Slow day

  It's a scorcher outside; high of 89 F predicted.  I'm sitting in my dorm room, catching up on email.  Nicer than it sounds, though; I'm having a lunch of Austrian local cheeses and breads, bought from a tiny farmer's market yesterday just a few steps away from the building where I work in Laxenburg.  With some Austrian dip for the bread as well, and some beer, and some strawberries from the farmer's market as well, my day is working out very nicely so far.  I plan to go out in the afternoon, and enjoy the evening light somewhere scenic, and perhaps treat myself to a tasty dinner.  It's nice to have an appetite again!

  Much of the email I'm trying to catch up on has to do with trip planning: Prague, Budapest, Bratislava, Munich, Innsbruck... one nice thing about the program I'm in here is that you get the weekends entirely off, so there's lots of time for little side trips.  Next weekend I'll be going on a IIASA-run trip to Zell am See, which should be wonderful.  It's an extraordinarily scenic spot just south of Salzburg, near the border with Germany, with lots of hiking.

  My work at IIASA is chugging along.  I gave a presentation yesterday on my work so far, which went well.  I spent a lot of time writing code in support of this project before I left for Austria, and that's paying off now.  I'm hoping that I'll be able to kick off a big data-producing run of my model before I leave for Zell am See, and then when I get back, there will be a big heap of data waiting for me to analyze it.  There is at least one sizable obstacle still in the way of that, though.  We shall see.