Lyakhov's Blog

When I arrived to USA I had a pick-up at JFK airport. The driver was quite funny, talking about girls from different countries all the time and discussing what nation gives better wives and lovers. Anyway, he asked me where to go, I told him my address - University Heights Drive it Stony Brook town - and wanted to show him the map I printed. He replied: “I know where it is” and continued to talk about girls.

Right, we arrived, he waved me and run away. I entered the house expecting to meet my landlord and was extremely surprised that he dropped me at University Drive in East Setauket town. You can imagine my feelings - first time in the US dropped in some unknown town with 3 big luggage bags, entering the house of people who were surprised as much as I was.

I was lucky. My real address was like 10-15min by car from that place and the professor who was living in the house was kind enough to drive me there. He also showed me Stony Brook University campus on the way to my new home. 

Two things I have learned: people in US are much more friendly than in Switzerland in general (this observation was later confirmed many times). And taxi system in US is quite awefull, at least in Long Island. It was also confirmed later. Cars usually don’t have GPS and simply ask their central by phone where should they drive. Waiting times are very long (some people told me about 1 hour waiting time to have a 10min ride). Another reason to buy your own car ;).
 

My Life

My manager taught me how to create elephant from mandarin. See images below:

Jokes Jokes

In Stony Brook campus each and every Zebra crossing has a STOP sign so that cars do a full stop just in case someone suddenly runs across the crossing. That was expectable. What wasn’t - each university bus has STOP signs at his left side activated when the bus stops and opens the doors. So that cars also stop in case bus passengers decide to cross the street before the bus departure :). I’ll make a photo and will put it here.

My Life

Last Sunday I was visiting my professor in East Setauket (Long Island) and was surprised that AT&T wireless, who claim to have the best coverage on the globe, had no coverage in his house and around it. On coverage map that spot is marked as fully covered with the best level of the sygnal. However there was no sygnal at all till I walked a bit down the street. It was quite weird to have no sygnal in the middle of the populated area from one of the biggest wireless phone operators on the globe :).  I guess my professor is unlucky (or maybe lucky while no one will bother him at the evenings) to have his house in one of the dead spots that are not that uncommon. Since dead zone is unusually big without any big obstacles nearby I assume that house is positioned exactly between the coverage area of a few cells. It’s quite rare, but it may happen sometimes when operator is trying to reduce installation costs and spread the cell antennas too much. Tough luck.

My Life