andy reagan only the interesting stuff

2012 Joint Mathematics Meeting

This year the JMM, held by the American Math Society (AMS) and Math Association of America (MAA) took place in Boston, MA and my summer MSSB REU project was selected to present a poster at the Undergrad Poster Session. This was my first experience at a big conference (the JMM is touted online as the largest math conference in the world at 7K+ registrants), and it was definitely a learning one. I got to see a handful of interesting talks, present my poster, explore Boston, and catch up with friends that I hadn't seen since the summer.

Here's the day by day of what I was up to. I talk mostly about the food.

Wednesday

I carpooled down with my advisor Chris Danforth and also along for the ride were Lewis Mitchell (postdoc in climate at UVM) and Kameron Harris (masters student at UVM). We left bright and early from Burlington, at 7AM while temperatures lingered in the 2F range.

Arriving at about 11, it was extremely daunting at first trying to find talks to attend. Turned out that there weren't any going on until lunch, so we checked out the conference center and then all got lunch at Legal Sea Foods.

In the afternoon, I was able to attend some interesting talks, get in a speedy 4 mile run on some great trails with outstanding views, and then that night Jim, Paul and I met up with Lewis and Kam and two of Kam's friends for dinner at this really hip place called The Other Side Cafe. They had Left Hand Milk Stout on tap! And delicious veggie burritos.

Thursday

The four of us, and Chris's former teacher at Bates College, Chip Ross at lunch at the Top of the Hub which was on top of the very tall Prudential Building. The views were great, and we talked a lot about bifurcations which I understand, but not at the level that these guys do who've been studying dynamical systems for some time. Views from the top:

boston!!!

Everyone from the REU from the summer were in town for dinner, except for Laurel who was still on her way, so we all got together for dinner at restaurant recommended by Jim called The King and I. It was great thai food and company! That was pretty much it for that night.

the dinner invitation I texted out

Friday

The theme of the this post is definitely feeling to me like food and travel, and not as much math, but this is more interesting for the most part. The first day I grabbed breakfast, I got two eggs on a wheat bagel at ABP and it was real good. I first went to support a fellow hokie, Scott Burton, present his research from the past summer on graph theory stuff. I went to a few other talks after that were actually not what I expected, and I guess that happens.

Now that the entire REU gang was in, except that John and Hussein bailed for lunch, we took the T up to the North End to see historic Boston and get some great food. We ate a really small italian place, and it was just us. It felt just like we were eating in the kitchen of an italian lady's kitchen, and the spinach ravioli come recommended by me!

the old north church

laurel was happy!

my bro Paul

Emily (right) inside Mike's Pastry

I tried again to find some interesting talks, and sort-of did. But before long it was time for me to do what it was that I'd come to do, present my poster! The ugrad poster session was nuts, with over 300 posters being presented. It turned out to not work very well having all four us man one poster, so we took 30min turns at explaining what we did this past summer.

the poster session, huge!!

After the poster session, Laurel and I headed out for what turned out to be an amazinggg run. Check it out. Here is the view we had from the trail on the Charles River, looking back at Boston where we'd come from:

water like glass, dirt trail, awesome

I was late for dinner at the Back Bay Social Club, where I got the dirtiest look I ever have from a bartender, when I didn't tip on a $8 beer. I've never paid that much, and actually had out $6, ready to leave a dollar tip even if it cost 5. But 8!? Sticker shock I guess. But looking on the menu later, the beer I ordered was actually only supposed to be 7...whatever.

Kam, Lewis and I ended up heading to BU for drinks w Kam's friend again, and it was a fun night up there. I forget the name of the little town.

Saturday

Perhaps the most interesting talks of the conference from the group that I came with took place on Sat morning. We heard from experts in the field on Data Assimilation and Dynamical Systems, and I learned quite a bit. I also got to meet Chris Jones, who gave an excellent talk, and is the head of the MCRN that is offering a course this spring that I am considering attending.

I had to check out of the Westin, and carried all of my stuff (with some help) to lunch at the Cafetaria Boston w Laurel, Paul, Lewis, and Kam. Their fish tacos were great.

The afternoon was the session on Mathematics of Climate Change and Sustainability which was chaired by Chris and he spoke in first. The first three talks were great, and after that more educations based and less mathie. I learned from each of the first three. Apparently it got a little more heated later, about the challenges and obligation to teach mathematics with applications in the classroom. I had dipped out to haul my luggage two miles across Boston to Lewis' hotel, the Omni Parker.

