Conference

Today Friday and tomorrow Saturday we are having a conference. We celebrate the centenary of Wilhelm Magnus, the founder of the New York Group Theory Seminar, around 1950, continuing up to this day, and being one of the oldest seminars continuously running in the US. We have a few of the best mathematicians of our field, giving talks and sharing memories of Magnus. You can see one of the speakers in the picture, and visit the conference website.

New York rudeness

Today, while shopping and walking in New York, I had my dose of rude New Yorkers.

• First, in the corner of 34th Street and 8th Avenue, a young woman comes and asks me, point blank, "do you know if 9th avenue is that way or that way?" I point the way and say "that way" and right away, without uttering an extra word, she starts walking that way. That woman must not know the words "excuse me", or "please", or even "thank you". She had what she wanted, the information, so why lose two seconds saying "thank you"? Had I known she was going to be this rude, I would have pointed the wrong way.


• Then I head to a well-known store, B&H Photo Video, which was nearby (34th and 9th), because I was looking for a set of waterproof headphones I had seen in their website last week, while I was in Utah, at $19.95. I enter and ask some guy there "I would like these headphones". He calls and while we wait for them, he tries to charge me $29.95. I tell him: "excuse me, but the web price is $19.95." He looks it up and it really is $29.95. I ask him "has the price changed?" and he answers "no, they've always been $29.95". I tell him: "Excuse me, but last week they were $19.95 in your website". And he says: "That's not true". What do you mean it's not true? Am I blind or don't know how to read or what? Tell me it was a special, or it has changed, or that it was a mistake, but don't tell me it's not true. Here's a capture of the froogle entry where it still is $19.95. Froogle wouldn't have it at $19.95 if it weren't true.
  
  So visibly upset and half yelling I tell him: "Are you calling me a liar?" and he says: "No, but what you say is not true". "You've just lost a customer". And he incredibly says: "We never had it". Then, with all the yelling, a manager comes, I tell him what happened, and he nicely apologizes. I accept the apology and leave. But they've really lost a customer, it will be a while before I set foot in B&H again, no matter how cheap.


• Finally, when I get back to Harlem, I go to my local Duane Reade (125th and Frederick Douglass) to buy a couple of things. It's 8:35pm and I know they close at 9:00. I enter and buy my stuff and when I leave, the door is locked. A big guy comes and opens it. I ask: "is it closed?" Before he answers a woman tries to enter the store and he says "it's closed". I look at my watch: 8:42. "Don't you close at 9?" I ask him. And he says, quite upset: "You were inside the store, sir. Did you not hear the announcement?" I say "No" and he answers "You weren't paying attention." And leaves inside the store. Of course I wasn't paying attention to the announcement, 95% of the time they say "Johnny, come to cashier please." The big idiot implied it was my fault for not paying attention instead of theirs for closing the store 20 minutes early.

This city has two major drawbacks: first one, that everything is hugely expensive (a tiny studio in Harlem is $1,100 and is a great price?); and the second one is that some people are rude as hell.

Linux-based plane

Some of my readers (hey, Krako!) will love the fact that, in the Delta plane that took me today from Salt Lake to New York, the entertainment system was Linux-based.

Smoking room

Incredibly, the Salt Lake airport still has a smoking room. In my days as a smoker, it would have been a blessing, these days it surprises me and it seems old fashioned, so 20th century.

The Salt Lake Roasting Company

As I said two posts ago, when I arrived in Utah in September 1991, it was quite difficult to have a decent cup of coffee in Salt Lake City, because to the well-known weakness of American coffee one has to add that mormons, which were a majority here, don't ever take coffee. After a few desperate days without a coffee the right way, some friends took me to the Salt Lake Roasting Company, and sky opened for me :)

Founded in 1981, the Salt Lake Roasting Company is one of the places with more feeling in Salt Lake City. It's just a coffee shop, they only have coffee and pastries, no coke or alcoholic beverages. It's located right downtown, one block from the City Hall. But its most peculiar trait, which makes it unique among all coffee shops I know, is that (as its name indicates) they roast their own coffee. You can see in the picture the two roasting machines, which take up half of the space, together with the coffee sacks.

