INFORMS.1

I slept well, finally getting up at 05:30. This gave me time to handle some emails and sort out all the photos that I took at the Grand Canyon, before having breakfast at a café on the ground floor of my apartment block. I also took time to savour the  view from my apartment at dawn.

At the conference, after skipping the opening plenary, there was a full day of generally excellent talks in my field. Other than my talk and one by a Swedish guy with whom I collaborate, all the talks were from representatives of the world's commercial optimization software companies. Hence it was a very popular stream, and the room was full. I learned a lot, and was given valuable advice by one retired star of the commercial world who had worked through all that we're planning to do thirty years ago. Indeed, he and a couple of other superstars who spoke to me wouldn't have given me the time of day five years ago: a measure of the impact of our software.

The lunch break was only 45 minutes, and the first place И and I went to eat was going to be too slow, so we had to make do with over-priced fast food in the conference centre, and still missed a couple of talks. Things should be better this evening, when we join a group of "friends" at a beer garden near my apartment.

Thanks for all the comments and reactions to my Grand Canyon posts, particularly as I'm not finding the time to visit as many as I usually do of the pages that I'm following.