Weeks 4+5: What are we going to do tonight, Brain?

It's been a busy couple of weeks, the old-fashioned kind of busy ... work.  After submitting papers early on, Pieter and I are now ironing out our plans for the next round (likely POPL and ICSE respectively).  In this case, you should associate "ironing" more with blacksmith work than the household chore: think hot fires and anvils everywhere and you'll pretty much get the picture.  This is essentially what it takes to pound ideas this rough into smooth and battle ready weapons of science warfare.

Outside of work, more nefarious plans brew.  In July we're planning a weekend trip to the bay area ostensibly to run half of the San Francisco Marathon.  Even more exciting though, Pieter and I got notification that the papers we submitted to ASE back in March were both accepted!  As a result it sounds like we'll be heading to Antwerp, Belgium in late September.

So, when wer'e not bashing steel at MSR, were fitting in enough long runs to be ready for San Fran.  In moments of downtime we rely on Netflix to keep us sane.

It's not working.

What should a person do if their roommate constantly sings the theme to Xena, Warrior Princess?

Week 3 (Massive) Photodump

This week Aubry visited. <3  Destinations included Pike Place Market, Mt. Rainier, and the Seattle Film Festival.  Finally, Pieter and I were treated to a crawfish party thanks to Margus (Pieter's MSR mentor).

Here are some of the best photos.

Week 2 complete, Aubry arrives

Week two was supposed to be a short one, accounting for memorial day.  However, in an effort to front-load the internship a bit, it has proven quite full of work.  Pieter has been pulling especially long hours at the office as the talk of a paper submission by the end of this week has gone from "random thought" to "plausible."  That's right ... Pieter intends to submit paper one in the third week of the internship ... that will put him on a pace of four papers with Margus.

As for me, two papers is starting to look more reasonable as paper one seems well underway and it looks like I'll have time to launch in to protoyping for paper two this week.  Might as well be optimistic about it for now.

In other (non-shop) news, we are super happy to have Aubry visit for a week.  She arrived late on Friday and we've already managed to work in grocery shopping, the farmer's market, tennis, a tour of Microsoft, much delicious food, and a trip to the top of the space needle.  Still on the docket is a hiking trip up Mt Ranier on Saturday.  Oh yeah, and lots of brownies will be made.