2005-10-27 #1

It's all about food

ist'nt it? It actually is. We spend a lot of time eating, going out to restaurants, with friends. You can talk about food. The best places to get food. How to cook. Spices. You can even talk about place you have been eating exotic food.

Today was the second and last day of the expert group meeting for JSR 272. A long day with many detailled discussions. What comes out of it will be in a first public draft later this year maybe. The meeting took place at Motorola near Moffet Field. They have nice offices and an excellent cantine there. A little annoying is that they make the food ready right before your eyes. However, then its put onto a plastic plate which somehow destroys the good impression.

By sheer accident I chatted with a friend I met in San Diego at the OOPSLA last week and I got an invitation to come with him and his wife to a place called The Slanted Door. This is an upper class vietnamese restaurant. We have shared the starters and the actual food which was excellent. What was interesting that evening was that three out of five persons on the table actually worked on some kind of internation standardization project. We spent the evening eating caramelized shrimp, pork chops, glass noodles and even mahi tuna. It all ended with a vietnamese coffee which is served either warm or cold. You get a cup with a small dripper on top through which the coffee drips. You then can decide how sweet the coffee by stirring up the sweet condensed milk in the cup to finally pour into into a glass full of ice cubes. Excellent.

Well, of course we also had inspiring conversion without going into too many technical details. Its always good to meet new friends ...