The European Pilgrimage

I was just guessing at numbers and figures 
pulling the puzzles apart 
Coldplay 

The concept of day before leaving keeps teasing my subconscious, so here I am with a new entry before flying back (is back the right word anyway?) to San Diego. Online check-in, baggage optimization, tedious checklists & co are yet to be done, but I can still handle a little update.

Rome welcomed me (back?) in October with a cold and sunny weather, which happens to be my favorite combo. I got over the jetlag right on time and passed the admission test for a PhD at Roma Tre University! Then I went (back?) to Amsterdam and fell in love again with the city, no matter how rainy or windy it is. Spent two weeks at the NCC working in preparation for the RIPE meeting, had a great time with old and new people. Finally flied (back?) to Rome and attended RIPE61 in a fancy venue called Westin Excelsior; also contributed giving a small talk at the MAT working group about the stuff I did at CAIDA, gathered precious feedback and interest in my work, collected business cards, got a clearer picture about future projects and collaborations. And had a crazy blast at the social events...

Time to go. See you at the next eve!

(Westin Excelsior, Rome.)

Touching the Ocean...

Hiding the fact that I'm breaking apart inside

Poison The Well

Live and alive from UCSD, La Jolla, CA! It's been a busy, yet incredible, first week-and-a-half: let's sum up.

Been through an endless trip, including big hurry in JFK to get my plane for San Diego right on time (my luggage didn't make it though, was sent to LAX the day after and delivered home. Neat.). Lived with a wonderful family during the first days, enjoying 'the American experience' at its best, touching the ocean for the first time in my life and learning how smart and sarcastic kids a third of my age are. Then moved on campus, settled in my apartment, went on intensive shopping at the grocery store for basic stuff (which anyway was enough for 5 days, since everything here's SO BIG), met my workmates, set up accounts and stuff at CAIDA, got my hand scanned to access SDSC, apparently survived tons of paperwork and red tape, rented a car, already started searching for housing, eventually met my boss, made some friends, been driving around without getting lost (so far), and finally started enjoying the whole thing!

Some pictures follow. I haven't been taking many yet -- but I've been quite busy, haven't I? :)

(Stop motion animation frame.)

("Claudio's California slang".)

(Ocean.)

Pretty Good News

Destroy from the inside, erupt like volcano 

Jónsi 

I'm not really good at this, but it's time to show off just a bit. Let's make it quick, in chronological order:

• Historical BGPlay (my thesis work) finally exists, is on RIPE Labs and has been presented at the 60th RIPE meeting in Prague;
• I just graduated cum laude in Computer Science at my home university Roma Tre; and...
• ...I'm leaving in July for a summer internship at CAIDA in San Diego, California. YAY! Life is definitely good sometimes. Pretty often actually.

So now I have a two-month limbo to spend doing absolutely nothing serious - which is good. At CAIDA I'll be working on another visualization project, exploring some of the new research topics they're dealing with right now - which is good as well. As hell.

A friend of mine noticed that I made a good forecast when I first wrote about Amsterdam, citing the well-known song by Phantom Planet which goes like Caaaaalifooooorniaaaa here we coooooome. So what's gonna happen with the Icelandic song I mentioned this time? Destiny's call...

Here's my presentation for Historical BGPlay. Enjoy!

One month left...

I won't be back here 
though we may meet again 
Slint 

...and hundreds of deadlines approaching. Actually just half a dozen, which doesn't sound better anyway.

I've been working like a dog in these last two weeks, and hopefully our beloved Historical BGPlay will be available within a few days somewhere. Basically I just need to stop aiming at some platonic idea of perfection and say: 'Ok, that's it!'.

Some big news are floating in the air; yet it's not time to be more specific. Or at least, that's what I learnt so far from that famous skeptic Apostle whose incredulity is accounted in a well-known holy book - the very same one I saw once here in a bookstore next to mediterranean recipes and kamasutra's, but that's a different story. In the meantime some little meaningless hints might come in handy.

We'll see...

(switch. photo by me)