Five continents and counting!

I’m back from Thailand! After 18 days visiting Andrea in the “Land of the free” (Thailand was free from imperialism), I return to my wonderful Austin life. My first immersion in Asia was fantastic; I saw and experienced a ton! I’ve now spent at least a few days on five continents, and every culture has such new and interesting traditions. I’m not sure I’d want to live in Thailand, but the country is worth a visit.

Over on her blog, Andrea posted her side of the story as well as some pictures. I’ll update this post or write some follow-ups to provide more information.

Vaccines for travel to Thailand make me feel blah

In preparation for an exciting trip to Thailand, I got vaccinated against all (okay, a small subset of) the baddies that seek to share my body. As an American in good living conditions, I have never worried about these ailments, but they are a reality in other countries so I thought it best to be protected. Last Tuesday I was given three shots:

• Hepatitis A and B
• Tetanus/Diphtheria
• Influenza

Tuesday morning my arms were sore and I had the sniffles. By afternoon I needed a nap. Wednesday, I was uncontrollably tired–I slept about 12 hours and lazed around the rest of the day. This felt very much like a weak version of the flu, so I assume the effects were caused by the flu shot.

My fourth vaccine was an oral Typhoid vaccine, Vivotif, which consists of four pills–one every other day. Andrea had taken Vivotif in preparation for her trip, so I had seen one set of potential side effects. To avoid discomfort, I took my pills shortly before bed. My first Vivotif pill was simple; if there were any side effects, I could not differentiate them from those suffered from my three shots. The second pill was okay; I had some dull stomach pains, but nothing awful. After a few days, I saw that the effect seemed to be cumulative. Saturday was unpleasant and Sunday was rough. Monday, my stomach hurt all day and I finished the dose with a feeling of being poisoned, except my body would not, or could not, evacuate the offender. Tuesday I slept almost 12 hours as I had right after receiving the other vaccines; with lingering stomach pain, I ate with care. Today, I’m feeling better and hope to be back to 100% by tomorrow.

The moral of the story: vaccines for travel to Thailand make me feel blah, but they’re better than the full-on illnesses!

Should I have avoided the vaccines? Have you had similar experiences?

I survived ICSE 2009

Better late than never, right?

Last Sunday I returned from Vancouver where I was attending the International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE). I met a lot of great and interesting people. A few that stand out are

• Sherlock Licorish – the soft-spoken researcher from Guyana who told me I was an academic
• Justin Erenkrantz – the President of the Apache Software Foundation who was really down to Earth and cool
• Andy Ko – a professor finishing up his first year at University of Washington. Andy was an all-around great person: articulate, helpful, funny

I also had the honor of hanging out with a couple esteemed colleagues, Drew Stovall and Hyrum Wright, and my wonderful wife.

And a big thanks to the person that made this all possible, Dr. Christine Julien.

Vancouver was an amazing city! I feel extremely glad to be able to see the Pacific Northwest in the late Spring/early Summer. We experienced temperatures  in the 40s to 70 with ample sunshine and a light breeze. By most definitions, near perfect weather. In the eight days we were there it only rained once! Of course, that was the day we were on an open-top zodiac chasing whales, but the experience was too cool to let a little rain get in the way (my retrospective opinion, not the opinion I held while freezing on the chilly waters of the Pacific Ocean). We had awesome Japanese food, terrific Chinese food, a tasty bubble tea, and other ethnic fare that was totally worthwhile.

Before ICSE, we were in Madison, WI to see my sister graduate with her PhD. Her research was about DBMSs on flash disks. Congratulations to her on this momentous ocassion. We’re all very proud!

Four continents and counting!

I researched Google APIs recently. The Google Charts API was particularly intriguing so I decided to map the countries I’ve been to. Below you should see my four continents (ten countries) I’ve been to. In the coming months I should see another continent or two! Soon, I will have been to all six inhabitable continents