Through the Interface

At the end of the last post, Andrew Sonta and I had managed to arrive (slightly delayed) in Calgary, missing our bus and having to wait 2 hours for the next one.

After grabbing dinner at the airport, we were able to take the last bus of the night, leaving at 10:30pm.

We eventually arrived safely in Banff, at the Centre for Arts and Creativity, where the ACM BuildSys conference was due to be hosted the following week. Here's a photo of the entrance that I took during daylight, the following day.

Here's a map of their lovely campus.

We stayed in Lloyd Hall.

The rooms were very comfortable. I liked the way the bed was oriented towards the window.

In the morning it was lovely to lie down and stare out onto nature.

My friend and colleague Matthew Spremulli had recommended a 2-hour hike up onto Tunnel Mountain, which starts from the campus. After a quick breakfast I headed up quite early - at 8:30am - on Saturday morning.

It was great. Just the right length, too - I needed to walk but not to the point of exhaustion: my goal for the weekend was to get rested, given the craziness of my recent (and current) travel plans.

This view down to the right of the path was just incredible.

The view from the summit - down to Banff proper - was also very nice. If you're interested, here's a video I recorded at the summit.

I got back down in time for the 11am football match, Sweden vs. the Netherlands, which turned out to be an absolute stonker. The Dutch won 5-1, although honestly this isn't representative of the work the Swedes put in on the pitch.

As I'd been heading to my room I noticed that Lloyd Hall had a laundry. This was really good news, as I was travelling on a 10-day trip with hand-luggage. But to unlock the laundry badge I needed local currency. This involved a sidequest to an ATM and a conversion from paper to coins. I ended up with a fistful of bright, shiny "loonies", which frankly could have passed for pirate treasure.

With my laundry drying, I could head across to the Maclab Bistrot, where I grabbed lunch and watched Germany vs. Ivory Coast.

Being in North America during this World Cup has been pretty cool, if nothing else because I get to watch so many matches without staying up into the wee hours.

One thing that has irritated me no end has been the commercialization of the event, though. The hydration breaks are utter nonsense, and are all about having 4 quarters (for commercial breaks) rather than being for the good of the players. I'd respect the organisers more if they just came out and said that, frankly. And the fact that even the halftime break has been sponsored by a brand of soft drink just adds insult to injury.

Whenever I've been watching on my own I've been VPNing into a Swiss server so I can watch the coverage on RTS… it's just so nice to be watching with very few advertisements and often not much commentary.

Later on in the afternoon I met back up with Andrew and we headed into the town centre.

Banff is very touristy but with good reason.

There's even a municipal, gas-powered fire-pit. How cool is that?

There's a whole mixture of architecture, ranging from up-scale mansion, through chalet-chic down to rickety surf-bum.

Andrew and I found a couple of places serving local beer. It was cooler that expected, but still nice to sit outside.

After the 3rd match of the day (Ecuador vs. Curaçao?) we headed back up towards the campus.

On Sunday I really took things easy - no hike for me, but a gentle walk through town, getting some steps in but for local exploration. There were a couple of deer hanging out, posing for tourists such as myself.

I walked back up along the cliff alongside the Bow river, but it proved much easier to walk along the road than the highly sketchy cliff path.

I was prepared to stop at any point, quite honestly.

Here's the Bow river with the Fairmont Banff Springs on the other side.

Back on campus I spotted a postbox. I'm so used to seeing them in yellow - whether in the US, in France or Switzerland - it was a shock to see one in a different colour. But maybe this harkens back to the red British postbox? Hmm.

After watching another match in my room (Belgium vs. Iran) I wandered back into town to the Central Park. There were a number of events scheduled for National Indigenous Peoples Day.

It was really interesting, something that's genuinely different from what I would experience in Switzerland. We have lakes and mountains, but not this.

The performers were from the Niitsitapi - also known as the Blackfoot - tribe.

