Mission accomplished!

And we’re back in Dublin. Our trip was totally successful. We achieved the two main goals: get the Canadian Citizenship and beat the humans in Las Vegas.

Long trips are always hard to plan and when you think you figured out everything you have to change the plans because, for instance, you cannot find flight tickets three weeks in advance for the planned dates. Because we postponed buying them for three days, we had to fly the last day possible, that is, 30th of June. Basically we had only one day and half for visiting family and friends. Sigh!

My Citizenship ceremony was scheduled on 2nd of July, the day after Canada’s Day. We were worried that I won’t find any store open to take my passport pictures, so we decided that it is better to have them done the day when we arrived in Calgary. That means if you check my new passport photo you’ll see me trying to keep my eyes open. Oh well, I’ve had worse pictures in my documents … Time was very tight. The ceremony was at 1.00 pm and the flight for Vegas was the next day at 7:30 pm. I don’t even have proper photos from the ceremony because we didn’t stay for the reception afterwards. And since we didn’t have enough problems, just before the ceremony I realized I forgot the flight tickets at home, which are essential to get an express passport (in 24 hours). Luckily, the passport office is in the same building that the citizenship ceremony was held, which is close to the central library. We ran to the library to have our flight booking printed and after some complicated procedures that involved also a library card, we did it! It is so strange that the government building doesn’t have any internet for the public, just in case anybody needs to print their e-mail that they forgot at home. ;-)
Back to the passport office, my batteries were already running low. Jet lag and stress made everything look unreal and I wasn’t feeling very smart. For instance, in the rush, I forgot to ask about our situation of having two addresses, one in Canada and one in Ireland. The problems started when the officer said ‘Could you wait, please, while I contact your two references?’ When she came back she was very upset. Se told me that one doesn’t know me and the other one said I live in Ireland. So here it goes, me, trying to explain how people actually don’t know my first name because I use my second one, plus, I’ve just changed my last name by marriage which makes things even more confusing. What was I thinking when I didn’t contact the references first to tell them what to expect? Anyways, we had to think fast about other references but most of them couldn’t be contacted or were in Las Vegas already. The salvation came from Jason. Thank you, Jason. After more than two hours I finally got my receipt saying to come and pick the passport the next day at 2.00 pm. Yay!
I want also to thank Eileen, Darse’s mom, who gives us shelter and support every time we come to Calgary, and especially on that memorable day when I became a Canadian citizen. It was very comforting to have family assisting and not many immigrants have this luxury.
The next day we woke up early (still jet lagged but also excited), we finished our suitcases and solved other pending problems. We decided that it worth a shot to see if the passport was already done, so we headed downtown almost an hour early. The pick-up office was very quiet and cool, a working heaven – not too much work to do, though. I approached the officer telling him, with big innocent eyes, that I have a passport to pick-up at 2.00 but the bus came early so here I am, one hour early. He smiled and said ‘We can’t fight public transportation. I’ll check if it’s here.’ And it was. Hurray! I’ll be able to fly tonight with Darse to Las Vegas!

Las Vegas
At the beginning of the year, I told one of my friends ‘I think the first trip after I have my Canadian citizenship will be to Las Vegas.’ But back then I had no clue that this would actually happen the very next day after I got it.

The Rio

All this tight schedule was due to the second poker man-machine match, which was held in Las Vegas. Interestingly, the match didn’t have as much media attention as the one held last year in Vancouver at the AAAI Conference, even though it had much more relevance than the first one. I leave Darse to write about it. I only tell you in short that the machine won and Darse was right once again, saying that poker bots can become better than all human players. Another point for the humans who invented the machine.

Darse, Matt and Polaris

Vegas is a strange city. Everything is in excess: distances, size, light, heat, even air conditioning. After seeing the movie ‘21’ I expected Vegas to be a party city but in reality people don’t look very happy. Maybe because they don’t have comfortable shoes, which are mandatory for the big distances, even within the same building. The locals don’t seem happy either because they don’t smile and they rarely joke. I had a feeling of competition and shattered dreams. Who knows, maybe my expectations were to high.

