MCCCC trip report

I've been working with on a graph theory paper with an SJSU professor in the past few months. The cool thing is that we were invited to attend the 18th Midwest Conference on Combinatorics, Cryptography and Computing and present our research. The conference was hosted at Rochester Institute of Technology this year. It was definitely a neat experience.

Day 1

Given the tight schedule, my parents picked me up from Berkeley right after lunch. I had to miss my Math 1A lecture as a result, although Prof. Haiman was cool with that. The plane landed at O'Hare in the evening. I couldn't help but notice how windy it was outside. No wonder Chicago is also called the "Windy City"!

We bought some souvenirs at the airport before catching our connecting flight to Rochester. Because it was almost 11 p.m. when we checked into our hotel, I didn't do much else other than proofread our paper.

Day 2

The three of us met up with Prof. Lee at RIT after breakfast. There was some free time, during which we took pictures around campus. The fall foliage was beautiful.

It was then our turn to present. I was a little nervous at first, but everyone said I did a great job. Speaking of which, my parents and I took the opportunity to listen to other speakers. The topics were fascinating but over my head.

Prof. Lee had other work to do and left for his flight back to San Jose after the conference. However, my family wanted to explore the area a bit more and decided to stay another night. The day ended with a nice dinner at a Chinese restaurant.

Day 3

Happy Halloween!

Our flight was in the early afternoon, leaving a few hours for sightseeing. The scenery along the Genesee River was incredible and made for some great pictures. This was the best part of the trip. The three of us then stopped at Quiznos for lunch. Their subs were delicious!

Dad wanted to visit Syracuse as well, but we were short on time and didn't want to miss our plane. The flight home was uneventful. Back in the Bay Area, my parents dropped me off directly at Berkeley as it was rather late.

Conclusions

Though we were in Rochester for academic reasons, the trip was still enjoyable. This was a new experience as I had never presented at a conference before. I also didn't know Rochester was so beautiful, especially in the fall. Looks like we'll have to go back there soon!

Currently listening to: "Saved by a Bell" by Mike Oldfield

Historical note: Pictures from the trip are available here.

R.I.P. Grandpa :-(

The week ended on a sad note as I found out my paternal grandfather Bien-Chuan Chia had passed away from liver cancer last month. He was 80 years old. Dad was afraid it would affect my mood and didn't tell me until I asked him about Grandpa.

For those unaware, liver cancer is one of the worst forms of the disease. The prognosis is generally very poor. Though the doctor gave him two months to live, he passed away just a few weeks later. I didn't see Bien-Chuan often as he lived overseas, but we had many good times together. One of my favorite memories was lighting fireworks with him during our second trip to Taiwan. It's hard to believe I won't see him again.

I'm going to miss Bien-Chuan for sure. Rest in peace, Grandpa. :-(

Happy 19th birthday to me!

I'm now 19 years old. It's hard to believe this is my last year as a teenager. As mentioned in the previous post, my parents got me a new Dell Dimension 3000 desktop as an early birthday present. I actually just finished setting it up. :-)

The day was otherwise uneventful, although my mother bought a large box of chocolate chip cookies for me to share with my suitemates. Everyone definitely loved them. Thanks, Mom!

Currently reading: Chemical Principles by Steven S. Zumdahl

new Dell Dimension 3000

Because the computer I've been using is now six years old, my parents got me a Dell Dimension 3000 as an early birthday present. The new PC has a 3 GHz Pentium 4 processor, 512 MB of RAM and 160 GB of storage. It's much faster than anything I've ever had. Thanks, Mom and Dad!

I'm considering joining a distributed computing project, probably either distributed.net or the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search. This will allow me to put the idle CPU cycles to good use. In any case, I can finally retire my old Pentium II box after all those years. :-)

Currently listening to: Toccata and Fugue in D minor by J. S. Bach

worst school dance ever

So my roommate Scott invited me to a party at his fraternity house. But because frat parties aren't my cup of tea - mainly because I've heard so many horror stories about them - I went to a dance hosted by the ASUC instead. As much as I hate to say this, the dance totally sucked.

For one, there was barely any information available. The only thing I could find was a flyer near my dorm. To their credit, the ASUC dropped the $3 surcharge for people who bought tickets after the early bird deadline. However, that was where the good things ended.

Only a handful of people showed up at the dance. Although I saw my friend Albert there, he didn't stay more than an hour. The music was repetitive and would randomly stop. There was little else to do as we weren't allowed to play the piano in the ballroom or use the Internet kiosks downstairs. It's no surprise that the dance ended early when people lost interest. I'd say it was a blessing in disguise.

This was a total waste of time and money. Had I known better, I wouldn't have attended the event even if it was free. You can read my full review here. Shame on you, ASUC.