There were many kinds of dance, as well as some local crafts being sold.

Here's a photo that I've admittedly brightened slightly. The sun was behind them, so I don't feel this is unfair.

After this incredibly rich experience I headed back into the town. I spotted this sign outside the local museum - called The Whyte.

The Whyte is the museum of the Canadian Rockies.

There were a number of exhibits inside. I was drawn to portraits made of indigenous people of the area by the original founders of the museum.

A huge surprise was to find a couple of Rodin's sculptures on display, on loan from the Mackenzie Art Gallery. They were amazing!

I went and watched some more football - it must have been Uruguay vs. Cabo Verde, by this point - before meeting up with Saikat Bhattacharya and his family.

Saikat was one of the first people I hired when working in Bangalore, back in 2003-2005, and he's still with Autodesk all these years later. He's been living Stateside for many years, though, and happened to notice I was passing through Calgary at the same time he and his family would be vacationing in the Rockies. This blog is occasionally good for something, at least! I hadn't seen Saikat's wife, Tanushri, since their wedding in Kolkata back in 2005, and this was my first time meeting their son, Aryan.

We had a very nice dinner (yes, I've been putting the fish 'n' chips away on this trip, I'm slightly ashamed to say). Thanks again for reaching out, Saikat!

I stopped off to see some of the New Zealand vs. Egypt match - the Kiwis were very sadly denied their first World Cup match win, despite an early lead - before heading back to campus.

Here are some last snaps I took of the town centre. It's really very pretty.

After one last night in Lloyd Hall, it was time to head back across to the Kinnear Centre for the SocialSys'26 workshop.

SocialSys'26 is a workshop organized by Katherine Flanigan and Andrew Sonta as part of ACM BuildSys'26. Which is in turn part of the ACM Sustainability Week.

Our team has collaborated with both Katherine and Andrew over the last years, and it was really a pleasure to be invited to participate in this workshop. The day kicked off promptly at 8am with a quick introduction.

I then presented the first keynote at 8:15am. Clayton Miller shared a photo of my keynote that I've gladly borrowed (I hope that's OK, Clayton!).

Gail Brager could not join the event in person, due to a personal situation, but was able to attend - and present her keynote - virtually.

I hadn't met Vikas Mehta - from the University of Cincinnati - before, and really enjoyed both his and Gail's presentations. There's a lot of overlap and alignment with my team's work.

After the keynotes came two rounds of lightning talk. These were then mostly supported by poster sessions, which gave a really good opportunity to connect with the research and the people performing it.

Here are a couple of random photos of posters - the standard was generally very high, so I literally chose these as they were interesting photos rather than highlighting specific projects.

It was really nice to meet my fellow in-person keynoter. I hope our paths cross at some point soon.

The workshop wrapped up at noon when the paper awards were presented.

There were some very strong papers - Clayton Miller was awarded the prize of best paper.

Lunch was in a room with fantastic views in both directions.

I had to leave before dessert to head back to Calgary on the 1:30pm shuttle.

It was a very scenic, 100-minute trip. As it had been dark on the way in I took plenty of photos this time.

My flight was due to leave at 6pm local time and arrive in Toronto at midnight (4 hours with the time difference). As we approached Calgary I was notified of a 1-hour delay. Not ideal - as I would then arrive at 1am - but OK. It soon turned into a 4-hour delay, though, which would have meant a 4am arrival. Yuck.

I found an Air Canada gate agent who took pity on me and managed to rebook me onto another flight: this one leaving at 7:50pm and arriving at 1:40am. Which was just as well, as the first flight ended up getting cancelled. I originally had a middle seat assigned, but at the gate I was "upgraded" to an aisle. Phew.

All being well tomorrow I'll be in all-day meetings at the Toronto Metropolitan University, but then I'll finally be heading home.

I'll be missing the Canada vs. Switzerland match, but frankly that's one I'd be very happy to watch from the comfort of my own sofa!