It happens that we were there for the 4th of July and we were invited to Phil Gordon’s party. He lives outside of Las Vegas and we hired a stretch limo to get there because we were too many to fit in a cab. Hiring a limo for the 35 minute trip was not all that expensive and we checked it off our to do list - check. It was a nice party although it wasn’t that easy to start conversations with people. I don’t know if it was a cultural barrier but we couldn’t mingle very much. Except for Darse, of course, who found an acquaintance he’d known for many years on the Internet, Jim Geary, but had never met in person.
It was a warm evening and we sat by the pool sipping our drinks, listening music, and watching others playing some games and the RoShamBo competition. Then we watched the fireworks, which could be seen in all directions. Around eleven Jim and his wife were very nice and drove us at the Rio hotel. The rest of the crew (Aaron and Christine, Diarmuid and Berina) was located at Mandalay Bay so it was easier for them to take a cab.

If you go to Las Vegas in the summer, the best time to go outside is during the night, when the temperature is below 30 degrees Celsius. During the day we were busy with the competition anyway, or at least Darse was. In one of the evenings we went downtown to see the old style casinos and the Fremont Experience. The screen over the street is a clever idea. The first song we saw was ‘American Pie’, which worked really well, but the next one was disappointing. Because of the 4th of July, it was some sort of patriotic music which didn’t fit well with the city of sin and parties. Oh well, at least we had fireworks the day before. Fremont Experience – check.

Downtown pics
-

Shark tank with transparent water-slide inside

The next evening we went to celebrate the victory with the CPRG at a fancy restaurant, and then to see ‘O’ at the Bellagio, a Cirque du Soleil show. I enjoyed the artistic show we saw in Edmonton much more, but this one was more circus like. I wonder if all the shows have the same type of music which I, personally, don’t consider very appealing. Anyway, Vegas show – check. Then we had a stroll on the Strip waiting to see the fountains which didn’t show up. Traffic is crazy on the strip and there were many pedestrians, tourists from all over the world. The Strip at night – check.

-

Then we had a day off, wandering around the Rio while Darse was talking to Terry about work and poker. Actually we were tired of being in crowds for most of the time and looked for quiet spots. In the evening we bought a bottle of wine and watched the city from our 15th floor hotel room.

The last day, we met with the CPRG people at the Flamingo where, guess what, they have flamingos! They seemed a lot healthier than the ones at WEM. They also had black swans, and huge koi fish, and other critters. From there we left for a walk on the Strip in order to visit fancy casinos and see the lame free show at the Treasure Island. We saw The Venetian, complete with fake cracks and fake cobblestone, The Wynn, which is very stylish, The Mirage, warm and friendly but the zoo was already closed, Caesar’s Palace and the Forum Shops, with it’s magnificent fake Roman streets and fake sky. The fountains looked more realistic, and the aquarium was cool. It was so strange to walk on this Roman street which is actually a consumerist shopping mall – what a contrast! As a general trait, every casino has something specific that you can’t see anywhere else. Vegas by day – check.

At The Flamingo
Big fish Darse and birds

Waterfall Swan ballet

The Strip by day

- -

Inside Wynn

- -

The $5,000 slot machine

The Forum Shops

- -

Bellagio Garden & Pool

The Venetian

The only thing left on my list unchecked is gambling. We went to Vegas and didn’t gamble! I guess it didn’t come up. [Liar! It came up, and I vetoed it, scribbling it off the list vigorously –drb]

Of course, we couldn’t visit everything but maybe this is the trick, to make people come again. The idea is that there are so many attractions, shows, rides, displays, etc. that you can feel like in a superstore where you have to pick only one mustard and one ketchup from an endless aisle.

That’s all. It was interesting and eye opening. Now we are back to Dublin, back to work.

viva, las vegas

I haven't posted much lately 'cuz words scare me. Here are some pictures instead (somewhat poor quality because i set my crackberry to low-res).

