Adam Welc - Personal

	Adam Welc Less formal stuff :-) Email: adam@adamwelc.org URL: http://www.adamwelc.org
ABOUT ME	I was born and lived pretty much all through my youth (elementary school and high school times) in Bydgoszcz (Poland). It may not be the prettiest city in the world (though a few places are indeed quite beautiful), but I do like it a lot - some of my fondest memories come from the time I lived there. After finishing high school I moved to Poznan where I spent five years in college doing MS in Computer Science at Poznan University of Technology (and managed to accumulate even more fond memories). And then, actually not that far from the point of graduation, I decided to try my luck across the ocean and do my PhD in the US. That's how I ended up at Purdue University in West Lafayette, though for the most part of over six years I spent there I lived across the river, in Lafayette, which in my humble opinion is a much nicer place (and you already know the bit about memories). And then I moved to California to work for Intel, where I spent almost 5 years before starting to work for Adobe.
RECENTLY...	I don't do all that many super-exciting things, but occasionally something relatively interesting or fun does happen. Sometimes I even take pictures! I will try to update information about my trips and various other activities at least-semi regularly, but I am really not sure how well I can keep this promise... So, here it is - I am starting in the middle of 2007 with the newer stuff closer to the top.
2010
January-December	I am getting worse and worse at this :-) This year more things happened, though, as I joined Adobe's Advanced Technology Lab and I now work downtown San Francisco, about two blocks away from where I live - which is very nice! Other than that, the usual things. I keep diving, both in warm waters (Egypt this year) and in not-so-warm waters in Monterey where I help teac hing classes at San Francisco Diving Acade my. No sailing this year, though, which is a bit of a shame. In addition to my first visit to (arguably) Africa, I also visited India and (briefly) Nepal - quite an experience, and Taj Mahal is indeed gorgeous and not even a little overrated. Before joining Adobe, I also traveled a little bit in Europe visiting a couple of chateaus in the Loire Valley and spending a few days in Barcelona. And this time I have some pictures to prove all this :-) I could not resist posting one with Taj Mahal in the background, even though it almost looks like I am standing in front of a poster :-) The one with what looks like a castle is taken at Chateau de Chambord - in my opinion the most beautiful one in Loire Valley (at least from those I have seen). Finally (I can take pictures as well!), it's my girlfriend Magda on the shore of the Red See with the famous Blue Hole in Dahab (which we dove on that day) in the background.
2009
January-October	And now, of course, we are almost at the end of 2009 and I got fewer things written than in 2008. As short summary then :-) I still very much like living in San Francisco. I still work at Intel, and still like it quite a bit. As usual, there is a lot of work but there is also time to do some cool stuff. This year, so far, it was a short trip to Hawaii and an equally short trip to Jamaica - both of them quite nice though, with diving in Jamaica being (surprisingly) better than either in Hawaii or in the Bahamas. I continue helping with the dive classes in California, which I started almost right after I did my advanced certificate in 2007 (which I probably forgot to mention...). This year I also managed to sail a bit more on the San Francisco Bay, mostly with a friend of mine, Chris Owczarek, and his buddies. Now I am anxiously awaiting the beginning of the ski season. Hopefully I will be able to hit the slopes before Christmas!
2008
January-December	Hmm... How to summarize the whole year...? Mostly work, a bit of fun, I guess. I moved back to San Francisco after spending one year in Mountain View - closer to work but way less interesting place to live. I went for a few nice vacation/diving trips with my girlfriend (Cozumel in the fall and Bahamas in winter) plus visited Poland and a few other places in Europe, mostly for work-related purposes. Other than that, really not a whole lot has happened - hence lack of updates (and because I am lazy, of course ).
