Monday night – Meyboom !!!!

August 9, 2010 johncohn

Last night in Luven .. getting some much needed down time after an amazinly fun and busy vacation.

Started the day by giving a tlak for all of the KU Electronics grad students.. I think there were abotu 150 folks there.. I gave a technical(-ish) talk about IBM’s smarter planet stuff.. then I gave a version of my ‘lessons from the colony’ talk. Both talks went ok-sh.. though I know I talked way too long. Folks were kind engoug to stick with me to the end though..

We ended with one last picture of the wonderful SBC staff….

Then Georges and Wim. (both really great KU profs) and I went and grabbed lunch..
I’ve known Geroges for more than 20 years.. and he’s always been trying to get me to visit Leuven.. I’m SO glad I finally did. Meeting Wim was really good too.. he’s a much loved prof here in digital design.. on top of his teaching, he’s developed some really cool outreach activities around lego. It’s the best intro to logic hands on activity I’ve ever seen. Kids build up fun ways to control a lego train using very visible and intuitive logi primitives.. I’d like to find a way to get it used in the sttes (any one iut there interested in learning more ? )

On the way to lunch.. we passed the ‘castle’.. a partially 15th and partially 20th century building at the heart of KU’s Haverlee campus..

Lunch came with the obligatory beer(s).. The beer is so good that I don’t think I could keep my boyish figure if I lived here year round

After lunch we wandered back to campus and I met wth a few students. (Valentijn and Dimitri a.k.a. Dimi) The students are truly amazing. I

got to hear some presentations on their research and I am most

impressed. They are experts in some of my favorite fields (Analog

design. cad, RF, low power).. so it was a real treat getting to catch

up on their work…

Next time I looked up it was after 6:30 .. everyone was tired after the SBC conference so the halls were empty.. it was time for me to go home and pack.. Friend Dimi gave me a ride.. he’s aan amazing guy.. his research is really promising..it’s goign to fun to see where it goes.. right now he and his girlfreind are headed to costa rica ,,,

I went to my room. changed my clothes and went out for a few mile run.. I checked out soem of the back streets.. there is cool art and architecture at every turn here..

The place is a maze of narrow twisting paths..

I intentially ran my way to Groot Begijnhof a Begijnhof (i read in Wikipedia is: a courtyard surrounded by small

dwellings. It is often encircled by a wall and secluded from the town

proper by one or two gates. Poor and elderly beguines .. .. which were religious single womenn.. often widows.. were housed here

by some benefactor

It was a beautiful collection of very old building and cobblestone streets.. Luck college kids and professors get to live there.. It was really magical.. llike steppign back many hunderd years..

Methinks that mirth be not alowed !

I had a little trouble leaving the Begijnhof.. but I turned towards home and ran back to city center.

The sun was just setting as the clock rang 9PM.. I forget how far north this is..

I baught myself a very good falafel from a turkish place and wandered around the square.. a band was setting up to play..

That’s when I discovered that tonight was the Meyboom celebration. The Meyboom is a very late May pole.. Thefrom what I gather.. every Aug 9th for the last 700+ (!!!) years, a group of burly men have coem to this spot and planted a Meyboom tree on this spot (well.. this spot evidnetly was chosendn in the 1970s’.. but it’s always been nearby) .. The history is hazy.. but is somehow commemorates a fight between the wedding party from some dude in Brussles and some ne’erdowells from Leuven. I guess the Brussels guys beat the @#$% out of the Leuvin guys. but still they celebrate.. .. And all this happend in the 12 hundereds…

here’s a blurb found on it:

An unseasonably late maypole (or ‘Meyboom’) is raised in Brussels, on

the anniversary of a wedding which took place in 1213. A posse of

costumed giants accompanies the pole on its journey from the Sablon to

the Grand Place.

According to legend, a wedding party was ambushed by a gang of youths

from Leuven. When the unwanted youths were finally dispatched, the

happy couple were entitled to honour their saviour, Saint Laurence, by

planting a may tree on his saint’s day every year.

Read more: http://www.nileguide.com/destination/brussels/events/meyboom-celebration/5292#ixzz0w99rej3q

BTW., in one account.. the ‘happy couple’ was comprised of an old count and a teen aged girl.. … ugh.

I stuck aorund and blissed out to the music for awhile.. I managed to catch the little clock guy banging 9:30.. look at the color of the sky ! It was still light at 10 when I walkde back to the hotel

OK.. that’s it for today.. Tomorrow I’m spending all day on a plane flying home.. THis has been a great visit.. I think I did some good by being here.. and I met soem really fantastic people ! After tomorrow.. it’s back to ‘normal’.. whatever that may be..

gnite all.. good nite Sam
-me

Saturday night – region 8

August 8, 2010 johncohn

It’s nearly 3 AM and I’m insanely jetlagged and perhaps a little.. uh.. intoxicated with life.. (and the national drinks of at least 20 differnt countires) . It’s nearly 3 AM .. and I can’t really do justice to the large volume of pictures attached. It was a magical day, though.. and I want to get the pictures out before I (hopefully) get to sleep.

