This is about as late as it gets in the month for a monthly report. Let’s try to be quick about it. No vacation this month, but I did go to Italy to co-chair the SCAM conference. And a bunch of other service tasks. Started a new year with a surprising number of research students.
Health news
H. pylori, hepatitis, HPV, EBV can cause cancer and are preventable. Infections are bad. You just don’t want them.
Professional
The most prominent thing was going to Italy for SCAM. Even if it’s just a two-day conference, there’s a lot of travel overhead, etc. I also met with students and prospective students, and had both university and community service. Overall, 18 days of work.
Research
New master’s student, two new undergrads. Continuing to supervise my PhD student (aiming for ECOOP) and pushing along collaborations. POPL paper rejected.
Teaching
ECE 459 and SE 465 updates deferred to November. Did administer an oral exam deferred for SE 465 from Winter 2026.
Grad students/mentees/collaborators
I guess I could count number of days where I talked to students, mentees, and collaborators (9), or I could count meetings (11). The number of meetings is probably a more accurate indicator, especially since I try to bunch meetings.
Collegiality/Service
In-person chairing at SCAM (including preparing a chair’s report), a POPL review, FAUW governance (including round 1 of the General Meeting to amend the constitution and its aftermath), a review of a verify-rust-std solution, and “volunteering” at the Ontario Universities Fair.
Trips
Whakapapa, September 6
- Trip report (by Michael Pohl): Te Heu Heu summit attempt
- Pictures: Whakapapa-but-not-Te-Heu-Heu (51/197), September 6
Italy, September 11-17
No pictures posted yet. Briefly:
- Flew to Napoli, had pizza (which we’d failed to acquire 20 years ago when we visited), visited two of the catacombs (San Gennaro is a community turnaround success story), tried to see birds, always felt like I was about to get run over by a car.
- Train to Benevento via Caserta. Visited the grounds of the Reggia de Caserta, which are actually quite large; I thought renting a bike would be overkill, and I didn’t, but maybe I should have.
- Stayed at Benevento for SCAM 2026 and an extra half-day, where I went to the local park. Better sidewalks, fewer cars.
- Then took the train to Rome and had non-Italian food (Indian). Thought about going to the climbing gym but didn’t.
Montreal, September 18-20
Visited my parents, though I stayed at the other end of the Metro line. Did go to the outdoor climbing gym in the shadow of the Olympic Stadium. It was actually the easiest one to access by transit.
A week in Ontario
Was chief referee for the Asahi Open and volunteered at the Ontario Universities Fair, and then flew back from there.
Back to Wellington
Also, successfully flying back to Wellington from Toronto required skills. I had originally booked the YKF bus to YYZ, but then I volunteered at the Ontario Universities Fair in Toronto, and the change fee to drop the YKF segment was exorbitant, unless connecting at Calgary. The 35 minute connection in Calgary became impossible with a delay, but fortunately I proactively managed to get onto the nonstop to Vancouver. Otherwise I would have been stuck somewhere overnight.
Travel Planning
Realized that I needed to figure out accommodation for the Ontario Open in October, so I did that, as well as fixing travel from Montreal back to Toronto.
Movement statistics
Italy notably contributed to the walking numbers here.
- 🚶 Walking: 82.5km on 20 days
- 🚲 Biking: 138km on 11 days
- 🚗 Driving: 926km on 11 days (Ruapehu, YYZ-Waterloo, 30km around Toronto)
- â›´ Boat: 48km (Ohrid semi submarine and ferry to Vancouver Island)
- ✈ Plane: 50892km (WLG-SYD-YVR-YYZ, YYZ-YUL-NAP, FCO-YUL-YYZ, YTZ-YUL, YYZ-YVR-BNE-WLG)
- 🚗 Taxi: 11km (to WLG; a quick ride in Napoli)
- 🚌 Bus: 138km on 5 days (mainly Waterloo to Toronto for OUF)
- 🚆 Train: 1253km on 8 days (Napoli to Benevento, Benevento to Rome, Montreal to Toronto, Toronto-Kitchener a few times, UP Express to YYZ)
- 🚆 Metro/subway: 129km on 5 days (Montreal, Toronto)
- 🚆 Streetcar: 4km (Toronto)
Pictures
Not quite as much travel in September as in August, but still a substantial amount. The backlog definitely doesn’t grow as much on a work trip as it does on a vacation. Was still +10 sets for September, but I think some of the sets are pretty small. Fewer sets processed, but went through a lot more pictures (there were 400 pictures from Thessaloniki). The backlog still has 3 days from September 2024 and 12 days from October 2024, so I’d better speed up. But let’s post the September summary first.
