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November 2008 - Savas Weblog

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  • Ski season

    Just bought my 10-day pass for Whistler :-) Can’t wait to hit the slopes again. Read More...

  • Obama’s win

    It’s been fascinating to watch the entire world paying attention to the election results of one country; a testament to the global role of the US today. I don’t really believe in political labels (“left”, “right”, “socialist”, “communist”, etc.) but I...

  • Adventure ahead: I am off to explore the Maya civilization

    Just booked my flight for a 2 1/2 week trip to explore the Maya civilization . I am flying to Cancun (no, I am not going to stay to any of the holiday resorts). I am going to immediately hit the road and travel around the Yucatán peninsula . The rough...

  • Good comments about our coffee-related endeavors

    Jay has some good feedback on our “How to GET a Cup of Coffee” article. Thanks Jay! We are monitoring the Web for any feedback that we can use for our upcoming book on the same topic. We encourage everyone to either blog their thoughts on Web-based application...

  • Travel blog - Day 1

    As you can probably imagine, this blog will be full of travel-related entries for the next couple of weeks. I may still post the odd technology-related one though. You’ve been warned :-) Arrived in Cancun around 6.30pm and got my rental Fiat. I’ve already...

  • Travel blog - Day 2

    After a wonderful first evening in Valladolid , I returned to the hotel, taking some photos on the way (this is a view of my hotel’s interior). I worked on that Web book for a while. I couldn’t sleep... the travel, still on Pacific Standard Time I guess...

  • Travel blog - Day 3

    Another great day, different from yesterday. I woke up feeling that I needed more sleep. The hotel experience was not good, even though the lady-owner was very sweet, telling me how much she liked Greece and that she wanted to visit one day. Well, I think...

  • Travel blog - Day 4

    The day started very early. I couldn’t sleep all night because of blood-thirsty bugs. Originally I thought it was mosquitoes. Even though I was trying to ignore them, their bites kept waking me up. Then, at around 6am it occurred to me... what if these...

  • Travel blog - Day 5

    I think I slept for 11 hours. The combination of bugs the night before (I think I only slept for 3 hours or so), an exhausting day 4 , and a nice bed resulted in a lot of sleep. Didn’t manage to write as much as I wanted though :-( The “bedbug” problem...

  • 1TB sort done in 68 seconds by Google

    This 3 times faster than the previous known record. For those who don’t know, Jim Gray et al established a series of tests, including the 1TB sort, in order to give database vendors a playground for honest comparisons. The results are maintained online...

  • Travel blog - Day 6

    (this was supposed to be a boring driving day... little I knew :-) After yesterday’s problems with Julio , the car, the night ended quiet with lots of book-related writing. In the morning, the bedbugs were back :-( This time I took more drastic action...

  • Travel blog - Day 7

    No sign of bugs this morning and throughout the day. My “attack” on them yesterday seems to have paid off. Let’s see tomorrow. The heavy metal band across the street was playing into the early hours of the morning. As a result, I didn’t get much sleep...

  • Travel blog - Day 8

    After I posted the “day 7” entry , I went to my little cabin (see below) and tried to write for few hours but didn’t manage to. It’s soooo peaceful here. You can only hear the sounds of the jungle (and infrequently some annoying dogs... I have nothing...

  • Travel blog - Day 9

    Last night I slept for 11 hours. Hmmm... I think my body is telling me to take it easy or it’s just that the Trek Stop is the best place to relax and my body is taking the opportunity to make up for all the months of hard work :-) I am not complaining...

  • Travel blog - Day 10

    Today was “Tikal day”. The previous night I had arranged to join a group, an organized tour, for a day-long trip to Tikal in Guatemala. A number of reasons lead me to decide to leave Julio, the car, behind: I found out that for almost half the distance...
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