It turns out that there was a trip to the San Diego Zoo after the first day of ISCA. I was slightly confused during the last couple presentations today when people kept asking when and where the buses were picking people up. Apparently the bigger conferences have fancy trips like these for a night of adventure and mingling.
After the shuttles brought us to the zoo, we switched over to the guided tour buses that would bring us to the dining area. And just as we pulled out of the boarding area.. a peacock!
Peacock sending us off on our merry way through the San Diego Zoo
The rest of the tour had quite a few animals showing up with an 80% attendance rate – perhaps the missing group were tired from the day and went to sleep already. (Hrmm.. sitting around and getting fed while people watch you could be a tough job..) So of the ones that did show up, there were all sorts of birds and boars to meerkats and antelope-like creatures. A note about the meerkats.. they have one of them standing guard to alert the rest, so you probably won’t see many of them – let alone the one that stands motionless blending into the area.
There’s nothing here! ?
At the end of the journey, there were drinks and a ton of food (desserts too, but those disappeared quickly) for all the computer architecture people to sit down and chat. It was an interesting experience for me because I just joined while a lot of people have been around for many many years. I got to meet some people and hear what they’ve been doing in this field, so I could get up to speed and see where things are going. But I won’t go into all those details here – instead, I’ll fill the rest of this post with animal pictures. 🙂
Is the polar bear thirsty or looking for a swim?
The elephants were having dinner… right next to where we were having dinner
A fuzzy little koala (squinting causes the camera to blur ?!)
A bunch of pink flamingos partying late at night
