Rentré
Thursday, July 29th, 2010
It’s been a month and a half since my last post, and that time has been full of traveling, work, frisbee, and friends. This weekend will be my first in Paris since…March, maybe? CVPR in San Francisco was a blur due to a deadline smack in the middle, but we managed to finish, the paper got accepted, and I got to see my brother and his family for Father’s Day.
The weekend after we returned from California, we went to Grenoble, where Fredo did his studies, and visited with his best friend. Grenoble is gorgeous, this small valley tucked underneath the towering Alps, and there is tons of hiking and skiing close by. La Bastille overlooks the city from the north, and makes for a nice hike with pretty views. As it happened, a fanfare festival took place the weekend we were there, and so we went up Saturday night and listened to brass bands play far above Grenoble.
Back in Paris, we had a picnic by the Seine, a summer tradition that I have yet to do enough of this year. It’s always funny how the tourists come by on the Bateaux Mouches and take your picture. Fredo brought out the LEDs for light painting and we had a great time creating surreal images. (Nice Notre Dame in the background, too.)
The next weekend we left for Prague, where I played Worlds with YAKA, the French women’s team. Prague is a beautiful city, maybe even more beautiful than Paris, and I’d really like to go back and explore more. More pics here.
As for the championship, we finished 22nd, which is where we were seeded. A disappointment – there were at least two games that we should have won – but an incredible experience. I don’t know if I’ll ever get back to Worlds, or even Nationals, but if this is it then it wasn’t a bad way to go out.
I had one very bad night/morning of traveling; we got back to the apartment really late, the cat was unhappy, I had to get up at 5 am to go to Oxford and give a talk, and it was my birthday… It all worked out fine, I got some sleep on the train, but I ended up feeling pretty sick for 2-3 days with a classic summer cold. No pictures of Oxford, they’re on the other camera, but it’s beautiful and seems like a really cool place to go to school.
Back in Paris for essentially just the 14th of July, we planned a big picnic for watching the fireworks, but unfortunately it rained, hard, all day. Instead we went to Guillaume’s and had a nice potluck dinner; pictures here.
On the 15th we left for Chamonix’s wedding in New York. It took place in a beautiful penthouse overlooking the Empire State building, and Chamonix made a gorgeous bride. We also took the time to visit with Claire and Deirdre, good friends from Seattle who are about to get married. They have the cutest dog in the world, hands down.
We were chugging away on the Internet often, in search of an apartment. And I think everyone should know this by now, but I got a postdoc at MIT, in the Brain and Cognitive Sciences department; I’ll be doing object recognition. It’s for a year with an option to extend. My start date is September 20th. The plan is to go to ECCV in the beginning of September and then basically leave immediately after for Boston. After visiting New York, Fredo and I went to Boston for some work (for him) and essentially a full week of looking for apartments. And we found one! In Back Bay, just across the bridge from MIT, so still walking distance to work. Though I will need new boots (Emily…)
So after that marvelous success, we headed to Wildwood for the 10th anniversary of the Yellow Subs. Fredo took massive amounts of pictures, a selection of which can be found here. We played the 3-1 division and went undefeated, winning the tournament for the 5th time in 10 years! It was amazing to see my friends and play beach ultimate, and I’m really looking forward to living close to Emily again.
Until the big move, there’s a mechoui, a visit from Meredith, a frantic attempt to see all the things in Paris I’ve missed, French class, and (of course) work. Not to mention ECCV, in Crete – computer vision researchers do really know how to pick their conference locations. That’s the update, see you when I get back state-side!