ton. Down on the coast that rain was bad news- thousands of homes evacuated. But up here, it was real pretty- billowing mists around tiny farms nestled into the green hills of rural Pennsylvania.

So when I got to Pittsburgh I was conscious and alert. In times past, I arrived to three-day conferences and only woke up on day two. This trip, I was good to go on day one. Pittsburgh put on a nice show- sunny days and, over where we where at CMU, uncrowded streets. I meet my old supervisor from my Ph.D. days and him and me walked round sunny streets, gossiping. Age hasn’t wearied Claude- he still strides forward, never doubting, always exploring proof by refutation of (sorry- in joke).

The next day, I had the strangest little moment in time, taping away in on my laptop in the evening sun, seating in front of the Carnegie Museum. The whole scene was gothic- feeble sun glowing in the sky through darkening clouds, just up over the hulk of the Cathedral of Learning. Next to me was, I kid you not, a 40 foot inflatable squirrel- turquoise covered in commando markings.

It seemed all so bizarre, removed, private. I could totally focus on what I was doing while the world benignly ignored me, left me alone be to do my thing. Just another wireless yuppie hanging on a street corner.