On Sunday the 1st of October I headed to Saint-Malo with Thomson people for the lab's first ever retreat. There were lots of talks and even more eating, but the most memorable event was the "team building" catamaran boating on Monday right off St Malo's shoreline. Nearly all attended, and nearly all looked like slightly confused and pudgy SEALS [W]. Or, pardon moi, perhaps the Légion Étrangère [W]. You here see Matteo and the always-happy Vincent returning from wetting their wetsuit. And now we've taken off - I believe I'm on the boat to the left, with Amogh & Augustin. Initially there was a fairly heavy downpour, but we weathered it and had quite a good time on the sea (and more). This is me looking silly as I returned. Afterwards we had crêps, of course.

At some point after this, Jamie visited me in Paris. I can't blame her for falling in love with my apartment (kitchen and living room), and I certainly appreciated that she kept coming back for more :-) We toured quite of bit of Paris together, although she visited Sacre-Cœur [W] all by herself. I am here apparently sleeping in the Catacombs [W], which is quite strange given that (as you can see) they are literally lined with skulls. (Incidentally, if you're ever put in charge some catacombs, try to discourage your employees from making elaborate patterns with the bones/skulls: it's a wee freaky. Thanks.) Here I'm continuing our trek, now up towards the Arc de Triomphe. We also explored the Luxembourg gardens, with the castle, and here with Jamie. This, of course, is Notre Dame and Jamie has here taken a picture inside Sainte-Chapelle [W] also on Ile de la Cité. We also ate a fair amount of good food, here you see Jamie enjoying some creme brule [W] at an Italian restaurant near my apartment, I believe this is a picture of me near Ladurèe in the Latin Quarter, a picture of Vivek and Amogh, and finally a picture of Jamie, Amogh, and me at our regular wine bar. Thanks for visiting, Jamie! :-)

Our good friend Henrik hosted a traditional Swedish Christmas dinner on the 16th of December, which was a lot of fun. Less fun was being robbed at knife-point beforehand, but that's a story for another time. At any rate, Henrik had spent a fair amount of money at Ikea bringing together the necessary ingredients to 'wow' our non-Scandinavian friends. At the event were the host, Amogh, Andy, Sara, Athena, Haakon. Thanks for arranging it, Henrik!

The last event at the Thomson Paris lab before Christmas was an open house on 12/19 where many members of the lab told Thomson employees and other invitees of their research. Christophe headed the ensemble and talked about what constitutes a successful research lab, before Laurent indoctrinated us into the P2P revolution, Henrik meshed it up, and the two Augustins told us about pocket switch networks and troubleshooting. We then had wine and snacks that did not give us food poisoning thanks to Letizia. In the afternoon, Renata troubleshooted the service network whereas Amogh troubleshooted his hard topic. Matteo was mostly interested in fun and games. At the end of the day, Erik did some Haggling while I tried to wake people up by DJ'ing/break dancing. The next day we took this picture of the group.

Christmas was spent with family in Tromsø. It was a quick six-day trip, but it was a welcomed break from work. My grandmother prepared ribba (pork ribs) as usual, which turned out better than ever. You here see Anne-Lise, Petter, Svein-Gunnar, and Irja at the completed table on Christmas Eve. All that eating will tire even the bravest soldiers..

I returned stateside on the 29th of December, just in time for New Year's in the city. But while I thought it was going to be a real Decembert, we were unfortunately down one: stupid Denver blizzards! In any case, after a tasty sushi dinner on Saturday, we met up with Tim, Jackie, and Surge at a loud but fun bar in midtown.  An awkward high-five is here shared between Dhruva and Hubert as Scully desperately attempts to reach his drink, just like old times! Aditya was also present, here showing off his movie collection to an unimpressed Mr. Google. The always adorable Mr. and Mrs. Bodine-Bavaro were also in attendance (seems familiar, does it not?).
After dinner at Doyer's on Sunday, we headed to Lolita's to celebrate New Year's Eve. It was a reasonable place that got a lot better due to present company. You here see Aditya and me; unbeknownst to the photographer, I am utilizing my superpower (white & nerdy) to screw up his contrast setting. For more color, you ought to take pictures of the Indian crew, here with Polly, Nash, and Dhruva. And this is Ari and Scully having an forced-smile competition. Isn't this a microcosm of New York City: three Bloomberg employees and a lawyer (and, since they were all in a bar, it sounds like a terrible joke). The joke was on Ramiro, however, as Dhruva and Scully walked down memory lane. I'm not sure what to say about this group photo of Becca, Jackie, Scully, and myself except that I appear to be reflecting Scully's stare, into the camera. We'll end with a group shot of four of the original Bohemians: Dhruva, Scully, Aditya, and myself. Thanks for showing up, everyone!

