September 24-28, 2000. A trip to Lyon, France.

The trip was for a workshop: CCGSC -- Workshop on Cluster and Computational Grids for Scientific Computing, held at Le Chateau, Faverges de la Tour, outside of Lyon.

• September 24. After a plane ride with no sleep, a bunch of us met at the main train station, and had a croissant and coffee. Going counter-clockwise from the front left -- that's Tom Sterling (JPL), Al Geist (Oak Ridge), Thilo Keilmann (Netherlands), Dorian Arnold (Jack's group), Patrick Geoffray (Lyon -- he works off and on with Rich though, and is married to Susan), Susan Blackford (Jack's group), and Jack Dongarra. The workshop was organized by Jack and Bernard Tourancheau (Lyon).
• Here's the same place, this time from Jack's camera. This time you can see Fran Berman (UCSD -- this is who Rich worked with at UCSD), me, and Bernard, sitting in front of Susan.
• Bernard was nice enough to put us on a Lyon tour bus, and I promply fell asleep. After that, we took the subway to a dining spot at the recommendation of Patrick (who is from Lyon) Here are Thilo, Patrick and Susan, looking pretty damn happy on the subway.
• The lunch spot. Same crowd. The brave of us took Patrick's recommended ``menu Lyonaisse,'' which was a green salad with a poached egg and chicken livers, plus a tripe sausage in a mustard sauce. Since the French among us didn't really know the word for tripe, I didn't understand what I was getting myself into until the food appeared, and to be honest, I felt rather brave choking down three quarters of it before giving up. I'm guessing that might be the only time in my life I will ever have tripe. A momentous day.
• Same place. Jack's camera. Both photos are pre-tripe.
• Next another subway ride, and then up a cable-car to a cathedral with an excellent view of the city. All the rooftops are the same color, which makes a nice effect. I'm afraid that near this point I got to thinking about lunch, and contemplated heaving. A few more bus rides (naps), and most all of the participants arrived at Le Chateau.
• Jim at Le Chateau.
• View from one of the walls.
• Le Chateau. Some of the people stayed here, and this is where the meals were. The rest of us stayed in an outbuilding.
• September 25. Here's the room where the talks were given, right before I gave my talk. Random people in the crowd -- that's Bernard, front and center. In row three, that's Tom far left, then Thilo, Jose, Jean-Yves, Laurent and Al (Jean-Yves and Laurent become significant later on). Fran is standing behind Jose. At the far left in Fran's row is Bill Johnston (NASA) with his hands over his face, and that might be Satoshi Matsuoka (Tokyo) next to Fran. Carl Kesselman (USC/ICI -- real big money) is standing back left.
• The meals were major league French gourmet. And I have to admit, night one left me dying for some Buddy's barbecue. Not that it was bad, although I am not a fan of foie gras, just a bit sparse (two tablespoons of lentils, a triangle of gelatinous stuff that I believe featured fish, foie gras, quail (both bites of it), ripe cheese, chocolate dessert). My kingdom for some hushpuppies.....

  Anyway, I figured I'd try to take pictures of each course in night two's dinner. Note all the silverware and glassware. Here is course 1 -- crab-thingies in sauce. Look at all that silverware and glassware!

• I forgot to take course #2, so here's the empty plate. I think it was a three crab or lobster chunks on melba toast with sauce in the little dish. You'll note, I used the wrong silverware here, forgetting about the outside-in rules. I'm afraid I just use one knife, fork and spoon typically per meal.
• Course #3 -- three pieces of prime rib with bernaise sauce and potatoes. They don't let you get fat in France. You'll note the silverware. The waitress gave me a disgusted look after course #2, took my silverware off the plate, and carted off the clean silverware that I was supposed to have used. I felt appropriately shamed. So it goes.
• A pic from Jack's camera. Here are the chefs, parading around the prime rib before it was cut up for our enjoyment.
• Course #4 -- the cheeses. The one with the green things was the stankiest.
• Course #5 -- dessert. Raspberry sherbet, some choclate stuff (not mousse -- it was goopy), and hell, now I've forgotten the name of the carmelized stuff. All good.
• The only picture from 9/26. Here I am, hacking on the porch of my room. My room was right above the meeting room, which meant that my wireless card was close enough to pick up the wireless tower in the meeting room. Which meant that my room had Internet access, a nice perk.

  Today featured golf -- there was a little nine-hole course around the chateau, and Jean-Yves and I rented clubs, and played the course, with Laurent as our caddy. I gave them a few ''merde''s after some bad shots, just to show them that I could try to play along with the French vibe.

• September 27. The big group photo. I won't be able to get everyone, but here's what I know: In front of course are Jack and Bernard. Next row: Two unknowns, Satoshi, Graham, Joel Saltz (Maryland), Cheri Pancake (Oregon State), Thilo, Fran, Tom, Al. Third row: Chuck Seitz (CalTech), ??, Mark Baker (british guy who had just spent a few months at ORNL), a gap, ??, Gordon Bell (I might be wrong there), a gap, and Peter Beckmen (Turbo Linux) on the end. Fourth row: two unknowns, Bill Johnston, a different Satoshi, Dorian, Carl, Laurent, Jose, and another French-looking man. Fifth row: Ben (in the red shirt), who spent last summer in Knoxville working for Rich, Jean-Yves (black shirt), Bart Miller (Wisconsin), Miron Livny (also Wisconsin), and I'm afraid I don't know the rest of the row. Actually, I don't know anyone else, except, there are me, Susan and Patrick in the back row.
• This was our last day, and I wanted to take some pictures of the golf course. This is the 6th hole, which, in a course of hysterical holes, is the best. We're standing on the men's tee, and if front of us, in the middle of that skanky pond, is the women's tee. Your tee shot has to go over the tennis-court hazard (there is a drop area to the left in case you don't make it) to the hole. I parred this one (actually, once I figured out that you couldn't get a wedge in the air with the thin grass, I started working the bump-and-run from anywhere inside 130 (meters, of course), and had a run of 5 pars in a row).
• The view of the tees on #5 -- you get to tee off next to les vaches (the feeding cows).
• Here is the 6th green, with the 5th green right behind it. You can see the tennis courts, behind which you tee off. I sliced a three faire (iron) and almost put it on the 5th green, but had a nice bump through that gap in the trees, skirted the bunkeur, and parred the hole.
• The 7th hole was the second funniest. You are pinned between the chateau wall and a 30 foot drop-off to the right. Fortunately, it's short (130 meters). Unfortunately, Jean-Yves plunked a 7 iron right on top of the chateau wall and into the trees behind on ball #1. On ball #2, he yanked a 9-iron into the chateau, and we had to wait as the ball arched down, to hear if it hit anyone... He was a bit shaken and didn't hit ball #3. (I parred, although it was to be my last par on the day).
• A picture for Cindy. Here's the jardin by the 7th tee. A mixture of flowers and vegetables, and a big momma Gymsum weed plant (not pictured), just in case the chateau workers were in the mood for some hallucinations...
• Some pictures from Jack. Here's Thilo, Dorian, Graham Fagg (Jack's Group) and Patrick on the patio where we had lunch every day.
• Art shot of Le Chateau at night.
• One of the out-buildings.
• September 28. Here's a moment that I got used to: Saying ``hi'' to Jack in his first-class seat while I trudged back to my coach seat in the back of the plane....
• Ok, this one is out of place. October 3 -- Katie wears a new dress from Grandma.
• And Emily dines on sweet potato, pork chops and rice.