Gameboy in Texas

This week there’s a huge conference on petroleum technology in Houston. I’m not attending, and I don’t want to. First, Houston is not my favorite place to go. Second, the conference is too crowded (more than 50.000), too much business and politics, and too little science.

I have, however, been to this conference once, some 10 years ago. I was invited to give a presentation on some research we had done.

There was a somewhat complicating issue, because I brought older boy with me on the trip to the US. Back then, he was a little boy, only 8 years old. He was going to visit a friend who lived in Colorado at that time (the father of his friend was a professor on sabbatical).

Older boy looked forward to visit Denver (where we lived for a while when I was a student).

But first we had to go to Houston.

Houston is a big city with high crime rates (in some areas). It’s not a place where you want your kid to get lost. Also, he didn’t speak English. In case he got lost, he wouldn’t be able to communicate with anyone.

This was a challenge when I was giving my talk at the conference.

After some negotiations with the conference management, I got a special permission to bring the boy with me to the technical-session’s area.  He was not allowed to visit the exhibition halls, where lots of heavy-duty offshore equipment was shown.

I went to the speaker’s preparation room, to upload my presentation and check that it was OK. I put the kid on a chair next to me, with some candy and a Mountain Dew, to keep him quiet.

Then we went to the auditorium where my session took place. When it was my turn to speak, I put the kid in a seat in the first row, right in front of the podium. I gave him his Gameboy (a Nintendo device), and told him to turn off the sound.

I gave my talk, presenting the mathematical model and application examples. All the time, I kept an eye on the kid from the podium, while he was sitting still playing a Pokemon game.

After my talk, we went straight to the George Bush airport to get on the plane to Denver. Then we went up to the Rockies to enjoy some slushy May skiing in Arapahoe Basin.

(For some reason, I've never used my camera when visiting Houston. I took the picture above by the I-70, west of Denver, where the highway starts climbing up the Rocky Mountain Foothills)

Things I hate about flying

Last year, I was traveling quite a lot, way too much for a normal family life. My resolution for 2012 should be to travel less.

When I updated my trip recording yesterday, I made a quick count. In 2011, I went on 19 business trips, to a variety of interesting places:

• Milan, Italy.
• Doha, Qatar.
• San Antonio, Texas.
• Moscow, Russia (7 times).
• Murmansk, Russia (4 times).
• Domestic, northbound (2 times).
• Domestic, southbound (4 times).

Fortunately, we use video conferencing quite extensively. We hardly do domestic travel anymore.

There are a few things I really dislike about flying. This is my top 3 hate list:

1. Sitting in a center seat: A long flight squeezed between two fat guys, and fighting for the arm rest is a nightmare. I want a window seat.
2. When the guy in the seat in front of me leans his seat backward and steals half of that small space I have to read and write and work. The seats should be fixed in the upright position.
3. Airport security is such a hazzle; taking off clothes and shoes, emptying pockets, taking lap top out of the bag, long lines.

I shouldn’t complain too much. I know I’m lucky and privileged, traveling to (some) nice places, and even getting paid for it.

Flying is not all bad. There are things I like about it too:

1. Sitting by the window looking down on interesting places as we pass by.
2. Getting some undisturbed time to read and write.
3. The comfort in business class. I don’t fly business class very often, only on flights taking 6 hours or more. Most of the time I fly Economy Extra, to be able to re-book flights as needed.

My ambition for 2012 is maximum 10 trips. That’s acceptable.

Anyway, next week I go again; booked my tickets today.

(I took the picture above last fall, on-board an Aeroflot plane, over the western part of Russia. The clouds make up an interesting pattern of almost parallel lines. I'm not sure what's causing this, but it was a nice view.)

Lone Star

I've been in the Lone Star State for almost a week now, for a geophysics conference in San Antonio. I have talked to some smart people, and attended many interesting presentations. My talk was on Wednesday, and it went quite well.

San Antonio is one of the American cities that I really like. Every night I've been enjoying the bars and restaurants on the Riverwalk together with friends. The Mexican food is great, and the beers too. Negra Modelo became my favorite.

It's been nice and sunny weather, maybe a little bit hot, but that's fine. I'll get plenty of cold and snowy days in the next few months.

It's six years since my last trip to America, and exactly ten years and one week since my last visit to San Antonio, in September 2001. I was kind of a strange feeling to be back in the same conference center where we watched the acts of terror in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania live on CNN, and no one cared about the conference.

Now I'm ready to go home. I've just checked out of the hotel, and wait for the airport shuttle.

My throat is a little bit sore. I got infected by something on the flight from Europe to America. It's hard to avoid on these intercontinental flights. The air conditioning system on the plane effectively circulates the world's complete collection of nasty bacteria and viruses.