On the 10th of March we organized the second annual Princeton Hopskip event, which was quite the success. I am here standing guard over the ingredients that were to be consumed. More than a few people were skeptical given the low quality of ingredients that go into hopskip, but most people ended up happy in the end. The making of hopskip is a very delicate procedure, which is why Phil, Jeff and I are here measuring the ingredients with extreme care. Some people loved the recipe so much that they took the form of Hindu deities in order to carry more cups (take your pick among Durga, Lakshmi, Vishnu, etc: what is it with Hinduism's fascination with multiple arms?). In hindsight it is no wonder that the party was a success, given that we had both the GSG and GCH special events chairs. We were fortunate to have lots of guests, including a slew of cute couples: Ashley & Lindsey, Frances & Dan, Jeff & Jen, Nick & Melissa, Jordan & Irene, Sonya & Dave, and Anirudh & Dave. We also had the entire office 313 (funkytown) in attendance, but Phil outdid us all with his antics. There were also friends from other colleges, including the Cornell crew, and some intermural collaboration between the machine learners and PL folks. Here are some more intimate pictures of the Cornellians, including Ari & Jeff and Kori & Frances. There were also some Scandinavians in attendance, here with Ketil and Björn. And this is a small Germany invasion (no pun intended) with Chris, Dave and Mitja. Speaking of Chris, as the evening progressed, we got to see his many charming faces: loves vodka, crazy, and mellow. Jiayue brought two friends, Stephanie and Shannon, who also seemed to have a good time. Sambuddha always seems to have a good time. And here are some pictures of me: with Jiayue, Jimin, Joe, Harlan, Alex & Ted, and solo. In terms of "people skills" (*cough* player *cough*) I unfortunately cannot compete with Joe, who has here seduced Jiayue, Jimin, and Stephanie all at once. Finally, here are some random group photos: Xiaojuan, and Jiayue; Melissa, Jiayue, and Xiaojuan (the first and last of that group took all the photos, so thank you!); Mike, Alex, Harlan, and Chang; and Chang, Jimin, Xiaojuan, Harlan, Mike, and Haakon. Until next time (and don't worry, it'll be 6 months at least ;-)...!

My brother made a ten-day trip to the east coast for Easter. We spent the first weekend in Philadelphia, in the good company of Jessica Goodman, Jeff Vaughan, and Jen Wortman. While Jeff had a hard time finding Chinatown in Philadelphia, he certainly had no problems finding a good place to have a beer. We therefore enjoyed quite a few exotic beers in the afternoon at Euolgy Belgian Tavern - I recommend stopping by if you're in the neighborhood. After the beers we stumbled over to City Hall so that Helge could take some pictures of William Penn. Thereafter we met up with the girls for a wonderful dinner at Alma de Cuba: you can here see Helge, Jessie, Jen, and I out in front after our meal. Helge then spent a few days in the company of old friends, before I met up with him again on Thursday and we headed up to Bruce and Beverly's. After a few days in Ossining with lots of NBA and Law & Order, we hit up NYC for more culinary treats. We were fortunate enough to be accompanied by Xiaojuan, Jiayue, Dhruva, and Aditya for some sushi at Sushi Sen-Nin, which never fails to satisfy. We also visited Sjømannskirka, although they sadly didn't serve grøt that day. Here's a picture of me waiting in vain for some warm porridge to warm me up. Oh well, it was a very memorable week nonetheless. Thanks everyone!

