On May 10 I traveled to Manchester for a business meeting.
After the meeting, I had a couple free hours left before boarding my train back, so I decided to walk around Manchester University (where I will be attending a Bioinformatics Course soon) and visit the eclectic and adorable Manchester Museum.
In England, Summer apparently lasts about 3 days. And it arrives (and leaves) in May.
Those three days were very nice: we went for walks in the parks and village, we enjoyed the flowers blooming and seeing families have fun and catch their vitamin-D-processing-sun-ray-yearly-dose, and we had a lovely breakfast in our castle’s balcony seeing a group of elders play cricket in the Wimbledon Practice Courts.
It was nice, albeit brief, Summer.
For a couple of days (May 3-4), IBM executives from Switzerland, France and Spain came to my company’s headquarters in Spain for a “technical deep dive”.
During those technical discussions (under NDA, so I’m afraid I can’t reveal any of what was said) other IBM executives dialed in from their respective countries.
Beyond engineering, market, and corporate discussions, we also had an opportunity to have fun. On day one we had a typical paella on the beach.
As we imagined, the highlight of moving to Wimbledon is being surrounded by nature.
On one side, 0.3 miles to the East, we have the family-friendly and very civilized Wimbledon Park, with its swans and ducks, water sports, minigolf, tennis courts… even beach volleyball!
On the other side, 0.3 miles to the West, we have the wild and lush dense forest of Wimbledon Common:
Adjacent to Wimbledon Common we have Richmond Park, with its live and free roaming deer.
We spent a few days in Valencia (Spain) during Fallas, March.
As always, great food, great weather, enjoying with the family, fireworks with the kids (check out the list of firecrackers they sell at any corner store there… crazy!).
After a year living by London Bridge, we have decided to move out. Our apartment was nice, and the location quite convenient, but the constant flood of tourists to the Borough Market and the Bridge made me feel just like I did when I lived in Mid-Town/5th Avenue Manhattan (New York) a few years ago. Back then, just like now, I decided to move to an area that felt more “neighborhood” and less “tourist landmark” (in that case it was Chelsea), and it proved to be the right choice.
Tuesday March 1 I had a conversation with Dr. DJ Patil, the First White House Chief Data Scientist, at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas.
He was interested in discussing ways in which the White House can help healthcare technology companies like mine. The first issue I raised was my concern over the FBI’s request for Apple to decrypt a suspected criminal’s iPhone.
My position in this issue is well known: weak encryption means weak security for ALL of us, so nobody can request weak security for security’s sake.