Don't worry, it doesn't bother me much. I've had a great time in Texas >:)

(The picture above is from the Riverwalk. It's about the only picture I got to take in San Antonio. It's a shame, I know, but I was busy at the conference all day, and it was dark when I was out to enjoy San Antonio)

Where were you on 9/11?

September 2001.

I was attending a geophysics conference in San Antonio. Monday 10. September I had an oral presentation, with approximately 50-100 people in the audience, and 3 or 4 questions from the floor after my twenty-minute presentation. The world was normal.

The day after, I had a poster presentation, at 8:30 in the morning. I was very disappointed that no one showed up. It was a somewhat special subject, something about non-linear waves (similar to the breaking waves on the beach), but it couldn't be that bad?

After my scheduled presentation time, I went out to the big exhibition hall were the geophysical contractors run their software demos. Big crowds were gathered around the computer screens, all of them displaying the CNN broadcast.

There was a big discussion about what to do with the conference; proceed or cancel? In the end, they decided to skip all the social events, and run the technical program as planned. All the participants from Europe, Asia and South America would be stuck in San Antonio anyway. And those who lived within driving distance could not get rental cars.

When the conference ended, it was impossible to get on a plane back to Europe. So we decided to take it easy and drive around in Texas for a while. We went down to Big Bend National Park, to Austin, and the strange "German" town Fredericksburg (where a friend of mine took the picture above, outside a mall).

In Del Rio, we crossed the bridge over Rio Grande, to look around and to buy some Cuban cigars on the Mexican side. The border police told us it was no problem to get back, with our Western Europe passports. After a couple of hours, we returned to USA, smoking happily on our cigars. But when the border police found that one of my friends had three visa to Iran and one to Libya in his passport, Hell broke loose ... we spent the night in the police station.

Where were you on 9/11? The day the world turned crazy ...

The 2nd worst invention of all time: Handguns

I was following the ban on handguns proposal from Obama, and the following debate with interest. For a while I was involved in discussion forums on the Internet, until I got tired of it. It was me against Texas, basically. The same stupid arguments repeated over and over, delivered with increasingly aggressive and rude language. I guess these guys know how to shoot; let the gun talk, but language skills seam to be correspondingly low.

I’m a peaceful man, I don’t like guns, never liked them. I prefer to use the pen, or actually the keyboard. I don’t like any kind of fire arms; handguns, shot guns, rifles or machine guns. Handguns are the most nasty and sneaky kind of fire arms, worst in a bad class; the 2nd worst invention of all time (after religion). I support a general ban on handguns; useless crap it is, good for nothing but killing people. Yes, I know that handguns are used for sport shooting too, even for hunting. Handguns are poor hunting weapons; most game hunters would prefer a shotgun or rifle for that purpose.

This is what makes handguns so dangerous: Handguns are easy to hide under a jacket. You can point the gun in any direction just by a small movement of the wrist. A rifle, for comparison, is a big and heavy object. You can’t easily hide it on your body. You can’t just point it all around with an easy hand movement. I know by experience. I have used both handguns and rifles myself, because I had to, in military service. Safety rules and precautions on the shooting range were always more strict for handguns than for rifles, with good reason.

Just for fun; here are some arguments from the gun-guys on the Internet forums:
1. The good guys need handguns because the bad guys have guns. Yes, sure, the bad guys have guns too. Most of the illegal handguns are stolen legal guns. If the total number of available guns were greatly reduced, the bad guys would have a hard time getting them too.
2. We need to defend ourselves and our homes against intruders. Yes, sure, and if the intruder knows you’re sleeping with a gun under your pillow, he will carry a gun too. And who will be the fastest on the trigger? A sleeping drunk Texas rancher, or a vigilant housebreaker?
3. I never leave home without my gun; the town is full of armed bad guys. Yes, sure. And what do you think would happen if you pulled your gun on Main Street to defend yourself, surrounded by other people carrying guns and ready to defend themselves? You would probably just shoot a lot of kids and unarmed innocent people who happened to be near by. Defending the citizens (by law enforcement) is a job for the police, defending the country (by war, in the name of God) is a job for the military forces.
4. We need guns to defend ourselves against the socialist-government in Washington (after Obama entered White House). What the Hell! How paranoid and crazy can you possibly get?

I told the gun-guys that in Winterland even the police is unarmed (this is almost true, they have guns locked into the trunk of the police cars). Their reaction was like “Then thanks God I don’t live in Winterland”. Yes, I’m glad you don’t live here too, as long as you insist on carrying your gun everywhere you go. But if you leave your handgun and bring your skis, you’re welcome to Winterland.