Various pictures: I took William, Xiaojuan, and Dhruva to Sjømannskirka in NYC in late February. I certainly enjoy the porridge they serve on Saturdays, but I think my guests appreciated it also. I told many stories of Norwegian traditions and heritage, including some about King Olav, and others about Viking Ships.. perhaps I even told too many stories.
My advisor Jennifer Rexford was an undergrad at Princeton, but never visited the dbar (understandable, given how scary graduate students are), so we decided to take her there in early April. So here jrex is playing foosball with Yi, Yi's wife, and Shirley. And a round of foosball with Harlan, Forrester, Tony, and Joe. Chang must here be discussing something much more interesting than Norwegian traditions - perhaps Kisaengs. Harlan is always happy when he gets a cheap beer. Forrester is rarely happy, however, so I felt quite blessed on this particular occasion. I'm here laughing it up with Mike W. And here's almost our entire group: William, Jiayue, Mike, Haakon, and Chang.
On the 15th Jiayue hosted a dessert party that also doubled as her birthday party: it was delectable! William, Chris, and I provided most of the alcohol, which was a success with most, albeit not all. Chris himself certainly enjoyed it - I swear, if that man isn't hugging a girl then he's certainly hugging a bottle (good European). Here are pictures of: Jiayue and Sambuddha, Jiayue and Xiaojuan, and most of the group. Thanks for hosting, Jiayue!
We arranged the season's first BBQ on the 21st of April. William bought a new grill, which brought many funny jokes along with it. I decided to be a part of the landscape (as opposed to being part of the problem or solution). Here's the grillmaster himself after everything's been put in place: the only thing that makes him more proud is his paintball gun. And a group photo of everyone (except Xiaojuan): Chris, William, Haakon, and Lindsey.
We were able to field a (mostly) Princeton Computer Science team for the Fred Almgren Memorial Mayday Race, which was held on May 6th. The race started out at 10am in New Brunswick, and we were prepared: Harlan, Dave, Haakon, Ted, and Tony. We weren't as perky after our furious running, but that's because we came out victorious! The entire winning crew: Andrew Bove, Kevin Wayne, Harlan Yu, Dave Nagib, Tony Capra, Haakon Ringberg, and Ted Laird. We'll be back to defend our title next year, and not merely because this is the only way we get mentioned on the Princeton CS front page.

I interned at AT&T Labs Research during the summer of 2007. It's located in Florham Park, and I lived very close by in Madison with Yi Wang and Chang Kim. It was a lot of fun, especially since I was able to spread the joy that is Kelloggs Special K - mmm! Another important part of summer was travel - I was fortunate enough to get jrex sponsored trips to both San Diego and Paris! Woo! The San Diego trip was wonderful because I was reunited with friends from many corners of the world. You here see me getting reacquainted with the lovely Ms. Pousti at a bar in the Gaslamp quarter. And here Scully has joined in on the fun also. We did some exploring of the area, including beautiful La Jolla. This is a photo of some rich guy's mansion. Obviously the most striking feature of the place is that he/she has decided to crop the hedge in the shape of The Phantom's Good Mark Ring - way cool! I decided that we'd be derelict in our duties as tourists if Scully, Jon, and I did not pose as if we were wearing said ring. I'm very glad we did. After we'd broken the ice with some comic book geekiness, Scully felt comfortable enough to introduce us to his new best friends - they're an awesome bunch! Part of the old South Baker crew is here having a laugh about it all. We had a big group dinner at Chez Loma: Nadia Heninger, Jiayue He, Augustin Soule, Michael Scullard, Jiaping Liu, moi, and Janek Klawe. The food was good, but not worth the price, so Janek decided to share his displeasure with the crew.
Toward the end of July, Jiayue and Ahreum visited our humble home, and we all went hiking at Ramapo, following our fearless leader "Chang the Explorer". It was a ton of fun and we certainly enjoyed the escape into the wild (well, "wild" minus the highway nearby and view of the Manhattan skyline). We've here decided to humor Yi the cameraman: Ahreum, William, moi, Chang, and Jiayue. "No time to lose - ahead we go!" I did find time to hold a lecture about the benefits of typesafe languages, however. William suddenly decided to admire my buttocks - quite understandable. The only thing that could top such a fun hiking trip would be a home-made meal, with me staying out of the way. Everyone got their wish, and here Jiayue is preparing a delicious Swedish dish. Err, I mean, French-Suchian fusion. Yi and Ahreum also joined in the fun, before the guys decided to take a brief break to drink 8 bottles of wine.
The most consistent source of summer entertainment, however, were at the hands of the AT&T interns themselves. We held weekly happy hours, but most of the resulting photos have been deemed too unsavory for you viewing pleasure. But, in any case, one of the last such events were held at an Australian restaurant/bar in the city. We're here done eating the Koala foie gras appetizer and Kangaroo steak with and crocodile sauce main dish: moi, Robin, Michael Greenberg, Ali Civril, and Maritza Johnson. You here see Ricardo Oliveira, Ashley Flavel, moi, and Lana Yarosh getting into the swing of things. I'm was quite rude to my fellow Scandinavian, Thomas Mølhave by stealing some of his thunder, but I can't resist his bunny ears: Thomas, Lana, moi. He's a good sport though, even when I get cozy his pretty lady friend.
Oh, and I also attended a Data Domain/CASS BBQ hosted by Kai in July - thanks for hosting it, Kai! :-)