San Francisco trip

Sorry I don’t keep this up-to-date better! I just got back from a week in San Francisco for the JavaOne software development conference, followed by the wedding of two of my good friends from college. Both trips were great, though now I’m glad to be in town for a while. I took the red-eye flight back to DC on Thursday night, got in at 6AM, and had to leave for the wedding around noon! That was no fun.

At the conference, the website TopCoder.com was running a small programming competition. They had a bunch of computers set up in the exhibit hall, where you can try your luck at the competition. Each day they give you a short problem and you have 30 minutes to solve the problem. The fastest correct solution wins. Each day the top 4 people qualify for a second round, with two problems to solve in an hour. Everyone that’s in the second round gets some kind of prize.

Well, I didn’t really have much interest in this, but I had time to kill one day, so I tried it. I managed to solve the problem, and ridiculously quickly! So I qualified for the second round! To compete in the second round, I had to sign a big release/waiver, but when it was all done, I came in 2nd place!

Anyway, I’ve got photos available from my recent trips — and even some photos of the programming competition. Take a look!