The CPRG took our poker program, Polaris, to Las Vegas, to battle against some very good players, including the best heads-up Limit Hold'em player in the world, Matt "Hoss_TBF" Hawrilenko.

And we won! (enter "Polaris poker" into Google news, or go to http://poker.cs.ualberta.ca/man-machine for more info). The program held its own against Matt, and beat some of the others very convincingly. Based on the post-match analysis, it might even be claimed that Hoss is no longer Boss.

It's been a long road (16 years!), with lots of kudos along the way, but we've finally accomplished a major milestone. I believe this was a defining before/after event in the history of poker. The unbelievers won't believe it yet, but then the gap between perception and reality has always been very wide in the poker world.


[and now this buggy blogging software won't let me add the photos... more later]

Again, about ‘The Fountain’

Last weekend we watched the film ‘The Fountain’ for the fourth time. This time we had the director’s commentary, but we couldn’t help ourselves and ended up watching the finale again.
Our friends must already be bored by this subject. Only it’s hard to ignore the topic when there is no justice for this under-appreciated movie.

The commentary isn’t very explicit. Darren Aronofsky isn’t very generous in solving the puzzle, but he gives some clues that made us think and discuss the film once again. And once again, it was different, and deeper. Now I think I can explain why. It is a gem with many facets. It is a poem about love, life, and death. It is a masterpiece. It is constructed to blow your mind and senses. It has many levels – rational, philosophical, spiritual, mythical and psychological. Every detail, every line and every symbol counts, because it makes the connection between planes. They are like pixels on the screen, only they don’t form a two-dimensional image but rather a multi-dimensional one, and not in space but in meaning.

It is not by accident that this movie wasn’t well received by critics and some of the public. First, it breaks all the rules. They weren’t even able to find a category for it. Second, it’s not easy to make sense of all the details at first. I guess people just categorize it as ‘Beautiful but it doesn’t make sense’ and then go on with their lives. And third, the theatrical trailer was totally misleading in suggesting reincarnation. THERE IS NO REINCARNATION WHATSOEVER! IT’S A STORY ABOUT A BOOK! It is a story about a man who loves his wife, and the way he copes with her death. It’s a spiritual journey.

I just hope that one day, when people are ready, ‘The Fountain’ will be rediscovered and Aronofsky will be recognized for inventing a new kind of cinema. Again.

More images

We bought a new game named Magnetix. It's made of magnetic rods and metal balls. You can build all kind of structures and it glows in the dark. It is quite addictive.



A funny picture downtown Dublin.
Even the statues commute.



Brady's of Shankill The Library in Shankill


Foggy afternoon Sunny rays

Cleaning the spider webs...

Well, it's been a while since the last post. It's just that things are happening and before they get transformed into a blog entry, other things happen. I am going to catch up with some pictures.

We had an interesting trip to visit a tower on a nearby hill. After visiting all the ruins from the map (or not -- some were on private property), we discovered that the tower is actually a chimney from an old lead mine. It looks cool though, and the real adventure was driving through tunnels of vegetation not much bigger than the car. Luckily the only traffic was a lady on a horse. From the top of the hill we could see all of Dublin, but there is not much to see because Dublin is quite flat. There are some proposals to build higher structures, but they don't receive approval from the municipality.

Hoping we are the only ones on this road

Up, up, through yellow bushes

Majestic trees Finally, the chimney
Defying gravity ;-) Dublin from above

Two full weeks

Last week went too fast. Morgan and Diane visited us and, while Morgan was at the office with Darse, I showed Diane some of Dublin. Since the weather is constantly changing here, I tried to show her as much as I could as long as it didn’t rain. Apart from a strong wind, we caught a beautiful day. We walked at least 10km along the coast. The sea was agitated and here and there made big splashes on the rocks. We started in Bray, the town south of us in Wicklow County, and then took the Dart to Dun Laoghaire (where I hadn’t been before). There we saw the shopping area, the harbor, people’s park, and had lunch and Irish coffee in a pub. Then we walked more or less along the coast to Dalkey. I had seen this area last year with Christine – actually we visited the “castle” where four actors showed four tourists how things were back then – but walking through Dalkey made me realize that it’s an extraordinary charming village/town. Too bad that I didn’t have my camera with me but Diane took some great shots. The day ended with dinner at Dali’s restaurant in Blackrock where we saw people parasailing and wind surfing.

