Home ... Travelogue ... Austin 2008 for Supercomputing

Occasional Travelogue: Austin 2008 for Supercomputing

Supercomputing 2008 is one of a series of big conferences focusing on supercomputing. With tutorials, technical sessions, workshops, a monster-sized exhibit floor, and over 10,000 people, it's a major event. My workplace, ARSC, sent over a dozen attendees. This entry doesn't dwell on the conference or what I learned, but on the voyage & destination.

I was in Austin from November 15-21, 2008.

Like other large conferences, SC08 has multiple conference hotels. Most ARSC folks stayed at the Austin Omni Downtown hotel, corner of 8th Ave & San Joaquin. Pretty good place, I'd give 3.5 stars. It could have reached 4 stars if it were consistent, with uniformly higher quality. Consider:

• Dirty carpets in hallways; trash often stayed overnight;
• The frequent guest program is quite good: free in-room Internet and free morning coffee + juice. For the latter, you put a hang tag on your door, specifying what you'd like to drink in the morning (and optional non-free breakfast items), and when to deliver it. Good stuff, but inexplicably one morning it just didn't arrive;
• My morning wake-up call also, for unspecified reasons, failed ato arrive one morning. (They use live people for wake-up calls, which is a perk, but only if it's reliable);
• Imagine two in-room telephones. The one by the bed was unable to receive wake-up calls (I needed to go to the one on the desk). The one on the desk had virtually the same buttons for quick-dial as the one by the bed, but not quite the same. I pressed the button that was "guest services" on the bed phone, but on the desk phone it was "emergency 911." (I was sitting at the desk, and couldn't clearly see the tiny icon on the phone as I reached for it.) Big embarrassment for me, to speak to the Austin 911 folks when expecting to ask for a wake-up call... but why can't the phones match, and work the same?;
• In-room coffee sometimes had two caffeinated, sometimes one. aTwo teas, but only sometimes one was decaffeinated. Towels, too, were occasionally miscounted, and somehow the room service folks took away a bathroom tumbler with the morning coffee, and the tumbler was never replaced.;
• Constant pillow migration was entertaining, but another indication of inconsitency in how the hotel handles things. Four regular pillows, two large decorative pillows, and one small decorative pillow per bed. Two beds. Since I slept with two pillows, and moved the others to the extra bed, I was able to observe the pillow migration that took place between beds with each morning's linen service, and each evening's turn-down service. Fascinating, though it must have not been mating season, since there were no further signs of new young 'uns.

Enough on the Omni. It was fine. Austin overall is a nice city. I got to see all around downtown, along the river (which is also, I think, called Town Lake), and up to the UT Austin campus.

Jogging is great along the river/lake. There are trails on both sides, and pedestrian bridges or pedestrian lanes on automotive bridges. I was out every morning by 7am or so, and encountered lots of locals & other travelers out for a run.

The Congress Street Bridge is famous for its bat population. I waited for an hour one evening, but only a handful of bats emerged, until well after full darkness. But I could hear them: many, many little bat squeaks. November is a little late in the season for bat viewing, but there were still some bats there. Maybe they came out later, or maybe they were just keeping warm in preparation for migration to Mexico.

Austin is home to lots of music. The 6th street area downtown, and surrouding areas, was hopping every night -- even Sunday night (compare this to downtown Pittsburgh on a Sunday night, when you can't even find a place to buy a pack of gum). I didn't stop in any of the clubs, but enjoyed walking by. It reminded me a little of Bourbon Street in LA, before Katrina.

Vegetarian food was not too hard to come by, outside of the conference itself. I heard that one of the big Kahunas of Supercomputing 2008 was vegan, but you couldn't tell from the food served there -- many missed opportunities for vegetarian fare. At the exhibitor party I attended, even the salad had some sort of bacon or somesuch in it. I found some chips & guacamole, but that was it. Blah!

One night, I went to Casa De Luz, billed as the only vegan restaurant in Austin. Sort of cafeteria style, with a fixed menu (up to two servings), and an emphasis on a balanced meal. The only thing I didn't favor was that they had pre-drenched salad in too much salad dressing. Otherwise, the food was great, if a little bland, and attractively prepared. It was a treat to have squash soup, since that's currently a staple for my home menu, too.

I also made a late-night journey to Kirbey Lane. This is a multi-location diner with numerous vegetarian options, and a wait staff that knows what "vegan" means. No complaints, and the coffee was good. I had a big greek salad, and some sweet potato fries. This was at the location near the UT campus, so hopping at 1:00 am.

Overall, my trip to Austin was enjoyable. The conference program was solid, as always. Travel to and fro was not memorable, which is good. Opportunities for vegan food (outside of the confernce) and jogging were quite fine, which really makes a huge difference to me on a business trip.