Andreas G., who wrote the linux's draft posix acl implementation, has been doing a bunch of work figuring out how to implement NFSv4 ACL's on linux without losing posix compliance. That means figuring the rather tricky interactions between mode bits and NFSv4 ACLs. So he proposed that the four of us working on this have a meeting to figure out some of this stuff. The two Sun people couldn't travel, so we decided to meet at their offices in Broomfield, Colorado.
It also happened that my parents were renting a cabin in Estes Park for two weeks during the same time. And Sara got talked into this too. So last Friday Sara and I found ourselves in the Denver Airport. My parents met us there and whisked us off to Boulder for a tasty dinner at the Boulder Dushanbe Teahouse before making the rest of the drive to Estes.
Saturday we went to the Rocky Mountain Nature Association's picnic, and at night had dinner at the Twin Owls Steakhouse, where Sara and I had our wedding reception four hears ago.
I think it must have been Sunday that my dad took Sara and I up to Dream Lake, but I know it was Sunday that my cousin Wallace and his wife Rebecca met us for hiking and a dinner at the Baldpate Inn. And I'm having trouble figuring how we did both in the same day. So maybe Dream Lake was actually Saturday? Oh well.
Monday we walked most of the way up to Mount Chapin. The walk starts in the forest, then as it goes up (very steeply at times), the trees get shorter and shorter until they're just little clumps of scrappy "Krumholtz", the sort of naturally-occuring bonsai that's formed by the wind at high altitudes. There are also lots of tiny wildflowers, succulents, and the occasional odd mushroom, all clinging as close to the ground as they can.
Sara and my mom stopped off at some point along the trail, and then my dad and I walked another half hour or so, to the point where they trail disappears and you're mainly clambering over fields or rocks, which is tiring and hard on the ankles, but fun. Due to a slight error in aim, we ended at a local maximum in the ridge that lead to the peak of Chapin, but not quite at the actual peak. But I was content just to be on top of something, and ready to have a sandwich and walk back down. So we met the others on the way back down, then continued up the Fall River Road to the visitor center, and went back down Trail Ridge road.
Having had enough big meals out, we ate at home Monday night.
Tuesday morning my parents took me back to Broomfield and dropped me off at the Sun campus around 9ish; we said our goodbyes and they took Sara off to catch a noon flight back to Detroit.
With just four of us (and Mario calling in from Boston occasionally), the meetings were intense and productive, and we figured out some important things. Sam and Lisa also took us to some excellent restaurants in the area of Broomfield and Boulder; in order:
- A local sandwich place with character, whose name I've forgotten; but the sandwiches were good.
- A Mexican place ("Three Margaritas") with a much more interesting menu than what you'd usually get around Ann Arbor.
- A great Pho place in a little strip mall whose name I've again forgotten.
- Shushi Zanmai, in Boulder: Yummy!
- A restaurant at the local airport (not the main Denver Airport), where you could watch the planes and the mountains. The food (sandwiches and such) might not have been quite as exciting, but it was fine, and the view was fun.
Thursday night Andreas dropped me off at the airport. The security lines were long, but not horribly so (with a 25 minute wait), despite the morning's bomb scare in London. While getting some quick dinner, I ran into Mike, an old friend of graduate school I hadn't seen in years, and we chatted for just a minute or two before I had to run.
The flight home was uneventful, but I was tired and bored, and sandwiched between two largish people with elbows.
Andreas figured he may as well make a side trip to Ann Arbor as long as he was in the states, so I met him at citi the next day, and he, Trond, Andy, Jim, and I went out for lunch at the Arbor Brewing Company. Andreas and I worked together the rest of the afternoon, then met Sara and Chuck at Madras Masala for dinner, and (after parting with Chuck) met Dave and Paul at the CJS film series' showing of "Crazed Fruit". I thought Crazed Fruit was fun, though the others found it slow in parts.
My sister had also flown into town Thursday, the same night as Andreas and I, and stayed with us overnight--her plan was to meet her college friend Jill and her new baby, but thought she should avoid the baby a little while due to a cold. So she'd been mostly staying home sniffling Friday, but Friday night she'd stayed with Jill, and Saturday she met Sara and I at juggling, after I'd met with Andreas a little more at citi in the morning before he left for Germany.
We spent the rest of the afternoon with the jugglers, browsing bookstores and then seeing a couple Buster Keaton movies at Paul's place.