I had some free time while the talks were over, and Kam and Lewis were at the hockey game so I grabbed my laptop and headed to find a coffee shop with wireless. I stopped at Jos A Bank to ask why my shoes seemed to be falling apart on the bottom, but apparently it's normal wear for dress shoes.

wasn't sure they were supposed to wear like this

I ended up stopping at the ABP, where I got a little package of grapes and little bag of assorted nuts to hold me over till dinner which I was actually quite productive and researched for, then registered for my classes this spring.

That night, we got dinner again at The Other Side and I got the other veggie burrito which was also excellent. And I had the Avery Salvation Ale, a belgian strong ale and it was reallyyy good.

We met up with a couple other mathematicians after at some bars called the Dead Author's Club, and then Boston Beer Works. They were home to more really good beer, in particular the Slumbrew Porter Squared Porter was amazing. It was pretty neat for me to be by far the least educated in the group, the other guys were post-docs at MIT and on fellowships. All in all, it was a really great night out on the town and to cap off a great week in Boston.

Sunday

We headed out of Boston at like 11AM, and Chris had picked up some more amazing canolies from Mike's Pastry to cure Lewis, Kam and my hangovers. I felt fine, but the canoli was much appreciated. Upon returning "home," I've been able to rest up, get groceries and make dinner, write this up and get ready to head into the office tomorrow.

What a week!

The first week back from Thanksgiving Break was excellent, and although was buried in the books for most of the day, I was able to get out pretty much every night. First for the cycling meeting and to play basketball with Professor Norton on Mon night, to the tri meeting on Tuesday night, the TruGold Roller races Wed night, the Betty Crocker Cookoff on Thurs night, then the Biro D'Italia on Fri night , the Putnam Competition and race some Cyclocross Saturday!

Woo! Well it's back to books again on Sunday, so perhaps I'll write more about these events later. (If I do, it'll be appended below).

TruGold Racing

Scotland Leman is a professor at Virginia Tech who used to race bikes, and is now getting back into racing and very involved with helping out the team. This includes an awesome series of roller races that he's put together, under the name "TruGold." Basically, we gather in a room in Randolph Hall, and torch our legs on some rollers with head to hear races! Here's a video to better explain:

http://player.vimeo.com/video/32296678?autoplay=1 (notice my red Chris King hubs at 35sec)

getting set up for the races

This past Wednesday's races were highlighted by a bike domino crash, and a heck of  a lot of racing. Jacob Aber pushes the line between going fast and staying on the rollers to the going fast side, and in his first race he came off the rollers. He fell into Naik who was on his right, who fell over. I was so distracted by all of the crashing that I didn't pay attention to the fact that I was riding on rollers, and looked down to realize I was no longer on mine. I fell right into Mike, who was on rollers, who fell right into Justin, also on rollers. It must have been pretty hilarious to watch, by the end half of the room was on the ground tangled in bikes. I felt bad to knocking Mike and Justin over, but no bikes (or people) were damaged so it was all good, I suppose. There were a few more falls in the night, resulting one busted tire (Zach), Jacob later broke his shifter, and broke the cable on one of the rollers.

The racing consisted of two double elimination events, the 500m (scary fast) and 2km distances. The 500m was scary because was a sprint, on rollers. Scotland (the fastest) was seeing speeds in the mid 40's on rollers. And these aren't just any rollers, they're TruTrainers. Super nice rollers. They have resistance, and a flywheel that allows you to coast. The coasting is really cool, and even more like real road riding than any other roller out there, but there is nothing less that I want to do than coast without slowing at 40MPH after a 30sec sprint. The 2k races were more reasonable, as I was only holding close to 30 (although Scotland held 36MPH for the 2k). I was happy to get Mike and John G in my first 2k race, but after that my legs were pretty cooked. We races from 7PM-11:30PM, and I took a ride home from John G which was much appreciated.

Betty Crocker Cookoff

Aaron Bradner hosted a tri team potluck, this time themed as a cookoff! There was a category for deserts, and as it turned out, everyone made deserts. Which is certainly not a problem. I made my Mom's PB No-bake cookies, and now realize why my Dad can't eat them anymore but boy are the delicious. But they're all sugar, butter, and cream haha. Guess I just better keep up the running.

cookies!

