Ok. So I can't sleep. I miss my family terribly and its messing with my sleep habits. A little silly, but I really miss hearing my daughter say, 'Papa' and my wife call to me 'husband!' :S
However, today, I gave my presentation. It went over pretty well and I had several people come and ask me a lot of questions after the talk. My emphasis had been on wide area file systems and the NERSC Global Filesystem. Cary, a friend and coworker, had spoke just before me and led into my talk by touching on NGF. So! That's where I picked up.
One guy (Robin) was a Canuckistani came to talk to me about my last slide. We discussed it and he was as intrigued about the whole thing as much as I was. I had spotted him at lunch and dropped in to his table. I asked if the seat was free and when I was told it was ok sat down. The guy next to me who I was talking to was Robin's boss - amusingly I had picked that table because I had only recognized one face and seemed like it was a good place to meet new people.
Robin's boss and I talked about the fact that they are going to be making an HPC purchase rather soon. It's for a very high end system ($30 million) and it would be the first for their site. We chitchatted and discussed what I did and he did. I looked at his name tag so I could try to remember him later after I had already suggested that he come back to NERSC where I work to discuss how we do procurements of HPC systems.
I, then, had a What-the-fuck moment.
His name was Chris Loken.
I knew a Chris Loken. He was a postdoc at NMSU in the astronomy department when I got there in 1992. He looked vaguely like the Chris I knew...and lo, behold, he was. He didn't remember me, but I was a freshman and he was a researcher that worked for Jack Burns, the astronom department head. We chatted about NMSU and were amazed. He laughed over the whole comment I had made as I sat down that I didn't know anyone! It was great and he asked when it was best to come visit the Bay Area: October was my response. Early October. He seems very interested in the visit.
The damned funny thing is that our IBM advocate for NERSC is...an NMSU graduate.
While I never graduated...Aggies seem to be damned near everywhere. Even Canuckistan. Amazing.
I go home tomorrow. I look forward to it. Maybe now that I've shared that, I'll be able to get to sleep. Nite.
However, today, I gave my presentation. It went over pretty well and I had several people come and ask me a lot of questions after the talk. My emphasis had been on wide area file systems and the NERSC Global Filesystem. Cary, a friend and coworker, had spoke just before me and led into my talk by touching on NGF. So! That's where I picked up.
One guy (Robin) was a Canuckistani came to talk to me about my last slide. We discussed it and he was as intrigued about the whole thing as much as I was. I had spotted him at lunch and dropped in to his table. I asked if the seat was free and when I was told it was ok sat down. The guy next to me who I was talking to was Robin's boss - amusingly I had picked that table because I had only recognized one face and seemed like it was a good place to meet new people.
Robin's boss and I talked about the fact that they are going to be making an HPC purchase rather soon. It's for a very high end system ($30 million) and it would be the first for their site. We chitchatted and discussed what I did and he did. I looked at his name tag so I could try to remember him later after I had already suggested that he come back to NERSC where I work to discuss how we do procurements of HPC systems.
I, then, had a What-the-fuck moment.
His name was Chris Loken.
I knew a Chris Loken. He was a postdoc at NMSU in the astronomy department when I got there in 1992. He looked vaguely like the Chris I knew...and lo, behold, he was. He didn't remember me, but I was a freshman and he was a researcher that worked for Jack Burns, the astronom department head. We chatted about NMSU and were amazed. He laughed over the whole comment I had made as I sat down that I didn't know anyone! It was great and he asked when it was best to come visit the Bay Area: October was my response. Early October. He seems very interested in the visit.
The damned funny thing is that our IBM advocate for NERSC is...an NMSU graduate.
While I never graduated...Aggies seem to be damned near everywhere. Even Canuckistan. Amazing.
I go home tomorrow. I look forward to it. Maybe now that I've shared that, I'll be able to get to sleep. Nite.
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