Boston & Montreal July 2009

Spent two really good weeks in the US and Canada. First week at the Sakai Conference in Boston, and the second at the IMS GLC Quarterly Meeting in Montreal. These were both really good meetings and were in two of the most european cities in North America (and that's a compliment).

Did manage to find a little bit of time to take a few pictures in/around Boston and Montreal, and went whale-watching during the weekend between the conferences.

Boston July 2009

Whales July 2009

Montreal July 2009

A Whole New Geography July 2009

My blog posts are mostly about places I've been - this one is about places I've only just found out about, and I don't expect to be visting them any time soon.

The in-flight info system on my trans-atlantic Air Canada flight (where I'm sitting typing this - although I'll post it a bit later) tells me more about where I'm flying over than any other in-flight system I can remember using - it feels like I've discovered a whole new layer of geography (apologies to my geography teachers from many years ago if they told me this).

I've just passed over the Porcupine Bank - and I'm now heading towards the Charlie-Gibbs Fracture Zone. Some of the other places I can see on screen are the Immarssuak Seachannel and the Great Meteor Tablemount. I knew there were lots of geographic features under the North Atlantic - I've just never known what any of them were called, and since this is an Air Canada flight, I even know what some of these features are called in French (Rive de Porc-epic, Chenal de Immarssuak and Butte du Grand Meteor).

Suddenly there are an awful lot more place names to think about.

Wimbledon July 2009

A real bonus - an offer of Centre Court ticket on Men's Final Day very gratefully accepted. The silver cloud from Andy Murray's semi-final loss to Andy Roddick.

Sat in the middle of a 15,000-strong collection of tennis fans and celebs, ranging from Alex Ferguson and Richard Branson to Rod Laver and Bjorn Borg, to watch the marathon match between Roger Federer and Andy Roddick. For the first four sets it really wasn't apparent how Federer was going to complete his 15th Grand Slam title - which must have been worrying for the folks who turned up in the "Federer 15" shirts.

During the fifth set it wasn't clear how either player was going to prevail, other than as a result of the other collapsing from exhaustion. That was pretty much what happening - as Federer won in the 30th game of the final set I couldn't tell if Roddick was reeling from disappointment or exhaustion.

As the final set rolled on a number of the folks around me made apologies and needed to head to the airport to catch flights - I was starting to worry about whether I was going to be able to make my flight on Tuesday morning.

My seat was in an ideal position (in terms of the light) to take photos - a few are below.

Wimbledon July 2009