Research Group Final Presentations

Friday afternoon our research group under Reinhard Laubenbacher gathered for our end of semester meeting, and this time our assignment was to prepare and present a concrete five-year plan. I wore a button down every day this week it felt like, and Friday I went one higher with the suit! I volunteered to present first, and having put a lot of thought and effort into this very difficult assignment, was very happy how it went. It was perhaps the first time I've presented with Reinhard in the room that I felt like I had prepared 100% and was on task; perhaps that's a sign that I'm maturing in my presentation abilities. Without the actual presentation, I don't think that these two slides mean too much, but here they are: Andy 5 Year Plan

Biro D'Italia

I was only able to stay at Reinhard's after meeting happy hour for about half an hour (after biking up Brush Mtn with Jason to get there), and was headed back home for the BIRO D'ITALIA. The brain child of Bradner and I, as an addition to the tours of Blacksburg's already famous Tour de Franzia, it came together beautifully. I was still figuring out where the stops were during that day, and we had a changed of route approx 5min before the race began, but dang it was actually pretty smooth. First, check out this awesome flyer (yes I spent an hour on this, but consider that I don't have TV):

The route was all together about 12 miles, and the way we decided to run it was a group ride (staying together, although riding quick) out to the Foxridge stop. Then, it was race on. And it worked out perfect that way, because we were able to have fun riding together, then lay the hammer down on the last two stops. Racing at 25MPH for the final 6 miles, immediately after beverage 4, with beverage 5 in the middle, and beverage 6 immediately after was pretty darn challenging. Really, my stomach was just pretty full, trying to stay in the drops in the big ring.

The three awards went as follows: with the first place finish, Andy Wentzel donned the Maglia Rosa. A strong effort and smart choice of route won the Aggresivo Maximo for Christian P as he was first to the Martini Party, and the Intoxica Suprema awarded to Greg P for a tough finish at Stage 6. The Intoxica was the toughest award to give out, because also Jan G's carbonated beverage of choice was Brooklyn East India Pale Ale, but he had no problems with this choice.

My finish was 3rd place, behind Bill Lucy and right ahead of Mike B. David H rounded out the top 5. Somebody has a picture of the whole gang, but I don't know if I'll be able to find it haha.

Here is the garmin race data (includes stops): http://connect.garmin.com/activity/132353786

the podium

Putnam Competition

As studies have shown, I was really at no disadvantage on the Putnam after the Biro D'Italia. However, if each of the Grand Tours happened every semester (which they don't), I would be in trouble.

If you don't know what the Putnam is, I can't really summarize it better than Wikipedia.

During the exam, it became clear why one correct answer (of 12) would land a taker in the top 28%. It's tricky. I submitted 7 answers, although I'm fairly certain that I over-simplified two of them. So, I'd be pretty happy with the median score of 1 really, but I hope to have done better. Had I been smarter and focused on two problems per 3-hour session, I probably would have gotten a higher score, but had less fun. (Because there's almost no partial credit).

Tech Cross

At the same venue (same event) as my first event with the cycling team, I headed over to the cross races after the Putnam. I brought my shoes, jersey, shorts, and helmet just in case, but didn't really plan on racing since I didn't have a cross bike. Jaber was nice enough to let me borrow his nice Felt cross bike though, and not more than 15 minutes after being in a windowless room for 6 hours doing hard math problems, I was willing pain into my legs whilst riding a confused road mountain bike child around in laps. I didn't want to mess Jaber's fit, so I didn't move his seat up, and I'm pretty sure that riding a seat 4 inches too low didn't help me put down too much extra power. I still rode as hard as I could, and finished like 7th? It would've been nice to be able to open it up on the flats with a full leg extension, but it was still a bunch of fun, and I didn't break Jacob's bike (although I did get some sweet air on it, don't tell him).

Well, suppose that's all for now actually.

Vermont Adventure

I'm looking to go to UVM in the Spring for graduate school, and being only 5.5 hours away in Syracuse while home for Thanksgiving break, took the opportunity to travel with Sam Spisiak there and meet Chris Danforth, Lewis Mitchell, Nick Allgaier, and Cathy Bliss. The trip was a lot of fun, and I love the school. I'm very excited about the prospect of going there this spring, and if not this spring, then the fall.

With GPS letting me down on my last two trips, I'm tempted to go back to using maps. This time, I realized it was leading us to a closed ferry on the way there, and it cost us an hour of backtracking down 79. Regardless, we made it, with a cool (and intentional) detour through the ghost-town of Whitehall, NY. That town is a flash back in time, with a creepy huge stone house lit up on the hill above town.

