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Frank's Boston Trip

I was in Boston, MA Aug 4-10, 2007 for the Usenix Security conference. I was with Golden and Daryl and G4. We did some sightseeing.

Click on the thumbnail images to get larger ones (around 100-300K). Click on the "huge" link to get the full size pictures (around 3M). Around 50 pictures included.

Public Garden

We stayed at the Sheraton Boston, near the Prudential Center. From there we walked all over city. The first stop was to the Public Garden next to the Boston Common. Actually, Newbury Street was the first stop. Then on to the Garden.

[Flower]
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[Statue]
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[Flower]
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The Garden has various pretty flowers and cool statues. The flowers look like a hibiscus. The statue is of Washington.

[Fountain]
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[More flowers]
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[Swan boat]
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A fountain and more flowers, with Golden visible in the distance. And on the pond, they have swan boats. Daryl remembered them foundly as something she always wanted to ride but never did. Then we saw then and realized they go about 100 feet and there was a long line too. But they do remind me of the elf boats from Lord of the Rings.

Chinatown

After that, we wandered into Chinatown. There was some festival going on with a large stage. We happened to wander to the back side of the stage, where there were not a lot of people there; on the front side of the stage, it was packed with people.

[Girls practicing a traditional Chinese dance]
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[Girls practicing a traditional Chinese dance]
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[Girls practicing a traditional Chinese dance]
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I noticed three young girls that were practicing some traidtional Chinese dance. The backside of the stage is the big white thing behind them.

[People in Chinatown]
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[Chinese dragon!]
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People were waiting around the area, holding flags and wearing uniforms. They were probably going to be one of the next acts at the festival. There was a Chinese dragon right next to the stage. Perhaps that is for the end of the festival (or was for the beginning).

Around Boston

We wandered around various places in Boston. Some highlights are included below.

[Trojan Cow at the train station]
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[Art on a bridge]
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[Bridge to the World Trade Center (Boston)]
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The South Station is the main train station at Boston. They have a cool Trojan Cow by the entrance.

Elsewhere, near the convention center, on the bridge to the World Trade Center is a cool sculpture of...something. Dudes on horses and stuff.

And finally, Golden and Darl on the bridge (with the horse dudes sculpture).

[Boston skyline]
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[Boston skyline]
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Two shots of the Boston Skyline from the same area (the bridge). The shots are taken from slightly different angles, so the parallax is kind of cool. Gives a 3 dimensional feel to the pictures.

[World Trade Center (Boston)]
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[Spirit of Boston boat]
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[Spirit of Boston boat]
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The entrance to the Boston World Trade Center, and two pictures of a cruise ship, the Spirit of Boston. The light reflecting off of the water on the bow of the boat looked cool.

[Another Boston skyline]
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[Frank and Splitsville]
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[Lobster wholesaler and weather vane]
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The first picture is Yet Another shot of the Boston skylikne. The distorted, shimmering reflection of the middle, tall building in the glass building looked cool.

The second picture is another in the continuing series of the "Frank Reacts to Signs" pictures. Note, my reaction is that I'm pointing to myself, as in "yup, that's me!" Having semi-recently ended a relationship, I couldn't help but be highly amused by the appropriateness of the sign. All that was missing was the large print that said "Welcome to" and the fine print that read: "Population: you." The sign might be hard to see, so if you don't want to download the huge picture, here's a normal size version with the sign inset and expanded.

Finally, a shot of a lobster wholesaler. They had a cool lobster weather vain at the top of the building.

[Boston Opera House]
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[Back alley in Boston]
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[Back alley in Boston]
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The first picture is of the front lobby of the Boston Opera House. We just stepped inside to check it out. It's a beautiful, old, grand building. The second and third shots are of a back alley. It just looked kind of neat to me.

[Hibiscus]
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[Another flower]
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[Some other flower]
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And fianlly a few flowers from various locations in Boston.

The New England Aquarium

I got to hang out with Tania while we were in Boston. She is a member of the New England Aquarium, and had a family pass which got us all in (up to 4 adults, and G4 is under 2, and kids under 3 are free). Thus an aquatic adventure ensued.

[Tania, Daryl, and Golden getting tickets]
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[Happy subway Tania]
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We had been wandering around Boston a lot that day. Tania met us at a restaurant near the Boston Library. We decided we'd take the subway to get to the aquarium, since it was only open for a few more hours. The first picture shows Tania, Daryl, and Golden getting tickets for the subway. Tania had given me her card, thus I was beyond the gate. And the second shot is a Happy (her natural state) Short-haired (a fairly recent state) Tania. I find the resemblance to her brother a little disturbing.

[Outside of the Boston Aquarium]
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[Outside of the Boston Aquarium]
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A couple shots outside the Aquarium. To the left is an area that has seals in an outdoor area. They seemed to be content. The featured exhibit was penguins.

[Rock-hopper penguin]
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[Penguins]
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[G4 and G3 and penguins]
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Just a few pictures of penguins. A rock-hopper penguin. Some other type (Moof and Jen would know), and Golden holding G4 who wants to touch, love, and possibly eat, the penguins.

The acquarium is a nice place. Cool jellyfish and other freaky things too.

Usenix Security Tutorial

The purpose of the trip was for Golden and I to present a tutorial on Live Forensics at Usenix Security. And, in fact, that's exactly what we did.

[Frank teaching]
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[Frank teaching]
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[Frank teaching]
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In these pictures Frank is introducing the topic of File System forensics.

[Golden teaching]
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[Golden teaching]
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And Golden lectured on Evidence Correlation and some challenges.

Dress is casual at Usenix. Golden and Frank like that.

The North End

A group of us went to dinner in The North End of Boston. We were going to go to one Italian place, but they messed up our reservation and didn't seem to really want our business, so we went elsewhere, a block or so down the street. My friend Tom who lives in the area joined us.

[Paul Revere's house]
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[Paul Revere's house]
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[Jose, Daryl, and Wietse]
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We passed by Paul Revere's house, and the clouds were pretty colors from the setting sun. The last shot is of Daryl and Wietse taking a picture of José (he's from Montreal, as should be apparent from his name).

[Tom and Frank]
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[Tom and Friendly Frank]
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Two shots of Tom and me. For the first one, Golden suggested we get close together. We didn't exactly comply, but I tried on the second one (Tom seems to be eternally tolerant of all the outrages visted upon him by the world, or rather by me).

[Daryl, G4, and Wietse watch a Treo video]
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[Cute Brazilian Waitress and G4]
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[G4, Cute Brazilian Waitress, and Daryl]
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Inside the restaurant, someone was talking about the video on the Internet of the guy putting a iPhone into a blender. Tom pulled out is Treo, found the video and played it and passed it around the table. The first shot shows Darly, G4, and Wietse utterly fascinated by it.

Even though it was an Italian restaurant, the staff was actually Brazilian. The Cute Brazilian Waitress™ was utterly charmed by G4, and vice versa. We were the last group in the restaurant, so she held him and carried him around the restaurant, while he pointed out various items in pictures on the walls. At some point he wanted to walk around, so they went outside to walk. Eventually, she decided to return him (though she said she'd wanted to adopt him). G4 reluctantly returned to his mother after his adventure.

[Golden]
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[Tom]
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We went to get dessert at another restuarant nearby, coffee, gelato, and the like. In the first shot, Golden is in a post-cannoli stupor (but happy), and Tom is looking bad-ass in the second (perhaps he was concerned someone would attempt to steal his dessert).




This page last modified Jul 05, 2009.
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