2007
October-December	Yeah... It has been a while since I had a chance to make any updates... At least a few things happened in the meantime. In the fall I made a couple fun trips in the U.S., one to Boston and one to Chicago - both to hang out with some of my old friends. I also went home for Christmas, with a stop-over in Brussels (again - to visit a friend of mine, Peter, who happens to live there at this point). Another thing that happened and that I am quite happy with is that I finally found some time to do the scuba diving certification (with NAUI). One might think that diving in the ocean in Monterey in early November would be kind of harsh, but it it was actually a lot of fun (and it wasn't even that cold :-) As you can see in the pictures, the weather was very nice, though under water visibility only so-so. The other guy on the picture is my dive buddy - Witek.
September	On the labor day weekend the Polish group from the Bay Area organized a camping at the Pinecrest Lake. It was a lot of fun - great people, clear and surprisingly quiet lake (and the water was warm!), campfire in the evening... - you get the picture :-) This time I actually have a few pictures (courtesy of Mariusz Jurgielewicz). On the first one you can see our little (mostly) Polish group and the second one you can see the lake itself - or its fragment actually (it's quite a bit bigger than it looks on the picture and, as is usually the case, the picture does not quite reflect how beautiful it really is).
August	Not much has happened in August, but at end of the month I paid a short visit to my friends that live in the Chicago area. It's really kind of funny how much at home I feel while I am there, even though I didn't even spend that much time in Chicago when still living in Indiana... It's most likely because of the people rather than the place, but still... Unfortunately, I don't have too many pictures from this visit, and those that I have shouldn't really be made publicly available :-)
July	On the third weekend of July I went to the so called work party at the lodge of my ski club (Peninsula Ski Club) in North Lake Tahoe. The idea is to go there on Friday, work on Saturday during the day and top it of with a party on Saturday night. It was my first work party I and I wasn't sure what to think about the whole idea (it's sort of mandatory) but it was actually a very nice experience! For one thing, I got to know some of the club members a bit better and all of them are really nice :-). We also did a short hike on Sunday - that's obviously where the picture comes from - the lake in the back is the Donner Lake and the other people on the picture are (from the left) Neal, Nina and Rick. I knew the mountains over there are pretty in winter but it I've never been there in the summer and I have to say that the scenery did not loose any of its charm!
June	At the end of June I went for a relatively short vacation to Poland. As usual, I had only around two weeks and a lot of activities to squeeze in. Apart from the usual "I am almost not getting out of the car visiting my family and friends" (which is actually a lot of fun, especially that I don't mind driving), I managed to go to my high school class reunion and also to spend a couple of days sailing in Mazury which as an absolutely fantastic place for sailors, certainly one of the most spectacular ones in Europe. My class reunion was rather small (around half of the people showed up) but, while we were missing some of those that couldn't make it, there was definitely enough of good people to have really great time! In addition to the people from my class, our two teachers from the old times showed up and I believe they were enjoying themselves quite a bit as well. The place we chose was also rather nice - a bed-and-breakfast type of place in a small village near the Pila city with a beautiful lake in walking distance from where we were staying. You can see out entire group in front of the bed-and-breakfast place on to picture to the left (for those that know people from my class - I hope we are still recognizable :-) ). I really love Mazury and so I was very happy when Andrew, a friend of mine from the old college times in Poland, asked me if I would be interested to go and do some sailing there with him, his brother Marek, and his brother's girlfriend Ola. Needless to say, I jumped on the idea (thank you guys for letting me to tag along - it was great!!!) - I haven't been there for two years and even then only for a couple of days. The first day we rented a boat in Gizycko and then sailed to the Dobskie Lake where we stayed for the night. The weather was pretty awful, but it was still a lot of fun (windy!) - though I am not entirely sure about Ola since it was has first day of sailing ever... The next day, on the other hand, the weather was beautiful but with pretty much no wind to speak of so we only managed to get to Sztynort (swimming in the lake a couple of times on the way there). On my last day, or half-day really, luckily the wind has returned so we managed to do some more sailing, mostly on the Dargin Lake. On the pictures you can see the whole crew minus the photographer (with our skipper Marek in the middle) and then me on our boat in the Sztynort Marina.