I’ll be brief in text..It was an amazing day of sared stories, hopes and interests. it was basically a day in four acts:

Act 1 L I gave my talk

Act II: I relaxed after my talk

Act III we went on a tour of the Stell artois Brewery

Act IV L we had the most insane multicultureal ethinic dinner/dance/drink off for the 320 odd countries in IEEE Region 8

So.. in that spirit.. Here’s some ultra minimal commentaryL

Act I: my talk: went pretty well

Act II: after the talk: big relief.. lots of clowinging around

Act III: the beer tour

Act IV: the crazy multi cultural party !

Freinds from Serbia (they’re goign to put a Smastone in the Nikola Tesla Museum)

Freinds from Lebanon

Freinds from Iran

Freinds from Spain

Freinds from Qatar

Freindss from Kuwait

Freinds from Poland

Freinds from Tunisia (I think)

Uh.. frindss from somewhere..

Friends from Syria (I think).. this is Zatar. the name I call myself.. and the word on my licensce plate !

Freinds from England with cream tea ! (DIANE.. YOU WOULD HAVE LOVED IT .. REAL CLOTTED CREAM !!!!)

Crazy friends from Turkey (defintely the wildest bunch !)

Freinds from Austria !.. (spoke german with them !)

Freinds aus Deutchland

Mit Gummbaren !

Ferinds from Slovenia (I think)

Freindsw from Cyprus

frinds from Greece

Crazy spainiards again !

My freinch frinds.

Freinds from here in Belgium

Freinds from Sweden

A lone frond from Lithaunia.. fro where all of my ancessotras are from

More of my tunisian fronds

Uh. no idea.. but nice guys !

My frind from SOuth Africa and her vuzuvela

Freinds from Suudi arabia (I think )

Friends from Sloveinia

Clean up.. LOTS of bottles

OK.. 3AM..gotta sleep. What a wonderful day.. I just love meeting nrew people.. especally new geeky people.. THis is a wonderful crownd.. and they’re goign to do a lot of good in the world. I’m proud to be here…
nie all… nite Sam
-me

Friday night – Leuven

August 6, 2010 johncohn

Greetings from beautiful Leuven Belgium.. Home of Stella Artois !. I’m here to give a talk tomorrow to a group of 300 PhD students on the importance of passing on their passion about engineering and science to the next generation. Hope it goes well !

Belgium is a fun contrast to Cosa Rica.. another beautiful land.. like there.. the folks here are freindly and helpful, unlike there.. no poisonous snakes to worry about.

Here’s the square that adjoins the train station.

From there it was a short walk to Pieterskirche.. St. Peters which is in the center of town. My hotel is about a block from there.

Here’s a slice of the ornate Stadthaus

Below my hotel window are small cafes .. with acrodian ‘mariachi’s playing until their payed to leave..

The short walk to the Katholiche University was very nice.. lots of nice art.. cool shops..

I made a stop at the Unviersity to set up for my tlak tomorrow only to find one of my peces of equipment is not working (bummer) .. but I’ll make do..

Ten we were whiskde to a barbeque fo rthe conference. It was great. there were folks from all over europe, africa and the middle east.. most in there 20’s and working on PhD’s.. I loved tlaking to the folks who were there.. I also caught up with some old firneds from the IEEE.. A very nice night !

THey had two bands.. and beleive it or not.. ENGINEERS WERE DANCING !!!!!! Never seen that !

On the way home I noticed that the parking meters were solar powered and could be refilled from your cell phone from a txt message…

This place is really, really smart !

OK.. All for now.. I’m missing my family after that wonderful trip..

Goede nacht folks, Goede nacht Sam
-me

Thursday evening – Costa rica to belgium….

August 5, 2010 johncohn

Hellow from the floor of a JFK waiting room. We just flew in from Costa Rica.. and now I’m off Lueven Belgium for the second half of a working vacation.. I’m going there to give a talk to a coference of PhD Engineering students..on the joys of passing on our geekiness More on that later..

Here are some pictures from our last day and a half in CR that I couldn’t post before.. because of internet problems..

Here was our last night in Manuel Antonio.. We walked up the street to have dinner at a great seafood place.. n the way we passed this hot dog restaurant that looked right out of Brooklyn .. Manual antonio could be anywhere.. everything is in english..

