Default post

Today I mostly worked on the revisions to my paper. Things are going along ok. I have some qualitative revisions that I'm trying to address. Since my revisions don't need to go back to the referees, I just need to do enough to convince the editor that I've thoughtfully considered and addressed the referees' comments. It's kind of an iterative process. Read the referee comments, read the paper, make some edits, repeat... At the same time, I have to document the revisions so that the editor can see the changes from the original submission and understand how they relate to specific referee comments.

I think by tomorrow I'll have made a first pass at each of the comments. Then I just need to polish.

***

Other than the gym and helping Laura carry the food she prepared for her school's potluck today to the school, I didn't really go out much. So not real photos. I have only my default photo of the city center take in the vicinity of the trash bins after taking out the trash:

El Rocío

Or, YAP (yet another procession). El Rocío is an annual pilgrimage that draws folks from all over Spain. This morning a procession left from Triana to make the roughly 80km walk to El Rocío over the next couple of days. The expedition consisted of people on foot, on horseback and on ox drawn wagons:

Crowds lined the street see them off and wish them well. With only a few weeks left in our time here in Sevilla, could this be my last procession?

***

I made good progress on the revisions to my paper today. I thanked my past self for taking careful notes while I prepared the original submission--especially with regard to the creation of the figures. I found it easy to get myself back up to speed and am confident that I can get the revisions squared away this week.

***

It was pleasantly cooler today. I walked Laura to class and headed to the gym and wasn't nearly as sweaty as I normally am

***

I talked to Kathy on the phone this evening while Laura went to Costco to get some things in for Jo-Anne's visit and for a potluck at her school tomorrow.

La Portada de Corpus Cristi

My daily routine of walking Laura to class and then going to the gym has me passing by the preparations for the feast of Corpus Cristi on Plaza de San Francisco. The procession will pass through the "portadas" at each end of the plaza. I pulled together the photos I've been taking of the south portada over the past several weeks:

The oldest shot is the bottom right and then the progress goes counterclockwise to today's shot in the bottom left. There's one just like it at the north end of the plaza.

***

A paper I wrote last fall about using smartphone sensor data in the mathematics classroom was accepted for publication today pending some minor revisions. My hope is to knock the revisions out this week before Jo-Anne et al arrive on Sunday. The revisions look manageable, but there might be some new figures and those can take time. This evening I set up a new folder for the revision and started my referee response document, so I'm ready to go. I'll hit it hard tomorrow.

***

I finished up a lot of my calc III prep today. I finished reading Algorithms to Live By. It was a great read. The authors finished with a pretty lucid and philosophically deep dive into game theory. I highly recommend it. I need to think about what my next book will be.

***

I almost recovered from my sleep deprived trip to Italy. I think one more night at home should have me straightened out.

***

The street was relatively low-key this evening when I made my trash run:

Verona->Sevilla

This morning we got up early (once again) and checked out of our hotel (which was gaudy in a retro kind of way, check out this "modern" bedside control panel):

With features like, messaging, radio and TV control, everything but the light switch was obsolete, but it provided a fun glimpse into the past.

We were able to check out and walk back to the train station along the optimal route since the roads were all cleared of bike race blockages.

We took the train to Bologna. The early morning sunlight in this little glass vestibule in the train station was lovely:

The train was generally on time and we made it to Bologna in about an hour. After a brief bit of confusion about where to purchase bus tickets from the train station to the airport, we caught the airport bus to the airport with little fuss. It was a normal Monday morning in Bologna. It was refreshing in a way, no tourists, no major historical landmarks, just regular Italians trying to get to work.

We made it to the airport with plenty of time. Cleared security and headed to our gate. The airport in Bologna is not very well appointed. There are very few places to sit, so we just stood near our gate until boarding commenced.

We flew the discount airline, RyanAir, for the first time ever. I don't think we'll use it again. The staff aren't well trained, the boarding is disorganized, the flight was like a two and a half hour infomercial where the poor flight attendants pitched all kinds of random products at their captive audience. The final straw was landing in Sevilla and deplaning on the tarmac and walking a half a klick to the terminal. I guess not paying for a jetway or a tarmac shuttle bus is yet another way to cut costs. Regardless, Laura and I are off RyanAir. I'm sure it works for some people, but not for us.

The airport bus back home ran on time as usual, but it was fairly packed with travelers.

The flat was in one piece when we got home, but a bit stuffy from being closed up in the heat for 3 days.

Laura went back out for class and I went to the gym. Back to the routine.

Giro d'Italia

For Laura's birthday, we got up early and took the train to Verona, way up north, to see the final stage of the 3-week Giro d'Italia bicycle race.

The train trip was about 3 hrs. It's amazing how many rail tunnels we passed through on the way up there. It seemed like a significant amount of the trip was underground!

On arrival, we walked from the train station to our hotel to drop our bags. It was a bit challenging to get there since a lot of strategic roads were blocked because of the bike race. We ended up walking about twice as far as we would have if there were no bike race closures. Eventually we got there and registered and left our bags.

Feeling a bit tired, we recharged with some gelato:

We walked around Verona to pass the time waiting for the bike race to start. Here's a statue of Dante:

We also bought some race gear:

The race, the final stage of the three-week Giro d'Italia, was a time trial, where each rider rides individually (not in a great pack) on a 17km course around Verona. They're fast and bikes are pretty specialized:

It's televised throughout most of Europe. Helicopters give overhead shots:

Towards the end of the race, we rested our feet a bit and got away from the crush in this park while waiting for the final riders:

This is Richard Carapaz, wearing the leader's pink jersey as he finishes the last few meters of the time trial and clinching the victory:

Carapaz is the first Ecuadorean to win any of the 3 major grand tours (Giro d'Italia, Tour de France, Vuelta a Espana). There were a lot of Ecuadorean fans in the crowd cheering his success. As a nationalistic side bonus, American Chad Haga actually won this stage, completing the 17km time trial faster than any of the other 140+ riders. I'd like to say we saw him and cheered him on, but we didn't see a single glimpse of him. We were likely away from the course during his roughly 22 minute ride.

The closing ceremonies occurred in Verona's own ancient coliseum. We couldn't get inside, but there were video screens outside to show us the goings on:

After the race, we wandered into another random restaurant and I had one of the best pizzas I've ever tasted--pepperoni, onion and a bit of gorgonzola--sooooo gooood! I've said it before, but there are no bad restaurants in Italy.