The Conference: Day 2

And we're back! So as I mentioned Eric was going to be presenting on the second day of the conference, in the first session. Markus was also presenting (first overall) the paper that I did with him and Martin. I was actually a bit nervous for Markus' presentation since I was worried about the questions that he might get and basically didn't like not having any control over how to answer things or how the presentation would go.

So Eric got up really early and wanted to leave early for the conference. It started on Day 2 at about 9:50 and we left at about 8, so way early. Sadly we didn't have any breakfast food, but Eric downed a baguette that he saved/stole from the cafeteria during lunch the previous day. Chris B. and I both went with him, but we peeled off and went to get breakfast at a nearby little restaurant near the conference. We had a pretty good Spanish Omelet, so that was nice.

When we showed up, Eric was practicing before hand:

There was no way I could do that. I guess everyone prepares for talks in their own way, but I have always preferred to not think about it day of. I practice the day before or something, but doing it right before is just too much for me.

Anyway, the time soon came for the session to start. Here are the three presenters for the morning. The third guy is Jacome, who came to OSU last year to work with Martin. Coincidentally, he ended up writing a paper with Martin and was presenting it. That meant that all three presentations during this session where going to be papers that Martin was co-author on.

So, first up was Markus. Here is is setting up. I foolishly sat too far away to get really good pictures, and I didn't really want to use the flash... so the quality is not all that great, as I am sure you all noticed from the pictures yesterday.
Markus' presentation went really well I think, his introduction was really stellar and he did a good job presenting our work favorably, despite some shortcomings that both of us were aware of. He got a few questions, the one contentious one, and one to be expected was about why we thought our tool presented the data in a better way than other tools out there. He did a good job handling that one.

As I mentioned I was nervous for Markus', but I was also oddly a little nervous for Eric's, so I didn't take notes for any of these. Jacome went after Markus, and then it was time for Eric:

Eric's presentation went well and he got a lot of question. Maybe the most so far? I don't know. DANG! I should have kept track of the questions each presentation got.

A lot of the questions were about philosophers and why the stuff he was doing was useful, which seemed pretty odd. At the break he was surrounded by professors and they debated about philosophy and it was all a little surreal. But it seemed like at the very least he had created a lot of discussion and so that was good to see.

The next session of the day was about graphs and model transformers and these kinds of sessions are hard for me to pay attention too... but I tried. I wasn't all that successful and ended up watching Markus play poker a little too much.

Then it was time for lunch. As an example of the stuff that we had here is a picture of our meal, this is Eric's and the thing on the left is rice with tomato sauce and an egg. Eric claims that he and Allison eat this all the time, which seems... interesting.. not sure I could do that a lot. The plate on the right is a slab of ham and potatoes, which was pretty good.

The session after lunch was about web programming and was fairly interesting. The first talk was about programming by example and the web. The line I liked best was he put a graph up and was talking about people's programming experience and expertise and it was listed on the scale from amoeba to god, which I found pretty interesting. There are soooo many things in between those two... well at least I assume that there is.

Jill, another OSU grad student, gave her talk during this session and other than having problems getting her computer set up she did really well. She had to use another presenter's computer as the two tech guys who loudly clomped down the stairs couldn't figure it out. She talked a lot about self efficacy, which I then had to explain to Markus, as I guess that word doesn't translate to German.

The final session of the day was a lot about graphing and how to improve them, etc. This was very very poorly attended, but we went! and we were rewarded with an awesome presentation, which I will present without comment:

After the conference we headed home and we had a short time to rest/I worked on my presentation. It sucks to be the only person that I know who hasn't finished their presentation. It means that it will be in the back of my mind during the banquet that we have to go to.

We could have gone to the walking tour, which basically just walked around Madrid and explored stuff that we assumed we had already seen, at least Eric and I. So Chris B and Eric and Todd rested and I worked on my slides, trimming them down and going over them in my mind. At this point I haven't really fully practiced, so that is a little disconcerting. And I don't practice before we leave. Which means I get to do it late at night... joy!

So we walked to the banquet and on the way there we got treated to a great street performance by what I can only assume to be Don Quixote and Shakespeare. Although... I guess it would make more sense if it was Don Quixote and Miquel De Cervantes... but .... I wasn't smart enough to think about that until just now....and as Eric says, I wear out my e's and a's but not my backspace key... so it is too late to erase that. Anyway, I had no idea what they were saying, but there was a huge crowd and they seemed be be enjoying it quite a lot.