Camping on Mt. Philoh

Pretty certain that the park may have been closed, I didn't let that deter Sam and I from camping out (as opposed to staying in a hotel, lame) and enjoying the gorgeous view of Lake Champlain and the Adirondack high peaks in the morning. We hiked in, and pitched a tent in one of the available lean-to's. (the "pine" lean-to, actually).

It got down into the low 20's that night, but we managed to stay warm for the most part, I think. The view in the morning made it worth the cold night for sure, and I didn't actually think to take a picture while I was soaking it in, so here is some else's: (credit Fred Murphy)

Burlington/UVM Campus

Vermont, the home of Magic Hat and Ben & Jerry's, is a really cool state. Not to mention my favorite flavor, maple. Having read great things about Burlington, the town didn't disappoint. It is indeed bike/ped friendly, with a shopping ped mall, yet adequate parking downtown as well. I didn't explore the town much beyond driving through, and Sam got a chance to hang out at a coffee shop down there which she said was cool.

Campus at UVM felt really tiny compared to VA Tech, which was somewhat surprising since there are 1/3 as many students. I thought it would be bigger. But nonetheless, it's really pretty and seems like a nice place to go. A lot of the academic departments, including the math department, are in re-purposed victorian style homes around campus, which is neat. Much of campus is new though, too. They do have a public greenhouse, which was pretty cool.

Meeting with Chris and students

Dr Danforth's office, as well as his students', is located on the 2nd floor of Farrell Hall as part of the Vermont Advanced Computing Center (VACC), right above the Vermont Transportation Research Institute (VTRI) and it's a nice space. Apparently there's an attic that not many people know about, that I could #occupy until I find an apartment that is less than $600 a month. That's the single downside that I've found about this whole deal, that housing is expensive. Of all concerns though, not bad. Probably expensive because it's an awesome place to live.

It was a pleasure to meet Chris, and his grad student has nothing but awesome things to say about him. Being around someone who has the energy to be involved in lots of research projects, teach two classes, have a family, be a great advisor, and be relaxed about it all, is quite invigorating. The prospect of coming to UVM at the start of the new year on a GRA is awesome, and if not then, with a GTA in the fall.

I could definitely see myself fitting in really well (everyone is super into outdoor stuff, they all put studded tires on their bikes to commute in the winter, and they do research with twitter), and so I'm ready to see where it all goes.

Drive Home: Magic Hat

Leaving campus at 2:15, it would have been a rush to make it to the top of the local hike up Camel's Hump by the time it got dark. So we would've definitely have descended in the dark, Sam wouldn't get back to Bport until 3am or would miss another day of class, and there was a chance we wouldn't even make the summit before dark. With all these factors in mind, Sam and I decided to hit the road back.

Since we were getting a somewhat early start back, and I had noticed that we passed the Magic Hat Brewery on the way in, it was a prefect opportunity to stop! A really fun brewery to visit, they gave four free samples and I went from darkest to lightest. Got to try the Vanilla Bean Porter (of which I got a growler for the night), their Wheat IPA, Black Lager, and Hex Octoberfest. The porter was quite good, with strong roastedness you'd expect and the slight balance from the vanilla. The wheat IPA was kinda weird to be honest but more than okay, the black lager lacked body after having tried the porter beforehand, and i'm really just not a big octoberfest beer fan because they're too malty without enough hop balance but their octoberfest was to style for sure.

the wheat IPA sample, looks full size w/o a reference frame ha

the bar at Magic Hat. interesting set up there. the bar is right past the doors as you walk in, with no chairs.

where the "magic" happens (pun intended)

The drive home, with a calculated avoidance of ferries (although it would've been open and the GPS wanted to lead us that way, the wait could have been up to an hour if we just missed it), was pretty seamless. The one thing we missed was to hit a Ben & Jerry's, but I remain optimistic that there will be another chance. The trip was not without maple syrup though, just let me say. We got back to my house at a reasonable time, and although the car was a mess, Sam was able get on her way to Bport so she wasn't driving all night. I was kind enough to drive the last 1.5 to my house so she could catch a break.

Altogether, a great trip. Only regret: didn't get any pictures with the SLR (took wrong lens on the hike). It flew by, as did today sitting at home, but I have a lot of energy to keep working hard and apply myself to my classes as they finish up this semester. I was certainly starting to get a little burnt from working constantly (I quite literally only take breaks to work out during the week usually), but this break was nice.

Future: exciting. Currently: happy.

And some randoms off my phone: