Let’s try to finish this before the end of the month, while I’m finishing up my Europe / BC trip. So we’ll be terse. Almost all of my professional effort last month was in service of running the SCAM conference (to be held this September); also, we turned around our SAS rejection to POPL.
Health news
Small sample size (N=144), couldn’t recruit as many as they wanted (aimed for N=2000), symptoms at 3-month mark was 26% versus 43%.
Professional
Work-life not quite as balanced, though some days had just a bit of work. The vast, vast majority of the work was reading SCAM reviews, but I did something work-related on 27 days, with 22 work days. Also we did resubmit the SAS rejection to POPL, though that was only a moderate amount of work.
Research
POPL submission. On a different project, realized that the TOPLAS approach of identifying concurrency idioms just doesn’t seem to work in Rust, because people just use locks for the most part. But hopefully we have a different angle to find something interesting.
Teaching
Guess I should start thinking about that sometime, maybe in a month’s time, after getting back from Italy.
Grad students/mentees/collaborators
In line with the long-term average, talked to students, mentees, and collaborators on 9 days. We’ll see what happens when I have more grad students this fall though.
Collegiality/Service
It’s been interesting to serve as PC co-chair even if it’s a lot of work. As a PC member you see a bit about how the sausage is made in terms of accepting papers, but as a PC co-chair, you see the trends over all the papers (except for your conflicts) and get a better idea of what papers may or may not get in.
Consistent with the SCAM charter, I reiterated that there was no target accept rate, though of course I computed the eventual accept rate and was relieved that it was in line.
The other interesting factoid about submissions is that they seem to be up across the board this year, likely because of LLM assistance in writing tools and words. I kind of wonder if 10 years from now we’re just going to say “you know that AI bubble, we don’t trust any papers produced during it.” SCAM got twice as many submissions as last year, but it’s also in Europe and not New Zealand. POPL got a huge increase in submissions as well and I got a paper to review following their reserve reviewer policy.
It was a pleasure to work with Carolin Brandt, my PC co-chair.
Aside from that, there was a bit of FAUW governance work and a meeting/demo with the ECE FYDP group.
Trips
Decent amount of domestic travel this time: Auckland Open, Kaikōura, and up to Ruapehu on the last day of the month.
Kaikōura, July 10–12
The top of the South Island is close. It would be driving distance but for the Cook Strait. Anyway, we went there for Matariki weekend. It turns out that this was just after some flooding which was just short of catastrophic.
We were thinking of doing a tramp but the DOC lady was saying “have you read the news?”. So, no tramp.
We got to the airport an hour earlier than we needed to: the Auckland flight the week after was 0640, while the Blenheim flight was 0740. Well, that’s not a terrible mistake, except for a bit of sleep deprivation.
Picking up the rental car, which had been delivered to Blenheim airport, we found frost on the windshield. This being New Zealand, there was no scraper inside the car. Credit cards will work. Also, this being New Zealand, the key was inside the car. High-trust society.
We did walk at the Wairau Lagoons near Blenheim, where there was probably more lagoon than usual. Lunch at the St. Clair winery was tasty.
Our Saturday activity was Whale Watch Kaikōura. I’d been on the Albatross Encounter before, but not this one. These boats are basically catamaran-shaped jetboats. We saw about a dozen humpback whales, a sperm whale, and various albatrosses. The boat wasn’t very full, since it’s the middle of winter, and we managed to get a 50% off coupon.
On Sunday, I thought I’d check out the Kaikōura Cycle Track, and we got discounted bike rentals in town. It was fine until it wasn’t. MP quit when there was a bit of a hill. Bush bashing while carrying a bike is challenging. I briefly thought about giving up but I don’t think they would have liked to do bike recovery. I did trash one of my jackets on the bike ride, though it was already on its last legs. And I felt like Pigpen from Peanuts on the way back, with mud embedded in my pants and no alternate pants option.
We had stopped by Lake Elterwater on the way south but it had been pretty flooded. It was less flooded going back north and I saw a hoary-headed grebe. I didn’t even know that was a thing in Aotearoa. They come from Australia, I think.
Auckland Open, July 24–27
Next up, the Auckland International Open judo tournament. Gotta go on the Friday: can’t fly early enough on Saturday (and that would be tiring). I decided to go early on Friday and to return on the Monday evening, with a cheap airbnb 2km from the tournament site (St Helliers). The airbnb was actually kind of like a cabin on the property, though I had to walk around and inside to use the bathroom.
One surprising thing about central Auckland was the lack of people on a Friday morning at rush hour. Toronto is packed with people, especially at Union Station. The train to Waiatemata, and the CBD itself, really not. Not a long weekend, just a normal winter workday. Where is everyone?
I met up with Rob O’Callahan for lunch on Friday. This was the first time I’d been to a Google office since 2019. Even if things may have changed at Google, the lunch seemed to be what I remembered from the good old days.
Otherwise, I did more SCAM work in Auckland (e.g. at the library) before proceeding to weigh-in and then choban kebap for dinner at Darya near the venue, which was good. Had some other tasty food in Auckland as well.
Had a 5 man division in Veteran Mens 40-49 -66kg; two wins got me the gold medal, though I needed to go to golden score in the final. Category size not bad, though I didn’t fight any black belts. Other than that, I refereed the rest of the tournament.
Since the tournament ended at 2-ish, I had the chance to go climbing at Extreme Edge. It turns out that the bouldering problems there are tough, though I managed to climb a few. Three of the boulderers were also from Wellington, either having moved to Auckland from Wellington, or on vacation.
What to do on the Monday? Good weather, so I had a late start, got breakfast at a nearby deli and did travel planning and a bit of analysis for SCAM, then walked through Auckland and to the Auckland Museum, which is worth a visit. They have at least two taxidermied kākāpo.
Ruapehu (Whakapapa & Turoa), July 31–Aug 2
I was hoping to lead an NZAC trip to Te Heu Heu, but the avalanche forecast was looking unfavourable, so instead we went skiing with Elliot and Nancy at Ruapehu. It was northeastern North American conditions e.g. kind of cold and icy; not as much snow as I’d hoped for. Maybe the mountaineering would have been fine. Anyway, fun road trip, even if skiing feels expensive.
I had wanted to get food from the food truck in Levin, but they were out of stock on a bunch of vegetarian items, and it was still pretty cold outside, so we went to a kind of average Thai place there. And I managed to get an eclair in Ohakune.
Travel Planning
MP wants to do the Alta Via 1 in Italy next summer, so we looked into that a bit. There was also some last-minute Kaikōura planning. I also did some planning for SCAM travel and some North America flights that I needed. Finally, there was a lot of effort in planning travel for a mother-in-law visit to NZ over Christmas.
Movement statistics
Mostly the walking is consistent but I had two double-digit walking days in Auckland which drives up the number. This is more the usual mix of modes as compared to June.
- 🚶 Walking: 96km on 26 days (surprisingly little; no hikes)
- 🚲 Biking: 134km on 14 days
- 🚗 Driving: 662km on 6 days (Blenheim to Kaikōura, lifts around Auckland, Wellington to Ruapehu)
- ⛴ Boat: 38km (Whale Watch Kaikōura)
- ✈ Plane: 1149km (WLG-BHE-WLG, WLG-AKL-WLG)
- 🚗 Taxi: 6.2km (to WLG)
- 🚌 Bus: 31km on 5 days (Auckland, once up the hill in Wellington, once back from WLG)
- 🚆 Train: 37km on 2 days (to/from Auckland airport, connecting with the bus)
- 🚡 Cable car: 0.7km (1×)
Pictures
This month we did go to Kaikōura for a long weekend, and I also went to Auckland for the Auckland Open (but didn’t take many pictures). There was an enormous set of photos from a Kaikōura whale-watching tour (almost 900 photos) and I also processed a large number of Great Barrier Reef photos (747), in addition to another two sets of Tour du Mont Blanc photos.
The backlog is now up to mid-August 2024, which again is just under 2 years from today, but there is a Japan trip from September 2024 which may have a lot of photos too. One set at a time. Net addition from July 2026 is not too bad, with one more Kaikōura day and the Auckland trip still to be processed.
We have underwater photos from snorkelling at the Great Barrier Reef (rented a camera), birds from Birdworld Kuranda, and lots of pictures from an epic day with Whale Watch Kaikōura. Also got all of the Christchurch May 2026 pictures and one more TMB day.
Picture logs available, and, as always, pictures are clickable to go to the full gallery.
- Sets of pictures processed: July=14, June=18, May=22
- Total pictures selected: July=698, June=574, May=846
- Total pictures in selection pool: July=3333 (!), June=1868, May=2330
- Accept rate: 21% (min 10%, max 62%)
- Pictures posted on this page: 187 (26% of selected).
There were a lot of non-selected Whale Watch photos (the 10% accept rate was from that day).
General birds:
Cattana Wetlands & Kuranda:
Mostly bugs, one mammal. Mostly TMB.