If you happen to go while they are roasting, which happens quite often, a strong coffee smell will welcome you and will be stuck to your nostrils for three hours after you leave. Needless to say, the Roasting Company serves a wonderful espresso, black, bitter and with foam, along with all coffee specialties you can think of. It also sells coffee by the pound, and all coffee paraphernalia. That first day I went, I spent 60 dollars right there in an Italian coffee maker, a coffee mill, two pounds of coffee and little espresso cups and plates. I still have that coffee maker in my house in Barcelona, and it has the curious feature that it is half metallic and half clay, with the top part being clay to preserve heat. Very cool coffee maker.

So, the Roasting Company became (and still is) my favorite hangout in Salt Lake, and I still remember quite fondly that I wrote my first math paper sitting at one of its tables some evening in 1994.

Everything is different nowadays, and neither mormons are a majority in Salt Lake, nor it's difficult to have a decent cup of coffee here, with the invasion of imports that happened in the late 90s and then with the Olympics, especially from California, escaping rising real estate prices and violence in Californian streets. But the Roasting Company is still there, with its faithful clients. We hope it will stay this way for many years. I recommend anyone who goes to Utah, and likes coffee a little bit, that he stops by the Roasting Company. He won't be disappointed.

Dr. Seuss

Today I went for dinner to my friend Aldo's house. Aldo is Chilean of Italian descent, and we did our PhDs together here in Salt Lake, we shared an office for four years. After many misadventures he ended up leaving mathematics and now he works in a biology company, but he still lives here in Salt Lake with his wife Laura and their daughter Giuliana (age almost five).

After dinner we read a few Dr. Seuss books to the kid. [And now I go on a lengthy explanation about Dr. Seuss' books, which are virtually unknown in Spain, and which I will spare my American readers, who probably know more about Dr. Seuss than I do.]

Salt Lake City

Salt Lake City is the capital of the state of Utah. It has a population of about a million and a half people in the whole metro area, which goes North to South from the Great Salt Lake (which lends its name to the city) to the Utah Lake, about 40 miles South. It is 4,200 feet over sea level in the valley, surrounded by mountains which go over 10,000 feet. The mountains are impressive, as you can see in the picture.

Salt Lake City is worldwide famous for being the capital of the mormon church. The mormon temple is the city center, and all streets are numbered starting at the temple. Although we must say that the percentage of mormons is decreasing every day as the city becomes more and more cosmopolitan. It also became famous because of the 2002 Winter Olympics, which, as it already happened in Barcelona, brought many improvements to the city, and since I left in 1996, the city has a new tram, the interstate I-15 has been widened and improved and the airport has a new terminal, to mention a few examples. There are eight ski resorts at less than an hour drive from downtown, and Utah brags about having the greatest snow on Earth. Skiers say it really is exceptional, due to the dry climate of the area. And of course, the Utah Jazz play here.

I lived here between 1991 and 1996, I got my PhD at University of Utah, and the main reason to come back was to visit my advisor, and some friends who remain here. It is quite weird the effect that it has going back to a city you know well after a few years: everything is more or less the same, but everything has changed a little also. You feel like you know everything, as if you never left, but then you realize the small things that have changed, a store you liked has closed, that building is new, etc. I am especially fond of Salt Lake, five years is quite a long time.

Mormons make the city slightly different. It used to be quite difficult to have a good cup of coffee, since mormons don't take stimulants. Nowadays there's plenty of Starbucks as everywhere else. But the large percentage of mormon population makes that the possibilities for naughty entertainment, night clubs, discos, strip clubs, is quite limited for a city this large. Bars where they serve hard liquor (that is, anything but beer) have to be, by law, private clubs that only admit members. But anyone can become a member for a night at the door paying a 5 dollar fee. A low-class bar Albert and I used to go (the "Norwood Club") used to have promotions like "become a member for a dime". You make the law, I'll find the loophole. These days, this private club business is an anachronism, but it's kind of cute.

So, it is a very pretty city, very green, great mountain backdrop, very clean, but at the same time quite boring and conservative, with a limited entertainment offer, except if you are the outdoors/mountain/hiking/skiing type, in which case the opportunities are endless. People are extremely friendly, and many have visited Spain or other Spanish-speaking countries, since mormons have to go on missions for two years. Yes, it's these kids you see in shirts and ties with a book underarm and a black plaque with its name in the left breast. But this fact also makes it quite international. American Express has its international center here, where more than 130 languages are spoken, most of them by mormons who learned them in their missions.

Salt Lake City, a very peculiar place, very pretty, and sociologically very interesting. You have to live here to fully grasp it.

And by the way, if you like basketball, you will enjoy knowing that the Second South Street has been renamed "Karl Malone Way" :)