This month we have one set of pictures from an NZAC Wellington trip to Whakapapa in Aotearoa (September 2026); a set from the Kumano Kodo; three sets from Greece and one from North Macedonia, including a huge set of Thessaloniki bird pictures; some pictures from Rome 2005; another day of the TMB; and a day in Tokyo (September 2025).
Picture logs available, and, as always, pictures are clickable to go to the full gallery.
- Sets of pictures processed: September=8, August=11
- Total pictures selected: September=685, August=453
- Total pictures in selection pool: September=2592, August=1618
- Accept rate: 26% (min 16%, max 55%)
- Pictures posted on this page: 137 (20% of selected).
General birds:
Miscellaneous
Another month…
Posts
Acquisitions
- INIU Carry P50 power bank: I don’t use it much, but it’s a nice security blanket for power anxiety.
- SlimQ 100W USB-C GaN charger: better than the chargers I previously owned, especially for being easy to use internationally.
- Soundcore Liberty 5 earbuds: the jury is still out, but I seem to have left my previous ones on a train.
- yet another phone stand, USB-C charger cable.
I had a combination lock which was locked to something that I didn’t want it to be locked to. I managed to brute force the combination in 20 minutes. Then I lost the lock. Oh well, at least it’s not stuck. Locks are fake.
Sports
Judo 1×, climbing 7x, mountain biking Kitchener hydrocut 1×. Hope my pinched nerve improves soon.
Volunteering
- RIP Jeremy Fortier of the Ontario Alliance of Climbers
- OAC bylaw rewrites
- chief referee for the Asahi Open (Waterloo), kind of a thankless task
Food
Italy:
- O Sole Mio (Napoli): gotta have pizza
- Pizzeria Alessandro Pascale (Napoli): good quattro formaggio pizza, after the catacombs
- Pasticceria Lauri: eclairs (and other pastries)!
- Gran Caffe Novara: didn’t want a full meal, so the pizza magherita was appropriate
- Conference food: in Europe, actually good
- La Pampanini (Benevento): always love croquettes; conference dinner was here also
- B&B Domus Traiani (Benevento): really nice accommodation with proper breakfast too.
- Le Scalette (Benevento): it’s Italy, so of course even for lunch they have a proper primi and secondi.
- Keralam (Rome): excellent fish thali plate, also a welcome change from Italian food.
Excellent food in Italy of course, though it’s good to have a change too.
Other:
- Hunger Hut (Taihape): a reliable stop on the way to the mountain for excellent Indian food; some menu descriptions are a bit over the top.
- Whispers Cafe (Levin): acceptable pie on the way back.
- Café Vasco da Gama (Montreal): where would I get breakfast on my way to my parents? This is downtown and I’d go here again.
- Le Roi du Taco (Montreal): we enjoyed eating outside, and the tacos were tasty; Canada is getting better at this but not as good as the US in general. (I don’t mean French tacos).
- Café Central Ville Émard (Montreal): close to my airbnb, good pastries, plus a guy brought his cat.
- Daldongnae BBQ (Toronto): was one of Marco’s favourite Korean places (small chain) next to his old apartment; endorsed.
- Rajdhani Sweets (Kitchener): I hate the location at the Boardwalk, but it was close to the mountain biking, and it’s nice to have a dosa.
Conclusion
Posted just before the end of October (Eastern Time), whew.