Next day I wasn’t feeling so good so we just went to see how the big stores look. I showed Diane Cornelscourt, which is a good place for all shopping needs. Saturday we met them and other friends downtown, went to the well known tourist hotspots, and then visited a couple of pubs. After a nice dinner, the boys went to play some poker at the casino and the girls went to a nearby club, Café en Seine - beautiful setting, very crowded and the atmosphere reminded me the one at the castle for New Year’s Eve.

Sunday was income tax day. Unfortunately we couldn’t finish them, so this weekend it is mandatory to submit. As you can see, we didn’t have much opportunity to use our new car.
Actually, with the car parked in front of the house people ring my doorbell more often than before - usually service providers for gardening or charities. The good thing is that now I don’t find anymore notes in my mail from utility companies saying they came by and I wasn’t home. Now they actually ring. Talking about utilities, here you have to pay 160 Euros/year TV license if you own a TV. Otherwise you pay a fine of 634.87 Euros – I wonder how they came up with this number. In Romania it’s the same thing but it is not actually enforced. Here I’ve already received four letters about this. Finally, I called them and I will have to sign a declaration that I don’t possess a TV.


This week went by too fast, too. I am so thrilled to start learning again. The Open University is a UK long distance learning university. It is one of the biggest in the world. No wonder they are very well organized. Their website is so easy to use and has so much useful content. It seems that they thought of everything. I spent my time reading course preparation materials. It will be exciting to try creative learning instead of repetitive learning. It makes so much sense. The rule is: put the main ideas in your own words and challenge everything you can, and then recombine everything. Also, I’ve learned how to learn (most of it I already knew ;-)) and how to write essays for social sciences. Once a month I will have tutorials on Saturdays where I will meet my tutor and other students. They also have a list with students who, even though they cannot attend tutorials, would like to meet other students for learning and discussing purpose. They are called learning groups.

Next weekend is a long one. I am going to try to plan a small trip and hope for good weather.

Slow motion and fast forward

It is still spring in Ireland. It looks like the spring will never end. There are still trees without leaves, cherry trees are bloomed, and tulips and narcissuses are everywhere. It is spring in slow motion and I feel like doing something to speed up the process. I guess I can’t push the sap in the buds. That’s nature’s role.

On the other hand, it’s hard to believe that nature invented slugs and snails that eat big, soft and beautiful flowers. I had a slug attack on my petunias! They ate all the petals. Yum, slug delicatessen! Then I spread some blue chemical chips on the ground and the next day there was a snail cemetery in the flower bed. I couldn’t believe how many there were!

The other news is that we finally bought a car -- a 2001 Honda Civic. We picked it up from the dealer today, and we both got to drive it on the way home.

[Darse: We had been waiting for weeks for an advertised 1.3 litre Corolla to arrive from Japan, but when we finally got to test it out, we much preferred the 1.5 litre Civic. I was actually a bit unnerved driving Aaron and Christine's 1.0 litre Yaris, as it seemed somewhat under-powered when i needed acceleration the most -- like merging onto the highway, or turning in the middle of an intersection with double-decker buses coming at me in both directions... The 1.3 litre Yaris we test-drove was much zippier, so i thought the Corolla would be everything we'd want. But it didn't really have a lot of zip either -- maybe because it is much heavier than the fly-weight Yaris. The Civic isn't like my little sports car, but the it gives me much better piece of mind when it comes to evading all the crazy drivers! It is also in *amazing* condition -- it only has 36000 km, and has been impeccably well-maintained.]

