UIUC - Reflections|Projections 2007

An egregious error has been committed -- BarCampMilwaukee was scheduled for the same weekend as Reflections|Projections 2007, the 13th annual ACM student chapter computing conference at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

There are three reasons which combine to make this error particularly egregious.

1. Justin K. and I almost went to the UIUC conference last year, but didn't go because of schedule conflicts.
2. The weekend conference sounds like there will be a collection of top quality events.
3. The really-shouldn't-be-missed event is an NVIDIA Workshop titled "Modern GPU Architecture: Beyond Graphics"; this is exactly the workshop that people involved with the FS3 supercomputer project should attend...

It's late at night and my mind keeps flipping back and forth between "I must go to the NVIDIA Workshop" and "I must be at BarCampMilwaukee." The only solution to this toggle switch dilemma is, of course, a short leave of absence from BarCampMilwaukee to go to the workshop.

Hmmm...Google Maps says it's 230 miles/3 hours 58 minutes from Milwaukee to Urbana. If Justin was driving, we could make that in less than 3 hours. If I participate in the Friday evening BarCampMilwaukee activities and the Saturday morning set-up and kick-off, then jump in the car and drive south like the devil was on my tail, get to UIUC in time to slide into my seat in 2405 Siebel Center a few minutes before 4 pm, listen to the workshop led by Michael Garland from NVIDIA, meet and talk with Michael and some of the other workshop attendees to make a few GPGPU connections, then I can race back to my car and drive like a madman to get back to BarCampMilwaukee by 10 or 11 pm, just in time for some of the late night fun.

This is really not a good choice to be forced to make. I need Burt Reynolds to do a Cannonball Run for me... Or someone with a VTOL personal aircraft to give me a lift directly from BarCampMilwaukee to Reflections|Projections 2007. That should only take about an hour for the flight. Now that would be reasonable travel time.

Regardless of whether I make it down to UIUC for the NVIDIA workshop, this dilemma has made one thing painfully obvious. The FS3 project team needs to connect with the right people and get an NVIDIA Tech Cafe scheduled as soon as possible for Milwaukee.

If you're interested in a road trip/low-level flight from Milwaukee to Urbana on 13 October, please contact me. And any help connecting with those 'right people' at NVIDIA to help schedule a Tech Cafe would be greatly appreciated!

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