Dinner was great.. we had a seat overlookign the ocean.. too dark to see (sea ? ) but we could hear it..

The resturant was built around an old cold war era cargo plane that was used to smuggle weapons into the nicoraguan contras during the irna-contra scandal.. pretty cool.. there fusalage was a bar, the wings were the roof.. and cockpit was there to climb around in ..

The walk home introduced us to this tarantula.. about the width of my foot. For all it’s english Manual antonio is still in the jungle !

We went home and went to bed.. and slept great in our first air conditioned room of the trip.

Diane and I woke early the next day (yesterday).. and explored the hotel.. Since our last stay there they, too had added an airplane.. this was an old passenger jet.. now turned into a luxury hotel room.. how cool is that. It looked like something out of Lost !

Diane went off to Yoga.. when she came back, we cooked breakfast (beans, potatoes, tortillas and mangoes).. Our jungle friends had eyes on our mangoes..

I loved seeing this spider monkey mess with the security camera.. he knew exactly what he was doing !

We packed up our stuff, loaded the car.. took a last picture and placed a samstone… It has become our leaving ritual.

We got in the car (air conditioned.. ahhhhhhh) said goodbye to the costa verde.. and headed north.

We grabbde a puicture of the airplane resturant in the light for good measure..

We drove up the coast road on our way back to San Jose.. the road was SO much better than the last two times we’ve driven it.. the first time it took us about 7 hours to get to Quepos. this time, the trip back took about 3 hours !

On a whime, we turned off the main road to check out a small herptarium / animal resue place. Turns out to have been a great idea.. they had wonderfull butterfiles, snakes and frogs..

Here’s an owl butterfly (i think)

These guys showed us the process of keeping the butterfly population going.. wow.. lots of work !

THey are attracted to sweet things.. no wonder they liked Gabe !.

In addition to living butterflies, the floor was littered with old butterfly wings.. when the butterflys die, the ants eat their bodies and leave the wings. .. the frogs then eat the ants.. quite a system.

hTHey had one wonded parrot.. (a biter, I hear)

And a caged capuchin monkey they are nursing bakc to health named Mikey (actually.. Michael Jackson). We spent a long time playing with him.. He held our fingers and tried to grab our stuff.. !.. Every time he touched a person, thought.. he’d go to his sink and wash his hands.. it was so funny !

Here he goes for one our guides ears..

Then came the snakes.. here’s a huge Fuer De Lance.. .. the most dangerous snake in the the americas.. We once saw one of these on a hike here.. in 2004.. Eeeek.. glad he was in a cage..

hen we looked a a couple of very beutiful Boas..

including this 11 foot one.. ‘the boss’

My favorite though were the frogs.. here’s a giant poinous frog.. one lick and you’re very , very sick .. strange.. he looks so cute !

here are his poion glands… full it seems..

Then we saw three types of poison arrow frogs.. also higly toxic.. These are not safe to handle usually.. but they’re only toxic when they have red ants to eat.. sems the ants formic acid is an ingrediant in their very toxic poison.

Here’s a dffernt type.. also poisonous..

and the most dangerous one of all.. handle this little cute guy for a bit and you could get very sick. Lick him and you’re dead.

This was our favorite thouf.. this tree frog is non poisoness. He’s been adopted as the symbol of the costarican rainforest.. e and shee are so beutiful. they’re almost invisible leaves when lying still.. and incredibly vibrant and colorful when moving.. very cool !

Here she is from the bottom

and here all folded up.. almost invisible.. amazing !

We said goodbye ot the animals and guides..

then headed north again. We tried to stop t Punte Leona where we stayed last.. but they wouldn’t let us in to place a samstone.. sigh.. so we pressed on north..

Next stop was the tortquero (?) river.. where you can see american alligators. and to get a small bite.. (not from the alligators !) . We’ve stopped here onour past trips as well.. THese guys are huge !

ere we are looking at the ‘gators from the bridge..

Max went out the bridge once more to heave a samstone down near the gators.. . …

From there it was an easy shot back to Sanjose.. again.. the road is SO much nicerr now..

Thanks to exxcelent copiloting from the family (and hte gps) we found the renatl place near the SJ airport with no trouble.

It was a little sad saying goodbye to our fithful nissan.. it had been a great car to see the country

nearly 900 Km traveled.. much of it on dirt roads.. not bad.. (note the 666 !) .

The car guys took us back to our hotel.. The aptly named buena vista ..

We played in their small garden till rian pushed us inside.. .. it was almost 6.. anyaway and we were beat.

We had a nice dinner then retired to our room to watch the second colony episode .. !.. I love watching the other guys do their thing.. Again.. let me know what you think of the new season..

This morning at 5:30 AM. we loaded the van and headed to the Airport.