SC2015 in Austin Texas

Postings here will not be too technical or work related. Work related content will be in our trip report.

We (Chris Scarvell from IBM Australia, Richard von Mallesch and me from CSIRO) arrived late Wednesday afternoon, checked in and went to dinner at a local craft brewery. The quality of beer and food was great. My room had a fridge with a truck motor in it. Luckily the beer helped me out there. Steve tells me he had a similar experience on his SC2014 trip.

The next morning we ate at a local bakery. On the way back we stopped in at a Whole Foods store and picked up a few groceries. They had a surprisingly good selection of cheap beer. I guess it is a whole food? The 3 of us started talking about our favourite beers, so we then purchased a few to see how we rate each other favourites. Chris and I rate the Rochefort 8 very highly. Goldilocks: the 6 was nice until I tried the 8 and then it seemed a bit watery and the 10 was just too thick and concentrated in comparison, so the 8 was just right. I have yet to try the Kwak. The Canadian Trois Pistoles was also every nice.

I also couldn't resist trying these out. They had a fair kick.

Thursday was a rest day for me. I walked around the area and visited some shops and bought a few things. I had to replace a pair of shoes that had died on the trip over. I also picked up a 4G modem and a $25 2GB data SIM. That night we ate at Baby A's

 The Margaritas were only OK. I think we should have upgraded to a better tequila for $1.95.

Friday we visited IBM for a briefing on GPFS and Power.

There was not a lot of new material for me as I had previously attended an IBM technical conference in Melbourne in 2014. The Watson demo was pretty cool.

Richard enjoyed the entire day. At the very end we helped out a researcher who was developing a robot for use in hotels. Richard, Chris and I all used our Australian accents and vernacular to ask typical questions a hotel guest might ask. I did wonder how many jobs this application will take from humans.

We had found a Tesla electric car in the parking lot when we arrived at IBM and luckily it was still there as we were leaving so we could grab some photos. Richard greatly admires the creator: Elon Musk.

 
At the end of the day Chris kindly dropped us off at our hotel in the City Center, the JW Marriott. It's pretty expensive but worth it for the convenience. A few vendors are holding sessions in the hotel and it is only 2 blocks from the convention center so should save us some time. We ate a bar and grill across the street from the hotel called Cedar Door. The catfish and Mexican Martini were fantastic.