(Note: due to backlog, this was written a few days later and then post-dated.)
Today was the ICPC programming contest.
Last night we (1 prof and 9 students) drove (in 2 cars, including mine) to Stockton. We were a few minutes ahead of the other car, and we hadn't had dinner, so at 9pm, we find a Super Buffet. This was a major win, and I and one of the other guys ate so much sushi and fried seafood and other delicious Americanized Chinese food that we could barely move. But then, we went on an Adventure™!
We arrived at the hotel shortly thereafter. It was kinda hard to find, on account of the fact that the adjacent city block had no electricity whatsoever, and thus, no lights illuminating any of the signs. You know what else they didn't have? An estimated time of repair from PG&E. Further, since the hotel's power was out, they couldn't pull up our reservations, and give us card keys, so we couldn't check in. And to top it all off, we couldn't break out our laptops for long without power. FAIL.
We drove to University of the Pacific (which did have power) and went on a brief nighttime tour of the campus, led by our faculty sponsor for the trip. This was mostly uneventful, but somewhat cold.
After we got back to the hotel, they had power restored to the main building, but none of the rooms. Good enough to check in and go up to the rooms by phone flashlight. Yes, with the flash LEDs constantly on. Good times.
One rather poor night's sleep later, we gathered for breakfast, headed out to the University as rehearsed the previous night, and waited around for a couple hours. One fun surprise: Regina Zaliznyak (my supervisor from IBM) was there recruiting for IBM (since IBM is the primary sponsor of the programming contest). I jokingly told her she had to give her presentation in four minutes. She shortened it from IBM LONG to 10, likely doubling its positive impact. I was pleased.
Then competition. My team solved 5 of 11 problems, placing 13th out of 75 teams. I was particularly proud of my solution to one problem, which consisted of a wildly inefficient precomputation step in which I prepared every single possible response to the problem statement (a 15 minute task). I wrote this out to a second C source file, and sent that one off for judging. Very fast, correct results.
After the drive back, Andrew and I went to Greg's birthday party, which was fun, and good decompression. I brought yogurt-covered pretzels, which were well-received. Andrew and I are now referred to as the "guys that always bring awesome stuff." Definitely not a bad thing.