Back to Spain

Rachel and I spent the day "working" in her living room. We each sat there in front of our computers, but I'm guessing we were cruising along at about 20% efficiency haha. We'd work, we'd talk, we'd go to lunch, work, talk, go to campus, work, talk, go to dinner, talk, drive to the airport. Overall, I had a good trip, a nice visit with Rachel, and a productive meeting. Right now it seems worth the effort, but I'll let you know tomorrow after this 8 hr red-eye to Madrid followed by a quick jump to Sevilla and the bus home from the airport. It's currently 3:40am in Sevilla. I expect to get to the flat sometime around 6pm Sevilla time. Still a lot of travel between me and home.

During one of our walks today, Rachel and I passed by the statue of the University of Miami mascot, Sebastian. I took a picture of Rachel next to Sebastian:

You can probably tell that the sun was beating down on this whole situation. Rachel's grimace is due to the fact that the bronze statue was about 4,000 degrees.

This evening, we went to Swenson's for dinner. I had a pretty good club sandwich. Rachel had a salad. It was a large salad, so she took half home for lunch tomorrow. Here's one last selfie for the road:

Walmart Sunrise

Got up bright and early in UT this morning. I don't think I ever really transitioned over to the Mountain Time Zone. That's probably fine since I've got to get back to Spain tomorrow anyway. The sunrise this morning in Orem as I was heading to my car to drive to the airport was beautiful. The mountain to the east of the hotel across Utah Lake was well lit.

This is possibly the most iconic photo of 'murica you could take. In the foreground you have the vast expanse of the roof of a Walmart. In the medium distance, the billowing US flag. In the distance, the mountains majesty.

***

Not much to report today. Flights were all on time. I flew Southwest to Phoenix, then over to Ft. Lauderdale. About 6.5 hrs of air time, but low stress and efficient. Rachel picked me up at FLL and drove me to her place. We made a quick pit stop at Taco Bell for dinner. My temporary bed on Rachel's couch is all made up. I'm just sitting here waiting until 10:50pm when I can check into my British Airways flight back to Spain (Sevilla via Madrid).

Stained Glass

Day 2 of the conference. Productive. Marina and I have started drafting a minor in data science. Based on what we've seen here from folks in industry and at other schools, we already have the courses, really just a matter of packaging them together into a sequence for students to take.

The Utah Valley campus is impressive. The buildings are new, clean. The quad is lovely. There's a beautiful water feature in the quad:

The feature at the top has a sheet of water that looks really cool in slo-motion:

There's an alcove in one of the buildings that has a wall of stained glass under the heading "Roots of Knowledge". It's a kind of history of human knowledge in stained glass. It's an impressive piece of art--especially for a mid-sized public university.

Here is a close up of one of the panes:

I liked the juxtaposition of the mathematician Euler and Independence Hall. I'd never really contemporized those two entities.

I took Marina to the airport in SLC after the meeting. We stopped at Pizzaria Limone on the way up. Pretty tasty.

I fly out tomorrow morning. I'm taking two colleagues from Morehouse College to the airport with me. They were attending this workshop to help prepare for when they host a similar workshop at Morehouse later this year.

Data Science

The conference didn't start until noon. Marina, my Whitman colleague, wanted to go see a nearby waterfall. Since I have a car, I drove us out there to have a look. It's called Bridal Veil Falls (like so many waterfalls in this country haha). It was a couple of miles up one the of canyon roads.

It was pretty cold up there, about 45 degrees. We didn't stay up there long. We came, we saw, we took pictures, we left.

***

This conference is about incorporating data science into math curricula. It's at Utah Valley University.  The campus is lovely. The students friendly. We couldn't find the building where the conference was being held. We stopped a student to ask for directions. She tried to explain and then said, "Why don't I just walk you over there? I was just on my way to find a place to study. I can just study there." So, she walked us over there and we had a nice conversation along the way. She really seemed to like the place. She was a senior majoring in special education.

The afternoon was a series of panel discussions. A panel of industry folks talked about the skills they like to see in their employees. A panel of math professors talked about implementing data science in their departments. A panel of students in data science programs talked about their experiences. All very useful and informative to us as we think about how to set up a data science program at Whitman.

A former student Elly Farnell (nee Smith) is here. It was fun catching up with her. Also, Michael Dorff is here and it was fun catching up with him. As busy as he is, he always makes time to talk. His family is doing well. His oldest daughter, Rebecca, is now in the PhD program in math at BYU (Michael's dept). I chatted with her for a while too. I knew her when she was just a little kid back in Kentucky. She doesn't remember me though, haha.

***

This evening there was an organized dinner at the Sundance Resort about 15 miles out of town (actually up the same canyon road as Bridal Veil Falls). This is the same resort where the Sundance Film Festival is held (or was, it's been moved to Park City). It's a beautiful, rustic resort and ski lodge. Here's a random water feature on the resort property:

Dinner was good. To my right was a USC math prof, Eric Friedlander. I talked about USC with him for a bit. Nice guy. Not sure if Emily ever had a class with him though.

***

Back at the hotel now. Conference resumes tomorrow morning at 9am.

Utah

Rachel dropped me off at the airport this morning, but not before a trip to The Salty Donut is kind of on the way to the airport. We shared three donuts. All were excellent. One came with a little bottle of rum.

Flights were on time today. After a 5.5 hr first leg, I changed planes in Las Vegas. I have to say I was briefly shocked at this sight as I emerged from the jetway:

But then I remembered where I was.

It's nice to be back in the American West. Seems like home. By the time I got down to Orem, UT, the sun had dipped behind the hills to the West:

As always, the Wasatch Range to the East is impressive:

But not as impressive as this Raspberry Rhubarb Vegan donut that Rachel and I had this morning:

Spent a little time this evening catching up with my dept colleague, Marina, from Whitman who is also attending this conference.

Another time change, another attempt to stay awake until 10pm. Eight minutes to go! According to the internet I'm about 5,300 miles from Sevilla and Laura. I'm sure her Spanish is improving by leaps and bounds now that I'm not around dragging her back to English.