jay | A successful, happy day

The paper went very well... I used the laptop (making several last-minute changes), there were about 40 people in the audience, I had lots of audience questions and got positive feedback afterwards. (grin) Some of my colleagues said that they'd always wondered previously what kind of work I pursued.

A photo of me giving the talk is
Even with my eyes closed ;-).

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The hotel is courteous, the deer weren't menacing and I was on time for the opening plenary session. The afternoon papers were interesting... imagine a conference where the worlds of AI/robotics and cyberspace overlap with that of space exploration. I'm in my element, and I know at least a third of the attendees. And I met Koichi Wakata, a Japanese astronaut attending.

Tonight I went out to dinner with Yuki (she's granted me first-name permission :) for dinner and we went to a coffee shop afterwards and talked about computer science, our cultures, and she nobly tried to introduce me to katakana script. At dinner I ate things like sesame tofu, a whole small trout, some rolled sushi, tangy seaweed (slippery texture, nearly gagged the first time, but good), various vegetables (asparagus?), rice gruel (kind of a soup), with sake and green tea.

And happy one-year anniversary,

geekchick! Even if it's actually 2:30am Wednesday here...