Anyway, we got to the place where the banquet was supposed to be, but it seemed like we were the only people there. In fact there were like 2 people there. Adam Carter, shown in the picture with Todd and Chris B. below, and Mary Shaw... who didn't seem that into talking to us. We all almost sat together, but then we figured that would be bad, so Eric and I sat at a 6 person table and Todd and Chris B. sat at a 4 person table.


Here I am sitting at our table waiting for people to join us. I am wearing my new shirt, which on the way to dinner, both Eric and Todd said they liked. Then this spurred a conversation about the phrase "I like the cut of your jib" Which Eric had never heard....
Anyway, the food at the banquet was amazing. We got portions of four appetizers. They were:

1. Crawfish Salad- this was absolutely wonderful. Maybe the best thing that we had all night. Although, since it was first, it was also the only time I wasn't full.
2. Fried Anchovies - A little salty, but quite good.
   
3. Ham Croquettes - Similar to stuff that we have had before
   
4. Something..... I think it was Spanish Tortilla, but I really have no idea.... it sort of all blended together

Ah, so we were sitting at a table with Michael Coblenz, who I actually talked to a lot during this conference. He is working on Numbers at Apple and so is interested in the spreadsheet stuff that I am doing. He wouldn't tell me any of the ideas that he had, since he couldn't (or didn't want to) give anything away. He didn't trust me I guess. But it was nice to have someone that was pretty interested in stuff that I was working on.

The other members of our table were Bernie, who has been at the last couple of VL/HCC's and is pretty familiar. He is kind of a jokster or a trickster and is good at getting people to party and have fun, which is a useful skill. With him was John Daughtry... who... was sick and sat next to me >(. I was not happy about that. There was supposedly a sickness sweeping through VL/HCC or at least some of the students and that was not cool at all. He was very obviously sick and I did not like that he sat next to me one bit.

The final member was Sandra Fan, who studies at UW and did some work with board games and online content. Eric loved talking about this and told her about BoardGameGeek.com which is one of Eric's favorite site. It was actually crazy how many people at the conference liked board games. Also cool, she actually did some online game creation using Google Wave, mostly for its forum ability, sadly this was not enough for Google to put that aberration out of it's misery, but I still thought it was cool that someone actually found something useful for it.

For the main choice we got a choice between, Cuttlefish (in their own ink!!!!), codfish, ham, or beef cheeks. Most of the people at our table got the beef cheeks. Eric, always the rebel, got the cuttlefish. Now he had cuttlefish before (in Malaga), but....that did not prepare him for this dish:


Surprisingly, it turned out to taste fine I think... I am skeptical even to this day (a whole 5 days later!). I was so stuffed but the time that the main course came that I wasn't sure that I could eat it. But I managed to... it was tough though..... So I loosened the belt a little bit.

Here Eric is at the banquet... picking at his cuttlefish?

So the banquet ended and people trickled out and soon it was just us and... lots of half empty or mostly full bottles of wine. Of course we could not let this fine wine go to waste could we! of course not. So.......... we drank it. All of it. I am pretty sure that the staff hated us since we were the only table left and we were pretty high on wine... but they were just going to throw it out anyway, and we paid good money to come here (sort of, only if you count the registration fee). So we weren't going to waste it. I wasn't sure that this was the best choice for me since I had a presentation the following day.... but everyone was doing it, and I had already had a few glasses during dinner... so it was hard to resist.

note: I did not mean to drink that much during dinner... but they kept filling up my glass! Even if it wasn't empty! And before I knew it, I had drank a fair amount.

I am not sure how much we finished off, but it was a pretty good amount, we were all very happy. And Stephen (a guy who joined our table to drink), first got candy from the bathroom, which at the time was .... oddly hilarious, then suggested that we all go to lazer karaoke.

On the way home, we actually walked right to the lazer karaoke place, so they all went in, but I... deciding that I should actually practice once before I gave my presentation decided to go home with Chris B. and practice.

So I did that and practiced... I was 4 minutes too long, which was not good. But I also had to take 2 bathroom breaks in the middle of it because of all the water I drank to try and sober up. lol.... Eric and Todd got back at like 2, which was about when I finished practicing and so I went to bed, wondering if I should have practiced more.

Luckily, the wine made it easy to sleep! How did my presentation go???? Tune in Next blog for the exciting conclusion to.... The Conference!!!!

Dun Dun Duhhhhhhh!