Domestic mammals:
Miscellaneous
Not sure how June was so quiet, but the tempo was more normal in July.
Posts
Acquisitions
- 5.7L Instant Pot (open box, no discount).
- Carbon steel ScanPan Black Iron wok 30cm; probably about right.
- Another set of avalanche gear and a light four-season tent.
I also sent two poofy jackets for repair, so I was a bit short on jackets all month. Also had a problem with my normal mid layer being broken, as seen in the post-MTB photo.
Books
- Peter Hurley. The Headshot: The Secrets to Creating Amazing Headshot Portraits.
MP complains that I’m not very good at consistently taking good pictures of her. I tried to read this book to learn more. The author has an interesting life story (Olympic sailor to model/actor to photographer) and explains his headshot process clearly, so I think I did learn a few things.
Portraits are quite different from landscapes, birds, and street photography, which are the main forms of photography that I do. The amount of control in a studio is way higher. The bird is not going to pose for you! At best, you figure out what the bird is going to do, and you pre-position yourself to take the picture of the bird.
The fundamental problem, though, is that I can’t really look at a headshot and say “this is good” and “this is bad”. I’m a bit face blind. Doesn’t help. For instance, at one point, he has two pictures of a subject, and says “this side is the good side”. I really can’t tell.
I’m not 100% hopeless though. He references this video of his:
and I do see what he’s talking about. So that is one tip that I can use. He’s also the source of the line “always be squinching”. He definitely squinches in that video, and I think it’s a bit excessive.
More generally, I’d say that a key idea of the book is to find ways to develop rapport with the subject and to get them to look their best for you. But not necessarily in a straightforward way: he says that he uses misdirection to get people away from thinking that they are in front of a camera (and thus looking weird).
Anyway, yes, books are a good source of curated information by an author. Better at being a body of work than a bunch of blog posts. He uses a lot of pictures to illustrate his point (as he should); not being able to fully understand them is a me problem.
Sports
Increased my number of Faultline visits from 14 to 16, though I had what turns out to be a pinched nerve, which probably limited my climbing. It was getting progressively worse between Wellington Open and Auckland Open, but I think it’s getting better now after physio. We’ll say 7 times judo, including fighting in a tournament.
Volunteering
The thing which was different this month was a bunch more NZAC Wellington volunteering, including trying to run a trip (foiled by weather), helping with Snowcraft in-classroom instruction, and going to a trip leader training. Aside from that, usual amounts of volunteering. Worked on new bylaws for the Ontario Alliance of Climbers.
Food
Wellington:
- Peckish Jr: it’s been there for a while but I just noticed it and learned that it does Vietnamese food; rivals Fisherman’s Plate for pho and has banh mi, unlike FP.
- Puku Pies & Kai: another fancy pie place; I preferred the beef and jalapeno pie I got there to the one from Salut.
- The Larder: had a good burger as I was out for brunch with friends.
Blenheim/Kaikōura:
- Saint Clair Family Estate: absolutely delicious gnocchi; also tons of people on bicycle tours.
- Tipsy Foodie’s: they do other things, but it was a fairly standard meat on chips that we shared.
- Asian Taste: good food truck with, indeed, Asian food. Haven’t had Singapore noodles for a long time, but this is what I expected.
- Strawberry Tree: chatted with the friendly French-from-France working holidayers who were on staff twice; portions large; fire was nice; food was OK.
- Black Rabbit Pizza: more jalapeno, this time in a toasty, which was just what I wanted for breakfast.
- Kaikōura Seafood BBQ: we’d been here before but maybe we ordered better this time or the staff were more happy to see us; in any case, this place is famous, and this time, the scallops were worthy.
Auckland:
- Darya Afghan Cuisine: great chopan kebab near the tournament venue.
- Acacia: Hotel restaurant, but we benefited from a 20% off frequent-hotel discount from a colleague, so the burger was actually reasonably priced; definitely wouldn’t do the buffet.
- Nikki’s Kitchen: excellent source of pies in the morning; in Canada I end up often getting McDonald’s for breakfast before refereeing, but I prefer pies for sure.
- Lumbini Indian & Nepalese Cuisine: keeping with the food-next-to-climbing-gym theme, the goat curry was pretty good.
- Browns St Heliers: I’d guess that this place is run by Vietnamese immigrants, and I enjoyed my benedict-on-rosti (even if that’s not quite correct).
- Ohmiya: good-sushi-for-New-Zealand, with a reasonable bento box.
Levin:
- Thai Country Chef: kind of average.
Conclusion
I enjoyed my July. Good mix of domestic travel and service work.