End of the Week
OK, so I've written about a lot of the first week, but there is still a bit to go.

Towards the end of the week I took a step back and tried to present an overview of a query, giving some perspective on how BlockFiles and FreeLists sit at the bottom. Once I'd done that I dived back into the details again, this time going into ManagedBlockFile.

ManagedBlockFile is actually pretty simple, as it simply wraps a BlockFile and a FreeList. It uses the FreeList to allocate and release Blocks inside the BlockFile. This is very important at higher levels, where blocks need to be re-used where possible, but should also be consistent from one phase to another.

Sitting on top of ManagedBlockFile comes AVLTree and AVLNode. These manage the structure of Kowari's AVL trees, and define the whole phase-tree concept. All of the work is done in AVLNode, while AVLTree stores the root of the tree, and manages the phases. It was while describing the phases at this level that people finally started to "get it". We're planning on abandoning phase trees for the XA2 data store so that we can have multiple writers at once, but phase trees are still pretty cool. Once the concept was explained, then the people who'd been frustrated at the single-writer restriction suddenly expressed admiration for the way the system works. It was DavidM's idea to use phase trees (not mine), but I did help write the code, so it was nice to get such positive feedback. :-)

Going through the details of AVLNode started getting quite laborious, so I think everyone was grateful when we got to the end of the week. Fortunately, at this point all of the utility classes were described, meaning that I could get into the higher level architecture as soon as we got back on the following Monday.

Evenings
I had hoped to get a bit of programming done during my evenings, but somehow it didn't work out that way. One night was spent trying to organise flight changes at the end of my trip and doing laundry. Another evening was spent catching up with DavidW.

One of the most interesting evenings was spent over drinks with a couple of people from Mantech, including Greg who'd been paying me for the previous 6 months. This was my first chance to meet anyone from Mantech, so it was a real shame that the evening could not have gone on a little longer than it did. Working remotely reduces the amount of feedback you get, so I was pleased to hear that Greg was happy with my work to that point. You can run into periods of self doubt when working on your own (a phenomenon I've often heard PhD student complaining about), and it really helped to hear someone appreciating what I've done.

The other thing I did in my evenings was to use an iSight camera and iChat to talk to Anne and Luc while they had breakfast. H.264 dynamically sacrifices clarity in order to keep the framerate up, which gives a nice, natural feeling interface. It doesn't really bother me (too much) when things go blurry, but systems that give clear pictures with large delays between them don't feel like you're in direct communication with the person at all. So I really like iChat, though there were occasions when the bandwidth into the house in Brisbane was painful. Telstra's broadband network does leave something to be desired on occasion.

I was missing Anne and Luc a lot, but being able to see them helped a little. Luc thought it was great too, though it took a while to convince him that this was not like the TV, and that he could interact with me. We finally managed it when Anne tickled the screen, and I squirmed like she was really tickling me. He thought that was hilarious. :-)

Second Weekend
Anticipating the coming weekend, I drove to Circuit City (Google Maps are great for finding that kind of thing), and bought a new camera. I'd forgotten to bring ours from Australia, and besides it was starting to show signs of age. My criteria was an ability to take longish videos, a short delay from button press to shutter release, and a small size (so it's not awkward to take around as a tourist). I found what I wanted in the Casio Exilim EX-S500. Fortunately it wasn't too expensive (though I used up the last of my credit card to get it). It was nice enough to elicit a few comments from the people who saw it on Friday morning (I enjoy showing off new toys).

With work over on Friday, I had to drive down to Dulles (and I started right next door to BWI! Talk about frustrating!) to catch an evening flight to Pittsburgh. Despite doing the drive during peak hour traffic and in heavy rain (I was listening to local flash flood warnings coming over the radio), I made it with some time to spare. I then waited a couple of hours for a flight that was delayed due to bad weather. :-)

From Pittsburgh to Salem, OH, by car. From here I enjoyed a weekend of rural America with DavidW and his family. Despite some unforeseen problems, I enjoyed the weekend, and I might even try to make it back for the 200th anniversary parade next year. Then it was a road trip back to Virginia on Sunday, and a drive up to Baltimore on Monday morning for work.

So by Monday morning I was feeling pretty tired, and I had only just made it past the halfway point in the trip!