The car is comfortable to drive and has lots of space inside. I think we made a good choice and can’t wait to see the Irish countryside now that we have wheels. Now we have the fast forward option for getting around town, too. We still intend to use the public transit system for convenience, especially to commute and to go downtown. The Luas LRT and Dart train systems are very good for that purpose. They don’t need 20 minutes to cross half of city center.
[Darse: the insanity of driving in downtown Dublin would require a full blog entry to itself. I fully intend to avoid it -- forever.]

Steps towards a better world

Lately, I’ve been studying a little about the financial and real estate markets. There are many signs to be worried about so I am trying to prevent any catastrophe that could happen to our personal savings and investments. I was looking for some funds that contain less banking and equities but they are not very popular. There are some about innovation, technology, health or education, but they are not doing very well. Actually, they never did. For some reasons people invest their money in real estate and banks. No wonder those have been thriving. And I can’t help thinking: what if people invested more in research, health, education, and especially in alternative energy? Wouldn’t it be a better world?


Recently I watched Jill Bolte Taylor’s TED Talk: My stroke of insight.

Video (http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/229)

It’s an inspiring and eye-opening story. It’s also some degree of personal relief. My grandmother lived many years unable to communicate – speak, read, write – or walk, due to a stroke in her left side of the brain. She was imprisoned inside her body for so long, and yet, she might not have had a terrible life all that time.

There is so much in our brain. If only we would be taught how it works and how to train it. I am not thinking only about activating the right side of the brain, but in a general way. We are so vulnerable, spend too much energy, and live with so many wrong beliefs, because nobody told us how our brain works. It’s not easy to figure out by ourselves. Many scientists spent years of research that can be synthesized in a few sentences. But once aware of their conclusions, everything starts to make sense -- we are stronger, and even healthier. What if children would be taught about their brain like they are taught to write? Wouldn’t it be a better world?

Too busy

It’s been a while since my last written post. Many little things have happened since then. Our trip to Canada was very busy – delayed luggage, trip to Edmonton, citizenship exam, meeting friends and family, shopping, fighting with jet lag, etc. Back to Ireland, back to work. Darse at the office, me dealing with a thousand little things like finding a car to buy, dealing with banking, shopping, and other appointments, registering for the Open University, gardening, writing, trying every day to paint… Oh, so boring for you to read!

Holidays passed quietly. We had a long stroll the Sunday before St. Patrick’s Day in Bray. This is where we took the pictures from my previous entry. At that time there was a “fun fair” on the esplanade. Darse was amazed by the fact that all of the swinging/shaking/spinning rides were unfolded from semi truck trailers. It made sense because it was a traveling fair. [It makes those rickety rides extra scary -- there's actual risk involved! -drb] The cleverness of the folding was fun to study but the final result was a tacky spin machine to make people sick.



I hope you enjoyed the six-eyed alien from my pictures. Actually Darse was wearing my sun shades under his glasses because of a headache induced by the bright sunlight. Hopefully he won’t have this problem anymore when he gets his new glasses that darken in the sunlight.

We went to a games party (video games, Chinese poker, and trivia) before Easter where, most likely, we beat a world record. We had the longest Trivia Pursuit game of all time: about 5 hours or more. And then we had more trivia at Rockfield Pub this week with Darse’s colleagues where we didn’t finish last. Yay! (Pub quizzes have lots of questions about football, UK and Ireland whatnot).

The weekend forecast is rainy and windy so again, it won’t be perfect for strolling or pictures. There is always stuff to do at home too.

Maybe we'll go to see some cars. One funny thing about looking for a car is the inventiveness of sellers of pink Toyotas. There are dozens for sale, and they are rarely defined as pink in the ads. They are "purple", "blue" (?), "metallic purple" or "red". They stretch the definition of pink to "twilight rose" and "metallic salmon". Actually, they all look like this:

[If we ever did buy one of these, it'd be from the guy who called it "PINK!". -drb]

Beautiful Sunday

Our regular visitors feeling at home

Bray esplanade and sea walk

I'm an alien... I'm a Canadian alien

Bray seen from the sea walk
The cliffs of Bray Head

Trying to catch the train

More sea from above